TAKING COUNSEL.
As there was sufficient evidence, in the magistrate’s opinion, of
Chatham’s having been once present at the midnight drill, and active
among the crowd by the river-side the night before, he was committed to
prison, it being left to himself to prove, at the time of trial, for
what purposes he had mixed himself up with the rioters. As he was a very
important personage in his village, his jeopardy excited much
speculation and interest. For the first two or three days, there was
much curiosity among the neighbours to see Mary, in order to observe how
she took it. Mary was somehow always busy with her sister and the
children; but when a gossip or two had become qualified to testify to
her aspect—that she looked just as usual,—and when the children were
found to have nothing particular to tell about her, everybody was vexed
at having been troubled on behalf of a person who was never put out,
happen what might.
Times were so flat this autumn that there was abundance of leisure for
talking about whatever might turn up, and no lack of tongues to treat
thereof. Some of the foundry-men were turned off, as it had been
necessary to raise the wages of those who remained. As there was no
increase of business at the time this rise of wages took place, and as
Oliver himself was living at a larger expense as provisions became
dearer, there was no alternative for him but to turn off some of his
men, contract his business, and be as content as he could with smaller
profits than he had ever before made. By the rise of wages, his
remaining men were, for a short time, relieved from the extreme of
misery they had endured in the interval between the great increase in
the cost of provisions and the raising of their wages; but they were no
richer than they had formerly been with two-thirds of the nominal amount
of the present recompense of their labour. Want still pressed, and must
still press, up to the point of Oliver having no more wages to give,
unless the deficiencies of the harvest might be supplied by large
importations from abroad. In the uncertainty whether this would be done,
and with the certainty before their eyes that there had not been food
enough in the country for three years past, Anderson and the
neighbouring farmers took in more and more land, and flung about the
abundance of money they received for their dear corn.
This money was not the less buried in the inferior new land for its
being passed from hand to hand among the labourers. The guinea that came
out of Anderson’s profits of the preceding year, to be paid to Kay as
wages, was spent in buying a third less bread of Mrs. Skipper than might
have been had in better years. The baker, in her turn, bought less flour
of Warden with it than in former times; and Warden used it for a dear
bargain with Kirkland, and Kirkland with Anderson for wheat. Anderson
paid it to the ploughman of his new fields, for less labour than the
same sum had procured for better land, and with the prospect of a less
return to the labour employed. The guinea would then go again into Mrs.
Skipper’s till for still less bread than before; while Anderson was
making answer to all complaints about this waste, that he should not
long be the better for it, as the taking in of every new field would
oblige him to pay his landlord more of the produce of every superior
field at the expiration of his lease.
The circulation of this morsel of wealth, dwindling on every transfer,
was easily traceable in a small society like that of the village. The
waste could be detected in every direction, and the landlord stood
marked as the focus of it. Whether Mr. Fergusson was the better for the
waste incurred on his account was a separate question; and, till it was
decided, he stood in a remarkable relation to the people about him: he
was their injurer and their benefactor;—their injurer, in as far as he
was one of the persons for whose sake a bad system was upheld;—their
benefactor, in his capacity of a wealthy and benevolent resident among
them. He was taunted with being the landowner, and was offered obeisance
as Mr. Fergusson. All were complaining that he received an
unconscionable share of the fruits of their labour; but there was not
one who would not have grieved at any misfortune that might befall him.
They talked loudly against him and his class for narrowing the field of
their exertions, and praised the pains and good-nature with which he
devised employment for those who were perpetually being turned out of
work.
The fact that he must have supported these extra labourers as paupers,
if he had not rather chosen to get some work out of them in return for
the cost of their subsistence, made no difference in the kindness with
which Mr. Fergusson attended to their interests, and endeavoured to
preserve in them a spirit of independence till better times. The effort
was vain under a system which authorized men to say that they had not
surrendered their independence, but that it had been taken from them,
and that those who took it away might make the best they could of its
absence. Notwithstanding all that Fergusson could do, paupers increased
in the parish; and while a few stout men, who were turned off from the
various works in the neighbourhood, were taken on by Anderson, to try
their hands at a new kind of labour, many more lay about asleep on the
moors, or gathered in knots to gossip, in the intervals of being worse
employed.
No place could be obtained for Kay’s boy, John, who pleased himself with
looking about him while he had no business to do, and amusing himself as
he best could. The less objection was made to this at home, as it was
hoped that his curiosity might now and then make him forget the time,
and justify his going without a meal—a consideration which was becoming
of more and more importance in Kay’s family. It happened that Bill
Hookey, the shepherd-lad, was one day leaning against the door of a
cutler’s workshop, when his old companion, John, ran up, pushing back
his hair from his hot forehead.
