Book 3 Chapter 1
The last rays of the sun, contending with clouds of smoke that drifted
across the country, partially illumined a peculiar landscape. Far as
the eye could reach, and the region was level, except where a range of
limestone hills formed its distant limit, a wilderness of cottages or
tenements that were hardly entitled to a higher name, were scattered for
many miles over the land; some detached, some connected in little rows,
some clustering in groups, yet rarely forming continuous streets, but
interspersed with blazing furnaces, heaps of burning coal, and piles
of smouldering ironstone; while forges and engine chimneys roared and
puffed in all directions, and indicated the frequent presence of the
mouth of the mine and the bank of the coal-pit. Notwithstanding
the whole country might be compared to a vast rabbit warren, it was
nevertheless intersected with canals crossing each other at various
levels, and though the subterranean operations were prosecuted with so
much avidity that it was not uncommon to observe whole rows of
houses awry, from the shifting and hollow nature of the land, still,
intermingled with heaps of mineral refuse or of metallic dross, patches
of the surface might here and there be recognised, covered, as if in
mockery, with grass and corn, looking very much like those gentlemen’s
sons that we used to read of in our youth, stolen by the chimneysweeps
and giving some intimations of their breeding beneath their grimy
livery. But a tree or a shrub--such an existence was unknown in this
dingy rather than dreary region.
It was the twilight hour; the hour at which in southern climes the
peasant kneels before the sunset image of the blessed Hebrew maiden;
when caravans halt in their long course over vast deserts, and the
turbaned traveller bending in the sand, pays his homage to the sacred
stone and the sacred city; the hour, not less holy, that announces the
cessation of English toil, and sends forth the miner and the collier to
breathe the air of earth, and gaze on the light of heaven.
They come forth: the mine delivers its gang and the pit its bondsmen;
the forge is silent and the engine is still. The plain is covered
with the swarming multitude: bands of stalwart men, broad-chested and
muscular, wet with toil, and black as the children of the tropics;
troops of youth--alas! of both sexes,--though neither their raiment nor
their language indicates the difference; all are clad in male attire;
and oaths that men might shudder at, issue from lips born to breathe
words of sweetness. Yet these are to be--some are--the mothers of
England! But can we wonder at the hideous coarseness of their language
when we remember the savage rudeness of their lives? Naked to the waist,
an iron chain fastened to a belt of leather runs between their legs clad
in canvas trousers, while on hands and feet an English girl, for twelve,
sometimes for sixteen hours a-day, hauls and hurries tubs of coals up
subterranean roads, dark, precipitous, and plashy: circumstances that
seem to have escaped the notice of the Society for the Abolition of
Negro Slavery. Those worthy gentlemen too appear to have been singularly
unconscious of the sufferings of the little Trappers, which was
remarkable, as many of them were in their own employ.
See too these emerge from the bowels of the earth! Infants of four and
five years of age, many of them girls, pretty and still soft and timid;
entrusted with the fulfilment of most responsible duties, and the nature
of which entails on them the necessity of being the earliest to enter
the mine and the latest to leave it. Their labour indeed is not severe,
for that would be impossible, but it is passed in darkness and in
solitude. They endure that punishment which philosophical philanthropy
has invented for the direst criminals, and which those criminals deem
more terrible than the death for which it is substituted. Hour after
hour elapses, and all that reminds the infant Trappers of the world
they have quitted and that which they have joined, is the passage of the
coal-waggons for which they open the air-doors of the galleries, and on
keeping which doors constantly closed, except at this moment of passage,
the safety of the mine and the lives of the persons employed in it
entirely depend.
Sir Joshua, a man of genius and a courtly artist, struck by the seraphic
countenance of Lady Alice Gordon, when a child of very tender years,
painted the celestial visage in various attitudes on the same canvass,
and styled the group of heavenly faces--guardian angels!
We would say to some great master of the pencil, Mr Landseer or Mr Etty,
go thou to the little trappers and do likewise!
A small party of miners approached a house of more pretension than the
generality of the dwellings, and announcing its character by a very
flagrant sign of the Rising Sun. They entered it as men accustomed, and
were greeted with smiles and many civil words from the lady at the bar,
who inquired very cheerfully what the gentlemen would have. They soon
found themselves seated in the tap, and, though it was not entirely
unoccupied, in their accustomed places, for there seemed a general
understanding that they enjoyed a prescriptive right.
With hunches of white bread in their black hands, and grinning with
their sable countenances and ivory teeth, they really looked like a gang
of negroes at a revel.
The cups of ale circulated, the pipes were lighted, the preliminary
puffs achieved. There was at length silence, when he who seemed their
leader and who filled a sort of president’s seat, took his pipe from his
mouth, and then uttering the first complete sentence that had yet been
expressed aloud, thus delivered himself.
“The fact is we are tommied to death.”
“You never spoke a truer word, Master Nixon,” said one of his
companions.
“It’s gospel, every word of it,” said another.
“And the point is,” continued Master Nixon, “what are we for to do?”
“Ay, surely,” said a collier; “that’s the marrow.”
“Ay, ay,” agreed several; “there it is.”
“The question is,” said Nixon, looking round with a magisterial air,
“what is wages? I say, tayn’t sugar, tayn’t tea, tayn’t bacon. I don’t
think it’s candles; but of this I be sure, tayn’t waistcoats.”
Here there was a general groan.
“Comrades,” continued Nixon, “you know what has happened; you know as
how Juggins applied for his balance after his tommy-book was paid up,
and that incarnate nigger Diggs has made him take two waistcoats. Now
the question rises, what is a collier to do with waistcoats? Pawn ‘em
I s’pose to Diggs’ son-in-law, next door to his father’s shop, and sell
the ticket for sixpence. Now there’s the question; keep to the question;
the question is waistcoats and tommy; first waistcoats and then tommy.”
“I have been making a pound a-week these two months past,” said another,
“but as I’m a sinner saved, I have never seen the young queen’s picture
yet.”
“And I have been obliged to pay the doctor for my poor wife in tommy,”
said another. “‘Doctor,’ I said, says I, ‘I blush to do it, but all I
have got is tommy, and what shall it be, bacon or cheese?’ ‘Cheese at
tenpence a pound,’ says he, ‘which I buy for my servants at sixpence.
Never mind,’ says he, for he is a thorough Christian, ‘I’ll take the
tommy as I find it.’”
“Juggins has got his rent to pay and is afeard of the bums,” said Nixon;
“and he has got two waistcoats!”
“Besides,” said another, “Diggs’ tommy is only open once a-week, and if
you’re not there in time, you go over for another seven days. And it’s
such a distance, and he keeps a body there such a time--it’s always a
day’s work for my poor woman; she can’t do nothing after it, what
with the waiting and the standing and the cussing of Master Joseph
Diggs,--for he do swear at the women, when they rush in for the first
turn, most fearful.”
“They do say he’s a shocking little dog.”
“Master Joseph is wery wiolent, but there is no one like old Diggs for
grabbing a bit of one’s wages. He do so love it! And then he says you
never need be at no loss for nothing; you can find everything under my
roof. I should like to know who is to mend our shoes. Has Gaffer Diggs a
cobbler’s stall?”
“Or sell us a penn-orth of potatoes,” said another. “Or a ha’porth of
milk.”
