FASTERS AND FEASTERS.
There were two opposite lights on the horizon that night, to those who
looked out from the village. While the moon sank serenely behind the
dark western hills, a red flame shot up, amidst volumes of wreathing
smoke, in the direction of Sheffield. Some persons were trying the
often-repeated experiment of gaining bread by the destruction of that by
which bread is gained. A metal-mill was gutted, its machinery broken,
and its woodwork burned, because the sea water had got to Kirkland’s
corn; and more mills were threatened in case the price of bread did not
fall within a few days. As no one could answer for the price of bread
falling within the time specified, the only thing to be done was to take
measures to avert the promised destruction. For this purpose, strict
inquiries were made as to what the inhabitants of the district had been
about the preceding evening; who had gone home from the harvest-field;
who attended the arrival of Kirkland’s corn; and how many there were who
could give no good account of themselves. Early in the morning the
officers of justice were abroad, and Mr. Fergusson and his sons were
seen riding about, greeted not the less respectfully wherever they went
from its being known that their object was to bring some of their
neighbours to justice. Mr. Fergusson’s character stood too high among
his tenants to allow of their thinking the worse of him under any
misfortunes that might happen. Let him do what he might in his character
of magistrate, he was trusted to do what was right, as he showed
himself, on all occasions, not only compassionate to the sufferings of
the people, but as wise in discerning the causes of the suffering as
anxious to relieve it when relief was in his power. Accordingly, hats
were touched when he looked in the faces of those whom he met this
morning, and ready answers given to his inquiries where the innocent
were called upon to speak, and respectful ones from the guilty, when the
necessity came upon them of making out a case. All the complaisance that
there was, however, was engrossed by the Mr. Fergussons. The constables
got only sneers and short answers, and men and women looked suspiciously
on one another all through the district, none knowing what a neighbour
might have the power to tell. Perhaps so many cross words were never
spoken in one day in the vale, as the day after the burning of Halsted’s
mill. “What do you look at me for? You had better look to yourself,” was
the common sentiment at the forge, in the field, and on the alehouse
bench. As for the children, they were so perplexed with instructions
what they were to say, that it was only to be hoped no one would ask
them any questions.
It was not to be supposed that Mrs. Skipper could stay quietly at home
while strangers were passing up and down the street about whom her
journeyman could give her no information, and while reports were
travelling round of one neighbour and another being compromised. She
burst in at Kay’s, just after he was gone to his work, when his wife was
preparing to put away breakfast, and Mary was beating out the corn which
she had gleaned the evening before, and which was destined to the mill
this day.
“I have not brought you a hot roll this morning, Mrs. Kay; no, nor so
much as a crust. I cannot afford any more of that at present; and so you
will not look for it from me.”
“What do you speak in that way to me for? I don’t know what you mean,”
said Mrs. Kay, with an angry, puzzled stare.
“Nor I what you would be at, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Skipper. “One would
not believe you were the soft-spoken Mrs. Kay, now-a-days. You can be
sharper in your speech than ever I am, let me tell you.”
“That is the more reason why you should be soft in yours,” said Mary.
“She has borne with you sometimes, when you have been better in health
than she is now.”
“Well; that is true: and she does look so poorly.... Ah! now, there’s
master John coming out with a speech about my fresh colour again.”
John was not thinking about anybody’s colour. He wanted to know whether
it was not true that he had had eleven-pence change from her the night
before.
“To be sure you had, after taking a penny roll.”
John called his mother to witness, that she might tell his father, that
he was in possession of a shilling before the troubles began at
Kirkland’s; to say nothing of those farther on. His father had doubted
his getting that shilling honestly, and had desired his mother to take
possession of the eleven pence till the whole was unquestionably
accounted for; and now John wanted his money back again. Mrs. Kay did
not, however, heed his request; and the matter ended in Mary’s
persuading the boy that if he had the money by the time he was at
liberty to go out, it would do very well, instead of pressing for it now
that his mother was busy thinking of something else.
“Why, take care, Mrs. Kay!” cried her neighbour. “Your hand shakes so,
you will certainly let the dish down, and that will cost you more than a
meal of my best bread would have done. Well! that is a beautiful potato
to have left among the peelings. And here’s another! I wonder you let
the children scatter their food about in that manner.”
“’Tis not the children,” observed Mary. “They have not more than they
are very willing to eat, poor things! Their mother has but little
appetite, and she is apt to slip her food back into the dish, that it
may not make her husband uneasy.—I want your help more than she does,”
she continued, seeing that Mrs. Skipper’s officious assistance was
obstinately refused by the poor woman. “Will you step behind, and help
me to beat and winnow my corn, if you have a minute to spare?”
