Volume One—Chapter Four.Daisy’s Father.“Well,” said Mrs Glaire, who found her task more difficult than she had apprehended, “the fact is, they say she has been seen talking to my son.”“Is that all?” said the foreman, laughing in a quiet, hearty way.“Yes, that is all, and for Daisy’s sake I want it stopped. Have you heard or known anything?”“Well, to put it quite plain, the missus wants her to have Tom Podmore down at the works there, but the girl hangs back, and I found out the reason. I did see Master Dick talking to her one night, and it set me a thinking.”“And you didn’t stop it?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, sharply.“Stop it? Why should I stop it?” said the foreman. “She’s getting on for twenty, and is sure to begin thinking about sweethearts. Ann did when she was nineteen, and if I recollect right, little fair-haired Lisbeth Ward was only eighteen when she used to blush on meeting Dick Glaire. I see her do it,” said the bluff fellow, chuckling.“But that was long ago,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, excitedly. “Positions are changed since then. My son—”“Well, ma’am, he’s a workman’s son, and my bairn’s a workman’s daughter. I’ve give her a good schooling, and she’s as pretty a lass as there is in these parts, and if your son Richard’s took a fancy to her, and asks me to let him marry her, and the lass likes him, why I shall say yes, like a man.”Mrs Glaire looked at him aghast. This was a turn in affairs she had never anticipated, and one which called forth all her knowledge of human nature to combat.“But,” she exclaimed, “he is engaged to his cousin here, Miss Pelly.”“Don’t seem like it,” chuckled the foreman. “Why, he’s always after Daisy now.”“Oh, this is dreadful!” gasped Mrs Glaire, dropping her knitting. “I tell you he is engaged—promised to be married to his second cousin, Miss Pelly.”“Stuff!” said Banks, laughing. “He’ll never marry she, though she’s a good, sweet girl.”“Don’t I tell you he will,” gasped Mrs Glaire. “Man, man, are you blind? This is dreadful to me, but I must speak. Has it never struck you that my son may have wrong motives with respect to your child?”“What?” roared the foreman; and the veins in his forehead swelled out, as his fists clenched. “Bah!” he exclaimed, resuming his calmness. “Nonsense, ma’am, nonsense. What! Master Dicky Glaire, my true old friend’s son, mean wrong by my lass Daisy? Mrs Glaire, ma’am, Mrs Glaire, for shame, for shame!”“The man’s infatuated!” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, and she stared wonderingly at the bluff, honest fellow before her.“Why, ma’am,” said the foreman, smiling, “I wouldn’t believe it of him if you swore it. He’s arbitrary, and he’s too fond of his horses, and dogs, and sporting: but my Daisy! Oh, for shame, ma’am, for shame! He loves the very ground on which she walks.”“And—and”—stammered Mrs Glaire, “does—does Daisy care for him? Fool that I was to let her come here and be so intimate with Eve,” she muttered.“Well, ma’am,” said the foreman, thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure about that.”He was about to say more when Mrs Glaire stopped him.“Another time, Banks, another time,” she said, hastily. “Here is my son.”As she spoke Richard Glaire came into the garden with his hands in his pockets, and Eve Pelly clinging to one arm, looking bright and happy.The foreman started slightly, but gave himself a jerk and smiled, and then, in obedience to a gesture from his mistress, he left the garden and returned to the foundry.
“Well,” said Mrs Glaire, who found her task more difficult than she had apprehended, “the fact is, they say she has been seen talking to my son.”
“Is that all?” said the foreman, laughing in a quiet, hearty way.
“Yes, that is all, and for Daisy’s sake I want it stopped. Have you heard or known anything?”
“Well, to put it quite plain, the missus wants her to have Tom Podmore down at the works there, but the girl hangs back, and I found out the reason. I did see Master Dick talking to her one night, and it set me a thinking.”
“And you didn’t stop it?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, sharply.
“Stop it? Why should I stop it?” said the foreman. “She’s getting on for twenty, and is sure to begin thinking about sweethearts. Ann did when she was nineteen, and if I recollect right, little fair-haired Lisbeth Ward was only eighteen when she used to blush on meeting Dick Glaire. I see her do it,” said the bluff fellow, chuckling.
“But that was long ago,” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, excitedly. “Positions are changed since then. My son—”
“Well, ma’am, he’s a workman’s son, and my bairn’s a workman’s daughter. I’ve give her a good schooling, and she’s as pretty a lass as there is in these parts, and if your son Richard’s took a fancy to her, and asks me to let him marry her, and the lass likes him, why I shall say yes, like a man.”
Mrs Glaire looked at him aghast. This was a turn in affairs she had never anticipated, and one which called forth all her knowledge of human nature to combat.
“But,” she exclaimed, “he is engaged to his cousin here, Miss Pelly.”
“Don’t seem like it,” chuckled the foreman. “Why, he’s always after Daisy now.”
“Oh, this is dreadful!” gasped Mrs Glaire, dropping her knitting. “I tell you he is engaged—promised to be married to his second cousin, Miss Pelly.”
“Stuff!” said Banks, laughing. “He’ll never marry she, though she’s a good, sweet girl.”
“Don’t I tell you he will,” gasped Mrs Glaire. “Man, man, are you blind? This is dreadful to me, but I must speak. Has it never struck you that my son may have wrong motives with respect to your child?”
“What?” roared the foreman; and the veins in his forehead swelled out, as his fists clenched. “Bah!” he exclaimed, resuming his calmness. “Nonsense, ma’am, nonsense. What! Master Dicky Glaire, my true old friend’s son, mean wrong by my lass Daisy? Mrs Glaire, ma’am, Mrs Glaire, for shame, for shame!”
“The man’s infatuated!” exclaimed Mrs Glaire, and she stared wonderingly at the bluff, honest fellow before her.
“Why, ma’am,” said the foreman, smiling, “I wouldn’t believe it of him if you swore it. He’s arbitrary, and he’s too fond of his horses, and dogs, and sporting: but my Daisy! Oh, for shame, ma’am, for shame! He loves the very ground on which she walks.”
“And—and”—stammered Mrs Glaire, “does—does Daisy care for him? Fool that I was to let her come here and be so intimate with Eve,” she muttered.
“Well, ma’am,” said the foreman, thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure about that.”
He was about to say more when Mrs Glaire stopped him.
“Another time, Banks, another time,” she said, hastily. “Here is my son.”
As she spoke Richard Glaire came into the garden with his hands in his pockets, and Eve Pelly clinging to one arm, looking bright and happy.
The foreman started slightly, but gave himself a jerk and smiled, and then, in obedience to a gesture from his mistress, he left the garden and returned to the foundry.
Volume One—Chapter Five.The Vicar’s Stroll.The brick, as the vicar called it, was only another piece of slag; but he did not turn his head, only smiled, and began thinking that Dumford quite equalled the report he had heard of it. Then looking round the plain old church, peering inside through the windows, and satisfying himself that its architectural beauties were not of a very striking nature, he turned aside and entered the vicarage garden, giving a sigh of satisfaction on finding that his home was a comfortable red-brick, gable-ended house, whose exterior, with its garden overrun with weeds, promised well in its traces of former cultivation.A ring at a bell by the side post of the door brought forth a wan, washed-out looking woman, who looked at the visitor from top to toe, ending by saying sharply, in a vinegary tone of voice:“What d’yer want?”“To come in,” said the vicar, smiling. “Are you in charge of the house?”“If yow want to go over t’church yow must go to Jacky Budd’s down street for the keys. I wean’t leave place no more for nobody.”“But I don’t want to go over the church—at least not now. I want to come in, and see about having a room or two made comfortable.”“Are yow t’new parson, then?”“Yes, I’m the new parson.”“Ho! Then yow’d best come in.”The door was held open, and looking at him very suspiciously, the lady in charge, to wit Mrs Simeon Slee, allowed the vicar to enter, and then followed him as he went from room to room, making up his mind what he should do as he ran his eye over the proportions of the house, finding in the course of his peregrinations that Mrs Slee had installed herself in the dining-room, which apparently served for kitchen as well, and had turned the pretty little drawing-room, opening into a shady verandah and perfect wilderness of a garden, into a very sparsely furnished bed-room.“That will do,” said the vicar. “I suppose I can get some furniture in the town?”“Oh, yes, yow can get plenty furniture if you’ve got t’money. Only they wean’t let yow have annything wi’out. They don’t like strangers.”“I dare say I can manage what I want, Mrs—Mrs—What is your name?”“Hey?”“I say, what is your name?”“Martha,” said the woman, as if resenting an impertinence.“Your other name. I see you are a married woman.”He pointed to the thin worn ring on her finger.“Oh, yes, I’m married,” said the woman, bitterly; “worse luck.”“You have no children, I suppose?”“Not I.”“I am sorry for that.”“Sorry? I’m not. What should I have children for? To pine; while their shack of a father is idling about town and talking wind?”“They would have been a comfort to you, may be,” said the vicar, quietly. “I hope your husband does not drink?”“Drink?” said the woman, with a harsh laugh. “Yes, I almost wish he did more; it would stop his talking.”“Is he a workman—at the foundry?”“Sometimes, but Mr Dicky Glaire’s turned him off again, and now he’s doing nowt.”“Never mind, don’t be downhearted. Times mend when they come to the worst.”“No, they don’t,” said the woman, sharply. “If they did they’d have mended for me.”“Well, well,” said the vicar; “we will talk about that another time;” and he took the two pieces of slag from his pocket, and placed them on the mantelpiece of the little study, where they were now standing.“Some one threw them at yow?” said the woman.“Yes,” said the vicar, smiling.“Just like ’em. They don’t like strangers here.”“So it seems,” said the vicar. “But you did not tell me your name, Mrs—”“Slee, they call me, Slee,” was the sulky reply.“Well, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, “I have had a good long walk, and I’m very hungry. If I give you the money will you get me something to eat, while I go down the town and order in some furniture for this little room and the bed-room above?”“Why, the Lord ha’ mussy! you’re never coming into the place this how!”“Indeed, Mrs Slee, but I am. There’s half a sovereign; go and do the best you can.”“But the place ought to be clent before you come in.”“Oh, we’ll get that done by degrees. You will see about something for me to eat. I shall be back in an hour. But tell me first, if I want to get into the church, who has the keys?”“Mr Budd”—Mrs Slee pronounced it Bood—“has ’em; he’s churchwarden, and lives over yonder.”“What, at that little old-fashioned house?”“Nay, nay, mun, that’s th’owd vicarage. Next house.”“Oh,” said the vicar, looking curiously at the little, old-fashioned, sunken, thatch-roofed place. “And who lives there?”“Owd Isaac Budd.”“Another Mr Budd; and who is he?”“Th’other one’s brother.”“Where shall I find the clerk—what is his name?” said the vicar.“Oh, Jacky Budd,” said Mrs Slee. “He lives down south end.”“I’m afraid I shall get confused with so many Budds,” said the vicar, smiling. “Is that the Mr Budd who leads the singing?”“Oh no, that’s Mr Ned Budd, who lives down town. He’s nowt to do wi’ Jacky.”“Well, I’ll leave that now,” said the vicar. “But I want some one to fetch a portmanteau from Churley. How am I to get it here?”“Mrs Budd will fetch it.”“And who is she?”“The Laddonthorpe carrier.”“Good; and where shall I find her?”“Over at Ted Budd’s yard—the Black Horse.”“Budd again,” said the vicar. “Is everybody here named Budd?”“Well, no,” said the woman, “not ivery body; but there’s a straange sight of ’em all ower the town, and they’re most all on ’em cousins or sum’at. But there, I must get to wuck.”The woman seemed galvanised into a fresh life by the duties she saw before her; and almost before the strange visitor had done speaking she was putting on a print hood, and preparing to start.