IT WAS not often my father missed the Audit Dinner at the Dartmouth
Arms, but for some reason I do not remember, he could not go to the
November Audit of 1811. So I went in his place, as was but my due,
seeing that in the course of time and nature the homestead would be
mine, and I tenant to my lord in my father's stead. So to the dinner I
went in great state and no little fluster, having donned my Sunday
clothes, and showing as fine a leg (though I say it that should not) as
ever passed Slaithwaite Church. I went by the churchyard corner where
old Mr. Meeke rested in his grave, and I did not fail to doff my beaver,
for was I not taught all I ever knew at the Free School, founded by Mr.
Meeke, and I was, too, ever a lover of the Church, though we had joined
the Hard-bedders. There had been a wedding that day, and I should have
been there, but none were invited save only family friends, owing to
times being so bad. Jack o' Jamie's had wed Sue Lumb, and I knew Jack o'
Jamie's and Sue both, as indeed I knew every mother's son and lass in
Slaithwaite; and my mother could tell their pedigree for generations
back. Opposite the door of the Dartmouth Arms I came across a crowd
different from ordinary, for in the midst was Jack donned in his Sunday
best, and a great white rosette at his breast, and there was Sue with a
white veil over her head and clinging to Jack's arm and crying and
coaxing, and Jack fuming and swearing and waving his arms and shaking
his fist at his own father. Sure a rare sight for a wedding day, and I
stayed to hear what might be the meaning of it all. I knew Jack for a
decent, hard working lad that kept his father, a drunken neer-do-weel,
from the rates. Old Jamie had a hang-dog look to be sure, as he kept
away from his son's reach and cowered behind his new daughter-in-law.
"It's too bad," Jack was crying, "It's too bad; yo' all know 'at awn
kept mi father awmost even sin' aw could addle a meg, an' him doing nowt
but tidy th' house up an' go a rattin' with th' dog an' happen bring a
rabbit home betimes--an' aw never grudged him owt, for he's mi own
father, an' mi mother 'at's dead an' gone left him to me. But, its too
bad aw say--gise 'ang, it ud make a worm turn--here its mi wedding
day, an' aw thowt we'd have a bite an' sup by ordinar. So aw off to Ned
o' Bill's an' bowt three p'und o' good wheat flour, tho' it's well
known, what price it's at, an' ill aw could spare th' brass. But a felly
doesn't get wed every day. We calc'lated it ud mak ten cakes, an' that
ud be one round apiece an' two to put bye for Sunday. Mi father baked
'em hissen three days sin', for we thowt we munnot eit 'em till they
were stale, new uns crumble so--an' aw bowt a piece of th' skirt o'
beef at lay me in five good shillin'--so when aw set off to take Sue
here to th' chuch aw left mi father to watch th' beef afore t' fire, an'
we borrowed some plates an' knives an' forks an' three chairs, for aw
thowt we'd all have a feast at 'ud make th' weddin' party remember mi
weddin' day as long as they lived. An' after th' knot wer' teed an' we
were walkin' th' village so all could see what a lass awd gotten, we
just looked in at th' house door to see if th' meat were nearly
done--an would yo' believe it, th' owd glutton 'ud supped welly a
gallon o' th' weddin' ale an' were wipin' his chops wi t' back o' his
coat sleeve, 'at weren't his own, but borrowed o' mi uncle Ben; an'
ther' were nobbut four cakes left an' a good p'und cut off th' joint an'
th' pan as bare o' gravy as if it had been new scoured. Oh! tha' brussen
guts; if tha' weren't mi own father!" And here Jack shook his fist over
Jamie's head, and Sue tried to turn aside his wrath and to play the
peace-maker, as a good woman ever will.
"For shame o' thissen," said one; "It 'ud sarve thi reight to put thee
i' th' stocks," said another; "Let's stang him," a woman cried. "Many a
decent body's been cucked for less," said Moll o' Stuarts, who knew what
the cucking stool meant full well. And all felt that Jamie Thewlis had
done as scurvy a trick as ever he had done in a scurvy life. Even those
that drank with him, the loafers and vagabonds of the village, got to
the outskirts of the crowd, and left him alone to his defence.
"Yo' see it were this way," said Thewlis, when he could get a hearing.
