Suddenly she was roused, she knew not how or by what. She was conscious that all was real, that hundreds were looking at her, that true-sounding words were being extracted from her; that that figure, so bowed down, with the face concealed with both hands, was really Jem. Her face flushed scarlet, and then paler than before. But in dread of herself with the tremendous secret imprisoned within her, she exerted every power she had to keep in the full understanding of what was going on, of what she was asked, and of what she answered. With all her faculties preternaturally alive and sensitive, she heard the next question from the pert young barrister, who was delighted to have the examination of this witness.
“And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover? You say you knew both these young men. Which was the favoured lover? Which did you prefer?”
And who was he, the questioner, that he should dare so lightly to ask of her heart’s secrets? That he should dare to ask her to tell, before that multitude assembled there, what woman usually whispers with blushes and tears, and many hesitations, to one ear alone?
So, for an instant, a look of indignation contracted Mary’s brow, as she steadily met the eyes of the impertinent counsellor. But, in that instant, she saw the hands removed from a face beyond, behind; and a countenance revealed of such intense love and woe—such a deprecating dread of her answer; and suddenly her resolution was taken. The present was everything; the future, that vast shroud, it was maddening to think upon; butnowshe might own her fault, butnowshe might even own her love. Now, when the beloved stood thus, abhorred of men, there would be no feminine shame to stand between her and her avowal. So she also turned towards the judge, partly to mark that her answer was not given to the monkeyfied man who questioned her, and likewise that the face might be averted from, and her eyes not gaze upon, the form that contracted with the dread of the words he anticipated.
“He asks me which of them two I liked best. Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson once—I don’t know—I’ve forgotten; but I loved James Wilson, that’s now on trial, above what tongue can tell—above all else on earth put together; and I love him now better than ever, though he has never known a word of it till this minute. For you see, sir, mother died before I was thirteen, before I could know right from wrong about some things; and I was giddy and vain, and ready to listen to any praise of my good looks; and this poor young Mr. Carson fell in with me, and told me he loved me; and I was foolish enough to think he meant me marriage: a mother is a pitiful loss to a girl, sir; and so I used to fancy I could like to be a lady, and rich, and never know want any more. I never found out how dearly I loved another till one day, when James Wilson asked me to marry him, and I was very hard andsharp in my answer—for, indeed, sir, I’d a deal to bear just then—and he took me at my word and left me; and from that day to this, I’ve never spoken a word to him, or set eyes on him; though I’d fain have done so, to try and show him we had both been too hasty; for he’d not been gone out of my sight above a minute, before I knew I loved—far above my life,” said she, dropping her voice as she came to this second confession of the strength of her attachment. “But if the gentleman asks me which I loved the best, I make answer, I was flattered by Mr. Carson, and pleased with his flattery; but James Wilson, I——”
She covered her face with her hands, to hide the burning scarlet blushes, which even dyed her fingers.
FromMary Barton, 1848
“Andhave I heard you aright?” began Mr. Carson, with his deep quivering voice. “Man! have I heard you aright? Was it you, then, that killed my boy? my only son?”—(he said these last few words almost as if appealing for pity, and then he changed his tone to one more vehement and fierce). “Don’t dare to think that I shall be merciful, and spare you, because you have come forward to accuse yourself. I tell you I will not spare you the least pang the law can inflict—you, who did not show pity on my boy, shall have none from me.”
“I did not ask for any,” said John Barton, in a low voice.
“Ask, or not ask, what care I? You shall be hanged—hanged—man!” said he, advancing his face, and repeating the word with slow grinding emphasis, as if to infuse some of the bitterness of his soul into it.
John Barton gasped, but not with fear. It was only that he felt it terrible to have inspired such hatred as was concentrated into every word, every gesture of Mr. Carson’s.
“As for being hanged, sir, I know it’s all right and proper. I dare say it’s bad enough; but I tell you what, sir,” speaking with an outburst, “if you’d hanged me the day after I’d done the deed, I would have gone down on my knees and blessed you. Death! Lord, what is it to Life? To such a life as I’ve been leading this fortnight past. Life at best is no great thing; but such a life as I have dragged through since that night,” he shuddered at the thought. “Why, sir, I’ve been on the point of killing myself this many a time to get away from my own thoughts. I didn’t! and I’ll tell you why. I didn’t know but that I should be more haunted than ever with the recollection of my sin. Oh! God above only can tell the agony with which I’ve repented me of it, and part perhaps because I feared He would think I were impatient of the misery He sent as punishment—far, far worse misery than any hanging, sir.” He ceased from excess of emotion.
Then he began again.
“Sin’ that day (it may be very wicked, sir, but it’s the truth) I’ve kept thinking and thinking if I were but in that world where they say God is, He would, maybe, teach me right from wrong, even if it were with many stripes. I’ve been sore puzzled here. Iwould go through hell-fire if I could but get free from sin at last, it’s an awful thing. As for hanging, that’s just nought at all.”
His exhaustion compelled him to sit down. Mary rushed to him. It seemed as if till then he had been unaware of her presence.
“Ay, ay, wench!” said he feebly, “is it thee? Where’s Jem Wilson?”
