OBSERVING AFAR.
The old sexton pursued his way to the church without looking behind him,
though made aware by the bustle around that strangers were in his rear.
It was not old Joel’s way to alter his pace or his purposes for man or
woman, be they who they might. Children only had any power over him; and
they only as long as they were unconscious of it.
“Is the sexton one of the equality folks?” asked Letitia of White.
“What, old Joel? Really, madam, there is no saying what he is, further
than that he is discontented with everybody’s ways of thinking in
turn.—Joel! Joel!” he cried, as the sexton was busied in unlocking the
white gate of the churchyard, “my lady asks if you are an equality man.”
The old man muttered something unintelligible while engaged with the
lock; but when he looked up and met Letitia’s eye, her countenance,—not
its beauty, but the sincerity of its expression,—acted as a charm upon
his reserve. They exchanged smiles, and understood one another
immediately. Joel did not, like Nanny White, congratulate himself aloud
on having met with a congenial companion, but he felt himself happy in
having done so.
“Will you please to tell me, madam, what you are here for?”
“To see the church, and to make acquaintance with you, Joel.”
“Because you are curious about my way of thinking?”
“I have no idea what your way of thinking is; but I should certainly
like to know, because it is the first thing I try to find out when I
make new acquaintances.”
“Then, madam, you and I shall suit. If such is your custom, you will not
do as the world for the most part does; you will not first suppose that
a man must be wise for having gone through all the chances and changes
that can be crowded into a long life, and then think his opinions very
wicked or very foolish because they may be such as you did not look for.
Why, say I, should I feel and think like you? Have you been first young
and then old? Have you been looked upon as a scholar in your prime and
an oddity in old age? Have you been on the other half of the world, and
have you now only the sunny side of a churchyard for your range? Have
you had ten children round your table, and do you now come to eat your
solitary crust upon their graves? If not, why should you expect me to
think like you? And how will you dare to point at me and pity me because
pain and pleasure have sharpened my mind’s sight to pierce further into
things than you, who, may be, see only the outsides of them, or, may be,
only the mists that cover them? Follow me, madam, unless your limbs are
more feeble than an old man’s, as many a fine lady’s are.”
As Joel turned to lead the way, White ventured upon a sly wink to the
lady, but presently fell behind, abashed by the steady gravity with
which it was met.
The church stood on a mound, and its tower, therefore, though of
moderate height, rose conspicuously above the trees which belted the
churchyard; and from its parapet might be obtained a glorious view of
the surrounding country. Joel did not pause or speak till he had
conducted Letitia and Thérèse out upon the leads.—Instead of fixing her
attention on the nearer beauties of the park and village which lay
stretched beneath, the uplands that rose beyond, and the towers and
spires of the great city which might just be discerned on the western
horizon, Letitia gazed eagerly towards the south, where a dim haze
stained the blue of an autumn sky.
“It is ... is it possible? ... yes, it must be the sea!”
“What is it you see, my lady?”
“I see a faint yellow strip of beach, and an even grey line which must
be the ocean. O yes! there is a sparkle, and no other light or motion
can be seen so far.”
“Aye,” said Joel, laughing, “that is ever the way those pronounce who
have seen little. What think you of volcano fires, my lady, quivering
over two hundred miles of a midnight sea? What think you of an avalanche
sparkling as it slides from the highest pinnacle of the Andes? There are
things, for that matter, that you have seen. What think you of the
northern lights, or of our own shining, changing moon? Is she not so far
off as yonder sea?”
“I was rash in what I said, Joel. But I wish that mist was away that I
might find a sail. Look, look, Thérèse! Is there anything?... Do you see
any form come out from amidst the haze?”
Thérèse not having fixed her sight so long, could discern nothing; but
her mistress satisfied herself that a vessel was visible, and at length,
by dint of attention, could make out first the hull, then the sails,
then one, then two more vessels in its train, and at last, a whole
fleet.