“It will make a very comfortable place when I have got it in order,” said the vicar to himself, as he passed down the front walk. “Now to find some chairs and tables.”This was no very difficult task, especially as the furniture dealer received a couple of crisp bank-notes on account. In fact, one hand-truck full of necessaries was despatched before the vicar left the shop and made up his mind to see a little more of the place before returning to his future home.Perhaps he would have been acting more wisely if he had sent in a load of furniture and announcements of his coming, with orders for the place to be put in readiness; but the Reverend Murray Selwood was eccentric, and knowing that he had an uncouth set of people to deal with, he had made up his mind to associate himself with them in every way, so as to be thoroughly identified with the people, and become one of them as soon as possible.His way led him round by the great works of the town—Glaire’s Bell Foundry—and as he came nearer, a loud buzz of voices increased to a roar, that to him, a stranger, seemed too great for the ordinary transaction of business; and so it proved.On all sides, as he went on, he saw heads protruded from doors and windows, and an appearance of excitement, though he seemed in his own person to transfer a good deal of the public attention to himself.A minute or two later, and he found himself nearing a crowd of a couple of hundred workmen, who were being harangued by a tall thin man, in workman’s costume, save that he wore a very garish plaid waistcoat, whose principal colour was scarlet.This man, who was swinging his arms about, and gesticulating energetically, was shouting in a hoarse voice. His words were disconnected, and hard to catch, but “Downtrodden,”—“bloated oligarchs,”—“British pluck”—“wucking-man”—“slavery”—and “mesters,” reached the vicar’s ears as he drew nearer.Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd, and the speaker seemed to be hustled from the top of the stone post which he had chosen for his rostrum, and then, amid yells and hootings, it seemed that the crowd had surrounded a couple of men who had been hemmed in while making their way towards the great gates, and they now stood at bay, with their backs to the high brick wall, while the mob formed a semicircle a few feet from them.It was rather hard work, and wanted no little elbowing, but, without a moment’s hesitation, the vicar began to force his way through the crowd; and as he got nearer to the hemmed in men, he could hear some of the words passing to and fro.“Why, one of them is my friend, Mr Richard Glaire,” said the vicar to himself, as he caught sight of the pale trembling figure, standing side by side with a heavy grizzled elderly workman, who stood there with his hat off, evidently bent on defending the younger man.“Yow come out o’ that, Joe Banks, an’ leave him to us,” roared a great bull-headed hammerman, who was evidently one of the ringleaders.“Keep off, you great coward,” was the answer.“Gie him a blob, Harry; gie him a blob,” shouted a voice.“My good men—my good men,” faltered Richard Glaire, trying to make himself heard; but there was a roar of rage and hatred, and the men pressed forward, fortunately carrying with them the vicar, and too intent upon their proposed victims to take any notice of the strange figure elbowing itself to the front.“Where are the police, Banks—the police?”“Yah! He wants the police,” shouted a shrill voice, which came from the man in the red waistcoat. “He’s trampled down the rights of man, and now he wants the brutal mummydons of the law.”“Yah!” roared the crowd, and they pressed on.“Banks, what shall we do?” whispered Glaire; “they’ll murder us.”“They won’t murder me,” said the foreman, stolidly.“But they will me. What shall we do?”“Faight,” said the foreman, sturdily.“I can’t fight. I’ll promise them anything,” groaned the young man. “Here, my lads,” he cried, “I’ll promise you—”“Yah! You wean’t keep your promises,” roared those nearest. “Down with them. Get hold of him, Harry.”The big workman made a dash at Richard Glaire, and got him by the collar, dragging him from the wall just as the foreman, who tried to get before him, was good-humouredly baffled by half-a-dozen men, who took his blows for an instant, and then held him helpless against the bricks.It would have gone hard with the young owner of the works, for an English mob, when excited and urged to action, is brutal enough for the moment, before their manly feelings resume their sway, and shame creeps in to stare them in the face. He would probably have been hustled, his clothes torn from his back, and a rain of blows have fallen upon him till he sank exhausted, when he would have been kicked and trampled upon till he lay insensible, with half his ribs broken, and there he would have been left.“Police! Where are the police?” shouted the young man.“Shut themselves up to be safe,” roared a lusty voice; and the young man grew dizzy with fear, as he gazed wildly round at the sea of menacing faces screaming and struggling to get at him.As he cowered back a blow struck him on the forehead, and another on the lip, causing the blood to trickle down, while the great hammerman held him forward, struggling helplessly in his grasp.At that moment when, sick with fear and pain, Richard Glaire’s legs were failing him, and he was about to sink helpless among his men, something white seemed to whiz by his ear, to be followed instantly by a heavy thud. There was a jerk at his collar, and he would have fallen, but a strong arm was thrown before him; and then it seemed to him that the big workman Harry had staggered back amongst his friends, as a loud voice exclaimed:“Call yourselves Englishmen? A hundred to one!”The new vicar’s bold onslaught saved Richard Glaire for the moment, and the men fell back, freeing the foreman as they did so. It was only for the moment though, and then with a yell of fury the excited mob closed in upon their victims.
The brick, as the vicar called it, was only another piece of slag; but he did not turn his head, only smiled, and began thinking that Dumford quite equalled the report he had heard of it. Then looking round the plain old church, peering inside through the windows, and satisfying himself that its architectural beauties were not of a very striking nature, he turned aside and entered the vicarage garden, giving a sigh of satisfaction on finding that his home was a comfortable red-brick, gable-ended house, whose exterior, with its garden overrun with weeds, promised well in its traces of former cultivation.
A ring at a bell by the side post of the door brought forth a wan, washed-out looking woman, who looked at the visitor from top to toe, ending by saying sharply, in a vinegary tone of voice:
“What d’yer want?”
“To come in,” said the vicar, smiling. “Are you in charge of the house?”
“If yow want to go over t’church yow must go to Jacky Budd’s down street for the keys. I wean’t leave place no more for nobody.”
“But I don’t want to go over the church—at least not now. I want to come in, and see about having a room or two made comfortable.”
“Are yow t’new parson, then?”
“Yes, I’m the new parson.”
“Ho! Then yow’d best come in.”
The door was held open, and looking at him very suspiciously, the lady in charge, to wit Mrs Simeon Slee, allowed the vicar to enter, and then followed him as he went from room to room, making up his mind what he should do as he ran his eye over the proportions of the house, finding in the course of his peregrinations that Mrs Slee had installed herself in the dining-room, which apparently served for kitchen as well, and had turned the pretty little drawing-room, opening into a shady verandah and perfect wilderness of a garden, into a very sparsely furnished bed-room.
“That will do,” said the vicar. “I suppose I can get some furniture in the town?”
“Oh, yes, yow can get plenty furniture if you’ve got t’money. Only they wean’t let yow have annything wi’out. They don’t like strangers.”
“I dare say I can manage what I want, Mrs—Mrs—What is your name?”
“Hey?”
“I say, what is your name?”
“Martha,” said the woman, as if resenting an impertinence.
“Your other name. I see you are a married woman.”
He pointed to the thin worn ring on her finger.
“Oh, yes, I’m married,” said the woman, bitterly; “worse luck.”
“You have no children, I suppose?”
“Not I.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“Sorry? I’m not. What should I have children for? To pine; while their shack of a father is idling about town and talking wind?”
“They would have been a comfort to you, may be,” said the vicar, quietly. “I hope your husband does not drink?”
“Drink?” said the woman, with a harsh laugh. “Yes, I almost wish he did more; it would stop his talking.”
“Is he a workman—at the foundry?”
“Sometimes, but Mr Dicky Glaire’s turned him off again, and now he’s doing nowt.”
“Never mind, don’t be downhearted. Times mend when they come to the worst.”
“No, they don’t,” said the woman, sharply. “If they did they’d have mended for me.”
“Well, well,” said the vicar; “we will talk about that another time;” and he took the two pieces of slag from his pocket, and placed them on the mantelpiece of the little study, where they were now standing.
“Some one threw them at yow?” said the woman.
“Yes,” said the vicar, smiling.
“Just like ’em. They don’t like strangers here.”
“So it seems,” said the vicar. “But you did not tell me your name, Mrs—”
“Slee, they call me, Slee,” was the sulky reply.
“Well, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, “I have had a good long walk, and I’m very hungry. If I give you the money will you get me something to eat, while I go down the town and order in some furniture for this little room and the bed-room above?”
“Why, the Lord ha’ mussy! you’re never coming into the place this how!”
“Indeed, Mrs Slee, but I am. There’s half a sovereign; go and do the best you can.”
“But the place ought to be clent before you come in.”
“Oh, we’ll get that done by degrees. You will see about something for me to eat. I shall be back in an hour. But tell me first, if I want to get into the church, who has the keys?”
“Mr Budd”—Mrs Slee pronounced it Bood—“has ’em; he’s churchwarden, and lives over yonder.”
“What, at that little old-fashioned house?”
“Nay, nay, mun, that’s th’owd vicarage. Next house.”
“Oh,” said the vicar, looking curiously at the little, old-fashioned, sunken, thatch-roofed place. “And who lives there?”
“Owd Isaac Budd.”
“Another Mr Budd; and who is he?”
“Th’other one’s brother.”
“Where shall I find the clerk—what is his name?” said the vicar.
“Oh, Jacky Budd,” said Mrs Slee. “He lives down south end.”
“I’m afraid I shall get confused with so many Budds,” said the vicar, smiling. “Is that the Mr Budd who leads the singing?”
“Oh no, that’s Mr Ned Budd, who lives down town. He’s nowt to do wi’ Jacky.”
“Well, I’ll leave that now,” said the vicar. “But I want some one to fetch a portmanteau from Churley. How am I to get it here?”
“Mrs Budd will fetch it.”
“And who is she?”
“The Laddonthorpe carrier.”
“Good; and where shall I find her?”
“Over at Ted Budd’s yard—the Black Horse.”
“Budd again,” said the vicar. “Is everybody here named Budd?”
“Well, no,” said the woman, “not ivery body; but there’s a straange sight of ’em all ower the town, and they’re most all on ’em cousins or sum’at. But there, I must get to wuck.”
The woman seemed galvanised into a fresh life by the duties she saw before her; and almost before the strange visitor had done speaking she was putting on a print hood, and preparing to start.
“It will make a very comfortable place when I have got it in order,” said the vicar to himself, as he passed down the front walk. “Now to find some chairs and tables.”
This was no very difficult task, especially as the furniture dealer received a couple of crisp bank-notes on account. In fact, one hand-truck full of necessaries was despatched before the vicar left the shop and made up his mind to see a little more of the place before returning to his future home.
Perhaps he would have been acting more wisely if he had sent in a load of furniture and announcements of his coming, with orders for the place to be put in readiness; but the Reverend Murray Selwood was eccentric, and knowing that he had an uncouth set of people to deal with, he had made up his mind to associate himself with them in every way, so as to be thoroughly identified with the people, and become one of them as soon as possible.
His way led him round by the great works of the town—Glaire’s Bell Foundry—and as he came nearer, a loud buzz of voices increased to a roar, that to him, a stranger, seemed too great for the ordinary transaction of business; and so it proved.
On all sides, as he went on, he saw heads protruded from doors and windows, and an appearance of excitement, though he seemed in his own person to transfer a good deal of the public attention to himself.
A minute or two later, and he found himself nearing a crowd of a couple of hundred workmen, who were being harangued by a tall thin man, in workman’s costume, save that he wore a very garish plaid waistcoat, whose principal colour was scarlet.
This man, who was swinging his arms about, and gesticulating energetically, was shouting in a hoarse voice. His words were disconnected, and hard to catch, but “Downtrodden,”—“bloated oligarchs,”—“British pluck”—“wucking-man”—“slavery”—and “mesters,” reached the vicar’s ears as he drew nearer.
Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd, and the speaker seemed to be hustled from the top of the stone post which he had chosen for his rostrum, and then, amid yells and hootings, it seemed that the crowd had surrounded a couple of men who had been hemmed in while making their way towards the great gates, and they now stood at bay, with their backs to the high brick wall, while the mob formed a semicircle a few feet from them.
It was rather hard work, and wanted no little elbowing, but, without a moment’s hesitation, the vicar began to force his way through the crowd; and as he got nearer to the hemmed in men, he could hear some of the words passing to and fro.
“Why, one of them is my friend, Mr Richard Glaire,” said the vicar to himself, as he caught sight of the pale trembling figure, standing side by side with a heavy grizzled elderly workman, who stood there with his hat off, evidently bent on defending the younger man.
“Yow come out o’ that, Joe Banks, an’ leave him to us,” roared a great bull-headed hammerman, who was evidently one of the ringleaders.
“Keep off, you great coward,” was the answer.
“Gie him a blob, Harry; gie him a blob,” shouted a voice.
“My good men—my good men,” faltered Richard Glaire, trying to make himself heard; but there was a roar of rage and hatred, and the men pressed forward, fortunately carrying with them the vicar, and too intent upon their proposed victims to take any notice of the strange figure elbowing itself to the front.
“Where are the police, Banks—the police?”
“Yah! He wants the police,” shouted a shrill voice, which came from the man in the red waistcoat. “He’s trampled down the rights of man, and now he wants the brutal mummydons of the law.”
“Yah!” roared the crowd, and they pressed on.
“Banks, what shall we do?” whispered Glaire; “they’ll murder us.”
“They won’t murder me,” said the foreman, stolidly.
“But they will me. What shall we do?”
“Faight,” said the foreman, sturdily.
“I can’t fight. I’ll promise them anything,” groaned the young man. “Here, my lads,” he cried, “I’ll promise you—”
“Yah! You wean’t keep your promises,” roared those nearest. “Down with them. Get hold of him, Harry.”
The big workman made a dash at Richard Glaire, and got him by the collar, dragging him from the wall just as the foreman, who tried to get before him, was good-humouredly baffled by half-a-dozen men, who took his blows for an instant, and then held him helpless against the bricks.
It would have gone hard with the young owner of the works, for an English mob, when excited and urged to action, is brutal enough for the moment, before their manly feelings resume their sway, and shame creeps in to stare them in the face. He would probably have been hustled, his clothes torn from his back, and a rain of blows have fallen upon him till he sank exhausted, when he would have been kicked and trampled upon till he lay insensible, with half his ribs broken, and there he would have been left.
“Police! Where are the police?” shouted the young man.
“Shut themselves up to be safe,” roared a lusty voice; and the young man grew dizzy with fear, as he gazed wildly round at the sea of menacing faces screaming and struggling to get at him.
As he cowered back a blow struck him on the forehead, and another on the lip, causing the blood to trickle down, while the great hammerman held him forward, struggling helplessly in his grasp.
At that moment when, sick with fear and pain, Richard Glaire’s legs were failing him, and he was about to sink helpless among his men, something white seemed to whiz by his ear, to be followed instantly by a heavy thud. There was a jerk at his collar, and he would have fallen, but a strong arm was thrown before him; and then it seemed to him that the big workman Harry had staggered back amongst his friends, as a loud voice exclaimed:
“Call yourselves Englishmen? A hundred to one!”
The new vicar’s bold onslaught saved Richard Glaire for the moment, and the men fell back, freeing the foreman as they did so. It was only for the moment though, and then with a yell of fury the excited mob closed in upon their victims.
Volume One—Chapter Six.Mother and Son.Matters looked very bad for the new vicar, and for him he had tried to save, for though the foreman was now ready and free to lend his aid, and Richard Glaire, stung by his position into action, had recovered himself sufficiently to turn with all the feebleness of the trampled worm against his assailants, the fierce wave was ready to dash down upon them and sweep them away.Harry, the big hammerman, had somewhat recovered himself, and was shaking his head as if to get rid of a buzzing sensation, and murmurs loud and deep were arising, when the shrill voice of the man in the red waistcoat arose.“Now, lads, now’s your time. Trample down them as is always trampling on you and your rights. Smite ’em hip and thigh.”“Come on, and show ’em how to do it,” roared a sturdy voice, and Tom Podmore thrust himself before the vicar, and faced the mob. “Come on and show ’em how, Sim Slee; and let’s see as you ain’t all wind.”There was a derisive shout at this, and the man in the red waistcoat began again.“Down with them, boys. Down with Tom Podmore, too; he’s a sneak—a rat. Yah!”“I’ll rat you, you ranting bagpipe,” cried Tom, loudly. “Stand back, lads; this is new parson, and him as touches him has to come by me first. Harry, lad, come o’ my side; you don’t bear no malice again a man as can hit like that.”“Not I,” said Harry, thrusting his great head forward, to stare full in the vicar’s face. “Dal me, but you are a stout un, parson; gie’s your fist. It’s a hard un.”It was given on the instant, and the hearty pressure told the vicar that he had won a new ally.“As for the governor,” cried Tom, “you may do what you like wi’ him, lads, for I shan’t tak’ his part.”“Podmore,” whispered the vicar, “for Heaven’s sake be a man, and help me.”“I am a man, parson, and I’ll help you like one; but as for him”—he cried, darting a malignant look at Richard Glaire.He did not finish his sentence, for at that moment the man in the red waistcoat mounted a post, and cried again:“Down with ’em, lads; down with—”He, too, did not finish his sentence, for at that moment, either by accident or malicious design, the orator was upset; and, so easily changed is the temper of a crowd, a loud laugh arose.But the danger was not yet passed, for those nearest seemed ready to drag their employer from his little body-guard.“You’ll help me then, Podmore?” cried the vicar, hastily. “Come, quick, to the gate.”The veins were swelling in Tom Podmore’s forehead, and he glanced as fiercely as any at his master, but the vicar’s advice seemed like a new law to him, and joining himself to his defenders, with the great hammerman, they backed slowly to the gate, through the wicket, by which Richard Glaire darted, and the others followed, the vicar coming last and facing the crowd.The little door in the great gates was clapped to directly, and then there came heavy blows with stones, and a few kicks, followed by a burst of hooting and yelling, after which the noise subsided, and the little party inside began to breathe more freely.“Thanky, Tom Podmore, my lad,” said Banks, shaking him by the hand. “I’m glad you turned up as you did.”Tom nodded in a sulky way, and glowered at his master, but he pressed the foreman’s hand warmly.“I’d fight for you, Joe Banks, till I dropped, if it was only for her sake; but not for him.”Meanwhile Harry, the big hammerman, was walking round the vicar and inspecting him, just as a great dog would look at a stranger.“Say, parson, can you wrastle?” he said at last.“Yes, a little,” was the reply, with a smile.“I’d maybe like to try a fall wi’ ye.”“I think we’ve had enough athletics for one day,” was the reply. “Look at my hand.”He held out his bleeding knuckles, and the hammerman grinned.“That’s my head,” he said. “’Tis a hard un, ain’t it?”“The hardest I ever hit,” said the vicar, smiling.“Is it, parson—is it now?” said Harry, with his massive face lighting up with pride. “Hear that, Tom? Hear that, Joe Banks?”He stood nodding his head and chuckling, as if he had received the greatest satisfaction from this announcement; and then, paying no heed to the great bruise on his forehead, which was plainly puffing up, he sat down on a pile of old metal, lit his pipe, and looked on.“I hope you are not hurt, Mr Glaire?” said the vicar. “This is a strange second meeting to-day.”“No,” exclaimed Richard, grinding his teeth, “I’m not hurt—not much. Banks, go into the counting-house, and get me some brandy. Curse them, they’ve dragged me to pieces.”“Well, you would be so arbitrary with them, and I told you not,” said Banks. “I know’d there’d be a row if you did.”“What!” cried Richard, “are you going to side with them?”“No,” said Banks, quietly. “I never sides with the men again the master, and never did; but you would have your own way about taking off that ten per cent.”“I’ll take off twenty now,” shrieked Richard, stamping about like an angry child. “I’ll have them punished for this outrage. I’m a magistrate, and I’ll punish them. I’ll have the dragoons over from Churley. It’s disgraceful, it’s a regular riot, and not one of those three wretched policemen to be seen.”“I see one on ’em comin’,” growled Harry, grinning; “and he went back again.”“Had you not better try a little persuasion with your workpeople?” said the vicar. “I am quite new here, but it seems to me better than force.”“That’s what I tells him, sir,” exclaimed Banks, “only he will be so arbitrary.”“Persuasion!” shrieked Richard, who, now that he was safe, was infuriated. “I’ll persuade them. I’ll starve some of them into submission. What’s that? What’s that? Is the gate barred?”He ran towards the building, for at that moment there was a roar outside as if of menace, but immediately after some one shouted—“Three cheers for Missus Glaire!”They were given heartily, and then the gate bell was rung lustily.“It’s the Missus,” said Banks, going towards the gates.“Don’t open those gates. Stop!” shrieked Richard.“But it’s the Missus come,” said Banks, and he peeped through a crack.“Open the gates, open the gates,” cried a dozen voices.“I don’t think you need fear now,” said the vicar; “the disturbance is over for the present.”“Fear! I’m not afraid,” snarled Richard; “but I won’t have those scoundrels in here.”“I’ll see as no one else comes in,” said Harry, getting up like a small edition of Goliath; and he stood on one side of the wicket gate, while Banks opened it and admitted Mrs Glaire, with Eve Pelly, who looked ghastly pale.Several men tried to follow, but the gate was forced to by the united efforts of Harry and the foreman, when there arose a savage yell; but this was drowned by some one proposing once more “Three cheers for the Missus!” and they were given with the greatest gusto, while the next minute twenty heads appeared above the wall and gates, to which some of the rioters had climbed.“Oh, Richard, my son, what have you been doing?” cried Mrs Glaire, taking his hand, while Eve Pelly went up and clung to his arm, gazing tremblingly in his bleeding face and at his disordered apparel.“There, get away,” cried Richard, impatiently, shaking himself free. “What have I been doing? What have those scoundrels been doing, you mean?”He applied his handkerchief to his bleeding mouth, looking at the white cambric again and again, as he saw that it was stained, and turning very pale and sick, so that he seated himself on a rough mould.“Dick, dear Dick, are you much hurt?” whispered Eve, going to him again in spite of his repulse, and laying her pretty little hand on his shoulder.“Hurt? Yes, horribly,” he cried, in a pettish way. “You see I am. Don’t touch me. Go for the doctor somebody.”He looked round with a ghastly face, and it was evident that he was going to faint.“Run, pray run for Mr Purley,” cried Mrs Glaire.“I’ll go,” cried Eve, eagerly.“I don’t think there is any necessity,” said the vicar, quietly. “Can you get some brandy, my man?” he continued, to Banks. “No, stay, I have my flask.”He poured out some spirit into the cup, and Richard Glaire drank it at a draught, getting up directly after, and shaking his fist at the men on the wall.“You cowards!” he cried. “I’ll be even with you for this.”A yell from the wall, followed by another from the crowd, was the response, when Mr Selwood turned to Mrs Glaire.“If you have any influence with him get him inside somewhere, or we shall have a fresh disturbance.”“Yes, yes,” cried the anxious mother, catching her son’s arm. “Come into the counting-house, Dick. Go with him, Eve. Take him in, and I’ll speak to the men.”“I’m not afraid of the brutal ruffians,” cried Richard, shrilly. “I’ll not go, I’ll—”Here there was a menacing shout from the wall, and a disposition shown by some of the men to leap down; a movement which had such an effect on Richard Glaire that he allowed his cousin to lead him into a building some twenty yards away, the vicar’s eyes following them as they went.“I’ll speak to the men now,” said the little lady. “Banks, you may open the gates; they won’t hurt me.”“Not they, ma’am,” said the sturdy foreman, looking with admiration at the self-contained little body, as, hastily wiping a tear or two from her eyes, she prepared to encounter the workmen.Before the gates could be opened, however, an ambassador in the person of Eve Pelly arrived from Richard.“Not open the gates, child?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire.“No, aunt, dear, Richard says it would not be safe for you and me, now the men are so excited.”For a few minutes Mrs Glaire forgot the deference she always rendered to “my son!” and, reading the message in its true light, she exclaimed angrily—“Eve, child, go and tell my son that there are the strong lock and bolts on the door that his father had placed there after we were besieged by the workmen ten years ago, and he can lock himself in if he is afraid.”The Reverend Murray Selwood, who heard all this, drew in his breath with a low hissing noise, as if he were in pain, on seeing the action taken by the fair bearer of Richard Glaire’s message.“Aunt, dear,” she whispered, clinging to Mrs Glaire, “don’t send me back like that—it will hurt poor Dick’s feelings.”“Go and say what you like, then, child,” cried Mrs Glaire, pettishly. “Yes, you are right, Eve: don’t say it.”“And you will not open the gates, aunt, dear?”“Are you afraid of the men, Eve?”“I, aunt? Oh, no,” said the young girl, smiling. “They would not hurt me.”“I should just like to see any one among ’em as would,” put in Harry, the big hammerman, giving his shirt sleeve a tighter roll, as if preparing to crush an opponent bent on injuring the little maiden. “We should make him sore, shouldn’t we, Tom Podmore, lad?”“Oh, nobody wouldn’t hurt Miss Eve, nor the Missus here,” said Tom, gruffly. And then, in answer to a nod from Banks, the two workmen threw open the great gates, and the yard was filled with the crowd, headed by Sim Slee, who, however, hung back a little—a movement imitated by his followers on seeing that Mrs Glaire stepped forward to confront them.
