"Mr. Orme, do you remember Dick Draper, who was your boss carder, and who lives in a little house behind your mansion? Do you remember that he worked for you ten or fifteen years, and that you discharged him because he would not leave the Union?"
"Yes, I remember him. Why?" answered Orme huskily.
"I will tell you why. A few months after you discharged him, partly because his health failed and partly because you blackballed him at all other shops, he was still out of work, his money all gone, his pantry bare, and his youngest boy dying of a slow disease of the spine. Some of us went to you and asked you to help us raise enough to send him to Montreal for treatment that might save his life. You showed us the door, and told us to tell him he could make his money like you made yours. You said if the boy died it would be one mouth less for Dick to feed, and told us there was a grand old maxim about every man for himself and the devil have the hindermost. As we were going down your splendid avenue, you shouted that Dick's spine was stiff enough when he joined the Union. Then you asked us if spines were hereditary. Then you laughed and your barns and your grand driving sheds echoed back its cruel mockery."
Orme arose and started towards the door.
"Mr. Chairman, I protest," he began.
"Sit doon," thundered Angus, lapsing into his native tongue, "sit doon till I tell ye a'. The nicht Dick's boy was deein', we went to ye and begged ye to stop yir music and yir dancin'. For ye had some graun' fowk at yir pairty, an' the flowers for it cost ye mair nor wad hae sent the laddie to Montreal. An' the noise fashed an' fretted the deein' bairn. But ye bade us begone, an' said ye'd invite us to yir pairty when ye wanted us—an' the puir laddie dee'd in his faither's airms to the cruel music o' yir fiddles an' yir reels, an' his faither sat wi' him a' the nicht, croonin' wi' sorrow, an' yir graun' guests' laughter breakin' on him like a blizzard frae the north."
"Is the sermon nearly done?" said Mr. Orme, with a sneer. "You missed your calling; you're a preacher." The hot tears were in Angus' eyes and he seemed to have forgotten that Orme was present, the taunt lost upon him.
"I will say no more," turning now to the others, "and I have perhaps spoken over warmly. But I have uttered no word other than the truth. And I will only make my last appeal, which I know will have some weight, with most of you, at least. The remedy for all this threatening trouble lies in mutual sympathy, for I doubt not you have your own difficulties, even as we have ours. I am glad to have helped to allay this recent trouble, and my best service shall never be denied you in the future. But I pray you to consider the words of a man who wishes you nothing else but good. Pardon what of violence and ponder what of reason has been mixed with what I said. Capital has its labour, and labour has its capital—and we are all toilers together."
He bowed to the employers and withdrew, but the seed his hand had cast was fallen, some no doubt on rocky ground, but some also on good and honest soil.
And Angus had won a victory; but his greatest triumph was unseen, for he had ruled his own spirit, which high authority assures us is greater than the taking of a city.