“I’d be glad to be as cool as you,” said John, “standing gaping here. I
have been at the forge: crept in when they did not see me, and got
behind the bellows. I gave them such a puff when they were not expecting
it,—I nearly got flogged. They let me off for blowing for them till
there was no more breath in my body than in the empty bellows. But I
don’t half like standing here: come to the other side; you will see just
as well.”
Bill stuck out his legs colossus-fashion, and yawned again.
“’Twas just where you are standing that Brett was when the grindstone
flew; and those grindstones make ugly splinters, I can tell you.”
“I a’n’t afraid.”
“No, because you’ve been in the moors all your days, and have not seen
mishaps with grindstones and such. You should have seen Duncan. The
knife he was grinding flew up, and it was a done thing before he knew
what he was about. The cut was only across the wrist; but the whole arm
was perished, and good for nothing, just in that minute. The Duncans are
all off to Scotland, with nothing to look to, after having had fine
wages all this time—for he was a capital workman; but, as Anderson says,
we have too many folks out of work here already to be expected to keep a
Scotchman. What accidents do happen to people, to be sure!”
“Aye, they do.”
“Then I wonder you put yourself in the way of one, when you would be
quite safe by just crossing over.”
“Oh! grindstones very often don’t fly, nor knives either.”
“But they very often do.”
“He a’n’t afraid,” observed Bill, nodding towards the cutler.
“No, because he is paid high for the risk. Well, I wonder any wages will
tempt a man to have such a cough as that. I suppose, however, he don’t
believe where it will end, as we do. I often think, if several were to
take turns, and change their work about, there would be a better chance.
If ever I am a cutler, I will try that way, if I can get anybody else of
the same mind.”
“Not you,” said Bill; “you will do like the people before you.”
“Perhaps I may, when the time comes. I may no more like to try my hand
at a new thing than you. Have you asked anybody for work hereabouts?”
“The flock is all sold, higher up the country,” replied Bill. “They
would not let me stay on the walk when the flock was gone.”
“I know that; and how you got it into your head that you might go on
sleeping in the hut just the same when the place was a field as when it
was a sheep-walk. They say they had to take you neck and heels to turn
you out, if you would not have the roof down over your head. Why did not
you bestir yourself in time, and get work from Anderson, before others
stepped before you?”
“There are no sheep now for anybody to keep.”
“Well; if you have no mind to do anything but keep sheep, cannot you go
higher up, among the graziers, and offer yourself?”
“I don’t know anybody thereabouts, nor yet the walks.”
“No, nor ever will, of your own accord,” thought John. “What would you
be now, Bill, if you might never be a shepherd again?”
Bill only rubbed his hand over the back of his head, and shifted his
weight from both legs to one. Few things could daunt John’s love of
talk.
“What became of the poor little lamb you were nursing that night that I
was on the moors? It was too tender, surely, to walk up into the hills
with the rest.”
“It be well if he be not dead by this time,” replied Bill. “I carried
him full two miles myself, and I told ’em how to feed him and when; and,
for all I could say, they minded no more when he complained—O, they
don’t understand him no more than if he was a puppy-dog. When I bid him
good-bye, he looked up at me, though he could scarce speak to me. He did
speak, though; but he would not so much as look at the new shepherd, and
if it was not for the ewe——”
“What’s coming?” cried John, interrupting his companion’s new loquacity.
“Let us go and see. I dare say it is somebody fresh taken up. Do you
know, I went to see Chatham’s jail, the other day. Father locked doors
against me because I came home so late; but I had a mind to see what
sort of a place it was. I may be in it some day. I should not mind being
anywhere that Chatham has been.”
“You that can’t stand being flogged!”
“Chatham is not going to be flogged. They say it will be ‘Death
Recorded.’”
“What’s that?”
“Transportation.”
“Why can’t they say so at once?”
“I don’t know: but they often speak in the same way. I have heard
Chatham say that they talk of ‘agriculture,’ and nobody means just the
same as they do by it. Some say ’tis farmers, and some say ’tis
landlords, and some that ’tis having corn.”
“I think it is keeping sheep.”
“No, no; the Parliament does not meddle with keeping sheep. When they
are asked to ‘protect agriculture,’ Chatham says, Anderson understands,
‘take care of the farmer;’ and Mr. Fergusson, ‘have an eye to the
landlords,’ and all the rest of us,—except you, you say,—let us have
corn.’”
