Harold Brighouse

“ MARTIN. Oh, you needn't scruple. Life's no use to a weaver in Barlow's factory, and my work is finished now.
GUY (to Ruth) . Give it him back.
RUTH. You'll fight together if I do.
GUY. Do as I tell you, Ruth.
(Ruth holds out the pistol to Martin, who doesn't take it.)
MARTIN. I warn you this is murder.
GUY. You shouldn't carry firearms if you're not competent to use them.
MARTIN. The murder is of you. This is my night, Guy Barlow. You've had the power to starve and sweat the weavers of the valley, but the tide has turned at last. ”

“ RUTH. Oh, no, it's not. You can't deceive me, Martin. I know this is the meeting-place. I heard you all say so last night. The moors below the quarry. Are the men there, Martin?
MARTIN. There are men there. Listen.
(Faintly, the strains of the Marseillaise are heard from below l., and with them the barking of dogs.)
The song that Henri Callard brought from France and made into an English song to put the spirit of a revolution into us. The song of life and hope.
RUTH. No, Martin, the song of death.
MARTIN. Perhaps it is, for Barlow's bullies at the factory.
RUTH. Martin, don't go. ”

“ ELSIE (contemptuously) . Leo! That weakling.
JACK. He may be, but he's got a brain.
ELSIE. You're twenty times the cleverer.
JACK. Then I'm good for something better than football. I'm up in football now as high as I can get. I used to dream of being called the finest player in the League. They've called me that these last two seasons and my dream's grown bigger. I'm honoured for my play. I'd like to gain some honour now for work.
ELSIE. You've just told me football is work.
JACK. I mean brain work. A footballer's a labouring man. And I want you, Elsie. ”

“ ZACK. Aye. As I am I'm wrong, and I know I'm wrong. But I might not be so wrong in Canada. I've never had a chance afore, and this thing's grown on me a bit. I've wanted my chance, and it looked like I was getting it. You never know what a foreign country will do for a man, and Canada began to look a chance to me. I'd hopes of Canada. And now you say I'm not to marry Martha, and I'll never get a chance again.
MARTHA. I'd rather marry Mr. Paul, if he's willing, Zack.
VIRGINIA. He's willing.
ZACK. Maybe you're right, Martha. Paul's a bigger man than me and I mustn't be selfish. ”

“ GUY. If I'm boss, listen to me. I've told you I believe in factories.
MARTIN. And I tell you you'll have no factory to believe in. We're tired of machinery.
GUY. The machines are going on. Factories are going on. It's my life's work to push them on.
HENRI. Then look to your life.
GUY. The system's going on. It may break men in the making. It may break me. But, by God, I'll break you first. Ideas are greater than men. They conquer men. You can burn and kill and scotch the system here, but the idea will go on in spite of you and anything you rioters can do to us. ”

“ Have I no chance?
MATTHEW. A chance of what? Of taking Ruth from here, where she's all a woman wants, and making her starve alongside of you and expecting her to go into the factory to help you to make a livelihood. My daughter's not for your sort, my lad.
RUTH. I told him that.
MARTIN. Yes, you told me, but I haven't finished hoping yet.
MATTHEW. If you're hoping for a wife to work for you, you've come to the wrong shop this time.
MARTIN. You're a proud man, Mr. Butterworth, and, Ruth, you're proud and all. I'm just a weaver lad that loves you and 'ud work till I drop for you. ”

“ JACK. You've a fine sweet way of putting things. I just go funny-like all over and the words won't come. But I love you, lass, I love you. I'll be a good husband to you.
ELSIE. It's heaven to hear you say you love me. I want no sweeter words to come than those, I don't deserve it, Jack. Who am I? Elsie Whitworth. Nothing. And you're the grandest, strongest player of your time.
JACK (rising) . You think too much of football, Elsie.
ELSIE. That's impossible.
JACK. You do. Football's as good a way as another of earning a week's wages, but that's all it is. ”

“ EPHRAIM. Eh? Well, no. What's mine isn't thine. We've each to make a profit for ourselves. But we get the profit out of weaving, and your weavers are fractious; so are ours.
JOHN. But mine aren't—or not to anything like the extent yours are.
EPHRAIM. I'm told the grumbling is universal.
JOHN. It's general up to a point, but there's a dead set at you.
EPHRAIM. At me?
JOHN. Well, no, not at you, Barlow. It's this young gentleman who's the mischief-maker.
GUY. The mischief-maker, Mr. Heppenstall?
JOHN (defending himself) . You reduced wages. ”

“ To-morrow night we'll meet up on the moors and march down on the factory.
HENRI. I said I'd hear you frozen English sing the Marseillaise.
RUTH. The moors!
MATTHEW. It's not a lawful thing to meet like that. Joe. Lawful! Who cares for the laws of London here? I'd take the Luddites' oath to-night, and that's an oath no man can dare to break.
MARTIN. Swear by your vacant concave belly, man. (Tapping Joe's stomach.) You'll find no stronger oath than that.
MATTHEW. They'll have the law of you.
MARTIN. The law doesn't care for us. The law lets us starve. ”

“ MARTIN. Rebuilding!
GUY. Why, did you think we'd sit down still and mourn? You will not live to see it, Kelsall, but there will be a grand new factory in six months' time. There'll be machines which eat up work as if they liked it. Machines to do the work of many men. They're cunning things, those new machines. They are not rebellious and a little child can guide them by the hand. Kelsall, I think a factory should have a name. I shall call mine the Phoenix Factory, because it's going to rise more glorious upon the ashes you have sown. ”

