“Terribly,” said Uncle Jack.
“Well, what is it? Why don’t you speak?”
“Come and see for yourself,” said Uncle Jack bitterly. “I thought matters were smoothing down, but they are getting worse, and I feel sometimes that we might as well give up as carry on this unequal war.”
“No: don’t give up, Uncle Jack,” I cried. “Let’s fight the cowards.”
“Bring them into the yard then so that we can fight them,” he cried angrily. “The cowardly back-stabbers; sneaks in the dark. I couldn’t have believed that such things could go on in England.”
“Well, but we had heard something about what the Arrowfield men could do, and we knew about how in the Lancashire district the work-people used to smash new machinery.”
“There, wait till you’ve seen what has happened,” cried Uncle Jack angrily. “You’ve just risen after a night’s rest. I’ve come to you after a night’s watching, and you and I feel differently about the same thing.”
Very little more was said before we reached the works, where the first thing I saw was a group of men round the gate, talking together with their hands in their pockets.
Gentles was among them, smoking a short black pipe, and he shut his eyes at me as we passed, which was his way of bestowing upon me a smile.
When we passed through the gate the men followed as if we were a set of doctors about to put something right for them, and as if they had been waiting for us to come.