“Here we suffer grief and pain,Here we meet to part again;In Heaven we part no more.Oh! that will be joyful,” etc.
“Here we suffer grief and pain,Here we meet to part again;In Heaven we part no more.Oh! that will be joyful,” etc.
“Here we suffer grief and pain,
Here we meet to part again;
In Heaven we part no more.
Oh! that will be joyful,” etc.
She recalled his question, the whispered question, to her in the happiest part of the day. He askedLibbie: “Is Dunham like Heaven? The people here are as kind as angels, and I don’t want Heaven to be more beautiful than this place. If you and mother would but die with me, I should like to die, and live always there!” She had checked him, for she feared he was impious; but now the young child’s craving for some definite idea of the land to which his inner wisdom told him he was hastening, had nothing in it wrong, or even sorrowful, for—
“In Heaven we part no more.”
“In Heaven we part no more.”
“In Heaven we part no more.”
Mary Barton,Lizzie Leigh,Ruth, andNorth and South, Mrs. Gaskell’s earlier novels, were written with a purpose—“to defend the poor”—and in them she discusses some of the social problems of the day, which she tried to solve. Later she proved how well she could write in a humorous vein, as inCranford,Mr. Harrison’s Confessions, andMy Lady Ludlow.
As a descriptive writer she excelled, notably inMary Barton,Ruth,Cousin Phillis, andSylvia’s Lovers. She was always very observant, and many of her stories recall her talent for exquisite word painting.
FromMary Barton, 1848
“Thounever could abide the gentlefolk,” said Wilson, half amused at his friend’s vehemence.
“And what good have they ever done me that I should like them?” asked Barton, the latent fire lighting up his eye; and bursting forth, he continued: “If I am sick, do they come and nurse me? If my child lies dying (as poor Tom lay, with his white wan lips quivering, for want of better food than I could give him), does the rich man bring the wine or broth that might save his life? If I am out of work for weeks in the bad times, and winter comes, with black frost, and keen east wind, and there is no coal for the grate, and no clothes for the bed, and the thin bones are seen through the ragged clothes, does the rich man share his plenty with me, as he ought to do, if his religion wasn’t a humbug! When I lie on my death-bed, and Mary (bless her!) stands fretting, as I know she will fret,” and here his voice faltered a little, “will a rich lady come and take her to her own home if need be, till she can look round and see what best to do? No, I tell you it’s the poor, and the poor only, as does such things for the poor. Don’t think to come over me with th’ old tale, that the rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don’t know, they ought to know. We’retheir slaves as long as we can work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds; ay, as separate as Dives and Lazarus, with a great gulf between us; but I know who was best off then;” and he wound up his speech with a low chuckle that had no mirth in it.
At all times it is a bewildering thing to the poor weaver to see his employer removing from house to house, each one grander than the last, till he ends in building one more magnificent than all, or withdraws his money from the concern, or sells his mill, to buy an estate in the country, while all the time the weaver, who thinks he and his fellows are the real makers of this wealth, is struggling on for bread for his children, through the vicissitudes of lowered wages, short hours, fewer hands employed, etc. And when he knows trade is bad, and could understand (at least partially) that there are not buyers enough in the market to purchase the goods already made, and consequently that there is no demand for more; when he would bear and endure much without complaining, could he also see that his employers were bearing their share; he is, I say, bewildered and (to use his own words) “aggravated” to see that all goes on just as usual with the mill-owners. Large houses are still occupied, while spinners’ and weavers’ cottages stand empty, because the families that once filled them are obliged to live in rooms or cellars. Carriages still roll along the streets, concerts are still crowded by subscribers, the shops for expensive luxuries still find daily customers, while the workman loiters away hisunemployed time in watching these things, and thinking of the pale, uncomplaining wife at home, and the wailing children asking in vain for enough of food—of the sinking health, of the dying life of those near and dear to him. The contrast is too great. Why should he alone suffer from bad times?
I know that this is not really the case; and I know what is the truth in such matters; but what I wish to impress is what the workman feels and thinks. True, that with child-like improvidence, good times will often dissipate his grumbling, and make him forget all prudence and foresight.
But there are earnest men among these people, men who have endured wrongs without complaining, but without ever forgetting or forgiving those whom (they believe) have caused all this woe.
Among these was John Barton. His parents had suffered; his mother had died from absolute want of the necessaries of life. He himself was a good, steady workman, and, as such, pretty certain of steady employment. But he spent all he got with the confidence (you may also call it improvidence) of one who was willing, and believed himself able, to supply all his wants by his own exertions. And when his master suddenly failed, and all hands in the mill were turned back, one Tuesday morning, with the news that Mr. Hunter had stopped, Barton had only a few shillings to rely on; but he had good heart of being employed at some other mill, and accordingly, before returning home, he spent some hours in going from factory to factory, asking for work. But at every mill was some sign of depression of trade! some were working short hours, some were turning off hands, and for weeks Barton was out of work, living on credit. It was during this time that his little son, the apple of his eye, the cynosure of all his strong powerof love, fell ill of the scarlet fever. They dragged him through the crisis, but his life hung on a gossamer thread. Everything, the doctor said, depended on good nourishment, on generous living, to keep up the little fellow’s strength, in the prostration in which the fever had left him. Mocking words! when the commonest food in the house would not furnish one little meal. Barton tried credit; but it was worn out at the little provision shops, which were now suffering in their turn. He thought it would be no sin to steal, and would have stolen; but he could not get the opportunity in the few days the child lingered. Hungry himself, almost to an animal pitch of ravenousness, but with the bodily pain swallowed up in anxiety for his little sinking lad, he stood at one of the shop windows where all edible luxuries are displayed; haunches of venison, Stilton cheeses, moulds of jelly—all appetising sights to the common passer-by. And out of this shop came Mrs. Hunter! She crossed to her carriage, followed by the shopman loaded with purchases for a party. The door was quickly slammed to, and she drove away; and Barton returned home with a bitter spirit of wrath in his heart, to see his only boy a corpse!
You can fancy, now, the hoards of vengeance in his heart against the employers. For there are never wanting those who, either in speech or in print, find it their interest to cherish such feelings in the working classes; who know how and when to rouse the dangerous power at their command; and who use their knowledge with unrelenting purpose to either party.
