hundred horses, fifty waggons, and twenty-eight boats. Loyal townsmen,
with more money than courage of their own, sought to stimulate that
of others by sending gold medals flying amongst the officers of the
volunteer corps. “The British Volunteer” came from the press of Harrop
in the Market Place, and once more the music of drum and trumpet was in
the ascendant.
To crown the whole, Manchester, which had never been called upon to
entertain British Royalty since Henry VII. looked in upon the infant
town, was visited in 1804 by Prince William, Duke of Gloucester,
commander of the North-west District, and his son, to review this
Lancashire volunteer army; and the whole town was consequently in a
ferment of excitement. Nothing was thought of, or talked of, but the
visit of the Duke and Prince, and the coming review, the more so as
reports differed respecting the appointed site.
Market Street, Manchester, which a well-known writer has commemorated
as one of the “Streets of the World,” was then Market Street Lane,
a confused medley of shops and private houses, varying from the low
and ricketty black-and-white tenement of no pretensions, to the fine
mansion with an imposing frontage, and ample space before. But the
thoroughfare was in places so very narrow that two vehicles could not
pass, and pedestrians on the footpath were compelled to take refuge
in doorways from the muddy wheels which threatened damage to dainty
garments; and the whole was ill-paved and worse lighted.
At the corner where it opens a vent for the warehouse traffic of High
Street, _then_ stood a handsome new hotel, the Bridgewater Arms, in
front of which a semi-circular area was railed off with wooden posts
and suspended chains. Within this area, on the bright morning of April
the 12th, two sentinels were placed, who, marching backwards and
forwards, crossed and re-crossed each other in front of the hotel door;
tokens that the Royal Duke and his suite had taken up their quarters
within.
Beyond the semi-circle of chained posts, mounted horsemen kept back the
concourse of spectators which pressed closely on the horses’ heels.
Among the crowd was Simon Clegg, with Jabez mounted on his shoulders,
albeit he was a somewhat heavy load. Simon was a man of peace, but
he was a staunch believer in Royalty, and that, quite as much as the
spectacle, had drawn him thither.
It was a mild and cheery April morn; the windows of the upper room in
which sat the Prince, the centre of a brilliant circle, were open, and
the loyal multitude feasted their unaccustomed eyes with the sight.
As Jabez looked on in a child’s ravishment, a little dark-haired,
dark-eyed girl, some six or seven years old, turned sharply round the
narrow street by the side of the hotel on the flags where there was no
chain to bar; passing unquestioned the sentinel on guard, who, seeing
only a well-dressed solitary child in white muslin, with a sash and
hat-ribbons of pink satin, concluded that she belonged to the hotel.
Once there, she asked fearlessly—
“Where is Prince William? I want Prince William!”
Then the sentinel began to question; but the little maid had but one
reply—
“I want Prince William!”
The soldier would have turned her back: but the disputation had
attracted attention in the room above.
An officer’s head was thrust out.
“What’s the matter?” asked he.
“I want to see the Prince. I want to know——”
“Bid the little lady come up hither.”
And the little lady went up, all unconscious of state etiquette or
ceremonial.
An officer in rich uniform, with jewels on his breast, took her on his
knee, and asked what she wanted with Prince William.
“Oh, mamma and my aunts are wanting ever so to know if the review is
going to be on Camp Field or on Sale Moor; and Aunt Ellen says it’s to
be in one place, and mamma thinks it’s the other; and so, as I was
dressed first, I just slipped out at the back door, and ran here to ask
Prince William himself, for I thought _he_ would be sure to know.”
The gentleman laughed heartily, and the others followed suit.
“And who is your mamma, my dear?”
“My mamma is Mrs. Chadwick, and I’m Ellen Chadwick; and we live in
Oldham Street.”
“Oh, indeed! And why are the ladies so anxious to know where the Prince
holds the review?” asked the officer on whose knee she sat.
“Ah—that’s just it. If he reviews at Sale Moor, he will go past our
house; and then we shall see all the soldiers from our own windows.
Won’t it be fine?”
Another gentleman asked what the ladies were doing when she left; and
I’m afraid Ellen made more revelations anent their toilettes than were
strictly necessary, for the laughter was prolonged.
She had not, however, lost sight of her self-imposed mission.
Struggling from her seat, she said—
“Oh, please do tell me where is Prince William; I must go home, and I
do so want to know.”
“Tell your mamma, Miss Ellen,” said he, smiling, “that the Prince will
review at Sale Moor; and take this, my dear, for yourself,” putting a
shilling (shillings at that time were perfectly plain from over-long
use) in her hand.
“Oh, thank you! But are you sure—quite sure it is Sale Moor?”
“Quite sure.”
The little damsel set off, as much elated with her news as with her
shilling. As she ran briskly down the broad steps, and beyond the
barrier, she came in contact with Simon, who made way for her exit;
and, as she looked up smiling to thank him, her glance rested for a
moment on the boy he carried; but no spark of recognition flashed into
the eyes of either, and no one in all that crowd saw any connection
between that dainty white-frocked, pink-slippered, pink-sashed miss,
and the rough lad in the patched suit (a Clough’s cast-off) and wooden
clogs.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
TO MARTIAL MUSIC.
A second time Jabez and Ellen saw each other ere the day was out.
She had rushed home with eager feet and eyes, through back streets, to
startle Mrs. Chadwick, her newly-married sister, Mrs. Ashton, and a
bevy of friends, with the confident assurance that the review would be
at Sale, and to confirm it by the display of the plain shilling, which
“an osifer had given her.”
New Cross, where the volunteers assembled, was not then a misnomer.
A market cross occupied the centre space between the four wide
thoroughfares, of which Oldham Street is one; and the open area was
considerable.
The trumpets’ bray, the tramp of troops, were heard long before the
brilliant cavalcade was set in motion; and every window—every house in
Oldham Street (all good private residences of the Gower Street stamp)
held its quota of heads and eyes, and costumes as brilliant as the eyes.
The house of Mr. Chadwick was situated near the lower end, and
commanded a good view of the Infirmary, its gardens, and pond in
Piccadilly. To-day, however, the royal party and the volunteers, many
of whom had friends looking out for them, were the only prospect worth
a thought; and as they marched proudly on, to the gayest of gay tunes,
kerchiefs waved, heads nodded, and eyes sparkled with delight and
pleasure.
As the Duke of Gloucester and his suite rode by, their chargers
prancing to the music, Ellen, mounted on a chair by the window between
Mrs. Ashton and her mother, suddenly pointed to an officer in their
midst, resplendent with stars and orders, and in an ecstasy of delight
screamed out—
“Mamma, mamma! that’s the gentleman that gave me the shilling!”
The little treble voice pierced even through the clamorous music. A
noble head was bowed, a plumed hat was raised, and lowered until it
swept the charger’s mane.
“Why, child, that is Prince William!” was the simultaneous exclamation,
as all the eyes from all the houses across the street were turned in
wonderment to see the Chadwicks so distinguished; and Simon, who, still
carrying Jabez, was trying to keep pace with the troops, wondered too.
Moreover, he recognised the lady and little girl, though seen but once;
for he earned his own living, such as it was, and had been too proud to
call on the Chadwicks to say how his daughter fared lest they should
think he sought charity.
“Jabez, lad, si thi, yon’s th’ lady and little lass as browt yo’ whoam,
when yo’ went seein’ the sodgers afore!”
And Jabez, from his shoulder-perch, looked up at the little bright-eyed
brunette, to remember the white frock and pink ribbons he had seen at
the Bridgewater, but nothing beyond.
The man’s exclamation and attitude had at the same time attracted Mrs.
Chadwick, who, smiling down on him and Jabez, spoke to Ellen; and she,
reminded of the little baby who had been saved from drowning in a
cradle, looked down and, in the fulness of her new importance, nodded
too.
The momentary stoppage called forth a loud objurgation as a reminder
from Sally Cooper, who was in advance with Matthew and such of her
bigger lads as could step out; and Simon, equally anxious not to lose
sight of the royal party, hurried on. But Sale Moor is beyond the
confines of Lancashire, and Simon found the five miles stiff walking,
with a child nearly six years old on his shoulders, and Master Jabez
had to descend from his seat, and trudge on his own feet. This caused
them to lag behind their friends, Sally insisting on Matt’s keeping up
with the soldiers, in order that they might get a good place on the
Moor, and they were thus separated. Bess had remained at home. Never
again could she look on marching troops without a pang.
Sale Moor was alive with expectant sightseers. Stands and platforms
had been erected for the accommodation of those who could afford and
cared to pay; there was a sprinkling of heavy carriages, and a crowd of
carts, but the mass of spectators were on foot, vehicular locomotion
being of very limited capacity.
