The Project Gutenberg eBook of Illustrations of Political Economy, Volume 7 (of 9)
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Title: Illustrations of Political Economy, Volume 7 (of 9)
Author: Harriet Martineau
Release date: May 21, 2024 [eBook #73664]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Charles Fox, Paternoster-Row, 1834
Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, KD Weeks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, VOLUME 7 (OF 9) ***
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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. On each title
page, the phrase “A Tale” was printed in a blackletter font, which is
rendered here delimited by ‘=’.
The volume is a collection of three already published texts, each with
its own title page and pagination.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
——o——
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
——o——
_IN NINE VOLUMES._
VOL. VII.
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
MDCCCXXXIV.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,
Duke-street, Lambeth.
CONTENTS.
---
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
CHAP. PAGE│CHAP. PAGE
1. Midsummer Moonlight 1│ 5. Taking Counsel 71
2. A Harvest Eve 14│ 6. Too Late 102
3. Fasters and Feasters 39│ 7. The Breaking-up 135
4. A Poor Man’s Induction 55│
│
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
│
1. The Silent Trip 1│ 5. Maternal Economy 76
2. A Mushroom City 20│ 6. Blithe News 101
3. Morning in the Jungle 40│ 7. Up and Doing 117
4. Night in the Jungle 65│
│
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
│
1. No News from the Port 1│ 5. Nothing but a Voice 78
2. News from the Port 22│ 6. Sleeping and Waking 108
3. Grown Children’s Holiday 44│ 7. Loyalty Preventives 121
4. Epistolary Godliness 66│
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
------------------
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
833.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
1. Midsummer Moonlight 1
2. A Harvest Eve 14
3. Fasters and Feasters 39
4. A Poor Man’s Induction 55
5. Taking Counsel 71
6. Too Late 102
7. The Breaking up 135
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
From the moment of beginning my work, one of my most anxious endeavours
has been to keep myself out of the sight of my readers;—not from any
affectation of reserve, but because, in this case, there is no necessary
connexion between the author of the work and the matter discussed in it.
Occasions have arisen, however, to induce me to speak in the first
person, in a preface; and I now do so again on account of certain
questions which have been publicly as well as privately treated,
respecting the proper direction of the popular influence which is
attributed to me, and which it would be equally weak and hypocritical in
me to disclaim.
What I wish to explain is,—briefly,—that I take my stand upon SCIENCE.
Whether the truths attempted to be illustrated by me on this ground be
Tory, Whig, or Radical, is a question to be determined, if they so
please, by Tories, Whigs, and Radicals, and not (at least at present) by
me. It comes within the scope of my object to illustrate certain
principles of Social Morals, as well as of Political Economy; but it is
altogether foreign to my purpose to determine by what political party
those principles are the most satisfactorily recognized. I may have,—I
have,—a decided opinion on this point; but, as it has nothing to do with
my work, I must protest against all attempts on the part of those who
speak of me as an author to render me distrusted by any one political
party, or to identify me with any other.
All have their mission. It is the mission of some to lead or support a
party;—a mission as honourable as it is necessary. It is the mission of
others to ascertain or to teach truth which bears no relation to party;
and to fulfil it requires the free use of materials and facilities
afforded by any in whose possession they may happen to be. This last is
my office,—imposed on me by the very act of accepting my first services.
Its discharge requires perfect liberty of action and of speech;—freedom
alike from anger at the vituperation and ridicule of one party,—from
distrust of the courtesies of a second,—and from subservience to the
dictation of a third. Such freedom I enjoy, and am resolved to maintain.
The sciences on which I touch, whether in the one series or the other on
which I am occupied, bear no relation to party. The People, for whom I
write, are of no party,—I, therefore, as a writer, am of no party. To
what party I might be proved to belong by inference from the truths I
illustrate, I leave to be decided by those who may think it worth their
while.
If this explanation should expose me to the charge of self-importance,
let it in justice be remembered that it was not I who originated the
question respecting the proper direction of my influence, or invited any
interference therein. No such direction is attempted by myself. As I
think, so I speak; leaving what I say to find its way to the hearts and
minds which have a congeniality with my own. Whenever I begin to modify
the expression of what I think from a regard to one class of minds
rather than another, I shall probably be thankful for assistance in
determining the direction of an influence which will have lost half its
vitality in losing its freedom.
Meantime, while declining all control in the use of such power as I
have, I will most humbly accept aid from any quarter in the improvement
of its character. With its extent and mode of operation I am and shall
be satisfied, because these are not included in my responsibilities.
With its quality I hope never to be satisfied; as the time ought never
to arrive when it will not be inferior to my aspirations.
H. M.
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
-----------------------
CHAPTER I.
MIDSUMMER MOONLIGHT.
The nights of a certain summer of the present century would scarcely
have been known for nights by those sober people who shut themselves in
as it grows dark, and look out in the morning, perceiving only that the
sun is come again. During the nights we speak of, repose did not descend
with the twilight upon the black moors of Yorkshire, and the moon looked
down upon something more glittering than the reflection of her own face
in the tarns of Ingleborough, or in the reaches of the Wharf and the
Don. Some of the polished and sharpened ware of Sheffield was exposed to
the night dews in the fields, and passed from the hands of those who
tempered to the possession of those who were to wield it.
Others were also abroad, with the view of relieving their hardships
instead of seeking to avenge them. The dwellers on high grounds were so
far worse off than the inhabitants of the valleys, that they could not
quench their thirst, and lose in sleep their weariness and their
apprehensions of hunger. During the day, there was drought within, and
the images of drought without;—hay dried before it was mown; cattle with
their tongues hanging out, panting in the parched meadows; horses
lashing madly at the clouds of flies that descended upon them as they
stooped to the slimy pools which had still some moisture in them; wells
with cracked buckets and dangling ropes; and ditches where there was an
equally small probability that children would find weeds and be drowned
in the search. During the night, when some of these spectacles were
hidden, it was necessary to take the chance of preventing a repetition
of them on the following day; and those who had cattle growing lean,
children growing fretful, and no remaining patience with a dry well,
bore with the weariness of night-watching in the hope of relieving the
more urgent evil of thirst.
On the night when the midsummer full moon gradually emerged from the
partial eclipse caused by the smokes of Sheffield, and shone full on the
hill-sides to the west, two women were sitting near a spring which had
rarely, till lately, failed to bless the stony region in which it was
wont to flow. They came to watch for any gush or drip which might
betoken the fall of showers somewhere among the hills; and patient would
their watch have appeared to an observer. The one sat on the stone fence
which separated the road from a field of drooping oats, and never moved,
except to cast a frightened look around her when an unseasonable bleat
proceeded from the restless ewes on the moor, or the distant foundry
clock was heard to strike. Her companion sat, also in silence, on the
edge of the dry cistern where her pitcher rested, and kept her eyes
fixed on the fitful lights of the foundry from whose neighbourhood she
had come.
“I have been thinking, Mary,” said Mrs. Kay, leaving her seat on the
wall, and speaking in a low voice to her sister-in-law,—“I have been
thinking that my husband may, perhaps, come round for us when his hours
are up at the foundry, instead of going straight home. I wish he may;
for I declare I don’t like being out in this way, all by ourselves.”
Mary made no answer.
“It is all so still and unnatural here. There’s the foundry at work, to
be sure; but to see the tilting-mill standing, all black and quiet, is
what I never met with before. We may see it for some time to come,
though; for there seems little chance of a sufficient fall to touch the
wheel at present. Do you think there is, Mary?”
Mary shook her head; and Mrs. Kay, having examined the spring with eye
and ear, stole back to her former seat.
After looking into the field behind her for some time, she came again to
say,—
“My husband talks about the crops, and the harvest being at hand, and so
on; but I do not see what sort of a harvest it is to be, unless we have
rain directly. What a poor-looking oat-field that is behind the wall!
and there are none any better on these high grounds, as far as I can
see.”
“There would be some chance for the low grounds, if the springs would
flow,” answered Mary.
“Why, yes. My husband was telling me that there is a corner left of one
of Anderson’s meadows down below, where the grass is as fresh and sweet
as if there had been forty-eight hours’ rain. It was but a corner; but
there was one of the little Andersons, and his sister, raking up the
grass after the mower, and piling their garden barrow with it, to give
to their white pony. Even Anderson’s beasts have been foddered, as if it
was winter, for this fortnight past.”
Mary nodded, and her sister proceeded.
“I wonder how many more improvements of Anderson’s we shall see after
this next bad harvest; for bad it must be now. It seems to me that the
less his land yields, the more he lays out upon it.”
“The less it yields, the more he wants, I suppose.”
“Yes; but it is an accident its yielding so ill for three years
together; and where he gets the money, I don’t know, except that bread
has been dear enough of late to pay for any thing.”
“That’s it, to be sure,” said Mary.
“Dear enough for any thing,” repeated Mrs. Kay. “When I used to have my
fill of meat every day, I little thought that the bread I ate with it
would grow scarce among us. No rise of wages, such as the masters make
such a complaint of, can stand against it.”
Mary shook her head, and there was a long pause.
“I’ll tell you what, Mary,” resumed the chief speaker, after a time,
“there would be much more pleasure in talking with you, if you would
talk a little yourself. It sets one down so not to know whether you are
listening to what one says.”
“I always listen when I am spoken to,” replied Mary; “but people are not
all made talkers alike.”
“Why, no, that they certainly are not. My husband laughs, and says that
a pretty dull time you and Chatham must have of it, when you are out
walking on Sundays. You will both get all you want to say in a week said
in five minutes. Well, I don’t wonder at your not answering that; but
you will not be offended at a joke from your own brother; and you know
he does not think the worse of Chatham for keeping his thoughts to
himself, and——Mercy! what did I see over yonder!”
And in her hurry Mrs. Kay pushed the pitcher, which Mary caught before
it went rattling down among the stones. She sat very quietly, watching
the motions of a number of men who were crossing a gate from one field
to another at some distance, and who seemed to be making for the road.
“Mary! Mary! what shall we do if they come here?” asked the trembling
Mrs. Kay.
Mary rose and took up her pitcher, observing that they might sit safe
enough in the shadow of Warden’s mill, just to the left; and then they
might have another chance for the spring as they came by in their way
home. Mrs. Kay could scarcely be persuaded that going home would be
perfectly safe as soon as it was daylight, and that the men who had
evidently been out at drill would be dispersed by dawn.
The women crept along, under the shadow of the wall, and then quickly
crossed the broad strip of moonlight which lay between them and the
mill. Before they reached the steps, which happened to be on the shadowy
side, Mrs. Kay was nearly unable to walk, and her terrors were not
lessened by the apparition of a person standing on the first stage, and
looking down on them from the top of the long flight of steps.
“Sit still,” said Mary, beginning to ascend, till she saw that Warden,
the miller, was coming down to inquire their business. She then briefly
explained what brought them upon his property.
“So you are looking for water,” he replied, “and I am looking for wind.
For three weeks there has not been a breath, and not a steady breeze
since long before that. The bakers are calling out upon us so as to keep
us out of our beds, watching for any rack in the sky that may betoken a
coming wind.”
“And have you ever seen, sir, such a sight as sent us here?” inquired
the trembling Mrs. Kay. “Such a sight as there is in the fields there?”
“What, the nightly drill? O yes, many a night, though they may not be
aware who has been overlooking them. They have never come near enough on
light nights for me to pick them out by their faces, so that there is no
occasion for me to take any notice; but I mark how they get on in
shouldering their pikes and learning to obey orders. Here, as I stand by
the fan-wheel, I hear the word of command quite plain through the still
air; and once they came upon this very slope. It was too dark a night
for them to see me; but I heard them stumble against the very steps you
are sitting on, Mrs. Kay.”
“How long do you suppose it is to last, Mr. Warden?”
“Till prices fall, or the people have burned a mill or two, perhaps.
’Tis a happy thing for you and yours, Mrs. Kay, that Oliver’s foundry
does not come under the ban. There it blazes away, night and day, and I
hear no curses upon it, like what are visited upon the mills. It is well
for you and yours that Kay has to ladle molten metal instead of having
to manage machinery. I hope he is well, Mrs. Kay?”
Mrs. Kay did not answer, and was found to be in no condition for
dialogue. Fear and fatigue had overpowered her, and she could only lean,
faint and sobbing, against the rail.
“She is not strong,” observed Mary. “Do you happen to have any thing in
the mill to revive her? My pitcher is empty.”
Warden fanned her with his hat, having no other means of refreshment in
his power; and he carried on the conversation with Mary while doing so,
that the poor woman might have time to recover herself. It was not
merely machinery that was the object of the trained bands, he observed.
In many parts they had pulled down corn stores; and it was rumoured that
Kirkland’s granaries were threatened by the very people who were now
near them. If they really entertained the idea that it was a public
injury to have a stock of corn laid by while the price was high, it was
no wonder that they were angry with Kirkland, as well as with some
people that had much more credit, without having done and suffered so
much to get it. He should like to know what the country was to do
without such men as Kirkland, when there had been three bad harvests
following one another?
“Your mill would stand idle if there was not corn brought from here or
there,” observed Mary. “But are those people that we saw bound for
Kirkland’s granaries? I should be sorry to think that they were about
any mischief.”
“They could be about little but mischief at this time of night, and with
arms too; but it is full late, I fancy, to be going so far. It is said
my father-in-law’s threshing-machine is doomed.”
“And what does he say to that?”
“O, he swears at the people because they can’t be contented when he is.
But, to my mind, it would not be so great a hardship this year as
another, seeing how little corn there will be to thresh. Not that I
approve such doings in any way; but when people are so badly off with
the high price of provisions, and the uncertainty of peace, what can you
expect?”
“You talked of noting faces; are there any of our people now in yonder
fields, do you suppose?”
“Do you mean Sheffield people, or people of your village?”
“Why, either.”
“There are undoubtedly many from about Stockport, and out of
Leicestershire, who go the round to stir up discontent, and teach the
drill. But it is said there are a good many neighbours of ours among
them too. What is more likely than that those who have not had their
fill in the day should turn out at night to something that may amuse
them better than lying awake, or dreaming of cheap bread? This is just
what you have been doing, you see; and what Mrs. Kay had better have let
alone, it seems. Come, Mrs. Kay, how are you now? Able to walk, do you
think?”
Quite able now to walk, and to ask a hundred questions on the way about
the cause of the terror which had shaken her, and the probable duration
of the hardship which had reduced her; on neither of which matters was
much satisfaction to be gained from the miller.
The spring was still dry, but Mary chose to watch till the children came
to take her place in the morning. The miller took charge of Mrs. Kay
till she was fairly within the light of the foundry fires, and then
struck across the fields homewards, hoping that his mill would not again
be the refuge of frightened women while he was on the spot.
Mary’s watch was vain, and the more wearisome from her occasional fancy
that it would not prove vain. More than once she was persuaded that she
heard the trickling of water while listening intently after the moon had
gone down; and when she fell asleep for a few moments, her thoughts were
full of the hardship of having only one pitcher to fill when the water
was overflowing every place. Not the less for this did she carry home
this very pitcher, swinging empty at arm’s length, when the village was
up and awake, and the sun beating down hot upon the slippery turf, and
glaring, reflected from the stone fences, upon the dusty road.
At the door she met a neighbour, Mrs. Skipper, the baker of the village,
who supplied a use for the pitcher.
“Well, Mary Kay, and what’s the news with you?”
“Nothing particular, Mrs. Skipper. Are you come to tell us again that
bread is risen?”
“Why, that I am, I’m sorry to say; and I wish you would change looks
with me, Mary, and then people would not taunt me as they do, when I say
that bread has risen.”
“How would that alter the matter?”
“O, they talk about my being fresh-coloured, and all that, and say it’s
a sign that I live of the best, whatever I may charge to others. Just as
if I made the bread dear, instead of the corn being as high to us bakers
as to other people; and as if there was no assize of bread in London.”
“And as if you cared for being called handsome,” added Kay from behind,
having come to breakfast in the midst of the greeting.
“I think you are handsome—very handsome,” said little John Kay, looking
up earnestly into Mrs. Skipper’s bonny face. She stooped down to give
him a hearty smack, and promise him a half-penny bun if he would come
and see her.
“There now, master John, you well nigh made me spill my cider, boy.
Here, Mary, hold your pitcher. Yes, it is for you—for all of you, I
mean. You will give John a drop, I’m sure. Ah! I thought you would like
it, now it is so difficult to get any thing good to drink. Do but taste
it, Mr. Kay. Is not it good? It was sent me by a cousin of mine, and I
thought I would bring you some, especially as I had to tell you that the
bread is risen again. It is nineteen-pence now! What do you say to that,
Mary?”
Mary, as usual, said nothing. She did not find that speech mended
matters of this kind; and besides, it was time she was setting about her
task of purifying the distasteful water which they must drink, if they
meant to drink at all, till the springs should flow again. She emptied
the clear, fresh-looking cider into her own pitcher, and returned Mrs.
Skipper’s with a look which was less indifferent than her manner.
“What I say is,” observed Kay, “that if bread is risen, our wages must
rise. We are all of one mind about that—that a man cannot live for less
than will keep him alive; to say nothing of his being fresh-coloured,
Mrs. Skipper. We can none of us boast much of that.”
“Well, how’s your wife, Mr. Kay? She was but poorly, I thought, when I
saw her two days ago.”
“O, she is a poor thing enough. She was not much to boast of when she
had an easy life compared with the present; and now she droops sadly.
John can hardly call her very handsome indeed. Can you, John?”
“John, carry your mother a cup of cider, if she is awake,” said Mary;
“and tell her I am home, getting breakfast.”
“There, that’s right, Mary,” said Mrs. Skipper. “You have such a way of
telling giddy people what they should not say and do. I am going my ways
directly, to leave you to yours. But send one of the children after me
for a nice hot roll for your sister. The new bread is just coming out of
the oven. And be sure you tell me whether she likes the cider, you
know.”
“And if she has not an appetite for the roll, we won’t send it back, I
promise you,” said Kay. “She has got into the way of not touching her
breakfast, lately; and the same thing cannot be said of me, when I have
been busy casting all night. Somebody will eat your roll, and thank you
for it.”
“That means that I may send two; but——”
Kay protested, and Mrs. Skipper explained, and Mary announced breakfast.
“Breakfast, such as it is, Mrs. Skipper,” observed Kay. “No disrespect
to your bread! But time was when I could afford it newer, and plenty of
it, and a bit of something to relish it. One does not relish it so well
when one can’t cut and come again, but may have just so much and no
more.”
Mrs. Skipper wished he could see what she saw of poor creatures that
could get none,—not the smallest and driest loaf, to try whether they
could relish it. If the potato crop failed, she did not know what was to
become of them; or of herself either, if they went on to look in at her
shop window. She had not the heart to draw the bread, with them looking
on, and not stuff a bit into the children’s mouths. And, dashing away
the tears from her bright black eyes, widow Skipper hastened whence she
came, hugging by the way the child who was sent to wait her pleasure
about the roll.
Before sitting down to his scanty meal, Kay went to rally his wife about
what she had seen and been alarmed at in her late expedition, and to
advise her to cheer up, instead of giving way, as she seemed disposed
now to do. She was up, but he supposed hardly awake yet; for she had not
much to say, and seemed flurried, and not able to take exactly what he
meant. He thought she had better have slept another hour.
CHAPTER II.
A HARVEST EVE.
Mary rightly believed that there was a chance for the corn on the low
grounds, if rain should speedily fall. By the time that the horned sheep
of the western moors had cropped the last bite of juicy grass in the
dells, they were gathered together by the shepherd to abide the storms
which were gathering about the summits of Wharnside and Pennygant. While
they stood trembling and bleating in the rising blasts, the cattle in
the vales left the muddy pools, and turned towards the shelter of the
stooping and rustling trees; and many a human eye was raised to the
whirling mills, whose inactivity had wearied expectation so long.
Neither the wind, nor the rain which followed, pleased every body, any
more than any other wind and rain. Havoc was made by the blasts in Mr.
Fergusson’s young plantations, where a thousand saplings stood, dry
enough for firewood, ready to be snapped by the first visitation of a
gust. Trees of loftier growth strewed the Abbey lawn, and afforded
matter of lamentation to the elder members of Mr. Fergusson’s family,
and of entertainment to the children, who watched for hours the
operations of the woodmen in removing the fallen ornaments of the
estate. Every washerwoman within some miles who happened to be pursuing
her vocation that day, had to mourn the disappearance of cap or
handkerchief from the line or bush; and how many kitchen chimneys
smoked, no chimney doctor near would have ventured to say. Meanwhile,
the millers and their men bestirred themselves cheerily, as sailors do
when the breeze freshens after a long calm; and careful housewifes
dislodged all unclean insects from their water tubs, and swept out their
spouts in preparation for the first droppings. As might have been
expected, the rain came, not in droppings, but in sheets. No woollen
coat, woven or unwoven, saved the shepherd and his sheep from being
drenched to the skin. Every tree became a commodious shower-bath to the
horse or cow beneath it. Many an infirmity was exposed in thatch or tile
which had never before been suspected; and everybody looked gloomy in
Anderson’s farm, (except the ducks,) from the apprehension that the
meagre crops would be laid, past recovery. On the first cessation of the
storm, matters did appear sad enough: in the villages, every thing
smutted, from the smoke of the furnaces being beaten down; in the
country, all brown and muddy-looking till the waters had had time to
retire into the ditches, and the verdure to show itself; and even then,
the straggling oats and prostrate wheat presented but a small
improvement on their former appearance. Landlords and tenants crossed
each other’s path while taking their rounds, but could not agree as to
the probabilities of the approaching harvest. Mr. Fergusson hoped that a
day or two would make a great difference in the appearance of the
fields; while Anderson was certain that it was too late for the crops to
revive under the gentlest rain, and that they would prove to have been
utterly destroyed by the flood which had swept down from the hills.
Neither could establish his point till harvest came.
Then each proved to be right. On the high grounds, the produce was, in
truth, scarcely worth carrying away, while in the vales there was better
work for the harvest wain. Even there, however, there were more gleaners
than reapers; and the artisans who came forth in the evening to see what
had been done, agreed with the disappointed Irish, who must travel
farther in search of harvest work, that the total crop would indeed turn
out to be far below the average.
The best of the harvest fields did not present the usual images of peace
and contentment.
“Out, out, out!” cried Anderson, to a troop of boys and girls who had
pressed in at his heels as he entered a field whence the sheaves were
not yet carried. “How many times am I to have the trouble of turning you
out, I wonder? Wait, can’t ye, till the corn is carried?”
At the flourish of his stick, the intruders took flight, and jostled
each other at the gate, in their hurry to get out; but they returned,
one by one, keeping in his rear, like a spider watching a fly, till they
could stoop down behind a shock, and filch from the sheaves at their
leisure. Following the example of the children, a woman dropped in at
the gate, another entered from a gap in the fence, at a moment when the
farmer had his back turned, while the heads of two or three men appeared
over the wall. It was plain that the tenth commandment was not in the
thoughts of any present, unless in Anderson’s own.
“Here again, you rogue!” he cried, lifting up a boy by the collar from a
hiding-place between two sheaves. “You are the very boy I told twice to
go to the field below. There is plenty of room for you there.”
“But there is no corn there, sir.”
“Corn or no corn, there you shall go to be made an example of for
pilfering from my sheaves. Here, Hoggets, take this lad down to the Lane
field, and give him a good whipping in sight of them all.”
“O, no, no! Mercy, mercy!” cried the boy. “Mother said I should have no
supper,—father said he would beat me, if I did not make a good gleaning.
I won’t go, I tell you; I won’t. O, sir, don’t let him beat me! Ask
father! I won’t go.”
Mary Kay came up to intercede. The boy was her nephew; and she could
assure Mr. Anderson that John was told to go home at his peril without
an apron full of corn.
“Then let his parents answer for his flogging, as they ought to do, for
driving the boy to steal,” said the farmer. “I am not to be encroached
upon because they choose to be harsh with their boy; and I tell you,
mistress, this pilfering must be put a stop to. This very season, when
the crop is scanty enough at the best, I am losing more than I ever did
before by foul gleaning. Let the boy’s parents be answerable for the
flogging he shall have. Hoggets, take him away.”
“Had you not better send Hoggets to flog the boy’s father and mother?”
Mary inquired. “That would be more just, I think.”
“O, do, sir, do!” entreated John; “and I will show him the way.”
“I dare say you would; and this aunt of yours would find some excuse
next for their not being flogged.”
“I won’t promise but I might,” said Mary; “for they may have something
to say about what has driven them to covet your corn. It is not the
going without one supper, but the being supperless every night. Instead
of a beating, once and away, such as they promised the poor lad, it is
the scourge of want, sir, for week after week, and month after month.”
“I am very sorry to hear it; and if they come and ask in a proper way,
they may chance to get some help from me. But, as to countenancing my
property being taken because they are poor, it would, be a sin for their
boy’s sake, and for the sake of all the boys that would follow his
example. So, off with him!”
Mary was far from wishing to defend the act of pilfering from sheaves,
and equally far from supposing that her brother and sister thought of
any such mode of fulfilling their command when it was delivered to their
boy. Mr. Anderson might be perfectly sure that Kay and his wife would
not come and ask, in the “proper way” he alluded to, for what they were
wearing themselves out in struggling to earn; and as for the boy, she
believed she could answer for him that the being deprived of what he had
gathered, or, at most, a private beating, would avail to make him
observe other commands in endeavouring to fulfil those of his parents.
Anderson still thought differently; and, perceiving at the moment half a
dozen little heads peeping from behind so many shocks, was confirmed in
his opinion that the boy must be flogged. Hoggets accordingly whipped up
the little lad, slung him, screaming and writhing, over his shoulder,
and disappeared behind the wall, while the farmer hunted out the other
culprits, and sent them, for a punishment, to see their companion
flogged in the field. Mary first detained them to see her restore John’s
handfulls of corn to the sheaves, and then went down to do the best she
could for her poor little nephew in his agony.
She presently overtook him, and found that his agony was now of a more
mixed character than she had expected. He was alternating between hope
and fear. The quivering nostril and short sob told what his terror had
been, while his raised eye, and efforts to compose himself, testified to
his trust that he had found a deliverer. Two young ladies on horseback
were talking with Hoggets, and looking compassionately on the culprit,
while Hoggets touched his hat every instant, and had already lowered the
boy from his disgraceful elevation. The Miss Fergussons only asked him
to delay till they had overtaken Mr. Anderson, and endeavoured to
procure pardon; and Hoggets thought it was not for him to resist the
wishes of the ladies.
The whole matter was argued over again, and the farmer strongly urged
with the plea that corn was more tempting to the poor than ever before,—
the quartern being now one shilling and eight-pence. The farmer thought
that the stronger the temptation, the more exemplary should be the
punishment. If he could supply every bread-eater near him with abundance
of corn, so as to obviate the temptation, he would gladly do so, as he
held prevention to be better than punishment; but, as he had not this in
his power, the best thing he could do was to discourage compliance with
temptation. In this case, however, as the boy had been a good deal
punished by exposure, and by being off and on in his expectations of
being flogged, enough was done for example, and John might run home as
fast as he liked.
“That will not be very fast,” Mary observed, “since he is to be beaten
at the end of his walk for bringing his mother’s apron home empty. I
have heard say, sir, by one that knows well, that our people are treated
like this boy; brought low for want of food, driven to skulk and pilfer
for it, and then disgraced and punished. But there is this difference,
that you cannot prevent the want, and, in the case of the people, it
might be prevented.”
“Chatham put that into your head, I suppose. It is just like one of his
sayings. But I wish he would not make the worst of matters, as if any
thing ailed the nation more than there has been ever since people herded
together with mischief-makers among them here and there.”
Miss Fergusson hoped that there had not always been, and would not
always be, such proceedings as some which were going on now. The coppice
field had been green and smooth as velvet the evening before, and this
morning at daybreak it was brown and trampled. The skulkers and
meditators of violence had been there; and the records of her father’s
justice-room would show that the disgrace and punishment spoken of by
Mary were fast following the destitution which is the cause of crime.
She hoped Mr. Anderson did not suppose that this was the natural state
in which people will always live, while congregating for the sake of the
advantages of society.
Anderson hoped that men would grow wiser in time than to set up midnight
drills as a remedy for the distress which always occurs from time to
time; and then Mr. Fergusson would have less disagreeable justice-work
to do. The ladies believed that the shortest way to obviate the folly
would be to obviate the distress; and, as they moved on, were
recommended to pray for a better harvest than had this year blessed the
land.
John had stolen away in advance of their horses. Finding that they were
proceeding to join their brothers, who had been grouse-shooting in the
moors since daybreak, it occurred to the poor boy that by following in
the track of the gentlemen, he might chance to pick up something which
would serve as a propitiation at home for his failure in the article of
corn. It was possible that a wounded bird or two might have been left by
the sportsmen, and that those who could not purchase bread might sup off
game:—no uncommon occurrence in a country where the tenants of a
preserve are better fed than the inhabitants of a village. Half
resolving to try his fortune on the other side the hills, and never to
face his parents again unless he could find a black cock, John plunged
into the moors, keeping the ladies in view from a distance, as a sort of
guide to the track that the sportsmen had been pursuing. He had not
speed of foot to sustain, for any length of time, his share of the race.
The riding party disappeared in the dusk; no living thing crossed his
path, but many inanimate ones put on the appearance of a fluttering bird
to deceive the agitated and hungry boy; and the breeze which stirred
them did not cool his brow. He could nowhere find a pool of water from
which he might drink. His legs bent under him; and at the thought of how
far they must yet carry him before he could reach shelter, north, south,
east, or west, he began to cry.
Tears do not flow long when they may flow freely. It is the presence of
restraint, or the interruption of thought, causing the painful idea to
recur, which renders it difficult for a child to stop a fit of crying.
John had no such restraint, and was subject to no further interruption
than the silent appearance of light after light in the village below,
and the survey of an occasional sheep, which came noiselessly to look at
him and walk away again. By the time that the dew began to make itself
felt upon his face, he was yawning instead of crying; and he rose from
the turf as much from a desire to be moving again as from any anxiety as
to what was to become of him this night. A manifold bleat resounded as
he erected himself, and a score or two of sheep ran over one another as
he moved from his resting place, giving hope that the shepherd was at no
great distance. It was not long before he was seen through the grey
twilight, moving on a slope a little to the west; and, to John’s
delight, he turned out to be an acquaintance, Bill Hookey, who lived
close by the Kays till he went upon the moors in Wilkins the grazier’s
service.
“How late are you going to be out, Will?” was John’s first question.
“As late as it be before it is early,” replied Will. “Yon’s my sleeping
place, and I am going to turn in when I have made out what is doing on
the river there. Look farther down,—below the forge, boy. They are quiet
enough this minute, or the wind is lulled. When it blows again, you may
chance to hear what I heard.”
“But about sleeping,” said John. “I am mortally tired, and I’ve a great
way to go home. Can’t you give me a corner in your hut till morning?”
“Why, I doubt there will be scarce room, for I promised two of my ewes
that they should have shelter to-night; and this lamb is too tender, you
see, to be left to itself. I don’t see how they can let you be served.”
John promised to let the ewes have the first choice of a snug corner,
and to be content with any space they might leave him, explaining that
he wanted to be abroad early to glean, and that it would save him a long
walk to sleep on this side Anderson’s fields, instead of a mile to the
east of them. He said nothing at present about his hunger, lest it
should prove an objection to his abiding in Will’s company. The
objection came spontaneously, however, into the mind of the prudent
Will.
“I hope you’ve your supper with you, lad, or you’ll fare hardly here.”
“O, never mind supper,” said John, brushing his sleeve across his eyes.
“I have gone without often enough lately.”
“Like many a one besides. Well, if you don’t mind supper, so much the
better for you. I have left but a scanty one for myself, I was so mortal
hungry at dinner time; and there is no more bread and milk in the jar
than the lamb will want.”
“Can’t I get some fresh sweet grass for the lamb that will do as well?
Do let me! Pretty creature! I should like to feed it.”
The offer was scornfully declined, and he was told that he might help
any of the older lambs to graze, but that he must, at his peril, touch
this particularly precious, newly-dropped lamb. John was more disposed
to graze on his own account than to assist any creature in eating what
he could not share. It next occurred to him to propose a bargain. He
thought it promised to be a cold night. Will agreed that it might be
middlingly so. John had his mother’s stout apron with him, and Will
should be welcome to it to wrap the lamb in, if John might have some of
the lamb’s bread and milk. Will had, however, a provokingly comfortable
woollen wrapper, one end of which was always at the service of the pet
lamb for the time being. While the next mode of attack was being
devised, the soft pacing of horses’ feet on the turf, and the occasional
striking of a hoof against a flint, were heard; and Will, offering an
obeisance which was lost in the darkness, made bold to inquire what
sport the gentlemen had had on the moors.
“Excellent sport, if we had bagged as many as we brought down,” answered
one of the youths: “but thieves seem to be as plentiful as furze-bushes
hereabouts. There were so many loiterers about our steps that our dogs
could not move quick enough when we brought down more than one bird at a
time.”
“There will be a savoury supper or two eaten to-night by those who sport
without pulling a trigger,” observed the other Mr. Fergusson. “But they
are welcome to my share of the powder and shot they have helped
themselves to.”
John’s heart swelled at the thoughts of how he should like to be a
sportsman after this fashion, especially as the gentleman declared that
he should have been welcome.
The ladies had paused to listen to another such sound from afar as Will
had described. Many of the twinkling lights from the village had
disappeared, and there seemed to be a great bustle below the forge,
displayed as often as the big bellows exerted themselves to throw out a
peculiarly vivid flame to light up the banks of the river. Will was of
opinion that the people were in a hurry for their corn, and unwilling to
await Kirkland’s time for opening his granaries, and unlading his
lighters. There had been talk,—as he had overheard on the moors,—of
going down the river to where the lighters took in their cargoes, and
demanding the distribution of the corn upon the spot. Probably this was
what was now being done at Kirkland’s, instead of a few miles nearer the
river’s mouth.
“It is time we were off, if that be the case,” cried one of the
gentlemen. “Kirkland must not be borne down in this manner, for the
people’s sake any more than for his own. Come, Charles. The girls will
be safe enough with Jackson. Let us run down to the village. Here,
little boy! You know Anderson’s? You know Mr. Anderson himself?”
John hung down his head, and acknowledged that he knew Mr. Anderson.
“Well, here is a shilling for you. Run to Mr. Anderson, and beg him from
me to come down, with his steadiest men, if he has any, to Kirkland’s
premises, as fast as possible. Off with you! What are you waiting for?”
“If he should be gone already, sir?”
“Why, then, go and call your father, if your father is not an ass, like
the rest of the people hereabouts.”
John heard one of the young ladies check her brother for his expression,
reminding him that nothing makes the ears grow so fast as the having an
empty stomach; and the boy pondered for a moment whether his father’s
ears had lengthened since the time when the family had become subject to
hunger. His hand involuntarily went up to the side of his own head; and
then came the speculation whether he should offer Will a high price for
the lamb’s bread and milk on the spot, or wait to change his shilling at
Mrs. Skipper’s counter. A sharp rebuke from his employer for his delay
sent him bounding down the slope, calling up his courage to face the
farmer, and consoling himself with thoughts of real white bread,
dispensed under Mrs. Skipper’s bright smile.
Alas! Mrs. Skipper had no bright smile, this evening, even for John;
much less for any one who had not so decided an opinion about her being
very handsome. Anderson had looked full as grave as John expected,
whether about the matter in hand, or the boy’s past offence, was not
clear; but the farmer’s gravity was nothing to Mrs. Skipper’s terror.
She scolded everybody about her, ran from one neighbour to another for
advice whether to barricade her windows, and could by no means attend to
John’s demand of a penny roll till he was on the point of helping
himself; and, slipping the shilling into the till, Mrs. Skipper huffed
him when he asked for change, and turned her back upon him so as to make
him fear that he had made a more costly bargain, after all, than if he
had bid for the lamb’s bread and milk upon the moor. All this was not
without cause. A friendly neighbour had come up from the river-side to
warn her that it had been proposed by the people assembled round
Kirkland’s granaries, that, failing a supply of food from his stores,
the hungry should help themselves out of the baker’s shop. It seemed but
too probable that the threat would be executed; for Mrs. Skipper found
(and God forgive her, she said, for being sorry to hear it!) that
Kirkland was prepared for the attack; having thrown open two granaries
to show that they were empty, and promised that he had something
particular to say about the wheat on board the lighters; something which
was likely to send the people away as hungry as they came.
A champion soon appeared in the person of Kay, who was almost the only
man of the village who was not engaged on the more important scene of
alarm. Women came in plenty, and children stood, like scouts, in the
distance; but the women were found to be very poor comforters, and the
children ran away as often as they were wanted for messengers. Mary was
there; and her indifference to the danger served almost as well as Kay’s
promised valour to restore spirits to Mrs. Skipper. It was something to
do when the most valuable part of the stock was carried away to be
hidden in some safe place, and the oldest loaves ostentatiously placed
so as to be stolen first, to taunt Mary with her not caring for what
happened to her friends, and looking as indifferent as if she came
merely to buy a threepenny loaf. Mary made no reply; but her brother
declared that he must just say for her, that if she was indifferent
about other people’s concerns, so she was about her own. There was
Chatham, very busy down by the river-side, with everybody listening to
him but the one who had the most reason to be proud to hear what he
said; and Mrs. Skipper would see, when she was cool, that it was rather
hard to scold Mary for being better able to give assistance than if she
was subject to being heated like some people. Mrs. Skipper begged a
world of pardons. She was not half good enough for Mary to care at all
about her, and she was ready to bite her tongue out for what she had
said. As Mary did not intimate any wish to this effect, however, no such
catastrophe took place, and the necessary disposition of affairs
proceeded quietly.
Mrs. Skipper had not to wait long to know her fate. Chatham came to tell
her that the people had been exasperated by finding that there was no
good corn for them on Kirkland’s premises, and had gone on towards
Sheffield, to burn or pull down a mill or two, it was supposed, as some
faces well known at the midnight drill were seen among them. If the few
who remained behind should come and ask bread of Mrs. Skipper, he
advised her to give it without any show of unwillingness.
“Mercy on me! that will be hard work, if they look beyond the bread on
the counter,—two days old,” cried Mrs. Skipper. “Suppose they should get
at the dough, what am I to do to-morrow? And the flour! There has not
been time to hide half the flour! They will want to cut my head off
every day for a week to come, if they strip me of my flour, and expect
me to go on baking at the same price. O, Mr. Kay, what shall I do?”
“Do as dealers in corn in another shape have done, often and often,”
replied Chatham. “Bear your lot patiently as a dealer in that which the
people want most, and in which they are most stinted.”
Mrs. Skipper looked doubtfully at Mary for a further explanation of what
it was that she was to do.
“Do you mean,” asked Kay, “that they have stripped Kirkland of his corn,
and expect him to sell more next week at the same price?”
“They would have done so, if Kirkland had had much wheat to part with.
The trade of a corndealer, I have heard him and others say, has always
been a hard one to carry on. All parties have joined against them, for
as long a time as can be remembered.”
“Ay; the farmers are jealous, I suppose, of their coming between them
and the people, thinking they could get better prices if there was
nobody to be served between them and their customers. And the people, in
the same way, think that they must pay higher for their bread, to enable
the corndealers to live.”
“Forgetting that the farmers have something else to be doing than buying
and selling corn, here and there, wherever it is wanted, and getting it
from abroad when there is not enough at home, and government lets more
come in. But it is not only the farmers and the people. The government
used to punish the buying up of corn where it was plentiful, and selling
it where it was scarce. Many a corndealer has been punished instead of
thanked for doing this.”
“I do not see why any man need be thanked for doing what answers best to
his own pocket, as it certainly does to buy cheap and sell dear. But to
punish a man for coming between the people and want, seems to me to be
more like an idle tale than anything to be believed.”
“Kirkland’s father was taken up and tried for doing this very thing, not
longer ago than a dozen years or so. The law was against him, (one of
the old laws that we are learning to be ashamed of;) but it was too
clear that he had done no harm, for anybody to wish that he should be
punished. So they let him go.”
“Who told you this?”
“Kirkland himself told us so, just now. He said he had rather be brought
to his trial in the same way, than have the people take the matter into
their own hands to their own injury. I thought it was very brave of him
to say so at the moment.”
“Why? Were the people angry?”
“Like to tear him to pieces.”
“And he within their reach?”
“Standing on the plank between the lighter and the wharf.”
“Ugh! And they might have toppled him into the water any minute!” cried
Mrs. Skipper. “I am sure I hope they won’t come near me.”
“The most angry of them are gone on, as I told you,” replied Chatham.
“And that is well for you, perhaps; for never did you see angrier faces.
They called out, two hundred voices like one, that it was a sin they
should have to pay twenty pence for their quartern while he had a
houseful of wheat stored up, and more coming.”
“And so it is, if he can get more when that is done.”
“That is the very thing he cannot be sure of doing, as he told these
people they must know very well. No one can be sure beforehand when and
how he may get in corn from abroad; and, at any rate, it cannot be had
till it has grown monstrously dear at home; and so he insisted upon it
that he was doing the wisest thing in selling his corn as others sell
it, and no cheaper; that we may not eat it all up now, and starve
entirely before the end of the winter.”
“Well, I grumble as much as anybody else at our having to pay twenty
pence for our loaf; begging your pardon, Mrs. Skipper, whose fault I
know it is not. I, with a wife and children, can’t reconcile myself to
such a price. I grumble as much as anybody.”
“So do I,” said Chatham.
“Only you don’t blame Kirkland.”
“Kirkland can’t help the grievance, any more than you or I; and I am
sure he suffers enough by it. There is a loss of some hundred pounds by
this one cargo. It is more than half spoiled.”
“Spoiled! How?”
“The sea-water has got to it, and it is downright rotten.”
“What a pity, when it is so particularly wanted! Such accidents signify
twice as much at some times as at others; and that this should happen
now—just when bread is at the highest! O dear! what a pity!”
“It would not signify half so much if there was more certainly coming,
and the people knew what they had to depend on. But if more is ordered,
it may come or it may not; and it may be in good time, or not arrive
till the season is far advanced; and so much must be paid for shipping
charges (always dear in autumn), that it may mount up as high as our own
home supply, after all.”
“What a worry Kirkland must be in!” observed Kay. “He is not one of the
quietest at any time; and now, between hurrying his correspondents
abroad, and finding his cargo spoiled at home, and having the people
gathering about him with their clamour, he must feel something like a
dog with a saucepan tied to its tail.”
“Not like your master, Mr. Kay,” observed Mrs. Skipper. “There is no law
to meddle with his selling his brass abroad or at home, as he likes; and
so he knows what to expect, and how to live with his neighbours; and has
little to worry him.”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Skipper. My master is prevented selling freely
abroad and at home; and prevented by the same law that worries Kirkland.
And the worry is great, I can tell you; though Oliver does not run
about, losing his breath and fidgeting himself like Kirkland, but walks
so solemn and slow, you might take him for a Quaker.”
“Well, I thought, as his foundry is always at work, and people must have
things made of brass, and nobody objecting,—I thought things went easily
enough with Oliver.”
“His foundry works at night,” said Chatham, “and his metal runs as well
at Christmas as at Midsummer; and yet Oliver’s prosperity depends on
rain and sunshine as much as if zinc and copper were sown in the furrows
and came up brass.”
“There, now,” said Mrs. Skipper, “that is one of your odd speeches,
Chatham. And Mr. Kay nods as if he knew what you meant.”
“I have good reason to know,” replied Kay. “I and my fellow-workmen must
have higher wages when corn is scarce, and then Oliver must put a better
price upon his brass, without either his or our gaining anything by it:
and then——”
“O ay; there will be less brass bought; that is what you mean.”
“Moreover, there are plenty of people abroad that want brass, and would
take it if they could give us corn in exchange,—so regularly as that
they and we might know what we are about. And so, as sure as sunshine or
rain falls short, some of Oliver’s furnaces die out: and as sure as
Kirkland’s corn-vessels might come and go, without let or hinderance,
our foundry would send a light, night and day, over all the vale.”
“That is the way Chatham’s sayings come out,” observed the widow: “but I
think he might as well speak plain at once, and make no mysteries.”
“I spoke plain enough about what was going to happen to you and your
bread,” said Chatham, “and now you will soon see whether it comes out
true; for here is the street filling fast, I see.”
“Poor souls!” cried the widow, having run out at her door to look. “They
do not seem creatures to be afraid of, when one comes close to them;—so
tired and lagging! I say, Dixon, won’t you have something to eat after
your walk? Smith, you look worse still, and I saw how early you were off
to your work this morning, and you have a good way to go to supper. Try
a roll, won’t you? Come, that’s right, Bullen, set to, and tell me if it
is not good bread; and you, Taylor,—carry it home to your wife, if you
scruple to eat it yourself.—Bless you, make no speeches! I only wish I
had more; but this is all, you see, except the dough that is laid for
the morning, and that belongs to my customers, not to me.—Well; I am
pleased you like it. I would have thought to get in some cheese, if I
had known, before the shop was shut, that you would be passing.—Never
make such a favour of it. I’ll ask the same of you some day. Or you will
remember me when times mend with you.—Do look, Mr. Kay; if they be not
going to cheer!—I never thought to live to be cheered.—Bless them! how
hearty they are!”
And laughing, sparkling, and waving her right arm vehemently, the dame
watched in their progress down the street the neighbours whose approach
she had thought, an hour before, she could scarcely survive. Kay
followed the munching groups, to see what they would do next; and
Chatham drew Mary’s arm within his own, to escort her home, leaving the
widow to bolt herself in, and survey at her leisure her bare shelves,
and sweep down her empty shop-board,—soliloquizing, as she went on,
“I forgot these little sweet-cakes, or some of the children should have
had them,—for they are rather stale. It is well they did not press for
the dough, for I don’t believe I could have refused them anything at the
moment,—and then what should I have said to the Fergussons’ man in the
morning?—Well; it does look forlorn, now it is all over; and it was but
this morning that I refused to take Mrs. Holmes’s ten-shilling bonnet
because I thought I could not afford it; and now I have given away,—let
me see how many shillings’ worth of bread! Ugh! I dare not think of it.
But it is done, and can’t be undone; and besides I dare say they would
have taken it, if I had not given it; and, as I bargained with them,
they will do the same for me some day. Smith does look rarely bad, to be
sure. I wish he be not going; though, if he be, it will be pleasant to
think that one gave him a meal when he was hungry. Not that it won’t be
pleasant to remember the same thing if he lives. I wonder what his poor
wife’s expectation is concerning him. If she loses him, I hope she will
find it no more of a trouble than I have done. So much less than I
thought! I think poor Mrs. Kay droops almost as much as Smith. But
there’s no knowing. Those weakly people often live the longest;—except,
to be sure, when they have got into a habit like hers. Not a word has
her husband ever let drop about it. I wonder whether he knows as much as
I do. He shall never hear a word of it from me, nor not even Mary,
though I fancy she can’t be blind. Catch Mary Kay blind to anything! For
all she looks so dull and stony when she chooses, she sees as sharp as a
hawk,—and has such a way of setting one down. She’s a good creature too,
with all she does for those children; and nothing could be more handy
than she was about the bread to-night. I wish she might chance to look
in in the morning, and give me more of her handiness, to help to make
the place look a little less forlorn than it does with all these empty
shelves. I was very hasty, to be sure, in emptying them; but, as the
parson said on Sunday, God loves a cheerful giver. So now, I will cast a
look to see if the dough is rising, and go to bed; for it must be full
late, I am sure.”
Chatham and Mary were meanwhile walking home, conversing after their
fashion,—making six words do where others would use twenty. An incident
occurred on which they understood each other without any words at all. A
gleam of light fell across the street as a door on the shadowy side of
the way slowly opened, to let out a woman, who walked along under the
houses, slowly and with her head hung down. It was the door of the
gin-shop that opened, and it would have been absurd to pretend not to
know the woman. Mary instantly slackened her pace, and motioned to cross
over to the dark side.
“She is steady enough,” said Chatham. “She will get on very well by
herself.”
“To be sure she will. It is not quite come to that yet. But let her get
home first, and not know that we have been following her. It is only
merciful.”
“She shall have mercy from me;—more perhaps than from those who are
answerable for her failing and sinking as she does, poor soul!”
Mary consented to turn back to the end of the street, to give a little
more time, and asked whether grindstone cutting was not warm work in
these sultry noons. She had learned all she wanted about grindstones by
the time she could safely knock at her brother’s door with the hope that
there was somebody stirring within to open it.
“I say nothing about coming in to sit with you all till Kay comes,
because——”
“I was not going to ask you to-night. To-morrow evening, perhaps. Good
night now. I hear her coming. Good night.”
And Chatham was out of sight from within, before Mrs. Kay, her bonnet
off, and her cap somehow not put on, opened the door, and left Mary to
fasten it.
CHAPTER III.
FASTERS AND FEASTERS.
There were two opposite lights on the horizon that night, to those who
looked out from the village. While the moon sank serenely behind the
dark western hills, a red flame shot up, amidst volumes of wreathing
smoke, in the direction of Sheffield. Some persons were trying the
often-repeated experiment of gaining bread by the destruction of that by
which bread is gained. A metal-mill was gutted, its machinery broken,
and its woodwork burned, because the sea water had got to Kirkland’s
corn; and more mills were threatened in case the price of bread did not
fall within a few days. As no one could answer for the price of bread
falling within the time specified, the only thing to be done was to take
measures to avert the promised destruction. For this purpose, strict
inquiries were made as to what the inhabitants of the district had been
about the preceding evening; who had gone home from the harvest-field;
who attended the arrival of Kirkland’s corn; and how many there were who
could give no good account of themselves. Early in the morning the
officers of justice were abroad, and Mr. Fergusson and his sons were
seen riding about, greeted not the less respectfully wherever they went
from its being known that their object was to bring some of their
neighbours to justice. Mr. Fergusson’s character stood too high among
his tenants to allow of their thinking the worse of him under any
misfortunes that might happen. Let him do what he might in his character
of magistrate, he was trusted to do what was right, as he showed
himself, on all occasions, not only compassionate to the sufferings of
the people, but as wise in discerning the causes of the suffering as
anxious to relieve it when relief was in his power. Accordingly, hats
were touched when he looked in the faces of those whom he met this
morning, and ready answers given to his inquiries where the innocent
were called upon to speak, and respectful ones from the guilty, when the
necessity came upon them of making out a case. All the complaisance that
there was, however, was engrossed by the Mr. Fergussons. The constables
got only sneers and short answers, and men and women looked suspiciously
on one another all through the district, none knowing what a neighbour
might have the power to tell. Perhaps so many cross words were never
spoken in one day in the vale, as the day after the burning of Halsted’s
mill. “What do you look at me for? You had better look to yourself,” was
the common sentiment at the forge, in the field, and on the alehouse
bench. As for the children, they were so perplexed with instructions
what they were to say, that it was only to be hoped no one would ask
them any questions.
It was not to be supposed that Mrs. Skipper could stay quietly at home
while strangers were passing up and down the street about whom her
journeyman could give her no information, and while reports were
travelling round of one neighbour and another being compromised. She
burst in at Kay’s, just after he was gone to his work, when his wife was
preparing to put away breakfast, and Mary was beating out the corn which
she had gleaned the evening before, and which was destined to the mill
this day.
“I have not brought you a hot roll this morning, Mrs. Kay; no, nor so
much as a crust. I cannot afford any more of that at present; and so you
will not look for it from me.”
“What do you speak in that way to me for? I don’t know what you mean,”
said Mrs. Kay, with an angry, puzzled stare.
“Nor I what you would be at, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Skipper. “One would
not believe you were the soft-spoken Mrs. Kay, now-a-days. You can be
sharper in your speech than ever I am, let me tell you.”
“That is the more reason why you should be soft in yours,” said Mary.
“She has borne with you sometimes, when you have been better in health
than she is now.”
“Well; that is true: and she does look so poorly.... Ah! now, there’s
master John coming out with a speech about my fresh colour again.”
John was not thinking about anybody’s colour. He wanted to know whether
it was not true that he had had eleven-pence change from her the night
before.
“To be sure you had, after taking a penny roll.”
John called his mother to witness, that she might tell his father, that
he was in possession of a shilling before the troubles began at
Kirkland’s; to say nothing of those farther on. His father had doubted
his getting that shilling honestly, and had desired his mother to take
possession of the eleven pence till the whole was unquestionably
accounted for; and now John wanted his money back again. Mrs. Kay did
not, however, heed his request; and the matter ended in Mary’s
persuading the boy that if he had the money by the time he was at
liberty to go out, it would do very well, instead of pressing for it now
that his mother was busy thinking of something else.
“Why, take care, Mrs. Kay!” cried her neighbour. “Your hand shakes so,
you will certainly let the dish down, and that will cost you more than a
meal of my best bread would have done. Well! that is a beautiful potato
to have left among the peelings. And here’s another! I wonder you let
the children scatter their food about in that manner.”
“’Tis not the children,” observed Mary. “They have not more than they
are very willing to eat, poor things! Their mother has but little
appetite, and she is apt to slip her food back into the dish, that it
may not make her husband uneasy.—I want your help more than she does,”
she continued, seeing that Mrs. Skipper’s officious assistance was
obstinately refused by the poor woman. “Will you step behind, and help
me to beat and winnow my corn, if you have a minute to spare?”
With all her heart, Mrs. Skipper said; but she _had_ an errand, though
it was not to bring cider or hot bread. She had learned the secret of
making potato-bread: not the doughy, distasteful stuff that many people
were eating, but light, digestible, palatable bread. She would not tell
the secret to everybody,—giving away her own trade; but when she saw a
family of old friends eating potatoes, morning, noon, and night, she
could not help telling them how they might get something better.
Mary thanked her, and observed that she did not know how she could put
her gleaned corn to a better use than in making the experiment of a
batch of mixed flour and potato-bread.
“Ah! do; and I will treat you to the baking, and look well to it myself.
For my credit’s sake, you know; having set you to try. Come, let us have
the corn beat out.”
They went to the back of the house to thresh and winnow, and then the
widow’s first exclamation was about how sadly out of sorts Mrs. Kay
seemed to be.
“These are not times for her,” replied Mary. “They bear harder upon such
as she was than upon anybody. Who could have thought, you know, when she
was an only child, brought up delicately for a poor man’s daughter, that
she would come to loathe a potato breakfast, and have no other?”
“Bless you! I know,” whispered the widow, with a wise look. “People may
take things over-night that leave them no sense, nor temper, nor
appetite in the morning. My dear, I see how it is.”
Mary was apparently too busy with the wheat to take any notice of this
intimation. The next thing she said was,
“Where are all the potatoes to come from that will be wanted if people
take to this new sort of bread? and indeed whether they do or not; for
potatoes they must eat, either by themselves or made into bread. How are
we to get enough?”
“The price is rising, they say; faster than the price of anything else,
except corn: and if you go up yonder towards the moors, you will see
what a quantity of new ground is being taken up for growing potatoes. I
have had half a mind to try what I could do with a bit of a field
myself. Anderson knows what he is about, generally; and what he tries in
a large way might be safe for such as we in a small.”
“I would not try,” replied Mary.
“No, not if you were me, because you think I fly from one thing to
another, and do myself harm.”
“Besides,” said Mary, attempting no denial, “how will it be with you
next year, if there should chance to be a fine wheat and barley crop?
People do not live on potatoes when they can get bread; and I am sure it
is not to be wished that they should. I hope there will be much less
demand for potatoes next year; and it is likely there will. We have had
so many bad seasons, it cannot be long before a good one comes.”
“And then what a pity it will be that so much money has been spent in
fencing and managing these potato-grounds! It may chance to come to be
worth while to turn the sheep on again. That _would_ be a pity.”
“Say rather it is a pity they were ever turned off. The land on the
moors is much more fit for them than for us to feed off; and leaving
them there would leave the money that is spent on the land (more than it
is worth, if matters went on in their usual course) to be used in a more
profitable way.”
“In what way?”
“Why; take your own case. If you pay so much for hedging and ditching,
and draining, and manuring the potato-ground you have a mind for, and
the crop brings you no more next year than the same plot now brings as a
sheep-feed, is not the money just lost that was laid out in making a
field of it? My opinion is that it would bring less; and if it does not,
it ought to do. Our people will be badly off indeed if food is so high
next year as to make them take your potatoes at a price that would make
your bargain a good one; and if they are obliged to do so, they will be
eating up in those potatoes the money that should have set some of them
to work at weaving or cutlery-employment. Better buy corn of Kirkland
when we can, and let the sheep graze on.”
“Ay, when we can. There is the very thing. If we could always do that,
as much as we pleased, we should not spend much of our money on the
moors; but it is because it is all a chance whether we shall be buying
of Kirkland next year, that one thinks of taking the chance of potatoes
selling well.”
“I would not.”
“No, not you. You would spend your money, if you had any, in a little
bargain of grindstones, for the sake of a certain person.”
“That would depend on the price of potatoes,” replied Mary, smiling,
“for they would depend on the price of corn; and on the price of corn
mainly depends the cutlery trade; and where is the use of grindstones
unless the cutlery business flourishes?”
“There is another thing to be looked to; and that is, that those you
help in cutting grindstones do not get themselves into trouble;—ay, by
being abroad at night, and having the constables after them in the day.
I would have you consider that, my dear. Mercy! how frightened you
look,—as white as my apron! Now, don’t push me away because I let out a
thing that made you frightened.”
“Angry—very angry,” said Mary.
“Not with me, to be sure; for I did not make it, be it true or not true;
though I need not have cast it in your teeth as I did. It was Dick Rose
told me; and he said he knew it from——”
“Do get me a little vinegar, Mrs. Skipper. I never pinched my finger so
smartly before. I shall not be able to get my thimble on this week.”
“Well, now, it was that made you turn white, while you pretended to be
so angry with me that you made my heart beat in my throat. I shall know
you now another time, mistress Mary.”
“Not you,” thought Mary, as her giddy companion bustled into the house
for vinegar.
“I don’t see your sister,” said she, returning, “but I guessed where to
look for the vinegar. Is the pain going? Well, only do you ask Dick Rose
about how the folks were seen creeping out of the quarry, one by one,—
those that worked there, and some strangers that came to visit them; and
how——”
“I shall not ask Dick Rose any such thing, when there is a person that
can tell me so much better,” said Mary.
“Ay, if he will.”
“John, fetch me the large blue apron,” cried Mary; “and bring out Nanny
with you. I promised she should lend a hand, and see the chaff fly.”
Before John could reach the door, a sharp scream,—the scream of a
child,—was heard from within. Mary flew to see what had happened, but
just as she was entering, her brother, seeing that some one was behind
her, slammed the door in her face, and was heard to bolt it. Mrs.
Skipper would not listen to what she had to say about the child having a
fall, but exclaimed,
“Well, I should not have thought Mr. Kay could have behaved in that
manner to you; and he looked at me quite fierce, so as I thought had not
been in his nature.”
