No; better far let the people starve; let the mortgages squeeze those who do not own; make the fair earth bestowed on man—to be cultivated, tended, and rendered fruitful—a waste howling desert, peopled by wild animals, for whose shooting, wealthy pelf-rakers from the centres of trade are ready to pay high rents. Next to our heaven-bestowed Poor Law, the Law of Entail, which binds the land to a name or a family, has been the greatest factor for evil in the national life of England. It has preserved our "institutions;" gives continuity to our history, men assert. Perish the people then, but hold fast to this sheet anchor. "It preserves scoundrels from justice, and the fate they have earned," by reformers. What of that? These men have the right to be abominable—you and I, the workers and the sweaters, the privilege only to bear their abominations.
It has always struck me, though, that the fetish machinery of the English Establishment is imperfect in one particular. While in actual fact all "lord" bishops, and most preachers therein, determinedly oppose whatsoever would emancipate the people from their bondage, the best of them never daring to strike boldly at the root of the evils that threaten England with extinction, that fill the land with misery, that huddle the bulk of our population into the fever dens of her cities—it has struck me, I say, that their liturgy is incomplete, almosthypocritical. A prayer like this should be inserted among the collects of the day, instead, say, of the collect for peace, which comes so ill from the lips of men whose ambition is usually to train some of their children as licensed men-slayers. Let the lawn-sleeved "lord" bishops look to it, then, and take this hint:—
"Sanctify might, O Lord, against right, and make it stronger and stronger. Bless iniquities in high places, and cause the hypocrisy of princes to be exalted in the eyes of the people. Protect the nobility and gentry in their harlotry, and let holiness be measured by the fineness of the garments. Grind the poor in their poverty, and cause them to pay that they owe not. And O Lord, we beseech Thee, suffer not the oppressed to have justice, lest they rise up against us and refuse to give us the tithes we have filched from the indignant. These things do, O Lord, and our lips shall praise Thee."
If you will honestly pray thus, serene "lord" bishops, much-wrangling, gorgeously-embroidered deans, vicars, and incumbents, you will earn the respect of honest men. Whatever you do, I beseech you go not on as you do now, lest the people should one dayact. They think not a little even now.
Fare ye well, then, Cecil Wiseman, sham soldier, horse racer, blasphemer, drunkard, seducer, sot, farewell! The upper world "society" protects you, the Church shields you, nay, the priest must e'en bow when you abduct his daughter, and the very Jews themselves, wholesome scourge of your class though they be, cannot utterly ruin you—here. Go your ways—I leave you to God. Whatwitness, think you, will that diseased body, that bloated face and hang-dog look of yours, bear against you in the judgment? In that day your very victims may pity you.
And has not the judgment already come on your mother—cast out, despised, lonely, poor as she is? Alone, she lives in her little jointure house at Kenilworth, white-haired, feeble, full of bitterness of spirit. All the glory of her life has gone. The meanest servant in Warwickshire may look down on her with commiseration. Your sins have torn what heart she had, and she begins to awake to the fact that the law of compensation, the dim foretaste of divine justice, can reach even such as she. To her likewise let us bid adieu.
The closing years of Thomas Wanless's life were years of peace. His strength never came back to him after his daughter's death. Indeed, all the summer that followed it he was beaten down by his old complaint rheumatism, but there was no dread of the workhouse and the pauper's grave upon him now. His boy, Thomas the younger, was prospering in the New World, where landlordism had not yet grown a curse, and insisted on sharing his modest wealth with his parents. Had the old man been well he would probably have sturdily refused this help, but as things were he bowed his head and took what God had given, thankful to his son, thankful to Heaven, and rejoicing above all things that his boy—his three children that remained—were delivered from the life that he himself had led. But what would his end have been save for this assistance? Assuredly a pauper's. Nothing could have saved him from that fate. The doom of the labourer is written. It is part of the recognised glory of the English constitution that he shall die in misery as he lives; that if he becomes disabled, his shall be the pauper's dole.
The prosperity of young Thomas rendered Thomasand his wife less reluctant to let their other children go to Australia. They clung to them, of course, and would have fain kept them, as it were, within sight.
