“Well, Muster Gordon,” at length he broke forth, “look’ee here, sir.  The weather’s been awful bad, and clean agin shearing.  We’ve not been earning our grub, and—­”

“So it has,” answered the manager, “so it has.  But can I help the weather?  I’m as anxious as you are to have the shearing over quickly.  We’re both of one mind about that, eh?”

“That’s all right enough, sir,” struck in Abraham Lawson, who felt that Ben was getting the worst of the argument, and was moreover far less fluent than usual, probably from being deprived of the aid of the customary expletives, “but we’re come to say this, sir, that the season’s turned out very wet indeed.  We’ve had a deal of broken time, and the men feel it very hard to be paying for a lot of rations, and hardly earning anything.  We’re shearing the sheep very close and clean.  You won’t have ’em done no otherways.  Not like some sheds where a man can ‘run’ a bit and make up for lost time.  Now we’ve all come to think this, sir, that if we’re to go on shearing the sheep well, and to stick to them, and get them done before the dust and grass-seed come in, that you ought to make us some allowance.  We know we’ve agreed for so much a hundred, and all that.  Still as the season’s turned so out-and-out bad, we hope you’ll consider it and make it up to us somehow.”

“Never knew a worse year,” corroborated Billy May, who thought it indispensable to say something.  “Haven’t made enough, myself, to pay the cook.”

This was not strictly true, at any rate, as to Master Billy’s own earnings; he being such a remarkably fast shearer (and good withal), that he had always a respectable sum credited to him for his days’ work, even when many of the slower men came off short enough.

However, enough had been said to make Mr Gordon fully comprehend the case.  The men were dissatisfied.  They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some pecuniary concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of capital to that of labour.  Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits, reserve fund, they knew not nor cared.  This was their stand.  And being Englishmen they intended to abide by it.

The manager had considered the situation before it actually arose.  He now rapidly took in the remaining points of debate.  The shearers had signed a specific agreement for a stipulated rate of payment, irrespective of the weather.  By the letter of the law, they had no case.  Whether they made little or much profit was not his affair.  But he was a just and kindly man, as well as reasonably politic.  They had shorn well, and the weather had been discouraging.  He knew too that an abrupt denial might cause a passive mutiny, if not a strike.  If they set themselves to thwart him, it was in their power to shear badly, to shear slowly, and to force him to discharge many of them.  He might have them fined, perhaps imprisoned by the police-court.  Meanwhile, how could shearing go on?  Dust and grass-seeds would soon be upon them.  He resolved on a compromise, and spoke out at once in a firm and decided tone as the men gathered up yet more closely around him.