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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. On each title
page, the phrase “A Tale” was printed in a blackletter font, which is
rendered here delimited by ‘=’.
The volume is a collection of three already published texts, each with
its own title page and pagination.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
——o——
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
——o——
_IN NINE VOLUMES._
VOL. VII.
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
MDCCCXXXIV.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,
Duke-street, Lambeth.
CONTENTS.
---
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
CHAP. PAGE│CHAP. PAGE
1. Midsummer Moonlight 1│ 5. Taking Counsel 71
2. A Harvest Eve 14│ 6. Too Late 102
3. Fasters and Feasters 39│ 7. The Breaking-up 135
4. A Poor Man’s Induction 55│
│
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
│
1. The Silent Trip 1│ 5. Maternal Economy 76
2. A Mushroom City 20│ 6. Blithe News 101
3. Morning in the Jungle 40│ 7. Up and Doing 117
4. Night in the Jungle 65│
│
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
│
1. No News from the Port 1│ 5. Nothing but a Voice 78
2. News from the Port 22│ 6. Sleeping and Waking 108
3. Grown Children’s Holiday 44│ 7. Loyalty Preventives 121
4. Epistolary Godliness 66│
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
------------------
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
833.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
1. Midsummer Moonlight 1
2. A Harvest Eve 14
3. Fasters and Feasters 39
4. A Poor Man’s Induction 55
5. Taking Counsel 71
6. Too Late 102
7. The Breaking up 135
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
From the moment of beginning my work, one of my most anxious endeavours
has been to keep myself out of the sight of my readers;—not from any
affectation of reserve, but because, in this case, there is no necessary
connexion between the author of the work and the matter discussed in it.
Occasions have arisen, however, to induce me to speak in the first
person, in a preface; and I now do so again on account of certain
questions which have been publicly as well as privately treated,
respecting the proper direction of the popular influence which is
attributed to me, and which it would be equally weak and hypocritical in
me to disclaim.
What I wish to explain is,—briefly,—that I take my stand upon SCIENCE.
Whether the truths attempted to be illustrated by me on this ground be
Tory, Whig, or Radical, is a question to be determined, if they so
please, by Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, and not (at least at present) by
me. It comes within the scope of my object to illustrate certain
principles of Social Morals, as well as of Political Economy; but it is
altogether foreign to my purpose to determine by what political party
those principles are the most satisfactorily recognized. I may have,—I
have,—a decided opinion on this point; but, as it has nothing to do with
my work, I must protest against all attempts on the part of those who
speak of me as an author to render me distrusted by any one political
party, or to identify me with any other.
All have their mission. It is the mission of some to lead or support a
party;—a mission as honourable as it is necessary. It is the mission of
others to ascertain or to teach truth which bears no relation to party;
and to fulfil it requires the free use of materials and facilities
afforded by any in whose possession they may happen to be. This last is
my office,—imposed on me by the very act of accepting my first services.
Its discharge requires perfect liberty of action and of speech;—freedom
alike from anger at the vituperation and ridicule of one party,—from
distrust of the courtesies of a second,—and from subservience to the
dictation of a third. Such freedom I enjoy, and am resolved to maintain.
The sciences on which I touch, whether in the one series or the other on
which I am occupied, bear no relation to party. The People, for whom I
write, are of no party,—I, therefore, as a writer, am of no party. To
what party I might be proved to belong by inference from the truths I
illustrate, I leave to be decided by those who may think it worth their
while.
If this explanation should expose me to the charge of self-importance,
let it in justice be remembered that it was not I who originated the
question respecting the proper direction of my influence, or invited any
interference therein. No such direction is attempted by myself. As I
think, so I speak; leaving what I say to find its way to the hearts and
minds which have a congeniality with my own. Whenever I begin to modify
the expression of what I think from a regard to one class of minds
rather than another, I shall probably be thankful for assistance in
determining the direction of an influence which will have lost half its
vitality in losing its freedom.
