Thomas Hulme, to Ireland, in Lord Wilton’s Regiment of Lancashire
Volunteers, three years before. The honest, true-hearted fellow could
not write for himself, postage was expensive and uncertain, and in all
those three years only two letters, written by a comrade, had reached
the girl. To her simple, uninformed mind, Ireland was as foreign
and distant a country as Australia is to us in these days. And to
be stationed there with his regiment amongst those “wild Irishmen,”
conveyed only the idea of battles and bloodshed. Yet she kept a brave
heart on the matter, and hid her anxieties from her father as well as
she was able. In some respects little Jabez _was_ a Godsend to her.
The frequent attention he required combined with her labours at the
batting-frame, and her household duties, tended to distract her mind
from the dark picture over which she was so much inclined to brood, and
to make her, if anything, more cheerful. Once more the voice which had
been silent tuned up in song, for the gratification of the youngster,
and in amusing him she insensibly cheered and refreshed herself.
Yet as she trilled her quaint ballads, or Sabbath-school hymns, she
little thought her vocalization was to furnish an envious mind with a
shaft to wound herself, and the one of all others dearer than herself.
Soon after the memorable christening feast, Matthew Cooper and his
family had removed—or “flitted,” as they called it—from Barlow’s Yards
to Skinners’ Yard; and Sally, that peaceable man’s termagant wife, was
not the most desirable of neighbours. The tea, and the currant-cake,
and the beef, on that unusually well-spread board, had filled her with
pleasure for the time, but turned to gall and bitterness ere they were
digested. Why should the Cleggs be so high in the favour of Mr. and
Madam Clough, and her Mat get nothing better than half-a-crown-piece?
He’d quite as much to do in saving the brat’s life as Simon had, and
with such a family, wanted it a fine sight more. So she argued and
argued with herself, quite ignoring, or blind to the fact that it was
not the mere impulse which saved, but the humanity which _kept_ the
babe, that Mr. Clough recognized, and never lost sight of.
As Simon grew in favour at the tannery, the more excited grew Sally
Cooper, until nothing would do but a removal to the opposite yard,
where she could see for herself the “gooin’s on o’ them Cleggs;” and
once there, she contrived to harass Bess by numberless little spiteful
acts, as well as by her vituperative tongue.
Nor did little Jabez himself escape. Parson Brookes, grumbling loudly
at every downward step, found his way to Bess o’ Sims, guided by the
quick-swishing, regular beat of the batting-wands.
Mrs. Clough having, by ocular demonstration, satisfied herself that
Bess was a sufficiently notable house-wife and a kindly nurse, had
replaced the worn out long-clothes which Jabez inherited from “brother
Joe,” by a set of more serviceable and suitable short ones; had,
moreover, sent an embrocation to allay Simon’s rheumatic pains, and to
crown the whole, supplied a go-cart for the boy, to help him to walk,
and yet leave the hands of industrious Bess at liberty.
As Miss Jewsbury has said, in her exquisite story of “The Rivals,” that
go-cart “was the drop added to the brimming cup, the touch given to the
falling column.”
Mat’s worse-half—an inveterately clean woman, be it said—was occupied
with her Saturday’s “redding up,” when she saw the wood-turner carry
it in; and she thereupon trundled her mop at the door so vigorously
and viciously, that the children instinctively shrank into corners,
or ran out of the yard altogether, beyond reach of her weighty arm.
And as, one by one, they ventured back, after what they thought a safe
interval, creeping stealthily over the freshly-sanded floor, and mayhap
leaving the impression of wet clogs thereon, jerks, cuffs, and slaps
were administered with a freedom born of her supposed wrongs.
When Mat came home, to offer his wages upon the household altar,
the storm had not subsided, and he was fain to retreat to the quiet
fireside of Simon to smoke his pipe in peace, and escape its pitiless
peltings. He could not have selected a worse haven. It was a flagrant
going over to the enemy. Thither she followed him in her wrath, and in
her blind fury assailed not only him, but Bess, Simon, Mr. Clough, and
Joshua Brookes, whom she mingled in indiscriminate confusion, casting
aspersions on the girl, which wounded nobody more than her own husband.
In the midst and in spite of all this, Jabez grew apace. Life was not
altogether sweetened for him by Mrs. Clough’s kindness, only made a
little less bitter, and certainly not less hard; since almost his first
experience with the go-cart was to tilt at the open doorway, and pitch
head-foremost down a flight of three steps into the stony yard, whence
frightened Bess raised him, with a bleeding nose and a great bump on
his forehead, amidst the mocking laughter of Sal Cooper.
