MAY INDICATE TO THE READER, AMONGST OTHER THINGS, SOME OF THE ADMIRABLE
ARRANGEMENTS WHEREBY ENGLAND OBTAINS MEN FOR A STANDING ARMY.
Had Thomas Wanless known what was in store for him in the future he
might have elected to leave Ashbrook for ever, and continue the life of
a railway navvy. As such his pay was good, and by thrift he might save
enough money either to venture on small contracts for himself, or start
some kind of business in one of the growing midland towns. But Thomas
did not consider these possibilities. The life he led grew more and more
repulsive to him as time went on; and he yearned unceasingly for the
quietude of his native village, and for his own fireside peace. Besides,
he hungered to get back to work on the land. If he could not get fields
of his own to till, at least he might hope to again help to till the
fields of others, and to watch the corn bloom and ripen as of yore.
So when the local bit of railway was made, Thomas came home to Ashbrook,
and once more went abroad among his neighbours; once more he accepted
the labourer's lot, with its hard fare and starvation pay. He returned
late in autumn when work was scarce; but his wife and he had saved money
in the past two years, and he managed to live with the help of what odd
jobs he could get, and without much trenching on his store till spring
came round. Fortunately his son Thomas had been able to cultivate the
allotment patch in his father's absence, and in spite of the fact that
the new owner of the soil had doubled their rent, it had paid for its
cultivation very well. The growing importance of Leamington provided all
surrounding villages with an improving vegetable and fruit market, of
which Thomas's wife and family had taken full advantage in his absence.
So well indeed had they done, that he himself indulged for a short time
in dreams of becoming a market gardener; but he soon found that there
was no chance for him in that direction. He might get work from the
farmers around, but no landlord would rent him the few necessary acres.
A broken man when he left Ashbrook to become a navvy; his absence had
not improved his position. On the contrary, the parish magnates rather
looked upon him as a greater black sheep than ever. The old ideas about
the rights of landowners to the labour of the hind, as well as to the
lion's share of the products of that labour, had by no means died out,
and it was still a moral crime in the eyes of the landlord for a
labourer to have enough daring and independence of spirit, to enable him
to seek work in another part of the country. In some respects Wanless
was therefore a greater pariah when he came home than when he went away,
and the summit of offence was reached when the report got abroad that
he had actually made some money, and wanted to rent a little farm.
Squire Wiseman had condescended to mention this report to Parson
Codling, and they both agreed that this kind of thing must be
discountenanced, else the country would not be fit for respectable
persons to live in. "The idea," Wiseman had exclaimed, "of this d----d
poacher-thief wanting to become a farmer! why bless my life, we shall
have our butlers wanting to be members of parliament next." And this
seemed to be the general opinion, so that the only practical outcome of
Thomas's ambition was a greater difficulty in procuring work, and a
further advance in the rent of his allotment. The successor of old
Captain Hawthorn took this mode of expressing his concurrence in the
general opinion, rather than that of a summary ejectment, he being a
practical man, and wise in his generation. It was better policy to take
the profits of Thomas's labours than to turn him adrift, and have to pay
rates for the maintenance of him and his family.
Against the odds and prejudices thus at work, Wanless fought manfully
for more than two years. When he could get work he laboured at it early
and late, and when, as often happened, work was denied him, he tended
his little garden and his allotment patch with the closeness of a
Chinese farmer. His flowers were the pride of the village, and his care
coaxed the old trees in his garden into a degree of fruit-bearing that
almost put to shame the vigour of their youth. Yet he could not always
make ends meet; and when he began to see his little hoard melting away,
his heart once more failed him. If the farmers would not have him he
must once more try elsewhere, and again a local railway afforded him a
refuge. He became a "ganger" on the Stratford line at 14s. a-week, and
for more than four years made his daily journey backwards and forwards
on his "beat," winter and summer, in cold and heat, well or ill. In one
sense, this work was not so hard as a farm labourer's or a navvy's is,
but it told on the health as much. Exposure, thin clothing, and poor
food did their work rapidly enough, and Thomas's limbs began to stiffen,
and his back to grow bent before his time. Like his fellows, he promised
to become an old man at 50, but he would have stuck to his work had not
a sharp attack of pleurisy laid him up in the winter of 1855, and once
more compelled him to seek to live by farm labour. He could not face the
bleak unsheltered railway track again, and even if he could, there was
no room for him. His place had been filled up. With a weary heart and a
spirit well-nigh crushed, Thomas once more looked for work on the farms
around Ashbrook. "Is there no hope for us, Sally, lass?" he would often
cry. "Must we go to the workhouse at last?" "Ay, the workhouse, the
workhouse!" he would exclaim. "The parsons promise us a deal in the
other world, but that's the best they think we deserve here. Well,
perhaps they mean to give us a better relish for the other world when it
comes."