Meantime, while declining all control in the use of such power as I
have, I will most humbly accept aid from any quarter in the improvement
of its character. With its extent and mode of operation I am and shall
be satisfied, because these are not included in my responsibilities.
With its quality I hope never to be satisfied; as the time ought never
to arrive when it will not be inferior to my aspirations.
H. M.
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
-----------------------
CHAPTER I.
MIDSUMMER MOONLIGHT.
The nights of a certain summer of the present century would scarcely
have been known for nights by those sober people who shut themselves in
as it grows dark, and look out in the morning, perceiving only that the
sun is come again. During the nights we speak of, repose did not descend
with the twilight upon the black moors of Yorkshire, and the moon looked
down upon something more glittering than the reflection of her own face
in the tarns of Ingleborough, or in the reaches of the Wharf and the
Don. Some of the polished and sharpened ware of Sheffield was exposed to
the night dews in the fields, and passed from the hands of those who
tempered to the possession of those who were to wield it.
Others were also abroad, with the view of relieving their hardships
instead of seeking to avenge them. The dwellers on high grounds were so
far worse off than the inhabitants of the valleys, that they could not
quench their thirst, and lose in sleep their weariness and their
apprehensions of hunger. During the day, there was drought within, and
the images of drought without;—hay dried before it was mown; cattle with
their tongues hanging out, panting in the parched meadows; horses
lashing madly at the clouds of flies that descended upon them as they
stooped to the slimy pools which had still some moisture in them; wells
with cracked buckets and dangling ropes; and ditches where there was an
equally small probability that children would find weeds and be drowned
in the search. During the night, when some of these spectacles were
hidden, it was necessary to take the chance of preventing a repetition
of them on the following day; and those who had cattle growing lean,
children growing fretful, and no remaining patience with a dry well,
bore with the weariness of night-watching in the hope of relieving the
more urgent evil of thirst.
On the night when the midsummer full moon gradually emerged from the
partial eclipse caused by the smokes of Sheffield, and shone full on the
hill-sides to the west, two women were sitting near a spring which had
rarely, till lately, failed to bless the stony region in which it was
wont to flow. They came to watch for any gush or drip which might
betoken the fall of showers somewhere among the hills; and patient would
their watch have appeared to an observer. The one sat on the stone fence
which separated the road from a field of drooping oats, and never moved,
except to cast a frightened look around her when an unseasonable bleat
proceeded from the restless ewes on the moor, or the distant foundry
clock was heard to strike. Her companion sat, also in silence, on the
edge of the dry cistern where her pitcher rested, and kept her eyes
fixed on the fitful lights of the foundry from whose neighbourhood she
had come.
“I have been thinking, Mary,” said Mrs. Kay, leaving her seat on the
wall, and speaking in a low voice to her sister-in-law,—“I have been
thinking that my husband may, perhaps, come round for us when his hours
are up at the foundry, instead of going straight home. I wish he may;
for I declare I don’t like being out in this way, all by ourselves.”
Mary made no answer.
“It is all so still and unnatural here. There’s the foundry at work, to
be sure; but to see the tilting-mill standing, all black and quiet, is
what I never met with before. We may see it for some time to come,
though; for there seems little chance of a sufficient fall to touch the
wheel at present. Do you think there is, Mary?”
Mary shook her head; and Mrs. Kay, having examined the spring with eye
and ear, stole back to her former seat.
After looking into the field behind her for some time, she came again to
say,—
“My husband talks about the crops, and the harvest being at hand, and so
on; but I do not see what sort of a harvest it is to be, unless we have
rain directly. What a poor-looking oat-field that is behind the wall!
and there are none any better on these high grounds, as far as I can
see.”
“There would be some chance for the low grounds, if the springs would
flow,” answered Mary.
