THEN WE'LL KEEP COMPANY.
After the celebrated debate on the abolition of the Lords, Dick Coppin
found that he took for the moment a greatly diminished interest in
burning political questions. He lost, in fact, confidence in himself,
and went about with hanging head. The Sunday evening meetings were held
as usual, but the fiery voice of Dick the Radical was silent, and people
wondered. This was the effect of his cousin's address upon him. As for
the people, it had made them laugh, just as Dick's had made them angry.
They came to the Hall to get these little emotions, and not for any
personal or critical interest in the matter discussed; and this was
about all the effect produced by them.
One evening the old Chartist who had taken the chair met Dick at the
club.
"Come out," he said, "come out and have a crack while the boys wrangle."
They walked from Redman's Lane, where the club stands, to the quiet side
pavement of Stepney Green, deserted now because the respectable people
were all in church, and it was too cold for the lounging of the more
numerous class of those who cannot call themselves respectable. The
ex-Chartist belonged, like Daniel Fagg, to the shoemaking trade in its
humbler lines. The connection between leather and Socialism, Chartism,
Radicalism, Atheism, and other things detrimental to old institutions,
has frequently been pointed out, and need not be repeated. It is a
reflecting trade, and the results of meditation are mainly influenced by
the amount of knowledge the meditation brings with it. In this respect
the Chartist of thirty years ago had a great advantage over his
successors of the present day, for he had read. He knew the works of
Owen, of Holyoke, and of Cobbett. He understood something of what he
wanted, and why he wanted it. The proof of which is that they have got
all they wanted, and we still survive.
When next the people make up their minds that they want another set of
things they will probably get them, too.
"Let us talk," he said. "I've been thinking a bit about that chap's
speech the other night--I wanted an answer to it."
"Have you got one?"
"It's all true what he said--first of all, it's true. The pinch is just
the same. Whether the Liberals are in or the Tories, Government don't
help us. Why should we help them?"
"Is that all your answer?"
"Wait a bit, lad--don't hurry a man. The chap was right. We ought to
co-operate and get all he said, and a deal more; and once we do begin,
mind you, there'll be astonishment--because you see, Dick, my lad,
there's work before us. But we must be educated; we must all be got to
see what we can do if we like. That chap's clever now, though he looks
like a swell."
"He's got plenty in him. But he'll never be one of us."
"If we can use him, what matter whether he is one of us or not? Come to
that--who is 'us'? You don't pretend before me that you call yourself
one of the common workmen, do you? That does for the club; but, between
ourselves, why, man! you and me, we're leaders. We've got to think for
'em. What I think is--make that chap draw up a plan, if he can, for
getting the people to work together--for we've got all the power at
last, Dick. We've got all the power. Don't forget when we old 'uns are
dead and gone, who done it for you."
He was silent for a moment. Then he went on:
"We've got what we wanted--that's true; and we seem to be no better
off--that's true, too. But we are better off, because we feel that every
man has his share in the rule of the nation. That's a grand thing. We
are not kept out of our vote--we don't see, as we used to see, our money
spent for us without having a say. That's a very grand thing, which he
doesn't understand, nor you neither, because you are too young.
Everything we get, which makes us feel our power more, is good for us.
The chap was right; but he was wrong as well. Don't give up politics,
lad."
"What's the good if nothing comes?"
"There's a chance now for the working-man, such as he has never had
before in history. You are the lad to take that chance. I've watched
you, Dick, since you first began to come to the club--there's life in
you. Lord! I watch the young fellows one after the other. They stamp and
froth, but it comes to nothing. You're different--you want to be
something better than a bellows; though your speech the other night came
pretty nigh to the bellows kind."
"Well, what is the chance?"
"The House, Dick. The working-men will send you there, if you can show
them that you've got something in you. It isn't froth they want--it's a
practical man, with knowledge. You go on reading, go on speaking, go on
debating. Keep it up. Get your name known; don't demean yourself. Get
reported; and learn all that there is to learn. Once in the House, Dick,
if you are not afraid----"
"I shall not be afraid."