Thomas had one thing to cheer him, though, and no doubt that gave him
more courage to face the world again than he otherwise would have had.
His precious son, young Tom, had emigrated to Australia about a year
before this terrible illness had enfeebled his father. He had gone as an
assisted emigrant, but the old man had given him L10 of old Hawthorn's
L20 to begin the New World upon. The parting had cost the family much,
and the father most of all; but they felt it to be for the best. There
was no room to grow in the old land; in the new there was a great
freedom. The lad dreamt of gold nuggets; but the wiser father bade him
stick to the land as soon as he could get a bit to stick to.
This departure was a loss to the family purse, for the youth had
obtained pretty steady work, and generously gave all into the keeping of
his mother. But Jane and Jacob were now also out into the world, winning
such bread as they could get, and the family burden was therefore
lighter. Jane was general servant to a dissenting draper in Leamington,
and Jacob enjoyed the proud distinction of being waggoner's boy at
Whitbury farm, now tenanted by a go-ahead Scotch ex-bailiff, who had
succeeded the Pembertons when they went to the dogs with drink and
horse-dealing. This hard-fisted, ferret-eyed agriculturist worked his
men and boys as they had never been worked before, but he did not make
the hours of labour so long, and he paid them a trifle better than his
neighbours, whose jealousy and dislike he thereby increased. Probably he
rather liked to be contemned by his fellows. It increased the
self-sufficiency of his righteousness, and made him the more proud of
being a strict Calvinistic Presbyterian, endowed with a conscience as
inelastic as his creed. Be that as it may, this man gave Jacob Wanless
10s. a week and made the lad work for it. Jacob was not then 17, and at
his previous place had only obtained half that sum with a grudge. But
then his work had been a long day's drawl too often, while now his duty
as under waggoner was practically a good 10 to 12 hours' toil as stable
assistant, feeder of stalled cattle, and general labourer about the
farm.
From these causes Wanless had some ground for hope, although work was
difficult for him to get, and his power to do it when got less than it
had been. And when he looked round him his causes for thankfulness
multiplied. Was not his neighbour Hewens, the under gardener at the
Grange, worse off than he, with a younger family of seven, one of whom
was an object, and a weekly income averaging about 9s. a week all the
year round. Thomas's old and tried friend Satchwell, the blacksmith,
too, with his three children living and a wife dying in decline, had
surely a harder lot than he, for all the coldness of farmers and
contumely of parish deities.
As spring warmed into summer, indeed, Wanless's strength and heart came
back to him in a measure. His hopes were chastened, but they were there
still, and asserted their life. Good news came from his far-away son,
too. Young Tom had taken his father's advice, and, avoiding the charms
of gold digging, had gone to work at high pay on a sheep run. Already he
spoke of buying a farm of his own, and getting father and mother and all
the rest to join him in the colony. Surely any man's heart would warm at
prospects like these, and Thomas so far entertained the project as to
talk it over with his friends, Brown, Satchwell, and Robins, who agreed
in thinking it "mighty fine," and in wishing that they could mount and
go along. "A vain wish, friends," Brown would say, "vain so far as I am
concerned, for I cannot herd sheep or hold a plough, and they want
neither parish clerks nor schoolmasters in the bush." Robins felt that
he was too old and too poor to think of the change, and Satchwell sighed
often as he thought on what a sea voyage might yet do for his wife. But
as for Thomas, of course he could go when his son sent him the money,
they said; and he, remembering that he had still a few pounds of his
hoard unspent, almost thought that he could. His family should have the
first chance, though. Jane and Jacob might both be able in another year
to get away to the new country so full of hope; and it was best that the
old hulk should stay at home, perhaps. So ran his thoughts for these
two, but he always stopped when he reached Sally, his youngest living
child, and precious to him as the apple of his eye. She was the fairest
of the family, and her father's darling above all the others. Her, at
all events, he felt he could not part with. If she went away at all her
mother and he must go too.
