DISCLOSES AN EXCELLENT, INFALLIBLE AND ARISTOCRATIC PLAN FOR
MANUFACTURING CRIMINALS.
Nothing serious came directly of the Ashbrook fight. There was a talk of
bringing certain labourers before the justices, and the Pembertons in
particular uttered loud threats against Tom Wanless, young Satchwell,
the blacksmith, and one or two others; but old Hawthorn let it be widely
known that if any steps were taken to prosecute the labourers, he would
not only provide means for their defence, but enable them also to raise
counter actions, in support of which he would compel the Vicar to enter
the witness-box. That did not suit the farmers or their abettors, still
less Codling, so after a little noisy squabbling the matter dropped.
Henceforth, however, the feud, if such it may be called, between the
Pembertons and Wanless was renewed, and became on their part a sleepless
desire for petty vengeances. They never missed the smallest opportunity
of making him feel their ill-will. Thomas had in other ways enough to
bear with in those days, helped though he was by his freehold cottage
and allotment. His intelligence told against him with most of the
farmers, making them regard him with hatred and suspicion. So he got no
opportunity of bettering himself, was, indeed, hardly able to keep his
head above water by the severest labour. Many a time did he see other
and less skilled workmen preferred before him, and often in harvest had
he to work as one of a gang of reapers under another contractor, instead
of himself taking the lead. This, by and by, caused him to try and find
work at greater distances from home, and he was occasionally away for
months at a time wood-cutting, ditch-cutting, toiling early and late for
what pittance he could pick up, while his wife struggled at home to make
ends meet in spite of her increasing family. By the time Thomas was 35
years old, she had borne him eight children, of whom seven were alive,
and it was almost more than mortal could do to bring these up decently
on 9s. or 10s. a-week. How his neighbours, who had rent to pay, managed,
was more than Thomas could divine, unless they quietly stole what was
not given them; as, indeed, most of them did. Many also were so
demoralised as to look upon poor relief as a perquisite which they
thought it no shame to accept, and even demand, on all occasions. Nearly
all poached game, when they had a chance, and boasted of it to each
other. In regard to game there was, in fact, no consciousness of
wrong-doing in the mind of any labourer, and Thomas himself thought
nothing of killing a rabbit or leveret when he had the chance; the only
anxiety was not to be caught doing it. There was a clear distinction in
his mind between slaying wild animals protected by selfish and
abominable laws, and stealing vegetables, fowls, stray eggs, or fruit,
which many of his comrades made a practice of doing, pleading in their
defence that man must live.
Thomas Wanless had a soul above petty thieving of this kind. Not only
was he naturally high-spirited and jealous of a good conscience, but his
mind had become considerably expanded by diligent cultivation. He did
not again forget his reading, and though his books were few, he still
contrived to read enough on odd Sundays in summer, and in the winter
evenings, to stimulate his naturally strong thinking powers. His
friends, the blacksmith and the parish clerk, were also often in his
company, and the three discussed matters of Church and State in the
freest possible style over their jugs of thin ale. Poor Brown, the
parish clerk and schoolmaster, had not improved his prospects by
settling in Ashbrook, for the vicar had long ceased to interest himself
in the education of the poor, and the school emoluments had become
meagre enough. But Brown had married, and so was, in a measure, rooted
to the spot, not knowing where to better himself.