And she stepped to the window to tap, and ask an explanation: but she
caught a glimpse of something that quieted her, and sent her to stoop
down over the wheat again, without looking at Mary, or speaking another
word. Kay was carrying his wife up stairs. The helpless arm, hanging
over his shoulder, was just visible, and the awe-struck children,
suspending their crying, moved Mrs. Skipper to concern too deep to be
expressed in her usual giddy speech.
“Which way are you going?” asked Mary at length. “I am off for the mill,
as soon as I can get in to take the children with me.”
“And I home; and you may depend on me, you know for what. My tongue does
run too fast sometimes, I know; but you may depend on me, as it was only
by a chance that I was here.”
“Thank you!” replied Mary, warmly. “And I will take it kindly of you to
show me the way about the bread, as soon as my corn is ground.”
By the united resources of the children within, the door was unbolted,
and the party allowed egress into the street, when Mrs. Skipper turned
down, and Mary up; the children asking her, one to go out of the way for
the sake of the pond on the heath, and another hoping to jump down five
steps of the mill-ladder, four having been achieved last time. Mary
would have been glad to forget their mother as easily as they.
When Warden saw her toiling up the slope on the top of which the mill
stood, her bundle on her head, and a child tugging at each side of her
gown, he civilly came down to relieve her, and told her that she was
more welcome than on the occasion of her last visit. It was a fine
breezy day, he observed, and perhaps she might like to look about her
from the top of the mill, if she did not mind the shaking that there
always was in a wind. Mary thanked him, but dared not leave the
children, lest they should put themselves in the way of the sails. This
difficulty was soon obviated by the miller’s taking the girl upon his
shoulder, and calling to his man to bring up the boy, and let him play
among the sacks in the first story, or climb higher, as he liked.
“I suppose you saw the fire finely from here, if you chanced to be
looking out last night,” Mary observed.
“My man did, as he stayed to take advantage of the wind. He says it
lighted up every turn of the river between this and Sheffield. You may
see the smoke still, among the other smoke. Half the country has flocked
there this morning, my father-in-law told me just now, as he passed on
his way to pay his rent. It is a good time to choose to pay his rent,
when every body is thinking of something else than emptying his pockets.
Otherwise, it is not the safest and pleasantest thing in the world to be
carrying money over the by-road between this and Fergusson’s. Yonder he
goes,” continued the miller, stooping to the little girl whom he was
keeping steady with his arm round her waist. “Yonder goes Mr. Anderson,
on his black mare. You may see him trotting along the lane between those
young oaks.”
“He will come back slower in the evening, when he has left his money
behind him,” observed Mary.
“He will not wait till evening. He will just finish with the steward,
and come home again, for the Mr. Fergussons are abroad over the country
to-day; and besides, my father-in-law is wanted at home every hour of
the day while the improvements are going on. Look how busy he is
thereabouts.”
“I see; they drive the poor sheep higher and higher up the moors, with
their walls and their ditches.”
“Yes, year by year. Before these many bad seasons, the sheep used to
browse on this very slope where my mill stands. I used to come up among
the bleaters every morning.”
“You speak as if the bad seasons were the cause of the change.”
“And so they are, mainly. Where numbers increase as they have done here
in my time, more food will be wanted at all events, be the seasons what
they may. But when the soil yields scantily, for years together, the
inclosing will go on faster, from the cry for food. Yonder field, red
even now with poppies, would never have been sown if the nine-acres in
the bottom had yielded as they ought. The nine-acres used to yield as
much as was reaped this year in itself and the poppy-field together.”
“And there has been all the cost of taking it in besides.”
“Yes; and my father-in-law does wisely to pay that cost (if he must pay
it) before his rent is raised. He and the steward will have an argument
about that rent to-day, I fancy. The lease will be up soon now, and
rents are rising every where; and I suppose my father-in-law is content
to let his mount up too. He would not otherwise be carrying on all these
works.”
“I wonder at his being content to pay more rent after so many short
harvests.”
“It is easier than after larger; for corn sells dear, more than in
proportion to its scarcity. Nobody can tell you better than Anderson
that a single short harvest makes a heavy pocket; much more a succession
of short harvests.”
“Till the poor get a-head of the rate-payers, I suppose,—no longer. When
Mr. Anderson has to maintain half of us down in the village, because we
cannot buy food, he will find us lighten his pockets as fast as bad
years can fill them.”
“The manufacturers must help him then. They must raise their people’s
wages——”
“And so must Anderson.”
“They must raise their people’s wages, and maintain the poor in the
towns, and in the working villages.”
“I wish the manufacturers joy of their good nature. They first pay dear
for their own bread, and then pay dear for the labour which is to buy
their workmen’s bread, and then spend what profits are left in
supporting those whose labour they cannot employ; and all to make
Anderson’s and other farmers’ pockets heavy for a little while after bad
seasons. I wish them joy of their patience.”
“Anderson will want patience too, when his turn comes. Depend upon it,
as soon as he gets fairly saddled with a high rent and high rates, there
will come a fine crop or two to make prices as low in proportion as they
now are high. He cannot bring down his men’s wages all in a day; much
less can the rates be disburthened at once; and so it will be well if he
makes ready beforehand for such a change.”
“I hope he does make ready; but what I see there looks little like it.”
“What, you mean the bay-window and balcony now making to my house, and
the shrubbery he is laying out. All that was no wish of mine, for I
thought the white house looked very neat as it was before; and the bit
of garden behind was as much as my wife and I had time to attend to. But
her father liked that his daughter’s house should be improving while he
was adding so much to his own, and he made us accept of the alteration,
whether we would or no. He said, that while he was sending my wife’s
sister to Paris, and bringing up her brothers to look higher than he
once thought of for them, he could not leave her neglected, as if he was
ashamed of her having married more humbly than the other girls will do.”
“And his own house looks hardly like the same place. His having built up
among all the rambling old parts gives it one face as a whole.”
“Yes; three more bad years, and it will look like a gentleman’s mansion.
Yes, yes; these are the joyous rent-days, when the steward gets every
farthing, and pretends to shake his head because it is no more; and when
the farmers try to look dismal about the short crops, and then sing
merry songs over their ale,—such of them as have not taken to port.
Well, the millers’ day will come in time, it is to be hoped.”
“When will that be?”
“When the people are not setting their wits to work to make
potato-bread, and eating every thing that grows rather than flour. We
have had more going and coming, more watching and jealousy about waste,
and more grumbling because we cannot grind for nothing,—more trouble of
all sorts about a few trumpery bundles of gleanings this last week, than
about fifty sacks when I first became a miller.”
“I will give you as little trouble as I can with mine,” said Mary; “but
you must not call it a trumpery bundle, for it is worth much to me. If
you knew how much, I might trust you not to waste any of it.”
“You would not dream of my wasting, if you saw how carefully I look to
every grain. Why, I drive away the very birds themselves, if they light
when the sails stop at any time. We do not leave the sweepings to them
and the wind, as we used to do, but sift them as a housemaid sifts for
pins. That is the reason why I do not offer your young master a handfull
for the pigeons, as I used to do.”
“Don’t think of it, pray. He is going to play with the ducks on the pond
as we go home, and that will do as well: besides, I hear him laughing
now, merry enough without the pigeons.”
“Playing hide and seek with Jerry among the sacks, I fancy.”
“Where he must have done playing for to-day,” observed Mary. “How quiet
every place looks for a working day!” she continued, giving one more
glance round the horizon before she descended. “Except the sheep,
creeping like mites on the uplands, and the labourers gathering like
ants about the new inclosures, I see nobody stirring.”
“I seldom see it so quiet, except on a starlight night, when there is no
noise but the whizzing of the sails when they go by starts; or perhaps
an owl from my gable. But you see the people in the quarries stick to
their work, as if they had no share in what was doing last night.” And
the miller looked full at Mary as he spoke. “I see a man or two with his
pick in yonder stone-pit, hewing away as if nothing had happened. Cannot
you see them? Well, it is a wonder your head has stood the shaking in
this breeze for so long. Many people can fix their sight on nothing
after the first two minutes.”
Mary was determined to see more of the quarries before she went home
than could be discerned from the mill-top. She let one child peep into
the hopper to see how the corn ran down to be ground, and the other to
exhibit his jump of five steps, with a topple at the end of it, and then
walked quickly away towards the part of the heath where bilberries were
to be found, and where she thought she might leave her charge safely
employed while she looked into the quarry to see whether Chatham was
really there, and whether or not he had had any transactions with the
constables since she saw him last.
CHAPTER IV.
A POOR MAN’S INDUCTION.
It took but a little time to show the children how to find bilberries,
and not very much longer to teach them not to eat what they found; after
which Mary was at liberty to walk round to the mouth of the
stone-quarry, beside which the fashioning of grindstones went on, in
subservience to the cutlery business of Sheffield. She avoided the sheds
where the sawing and smoothing proceeded, and looked only among the men
who were excavating the stone. But few were at work this day; Chatham
was one of them. He was engaged high up, with his face to the rock, and
having no glances to spare for the scene below him, or for the narrow,
rough path by which his present position must be attained.
Mary had never been here before, and she lingered in hopes that Chatham
might turn, and encourage her to go on. She gathered rag-wort from the
moist recesses by the way, and paused to observe how the ivy was
spreading over a portion of the stone face of the quarry which had been
left untouched for some time, and to listen to the water trickling down
among the weeds by a channel which it had worn for itself. As Chatham
still did not turn, she proceeded to climb the path, being aware that
children who were playing in the bottom had given notice of her
presence, and that face after face peeped out from beneath the sheds to
gaze, and then disappeared again. When at length she laid her hand on
the arm of the toiling man, he started as if his tool had broken under
his blow.
“Mary! what brought you here?”
“I heard that the constables were after you.”
“So did I; and here I am, if they choose to come.”
“And what next?”
“My words and deeds will be taken up against me, perhaps. Perhaps it may
be found that I am a good friend to all the parties that were
quarrelling last night. This last is what I wish to be.”
“And trying to be so, you will get blamed by all in turn.”
“By all at once, if they so please. As often as they choose to ask my
opinion, as they did last night, they shall have it, though they
themselves try to hoot me down. I do not want to meddle; but, being bid
to speak out, I will speak, out of the fire or the water, if they bid me
burn or drown. So it is not the notion of a constable that can frighten
me.”
“Out of fire or water, would you? Then much more would you speak in a
moonlight field. O, tell me if you were there.”
“How did you spend your thoughts, Mary, those nights that you sat by the
spring, during the drought? What were you thinking about when your
sister threw down the pitcher that you caught? That must have been a
weary night to you both.”
“You saw us! Then it is true; and you are one that hopes to get food by
night-arming?”
“Not I. If the question of stinting food or getting plenty of it were
waiting to be decided by arms,—the hungry on one side and the full on
the other,—I would take up my pike with a hopeful heart, however sorry I
might be that blood should be shed in settling so plain a matter. But
what could a little band of pale complainers do, creeping under the
shadows of yonder walls, with limbs as trembling as their hearts are
firm? How should they be champions of the right while they are victims
of the wrong? They must be fed before they can effectually struggle for
perpetual food.”
“Poor wretches! they did look, it seemed to me, as if they had no life
nor spirit in them.”
“The spirit goes from the sunk eye to swell the heart, Mary; and those
that have not strength of arm this day, may prove, many a day hence,
what their strength of purpose has been. This is what the authorities
ought to look to. Instead of scouring the country to wake up a wretch
from the noon-day sleep which he seeks because he has had no morning
meal, they should provide against the time when his arm will be strong
to make his hungry dreams come true. Instead of carrying one man in
disgrace from his loom, and another from the forge, and another from the
quarry, to tell the old story—‘We have been patient long, and can endure
no longer,’ our rulers should be satisfying themselves whether this is
one of the stories which is to have no end. It cannot be very pleasing
to their ears. The wonder is, that if they are weary of it, they go on
from century to century to cry, ‘Tell us this story again.’”
“They cannot yet be so weary of it as we.”
“No; for they hear others in turn with it,—tales of victories abroad,
and of rejoicings at home in places where no poor man sets his foot.
Their painters show them pictures of jolly rent-days, and the music they
hear is triumphant and spirit-stirring. If they go abroad in the day,
they laugh to see their enemies made mirth of in the streets; and if at
night, they glorify themselves and one another in the light of
illuminations. Thus they can forget our story for a while.”
“I would rather they should come here than go myself among them, to be
the merriest of the merry.”
“Ay; if we could set each of them down in this vale as one of ourselves,
they would be surprised to find how dismal night-lights are when they
shine upon scowling brows and hollow cheeks; and how little spirit
war-music has when it cannot drown the moans of the famished, and the
cries of mothers weeping for their children.”
“It seems to me that their very religion helps to deceive them about us.
Last Sunday, the clergyman looked comfortably about him, and spoke very
steadily when he read about the springing corn in the furrows, and that
the little hills rejoice on every side. I thought of the red poppies and
the stones in Fergusson’s new fields, and the scanty gleanings on the
uplands, and my heart turned back from my Bible.”
“It should not have done that, Mary. It is not that the Bible is in
fault, but that some people read it wrong. There is never any day of any
year when there are not springing grains and ripening harvests on God’s
earth.”
“You ought to be able to speak to that, having gone so far round the
world when you were a boy at sea.”
“I can speak to it. If there are angels hovering over the fields, as
’tis said there once were, and if the earth lies stretched beneath them
as in a map, they may point to one fruitful place or another, and never
cease their song, ‘Thou visitest the earth and waterest it. The pastures
are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are covered over with corn.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.’”
“But of what use is it to us that there is corn somewhere, if we have it
not? Are we to bless God that he feeds some people somewhere, while
there are still poppies and stones where we look for bread?”
“You might as well ask ‘of what use is the fruit on the tree to him who
sits hungering at its foot?’ And, ‘is not a parched traveller to repine
at his thirst, when a well is springing in the neighbouring shade?’ What
would you say to hungering and thirsty men like these?”
“‘Bless God that there is fruit, and climb to reach it. Be thankful that
there is water, and go down to take your fill.’”
“We are required by our rulers to do one half of this reasonable
thanksgiving, and to forego the remainder. We are bidden to thank God
for his gifts, but forbidden to reach and take.—How great is the folly
of this, you would see at a glance, if you could go where I have been.”
“To see how perfectly happy people are in the fruitful places, while so
many are suffering here? To see how unequal is the lot of dwellers in
different countries?”
“Not so; but worse. There is but too much equality in the lot of
dwellers in fruitful and on barren soils; between those who are too many
for their food, and those who bury their spare corn out of their way. If
some were satisfied while others suffer, the sufferers might be the more
patient because all were not afflicted like themselves; but it is when
all suffer, and might yield mutual relief, if they were not prevented,
that patience is impossible. I would ask no man to have patience with
our state who had seen the state of many others, striving after patience
as painfully as we.”
“What others?”
“Why, there is the labouring man of Poland, for one. He creeps out of
his log hut, shivering, half naked, in the first cold of autumn, to feed
his pigs with the grain——”
“Grain! What sort of grain?”
“Wheat, or rye, as may happen; whichever happens to be rotting the
fastest. Between him and the black forests on the horizon are plains,
stretching away for leagues upon leagues, some sprinkled with a few
cattle, and some showing a stubble that you would be glad to have the
gleaning of; and others lying waste, though richer as soil than many a
field of Anderson’s.”
“O, but that is a shame, with the people so poor.”
“It would make the people no richer to till those wastes, unless the
crops could sell. The people there do not want food——”
“So I think, if they feed their beasts on wheat and rye.”
“They want clothes, and good houses, and all that makes a dwelling
comfortable; and yet, though our warehouses are overfull of broad cloth,
and we could furnish twice as much metal-work as we do, if we had bread
for the workmen, it is only by fits and starts that we will let Poland
sell us corn, and clothe her sons. Then, again, near the Black Sea——”
“Is that sea really blacker than other seas?”
“The sun glitters there as bright as on the heaving Indian bays, and it
is as blue when the sky is clear as any tarn in yonder hills. God has
done all to make it beautiful, not only from above, but by spreading
fertile tracts all along its shores. If man would do his part, sending
ships upon its bosom, and leaving no spot desolate around, it might be
made the happy place that, in my opinion, the whole earth might be made,
and will be, some time or other.”
“The people are not happy there now, then?”
“Not what we should call happy, though they may like better than we
should the flitting from plain to plain to gather corn, as bees flit
from blossom to blossom for honey. They reap for three seasons from a
field, and then move to another, leaving an exhausted soil and a
desolate place behind them.”
“We might teach them husbandry, if they would let us have some of the
fruits of it.”
“And then they might learn to live a little more like Christians than
they do, and have some of the pleasures that we have, in the midst of
all our hardships, in growing up from the state of brute beasts into
that of thinking men. There are other parts,—in America,—where thinking
men live who fret in the impossibility of making their children wiser
and more civilized than themselves,—which should be every man’s aim for
his children. They can give them work,—but what is it all for?—food.
They can give them wealth,—but what does it all consist of?—food. They
can hold out a prospect of increase,—but of what?—food. They long for a
thousand comforts, if they could but convert their corn into these
comforts. They perceive that there are a thousand advantages and
blessings over the sea, if they could but stretch out a long arm to
throw corn into our lap, and reach home—things which we can now use no
more than they, because we have too little bread, and they have too
much. Though their sons are thus condemned to be clowns, and ours to be
paupers, we must hope that they will learn from our follies so to deal
together as that the clown may become a wise man, and the pauper take
his stand on the rights of his industry.”
“But why, if so many countries are fruitful, is England alone barren?”
“England is fruitful in corn; but yet more so in men, and in arts which
she chooses to make barren of food. England has corn on her hills, corn
in her valleys, corn waving over her plains; yet this corn is not
enough, or not always enough, for the multitudes who gather together in
her villages, and throng her cities, and multiply about her workhouses.
If this corn is not enough, England’s duty is,—not to starve hundreds,
or half-starve thousands of her children, but to bring out corn from all
the apparatus of her arts. She should bring out corn from her looms,
corn from her forges, corn from her mines; and when more than all this
is wanted, let her multiply her looms and her forges, and sink new mines
from which other millions may derive their bread.”
“You dig bread from this hard rock, I suppose, when you furnish
grindstones on which the cutlery is to be prepared which may be
exchanged with the Russian and the American for corn.”
“I do: and to limit this exchange is not only to limit the comforts of
us workmen, but to forbid that there shall be more lives in our borders
than the fruits of our own soil can support. There is room for myriads
more of us, and for a boundless improvement of our resources; these
resources are forbidden to improve, and these myriads to exist. Whence
rulers derive their commission thus to limit that to which God has
placed no perceivable bound, let them declare.”
“Then there are not too many of us, if all were wise.”
“By no means. If all were permitted to be as happy as God bids them be,
there would be neither the recklessness of those who multiply without
thought, nor the forced patience of those who have a conscience and
listen to it. If all were wise, they would proportion their numbers to
their food; but then that food would not be stinted by arbitrary laws
which issue in evil to all. Our rulers turn away, if perchance they see
in the streets infants that pine for a while, only to die; and pronounce
that such children should never have been born. And it may be true; but
it is not for our rulers to pronounce, except with shame; for it is only
while waiting for their becoming just that it behoves the people to be
as self-denying as they require.”
“Strangers that pass this way for their pleasure,” observed Mary,
“wonder at the hardness of our shepherds in turning their tender lambs
exposed upon the moors, where, if some thrive, many pine. Do not they
themselves (as many of them as have to do with making laws) turn out the
young of our cities into stony fields, where they pine like starving
lambs? There is small use in pitying—small kindness in saying that such
should never have been born, if there are indeed fields where for stones
they may gather bread.”
“When I see money buried in the furrows of such fields,” replied
Chatham, “I feel that it is taken twice from those whose due it is;—from
the mechanic who, instead of standing idle, would fain be producing corn
on his anvil; and from the spiritless boor abroad, who would as
willingly exchange his superfluity to supply his need. When I see the
harrow pass over such fields, I see it harrow human souls; and voices
cry out from the ground, however little the whistling husbandman may
heed them.”
“The husbandman will not long whistle, if all must at length scramble
for food. His turn to see his infants pine must come at last.”
“At last! It comes early, for there are more to follow. There is the
farmer to swear that it is hard upon him that his labourers must live,
as it is upon his substance that they must live. Then comes he for whom
the farmer labours in his turn. He complains that, let the sunshine be
as bright, the dews as balmy as they may, he can reap scarcely half the
harvest of his gains, and that he is pressed upon by the crowds who come
to him for bread.”
“He can hardly wonder at this, when it is he himself who forbids their
going elsewhere. To what third party would he commend them?”
“Perhaps he would quote Scripture, as may be done for all purposes, and
tell them that the clouds drop fatness, and bid them look up and await
the promised manna. Till it comes, however, or till he and his tribe
have unlocked the paths of the seas, he has no more right to complain of
the importunity which disturbs him than the child who debars the thrush
from its native woods has to be angry when it will not plume itself and
sing, but beats against its wires because its fountain is no longer
filled.”
“I could not but think something like this when I saw even so good a man
as our Mr. Fergusson on rough terms with some of the people he met on
the way, when he went out to view the harvest-home.”
“The harvest-home which used to be a merry feast when it was clear that
its golden fruits were to be wealth to all! Now, there is no knowing
what is to become of it; whether it shall be divided and consumed in
peace, or scrambled for by men possessed by the demon of want, or burned
by those who cannot share, and are therefore resolved that none others
shall enjoy. It is said, and no one contradicts, that the harvest-moon
rose clear, and lighted up alike every mansion and cottage in the dale;
but I was abroad to see her rise; and I declare that with my mind’s eye
I beheld her eclipsed, shedding a sickly light, maybe, upon the manor
and the farm, but blight and darkness into the dwellings of the poor.”
“It has ever been God’s hand that has drawn a shadow over sun and moon,
but now——”
“Now man has usurped the office, and uses his power, not once and again
to make the people quail, but day by day. To none is the sun so dark as
to the dim-eyed hungerer. To none is the moon so sickly as to the
watcher over a pining infant’s cradle. Let man remove the shadow of
social tyranny, let him disperse the mists which rise from a deluge of
tears, and God’s sun and moon will be found to make the dew-drops
glitter as bright as ever on the lowliest thatch, and to shine mildly
into humble chambers where those who are not kneeling in thanksgiving
are blessing God as well by the soundness of their repose.”
“Are those whom you meet at midnight of the same mind with you? Do they
go to church on Sunday to bring away this sort of religion for the
week?”
“They do not go to church,—partly because they know themselves to be
squalid,—partly because, as you say, their hearts turn back from their
Bible. They are slow to believe that their soul-sickness will be pitied
somewhere, if not by man. They no doubt feel also some of the
unwillingness of guilt; but I can tell,—I will tell those whom it may
concern,—that the way to bring these men from their unlawful drill into
the church aisle is to preach to them full, and not hungering, that God
giveth to all living things food in its season. This, like all other
words of God, is true; but with his vicegerents rests the blasphemy if
shrunken lips whisper that it is a lie.—Such sufferers, if they did make
Sabbath, have not the leisure that I have to work out their religion by
themselves, during the week, making it and toil lighten each other.”
“So that is what you do in this place,—high up on the face of the stone,
with no moving thing near you but these dancing weeds overhead, and no
sound but the dull shock of your own blows! So your religion is what you
think over all day!”
“In some form or other; but you know religion takes many forms;—all
forms, or religion would be good for little. I am not always thinking of
the church and the sermon; but sometimes of how I am to advise the
people that come to me, and sometimes of what I could tell the powerful
if I could get their ear; and oftener than all, Mary, of what was said
between you and me the evening before, and what will be said this
evening, and of what we may dare to look to in a future time.”
“With so much to think about, you could do without me,” said Mary,
smiling. “You would hardly miss me much, if I was drowned to-morrow,
till the country is quiet, and there is nothing more to be complained
of.”
“Meanwhile, Mary, you want nothing more, I suppose, than to clean
trenchers and wash and mend stockings. To do this would make you
perfectly happy for evermore, would it?”
“It is light work cleaning trenchers for a half-starved family,” replied
Mary; “and as for the stockings, the children are going barefoot, one by
one. So, no light jesting, Chatham; but tell me—”
“Who these men are just at your shoulder? They are constables, and come
for me, I rather think.”
“And what next?” inquired Mary, as she had done half an hour before.
“I know no more than when you asked me last; but I suppose they will
either let me come back here to think over the matters we have been
talking about, or put me where I may consider them at more leisure
still, not having my tools with me wherewith to hew down stone walls.
You well know, in that case, Mary, what I shall be thinking about and
doing; and so you will not trouble yourself or be frightened about me.
Promise me.”
“Certainly: what should I be frightened about?” asked Mary, with white
lips. “You cannot have done wrong,—you cannot have joined in——”
She stopped short, as the constable was within hearing. His office was
an easy one, as Chatham cheerfully surrendered himself; and Mary turned
to descend, as soon as he had flung on his coat and disposed of his
tools. They were permitted to walk arm-in-arm, and to talk, if they
chose to do it so as to be overheard. Not being at liberty in heart and
mind for such conversation as the constable might share, they passed in
silence the groups of workpeople, some of whom grinned with nervousness
or mirth, and others gazed with countenances of grave concern; while a
very few showed their sympathy by carefully taking no notice of what
must be considered the disgrace of their companion. In a little while,
Mary was told she must go no farther; and, presently after, she was at
the door of her own home, with a child in each hand,—one talking of
bilberries, and the other telling a story of a duckling in the pool,
which had billed a worm larger than it knew what to do with; and how it
ended with dropping the worm in deep water, and, after a vain poke in
pursuit of it, had scuttled after the rest of the brood. All this Mary
was, or seemed to be, listening to, when her brother looked out from the
door, and told her impatiently that he had been watching for her this
half-hour. His wife was asleep at present; but he had not liked to leave
her alone in the house, much as he wished to go out and see what sort of
a net the constables were drawing in.
“Have you heard of anybody that they have taken?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
“Well! Anybody that we know?”
“Yes; Chatham.”
Kay looked at her for a moment, sent the children different ways, and
then looked at her again.
“You are not down-hearted, Mary?”
“No.”
“He will come out clear, depend upon it: my life upon it, it will turn
out well. Oh! it will turn out a good thing,—a real good thing!”
“Everything does.”
“Ay, ay, in the end; but I mean——But come, sit you down. I am in no
hurry to go out; and I will get you something after your long walk.”
“Pray do not; I do not wish it, indeed. I will help myself when I am
hungry.”
As she seemed not to want him, Kay thought perhaps he had better go.
Before he closed the door behind him, he saw that Mary was taking a
long, deep draught of cold water.
CHAPTER V.
TAKING COUNSEL.
As there was sufficient evidence, in the magistrate’s opinion, of
Chatham’s having been once present at the midnight drill, and active
among the crowd by the river-side the night before, he was committed to
prison, it being left to himself to prove, at the time of trial, for
what purposes he had mixed himself up with the rioters. As he was a very
important personage in his village, his jeopardy excited much
speculation and interest. For the first two or three days, there was
much curiosity among the neighbours to see Mary, in order to observe how
she took it. Mary was somehow always busy with her sister and the
children; but when a gossip or two had become qualified to testify to
her aspect—that she looked just as usual,—and when the children were
found to have nothing particular to tell about her, everybody was vexed
at having been troubled on behalf of a person who was never put out,
happen what might.
Times were so flat this autumn that there was abundance of leisure for
talking about whatever might turn up, and no lack of tongues to treat
thereof. Some of the foundry-men were turned off, as it had been
necessary to raise the wages of those who remained. As there was no
increase of business at the time this rise of wages took place, and as
Oliver himself was living at a larger expense as provisions became
dearer, there was no alternative for him but to turn off some of his
men, contract his business, and be as content as he could with smaller
profits than he had ever before made. By the rise of wages, his
remaining men were, for a short time, relieved from the extreme of
misery they had endured in the interval between the great increase in
the cost of provisions and the raising of their wages; but they were no
richer than they had formerly been with two-thirds of the nominal amount
of the present recompense of their labour. Want still pressed, and must
still press, up to the point of Oliver having no more wages to give,
unless the deficiencies of the harvest might be supplied by large
importations from abroad. In the uncertainty whether this would be done,
and with the certainty before their eyes that there had not been food
enough in the country for three years past, Anderson and the
neighbouring farmers took in more and more land, and flung about the
abundance of money they received for their dear corn.
This money was not the less buried in the inferior new land for its
being passed from hand to hand among the labourers. The guinea that came
out of Anderson’s profits of the preceding year, to be paid to Kay as
wages, was spent in buying a third less bread of Mrs. Skipper than might
have been had in better years. The baker, in her turn, bought less flour
of Warden with it than in former times; and Warden used it for a dear
bargain with Kirkland, and Kirkland with Anderson for wheat. Anderson
paid it to the ploughman of his new fields, for less labour than the
same sum had procured for better land, and with the prospect of a less
return to the labour employed. The guinea would then go again into Mrs.
Skipper’s till for still less bread than before; while Anderson was
making answer to all complaints about this waste, that he should not
long be the better for it, as the taking in of every new field would
oblige him to pay his landlord more of the produce of every superior
field at the expiration of his lease.
The circulation of this morsel of wealth, dwindling on every transfer,
was easily traceable in a small society like that of the village. The
waste could be detected in every direction, and the landlord stood
marked as the focus of it. Whether Mr. Fergusson was the better for the
waste incurred on his account was a separate question; and, till it was
decided, he stood in a remarkable relation to the people about him: he
was their injurer and their benefactor;—their injurer, in as far as he
was one of the persons for whose sake a bad system was upheld;—their
benefactor, in his capacity of a wealthy and benevolent resident among
them. He was taunted with being the landowner, and was offered obeisance
as Mr. Fergusson. All were complaining that he received an
unconscionable share of the fruits of their labour; but there was not
one who would not have grieved at any misfortune that might befall him.
They talked loudly against him and his class for narrowing the field of
their exertions, and praised the pains and good-nature with which he
devised employment for those who were perpetually being turned out of
work.
The fact that he must have supported these extra labourers as paupers,
if he had not rather chosen to get some work out of them in return for
the cost of their subsistence, made no difference in the kindness with
which Mr. Fergusson attended to their interests, and endeavoured to
preserve in them a spirit of independence till better times. The effort
was vain under a system which authorized men to say that they had not
surrendered their independence, but that it had been taken from them,
and that those who took it away might make the best they could of its
absence. Notwithstanding all that Fergusson could do, paupers increased
in the parish; and while a few stout men, who were turned off from the
various works in the neighbourhood, were taken on by Anderson, to try
their hands at a new kind of labour, many more lay about asleep on the
moors, or gathered in knots to gossip, in the intervals of being worse
employed.
No place could be obtained for Kay’s boy, John, who pleased himself with
looking about him while he had no business to do, and amusing himself as
he best could. The less objection was made to this at home, as it was
hoped that his curiosity might now and then make him forget the time,
and justify his going without a meal—a consideration which was becoming
of more and more importance in Kay’s family. It happened that Bill
Hookey, the shepherd-lad, was one day leaning against the door of a
cutler’s workshop, when his old companion, John, ran up, pushing back
his hair from his hot forehead.
“I’d be glad to be as cool as you,” said John, “standing gaping here. I
have been at the forge: crept in when they did not see me, and got
behind the bellows. I gave them such a puff when they were not expecting
it,—I nearly got flogged. They let me off for blowing for them till
there was no more breath in my body than in the empty bellows. But I
don’t half like standing here: come to the other side; you will see just
as well.”
Bill stuck out his legs colossus-fashion, and yawned again.
“’Twas just where you are standing that Brett was when the grindstone
flew; and those grindstones make ugly splinters, I can tell you.”
“I a’n’t afraid.”
“No, because you’ve been in the moors all your days, and have not seen
mishaps with grindstones and such. You should have seen Duncan. The
knife he was grinding flew up, and it was a done thing before he knew
what he was about. The cut was only across the wrist; but the whole arm
was perished, and good for nothing, just in that minute. The Duncans are
all off to Scotland, with nothing to look to, after having had fine
wages all this time—for he was a capital workman; but, as Anderson says,
we have too many folks out of work here already to be expected to keep a
Scotchman. What accidents do happen to people, to be sure!”
“Aye, they do.”
“Then I wonder you put yourself in the way of one, when you would be
quite safe by just crossing over.”
“Oh! grindstones very often don’t fly, nor knives either.”
“But they very often do.”
“He a’n’t afraid,” observed Bill, nodding towards the cutler.
“No, because he is paid high for the risk. Well, I wonder any wages will
tempt a man to have such a cough as that. I suppose, however, he don’t
believe where it will end, as we do. I often think, if several were to
take turns, and change their work about, there would be a better chance.
If ever I am a cutler, I will try that way, if I can get anybody else of
the same mind.”
“Not you,” said Bill; “you will do like the people before you.”
“Perhaps I may, when the time comes. I may no more like to try my hand
at a new thing than you. Have you asked anybody for work hereabouts?”
“The flock is all sold, higher up the country,” replied Bill. “They
would not let me stay on the walk when the flock was gone.”
“I know that; and how you got it into your head that you might go on
sleeping in the hut just the same when the place was a field as when it
was a sheep-walk. They say they had to take you neck and heels to turn
you out, if you would not have the roof down over your head. Why did not
you bestir yourself in time, and get work from Anderson, before others
stepped before you?”
“There are no sheep now for anybody to keep.”
“Well; if you have no mind to do anything but keep sheep, cannot you go
higher up, among the graziers, and offer yourself?”
“I don’t know anybody thereabouts, nor yet the walks.”
“No, nor ever will, of your own accord,” thought John. “What would you
be now, Bill, if you might never be a shepherd again?”
Bill only rubbed his hand over the back of his head, and shifted his
weight from both legs to one. Few things could daunt John’s love of
talk.
“What became of the poor little lamb you were nursing that night that I
was on the moors? It was too tender, surely, to walk up into the hills
with the rest.”
“It be well if he be not dead by this time,” replied Bill. “I carried
him full two miles myself, and I told ’em how to feed him and when; and,
for all I could say, they minded no more when he complained—O, they
don’t understand him no more than if he was a puppy-dog. When I bid him
good-bye, he looked up at me, though he could scarce speak to me. He did
speak, though; but he would not so much as look at the new shepherd, and
if it was not for the ewe——”
“What’s coming?” cried John, interrupting his companion’s new loquacity.
“Let us go and see. I dare say it is somebody fresh taken up. Do you
know, I went to see Chatham’s jail, the other day. Father locked doors
against me because I came home so late; but I had a mind to see what
sort of a place it was. I may be in it some day. I should not mind being
anywhere that Chatham has been.”
“You that can’t stand being flogged!”
“Chatham is not going to be flogged. They say it will be ‘Death
Recorded.’”
“What’s that?”
“Transportation.”
“Why can’t they say so at once?”
“I don’t know: but they often speak in the same way. I have heard
Chatham say that they talk of ‘agriculture,’ and nobody means just the
same as they do by it. Some say ’tis farmers, and some say ’tis
landlords, and some that ’tis having corn.”
“I think it is keeping sheep.”
“No, no; the Parliament does not meddle with keeping sheep. When they
are asked to ‘protect agriculture,’ Chatham says, Anderson understands,
‘take care of the farmer;’ and Mr. Fergusson, ‘have an eye to the
landlords,’ and all the rest of us,—except you, you say,—let us have
corn.’”
Bill yawned, and supposed it was all one. John being of a different
opinion, and seeing that a very knowing personage of the village, who
vouchsafed him a word or two on occasion, was flourishing a newspaper
out of the window of the public-house, ran off to try whether the
doubtful definition was likely to be mended by the wise men of the Cock
and Gun.
He found that there was a grand piece of news going from mouth to mouth,
and that everybody seemed much pleased at it. He did not know, when he
had heard it, what it meant; but as the hand which held the newspaper
shook very much, and two or three men waved their hats, and women came
running from their doors, and even the little children clapped their
hands and hugged one another, he had no doubt of its being a very fine
piece of news indeed. Bill had slowly followed, and was now watching
what John meant to do next.
“I don’t believe they have heard it at the foundry yet,” thought John.
“I’ll be the first to tell it them.”
And off he ran, followed by Bill, and gradually gained upon by him. Now,
Bill’s legs were some inches longer than little John’s, and, if he had
the mind, there was no doubt he might be the first at the foundry to
tell the news. This would have been very provoking, and the little
runner put out all his strength, looking back fearfully over his
shoulder, stumbling in consequence, and falling; rising as cold with the
shock as he was warm when he fell, and running on again, rubbing his
knee, and thinking how far he should be from hobbling like Bill, (with
head hung back, bent knees, and dangling arms,) if he had Bill’s
capacity of limb. What Bill wanted was the heart to use his capacities.
He soon gave over the race, even against his little friend John, first
slackening his speed, and then contriving to miss the bustle both before
and behind him by stopping to lean over a rail which looked convenient
for a lounge.
John snapped his fingers triumphantly at the lazy shepherd-boy on
reaching the foundry gate. He rushed in, disregarding all the usual
decorums about obtaining entrance. Through the paved yard ran John, and
into the huge vault where the furnaces were roaring, and where all the
workmen looked so impish that it was no wonder he did not immediately
discover his father among them. He nearly ran foul of one who was
bearing a ladle of molten metal of a white heat, and set his foot on the
exquisitely levelled sand-bed which was prepared to form the plate.
Scolded on one side, jostled on another, the breathless boy could only
ask eagerly for his father.
“Let go the lad’s collar,” cried one of the workmen to another, adding
in a low voice, “’Tis some mishap about his poor mother. Can’t ye help
him to find his father?”
Kay was roasting and fuming in the red glare of one of the furnaces when
his boy’s wide eyes looked up in his face, while he cried,
“There’s such news, father! The greatest news there has been this many a
day. There’s an Order in Council, father; and the people are all about
the Cock and Gun, and the newspaper is being read, and everybody coming
out of their houses. Only think, father! It is certainly true. There is
an Order in Council.”
“An Order in Council! Well, what of that? What is the Order about?”
“About? O, they did not say what it is about,—at least, nobody that I
heard speaking. But I’ll run back and ask, directly.”
“You will do no such thing. You would bring back only half your story.
What should a child know about an Order in Council?” he asked of his
fellow-workmen, who began to gather round. “Can’t one of you go and
learn what it is he means?—for I suppose some news is really come; and I
can’t leave the furnace just now.”
John slunk away mortified to a corner where he could spread wet sand, in
case any passing workman should be bountiful enough to spare him the
brimmings of some overflowing ladle. It was very odd that his father did
not seem to understand his news when everybody, down to the very babies,
seemed to be so glad of it at the Cock and Gun.
The messenger soon returned, and then the tidings produced all the
effects that the veriest newsmonger could have desired. John ceased his
sand-levelling to creep near and listen how there had been issued an
Order in Council for opening the ports, and allowing the importation of
foreign grain. There was a great buzz of voices, and that of the furnace
was the loudest of all.
“Now you hear, lad,” said one of the boy’s tormentors. “The Order is for
the importation of foreign grain.”
“Just as if I did not know that half-an-hour ago,” said John solemnly.
“Why, I was at the Cock and Gun the minute after the news came.”
And the lad rescued himself from the man’s grasp; and went in search of
some one else whom he might throw into a state of admiration. He met Mr.
Oliver himself, saying,
“What is all this about? The people stand in the heat as if it was no
more than a warm bath; and my work is spoiling all the time, I suppose.”
“They are talking about the news, sir,—the great news that is just
come.”
“News? What news?”
“The King is going to unbar the forts, sir; and he allows the importance
of foreign grain.”
“It is high time he should. Your father and I have seen the importance
you speak of, this long while.”
“I’ll warrant you have, sir. And now, perhaps, father will let me go and
see it, if you speak a word to him.”
Mr. Oliver laughed, and told him he would probably see more of it than
he liked as he grew up. John thought he had rather not wait till then to
see the sight; besides that he thought it hardly likely that the King
should go on unlocking forts all that time. The fort that he could just
remember to have seen, when his grandfather once took him a journey,
might, he believed, be unlocked in five minutes. The young politician
proceeded on his rounds, hoping to find a dull person here and there,
who had rather go on with his castings, and be talked to, than flock
with the rest round the main furnace.
“Well, good fellows,” said Mr. Oliver, “what is your opinion of this
news?”
“That it is good, sir, as far as it goes; and that it will be better, if
it teaches some folks to make such laws as will not starve people first,
and then have to be broken at last.”
“The laws chop and change so that it seems to me overhard to punish a
man for breaking them,” observed another. “That law against buying corn
when it is wanted is bad enough in the best times, as we can all tell;
but if you want damning proof, look to the fact that they are obliged to
contradict it upon occasion;—not once only, but many times;—as often as
it has wrought so well as to produce starvation.”
Kay thought, that putting out a little temporary law upon a great
lasting one, was like sending a messenger after a kite,—which proves it
ill-made and unlikely to sustain itself. Somebody wondered what
Fergusson would think of the news.
“What matters it to us what he thinks?” answered another. “He has stood
too long between us and our food;—not knowingly, perhaps; but not the
less certainly for that.”
Mr. Oliver wished that his men could talk over their own case without
abusing their neighbours. He would not stand and hear a word against Mr.
Fergusson on these premises.
“Then let us say nothing about Mr. Fergusson, sir, for whom, as is due,
I have a high respect. When I mentioned him, I meant him as the receiver
of a very high rent; and I maintain that if we make corn by
manufacturing, with fire and water, what will buy corn, we are robbed if
we have not bread. Deny that who can.”
And the speaker brandished his brawny arm, and thrust forward his
shining face in the glowing light, to see if any one accepted his
challenge. But all were of the same mind.
Mr. Oliver, however, observed that, though he had as little cause as any
one to relish the disproportionate prosperity of the landlords in a time
of general distress, he wished not to forget that they were brought up
to look to their rent as he to look to the returns of his capital, and
his men to their wages.
“That is the very thing I complain of,” said Kay; “that is, I complain
of the amount of rent thus looked for. In as far as a landowner’s
property is the natural fruit of his own and his ancestors’ labour and
services,—or accidents of war and state, if you will,—let him have it
and enjoy it, so long as it interferes with no other man’s property,
held on as good a claim. But if by a piece of management this rent is
increased out of another man’s funds, the increase is not ‘property,’—I
take it,—but stolen goods. If a man has a shopkeeping business, with the
capital, left him, the whole is his property, as long as he deals
fairly; but if he uses any power he may have to prevent people buying of
his neighbours, and thus puts any price he pleases upon his goods, do
you mean to say that his customers may not get leave if they can to buy
at other shops, without any remorse as to how the great shopkeeper may
take such meddling with his ‘property?’ Give us a free trade in corn,
and our landowners shall be heartily welcome to the best rents they can
get. But, till that is done, we will not pretend to agree in making them
a present of more of the fruits of our labour the more we want
ourselves. The fruits of our labour are as much our property as their
rents are theirs, to say the least; and if it was anything but food that
was in question we would not be long in proving it; but food is just the
thing we cannot do without, and we cannot hold out long enough to prove
our point.”
“They will find it all out soon,” replied Mr. Oliver. “Whatever is
ruinous for many of us must be bad for all; and such men as Fergusson
will see this before long.”
“They will not see it, sir, till they feel it; and what a pass _we_ must
have come to before they will feel enough to give up a prejudice some
hundred years old!”
“Before we can ask them to give up the point entirely, we must relieve
them of some of the taxes which bear particularly upon them. Their great
cry is about the weight of their taxation. They must first be relieved
in that respect.”
“With all my heart. Let them go free of taxation as great folks, in the
same way that my wife and Mary are let off free at cards on Christmas
night, because they are women. This was the case with the old French
nobility, I have heard. They paid no taxes; and so let it be with our
landowners, if they choose to accept the favour of having their burdens
borne by the sweating people to whom they would not own themselves
obliged in respect of money matters if they met in the churchyard,
though the time may not be far off when they must lie side by side under
the sod.”
“Their pride must be pretty well humbled before they would accept of
that kind of obligation. They had need go to church, in those days, to
learn to bear the humiliation.”
“Perhaps that is what they go to church for now, sir; for they are now
taking much more from us than they would in the case I have mentioned. I
don’t say they all do it knowingly,—nor half of them. There are many of
our rich men who would be offended enough at being told, ‘Your eldest
son’s bills at Eton were paid last year by contributions from three
hedgers, and five brass-founders, and seven weavers, all of whom have
families only half-fed.’ ‘Miss Isabella’s beautiful bay mare was bought
for her by the knife-grinder, who has gone to bed supperless, and the
work-woman who will have no fire next winter, and the thirty little
children who are kept from school that Miss Isabella’s bay mare may be
bought.’ O yes; there are many who are too proud to bear this being said
to them, true though it be.”
“They would call you a leveller, Kay, if they could hear you.”
“Then I should beg leave to contradict them; for a leveller I am not.—I
have no objection on earth to young gentlemen going to Eton, or young
ladies riding bay mares, if these things are paid for by the natural
rent which a free trade in corn would leave. If we have that free trade,
and workpeople still go to bed supperless and sit up without fire, still
let young gentlemen go to Eton, and young ladies ride bay mares. In that
case, the landlords will be absolved, and the hardship must go to the
account of imprudence in some other quarter. O, I am no leveller! Let
the rich keep their estates, as long as they will let them find their
own value in comparison with labour. It is the making and keeping up
laws which make land of more and more value, and labour of less and
less, that I complain of.”
“But you did not really mean, Kay,” said a bystander, “that you would
let off every man that has land from paying taxes? It is the most unfair
thing I ever heard of.”
“It is unfair enough, but much less unfair and ruinous than the present
plan. It is better worth our while to pay the landowners’ taxes than to
lose ten times the amount to enable the landowners to pay them; and that
is what we are doing now.”
“Ten times as much as the landlords pay in taxes?”
“Yes,” replied Oliver. “We pay, as a nation, 12,500,000_l._ more for
corn than we should pay if our ports were open to the world. Of this,
not more than one-fifth goes into the pockets of the landowners, the
rest being, for the most part, buried in poor soils. Now if the
landlords pay one-half of this fifth in taxes, it is as much as their
burden can be supposed to be. And now, which of you would not be glad to
take his share of this one-tenth, to get rid of the other nine?”
“Every one of us would go down on his knees to pray the landlords to
permit us to pay their taxes, if we could but tell how to get at the
gentlemen.”
“The landlords would need no such begging and praying, I trust,” said
Mr. Oliver, “if they saw the true state of the case. I hope and believe
they would be in a hurry to surrender their other tenth, if they could
see at what an expense to the people it was raised.”
Some heartily believed it, but Kay asked why the landowners did not see
the state of the case;—a question which it was not easy to answer,
unless it was that they did not attend to it. And why did they not
attend to it?—attend to it, not merely so far as to sanction an Order in
Council for the admission of food when the people were on the brink of
starvation, but so as to calculate justly how much corn we grow, how
many of our people are properly fed upon that corn, how we may most
cheaply get more corn, and——(but that is a matter beyond human
calculation)—how many more busy and happy people might live within our
borders if we and the other parts of the earth had free access to each
other. If our rich men once attended to this large question, they would
see what we see; and seeing, they would surrender, and——”
“And be far richer, as well as happier, than they are now. But, never
fear! They will feel soon; and feeling helps seeing marvellously.”
“It was found so in the case of the bounty on the exportation of corn.
The landowning legislators thought they saw plainly enough, once upon a
time, that it was a capital thing for all parties to give a present to
every man who would sell corn abroad:—it would employ more hands in
tillage than were employed before; it would secure a supply in case of
scarcity; it would increase the value of landed property by causing the
greatest possible quantity of land to be cultivated. This is what they
saw in vision,—or rather through a pair of flawed spectacles. It ended
in the labourers producing only half as much wealth in a forced tillage
as they might have made in manufactures, if food had been free; in
exposing us to the danger of famine, as often as the deficiency of the
crops exceeded what we sent out of the country, (no other nation being
prepared to send us corn in a hurry, as if we were regular buyers;) and
lastly, in sending a great deal of capital out of this country into
others where living was cheaper. At first, no doubt, tillage was brisk,
and some of the objects seemed to be answered: but this that I have
described was the end. Then the landlords saw, for the first time, that,
in giving the bounty to our corn-sellers, they had been offering a bribe
to foreigners to buy our corn cheaper than we could afford to sell it. A
pretty bargain for us! So that pair of flawed spectacles broke to pieces
on being examined, and——”
“And now they must break another pair before they will learn that they
can see best with the eyes God gave them, if they will but put them to
the right use. I am not for spectacles, unless there is something the
matter with the eyes. And, in the same way, I am not for any man helping
himself with the opinions of a class because he belongs to a class,
unless he has such a faulty reason of his own that he would do worse if
left to judge for himself. Let such of our landowners as are incompetent
go on upholding the corn laws because their class has always done so;
but let such of them as are men stand out, and judge for themselves,
after looking the case plainly in the face. I am not afraid of what
their judgment would be, especially as some of the richest and wisest
have done so already. Honour be upon them!”
The men were perhaps the more disposed to give honour where honour was
due from their notion of the smallness of the number of landowners in
those days to whom they could award it. They gave three cheers to the
Privy Council for having issued the present Order; and to the few
landowners who advocated a free trade in corn. That done, they began to
inquire what this order was to do for them, and found that it would just
serve to avert the starvation of the people, now, and might probably
lead to the ruin of a good many farmers within a few months; which ruin
must be ascribed, should it arrive, not to the Order in Council, but to
the previous state of things which it was designed to repair. Prices had
been rising so rapidly from week to week since the quarterly average had
been taken, that there was no saying how far even oats might be out of
the reach of the poorer classes, before the next quarterly average could
be struck, and prices be proved to have risen to the point at which the
law authorized the importation of corn. To save the people from
perishing while waiting for the quarter to come round, this order was
issued without leave of parliament; and, as it would have the effect of
lessening the general panic, in the first place, and also of bringing a
large supply into the kingdom, the probability was that the farmers
would, find prices falling by spring-time, rapidly,—ruinously for them,
calculating as they had done on high prices continuing till next
harvest, and laying their plans of expense accordingly.
But all this would be a fine thing for Oliver, would not it?
In as far as cheaper living was a good to him and his people, and in as
far as more manufactures would be wanted to go abroad, it would be a
benefit; but fluctuations in the fortunes of any class of society,—be
they farmers or any body else,—are bad for the rest of society. For
every farmer that is ruined, the manufacturing and commercial world
suffers; and Mr. Oliver would rather therefore,—not only that corn had
not been so dear as it now was,—but that it should not be so cheap as it
might now soon be, unless its cheapness could be maintained.
Fluctuations apart, the cheaper the better; but it was a strange and
unhappy way of going on, first to ruin one class by high prices, and
then to ruin another by low prices.
All this was allowed to be very true; yet the substantial fact remained,
that the day of the manufacturer and mechanic was probably approaching,
and that a season of cheap bread was in prospect, let what might follow
in its train in the shape of disastrous consequence.
This was enough to proceed upon in rejoicing, and when the furnaces had
been duly fed, by strong and willing hands, and a few plates cast amid
more talking than was usual during so nice an operation, Oliver’s
day-men turned out like school-boys on a holiday morning, and tried
which could get first to the Cock and Gun. There they stood, regardless
of the chill of the breeze after the heats of the foundry. How could
they be sensible to it when they felt that the icy grasp of poverty on
their heartstrings was relaxing, and the warm currents of hope had leave
again to flow?
Kay was not one of the talkers at the public house. It was so long since
he had had any pleasant news to carry home, that he was impatient to
lose no time about it.
This was one of Mrs. Kay’s dismal days. She seldom made any complaints;
but there were times when the tears would run down her face for hours
together, while there appeared to be no particular reason; and she
sometimes said she could not account for it herself. On those occasions,
she was not moody, or disposed to speak by signs rather than words, as
was often her way; she would speak, and move about, and even try to
laugh; but still the tears would run down, and she was obliged to give
the matter up. Thus it was to-day, though Mary had not yet parted with
the hope that, between them, they might stop the tears.
“Which way did John run?” asked Mary. “Did you happen to see, sister?”
“Down by the coal wharf, I think,” she replied, speaking rapidly. “O
yes, it must have been by the coal wharf, because——No; it was not; that
was yesterday. It could not have been to-day, because his father bade
him go up the lane to gather acorns for the pig. That I should have
forgot it was yesterday he went to the wharf! But that is always the way
with my head. It is so——”
“It will be better when you have tried the medicine from the dispensary
a little longer. What a kind, pleasant gentleman that is at the
dispensary! He told me he really believed you would be better directly,
if——”
“I shall never be better,—never,—head nor heart, till I see these poor
children of mine——and my husband too——”
“Well well: cheer up! They will be better fed soon, please God. Don’t
let that trouble you to-night, when you feel yourself not strong.”
“And there’s Chatham too. That lies at my heart, Mary, more than you
know. I must tell you so, for you have been a kind sister to me and
mine.”
“I should be sorry it should lie so heavy at your heart,” said Mary,
very quietly. “I thank you for him; but you must not make yourself
unhappy about me. I am thinking your husband will be home soon. The sun
has been down some good while.”
After a silence, she went on:—
“You should have seen Betsy this morning, how prettily she made the bed,
though she could scarce reach up to the bolster. Did you happen to look
how she set about it?”
“No. I have been thinking, Mary, how completely you and I are changed.
It is not so long since you used to check me for talking; or rather, I
used to check myself, seeing that you were no talker. You used to say
that people were not all made talkers alike; and you went up and down,
and about the house, just like a dumb person, and sometimes looking as
dull too. And now——I say, Mary, when I don’t answer you, you must not
always think that I am thankless. And I know what it must cost you to be
for ever saying something cheerful and pleasant, when Chatham is in
gaol, and the cupboard is so often empty, and I such a poor,
good-for-nothing——No, no! Don’t try to persuade me. I tell you I can’t
bear myself, and I don’t ask you or any body to bear with me. Mercy! now
here’s my husband! and I in this condition.”
“Heyday! it is time I was coming home, I see,” cried Kay, good
humouredly, as he entered. “You too, Mary! Well, dear, you have cause,
so don’t turn away; I have only wondered to see none of this before; but
I have something for you both. Something we have not had this many
a-day. Something better than ever was in this or any other physic
bottle,” he continued, shaking the dispensary phial and telling the
news.
Mary had no sooner made herself mistress of it than she disappeared,
probably to devise the means of getting the intelligence conveyed to her
lover. As soon as she was gone, Kay drew a chair beside his wife,
saying,—
“Now we are alone, Margaret, and times are like to change, so as to give
one the heart to speak, I have something to say to you.”
“O, no, don’t,” cried she, starting up. “I know what you are going to
say.”
“You do not;” and he obliged her to sit down. “Don’t tremble so, for I
am not going to find fault with you in any way.”
“Then you ought. I am a poor, lost——”
“Not lost, Margaret. We have all near lost ourselves in such times as we
have had of late; except indeed Mary, who will never lose herself, it is
my opinion. It has come across me, Margaret, that I may have hurt you
sometimes, without thinking, with light talk when you had not spirits
for it, (not that I had real spirits, for that matter,) and with saying
silly things to Mrs. Skipper, and the like. Ah! I see you felt it so;
and it is no wonder you should. But you may take my word for it, I think
nothing of Mrs. Skipper, nor ever did. Only, one is driven on, one does
not know how, to behave foolishly when one is near desperate at heart.”
“And that’s my fault.”
“Not altogether. No! not by any means. There were many things besides—
besides one—to make me unwilling to look back to the time when we used
to walk in Fergusson’s oak copse, and say——Nay, Margaret, if you cannot
hold up your head in thinking of that time, where should you rest it but
upon your husband’s shoulder, as you did then? How can you turn away so,
as if I was your enemy? Well, I turned away too from the thought of
those days, knowing, all the while, that it was a bad sign to turn
away.”
“And to think of all that has happened since! Of all these children, and
of my being such a bad mother——”
“It was the children I most wanted to speak about, especially John. But
come, now, Margaret, open your mind to me, and don’t be afraid. It was
want and downright weakness that first led you into it. Was not it?”
“O, it began long and long ago. When I was weakly as a girl, they used
to give me things, and that was the beginning of it all. Then when I
grew weakly again, it seemed to come most natural, especially because it
was cheaper than bread, and the children wanted all we could get of
that.”
“So, often when you have pretended to have no appetite, it was for the
children’s sake and mine. Well, I half thought so all the time.”
“No, not often; only at the beginning. Afterwards it was true that I
could not eat,—no, not if the king’s dinner had been before me. I did
try for long to get the better of the habit, and three times I thought I
had; but a sinking came, and I could not bear it. That was twice; and
the third time, it was your joking sharply about——But that was no
reason. I don’t mean to say it was. You don’t know what the support is
for the time, John, whatever comes after it. It raises one; and yet I
remember times—many times—when I knew I could not speak sensibly if you
spoke to me, and yet I prayed and prayed that I might die before the
morning light.”
“Does that mean that you were less afraid of God than of me?”
“No, I did not think of being afraid, exactly; but I wanted to be out of
your way and the children’s; and, for my own part, I should have been
very glad to be at rest.”
After a long pause, John resumed.
“You said you tried three times to leave it off. Do you think you could
try again?”
“No, John, I do not think I could.”
“Not for my sake,—as you say I drove you into it last time? Not for your
own sake? for nobody knows but ourselves, I dare say. I have never
breathed it, and Mary——”
“O, Mary has vexed me many a time,—taking such pains, and having so many
reasons and excuses with the neighbours. Why,—do you suppose I never met
anybody? And then there was the night that Mrs. Skipper, of all people
in the world, gave me her arm. I was forced to take it, but——”
“Mrs. Skipper! Really! She never breathed a word. Depend upon it, she
never told any body.”
“If she did not, I am sure I have told plenty of people myself: so don’t
say any more about it, John.”
“I was just going to say, that now is the time for trying. We are going
to have better living, I hope, which is what you will want; and I am
sure Mary and I do not care what there is for us, if we could see you
recover. If you will only give us the word, we will watch and watch,
night and day; and you shall have all manner of help, and comfort, and
no more thoughts of cruel joking or of Mrs. Skipper. O, Margaret, try!”
“I am almost sure I cannot,” muttered the poor woman; “but I will just
try.”
“Ah! do, and I should not wonder.—You talk of being at rest; and it may
be a rest in this very room,—on that very bed,—such as you little
thought of when you wished your wish.”
Margaret shook her head. “If I go on, I die; if I leave off, I die; it
is all one.”
“No, Margaret, it is not all one; for I have one more thing to say,—and
the chief thing. The children do not fully understand yet, though I have
seen John wonder-struck lately, and his aunt could not put him off.”
“Why should she?”
“Just because neither she nor I choose that the children should grow
used to see drunkenness before their eyes indifferently. I speak plain,
because it is about those who cannot speak for themselves. Do you know
now what I mean to say?”
“Go on.”
“I mean to say, (and to do it too,) that as often as I see you not
yourself, I shall tell the children, not that their mother is ill, or
low-spirited, or any thing else,—but what is really the case. Now,
Margaret, how will you bear this? Remember I shall really do it, from
this day.”
Margaret made no answer.