“Why do you not insist on your servant seeing them too?” asked the old
philosopher. “’Twould be just as reasonable as quarrelling, as the
people do down below, about what they see with their minds’ eyes. Bring
them up here. One will say that yonder haze is nothing more than a
blotch upon a bright sky; another won’t trouble himself to look, but
believes it is a mountain, or a city, or whatever other folks tell him
it is. You, madam, see that within the mist which interests you more
than the whole landscape besides; but, depend upon it, you will find
plenty of people to assure you that ’tis all fancy that you perceive
anything.”—Turning to Thérèse, he said, “Now you believe the lady that
she sees a fleet, I dare say?”
“I do. Madame is not apt to see visions, and she ever speaks truth. Do
not you believe?”
“I do. What a world of trouble it would save if we had a few people that
could discern as far off, and tell what they saw as faithfully about
things that will outlast the sea; or even about some notions that will
pass away long before yon fleet has all been sunk, or beaten to pieces,
or decayed!”
“You mean,” said Letitia, anxious to prove the old man’s scholarship,
“what a pity it is that there is nobody to look out and tell us what
truths there are holding their course within the mists in which our
systems of religion, and politics, and science, and—above all—of
society, are shrouded.”
“Yes, madam: but, after all, if there were such, would any believe them?
Or, if some did and others did not, would there not follow a quarrel?
Believe me, madam, (for I know every man, woman, and child, that lives
beneath the roofs we are looking down upon,) there is not a spot beyond
the belt of this churchyard,—bright and quiet as all looks, with not a
leaf stirring in yonder woods,—there is not a spot where human beings
are content with each other,—not a place above the sod where they can
dwell side by side in perfect peace.—Some even quarrel about what is to
become of themselves and their neighbours when they are laid under the
sod. The children, indeed, tell one another such tales as it is pleasant
to hear about the pretty place under ground, all cool and green and
daisied, where they are to lie and sleep till all are gathered together;
but as they grow up and are taken, one to Sir William’s chapel on the
hill there, and another to the meeting-house in the village below, and
another here....”
Letitia, perceiving that Thérèse began to look alarmed about what might
be coming, interrupted Joel with the remark that it would be surprising
if there were not difference of opinion on a subject so remote from
human ken as the modes of future being. It was far more desirable that
there should be agreement as to what should be done above ground to make
life peaceful and happy; the most to be enjoyed in itself, and the
fittest possible preparation for a higher and better.
“There is full as much quarrelling about this as about the other
matter,” said old Joel. “There is your own mansion, madam. There, if I
am rightly told, sits lord F——, sighing over the distresses of
thousands, and finding fault with the management of those that have held
his office before him. In yonder new farm lives a man who is annoyed by
the complaints of his neighbours on account of his having undertaken the
tillage of some inferior lands, owing to which, the profits of their
several occupations must fall. In the old abbey farm below, there is
discontent at rents being raised by the same means. In our village shop,
there is jealousy of the neighbouring co-operatives; and these
co-operatives themselves, congratulating one another as they do on
having found out the road to prosperity, shake their heads in a very
melancholy way over the impiety of holding lands, and the injustice of
rewarding labour in such a faulty manner as by paying coin. There are
much worse things than these. There is life lost in smuggling contests
on the coast you are looking at; and life wasted and worn in ill-paid
labour in the rich fields below; and life embittered by hunger and cold
in yonder hovels where the jolly hunt is now sweeping by. Everybody sees
all this, and everybody boasts that he could cure it. All set about it
in different ways, and nothing is done.”
“I would scarcely say that nothing is done,” said Letitia. “Though
labour-notes may not prove so good a circulating medium as gold and
silver, it is something done for any body of men to have become
practically convinced that it is labour which gives value to what we
would exchange. Though it is not at all likely that property in land
will be given up because the Jews, peculiar in all their institutions,
held theirs under a peculiar tenure, it is something gained that common
attention is turned upon the tendency of our present system of
land-holding, that so the causes of the increase of this species of
property may be discovered in time to remove the impediments to a just
distribution. Depend upon it, something is gained by these divisions of
opinion; and the more various they become, the nearer we are to a better
plan of society. The more quickly opponents demolish the hinderances set
up by one another, the sooner will the natural laws of distribution be
left free to work.”