He eked out his parish clerkship with odd accountant jobs for
surrounding farmers, and occasionally picked up a crown or two by acting
as clerk at country auctions, and his greatest earthly blessing was a
contested parliamentary election. Yet life was hard for him withal, and
his Radicalism naturally was bitter, for adversity is the best nursery
of democratic ideas. It is only the noblest natures that can enjoy
prosperity, and yet be just and considerate towards all men. Too often
the man who when poor was a blatant Radical becomes a hollow tin kettle
sort of creature when he has struggled up from the earth where his
Radicalism took birth. I say not that Brown was of this sort, but
undeniably poverty and disappointment put an edge on his wit when he
dealt with the inequalities of life, and under his leadership Thomas
Wanless stood in no danger of becoming an unquestioning pauper. The
three friends solved social problems in a style that would have amazed
their superiors had they known; nay, that they would have even startled
some of the limp and dilettante friends of the people who, in these
days, haunt London clubs, and dilate with wondrous volubility on social
reform. Thomas's Radicalism, however, never interfered with his work,
for his family was more to him than the ills of the State. He viewed
these wrongs, perhaps, from too narrow a standpoint for him to be a
great social reformer. He felt for his little ones, and for his once
blooming, patient wife--now grown brown, gaunt, and hollow-eyed from
incessant care, toil, and privation--and the disjointed order of society
was to him a personal wrong. His life was, indeed, cheerless; and after
his father died and his brother had been killed by a fall from a rick,
he often felt lonely and sullen at the heart, working against his fate
as a prisoner might in chains. For him this life had no hope, no
prospect of rest but the grave.
Struggling bravely, though bitter at the heart, Thomas dragged his
family through the terrible years that followed the passing of the
Reform Bill--years during which his wife and children were almost as
familiar with want as with the light of the sun. How they survived he
could hardly tell. "My remembrance of that time," he one day said to
me, "is but a kind of confused dream. I ceased to think or feel. I just
worked where and when I could; and I swallowed my crust like a dumb
beast. But now I thank God that I had health, though then to commit
murder would at times to me have seemed as nothing."
In that time Thomas became a strong Chartist, and was a leader among his
fellows; and, feeling as he did, it says much for his force of character
that there were no outbreaks by the Ashbrook villagers such as occurred
in many parts of Warwickshire at that time. His opinions, however, were
well known, and he was called a rogue freely enough by his enemies the
farmers. More than once he might have suffered unjust imprisonment for
his freedom of speech at village gatherings and elsewhere, had not old
Squire Hawthorn stood his friend. Ever since Ashbrook fight, that
strange old man had taken a special interest in Thomas. It only
extended, however, to occasional efforts to keep him out of the grip of
the justices, and could hardly perhaps have gone further, for Thomas was
proud; and, besides, he was a labourer, and in that lowly lot he was
predestined by the laws of the landed oligarchy to remain. Over the
great gulf fixed by that mighty trades union of the Take-alls he could
never pass.
So passed the years of my friend's early manhood. He was familiar with
care; poverty was his abiding portion. A young family gathered round his
knee; which he tried to bring up in less ignorance than had been his
early lot, but whom he could not always keep less hungry. Thomas had
many times difficulty in providing his household with a sufficiency of
coarse dry bread. Insufficiently nourished his children were weakly and
stunted; little able to wrestle with disease. His two eldest boys were
sent to work for good at the age of ten; and the younger of the two died
through exposure and hunger before he was twelve. The girls were kept
longer at home, hard though the fight for life was; but the third boy
(Thomas) was taken on at Squire Hawthorn's own farm, at 2s. per week,
when he was little over nine. That same year, Thomas himself had had a
fine spell of harvesting; and his wife, having no new baby to provide
for, had saved a few shillings by selling vegetables from the allotment
garden, to people in Warwick town, so that the winter was faced by the
couple in better heart than they had known almost since the day they
were married. A pound or two in hand after meeting the bills that the
harvest money had to pay! Surely greater bliss no man could know. The
thought of such riches made Thomas declare that he might yet escape the
workhouse, as, thank God, his father had done. Already, though not forty
years old, the shadow of that accursed refuge of the English poor had
begun to loom over Thomas's future, grim and horrible as the gate of
Hell. As he thought, in his hours of bitterness, of whither his endless
toil was carrying him, of the sole "good" that the Take-alls left to him
and such as him, he set his teeth and cursed his country. Nor would he
believe that for this he had been born. His soul was bitter within him,
and, young as he yet was, hard work and harder fare were telling on his
stalwart frame.