Old Mrs. Wanless was heart-broken at the thought of losing Jane, but she bore her sorrow and made no complaint, when her husband, his own heart torn with grief, said—"Let the lass go. There is hope for her and her husband yonder. Here there is none." Jane therefore married her young gardener in the autumn of the year of Sarah's death, and went away to join young Thomas in Victoria. And the soldier-boy, Jacob, went with them. His time of soldiering was not ended, but his brother Thomas bought him off, and assisted them all to go to the new country. Jacob was the labourer's prodigal son, and was loved accordingly. While he soldiered his parents hardly ever saw him, but he spent a couple of weeks at home before setting sail for Australia; and then the strength of his nature, its likeness to that of his father, and the trials he had endured, brought the old man and him very near to each other. Thus the wrench of parting was keenest for old Thomas in his case, because the joy had been but a flash of light in a dark existence.
"I will never see your face again," the old man said to his children the last Sunday evening they passed together. "To your mother and me this parting will be bitterer than death, because you will live, and we will never hear your voices nor see you more in this world."
"Oh, father, do not say that," sobbed Jane; "you and mother will come out to Australia to us, and we'll all live together and be so happy."
"No, my dear, that will never be. Mother and me are too old to move now. We will stay behind and pray for you. The time will not be long, and we have hope. Be brave, my children, and be God-fearing, and, I doubt not, we shall meet in a better world than this."
In this spirit they parted, and henceforth old Thomas Wanless and his wife were left alone with only the little child that Sarah had bequeathed to them—alone, but not miserable. As the keen edge of sorrow blunted, the old people went about the daily avocations as before, serene in appearance, if often sad in spirit. Thomas never worked again as he had been doing before he went to London, but he became strong enough to tend his garden and his allotment carefully, and to do frequent light jobs for the Scotch tenant of Whitbury farm, whose friend he became. He was thus living almost up to the time when I first made his acquaintance.
Then, as his strength of body failed, his mind, as it seemed to me, grew keener, broader, and more penetrating. He read much, and watched with close interest the ebb and flow of home politics, looking ever for the dawn of a better day for the tillers of the soil. When the Warwickshire labourers broke out in assertion of their right to live, he hailed the event as an omen of better times. Too wise a man to be carried away by the notion that single-handed the unlettered, miserable poor could turn the world upside down, he nevertheless viewed these stirrings among the dry bones as the beginning of great changes. "I shall not live to see the land in the hands of those who till it," he would say, "but I can die in hope now. Englandwill after all be free, and the people will have their own again. Thank God."
This belief cheered his last years, and added to the joy of his death. He died in peace with all men, long indeed, ere his hopes for his fellow-men had seen fruition, but to the last he declared that it was coming, that blessed revolution when State Churches should be no more, and squires, and fox-hunters, and game preservers, and all the social abominations that ground the poor to the dust would be shaken off and left far behind in the progress of the nation.
Three years have come and gone since I stood by the side of Thomas Wanless's eldest son at his death-bed, and by his grave. He almost died of the joy he felt at seeing that son once more, when he had given him to God as one gives the dead. A paralytic stroke seized him within a few hours of young Thomas's arrival, and he never fully recovered his faculties. Within a fortnight a second stroke carried him off, and all the village mourned. His son and I, surrounded by many mourners, laid him to rest in the old churchyard beside his children, among his forgotten forefathers. There now, to be equally forgotten, lay squire, and parson, and parson's wife, all peacefully sleeping, life's fever over, its jealousies and petty dignities laid aside for evermore.
And Mrs. Wanless waits still, attended by her grandchild, young Sarah, now a bright, intelligent, well-educated young woman. When her grandmother joins Thomas in the last rest of all, she will be taken across the ocean to these warm-hearted friends far away, and then the oldland will never more see aught of this sturdy peasant stock. But our statesmen think it a blessing they should go.
THE END.