Matters looked very bad for the new vicar, and for him he had tried to save, for though the foreman was now ready and free to lend his aid, and Richard Glaire, stung by his position into action, had recovered himself sufficiently to turn with all the feebleness of the trampled worm against his assailants, the fierce wave was ready to dash down upon them and sweep them away.
Harry, the big hammerman, had somewhat recovered himself, and was shaking his head as if to get rid of a buzzing sensation, and murmurs loud and deep were arising, when the shrill voice of the man in the red waistcoat arose.
“Now, lads, now’s your time. Trample down them as is always trampling on you and your rights. Smite ’em hip and thigh.”
“Come on, and show ’em how to do it,” roared a sturdy voice, and Tom Podmore thrust himself before the vicar, and faced the mob. “Come on and show ’em how, Sim Slee; and let’s see as you ain’t all wind.”
There was a derisive shout at this, and the man in the red waistcoat began again.
“Down with them, boys. Down with Tom Podmore, too; he’s a sneak—a rat. Yah!”
“I’ll rat you, you ranting bagpipe,” cried Tom, loudly. “Stand back, lads; this is new parson, and him as touches him has to come by me first. Harry, lad, come o’ my side; you don’t bear no malice again a man as can hit like that.”
“Not I,” said Harry, thrusting his great head forward, to stare full in the vicar’s face. “Dal me, but you are a stout un, parson; gie’s your fist. It’s a hard un.”
It was given on the instant, and the hearty pressure told the vicar that he had won a new ally.
“As for the governor,” cried Tom, “you may do what you like wi’ him, lads, for I shan’t tak’ his part.”
“Podmore,” whispered the vicar, “for Heaven’s sake be a man, and help me.”
“I am a man, parson, and I’ll help you like one; but as for him”—he cried, darting a malignant look at Richard Glaire.
He did not finish his sentence, for at that moment the man in the red waistcoat mounted a post, and cried again:
“Down with ’em, lads; down with—”
He, too, did not finish his sentence, for at that moment, either by accident or malicious design, the orator was upset; and, so easily changed is the temper of a crowd, a loud laugh arose.
But the danger was not yet passed, for those nearest seemed ready to drag their employer from his little body-guard.
“You’ll help me then, Podmore?” cried the vicar, hastily. “Come, quick, to the gate.”
The veins were swelling in Tom Podmore’s forehead, and he glanced as fiercely as any at his master, but the vicar’s advice seemed like a new law to him, and joining himself to his defenders, with the great hammerman, they backed slowly to the gate, through the wicket, by which Richard Glaire darted, and the others followed, the vicar coming last and facing the crowd.
The little door in the great gates was clapped to directly, and then there came heavy blows with stones, and a few kicks, followed by a burst of hooting and yelling, after which the noise subsided, and the little party inside began to breathe more freely.
“Thanky, Tom Podmore, my lad,” said Banks, shaking him by the hand. “I’m glad you turned up as you did.”
Tom nodded in a sulky way, and glowered at his master, but he pressed the foreman’s hand warmly.
“I’d fight for you, Joe Banks, till I dropped, if it was only for her sake; but not for him.”
Meanwhile Harry, the big hammerman, was walking round the vicar and inspecting him, just as a great dog would look at a stranger.
“Say, parson, can you wrastle?” he said at last.
“Yes, a little,” was the reply, with a smile.
“I’d maybe like to try a fall wi’ ye.”
“I think we’ve had enough athletics for one day,” was the reply. “Look at my hand.”
He held out his bleeding knuckles, and the hammerman grinned.
“That’s my head,” he said. “’Tis a hard un, ain’t it?”
“The hardest I ever hit,” said the vicar, smiling.
“Is it, parson—is it now?” said Harry, with his massive face lighting up with pride. “Hear that, Tom? Hear that, Joe Banks?”
He stood nodding his head and chuckling, as if he had received the greatest satisfaction from this announcement; and then, paying no heed to the great bruise on his forehead, which was plainly puffing up, he sat down on a pile of old metal, lit his pipe, and looked on.
“I hope you are not hurt, Mr Glaire?” said the vicar. “This is a strange second meeting to-day.”
“No,” exclaimed Richard, grinding his teeth, “I’m not hurt—not much. Banks, go into the counting-house, and get me some brandy. Curse them, they’ve dragged me to pieces.”
“Well, you would be so arbitrary with them, and I told you not,” said Banks. “I know’d there’d be a row if you did.”
“What!” cried Richard, “are you going to side with them?”
“No,” said Banks, quietly. “I never sides with the men again the master, and never did; but you would have your own way about taking off that ten per cent.”
“I’ll take off twenty now,” shrieked Richard, stamping about like an angry child. “I’ll have them punished for this outrage. I’m a magistrate, and I’ll punish them. I’ll have the dragoons over from Churley. It’s disgraceful, it’s a regular riot, and not one of those three wretched policemen to be seen.”
“I see one on ’em comin’,” growled Harry, grinning; “and he went back again.”
“Had you not better try a little persuasion with your workpeople?” said the vicar. “I am quite new here, but it seems to me better than force.”
“That’s what I tells him, sir,” exclaimed Banks, “only he will be so arbitrary.”
“Persuasion!” shrieked Richard, who, now that he was safe, was infuriated. “I’ll persuade them. I’ll starve some of them into submission. What’s that? What’s that? Is the gate barred?”
He ran towards the building, for at that moment there was a roar outside as if of menace, but immediately after some one shouted—
“Three cheers for Missus Glaire!”
They were given heartily, and then the gate bell was rung lustily.
“It’s the Missus,” said Banks, going towards the gates.
“Don’t open those gates. Stop!” shrieked Richard.
“But it’s the Missus come,” said Banks, and he peeped through a crack.
“Open the gates, open the gates,” cried a dozen voices.
“I don’t think you need fear now,” said the vicar; “the disturbance is over for the present.”
“Fear! I’m not afraid,” snarled Richard; “but I won’t have those scoundrels in here.”
“I’ll see as no one else comes in,” said Harry, getting up like a small edition of Goliath; and he stood on one side of the wicket gate, while Banks opened it and admitted Mrs Glaire, with Eve Pelly, who looked ghastly pale.
Several men tried to follow, but the gate was forced to by the united efforts of Harry and the foreman, when there arose a savage yell; but this was drowned by some one proposing once more “Three cheers for the Missus!” and they were given with the greatest gusto, while the next minute twenty heads appeared above the wall and gates, to which some of the rioters had climbed.
“Oh, Richard, my son, what have you been doing?” cried Mrs Glaire, taking his hand, while Eve Pelly went up and clung to his arm, gazing tremblingly in his bleeding face and at his disordered apparel.
“There, get away,” cried Richard, impatiently, shaking himself free. “What have I been doing? What have those scoundrels been doing, you mean?”
He applied his handkerchief to his bleeding mouth, looking at the white cambric again and again, as he saw that it was stained, and turning very pale and sick, so that he seated himself on a rough mould.
“Dick, dear Dick, are you much hurt?” whispered Eve, going to him again in spite of his repulse, and laying her pretty little hand on his shoulder.
“Hurt? Yes, horribly,” he cried, in a pettish way. “You see I am. Don’t touch me. Go for the doctor somebody.”
He looked round with a ghastly face, and it was evident that he was going to faint.
“Run, pray run for Mr Purley,” cried Mrs Glaire.
“I’ll go,” cried Eve, eagerly.
“I don’t think there is any necessity,” said the vicar, quietly. “Can you get some brandy, my man?” he continued, to Banks. “No, stay, I have my flask.”
He poured out some spirit into the cup, and Richard Glaire drank it at a draught, getting up directly after, and shaking his fist at the men on the wall.
“You cowards!” he cried. “I’ll be even with you for this.”
A yell from the wall, followed by another from the crowd, was the response, when Mr Selwood turned to Mrs Glaire.
“If you have any influence with him get him inside somewhere, or we shall have a fresh disturbance.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the anxious mother, catching her son’s arm. “Come into the counting-house, Dick. Go with him, Eve. Take him in, and I’ll speak to the men.”
“I’m not afraid of the brutal ruffians,” cried Richard, shrilly. “I’ll not go, I’ll—”
Here there was a menacing shout from the wall, and a disposition shown by some of the men to leap down; a movement which had such an effect on Richard Glaire that he allowed his cousin to lead him into a building some twenty yards away, the vicar’s eyes following them as they went.
“I’ll speak to the men now,” said the little lady. “Banks, you may open the gates; they won’t hurt me.”
“Not they, ma’am,” said the sturdy foreman, looking with admiration at the self-contained little body, as, hastily wiping a tear or two from her eyes, she prepared to encounter the workmen.
Before the gates could be opened, however, an ambassador in the person of Eve Pelly arrived from Richard.
“Not open the gates, child?” exclaimed Mrs Glaire.
“No, aunt, dear, Richard says it would not be safe for you and me, now the men are so excited.”
For a few minutes Mrs Glaire forgot the deference she always rendered to “my son!” and, reading the message in its true light, she exclaimed angrily—
“Eve, child, go and tell my son that there are the strong lock and bolts on the door that his father had placed there after we were besieged by the workmen ten years ago, and he can lock himself in if he is afraid.”
The Reverend Murray Selwood, who heard all this, drew in his breath with a low hissing noise, as if he were in pain, on seeing the action taken by the fair bearer of Richard Glaire’s message.
“Aunt, dear,” she whispered, clinging to Mrs Glaire, “don’t send me back like that—it will hurt poor Dick’s feelings.”
“Go and say what you like, then, child,” cried Mrs Glaire, pettishly. “Yes, you are right, Eve: don’t say it.”
“And you will not open the gates, aunt, dear?”
“Are you afraid of the men, Eve?”
“I, aunt? Oh, no,” said the young girl, smiling. “They would not hurt me.”
“I should just like to see any one among ’em as would,” put in Harry, the big hammerman, giving his shirt sleeve a tighter roll, as if preparing to crush an opponent bent on injuring the little maiden. “We should make him sore, shouldn’t we, Tom Podmore, lad?”