Bill yawned, and supposed it was all one. John being of a different
opinion, and seeing that a very knowing personage of the village, who
vouchsafed him a word or two on occasion, was flourishing a newspaper
out of the window of the public-house, ran off to try whether the
doubtful definition was likely to be mended by the wise men of the Cock
and Gun.
He found that there was a grand piece of news going from mouth to mouth,
and that everybody seemed much pleased at it. He did not know, when he
had heard it, what it meant; but as the hand which held the newspaper
shook very much, and two or three men waved their hats, and women came
running from their doors, and even the little children clapped their
hands and hugged one another, he had no doubt of its being a very fine
piece of news indeed. Bill had slowly followed, and was now watching
what John meant to do next.
“I don’t believe they have heard it at the foundry yet,” thought John.
“I’ll be the first to tell it them.”
And off he ran, followed by Bill, and gradually gained upon by him. Now,
Bill’s legs were some inches longer than little John’s, and, if he had
the mind, there was no doubt he might be the first at the foundry to
tell the news. This would have been very provoking, and the little
runner put out all his strength, looking back fearfully over his
shoulder, stumbling in consequence, and falling; rising as cold with the
shock as he was warm when he fell, and running on again, rubbing his
knee, and thinking how far he should be from hobbling like Bill, (with
head hung back, bent knees, and dangling arms,) if he had Bill’s
capacity of limb. What Bill wanted was the heart to use his capacities.
He soon gave over the race, even against his little friend John, first
slackening his speed, and then contriving to miss the bustle both before
and behind him by stopping to lean over a rail which looked convenient
for a lounge.
John snapped his fingers triumphantly at the lazy shepherd-boy on
reaching the foundry gate. He rushed in, disregarding all the usual
decorums about obtaining entrance. Through the paved yard ran John, and
into the huge vault where the furnaces were roaring, and where all the
workmen looked so impish that it was no wonder he did not immediately
discover his father among them. He nearly ran foul of one who was
bearing a ladle of molten metal of a white heat, and set his foot on the
exquisitely levelled sand-bed which was prepared to form the plate.
Scolded on one side, jostled on another, the breathless boy could only
ask eagerly for his father.
“Let go the lad’s collar,” cried one of the workmen to another, adding
in a low voice, “’Tis some mishap about his poor mother. Can’t ye help
him to find his father?”
Kay was roasting and fuming in the red glare of one of the furnaces when
his boy’s wide eyes looked up in his face, while he cried,
“There’s such news, father! The greatest news there has been this many a
day. There’s an Order in Council, father; and the people are all about
the Cock and Gun, and the newspaper is being read, and everybody coming
out of their houses. Only think, father! It is certainly true. There is
an Order in Council.”
“An Order in Council! Well, what of that? What is the Order about?”
“About? O, they did not say what it is about,—at least, nobody that I
heard speaking. But I’ll run back and ask, directly.”
“You will do no such thing. You would bring back only half your story.
What should a child know about an Order in Council?” he asked of his
fellow-workmen, who began to gather round. “Can’t one of you go and
learn what it is he means?—for I suppose some news is really come; and I
can’t leave the furnace just now.”
John slunk away mortified to a corner where he could spread wet sand, in
case any passing workman should be bountiful enough to spare him the
brimmings of some overflowing ladle. It was very odd that his father did
not seem to understand his news when everybody, down to the very babies,
seemed to be so glad of it at the Cock and Gun.
The messenger soon returned, and then the tidings produced all the
effects that the veriest newsmonger could have desired. John ceased his
sand-levelling to creep near and listen how there had been issued an
Order in Council for opening the ports, and allowing the importation of
foreign grain. There was a great buzz of voices, and that of the furnace
was the loudest of all.
“Now you hear, lad,” said one of the boy’s tormentors. “The Order is for
the importation of foreign grain.”
“Just as if I did not know that half-an-hour ago,” said John solemnly.
“Why, I was at the Cock and Gun the minute after the news came.”
And the lad rescued himself from the man’s grasp; and went in search of
some one else whom he might throw into a state of admiration. He met Mr.
Oliver himself, saying,
“What is all this about? The people stand in the heat as if it was no
more than a warm bath; and my work is spoiling all the time, I suppose.”
“They are talking about the news, sir,—the great news that is just
come.”
“News? What news?”
“The King is going to unbar the forts, sir; and he allows the importance
of foreign grain.”
