WILLIE. Yes, that's just it. I am precisely like a donkey on a gin--
a donkey that's trying to wind a lot of colliers up to the surface.
There's many a donkey that's brought more colliers than you up to see
daylight, by trotting round.--But do you want to know what I'm making
for? I can soon tell you that. You Barlow & Wasall's men, you
haven't a soul to call your own. Barlow & Wasall's have only to say
to one of you, Come, and he cometh, Go, and he goeth, Lie
VOICE. Ay--an' what about it? Tha's got a behind o' thy own, hasn't
yer?
WILLIE. Do you stand there and ask me what about it, and haven't the
sense to alter it? Couldn't you set up a proper Government to-morrow,
if you liked? Couldn't you contrive that the pits belonged to you,
instead of you belonging to the pits, like so many old pit-ponies that
stop down till they are blind, and take to eating coal-slack for
meadow-grass, not knowing the difference? If only you'd learn to
think, I'd respect you. As you are, I can't, not if I try my hardest.
All you can think of is to ask for another shilling a day. That's as
far as your imagination carries you. And perhaps you get sevenpence
ha'penny, but pay for it with half-a-crown's worth of sweat. The
masters aren't fools--as you are. They'll give you two-thirds of
what you ask for, but they'll get five-thirds of it back again--and
they'll get it out of your flesh and blood, too, in jolly hard work.
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