“No; and so to get them one is obliged to go and sell some tommy, and
much one gets for it. Bacon at ninepence a-pound at Diggs’, which you
may get at a huckster’s for sixpence, and therefore the huckster can’t
be expected to give you more than fourpence halfpenny, by which token
the tommy in our field just cuts our wages atween the navel.”
“And that’s as true as if you heard it in church, Master Waghorn.”
“This Diggs seems to be an oppressor of the people,” said a voice from a
distant corner of the room.
Master Nixon looked around, smoked, puffed, and then said, “I should
think he wor; as bloody-a-hearted butty as ever jingled.”
“But what business has a butty to keep a shop?” inquired the stranger.
“The law touches him.”
“I should like to know who would touch the law,” said Nixon; “not I
for one. Them tommy shops is very delicate things; they won’t stand no
handling, I can tell you that.”
“But he cannot force you to take goods,” said the stranger; “he must pay
you in current coin of the realm, if you demand it.”
“They only pay us once in five weeks,” said a collier; “and how is a man
to live meanwhile. And suppose we were to make shift for a month or five
weeks, and have all our money coming, and have no tommy out of the shop,
what would the butty say to me? He would say, ‘do you want e’er a note
this time’ and if I was to say ‘no,’ then he would say, ‘you’ve no call
to go down to work any more here.’ And that’s what I call forsation.”
“Ay, ay,” said another collier; “ask for the young queen’s picture, and
you would soon have to put your shirt on, and go up the shaft.”
“It’s them long reckonings that force us to the tommy shops,” said
another collier; “and if a butty turns you away because you won’t take
no tommy, you’re a marked man in every field about.”*
*A Butty in the mining districts is a middleman: a Doggy is
his manager. The Butty generally keeps a Tommy or Truck shop
and pays the wages of his labourers in goods. When miners and
colliers strike they term it, “going to play.”
“There’s wus things as tommy,” said a collier who had hitherto been
silent, “and that’s these here butties. What’s going on in the pit is
known only to God Almighty and the colliers. I have been a consistent
methodist for many years, strived to do well, and all the harm I have
ever done to the butties was to tell them that their deeds would not
stand on the day of judgment.
“They are deeds of darkness surely; for many’s the morn we work for
nothing, by one excuse or another, and many’s the good stint that they
undermeasure. And many’s the cup of their ale that you must drink before
they will give you any work. If the queen would do something for us poor
men, it would be a blessed job.”
“There ayn’t no black tyrant on this earth like a butty, surely,” said a
collier; “and there’s no redress for poor men.”
“But why do not you state your grievances to the landlords and lessees,”
said the stranger.
“I take it you be a stranger in these parts, sir,” said Master Nixon,
following up this remark by a most enormous puff. He was the oracle of
his circle, and there was silence whenever he was inclined to address
them, which was not too often, though when he spoke, his words, as his
followers often observed, were a regular ten-yard coal.
“I take it you be a stranger in these parts, sir, or else you would know
that it’s as easy for a miner to speak to a mainmaster, as it is for me
to pick coal with this here clay. Sir, there’s a gulf atween ‘em. I went
into the pit when I was five year old, and I count forty year in the
service come Martinmas, and a very good age, sir, for a man what does
his work, and I knows what I’m speaking about. In forty year, sir, a man
sees a pretty deal, ‘specially when he don’t move out of the same spot
and keeps his ‘tention. I’ve been at play, sir, several times in
forty year, and have seen as great stick-outs as ever happened in this
country. I’ve seen the people at play for weeks together, and so clammed
that I never tasted nothing but a potatoe and a little salt for more
than a fortnight. Talk of tommy, that was hard fare, but we were holding
out for our rights, and that’s sauce for any gander. And I’ll tell you
what, sir, that I never knew the people play yet, but if a word had
passed atween them and the main-masters aforehand, it might not have
been settled; but you can’t get at them any way. Atween the poor man
and the gentleman there never was no connection, and that’s the wital
mischief of this country.
“It’s a very true word, Master Nixon, and by this token that when we
went to play in --28, and the masters said they would meet us; what did
they do but walk about the ground and speak to the butties. The butties
has their ear.”
“We never want no soldiers here if the masters would speak with the men;
but the sight of a pitman is pison to a gentleman, and if we go up to
speak with ‘em, they always run away.”
“It’s the butties,” said Nixon; “they’re wusser nor tommy.”
“The people will never have their rights,” said the stranger, “until
they learn their power. Suppose instead of sticking out and playing,
fifty of your families were to live under one roof. You would live
better than you live now; you would feed more fully, and he lodged and
clothed more comfortably, and you might save half the amount of your
wages; you would become capitalists; you might yourselves hire your
mines and pits from the owners, and pay them a better rent than they now
obtain, and yet yourselves gain more and work less.”
“Sir,” said Mr Nixon, taking his pipe from his mouth, and sending forth
a volume of smoke, “you speak like a book.”
“It is the principle of association,” said the stranger; “the want of
the age.”
“Sir,” said Mr Nixon, “this here age wants a great deal, but what it
principally wants is to have its wages paid in the current coin of the
realm.”
Soon after this there were symptoms of empty mugs and exhausted pipes,
and the party began to stir. The stranger addressing Nixon, enquired of
him what was their present distance from Wodgate.
“Wodgate!” exclaimed Mr Nixon with an unconscious air.
“The gentleman means Hell-house Yard,” said one of his companions.
“I’m at home,” said Mr Nixon, “but ‘tis the first time I ever heard
Hell-house Yard called Wodgate.”
“It’s called so in joggraphy,” said Juggins.
“But you hay’nt going to Hell-house Yard this time of night!” said Mr
Nixon. “I’d as soon think of going down the pit with the windlass turned
by lushy Bob.”
“Tayn’t a journey for Christians,” said Juggins.
“They’re a very queer lot even in sunshine,” said another.
“And how far is it?” asked the stranger.
“I walked there once in three hours,” said a collier, “but that was to
the wake. If you want to see divils carnal, there’s your time of day.
They’re no less than heathens, I be sure. I’d be sorry to see even our
butty among them, for he is a sort of a Christian when he has taken a
glass of ale.”
Book 3 Chapter 2
Two days after the visit of Egremont to the cottage of Walter Gerard,
the visit of the Marney family to Mowbray terminated, and they returned
to the Abbey.
There is something mournful in the breaking up of an agreeable party,
and few are the roofs in which one has sojourned, which are quitted
without some feeling of depression. The sudden cessation of all those
sources of excitement which pervade a gay and well arranged mansion in
the country, unstrings the nervous system. For a week or so, we have
done nothing which was not agreeable, and heard nothing which was not
pleasant. Our self-love has been respected; there has been a total
cessation of petty cares; all the enjoyment of an establisnment without
any of its solicitude. We have beheld civilization only in its favoured
aspect, and tasted only the sunny side of the fruit. Sometimes there are
associations with our visit of a still sweeter and softer character, but
on these we need not dwell: glances that cannot be forgotten, and tones
that linger in the ear; sentiment that subdues the soul, and flirtation
that agitates the fancy. No matter, whatever may be the cause, one too
often drives away from a country-house, rather hipped. The specific
would be immediately to drive to another, and it is a favourite remedy.
