“All will be well, though how or where
Or when it will we need not care.
We cannot see, and can’t declare:
‘Tis not in vain and not for nought,
The wind it blows, the ship it goes,
Though where, or whither, no one knows.”
IMMEDIATELY after this event preparations for Katherine’s marriage were
revived with eager haste and diligence, and the ceremony was celebrated
in Annis Parish Church. She went there on her father’s arm, and
surrounded by a great company of the rich and noble relatives of the
Annis and Selby families. It was a glorious summer day and the gardens
from the Hall to the end of the village were full of flowers. It seemed
as if all nature rejoiced with her, as if her good angel loved her so
that she had conniv’d with everything to give her love and pleasure.
There had been some anxiety about her dress, but it turned out to be a
marvel of exquisite beauty. It was, of course, a frock of the richest
white satin, but its tunic and train and veil were of marvelously fine
Spanish lace. There were orange blooms in her hair and myrtle in
her hands, and her sweetness, beauty and happiness made everyone
instinctively bless her.
Dick’s marriage to Faith Foster was much longer delayed; not because his
love had lost any of its sweetness and freshness, but because Faith had
taught him to cheerfully put himself in his father’s place. So without
any complaining, or any explanation, he remained at his father’s side.
Then the Conference of the Methodist Church removed Mr. Foster from
Annis to Bradford, and the imperative question was then whether Faith
would go with her father or remain in Annis as Dick’s wife. Dick was
never asked this question. The squire heard the news first and he went
directly to his son:--
“Dick, my good son, thou must now get ready to marry Faith, or else thou
might lose her. I met Mr. Foster ten minutes ago, and he told me that
the Methodist Conference had removed him from Annis to Bradford.”
“Whatever have they done that for? The people here asked him to remain,
and he wrote the Conference he wished to do so.”
“It is just their awful way of doing ‘according to rule,’ whether the
rule fits or not. But that is neither here nor there. Put on thy hat and
go and ask Faith how soon she can be ready to marry thee.”
“Gladly will I do that, father; but where are we to live? Faith would
not like to go to the Hall.”
“Don’t ask her to do such a thing. Sir John Pomfret wants to go to
southern France for two or three years to get rid of rheumatism, and his
place is for rent. It is a pretty place, and not a mile from the mill.
Now get married as quick as iver thou can, and take Faith for a month’s
holiday to London and Paris and before you get home again I will hev the
Pomfret place ready for you to occupy. It is handsomely furnished, and
Faith will delight her-sen in keeping it in fine order.”
“What will mother say to that?”
“Just what I say. Not a look or word different. She knows thou hes stood
faithful and helpful by hersen and by me. Thou hes earned all we can
both do for thee.”
These were grand words to carry to his love, and Dick went gladly to her
with them. A couple of hours later the squire called on Mr. Foster and
had a long and pleasant chat with him. He said he had gone at once to
see Sir John Pomfret and found him not only willing, but greatly pleased
to rent his house to Mr. Richard Annis and his bride. “I hev made a good
bargain,” he continued, “and if Dick and Faith like the place, I doan’t
see why they should not then buy it. Surely if they winter and summer a
house for three years, they ought to know whether it is worth its price
or not.”
In this conversation it seemed quite easy for the two men to arrange
a simple, quiet marriage to take place in a week or ten days, but when
Faith and Mrs. Annis were taken into the consultation, the simple, quiet
marriage became a rather difficult problem. Faith said that she would
not leave her father until she had packed her father’s books and seen
all their personal property comfortably arranged in the preacher’s house
in Bradford. Then some allusion was made to her wardrobe, and the men
remembered the wedding dress and other incidentals. Mistress Annis found
it hard to believe that the squire really expected such a wedding as he
and Mr. Foster actually planned.
“_Why-a, Antony!_” she said, “the dear girl must have a lot to do both
for her father and hersen. A marriage within two or three months is
quite impossible. Of course she must see Mr. Foster settled in his new
home and also find a proper person to look after his comfort. And after
that is done, she will have her wedding dress to order and doubtless
many other garments. And where will the wedding ceremony take place?”