Jem came forward. John Barton spoke again, with many a break and gasping pause:
“Lad! thou hast borne a deal for me. It’s the meanest thing I ever did to leave thee to bear the brunt. Thou, who wert as innocent of any knowledge of it as the babe unborn. I’ll not bless thee for it. Blessing from such as me would not bring thee any good. Thou’lt love Mary, though she is my child.”
He ceased, and there was a pause for a few seconds.
Then Mr. Carson turned to go. When his hand was on the latch of the door, he hesitated for an instant.
“You can have no doubt for what purpose I go. Straight to the police-office, to send men to take care of you, wretched man, and your accomplice. To-morrow morning your tale shall be repeated to those who can commit you to gaol, and before long you shall have the opportunity of trying how desirable hanging is.”
“O sir!” said Mary, springing forward and catching hold of Mr. Carson’s arm, “my father is dying. Look at him, sir. If you want Death for Death, you have it. Don’t take him away from me these last hours. He must go alone through Death, but let me be with him as long as I can. O, sir! if you have any mercy in you, leave him here to die.”
John himself stood up, stiff and rigid, and replied:
“Mary, wench! I owe him summat. I will godie, where, and as he wishes me. Thou hast said true, I am standing side by side with Death; and it matters little where I spend the bit of time left of life. That time I must pass wrestling with my soul for a character to take into the other world. I’ll go where you see fit, sir. He’s innocent,” faintly indicating Jem, as he fell back in the chair.
“Never fear! They cannot touch him,” said Job Legh, in a low voice.
But as Mr. Carson was on the point of leaving the house with no sign of relenting about him, he was again stopped by John Barton, who had risen once more from his chair, and stood supporting himself on Jem while he spoke.
“Sir, one word! My hairs are grey with suffering, and yours with years——”
“And have I had no suffering?” asked Mr. Carson, as if appealing for sympathy, even to the murderer of his child.
And the murderer of his child answered to the appeal, and groaned in spirit over the anguish he had caused.
“Have I had no inward suffering to blanch these hairs? Have not I toiled and struggled even to these years with hopes in my heart that all centred in my boy! I did not speak of them, but were they not there? I seemed hard and cold; and so I might be to others, but not to him!—who shall ever imagine the love I bore to him? Even he never dreamed how my heart leapt up at the sound of his footstep, and how precious he was to his poor old father. And he is gone—killed—out of the hearing of all loving words—out of my sight for ever. He was my sunshine, and now it is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!” cried the old man aloud.
The eyes of John Barton grew dim with tears.Rich and poor, masters and men, were then brothers in the deep suffering of the heart; for was not this the very anguish he had felt for little Tom, in years so long gone by that they seemed like another life!
The mourner before him was no longer the employer; a being of another race, eternally placed in antagonistic attitude; going through the world glittering like gold, with a stony heart within, which knew no sorrow but through the accidents of Trade; no longer the enemy, the oppressor, but a very poor and desolate old man.
The sympathy for suffering, formerly so prevalent a feeling with him, again filled John Barton’s heart, and almost impelled him to speak (as best he could) some earnest tender words to the stern man, shaking in his agony.
But who was he that he should utter sympathy or consolation? The cause of all this woe.
Oh, blasting thought! Oh, miserable remembrance! He had forfeited all right to bind up his brother’s wounds.
Stunned by the thought, he sank upon the seat, almost crushed with the knowledge of the consequences of his own action; for he had no more imagined to himself the blighted home, and the miserable parents, than does the soldier, who discharges his musket, picture to himself the desolation of the wife, and the pitiful cries of the helpless little ones, who are in an instant to be made widowed and fatherless.
To intimidate a class of men, known only to those below them as desirous to obtain the greatest quantity of work for the lowest wages—at most, to remove an overbearing partner from an obnoxious firm, who stood in the way of those who struggled as well as they were able to obtain their rights—thiswas the light in which John Barton had viewed his deed; and even so viewing it, after the excitement had passed away, the Avenger, the sure Avenger, had found him out.
But now he knew that he had killed a man and a brother—now he knew that no good thing could come out of this evil, even to the sufferers whose cause he had so blindly espoused.
He lay across the table, broken-hearted. Every fresh quivering sob of Mr. Carson’s stabbed him to his soul.
He felt execrated by all; and as if he could never lay bare the perverted reasonings which had made the performance of undoubted sin appear a duty. The longing to plead some faint excuse grew stronger and stronger. He feebly raised his head, and looking at Job Legh, he whispered out:
“I did not know what I was doing, Job Legh; God knows I didn’t! O, sir!” said he wildly, almost throwing himself at Mr. Carson’s feet, “say you forgive me the anguish I now see I have caused you. I care not for pain, or death; you know I don’t; but oh, man! forgive me the trespass I have done!”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” said Job, solemnly and low, as if in prayer: as if the words were suggested by those John Barton had used.
Mr. Carson took his hands away from his face. I would rather see death than the ghastly gloom which darkened that countenance.
“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”
There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving, cruel deeds are acted blasphemy.
Mr. Carson left the house. And John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
They lifted him up, and almost hoping that that deep trance might be to him the end of all earthly things, they bore him to his bed.
