Chapter THE TENTH: First Antagonism (4)

“Come in here, quick, Mr. Chadwick!” cried Mr. Mabbott at that instant, opening his closed gate and drawing the feeble gentleman and his attendant within, as the sabre, raised either to terrify or strike the old man, came down on the outstretched arm of Jabez, gashing it frightfully.

Another of the corps riding past, with his eyes full upon them, stopped his horse at the gallop as if to interpose, but he was too late.

“My God! Aspinall, what have you done?” he exclaimed, and throwing his own reins over the palisades, he dismounted hastily, caught at Jabez, who had staggered back, and drew him too within the iron screen, and helped him also into the confectioner’s, as the other, with a derisive laugh which ill-became his handsome face, turned at a hand-gallop up Oldham Street, where he overtook a _confrere_, and with him sneered at “that soft-hearted Ben Travis.”

Ellen and Augusta had not lost sight of Jabez many minutes when two of the Manchester Yeomanry, their dripping sabres flashing in the August sun, wheeled their panting chargers round, and rode (heedless of the shrinking wretches beneath their hoofs) across the footway, and made the brute beasts rear and plunge against the area-rails.

“Shut your windows, or we’ll fire upon you!” they shouted.

Nothing daunted, Ellen called back indignantly—

“John Walmsley, I’m ashamed of you!”

Not sober enough to distinguish friends from foes, again the pair launched their threat, “Shut the window, or we fire!” and Ellen, seeing pistols advanced, drew the window down, Mrs. Chadwick in much trepidation closing the other.

“Who was that handsome officer with John?” asked Augusta, as they drew back, “he’s a perfect Adonis.” (Augusta dipped surreptitiously into Mrs. Edge’s novels at times, and a handsome man in uniform was, of course, a hero in her eyes).

“Oh, Augusta, how can you talk of handsome officers at such a fearful time?” remonstrated Ellen. “I think them hideous, every one!”

“But who is he? Do you know him?” she asked, even through the tears drawn by the scenes she beheld.

“Oh, yes; know him? yes. He’s a friend of John Walmsley. He’s too wild to please either Charlotte or me!—Oh, mother! I do wish father had come home!” and Ellen turned a worried look towards Mrs. Chadwick, whose rigid face and clasped hands betrayed the anxiety which kept her silent.

Augusta, though not naturally void of feeling, longed to know more of the handsome yeomanry officer who had so captivated her young fancy; but that was not the season for such inquiries, and she was conscious of it.

“Hark! what is that?” burst from Mrs. Chadwick, some half-hour later, as the sound of feet was heard from below; and Ellen, rushing to the stairs, came back followed by her father leaning on the arm of a big muscular man, in the blue and silver uniform of the yeomanry cavalry, a red cord down his pantaloons, hessian boots, and, to make assurance sure, M.Y.C. upon the shako which his height compelled him to doff ere he entered the doorway.

“Where is Jabez Clegg?” faltered Ellen, as she pressed to her father’s side, led him to his chair, and placed his cushions to his liking, Augusta bringing a buffet on which to rest his foot.

The stalwart young fellow’s eyes followed the attentive daughter, as he answered—

“We have left Jabez Clegg at Mr. Mabbott’s, Miss Chadwick,” with an inclination of his head. “He was afraid you would be anxious for your father’s safety, and I offered to see Mr. Chadwick home in his stead.”

Ellen’s black eyes expanded questioningly, and Mrs. Chadwick’s mild voice, in accents indicative of some fear, asked—

“I hope not of necessity, sir?”

“Well, yes, madam; and I must hasten back; he has received a sabre-cut on—— Eh, dear!”

Ben Travis, for he it was, darted forward to catch Ellen Chadwick, just as he had previously caught Jabez at Mabbott’s gate:—Aspinall’s sabre had wounded two instead of one—Ellen Chadwick, who that day had seen what sabre-cuts meant, had fainted. Ben Travis bore her to the sofa, Mr. Chadwick pulled the bell-rope, Augusta ran for water, Mrs. Chadwick called for vinegar and burnt feathers, and in the midst of the commotion Mr. Ashton burst into the room in a state of excitement very foreign to his nature, which was tolerably easy-going.