“In Bradford, I suppose. Usually the bridegroom goes to his bride’s home
for her. I suppose Dick will want to do so.”
“He cannot do so in this case. The future squire of Annis must be
married in Annis church.”
“Perhaps Mr. Foster might----”
“Antony Annis! What you are going to say is impossible! Methodist
preachers cannot marry anyone legally. I have known that for years.”
“I think that law has been abrogated. There was a law spoken of that was
to repeal all the disqualifications of Dissenters.”
“We cannot have any uncertainties about our son’s marriage. Thou knows
that well. And as for any hole-in-a-corner ceremony, it is impossible.
We gave our daughter Katherine a proper, public wedding; we must do the
same for Dick.”
It is easy under these circumstances to see how two loving, anxious
women could impose on themselves extra responsibilities and thus
lengthen out the interval of separation for nearly three months. For
Faith, when the decision was finally left to her, refused positively
to be married from the Hall. Thanking the squire and his wife for their
kind and generous intentions, she said without a moment’s hesitation,
that “she could not be married to anyone except from her father’s home.”
“It would be a most unkind slight to the best of fathers,” she said. “It
would be an insult to the most wise and tender affection any daughter
ever received. I am not the least ashamed of my simple home and simple
living, and neither father nor myself look on marriage as an occasion
for mirth and feasting and social visiting.”
“How then do you regard it?” asked Mistress Annis, “as a time of
solemnity and fear?”
“We regard it as we do other religious rites. We think it a condition
to be assumed with religious thought and gravity. Madam Temple is of our
opinion. She said dressing and dancing and feasting over a bridal always
reminded her of the ancient sacrificial festivals and its garlanded
victim.”
The squire gave a hearty assent to Faith’s opinion. He said it was not
only right but humane that most young fellows hated the show, and fuss,
and wastry over the usual wedding festival, and would be grateful to
escape it. “And I don’t mind saying,” he added, “that Annie and I
did escape it; and I am sure our married life has been as near to a
perfectly happy life as mortals can hope for in this world.”
“Dick also thinks as we do,” said Faith.
“_That_, of course,” replied Mistress Annis, just a little offended at
the non-acceptance of her social plans.
However, Faith carried out her own wishes in a strict but sweetly
considerate way. Towards the end of November, Mr. Foster had been
comfortably settled in his new home at Bradford. She had arranged his
study and put his books in the alphabetical order he liked, and every
part of the small dwelling was in spotless order and comfort.
In the meantime Annie was preparing with much love and care the Pomfret
house for Dick and Dick’s wife. It was a work she delighted herself in
and she grudged neither money nor yet personal attention to make it a
House Beautiful.
She did not, however, go to the wedding. It was November, dripping and
dark and cold, and she knew she had done all she could, and that it
would be the greatest kindness, at this time, to retire. But she kissed
Dick and sent him away with love and good hopes and valuable gifts of
lace and gems for his bride. The squire accompanied him to Bradford, and
they went together to The Black Swan Inn. A great political meeting was
to occur that night in the Town Hall, and the squire went there, while
Dick spent a few hours with his bride and her father. As was likely
to happen, the squire was immediately recognized by every wool-dealer
present and he was hailed with hearty cheers, escorted to the platform,
and made what he always considered the finest speech of his life. He was
asked to talk of the Reform Bill and he said:
“_Not I_! That child was born to England after a hard labor and will
hev to go through the natural growth of England, which we all know is a
tremendously slow one. But it will go on! It will go on steadily, till
it comes of full age. Varry few, if any of us, now present will be in
this world at that time; but I am sure wherever we are, the news will
find us out and will gladden our hearts even in the happiness of a
better world than this, though I’ll take it on me to say that this world
is a varry good world if we only do our duty in it and to it, and
love mercy and show kindness.” Then he spoke grandly for labor and the
laboring man and woman. He pointed out their fine, though uncultivated
intellectual abilities, told of his own weavers, learning to read after
they were forty years old, of their unlearning an old trade and learning
a new one with so much ease and rapidity, and of their great natural
skill in oratory, both as regarded religion and politics. “Working men
and working women are _the hands_ of the whole world,” he said. “With
such men as Cartwright and Stevenson among them, I wouldn’t dare to say
a word lessening the power of their mental abilities. Mebbe it was as
great a thing to invent the power loom or conceive of a railroad as to
run a newspaper or write a book.”