For a time they listened with divided attention to his faint breathings; for in each hasty hurried step that echoed in the street outside they thought they heard the approach of the officers of justice.
When Mr. Carson left the house he was dizzy with agitation; the hot blood went careering through his frame. He could not see the deep blue of the night heavens for the fierce pulses which throbbed in his head. And partly to steady and calm himself, he leaned against a railing, and looked up into those calm majestic depths with all their thousand stars.
And by-and-by his own voice returned upon him, as if the last words he had spoken were being uttered through all that infinite space; but in their echoes there was a tone of unutterable sorrow.
“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”
He tried to shake off the spiritual impression made by this imagination. He was feverish and ill—and no wonder.
So he turned to go homewards; not, as he had threatened, to the police-office. After all (he told himself) that would do in the morning. No fear of the man escaping, unless he escaped to the grave.
So he tried to banish the phantom voices and shapes which came unbidden to his brain, and to recall his balance of mind by walking calmly and slowly, and noticing everything which struck his senses.
It was a warm soft evening in spring, and there were many persons in the streets. Among others a nurse with a little girl in her charge, conveying herhome from some children’s gaiety—a dance most likely, for the lovely little creature was daintily decked out in soft, snowy muslin; and her fairy feet tripped along by her nurse’s side as if to the measure of some tune she had lately kept time to.
Suddenly, up behind her there came a rough, rude errand-boy, nine or ten years of age; a giant he looked by the fairy-child as she fluttered along. I don’t know how it was, but in some awkward way he knocked the poor little girl down upon the hard pavement as he brushed rudely past, not much caring whom he hurt so that he got along.
The child arose, sobbing with pain; and not without cause, for blood was dropping down from the face but a minute before so fair and bright—dropping down on the pretty frock, making those scarlet marks so terrible to little children.
The nurse, a powerful woman, had seized the boy just as Mr. Carson (who had seen the whole transaction) came up.
“You naughty little rascal! I’ll give you to a policeman, that I will! Do you see how you’ve hurt the little girl? Do you?” accompanying every sentence with a violent jerk of passionate anger.
The lad looked hard and defying; but withal terrified at the threat of the policeman, that ogre of our streets to all unlucky urchins. The nurse saw it, and began to drag him along, with a view of making what she called “a wholesome impression.”
His terror increased, and with it his irritation; when the little sweet face, choking away its sobs, pulled down nurse’s head, and said—
“Please, dear nurse, I’m not much hurt; it was very silly to cry, you know. He did not mean to do it.He did not know what he was doing, did you, little boy? Nurse won’t call a policeman, so don’t be frightened.”And she put up her little mouth to be kissed by her injurer, just as she had been taught to do at home to “make peace.”
“That lad will mind, and be more gentle for the time to come, I’ll be bound, thanks to that little lady,” said a passer by, half to himself and half to Mr. Carson, whom he had observed to notice the scene.
The latter took no apparent heed of the remark, but passed on. But the child’s pleading reminded him of the low, broken voice he had so lately heard, penitently and humbly urging the same extenuation of his great guilt.
“I did not know what I was doing.”
He had some association with those words; he had heard or read of that plea somewhere before. Where was it?
Could it be——?
He would look when he got home. So when he entered his house he went straight and silently upstairs to his library, and took down the large handsome Bible, all grand and golden, with its leaves adhering together from the bookbinder’s press, so little had it been used.
On the first page (which fell open to Mr. Carson’s view) were written the names of his children, and his own.
“Henry John, son of the above Johnand Elizabeth CarsonBorn, Sept. 29th, 1815.”
To make the entry complete, his death should now be added. But the page became hidden by the gathering mist of tears.
Thought upon thought, and recollection upon recollection, came crowding in, from the remembrance of the proud day when he had purchased the costlybook in order to write down the birth of the little babe of a day old.
He laid his head down on the open page, and let the tears fall slowly on the spotless leaves.
His son’s murderer was discovered; had confessed his guilt; and yet (strange to say) he could not hate him with the vehemence of hatred he had felt when he had imagined him a young man, full of lusty life defying all laws, human and divine. In spite of his desire to retain the revengeful feeling he considered as a duty to his dead son, something of pity would steal in for the poor, wasted skeleton of a man, the smitten creature, who had told him of his sin, and implored his pardon that night.
In the days of his childhood and youth, Mr. Carson had been accustomed to poverty, but it was honest, decent poverty; not the grinding, squalid misery he had remarked in every part of John Barton’s house, and which contrasted strangely with the pompous sumptuousness of the room in which he now sat. Unaccustomed wonder filled his mind at the reflection of the different lots of the brethren of mankind.
Then he roused himself from his reverie, and turned to the object of his search—the Gospel, where he half expected to find the tender pleading: “They know not what they do.”
It was murk midnight by this time, and the house was still and quiet. There was nothing to interrupt the old man in his unwonted study.
Years ago the Gospel had been his task-book in learning to read. So many years ago that he had become familiar with the events before he could comprehend the Spirit that made the Life.
He fell to the narrative now afresh, with all the interest of a little child. He began at the beginning, and read on almost greedily, understanding for thefirst time the full meaning of the story. He came to the end; the awful End. And there were the haunting words of pleading.
