CHAPTER XXVIII - COMFORT IN SORROW

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_ CHAPTER XXVIII - COMFORT IN SORROW

'Through cross to crown!--And though thy spirit's life

Trials untold assail with giant strength,

Good cheer! good cheer! Soon ends the bitter strife,

And thou shalt reign in peace with Christ at length.'

KOSEGARTEN.

'Ay sooth, we feel too strong in weal, to need Thee on that road;

But woe being come, the soul is dumb, that crieth not on "God."'

MRS. BROWNING.

That afternoon she walked swiftly to the Higgins's house. Mary
was looking out for her, with a half-distrustful face. Margaret
smiled into her eyes to re-assure her. They passed quickly through
the house-place, upstairs, and into the quiet presence of the dead.
Then Margaret was glad that she had come. The face, often so weary
with pain, so restless with troublous thoughts, had now the faint
soft smile of eternal rest upon it. The slow tears gathered into
Margaret's eyes, but a deep calm entered into her soul. And that
was death! It looked more peaceful than life. All beautiful
scriptures came into her mind. 'They rest from their labours.'
'The weary are at rest.' 'He giveth His beloved sleep.'

Slowly, slowly Margaret turned away from the bed. Mary was humbly
sobbing in the back-ground. They went down stairs without a word.

Resting his hand upon the house-table, Nicholas Higgins stood in
the midst of the floor; his great eyes startled open by the news
he had heard, as he came along the court, from many busy tongues.
His eyes were dry and fierce; studying the reality of her death;
bringing himself to understand that her place should know her no
more. For she had been sickly, dying so long, that he had
persuaded himself she would not die; that she would 'pull
through.'

Margaret felt as if she had no business to be there, familiarly
acquainting herself with the surroundings of death which he, the
father, had only just learnt. There had been a pause of an
instant on the steep crooked stair, when she first saw him; but
now she tried to steal past his abstracted gaze, and to leave him
in the solemn circle of his household misery.

Mary sat down on the first chair she came to, and throwing her
apron over her head, began to cry.

The noise appeared to rouse him. He took sudden hold of
Margaret's arm, and held her till he could gather words to speak.
seemed dry; they came up thick, and choked, and hoarse:

'Were yo' with her? Did yo' see her die?'

'No!' replied Margaret, standing still with the utmost patience,
now she found herself perceived. It was some time before he spoke
again, but he kept his hold on her arm.

'All men must die,' said he at last, with a strange sort of
gravity, which first suggested to Margaret the idea that he had
been drinking--not enough to intoxicate himself, but enough to
make his thoughts bewildered. 'But she were younger than me.'
Still he pondered over the event, not looking at Margaret, though
he grasped her tight. Suddenly, he looked up at her with a wild
searching inquiry in his glance. 'Yo're sure and certain she's
dead--not in a dwam, a faint?--she's been so before, often.'

'She is dead,' replied Margaret. She felt no fear in speaking to
him, though he hurt her arm with his gripe, and wild gleams came
across the stupidity of his eyes.

'She is dead!' she said.

He looked at her still with that searching look, which seemed to
fade out of his eyes as he gazed. Then he suddenly let go his
hold of Margaret, and, throwing his body half across the table,
he shook it and every piece of furniture in the room, with his
violent sobs. Mary came trembling towards him.

'Get thee gone!--get thee gone!' he cried, striking wildly and
blindly at her. 'What do I care for thee?' Margaret took her
hand, and held it softly in hers. He tore his hair, he beat his
head against the hard wood, then he lay exhausted and stupid.
Still his daughter and Margaret did not move. Mary trembled from
head to foot.

At last--it might have been a quarter of an hour, it might have
been an hour--he lifted himself up. His eyes were swollen and
bloodshot, and he seemed to have forgotten that any one was by;
he scowled at the watchers when he saw them. He Shook himself
heavily, gave them one more sullen look, spoke never a word, but
made for the door.

'Oh, father, father!' said Mary, throwing herself upon his
arm,--'not to-night! Any night but to-night. Oh, help me! he's
going out to drink again! Father, I'll not leave yo'. Yo' may
strike, but I'll not leave yo'. She told me last of all to keep
yo' fro' drink!'