“Oh, nobody wouldn’t hurt Miss Eve, nor the Missus here,” said Tom, gruffly. And then, in answer to a nod from Banks, the two workmen threw open the great gates, and the yard was filled with the crowd, headed by Sim Slee, who, however, hung back a little—a movement imitated by his followers on seeing that Mrs Glaire stepped forward to confront them.
Volume One—Chapter Seven.Mrs Glaire’s Speech.“It’s all raight, lads,” roared Harry, in a voice of thunder. “Three cheers for Missus Glaire!”The cheers were given lustily, in spite of Sim Slee, who, mounting on a pile of old metal, began to wave his hands in protestation.“Stop, stop!” he cried; “it isn’t all raight yet. I want to know whether we are to have our rights as British wuckmen, and our just and righteous demands ’corded to us. What I want to know is—”“Stop a moment, Simeon Slee,” said Mrs Glaire, quickly; and a dead silence fell on the crowd, as her clear, sharp voice was heard. “When I was young, I was taught to look a home first. Now, tell me this—before you began to put matters straight for others, did you make things right at home?”There was a laugh ran through the crowd at this; but shaken, not daunted, the orator exclaimed—“Oh, come, that wean’t do for me, Mrs Glaire, ma’am—that’s begging of the question. What I want to know is—”“And what I want to know is,” cried Mrs Glaire, interrupting, “whether, before you came out here leading these men into mischief, you provided your poor wife with a dinner?”“Hear, hear,”—“That’s a good one,”—“Come down, Sim,”—“The Missus is too much for ye!” were amongst the shouts that arose on all sides, mingled with roars of laughter; and Sim Slee’s defeat was completed by Harry, the big hammerman, who, incited thereto by Banks, shouted—“Three more cheers for the Missus!” These were given, and three more, and three more after that, the workmen forgetting for the time being the object they had in view in the defeat of Simeon Slee, who, vainly trying to make himself heard from the hill of old metal, was finally pulled down and lost in the crowd, while now, in a trembling voice, Mrs Glaire said—“My men, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to find you fighting against the people who supply you with the work by which you live.”“Not again you, Missus,” cried half a dozen.“Yes, against me and my son—the son of your old master,” said Mrs Glaire, gathering strength as she proceeded.“You come back agen, and take the wucks, Missus,” roared Harry. “Things was all raight then.”“Well said, Harry; well said,” cried Tom Podmore, bringing his hand down on the hammerman’s shoulder with a tremendous slap. “Well said. Hooray!”There was a tremendous burst of cheering, and it was some little time before Mrs Glaire could again make herself heard.“I cannot do that,” she said, “but I will talk matters over with my son, and you shall have fair play, if you will give us fair play in return.”“That’s all very well,” cried a shrill voice; and Sim Slee and his red waistcoat were once more seen above the heads of the crowd, for, put out of the gates, he had managed to mount the wall; “but what we want to know, as an independent body of sittizens, is—”“Will some on yo’ get shoot of that chap, an’ let Missus speak,” cried Tom Podmore.There was a bit of a rush, and Sim Slee disappeared suddenly, as if he had been pulled down by the legs.“I don’t think I need say any more,” said Mrs Glaire, “only to ask you all to come quietly back to work, and I promise you, in my son’s name—”“No, no, in yours,” cried a dozen.“Well,” said Mrs Glaire, “in my own and your dead master’s name—that you shall all have justice.”“That’s all raight, Missus,” cried Harry. “Three more cheers for the Missus, lads!”“Stop!” cried Mrs Glaire, waving her hands for silence. “Before we go, I think we should one and all thank our new friend here—our new clergyman, for putting a stop to a scene that you as well as I would have regretted to the end of our days.”Mrs Glaire had got to the end of her powers here, for the mother stepped in as she conjured up the trampled, bleeding form of her only son; her face began to work, the tears streamed down her cheeks, and, trembling and sobbing, she laid both her hands in those of Mr Selwood, and turned away.“Raight, Missus,” roared Harry, who had certainly partaken of more gills of ale than was good for him. “Raight, Missus. Parson hits harder nor any man I ever knowed. Look here, lads, here wur a blob. Three cheers for new parson!”He pointed laughingly to his bruised forehead with one hand, while he waved the other in the air, with the result that a perfect thunder of cheers arose, during which the self-instituted, irrepressible advocate of workmen’s rights made another attempt to be heard; but his time had passed, the men were in another temper, and he was met with a cry raised by Tom Podmore.“Put him oonder the poomp.” Simeon Slee turned and fled, the majority of the crowd after him, and the others slowly filtered away till the yard was empty.
“It’s all raight, lads,” roared Harry, in a voice of thunder. “Three cheers for Missus Glaire!”
The cheers were given lustily, in spite of Sim Slee, who, mounting on a pile of old metal, began to wave his hands in protestation.
“Stop, stop!” he cried; “it isn’t all raight yet. I want to know whether we are to have our rights as British wuckmen, and our just and righteous demands ’corded to us. What I want to know is—”
“Stop a moment, Simeon Slee,” said Mrs Glaire, quickly; and a dead silence fell on the crowd, as her clear, sharp voice was heard. “When I was young, I was taught to look a home first. Now, tell me this—before you began to put matters straight for others, did you make things right at home?”
There was a laugh ran through the crowd at this; but shaken, not daunted, the orator exclaimed—
“Oh, come, that wean’t do for me, Mrs Glaire, ma’am—that’s begging of the question. What I want to know is—”
“And what I want to know is,” cried Mrs Glaire, interrupting, “whether, before you came out here leading these men into mischief, you provided your poor wife with a dinner?”
“Hear, hear,”—“That’s a good one,”—“Come down, Sim,”—“The Missus is too much for ye!” were amongst the shouts that arose on all sides, mingled with roars of laughter; and Sim Slee’s defeat was completed by Harry, the big hammerman, who, incited thereto by Banks, shouted—
“Three more cheers for the Missus!” These were given, and three more, and three more after that, the workmen forgetting for the time being the object they had in view in the defeat of Simeon Slee, who, vainly trying to make himself heard from the hill of old metal, was finally pulled down and lost in the crowd, while now, in a trembling voice, Mrs Glaire said—
“My men, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to find you fighting against the people who supply you with the work by which you live.”
“Not again you, Missus,” cried half a dozen.
“Yes, against me and my son—the son of your old master,” said Mrs Glaire, gathering strength as she proceeded.
“You come back agen, and take the wucks, Missus,” roared Harry. “Things was all raight then.”
“Well said, Harry; well said,” cried Tom Podmore, bringing his hand down on the hammerman’s shoulder with a tremendous slap. “Well said. Hooray!”
There was a tremendous burst of cheering, and it was some little time before Mrs Glaire could again make herself heard.
“I cannot do that,” she said, “but I will talk matters over with my son, and you shall have fair play, if you will give us fair play in return.”
“That’s all very well,” cried a shrill voice; and Sim Slee and his red waistcoat were once more seen above the heads of the crowd, for, put out of the gates, he had managed to mount the wall; “but what we want to know, as an independent body of sittizens, is—”
“Will some on yo’ get shoot of that chap, an’ let Missus speak,” cried Tom Podmore.
There was a bit of a rush, and Sim Slee disappeared suddenly, as if he had been pulled down by the legs.
“I don’t think I need say any more,” said Mrs Glaire, “only to ask you all to come quietly back to work, and I promise you, in my son’s name—”
“No, no, in yours,” cried a dozen.
“Well,” said Mrs Glaire, “in my own and your dead master’s name—that you shall all have justice.”
“That’s all raight, Missus,” cried Harry. “Three more cheers for the Missus, lads!”
“Stop!” cried Mrs Glaire, waving her hands for silence. “Before we go, I think we should one and all thank our new friend here—our new clergyman, for putting a stop to a scene that you as well as I would have regretted to the end of our days.”
Mrs Glaire had got to the end of her powers here, for the mother stepped in as she conjured up the trampled, bleeding form of her only son; her face began to work, the tears streamed down her cheeks, and, trembling and sobbing, she laid both her hands in those of Mr Selwood, and turned away.
“Raight, Missus,” roared Harry, who had certainly partaken of more gills of ale than was good for him. “Raight, Missus. Parson hits harder nor any man I ever knowed. Look here, lads, here wur a blob. Three cheers for new parson!”
He pointed laughingly to his bruised forehead with one hand, while he waved the other in the air, with the result that a perfect thunder of cheers arose, during which the self-instituted, irrepressible advocate of workmen’s rights made another attempt to be heard; but his time had passed, the men were in another temper, and he was met with a cry raised by Tom Podmore.
“Put him oonder the poomp.” Simeon Slee turned and fled, the majority of the crowd after him, and the others slowly filtered away till the yard was empty.
