The second strike was as clean-cut as the first: that is to say, no laggards remained behind in the works; there was apparent unanimity among the men, and apparent determination on the part of the masters. To all outward seeming it was to be a straightforward, brutal trial of strength between Capital and the Union. Marsten cared little for public sympathy, which Gibbons had considered of great importance; and Sartwell cared for it nothing at all. The public took small interest either way. It was known that the company had voluntarily advanced the wages of the men a short time before, and employers generally said that this showed the folly of sentimentality in business; that no master should advance wages until he was forced to do so. There was no gratitude on the part of the workingman, they averred, and some of the newspapers took the same tone. But even those journals favourable to labour had qualms about the wisdom of the strike under the circumstances, although they hoped it would succeed.

Marsten, however, paid small heed to the comments of friend or foe; he knew that success or failure did not lie in what the papers said, but in perfect organization and in hitting hard. He knew that, if he won, most of the praise would go to the determination of the men and the opportuneness of the strike; while, if he lost, he would have to shoulder all the censure that had to be bestowed. He picketed the works in the usual way, choosing for that duty the staunchest of his friends among the men. He asked the remainder of the employees to keep away from the gates and leave the conduct of the fight entirely to him and those he had chosen as his lieutenants.

Once the fight was on, Sartwell determined to give no quarter. He resolved to fill up the works, if possible, with men from outside, and to take back none of the old employees who did not sign a paper promising to abandon the Union. In the former strike he had been anxious to get his men back in a body, and had made no real attempt to fill their places. He knew in the beginning of the second struggle that he was fighting for his life, and that if he suffered defeat he would resign, and the place that had known him for years would know him no more. He had no fear that the company would discharge him if he lost the battle,—in fact he knew they would use every effort to induce him to remain; but it was his own stubborn pride, as his wife called it, that he felt he could not overcome even if he had wished to do so. Sartwell, like certain swords of finely-tempered steel, would break, but would not bend. Years of unflinching determination in what he thought was right had made him a man over whom he himself had but slight control; and he sometimes recognized with grim humour that while he could persuade all his confrÈres to take a devious but safe course upon any given problem, he could not induce himself to follow anything but the straight line. He worked night and day at the task of filling the factory with new men. He scoured the country for them, and his telegraph bills alone were enormous; but men were scarce—good men are always scarce, and now even indifferent workers were hard to find. Gibbons had once said that the workingman of modern times suffers from the fact that he is merely a cog in a big wheel, but this truism tells also against the employer who is trying to fill his shops. If a cog is useless by itself it must not be forgotten that the wheel is also useless until the cog is replaced. It is easy for an employer to supply the place of a single cog; but when the whole wheel is cogless, ninety-nine cogs are of no avail if the hundredth necessary to complete the circle cannot be found.

It was here that Sartwell had the first touch of his opponent’s quality, and his anger was lost in admiration for the young man’s shrewdness and knowledge of the business. The fight had been conducted so quietly that no one in the neighbourhood would have known, from any sign of disturbance, that war was in progress. Marsten made no attempt to buy off the new men, who came and went from the works unmolested by the pickets. Marsten sometimes talked with the strangers, telling them of the strike, and asking where they came from; advising them to get work elsewhere, but never making any attempt either to coerce or to bribe them. Sartwell wondered at this, and hoped Marsten would continue such a mild and harmless warfare; nevertheless its very mildness made him anxious, and he cautioned his new employees to give no information to the strikers, though he was well aware of the uselessness of trying to inculcate secrecy—for men will talk. In fact Marsten kept himself well informed of what was going on inside the works, and saw that the manager was quite shrewdly concentrating his attention to one branch of a department, instead of trying to fill the whole factory at one time. He was gradually collecting his hundred cogs from all points of the compass, and by and by would have one big wheel and pinion, out of the many wheels and pinions, revolving. One day at noon, when the men came out, Marsten, rapidly running his eye over them, saw a new man, and at once he recognized that here at last was the hundredth cog.

“You’re a new-comer?” he said, accosting him.

“Yes,” answered the man; “I came this morning.”

“I’d like to have a word with you,” said Marsten, keeping step with him.

“It’s no use. I know there’s a strike. I’m here to work, and I don’t give a hang for the Union!”

“Well, it will do no harm to talk the matter over.”

“It’ll do no good. I didn’t come out to talk; I came out for my dinner.”

“Of course. I’m on the same lay myself; come with me. We can talk and eat.”

“I can pay for my own dinner.”

“Certainly; I’m not offering to pay for it. I don’t suppose I get a tenth part of the wages you do; I can see by the look of you that you are a good workman. I’m secretary of the Union, and I get but a few shillings a week. I would tell you how few, but you probably wouldn’t believe me, for I could get much more at my trade.”

