_ CHAPTER XV - MASTERS AND MEN
'Thought fights with thought;
out springs a spark of truth
From the collision of the sword and shield.'
W. S. LANDOR.
'Margaret,' said her father, the next day, 'we must return Mrs.
Thornton's call. Your mother is not very well, and thinks she
cannot walk so far; but you and I will go this afternoon.'
As they went, Mr. Hale began about his wife's health, with a kind
of veiled anxiety, which Margaret was glad to see awakened at
last.
'Did you consult the doctor, Margaret? Did you send for him?'
'No, papa, you spoke of his corning to see me. Now I was well.
But if I only knew of some good doctor, I would go this
afternoon, and ask him to come, for I am sure mamma is seriously
indisposed.'
She put the truth thus plainly and strongly because her father
had so completely shut his mind against the idea, when she had
last named her fears. But now the case was changed. He answered
in a despondent tone:
'Do you think she has any hidden complaint? Do you think she is
really very ill? Has Dixon said anything? Oh, Margaret! I am
haunted by the fear that our coming to Milton has killed her. My
poor Maria!'
'Oh, papa! don't imagine such things,' said Margaret, shocked.
'She is not well, that is all. Many a one is not well for a time;
and with good advice gets better and stronger than ever.'
'But has Dixon said anything about her?'
'No! You know Dixon enjoys making a mystery out of trifles; and
she has been a little mysterious about mamma's health, which has
alarmed me rather, that is all. Without any reason, I dare say.
You know, papa, you said the other day I was getting fanciful.'
'I hope and trust you are. But don't think of what I said then. I
like you to be fanciful about your mother's health. Don't be
afraid of telling me your fancies. I like to hear them, though, I
dare say, I spoke as if I was annoyed. But we will ask Mrs.
Thornton if she can tell us of a good doctor. We won't throw away
our money on any but some one first-rate. Stay, we turn up this
street.' The street did not look as if it could contain any house
large enough for Mrs. Thornton's habitation. Her son's presence
never gave any impression as to the kind of house he lived in;
but, unconsciously, Margaret had imagined that tall, massive,
handsomely dressed Mrs. Thornton must live in a house of the same
character as herself. Now Marlborough Street consisted of long
rows of small houses, with a blank wall here and there; at least
that was all they could see from the point at which they entered
it.
'He told me he lived in Marlborough Street, I'm sure,' said Mr.
Hale, with a much perplexed air.
'Perhaps it is one of the economies he still practises, to live
in a very small house. But here are plenty of people about; let
me ask.'
She accordingly inquired of a passer-by, and was informed that
Mr. Thornton lived close to the mill, and had the factory
lodge-door pointed out to her, at the end of the long dead wall
they had noticed.
The lodge-door was like a common garden-door; on one side of it
were great closed gates for the ingress and egress of lurries and
wagons. The lodge-keeper admitted them into a great oblong yard,
on one side of which were offices for the transaction of
business; on the opposite, an immense many-windowed mill, whence
proceeded the continual clank of machinery and the long groaning
roar of the steam-engine, enough to deafen those who lived within
the enclosure. Opposite to the wall, along which the street ran,
on one of the narrow sides of the oblong, was a handsome
stone-coped house,--blackened, to be sure, by the smoke, but with
paint, windows, and steps kept scrupulously clean. It was
evidently a house which had been built some fifty or sixty years.
The stone facings--the long, narrow windows, and the number of
them--the flights of steps up to the front door, ascending from
either side, and guarded by railing--all witnessed to its age.
Margaret only wondered why people who could afford to live in so
good a house, and keep it in such perfect order, did not prefer a
much smaller dwelling in the country, or even some suburb; not in
the continual whirl and din of the factory. Her unaccustomed ears
could hardly catch her father's voice, as they stood on the steps
awaiting the opening of the door. The yard, too, with the great
doors in the dead wall as a boundary, was but a dismal look-out
for the sitting-rooms of the house--as Margaret found when they
had mounted the old-fashioned stairs, and been ushered into the
drawing-room, the three windows of which went over the front door
and the room on the right-hand side of the entrance. There was no
one in the drawing-room. It seemed as though no one had been in
it since the day when the furniture was bagged up with as much
care as if the house was to be overwhelmed with lava, and
discovered a thousand years hence. The walls were pink and gold;
the pattern on the carpet represented bunches of flowers on a
light ground, but it was carefully covered up in the centre by a
linen drugget, glazed and colourless. The window-curtains were
lace; each chair and sofa had its own particular veil of netting,
or knitting. Great alabaster groups occupied every flat surface,
safe from dust under their glass shades. In the middle of the
room, right under the bagged-up chandelier, was a large circular
table, with smartly-bound books arranged at regular intervals
round the circumference of its polished surface, like
gaily-coloured spokes of a wheel. Everything reflected light,
nothing absorbed it. The whole room had a painfully spotted,
spangled, speckled look about it, which impressed Margaret so
unpleasantly that she was hardly conscious of the peculiar
cleanliness required to keep everything so white and pure in such
an atmosphere, or of the trouble that must be willingly expended
to secure that effect of icy, snowy discomfort. Wherever she
looked there was evidence of care and labour, but not care and
labour to procure ease, to help on habits of tranquil home
employment; solely to ornament, and then to preserve ornament
from dirt or destruction.
