“Worry the Parliament-men as much as you please,” said Moore; “but to worry the mill owners is absurd, and I for one won’t stand it.”
“Ye’re a raight hard un!” returned the workman. “Willn’t ye gie us a bit o’ time? Willn’t ye consent to mak your changes rather more slowly?”
“Am I the whole body of clothiers in Yorkshire? Answer me that.”
“Ye’re yourseln.”
“And only myself. And if I stopped by the way an instant, while others are rushing on, I should be trodden down. If I did as you wish me to do, I should be bankrupt in a month; and would my bankruptcy put bread into your hungry children’s mouths? William Farren, neither to your dictation nor to that of any other will I submit. Talk to me no more about machinery. I will have my own way. I shall get new frames in tomorrow. If you broke these, I would still get more. I’ll never give in.”
Here the mill bell rang twelve o’clock. It was the dinner-hour. Moore abruptly turned from the deputation and re-entered his counting house.
His last words had left a bad, harsh impression; he, at least, had “failed in the disposing of a chance he was lord of.” By speaking kindly to William Farren – who was a very honest man, without envy or hatred of those more happily circumstanced than himself, thinking it no hardship and no injustice to be forced to live by labour, disposed to be honourably content if he could but get work to do – Moore might have made a friend. It seemed wonderful how he could turn from such a man without a conciliatory or a sympathizing expression. The poor fellow’s face looked haggard with want; he had the aspect of a man who had not known what it was to live in comfort and plenty for weeks, perhaps months, past, and yet there was no ferocity, no malignity in his countenance; it was worn, dejected, austere, but still patient. How could Moore leave him thus, with the words, “I’ll never give in,” and not a whisper of goodwill, or hope, or aid?
Farren, as he went home to his cottage – once, in better times, a decent, clean, pleasant place, but now, though still clean, very dreary, because so poor – asked himself this question. He concluded that the foreign mill owner was a selfish, an unfeeling, and, he thought, too, a foolish man. It appeared to him that emigration, had he only the means to emigrate, would be preferable to service under such a master. He felt much cast down – almost hopeless.