"There are times when I feel _I_ should like to run away from my work, and go in for a few weeks' or months' idleness, Jacob Hoar; and drink my two or three glasses of port wine after dinner of a day, like a lord; and be altogether independent of my station and my patients, and of every other obligation under the sun. But I can't. I know what it would do for _me_--bring me to the parish." "D'ye think we throw up the work for the sake o' being idle?" returned Hoar. "D'ye suppose, sirs,"--with a burst of a sigh--"that this state o' things is a _pleasure_ to us? We are doing it for future benefit. We are told by them who act for us, and who must know, that great benefit will come of it if we be only firm; that our rights be in our own hands if we only persevere long enough in standing out for 'em. Us men has our rights, I suppose, as well as other folks." "Those who, as you term it, act for you, may be mistaken, Hoar," said the Squire. "I'll leave that point: and go on to a different question. Do you think that the future benefit (whatever that may be: it's vague enough now) _is worth the cost you are paying for it_?" No reply. A look crossed Hoar's face that made me think he sometimes asked the same question of himself. "It does appear to be a very _senseless_ quarrel, Hoar," went on the Squire. Cole had walked on. "One-sided too. There's an old saying, 'Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face,' and your strike seems just an illustration of it. You see, it is only _you men_ that suffer. The rulers you speak of don't suffer: while they are laying down rules for you, they are flourishing on the meat and corn of the land; the masters, in one sense, do not suffer, for they are not reduced to any extremity of any kind. But you, my poor fellows, _you_ bear the brunt of it all. Look at your homes, how they are bared; look at your hungry children. What but hunger drove little Dick to crib that bun yesterday?" Hoar took off his hat and passed his hand over his brow and his black hair. It seemed to be a favourite action of his when in any worry of thought. "It is just ruin, Jacob Hoar. If some great shock--say a mountain of snow, or a thunderbolt--descended suddenly from the skies and destroyed everything there was in your home, leaving but the bare walls standing, what a dreadful calamity you would think it. How bitterly you'd bemoan it!--perhaps almost feel inclined, if you only dared, to reproach Heaven for its cruelty! But you--you bring on this calamity yourself, of your own free and deliberate will. You have dismantled your home with your own fingers; you have taken out your goods and sold or pledged them, to buy food. I hear you have parted with all." "A'most," assented Hoar readily; as if it quite pleased him the Squire should show up the case at its worst.