Chapter THE TENTH: First Antagonism (3)

“‘Only this once,’ William, ‘is the parent of thrice,’” responded Mrs. Ashton, gravely, as she poured out the tea, giving something like milk-and-water to Miss Augusta. “You will spoil that child; and if you spoil her to-day, she will spoil herself to-morrow. However, as _you_ are inclined to tolerate that which I think disrespectful to us, and wanting in self-respect on the child’s part, I can say no more.”

Thus Mrs. Ashton yielded against her judgment; Mr. Ashton took out his snuff-box, to put it back like a culprit; and Miss Augusta sat down to the table, not knowing whether to be more pleased or sorry that she had got her own way.

To turn the subject, Mr. Ashton asked—

“What is that you put on the card-table, my dear?”

“Oh! I’ll show you,” and away the young lady was running, only to be recalled by her mother’s decided—

“After tea, Augusta.”

So after tea it was that Miss Augusta brought her treasure to her father—sundry sheets of paper, on which scraps of variously-coloured leather had been arranged and pasted in ornamental patterns, floral and geometrical, aided by the stamps employed in piercing brace-ends for the embroiderers, and in cutting stars to cover the umbrella-wheels inside.

“Who did those?” asked mother and father in a breath.

“Jabez Clegg, in the warehouse. Aren’t they pretty?” was Augusta’s ready reply, as she looked admiringly on her curious pictures.

“Oh! then that accounts for your being late, and in that condition at the tea-table,” said Mrs. Ashton, as she glanced from the rich designs before her to the sullied hands and pinafore.

“And so Jabez Clegg has been wasting our leather to make playthings for you?” remarked Mr. Ashton interrogatively, in a not unkindly tone of voice.

“No, he hasn’t!” answered little miss, briskly. “He only used the waste tiny bits. I wanted to take a big piece to make a housewife” (a case for thread and needles), “and he would not let me have it. He said he had no right to give it, and I had no right to take it. Was he right, mamma?”

[Along with many other vain fashions, “papa” and “mamma” had come over from France to supersede our more sterling “father” and “mother,” with other refugees from the Revolution.]

“Yes, my dear, quite right; but I wish my little daughter would not run so much into the kitchen and warehouse among the apprentices,” said the mother, kindly, smoothing down the light brown hair, in which the sunbeams seemed to weave golden threads. “It is not becoming in a young lady.”

Mr. Ashton, who had been all the while examining the glowing devices before him, interrupted her with—

“I think I have discovered a new faculty in our apprentice. I shall buy Jabez Clegg a box of colours to-morrow. We are sadly in want of fresh patterns, and I think he can make them;” and Mr. Ashton took a large pinch of snuff on the strength of his discovery.

And Jabez, for the first time in his life the possessor of paints and brushes, became valuable to his master.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

IN THE WAREHOUSE.

Mutability is the epitaph of worlds. Change alone is changeless. People drop out of the history of a life as of a land, though their work or their influence remains. A passing word may suffice to dismiss such from our pages.

The Reverend John Gresswell had been taken by Death from the Chetham College school-room before more than half the term of Jabez Clegg’s pupilage had run. Dr. Stone’s resignation of his librarianship followed close on his discovery of the half-drowned boy on the dairy-steps. After a long engagement with a young lady who refused many eligible offers, and withstood much parental persuasion for his sake, he—the curate of St. John’s Church—accepted the first vacant living in the gift of the college whereof he was fellow. A bridal closed their almost Jacob’s courtship, and the constant couple retired to the seclusion of Wooton Rivers, where his learning and eloquence had seldom more appreciative auditory than smock-frocked Wiltshire rustics and their families.

About the same time, or not long after, old Brookes was missed from the Packhorse, and the Ring-o’-Bells, and the Apple-Tree, and the Sun Inn—the breeches-maker and his neighbours ceased to hear his foul and offensive maunderings and imprecations as he staggered past to his son’s home, there to test _his_ endurance. He had gone home to his mother-earth, sober and silent for evermore. And Parson Brookes, left to his books and his pigeons, sent in his resignation, and the Grammar School knew him no more as a master. So the boys felt themselves free to take greater liberties with him than ever, and kept his hot blood for ever on the simmer.

As all these changes preceded the change which converted Jabez from a Blue-coat boy into Mr. Ashton’s apprentice, so were they anterior to the changes wrought by war in the homes of the Chadwicks and the Cleggs—changes differing even more widely than did the two homes.

Poverty had made sad havoc amongst Simon Clegg’s household goods; but Tom Hulme had not come home empty-handed, and soon their furniture came back, or was replaced, and the three rooms brightened up wonderfully. Though Simon’s flowers brought pence to his pocket as well as the other produce of his garden, he had always a spare posy for the broken jug on window-sill or mantelshelf; and Bess, full-hearted if not full of work, sent her voice quivering through that unmusical yard in songs of gladness and rejoicing.

Very little fresh wooing was necessary. To people who had been so stinted as they in common with others had been, Tom’s pension seemed more than it was; and no sooner was he able to discard his sling than he talked of immediate marriage, and was wonderfully sanguine about obtaining work as soon as his left arm regained its old power—which it never did. It was no use setting up a loom; he could no longer throw the shuttle back. He would have to seek some other employment. But thousands of other men were seeking employment too—men with the full use of all their limbs—men who had not disqualified themselves for peaceful arts by “going soldiering;” and Tom Hulme stood little chance. Mr. Clough would have taken him on as a timekeeper, but lack of penmanship was a barrier in the way.