But Margaret stood in the doorway, silent yet commanding. He
looked up at her defyingly.

'It's my own house. Stand out o' the way, wench, or I'll make
yo'!' He had shaken off Mary with violence; he looked ready to
strike Margaret. But she never moved a feature--never took her
deep, serious eyes off him. He stared back on her with gloomy
fierceness. If she had stirred hand or foot, he would have thrust
her aside with even more violence than he had used to his own
daughter, whose face was bleeding from her fall against a chair.

'What are yo' looking at me in that way for?' asked he at last,
daunted and awed by her severe calm. 'If yo' think for to keep me
from going what gait I choose, because she loved yo'--and in my
own house, too, where I never asked yo' to come, yo're mista'en.
It's very hard upon a man that he can't go to the only comfort
left.'

Margaret felt that he acknowledged her power. What could she do
next? He had seated himself on a chair, close to the door;
half-conquered, half-resenting; intending to go out as soon as
she left her position, but unwilling to use the violence he had
threatened not five minutes before. Margaret laid her hand on his
arm.

'Come with me,' she said. 'Come and see her!'

The voice in which she spoke was very low and solemn; but there
was no fear or doubt expressed in it, either of him or of his
compliance. He sullenly rose up. He stood uncertain, with dogged
irresolution upon his face. She waited him there; quietly and
patiently waited for his time to move. He had a strange pleasure
in making her wait; but at last he moved towards the stairs.

She and he stood by the corpse.

'Her last words to Mary were, "Keep my father fro' drink."'

'It canna hurt her now,' muttered he. 'Nought can hurt her now.'
Then, raising his voice to a wailing cry, he went on: 'We may
quarrel and fall out--we may make peace and be friends--we may
clem to skin and bone--and nought o' all our griefs will ever
touch her more. Hoo's had her portion on 'em. What wi' hard work
first, and sickness at last, hoo's led the life of a dog. And to
die without knowing one good piece o' rejoicing in all her days!
Nay, wench, whatever hoo said, hoo can know nought about it now,
and I mun ha' a sup o' drink just to steady me again sorrow.'

'No,' said Margaret, softening with his softened manner. 'You
shall not. If her life has been what you say, at any rate she did
not fear death as some do. Oh, you should have heard her speak of
the life to come--the life hidden with God, that she is now gone
to.'

He shook his head, glancing sideways up at Margaret as he did so.
His pale, haggard face struck her painfully.

'You are sorely tired. Where have you been all day--not at work?'

'Not at work, sure enough,' said he, with a short, grim laugh.
'Not at what you call work. I were at the Committee, till I were
sickened out wi' trying to make fools hear reason. I were fetched
to Boucher's wife afore seven this morning. She's bed-fast, but
she were raving and raging to know where her dunder-headed brute
of a chap was, as if I'd to keep him--as if he were fit to be
ruled by me. The d--d fool, who has put his foot in all our
plans! And I've walked my feet sore wi' going about for to see
men who wouldn't be seen, now the law is raised again us. And I
were sore-hearted, too, which is worse than sore-footed; and if I
did see a friend who ossed to treat me, I never knew hoo lay
a-dying here. Bess, lass, thou'd believe me, thou
wouldst--wouldstn't thou?' turning to the poor dumb form with
wild appeal.

'I am sure,' said Margaret, 'I am sure you did not know: it was
quite sudden. But now, you see, it would be different; you do
know; you do see her lying there; you hear what she said with her
last breath. You will not go?'

No answer. In fact, where was he to look for comfort?

'Come home with me,' said she at last, with a bold venture, half
trembling at her own proposal as she made it. 'At least you shall
have some comfortable food, which I'm sure you need.'

'Yo'r father's a parson?' asked he, with a sudden turn in his
ideas.

'He was,' said Margaret, shortly.

'I'll go and take a dish o' tea with him, since yo've asked me.
I've many a thing I often wished to say to a parson, and I'm not
particular as to whether he's preaching now, or not.'

