Sybil - 26

“Very like,” said Mick; “there’s nothing that makes one so thirsty as listening to a song, particularly if it touches the feelings. Don’t you remember, Dusty, when we used to encore that German fellow in ‘Scots wha ha.’ We always had it five times. Hang me if I wasn’t blind drunk at the end of it.”

“I tell you what, young ladies,” said Devilsdust, looking very solemn, “you’re dancing on a volcano.”

“Oh! my,” said Caroline. “I am sure I wish we were; though what you mean exactly I don’t quite know.”

“I mean that we shall all soon be slaves,” said Devilsdust.

“Not if we get the Ten-Hour Bill,” said Harriet.

“And no cleaning of machinery in meal time,” said Julia; “that is a shame.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” said Devilsdust. “I tell you, if the Capitalists put down Gerard we’re done for another ten years, and by that time we shall be all used up.”

“Lor! Dusty, you quite terrify one,” said Caroline.

“It’s a true bill though. Instead of going to the Temple we must meet on the Moor, and in as great numbers as possible. Go you and get all your sweethearts. I must see your father, Harriet; he must preside. We will have the hymn of Labour sung by a hundred thousand voices in chorus. It will strike terror into the hearts of the Capitalists. This is what we must all be thinking of if we wish Labour to have a chance, not of going to Chaffing Jack’s and listening to silly songs. D’ye understand?”

“Don’t we!” said Caroline; “and for my part for a summer eve I prefer Mowbray Moor to all the Temples in the world, particularly if it’s a sociable party and we have some good singing.”

This evening it was settled among the principal champions of the cause of Labour, among whom Devilsdust was now included, that on the morrow there should be a monster meeting on the Moor to take into consideration the arrest of the delegate of Mowbray. Such was the complete organisation of this district that by communicating with the various lodges of the Trades Unions fifty thousand persons, or even double that number, could within four-and-twenty hours on a great occasion and on a favourable day be brought into the field. The morrow being a day of rest was favourable, and the seizure of their cherished delegate was a stimulating cause. The excitement was great, the enthusiasm earnest and deep. There was enough distress to make people discontented without depressing them. And Devilsdust after attending a council of the Union, retired to rest and dreamed of strong speeches and spicy resolutions, bands and banners, the cheers of assembled thousands, and the eventual triumph of the sacred rights.

The post of the next morning brought great and stirring news to Mowbray. Gerard had undergone his examination at Bow Street. It was a long and laborious one; he was committed for trial for a seditious conspiracy, but he was held to bail. The bail demanded was heavy; but it was prepared and instantly proffered. His sureties were Morley and a Mr Hatton. By this post Morley wrote to his friends, apprising them that both Gerard and himself intended to leave London instantly, and that they might be expected to arrive at Mowbray by the evening train.

The monster meeting of the Moor it was instantly resolved should be converted into a triumphant procession, or rather be preceded by one. Messengers on horseback were sent to all the neighbouring towns to announce the great event. Every artisan felt as a Moslemin summoned by the sacred standard. All went forth with their wives and their children to hail the return of the patriot and the martyr. The Trades of Mowbray mustered early in the morning, and in various processions took possession of all the churches. Their great pride was entirely to fill the church of Mr St Lys, who not daunted by their demonstration, and seizing the offered opportunity, suppressed the sermon with which he had supplied himself and preached to them an extemporary discourse on “Fear God and honour the King.” In the dissenting chapels thanksgivings were publicly offered that bail had been accepted for Walter Gerard. After the evening service, which the Unions again attended, they formed in the High Street and lined it with their ranks and banners. Every half hour a procession arrived from some neighbouring town with its music and streaming flags. Each was received by Warner or some other member of the managing committee, who assigned to them their appointed position, which they took up without confusion, nor was the general order for a moment disturbed. Sometimes a large party arrived without music or banners, but singing psalms and headed by their minister; sometimes the children walked together, the women following, then the men each with a ribbon of the same colour in his hat: all hurried, yet spontaneous and certain, indications how mankind under the influence of high and earnest feelings recur instantly to ceremony and form; how when the imagination is excited it appeals to the imagination, and requires for its expression something beyond the routine of daily life.

It was arranged that the moment the train arrived and the presence of Gerard was ascertained, the Trade in position nearest to the station should commence the hymn of Labour, which was instantly to be taken up by its neighbour, and so on in succession, so that by an almost electrical agency the whole population should almost simultaneously be assured of his arrival.