FromMary Barton, 1848
Forthree years past trade has been getting worse and worse, and the price of provisions higher and higher. This disparity between the amount of the earnings of the working classes and the price of their food, occasioned, in more cases than could well be imagined, disease and death. Whole families went through a gradual starvation. They only wanted a Dante to record their sufferings. And yet even his words would fall short of the awful truth; they could only present an outline of the tremendous facts of the destitution that surrounded thousands upon thousands in the terrible years of 1839, 1840, and 1841. Even philanthropists who had studied the subject were forced to own themselves perplexed in their endeavour to ascertain the real causes of the misery; the whole matter was of so complicated a nature that it became next to impossible to understand it thoroughly. It need excite no surprise, then, to learn that a bad feeling between working men and the upper classes became very strong in this season of privation. The indigence and sufferings of the operatives induced a suspicion in the minds of many of them that their legislators, their magistrates, their employers, and even the ministers of religion, were, in general, their oppressors and enemies; and were in league for their prostration and enthralment. The most deplorable and enduring evil that arose out of the period of commercial depression to which I refer, was this feeling of alienation between the different classes of society. It is so impossibleto describe, or even faintly to picture, the state of distress which prevailed in the town at that time, that I will not attempt it; and yet I think again that surely, in a Christian land, it was not known even so feebly as words could tell it, or the more happy and fortunate would have thronged with their sympathy and their aid. In many instances the sufferers wept first and then they cursed. Their vindictive feelings exhibited themselves in rabid politics. And when I hear, as I have heard, of the sufferings and privations of the poor, of provision shops, where ha’porths of tea, sugar, butter, and even flour, were sold to accommodate the indigent—of parents sitting in their clothes by the fireside during the whole night for seven weeks together, in order that their only bed and bedding might be reserved for the use of their large family—of others sleeping upon the cold hearthstone for weeks in succession, without adequate means of providing themselves with food or fuel—and this in the depth of winter—of others being compelled to fast for days together, uncheered by any hope of better fortune, living, moreover, or rather starving, in a crowded garret, or damp cellar, and gradually sinking under the pressure of want and despair, into a premature grave; and when this has been confirmed by the evidence of their careworn looks, their excited feelings, and their desolate homes—can I wonder that many of them, in such times of misery and destitution, spoke and acted with ferocious precipitation?
An idea was now springing up among the operatives, that originated with the Chartists, but which came at last to be cherished as a darling child by many and many a one. They could not believe that Government knew of their misery: they rather chose to think it possible that men could voluntarilyassume the office of legislators for a nation who were ignorant of its real state; as who should make domestic rules for the pretty behaviour of children without caring to know that those children had been kept for days without food. Besides, the starving multitudes had heard that the very existence of their distress had been denied in Parliament; and though they felt this strange and inexplicable, yet the idea that their misery had still to be revealed in all its depths, and that then some remedy would be found, soothed their aching hearts, and kept down their rising fury.
So a petition was framed, and signed by thousands in the bright spring days of 1839, imploring Parliament to hear witnesses who could testify to the unparalleled destitution of the manufacturing districts. Nottingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, Manchester, and many other towns were busy appointing delegates to convey this petition, who might speak, not merely of what they had seen, and had heard, but from what they had borne and suffered. Life-worn, gaunt, anxious, hunger-stamped men were those delegates.
One of them was John Barton. He would have been ashamed to own the flutter of spirits his appointment gave him. There was the childish delight of seeing London—that went a little way, and but a little way. There was the vain idea of speaking out his notions before so many grand folk—that went a little further; and last, there was the really pure gladness of heart arising from the idea that he was one of those chosen to be instruments in making known the distresses of the people, and consequently in procuring them some grand relief, by means of which they should never suffer want or care any more. He hoped largely, but vaguely, of the results of his expedition. An argosy of the precious hopesof many otherwise despairing creatures was that petition to be heard concerning their sufferings.
The night before the morning on which the Manchester delegates were to leave for London, Barton might be said to hold a levée, so many neighbours came dropping in. Job Legh had early established himself and his pipe by John Barton’s fire, not saying much, but puffing away, and imagining himself of use in adjusting the smoothing-irons that hung before the fire, ready for Mary when she should want them. As for Mary, her employment was the same as that of Beau Tibbs’ wife, “just washing her father’s two shirts,” in the pantry back-kitchen; for she was anxious about his appearance in London. (The coat had been redeemed, though the silk handkerchief was forfeited.) The door stood open, as usual, between the house-place and the back-kitchen, so she gave her greeting to their friends as they entered.
“So, John, yo’re bound for London, are yo?” said one.
“Ay, I suppose, I mun go,” answered John, yielding to necessity as it were.
“Well, there’s many a thing I’d like yo to speak on to the Parliament people. Thou’lt not spare ’em, John, I hope. Tell ’em our minds; how we’re thinking we’n been clemmed long enough, and we donnot see whatten good they’n been doing, if they can’t give us what we’re all crying for sin’ the day we were born.”
“Ay, ay! I’ll tell ’em that, and much more to it, when it gets to my turn; but thou knows there’s many will have their word afore me.”
“Well, thou’ll speak at last. Bless thee, lad, do ask ’em to make th’ masters to break th’ machines. There’s never been good times sin’ spinning-jennies came up.”
“Machines is th’ ruin of poor folk,” chimed in several voices.
“For my part,” said a shivering, half-clad man, who crept near the fire, as if ague-stricken, “I would like thee to tell ’em to pass th’ Short-hours Bill. Flesh and blood gets wearied wi’ so much work; why should factory hands work so much longer nor other trades? Just ask ’em that, Barton, will ye?”
Barton was saved the necessity of answering, by the entrance of Mrs. Davenport, the poor widow he had been so kind to; she looked half-fed, and eager, but was decently clad. In her hand she brought a little newspaper parcel, which she took to Mary, who opened it, and then called out, dangling a shirt-collar from her soapy fingers:
“See, father, what a dandy you’ll be in London! Mrs. Davenport has brought you this; made new cut, all after the fashion. Thank you for thinking on him.”
“Eh, Mary!” said Mrs. Davenport, in a low voice, “whatten’s all I can do, to what he’s done for me and mine? But, Mary, sure I can help ye, for you’ll be busy wi’ this journey.”
“Just help me wring these out, and then I’ll take ’em to the mangle.”
So Mrs. Davenport became a listener to the conversation; and after awhile joined in.
“I’m sure, John Barton, if yo are taking messages to the Parliament folk, yo’ll not object to telling ’em what a sore trial it is, this law o’ theirs, keeping childer fra’ factory work, whether they be weakly or strong. There’s our Ben; why, porridge seems to go no way wi’ him, he eats so much; and I han gotten no money to send him t’ school, as I would like; and there he is, rampaging about the streets a’ day,getting hungrier and hungrier, and picking up a’ manner o’ bad ways; and th’ inspector won’t let him in to work in th’ factory, because he’s not right age; though he’s twice as strong as Sankey’s little ritling of a lad, as works till he cries for his legs aching so, though he is right age, and better.”