Volume One—Chapter Eight.Dear Richard.“Take my arm, Mrs Glaire,” said the vicar, gently; and, the excitement past, the overstrung nerves slackened, and the woman reasserted itself, for the doting mother now realised all that had gone, and the risks encountered. Trembling and speechless, she suffered herself to be led into the counting-house, and placed in a chair.“I—I shall be—better directly,” she panted.“Better!” shrieked her son, who was pacing up and down the room; “better! Mother, it’s disgraceful; but I won’t give way a bit—not an inch. I’ll bring the scoundrels to reason. I’ll—”“Dick, dear Dick, don’t. See how ill poor aunt is,” whispered Eve.“I don’t care,” said the young man, furiously. “I won’t have it. I’ll—”“Will you kindly get a glass of water for your mother, Mr Glaire?” said the vicar, as he half held up the trembling woman in her chair, and strove hard to keep the disgust he felt from showing in his face—“I am afraid she will faint.”“Curse the water! No,” roared Richard. “I won’t have it—I—I say I won’t have it; and who the devil are you, that you should come poking your nose into our business! You’ll soon find that Dumford is not the place for a meddling parson to do as he likes.”“Dick!” shrieked Eve; and she tried to lay a hand upon his lips.“Hold your tongue, Eve! Am I master here, or not?” cried Richard Glaire. “I won’t have a parcel of women meddling in my affairs, nor any kind of old woman,” he continued, disdainfully glancing at the vicar.There was a slight accession of colour in Murray Selwood’s face, but he paid no further heed to the young man’s words, while, with her face crimson with shame, Eve bent over her aunt, trying to restore her, for she was indeed half fainting; and the cold clammy dew stood upon her forehead.“Here’s a mug o’ watter, sir,” said the rough, sturdy voice of Joe Banks, as he filled one from a shelf; and then he threw open a couple of windows to let the air blow in more freely.“Don’t let anybody here think I’m a child,” continued Richard Glaire, who, the danger passed, was now white with passion; “and don’t let anybody here, mother or foreman, or stranger, think I’m a man to be played with.”“There’s nobody thinks nothing at all, my lad,” said Joe Banks, sharply, “only that if the parson there hadn’t come on as he did, you’d have been a pretty figure by this time, one as would ha’ made your poor moother shoother again.”“Hold your tongue, sir; how dare you speak to me like that!” roared Richard.“How dare I speak to you like that, my lad?” said the foreman, smiling. “Well, because I’ve been like a sort of second father to you in the works, and if you’d listened to me, instead of being so arbitrary, there wouldn’t ha’ been this row.”“You insolent—”“Oh yes, all raight, Master Richard, all raight,” said the foreman, bluffly.“Dick, dear Dick,” whispered Eve, clinging to his arm; but he shook her off.“Hold your tongue, will you!” he shrieked. “Look here, you Banks,” he cried, “if you dare to speak to me like that I’ll discharge you; I will, for an example.”Banks laughed, and followed the raving man to the other end of the great counting-house to whisper:“No you wean’t, lad, not you.”Richard started, and turned of a sickly hue as he confronted the sturdy old foreman.“Think I didn’t know you, my lad, eh?” he whispered; and driving his elbow at the same time into the young man’s chest, he puckered up his face, and gave him a knowing smile. “No, you wean’t start me, Richard Glaire, I know. But I say, my lad, don’t be so hard on the poor lass there, your cousin.”“Will you hold your tongue?” gasped Richard. “They’ll hear you.”“Well, what if they do?” said the sturdy old fellow. “Let ’em. There’s nowt to be ashamed on. But there, you’re popped now, and no wonder. Get you home with your moother.”“But I can’t go through the streets.”“Yes, you can; nobody ’ll say a word to you now. Get her home, lad; get her home.”It was good advice, but Richard Glaire would not take it, and his mother gladly availed herself of the vicar’s arm.“You’ll come home now, Richard,” said Mrs Glaire, feebly; and she looked uneasily from her son to the foreman, as she recalled their conversation in the garden, and felt unwilling to leave them alone together.“I shall come home when the streets are safe,” said Richard, haughtily. “They are safe enough for you, but I’m not going to subject myself to another attack from a set of brute beasts.”“I don’t think you have anything to fear now,” said the vicar, quietly.“Who said I was afraid?” snarled Richard, facing sharply round, and paying no heed to the remonstrant looks of cousin and mother. “I should think I know Dumford better than you, and when to go and when to stay.”The young men’s eyes met for a moment, and Richard Glaire’s shifty gaze sank before the calm, manly look of the man who had so bravely interposed in his behalf.“Curse him! I hate him,” Richard said in his heart. “He’s brave and strong, and big and manly, and he does nothing but degrade me before Eve. I hate him—I hate him.”“What a contemptible cad he is,” said Murray Selwood in his heart; “and yet he must have his good points, or that sweet girl would not love him as she evidently does. Poor girl, poor girl! But there: it is not fair to judge him now.”“Of course, you must know best, Mr Glaire,” he said aloud, “for I am quite a stranger. I will see your mother and cousin safely home, and I hope next time we shall have a more pleasant meeting. You are put out now, and no wonder. Good-bye.”He held out his hand with a frank, pleasant smile upon his countenance, and the two women and the foreman looked curiously on as Richard shrank away, and with a childish gesture thrust his hand behind him. But it was of no use, that firm, unblenching eye seemed to master him, the strong, brown muscular hand remained outstretched, and, in spite of himself, the young man felt drawn towards it, and fighting mentally against the influence the while, he ended by impatiently placing his own limp, damp fingers within it, and letting them lie there a moment before snatching them away.Directly after, leaning on the vicar’s arm, and with Eve on her other side, Mrs Glaire was being led through the knots of people still hanging about the streets. There was no attempt at molestation, and once or twice a faint cheer rose; but Mr Selwood was fully aware of the amount of attention they drew from door and window, for the Dumford people were not at all bashful as to staring or remark.At last the awkward steps were reached, and after supporting Mrs Glaire to a couch, the new vicar turned to go, followed to the door by Eve.“Good-bye, and thank you—so much, Mr Selwood,” she said, pressing his hand warmly.“I did not think we should meet again so soon. And, Mr Selwood—”She stopped short, looking up at him timidly.“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Don’t be afraid to speak; we are not strangers now.”“No, no; I know that,” she cried, eagerly. “I was only going to say—to say—don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning. He was excited and hurt.”“Of course, of course,” said the vicar, pressing the little hand he held in both his. “How could any one judge a man harshly at such a time? Good-bye.”“Good-bye.”“And with such a little ministering angel to intercede for him,” muttered the vicar, as the door closed. “Heigho! these things are a mystery, and it is as well that they should be, or I don’t know what would become of poor erring man.”
“Take my arm, Mrs Glaire,” said the vicar, gently; and, the excitement past, the overstrung nerves slackened, and the woman reasserted itself, for the doting mother now realised all that had gone, and the risks encountered. Trembling and speechless, she suffered herself to be led into the counting-house, and placed in a chair.
“I—I shall be—better directly,” she panted.
“Better!” shrieked her son, who was pacing up and down the room; “better! Mother, it’s disgraceful; but I won’t give way a bit—not an inch. I’ll bring the scoundrels to reason. I’ll—”
“Dick, dear Dick, don’t. See how ill poor aunt is,” whispered Eve.
“I don’t care,” said the young man, furiously. “I won’t have it. I’ll—”
“Will you kindly get a glass of water for your mother, Mr Glaire?” said the vicar, as he half held up the trembling woman in her chair, and strove hard to keep the disgust he felt from showing in his face—“I am afraid she will faint.”
“Curse the water! No,” roared Richard. “I won’t have it—I—I say I won’t have it; and who the devil are you, that you should come poking your nose into our business! You’ll soon find that Dumford is not the place for a meddling parson to do as he likes.”
“Dick!” shrieked Eve; and she tried to lay a hand upon his lips.
“Hold your tongue, Eve! Am I master here, or not?” cried Richard Glaire. “I won’t have a parcel of women meddling in my affairs, nor any kind of old woman,” he continued, disdainfully glancing at the vicar.
There was a slight accession of colour in Murray Selwood’s face, but he paid no further heed to the young man’s words, while, with her face crimson with shame, Eve bent over her aunt, trying to restore her, for she was indeed half fainting; and the cold clammy dew stood upon her forehead.
“Here’s a mug o’ watter, sir,” said the rough, sturdy voice of Joe Banks, as he filled one from a shelf; and then he threw open a couple of windows to let the air blow in more freely.
“Don’t let anybody here think I’m a child,” continued Richard Glaire, who, the danger passed, was now white with passion; “and don’t let anybody here, mother or foreman, or stranger, think I’m a man to be played with.”
“There’s nobody thinks nothing at all, my lad,” said Joe Banks, sharply, “only that if the parson there hadn’t come on as he did, you’d have been a pretty figure by this time, one as would ha’ made your poor moother shoother again.”
“Hold your tongue, sir; how dare you speak to me like that!” roared Richard.
“How dare I speak to you like that, my lad?” said the foreman, smiling. “Well, because I’ve been like a sort of second father to you in the works, and if you’d listened to me, instead of being so arbitrary, there wouldn’t ha’ been this row.”
“You insolent—”
“Oh yes, all raight, Master Richard, all raight,” said the foreman, bluffly.
“Dick, dear Dick,” whispered Eve, clinging to his arm; but he shook her off.
“Hold your tongue, will you!” he shrieked. “Look here, you Banks,” he cried, “if you dare to speak to me like that I’ll discharge you; I will, for an example.”
Banks laughed, and followed the raving man to the other end of the great counting-house to whisper:
“No you wean’t, lad, not you.”
Richard started, and turned of a sickly hue as he confronted the sturdy old foreman.
“Think I didn’t know you, my lad, eh?” he whispered; and driving his elbow at the same time into the young man’s chest, he puckered up his face, and gave him a knowing smile. “No, you wean’t start me, Richard Glaire, I know. But I say, my lad, don’t be so hard on the poor lass there, your cousin.”
“Will you hold your tongue?” gasped Richard. “They’ll hear you.”
“Well, what if they do?” said the sturdy old fellow. “Let ’em. There’s nowt to be ashamed on. But there, you’re popped now, and no wonder. Get you home with your moother.”
“But I can’t go through the streets.”
“Yes, you can; nobody ’ll say a word to you now. Get her home, lad; get her home.”
It was good advice, but Richard Glaire would not take it, and his mother gladly availed herself of the vicar’s arm.
“You’ll come home now, Richard,” said Mrs Glaire, feebly; and she looked uneasily from her son to the foreman, as she recalled their conversation in the garden, and felt unwilling to leave them alone together.
“I shall come home when the streets are safe,” said Richard, haughtily. “They are safe enough for you, but I’m not going to subject myself to another attack from a set of brute beasts.”
“I don’t think you have anything to fear now,” said the vicar, quietly.
“Who said I was afraid?” snarled Richard, facing sharply round, and paying no heed to the remonstrant looks of cousin and mother. “I should think I know Dumford better than you, and when to go and when to stay.”
The young men’s eyes met for a moment, and Richard Glaire’s shifty gaze sank before the calm, manly look of the man who had so bravely interposed in his behalf.
“Curse him! I hate him,” Richard said in his heart. “He’s brave and strong, and big and manly, and he does nothing but degrade me before Eve. I hate him—I hate him.”
“What a contemptible cad he is,” said Murray Selwood in his heart; “and yet he must have his good points, or that sweet girl would not love him as she evidently does. Poor girl, poor girl! But there: it is not fair to judge him now.”
“Of course, you must know best, Mr Glaire,” he said aloud, “for I am quite a stranger. I will see your mother and cousin safely home, and I hope next time we shall have a more pleasant meeting. You are put out now, and no wonder. Good-bye.”
He held out his hand with a frank, pleasant smile upon his countenance, and the two women and the foreman looked curiously on as Richard shrank away, and with a childish gesture thrust his hand behind him. But it was of no use, that firm, unblenching eye seemed to master him, the strong, brown muscular hand remained outstretched, and, in spite of himself, the young man felt drawn towards it, and fighting mentally against the influence the while, he ended by impatiently placing his own limp, damp fingers within it, and letting them lie there a moment before snatching them away.
Directly after, leaning on the vicar’s arm, and with Eve on her other side, Mrs Glaire was being led through the knots of people still hanging about the streets. There was no attempt at molestation, and once or twice a faint cheer rose; but Mr Selwood was fully aware of the amount of attention they drew from door and window, for the Dumford people were not at all bashful as to staring or remark.
At last the awkward steps were reached, and after supporting Mrs Glaire to a couch, the new vicar turned to go, followed to the door by Eve.
“Good-bye, and thank you—so much, Mr Selwood,” she said, pressing his hand warmly.
“I did not think we should meet again so soon. And, Mr Selwood—”
She stopped short, looking up at him timidly.
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “Don’t be afraid to speak; we are not strangers now.”
“No, no; I know that,” she cried, eagerly. “I was only going to say—to say—don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning. He was excited and hurt.”
“Of course, of course,” said the vicar, pressing the little hand he held in both his. “How could any one judge a man harshly at such a time? Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“And with such a little ministering angel to intercede for him,” muttered the vicar, as the door closed. “Heigho! these things are a mystery, and it is as well that they should be, or I don’t know what would become of poor erring man.”