"Th' table' wor set all ready for th' weddin' party. Aw'd laid a clean
cloth on th' table. There were a plate an' a knife an' fork for every
one that were comin'. Th' house were tidied up an' as clean yo' could
had etten yor dinner off th' floor. Then Jack started off to fetch
Susan. Th' cakes were on th' table, one bi each plate. Aw put th' joint
on th' jack afore th' fire just as he'd told me bi th' clock. Then aw
set me dahn to watch it. It wor a grand joint. Aw could ha' fair hugged
it when aw took it up, so plump an' red and firm, wi' streaks o' fat
runnin' in an' among th' lean like rivers o' cream in a bank o'
strawberries. Th' fire were just reight, banked down an' hot, an' aw
ca-ered me dahn first o' one side o' th' hearth an' then on t' other,
an' began to watch th' hands o' t' clock an' wish it wor dinner time.
Dinner time it were bi reights, but we'd put th' dinner back so's Jim
an' his frien's could walk through th' village. Then th' skin o' th'
joint began to crack, an' th' fat to fizzle an' ooze 'aat an spit. Aw
looked at th' clock. Aw'll swear th' han's hedn't moved for
half-an-hour, an' yet it were tickin' reg'lar--aw nivver felt hauf as
hungry i' mi life afore. Aw'd had no breakfas', for awd said to mi sen
it 'ud nivver do to shame yar Jack's weddin' dinner bi not doin' reight
bi it. Then all at once th' jack gay' a click an' summut splurted aat,
an' all at once there wer' a smell at fair made mi belly leap inside me.
But aw'd promised yar Jack at aw'd do fair--so aw went to th'
cellar-head to see if ther' wer' happen a crust or owt to stay mi
innards, but ther' wer' nowt. Then ther' wer' another click, an' another
spurt, an' th' room wer' fair full o' th' smell. It awmost turned me
dizzy. Aw looked at th' clock agen, an' guise 'ang me, if th' hand had
stirred aboon an inch, an' dinner seemed as far off as ivver. Then aw
thowt awd fetch th' ale. So aw got th' jug an' a milkin' can an' started
off to th' Globe. Aw tried hard to strap a gill, but th' owd skin-flint
wouldn't trust me. Aw'd awmost talked her into it when t' thowt cam'
into mi head at happen one o' th' naybors 'at hedn't bin axed to th'
weddin' might be after th' joint; an' aw span home as fast as aw could
for fear o' spillin'. Then when aw oppened th' door ther' war' a fair
blast o' th' smell o' gravy right i' mi face. It just took mi breath
away, an' aw had to tak' a pull at th' jug to steady misen. That
heartened me up a bit, an' aw just took one o' th' cakes, mi own at wer'
to be an' set i' my own place at th' table, so it were no robbery,--an
aw put it i' th' pan under th' meat; an', by gow, it wer' a sop an'
gradely. Aw think aw mun ha' put too much salt on it, for aw felt as dry
as a lime-kiln. Then aw had another swig at th' jug, an' looked aat for
th' weddin', but aw could see no' signs on 'em. Then aw bethowt me at
th' fiddler were' nobbut a little un, an' could mak' hauf a cake do, so
aw made hauf a sop. Then th' gravy began to run red an' brown into th'
pan, an' ow knew th' meat wer' near enuff--an' still ther' wer' no
signs o' anybody. Howsomever, aw thought my share shouldn't be spoiled
for any tomfoolery such as walkin' th' village wi' a lass o' my arm, as
if yo' couldn't do that ony time. So aw just cut a slice aat an' put it
on a shive an et it o' mi knee, an' had a swallow out o' th' piggin' to
make it equal wi' th' jug. Then aw thowt aw meight as well be hanged for
a sheep as a lamb, an' aw ate mi fill. Tha' ma' poise me, Jack, if tha'
likes, but tha'll noan poise th' meat out o' me, that's one comfort.
It's th' first time for six months 'at mi back an' mi belly ha' not
shakken hands, an' aw'll ta' thi poisin', an' thank yo' for it."
But long before Jamie had done his story he was out of danger of a
hiding. There was not one there that did not feel hungry with the very
story, and the party trudged homewards with a laugh and a cheer to make
out as best they could on what was left--Jamie, forgiven and
impenitent, not last in the joking throng.