He was vehemently applauded. Some time afterwards, Faith said the
Yorkshire roar of approval was many streets away, and that her father
went to find out what had caused it. “He was told by the man at the
door, ‘it’s nobbut one o’ them Yorkshire squires who hev turned into
factory men. A great pity, sir!’ he added. ‘Old England used to pin her
faith on her landed gentry, and now they hev all gone into the money
market.’ My father then said that they might be just as useful there,
and the man answered warmly: ‘And thou art the new Methodist preacher,
I suppose! I’m ashamed of thee--I am that!’ When father tried to explain
his meaning, the man said: ‘Nay-a! I’m not caring what _tha means_. A
man should stand by what he _says_. Folks hevn’t time to find out his
meanings. I’ve about done wi’ thee!’ Father told him he had not done
with him and would see him again in a few days.” And then she smiled and
added, “Father saw him later, and they are now the best of friends.” The
wedding morning was gray and sunless, but its gloom only intensified the
white loveliness of the bride. Her perfectly plain, straight skirt of
rich, white satin and its high girlish waist looked etherially white in
the November gloom. A wonderful cloak of Russian sable which was Aunt
Josepha’s gift, covered her when she stepped into the carriage with her
father, and then drove with the little wedding party to Bradford parish
church. There was no delay of any kind. The service was read by a solemn
and gracious clergyman, the records were signed in the vestry, and in
less than an hour the party was back at Mr. Foster’s house. A simple
breakfast for the eight guests present followed, and then Faith, having
changed her wedding gown for one of light gray broadcloth of such fine
texture that it looked like satin, came into the parlor on her father’s
arm. He took her straight to Dick, and once more gave her to him. The
tender little resignation was made with smiles and with those uncalled
tears which bless and consecrate happiness that is too great for words.
After Dick’s marriage, affairs at Annis went on with the steady
regularity of the life they had invited and welcomed. The old church
bells still chimed away the hours, but few of the dwellers in Annis paid
any attention to their call. The factory bell now measured out the days
and the majority lived by its orders. To a few it was good to think of
Christmas being so nearly at hand; they hoped that a flavor of the old
life might come with Christmas. At Annis Hall they expected a visit from
Madam Temple, and it might be that Dick and Faith would remember this
great home festival, and come back to join in it. Yet the family were
so scattered that such a hope hardly looked for realization. Selby and
Katherine were in Naples, and Dick and Faith in Paris and Aunt Josepha
in her London home where she hastily went one morning to escape the
impertinent clang of the factory bell. At least that was her excuse for
a sudden homesickness for her London house. Annie, however, confided
to the squire her belief that the rather too serious attentions of John
Thomas Bradley were the predisposing grievances, rather than the factory
bell. So the days slipped by and the squire and Jonathan Hartley were in
full charge of the mill.
It did exceedingly well under their care, but soon after Christmas the
squire began to look very weary, and Annie wished heartily that Dick
would return, and so allow his father to take a little change or rest.
For Annie did not know that Dick’s father had been constantly adding
to Dick’s honeymoon holiday. “Take another week, Dick! We can do a bit
longer without thee,” had been his regular postscript, and the young
people, a little thoughtlessly, had just taken another week.
However, towards the end of January, Dick and his wife returned and took
possession of their own home in the Pomfret place. The squire had made
its tenure secure for three years, and Annie had spared no effort to
render it beautiful and full of comfort, and it was in its large sunny
parlor she had the welcome home meal spread. It was Annie that met and
kissed them on the threshold, but the squire stood beaming at her side,
and the evening was not long enough to hear and to tell of all that
happened during the weeks in which they had been separated.