“I’ve one plan I wish to tell John Barton,” said a pompous, careful-speaking man, “and I should like him for to lay it afore the Honourable House. My mother comed out o’ Oxfordshire, and were under-laundry-maid in Sir Francis Dashwood’s family; and when we were little ones, she’d tell us stories of their grandeur; and one thing she named were that Sir Francis wore two shirts a day. Now he were all as one as a Parliament man; and many on ’em, I han no doubt, are like extravagant. Just tell ’em, John, do, that they’d be doing the Lancashire weavers a great kindness, if they’d ha’ their shirts a’ made o’ calico; ’twould make trade brisk, that would, wi’ the power o’ shirts they wear.”
Job Legh now put in his word. Taking the pipe out of his mouth, and addressing the last speaker, he said:
“I’ll tell ye what, Bill, and no offence, mind ye; there’s but hundreds of them Parliament folk as wear so many shirts to their back; but there’s thousands and thousands o’ poor weavers as han only gotten one shirt i’ the world; ay, and don’t know where t’ get another when that rag’s done, though they’re turning out miles o’ calico every day; and many a mile o’t is lying in warehouses, stopping up trade for want o’ purchasers. Yo take my advice, John Barton, and ask Parliament to set trade free, so as workmen can earn a decent wage, and buy their two, ay and three, shirts a year; that would make weaving brisk.”
He put his pipe in his mouth again, and redoubled his puffing, to make up for lost time.
“I’m afeard, neighbours,” said John Barton, “I’ve not much chance o’ telling ’em all yo say: what I think on, is just speaking out about the distress that they say is nought. When they hear o’ children born on wet flags, without a rag t’ cover ’em or a bit o’ food for th’ mother: when they hear of folk lying down to die i’ th’ streets, or hiding their want i’ some hole o’ a cellar till death come to set ’em free; and when they hear o’ all this plague, pestilence, and famine, they’ll surely do somewhat wiser for us than we can guess at now. Howe’er, I han no objection, if so be there’s an opening, to speak up for what yo say; anyhow, I’ll do my best, and yo see now, if better times don’t come after Parliament knows all.”
FromMary Barton, 1848
Theday arrived on which the masters were to have an interview with the deputation of the workpeople. The meeting was to take place in a public room at an hotel; and there, about eleven o’clock, the mill-owners who had received the foreign orders began to collect.
Of course, the first subject, however full their minds might be of another, was the weather. Having done their duty by all the showers and sunshine which had occurred during the past week, they fell to talking about the business which brought them together. There might be about twenty gentlemen in the room, including some, by courtesy, who were not immediatelyconcerned in the settlement of the present question; but who, nevertheless, were sufficiently interested to attend. These were divided into little groups, who did not seem by any means unanimous. Some were for a slight concession, just a sugar-plum to quieten the naughty child, a sacrifice to peace and quietness. Some were steadily and vehemently opposed to the dangerous precedent of yielding one jot or one tittle to the outward force of a turn-out. It was teaching the workpeople how to become masters, said they. Did they want the wildest thing hereafter, they would know that the way to obtain their wishes would be to strike work. Besides, one or two of those present had only just returned from the New Bailey, where one of the turn-outs had been tried for a cruel assault on a poor North-country weaver, who had attempted to work at the low price. They were indignant, and justly so, at the merciless manner in which the poor fellow had been treated; and their indignation at wrong took (as it often does) the extreme form of revenge. They felt as if, rather than yield to the body of men who were resorting to such cruel measures towards their fellow workmen, they, the masters, would sooner relinquish all the benefits to be derived from the fulfilment of the commission in order that the workmen might suffer keenly. They forgot that the strike was in this instance the consequence of want and need, suffered unjustly, as the endurers believed; for, however insane, and without ground of reason, such was their belief, and such was the cause of their violence. It is a great truth that you cannot extinguish violence by violence. You may put it down for a time; but while you are crowing over your imaginary success, see if it does not return with seven devils worse than its former self!
No one thought of treating the workmen asbrethren and friends, and openly, clearly, as appealing to reasonable men, stating exactly and fully the circumstances which led the masters to think it was the wise policy of the time to make sacrifices themselves, and to hope for them from the operatives.
In going from group to group in the room, you caught such a medley of sentences as the following—
“Poor devils! they’re near enough to starving, I’m afraid. Mrs. Aldred makes two cows’ heads into soup every week, and people come many miles to fetch it; and if these times last, we must try and do more. But we must not be bullied into anything!”
“A rise of a shilling or so won’t make much difference, and they will go away thinking they’ve gained their point.”
“That’s the very thing I object to. They’ll think so, and whenever they’ve a point to gain, no matter how unreasonable, they’ll strike work.”
“It really injures them more than us.”
“I don’t see how our interests can be separated.”
“The d⸺d brute had thrown vitriol on the poor fellow’s ankles, and you know what a bad part that is to heal. He had to stand still with the pain, and that left him at the mercy of the cruel wretch, who beat him about the head till you’d hardly have known he was a man. They doubt if he’ll live.”
“If it were only for that, I’ll stand out against them, even if it is the cause of my ruin.”
“Ay, I for one won’t yield one farthing to the cruel brutes; they’re more like wild beasts than human beings.”
(Well, who might have made them different?)
“I say, Carson, just go and tell Duncombe of this fresh instance of their abominable conduct. He’s wavering, but I think this will decide him.”
The door was now opened, and the waiter announcedthat the men were below, and asked if it were the pleasure of the gentlemen that they should be shown up.
They assented, and rapidly took their places round the official table; looking as like as they could to the Roman senators who awaited the irruption of Brennus and his Gauls.
Tramp, tramp, came the heavy clogged feet up the stairs; and in a minute five wild, earnest-looking men stood in the room. John Barton, from some mistake as to time, was not among them. Had they been larger-boned men you would have called them gaunt; as it was, they were little of stature, and their fustian clothes hung loosely upon their shrunk limbs. In choosing their delegates, too, the operatives had had more regard to their brains and power of speech, than to their wardrobes; they might have read the opinions of that worthy Professor Teufelsdröckh, inSartor Resartus, to judge from the dilapidated coats and trousers which yet clothed men of parts and of power. It was long since many of them had known the luxury of a new article of dress; and air-gaps were to be seen in their garments. Some of the masters were rather affronted at such a ragged detachment coming between the wind and their nobility; but what cared they?
At the request of a gentleman hastily chosen to officiate as chairman, the leader of the delegates read, in a high-pitched, psalm-singing voice, a paper containing the operatives’ statement of the case at issue, their complaints, and their demands, which last were not remarkable for moderation.
He was then desired to withdraw for a few minutes, with his fellow-delegates, to another room, while the masters considered what should be their definite answer.
