"Well, it comes to this," said George, as he stopped beside his own gate, "you believe our case—the badness of trade, the disappearance of profits, pressure of contracts, and all the rest of it—and you still refuse on your part to bear the smallest fraction of the burden? You will claim all you can get in good times—you will give back nothing in bad?"
"That is so," said Burrows, deliberately; "that is so, precisely. We will take no risks; we give our labour and in return the workman must live. Make the consumer pay, or pay yourselves out of your good years"—he turned imperceptibly towards the barrack-like house on the hill. "We don't care a ha'porth which it is!—only don't you come on the man who risks his life, and works like a galley-slave five days a week for a pittance of five-and-twenty shillings, or thereabouts, to pay—for he won't. He's tired of it. Not till you starve him into it, at any rate!"
George laughed.
"One of the best men in the village has been giving me his opinion this afternoon that there isn't a man in that place"—he pointed to it—"that couldn't live, and live well—aye, and take the masters' terms to-morrow—but for the drink!"
His keen look ran over Burrows from head to foot.
"And I know who that is," said Burrows, with a sneer. "Well, I can tell you what the rest of the men in that place think, and it's this: that the man in that village who doesn't drink is a mean skunk, who's betraying his own flesh and blood to the capitalists! Oh! you may preach at us till you're black in the face, but drink we shall till we get the control of our own labour. For, look here! Directly we cease to drink—directly we become good boys on your precious terms—the standard of life falls, down come wages, and you sweep off our beer-money to spend on your champagne. Thank you, Sir George! but we're not such fools as we look—and that don't suit us! Good-day to you."
And he haughtily touched his hat in response to George's movement, and walked quickly away.
* * * * *
George slowly mounted his own hill. The chequered April day was declining, and the dipping sun was flooding the western plain with quiet light. Rooks were circling round the hill, filling the air with long-drawn sound. A cuckoo was calling on a tree near at hand, and the evening was charged with spring scents—scents of leaf and grass, of earth and rain. Below, in an oak copse across the road, a stream rushed; and from a distance came the familiar rattle and thud of the pits.
George stood still a moment under a ragged group of Scotch firs—one of the few things at Ferth that he loved—and gazed across the Cheshire border to the distant lines of Welsh hills. The excitement of his talk with Burrows was subsiding, leaving behind it the obstinate resolve of the natural man. He should tell his uncles there was nothing for it but to fight it out. Some blood must be let; somebody must be master.