At half past six o’clock the bell announced that the train was in sight; a few minutes afterwards Dandy Mick hurried up to the leader of the nearest Trade, spoke a few words, and instantly the signal was given and the hymn commenced. It was taken up as the steeples of a great city in the silence of the night take up the new hour that has just arrived; one by one the mighty voices rose till they all blended in one vast waving sea of sound. Warner and some others welcomed Gerard and Morley, and ushered them, totally unprepared for such a reception, to an open carriage drawn by four white horses that was awaiting them. Orders were given that there was to be no cheering or any irregular clamour. Alone was heard the hymn. As the carriage passed each Trade, they followed and formed in procession behind it; thus all had the opportunity of beholding their chosen chief, and he the proud consolation of looking on the multitude who thus enthusiastically recognised the sovereignty of his services.

The interminable population, the mighty melody, the incredible order, the simple yet awful solemnity, this representation of the great cause to which she was devoted under an aspect that at once satisfied the reason, captivated the imagination, and elevated the heart—her admiration of her father, thus ratified as it were by the sympathy of a nation—added to all the recent passages of her life teeming with such strange and trying interest, overcame Sybil. The tears fell down her cheek as the carriage bore away her father, while she remained under the care of one unknown to the people of Mowbray, but who had accompanied her from London,—this was Hatton.

The last light of the sun was shed over the Moor when Gerard reached it, and the Druids’ altar and its surrounding crags were burnished with its beam.






Book 5 Chapter 11

It was the night following the day after the return of Gerard to Mowbray. Morley, who had lent to him and Sybil his cottage in the dale, was at the office of his newspaper, the Mowbray Phalanx, where he now resided. He was alone in his room writing, occasionally rising from his seat and pacing the chamber, when some one knocked at his door. Receiving a permission to come in, there entered Hatton.

“I fear I am disturbing an article,” said the guest.

“By no means: the day of labour is not at hand. I am very pleased to see you.”

“My quarters are not very inviting,” continued Hatton. “It is remarkable what bad accommodation you find in these great trading towns. I should have thought that the mercantile traveller had been a comfortable animal—not to say a luxurious; but I find everything mean and third-rate. The wine execrable. So I thought I would come and bestow my tediousness on you. ‘Tis hardly fair.”

“You could not have pleased me better. I was, rather from distraction than from exigency, throwing some thoughts on paper. But the voice of yesterday still lingers in my ear.”

“What a spectacle!”

“Yes; you see what a multitude presents who have recognised the predominance of Moral Power,” said Morley. “The spectacle was august; but the results to which such a public mind must lead are sublime.”

“It must have been deeply gratifying to our friend,” said Hatton.

“It will support him in his career,” said Morley.

“And console him in his prison,” added Hatton.

“You think that it will come to that?” said Morley inquiringly.

“It has that aspect; but appearances change.”

“What should change them?”

“Time and accident, which change everything.”

“Time will bring the York Assizes,” said Morley musingly; “and as for accident I confess the future seems to me dreary. What can happen for Gerard?”

“He might win his writ of right,” said Hatton demurely, stretching out his legs and leaning back in his chair. “That also may be tried at the York Assizes.”

“His writ of right! I thought that was a feint—a mere affair of tactics to keep the chance of the field.”

“I believe the field may be won,” said Hatton very composedly.

“Won!”

“Ay! the castle and manor of Mowbray and half the lordships round, to say nothing of this good town. The people are prepared to be his subjects; he must give up equality and be content with being a popular sovereign.”

“You jest my friend.”

“Then I speak truth in jest; sometimes, you know, the case.”

“What mean you?” said Morley rising and approaching Hatton; “for though I have often observed you like a biting phrase, you never speak idly. Tell me what you mean.”

“I mean,” said Hatton, looking Morley earnestly in the face and speaking with great gravity, “that the documents are in existence which prove the title of Walter Gerard to the proprietorship of this great district; that I know where the documents are to be found; and that it requires nothing but a resolution equal to the occasion to secure them.”

“Should that be wanting?” said Morley.

“I should think not,” said Hatton. “It would belie our nature to believe so.”

“And where are these documents?”

“In the muniment room of Mowbray castle.”

“Hah!” exclaimed Morley in a prolonged tone.

“Kept closely by one who knows their value, for they are the title deeds not of his right but of his confusion.”

“And how can we obtain them?”

“By means more honest than those they were acquired by.”

“They are not obvious.”

