A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

'Psha!' returned Sam, evincing a great amount of ridicule.

'But one mightn't, Shuck,' persisted his adversary.

'Oh, let the traitors alone, to go their own way in triumph if you like; get up a piece of plate for them, with their names wrote on it in gold,' satirically answered Sam. 'Yah! it sickens one to see you true fellows going over to the oppressionists.'

'How do you make out that White, and them, be oppressionists?'

'White, and them? they are worse than oppressionists a thousand times over,' fiercely cried Sam. 'I can't find words bad enough for them. It isn't of them I spoke: I spoke of the masters.'

'Well, Shuck, there's oppression on all sides, I think,' rejoined one of the men. 'I'd be glad to rise in the world if I could, and I'd work over hours to help me on to it and to educate my children a bit better than common; but if you come down upon me and say, "You shall not do it, you shall only work the stated hours laid down, and nobody shall work more," I call that oppression.'

'So it is,' assented another voice. 'The masters never oppressed us like that.'

'What's fair for one is fair for all,' said Sam. 'We must work and share alike.'

'That would be right enough if we all had talents and industry equal,' was the reply. 'But as we haven't, and never shall have, it can't be fair to put a limit on us.'