The partition of the upper story of the Dartmouth Arms had been removed,
and thereby room was made for the poorer tenantry who came this year in
great numbers, many there being who came to plead the hard times and
escape their remit, but joined in the rude scramble for the thick slices
of meat and bread and the brimming pewters that were their yearly gift
from the lord. But in the long room, on the top floor, was more decent
seeming and good manners; for the tenants of the larger holdings at that
time paid to the host of the inn each man eighteenpence that there might
be a well-spread board. Mr. Joseph Scott, who lived at Woodsome (none of
my lord's family being then in residence), did sit at the head of the
table, and gave us the health of the king, which we drank with a good
will, for there was none that did not grieve for the old man so sore
stricken in his latter days. Then did Mr. Scott call upon us to toast
His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, and many did drink the health
with a hip, hip, hurrah but for my part, though I hate to waste good
liquor, I poured my ale into the spitoon, for stories not a few had come
to our ears of the wild doings of the Prince and of his cruel treatment
of his consort. Mr. Fox, to be sure, and other leaders of the Whigs in
Parliament, did excuse the wildness of the Prince, and some did even
bear a railing tongue against the hapless princess; but for me, who am
perhaps too little learned to judge of princes and courts, I deemed such
naughtiness should not be in high places more than in men of less
degree, and my loyalty went into the sawdust. But I took a double
draughty to the health of my lord and his lady.
There was no lack of subjects for our tongues to wag upon when the ale
had loosed them, and a well-lined waist set the oil of gladness on our
faces. There was, for one, the never failing theme of Lord Wellington's
doings among the Dons. But a few days previous, General Marmont had
raised the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, and our spirits had been greatly
stirred by the discovery of one of his dispatches, in which he boasted
that he would have pursued the British forces to the lines of Lisbon "if
the moment designed for the catastrophe of England had arrived." That
put our English up, and was as good as a score of recruiting sergeants
to our army. Catastrophe, we knew well, might come to us as it has done
to other nations; but never, we vowed, should or could it come through a
frog-eating Frenchman. We gladly turned from that topic to news nearer
home. There was the great fight at Thissleton Gap, for instance, which
showed what British grit and muscle and pluck could do; and we were all
ready to wager all we had that if you searched France from north to
south you could find no champion like Crib, who had near been the death
of Molineux in a fight near Grantham, breaking his jaw, and leaving him
senseless on the field. There had not been a bed to be had for love or
money for twenty miles round Thissleton Gap the night before the fight,
said the "Leeds Mercury," and all the nobility and gentry of the county
had been there; and after his great victory Crib, carrying away a purse
of £400, had driven to London in a carriage and four, the postillions
decked with blue ribands and streamers, and the whole populace in every
town and hamlet by the way turning out to cheer the wearer of the belt.
Then, too, there was much talk of the progress making with the cutting
of the new canal that was to tie the eastern and the western seas; and
we had not yet done marvelling at the boring of the waterway under
Stanedge. Then, again, we must gossip to one another anent that strange
portent of the skies, the wondrous comet, that still made our early
morns so beautiful and yet so fraught with dread. The wise men said its
tail was over twenty million miles long, as it streamed away from
Charles's Wain across the distant sky, and Mr. Mellor, the schoolmaster,
did try to show me how the calculation had been made; whilst Mr. Varley,
of the corn mill, who had a merry wit, did say that coals would soon be
cheaper, for the Welsh were counting on the comet coming so near, they
might toast their cheese by it. Mr. Mellor was somewhat ruffled that his
serious discourse should be turned to levity, and said that as perchance
Mr. Varley could not be expected to understand the deep subtleties of
astronomy, he would try him on a subject nearer his heart.
"I will, to-morrow," said Mr. Mellor, "bring to your house twenty golden
guineas, and in return you shall give me your written bond to give me
therefor, one grain of good wheat, two grains and no more on the day
following, four on the next, and so on each day thereafter for six
months by the calendar, every day doubling the number of the day
before."
"Done, and done to it," cried Mr. Varley, and all the company exclaimed
that so rare a bargain the miller never made in his life before and for
an hour after that I saw Mr. Varley was doing sums in his head, and
chuckling feebly to himself but in time he ceased to laugh, and his brow
wrinkled and his eye was anxious, and he was seen to add figures
secretly in his bulky pocket-book, and ever as he worked he grew sadder;
till at length he cried that not all the corn that grew that year in
Yorkshire could pay his wager, and he was fain to fill our measures
round with best ale to be quit of his bargain. And all that went away
sober that night told their wives how the schoolmaster had bested the
miller, and were the more resolved their lads should mind their books
and be good at figuring. And I was very glad that my old master had come
off with so great credit, for Mr. Varley, by reason of being the lord's
agent, was something prone to give himself an air.
But Mr. Webster was not too pleased that Mr. Varley should have jested
of the comet. It had exercised him sore in the searching of the
Scriptures, and oftentimes had he pointed to its presence in the
heavens, and many a restless night had he given to my mother.