As yet "wee Sal," as she was called, though by this time nigh fourteen
years old, had not been suffered to go out to service. She had got more
schooling than the others, thanks to the better means that her father
had during part of her childish years; thanks likewise to his partiality
for her. In this you will say he was weak; but let him who is strong on
such a point fling stones. I cannot blame Thomas much for committing so
common a sin as to love most yearningly his youngest child; but I admit
that his fondness was perhaps to her hurt. Not that she was taught to
love idleness or things above her station. Far from that. Kept at home
though she was, she had to work. In the summer season she helped her
mother to tend the garden, and to carry flowers, vegetables, and fruit
to Leamington for sale. Under her mother's eye she at other times
learned something of laundry work. But her schooling; what could she do
with that? Did it not tend to give her vain thoughts above her lot; for
her lot was fixed more even than that of her brothers. The peasant maid
could never hope to advance to aught beyond some kind of upper service
in a rich man's family; a service often increasingly degrading in
proportion as it is nominally high. She might become a ladies' maid,
perhaps, and marry a butler in time, or she might fill her head with
vanities, and in apeing those above her sink to the gutter. The love of
Thomas for his child exposed her to many risks, when it took the form of
getting old Brown to teach her all he knew. If she could only get to the
new country at the other end of the world all that might be changed. She
might be happy and prosperous as an Australian farmer's wife. Yes, that
would be best; but they must all go. Neither Thomas nor his wife, who
shared his partiality, could think of parting with Sally. Jacob might go
first to help Tom to gather means to take out the rest; and Jane might
even go with him could a way be found; but not Sally: that sacrifice
would be too much.
In all probability the emigration plan might have been carried out in
this sense that very winter, if an emigration agent could have been got
to take Jacob and Jane, had not misfortune once more found the labourer
and smitten his hopes. Jacob enlisted. He was by no means a bad boy, but
like all youths, enjoyed what is called a bit of fun; and, in fun, he
had betaken himself to a kind of hiring fair held in Warwick, in
November, and called the "Mop." There was no need for him to go, as he
was not out of work, but the day was a kind of prescriptive holiday, and
others were going, so why not Jacob? Idle, careless, and brisk as a
lark, the lad followed where others led; drank for the sake of good
companionship more than his unaccustomed head could carry; and when in a
wild, devil-may-care mood was picked up by a recruiting sergeant, who
soon joked and argued him into taking the shilling. A neighbour saw the
boy, half-tipsy, following the sergeant and his party through the fair
with recruit's ribbons fluttering round his head, and rushed home to
tell Thomas as fast as his legs could carry him. The old man was
horror-struck; and the boy's mother broke into bitter wailing. Thomas,
however, wasted no time in useless grief, but took the road for Warwick,
within three minutes of hearing the news, in the hope of being in time
to buy his boy off. He had an idea that if he managed to pay the
smart-money before Jacob was sworn in, the lad might escape with little
difficulty. But he was too late. The sergeant was too well up to his
work to wait in Warwick all night, in order that parents might come in
the morning and beleaguer him for their betrayed children. Long before
Thomas reached the town and began his search for his son the sergeant
had gone off with his entire netful to Birmingham.