“You know I cannot let our children’s morals get corrupted at home, and
them ruined for here and hereafter by such a habit as this. I cannot,
Margaret.”
“No; you cannot.”
“I am sure they have enough against them, at the best,—what with
poverty,(temptation and no proper instruction,) and sometimes idleness,
and sometimes over-work. They have enough before them at the best.”
“They have.”
“And who have they to look to but you and me? except Mary, and she would
not set against your example. It goes against my heart more than you
know to say an unkind word to you, and always did, when I seemed cruel.
But I can say what you will think cruel, and I must, unless you take my
warning.”
“You do not know——”
“Yes, I know, down to the bottom of my soul, what the misery was, and
how many, many excuses there are for you. But the children do not know
this, and there is no making them understand, and I must think of them
first. If it was only myself, I think I could sit up with you all night,
and shield you all day, and even indulge you with the very thing itself,
when I saw you sinking for want of it. But, as it is, whatever I may do
when the children are out of the way, I will do as I said when they are
by.”
“Do. I was not going to excuse myself when you stopped me just now,—but
only to say you do not know how glad I should be to stop, if I could,
though I shall never recover my head again now. It will go on roaring
like the sea as long as ever I live.”
“No, no. With good food, you know——”
“I shall never relish food more; but I will try; and do you do as you
said. I am not sure how I shall mind it in such a case; I never can tell
any thing beforehand now. But you know your part; and if I fall back,
you must all mind me as little as you can.”
“Only, don’t think me less tender to you, Margaret.”
“No; O, no; you have given me warning, you know.”
“Your poor head! how it beats! You had better let me carry you to bed;
you are not fit to sit up. Better let me lay you on the bed.”
“Well, I can’t go walking. This is the sinking,—now.”
“And enough there has been to sink you. There! I’ll stay beside you.
Where’s your apron to hang up before your eyes? Now, don’t think of any
thing but sleep.”
“O, but then I dream.”
“Well! I shall be here to wake you, in case of your starting. Only just
give me the key of the cupboard, and do not ask Mary for it any more
when I am away.”
CHAPTER VI.
TOO LATE.
On a bright morning of the following May, the stroke of the
wood-cutter’s axe had resounded through Fergusson’s woods from day-break
till the sun was high. More than one fine young tree which had shaken
off the gathered dews at the first greeting of the morning light, now
lay prostrate, no more to be refreshed by midnight dews, no more to
uprear its leafy top in the early sunshine. Such seemed to meet with
little pity in their fall. The very men whose hands had felled them sat
down on their horizontal trunks, and kicked the bark with their clownish
heels, while they munched their bread and cheese. Children dropped into
the green recess from all quarters, to pluck oak boughs and leaves from
the fallen stem, wherewith to ornament their hats, and lead a procession
to the neighbouring Whit Monday fair. These trees should have flourished
twenty, fifty, seventy years longer, if the affairs of their owner had
gone on in a steady and natural course. When Mr. Fergusson had walked
round his plantations to see these oaks put into the ground, his
thoughts had glanced forward to the time when his descendants might give
a last mournful look at the doomed trees, towering stately before their
fall; and now he was compelled himself to sentence them to the axe
before they had attained nearly the fullness of their massive growth.
Frequent and sudden losses during the last few months, and the prospect
of more had obliged Mr. Fergusson to collect all his resources, or
surrender some of his domestic plans. He must sacrifice either a portion
of his woods or the completion of the new buildings at the Abbey. His
oaks must be felled, or his sons give up some of the advantages of
education that he had promised them. It was found impossible to collect
two-thirds of the rent due to him; and the condition of his farms
foretold too plainly that further deficiencies would ensue. Poppies
flourished more luxuriantly than ever this season among the
thin-springing corn in Anderson’s new fields. The sheep had returned to
their old haunts, and could not be kept out by the untended walls and
ricketty gates which reminded the passenger of the field of the
slothful. When Mr. Fergusson was disposed to stop in his walks for
purposes of meditation, he could hardly choose his station better than
within sight of one of Anderson’s enclosures when any rapacious sheep
happened to covet what was within. It was a sight of monotony to behold
one sheep after another follow the adventurous one, each in turn placing
its fore-feet on the breach in the fence, bringing up its hind legs
after it, looking around for an instant from the summit, and then making
the plunge into the dry ditch, tufted with locks of wool. The process
might have been more composing if the field had been another man’s
property, or if the flock had been making its way out instead of in; but
the recollection of the scene of transit served to send the landowner to
sleep more than once, when occurring at the end of the train of anxious
thoughts which had kept him awake. There was little sleepiness, however,
in the tone with which he called his tenant to account for letting his
property thus go to destruction. Mr. Fergusson was as near losing his
temper as he ever was, when he pointed out to Anderson a ditch here that
was choked up in one part and overflowing in another; a gate, whose
stuffing of briars was proved a mockery by the meddling children who had
unhooked it from its lower hinge, and the groping swine which enlarged
the gap thus made; and the cattle-sheds, roofless and grass-grown, which
should be either pulled down or repaired. Anderson’s tone was also high,
as he declared that a half-ruined man could not keep his farm in as
thrifty a manner as a prosperous one; and that if, as soon as he began
to improve the property he held, his funds melted away beneath the
fluctuations of the corn-market, it was unreasonable to expect him to
spend his capital in repairs till he should see whether government would
or would not do something to protect agriculture from the consequences
of vicissitude. Fergusson thought it useless to wait, on this ground.
Government had been protecting agriculture for some hundreds of years,
and yet fluctuations there had always been, and fluctuations there would
always be, to judge by all experience. Anderson was not for this the
less resolved to let his roofless cow-sheds and crumbling fences stand,—
to be rebuilt if government should extend its protecting care,—to stand
as monuments, if agriculture should be neglected.
Monuments of what?—Anderson was a proud man, building for his own and
his family’s honour and glory when he was in prosperity, and finding
something to be proud of in adversity;—Anderson would therefore have
replied—‘monuments of injury.’ Injury from an act of government by which
the starving were rescued from destitution, and the oppressed allowed
one more chance of the redemption of their fortunes. That act which all
other classes received as one of tardy justice,—of absolute necessity,—
Anderson complained of as an act of injury to himself, so deep that he
left certain wrecks of his property to serve as tokens to a future race
of the wrongs he had suffered.
And the fortunes of Anderson _were_ injured,—and injured by the acts of
government, though not, as his wisest friends thought, so much by the
permission of importation as by the preceding restrictions. They rightly
called his wrecks and ruins monuments of his ill-luck in speculation, as
their poorer neighbours called them monuments of the injustice done to
the productive classes by encouraging or compelling the disadvantageous
investment of capital. Both parties were right: but Anderson was induced
to speculate by acts of protection which failed in the proof; and the
disadvantageous application of capital, originating in the same acts,
issued in disaster to all parties. If the interests of Anderson were
placed in apparent or real temporary opposition to those of his
neighbours, the blame rested, not with him, but with the legislation
which had interfered to derange the natural harmonies of social
interests; which had impaired the loyalty and embittered the spirits of
artizans, curtailed the usefulness and enjoyments of manufacturers,
puffed up the farmer with the pride, first of ostentation and then of
injury, and compelled the landowner to lay low his young woods before
they had attained half their growth.
There was but little prospect of improvement in Anderson’s affairs for a
long time to come. There had been enormous importations of corn during
the winter,—importations which in the end proved as ruinous to the
corn-dealer as to the farmer at home. The bargain with foreign
corn-growers having been made in a panic was agreed upon at a panic
price. The foreigners had naturally laid heavy duties on corn, both
because it was known how much the English wanted food, and because what
they bought was not a surplus regularly grown for sale, but a part of
the stock of the countries they bought of. In the midst of a panic, and
in entire uncertainty how long the ports might be open, the corn
importers could not possibly calculate how much would be wanted, any
more than the people ascertain how much was brought in. While all were
thus in the dark, prices fell in the home market, till wheat which sold
at all sold at 50_s._ per quarter, and much was left which was not even
bid for. The importer’s foreign debts must, however, be paid. He was
unwilling to warehouse his wheat, because there was promise of a fine
home harvest for this year, and the perishable nature of his commodity
rendered it unwise for him to store it against some future contingency.
The only thing for him to do, therefore, was to obtain a drawback on
what he had imported, and to export it at a lower price than he had paid
for it, pronouncing himself and every body else a fool that had entered
upon so ruinous a branch of commerce.
This resource of exportation would fail in Anderson’s case, if his
harvest should prove never so flourishing. The high average price at
home, caused by dependence on home growth, disables the home producer
for competition in a foreign market, even if the uncertainty of a sale
attending so irregular a commerce did not deter him from the attempt. A
capricious demand abroad is the necessary consequence of alternate
monopoly and relaxation at home; and when to this uncertainty is added
the impediment of a higher average price, and the disadvantage of the
known desire of the seller to sell, so small a chance of remuneration is
left, that Anderson could not look with any confidence to this mode of
disposing of the superabundance of his next crop. No great increase of
demand at home was to be expected in the course of one season, as people
cannot eat much more bread immediately because there happens to be a
good supply, however certain an ultimate increase of demand may be, as
the consequence of a single fruitful year. All that Anderson could look
forward to, therefore, was waiting in hope of future temporary high
prices, unless, indeed, all parties should grow so wise as to agree upon
a freedom of trade which should secure permanent good profits to the
farmers. Meantime, as capital invested in agricultural improvements is
much less easily withdrawn and converted to other purposes than capital
applied in manufactures, it was but too probable that the profits of
Anderson’s prosperous years were buried in useless drains and fences,
and in stony soils, while he was burdened with an increased rent and a
family now accustomed to a lavish expenditure. It was to be feared that
more of Fergusson’s young oaks must be brought low to supply the
deficiencies of the tenant’s half-yearly payments to his landlord.
The woodmen who sat on the fallen trunks thought little, while enjoying
their meal and their joke, of all that was included in the fact of these
trees having fallen.
Some talked of the work done and to be done this day. Others had
thoughts at liberty for the fair to which so many persons within view
were hastening; and yet others had eyes wherewith to look beyond the
green slope where they were sitting, and to mark signs of the times in
whatever they saw;—the whirling mill, with one or two additional
powdered persons on the steps, or appearing at the windows;—the
multiplication of the smokes of Sheffield;—the laden lighters below
Kirkland’s granaries;—Anderson’s fields, waving green before the
breeze;—sheep and cows grazing where there was to have been corn;—and,
above all, Chatham taking his way to the accustomed quarry, in a very
unaccustomed manner.
“Do look at that fellow, walking as if he was mazed,” said Jack to Hal.
“He is not like one bound for the fair. He is on his way to work,
seemingly; but what a lagging step for one going to his work!”
“Don’t you see ’tis Chatham?”
“No more like Chatham than you. And yet it is,—yes,—that it is! You may
know by the way his arm is stuck in his side. But that is not the gait
Chatham used to have.”
“No, because he never took such a queer walk before. Don’t you know he
has been between four walls all these many months, and has but just got
out? I have heard a man say that knew well, that the blue sky is a new
sky when you have been shut out from it for a long while: and the grass
seems really alive; and as for such boughs as this that dance in the
wind, you could almost think they were going to speak to you.”
“Chatham seems to be fancying some such thing, he pays so little heed.
If he is not going to pass without seeing us!—without once looking up
into the wood! His thoughts are all in the middle of the vale. I’ll step
down, and have a chat with him.”
Before the last mouthful was stuffed into the mouth of the speaker,
however, in preparation for descending to the road, livelier sounds than
any that it was in his power to make, roused Chatham from his reverie. A
train of little boys and girls, who had disappeared a few minutes
before, issued from the neighbouring sawpit, and from behind the piles
of planks which lay around, their hats and bonnets stuck round with
oak-leaves, and their procession of boughs arranged in boy and girl
style. As each one scrambled out of the pit, there was a shout; as they
ranged themselves, there was more shouting; and as they marched down the
green slope on their way to the fair, there was the most shouting of
all.
“I don’t think Chatham seems to relish his walk so much as you thought
for,” said Jack to Hal. “He looks mighty melancholy.”
“What! laughing at the brats. And look! he is nodding to one and
another.”
“Melancholy enough, for all that. For such a fine-made man, he is a
hollow-faced, poor-looking fellow.”
“Just now. When he has been three months at his work, you will see the
difference.”
“It is a lucky thing for him to have stepped into his work so naturally,
as if he had only left it just from Saturday night till Monday morning.
That is more than happens to many men who have been in prison. There was
Joe Wilson never got the better of it, though he was only in a month.
Not a stroke more of work did he get.”
“Because his was for stealing, and nobody could trust him afterwards. In
Chatham’s case, no one thinks he did or meant any harm, considering what
the pressure of the times was. And if the masters believed that he had
really broken the law, they would have had no objection to take him on
again, in consideration of the cause, which they view as in some measure
their own, against the farmers and landlords. Chatham is pretty sure of
work at all times; but if he had been the worst workman in all
Yorkshire, he would have had plenty of masters courting him for having
been punished for helping to bring in corn. It pleases him best,
however, to be going back to his old perch, so as to get the matter
dropped as soon as possible.”
“Ay, ay, for more reasons than one.”
“Not only for the sake of Mary Kay, but because the mischief that he
wanted to set right is over. It cannot be said now that our people
hereabouts want bread; and so the sooner all ill-will is forgotten, the
better. Hoy, oy! how does your dame get you such a wedge of cold meat as
that? She must be a thriftier body than mine.”
“No thrift in the world served to get me cold meat six months ago; but
times have changed since; and, as my wife says, it is mortal hard work I
have to do here.”
“Mortal hard work,—swinging your heels, and looking at people going to
the fair! Mine is as toilsome as yours, neighbour; and yet I have only a
lump of hard cheese with my bread, while droves and droves of bullocks
and sheep are passing within sight to the fair, making one think of
mottled beef and juicy mutton. I wonder when the day will come for the
working man to have his fill of meat, like him that does not work.”
“Chatham will tell you the very day;—whenever this vale, and all our
other vales, are portioned out for the purposes they are most fit for,—
the choice parts for corn, and the meadows for pasture, and the heights
for sheep-walks, and so on; instead of our insisting on growing wheat at
all costs, and so preventing our having as much meat and cheese and
butter and milk as we should like. If we could get our corn where we
please, we should soon find other food growing more plentiful.”
“And a few things besides food. I suppose the Leeds men would take off
all the wool we could grow?”
“Yes; and without bating an ounce of what they get already from abroad;
for where we get corn, there we must carry cloth, among other things.”
“And then we must get more houses run up for our new weavers. By the
way, if our landlords let more land to be built upon, that would fully
make up for any difference from the fields being turned back into
sheep-walks.”
“And with a much better chance of the rents being paid regularly for ten
years together;—which is no small consideration to such men as Fergusson
just now. There’s Chatham walking away without speaking to one of us.
Call him; your voice is loudest. Well done! You make the very cows turn
and low at us. He won’t come. How he points towards his work, as much as
to tell us we ought to be going to ours! All in good time, friend
Chatham. We have not been shut up for months, with our hands before us,
like you.”
“Nor yet been much busier than he, for that matter. ’Tis a pity this
fair did not fall on our idle time. There go the folks in a train, while
we are dawdling here——”
“Then don’t let us dawdle. Off with you, children! We are going to lop
the branches, and you may chance to get an ugly cut if you don’t keep
clear of the hatchet. Come, neighbour.”
“In a minute, neighbour. Bless us! look at that monkey, down in the
road! How the creature dances, like any Christian! And the music sounds
prettily, does not it? I am just like a child for wanting to be off to
the fair. Who is that rogue of a boy plaguing the beast? I think it is
John Kay.”
“Not it. John is in your predicament,—can’t go to the fair till night.
It does seem hard to keep so young a lad sweating among those furnaces
all the week, and on a holyday especially; but he is proud of being on
full work, like a man, and left with the few in charge of the furnaces;
and they say his parents have comfort of him, in respect of his carrying
home his wages.”
“That is very well; for they want all they can get, while that poor
woman goes on pining as she does. She has got very feeble lately.”
“And well she may, taking nothing stronger than tea, after having lived
so differently. She made the change suddenly too. ’Tis not six weeks
since I saw her as bad as she ever was,—trying to reach home.”
“Ay; after striving and striving all the winter to get the better of it,
poor soul! But that falling back seemed to be the finishing of her. She
has never held up her head since, nor ever will, in my opinion, though
she has more reason to hold up her head than for these five years past;
as they say her family are for ever trying to make her think.”
“Poor Kay finds full work and cheap food come too late for him; for
whatever fails to do his wife good brings little comfort to him. For all
he used to do in the way of light words and silly fun, he has made a
good husband; and no man can be more down-hearted than he is to see his
wife in this way. No: that is not his boy John below. He would not let
him be abroad plaguing monkeys when he may be called for any minute to
see his mother die.——Bravo, boy, whoever you be! Little John Kay could
not have done the thing more cleverly.”
“There runs the monkey! Look ye! Through the gap! over the slope in no
time! He will be up in the tree before they can catch him. Did you ever
see man in such a passion as his master? I don’t wonder, having got
within a mile of the fair, and full late too.”
“Ah! but you missed seeing how the lad slipped the chain the very moment
the man beat the poor animal over the nose. Trust the beast for running
away at the first hint! A fine time it will take to get him back again!”
“Look at his red jacket, showing so unnatural on the tree top! Down he
comes again. No, not he! it is only to get farther out on the branch.”
“That is a marked tree that he is upon. Suppose we cut it down next. It
joins no other, and monkey must come down with it or without it.”
The harassed owner of the monkey received this proposal as a very bright
thought. The monkey seemed to be of the same opinion, though not so
fully approving of the idea. He chattered, screamed, whisked the skirts
of his red coat, and clapped his paws together as he saw the workmen
gathering round the tree with shouts, leaving neglected nice bits of
food which monkey would fain have had the benefit of, and shaking their
tools at him in token of what he had shortly to expect.
At the first shock, monkey became perfectly quiet, squatting with his
fore paws clapped together, and looking down, like an amateur observer,
on the progress of the work. In proportion as there was any movement
below, he descended a little way, to look into the matter more closely,
and then returned to his place on the fork of the branch. By the time it
began to totter, a new ecstacy seemed to seize the beast. Again he
mounted to the topmost bough that was strong enough to bear his weight;
and when there, he again jabbered and screamed. Some thought this was
terror at his approaching downfall, and others took it for delight at
seeing the circle divide to leave room for the tree to fall. The master,
however, believed that he saw some object which excited him on the road,
which was hidden by the trees from less exalted spectators.
The master was right. There was a crowd gathering at a short distance,
as was shortly made known by the busy hum which came upon the ears of
those who were standing among the trees on the slope. From end to end of
England was such a tumult of many voices heard when the news arrived
which caused the present assemblage. The agricultural districts took it
very quietly, to be sure; but the manufacturing towns and villages were
all in a ferment throughout the island. Meetings were convened at the
moment of the arrival of the newspapers; and while manufacturers
assembled in town halls, or addressed the people from the balconies of
inn-windows, workmen of all classes met on the green, in the wood, about
the public house, or wherever they could most numerously collect, for
the purpose of declaring their opinions to the government.
The intelligence which caused all this bustle related to what the House
of Commons had been doing and planning about the corn-laws—a House of
Commons which had the year before barely managed to retain the
confidence of the manufacturing classes by throwing out the suggestion
of a Committee of its own, that the prices to which corn must arrive at
home before importation was permitted should be very much raised. A
proposal like this, made at a time when the home price was at least
112_s._ per quarter, showed so determined an intention on the part of
the proposers to render their country wholly self-dependent in the
article of food, (_i. e._ to limit the population and wealth of the
country to a certain bound, which should be agreeable to the
landowners,) that the only chance the House of Commons had of preserving
the allegiance of the bulk of the people was by rejecting the proposal;
and the proposal had been accordingly rejected. The watchfulness of the
people had not, however, been lulled. Their subsequent brief enjoyment
of cheap food had strengthened their vigilance over the operations of
the Commons’ House; and they were the more intent as they knew that the
landowners were suffering cruelly from the reduction of their rents and
the deterioration of their estates; and that these landlords would
probably attribute their losses to the late admission of foreign corn,
rather than to the true cause,—the previous system of restriction. The
event proved such vigilance to be very needful. The late fall of prices
had disclosed an appalling prospect to the owners of land. They found
that their extraordinary methods of legislation had exposed their
country to a much more extensive dependence on foreign supplies than
they had attempted to obviate, and that they had been working hard to
reduce their own rents, and hurt their own estates, by the very means
they had taken to enrich themselves. During such a remarkably fruitful
season as the present (the natural follower of several bad seasons) the
supply would be so plentiful as to cause the poorer soils to be thrown
back into pasturage, the demand meantime increasing (as it had been for
some time increasing) up to the maximum supply; so that on the first
occurrence of a merely average season, the nation would be more
dependent on a foreign supply than it had ever been before. Under this
panic, the House voted a series of resolutions, declaring it expedient
to let exportation alone, and to impose very high duties on importation.
The news of the passing of these resolutions, and of the preparation of
two bills founded upon them, was that which stirred up all England to
remonstrance, and occasioned the Yorkshire graziers to leave their
droves in the fair, and the corn-dealers to quit their resort in the
market, to hear what would be said by the manufacturers who came forth
from their desks, the artificers who poured in from the enjoyment of
their holyday, and the country labourers who dropped down from among the
hills, or converged to the point of meeting from the wide-spreading
fields.
The day being warm and the road dusty, it was natural that the sounds of
the wood-cutters’ labour should suggest to the gathering crowd the idea
of meeting on the grass, in the outskirts of Fergusson’s wood. Mr.
Fergusson and his sons were found in the fair, and they gave permission,
and promised to come presently and hear what was going on. Chatham was
met on the road, just about to turn up towards the quarry; but he was
easily persuaded to go back and help; and the whole party was
approaching when Monkey offered them his uncouth welcome from the top of
the tree.
This tree was left slanting to its fall when the people began to pour in
from the road, and to possess themselves of the trunks which lay about,
in order to pile them into a sort of hustings. The organ-man could find
no one to assist him in catching his monkey, in case the rogue should
vouchsafe to descend from his high place. Nobody could attend to the
monkey now; and if he chose to run off from one side of the tree while
his master was at the other, and lead the chase as far as Sheffield, he
might, for any thing the woodmen seemed to care. Flinging down their
tools, or resting them against their shoulders, they threw themselves
along on the carpet of wild anemones which stretched beneath the trees;
while the more restless mechanics flitted about among the stems,
looking, with their smutted faces and leathern aprons, very unnatural
inhabitants of such a place. Long after Chatham and others began to
enlarge upon the matter which had brought them together, the frowning
brows and eager gesticulations of these men, as they talked low with one
another, showed that they had their own thoughts, and were not met
merely to have notions put into their heads.
“Is it possible to mistake what these men are thinking and feeling?”
asked Chatham of Mr. Fergusson. “If the House of Commons could for once
take their sitting here, with the Speaker on yon bit of grey rock, and
the members on these trunks or on the flowery ground, like the Indians
when they hold a council, they would legislate for these listeners after
another fashion than they now do.”
“Why so? I see, as well as you, that these men are thinking and feeling
strongly; but are they thinking that which should change the policy of a
nation?”
“That which will change the policy of a nation, though not so soon as if
the National Council could for once come here to legislate. Friends!” he
said to some near him, whose sudden silence called the attention of
others beyond them,—“I am telling this gentleman that I believe there is
one thought in the minds of us all, though that thought might be spoken
in many ways. One might say, that he felt himself injured by the high
price of bread last year, and another by the falling off of work—one
might point to the grave of his spirit-broken brother, and another hold
up before us his pining child—one might be angry with our masters for
altering our wages, so that we never know what to depend upon, and
another may be grieved that Anderson should have sharpened his speech,
and that Mr. Fergusson should come among us with so grave a countenance
as this; but there is one plain thought at the bottom of all this,—that
the prime necessary of life is the last thing that should be taxed. I
should not wonder if Mr. Fergusson himself agrees with us there.”
“It depends upon what the object of the tax is,” replied Mr. Fergusson.
“If the corn-tax be laid on to swell the revenue of the state, I grant
that it is the very worst that could be imposed; because, while it
presses so heavily on all as to cramp immeasurably the resources of the
nation, it presses most on those who have little but the prime necessary
of life, and the harder in proportion as they possess little else.”
“In what case will you then justify a corn-tax?”
“When it is laid on to balance an excess of taxes laid on the
agriculturists over those laid on other classes.”
A confusion of voices here arose, in cries of—
“We will take them on ourselves!”
“You and yours shall live duty-free, if you give us corn free.”
“We pay your taxes many times over already.”
“I will work one day in the week for you for nothing but a free corn
trade.”
“I will give you a share of my wages every Saturday night, and my vote,
if you’ll go up to Parliament, and speak our minds there.”
And many a black hand was held out to see if Mr. Fergusson would say
“Done.” He did not quite say this, but he went on,—
“I am sure I can have no objection to a change in our system; for I have
suffered as well as you.”
“Ay, and you would make it up by having corn dearer than ever,” cried
one of the discontented.
“No, I would not, because I am convinced that this would only bring on a
repetition of the same evils some time hence, and in an aggravated form.
I dread, as much as you can do, further fluctuations of this kind, which
have injured us all in turn. More bad seasons followed by plenty, with a
fickle legislation, and those of you who have pined will die; the
masters who have ceased to be rich will be ruined; the farmers who have
now buried some of their capital will find that they have got back a
part only to lose the whole; and, as for me and mine, I should expect
the gates that are now unhinged to be broken up for fuel, and the stones
of my crumbling fences to be used for knocking me off my horse. If in
those days I should go abroad, it would be to rescue my life from your
rage, and not, as now, to economise the income which I can no longer
spend among you. No, no; we must have no more mismanagement like that
which has well nigh ruined us all.”
“What does he mean? Where is he going? Won’t he live at the Abbey any
more?” were the questions which went round, and caught Mr. Fergusson’s
ear.
“I told you,” he said, “that we had all suffered in turn, though I am
far from pretending that we have suffered equally. I assure you that I
spend many an anxious day, and many a sleepless night, in planning how I
may fulfil all my engagements as a member of society, and keep my
promises to my children. These engagements were made when I was
prosperous; and now I am no longer prosperous. My steward comes to me
every quarter-day with a smaller handful of receipts, and a longer bill
of arrears; and wherever I turn, I see with my own eyes, and find many
comforters to tell me, that my property is wasting for want of care, and
that I must sustain great losses hereafter for want of a small
expenditure which cannot be afforded now. If I or my tenants could just
spare a hundred pounds here, and fifty there, and two hundred somewhere
else, it would save me a thousand or two that will have to be spent at
last. But it cannot be done. My sons are entering upon a new stage of a
very expensive but necessary education; and though my daughters have
given up their usual journey to London, I have no hundreds to spare. My
tenants cannot scrape their rent together, and it is folly to ask them
for their fifties.”
“The papers say you have lowered your rents.”
“It is true that I have; and I am sorry the papers take upon themselves
to praise me for it as for an act of generosity. You all know now that I
cannot get my full rents, so that I do not in fact give up any thing
that I might have; and I consider it no more than justice to reduce the
claims which I made when the farmers were in very different
circumstances from those in which they are at present placed. I have no
objection to the newspapers stating the fact, because it may lead others
to follow my example, and may afford a useful lesson to all; but I do
object to the act being lauded as one of generosity, as much as I should
to the House of Commons being praised for giving up the bills now in
question, in case the whole nation should prove to be of your mind about
them.”
“Very fair! very good! Spoken like one of the people!”
“I am one of the people,—taxed as one of the people, I assure you,”
continued Mr. Fergusson. “You offer,—very sincerely, I have no doubt,—to
take the taxes of the landowners upon yourselves, in return for a free
trade in corn. But you know perfectly well that such an arrangement
cannot be made, even if we chose to accept your kind offer.”
“Why not? What prevents, if we are all of a mind?”
Chatham thought that it would take so long to bring all people into one
mind on the point that it would be a quicker and probably equally good
method to allow such a duty on imported corn as would cover the
landlords’ peculiar liabilities. A small duty,—at the most 5_s._ or
6_s._ per quarter,—would be found sufficient, he believed, at the
beginning; and such a duty as this would not materially impede
importation. Under such a system of regular supply, pauperism would
decrease, or ought to decrease, year by year; this would lessen the
burdens of the agriculturist, and open the way for a further reduction
of the duty, which should expire when that equalization of taxation
should take place which must arrive as nations grow wiser.
“Without committing myself as to the amount of duty,” replied Mr.
Fergusson, “I may say that I should not object to some such plan as
Chatham proposes: and I would insist that the duty should, above all
things, be fixed. If a duty is imposed on the basis of the distresses of
the country, it may be right enough that it should be graduated, the
duty lessening as prices rise: but in the case of such a duty as Chatham
advocates,—a mere set-off against our excess of taxation,—it should be
so far fixed as that every one might know beforehand how it would
operate, and all classes be able to make their calculations.”
“Why, yes,” said Chatham. “If any corn-tax is, generally speaking, bad,
none can be so bad as one that makes twice as much uncertainty as there
is occasion for. To impose a duty on the basis, as you say, sir, of the
distresses of the country, seems an odd way of raising money for the
state; and to make such a duty a gambling matter seems to me more odd
still. In the case of such a graduated duty as you speak of, falling as
home prices rise, the corn-dealer’s business becomes an affair of
gambling speculation. He sends for corn when wheat is at one price, and
brings it in when wheat is at another. If the price has fallen, he has
so much more duty to pay that the speculation may ruin him. If the price
has risen, he may make enormous profits that he did not expect. I may
say this much for the corn-dealer, as Kirkland is not here to speak for
himself, that he had much rather pay a constant duty which would leave
him no uncertainties to manage but the supplies of corn at home and
abroad, than take the chance of enormous occasional profits at the risk
of ruinous occasional loss.”
“Ay, Chatham: there you come to a very important part of the question,—
the uncertainty of supply. If you can answer for our having a regular
and unfailing supply of food from abroad, when we have too little for
our people at home, you can answer for more than the House of Commons
can; for they adopt as their principle the safety of lessening our
dependence on foreign countries for food.”
“When they can answer for our having a regular and constantly increasing
supply at home,” replied Chatham, “I may perhaps yield the question to
them. When you can find any member of their committee who will tell me,
at any seed-time, what will be the produce of an average sowing, I will
consent to his making the nation depend on that produce. When you can
bring me proof that the rich harvests of one district are not of use in
repairing the deficiencies of a less favoured district, I will own it to
be as safe to depend for supply on our own little island as on the
collective corn districts of the globe. When you can convince me that we
buy as advantageously by fits and starts as under a system of regular
commerce, I will grant that regularly importing countries have not the
steadiest market.”
A listener observed that Kirkland had lately said, in reference to his
having had to hunt up corn abroad during the scarcity, that there was a
difference of ten per cent. between “Will you sell?” and “Will you buy?”
“Kirkland learned that saying from a greater man than any of us,”
observed Mr. Fergusson. “It was Franklin who said that true saying. But
there are other uncertainties to be considered, besides the variations
of the seasons. Clouds gather over men’s tempers as well as over the
face of the sky. Tempests of passion sweep away the fruits sown between
nations in a season of promise. Springs of kindness are dried up, as
well as fountains of waters. We have not considered the risks of war.”
“Indeed but we have, sir,” replied Chatham, “and we come to the
conclusion that when we are at war with all the nations whom God has
blessed with his sunshine and his rain, we shall not deserve to touch
God’s bounties, and it will be high time that we should be starved off
God’s earth. If we wanted to restrict our own trade, sir, instead of
throwing it open,—if we wanted to forbid our merchants buying of more
than one or two countries, we might believe that war would bring
starvation; but never while our ships may touch at all ports that look
out upon the seas.”
“We do not grow half our own hemp,” said a man with a coil of tow about
his waist. “Has the British navy ever wanted for ropes? If our enemies
at sea ever meant to hurt us, their readiest way would have been to
stint us in cordage; and, since they have not done it during all this
war, it must be, I take it, because they can’t.”
“Certainly,” replied Chatham. “In cases like these, Mr. Fergusson, our
conclusions about the choice of an evil or a danger must be compounded
of the greatness and of the degree of probability. Now here is, under
the old restrictive system, a vast amount of certain evil, which you and
the House of Commons seem to think little of, in comparison with a much
greater evil which it is barely within the line of possibility to
happen. Here are present labourers who have had their spirits bowed and
their bodies worn by want, and who can look out from this green to the
spot where their kindred are laid under the sod, mown down by this sharp
law like meadow flowers under the scythe. Here are present the gentle
who have been made fierce, the once loyal who were made rebels,—ay, and
the proudly innocent who have been disgraced by captivity——”
While Chatham stopped for breath, one and another cried out to Mr.
Fergusson,
“If you think us rude in our speech to you, sir, you may lay it to the
bread-tax.” “Get the bread-tax taken off, and you will hear no more of
the midnight drill.” “Masters and men never would have quarrelled, sir,
but for the bread-tax.”
“From this place, you may see,” Chatham went on, “not only poppies
coming up instead of wheat, and stones strewed where lambs should have
been browsing, but hovels with mouldering thatch where there should have
been slated houses, and a waste wilderness stretching beyond where there
might have been the abodes of thousands of busy, prosperous beings; and
all through the pressure of restrictive law.”
“And where there is not a waste, there will soon be a deserted mansion,”
added Mr. Fergusson. “I told you I was going away. My sons must finish
their education abroad; and we all go together, that we may live within
our means in a manner that we could not do at home. This is one
consequence of the late fluctuations——”
“I can tell you, sir,” said Oliver, showing himself from behind a knot
of his own men,—“I can tell you another consequence that would have
happened if the late fluctuation had not taken place. If prices had not
fallen, and fallen just when they did, I must have gone abroad to live,
where I might work to some purpose,—where my capital might have been
employed in producing wealth, instead of being given to my workmen to
buy dear food. Moreover, if prices now rise again so as to make you
change your mind and stay, I must go; so it comes just to the question,
which of us can best be spared?”
“If it comes to that,” replied Mr. Fergusson, “it is clear that I can
best be spared. Without saying anything about our respective characters
and influence, it is plain that it signifies much less where I spend my
revenue, than whether you invest your capital at home or abroad. If it
must come to this, I am the one to go.”
“And what but a bad state of the law could have brought the matter to
this point?” said Chatham. “What greater curse need a nation have than a
legislation which condemns either the rent-receiver or the capitalist to
banishment?”
Oliver’s men proceeded to agree in whispers that he was not in earnest
about going abroad; that it was only said to make the landlord wonder,
and put the question in a strong light. A man must suffer much and long
before he would leave his own land, and the workmen that were used to
his ways, and all that he had ever been accustomed to.
“True,” said Oliver, overhearing their remarks; “and I have suffered
much and long. It is true that banishment is the last attempt that many
a man will make to improve his fortunes; but it is an attempt which must
and will be made, if the fortunes of our manufacturers continue to
decline. I know all that you can tell me about the hardship to the
workmen who are left behind to be soon driven into the workhouse. I feel
how I should grieve to turn you all off, and shut up my foundry; but it
is one of the natural consequences of a legislation like that which we
have lived under. If our manufactures remain unsold on account of the
cost of feeding the labourers, it is certain that the manufacturers will
carry their capital,—the subsistence-fund of the people,—to some cheaper
land.”
And how much was it supposed that the price of wheat would fall if the
ports were opened? was the question proposed by the workmen, in their
alarm at the idea of manufacturing capital being forced out of the
country.
Six, seven, eight, or, at most, nine shillings, was the utmost fall, on
the average of the last ten years, anticipated by Chatham, Oliver, and
Fergusson,—a fall which, accompanied as it would be with regularity of
supply, and freedom from panic and from the intolerable sense of
oppression, would prove an all-important relief to the manufacturer and
artisan, without doing the landlord and farmer any injury. Such a fall
as this would drive out of cultivation none but the poorest soils, which
ought never to have passed under the plough; there would be an end of
the farmer’s sufferings from vicissitude; and the small reduction of the
landlords’ rents would be much more than compensated by the advantages
which must accrue to them from the growth of a thriving population
within their borders.
Chatham observed that many might object to the estimate just given of
the probable fall of price on opening the ports,—and it was indeed a
matter which required large observation and close calculation; but he,
for one, was not disposed to rest the question on probabilities of this
nature, but rather on the dilemma,—“If the price of corn is heightened
by a restrictive system, why should the nation be taxed for the sake of
the landlords? if not,—why do the landlords fear a free trade in corn?”
“There is yet another consideration,” observed Mr. Fergusson, “and a
very important one, Chatham. You have said nothing of Ireland, while the
fact is that Ireland sends us three times as much corn as she sent us
ten years ago. There seems no reason why so fertile a country should not
supply us with more and more till our prices fall the nine shillings per
quarter we were talking, and even till we are able to export. What do
you say to this?”
“That it is owing to the establishment of a free trade in corn between
us and Ireland that we employ so much more than formerly of her
industry, and enjoy so much more of its fruits. What has been proved so
great a good in the experiment with one country, is the finest possible
encouragement to extend the system to all. If you object, as I see you
are ready to do, that this success with respect to Ireland renders a
further emancipation of the trade unnecessary, I answer, that the
corn-laws are by the same rule unnecessary,—an unnecessary mockery and
irritation of the people. If they are not yet unnecessary because
Ireland does not yet fully supply us,—in exact proportion as they are
not unnecessary, they are hurtful. From this dilemma, Mr. Fergusson, you
cannot escape, and you had best help us to press it upon the House of
Commons. If you will join us, sir, in drawing up our address to
Parliament on the principles we have been arguing about for this hour
past, I rather think we ourselves may find, and may help to show the
House, that landowners and their neighbours have the same interests, and
are willing to be all happy together, if the legislature will let them.
Whenever we see a wealthy and wise landowner taking up the question on
its broad principles, and addressing the legislature, whether from his
seat in the Lords or by petition to the Commons, as a citizen rather
than as one of a protected class, I shall feel a joyful confidence that
these broad principles will soon be recognized and acted upon by the
loftiest members of the state.”
“It is time,” replied a voice from below, “for they have long been
forced upon the lowliest.”
“This is one of the deep things that is better understood by many an one
that has never learned his letters than by some who are boasted of for
their scholarship,” observed another. “Wakeful nights and days of
hardship drive some truths deep and firm into the minds of the veriest
fool, which the wise man, in his luxury, finds it difficult to learn.”
“You say truly enough that it is time,” said a third, with sternness in
his look and tone. “The charity comes too late which sticks bread
between the teeth of a famished man; and the justice we seek will be a
mockery if it does not come in time to prevent another such season of
misery as we have endured, and as they threaten us with again. Yet they
talk of playing the same game over again. Come, Chatham, make haste
down, and draw up what we are to say, and let us sign before the sun
goes down. We have not an hour to lose.”
“Not an hour to lose, as you say, neighbour, when for many it is already
too late. Mend the system as fast as you will, there is many and many a
home where there will never be comfort more.”
Several who were present knew that Chatham must be thinking of Kay’s
family when he said these words. He went on,
“You might as well hope to close up the clefts of yonder ash, and to
make it rich with growing grafts, struck as it was by last year’s
lightning, as to heal the spirit of a man whose fortunes have been
blighted by the curse of partial laws, and to repair his wrongs. For him
it is too late. He stands the monument of social tyranny till his last
hour of decay. For him it is too late; but not yet for others. There are
thousands yet in infancy,—millions yet to be born whose lot depends on
what is done with the corn-laws in our day.”
“Mine and that of my descendants does,” observed Oliver; “though, in one
sense, it is also too late for me. I have lost my place in the market
abroad; and for this my work-people are suffering and will suffer. But
let no chance of recovery be lost through our delay. Come, Chatham; let
us be gone, and give the people the opportunity of declaring their
wishes before they disperse, and fancy that, because dispersed, they
have no power. Let every man raise his voice so that the legislature may
understand.”
All present were so eager to do this that no leisure seemed to be left
for the follies which usually lurk in some corners of all popular
assemblies, from the largest to the smallest. No monkey tricks were
played by any but the monkey, though country clowns and many boys were
present. When the animal, after being well nigh given up in despair by
his irritated master, made a sudden descent on the head and shoulders of
a listener, he was very quietly delivered over to his owner to receive
the chastisement which was prepared for him, and which no one troubled
himself to turn round to witness. All were too busy watching Chatham
writing with a pencil, and on paper furnished by Mr. Fergusson, who sat
beside him on his woodland seat, now agreeing, now dissenting, but in no
case desiring to hinder the full execution of the object for which his
neighbours were assembled.
When a short petition to the Commons’ House against the imposition of
further restrictions on the foreign corn-trade had been drawn up, and
fully agreed to by a large majority, it was carried away with all
expedition to be copied and signed while the fair was yet thronged; and
the wood was found by the noonday sun nearly as quiet as when visited by
the midnight moon;—as nearly so as the blackbird and the linnet would
permit.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BREAKING UP.
Kay was indeed one of the many to whom a temporary relief from the
bread-tax came too late. Five years before, no man could be found more
eager in the statement of his case of hardship: five months before, he
had still some hope that a perpetuation of the then ample supply of food
might yet avail to restore his domestic peace. His wife might struggle
through her difficulties, and be once more a mother to his children, and
in aspect and mind something like the woman he married. Now, however,
all hope of this was over, and Kay had had no heart to attend the
meeting in the wood, or to mix with his former companions more than
could not be avoided. He went straight from the foundry to the side of
his wife’s chair, as long as she was able to sit up, and to nurse her
when she at length took to her bed. He owed her the exemplary attention
she received from him; for the same poverty which had seduced her into a
fatal habit had embittered his temper, and they had need of mutual
forgiveness. Since the noble effort each had made,—he to warn his
children against her example, and she to break away from the indulgence
which had become necessary,—neither had sinned against the other. No
rough word was heard from his lips, and self-denial, by Mary’s help,
never failed. Mrs. Kay sank slowly and very painfully. She well knew
that she must sink, either way, and to this she had no objection; but
often and often, in the solitude of her daily sufferings and the
restlessness of her nightly dozings, she thought that every body was
hard upon her; that they might have let her sink a little more rapidly,
and give her what she longed for. They did not seem to feel for her as
she thought they might, or they would indulge her without letting the
children perceive it. Mary must know sometimes, when she saw her very
low, what it must be that she wanted; but instead of taking any notice,
she only began to talk about any thing that would win away her mind for
a while. Then all these secret complainings were thrust away as if they
were suggestions of the devil, and a throng of reproachful recollections
would come,—of her husband’s patience in smoothing her pillow twenty
times in a night, and holding her head for hours when her startings had
frightened her; and of Mary’s never seeming tired, with all that was
upon her, or saying a word about what she gave up for her in keeping
Chatham waiting so long. She knew that it was only on her account that
they were not married yet, and she hoped she should soon be under the
sod, and no hinderance to any body; meanwhile, nobody but she would
perceive, so much as Mary had to say now, and so cheerfully as she
spoke, that she was giving up any thing for a sister who had deserved so
little from her.
Mrs. Kay expressed all this so fully and forcibly to her husband one
day, that he told Mary he really believed it would make all parties
happier if she would marry Chatham at once. The affair was soon settled,
and every body concerned was so evidently satisfied, that very few
neighbours ventured to pronounce above their breath how shocking it was
to marry from a house where there must soon be a death.
Mrs. Skipper, who had throughout been profuse of neighbourly attentions,
came to sit with Mrs. Kay while the party were gone to church on the
Sunday morning when the marriage took place. She was far from being the
most considerate and judicious of nurses; but Mrs. Kay did not seem so
alive to this as her husband and Mary, and appeared to like that she
should occasionally supply their place. This morning she showed herself
with eyes more red and swollen than a nurse should ever exhibit. Mrs.
Kay directly perceived this.
“O dear, Mrs. Skipper, what has happened to you? I am sure some
misfortune has happened. Tell me! Tell us at once.”
“Why, love, ’tis no misfortune of mine particularly, but every body’s
misfortune.”
“Why, that is worse still! Nothing has come in the way of the wedding?”
And she tried to start up in her bed.
“Bless you, no! Lie still. The wedding is likely to go on well enough;
and in my opinion it is high time they were off to church. No, no. It is
only that the Fergussons are gone.”
“Gone!” cried every voice in the house.
“Yes. Just slipped away quietly on a Sunday morning, when nobody was
suspecting, that they might not have their hearts half broke, I suppose—
—-“—A loud sob stopped the good woman’s utterance.
“Well, I am sure, Mrs. Skipper, it gives us all much concern,” said Kay.
“They are good people,—the Fergussons,—and of great consequence to all
the people about them; and it will be a sad thing to see the Abbey shut
up, and the grounds left to themselves. It is not the less melancholy
for our having looked forward to it this long while.”
“Why no, but rather the more,” said Chatham, “because we know what
misfortune sent them away. When the wind has torn the linnets’ nest, we
know that they will fly away; and the wood will miss them the more, and
not the less, for the fear that they will not venture to build in the
same place again.”
“And ’tis six years, come Michaelmas,” said Mrs. Skipper, “that they
have had hot bread from me every morning, except while they were just
gone to London. They have been the best customers that ever I had, and
now there is no knowing——They looked very grave, every one of them that
I could see, as they whisked past. I wonder whether they saw how I
cried. I hope they did. I am sure I don’t care who saw, for I am not
ashamed of being sorry for such as they.”
“I thought they would have stayed till harvest,” said Mary. “Such a
beautiful harvest as it will be this year. I have been telling my
sister, Mrs. Skipper, what a fine promising season it is. John and I
shall manage a better gleaning this year.”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Kay,” observed the widow, “I could not help thinking,
when I saw the sun shining, and the fields waving, and the people all
abroad in their best, that it is hard upon you to be lying here, so
dull, when you have not seen a green field, nor a number of people, for
I don’t know when. Well, I must tell you all about it, instead, when
they are gone. Now, Mary, what are you going in that way for, as grave
as a quaker, and more so than the quaker I saw married once? I know you
have a gown more fit to be married in than that. Go and put it on in a
minute,—your light green one, I mean, and I will lend you my pink
handkerchief. I will step for it, and bring it before you have got your
gown on. And you shall have this cap,—the ribbon is pink, you see; and
my other better one will do just as well for me. Come! Make haste!”
Such was not Mary’s will, however; and as her brother declared it quite
time to be gone, she proceeded at once to the altar in her dark-coloured
gown, thus leaving a fruitful topic for Mrs. Skipper to enlarge upon to
her patient, as soon as the party had closed the door behind them.
Before they went out, Mary offered a smiling hint to the widow not to
cry any more about the Fergussons, or any thing else, if she could help
it, while they were away; and to keep her charge as cheerful, if she
could, as she had been for the last few hours; hours of more ease than
she had known for some time past.
On their return, they found Mrs. Skipper,—not crying,—but in great
trouble,—in far too deep a trouble for tears. She was leaning over the
bed, looking aghast, when Chatham and Mary entered, arm in arm, with Kay
and his two elder children following.
“Why, Mrs. Skipper, what have you been doing to my wife?” cried Kay,
seeing that the sick woman’s eyes were fixed, and her whole countenance
quite different from what he had ever seen it before.
“Nothing, Mr. Kay; but I thought you never would have come back. She
took such a strange way the minute you were gone, I had the greatest
mind to call you back.”
“I wish you had,” said Mary, who had already thrown off her bonnet, and
was chafing the cold hands that lay helpless on the bed clothes.
“Ah! she has changed much within a few minutes too. Her hand lies still
now; but I had to put it down several times. She kept stretching it out
as if she thought to reach something; and I supposed she was thirsty,
but——”
A mournful shake of the head from Kay stopped her. He said she had often
done this when she was not quite herself.
“Yes: often and often,” said Mary; “and I have seen her as bad as this
before. Look, she is coming about. She sees us now.”
“If she be not trying to speak!” whispered Mrs. Skipper.
Mrs. Kay spoke, but she was wandering. She told Mary that next Sunday
should be the day for Chatham and her to be married, as she herself
should be buried out of their way by that time. Then perceiving Chatham,
she tried to give him some advice incoherently, and far too painfully to
be ever referred to after that day by any of them, about not letting his
wife come to poverty,—extreme poverty; and about distrusting her in such
a case, if she were an angel from heaven.
“For God’s sake stop her!” cried Kay, taking a sudden turn through the
room; and Mary stopped her by a kiss, though her own tears were dropping
like rain. Mrs. Kay proceeded with her self-accusations, however, as
long as she could speak at all; and the awe-struck children were taken
out of the room by Chatham.
“No, no!” said Mary, whispering her emphatic contradictions into the ear
of the dying woman, as soon as she could command her voice. “You have
done the noblest——you have gone through the hardest trial——God will not
forget your struggles as you forget them yourself. Your children shall
never forget them. Well, well. It was suffering,—it was hunger that did
all that! Don’t dwell upon that! All that was over long ago; and now the
pain is over,—just over; and we know what the promises are. If _we_
deserved them as well——”
“Bless you! Bless you, Mary!” cried the husband, in a broken voice.
But the painful impression of his wife’s words remained as strong as
ever when the restless eyes were finally closed, and a faint smile
rested on the lips whence the breath had departed. John was terrified by
his father’s manner of fetching him into the room, and saying, as he
showed him the corpse.
“You heard her say that she had been wicked. You heard her say——but
never mind all that. You will not know for this many a year how noble a
woman your mother was, and what she did for your sake. And if I ever
hear you say a word,——if I see you give the least look against her——”
John slunk away as Mary took her brother’s arm, and led him beside
Chatham, while she hung up a curtain before the bed, and made Mrs.
Skipper somewhat ashamed of being so much less able to exert herself
than the nearer connexions of the dead. The widow presently slipped out
to consult with her neighbours on the necessary arrangements, and to
express the most vehement admiration for the departed, while preserving
the strictest honour respecting the particulars of the closing scene.
Since that day, the curse of the bread-tax has alighted again and again
on that busy vale. Again has the landowner had the painful choice of
sinking from his rank at home or going abroad to preserve it. Again has
the farmer found himself, now marvellously rich, and now unaccountably
poor. Again has the manufacturer repined at having to surrender his
resources to support the burden of factitious pauperism,—to take too low
a place in the markets abroad in order that his agricultural neighbour
may be upheld in too high an one at home. Again has the corn-dealer
staked his all upon the chances of man’s caprice, with about as much
confidence as he would upon the cast of the die. Again gloom has brooded
over the dwellings of the poor, and evil passions have wrought there, in
proportion to the pressure of want,—the main spring of the vast
machinery of moral evil by which society is harrowed and torn. And as
often as a gleam of hope and present plenty has visited the cottage of a
long-suffering artizan, it has been clouded by the repinings of some
neighbour whose adversity has been, by ingenious methods of misrule,
made coincident with his prosperity. In this busy vale, as in every
valley of England inhabited by thinking men, there is one question still
for ever rising through the night air, and borne on the morning breeze,—
“How long?”—and on many a hill there are thinking men to take up the
inquiry, and echo “HOW LONG?”
_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._
As exchangeable value is ultimately determined by the cost of
production, and as there is an incessant tendency to an increase in the
cost of producing food, (inferior soils being taken into cultivation as
population increases,) there is a perpetual tendency in the exchangeable
value of food to rise, however this tendency may be temporarily checked
by accidents of seasons, and by improvements in agricultural arts.
As wages rise (without advantage to the labourer) in consequence of a
rise in the value of food, capitalists must either sell their
productions dearer than is necessary where food is cheaper, or submit to
a diminution of their profits.
Under the first alternative, the capitalist is incapacitated for
competition with the capitalists of countries where food is cheaper:
under the second, the capital of the country tends, through perpetual
diminution, to extinction.
Such is the case of a thickly-peopled country depending for food wholly
on its own resources.
There are many countries in the world where these tendencies have not
yet shown themselves; where there is so much fertile land, that the cost
of producing food does not yet increase; and where corn superabounds, or
would do so, if there was inducement to grow it.
Such inducement exists in the liberty to exchange the corn with which a
thinly-peopled country may abound, for the productions in which it is
deficient, and with which a populous country may abound. While, by this
exchange, the first country obtains more corn in return for its other
productions, and the second more of other productions in return for its
corn, than could be extracted at home, both are benefited. The capital
of the thickly-peopled country will perpetually grow; the thinly-peopled
country will become populous; and the only necessary limit of the
prosperity of all will be the limit to the fertility of the world.
-----------------------
But the waste of capital caused by raising corn dear and in limited
quantity at home, when it might be purchased cheap and in unlimited
quantity abroad, is not the only evil attending a restriction of any
country to its own resources of food; a further waste of capital and
infliction of hardship are occasioned by other consequences of such
restriction.
As the demand for bread varies little within any one season, or few
seasons, while the supply is perpetually varying, the exchangeable value
of corn fluctuates more than that of any article whose return to the
cost of production is more calculable.
Its necessity to existence causes a panic to arise on the smallest
deficiency of supply, enhancing its price in undue proportion; and as
the demand cannot materially increase on the immediate occasion of a
surplus, and as corn is a perishable article, the price falls in an
undue proportion.
These excessive fluctuations, alternately wasting the resources of the
consumers and the producers of corn, are avoided where there is liberty
to the one class to buy abroad in deficient seasons, and to the other to
sell abroad in times of superabundance.
It is not enough that such purchase and sale are permitted by special
legislation when occasion arises, as there can be no certainty of
obtaining a sufficient supply, on reasonable terms, in answer to a
capricious and urgent demand.
Permanently importing countries are thus more regularly and cheaply
supplied than those which occasionally import and occasionally export;
but these last are, if their corn exchanges be left free, immeasurably
more prosperous than one which is placed at the mercy of man and
circumstance by a system of alternate restriction and freedom.
By a regular importation of corn, the proper check is provided against
capital being wasted on inferior soils; and this capital is directed
towards manufactures, which bring in a larger return of food from abroad
than could have been yielded by those inferior soils. Labour is at the
same time directed into the most profitable channels. Any degree of
restriction on this natural direction of labour and capital is
ultimately injurious to every class of the community,—to landowners,
farming and manufacturing capitalists, and labourers.
Labourers suffer by whatever makes the prime necessary of life dear and
uncertain in its supply, and by whatever impairs the resources of their
employers.
Manufacturing capitalists suffer by whatever tends needlessly to check
the reciprocal growth of capital and population, to raise wages, and
disable them for competition abroad.
Farming capitalists suffer by whatever exposes their fortunes to
unnecessary vicissitude, and tempts them to an application of capital
which can be rendered profitable only by the maintenance of a system
which injures their customers.
Landowners suffer by whatever renders their revenues fluctuating, and
impairs the prosperity of their tenants, and of the society at large on
which the security of their property depends.
As it is the interest of all classes that the supply of food should be
regular and cheap, and as regularity and cheapness are best secured by a
free trade in corn, it is the interest of all classes that there should
be a free trade in corn.
THE END.
----------------------------
Printed by W. CLOWES, Duke-street, Lambeth.
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
=A Tale.=
BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
833.
CONTENTS.
---
1. The Silent Trip 1
2. A Mushroom City 20
3. Morning in the Jungle 40
4. Night in the Jungle 65
5. Maternal Economy 76
6. Blithe News 101
7. Up and Doing 117
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
------------------
CHAPTER I.
THE SILENT TRIP.
The brief twilight of the tropics had just sped away before the shadows
of night over the seas which gird Ceylon, when a raft, stealing along
the quiet expanse before the breath of the night-wind, approached the
spot beneath which lay one of the chank beds that enrich the northwest
coast of the island. The situation of the bed was marked by the constant
presence of a boat, placed there by the lessees of the chank bed to
guard its treasures from pilferers. These chanks, or conch-shells, are a
very tempting object of theft to the natives, not only as ornaments for
their own persons, but as being in constant demand for the same purpose,
and for burial with the distinguished dead, throughout the whole
neighbouring continent of India. Sawn into rings, they deck the wrists,
ancles, and fingers of many thousand dark beauties who care as little
whether they are obtained by filching or by lawful fishing, as some
fairer belles inquire whether their articles of luxury are smuggled or
legally imported. Great precautions are therefore necessary to preserve
the property of the chank monopolists; and the best of these precautions
are often useless. In the present case, the guard-boat might as well
have been empty, for any opposition that it offered to the approach of
the raft. The guard were probably asleep, or they would have perceived
it at the moment that the moon lifted her horn above the eastern wave,
spreading a sheet of light over the still expanse. At that moment, the
two dusky figures which had been standing erect and silent beside the
mast of the raft, began to move, though not to speak. Marana pointed to
the golden light which was just appearing, and Rayo, understanding her
sign, proceeded to lower the sail of matting, (which might become
conspicuous in the moonlight,) and to dislodge the mast. Both figures
then lay down beside it, so that the raft might have appeared, even to
close observation, to be no more than a piece of drifting wood, but for
the gleams sent forth from the precious stones with which Marana’s
silver hair-pins were set, and for the ripple of Rayo’s paddle, which he
contrived to ply as he lay. The critical moment must be when he plunged,
as there were no sea sounds amidst which the splash might be lost. All
was as quiet as a lake. The guard-boat was no cradle to those who slept
within it, for it kept its place as if it had been fixed in the sand of
the beach. The black points of rock which rose above the surface at a
distance towards the land were reflected with perfect fidelity, instead
of in fluctuating lines of shadow. Marana dreaded the plunge for her
lover, and fearfully watched to see dark figures rise up in the
guard-boat while the circles were yet spreading, and breaking the
moonlight to shivers on the surface. No foe appeared, however; and
Marana was at liberty for new fears. There were enemies in the green
depths below more formidable than any to the right hand or the left. It
was quite as probable that a shark might take a fancy to this locality
as a diver; and a chance meeting was little likely to end without
strife. Marana drew towards the edge of the raft as its heavings
subsided, and looked eagerly down, dreading to see a red tinge diffuse
itself in the lucid depth, and starting at every shadow that floated
through it. She was fingering her ebony beads meanwhile, and her lips
moved as she murmured some aspirations compounded of a catholic prayer
and a native charm. The depth was little more than two fathoms in this
place, and Rayo was soon up again, though the minute of his submersion
seemed incalculably longer to Marana. He delivered his pouch to her to
be emptied, and rested himself by floating till he was ready for another
descent.
Again and again he dived, till Marana discovered a treasure in the pouch
which destroyed all further temptation to theft that night, and relieved
the damsel from the anxiety of watching more descents of her lover. A
shell which opened to the right, commonly called a right-handed chank, a
shell esteemed worth its weight in gold, appeared in the heap, and it
was not worth while to run any further risk when so rare a possession as
this was obtained. Rayo’s spirits were so raised by his good fortune
that he insisted on paddling quite round the guard-boat, near enough to
see whether there was any one in it, while Marana looked anxiously at
the ascending moon, whose flood of light was now veiling the stars. When
she saw arms gleaming in the boat, she thought it too rash of her lover
to come between the sleeping guard and the moon, and looked imploringly
at him while she pointed to the shore. His curiosity once satisfied, the
danger was soon over. Rayo ventured to stand up to paddle, when the raft
had distanced the boat by half a mile, and Marana began her inquiries as
to what he had seen in the deep.
