FEGS! if theer’s tu be a bobbery up tu Pentreath, us lads o’ St. Bride’s wunt be left owt on’t!”
“Dashed if us wull! Wheer theer’s fightin’ and a fillyboo, theer’s more’n hard knocks to be gotten. Us’ll soon see what us can get by un!”
“Aw dally-buttons, that us wull! They du say as our Saul’s theer in t’ thick of un. But what’s it awl about? Dost any o’ yu knaw?”
The swarthy fishermen looked each other in the face with a grin, but nobody seemed ready with an answer.
“May’ap ’tis because the king’s dead,” suggested one.
“Naw, ’tidden that ezakally,” objected another. “’Tis becos they Frenchers ’ave abin an’ gone for tu ’ave a new bobbery ower theer—what the great folks calls a reverlooshon. They’ve a druv theer king over tu England: that’s what ’as set all the lads ower heer in a takin’ after theer roights.”
“’Tidden theer roights theer a’ter,” remarked a woman who was sitting hunched up in the chimney-corner of the hut where this confabulation was going on, “’tis other folks’ goods they want. They thinks wheerever a bobbery be theer’ll be gutterin’ and guzzlin’, and that’s all they care for. You’d a best ’ave nowt tu du with un.”
But this piece of advice was received with ridicule and disfavour.
“Ef theer be zo much as gutterin’ and guzzlin’ why shetten us be left behind? ’Tidden much of either us gets nowadays with those dashed customs-men always a’ter we. Crimminy! but us’ll take our share ef zo be as theer’s awght to be gotten. I’ve heerd tell theer be a real hollerballoo up tu Pentreath. I be agwaine to see un.”
“Zo be I! Zo be I!” echoed in turn a dozen or more voices, and from the dim chimney-corner there only came a rough snort of disapproval.
“Go ’long wi’ ye then. When the dowl’s abroad ’twidden be in yer to bide tu home. Go ’long and help make the bobbery wusser. ’Tidden hurt I. But it’ll be a poor-come-along-on’t for some o’ yu, I take it. Theer’ll be trouble at St. Bride along on’t.”
The men hesitated for a moment, for the old woman who thus spoke had won the not too enviable reputation of being next door to a witch, and of reading or moulding future events—which, it was not altogether certain in the minds of the people. She was a lonely widow woman, but lived in one of the best cottages in the place, where she kept a sort of private bar, selling spirits and tobacco to the fishermen, and allowing them to make use of her sanded kitchen, where at all seasons of the year a fire was burning, as a place of resort where all the gossip of the place could be discussed. They never put two and two together in seeking to account for the occult knowledge possessed by the old woman respecting the private concerns of the whole community. She affected to be rather deaf, and therefore low-toned conversations were carried on freely in her presence. Old Mother Clat was quite a character in her way, and a distinct power in the fishing community of St. Bride.
But her advice was not sufficient to deter the bolder spirits from taking part in the exciting scenes known to be passing in the country round them. At that moment England was passing through a crisis more perilous than was fully realised at the time. The sudden revolution in France, which had culminated in the abdication and flight of the king, the death of the English king, George the Fourth, at almost the same moment, and the whispers in the air that Belgium and other countries were about to imitate France, and rise in revolt against the oppression and tyranny of princes, acted in an extraordinary fashion upon the minds of the discontented population of this land. The long period of depression and distress, whilst it had ground down one section of the community to a state of passive despair, had aroused in others the spirit of insubordination and revolt. Like leaven in the loaf was this fermentation going on, greatly helped by the knowledge that the cause of the people was exercising the minds of many of the great ones of the land, and that in them they would find a mouthpiece if only they could succeed in making their voice heard.
Now when there is any great uprising in any one district, there is generally a local as well as a general cause of complaint; and in this remote West-Country district it was far less the question of reformed representation and the abolishment of certain grave abuses which was exercising the minds of the community than the fact that new machinery had recently been set up in some of the mills at Pentreath, and in some of the farmsteads scattered about the district; and the panic of the Midlands had spread down to the South and West, the people fully believing that this would be the last straw—the last drop of bitterness in their cup, and that nothing but absolute starvation lay before them unless they took prompt measures to defend themselves from the dreaded innovations.