“Thank God, Augusta, you are here!” he exclaimed. “Your mother is almost distracted about you—Why, what is the matter with Ellen? The whole world seems gone mad to-day—or hell has set its demons loose. I’ve just seen our friend Captain Hindley’s horse take fright in Mosley Street at the firing, and dash with him against those half-built houses at the corner of Tib Street. He was pitched off amongst the bricks and scaffolding, and the horse dropped. Old Simon Clegg happened to be there, and he helped me and another to raise Hindley, who had fared better than his horse, for it was stone-dead, and he is only badly hurt.”

He had gone on talking, though hardly anyone had listened to him. Ellen’s fainting fit engrossed feminine attention, and the yeoman, seeing her revive, was saying to Mr. Chadwick, “You will excuse me now, sir. I must look after our poor friend Jabez.”

“Eh what! Jabez? You don’t mean to say anything has happened to Jabez Clegg?” exclaimed Mr. Ashton, pausing in the act of drawing forth his snuff-box.

Travis was gone, but Mr. Chadwick, whose tongue now was none of the readiest, stammered out—

“Yes, William, w-we le-ft him at Mab-bott the confectioner’s. In try-ying to-o save me he got b-badly w-wounded. I’m v-very s-sorry, for he is a n-noble y-young man.”

“The wretches! I’d almost as soon they’d wounded me! Stay here, Augusta;” and with that Mr. Ashton was off after Ben Travis. The main streets were unsafe, so he also took the back way, and across Back-Piccadilly to Mr. Mabbott’s, with a celerity scarcely to have been expected, for he was not a young man. But his apprentice had won upon him not only by his integrity and business qualifications, but by his manifest interest in the family he served, especially the daughter. Let me not be misunderstood. Augusta was the cynosure of Mr. Ashton’s eyes; the homage of the apprentice to the school-girl, he estimated as the homage of an apprentice merely, and was gratified thereby, but his imagination never travelled beyond.

He found Jabez on a chintz-covered couch in Mr. Mabbott’s sitting-room, his arm bound tightly with a towel, through which the blood would force its way. He was pale and exhausted from excessive hæmorrhage, but seemed more concerned about the fate of the multitude outside than for his own.

Ben Travis, discovering that no one had dared to venture in quest of a doctor, threw himself across his horse, which he found where he had left it, and was off up Mosley Street and thence back to Piccadilly, intent on bringing either Dr. Hull or Dr. Hardie. His uniform was a protection, and so the doctors told him; Dr. Hardie plainly saying that black cloth was not plate-armour, and that his friend, whosoever he might be, must wait until the tumult had somewhat subsided.

But Jabez was only a few hours without attention. There were hundreds wounded that day, who had to skulk into holes and corners to hide themselves and their agony as best they might, afraid of seeking surgical aid, lest Nadin and his myrmidons should pounce upon them, and haul them to prison as rebels.

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH[18]

ACTION AND RE-ACTION.

The August sun had looked down in its noontide splendour when the events I have attempted to describe took place; but the tide of terror and destruction swept beyond the limits I have covered, and after the first fierce onslaught, as if the carnage had been insufficient, artillery went rattling and thundering through the streets, to awe the peaceful and terrified inhabitants. As the flying crowd, dispersing, left bare St. Peter’s Field, pressing outward and onwards through all accessible ramifications, the main thoroughfares thinned, and the scene of action took a wider radius.

Still the gallant hussars and yeomanry went prancing through these thoroughfares, dashing hither and thither, slashing at stragglers, shouting to the rebels, and to each other, to “clear the way”; driving curious and anxious spectators from doors and windows, and firing at refractory outstretched heads.

To clear the streets more effectually, cannon were planted at the entrances of the leading outlets from the town, and, as if that were not enough, the artillery had orders to fire.

At New Cross two of these guns (which went rattling up Oldham Street, to the dismay of Augusta and the Chadwicks, as well as their neighbours) were posted, one with its hard iron mouth directed up Newton Lane, the other set to sweep Ancoats Lane, not then so wide as at present.

Nathaniel Bradshaw’s butcher’s shop was situated at the narrowest part of Ancoats Lane, a little beyond the canal bridge. The shutters had been closed precipitately on the first alarm, but Martha Bradshaw and her young brother Matthew opened the window of the room above, and had their heads stretched out to watch and question the white-faced people scurrying past in disorder, when Matt Cooper, who lived with his genial son-in-law, came hurriedly home for dinner. His route from the tannery lay in a straight line up Miller’s Lane, past Shude Hill Pits, and the New Cross, into Ancoats Lane, which he crossed the Market to reach only just before the cannon lumbered up.