When the men had left the room, a whispered, earnest consultation took place, everyone reurging his former arguments. The conceders carried the day, but only by a majority of one. The minority haughtily and audibly expressed their dissent from the measures to be adopted, even after the delegates re-entered the room; their words and looks did not pass unheeded by the quick-eyed operatives; their names were registered in bitter hearts.
The masters could not consent to the advance demanded by the workmen. They would agree to give one shilling per week more than they had previously offered. Were the delegates empowered to accept such offer?
They were empowered to accept or decline any offer made that day by the masters.
Then it might be as well for them to consult among themselves as to what should be their decision. They again withdrew.
It was not for long. They came back, and positively declined any compromise of their demands.
Then up sprang Mr. Henry Carson, the head and voice of the violent party among the masters, and addressing the chairman, even before the scowling operatives, he proposed some resolutions, which he, and those who agreed with him, had been concocting during this last absence of the deputation.
They were, first, withdrawing the proposal just made, and declaring all communication between the masters and that particular Trades Union at an end; secondly, declaring that no master would employ any workman in future, unless he signed a declaration that he did not belong to any Trades Union, and pledged himself not to assist or subscribe to any society having for its object interference with the master’s powers; and, thirdly, that the masters should pledge themselvesto protect and encourage all workmen willing to accept employment on those conditions, and at the rate of wages first offered. Considering that the men who now stood listening with lowering brows of defiance were all of them leading members of the Union, such resolutions were in themselves sufficiently provocative of animosity: but not content with simply stating them, Harry Carson went on to characterise the conduct of the workmen in no measured terms; every word he spoke rendering their looks more livid, their glaring eyes more fierce. One among them would have spoken, but checked himself, in obedience to the stern glance and pressure on his arm received from the leader. Mr. Carson sat down, and a friend instantly got up to second the motion. It was carried, but far from unanimously. The chairman announced it to the delegates (who had been once more turned out of the room for a division). They received it with deep brooding silence, but spoke never a word, and left the room without even a bow.
Now there had been some by-play at this meeting, not recorded in the Manchester newspapers, which gave an account of the more regular part of the transaction.
While the men had stood grouped near the door, on their first entrance, Mr. Harry Carson had taken out his silver pencil and had drawn an admirable caricature of them—lank, ragged, dispirited, and famine-stricken. Underneath he wrote a hasty quotation from the fat knight’s well-known speech inHenry IV. He passed it to one of his neighbours, who acknowledged the likeness instantly, and by him it was sent round to others, who all smiled and nodded their heads. When it came back to its owner, he tore the back of the letter on which it was drawn in two, twisted them up and flung them into the fire-place;but, careless whether they reached their aim or not, he did not look to see that they fell just short of any consuming cinders.
This proceeding was closely observed by one of the men.
He watched the masters as they left the hotel (laughing, some of them were, at passing jokes), and when all had gone he re-entered. He went to the waiter, who recognised him.
“There’s a bit on a picture up yonder, as one o’ the gentlemen threw away; I’ve a little lad at home as dearly loves a picture; by your leave I’ll go up for it.”
The waiter, good-natured and sympathetic, accompanied him up-stairs; saw the paper picked up and untwisted, and then being convinced by a hasty glance at its contents that it was only what the man had called it, “a bit of a picture,” he allowed him to bear away his prize.
Towards seven o’clock that evening, many operatives began to assemble in a room in the Weavers’ Arms public-house, a room appropriated for “festive occasions,” as the landlord, in his circular on opening the premises, had described it. But, alas! it was on no festive occasion that they met there this night. Starved, irritated, despairing men, they were assembling to hear the answer that morning given by their masters to the delegates; after which, as was stated in the notice, a gentleman from London would have the honour of addressing the meeting on the present state of affairs between the employers and the employed, or (as he chose to term them) the idle and the industrious classes. The room was not large, but its bareness of furniture made it appear so. Unshaded gas flared down upon the lean and unwashed artisans as they entered, their eyes blinking at the excess of light.
They took their seats on benches, and awaited the deputation. The latter, gloomily and ferociously, delivered the masters’ ultimatum, adding thereto not one word of their own; and it sank all the deeper into the sore hearts of the listeners for their forbearance.
Then the “gentleman from London” (who had been previously informed of the masters’ decision) entered. You would have been puzzled to define his exact position, or what was the state of his mind as regarded education. He looked so self-conscious, so far from earnest, among the group of eager, fierce, absorbed men, among whom he now stood. He might have been a disgraced medical student of the Bob Sawyer class, or an unsuccessful actor, or a flashy shopman. The impression he would have given you would have been unfavourable, and yet there was much about him that could only be characterised as doubtful.
He smirked in acknowledgment of their uncouth greetings and sat down; then glancing round, he inquired whether it would not be agreeable to the gentlemen present to have pipes and liquor handed round, adding that he would stand treat.
As the man who has had his taste educated to love reading falls devouringly upon books after a long abstinence, so these poor fellows, whose tastes had been left to educate themselves into a liking for tobacco, beer, and similar gratifications, gleamed up at the proposal of the London delegate. Tobacco and drink deaden the pangs of hunger and make one forget the miserable home, the desolate future.
They were now ready to listen to him with approbation. He felt it; and rising like a great orator, with his right arm outstretched, his left in the breast of his waistcoat, he began to declaim with a forced theatrical voice.
After a burst of eloquence, in which he blended the deeds of the elder and the younger Brutus, and magnified the resistless might of the “millions of Manchester,” the Londoner descended to matter-of-fact business, and in his capacity this way he did not belie the good judgment of those who had sent him as delegate. Masses of people, when left to their own free choice, seem to have discretion in distinguishing men of natural talent; it is a pity they so little regard temper and principles. He rapidly dictated resolutions and suggested measures. He wrote out a stirring placard for the walls. He proposed sending delegates to entreat the assistance of other Trades Unions in other towns. He headed the list of subscribing Unions by a liberal donation from that with which he was especially connected in London; and what was more, and more uncommon, he paid down the money in real, clinking, blinking, golden sovereigns! The money, alas! was cravingly required; but before alleviating any private necessities on the morrow, small sums were handed to each of the delegates, who were in a day or two to set out on their expeditions to Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, etc. These men were most of them members of the deputation who had that morning waited upon the masters. After he had drawn up some letters and spoken a few more stirring words, the gentleman from London withdrew, previously shaking hands all round; and many speedily followed him out of the room and out of the house.
The newly appointed delegates and one or two others, remained behind to talk over their respective missions, and to give and exchange opinions in more homely and natural language than they dared to use before the London orator.