He shut the book and thought deeply.
All night long, the Archangel combated with the Demon.
All night long others watched by the bed of Death. John Barton had revived a fitful intelligence. He spoke at times with even something of his former energy, and in the racy Lancashire dialect he had always used when speaking freely.
“You see, I’ve so often been hankering after the right way; and it’s a hard one for a poor man to find. At least it’s been so to me. No one learned me, and no one telled me. When I was a little chap they taught me to read, and then they never gave no books; only I heard say the Bible was a good book. So when I grew thoughtful and puzzled, I took to it. But you’d never believe black was black, or night was night, when you saw all about you acting as if black was white, and night was day. It’s not much I can say for myself in t’other world, God forgive me; but I can say this, I would fain have gone after the Bible rules if I’d seen folk credit it; they all spoke up for it, and went and did clean contrary. In those days I would ha’ gone about wi’ my Bible, like a little child, my finger in th’ place, and asking the meaning of this or that text, and no one told me. Then I took out two or three texts as clear as glass, and I tried to do what they bid me do. But I don’t know how it was, masters and men, all alike cared no more for minding those texts than I did for th’ Lord Mayor of London; so I grew to think it must be a sham put upon poor ignorant folk, women, and such like.
“It was not long I tried to live Gospelwise, but it was liker heaven than any other bit of earth has been.I’d old Alice to strengthen me; but everyone else said, ‘Stand up for thy rights, or thou’lt never get them;’ and wife and children never spoke, but their helplessness cried aloud, and I was driven to do as others did—and then Tom died. You know all about that—I’m getting scant o’ breath, and blind like.”
Then again he spoke, after some minutes of hushed silence.
“All along it came natural to love folk, though now I am what I am. I think one time I could e’en have loved the masters if they’d ha’ letten me; that was in my Gospel-days, afore my child died o’ hunger. I was tore in two oftentimes, between my sorrow for poor, suffering folk, and my trying to love them as caused their sufferings (to my mind).
“At last I gave it up in despair, trying to make folks’ actions square wi’ th’ Bible; and I thought I’d no longer labour at following th’ Bible mysel’. I’ve said all this afore, maybe. But from that time I’ve dropped down, down—down.”
After that he only spoke in broken sentences.
“I did not think he’d been such an old man—oh, that he had but forgiven me!” and then came earnest, passionate, broken words of prayer.
Job Legh had gone home like one struck down with the unexpected shock. Mary and Jem together waited the approach of death; but as the final struggle drew on, and morning dawned, Jem suggested some alleviation to the gasping breath, to purchase which he left the house in search of a druggist’s shop which should be open at that early hour.
During his absence, Barton grew worse; he had fallen across the bed, and his breathing seemed almost stopped; in vain did Mary strive to raise him, her sorrow and exhaustion had rendered her too weak.
So, on hearing someone enter the house-place below, she cried out for Jem to come to her assistance.
A step, which was not Jem’s, came up the stairs.
Mr. Carson stood in the doorway. In one instant he comprehended the case.
He raised up the powerless frame; and the departing soul looked out of the eyes with gratitude. He held the dying man propped in his arms. John Barton folded his hands as if in prayer.
“Pray for us,” said Mary, sinking on her knees, and forgetting in that solemn hour all that had divided her father and Mr. Carson.
No other words would suggest themselves than some of those he had read only a few hours before:
“God be merciful to us sinners.—Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”
And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson’s arms.
So ended the tragedy of a poor man’s life.
FromMary Barton, 1848
“John Bartonwas not a man to take counsel with people; nor did he make many words about his doings. So I can only judge from his way of thinking and talking in general, never having heard him breathe a syllable concerning this matter in particular. You see, he were sadly put about to make great riches and great poverty square with Christ’s Gospel”—Job paused in order to try and express what was clear enough in his own mind as to the effect produced on John Barton by the great and mocking contrasts presented by the varieties of human condition. Before he could find suitable words to explain his meaning, Mr. Carson spoke.
“You mean he was an Owenite; all for equality and community of goods, and that kind of absurdity.”
“No, no! John Barton was no fool. No need to tell him that were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow. Nor yet did he care for goods, nor wealth; no man less, so that he could get daily bread for him and his; but what hurt him sore, and rankled in him as long as I knew him (and, sir, it rankles in many a poor man’s heart far more than the want of any creature comforts, and puts a sting into starvation itself), was that those who wore finer clothes and ate better food, and had more money in their pockets, kept him at arm’s length, and cared not whether his heart was sorry or glad; whether he lived or died—whether he was bound for heaven or hell. It seemed hard to him that a heap of gold should part him and hisbrother so far asunder. For he was a loving man before he grew mad with seeing such as he was slighted, as if Christ Himself had not been poor. At one time, I’ve heard him say, he felt kindly towards every man, rich or poor, because he thought they were all men alike. But latterly he grew aggravated with the sorrows and suffering that he saw, and which he thought the masters might help if they would.”
“That’s the notion you’ve all of you got,” said Mr. Carson. “Now, how in the world can we help it? We cannot regulate the demand for labour. No man or set of men can do it. It depends on events which God alone can control. When there is no market for our goods we suffer just as much as you can do.”