Margaret was perplexed; his drinking tea with her father, who
would be totally unprepared for his visitor--her mother so
ill--seemed utterly out of the question; and yet if she drew back
now, it would be worse than ever--sure to drive him to the
gin-shop. She thought that if she could only get him to their own
house, it was so great a step gained that she would trust to the
chapter ofaccidents for the next.

'Goodbye, ou'd wench! We've parted company at last, we have! But
thou'st been a blessin' to thy father ever sin' thou wert born.
Bless thy white lips, lass,--they've a smile on 'em now! and I'm
glad to see it once again, though I'm lone and forlorn for
evermore.'

He stooped down and fondly kissed his daughter; covered up her
face, and turned to follow Margaret. She had hastily gone down
stairs to tell Mary of the arrangement; to say it was the only
way she could think of to keep him from the gin-palace; to urge
Mary to come too, for her heart smote her at the idea of leaving
the poor affectionate girl alone. But Mary had friends among the
neighbours, she said, who would come in and sit a bit with her,
it was all right; but father--

He was there by them as she would have spoken more. He had shaken
off his emotion, as if he was ashamed of having ever given way to
it; and had even o'erleaped himself so much that he assumed a
sort of bitter mirth, like the crackling of thorns under a pot.

'I'm going to take my tea wi' her father, I am!'

But he slouched his cap low down over his brow as he went out
into the street, and looked neither to the right nor to the left,
while he tramped along by Margaret's side; he feared being upset
by the words, still more the looks, of sympathising neighbours.
So he and Margaret walked in silence.

As he got near the street in which he knew she lived, he looked
down at his clothes, his hands, and shoes.

'I should m'appen ha' cleaned mysel', first?'

It certainly would have been desirable, but Margaret assured him
he should be allowed to go into the yard, and have soap and towel
provided; she could not let him slip out of her hands just then.

While he followed the house-servant along the passage, and
through the kitchen, stepping cautiously on every dark mark in
the pattern of the oil-cloth, in order to conceal his dirty
foot-prints, Margaret ran upstairs. She met Dixon on the landing.

'How is mamma?--where is papa?'

Missus was tired, and gone into her own room. She had wanted to
go to bed, but Dixon had persuaded her to lie down on the sofa,
and have her tea brought to her there; it would be better than
getting restless by being too long in bed.

So far, so good. But where was Mr. Hale? In the drawing-room.
Margaret went in half breathless with the hurried story she had
to tell. Of course, she told it incompletely; and her father was
rather 'taken aback' by the idea of the drunken weaver awaiting
him in his quiet study, with whom he was expected to drink tea,
and on whose behalf Margaret was anxiously pleading. The meek,
kind-hearted Mr. Hale would have readily tried to console him in
his grief, but, unluckily, the point Margaret dwelt upon most
forcibly was the fact of his having been drinking, and her having
brought him home with her as a last expedient to keep him from
the gin-shop. One little event had come out of another so
naturally that Margaret was hardly conscious of what she had
done, till she saw the slight look of repugnance on her father's
face.

'Oh, papa! he really is a man you will not dislike--if you won't
be shocked to begin with.'

'But, Margaret, to bring a drunken man home--and your mother so
ill!'

Margaret's countenance fell. 'I am sorry, papa. He is very
quiet--he is not tipsy at all. He was only rather strange at
first, but that might be the shock of poor Bessy's death.'
Margaret's eyes filled with tears. Mr. Hale took hold of her
sweet pleading face in both his hands, and kissed her forehead.

'It is all right, dear. I'll go and make him as comfortable as I
can, and do you attend to your mother. Only, if you can come in
and make a third in the study, I shall be glad.'

'Oh, yes--thank you.' But as Mr. Hale was leaving the room, she
ran after him:

'Papa--you must not wonder at what he says: he's an----I mean he
does not believe in much of what we do.'

'Oh dear! a drunken infidel weaver!' said Mr. Hale to himself, in
dismay. But to Margaret he only said, 'If your mother goes to
sleep, be sure you come directly.'

Margaret went into her mother's room. Mrs. Hale lifted herself up
from a doze.

'When did you write to Frederick, Margaret? Yesterday, or the day
before?'

'Yesterday, mamma.'

'Yesterday. And the letter went?'