“Why, yes. My husband was telling me that there is a corner left of one
of Anderson’s meadows down below, where the grass is as fresh and sweet
as if there had been forty-eight hours’ rain. It was but a corner; but
there was one of the little Andersons, and his sister, raking up the
grass after the mower, and piling their garden barrow with it, to give
to their white pony. Even Anderson’s beasts have been foddered, as if it
was winter, for this fortnight past.”
Mary nodded, and her sister proceeded.
“I wonder how many more improvements of Anderson’s we shall see after
this next bad harvest; for bad it must be now. It seems to me that the
less his land yields, the more he lays out upon it.”
“The less it yields, the more he wants, I suppose.”
“Yes; but it is an accident its yielding so ill for three years
together; and where he gets the money, I don’t know, except that bread
has been dear enough of late to pay for any thing.”
“That’s it, to be sure,” said Mary.
“Dear enough for any thing,” repeated Mrs. Kay. “When I used to have my
fill of meat every day, I little thought that the bread I ate with it
would grow scarce among us. No rise of wages, such as the masters make
such a complaint of, can stand against it.”
Mary shook her head, and there was a long pause.
“I’ll tell you what, Mary,” resumed the chief speaker, after a time,
“there would be much more pleasure in talking with you, if you would
talk a little yourself. It sets one down so not to know whether you are
listening to what one says.”
“I always listen when I am spoken to,” replied Mary; “but people are not
all made talkers alike.”
“Why, no, that they certainly are not. My husband laughs, and says that
a pretty dull time you and Chatham must have of it, when you are out
walking on Sundays. You will both get all you want to say in a week said
in five minutes. Well, I don’t wonder at your not answering that; but
you will not be offended at a joke from your own brother; and you know
he does not think the worse of Chatham for keeping his thoughts to
himself, and——Mercy! what did I see over yonder!”
And in her hurry Mrs. Kay pushed the pitcher, which Mary caught before
it went rattling down among the stones. She sat very quietly, watching
the motions of a number of men who were crossing a gate from one field
to another at some distance, and who seemed to be making for the road.
“Mary! Mary! what shall we do if they come here?” asked the trembling
Mrs. Kay.
Mary rose and took up her pitcher, observing that they might sit safe
enough in the shadow of Warden’s mill, just to the left; and then they
might have another chance for the spring as they came by in their way
home. Mrs. Kay could scarcely be persuaded that going home would be
perfectly safe as soon as it was daylight, and that the men who had
evidently been out at drill would be dispersed by dawn.
The women crept along, under the shadow of the wall, and then quickly
crossed the broad strip of moonlight which lay between them and the
mill. Before they reached the steps, which happened to be on the shadowy
side, Mrs. Kay was nearly unable to walk, and her terrors were not
lessened by the apparition of a person standing on the first stage, and
looking down on them from the top of the long flight of steps.
“Sit still,” said Mary, beginning to ascend, till she saw that Warden,
the miller, was coming down to inquire their business. She then briefly
explained what brought them upon his property.
“So you are looking for water,” he replied, “and I am looking for wind.
For three weeks there has not been a breath, and not a steady breeze
since long before that. The bakers are calling out upon us so as to keep
us out of our beds, watching for any rack in the sky that may betoken a
coming wind.”
“And have you ever seen, sir, such a sight as sent us here?” inquired
the trembling Mrs. Kay. “Such a sight as there is in the fields there?”
“What, the nightly drill? O yes, many a night, though they may not be
aware who has been overlooking them. They have never come near enough on
light nights for me to pick them out by their faces, so that there is no
occasion for me to take any notice; but I mark how they get on in
shouldering their pikes and learning to obey orders. Here, as I stand by
the fan-wheel, I hear the word of command quite plain through the still
air; and once they came upon this very slope. It was too dark a night
for them to see me; but I heard them stumble against the very steps you
are sitting on, Mrs. Kay.”
“How long do you suppose it is to last, Mr. Warden?”
“Till prices fall, or the people have burned a mill or two, perhaps.
