Grace came in, that moment, with a superb air. She settled herself on the sofa.
“Now, it is my turn, if you please. Pray, sir, do you think your life will be any safer for your insuring it? Insuring does not mean that you are not to be killed; but that, when you ARE, for your obstinacy, somebody else will get paid some money, to dance with over your grave.”
“I beg your pardon, Grace,” said Mr. Carden, entering with some printed papers in his hand. “That is not the only use of an insurance. He may want to marry, or to borrow a sum of money to begin business; and then a policy of insurance, with two or three premiums paid, smooths the difficulty. Everybody should make a will, and everybody should insure his life.”
“Well then, sir, I will do both.”
“Stop!” said Mr. Carden, who could now afford to be candid. “First of all, you ought to satisfy yourself of the flourishing condition of the company.” He handed him a prospectus. “This will show you our capital, and our disbursements last year, and the balance of profit declared. And this gives the balance sheet of the 'Vulture' and the 'Falcon,' which have assigned their business to us, and are now incorporated in the 'Gosshawk.'”
“Oh, what a voracious bird!” observed Grace. “I hope these other chickabiddies will not prove indigestible. Were they plucked first, papa? or did the 'Gosshawk' swallow them feathers and all?”
Little laughed heartily at this pert sally, but Mr. Carden winced under it.
Then Grace saw she was not quite weaponless, and added, “After such a meal, as that, Mr. Little, you will go down like a crumb.”
“Grace, that is enough,” said Mr. Carden, rather severely.
Grace held her tongue directly, and the water came into her eyes. Anything like serious remonstrance was a novelty to her.
When Henry had read the papers, Mr. Carden asked him, rather carelessly, what sum he wished to be insured for.
Now Henry had so little wish about the matter, that he had not given it a thought, and the question took him quite aback. He looked helplessly at Jael. To his surprise, she decided on the sum for him, without a moment's hesitation, and conveyed the figure with that dexterity which the simplest of her sex can command whenever telegraphy is wanted. She did it with two unbroken movements; she put up all the fingers of her right hand to her brow, and that meant five: then she turned her hand rapidly, so as to hide her mouth from the others, who were both on her right hand, and she made the word thousand clear, with her lips and tongue, especially the “th.”
But the sum staggered Henry; and made him think he must be misinterpreting her.
He hesitated, to gain time. “Hum!” said he, “the sum?”
Jael repeated her pantomime as before.
Still Henry doubted, and, to feel his way, said, half interrogatively, “Five—thou—sand?”
Jael nodded.
“Five thousand pounds,” said Henry, as bold as brass.
“Five thousand pounds!” cried Mr. Carden. “A workman insure his life for five thousand pounds!”
“Well, a man's life is worth five thousand pounds, or it is worth nothing. And, sir, how long do you think I shall be a workman, especially in Hillsborough, where from workman to master is no more than hopping across a gutter?”
Mr. Carden smiled approval. “But five thousand pounds! The annual premium will be considerable. May I ask about how much you make a year?”
“Oh, papa!”
“Well, sir, Mr. Cheetham pays me L300 a year, at the rate of, and I can make another L100 by carving at odd times. But, if you doubt my ability, let us stay as we are, sir. It was your proposal, not mine, you know.”
“Young man,” said Mr. Carden, “never be peppery in business.” He said this so solemnly and paternally, it sounded like the eleventh commandment.
To conclude, it was arranged Henry should take the higher class of insurance, which provided for accidents, voyages, everything, and should be insured for L5000, provided the physician appointed by the company should pronounce him free from disease.
Henry then rose, and said, sorrowfully, to Grace, “You will not see me here very often now; and never on Saturday afternoon or Monday morning. I am not going to have some blackguard tracking me, and flinging a can of gunpowder in at your window. When I do come, it will be in the morning, and on a working day; and I shall perhaps go ten miles round to get here. It must be diamond cut diamond, for many a month to come, between the Trades and me.” He uttered these words with manly gravity, as one who did not underrate the peril he was resolved to face; and left them with a respectful bow.
“That's a rising man,” said Mr. Carden; “and may draw a hundred of his class to the 'Gosshawk.' It was a good stroke of business, quite out of the common.”
Grace said not a word, but she shook her head and looked pained and ill at ease. Jael watched her fixedly.