As soon as Thomas found this to be the case he made for the railway
station, intending to follow his boy without asking himself whether it
would do any good. But there again he was baulked. The cheap train to
Birmingham had passed long before, a porter told him, and there was
nothing that night but the late and dear express. For this Thomas had
not enough money in addition to what would be required to buy off Jacob,
so he had no help for it but to go home. This he did with a heart heavy
enough. Well did he know that ere he could reach Birmingham to-morrow he
would be too late. Recruiting sergeants do not linger at their work,
especially after the army had been reduced by war and disease as it then
had been in the Crimea. Before ten o'clock next morning Jacob, still
dazed with yesterday's unwonted debauch, was sworn in before a
Birmingham J.P., and not all the money his father possessed could then
release him. Henceforth, till his years of service were out, he must go
and kill or be killed at the bidding of these "sovereigns and
statesmen," whose business it still, alas, is to make strife in the
world.
This untoward event was in many ways a knock-down blow to the old
labourer and his wife. She, however, sorrowed mostly on personal
grounds, and dwelt on gloomy prospects of wounds and violent deaths as
the only lot now open for her son--bone of her bone, and flesh of her
flesh--whom she had nursed and tended from the womb only for this. Like
a good housewife, she mourned also the loss of Jacob's wages, which not
only helped to keep the wolf from the door, but also served to nourish
the hope that one day all might yet see the new land of promise. If any
savings could be pointed to they were always in the mother's eyes due to
those wonderful earnings of her boy's.
Thomas shared these feelings with his wife, but he had others into which
she did not enter. The emigration scheme had, perforce, to be given up,
and that was to him a far more bitter thought than to his wife, who
declared that she did not mind if they all went, but hung back at the
thought of "putting one after another of her children into a living
tomb," as she phrased it. But the deepest pain of all to Thomas probably
lay in the humiliation he felt in having a son a soldier. The trade of
murder, as he called it, was to his mind the most degrading to which a
man's hands could be set. He firmly believed that standing armies were a
mockery of the Almighty, and that the nations which fostered them would
sooner or later sink to perdition beneath the blows of divine vengeance.
Armies led to wars, and wars were the curse of the world, he averred,
and when contradicted was ready to prove to his antagonist that all the
wars in which England had been engaged since the revolution of 1688,
were dictated by the worst passions of mankind. Either, he said, they
were undertaken to consolidate the power of a rapacious faction over the
lives, liberties, and means of the people at large, or they were
actuated by mere bestial greed, by inordinate vanity and love of power,
or by mulish obstinacy and hatred or fear of liberty, and it was
amazing to hear what arrays of facts he brought forth in support of his
thesis. As a general conclusion he, of course, urged that, but for kings
and priests, most of the wars of the modern world would never have come
about. He did not know which cause was most effective, but inclined to
think it was the priests. Certainly the sight of ministers of Christ
so-called, unctuously blessing red-handed and red-coated murderers by
wholesale, and training their children to go and do likewise, was in his
opinion one of the most revolting things under God's sky.
You can, therefore, well understand with what bitterness of heart he
thought of the fate of his boy. He brooded over it; it became more
terrible in his sight than an actual crime. If Jacob had stolen and been
transported for breaking the law, Thomas could not have felt more shame
and humiliation than now haunted him. He almost cursed his son, and he
did unstintedly curse the system under which the lad had been caught up
by the agent of the State and spirited away from his labour. How it was
done he knew but too well; and when afterwards Jacob himself told the
story, it only confirmed what he had all along felt to be true. The boy
had never intended to enlist; but the drink, imprudently taken, had gone
to his head. The sergeant first cajoled him, and then, when he had taken
the fatal shilling, terrified him with threats of what would befall if
he broke faith with the Queen. So he took the oaths and went away to
practice the goose step, and moralise on the oddness of things in the
world. An officer, he now learnt, could sell out at a high price and
retire; but the common soldier belonged to the State, and had to be
bought back therefrom if he wished to be free. For Jacob there came no
such redress.
