The next day, and for the greater part of the time during the next fortnight, Ruth was in a raging fever.There were intervals when although weak and exhausted, she was in her right mind, but most of the time she was quite unconscious of her surroundings and often delirious.Mrs Owen came every day to help to look after her, because Mary just then had a lot of needlework to do, and consequently could only give part of her time to Ruth, who, in her delirium, lived and told over and over again all the sorrow and suffering of the last few months.And so the two friends, watching by her bedside, learned her dreadful secret.
Sometimes - in her delirium - she seemed possessed of an intense and terrible loathing for the poor little creature she had brought into the world, and was with difficulty prevented from doing it violence.
Once she seized it cruelly and threw it fiercely from her to the foot of the bed, as if it had been some poisonous or loathsome thing.And so it often became necessary to take the child away out of the room, so that she could not see or hear it, but when her senses came back to her, her first thought was for the child, and there must have been in her mind some faint recollection of what she had said and done in her madness, for when she saw that the baby was not in its accustomed place her distress and alarm were painful to see, as she entreated them with tears to give it back to her.And then she would kiss and fondle it with all manner of endearing words, and cry bitterly.
Easton did not see or hear most of this; he only knew that she was very ill; for he went out every day on the almost hopeless quest for work.Rushton's had next to nothing to do, and most of the other shops were in a similar plight.Dauber and Botchit had one or two jobs going on, and Easton tried several times to get a start for them, but was always told they were full up.The sweating methods of this firm continued to form a favourite topic of conversation with the unemployed workmen, who railed at and cursed them horribly.It had leaked out that they were paying only sixpence an hour to most of the skilled workmen in their employment, and even then the conditions under which they worked were, if possible, worse than those obtaining at most other firms.The men were treated like so many convicts, and every job was a hell where driving and bullying reigned supreme, and obscene curses and blasphemy polluted the air from morning till night.
The resentment of those who were out of work was directed, not only against the heads of the firm, but also against the miserable, half-starved drudges in their employment.These poor wretches were denounced as `scabs' and `wastrels' by the unemployed workmen but all the same, whenever Dauber and Botchit wanted some extra hands they never had any difficulty in obtaining them, and it often happened that those who had been loudest and bitterest in their denunciations were amongst the first to rush off eagerly to apply there for a job whenever there was a chance of getting one.
Frequently the light was seen burning late at night in Rushton's office, where Nimrod and his master were figuring out prices and writing out estimates, cutting down the amounts to the lowest possible point in the hope of underbidding their rivals.Now and then they were successful but whether they secured the work or not, Nimrod always appeared equally miserable.If they got the `job' it often showed such a small margin of profit that Rushton used to grumble at him and suggest mismanagement.If their estimates were too high and they lost the work, he used to demand of Nimrod why it was possible for Dauber and Botchit to do work so much more cheaply.
As the unemployed workmen stood in groups at the corners or walked aimlessly about the streets, they often saw Hunter pass by on his bicycle, looking worried and harassed.He was such a picture of misery, that it began to be rumoured amongst the men, that he had never been the same since the time he had that fall off the bike; and some of them declared, that they wouldn't mind betting that ole Misery would finish up by going off his bloody rocker.
At intervals - whenever a job came in - Owen, Crass, Slyme, Sawkins and one or two others, continued to be employed at Rushton's, but they seldom managed to make more than two or three days a week, even when there was anything to do.