"Humph! Well, we shall see. Well, there's your chance. A working-man's
candidate--one of ourselves. That's a card for you to play; but not so
ignorant as your mates. Eh? Able (if you want) to use the swell's
sneerin' talk--so's to call a man a liar, without sayin' the words. To
make him feel like a fool and a whipped cur, with just showing your
white teeth! Learn them ways, Dick--they'll be useful."
"But if," said the young man doubtfully, "if I am to keep on debating,
what subjects shall we take up at the club?"
"I should go in for practical subjects. Say that the club is ready to
vote for the abolition of the Lords and the Church, and reform of the
land laws when the time comes. You haven't got the choice of subjects
that we had. Lord! what with rotten boroughs and the black Book of
Pensions, and younger sons, and favoritism in the service, why, our
hands were full."
"What practical subjects?"
"Why, them as your cousin talked about. There's the wages of the
girls--there's food and fish and drink. There's high rent--there's a
world of subjects. You go, and find out all about them. Give up the rest
for a spell, and make yourself master of all these questions. If you do,
Dick, I believe your fortune is made."
Dick looked doubtful--it seemed disheartening to be sent back to the
paltry matter of wages, prices, and so on, when he was burning to lead
in something great. Yet the advice was sound.
"Sometimes I think, Dick," the old man went on, "that the working-man's
best friend would be the swells, if they could be got hold of. They've
got nothing to make out of the artisan. They don't run factories, nor
keep shops. They don't care, bless you, how high his wages are. Why
should they? They've got their farmers to pay the rent; and their
houses, and their money in the funds. What does it matter to them?
They're well brought up, most of them--civil in their manner, and
disposed to be friendly if you're neither standoffish nor familiar; but
know yourself, and talk accordin'."
"If the swells were to come to us, we ought to go to them--remember
that, Dick. Very soon there will be no more questions of Tory and
Liberal; but only what is the best thing for us. You play your game by
the newest rules. As for the old ones, they've seen their day."
Dick left him; but he did not return to the club. He communed beneath
the stars, turning over these and other matters in his mind.
"Yes, the old man was right. The old indignation times were over. The
long list of crimes which the political agitator could bring against
King, Church, Lords, and Commons thirty, forty, fifty years ago, are
useless now. They only serve to amuse an audience not too critical."
He was ashamed of what he had himself said about the Lords. Such charges
are like the oratory of an ex-minister on the stump--finding no
accusation too reckless to be hurled against his enemies.
He was profoundly ambitious. To some men, situated like himself, it
might have been a legitimate and sufficient ambition to recover by slow
degrees and thrift, and in some trading way, the place in the middle
class from which the Coppins had fallen. Not so to Dick Coppin--he
cared very little about the former greatness of the Coppins, and the
position once occupied by Coppin the builder (his father), before he
went bankrupt. He meant secretly something very much greater for
himself. He would be a member of Parliament--he would be a working-man's
member. There have already been half a dozen working-men's members in
the House. Their success has not hitherto been marked, probably because
none of them have shown that they know what they want--if, indeed, they
want anything. Up to the last few days Dick simply desired in the
abstract to be one of them; only, of course, a red-hot Radical--an
Irreconcilable.
Now, however, he desired more. His cousin's words and the Chartist's
words fell on fruitful soil. He perceived that to become a power in the
House one must be able to inform the House on the wants--the programme
of his constituents--what they desire, and mean to have. Dick always
mentally added that clause, because it belongs to the class of speech in
which he had been brought up--"and we mean to have it." You accompany
the words with a flourish of the left hand, which is found to be more
effective than the right for such purposes. They don't really mean to
have it, whatever it may be. But with their audiences it is necessary to
put on the appearance of strength before there arises any confidence in
strength. Disestablishers of all kinds invariably mean to have it, and
the phrase is, perhaps, getting played out.
Dick went home to his lodgings and sat among his books, thinking. He was
a man who read. For the sake of being independent, he became a
teetotaler--so that, getting good wages, he was rich. He would not
marry, because he did not want to be encumbered. He bought such books as
he thought would be useful to him, and read them, but no others. He was
a man of energy and tenacity, whose chief fault was the entire absence
as yet of sympathy and imagination--if these could be supplied in any
way, Dick Coppin's course would be assured. For with them would come
play of fancy, repartee, wit, illustration, and the graces as well as
the strength of oratory.