Rayo made light, as he had done for some time past, of the achievement
of diving for chanks. He had practised it as a preparation for becoming
a pearl-fisher in waters three times as deep, and for a much more
precious treasure. He was to make his first trial of the nobler
occupation at the approaching pearl fishery; and he spoke with becoming
indifference of all meaner accomplishments. He had seen no sharks
to-night; there would be more chance of them in deeper water. He had
been startled by no strange appearances: nine fathoms down was the scene
for wonders. He had found no difficulty in filling his pouch: the oyster
beds would afford harder work. Marana thought all this was
counterbalanced by the absence of a charmer who might say “avaunt!” to
sharks, and interpret all marvels, and lighten all toils. If her father
could have been on the raft with them to-night, she should think as
little of the trip as Rayo himself; and if he could but get himself
engaged for the same boat that was to carry Rayo out to his first pearl
fishing, she should have confidence in his prosperity and safe return.
They fell in with no other vessel till they came in sight of the shore,—
the wildest and dreariest part of the shores of Ceylon. A flat yellow
beach stretched away on either hand, without rock or tree, or any object
which could cast a shadow, except the huts of mud and rushes which
afforded a shelter to the natives. In no place was it easier to make a
landing, and in none was it more difficult to land unperceived, when sun
or moon was above the horizon. No jutting rocks were there, behind whose
screen a raft might lie concealed: no shady creek into which a skiff
might glide and secrete itself beneath the mangroves: no groves of
cocoa-nut, feathering the margin of the tide, beneath whose canopy dusky
pilferers might creep to divide their spoils. All was here open to the
sky, and to a sky whose lesser lights leave little unrevealed even on
the night of a new moon.
Rayo and Marana had little chance of stealing to their homes unobserved
while so many eyes were looking upon them from above, and while a
certain pair of vigilant human eyes preserved their wont of looking
abroad upon the night. The tall figure of Father Anthony, the priest,
was moving on the beach, preceded by his still taller shadow, when the
raft floated on shore. Rayo saw this while still afloat; and if he had
been an English smuggler, he would have pushed off again before he was
recognized, and have kept out of sight till Father Anthony was safely
housed. But Rayo’s ideas of good manners would not allow of this. He had
no notion of failing to pay his respects to any who came in his way,
whatever might be the consequence of the meeting; and he now greeted
Father Anthony with as much deference as Marana herself, hoping that it
was no evil which kept their friend awake at this hour.
“No worse evil than being unable to rest so well here as in Europe,
where there are no excessive heats of the day to make us restless at
night. But what fish do you seek so late? I fear you have lost your
nets,” he continued, seeing no fishing apparatus on board the raft.
Marana looked at Rayo, and Rayo said nothing.
“Chanks!” exclaimed Father Anthony, perceiving now of what Marana’s
burden consisted. “These chanks cannot be yours.”
“His hands brought them up,” declared Marana, pointing to her lover.
“It may be so, but they are no more his than the comb in his hair would
be mine if I were to take it from him. Rayo, why did you steal these
chanks? Do not you know that God punishes theft?”
“Is it theft to get chanks for my bride, when I have worked long for
them, and can get no chanks by working? I thought God laid the chanks in
our seas for our brides.”
“They have become the property of some who may let your brides, or the
brides of India have them, as they may see fit. God gave them into the
hands of those who possess them; and He will be angry with any who take
them away by fraud or violence. All cannot have these chank-beds, and
those who have bought them must be protected in their possession.”
“I have earned as many as I have taken,” replied Rayo; “and to-night God
has given them to me. The guard did not even stir when I plunged.”
“And God gave him this,” added Marana, showing the precious shell as an
indubitable proof of all being right. Father Anthony had not been long
enough in his present station to know the full value of what he now took
into his hand; but if he had, his decision would have been the same,—
that the chanks were not Rayo’s.
Rayo was much in want of his friend’s guidance. In the school, it was
taught as a duty that a just reward should be given for toil. Was it a
duty out of school to toil without reward?
Certainly not, except in the case of the mutual services which friends
and neighbours should yield to each other. But nobody thought of toiling
without reward, as far as Father Anthony knew. The chank-fishers, he was
sure, were paid. Rayo acknowledged having received certain portions of
rice, and of cotton for clothing; but never any wages which would
purchase what was necessary for Marana before her father would allow her
to marry. Rayo had no objection to work, but he had not doubted about
the liberty of paying himself, in case of an insufficiency of wages.
When he heard, however, all the denunciations that Father Anthony had to
bring against the sin of theft, and it was pressed upon him that he had
actually been guilty of the crime, he was perfectly submissive; no less
so than Marana, though his eyes did not stream like hers, and he did not
so instantly betake himself to his devotions. He stood with his eyes
cast down, waiting for instructions.
“Your duty is clear, Rayo,” said Father Anthony. “He that hath stolen
must not only steal no more, but must restore what he hath stolen. When
the sun rises, you must go to the owners of these chanks and restore
them, relating your offence and seeking their pardon;—I need not say
humbly, for I have never observed you fail in humility.”
Rayo made obeisance, and Marana hoped he might also relate how he fell
into the offence.
“If he does it without any pretence of justifying himself,” said Father
Anthony, who was not unwilling that the facts of the oppression under
which his poor friends laboured should be brought home, on every
possible occasion, to the owners of the wealth which surrounded them,
and which they might not appropriate, “Rayo may say why he wishes for
chanks and for the money that chanks will bring; but he must not defend
himself for having taken them without leave. Neither must you excuse
yourself before God, Rayo; but seek His pardon before you sleep. May He
pardon and bless you, Rayo!”
“How far will you have to carry them?” asked Marana, as soon as Father
Anthony was out of hearing. “If it is not too far for a woman, I will go
with you, and carry them, and confess for you. How far must they be
carried.”
Rayo pointed to his father’s hut,—his own abode, and began walking
towards it with a countenance of perfect content. But Marana stopped,
and looked the entreaty which she dared not speak.
“They are heavy,” observed Rayo, taking the chanks from her.
“No, no. I will carry them to the mountains,—I will swim with them
through the sea, sooner than that the curse shall light upon you, Rayo.
Father Anthony says the curse comes upon those who do not do as they
say, and a great curse upon those who steal as we have done, unless they
restore.”
“It will bring a curse to say what he bids me say to the rich men. I
shall fish no more chanks, and lose what I have got, and perhaps fish no
pearls. This will be a curse.”
“But what will Father Anthony say to-morrow?”
“Let us see if he finds it out.”
“But the curse will come, whether Father Anthony knows or not.”
“Your father shall charm it away, and you shall have your rings; and the
rest shall be sold at the fishery. Then we will build a house, and we
will each have new clothing, and we will be married.—But let us hide the
chanks. If my father finds them, he will sell some. If Neyna finds them,
she will ask for rings too. We will hide them in the rushes.”
Marana dared not resist, but her horror of the curse grew every moment.
She did not think at all the worse of her lover for his determination.
She rather admired the bravery of it, her thoughts being employed, not
on the sin, but on its apprehended consequences. She doubted whether her
father had a charm strong enough to obviate the effects of her lover’s
rashness; and she was far less afraid of anything that might come out of
the rushes than of what might come out of the deed which Rayo went to do
there.
When the torches were lighted, without which it is unsafe to penetrate
the places where leopards may be crouching on dry sand, hidden by the
silky rushes, she went first, fearing, not the glaring eye of a savage
beast, but the vigilant glance of some saint or demon whom her religion
or the old superstitions of the country taught her to regard as the
dispenser of punishment from above. She started as the night-wind swept
among the reeds, not so much from dread of some velvet paw that might be
stealing towards her, as from expectation of some token of wrath. All
was quiet, however. The curse was not perceived immediately to light,
and the lovers parted in safety at the door of her father’s hut.
Marana stood for some time hesitating between lying down at once on her
mat to sleep, and waking her father, to trouble him for a charm without
loss of time. A better plan than either flashed across her mind, and
found more and more favour the longer she entertained it. It might avert
the curse without exposing Rayo to shame; and the loss of the chanks
(which was involved in her scheme) was a small price to pay for such
security. She hoped Rayo might be brought to think so; and if not, she
could rather bear his anger than see the curse light upon him. The
chanks were intended chiefly for her; and she could do without them for
ornaments, and had rather marry Rayo without a house and without new
clothing, than expose him to the curse: and thus, by a process of
reasoning over which the fear of a curse presided, she convinced herself
that the best thing she could do was to restore the chanks to their oozy
bed.
Without a torch, for she had not now the means of getting one, she stole
out, and crept to the hiding place among the rushes. Without bite from
snake, or alarm from any living thing more formidable than a bat, she
made her way out again. Without help or hinderance, she pushed the
little raft into the water, hoisted its mast and mat, and stood out
alone into the shining sea. What kind of malignant beings she could
imagine to be hovering between the glorious constellations and their
earthly mirror, it was for her to tell. The miseries which she believed
them commissioned to dispense came from a much nearer place than the
nearest of those radiant spheres, or even of the dense clouds which
began to show like a low wall along the horizon. The miseries under the
pressure of which her lover had committed crime, and she was now
dreading the atonement, came from the corrupt desires and infirm
judgments of men near at hand, whose passion was for the possession of
the powers of the earth, and not for alliance with the powers of the
air.
When Rayo rose in the morning at his father’s call, to trim the boat for
a fishing expedition, he was surprised to see no sign of his little raft
on the beach. It might have been washed away,—the sea being no longer so
smooth as it was a few hours before: or some unscrupulous neighbour
might have used it for his own convenience. It was of little
consequence; a raft being the simplest and cheapest of all contrivances
by which a Cingalese can set himself afloat.—The disappearance was
explained when old Gomgode’s flat-bottomed fishing-boat, containing
himself and Rayo, had made some progress from the land, and was pitching
in the rising swell, while the young man threw out his nets.
“Rayo, Rayo,” said Gomgode, “what is floating out beyond? Rayo, Rayo,
tell me whether it is not your raft.”
Rayo believed it was, but could scarcely distinguish it yet with
sufficient certainty to claim it. The old man’s sight might not be
really better than his son’s, but it was usually sharpened by curiosity
to a much greater degree than that of the less vivacious Rayo. He now
perceived that there was a woman upon the raft, and then Rayo also began
to see very clearly;—and not only to see, but to act. Gomgode could not
conceive what possessed Rayo to draw in the nets so hastily, and quit
their station, and give up every thing for the sake of following or
meeting this raft, when to-day, of all days, it was important to secure
a good draught of fish. They had come out early on purpose, the auction
of the oyster-banks being just about to be held, giving a fine
opportunity for the sale of fish. One boat after another was dropping
out from the shore, and Rayo was losing all the advantage of being out
first,—was giving up all his preparations, for the sake of making
towards the raft.
“Rayo, Rayo,” the old man exclaimed.
“Father, Marana is there, dripping and struggling.”
“Is it Marana? It is Marana. What sent her out, Rayo? How long has she
been out, Rayo? Did you know that she had your raft, Rayo? O, Rayo, what
is she going to do now, Rayo?”
Marana was about to do a somewhat perilous thing. She was about to dash
through a threatening wave as a horserider bursts through a blind hoop,
trusting to light again. The sea was now far too rough for so slight a
machine as this raft. It pitched and shivered as every wave broke over
it, and afforded so little secure hold against the stronger swells which
succeeded each other, that Marana seemed to find it her best way to pass
through them separately. She was seen standing with her face towards the
approaching wave, eyeing it steadily, and cleaving her way through it so
as to come out near the very point to which the raft was descending from
its ridge. This was all very well for awhile; but Marana was yet a great
way from shore, and it was scarcely possible but that such a succession
of plunges must exhaust her before she could commit herself finally to
the waves to be cast upon the beach. It was contrary to her habits also
to use much exertion, and the effort which brought her out thus alone
upon the sea,—whatever might be its motive,—could hardly be long
sustained. Rayo was full of wonder and of fear; and his father’s
remonstrances and questions stood little chance of being attended to
till Marana was safe on board.
Marana herself, though by far the most deferential person that Gomgode
was wont to meet, could scarcely bring herself to give an answer to his
inquiries till she had obtained Rayo’s forgiveness for having, at great
sacrifice to herself, averted the curse from him. Meek and downcast, the
dusky beauty stood before him, her half-clothed frame trembling with her
late exertions, and the salt water dripping from her hair. One corner of
her garment seemed to be very carefully cherished by her. It contained
the precious right-handed chank. She had not found in her heart to part
with it, on arriving at the place of deposit: and, while hesitating,
several good reasons for keeping it occurred to her,—as is not
unfrequently the case with those who are religious after her manner, any
more than with those who are not religious at all. It was a pity the
shell should be lost, and it was likely never to be fished up among so
many. It might be turned to a much better purpose, if her father would
make it a charm. There could be no sin in keeping it, if it was thus
converted to a religious use instead of being sold for a profit. Marana
therefore kept the chank, and was the better able to bear her lover’s
displeasure from the silent consciousness that she held a treasure for
him in her possession.
She did not make a syllable of reply to his lowering look and few
cutting words against herself; and when his wrath turned upon Father
Anthony, or rather upon any priest or religion which interfered with his
doings, Marana testified only by a slight glance round her that she was
uneasy under this rashness of complaint.
The moment the boat touched the shore after a prosperous trip, she
hastened to her father’s cottage, not waiting to observe how much more
Gomgode would ask for his fish than they were actually worth, nor even
to hear whether anything was yet known of the quality of the oysters
which had been brought up as a sample from the pearl banks, and on whose
evidence the auction was to proceed. She had an office to discharge, in
common with her neighbours;—to dress and light up the road by which the
agent of the government was to approach: and she was anxious to obtain
the desired favour from her father before she went forth.
The Charmer, who was expecting an application, in the course of this
day, to hold his services in readiness for the fishery, was now absorbed
in his preparations. He sat in a corner of his hut with his documents
spread before him. Strips of the talipot-leaf, on which some consecrated
style, guided by a wise man’s hand, had traced mysterious characters,
lay before the Charmer, and beads and images and various sacred
indescribable articles were scattered around. He gave no heed to his
child when she entered, and his melancholy countenance wore a deeper
sadness than usual.
“Father!” softly said Marana, after some time waiting his pleasure;
“where will the sharks be during the fishery?”
The Charmer shook his head, and acknowledged his doubt whether St.
Anthony would be permitted to keep them all within the bounds of Adam’s
Bridge, or whether some would be left at large between the north banks
and the shore. The south banks would be safe; but the north, alas! were
those in which Marana was interested.
“Father! the monsoon will surely not arrive too early?”
“Not till April is nearly past,” he replied, cheerfully. “It is even
likely that there may be complaints in the south of drought, from the
delay of the rains. There will be no storms in our fishery.”
“I will ask Father Anthony to praise the saints.—Will the fishery be
rich?”
“To some, and not to others. This is commonly the case; and I cannot
discover whose countenances will be sad in Aripo, and whose merry voices
will sing along the shore at Condatchy, when the last signal-gun has
brought back the last boat.”
There was a long pause before Marana ventured to utter the more
important question,
“Father! will any one be waited for in the paradise under the sea?”
The Charmer rubbed his hand over his brow, and said that this was the
point he was endeavouring to ascertain when his daughter entered. His
indications were at variance; and whether the fishery was to be fatal to
none, or to more than he had put the question for, he could not decide.—
Marana felt that she must request Father Anthony to intercede with, as
well as praise the saints.
“Is it a blind day to you, father?” she inquired, struck by his tone of
doubt on almost every topic she had introduced.
“My blind days are many,” he replied, “and the blindness troubles me.
Marcair looks doubtfully upon me, and I look doubtfully upon myself,—
because I warned him that a wild elephant would tread his rice-ground
seven nights ago. Marcair lighted eleven fires, and thirty-two friends
kept watch with him for three nights; and not a twig was heard to snap
in the jungle: and those who laid ear to the ground say that not so much
as a panther trod within a mile.”
“Seven nights since? That was the night that ball of white fire crossed
the sky——”
“A ball of fire! St. Anthony opened your eyes to see it! A ball of white
fire cast from the hand of a saint is more fearful than eleven fires
kindled by men’s hands.”
“The elephant was scared, father, no doubt. The ball passed over that
very jungle, and then above Marcair’s rice-ground, and then into the
sea.”
The Charmer’s spirits were so raised by the news of this interposition,
that he presently contrived to bring his most important calculations to
an agreement, and then lost no time in charming the shell, that his
daughter might be at liberty to reveal to the neighbours what she had
seen on the seventh preceding night, and thus re-establish her father’s
credit.
She had never heard her father speak more positively on any point than
on this,—that if Rayo was married to her before he went out to the
fishery, this charm would bring Rayo back safe from the fishery.—It
followed that Rayo should have his wish, and be married before the
adventure. There being no dwelling ready nor any thing to put therein,
was a matter of small moment in comparison with Rayo’s safety.
Marana went forth with her usual slow and demure step and demeanour: but
the torches which flashed here and there on her path were reflected back
from her eyes as brightly as from the topazes on the crown of her head.
With a lighter, but no less graceful touch than usual, did she unfurl
the fan-like talipot leaves of which the tents for the strangers were
composed. With more than her usual fancy did she feather with cocoa-nut
leaves the poles of bamboo to which torches were to be fastened at
intervals along the road. She was too poor to pay the tribute of white
cotton cloth for the government agent to walk upon, when he should
arrive within sight of the huts: but she had a new song to offer, which
was worth full as much. She had, besides, a little cocoa-nut oil to
spare for the anointing of a sister beauty or two, when she had made her
own toilet: so that the remark went round that Marana must have got some
new charm from her father for her special adornment. Rayo’s manner
seemed to show that he thought so too.
CHAPTER II.
A MUSHROOM CITY.
After the usual expenditure of anxiety, prudence, jealousy, wrath and
cunning, the letting of the Pearl banks had been accomplished. A great
speculator had offered government a certain sum for the whole fishery of
the season, and had then let the different banks to various merchants,
to whom the gracious permission was given to make what they could of the
natives of the land as well as of the sea;—not only to appropriate the
natural wealth of the region, but to bring its inhabitants as near to
the brink of starvation as they pleased in their methods of employing
their toil. Pearls seem to be thought beautiful all over the world where
they have been seen. Empresses in the north, ladies of all degree in the
east and west, and savages between the tropics, all love to wear pearls;
and where is there a woman, in an Esquimaux hut or a Welsh farmhouse,
who would not wear pearls if she could obtain them? And why should not
all have pearls who wish for them, if there is a boundless store, and
labourers enough willing and ready to provide them? Alas! there are not
only few wearers of pearls because the interests of the many are not
consulted, but the labourers who obtain them are by the same cause kept
bare of almost the necessaries of life, going forth hungry and half
naked to their toil, and returning to seek rest amidst the squalidness
of poverty, while hundreds and thousands of their families and
neighbours stand on the shore envying them as they depart, and preparing
to be jealous of them on their return: both parties being, all the
while, the natural owners of the native wealth of their region. And why
is all this injustice and tyranny? That a few, a very few, may engross a
resource which should enrich the many. Yet, not many things are more
evident than that to impoverish the many is the most certain method of
ultimately impoverishing the few; and the reverse. If the government
would give away its pearl banks to those who now fish those banks for
the scantiest wages which will support life, government would soon gain
more in a year from the pearls of Ceylon than it has hitherto gained by
any five fisheries. If buyers might bid for pearls from every quarter of
the world to those who might sell any where, and after their own manner,
Cingalese huts of mud and rushes would grow into dwellings of timber and
stone; instead of bare walls, there would be furniture from a thousand
British warehouses; instead of marshes, there would be rice-fields;
instead of rickety coasting boats, there would be fleets of merchantmen
riding in the glorious harbours of the island; instead of abject prayers
from man to man as the one is about to suffer the dearth which the other
inflicts, there would be the good will and thanksgiving which spring
from abundance; instead of complaints on the one hand of expensive
dependence, and murmurs about oppression on the other, there would be
mutual congratulation for mutual aid. Ceylon would over pay, if
required, in taxes, if not in advantageous commerce, any sacrifice of
the monopolies by which she has been more thoroughly and ingeniously
beggared than any dependency on which British monopoly has exercised its
skill; and Britain might disburthen her conscience of the crime of
perpetuating barbarism in that fairest of all regions, for whose
civilization she has made herself responsible. There are many methods of
introducing civilization; and some very important ones have been tried
upon this beautiful island, and with as much success as could be
expected: but the most efficacious,—the prime method,—is only beginning
to be tried,—the allowing the people to gain the property which nature
has appointed as their share of her distribution. Let the Cingalese
gather their own pearls, exchange their own timber, sell their own dyes
wherever and in whatsoever manner they like, and they will soon
understand comfort, and care for luxuries, like all who have comforts
and luxuries within their reach; and with these desires and attainments
will come the perceptions of duty,—the new sense of obligation which it
is the object of all plans of civilization to introduce.
Great pains had been taken to civilize Rayo. He had been schooled and
watched over—he could read, and he respected the religion of his priest;
he was willing to toil, and had a taste for comfort. But, beyond the
hope of acquiring a hut and a mat or two, there was little stimulus to
toil, and as little to conduct himself with a view towards any future
circumstances. Strangers not only carried away the wealth of the land,
but they prevented that wealth from growing, and therefore the labour of
the inhabitants from obtaining a wider field. As pearls were fished ten
years before, so they would be fished ten years hence, for any
probability that he saw to the contrary. A thousand divers carried away
a pittance then, insufficient to bring over to them the desirable things
which were waiting on the shores of the neighbouring continent for a
demand; and a like pittance might such another thousand carry away in
time to come; in like manner might they sigh for foreign commodities,
and in like manner might foreign commodities be still waiting, wrought
or unwrought, for a demand. Therefore was Rayo still in a state of
barbarism, though he understood and praised the trial by jury, and could
read the prayers of his church. He was in a state of barbarism, for
these accomplishments had no influence on his conduct and his happiness.
He was selfish in his love; fraudulent with an easy conscience in his
transactions of business; and capable of a revenge towards his superiors
as remorseless as his deportment was gentle and polished. No
circumstance had ever produced so happy an effect upon him as his
advancement to be a pearl-diver, an advancement in dignity, if not in
gain. It was the last promotion he was ever likely to obtain; but,
besides that it softened his heart by occasioning his immediate
marriage, it gave him the new object of distinguishing himself, and
opened the possibility of his profiting by some stray pearl, or by some
chance opportunity of speculating on a lot of oysters. He walked to join
his company on the beach with a demeanour unlike that by which Rayo was
commonly known; and his young wife looked after him with a new feeling
of pride.
He was sure to be as safe as on shore, for the Charmer was to go in the
same boat, and no shark binder of the whole assemblage was more
confident of having effectually bound the sharks than Marana’s father.
All were confident; and the crowds on the beach looked as joyous for the
night as if the work was going on for their sakes. A city of bowers
seemed to have sprung up like Jonah’s gourd, or like the tabernacles
which, in old times of Jewish festivals, made Jerusalem a leafy paradise
for a short season of every year. Talipot tents, and bamboo huts dressed
with greens and flowers were clustered around the sordid dwellings on
the sands. Throngs of merchants and craftsmen, black, tawny, and white,
with their variety of costumes, mingled in this great fair. The polisher
of jewels was there with his glittering treasure. The pearl-driller
looked to his needles and pearl dust, while awaiting on his low seat the
materials on which he was to employ his skill. The bald, yellow-mantled
priest of Budhoo passed on amidst obeisances in one place, as did the
Catholic pastor in another. The white vested Mahomedan, the turbaned
Hindoo, the swathed Malay merchants exhibited their stores, or looked
passively on the gay scene. The quiet Dutchman from the south sent a
keen glance through the market in quest of precious stones in the hands
of an ignorant or indolent vender. The haughty Candian abated his
fierceness, and stepped out of the path of the European; while the
stealthy Cingalese was in no one’s path, but won his way like a snake in
the tall grass of the jungle. The restless lessees of the banks,
meanwhile, were flitting near the boats, now ranged in a long row, each
with its platform, ropes and pullies; each with its shark-binder, its
pilot, its commander, its crew of ten, and its company of ten divers.
The boat-lights were being kindled, one by one, and scattering a
thousand sparkles over the rippling tide. It was just on the stroke of
ten, and the signal gun was all that was waited for. The buzz of voices
fell into a deep silence as the expectation became more intense. Those
who were wont to make the heavens their clock and the stars its
hour-hand, looked up to mark the precise inclination of the Southern
Cross; while those who found an index in the flow of the tide, paced the
sands from watermark to watermark. Yet more turned their faces southward
towards the dark outline of hill and forest that rose on the horizon,
and watched for the land breeze. It came,—at first in light puffs which
scarcely bowed the rushes around the lagoons, or made a stir among the
stalks in the rice-ground. Moment by moment it strengthened, till the
sails of the boats began to bulge, and every torch and faggot of
cocoa-nut leaves on the beach slanted its forks of flame towards the
sea, as if to indicate to the voyagers their way. Then the signal-gun
boomed, its wreath of smoke curled lazily upward and dispersed itself in
the clear air, while a shout, in which every variety of voice was
mingled, seemed to chase the little fleet into the distance. The
shouting ceased amidst the anxiety of watching the clusters of receding
lights, which presently looked as if they had parted company with those
in the sky, and had become a degree less pure by their descent. Then
rose the song of the dancing-girls, as they stood grouped, each with a
jewelled arm withdrawn from beneath her mantle, and her jet-black hair
bound with strings of pearl. Mixed with their chaunt, came the
mutterings and gabblings of the charmers who remained on shore,
contorting their bodies more vehemently than would have been safe on any
footing less stable than terra-firma.
The most imposing part of the spectacle was now to the people at sea. As
their vessels were impelled by an unintermitting wind through the
calmest of seas, they were insensible to motion, and the scene on shore,
with its stir and its sound, seemed to recede like the image of a
phantasmagoria, till the flickering lights blended into one yellow haze
in which every distinct object was lost. It became at length like a dim
star, contrasting strangely in brightness and in hue with the
constellation which appeared to rise as rapidly as majestically over the
southern hills, like an auxiliary wheeling his silent force to restore
the invaded empire of night. Night now had here undisputed sway; for the
torches which flared at the prows of the boats were tokens of homage,
and not attempts at rivalship of her splendours.
Sailing is nearly as calculable a matter on these expeditions as a
journey of fifty miles in an English mail-coach. There is no need to
think about the duration of the darkness, in a region where the days and
nights never vary more than fifteen minutes from their equal length;
and, as for a fair wind, if it is certain that there will be one to
carry you straight out at ten to-night, it is equally certain that there
will be an opposite one to bring you straight in before noon to-morrow.
Nature here saves you the trouble of putting engine and paddle-box into
your boat, in order to be able to calculate your going forth and your
return. By the time the amber haze in the east was parting to disclose
the glories of a tropical sunrise, the fleet was stationed in a circle
over the banks. Every stray shark had received its commands to close its
jaws, and hie back to Adam’s Bridge; and on each side of every platform
stood five men, every one with his foot slung on the pyramidal stone,
whose weight must carry him nine fathoms down into the regions of
monstrous forms and terrifying motions.
Rayo was one who was thus in readiness. He stood next to the Charmer,—
Marana’s father,—over whom a change seemed to have come since he left
the land. It might be from the fasting necessary to his office; it might
be from the intensity of his devotion; but it might also be from fear,
that his hands shook as he fumbled among his sacred furniture, and his
voice quavered as he chaunted his spells. Rayo perceived his disorder,
and a qualm came over the heart of the young diver,—a qualm such as
assails the servile agent of a rich man’s prosperity much sooner than
one in whom independence brings bravery. Rayo looked keenly at the
Charmer; but the Charmer avoided meeting his eye, and it was not
permitted to interrupt his incantation.
It was, perhaps, not the better for Rayo that the opposite five went
first,—it gave more time for the unstringing of his nerves. The splash
of the thousand men who descended within the circle took away his breath
as effectually as the closing waters were about to deprive him of it. It
was a singular sight to see the half of this vast marshalled company
thus suddenly engulphed, and to think of them, in one moment after, as
forming a human population at the bottom of the sea. To be a subject of
the experiment was to the full as strange as to witness it, as Rayo
found, when the minute of his companions’ submersion was at length over,
and a thousand faces (very nearly scarlet, notwithstanding their tawny
skins) rushed up through the green wave. Spouting, dripping, and
panting, they convulsively jerked their burden of oysters out upon the
platform, and then tried to deliver their news from the regions below;
but for this news their comrades must not wait. Down went Rayo, to find
out the difference between three fathoms and nine. How far the lively
idea of a shark’s row of teeth might have quickened his perceptions, he
did not himself inquire; but he was conscious of a more dazzling flash
before his eyes, a sharper boring of the drum of his ear, and a general
pressure so much stronger than ever before, that it would have been easy
for him to believe, if he had been a Hindoo, like his neighbours, that
he supported the tortoise that supported the elephant that supported the
globe. He could see nothing at first in the dizzy green that was
suffocating and boiling him; but that did not signify, as he had no time
to look about him. He thought he was descending clean into a shark’s
jaws, so sharp was that against which his left great toe struck, when
his descent from the ninth heaven to the ninetieth abyss was at length
accomplished. (How could any one call it nine fathoms?) On meeting this
shark’s tooth, or whatever it was, yelling was found to be out of the
question. It was luckily forgotten in the panic, that the rope was to be
pulled in case of accident;—luckily, as there was no alternative between
Rayo’s losing all credit as a diver, and the fishing being at an end for
that day, from his spreading the alarm of a shark. He did not pull the
rope; he only pulled up his left leg vigorously enough to assure himself
that it was still in its proper place; by which time he discovered that
he had only mistaken a large, gaping oyster for a hungry shark. Rayo’s
great toe being not exactly the viand that this oyster had a longing
for, it ceased to gape, and Rayo manfully trampled it under foot, before
wrenching it from the abode of which its seven years’ lease had this day
expired. These oysters required a terrible wrenching, considering that
there was no taking breath between. Now he had got the knack. A pretty
good handful, that!—St. Anthony! where did that slap in the face come
from—so cold and stunning? Rayo’s idea of a buffet from the devil was,
that it would be hot; so he took heart, and supposed it was a fish, as
indeed it was. He must go now,—O! O! he must go. He should die now
before he could get up through that immeasurable abyss. But where was
the rope? St. Anthony! where was the rope? He was lost! No! it was the
rope slapped his face this time. Still he was lost! A shadowy, striding
mountain was coming upon him,—too enormous to be any fish but a whale.
Suppose Rayo should be the first to see a whale in these seas! St.
Anthony! It was one of his companions. If they were not gone up yet,
could not he stay an instant longer, and so avoid being made allowance
for as the youngest diver of the party? No, not an instant. He rather
thought he must be dead already, for it was hours since he breathed. He
was alive enough, however, to coil himself in the rope. Then he went to
sleep for a hundred years; then,—what is this? dawn? A green dawn?—
brighter,—lighter,—vistas of green light everywhere, with wriggling
forms shooting from end to end of them. Pah! here is a mouthful of ooze.
Rayo should not have opened his mouth. Here is the air at last! Rayo
does not care; the water does as well by this time. If he is not dead
now, water will never kill him, for he has been a lifetime under it.
“Well, Rayo,” says the captain, “you have done pretty well for the first
time. You have been under water a full minute, and one man is up before
you. Here comes another.”
“A full minute!”
Even so. Who has not gone through more than this in a dream of less than
a minute? and yet more if he has been in sudden peril of instant death,
when the entire life is lived over again, with the single difference of
all its events being contemporaneous? Since it is impossible to get into
this position voluntarily, let him who would know the full worth of a
minute of waking existence, plunge nine fathoms deep,—not in the sandy
ooze of a storm-vext ocean, where he might as well be asleep for
anything that he will see,—but in some translucent region which Nature
has chosen for her treasury.
Rayo had re-discovered one of the natural uses of air; but he was in
despair at the prospect before him. Forty or fifty such plunges as this
to-day! and as many more to-morrow, and almost every day for six weeks!
Forty or fifty life-times a-day for six weeks! This is not the sort of
eternity he had ever thought of desiring: and if purgatory is worse,
Father Anthony had not yet spoken half ill enough of it. Rayo had better
turn priest: he could speak eloquently now on any subject connected with
duration.
Before the end of the day’s work, however, the impression was much
weakened. The minutes of submersion grew shorter, fish and their shadows
more familiar, and much of the excessive heat and cold were found to
have proceeded from within. Before noon, Rayo could consider of certain
things to be attended to on the platform, as well as on the oyster-bed.
Oysters gape sometimes in the air as well as in the water. As Rayo
floated in the intervals of his plunges, (having grown so hardy as to
resist the remonstrances of the Charmer,) he observed the commander take
the opportunity of slipping a morsel of wood into any oyster-shell that
might happen to open, to prevent its closing again, and thus to save the
necessity of waiting for the putrefaction of the fish before its
treasure could be extracted. Rayo also perceived, that by an unheeded
touch of the commander’s foot, one of these oysters was dislodged from
its horizontal position, and slipped with its hinge uppermost, so as to
give exit to a large white pearl, so round that it rolled on and on,
till it was stopped by a piece of rope, under whose shadow it lay
apparently unperceived. It would have been risking too much to mount the
boat in this present interval, for the purpose of picking up the pearl.
Rayo must wait till after the next plunge; and in the meantime, it was
but too probable somebody would move the rope, and either discover the
pearl, or let it run away to some useless place. Such a pearl as this
was worth all the chanks that Marana had cast away, including the
right-handed one. Such a pearl as this would build a boat as well as a
house, and make Marana look like a bride indeed. Such a pearl as this
was no more than Rayo believed the proper payment of his labour,
considering that strangers carried away all the profit from the country
people. Such a pearl—this very pearl—might have come into his
possession, if he had taken the chance, like some of his companions, of
a lot of oysters, instead of small, fixed wages. In short, Rayo designed
to have the pearl, and found means of justifying the act of dishonesty,
which he would have strongly scrupled if he had been serving a party in
whose prosperity he was interested, instead of one who interfered with
the prosperity of himself and his countrymen. What Father Anthony had
taught served little other purpose at present than quickening Rayo’s
ingenuity in finding reasons for doing whatever suited him. Such
instruction might confirm and exalt his integrity, when he should have
any. In the meantime, his social circumstances did more to make him
dishonest than his religion to render him honest.
When he came up next time, he made so much haste to scramble into the
boat, and seemed so much hurried that the Charmer started up in terror
lest he should have lost a limb,—an accident which the binder of sharks
had been expecting all the morning, from a complete failure of
confidence in his own skill. When he saw that all was safe, he very
nearly forgot his dignity so far as to assist the youth in emptying his
net of oysters upon the heap in the middle of the platform. He stopped
short, however, on Rayo’s repulsing his offers of help, and went back to
his seat, commending the practice of coming on board instead of floating
between the plunges. Rayo sank down on his knees to empty his pouch. The
rope was within reach, and under it still lay the pearl. It was very
natural for Rayo to draw the rope towards him, if he really wanted to
ascertain whether the one round his body was strong enough; but it was
not equally natural for him to put his hand to his mouth under pretence
of dashing the wet from his face where little wet remained. So, at
least, the commander thought; and he was confirmed by observing a hasty
effort to swallow when Rayo was summoned to descend again. Measures of
which the youth little dreamed were in preparation for him while he was
down. He was hoisted upon the platform, and before he knew what he was
about, a man seized him by either arm, a third stepped behind him,
flourishing a knotted rope, while a fourth presented a cocoa-nut shell
of liquid, which did not look or smell very tempting. He was told of a
summary sentence to be flogged for putting his hand to his mouth while
within arm’s-length of oysters, (a great crime in Ceylon, whatever it
may be elsewhere,) and to swallow a strong emetic as the ordeal of
innocence of a further crime. It would have been useless to attempt to
upset the cup; for a double dose would have been the consequence, an
ample stock of emetics being the part of the apparatus of pearl-fishing
least grudged by the speculators. Bolting was equally impossible. There
was nothing for it but to bolt the medicine. The pearl of course
appeared, in due time; and when it once more vanished beneath the lid of
the commander’s spring-box, the fairest of poor Rayo’s hopes vanished
with it. He might consider himself, not disgraced,—for his companions
were wont to applaud the act of stealing pearls,—but turned off from his
employment for this bout, and precluded from the means of establishing
Marana in any thing better than four bare mud walls.
“Pillal Karra,” (binder of sharks,) “you are wise,” observed the
commander respectfully. “I have seen your downcast looks. Doubtless you
knew what should befal this youth.”
“If any doubted our power,” said the Charmer, “they should observe how a
mysterious trouble comes first to foreshow the misfortune that will
follow. When I was younger, I was content to keep off the misfortune;
and when I was over-ruled by the Malabar hags, to let the mischief come
without warning to myself. Now when my mind is tossed, I am learning to
know that the Malabar hags are riding a coming storm.”
“Have these hags bewitched your son-in-law?”
“No doubt; and I know which of them it is. It is Amoottra, who owes me a
grudge on account of Marana’s beauty. If she could meet my daughter out
of the line of my charms, she would touch her with leprosy.”
“Well; if you can convince my employer of this, and disenchant Rayo, he
may come out again to-morrow. Otherwise, he has taken his last plunge
for this season; for there parts the first boat from the circle.”
As the boats warped round into line, the sea-breeze freshened, and all
were presently making a steady progress homewards. Almost as soon as
they came in sight of the orange-tinted shore, apparently floating in
the hot haze of noon, they saw a spark glitter, and some seconds after
came the boom of the signal-gun which was to announce their return to
the anxious speculators and the public at large in the fair. The flag
was next hoisted, and then every man, woman, and child was looking to
seaward while hastening to secure standing-room on the margin of the
tide. The Charmers began to be ambiguous about this day’s success, and
to prophesy magnificently for the next. The dancing girls stationed
themselves round certain matted enclosures, ready to welcome the oysters
to their place of putrefaction. Father Anthony borrowed a telescope of a
contractor, whose hand shook so that he could make no use of it himself;
and Marana stood apart under the shade of a talipot leaf, lowering her
primitive umbrella, with tantalizing constancy, as often as a gallant
stranger or a curious country-woman would have peeped under it.
A talipot leaf will shelter two heads, and hide two faces, as was soon
proved with Marana’s. Rayo did not particularly wish to encounter Father
Anthony, and had withdrawn Marana among the huts, where, screened by the
umbrella, they mourned the adventure. Father Anthony’s eyes, however,
were keen. Keenly they peered under the shelter, and made Rayo’s droop
before them. In vain Rayo pleaded his father-in-law’s word, that he was
bewitched by a Malabar hag. Father Anthony did not allow Malabar hags to
lay waste the fold of which he was the shepherd.—Rayo bowed his head
submissively, and waited for orders.
“Do not insult the contractor by a plea of witchcraft.”
“I will not, father.”
“Do not seek to be employed again this season. There are many waiting
for the office who deserve it better than you. For this season, I shall
recommend Tilleke in your place; by next season, I hope you will have
wrestled with temptation, so that I may send my blessing forth with
you.”
“Is the blessing passed away?” asked Rayo, prostrating himself before
the priest, with deep sorrow in his tone and countenance.
“Perhaps not, if you will freely confess.”
“I will, father.”
Marana moved away, and remained out of hearing with her back turned
towards them, till the priest at length passed her. Dropping a few words
of good cheer, he exhorted her to be a tender wife, but withal faithful
to her religion, and then he trusted Rayo would become proof against
every kind of evil instigation or influence. It really was remarkable
that such influences seemed to beset him in particular places. His sins
of theft took place at sea, where compunction never seemed to visit him;
while no one could be more penitent and submissive than Rayo on land.
Did Marana know of any instance of his committing a theft on shore, or
being penitent at sea? Marana could recollect none, and was confirmed in
her dread of the Malabar witch. If she could but get Rayo farther
inland!—she said to herself, as father Anthony gave her his blessing,
and went on his way.
This aspiration was nearer its accomplishment than she could have
supposed.
“Rayo, what could make you take the pearl?” she asked, when she returned
to her husband.
“If there were a cocoa-nut tree here, as in the south, I should not want
the money which I cannot get. We might build under its shade, and eat
its fruit, and drink the milk from the kernel, and make our ropes of its
fibres, and burn lamps of its oil. But as there are no cocoa-nuts where
we live, I got chanks. You threw them away, and I tried to get a pearl.
If I must not have a pearl——”
“Let us go to the cocoa-trees, as they cannot come to us.”
“If I go at all, I will go far;—down among the cinnamon gardens,
Marana.”
“Not to be a cinnamon peeler!” exclaimed Marana, who thought she saw a
desperation in her husband’s countenance, such as a man might wear who
was about to lose caste. It was now a disputed point which caste ought
to rank highest,—the fishermen or the cinnamon-peelers; but Marana, as
in duty bound, as a fisherman’s daughter, regarded the cinnamon-peelers
as upstarts. “You, a fisherman, will not mix with the cinnamon-peelers?”
Rayo explained no more of his purpose in going among the cinnamon
gardens than that it was not to mix with the peelers. But he gloomily
hinted that perhaps Marana ought not to go,—would she not there be out
of the limit of her father’s charms? Might not the hag Amoottra——
“Touch me with leprosy? No,” said Marana, producing the precious shell
from a corner of her mantle. “My father needs not draw out his spell at
home while I carry this with me. I have shown it to you, Rayo, but you
will not sell it? If we live among the cocoa-nuts, we shall not want the
money. You will not take it from me to part with it?”
Rayo let her deposit it in her mantle, and then she was ready to go.
Every thing that she possessed was now on her person. Her father was
certain, from the nature of his profession, of being well taken care of;
and, if not, her husband’s claims upon her would have been paramount.
Leaving the Charmer to discover by his spells why and whither they were
gone, and old Gomgode to catch fish for himself and his daughter, the
young folks stole away towards the richer country to the south. They
knew that there was little danger of pursuit. There was no lack of
divers to supply Rayo’s place. Nobody supposed they would actually
starve; and, as for living poorly, it was what thousands had done before
them, thousands were doing now, and thousands would do after them.
Gomgode supposed Rayo would preserve caste. The charmer trusted his
daughter not to expose herself rashly to the hag’s wrath, as she knew
the consequences. Perhaps Father Anthony missed and mourned them most;
but he had a firm faith that Rayo would prove an honester man in the
jungle, or among the paddy-fields, than on a haunted sea.
CHAPTER III.
MORNING IN THE JUNGLE.
During the time of the cinnamon harvest, it was the custom of Mr. Carr,
the agent of the East India Company for the management of their cinnamon
contract, to ride every morning through one department or another of the
Marandahn, or great cinnamon garden near Columbo. The beauty of the ride
might afford sufficient temptation at any season of the year. The blue
lake of Colombo, whether gleaming in the sunrise, or darkening in the
storms of the monsoon, never lost its charms. The mountain range in the
distance was an object for the eye to rest lovingly upon, whether
clearly outlined against the glowing sky, or dressed in soft clouds,
from which Adam’s Peak alone stood aloft, like a dark island in the
waters that are above the firmament.
Whether the laurel-like cinnamon wore its early foliage of red or its
later of green, or its white blossom that made the landscape dazzling
with beauty and voluptuous with fragrance; whether the talipot upreared
its noble crest of straw-coloured blossoms above its green canopy, or
presented its clustering fruit; whether the cocoa-nut tree bowed before
the gusts of autumn, or stood in dark, majestic clumps above the verdure
of a less lofty growth, the groves and gardens were a paradise to the
eye of the Europeans.
The reaches of road, and the green paths which might be detected here
and there amidst the vast plantation, the rice grounds and patches of
meadow land interspersed, and the lowly roof peeping out occasionally
from beneath the palms, gave hints of the presence of man and
civilization; while the temple, with its oriental dome supported on
slender pillars, jutting out at the extreme end of a promontory into the
blue waters of the lake, or perched on some point of the piled rocks in
the background, carried back the thoughts to old days of barbarian
superstition. In all this there was so much pleasure as to make a ride
in the Marandahn a tempting pleasure at all times and seasons; though
Mr. Carr’s interest was at its height during the cinnamon harvest.
As he was about to mount his horse one morning, the sound of argument,
not to say dispute, reached him from within.
“My dear child,” Mrs. Carr was saying, “Roomseree and Pellikee shall
give you an airing nearer home, so that you will not be killed with the
heat. Do not think of going with papa this morning.”
“O, mama, you know papa says nothing tires me. I can ride as far as
papa; and papa says he likes to show me what the people are doing; and I
am sure the people like me to go too. Papa enjoys his ride so much more
when I go with him; and the horse does not think me very heavy.”
“Heavy! no, love! You are so small and slight, Alice, that it makes me
tremble to think of your going out under such a sun as it will be by the
time you get back. Papa always promises to take a very short ride; and
it ends with his bringing you home at the end of four or five hours.
Better stay with me, love.”
“All the rest of the day, mama; but papa has had the right saddle put
on, and we are to go the west ride this morning. Cannot you go to sleep
till we come back?”
Mrs. Carr promised to try; and, to do her justice, she was always ready
to do her best to sleep, day and night, bidden and unbidden. With a few
sighs over the charming spirits and the unquenchable curiosity of the
dear child, she closed her eyes on the dewy radiance of a morning in
paradise, and was glad that she had nothing more to do with cinnamon
than to be tired of hearing of it, and to taste it when she pleased.
Alice used her eyes to more purpose this morning. She was yet new enough
to scenes like those before her to be full of wonder, and other
feelings, as natural, perhaps, but less desirable.
“Papa, do giants live in this place?”
“Giants, my dear, no. What made you fancy such a thing? You have seen no
very amazing people, have you?”
“No; they are very small pretty people, I think. Sometimes, when I see
them under such a very tall clump of trees as that, or among the jungle
grass, they put me more in mind of dark fairies than giants; but——”
“But the trees are some of them fit for giants’ walking-sticks, I
suppose you think; and an elephant is a very proper animal for a giant
to ride. Hey?”
“I have seen men on elephants,” replied Alice. “But look there! Look at
that great castle!” And she pointed with awe to a mighty object which
was partially revealed as the morning mists drew off.
“That is not a castle, my dear; though I do not wonder at your taking it
for one. It is a mountain-peak.”
“But the drawbridge, papa;—the drawbridge hanging in the air.”
“Ah! you would be a long time in finding out what that drawbridge (as
you call it) is. You think it made for giants; but it would break down
under your weight. That is only a bridge of creeping plants, for birds
and butterflies to hide in. If a strong wind came, you would see it
swing, like your swing between the cherry trees in the orchard at your
grandmama’s, in England.—When we get out of the garden and nearer the
thickets, you will see some such flowers as that bridge is made of,
hanging from the trees, and binding them together so that we cannot ride
through them.”
“But I do not want to get out of the garden yet. Here come the people,
one after another, from their cottages, with their crooked knives to cut
down the branches. What are those tawny people doing in the shade? They
seem to be sitting very comfortably, all in a ring. This is prettier
than seeing grandmama’s mowers in England, besides that the mowers do
not sing at their work, like these people.”
“The mowers in England have more reason to sing than many of these
peelers. Look how thin many of them are; and that poor child playing in
the grass appears half-starved. Very few people in England are so poor
as some of the natives here, who yet sing from morning till night.”
Alice observed that they were not all thin; and she pointed to one man
whose legs were of an enormous size, and to another whose body was
nearly as broad as it was long.—She was told that these appearances were
caused by disease; and that the diseases of the labourers were in a
great degree owing to their poor way of living. There would be few such
swollen or emaciated bodies as these if the people had flesh to eat, or
good bread, or even the seasoning which was necessary to make their
vegetable food agree with them.
“Seasoning! What sort of seasoning?”
“Salt, and pepper, and cardamoms, and cinnamon.”
“Salt, papa! They must be very lazy if they do not get salt enough.
There is the sea all round Ceylon; and I have seen several ponds where
the water was so salt I could not drink it. There was a crust of salt
all about the edge, papa.”
“Very true, my dear; but the people are not allowed to take it. The king
of Candy lives in the middle of this island; and the kings of Candy have
sometimes been troublesome people to the English, as they were to the
Dutch before them. Now, as the king of Candy cannot get to the sea, or
to any salt lake, without our king’s leave, he and his people depend
upon us for salt; and our government likes to keep him quiet, and get a
great price for its salt at the same time by selling it to the Candians
very dear, and by letting nobody else sell any. So the people of the
country are not allowed to help themselves to salt.”
“But if there was not enough, I would rather make the king of Candy go
without than these poor people who belong to us. We ought to take care
of them first.”
“The government likes to take care of itself before either its own
people or the Candians. There is salt enough for every body here, and
for half India besides; and large quantities are destroyed every year,
to keep up the price, while many are dying for want of it, and those who
live can get nothing better than coarse dirty salt which the beasts in
your grandmama’s farm-yard would turn away from. If we could count the
numbers of Hindoos who die in India for want of the salt which their own
country produces, we should find that a fearful reckoning awaits the
Company there, as there does the government here; a fearful balance of
human life against a high price for salt.”
Alice thought that if the ghosts of these poor natives could haunt the
authorities, such an army of shadows would soon prevail to secure for
their surviving countrymen the food which Providence had made to
superabound before their eyes. She knew how shocked and sorry government
was that a woman here and there burned herself when her husband died;
but when government burned the salt which was left, in order to keep up
the price, Alice thought, and so did her father, that government was
destroying more lives than ever perished on piles kindled by native
hands.
“But pepper, papa: the king of Candy can grow his own pepper in his own
woods, I suppose; for it seems as if it would grow any where here, as
long as there are trees for it to hang upon. I see the pepper vine
dangling in the woods, wherever I go; and the monkeys throw the red
clusters at each other.”
“The monkeys may gather them, but the men and women may not, unless they
are employed to do so by the government. The monkeys cannot pay for
pepper, and some of the people can; therefore the people who cannot must
go without, or steal, and run the risk of being punished.”
“Poor people!”
“Miserably poor, indeed. If they were allowed to grow as much pepper as
they pleased, and sell it to any part of the world where it is wished
for, they would have a great deal of money wherewith to buy things which
the government could sell much more profitably than pepper. Then we
should see mats, strewed with pepper-corns, spread in many a nook of the
thickets which the panther and the snake now have all to themselves; and
many a child would be heard singing among the vines, which now moans its
little life away in its half-starved mother’s arms. The same may be said
of cardamoms. There is no one in these eastern countries who would not
eat cardamoms if he could get them; and there are endless tracts where
cardamoms would grow; and yet very few of the natives can obtain them to
eat. Cardamoms grow wherever vegetable ashes are found in this country.
The plant naturally springs up on the very spots where other precious
things have been burned before the people’s eyes; but the plant must be
rooted up, or its capsules left to be avoided as forbidden fruit, unless
offered to the government for sale. But government gives so low a price
for cardamoms, that the people have little heart to cultivate the
plant.”
“But what does the government do with cardamoms?”
“It sells them; but not to half so many people as would be glad to buy.
If government would let the people freely sell cardamoms, government
would have a people rich enough to pay more in taxes than government
will ever make by selling cardamoms.”
“But you said the people might not have cinnamon. How can any body
prevent their getting it? Look all round, papa. As far as we can see on
this side and on that, and a great way before us, it is one wood of
cinnamon.”
“Yes, my dear. This one garden is fifteen miles round.”
“Well, why cannot the people steal as much as they please? If I were a
poor native, I would cut down all I could get, and sell enough to make a
great deal of money, and then buy what I wished for.”
“As for the cutting it down, my dear, the natives would have little
scruple; for, like all people who are cruelly pinched, they are apt to
take what they can get without caring to whom it belongs. But how are
they to sell it when they have got it?”
“I thought you said that cinnamon grew scarcely anywhere in the world
but here; and I am sure there are plenty of people all over the world
who are fond of it, and would be glad to buy it.”
“Very true; but those who long to sell and those who long to buy cannot
get at each other. Somebody steps between to prevent the bargain. The
English government lets the East India Company have all the cinnamon you
see, on condition of the Company paying so much a-year. So the spice is
carried away to be sold, instead of foreign nations being allowed to
come here to buy; and none is left but that which the Company does not
think it worth while to carry away; and even that is sometimes burned to
keep up the price.”
“Burned! when so many people would be glad of it! Would not the common
people in England like it, if they could get it as cheap as salt? If
they did, they would make the fortunes of the people here.”
“And then the people here would make the fortunes of a great many of the
working people in England. This would certainly be the case.—What do you
think the people in England eat most of, Alice?”
“Bread, I suppose.”
“Yes; and salt comes next. And what next?—Another sort of seasoning.”
It was not pepper, nor mustard; but something that every body liked and
used,—from the infant that will leave sucking its thumb for it, to the
old man that has but one tooth left in his head;—from the king who lets
his queen put it into his coffee, to the labourer’s wife who carries
home a coarse sample of it on the Saturday night.
“That must be sugar. But I think almost every thing that is good with
sugar would be better with cinnamon; and if cinnamon was made very
cheap, what a quantity would be used, and how rich the growers might be!
They would grow more and more, and employ more people, till this whole
large island was one great cinnamon garden——”
“Every part of it that is fit for such a purpose; every part that has a
light dry sandy soil like that which we are riding over so pleasantly.
And then much more use would be made of the rest of the land, the richer
the inhabitants grew. There would be more rice, and more fruits, and
more dye-woods, and more timber, and more of all the useful and
beautiful things that this paradise will produce.”
Alice wondered that the whole world did not cry out for more cinnamon;
and her father agreed with her that such a cry would probably be raised,
if the greater part of the world did but know how good cinnamon is. They
never could have known, or they would not so easily agree to go without
it, for the sake of the pockets of the East India Company.
“The fact is, my dear, the Company and the government do not behave so
ill as some people did before them. The cinnamon trade is a very old
trade;—as old as the time when the wise and wealthy Egyptians used to
trade with the rich and barbarous princes of India; but, though this
trade has passed through many hands, there has never been liberty to buy
and sell as natural wants and wishes rise. Three hundred years ago, the
Portuguese came here, and drove out the turbaned Moors, and sold
cinnamon at their own price to the world, (and let the natives have none
of the benefit of it,) for more than a hundred and thirty years. Then
came the Dutch to take the matter out of the hands of the Portuguese,
and they let the world have a little and a little more, by degrees, till
they prepared the way for a fine commerce for us, if we had but known
how to make use of it. But the mistake of the government of England is
in letting nobody have the spice who will not buy of us and pay our
price for it; when it is very plain that their money would come round to
England at last; and in much greater plenty, if we let the natives grow
and the foreigners buy of them, as much as they pleased.”
“Those poor people who are peeling, and stopping their songs as we pass,
and looking so terribly afraid of us, seem as if they were not fit to
make a bargain, papa.”
“They would soon learn, my dear, if left to manage their own interest.
At present, they know very well how to steal, but very little how to
conduct a fair bargain. The Cingalese come begging and praying, almost
on their knees, that we will buy; and if we condescend to ask their
prices, they name twice as much as they mean to take; and if we choose
to give them only half what they might really look for, they cannot help
themselves: or if we have a fancy to pay them in betel-nut, or tobacco,
or cotton-cloth, or anything else we may want to get rid of, they have
nothing to do but to take it, or to carry back their commodity as they
brought it. These people, however,—these peelers, have nothing to sell.”
“When we get among the cocoa groves, papa, there are several cottages,
and the people bring out things to sell. I wish you would buy something
this morning; just to see how they will manage, poor things! But who is
this, papa? He looks grander than the modelier, with his gay petticoat
and his blue dress. I do believe this is Captain Cinnamon, as the
peelers call him.”
“It is. He is the chief of the peelers, and he is taking his morning
round, as we are. I will speak to him.”
Captain Cinnamon bent his turbaned head in a profound obeisance to the
little girl, as well as to her father, which the young lady returned as
if she had been the far-famed pearl queen of the olden time. Alice’s
father and mother were more amused than they ought to have been at the
airs of consequence she assumed among the natives, and did not
discourage the haughtiness with which she naturally returned their
homage. Mr. Carr’s own manner, adapted to those he had to deal with, was
a bad example for her.
“I’ll tell you what, captain, you must take more care of your charge. I
am certain there is a great deal of pilfering going on in this garden,
and you are answerable to the Company for it.”
The captain was all humility: but how should there be thefts? For what
purpose, as the peelers could not sell this commodity.
“But others besides peelers may help themselves, and do.”
“The English gentlemen from the fort ride through the garden,” modestly
suggested the captain.
“Nonsense! do you suppose they steal cinnamon? I tell you I saw a head
pop up yonder, and a motion among the shrubs, where neither cutting nor
barking is going on: look there, and you will find a thief, depend upon
it.”
The captain owned that, secure as the Company was of no interference
with their monopoly of the bark while the garden was under his care, it
was difficult to prevent persons from entering to pluck the fruit. It
was so easy to pull and carry away the fruit unobserved, and it was so
precious to the people, and of so little use to the Company, that Mr.
Carr’s predecessor had connived at the practice, and desired Captain
Cinnamon to do so too. As Mr. Carr thought differently, however, the
peasants of the jungle should be humbled beneath his feet. In a trice,
half a score of peelers were called from their work to hunt the thief;
and a grand show of zeal they made in beating among the shrubs, and
uttering cries.
“There, that will do,” said Mr. Carr, when Alice had pointed out the
gradual retreat of the moving thing (as shown by the twitching of the
bushes) towards the ditch which bounded the garden. “This will frighten
him: now let him escape.”
Little Alice now signified her will and pleasure to be informed what was
to become of the quantity of bark which was strewed before her eyes.
Wherever there was a space between the shrubs where the sun could
penetrate to the pure white sand from which the spicy stems sprang, mats
were spread; and on these mats were strewed and heaped rolls of the
bark, the smaller rolls being fitted into the larger, so as to contain a
great quantity of the commodity in a small bulk.—On some open plots
which they had already passed, other such mats, heaped with other such
rolls, had greeted the senses of Alice and her father; and wherever they
caught glimpses through side alleys of the wood, or reached an eminence
whence they could look abroad over the expanse of shrubs, they saw dark
forms squatted on the white sand, or gemmed heads rising amidst the
verdure, while the rich scent which declared their occupation diffused
itself through the still air. Though the hands of the workmen moved
languidly, (like the hands of other workmen who do not labour for
themselves,) though the process of peeling was clumsy, and the waste of
material excessive, yet such quantities of bark fell from innumerable
boughs and twigs that Alice could not imagine what was to be done with
it all.
Captain Cinnamon told her (with obeisances which were imitated and
multiplied by his throng of followers) that all this quantity of spice
awaited the disposal of her puissant father, the agent of the Honourable
Company; and that he would probably inform her that when he had caused
to be packed that which his wisdom should deem the proper quantity to be
vouchsafed for the use of the world, the rest would receive its sentence
of destruction or distribution from his lips. Alice held up her head,
and rode on, not quite understanding the matter of fact about which she
had inquired, but thinking that it would be below the dignity of so
great a man’s daughter to appear to need further information.