Of course they had paid a little visit to Mr. and Mistress Selby and had
found them preparing to return by a loitering route to London. “But,”
said Dick, “they are too happy to hurry themselves. Life is yet a
delicious dream; they do not wish to awaken just yet.”
“They cannot be ‘homed’ near a factory,” said Annie with a little laugh.
“Josepha found it intolerable. It made her run home very quickly.”
“I thought she liked it. She said to me that it affected her like the
marching call of a trumpet, and seemed to say to her, ‘Awake, Josepha!
There is a charge for thy soul to-day!’”
Hours full of happy desultory conversation passed the joyful evening
of reunion, but during them Dick noted the irrepressible evidences
of mental weariness in his father’s usually alert mind, and as he was
bidding him good night, he said as he stood hand-clasped with him:
“Father, you must be off to London in two days, and not later.
Parliament opens on the twenty-ninth, and you must see the opening of
the First Reformed Parliament.”
“_Why-a_, Dick! To be sure! I would like to be present. I would like
nothing better. The noise of the mill hes got lately on my nerves. I
niver knew before I hed nerves. It bothered me above a bit, when that
young doctor we hev for our hands told me I was ‘intensely nervous.’ I
hed niver before thought about men and women heving nerves. I told him
it was the noise of the machinery and he said it was my nerves. I was
almost ashamed to tell thy mother such a tale.”
And Annie laughed and answered, “Of course it was the noise, Dick, and I
told thy father not to mind anything that young fellow said. The idea of
Squire Annis heving what they call ‘nerves.’ I hev heard weakly, sickly
women talk of their nerves, but it would be a queer thing if thy father
should find any nerves about himsen. Not he! It is just the noise,” and
she gave Dick’s hand a pressure that he thoroughly understood.
“Go to London, father, and see what sort of a job these new men make of
a parliamentary opening.”
“I suppose Jonathan and thysen could manage for a week without me?”
“We would do our best. Nothing could go far wrong in a week. This is the
twenty-fifth of January, father. Parliament opens on the twenty-ninth.
London was getting crowded with the new fellows as Faith and I came
through it. They were crowding the hotels, and showing themselves off
as the ‘Reformed Parliament.’ I would have enjoyed hearing thee set them
down a peg or two.”
Then the old fire blazed in the squire’s eyes, and he said, “I’ll be off
to-morrow afternoon, Dick. I’m glad thou told me. If there’s anything
I hev a contempt for it is a conceited upstart. I’ll turn any of that
crowd down to the bottom of their class;” and the squire who left the
Pomfret house that night was a very different man from the squire who
entered it that afternoon.
Two days afterwards the squire was off to London. He went first to the
Clarendon and sent word to his sister of his arrival. She answered
his note in person within an hour. “My dear, dear lad!” she cried. “My
carriage is at the door and we will go straight home.”
“No, we won’t, Josepha. I want a bit of freedom. I want to go and come
as I like. I want to stay in the House of Commons all night long, if
the new members are passing compliments on each other’s records and
abilities. I hev come up to London to feel what it’s like to do as I
please, and above all, not to be watched and cared for.”
“I know, Antony! I know! Some men are too happily married. In my
opinion, it is the next thing to being varry---”
“I mean nothing wrong, Josepha. I only want to be let alone a bit until
I find mysen.”
“Find thysen?”
“To be sure. Here’s our medical man at the mill telling me ‘I hev what
he calls nerves.’ I hevn’t! Not I! I’m a bit tired of the days being
all alike. I’d enjoy a bit of a scolding from Annie now for lying in bed
half the morning, and as sure as I hev a varry important engagement at
the mill, I hear the hounds, and the _view, holloa!_ and it is as
much as I can do to hold mysen in my chair. It is _that_ thou doesn’t
understand, I suppose.”