“Why should they not do the thing more quickly still, madam, by watching
the natural course of things? There might be an old man found in every
village able to tell the changes that have come to pass since his
boyhood in the value of the property, and the prosperity of the people
around him, and wise enough to separate what belongs to the matter from
what does not. I, for my part, can prove that our people here would not
have been richer if they had paid one another in labour-notes or goods,
instead of coin; and that if all the people within five miles round had
made an agreement fifty years ago to have everything in common, there
would now have been less wealth within these bounds, and far more people
to consume it,—though we have too many already.”
“Point out to me, Joel, any spot within sight where you have watched the
operation of the natural laws of distribution, of which we hear so
much.”
“Alas! madam, there is no such spot in this kingdom. If there were,
there would be abundance and content everywhere, instead of the
differences we have been talking of. What is the first of these laws?
That all labour should be free and voluntary.—Well; our people are not
slaves, it is true; but can labour be called voluntary as to its amount,
when a man must work sixteen hours a day to get just enough to keep him
from starving?”
“This comes of there being more labour than food; and this therefore
cannot be remedied by equalization of property, since the rich man
consumes little more food than the poor man. It can be remedied only by
bringing in more corn, or by sending out a portion of our surplus labour
from among us.”
“True. Well; the second law is that all the fruits of labour should be
secured to the producer. This is not done; for taxation swallows up a
grievous portion of what is produced.”
“But the labourer chooses to exchange part of the fruits of his labour
for the sake of the protection of a government.”
“The third law,” interrupted Joel, “is that all exchanges of these
fruits ought to be free and voluntary. Let our labourers give something
in exchange for social protection, and welcome; but never tell me that
they would willingly give as much as is now required from them in taxes,
unless food was allowed so to abound as to afford a better recompense to
their toil. While government checks the supply of food, the labourer
cannot think the wealth he creates naturally distributed between the
government and himself.”
“The co-operatives propose, I believe, to go on tilling more and more
land as more food is wanted, and to give a sufficiency of its produce to
every labourer.”
“Aye, madam, and many besides the co-operatives; but it would puzzle the
wisest man among them to say where the sufficiency is to come from,
after a time; the return from land being less and less as time passes
on. Take the worst soil at present tilled....”
“Or a better soil, subtracting the rent; for the return from all land is
equal when the rent is deducted.”
“Very true, madam. The produce is to be shared between the cultivator
and his labourers, rent having nothing to do with the profits of the one
or the wages of the other,—being the consequence entirely of the
different qualities of the land. Well; let this produce be divided into
wages and profits in what proportion you will, both decline as numbers
increase and more food is wanted.”
“How is it then that farmers’ labourers have many things in their
possession that farmers’ labourers used not to have? More shoes and
stockings, and cloth coats, and other manufactured articles?”
“Because these things are more easily made, and cost less. A labourer
may now have a pair of shoes for half as much corn, we will say, as he
must have given for them some years ago. The same is the case with the
farmer who employs him; so, though each may receive double the quantity
of certain goods that they did some years ago, it does not follow that
the rate of profits and wages is increased. If you reckoned the
labourer’s gains in shoes, you might say that his wages are doubled; but
if you reckon them in relation to the farmers’ profits, you may find
them at the same time lowered; or that both wages and profits have in
one sense increased; in another not. This blinds many people to the fact
that wages and profits are continually declining.”
“Of course, if land produces less and less, there must be a smaller
produce to divide between the capitalist and his labourers; and on the
whole, they must share the decline pretty equally; since the farmer
would not farm unless he could make some profit, and the labourers would
not labour but for subsistence. But I am afraid this decline pulls down
the profits of manufactures too; for farmers would turn manufacturers if
they could make higher profits thereby; and then there would be a new
demand for corn; the price would rise; farmers would return to farming,
and would take in new land, the diminished produce of which would lower
profits again.”
