“There are no little events with the Heart.”
“The more we judge, the less we Love.”
“Kindred is kindred, and Love is Love.”
“The look that leaves no doubt, that the last
Glimmer of the light of Love has gone out.”
WHEN Dick left his father he hardly knew what to do with himself.
He was not prepared to speak to his mother, nor did he think it quite
honorable to do so, until he had informed his father of Mr. Foster’s
change of heart, with regard to Faith and himself. His father had been
his first confidant, and in this first confidence, there had been an
implied promise, that his engagement to Faith was not yet to be made
public.
“Dick!” the squire had said: “Thou must for a little while do as most
men hev to do; that is, keep thy happiness to thysen till there comes
a wiser hour to talk about it. People scarcely sleep, or eat, the whole
country is full of trouble and fearfulness; and mother and Jane are
worried about Katherine and her sweethearts. She hes a new one, a varry
likely man, indeed, the nephew of an earl and a member of a very rich
banking firm. And Kitty is awkward and disobedient, and won’t notice
him.”
“I think Kitty ought to have her own way, father. She has set her heart
on Harry Bradley and no one can say a word against Harry.”
“Perhaps not, from thy point of view. Dick, it is a bit hard on a father
and mother, when their children, tenderly loved and cared for, turn
their backs on such love and go and choose love for themsens, even out
of the house of their father’s enemies. I feel it badly, Dick. I do
that!” And the squire looked so hopeless and sorrowful, Dick could not
bear it. He threw his arm across his father’s shoulder, and their hands
met, and a few words were softly said, that brought back the ever ready
smile to the squire’s face.
“It is only thy mother,” continued the squire, “that I am anxious about.
Kitty and Harry are in the same box as thysen; they will mebbe help thee
to talk thy love hunger away. But I wouldn’t say a word to thy aunt.
However she takes it she will be apt to overdo hersen. It is only
waiting till the Bill is passed and that will soon happen. Then we shall
go home, and mother will be too busy getting her home in order, to make
as big a worry of Faith, as she would do here, where Jane and thy aunt
would do all they could to make the trouble bigger.”
Then Dick went to look for Harry. He could not find him. A clerk at the
Club told him he “believed Mr. Bradley had gone to Downham Market in
Norfolk,” and Dick fretfully wondered what had taken Harry to Norfolk?
And to Downham Market, of all the dull, little towns in that country.
Finally, he concluded to go and see Kitty. “She is a wise little soul,”
he thought, “and she may have added up mother by this time.” So he went
to Lady Leyland’s house and found Kitty and Harry Bradley taking lunch
together.
“Mother and Jane are out with Aunt Josepha,” she said, “and Harry has
just got back from Norfolk. I was sitting down to my lonely lunch when
he came in, so he joined me. It is not much of a lunch. Jane asked me
if a mutton patty-pie, and some sweet stuff would do, and I told her she
could leave out the mutton pie, if she liked, but she said, ‘Nonsense!
someone might come in, who could not live on love and sugar.’ So the
pies luckily came up, piping hot, for Harry. Some good little household
angel always arranges things, if we trust to them.”
“What took you to Norfolk, Harry? Bird game on the Fens, I suppose?”
“Business, only, took me there. We heard of a man who had some Jacquard
looms to sell. I went to see them.”
“I missed you very much. I am in a lot of trouble. Faith and I are
engaged, you know.”
“No! I did not know that things had got that far.”
“Yes, they have, and Mr. Foster behaved to us very unkindly at first,
but he has seen his fault, and repented. And father was more set and
obdurate than I thought he could be, under any circumstances; and I
wanted your advice, Harry, and could not find you anywhere.”
“Was it about Faith you wanted me?”
“Of course, I wanted to know what you would do if in my circumstances.”
“Why, Dick, Kitty and I are in a similar case and we have done nothing
at all. We are just waiting, until Destiny does for us what we should
only do badly, if we tried to move in the matter before the proper time.