His clogs had rattled as swiftly over the pavement as his stiffening, hide-bound, long legs would carry them, and observing the heads of Martha and Matthew advanced from the window he waved his hand in gesticulation for them to withdraw from a post so fraught with peril. But youth is wilful, and woman curious. They either did not understand, or did not heed his warning. They did not know all he had seen at New Cross, or how narrow an escape he had had from Aspinall’s flashing sabre.

“Do goo in, childer!” he cried, as he drew near, “if yo’ wantn to kep the yeads on yo’r shoulders. Wenches an’ lads shouldna look on sich soights.”

“Han yo’ seen Nat?” the wife asked, anxiously.

“Nawe.”

“He’s gone t’ see what o’ th’ mob an’ feightin’s abeawt. Aw wish he wur whoam.”

Matt wished the same, but went in at the unfastened door, and passed on to the room beyond, where he found the untended lobscouse boiling over into the fire. He took the lid off the pot; then went to the stair-foot, and called “Martha!”

There being no answer, he strode back through the shop, saying as he went—

“Dang it, hoo’ll not be content till hoo’s hurt!”

He stepped out on the rough pavement, and, looking up, called out—

“Do put yo’r yeads in; yo’ll——”

A musket-shot, splintering a corner of the stone window-sill on which they leaned, was more effective than his adjuration. The cannon boomed simultaneously—a shriek recalled the hastily-withdrawn heads; and there, on the rough sun-baked ground before their eyes, lay weltering in blood, a doubled-up form, which a minute before had been their father, Matt Cooper, the tanner, the preserver of Jabez, the friend of Simon and Bess.

This harrowing event was the last of the painful incidents of that fatal day coming within the scope of this history, which isolated as they are, the writer knows to be true, even though they may not be chronicled elsewhere.

The streets grew silent and deserted, save by the military and medical men, as the day and the night advanced: but within the houses of poor and rich there were loud complaints and groans, and murmurings, which did not sink to silence with the day that called them forth.

The town was, as it were, in a state of siege: and men of business, whether Tories or Radicals, alike felt the stoppage of trade and commerce in their pockets, whether they felt the cruelty and injustice to the injured in their hearts or not.

But chiefly those who had friends wounded by design or accident in the _melee_ were loud in their denunciation of the whole proceedings; and of these neither Mr. Chadwick nor Mr. Ashton was the least prominent, even though the one was paralysed, and they were of contrary shades of politics, the former being what he himself called “a staunch and true out-and-out Tory,” the latter having a leaning towards Liberal—not to say Radical—opinions, and at county elections voting with the Whigs.

The stiff “Church and King” man, whose sons had distinguished themselves in the Army and Navy, and whose son-in-law, Walmsley, might also be said to have distinguished himself in the loyal Manchester Yeomanry—he who had been a member of John Shaw’s Club in the Market Place, and called for his P or his Q bowl of punch even before the aroma of Jacobinism ceased to flavour the delectable compound, and while yet John Shaw himself lived to draw his silver spoon from its particular pocket to concoct the same, and (inexorable autocrat that he was) could crack his whip in his poky bar-parlour in the ears of even noble customers who lingered after his imperative “Eight o’clock gentlemen; eight o’clock!” or summon his sturdy factotum, Molly, with mop and pail, to drive thence with wetted feet those whom the whip had failed to influence—he who had stuck to the club even after John Shaw, Molly, and the punch-house itself had gone to the dust—he, Charles Chadwick, whose Toryism had grown with his growth, was foremost in condemning the proceedings of Peterloo.

In his own person he had witnessed how the actual breakers of the peace were those commissioned to preserve it. In the wanton attack on himself, an unarmed, defenceless, disabled old man, he recognised the general characteristics of the whole affair, and entered his protest against so lawless an exposition of the law. He was himself a peaceable man, a loyal subject, going quietly about his own business when Jabez intercepted to his own hurt, the sabre destined for his grey head. Matthew Cooper, his tenant’s father-in-law, was as peaceable and well-disposed; and if so, might not the bulk of the so-called rebels have been the same? In his gratitude to Jabez he denounced the mounted yeoman who had sabred him as “a drunken, blood-thirsty miscreant,” though in the hurry, excitement, and agitation attending his own withdrawal from the press by Mr. Mabbott, he had failed to identify his pursuer with John Walmsley’s dashing friend, and the exclamation of Ben Travis had not reached his ear in the confusion.