Volume One—Chapter Nine.An Enlightened Englishman.On reaching the vicarage, Murray Selwood found one of the rooms made bright and comfortable with the furniture that had been sent in, and the table spread ready for a composite meal, half breakfast, half dinner, with a dash in it of country tea.Everything was scrupulously clean, and Mrs Slee was bustling about, not looking quite so wan and unsociable as when he saw her first.“I’ve scratted a few things together,” she said, acidly, “and you must mak’ shift till I’ve had more time. Will you have the pot in now? I put the bacon down before the fire when I saw you coming. But, lord, man, what have ye been doin’ to your hand?”“Only bruised it a bit: knocked the skin off,” said Mr Selwood, smiling.“Don’t tell me,” said Mrs Slee, sharply. “You’ve been faighting.”“Well, I knocked a man down, if you call that fighting,” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw Mrs Slee hurriedly produce a basin, water, and a coarse brown, but very clean, towel, with which she proceeded to bathe his bleeding hand.“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, as he took out his pocket-book. “You’ll find scissors and some sticking-plaister in there.”“I don’t want no sticking-plaister,” she said, taking a phial of some brown liquid from inside a common ornament. “This’ll cure it directly.”“And what may this be?” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw his leech shake the bottle, and well soak a small piece of rag in the liquid.“Rag Jack’s oil,” said Mrs Slee, pursing up her lips, and then anointing and tying up the injured hand. “It cures everything.”The vicar nodded, not being without a little faith in homely country simples; and then the rag was neatly sewed on, and an old glove cut so as to cover the unsightly bandage.“Did they upset you?” she then queried.“Well, no,” he said; and he briefly related what had taken place. “By the way, I hope that gentleman in the red waistcoat is no relation of yours. Is he?”“Is he?” retorted Mrs Slee, viciously dabbing down a dish of tempting bacon, with some golden eggs, beside the crisp brown loaf and yellow butter. “Is he, indeed! He’s my master.”Mrs Slee hurried out of the room, but came back directly after.“You’ve no spoons,” she said, sharply; and then making a dive through her thin, shabby dress, she searched for some time for a pocket-hole, and then plunging her arm in right to the shoulder, she brought out a packet tied in a bit of calico. This being undone displayed a paper, and within this another paper was set free. Carefully folded, and fitted into one another, within this were half a dozen very small-sized, old-fashioned silver teaspoons, blackened with tarnish.“They are quite clean,” grumbled Mrs Slee, giving a couple of them a rub. “They were my grandmother’s, and she gave ’em to me when I was married—worse luck. I keep ’em there so as they shan’t be drunk. He did swallow the sugar-tongs.”“Does your husband drink, then?” said Mr Selwood, quietly.“Is there anything he don’t do as he oughtn’t since they turned him out of the plan?” said the woman, angrily. “There, don’t you talk to me about him; it makes me wild when I don’t want to be.”She hurried out of the room again, shutting the door as loudly as she possibly could without it’s being called a bang; and then hunger drove everything else out of the young vicar’s mind, even the face of Eve Pelly, and—a minor consideration—his bruised hand.“A queer set of people indeed,” he said, as he progressed with his hearty meal. “What capital bread, though. That butter’s delicious. Hah!” he ejaculated, helping himself to another egg and a pinky brown piece of bacon; “if there is any fault in those eggs they are too fresh. By Sampson, I must tell Mrs Slee to secure some more of this bacon.”Ten minutes later he was playing with the last cup of tea, and indulging it with more than its normal proportions of sugar and milk, for the calm feeling of satisfaction which steals over a hearty man after a meal—a man who looks upon digestion as a dictionary word, nothing more—had set in, and Murray Selwood was thinking about his new position in life.“Well, I suppose I shall get used to it—in time. There must be a few friends to be made. Hallo!”The ejaculation was caused by some one noisily entering the adjoining room with—“Now then, what hev you got to yeat?”“Nowt.” was the reply.The voices were both familiar, for in the first the vicar recognised that of the man in the red waistcoat—“My master,” as Mrs Slee called him.“You’ve been cooking something,” he continued loudly.“Yes. The parson’s come, and it’s his brakfast.”“Brakfast at this time o’ day! Oh, then, it’s him as I see up at foundry wi’ them Glaires.”“Don’t talk so loud, or he’ll hear you,” said Mrs Slee, sharply.“Let him. Let him hear me, and let him know that there’s a free, enlightened Englishman beneath the same roof. Let him know that there’s one here breathing the free—free light—breath of heaven here. A man too humble to call himself a paytriot, but who feels like one, and moans over the sufferings of his down-trampled brothers.”“I tell you he’ll hear you directly, and we shall have to go.”“Let him hear me,” shouted Simeon, “and let him drive us out—drive us into the free air of heaven. It’ll only be a new specimint of the bloated priesthood trampling down and gloating over the sufferings of the poor. Who’s he—a coming down here with his cassicks and gowns to read and riot on his five hundred a year in a house like this, when the hard-working body of brothers on the local plan can preach wi’out having it written down, and wi’out cassicks and gowns, and get nothing for it but glory! Let him hear me.”“Thou fulsome! hold thy stupid tongue,” cried Mrs Slee.“Never!” exclaimed Simeon, who counted this his opportunity after being baffled in the forenoon. “I’ll be trampled on no more by any bloated oligarch of a priest or master. I’ve been slave too—too long. I’m starving now, but what then? I can be a martyr to a holy cause—the ’oly cause of freedom. Let him riot in his food and raiment—let him turn us out, and some day—some day—I say some day—”Mr Slee paused in his oratory, for his wife had clapped her hand over his mouth; but just then the door opened, and the vicar stood in the opening.Mrs Slee dropped her hand, while Simeon thrust his right into his breast, orator fashion, and faced the new-comer with inborn dignity.“How do, Mr Slee,” said the vicar, quietly. “We met before this morning. I merely came to say that I cannot help hearing every word that is spoken in this room.”“The words that I said—” began Simeon.“And,” continued the vicar, “I have quite done, if you will clear away, Mrs Slee. I am going to see about a few more necessaries for the place, and to look out for a gardener, unless your husband likes the job.”“Garden!” said Simeon; “I dig!”“I often do,” said the vicar, coolly. “It’s very healthy work. Famous for the appetite. By the way, Mr Slee, I heard you say you were hungry. Mrs Slee, pray don’t save anything on the table; you are quite welcome.”He walked out of the place, and Mrs Slee, who, poor woman, looked ravenously hungry, hastened to spread their own table.“That for you,” said Simeon, snapping his fingers after the retreating form. “I care that for you—a bloated priest. Of course, we’re to eat his husks—a swine—his leavings. No; I’ll rather starve than be treated so.”“Howd thy silly tongue, thou fulsome!” exclaimed Mrs Slee, “and thank the Lord there is something sent for thee. You talk like that! Oh, Sim, Sim, if ever there was a shack, it’s thou.”“Mebbe I am, mebbe I’m not,” said Sim, as he looked curiously on, while his wife filled up the steaming teapot, put the half dish of bacon down to warm, and then proceeded to cut some thick slices of bread and butter.Sim turned his eyes away and tried to look out of the window, but those thick slices, with the holes well filled with butter, were magnetic, and drew his eyes back again.“I tell ye what, woman,” he began, wrenching his eyes away, “that the day is coming when the British wuckman will tear himself from under the despot’s heel.”“There, do hold thee clat, and—there, yeat that.”Mrs Slee thrust a great slice of the tempting bread and butter into her husband’s hand, and his fingers clutched it fiercely.“Yeat that—yeat that?” he cried. “Yeat the bread of a brutal, Church—established tyrant? Yeat the husks of his leavings? Never! I’d sooner—sooner—sooner—sooner—Yah!”Mr Simeon Slee’s words came more and more slowly, as he prepared to dash the bread and butter down; but as his eyes rested upon the slice, he hesitated, and as he hesitated he fell, for the temptation was too great for the hungry hero. He uttered a kind of snarling ejaculation, and then treating the bread as if it were an enemy, he bit out of it a great semicircle, while throwing himself into a chair, he sat and ate slice after slice with bacon, in silence, washing all down with cups of tea.Mr Slee stirred his tea with a fork-handle, for it was noticeable that the silver teaspoons had disappeared—a line of procedure adopted by Sim as soon as his hunger was appeased, for he had certain meetings of his brotherhood to attend, so he told his wife; and he did not return till late, his coming being announced by sundry stumbles in the passage, and a peculiar thickness of utterance, due doubtless to the exhaustion consequent upon many patriotic utterances at the hostelry known as the Bull for short—the Bull and Cucumber in fact.Seekers for derivations of signs had puzzled themselves a good deal over the connection between a bull and that familiar gourd of thecucurbitaceaeknown as a cucumber. It is perhaps needless to add that the learned were baffled, but the incongruity was never noticed by the people of Dumford, and as their pronunciation of the sign was the Bull and Cow-cumber, the connection did not sound at all out of place.Mr Selwood heard Sim return, and lay for some time listening to his patriotic utterances—fragments, in fact, of the speech he had delivered at the meeting—and it became very evident to the new occupant of the vicarage that life with Mr Simeon Slee beneath his roof would not be very pleasant.“I don’t like the idea of turning out the poor woman, either,” he said to himself, as he lay turning from side to side, courting the rest that would not come.“I’ve been a bit excited to-day, I suppose,” he muttered; and then he tried all the known recipes short of drugs for obtaining rest, from saying a speech backwards to getting out of bed and brushing his hair.But sleep would not come till close upon morning, for that face before him was the sweet appealing face of Eve Pelly, and in the stillness of the night he seemed to be hearing her words again and again—“Don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning.”“Dear Richard, dear Richard, dear Richard”—he found himself repeating over and over again. “And she loves him, and believes in him. He is everything to her, and if she found out that he was a scoundrel it would break her heart.”“And set her free,” something in the corner of his own seemed to whisper; and he started, and sat up in bed with the perspiration standing on his brow.“Am I sane? Am I in my right senses?” he said, feeling his pulse and counting its beats. “I must be a little out of tone. Humph! I’ll have such a walk to-morrow! Bah! it’s the excitement of coming down here, and it has been rather a lively day.”He punched and turned his pillow fiercely, threw himself down, and closed his eyes once more, shutting out the dimly-seen lattice window, with its fringe of ivy leaves; but as he did so there was Eve Pelly’s face again, and that gentle look which accompanied the appealing curve of her lips, as she said, “Don’t judge dear Richard harshly.”The would-be sleeper started up in bed again, and sat there feeling hot and feverish for some time.“Look here, Murray, dear boy,” he said at last. “You are down here for a great purpose. You have here in your charge some four thousand souls to teach and tend, and help on in life’s course. Don’t fidget, my boy. I’m not going to preach, only to say a few words to the point. Now, look here: You are the spiritual head of the parish; you have your Master’s work to do. In short, you are a teacher. Now mind this, a teacher who cannot govern himself is a broken reed. Are you a broken reed?” This was all said in a low voice, and then for a few moments there was silence in the room, to be broken by the young man saying in a somewhat louder voice in answer to his own words: “I hope not.”“Good,” he continued, in the former tone. “I like that: it sounds humble and hopeful. Now look here, you will see a great deal of what goes on in this place. In fact, you have seen a good deal already, and you have learned what is the state of affairs with one of the principal families. You have heard that Richard Glaire is engaged to his cousin; that the said cousin loves him; and that this weak young man is playing fast and loose.”“Yes.”“Good. Well, your duty is plain; the young fellow doubtless has his good points. Make him your friend, and improve them—for her sake—gain an influence over him. You can, and you will, Murray Selwood. Yours may be a hard duty, but you must do it.”“Yes, verily, and by God’s help so I will.”“Good. Now you may go to sleep.”After this he lay down, and by a strange exercise of will, and in the belief that he was going to conquer a feeling absolutely new to him, he fell asleep directly.But it was no peaceful rest such as generally came to his pillow, for he lay tossing in dreams of Eve Pelly turning to him constantly for help from some great trouble that was ever pursuing her—a danger that he could not avert. Then Richard Glaire had him by the throat, charging him with robbing him of his love; and then he was engaged in a mad struggle with the young man, holding him over a gulf to hurl him in, incited thereto by the young workman.Then once more Eve Pelly’s appealing face was before him, praying him to spare dear Richard, the man she loved, and then—“Thank God, it’s morning!” he exclaimed, waking with a start, to consult his watch, and finding it was half-past six.
On reaching the vicarage, Murray Selwood found one of the rooms made bright and comfortable with the furniture that had been sent in, and the table spread ready for a composite meal, half breakfast, half dinner, with a dash in it of country tea.
Everything was scrupulously clean, and Mrs Slee was bustling about, not looking quite so wan and unsociable as when he saw her first.
“I’ve scratted a few things together,” she said, acidly, “and you must mak’ shift till I’ve had more time. Will you have the pot in now? I put the bacon down before the fire when I saw you coming. But, lord, man, what have ye been doin’ to your hand?”
“Only bruised it a bit: knocked the skin off,” said Mr Selwood, smiling.
“Don’t tell me,” said Mrs Slee, sharply. “You’ve been faighting.”