They had leisure to observe, and to speak to each other in low
voices, before Mrs. Thornton appeared. They were talking of what
all the world might hear; but it is a common effect of such a
room as this to make people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken
the unused echoes.
At last Mrs. Thornton came in, rustling in handsome black silk,
as was her wont; her muslins and laces rivalling, not excelling,
the pure whiteness of the muslins and netting of the room.
Margaret explained how it was that her mother could not accompany
them to return Mrs. Thornton's call; but in her anxiety not to
bring back her father's fears too vividly, she gave but a
bungling account, and left the impression on Mrs. Thornton's mind
that Mrs. Hale's was some temporary or fanciful fine-ladyish
indisposition, which might have been put aside had there been a
strong enough motive; or that if it was too severe to allow her
to come out that day, the call might have been deferred.
Remembering, too, the horses to her carriage, hired for her own
visit to the Hales, and how Fanny had been ordered to go by Mr.
Thornton, in order to pay every respect to them, Mrs. Thornton
drew up slightly offended, and gave Margaret no sympathy--indeed,
hardly any credit for the statement of her mother's
indisposition.
'How is Mr. Thornton?' asked Mr. Hale. 'I was afraid he was not
well, from his hurried note yesterday.'
'My son is rarely ill; and when he is, he never speaks about it,
or makes it an excuse for not doing anything. He told me he could
not get leisure to read with you last night, sir. He regretted
it, I am sure; he values the hours spent with you.'
'I am sure they are equally agreeable to me,' said Mr. Hale. 'It
makes me feel young again to see his enjoyment and appreciation
of all that is fine in classical literature.'
'I have no doubt the classics are very desirable for people who
have leisure. But, I confess, it was against my judgment that my
son renewed his study of them. The time and place in which he
lives, seem to me to require all his energy and attention.
Classics may do very well for men who loiter away their lives in
the country or in colleges; but Milton men ought to have their
thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of to-day. At least,
that is my opinion.' This last clause she gave out with 'the
pride that apes humility.'
'But, surely, if the mind is too long directed to one object
only, it will get stiff and rigid, and unable to take in many
interests,' said Margaret.
'I do not quite understand what you mean by a mind getting stiff
and rigid. Nor do I admire those whirligig characters that are
full of this thing to-day, to be utterly forgetful of it in their
new interest to-morrow. Having many interests does not suit the
life of a Milton manufacturer. It is, or ought to be, enough for
him to have one great desire, and to bring all the purposes of
his life to bear on the fulfilment of that.'
'And that is--?' asked Mr. Hale.
Her sallow cheek flushed, and her eye lightened, as she answered:
'To hold and maintain a high, honourable place among the
merchants of his country--the men of his town. Such a place my
son has earned for himself. Go where you will--I don't say in
England only, but in Europe--the name of John Thornton of Milton
is known and respected amongst all men of business. Of course, it
is unknown in the fashionable circles,' she continued,
scornfully.
'Idle gentlemen and ladies are not likely to know much of a
Milton manufacturer, unless he gets into parliament, or marries a
lord's daughter.' Both Mr. Hale and Margaret had an uneasy,
ludicrous consciousness that they had never heard of this great
name, until Mr. Bell had written them word that Mr. Thornton
would be a good friend to have in Milton. The proud mother's
world was not their world of Harley Street gentilities on the one
hand, or country clergymen and Hampshire squires on the other.
Margaret's face, in spite of all her endeavours to keep it simply
listening in its expression told the sensitive Mrs. Thornton this
feeling of hers.
'You think you never heard of this wonderful son of mine, Miss
Hale. You think I'm an old woman whose ideas are bounded by
Milton, and whose own crow is the whitest ever seen.'
