Lancashire was not so wonderful a place forty years ago as it is at
present, but, compared then with the rest of England, it was infinitely
more striking. For a youth like Endymion, born and bred in our southern
counties, the Berkshire downs varied by the bustle of Pall-Mall and the
Strand--Lancashire, with its teeming and toiling cities, its colossal
manufactories and its gigantic chimneys, its roaring engines and its
flaming furnaces, its tramroads and its railroads, its coal and its
cotton, offered a far greater contrast to the scenes in which he had
hitherto lived, than could be furnished by almost any country of the
European continent.
Endymion felt it was rather a crisis in his life, and that his future
might much depend on the fulfilment of the confidential office which
had been entrusted to him by his chief. He summoned all his energies,
concentrated his intelligence on the one subject, and devoted to its
study and comprehension every moment of his thought and time. After a
while, he had made Manchester his head-quarters. It was even then the
centre of a network of railways, and gave him an easy command of the
contiguous districts.
Endymion had more than once inquired after the Anti-Corn-Law League,
but had not as yet been so fortunate as to attend any of their meetings.
They were rarer than they afterwards soon became, and the great
manufacturers did not encourage them. “I do not like extreme views,”
said one of the most eminent one day to Endymion. “In my opinion, we
should always avoid extremes;” and he paused and looked around, as if
he had enunciated a heaven-born truth, and for the first time. “I am a
Liberal; so we all are here. I supported Lord Grey, and I support Lord
Melbourne, and I am, in everything, for a liberal policy. I don’t like
extremes. A wise minister should take off the duty on cotton wool. That
is what the country really wants, and then everybody would be satisfied.
No; I know nothing about this League you ask about, and I do not know
any one--that is to say, any one respectable--who does. They came to me
to lend my name. ‘No,’ I said, ‘gentlemen; I feel much honoured, but I
do not like extremes;’ and they went away. They are making a little more
noise now, because they have got a man who has the gift of the gab, and
the people like to go and hear him speak. But as I said to a friend of
mine, who seemed half inclined to join them, ‘Well; if I did anything of
that sort, I would be led by a Lancashire lad. They have got a foreigner
to lead them, a fellow out of Berkshire; an agitator--and only a
print-work after all. No; that will never do.’”
Notwithstanding these views, which Endymion found very generally
entertained by the new world in which he mixed, he resolved to take the
earliest opportunity of attending the meeting of the League, and it soon
arrived.
It was an evening meeting, so that workmen--or the operatives, as they
were styled in this part of the kingdom--should be able to attend. The
assembly took place in a large but temporary building; very well adapted
to the human voice, and able to contain even thousands. It was fairly
full to-night; and the platform, on which those who took a part in the
proceedings, or who, by their comparatively influential presence, it was
supposed, might assist the cause, was almost crowded.
“He is going to speak to-night,” said an operative to Endymion. “That is
why there is such an attendance.”
Remembering Mr. Wilton’s hint about not asking unnecessary questions
which often arrest information, Endymion did not inquire who “he” was;
and to promote communication merely observed, “A fine speaker, then, I
conclude?”
“Well, he is in a way,” said the operative. “He has not got
Hollaballoo’s voice, but he knows what he is talking about. I doubt
their getting what they are after; they have not the working classes
with them. If they went against truck, it would be something.”
The chairman opened the proceedings; but was coldly received, though he
spoke sensibly and at some length. He then introduced a gentleman, who
was absolutely an alderman, to move a resolution condemnatory of the
corn laws. The august position of the speaker atoned for his halting
rhetoric, and a city which had only just for the first time been
invested with municipal privileges was hushed before a man who might in
time even become a mayor.
Then the seconder advanced, and there was a general burst of applause.
“There he is,” said the operative to Endymion; “you see they like him.
Oh, Job knows how to do it!”
Endymion listened with interest, soon with delight, soon with a feeling
of exciting and not unpleasing perplexity, to the orator; for he was an
orator, though then unrecognised, and known only in his district. He was
a pale and slender man, with a fine brow and an eye that occasionally
flashed with the fire of a creative mind. His voice certainly was not
like Hollaballoo’s. It was rather thin, but singularly clear. There was
nothing clearer except his meaning. Endymion never heard a case stated
with such pellucid art; facts marshalled with such vivid simplicity,
and inferences so natural and spontaneous and irresistible, that they
seemed, as it were, borrowed from his audience, though none of that
audience had arrived at them before. The meeting was hushed, was rapt in
intellectual delight, for they did not give the speaker the enthusiasm
of their sympathy. That was not shared, perhaps, by the moiety of those
who listened to him. When his case was fairly before them, the speaker
dealt with his opponents--some in the press, some in parliament--with
much power of sarcasm, but this power was evidently rather repressed
than allowed to run riot. What impressed Endymion as the chief quality
of this remarkable speaker was his persuasiveness, and he had the air
of being too prudent to offend even an opponent unnecessarily. His
language, though natural and easy, was choice and refined. He was
evidently a man who had read, and not a little; and there was no taint
of vulgarity, scarcely a provincialism, in his pronunciation.
He spoke for rather more than an hour; and frequently during this time,
Endymion, notwithstanding his keen interest in what was taking place,
was troubled, it might be disturbed, by pictures and memories of
the past that he endeavoured in vain to drive away. When the orator
concluded, amid cheering much louder than that which had first greeted
him, Endymion, in a rather agitated voice, whispered to his neighbour,
“Tell me--is his name Thornberry?”
“That is your time of day,” said the operative. “Job Thornberry is his
name, and I am on his works.”
“And yet you do not agree with him?”
“Well; I go as far as he goes, but he does not go so far as I go; that’s
it.”
“I do not see how a man can go much farther,” said Endymion. “Where are
his works? I knew your master when he was in the south of England, and I
should like to call on him.”
“My employer,” said the operative. “They call themselves masters, but we
do not. I will tell you. His works are a mile out of town; but it seems
only a step, for there are houses all the way. Job Thornberry & Co.’s
Print-works, Pendleton Road--any one can guide you--and when you get
there, you can ask for me, if you like. I am his overlooker, and my name
is ENOCH CRAGGS.”