A chair was overturned across the doorway as a barrier, until Simon
could place a sliding foot-board there. But Jabez had still many
a knock against chair or table until Bess made a padded roll for
his forehead, as a protective coronal. Then every tooth cost him a
convulsion, and any one less patient and tender hearted than Bess would
have abandoned her self-imposed charge in despair, his accidents and
ailments made such inroads on her rest and on her time.
But even patience has its limits, and Sally Cooper strained the
cable until it snapped. At a war of words Bess was no match for her
antagonist: and, rather than endure a second contest, the Cleggs left
the fiery serpent behind, and quitted the yard.
Not willingly, for Simon, contrary to the roving habits of ordinary
weekly tenants, had not changed his abode since his wedding-day, and
the river was as a friend to him. He declared he “could na sleep o’
neets without th’ wayter singin’ to him.” However, he connived to find
a very similar tenement, in just such another _cul-de-sac_, with just
such another tripe-dresser’s cellar underneath, and that, too, without
quitting Long Millgate. Midway between the college and the tannery
this court was situated, its narrow mouth opening to the breezes
wafting down Hanover Street: they could still look out on the verdure
of Walker’s Croft, and the Irk laved its stony base as at that same
Skinner’s Yard, which Simon lived to see demolished.
It was May; bright, sunny, perfumed May. The hawthorn hedges on the
ridge of the croft were white with scented blossoms, and the Irk—not
the muddled stream which improvement (?) is fast shutting out of
remembrance—went on its dimpled way, smiling at the promise of the
season. The echoes of the May-day milkcart bells, and the flutter
of their decorative ribbons, were dying out of all but infantile
remembrance;—the month was more than a fortnight old.
It was 1802, and Jabez was almost three years old. He was running, or
rather scrambling, about the uneven court, gathering strength of limb
and lung from their free use, albeit at the cost of dirt on frock and
face, and the trouble of washing for Bess.
She was singing at her batting-frame—not an unusual thing now, for
rumour had whispered in her ear that the Lancashire Volunteers were
on their homeward march. Even as she sang, a stout young fellow in
uniform stopped at the narrow entrance of the court, and questioned
two or three gossiping women, who, with arms akimbo, blocked up the
passage, if they knew the whereabouts of Simon Clegg, the tanner, and
his daughter Bess.
“What! th’ wench as has the love-choilt?” answered one of the women.
“The girl I mean had no child when I saw her last,” responded he,
between his set teeth.
“Happen that’s some toime sin’, mester, or it’s not th’ same lass.
That’s her singin’ like a throstle o’er her work at the oppen winder.”
“And that’s her choilt,” said another, ending by a lusty call, “Jabez,
lad, coom hither!”
Jabez, taught to obey his elders, came at a trot, in answer to the
woman’s call. The volunteer looked down upon him. The child had neither
Bess’s eyes nor Bess’s features; but he heard the voice of Bess,
and over the woman’s shoulder he caught a glimpse of her face at the
distant window. It _was_ Bess, sure enough!
Sick at heart, Tom Hulme, for it was he, leaned for support against the
side of the dark entry. These women but confirmed what he had heard in
Skinners’ Yard from Matt Cooper’s vindictive wife. The deep shadow of
the entry hid his change of countenance. Without a condemnatory word,
without a step forward towards the girl whose heart was full of him,
he steadied himself and his voice, and mustering courage to say, “No,
that is not the lass I want,” strode resolutely out of the entry; and,
bending his steps to the right, turned up Toad Lane, and so on to the
“Seven Stars,” in Withy Grove, where he was billeted.
He had come back from Ireland full of hope, and _this_ was the end
of it! He had been constant, and she was frail! She whom he had left
so pure had sunk so low that, though she bore the brand of shame,
she could sing blithely at her work, unconscious or reckless of
her degradation! Tom had only been a hand-loom weaver, and was but
a private in his regiment, but he had a soul as constant in love,
as sensitive to disgrace, as the proudest officer in the corps. He
might have doubted Sally Cooper’s artful insinuations, but for the
unconscious confirmation of the other women, and the personal testimony
of poor little Jabez; the innocent child, borne with sorrow by his own
dead mother, bringing sorrow to his living maiden-foster-mother.
The little lispings of the child conveyed no impression to Bess’s
understanding, but one of the women bawled out to her from the open
court—
“Aw say, theer’s bin a volunteer chap axin’ fur a lass neamed Bess
Clegg, but he saw thee from th’ entry, and said yore not th’ lass he
wanted!”