The throng of attendants hovered round them as long as they continued
within the verge of the garden—pointing out to the young lady here a
little stack of cinnamon awaiting the hands of the packers; and there
kneeling groups, with each a chest in the centre, a heap of black pepper
lying beside it, to strew between the layers of cinnamon, and pots of
resin wherewith to stop the seams and crevices of the chests. Alice
could not help learning much from what she saw, notwithstanding the
sudden start of pride which made her prefer issuing commands to asking
questions. She felt a sad loss of consequence when her father dismissed
the peelers to their proper business, on reaching the ditch which
divided the garden from the open country. She was now no more than Alice
Carr, riding before her father, as she remembered having done long ago
in a field of grandmama’s in England, where there were no black people
to make bows, and gather round her as if she were a princess.
She complained of the narrowness of the path through the close jungle,
and was sorry that they were leaving the lake farther and farther on one
side of them; but it was not long before she found that there was here
something to admire. Grandmama’s horses had never trod such a path as
that on which her steed was now pacing: they had never entangled their
feet in trails of the blue convolvulus, or bowed their heads to avoid
being garlanded with creepers,—now scarlet, now yellow, now white. They
would have started at the glittering snakes that wound in the grass, and
at the monkeys that hung by one arm from the boughs overhead, gibbering
and chattering in a way that must move all unaccustomed gazers to
perpetual laughter. Instead of one proud peacock, perched upon a wall,
to be gazed at by a populous neighbourhood, here were numbers of those
stately creatures, fanning the long grass as they spread their burnished
tails, or making their rich purple hues gleam from beneath the shades of
the bowery fig-tree. Nothing could be more unlike the cottages of
England than the dwellings which emerged upon the sight, here and there,
from their hiding-places among the verdure. These dwellings looked as if
they were part and parcel of the jungle, being formed of the wood and
leaves that grew there, fenced with shrubs, and decked with creepers,
which twisted themselves over every part, so as scarcely to leave room
for the squirrels to pop in and out from their holes in the leafy
thatch. The enclosed plots (where any cottage could boast such an
acquisition) were as little like the gardens of a civilized country. No
rows of cabbages and peas, no beds of potatoes and onions—no supply of
vegetables on which a family may depend as some security against
starvation. The Cingalese, though blest with a soil and climate in which
every thing will grow, are destitute of any such provision as a tenth of
the toil of an English labourer would secure, and as a single gem from
the necklace of a native would purchase, in almost any land that has not
the misfortune to be a monopolized colony. If any one in Ceylon has a
fancy for potatoes and onions, he must get them from Bombay. If his
ambition extends to peas and cabbages, he must wait till they can be
brought from England.
The shaddock, the plantain, and the jack-fruit, might be seen growing
within these enclosures, the little walks being spread with a covering
as bright and as curiously variegated as any mosaic pavement, and as
soft as the richest carpet. Moss,—the scarlet, crimson, brown, yellow,
green, moss of Ceylon,—“the jewellers’ sorrow,” as it is there called,
from its beauty surpassing any which the combinations of the lapidary
can produce, was tufted beneath the stems, and spread under the feet.
Instead of thieves of the air, hovering in awe of the scarecrow which
flaps and nods in an English breeze, here were four-footed pilferers
peeping with longing looks from neighbouring tree-tops, or swinging
themselves down from a convenient branch, or pushing out what looked
very like a human hand, to pluck, or to grub up whatever might be within
reach, while the switch of the owner was absent. Instead of the lowing
of cows from the farm-yard, and the cawing of rooks from the rustling
trees, and the cackle of geese from the bare pond on the common, there
was the chit-chat of monkeys, the screaming of parrots, the timid step
of the gazelle among the dry twigs, and the splash of teal and wild
ducks from the pool beneath the mangroves. Alice was obliged to be
content with tracking the deer with her eye; but at the sound of water,
she must turn aside and see whence it came, notwithstanding the fear
with which her father ever approached, or allowed any belonging to him
to approach, water in these swampy wildernesses. Just for one moment he
thought his little daughter might be permitted to look around her; but
when he had penetrated a little farther into the shade, he repented of
his compliance. A fallen tree had intercepted the course of the tiniest
rivulet that ever was seen, and had formed a pool, which had spread and
spread, till it had made an island of one tree after another, and was
now canopied with a green shade, and mantled with the lotus, and fringed
with the bull-rush, from among which rose the cry of waterfowl, and
rainbow visions of gigantic dragon-flies. Notwithstanding all this
beauty, Mr. Carr repented of having penetrated these shades, so heavy
felt the air, and so oppressive was the moist smell of decaying
vegetation. A woman was stooping in the grass, too, whose looks did not
reassure him. Fever or hunger had sunk her cheek, and given such languor
to her gait and gestures as to destroy the grace which co-exists to a
remarkable degree with the indolence of demeanour which distinguishes
the natives of the country.
“That is very like one of grandmama’s hens,” observed Alice, as the
tawny lady disentangled a fowl from the snare in the grass, and held the
fluttering bird against her bosom. “I could almost fancy that was one of
the fowls I used to feed in the poultry-yard.”
“Look at the cock, and you will see the difference,” replied her father.
“See what a lofty, steady flight he takes half way up that tree, whose
lowest branch would allow your grandmama’s sycamore to stand under it.
Look at the gay, glossy plumage of each fowl, and tell me if you ever
saw such on an English cock and hen. These are the jungle-fowl you have
heard me speak of as a great blessing to the natives. I hardly know what
some of them would do for food without jungle-fowl.”
“That woman looks as if she had not been eating any,” observed Alice.
“She looks as if she had had nothing good to eat this long while.”
So thought Mr. Carr; and he stopped to ask her if the trees under which
she dwelt were fruitful? Marana (for it was she) replied, that her
husband and she could generally get cocoa-nuts when they were hungry,
but that they had sickened many times under this diet, during the short
time that they had been in the jungle. Her husband’s strength had
wasted, and she had had the ague; and it was but seldom that she could
snare a fowl.
Did not her husband bring home game, or earn money, or grow rice?
He brought home little game, for want of means to take it. He could not
grow rice, as he had neither land nor seed; and as for earning money,
how was it possible for a stranger to do so, when so many residents were
already unemployed?
“It is true,” replied Mr. Carr, “that the gardens are very full of
people, some of whom make more show of working than do any good; but
still——”
Marana was too courteous to interrupt his speech; but when he had paused
for some time to think, she declared that her husband must not be
supposed to desire to have anything to do with the Challias, or
cinnamon-peelers. Rayo was of the fishermen’s caste.
“Well, you must settle it between you which is the highest caste. If you
differ among yourselves on such a point, a foreigner cannot be expected
to decide it. But why does your husband, being a fisherman, come to live
here? Why does not he try his chance among the pearl fishers?”
“There are too many there, as well as in the gardens,” replied Marana.
“Too many for what?” inquired Alice. “There cannot be more men than
pearls. Why cannot they take it in turns to fish? And then, if only one
pearl was paid to every man, there would be plenty left for the rich men
who do not fish.”
“Ay; but then captains and merchants from many nations would come: and
that is just what our government does not like. A French merchant would
carry away pearls, and leave silk dresses behind him, or money, with
which the Cingalese might lay out rice-fields and cotton plantations, or
stock meadows with cattle. The Dutch captain would go to some
neighbouring countries for grain, and would be paid in pearls. The
Russian would bring leather and corn, and carry away pearls. The
Englishman would bring iron, and clothing of cotton, and a hundred
comforts besides, and would make a profitable bargain of pearls.”
“But this would be a good thing for everybody,—for the ladies who want
more pearls, and for these poor people, who want employment, and food,
and clothing.”
“But the government must then leave off paying as little as it likes to
the pearl-fishers, and being the only party to sell the fair white
pearls of Ceylon to all the beautiful ladies in the world who can afford
to obtain them.”
“But there are plenty of princes and great men who would give away more
pearls as presents, if they could get them; and there must be plenty of
beautiful ladies who cannot get pearls, because they are very dear. I
should like to give these people a boat, and send them out to fish
pearls for some of the ladies, who would give a little less for their
pearls, but quite enough to make Rayo rich,—to buy him a rice-ground.”
“Though the fisher and the buyer are ready, and the boat may soon be
had, Rayo must do without his rice-ground. The government will not give
him leave to sell pearls to anybody but themselves, and they will not
pay enough to buy a rice-ground.”
At the first sound of buying and selling, Marana had disappeared within
the cottage. She came forth again with her right-handed chank, which she
offered to Alice for sale, with a sad and imploring look.
“It is a pity you should sell this shell,” observed Mr. Carr. “It is a
very valuable one, as you ought to know.”
“It is.”
“Then keep it,—it may be a little fortune to you some day.”
“We want rice, and my husband’s clothing is old.”
“Well, food and dress are of more importance than any shell, to be
sure.”
Than any shell but this, Marana thought; but when the idea arose of the
hag, and her threat of leprosy, and of the curse which might now pursue
Rayo, she doubted whether anything could be more important to her than
this charmed shell. Whether the curse had not already lighted upon Rayo,
she was doubtful; for never man was so changed. He was as smooth and
courteous in his manner to strangers as formerly, and as fond of her as
he had ever been; but he was not the indolent, careless, light-hearted
youth he had been when she had first known him on the coast. He did not
work, for there was no work for him to do but to scramble up a tree and
down again when he wanted a cocoa-nut; but he prowled about the
neighbourhood, and seemed to have some purpose which lay nearer to his
heart than his wife. Marana hoped that he was not bewitched or doomed;
but it always alarmed her to meet him unawares in the thicket, and to
see how full his mind was of some thought which the hardships of the day
and the fever of the night could not banish.
While Alice was handling the shell, and longing more and more for it, as
she observed the solicitude with which Marana watched her mode of
playing with it, a rustling was heard in the wood, and Rayo himself
burst from the covert, with a rude sort of basket in his arms, which
seemed to be filled with the fruit of the cinnamon shrub. At the
unexpected sight of a stranger, he turned quickly, and deposited his
load in the long grass behind him. While his back was turned, his wife
made a rapid sign to her visiters to hide the chank, and say nothing
about it, which sign Mr. Carr obeyed by pocketing the shell, and
slipping into Marana’s hand gold, which made a warm blush visible on her
dark cheek, and lighted up her dim eyes with a momentary gleam. She had
never held so much money in her hand at one time before; and the idea of
the hag vanished for the instant before the image of a basket of
steaming rice, stewed with cardamoms or peppercorns.
“We must have a lamp,” half-whispered Marana, observing that Mr. Carr
sent a searching glance after the acorn-like fruit that was turned over
in the grass. “And if Marana is not anointed, how should her husband
love her?”
This was a question which Mr. Carr’s European habits unfitted him for
answering. He asked if there was no method of obtaining the oil of the
cinnamon fruit but by pilfering from the garden? None, for poor
creatures so weak as these peasants, who could not penetrate into the
interior for such purposes. The garden was close at hand; the cocoa-nut
oil, with which the oil of the cinnamon fruit was to be mixed, hung
overhead; and the temptation was too strong to allow of Mr. Carr’s being
very angry. He asked how the oil was made to serve the purpose of a lamp
during the dark nights, when it became the office of the invalids to
watch and nurse each other? Marana produced her lamp,—half the shell of
a cocoa-nut, supported on a stick of ebony, which was stuck into a
little block of calaminda wood. On the surface of the oil which the
shell contained, floated a little wick, formed from the pith of a rush.
Nothing could be more primitive; few things more elegant; and the
materials were such as would in few other countries have been found in
the habitation of persons in want of proper food.
Alice was bent upon purchasing the lamp also; and small was the price
demanded, however Marana might wonder at her husband’s demand not being
so much as disputed. Busily did she attempt to fulfil her task of making
another lamp, and bruising the fruit from which the oil was to be
drained, while Rayo seemed to have a sudden fancy for making torches.
Meantime, Mr. Carr cleared the jungle; and, seeing that the sky was
blackening towards the west, as if with the first storms of the monsoon,
turned his horse’s head homeward, bestowing many a thought on the
natives whom he saw in field, garden, jungle, and road,—all obsequious,
and looking up to every Englishman they met, as if impressed with
profound gratitude, while most were poor and comfortless, and it was
certain that all were injured by the nominal protection of their
country. Even Alice, occupied as she was with looking about her for
homage, and with planning an exhibition of her two treasures to her
mother, could not wholly forget the sunken countenances of those who
appeared to be pining in the luxuriant region which she had just left,
and where Nature seemed to intend that all things should flourish.
CHAPTER IV.
NIGHT IN THE JUNGLE.
Almost all who lived to the west of Adam’s Peak looked with glad eyes to
the lowering sky which hung over the sea like a leaden canopy. The rains
came late this year; the rice-fields languished; the verdure seemed to
crave of the light clouds which floated around the mountaintops that
they would descend in showers. There was now a prospect of rain in
abundance, and all looked for it with impatience but Marana, to whose
troubled spirit the moaning of the rising wind in the trees, and the
dull roar of the distant sea spoke of hags riding the blast, and curses
cradled in the clouds. As she sat this evening at the door of her hut,
weaving a basket of cane which her own hands had cut, dried, and split,
she glanced up uneasily to the sky, where the twilight was being rapidly
quenched by the rolling vapours, and started at every fire-fly that
brushed past her, as if it had been a spark from the electric mass which
over-hung the entire region. When it was no longer possible to pursue
her occupation, for want of light, she crossed her arms, and remained
seated on her threshold. It was not that she watched for the flitting
forth of the bat; nor to see the gaudier winged creatures of the wood
nestle in the brakes; nor to see the moonbeams piercing a way for
themselves through the curtain of foliage till they kissed the modest
lotus that slept on the bosom of the water; nor to mark the vigilant
stars resume their watch, rising, some like mute sentinels, others in
full constellation like trained bands, to look down from their blue
height upon all that moved and breathed below. There was no visible
kindling of golden fires in the firmament this night; no winging home of
a belated bird; and the water-lilies were left to themselves. It was to
watch for some opening in the clouds which might let down air and light,
that Marana still sat abroad. She felt half stifled with heat, and with
a vague fear, and dreaded kindling a light, and closing the entrance for
the night.—Rayo was still behind the dwelling, tying up bunches of
cocoa-nut leaves to burn, and splitting resinous woods into torches.
When the twilight expired, he was there. When the black darkness had
descended a full hour, he was lighting himself through the wood with one
of his new torches.
“It is time to close the door against the panther,” said he to Marana,
before he set forth. “Spread the mat and sleep, when you have prayed to
St. Anthony for me.”
“And you? will you not kneel to pray on the same mat?”
“I have a prayer to say some way off which no one may overhear. So go
in, and trust to my returning,—before day-break, if not in darkness.”
“O, do not bring any more curses, Rayo, by taking what is not ours. Here
is money to buy grain in the harbour, and——”
“Money!” exclaimed Rayo. “Your friend Amoottra must have brought you
money. Does it not taint your fingers with leprosy, Marana?”
She let the money fall in a fit of horror; but when her husband laughed
a laugh which must have been highly offensive to any hag who might
happen to be within hearing, Marana conjured him to do nothing to remind
the foe of her expecting victim. Rayo had superstition enough in him to
induce him to take the hint, though not sufficient to prevent his
searching for the dropped money by the light of his torch, and being
very glad to pick it up from the brown, crumbling turf where it had
fallen. In vain Marana entreated to be permitted to carry the torch for
her husband. In vain she urged the desirableness of her being at hand to
sing the “Hail!” to the first burst of the season’s thunder. She was
commanded to pray and sleep, and dream of the verdure which might
possibly have overspread the rice-fields before the morning.
She ventured, however, to steal out on the track of Rayo’s footsteps.
The risk of falling in with a leopard or a tiger-cat while she carried
no torch was nothing in comparison with the uncertainty as to what was
being done or undergone by her husband. She had been his companion on
the raft one night, and in his flight through the woods on another; and
now he went out alone, and in silence as to his object. She feared that
this reserve argued something more than care for her health; some
desperation of design too great to be confided even to her. She blamed
herself for all. Some immediate misfortune was, she believed, to follow
her impious act of the morning; and all her husband’s sins, from his
withdrawal of confidence from her, to whatever act he might be now about
to perpetrate, must be answered for by her. She went out to watch, as an
unpractised magician may be supposed to await the results of his first
spell, in a state of expectation made wretched by horror and fear.
She followed Rayo’s steps at such a distance that she could not herself
have been perceived, if he had chanced to look behind him; but the torch
which he carried before him marked the outlines of his figure very
distinctly, as the light was reflected from the roof of foliage upon his
anointed limbs, from which nearly the last remains of his garments were
dropping in rags. When he emerged from the shade, on reaching the ditch
which surrounded the cinnamon garden, he slackened his pace, as if
meditating the method by which he might go straightest to some fixed
point which he had in his eye. He turned to the left. Marana turned to
the left likewise, keeping under the shadow of the wood. He stopped, and
looked up to the sky. She could not so raise her eyes, for the heavens
at that moment opened, and let out a flood of lightning, from which a
self-condemned person like herself could not but shrink. Again and again
came the lightning, sustaining the awful alternation by which the
landscape appeared one moment wrapt in midnight darkness, and the next
in noon-day glare. Crashing thunder then came, peal upon peal, driving
her from her perilous station under the trees to a more open part of the
jungle, where she stood fearfully glancing about her in a sort of
expectation that every object within sight would rise up against her,
and come crowding about her; for the thunder was enough to waken the
dead, and no suspicion crossed her mind that this storm was not
especially directed against herself. Rayo’s operations did not seem to
be impeded by it. He had crossed the ditch while Marana had covered her
eyes, and in the intervals of the lightning, the dancing spark of his
torch might be seen wandering, like a will-o’-the-wisp, at a greater and
a greater distance. It was not long before it became evident to his wife
whither and for what purpose he was gone. Little puffs of dun smoke
arose, like fire-balloons, from behind the dark-leaved shrubbery which
he had entered. A delicious scent pervaded the region as the fire
spread, like airs from heaven finding their way among blasts from hell.
It was plain that Rayo was setting fire to the bark which was in course
of being harvested.
What might be his fate if he fell into the hands of the challias, Marana
dared not think. If he could but creep away under the bushes, and leave
it to be supposed that lightning had been the agent of mischief, she
could rejoice as heartily as he in the discomfiture of the presumptuous
challias, and the loss suffered by the strangers who, under the pretence
of protection, were perpetually employed in rifling the land of its
treasures, and depressing the condition of the natural owners of those
treasures. She would have rejoiced to see every twig in this vast garden
consumed, if such destruction could avail to drive away the Honourable
Company who, by right of purchase, interfered to limit the production,
restrict the commerce, and therefore impoverish the condition of those
from whom they derived their wealth. If this Company could but be driven
from its monopoly, so that every man might plant cinnamon in his garden,
and sit under its shadow with none to make him afraid, he who this night
carried the fire-brand might be set up for worship on a higher eminence
(if such could be found) than Adam’s Peak, and be feasted and garlanded
daily, instead of, like the holy Footmark, once a year.
What Rayo’s fate was it was impossible to conjecture, all watching and
listening being now baffled by the commotion of the storm. Smoke arose
after awhile in a second place, then in a third, thus marking the
progress of the incendiary. There were only a few spikes of clear flame
visible. Each heap of bark must be presently consumed, and the shrubs
were too moist to be in danger of more than a singeing from the fire.
The most obvious thing to the anxious wife was to follow her husband;
and more than once she attempted to move: but, at first, her wasted
limbs failed her, and then she thought she perceived tokens of an
approaching earthquake. A wind like this had often, in her recollection,
brought down some massy distant tree, whose fall shook the ground for
many a rood; but now, either many such trees were falling, or some other
cause prolonged the vibration. She expected an earthquake, during which
the hag would arise, or she herself be swallowed up by some chasm that
would open beneath her feet. Suddenly the shaking ceased, and a flash
disclosed to her a horrible vision at hand which explained all. Fiery
eyes blazed, and white tusks gleamed over the tallest of the shrubs
which grew to the left of the place where she stood. She had just seen
the twisting of the lithe trunk which could carry her up twenty feet in
an instant, and she now heard the snuffing and snorting before which
every living thing within many furlongs must be quaking like herself.
She felt before the elephant like a worm in the path of a cruel
schoolboy,—as certain that the ponderous tread would be directed to
crush her; and when the next gleam showed the bulky head and shoulders
of this moving mass veering round to face her, she could only pray that
she might be annihilated by one tread, instead of being made fatal sport
of high in the air.
Rayo proved her unintentional deliverer. The fire he had kindled did not
catch the green shrubs; but some flakes were carried off by the wind,
and fell among the parched grass near the outskirts of the plantation.
There were in an instant rivulets of fire running beneath the stems,
joining and parting, according to the quantity of fuel which lay in
their way. Every morsel of oily bark casually dropped the day before,
now sent up its tiny jet of blue flame; the dried twigs snapped and
kindled, and the gleaming ditch was the boundary-line between the
darkness and the light. This fire was as unwelcome to the wild elephant
beyond its reach as to the burnished snakes that came wriggling out into
the blaze as their holes grew too hot to hold them. He turned short
round with a troubled cry, and distanced the scene at his quickest trot,
wakening the birds as he brushed their covert in his passage, and
leaving far behind the scared elk that burst a way among the stems, and
the hyænas that hushed their cry and skulked in the thickets. To the
mind of a Cingalese, the elephant of Ceylon is the most majestic of all
animals, the elephants of all other countries being reported to
acknowledge its supremacy by a salam; but this emperor of the beasts was
now put to flight by the same means that made the gazelle palpitate in
its hiding place among the grass.
The alarm was soon at an end. The canopy of clouds descended, lower and
lower, till there seemed small breathing space left between them and the
earth, and then burst, quenching the lightning and the flame at once,
drowning the thunder, and threatening to plunge the island in the sea.
When the sheet of water had descended for a while, the ditch overflowed,
the snakes raised themselves on end, the waters found their way into the
lair of every couchant beast, and dripped from the plumage of every bird
on its perch. To wade through the jungle in this pitchy darkness
immediately after the dazzling apparition of the cinnamon garden had
vanished, was impossible. Marana remained clinging to a tree, the
creepers from which dangled wet in her face, till she heard the sound of
a quiet laugh through the flash and downpour. “Here is the hag, at
last,” thought she, expecting to feel the loathsome touch which she was
persuaded she must encounter sooner or later. Her agonized cry for mercy
produced another laugh, but a kindly one. It was from her husband.
“Rayo! what a storm!”
“St. Anthony rides the monsoon this year,” replied Rayo. “Do you know
what the lightning has done in the garden? The Company have been praying
for the monsoon for their neighbours’ sake. In the morning you will hear
how they complain of it for their own.”
“Was it all the storm, Rayo?”
“They will tell you so in the morning. Come home now. I will take you by
a path where the waters cannot beat you down like the dragon-fly, nor
carry you away like the squirrel that is caught far from its hole. But I
forbade your coming abroad. You were afraid to await the hag under a
roof, I suppose. If she must come, I wish it might be in the morning.
She would see in the garden that which would make her so merry that she
would forget you.”
“Can you say your prayers to keep off the curse to-night, Rayo? Dare
you?”
“O, yes; and quickly, that I may sleep, and be early ready to see the
Challias collect in the garden.”
In the morning, before Marana’s long ague-fit had given place to sleep,
her husband was on the spot of the late cinnamon harvest. The sky was
not clear of clouds, large masses still being in act of rising from the
east; but a mild sunshine burnished the scene; the rose-coloured peaks
of the distant mountains,—the fresh-springing verdure of the fields
which were so lately brown,—and the multitudes of winged creatures that
flitted, hovered, and sailed in the balmy air. All was as fair in the
interval of the storms as if no storm had ever been. It was much more
wonderful to Rayo to see no signs of storm in the faces of those who
were most concerned in the loss of the cinnamon. Mr. Carr looked not
only free from anger towards the lightning to which he attributed the
destruction, but satisfied and pleased at the existing state of things.
“The lightning has saved the Company from the curses of the people,” he
heard Captain Cinnamon whisper to a modelier of the garden. “There was
too good a crop this year; and if some of it must be burned, it was very
well that accident should do it.”
“And that accident should have burned more than the Company would have
dared to destroy in the face of the natives. Now they may put their own
price upon their bark; and a pretty price it will be, to judge by Mr.
Carr’s pleased face.”
“Not that he wishes ill to the natives, or to the eaters of cinnamon in
other lands. But he is thinking of the good news he has to send to his
employers.”
Rayo rolled himself in the sand when he thus learned what was the result
of his enterprise.
CHAPTER V.
MATERNAL ECONOMY.
If the drought had been confined to the western coast of Ceylon, its
effects would have been very deplorable, from the poverty of the people,
though, from their being in the habit of the regular importation of
rice, they were more sure of some extent of supply than if they had been
dependent on their own scanty crops. But this year, the drought extended
to some of the districts of the neighbouring country, from which rice
was annually imported to a large amount. This again, would have mattered
little, if the inhabitants had had the means of purchasing from a
greater distance; but these means could not be within the reach of a
colony whose productions were monopolized by the mother country.
Hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants of Ceylon who, if allowed the
usual inducements to an accumulation of capital, would have been in
common times purchasers of the innumerable comforts which the world
yields, and in the worst seasons placed far above the reach of want,
were reduced by a single delay of the monsoon to such a condition as
rendered it doubtful whether they would ever be purchasers of anything.
Again, want of capital was the grievance from which all other temporal
grievances arose in this region of natural wealth and super-abundant
beauty; and this want of capital was caused by the diversion of labour
from its natural channels, through the interference of the evil spirit
of monopoly.
Streams ran down from the mountains; and on either side of the streams
were levels which lay waste and bare for want of irrigation; and on the
banks of these streams lived a population which subsisted on unwholesome
and unseasoned or deficient food. These waters could not be made useful,
these plains could not be fertilized, these people could not be fed,
because the natural wealth of the country was not permitted to create
capital to the inhabitants.
The cotton-tree might be met with growing luxuriantly wherever the hand
of man or of nature had caused it to take root; yet those who lived
within reach of its boughs hid themselves in the woods for the
scantiness of their clothing, or went without some other necessary, in
order to furnish themselves expensively with cotton-cloth which had been
woven four thousand miles off. That it should be woven where it was, and
sold where it was, was well; but that the purchasers should not have the
raw materials to exchange for the wrought, or something else to offer
which should not leave them destitute, spoke ill for the administrators
of their affairs.
Potters’ clay abounded in the intervals between soils which offered
something better; and here and there a rude workman was seen “working
his work on the wheel,” as in the days of Jeremiah the prophet, and
marring the clay, and making another vessel, as it seemed good to the
potter. It would have seemed good to him to make better vessels, to
improve his craft, and bring up his children to the art, and supply
households at greater distance with utensils, and get wealth and
contentment, but that he had no money to spend on improvements, and that
if his children tried to get any, they could find no free scope for
their enterprize.
Herds of buffaloes were seen feeding amidst the rank vegetation of the
hills, and many a peasant would have gone among them, morning and
evening, with his bottle of hide slung over his shoulder; and many a
maiden with her vase poised upon her head, if a free commerce in ghee
had been permitted with the Arabs who must drink a cupfull of it every
morning, and with the multitude of dwellers in the Eastern Archipelago,
who want it for anointings, for food, for sacrifice, and other purposes
which now cost them dear. But the buffaloes might graze in peace, the
peasants being permitted to sell ghee only to those who could not buy,
or who did not consume ghee.
There were cocoa-nut fibres enough to spin a coir rope which might
measure the equator; but coir was so taxed, as soon as it became rope,
that the government need have little fear that any one would buy but
itself and those who could get no cheaper cordage.
Chay-root, yielding the red dye which figures on Indian chintzes, spread
itself far and wide through the light dry soil near the coast. How it
should hurt the British government that all nations should have red
roses on their chintzes had not been satisfactorily explained; but it
was the will of that government that few should do so. The government
bought up every ounce of chay-root which its Cingalese subjects were
obliging enough to sell. There was much loyalty in thus furnishing
chay-root; the diggers being paid a good deal less than half the price
which the government demanded from its purchasers.
The fragrance of spices was borne on every breeze; shells of various
beautiful forms were thrown up by every tide; tortoiseshell might be had
for the trouble of polishing, and ivory for that of hunting the
elephant; arrack flowed for any one who would set it running from the
tree; canes to make matting and baskets were trodden down from their
abundance; the topaz and the amethyst, the opal, the garnet, the ruby,
and the sapphire, jet, crystal, and pearls, were strewed as in
fairy-land; the jack-wood, rivalling the finest mahogany, ebony,
satin-wood, and the finely-veined calaminda, grew like thorns in the
thicket; yet the natural proprietors of this wealth, to which the world
looked with longing eyes, were half-fed and not clothed; and their
English fellow-subjects, located in a far less favourable habitation,
were taxed to afford them such meagre support as they had.
The world had rolled back with the Cingalese. Monuments were before them
at every step, which showed that their country had been more populous
than now, and their forefathers more prosperous than themselves. They
were now too many for their food—too many for the labour which their
rulers vouchsafed to call for; yet they were but a million and a half on
a territory which had sustained in more comfort a much greater number,
without taxing a distant nation to give unproductive aid to a puny
people, and before the advantages of national interchange had been fully
ascertained. There were traces of times, before the English artizan was
called upon to contribute his mite to his tawny brother over the sea;
before the government complained of the expense of its colony; before
murmurs arose about the scanty supply of cinnamon, while the Honourable
Company was claiming compensation for an over-supply; before the rulers
at Columbo began to be at their wit’s end to find means for keeping up
their credit; before the expenditure of the colony so far exceeded its
revenue, as that the inquiry began among certain wise ones, where was
the great advantage of having a colony which, however rich in name and
appearance, cost more than it produced: there were traces of happier
times, when the world seemed to have been wiser, however younger, than
at present; or when the Cingalese had been under a wiser sway than that
which was now calling upon them for perpetual submission and gratitude.
The Dutch might have been hard task-masters; but it was now felt that
the English were yet more so; and however much submission might be
yielded, because it could not be refused, there was small room for
gratitude, as any one would have admitted who could have drawn an
accurate comparison between the condition of the foreign and the native,
the producing and the commercial, population of the western portion of
the island during this season of hardship.
The Dutch-built houses, inhabited by foreign agents, displayed all their
usual luxuries; carpeted with fragrant mats, gemmed with precious
stones, perfumed with spicy oils, and supplied with food and drinks
purchased by native produce from foreign lands. The huts of their
humbler neighbours, meanwhile, were bare alike of furniture and food,
and, for the most part, empty of inhabitants. The natives of eastern
countries seem to find consolation in the open air in times of extreme
hardship; not only laying their sick on the banks of rivers, but
gathering together in hungry groups by the road-side or by the
sea-shore, in times of famine, gazing patiently on the food which is
carried before their eyes, and waiting for death as the sun goes down.
Such were the groups now seen on the shores of the Lake of Columbo, and
in many an open space among the spoiled paddy-fields, while the
foreigners, from whom they were wont to receive their pittance, were
engaged with their curries, their coffee, and their meats from many
climes. Thus was it during the day; while at night the distribution of
action was reversed. The foreigners slept at ease in their cooled and
darkened apartments, or, if they could not rest, had nothing worse to
complain of than a mosquito foe, while their native neighbours were
silently forming funeral piles along the shore; silently bringing more
wood and more from the thickets, as others of their caste dropped dead
at length; silently laying out the corpses; silently watching them as
they turned to ashes, and placing the limbs decently as they fell
asunder; silently ranging themselves so that the funeral fire played in
their dark eyes, and shone on their worn and lanky frames; silently
waiting till the morning breeze puffed out the last flickering flame,
and dispersed the handful of white ashes, which was all that remained of
the parent who had murmured his blessing at sunset, or the wife who had
whispered her farewell at midnight, or the infant whose breath had
parted at the summons of the dawn. Silently were these rites performed;
insomuch that any chance-watcher in the neighbouring verandah heard no
other interruption to the splash of waters than the crackling of flames,
and would not have guessed that bands of patient sufferers were gathered
round this fearful sacrifice to the evil spirit of monopoly—a sacrifice
as far from appeasing the demon as from testifying to the willing homage
of his priests. There were not among the gentle Cingalese any of the
fierce passions which this demon commonly delights to unleash among his
victims; none of the envy, jealousy, and hatred with which the
desperately miserable enhance their desperation and their misery.
Instead of jostling one another, these sufferers sat side by side;
instead of gnashing their teeth at each other, they were altogether
heedless of neighbourhood; instead of inflicting injuries, they merely
ceased to confer mutual benefits. No aged man complained of violence,
but sank down disappointed, when he found the water-pot—placed for the
traveller’s refreshment—empty by the wayside. No wearied woman murmured
at being dislodged from the sheltered bench on the bridge; but neither
did those, who had niched themselves there to seek forgetfulness in
sleep, stir to make way for a fellow-sufferer. No child was driven from
its chance meal by a stronger arm than its own; but neither was there a
look or a word to spare for the little ones (more tenacious of life than
their parents), who crept from their dead mother to their dying father,
trying in vain to suck life from the shrunken breasts of the one, and to
unclose the fixed eyes of the other. Some who remained in their
habitations in the woods, if less destitute, were not less miserable. If
the sight and scent of the bread-fruit were too strong for the fortitude
of some, they ate under the full conviction that they were exchanging
famine for leprosy. Whether the belief in this effect of the fruit was
right or wrong, those who believed and yet ate suffered cruelly for the
want of rice. If a follower of Brama, in passing a ruin, saw a cow
browsing on some pinnacle, and, in a fit of desperation, called the
sacred creature down to be made food of, he found himself gnawed by the
consciousness of his inexpiable crime, as fearfully as by his previous
hunger. An ample importation of rice—such as might always be secured by
the absence of restrictions on commerce—would have saved to these the
pangs of conscience, till a better knowledge had had time to strike root
and ripen for harvest, as it would have spared to others the agonies of
hunger while their rice-grounds were awaiting the latter rains, and
preparing to become fruitful again in their season. As it was, all were
prevented making the most of their own soil from want of capital; and,
while rendered dependent on the importation of grain, were denied the
means of insuring that importation. By the exorbitant taxation of some
of their articles of produce, and the prohibition to sell others to any
buyer but the government, the Cingalese were deprived of all chance of
securing a subsistence, and of all inducement to accumulate property.
Mrs. Carr did not know that she had ever enjoyed her way of life more,
on the whole, than since she had come to Ceylon. She liked lying down
for the greater part of the day, and being sure of seeing something
beautiful from the verandah when she could exert herself to look abroad
from it. She liked being fanned by the punkah, and waited upon by five
times as many servants as she wanted, and amused by Alice, and flattered
by her husband’s station; none of the trouble of which devolved upon
her. But she did not know whether some friends of hers liked the place
so well; she thought not, by Mr. Serle’s grave manner, and the new
expression of fear and anxiety in Mrs. Serle’s open and happy
countenance. Mr. and Mrs. Serle were American missionaries; members of
the little band of philanthropists who, setting the example of charity
towards their Cingalese brethren, were met and cheered by the open hand
of charity at every turn, till they were fairly established in the
society and in the hearts of those whom they came to civilize and bless.
“I am glad you did not ask our advice about coming,” observed Mrs. Carr
to the missionary’s wife: “we find it very pleasant in Ceylon; but I do
not know whether you find it as pleasant as we do; and it would have
been a disagreeable thing to have misled you. I am glad you did not ask
our advice.”
“Mrs. Serle comes to lead such a different kind of life from yours, my
dear,” observed her husband, “that any advice from you could have helped
her little. You see and enjoy all the natural advantages of the place,
which are very great indeed: Mrs. Serle comes to do what she can towards
remedying the misery of the people, which is quite as remarkable in its
way.”
“And I beg to say that I enjoy the natural advantages of the place,”
replied Mrs. Serle; “I like your Adam’s Peak at sunrise, and your gay
insects, and your flowery jungle, and your pine-apples as well as any of
you. I do not wish to be the less sensible of these things because the
people claim my compassion.”
“Not the less, but rather the more,” observed her husband, “that the
misery of the people may be the more quickly remedied. When we find
starving men in a paradise, our next business is to find out whose fault
it is that they are starving.”
“They are the laziest people here,” drawled Mrs. Carr; “you will hardly
believe till you have been here as long as we have——”
“My dear love,” interrupted her husband, “Mr. and Mrs. Serle have seen
far more of the people already than you can pretend to know, living
within doors as you do.”
“O, but I assure you, I can tell Mrs. Serle such things as she will
scarcely believe. The laziness of the people is really such as to make
me wonder. Alice, love, come and tie my sandal. O, thank you, Mrs.
Serle. I did not mean to trouble you, I am sure.”
Mrs. Serle did not need convincing as to the indolence of the Cingalese.
It was quite as evident in them as in Mrs. Carr. Neither was she much in
the dark as to the causes of this indolence. The probability of a remedy
was the almost hourly subject of conversation between her husband and
herself.
“You are very much wanted, you see,” observed Mrs. Carr; “I am sure it
is a most happy thing for the poor people of this country that so many
strangers come to see them and do them good. So many Dutch, formerly;
and now so many English; and you and your friends from America.”
“I hope you think the obligation mutual, my dear?” said her husband;
“You must not forget how many Dutch and English have made their fortunes
here. I say nothing about the Americans; for our friends here have a
very different object, I fancy.”
“O, it is an advantage to both parties, no doubt,” observed the lady; “I
should never have had such an amethyst as this, in my cross, if Ceylon
had not belonged to us, I dare say.”
“And I should only have been like any other young lady, instead of
having seven servants when I go out,” remarked Alice.
“And our friend Belton would not have had that beautiful place of his at
South Point to live in,” added Mr. Carr: “yet I hear complaints—terrible
complaints—from the Company, about their losses in the cinnamon trade.”
“And I from some members of your government, about the expense of the
colony,” said Mr. Serle. “Now, if the people are acknowledged to be in a
low state, if the government complains of the expense of the settlement,
and if the Honourable Company cannot always make its cinnamon trade
answer, who gains by Ceylon being a colony?”
“It is usually supposed to be an advantage to an uncivilized country to
be chosen for a settlement by a civilized set of people,” replied Mr.
Carr.
“And I have no doubt that it is so, any more than I doubt the advantage
to the civilized country of having some foreign half-peopled region to
which her sons may repair, to struggle, not in vain, for a subsistence.
I can never doubt the policy of persons of different countries agreeing
to dwell together in one, that they may yield mutual assistance by the
communication of their respective possessions and qualifications. If
this assistance be yielded in a spirit of freedom, without any
tyrannical exercise of the right of the strongest at the outset, this
intercourse is sure to grow into a mutual and general blessing of
incalculable value. If abused, by the sacrifice of the many to the
supposed gain of the few, the connexion becomes an inestimable curse.”
“To the natives, certainly,” replied Mr. Carr. “We may observe that the
prosperity of colonized countries is not to be measured by circumstances
of climate, natural fertility, position, and so on, but by the policy
pursued in their government. In the dreariest parts of our American
colonies, for instance——I do not know whether you are acquainted with
Canada?”
“I am; and with Nova Scotia likewise.”
“Well; in no part of those colonies are the natural wealth and beauty to
be met with which distinguish Ceylon; and in no part, I hope, are the
labouring inhabitants to be found in so wretched a state as are too many
here.”
“Nowhere; and I do not see that the circumstance of the labourers here
being partly natives, and the rest, races long settled in the country,
makes any difference in the estimate, while it is certain that they are
affected by the common motives to industry and social improvement.”
“The people here are open to such motives. Witness the growing ambition
of the cinnamon peelers, in proportion as their services are in request,
and are rewarded with regularity. The Challias hold up their heads now,
and dispute precedence with other castes; and so would other labouring
castes, if they had encouragement to do any better than crouch beneath
the cocoa-nut tree, live upon what it may yield, and die when it yields
no more.”
“The Nova Scotian is a far more prosperous man than either the native or
the settler of Ceylon, though the Nova Scotian is not yet so happy as a
perfectly wise government would allow him scope to become. He is not,
like our neighbours here, prevented from selling one kind of produce
where he pleases, while he is discouraged in the preparation of another
kind by excessive taxation. The Nova Scotian can prepare his fish, and
carry it where he likes for sale.”
“How rejoiced would our people be to have the same liberty with their
pearls and their spice!”
“Yes: but the Nova Scotian has his trammels too, though they are far
less grievous. He envies his neighbours of my country,—of the United
States, as much as the Cingalese may envy him. When he has sold his fish
in the wide market which the Brazils afford, he may not take in exchange
any Brazilian article that will be most wanted in Nova Scotia. There are
many Brazilian commodities which your government will not allow its
American colonies to purchase; so that its Nova Scotian subject must
return with something of less value, or go home by a round-about way,
exchanging and exchanging, till he finds an article that he may lawfully
carry. My countryman, meantime, makes the best of his way home with a
cargo of something that Brazil wants to sell and the States are ready to
buy. This freedom from impediment in his traffic gives him the advantage
over the Nova Scotian, as the comparative freedom of the Nova Scotian
does over the Cingalese.”
“And this countryman of yours, or his father, was a fellow-subject of
mine. Truly, he seems better off than when we were under the same king.”
“And how is your country the worse for his being no longer your
fellow-subject,—for his country being no longer a British colony? Do you
buy and sell less of each other? Do you steal one another’s trade? Does
not America rather deal the more largely with you, the wider and more
rapid is her traffic with the rest of the world?”
“Your argument would go to prove that we should be better without
colonies; but what will our merchants say to our parting with markets
into which we can empty our warehouses?”
“As to being better without colonies,—we agreed just now that colonies
are good things both for the natives and the settlers, while the one
class wants to be civilized and the other to find a home of promise. Let
this connexion be modified by circumstances as time rolls on, the child
growing up into a state fit for self-government, and the mother country
granting the liberty of self-government as the fitness increases. If the
control be continued too long, if the colony be not admitted to
understand, and allowed to pursue its own interests, its interests must
languish, and it will become a proportionate burden to the mother
country. It will have only the wages of ill-paid labour, or the scanty
profits of feeble speculation to exchange for the productions of the
mother country, instead of a store of wealth gathered by commerce with
the whole world. Which is worth the most to England at this moment,
Ceylon, her servile dependency, or any province of her band of
commercial allies,—our United States,—I leave your merchants to say.”
“It is true, we get nothing now in taxes from your States; but we get
incalculably more as the profits of trade; while the heavy taxation of
Ceylon will not nearly pay its own expenses, and the mother country must
defray the remainder.”
“So much for keeping colonies for the sake of their trade. This notion
involves two assumptions; that the colony would not trade with the
mother country if it were no longer a colony, and that colonial monopoly
is a good to the mother country.”
“The very term ‘colony trade’ involves the notion of monopoly: since, if
there were no monopoly, the distinction would be lost between that and
any other sort of free trade.”
“Well; if the exclusive trade with the mother country be the best for
the interest of the colony, the colony will continue it, after the
compulsion is withdrawn. If it be not for the interest of the colony,
neither can it be so for the parent; since the interest of the seller
demands the prosperity of the customer; and the welfare of the whole
demands the welfare of its component parts.”
“Indeed, our colonies are too often used as a special instrument of
forcing the means of production into artificial channels, to serve the
selfish purposes of classes, or companies, or individuals.”
“Thereby ruining the interests of these self-same classes, companies,
and individuals. If any class of merchants can succeed in making
themselves the only buyers of any article from a colony, or the only
sellers of any article in it, they may for a time dictate their own
terms to their slaves: but not for long. They may stock the market at
home with precious things which they get as cheap as stones and straws
in the colony; but their mutual competition will soon bring down the
price to the common rate of profit. And if not,—if the merchants agree
upon a price and keep to it, the colony will not long fulfil its part in
this unequal bargain. A losing bargain must come to an end sooner or
later; and labour being discouraged, and capital absorbed in the colony,
the merchants will inevitably find their supplies fall short.”
“I was going to ask,” observed Mrs. Serle, “why the colony need act in
such a bargain? If it had any spirit, it would refuse to traffic.”
“Its power to do so depends on the nature of its supplies from the
mother-country. If it derives only luxuries, it may resist oppression by
declining to receive the luxuries of the mother-country, and it may defy
oppression by devising luxuries for itself. In these cases, the
mother-country sustains a pure loss of the trade. If the colony is
dependent for necessaries, it can defy the oppressor no further than by
using the smallest possible quantity. Few people discern much value in
the trade of a country whose population barely lives. Such a commerce
will not repay the trouble of maintaining a monopoly.”
“It does seem to me, certainly, that if any compulsion is used at all,
it should be to oblige the colony to sell to none but the parent. If it
can buy cheaper elsewhere, so much is saved of the resources of the
empire. It would be a loss to the British empire to have Ceylon buy its
wine from London alone, if wine might be obtained cheaper from Madeira.
The extra price which the carriage and the profits of the middlemen
would demand, would be just so much withdrawn from the customer’s means
of production and of future purchase.”
“And the case is no better when the prohibition regards selling from the
colony. If the colonial article produces just the ordinary profits of
stock, the purchasing country takes needless trouble in enforcing the
monopoly. If less than the ordinary profits of stock, the article will
cease to be produced. If more, the purchaser may feel perfectly secure
of being thanked for her custom, instead of its being necessary to
intrude it by force of law. All this applies as well to a trade-driving
government, or an exclusive company, as to a general body of merchants;
the only difference being that such a government or company, having a
more despotic power by the absence of competition, the tyranny may be
consummated sooner, and the mischief wrought more effectually. Your
government keeps its pearl-fishers, and your Honourable Company its
spice-gatherers, impoverished more effectually than a general body of
British pearl and spice merchants could have done.”
“Yet the general body of merchants can carry on the work of
impoverishment with tolerable vigour and success, even upon a dependency
so near at hand as to have great facilities for remonstrance. In the
case of Ireland, towards the close of the last century, they contrived
to rivet the chains of monopoly for a few years longer, after having
done wonders in beggaring the Green Island.”
“They were helped by the country gentlemen there, my dear,” replied Mrs.
Serle, who was an English woman, “and by the manufacturers and
shipowners and others. I remember how my grandfather used to talk after
dinner about the ruin which would come upon us all if the Irish,—with
their low wages and light taxation, were allowed to get their own sugar
from the West Indies, and to pay for it with some articles of their own
produce. And my uncle Joe and the curate used to agree that we were
quite kind enough already to Ireland in giving her permission from year
to year to send beef and butter to our colonies, and to clothe her own
troops, then serving in America, with her own manufactures. The squire
and the clergyman and the shopkeeper in the next village got up a
petition to parliament against letting the Irish have any more trade,
lest they should spoil ours.”
“And Liverpool expected to dwindle into a fishing village again, and
Manchester that her deserted factories would become the abode of the owl
and the bat; and Glasgow pleaded an hereditary right to the sugar trade
which Ireland must not be permitted to invade. Where this right came
from it was for Glasgow to say; but, in enforcing it, Glasgow seemed
much tempted to sink audacious Ireland into the sea. It is a pity, my
dear, that your grandfather did not live to see Liverpool at the present
day, after ten times as much having been granted to Ireland as was then
asked for. In proportion as the commerce between England and Ireland has
grown into the similitude of a coasting trade, the prosperity of
Liverpool and many another English town has increased, while the
resources of Ireland (however deplorably cramped by bad government to
this day) have steadily though slowly improved. The same fears, the same
opposition, were excited, I think, Mr. Carr, when a relaxation was
proposed in some departments of your Company’s monopoly, and with the
same results.
“Yes. There was an idea, some time ago, that nothing remained to be done
in the way of traffic with India. It was thought that the private trader
could find no new channels of commerce, and that India could not benefit
in any way by a change.”
“Can anything equal the presumption of human decisions on untried
matters!” cried Mr. Serle. “Did your Company really amply supply the
whole of India with all that Hindoo hearts and Mahomedan minds could
desire? Was nothing more wanted by a people who died by thousands in a
year for want of salt; who fell sick by hundreds of thousands for want
of clothing, habitations, and the wholesome arts of life, and who
groaned by millions under privation and excessive toil? If your Company
thus reported itself the faithful and wise steward, giving to the people
under him meat in their season, I, for one, would have besought, in that
day as in this, to have him cast out. His weeping and gnashing of teeth
would have been unheard amidst the shout of joy when the door closed
behind him.”
“Well, but he was not cast out,” said Mrs. Serle. “He was only compelled
to relax his rule. Was there any rejoicing?”
“Much, very much, my dear. The direct commerce between England and India
has already been more than doubled. Private traders have proved that
there were still desirable articles that India had not, and that more
and more became invented and wished for in proportion as people are
allowed to minister to each other. I question whether any man will be
again found between this and doomsday to say that India cannot want any
thing more, and that there is nothing left for anybody out of the
Honourable Company to do.”
“The persuasion arose,” observed Mr. Carr, “from the character of the
people,—their wants being so simple and few, their domestic habits and
pursuits so uniform, and their resort to the productions of their own
country so invariable, that they did not seem to need anything that
foreigners could give.”
“Shut an infant into a dungeon, and bring him out when he is twenty,”
said Mrs. Serle, “and, if he has never tasted anything but bread and
water, he will want no other food than bread and water. If his dress has
always been sacking, his ignorant choice will be of sacking still,
though broadcloth be lying beside it. But have patience with him till he
has tasted beef and wine, and seen every other man of twenty dressed in
broadcloth, and by the time he is thirty, we shall hear no more of his
simple tastes, and of his resort to primitive productions. Our
ancestors, Mr. Carr, had a very simple taste for acorns of native
growth: they resorted to native productions,—wolf-skins,—for clothing;
their pursuits were uniform enough,—picking up acorns and hunting
wolves;—they gathered round their murderous wicker deity, as the Hindoos
round the pile of the suttee; and the one people venerated the mistletoe
as the other glorifies cow-dung: nevertheless, here are we at this day,
you dressed in broadcloth, and I in silk, and both of us philosophizing
on civilization. Why should it not be the same with the Hindoo in due
time?”
“And before so many hundred years as it took to civilize the Britons,”
observed Mr. Carr. “The exports from Great Britain to the countries east
of the Cape have quadrupled since the relaxation of the monopoly; and
the difficulty now is for traders with India to find returns for the
variety of goods demanded by India. Formerly, England paid in gold and
silver; now we pay in iron, copper, and steel, in woollens and cottons,
and in a hundred other articles, of which few Hindoos dreamed a century
ago. India sends back indigo,—the best of a very few articles which may
be imported into Great Britain by individuals. Whenever the day shall
arrive for the Company’s monopoly of China to be abolished, tea,
mother-of-pearl, and nankeens, will afford a larger variety, India will
make a new start in the career of civilization, and Great Britain a
mighty acquisition in her foreign commercial relations.”
“In all the cases you have mentioned,” observed Mrs. Serle, “the
restrictions have been imposed with a view to the welfare of the
mother-country, and at the expense of the colony. Are there not cases of
a reverse policy?”
“Many; but here, as in many cases, the reverse of wrong is not right.
Whether it be attempted to enrich the parent at the expense of the
child, or the child at the expense of the parent, a great folly is
perpetrated, if, by letting both alone, they might enrich each other.
Perhaps the most flagrant instance of this kind of impolicy is the
management of the British timber trade. Your government, Mr. Carr, loads
Norwegian timber with excessive duties, that the inferior timber of
Canada may have the preference in the market. By this means, not only is
Norway deprived of its just right of priority, and Britain of a useful
customer, but Canada is tempted to neglect some very important processes
of improvement for the sake of——”
“Of pushing the lumber trade,” interrupted Mr. Carr. “I am aware that
the Canadians carry their felling, squaring, and floating of timber a
great deal too far, to the injury of agriculture, and of the condition
of the people in every way. I am aware that any depression of this
artificial timber-trade, however felt by individuals, is a decided gain
to the colony at large. Great Britain has, in that instance, made a
sacrifice in a wrong place.”
“And what a sacrifice! If no partiality were shown, Great Britain might
have unexceptionable timber from Norway, and from Canada a supply of the
corn she so much needs, instead of the indifferent wood, from the use of
which her houses and her shipping are suffering. Let her still procure
wood from her colony, which may serve the inferior purposes for which
its texture fits it; but to refuse European timber, and persist in
building frigates and dwelling-houses which shall hold out only half as
long as they might last for the same money,—the people crying out all
the while for Canadian wheat,—is a policy whose wisdom is past my
comprehension.”
“Such is generally the result, it seems to me,” observed Mrs. Serle,
“when one party is grasping, and a second self-denying, in order to
exclude a third. The matter generally ends in the injury of all three.
If they would only follow the old saying, ‘Live and let live,’ all would
do well,—all would do best.”
“Where is that rule so violated as here?” said Mr. Serle, looking abroad
from the verandah upon the approach of a fleet of barks with firewood,
for the nightly sacrifice to the Moloch of monopoly. “Your colonial
government here, Mr. Carr, manages to live,—to sustain itself by shifts
and devices; but as to letting live, let the extinguished fires on the
shore, and the cry of the jackal in the woods, bear their testimony.”
“And your evening countenance,” added his wife. “I almost dread to see
you come home from visiting your neighbours.”
“Mamma said yesterday,” observed Alice, “that she wished Mr. Serle would
stay away, unless he would look as merry as he used to do. She says——”
“My dear love, what can you be thinking of?” cried Mrs. Carr, now roused
to something like energy of manner.
“She is thinking of your happy exemption from beholding the signs of
suffering which are daily brought before my eyes in the pursuit of my
vocation,” mildly replied Mr. Serle. “But if I were to stay away till I
saw nothing to make me look grave,—if I were to stay away till I saw the
men grow honest, and the women cheerful, and the children comely,—till
there were no struggles of poverty by day, or of death by night,—I fear
we should both be grey-haired before we could meet again.”
Mrs. Carr did not mean anything, by her own account; and the group were,
therefore, left to ponder the full significance of the missionary’s
words.
CHAPTER VI.
BLITHE NEWS.
Few indeed were the places in the island where there were no struggles
of poverty by day, or of death by night. In Rayo’s hut, the poverty
struggle seemed to be drawing near its close, and that of death
impending. There needed the agency of no hag to touch the dwellers in
the jungle with leprosy; no curse from above to make them feel as
outcasts in their own land. The sunny days and starlight nights of the
dry season were full of dreariness. Rayo, now the victim of leprosy in
its most fearful form, passed the day in solitude,—now creeping from his
mat to his threshold, and there finding that his swollen limbs would
carry him no farther; now achieving with much toil, his daily walk in
search of the honeycomb of the hollow tree, or of any windfall of the
fruit he could no longer climb to reach. The pitcher-plant grew all
around his hut, and regularly performed its silent service of preparing
the limpid draught to satisfy his feverish longing; but the monkeys were
now too strong for him; and often, in a state of desperate thirst, he
saw a pert ape, or an insolent baboon, twist the green cup from its
tendril, and run up a tree with it, or upset the draught before his
eyes. If ever he got far enough to look out upon the open landscape, it
stirred his spirit to see the herds of buffaloes on the hill-side, and
the proud vessels on the distant main, bringing luxuries from many a
clime; feeling, as he did, that the food and the wine thus exhibited to
him would have preserved him from his disease, and kept Marana, in all
her youth and strength, by his side. If he met a countryman, with whom
to speak, his tumultuous thoughts were not calmed; for he heard tell of
the high price which cinnamon bore this season, on account of the lucky
damage done by lightning to the crop. To him and his countrymen it
signified little whether the Honourable Company were enabled to ask the
prices of such a scarce season as this, or whether they sought from
government a compensation for the loss occasioned by an over-supply;
Rayo and his countrymen had no part nor lot in the harvests of their
native island; but Rayo had in the concerns of the rulers the deep stake
of unsatisfied revenge. As often as he became sensible of a new loss of
strength, as often as any of the horrible symptoms of elephantiasis met
his consciousness, he drew sharp and brief inferences respecting the
philosophy of colonization, which might have been worthy the ear of a
British parliament, if they could have been echoed so far over the sea.
Marana, meanwhile, was hurrying northwards with all the speed of which
her wasted frame was capable. She pushed on eagerly by day, now in heat
and now in damp, and halted unwillingly at night under the shelter of
some rest-house provided for travellers of a different caste. When she
looked upon the withered garlands that dangled from the corner-posts,
and longed for the draperies of cotton by which healthier persons than
herself had been sheltered from the night-dews, she too felt,—though of
a milder and more placable nature than her husband,—that some one had
stepped in between them and Providence, and turned their native paradise
into a dreary wilderness. She had heard strangers marvel at the absence
of singing-birds in her native glades at noon, and among the bowers of
the banian, when the sinking sun peeps beneath its arches, and she had
accounted for it to such marvellers, by tales of the wars between the
serpent and his feathered prey; but to her it seemed strange that none
should ask why the warblings of human gladness were so seldom heard in a
region whence their outpourings should echo to heaven. If asked to
account for this silence also, she would have told of the wily and
venomous agency of monopoly, which wages war against the helpless, from
generation to generation, till the music of joy is forgotten in the
land.
Marana’s spirits rose as she approached the northern parts of the
island, and, leaving woods and hills behind her, entered upon the level
and sandy region, whose aspect never changed but as the sea, which was
its boundary, was gleaming or grey, as the heavens were clear or
clouded. The bare shore near her father’s dwelling was above all
beloved; and she stopped for an instant to listen to the tide as it made
itself heard above her throbbing pulses, before she stole across the
well-known threshold.
The cottage looked as it used to look, except that there were no remains
of the household decorations which the neat-handed love to prepare in
countries where decoration requires no expenditure but of skill. Her
mother-of-pearl shells, her embroidery of fish-bones, her tufts of
many-coloured sea-weed, had disappeared; and instead of these, there
were more snake skins, a new set of sharks’ fins, and a larger variety
of inexplicable charms. Her father slept upon his mat, a ray of
moonlight falling across his brow from a chink in the frail roof of his
cottage.
Marana was afraid to waken and alarm him while there was no more light
than this in the cottage. She refrained till she had caught a handful of
fire-flies, and fixed them in her hair,—there being no sign of fire in
any neighbouring cottage. This done, she bent over the Charmer, and
charmed away his sleep. He gazed at her long; and, common as was the
sight of his dark countrywomen crowned with a green flame, the figure
before him was so like one which he had often expected to see in vision,
that the repeated sound of her voice was necessary to assure him that it
was indeed his daughter.
“You are flying before Amoottra, my child, or she has already laid her
hand upon you. Not the less shall your head rest on my bosom.”
Before she could rest, Marana said, she must confess her impiety in
parting with her charm, and obtain another. She sorely repented having
sold the chank. The gold it brought was presently consumed; and what was
gold in a country where it could not be made to reproduce itself, or
answer any purpose beyond delaying want for a time? She would take any
vow Father Anthony should prescribe, not to part with any other charm.
“Father Anthony will tell you,” replied her father, with a smile, “that
it is better to grow and sell cinnamon than to get a charm blessed, and
then part with it.”