But this autumn had brought him a gleam of hope; and the stirring events
of the time helped to strengthen that hope. All things were changing.
The great towns had been roused into political activity by the Reform
Bill, and railways were fast revolutionising the habits of the people
the land through, as well as opening up new fields of labour. At last,
then, and even in sleepy, wealth worshipping, hide-bound England,
democracy might be considered born. Thomas was sanguine that in the
coming struggles the people would win, and, like all sanguine believers
in the future good, his belief expected instant fulfilment. The apostles
themselves lived in the belief that the end of the world was at hand.
Might not the way-worn and heart-weary agricultural labourer therefore
hope? Thomas Wanless, at least, did so. The world was changing for
others; for him and his also better times might be at hand. Hitherto,
alas, the changes had been mostly to his hurt. Railway-making itself had
done his class harm rather than good, for the new iron roads linked the
country more and more closely to the great centres of industry. Prices
of all kinds of agricultural produce went higher and higher, but without
bringing a corresponding increase in the labourer's pay. The landowner
grabbed all he could of the augmented gains, and what he left the farmer
took. For the hind was there not still the workhouse? Yet the demand for
labour was increasing fast, and not all the hungry kerns of Ireland
seemed able to meet that demand. For once Thomas and his wife had
enjoyed a good year. Was not Leamington Priors growing a big town
moreover, and going to have a college of its own to outshine Rugby
itself? Surely Ashbrook would benefit from the nearness of so much
wealth as this implied. The grounds for this hope were many and obvious.
Thomas might yet rent his own little farm, and be independent. His
ambition ran no higher, yet the indulgence of it proved him to be a
short-sighted fool.
At this time Thomas was an odd or day labourer, taking contract jobs on
his own account when he could get them, and working for a daily wage
when these failed. This winter found him at work grubbing up old hedges,
and helping to lay out anew some land on a farm of Lord Duckford's
beyond Radbury. He had to walk about four miles each way daily to and
from his work, but as the days were short he lost no time, and the
company of a fellow villager engaged with him at the same job made the
trudge lighter. And the hopes that lay around his heart helped him more
than aught else, as they always help us poor will-o'-the-wisp-led
mortals in this dark world.
Alas for these hopes! Thomas Wanless had not been a month at his new
work when an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out at Ashbrook, and
amongst the first to catch the disease was his youngest child, a girl of
two years. Ere ten days had elapsed five out of his seven surviving
children were down with the treacherous disease. His eldest boy and girl
had had it years before, but the boy was sent home from the farm where
he worked for fear of spreading contagion, and the girl was little more
than nine years old, so that she could not do much to help the
overworked mother.
Crowded together in the long low-roofed attic of the cottage, three of
the five lay helpless and wailing for many days. After the first week
the other two whose attack had been slight got out of bed, but were kept
in the same room to avoid cold. The food of all was poor, the medical
attendance miserable and infrequent. Thomas's heart was nearly broken.
All his hopes vanished, and the old bitterness settled down on his
spirit. The rage of helplessness often swept over him as he looked at
his tired and harassed wife, or thought of her left alone, day in and
out, with those sick children. The little savings would mostly be needed
for the doctor's bill; there was only the 10s. a-week that Thomas
happily still earned to stand between the whole family and want. Can
anyone wonder that Thomas grew moody, and glowered at the world to which
he owed so little?
One evening, in the middle of the third week of their affliction, as he
and neighbour Robins were trudging home together through the perplexing
obscurity of a grey November fog, the latter said--
"Couldn't we get a rabbit or two, Tummas? They'd make a nice pot for the
young ones, poor things; better nor barley gruel, any way."
"I don't mind," said Thomas, in an indifferent tone. "But where can we
come at 'em?"
"Oh, there's a warren up in Squire Greenaway's fir coppice to the left
here, just off the Banbury road. We can beat it in five minutes. Come
on," he added, seizing Thomas's arm.