But sometimes it is not in our power; sometimes for instance we must
return to our household gods in the shape of a nursery; and though this
was not the form assumed by the penates of Lord Marney, his presence,
the presence of an individual so important and so indefatigable, was
still required. His Lordship had passed his time at Mowbray to his
satisfaction. He had had his own way in everything. His selfishness had
not received a single shock. He had lain down the law and it had not
been questioned. He had dogmatised and impugned, and his assertions
had passed current, and his doctrines been accepted as orthodox. Lord
Mowbray suited him; he liked the consideration of so great a personage.
Lord Marney also really liked pomp; a curious table and a luxurious
life; but he liked them under any roof rather than his own. Not that he
was what is commonly called a Screw; that is to say he was not a
mere screw; but he was acute and malicious; saw everybody’s worth and
position at a glance; could not bear to expend his choice wines and
costly viands on hangers-on and toad-eaters, though at the same time no
man encouraged and required hangers-on and toad-eaters more. Lord
Marney had all the petty social vices, and none of those petty social
weaknesses which soften their harshness or their hideousness. To receive
a prince of the blood or a great peer he would spare nothing. Had he to
fulfil any of the public duties of his station, his performance would
baffle criticism. But he enjoyed making the Vicar of Marney or Captain
Grouse drink some claret that was on the wane, or praise a bottle of
Burgundy that he knew was pricked.
Little things affect little minds. Lord Marney rose in no very good
humour; he was kept at the station, which aggravated his spleen. During
his journey on the railroad he spoke little, and though he more than
once laboured to get up a controversy he was unable, for Lady Marney,
who rather dreaded her dull home, and was not yet in a tone of mind that
could hail the presence of the little Poinsett as full compensation for
the brilliant circle of Mowbray, replied in amiable monosyllables, and
Egremont himself in austere ones, for he was musing over Sybil Gerard
and a thousand things as wild and sweet.
Everything went wrong this day. Even Captain Grouse was not at the Abbey
to welcome them back. He was playing in a cricket match, Marney against
Marham. Nothing else would have induced him to be absent. So it happened
that the three fellow-travellers had to dine together, utterly weary of
themselves and of each other. Captain Grouse was never more wanted; he
would have amused Lord Marney, relieved his wife and brother, reported
all that had been said and done in their neighbourhood during their
absence, introduced a new tone, and effected a happy diversion. Leaving
Mowbray, detained at the station, Grouse away, some disagreeable
letters, or letters which an ill-humoured man chooses to esteem
disagreeable, seemed to announce a climax. Lord Marney ordered the
dinner to be served in the small dining-room, which was contiguous to a
saloon in which Lady Marney, when they were alone, generally passed the
evening.
The dinner was silent and sombre; happily it was also short. Lord Marney
tasted several dishes, ate of none; found fault with his own claret,
though the butler had given him a choice bottle; praised Lord Mowbray’s,
wondered where he got it, “all the wines at Mowbray were good;” then for
the twentieth time wondered what could have induced Grouse to fix the
cricket match the day he returned home, though he chose to forget that
he had never communicated to Grouse even the probable day on which he
might be expected.
As for Egremont it must be admitted that he was scarcely in a more
contented mood than his brother, though he had not such insufficient
cause for his dark humours. In quitting Mowbray, he had quitted
something else than merely an agreeable circle: enough had happened in
that visit to stir up the deep recesses of his heart, and to prompt
him to investigate in an unusual spirit the cause and attributes of
his position. He had found a letter on his return to the Abbey, not
calculated to dispel these somewhat morbid feelings; a letter from his
agent, urging the settlement of his election accounts, the primary cause
of his visit to his brother.
Lady Marney left the dining-room; the brothers were alone. Lord Marney
filled a bumper, which he drank off rapidly, pushed the bottle to his
brother, and then said again, “What a cursed bore it is that Grouse is
not here.”
“Well, I cannot say, George, that I particularly miss the presence of
Captain Grouse,” said his brother.
Lord Marney looked at Egremont pugnaciously, and then observed, “Grouse
is a capital fellow; one is never dull when Grouse is here.”
“Well, for my part,” said Egremont, “I do not much admire that amusement
which is dependent on the efforts of hangers-on.”
“Grouse is no more a hanger-on than any one else,” said Lord Marney,
rather fiercely.
“Perhaps not,” said Egremont quietly; “I am no judge of such sort of
people.”
“I should like to know what you are a judge of; certainly not of making
yourself agreeable to young ladies. Arabella cannot he particularly
charmed with the result of your visit to Mowbray, as far as Lady Joan is
concerned, Arabella’s most intimate friend by the bye. If for no other
reason, you ought to have paid her more attention.”
“I cannot pay attention unless I am attracted,” said Egremont; “I have
not the ever-ready talent of your friend, Captain Grouse.”
“I do not know what you mean by my friend Captain Grouse. Captain Grouse
is no more my friend than your friend. One must have people about the
house to do a thousand things which one cannot do oneself, and which one
cannot trust to servants, and Grouse does all this capitally.”
“Exactly; he is just what I said, a capital hanger-on if you like, but
still a hanger-on.”
“Well, and what then! Suppose he is a hanger-on; may I not have
hangers-on as well as any other man?”
“Of course you may; but I am not bound to regret their absence.”
“Who said you were? But I will regret their absence, if I choose. And I
regret the absence of Grouse, regret it very much; and if he did happen
to be inextricably engaged in this unfortunate match, I say, and you
may contradict me if you please, that he ought to have taken care that
Slimsey dined here, to tell me all that had happened.”
“I am very glad he omitted to do so,” said Egremont; “I prefer Grouse to
Slimsey.”
“I dare say you do,” said Lord Marney, filling his glass and
looking very black; “you would like, I have no doubt, to see a fine
gentleman-saint, like your friend Mr St Lys, at Marney, preaching in
cottages, filling the people with discontent, lecturing me about low
wages, soliciting plots of grounds for new churches, and inveigling
Arabella into subscriptions to painted windows.”
“I certainly should like to see a man like Aubrey St Lys at Marney,”
said Egremont quietly, but rather doggedly.
“And if he were here, I would soon see who should be master,” said Lord
Marney; “I would not succumb like Mowbray. One might as well have a
jesuit in the house at once.”
“I dare say St Lys would care very little about entering your house,”
said Egremont. “I know it was with great reluctance that he ever came to
Mowbray Castle.”
“I dare say; very great reluctance indeed. And very reluctant he was,
I make no doubt, to sit next to Lady Maud. I wonder he does not fly
higher, and preach to Lady Joan; but she is too sensible a woman for
such fanatical tricks.”
“St Lys thinks it his duty to enter all societies. That is the reason
why he goes to Mowbray Castle, as well as to the squalid courts and
cellars of the town. He takes care that those who are clad in purple
and fine linen shall know the state of their neighbours. They cannot
at least plead ignorance for the nonfulfilment of their duty. Before St
Lys’s time, the family at Mowbray Castle might as well have not existed,
as far as benefiting their miserable vicinage. It would be well perhaps
for other districts not less wretched, and for other families as high
and favoured as the Mowbrays, if there were a Mr St Lys on the spot
instead of a Mr Slimsey.”