Marana prayed her father not to mock her,—not to speak of forbidden
traffic to one who was deep in sin already. She was told in reply that
growing cinnamon was not one of the crimes on which the heavens frown,
but an act which the will of man makes innocent or guilty. It was now
the will of man to pronounce it innocent, and every man in Ceylon might
have his cinnamon garden, and go unharmed by the powers of the earth or
of the air.
But how had this miracle taken place? And was it so with pearls?
“The pearl banks are still sacred, my child; but, as for the spice, it
is no miracle that the owners are tired of their losses. Much gold must
they pay to the Challias, and much more must they risk on the seas; and
when the spice is landed in their own country, the buyers complain that
any thing that grows upon a common tree should be worth so much. Three
years since, even the rich would not buy half that was prepared, though
much was burned, as usual. Then the king gave up some of his share of
the price, and immediately there were three eaters of cinnamon where
there was one before; and, instead of the king losing, the people gained
by more of them being able to consume the spice. What wonder, after
this, if more cinnamon is permitted to be grown, that more may eat, and
more grow rich by selling it?”
“But who will buy it of us, father?”
“Come and see, at the next fishery. Any man of whatever nation, who
wishes to buy of you, may do it in the open market, and no punishment
shall follow to him or you.”
“And if Rayo had a boat, father, and carried spice to any ships he might
meet upon the sea, would not that be a crime?”
“A crime no longer, Marana. He may take dollars from the Spaniard, and
silk from the Italian, and cotton from the Englishman, and iron from the
Russian, and grain from the American, and no one will ask him how he got
his wealth, or threaten those who exchange with him. I will go with you,
and plant and bless your first shrub with my own hands.”
“Rayo’s hands are too feeble to dig, and he cannot kneel for your
blessing,” observed Marana, mournfully. “Will there be any more burning
of cinnamon, father?”
“Never more till all people in every land shall have had their fill, and
the cinnamon twigs with which we light our fires shall be used unbarked
through their abundance. Why should there be destruction of any good
thing when the many are to decide what price they will give, instead of
the few what price they will take?”
This was the best news Marana had yet heard, and her father had no more
to tell. While he was moving about, preparing for the exercise of his
art, and leaving his mat for his daughter’s repose, he told of poverty
and sickness among his neighbours, to whom it mattered not whether the
fishery proved a rich or a ruinous one. In the former case, they derived
none of the benefits; in the latter, they could scarcely be starved down
to a lower point than they were sure to reach in the intervals of the
seasons. His representations were confirmed to Marana when she went
abroad in the morning to seek Father Anthony, and accost any friends she
might meet by the way.
Old Gomgode, her father-in-law, lay on the beach, glancing about him
with his restless eyes for something to feed his inquisitiveness. There
was no inducement at present to go to sea in search of curiosities,
there being no fair at this season, and none of his neighbours being
wealthy enough to make purchases when each had no thing to do but to
secure his own scanty provision for the day. Gomgode’s sole employment
was asking questions of any one he could meet, and longing for the sight
of an unaccustomed face.
He started up as he recognized Marana’s form, though wasted, and her
gait, though feeble and spiritless. When he had asked a multitude of
questions,—where was Rayo? how was Rayo? why did not Rayo come? and so
forth, he was struck dumb by the tidings of his son’s afflictions. He
silently pointed to the cottage where Neyna, his daughter, might be
found, and lay down on his face to importune the saints with prayers for
his children;—for Neyna, who was awaiting a dowry he could not earn for
her; for Marana, who was likely to be a widow before she was a mother;
and for the sufferer who was pining in his distant solitude.—Before his
prayers were ended, Father Anthony had joined him, and was uniting in
his intercessions when the young women appeared to ask the priest’s
blessing.
Marana had not found Neyna in the cottage, but bathing with her
companions in a reedy pool behind the dwellings. There was something
left among these maidens of the sportiveness which seems to belong to
the most refreshing exercise of bathing, and which was Marana’s wont in
her younger days. There was now a song and now a laugh; now a conspiracy
to empty all the waterpots at once on the head of one, and then the
chace of a dusky beauty among the rushes,—of Neyna, who had forgotten
for the moment her hopelessness of a dowry. She was startled by the
apparition of a stranger, intercepting her with outstretched arms in her
flight, and recovered her gravity at the first recognition of Marana’s
faint smile. The other girls wrung out their dripping hair, and came up
from the water to crowd round their old companion, to ask tidings of the
rich land to the south, where, if there were no pearl-banks, there was
every other wealth of nature; where, as the songs of their dancing-girls
told them, life under the cocoa-nut trees was all that could be desired;
where thousands of yards of cotton might be had from abroad, and
hundreds of thousands of bags of rice were landed from foreign fleets.
Marana pointed to her tattered garment, and let fall that it was long
since she had tasted rice.
Why did she not seek relief from the English? she was asked. Did not the
English come to provide for and protect the natives? Had not the English
cotton enough to tapestry Adam’s Peak, and could not they purchase the
rice grounds of the globe?
“We,” said they, “are too far off from this fountain of wealth and
mercy. The English come for our pearls once a year, and then they see us
gay, and observe that our shore is spread with wealth. They do not know
how little of this wealth is ours, or suspect what our hunger and
nakedness are when they withdraw the light of their faces. But you live
in that light, and yet you are wasted and sorrowful.”
“The English themselves complain,” answered Marana. “When there is a bad
cinnamon harvest, the Government complains that the richer of our
countrymen pay no dues, and that feeding the poor is a costly burden.
When there is a good cinnamon harvest, the Company complains of the
abundance, and burns half the crop; so that the strangers are always
complaining, and the labourers of the country are always poor. This is
the way with us in the south.”
“And with us in the north. Why then did the English come? And why now do
they not go away?”
This question was too puzzling for any maiden of them all to answer, and
they hastened to refer it to Father Anthony.
“Would you have me go away?” inquired he, smiling. “Shall I set the
example to my countrymen, and leave you to your woods and waters in
peace?”
“You do not forbid our fishing in our waters; you do not bark and burn
our woods; you do not live upon our wealth, paying us only a pittance
for getting it for you. Why, therefore, should you go?”
“My children, you speak as if the English settlers were thieves. You
speak as if it was nothing to have wise and skilful strangers come to
teach you the arts of life. You speak as if you forgot the protection
afforded to you by the government of the mother country, and the expense
incurred by her for your support.”
“Who is it that robs us, not only of our spice and our pearls, but of
all that many another country would give us for our spice and our
pearls, if it be not the English?” cried one.
“Are we the happier for their wisdom and their skill?” cried another.
“And as for the arts of life, do we need strangers to teach us to lie
beneath the fig-tree, and sleep away our hunger?”
“From what do they protect us?” asked a third. “If they will go away, we
will protect ourselves against their returning; and our own expenses we
can bear as soon as ships from every land may come to trade on our
shores.”
Father Anthony reminded them of the social institutions which had been
established among them, with the entire good-will of the natives: but
his pupils were obstinate in the opinion that slavery could not be said
to be abolished while labourers were dependent for daily bread on the
arbitrary will of a monopolizing party; and that, excellent as was trial
by jury, the prevention of the manifold crimes which spring from
oppression would be still better.
“If the English were to withdraw their protection,” said Father Anthony,
“would you forbid them your shores?”
“They should be more welcome than they have ever been yet,” declared the
old fisherman. “Let them land here, and we will spread white cloth for
them to tread upon, and carry them on our shoulders to Columbo. If they
will buy our pearls, the Dutchman, and the Frenchman, and the Spaniard
shall all stand back till the English are served, and the money that we
shall receive in our fairs and our markets shall buy the merchandise
that comes from Britain. We have dealt with the English so long, that we
would deal with them rather than with people of strange tongues and
ways, if they would but traffic as fairly as other people.”
“Why, then, should the English go? Why should they not live in the
houses they have themselves built, and walk in the gardens they
themselves have planted?”
“Let them do so—the merchant, and the priest, and the judge, and the
labourer—if there be British labourers here. Of these we can make
countrymen and friends. But we do not wish for rulers, if they make us
poor, and so tempt us to wickedness. We do not wish for soldiers, if we
must give our daughters’ dowries to maintain them. And as for the
government agent, who takes our pearls, and the Company, that forbid us
to grow cinnamon for anybody but themselves, if they will go, we will
work hard, and soon make a beautiful ship to carry them away.”
“Then it is not the English you object to, but some of their conduct
towards you? Let us hope that the time will come when you will live
together, not quarrelling for the possession of what Providence has
given to all, but finding that there is enough for all.”
“Why do not the wise English see this?”
“Many of them do. The wisest of the English see that there is little
honour or advantage in calling any colony a possession of her own, if it
would bring her profit instead of loss by being her friend, instead of
her servant. The wisest among the English see, that to make a colony
poor is to make it unprofitable, and that colonies cannot be very rich
while they are dependent. To protect and cherish a colony till it can
take care of itself, is wise and kind; but to prevent its taking care of
itself, is folly and crime. It is as if every man here should keep his
grown up son in the bondage of childhood. Such fathers and such sons can
never be prosperous and virtuous.”
“Who prevents the wise among the English from acting wisely?”
“Some who are not so wise. Though it may be clear that all England and
all Ceylon would be more prosperous if the trade of Ceylon were free,
some few would cease to make gains which they will not forego. Some hope
that their sons may be made soldiers, if there should be a war in the
colony, and others expect that a brother or a cousin may be a judge, or
a priest, or a servant of the government.”
“But there cannot be many such.”
“Very few; but those few have been enough to burden England with
expensive colonies up to this day. They are few, but they are powerful,
because the many do not know what a grievance they are submitting to.
The selfish are few; but it does not follow that all others are wise, or
England would leave off maintaining colonies expensively for the sake of
their trade, when she would trade more profitably with them free.”
“Why do the people not know this?”
“It is strange that they do not bestir themselves, and look abroad, and
judge.”
“Where should they look?”
“To the east or to the west, as they please. In the east they may see
how their trade has been more than twice doubled since they have allowed
some little freedom of traffic; and they are told every year how
expensive is this island, where no trade is free. They might know that,
with the greatest natural wealth, this island is among the least
profitable of their colonies. They might know that its total revenue
does not pay its expenses, and that no making shifts, no gathering in of
money from all quarters, can prevent its being a burden to them and to
their children, if they persevere in their present management.”
“And what may they learn by looking westward?”
“That the States of America are a source of much greater wealth and
power to Great Britain now than when she had a ruler in each of them.
She is saved the expense of governing at a great distance, and has more
trade with America than when she called it her own. Also, the colonies
that she still holds in the west are an enormous expense to her—as
fearful a burden as America is an advantage. Besides the loss which the
mother country incurs for the sake of the colonies, (and which loss does
those very colonies nothing but harm,) there is a direct expenditure of
upwards of a million and a half in time of peace, for the apparatus of
defence alone. How much more there is laid out in times of war, and in
the necessary expenses of a government far from home, the people of
England can never have considered, or they would long ago have
permitted, ay, encouraged, Canada and Jamaica to govern themselves.”
“If the English will but let us take care of ourselves, they may,
perhaps, learn a new lesson about the places in the west.”
“I am happy to tell you that a beginning is already made. There is only
one among you—your father, Marana—to whom I have yet told the news.
Every man may now plant cinnamon in his garden, and sell it to
whomsoever he pleases. The news will not be long in flying round the
world, and then more and more will ask for cinnamon continually; your
countrymen will grow a greater quantity, and obtain a larger variety of
comforts in exchange.”
“Then you will have to preach to us as they say you preach to the
strangers,—against gay dresses, and rich food, and too much love of
gold,” said the old man, chuckling.
“And if so, less against theft, and fraud, and hypocrisy, and
indolence,” replied the priest. “There will be little stealing of chanks
when all may fish them; little false bargaining when bargains shall have
opportunity to become fair; little pretence of penitence hiding a
mocking heart, when there is room for real thankfulness, and for a sense
of ingratitude to a bountiful God; and much more industry when the
rewards of industry are within reach. However true it may be that mortal
men sin while they are mortal men, it is certain that they change their
sins with their outward state, and change them for the better as their
state improves.”
“Some tempters from above must be worse than others, I suppose,” said
Gomgode; “but it is surprising to think that our rulers have power to
send away the worst, that some less bad may come in.”
Marana hoped that her husband might benefit by the change. If his
elephantiasis could but turn into some disease less dreadful, how would
she bless the relaxation of the cinnamon monopoly!
Father Anthony could not encourage his dear daughter to look for such a
result as this. But there were no bounds to the mercy of God towards one
who repented,—as it was to be hoped Rayo did. Father Anthony would
journey southwards with Marana and her father, to visit and console and
pray with his unhappy charge, Rayo. He was ready at any moment to set
forth.
Marana’s ecstacies of gratitude and joy were checked only by the fear of
what spectacle might meet her in her hut on her return, and by the
mournful farewells of Neyna and her young companions, to whom no
immediate prospect of a dowry was opened by the new change of policy.
They regarded Marana as about to enter a land of promise whither they
would fain follow her; unless, indeed, some similarly precious
permission respecting the pearl banks should arrive, and convert their
dreary shore into a region of hope and activity. They silently received
their priest’s parting blessing and injunctions as to their duties
during his absence, and then watched him on his way. Setting forth
laboriously on his mission of charity, he looked, indeed, little like
one of the intruding strangers whom they had been taught to wish far
from their shores.
CHAPTER VII
UP AND DOING.
Marana scarcely knew what to hope or fear when she had cast the first
hasty glance round the hut in which she expected to find her husband.
Rayo was not there, and she dreaded to inquire where he was; whether his
ashes had been given to the winds, or whether some of these winds had
brought him vigour to go abroad into the neighbouring wood. All the way
as she came, sights and sounds of pleasure had been presented to her,
and she had endeavoured to share the satisfaction of the priest and of
her father at seeing the bustle of the country people in clearing their
ground for the growth of the long-forbidden shrub; and the joyous
parties returning from the thickets with the young plants which, when
improved by cultivation, were to form the foundation of their wealth;
and the dancing girls spreading the news through the land. She had
striven to thank her saint with the due devotion when Father Anthony
spread the blessing around him as he travelled; but the dread of what
might be awaiting her at home had borne down her spirits. A circumstance
which had occurred the day before had alarmed her grievously at the
moment, and now explained only too clearly, she apprehended, the
deserted state of the hut. She had stolen out early to bathe, and when
she came up out of the water, she found that a thievish bird was flying
away with her necklace, the symbol of her married state. It was true
that a shout from her father had caused the necklace to be dropped, and
that it was at this moment safe; but was not the pang which shot through
her yesterday prophetic of the worse pangs of to-day? Whether her father
believed that his spells could bring back a departed spirit, he did not
declare; but he now hastened to utter them on the threshold, while
Marana flitted about the hut, taking up first the empty cocoa-nut from
the floor, then the dry skin which was wont to hold oil, and then the
mat on which it was impossible to tell by the mere examination whether
any one had slept on the preceding night.
While she was sinking, at length, in utter inability to inquire further,
the priest, who had walked a little way into the jungle on seeing that
nothing was to be learned within doors, approached the entrance with a
smile on his countenance. No one thought of waiting till the charm was
ended. The three went forth; and, not far off, in an open space to which
sunshine and air were admitted, appeared a group of people, whose voices
sounded cheerily in the evening calm.
Mr. Carr was on horseback, with Alice before him, watching the
proceedings of the others. Mr. Serle was digging a hole in the newly
prepared soil, while Rayo stood by, holding the young cinnamon shrub
which was about to be planted. Mrs. Serle was busy, at some distance,
training the pepper-vine against the garden fence.
“Stop, stop!” cried the broken voice of the Charmer; “I have a vow,
Rayo,—a vow! I have vowed to plant and bless the first cinnamon shrub in
your garden.”
“And my blessing is yours, my son,” added Father Anthony.
“And mine has been given already,” observed the missionary, smiling.
“When was ever any property of your Honourable Company so hallowed?”
Mrs. Serle inquired of Mr. Carr, with a smile, as she turned away to
avoid seeing the meeting of Rayo and Marana.
“Property is sacred in the eye of God and man,” replied Mr. Carr,
gravely.
“So it has been ever agreed between God and man,” said Mrs. Serle.
“Therefore, whenever that which is called property is extensively
desecrated, the inevitable conclusion is that it is not really property.
The time will never come when this island will rise up against Rayo’s
cinnamon plantation, even if it should spread, by gradual and honourable
increase, to the sea on one side, and to Candy on the other. As long as
it prospers by means which interfere with no one’s rights, Rayo’s
property will be sacred in the eyes of his country. But the whole island
has long risen against your monopoly gardens. There have been not only
curses breathed within its shade, and beyond its bounds, but pilfering,
and burning, and studious waste.”
“I think it is a pity, papa,” said Alice, “that the Company did not get
a Charmer to charm the great garden at the beginning, and a Catholic
priest to give it a blessing, and then it would have been as safe as
Rayo’s is to be.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” was Mr. Carr’s reply. He was full of trouble at the
responsibility which would fall upon him if the opening of the cinnamon
trade should prove a disaster.
“The same charm and blessing will not suit, I believe, Alice,” replied
Mrs. Serle. “The charm is, in fact, against hopeless poverty and its
attendant miseries,—a lot which the Honourable Company has never had to
fear. The blessing is, in fact, on the exchange of fraud and hypocrisy—
the vices which spring from oppression,—for honesty,—the virtue which
grows up where labour is left free to find its recompense. The
Honourable Company——”
“Has never found its recompense, in this instance, I am sure,” said Mr.
Carr. “We are heartily tired of our bargain; and not all that we have
obtained from Government, from time to time, to compensate for
fluctuations, has prevented our losing very seriously from our cinnamon
trade. We have been thoroughly disappointed in our markets, and cannot
open any fresh ones. I hope now——”
“O, yes! You will do well enough now, if you will manage your concerns
as economically as private traders, and put yourselves on equal terms
with the people of the country. There can be no lack of a market when it
is once known that every one may sell and every one buy that which every
body likes.”
“I believe so; and that there will henceforth be no such considerable
fluctuations as there have been while there were fewer parties
interested in checking and balancing each other. Still,—convinced as I
am that we have done wisely in abolishing this monopoly,—I cannot but
feel it to be a serious thing to witness so vigorous a preparation for
supplying the new demand.”
“It is indeed a serious thing to see a new era established among a
people to whom we stand in the relation of a secondary Providence. It is
a serious thing to have the power of lifting up the impotent who have
long lain hopeless at this beautiful gate of God’s temple, and to see
them instantly paying the homage of activity and joy. But this is surely
not the moment to distrust the exercise of their new strength, and to
fear its consequences.”
“Will poor Rayo ever be able to walk like other people, do you think,
papa?” inquired Alice.
Mr. Carr had no hope of cure; but it was not an uncommon thing for the
victims of this disease to live on for many years, without much pain, if
well fed and taken care of. So great a change had already taken place in
Rayo since something had been given him to do and to hope for, that it
seemed very probable that he might revive much further, and prune his
own vines, and bark his own shrubs for many a season to come. He must be
assisted to erect a cottage on the dry soil of his new garden, instead
of remaining in the damp nook which had been the home of his poverty. He
must be assisted to obtain wholesome food till the next cinnamon
harvest, after which it might be hoped that he would be able first to
supply his simple wants, and then to afford to let them become more
complex.
“He is gone to confession with the priest,” observed Mrs. Serle, as she
watched the two proceeding towards the hut, while Marana’s beads hung
from her hand. “Henceforth, Mr. Carr, let Rayo’s sins be his own: but I
think the Honourable Company can hardly refuse to take his past offences
on themselves, however long they have made him bear the penalty.”
“Certainly, if we strike out of the catalogue of crimes,” said Mr. Carr,
“all that are originated by institutions, and by social customs, against
which an individual can do no more than protest, but few will remain for
which any Christian priest will dare to prescribe individual penance. If
the heads of colonial governments at home were fully and perpetually
aware of this, under what solemn emotions would they step into their
office!”
Perhaps Father Anthony was such a Christian priest as Mr. Carr had just
spoken of, for he returned from hearing Rayo’s confession with a
countenance full of mildness, and a voice full of pity. Marana no longer
detected under her husband’s submissive manner the workings of passion
which had often terrified her; and, in addition to this, and to the
decided improvement she witnessed in his health, she had the
satisfaction of learning from her father that he had so far recovered
his confidence in his own spells that he was sure the charmed shrub
would prosper, and would avail better to make Amoottra keep her distance
than any chank in the Indian seas.
The rest of the party were about to go in search of rice or other good
food. They had been too much struck by their accidental meeting with
Rayo in the wood,—too deeply touched by witnessing his feeble attempts
to pluck up the cinnamon suckers,—to think of leaving him to his own
resources in his present state of health. As they were quitting the
enclosure, and looked back to see how the slanting sunbeams lit up the
eyes of the care-worn family, the two priests of a religion of promise
assured one another that the time was at hand when here every man should
sit under his vine and his fig-tree, and none should make him afraid.
_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._
Colonies are advantageous to the mother-country as affording places of
settlement for her emigrating members, and opening markets where her
merchants will always have the preference over those of other countries,
from identity of language and usages.
Colonies are not advantageous to the mother-country as the basis of a
peculiar trade.
The term ‘colony trade’ involves the idea of monopoly; since, in a free
trade, a colony bears the same relation as any other party to the
mother-country.
Such monopoly is disadvantageous to the mother-country, whether
possessed by the government, as a trading party, by an exclusive
company, or by all the merchants of the mother-country.
It is disadvantageous as impairing the resources of the dependency,
which are a part of the resources of the empire, and the very material
of the trade which is the object of desire.
If a colony is forbidden to buy of any but the mother-country, it must
do without some articles which it desires, or pay dear for them;—it
loses the opportunity of an advantageous exchange, or makes a
disadvantageous one. Thus the resources of the colony are wasted.
If a colony is forbidden to sell its own produce to any but the
mother-country, either the prohibition is not needed, or the colony
receives less in exchange from the mother-country than it might obtain
elsewhere. Thus, again, the resources of the colony are wasted.
If a colony is forbidden either to buy of or sell to any but the
mother-country, the resources of the colony are wasted according to both
the above methods, and the colony is condemned to remain a poor customer
and an expensive dependency.
In proportion, therefore, as trade with colonies is distinguished from
trade with other places, by restriction on buyers at home, or on sellers
in the colonies, that trade (involving the apparatus of restriction)
becomes an occasion of loss instead of gain to the empire.
--------------------------------------------------
London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke-street, Lambeth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
833.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
1. No News from the Port 1
2. News from the Port 22
3. Grown Children’s Holiday 44
4. Epistolary Godliness 66
5. Nothing but a Voice 78
6. Sleeping and Waking 108
7. Loyalty Preventives 121
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
------------------------------------
CHAPTER I.
NO NEWS FROM THE PORT.
Walter was so busy trenching in his garden, one late autumn afternoon,
that he paid no attention to any thing that passed on the other side of
the hedge. Train after train of coal-waggons slid by on the rail-road
from the pit to the staithe, and from the staithe to the pit, and he
never looked up, till a voice from one of the vehicles shouted to him
that he was a pretty ferryman to let a passenger stand calling for his
boat, for minutes together, while he gave no heed. Walter just turned to
the cottage to shout, in his turn, “Father, the boat!” and then went on
with his trenching.
The days were gone by when Walter used to uprear himself from his
weeding or pruning, or stand resting on his spade, to watch his father
putting off for the opposite bank, or speculate on who the passengers
might be, whence they came, and whither they might be going. His garden
was a tempting place whence to overlook the river, sloping as it did
down to the very bank; but Walter had now too much to do and to think
about to spare time for the chance amusements of former days. His father
had duly and perpetually assured him in his childhood that “the hand of
the diligent maketh rich,” and that “if a man will not work, neither
should he eat;” but, though these quotations had their effect, there
were thoughts in Walter’s mind which were yet more stimulating to his
exertions.
He threw down his spade in no little hurry, however, when, in a few
minutes, he heard himself called from behind. His cousin Effie was
running up the slope of the garden, crying,
“Walter! Walter! is my father here? You need not be afraid to tell _me_.
Is my father here?”
“Your father, no! I have not seen him since church, last Sunday.”
“Well, uncle Christopher said just so; but I got him to set me over, I
was so unwilling to believe you did not know where my father was. O,
Walter! cannot you give the least guess where he is? I dare not go back
to my mother without news.”
Walter’s grieved countenance showed that he would afford news if he had
any to impart. He hesitatingly mentioned the public-house.
“O, there is not a public-house between this and Newcastle, nor all over
Shields, where one or other of us had not been before twelve o’clock
last night. I did not know whether to be glad or sorry that he was not
in one of them. Now I should be glad enough to see him in almost any
way.”
“Before twelve o’clock last night! How long have you missed him?”
“He quitted the keel, they say, just at dark, when she came alongside
the collier,—only because he had broken his pipe, and went to get
another; but he did not come back.”
Walter was silent; but Effie could interpret his thought.
“It is certain the press-gang was out last night,” she observed.
“Where is the tender stationed?” asked Walter, pulling down his shirt
sleeves, and looking round for his coat.
“Just in the river’s mouth; but there is no getting at her. Half the
boats in Shields have been hanging about her; but, there being only
women in them, they do but make sport for the officers. Nobody but an
officer or two is to be seen on deck——”
“Ay, ay; the other poor creatures are kept close enough down below. I
suppose, if there are few but women in the boats, her business is done,
and she will make little further stay.”
“There is not a seaman to be seen in all Shields since the day before
yesterday, they say; and so the jail has been half emptied to make up
the number. Walter, you must not think of going to look for my father.
There has scarcely a keel passed all this day, because the men will not
venture to the port any more, while the tender is there. You will not
think of going, Walter? I am not quite sure that it is safe for you to
be working here, full in sight from the river. From the other side I saw
you as plain as could be.”
“Why, Effie, what do you think they could make of a gardener on board a
king’s ship?”
“What they make of other landsmen, I suppose. ’Tis certain they have got
some who never were on ship-board in their lives.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, indeed. So I do wish you would work, in you must work, under the
hedge, or behind that plot of hollyoaks. Do you know I saw you stop and
take off your cap, when you came to the end of this ridge, and then
stoop——”
“What! while your head was full of your father; bless you!” murmured
Walter, in a low fone, and with a blush of satisfaction.
“Is not it my duty to think of you first?” asked Effie; “and if it was
not, how could I help it?”
Walter was in no hurry to answer this, and Effie went on.
“As to saying it, I cannot help that either; and why should I? It makes
me wonder to see Bessy Davison pretending that her lover is the last
person in the world that she thinks of or cares about, when she knows
what a sin and shame it would be to pretend the same thing when he is
her husband—which he is almost—for they are to be married next week.”
“I am sure we are much more like being husband and wife than they are,
Effie; I wish we were going to be married next week.”
“I cannot talk about that, Walter, till I have heard something of my
father, and made out what is to become of my mother, if he is really
gone; but he may get back. There have been some set ashore again two
days after they were carried off.”
Walter did not say what he knew, that those who were thus returned to
their homes were persons unfit for the king’s service:—a poor tailor who
might, by long training, have become a sail-maker, but would never be
capable of more arduous service; a ploughman, who was gaping with
amazement at the first sight of the sea, when he was surprised and
carried off; and a pedlar, who seemed likely to die in a week for want
of a wider walking range than the deck of a tender. Eldred was too good
a man for the king’s purposes, as Walter knew, to be set at liberty
again on the same footing with such helpless creatures as these.
“What will your mother do, Effie, if your father should really be away a
year or two, or more?”
“Eh! I cannot say. There has been no time——Walter, if you could have
seen her, all last night, it would have half broke your heart.”
“I am sure it has half broken yours. You look sadly worn, Effie.”
“O, I am used to her—to her ways of feeling and doing. But she did sob
and complain so grievously, we were wholly at a loss what to do with
her—poor Tim and I, for Adam was not to be found. I sent to his master’s
to beg leave for him for a few hours, but he was out of bounds, and so I
had no help. For a long time she kept blaming my father, till I was
pained that Tim should hear all she said. When I had got him to bed, I
left off trying to reason with her, which I know I am too apt to do.
But, Walter, I am afraid to meet her again; and that is why I am
lingering here, doing no good.”
“But what will she do?” Walter again inquired.
“I suppose we must all get work, as those do who have no father to work
for them,” replied Effie.
“We had better marry at once,” said Walter, who seemed quite able to
prove his point, that it would be a relief to Mrs. Eldred to see her
daughter settled at once, instead of having to go back to the pit-mouth,
where she had worked in her childhood, and where all parties had
believed she would never need to work again.
“It never came into my mind till now,” said Effie, after considering her
lover’s proposal for a moment; “but I will think about it as I go home,
and try to find out what we ought to do.”
Walter’s blush of satisfaction returned while he said something about
his wonder how people had any comfort of each other who were off and on,
and pretending, like Bessy and her lover, not to understand each other,
instead of being straightforward, and agreeing on what was right and
fit, so that they might depend on each other without drawback. It was
difficult enough sometimes, at best, for people that had consciences to
settle their minds so as to be at peace; and to perplex one another
further was, in his opinion, but a poor sign of love. He might feel this
the more strongly from his being too timid and undecided. He knew he
was; and if Effie could but be aware what a blessing it was to him to be
never made sport of—never put off with false reasons——
Effie coloured with indignation at the idea of any one taking advantage
of Walter’s modesty to make sport of him. In her own heart she daily
felt, (and sometimes she relieved herself by saying so,) that there was
no one virtue she should like so much to have as Walter’s modesty, and
that there was no one thing she feared so much as learning to abuse it,
by accepting the supremacy he was willing to allow her. Walter’s
objection, as far as he chose to make any, was that she was too
tractable; while his father entertained an idea much more serious. He
doubted whether they had grace enough between them to secure a blessing
upon their union.
“Uncle Christopher seems too busy to speak to me to-day,” observed
Effie. “He has always been engaged with his invention when I have come
lately; but I thought to-day he would have come out to advise with me
what we must do about my father.”
“He is bringing his invention to a point,” replied Walter, “and he will
soon be ready to take it to London, and look after a patent for it. This
fills his mind at present; but you need not doubt his feeling very much
for you all, as soon as he can listen to what I shall tell him.”
“But what will he say to your notion of marrying next week—of your
marrying while Adam is not out of his apprenticeship yet?”
“He can only say that Adam is an apprentice, and I am not. You and I may
be as glad as we please, between ourselves, that I am a gardener, and
not a rope-maker.”
“Ah! you would have had another year to serve, from this time, and then
to set up for yourself. But, surely, gardening is a much more difficult
business to learn than rope-making. Why should Adam be obliged to spend
seven years in learning to twist hemp into ropes, when you learned long
ago a great deal about the seasons, and the soils, and the nature of
different kinds of plants, and how to manage a vast number of them? I
should have thought that it would take more time and pains to learn to
produce fine peaches, and such capital vegetables as yours, than to
become a good rope-maker.”
“So should I; but all works of tillage have been mixed up together under
the name of unskilled labour; and all that belong to manufactures, as
skilled labour, which requires apprenticeship; so that the man who grows
the finest grapes that care and knowledge ever produced, is held by the
law to be a less skilled workman than one who dabs brick-clay into a
mould all the summer through. If I were to turn pippin-monger instead of
pippin-grower, I should have inquiries in plenty after my seven years of
apprenticeship, and should be liable to suffer for not having served
them. But I am a gardener, and never was bound to a master, and am now
free to turn my hand to any occupation that comes near my own, if my own
should fail, which is a sort of security for you, Effie, that it gives
me pleasure to think of.”
“Security!” said his father, who had at length found time to come out
and inquire into the afflictions of his niece and her family. “It is the
notion of young people, who have not seen God’s ways in his works, to
talk of security. Of what use is the watchman’s waking, unless the Lord
keeps the city?”
“Indeed, uncle,” said Effie, “we want no teaching to-day about change
and danger. Yesterday at this time we were looking for my father home
from work, and now I much fear——”
“Fear nothing, child. Fear is sinful.”
“O, but, uncle, do you think you yourself could help it if Walter was
gone, and you did not know where? Would not you fancy him shut down in
that horrible tender? And could you help being afraid that he was
miserable, being afraid that he would be ill, being afraid that you
would be unhappy for many a long year, for want of him?”
“I dare say you think,” said uncle Christopher, seeing that Effie bit
her lip to repress her tears,—“I dare say you think that I am a cruel
old man, who has no compassion for what other people are feeling.
Worldly people would say——”
“O, never mind what people would say who do not see and hear us: but I
do not think you cruel, uncle. Only——”
“Only what?” inquired uncle Christopher, setting his lips in a prim
form, as he always did when he expected to hear something unacceptable
about himself.
“Only,—very pious people expect other people to feel exactly as they do,
and make out that every difference is a difference of trust in God. Now,
I trust in God that my father will be supported, and my poor mother——”
She was obliged to stop a moment, and then went on,
“But all this trust does not make me the less afraid that they will have
to be unhappy first.”
Uncle Christopher shook his head with a condescending smile and sigh.
This was what he called trust with a reservation; but prayed that the
true faith might grow out of it in time. He could suggest nothing to be
done, Eldred’s recovery being quite hopeless, he considered, if he was
on board the tender. All that uncle Christopher could promise, was to go
and pray with the widowed wife, on the Sabbath morning;—the day that he
could not conscientiously give to his own engrossing pursuit,—the
invention for which he hoped to take out a patent.
Walter had no intention of waiting till Sunday. He was going now, but
that Effie would not allow it. The press-gang was before her mind’s eye,
whichever way she turned; and she had no apprehension so great as of her
lover falling in with it. Nowhere could he be so safe as in his father’s
premises,—ferrymen being everywhere exempt from impressment. He parried
her request of a promise not to show himself in his garden so as to be
an object of observation from the river, and now saved his father the
trouble of depositing Effie on the other side. He had a few words to say
to her while they were crossing. His advice was not to harass herself
with running about from place to place in search of her father, (who
could have no motive for concealing himself from his family,) but to
acquiesce in his being made a defender of his country against his will,
and to hope that he would prove a faithful and valiant seaman amidst the
perils and honours of war.
Effie thought that the very way to prevent this was so to treat a man as
to make him hate the government he served, and to paralyze his arm by
that sickness of heart which must come over him as often as he thought
of his deserted wife and unprovided children. She believed a ready will
was the soul of good service, on sea or land.
She had no very ready will to go home to her mother without tidings. She
lingered to see her lover recross the river, being aware that he was an
inexperienced ferryman, and that the tide was now running very strong. A
barge was coming up, in fine style, and it seemed likely that Walter
would have landed in time to watch its course, like herself, and perhaps
to suspect, as she did, that certain of his Majesty’s agents were in it,
seeking whom they might entrap. But Walter mismanaged his boat, causing
it to make a zig-zag course, till he brought it very near the barge, and
then seeming to lose his presence of mind so as to put himself directly
in the way of being run down. Effie was in momentary expectation of
witnessing the clash, and there was a movement on board the barge which
terrified her no less.
“They have found him out to be no ferryman,” was her agonized thought.
“They will carry him off too, and then my mother and I shall be widows
together!”
She ran to the water’s edge, and would probably have tried to walk
through it, if the boats had not parted so as to allow her breathing
time again. She was then struck with the improbability of the gang
offering violence to the manager of a ferryboat, while in the actual
discharge of his office; but this conviction did not at once restore
strength to her shaking limbs, or remove the deadly sickness from her
heart.
She was usually fond of this walk,—for other reasons than that Walter
was at one end of it: but to-day everything appeared disagreeable. The
rustling of the autumn wind in the leafless clump of trees under which
she had to pass teazed her ear. She tried to find a path where she might
walk without making a commotion among the dead leaves. When it became
necessary to cross the rail-road, it seemed to her that it was the most
difficult thing in the world to escape the trains of waggons. She felt
pretty sure of being run over before she got home. The smoke from the
colliery half stifled her, and the voices from the rows of cottages were
more shrill and unfeeling than she had ever heard them before. The river
side had been cold; the colliery was too warm; and the wind, or
something else, prevented her getting forwards. She could almost have
declared that her feet were tied.
While she was toiling on, somebody touched her shoulder. She turned, in
attitude to run away; but it was only her eldest brother.
“What! did I frighten you, lass?” cried Adam, gaily.
“O, Adam! It would be well if you never did worse than frightening me in
this way.”
“Hoot, toot! you are coming round to the old story of my having my
indentures broke. Let them be broke, if my masters so please! I know my
business well enough,—I knew it three years ago well enough to make my
bread like another man; and so it is no wonder I am tired of working so
long for another, when I am as fit as I ever shall be to work for
myself.”
“But the disgrace,—the loss,—if you have your indentures broke!”
exclaimed she. “How are you to get on a footing with those who have
served their time properly, if you cannot submit to the law?”
“I wish I had been born where there is no such law,” declared Adam. “If
I had been a Manchester or a Birmingham man, my apprenticeship might
have been as long or as short as my business requires. Or if I had been
an American, I might have learned rope-making without being bound at
all.”
“In America, I have heard tell,” replied Effie, “the people are mostly
well to do in the world, and can take their manhood upon them earlier
than the youths here may do. They can set up for themselves, and marry,
and have their rights earlier than here, where there are so many in
proportion to the means of living. As to Birmingham and Manchester,—I do
not know what is the character of the working youths there,—but I have
heard it said that long apprenticeships are good for the morals of the
young people.”
“Then I must be a much more moral person than Walter—Eh, Effie? But I
should like to know what there is in my being bound to tread the length
of the rope-walk so many times a-day, for my master’s profit, that is
good for my morals. I hardly think that it is good for one’s morals to
be running off as often as one can slip the noose, and sulky and
grumbling all the while one is under a master’s eye.”
Effie did not see the absolute necessity of either playing truant or
sulking. She thought a well-disposed youth should be grateful for being
under the eye of a master at a time of life when guardianship was
peculiarly needful.
“All very well two hundred years ago, Effie,—at the time of such
apprenticeships as our great grandfather used to tell us of,—when the
apprentices used to sit in the same room, and eat at the same table with
their masters, and walk behind them to church. But times are changed
now. I could tell you such things as you little dream of, if I chose to
prove to you how much management our masters have over our pleasures and
our morals. What is it to them what we do with ourselves when work is
over? And as for the time that the wheels are turning, the masters must
be clever men if they get half as much work out of their oldest and best
apprentices as out of any one of their journeymen?”
“How were apprentices so different in our great grandfather’s time?”
“I dare say it might be more difficult to learn arts at that time; and
so a longer apprenticeship might be wanted. Neither was there such a
rush to get one’s bread as there is now; nor, consequently, so much
provocation at being kept out of it, at a great expense to everybody,
when one is capable of shifting for one’s self. You cannot wonder,
Effie, at my flitting from time to time, when a chance offers of winning
a penny, or when I can amuse myself, instead of toiling for nothing.”
“But I do wonder, Adam. You forget what you owe your master for teaching
you your trade; and you forget what you forfeit, if you have your
indentures broke.”
“Not I. I paid my master long ago for everything but the meat and drink
that I would rather earn for myself. And you need not begin to talk of
how foolish we should all be in marrying too early if our being bound
till twenty-one did not prevent it. It may chance that worse things than
early marriages happen when high-spirited apprentices are led or driven
into a disposition for idleness. In my mind,—the best way to keep a
young man steady and sober is to let him work, as soon as he is fit for
it, with the hopefulness which comes from working for one’s self. You
will see how steady I shall be as soon as I have something to work for.”
“And if your master casts you off, mean time?”
“Then I must go somewhere away from yon great town, where one can do
little without a title of apprenticeship. When the Deep Cut is made,—as
they say it certainly will be,—ropes will be wanted there in plenty, for
ships that will put in. I’ll go and settle near the Deep Cut.—’Tis a
fine place,—that sluice that is to be. Tommy Thorn and I got over to see
it in one of our trips; and there was——”
“Tell me nothing about it now,” said Effie: “but go home to your master,
that I may tell my mother that you are there; and so carry her some
little comfort in her misery.”
“Misery! what misery?”
“Ah! Now you are almost the only person within five miles that does not
know what an affliction has befallen your own kin. I kept putting off
the telling you, being at last hopeless——”
“And I saw how you had been crying, but thought Walter might have been
either rough or particularly tender. But O, Effie, what is it? Is poor
little Tim——”
Tim was well again: and Adam was horror-struck at finding the family
misfortune so much greater than he had anticipated. When he learned that
Cuddie was absent,—making his first voyage in a collier to London,—he
was full of remorse that his mother had been left without the support of
either of her elder sons on such an occasion. Instead of going home to
his master, he must first see his poor mother; and when Effie
recollected that such a visit might serve as a plea of excuse to his
master, and give his indentures another chance, she made no further
opposition.
Effie found little promise of comfort on approaching home. About the
spout or staithe, whence coals were shot from the waggons into the keels
on the river, were gathered groups of people telling and hearing of one
and another neighbour who had not returned when expected. This news
rendered Eldred’s restoration less probable than ever, and all that
could be hoped was that Mrs. Eldred was already prepared for this.
If she was, she did not look out the less eagerly for her daughter, or
show less disappointment when she found there were no tidings.
“It was silly of me to trouble you for any,” she declared. “I am the
last person ever to get tidings that I want. I am the last person to be
helped by anybody.”
“Do not you think——”—Effie began, but checked herself, in consideration
of the trouble of spirit that her mother was in. The poor woman went on,
“One would think the time was gone by for your father to have the notion
of deserting his family. He had better have done it years ago, when I
was more fit for the charge. I am worn out now. But I always said there
would be no rest for me till I was in the grave.”
“Is there no one who asks us to come and he will give us rest?” inquired
one who was sitting beside the hearth, with little Tim on his knee. It
was Mr. Severn, the clergyman, one of poor Tim’s best friends. Tim was
only six years old; but he had lost his sight by an accident at the
coal-pit, two years before. He was not an unhappy child at any time; but
he was seldom so happy as when Mr. Severn’s cheerful voice and steady
step came near, or when there was something new to be told or taught,
which required that Tim should stand between the gentleman’s knees, or
sit with an arm over his shoulder. He heard Mr. Severn’s question now,
and asked who made that promise. The answer brought his mother to tears;
but whether they were tears which would do her good seemed doubtful to
those who watched with alarm the force of her emotions.
“Mother, you cannot think,—surely you cannot think that my father has
left us of his own accord?” remonstrated Adam.
“If he has, it is you that have helped to send him away. No man was
prouder than your father that no vagabond ever belonged to him; and many
a time of late has he prophesied that you would turn out a vagabond;—
many a time, I can tell you, Adam, when he has heard of your being
missed from your work. I hope you will take it to heart, Adam.”
“Mother! mother! this is not the time,” said Effie, in a terror lest
Adam should quit the cottage, never to return. “Mother, my father never
spoke harshly about Adam, I am sure.”
“Harshly! no. He never spoke harshly to anybody in his life, and always
let any one talk him over, and do what they would with him; and that is
the case now, I’ll answer for it. I thought I had brought up my sons
free from his fault; and now they are to break my heart in another way,
I suppose. Well! among one and another, I shall soon be in my grave.”
“How is Cuddie to break your heart, mother? I wonder what is the matter
with him, good lad!” said Adam, with an affectation of coolness.
Effie cast an imploring look at him, and at the same moment Tim began to
make his voice heard,—
“O, don’t go! don’t go! Sir, sir; don’t go!”
“I must, my dear boy. I will come back again when——”
“When my mother does not insult me before you, sir,” said Adam. “But you
will hardly find me here next time, after what you have heard to-day.”
“Yes, Adam, I trust I shall. I shall forget what I have heard, because
it was said in a moment of irritation; and you will remember, I trust,
that your mother is in deep affliction, and that her words should not be
reckoned too strictly against her,—least of all by her son.”
“I cannot be spoken of in this way,” cried Mrs. Eldred. “I have been
accustomed to have people against me, all my days; but I cannot hear
myself so spoken of to my children, by anybody, Mr. Severn.”
“Tell us, then, how we shall think of you,—how we shall pray for you in
your sorrow?”
“As one that was able to bear whatever it might please God to lay upon
her,” she replied. Her violent weeping did not interrupt her
declarations that she could go to the pit-mouth, and work for her
living, and preserve the independence and good name she had always
sought for herself and her children. She spoke proudly of her family,
though she had just before been bitter against them. She talked of her
strength, though she had so lately declared herself worn out. She did
not want any comfort but what her own mind could supply her with, well
as people meant, she did not doubt, by coming to comfort her. She forgot
how she had complained, just before Mr. Severn entered, that nobody
cared for her, and that she might bear her troubles as well as she
could, without sympathy.
Mr. Severn, who abhorred officious interference, kindly wished her
strength and comfort according to her need, and was departing, when
little Tim, who had bustled after him to the door, reached out a hand to
catch the gentleman by the skirt of his coat, missed his aim, and fell
from the door-step. He merely slipped on his hands and knees; but the
boy was first startled by the fall, and then thoroughly alarmed by his
mother’s passion of terror. Any child must have concluded himself very
much hurt, while his mother was sobbing over him so piteously.
“Indeed, mother, I don’t think he has hurt himself.”—“Do but let him
walk across the room.”—“He does not seem to be in any pain,”—urged the
son and daughter, in vain. Mr. Severn touched Adam’s arm, and made a
sign to let the paroxysm exhaust itself. Effie quietly placed a cup of
water within reach, and closed the door against any prying eyes that
might be near. The time had been,—but it was now long past,—when her
mother’s emotions had invariably opened the flood-gates of her own
tears. Her heart was still heavily oppressed when she witnessed passion;
but it was now only quiet grief that touched her sympathies. When the
sobs were hushed, and only gentle tears flowed over poor Tim, Effie
could refrain no longer, but became the most sorrowful weeper of the
two. Adam did not know what to do with himself, and therefore did the
best thing that remained. He took his mother’s hand, and signified a
hope of being a greater comfort to her than he had been. He mentioned
Cuddie; and here was something pleasant for every one to speak of. Mr.
Severn considered Cuddie one of the most promising lads in the parish.
Mrs. Eldred told how early she had discovered and pointed out to his
father what Cuddie might become; but plaintively added a supposition of
his being impressed during the voyage. All, with one voice, reminded her
how young he was, and how unlikely it was that his Majesty should pick
out lads of seventeen for impressment, when an ample supply of
full-grown men might be obtained. Tim had his little story to tell of
what Cuddie was to do for him when he came back; and his mother smiled,
and blessed the boy aside for forgetting his terrible fall so easily. In
ten minutes more, Mr. Severn left her, fully convinced that it would be
much easier to count her troubles than her blessings; that Providence
has a wise and kind purpose in all that it inflicts; and that the best
welcome she could offer her husband on his return would be the sight of
what she had done in his absence for his sake.
CHAPTER II.
NEWS FROM THE PORT.
Mrs. Eldred did not give too good an account of herself when she
declared herself able to do for her family whatever circumstances might
require of her. Within five days of her husband’s disappearance, she
might be found in a situation which she had not expected ever to fill
again. She was sorting and screening coals at the mouth of the
neighbouring pit. She would not hear of Effie joining her in her
labours. Her great desire was that Effie should marry Walter as soon as
she pleased. This would be one care off her mind, she declared,—one duty
discharged to her absent husband, whose only daughter should not suffer
by the unhappy chance which had taken him away. The only argument was as
to what should be done with Tim, during working hours. Effie was for
keeping him beside her,—not only at present, while she was still in her
mother’s cottage, but when she should have removed to Walter’s. She
thought it more seemly that the child should play among the flower-beds
than among the coal-heaps, and hinted the possibility of his falling
down the pit, or into the river, while no one was heeding him. But the
plea of danger would not do. No child of his age could be more fit to
avoid danger from the pit and the river than Tim. His ear served him
better than the eyes of little ones who do not think of taking care; and
Tim might always be trusted to discover, by stamping on the ground, how
near he was to hollow places. He might always be trusted to calculate
the certainties of crossing the waggon-way before the train should come
up, and to find his own path down the sloping bank to the stone which
formed his favourite seat by the river-side—where he might sit, and pull
rushes, and hear the water ripple. His mother hinted that he would run
more risk among Walter’s bees than anywhere else. It was left, at last,
to the child’s own taste; and he decided to go with his mother. Of all
people, he knew least of the hastiness of her temper; for he rarely or
never had to feel it himself, and could not yet understand its
manifestations to others. He was very fond of Effie, but there was a
charm about the corner of his mother’s apron which eclipsed all the
blandishments of any one else. Besides this, Tim loved society,—not only
as being a child, but as being blind. He quitted even the corner of his
mother’s apron when he heard young voices, and pushed into the midst of
every group of children he could find his way to. He had an ambition to
work as other little ones worked, and to play as they played; and his
mother’s occupation afforded him the opportunity. The sorting coal may
be done by the touch as truly though more slowly than by the eye; and
the work which Tim would not have been set to these five years, if he
had had his sight, he was already permitted to do for amusement, because
he was blind. His mother rectified his mistakes when he chanced to carry
his contributions to the wrong heap; and his companions learned to be
patient with him when he unwittingly spoiled their little arrangements,
throwing down their coal-houses, trudging straight through their
coal-gardens, and stumbling over their coal-mountains. No one seemed to
enjoy the burning of the refuse coal more than he, though to him it was
no spectacle. He always carefully ascertained the situation of the heap
to be burned, and stood opposite to the conflagration, shouting when his
companions’ shouts told that the flame was spreading, and rather
courting than avoiding the heat and the smoke. There was some question
among observers whether the glare did not excite some sensation through
the veil of his blindness. He could give no account of it himself; and
the point was left to be decided at some future time, when he should be
better able to understand his own pleasures.
Mrs. Eldred was at the pit, as if nothing had happened, the morning of
Effie’s marriage, within a fortnight of Eldred’s disappearance. There
was nothing to stay at home for when Effie was gone; and no one ever
shrank from being alone more painfully than the widowed wife did at
present. She plied her labour busily at the pit’s mouth,—now helping to
receive the coal which was brought up by the gin, now screening it, and
depositing the large pieces for the London market in one place, and the
small for other uses, or for destruction, in another place.
“Eh! bairn, what makes you turn that way, and listen so?” she asked of
Tim. The boy jumped and clapped his hands as a distant shout arose. It
spread nearer and nearer; and the sound of a carriage,—of several
carriages,—was heard. What could it be? It turned out a very fine
procession indeed,—the wedding-party in whose honour the bells of St.
Nicholas, Newcastle, were ringing, as had been observed by several
people about the colliery this morning. The Rev. Miles Otley, a
neighbouring rector, had married the daughter of the rich Mr. Vivian of
Newcastle; and everybody near was thinking a good deal about it,—not
only because the marriage of the rector was a matter of real importance,
but because it was a curious thing to the elderly folks to see such a
boy as Miles Otley had but lately been, grown into so important a man as
he now was. He had had extraordinary luck they thought, in respect both
of education and preferment;—luck greatly exceeding that of Mr. Severn,
his curate, who was much more popular on all points but one;—the one
which constituted the rector’s chief importance at present to the people
about him. Mr. Otley’s sporting was admired, his equipage praised, his
preaching was a matter of question, his parties a matter of notoriety;
but that which found him favour in the eyes of his neighbours was his
opposition to a scheme for a public work which they thought would do a
great injury to their colliery,—a scheme of which Mr. Severn could not
be brought to say any harm.
Some way up the coast there were materials for a colliery which would
have been opened long ago, if it could have competed with those which
had superior advantages of carriage. A waggon-way to the river, or at
once to the port of Shields, might have been made; but it was thought
likely to be less expensive, and much more advantageous to the whole
district to make a short cut through the rock of the coast, just at
hand, and build a small pier, to aid the loading and unloading of
vessels. This opening might also afford a shelter for small vessels on a
very exposed coast; and there seemed to impartial persons no conceivable
objection to the undertaking, if the company who proposed it were
satisfied that it would yield them a profit. There was a jealousy about
it, however, among some coal-owners who did not desire the opening of
new works; and this jealousy, of course, spread to their dependents. It
was taken up by the gay young rector with an earnestness which could not
be accounted for otherwise than that this was the first object out of
himself which had ever been known to interest him, and it might
therefore have the charm of a new pursuit. He had talked of getting the
bill thrown out in Parliament, had visited the proprietors of the land
in the line of the Deep Cut, to endeavour to gain their dissent from the
measure, and had been thought to come very near the matter in the last
sermon he had preached (on innovations) previous to his marriage.
Mr. Severn was so far from seeing that the scheme was objectionable,
that he firmly believed it would benefit all the parties concerned in
its discussion. He knew that more coal was wanted in the south,—not that
the people in the south could purchase more of the article, burdened as
it now was with duties and unnecessary charges of various kinds,—but he
knew that many manufacturers were pining for want of an abundant and
cheap supply of fuel, and that thousands of poor creatures were
shivering in their chilly homes, while an inexhaustible deposit of coal
lay in the ground; and there were plenty of hands to work it, and an
abundance of ships to transport it, if its charges could but be reduced
to such a level as that those who needed might obtain. Every means by
which a larger supply could be brought into the market would prove, he
believed, a stimulus to the whole trade, and tempt more consumers to the
purchase. Not only, therefore, would the land proprietors on the line of
the Deep Cut, and the labourers, and the ship-builders, and the
rope-makers, and the pitmen, be benefited in a direct way, but all
connected with other coal-works in an indirect manner. It was true that
other means existed of supplying the people more amply with the fuel
which they wanted; but those means could not at present be made use of.
It was true that coal enough,—and no little of a prime quality,—was
destroyed at the pit mouth to afford warmth to crowds of those who pass
the dreary winter night in darkness and in cold, in many of the cities
of England. It was true that this destruction was sorely grudged by the
coal-owners, and complained of by the dwellers in the neighbourhood, to
whom these wasteful fires were a terrible nuisance; but it was also true
that, while the corporation of London had the privilege of measuring the
coal which was to warm London, and would admit none which was not in
large pieces, there was little probability that the small coal would
have any chance yet awhile; and the best hope was in the supply of large
coal being increased, so as to lower the price, as far as it was
possible for it to be lowered under the officious management of a
corporation. As for the means of carrying the projected improvement into
effect, as it was a work too expensive for individual enterprise, a
company, privileged by Government, seemed the right instrument. Such
companies are the fitting subjects of royal and parliamentary favour,
when their undertakings serve to promote instead of impeding the
industry of the many, and the rewards of that industry. A company to
monopolize the production of coal would have been a curse against which
Mr. Severn would have protested with all his might; a company to open a
new channel for the distribution of coal was a public servant, whom he
thought deserving of all honour and encouragement. Inasmuch as
government would be bound, by its duty of protecting the industry of its
subjects, to discountenance the former, it was bound to countenance the
latter: therefore Mr. Severn exerted himself to subdue the prejudices
against the scheme which existed in his parish; and, furthermore, did
what in him lay to disabuse Parliament respecting the misrepresentations
of the counter-petitioners. It is so much more easy, however, and so
infinitely more entertaining, to join in a clamour against a proposition
than to listen to reason in favour of it, that Mr. Severn was not at all
surprised to hear the shouts which followed the bridegroom’s carriage,—
“Otley for ever!” “He has cut up the Deep Cut!” “No new piers; the old
ones will do.” “Don’t let the Cut go out of your mind, Otley. We’ll
stand by you.”
Mr. Severn was visiting a poor man who was laid up with a hurt received
in the pit. He turned to the window with a smile as the gay cavalcade
passed, consisting of carriages, in which appeared to be all the
relations of the bride, and half those of the bridegroom. Her father,
the great Mr. Vivian, perhaps struck the most awe into the beholders,—he
was such a very great man!—though he himself seemed less aware of the
fact than other people. He had once sat next the Duke of Wellington, and
been asked a question by him. He had given a luncheon to the Duke of
Northumberland; and the Duchess had taken his arm in the Assembly-room
at Newcastle. He was a very powerful man in the Trinity-house; and had
had an audience of the First Lord of the Admiralty once upon a time in
London. Mr. Vivian himself would have been surprised to know what a
great man he was. One sort of proof of the fact was now offered him. The
surgeon of the colliery,—also a great man in his way,—arrived in the
distance just in time to learn what an event was taking place on the
road below, in the passage of the bridal party. This gentleman had an
earnest desire to be appointed surgeon to the Trinity-house, and had
long wished to distinguish himself in the view of Mr. Vivian. He did so
now, though not exactly in the way to secure a presentation to the
office he sought. He urged his grey pony forward, that he might be
within reach of Mr. Vivian’s notice, if the carriages should stop to
allow the rector to make his acknowledgments to the people. The pony did
not want urging, except when it was in one peculiar position, of which
it was by no means fond—in the middle of a waggon-way, bestriding the
twirling cable by which the waggons are worked. While standing thus, as
horses in that neighbourhood are sure to do occasionally, it required no
gentle persuasion to induce the pony to draw its hind-legs after its
fore-legs over the rope; but that effort once made, it was sure to go on
its way rapidly enough to satisfy the most impatient rider. So it was on
the present occasion. The animal leaped down the ridge, dashed over the
black level which lay between it and the colliery, and ended by shaking
off his master, and giving him a roll in the dust, in full view of the
wedding party. The surgeon’s purpose was doubly answered. Not only had
he distinguished himself before Mr. Vivian, but the carriages stopped,
and opportunity was thus afforded for requesting the patron’s interest
at the Trinity-house. Poor Mr. Milford was, however, too dusty, too much
out of breath, too anxious about his runaway pony, to give a very clear
account of his wishes and his claims; and the matter ended with his
handing his card to the patron, and receiving permission to call on him
in Newcastle.
Three men now appeared with the recovered pony, holding its head as
carefully as if it was likely to start off without the rest of the body.
Four women held open their doors, with an invitation to the gentleman to
walk in, in order to being dusted and brushed; and a score of children
gathered round to point out a torn coat-flap, a burst elbow, and a bent
hat. Somewhat annoyed and ashamed, the gentleman turned into the house
of the patient he came to visit, where Mr. Severn was still standing,
looking upon the bustle before the door.
“Sit down, sir, pray do; and don’t think of me yet,” said the patient,
looking compassionately on the panting Mr. Milford. “My wife will get
you a glass of gin, sir, to cheer your spirits.”
“And if,” said the wife, “you would take a word of advice, sir, you
would turn your left-leg stocking, to prevent any more harm coming of
the affair.”
Mr. Milford gravely accepted both the gin and the advice. It was a great
object with him to make himself popular with the people, even when the
curate was by. He protested that he did not regard the misadventure, as
it gave him the opportunity of paying his respects to the bridegroom,
whom he honoured for his public spirit about the Deep Cut.
“When he was a lad at school,—and none of the brightest, sir,—how little
anybody thought what a great man he would be in the church! It was his
father’s being ruined that destined him to the church. Nobody would have
thought of it else.”
“Indeed! I should have supposed the long and expensive education
necessary to a learned profession would have been the last a ruined man
would have thought of for his son.”
“If he had had to pay the expense himself, certainly, sir. But so much
is provided already for a church education, that, if a gentleman has
interest, it is one of the cheapest ways that he can dispose of his
sons, they say. But for this, they would never have thought of making
Master Miles a clergyman, to judge by what I used to see of him as a
boy. The big boys used to plague him, as he plagued the little ones; and
the master and he plagued each other equally. If Miss Vivian had seen
what I saw once, she would hardly have married him, altered as he is.