Her heart gave a great leap, and the blood flushed up to her pale
face. Could it be possible that there was another Bess Clegg of whom a
volunteer could be in search? Yet, had that been _her_ Tom, he would
have known his Bess again, even after five—ay, or twenty years. She
would know _him_ anywhere! And so all that day, and the next, her heart
kept in a flutter of expectation and perplexity. She wondered he did
not come. The regiment was in town; he surely had not been misled in
his inquiries because they had “flitted.” Yet in all her thoughts the
grim reality had no place. Her perfect innocence and singleness of
heart had never suggested such a possibility to her.
The days went by from the 13th to the 22nd, yet he came not. After
working-hours Simon tried to hunt him up; but the billeting system, and
ill-lighted streets, set his simple tactics at defiance. On the latter
day, Lord Wilton gave a dinner in the quadrangle of the College, to the
non-commissioned officers and privates in his regiment, to celebrate
their return, and the peace and plenty then restored to the land.
At the first sound of fife and drum, Bess snatched up Jabez, and
leaving house and batting-frame to take care of themselves, rushed
along the street to the “Sun Inn” corner, where Long Millgate turns
at a sharp angle, the old Grammar School and the Chetham College
gate standing at the outer bend of the elbow. The better to see, she
mounted the steps of the house next to the “Sun”—a house kept by a
leather-breeches maker,—and strained her eyes as the gay procession
wound from the apple-market, passed the handsome black-and-white
frame-house of the Grammar School’s head-master, and, with banners
flying, and drums beating, marched under the ancient arched gateway
between a double row of blue-coat boys.
She held Jabez high up in her arms to let him see, and his little arms
clasped her neck, as she scanned every passing soldier’s features.
Two-thirds of the corps had passed—she saw the loved and looked-for
face, and, radiant with delight, stretched forward, and in eager tones
called—“Tom!”
There was a mutual start of recognition; two faces crimsoned to
the brow; then one white as ashes, a keen meaning glance at the
child, teeth clenched, and eyes set with stern resolution; and,
without another look, without a word, Tom Hulme went on under the
Whale’s-jawbone gateway: and Bess, with brain bewildered, hands and
limbs relaxed, sank on the breeches-maker’s steps in a dead faint.
A lady (Mrs. Chadwick), who had a little girl by the hand, caught Jabez
as they fell, and putting his hand in her daughter’s, bade her take
care of him—she was perhaps a year or two older than he,—whilst she
raised the poor young woman’s head, and applied a smelling-bottle to
her nose.
Strange parting, strange meeting! How close the founts of sweet and
bitter waters lie! How often separate streams of life meet and part
again; some to meet and blend in after years, some to meet never more!
Another week, and Lord Wilton’s Lancashire volunteer regiment had a
man the less, the line had a man the more. Private Thomas Hulme had
exchanged.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.[16]
ELLEN CHADWICK.
The song of the human throstle was heard no more floating across the
batting-frame out of the window of its cage, in the dreary yard on the
banks of the Irk. The swish of the wands might be heard when other
sounds were low, but no more snatches of melody flowed in between.
Kind-hearted Mrs. Chadwick had not been content to leave poor Bessy at
the breeches-maker’s when her swoon was over; but, seeing that the girl
continued in a dazed kind of stupor, sent to the adjoining “Sun Inn”
for cold brandy-and-water, to stimulate the dormant mind. Bess drank,
half unconsciously, and Mrs. Chadwick, leaving her little daughter
Ellen to amuse astonished Jabez, waited patiently until the young woman
could collect her ideas, and not only tell where she lived, but prepare
to walk home.
By that time the road was tolerably clear. Mrs. Chadwick thanked the
breeches maker, and bidding Miss Ellen march in advance with little
Jabez, herself helped Bessy Clegg homeward.
She never asked herself why or wherefore the girl had fainted, or whose
the child she carried in her arms. She merely saw a modest-looking
young woman stricken down by illness or distress, and put out a
Christian hand to help her.
It was past Simon’s dinner-hour, and they found him on the look-out for
the absentees. He was more bewildered than Bess when he saw her brought
home pale and trembling by a stranger, whose dress and manner bespoke
her superior station. Mrs. Chadwick explained, seeing that Bess was
incapable.
“The poor girl fainted almost opposite to the College gate, as she
watched Earl Wilton’s regiment march past. She recovered so slowly, I
was afraid to let her come through the streets unprotected, especially
as she had so young a child in her charge.”