“I do understand. I hev the same feeling often. I want to do things I
would do if I was only a man. Do exactly as thou feels to do, Antony,
while the mill is out of sight and hearing.”
“Ay, I will.”
“How is our mill doing?”
“If tha calls making money doing well, then the Temple and Annis mill
can’t be beat, so far.”
“I am glad to hear it. Wheniver the notion takes thee, come and see me.
I hev a bit of private business that I want to speak to thee about.”
“To be sure I’ll come and see thee--often.”
“Then I’ll leave thee to thysen”
“I’ll be obliged to thee, Josepha. Thou allays hed more sense than the
average woman, who never seems to understand that average men like now
and then to be left to their awn will and way.”
“I’ll go back with thee to Annis and we can do all our talking there.”
“That’s sensible. We will take the early coach two weeks from to-day.
I’ll call for thee at eleven o’clock, and we’ll stay over at the old inn
at Market Harborough.”
“That is right. I’ll go my ways now. Take care of thysen and behave
thysen as well as tha can,” and then she clasped his hand and went
good-naturedly away. But as she rode home, she said to herself--“Poor
lad! I’ll forgive and help him, whativer he does. I hope Annie will be
as loving. I wonder why God made women so varry good. He knew what kind
of men they would mebbe hev to live with. Poor Antony! I hope he’ll hev
a real good time--I do that!” and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders
and kept the rest of her speculations to herself.
The two weeks the squire had specified went its daily way, and Josepha
received no letter from her brother, but at the time appointed he
knocked at her door promptly and decidedly. Josepha had trusted him. She
met him in warm traveling clothes, and they went away with a smile and
a perfect trust in each other. Josepha knew better than to ask a man
questions. She let him talk of what he had seen and heard, she made
no inquiries as to what he had _done_, and when they were at Market
Harborough he told her he had slept every hour away except those he
spent in The House. “I felt as if I niver, niver, could sleep enough,
Josepha. It was fair wonderful, and as it happened there were no night
sessions I missed nothing I wanted to see or hear. But tha knows I’ll
hev to tell Annie and mebbe others about The House, so I’ll keep that to
mysen till we get all together. It wouldn’t bear two talks over. Would
it now?”
“It would be better stuff than usual if it did, Antony. Thou wilt be
much missed when it comes to debating.”
“I think I shall. I hev my word ready when it is the right time to say
it, that is, generally speaking.”
Josepha’s visit was unexpected but Annie took it with apparent
enthusiasm, and the two women together made such a fuss over the
improvement in the squire’s appearance that Josepha could not help
remembering the plaintive remarks of her brother about being too much
cared for. However, nothing could really dampen the honest joy in the
squire’s return, and when the evening meal had been placed upon the
table and the fire stirred to a cheering blaze, the room was full of a
delightful sense of happiness. A little incident put the finishing touch
to Annie’s charming preparation. A servant stirred the fire with no
apparent effect. Annie then tried to get blaze with no better result.
Then the squire with one of his heartiest laughs took the apparently
ineffectual poker.
“See here, women!” he cried. “You do iverything about a house better
than a man except stirring a fire. Why? Because a woman allays stirs a
fire from the top. That’s against all reason.” Then with a very decided
hand he attacked the lower strata of coals and they broke up with
something like a big laugh, crackling and sputtering flame and sparks,
and filling the room with a joyful illumination. And in this happy
atmosphere they sat down to eat and to talk together.
Josepha had found a few minutes to wash her face and put her hair
straight, the squire had been pottering about his wife and the luggage
and the fire and was still in his fine broadcloth traveling suit, which
with its big silver buttons, its smart breeches and top boots, its
line of scarlet waistcoat and plentiful show of white cambric round the
throat, made him an exceedingly handsome figure. And if the husbands
who may chance to read of this figure will believe it, this good man,
so carefully dressed, had thought as he put on every garment, of the
darling wife he wished still to please above all others.
The first thing the squire noticed was the absence of Dick and Faith.
“Where are they?” he asked in a disappointed tone.