Lamenting this in the presence of Jabez, the youth offered to be his instructor; and with the permission of Mr. Ashton, who granted leave of absence, set him copies and gave him lessons on Sunday afternoons, at first on an old slate, to save the cost of paper, which was dear. And then, at Mr. Ashton’s suggestion, Jabez superadded arithmetic, thus keeping himself in practice, besides helping one dear to those who had helped him.

Of course, a weekly or fortnightly lesson was not much; but the disabled soldier was a persevering pupil, and brought a clear head and an eager desire to his task. The maintenance of a better home for Bess depended on it.

About this time, a matter transpired at the Ashtons’ which had a material influence on the fortunes of the Cleggs. Though the house of Mr. Ashton was in Mosley Street, the premises extended as far as Back Mosley Street, where was the warehouse door. The workpeople entered at a side door under a gateway which led to the stable, gig-house, and courtyard between house and warehouse, guarded by the black retriever, Nelson.

You may look in vain for house and warehouse now. A magnificent block of stone warehouses, having threefold frontage, occupies the site.

More than once, Jabez Clegg, frequently entrusted with outdoor business requiring promptitude and accuracy, came upon Kit Townley, and one or other of the tassel-makers or fringe weavers, in close conference under the dim gateway at closing-time on Saturdays, or in the still darker doorway at the stair-foot of the workmen’s entrance. The first time they moved aside to let him pass, afterwards they separated hastily; but not before Jabez, who had quick ears, caught the chink of money as it passed from one to the other.

On the first of these occasions, his attention was barely arrested; it was the repetition and the avoidance which struck him with its air of secrecy, and set him pondering what business his fellow-apprentice could have with the hands out of proper place and time. He knew him to be not over-scrupulous. He had seen him at Knott-Mill Fair and Dirt Fair (so called from its being held in muddy November), or Kersall Moor Races, with more money to spend in pop, nuts, and ginger-bread, shows and merry-go-rounds, flying boats and flying boxes, fighting cocks and fighting men, than he could possibly have saved out of the sum his father allowed him for pocket-money, even if he had been of the saving kind; and, coupling all these things together, Jabez was far from satisfied. He was aware that of late years stock-taking had been productive of much uneasiness to both Mr. and Mrs. Ashton. There were deficiences of raw material in more than one department, for which it was impossible to account, save that the quantity accredited to “waste” was far out of reasonable proportion.

Mr. Ashton, suspecting systematic peculation or embezzlement (of which many masters were complaining), had privately communicated with Joseph Nadin, the deputy constable, a gnarled graft from Bow Street, who bore the official character of extraordinary vigilance and smartness. He was supposed to set a watch on workpeople and others, but nothing came to light. Perhaps he was too busy manufacturing political offences, or hunting down political offenders, to look after the interests of private manufacturers. Sure it is that silk, worsted, webs, and gingham once gone were not to be traced. Jabez was also aware that a shade rested on the establishment of which he was an item, and felt that it behoved him to clear it away for his own sake, if possible.

Since the discovery of his faculty for design, much of his time had been occupied at a desk with pencils and colours, making patterns for the wood-turner, the mould-coverer, the tassel-maker, the fringe-weaver; for bell-ropes, brace-webs, carpet and furniture bindings; and although some of these things admitted but of little variety, there was plenty found for him to do.

This was well-pleasing enough to Jabez, but the College officials, who never lose sight of the boys they apprentice, demurred. His indentures provided that he should learn small-ware-manufacturing in all its branches; and pattern-designing, if part and parcel, was only one branch. Mr. Ashton was too just not to assent, and Jabez went to his active employment again. But he had a love for his new art, and an interest in his master’s interest, which prompted him to say—

“If it would be all the same to you, sir, I could draw patterns before breakfast, or in the dinner-hour, or in an evening, if Kezia had someone else to wait on her.”

The inevitable snuff-box came out, Mr. Ashton’s head went first on one side, then on the other, as he took a long pinch before he answered.

“No, my lad, it won’t be all the same to me, nor to you either,” he said, at length, and Jabez began to look rueful. “You’re a lad of uncommon parts, and I’m willing enough to find them employment. But if you work extra hours, apprentice or no apprentice, you must have extra pay. So you see, Jabez, it won’t be the same to either of us. You shall have the little room at the end of the lobby to yourself, and there you may earn all you can for your own friends and for me.”

“Oh, thank you, master!” interjected Jabez, his thoughts flying at once to the old yard in Long Millgate.

“And let Kezia wait upon herself if there are no other idle folk about,” concluded Mr. Ashton, and the business was settled.

This was about the time Jabez first began to suspect Kit Townley of unfair dealing; and being once more in frequent contact with him in the warehouse, he could not shut his eyes or his ears.

Kit was then assistant putter-out in the fringe and tassel department, counted out the moulds, weighed out silk and worsted, and called out the quantities each hand took away, for a young booking-clerk to enter.

Jabez was still in the brace and umbrella room, but there was a wide door of communication between the two, and he had frequently to pass through the former with finished goods for the ware and show-rooms on the lower floors, and had to go cautiously past the large scale, lest he should tilt the beam with his ungainly burdens. Now and then it occurred to him that the bulk of silk or worsted in the scale was large in proportion to the weight, as called out by Kit Townley, and once he was moved to say—

“Is that balance true? or have you made a mistake, Townley?”

“Mind your own business, Clegg, and don’t hinder mine. Naught ails the scales, and I know better than make mistakes.”

“Well, I only thought,” persisted Jabez.

“I wish you’d think and keep those umbrellas clear of the beam. You’re always thrutching past with great loads on your shoulder when I am weighing out,” interrupted Kit, testily, and Jabez held his peace.