“Two hundred thousand human beings yesterday acknowledged the supremacy of Gerard,” said Hatton. “Suppose they had known that within the walls of Mowbray Castle were contained the proofs that Walter Gerard was the lawful possessor of the lands on which they live; I say suppose that had been the case. Do you think they would have contented themselves with singing psalms? What would have become of moral power then? They would have taken Mowbray Castle by storm; they would have sacked and gutted it; they would have appointed a chosen band to rifle the round tower; they would have taken care that every document in it, especially an iron chest painted blue and blazoned with the shield of Valence, should have been delivered to you, to me, to any one that Gerard appointed for the office. And what could be the remedy of the Earl de Mowbray? He could scarcely bring an action against the hundred for the destruction of the castle, which we would prove was not his own. And the most he could do would be to transport some poor wretches who had got drunk in his plundered cellars and then set fire to his golden saloons.”

“You amaze me,” said Morley, looking with an astonished expression on the person who had just delivered himself of these suggestive details with the same coolness and arid accuracy that he would have entered into the details of a pedigree.

“‘Tis a practical view of the case,” remarked Mr Hatton.

Morley paced the chamber disturbed; Hatton remained silent and watched him with a scrutinizing eye.

“Are you certain of your facts?” at length said Morley abruptly stopping.

“Quite so; Lord de Mowbray informed me of the circumstances himself before I left London, and I came down here in consequence.”

“You know him?”

“No one better.”

“And these documents—some of them I suppose,” said Morley with a cynical look, “were once in your own possession then?”

“Possibly. Would they were now! But it is a great thing to know where they may be found.”

“Then they once were the property of Gerard?”

“Hardly that. They were gained by my own pains, and often paid for with my own purse. Claimed by no one, I parted with them to a person to whom they were valuable. It is not merely to serve Gerard that I want them now, though I would willingly serve him. I have need of some of these papers with respect to an ancient title, a claim to which by a person in whom I am interested they would substantiate. Now listen, good friend Morley; moral force is a fine thing especially in speculation, and so is a community of goods especially when a man has no property, but when you have lived as long as I have and have tasted of the world’s delight, you’ll comprehend the rapture of acquisition, and learn that it is generally secured by very coarse means. Come, I have a mind that you should prosper. The public spirit is inflamed here; you are a leader of the people. Let us have another meeting on the Moor, a preconcerted outbreak; you can put your fingers in a trice on the men who will do our work. Mowbray Castle is in their possession; we secure our object. You shall have ten thousand pounds on the nail, and I will take you back to London with me besides and teach you what is fortune.”

“I understand you,” said Morley. “You have a clear brain and a bold spirit; you have no scruples, which indeed are generally the creatures of perplexity rather than of principle. You ought to succeed.”

“We ought to succeed you mean,” said Hatton, “for I have long perceived that you only wanted opportunity to mount.”

“Yesterday was a great burst of feeling occasioned by a very peculiar cause,” said Morley musingly; “but it must not mislead us. The discontent here is not deep. The people are still employed, though not fully. Wages have fallen, but they must drop more. THE PEOPLE are not ripe for the movement you intimate. There are thousands who would rush to the rescue of the castle. Besides there is a priest here, one St Lys, who exercises a most pernicious influence over the people. It will require immense efforts and great distress to root him out. No; it would fail.”

“Then we must wait awhile,” said Hatton, “or devise some other means.”

“‘Tis a very impracticable case,” said Morley.

“There is a combination for every case,” said Hatton. “Ponder and it comes. This seemed simple; but you think, you really think it would not answer?”

“At this moment, not; that is my conviction.”

“Well suppose instead of an insurrection we have a burglary. Can you assist me to the right hands here?”

“Not I indeed!”

“What is the use then of this influence over the people of which you and Gerard are always talking? After yesterday I thought here you could do anything.”

“We have not hitherto had the advantage of your worldly knowledge; in future we shall be wiser.”

“Well then,” said Hatton, “we must now think of Gerard’s defence. He shall have the best counsel. I shall retain Kelly specially. I shall return to town to-morrow morning. You will keep me alive to the state of feeling here, and if things get more mature drop me a line and I will come down.”

“This conversation had better not be mentioned to Gerard.”

“That is obvious; it would only disturb him. I did not preface it by a stipulation of confidence because that is idle. Of course you will keep the secret; it is your interest; it is a great possession. I know very well you will be most jealous of sharing it. I know it is as safe with you as with myself.”

And with these words Hatton wished him a hearty farewell and withdrew.

“He is right,” thought Morley; “he knows human nature well. The secret is safe. I will not breathe it to Gerard. I will treasure it up. It is knowledge; it is power: great knowledge, great power. And what shall I do with it? Time will teach me.”

END OF THE FIFTH BOOK






BOOK VI






Book 6 Chapter 1

“Another week,” exclaimed a gentleman in Downing Street on the 5th of August, 1842, “and we shall be prorogued. You can surely keep the country quiet for another week.”

