The captain hesitated a moment. It was an ominous mob.
“Look sharp then,” he said, and stepped back.
“Come with us,” cried Gibbons. “We can’t talk here. Come to the big hall, and, if, you don’t like what we say there will be no harm done. This is a free country.”
The secretary turned as if he had no doubt the crowd would follow, and the leaderless men walked after him. Gibbons’ assistants mixed among them, and talked persuasively with the strangers. Before half an hour all the “blacklegs,” were in the Salvation Army hall, signing the Union roll and being put on the strike-pay list.
It was a notable triumph for Gibbons; first blood, as a sporting-man would say.
Next morning, when the gates were opened, not a man entered, and Sartwell once more found himself without an employee. After the gates had remained invitingly open for half an hour, they were closed again, and a great cheer went up as the two big iron-bolted leaves came together.
Sartwell’s resources, however, were not yet exhausted, for two days later the factory was thronged with workmen once more, and these also Gibbons bought from under the manager.
Thus the game went on, and it convinced the men that their secretary knew a thing or two, being more than a match for the manager. Gibbons carried himself confidently, and talked with grand assurance that he was perhaps far from feeling, for he became more and more haggard and anxious as the fight continued. He alone knew the seriousness of the increased drain on the resources of the Union, through the forced support of the new hands he had lured away from Sartwell’s employ, and which had upset all his previous calculations. An attempt had been made to lighten the burden by trying to induce the new men to return to their homes, and this had been partially successful with the first lot, but the others obstinately insisted on getting their share of the strike pay, and refused even to consider the advisability of returning. They demanded what was promised them, or threatened to enter the works in a body, which action would have speedily put and end to the contest. Gibbons was well supported by that section of the press which gave more than a few lines each day to the progress of the strike. One morning the chief of these papers came out with an appeal to the public for aid. The case of the strikers, battling, it might be, at first for their own rights, but fighting in reality for all working humanity, was most convincingly and tersely put in a double-leaded editorial, and the journal itself headed the list with a handsome contribution. Would the people of England hold aloof, reduce these workers into slaves, using the weapon of grim starvation against them? The journal did not believe such apathy existed, and its belief was amply justified, for subscriptions poured rapidly in, together with indignant letters from all parts of the country, which were duly printed in its columns.
The first pinch of the strike came on the men when it was suddenly announced that strike pay would, the next Saturday, be cut down to one-quarter the amount they were then receiving. There was a good deal of grumbling and some inquiries as to what they were fighting for, but, on the whole, the disastrous proclamation was received quietly, if somewhat grimly.
“We are bound to win,” said Gibbons, when he was reluctantly compelled to tell the men of the reduction. “The firm is losing nearly a thousand pounds a week by the factory remaining idle, and it is not likely they will stand that long, even to oblige Sartwell.”