“Well, Antony,” said Josepha, “Annie was just telling me that Dick hed
gone to Bradford to buy a lot of woolen yarns; if so be he found they
were worth the asking price, and as Faith’s father is now in Bradford,
it was only natural she should wish to go with him.”
“Varry natural, but was it wise? I niver could abide a woman traipsing
after me when I hed any business on hand.”
“There’s where you made a mistake, Antony. If Annie hed been a business
woman, you would hev built yoursen a mill twenty years ago.”
“Ay, I would, if Annie hed asked me. Not without. When is Dick to be
home?”
“Some time to-morrow,” answered Annie. “He is anxious to see thee. He
isn’t on any loitering business.”
“Well, Josepha, there is no time for loitering. All England is spinning
like a whipped top at full speed. In Manchester and Preston the wheels
of the looms go merrily round. Oh, there is so much I want to do!”
They had nearly finished a very happy meal when there was a sound of
men’s voices coming nearer and nearer and the silver and china stopped
their tinkling and the happy trio were still a moment as they listened.
“It will be Jonathan and a few of the men to get the news from me,” said
the squire.
“Well, Antony, I thought of that and there is a roaring fire in the
ballroom and the chairs are set out, and thou can talk to them from the
orchestra.” And the look of love that followed this information made
Annie’s heart feel far too big for everyday comfort.
There were about fifty men to seat. Jonathan was their leader and
spokesman, and he went to the orchestra with the squire and stood by
the squire’s chair, and when ordinary courtesies had been exchanged,
Jonathan said, “Squire, we want thee to tell us about the Reform
Parliament. The _Yorkshire Post_ says thou were present, and we felt
that we might ask thee to tell us about it.”
“For sure I will. I was there as soon as the House was opened, and John
O’Connell went in with me. He was one of the ‘Dan O’Connell household
brigade,’ which consists of old Dan, his three sons, and two
sons-in-law. They were inclined to quarrel with everyone, and impudently
took their seats on the front benches as if to awe the Ministerial Whigs
who were exactly opposite them. William Cobbett was the most conspicuous
man among them. He was poorly dressed in a suit of pepper and salt
cloth, made partly like a Quaker’s and partly like a farmer’s suit, and
he hed a white hat on. * His head was thrown backward so as to give the
fullest view of his shrewd face and his keen, cold eyes. Cobbett had no
respect for anyone, and in his first speech a bitter word niver failed
him if he was speaking of the landed gentry whom he called ‘unfeeling
tyrants’ and the lords of the loom he called ‘rich ruffians.’ Even
the men pleading for schools for the poor man’s children were
‘education-cantors’ to him, and he told them plainly that nothing would
be good for the working man that did not increase his victuals, his
drink and his clothing.
* A white hat was the sign of an extreme Radical.
“Is that so, men?” asked the squire. He was answered by a “_No!_” whose
style of affirmation was too emphatic to be represented by written
words.
“But the Reform Bill, squire? What was said about the Reform Bill and
the many good things it promised us?”
“I niver heard it named, men. And I may as well tell you now that you
need expect nothing in a hurry. All that really has been given you is
an opportunity to help yoursens. Listen to me. The Reform Bill has taken
from sixty boroughs both their members, and forty-seven boroughs hev
been reduced to one member. These changes will add at least half a
million voters to the list, and this half-million will all come from the
sturdy and generally just, great middle class of England. It will mebbe
take another generation to include the working class, and a bit longer
to hev the laboring class educated sufficiently to vote. That is
England’s slow, sure way. It doan’t say it is the best way, but it is
_our_ way, and none of us can hinder or hasten it. **
** In 1867, during Lord Derby’s administration, it was made
to include the artizans and mechanics, and in Gladstone’s
administration, A. D. 1884, the Reform Bill was made to
include agricultural and all day laborers.
“In the meantime you have received from your own class of famous
inventors a loom that can make every man a master. Power-loom weaving is
the most healthy, the best paid, and the pleasantest of all occupations.