Gloom settled on the heart of his father, and on the little home in
Ashbrook after this great blow, and, but for the spur of hard necessity,
Thomas thought he should have laid down his burden altogether. Happily,
duty called him to work for others, if not for himself; and work brought
its usual blessing--a healing of the wounds and a revival of life in the
heart. All was not yet lost, though the buffets of adversity were
frequent and sore.
Indeed, in one sense Jacob's enlistment brought good to the family, for
it gave Thomas work at Whitbury Farm. Once more, after so many
vicissitudes, he came back to the old place. A changed place it proved
to be, but, on the whole, the change was for the better. The work was
hard, but the farmer was not brutal like the Pembertons, who had ruined
themselves by wild living, been sold up, and had disappeared none knew
whither.
Jacob himself had plenty of time to rue his folly, and he did rue it
bitterly. At first in Chatham, and afterwards in various Irish barracks,
he spent seven dreary years, wishing many a time he were dead, and
regretting that his fate did not lead him to India, where a mutineer's
bullet might have ended his career. Possessing much of his father's
energy of nature and many of his father's habits of thought, the idle
and seemingly purposeless life of a barrack became at times almost more
than the young man could endure. Had he fallen into the loose ways of
many among his comrades, it is probable that he would have capped the
folly of enlisting by the military crime of desertion. Fortunately he
kept his soul clean, and managed to utilise some portion of his time in
improving his mind. The mental wants of the soldier were not cared for
in his time, as they have begun to be since; but there were a few books
available in most barracks, and in Ireland a kindly old adjutant, who
had himself risen from the ranks, discovered Jacob's thirst in time to
afford him some assistance. Save for "providences" like these, and for
the stout heart that grew within him as he developed into full manhood,
Jacob's life as a soldier would have represented only wasted years.
Three more years in this way passed over Thomas Wanless and his
family--years marked by no incident of great importance. The dull
uniformity of their struggles with the ills of life has no dramatic
interest. Under it characters may be shaped and twisted like trees by
the east wind; but the graduations of change are mostly imperceptible to
those that endure the daily buffetings, and are beyond the scope of the
chronicler. Some day in the lapse of years, a man wakes up suddenly to
find himself changed, and looks back upon a former self with wonder and
astonishment, with thankfulness, it may be, for the drastic cleansing he
has endured, or with that flash of horror at the sudden vision of the
pit into which he has all the time been slowly sinking. In these years,
while a father labours for his children's bread, and thanks God that the
bread comes to him for his labour, his children grow up, develop
characters, assume attitudes in the world he never suspects, bringing
him joy or sorrow as the fruit is bitter or sweet. All is changing
ever; life moves onward, and the one generation perceives not the path
that the next shall follow. Ah! the mystery of life. What does it all
mean? The wrong triumphs often; the high hopes are dashed; weariness and
pain haunt us wherever we go; the fruit of the sweet blossom is ashes
and exceeding great bitterness; yet we hope on, plod on, battle till the
end comes--and the judgment: then perhaps we shall know.
As yet, however, the unkindly blows of a hard fate had not broken Thomas
Wanless's spirit: far otherwise. His heart might fail him beneath the
greater of his misfortunes, but when the storm had overpassed, his head
rose again, his eye yet brightened, and the laughter of hope broke forth
once more: so was it now. Steady work soothed the pain of Jacob's
disgrace, and in time the boy's own cheerfulness and manifest
improvement made his father begin to think good might be brought forth
out of evil in this case also. His daughter Jane continued to do well,
and was looking towards promotion in her sphere--such promotion as
consists in being one among many fellows, instead of the solitary drudge
in the family of a small retail merchant. With the higher wages that
followed elevation, Jane hoped also to be able to help her parents more.
That was Jane's ambition, so far as confessed, and it did her credit.
There might be something behind that, which was her own; but for the
present her father and mother stood first.
Then the news from Tom was ever good. He prospered with the colony of
Victoria, where he had settled, and might in time be a rich man, though
as yet his means were, for the most part, hid in the land he had bought.
Life, therefore, was not at all dark in those years of quiet toil,
either for Thomas or his family; and yet a cloud was gathering on the
horizon; a little cloud that might grow till all the life became wrapped
in its darkness.