'Yes. I took it myself'

'Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be
recognised! If he should be taken! If he should be executed,
after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety!
I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being
tried.'

'Oh, mamma, don't be afraid. There will be some risk no doubt;
but we will lessen it as much as ever we can. And it is so
little! Now, if we were at Helstone, there would be twenty--a
hundred times as much. There, everybody would remember him and if
there was a stranger known to be in the house, they would be sure
to guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares for
us enough to notice what we do. Dixon will keep the door like a
dragon--won't you, Dixon--while he is here?'

'They'll be clever if they come in past me!' said Dixon, showing
her teeth at the bare idea.

'And he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!'

'Poor fellow!' echoed Mrs. Hale. 'But I almost wish you had not
written. Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again,
Margaret?'

'I'm afraid it would, mamma,' said Margaret, remembering the
urgency with which she had entreated him to come directly, if he
wished to see his mother alive.

'I always dislike that doing things in such a hurry,' said Mrs.
Hale.

Margaret was silent.

'Come now, ma am,' said Dixon, with a kind of cheerful authority,
'you know seeing Master Frederick is just the very thing of all
others you're longing for. And I'm glad Miss Margaret wrote off
straight, without shilly-shallying. I've had a great mind to do
it myself. And we'll keep him snug, depend upon it. There's only
Martha in the house that would not do a good deal to save him on
a pinch; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother
just at that very time. She's been saying once or twice she
should like to go, for her mother has had a stroke since she came
here, only she didn't like to ask. But I'll see about her being
safe off, as soon as we know when he comes, God bless him! So
take your tea, ma'am, in comfort, and trust to me.'

Mrs. Hale did trust in Dixon more than in Margaret. Dixon's words
quieted her for the time. Margaret poured out the tea in silence,
trying to think of something agreeable to say; but her thoughts
made answer something like Daniel O'Rourke, when the
man-in-the-moon asked him to get off his reaping-hook. 'The more
you ax us, the more we won't stir.' The more she tried to think
of something anything besides the danger to which Frederick would
be exposed--the more closely her imagination clung to the
unfortunate idea presented to her. Her mother prattled with
Dixon, and seemed to have utterly forgotten the possibility of
Frederick being tried and executed--utterly forgotten that at her
wish, if by Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger.
Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities,
miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a
rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some
combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a
frightful flame at last. Margaret was glad when, her filial
duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the
study. She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on.

In the first place, the decorous, kind-hearted, simple,
old-fashioned gentleman, had unconsciously called out, by his own
refinement and courteousness of manner, all the latent courtesy
in the other.

Mr. Hale treated all his fellow-creatures alike: it never entered
into his head to make any difference because of their rank. He
placed a chair for Nicholas stood up till he, at Mr. Hale's
request, took a seat; and called him, invariably, 'Mr. Higgins,'
instead of the curt 'Nicholas' or 'Higgins,' to which the
'drunken infidel weaver' had been accustomed. But Nicholas was
neither an habitual drunkard nor a thorough infidel. He drank to
drown care, as he would have himself expressed it: and he was
infidel so far as he had never yet found any form of faith to
which he could attach himself, heart and soul.

Margaret was a little surprised, and very much pleased, when she
found her father and Higgins in earnest conversation--each
speaking with gentle politeness to the other, however their
opinions might clash. Nicholas--clean, tidied (if only at the
pump-trough), and quiet spoken--was a new creature to her, who
had only seen him in the rough independence of his own
hearthstone. He had 'slicked' his hair down with the fresh water;
he had adjusted his neck-handkerchief, and borrowed an odd
candle-end to polish his clogs with and there he sat, enforcing
some opinion on her father, with a strong Darkshire accent, it is
true, but with a lowered voice, and a good, earnest composure on
his face. Her father, too, was interested in what his companion
was saying. He looked round as she came in, smiled, and quietly
gave her his chair, and then sat down afresh as quickly as
possible, and with a little bow of apology to his guest for the
interruption. Higgins nodded to her as a sign of greeting; and
she softly adjusted her working materials on the table, and
prepared to listen.