Henry called at the works that night, and examined the new defenses, with Mr. Cheetham. He also bought a powerful magnifying-glass; and next morning he came to the factory, examined the cinders, and everything else, with the magnifier, lighted his forge, and resumed his work.
At dinner-time he went out and had his chop, and read the Liberal; it contained a letter from Jobson, in reply to the editor.
Jobson deplored the criminal act, admitted that the two Unions had decided no individual could be a forger, a handler, and a cutler; such an example was subversive of all the Unions in the city, based, as they were, on subdivision of crafts. “But,” said Mr Jobson, “we were dealing with the matter in a spirit quite inconsistent with outrages, and I am so anxious to convince the public of this, that I have asked a very experienced gentleman to examine our minute-books, and report accordingly.”
This letter was supplemented by one from Mr. Grotait, secretary of the Saw-Grinders, which ran thus:—“Messrs. Parkin and Jobson have appealed to me to testify to certain facts. I was very reluctant to interfere, for obvious reasons; but was, at last, prevailed on to examine the minute-books of those two Unions, and they certainly do prove that on the very evening before the explosion, those trades had fully discussed Mr. ——'s case” (the real name was put, but altered by the editor), “and had disposed of it as follows. They agreed, and this is entered accordingly, to offer him his traveling expenses (first class) to London, and one pound per week, from their funds, until such time as he should obtain employment. I will only add, that both these secretaries spoke kindly to me of Mr. ——; and, believing them to be sincere, I ventured to advise them to mark their disapproval of the criminal act, by offering him two pounds per week, instead of one pound; which advice they have accepted very readily.”
Henry was utterly confounded by these letters.
Holdfast commented on them thus:
“Messrs. Jobson and Parkin virtually say that if A, for certain reasons, pushes a man violently out of Hillsborough, and B draws him gently out of Hillsborough for the same reasons, A and B can not possibly be co-operating. Messrs. Parkin and Jobson had so little confidence in this argument, which is equivalent to saying there is no such thing as cunning in trade, that they employed a third party to advance it with all the weight of his popularity and seeming impartiality. But who is this candid person that objects to assume the judge, and assumes the judge? He is the treasurer and secretary of an Union that does not number three hundred persons; yet in that small Union, of which he is dictator, there has been as much rattening, and more shooting, and blowing-up wholesale and retail, with the farcical accompaniment of public repudiation, than in all the other Unions put together. We consider the entrance of this ingenuous personage on the scene a bad omen, and shall watch all future proceedings with increased suspicion.”
Henry had hardly done reading this, when a man came into the works, and brought him his fifteen pounds back from Mr. Jobson, and a line, offering him his expenses to London, and two pounds per week, from the Edge-Tool Forgers' box, till he should find employment. Henry took his money, and sent back word that the proposal came too late; after the dastardly attempt to assassinate him, he should defy the Unions, until they accepted his terms. Jobson made no reply. And Henry defied the Unions.
The Unions lay still, like some great fish at the bottom of a pool, and gave no sign of life or animosity. This did not lull Henry into a false security. He never relaxed a single precaution. He avoided “Woodbine Villa;” he dodged and doubled like a hare, to hide his own abode. But he forged, handled, and finished, in spite of the Unions.
The men were civil to him in the yard, and he had it all his own way, apparently.
He was examined by a surgeon, and reported healthy. He paid the insurance premium, and obtained the policy. So now he felt secure, under the aegis of the Press, and the wing of the “Gosshawk.” By-and-by, that great fish I have mentioned gave a turn of its tail, and made his placid waters bubble a little.
A woman came into the yard, with a can of tea for her husband, and a full apron. As she went out, she emptied a set of tools out of her apron on to an old grindstone, and slipped out.
The news of this soon traveled into the office, and both Cheetham and Bayne came out to look at them.
They were a set of carving-tools, well made, and highly polished; and there was a scrap of paper with this distich:
“We are Hillsborough made,
Both haft and blade.”
Cheetham examined them, and said, “Well, they are clever fellows. I declare these come very near Little's: call him down and let us draw him.”
Bayne called to Henry, and that brought him down, and several more, who winded something.
“Just look at these,” said Cheetham.
Little colored: he saw the finger of the Unions at once, and bristled all over with caution and hostility.
