Lady Bountiful. George A. Birmingham
but you wouldn’t stay. Anyway the night’s warm and if you stretch yourself on the seat there you won’t know it till morning, and then I’ll bring you over another cup of tea so as you won’t be hungry. It’s a twenty-four hour strike, so it is; and I won’t be moving on out of this before two o’clock or may be half past. But what odds? The kind of place Dunadea is, a day or two doesn’t matter one way or another, and if it was the day after to-morrow in place of to-morrow you got there it would be the same thing in the latter end.”
He climbed out of the compartment as he spoke and stumped back through the rain to his cottage. Sir James was left wondering how the people of Dunadea managed to conduct the business of life when one day was the same to them as another and the loss of a day now and then did not matter. He was quite certain that the loss of a day mattered a great deal to him, his position being what it was. He wondered what Miss Molly Dennison would think when he failed to appear at her father’s house that evening for dinner; what she would think—the speculation nearly drove him mad—when he did not appear in the church next day. He put on an overcoat, took an umbrella and set off for the engine driver’s cottage. He had to climb down a steep embankment and then cross a wire fence. He found it impossible to keep his umbrella up, which distressed him, for he was totally unaccustomed to getting wet.
He found the driver, who seemed to be a good and domesticated man, sitting at his fireside with a baby on his knee. His wife was washing clothes in a corner of the kitchen.
“Excuse me,” said Sir James, “but my business in Dunadea is very important. There will be serious trouble if——”
“There’s no use asking me to go on with the train,” said the driver, “for I can’t do it. I’d never hear the last of it if I was to be a blackleg.”
The woman at the washtub looked up.
“Don’t be talking that way, Michael,” she said, “let you get up and take the gentleman along to where he wants to go.”
“I will not,” said the driver, “I’d do it if I could but I won’t have it said that I was the one to break the strike.”
It was very much to the credit of Sir James that he recognised the correctness of the engine driver’s position. It is not pleasant to be held up twenty-four hours in the middle of a bog. It is most unpleasant to be kept away from church on one’s own wedding day. But Sir James knew that strikes are sacred things, far more sacred than weddings. He hastened to agree with the engine driver.
“I know you can’t go on,” he said, “nothing would induce me to ask you such a thing. But perhaps—”
The woman at the washtub did not reverence strikes or understand the labour movement. She spoke abruptly.
“Have sense the two of you,” she said, “What’s to hinder you taking the gentleman into Dunadea, Michael?”
“It’s what I can’t do nor won’t,” said her husband.
“I’m not asking you to,” said Sir James. “I understand strikes thoroughly and I know you can’t do it. All I came here for was to ask you to tell me where I could find a telegraph office.”
“There’s no telegraphic office nearer than Dunadea,” said the engine driver, “and that’s seven miles along the railway and maybe nine if you go round by road.”
Sir James looked out at the rain. It was thick and persistent. A strong west wind swept it in sheets across the bog. He was a man of strong will and great intellectual power; but he doubted if he could walk even seven miles along the sleepers of a railway line against half a gale of wind, wearing on his feet a pair of patent leather boots bought for a wedding.
“Get up out of that, Michael,” said the woman, “And off with you to Dunadea with the gentleman’s telegram. You’ll break no strike by doing that, so not another word out of your head.”
“I’ll—I’ll give you ten shillings with pleasure,” said Sir James, “I’ll give you a pound if you’ll take a message for me to Mr. Dennison’s house.”
“Anything your honour chooses to give,” said the woman, “will be welcome, for we are poor people. But it’s my opinion that Michael ought to do it for nothing seeing it’s him and his old strike that has things the way they are.”
“To listen to you talking,” said the driver, “anybody would think I’d made the strike myself; which isn’t true at all, for there’s not a man in the country that wants it less than me.”
Sir James tore a leaf from his note book and wrote a hurried letter to Miss Dennison. The engine driver tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat and trudged away through the rain. His wife invited Sir James to sit by the fire. He did so gladly, taking the stool her husband had left. He even, after a short time, found that he had taken the child on to his knee. It was a persistent child, which clung round his legs and stared at him till he took it up. The woman went on with her washing.
“What,” said Sir James, “is the immediate cause of this strike?”
“Cause!” she said. “There’s no cause, only foolishness. If it was more wages they were after I would say there was some sense in it. Or if it was less work they wanted you could understand it—though it’s more work and not less the most of the men in this country should be doing. But the strike that’s in it now isn’t what you might call a strike at all. It’s a demonstration, so it is. That’s what they’re saying anyway. It’s a demonstration in favour of the Irish Republic, which some of them play-boys is after getting up in Dublin. The Lord save us, would nothing do them only a republic?”
Two hours later Sir James went back to his railway carriage. He had listened with interest to the opinions of the engine driver’s wife on politics and the Labour Movement. He was convinced that a separate and independent Ministry of Strikes ought to be established in Dublin. His own office was plainly incapable of dealing with Irish conditions. He took from his bag a quantity of foolscap paper and set to work to draft a note to the Prime Minister on the needs and ideas of Irish Labour. He became deeply interested in his work and did not notice the passing time.
He was aroused by the appearance of Miss Molly Dennison at the door of his carriage. Her hair, which was blown about her face, was exceedingly wet. The water dripped from her skirt and sleeves of her jacket. Her complexion was as radiant and her smile as brilliant as ever.
“Hullo, Jimmy,” she said. “What a frowst! Fancy sitting in that poky little carriage with both windows shut. Get up and put away your silly old papers. If you come along at once we’ll just be in time for dinner.”
“How did you get here,” said Sir James. “I never thought—. In this weather—. How did you get here?”
“On my bike, of course,” said Molly. “Did a regular sprint. Wind behind me. Going like blazes. I’d have done it in forty minutes, only Michael ran into a sheep and I had to wait for him.”
Sir James was aware that the engine driver, grinning broadly, was on the step of the carriage behind Molly.
“I lent Michael Dad’s old bike,” said Molly, “and barring the accident with the sheep, he came along very well.”
“What I’m thinking,” said the driver, “is that you’ll never be able to fetch back against the wind that does be in it. I wouldn’t say but you might do it, miss; but the gentleman wouldn’t be fit. He’s not accustomed to the like.”
“We’re not going to ride back,” said Molly. “You’re going to take us back on the engine, with the two bikes in the tender, on top of the coal.”
“I can’t do it, miss,” said the driver. “I declare to God I’d be afraid of my life to do it. Didn’t I tell you I was out on strike?”
“We oughtn’t to ask him,” said Sir James. “Surely, Molly, you must understand that. It would be an act of gross disloyalty on his part, disloyalty