I should personally think this particular time would not be a fortunate
hour for seeking recognition for a marriage regarded as undesirable on
either, or both sides. I am sorry you troubled your father just at this
time, for I fear he has already a great trouble to face.”
“My father a great trouble to face! What do you mean, Harry? Have you
heard anything? Is mother all right? Kitty, what is it?”
“I had heard of nothing wrong when mother and Jane went out to-day.
Harry is not ten minutes in the house. We had hardly finished saying
good afternoon to each other.”
“I did not intend to say anything to Kitty, as I judged it to be a
trouble the squire must bear alone.”
“Oh, no! The squire’s wife and children will bear it with him. Speak
out, Harry. Whatever the trouble is, it cannot be beyond our bearing and
curing.”
“Well, you see, Dick, the new scheme of boroughs decided on by the
Reform Bill will deprive the squire of his seat in Parliament, as
Annis borough has been united with Bradley borough, which also takes
in Thaxton village. Now if the Bill passes, there will be a general
election, and there is a decided move, in that case, to elect my father
as representative for the united seats.”
“That is nothing to worry about,” answered Dick with a nonchalant tone
and manner. “My dad has represented them for thirty years. I believe
grandfather sat for them, even longer. I dare be bound dad will be glad
to give his seat to anybody that hes the time to bother with it; it is
nothing but trouble and expense.”
“Is that so? I thought it represented both honor and profit,” said
Harry.
“Oh, it may do! I do not think father cares a button about what honor
and profit it possesses. However, I am going to look after father now,
and, Kitty, if the circumstances should in the least be a trouble to
father, I shall expect you to stand loyally by your father and the
family.” With these words he went away, without further courtesies,
unless a proud upward toss of his handsome head could be construed into
a parting salute.
A few moments of intense silence followed. Katherine’s cheeks were
flushed and her eyes cast down. Harry looked anxiously at her. He
expected some word, either of self-dependence, or of loyalty to
her pledge of a supreme love for himself; but she made neither, and
was--Harry considered--altogether unsatisfactory. At this moment he
expected words of loving constancy, or at least some assurance of the
stability of her affection. On the contrary, her silence and her cold
manner, gave him a heart shock. “Kitty! My darling Kitty! did you hear,
did you understand, what Dick said, what he meant?”
“Yes, I both heard and understood.”
“Well then, what was it?”
“He meant, that if my father was hurt, or offended by his removal from
his seat in The House, he would make father’s quarrel his own and expect
me to do the same.”
“But you would not do such a thing as that?”
“I do not see how I could help it. I love my father. It is beyond words
to say how dear he is to me. It would be an impossibility for me to
avoid sympathizing with him. Mother and Dick would do the same. Aunt
Josepha and even Jane and Ley-land, would make father’s wrong their
own; and you must know how Yorkshire families stand together even if the
member of it in trouble is unworthy of the least consideration. Remember
the Traffords! They were all made poor by Jack, and Jack’s wife, but
they would not listen to a word against them. That is _our_ way, you
know it. To every Yorkshire man and woman Kindred is Kin, and Love is
Love.”
“But they put love before kindred.”
“Perhaps they do, and perhaps they do not. I have never seen anyone put
strangers before kindred. I would despise anyone who did such a thing.
Yes, indeed, I would!”
“Your father knows how devotedly we love each other, even from our
childhood.”
“Well, then, he has always treated our love as a very childish affair.
He looks upon me yet, as far too young to even think of marrying. He has
been expecting me during this season in London, to meet someone or
other by whom I could judge whether my love for you was not a childish
imagination. You have known this, Harry, all the time we have been
sweethearts. When I was nine, and you were twelve, both father and
mother used to laugh at our childish love-making.”
“I wonder if I understand you, Kitty! Are you beginning to break your
promise to me?”
“If I wished to break my promise to you, I should not do so in any
underhand kind of way. Half-a-dozen clear, strong words would do. I
should not understand any other way.”
