Mrs. Scimmins pressed tenderly the bruised and still swollen portion of her face under the eye, and felt that she had made out her case; in fact, her defence was accepted as a strong plea that only made Braunt’s inhuman and uncalled for conduct stand out the darker by comparison.
The men were astonished, of course, but not so emphatic in their denunciation of Braunt as the wives had been. Scimmins bore no particular malice against his assailant, although what he had thrown him over the stairs for, he expressed himself as unable to conceive. In answer to sympathetic inquiries from his pals at the public bar of the “Rose and Crown,” he informed them that, although shaky, he was still in the ring.
“Gawd ’elp us!” he went on, more in sorrow than in anger, “wot’s this world a-comin’ to? If you arsts me I gives it up. Wot with Braunt an’ the police both on a chap’s shoulders, if he raises ’is ’and to ’is own wife, the court’s no fit place for a pore ’ard-workin’ man to live in.”
But nobody ventured to remonstrate with the York-shireman, least of all Scimmins, although the court as a community held more aloof from him than ever.
“Are you coming to the meeting to-night, Mr. Braunt?” asked young Marsten, when he had greeted father and daughter.
“Not me.”
“Why not?”
“Why go?”
“Well, you see, Mr. Braunt, there is a crisis on. The committee is to report. Mr. Sartwell has refused to meet them, and this will likely anger Gibbons and the others. Strike or no strike will be put to vote, and I for one don’t want to see a strike—at least not just now.”
“No more do I,” said Braunt.