"All right, let's have some o' the wermin," his friend answered, and
presently they turned off the road, making for the coppice.
"You keep up by the fence here, and you'll strike the edge of the wood
in no time," said Robins. "The burrows lie mostly along to the right.
Crouch down by the holes and be ready. I'll walk round the field and
drive the bunnies in. There's sure to be lots feedin' to-night in old
Claypole's turmuts."
Thomas obeyed, and the two at once lost sight of each other. Robins, it
is to be feared, had often helped himself to a rabbit before now, here
and elsewhere, but by some chance Thomas had never yet been a regular
poacher. He could not say why, for certainly he had no respect for the
game laws. Such, however, was the fact, and he said a queer kind of
feeling came over him when he found himself alone, and realised the
errand he was upon. But his mind was in tone to be tempted now, and he
never thought of turning back. There was, indeed, little time to think
of it, for he was among the rabbit-holes in a minute, and choosing a
handy bush where the holes were thick he knelt down, grasped his stick
and waited. Presently he heard a low whistle from the field below, but
quite near, and almost as it reached his ears rabbits by the dozen came
hopping up cautiously, and with frequent pauses of watchfulness. The
foremost caught sight of Thomas and scudded to the left, whither the
whole troop might have followed had not Robins at that instant rushed
up and sent a batch of the scared creatures right amongst Thomas's feet.
Ere they could get under ground he managed to knock over three, and
Robins himself maimed but did not succeed in catching a fourth. Two of
the three knocked over were not quite dead, but Robins at once finished
them, and as he did so, said:--
"Look here Tummas, you takes the two big uns. You're more in need o' 'em
than me," and as he would take no denial the spoil was so divided.
Thomas thanked his friend, and stowing the rabbits inside their coats as
best they could, the two carefully made their way out of the coppice,
and again took the road for home.
By this time it was very dark, and the fog thicker than ever, so that
they had never a thought of danger. Yet they had not been unobserved.
Tom Pemberton, as ill-luck would have it, had been passing the coppice
while the two labourers were after the rabbits, and had either heard
their voices or the whistling, made more audible by the fog. Suspecting
that poachers were at work, and always eager to do his fellow man an ill
turn, Pemberton stopped his walk, and stole along the edge of the field
till he reached the gate, where he crouched for his prey. In a few
minutes the voices of the approaching labourers reached his ears, and
being a coward he crawled along the ground, and lay down in the frozen
ditch lest he should be seen, but still kept well within earshot. To his
intense satisfaction he recognised one at least of the men by his voice,
as they passed him, unconscious of his presence. Robins he could not be
sure of, but he had only too good cause to recollect the voice of
Wanless. The two were talking of the pleasure their families would have
in eating stewed rabbit, and doubtless Pemberton chuckled to himself as
he heard. But he had the prudence to keep quite still until the
labourers got well beyond hearing. Then he arose and went on his mission
of evil. The unsuspecting labourers trudged home in peace. Thomas with
even a flicker of gladness at his heart, a flicker that deepened to a
glow of thankfulness, when he reached his cottage and learned that the
doctor had pronounced the child who had suffered most out of danger. She
was the youngest but one, a little girl of four. Before her illness she
had been a fair-haired, delicate-looking, but healthy child, with
bright, engaging ways, and a sweet merry voice, a great favourite of her
father's. Now she was thin and worn, and her lips had become dry and
cracked with the fire that had burned and burned in her little body,
till all its flesh was consumed. Night after night Thomas had come home,
and, changing his wet clothes, had, after a hasty supper, gone up beside
his little ones to watch and tend them in the early night, while the
mother tried to snatch an hour or two's sleep. Through these weary weeks
nothing had wrung his heart so keenly as the sore battle for life made
by wee Sally. Hour after hour her little transparent feverish hands
would clutch his nervously, as she lay panting in his arms, or wander
pitifully about his weather-worn face, her burning touch causing him to
shiver to the very marrow of his bones.
