t sixty rose in his place, and pointed a long
quavering finger at the speaker.

"What is it, Darwin? speak up!" said Wharton, dropping at once into the
colloquial tone, and stooping forward to listen.

"My sleepin' room's six foot nine by seven foot six. We have to shift
our bed for the rain's comin' in, an' yer may see for yoursels ther
ain't much room to shift it in. An' beyont us ther's a room for the
chillen, same size as ourn, an' no window, nothin' but the door into us.
Ov a summer night the chillen, three on 'em, is all of a sweat afore
they're asleep. An' no garden, an' no chance o' decent ways nohow. An'
if yer ask for a bit o' repairs yer get sworn at. An' that's all that
most on us can get out of Squire Boyce!"

There was a hasty whisper among some of the men round him, as they
glanced over their shoulders at the two ladies on the back bench. One or
two of them half rose, and tried to pull him down. Wharton looked at
Marcella; it seemed to him he saw a sort of passionate satisfaction on
her pale face, and in the erect carriage of her head. Then she stooped
to the side and whispered to her mother. Mrs. Boyce shook her head and
sat on, immovable. All this took but a second or two.

"Ah, well," said Wharton, "we won't have names; that'll do us no good.
It's not the _men_ you've got to go for so much--though we shall go for
them too before long when we've got the law more on our side. It's the
system. It's the whole way of dividing the wealth that _you_ made, you
and your children--by your work, your hard, slavish, incessant
work--between you and those who _don't_ work, who live on your labour
and grow fat on your poverty! What we want is _a fair division_. There
_ought_ to be wealth enough--there _is_ wealth enough for all in this
blessed country. The earth gives it; the sun gives it: labour extracts
and piles it up. Why should one class take three-fourths of it and leave
you and your fellow-workers in the cities the miserable pittance which
is all you have to starve and breed on? Why?--_why_? I say.
Why!--because you are a set of dull, jealous, poor-spirited _cowards_,
unable to pull together, to trust each other, to give up so much as a
pot of beer a week for the sake of your children and your liberties and
your class--there, _that's_ why it is, and I tell it you straight out!"

He drew himself up, folded his arms across his chest, and looked at
them--scorn and denunciation in every line of his young frame