“I am very miserable. Your look and your attitude frighten me.”
“Harry, I never before saw you act so imprudently and unkindly. No one
likes the bringer of ill news. I was expecting a happy hour with you and
Dick; and you scarcely allowed Dick to bid me a good afternoon, until
you out with your bad news--and there was a real tone of triumph in your
voice. I’m sure I don’t wonder that Dick felt angry and astonished.”
“Really, Kitty, I thought it the best opportunity possible to tell you
about the proposed new borough. I felt sure, both you and Dick would
remember my uncertain, and uncomfortable position, and give me your
assurance of my claim. It is a very hard position for me to be in, and I
am in no way responsible for it.”
“I do not think your position is any harder than mine and I am as
innocent--perhaps a great deal more innocent--of aiding on the situation
as you can be.”
“Do you intend to give me up if your father and Dick tell you to do so?”
“That is not the question. I say distinctly, that I consider your hurry
to tells the news of your father’s possible substitution in the squire’s
parliamentary seat, was impolite and unnecessary just yet, and that your
voice and manner were in some unhappy way offensive. I felt them to be
so, and I do not take offense without reason.”
“Let me explain.”
“No. I do not wish to hear any more on the subject at present. And
I will remind you that the supplanting of Squire Annis is as yet
problematic. Was there any necessity for you to rush news which
is dependent on the passing of a Bill, that has been loitering in
parliament for forty years, and before a general election was certain?
It was this hurry and your uncontrollable air of satisfaction, which
angered Dick--and myself:”--and with these words, said with a great deal
of quiet dignity, she bid Harry “good afternoon” and left the room.
And Harry was dumb with sorrow and amazement. He made no effort to
detain her, and when she reached the next floor, she heard the clash
of the main door follow his hurrying footsteps. “It is all over! All
over!!” she said and then tried to comfort herself, with a hearty fit of
crying.
Harry went to his club and thought the circumstance over, but he hastily
followed a suggestion, which was actually the most foolish move he
could have made--he resolved to go and tell Madam Temple the whole
circumstance. He believed that she had a real liking for him and would
be glad to put his side of the trouble in its proper light. She had
always sympathized with his love for Katherine and he believed that she
would see nothing wrong in his gossip about the squire’s position. So he
went to Madam at once and found her in her office with her confidential
lawyer.
“Well, then?” she asked, in her most authoritative manner, “what brings
thee here, in the middle of the day’s business? Hes thou no business in
hand? No sweetheart to see? No book or paper to read?”
“I came to you, Madam, for advice; but I see that you are too busy to
care for my perplexities.”
“Go into the small parlor and I will come to thee in ten minutes.”
Her voice and manner admitted of no dispute, and Harry--inwardly chafing
at his own obedience--went to the small parlor and waited. As yet he
could not see any reason for Dick’s and Katherine’s unkind treatment of
him. He felt sure Madam Temple would espouse his side of the question,
and also persuade Katherine that Dick had been unjustly offended. But
his spirits fell the moment she entered the room. The atmosphere
of money and the market-place was still around her and she asked
sharply--“Whativer is the matter with thee, Harry Bradley? Tell me
quickly. I am more than busy to-day, and I hev no time for nonsense.”
“It is more than nonsense, Madam, or I would not trouble you. I only
want a little of your good sense to help me out of a mess I have got
into with----”
“With Katherine, I suppose?”
“With Dick also.”
“To be sure. If you offended one, you would naturally offend the other.
Make as few words as thou can of the affair.” This order dashed Harry at
the beginning of the interview, and Madam’s impassive and finally
angry face gave him no help in detailing his grievance. Throughout his
complaint she made no remark, no excuse, neither did she offer a word
of sympathy. Finally he could no longer continue his tale of wrong, its
monotony grew intolerable, even to himself, and he said passionately--
“I see that you have neither sympathy nor counsel to give me, Madam. I
am sorry I troubled you.”
