“Beneath this starry arch,
Naught resteth, or is still;
And all things have their march,
As if by one great will.
Move on! Move all!
Hark to the footfall!
On, on! forever!”
THE next morning Katherine came to her mother full of enthusiasm. She
had some letters in her hand and she said: “I have written these letters
all alike, mother, and they are ready to send away, if you will give me
the names of the ladies you wish them to go to.”
“How many letters hast thou written?”
“Seven. I can write as many as you wish.”
“Thou hes written too many already.”
“Too many!”
“Yes, tha must not forget, that this famine and distress is over all
Yorkshire--over all England. Every town and village hes its awn sick and
starving, and hes all it can do to look after them. Thy father told me
last night he hed been giving to all the villages round us for a year
back but until Mr. Foster told him yesterday he hed no idea that there
was any serious trouble in Annis. Tha knows, dearie, that Yorkshire and
Lancashire folk won’t beg. No, not if they die for want of begging. The
preacher found out their need first and he told father at once. Then
Jonathan Hartley admitted they were all suffering and that something
must be done to help. That is the reason for the meeting this
afternoon.”
“Oh, dear me!”
“Jonathan hes been preparing for it for a week but he did not tell
father until yesterday. I will give thee the names of four ladies
that may assist in the way of sending food--there is Mrs. Benson, the
doctor’s wife--her husband is giving his time to the sick and if she
hedn’t a bit of money of her awn, Benson’s family would be badly off, I
fear. She may hev the heart to _do_ as well as to pinch and suffer, but
if she hesn’t, we can’t find her to blame. Send her an invitation.
Send another to Mistress Craven. Colonel Craven is with his regiment
somewhere, but she is wealthy, and for anything I know, good-hearted.
Give her an opportunity. Lady Brierley can be counted on in some way
or other and perhaps Mrs. Courtney. I can think of no others because
everyone is likely to be looking for assistance just as we are. What day
hev you named for the meeting?”
“Monday. Is that too soon?”
“About a week too soon. None of these ladies will treat the invitation
as a desirable one. They doubtless hev many engagements already
made. Say, next Saturday. It is not reasonable to expect them to drop
iverything else and hurry to Annis, to sew for the hungry and naked.”
“O mother! Little children! Who would not hurry to them with food and
clothing?”
“Hes thou been with Faith Foster to see any children hungry and naked?”
“No, mother; but I do not need to _see_ in order to _feel_. And I have
certainly noticed how few children are on the street lately.”
“Well, Katherine, girls of eighteen shouldn’t need to _see_ in order to
feel. Thank God for thy fresh young feelings and keep them fresh as long
as thou can. It will be a pity when thou begins to reason about them.
Send letters to Mrs. Benson, Mrs. Craven, Lady Brierley, and Mrs.
Courtney, and then we shall see what comes from them. After all, we are
mere mortals!”
“But you are friendly with all these four ladies?”
“Good friends to come and go upon. By rights they ought to stand by
Annis--but ‘ought’ stands for nothing.”
“Why _ought_, mother?”
“Thy father hes done ivery one o’ them a good turn of one kind or
the other but it isn’t his way to speak of the same. Now send off thy
letters and let things slide until we see what road they are going to
take. I’m afraid I’ll hev to put mysen about more than I like to in this
matter.”
“That goes without saying but you don’t mind it, do you, mother?”
“Well, your father took me on a sudden. I hedn’t time to think before I
spoke and when my heart gets busy, good-by to my head.”
“Mrs. Courtney has not been here for a long time.”
“She is a good deal away but I saw her in London last year every now and
then. She is a careless woman; she goes it blind about everything, and
yet she wants to be at the bottom of all county affairs.”
“Mother, could we not do a little shopping today?”
“At the fag end of the week? What are you talking about? Certainly not.
Besides, thy father is worried about the meeting this afternoon. He says
more may come of it than we can dream of.”
“How is that?”
“Why, Katherine, it might end in a factory here, or it might end in the
weavers heving to leave Annis and go elsewhere.”
“Cannot they get work of some other kind, in, or near by Annis?”
“Nay, tha surely knows, that a weaver hes to keep his fingers soft, and
his hands supple. Hard manual work would spoil his hands forever for
the loom, and our men are born weavers. They doan’t fashion to any other
work, and to be sure England hes to hev her weavers.”