With all her heart, Mrs. Skipper said; but she _had_ an errand, though
it was not to bring cider or hot bread. She had learned the secret of
making potato-bread: not the doughy, distasteful stuff that many people
were eating, but light, digestible, palatable bread. She would not tell
the secret to everybody,—giving away her own trade; but when she saw a
family of old friends eating potatoes, morning, noon, and night, she
could not help telling them how they might get something better.
Mary thanked her, and observed that she did not know how she could put
her gleaned corn to a better use than in making the experiment of a
batch of mixed flour and potato-bread.
“Ah! do; and I will treat you to the baking, and look well to it myself.
For my credit’s sake, you know; having set you to try. Come, let us have
the corn beat out.”
They went to the back of the house to thresh and winnow, and then the
widow’s first exclamation was about how sadly out of sorts Mrs. Kay
seemed to be.
“These are not times for her,” replied Mary. “They bear harder upon such
as she was than upon anybody. Who could have thought, you know, when she
was an only child, brought up delicately for a poor man’s daughter, that
she would come to loathe a potato breakfast, and have no other?”
“Bless you! I know,” whispered the widow, with a wise look. “People may
take things over-night that leave them no sense, nor temper, nor
appetite in the morning. My dear, I see how it is.”
Mary was apparently too busy with the wheat to take any notice of this
intimation. The next thing she said was,
“Where are all the potatoes to come from that will be wanted if people
take to this new sort of bread? and indeed whether they do or not; for
potatoes they must eat, either by themselves or made into bread. How are
we to get enough?”
“The price is rising, they say; faster than the price of anything else,
except corn: and if you go up yonder towards the moors, you will see
what a quantity of new ground is being taken up for growing potatoes. I
have had half a mind to try what I could do with a bit of a field
myself. Anderson knows what he is about, generally; and what he tries in
a large way might be safe for such as we in a small.”
“I would not try,” replied Mary.
“No, not if you were me, because you think I fly from one thing to
another, and do myself harm.”
“Besides,” said Mary, attempting no denial, “how will it be with you
next year, if there should chance to be a fine wheat and barley crop?
People do not live on potatoes when they can get bread; and I am sure it
is not to be wished that they should. I hope there will be much less
demand for potatoes next year; and it is likely there will. We have had
so many bad seasons, it cannot be long before a good one comes.”
“And then what a pity it will be that so much money has been spent in
fencing and managing these potato-grounds! It may chance to come to be
worth while to turn the sheep on again. That _would_ be a pity.”
“Say rather it is a pity they were ever turned off. The land on the
moors is much more fit for them than for us to feed off; and leaving
them there would leave the money that is spent on the land (more than it
is worth, if matters went on in their usual course) to be used in a more
profitable way.”
“In what way?”
“Why; take your own case. If you pay so much for hedging and ditching,
and draining, and manuring the potato-ground you have a mind for, and
the crop brings you no more next year than the same plot now brings as a
sheep-feed, is not the money just lost that was laid out in making a
field of it? My opinion is that it would bring less; and if it does not,
it ought to do. Our people will be badly off indeed if food is so high
next year as to make them take your potatoes at a price that would make
your bargain a good one; and if they are obliged to do so, they will be
eating up in those potatoes the money that should have set some of them
to work at weaving or cutlery-employment. Better buy corn of Kirkland
when we can, and let the sheep graze on.”
“Ay, when we can. There is the very thing. If we could always do that,
as much as we pleased, we should not spend much of our money on the
moors; but it is because it is all a chance whether we shall be buying
of Kirkland next year, that one thinks of taking the chance of potatoes
selling well.”
“I would not.”
“No, not you. You would spend your money, if you had any, in a little
bargain of grindstones, for the sake of a certain person.”
“That would depend on the price of potatoes,” replied Mary, smiling,
“for they would depend on the price of corn; and on the price of corn
mainly depends the cutlery trade; and where is the use of grindstones
unless the cutlery business flourishes?”
“There is another thing to be looked to; and that is, that those you
help in cutting grindstones do not get themselves into trouble;—ay, by
being abroad at night, and having the constables after them in the day.
I would have you consider that, my dear. Mercy! how frightened you
look,—as white as my apron! Now, don’t push me away because I let out a
thing that made you frightened.”
“Angry—very angry,” said Mary.
“Not with me, to be sure; for I did not make it, be it true or not true;
though I need not have cast it in your teeth as I did. It was Dick Rose
told me; and he said he knew it from——”
“Do get me a little vinegar, Mrs. Skipper. I never pinched my finger so
smartly before. I shall not be able to get my thimble on this week.”
“Well, now, it was that made you turn white, while you pretended to be
so angry with me that you made my heart beat in my throat. I shall know
you now another time, mistress Mary.”
“Not you,” thought Mary, as her giddy companion bustled into the house
for vinegar.
