"It never would," emphatically repeated Stephen Crouch. "A shattered trade cannot be brought together again. It is like a shattered glass: you may mourn over the pieces, but you cannot put them together. Believe me, or not, as you please, my friends, but the only thing remaining is, to make the best of what is left to us. There are other trades a deal worse off than we are."
"I have talked to ye about that there move—a strike," resumed Fisher, after a pause. "We shall get no good till we try it——"
"Fisher, don't you be a fool and show it," was the imperative interruption of Stephen Crouch. "I have explained to you till I am tired, what would be the effects of a strike. It would just finish you bad workmen up, and send you and your children into the nearest dry ditch for a floor, with the open skies above you for a roof."
"We have never tried a strike in Helstonleigh," answered Fisher, holding to his own opinion.
"And I trust we never shall," returned the intelligent foreman. "Other trades may have their strikes if they choose, and it's not our business to find fault with them for it; but the glove trade has hitherto kept itself aloof from strikes, and it's to be hoped it always will. You cannot understand how a strike works, Joe Fisher, or you'd not let your head be running on it."
"Others' heads be running on it as well as mine, Master Crouch," said Fisher, nodding significantly.
"It is not improbable," was the equable rejoinder of Stephen Crouch. "Go and strike next week, half a dozen of you. I mean the operatives of half a dozen firms."
"Every firm in the place must strike," interrupted Fisher hastily. "A few on us doing it would only make bad worse."
Stephen Crouch smiled. "Exactly. But the difficulty, Fisher, will be, that all the firms won't strike. Ask the men in our firm to strike; ask those in Ashley's; ask others that we could name—and what would their answer be? Why, that they know when they are well off. Suppose, for argument's sake, that we did all strike; suppose all the hands in Helstonleigh struck next Monday morning, and the manufactories had to be closed? Who would have the worst of it?—we or the masters?"
"The masters," returned Fisher in an obstinate tone.