Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/237

 "Have the hands actually turned out?" asked Mrs. Thornton, with vivid interest.

"Hamper's men are actually out. Mine are working out their week, through fear of being prosecuted for breach of contract. I'd have had every one of them up and punished for it, that left his work before his time was out."

"The law expenses would have been more than the hands themselves were worth—a set of ungrateful naughts!" said his mother.

"To be sure. But I'd have shown them how I keep my word, and how I mean them to keep theirs. They know me by this time. Slickson's men are off—pretty certain he won't spend money in getting them punished. We're in for a turn-out, mother."

"I hope there are not many orders in hand?"

"Of course there are. They know that well enough. But they don't quite understand all, though they think they do."

"What do you mean, John?"

Candles had been brought, and Fanny had taken up her interminable piece of worsted-work, over which she was yawning; throwing herself back in her chair, from time to time, to gaze at vacancy, and think of nothing at her ease.

"Why," said he, "the Americans are getting their yarns so into the general market, that our only chance is producing them at a lower rate. If we can't, we may shut up shop at once, and hands and masters go alike on tramp. Yet these fools go back to the prices paid three years ago—nay, some of their leaders quote Dickinson's prices now—though they know as well as we do that, what with fines