Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/222

 "Don't ask me," said Margaret; "I am very ignorant. Ask some of your masters. Surely they will give you a reason for it. It is not merely an arbitrary decision of theirs, come to without reason."

"Yo're just a foreigner, and nothing more," said he, contemptuously. "Much yo know about it. Ask th' masters! They'd tell up to mind our own business, and they'd mind theirs. Our business being, yo' understand, to take the bated wage, and be thankful; and their business to bate us down to clemming point, to swell their profits. That's what it is."

"But," said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she was irritating him, "the state of trade may be such as not to enable them to give you the same remuneration."

"State o' trade! That's just a piece o' masters' humbug. It's rate o' wages I was talking of. Th' masters keep th' state o' trade in their own hands; and just walk it forward like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children with into being good. Ill tell yo it's their part,—their cue, as some folks call it,—to beat us down, to swell their fortunes; and it's ours to stand up and fight hard,—not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us—for justice and fair play. We help to make their profits, and we ought to help spend 'em. It's not that we want their brass so much this time, as we've done many a time afore. We 'n getten money laid by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say, 'hooray for the strike,' and let Thornton, and Slickson, and Hamper, and their set look to it!"