But if he went on his way quietly, he was equally observant, and saw the same thing happen again too often to be the result of accident. Moreover, from the window of the little room where he had a broad desk for designing, he saw Kit meet the same men and women stealthily after hours under the opposite gateway.

“Kit,” said he, one night, when they went to their attic, “what do you meet Jackson, Bradley, and Mary Taylor under the gateway for so often?”

Kit, arrested with his warehouse jacket half on and half off, asked sharply—

“Who says I meet them under the gateway?”

“I say so. I have seen you myself.”

“And what if you have?” Kit retorted, snappishly. “There’s no harm in saying a civil word to poor folk that I know of.”

“No harm, if that were all,” returned Jabez, seriously, sitting down on the edge of his truckle-bed to take off his blue worsted stockings (knitted by himself), “but I have seen them give you money.”

“And what of that, you Blue-coat spy! If they’re kind enough to call at old mother Clowes’s shop for toffy and humbugs for me, and give me the change back, what’s that to you?” he blustered, coming up to Jabez with a defiant air.

“I know you’ve a sweet tooth, Townley,” replied Jabez, unmoved, “but I fear nothing half so good as Mrs. Clowes’ toffy takes you there so stealthily.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Wiseacre, you know my business better than myself?” returned Kit, bold as brass, though he did begin to feel qualmish.

“Perhaps I do, for I suspect you of double-dealing, and I know what the end of that must be; and I warn you that I cannot stand by and see our good master robbed. I should be as bad as you if I did.”

Townley, enraged, struck at him, and there was a scuffle in the dark, the bit of candle in their horn lantern having burnt out.

Kezia, who slept in the adjoining attic, rated them soundly the next morning for the disturbance they had made, threatening to tell Mrs. Ashton. Had she done so, inquiry would have followed.

Jabez, troubled and perplexed, the very next Sunday, consulted old Simon Clegg as to the course he should pursue, being alike unwilling to tell tales on suspicion, or to see his kind master wronged.

“Eh, lad,” quoth Simon, rubbing down his knees as he sat, “aw’ve manny a toime bin i’ just sich a ‘strait atween two;’ but aw allas steered moi coorse by yon big book, and tha’ mun do t’ seame. Thah munnot think what thah loikes, or what thah dunnot loike; but thah mun do _reet_, chuse what comes or goes. It is na reet to steeal; and to look on an’ consent to a thief is to be a thief. Thi first duty’s to thi God, an’ thi next to thi payrents (if tha’ had anny), an’ thi next to thi measter. Thah’s gi’en the chap fair warnin’, an’ if he wunnot tak’ it th’ faut’s noan thoine.”

It so happened that the “putter-out” in the brace and umbrella-room was an old man named Christopher, who had been in the employment of the Ashtons (father and son) for thirty years. He professed to be very pious and very conscientious, but lamented that increasing years brought with it many ailments and infirmities, such, for instance, as headaches, dizziness, sudden weakness of the limbs, and attacks of spasms, for the cure of which he kept a bottle of peppermint in a corner cupboard.

It was into this room Augusta used to come dancing, to coax old Christopher out of bits of waste leather, and other odds and ends, for which only a child could find use. She was fond of cutting and snipping, and, with an eye to his own advantage, the cunning old fellow had taught her how to use the stamps, so that she might _amuse_ herself by helping him. Then he bespoke her compassion for his aches and pains, and often, on holiday afternoons, was troubled with one or other ailment, which a pull at the bottle and a nap on the bundles of leather, or gingham, alone could relieve—“if Miss Augusta would be so obleeging an’ so koind as to stamp out a few tabs or straps for him, or count out umbrella ferules, or wheels, or handles,” for him.

And she, full of the superabundant energy of youth, did it, nothing loth; though as her own years increased, and with them her ability to help, came a sharp sense that old Christopher was a hypocrite—knowledge she confided to Jabez one day, when the sanctimonious putter-out was resting his aching head and uncertain legs, as usual; and in order to convince him she drew a bottle of gin, _not_ peppermint, from under a pile of white kid.

Jabez, too, had been sorry for the old fellow, and often added a good part of Christopher’s work to his own, to relieve him. It was this fact which brought both Christophers to book. The old cant was so grievously afflicted on the Monday afternoon, that Jabez, seeing him quite incapable of doing his work properly (he was putting out umbrellas), undertook to do it for him, though it was no business of his—and so Mrs. Ashton would have told him, had she been there.

He measured off what he knew to be sufficient gingham for two dozen umbrellas (a workwoman standing by in waiting), and was about to cut off the length when the woman arrested his hand.

“Yo’re furgettin’ th’ weaste, mi lad; Mester Christopher allus alleaws fur weaste.”

He looked at the woman, conscious there could be no waste in cutting umbrella-gores. She winked at him.

“Oh,” said Jabez, conscious he was learning something not down in his indentures. “And how much does he allow?”

“Abeawt a yard an’ a hauve th’ dozen.” she replied.

“And how do you contrive to waste it?” Jabez asked.

She winked again.

“Eh, but yo’re a young yorney. Yo’d best ax Mester Christopher that.”

“I think I’d best ask Mrs. Ashton that, if she’s in the warehouse,” rejoined he, sending his scissors through the gingham at the proper place.

“Yo’d better not, or yo’n cut off yo’r nose to spite yo’r own feace;” and the woman nodded her head knowingly. “T’other ’prentice knows whatn weaste means if thah dunnot; an’ manny’s th’ breet shillin’ it’s put in his breeches pocket, my lad.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Jabez, whilst he was counting over the already bundled up whalebone sticks, &c., to complete the umbrella fittings. “As our mistress would say, ‘We may live and learn.’”

