'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.