"I'se so ill, daddy; I'se so ill," she would keep moaning, and sometimes
she would start screaming from an uneasy slumber that gave no rest.
Then she grew too ill to speak, and lay gasping and delirious in the
close, ill-ventilated attic beside her two sisters, who were themselves
part of the time too ill to raise their heads. Thomas thought that death
had come for his little girl the night before he brought the rabbits
home, and the nearer death seemed to come the more agonising grew the
pain at his heart. His wife and he together had watched by Sally's cot
till towards morning, fearing that each moment she would choke. But
about half-past two the breath began to be more free; she swallowed a
little weak tea, and gradually fell into the quietest sleep she had had
for more than ten days.
When Thomas left for his day's work she was asleep still, and he had
held the hope that she would yet get better to his heart all day. So
mixed are the motives that sway men that this very hope made him the
more ready to go after the rabbits. The savoury broth might help his
little ones--and Sally.
So they were glad that night in the little Ashbrook Cottage. Sally had
slept till daylight, and woke quiet, cooler-skinned and hungry. The
doctor said she would live yet. Thomas went up as usual beside his
little ones, and told them about the rabbits that Robins and he had
caught, making them laugh at the thought of to-morrow's treat. He had
not waited for supper, and his wife brought it up stairs, spreading it
out at the foot of the bed where "baby" and "bludder" Jack lay, and then
the whole family enjoyed the luxury of a cup of tea in honour of Sally's
improvement. How little the labourer suspected then that the hand of
vengeance was already stretched forth to blast him and his joys, it
might be, for ever. Yet so it was, and thus does life ever mock us,
especially if we be poor. And had not Thomas sinned against the English
Baal. The sacred laws of property had been violated by him; he had
entered its holy of holies--a game preserve--and must bear the penalty.
The thought did not quite thus shape itself in Tom Pemberton's mind as
he crept from his lair and made off as fast as the thick gloom would
permit him, to Squire Greenaway's gamekeeper's cottage; but his heart
exulted at the thought of the vengeance it was now in his power to
wreak. That very night he hoped to see the hated Wanless locked up. In
this hope, however, he was disappointed. The gamekeeper was not at home,
nor could his wife say exactly where he was. Probably she knew well
enough; and certain gamedealers in Leamington also were likely to know,
for, like most of his class, this fellow was only a licensed poacher;
but Pemberton had to be content with his answer. He told the keeper's
wife that he wanted some poachers apprehended, and that he would return
to-morrow.
Sure enough he came, and came early, but the keeper was again out,
setting his gins probably, and had left word that he would not be back
till dinner-time. Ultimately, Pemberton met his man, and the two decided
to go and seize Wanless at night in his own cottage. Accordingly, that
same evening as Thomas and his family were enjoying their supper
together in the attic, they were disturbed by a rude thumping at the
door and before Thomas himself could get down to see who was there, the
latch was lifted, and in walked Tom Pemberton with the gamekeeper at his
heels. The latter was a squat, ill-favoured, heavy man, with small
piercing eyes that were never at rest. He sniffed noisily as he entered,
and gave vent to a gleeful chuckle as he caught sight of Wanless. Dull
Pemberton had grown fat and bloated-looking since the days of the
allotment agitation, but his usually stolid, sodden-looking features,
were to-night almost animated by the leer of triumph which had displaced
the customary sullen vacuity. Yet he was not at his ease; and when
Thomas, divining the men's purpose, drew himself up, and holding up his
rushlight the better to see the faces of his visitors, flashed a look of
scornful defiance at the farmer, that worthy drew back involuntarily.
But the keeper had no feelings, and at once struck in with--
"Sorry to hinterrup' yer feast, my man; but we want ye, d'ye see. God!
what a prime smell! Kerruberatin' evidence, eh, farmer? Ye've been
poachin', Wanless, that's evident; an' the Squire'll be glad to speak
wi' ye about it. Ha! ha!"