He went on Monday evening to see Miss Kennedy. He would find out from
her, as a beginning, all that she could tell him about the wages of
women.
"But I have told you," she said, "I told you all the first night you
came here--have you forgotten? Then, I suppose, I must tell you again."
The first time he was only bored with the story, because he did not see
how he could use it for his own purposes--therefore he had forgotten the
details.
She told him the sad story of woman's wrongs, which go unredressed while
their sisters clamor for female suffrage and make school boards
intolerable by their squabbles. The women do but copy the men;
therefore, while the men neglect the things that lie ready to their hand
and hope for things impossible, under new forms of government, what
wonder if the women do the like?
This time Dick listened, because he now understood that a practical use
might be made out of the information. He was not a man of highly
sensitive organization, nor did he feel any indignation at the things
Angela told him, seeing that he had grown up among these things all his
life, and regarded the inequalities of wages and work as part of the bad
luck of being born a woman. But he took note of all, and asked shrewd
questions and made suggestions.
"If," he said, "there's a hundred women asking for ten places, of course
the governor'll give them to the cheapest."
"That," replied Angela, "is a matter of course as things now are. But
there is another way of considering the question. If we had a Woman's
Trade Union, as we shall have before long, where there are ten places
only ten women should be allowed to apply, and just wages be demanded."
"How is that to be done?"
"My friend, you have yet a great deal to learn."
Dick reddened and replied rudely, that if he had, he did not expect to
learn it from a woman.
"A great deal to learn," she repeated gently. "Above all, you have got
to learn the lesson which your cousin began to teach you the other
night, the great lesson of finding out what you want and then getting it
for yourselves. Governments are nothing; you must help yourselves; you
must combine."
He was silent. The girl made him angry, yet he was afraid of her because
no other woman he had ever met spoke as she did or knew so much.
"Combine," she repeated. "Preach the doctrine of combination; and teach
us the purposes for which we ought to combine."
The advice was just what the cobbler had given.
"Oh, Mr. Coppin"--her voice was as winning as her eyes were kind and
full of interest--"you are clever; you are persevering; you are brave;
you have so splendid a voice; you have such a natural gift of oratory,
that you ought to become--you must become--one of the leaders of the
people."
Pride fell prone, like Dagon--before these words. Dick succumbed to the
gracious influence of a charming woman.
"Tell me," he said, reddening, because it is humiliating to seek help of
a girl, "tell me what I am to do."
"You are ambitious, are you not?"
"Yes," he replied coldly, "I am ambitious. I don't tell them outside,"
he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the Advanced Club,
"but I mean to get into the 'Ouse--I mean the House." One of his little
troubles was the correction of certain peculiarities of speech common
among his class. It was his cousin who first directed his attention to
this point.
"Yes: there is no reason why you should not get into the House," said
Angela. "But it would be a thousand pities if you should get in yet."
"Why should I wait, if they will elect me?"
"Because, Mr. Coppin, you must not try to lead the people till you know
whither you would lead them: because you must not pretend to represent
the people till you have learned their condition and their wants;
because you must not presume to offer yourself till you are prepared
with a programme."
"Yet plenty of others do."
"They do; but what else have they done?"
"Only tell me--then--tell me what to do. Am I to read?"
"No; you have read enough for the present. Rest your eyes from books;
open them to the world; see things as they are. Look out of this window.
What do you see?"
"Nothing; a row of houses; a street; a road."
"I see, besides, that the houses are mean, dirty, and void of beauty:
but I see more. I see an organ player; on the curbstone the little girls
are dancing; in the road the ragged boys are playing. Look at the
freedom of the girls' limbs; look at the careless grace of the children.
Do you know how clever they are? Some of them, who sleep where they can
and live as they can, can pick pockets at three, go shop-lifting at
four, plot and make conspiracies at five; see how they run and jump and
climb."
"I see them. They are everywhere. How can we help that?"
"You would leave these poor children to the Government and the police.