“It is high time he should. Your father and I have seen the importance
you speak of, this long while.”
“I’ll warrant you have, sir. And now, perhaps, father will let me go and
see it, if you speak a word to him.”
Mr. Oliver laughed, and told him he would probably see more of it than
he liked as he grew up. John thought he had rather not wait till then to
see the sight; besides that he thought it hardly likely that the King
should go on unlocking forts all that time. The fort that he could just
remember to have seen, when his grandfather once took him a journey,
might, he believed, be unlocked in five minutes. The young politician
proceeded on his rounds, hoping to find a dull person here and there,
who had rather go on with his castings, and be talked to, than flock
with the rest round the main furnace.
“Well, good fellows,” said Mr. Oliver, “what is your opinion of this
news?”
“That it is good, sir, as far as it goes; and that it will be better, if
it teaches some folks to make such laws as will not starve people first,
and then have to be broken at last.”
“The laws chop and change so that it seems to me overhard to punish a
man for breaking them,” observed another. “That law against buying corn
when it is wanted is bad enough in the best times, as we can all tell;
but if you want damning proof, look to the fact that they are obliged to
contradict it upon occasion;—not once only, but many times;—as often as
it has wrought so well as to produce starvation.”
Kay thought, that putting out a little temporary law upon a great
lasting one, was like sending a messenger after a kite,—which proves it
ill-made and unlikely to sustain itself. Somebody wondered what
Fergusson would think of the news.
“What matters it to us what he thinks?” answered another. “He has stood
too long between us and our food;—not knowingly, perhaps; but not the
less certainly for that.”
Mr. Oliver wished that his men could talk over their own case without
abusing their neighbours. He would not stand and hear a word against Mr.
Fergusson on these premises.
“Then let us say nothing about Mr. Fergusson, sir, for whom, as is due,
I have a high respect. When I mentioned him, I meant him as the receiver
of a very high rent; and I maintain that if we make corn by
manufacturing, with fire and water, what will buy corn, we are robbed if
we have not bread. Deny that who can.”
And the speaker brandished his brawny arm, and thrust forward his
shining face in the glowing light, to see if any one accepted his
challenge. But all were of the same mind.
Mr. Oliver, however, observed that, though he had as little cause as any
one to relish the disproportionate prosperity of the landlords in a time
of general distress, he wished not to forget that they were brought up
to look to their rent as he to look to the returns of his capital, and
his men to their wages.
“That is the very thing I complain of,” said Kay; “that is, I complain
of the amount of rent thus looked for. In as far as a landowner’s
property is the natural fruit of his own and his ancestors’ labour and
services,—or accidents of war and state, if you will,—let him have it
and enjoy it, so long as it interferes with no other man’s property,
held on as good a claim. But if by a piece of management this rent is
increased out of another man’s funds, the increase is not ‘property,’—I
take it,—but stolen goods. If a man has a shopkeeping business, with the
capital, left him, the whole is his property, as long as he deals
fairly; but if he uses any power he may have to prevent people buying of
his neighbours, and thus puts any price he pleases upon his goods, do
you mean to say that his customers may not get leave if they can to buy
at other shops, without any remorse as to how the great shopkeeper may
take such meddling with his ‘property?’ Give us a free trade in corn,
and our landowners shall be heartily welcome to the best rents they can
get. But, till that is done, we will not pretend to agree in making them
a present of more of the fruits of our labour the more we want
ourselves. The fruits of our labour are as much our property as their
rents are theirs, to say the least; and if it was anything but food that
was in question we would not be long in proving it; but food is just the
thing we cannot do without, and we cannot hold out long enough to prove
our point.”
“They will find it all out soon,” replied Mr. Oliver. “Whatever is
ruinous for many of us must be bad for all; and such men as Fergusson
will see this before long.”
“They will not see it, sir, till they feel it; and what a pass _we_ must
have come to before they will feel enough to give up a prejudice some
hundred years old!”
“Before we can ask them to give up the point entirely, we must relieve
them of some of the taxes which bear particularly upon them. Their great
cry is about the weight of their taxation. They must first be relieved
in that respect.”
“With all my heart. Let them go free of taxation as great folks, in the
same way that my wife and Mary are let off free at cards on Christmas
night, because they are women. This was the case with the old French
nobility, I have heard. They paid no taxes; and so let it be with our
landowners, if they choose to accept the favour of having their burdens
borne by the sweating people to whom they would not own themselves
obliged in respect of money matters if they met in the churchyard,
though the time may not be far off when they must lie side by side under
the sod.”