Mr. Webster would have it that the comet did foretell the coming of the
Son of Man in a cloud with power and great glory, and the good man
rejoiced thereat, seeing nought to cause us grief, but rather joy, that
there were "great earthquakes in divers places, and famines and
pestilences, and fearful sights and great signs from heaven." And he
would exultingly call us to witness the fulfilment of prophesy for that
there were signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon
the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves
roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those
things which were coming on earth. But my mother lived to laugh at her
fears, and even to wear a dress that became the fashion, of which the
body was of pale red silk, a star of gold thread standing for the
comet's head, and a fan shaped tail of silver spangles spreading out in
likeness of the comet's tail.
It was my great honour after the dinner, and whilst the company sat over
their cups, to be invited to the head of the table by Mr. Joseph Scott,
of Woodsome, who was then lately become a magistrate, a handsome man of
some forty years. He asked most kindly after the health of my father and
mother, and bade the tapster who waited on the upper end of the table
charge me a bumper of the wine of Oporto, which did fill my heart with a
great warmth. Then when I would have returned to my seat by the
schoolmaster he bade me remain, and I listened with all my ears to the
talk of my betters. I noticed that Mr. Scott spoke mostly with Mr.
William Horsfall, of Marsden. I knew Mr. Horsfall well by sight, having
seen him often on the road as he went to or returned from market, a man
in his prime, with a keen, resolute look; not easily turned from his
purpose, I warrant you. Impatient of opposition, I judged him even then,
brusque, and a little petulant, but not unkindly of heart as I had
heard, for those that worked for him had ever a good name for him--but
a masterful man.
The talk between these two was much of the coolness there then was
between America and England. Mr. Horsfall was very bitter about this.
"It is all the fault of those accursed Orders in Council," he said.
"Before our benighted Government issued the Orders in Council, America
took twelve million pounds worth of our manufactures--now not one
penny-worth. Withdraw the Orders and you conciliate America; you bind
her to us by the closest tie of all, the tie of self-interest. So long
as these Orders remain in force it is futile to talk of negotiations. It
is beating the air. We are alienating our own flesh and blood, we are
running grave risk of having another enemy on our hands, and that of our
own household, our cousins if not our brothers. Here are we pulling our
own nose to spite Napoleon's face. It is suicidal, it is
criminal!"--and I know not how many other hard names Mr. Horsfall
hurled at the poor Government whilst Mr. Scott, with the ink scarce dry
on his commission, fidgetted in his seat and was, I thought, hard put to
it to defend the Government. At last when Mr. Horsfall grew more
vehement in his denunciation of ministers, Mr. Scott bade him remember
that it was the Whigs who in January, 1807, issued the first
counterblast to Napoleon's Berlin Decree; and then did these two
Englishmen, the one a Whig and the other a Tory, get so warm about
Whiggery and Toryism that I had much to do to get to the truth of the
matter. In a lull of the storm I did so far presume upon the great
condescension that Mr. Scott had shewn to me, for my father's sake, as
to ask him what these same Orders in Council might be, and how they bore
upon us humble folk in Slaithwaite, for save that every one did speak of
them as the cause of much of our bad trade and sore distress, I knew
little for certain about them. "You must know then," explained Mr.
Scott, "that in 1806 Napoleon issued from Berlin a proclamation,
addressed to all the world, declaring the island of Great Britain in a
state of blockade, all British subjects, wherever found, prisoners of
war, and all British goods, wherever taken, lawful prize, and excluding
from all the ports of France every vessel which had touched at any
British port, no matter to what nation such vessel might belong."----
"But surely, sir," I said timidly, for I knew little of such great
matters, "surely, that was to declare war on all the countries of the
world."
"'Rem acu tetigisti'--thou hast touched the point with a pin," cried
Mr. Mellor, who had drawn near, whereat I blushed mightily, for I knew a
little of the Latin, thank to much persistence of my good dominie, and
by this time all the company had ceased their jesting and coffing and
idle gossip, and all ears were cocked to hear what Mr. Scott and our
neighbour Horsfall were so hot about.
"Then did the Whig Government," continued Mr. Scott, triumphantly,
"issue an Order in Council, declaring that England was authorized by the
Berlin Decree to blockade the whole seaboard of France; to prohibit all
vessels which had touched at a French port from entering our harbours,
and making their cargoes fair prize. It was that Order which estranged
America, and has made it so that all our foreign trade has been cut off
as with a knife."