Easy-going Mr. Ashton also seemed transformed by the event. He had certainly lost the valuable services of his apprentice for some time to come; but that was the very least ingredient in the cup of his wrath. By faithful intelligent service; by persevering industry, by a thousand little actions which had shown his interest in his employers, and his devotion to his old friends, Jabez had won a place in his master’s esteem and affection no other apprentice of any grade had ever attained.

And now that Jabez had risked the dangers of the soldier-ridden street to bear his beloved daughter to a place of safety, and had braved the storm of foot and horse, and fire and steel, to rescue his brother-in-law by endangering his own life or limbs, his admiration and gratitude rose to their highest, and in proportion his denunciation of an outrage which called for such a sacrifice was strong and vehement—all the more that he sympathised with the objects of the meeting.

When he and Simon Clegg (who had been drawn to the scene in his dinner-hour with others, like moths to a candle) picked up his cavalry friend, Robert Hindley, from amongst the building materials, and disengaged him from his dead horse, he could not refrain from telling the disabled warrior, with all a friend’s frankness, that “it served him right!”

Open expression of private opinion on the conduct of rulers was dangerous at that period, as may be supposed; but private opinion became public opinion, too strong and too universal to be put in fetters.

Mr. Tyas, the _Times_ reporter, had been taken prisoner on the hustings, and it was imagined that only a one-sided account—forwarded by the magistracy in justification of their conduct—would reach London. But other intelligent reporters were at large, the garbled statements sent to the Government press were confuted by the truth-telling narratives of Messrs. Archibald Prentice and John Edward Taylor, which appeared the following day, and roused the indignation of the realm. These statements being more than substantiated by the _Times_ reporter on his liberation, national indignation rose to a ferment.

This alarmed the Manchester magistrates; a meeting was hurriedly arranged to take place on Thursday, the 19th (the third day from Peterloo), at the Police Station; thence adjourned to the “Star Inn” in Deansgate; and, as though the meeting had been a public one, resolutions were passed thanking magistrates and soldiers for their services on the previous Monday.

Then Manchester rose, as it were, _en masse_, to vindicate its own honour, and reject participation in a disgraceful deed.

“A declaration,” says one historian, “was issued, protesting against the ‘Star Inn’ resolutions, which in the course of two or three days received close upon five thousand signatures,” in obtaining which none were more active than Mr. Ashton and (despite his paralysis) Mr. Chadwick. Old Mrs. Clowes talked her customers into signing, and Parson Brookes was not idle. Mr. William Clough, whose old servant Matthew Cooper had been shot down at his own door, gave the tanners a holiday, that they might influence their fellows; and Simon Clegg, Tom Hulme, and Nathaniel Bradshaw seemed ubiquitous, they went to work with such determined zeal. _They_ did not feel “thankful” to the magistrates for the blood shed on Peterloo Monday.

Neither did the bulk of the inhabitants: and an energetic protest against the proceedings and representations of the magistracy was the result.

To counteract this, the Prince Regent, through his mouth-piece Lord Sidmouth, sent his thanks to the magistrates and the military leaders for “their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures.” But this, instead of calming, lashed the public mind to frenzy. Meetings to remonstrate with the Regent and to petition for inquiry were held in all the large towns, Sir Francis Burdett presiding at one held in Westminster.

Subscriptions were also got up for the relief of such wounded and disabled persons as had crept into holes and corners to hide themselves and their wounds from Nadin and his constabulary; and here, too, William Ashton and William Clough worked hand-in-hand to bring relief to sufferers not in the Infirmary; and Parson Brookes, to the disgust of some of his clerical brethren, lent his aid in ferreting out the miserables, if he did not ostentatiously flourish his subscription in their service; and I rather think a certain “J.S.” in the subscription-list represented the mite of the Grammar School head-master, but I could not take an affidavit on the subject. But when the wounded, as far as ascertained, amounted to six-hundred irrespective of the killed, subscriptions had need to be many and ample.

Another token of the change in public sentiment was shown in the satires and pasquinades which appeared on the walls, or were distributed from hand to hand. Previously to Peterloo a set of anonymous verses in ridicule of the popular leader had been distributed. They began and were headed as follows:—

ORATOR HUNT.

I.

Blithe Harry Hunt was an orator bold—
Talked away bravely and blunt;
And Rome in her glory, and Athens of old,
With all their loud talkers, of whom we are told,
Couldn’t match Orator Hunt!