The Midlands and North had set the example. Ever since the rising of the Luddites there had been more or less of disturbance in the manufacturing districts, where, of course, in the first instance the introduction of machinery did throw certain classes of operatives out of employment; and they were unable to realise that this would soon be more than made up to them by the increase of trade resulting from the improvement in the many complicated processes of manufacture. In the North the riots were on the wane. It was just beginning to dawn upon the minds of the more enlightened artisans, that if they would leave matters to take a peaceful course they would soon see themselves reinstated in the mills, where trade was growing more brisk and active than ever before. But away down in the remote West, any innovation was received with the greatest horror and aversion, and the people had heard just enough about their wrongs to be in that restless state when any sort of activity becomes attractive, and any uprising against authority appears in the light of an act of noble resistance to tyranny.
Pentreath was an ancient town, though a small one. It sent a member to Parliament, although the huge and fast-increasing towns of the North did not. Of late years it had become a small centre of manufacturing industry, the water-power there being considerable. There were two cloth-mills and one silk-mill, a paper manufactory, and another where soap and essences were made. One reason why the district round Pentreath was not feeling the general poverty and distress very keenly was that from the rural districts men who could not get employment upon the land could generally find it in the mills. But when almost at one and the same time improved machinery became introduced both into agriculture and manufacture, the sense of revolt was deeply stirred. A certain number of turbulent spirits had been simultaneously dismissed both from the farms and from the mills, and these two contingents at once banded together in somewhat dangerous mood to talk over the situation and their own private grievances, and to set about to find a remedy.
It was the Duke who first introduced the machinery into the neighbourhood, although he had dismissed no servant of his until three of his men were found tampering with and injuring the new machine, when he promptly sent them about their business. Their bad example was followed by others, and four more were summarily dismissed; whereupon the Duke let it be thoroughly understood that any servant of his taking that line would be promptly discharged, but that he had no intention of dismissing any of those on his estate who were orderly and obedient, and used the improved implements in a right and workmanlike way. This declaration had the effect at Penarvon of stopping depredations for the moment, and no more labourers were sent away; but those who had already received notice were not taken on again: for the Duke, though a just and liberal master, was a stern upholder of law and order, and had no intention of having his will or his authority set at naught by a handful of ill-conditioned fellows, who refused to listen to any other guides than their own blind passions.
These men gravitated naturally into Pentreath, in the hope of finding employment there, only to be met by the news that the mills were turning off hands, owing to the saving of labour by the introduction of improved machinery. The band of what in these days would be termed “unemployed” gathered together by common accord, and roved the streets by day, begging and picking up odd jobs of work as they could get them, and meeting at night in a low tavern on the outskirts of the town to spend their pittance generally on raw spirit, and to talk sedition and treason.
Possibly, had no other power been at work just at that juncture, the whole thing might have begun and ended in talk; but there were other forces in operation, all favourable to the spirit of revolt and vengeful hatred which actuated this small band; and as discontented men of every class draw together by common consent, however various their grievances may be, so did the newly aroused politicians of the place, eager and anxious to awaken the country to a sense of its political grievances, and the urgent need of parliamentary reform, gravitate towards the little band of discontented labourers and operatives, sure of finding in them allies in the general feeling of revolt against the prevailing system, which they had set themselves to amend, and hoping quickly to arouse in them the patriotic enthusiasm which kindled their own hearts.
Saul’s friend the cobbler was the first to address these men on the subject of the hoped-for reform. He went to them upon several evenings, strove to arouse in them a sense of indignation against prevailing abuses and evils, and found his task an easy one. Wherever he made out that the country was suffering from the oppression of tyrants and the greed of the rich, he was received with howls of approval and delight. The answer of his audience was invariably a cry of “Down with it! Down with them!” They would have rushed with the greatest pleasure through the streets, and attacked the houses of the mill-owners, or have broken into the mills and gutted them, had there been any to lead them. But the cobbler was a man of words rather than of action. He was one to foster fierce passions, but his talents did not lie in directing the action which follows upon such an arousing. One Sunday afternoon, it is true, he headed a procession which marched through the streets, shouting and threatening, so that the people shut their shutters in haste, and begged that the watchmen or the military might go out and disperse the mob. No harm, however, came of the demonstration, save that an uneasy feeling was aroused in the minds of the townfolk, who looked askance upon the haggard men seeking alms or employment about their doors, and were less disposed to help them than they had been at first.
Thus the ill-feeling between class and class grew and increased, and it was to a band of men rendered well-nigh desperate by misery and a sense of burning wrong that Saul came down one Sunday, his own heart inflamed by passion and hatred, to supplement the efforts of the cobbler by one of his own harangues, which had already won for their author a certain measure of celebrity.
