Every syllable spoken by Mr. Hunter, as to the social state of the people, Daffodil's Delight, and all other parts of London where the strike had prevailed, could echo. Whether the men had invoked the contest needlessly, or whether they were justified, according to the laws of right and reason, it matters not here to discuss; the effects were the same, and they stood out broad, and bare, and hideous. Men had died of want; had been cast into prison, where they still lay; had committed social crimes, in their great need, against their fellow-men. Women had been reduced to the lowest extremes of misery and suffering, had been transformed into viragos, where they once had been pleasant and peaceful; children had died off by scores. Homes were dismantled; Mr. Cox had cart-loads of things that stood no chance of being recalled. Families, united before, were scattered now; young men were driven upon idleness and evil courses; young women upon worse, for they were irredeemable. Would wisdom for the future be learnt by all this? It was uncertain.
When Austin Clay returned home that evening, he gave Mrs. Quale notice to quit. She received it in a spirit of resignation, intimating that she had been expecting it—that lodgings such as hers were not fit for Mr. Clay, now that he was Mr. Hunter's partner.
Austin laughed. 'I suppose you think I ought to set up a house of my own.'
'I daresay you'll be doing that one of these days, sir,' she responded.
'I daresay I shall,' said Austin.
'I wonder whether what Mr. Hunter said to-day will do any of 'em any service?' interposed Peter Quale. 'What do you think, sir?'
'I think it ought,' replied Austin. 'Whether it will, is another question.'
'It mostly lies in this—in the men's being let alone,' nodded Peter. 'Leave 'em to theirselves, and they'll go on steady enough; but if them Trade Union folks, Sam Shuck and his lot, get over them again, there'll be more outbreaks.'
'Sam Shuck is safe for some months to come.'
'But there's others of his persuasion that are not, sir. And Sam, he'll be out some time.'
'Quale, I give the hands credit for better sense than to suffer themselves to fall under his yoke again, now that he has shown himself in his true colours.'
'I don't give 'em credit for any sense at all, when they get unsettled notions into their heads,' phlegmatically returned Peter Quale. 'I'd like to know if it's the Union that's helping Shuck's wife and children.'
'Do they help her?'
'There must be some that help her, sir. The woman lives and feeds her family. But there was a Trades' Union secretary here this morning, inquiring about all this disturbance there has been, and saying that the men were wrong to be led to violence by such a fellow as Sam Shuck: over eager to say it, he seemed to me. I gave him my opinion back again,' concluded Peter, pushing the pipe, which he had laid aside at his young master's entrance, further under the grate. 'That Sam Shuck, and such as he, that live by agitation, were uncommon 'cute for their own interests, and those that listen to them were fools. That took him off, sir.'
'To think of the fools this Daffodil's Delight has turned out this last six months!' Mrs. Quale emphatically added. 'To have lived upon their clothes and furniture, their saucepans and kettles, their bedding and their children's shoes; when they might, most of 'em, have earned thirty-three shillings a week at their ordinary work! When folks can be so blind as that, it is of no use talking to them: black looks white, and white black.' Mr. Clay smiled at the remark, though it had some rough reason in it, and went out. Taking his way to Mr. Hunter's.
'Austin! You must live with me.'
The words came from Mr. Hunter. Seated in his easy chair, apparently asleep, he had overheard what Austin was saying in an undertone to Florence—that he had just been giving Mrs. Quale notice, and should begin house-hunting on the morrow. They turned to him at the remark. He had half risen from his chair in his eager earnestness.
'Do you think I could spare Florence? Where my home is, yours and hers must be. Is not this house large enough for us? Why should you seek another?'
'Quite large enough, sir. But—but I had not thought of it. It shall be as you and Florence wish.'
They both looked at her; she was standing underneath the light of the chandelier, the rich damask colour mantling in her cheeks.
'I could not give you to him, Florence, if it involved your leaving me.'
The tears glistened on her eyelashes. In the impulse of the moment she stretched out a hand to each. 'There is room here for us all, papa,' she softly whispered.
Mr. Hunter took both their hands in one of his; he raised the other in the act of benediction; the tears, which only glistened in the eyes of Florence, were falling fast from his own.
'Yes, it shall be the home of all; and—Florence!—the sooner he comes to it the better. Bless, oh, bless my children!' he murmured. 'And grant that this may prove a happier, a more peaceful home for them, than it has for me!'
'Amen!' answered Austin, in his inmost heart.