“I see them, sir. They are very fair specimens of cutlery; and there are only about twenty tools wanting to make a complete set; but there is one defect in them as carving-tools.”
“What is that?”
“They are useless. You can't carve wood with them. None but a practical carver can design these tools, and then he must invent and make the steel molds first. Try and sell them in London or Paris, you'll soon find the difference. Mr. Bayne, I wonder you should call me from my forge to examine 'prentice-work.” And, with this, he walked off disdainfully, but not quite easy in his mind, for he had noticed a greedy twinkle in Cheetham's eye.
The next day all the grinders in Mr. Cheetham's employ, except the scissors-grinders, rose, all of a sudden, like a flock of partridges, and went out into the road.
“What is up now?” inquired Bayne. The answer was, their secretaries had sent for them.
They buzzed in the road, for a few minutes, and then came back to work.
At night there was a great meeting at the “Cutlers' Arms,” kept by Mr. Grotait.
At noon the next day, all the grinders aforesaid in Mr. Cheetham's employ walked into the office, and left, each of them, a signed paper to this effect:
“This is to give you notice that I will leave your service a week after the date thereof.” (Meaning “hereof,” I presume.)
Cheetham asked several of them what was up. Some replied civilly, it was a trade matter. Others suggested Mr. Cheetham knew as much about it as they did.
Not a single hot or uncivil word was spoken on either side. The game had been played too often for that, and with results too various.
One or two even expressed a sort of dogged regret. The grinder Reynolds, a very honest fellow, admitted, to Mr. Cheetham, that he thought it a sorry trick, for a hundred men to strike against one that had had a squeak for his life. “But no matter what I think or what I say, I must do what the Union bids me, sir.”
“I know that, my poor fellow,” said Cheetham. “I quarrel with none of you. I fight you all. The other masters, in this town, are mice, but I'm a man.”
This sentiment he repeated very often during the next six days.
The seventh came and the grinders never entered the works.
Cheetham looked grave. However, he said to Bayne, “Go and find out where they are. Do it cleverly now. Don't be noticed.”
Bayne soon ascertained they were all in the neighboring public-houses.
“I thought so,” said Cheetham. “They will come in, before night. They sha'n't beat me, the vagabonds. I'm a man, I'm not a mouse.”
“Orders pouring in, sir,” sighed Bayne. “And the grinders are rather behind the others in their work already.”
“They must have known that: or why draw out the grinders? How could they know it?”
“Sir,” said Bayne, “they say old Smitem is in this one. Wherever he is, the master's business is known, or guessed, heaven knows how; and, if there is a hole in his coat, that hole is hit. Just look at the cleverness of it, sir. Here we are, wrong with the forgers and handlers. Yet they come into the works and take their day's wages. But they draw out the grinders, and mutilate the business. They hurt you as much as if they struck, and lost their wages. But no, they want their wages to help pay the grinders on strike. Your only chance was to discharge every man in the works, the moment the grinders gave notice.”
“Why didn't you tell me so, then?”
“Because I'm not old Smitem. He can see a thing beforehand. I can see it afterward. I'm like the weatherwise man's pupil; as good as my master, give me time. The master could tell you, at sunrise, whether the day would be wet or dry, and the pupil he could tell you at sunset: and that is just the odds between old Smitem and me.”
“Well, if he is old Smitem, I'm old Fightem.”
At night, he told Bayne he had private information, that the grinders were grumbling at being made a cat's-paw of by the forgers and the handlers. “Hold on,” said he; “they will break up before morning.”
At ten o'clock next day he came down to the works, and some peremptory orders had poured in. “They must wait,” said he, peevishly.
At twelve he said, “How queer the place seems, and not a grindstone going. It seems as still as the grave. I'm a man; I'm not a mouse.”
Mr. Cheetham repeated this last fact in zoology three times, to leave no doubt of it in his own mind, I suppose.
At 1.00, he said he would shut up the works rather than be a slave.
At 1.15 he blustered.
At 1.20 he gave in: collapsed in a moment, like a punctured bladder. “Bayne,” said he, with a groan, “go to Jobson, and ask him to come and talk this foolish business over.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Bayne. “Don't be offended; but you are vexed and worried, and whoever the Union sends to you will be as cool as marble. I have just heard it is Redcar carries the conditions.”