II.

Blithe Harry Hunt was a sightly man—
Something ’twixt giant and runt:
His paunch was a large one, his visage was wan,
And to hear his long speeches vast multitudes ran.
O rare Orator Hunt!

* * * * *

VI.

Orator Hunt was the man for a riot—
Bully in language and front—
And thought when a nation had troubles to sigh at,
’Twas quite unbecoming to sit cool and quiet.
O rare Orator Hunt!

* * * * *

VIII.

How Orator Hunt’s many speeches will close—
Tedious, bombastic, and blunt—
In a _halter_ or _diadem_, God only knows:
The sequel might well an arch-conjurer pose.
O rare Orator Hunt!

Sufficient has been given to show the nature of the lampoon without repeating its scurrility. The following, of which we only quote the two first stanzas, is of pretty much the same order, though emanating from the other side, and after terrible provocation had been given:—

THE RENOWNED ACHIEVEMENTS OF PETERLOO,

ON THE GLORIOUS 16TH OF AUGUST, 1819.

BY SIR HUGO BURLO FURIOSO DI MULO SPINNISSIMO, BART., M.Y.C. AND A.S.S.

_The music by the celebrated_ DR. HORSEFOOD; _to be had at the “Cat and Bagpipes,” St. Mary’s Gate, Manchester_.

RECITATIVE.

When fell sedition’s stalking through the land,
It then behoves each patriotic band
OF NOBLE-MINDED YEOMAN CAVALIERS
To sally forth and rush upon the mob,
And execute the MAGISTERIAL JOB
Of cutting off the ragamuffins’ ears.

ARIA BRAVURA.

=_Forte._=

How valiantly we met that crew
Of infants, men and women too
Upon the plain of Peterloo:
And gloriously did hack and hew
The d——d reforming gang.
Our swords were sharp, you may suppose:
Some lost their ears—some lost a nose;
Our horses trod upon their toes
Ere they could run t’ escape our blows:
With shouts the welkin rang.

=_Andante._=

So keen were we to rout these swine,
Whole shoals of constables in line
We galloped o’er in style so fine,
By orders of the SAPIENT NINE—
First friends, then foes, laid flat.
By Richardson’s best grinding skill
Our blades were set with right good will,
That we these rogues might bleed or kill,
And “give them of Reform their fill!”
And what d’ye think of that?

And so on the satire ran, in mock-bravura style, through the whole course of _piano_, _sotto voce_, _pianissima-mento_, and _con baldanza_, with foot-notes to strengthen or elucidate the text. And that the writer remained undiscovered and unprosecuted spoke loudly for the re-action which had taken place in men’s minds.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

WOUNDED.

At the extreme end of Mr. Mabbott’s long double-countered shop was an expansive archway, closed in general by folding doors, through which entrance was afforded to a narrow sitting-room, the length of which was just by so much less than the width of the shop as was required for a passage and staircase. Once a year the open archway revealed a shimmering mass of snowy sugar-work, the towers and turrets of a castle on a rock, or the illuminated windows of a magnificent palace, fit for any princess of fairyland, with pleasure-gardens and lake, or fountain and pond, wherein stately swans floated, and were overlooked by dames and cavaliers created by the confectioner and his satellites.

For the fifty other weeks it was simply a snug parlour, comfortably furnished according to the fashion of the time.

And it was in this room we left Jabez, whilst good-natured Ben Travis, leaving his more patriotic comrades to “hack and hew” at their pleasure, galloped hither and thither in search of a surgeon to dress the wounded arm.

Every doctor in the Infirmary had his hands full; Dr. Hull, from his windows in Mosley Street, and Dr. Hardie from his in Piccadilly, had been satisfied that if they ventured forth they might soon need doctoring themselves—and they both pleaded “medical etiquette” in excuse for their lukewarmness. They were “physicians, not surgeons.” He bethought himself of Mr. Huertley, in Oldham Street, but even he had more than one wounded patient in his surgery, and was loth to encounter the danger outside. Ben Travis, however, would take no denial. He waited until sundry gaping wounds were closed, cuts plaistered and bandaged, a broken limb set, and a bullet extracted, even lending a hand himself where unskilled help could be available, being less bemused with liquor than many of his cavalry corps. Then, although they were almost within a stone’s throw of their destination—as Oldham Street was not safe for a civilian to cross on foot, with loaded cannon in such close proximity—Travis mounted the surgeon behind him, the latter not sorry to have the yeoman’s capacious body in its conspicuous uniform for a shield, as they dashed across into Back-Piccadilly to Mabbott’s back door.