'As I was a-sayin, sir, I reckon yo'd not ha' much belief in yo'
if yo' lived here,--if yo'd been bred here. I ax your pardon if I
use wrong words; but what I mean by belief just now, is
a-thinking on sayings and maxims and promises made by folk yo'
never saw, about the things and the life, yo' never saw, nor no
one else. Now, yo' say these are true things, and true sayings,
and a true life. I just say, where's the proof? There's many and
many a one wiser, and scores better learned than I am around
me,--folk who've had time to think on these things,--while my
time has had to be gi'en up to getting my bread. Well, I sees
these people. Their lives is pretty much open to me. They're real
folk. They don't believe i' the Bible,--not they. They may say
they do, for form's sake; but Lord, sir, d'ye think their first
cry i' th' morning is, "What shall I do to get hold on eternal
life?" or "What shall I do to fill my purse this blessed day?
Where shall I go? What bargains shall I strike?" The purse and
the gold and the notes is real things; things as can be felt and
touched; them's realities; and eternal life is all a talk, very
fit for--I ax your pardon, sir; yo'r a parson out o' work, I
believe. Well! I'll never speak disrespectful of a man in the
same fix as I'm in mysel'. But I'll just ax yo another question,
sir, and I dunnot want yo to answer it, only to put in yo'r pipe,
and smoke it, afore yo' go for to set down us, who only believe
in what we see, as fools and noddies. If salvation, and life to
come, and what not, was true--not in men's words, but in men's
hearts' core--dun yo' not think they'd din us wi' it as they do
wi' political 'conomy? They're mighty anxious to come round us
wi' that piece o' wisdom; but t'other would be a greater
convarsion, if it were true.'

'But the masters have nothing to do with your religion. All that
they are connected with you in is trade,--so they think,--and all
that it concerns them, therefore, to rectify your opinions in is
the science of trade.'

'I'm glad, sir,' said Higgins, with a curious wink of his eye,
'that yo' put in, "so they think." I'd ha' thought yo' a
hypocrite, I'm afeard, if yo' hadn't, for all yo'r a parson, or
rayther because yo'r a parson. Yo' see, if yo'd spoken o'
religion as a thing that, if it was true, it didn't concern all
men to press on all men's attention, above everything else in
this 'varsal earth, I should ha' thought yo' a knave for to be a
parson; and I'd rather think yo' a fool than a knave. No offence,
I hope, sir.'

'None at all. You consider me mistaken, and I consider you far
more fatally mistaken. I don't expect to convince you in a
day,--not in one conversation; but let us know each other, and
speak freely to each other about these things, and the truth will
prevail. I should not believe in God if I did not believe that.
Mr. Higgins, I trust, whatever else you have given up, you
believe'--(Mr. Hale's voice dropped low in reverence)--'you
believe in Him.'

Nicholas Higgins suddenly stood straight, stiff up. Margaret
started to her feet,--for she thought, by the working of his
face, he was going into convulsions. Mr. Hale looked at her
dismayed. At last Higgins found words:

'Man! I could fell yo' to the ground for tempting me. Whatten
business have yo' to try me wi' your doubts? Think o' her lying
theere, after the life hoo's led and think then how yo'd deny me
the one sole comfort left--that there is a God, and that He set
her her life. I dunnot believe she'll ever live again,' said he,
sitting down, and drearily going on, as if to the unsympathising
fire. 'I dunnot believe in any other life than this, in which she
dreed such trouble, and had such never-ending care; and I cannot
bear to think it were all a set o' chances, that might ha' been
altered wi' a breath o' wind. There's many a time when I've
thought I didna believe in God, but I've never put it fair out
before me in words, as many men do. I may ha' laughed at those
who did, to brave it out like--but I have looked round at after,
to see if He heard me, if so be there was a He; but to-day, when
I'm left desolate, I wunnot listen to yo' wi' yo'r questions, and
yo'r doubts. There's but one thing steady and quiet i' all this
reeling world, and, reason or no reason, I'll cling to that. It's
a' very well for happy folk'----

Margaret touched his arm very softly. She had not spoken before,
nor had he heard her rise.

'Nicholas, we do not want to reason; you misunderstand my father.
We do not reason--we believe; and so do you. It is the one sole
comfort in such times.'