“Ay, thou ought to be ashamed as well as sorry. Thou that reckons to
know so much and yet cannot see that tha hes been guilty of an almost
unpardonable family crime. Thou hed no right to say a word that would
offend anyone in the Annis family. The report might be right, or it
might be wrong, I know not which; but it was all wrong for thee to clap
thy tongue on it. The squire has said nothing to me about thy father
taking his place in the House of Commons, and I wouldn’t listen to
anyone else, not even thysen. I think the young squire and Katherine
treated thee a deal better than thou deserved. After a bit of behavior
like thine, it wasn’t likely they would eat another mouthful with thee.”
“The truth, Madam, is----”
“Even if it hed been ten times the truth, it should hev been a lie to
thee. Thou ought to hev felled it, even on the lips speaking it. I think
nothing of love and friendship that won’t threep for a friend, right or
wrong, for or against, true or untrue. I am varry much disappointed in
thee, Mr. Harry Bradley, and the sooner thou leaves me, the better I’ll
be pleased.”
“Oh, Madam, you utterly confound me.”
“Thou ought to be confounded and I would be a deal harder on thee if I
did not remember that thou hes no family behind thee whose honor----”
“Madam, I have my father behind me, and a nobler man does not exist. He
is any man’s peer. I know no other man fit to liken him to.”
“That’s right. Stand by thy father. And remember that the Annis family
hes to stand up for a few centuries of Annis fathers. Go to thy father
and bide with him. His advice will suit thee better than mine.”
“I think Dick might have understood me.”
“Dick understood thee well enough. Dick was heart hurt by thy evident
pleasure with the news that was like a hot coal in thy mouth. It pleased
thee so well thou couldn’t keep it for a fitting hour. Not thou! Thy
vanity will make a heart ache for my niece, no doubt she will be worried
beyond all by thy behavior, but I’ll warrant she will not go outside her
own kith and kin for advice or comfort.”
“Madam, forgive my ignorance. I ask you that much.”
“Well, that is a different thing. I can forgive thee, where I couldn’t
help thee--not for my life. But thou ought to suffer for such a bit of
falsity, and I hope thou wilt suffer. I do that! Now I can’t stay
with thee any longer, but I do wish thou hed proved thysen more
right-hearted, and less set up with a probability. In plain truth,
that is so. And I’ll tell the one sure thing--if thou hopes to live
in Yorkshire, stand by Yorkshire ways, and be leal and loyal to thy
friends, rich or poor.”
“I hope, Madam, to be leal and loyal to all men.”
“That is just a bit of general overdoing. It was a sharp wisdom in
Jesus Christ, when he told us not to love all humanity, but to love our
neighbor. He knew that was about all we could manage. It is above what I
can manage this afternoon, so I’ll take my leave of thee.”
Harry left the house almost stupefied by the storm of anger his vanity
and his pride in his father’s probable honor, had caused him. But when
he reached his room in The Yorkshire Club and had closed the door on
all outside influences, a clear revelation came to him, and he audibly
expressed it as he walked angrily about the floor:--
“I hate that pompous old squire! He never really liked me--thought I was
not good enough for his daughter--and I’ll be glad if he hes to sit a
bit lower--and I’m right glad father is going a bit higher. Father is
full fit for it. So he is! but oh, Katherine! Oh, Kitty! Kitty! What
shall I do without you?”
In the meantime, Dick had decided that he would say nothing about the
squire’s probable rival for the new borough, until the speech to be made
that evening had been delivered. It might cause him to say something
premature and unadvised. When he came to this conclusion he was suddenly
aware that he had left his lunch almost untouched on his sister’s table,
and that he was naturally hungry.
“No wonder I feel out of sorts!” he thought. “I will go to The Yorkshire
and have a decent lunch. Kitty might have known better than offer me
anything out of a patty-pan. I’ll go and get some proper eating and then
I’ll maybe have some sensible thinking.”