He found that whalebone, ferules, handles, leathers, wheels, were all in excess. An extra umbrella might be made from the superabundant materials. Thereupon he wakened Christopher to do his own work, simply remarking that he thought the bundles of sticks, &c., had been miscounted.

“Oh, no, Clegg, they’re a’ reet; we’re obleeged to put in moore fur fear some on ’em shouldn’ split in makkin’ oop,” said old Christopher, cunningly, as if for his information.

Jabez took no further notice then, but shouldering a great bundle of large umbrellas, carried them through the fringe room, and there noticed that, despite the caution he had given, his fellow-apprentice was dexteriously manipulating silk and scales to falsify the weights he called out.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

EASTER MONDAY.

That evening Jabez, a clear-eyed, open-browed youth in his seventeenth year, upright, well-knit, and firmly built for his age, knocked at the parlour-door after Miss Augusta had been sent to bed. There was some trouble on his countenance, as though he was bent on an errand utterly repugnant to him. He was truly sorry to be the means, however remotely, of bringing disgrace on both an old man and a young one; but Simon had led him to the conclusion that if there was little honour in turning informer, there would be absolute dishonesty in keeping silence whilst he saw his master robbed.

Yet he hesitated, and lingered with his hand on the handle of the door, after the clear voice of Mr. Ashton had twice invited him to “come in.”

Mr. Ashton therefore opened the door, and saw Jabez with a design for a bell-rope tassel in his hand.

“Well, Jabez, what is it? Something special you have to show us?”

“No, sir; I only brought this lest any of the servants should be curious about my errand here.”

Mrs. Ashton, who was reading a romance from Mrs. Edge’s circulating library in King Street, lifted up her head at this; and Jabez came in, closing the door.

“Then what is the errand which needs such precaution?” asked Mr. Ashton, resuming his seat and looking up at the dear face of Jabez.

“I _think_, sir”—and he laid an emphasis on the “think”— “I have found out how you are being robbed, and who it is that robs you.”

“You—what?” exclaimed Mr. Ashton, placing his hand on the elbows of his chair, and bending forward inquiringly.

Jabez repeated his statement, adding, “I think, sir, some of your putters-out and work-people are in league to defraud you.”

Out came Mr. Ashton’s snuff-box, down went Mrs. Ashton’s romance, whilst Jabez told succinctly how his suspicions had been first aroused, and how they had been confirmed that day.

“I did not tell my suspicions to Christopher, sir, thinking I had best not interfere, or put the—the—them on their guard until I had spoken to you. I feared lest I should defeat your plans,” said Jabez, modestly.

“Just so, Jabez, just so; you were quite right, Jabez,” said his master, whilst a shower of snuff fell on neckcloth ends and shirt frills.

“Yes, quite right!” assented Mrs. Ashton, with customary dignity. “‘A still tongue shows a wise head;’ but we seldom see an old head on such young shoulders.”

No active steps were taken for a few days, but Mrs. Ashton was in the warehouse, and doubly observant; and Mr. Ashton was also on the alert. They saw enough to convince them that Jabez was correct, and, acting on first impulses, Nadin was again communicated with.

From the window of Jabez Clegg’s little room, Kit Townley was seen to receive payment from a fringe-weaver for his share of the spoil; and then Nadin, who knew all about it quite well enough before, followed up the clue to a waste-dealer’s who bought at his own price workpeople’s “waste” (_i.e._, warp, weft, silk, &c., remaining after work was completed), and found tradespeople willing enough to re-purchase, well knowing that commodities so varied, and so far below market value, were not honestly come by.

Nadin, big and blustering when there was nothing to be gained by silence, was for hauling the whole lot off to prison—the two Kits, the waste dealer, and sundry workpeople—and the criminal code was a very terrible dispensation then.

But Mr. Ashton was more merciful; he was for milder measures. Besides, Mr. Townley was an old friend of his, and for the sake of the father he forbore to drag the son into a court of justice; and unless he prosecuted all, he could not prosecute any.

The sight of Nadin and his rough men, in their red-cuffed, red-collared brown coats, with their staves and handcuffs ready for use was sufficiently terrifying. The distress of old Mr. Townley was painful to witness. As for Kit himself, he seemed less conscious of his guilt than ashamed of being found out, openly declaring that he “_did no more than was customary_,” and no more than old Christopher, who had led him into it, had done for years.

That old hypocrite went down on his knees with many whining protestations of his innocence; but, finding proof too strong, he made a clean breast of it, and on learning that through the generosity of his employer he was about to escape prosecution, which would have led to transportation, he begged piteously to be allowed to retain the situation he had held for so many years.

“No, Kit,” said Mrs. Ashton; “‘there is no rogue like an old rogue;’ you have not only robbed us yourself, but taught others the trick. Think well you have escaped the New Bailey” (the Manchester and Salford prison).

At that period the constable who apprehended a criminal received a bonus on each conviction, called “blood-money,” so large a proportion of felons were executed; and Nadin, gruff and uncourteous even to his superiors, was disposed to resist Mr. Ashton’s amiable “interference with the course of justice.” A liberal douceur from the elder Mr. Townley’s well-stocked purse was potent to allay his zeal. His runners were dismissed, and his friend the waste-dealer had a longer lease.

The clearance of rogues paved the way for honest men, besides suggesting measures to prevent like embezzlement in future. The Ashtons rightly thought that the best way to reward Jabez was to serve his friends. A situation as putter-out to the weavers was offered to Tom Hulme, Mr. Ashton having had his eye on him for some time; and old Simon, being sent for, went home delighted with commendations of Jabez, and the consciousness that the only barrier to Bess’s marriage was now removed, and that through the foundling’s instrumentality.