He turned round and caught her hand. 'Ay! it is, it is--(brushing
away the tears with the back of his hand).--'But yo' know, she's
lying dead at home and I'm welly dazed wi' sorrow, and at times I
hardly know what I'm saying. It's as if speeches folk ha'
made--clever and smart things as I've thought at the time--come
up now my heart's welly brossen. Th' strike's failed as well; dun
yo' know that, miss? I were coming whoam to ask her, like a
beggar as I am, for a bit o' comfort i' that trouble; and I were
knocked down by one who telled me she were dead--just dead That
were all; but that were enough for me.

Mr. Hale blew his nose, and got up to snuff the candles in order
to conceal his emotion. 'He's not an infidel, Margaret; how could
you say so?' muttered he reproachfully 'I've a good mind to read
him the fourteenth chapter of Job.'

'Not yet, papa, I think. Perhaps not at all. Let us ask him about
the strike, and give him all the sympathy he needs, and hoped to
have from poor Bessy.'

So they questioned and listened. The workmen's calculations were
based (like too many of the masters') on false premises. They
reckoned on their fellow-men as if they possessed the calculable
powers of machines, no more, no less; no allowance for human
passions getting the better of reason, as in the case of Boucher
and the rioters; and believing that the representations of their
injuries would have the same effect on strangers far away, as the
injuries (fancied or real) had upon themselves. They were
consequently surprised and indignant at the poor Irish, who had
allowed themselves to be imported and brought over to take their
places. This indignation was tempered, in some degree, by
contempt for 'them Irishers,' and by pleasure at the idea of the
bungling way in which they would set to work, and perplex their
new masters with their ignorance and stupidity, strange
exaggerated stories of which were already spreading through the
town. But the most cruel cut of all was that of the Milton
workmen, who had defied and disobeyed the commands of the Union
to keep the peace, whatever came; who had originated discord in
the camp, and spread the panic of the law being arrayed against
them.

'And so the strike is at an end,' said Margaret.

'Ay, miss. It's save as save can. Th' factory doors will need
open wide to-morrow to let in all who'll be axing for work; if
it's only just to show they'd nought to do wi' a measure, which
if we'd been made o' th' right stuff would ha' brought wages up
to a point they'n not been at this ten year.'

'You'll get work, shan't you?' asked Margaret. 'You're a famous
workman, are not you?'

'Hamper'll let me work at his mill, when he cuts off his right
hand--not before, and not after,' said Nicholas, quietly.
Margaret was silenced and sad.

'About the wages,' said Mr. Hale. 'You'll not be offended, but I
think you make some sad mistakes. I should like to read you some
remarks in a book I have.' He got up and went to his
book-shelves.

'Yo' needn't trouble yoursel', sir,' said Nicholas. 'Their
book-stuff goes in at one ear and out at t'other. I can make
nought on't. Afore Hamper and me had this split, th' overlooker
telled him I were stirring up the men to ask for higher wages;
and Hamper met me one day in th' yard. He'd a thin book i' his
hand, and says he, "Higgins, I'm told you're one of those damned
fools that think you can get higher wages for asking for 'em; ay,
and keep 'em up too, when you've forced 'em up. Now, I'll give
yo' a chance and try if yo've any sense in yo'. Here's a book
written by a friend o' mine, and if yo'll read it yo'll see how
wages find their own level, without either masters or men having
aught to do with them; except the men cut their own throats wi'
striking, like the confounded noodles they are." Well, now, sir,
I put it to yo', being a parson, and having been in th' preaching
line, and having had to try and bring folk o'er to what yo'
thought was a right way o' thinking--did yo' begin by calling 'em
fools and such like, or didn't yo' rayther give 'em some kind
words at first, to make 'em ready for to listen and be convinced,
if they could; and in yo'r preaching, did yo' stop every now and
then, and say, half to them and half to yo'rsel', "But yo're such
a pack o' fools, that I've a strong notion it's no use my trying
to put sense into yo'?" I were not i' th' best state, I'll own,
for taking in what Hamper's friend had to say--I were so vexed at
the way it were put to me;--but I thought, "Come, I'll see what
these chaps has got to say, and try if it's them or me as is th'
noodle." So I took th' book and tugged at it; but, Lord bless
yo', it went on about capital and labour, and labour and capital,
till it fair sent me off to sleep. I ne'er could rightly fix i'
my mind which was which; and it spoke on 'em as if they was
vartues or vices; and what I wanted for to know were the rights
o' men, whether they were rich or poor--so be they only were
men.'