“What, the foreman of my own forgers! Is he to dictate to me?” cried Cheetham, grinding his teeth with indignation.
“Well, sir, what does it matter?” said Bayne, soothingly. “He is no more than a mouthpiece.”
“Go for him,” said Cheetham, sullenly.
“But, sir, I can't bear that your own workman should see you so agitated.”
“Oh, I shall be all right the moment I see my man before me.”
Bayne went off, and soon returned with Redcar. The man had his coat on, but had not removed his leathern apron.
Cheetham received him as the representative of the Unions. “Sit down, Redcar, and let us put an end to this little bother. What do you require?”
“Mr. Little's discharge, sir.”
“Are you aware he is with me on a month's notice?”
“They make a point of his leaving the works at once, sir; and I was to beg you to put other hands into his room.”
“It is taking a great liberty to propose that.”
“Nay. They only want to be satisfied. He has given a vast o' trouble.”
“I'll give him a month's warning. If I discharge him on the spot, he can sue me.”
“That has been thought on. If he sues you, you can talk to the Unions, and they will act with you. But the grinders are not to come in till Little is out.”
“Well, so be it, then.”
“And his rooms occupied by Union men?”
“If I swallow the bolus, I may as well swallow the pills. Anything more?”
“The grinders are not to lose their time; a day and a half.”
“What! am I to pay them for not working?”
“Well, sir, if we had come to you, of course the forgers and handlers would have paid the grinders for lost time; but, as you have come to us, you will have to pay them.”
Cheetham made a wry face; but acquiesced.
“And then, sir,” said Redcar, “there's another little matter. The incidental expenses of the strike.”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“The expenses incurred by the secretaries, and a little present to another gentleman, who advised us. It comes to thirty pounds altogether.”
“What!” cried Cheetham, struggling with his rising choler. “You want me to pay men thirty pounds for organizing a strike, that will cost me so dear, and rob me of a whole trade that was worth L300 a year? Why not charge me for the gunpowder you blew up Little with, and spoiled my forge? No, Bayne, no; this is too unjust and too tyrannical. Flesh and blood won't bear it. I'll shut up the works, and go back to my grindstone. Better live on bread and water than live like a slave.”
Redcar took a written paper out of his pocket. “There are the terms written down,” said he, “if you sign them, the strike ends; if you don't, it continues—till you do.”
Cheetham writhed under the pressure. Orders were pouring in; trade brisk; hands scarce. Each day would add a further loss of many pounds for wages, and doubtless raise fresh exactions. He gulped down something very like a sob, and both his hand and his voice shook with strong passion as he took the pen. “I'll sign it; but if ever my turn comes, I'll remember this against you. This shows what they really are, Bayne. Oh, if ever you workmen get power, GOD HELP THE WORLD!”
These words seemed to come in a great prophetic agony out of a bursting heart.
But the representative of the Unions was neither moved by them nor irritated.
“All right,” said he, phlegmatically; “the winner takes his bite: the loser gets his bark: that's reason.”
Henry Little was in his handling-room, working away, with a bright perspective before him, when Bayne knocked at the door, and entered with Redcar. Bayne's face wore an expression so piteous, that Henry divined mischief at once.
“Little, my poor fellow, it is all over. We are obliged to part with you.”
“Cheetham has thrown me over?”
“What could he do? I am to ask you to vacate these rooms, that we may get our half-day out of the grinders.”
Henry turned pale, but there was no help for it.
He got up in a very leisurely way; and, while he was putting on his coat, he told Bayne, doggedly, he should expect his month's salary.
As he was leaving, Redcar spoke to him in rather a sheepish way. “Shake hands, old lad,” said he; “thou knows one or t'other must win; and there's not a grain of spite against thee. It's just a trade matter.”
Henry stood with his arms akimbo, and looked at Redcar. “I was in hopes,” said he, grinding his teeth, “you were going to ask me to take a turn with you in the yard, man to man. But I can't refuse my hand to one of my own sort that asks it. There 'tis. After all, you deserve to win, for you are true to each other; but a master can't be true to a man, nor to anything on earth, but his pocket.”
He then strolled out into the yard, with his hands in his pockets, and whistled “The Harmonious Blacksmith” very sick at heart.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg