uniforms and stirring music prevails. But here (where every item of
the cavalcade had its own brass band) were also all the dignitaries
of the church, with every silver badge of office resplendently
burnished for the occasion; the borough-reeve, and other magistrates,
and constabulary, in new uniforms; the lamplighters with new smocks,
carrying their ladders and cans; the firemen and fire-engines, bright
as paint and polish could make them; the gentlemen of the town, all
with favours; the Sunday-school children, marshalled under their
respective banners or tablets, walking six abreast; the Ladies’ Jubilee
School; the Green-Coat School; and the Blue-Coat School, on which Jabez
looked down with curiously-mingled feelings.
But the marked feature of the magnificent procession was the display
made by the trades, with their banners, a lurry accompanying each,
bearing well-dressed workmen and machines in full operation.
At the head of these came two figures, representing Adam and Eve,
in a perfect bower of greenery, as representatives of the primitive
condition before dress was invented. They were followed by a lurry, on
which tailors (whose art is the first on record) sat cross-legged, and
stitched and pressed, as if on a shopboard, whilst a select band of
journeymen walked after, bearing minature miniature garments on wands,
or ferruginous geese and sleeveboards.
The blacksmiths wrought on their anvil, and carried also on long poles,
horse-shoes, &c. The brass and copper smiths, likewise at work, had a
bright array of kettles, candlesticks, and a mounted man in armour,
as had also the tin-plate workers. The glass-blowers made a goodly
array, and gave away tokens as they went. The men wore hats and caps
brittle and brilliant, with wavy plumes of spun glass, whilst birds,
ships, goblets, and decanters on their poles glistened in the beams of
the hot sun. A printing-press distributed appropriate verses, worked
off in the course of the procession. And St. Crispin’s followers waxed
their threads and plied their awls on boots and shoes as they and their
benches were borne along, followed by their leather-aproned fraternity,
holding aloft their productions, from the most gigantic of Wellingtons
to the tiniest infant’s slipper.
All branches of the cotton trade were represented. There was cotton in
bags; twist in bales; carding, roving, spinning, weaving, all going on
under the eyes of the onlookers, with the workpeople following in their
best and brightest.
Shouts and hurrahs attended the whole line of march, not wholly
unaccompanied by hisses; but as the small-ware weavers passed Mr.
Ashton’s the cheers were deafening. A loom was at work weaving lengths
of binding for garters, on which was inwoven “God save King George
IV.,” with the date, and these were lifted on long wands to the ladies
at the windows on their way, or scattered to others in the street;
and as Tom Hulme caught the eye of Jabez, he pointed proudly to their
banner, which had no rival in all the elaborately painted flags waving
in the wind, and the impromptu artist was well satisfied. But the
brightest day has its cloud. As the Manchester Yeomanry went prancing
past, Travis and Walmsley alike saluted the ladies at the drawing-room
window, but to the pain of Jabez and the indignation of Mrs. Ashton,
Lieutenant Aspinall had the audacity to kiss his hand to Augusta.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.
EVENING: INDOORS AND OUT!
The two-miles-and-a-half-long procession was not the only popular
demonstration which made the Coronation of George IV. memorable in
the annals of Manchester. There were no telegraph wires to flash
intelligence to the supporters of Queen Caroline that she had been
repulsed from the Abbey gates, and driven thence to die broken-hearted
and uncrowned. So, in the absence of a cause for indignation, loyalty,
or its substitute, contrived to add a pendant of disorder and excess
only to be recorded as the dung-heap out of which grew flowers of
promise.
As in most of the private houses along the line of route, a cold
collation had been prepared for the refreshment of the friends who
crowded Mr. Ashton’s open windows. But no calculation had been made of
the space the unwonted pageant would cover, or the time it would occupy
in passing; and Mrs. Ashton, having discovered that sight-seeing in the
dust and glare of July was parching and fatiguing, issued orders for
tea to be handed round when the last banner had disappeared, and before
her less intimate friends should rise to depart.
In giving these orders, she unwittingly stirred the kitchen fire into
a white heat. Lavish hospitality was a characteristic of the time,
and when a family of good position professed to keep “open house,” it
was generally equal to the most extravagant demands. But, as a rule,
Mrs. Ashton had little leaning towards impromptu parties, and Kezia
considerably less, preferring those grand and formal receptions which
involved elaborate preparation, and placed imaginary feathers in the
caps of mistress and maids.
Kezia herself considered the honour of the house involved in everything
under her control being “in apple-pie order;” and the surprise which
put her on her mettle, put her also in a fume.
Recalled from the window—whence her head had been poked far as the
farthest—to provide tea and its concomitants for an indefinite number
of strangers, she accompanied her erratic movements about her domain
with explosive outbursts of spleen at “bein’ takken unawares when
nowt’s ready to hand.”
“Here’s missus bin an’ ordered tay fur th’ whole boilin’ of folk
up-stairs; an’ theer’s Cicily and t’other wenches a’ agog ower th’
crownation, an’ not worth ’toss of a pancake!”
She jerked out her anger in the ears of Bess Hulme, who, seated on the
settle, had just lulled to sleep Mrs. Walmsley’s crying baby, which
(neglected by its gaping nurse) had commemorated the day by a fall from
a high bed.
Bess made a temporary couch for the baby in a snug corner, and quietly
came to Kezia’s assistance; then Ellen Chadwick, intuitively perceptive
of kitchen troubles, busied herself in bringing reserves of china,
glass, plate, linen, and sweetmeats from closets and store-room; Cicily
and Dolly came down in due time; and the credit of the establishment
lost nothing in Kezia’s hands, even though there was an additional
influx of visitors, and a supper also to provide.
That was Mr. Ashton’s affair. He had tired of his processional march in
the broiling sun by the time they had skirted Ardwick, and defiled into
Chancery Lane. The two friends by his side, Mr. John McConnell and Mr.
John Green (both cotton-spinners with whom he dealt), being of the same
mind, they had fallen out of the line in Ancoat’s Lane, and turned down
Canal Street to the house of the latter, to refresh themselves with
something less dry than snuff or road-dust.
Mr. Green was the uncle of Henry Liverseege, the artist, fragile of
form and spiritual of face, but the latter was then only a genius in
his nineteenth year—with fame and an early grave dimly foreshadowed.
They found him on the doorstep, with his fussy and fidgety, though
kind-hearted aunt, just back from Mr. Gore’s in Piccadilly, whence they
had seen the show. The gentlemen’s requirement, a “draught of ale,”
was soon supplied, accompanied by a spasmodic comment on the “grand
display,” and the exhibition of a pair of the loyally inscribed fillets
she had secured as the smallware-weavers passed.
“By-the-bye, that was a wonderfully effective banner of yours, Mr.
Ashton,” interposed the thin voice of Liverseege. “Who painted it?”
“A young fellow in my employ, who occasionally designs for
us,” answered Mr. Ashton, handing his snuff-box to the group in
rotation—“quite a self-taught artist!”
“Indeed! It was not much like an amateur’s brush. I should like to know
him. You see I do something in that way myself.” The young painter,
conscious of his own latent power, was sensitively alive to undeveloped
art in another.
“Would you? Just so! Then you shall. Come along, all of you, and
finish the day with us. Mrs. Ashton will find us a dish of tea, and I
am sure, Mrs. Green, she will be proud to see you also.” Turning to
the gentlemen, who had by this time emptied their tallboy glasses, he
added, “And I think I have a few bottles of rare old port waiting among
the cobwebs for us to drink the King’s health.”
It was a period of much pressing and many excuses, but the excitement
of the day had so far destroyed ceremony that even Mrs. Green, who
was somewhat punctilious, after a little nervous trepidation anent
the fitness of her last new cap for company, consented, and accepted
the arm Mr. Ashton gallantly offered to pilot her across the crowded
street, along which the tail of the procession had only just trailed.
Graciously, though with her natural stateliness, Mrs. Ashton received
the new-comers; Mrs. Green, finding the company generally in morning
visiting dress, was at ease about her cap; the tea was exhilarating;
the viands toothsome; the wines excellent; there was one common topic
for discussion; the ice of ceremony had thawed hours before; and genial
Mr. Ashton, having locked the doors to prevent the escape of a guest
before the supper he had bespoken was demolished, was thoroughly in his
element.
Mrs. Ashton was not quite so much at ease, though she was too well-bred
to manifest her disquiet, which had two sources. In the first place,
the presumptuous salutation of Augusta by Lieutenant Aspinall had
jarred a sensitive nerve. In the second, Mr. Ashton, generously
impulsive, had introduced Mr. Clegg to their friends, and _as_ a friend
of whom he was himself proud. She thoroughly appreciated Jabez, and
equally contemplated his advancement; but she was for “making no more
haste than good speed,” and considered it more prudent to raise him
by insensible degrees. And as she watched her husband, radiant with
good-will, cross the room with Jabez (discomposed at the very doorway
by the wondering eyes of Augusta), and present him to Mr. Green and Mr.
Liverseege, thus ran her thoughts:—
“Dear me! William is very inconsiderate! He will turn the young man’s
head, and insult our visitors at the same time. I hope Mrs. Clough
will not recognise him. How indignant she would be if she thought we
expected her to associate with one who once wore her son’s cast-off
clothes! Certainly he is well-conducted, and worthy in all respects,
but—people don’t forget such things! If Mr. Green and Mr. McConnell
only knew William was introducing our Blue-coat apprentice, what would
they say?—I am glad, however, to see young Mr. Liverseege so affable
with Jabez.”
To her surprise, at this juncture, Mr. McConnell drew his chair close
to Jabez and Mr. Liverseege, and attributing the evident embarrassment
of the former to the newness of his position, endeavoured to dissipate
it by taking part in the conversation, to which quiet Mr. Green
occasionally added a word. The lady, who was so afraid of touching
the dignity of her friends, had not heard her less exclusive loud
whisper to the two cotton-spinners, “I’m afraid I’ve committed a grave
misdemeanour in Mrs. Ashton’s sight, by bringing young Clegg among our
party; but kings are not crowned every day, and I thought it a good
opportunity to bring a worthy lad out. You and I”—and he tapped his
snuff-box—“know what Manchester men are made of, and that young fellow
has good stuff in him! He was made to rise, sirs.”
Mr. Ashton’s friends nodded in acquiescence, and willing to humour
their kindly host, and perhaps desirous to test the calibre of an
aspirant so introduced, wittingly or unwittingly did their part in
helping him to “rise” by the very distinction of their prolonged
attention. It was an act quite in the way of John McConnell, who had
already given a lift to his rising young countryman, Fairbairn the
engineer.
Presently Mr. Chadwick, beckoning attentive Ellen to his side,
and using her shoulder as a support, involuntarily seconded his
brother-in-law by joining the group, and, putting out his hand to Jabez
(who rose at his approach, and offered his own seat to the paralytic
gentleman), said—
“Wha-at inter-rests yo-you so m-much, M-Mr. Clegg, th-that you f-forget
old f-friends?”
“No, Sir, I had not forgotten you, nor Miss Chadwick either” (Ellen
coloured), “but Mr. Ashton having honoured me with an introduction to
Mr. Liverseege and these gentlemen” (bowing to them), “I was not at
liberty to break away, had I felt so disposed.”
“We were discussing the influence of art on our local manufactures,”
added Henry Liverseege, and thereupon the subject was resumed,
Ellen necessarily in close attendance on her father, standing there
with sparkling black eyes, an animated and attentive listener, well
pleased that Mr. Clegg’s merits (as seen by her) had at length found
recognition.
Meanwhile Augusta, the centre of a group of young people, indulged in
sentimental chit-chat, and trifling with her fan and human hearts,
completed the enslavement of her last admirer, a fair-haired Mr.
Marsland; while Jabez, from his distant seat, looked and longed in vain.
Cards were, as a matter of course, proposed for the amusement of this
extemporised party; and in filling up tables for whist or loo, Mrs.
Ashton’s fears for the sensibility of her friends were forgotten. They
were utterly put to the rout by a loud rat-tat-tat at the street-door,
followed by the entrance of Mr. Clough and the Reverend Joshua Brookes,
the latter less vigorous than of yore, but in a state of unusual
excitement. His loud voice was heard before he was seen. “Hogs, sir,
hogs! They are no better than hogs, sir!” he was saying even as he
came into the drawing-room. He appeared too much ruffled to respond
composedly to the kindly greetings of his many friends; even Augusta,
who put forth her little white hand with her most winning smile,
attracted no more attention than a hurried “How d’ye do, lass? How d’ye
do?”
“What is the matter, Mr. Brooks? You seem——”
He interrupted Mr. Ashton’s inquiry with—
“Matter, sir? Waste and riot, intemperance and indecency, are the
matter. These old eyes have seen that which is enough to bring a curse
upon the coronation and a blight upon the town.”
Conversation was arrested, flirtation forgot its part, cards were laid
down, save by three or four inveterate players, and young and old were
alike on the _qui vive_, crowding round the speaker.
