“You think it’s same as it has been before,” he said sullenly—“we’ve fallen out and we shall fall in again; but if he comes on his bended knees I’ve finished with him. I’d sooner beg my bread or starve than I’d——”
“Aye, aye,” interrupted his father. “You can cut out all t’ high-and-mighty, lad, and get down to bed-rock. What’s he sacked you for?”
“For asking for a rise,” Jagger answered hotly. “I work hours and hours overtime as you know well without as much as a ‘Thank-ye’ for my labour; and t’ harder I work t’ less he thinks of me. I told him he was fond enough of putting his claim in when he was man instead of master, and he laughed in my face. He said he was for himself then and he’s for himself now, and for once in his life he spoke t’ truth. But it didn’t end there. He says I rob him because I won’t scamp my work and diddle his customers; and that filled t’ cup up, and I brought my bass home. You have it all there; he isn’t a man, he’s a devil.”
“Maybe he is,” the father replied coolly, “or if he isn’t he keeps a lodging-house in his inside for them o’ that breed, same as most of us; and they’re like as they’ve got t’ upper hand o’ t’ Briggses, as your grannie says. However, we’ll keep to bed-rock—Baldwin’ll none come on his bended knees; but if you were to bend your stiff neck and go to him——.”
“I’ll see him hanged first!”
“Well, he keeps inside o’ t’ law, does Baldwin, and I doubt if they’ve started making t’ rope ’at’ll hang him, so we’ll move on a step; what are you thinking of doing?”
The frown on Jagger’s brow beetled the deep caverns of his eyes; but the tone in which he replied that he supposed he must leave the village and seek a job in the town, where jobs were plentiful and wages were regulated by the unions, was not convincing.
“And what sort of a show would you make in a town?” Hannah’s voice broke in. “You that has t’ moor in your blood! You’d choke! Ling doesn’t grow on paved streets and it’s poor fishing you’ll get in a bath-room!”
“You can do without what you can’t get. Needs must when the devil drives, as I told Baldwin. I shan’t be t’ first who’s left t’ village and made his way in t’ town.”
“If you make your way in t’ town you’ll be t’ first i’ our family that ever managed it,” said his father. “Not that I’m again’ you trying it, mind you, if there isn’t a better way, though there is an old wife’s tale that no Drake comes to any good that turns his back on t’ moor.”