He put this purpose into action at once by going to The Yorkshire Club
and ordering a beefsteak with fresh shalots, a glass of port wine, and
bread and cheese, and having eaten a satisfying meal, he went to his
room and wrote a long letter to Faith, illustrating it with his own
suspicions and reflections. This letter he felt to be a very clever
move. He told himself that Faith would relate the story to her father
and that Mr. Foster would say and do the proper thing much more wisely
and effectively than anyone else could.
He did not know the exact hour at which his father was to meet some of
the weavers and workers of Annis locality, but he thought if he reached
the rendezvous about nine o’clock he would be in time to hear any
discussion there might be, and walk to the Clarendon with his father
after it. This surmise proved correct, for as he reached the designated
place, he saw the crowd, and heard his father speaking to it. Another
voice appeared to be interrupting him.
Dick listened a moment, and then ejaculated, “Yes! Yes! That is father
sure enough! He is bound to have a threep with somebody.” Then he walked
quicker, and soon came in sight of the crowd of men surrounding the
speaker, who stood well above them, on the highest step of a granite
stairway leading into a large building.
Now Dick knew well that his father was a very handsome man, but he
thought he had never before noticed it so clearly, for at this hour
Antony Annis was something more than a handsome man--he was an inspired
orator. His large, beautiful countenance was beaming and glowing with
life and intellect; but it was also firm as steel, for he had a clear
purpose before him, and he looked like a drawn sword. The faces of
the crowd were lifted to him--roughly-sketched, powerful faces, with
well-lifted foreheads, and thick brown hair, crowned in nearly every
case with labor’s square, uncompromising, upright paper cap.
The squire had turned a little to the right, and was addressing an Annis
weaver called Jonas Shuttleworth. “Jonas Shuttleworth!” he cried, “does
tha know what thou art saying? How dare tha talk in this nineteenth
century of Englishmen fighting Englishmen? They can only do that thing
at the instigation of the devil. _Why-a!_ thou might as well talk of
fighting thy father and mother! As for going back to old ways, and old
times, none of us can do it, and if we could do it, we should be far
from suited with the result. You hev all of you now seen the power loom
at work; would you really like the old cumbrous hand-loom in your homes
again? You know well you wouldn’t stand it. A time is close at hand when
we shall all of us hev to cut loose from our base. I know that. I shall
hev to do it. You will hev to do it. Ivery man that hes any _forthput_
in him will hev to do it. Those who won’t do it must be left behind,
sticking in the mud made by the general stir up.”
“That would be hard lines, squire.”
“Not if you all take it like ‘Mr. Content’ at your new loom. For I
tell you the even down truth, when I say--You, and your ways, and your
likings, will all hev to be _born over again!_ Most of you here are
Methodists and you know what that means. The things you like best you’ll
hev to give them up and learn to be glad and to fashion yoursens to
ways and works, which just now you put under your feet and out of your
consideration.”
“Your straight meaning, squire? We want to understand thee.”
“Well and good! I mean this--You hev allays been ‘slow and sure’; in the
new times just here, you’ll hev to be ‘up and doing,’ for you will find
it a big hurry-push to keep step with your new work-fellows, steam and
machinery.”
“That is more than a man can do, squire.”
“No, it is not! A man can do anything he thinks it worth his while to
do.”
“The _London Times_, sir, said yesterday that it would take all of
another generation.”
“It will do nothing of the kind, Sam Yates. What-iver has thou to do
with the newspapers? Newspapers! Don’t thee mind them! Their advice is
meant to be read, not taken.”
“Labor, squire, hes its rights----”
“To be sure, labor also hes its duties. It isn’t much we hear about the
latter.”
“Rights and duties, squire. The Reform Bill happens to be both. When is
The Bill to be settled?”
“Nothing is settled, Sam, until it is settled right.”
“Lord Brougham, in a speech at Manchester, told us he would see it
settled this session.”