’Tis a happy thing for you and yours, Mrs. Kay, that Oliver’s foundry
does not come under the ban. There it blazes away, night and day, and I
hear no curses upon it, like what are visited upon the mills. It is well
for you and yours that Kay has to ladle molten metal instead of having
to manage machinery. I hope he is well, Mrs. Kay?”
Mrs. Kay did not answer, and was found to be in no condition for
dialogue. Fear and fatigue had overpowered her, and she could only lean,
faint and sobbing, against the rail.
“She is not strong,” observed Mary. “Do you happen to have any thing in
the mill to revive her? My pitcher is empty.”
Warden fanned her with his hat, having no other means of refreshment in
his power; and he carried on the conversation with Mary while doing so,
that the poor woman might have time to recover herself. It was not
merely machinery that was the object of the trained bands, he observed.
In many parts they had pulled down corn stores; and it was rumoured that
Kirkland’s granaries were threatened by the very people who were now
near them. If they really entertained the idea that it was a public
injury to have a stock of corn laid by while the price was high, it was
no wonder that they were angry with Kirkland, as well as with some
people that had much more credit, without having done and suffered so
much to get it. He should like to know what the country was to do
without such men as Kirkland, when there had been three bad harvests
following one another?
“Your mill would stand idle if there was not corn brought from here or
there,” observed Mary. “But are those people that we saw bound for
Kirkland’s granaries? I should be sorry to think that they were about
any mischief.”
“They could be about little but mischief at this time of night, and with
arms too; but it is full late, I fancy, to be going so far. It is said
my father-in-law’s threshing-machine is doomed.”
“And what does he say to that?”
“O, he swears at the people because they can’t be contented when he is.
But, to my mind, it would not be so great a hardship this year as
another, seeing how little corn there will be to thresh. Not that I
approve such doings in any way; but when people are so badly off with
the high price of provisions, and the uncertainty of peace, what can you
expect?”
“You talked of noting faces; are there any of our people now in yonder
fields, do you suppose?”
“Do you mean Sheffield people, or people of your village?”
“Why, either.”
“There are undoubtedly many from about Stockport, and out of
Leicestershire, who go the round to stir up discontent, and teach the
drill. But it is said there are a good many neighbours of ours among
them too. What is more likely than that those who have not had their
fill in the day should turn out at night to something that may amuse
them better than lying awake, or dreaming of cheap bread? This is just
what you have been doing, you see; and what Mrs. Kay had better have let
alone, it seems. Come, Mrs. Kay, how are you now? Able to walk, do you
think?”
Quite able now to walk, and to ask a hundred questions on the way about
the cause of the terror which had shaken her, and the probable duration
of the hardship which had reduced her; on neither of which matters was
much satisfaction to be gained from the miller.
The spring was still dry, but Mary chose to watch till the children came
to take her place in the morning. The miller took charge of Mrs. Kay
till she was fairly within the light of the foundry fires, and then
struck across the fields homewards, hoping that his mill would not again
be the refuge of frightened women while he was on the spot.
Mary’s watch was vain, and the more wearisome from her occasional fancy
that it would not prove vain. More than once she was persuaded that she
heard the trickling of water while listening intently after the moon had
gone down; and when she fell asleep for a few moments, her thoughts were
full of the hardship of having only one pitcher to fill when the water
was overflowing every place. Not the less for this did she carry home
this very pitcher, swinging empty at arm’s length, when the village was
up and awake, and the sun beating down hot upon the slippery turf, and
glaring, reflected from the stone fences, upon the dusty road.
At the door she met a neighbour, Mrs. Skipper, the baker of the village,
who supplied a use for the pitcher.
“Well, Mary Kay, and what’s the news with you?”
“Nothing particular, Mrs. Skipper. Are you come to tell us again that
bread is risen?”
“Why, that I am, I’m sorry to say; and I wish you would change looks
with me, Mary, and then people would not taunt me as they do, when I say
that bread has risen.”