“Not as much, I’m sure, sir; though I’m not given to Political Economy, I know that much. I’m wanting in learning, I’m aware; but I can use my eyes. I never see the masters getting thin and haggard for want of food; I hardly ever see them making much change in their way of living, though I don’t doubt they’ve got to do it in bad times. But it’s in things for show they cut short; while for such as me, it’s in things for life we’ve to stint. For sure, sir, you’ll own it’s come to a hard pass when a man would give aught in the world for work to keep his children from starving, and can’t get a bit, if he’s ever so willing to labour. I’m not up to talking as John Barton would have done, but that’s clear to me at any rate.”
“My good man, just listen to me. Two men live in a solitude; one produces loaves of bread, the other coats—or what you will. Now, would it not be hard if the bread-producer were forced to give bread for the coats, whether he wanted them or not, in order to furnish employment to the other: that is thesimple form of the case; you’ve only to multiply the numbers. There will come times of great changes in the occupation of thousands when improvements in manufactures and machinery are made. It’s all nonsense talking—it must be so!”
Job Legh pondered a few moments.
“It’s true it was a sore time for the hand-loom weavers when power-looms came in; them new-fangled things make a man’s life like a lottery; and yet I’ll never misdoubt that power-looms, and railways, and all such-like inventions are the gifts of God. I have lived long enough, too, to see that it is a part of His plan to send suffering to bring out a higher good; but surely it’s also a part of His plan that so much of the burden of the suffering as can be should be lightened by those whom it is His pleasure to make happy and content in their own circumstances. Of course, it would take a deal more thought and wisdom than me or any other man has to settle out of hand how this should be done. But I’m clear about this, when God gives a blessing to be enjoyed, He gives it with a duty to be done; and the duty of the happy is to help the suffering to bear their woe.”
“Still facts have proved, and are daily proving, how much better it is for every man to be independent of help, and self-reliant,” said Mr. Carson thoughtfully.
“You can never work facts as you would fixed quantities, and say, given two facts, and the product is so and so. God has given men feelings and passions which cannot be worked into the problem, because they are for ever changing and uncertain. God has also made some weak; not in any one way, but in all. One is weak in body, another in mind, another in steadiness of purpose, a fourth can’t tell right from wrong, and so on; or if he can tell the right, he wants strength to hold by it. Now, to my thinking, themthat is strong in any of God’s gifts is meant to help the weak—be hanged to the facts! I ask your pardon, sir; I can’t rightly explain the meaning that is in me. I’m like a tap as won’t run, but keeps letting it out drop by drop, so that you’ve no notion of the force of what’s within.”
Job looked and felt very sorrowful at the want of power in his words, while the feeling within him was so strong and clear.
“What you say is very true, no doubt,” replied Mr. Carson; “but how would you bring it to bear upon the masters’ conduct—on my particular case?” added he gravely.
“I’m not learned enough to argue. Thoughts come into my head that I’m sure are as true as Gospel, though maybe they don’t follow each other like the Q.E.D. of a Proposition. The masters has it on their own conscience—you have it on yours, sir, to answer for to God whether you’ve done, and are doing, all in your power to lighten the evils that seem always to hang on the trades by which you make your fortunes. It’s no business of mine, thank God. John Barton took the question in hand, and his answer to it was NO! Then he grew bitter and angry, and mad; and in his madness he did a great sin, and wrought a great woe; and repented him with tears of blood, and will go through his penance humbly and meekly in t’other place, I’ll be bound. I never seed such bitter repentance as his that last night.”
There was a silence of many minutes. Mr. Carson had covered his face, and seemed utterly forgetful of their presence; and yet they did not like to disturb him by rising to leave the room.
At last he said, without meeting their sympathetic eyes:
“Thank you both for coming—and for speaking candidly to me. I fear, Legh, neither you nor I have convinced each other, as to the power, or want of power, in the masters to remedy the evils the men complain of.”
“I’m loth to vex you, sir, just now; but it was not the want of power I was talking on; what we all feel sharpest is the want of inclination to try and help the evils which come like blights at times over the manufacturing places, while we see the masters can stop work and not suffer. If we saw the masters try for our sakes to find a remedy—even if they were long about it—even if they could find no help, and at the end of all could only say, ‘Poor fellows, our hearts are sore for ye; we’ve done all we could, and can’t find a cure’—we’d bear up like men through bad times. No one knows till they have tried what power of bearing lies in them, if once they believe that men are caring for their sorrows and will help if they can. If fellow-creatures can give nought but tears and brave words, we take our trials straight from God, and we know enough of His love to put ourselves blind into His hands. You say our talk has done no good. I say it has. I see the view you take of things from the place where you stand. I can remember that when the time comes for judging you; I shan’t think any longer, does he act right on my views of a thing, but does he act right on his own. It has done me good in that way. I’m an old man, and may never see you again; but I’ll pray for you, and think on you and your trials, both of your great wealth, and of your son’s cruel death, many and many a day to come; and I’ll ask God to bless you both now and for evermore. Amen. Farewell!”
Jem had maintained a manly and dignified reserveever since he had made his open statement of all he knew. Now both the men rose, and bowed low, looking at Mr. Carson with the deep human interest they could not fail to take in one who had endured and forgiven a deep injury; and who struggled hard, as it was evident he did, to bear up like a man under his affliction.