“Well, I knocked a man down, if you call that fighting,” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw Mrs Slee hurriedly produce a basin, water, and a coarse brown, but very clean, towel, with which she proceeded to bathe his bleeding hand.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, as he took out his pocket-book. “You’ll find scissors and some sticking-plaister in there.”
“I don’t want no sticking-plaister,” she said, taking a phial of some brown liquid from inside a common ornament. “This’ll cure it directly.”
“And what may this be?” said the vicar, smiling, as he saw his leech shake the bottle, and well soak a small piece of rag in the liquid.
“Rag Jack’s oil,” said Mrs Slee, pursing up her lips, and then anointing and tying up the injured hand. “It cures everything.”
The vicar nodded, not being without a little faith in homely country simples; and then the rag was neatly sewed on, and an old glove cut so as to cover the unsightly bandage.
“Did they upset you?” she then queried.
“Well, no,” he said; and he briefly related what had taken place. “By the way, I hope that gentleman in the red waistcoat is no relation of yours. Is he?”
“Is he?” retorted Mrs Slee, viciously dabbing down a dish of tempting bacon, with some golden eggs, beside the crisp brown loaf and yellow butter. “Is he, indeed! He’s my master.”
Mrs Slee hurried out of the room, but came back directly after.
“You’ve no spoons,” she said, sharply; and then making a dive through her thin, shabby dress, she searched for some time for a pocket-hole, and then plunging her arm in right to the shoulder, she brought out a packet tied in a bit of calico. This being undone displayed a paper, and within this another paper was set free. Carefully folded, and fitted into one another, within this were half a dozen very small-sized, old-fashioned silver teaspoons, blackened with tarnish.
“They are quite clean,” grumbled Mrs Slee, giving a couple of them a rub. “They were my grandmother’s, and she gave ’em to me when I was married—worse luck. I keep ’em there so as they shan’t be drunk. He did swallow the sugar-tongs.”
“Does your husband drink, then?” said Mr Selwood, quietly.
“Is there anything he don’t do as he oughtn’t since they turned him out of the plan?” said the woman, angrily. “There, don’t you talk to me about him; it makes me wild when I don’t want to be.”
She hurried out of the room again, shutting the door as loudly as she possibly could without it’s being called a bang; and then hunger drove everything else out of the young vicar’s mind, even the face of Eve Pelly, and—a minor consideration—his bruised hand.
“A queer set of people indeed,” he said, as he progressed with his hearty meal. “What capital bread, though. That butter’s delicious. Hah!” he ejaculated, helping himself to another egg and a pinky brown piece of bacon; “if there is any fault in those eggs they are too fresh. By Sampson, I must tell Mrs Slee to secure some more of this bacon.”
Ten minutes later he was playing with the last cup of tea, and indulging it with more than its normal proportions of sugar and milk, for the calm feeling of satisfaction which steals over a hearty man after a meal—a man who looks upon digestion as a dictionary word, nothing more—had set in, and Murray Selwood was thinking about his new position in life.
“Well, I suppose I shall get used to it—in time. There must be a few friends to be made. Hallo!”
The ejaculation was caused by some one noisily entering the adjoining room with—
“Now then, what hev you got to yeat?”
“Nowt.” was the reply.
The voices were both familiar, for in the first the vicar recognised that of the man in the red waistcoat—“My master,” as Mrs Slee called him.
“You’ve been cooking something,” he continued loudly.
“Yes. The parson’s come, and it’s his brakfast.”
“Brakfast at this time o’ day! Oh, then, it’s him as I see up at foundry wi’ them Glaires.”
“Don’t talk so loud, or he’ll hear you,” said Mrs Slee, sharply.
“Let him. Let him hear me, and let him know that there’s a free, enlightened Englishman beneath the same roof. Let him know that there’s one here breathing the free—free light—breath of heaven here. A man too humble to call himself a paytriot, but who feels like one, and moans over the sufferings of his down-trampled brothers.”
“I tell you he’ll hear you directly, and we shall have to go.”
“Let him hear me,” shouted Simeon, “and let him drive us out—drive us into the free air of heaven. It’ll only be a new specimint of the bloated priesthood trampling down and gloating over the sufferings of the poor. Who’s he—a coming down here with his cassicks and gowns to read and riot on his five hundred a year in a house like this, when the hard-working body of brothers on the local plan can preach wi’out having it written down, and wi’out cassicks and gowns, and get nothing for it but glory! Let him hear me.”
“Thou fulsome! hold thy stupid tongue,” cried Mrs Slee.
“Never!” exclaimed Simeon, who counted this his opportunity after being baffled in the forenoon. “I’ll be trampled on no more by any bloated oligarch of a priest or master. I’ve been slave too—too long. I’m starving now, but what then? I can be a martyr to a holy cause—the ’oly cause of freedom. Let him riot in his food and raiment—let him turn us out, and some day—some day—I say some day—”
Mr Slee paused in his oratory, for his wife had clapped her hand over his mouth; but just then the door opened, and the vicar stood in the opening.
Mrs Slee dropped her hand, while Simeon thrust his right into his breast, orator fashion, and faced the new-comer with inborn dignity.
“How do, Mr Slee,” said the vicar, quietly. “We met before this morning. I merely came to say that I cannot help hearing every word that is spoken in this room.”
“The words that I said—” began Simeon.
“And,” continued the vicar, “I have quite done, if you will clear away, Mrs Slee. I am going to see about a few more necessaries for the place, and to look out for a gardener, unless your husband likes the job.”
“Garden!” said Simeon; “I dig!”
“I often do,” said the vicar, coolly. “It’s very healthy work. Famous for the appetite. By the way, Mr Slee, I heard you say you were hungry. Mrs Slee, pray don’t save anything on the table; you are quite welcome.”
He walked out of the place, and Mrs Slee, who, poor woman, looked ravenously hungry, hastened to spread their own table.
“That for you,” said Simeon, snapping his fingers after the retreating form. “I care that for you—a bloated priest. Of course, we’re to eat his husks—a swine—his leavings. No; I’ll rather starve than be treated so.”
“Howd thy silly tongue, thou fulsome!” exclaimed Mrs Slee, “and thank the Lord there is something sent for thee. You talk like that! Oh, Sim, Sim, if ever there was a shack, it’s thou.”
“Mebbe I am, mebbe I’m not,” said Sim, as he looked curiously on, while his wife filled up the steaming teapot, put the half dish of bacon down to warm, and then proceeded to cut some thick slices of bread and butter.
Sim turned his eyes away and tried to look out of the window, but those thick slices, with the holes well filled with butter, were magnetic, and drew his eyes back again.
“I tell ye what, woman,” he began, wrenching his eyes away, “that the day is coming when the British wuckman will tear himself from under the despot’s heel.”
“There, do hold thee clat, and—there, yeat that.”
Mrs Slee thrust a great slice of the tempting bread and butter into her husband’s hand, and his fingers clutched it fiercely.
“Yeat that—yeat that?” he cried. “Yeat the bread of a brutal, Church—established tyrant? Yeat the husks of his leavings? Never! I’d sooner—sooner—sooner—sooner—Yah!”
Mr Simeon Slee’s words came more and more slowly, as he prepared to dash the bread and butter down; but as his eyes rested upon the slice, he hesitated, and as he hesitated he fell, for the temptation was too great for the hungry hero. He uttered a kind of snarling ejaculation, and then treating the bread as if it were an enemy, he bit out of it a great semicircle, while throwing himself into a chair, he sat and ate slice after slice with bacon, in silence, washing all down with cups of tea.
Mr Slee stirred his tea with a fork-handle, for it was noticeable that the silver teaspoons had disappeared—a line of procedure adopted by Sim as soon as his hunger was appeased, for he had certain meetings of his brotherhood to attend, so he told his wife; and he did not return till late, his coming being announced by sundry stumbles in the passage, and a peculiar thickness of utterance, due doubtless to the exhaustion consequent upon many patriotic utterances at the hostelry known as the Bull for short—the Bull and Cucumber in fact.
Seekers for derivations of signs had puzzled themselves a good deal over the connection between a bull and that familiar gourd of thecucurbitaceaeknown as a cucumber. It is perhaps needless to add that the learned were baffled, but the incongruity was never noticed by the people of Dumford, and as their pronunciation of the sign was the Bull and Cow-cumber, the connection did not sound at all out of place.
Mr Selwood heard Sim return, and lay for some time listening to his patriotic utterances—fragments, in fact, of the speech he had delivered at the meeting—and it became very evident to the new occupant of the vicarage that life with Mr Simeon Slee beneath his roof would not be very pleasant.
“I don’t like the idea of turning out the poor woman, either,” he said to himself, as he lay turning from side to side, courting the rest that would not come.
“I’ve been a bit excited to-day, I suppose,” he muttered; and then he tried all the known recipes short of drugs for obtaining rest, from saying a speech backwards to getting out of bed and brushing his hair.
But sleep would not come till close upon morning, for that face before him was the sweet appealing face of Eve Pelly, and in the stillness of the night he seemed to be hearing her words again and again—“Don’t judge dear Richard harshly from what you saw this morning.”
“Dear Richard, dear Richard, dear Richard”—he found himself repeating over and over again. “And she loves him, and believes in him. He is everything to her, and if she found out that he was a scoundrel it would break her heart.”
“And set her free,” something in the corner of his own seemed to whisper; and he started, and sat up in bed with the perspiration standing on his brow.
“Am I sane? Am I in my right senses?” he said, feeling his pulse and counting its beats. “I must be a little out of tone. Humph! I’ll have such a walk to-morrow! Bah! it’s the excitement of coming down here, and it has been rather a lively day.”
He punched and turned his pillow fiercely, threw himself down, and closed his eyes once more, shutting out the dimly-seen lattice window, with its fringe of ivy leaves; but as he did so there was Eve Pelly’s face again, and that gentle look which accompanied the appealing curve of her lips, as she said, “Don’t judge dear Richard harshly.”
The would-be sleeper started up in bed again, and sat there feeling hot and feverish for some time.
“Look here, Murray, dear boy,” he said at last. “You are down here for a great purpose. You have here in your charge some four thousand souls to teach and tend, and help on in life’s course. Don’t fidget, my boy. I’m not going to preach, only to say a few words to the point. Now, look here: You are the spiritual head of the parish; you have your Master’s work to do. In short, you are a teacher. Now mind this, a teacher who cannot govern himself is a broken reed. Are you a broken reed?” This was all said in a low voice, and then for a few moments there was silence in the room, to be broken by the young man saying in a somewhat louder voice in answer to his own words: “I hope not.”
“Good,” he continued, in the former tone. “I like that: it sounds humble and hopeful. Now look here, you will see a great deal of what goes on in this place. In fact, you have seen a good deal already, and you have learned what is the state of affairs with one of the principal families. You have heard that Richard Glaire is engaged to his cousin; that the said cousin loves him; and that this weak young man is playing fast and loose.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Well, your duty is plain; the young fellow doubtless has his good points. Make him your friend, and improve them—for her sake—gain an influence over him. You can, and you will, Murray Selwood. Yours may be a hard duty, but you must do it.”
“Yes, verily, and by God’s help so I will.”
“Good. Now you may go to sleep.”
After this he lay down, and by a strange exercise of will, and in the belief that he was going to conquer a feeling absolutely new to him, he fell asleep directly.
But it was no peaceful rest such as generally came to his pillow, for he lay tossing in dreams of Eve Pelly turning to him constantly for help from some great trouble that was ever pursuing her—a danger that he could not avert. Then Richard Glaire had him by the throat, charging him with robbing him of his love; and then he was engaged in a mad struggle with the young man, holding him over a gulf to hurl him in, incited thereto by the young workman.
Then once more Eve Pelly’s appealing face was before him, praying him to spare dear Richard, the man she loved, and then—
“Thank God, it’s morning!” he exclaimed, waking with a start, to consult his watch, and finding it was half-past six.