“I cannot answer for the public peace for another four-and-twenty hours,” replied his companion.

“This business at Manchester must be stopped at once; you have a good force there?”

“Manchester is nothing; these are movements merely to distract. The serious work is not now to be apprehended in the cotton towns. The state of Staffordshire and Warwickshire is infinitely more menacing. Cheshire and Yorkshire alarm me. The accounts from Scotland are as bad as can be. And though I think the sufferings of ‘39 will keep Birmingham and the Welch collieries in check, we cannot venture to move any of our force from those districts.”

“You must summon a council for four o’clock. I have some deputations to receive which I will throw over; but to Windsor I must go. Nothing has yet occurred to render any notice of the state of the country necessary in the speech from the Throne.”

“Not yet,” said his companion; “but what will to-morrow bring forth?”

“After all it is only a turn-out. I cannot recast her Majesty’s speech and bring in rebellion and closed mills, instead of loyalty and a good harvest.”

“It would be a bore. Well, we will see to-morrow;” and the colleague left the room.

“And now for these deputations,” said the gentleman in Downing Street, “of all things in the world I dislike a deputation. I do not care how much I labour in the Closet or the house; that’s real work; the machine is advanced. But receiving a deputation is like sham marching: an immense dust and no progress. To listen to their views! As if I did not know what their views were before they stated them! And to put on a countenance of respectful candour while they are developing their exploded or their impracticable systems. Were it not that at a practised crisis, I permit them to see conviction slowly stealing over my conscience, I believe the fellows would never stop. I cannot really receive these deputations. I must leave them to Hoaxem,” and the gentleman in Downing Street rang his bell.

“Well, Mr Hoaxem,” resumed the gentleman in Downing Street as that faithful functionary entered, “there are some deputations I understand, to-day. You must receive them, as I am going to Windsor. What are they?”

“There are only two, sir, of moment. The rest I could easily manage.”

“And these two?”

“In the first place, there is our friend Colonel Bosky, the members for the county of Calfshire, and a deputation of tenant farmers.”

“Pah!”

“These must be attended to. The members have made a strong representation to me that they really cannot any longer vote with government unless the Treasury assists them in satisfying their constituents.”

“And what do they want?”

“Statement of grievances; high taxes and low prices; mild expostulations and gentle hints that they have been thrown over by their friends; Polish corn, Holstein cattle, and British income tax.”

“Well you know what to say,” said the gentleman in Downing Street. “Tell them generally that they are quite mistaken; prove to them particularly that my only object has been to render protection more protective, by making it practical and divesting it of the surplusage of odium; that no foreign corn can come in at fifty-five shillings; that there are not enough cattle in all Holstein to supply the parish of Pancras daily with beef-steaks; and that as for the income tax, they will be amply compensated for it by their diminished cost of living through the agency of that very tariff of which they are so superficially complaining.”

“Their diminished cost of living!” said Mr Hoaxem a little confused. “Would not that assurance, I humbly suggest, clash a little with my previous demonstration that we had arranged that no reduction of prices should take place?”

“Not at all; your previous demonstration is of course true, but at the same time you must impress upon them the necessity of general views to form an opinion of particular instances. As for example a gentleman of five thousand pounds per annum pays to the income tax, which by the bye always call property tax, one hundred and fifty pounds a year. Well, I have materially reduced the duties on eight hundred articles. The consumption of each of those articles by an establishment of five thousand pounds per annum cannot be less than one pound per article. The reduction of price cannot be less than a moiety; therefore a saving of four hundred per annum; which placed against the deduction of the property tax leaves a clear increase of income of two hundred and fifty pounds per annum; by which you see that a property tax in fact increases income.”

“I see,” said Mr Hoaxem with an admiring glance. “And what am I to say to the deputation of the manufacturers of Mowbray complaining of the great depression of trade, and the total want of remunerating profits?”

“You must say exactly the reverse,” said the gentleman in Downing Street. “Show them how much I have done to promote the revival of trade. First of all in making provisions cheaper; cutting off at one blow half the protection on corn, as for example at this moment under the old law the duty on foreign wheat would have been twenty-seven shillings a quarter; under the new law it is thirteen. To be sure no wheat could come in at either price, but that does not alter the principle. Then as to live cattle, show how I have entirely opened the trade with the continent in live cattle. Enlarge upon this, the subject is speculative and admits of expensive estimates. If there be any dissenters on the deputation who having freed the negroes have no subject left for their foreign sympathies, hint at the tortures of the bullfight and the immense consideration to humanity that instead of being speared at Seville, the Andalusian Toro will probably in future be cut up at Smithfield. This cheapness of provisions will permit them to compete with the foreigner in all neutral markets, in time beat them in their own. It is a complete compensation too for the property tax, which impress upon them is a great experiment and entirely for their interests. Ring the changes on great measures and great experiments till it is time to go down and make a house. Your official duties of course must not be interfered with. They will take the hint. I have no doubt you will get through the business very well, Mr Hoaxem, particularly if you be ‘frank and explicit;’ that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others. Good morning!”






