A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

'Mary Baxendale's just one of them timid things as is afraid of their own shadders,' cried Mary Ann Dunn. 'If she saw a cow a-coming at the other end of the street, she'd turn tail and run. Jemimer, whatever are you at? The sleeves is to be in plaits, not gathers.'

'She do look ill, though, does Mary Baxendale,' said Jemima, after some attention to the sleeve in hand. 'It's my belief she'll never live to see Christmas; she's going the way her mother went. Won't it be prime when the men get ten hours' pay for nine hours' work? I shall think about getting married then.'

'You must find somebody to have you first,' quoth Grace Darby. 'You have not got a sweetheart yet.'

Miss Jemima tossed her head. 'I needn't to wait long for that. The chaps be as plentiful as sprats in winter. All you have got to do is to pick and choose.'

'What's that?' interrupted Mrs. Dunn, darting into the room, with her sharp tongue and her dirty fine cap. 'What's that as you're talking about, miss?'

'We are a-talking of the strike,' responded Jemima, with a covert glance to the rest. 'Martha White and Judy Ryan says the Baxendales won't go in for it.'

'Not go in for it? What idiots they must be!' returned Mrs. Dunn, the attractive subject completely diverting her attention from Miss Jemima and her words. 'Ain't nine hours a-day enough for the men to be at work? I can tell the Baxendales what—when we have got the nine hours all straight and sure, we shall next demand eight. 'Taint free-born Englishers as is going to be put upon. It'll be glorious times, girls, won't it? We shall get a taste o' fowls and salmon, may be, for dinner then!'

'My father says he does not think the masters will come-to, if the men do strike,' observed Grace Darby.

'Of course they won't—till they are forced,' retorted Mrs. Dunn, in a spirit of satire. 'But that's just what they are a-going to be. Don't you be a fool, Grace Darby!'

Lotty Cheek rushed in, a girl with a tongue almost as voluble as Mrs. Dunn's, and rough hair, the colour of a tow-rope. 'What d'ye think?' cried she, breathlessly. 'There's a-going to be a meeting of the men to-night in the big room of the Bricklayers' Arms. They are a-filing in now. I think it must be about the strike.'