He bowed low in return to them. Then he suddenly came forward and shook them by the hand; and thus, without a word more, they parted.
There are stages in the contemplation and endurance of great sorrow which endow men with the same earnestness and clearness of thought that in some of old took the form of Prophecy. To those who have large capability of loving and suffering, united with great power of firm endurance, there comes a time in their woe when they are lifted out of the contemplation of their individual case into a searching inquiry into the nature of their calamity, and the remedy (if remedy there be) which may prevent its recurrence to others as well as to themselves.
Hence the beautiful, noble efforts which are from time to time brought to light, as being continuously made by those who have once hung on the cross of agony, in order that others may not suffer as they have done; one of the grandest ends which sorrow can accomplish; the sufferer wrestling with God’s messenger until a blessing is left behind, not for one alone but for generations.
It took time before the stern nature of Mr. Carson was compelled to the recognition of this secret of comfort, and that same sternness prevented his reaping any benefit in public estimation from the actions he performed; for the character is more easily changed than the habits and manners originallyformed by that character, and to his dying day Mr. Carson was considered hard and cold by those who only casually saw him, or superficially knew him. But those who were admitted into his confidence were aware that the wish that lay nearest to his heart was that none might suffer from the cause from which he had suffered; that a perfect understanding, and complete confidence and love, might exist between masters and men; that the truth might be recognised that the interests of one were the interests of all, and as such required the consideration and deliberation of all, that hence it was most desirable to have educated workers, capable of judging, not mere machines of ignorant men; and to have them bound to their employers by the ties of respect and affection, not by mere money bargains alone; in short, to acknowledge the Spirit of Christ as the regulating law between both parties.
Many of the improvements now in practice in the system of employment in Manchester owe their origin to short earnest sentences spoken by Mr. Carson. Many and many yet to be carried into execution take their birth from that stern, thoughtful mind which submitted to be taught by suffering.
FromNorth and South, 1855
Writing ofNorth and SouthMrs. Gaskell said: “I tried to make both the story and the writing as quiet as I could, in order that people might not say that they could not see what the writer felt to be a plain and earnest truth for romantic incident or exaggerated writing.” The earlier chapters ofNorth and Southcontain some of Mrs. Gaskell’s best work.
Writing ofNorth and SouthMrs. Gaskell said: “I tried to make both the story and the writing as quiet as I could, in order that people might not say that they could not see what the writer felt to be a plain and earnest truth for romantic incident or exaggerated writing.” The earlier chapters ofNorth and Southcontain some of Mrs. Gaskell’s best work.
Shedesired me to apologise to you as it is. Perhaps you know my brother has imported hands from Ireland, and it has irritated the Milton people excessively—as if he hadn’t a right to get labour where he could; and the stupid wretches here wouldn’t work for him; and now they’ve frightened these poor Irish starvelings so with their threats, that we daren’t let them out. You may see them huddled in that top room in the mill—and they’re to sleep there, to keep them safe from those brutes, who will neither work nor let them work.
“They’re at the gates! Call John, Fanny—call him in from the mill! They’re at the gates! They’ll batter them in! Call John, I say!”
And simultaneously, the gathering tramp—to which she had been listening, instead of heeding Margaret’s words—was heard just right outside the wall, and an increasing din of angry voices raged behind the wooden barrier, which shook as if the unseen maddened crowd made battering-rams of their bodies, and retreated a short space only to comewith more united steady impetus against it, till their great beats made the strong gates quiver like reeds before the wind.
The women gathered round the windows, fascinated to look on the scene which terrified them. Mrs. Thornton, the women-servants, Margaret—all were there. Fanny had returned, screaming upstairs as if pursued at every step, and had thrown herself in hysterical sobbing on the sofa. Mrs. Thornton watched for her son, who was still in the mill. He came out, looked up at them—the pale cluster of faces—and smiled good courage to them, before he locked the factory-door. Then he called to one of the women to come down and undo his own door, which Fanny had fastened behind her in her mad flight. Mrs. Thornton herself went. And the sound of his well-known and commanding voice seemed to have been like the taste of blood to the infuriated multitude outside. Hitherto they had been voiceless, wordless, needing all their breath for their hard-labouring efforts to break down the gates. But now, hearing him speak inside, they set up such a fierce unearthly groan, that even Mrs. Thornton was white with fear as she preceded him into the room. He came in a little flushed, but his eyes gleaming, as in answer to the trumpet-call of danger, and with a proud look of defiance on his face, that made him a noble, if not a handsome man. Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was—a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy—intense to painfulness—in the interests of the moment.
Mr. Thornton came frankly forwards:
“I’m sorry, Miss Hale, you have visited us at this unfortunate moment, when, I fear, you may be involved in whatever risk we have to bear. Mother! hadn’t you better go into the back rooms? I’m not sure whether they may not have made their way from Pinner’s Lane into the stable-yard; but if not, you will be safer there than here. Go, Jane!” continued he, addressing the upper servant. And she went, followed by the others.