'No,' said Margaret, with some spirit. 'It may be true, that I
was thinking I had hardly heard Mr. Thornton's name before I came
to Milton. But since I have come here, I have heard enough to
make me respect and admire him, and to feel how much justice and
truth there is in what you have said of him.'
'Who spoke to you of him?' asked Mrs. Thornton, a little
mollified, yet jealous lest any one else's words should not have
done him full justice. Margaret hesitated before she replied. She
did not like this authoritative questioning. Mr. Hale came in, as
he thought, to the rescue.
'It was what Mr. Thornton said himself, that made us know the
kind of man he was. Was it not, Margaret?'
Mrs. Thornton drew herself up, and said--
'My son is not the one to tell of his own doings. May I again ask
you, Miss Hale, from whose account you formed your favourable
opinion of him? A mother is curious and greedy of commendation of
her children, you know.'
Margaret replied, 'It was as much from what Mr. Thornton withheld
of that which we had been told of his previous life by Mr.
Bell,--it was more that than what he said, that made us all feel
what reason you have to be proud of him.'
'Mr. Bell! What can he know of John? He, living a lazy life in a
drowsy college. But I'm obliged to you, Miss Hale. Many a missy
young lady would have shrunk from giving an old woman the
pleasure of hearing that her son was well spoken of.'
'Why?' asked Margaret, looking straight at Mrs. Thornton, in
bewilderment.
'Why! because I suppose they might have consciences that told
them how surely they were making the old mother into an advocate
for them, in case they had any plans on the son's heart.'
She smiled a grim smile, for she had been pleased by Margaret's
frankness; and perhaps she felt that she had been asking
questions too much as if she had a right to catechise. Margaret
laughed outright at the notion presented to her; laughed so
merrily that it grated on Mrs. Thornton's ear, as if the words
that called forth that laugh, must have been utterly and entirely
ludicrous. Margaret stopped her merriment as soon as she saw Mrs.
Thornton's annoyed look.
'I beg your pardon, madam. But I really am very much obliged to
you for exonerating me from making any plans on Mr. Thornton's
heart.'
'Young ladies have, before now,' said Mrs. Thornton, stiffly.
'I hope Miss Thornton is well,' put in Mr. Hale, desirous of
changing the current of the conversation.
'She is as well as she ever is. She is not strong,' replied Mrs.
Thornton, shortly.
'And Mr. Thornton? I suppose I may hope to see him on Thursday?'
'I cannot answer for my son's engagements. There is some
uncomfortable work going on in the town; a threatening of a
strike. If so, his experience and judgment will make him much
consulted by his friends. But I should think he could come on
Thursday. At any rate, I am sure he will let you know if he
cannot.'
'A strike!' asked Margaret. 'What for? What are they going to
strike for?'
'For the mastership and ownership of other people's property,'
said Mrs. Thornton, with a fierce snort. 'That is what they
always strike for. If my son's work-people strike, I will only
say they are a pack of ungrateful hounds. But I have no doubt
they will.'
'They are wanting higher wages, I suppose?' asked Mr. Hale.
'That is the face of the thing. But the truth is, they want to be
masters, and make the masters into slaves on their own ground.
They are always trying at it; they always have it in their minds
and every five or six years, there comes a struggle between
masters and men. They'll find themselves mistaken this time, I
fancy,--a little out of their reckoning. If they turn out, they
mayn't find it so easy to go in again. I believe, the masters
have a thing or two in their heads which will teach the men not
to strike again in a hurry, if they try it this time.'
'Does it not make the town very rough?' asked Margaret.
'Of course it does. But surely you are not a coward, are you?
Milton is not the place for cowards. I have known the time when I
have had to thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men,
all swearing they would have Makinson's blood as soon as he
ventured to show his nose out of his factory; and he, knowing
nothing of it, some one had to go and tell him, or he was a dead
man, and it needed to be a woman,--so I went. And when I had got
in, I could not get out. It was as much as my life was worth. So
I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to
drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the
factory doors. And I would have lifted those heavy stones, and
dropped them with as good an aim as the best man there, but that
I fainted with the heat I had gone through. If you live in
Milton, you must learn to have a brave heart, Miss Hale.'
'I would do my best,' said Margaret rather pale. 'I do not know
whether I am brave or not till I am tried; but I am afraid I
should be a coward.'
'South country people are often frightened by what our Darkshire
men and women only call living and struggling. But when you've
been ten years among a people who are always owing their betters
a grudge, and only waiting for an opportunity to pay it off,
you'll know whether you are a coward or not, take my word for
it.'