“Their pride must be pretty well humbled before they would accept of
that kind of obligation. They had need go to church, in those days, to
learn to bear the humiliation.”
“Perhaps that is what they go to church for now, sir; for they are now
taking much more from us than they would in the case I have mentioned. I
don’t say they all do it knowingly,—nor half of them. There are many of
our rich men who would be offended enough at being told, ‘Your eldest
son’s bills at Eton were paid last year by contributions from three
hedgers, and five brass-founders, and seven weavers, all of whom have
families only half-fed.’ ‘Miss Isabella’s beautiful bay mare was bought
for her by the knife-grinder, who has gone to bed supperless, and the
work-woman who will have no fire next winter, and the thirty little
children who are kept from school that Miss Isabella’s bay mare may be
bought.’ O yes; there are many who are too proud to bear this being said
to them, true though it be.”
“They would call you a leveller, Kay, if they could hear you.”
“Then I should beg leave to contradict them; for a leveller I am not.—I
have no objection on earth to young gentlemen going to Eton, or young
ladies riding bay mares, if these things are paid for by the natural
rent which a free trade in corn would leave. If we have that free trade,
and workpeople still go to bed supperless and sit up without fire, still
let young gentlemen go to Eton, and young ladies ride bay mares. In that
case, the landlords will be absolved, and the hardship must go to the
account of imprudence in some other quarter. O, I am no leveller! Let
the rich keep their estates, as long as they will let them find their
own value in comparison with labour. It is the making and keeping up
laws which make land of more and more value, and labour of less and
less, that I complain of.”
“But you did not really mean, Kay,” said a bystander, “that you would
let off every man that has land from paying taxes? It is the most unfair
thing I ever heard of.”
“It is unfair enough, but much less unfair and ruinous than the present
plan. It is better worth our while to pay the landowners’ taxes than to
lose ten times the amount to enable the landowners to pay them; and that
is what we are doing now.”
“Ten times as much as the landlords pay in taxes?”
“Yes,” replied Oliver. “We pay, as a nation, 12,500,000_l._ more for
corn than we should pay if our ports were open to the world. Of this,
not more than one-fifth goes into the pockets of the landowners, the
rest being, for the most part, buried in poor soils. Now if the
landlords pay one-half of this fifth in taxes, it is as much as their
burden can be supposed to be. And now, which of you would not be glad to
take his share of this one-tenth, to get rid of the other nine?”
“Every one of us would go down on his knees to pray the landlords to
permit us to pay their taxes, if we could but tell how to get at the
gentlemen.”
“The landlords would need no such begging and praying, I trust,” said
Mr. Oliver, “if they saw the true state of the case. I hope and believe
they would be in a hurry to surrender their other tenth, if they could
see at what an expense to the people it was raised.”
Some heartily believed it, but Kay asked why the landowners did not see
the state of the case;—a question which it was not easy to answer,
unless it was that they did not attend to it. And why did they not
attend to it?—attend to it, not merely so far as to sanction an Order in
Council for the admission of food when the people were on the brink of
starvation, but so as to calculate justly how much corn we grow, how
many of our people are properly fed upon that corn, how we may most
cheaply get more corn, and——(but that is a matter beyond human
calculation)—how many more busy and happy people might live within our
borders if we and the other parts of the earth had free access to each
other. If our rich men once attended to this large question, they would
see what we see; and seeing, they would surrender, and——”
“And be far richer, as well as happier, than they are now. But, never
fear! They will feel soon; and feeling helps seeing marvellously.”
“It was found so in the case of the bounty on the exportation of corn.
The landowning legislators thought they saw plainly enough, once upon a
time, that it was a capital thing for all parties to give a present to
every man who would sell corn abroad:—it would employ more hands in
tillage than were employed before; it would secure a supply in case of
scarcity; it would increase the value of landed property by causing the
greatest possible quantity of land to be cultivated. This is what they
saw in vision,—or rather through a pair of flawed spectacles. It ended
in the labourers producing only half as much wealth in a forced tillage
as they might have made in manufactures, if food had been free; in
exposing us to the danger of famine, as often as the deficiency of the
crops exceeded what we sent out of the country, (no other nation being
prepared to send us corn in a hurry, as if we were regular buyers;) and
lastly, in sending a great deal of capital out of this country into
others where living was cheaper. At first, no doubt, tillage was brisk,
and some of the objects seemed to be answered: but this that I have
described was the end. Then the landlords saw, for the first time, that,
in giving the bounty to our corn-sellers, they had been offering a bribe
to foreigners to buy our corn cheaper than we could afford to sell it. A
pretty bargain for us! So that pair of flawed spectacles broke to pieces
on being examined, and——”
“And now they must break another pair before they will learn that they
can see best with the eyes God gave them, if they will but put them to
the right use. I am not for spectacles, unless there is something the
matter with the eyes. And, in the same way, I am not for any man helping
himself with the opinions of a class because he belongs to a class,
unless he has such a faulty reason of his own that he would do worse if
left to judge for himself. Let such of our landowners as are incompetent
go on upholding the corn laws because their class has always done so;
but let such of them as are men stand out, and judge for themselves,
after looking the case plainly in the face. I am not afraid of what
their judgment would be, especially as some of the richest and wisest
have done so already. Honour be upon them!”