'But for all that,' said Mr. Hale, 'and granting to the full the
offensiveness, the folly, the unchristianness of Mr. Hamper's way
of speaking to you in recommending his friend's book, yet if it
told you what he said it did, that wages find their own level,
and that the most successful strike can only force them up for a
moment, to sink in far greater proportion afterwards, in
consequence of that very strike, the book would have told you the
truth.'

'Well, sir,' said Higgins, rather doggedly; 'it might, or it
might not. There's two opinions go to settling that point. But
suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I
couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on
your shelves; but it's gibberish and not truth to me, unless I
know the meaning o' the words. If yo', sir, or any other
knowledgable, patient man come to me, and says he'll larn me what
the words mean, and not blow me up if I'm a bit stupid, or forget
how one thing hangs on another--why, in time I may get to see the
truth of it; or I may not. I'll not be bound to say I shall end
in thinking the same as any man. And I'm not one who think truth
can be shaped out in words, all neat and clean, as th' men at th'
foundry cut out sheet-iron. Same bones won't go down wi' every
one. It'll stick here i' this man's throat, and there i'
t'other's. Let alone that, when down, it may be too strong for
this one, too weak for that. Folk who sets up to doctor th' world
wi' their truth, mun suit different for different minds; and be a
bit tender in th' way of giving it too, or th' poor sick fools
may spit it out i' their faces. Now Hamper first gi'es me a box
on my ear, and then he throws his big bolus at me, and says he
reckons it'll do me no good, I'm such a fool, but there it is.'

'I wish some of the kindest and wisest of the masters would meet
some of you men, and have a good talk on these things; it would,
surely, be the best way of getting over your difficulties, which,
I do believe, arise from your ignorance--excuse me, Mr.
Higgins--on subjects which it is for the mutual interest of both
masters and men should be well understood by both. I
wonder'--(half to his daughter), 'if Mr. Thornton might not be
induced to do such a thing?'

'Remember, papa,' said she in a very low voice, 'what he said one
day--about governments, you know.' She was unwilling to make any
clearer allusion to the conversation they had held on the mode of
governing work-people--by giving men intelligence enough to rule
themselves, or by a wise despotism on the part of the master--for
she saw that Higgins had caught Mr. Thornton s name, if not the
whole of the speech: indeed, he began to speak of him.

'Thornton! He's the chap as wrote off at once for these Irishers;
and led to th' riot that ruined th' strike. Even Hamper wi' all
his bullying, would ha' waited a while--but it's a word and a
blow wi' Thornton. And, now, when th' Union would ha' thanked him
for following up th' chase after Boucher, and them chaps as went
right again our commands, it's Thornton who steps forrard and
coolly says that, as th' strike's at an end, he, as party
injured, doesn't want to press the charge again the rioters. I
thought he'd had more pluck. I thought he'd ha' carried his
point, and had his revenge in an open way; but says he (one in
court telled me his very words) "they are well known; they will
find the natural punishment of their conduct, in the difficulty
they will meet wi' in getting employment. That will be severe
enough." I only wish they'd cotched Boucher, and had him up
before Hamper. I see th' oud tiger setting on him! would he ha'
let him off? Not he!'

'Mr. Thornton was right,' said Margaret. You are angry against
Boucher, Nicholas; or else you would be the first to see, that
where the natural punishment would be severe enough for the
offence, any farther punishment would be something like revenge.

'My daughter is no great friend of Mr. Thornton's,' said Mr.
Hale, smiling at Margaret; while she, as red as any carnation,
began to work with double diligence, 'but I believe what she says
is the truth. I like him for it.'

'Well, sir, this strike has been a weary piece o' business to me;
and yo'll not wonder if I'm a bit put out wi' seeing it fail,
just for a few men who would na suffer in silence, and hou'd out,
brave and firm.'

