“It shall be done. The men will go in for it when they hear ye’ve got the sack. They still feel sore over the defeat, as if it wasn’t all their own fault; and now their fear of Sartwell’s packing some o’ them off is over, they’ll like to show a little independence by electing you, to prove to the manager that they’re not afraid, which they are. Ah’ll have to convince them that Sartwell won’t strike back or take your appointment as a defiance.” “But perhaps he will.” “Not him. He was as sick o’ the strike as any one. No. He’ll shrug his shoulders, but he’ll say nothing. Ah’m certain that if Gibbons had had the sense to go to the masters at the first, he would have broken Sartwell long since. An’ that was what Sartwell was afraid of, Ah’ll be bound. His greatest stroke was getting Monkton and Hope out of the country. It was your visit to Hope did that. Sartwell saw ye’d put your finger on the weak spot; an’ Ah’ll warrant, if we knew the ins and outs of it, Sartwell threatened ta chook up the whole business if they didn’t leave, and they left. Ah! he’s a man as can fight, is Sartwell.” They had reached the court shortly before their conversation had arrived at this point, and Marsten sat down with his host. The room was barer than such places usually are, for every pawnable or salable thing had been removed from time to time as the siege went on. The empty space where the old harmonium had stood made the room seem larger than it really was. “Yes,” said Braunt with a sigh, noticing Marsten’s eye wandering to the vacant spot, “it was the last thing that went before Jessie died. We pawned it, thinking we’d get it back again, but Ah’ll never take it back. Ah’m glad it’s gone. Ah couldn’t bear to look at it. But let’s not talk of what’s away, but o’ what’s here. Ye’re still thinkin’ ye can do somethin’ for the workin’ man by organization?” “I’m sure of it.” Braunt shook his head. “Ye won’t, my lad, but Ah’ll do my best to get ye the chance ta try. Just look at what has happened. They let Gibbons go without a word: he was a fool, perhaps, but he worked hard for them, an’ they don’t even say thankee. An’ they’ll do the same wi’ ye. They’ll do the same wi’ any one.” “It all depends on how they are led. When men are foolishly led, they soon find it out and lose confidence. Think what a man like Napoleon might have accomplished if he had led workingmen instead of soldiers, and had turned his talents to bettering his fellow-men instead of butchering them!” “Napoleon could have done nothin’. He could have done nothin’ wi’ soldiers, even, if it had not been for one power which ye can never have.” “What is that?” “The power o’ orderin’ a man out o’ the ranks, an’ havin’ him shot. If Ah’d that power Ah’d lead the men maself, an’ get them anythin’ they wanted. The State will let you slowly starve a hundred men to death and never interfere, but if ye shot even Gibbons there’d be a row about it. An’ yet we think we’re civilized! Ah say we’re savages.”