"Nay but," said Mr. Horsfall, "you should not forget to say that Mr.
Percival, your Tory minister, has not only continued the Order but
extended it; that the Whigs have admitted the error of their policy,
that petition after petition has gone from the manufacturers of
Yorkshire, praying for a Repeal of the Order's, and that Mr. Brougham is
never weary striving for that good end. But we know how it is--the war
may ruin us manufacturers, but it pays the landowner. It keeps up the
price of corn and stock, it finds pay and promotion for the young bloods
of the aristocracy, it distracts the minds of the people at home from
domestic reforms, it keeps up the hideous system of privilege, by which
peer and prelate batten on the spoils of a people oppressed to the
limits of endurance, and it is mighty convenient to keep Napoleon as a
bogy man to frighten the people withal when they cry for reform." And
then did these two good men at it again hammer and tongs, and others
joined in, and the ale and the wine talked louder than sense and
knowledge, and you could make neither head nor tail of all the talk. But
presently they simmered down, and Mr. Horsfall was drinking to the
health of Mrs. Scott, whom he vowed he knew when she was the beauty of
Storthes Hall, as if nothing had come between them to raise a dust, and
all the more that, as good chance would have it, they hit on a subject
on which they had little variance.
"I hear," said Mr. Scott, "that you are trying these new finishing
frames of the Taylor's, at Ottiwell's."
"I am that," said Mr. Horsfall, "and well content I am with them. They
finish the cloth better far than the best croppers ever did or could,
and one machine can do the work of four men."
"Then you will need less men," said Mr. Scott, "and this is no time to
be sacking men--I remember what happened twenty years ago when
Grimshaw, of Manchester, arranged with Dr. Cartwright, the new Bishop
Blaize as they called him, to set up four hundred looms at Manchester to
be run by a steam engine. Grimshaw received hundreds of threatening
letters, he was fired at more than once, his wife nearly fell into a
decline from constant fear, and just when the mill was built, for four
hundred looms, and part of the machines were in, mill and looms and all
were swallowed up in a fire, and who made the fire you may well guess.
It ruined Grimshaw, and now he goes about saying he wishes Bishop Blaize
had been in blazes 'fore ever he had tempted him with his fine stories.
But you Whigs will never be content with the wisdom of our forefathers.
You must have something new fangled, either in mill or state"--and so
they off again into politics; and having promised my mother to be home
by milking time, and fearful if I stayed longer the fumes of the tobacco
and the wine would be too much for an unseasoned head, I took my leave
of Mr. Scott and won my way into the open air.
By the stepping-stones that crossed the river, who should I see but
Soldier Jack and a merry party that had been out with the harriers. They
had come trooping down Kitchen Fold from over Crosland Moor way, and
were in high feather, shouting and singing, while the hounds bayed in
chorus. Soldier Jack was no man's lad, a bye-blow. He had been left on
the Workhouse steps tied in a bundle, and nought to show who was his
father or who his mother. Then when he was a lad of ten years old the
Overseer had 'prenticed him out to a shoemaker in Huddersfield, but he
had been a sore trial to his master--disappearing and appearing when he
liked, and neither fair words nor the strap, of which his master was not
sparing if Jack spoke truth, availing to make him follow the old adage
and stick to the last. Then one fine day the recruiting sergeant, in all
his bravery, had put up at the Rose and Crown, and called on all gallant
lads to take the king's shilling and fight for glory and their country.
"That's the colour for me to dye," thought Jack, and braving the law,
which would have laid him by the heels for breaking his writings, he
'listed in a foot regiment, and was off for the wars with a heart as
light as the heels he showed his master. Then many a year passed. Jack
was unseen and forgotten in the haunts of his youth, when lo! he
appeared, from God knows where, straight as a picking rod, brown as a
berry, minus the left arm, and with a limp of his right leg; but
otherwise sound as a bell and tight as a drum. He had some money, in the
coinage of all the countries of Europe well nigh; and, as I heard tell,
right royally did Jack live while his money lasted. He had no fixed
quarters in the early days of his return from the wars, but of recent
years he had dwelt much among the Burn Platters, an uncanny race of
outlaws that some said were Frenchmen and some said were gypsies, that
lived at Burn Platts on the moors on the edge of Slaithwaite, and of
whose savagery and evil ways many stories were told. But Soldier Jack
ever kept himself spruce and trim, and was a welcome visitor at every
house on all that country side. How he lived none did know for gospel.