The men were perhaps the more disposed to give honour where honour was
due from their notion of the smallness of the number of landowners in
those days to whom they could award it. They gave three cheers to the
Privy Council for having issued the present Order; and to the few
landowners who advocated a free trade in corn. That done, they began to
inquire what this order was to do for them, and found that it would just
serve to avert the starvation of the people, now, and might probably
lead to the ruin of a good many farmers within a few months; which ruin
must be ascribed, should it arrive, not to the Order in Council, but to
the previous state of things which it was designed to repair. Prices had
been rising so rapidly from week to week since the quarterly average had
been taken, that there was no saying how far even oats might be out of
the reach of the poorer classes, before the next quarterly average could
be struck, and prices be proved to have risen to the point at which the
law authorized the importation of corn. To save the people from
perishing while waiting for the quarter to come round, this order was
issued without leave of parliament; and, as it would have the effect of
lessening the general panic, in the first place, and also of bringing a
large supply into the kingdom, the probability was that the farmers
would, find prices falling by spring-time, rapidly,—ruinously for them,
calculating as they had done on high prices continuing till next
harvest, and laying their plans of expense accordingly.
But all this would be a fine thing for Oliver, would not it?
In as far as cheaper living was a good to him and his people, and in as
far as more manufactures would be wanted to go abroad, it would be a
benefit; but fluctuations in the fortunes of any class of society,—be
they farmers or any body else,—are bad for the rest of society. For
every farmer that is ruined, the manufacturing and commercial world
suffers; and Mr. Oliver would rather therefore,—not only that corn had
not been so dear as it now was,—but that it should not be so cheap as it
might now soon be, unless its cheapness could be maintained.
Fluctuations apart, the cheaper the better; but it was a strange and
unhappy way of going on, first to ruin one class by high prices, and
then to ruin another by low prices.
All this was allowed to be very true; yet the substantial fact remained,
that the day of the manufacturer and mechanic was probably approaching,
and that a season of cheap bread was in prospect, let what might follow
in its train in the shape of disastrous consequence.
This was enough to proceed upon in rejoicing, and when the furnaces had
been duly fed, by strong and willing hands, and a few plates cast amid
more talking than was usual during so nice an operation, Oliver’s
day-men turned out like school-boys on a holiday morning, and tried
which could get first to the Cock and Gun. There they stood, regardless
of the chill of the breeze after the heats of the foundry. How could
they be sensible to it when they felt that the icy grasp of poverty on
their heartstrings was relaxing, and the warm currents of hope had leave
again to flow?
Kay was not one of the talkers at the public house. It was so long since
he had had any pleasant news to carry home, that he was impatient to
lose no time about it.
This was one of Mrs. Kay’s dismal days. She seldom made any complaints;
but there were times when the tears would run down her face for hours
together, while there appeared to be no particular reason; and she
sometimes said she could not account for it herself. On those occasions,
she was not moody, or disposed to speak by signs rather than words, as
was often her way; she would speak, and move about, and even try to
laugh; but still the tears would run down, and she was obliged to give
the matter up. Thus it was to-day, though Mary had not yet parted with
the hope that, between them, they might stop the tears.
“Which way did John run?” asked Mary. “Did you happen to see, sister?”
“Down by the coal wharf, I think,” she replied, speaking rapidly. “O
yes, it must have been by the coal wharf, because——No; it was not; that
was yesterday. It could not have been to-day, because his father bade
him go up the lane to gather acorns for the pig. That I should have
forgot it was yesterday he went to the wharf! But that is always the way
with my head. It is so——”
“It will be better when you have tried the medicine from the dispensary
a little longer. What a kind, pleasant gentleman that is at the
dispensary! He told me he really believed you would be better directly,
if——”
“I shall never be better,—never,—head nor heart, till I see these poor
children of mine——and my husband too——”
“Well well: cheer up! They will be better fed soon, please God. Don’t
let that trouble you to-night, when you feel yourself not strong.”