“I suppose that is meant for a cut,” said Lord Marney; “but I wish the
people were as well off in every part of the country as they are on
my estate. They get here their eight shillings a week, always at least
seven, and every hand is at this moment in employ, except a parcel of
scoundrels who prefer woodstealing and poaching, and who would prefer
wood-stealing and poaching if you gave them double the wages. The rate
of wages is nothing: certainty is the thing; and every man at Marney may
be sure of his seven shillings a-week for at least nine months in the
year; and for the other three, they can go to the House, and a very
proper place for them; it is heated with hot air, and has every comfort.
Even Marney Abbey is not heated with hot air. I have often thought of
it; it makes me mad sometimes to think of those lazy, pampered menials
passing their lives with their backs to a great roaring fire; but I am
afraid of the flues.”
“I wonder, talking of fires, that you are not more afraid of burning
ricks,” said Egremont.
“It’s an infernal lie,” said Lord Marney, very violently.
“What is?” said Egremont.
“That there is any incendiarism in this neighbourhood.”
“Why, there was a fire the day after I came.”
“That had nothing to do with wages; it was an accident. I examined into
it myself; so did Grouse, so did Slimsey; I sent them about everywhere.
I told them I was sure the fire was purely accidental, and to go and see
about it; and they came back and agreed that it was purely accidental.”
“I dare say they did,” said Egremont; “but no one has discovered the
accident.”
“For my part, I believe it was spontaneous combustion,” said Lord
Marney.
“That is a satisfactory solution.” said Egremont, “but for my part, the
fire being a fact, and it being painfully notorious that the people of
Marney--”
“Well, sir, the people of Marney”--said his lordship fiercely.
“Are without question the most miserable population in the county.”
“Did Mr St Lys tell you that?” interrupted Lord Marney, white with rage.
“No, not Mr Lys, but one better acquainted with the neighbourhood.”
“I’ll know your informant’s name,” said Lord Marney with energy.
“My informant was a woman,” said Egremont.
“Lady Maud, I suppose; second-hand from Mr St Lys.”
“Mv informant was a woman, and one of the people,” said Egremont.
“Some poacher’s drab! I don’t care what women say, high or low, they
always exaggerate.”
“The misery of a family who live upon seven or even eight shillings
a-week can scarcely be exaggerated.”
“What should you know about it? Did you ever live on seven or eight
shillings a-week? What can you know about the people who pass your time
at London clubs or in fine country houses? I suppose you want the people
to live as they do at a house dinner at Boodle’s. I say that a family
can live very well on seven shillings a-week, and on eight shillings
very well indeed. The poor are very well off, at least the agricultural
poor, very well off indeed. Their incomes are certain, that is a
great point, and they have no cares, no anxieties; they always have
a resource, they always have the House. People without cares do not
require as much food as those whose life entails anxieties. See how long
they live! Compare the rate of mortality among them with that of the
manufacturing districts. Incendiarism indeed! If there had been a proper
rural police, such a thing as incendiarism would never have been heard
of!”
There was a pause. Lord Marney dashed off another bumper; Egremont
sipped his wine. At length he said, “This argument made me forget the
principal reason, George, why I am glad that we are alone together
to-day. I am sorry to bore you, but I am bored myself deucedly. I find a
letter from my agent. These election accounts must be settled.”
“Why, I thought they were settled.”
“How do you mean?”
“I thought my mother had given you a thousand pounds.”
“No doubt of that, but that was long ago disposed of.”
“In my opinion quite enough for a seat in these times. Instead of paying
to get into Parliament, a man ought to be paid for entering it.”
“There may be a good deal in what you say,” said Egremont; “but it
is too late to take that view of the business. The expense has been
incurred and must be met.”
“I don’t see that,” said Lord Marney, “we have paid one thousand pounds
and there is a balance unsettled. When was there ever a contest without
a balance being unsettled? I remember hearing my father often say that
when he stood for this county, our grandfather paid more than a
hundred thousand pounds, and yet I know to this day there are accounts
unsettled. Regularly every year I receive anonymous letters threatening
me with fearful punishment if I don’t pay one hundred and fifty pounds
for a breakfast at the Jolly Tinkers.”
“You jest: the matter indeed requires a serious vein. I wish these
accounts to be settled at once.”
“And I should like to know where the funds are to come from! I have
none. The quantity of barns I am building now is something tremendous!
Then this rage for draining; it would dry up any purse. What think you
of two million tiles this year? And rents,--to keep up which we are
making these awful sacrifices--they are merely nominal, or soon will be.
They never will be satisfied till they have touched the land. That is
clear to me. I am prepared for a reduction of five-and-twenty per cent;
if the corn laws are touched, it can’t be less than that. My mother
ought to take it into consideration and reduce her jointure accordingly.
But I dare say she will not; people are so selfish; particularly as she
has given you this thousand pounds, which in fact after all comes out of
my pocket.”
“All this you have said to me before. What does it mean? I fought this
battle at the instigation of the family, from no feeling of my own. You
are the head of the family and you were consulted on the step. Unless
I had concluded that it was with your sanction, I certainly should not
have made my appearance on the hustings.”
“I am very glad you did though,” said Lord Marney; “Parliament is a
great point for our class: in these days especially, more even than in
the old time. I was truly rejoiced at your success, and it mortified the
whigs about us most confoundedly. Some people thought there was only one
family in the world to have their Richmond or their Malton. Getting you
in for the old borough was really a coup.”
“Well now, to retain our interest,” said Egremont, “quick payment of our
expenses is the most efficient way, believe me.”
“You have got six years, perhaps seven,” said Lord Marney, “and long
before that I hope to find you the husband of Lady Joan Fitz-Warene.”
“I do not wish to connect the two contingencies,” said Egremont firmly.
“They are inseparable,” said Lord Marney.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I think this pedantic acquittance of an electioneering
account is in the highest degree ridiculous, and that I cannot interfere
in it. The legal expenses are you say paid; and if they were not, I
should feel myself bound, as the head of the family, to defray them, but
I can go no further. I cannot bring myself to sanction an expenditure
for certainly very unnecessary, perhaps, and I much fear it, for illegal
and very immoral purposes.”
“That really is your determination?”
“After the most mature reflection, prompted by a sincere solicitude for
your benefit.”
“Well, George, I have often suspected it, but now I feel quite
persuaded, that you are really the greatest humbug that ever existed.”
“Abuse is not argument, Mr Egremont.”
“You are beneath abuse, as you are beneath every sentiment but one,
which I most entirely feel,” and Egremont rose from the table.
“You may thank your own obstinacy and conceit,” said Lord Marney. “I
took you to Mowbray Castle, and the cards were in your own hands if you
chose to play them.”
“You have interfered with me once before on such a subject. Lord
Marney,” said Egremont, with a kindling eye and a cheek pallid with
rage.
“You had better not say that again,” said Lord Marney in a tone of
menace.
“Why not?” asked Egremont fiercely. “Who and what are you to dare to
address me thus?”
“I am your elder brother, sir, whose relationship to you is your only
claim to the consideration of society.”
“A curse on the society that has fashioned such claims.” said Egremont
in an heightened tone--“claims founded in selfishness, cruelty, and
fraud, and leading to demoralization, misery, and crime.”
“Claims which I will make you respect, at least in this house, sir,”
said Lord Marney, springing from his chair.
“Touch me at your peril!” exclaimed Egremont, “or I will forget you are
my mother’s son, and cleave you to the ground. You have been the blight
of my life; you stole from me my bride, and now you would rob me of my
honour.”