The only bar, that is, save the double fees of Lent, and the “ill-luck” supposed to follow a couple united during the penitential forty days. Tom put up the banns, however, and Easter Monday was chosen as the day of days for the ceremony. Tom Hulme’s parents had been married on an Easter Monday, Simon had been tied to his wife on an Easter Monday, Jabez had been made a Blue-coat boy on an Easter Monday, and apprenticed on an Easter Monday; it was consequently an anniversary to be observed and respected.

Early marriages prevail amongst the class made early self-dependent by earning their own living. Matt Cooper had long been a grandfather, Molly and his three eldest boys had been married and settled. A brisk young butcher coming to the tannery with hides had met Martha, the other girl, bearing her father’s dinner, and been so taken with her sharp, active gait, and saucy answers, that he proposed to transfer her to his shop beyond Ancoats Lane Canal-bridge, and to make his offer more palatable, suggested an amalgamation of the two households, and to take the youngest lad—Matthew, aged fourteen—as his apprentice.

So ardent and promising a lover was not to be despised. Martha did not say “No,” and Matt, beginning to stoop in the shoulders, rejoiced at the prospective haven for his declining years.

It was arranged that they should be married along with Bess and Tom Hulme; and so Matthew Cooper went with the Cleggs to church, not as a gallant bridegroom, but, more suitably, to give away a bride.

And now how shall I describe the scene at the Old Church on Easter Monday, to convey anything like an idea to modern readers, unacquainted with the locality, the period, and the habits of the people?

It must be borne in mind that registrars’ offices did not exist; that there was no marrying at dissenting chapels; that few, if any, churches were licensed for the solemnisation of matrimony; and that the collegiate parish church of Manchester was the nucleus towards which the marriageable inhabitants of all the surrounding townships and villages turned at the most important epoch of their lives.

The venerable pile (now being doctored by restorers) was set, as it were, in a ring-fence of old houses, with an inner ring of low wall encircling the churchyard, which, as grave-stones testified, had once extended to the very house-steps. As I have elsewhere said, the path between this wall and the houses was known as Half Street, a portion of which, containing Mrs. Clowes’s old shop, still remains; and did I enumerate all the public-houses in this ring-fence which offered accommodation to wedding and christening parties, only a future generation of antiquaries would thank me; and even they might doubt the facts set down in a work of fiction.

Nevertheless on Easter Monday not one of these hostelries had a spare foot of room. Every window and every door stood wide open. Men and women, gaily dressed as their own means or friendly wardrobes would allow, went in and out, filled rooms and passages, leaned from the windows with ribbons flying loose, or with pipes and ale-pots in their hands, calling to their friends below, whilst rival fiddlers (almost every party having its own) scraped away in anything but harmony. Horses and carts blocked up every avenue, and the churchyard itself was thronged with an excited crowd.

Only the parties immediately interested were admitted into the sacred edifice, but to reach the doors they had to force their way, and could only return in couples through a dense avenue of humanity, amid a shower of jests, many not the most seemly.

Bess wore only a white cambric gown, and a straw bonnet crossed with white ribbon, both of which Mrs. Ashton had provided; but somewhere in Tom’s Peninsular campaigns he had picked up a bright-coloured scarf, which made her glorious to behold, and the envy of many a country bride. His old uniform had been kept for the occasion, and they looked grand together, but the quiet content on Bess’s face was better than the grandeur.

Nat Bradshaw, the butcher-bridegroom, was of a jovial turn, and nothing would do but the whole double wedding-party, Jabez included, should turn into the Ring-o’-Bells to drink health and happiness to the brides, and give them spirit to go through the ceremony befittingly. Bess and Martha hung back blushing like peonies; but Nathaniel was not to be gainsaid, and in they went: and whilst the brides sipped, he quaffed, and pressed the others to do likewise.

At length Jabez, who had been brought up temperately, cried out they would be too late—Parson Brookes had been gone into the church half-an-hour.

There was a general rush from the room, and in the scramble to get first the party got separated; Matthew pulling his daughter along and leaving the bridegroom to follow. They elbowed their way into the church, and reached the choir just as Joshua pronounced the benediction over some twenty couples closely packed around the altar. Then there was a jostle and a scramble for “first kisses,” amidst which rose the rough voice of the chaplain.

“Now clear out, clear out! Do your kissing outside. There are other folks waiting to be wed. Do you think I want to be kept here all day tying up fools?”

That instalment of the married having been hustled away to sign the church books, with their attendant witnesses, Joshua called out impatiently to the waiting couples, amongst which were Bess and Tom.

“Come, come! How long do you mean to keep me standing here? Do you intend to be married or not? Oh, it’s thee, is it? [to Bess] Well, thah’s waited long enough.—See that you make her a good husband [to Tom]. Kneel down here,” and he placed them, not roughly, almost in the centre of the altar, pulling others to their knees beside them, with scant ceremony.

“What do _you_ want here?” in his harshest tones he asked a very youthful-looking couple.

“To be wed,” was the prompt answer of the young man.

“Ugh!” grunted the Parson, “what’s the world coming to? I used to marry men and women—now I marry children! Here, you silly babies, take your places.”

Another file of candidates for matrimony being ranged (after some pushing and pulling) in pairs around the altar, Joshua took his book and the service began.

So long as it was general, all went tolerably smoothly—women and men alike were too bashful and confused to know much what was said, or what they responded, and certainly they rarely looked in each other’s faces. At length there was a slight stir and a whispering from the quarter where Matt Cooper stood beside his daughter.

“Silence there!” roared Joshua, in a voice which set a row of hearts in a flutter, and there _was_ silence.

