Robert Barr

“ No, you don’t catch me in Eastbourne for either air or the society, and yet, in a way, it is the society, too, only it doesn’t seem to come off; and here I am stranded, don’t you know, with a coachman and a groom, not to mention a valet, two horses, and one of the smartest carts that ever left London. That’s my turn-out, there. I drive tandem, of course; it’s the only Christian way to drive. Not that I care about the style of it,—I hope I’m above all that sort of thing,—and I’m not to be blamed because so many other fellows do it, don’t you know; I love a tandem for itself alone. ”

“ Every man knew that the flinging of a missile or the upraising of an arm even, would be as a spark in a powder-mill. Let but a stroke fall, and all the police in London could not have saved the life of the man walking across the cleared space from the gates towards the crowd. The mass of silent humanity had but to move forward, and Sartwells life would be crushed out on the paving-stones.
Sartwell, without pause and without hurry, walked across the intervening space with evident confidence that the men would make way for him. ”

“ Sartwell had been drumming lightly with his fingers on the desk top as he spoke; now he reached up and turned off the electric light as if its brilliancy troubled him. The lamp in the centre of the room was sufficient, and it left him in the shadow.
“I suppose there comes a time in the life of every father, when he learns, with something of a shock, that the little girl who has been playing about his knee is a young woman. It is like when a man hears himself alluded to as old for the first time. ”

“ Sartwell, parting with me in anger, hails me on the street, merely because he thinks he can use me to serve his employers. That he likes me no better than he did when I left him, is shown by the sting in his talk, yet he puts down his personal feelings, hoping to win a trick; while Gibbons, the fool, although approached in a friendly way, does his sneaking little best to drive a man over to the enemy. I wonder what Sartwell wants to discover. I’ll tell him nothing; but what a man he is to fight for—or against! ”

“ The shrewd business-man in the City imagines that his keen instincts are all his own; he does not recognize the fact that those admirable attributes which enable him to form a joint-stock company helped an ancestor in the Middle Ages to loot a town, or a highwayman of a later day to relieve a fellow-subject of a full purse on an empty heath.
Edna Sartwell possessed one visible, undeniable, easily recognized token of heredity: she had her father’s eyes, but softened and luminous and disturbingly beautiful—eyes to haunt a man’s dreams. ”

“ A man who robs a bank has some courage, but a man who tempts poverty-stricken wretches to commit the crime, while he stands safely aside and reaps the benefit—there is no decent word in the language to characterize him. Now, men, you know what has been done, and the result is that our treasury is as empty as if Sartwell had broken into it with a jimmy. The manager is waiting expectantly for the reward of his burglary. He will throw the gates of the works open to-morrow for you to enter and complete his triumph. ”

“ Monkton and Hope were timid, cautious, somewhat irresolute men, as capitalists should be all the world over. They had unbounded confidence in their manager, and generally shifted any grave responsibility or unpleasant decision to his shoulders, which bore the burdens placed upon them with equanimity. Sartwell was an iron man, with firm resolute lips, and steely blue eyes that were most disconcerting to any one who had something not quite straight to propose. ”

“ Sartwell nervously clenched his right hand, as if the egg-shell were within it.
“I am sorry for the men, father.”
“So am I, my dear, if they stand out; but it will be their own fault. Experience is said to teach a specified class of individuals, and they are preparing for themselves a bitter dose of it.”
“Will you’ not take him back, even if they hold out?”
“Him? Whom? Oh! Marsten. If they do not come back in a body, I will never allow another Union man to set foot in the works again. But never mind the men; I want to talk about yourself.” ”

“ Then he suddenly shot the question:
“Are you people going to strike?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“Why do you say ‘afraid’? Are you going out with the others, or do you call your soul your own?”
“A man cannot fight the Union single-handed.”
“You are talking to a man who is going to.”
The young man looked up at his master.
“With you it is different,” he said. “You are backed by a wealthy company. Whether you win or lose, your situation is secure. If I failed the Union in a crisis, I could never get another situation.”
Sartwell smiled grimly when the young man mentioned the firm. ”

“ Langly could not have played out of time or tune if he tried. The piano, as Barney had truly said, was a splendid instrument, and when the gay waltz music filled the large room, each couple began to float lightly over the polished floor. The musician played on and on, mechanically yet brilliantly, and in the pauses between the dances more than one of the guests spoke to their host of the music’s excellence.
“Oh, yes,” said Barney, with a jaunty wave of the hand, “he’s one of my finds. The man’s a genius, don’t you know, and is in music what I am myself in painting.” ”

“ The jubilant young man, suddenly abandoning the hands that were thus promised him, clasped the girl to him and kissed her. It is a remarkable thing that a man often attains celebrity for doing something that hundreds of others do better, while the world remains ignorant of performances that are really entitled to fame. As Barney threw one arm around Lady Mary’s waist, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the big dog spring at his throat. Yet the young man kissed the girl as tenderly and as gently as if nothing particular were happening on the other side of him ”

“ Marsten sat down with Edna Sartwell opposite him in the still seclusion of the remotest depths of that walled garden. He would not have exchanged his place for one in Paradise, and he thought his lucky stars were fighting for him. But it is fated that every man must pay for his pleasure sooner or later, and Marsten promptly discovered that fate required of him cash down. ”

“ You see, Edna, in the pictures of a battle, we always have the horses galloping, the men firing, or being shot, or cutting down their enemies with the sword; but we rarely get a view of the background, and so people sometimes do not know that it exists: yet the picture shows merely the front of the fight, as it were, while battles are often won by perfect arrangements in the rear,—the supply of ammunition, the food and water carriers and all that sort of thing. Well, a strike is like a battle; there are other things to consider than the actual fighting, and these things often decide the day. ”