At times in his cups he talked mysteriously of golden crosses and rare
stones that he had lighted on in the sack of holy houses in Spain; but
this, I think, was mere embroidery of his adventures. Lord! what a life
had been Soldier Jack's--what sieges he had seen, what pitched battles
he had fought in, what prisoners he had taken, what forlorn hopes he had
led, what distressed damsels he had rescued, how many haughty hidalgos
he had slain with his own hand! Even Lord Wellington himself had been
under obligation to him, and he had all but seized with his own hands
the awful person of Napoleon himself. How he lived I say I know not.
Belike he had some small pension from the king. At haymaking time, too,
he turned a good cock and an honest penny, despite his one arm. He never
missed a market or a fair, could be trusted above the common to carry a
message, and was something of a farrier. But set job he had none, and
yet never wanted. To be sure he had free quarters in nigh every hostelry
all the country round, and if truth were told could hang up his hat when
he would, for good and all, at the Black Bull; for widow Walker, who
kept that house, was known to be widowing, and a fair and buxom dame
withal.
Now on this night of the Rent Audit Soldier Jack was pleased to leave
the hunters and walk homewards with me, though his comrades were
clamorous for him to join them in another bout at the ale. Though times
were never so bad, it went hard with the weavers if they could not leave
their shuttles and follow the hounds; and somehow they had ever
wherewith to guzzle at the inn. But Jack was maybe wearied with the
trail, and we took our way past the church and up the hill towards Holm.
For some short distance Jack walked with never a word, though I wanted
news of the hunt, where they had killed, and whose hound showed the
truer scent. Then without prelude Jack began.
"Ben, I want a word with thee. You and me has ever been friends, and
your mother, God bless her, ever the soft word and the open hand. And
yo'r father, a good man, though over hard on the slips o' youth"--now
Jack was forty if a week--"But there are things brewing it is right yo'
should know on; for them tha's 'kin to yo' are like to be tangled in
em."
"Whatever do yo' mean, Jack?" I asked, trying to speer at him in the
gloom, for I thought maybe the ale had got into his head.
"There's a deal o' sufferin' about these parts, Ben. More nor yo' think
on. Yo' happen think 'at because th' lads about are after th' hounds an'
have a bit to spend on drink 'at they're better off nor they are. But
yo' see I'm more about nor yo' an' more intimate like. Folk is sellin'
their bits o' stuff quiet like. Mony a decent woman 'at wouldn't have it
known has sent me wi' 'owd keepsakes an' heirlooms like to th'
silversmith i' Huddersfelt an' Owdham. They put a brave face on it an'
talk little, but aw know there's scores o' fam'lies i' this valley and
on these hill sides, 'at's welly clammin'! It isn't them as goes 'afore
the overseers 'at's the worst off. There's scores an' scores livin' on
the town 'at go reg'lar every week for th' town 'lowance. They'n got th'
length o' th' ovverseer's foot, an' its not for the like o' me to blame
'em."
"Crows shouldn't pike crows' 'een, eh Jack?" I put in.
"Th' ovverseer's fair game," continued Jack, unmoved. "But he's a fool
for all his stuck up ways. Aw tell yo' 'at there's hundreds awmost
sucking their finger ends, like bears do their paws, 'at winnot go on to
th' parish. An' mark yo', th' poor ha' borne wi' slack work an'
mullocked on as best they could, as long as they thought th' wars and
bad harvests were to blame. An' they've bided in hope, for harvests
winnot all be bad, an' we'st beat the little Corporal yet. But now th'
mesters are for makin' bad worse wi' this new machinery. They're crying
'Every man for hissen an' devil take the hindmost.' They're bringing
wood and iron to do the work of willing hands and arms, an', by gow, the
lads about won't see their craft ruined, an' them an' theirs pined to
death, wi'out a blow struck. Aw tell yo', Ben, there's mischief brewin',
or my name's not Soldier Jack; an' if yo' want to know more, yo' mun ask
yon mettlesome cousin o' yours, Judd Mellor, o' th' Brigg."--
"What! George Mellor?" I cried; "why, what has he to do with it?" For
such an ending to the soldier's tale I never thought nor dreamed of.
"I've said my say, Ben, and yo'll get no more out o' me. It's no use
pumpin' at a dry well tha' knows. So aw'll say good neet, an' my duty to
thi father an' mother." And resisting my entreaty that he would go
onwards to our house and take pot luck at supper, Jack wheeled off into
the dark, and I heard his stride, firm and martial still, despite the
gamey leg, as he made across a footpath to the left, and his voice
humming a stave of Lillibulero.