"It's to be hoped he is! Why did he go and set upon the child in that cruel way? It's the men that goes in for the strike; 'tisn't us: and when the worry of it makes 'em so low they hardly know where to turn, they must vent it upon us. Master Johnny, there are minutes now when I could wish myself dead but for the children." I went home with my head full of a scheme--getting Mrs. Todhetley and perhaps the Coneys to do something for poor Eliza Hoar. But I soon found I might as well have pleaded the cause of the public hangman. Who should come into our house that evening but old Coney himself. As if the strike were burning a hole in his tongue, he began upon it before he was well seated, and gave the Squire his version of it: that is, his opinion. It did not differ in substance from what had been hinted at by Eliza Hoar. Mr. Coney did not speak _for_ the men or _against_ them; he did not speak for or against the masters; that question of conflicting interests he said he was content to leave: but what he did urge, and very strongly, was, that strikes in themselves must be productive of an incalculable amount of harm; they brought misery on the workmen, pecuniary embarrassment on the masters, and they most inevitably would, if persisted in, eventually ruin the trade of the kingdom; therefore they should, by every possible means, be discouraged. The Squire, in his hot fashion, took up these opinions for his own and enlarged upon them. When old Coney was gone and we had our slippers on, I told them of my visit to Eliza, and asked them to help her just a little. "Not by a crust of bread, Johnny," said the Squire, more firmly and quietly than he usually spoke. "Once begin to assist the wives and children, and the men would have so much the less need to bring the present state of things to an end." "I am so sorry for Eliza, sir." "So am I, Johnny. But the proper person to be sorry for her is her husband: her weal and woe can lie only with him." "If we could help her ever so little!" The Squire looked at me for a full minute. "Attend to me, Johnny Ludlow. Once for all, NO! The strike, as Coney says, must be discouraged by every means in our power. _Discouraged_, Johnny. Otherwise these strikes may come into fashion, and grow to an extent of which no man can foresee the end. They will bring the workmen to one of two things--starvation, or the workhouse. That result seems to me inevitable." "I'm sure it makes me feel very uncomfortable," said the Mater. "One can hardly see where one's duty lies."