The workshop was open directly, and quite half the men went back to work; but from that day I began to find out that our town was no place for me. My employers were kind enough, and I was not a penny the worse in pocket for my encounter;
but it grew plainer and plainer to me, day by day, that I should be driven out of the place. Threatening letters came; once I was struck down from behind as I came home on a dark night, and though I felt sure the man I caught a glance of was Perkins, I could not swear it. Then came news of the cowardly tricks at Sheffield throwing powder into houses and my wife grew pale and ill with apprehension; while what filled the measure up to the brim was my poor lass being set upon and insulted one night only a few yards from our door, so near that I heard her call Help, and knew the voice, and ran out.
The next week I was sitting in our empty room; the floor trampled and dirty with the feet of those who had been to the sale of the things in our bit of a four-roomed house. And the things had sold well, too; for my mates had sent their wives, and one had bought one thing, and another another. But I was down-hearted and sad at seeing first one little familiar thing and then another dragged away, while the thought of being driven out of the place was bitter to me. The wife and children had gone on to London, and there was no one there to see me as something which showed there were weak places in the strong man came into my eyes.
But I had to choke that down, for a knock came at the door, and it sounded hollow and strange in the empty place. It was a letter; just in time, too, for I was thinking just before of locking up the place and going away, but fancied I should just like one pipe of tobacco for the last where I had spent so many quiet evenings. However, I opened the letter, and then started to run after the postman, feeling that it must be a mistake, for inside was a crisp new twenty-pound note, with a few lines telling me that it was from two friends who regretted the loss to the town and its works, of an honest, upright man, and begging my acceptance of the trifle enclosed, as a testimony of the esteem in which my services had been held.
Twenty pounds, sir a larger sum than I had ever before owned at once; but as Im an honest man I thought more of the words of that letter then than I did of the money; while through being weak, I suppose, there was a wet spot or two upon the note when I put it away.
After it was dark that night, I went and thanked those from whom I knew it had come, though they would not own to it; but the senior partner slapped me on the shoulder as I went out, and he said:
Theres too much holding aloof between master and man, Samuel Harris; but if all mechanics were like you we should have no more strikes.
He was quite right, I said, nodding.
Think so, sir? perhaps he was, perhaps he was not, but depend upon it the best way is to give and take all you can. Strikings expensive work for both sides; but you see the thing is this what makes the trouble is that neither side likes to be beat.
Chapter Eight. My Patient, the Driver
And he was cool; nobody cooler even in cases of emergency; and a better man for an engine-driver could not have been chosen.
I first met Solomon Gann in connection with an accident at Grandton, where I and other surgeons were called in to attend the sufferers by a collision with a goods train. After that I attended him two or three times; for he came to me in preference to the Companys surgeon, and he used to give me scraps of information about his life, and tell me little incidents in his career.
Glorious profession, aint it, Sir, he said. Grows more important every day, does the railway profession, and is likely to. Ah! people in our great-grandfathers days would have opened their eyes if you had talked about being an engine-driver; and I aint much like a four-horse mail coachee, am I? Rum set out, the rail. Not so many years back, and there wasnt such a thing; and now it employs its thousands, beginning with your superintendents, and going down through clerks, and guards, and drivers, and so on, to the lowest porter or cleaner on the line.
Ive had some experience, I have. I was cleaner in the engine-house afore I got put on to stoke; and Im not going to say that engine-drivers are worse off than other men because I happen to be one: for we want a little alteration right through the whole machine: a little easing in this collar; a little less stuffing there; them nuts give a turn with the screw-hammer; and the oily rag put over the working gear a little more oftener, while the ile-can itself aint spared. Dont you see, you know, Im
and are you going to try and make me believe a man can have such power over his thinking apparatus that he can recollect everything? He must be a very perfect piece of goods if there is such a one, and one as would go for ever, I should think, without a touch of the oily rag. No spots of rust on him, Ill wager.