For a moment Thomas felt disposed to fight. A thrill of fury swept
through him, and he wished he could tear keeper and farmer in pieces
with his hands. But that soon passed, and he stood dumbfounded. Hearing
the strange voices, his wife stole down the stair, followed by the three
children who were able to be about the house, and two of these latter,
catching a vague fear of danger, began to cry. Young Tom did not weep,
but stole softly up to his father's side. But a minute before all had
been happiness, such happiness as a family of miserable groundlings
might dare to feel, and now----
Bah! Why give a thought to such wretches. They can have no feelings like
my lord and the squire, or his scented and sanctified parsonship. And
yet the cold night wind made these sick children shiver as you or I
might; and the stricken wife, who had caught the purport of the keeper's
speech, was just as ready to faint with grief and terror, as if she had
had your feelings or mine. Her first act was to protect the children
from harm by trying to shut the door; but Pemberton, with a growl,
pushed her back, and she then gathered them in her arms, and sat down on
an old box by the fire, weeping silently.
Still Thomas stood, silent but not cowed, and the keeper's wrath began
to blaze up.
"Come along, man," he growled, "none of yer hobstinincy, now. We don't
want no scenes here; none o' yer blubberin' wife and family kick-ups.
Come along."
Then Pemberton plucked up heart to laugh. With a mocking hee! hee! hee!
he said--
"We've got you now, Wanless, and no mistake, you d----d old blackguard,
an' we'll tame that devilish spirit of yours afore we're done wi' ye.
Roast me if we don't."
His voice roused the spirit of Wanless once more. Clenching his hands he
stepped forward, moving the keeper aside, and putting his fist in
Pemberton's face, said, in a voice that quivered with concentrated
passion--
"Hold your tongue, you black-hearted scoundrel, and leave my house this
instant, or I'll throw you out at the door. What right have you to enter
my door? Be off!"
Pemberton shrank back and looked as if he thought it might be best for
him to obey; but the keeper grasped Thomas by the collar from behind and
swung him round, at the same time saying--
"Come, come, none o' this nonsense now, Wanless. I'll have no fightin'
here, or, by God, if you do I'll transport you, sure's my name's Crabb.
You must go with us quietly."
At the threat of transporting him, Thomas's wife uttered a shrill cry of
horror, and Thomas himself grew pale, but he was now too much stirred to
yield at once. Instead, he shook off the keeper's hand; and demanded
fiercely what right he had to arrest him.
The keeper laughed mockingly.
"Well now, that is a good un'. Why, damme, you've been poaching."
"How do you know that? And what is it to you if I have?"
"How do I know? Why, bless my life, I can smell it, you fool. But I
beant here to hargify the p'int. I harrest ye on a criminal charge,
Wanless, that's all; and I've brought the bracelets, my boy. Just the
correct horneyments for chaps like you, he, he," croaked the keeper,
with malign glee.
"But where's your warrant?" urged Thomas. "You have no right to enter a
man's own house in this way, and haul him wherever you like when it
suits you to put out your spites on him. Poachers, faith; who's a
poacher, I'd like to know, if you ain't? Leave my house, both of you,
or, by God, I'll rouse the village. Tom, Tom," he added, turning to his
son, who had again crept to his side, "go and find Sutchwell, and Pease,
and----"
"Hold hard there, you ---- fool," roared the keeper. "Curse you, d'ye
suppose we came here to stand your insolence."
Pemberton closed the door and put his back to it.
"Look ye here, my fine haristocrat," continued the keeper in the
boundless wrath of fear, "look ye here, if you don't go quietly, devil
take me if I don't get ye a trip to Botany Bay for this job. I'm a sworn
constable, and I've got the justices' warrant, surely that's 'nuff for
thieves like you. Come, farmer Pemberton," he added more quietly, "help
me to hornament this gent," and in a very brief space the two mastered
and handcuffed the labourer.