As they passed Chadwick’s the younger man cast a sharp glance of scrutiny at the drawing-room windows, and bowed low in recognition of the face for which he was looking—the face he had seen so pale and pitiful, bending over an afflicted father, and so shocked to hear of even an apprentice wounded in that father’s behalf.

Ben Travis had a big body and a big heart, but he had little knowledge of the hearts of womankind, or he might have found another solution for Ellen Chadwick’s fainting fit. He did not know how she had trembled for another on seeing him dismount at Mr. Huertley’s door, nor how she had watched, too sick and sad to descend to the dining-room, when the spoiled dinner was at length set on the table—watched eagerly and anxiously, her heart’s pulsations counting each second a minute, as hours elapsed before she saw them mount and away, and noted the direction they took. And she saw no admiration in the low bow of the fine soldierly young gentleman—only the polite salutation of a stranger introduced casually by the untoward events of the day, albeit, having rendered her father a service, and professed himself the friend of Jabez, she was bound to recognise him as he passed.

To Jabez himself, lying faint and exhausted with loss of blood, on kind Mr. Mabbott’s chintz-covered squab-sofa, everything was a haze, and the people around him little more than voices. He was perfectly conscious when Mr. Mabbott hastily cut away the sleeve of his jacket, and bound the wounded arm as tightly as towels could bind. When Mr. Ashton put his troubled face into the confectioner’s small parlour, Mr. Mabbott was in the act of reaching from a corner cupboard a small square spirit decanter, and an engraved wine-glass, in order to administer a dose of brandy to the young man, then rapidly sinking into unconsciousness.

Under its influence he revived for awhile; but, as the blood gradually soaked through the towelling, he grew fainter, in spite of brandy, and by the time Ben Travis (who had surely kept the promise made in school-boy days) brought Dr. Huertley to his aid he had lapsed into a stupor from which the manipulations of the surgeon barely aroused him.

“You should have tied a ligature tightly as possible round the arm above the wound, first thing,” said the surgeon, addressing those around him—“a bit of tape, a strip of linen, a garter—anything narrow, to stop the hæmorrhage. Had this been done, there would have been less effusion of blood, and our patient would not have been so utterly prostrated.”

“Just so, just so,” assented Mr. Ashton, adding, “but Mr. Mabbott had——”

“Done his best—no doubt,” interrupted the surgeon, “or our young friend might have bled to death. But the tight, narrow ligature would have been better; and many a valuable life may have been saved or lost this day through that bit of knowledge or—the want of it.”

Mr. Ashton’s “Just so, just so; I daresay you are right,” was followed up by “Shall we be able to remove him to-night, Mr. Huertley? He is my apprentice, and has been injured whilst bravely protecting your opposite neighbour, Mr. Chadwick, my brother-in-law. I should like to get him home, to be under Mrs. Ashton’s care, as well as to relieve Mr. Mabbott, to whom, I am sure, we all feel greatly indebted.”

“Don’t name it, I beg; at fearful times like this,” said Mr. Mabbott, with a shudder, “it does not do to think of trouble or of ceremony. But I do not imagine the doctor would counsel the young man’s removal to-night, even if the road were clear and safe.”

“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Huertley, as he packed up his lint and instruments. “And in my opinion, if you remove him to-morrow you must do it carefully on every account, and will have to smuggle him away in a hackney-coach, lest he should be pounced upon as a wounded rebel.”

Two days, however, elapsed before Mr. Mabbott’s sofa lost its occupant, and even then the strong arm of Tom Hulme and the loving care of Bess were needed to help Jabez, feeble and wan, to the hackney-carriage brought up to the back door, which bore him slowly away, avoiding the main streets, until they passed under the arched gateway in Back Mosley Street whence he had last emerged at a headlong pace to prevent Miss Augusta getting into danger.

Some remembrance of this flashed through the brain of Jabez as the coach stopped in the court-yard, and on the house door-steps he beheld Mrs. Ashton, Augusta, and Ellen Chadwick, all three waiting to receive him as if he had been a wounded relative returning from far-off victories to his own hearth. Nay, the very servants hovered in the back-ground, even cross Kezia pressing to have a first look at him.

