North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (classic literature books .txt) 📖

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 workpeople—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