“Yes, madam: this is the way that agricultural profits determine all
profits; and that all are perpetually sinking. You see labour becomes
dearer when corn is; that is, the labourer must have a certain quantity
of corn in return for his labour, be its price what it may; and these
higher wages lessen profits again, without any advantage to the
labourer.”
“Well, but the corn the farmer retains is higher in price.”
“But less in quantity, my lady; and he has the prospect of employing
dearer labour for a less return.”
“It seems, then, as if wages determined profits, instead of profits
determining wages. But I suppose it comes to the same thing where there
are only two shares to depend on each other.”
“There are greater changes, madam, in the supply of labour than in the
manner of using it; and while there are multitudes of eager, hungry
labourers, they will take care that the profits of stock shall not
commonly rise higher than just to make it answer to the capitalist to
carry on his business.”
“But do these things actually take place? Do farmers turn manufacturers,
and turn back again into farmers? and have you known any cases of their
profits falling?”
“I am as sure of it, my lady, as the co-operatives themselves, whose
theme it constantly is. As for farmers changing,—you must remember that
almost all capitalists use borrowed capital, and that this capital
floats about continually, and is taken in where it is most wanted: so
that capital may be largely invested in one concern at one time, and
another at another, without much visible change in the occupations of
capitalists. As for the other matter,—I know a manufacturer in yon city,
and the farmer in the abbey farm to have each employed ten men at 25_l._
wages per annum, the highest they could afford to give, they said, since
they had now to pay 250_l._ instead of 200_l._, as formerly. A new man
came and took new land of the old farmer’s landlord; and he had to
employ eleven men to raise the same produce as the abbey farm yielded,
and the price of corn rose. When the old farmer’s lease expired, he was
charged 25_l._ more rent to make him equal with the new farmer.”
“So they paid 275_l._,—one for wages only, and the other for wages and
the additional rent; while the manufacturer paid only 250_l._”
“Yes; but it was made up to them by the increased price of their
produce; so the profits of all were still equal. When labour should
become dearer in consequence of this rise of price, the profits of all
three would fall together.”
“And the labourer would not be better off, after all, Joel: only the
land-owner, whose rent is incessantly rising. All this is exactly what
the co-operatives are complaining of, is it not?”
“Yes, madam. But how would co-operation mend the matter? However the
total produce is divided, it still goes on lessening, while numbers
increase. This is the point, my lady. Do away as you will with the very
names of rent, profits, and wages,—throw all together in a lump into a
public treasury,—and there will still be less and less return to
capital, and more and more consumers to divide it. Co-operation,
equalization, and all those things, cannot make all lands equally
fertile, they cannot make capital grow as numbers grow; and unless they
could do these things, they can make no permanent provision for
unlimited numbers; they cannot prevent the decline of profits, whether
those profits are taken by individuals, or thrown into the common
stock.”
“But how do you answer these co-operatives, Joel, when their complaints
of the distresses of our peasantry are undeniably true?”
“I answer by agreeing with them so far. Who can help it, for that
matter? Where is the town in this wide kingdom where hunger does not
stalk ferociously through the streets, and howl in the dark alleys?
Where is the village where want does not wet the mother’s pillow with
tears, and open untimely graves for the gentle and the manly? No, no! I
have seen too much to deny what so many are suffering: but this only
makes me the more anxious that false means of relief should not be
tried. When I hear some crying out for this park of yours, my lady, to
be cut up into corn-fields and potato-gardens, or for cultivation to be
carried to the tops of yonder hills, or for all property to be held in
common, I see that all this would only lead to tenfold misery, and I
cry,—but nobody listens to an old man,—get corn whence you can get it
cheapest;—send away as many of your people as you do not want to where
they are wanted;—and take care so to manage matters as that you may
never be overburdened with numbers again.—Often as I have said this,
madam, I never before said it with so much hope of being attended to. My
lord can speak so as to be heard from one end of the empire to the
other, and....”