Mrs. Ashton herself, with the graceful dignity which sat so well upon her, went down the steps to lead him up and into the house, and as she touched his left hand and unwounded arm, she said impressively,

“Jabez Clegg, I understand we owe our brother’s life to your self-abnegation, if not that of our daughter also. I regret that your noble intervention should have cost you so dear; but I thank you most truly, and _shall not forget it_.”

The stately lady’s eyes were humid as she led Jabez into their common parlour (the room in which Augusta had displayed his specimens of incipient artistry) and there placed him on the large soft sofa, already prepared with pillows for his reception. The attention touched him to the heart; the humble apprentice, feeling himself honoured, raised the lady’s hand to his lips as gracefully and reverently as ever did knight of old romance.

And then he would have closed his eyes for very weariness but a little soft warm hand stole into his feeble one, and thrilling through him, a faint tinge chased the deathly pallor from his face as Augusta’s voice, full of commiseration, said apologetically, “I had no idea, Jabez, that I was sending you into danger when I asked you to look for Uncle Chadwick; I am so sorry you have been hurt.”

He held the little hand of his master’s daughter for one or two delicious minutes, while he answered feebly—“Never mind, Miss Ashton; I was only too glad to be there in time;” and lapsed into so ethereal a dream as he released it, that the low, broken grateful thanks of Ellen Chadwick left but the impression on his mind that she was very much in earnest and had called him _Mr. Clegg_.

Mr. Clegg! When had the College-boy—the Blue-coat apprentice—been anything but Jabez Clegg? _Mr._ Clegg! It was from such lips social recognition, and so blent strangely with his dream. Ah! could he but have known how much of latent tenderness was embodied in those incoherent expressions of a daughter’s gratitude, or that the speaker dared not trust her faltering tongue with his Christian name!

Mrs. Ashton called the young ladies away.

“My dears, you had better resume your occupations, and leave Jabez to repose; it is not well to crowd about an invalid on so sultry a day as this.”

So Miss Chadwick went, with her tatting-shuttle, back to her seat by the one window where the friendly shade of the dove-coloured curtains screened from observation any glances which might chance to stray from the tatting to the sofa; and Miss Ashton went back to her music-stool, where the sunbeams, falling through the other window, lit up her lovely profile, shot a glint of gold through her hair, and showed the dimples in her white shoulder to the half-shut, dreaming eyes of Jabez, who listened, entranced, as she practised scales and battle-pieces, waltzes and quadrilles, totally unconscious that she was feeding a fever in the soul of the apprentice more to be feared than the stroke of Aspinall’s sabre, though it had cut into the bone.

Not that she was a simple school-girl, and ignorant of the power of beauty. She was pretty well as romantic as any girl of that romantic age who, being fifteen, looked a year older, and learned the art of fascination from the four-volume novels of the period. Mrs. Ashton herself subscribed to the fashionable circulating library of the town, but she was somewhat choice in her reading, and had Miss Augusta stopped where her mother did she would have done well. But it so happened that, after feasting on the wholesome peas her mother provided, she fell with avidity on husks obtained surreptitiously elsewhere. Kisses from Augusta could always coax coins from papa, and as a Miss Bohanna kept open a well-known, well-stocked circulating library in Shudehill, albeit in a cellar, its contiguity to Bradshaw Street and Mrs. Broadbent’s enabled Miss Ashton (or Cicely for her) to smuggle in amongst her school-books other fictions, such as Elizabeth Helme and Anna Maria Roche used to concoct, and Samuel Richardson provided, to delight our grandmothers with.

So Miss Ashton was quite prepared to be admired and play the heroine prematurely; but she had been reared in the same house with Jabez, had been caressed and waited upon by him as a child, and anything so absurd as her father’s apprentice falling in love with her had never dawned upon her apprehension. Then not even his wounded arm could make him handsome enough for a hero, so she plunged through the “Battle of Prague,” and “Lodoiska,” and glided into the “Copenhagen Waltz,” with no suspicion of a listener more than ordinary.

Mrs. Ashton, who was back-stitching a shirt-wristband (family linen was then made at home), imagined that Jabez was dozing, and, unwilling to disturb him, only spoke when a false note, or a passage out of time, called for a low-voiced hint to her daughter, or when she found occasion to make some slight observation to the equally silent Ellen.

