A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

'And it's well to keep out of 'em where it's practicable,' wrathfully remarked Mrs. Quale. 'There no more need have been this disturbance between masters and men, than there need be one between you and me, sir, this moment, afore you walk away. They be just idiots, are the men; the women be worse, and I'm tired of telling 'em so. Look at 'em,' added Mrs. Quale, directing the doctor's attention to the female ornaments of Daffodil's Delight. 'Look at their gowns in jags, and their dirty caps! they make the men's being out of work an excuse for their idleness, and they just stick theirselves out there all day, a crowing and a gossiping.'

'Crowing?' exclaimed the doctor.

'Crowing; every female one of 'em, like a cock upon its dunghill,' responded Mrs. Quale, who was not given to pick her words when wrath was moving her. 'There isn't one as can see an inch beyond her own nose. If the lock-out lasts, and starvation comes, let 'em see how they'll crow then. It'll be on t'other side their mouths, I fancy!'

'Money is dealt out to them by the Trades' Union, sufficient to live,' observed Dr. Bevary.

'Sufficient not to starve,' independently corrected Mrs. Quale. 'What is it, sir, the bit of money they get, to them that have enjoyed their thirty-five shillings a-week, and could hardly make that do, some of 'em? Look at the Baxendales. There's Mary, wanting more food than she did in health; ay, and craving for it. A good bit of meat once or twice in the day, an egg now and then, a cup of cocoa and milk, or good tea—not your wishy-washy stuff, bought in by the ounce—how is she to get it all? The allowance dealt out to John Baxendale keeps 'em in bread and cheese; I don't think it does in much else.' They were interrupted by John Baxendale himself. He came out of his house, touching his hat to the doctor and to Florence. The latter had been leaning over Mary, inquiring softly into her ailments, and the complaint of Mrs. Quale, touching the short-comings of Mary's comforts, had not reached her ears; that lady, out of regard to the invalid, having deemed it well to lower her tone.

'I am sorry, sir, you should see her so poorly,' said Baxendale, alluding to his daughter. 'She'll get better, I hope.'

'I must try what a little of my skill will do towards it,' replied the doctor. 'If she had sent me word she was ill, I would have come before.'

'Thank ye, sir. I don't know as I should have been backward in asking you to come round and take a look at her; but a man don't like to ask favours when he has got no money in his pocket; it makes him feel little, and look little. Things are not in a satisfactory state with us all just now.'

'They are not indeed.'