“Mother, would it not be far better to have a factory? Lately, when I
have taken a walk with father he always goes to the wold and looks all
round considering just like a man who was wondering about a site for a
building. It would be a good thing for us, mother, would it not?”
“It seems so, but father does not want it. He says it will turn Annis
into a rough village, full of strangers, with bad ways, and also that it
will spoil the whole country-side with its smoke and dirt.”
“But if it makes money?”
“Money isn’t iverything.”
“The want of it is dreadful.”
“Thy father got a thousand pounds this morning. If he does not put most
of it into a factory, he will put it into bread, which will be eaten
to-day and wanted again to-morrow. That would make short work of a
thousand pounds.”
“Have you reminded father of that?”
“I doan’t need to. Father seems an easy-going man but he thinks of
iverything; and when he _hes_ to act no one strikes the iron quicker
and harder. If thou saw him in London, if thou heard him in the House,
brow-beating the Whigs and standing up for Peel and Wellington and
others, thou would wonder however thou dared to tease, and contradict,
and coax him in Annis. Thou would that! Now I am going to the lower
summer house for an hour. Send away thy letters, and let me alone a
bit.”
“I know. I saw father going down the garden. He is going to the summer
house also; he intends to tell you, mother, what he is going to say
to-night. He always reads, or recites his speeches to you. I have heard
him sometimes.”
“Then thou ought to be ashamed to speak of it! I am astonished at thy
want of honor! If by chance, thou found out some reserved way of thy
father it should have been held by thee as a sacred, inviolable secret.
Not even to me, should thou have dared to speak of it. I am sorry,
indeed, to hev to teach thee this point of childhood’s honor. I thought
it would be natural to the daughter of Antony and Annie Annis!”
“Mother! Forgive me! I am ashamed and sorry and oh, do not, for my sake,
tell father! My dear, dear father! You have made it look like mocking
him--I never thought how shameful it could look--oh, I never thought
about it! I never spoke of it before! I never did!”
“Well, then, see thou never again listens to what was not intended for
thee to hear. It would be a pretty state of things, if thy father hed
to go somewhere out of the way of listeners to get a bit of private talk
with me.”
“Mother, don’t be so cruel to me.”
“Was thou trying to compliment me or was thou scorning a bit about thy
father’s ways? If thou thought I would feel complimented by being set
above him that thought was as far wrong as it could possibly get.”
“Mother! Mother! You will break my heart! You never before spoke this
way to me--_Oh, dear! Oh, dear!_”
For a few minutes Madam let her weep, then she bent over the crouching,
sobbing girl, and said, “There now! There now!”
“I am so sorry! So sorry!”
“Well, dearie, sorrow is good for sin. It is the only thing sorrow is
good for. Dry thy eyes, and we will niver name the miserable subject
again.”
“Was it really a sin, mother?”
“Hes thou forgotten the fifth commandment? That little laugh at thy
father’s saying his speeches to me first was more than a bit scornful.
It was far enough from the commandment ‘Honor thy father and thy
mother.’ It wasn’t honoring either of us.”
“I can never forgive myself.”
“Nay! nay! Give me a kiss and go and look after thy letters; also tell
Yates dinner must be on the table at one o’clock no matter what his
watch says.” Then Katherine walked silently away and Madam went to the
lower summer house, and the dinner was on the table at one o’clock. It
was an exceedingly quiet meal, and immediately after it, the squire’s
horse was brought to the door.
“So thou art going to ride, Antony!” said Mistress Annis, and the squire
answered, “Ay, I hev a purpose in riding, Annie.”
“Thou art quite right,” was the reply, for she thought she divined his
purpose and the shadow of a smile passed between them. Then he looked at
his watch, mounted his horse and rode swiftly away. His wife watched him
out of sight and, as she turned into the house, she told herself with
a proud and happy smile, “He is the best and the handsomest man in the
West Riding, and the horse suits him! He rides to perfection! God bless
him!”
It was a point with the squire to be rigidly punctual. He was never
either too soon, or too late. He knew that one fault was as bad as the
other, though he considered the early mistake as the worst. It began
to strike two as he reached the door of the Methodist Chapel, and saw
Jonathan Hartley waiting there for him; and they walked at once to
a rude platform that had been prepared for the speakers. There were
several gentlemen standing there in a group, and the Chapel was crowded
with anxious hungry-looking men.