“ JACK. It's a big house, lass. You'll find less breathing space in my seven-and-six a week house in a row, with my mother in it, and all.
ELSIE (pulling him to the arm-chair and sitting herself on its arm) . I've thought it all out, Jack. It won't be a house in a row. There are moors round Birchester, and we're going to live outside the town in a dinky little cottage where the air will always keep you at the top of your form, and I shall have a garden to look after and be handy for the links. I'm going to teach you golf. I shall drop hockey when I'm married. Married life demands sacrifices. ”

“ GUY. By night? We should lose money. There would be you to pay, and weaving by candlelight is expensive.
EPHRAIM. Then let us lose money. I will carry out my contracts. And—think of the weavers, Guy.
GUY. Let them starve.
EPHRAIM. I won't. I will hang the leaders. But the rest shall live.
GUY. They will live somehow. When we want them again, they will be there. Meantime, they shall be punished.
EPHRAIM. I say they shall not, and by our good friend's help they need not be.
GUY. Our good friend is to run his factory by day and night and take his profit out of us. ”

“ ELSIE. That's why I mean to teach you golf. Don't I tell you I have thought about it, Jack? You're going to be as brilliant at golf as now you are at football. I'll never lose my pride in you, your huge, hard muscles and your clean fit body.
JACK. It's a great thing to be strong and master of your strength.
ELSIE. Your splendid strength! Your swiftness and your grace.
JACK. But it's a greater to be clever, and I'd give up all my strength if I could write a poem like the one your brother wrote in the Blackton Evening Times. ”

“ GUY. Your men or mine?
MARTIN. The men you've driven desperate. The starving, ragged men with wives and children hunger-mad, with everything to win and nowt to lose. It's men like that that win. Men with the choice of fighting hard or dying slow. Men with a bitter hatred in their hearts and knowledge in their heads that machinery's the cause of all. Men fighting for themselves against the men that fight for money and for you. ”

“ EDMUND. You've a good opinion of yourself, I notice, Mr. Metherell.
JACK. Blackton Rovers without me aren't a team at all. They're certain to be beaten.
AUSTIN. You say that as if you don't mind if they are.
JACK. I belong to Birchester now, Mr. Whitworth.
AUSTIN. Come, Metherell, you've belonged to Birchester for half a day. You belonged to Blackton for five years. This match can make no difference to Birchester. They're half way up the list. It's critical for Blackton. You've played all these years for Blackton and you've thought Blackton all your life. ”

“ MARTHA. Sally.
ZACK. Eh, Martha, Sally's a decent body. She'd never insult nobody.
MARTHA. Are you going to take her side against me? Zack. I've not seen anything to take anybody's side about as yet.
SALLY. She says I'm jealous and she'll take it back.
MARTHA. I won't. As true as true, you are.
SALLY. I'm not.
MARTHA. You are.
SALLY. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.
(Zack rises, comes between, puts finger in mouth and whistles.)
SALLY. I'm not.
ZACK. That's enough, lass. Whistle's gone. I'm referee and I look at it like this. You can't both be right. ”

“ MATTHEW. If you'd not reduced wages, maybe we'd not be here.
EPHRAIM. That's it, is it?
JOE. Yes, that's it.
EPHRAIM. Will it make you happy if I put the wages up again?
MARTIN. It won't make us happy. There's been no happy weavers since machines came in.
JOHN. Is that what you want? Wages back at the old level?
MARTIN. No. We want more. The old level isn't good enough. Eight shillings a week won't keep a man, let alone a man's family.
EPHRAIM. We give your families work. You men aren't the only wage-earners. Even your children can come to us and be paid. ”

“ FLORENCE. In England? In the twentieth century? Leo. These quaint old customs linger. Half the world doesn't know how the other half thinks.
AUSTIN (who has been looking on amazed) . But aren't you horrified?
LEO. At his asking? No. Merely interested in the survival of an archaism.
AUSTIN. At his selling a match, man!
LEO. A man who would ask papa is capable of anything.
ELSIE. He's not capable of dishonesty.
AUSTIN. Oh, you're blind with love.
ELSIE. I have his word.
AUSTIN (scoffing) . His word!
ELSIE. Yes. Jack Metherell's word. The word of the man I'm going to marry. ”

“ GUY. A flaming factory's the alternative.
EPHRAIM. Pass me the paper.
(Sits at table and writes, John bending over him. Guy goes to fireplace, takes a pair of spurs from mantel and straps them on. Ruth follows him.)
RUTH. Guy, must you ride yourself? Can't you send somebody you trust?
GUY (grimly) . I'm sending somebody I trust.
RUTH. It's dangerous.
GUY. Rioting's a dangerous pastime—for the rioters.
RUTH (appealingly) . But soldiers in the valley, Guy! You'll never be forgiven. It always will be war between you and the weavers if you bring soldiers here. They'll be revenged. ”

“ AUSTIN. He's invaluable. If ever there was a one-man team, that team is ours. I've seen the others stand around and watch Metherell win matches by himself. But to-day money is more essential than the man.
EDMUND. I'm still puzzled. Is football a business then?
AUSTIN. Of course. That's the worst of burying yourself in London. You never know anything. Football clubs to-day are limited companies.
EDMUND. I fancy I had heard that.
AUSTIN. Well, broadly speaking, and not so broadly either, I am the limited company that runs Blackton Rovers. You never cared for sport. I was always keen. ”

“ RUTH. But this isn't politics, mother. It's poetry. (Mary sniffs.) The Corsair. Lord Byron's poem.
MARY. I've heard of him and nothing good neither.
RUTH. Nothing good! Why, mother, he——
MARY. A lot of things, I dare say. Well, I've gone for fifty years without the power of reading and I reckon I'll go through without it to the end. I've no time to be idle.
RUTH. I've no time to be anything else.
MARY. You've taken to being a lady like a duck to water. Lazybones is the name I'd give you if you were still Ruth Butterworth, but I suppose this vain life is right for Mrs. Guy Barlow. ”