“ Marsten secretary of this Union.
“Now, gentlemen, I am a plain man, who does not think himself any better than the average. I do not look for angels with wings among my fellow-workers; I look for plain, every-day motives when trying to trace cause from effect. It is not natural for a man to beg for a reduction of his screw unless that man is an angel, or unless there is some hidden cause for his doing so. We strike to increase our wages, and I have never heard of a deputation of workingmen waiting on an employer to ask for a reduction. ”

“ I have fought Gibbons, beaten him, insulted him, trampled him under foot, yet, to-day, Gibbons loathes Marsten while he respects me, as such a man always respects one who has knocked him down. Now you will be surprised to hear that I have taken Gibbons into my employ, and am giving him better wages than he has ever received in his life before. More than that, when he recommends a man, I promote that man, and it is getting to be generally understood that Gibbons has much influence with the manager. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII. Braunt and Marsten passed from the dimness of Rose Garden Court into the brilliancy of Light Street, which on certain nights in the week was like one prolonged fair, each side being lined with heaped-up coster’s barrows, radiant with flaring gasoline. Incense was being burned—evil-smelling incense—to the God of Cheapness. Hordes of women, down at the heel, were bargaining with equally impecunious venders—meeting and chaffering on the common level of poverty. ”

“ You think you have only the masters and capital to fight. The masters won’t hurt you; it’s the men you’re fighting for that will down you. Wait till your head is an inch above the crowd, then you’ll catch it from the sticks of every rotten one of them that thinks he’s got as much right as you have to be in command. It isn’t money that helps the masters, it’s because they’ve the sense to know a good man when they see him, and to stand by him when they’ve got him. ”

“ I should like to be one thing or the other if I were in your place, Marsten.”
“I am one thing. I am entirely with the men.”
“Perhaps in that case you are afraid to be seen talking with me. Some of the men might happen to pass this way.”
“I am not afraid to be seen speaking with anybody, Mr. Sartwell.”
“Ah, you are young; therefore you are brave. I have known a smaller thing than this conversation to cost a man his life, but perhaps times and methods have changed since my early days. It is a pity you are on the wrong side for your bravery to be appreciated. ”

“ While he shouted Braunt tore his way through the crowd, and at last reached the knot in the jam where further progress was impossible. Here he stood, and by the simple power of his arms lifted girl after girl straight up, and hurled them over the heads of those in front into Sartwell’s arms, who pushed them on down the stairs.
“For God’s sake, Scimmins,” cried Sartwell, who from his position could see the fear-demented man pressing the crowd on Braunt and hampering him, “be a man, and stand back! Don’t fight! There’s time for all to get out.” ”

“ None of us grows younger, but the dead. I suppose a daughter is as blind to her father’s growing old, as he to her advancing womanhood. But we won’t talk of my age. We are welcoming the coming, rather than speeding the going, to-night. You and I, Edna, must realize that we, in a measure, begin life on a new line with each other. We are both grown-up people. ”

“ People chance everything. Nothing is so important to a man as the solemn, prayerful choice of a wife, for on that choice rests the misery or the happiness of this life. A woman’s great duty—at least it seems so to my poor judgment—is to bring light, comfort, and joy, to her husband’s home. Do you think Edna Sartwell is fitted by temperament or education for this noble task? ”

“ Barney had gulped down his stimulant, and now paced up and down the room, clearing a track for himself by kicking things out of the way. Haldiman sat in a deep armchair, his legs stretched out, and his hands in his pockets, watching his friend’s energetic march to and fro.
“The artistic profession,” cried the pedestrian, “has been held up to the scorn of the world since painting began. Read any novel, and you will see that, if the heroine is to make a doocedly bad marriage, she invariably falls in love with an artist—invariably.” ”

“ Marsten was silent, the colour rising in his face.
“Of course,” continued Gibbons, calmly, “you are not compelled to answer. I am merely asking what many of us have been thinking. You either know, or you do not. You have called this meeting, and I think you should have the courtesy to answer any question—any reasonable question—asked you. You say you want the support of the men, whose servant you are. That is a reasonable desire; but to bestow that confidence we must have full knowledge of our man. I ask for the second time, do you know why Sartwell discharged you?” ”

“ Barney drove his spirited horses with perhaps less than his customary dash, a chastened dignity taking the place of the exuberant confidence which generally distinguished him. The bracing air, the rapid motion, the feeling of controlling destiny that a man has when he is driving a tandem, all failed to raise his spirits, as might have been expected; for the very fact that he was driving alone emphasized his disappointment, and made this world the hollow mockery it sometimes seems to the most cheerful of us. ”

“ Sartwell sat down, buried her face in her hands, and wept softly, as one does whose tenderest feelings are wounded. It was hard that, after having a lifelong contest with one stubborn person, resulting in a most uncertain and unsatisfactory victory,—if it could be called a victory at all,—she should be called upon to face the same problem over again. She knew that if Edna appealed to her father anything might happen. He would be brute enough to take another house somewhere, and live in peace with his daughter. ”

“ We are all of us in danger every moment of our lives, and saved from it by merciful interposition and not by any virtue of our puny efforts. How often, how often have I made my poor endeavour to impress this great truth on your father’s mind, only to be met with scorn and scoffing, as if scorn and scoffing would avail on the Last——Why are you acting so, Edna? You pace up and down the room in a way that is—I regret to say it—most unladylike. ”

“ At last Marsten spoke:
“I could not lead the delegation, being one of the youngest in the employ of the firm. The secretary of the Union is the leader the men have chosen.”
“Ah! The secretary of the Union. That is quite a different matter. He is not in my employ. I cannot allow outsiders to interfere in any business with which I am connected. I am always willing to receive my own men, either singly or in deputation, and that is no small matter where so many men are at work; but if I am to open my office doors to the outside world—well, life is too short. ”