Saul had greatly changed during the past six months, changed and developed in a remarkable manner. When he stood by the orchard wall making love to Genefer Teazel, he had looked a very fine specimen of his race, and superior in many points to the labourers with whom he consorted, and whose toil he shared; but since the rapid development of his mental faculties had set in, he had altered wonderfully in his outward man, and no one to look at him would believe, save from his dress and the hardness of his hands, that he had spent his life in mere manual toil on a farm. His face, always well-featured, had now taken an expression of concentration and purpose, seldom seen in a labouring man; the eyes were very intense in their expression, and, as the fisher-folk were wont to say, went through you like a knife. His tall figure had grown rather thin and gaunt, as though the activity of the mind had reacted on the body, or else that he had been denying himself the needful support for his strong frame. He looked like a man whom it would not be well to incite to anger. There was a sufficient indication in his face of suppressed passion and fury held under firm control, yet ready to blaze up into a fierce life under provocation. He looked like a man born to be an Ishmaelite in his life’s pilgrimage—his hand against every man, and every man’s hand against him—a man in revolt against the world, against society, against himself. A keen and yet sympathetic physiognomist could hardly study that face without a sigh of compassion. Saul Tresithny, with his nature, his temperament, his antecedents, could scarcely have any but an unhappy life—unless he had been able to yield himself in childlike submission to the teachings of his grandfather, and look for peace and happiness beyond the troublous waves of this world, to the far haven of everlasting peace.
Saul had spent the past six months in close reading and study, whenever time and opportunity were his. First from his friend the cobbler, then from his friend the Duke’s heir, he had received books and papers; and out in the fields in his dinner-hour, or trudging to and fro with the plough, or up in his attic at night, with his companions snoring around him, he had studied and read and thought—thought till it seemed often as though thought would madden him, read until he looked haggard and wan from his long vigils, and he found the best part of his pittance of wage go in the purchase of the rushlights by which he studied his books at night. Eustace had lent him histories of other nations—down-trodden peoples who had revolted at last from their oppressors, and had won for themselves freedom—sometimes of body, sometimes of mind, at the sword’s point. Eustace had tried to choose writers of impartiality; but his own bias had been too strong to make him a very good director of such a mind as Saul’s; and when a man of that temperament reaches passages which are not to his liking, he simply skips over them till he reaches what is more to his taste; and Saul had invariably missed out those explanatory and exculpatory pages, wherein the historian shows the other side of the question, and explains how some of the grievances most declaimed against by an oppressed people are the result rather of circumstance, and the changing order of the day, than the direct outcome of a real injustice and tyranny.
So his mind rapidly developed in a fashion by no means desired by his mentor; and so soon as the restraining influence of Eustace was removed, the wild and ardent imagination of the young man had full sway, and he had none to give him better counsel or strive to check the hot intemperance of his great zeal. He avoided his grandfather, and Abner was too wise to force his company where it was not wanted. He would not speak to Mr. St. Aubyn when the latter found him out, and sought, in his gentle and genial way, to get the hot-headed youth, of whom much talk was going about, to make a friend of him, and open out upon the subjects of such moment to all the country. No; Saul maintained a rigid and obstinate silence; and the Rector went away disappointed, for he feared there were evil days in store for Saul. Farmer Teazel, who was a staunch old Tory, and an ardent believer in the existing state of things, even though he admitted times to be bad in the immediate present, had no manner of patience with his new-fangled notions, that were, as he said, “driving honest folks crazy.” He had winked at Saul’s conduct as long as he could, valuing the many sterling qualities possessed by the young man, and hoping every day that he would turn over a new leaf. But his patience had long been sorely tried. Saul, not content with haranguing the fisher-folk down in the hamlet, who were always ready to imbibe any sort of lawless doctrine—their one idea being that the law and the customs were one and the same, and that to revolt against any existing order was a step towards that freedom of traffic which was their idea of prosperity and happiness. Not that they wished the excise duties withdrawn—for that would render abortive their illicit traffic; but they always fancied that there was advantage to be gained from stirring up strife and revolting against established order, and were eager listeners to Saul’s speeches. But not content with that, Saul was working might and main amongst the more placid and bovine rustics, his fellow-labourers on the farm, to emulate the fisher-folk in their restless discontent, and with this amount of success, that when Farmer Teazel, in imitation of his noble landlord, introduced with pride and delight a new and wonderful machine into his own yard, his own men rose in the night and did it some fatal injury, which cost him pounds to repair, as well as delaying for a whole month the operations which it had especially been bought to effect.