Mr. Thornton came that evening to Mr. Hale's. He was shown up
into the drawing-room, where Mr. Hale was reading aloud to his
wife and daughter.
'I am come partly to bring you a note from my mother, and partly
to apologise for not keeping to my time yesterday. The note
contains the address you asked for; Dr. Donaldson.'
'Thank you!' said Margaret, hastily, holding out her hand to take
the note, for she did not wish her mother to hear that they had
been making any inquiry about a doctor. She was pleased that Mr.
Thornton seemed immediately to understand her feeling; he gave
her the note without another word of explanation. Mr. Hale began
to talk about the strike. Mr. Thornton's face assumed a likeness
to his mother's worst expression, which immediately repelled the
watching Margaret.
'Yes; the fools will have a strike. Let them. It suits us well
enough. But we gave them a chance. They think trade is
flourishing as it was last year. We see the storm on the horizon
and draw in our sails. But because we don't explain our reasons,
they won't believe we're acting reasonably. We must give them
line and letter for the way we choose to spend or save our money.
Henderson tried a dodge with his men, out at Ashley, and failed.
He rather wanted a strike; it would have suited his book well
enough. So when the men came to ask for the five per cent. they
are claiming, he told 'em he'd think about it, and give them his
answer on the pay day; knowing all the while what his answer
would be, of course, but thinking he'd strengthen their conceit
of their own way. However, they were too deep for him, and heard
something about the bad prospects of trade. So in they came on
the Friday, and drew back their claim, and now he's obliged to go
on working. But we Milton masters have to-day sent in our
decision. We won't advance a penny. We tell them we may have to
lower wages; but can't afford to raise. So here we stand, waiting
for their next attack.'
'And what will that be?' asked Mr. Hale.
'I conjecture, a simultaneous strike. You will see Milton without
smoke in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale.'
'But why,' asked she, 'could you not explain what good reason you
have for expecting a bad trade? I don't know whether I use the
right words, but you will understand what I mean.'
'Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure, or your
economy in the use of your own money? We, the owners of capital,
have a right to choose what we will do with it.'
'A human right,' said Margaret, very low.
'I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said.'
'I would rather not repeat it,' said she; 'it related to a
feeling which I do not think you would share.'
'Won't you try me?' pleaded he; his thoughts suddenly bent upon
learning what she had said. She was displeased with his
pertinacity, but did not choose to affix too much importance to
her words.
'I said you had a human right. I meant that there seemed no
reason but religious ones, why you should not do what you like
with your own.
'I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don't you give
me credit for having some, though not the same as yours?'
He was speaking in a subdued voice, as if to her alone. She did
not wish to be so exclusively addressed. She replied out in her
usual tone:
'I do not think that I have any occasion to consider your special
religious opinions in the affair. All I meant to say is, that
there is no human law to prevent the employers from utterly
wasting or throwing away all their money, if they choose; but
that there are passages in the Bible which would rather imply--to
me at least--that they neglected their duty as stewards if they
did so. However I know so little about strikes, and rate of
wages, and capital, and labour, that I had better not talk to a
political economist like you.'
'Nay, the more reason,' said he, eagerly. 'I shall only be too
glad to explain to you all that may seem anomalous or mysterious
to a stranger; especially at a time like this, when our doings
are sure to be canvassed by every scribbler who can hold a pen.'
'Thank you,' she answered, coldly. 'Of course, I shall apply to
my father in the first instance for any information he can give
me, if I get puzzled with living here amongst this strange
society.'
'You think it strange. Why?'
'I don't know--I suppose because, on the very face of it, I see
two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet
each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to
their own; I never lived in a place before where there were two
sets of people always running each other down.'
'Who have you heard running the masters down? I don't ask who you
have heard abusing the men; for I see you persist in
misunderstanding what I said the other day. But who have you
heard abusing the masters?'
Margaret reddened; then smiled as she said,
'I am not fond of being catechised. I refuse to answer your
question. Besides, it has nothing to do with the fact. You must
take my word for it, that I have heard some people, or, it may
be, only someone of the workpeople, speak as though it were the
interest of the employers to keep them from acquiring money--that
it would make them too independent if they had a sum in the
savings' bank.'
'I dare say it was that man Higgins who told you all this,' said
Mrs Hale. Mr. Thornton did not appear to hear what Margaret
evidently did not wish him to know. But he caught it,
nevertheless.