The boys had buried him up to his chin in the middle of the play-ground,
and when he screeched and roared, they let him have one arm out to beat
the ground with. He did not then look much like a youth thinking of
giving himself up to holy things.”
“Nor many another school-boy, who has yet turned out a good clergyman,”
observed Mr. Severn gravely. “I have often thought that much harm is
done by expecting ministers of the gospel to be different from others
when they are men; but I never before heard that they must be a separate
race as boys.”
“Nor I, sir. I only mean that one would not expect a stupid boy, with a
bad temper, to choose the church, if left to himself; and its being all
settled just when his father fell into difficulties makes one doubt the
more whether it was pure choice.”
“Certainly,” observed the surgeon, “there are helps to a clerical
education which we, in other learned professions, should be very glad
of;—a great many pensions, and exhibitions, and bursaries, and such
things, which we poor surgeons never hear of.”
“These are all evidently designed,” Mr. Severn observed, “to provide for
religion being abundantly administered in the land. It is piety which
founded all these helps to a clerical education.”
“No doubt, sir; but that does not lessen the temptation to enter a
profession where so much is ready to one’s hand. It is plain to me, sir,
that many are drawn into this department who would not otherwise think
of it; and nothing will persuade me that they do not, so far, stand in
the way of those whose hearts incline them to make the gospel their
portion. I do not scruple saying this to you, Mr. Severn, because you
are one of those who have not profited, but lost, by the plan. You will
hardly deny, sir, that after all your toil and expense at college, one
that cares less about his business than you has stepped into the living
which you might have had if there had been no other rule of judging than
fitness for the work.”
Mr. Severn could not allow this kind of remark, even from an old friend
of his family. How was the broken arm? When did Mr. Milford suppose the
patient might be allowed to go to his work again?
“I beg your pardon, I am sure, sir,” observed the old friend of the
family; “but I meant no offence to you or to Mr. Otley. All I was
thinking of was, that in the church, as everywhere else, the best rule
for having everything done well is ‘a fair stage and no favour;’ and,
indeed, I know no case where favour is likely to do so much harm and so
little good: for those that have their profession most at heart are just
those who are most likely to struggle on, gleaning only what the
favoured ones have left them, and giving up half the fruits of their
labour to those who would not have thought of coveting them, if the
piety of which you were speaking had not offered them a bribe.”
“I am afraid you think the gospel in a bad way in this country,”
observed Mr. Severn.
“I am afraid of something worse,” interposed the surgeon: “I am afraid
you are a dissenter, my good man.”
“By no means, sir. I am such a friend to the church, that it vexes me to
see spurious labourers bribed into her, and true labourers shut out, or
kept under. I believe that there is so much need of the gospel, that the
need will always be naturally made known and supplied; and that it is
only sported with when it is made a pretence for getting people on in
the world who are much more fit to get on in inferior ways. I do not
much admire the piety of those who call in strangers to take shepherds’
hire, and doom the true pastor to be only a shepherd’s dog.”
“A dog!” cried the surgeon, excessively scandalized. “My good man,
consider what you are saying: it actually amounts to calling Mr. Severn
a dog.”
“There are two ways of calling a man a dog,” observed Mr. Severn,
smiling: “the one in the sense of fidelity, and the other of
brutishness. It is the compliment, and not the offence, that our friend
means.”
“And there is a third sense,” pursued the old friend of the family. “The
dog is fed from the leavings in his master’s wallet, and who will say
that the curates have any thing better for their care of the fold? Has
not the law again and again ordered that the curate should be made at
least equal in condition with the common mechanic? and has the law ever
availed?—And why has it not? Not because the higher clergy are by nature
a hard-hearted set of men; not because the people disregard the
interests of the keepers of the fold; but because theirs is one of the
cases which no law can reach. We should see the folly at once of the law
ordering that every pitman should have good wages, if there were twice
as many pitmen as there is a natural call for; but we wonder at the
plight of our poor clergy while we tempt idle and foolish men into the
profession, to engross the hire of those who take 20_l._ a year because
they must starve if they waited for 100_l._; though 100_l._ would be a
grievously scanty recompense for the toil and expense of an education
like theirs.”
“It would be all right if there were no dissenters,” observed the
surgeon, who had now satisfied himself respecting the sit of his coat
flap, which had been mended by the silent and thrifty hostess. “These
dissenters are shocking people. They ought to be put down,—interfering
with the church as they do.”
“Friend Christopher, over the water there, would tell you that the
church interferes with the dissenters, seeing that they have two
churches to support, while we have only one.”
“But only conceive how they interfere with the religious administration
of the country! Do you mean to say that if all their dissenting clergy
were swept off, there would not be more room for our clergy?”
“As there is no reason to fear any such desolating plague as that must
be which would sweep off so great a body of men,” observed the
clergyman, “our endeavour should be to bring our operations into harmony
with theirs, that——”
“Harmony with dissenters! And this from a clergyman!” cried Mr. Milford.
“Why opposition?” asked Mr. Severn. “To say nothing of the folly of
opposition to a body which outnumbers ourselves, the times are past for
men supposing that the interests of religion can be served by strife, or
opinions changed by opposition. Since nobody thinks of getting the
dissenters back into the church by fighting, it only remains for all
professing Christians so to co-operate as that they may not interfere
with each other, to the scandal of their common faith.”
“If every church supported its own clergy, Mr. Milford, and if no one
church held out inducements to double the number of clergy wanted——”
“But we hear perpetually that there are too few of the established
clergy for the number of souls to be taken care of.
“See if there would be, if every clergyman by interest were transformed
into a clergyman by choice. All I ask is, that there should be no
interference in the matter,—no coming between the religious wants of the
people and the ministering to those wants;—whether that interference be
on the part of government, or of a corporation, or of pious people who
unconsciously curse the church as often as they offer a premium upon
false pretension and interested service.”
“Come, come, my good patient, let me examine your arm, now I have
recovered my breath a little. It will be a kindness to get you back to
your work in the pit, if this is the manner you talk when out of it. We
shall have the rector coming to call you to account for flat blasphemy.”
“Is it blasphemy to complain that Christ’s church is not tended as
Christ would have it? Is it blasphemy to point out how it is that he has
not due honour? Is it——”
“No, no,” said Mr. Severn. “Mr. Milford knows, as few out of his
profession can know, where dwells blasphemy, and where piety: in how few
places the one; under how many roofs the other. He sees men under the
severest trial,—that of varied suffering; and if the natural language of
complaint sometimes meets his ear, he will tell you how much oftener
looks of patience and words of resignation are to be found in the sick
chamber. He knows that if you sometimes say what he may think unwise,
you have not, in your suffering, given vent to that which is
irreligious.”
Mr. Milford was ready to testify to his patient’s Christian bearing
under his late trial. When he spoke of blasphemy, it was only in the
sense in which he often heard it used about those who speak against the
church.
“One would think,” said Mr. Severn, “that if any were jealous for the
church, it should be myself, to whom the church is my all, in every
sense. Yet I declare that what we are wont to call blasphemy is much
seldomer any irreverence to God than discontent with man’s doings. As
soon as any of man’s established ways of honouring God are found to be
faulty, the cry of blasphemy is raised against the fault-finder, though
the glory of God may be his aim as well as his plea. It was once
blasphemy to blame the Pope. It is now blasphemy to hint that poor
curates might be better used. This sort of blasphemy may now, however,
be found in every other house within these realms; while the real
blasphemy is rare, very rare. Milford, how many blasphemers have you met
with among your patients? I, for my part, never saw one,—out of the
gin-shop. Within it, two legged creatures are no longer men, however
they may still use their tongues to bless or curse at haphazard.”
Mr. Milford tried to recollect. He could remember only two instances;—
one of a man in the extremity of pain, suddenly blinded by a horrible
accident in the pit. This was no case, as sanity was lost for the time;
but it made the beholder’s blood run cold so that no other such instance
could ever occur without his remembering it, he was sure. The other was
also a case of agony,—of the agony of disappointed hope. A very poor
man, with a sick wife, had been promised work, and the promise was
broken. He reviled heaven and earth when he saw his wife sinking from
want. But at the first moment of her revival he repented, and the last
of his sorrows to be got over, was remorse for his impiety.
“You would find it less easy to reckon the cases of piety you meet with,
in and out of the pale of the church.”
“There are so many degrees of piety, one hardly likes to say that any
body is wholly without. It is my lot to be much with sufferers; and
while there are some aged folks, and strong men laid low, who give
themselves much to psalms and prayers, it is rare to meet with parents
who do not tell their children that it is God’s hand which is upon them
for good, or with children who do not more or less strive to lie still
under their sickness, ‘like a dumb lamb before the shearer,’ as their
parents say.—There is one such, sir, one of those patient little ones,—
as you can testify, for I know you have held him in your arms for many a
half hour.”
“What! little Tim? I have often wondered what is passing in that poor
child’s mind, when he has lain breathing his feverish breath on my
bosom. Other children, while thus lying still from feebleness, turn
their eyes from the clock to the kitten, and from the flickering fire to
follow their mothers’ or sisters’ doings about the house. This child’s
eyes roll in vain, but not the less patiently does he watch his pain
away. I often wonder what is working in his little mind.”
“The thought of my pony will work in his mind the next time he is ill, I
fancy,” observed Milford. “Do but see how he pats him, and feels out the
mane, while his mother lifts him up?”
The hostess remarked that the best smiles seen on Mrs. Eldred’s face of
late had been won from her by this little lad.
Mr. Milford gave Mr. Severn leave to indulge the child with a ride
backwards and forwards, while he finished his business with his patient.
Mrs. Eldred could not be persuaded to make herself quite easy about the
pony’s quietness, and go back to her work. She lingered, and turned, and
watched, as the animal sauntered to and fro, with a man at the head, a
dozen boys at the heels, Mr. Severn holding on little Tim, and Tim
himself now quietly laughing, now encouraging his steed as he heard
others do, and for ever turning his head from side to side, as if
gathering by that motion all the floating sounds which could tell him
what was passing.
A sound soon came rushing instead of floating through the air, so
vehement as to make the still restless pony rear bolt upright, jerking
the child into Mr. Severn’s arms, and calling upon the man at the head
for all his energies. The cry, loud as it was, came from some distance,—
from the spout or staithe where a waggon was at the moment being emptied
into a keel. A crowd soon collected on the spot, and it became certain
that the shouts were of a joyous character. There was talk of “the
gang,” “the tender,” “the pressed men”; but the tone was one of triumph,
and cries of “Welcome!” were intermingled.—Mrs. Eldred heard part, and
believed every thing,—every thing that in another moment would have been
absurd;—that the king had had mercy upon her,—(as if, alas! he knew her
heart-sorrow;) that peace was made on purpose to restore a father to her
children; that Eldred had bid successful defiance to the gang, and was
upheld by the whole people; that the world had been, somehow or other,
turned upside down for her sake. She pushed her way, with an exulting
countenance, among the crowd. She met Ned Elliott, the lame pitman, and
passed him by; and she passed by several other returned captives;—
Croley, with the weak right arm, and Pullen, the sickly steersman, and
Gilbert, the half idiot, who was allowed to lounge about the works. All
these she pushed past, and, from the extreme end of the little pier,
looked down into the boat which had landed them. There was no one else.
Eldred was neither a cripple, nor sickly, nor foolish; he was of the
first order of labourers, and therefore snatched from his voluntary
occupation, and made a slave. Most who had leisure to observe their
heart-stricken neighbour gazed in silence; but the half idiot snapped
his fingers, and blurted out that her husband was far down towards the
south by this time, but he sent his love, and——
With a long moan,—the cry which conveys a refusal to endure, the poor
woman pushed her informant from her with a force which startled him. She
wrenched hands, shoulder, apron, from all who would have held her to
comfort her, and cast herself against one of the waggons,—not to wrestle
with her sorrow, but to let herself be overcome by it. Mr. Severn and
one or two others kept themselves in readiness to aid her when it should
not be an insult to speak to her. Her passion was moving,—but far less
so than that of another sufferer who silently walked away with face
unhidden, and steady step,—unable to join in the feelings of those about
her, but not expecting them to regard hers. She quickened her pace, but
showed no sign of anger when laughter overtook her,—noisy mirth which
her heart loathed.
“A fine bargain his Majesty had of you! Eighteen pounds a piece you cost
him. I wish him joy of you.”
“They might have let us have some of it, though.”
“Never mind that, now you are back. Come, lads, wish the king joy of
catching cripples at eighteen pounds a piece, just to be let go again!”
“I wish the gang may be within hearing. Give them a shout, lads! Now for
it!”
“Whisht! whisht! O whisht! I cannot bear it!” shrieked the miserable
wife. “O, you barbarous——you mocking wretches——O, whisht, I tell ye!”
Shrill as her voice was, it was not heeded by many, who were all too
much used to its shrillness. Her fellow sufferer regarded it, and turned
back to beckon her away.
“Leave them alone! They don’t heed. Why should they?”
“Heed! Nobody heeds me. Nobody ever cared for me but one, and he is
snatched from me. Nobody heeds me——”
Something fumbling with her apron caught her attention at this moment.
Little Tim clung to her knees, trembling, and his face convulsed, as she
had seen it before, when her voice took a certain tone, of which she was
not otherwise conscious. She parted his hair on his forehead, lifted the
child, and put his passive arms around her neck, and went home as mute
as he.
CHAPTER III.
GROWN CHILDREN’S HOLIDAY.
Though it was not true that nobody heeded Mrs. Eldred and her interests,
her querulous complaint to that effect was in some degree excused by the
substantial injuries she underwent, through interference with, and
mismanagement of, the industry of all who were most dear to her. Nothing
was further from the thoughts of society than injuring this poor woman
and the thousands of others who suffered with her; yet it is certain
that if an account had been drawn between her and the administrators of
public affairs, her charge against them would have been a very heavy
one.
Her husband was carried off by force to pursue a calling which he
dreaded and detested, instead of one which was his choice, and in which
he had been prospering in the bosom of his family. Instead of standing
at his oar while passing up and down the placid Tyne, he was compelled
to face the belching cannon, and encounter toils and wounds, or death,
on the tossing sea. Instead of going forth to his chosen labour with a
jest, and returning with a whistle, he was driven reluctantly to his
enforced duty, where he brooded over his wrongs till his countenance
grew unaccustomed to a smile. Instead of catching up the chorus of the
loyal songs he was wont to hear among the shipping at Shields, he now
preserved a gloomy silence as often as King George was mentioned, seemed
to have lost much of his scorn of the French, and turned a quick ear to
any word that was dropped about America.
Adam felt himself interfered with, too. If he fulfilled the
apprenticeship made by law the necessary condition of advantages which
should be the right of every industrious man, if of any, he must not
only be denied the power of working for himself for three years after he
had become as capable of working as he could ever become, but the very
advantages to be obtained by the sacrifice must be forfeited if he
carried his labour to any market but one, where it might or might not be
wanted. If he did not fulfil his apprenticeship, he had no chance in the
same town with those who did, and must go somewhere else to work out the
rights of citizenship by like arbitrary means. His privileges were also
as precarious as they were arbitrarily gained. If he lost a limb,—and
all the limbs are needed in rope-making,—he could not turn to another
trade without forfeiting his rights. It was believed that he could not
even take his place at the wheel, instead of walking along the line;
for, as it had been decided that turning a grindstone was not cutlery
work, it might be proved that turning a wheel was not rope-making. There
was no knowing what he might give his hand to, however resembling his
regular employment; since the law told saddlers that the girths were no
part of a saddle; that cutting the hoofs of a horse was the business of
neither the farrier nor the smith; and that though a wheelwright may
make a coach, a coachmaker may not make a wheel. What he did know was,
that, however frequently and skilfully the law of apprenticeship might
be evaded, he could not, under that law, obtain a settlement, be a
master, take apprentices, or exercise his calling in his native place,
without having served an apprenticeship of seven years. Many and many a
time he wished that rope-making had been a business unknown to Queen
Elizabeth; or that he had not been born in a market-town; or that the
inventors of trade-corporations had been carried out of the world before
completing their invention; or that he had been early transplanted to
Manchester, or Birmingham, or some other of the happy places he had
heard of, where the trammels by which he was bound are never spoken of
but as a matter of marvel. He just contrived to have patience to finish
his term of apprenticeship, that he might possess himself of the rights
it would secure. His temper and character had suffered much under the
pretended control and actual license of the latter part of his term; and
fluctuations of health or trade might rob him of his privileges any day;
but he was wise enough, by Effie’s help, to take them while they could
be had. While doing so, he could have treated any inquirer with a good
deal of rough eloquence about the policy and the duty of leaving free
scope to all labour to find its field of exercise and its reward.
Cuddie had his list of grievances, too—some actual, and others
prospective,—all arising from his being meddled with by powers whose
duty it was to take care that he was let alone in his industry. Cuddie
was just seventeen; and, young as he was, he was liable to be taken from
a peaceful to follow a warlike occupation on the seas. In the present
day, he would have been safe till twenty-one: then, he was the lawful
prey of any pressgang he might happen to encounter. When he should
become capable of earning wages, there were many impediments to his
working freely and being freely paid. There is actually an Act of
Parliament to enforce all colliers in the Tyne being loaded in the order
in which they arrive,—as if the coal-owners were not fit to judge for
themselves of the state of their trade, and to proportion the number of
ships employed to the demand for coal. Thus, if there were too many
ships occupied, instead of some being laid by till they were wanted,—all
being favoured by law with a certain portion of employment,—it must
often happen that the depression falls upon the whole trade. Cuddie
would thus be exposed to wait for his turn, however many colliers might
be in the river, while his master was losing by the detention in port.
No such regulation is found necessary in the Wear. The masters there are
exempted from the irritation of being trammelled under the pretence of
protection. Then, again, Cuddie must not presume to throw an ounce of
coal from his ship into the lighter in the Thames. This office is the
privilege of the coal-whippers or heavers, to whom the good people of
London are obliged to pay 90,000_l._ a-year for a service which, in the
outports, is performed for nothing. Everywhere but in the Thames the
crews of colliers discharge the cargo; but within the dominion of the
corporation of London they are not at liberty to undertake the work,
even though they would do for 2_d._ what a privileged coal-heaver asks
1_s._ 7_d._ for doing. Cuddie must not only see the coal-trade
discouraged by the enormous unnecessary charges laid upon the article by
the Corporation of London, but he must be prevented selling his labour
in discharging the cargo, to those who would be eager to purchase it, if
they were allowed by those who have naturally no business to interfere
in the bargain.
The evil of such meddling extended also to another member of the family—
Effie, in her dwelling by the river side. Out of the interdiction to
sell coal by weight came manœuvring and bargaining as to the mode in
which coal should be measured. As it was found that large coal measured
one-third more when broken to a certain extent, and nearly double when
broken small, it became the interest of the shippers to buy coal large,
and break it down before delivering it to the retail dealers in London,
who, in their turn, broke it down further, to the injury of the
consumer. Out of this management came the arrangement of screening the
coal at the pit mouth; and out of this arrangement came the accumulation
of small coal, which, instead of spreading comfort through a thousand
dwellings, spread smoke and ashes over the neighbouring fields, injuring
the harvests, and ruining some of Walter’s plants and vegetables. The
owners had no choice but of choking up their own works, or subjecting
themselves to the penalties of a nuisance, incurred by the very act of
wastefully destroying their own property. Thankful would they have been
for the services of some such strong-backed demon as the ancient stories
tell of, who would have cleared off at night the refuse of the labours
of the day, transporting it three or four hundred miles to those to whom
this refuse would have been wealth. Happily, this long-protracted
absurdity has been abolished. It has at last been agreed no longer to
sacrifice the interests of the original producers and the consumers of
coal to that of the carriers and middle dealers, and coals may be sold
by weight. But, for long after Effie married, her husband had sad tales
to tell at his dinner-hour,—sad sights to show in the summer evenings of
the devastation which the neighbouring burnings had caused in his
garden. Compensation, scanty and capricious, was given; but it was asked
with trouble and pain, and bestowed unwillingly. It seems strange that
while ruling powers are laudably anxious about the execution of public
works,—to make their roads level and their pavements smooth,—they should
so industriously perplex the paths of industry, and roughen the media of
commerce. It is a bad thing to lame horses, and break carriages, and
weary human feet; but it is infinitely worse to discourage industry, and
to compel men to jostle and injure each other where there is naturally
room for each to greet his neighbour kindly, and pass on.
Uncle Christopher looked one evening with concern, on a hedge which as
much deserved the name of verdure as the shrubs in certain small squares
in London, the morning after a fire in the neighbourhood. He was on the
point of setting out on his long talked-of voyage to London, on the
business of his patent; and he wished to take a parting view of the
premises he had not quitted for twelve hours together, since the day he
was made a ferryman many years before. Strongly as he was persuaded that
Walter and his young wife were, as yet, in danger of a much fiercer fire
than any of the vast number which could be seen round the horizon on a
dark night, he preserved such an affection for the results of their toil
that he was full of wrath that mortal hands should kindle a fire against
them. As he here shook his head mournfully over a row of shrivelled
anemones, and there groaned at seeing the young asparagus waving grey
instead of green, any brother leaders would have supposed that they were
children of grace to whom all this sympathy was given. At the bottom of
his grief lay the thought that, if this nuisance continued, Walter would
be compelled to carry his gardening skill elsewhere. He could not carry
the ferry with him, and then would come a sore struggle to choose
between his son and his occupation. Walter would have been highly
flattered if he could have looked into his father’s heart, and seen how
equally the struggle was maintained.
“I see the boat coming for you, with Cuddie in it—below the bend of the
river there,” said Effie; “but you will have time to look at my young
apricot, and tell me whether you think there is any chance of its
bearing.”
She received a very broad hint about setting her heart upon favourites,
but was comforted notwithstanding, by an encouraging opinion about the
apricot: Walter was further told that he might just mention the
asparagus and the apricot together in the first letter he should write
after hearing of his father’s arrival.
“Why, father! do you really mean to write to us?” cried Walter, in
joyful surprise.
“No, no,” said Effie. “He means that we shall hear from Cuddie of his
getting to London.”
“I mean that if, by grace, I get safe through the dangers of the deep
waters, I shall give you the opportunity of being thankful for me.”
“And when will it be, father?”
“The times are not in our own hands. Effie, you say the boat is to be
chiefly your charge.”
“Yes, father, you know I have practised ferrying a good deal lately, on
purpose.”
“She is more sure of her oar than I,” observed Walter.
“What of that? Why do you puff her up? Except One guide the boat, as
well as build the house, we labour in vain, with our weak arm of flesh.”
“Indeed I am not puffed up about ferrying,” said Effie. “I know I cannot
do it half so well as you. But I hope to improve before you come back.”
“May my office be given you in full! My outward oar is only a sign,
child,—a type of the corresponding office which I hold, of setting souls
safe over the abyss where they are like to be drowned, without some
servant of mercy, like myself, to lodge them on plain ground. Think of
this, my dear, as you pass to and fro.”
Effie could honestly promise not to forget this new interpretation of
her office. Cuddie’s skiff was now very near, and he was seen waving his
hat as a signal; and immediately his uncle Christopher began assuring
his son and daughter of the strength in which he went forth, and the
faith with which he looked for protection by the way, and a safe return.
There was a tremor of the hands, however, and a quaver of the voice
which belied what he said, and gave an idea that he felt much as other
quiet, elderly people feel on going forth, after years of repose in
their own habits, to be startled by new objects and jostled amidst a
busy new world.
“I believe he would give both of us for Cuddie at this moment,” observed
Effie to her husband, as they stood in the ferry-boat from which the
skiff had just pushed off, with the would-be patentee sitting bolt
upright, nursing the model of his invention, and looking the picture of
resignation. “I do not know what he thinks of Cuddie’s spiritual state;
but it is my belief that he would part with us both rather than give up
Cuddie just now. However little he thinks of young people, he looks up
to Cuddie as his main dependence in the ship and on landing. I am sure
he does; and I doubt whether he would have gone at all without Cuddie at
his elbow.”
Walter thought so too, but wondered what was to be done about the matter
of the patent, if his father should still be nervous. Cuddie could not
help him there. It was to be hoped he would get warmed for the sport,
when he should be once more mounted on his hobby.
“Come, let us go up into the garden,” said Effie. “We can watch them
longer there.”
Much longer,—past the bend of the river, and then once more at the next
curve, till nothing was to be distinguished amidst the grove of masts.
“Gone! gone!” cried Effie, putting her arm within her husband’s, and
tripping up the slope with a step much more like a dance than any she
had ever indulged within the notice of uncle Christopher,—as she had not
yet cured herself of calling him. “Now, Walter, tell me. If we have to
remove, where shall we go?”
“You seem to like the idea of flitting, Effie.”
“Fond as I was of this place before I came to live in it, you are
thinking. Why, as for the place, I love it as much as ever, as we see it
now,—with these laburnums hanging in this corner, and the acacia growing
up to be a veil and not a blind. When I saw the moon through it last
night, I thought it would be a sin ever to leave the place. But——”
“But there is something about it still that prevents your being happy
here.”
“O no, no. Nothing to prevent my being happy. I am very happy,—happier
than you will ever be, I am afraid, Walter; for, try as you will, you
always find something to be fretted and anxious about, though you take
more and more pains to hide it, even from me.”
“I am sure,” said Walter, very seriously, “I grow less and less anxious
and distrustful;—ever since——not exactly ever since I knew you, for we
knew each other before we could talk; but ever since I knew——”
“Very well; I understand what you mean; and you began describing that
moment to me one day, just as if I knew nothing of it myself. O, Walter,
do you really think there are any people that have passed through life
without knowing what that moment was,—that stir in one’s heart on being
first sure that one is beloved? It is most like the soul getting free of
the body, and rushing into Paradise, I should think. Do you suppose
anybody ever lived a life without having felt this?”
Walter feared it might be so; but if so, a man missed the moment that
made a man of one that was but an unthinking creature before; and a
woman, the moment best worth living for, and that which joined her past
life to the nothing that went before, and her future life to the heaven
of realities that was to come after. But one thing he grieved to be sure
of;—that this moment was not received as the token from God which it was
designed to be; but in far, far too many cases, put away and denied. If
this was done as a duty, and altogether as an act of the conscience, it
only remained to be sorry that such a putting away was a duty,—but he
was more than sorry,—he was ashamed and angry to witness the expectation
in so many that they could bring back this moment whenever they
pleased;—that they could call upon God to breathe into their hearts as
often as they could bring their worldly interests to agree with His
tokens.
“It seems to me,” said Effie, “that though God has kindly given this
token of blessedness to all,—or to so many that we may nearly say all,—
without distinction of great or humble, rich or poor,—the great and the
lowly use themselves to the opposite faults. The great do not seem to
think it the most natural thing to marry where they first love; and the
lowly are too ready to love.”
“That is because the great have too many things to look to, besides
love; and the lowly have too few. The rich have their lighted palaces to
bask in, as well as the sunshine; and they must have a host of admirers,
as well as one bosom friend. And when the poor man finds that there is
one bliss that no power on earth can shut him out from, and one that
drives out all evils for the time,—one that makes him forget the noonday
heats, and one that tempers the keen north wind, and makes him walk at
his full height when his superiors lounge past him in the streets,—no
wonder he is eager to meet it, and jogs the time-glass to make it come
at the soonest. If such a man is imprudent, I had rather be he than one
that first let it slip through cowardice, and would then bring it back
to gratify his low ambition.”
“And for those who let it go by for conscience’ sake, and do not ask for
it again?”
“Why, they are happy in having learned what the one feeling is that life
is worth having for. They may make themselves happy upon it for ever,
after that. O, Effie, you would not believe,—nothing could make you
believe what I was the day before and the day after I saw that sudden
change of look of yours that told me all. The one day, I was shrinking
inwardly before everything I had to do, and every word of my father’s,
and everybody I met; and was always trying to make myself happy in
myself alone, with the sense of God being near me and with me. That
other day, I looked down upon everybody, in a kindly way;—and yet I
looked up to them too, for I felt a respect that I never knew before for
all that were suffering and enjoying; and I felt as if I could have
brought the whole world nearer to God, if they would have listened to
me. I shall never forget the best moment of all,—when my mind had
suddenly ceased being in a great tumult, which had as much pain as
pleasure in it. I had left my father getting up from breakfast, and I
was just crossing yonder to take up my rake, when I said distinctly to
myself, ‘she loves me;’ and heaven came down round about me that
minute.”
Effie could have listened for aye; but the cry was heard from below—
“Ferry!”—and she must go. Her husband “crossed to take up his rake,” and
found occasion to remark at the instant that Effie tripped along as like
the Effie of _that_ day as if no day had intervened. Only her face
showed the difference; and that was as if a new and higher spirit had
come down to dwell in her.
On her return, the question recurred,
“If we have to leave this place, where shall we go?”
“Somewhere near the Deep Cut, it is my opinion. There will be much
custom of all sorts there, when it is opened as a place of trade.”
“But there will be collieries near, and more burnings.”
“Not so as to trouble us, for some time to come. The proportion they
have been in the habit of burning here, you know, is about 20 per cent.
It will be some time before this becomes of much consequence in a new
situation; and we will choose our place carefully. Besides, I cannot but
think that, before long, everybody will see the folly of making such
waste, for the sake of selling coal by measure instead of weight. If so,
there will soon be an end of the burning.”
“And you think garden stuff will be much in request in the Deep Cut.”
“No doubt. There will be such a settling of people about that beautiful
sluice, that there will be room for more gardeners than one.”
“And for ropemakers, among other craftsmen. I think Adam had better go,
and make new ropes for the new ships that will carry away the new
coals.”
“Ah! if he was settled down with us in a place where he might work
prosperously for himself, he might prove steadier than his mother
expects he will.”
“Beside us,—not with us,” said Effie. “You would not think of having any
one to make a third again, would you? How comfortable every thing is
this evening, while we are alone!——But how do you think your father will
get on by himself?”
Walter had never entertained the idea of being of much consequence to
his father, from the day of his childhood, when he was surprised at
being searched for, at night-fall, among the haycocks, to this very
afternoon, when he was full as much astonished to learn that his father
meant to write to him. He agreed, however, that his parent ought not to
be left, unless the destruction of the garden should make the removal a
matter of necessity.
“If we must go, it will be a happy chance that such an opening offers in
the neighbourhood.—What could the rector mean by throwing difficulties
in the way?”
“He knows best; but I suppose he has some such fears as I have heard
certain gentry had when turnpike roads were first introduced into this
country. There were petitions in those days from the proprietors of land
near London, that turnpike roads might be forbidden in distant counties,
for fear there should be too much competition in articles of
agricultural produce.”
“They have managed to have their own way, and regard their own interests
pretty well since, for all the competition and the roads,” said Effie.
“They seem to have been of the same mind with Queen Elizabeth, when she
sent out orders to put a stop to the increase of London. They all seem
to have fancied that whenever some people gain, others must certainly
lose.”
“If this is not our rector’s notion, I do not know what is. But the fact
is, whatever this company may gain by opening the Cut is neither more
nor less than what is given them in return for the benefit they bestow
upon the payers. As for the coal-owners on the Tyne, they are as safe as
they ought to be. If a demand rises up for all the coal both parties
send out, every body will prosper. If not, those who can send out coal
cheapest will have the most custom, as is perfectly fair.”
“And there is not the same reason for jealousy as there might be if one
great rich man had opened this Cut at his own expense, to serve himself
alone, and get all the coal trade to himself. I do not say that he would
not have the right; but it would account for a jealousy which would be
ridiculous when shown towards a company.”
“No man in our borders is rich enough to do such a work as this. It is
the proper undertaking for a company; and I am heartily glad parliament
has given them all the leave they asked for. In my opinion, it is the
business of a company to do that which individuals have not wealth or
power to achieve; and it is the duty of government to smile on
undertakings which favour the industry of the people, as much as to
frown on the selfish who would get its grace to enrich themselves at the
expense of others. In this view, I think parliament as just and kind in
countenancing the Deep Cut, as Queen Elizabeth was unjust and unkind in
giving patents to her courtiers for the sale of soap and starch, and
other things that everybody wanted.”
“Courtiers selling soap and starch! What sort of courtiers could they
be?”
“Why, not exactly like the gentlemen who are about the king in these
days. But those courtiers did not sell their soap and starch with their
own hands. They sold their patents to companies of merchants, who, of
course, laid a pretty profit on the articles, as the patentees had done
before; and so the people were cheated.”
“Cheated indeed! we are better off than they, to be sure.”
“Yes, indeed; it cheers one’s heart to think how free our industry is
left in comparison with what it was, and how the fashion is passing away
of enriching the few at the expense of the many. Great things have been
done for the people, indeed; and it almost makes one ashamed to complain
of the restraints on their industry that yet remain, when one thinks of
what they once were.”
“Nay, I do not see why that should be, as long as there is any mischief
which may still be done away. If it is really a hardship that
handicraftsmen in particular places, and of particular kinds, should be
tied down to a seven years’ apprenticeship, and that masters, in certain
crafts, should be allowed to take only a certain number of apprentices,
and that the Corporation of London should make the London people pay
shamefully dear for their coals, and hurt our fields and gardens, and
that men should be taken from a prosperous occupation to follow one that
they hate, like my poor father,—it is our duty to complain till the
government sets these things right, however grateful we may be for what
they have already done, and however we may be better off than our
fathers. It would be a sad thing indeed to have to pay any price for our
starch that our Duke of Northumberland might choose to sell it for.”
“And the practice spread to so many articles! When the list of them was
read over, (I have heard my father say,) in Queen Elizabeth’s parliament
house, some gentleman called out to ask if bread was not among them: and
when everybody stared, he said that unless the matter was looked into,
there would be a monopoly of bread before the next parliament.”
“And was there? I suppose nobody dared.”
“Nobody: but wondrous things were dared in the reigns that came after.
King Charles, who managed to offend his people in more ways than almost
any king I ever heard of, took 10,000_l._ from some soap-merchants for
allowing them to manage the soap manufacture all their own way, and put
as high a price upon it as they pleased. They gave him further eight
pounds for every ton of soap they made, so you may guess how dear it
came to the people.”
“That was a very different sort of company from the one which has
managed the Deep Cut. This last is making coals come cheap to the
people. I suppose you think they have a fair right to any profits they
may make, however large.”
“This particular company, certainly; because they do not offer
advantages which people must have, and which cannot be had in any other
way. There being so many other coal works, and such outlets as the Tyne
and the Wear not far off, will prevent the company making such
over-grown profits as the people would be right to grudge: but the case
is different in different sorts of undertakings. If a company opens a
road, and charges too high a toll, another company may open another
road, and cause a competition; but if a company opens waterworks, and
possesses all the springs within a certain distance, almost any price
may be put upon the supply: and therefore I think government should,
while giving privileges, take care that they do not overgrow just
bounds. A man cannot change his water-merchant as he can change his
baker or brewer; and therefore, if government makes him a customer of
the mighty water-merchant, it should take care that he is not
overcharged. I have heard my father talk a good deal about these things.
He has looked much into them,—not only because he particularly dislikes
being overcharged, but because his thoughts of taking out a patent have
led him to learn all he could about privileges given by governments to
trade and to ingenious undertakings.”
“Ah, I was thinking of him when you talked about those patents. I never
found out, from your manner, that you thought ill of what he is gone to
seek?”
“Nor do I, if it answers its purpose. There is all the difference in the
world between a patent to sell what lies before everybody’s industry,
and a patent to sell what a man has invented by his own ingenuity, and
perfected at his own trouble and expense. If a patent could secure to a
man the sale of his own article till he has reaped the reward society
owes him, I should think very highly of a patent: and it is only because
it is so difficult to secure this, that I have any doubts about my
father’s trip to London. But it is a hard thing to manage. A world of
difficulties are sure to crowd in whenever legislation is brought to
bear directly upon industry. There are so many interests to be
considered, and it is so impossible to foresee how and where they
interfere, that my wonder is how governments can like to meddle as they
used to do. One would think that they would be glad to let industry
alone, to find its own channels and nourish its own harvests. Indeed the
time does seem to be coming when legislatures will leave off troubling
themselves to meddle with those whose interest lies in being let alone.”
“Do you think it really signifies very much to so many trading people as
there are in this country whether government lets them alone, or meddles
here and there?”
“Why, Effie, it signifies altogether,—as much as possible. How many
trading families do you fancy might be affected by government
interference, in one way or another?”
A few hundred thousand, Effie supposed.
“Do you know that there are not more than 160,000 families in Great
Britain deriving any income at all from trade, manufactures, and
professions?”
“No more than that? And, to be sure, many of these must be so rich that
they can very well bear such interference.”
“Not so many,” replied her husband, smiling. “Fewer than 4000 have more
than 1000_l._ a year; and not more than 40,000 have an income above
150_l._ a year.”
“Leaving 120,000 with an income below 150_l._ a year. These last must
feel the effect of restraint very much; and I think, if there are no
more than you say, that all must feel it more or less.”
“And through them many that have nothing to do with trade,” observed
Walter, looking sorrowfully at a favourite shrub which was already
dropping its yellow leaves. “What a mistake it seems, Effie, to be
lighting those red and yellow fires within sight of this brimming blue
river, and the sloping banks, that look so green in the evening sun!
What a cruelty it seems to be sending puffs of smoke over the water to
touch and shrivel this hanging laburnum, that you put into the ground!”
Effie well remembered the planting of that laburnum. When she and Walter
were children, and used to bring wild strawberries from the wood, and
plant the roots at noon, shading them from the hot sun under a suspended
pinafore; when Effie used to dig a pond which would hold no water, and
Walter a grave in which he used to lie down to see what being buried was
like; when they mounted the wheel-barrow to look over the hedge, and
count how many left legs were jerked backwards as the keelmen pulled the
oars in the keels that passed;—in those old days, somebody had given
Effie a few lupin seeds, which Walter carefully planted, while Effie
stuck in a twig—dead, as she thought—to mark the spot. This twig burst
into leaf, and grew into the tall laburnum which was now waving its
branches against the blue sky; and every time that Effie had looked upon
it, a feeling of complacency had come over her, as if she had performed
a feat—given life to a tree, or been the occasion of a miracle. There
was scarcely a growing thing in Walter’s beautiful garden that she would
not have devoted to the smoke in preference.
The smoke looked surly and encroaching as it rose and spread itself in
the darkening sky, after the sun had gone down. It did not, however,
deter Effie from going into the midst of it, when it was really too late
for Walter to work any more, and he could attend to the ferry while she
just ran to tell her mother that uncle Christopher was gone; that Cuddie
and he had been watched in safety a good way down the river, and that
tidings of their further voyage might be soon expected by letter.
CHAPTER IV.
EPISTOLARY GODLINESS.
The letter arrived quite as soon as expected.
“My dear son and daughter,
“By the blessing of Providence we got safe down the river, though the
press of vessels near the port is very awful. I strengthened my heart
when we crossed the bar, and the port and the shipping seemed to be
going back from us, and to leave us in the arms of the Lord on the wide
sea,—now growing very chilly. My eyes were mercifully directed to
Tynemouth for comfort,—not from the light in the light-house, which
however began to wax bright, but from seeing how many goodly red houses
have sprung up on the cliff, while the dusky priory stands a ruin;—red
houses where there are some who take God’s word rightly to heart,—while
in the priory (where this blessed work never went on) there is martial
music sent forth over God’s sea, as sure as ever the moon rises out of
it. This music of horns I myself heard, and I saw the bonnets of women,
and the uniforms of fighting men, over the parapet of the castle yard.
But when the word has rightly spread from the new meeting-house, there
will be no place left in Tynemouth for scorners. It pleased Providence
to try us much during the rest of the voyage. I found the night very
cold, even before I was wallowing in the fearful sickness which was laid
upon me. The wind also failed, which was a more merciful appointment
than if it had blown a great storm. Nevertheless, when we were pitching
about, and making no way, I found the collier but a poor, narrow place,
and very dismal from the strewings of coal, insomuch that I turned my
face to the wall, and found no comfort; but was strengthened to keep an
eye on my invention, which, owing to good packing, received none of the
harm which I desired might be averted from this apple of mine eye. I was
in deadly fear for it during the adventure in which Cuddie was——”
“Cuddie was——something or other. I can’t read the word, Effie,” said
Walter. “I wish it was written a little plainer.”
“And I wish he would say a little more about Cuddie,” observed Effie.
Her husband went on reading.
“But though hinderances were planted round about us, they did not touch
my invention, to destroy it. The time spent in going up the river seemed
long, especially from Cuddie not being at hand.”
“Why, there again!” exclaimed Effie, “What can he mean? I declare it
frightens me, Walter.”
“No need, Effie; see how the letter goes on about business matters, and
working up the river! Ah! here it is accounted for,—Cuddie’s not being
with him.”
“We went up the river as slowly as if we had been set as a watchman
therein; and that because the seamen were tossed in spirit through fear
of the press gang, and would not work the vessel; insomuch that none but
a very old man and a young apprentice lad would go up with us to the
mighty city. The master was obliged to hire protected men, and to pay
them three pounds a piece to work us up, which being charged on the
articles we carried, caused our cargo to be of great value before it was
landed. It is wonderful to the discerning eye to perceive how small
things work out large ones;—how, from this single need of protected men,
there arises a tax upon coals to the inhabitants of London of much more
than a million of money. Nor was this the last hinderance. Some lighters
came about us, with willing men ready to empty our cargo upon the wharf.
Grace was written in the face of one of these men, and the master knew
him for an honest and a skilful youth. Yet it was not permitted to
employ him, though he would have performed the work for less than those
who came after him. These last were lightermen who had been apprentices,
and had wrought for seven years on the river. They charge 2_s._ for the
work which others would gladly have done for 8_d._ I never learned
before how far better men that have been apprentices are than other men.
I hope the citizens of London are duly aware of this truth, as they have
to pay so very dearly for it. But these favoured men use their favour in
a way which is not seemly,—persecuting and driving out those that would
also have boats and yield service. I much fear that as some of the elect
misuse their grace in divine things, those who are elected into
corporate bodies misuse the powers which were given them first, as means
of protection against the barons and rich men who used to oppress the
trading and working men in a very ungodly manner. These corporations are
now too much like those barons of old; for they oblige those who consume
to pay for the good of those who are privileged—him who burns coal, for
the great profit of the lighterman. It should not be forgotten that
another office of corporations was formerly, and is now said to be, to
warrant and verify the quality of whatever is sold; but it seems to me
that the best warrant is in the interest of him who produces, knowing
that there shall be no wings of favour under which he may take refuge;
and buyers who are fairly treated will be sure to verify for themselves.
Indeed the one thing which these unhallowed bodies seem now to make
their business—as they therein find their interest—is to entangle the
paths of trade to all others, while they keep a wide and smooth road to
themselves. This is plain to me in the particular of measuring the coal,
which, in old times, might not be done without the permission of the
Lord Mayor, and has always been since permitted as a profitable work to
the Corporation of London. A profitable work it is—no less than 8_d._ a
chaldron being the charge, out of which only 5_d._ goes to the labouring
meters, and the other 3_d._, mounting up to 20,000_l._ a year, goes into
the treasury of the extortioners. Verily the hire which is thus kept
back cries out, not in favour of the meters—for they are well paid—but
of the artizans who owe no such gratitude, in respect of measuring coal,
as that they should pay 20,000_l._ for it. Why, also, should they pay in
their use of coal for the improvements which the Corporation chooses to
make in the city? If money was thus raised to build up what the awful
judgment of fire had laid low, in the time of the profligate Charles,
why should it still be raised, without the choice of the citizens, who
must pay the orphan’s tax of 10_d._ a chaldron till 1838, to improve the
approaches to London Bridge? The citizens, I fancy, would much more
admire the improvement of having coals cheap, and would the more
willingly pay out of what they could better spare for the improvement of
their streets and bridges. It was marvellous indeed to see so common an
article as coal growing into importance as it ascended the river, and
after it was landed, so that it had gained in its passage from just
below London Bridge to the cellars of the houses, as much value again as
it cost altogether in the North. It was marvellous indeed to hear of all
the dues charged by the Corporation, considering that they have no more
natural business with the citizens’ coals than you or I;—the metage, the
orphans’ dues, the market dues, the Lord Mayor’s groundage, the grand
metage, the coal-whippers;—no wonder we see in London what strangers
from the north are surprised to see,—women stooping in their path to
pick up morsels of coal, and tradespeople measuring out a scanty measure
of fuel to their servants, while hundreds of chaldrons are being wasted
within sight of your garden.——Of my invention, it is not good to speak
at this time and in this manner. Much care has been laid upon me
respecting it; it being told me by some who know, that not one patent in
a thousand is good for any thing, owing to the difficulty of making it
out, and the easiness of invading it. As there is also no security
whatever between the time of asking for my patent and its being sealed,
you will discern the reason of my not now enlarging on the particulars
which you are doubtless craving to know. But to put a bridle on the
cravings is a great matter, and I commend it to you in this affair,
trusting to be soon brought face to face; though when, it is not for
blind creatures like us to determine.”
“How wonderfully he has enlarged about some matters!” cried Effie, “and
nothing yet about Cuddie, or whether they have learned any thing about
my poor father.”
The letter went on,
“Having thus told you some few things about myself—(though much remains
respecting the manner of my entrance upon this great city, and the
blessing which has been given upon my Bible-readings in this house,)—I
pass on to matters of a different concernment,—though but little time
remains before I must close up my large packet, written in the evenings
for the solace of my mind. Having, I say, told you of myself,—except
that the left wrist, which was weak, has become somewhat stronger,—I
proceed to mention that I have not met Effie’s father anywhere in the
streets, as she desired I would mention, if such a thing should happen.
It is my purpose to inquire for him whenever I shall be able to go down
to the river side. But when I hear what things are done by the
press-gangs, I have little doubt in my mind that he disappeared in the
same way as Cuddie; which circumstance remains to be related.”
“Mercy! mercy!” cried Effie, “what _does_ he mean about Cuddie?”
Walter ran over very quickly:—“not a seaman to be seen”—“women wringing
their hands on the quays”—“mutiny on board a tender”—“a porter and two
shopkeepers carried off”—“shameful expense”—“every unwilling man costs
several hundred pounds”—“loss by injury of trade“—“dark night,”—“O, here
it is! Dear, dear! Cuddie is impressed, sure enough! How shall we tell
your mother?”
Effie snatched the letter, and read.
“It was a dark night, so I cannot give a very clear account of what
happened,—besides having been for the most part asleep,—which was a
great mercy, as I might have been more alarmed than a chosen Christian
needs be. Besides, they might have taken me, but that I look older, I
believe, in my night cap than in the comeliness of my day attire. By the
blessing of God, I escaped; but my trust well nigh failed me when I
heard a voice waking me with the cry of ‘Uncle Christopher! O, uncle
Christopher!’ I had very nearly given place to wrath when I heard that
cry from over the side of the ship; but on thinking further, it grieved
me yet more that Cuddie, of whom I began to have hopes of grace, should
have leaned, in such an hour, on a broken reed like me. But I feel his
loss much, as he was a great help to me; and there is no knowing when he
may come back. I have not forgotten his cry, and his fellow apprentice
says that never struggle was seen like his, when the gang, having stolen
on board, while almost every one was asleep in the calm, laid hold of
him by head and heels to carry him away. He cried out his mother’s name;
but it has since occurred to me that he may meet his father somewhere
abroad; though, to be sure, the world is so wide that they may very well
miss each other.”
“The air is wider,” said Effie, in a hoarse voice, “and they may meet
there,—both murdered in the same battle.” There was a little more about
Cuddie.
“It was a very calm night, as I said; and before I went to sleep again,
I heard a little splash in the water. It was certainly from the king’s
ship, and the news spread that it was Cuddie who made the noise,—sliding
down the cable, some say to try to get back to us, while others believe
that he sought to drown himself. If he were indeed so given over to
Satan, it may be well for him that he is in trouble, paying the toils
and perils of the body for the sin of the soul. You may tell Effie that
I prayed for him before I went to sleep.”
Effie was in no condition graciously to acknowledge her father-in-law’s
benevolence. Pale, cold, and trembling, she sat in the sunshine which
streamed upon her from the window, looking like a wretch whom the ague
had stricken. Walter had no time now to attend to his father’s further
consolation about the fact that the coal trade can man a navy on an
emergency, and that one coal owner’s possessions alone cause above two
thousand seamen to be in constant readiness for the king’s service.
Neither did he read the concluding account of himself, or of his
father’s notions of him; of his having been in his childhood a bubbling
fountain of iniquity, in his youth a spring yielding sweet and bitter
water, and even yet not past being wholly purified. This last hopeful
hint was unregarded in the sight of Effie’s grief.
It is difficult to imagine now what social life could have been in those
old despotic times when the practice of impressment was general, and the
king could, by the very law of allegiance, dispose of every man’s wealth
and labour as he chose. It is difficult to imagine what comfort there
could have been in daily life when the field labourer did not know, as
he went out at sunrise, whether he would be allowed to return to his
little ones at evening; when the artizan was liable to be carried off
from his work-shop, while his dinner was cooling on the board, and his
wife looking out for him from the door; when the tradesman was apt to be
missing, and not heard of till some king’s messenger came to ransack his
shop of whatsoever his Majesty might be graciously pleased to want; and
when the baron’s lady watched from the terrace her lord going off to the
boar-hunt, and the thought darted through her that he might not greet
her again till he had hunted Saracens, or chased pirates, over many a
strange land and sea. Then, all suffered together, in liability, if not
in fact. All suffered in fact,—whether impressed or not; for all suffer
when property is rendered insecure, and industry discouraged, and
foresight baffled. Nobody now questions this. Nobody denies that it was
right to exempt class after class from such compulsory service; and, so
long ago as the time of Charles I., it was found necessary to emancipate
soldiers from this tyranny,—though there were not a few to predict that
no British king could ever again raise an army,—that England must from
that day bid adieu to victory, and royalty to a throne. Yet, a more
wonderful thing remains than the fame of Blenheim and Waterloo, and the
actual existence of an English monarch—the fact that some are found in
the present day to argue for the enforcement of this tyranny on a single
class, when all other classes have long been relieved from it; to argue
about the navy as their forefathers argued about the army;—that
Britannia will no more rule the waves,—that there will be no more glory
in a sailor-king, no more hope for a maritime people, when impressment
is done away. Why so? If the service is pleasant and profitable,—as
those maintain who see little hardship in impressment,—there is no need
of compulsion to make men enter it,—even on the briefest emergency,—to
judge by the universal readiness to embrace what is honourable and
profitable. If the service be not thus desirable, why it is not? That
smugglers and felons should be delivered over to the king’s officers,
with the admission that five years’ service is a prodigious punishment
for their crimes; that the wages of the king’s service are low, at the
same time that the wages of merchant vessels are raised exorbitantly by
the practice of impressment; that the king’s pressed seamen are
sometimes paid once in five, ten, or fifteen years, while in the
merchant service the payment is regular; that the enforced service may
be perpetual, while all other service has a defined limit,—all this is
surely no necessary part of naval management, while it fully accounts
for the supposed necessity of getting men by force, because they cannot
be had in any other way. All this fully accounts for seamen dispersing
before a press-gang, like a flock of birds from beneath a hawk; it
accounts for their changing their names, dressing in smock frocks,
hiding under beds, and in lofts and closets; but it shames the attempted
justification of impressment. When the trial has been made of the usual
means of rendering this service as desirable as any other, (and its
natural charms are great;) when the attempt has been made to train up,
in time of peace, a supply of seamen to carry on a war, there may be
ground for argument as to whether impressment be or be not necessary. It
is wholly an experimental question, and has as yet been argued only _à
priori_. It is too serious a matter to subject to injury men’s lives and
characters and fortunes, the happiness or existence of their families,
and the industry of a considerable portion of society, through adherence
to a false mode of argumentation, and to modes of procedure too well
suited to a former barbarous age to be congenial with the present. The
more willingly and extensively society is freed from ancient restraints
on its freedom and industry, the more conspicuously stands out,
monstrous in its iniquity, the practice of the impressment of seamen.
CHAPTER V.
NOTHING BUT A VOICE.
In process of time, the Deep Cut was finished, and announced to be
formally opened on a certain day, when the tide should be favourable for
showing it off to the greatest advantage.
It was thought that a damp would be cast over the proceedings by the
present unprosperous state of the coal trade, which seemed to render it
less probable than it had at first appeared that the undertaking would
soon repay its expenses. The war still continued, and with it the
practice of impressment; so that colliers could not be manned but at a
very high cost. Wages in colliers were now just four times what were
given in king’s ships. The difficulty mentioned by uncle Christoper of
getting colliers worked up the Thames was also greater than ever; and
the price of coal rose so much that the demand slackened, week by week.
This was an awkward state of things in which to begin a grand new
experiment; but the cost of the Deep Cut had been already incurred, and
the only thing to be done was to make use of it, as fast as possible.
Some persons wondered that Mr. Otley, who loved a joke, did not make use
of this season of adversity for ridiculing a scheme whose execution he
had been unable to prevent. No light sayings of his upon the matter were
going the round of his neighbourhood; and such members of the Company as
had the honour of his acquaintance, were surprised that they had not yet
been jeered by him about the large attendance they were likely to have
at the opening, from the great number of people about the collieries who
were out of employment. But Mr. Otley was quite as loyally occupied in
another way—in attempting to draw tighter the restraints of the
apprenticeship laws, and to extend the infliction to the flourishing
towns which had grown into their prosperous maturity exempt from the
privilege, or curse, (whichever it might be called,) of a law of
apprenticeship. It was quite the fashion, just now, among loyal men, to
petition after the manner which the rector had adopted; and an opposite
fashion spread, among those who had been tripped up in the ‘old paths,’
of going down to the origin of things, and mounting up to their
consequences. These latter began to discover not only how impracticable
was the apprenticeship law of Elizabeth, how nearly it went to subvert
the common law, how it could retain even a nominal force only by
evasion; but they saw that if parliament should be prevailed on to
enforce it afresh, the next step of the loyal might be to revive the old
statutes, that he who should sell abroad sheep, rams or lambs, should
lose all he had, then part with his left hand, and for a second offence
suffer death; or that a like penalty should be made once more to visit
an exporter of fullers’ earth; or of tobacco-pipe clay, because such
clay is like fullers’ earth.
While Mr. Otley was trotting about the country, representing the
blessings that arise from compelling every merchant ship to have so many
apprentices and no more, and the advantage of keeping businesses within
bounds by allowing the corporations of towns to regulate the number of
apprentices,—that the Sheffield cutler shall take but one, the Norwich
weaver only two, hatters every where, at home and in the colonies, only
two,—while the rector was thus straining his sight into the regions of
times long past, he seemed to have no leisure for observing what was
before his eyes. Long rope-walks were extended beside the sluice; the
boat-builder’s mallet made itself heard from among the rocks; the
fisherman’s cottage began to show itself on the narrow strip of beach
below; and the last finish was being given to the rail-road which led to
the sluice. If there had been no practical evasion of corporation laws,
this supply of skilled labour would not have been in existence to answer
the demand. If all kinds of skilled labour had been subjected to
corporation laws, there would have been no liberty to settle in a new
field, without the loss of such privileges as would not have been risked
on such an uncertainty as the speculation offered at best.
The day of opening was the brightest of April mornings; and it brought
spectators from all parts of the country. Long before the Company’s
train of carriages was looked for, the fruit and gingerbread stalls were
resounding with mirth and gossip. Troops of little children, already as
black as if coal had been their plaything from their birth, were
accosting strangers, to ask for a token to remember the day by.
Business-like-looking men walked straight to the Cut, and seemed to be
computing its width and depth,—most of them expressing great admiration
of the work. To the lover of beauty there was much to admire, when he
had turned his back on the wooden bridge, and the gates, the vehicles of
those who came to see these gates swing open, and the stalls which were
but a temporary feature of the landscape. The hewn rock, raw and bright
coloured as was its upper part, was already more favourably tinted below
by its contact with the water. Small shell fish were clustered upon it,
and weed rested wherever a ledge or crevice could be found. The water in
the inlet showed the purest green, over its deep bottom of white sand,
on which a star-fish here and there was distinctly visible, and from
which the sea-anemone slowly rose, like a variegated parachute, which
astonished the watcher by its tokens of being alive. Now and then a
stray fish came in by mistake, not being aware that any sea path led so
directly into the regions of art. As such a poor wanderer darted from
side to side of the narrow inlet, striking against the rock and
bewildering itself, many a child shouted in glee from the parapet, and
ran to and fro to watch till the fish had disposed of itself, either out
at sea once more, or beneath some friendly shadow.
These new operations must have been very perplexing to the fishy tribes
in general, which might happen to pass that way. Not only was there this
treacherous Cut to beguile them landwards, when they least dreamed of
such a destination, but there was a labyrinth at sea, in the shape of
the foundations of the new pier. The young fry had not yet been taught
by their wiser parents (if indeed the parents knew any better
themselves) to avoid these piles, and the perils that lurked among them:
and young fry of a more powerful species were already kneeling on the
beams of the pier, and catching, through the interstices which were left
between the planks, a goodly prey of infant fish,—the greater part of
which were mercifully thrown over from the end of the pier. Flags waved
from every conspicuous point of the rocks and the works. A medley of
music came from the midst of the throng about the parapet; and all bore
the appearance of a new settlement as completely as if a slice of an
American shore had been once more annexed to his British Majesty’s
dominions.
On the parapet sat one of the last persons who might have been expected
to join in the festivity—little Tim. His mother had taken him to the
ferry-house, to know if any of the family thought of going, and would
take her poor boy, who was fond of doing what other people did, if he
could not see what they saw. Walter meant to go, and he readily took
charge of Tim. Effie did not quite like the tone in which this request
was made. There was a despondency in it which alarmed her, especially as
she knew that there was, just now, a scarcity of work at the pit-mouth,
and low wages to the women and boys employed there. Mrs. Eldred made so
much difficulty about accepting the little she could do for her, that to
press more upon her was certainly to offend her. But Walter feared she
was in great poverty; and when he observed how she was wasted and worn
with long looking for her husband’s return, the apprehension suddenly
crossed him that she had some design to get rid of her miseries in the
most fearful way in which impatience exhibits itself. The idea was but
momentary, however, as she had immediately referred to things to be done
by her own hands, and to be told when she should have more time to stay
with her daughter. Tim had quitted her apron, (which he continued to
hold for guidance, great boy as he was,) surrendered her for Walter, in
the prospect of this trip, and was now seated on the parapet, with
Walter’s arm about him, and apparently enjoying the bustle as much as
those who more reasonably came into it.
“Let me run along by the wall with them!” said he, struggling to be set
down. “Let me run with those boys!”
“Better not, Tim. They are only running to see a fish that swims away
faster than they can follow.”
“I know that; but I can always run along by a wall.”
And away he would go, his brother-in-law keeping an eye upon him, to see
how he defended himself from the knocks and pushes he was exposing
himself to. He managed very well, always being one of the first to turn
when others were about to do so, from his quickness in gathering up the
guiding remarks of those about him. He had generally a word for Walter
when he came back towards him.