“Lord Brougham thinks in impossibilities. He would make a contract with
Parliament to govern England, or even Ireland. Let me tell thee all
government is a thing of necessity, not of choice. England will not for
any Bill dig under her foundations. Like Time, she destroys even great
wrongs slowly. Her improvements hev to grow and sometimes they take a
good while about it. You hev been crying for this Bill for forty
years, you were not ready for it then. Few of you at that time hed any
education. Now, many of your men can read and a lesser number write.
Such men as Grey, Russell, Brougham and others hev led and taught you,
and there’s no denying that you hev been varry apt scholars. Take your
improvements easily, Sam. You won’t make any real progress by going over
precipices.”
“Well, sir, we at least hev truth on our side.”
“Truth can only be on one side, Sam, I’m well pleased if you hev it.”
“All right, squire, but I can tell you this--if Parliament doesn’t help
us varry soon now we will help oursens.”
“That is what you ought to be doing right now. Get agate, men! Go to
your new loom, and make yersens masters of it. I will promise you in
that case, that your new life will be, on the whole, better than the old
one. As for going back to the old life, you can’t do it. Not for your
immortal souls! Time never runs back to fetch any age of gold; and as
for making a living in the old way and with the old hand loom, you may
as well sow corn in the sea, and hope to reap it.”
“Squire, I want to get out of a country where its rulers can stop
minding its desperate poverty, and can forget that it is on the edge of
rebellion, and in the grip of some death they call cholera, and go home
for their Easter holiday, quite satisfied with themsens. We want another
Oliver Cromwell.”
“No, we don’t either. The world won’t be ready for another Cromwell, not
for a thousand years maybe. Such men are only born at the rate of one in
a millennium.”
“What’s a millennium, squire?”
“A thousand years, lad.”
“There wer’ men of the right kind in Cromwell’s day to stand by him.”
“Our fathers were neither better nor worse than oursens, Sam, just about
thy measure, and my measure.”
“I doan’t know, sir. They fought King and Parliament, and got all they
wanted. Then they went over seas and founded a big republic, and all hes
gone well with them--and we could do the same.”
“Well, then, you hev been doing something like the same thing iver since
Cromwell lived. Your people are busy at the same trade now. The English
army is made up of working men. They are usually thrown in ivery part of
the world, taking a sea port, or a state, or a few fertile islands that
are lying loose and uncivilized in the southern seas. They do this for
the glory and profit of England and in such ways they hev made pagans
live like Christians, and taught people to obey the just laws of
England, that hed niver before obeyed a decent law of any kind.”
“They don’t get for their work what Cromwell’s men got.”
“They don’t deserve it. Your mark can’t touch Cromwell’s mark; it was
far above your reach. Your object is mainly a selfish one. You want
more money, more power, and you want to do less work than you iver
did. Cromwell’s men wanted one thing first and chiefly--the liberty to
worship God according to their conscience. They got what they wanted for
their day and generation, and before they settled in America, they made
a broad path ready for John Wesley. Yes, indeed, Oliver Cromwell made
John Wesley possible. Now, when you go to the wonderful new loom that
hes been invented for you, and work it cheerfully, you’ll get your Bill,
and all other things reasonable that you want.”
“The Parliament men are so everlastingly slow, squire,” said an old man
sitting almost at the squire’s feet.
“That is God’s truth, friend. They _are_ slow. It is the English way.
You are slow yoursens. So be patient and keep busy learning your
trade in a newer and cleverer way. I am going to bide in London till
Parliament says, _Yes or No_. Afterwards I’ll go back to Annis, and
learn a new life.” Then some man on the edge of the crowd put up his
hand, and the squire asked:
“Whose cap is speaking now?”
“Israel Kinsman’s, sir. Thou knaws me, squire.”
“To be sure I do. What does tha want to say? And when did tha get home
from America?”
“A matter of a year ago. I hev left the army and gone back to my loom.
Now I want to ask thee, if thou are against men when they are oppressed
fighting for their rights and their freedom?”