With the exception of the noise of the machinery, it has nothing
disagreeable about it. You that already own your houses take care of
them. Every inch of your ground will soon be worth gold. I wouldn’t
wonder to see you, yoursens, build your awn mills upon it. Oh, there
is nothing difficult in that to a man who trusts in God and believes in
himsen.
“And men, when you hev grown to be rich men, doan’t forget your God and
your Country. Stick to your awn dear country. Make your money in it. Be
Englishmen until God gives you a better country, Which won’t be in this
world. But whether you go abroad, or whether you stay at home, niver
forget the mother that bore you. She’ll niver forget you. And if a man
hes God and his mother to plead for him, he is well off, both for this
world and the next.”
“That is true, squire.”
“God has put us all in the varry place he thought best for the day’s
work He wanted from us. It is more than a bit for’ardson in us telling
Him we know better than He does, and go marching off to Australia or New
Zealand or Canada. It takes a queer sort of a chap to manage life in a
strange country full of a contrary sort of human beings. Yorkshire men
are _all_ Yorkshire. They hevn’t room in their shape and make-up for
new-fangled ways and ideas. You hev a deal to be proud of in England
that wouldn’t be worth a half-penny anywhere else. It’s a varry
difficult thing to be an Englishman and a Yorkshireman, which is the
best kind of an Englishman, as far as I know, and not brag a bit about
it. There’s no harm in a bit of honest bragging about being himsen a
Roman citizen and I do hope a straight for-ard Englishman may do what
St. Paul did--brag a bit about his citizenship. And as I hev just said,
I say once more, don’t leave England unless you hev a clear call to do
so; but if you do, then make up your minds to be a bit more civil to the
strange people than you usually are to strangers. It is a common saying
in France and Italy that Englishmen will eat no beef but English beef,
nor be civil to any God but their awn God. I doan’t say try to please
iverybody, just do your duty, and do it pleasantly. That’s about all we
can any of us manage, eh, Jonathan?”
“We are told, sir, to do to others as we would like them to do to us.”
“For sure! But a great many Yorkshire people translate that precept into
this--‘Tak’ care of Number One.’ Let strangers’ religion and politics
alone. Most--I might as well say _all_--of you men here, take your
politics as seriously as you take your religion, and that is saying a
great deal. I couldn’t put it stronger, could I, Jonathan?”
“No, sir! I doan’t think you could. It is a varry true comparison. It is
surely.”
“Now, lads, in the future, it is to be work and pray, and do the varry
best you can with your new looms. It may so happen that in the course
of years some nation that hes lost the grip of all its good and prudent
senses, will try to invade England. It isn’t likely, but it might be.
Then I say to each man of you, without an hour’s delay, do as I’ve often
heard you sing--
“ ‘Off with your labor cap! rush to the van!
The sword is your tool, and the height of your plan
Is to turn yoursen into a fighting man.’
“Lads, I niver was much on poetry but when I was a varry young man,
I learned eleven lines that hev helped me in many hours of trial and
temptation to remember that I was an English gentleman, and so bound by
birth and honor to behave like one.”
“Will tha say them eleven lines to us, squire? Happen they might help us
a bit, too.”
“I am sure of it, Jonathan.” With these words, the kind-hearted,
scrupulously honorable gentleman lifted his hat, and as he did so, fifty
paper caps were lifted as if by one hand and the men who wore them rose
as one man.
“You may keep your standing, lads, the eleven lines are worthy of that
honor; and then in a proud, glad enthusiasm, the squire repeated them
with such a tone of love and such a grandeur of diction and expression
as no words can represent:--
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-Paradise;
This fortress built by Nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall--
Or as a moat defensive to a house--
Against the envy of less happier lands.
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England!”
And the orator and his audience were all nearer crying than they knew,
for it was pride and love that made their hearts beat so high and their
eyes overflow with happy tears. The room felt as if it was on fire,
and every man that hour knew that Patriotism is one of the holiest
sentiments of the soul. With lifted caps, they went away in the
stillness of that happiness, which the language of earth has not one
word to represent.