He had but a disappointing round, however.
In the first place he went to look up some of the older "hewers," men who had been for years in the employ of the Tressadys. Two or three of them had just come back from the early shift, and their wives, at any rate, were pleased and flattered by George's call. But the men sat like stocks and stones while he talked. Scarcely a word could be got out of them, and George felt himself in an atmosphere of storm, guessing at dangers, everywhere present, though not yet let loose—like the foul gases in the pits under his feet.
He behaved with a good deal of dignity, stifling his pride here and there sufficiently to talk simply and well of the general state of trade, the conditions of the coal industry in the West Mercian district, the position of the masters, the published accounts of one or two large companies in the district, and so on. But in the end he only felt his own auger rising in answer to the sullenness of the men. Their sallow faces and eyes weakened by long years of the pit expressed little—but what there was spelt war.
Nor did his visits to what might be called his own side give him much more satisfaction.
One man, a brawny "fireman," whom George had been long taught to regard as one of the props of law and order in the district, was effusively and honestly glad to see his employer. His wife hurried the tea, and George drank and ate as heartily as his own luncheon would let him in company with Macgregor and his very neat and smiling family. Nothing could be more satisfactory than Macgregor's general denunciations of the Union and its agent. Burrows, in his opinion, was a "drunken, low-livin scoundrel," who got his bread by making mischief; the Union was entering upon a great mistake in resisting the masters' proposals; and if it weren't for the public-house and idleness there wasn't a man in Perth that couldn't live well, ten per cent. reduction and all considered. Nevertheless, he did not conceal his belief that battle was approaching, and would break out, if not now, at any rate in the late summer or autumn. Times, too, were going to be specially bad for the non-society men. The membership of the Union had been running up fast; there had been a row that very morning at the pit where he worked, the Union men refusing to go down in the same cage with the blacklegs. He and his mates would have to put their backs into it. Never fear but they would! Bullying might be trusted only to make them the more "orkard."
Nothing could have been more soothing than such talk to the average employer in search of congenial opinions. But George was not the average employer, and the fastidious element in him began soon to make him uncomfortable. Sobriety is, no doubt, admirable, but he had no sooner detected a teetotal cant in his companion than that particular axiom ceased to matter to him. And to think poorly of Burrows might be a salutary feature in a man's character, but it should be for some respectable reason. George fidgeted on his chair while Macgregor told the usual cock-and-bull stories of monstrous hotel-bills seen sticking out of Burrows's tail-pockets, and there deciphered by a gaping populace; and his mental discomfort reached its climax when Macgregor wound up with the remark:
"And that, Sir George, is where the money goes to!—not to the poor starving women and children, I can tell yer, whose husbands are keepin him in luxury. I've always said it. Where's the accounts? I've never seen no balance-sheet—never!" he repeated solemnly. They do say as there's one to be seen at the 'lodge'—"
"Why, of course there is, Macgregor," said George, with a nervous laugh, as he got up to depart; "all the big Unions publish their accounts."
The fireman's obstinate mouth and stubbly hair only expressed a more pronounced scepticism.
"Well, I shouldn't believe in em," he said, "if they did. I've niver seen a balance-sheet, and I don't suppose I ever shall. Well, good-bye to you, Sir George, and thank you kindly. Yo take my word, sir, if it weren't for the public-house the men could afford to lose a trifle now and again to let the masters make their fair profit!"