This was too much. The farmer was in the main a placid man and a good-tempered one; but he could not stand this, and he well knew whom he had to thank for the outrage. Whether or no Saul had prompted the men to do the mischief mattered little. It was he who had fostered in them the spirit of disobedience and self-will which had been at the bottom of the outrage; and so long as he remained on the place there was no prospect of things being better. Before his anger had had time to cool, he summoned Saul, and a battle of words ensued, which led to the summary dismissal of the young man, whilst the farmer strode out of the kitchen, in which the interview had taken place, in a white heat of rage and disappointment.
Saul stood looking after him with a strange gleam in his eyes, and then his eyes caught sight of Genefer crouching in a corner with her hands over her face.
Saul had not thought much of Genefer all this while, as presumably she had been well aware; but the sight of her distress touched him, and he would have approached her to offer some rude sympathy, had she not suddenly sprung up and faced him with blazing eyes and a fury only second to that which her father had displayed.
In the emphatic and most idiomatic vernacular, which is always used by natives in moments of excitement, she told Saul her opinion of him and of his conduct; she let loose in a flood all the mingled pique, anger, disappointment, and jealousy which his conduct of the past months had inspired. That he should presume to ask her love, and then care for nothing but wild notions that savoured to her of the devil himself, and which all right-minded people reprobated to the last extent, was an insult she could not put up with. Woman-like, she had looked to stand first and to stand paramount with handsome Saul, when once she had permitted him to woo her; and instead of this, he had heeded her less and less with every week that passed, and had even refused to remain on Sunday at the farm when she had asked it as a favour; and at last had done this mischief to her father through his mischievous, ill-conditioned tongue. She would have none of him, no, not she! He might go to his friends the fisher-folk, or to the slums of Pentreath for a wife, if he wanted one!—she would have none of him! He had been false to her, he had treated her shamefully, and now he might go. She never wished to see him again! And bursting into tears (the almost invariable climax to an outburst of anger with women of her class) Genefer rushed from the room, and Saul, looking white about the lips, but with a blaze in his eyes which made all who met him shrink away from him, put together the few things he had at the farm besides his books, and stalked away into Pentreath, where he found an audience as ready to listen to him as he was to address them.
And this is how it came about that St. Bride was set in a ferment of excitement by the news that there were exciting scenes going on at Pentreath—mysterious outbreaks of popular fury—machines broken in the mills—a statue of the old king standing in the market-place, found in the river-bed one morning greatly shattered by the fall—a baker’s shop looted in broad daylight another day; and over all a sense that there was more to come, and that this was but the beginning of what might grow to rival one of the great risings of the Midlands and the North, when private houses had been broken into, and an untold amount of damage inflicted upon rich men, who had drawn upon themselves the popular hatred.
Now St. Bride, as represented by the fishermen, had no wish to be left out of any enterprise which promised either excitement or reward. It was whispered in all quarters that Saul was at the head of the rioters, and that his was the master-mind there. If so, they would be certain of a welcome from him if they joined his little band; and so it came about that, whilst the boats still lay high and dry upon the beach, the men of the place were almost all mysteriously missing, and their womenfolk professed absolute ignorance as to what had taken them off.
“Oh, Mr. St. Aubyn,” said Bride, with tears in her eyes, as she encountered the clergyman of St. Erme on the downs, bent in the same direction as herself, to the cottage where a sick woman was lying, “do you think it is true what they are all saying, that Abner’s grandson is gathering together a band of desperate men, and intends to try and provoke a general rising, and to march all through the district, breaking machines and robbing and plundering? It seems too dreadful to think of; but wherever I go I hear the same tale. Do you believe that it is true?”
“I trust that you have heard an exaggerated account of what is passing, Lady Bride,” he said; “though I fear that there are troublous days before us; but I think we are prepared for that, and can look without over-much dismay around. Remember, my child, that when we see the beginning of these things coming to pass, we are to lift up our heads, because our redemption draweth nigh. In that is our safeguard and our hope.”
The light flashed into Bride’s eyes.