Yet I think a better way to redeem these little ones is for the
working-men to resolve together that they shall be taken care of,
taught, and apprenticed. Spelling, which your cousin says constitutes
most of the School Board education, does not so much matter. Take them
off the streets and train them to a trade. Do you ever walk about the
streets at night? Be your own police and make your streets clean. Do you
ever go into the courts and places where the dock laborers sleep? Have a
committee for every one such street or court, and make them decent. When
a gang of roughs make the pavement intolerable, you decent men step off
and leave them to the policeman, if he dares interfere. Put down the
roughs yourselves with a strong hand. Clear out the thieves' dens, and
the drinking shops; make roughs and vagabonds go elsewhere. I am always
about among the people; they are full of sufferings which need not be;
there are a great many workers--ladies, priests, clergymen--among them
trying to remove some of the suffering. But why do you not do this for
yourselves? Be your own almoners. I find everywhere, too, courage and
honesty, and a desire for better things. Show them how their lot may be
alleviated."
"But I don't know how," he replied, humbly.
"You must find out, if you would be their leader. And you must have
sympathy. Never was there yet a leader of the people who did not feel
with them as they feel."
This saying was too hard for the young man, who had, he knew, felt
hitherto only for himself.
"You say what Harry says. I sometimes think----" he stopped short, as if
an idea had suddenly occurred to him. "Look here, is it true that you
and Harry are keeping company?"
"No, we are not," Angela replied with a blush.
"Oh! I thought you were. Is it off, then?"
"It never was--more--on--than it is at present, Mr. Coppin."
"Oh!" he looked doubtful. "Well," he said, "I suppose there is no reason
why a girl should tell a lie about such a simple thing." He certainly
was a remarkably rude young man. "Either you are, or you ain't. That's
it, isn't it? And you ain't?"
"We are not," said Angela, with a little blush, for the facts of the
case were, from one point of view, against her.
"Then if you are not--I don't care--though it's against my rules, and I
did say I would never be bothered with a woman.... Look here--you and me
will."
"Will what?"
"Will keep company," he replied firmly. "Oh! I know it's a great chance
for you--but then, you see, you ain't like the rest of 'em, and you know
things, somehow, that may be useful--though how you learned 'em, nor
where you came from, nor what's your character--there--I don't care,
we'll keep company!"
"Oh!"
"Yes; we'll begin next Sunday. You'll be useful to me, so that the
bargain is not all one side." It was not till afterward that Angela felt
the full force of this remark. "As for getting married, there's no
hurry; we'll talk about that when I'm member. Of course it would be
silly to get married now."
"Of course," said Angela.
"Let's get well up the tree first. Lord help you! how could I climb, to
say nothing o' you, with a round half-dozen o' babies at my heels?"
"But, Mr. Coppin," she said, putting aside these possibilities, "I am
sorry to say that I cannot possibly keep company with you. There is a
reason--I cannot tell you what it is--but you must put that out of your
thoughts."
"Oh!" his face fell, "if you won't, you won't. Most girls jump at a man
who's in good wages and a temperance man, and sought after, like me.
But--there--if you won't, there's an end. I'm not going to waste my time
cryin' after any girl."
"We will remain friends, Mr. Coppin?" She held out her hand.
"Friends? what's that? We might ha' been pals--I mean partners."
"But I can tell you all I think; I can advise you in my poor way still,
whenever you please to ask my advice, even if I do not share your
greatness. And believe me, Mr. Coppin, that I most earnestly desire to
see you not only in the House, but a real leader of the people, such a
leader as the world has never yet beheld. To begin with, you will be a
man of the very people."
"Ay!" he said, "one of themselves!"
"A man not to be led out of his way by flatterers."
"No," he said with a superior smile, "no one, man or woman, can flatter
me."
"A man who knows the restless unsatisfied yearnings of the people, and
what they mean, and has found out how they may be satisfied."
"Ye--yes!" he replied, doubtfully, "certainly."
"A man who will lead the people to get what is good for themselves and
by themselves, without the help of Government."
And no thunders in the Commons? No ringing denunciation of the
Hereditary House? Nothing at all that he had looked to do and to say?
Call this a leadership? But he thought of the Chartist and his new
methods. By different roads, said Montaigne, we arrive at the same end.