“Permit me,” said Mr. Clough, commencing an explanation. “I suppose you
are all aware that the new market in Shude Hill is the chief station of
the nine appointed for the distribution of meat, bread, and ale to the
populace?”
“Populace, indeed!—the very scum and dregs of the town—say rather the
lowest, roughest rabble!” broke in old Joshua.
“Well, Parson, for the credit of our working population, let us hope
so,” chimed in Mr. Clough, resuming—“Whilst Mr. Brookes and I were
at tea in his sanctum, Tabitha ran in breathless to tell us that the
platform erected for recipients in front of the storehouse had given
way, that several persons were injured, and one had been killed on the
spot.”
“Ah!” said the Parson, drawing a long breath between his teeth, while
Jabez, unobserved by either, drew nearer to listen, and the ladies put
up their hands in horror.
“It was not our most direct route, but either curiosity or compassion
took us round by Shude Hill Market on our road hither, and never shall
I forget the scene we witnessed. Loaves and junks of meat were being
pitched high and far amongst the crowd from the warehouse doors and
windows, as if flung to hounds.”
“Hounds, sir!” burst in impatient Joshua, “don’t slander the better
animal. Only the commonest curs would have yelped, and scrambled, and
struggled, and fought for their rations, as did the human beasts we
saw clutching and gripping from weaker women and children that which
had fallen within their reach, or trampling in the mud underfoot the
food they were too greedy or too drunk to devour. Ay, mud, for the very
kennels ran with ale thrown in pitchers-full amongst the people, to be
caught in hats, and bonnets, and hollowed hands, as if it were rain
in an African desert. Ale! the atmosphere reeked of ale! Men, women,
and children of all ages carried it away, or drank it from all sorts
of vessels; reeled, hiccoughed, and staggered under their burden, or
sank down by the wayside; whilst others, shouting like maniacs, drained
the half-empty mugs. I tell you, sirs, Captain Cook never fell in with
greater savages. Even death and disaster in their midst had not awed
them! Ugh! I say again they are hogs, absolute hogs!”
As Joshua paused to take breath, and sank into a chair, Jabez modestly
put the question to the excitable chaplain—
“Do you not think the distributors are most to blame for this wanton
waste and excess, to say nothing of the loss of life? Surely the
arrangements of the committee must have been defective.”
The Parson’s harsh tones softened as he put out his hand to grasp the
speaker’s.
“Ay, Jabez, lad, is that thee? I’m glad to see thee _here_”—and he laid
emphasis on the word—“Ay, the distributors are answerable for——”
But the personal recognition had created a diversion. The question
Jabez had mooted was talked over by separate knots of individuals
in different quarters of the large room, whilst Mr. Clough, to Mrs.
Ashton’s amazement—yes, and gratification also—shook the salesman
warmly by the hand, and congratulated him on his apparent success.
Moreover, he bore him away to Mrs. Clough, at the loo-table, and called
her attention to the change time had effected in the old tanner’s
foster-child, in the most cordial manner.
Thanks to Mr. Ashton, Mr. Clegg had truly got his first foot into
Manchester society that coronation-day, and his old hopes might have
revived, had not a disturbing element crept into the room during the
denunciatory oration of his clerical friend.
John Walmsley, not finding his wife at home when released from yeomanry
duty, had come in quest of her, bringing two of his comrades; and when
Mr. Clegg retired from the loo-table with a bow, his eye fell first
on the conspicuous figure of Captain Travis, in the silver-and-blue
glory of uniform, bending deferentially to address Miss Chadwick; and
in another moment on the elegant Adonis he had dragged from icy death,
toying with Miss Augusta’s carved ivory fan, and whispering low to her,
whilst she hid her India-muslin robe and too eloquent face behind the
screen of her convenient harp, and drew her flexible fingers lightly
across the chords.
The lustre of that evening’s introduction was dimmed for Jabez. Augusta
scarcely looked at him as she brushed past to supper, leaning on the
arm of Lieutenant Aspinall, her white dress in strong contrast to his
dark uniform; and no doubt his pain was pictured on his face, for Ellen
Chadwick sighed, as she too passed him with her martial cavalier, and
half turned to look pitifully as she went.
There was no lack of ladies, so Mrs. Ashton paired Mr. Clegg off with a
chatty damsel of thirty or thereabouts, and he did his best to listen
and make himself agreeable, but not even the novelty of his situation
could keep his thoughts or his eyes from wandering where they should
not.