“Ah! thank you for reminding me. It is so hard to keep it always in mind; but indeed it is like the beginning—men’s heart’s failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth. Mr. St. Aubyn, tell me, are the people altogether wrong in demanding redress of those grievances which lie so heavy upon them? Is it right that they should have so little, so very little voice in the government of the nation, when we call this a free and a constitutional form of government? Need we condemn them altogether for doing what their ignorance and misery drive them to do? Are we not also to blame in that they are so miserable and ignorant?”
“In very truth we are, Lady Bride——”
“Ah! no; not Lady Bride to you, when we are alone like this,” she pleaded. “It never used to be so. Let it be Bride again, as though I were a child. Ah! would that I were, and that she were with me! Oh, it is all so dark and perplexing now!”
“It is, my child, it is, even for the best and wisest on the earth. Let us take comfort in the thought that it is light with God, and that He sees the working out of His eternal purposes, even where most let and hindered by the sin and opposition of man. A time of darkness is upon us—that none can deny—not in this land alone, but in all the lands of Christendom; and you are right in your feeling that it is not the ignorant masses who are alone in fault. We—the Church—the nobility, the great ones of the earth, have failed again and again in our duties towards those below them, and now they have to suffer. Two wrongs do not make one right, and the method in which the ignorant seem like to set to work is not only foolish, but sinful also; and in our sense of sympathy for the people and our self-reprobation, we must not palliate, even though we may partially understand the cause of the sin. It is right that the people should be thought of and rightly done by. God has taught us that again and again; but it is not the ordinance of God that the people should govern—and yet, if I read my Bible and interpret aright, that is what we shall come to in the days of the end; it will no longer be the voice of God, nor yet the voice of the king which will prevail, but the voice of the people; and we shall again hear in newer and more subtle forms that word of blasphemy which tells us that the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
“Ah! do you think so? That is what I have heard said; but surely it will take long, very long, to accomplish?”
“Perhaps; I know not. In France it was accomplished in a few terrible years. Methinks in this land, where God has been so gracious times and again, it may be differently done and with less of terror and bloodshed; but the end will assuredly be the same. One can see, even from a worldly aspect, how it will be accomplished. Men say, and with justice and truth, that there should be in the community, for the good of all, a fair class representation—that is, that each class should have such a voice in the discussion of the affairs of the nation as will secure for that class the meed of justice and consideration to which its position entitles it. At present this is not so. The rising and important middle class have almost no representation, and the labouring and artisan class none. Yet they have a stake in the country, and are entitled to a voice.”
“That is what Eustace says, and it sounds right.”
“It is right, according to my ideas of justice, and will be gradually accomplished, as you know, by extension of franchise and so forth. We need not discuss that theme now. What I mean to point out to you is the danger that threatens us in the future. From claiming a fair class representation as the basis of sound government, the next step will be the theory that every man—or at least every householder—should have a vote, and most plausible reasons will be given for this. Probably in time it will be carried into law, and then you will see at once an end of class representation as well as of fair constitutional government. The power will no longer be balanced. It will all be thrown into the hands of one class, and that the most numerous but the least educated, the least thoughtful, the least capable of clear and sound judgment, because their very conditions of life preclude them from study and the acquisition of the needful knowledge requisite for sound government. The power will be vested in the class the most easily led or driven by unprincipled men, by the class with the least stake in the country, and the least power of seeing the true bearing of a measure which may be very plausible, but absolutely unsound. It may take the people very long to find their power, and perhaps longer still to dare to use it; but in time both these things will be achieved, and then the greatness of England will be at an end; and, as I think, the state of misery and confusion which will ensue will be far, far greater than what she has endured beneath the sway of her so-called tyrants and oppressors.”
Bride heaved a long sigh.
“Eustace would not think that,” she remarked softly.
“No, nor many great men of the day; and time has yet to show whether they are right, or an old parish priest who has been buried alive all his days and knows nothing, as they would argue, of the signs of the times;” and here Mr. St. Aubyn smiled slightly. “Well, well, God knows, and in His good time we shall know. For the present that must content us. Let us not be in haste to condemn. Let us be patient, and full of faith and hope. He has always pointed out a way of escape for His faithful servants and followers before things become too terrible for endurance. Our hope no man can take from us. Let us live in its heavenly light, and then shall we not be confounded at the swelling of the waters and the raging of the flood—those great waters of the latter days—supporting the beast and his scarlet rider, which are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues, the power of a great and lawless democracy.”
Bride looked awed and grave, yet full of confidence and hope; but the conversation was brought to a close by their arrival at the cottage whither both were bound.