Book 6 Chapter 2

Two days after this conversation in Downing Street, a special messenger arrived at Marney Abbey from the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine. Immediately after reading the despatch of which he was the bearer, there was a great bustle in the house; Lady Marney was sent for to her husband’s library and there enjoined immediately to write various letters which were to prevent certain expected visitors from arriving; Captain Grouse was in and out the same library every five minutes, receiving orders and counter orders, and finally mounting his horse was flying about the neighbourhood with messages and commands. All this stir signified that the Marney regiment of Yeomanry were to be called out directly.

Lord Marney who had succeeded in obtaining a place in the Household and was consequently devoted to the institutions of the country, was full of determination to uphold them; but at the same time with characteristic prudence was equally resolved that the property principally protected should be his own, and that the order of his own district should chiefly engage his solicitude.

“I do not know what the Duke means by marching into the disturbed districts,” said Lord Marney to Captain Grouse. “These are disturbed districts. There have been three fires in one week, and I want to know what disturbance can be worse than that? In my opinion this is a mere anti-corn-law riot to frighten the government; and suppose they do stop the mills—what then? I wish they were all stopped, and then one might live like a gentleman again?”

Egremont, between whom and his brother a sort of bad-tempered good understanding had of late years to a certain degree flourished, in spite of Lord Marney remaining childless, which made him hate Egremont with double distilled virulence, and chiefly by the affectionate manoeuvres of their mother, but whose annual visits to Marney had generally been limited to the yeomanry week, arrived from London the same day as the letter of the Lord Lieutenant, as he had learnt that his brother’s regiment, in which he commanded a troop, as well as the other yeomanry corps in the North of England, must immediately take the field.

Five years had elapsed since the commencement of our history, and they had brought apparently much change to the character of the brother of Lord Marney. He had become, especially during the last two or three years, silent and reserved; he rarely entered society; even the company of those who were once his intimates had ceased to attract him; he was really a melancholy man. The change in his demeanour was observed by all; his mother and his sister-in-law were the only persons who endeavoured to penetrate its cause, and sighed over the failure of their sagacity. Quit the world and the world forgets you; and Egremont would have soon been a name no longer mentioned in those brilliant saloons which he once adorned, had not occasionally a sensation, produced by an effective speech in the House of Commons, recalled his name to his old associates, who then remembered the pleasant hours passed in his society and wondered why he never went anywhere now.

“I suppose he finds society a bore,” said Lord Eugene de Vere; “I am sure I do; but then what is a fellow to do? I am not in Parliament like Egremont. I believe, after all, that’s the thing; for I have tried everything else and everything else is a bore.”

“I think one should marry like Alfred Mountchesney,” said Lord Milford.

“But what is the use of marrying if you do not marry a rich woman—and the heiresses of the present age will not marry. What can be more unnatural! It alone ought to produce a revolution. Why, Alfred is the only fellow who has made a coup; and then he has not got it down.”

“She behaved in a most unprincipled manner to me—that Fitz-Warene,” said Lord Milford, “always took my bouquets and once made me write some verses.”

“By Jove!” said Lord Eugene, “I should like to see them. What a bore it must have been to write verses.”

“I only copied them out of Mina Blake’s album: but I sent them in my own handwriting.”

Baffled sympathy was the cause of Egremont’s gloom. It is the secret spring of most melancholy. He loved and loved in vain. The conviction that his passion, though hopeless, was not looked upon with disfavour, only made him the more wretched, for the disappointment is more acute in proportion as the chance is better. He had never seen Sybil since the morning he quitted her in Smith’s Square, immediately before her departure for the North. The trial of Gerard had taken place at the assizes of that year: he had been found guilty and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment in York Castle; the interference of Egremont both in the House of Commons and with the government saved him from the felon confinement with which he was at first threatened, and from which assuredly state prisoners should be exempt. During this effort some correspondence had taken place between Egremont and Sybil, which he would willingly have encouraged and maintained; but it ceased nevertheless with its subject. Sybil, through the influential interference of Ursula Trafford, lived at the convent at York during the imprisonment of her father, and visited him daily.