cleaned pair of gloves in all her wardrobe.
And now—!"

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

MARGARET went out heavily and unwillingly
enough.  But the length of a street—yes, the
air of a Milton street—cheered her young
blood before she reached her first turning.
Her step grew lighter, her lip redder.  She
began to take notice, instead of having her
thoughts turned so exclusively inward.  She
saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men
with their hands in their pockets sauntering
along; loud-laughing and loud-spoken girls
clustered together, apparently excited to high
spirits, and a boisterous independence of
temper and behaviour.  The more ill-looking
of the men—the discreditable minority—hung
about on the steps of the beer-houses and
gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty
freely on every passer-by.  Margaret disliked
the prospect of the long walk through these
streets before she came to the fields which
she had planned to reach.  Instead, she
would go and see Bessy Higgins.  It would
not be so refreshing as a quiet country walk,
but still it would perhaps be doing the kinder
thing.

Nicholas Higgins was sitting by the fire
smoking, as she went in.  Bessy was rocking
herself on the other side.

Nicholas took his pipe out of his mouth,
and standing up, pushed his chair towards
Margaret; he leant against the chimney-piece
in a lounging attitude, while she asked Bessy
how she was.

"Hoo's rather down i' th' mouth in regard
to spirits, but hoo's better in health.  Hoo
doesn't like this strike.  Hoo's a deal too much
set on peace and quietness at any price."

"This is th' third strike I've seen," said
she, sighing, as if that was answer and
explanation enough.

"Well, third time pays for all.  See if we
don't dang th' masters this time.  See if they
don't come, and beg us to come back at our
own price.  That's all.  We've missed it afore-
time, I grant yo; but this time we'n laid
our plans desperate deep."

"Why do you strike?" asked Margaret.
"Striking is leaving off work till you get your
own rate of wages, is it not?  You must not
wonder at my ignorance; where I come from
I never heard of a strike."

"I wish I were there," said Bessy, wearily.
"But it's not for me to get sick and tired o'
strikes.  This is the last I'll see.  Before it's
ended I shall be in the Great City—the Holy
Jerusalem."

"Hoo's so full of the life to come, hoo cannot
think of the present.  Now I, yo see,
am bound to do the best I can here.  I think
a bird i' th' hand is worth two i' th' bush.
So them's the different views we take on th'
strike question."

"But," said Margaret, "if the people struck,
as you call it, where I come from, as they are
mostly all field-labourers, the seed would not
be sown, the hay got in, the corn reaped."

"Well?" said he.  He had resumed his
pipe, and put his "well" in the form of an
interrogation.

"Why," she went on, "what would
become of the farmers?"

He puffed away.  "I reckon, they'd have
either to give up their farms, or to-give fair
rate of wage."

"Suppose they could not, or would not do
the last; they could not give up their farms
all in a minute, however much they might
wish to do so; but they would have no hay,
nor corn to sell that year; and where would
the money come from to pay the labourers'
wages the next?"

Still puffing away.  At last he said :—

"I know nought of your ways down South.
I have heerd they're a pack of spiritless,
down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death;
too much dazed wi' clemming to know when
they're put upon.  Now, it's not so here.
We known when we're put upon; and we'n
too much blood in us to stand it.  We just
take our hands fro' our looms, and say, 'Yo
may clem us, but yo'll not put upon us, my
masters!'  And be danged to 'em, they shan't
this time!"

"I wish I lived down South," said Bessy.

"There's a deal to bear there," said Margaret.
"There are sorrows to bear everywhere.
There is very hard bodily labour to
be gone through, with very little food to give
strength."

"But it's out of doors," said Bessy.  "And
away from the endless, endless noise, and
sickening heat.''

"It's sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes
in bitter cold.  A young person can
stand it; but an old man gets racked with
rheumatism, and bent and withered before
his time; yet he must just work on the same,
or else go to the workhouse."

"I thought yo were so taken wi' the ways
of the South country."

"So I am," said Margaret, smiling a little,
as she found herself thus caught.  "I only
mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything
in this world; and as you felt the bad
up here, I thought it was but fair you should
know the bad down there."

"And yo say they never strike down there?"
asked Nicholas abruptly.

"No!" said Margaret; "I think they have
too much sense."

"An' I think," replied he, dashing the
ashes out of his pipe with so much vehemence
that it broke, "that it's not that they've too
much sense, but that they've too little spirit."

"Oh father! " said Bessy, "what have ye
gained by striking?  Think of that first strike
when mother died—how we all had to clem
you the worst of all; and yet many a one
went in every week at the same wage, till all
were gone in that there was work for; and
some went beggars all their lives at after."