Of these latter were the Coopers and Cleggs, of course. Sally, with
the elders of her turbulent brood, had reached the ground in time to
be deafened by the score of cannon Lord Wilton’s artillery fired as a
salute to princedom. She had planted herself firmly against one of the
supports of an elevated platform, where the crowd of hero-worshippers
was densest. She was tightly jammed and crushed against the woodwork;
but what matter? she had a fine sight of the field, and as she watched
the evolutions of the volunteers, congratulated herself and Matthew on
having left “that crawling Clegg an’ th’ brat so far behint.”
Almost as she spoke, there was a faint crackle, then another, and a
yielding of the post against which she leaned—a loud crash, a chorus of
shrieks, half drowned by music and musketry, and the whole platform was
down, with the living freight it had borne; and she was down with it.
The fashion, wealth, and beauty of Cheshire and South Lancashire
had their representatives amongst that struggling, swooning,
writhing, shrieking, groaning mass of humanity, heaped and huddled in
indiscriminate confusion, with up-torn seats, posts, and draperies.
Strange to say, only one person was killed outright—that is, on the
spot—for in its downfall the stand bore with it many of the throng
beneath. But of the injured and the shaken, those who went to hospital
and home to linger long and die at last, history has kept no record.
Amongst these, this story tells of two—two differing in all but sex.
Mrs. Aspinall, ever frail and delicate, was borne to her carriage
with whole limbs, but insensible, her husband and their son Laurence
both uninjured by her side. Physicians were in attendance, and never
left her until she was safely lodged in her own luxurious chamber,
overlooking Ardwick Green, and could be pronounced out of immediate
danger. Sally Cooper, with a sprained ankle, a dislocated shoulder, and
many internal bruises, was placed in a light cart on a bed of straw
procured from a neighbouring farm, with another of the injured, and
carried to the Manchester Infirmary, to try the skill and the patience
of the doctors and nurses.
Neither recovered. The unwounded lady, sorely shaken, succumbed to
the shock her nervous system had received; and Master Laurence,
already petted and wilful, was left to be still farther spoiled by
his widowed father and Kitty, his mother’s old nurse. Sally, strong
of frame and will, impatient of pain and of restraint, was restive
under the surgeons’ hands, and defeated their efforts to ascertain her
injuries. She exhausted herself with shrieks and cries, tossed about
and disturbed bandages, rejected physic, which she called “poison,” and
soon put her case beyond the cure of physicians. Too late, she became
sensible of her own folly. Then, when recovery was impossible, she
repented of many misdeeds, and of none more than her slander of poor
Bess.
And thus it was. When the mother was taken from the head of Cooper’s
home, Bessy’s kind heart yearned to help the disconsolate man and his
troop of children. Fortunately, the eldest was a girl of sixteen, and
there was a younger girl of ten. Both of these had gone out to work,
but now Molly had to stay at home and try to keep all right and tight
there. And here Bess came to her aid. Without scolding or brawling,
she put the girl into the way of doing things quickly and quietly. She
encouraged her to persevere, so that her cleanly mother should detect
no eyesores when she came home restored. She tried to persuade the
boys to be less refractory—to help, not to irritate, their sister; and
somehow Cooper’s home began to miss Sal, much as one misses a whirlwind.
The kindness of Bess o’ Sim’s was duly reported to the Infirmary
patient, and at first chafed her sorely. She “hated to be under
obligations, and to that lass o’ all others.” But Bess, leaving
her own work—and the loss of an hour meant the loss of an hour’s
earnings—herself went to see Sally; and such was the influence of her
gentle voice and touch, that Sally’s chagrin imperceptibly wore away.
Towards the last she grew delirious, raved of Bess and Tom Hulme and
forgiveness, and in the short calm preceding dissolution, confessed to
Matt Cooper and the attendant nurse that she had cast a slur on Bess
Clegg’s good name. Had made Tom Hulme believe that Simon had taken
the lass from Skinner’s Yard to hide her shame. That everybody in the
yard knew that Bess had a child. And that she had bade him inquire for
himself. And almost her last word was a hope that Bess would forgive
her.
Matthew Cooper himself hardly forgave his dead wife. How, therefore,
should he carry this confession to Bess, and ask her to forgive? He
took a medium course; and after a few days’ consideration, while they
and the rest of the tanners were eating their “baggin” (a workman’s
luncheon, so called from the bag it is, or was, usually carried in),
sat down beside Simon on a bundle of thick leather, and told him as
well as he was able.