“I stop here!” said his mother. “Where you are, there I stay.” And, indeed, retreat into the back rooms was of no avail; the crowd had surrounded the out-buildings at the rear, and were sending forth their awful threatening roar behind. The servants retreated into the garrets, with many a cry and shriek. Mr. Thornton smiled scornfully as he heard them. He glanced at Margaret, standing all by herself at the window nearest the factory. Her eyes glittered, her colour was deepened on cheek and lip. As if she felt his look, she turned to him and asked a question that had been for some time in her mind:
“Where are the poor imported work-people? In the factory there?”
“Yes! I left them cowered up in a small room, at the head of a back flight of stairs; bidding them run all risks, and escape down there, if they heard any attack made on the mill-doors. But it is not them—it is me they want.”
“When can the soldiers be here?” asked his mother, in a low but not unsteady voice.
He took out his watch with the same measured composure with which he did everything. He made some little calculation:
“Supposing Williams got straight off when I told him, and hadn’t to dodge about amongst them—it must be twenty minutes yet.”
“Twenty minutes!” said his mother, for the first time showing her terror in the tones of her voice.
“Shut down the windows instantly, mother,” exclaimed he: “the gates won’t bear such another shock. Shut down that window, Miss Hale.”
Margaret shut down her window, and then went to assist Mrs. Thornton’s trembling fingers.
From some cause or other, there was a pause of several minutes in the unseen street. Mrs. Thornton looked with wild anxiety at her son’s countenance, as if to gain the interpretation of the sudden stillness from him. His face was set into rigid lines of contemptuous defiance; neither hope nor fear could be read there. Fanny raised herself up:
“Are they gone?” asked she, in a whisper.
“Gone!” replied he. “Listen!”
She did listen; they all could hear the one great straining breath; the creak of wood slowly yielding; the wrench of iron; the mighty fall of the ponderous gates. Fanny stood up tottering—made a step or two towards her mother, and fell forwards into her arms in a fainting fit. Mrs. Thornton lifted her up with a strength that was as much that of the will as of the body, and carried her away.
“Thank God!” said Mr. Thornton, as he watched her out. “Had you not better go upstairs, Miss Hale?”
Margaret’s lips formed a “No”!—but he could not hear her speak, for the tramp of innumerable steps right under the very wall of the house, and the fierce growl of low, deep, angry voices that had a ferocious murmur of satisfaction in them, more dreadful than their baffled cries not many minutes before.
“Never mind!” said he, thinking to encourage her. “I am very sorry you should have been entrapped into all this alarm; but it cannot last longnow; a few minutes more, and the soldiers will be here.”
“Oh, God!” cried Margaret suddenly; “there is Boucher. I know his face, though he is livid with rage—he is fighting to get to the front—look! look!”
“Who is Boucher?” asked Mr. Thornton coolly, and coming close to the window to discover the man in whom Margaret took such an interest. As soon as they saw Mr. Thornton, they set up a yell—to call it not human is nothing—it was as the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening. Even he drew back for a moment, dismayed at the intensity of hatred he had provoked.
“Let them yell!” said he. “In five minutes more——. I only hope my poor Irishmen are not terrified out of their wits by such a fiend-like noise. Keep up your courage for five minutes, Miss Hale.”
“Don’t be afraid for me,” she said hastily. “But what in five minutes? Can you do nothing to soothe these poor creatures? It is awful to see them.”
“The soldiers will be here directly, and that will bring them to reason.”
“To reason!” said Margaret quickly. “What kind of reason?”
“The only reason that does with men that make themselves into wild beasts. By Heaven! they’ve turned to the mill-door!”
“Mr. Thornton,” said Margaret, shaking all over with her passion, “go down this instant, if you are not a coward. Go down and face them like a man. Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here. Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don’t let the soldiers come in and cut down poor creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have anycourage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man.”
He turned and looked at her while she spoke. A dark cloud came over his face while he listened. He set his teeth as he heard her words.
“I will go. Perhaps I may ask you to accompany me downstairs, and bar the door behind me; my mother and sister will need that protection.”