“He’s a rare chap, yon,” began one, indicating thedeparted delegate by a jerk of his thumb towards the door. “He’s getten the gift of the gab, anyhow!”
“Ay! ay! he knows what he’s about. See how he poured it into us about that there Brutus. He were pretty hard, too, to kill his own son!”
“I could kill mine if he took part with the masters; to be sure, he’s but a stepson, but that makes no odds,” said another.
But now tongues were hushed, and all eyes were directed towards the member of the deputation who had that morning returned to the hotel to obtain possession of Harry Carson’s clever caricature of the operatives.
The heads clustered together to gaze at and detect the likenesses.
“That’s John Slater! I’d ha’ known him anywhere, by his big nose. Lord! how like; that’s me, by G—d, it’s the very way I’m obligated to pin my waistcoat up, to hide that I’ve getten no shirt. That is a shame, and I’ll not stand it.”
“Well!” said John Slater, after having acknowledged his nose and his likeness; “I could laugh at a jest as well as e’er the best on ’em, though it did tell agen mysel, if I were not clemming” (his eyes filled with tears; he was a poor, pinched, sharp-featured man, with a gentle and melancholy expression of countenance), “and if I could keep from thinking of them at home as is clemming; but with their cries for food ringing in my ears, and making me afeard of going home, and wonder if I should hear ’em wailing out, if I lay cold and drowned at th’ bottom o’ th’ canal, there; why, man, I cannot laugh at aught. It seems to make me sad that there is any as can make game on what they’ve never knowed; as can make such laughable pictures on men whose very heartswithin ’em are so raw and sore as ours were and are God help us.”
John Barton began to speak; they turned to him with great attention. “It makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that folk can make a jest of striving men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit o’ fire for th’ old granny as shivers i’ th’ cold; for a bit o’ bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife who lies in labour on th’ damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi’ hunger. For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes; and so that we get ’em, we’d not quarrel wi’ what they’re made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes why we brought ’em into th’ world to suffer?” He lowered his deep voice almost to a whisper:
“I’ve seen a father who had killed his child rather than let it clem before his eyes; and he were a tender-hearted man.”
He began again in his usual tone, “We come to th’ masters wi’ full hearts to ask for them things I named afore. We know that they’ve getten money, as we’ve earned for ’em; we know trade is mending and they’ve large orders, for which they’ll be well paid; we ask for our share o’ th’ payment; for, say we, if th’ masters get our share of payment it will only go to keep servants and horses—to more dress and pomp. Well and good, if yo choose to be fools we’ll not hinder you, so long as you’re just; but our share wemust and will have; we’ll not be cheated.Wewant it for daily bread, for life itself; and not for our own lives neither (for there’s many a one here, I know by mysel, as would be glad and thankful to lie down and die out o’ this weary world), but for the lives of them little ones, who don’t yet know what life is, and are afeard of death. Well, we come before the masters to state what we want and what we must have, afore we’ll set shoulder to their work; and they say ‘No.’ One would think that would be enough of hard-heartedness, but it isn’t. They go and make jesting pictures on us! I could laugh at mysel, as well as poor John Slater there; but then I must be easy in my mind to laugh. Now I only know that I would give the last drop of my blood to avenge us on yon chap, who had so little feeling in him as to make game on earnest, suffering men!”
A low angry murmur was heard among the men, but it did not yet take form or words. John continued:
“You’ll wonder, chaps, how I came to miss the time this morning; I’ll just tell you what I was a-doing. Th’ chaplin at the New Bailey sent and gived me an order to see Jonas Higginbotham; him as was taken up last week for throwing vitriol in a knob-stick’s face. Well, I couldn’t help but go; and I didn’t reckon it would ha’ kept me so late. Jonas were like one crazy when I got to him; he said he could na’ get rest night or day for th’ face of the poor fellow he had damaged; then he thought on his weak, clemmed look, as he tramped, footsore into town; and Jonas thought, maybe, he had left them at home as would look for news, and hope and get none, but, haply, tidings of his death. Well, Jonas had thought on these things till he could not rest, but walked up and down continually likea wild beast in his cage. At last he bethought him on a way to help a bit, and he got the chaplain to send for me; and he tell’d me this; and that th’ man were lying in the Infirmary, and he bade me go (to-day’s the day as folk may be admitted into th’ Infirmary) and get his silver watch, as was his mother’s, and sell it as well as I could, and take the money, and bid the poor knob-stick send it to his friends beyond Burnley; and I were to take him Jonas’s kind regards, and he humbly axed him to forgive him. So I did what Jonas wished. But, bless your life, none of us would ever throw vitriol again (at least at a knob-stick) if they could see the sight I saw to-day. The man lay, his face all wrapped in cloths, so I didn’t seethat; but not a limb, nor a bit of a limb, could keep from quivering with pain. He would ha’ bitten his hands to keep down his moans, but couldn’t, his face hurt him so if he moved it e’er so little. He could scarce mind me when I telled him about Jonas; he did squeeze my hand when I jingled the money, but when I axed his wife’s name, he shrieked out, ‘Mary, Mary, shall I never see you again? Mary, my darling, they’ve made me blind because I wanted to work for you and our own baby; O Mary, Mary!’ Then the nurse came, and said he were raving, and that I had made him worse. And I’m afeard it was true; yet I were loth to go without knowing where to send the money.… So that kept me beyond my time, chaps.”
“Did you hear where the wife lived at last?” asked many anxious voices.
“No! he went on talking to her, till his words cut my heart like a knife. I axed the nurse to find out who she was, and where she lived. But what I’m more especial naming it now for is this—for one thing, I wanted you all to know why I weren’t at my postthis morning; for another, I wish to say, that I, for one, ha’ seen enough of what comes of attacking knob-sticks, and I’ll ha’ nought to do with it no more.”
There were some expressions of disapprobation, but John did not mind them.
“Nay! I’m no coward,” he replied, “and I’m true to th’ back-bone. What I would like, and what I would do, would be to fight the masters. There’s one among yo called me a coward. Well! every man has a right to his opinion; but since I’ve thought on th’ matter to-day, I’ve thought we han all on us been more like cowards in attacking the poor like ourselves; them as has none to help, but mun choose between vitriol and starvation. I say we’re more cowardly in doing that than leaving them alone. No! what I would do is this: Have at the masters!” Again he shouted, “Have at the masters!” He spoke lower; all listened with hushed breath:
“It’s the masters as has wrought this woe; it’s the masters as should pay for it. Him as called me coward just now, may try if I am one or not. Set me to serve out the masters, and see if there’s aught I’ll stick at.”
“It would give the masters a bit on a fright if one of them were beaten within an inch of his life,” said one.