But he had come to the troth-plight, and again the same commotion was apparent as he approached the Coopers.

“What’s wrong here?” he demanded, pausing before Martha, who was all in a tremble.

“Moi lass is waitin’ fur her mon,” answered Matthew from behind.

“Ugh! I can’t wait for laggards.—Here, you, [addressing Tom Hulme,] answer for him.—What’s his name?” [to Martha].

“Nathaniel,” she faltered.

“I, Nathaniel, take thee, Martha, to be my——” he went on, insisting on the response of Tom, who looked aghast at the prospect of marrying the wrong woman, and being told “to pair as they went out,” as Joshua had summarily adjusted a like mistake heretofore; or what was worse, of being saddled with two wives.

On imperturbable Joshua went with the ceremony, bent on a marriage by proxy. His experience having taught him that women of the working class as a rule took charge of their wedding-rings, he asked Martha for hers, which was duly produced, and without further ado he directed Tom Hulme to place it on Martha’s finger, as he had previously put one on Bess’s, and with the same formula.

They had got as far as “With this ring I thee wed,” when the missing bridegroom came in hot haste through the side door into the chancel, closely followed by Jabez, who had been in quest of him.

He was flushed with ale and excitement, but was clear-headed enough to perceive what was going forward, and to the chaplain’s chagrin, plucked the young woman back from the altar and his proxy, and the ring rolled to the ground.

Then ensued an altercation between the butcher and Joshua Brookes, the latter insisting that what was good enough for princes might be good enough for him, and refusing to go over the ceremony again. But an apparitor drew the tardy bridegroom aside, and whispered to him a few mollifying words, whilst Joshua concluded the ceremonial, and then hurried from the altar with hardly a look at either Jabez or Simon as he passed out of the chancel, chafed and angry. Another clergyman took his place, and in the next group Nat Bradshaw and the half-married Martha took theirs. The lost ring had a substitute provided by the clerk for such emergencies; and this time they were as surely married as Bess and Tom had been.

Jabez had found the truant bridegroom at the “Ring-o’-Bells,” oblivious of the flight of time, or of his party. The story having got wind, there was a general rush in their direction.

“Here’s th’ mon wur too late to be wed!”—“Tak’ care thi woife hasna two husbants!”—“Hoo’s getten two husbants o’ready!”—“See thah’s tied oop gradely, lass!”—“Thah’rt a pratty fellow!” and much more which might have provoked a man less good-humoured in his cups.

As it was the new brides clung to their husbands, half afraid of those noisy demonstrations, and were not sorry to get clear of the crowd, and thread their way to Ancoats Lane, where the thriving butcher, assisted by Mrs. Ashton, Mrs. Clowes, and Mrs. Clough, had prepared a dinner which bore no proportion to the “short commons” of every-day fare.

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

PETERLOO.

People had been naturally sanguine that the conclusion of peace would inaugurate prosperity, that commerce would flourish with the flourish of pens on the parchments of a treaty. But the war had been of too long continuance, too universal, too destructive of life and property and crops. When grounds lie untilled for years: when swords reap harvests that should have been left for the sickle; when cattle are slaughtered wholesale for unproductive soldiery, or for lack of provender; when orchards and vineyards which have taken years to mature are given to the flames, there can be no sudden re-adjustment of commercial matters. Food products are the staple of trade, which is only a system of exchange facilitated by coin and paper.

What could a food-producing continent, down-trod by the iron hoof of war, have to offer in exchange for our textile fabrics and hardware?

Trade could not revive, until there was food to sustain it. Yet the mass of the people in 1816, still further impoverished by a deficient home harvest, imputed the evil to defective legislation, and the exclusion of foreign corn save at famine prices; and discontent became universal.

Strangely enough, the agricultural districts which the Corn Laws were supposed to protect, were the first to cry out against them, and to break out into riot—not Manchester, Oldham, Nottingham, and the manufacturing centres.

This year closed on a popular demand for Parliamentary reform, but not a riotous one. Sunday schools had created readers on humble hearths, and William Cobbett supplied them with books and pamphlets bearing on their own rights and wrongs. They were read with avidity, and he became a power. He counselled peaceful persistence, not armed resistance. Hampden Clubs were formed all over the country, in which the political questions of the day were discussed with as much freedom as stringent law permitted. Public speakers and poets, of whom Samuel Bamford was one, arose from the ranks of the working classes; and the men banded together under such leadership called themselves Radical Reformers, a title which soon degenerated into Radicals.

The members of these rapidly-spreading clubs subscribed a penny a week each. Delegates were sent to meet and debate together; and on the 4th November, 1816, a large meeting was held in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester (strangely enough, the site of the present Free Trade Hall), “to take into consideration the distressed state of the country.”

Other meetings were held by the Reformers and their delegates; and on the 13th January, 1817, their political opponents held a counter-meeting, to consider the “necessity of adopting measures for the maintenance of the public peace;” for certainly the meeting of large masses of disaffected people, however peacefully disposed in the outset, and individually, becomes threatening in the aggregate. No one cares much for a grain of gunpowder; but mass the grains into pounds, and the pounds into tons, and there is certainly need of precaution in dealing with it.

Amongst the precautionary measures deemed necessary for the protection of the peace, and the suppression of seditious meetings, were the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and the enrolment of the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, under the command of Sir T. J. Trafford; Laurence Aspinal, Ben Travis, and John Walmsley joining the corps.

