“Much sufferin’ you’ll do--with your rich folks!” sneered Tim. There was a murmur of protest from others of the committee. “Good God, Rafferty!” broke in Moylan. “We can’t help it, man--we’re just as helpless as you!” “You say you’re helpless--but you don’t even try!” “_Try?_ Do you want us to back a strike that we know hasn’t a chance? You might as well ask us to lie down and let a load of coal run over us. We can’t win, man! I tell you we can’t _win_! We’d only be throwing away our organisation!” Moylan became suddenly impassioned. He had seen a dozen sporadic strikes in this district, and many a dozen young strikers, homeless, desolate, embittered, turning their disappointment on him. “We might support you with our funds, you say--we might go on doing it, even while the company ran the mine with scabs. But where would that land us, Rafferty? I seen many a union on the rocks--and I ain’t so old either! If we had a bank, we’d support all the miners of the country, they’d never need to work again till they got their rights. But this money we spend is the money that other miners are earnin’--right now, down in the pits, Rafferty, the same as you and your old man. They give us this money, and they say, ‘Use it to build up the union. Use it to help the men that aren’t organised--take them in, so they won’t beat down our wages and scab on us. But don’t waste it, for God’s sake; we have to work hard to make it, and if we don’t see results, you’ll get no more out of us.’ Don’t you see how that is, man? And how it weighs on us, worse even then the fear that maybe we’ll lose our poor salaries--though you might refuse to believe anything so good of us? You don’t need to talk to me like I was Peter Harrigan’s son. I was a spragger when I was ten years old, and I ain’t been out of the pits so long that I’ve forgot the feeling. I assure you, the thing that keeps me awake at night ain’t the fear of not gettin’ a living, for I give myself a bit of education, working nights, and I know I could always turn out and earn what I need; but it’s wondering whether I’m spending the miners’ money the best way, whether maybe I mightn’t save them a little misery if I hadn’t ’a’ done this or had ’a’ done that. When I come down on that sleeper last night, here’s what I was thinking, Tim Rafferty--all the time I listened to the train bumping--‘Now I got to see some more of the suffering, I got to let some good men turn against us, because they can’t see why we should get salaries while they get the sack. How am I going to show them that I’m working for them--working as hard as I know how--and that I’m not to blame for their trouble?’” Here Wauchope broke in. “There’s no use talking any more. I see we’re up against it. We’ll not trouble you, Moylan.” “You trouble me,” cried Moylan, “unless you stand by the movement!” The other laughed bitterly. “You’ll never know what I do. It’s the road for me--and you know it!”