“Liar and villain!” exclaimed Lord Marney, darting forward: but at
this moment his wife rushed into the apartment and clung to him. “For
heaven’s sake,” she exclaimed, “What is all this? George, Charles,
dearest George!”
“Let me go, Arabella.”
“Let him come on.”
But Lady Marney gave a piercing shriek, and held out her arms to keep
the brothers apart. A sound was heard at the other door; there was
nothing in the world that Lord Marney dreaded so much as that his
servants should witness a domestic scene. He sprang forward to the door
to prevent any one entering; partially opening it, he said Lady Marney
was unwell and desired her maid; returning, he found Arabella insensible
on the ground, and Egremont vanished!
Book 3 Chapter 3
It was a wet morning; there had been a heavy rain since dawn, which
impelled by a gusty south-wester came driving on a crowd of women and
girls who were assembled before the door of a still unclosed shop. Some
protected themselves with umbrellas; some sought shelter beneath a
row of old elms that grew alongside the canal that fronted the house.
Notwithstanding the weather, the clack of tongues was incessant.
“I thought I saw the wicket of the yard gates open,” said a woman.
“So did I,” said her neighbour; “but it was shut again immediately.”
“It was only Master Joseph,” said a third. “He likes to see us getting
wet through.”
“If they would only let us into the yard and get under one of the
workshop sheds, as they do at Simmon’s,” said another.
“You may well say Simmon’s, Mrs Page; I only wish my master served in
his field.”
“I have been here since half-past four, Mrs Grigsby, with this chilt at
my breast all the time. It’s three miles for me here, and the same back,
and unless I get the first turn, how are my poor boys to find their
dinner ready when they come out of the pit?”
“A very true word, Mrs Page; and by this token, that last Thursday I was
here by half-past eleven, certainly afore noon, having only called at my
mother-in-law’s in the way, and it was eight o’clock before I got home.
Ah! it’s cruel work, is the tommy shop.”
“How d’ye do neighbour Prance?” said a comely dame with a large white
basket, “And how’s your good man? They was saying at Belfy’s he had
changed his service. I hear there’s a new butty in Mr Parker’s field;
but the old doggy kept on; so I always thought, he was always a
favourite, and they do say measured the stints very fair. And what
do you hear bacon is in town? They do tell me only sixpence and
real home-cured. I wonder Diggs has the face to be selling still at
nine-pence, and so very green! I think I see Dame Toddles; how wonderful
she do wear! What are you doing here, little dear; very young to fetch
tommy; keeping place for mother, eh! that’s a good girl; she’d do well
to be here soon, for I think the strike’s on eight. Diggs is sticking it
on yellow soap very terrible. What do you think--Ah! the doors are going
to open. No--a false alarm.”
“How fare you neighbour?” said a pale young woman carrying an infant
to the comely dame. “Here’s an awful crowd, surely. The women will be
fighting and tearing to get in, I guess. I be much afeard.”
“Well, ‘first come, first served,’ all the world over,” said the comely
dame. “And you must put a good heart on the business and tie your
bonnet. I dare guess there are not much less than two hundred here. It’s
grand tommy day you know. And for my part I don’t care so much for a
good squeedge; one sees so many faces one knows.”
“The cheese here at sixpence is pretty tidy,” said a crone to her
companion; “but you may get as good in town for fourpence.”
“What I complain is the weights,” replied her companion. “I weighed my
pound of butter bought last tommy day, and it was two penny pieces too
light. Indeed! I have been, in my time, to all the shops about here, for
the lads or their father, but never knew tommy so bad as this. I have
two children at home ill from their flour; I have been very poorly
myself; one is used to a little white clay, but when they lay it on
thick, it’s very grave.”
“Are your girls in the pit?”
“No; we strive to keep them out, and my man has gone scores of days on
bread and water for that purpose; and if we were not forced to take
so much tommy, one might manage--but tommy will beat anything; Health
first, and honesty afterwards, that’s my say.”
“Well, for my part,” said the crone, “meat’s my grievance: all the best
bits go to the butties, and the pieces with bone in are chopped off for
the colliers’ wives.”
“Dame, when will the door open?” asked a very little palefaced boy.
“I have been here all this morn, and never broke my fast.”
“And what do you want, chilt?”
“I want a loaf for mother; but I don’t feel I shall ever get home again,
I’m all in a way so dizzy.”
“Liza Gray,” said a woman with black beady eyes and a red nose, speaking
in a sharp voice and rushing up to a pretty slatternly woman in a straw
bonnet with a dirty fine ribbon, and a babe at her breast; “you know the
person I’m looking for.”
“Well, Mrs Mullins, and how do you do?” she replied, “in a sweet sawney
tone.”
“How do you do, indeed! How are people to do in these bad times?”
“They is indeed hard Mrs Mullins. If you could see my tommy book! How
I wish I knew figures! Made up as of last Thursday night by that little
divil, Master Joe Diggs. He has stuck it in here and stuck it in there,
till it makes one all of a-maze. I’m sure I never had the things; and
my man is out of all patience, and says I can no more keep house than a
natural born.”
“My man is a-wanting to see your man,” said Mrs Mullins, with a flashing
eye; “and you know what about.”
“And very natural, too,” said Liza Gray; “but how are we to pay the
money we owe him, with such a tommy-book as this, good neighbour
Mullins?”
“We’re as poor as our neighbours Mrs Gray; and if we are not paid, we
must borrow. It’s a scarlet shame to go to the spout because money lent
to a friend is not to be found. You had it in your need, Liza Gray, and
we want it in our need; and have it I will, Liza Gray.”
“Hush, hush!” said Liza Gray; “don’t wake the little-un, for she is very
fretful.”
“I will have the five shillings, or I will have as good,” said Mrs
Mullins.
“Hush, hush, neighbour; now, I’ll tell you--you shall have it; but yet a
little time. This is great tommy-day, and settles our reckoning for five
weeks; but my man may have a draw after to-morrow, and he shall draw
five shillings, and give you half.”
“And the other half?” said Mrs Mullins.
“Ah! the other half,” said Liza Gray, with a sigh. “Well, then--we shall
have a death in our family soon--this poor babe can’t struggle on much
longer; it belongs to two burial clubs--that will be three pounds from
each, and after the drink and the funeral, there will be enough to pay
all our debts and put us all square.”
The doors of Mr Diggs’ tommy-shop opened. The rush was like the advance
into the pit of a theatre when the drama existed; pushing, squeezing,
fighting, tearing, shrieking. On a high seat, guarded by rails from
all contact, sate Mr Diggs senior, with a bland smile on his sanctified
countenance, a pen behind his ear, and recommending his constrained
customers in honeyed tones to be patient and orderly. Behind the
substantial counter which was an impregnable fortification, was his
popular son, Master Joseph; a short, ill-favoured cur, with a spirit
of vulgar oppression and malicious mischief stamped on his visage. His
black, greasy lank hair, his pug nose, his coarse red face, and his
projecting tusks, contrasted with the mild and lengthened countenance of
his father, who looked very much like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
For the first five minutes Master Joseph Diggs did nothing but blaspheme
and swear at his customers, occasionally leaning over the counter and
cuffing the women in the van or lugging some girl by the hair.
