“If ye wasn’t all sich a poor-spirited lot we wouldn’t be put upon the way we be now,” he remarked. “There’s no way o’ bringin’ measters to reason if men won’t stick up for theirselves.”
“Stick up for theirselves,” echoed Jim, with a startled look.
Jeffs transferred his wooden rake from his right hand to his left, and, fumbling in the pocket of his corduroys, produced a small greasy slab of newspaper.
“Did ye chance to notice what the cab-drivers in London done when they wanted their wages rose” he asked. “They went on strike—there, ye can read it for yourselves.”
Martin Fry stretched out his hand for the paper, and slowly spelt out the paragraph designated by Jess’s horny finger; then he returned the grimy sheet to its owner, with a shake of the head and a pursed lip.
“I was readin’ a while back,” continued Jess, without heeding these signs of disapproval, “how some colliery chaps what was wantin’ shorter hours got their way—they did go on strike too. The measters had to give in. Well, why shouldn’t us go on strike for a drop o’ beer at haymakin’ time?”
The others looked at each other and then at Jess, who, with his battered chip hat pushed back upon his stubbly grizzled head, returned their gaze defiantly.
“I’d start it soon enough,” he observed, “if I could get the rest o’ ye to back me up; but ye haven’t got no more spirit nor a pack o’ mice.”
At this moment the farmer’s stentorian voice hailed them from the gate.
“Now then, now then, what be doin’ over there?”