“Oh! Mr. Thornton! I do not know—I may be wrong—only——”
But he was gone; he was downstairs in the hall; he had unbarred the front door; all she could do, was to follow him quickly, and fasten it behind him, and clamber up the stairs again with a sick heart and a dizzy head. Again she took her place by the farthest window. He was on the steps below; she saw that by the direction of a thousand angry eyes; but she could neither see nor hear anything save the savage satisfaction of the rolling angry murmur. She threw the window wide open. Many in the crowd were mere boys; cruel and thoughtless—cruel because they were thoughtless; some were men, gaunt as wolves, and mad for prey. She knew how it was; they were like Boucher—with starving children at home—relying on ultimate success in their efforts to get higher wages, and enraged beyond measure at discovering that Irishmen were to be brought in to rob their little ones of bread. Margaret knew it all; she read it in Boucher’s face, forlornly desperate and livid with rage. If Mr. Thornton would but say something to them—let them hear his voice only—it seemed as if it would be better than this wild beating and raging against the stony silence that vouchsafed them no word, even of anger or reproach. But perhaps he was speaking now; there was a momentary hush of their noise, inarticulate as thatof a troup of animals. She tore her bonnet off; and bent forwards to hear. She could only see; for if Mr. Thornton had indeed made the attempt to speak, the momentary instinct to listen to him was past and gone, and the people were raging worse than ever. He stood with his arms folded; still as a statue; his face pale with repressed excitement. They were trying to intimidate him—to make him flinch; each was urging the other on to some immediate act of personal violence. Margaret felt intuitively that in an instant all would be uproar; the first touch would cause an explosion, in which, among such hundreds of infuriated men and reckless boys, even Mr. Thornton’s life would be unsafe—that in another instant the stormy passions would have passed their bounds, and swept all barriers of reason, or apprehension of consequence. Even while she looked she saw lads in the background stooping to take off their heavy wooden clogs—the readiest missile they could find; she saw it was the spark to the gunpowder, and, with a cry, which no one heard, she rushed out of the room, downstairs—she had lifted the great iron bar of the door with an imperious force—had thrown the door open wide—and was there, in face of that angry sea of men, her eyes smiting them with flaming arrows of reproach. The clogs were arrested in the hands that held them—the countenances, so fell not a moment before, now looked irresolute, and as if asking what this meant. For she stood between them and their enemy. She could not speak, but held out her arms towards them till she could recover breath.
“Oh, do not use violence! He is one man, and you are many;” but her words died away, for there was no tone in her voice; it was but a hoarse whisper. Mr. Thornton stood a little on one side; he had movedaway from behind her, as if jealous of anything that should come between him and danger.
“Go!” said she, once more (and now her voice was like a cry). “The soldiers are sent for—are coming. Go peaceably. Go away. You shall have relief from your complaints, whatever they are.”
“Shall them Irish blackguards be packed back again?” asked one from out the crowd, with fierce threatening in his voice.
“Never, for your bidding!” exclaimed Mr. Thornton. And instantly the storm broke. The hootings rose and filled the air—but Margaret did not hear them. Her eye was on the group of lads who had armed themselves with their clogs some time before. She saw their gesture—she knew its meaning—she read their aim. Another moment, and Mr. Thornton might be smitten down—he whom she had urged and goaded to come to this perilous place. She only thought how she could save him. She threw her arms around him; she made her body into a shield from the fierce people beyond. Still, with his arms folded, he shook her off.
“Go away,” said he, in his deep voice. “This is no place for you.”
“It is!” said she. “You did not see what I saw.” If she thought her sex would be a protection—if, with shrinking eyes, she had turned away from the terrible anger of these men, in any hope that ere she looked again they would have paused and reflected, and slunk away, and vanished—she was wrong. Their reckless passion had carried them too far to stop—at least had carried some of them too far; for it is always the savage lads, with their love of cruel excitement, who head the riot—reckless to what bloodshed it may lead. A clog whizzed through the air. Margaret’s fascinated eyes watched itsprogress; it missed its aim, and she turned sick with affright, but changed not her position, only hid her face on Mr. Thornton’s arm. Then she turned and spoke again:
“For God’s sake! do not damage your cause by this violence. You do not know what you are doing.” She strove to make her words distinct.
A sharp pebble flew by her, grazing forehead and cheek, and drawing a blinding sheet of light before her eyes. She lay like one dead on Mr. Thornton’s shoulder. Then he unfolded his arms, and held her encircled in one for an instant:
“You do well!” said he. “You come to oust the innocent stranger. You fall—you hundreds—on one man; and when a woman comes before you, to ask you for your own sakes to be reasonable creatures, your cowardly wrath falls upon her! You do well!” They were silent while he spoke. They were watching, open-eyed and open-mouthed, the thread of dark-red blood which wakened them up from their trance of passion. Those nearest the gate stole out ashamed; there was a movement through all the crowd—a retreating movement. Only one voice cried out:
“Th’ stone were meant for thee; but thou wert sheltered behind a woman!”
Mr. Thornton quivered with rage. The blood-flowing had made Margaret conscious—dimly, vaguely conscious. He placed her gently on the doorstep, her head leaning against the frame.
“Can you rest there?” he asked. But without waiting for her answer, he went slowly down the steps right into the middle of the crowd. “Now kill me, if it is your brutal will. There is no woman to shield me here. You may beat me to death—you will never move me from what I have determined upon—not you!” He stood amongst them, with his armsfolded, in precisely the same attitude as he had been in on the steps.
But the retrograde movement towards the gate had begun—as unreasoningly, perhaps as blindly, as the simultaneous anger. Or, perhaps, the idea of the approach of the soldiers, and the sight of that pale, upturned face, with closed eyes, still and sad as marble, though the tears welled out of the long entanglement of eyelashes, and dropped down; and, heavier, slower plash than even tears, came the drip of blood from her wound. Even the most desperate—Boucher himself—drew back, faltered away, scowled, and finally went off, muttering curses on the master, who stood in his unchanging attitude, looking after their retreat with defiant eyes. The moment that retreat had changed into a flight (as it was sure from its very character to do), he darted up the steps to Margaret.
She tried to rise without his help.
“It is nothing,” she said, with a sickly smile. “The skin is grazed, and I was stunned at the moment. Oh, I am so thankful they are gone!” And she cried without restraint.
FromNorth and South.