'I heard, moreover, that it was considered to the advantage of
the masters to have ignorant workmen--not hedge-lawyers, as
Captain Lennox used to call those men in his company who
questioned and would know the reason for every order.' This
latter part of her sentence she addressed rather to her father
than to Mr. Thornton. Who is Captain Lennox? asked Mr. Thornton
of himself, with a strange kind of displeasure, that prevented
him for the moment from replying to her! Her father took up the
conversation.
'You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen
and known before this, how much is being done for education in
Milton.'
'No!' said she, with sudden meekness. 'I know I do not care
enough about schools. But the knowledge and the ignorance of
which I was speaking, did not relate to reading and writing,--the
teaching or information one can give to a child. I am sure, that
what was meant was ignorance of the wisdom that shall guide men
and women. I hardly know what that is. But he--that is, my
informant--spoke as if the masters would like their hands to be
merely tall, large children--living in the present moment--with a
blind unreasoning kind of obedience.'
'In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant
found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to
utter against the masters,' said Mr. Thornton, in an offended
tone.
Margaret did not reply. She was displeased at the personal
character Mr. Thornton affixed to what she had said.
Mr. Hale spoke next:
'I must confess that, although I have not become so intimately
acquainted with any workmen as Margaret has, I am very much
struck by the antagonism between the employer and the employed,
on the very surface of things. I even gather this impression from
what you yourself have from time to time said.'
Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke. Margaret had just
left the room, and he was vexed at the state of feeling between
himself and her. However, the little annoyance, by making him
cooler and more thoughtful, gave a greater dignity to what he
said:
'My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my
workpeople and vice-versa. Miss Hale, I know, does not like to
hear men called 'hands,' so I won't use that word, though it
comes most readily to my lips as the technical term, whose
origin, whatever it was, dates before my time. On some future
day--in some millennium--in Utopia, this unity may be brought
into practice--just as I can fancy a republic the most perfect
form of government.'
'We will read Plato's Republic as soon as we have finished
Homer.'
'Well, in the Platonic year, it may fall out that we are all--men
women, and children--fit for a republic: but give me a
constitutional monarchy in our present state of morals and
intelligence. In our infancy we require a wise despotism to
govern us. Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people
are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet, firm
authority. I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider our
people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the
masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so.
I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for
them; so that in the hours in which I come in contact with them I
must necessarily be an autocrat. I will use my best
discretion--from no humbug or philanthropic feeling, of which we
have had rather too much in the North--to make wise laws and come
to just decisions in the conduct of my business--laws and
decisions which work for my own good in the first instance--for
theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give my
reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my
resolution. Let them turn out! I shall suffer as well as they:
but at the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one
jot.'
Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting at her work; but
she did not speak. Mr. Hale answered--
'I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little
I know, I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly
into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and
manhood, in the life of the multitude as well as that of the
individual. Now, the error which many parents commit in the
treatment of the individual at this time is, insisting on the
same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of
duty was, to obey the simple laws of "Come when you're called" and
"Do as you're bid!" But a wise parent humours the desire for
independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when
his absolute rule shall cease. If I get wrong in my reasoning,
recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy.'
'Very lately,' said Margaret, 'I heard a story of what happened
in Nuremberg only three or four years ago. A rich man there lived
alone in one of the immense mansions which were formerly both
dwellings and warehouses. It was reported that he had a child,
but no one knew of it for certain. For forty years this rumour
kept rising and falling--never utterly dying away. After his
death it was found to be true. He had a son--an overgrown man
with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom he had kept up in
that strange way, in order to save him from temptation and error.
But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose into
the world, every bad counsellor had power over him. He did not
know good from evil. His father had made the blunder of bringing
him up in ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after
fourteen months of riotous living, the city authorities had to
take charge of him, in order to save him from starvation. He
could not even use words effectively enough to be a successful
beggar.'
'I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position
of the master to that of a parent; so I ought not to complain of
your turning the simile into a weapon against me. But, Mr. Hale,
when you were setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you
said he humoured his children in their desire for independent
action. Now certainly, the time is not come for the hands to have
any independent action during business hours; I hardly know what
you would mean by it then. And I say, that the masters would be
trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way that I,
for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered too
much with the life they lead out of the mills. Because they
labour ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any
right to impose leading-strings upon them for the rest of their
time. I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no
degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually
directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too
closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of
men, or the most powerful--I should equally rebel and resent his
interference I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the North of
England that in the South.'