On the 24th of March—since known as Blanket Monday—a large number of men assembled in St. Peter’s Field, with blankets upon their shoulders, with the openly-expressed design of walking to London, to lay their grievances before George, the Prince Regent, in person. The blankets were intended for coverlets on the wayside beds Mother Earth alone would spread for them. The meeting was dispersed by military, the newly-formed Yeomanry distinguishing themselves by trapping a number of the Blanketeers who had prematurely set out, and who had not got farther than Stockport.

This was the signal for widespread alarm, and for Joseph Nadin to prove his discrimination and vigilance by scenting out imaginary plots, and arresting suspected plotters, whom he tied together, handcuffed, ill-used, and hauled to prison, or before magistrates (whether for acquital or conviction), for little other reason than the dangerous power given by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. He was a big, blustering, overbearing fellow, with a large grizzled head, closely set on strong broad shoulders, with overhanging brows drawn close, and a sallow skin; and his officious zeal in arresting such persons as Samuel Bamford the weaver-poet, Thomas Walker, and the amateur actors he laid hands on at a public house in Ancoats-lane, laying to their charge plots which had their origin in his own brain, did more to embitter the people against their rulers than those dust-blinded rulers suspected.

The Radical agitation reached its climax in 1819, when our friend Jabez was a well-formed, well-favoured young man of twenty, high in the estimation of his master and mistress. Popular rights had found a fresh champion in Henry Hunt, the son of a well-descended Wiltshire yeoman, a man of gentlemanlike bearing and attire, agreeable features mobile in expression, and dull grey eyes which lit like fiery stars when in the fervour of his speech his soul shone out of them.

“Orator Hunt,” as he was ironically dubbed by those who loved him not, was the very man to move the people as he himself was moved; his energy and fervid eloquence carried his hearers with him, and as he was wont to lash himself to a fury which streaked his pale eyes with blood, and forced them forward in their sockets, no wonder the Manchester magnates were afraid of his influence on the multitude, or that the Prince Regent should issue a proclamation against seditious meetings and writings, or the military drilling of the populace, then carried on with so fervid an orator to inflame them.

When Henry Hunt made a public entry into Manchester, and attended the theatre the same evening, a disturbance ensued, and he was expelled, and the next evening the theatre was closed, to preserve peace. Then a Watch-and-Ward, composed of the chief inhabitants, was established; a meeting called by the Radicals was prohibited; but that did not deter the calling of another on St. Peter’s Field, on the 16th of August, when a couple of large wagons were boarded over to serve as temporary hustings, whence Orator Hunt from the midst of his friends might address the assembled multitude.

Augusta Ashton had just passed her fifteenth birthday. She was slim, graceful, and tall beyond her age, and was surpassing lovely. She was still under Mrs. Broadbent’s care, and went to school that morning as usual, other meetings having passed off quietly, and no apprehension of disorder being entertained until long after nine o’clock.

About that hour the people began to assemble from all quarters on the open ground near St. Peter’s Church—not bloodthirsty roughs, but men, women, and children, drawn thither for a sight of a holiday spectacle. True, of the collective eighty thousand, though there were many thousands of earnest, thinking men who went to grapple with important questions, yet no such mighty gathering could be without its leaven of savagery and mischief.

But those who went from the mills and the workshops, the hills and the valleys around Manchester, walking in procession, with bugles playing and gay banners flying, though they might look haggard, pinched and careworn, made no attempt to look deplorable, or excite compassion. They wore their Sunday suits and clean neckties; and by the side of fustian and corduroy walked the coloured prints and stuffs of wives and sweethearts, who went as for a gala-day, to break the dull monotony of their lives, and to serve as a guarantee of peaceable intention.

Such at least was the main body, marshalled in Middleton by stalwart, stout hearted Samuel Bamford, which passed in marching order, five abreast, down Newton Lane, through Oldham Street, skirted the Infirmary Gardens, and along Mosley Street, each leader with a sprig of peaceful laurel in his hat. Women and little ones preceded them, or ran on the footway, singing, dancing, shouting gleefully in the bright sunshine, as at any other pageant to which the music of the bugle gave life and spirit, and waving flags gave colour.

Such too were the bands which, with banners and music, fell in with them on their route, and together parted the dense multitude as a wedge, on their way to the decorated platform. Thence Samuel Bamford observed that other leaders had been less temperate. There were to be seen black banners and placards inscribed with seditious mottoes and emblems: caps of liberty, skull and crossbones, “Bread or Blood,” “Liberty or Death,” “Equal Representation or Death;” this last with an obverse of clasped hands and heart, and the one word “Love,” but all of the same funereal black and white.

But ere he could well note or deplore this, the scattered bands struck up “God save the King,” and “Rule, Britannia,” deafening shouts rent the air, and Henry Hunt, drawn in an open barouche by white horses, made his way slowly to the hustings amidst the enthusiastic cheering of the multitude. A Mrs. Fildes, arrayed in white, with a cap of liberty on her head, and a red cap borne on a pole before her, sat on the box-seat. It is said she had been hoisted there from the crowd. Be this as it may, she paid dearly for her temerity before the day was out.

Barely had Henry Hunt ascended the platform, taken off his white hat, and begun to address his attentive auditory, when there was a startling cry, “The soldiers are upon us!” and the 15th Hussars, galloping round a corner, came with their spare jackets flying loose, their sabres drawn, and threw themselves men and horse, upon the closely-packed mass, without a note of warning. All had been preconcerted, pre-arranged.

From the early morning, magistrates had been sitting in conclave at the “Star Inn,” and there Hugh Birley, a cotton-spinner, was said to have regaled too freely the officers and men of his yeomanry corps, so soon to be let loose on the “swinish multitude,” as they called them.