He, indeed, made little resistance, for he began to see that he was at
the mercy of these scoundrels. His wife clung to him, but they tore her
roughly away. The children wailed in chorus, and "bludder Jack" crept
downstairs in his thin nightgown to see what was causing the hubbub,
howling like the rest without knowing why. But it was soon all over.
Thomas barely got time to kiss his wife, and to whisper to her to tell
Hawthorn, ere he was out of the cottage and away with his captors. All
down the little village street the shrieks of his family rung in his
ears, and his heart within him was like to burst with grief,
humiliation, and impotent wrath.
That night he was formally committed by Squire Greenaway himself to be
tried for poaching, before the justices at Leamington Priors, on Tuesday
next. This was Friday.
In due course Thomas Wanless appeared before the "Justices"--God save
them! and, after a very brief trial, was "let off," as one phrased it,
with six months' hard labour in Warwick Jail. The only evidence against
him was that of Tom Pemberton, but he made no attempt to deny the
charge, and as the squires already considered him a "dangerous" fellow,
they thought their sentence a model of clemency. So did Pemberton and
Keeper Crabb. His judges were Wiseman, Greenaway, the man whose vermin
he had helped to thin by just three rabbits, Parson Codling, of
Ashbrook, and a bibulous old creature who lived in Leamington Priors, a
retired Birmingham merchant, who had been made J.P. for his subservience
to the Tories. Greenaway was violent, and rather disposed to give an
"exemplary" sentence; Wiseman was contemptuously indifferent, as became
a big acred man and the husband of a woman with a handle to her name;
and Parson Codling was unctuously severe.
An attempt was made to get Wanless to tell the name of his co-offender,
but that he refused, so he was told that his obstinacy had prevented a
more lenient sentence, which was false. But something is due to
appearances at times, and even from such divine personages as justices
of the peace. So careful was the "bench" of proprieties on this
occasion, that Codling, on a hint from the chairman, gave Wanless the
benefit of a short exhortation before consigning him to the salutary
and eminently Christian discipline of the jailer. In the course of this
homily, Codling took occasion to observe that he had once hoped better
things of the prisoner, but had long ago been forced to give him up.
"With grief and sorrow," said the parson, "I have again and again
watched his obduracy, and his tendency to consort with agitators, or
worse. His fate will, I trust, be a warning to others."
This Parson Codling you will perceive had become tame. Once on a time he
had been almost given over to agitation himself; but that danger soon
passed, and he was now a proper ornament to and supporter of the British
hierarchy. Its morals were his morals. He knew no god but the god of the
landed gentry. In his youth the functions of the priestly office had
been misunderstood by him; but he had married soon after we last met him
a gentlewoman of Worcestershire with L2,000 a year, and that cured him
of many weaknesses--amongst others of the foolish craze he once had that
the religion of Christ was a religion to be practised. He now knew that
it was nothing of the kind. Certain tenets of it had been made up into a
creed "to be said or sung," and a singularly complex institution called
the Church had been elaborated for the good of public morals, and the
support of the English aristocracy--that was all. Therefore could he now
wag his head pompously at poor Tom Wanless standing dumb before him;
therefore could he now raise his fat soft hands, and thrust from his
sight with sanctimonious horror that criminal guilty of rabbit murder.
A stranger, unfamiliar with the usages of rural England--that country
whose liberties, we are told, all nations admire and envy--might have
supposed that Wanless was some foul manslayer, some midnight assassin
meeting his just doom. Unhappy stranger, woe on thy ignorance. Know thou
that in England no crime is so heinous as the least approach to
rebellion against the sacred rights of the Have-alls? "Touch not the
land nor anything that is thereon," is to the English landholder all the
law and the prophets. So Codling cursed Wanless for his crime, and the
doom-stricken labourer passed from his sight.