“I was first, Master Joseph,” said a woman eagerly.
“No; I was,” said another.
“I was here,” said the first, “as the clock struck four, and seated
myself on the steps, because I must be home early; my husband is hurt in
the knee.”
“If you were first, you shall be helped last.” said Master Joseph, “to
reward you for your pains!” and he began taking the orders of the other
woman.
“O! Lord have mercy on me!” said the disappointed woman; “and I got up
in the middle of the night for this!”
“More fool you! And what you came for I am sure I don’t know,” said
Master Joseph; “for you have a pretty long figure against you, I can
tell you that.”
“I declare most solemnly--” said the woman.
“Don’t make a brawling here,” said Master Joseph, “or I’ll jump over
this here counter and knock you down, like nothing. What did you say,
woman? are you deaf? what did you say? how much best tea do you want?”
“I don’t want any, sir.”
“You never want best tea; you must take three ounces of best tea, or you
shan’t have nothing. If you say another word, I’ll put you down four.
You tall gal, what’s your name, you keep back there, or I’ll fetch you
such a cut as’ll keep you at home till next reckoning. Cuss you, you old
fool, do you think I am to be kept all day while you are mumbling here?
Who’s pushing on there? I see you, Mrs Page. Won’t there be a black mark
against you? Oh! its Mrs Prance, is it? Father, put down Mrs Prance for
a peck of flour. I’ll have order here. You think the last bacon a little
too fat: oh! you do, ma’am, do you? I’ll take care you shan’t complain
in futur; I likes to please my customers. There’s a very nice flitch
hanging up in the engine-room; the men wanted some rust for the
machinery; you shall have a slice of that; and we’ll say ten-pence a
pound, high-dried, and wery lean--will that satisfy you!
“Order there, order; you cussed women, order, or I’ll be among you. And
if I just do jump over this here counter, won’t I let fly right and
left? Speak out, you ideot! do you think I can hear your muttering in
this Babel? Cuss them; I’ll keep them quiet,” and so he took up a yard
measure, and leaning over the counter, hit right and left.
“Oh! you little monster!” exclaimed a woman, “you have put out my
babby’s eye.”
There was a murmur; almost a groan. “Whose baby’s hurt?” asked Master
Joseph in a softened tone.
“Mine, sir,” said an indignant voice; “Mary Church.”
“Oh! Mary Church, is it!” said the malicious imp, “then I’ll put Mary
Church down for half a pound of best arrow-root; that’s the finest thing
in the world for babbies, and will cure you of bringing your cussed
monkeys here, as if you all thought our shop was a hinfant school.
“Where’s your book, Susan Travers! Left at home! Then you may go and
fetch it. No books, no tommy. You are Jones’s wife, are you? Ticket for
three and sixpence out of eighteen shillings wages. Is this the only
ticket you have brought? There’s your money; and you may tell your
husband he need not take his coat off again to go down our shaft. He
must think us cussed fools! Tell him I hope he has got plenty of money
to travel into Wales, for he won’t have no work in England again, or my
name ayn’t Diggs. Who’s pushing there? I’ll be among you; I’ll close the
shop. If I do get hold of some of you cussed women, you shan’t forget
it. If anybody will tell me who is pushing there, they shall have their
bacon for seven-pence. Will nobody have bacon for seven-pence? Leagued
together, eh! Then everybody shall have their bacon for ten-pence.
Two can play at that. Push again, and I’ll be among you,” said the
infuriated little tyrant. But the waving of the multitude, impatient,
and annoyed by the weather, was not to be stilled; the movement could
not be regulated; the shop was in commotion; and Master Joseph Diggs,
losing all patience, jumped on the counter, and amid the shrieks of the
women, sprang into the crowd. Two women fainted; others cried for their
bonnets; others bemoaned their aprons; nothing however deterred Diggs,
who kicked and cuffed and cursed in every quarter, and gave none. At
last there was a general scream of horror, and a cry of “a boy killed.”
The senior Diggs, who, from his eminence, had hitherto viewed the scene
with unruffled complacency; who, in fact, derived from these not unusual
exhibitions the same agreeable excitement which a Roman emperor might
have received from the combats of the circus; began to think that
affairs were growing serious, and rose to counsel order and enforce
amiable dispositions. Even Master Joseph was quelled by that mild voice
which would have become Augustus. It appeared to be quite true that
a boy was dead. It was the little boy who, sent to get a loaf for
his mother, had complained before the shop was opened of his fainting
energies. He had fallen in the fray, and it was thought, to use the
phrase of the comely dame who tried to rescue him, “that he was quite
smothered.”
They carried him out of the shop; the perspiration poured off him; he
had no pulse. He had no friends there. “I’ll stand by the body,” said
the comely dame, “though I lose my turn.”
At this moment, Stephen Morley, for the reader has doubtless discovered
that the stranger who held colloquy with the colliers was the friend
of Walter Gerard, arrived at the tommy-shop, which was about half-way
between the house where he had passed the night and Wodgate. He stopped,
inquired, and being a man of science and some skill, decided, after
examining the poor boy, that life was not extinct. Taking the elder
Diggs aside, he said, “I am the editor of the Mowbray Phalanx; I will
not speak to you before these people; but I tell you fairly you and your
son have been represented to me as oppressors of the people. Will it be
my lot to report this death and comment on it? I trust not. There is yet
time and hope.”
“What is to be done, sir,” inquired the alarmed Mr Diggs; “a
fellow-creature in this condition--”
“Don’t talk but act,” said Morley. “There is no time to be lost. The boy
must be taken up stairs and put to bed; a warm bed, in one of your best
rooms, with every comfort. I am pressed for business, but I will wait
and watch over him till the crisis is passed. Come, let you and I take
him in our arms, and carry him up stairs through your private door.
Every minute is precious.” And so saying, Morley and the elder Diggs
entered the house.
Book 3 Chapter 4
Wodgate, or Wogate, as it was called on the map, was a district that
in old days had been consecrated to Woden, and which appeared destined
through successive ages to retain its heathen character. At the
beginning of the revolutionary war, Wodgate was a sort of squatting
district of the great mining region to which it was contiguous, a place
where adventurers in the industry which was rapidly developing, settled
themselves; for though the great veins of coal and ironstone cropped up,
as they phrase it, before they reached this bare and barren land, and
it was thus deficient in those mineral and metallic treasures which had
enriched its neighbourhood, Wodgate had advantages of its own, and of a
kind which touch the fancy of the lawless. It was land without an owner;
no one claimed any manorial right over it; they could build cottages
without paying rent. It was a district recognized by no parish; so there
were no tithes, and no meddlesome supervision. It abounded in fuel which
cost nothing, for though the veins were not worth working as a source
of mining profit, the soil of Wodgate was similar in its superficial
character to that of the country around. So a population gathered, and
rapidly increased, in the ugliest spot in England, to which neither
Nature nor art had contributed a single charm; where a tree could not be
seen, a flower was unknown, where there was neither belfry nor steeple,
nor a single sight or sound that could soften the heart or humanise the
mind.