It was the first time that Squire Annis had ever stepped inside a
Methodist Chapel. The thought was like the crack of a whip in his
conscience but at that moment he would not listen to any claim or
reproof; for either through liking or disliking, he was sensitive at
once to Bradley’s tall, burly predominance; and could not have said,
whether it was pleasant or unpleasant to him. However, the moment he
appeared, there was loud handclapping, and cries of “Squire Annis!
Squire Annis! Put him in the chair! He’s our man!”
Then into the squire’s heart his good angel put a good thought, and he
walked to the front of the platform and said, “My men, and my friends,
I’ll do something better for you. I’ll put the Reverend Samuel Foster in
the chair. God’s servant stands above all others, and Mr. Foster knows
all about your poverty and affliction. I am a bit ashamed to say, I do
not.” This personal accusation was cut short by cries of “No! No! No!
Thou hes done a great deal,” and then a cheer, that had in it all the
Yorkshire spirit, though not its strength. The men were actually weak
with hunger.
Mr. Foster took the chair to which the squire led him without any
affectations of demur, and he was gladly welcomed. Indeed there were few
things that would have pleased the audience more. They were nearly all
Methodists, and their preacher alone had searched out their misery, and
helped them to bear it with patience and with hope. He now stretched out
his hands to them and said--“Friends, just give us four lines, and we
will go at once to business”; and in a sweet, ringing voice, he began
Newman’s exquisite hymn--
“Leave God to order all thy ways,
And hope in Him whate’er betide,
Thoul’t find Him in the evil days,
An all sufficient Strength and Guide.”
The words came fresh and wet with tears from every heart, and it was a
five minutes’ interlude of that complete surrender, which God loves and
accepts.
After a moment of intense silence, the preacher said, “We are met to-day
to try and find out if hand-loom weaving must go, or if both hand-loom
weaving and power-loom weaving have a chance for the weaver in them.
There are many hand-loom weavers here present. They know all its good
points and all points wherein it fails but they do not know either the
good or bad points of power-loom weaving, and Mr. John Thomas Bradley
has come to tell you something about this tremendous rival of your
household loom. I will now introduce Mr. John.” He got no further in
his introduction, for Bradley stepped forward, and with a buoyant
good-nature said, “No need, sir, of any fine mastering or mistering
between the Annis lads and mysen. We hev thrashed each ither at
football, and chated each ither in all kinds of swapping odds too often,
to hev forgotten what names were given us at our christening. There’s
Israel Swale, he hes a bigger mill than I hev now-a-days, but he’s owing
me three pence half-penny and eleven marbles, yet whenever I ask him for
my brass and my marbles he says--‘I’ll pay thee, John Thomas, when we
play our next game.’ Now listen, lads, next Whitsunday holidays I’ll
ask him to come and see me, and I’ll propose before a house full of
company--and all ready for a bit of fun--that we hev our game of marbles
in the bowling alley, and I’ll get Jonathan Hartley to give you all an
invitation to come and see fair play between us. Will you come?”
Noisy laughing acceptances followed and one big Guisely weaver said,
“He’d come too, and see that Israel played a straight game for once in
his life.”
“I’m obliged to thee, Guisely,” answered Bradley, “I hope thou’lt come.
Now then, lads, I hev to speak to you about business, and if you think
what I say is right, go and do what I say, do it boldly; and if you
aren’t sure, then let it alone:--till you are driven to it. I am told
that varry few of the men here present iver saw a power loom. And yet
you mostly think ill o’ it. That isn’t a bit Yorkshire. You treat a man
as you find him, you ought to do the same to a machine, that is almost
a man in intelligence--that is the most perfect bit of beauty and
contrivance that man iver made since man himsen was fitted wi’ fingers
and thumbs by the Great Machinist of heaven and earth.”
“What is it fashioned like, Bradley?”
“It is an exceedingly compact machine and takes up little room. It is
easily worked and it performs every weaving operation with neatness
and perfection. It makes one hundred and seventy picks a minute or six
pieces of goods in a week--you know it was full work and hard work to
make one piece a week with the home loom, even for a strong man. It is
made mostly of shining metal, and it is a perfect darling. _Why-a!_
the lads and lassies in Bradley mill call their looms after their
sweethearts, or husbands, or wives, and I wouldn’t wonder if they said
many a sweet or snappy word to the looms that would niver be ventured on
with the real Bessie or the real Joe.
