Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/326

 most favourable to the interests of the shed, found a difficulty, like many wiser men, about his exordium.

'Well, Muster Gordon, look'ee here, sir. The weather's been summat awful, and clean agin' shearin'. We've not been earning our grub, and'

'So it has,' answered the manager, 'so it has; but can I help the weather? I'm as anxious as you are to have the shearing over quickly. We're both of us of one mind about that, eh?'

'That's right enough, sir,' strikes in Abraham Lawson, feeling that Ben was getting the worst of the argument, and was moreover far less fluent than usual, probably from being deprived of the aid of the customary expletives; 'but we're come to say this, sir, that the season's turned out very wet indeed; we've had a deal of broken time, and the men feel it hard to be paying for a lot of rations, and hardly earning anything. We're shearing the sheep very close and clean. You won't have 'em done no otherways. Not like some sheds where a man can "run" a bit and make up for lost time. Now, we've all come to think this, sir, that if we're to go on shearing the sheep well, and stick to them, so as to get them done before the dust and grass-seed come in, you ought to make us some allowance. We know we've agreed for so much a hundred, and all that. Still, the season's turned out so out-and-out bad, and we hope you'll consider it and make it up to us somehow.'

'Never knew a worse year,' corroborated Billy May, who thought it indispensable to say something; 'haven't made enough, myself, to pay the cook.'

This was not strictly true, at any rate, as to Master Billy's own earnings; he being such a remarkably fast shearer (and good withal), that he had always a respectable sum credited to him for his day's work, even when many of the slower men came off short enough. However, enough had been said to make Mr. Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of Capital to that of Labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits or reserved fund, they knew not, nor cared. This was their stand. And being Englishmen they intended to abide by it.