Simon was troubled; but he was not vindictive. He would have been less
than a man had he not been bitter against the cruel woman who had
causelessly wrecked his good daughter’s life. But he was sorry for
Matt, and broke out into no revilings. The woman was dead. The ill she
had done had been fearfully punished, and neither curses nor reproaches
could affect her or undo the mischief.
He left his cheese and jannock on the hides untasted, drew his hand
across his forehead, and went down to the river-side and across the
wooden bridge for a breath of fresh air and a waft of fresh thought.
He was only a rugged tanner, but he had a heart within his breast; he
had a daughter on his hearth with a great wound in _her_ heart, a blast
on her good name, and he was called upon to forgive the author of this
mischief!
Simon had long been used to commune with his own heart. He had built
up a wall round it with the leaves of that one book on his bureau; and
whenever he was in doubt or difficulty, he read the precepts inscribed
upon that wall. He went back to Cooper, whose appetite had been no
better than his own.
“Aw mun think this ower, Matt. Aw connot say aw furgive yo’r Sal o’ at
a dash. Hoo’s done that as may niver be undone whoile thee an’ me’s
alive; an’ aw connot frame to say as aw furgive her loike o’ on a
sudden. An’ aw mun think it ower before eawt be said to eawr Bess, poor
wench!”
A week elapsed before the subject was broached again. Then Simon spoke
to Matthew as they were leaving the tannery-yard.
“Coom into th’ ‘Queen Anne’” (he called it quëan), “Matt, and have a
gill; aw’ve summat t’ say to thee.”
There was nobody in the taproom. They sat down to their half-pint horns
of ale—times were too hard to afford deeper draughts—and Simon said:
“Aw’ve bin thinkin’ o’ this week, an’ as aw connot forgive yo’r Sal,
gradely loike, aw’ll no put th’ same temptation i’ th’ way of eawr
Bess. Hoo’d better think Tum’s takken oop wi’ some other wench, than
ha’ th’ shame o’ knowin’ th’ lad’s toorned her up i’ disgrace. Hoo’s
getten ower th’ worst o’ her trouble, an’ awm not gooin to break her
heart outreet, and mebbe set her agen little Jabez into th’ bargain.”
Matthew could but assent to Simon’s proposition. But Simon had not said
all his say.
“But aw’m not gooin’ to sit deawn wi’ my honds i’ mi’ lap, an’ that
grëat lump o’ dirty slutch stickin’ to moi lass. Yo’ mun help me t’
find eawt wheer Tum Hulme’s getten to, an’ help to set o’ straight
afore aw forgive yo’r Sal, tho’ hoo be dead an’ gone.”
“Wi’ o’ my heart!” responded Matt; and he gave his huge hand to Simon
in token thereof.
When the Duke of Gloucester inspected the volunteers at Ardwick on the
30th of September that same year, not one of the people I have here
linked together witnessed the show.
The blinds were down at Mr. Aspinall’s to shut out a sight the like of
which had made him a widower; and within the darkened nursery, wilful,
obstreperous Laurence fought and kicked and bit at old Kitty, because
she kept him within doors and from the windows at his father’s command.
There was a christening party in Mosley Street, at the Ashtons’, at
which not only the Chadwicks, but the Rev. Joshua Brookes—who had that
day named the infant Augusta—were present. They had selected a public
occasion for their private festival. It was a grand affair. Mr. Ashton
was a small-ware manufacturer in a large way of business, his house
and warehouse occupying a large block of buildings at the corner of
York Street. And the baby Augusta, born the previous month, was a first
child, his wife being younger than himself considerably. Miss Ellen,
too, was there, her wonderful shilling, through which a hole had been
drilled, suspended from her neck like an amulet.
Simon and Matt had given up their holiday to fruitless inquiries
after Tom Hulme; and Jabez, after a stand-up fight with a boy in the
yard in defence of his kitten, had come to have his bleeding nose and
bruised forehead doctored by Bess, who shed over him the tears long
gathering in their fountains for Tom Hulme’s defection. And somehow at
that stylish christening feast, where the baby Augusta was a personage
of importance almost as great as the celebrated Miss Kilmansegg,
the orphan Jabez and his fosterers came on the table for discussion
along with the dessert; Mrs. Chadwick, Mr. Clough, and Joshua Brookes
concurring in the opinion mooted by the lady that something should
be done to relieve the worthy tanner and his daughter of the cost
and trouble of maintaining the boy as he grew older and would want
educating. That they should talk of the cost of maintenance when bread
was a shilling a loaf, was no marvel; but that “education” should be
named as a necessity for one of “nobody’s children,” can only be cited
as a proof that either the boy’s strange introduction to Manchester, or
Simon’s strange generosity, had excited an interest in both beyond the
common run.