“How would that alter the matter?”
“O, they talk about my being fresh-coloured, and all that, and say it’s
a sign that I live of the best, whatever I may charge to others. Just as
if I made the bread dear, instead of the corn being as high to us bakers
as to other people; and as if there was no assize of bread in London.”
“And as if you cared for being called handsome,” added Kay from behind,
having come to breakfast in the midst of the greeting.
“I think you are handsome—very handsome,” said little John Kay, looking
up earnestly into Mrs. Skipper’s bonny face. She stooped down to give
him a hearty smack, and promise him a half-penny bun if he would come
and see her.
“There now, master John, you well nigh made me spill my cider, boy.
Here, Mary, hold your pitcher. Yes, it is for you—for all of you, I
mean. You will give John a drop, I’m sure. Ah! I thought you would like
it, now it is so difficult to get any thing good to drink. Do but taste
it, Mr. Kay. Is not it good? It was sent me by a cousin of mine, and I
thought I would bring you some, especially as I had to tell you that the
bread is risen again. It is nineteen-pence now! What do you say to that,
Mary?”
Mary, as usual, said nothing. She did not find that speech mended
matters of this kind; and besides, it was time she was setting about her
task of purifying the distasteful water which they must drink, if they
meant to drink at all, till the springs should flow again. She emptied
the clear, fresh-looking cider into her own pitcher, and returned Mrs.
Skipper’s with a look which was less indifferent than her manner.
“What I say is,” observed Kay, “that if bread is risen, our wages must
rise. We are all of one mind about that—that a man cannot live for less
than will keep him alive; to say nothing of his being fresh-coloured,
Mrs. Skipper. We can none of us boast much of that.”
“Well, how’s your wife, Mr. Kay? She was but poorly, I thought, when I
saw her two days ago.”
“O, she is a poor thing enough. She was not much to boast of when she
had an easy life compared with the present; and now she droops sadly.
John can hardly call her very handsome indeed. Can you, John?”
“John, carry your mother a cup of cider, if she is awake,” said Mary;
“and tell her I am home, getting breakfast.”
“There, that’s right, Mary,” said Mrs. Skipper. “You have such a way of
telling giddy people what they should not say and do. I am going my ways
directly, to leave you to yours. But send one of the children after me
for a nice hot roll for your sister. The new bread is just coming out of
the oven. And be sure you tell me whether she likes the cider, you
know.”
“And if she has not an appetite for the roll, we won’t send it back, I
promise you,” said Kay. “She has got into the way of not touching her
breakfast, lately; and the same thing cannot be said of me, when I have
been busy casting all night. Somebody will eat your roll, and thank you
for it.”
“That means that I may send two; but——”
Kay protested, and Mrs. Skipper explained, and Mary announced breakfast.
“Breakfast, such as it is, Mrs. Skipper,” observed Kay. “No disrespect
to your bread! But time was when I could afford it newer, and plenty of
it, and a bit of something to relish it. One does not relish it so well
when one can’t cut and come again, but may have just so much and no
more.”
Mrs. Skipper wished he could see what she saw of poor creatures that
could get none,—not the smallest and driest loaf, to try whether they
could relish it. If the potato crop failed, she did not know what was to
become of them; or of herself either, if they went on to look in at her
shop window. She had not the heart to draw the bread, with them looking
on, and not stuff a bit into the children’s mouths. And, dashing away
the tears from her bright black eyes, widow Skipper hastened whence she
came, hugging by the way the child who was sent to wait her pleasure
about the roll.
Before sitting down to his scanty meal, Kay went to rally his wife about
what she had seen and been alarmed at in her late expedition, and to
advise her to cheer up, instead of giving way, as she seemed disposed
now to do. She was up, but he supposed hardly awake yet; for she had not
much to say, and seemed flurried, and not able to take exactly what he
meant. He thought she had better have slept another hour.