Transcriber's NotesObvious punctuation errors repaired.Hyphen added: "ditch[-]cutting" (p. 49), "broken[-]hearted" (p. 72), "well[-]nigh" (p. 171).Hyphen removed: "house[-]wife" (p. 15), "ear[-]shot" (p. 58), "dumb[-]founded" (p. 62), "common[-]place" (p. 120), "now[-]a[-]days" (p. 194), "man[-]kind" (p. 197), "dead[-]house" (p. 210), "out[-]cast" (p. 219).p. 2: "tatooed" changed to "tattooed" (our tattooed ancestors)>p. 27: "enthusiam" changed to "enthusiasm" (the feverish enthusiasm of inexperience).p. 27: "portentiously" changed to "portentously" (shook their heads portentously).p. 34: "meeeting" changed to "meeting" (the meeting was to be held).p. 35: "wizzened" changed to "wizened" (Grey wizened faces).p. 41: "diarymaid" changed to "dairymaid" (the dairymaid will marry).p. 59: "famalies" changed to "families" (the pleasure their families would have).p. 85: "of of" changed to "of" (sobriquet of Methody Tom).p. 91: "upheavel" changed to "upheaval" (that curious upheaval).p. 96: "possibilites" changed to "possibilities" (did not consider these possibilities).p. 100: "Calvanistic" changed to "Calvinistic".p. 136: "opportunites" changed to "opportunities" (contrived that his opportunities).p. 139: "exited" changed to "excited" (her beauty excited envy).p. 144: "Mrs. Wanlass" changed to "Mrs. Wanless".p. 179: "thought" changed to "though" (weary though the old woman was).p. 181: "charing" changed to "charring" (to go out charring).p. 188: "ricketty" changed to "rickety" (rickety, filthy, old tenement).p. 193: "Dury Lane" changed to "Drury Lane".p. 203: "Waterleo Bridge" changed to "Waterloo Bridge".p. 203: "mein" changed to "mien" (his obvious superiority of mien).p. 220: "deil" changed to "devil" and "screached" changed to "screeched" ("What the devil do you want here?" he screeched).p. 224: "desparing" changed to "despairing" (her despairing looks).p. 237: "Jone" changed to "Jane".
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Hyphen added: "ditch[-]cutting" (p. 49), "broken[-]hearted" (p. 72), "well[-]nigh" (p. 171).
Hyphen removed: "house[-]wife" (p. 15), "ear[-]shot" (p. 58), "dumb[-]founded" (p. 62), "common[-]place" (p. 120), "now[-]a[-]days" (p. 194), "man[-]kind" (p. 197), "dead[-]house" (p. 210), "out[-]cast" (p. 219).
p. 2: "tatooed" changed to "tattooed" (our tattooed ancestors)>
p. 27: "enthusiam" changed to "enthusiasm" (the feverish enthusiasm of inexperience).
p. 27: "portentiously" changed to "portentously" (shook their heads portentously).
p. 34: "meeeting" changed to "meeting" (the meeting was to be held).
p. 35: "wizzened" changed to "wizened" (Grey wizened faces).
p. 41: "diarymaid" changed to "dairymaid" (the dairymaid will marry).
p. 59: "famalies" changed to "families" (the pleasure their families would have).
p. 85: "of of" changed to "of" (sobriquet of Methody Tom).
p. 91: "upheavel" changed to "upheaval" (that curious upheaval).
p. 96: "possibilites" changed to "possibilities" (did not consider these possibilities).
p. 100: "Calvanistic" changed to "Calvinistic".
p. 136: "opportunites" changed to "opportunities" (contrived that his opportunities).
p. 139: "exited" changed to "excited" (her beauty excited envy).
p. 144: "Mrs. Wanlass" changed to "Mrs. Wanless".
p. 179: "thought" changed to "though" (weary though the old woman was).
p. 181: "charing" changed to "charring" (to go out charring).
p. 188: "ricketty" changed to "rickety" (rickety, filthy, old tenement).
p. 193: "Dury Lane" changed to "Drury Lane".
p. 203: "Waterleo Bridge" changed to "Waterloo Bridge".
p. 203: "mein" changed to "mien" (his obvious superiority of mien).
p. 220: "deil" changed to "devil" and "screached" changed to "screeched" ("What the devil do you want here?" he screeched).
p. 224: "desparing" changed to "despairing" (her despairing looks).
p. 237: "Jone" changed to "Jane".