'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'en 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, 'it's not that they've too much
sense, but that they've too little spirit.' 'O, 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.' 'Ay,' said he. 'That there strike was badly managed. Folk got
into th' management of it, as were either fools or not true men.
Yo'll see, it'll be different this time.' 'But all this time you've not told me what you're striking for,'
said Margaret, again.