A cordon of military and yeomanry had been drawn round St. Peter’s Field, like a horde of wolves round a flock of sheep. The boroughreeve and other magistrates issued their orders from a house at the corner of Mount Street, which overlooked the scene; and thence (not from a central position, where he could be properly seen and heard) a clerical magistrate read the Riot Act from a window in an inaudible voice.

Then Nadin, the cowardly bully, having a warrant to apprehend the ringleaders—although he had a line of constables thence to the hustings,—declared he _dared_ not serve it without the support of the military.

His plea was heard; and thus through the blindness, the incapacity, the cowardice, or the self-importance of this one man, soldiery hardened in the battle-field, yeomanry fired with drink, were let loose like barbarians on a closely-wedged mass of unarmed people, and one of the most atrocious massacres in history was the result.

Amid the shouts and shrieks of men and women, cries of “Shame! shame!” “Break! break!” “They are killing them in front!” “Break! break!” hussars, infantry, yeomanry rushed on the defenceless people. They were sabred, stabbed, shot, pressed down, trampled down by horse and infantry; and in less than ten minutes, the actual field was cleared of all but mounds of dead and dying, severed limbs, torn garments, pools of blood, pawing steeds and panting heroes(?). Men and maidens, mothers and babes, had been butchered by their own countrymen for no crime.

Hunt had been taken, Bamford had escaped—to be arrested afterwards—and Mrs. Fildes, hanging suspended by a nail in the platform which had caught her white dress, was slashed across her exposed body by one of the brave cavalry.

But the butchery and the panic had spread from the deserted Aceldama over the whole town; and the roar of cannon began to add its thunder to the terrors of the day. As the first shrieking fugitives rushed for their lives down Mosley Street, with the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomanry in swift pursuit, Mrs. Ashton, for the first time alarmed for the safety of Augusta, hurried through the warehouse in search of Mr. Ashton, who was nowhere to be found. On the stairs she met Jabez in a state of equal excitement.

“Miss Augusta! Is she at school? Had I not better——”

“Oh, yes! Run! run!” cried the mother, anticipating him. “Go through the back streets, and take her to her aunt’s. It is not safe to bring her home.”

He was gone before she concluded. (His master’s daughter was the very light of his young eyes). From Back Mosley Street he tore down Rook Street and Meal Street, into Fountain Street, across Market Street—already in a ferment—and onward down High Street without a pause.

By good fortune he met the young girl and a school-fellow, on their usual homeward route, at the corner of Church Street, almost afraid to proceed, the distant firing had so scared them.

“This way, this way, Miss Ashton!” was his impetuous cry, as he hurried them from the main thoroughfare (into which a stream of terror-stricken people was flowing), through by-streets, and a long entry to the back door of Mr. Chadwick’s house, which they found unfastened; and then he thanked God in his heart of hearts that she at least was safe.

Upstairs rushed Augusta, followed by her friend, in search of her aunt and cousin, whom she found in the drawing-room in a state of the greatest trepidation and alarm.

Dolly, a stout woman-servant, had gone to Fountain Street, as was her custom, to assist her paralysed master home to dinner. From the windows they had seen men, women, and children flying along, hatless, bonnetless, shoeless, their clothes rent, their faces livid and ghastly, cut and bleeding, shrieking in pain and terror as they ran or dropped in the path of pursuing troopers; and their hearts throbbed wildly with affright as they pictured that helpless old man caught in that whirlpool of horror and destruction with only a woman’s arm to protect him.

“Jabez will go and meet them,” cried Augusta; “he is below!”

“Jabez!” exclaimed Ellen, starting to her feet, her white face flushed for a brief moment. “Oh, no!”

But without waiting to hear her cousin’s exclamation, or to note her change of colour, Augusta had run downstairs to Jabez, waiting in the long kitchen, and communicated her aunt’s fears to him.

Personal danger was unthought of when Augusta Ashton pointed to needful service. The lobby door closed after him with a bang before she had well explained her wishes; and when Augusta re-appeared in the drawing-room, Ellen Chadwick’s head was stretched from the window, watching the sturdy young man stem the on-rushing tide of humanity—the only one in all that crowd with his face turned towards the danger from which the rest fled in desperation.

The sights and sounds that met her eyes and ears were terrible: gashed faces and maimed limbs; appeals and imprecations mingled with the roar of a surging crowd; the dropping fire of musketry; the coarse shouts of the yeomanry, drunk with wine and blood!

As her fearful eyes followed Jabez, a man rushed past whose hand had been chopped off at the wrist. With the remaining hand he held his hat to catch the vital stream which gushed from the bleeding stump; and as he ran, he cried, “Blood for blood! blood for blood!” in a tone which made her shudder.

Faint and sick, she drew back her head; but open apprehension for her dear father, and secret fear for the apprentice who had gone so readily to pilot him through that surging human sea, caused her to look forth once more. Augusta and her friend, with blanched cheeks and lips, were also at the window, fascinated as it were with that which chilled them.

Jabez turned the corner into Piccadilly, where one or two good houses had been converted into shops without lowering the floors, or removing the original palisades, which enclosed bold flights of steps leading to doors with good shop-windows on each side. A confectioner of some standing named Mabbott occupied the second of these. He and his neighbour were hurriedly putting up their shutters as Jabez, crushing his way through the thickening crowd, saw Molly and Mr. Chadwick jammed up against the palisades, a young mounted yeomanry officer, in all his pride of blue and silver, brandishing his sabre, urging his unwilling steed upon them, and shouting—

“Move on, you rebels, move on! or I’ll cut you down!”

Strong of nerve and will, Jabez thrust the impending throng aside, and grasped the horse’s reins to force it back, crying as he did so—

“Shame, you coward! to attack a woman and a paralysed man!”