“The more fool you, then, for working for less.”

“Perhaps. I want to raise the wages of men all over the kingdom, so I’m content to work for little if I can do that. Where do you come from?”

“I’m a Bolton man.”

“Is your family here?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“What’s that to you, I’d like to know?”

“It’s a good deal to all of us, because it shows that you are not sure of your situation.”

“It shows nothing of the kind. I am guaranteed my situation.”

“Guaranteed! What does a master’s guarantee amount to? We’re going to win this strike, and then where will you new-comers be? You know what happens when the men go back. Not one of you will be left in the shops. Suppose you do get good wages for a few weeks, what will be the benefit in the end? A permanent situation at even lower wages would be better.”

“Who says it wouldn’t? But I haven’t the permanent situation, you see.”

“Now you are talking sense. Are you a member of the Union?”

“I was. I had a row with the foreman, and he gave me the sack.”

“In whose shop was that?”

“At Smighden’s.”

“I don’t know it. What wages were you getting there?”

“Thirty shillings a week.”

“Do you know Markham, Sarbury & Company, of Bolton?”

“Yes.”

“Would you be satisfied with thirty shillings a week there?”

“Yes; if I could be sure of getting it.”

“You can be sure of it. I will telegraph to the foreman this minute, and we’ll have an answer before we finish eating. He has promised to find me places for three men, and I haven’t sent him one yet. But don’t say a word to any one here, for I want to keep the other two places for Bolton men if they come.”

“I’ll not go back to this shop at all if I can be sure of a place in Bolton.”

And so it came about that Sartwell lost his hundredth cog, and the cog never thought it worth his while to give his late master even a word of explanation. He left on the first train for Manchester.

This kind of thing happened several times before Sartwell fully realized the method in Marsten’s action. He thought at first that Marsten had been merely lucky in buying off a man at the very time when such a purchase would block all progress. It was like pulling the linchpin from one of the axles of a wagon. The manager wrote to his fellow-managers in different parts of the country, and warned them that their foremen were giving places to employees from the works of Monkton & Hope, and he received answers saying they would do all they could to prevent such transplanting; but, as it was difficult to trace where a man went, when so few of them were deported, the warning came to nothing. If a wholesale exodus had been attempted, Sartwell, with the aid of his fellow-managers, might have done something to prevent its success; but the very homoeopathic nature of Marsten’s remedy made it difficult to cope with. By this time the feeling that he was a beaten man came over Sartwell, and, although he said nothing and sought sympathy from no one, it aged him more than years of toil had done. His daughter, now home from school, saw with helpless grief the deep lines care was ploughing in his rugged face.

Curiously enough, Marsten’s quiet but effective methods, which convinced so far-seeing a man as Sartwell that they were ultimately to be successful, had the very opposite effect on the strikers themselves. They did not understand the game, and they saw with increasing uneasiness that the works were apparently filling up while nothing was being done to prevent it. Marsten did not call meetings and enthusiastically show his hand with an outburst of eloquence, as had been the habit with Gibbons. The men thought he was doing nothing merely because he was saying nothing, and even Marsten’s own friends began to feel dubious about the result. There was no sign of giving in on the part of the masters, and they saw every day an increased number of men come out of the gates. In spite of Marsten’s prohibition the strikers began to gather about the gates, hooting the new employees when they came out; for hoots and groans seemed to accomplish something, and were at least a relief to the pent-up feelings of the idle men. Marsten saw these signs of revolt with uneasiness; but he thought, as the men this time were not starving, and as they all knew the Union was still in ample funds, he could keep the strikers in hand until a decisive blow would show Monkton & Hope the futility of further resistance. He had quietly prepared such a blow, and he expected that when it fell the strike would triumphantly end.

A deputation of the strikers, headed by Gibbons, waited on him, and demanded that public meetings should be held—as had always been done before—so that the men might be kept informed of the progress of a struggle that vitally affected their interests. Gibbons spoke strongly and feelingly on the subject, as one who speaks from the heart, and the deputation was correspondingly impressed. It was not right, Gibbons held, that they should grope longer in the dark; they wanted to know where they were, and what measures were being taken to bring Sartwell to terms.

“But, don’t you see,” protested Marsten, “that any information I give publicly to my friends at once becomes known to the enemy? I never knew anything to be accomplished by talk. There is generally too much of it in a contest of this kind.”

“I quite agree with you,” said the glib Gibbons; “but in the absence of talk we would like to have some evidence of action. This sort of thing cannot be kept up for ever. Sartwell is gradually filling the factory, and we are all getting a little restive. We must know what is going on, for it will be no consolation to be told in a week—or two—or three—that you find you have no chance of succeeding, and that we must make the best terms we can. You must remember that, although you lose no situation, we do. Will you call a meeting and explain to the men what the chances of success are?”