Simon thanked her, as well he might. Benevolence will relieve distress
with money, or passing words of sympathy, but it is not often silken
skirt and satin bonnet walk through a crowded thoroughfare in close
conjunction with bonnetless cotton and linsey.
Yet Simon was utterly at a loss to account for her swoon. He could only
conjecture that she had missed her sweetheart from the corps, and that
the inquiring volunteer had been a comrade sent to announce Tom Hulme’s
death. Observing how much he was confounded, the good lady thought it
best to retire, and leave them to themselves.
“Come, Ellen, it is time we went home.”
But Ellen, seated on a low stool in the corner, had her lap full of
broken toys, which had found their way hither from the Clough nursery,
and which Jabez displayed to all comers.
“My daughter appears wonderfully attracted to your little grandson.”
“He’s noa gran’son o’ moine, Misses, though aw think aw love th’ little
lad as much as if he did belung to us. Aw just picked him eawt o’ th’
wayter, i’ th’ greet flood abeawt two year an’ hauve back. Aw dunnot
know reetly who th’ young un belungs to.”
“And you have kept him ever since—through all the trying time of
scarcity?”
“Yoi; aw could do no other, an’ a little chap like Jabez couldna ate
much.”
“It does you credit,” said the lady.
“Mebbe. Aw dunnot know. Aw dunnot see mich credit i’ doin’ one’s clear
duty. But aw think theer’d ha’ bin _dis_credit an’ aw hadna done it.”
“I wish everyone shared your sentiments,” replied she.
By this time the little girl had relinquished the toys, kissed the
little boy patronisingly, and was by her mother’s side, ready to
depart. A word of sympathy and encouragement from Mrs. Chadwick, and
father and daughter were left alone with their new sorrow.
Sorely puzzled was Simon to account for Tom Hulme’s strange conduct.
He could only come to the conclusion that he had picked up a fresh
sweetheart in Ireland, and was ashamed to show his face.
“An’ if so, lass, yo’re best off without him,” said he.
The stern, troubled look on the young volunteer’s face, which Bess had
seen and her father had not, he could not understand, and therefore
could not credit.
One day the girl said, as if struck by a sudden thought—
“Feyther, aw saw Tum look hard at Jabez. Dun yo’ think as heaw he
fancied aw wur wed?”
“He moight, lass, he moight,” said he, knocking the ashes out of his
pipe; “but dunnot thee fret; aw’ll look Tum up, and set it o’ reet, if
that’s o’.”
But there was no setting it right, for by that time Tom had left the
corps and the town, and thenceforth Bessy’s musical pipe was out of
tune, and stopped utterly. She worked, it is true, but she had no
heart in her work; and though before her father she kept up a show of
cheerfulness, in his absence she had shed many and bitter tears.
Smiles and tears are among a child’s earliest perceptions and
experiences. Of the mother’s smile in its full sense Jabez knew
nothing. With all her winning ways, Bess could never supply that
want, if want it could be where it was never missed, having so good
a substitute. But of the change which came over her when she knew
that Tom was indeed lost to her, even the three years child could be
sensible. He had been early taught to show a brave front when he hurt
himself, and the starting tears would subdue to a whimper; but, for all
that, tears to him meant pain or disappointment, and as they fell and
wetted the (not always clean) little cheek laid lovingly against hers,
a tender chord was struck; he would press his small arm tighter round
her neck, and with a sympathetic “Don’t ky, Beth!” nestle closer, and
try to kiss away the drops, which only fell the faster.
Low-spirited nurses do not make lively children, and Jabez, after a
stout tussle with the whooping-cough, began to droop as much as Bess;
so clear-eyed Simon instituted a series of Sunday rambles for the
three, in search of plants and posies, to brighten their dull home, and
of bloom to brighten the fading cheeks. Sometimes Matt Cooper, with one
or two of his youngsters, would join them, but not often; Sal was so
jealous of his friendship with the Cleggs, and the pleasant day was so
certain to be marred by an unpleasant reception in the evening at home.
These Summer walks seldom extended beyond Collyhurst Clough and
quarries, or Smedley Vale, or through the fields to Chetham Hill,
stopping at the “Cow and Calf” to refresh, and rest the little ones,
before they came back laden with wild flowers down Red Bank and over
Scotland Bridge, to their respective “yards” in Long Millgate.
At first, whenever they took the lower road through Angel Meadow,
they did their best to ferret out the parentage and connections of
Jabez, hoping by their inquiries even to keep alive the memory of his
marvellous deliverance, so that in case the missing father should
return, there might be a mutual restoration.
