“Ah, Mary, it’s easy to say that. But it’s not so pleasant being turned out of your home--” “Do ye have to tell me that?” she cried, with sudden passion. “Haven’t I seen that?” “Yes, Mary; but I want to _do_ something--” “Yes, and haven’t I wanted to do something? Sure, I’ve wanted to bite off the noses of the bosses!” “Well,” he laughed, “we’ll make that a part of our programme.” But Mary was not to be lured into cheerfulness; her mood was so full of pain and bewilderment that he had an impulse to reach out and take her hand again. But he checked that; he had come to divert her energies into a safe channel! “We must waken these men to resistance, Mary!” “Ye can’t do it, Joe--not the English-speakin’ men. The Greeks and the Bulgars, maybe--they’re fightin’ at home, and they might fight here. But the Irish never--never! Them that had any backbone went out long ago. Them that stayed has been made into boot-licks. I know them, every man of them. They grumble, and curse the boss, but then they think of the blacklist, and they go back and cringe at his feet.” “What such men want--” “’Tis booze they want, and carousin’ with the rotten women in the coal-towns, and sittin’ up all night winnin’ each other’s money with a greasy pack of cards! They take their pleasure where they find it, and ’tis nothin’ better they want.” “Then, Mary, if that’s so, don’t you see it’s all the more reason for trying to teach them? If not for their own sakes, for the sake of their children! The children, mustn’t grow up like that! They are learning English, at least--” Mary gave a scornful laugh. “Have ye been up to that school?” He answered no; and she told him there were a hundred and twenty children packed in one room, three in a seat, and solid all round the wall. She went on, with swift anger--the school was supposed to be paid for out of taxes, but as nobody owned any property but the company, it was all in the company’s hands. The school-board consisted of Mr. Cartwright, the mine-superintendent, and Jake Predovich, a clerk in the store, and the preacher, the Reverend Spraggs. Old Spraggs would bump his nose on the floor if the “super” told him to. “Now, now!” said Hal, laughing. “You’re down on him because his grandfather was an Orangeman!” SECTION 3. Mary Burke had been suckled upon despair, and the poison of it was deep in her blood. Hal began to realise that it would be as hard to give her a hope as to rouse the workers whom she despised. She was brave enough, no doubt, but how could he persuade her to be brave for men who had no courage for themselves? “Mary,” he said, “in your heart you don’t really hate these people. You know how they suffer, you pity them for it. You give their children your last cent when they need it--” “Ah, lad!” she cried, and he saw tears suddenly spring into her eyes. “’Tis because I love them so that I hate them! Sometimes ’tis the bosses I would murder, sometimes ’tis the men. What is it ye’re wantin’ me to do?”