“I will do nothing of the sort. A general does not call his army together and explain to them what he intends to do next. I am leader of this strike, and I am going to lead it my own way or not at all. You say the factory is filling up, but I tell you that not a stroke of work has been done since the strike began. All I will promise to do is to let you know two weeks before we come to the end of our funds; then, if you do not think we will succeed, you will have time to make what arrangements you please, and depose me.”

“Oh, that kind of high-handed business does not do in this age. You are not an autocrat, remember. The men have every right to demand an account of what you are doing with them and their money.”

“When you were leader, Gibbons, they were at the end of their funds before you let them know anything about it. There was talk enough in those days, and precious little information went with it. I won’t conduct a strike with my mouth, and I won’t stand any interference.”

“You are our servant, I beg you to remember, and it is no interference when we simply ask to know what is being done and what you intend to do. Now you will either call a meeting of the men at the Salvation Hall or we will. Which is it to be?”

“I shall not call a meeting. If you call one, then you take the responsibility of meddling in a matter you don’t understand. It is quite possible that you may be able to embarrass, or perhaps defeat me; but if you do, the time will come when the men will curse you for your intervention. I tell you we are bound to win this strike if you keep your hands off. Calling a meeting will merely show Sartwell that we are getting anxious, and his whole hope is centered in a division among us. He was frank enough to tell me so himself.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“Before the strike began.”

Gibbons looked significantly at the deputation, and one or two of the members nodded sadly, as much as to say they wouldn’t have believed it; but it was now only too evident, from their secretary’s own admission, that he had secret communications with the enemy.

“I think,” said Gibbons, solemnly, “that, after what you have said, there is all the more reason why you should call the men together, and explain to them how you came to be discussing with Sartwell the probable failure of the strike even before it began. You knew that was a tender point with us long since; and if Sartwell is your enemy, as you said he was, I can’t see for the life of me why——”

“Oh, there is no need of any secrecy about it, Gibbons. In fact there is little mystery about anything we do, and that is one reason I don’t want to call a public meeting. Things are bad enough as they are. I have found that Sartwell generally knows what we are about to do before many of us know it ourselves. I went to Sartwell because he asked me to go. He knew this strike was coming on, although I had imagined it had only been discussed between myself and some of the others. He offered me the assistant managership of the works if I would resign my position as secretary. I refused, and he told me this strike was bound to fail because the men would not be true to me. You can give the men the whole particulars of my talk with Sartwell, but there is no need of calling a meeting to discuss it.”

“That may all be true, but I confess it sounds rather fishy. I doubt if Sartwell is so much afraid of you as that comes to. Anyhow, there is no harm in finding out just where we stand. I will do my best to calm the apprehensions of the men, but I give you warning that if nothing more encouraging than we have had lately turns up within a week, there will be trouble. The men will call a meeting themselves if you don’t.”

“If nothing happens within a week, I will call a meeting and give them an account of what has been done so far; but I don’t approve of meetings, and I shall call one practically under compulsion. You are forcing my hand, Gibbons, and you promised me fair play.”

“It seems to me you have had a good run for your money, and I think we are very patient in consenting to wait a week when we are being led we don’t know where.”

The deputation then withdrew, and Marsten paced up and down the room, wondering if the directors were giving Sartwell as uneasy a time as the men were giving him. As was the case during the former strike, the Salvation Hall had been placed at the disposal of the men. Marsten had called no meetings except the one that had ushered in the strike. He made his headquarters, however, in a room that opened upon the platform, and which also communicated with a narrow lane that led along the outside of the hall to the street. Here his pickets reported to him, and here the work made necessary by the strike—the bookkeeping and the correspondence—was done. Here also letters and telegrams were received. It was a bare room with only two or three chairs and a rough table as its furnishing. Several religious and moral mottoes were tacked on the boards that formed the walls. “Love one another” was the sentence that met Mars-ten’s eye whenever he looked up from his seat at the table. He sometimes smiled sadly as he gazed at it. Marsten paused in his walk, and sat down at the table on hearing a knock at the outside door. A telegraph messenger entered and handed him an envelope. Marsten tore it open, and read the single word “Stopped.” The word had come from the other side of the earth, travelling from Sydney, New South Wales, to London. A gleam of savage joy lit up the eyes of the young man, and, to the amazement of the messenger, he brought his fist down heavily on the deal table.

“There is no answer,” he said to the waiting boy, suddenly recollecting that he was not alone; “and,” he added to himself, “there will be no answer but one from Monkton & Hope.”

Once more he paced the room up and down, his frame quivering with the delight of battle and the fore-knowledge of victory. The motto, “Love one another,” shone peacefully, but unnoticed, on the wall.