“Not I! Men, even under divine guidance, hev taken that sharp road many
times. The God who made iron knew men would make swords of it--just as
He also knew they would make plowshares. Making war is sometimes the
only way to make peace. If the cause is a just one the Lord calls
himself the God of battles. He knows, and we know, that
“Peace is no peace, if it lets the ill grow stronger,
Only cheating destiny a very little longer;
War with its agonies, its horrors, and its crimes,
Is cheaper if discounted, and taken up betimes.
Foolish, indeed, are many other teachers;
Cannons are God’s preachers, when the time is ripe for
war.
“Now, men, there is no use in discussing a situation not likely to
trouble England in this nineteenth century. I believe the world is
growing better constantly, and that eventually all men will do, or cause
to be done, whatever is square, straight and upright, as the caps on
your heads. I believe it, because the good men will soon be so immensely
in excess that bad men will _hev_ to do right, and until that day comes,
we will go on fighting for freedom in ivery good shape it can come;
knowing surely and certainly, that
“Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is always won.
“That is a truth, men, you may all of you cap to,” and as the squire
lifted his riding cap high above his head, more than two hundred paper
caps followed it, accompanied by a long, joyful shout for the good time
promised, and certainly coming.
“Now, men,” said the squire, “let us see what ‘cap money’ we can collect
for those who are poor and helpless. Israel Naylor and John Moorby will
collect it. It will go for the spreading of the children’s table in
Leeds and Israel will see it gets safely there.”
“We’ll hev thy cap, squire,” said Israel. “The man who proposes a cap
collection salts his awn cap with his awn money first.” And the squire
laughed good-humoredly, lifted his cap, and in their sight dropped five
gold sovereigns into it. Then Dick offered his hat to his father, saying
he had his opera hat in his pocket and the two happy men went away
together, just as some musical genius had fitted Byron’s three lines to
a Methodist long-metre, so they were followed by little groups straying
off in different directions, and all singing,
“For Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is always won!
Is always won! Is always won!”
Dick did not enter the Clarendon with his father. He knew that he might
be a little superfluous. The squire had a certain childlike egotism
which delighted in praising himself, and in telling his own story; and
Annie was audience sufficient. If she approved, there was no more to be
desired, the third person was often in the way. In addition to this wish
to give the squire the full measure of his success, Dick was longing
passionately to be with his love and his hopes. The squire would not
speak of Faith, and Dick wanted to talk about her. Her name beat upon
his lips, and oh, how he longed to see her! To draw her to his side, to
touch her hair, her eyes, her lips! He told himself that the promise of
silence until the Bill was passed, or thrown out was a great wrong,
that he never ought to have made it, that his father never ought to have
asked for it. He wondered how he was to get the time over; the gayeties
of London had disappeared, the Leylands thought it prudent to live
quietly, his mother and Katherine were tired of the city, and longed
to be at home; and Harry, whose sympathy he had always relied on, was
somewhere in Norfolk, and had not even taken the trouble to write and
tell him the reason for his visit, to such a tame, bucolic county.
Yet with the hope of frequent letters, and his own cheerful optimistic
temper, he managed to reach the thirtieth of May. On that morning he
took breakfast with his parents, and the squire said in a positive voice
that he was “sure the Bill would pass the House of Lords before May
became June; and if you remember the events since the seventh of April,
Dick, you will also be sure.”
“But I do not remember much about public affairs during that time,
father. I was in Annis, and here and there, and in every place it was
confusion and anger and threats. I really do not remember them.”
“Then thou ought to, and thou may as well sit still, and let me tell
thee some things thou should niver forget.” But as the squire’s method
was discursive, and often interrupted by questions and asides from
Mistress Annis and Dick, facts so necessary may be told without such
delay, and also they will be more easily remembered by the reader.