“Ay! or beaten till no life were left in him,” growled another.
And so with words, or looks that told more than words, they built up a deadly plan. Deeper and darker grew the import of their speeches, as they stood hoarsely muttering their meaning out, and glaring, with eyes that told the terror their own thoughts were to them, upon their neighbours. Their clenched fists, their set teeth, their livid looks, alltold the suffering which their minds were voluntarily undergoing in the contemplation of crime, and in familiarising themselves with its details.
Then came one of those fierce, terrible oaths which bind members of Trades Unions to any given purpose. Then, under the flaring gaslight, they met together to consult further. With the distrust of guilt, each was suspicious of his neighbour; each dreaded the treachery of another. A number of pieces of paper (the identical letter on which the caricature had been drawn that very morning) were torn up, andone was marked. Then all were folded up again, looking exactly alike. They were shuffled together in a hat. The gas was extinguished; each drew out a paper. The gas was relighted. Then each went as far as he could from his fellows, and examined the paper he had drawn without saying a word, and with a countenance as stony and immovable as he could make it.
Then, still rigidly silent, they each took up their hats and went every one his own way.
He who had drawn the marked paper, had drawn the lot of the assassin! and he had sworn to act according to his drawing! But no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed murderer.
FromMary Barton, 1848
Wemust return to John Barton. Poor John! He never got over his disappointing journey to London. The deep mortification he then experienced (with, perhaps, as little selfishness for its cause as mortification ever had) was of no temporary nature; indeed, few of his feelings were.
Then came a long period of bodily privation; of daily hunger after food; and though he tried to persuade himself he could bear want himself with stoical indifference, and did care about it as little as most men, yet the body took its revenge for its uneasy feelings. The mind became soured and morose, and lost much of its equipoise. It was no longer elastic, as in the days of youth, or in times of comparative happiness; it ceased to hope. And it is hard to live on when one can no longer hope.
The same state of feeling which John Barton entertained, if belonging to one who had had leisure to think of such things, and physicians to give names to them, would have been called monomania, so haunting, so incessant were the thoughts that pressed upon him. I have somewhere read a forcibly described punishment among the Italians, worthy of a Borgia. The supposed or real criminal was shut up in a room, supplied with every convenience and luxury; and at first mourned little over his imprisonment. But day by day he became aware that the space between the walls of his apartment was narrowing, and then he understood the end. Those painted walls would come into hideous nearness, and at last crush the life out of him.
And so day by day, nearer and nearer, came the diseased thoughts of John Barton. They excluded the light of heaven, the cheering sounds of earth. They were preparing his death.
It is true much of their morbid power might be ascribed to the use of opium. But before you blame too harshly this use, or rather abuse, try a hopeless life, with daily cravings of the body for food. Try, not alone being without hope yourself, but seeing all around you reduced to the same despair, arising from the same circumstances; all around you telling (though they use no words or language), by their looks and feeble actions, that they are suffering and sinking under the pressure of want. Would you not be glad to forget life, and its burdens? And opium gives forgetfulness for a time.
It is true they who thus purchase it pay dearly for their oblivion; but can you expect the uneducated to count the cost of their whistle? Poor wretches! They pay a heavy price. Days of oppressive weariness and languor, whose realities have the feeble sickliness of dreams; nights, whose dreams are fierce realities of agony; sinking health, tottering frames, incipient madness, and worse, theconsciousnessof incipient madness: this is the price of their whistle. But have you taught them the science of consequences?
John Barton’s overpowering thought, which was to work out his fate on earth, was—rich and poor. Why are they so separate, so distinct, when God has made them all? It is not His will that their interests are so far apart. Whose doing is it?
And so on into the problems and mysteries of life, until, bewildered and lost, unhappy and suffering, the only feeling that remained clear and undisturbed in the tumult of his heart was hatred to the one class, and keen sympathy with the other.
But what availed his sympathy? No education had given him wisdom; and without wisdom, even love, with all its effects, too often works but harm. He acted to the best of his judgment, but it was a widely erring judgment.
The actions of the uneducated seem to me typified in those of Frankenstein, that monster of many human qualities, ungifted with a soul, a knowledge of the difference between good and evil.
The people rise up to life; they irritate us, they terrify us, and we become their enemies. Then, in the sorrowful moment of our triumphant power, their eyes gaze on us with mute reproach. Why have we made them what they are; a powerful monster, yet without the inner means for peace and happiness?
John Barton became a Chartist, a Communist, all that is commonly called wild and visionary. Ay! but being visionary is something. It shows a soul, a being not altogether sensual; a creature who looks forward for others, if not for himself.
And with all his weakness he had a sort of practical power, which made him useful to the bodies of men to whom he belonged. He had a ready kind of rough Lancashire eloquence, arising out of the fullness of his heart, which was very stirring to men similarly circumstanced, who liked to hear their feelings put into words. He had a pretty clear head at times for method and arrangement, a necessary talent to large combinations of men. And what perhaps more than all made him relied upon and valued, was the consciousness which everyone who came in contact with him felt, that he was actuated by no selfish motives; that his class, his order, was what he stood by, not the rights of his own paltry self. For even in great and noble men, as soon as self comes intoprominent existence, it becomes a mean and paltry thing.
A little time before this there had come one of those occasions for deliberation among the employed, which deeply interested John Barton, and the discussions concerning which had caused his frequent absence from home of late.
I am not sure if I can express myself in the technical terms of either masters or workmen, but I will try simply to state the case on which the latter deliberated.
An order for coarse goods came in from a new foreign market. It was a large order, giving employment to all the mills engaged in that species of manufacture; but it was necessary to execute it speedily, and at as low prices as possible, as the masters had reason to believe that a duplicate order had been sent to one of the Continental manufacturing towns, where there were no restrictions on food, no taxes on building or machinery, and where consequently they dreaded that the goods could be made at a much lower price than they could afford them for; and that, by so acting and charging, the rival manufacturers would obtain undivided possession of the market. It was clearly their interest to buy cotton as cheaply, and to beat down wages as low as possible. And in the long run the interests of the workmen would have been thereby benefited. Distrust each other as they may, the employers and the employed must rise or fall together. There may be some difference as to chronology, none as to fact.
But the masters did not choose to make all these circumstances known. They stood upon being the masters, and that they had a right to order work at their own prices, and they believed that in the present depression of trade, and unemployment ofhands, there would be no great difficulty in getting it done.