“I don’t see your sister,” said she, returning, “but I guessed where to
look for the vinegar. Is the pain going? Well, only do you ask Dick Rose
about how the folks were seen creeping out of the quarry, one by one,—
those that worked there, and some strangers that came to visit them; and
how——”
“I shall not ask Dick Rose any such thing, when there is a person that
can tell me so much better,” said Mary.
“Ay, if he will.”
“John, fetch me the large blue apron,” cried Mary; “and bring out Nanny
with you. I promised she should lend a hand, and see the chaff fly.”
Before John could reach the door, a sharp scream,—the scream of a
child,—was heard from within. Mary flew to see what had happened, but
just as she was entering, her brother, seeing that some one was behind
her, slammed the door in her face, and was heard to bolt it. Mrs.
Skipper would not listen to what she had to say about the child having a
fall, but exclaimed,
“Well, I should not have thought Mr. Kay could have behaved in that
manner to you; and he looked at me quite fierce, so as I thought had not
been in his nature.”
And she stepped to the window to tap, and ask an explanation: but she
caught a glimpse of something that quieted her, and sent her to stoop
down over the wheat again, without looking at Mary, or speaking another
word. Kay was carrying his wife up stairs. The helpless arm, hanging
over his shoulder, was just visible, and the awe-struck children,
suspending their crying, moved Mrs. Skipper to concern too deep to be
expressed in her usual giddy speech.
“Which way are you going?” asked Mary at length. “I am off for the mill,
as soon as I can get in to take the children with me.”
“And I home; and you may depend on me, you know for what. My tongue does
run too fast sometimes, I know; but you may depend on me, as it was only
by a chance that I was here.”
“Thank you!” replied Mary, warmly. “And I will take it kindly of you to
show me the way about the bread, as soon as my corn is ground.”
By the united resources of the children within, the door was unbolted,
and the party allowed egress into the street, when Mrs. Skipper turned
down, and Mary up; the children asking her, one to go out of the way for
the sake of the pond on the heath, and another hoping to jump down five
steps of the mill-ladder, four having been achieved last time. Mary
would have been glad to forget their mother as easily as they.
When Warden saw her toiling up the slope on the top of which the mill
stood, her bundle on her head, and a child tugging at each side of her
gown, he civilly came down to relieve her, and told her that she was
more welcome than on the occasion of her last visit. It was a fine
breezy day, he observed, and perhaps she might like to look about her
from the top of the mill, if she did not mind the shaking that there
always was in a wind. Mary thanked him, but dared not leave the
children, lest they should put themselves in the way of the sails. This
difficulty was soon obviated by the miller’s taking the girl upon his
shoulder, and calling to his man to bring up the boy, and let him play
among the sacks in the first story, or climb higher, as he liked.
“I suppose you saw the fire finely from here, if you chanced to be
looking out last night,” Mary observed.
“My man did, as he stayed to take advantage of the wind. He says it
lighted up every turn of the river between this and Sheffield. You may
see the smoke still, among the other smoke. Half the country has flocked
there this morning, my father-in-law told me just now, as he passed on
his way to pay his rent. It is a good time to choose to pay his rent,
when every body is thinking of something else than emptying his pockets.
Otherwise, it is not the safest and pleasantest thing in the world to be
carrying money over the by-road between this and Fergusson’s. Yonder he
goes,” continued the miller, stooping to the little girl whom he was
keeping steady with his arm round her waist. “Yonder goes Mr. Anderson,
on his black mare. You may see him trotting along the lane between those
young oaks.”
“He will come back slower in the evening, when he has left his money
behind him,” observed Mary.
“He will not wait till evening. He will just finish with the steward,
and come home again, for the Mr. Fergussons are abroad over the country
to-day; and besides, my father-in-law is wanted at home every hour of
the day while the improvements are going on. Look how busy he is
thereabouts.”
“I see; they drive the poor sheep higher and higher up the moors, with
their walls and their ditches.”
“Yes, year by year. Before these many bad seasons, the sheep used to
browse on this very slope where my mill stands. I used to come up among
the bleaters every morning.”
“You speak as if the bad seasons were the cause of the change.”
“And so they are, mainly. Where numbers increase as they have done here
in my time, more food will be wanted at all events, be the seasons what
they may. But when the soil yields scantily, for years together, the
inclosing will go on faster, from the cry for food. Yonder field, red
even now with poppies, would never have been sown if the nine-acres in
the bottom had yielded as they ought. The nine-acres used to yield as
much as was reaped this year in itself and the poppy-field together.”
“And there has been all the cost of taking it in besides.”
“Yes; and my father-in-law does wisely to pay that cost (if he must pay
it) before his rent is raised. He and the steward will have an argument
about that rent to-day, I fancy. The lease will be up soon now, and
rents are rising every where; and I suppose my father-in-law is content
to let his mount up too. He would not otherwise be carrying on all these
works.”