These Sunday excursions did not drop with the sere autumnal leaves. A
crisp clear day called them forth surely as sunshine had done, Jabez
mounting pick-a-back on the shoulders of Simon or Matt when his little
feet could no longer keep up their trot beside the bigger Cooper boys.
Frames were invigorated, cheerfulness came back to face and home, and
Simon, who had a deep-seated love of Nature in his soul, finding her so
good a physician, kept up the acquaintance through rounding seasons and
years. And from Nature he drew lessons which he dropped as seed into
the boy’s heart, as unconscious of the great work he was doing as was
Jabez himself.
The boy throve and grew hardy. Companionship with older and rougher
lads, sturdy fellows with wills of their own, made him sturdy too; a
lad who would take a blow and give one on occasion; who would run a
race and lose, and a second, and third, until he could win. But Bessy’s
gentle training was something very different from Sal’s, and Jabez grew
up tender as well as strong and bold.
A persecuted kitten had taken refuge under Bessy’s batting-frame in
the foundling’s go-cart days, and in care for that kitten, and for a
wounded brown linnet brought home one Sunday, he learned humanity.
Matthew’s lads were given to bird-nesting, and Matt himself saw no harm
in it; but when that young linnet’s wing was broken in a scuffle for
the nest stolen from a clump of brushwood, Simon read the robbers such
a homily they had never heard in their young lives, and as a corollary
he took the bird home to be fed and nursed by Bess and Jabez till it
could fly, an event which never came about.
In hot weather the lads pulled off clogs and stockings (there were
no trousers to turn up—they wore breeches), and waded into pools and
brooks, and Jabez would be no whit behind. On one of these occasions,
either the current was too strong for the venturesome child, or the
gravel slipped from under his feet, or his companions pushed him—no
matter which,—but in he went, and, but for the presence of Simon, would
have been drowned. Simon had been born on the river-banks, and could
swim like a fish. At once he resolved that Jabez should learn to do the
same, and begin at once.
“Yo’ see, Bess, if aw hadna bin theer he’d a bin dreawnded, sure as
wayter’s wet, an’ th’ third toime pays off fur o’; so he mun larn to
tak’ care on himsel’ th’ next toime he marlocks [gambols] among th’
Jack-sharps.”
Jabez was not six years old when Simon Clegg gave him and the young
Coopers their first lesson in swimming, in a delightful and sequestered
part of Smedley Vale, where the Irk was clear and bright. He had shown
them, nearer home, how a frog used its limbs, and then, after a few
preliminary evolutions, to show how a man used his, took the lad on his
back, and, after swimming with him awhile shook him off into the water
to flounder about for himself.
Bess was often left at home on Sundays after that; and Jabez was not
merely the better for his bath, but by the time he was eight years old
was a fearless swimmer.
Yet, although these country rambles had become an institution, Simon
Clegg never neglected his Sabbath duties. Sunday morning was sure to
see him, clean-shaven, in his best suit, with Jabez by the hand, and
mild-eyed Bess beside, on the free seats of the Old Church, under the
eye of parsons and churchwardens; and Jabez if he could understand
little of the service, could gather in a sense of the beautiful from
the grand old architecture, from the swell of the solemn organ, the
harmonious voices of the choristers—of the Blue-coat boys in the
Chetham-gallery over the churchwarden’s pew, and of the Green-coat
children farther on. Then the silver mace carried before the parson
was a thing to wonder at, and fill him with awe; and no one could tell
how the clerical robes, and choristers’ surplices, transfigured common
mortals in his admiring eyes.
But those years of Jabez Clegg’s young life had been full of history
for Manchester and Europe. The town had grown as well as the foundling.
Invention had been busy. Volunteer regiments had been one by one
disbanded, a daily newspaper was started, and peaceful arts nourished.
Then, ere another year expired, Napoleon declared the British Isles
in a state of blockade; British subjects on French soil, whether civil
or military, to be prisoners of war: British commodities lawful spoil;
and so War—red-handed War—broke loose once more. Again Manchester
rose up in arms to defend country and commerce. A “Loyalty Fund” of
£22,000 was raised for the support of Government. No fewer than nine
separate volunteer corps sprang from the ashes of the old ones, and the
town was one huge garrison. The commander of one regiment—the Loyal
Masonic Rifle Volunteer Corps,—Colonel Hanson—a remarkable man in many
ways,—was distinguished by a command from George III. to appear at
Court in full regimentals, and with his hat on.