Now let us turn to the workmen’s view of the question. The masters (of the tottering foundation of whose prosperity they were ignorant) seemed doing well, and, like gentlemen, “lived at home in ease,” while they were starving, gasping on from day to day; and there was a foreign order to be executed, the extent of which, large as it was, was greatly exaggerated; and it was to be done speedily. Why were the masters offering such low wages under these circumstances? Shame upon them! It was taking advantage of their workpeople being almost starved; but they would starve entirely rather than come into such terms. It was bad enough to be poor, while by the labour of their thin hands, the sweat of their brows, the masters were made rich; but they would not be utterly ground down to dust. No! they would fold their hands and sit idle, and smile at the masters, whom even in death they could baffle. With Spartan endurance they determined to let the employers know their power, by refusing to work.
So class distrusted class, and their want of mutual confidence wrought sorrow to both. The masters would not be bullied, and compelled to reveal why they felt it wisest and best to offer only such low wages; they would not be made to tell that they were even sacrificing capital to obtain a decisive victory over the Continental manufacturers. And the workmen sat silent and stern, with folded hands, refusing to work for such pay. There was a strike in Manchester.
Of course, it was succeeded by the usual consequences. Many other Trades Unions, connected with different branches of business, supported with money, countenance, and encouragement of every kind, thestand which the Manchester power-loom weavers were making against their masters. Delegates from Glasgow, from Nottingham, and other towns were sent to Manchester, to keep up the spirit of resistance; a committee was formed, and all the requisite officers elected—chairman, treasurer, honorary secretary; among them was John Barton.
The masters, meanwhile, took their measures. They placarded the walls with advertisements for power-loom weavers. The workmen replied by a placard in still larger letters, stating their grievances. The masters met daily in town, to mourn over the time (so fast slipping away) for the fulfilment of the foreign orders; and to strengthen each other in their resolution not to yield. If they gave up now, they might give up always. It would never do. And amongst the most energetic of the masters, the Carsons, father and son, took their places. It is well known that there is no religionist so zealous as a convert; no masters so stern, and regardless of the interests of their workpeople, as those who have risen from such a station themselves. This would account for the elder Mr. Carson’s determination not to be bullied into yielding; not even to be bullied into giving reasons for acting as the masters did. It was the employer’s will, and that should be enough for the employed. Harry Carson did not trouble himself much about the grounds for his conduct. He liked the excitement of the affair. He liked the attitude of resistance. He was brave, and he liked the idea of personal danger, with which some of the more cautious tried to intimidate the violent among the masters.
Meanwhile the power-loom weavers living in the more remote parts of Lancashire, and the neighbouring counties, heard of the masters’ advertisements for workmen; and in their solitary dwellings grewweary of starvation, and resolved to come to Manchester. Foot-sore, way-worn, half-starved-looking men they were, as they tried to steal into town in the early dawn, before people were astir, or in the dusk of the evening. And now began the real wrong-doing of the Trades Unions. As to their decision to work or not at such a particular rate of wages, that was either wise or unwise; an error of judgment, at the worst. But they had no right to tyrannise over others, and tie them down to their own Procrustean bed. Abhorring what they considered oppression in their masters, why did they oppress others? Because, when men get excited, they know not what they do. Judge, then, with something of the mercy of the Holy One, whom we all love.
In spite of policemen, set to watch over the safety of the poor country weavers—in spite of magistrates and prisons and severe punishments—the poor depressed men tramping in from Burnley, Padiham, and other places, to work at the condemned “Starvation Prices,” were waylaid, and beaten, and left by the roadside almost for dead. The police broke up every lounging knot of men: they separated quietly to reunite half a mile out of town.
Of course the feeling between the masters and workmen did not improve under these circumstances.
Combination is an awful power. It is like the equally mighty agency of steam; capable of almost unlimited good or evil. But to obtain a blessing on its labours, it must work under the direction of a high and intelligent will, not being misled by passion or excitement. The will of the operatives had not been guided to the calmness of wisdom.
So much for generalities.
FromMary Barton, 1848
Assoon as he could bring his distracted thoughts to bear upon the present scene, he perceived that the trial of James Wilson for the murder of Henry Carson was just commencing. The clerk was gabbling over the indictment, and in a minute or two there was the accustomed question, “How say you, Guilty or not Guilty?”
Although but one answer was expected—was customary in all cases—there was a pause of dead silence, an interval of solemnity even in this hackneyed part of the proceeding; while the prisoner at the bar stood with compressed lips, looking at the judge with his outward eyes, but with far other and different scenes presented to his mental vision; a sort of rapid recapitulation of his life—remembrances of his childhood—his father (so proud of him, his first-born child)—his sweet little playfellow, Mary—his hopes, his love—his despair, yet still, yet ever and ever, his love—the blank, wide world it had been without her love—his mother—his childless mother—but not long to be so—not long to be away from all she loved—nor during that time to be oppressed with doubt as to his innocence, sure and secure of her darling’s heart;—he started from his instant’s pause, and said in a low, firm voice:
“Not guilty, my lord.”
The circumstances of the murder, the discovery of the body, the causes of suspicion against Jem, wereas well known to most of the audience as they are to you, so there was some little buzz of conversation going on among the people while the leading counsel for the prosecution made his very effective speech.
“That’s Mr. Carson, the father, sitting behind Serjeant Wilkinson!”
“What a noble-looking old man he is! so stern and inflexible, with such classical features! Does he not remind you of some of the busts of Jupiter?”
“I am more interested by watching the prisoner. Criminals always interest me. I try to trace in the features common to humanity some expression of the crimes by which they have distinguished themselves from their kind. I have seen a good number of murderers in my day, but I have seldom seen one with such marks of Cain on his countenance as the man at the bar.”
“Well, I am no physiognomist, but I don’t think his face strikes me as bad. It certainly is gloomy and depressed, and not unnaturally so, considering his situation.”
“Only look at his low, resolute brow, his downcast eye, his white compressed lips. He never looks up—just watch him.”
“His forehead is not so low if he had that mass of black hair removed, and is very square, which some people say is a good sign. If others are to be influenced by such trifles as you are, it would have been much better if the prison barber had cut his hair a little previous to the trial; and as for downcast eye and compressed lip, it is all part and parcel of his inward agitation just now; nothing to do with character, my good fellow.”
Poor Jem! His raven hair (his mother’s pride, and so often fondly caressed by her fingers), was that, too, to have its influence against him?
The witnesses were called. At first they consisted principally of policemen, who, being much accustomed to giving evidence, knew what were the material points they were called on to prove, and did not lose the time of the court in listening to anything unnecessary.
“Clear as day against the prisoner,” whispered one attorney’s clerk to another.
“Black as night, you mean,” replied his friend; and they both smiled.
“Jane Wilson! who’s she? Some relation, I suppose, from the name.”
“The mother—she that is to prove the gun part of the case.”
“Oh, ay—I remember! Rather hard on her, too, I think.”