“And he likes to hear whatever is said from one end of the kingdom to
the other on these matters, Joel. He would fain have a wise old man out
of every town and village, as you say, to relate the changes he has seen
from boyhood till now. You must come one day soon, when lord F—— is at
leisure, and tell us more of what you have seen at home and abroad.”
As they descended into the church, John White was seen standing at the
entrance to the gallery in a state of great impatience. He had been
kicking his heels, tapping the door-posts with his rule, and amusing
himself in sundry such ways for half an hour, while waiting for the
party, and now hastened forward to do the honours of her pew to lady
F——, pointing out the comforts and elegancies of fire-place, cushioned
chairs, curtain, &c.
“Is this our seat?” said Letitia. “I do not like it at all.”
White stared in amazement. Thérèse was too busy remarking the bareness
of a Protestant church to take notice of what was going on.
“It is a small, inconvenient church,” added Letitia, “and by no means
made the most of. Where do the school children sit?—What! down in that
narrow corner? This gallery is the proper place for them. After all your
trouble, White, we must have another arrangement.”
“And where will your ladyship have all these things shifted?”
“Nowhere,” replied she, smiling. “If a fire-place is wanted here at all,
it is for the half-clad, and not for those who can wrap themselves in
furs; and this show of damask furniture does not beseem the place. I
will speak to lord F—— about a pew for us next that of the curate’s
family, and fitted up in the same way.”
“With matting underfoot, my lady, and dark green cushions, and below
stairs too? Well to be sure! But your ladyship will have a curtain hung
round?”
“I see no use in it. Lord F—— does not sleep at church, or wish to be
supposed present when he is not.”
“And the earl, and lady Frances,” said Joel, in a whisper. “What will
they think, my lady?”
“They will, as our guests, be satisfied with our accommodations, Joel.
And now show me down, that I may go and arrange this with lord F——, that
our pew may be ready by Sunday.”
“The old family monuments, my lady.”
“I will wait to see those till lord F—— is with me. We will call for
you, the first morning he is at liberty. Meanwhile, there is much to
study in the churchyard. We shall meet there sometimes, Joel.”
The lady and the old sexton did often meet there. Sometimes she went,
sketch-book in hand, to sit in the porch or on the tombs; and then old
Joel kept on the watch, just within sight, in hopes of being beckoned
and invited to a conversation. At other times he would be there first in
the performance of his duty; and the lady, warned by the passing bell,
would come down and watch the process of grave-digging, gathering from
him many a tale of joy and sorrow; many a touching notice of repented
sin; many an animating narrative of struggling virtue. Severe as old
Joel was on the follies of the present times, no one could review the
past more tenderly. It was soon perceived, however, that he became less
reserved in his conduct, and less severe in his judgments towards the
neighbours, as his friendship with lady F—— ripened. By the time he got
to call her “my dear,” he had grown so familiar with one and another as
to express his admiration of her. It was a pretty sight, he observed, to
see her out riding with a train of noble guests about her, and a
pleasant thing to hear that she was the gayest and fairest at all the
lordly festivals in the country round; but it did an old man’s heart
good to have her come and watch the opening of graves, in which she
never forgot that the young and graceful are often laid before the old
and weary. She ever kept herself in mind of this, by coming as she did,
to mourn at every funeral. It was not idle curiosity, as some people
might think. There was her face to read her thoughts in; and where were
thoughts ever written plainer? Let the train behind the coffin be as
long as it might, there was not a face more serious, there were not any
tears more ready than hers. The very children that used to be sporting
upon the graves at such times, had learned to be quiet without her even
holding up her finger. Who should dig his grave, the old man did not
know; but he prayed his hour might come when the lady should be at the
hall. She would see him laid under the sod, he was sure; and perhaps, at
the moment, some things might come into her mind that they had said
together at times when things are said that are worth remembering.
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