Along the whole course of the procession the Manchester Yeomanry had
been greeted with more hisses and groans than cheers. This had chafed
their noble spirits, and on disbanding they had sought consolation in
the wine-cup, which temperate Jabez was not slow to observe, although
their degree of exhilaration was not then considered a disqualification
for the drawing-room or for the society of ladies.
Mr. Ashton’s strong home-brewed supper ale was not a sedative, yet
still Augusta smiled on Laurence, in spite of her mother’s frowns,
driving Mr. Marsland to desperation, and Jabez to despair.
Indeed, he was glad when the repast was over, for then Joshua Brookes
rose to depart, sober as when he sat down, and the Chadwicks also. He
had thus an opportunity of escaping from his torment, by offering his
escort to tottering Mr. Chadwick and the parson in succession, if the
latter did not object to the slight detour. Jabez foresaw that Mr.
Travis was ready to do Miss Chadwick suit and service; but in offering
his arm to assist the slow feet of the disabled father, he little
dreamed how gladly the daughter would have made an exchange; nor, had
he been wiser, would he have thrust himself in big Ben’s way, any more
than would Mrs. Chadwick, who openly favoured the “personable and
unimpeachable” captain.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.
CLOGS.
Leaving the Chadwicks at their own door, where Captain Travis would
fain have lingered had he been encouraged, Jabez and he fell back as
guards to their reverend friend, whose excitability might otherwise
have involved him in some unpleasantness, so disorderly a riff-raff
occupied the streets.
Turning down Church Street, they pursued their dimly lighted way
along Cannon Street, (so named from dismounted cannon captured from
“rebels” which served as corner posts), through Hanging Ditch to Hyde’s
Cross; thence past the deserted Apple Market, and Dr. Smith’s ancient
labyrinth of a house, to the Parson’s less antiquated domicile in the
corner by the Grammar School and those College-gates which had been
the portals of peace and promise to Jabez, and not only to him, but to
hundreds besides.
The excitement of old Joshua had been toned down amongst the wax-lights
and pleasant faces around the Ashtons’ well-spread supper-table, and at
first he was disposed to be conversable after his own peculiar manner.
They had purposely avoided Shude-Hill Market by an ample circuit;
but stragglers of both sexes from the scene of riot lay maundering
or asleep in their path, or crossed it at every turn, in all stages
of inebriation and disorder; until the natural irritability of the
chaplain (increased by failing health) broke forth in loud-voiced
indignation, ending in a wail that he was “getting old and powerless,”
or he would “rise like another John Knox, and denounce the wickedness
rampant in the land.”
“A good man lives there, Jabez,” said he, pointing to the
black-and-white home of the head-master, where lighted windows told of
hospitality awake, “a good man, but for whom I should not be alive to
tell you; but there are those in the pulpit, my lads, whom the Church
ought to spue out, lest they poison the flocks it is their duty to
feed. Can the stream be pure if the fountain be polluted? And how shall
we rebuke the gross excesses of the untaught rabble whilst chambering,
gluttony, and drunkenness defile the high places of the land? Ugh!
There wants another flood to wash Europe sweet and clean. The sin on
the earth was not greater in the days of Noah!”
They were crossing the space before the two closed gates when he paused
for lack of breath; and Travis, with no thought but to change the
subject, observed to Jabez, over the head of the panting pastor—
“How quiet this little nook of ground is now! Yet to me and no doubt to
you, Mr. Clegg, it is haunted by ghosts of old times!”
That set Joshua off again.
“Ugh! to hear a lad of five-and-twenty talk of old times! What’s the
world coming to? Ghosts indeed! It had like to have been haunted by
ghosts of something more than old times as Jabez and I know to our
cost. I’ve never been right since the young ruffians had me in their
clutches! And mark you, my lads, and think of it when you have young
ones of your own to rear: there’s no worse sign for a country or a
family than when the young jibe and jeer, mock and scorn their elders.
When grey hairs fail to command respect, virtue, principle, and
religion are at their lowest ebb.”
He stood within his own gate as he said this, and as Tabitha opened the
door for her master, he checked all reply with—
“There! you’ve had a sermon for nothing. Ugh! you’ll forget it when the
old man’s back turns. Good night, lads! See you steer clear of brawls,
and give drunken fools a wide berth.”