They both were silent, as one of the officers of the court ushered Mrs. Wilson into the witness-box. I have often called her the “old woman,” and “an old woman,” because, in truth, her appearance was so much beyond her years, which could not be many above fifty. But partly owing to her accident in early life, which left a stamp of pain upon her face, partly owing to her anxious temper, partly to her sorrows, and partly to her limping gait, she always gave me the idea of age. But now she might have seemed more than seventy; her lines were so set and deep, her features so sharpened, and her walk so feeble. She was trying to check her sobs into composure, and (unconsciously) was striving to behave as she thought would best please her poor boy, whom she knew she had often grieved by her uncontrolled impatience. He had buried his face in his arms, which rested on the front of the dock (an attitude he retained during the greater part of his trial, and which prejudiced many against him).
The counsel began the examination.
“Your name is Jane Wilson, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The mother of the prisoner at the bar?”
“Yes, sir,” with quivering voice, ready to break out into weeping, but earning respect by the strong effort at self-control, prompted as I have said before, by her earnest wish to please her son by her behaviour.
The barrister now proceeded to the important part of the examination, tending to prove that the gun found on the scene of the murder was the prisoner’s. She had committed herself so fully to the policeman that she could not well retract; so without much delay in bringing the question round to the desired point, the gun was produced in court, and the inquiry made:
“That gun belongs to your son, does it not?”
She clenched the sides of the witness-box in her efforts to make her parched tongue utter words. At last she moaned forth:
“Oh! Jem, Jem! what mun I say?”
Every one bent forward to hear the prisoner’s answer; although, in fact, it was of little importance to the issue of the trial. He lifted up his head; and with a face brimming full of pity for his mother, yet resolved into endurance, said:
“Tell the truth, mother!”
And so she did, and with the fidelity of a little child. Every one felt that she did; and the little colloquy between mother and son did them some slight service in the opinion of the audience. But the awful judge sat unmoved; and the jurymen changed not a muscle of their countenances; while the counsel for the prosecution went triumphantly through this part of the case, including the fact of Jem’s absence fromhome on the night of the murder, and bringing every admission to bear right against the prisoner.
It was over. She was told to go down. But she could no longer compel her mother’s heart to keep silence, and suddenly turning towards the judge (with whom she imagined the verdict to rest), she thus addressed him with her choking voice:
“And now, sir, I’ve telled you the whole truth, ashebid me; but don’t you let what I have said go for to hang him; oh, my lord judge, take my word for it, he’s as innocent as the child as has yet to be born. For sure, I, who am his mother, and have nursed him on my knee, and been gladdened by the sight of him every day since, ought to know him better than yon pack of fellows” (indicating the jury, while she strove against her heart to render her words distinct and clear for her dear son’s sake), “who, I’ll go bail, never saw him before this morning in all their born days. My lord judge, he’s so good I often wondered what harm there was in him; many is the time when I’ve been fretted (for I’m frabbit enough at times), when I’ve scold’t myself, and said, ‘You ungrateful thing, the Lord God has given you Jem, and isn’t that blessing enough for you?’ But He has seen fit to punish me. If Jem is—if Jem is—taken from me, I shall be a childless woman; and very poor, having nought left to love on earth, and I cannot say ‘His will be done.’ I cannot, my lord judge, oh, I cannot!”
While sobbing out these words she was led away by the officers of the court, but tenderly and reverently, with the respect which great sorrow commands.
The stream of evidence went on and on, gathering fresh force from every witness who was examined, and threatening to overwhelm poor Jem. Already they had proved that the gun was his, that he hadbeen heard not many days before the commission of the deed to threaten the deceased; indeed that the police had, at that time, been obliged to interfere, to prevent some probable act of violence. It only remained to bring forward a sufficient motive for the threat and the murder. The clue to this had been furnished by the policeman, who had overheard Jem’s angry language to Mr. Carson; and his report in the first instance had occasioned the subpœna to Mary.
And now she was to be called on to bear witness. The court was by this time almost as full as it could hold; but fresh attempts were being made to squeeze in at all the entrances, for many were anxious to see and hear this part of the trial.
Old Mr. Carson felt an additional beat at his heart at the thought of seeing the fatal Helen, the cause of all—a kind of interest and yet repugnance, for was not she beloved by the dead; nay, perhaps in her way, loving and mourning for the same being that he himself was so bitterly grieving over? And yet he felt as if he abhorred her and her rumoured loveliness, as if she were the curse against him; and he grew jealous of the love with which she had inspired his son, and would fain have deprived her of even her natural right of sorrowing over her lover’s untimely end; for, you see, it was a fixed idea in the minds of all that the handsome, bright, gay, rich young gentleman must have been beloved in preference to the serious, almost stern-looking smith, who had to toil for his daily bread.
Hitherto the effect of the trial had equalled Mr. Carson’s most sanguine hopes, and a severe look of satisfaction came over the face of the avenger—over that countenance whence a smile had departed, never more to return.
All eyes were directed to the door through which the witnesses entered. Even Jem looked up to catch one glimpse, before he hid his face from her look of aversion. The officer had gone to fetch her.
She was in exactly the same attitude as when Job Legh had seen her two hours before through the half-open door. Not a finger had moved. The officer summoned her, but she did not stir. She was so still, he thought she had fallen asleep, and he stepped forward and touched her. She started up in an instant, and followed him with a kind of rushing, rapid motion into the court, into the witness-box.
And amid all that sea of faces, misty and swimming before her eyes, she saw but two clear bright spots, distinct and fixed: the judge, who might have to condemn; and the prisoner, who might have to die.
The mellow sunlight streamed down that high window on her head, and fell on the rich treasure of her golden hair, stuffed away in masses under her little bonnet-cap; and in those warm beams the motes kept dancing up and down. The wind had changed—had changed almost as soon as she had given up her watching; the wind had changed, and she heeded it not.
Many who were looking for mere flesh and blood beauty, mere colouring, were disappointed; for her face was deadly white, and almost set in its expression, while a mournful, bewildered soul looked out of the depths of those soft, deep grey eyes. But others recognised a higher and a stranger kind of beauty; one that would keep its hold on the memory for many after years.
I was not there myself; but one who was, told me that her look, and indeed her whole face, was more like the well-known engraving from Guido’s picture of “Beatrice Cenci” than anything else he could giveme an idea of. He added that her countenance haunted him, like the remembrance of some wild sad melody, heard in childhood; that it would perpetually recur with its mute imploring agony.
With all the court reeling before her (always save and except those awful two) she heard a voice speak, and answered the simple inquiry (something about her name) mechanically, as if in a dream. So she went on for two or three more questions with a strange wonder in her brain, at the reality of the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.