if it gives you pleasure. [Bulgin Stands motionless and sullen.] Am I a liar, a coward, a traitor?  If only I were, ye’d listen to me, I’m sure. [The murmurings cease, and there is now dead silence.] Is there a man of you here that has less to gain by striking?  Is there a man of you that had more to lose?  Is there a man of you that has given up eight hundred pounds since this trouble here began?  Come now, is there?  How much has Thomas given up—­ten pounds or five, or what?  You listened to him, and what had he to say?  “None can pretend,” he said, “that I’m not a believer in principle—­[with biting irony]—­but when Nature says:  ’No further, ‘t es going agenst Nature.’” I tell you if a man cannot say to Nature:  “Budge me from this if ye can!”—­ [with a sort of exaltation]his principles are but his belly.  “Oh, but,” Thomas says, “a man can be pure and honest, just and merciful, and take off his hat to Nature!” I tell you Nature’s neither pure nor honest, just nor merciful.  You chaps that live over the hill, an’ go home dead beat in the dark on a snowy night—­don’t ye fight your way every inch of it?  Do ye go lyin’ down an’ trustin’ to the tender mercies of this merciful Nature?  Try it and you’ll soon know with what ye’ve got to deal.  ’T es only by that—­[he strikes a blow with his clenched fist]—­in Nature’s face that a man can be a man.  “Give in,” says Thomas, “go down on your knees; throw up your foolish fight, an’ perhaps,” he said, “perhaps your enemy will chuck you down a crust.”

Jago.  Never!

Evans.  Curse them!

Thomas.  I nefer said that.

Roberts. [Bitingly.] If ye did not say it, man, ye meant it.  An’ what did ye say about Chapel?  “Chapel’s against it,” ye said.  “She ’s against it!” Well, if Chapel and Nature go hand in hand, it’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.  That young man there—­ [pointing to Rous]—­said I ’ad ’ell fire on my tongue.  If I had I would use it all to scorch and wither this talking of surrender.  Surrendering ’s the work of cowards and traitors.

Henry Rous. [As George Rous moves forward.] Go for him, George—­ don’t stand his lip!

Roberts. [Flinging out his finger.] Stop there, George Rous, it’s no time this to settle personal matters. [Rous stops.] But there was one other spoke to you—­Mr. Simon Harness.  We have not much to thank Mr. Harness and the Union for.  They said to us “Desert your mates, or we’ll desert you.”  An’ they did desert us.

Evans.  They did.

Roberts.  Mr. Simon Harness is a clever man, but he has come too late. [With intense conviction.] For all that Mr. Simon Harness says, for all that Thomas, Rous, for all that any man present here can say—­We’ve won the fight!

     [The crowd sags nearer, looking eagerly up.]