Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/192

 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