“Think of your old cumbersome wooden looms, so hard and heavy and dreary
to work, that it wasn’t fit or right to put a woman down to one. Then go
and try a power loom, and when you hev done a day’s work on it, praise
God and be thankful! I tell you God saw the millions coming whom
Yorkshire and Lancashire would hev to clothe, and He gave His servant
the grave, gentle, middle-aged preacher Edmund Cartwright, the model of
a loom fit for God’s working men and women to use. I tell you men the
power loom is one of God’s latest Gospels. We are spelling yet, with
some difficulty, its first good news, but the whole world will yet thank
God for the power loom!”
Here the preacher on the platform said a fervent “Thank God!” But the
audience was not yet sure enough for what they were to thank God, and
the few echoes to the preacher’s invitation were strangely uncertain for
a Yorkshire congregation. A few of the Annis weavers compromised on a
solemn “Amen!” All, however, noticed that the squire remained silent,
and they were “not going”--as Lot Clarke said afterwards--“to push
themsens before t’ squire.”
Then Jonathan Hartley stepped into the interval, and addressing Bradley
said, “Tha calls this wonderful loom a power-loom. I’ll warrant the
power comes from a steam engine.”
“Thou art right, Jonathan. I wish tha could see the wonderful engine at
Dalby’s Mill in Pine Hollow. The marvelous creature stands in its big
stone stable like a huge image of Destiny. It is never still, but never
restless, nothing rough; calm and steady like the waves of the full sea
at Scarboro’. It is the nervous center, the life, I might say, of all
going on in that big building above it. It moves all the machinery, it
gives life to the devil, * and speeds every shuttle in every loom.”
* The devil, a machine containing a revolving cylinder armed
with knives or spikes for tearing, cutting, or opening raw
materials.
“It isn’t looms and engines we are worrying about, Bradley,” said a man
pallid and fretful with hunger. “It is flesh and blood, that can’t stand
hunger much longer. It’s our lile lads and lasses, and the babies at the
mother’s breast, where there isn’t a drop o’ milk for their thin, white
lips! O God! And you talk o’ looms and engines”--and the man sat down
with a sob, unable to say another word.
Squire Annis could hardly sit still, but the preacher looked at him and
he obeyed the silent wish, as in the meantime Jonathan Hartley had asked
Bradley a question, to partly answer the request made.
“If you want to know about the workers, all their rooms are large and
cheerful, with plenty of fresh air in them. The weaving rooms are as
light and airy as a bird cage. The looms are mostly managed by women,
from seventeen to thirty, wi’ a sprinkling o’ married men and women. A
solid trade principle governs t’ weaving room--so much work, for so much
money--but I hev girls of eighteen in my mill, who are fit and able
to thread the shuttles, and manage two looms, keeping up the pieces to
mark, without oversight or help.”
Here he was interrupted by a man with long hair parted in the middle
of the forehead, and dressed in a suit of fashionable cut, but cheap
tailoring. “I hev come to this meeting,” he cried out, “to ask your
parliamentary representative if he intends to vote for the Reform Bill,
and to urge the better education of the lower classes.”
“Who bid thee come to this meeting?” asked Jonathan Hartley. “Thou
has no business here. Not thou. And we weren’t born in Yorkshire to be
fooled by thee.”
“I was told by friends of the people, that your member would likely vote
against Reform.”
“Put him out! Put him out!” resounded from every quarter of the
building, and for the first time since the meeting opened, there was a
touch of enthusiasm. Then the squire stepped with great dignity to the
front of the platform.
“Young men,” he said with an air of reproof, “this is not a political
meeting. It is not even a public meeting. It is a gathering of friends
to consider how best to relieve the poverty and idleness for which our
weavers are not to blame--and we do not wish to be interrupted.”
“The blame is all wi’ you rich landowners,” he answered; “ivery one o’
you stand by a government that robs the poor man and protects the rich.
I am a representative of the Bradford Socialists.”
“Git out! Git out! Will tha? If tha doesn’t, I’ll fling thee out like
any other rubbish;” and as the man made no attempt to obey the
command given, Hartley took him by the shoulder, and in spite of his
protestations--received with general jeers and contempt--put him
outside the chapel.
Squire Annis heartily approved the word, act and manner of Hartley’s
little speech. The temperature of his blood rose to fighting heat,
and he wanted to shout with the men in the body of the chapel. Yet his
countenance was calm and placid, for Antony Annis was _Master at Home_,
and could instantly silence or subdue whatever his Inner Man prompted
that was improper or inconvenient.