“I wonder at his being content to pay more rent after so many short
harvests.”
“It is easier than after larger; for corn sells dear, more than in
proportion to its scarcity. Nobody can tell you better than Anderson
that a single short harvest makes a heavy pocket; much more a succession
of short harvests.”
“Till the poor get a-head of the rate-payers, I suppose,—no longer. When
Mr. Anderson has to maintain half of us down in the village, because we
cannot buy food, he will find us lighten his pockets as fast as bad
years can fill them.”
“The manufacturers must help him then. They must raise their people’s
wages——”
“And so must Anderson.”
“They must raise their people’s wages, and maintain the poor in the
towns, and in the working villages.”
“I wish the manufacturers joy of their good nature. They first pay dear
for their own bread, and then pay dear for the labour which is to buy
their workmen’s bread, and then spend what profits are left in
supporting those whose labour they cannot employ; and all to make
Anderson’s and other farmers’ pockets heavy for a little while after bad
seasons. I wish them joy of their patience.”
“Anderson will want patience too, when his turn comes. Depend upon it,
as soon as he gets fairly saddled with a high rent and high rates, there
will come a fine crop or two to make prices as low in proportion as they
now are high. He cannot bring down his men’s wages all in a day; much
less can the rates be disburthened at once; and so it will be well if he
makes ready beforehand for such a change.”
“I hope he does make ready; but what I see there looks little like it.”
“What, you mean the bay-window and balcony now making to my house, and
the shrubbery he is laying out. All that was no wish of mine, for I
thought the white house looked very neat as it was before; and the bit
of garden behind was as much as my wife and I had time to attend to. But
her father liked that his daughter’s house should be improving while he
was adding so much to his own, and he made us accept of the alteration,
whether we would or no. He said, that while he was sending my wife’s
sister to Paris, and bringing up her brothers to look higher than he
once thought of for them, he could not leave her neglected, as if he was
ashamed of her having married more humbly than the other girls will do.”
“And his own house looks hardly like the same place. His having built up
among all the rambling old parts gives it one face as a whole.”
“Yes; three more bad years, and it will look like a gentleman’s mansion.
Yes, yes; these are the joyous rent-days, when the steward gets every
farthing, and pretends to shake his head because it is no more; and when
the farmers try to look dismal about the short crops, and then sing
merry songs over their ale,—such of them as have not taken to port.
Well, the millers’ day will come in time, it is to be hoped.”
“When will that be?”
“When the people are not setting their wits to work to make
potato-bread, and eating every thing that grows rather than flour. We
have had more going and coming, more watching and jealousy about waste,
and more grumbling because we cannot grind for nothing,—more trouble of
all sorts about a few trumpery bundles of gleanings this last week, than
about fifty sacks when I first became a miller.”
“I will give you as little trouble as I can with mine,” said Mary; “but
you must not call it a trumpery bundle, for it is worth much to me. If
you knew how much, I might trust you not to waste any of it.”
“You would not dream of my wasting, if you saw how carefully I look to
every grain. Why, I drive away the very birds themselves, if they light
when the sails stop at any time. We do not leave the sweepings to them
and the wind, as we used to do, but sift them as a housemaid sifts for
pins. That is the reason why I do not offer your young master a handfull
for the pigeons, as I used to do.”
“Don’t think of it, pray. He is going to play with the ducks on the pond
as we go home, and that will do as well: besides, I hear him laughing
now, merry enough without the pigeons.”
“Playing hide and seek with Jerry among the sacks, I fancy.”
“Where he must have done playing for to-day,” observed Mary. “How quiet
every place looks for a working day!” she continued, giving one more
glance round the horizon before she descended. “Except the sheep,
creeping like mites on the uplands, and the labourers gathering like
ants about the new inclosures, I see nobody stirring.”
“I seldom see it so quiet, except on a starlight night, when there is no
noise but the whizzing of the sails when they go by starts; or perhaps
an owl from my gable. But you see the people in the quarries stick to
their work, as if they had no share in what was doing last night.” And
the miller looked full at Mary as he spoke. “I see a man or two with his
pick in yonder stone-pit, hewing away as if nothing had happened. Cannot
you see them? Well, it is a wonder your head has stood the shaking in
this breeze for so long. Many people can fix their sight on nothing
after the first two minutes.”
Mary was determined to see more of the quarries before she went home
than could be discerned from the mill-top. She let one child peep into
the hopper to see how the corn ran down to be ground, and the other to
exhibit his jump of five steps, with a topple at the end of it, and then
walked quickly away towards the part of the heath where bilberries were
to be found, and where she thought she might leave her charge safely
employed while she looked into the quarry to see whether Chatham was
really there, and whether or not he had had any transactions with the
constables since she saw him last.