“The workshop was open directly, and quite half the men went back to work; but from that day I began to find out that our town was no place for me. My employers were kind enough, and I was not a penny the worse in pocket for my encounter; but it grew plainer and plainer to me, day by day, that I should be driven out of the place. Threatening letters came; once I was struck down from behind as I came home on a dark night, and though I felt sure the man I caught a glance of was Perkins, I could not swear it. Then came news of the cowardly tricks at Sheffield—throwing powder into houses—and my wife grew pale and ill with apprehension; while what filled the measure up to the brim was my poor lass being set upon and insulted one night only a few yards from our door, so near that I heard her call ‘Help,’ and knew the voice, and ran out.
“The next week I was sitting in our empty room; the floor trampled and dirty with the feet of those who had been to the sale of the things in our bit of a four-roomed house. And the things had sold well, too; for my mates had sent their wives, and one had bought one thing, and another another. But I was down-hearted and sad at seeing first one little familiar thing and then another dragged away, while the thought of being driven out of the place was bitter to me. The wife and children had gone on to London, and there was no one there to see me as something which showed there were weak places in the strong man came into my eyes.
“But I had to choke that down, for a knock came at the door, and it sounded hollow and strange in the empty place. It was a letter; just in time, too, for I was thinking just before of locking up the place and going away, but fancied I should just like one pipe of tobacco for the last where I had spent so many quiet evenings. However, I opened the letter, and then started to run after the postman, feeling that it must be a mistake, for inside was a crisp new twenty-pound note, with a few lines telling me that it was from two friends who regretted the loss to the town and its works, of an honest, upright man, and begging my acceptance of the trifle enclosed, as a testimony of the esteem in which my services had been held.
“Twenty pounds, sir—a larger sum than I had ever before owned at once; but as I’m an honest man I thought more of the words of that letter then than I did of the money; while through being weak, I suppose, there was a wet spot or two upon the note when I put it away.
“After it was dark that night, I went and thanked those from whom I knew it had come, though they would not own to it; but the senior partner slapped me on the shoulder as I went out, and he said:
“‘There’s too much holding aloof between master and man, Samuel Harris; but if all mechanics were like you we should have no more strikes.’”
“He was quite right,” I said, nodding.
“Think so, sir? perhaps he was, perhaps he was not, but depend upon it the best way is to give and take all you can. Striking’s expensive work for both sides; but you see the thing is this—what makes the trouble is that neither side likes to be beat.”