“Walter, have you spoken to Adam yet?”
“Adam, no; you don’t suppose Adam is here, do you?”
“Yes, but I do. I am sure it was his voice I just heard from over
yonder. You will see him soon.”
And away went Tim again. The next time it was,—
“The show will soon be here now, Walter.”
“How do you know?”
“Because of the tide coming up. Don’t you hear it,—lap, lap, lap?”
“How do you know it is not going down—if you can hear it at all, in this
din?”
“O, it is quite a different sound, going out; a—a—I can’t tell you what;
but quite a different sound.”
“Poor boy!” said a by-stander. “I wish you could see how pretty the
water looks, with all the gay flags above it, and the smart people.”
“Thank you,” said Tim, and he shuffled off once more.
“Do you think that is the best way of comforting people for such a loss
as that poor boy’s?” asked Walter, who was not the person to ask such a
question, unless roused on poor Tim’s behalf.
“Why, it is what one feels, you see; and what one hears people say every
day,” replied the man.
“Well, that’s true; but I don’t think it is the kindest thing to say. If
you can give him a knowledge of what is going on, it is all very well;
but not merely to put him in mind uselessly that he cannot enjoy it. At
least, such is my rule.”
“And a very good one, I have no doubt. To be sure, to make it one’s own
case for a minute, one can hardly fancy what answer one would make.”
“Ah! it is not every one that could say, like Tim, ‘Thank you,’ and
directly run off to amuse himself.”
“Indeed there are but few; and the great thing is to find out how they
take their misfortune themselves. There are some that look as if they
would knock you down if you do but come near the matter with them; and
others shake all over, or put on a sort of affectation that is worse;
and some like to talk and be talked to about it; and others (and they
are the wisest) just take it simply and naturally, so as to remove one’s
difficulty, almost entirely.”
“Tim is one of these last,” said Walter, patting the boy’s head, as he
came near.
“What am I, Walter?”
“Heating yourself sadly, with getting so pushed about.”
“O, I’ll get cool when the show comes, and I sit on the wall again. But
if you want to go somewhere else, I’ll come any minute; only, the water
is getting so high, it would be a pity to go away and lose our place.”
“So it would. Play away, as you like.”
“Just as if he could see! He talks about the show like any other boy.”
“Ay, and you would be surprised to hear the account he will give his
sister when we go home. He picks up a world of odd things that we let
slip; and that, and his great mistakes together, make his stories very
strange ones sometimes.”
“Yet he seems easy enough to treat and deal with. A kind heart and a
little thought may do all that he wants from us.”
“And all that the others want that you mentioned just now. If we let our
good will have its way, without being held back and twisted by shyness
and doubt, we shall be sure to please people who depend upon kindness
more than any others. The only thing I cannot pardon is the giving way
to shyness when——”
“And yet I should guess you to be shy yourself.”
“Well, so I am; and yet I should be more struck with any body being shy
about helping Tim in his little devices than he himself would, though he
has no shyness. It always strikes me that when these sufferers have had
so much more awkwardness to get over, it is not to be pardoned that we
should renew their trouble with ours. But where is Tim gone now? Slipped
away in a minute! He cannot be far off; but what were we about?”
Walter cast an involuntary fearful glance down the inlet, where nothing
was happening, however, to disturb the solitary sea-gull which was very
quietly balancing itself on the surface.
“Were ye looking for the little blind lad?” asked a woman near. “He met
with a friend in the throng, and they went off together.”
In another minute, Tim merged from behind the awning of a stall, holding
Adam by the right hand, and a huge orange in the left.
“Tim said you were here,” observed Walter, “and I did not believe him.
He heard you half an hour ago.”
“Tim, what did you hear me saying?”
“I did not catch your words, but I was sure it was your voice.”
“I am glad to see you buying oranges, Adam. I suppose this orange came
out of yonder rope-walk.”
“Not it; and it is the last I am likely to buy; and I would not have got
it for any one but Tim. I am not going to lose my settlement, I can tell
you. The place that took such pains to settle me may keep me till there
is work for us all again.”
“Keep you! How?”
“There is no lack of means. There are the rates, and fine corporation
funds.”
“And plenty of your sort of work wanted to be done here, it seems. There
is a great call for rope-makers.”
“And a great call for work among the rope-makers belonging to the town.
But we of the town hold back, you observe, to see who will come forward
first and lose his privileges. For my part, I mean to hold back till I
can be a master, and have apprentices, and do things in proper style;
and then Tim shall turn the wheel, and get money like other lads. Will
you, Tim?”
Walter allowed that it was a thing out of the question to give up a
settlement in a corporate town in exchange for one in a district like
this, whose prosperity must long remain precarious. He scarcely saw how
this precariousness was to be remedied if there was a dearth of workmen
to do the business essential to the improvement of the place, while
there was elsewhere a superabundance of the very sort of workmen wanted.
If it was necessary to give very high wages here for work which received
very low wages elsewhere, it was difficult to perceive how any fair
competition was to be maintained, and the subsistence fund duly
husbanded.
“I suppose,” said he, “you may thank the law that gave you your
apprentice privileges for the low wages you have had of late, Adam?”
“O yes; plenty to thank that law for. People generally complain that it
raises wages higher than natural. I am ready to testify to its sinking
them lower.”
“Both are right, I fancy. Wages are raised, as said, by crafts being
confined to fewer hands than need be; and this mischief goes on from
generation to generation.”
“Why, yes; if they first make it necessary to be an apprentice, and then
forbid the taking more than a certain number of apprentices, it is easy
to see how many willing folks will be hindered of entering into a trade;
and those that are in it may keep up wages as long as their handiwork is
wanted. But when——”
“Ah! when the balance turns, and times are bad, wages may fall to the
very lowest point, or cease, if the craftsmen are hindered from
withdrawing some of their number, and turning their hands to some other
trade. It does seem an uncommonly stupid plan, to be sure; and when men
were beginning to get the better of it, and outgrow and step over it,
what a strange thing it seems that a clergyman, like Mr. Otley, should
be doing his best to fasten us down under it again, tighter than ever!”
“And at the very time that his lady is sending here and sending there
for articles that she cannot content herself to buy in her native place.
If the gentleman does his best to prevent his neighbours working out of
corporation bounds, the least his lady can do is to employ those
neighbours, instead of buying what she wants from a distance.”
“I think so. But what puts such a fancy into her head?”
“She complains that the workmanship of articles is inferior at home to
what it is in newer places. And if it is, who is to blame for it but
those who meddle to spoil competition, and persuade their own workmen
that they have a sure dependence otherwise than on their own skill?”
“I have heard of such a thing happening, in some strict corporate towns,
as the very gentlemen of the corporation themselves passing by their own
people to get their work done in the out-lying villages, and having it
brought in secretly. Such men are guilty, one way or another, it seems
to me. Either let them bestir themselves to have trade allowed to go
free, or submit themselves to the restraints they put on others.”
“They are full as foolish as wrong, however; for what do they do by such
management but bring so many more paupers on themselves to be
maintained? It won’t do to try to persuade their idle workmen to go
elsewhere. The masters elsewhere do not like hiring so as to give a
settlement, any better than we like being so hired. We stick like burrs
to those who fastened us upon them, and they may make what they can of
us.”
“I wonder what they think of all this in other countries.”
“In America (our seamen tell me) they laugh mightily at us for tying our
legs, and then complaining that we cannot walk. In America, they have
none of this mischief of trade corporations and apprenticeships; and how
are they the worse for their absence? If American handiworks, and the
handiworks of our own new, free towns are better (as every one knows
they are) than those of our corporate towns, what can we conclude but
that corporate restraints are bad things? I have half a mind sometimes
to step away into a free country myself.”
“A free country! As if England was not a free country!”
“It is freer than most; and so much freer than it used to be, that I
have hopes of our grandchildren seeing themselves as unfettered in their
callings as the Americans. But just now, none of us are practically
free. Everybody is ready enough to call out about poor Cuddie; and with
just reason. But my case, though not so hard an one as his, is not
altogether to be overlooked beside it. Instead of being forcibly turned
from a labour I like to one that I did not choose, there is a moral
force used to prevent my turning from an unprofitable occupation to a
profitable one. Now, the labour of a man is his birthright,—his sole
property; and any power that comes between him and its exercise is
tyranny. Never mind how it may be softened down, and disused, and in
some places nearly forgotten. As long as there is such a power lying
ready to be put forth against the labourer, that labourer is not a free
man.”
“These powers will grow less and less mischievous as time rolls on. No
corporation in the world can stand against the will of the public to be
supplied with what they want. There will be apprentices enough in
Norwich and Sheffield to keep the trade going as it should, if the world
really wants more knives and stuffs.”
“Yes, yes; and look what a list of great men we have got,—no thanks to
our trade rules! but in spite of them. Think of Arkwright, and Brindley,
and Brunel!”
“And Smeaton, and Rennie, and Watt, and Fergusson, and Hunter. These
were never apprenticed.”
“No, nor many more that have made themselves a great name. My doubt is
whether they would have had such a name if they had been kept listless
and longing,—or downright idle, from having no interest in their seven
years’ work. If,—I will not say I,—but many others, had been kept at our
education a year or two longer, who knows what we might have done in the
world?”
“Especially if you had been born in some of the spirited new towns,
which were little more than villages a hundred years ago, and now rank
far before York, and Canterbury, and Norwich, and Lichfield. As for
London itself, the most blessed day in its existence will be when its
hundred companies dissolve their monopolies, if not themselves. I
venture to say this, because we have before our eyes what has happened
elsewhere. Look at Spain, now full of corporation glories; and France,
where industry and art began to thrive from the day that her corporation
and apprenticeship laws were swept away.”
“In France, I’m told, they have made an experiment of everything, from
the worst meddling to perfect freedom. I do not know that it was ever
settled there, as it is in India, that every man must follow his
father’s profession, but they did some things almost as wise, in old
times.”
“And some with such good intentions as to afford a fine warning against
governments meddling at all with production. In one sense, to be sure,
governments influence production by whatever they do; (which should make
them very careful about every step they take.) But I now mean direct
interference. It seemed only prudent and kind to the people to make
rules about felling trees, some parts of the soil being absolutely good
for nothing unless they had trees in the neighbourhood to encourage
moisture; yet the first consequence of these rules was to prevent people
planting trees.”
“That is good; but the story of the cockchafers is better. Do not you
know that story? Some district abroad, in Switzerland, I think, was
plagued with cockchafers; and to get rid of them, the government obliged
every landholder to furnish certain quantities, in proportion to the
land he held. The landholders paid the poor people for collecting them;
and after a time it was found out that cockchafers were regularly
imported in sacks from the other side of the lake.”
“Very good. But there was one instance among many of positive loss in
France, through meddling with industry, which is a fine warning to such
men as Otley, if they would take it. Before the revolution broke the
corporation fetters of the workpeople, there could be no manufacture of
japanned hardware in France. The process requiring the art and tools of
several different trades, and that a man should be free of them all,
this kind of production was left to strangers.”
“This is very like passing a law that there shall be no new inventions;
or that every man shall follow his father’s occupation.”
“And the practice of these lawmakers agreed with their principle. Did
you ever see an Argand lamp?”
“O, yes. Not so good as some gas lamps.”
“But yet giving out three times as much light at the same cost as any
lamps that were known before. Argand was publicly persecuted by the
company of tinners, locksmiths, and ironmongers, who disputed his right
to make lamps.”
“And if they would do that, they would most likely not admit him of
their company if he had chosen to trouble himself to canvass for it.”
“Then there was Lenoir, the great French philosophical instrument maker.
He set up a little furnace to heat his metals in; and straightway came
certain of the Founders’ Company to pull it down; and Lenoir was obliged
to appeal to the king.”
“There might just as well have been a hot-bed company that would not
have let you grow cucumbers without their help; or a scare-crow company
to prevent your hanging up your old coat among the cherry-trees.”
“And here comes a company that would give you plenty of rope-making to
do, if you would leave your privileges behind you, and bring your skill
to their market.”
“Aye; and then as soon as people at home have forgotten me, and my place
there is fairly filled by some one else, and there begins to be a talk
of business falling off, I may be warned out of this field by some
frightened old woman of a church-warden, or some spiteful overseer, who
will bid me be gone to my own place. No, no. The company must make a hue
and cry for rope-makers indeed, before they will get me to pass out of
bounds. Yet, trespassing out of bounds was what I best liked to do, when
I was not my own master.—How bravely they come on, in their open
carriages, with their flags and their boughs! Well! really it is a
pretty sight.”
“Do look at Tim, with his oak bough as big as himself! He must be a fine
fellow that gave it him,—that tall lad who keeps a hand on Tim’s
shoulder to guide him. I’ll go and take his place. It is not fair that a
stranger should have the trouble of poor Tim.”
“And I think it would be a charity in me to offer myself to some of the
gentlemen as a handshaker. Did you ever see? How the folks are reaching
up to shake hands! The black pitmen, and the keelmen, with their brown
hats in the other hand, and their wives holding up the little ones that
will be pitmen and keelmen some time or other.”
“And Mr. Severn too! Look! there he is on the box of yonder barouche,
smiling and nodding so cheerfully, thin and worn as he looks.”
“Aye: when we make our many trades as free as we boast we already are,
Mr. Severn will get something like a recompense of his toils. In those
days, if he but lives to see them, it will happen always as it happens
by accident to-day, that he will be full in view of the people that are
always ready to welcome him, while Otley slinks away, to follow his own
devices out of sight.—Stand back! stand back, and make way for them! Now
is your time to look to Tim!”
The gates were now beginning gently to open one way, and the little
bridge to swing round the other way. The din was hushed,—music,
laughter, children’s cries, men’s shouts, the whining of dogs, and the
tramp of horses. All was still, except the ripple and lapse of water, as
a thousand eyes were bent to watch the first vessel that ever passed
this way, noiselessly turning the point from the open sea, and gliding
along the Cut. It was the first time that the gazers had ever had an
opportunity of looking down into a vessel so immediately beneath their
feet, (except during the few moments required for shooting a bridge.) It
was a singular sight,—some of the tackle almost sweeping the rocks as it
passed, and its bulk casting a black moving shadow on the bed of pure
sand below the green water. The smutty-faced crew looked up to the
thousand eager faces far above their heads, and gave a silent signal
that all should be ready to cheer when the gates should be passed.
“There it goes!” said Tim, softly, as he sat on the parapet, with
Walter’s arm about his waist, and the vessel passing just beneath him.
“There it goes!” he whispered again, turning his head in due proportion
to its progress.
“Does it graze the rocks or the sand?” asked Walter, wondering at the
boy’s accurate knowledge of what was going on.
“No: but it makes a great stir in the air. I feel the wind upon my face.
Tell me when I may speak, Walter. I have something to tell you.”
A vehement shout now rose on all hands, to put an end to Tim’s scruples
about speaking amidst a dead silence. All the seamen present pushed,
cuffed, and scrambled to get a good sight of the vessel’s farther
progress when she had passed the gates. While the rivalry of blue
jackets and gruff voices was going on, Tim uttered his strange
communication.
“Walter! Walter! I am sure Cuddie is here.”
“My dear boy, what a fancy!”
“Ah! it seems an odd thing; but I heard Cuddie’s voice, just as I heard
Adam’s before.”
“You know Adam’s voice well, hearing it so often as you do. But,
remember, it is four years since you heard Cuddie’s; and I am afraid it
may be more than four years before you hear it again.”
Well! Tim thought it better to be only _almost_ sure.
“Besides,” said Walter, “there is no king’s ship near us now. All the
king’s ships are at the wars.”
Tim had no more to say. The next thing that happened was an outcry on
the skirts of the crowd. Everybody thought it was an accident, and
rushed towards the spot, or, in order to inquire, stopped others who
were doing so. It was only some thief or quarrelsome person, or other
kind of vagabond, that the constables and their helpers had failed to
catch. The fellow had got off. Who was he? what had he done? everybody
asked. Nobody at a distance could tell, and nobody near would tell. It
was hinted that, whatever the offence might be, it was of some popular
kind; and that the offender had been helped by the people to escape. The
incident took a firm hold of Tim’s imagination. He cared no more about
what took place during the next hour than the many spectators present
who belonged to the class that, having eyes, see not. When the parapet
was left to him and Walter, when the tide had gone down, when the train
of carriages had disappeared, he was still plying his brother-in-law
with questions about his conjectures: and when at length advised to go
to sleep in his unaccustomed lodging in a public-house, he went on to
weary the sleepy Walter with—
“I should think he will lie in the fields to-night, while we are so snug
and comfortable here? If he has murdered anybody, perhaps a ghost will
come and scare him? I wonder whether his wife or his mother know where
he is? Every foot that stirs, he will think it is the constable come to
take him up. Do you know, I have been thinking whether that might not
have been Cuddie’s ghost that I heard to-day. They say many seamen are
shot in these wars, and if we should find that Cuddie was killed just at
the very time——What o’clock do you think it was?”
Walter now replied in no sleepy tone. He was not a believer in ghosts,
but his mind was interested, more than he could justify, in Tim’s
persuasion that he had heard Cuddie speak, Tim was so seldom mistaken
about these matters! Yet the war was still prolonged, and if poor Cuddie
was not ere this at the bottom of the sea, he must be too far off on its
surface for the fairy Fine-Ear to have caught the tones of his voice, if
Fine-Ear had been this day among the crowd.
CHAPTER VI.
SLEEPING AND WAKING.
While Walter was settling this matter with his reason, Effie was
sauntering in his garden,—his garden, of late as much improved in beauty
and productiveness as the coal-trade was depressed. Sorry as Effie was
that her mother was not able to get full work, she could not help
rejoicing in the vigour and verdure of Walter’s favourites. Her half
wish to go away had subsided into perfect contentment with remaining,
though uncle Christopher still abode with them. His contempt for them,
in a religious view, signified less as they gathered more years upon
their shoulders. It became easier to act as if his censorious eye was
not upon them, and to take whatever he might do and say as being his
way. He enjoyed exceedingly all the creature comforts that Effie put
before him, though he could not think of spoiling her by any appearance
of acknowledgment of her care, till she should allow him to cater for
her spiritual good. He ate his little fowl, or sipped his evening
cordial, full of pitying amazement that Effie would not let him lead her
devotions, or grant her a gracious permission to sing psalms with
himself and his few chosen friends.
It was a prayer-meeting of this kind which kept Effie abroad late this
evening. The common room was occupied, and it would have appeared
ungracious to shut herself up in her chamber. She therefore carried her
work into the arbour after tea, and sat sewing, and looking abroad, and
plucking little sprigs of one fragrant thing or another, till every bird
within hearing had dropped off from the choir, and left nothing to be
heard but a stray grasshopper, and nothing to be done but to cease
poring over her stitching and take a turn in the green alley. There she
turned and turned again, looking for the young moon and her attendant
star among the fleecy clouds that now parted opportunely, and now melted
into a mass, just when she wanted to see what was behind them. Thinking
that she could catch a reflection of the crescent in a bend of the
river, she ran up the hedge, and leaned over as far as she could,
without falling, head foremost, into the ditch on the other side. She
was very near so falling when a rustle in the same ditch startled her.
She jumped back, expecting to see something follow her. Nothing
appeared, and she satisfied herself that it was only a dog or a stray
pig, or a sheep about to leave a tribute of wool on the briars, in
return for a bite of particularly delicate grass. She turned again along
the alley, and amused herself with planting erect any props that might
have declined from the perpendicular. While doing so, she perceived the
faint, yellow light of a glow-worm on the bank, which her husband gave
her for the indulgence of her own fancies about primroses and blue
hyacinths. Eagerly she kneeled down to watch the creature, and played
with it for some time, now with a gentle finger-tip, and now with a
stout blade of grass. The psalm from within doors meanwhile came,
softened by distance, into a not unpleasing music. Effie’s mind and
heart joined in this music more than her uncle would readily have
believed. She invariably laid aside amusements and light thoughts when
it reached her; and sympathized all the better in the devotions of the
company from their psalms being stripped by distance of all that
appeared to her harsh and unduly familiar in their sentiments and
language. She now instantly arose, leaving the worm to find its way back
to its covert; but—straight before her—stood a man, peeping at her
through the hedge. He ducked, the moment he saw that he was observed,
and she could get no answer to her questions and remarks—“What do you
want?—If you are looking for the ferry, it is just below, to your right
hand.—If you want our people, you had better come round to the gate.”
She retreated towards the house, to shelter herself under the sounds
that issued thence. She had no fear for her safety while in such
neighbourhood; but she pondered the probability of the garden being
robbed. There was little in it at present worth removal; but she thought
she should do what she had done before when left in the guardianship of
her husband’s goods—sit up in the star-light, and look out upon the
garden, till her uncle, who was an early riser, should be heard stirring
in the morning. This measure she presently decided upon; and the
decision brought in so many thoughts of chill, and drowsiness, and
startings, and nervous fancies,—with all of which her watchings had made
her well acquainted,—that when she went back to the arbour for her work
and implements, she snatched them up as if a thief had been in hiding
there, and fled home as if he were following at her heels.
Uncle Christopher had just left the house with his guests, in order to
ferry them over to their own bank of the river. Before putting the
circle of chairs in their places, and depositing the hymn-book on its
shelf, Effie closed and locked both doors of the dwelling. She had not
been seated at her work a minute before there was a tap, and then a push
at the door which opened into the garden.
“Who is there?”
“Effie, Effie, let me in!” said a low voice which thrilled through her.
For the first time since her childhood, a superstitious terror seized
her; and she sat staring, and neither spoke nor moved.
The lattice was not quite fastened, and she saw it open, and a face
appear within it which produced the same effect upon her as the voice
had done.
“O, are ye Cuddie, or are ye not?” cried she, shading her eyes from the
candlelight, and gazing intently.
“Yes, I am Cuddie,” said he mournfully, as he entered by the lattice.
“But it is hard to believe you are Effie, so unwilling to let your own
brother into your own house.”
This was said,—not like the Cuddie of old, but so like her mother, that
Effie no longer doubted.
She poured out a multitude of questions,—Whence did he come? When did he
arrive? Was he here for good, to follow his own business again? And had
her father returned also?
He put aside all her questions, desiring only, for the present, that she
would help him to enter the house when uncle Christopher was gone to
bed. Uncle Christopher would be back in five minutes, and there was no
time to lose in settling how——
“But you are not going away before you have spoken to me, or given one
look that I dare to rest upon. Why, Cuddie——”
“Well, Effie, I am not going to meet uncle Christopher; I can tell you
that. There he lay, muttering his cant, the night I was carried off, and
did not so much as put a foot out of bed to help me. He may talk of how
many souls he has saved. He has lost one, I can tell him; and if I ever
meet him,—and it will be only by chance,—I shall tell him——”
“There he is!” cried Effie, hearing the rattle of the chain by which the
boat was fastened. Cuddie instantly let himself out by the back door,
intimating that he should return to be admitted, as soon as his uncle
could be supposed asleep. This event was not long in happening, as Effie
was not, this evening, very lavish of remarks which might tempt him to
linger over his pipe and glass.
When Cuddie re-entered from the garden, his first act was to desire his
sister to fasten the door at the foot of the stairs, and hang up blinds
against both windows, he standing in the shadow till this was done.
Effie timidly objected to blinding the front window which looked down
upon the ferry; it was not yet too late for the possibility of
passengers. This seemed to serve as a new reason; and she was obliged to
hang up her shawl.
“If you want to know the reason,” whispered her brother,—“I am a
deserter. Hush! No noise! or you will be the death of me, as Adam was
near being this morning.”
“Won’t you sit down?” said Effie,—as she might have spoken to an
intruder from Bedlam.
“Effie, you always used to say what you felt, and all that you felt. Are
you changed too? Come; tell me what you are thinking.”
“I think I am in a dream, and do not know whether you be Cuddie, or a
fancy of my own. O, Cuddie, I have always loved you next to Walter, and
looked upon you as the pride and hope of the family; and as often as I
have started from sleep, these four years past, it has been with
dreaming over again your being taken at dead of night, and especially
your slipping down the cable. The worst moments I have had from the time
you rowed away from this ferry, that bright evening, are those between
sleeping and waking, when I saw you cold and altered before me, and I
could not by any means make you smile. I never,—no I never believed this
last would come true. And now,—and now,” she uttered between her sobs,
“you know what I am thinking about.”
Cuddie cast himself on the ground, laid his head on her knee, as he had
done in many a childish trouble, weeping so that he could not for long
be persuaded to look up.
“You are not altogether altered, I see,” said Effie, striving to speak
cheerfully. “You are not come back the round-faced, weather-brown seaman
I always fancied you would be, but instead, far too much as if you had
been famished. Yet your heart is the same.”
“No, no.”
“O, yes. But you have known want lately, and you are discouraged. I much
fear you have known want.”
“’Tis not that which has bowed my spirit. Effie, I am altogether
heart-broken.”
“Do not dare to say that. We must bear whatever Providence——”
“But it is not Providence that has done it; it is my king and country,”
cried Cuddie, starting up, the flush fading from his face, and leaving
it of a deadly paleness. “If it had been the will of Providence, Effie,
to take a limb from me, I would have made my way home on crutches, with
a stout heart, and none of you should have heard a bitter word from me.
If lightning from above had scorched out my eyes, I would have taken Tim
for an example, and been thankful through the live-long day. If the
fever had laid me low on shipboard, I would have been a man to the last,
knowing that my corpse would make the plunge before midnight. But to
have one’s king and country against one is what is enough to break any
man’s heart that has ever loved either of them.”
“To be sure it is. What have they been doing to you?”
“Things that I do not hold myself bound to bear, as if they were done
according to the will of Providence, and not against it. They first
turned my very heart within me with carrying me away, as if I had been a
black slave; carrying me away from all I cared about, and the occupation
I could most willingly follow. Then, when I had little spirit for my
work, and many bitter thoughts to distract me in it, and hurt my temper,
the next thing they must do is to flog me. What surprises you in that?
Don’t you know that impressment brings flogging? Carry away a man as a
slave, and next thing you must whip him as a thief, and that brings
hanging like a dog. Yes, they flogged me, and my head grew down on my
breast from the time that scornful eyes were for ever upon me. This
morning I have been hunted by my countrymen,—by many an one that I knew
when nobody dared look scornfully on me. It was my own brother’s doing
that they were set on. My country has but one thing more to do with me;
and that is to make away with me for desertion.”
“Then you do not mean to do it yourself, thank God!” cried Effie.
“No, Effie. I have been tempted many a time, from the night I slipped
down the cable, as you mentioned, till this very afternoon, when I hid
in an old coal-pit, and was but too near throwing myself below. I shall
make a trial of what is to be done by going where there is no king, and
where one may forget one’s country. There is not a saint in heaven that
could make me forgive them; but there may be ways of forgetting them. I
will make the trial in America.”
“Then we shall lose the best brother, and my mother the child she has
looked to through every thing, and your king a servant that may ill be
spared during this war.”
“Never mind the king. If he knows no better how to get his subjects to
serve him——”
“Hush, Cuddie! You a seaman, and talk so of your king!”
“I am not a seaman now. However, say the country, if you will: if she
knows no better how to get served than by first making slaves of her
free-born men, let her do as well as she can when they leave her to turn
against her. As soon as she takes a man’s birthright from him, his duty
ceases. Mine was at an end when they carried me off, neck and heels, and
turned me, in one hour, from a brave-hearted boy into a mean-souled
man.”
“No, no.”
“Yes, yes, I say; but though it was so, they had gained no right to
disgrace me. That flogging might possibly have been thought justifiable
by some people, if I had entered the service of my own free will: as I
did not, they had no more right to flog me than the showman yonder has
to goad the lion he enticed into his trap. If that lion should ever get
out a paw to revenge himself, it would go hard with me to help the human
brute.”
Effie was confounded. In casting about for an argument wherewith to stop
this method of discourse, she could find none out of the Bible.
Christian forgiveness of injuries was her plea.
“There is the difference, certainly, between the lion and me,” said
Cuddie: “the Bible is out of the question in his case. It shall be
minded in my own, so far as this:—I will not lift a hand against my
country, and I will go where I may possibly learn to forgive her; but I
cannot do it here, Effie,—even if my life were safe, I could not do it
here. My country loses a stout-bodied, willing-hearted member, and I
lose all I have ever lived for; but there the mischief shall stop, for
me.”
“Aye, for you; but how many more are there lost in like manner? I think
some devil, in the service of our country’s enemies, has come to blind
our eyes, and harden our hearts, and make us a sad wonder for the times
that are to come. Will men believe such a story as yours,—such an one as
my father’s,—a hundred years hence?”
“Yes, they will easily believe, because they will look back to what the
service now is, and how it is regarded, and contrast these things with
what, I trust, will be the state of things in their day. They will look
back and see that merchant seamen are now paid more than they need be,
because naval seamen are paid so much less than they ought to be, and
made subject to violence. If, as I hope, in those days, the one service
will be as desirable as the other, (or the king’s, perhaps, the most so
of the two,) it will be found that our colliers will man a navy at the
first call; and then men will believe that when it was otherwise, there
was some fearful cause of wrong that came in between the king and his
seamen.”
“It does seem, indeed, as if there was no lack of loyalty among our
people, when their minds are not turned from their king by some strange
act; and we hear few complaints of the service from those who go
willingly to it.”
“There is none that would be liked so well, if it had fair play. Besides
the honour of keeping off the enemy, and the glory of helping to
preserve one’s country, there is so much variety, and so many
adventures, and so many hundred thousand eyes looking on, that a
sea-life in his Majesty’s service has many charms. But honour is a
mockery to one’s heart, unless it is won by the heart; and what are
varieties of adventure to him whose body may be roving, but whose spirit
sits, like a gloomy, unseen ghost, for ever by his own fire-side?”
“He who goes of his own will has most likely made provision for those he
has left behind; and then the thought of them will come only when it can
animate him, and never to discourage him.”
“Oh, you should see the difference between the volunteers and certain
slaves like me!—how the one are impatient with the captain till he gets
boldly out in search of the enemy; and how the other would fain have the
vessel creep for ever along the shore, that he might have a chance of
stealing out, and forgetting his present disgraces by daring a worse
reproach still. You should see the difference of their patience on the
watch, and of their courage before a battle.”
“I am sure I should not care to show bravery in a danger I was thrust
into against my will, as I should in one that it was my own choice to
face. I should be apt to get away, if I could.”
“My wish would have been just the opposite, that there might be an end
of me, Effie, if I had happened to be in a battle since I was flogged:
but the battles I was in happened first; and if I was not a downright
coward, I had no spirit to fight as a freeman would. It cooled my blood,
and kept down my heart, to remember the night when they took me in my
sleep to defend others when I was myself defenceless.”
“If it was so with you,—you, who always used to walk first when, as
children, we had to pass neighbour Topham’s bull,—you, that were ready
to go down doubtful places in the mine when nobody else dared, and that
brought out the soldier, just drowning in the current by Cullercoat
Sands,—if it was so with you, how much more it must happen with others,
not naturally so brave! But, Cuddie, do sit down quietly, and tell me,
as if you were telling of being punished for bird-nesting, what it was
that they blamed you for on board ship.”
“Blamed me! They——”
“Yes, yes—I know; but what was it for?”
“I did nothing well, all the time I was there. Whatever might be going
on, I was always thinking of getting away;—just the same, whether I was
on watch, or going into the middle of the fight, or hiding my face in
the blanket, when laid by under my dog punishment. There was enough to
flog me for, if the quality of my service had been all that was looked
to.”
“You that did everything well that you set your hand to, from the time
you were a child! But the getting away you managed cleverly, I dare
say.”
“A good many contrive to do that, notwithstanding all the difficulties
that are put in the way of desertion, and the punishment that visits
it.”
“That punishment cannot always take place, if so many desert. There
would be a constant putting to death.”
“Why, yes; considering that above five thousand able-bodied, and four
thousand ordinary seamen have deserted within two years, the execution
of the whole is a sight that men would be rather unwilling that angels
should look upon.”
“Mercy, mercy! Only think of them all in one crowd before a judge,
pleading how they were torn, many of them, from their busy homes, and
that these same homes were the temptation to desert.”
“Think of them before another kind of judgment-seat, Effie. Where would
the balance of crime be laid then?”
“I think no one would dare to carry there any quarrels that grew up out
of war,” Effie replied. “Whatever noise of war there may be on this
earth, I fancy all will be glad to keep utter silence upon it in another
state.”
“Aye, if they could. But how is it to be kept out of knowledge? How am I
to account for my temper being bitter, that once was kindly; and my
habits being lazy, that once were brisk; and my life being short and
troublesome to everybody, that might have been long and busy for others’
good; and my death being fearful, like an eclipse, when it might have
been as the shutting in of the summer twilight? How am I to account for
all this, without any plea of going out to war on the high seas? Why do
you look at me so, Effie? I cannot bear being so looked at.”
Effie had often tried to fancy the aspect and demeanour of persons under
sentence of death; but she had never imagined anything so awful as the
lot seemed to be when it sat upon her brother. To have seen his corpse
stretched before her would not have been more strange than to look on
his familiar face, to listen to his accustomed voice, and to think that
this motion and this sound were awaiting extinction, while the thinking
part was fluctuating between this world and the next, not in the frame
of calm faith which abides the summons of its Maker, but in the restless
mood which attends upon the tyranny of man. Effie had seen her brother
once awaiting death as the issue of an illness. What she had then beheld
caused her heart now to sink on perceiving the starting eye and curled
lip, which told her that her brother was a less religious man than he
had been,—less humble, less strong, less hopeful, less thoughtful for
others than before. She was not fully aware of the difference of the
cases,—how darkly God’s agency is shrouded in the gloom of man’s
injustice; how the sufferer’s whole nature is outraged by dependence
upon his fellow-man for the breath of life; and how infinitely the agony
of such outrage transcends the throes of dissolution. The humblest
convict may feel this, though he may not be able to express it in words,
as well as the noblest patriot that ever encountered martyrdom; and it
may be this sense of outrage that parches the tongue and enfeebles the
knees of one, while it strings the nerves of another on the way to the
scaffold; while both may equally disregard the parting convulsion, and
long rather than dread to know “the grand secret.”
“No, no, Cuddie, you do not mean that you who sit there are doomed to be
laid in the cold ground so soon, unless you can banish yourself?”
“I do; and for a token—you must either help me away this very hour, or
see me carried off to death, as one of the doomed five thousand. I tell
you I was nearly caught this day. If it had not been for an
acquaintance, more thoughtful than Adam, (who spoke out my name the
moment he saw me,) I should have been beyond hope at this hour. The
whisper passed along, however,—‘a poor deserter,’—and they opened a way
for me, and blocked up the enemy in a crowd, and then gave out that it
was only a petty thief they were running after; and in this manner I got
off for the time.”
“And so you will again. God will not let such as you so perish.”
“I shall not tempt the risk further by staying. God forgive me for
saying so! but I cannot, and I will not, so die.”
“Hush, hush! What would uncle Christopher, what would all religious
people say, if they heard such a word from you as that?”
“They might say that if one man presumes to declare ‘You shall die at my
bidding, for a crime invented by such as myself,’ another man may,
without presumption, say, ‘I will not die for such a cause;’ and that he
may, with as little presumption, do his utmost peaceably to make good
his words. I will be gone this very hour, to make good my word.”
“Our poor mother!”
“Do not tell her that I have been here: she will be for ever hearing the
whoop of my hunters, and fancying my death-groans at midnight. Let her
suppose me fighting creditably, like any honest volunteer, till you hear
what becomes of me.”
“And can you be so near, and yet——”
“O yes; I can do many things that you would have sworn, when we last
parted, that I never could. You do not know, I dare say, what it is to
grow careless of those one most loved,—to be able to pass lightly near a
mother’s door, on one’s way to a new world, and not look in. You——”
“Cuddie, what brought you to see me?”
“What would you say if it was to get Walter to give me a coat that might
disguise me, and you to supply me with food, that might prevent my
needing to speak to any one on the road?”
“I shall not believe any part of your story, if you dare to say so much
that is false,” said Effie, rising, however, to see what her humble
hospitality could furnish. “I did hope, indeed, that there were some,
besides your mother, that you would have thought worth inquiring after.”
“I saw your husband and the others to-day, you know, except uncle
Christopher, and him I will look upon now;” and he snatched the candle
to go up stairs. His sister stopped him eagerly, to inquire whether he
had really seen her husband.
“Aye, that did I. Adam, as I told you, I saw full enough of. And Tim,
poor child, was telling Walter that he had heard my voice just before,
and Walter gave him a world of good reasons why it was impossible, while
I was standing just behind him, as Tim might have seen, if——But how that
boy is grown! And a fine unbroken spirit he seems to have!”
“And without any bitterness, Cuddie, though the burden of affliction is
laid upon him. We may take a lesson from him: for his is not the content
of one that does not know what the blessings are that he must forego. He
tells me sometimes what he remembers about the green fields, and the
blue river, and the star-light nights; and if his remembrance of them
seems more beautiful than the things themselves appear to us, this is
only a proof of the greater depth of his patience. O yes, we may take a
lesson from him!”
“Ah! I thought when I saw him to-day,” said Cuddie, setting down the
candle, as if forgetting his purpose of visiting his uncle’s bed-side,
“when I saw him sitting with his placid face raised, and his ear intent
to learn all that was going on, I thought of the day and night after his
accident, when he was fretting and fretting, as if it was our fault that
he could not see which neighbour it was that came to ask after him, nor
know when it was day or when it was dark.”
“Aye, before he learned to know everybody by the voice, and to tell by
the feel when the sun was going down. It was you, Cuddie, that sat
beside him during those nights, and brought comfort to him as often as
you could step in from your work. Did you think of that, too, when you
looked upon him this day?”
Cuddie seized the candle again, and was going.
“Tim himself remembers your nursing, and he shall not forget it, when
you are no longer a brother and a countryman. He shall never learn from
me that you were here, and left without laying your hand upon his head,
or a kiss upon his forehead.”
“There will be Adam to watch over him, besides you and Walter.”
“And you, when the war is over. You will surely come back, and ply on
this very river, and show yourself in the old port, when the cry after
deserters is over, and the press-gangs are broken up?”
“Never. I shall make myself altogether an American. King George will
never more have me for a subject or a servant; and if he has me for an
enemy, by going to war with America, he may thank his own press-gangs
for it;—and not only on account of me, but of the thousands more that
seek a home in foreign ships because the British navy has been to them
nothing better than a prison.”
Cuddie was some time up stairs while Effie hastened to pack such
provisions as she had in the house. Indifferent as her brother’s manner
was when he came down, she thought there were signs of emotion passed
away.
“You have not insulted his sleep, I am sure, Cuddie? You have not
breathed out ill will over him?”
“No: he first taught me the story of the Prodigal Son, as I remembered
when I saw his Bible near him. Besides, I shall never see him again.—
Now, leave me to make my way over the ferry. You had better let the boat
be found on the opposite side in the morning. They will come hunting for
me here, and you must not be found aiding and abetting in my escape. You
will have uncle Christopher for a witness to my not having been here;
and if he should chance to wake while you are out——”
“Whisht! he is stirring! Hark to his step overhead!”
Cuddie and his basket were past the threshold, the door was closed, and
Effie bending over her work before uncle Christopher’s night-capped head
appeared from the stairs.
“I thought I heard Walter?” said he. “I thought Walter had come home?”
Walter was not to be home till the middle of the next day, the old man
was reminded.
So he had thought; but he had been dreaming, it seemed to him for hours,
of a weary sobbing,—the deep sobbing of a man near him; and when he woke
up from his dream, there was a gleam from the keyhole on the ceiling;
and he next fancied he heard whispers below, so he got up, and partly
dressed himself, and came down——
“And found me just finishing my work, that I was bent upon doing before
I went to bed,” said Effie.
“You are not going to sit up much later, child? If you must watch, you
might as well occupy your watch with holy things.”
Effie thought of the times when Christopher used to spend half the night
in perfecting the invention which had enabled him to gather a good many
carnal comforts about him. She merely said that she was working for her
husband. She would just lock the chain of the boat——
“What! that not done yet? I heard the chain clank just now. Nor the door
fastened, I declare! You are a braver woman than your mother, child.”
Effie did not know that she had anything to fear. Her uncle feared
rheumatism, and therefore hastened to bed again, before she went down to
the boat with her lantern.
Cuddie was just pushing himself off, and would not heed her signs to
stop. She set down her light on the bank, and laying hold of the boat,
scrambled in, at the expense of a wetting. She could never have forgiven
his departure without saying a final farewell. Neither of them spoke
while crossing; and it was necessary to make haste, as some moving
lights on the distant water gave token of the approach of witnesses. The
wind blew chill, the young moon was disappearing, and the few and faint
yellow fires looked dreary as they flickered through the darkness.
Cuddie’s hand had felt cold and clammy as he gave up the oar to Effie.
She had never before attempted to deceive or mislead any one, and she
dreaded meeting uncle Christopher by daylight, as much as if she had
been abroad on a housebreaking expedition. It would be many hours yet
before she could tell Walter; and how often might it be her lot to hear
the family and neighbours speak of Cuddie, and to have to appear to know
no more of him than they! Then the news would come to her mother, sooner
or later, that he was a criminal who had fled for his life. She was very
wretched.
“Cuddie! you are not going without one word?” she cried, seeing him turn
to step out of the boat as it touched the bank.
Without one word he went, for no words would come; but not without
giving her some comfort. The agony of his last embrace eased her heart,
which a light farewell would have well nigh broken. She dwelt upon it
with a strange satisfaction as she recrossed the river; and as she
closed her doors, and put out her light to weep in darkness till the
morning; and when she related the story to her husband; and when, long
after, they heard of the loss of Cuthbert Eldred among others of the
crew of an American merchant vessel; and when, in subsequent years, Tim
and she used to talk of the brother Cuddie who was the gentlest nurse
and playfellow, the most generous brother, and the bravest youth that
ever gave promise of being an honour to his class, and an assistance to
his country in her times of need.
CHAPTER VII.
LOYALTY PREVENTIVES.
Next day, there appeared a sufficient reason for Mrs. Eldred’s great
desire that Tim should attend the opening of the Deep Cut. She was not
found at her old place when Walter went to restore his charge. The
cottage was shut up, and a friendly neighbour came out to deliver to
Walter the message with which she had been entrusted for him. Mrs.
Eldred had for some time found it difficult for her to live and maintain
her blind son, and finding that she and all her family, except her
daughter, had been impoverished by interference with their industry in
one form or another, she had brought herself to do that which, if free,
she would have despised. She had sued for a place in an almshouse,
supported by the vaunted charity of a corporation which caused
infinitely more want than it relieved. She had carefully kept this
secret from Walter and his wife, knowing what efforts they would make to
preserve a proud spirit like hers from the degradation of accepting
charity. But she declared that she felt it, though a misery, no
degradation. If the trade of the collieries was injured by a corporation
in London, so as to deprive her of work, and if her eldest son was
hindered by a corporation nearer home from carrying his labour to the
best market, she felt that a maintenance was due from corporative funds,
and she should receive it without any acknowledgment of obligation till
the labour of the family was once more placed at the disposal of the
family. The reproach of the pauper dress which she and Tim must
henceforth wear must rest with those who had prevented her earning more
honourable apparel; and she hoped her son and daughter would not take
the matter too much to heart. It appeared that Mrs. Eldred had made
these, her explanations, very fully and not very coolly to Mr. Milford,
the surgeon, who had argued the matter with her; not attempting to deny
that her connexions had been interfered with, but pleading that the
interference had been more for good than for evil. But Mr. Milford liked
corporations. An idle brother of his, who had been a great burden upon
him, had been suddenly provided for by a corporation living; and he
himself was still in possession of the Trinity House appointment for
which he had canvassed Mr. Vivian some years before. He contended that
government had, it appeared, (contrary to his expectation,) done a fine
thing in authorizing the company to open the Deep Cut. Everybody knew
how much rope was being manufactured there, and how much more was
wanted; and when told of the impediments to the removal of Adam’s labour
thither, he lauded the arrangements by which Adam could be maintained as
a pauper in his native town, instead of being left to casual charity. He
insisted much on Christopher’s prosperity;—on the benevolence and
usefulness of the interference of government in securing to him the
rewards of his ingenuity, and thus enabling him to assist his connexions
materially, if he would. Mrs. Eldred did not impute it to the government
that Christopher did not seem more inclined to part with his worldly
wealth than if he had openly valued as much as he professed to despise
it: but it was not the less true that Christopher’s constant plea for
economy was his expectation that his patent would be invaded, and that
he should cease to gain by his invention, even if he were not involved
in law proceedings to defend it. The principle of the patent law Mr.
Milford might praise unopposed; and the practical arrangements might be
improved in time; but Mrs. Eldred could not allow it to be right that
Adam should first be made idle by an absurdly long apprenticeship, and
then kept idle by corporation restraints; and she would not acknowledge
herself half so grateful for almshouse bounties as the surgeon thought
her in duty bound to be. Many thanks for their charity, indeed! Mrs.
Eldred said. Many thousands in a year might they well give away,
considering how they prevented the earning of many more thousands; but
the newspapers might as well be silent about their great generosity: for
it behoved bodies of men, as well as individual men, to be just before
they were generous; and there was little justice in tying a man’s hands,
however liberally they might put food into his mouth.
Fain would Walter and his wife have taken home the little lad, who
seemed to have small relish for the almshouse, in anticipation or in
reality. Adam, also, from time to time during the two years which passed
before the peace, offered to take the boy home as often as a supply of
work afforded him a home. But Mrs. Eldred could not part with Tim; nor
could Mr. Severn, still her steady and kind friend, urge upon her a
sacrifice which would have caused her restless mind too dangerous a
leisure. When peace came, there were many symptoms of a revived
querulousness. From the day of the general rejoicings, which offered no
charms to her, she dropped expressions which gave as little pleasure to
everybody as to herself, about Eldred’s being in no hurry to return
home. It was a folly in her to have ever expected it. Had he sent her a
farthing of money, from the day he went away? It was known that he had
changed his ship;—had he come in the interval to visit her and his
children? No, no. She had heard much of the charms of a roving life, and
of naval glory; and, doubtless, no such pleasures could be offered by a
melancholy, distressed family as he could find in the service; and if he
was looking after glory, he would hardly return to the dull duty of
taking care of his own—a duty which his dullest neighbours had been
discharging while he was away. She vehemently silenced poor Tim’s
suggestion that his father might not be still living. She would listen
to no excuses on Eldred’s behalf from Effie or Adam, till the latter had
recourse to his old practice of taking his hat, and walking away; and
Effie, with her usual ingenuousness, declared her uneasiness at hearing
her father so spoken of. The readiest way to bring her mother round was
to appear to agree with her; but Effie could not pay the price of such
disguise, even for the pleasure of hearing her mother speak the
tenderness which lay at her heart.
The rebuke which attends upon querulousness more closely and constantly
than upon almost any other fault, presently arrived. Effie had just left
her in grave compassion, mixed with displeasure; Tim was silently
occupying himself in his new art of netting; and Mrs. Eldred was
stalking about the little room, making a great bustle to carry off her
own excitement, when a few stray words from the court-yard came in at
the open window, and made Tim quit his seat.
“Take care, lad; you will stumble over the chair in the middle of the
room. Why cannot you ask me for what you want?”
Tim steered cautiously round the chair, and gained the lattice.
“There’s one below asking for us, mother,” said he.
“That is impossible. You cannot tell what they are saying below, in all
the noise I am making. There is nobody but Adam that can be wanting us,”
she continued. “I wish Adam would choose better times for coming: he is
always sure to show himself when I am particularly busy, and there is
nothing comfortable about us.”
Tim thought to himself that this was rather strange, so much complaint
as he was accustomed to hear of Adam’s coming so very seldom, and so
often as it happened that his mother was particularly busy, and had
nothing comfortable about her. He made no answer, however, being
convinced that the inquirer below was not Adam. He presently went on,—
“Mother, can you spare a minute, just to look out of the window at this
person in the court?”
There was a something in Tim’s manner that struck her. Instead of
throwing down her brush impatiently, as he expected, she came silently,
and laid her hand on his, as trembling it grasped the sill. She sank
down on a seat after one glance, whispering,—
“My boy, it is your father!”
If Tim could have seen, he would not have known his father. Instead of
the black-skinned, closely-cropped, and somewhat awful-looking person
that he remembered his father, Eldred was now a weather-browned,
blue-jacketed sailor, with a ringlet hanging duly down either cheek, and
a little hat, which set off very favourably his broad, round face, now a
little shaded by anxiety, but evidently meant to express a true sailor’s
joviality. Few eyes but a wife’s would have recognised him at a first
glance. A feeling of pride in him arose as she saw him stand in the
doorway; and it tempered the bitter mortification which, in spite of all
her professions and self-deception, she felt at being found by him in
this place.
When her passion of joy and surprise was over, and her spirits began to
dance in girlish lightness, her feelings of mortification found vent in
a few slight hints of wonder and discontent. Eldred, with his wife
beside him, Tim seated at his feet, and in momentary expectation of
Effie’s arrival, was disposed to take such hints kindly, though not
perhaps with the fidgetty submission which he might have shown in old
times. He had not sailed so much about the world for nothing; nor fought
so hard against the enemy to be drilled at home, as formerly. It was
easy to be a great man to-day, his companions being more disposed to
adore his greatness than to find any flaw in it.
“Send you money!” said he. “Why, you know very well that if I had had
any you would have had it all, as soon as I could send it.”
“You do not mean that you have been working all these years for
nothing?”
“I have got my wages at last; but, besides the hardship of the wages
being so much lower than I had been accustomed to on our river, during
the war, there was the worse hardship of our not being able to get our
dues.”
“There would be few seamen in our colliers if such was the practice
there.”
“And they must go on impressing for the navy as long as it is the
practice in any part of it. Poor Cuddie! How I have been turning it in
my mind whether he would chance to be at home, or whether he would be
gone to London I never fancied his being so far out of reach.”
“Father! were you ever flogged? Did you ever try to desert?” inquired
Tim.
“I flogged! I try to desert!” exclaimed Eldred, amidst a painful
consciousness that his indignation at the words conveyed a reproach to
his dear, absent son. “No, Tim, I had a good ship, and a good captain,
and——”
“And went into the service with more heart than Cuddie,” interrupted
Mrs. Eldred; “and would not give it up till the last minute, and then
were sorry to leave it for home and a dull keel on the Tyne.”
“You are out there, my woman. The time in my life when I had the most
mind to drown myself was when I was stopped in my way to you, a year and
a half ago. You would not have said much of my liking for a sea-life, if
you had seen me,—how I raved for the land as they forced me back from
it, just when I thought five minutes more would have set me ashore.”
“What do you mean? and when?”
“A year and a half ago, as I tell you, when I was impressed a second
time. I never cursed a Frenchman as I cursed the boat with the infernal
gang in it that met us point blank, as we were turning into harbour, and
boarded us. Some of the poor fellows with me let themselves out about
home. I did not, because I knew it would be of no use; but, to be sure,
one or two of them had served as much as twelve years without seeing
their families, and my case was not so bad. But I could have knocked the
gang overboard with my bundle with right good-will. I hated my bundle as
much as I hated them at the moment, because of having to take it back
and unpack it, when I had put it up for home. So you never knew I had
been pressed a second time, love?”
“Knew it, no! If I had, I believe the law would have been altered by
this day. I would have got all the women, injured like myself, to go up
on our knees to the king’s own presence, and we would not have left him
till we had melted his heart, and got his promise to do away the law.”
“The best of it is that the law of the land is against impressment; it
is against violence being offered to an innocent man in any way.”
“Then I suppose there is a particular law to allow impressment.”
“No; no further than that there is a list of those who may be legally
exempted,—seamen on special service, or protected by the proper
authorities, and so on. The marking out in this way who is to go free,
looks like countenancing the practice; but, beyond this, the law is
against the practice. I used to insist on this, at favourable times,
but, as you may suppose, to no purpose, owing, perhaps, in part to my
endeavour to reconcile myself to my lot. The people at home are they
that must make a stir about it. If we pressed men manage to make
ourselves tolerably happy, we are sure to be asked, ‘Where is the
hardship?’ And if we are dull and indolent, (as I fear poor Cuddie was,
and with too much reason,) they despise us and flog us, and ask what the
testimony of a flogged man is worth. So, for the remedy, we must look to
the people at home; and they have, too many of them, some grievances of
their own to complain of. I am sorry indeed to find poor Adam in such an
uncertain state, now high and now low. Is it the danger from the
overseer that keeps him from settling at the Cut?”
“Yes, and reason enough. He has no notion of putting himself at the
mercy of any overseer or churchwarden who might choose to send him home
to his parish on the mere prospect of work falling off. The thought of
it chafes me as much as seeing Mr. Severn still no more than Otley’s
poor curate, when I know that if each had their deserts,—if the people
were allowed to interest themselves in choosing the pastor that would do
his duty best, Mr. Severn would be one of the first in honour and in
place, and Otley (if he had not been anywhere but in the church) would
have had to wait for a flock till he grew as wise as the children that
are now under him, and as sober as our Adam,—and that is not supposing
much.”
“And what does Mr. Severn himself say?”
“Nothing about Otley; but he speaks up for some things that I should
like to see done away. I detest the very name of a corporation, or of
any kind of meddling, after all we have suffered.”
“I think you are wrong there. A corporation may do many fine things, as
long as it keeps to its proper business, which is not to meddle with
industry in any way,—religious or other. But when it is desirable that a
thousand persons should speak with one voice, and that that voice should
be authority, and should go down to the next age,—and when it is wanted
to give a single responsibility (that shall not be always changing) to a
party whose members must change, I think a corporation is the best way
of making many into one. I mean where learning has to be taken care of,
as in the universities, or inferior governments, like those of our great
towns. But when corporations take upon them to favour some, and exclude
others, and to fetter all that belong to them, I will go as far as you
in complaints of them.—Walter seems the most prosperous of you all.”
“Yes: now his garden is not smoked. It was a glad day for him and Effie
when leave was got to sell coal in London by weight. It put an end to
screening and burning. It fell out ill for me, as everything does. But
things will prosper better now,” she continued, after a glance at her
husband’s countenance.
“It seems to me as if Effie was long in coming,” observed Eldred. “How
long will it take you to move out of this place, when she is once here?”
“Move! O, not half an hour.”
“Well, you don’t suppose I mean you to stay another hour here. Make
ready to be a keel-man’s wife again, and leave this room for some poor
creature——”
“That will be more thankful for it than I have ever pretended to be.
But—suppose the press-gang——”
“We are safe till the next war; and by that time, perhaps, there may
have gone up such a cry from the whole empire as will make our rulers
man our navy with men instead of slaves. It cannot be done in a day; but
neither, I hope, shall we go to war in a day; and if we set about
training our willing youth in time, we may have a navy manned against
the day of need as no navy has ever yet been manned. When I was last in
the channel——Bless her dear soul, here is Effie! And Walter behind her!
And his father too! That is what I did not expect. Now, if we had Adam—”
He stopped short, and during the silence, many a tender thought was sent
after Cuddie.
Tim was the first to lead the way out of the alms-house; and no inmate
ever left it followed by so few regrets as his mother. For her part,
having shown no gratitude while in it, she never afterwards forgave the
indignity of having been its inhabitant, though the immediate act of
becoming so was her own.
As for the rest of the family, their interests were so far from being
injured by the growing prosperity of the Deep Cut, that they all
benefited by the impetus given to trade, and the new capital and
enterprise, unfettered by legislative interference, which it put in
motion in their neighbourhood. Their worst grievance henceforth was when
rumours of wars brought tribulation among them. Then schemes of flight
and hiding were whispered abroad, and discussed by the fire-side, and
Tim was regarded half-enviously, not only as usual for his virtuous
cheerfulness, but for his security from the perils and woes of
impressment. There has never since been a war, however; and it is
happily yet possible that before the day of strife shall arrive, if
arrive it must, Great Britain will have incalculably improved her
resources by rendering the service of her sons voluntary, and their
labour wholly free.
_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._
The duty of government being to render secure the property of its
subjects, and their industry being their most undeniable property, all
interference of government with the direction and the rewards of
industry is a violation of its duty towards its subjects.
Such interference takes place when some are countenanced by legislation
in engrossing labours and rewards which would otherwise be open to all;—
as in the case of privileged trading corporations;—
When arbitrary means of preparation are dictated as a condition of the
exercise of industry, and the enjoyment of its fruits,—as in the case of
the apprenticeship law;—
When labourers are compelled to a species of labour which they would not
have chosen,—as in the case of the impressment of seamen.
The same duty—of securing the free exercise of industry—requires that
companies should be privileged to carry on works of public utility which
are not within the reach of individual enterprize,—as in the case of
roads, canals, bridges, &c., and also,
That the fruits of rare ingenuity and enterprize should be secured to
the individual,—according to the design of our patent law.
In the first mentioned instances of interference, the three great evils
arise of
The restraint of fair competition in some cases;
The arbitrary increase of competition in other cases;
The obstruction of the circulation of labour and capital from
employment to employment, and from place to place.
In the last mentioned instances of protection, none of these evils take
place.
THE END.
--------------------------------------------------
London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke-street, Lambeth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
Hyphens appearing on a line or page break have beem removed if
the preponderance of other occurrences are unhyphenated.
Those words occurring midline are retained regardless of
other occurences. The following variants were retained:
(day-break/daybreak, noon-day/noonday, star-light/starlight,
ferry-boat/ferryboat, pepper-corns/peppercorns, press-gang/pressgane,
scare-crow/scarecrows, school-boy/schoolboy, ship-board/shipboard,
super-abundance/superabundance, work-shop/workshop).
On some occasions, a word spans a line break, but the hyphen itself has
gone missing. These fragments are joined appropriately without further
notice here.
The compound word ‘mother-country’ appears as many times without the
hyphen as with. Only on p.97 of ‘Cinnamon and Pearls’ do both appear,
and the hyphen is added to the first of those three instances.
On p. 89 of the ‘Cinnamon and Pearls’, a paragraph ends with a closing
quote which has no obvious opening, though the voice seems to have
resumed speaking at some point.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
SOWERS NOT REAPERS.
6.32 [‘/“]Such a sight Replaced.
79.11 let us have corn.[”/’”] Inserted.
103.11 further deficiencies wo[n/u] ensue Inverted.
139.1 [ /b]e a sad thing Restored.
CINNAMON AND PEARLS.
9.13 [“]If it is not too far Added.
75.3 [the faces/wonderful] to Rayo to see Transposed.
75.4 [wonderful/the faces] of those who were most Transposed.
92.29 from the mother[-]country. Added.
A TALE OF THE TYNE.
4.9 [“]Yes, indeed. Added.
4.15 [t/f]ather; bless you!” Transposed.
4 [f/t]one, and with a blush Transposed.
94.14 trouble you to[ /-]night Added.
127.29 chance to be at[!] home Spurious.
128.30 But [ /I ]could have knocked Restored.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, VOLUME 7 (OF 9) ***
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