Whatever may have been the cause, whether, as not unlikely, the original
squatters brought with them some traditionary skill, or whether their
isolated and unchequered existence concentrated their energies on
their craft, the fact is certain, that the inhabitants of Wodgate
early acquired a celebrity as skilful workmen. This reputation so much
increased, and in time spread so far, that for more than a quarter of a
century, both in their skill and the economy of their labour, they have
been unmatched throughout the country. As manufacturers of ironmongery,
they carry the palm from the whole district; as founders of brass and
workers of steel, they fear none; while as nailers and locksmiths, their
fame has spread even to the European markets, whither their most skilful
workmen have frequently been invited.
Invited in vain! No wages can tempt the Wodgate man from his native
home, that squatters’ seat which soon assumed the form of a large
village, and then in turn soon expanded into a town, and at the present
moment numbers its population by swarming thousands, lodged in the most
miserable tenements in the most hideous burgh in the ugliest country in
the world.
But it has its enduring spell. Notwithstanding the spread of its civic
prosperity, it has lost none of the characteristics of its original
society; on the contrary it has zealously preserved them. There are no
landlords, head-lessees, main-masters, or butties in Wodgate. No church
there has yet raised its spire; and as if the jealous spirit of Woden
still haunted his ancient temple, even the conventicle scarcely dares
show its humble front in some obscure corner. There is no municipality,
no magistrate, no local acts, no vestries, no schools of any kind. The
streets are never cleaned; every man lights his own house; nor does any
one know anything except his business.
More than this, at Wodgate a factory or large establishment of any kind
is unknown. Here Labour reigns supreme. Its division indeed is favoured
by their manners, but the interference or influence of mere capital
is instantly resisted. The business of Wodgate is carried on by master
workmen in their own houses, each of whom possesses an unlimited number
of what they call apprentices, by whom their affairs are principally
conducted, and whom they treat as the Mamlouks treated the Egyptians.
These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor is it
possible to conceive one apparently more oppressive. They are ruthless
tyrants; they habitually inflict upon their subjects punishments more
grievous than the slave population of our colonies were ever visited
with; not content with beating them with sticks or flogging them with
knotted ropes, they are in the habit of felling them with hammers, or
cutting their heads open with a file or lock. The most usual punishment
however, or rather stimulus to increase exertion, is to pull an
apprentice’s ears till they run with blood. These youths too are worked
for sixteen and even twenty hours a day; they are often sold by one
master to another; they are fed on carrion, and they sleep in lofts
or cellars: yet whether it be that they are hardened by brutality,
and really unconscious of their degradation and unusual sufferings, or
whether they are supported by the belief that their day to be masters
and oppressors will surely arrive, the aristocracy of Wodgate is by no
means so unpopular as the aristocracy of most other places.
In the first place it is a real aristocracy; it is privileged, but it
does something for its privileges. It is distinguished from the main
body not merely by name. It is the most knowing class at Wodgate; it
possesses indeed in its way complete knowledge; and it imparts in its
manner a certain quantity of it to those whom it guides. Thus it is an
aristocracy that leads, and therefore a fact. Moreover the social system
of Wodgate is not an unvarying course of infinite toil. Their plan is to
work hard, but not always. They seldom exceed four days of labour in the
week. On Sunday the masters begin to drink; for the apprentices there
is dog-fighting without any stint. On Monday and Tuesday the whole
population of Wodgate is drunk; of all stations, ages, and sexes; even
babes, who should be at the breast; for they are drammed with Godfrey’s
cordial. Here is relaxation, excitement; if less vice otherwise than
might be at first anticipated, we must remember that excesses are
checked by poverty of blood and constant exhaustion. Scanty food and
hard labour are in their way, if not exactly moralists, a tolerably good
police.
There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control. It is not that
the people are immoral, for immorality implies some forethought; or
ignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they are animals; unconscious;
their minds a blank; and their worst actions only the impulse of a gross
or savage instinct. There are many in this town who are ignorant of
their very names; very few who can spell them. It is rare that you meet
with a young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who
has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them the name of
their sovereign, and they will give you an unmeaning stare; ask them the
name of their religion, and they will laugh: who rules them on earth, or
who can save them in heaven, are alike mysteries to them.
Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle. Wodgate
had the appearance of a vast squalid suburb. As you advanced, leaving
behind you long lines of little dingy tenements, with infants lying
about the road, you expected every moment to emerge into some streets
and encounter buildings bearing some correspondence in their size and
comfort to the considerable population swarming and busied around you.
Nothing of the kind. There were no public buildings of any sort; no
churches, chapels, town-hall, institute, theatre; and the principal
streets in the heart of the town in which were situate the coarse and
grimy shops, though formed by houses of a greater elevation than the
preceding, were equally narrow and if possible more dirty. At every
fourth or fifth house, alleys seldom above a yard wide and streaming
with filth, opened out of the street. These were crowded with dwellings
of various size, while from the principal court often branched out a
number of smaller alleys or rather narrow passages, than which nothing
can be conceived more close and squalid and obscure. Here during the
days of business, the sound of the hammer and the file never ceased,
amid gutters of abomination and piles of foulness and stagnant pools
of filth; reservoirs of leprosy and plague, whose exhalations were
sufficient to taint the atmosphere of the whole kingdom and fill the
country with fever and pestilence.
A lank and haggard youth, ricketty and smoke-dried, and black with his
craft, was sitting on the threshold of a miserable hovel and working at
the file. Behind him stood a stunted and meagre girl, with a back like
a grasshopper; a deformity occasioned by the displacement of the
bladebone, and prevalent among the girls of Wodgate from the cramping
posture of their usual toil. Her long melancholy visage and vacant stare
at Morley as he passed, attracted his notice, and it occurring to
him that the opportunity was convenient to enquire something of the
individual of whom he was in search, he stopped and addressed the
workman:
“Do you happen to know friend a person here or hereabouts by name
Hatton?”
“Hatton!” said the youth looking up with a grin, yet still continuing
his labour, “I should think I did!”
“Well, that’s fortunate; you can tell me something about him?”
“Do you see this here?” said the youth still grinning, and letting the
file drop from his distorted and knotty hand, he pointed to a deep scar
that crossed his forehead, “he did that.”
“An accident?”
“Very like. An accident that often happened. I should like to have a
crown for every time he has cut my head open. He cut it open once with a
key and twice with a lock; he knocked the corner of a lock into my head
twice, once with a bolt and once with a shut; you know what that is;
the thing what runs into the staple. He hit me on the head with a hammer
once. That was a blow! I fell away that time. When I came to, master had
stopped the blood with some fur off his hat. I had to go on with my work
immediately; master said I should do my stint if I worked till twelve
o’clock at night. Many’s the ash stick he has broken on my body;
sometimes the weals remained on me for a-week; he cut my eyelid open
once with a nutstick; cut a regular hole in it, and it bled all over the
files I was working at. He has pulled my ears sometimes that I thought
they must come off in his hand. But all this was a mere nothin to this
here cut; that was serous; and if I hadn’t got thro’ that they do say
there must have been a crowner’s quest; though I think that gammon, for
old Tugsford did for one of his prentices, and the body was never found.
And now you ask me if I know Hatton? I should think I did!” And the
lank, haggard youth laughed merrily, as if he had been recounting a
series of the happiest adventures.
“But is there no redress for such iniquitous oppression,” said Morley,
who had listened with astonishment to this complacent statement. “Is
there no magistrate to apply to?”
