“Our poor-rates are getting higher every day; what do you suppose they’ll come to if this is to go on?” continued the Squire. “I’d be glad for the men to get better pay if they are underpaid now: whether they are or not, I cannot tell; but rely upon it, striking is not the way to attain to it. It’s a way that has ruined many a hopeful workman, who otherwise would have gone on contentedly to the end of his days; ay, and has finally killed him. It will ruin many another. Various interests are at stake in this; you must perceive it for yourself, Johnny lad, if you have any brains; but none so great as that of the workmen themselves. With all my heart I wish, for their own sakes, they had not taken this extreme step.”
“And if the poor children starve, sir?” I ventured to say.
“Fiddlestick to starving! They need not starve while there’s a workhouse to go to. And won’t; that’s more. Can’t you see how all this acts, Mr. Johnny? The men throw themselves out of work; and when matters come to an extremity the parish must feed the children, and we, the rate-payers, must pay. A pleasant prospect! How many scores of children are there in Crabb Lane alone?”
“A few dozens, I should say, sir.”
“And a few to that. No, Johnny; let the men look to their families’ needs. For their own sakes; I repeat it; for their own best interests, I’ll have them left alone. They have entered on this state of things of their own free will, and they must themselves fight it out.—And now get you off to bed, boys.”
“The Pater’s right, Johnny,” cried Tod, stepping into my room as we went up, his candle flaring in the draught from the open staircase window; “right as right can be on principle; but it is hard for the women and children——”
“It is hard for themselves, too, Tod: only they have the unbending spirit of Britons, to hold out to the death and make no bones over it.”
“I wish you’d not interrupt a fellow,” growled Tod. “Look here; I’ve got four-and-sixpence, every farthing I can count just now. You take it and give it to Eliza. The Pater need know nothing.”
He emptied his trousers pocket of the silver, and went off with his candle. I’m not sure but that he and I both enjoyed the state of affairs as something new. Had any one told us a year ago that our quiet neighbourhood could be disturbed by a public ferment such as this, we should never have believed it.
The next morning I went over to South Crabb with the four-and-sixpence. Perhaps it was not quite fair to give it, after what the Squire had said—but there’s many a worse thing than that done daily in the world. Eliza caught her breath when I gave it to her, and thanked me with her eyes as well as her lips. She had on a frightfully old green gown—green once—shabby and darned and patched, and no cap; and she was on her knees wiping up some spilt water on the floor.