The enlistment of Jacob had compelled Sally to go to service like her
sister. Thomas yielded to this necessity most reluctantly, and his
friends, even his wife, said he was foolishly fond of the girl. He would
not admit that it was over-fondness; it was solicitude, he said. An
undefined feeling of dread haunted him about the last and best loved
that was left. She was fairer than any girl of the village, and without
being exactly giddy, she was thoughtless and merry-hearted; too easily
led away; too guilelessly trustful of others. How could he let this
tender, unprotected maiden go out into the world, and fight her
life-battle alone among strangers? Many a prayer had he prayed in secret
that this sacrifice might be spared; but in this also the heavens were
as brass. The time had come when she must either go or starve, and with
a heavy heart he gave his consent. It was hardly given when his wife in
her turn woke up to the danger of the step. She then sought to bring
Thomas to revoke the decision, and try one more year; but it was too
late. Sally herself was now eager to go. Her pride was touched. She
would no longer be a burden to her parents, and must take a place like
her sister.
"But in another year, Sally, we may all be able to go to Australia," the
mother pleaded.
"Well, I can work for money to help us to go there," was the answer; and
the mother had to yield.
Sally found a place as drudge to a newly-married couple in Warwick--a
young surgeon and his wife. They had imprudently married on his
"prospects," and had to use many shifts to hide their poverty, lest the
world, which can only measure men's worth by the length of their purses,
should pass him by. It was thus a poor place, especially for one like
Sally, who had been better educated than probably any one else of her
class in the whole shire; and the wages were poor. At first they gave
her 1s. 6d. a-week with her food, but after six months they gave her
2s., partly to prevent neighbours from gossiping about their want of
means.
Here the girl remained for two years, not because she liked the place,
but because her parents told her that it was good to be able to say that
she had been so long in one family. Then she removed to the household of
a lawyer as housemaid, where two servants were kept, and had been in
that place over a year when her father met with an accident which laid
him up for many weeks. It seems that in building a rick he had somehow
been knocked off by a sheaf flung up at him thoughtlessly before he had
adjusted the previous one. He raised his one hand mechanically to catch
it, and his other slipped from under him. Being near the edge, he rolled
off heavily, striking the wheel of the waggon as he fell. The rick was
high, and the fall so severe, that, when picked up and examined, Thomas
was found to have badly bruised his shoulder and fractured two of his
ribs.
A long and tedious illness followed, during which Thomas was unable to
earn anything. Until young Tom could know and send money the old folks
were therefore likely again to feel the pinch of want, and it would take
many months to bring help from Australia. Some of the old hoard was
still left, but doctors' bills and necessary dainties soon made a hole
in that. In nursing her husband, too, Mrs. Wanless was prevented from
earning anything herself. There was no one to go to market with the
little garden produce that might be to spare. Neighbours were helpful,
but they could do little where all alike lived in daily converse with
want. Thomas's master was kindly, and declared that he would not see
them starve, but Thomas liked to be independent, and took umbrage at the
tone in which the charity was offered.
Talking of these things, and of the difficulties of the future, one
Sunday evening, when Sally was down from Warwick, the girl suddenly
asked why she could not go to a better place where her wages might be of
more use. She had only 3s. a week where she was, and felt sure she could
earn more.
Her parents were for letting well alone. "All the extra money you can
get, Sally, won't amount to much," her mother said, and her father urged
her to wait for Tom's letter. Who knew that Tom might not be sending
money to take them all away to the new country? But Sally was positive,
according to her impulsive nature. She was now nearly 18, she said, and
was sure she could earn more. "Besides, mother," she added, "I want to
better myself. I am learning nothing where I am, and never will, and I
hate messing about with so many children. They ought to keep a nurse,
but they can't afford it, missis says; and I'm sure I'm nothing but a
slave. Why should you object?"
Why, indeed. There were no good grounds for it in her eyes, and none
tangible to her parents. The result, therefore, was that Sally sought
and found a new place.