'I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none
of the equality of friendship between the adviser and advised
classes? Because every man has had to stand in an unchristian and
isolated position, apart from and jealous of his brother-man:
constantly afraid of his rights being trenched upon?'
'I only state the fact. I am sorry to say, I have an appointment
at eight o'clock, and I must just take facts as I find them
to-night, without trying to account for them; which, indeed,
would make no difference in determining how to act as things
stand--the facts must be granted.'
'But,' said Margaret in a low voice, 'it seems to me that it
makes all the difference in the world--.' Her father made a sign
to her to be silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had
to say. He was already standing up and preparing to go.
'You must grant me this one point. Given a strong feeling of
independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude
my views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another
(hating it as I should do most vehemently myself), merely because
he has labour to sell and I capital to buy?'
'Not in the least,' said Margaret, determined just to say this
one thing; 'not in the least because of your labour and capital
positions, whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing
with a set of men over whom you have, whether you reject the use
of it or not, immense power, just because your lives and your
welfare are so constantly and intimately interwoven. God has made
us so that we must be mutually dependent. We may ignore our own
dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us
in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing
must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other master can help
yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on those
around him for their insensible influence on his character--his
life. And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has
dependants clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them
off, any more than the great rock he resembles can shake off--'
'Pray don't go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once
already,' said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought
that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was
a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would
talk, although what she said only irritated him.
'Just tell me, Miss Hale, are you yourself ever influenced--no,
that is not a fair way of putting it;--but if you are ever
conscious of being influenced by others, and not by
circumstances, have those others been working directly or
indirectly? Have they been labouring to exhort, to enjoin, to act
rightly for the sake of example, or have they been simple, true
men, taking up their duty, and doing it unflinchingly, without a
thought of how their actions were to make this man industrious,
that man saving? Why, if I were a workman, I should be twenty
times more impressed by the knowledge that my master, was honest,
punctual, quick, resolute in all his doings (and hands are keener
spies even than valets), than by any amount of interference,
however kindly meant, with my ways of going on out of work-hours.
I do not choose to think too closely on what I am myself; but, I
believe, I rely on the straightforward honesty of my hands, and
the open nature of their opposition, in contra-distinction to the
way in which the turnout will be managed in some mills, just
because they know I scorn to take a single dishonourable
advantage, or do an underhand thing myself It goes farther than a
whole course of lectures on "Honesty is the Best Policy"--life
diluted into words. No, no! What the master is, that will the men
be, without over-much taking thought on his part.'
'That is a great admission,' said Margaret, laughing. 'When I see
men violent and obstinate in pursuit of their rights, I may
safely infer that the master is the same that he is a little
ignorant of that spirit which suffereth long, and is kind, and
seeketh not her own.'
'You are just like all strangers who don't understand the working
of our system, Miss Hale,' said he, hastily. 'You suppose that
our men are puppets of dough, ready to be moulded into any
amiable form we please. You forget we have only to do with them
for less than a third of their lives; and you seem not to
perceive that the duties of a manufacturer are far larger and
wider than those merely of an employer of labour: we have a wide
commercial character to maintain, which makes us into the great
pioneers of civilisation.'
'It strikes me,' said Mr. Hale, smiling, 'that you might pioneer
a little at home. They are a rough, heathenish set of fellows,
these Milton men of yours.'
'They are that,' replied Mr. Thornton. 'Rosewater surgery won't
do for them. Cromwell would have made a capital mill-owner, Miss
Hale. I wish we had him to put down this strike for us.'
'Cromwell is no hero of mine,' said she, coldly. 'But I am trying
to reconcile your admiration of despotism with your respect for
other men's independence of character.'
He reddened at her tone. 'I choose to be the unquestioned and
irresponsible master of my hands, during the hours that they
labour for me. But those hours past, our relation ceases; and
then comes in the same respect for their independence that I
myself exact.'
He did not speak again for a minute, he was too much vexed. But
he shook it off, and bade Mr. and Mrs. Hale good night. Then,
drawing near to Margaret, he said in a lower voice--
'I spoke hastily to you once this evening, and I am afraid,
rather rudely. But you know I am but an uncouth Milton
manufacturer; will you forgive me?'
'Certainly,' said she, smiling up in his face, the expression of
which was somewhat anxious and oppressed, and hardly cleared away
as he met her sweet sunny countenance, out of which all the
north-wind effect of their discussion had entirely vanished. But
she did not put out her hand to him, and again he felt the
omission, and set it down to pride. _