Keeping in mind then that Parliament adjourned at seven o’clock in the
morning, on April fourteenth until the seventh of May, it is first to
be noted that during this three weeks’ vacation there was an incessant
agitation, far more formidable than fire, rioting, and the destruction
of property. Petitions from every populous place to King William
entreated him to create a sufficient number of peers to pass the Bill
_in spite of the old peers_. The Press, nearly a unit, urged as the most
vital and necessary thing the immediate passage of the Bill, predicting
a United Rebellion of England, Scotland and Ireland, if longer delayed.
On the seventh of May, the day Parliament reassembled, there was the
largest public meeting that had ever been held in Great Britain, and
with heads uncovered, and faces lifted to heaven, the crowd took the
following oath:--
“_With unbroken faith through every peril and privation, we here devote
ourselves and our children to our country’s cause!_”
This great public meeting included all the large political unions, and
its solemn enthusiasm was remarkable for the same fervor and zeal of
the old Puritan councils. Its solemn oath was taken while Parliament
was reassembling in its two Houses. On that afternoon the House of Lords
took up first the disfranchising of the boroughs, and a week of
such intense excitement followed, as England had not seen since the
Revolution of 1688.
On the eighth of May, Parliament asked the King to sanction a large
creation of new peers. The king angrily refused his assent. The
ministers then tendered their resignation. It was accepted. On the
evening of the ninth, their resignation was announced to the Lords and
Commons. On the eleventh Lord Ebrington moved that “the House should
express to the King their deep distress at a change of ministers, and
entreat him only to call to his councils such persons as would carry
through _The Bill_ with all its demands unchanged and unimpaired.”
This motion was carried, and then for one week the nation was left to
its conjectures, to its fears, and to its anger at the attitude of the
government. Indeed for this period England was without a government. The
Cabinet had resigned, leaving not a single officer who would join the
cabinet which the king had asked the Duke of Wellington to form. In
every city and town there were great meetings that sent petitions to the
House of Commons, praying that it would grant no supplies of any kind to
the government until the Bill was passed without change or mutilation.
A petition was signed in Manchester by twenty-three thousand persons in
three hours, and the deputy who brought it informed the Commons that
the whole north of England was in a state of indignation impossible to
describe. Asked if the people would fight, he answered, “They will first
of all demand that Parliament stop all government supplies--the tax
gatherer will not be able to collect a penny. All civil tribunals will
be defied, public credit shaken, property insecure, the whole frame of
society will hasten to dissolution, and great numbers of our wealthiest
families will transfer their homes to America.”
Lord Wellington utterly failed in all his attempts to form a ministry,
Sir Robert Peel refused to make an effort to do so, and on the fifteenth
of May it was announced in both Houses, that “the ministers had resumed
their communication with his majesty.” On the eighteenth Lord Grey
said in the House of Lords that “he expected to carry the Reform Bill
unimpaired and immediately.” Yet on the day before this statement,
Brougham and Grey had an interview with the King, in which his majesty
exhibited both rudeness and ill-temper. He kept the two peers standing
during the whole interview, a discourtesy contrary to usage. Both Grey
and Brougham told the King that they would not return to office unless
he promised to create the necessary number of peers to insure the
passage of the Reform Bill just as it stood; and the King consented so
reluctantly that Brougham asked for his permission in writing.
The discussion of these facts occupied the whole morning and after an
early lunch the squire prepared to go to The House; then Dick noticed
that even after he was hatted and coated for his visit, he kept delaying
about very trivial things. So he resolved to carry out his part of their
secret arrangement, and remove himself from all temptation to tell his
mother he was going to marry Faith Foster. His father understood the
lad so like himself, and Dick knew what his father feared. So he bid
his mother good-by, and accompanied his father to the street. There the
latter said plainly, “Thou did wisely, Dick. If I hed left thee alone
with thy mother, thou would hev told her all that thou knew, and
thought, and believed, and hoped, and expected from Faith. Thou couldn’t
hev helped it--and I wouldn’t hev blamed thee.”