Yet that “something” was vague. The only definite and practicable view
of the subject was held by Joshua Brookes, and he kept his opinion to
himself.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.[17]
THE REVEREND JOSHUA BROOKES.
Joshua Brookes had a child’s love for toffy and other sweetmeats. These
he purchased—or obtained without purchase—from an old woman as odd and
eccentric as himself, a Mrs. Clowes, who occupied a bow-windowed shop
in Half Street, which literally overlooked the churchyard, three or
four steep steps having to be mounted by her customers.
And how numerous were her customers, and how great the demand for her
toffy, lozenges, and “humbugs” may be judged from the fact that her
workmen and apprentices used up eight or nine tons of sugar every week.
Yet she was only a shop-keeper, and had begun business in a very humble
way; but she was persevering and industrious, and success followed. She
was active and energetic, and expected those around her to be the same.
Yet she was kind to them, as may be supposed, for she gave every Sunday
a good dinner to fourteen old men and women on whom fortune had looked
unkindly, waiting upon them herself, and never tasting her own dinner
until her pensioners had dined.
Regular in her own attendance at the old Church, she required her
household to be regular too, though she left them little enough time
to dress—possibly because her own toilette was so scant. The dress in
which she presented herself at church was certainly unique for a woman
of wealth. Her gown of sober stuff was well worn; a mob-cap (a fashion
which came in with the French Revolution) adorned her head, over which,
by way of bonnet, a brown silk handkerchief was tied. On rare—very
rare—occasions, an old black silk bonnet covered all.
Joshua Brookes, at odds with his clerical brethren, with his pupils,
and half the world besides, was on good terms with Mrs. Clowes. Rough,
prompt, and uncompromising was she; rough, irritable and unmannerly was
he; both unpromising hard-husked nuts, with sweet and tender kernels.
So rough, few ever suspected the soft heart; yet the woman who fed
the poor before herself, and the learned clergyman who had a fancy
for pigeons, and who cherished the drunken and abusive old crippled
shoemaker, his father, to the last, must have intuitively known the
inner life of each other.
The day following Augusta Ashton’s christening, it fell within the
round of the Reverend Joshua’s duty to read the burial service over
a dead townswoman in the churchyard. And now occurred one of those
incidents in which the ludicrous and the profane blended, and brought
impulsive Joshua into disfavour. As was not unfrequently the case, he
broke off in the midst of the service, left the mourners and the coffin
beside the open grave, threw his legs over the low wall, and, mounting
the steps into the confectioner’s shop, said,
“Here, quick, dame! Give me some horehound drops for my cough.”
On his entrance Mrs. Clowes broke off a narrative over which she and
her shopwoman were laughing heartily, in order to reach the required
drops, which went into a paper without weighing, and for which no
payment was tendered. Back he strode over the church wall to resume the
interrupted ceremonial.
It must here be observed that Joshua had remarkably shaggy eyebrows,
overhanging his quick eyes like pent-houses, and that it was the wont
of the schoolboys and others to annoy him by drawing their fingers
significantly over their own. A young sweep sat upon the church wall to
witness the funeral, and—young imp of Satan that he was!—he could not
forbear drawing a thumb and forefinger over each brow, full in Joshua’s
sight, just as he reached the passage—“I heard a voice from heaven
saying——”
The shaggy eyebrows contracted; he roared out—
“Knock that little black rascal off the church wall!”
The mischievous little blackamoor was off, with a beadle after him; and
the eccentric chaplain, whom no sense of irreverence seemed to strike,
concluded the ceremony with no further interruption.
At its close, Mr. Aspinall and another mourner took the clergyman to
task for his disrespect to the remains of the deceased Mrs. Aspinall,
whose obsequies had been so irregularly performed. They said nothing of
disrespect to the Divinity profaned; their own feelings and importance
had been outraged, and they forgot all else even by the dust and ashes
in the gaping grave; and little Laurence, cloaked and hooded, forgot
his grief in watching the chase after the sweep.
“How dare you, sir, give way to these indecencies at the funeral of my
wife? It has been most indecorous and insulting, both to the dead and
her afflicted relatives.”