“And there’s Chatham too. That lies at my heart, Mary, more than you
know. I must tell you so, for you have been a kind sister to me and
mine.”
“I should be sorry it should lie so heavy at your heart,” said Mary,
very quietly. “I thank you for him; but you must not make yourself
unhappy about me. I am thinking your husband will be home soon. The sun
has been down some good while.”
After a silence, she went on:—
“You should have seen Betsy this morning, how prettily she made the bed,
though she could scarce reach up to the bolster. Did you happen to look
how she set about it?”
“No. I have been thinking, Mary, how completely you and I are changed.
It is not so long since you used to check me for talking; or rather, I
used to check myself, seeing that you were no talker. You used to say
that people were not all made talkers alike; and you went up and down,
and about the house, just like a dumb person, and sometimes looking as
dull too. And now——I say, Mary, when I don’t answer you, you must not
always think that I am thankless. And I know what it must cost you to be
for ever saying something cheerful and pleasant, when Chatham is in
gaol, and the cupboard is so often empty, and I such a poor,
good-for-nothing——No, no! Don’t try to persuade me. I tell you I can’t
bear myself, and I don’t ask you or any body to bear with me. Mercy! now
here’s my husband! and I in this condition.”
“Heyday! it is time I was coming home, I see,” cried Kay, good
humouredly, as he entered. “You too, Mary! Well, dear, you have cause,
so don’t turn away; I have only wondered to see none of this before; but
I have something for you both. Something we have not had this many
a-day. Something better than ever was in this or any other physic
bottle,” he continued, shaking the dispensary phial and telling the
news.
Mary had no sooner made herself mistress of it than she disappeared,
probably to devise the means of getting the intelligence conveyed to her
lover. As soon as she was gone, Kay drew a chair beside his wife,
saying,—
“Now we are alone, Margaret, and times are like to change, so as to give
one the heart to speak, I have something to say to you.”
“O, no, don’t,” cried she, starting up. “I know what you are going to
say.”
“You do not;” and he obliged her to sit down. “Don’t tremble so, for I
am not going to find fault with you in any way.”
“Then you ought. I am a poor, lost——”
“Not lost, Margaret. We have all near lost ourselves in such times as we
have had of late; except indeed Mary, who will never lose herself, it is
my opinion. It has come across me, Margaret, that I may have hurt you
sometimes, without thinking, with light talk when you had not spirits
for it, (not that I had real spirits, for that matter,) and with saying
silly things to Mrs. Skipper, and the like. Ah! I see you felt it so;
and it is no wonder you should. But you may take my word for it, I think
nothing of Mrs. Skipper, nor ever did. Only, one is driven on, one does
not know how, to behave foolishly when one is near desperate at heart.”
“And that’s my fault.”
“Not altogether. No! not by any means. There were many things besides—
besides one—to make me unwilling to look back to the time when we used
to walk in Fergusson’s oak copse, and say——Nay, Margaret, if you cannot
hold up your head in thinking of that time, where should you rest it but
upon your husband’s shoulder, as you did then? How can you turn away so,
as if I was your enemy? Well, I turned away too from the thought of
those days, knowing, all the while, that it was a bad sign to turn
away.”
“And to think of all that has happened since! Of all these children, and
of my being such a bad mother——”
“It was the children I most wanted to speak about, especially John. But
come, now, Margaret, open your mind to me, and don’t be afraid. It was
want and downright weakness that first led you into it. Was not it?”
“O, it began long and long ago. When I was weakly as a girl, they used
to give me things, and that was the beginning of it all. Then when I
grew weakly again, it seemed to come most natural, especially because it
was cheaper than bread, and the children wanted all we could get of
that.”
“So, often when you have pretended to have no appetite, it was for the
children’s sake and mine. Well, I half thought so all the time.”
“No, not often; only at the beginning. Afterwards it was true that I
could not eat,—no, not if the king’s dinner had been before me. I did
try for long to get the better of the habit, and three times I thought I
had; but a sinking came, and I could not bear it. That was twice; and
the third time, it was your joking sharply about——But that was no
reason. I don’t mean to say it was. You don’t know what the support is
for the time, John, whatever comes after it. It raises one; and yet I
remember times—many times—when I knew I could not speak sensibly if you
spoke to me, and yet I prayed and prayed that I might die before the
morning light.”