He thought, however, that it was now a fit time-for him to withdraw, and
he was going to say the few words he had so well considered, when a very
old man rose, and leaning on his staff, called out, “Squire Annis, my
friend, I want thee to let me speak five minutes. It will varry likely
be t’ last time I’ll hev the chance to say a word to so many lads
altogether in this life.” And the squire smiled pleasantly as he
replied, “Speak, Matthew, we shall all be glad to listen to you.”
“Ill be ninety-five years old next month, Squire, and I hev been busy
wi’ spinning and weaving eighty-eight o’ them. I was winding bobbins
when I was seven years old, and I was carding, or combing, or working
among wool until I was twenty. Then I got married, and bought from t’
squire, on easy terms, my cottage and garden plot, and I kept a pig and
some chickens, and a hutch full o’ rabbits, which I fed on the waste
vegetables from my garden. I also had three or four bee skeps, that gave
us honey for our bread, with a few pounds over to sell; t’ squire allays
bought the overbit, and so I was well paid for a pretty bed of flowers
round about the house. I was early at my loom, but when I was tired I
went into my garden, and I smoked a pipe and talked to the bees, who
knew me well enough, ivery one o’ them. If it was raining, I went into
t’ kitchen, and smoked and hed a chat wi’ Polly about our awn concerns.
I hev had four handsome lassies, and four good, steady lads. Two o’
the lads went to America, to a place called Lowell, but they are now
well-to-do men, wi’ big families. My daughters live near me, and they
keep my cottage as bright as their mother kept it for over fifty years.
I worked more or less till I was ninety years old, and then Squire Annis
persuaded me to stop my loom, and just potter about among my bees and
flowers. Now then, lads, thousands hev done for years and years as much,
even more than I hev done and I hev never met but varry few Home-loom
weavers who were dissatisfied. They all o’ them made their awn hours and
if there was a good race anywhere near-by they shut off and went to it.
Then they did extra work the next day to put their ‘piece’ straight for
Saturday. If their ‘piece’ was right, the rest was nobody’s business.”
“Well, Matthew,” said the squire, “for many a year you seldom missed a
race.”
“Not if t’ horses were good, and well matched. I knew the names then of
a’ the racers that wer’ worth going to see. I love a fine horse yet. I
do that! And the Yorkshire roar when the victor came to mark! You could
hear it a mile away! O squire, I can hear it yet!
“Well, lads, I hev hed a happy, busy life, and I hev been a good
Methodist iver sin’ I was converted, when I was twelve years old. And I
bear testimony this day to the goodness and the faithfulness of God. He
hes niver broken a promise He made me. Niver one!
“Thousands of Home-loom spinners can live, and have lived, as I did and
they know all about t’ life. I know nothing about power-loom weaving.
I dare say a man can make good or bad o’ it, just as he feels inclined;
but I will say, it brings men down to a level God Almighty niver
intended. It is like this--when a man works in his awn home, and makes
his awn hours, all the world, if he be good and honest, calls him _A
Man_; when he works in a factory he’s nobbut ‘_one o’ the hands_.’”
At these words Matthew sat down amid a little subdued inexpressible
mixture of tense feeling and the squire said--“In three weeks or less,
men, I am going to London, and I give you my word, that I shall always
be found on the side of Reform and Free Trade. When I return you will
surely have made up your minds and formed some sort of decision; then I
will try and forward your plans to my last shilling.” With these words
he bowed to the gentlemen on the platform, and the audience before
him, and went rapidly away. His servant was at the Chapel door with his
horse; he sprang into the saddle, and before anyone could interrupt his
exit, he was beyond detention.
A great disturbance was in his soul. He could not define it. The
condition of his people, the changing character of his workers and
weavers, the very village seemed altered, and then the presence of
Bradley! He had found it impossible to satisfy both his offense with
the man and his still vital affection for him. He had often told himself
that “Bradley was dead and buried as far as he was concerned”; but
some affections are buried alive, and have a distressing habit of being
restless in their coffins. It was with the feeling of a fugitive flying
for a place of rest that he went home. But, oh, how refreshing was
his wife’s welcome! What comfort in her happy smile! What music in her
tender words! He leaped to the ground like a young man and, clasping her
hand, went gratefully with her to his own fireside.