'You forget!' said Margaret. 'I don't know much of Boucher; but
the only time I saw him it was not his own sufferings he spoke
of, but those of his sick wife--his little children.'

'True! but he were not made of iron himsel'. He'd ha' cried out
for his own sorrows, next. He were not one to bear.'

'How came he into the Union?' asked Margaret innocently. 'You
don't seem to have much respect for him; nor gained much good
from having him in.'

Higgins's brow clouded. He was silent for a minute or two. Then he
said, shortly enough:

'It's not for me to speak o' th' Union. What they does, they
does. Them that is of a trade mun hang together; and if they're
not willing to take their chance along wi' th' rest, th' Union
has ways and means.'

Mr. Hale saw that Higgins was vexed at the turn the conversation
had taken, and was silent. Not so Margaret, though she saw
Higgins's feeling as clearly as he did. By instinct she felt,
that if he could but be brought to express himself in plain
words, something clear would be gained on which to argue for the
right and the just.

'And what are the Union's ways and means?'

He looked up at her, as if on' the point of dogged resistance to
her wish for information. But her calm face, fixed on his,
patient and trustful, compelled him to answer.

'Well! If a man doesn't belong to th' Union, them as works next
looms has orders not to speak to him--if he's sorry or ill it's
a' the same; he's out o' bounds; he's none o' us; he comes among
us, he works among us, but he's none o' us. I' some places them's
fined who speaks to him. Yo' try that, miss; try living a year or
two among them as looks away if yo' look at 'em; try working
within two yards o' crowds o' men, who, yo' know, have a grinding
grudge at yo' in their hearts--to whom if yo' say yo'r glad, not
an eye brightens, nor a lip moves,--to whom if your heart's
heavy, yo' can never say nought, because they'll ne'er take
notice on your sighs or sad looks (and a man 's no man who'll
groan out loud 'bout folk asking him what 's the matter?)--just
yo' try that, miss--ten hours for three hundred days, and yo'll
know a bit what th' Union is.'

'Why!' said Margaret, 'what tyranny this is! Nay, Higgins, I
don't care one straw for your anger. I know you can't be angry
with me if you would, and I must tell you the truth: that I never
read, in all the history I have read, of a more slow, lingering
torture than this. And you belong to the Union! And you talk of
the tyranny of the masters!'

'Nay,' said Higgins, 'yo' may say what yo' like! The dead stand
between yo and every angry word o' mine. D' ye think I forget
who's lying ~there~, and how hoo loved yo'? And it's th' masters
as has made us sin, if th' Union is a sin. Not this generation
maybe, but their fathers. Their fathers ground our fathers to the
very dust; ground us to powder! Parson! I reckon, I've heerd my
mother read out a text, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and
th' children's teeth are set on edge." It's so wi' them. In those
days of sore oppression th' Unions began; it were a necessity.
It's a necessity now, according to me. It's a withstanding of
injustice, past, present, or to come. It may be like war; along
wi' it come crimes; but I think it were a greater crime to let it
alone. Our only chance is binding men together in one common
interest; and if some are cowards and some are fools, they mun
come along and join the great march, whose only strength is in
numbers.'

'Oh!' said Mr. Hale, sighing, 'your Union in itself would be
beautiful, glorious,--it would be Christianity itself--if it were
but for an end which affected the good of all, instead of that of
merely one class as opposed to another.'

'I reckon it's time for me to be going, sir,' said Higgins, as
the clock struck ten.

'Home?' said Margaret very softly. He understood her, and took
her offered hand. 'Home, miss. Yo' may trust me, tho' I am one o'
th' Union.'

'I do trust you most thoroughly, Nicholas.'

'Stay!' said Mr. Hale, hurrying to the book-shelves. 'Mr.
Higgins! I'm sure you'll join us in family prayer?'

Higgins looked at Margaret, doubtfully. Hey grave sweet eyes met
his; there was no compulsion, only deep interest in them. He did
not speak, but he kept his place.

Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the
Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm. _

Read next: CHAPTER XXIX - A RAY OF SUNSHINE

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