“Does that mean that you were less afraid of God than of me?”
“No, I did not think of being afraid, exactly; but I wanted to be out of
your way and the children’s; and, for my own part, I should have been
very glad to be at rest.”
After a long pause, John resumed.
“You said you tried three times to leave it off. Do you think you could
try again?”
“No, John, I do not think I could.”
“Not for my sake,—as you say I drove you into it last time? Not for your
own sake? for nobody knows but ourselves, I dare say. I have never
breathed it, and Mary——”
“O, Mary has vexed me many a time,—taking such pains, and having so many
reasons and excuses with the neighbours. Why,—do you suppose I never met
anybody? And then there was the night that Mrs. Skipper, of all people
in the world, gave me her arm. I was forced to take it, but——”
“Mrs. Skipper! Really! She never breathed a word. Depend upon it, she
never told any body.”
“If she did not, I am sure I have told plenty of people myself: so don’t
say any more about it, John.”
“I was just going to say, that now is the time for trying. We are going
to have better living, I hope, which is what you will want; and I am
sure Mary and I do not care what there is for us, if we could see you
recover. If you will only give us the word, we will watch and watch,
night and day; and you shall have all manner of help, and comfort, and
no more thoughts of cruel joking or of Mrs. Skipper. O, Margaret, try!”
“I am almost sure I cannot,” muttered the poor woman; “but I will just
try.”
“Ah! do, and I should not wonder.—You talk of being at rest; and it may
be a rest in this very room,—on that very bed,—such as you little
thought of when you wished your wish.”
Margaret shook her head. “If I go on, I die; if I leave off, I die; it
is all one.”
“No, Margaret, it is not all one; for I have one more thing to say,—and
the chief thing. The children do not fully understand yet, though I have
seen John wonder-struck lately, and his aunt could not put him off.”
“Why should she?”
“Just because neither she nor I choose that the children should grow
used to see drunkenness before their eyes indifferently. I speak plain,
because it is about those who cannot speak for themselves. Do you know
now what I mean to say?”
“Go on.”
“I mean to say, (and to do it too,) that as often as I see you not
yourself, I shall tell the children, not that their mother is ill, or
low-spirited, or any thing else,—but what is really the case. Now,
Margaret, how will you bear this? Remember I shall really do it, from
this day.”
Margaret made no answer.
“You know I cannot let our children’s morals get corrupted at home, and
them ruined for here and hereafter by such a habit as this. I cannot,
Margaret.”
“No; you cannot.”
“I am sure they have enough against them, at the best,—what with
poverty,(temptation and no proper instruction,) and sometimes idleness,
and sometimes over-work. They have enough before them at the best.”
“They have.”
“And who have they to look to but you and me? except Mary, and she would
not set against your example. It goes against my heart more than you
know to say an unkind word to you, and always did, when I seemed cruel.
But I can say what you will think cruel, and I must, unless you take my
warning.”
“You do not know——”
“Yes, I know, down to the bottom of my soul, what the misery was, and
how many, many excuses there are for you. But the children do not know
this, and there is no making them understand, and I must think of them
first. If it was only myself, I think I could sit up with you all night,
and shield you all day, and even indulge you with the very thing itself,
when I saw you sinking for want of it. But, as it is, whatever I may do
when the children are out of the way, I will do as I said when they are
by.”
“Do. I was not going to excuse myself when you stopped me just now,—but
only to say you do not know how glad I should be to stop, if I could,
though I shall never recover my head again now. It will go on roaring
like the sea as long as ever I live.”
“No, no. With good food, you know——”
“I shall never relish food more; but I will try; and do you do as you
said. I am not sure how I shall mind it in such a case; I never can tell
any thing beforehand now. But you know your part; and if I fall back,
you must all mind me as little as you can.”
“Only, don’t think me less tender to you, Margaret.”
“No; O, no; you have given me warning, you know.”
“Your poor head! how it beats! You had better let me carry you to bed;
you are not fit to sit up. Better let me lay you on the bed.”
“Well, I can’t go walking. This is the sinking,—now.”
“And enough there has been to sink you. There! I’ll stay beside you.
Where’s your apron to hang up before your eyes? Now, don’t think of any
thing but sleep.”
“O, but then I dream.”
“Well! I shall be here to wake you, in case of your starting. Only just
give me the key of the cupboard, and do not ask Mary for it any more
when I am away.”