“No no,” said the filer with an air of obvious pride, “we don’t have no
magistrates at Wodgate. We’ve got a constable, and there was a prentice
who coz his master laid it on, only with a seat rod, went over to
Ramborough and got a warrant. He fetched the summons himself and giv
it to the constable, but he never served it. That’s why they has a
constable here.”
“I am sorry,” said Morley, “that I have affairs with such a wretch as
this Hatton.”
“You’ll find him a wery hearty sort of man,” said the filer, “if he
don’t hap to be in drink. He’s a little robustious then, but take him
all in all for a master, you may go further and fare worse.
“What! this monster!”
“Lord bless you, it’s his way, that’s all, we be a queer set here; but
he has his pints. Give him a lock to make, and you won’t have your box
picked; he’s wery lib’ral too in the wittals. Never had horse-flesh the
whole time I was with him; they has nothin’ else at Tugsford’s; never
had no sick cow except when meat was very dear. He always put his face
agin still-born calves; he used to say he liked his boys to have meat
what was born alive and killed alive. By which token there never was any
sheep what had bust in the head sold in our court. And then sometimes
he would give us a treat of fish, when it had been four or five days in
town and not sold. No, give the devil his due, say I. There never was no
want for anything at meals with the Bishop, except time to eat them in.”
“And why do you call him the Bishop?”
“That’s his name and authority; for he’s the governor here over all
of us. And it has always been so that Wodgate has been governed by a
bishop; because as we have no church, we will have as good. And by this
token that this day sen’night, the day my time was up, he married me to
this here young lady. She is of the Baptist school religion, and wanted
us to be tied by her clergyman, but all the lads that served their time
with me were married by the Bishop, and many a more, and I saw no call
to do no otherwise. So he sprinkled some salt over a gridiron, read ‘Our
Father’ backwards, and wrote our name in a book: and we were spliced;
but I didn’t do it rashly, did I, Suky, by the token that we had kept
company for two years, and there isn’t a gal in all Wodgate what handles
a file, like Sue.”
“And what is your name, my good fellow?”
“They call me Tummas, but I ayn’t got no second name; but now I am
married I mean to take my wife’s, for she has been baptised, and so has
got two.”
“Yes sir,” said the girl with the vacant face and the back like a
grasshopper; “I be a reg’lar born Christian and my mother afore me, and
that’s what few gals in the Yard can say. Thomas will take to it himself
when work is slack; and he believes now in our Lord and Saviour Pontius
Pilate who was crucified to save our sins; and in Moses, Goliath, and
the rest of the Apostles.”
“Ah! me,” thought Morley, “and could not they spare one Missionary from
Tahiti for their fellow countrymen at Wodgate!”
Book 3 Chapter 5
The summer twilight had faded into sweet night; the young and
star-attended moon glittered like a sickle in the deep purple sky; of
all the luminous host, Hesperus alone was visible; and a breeze, that
bore the last embrace of the flowers by the sun, moved languidly and
fitfully over the still and odorous earth.
The moonbeam fell upon the roof and garden of Gerard. It suffused the
cottage with its brilliant light, except where the dark depth of the
embowered porch defied its entry. All around the beds of flowers and
herbs spread sparkling and defined. You could trace the minutest walk;
almost distinguish every leaf. Now and then there came a breath, and
the sweet-peas murmured in their sleep; or the roses rustled, as if they
were afraid they were about to be roused from their lightsome dreams.
Farther on the fruit-trees caught the splendour of the night; and looked
like a troop of sultanas taking their gardened air, when the eye of man
could not profane them, and laden with jewels. There were apples that
rivalled rubies; pears of topaz tint: a whole paraphernalia of plums,
some purple as the amethyst, others blue and brilliant as the sapphire;
an emerald here, and now a golden drop that gleamed like the yellow
diamond of Gengis Khan.
Within--was the scene less fair? A single lamp shed over the chamber
a soft and sufficient light. The library of Stephen Morley had been
removed, but the place of his volumes had been partly supplied, for the
shelves were far from being empty. Their contents were of no ordinary
character: many volumes of devotion, some of church history, one or two
on ecclesiastical art, several works of our elder dramatists, some good
reprints of our chronicles, and many folios of church music, which
last indeed amounted to a remarkable collection. There was no musical
instrument however in the room of any kind, and the only change in its
furniture, since we last visited the room of Gerard, was the presence of
a long-backed chair of antique form, most beautifully embroidered, and a
portrait of a female saint over the mantel-piece. As for Gerard himself
he sat with his head leaning on his arm, which rested on the table,
while he listened with great interest to a book which was read to him by
his daughter, at whose feet lay the fiery and faithful bloodhound.
“So you see, my father,” said Sybil with animation, and dropping her
book which however her hand did not relinquish, “even then all was not
lost. The stout earl retired beyond the Trent, and years and reigns
elapsed before this part of the island accepted their laws and customs.”
“I see,” said her father, “and yet I cannot help wishing that Harold--”
Here the hound, hearing his name, suddenly rose and looked at Gerard,
who smiling, patted him and said, “We were not talking of thee, good
sir, but of thy great namesake; but ne’er mind, a live dog they say is
worth a dead king.”
“Ah! why have we not such a man now,” said Sybil, “to protect the
people! Were I a prince I know no career that I should deem so great.”
“But Stephen says no,” said Gerard: “he says that these great men have
never made use of us but as tools; and that the people never can have
their rights until they produce competent champions from their own
order.”
“But then Stephen does not want to recall the past,” said Sybil with a
kind of sigh; “he wishes to create the future.”
“The past is a dream,” said Gerard.
“And what is the future?” enquired Sybil.
“Alack! I know not; but I often wish the battle of Hastings were to be
fought over again and I was going to have a hand in it.”
“Ah! my father,” said Sybil with a mournful smile, “there is ever your
fatal specific of physical force. Even Stephen is against physical
force, with all his odd fancies.”
“All very true,” said Gerard smiling with good nature; “but all the same
when I was coming home a few days ago, and stopped awhile on the bridge
and chanced to see myself in the stream, I could not help fancying that
my Maker had fashioned these limbs rather to hold a lance or draw a bow,
than to supervise a shuttle or a spindle.”
“Yet with the shuttle and the spindle we may redeem our race,” said
Sybil with animation, “if we could only form the minds that move those
peaceful weapons. Oh! my father, I will believe that moral power is
irresistible, or where are we to look for hope?”
Gerard shook his head with his habitual sweet good-tempered smile. “Ah!”
said he, “what can we do; they have got the land, and the land governs
the people. The Norman knew that, Sybil, as you just read. If indeed we
had our rights, one might do something; but I don’t know; I dare say if
I had our land again, I should be as bad as the rest.”
“Oh! no, my father,” exclaimed Sybil with energy, “never, never! Your
thoughts would be as princely as your lot. What a leader of the people
you would make!”
Harold sprang up suddenly and growled.
“Hush!” said Gerard; “some one knocks:” and he rose and left the room.
Sybil heard voices and broken sentences: “You’ll excuse me”--“I take it
kindly”--“So we are neighbours.” And then her father returned, ushering
in a person and saying, “Here is my friend Mr Franklin that I was
speaking of, Sybil, who is going to be our neighbour; down Harold,
down!” and he presented to his daughter the companion of Mr St Lys in
that visit to the Hand-loom weaver when she had herself met the vicar of
Mowbray.