Presently the clock in the hall proclaimed “five.” Miss Ashton closed music-books and piano; Miss Chadwick completed a loop, then put her tatting away in a small, oblong, red morocco reticule; Mrs. Ashton laid the wristband in her workbasket, which she put out of sight in a panelled cupboard within the wall, sheathed the scissors hanging from her girdle, folded up the leather housewife containing her cut skeins of thread, &c.; James brought in the tea-board, with its genuine China tea-service, plates with cake and bread-and-butter, and whilst he went back to Kezia for the tea-urn, in walked Mr. Ashton, and with him the Rev. Joshua Brookes.

One might have supposed his first salutation would have been to the lady of the house. Nothing of the kind! With a passing nod to Mrs. Ashton, who had extended her hand, he marched straight to the sofa, and greeted its occupant with—

“Well, young Cheat-the-fishes, so you’ve been in the wars again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jabez, attempting to rise.

“Lie still, lad! And so you thought a velveteen jacket defensive armour against sharpened steel?”

“I never thought about it, sir.”

“Ugh! Then I suppose you reckoned a young man’s arm worth less than an old man’s head! Eh?”

Jabez smiled.

“Certainly, sir.”

“Humph! I thought as much!” Then darting a keen inquisitive glance from under his shaggy eyebrows at the prostrate young fellow, he added in his very raspiest tones, “And I daresay you’ve no notion whose sabre carved the wing of the goose so cleverly?”

What little blood was left in his body seemed to mount to the face of Jabez, the old scar on his brow—which every year made less conspicuous—purpled and grew livid. Old Joshua needed no more.

“Ah, I see you do! Well, are you inclined to forgive the fellow this time?”

All ears were on the alert. Jabez caught the quick turn of his kind master’s head. He hesitated, paled, and flushed again. Joshua Brookes waited. There was some indecision in the reply when it did come.

“I am not sure, sir. But he was very drunk. I don’t think he would have done it if he had been sober.”

“Just so, Jabez—just so!” assented Mr. Ashton with evident satisfaction and a tap on his snuff-box-lid.

Ben Travis had revealed the name of Mr. Chadwick’s assailant to the manufacturer, and he to the chaplain.

“Oh! that’s your opinion, is it?” cried the latter, crustily, wheeling sharply round to disguise a smile.—“Here, madam, let’s have a cup of sober tea after that!”

“I think, Mr. Brookes,” said Mrs. Ashton, as she seated herself, “with all due deference to you—I think you ask too much from Jabez. I do not consider drunkenness any excuse for brutality.”

“No excuse for the brute, madam, certainly; but a reason why a reasoning man should forgive the brute incapable of reason.”

“Just so, Parson!” chimed in Mr. Ashton laying his Barcelona handkerchief across his knee.

“I don’t see it, sir,” argued Mrs. Ashton, handing a willow-patterned cup and saucer, with his tea, to her interlocutor; “a man who is a brute when intoxicated should keep sober. For my own part, I should be loth to let the same stick beat me twice. Our apprentice has borne quite too much from that fellow” (she waxed indignant), “and there is a limit to forgiveness.”

“Yes, madam,” answered the Parson snappishly, “there _is_ a limit to forgiveness; but the limit is ‘not seven times, but seventy times seven!’”

There was no more to be said. The rough chaplain spoke with authority, and from experience, and Jabez knew it.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

MR. CLEGG!

However grateful Mrs. Ashton might be she never lost sight of her personal dignity, and had no idea of admitting Jabez on terms of equality after that first reception.

In his helpless condition he required attention, which she could not condescend to render personally; yet she was as little inclined to delegate the duty to Kezia, who was never over well-disposed towards him, and who might have resented the call to “wait on a ’prentice lad,” or to Cicily, who was too young to have the run of a young man’s chamber. It was like herself to hit on the happy mean, and invite Bess Hulme at once to satisfy her own longings, and meet the requirements of the case, by waiting on her foster-child in his helplessness, bringing with her her own boy, now two years old, to be committed to willing Cicily’s care when the mother was herself engaged.

Yet the apprentice never again sank into the old ruts. His bed in the attic was turned over to his successor. From that parlour where he had lain and listened to Augusta’s music, and Parson Brookes’s dictum; where Mrs. Ashton had placed his pillows, and Ellen Chadwick had supplied his wants with such intuitive perception at tea-time; from that room he went to a chamber on an upper floor, furnished neatly but plainly, with due regard to comfort.

There was a mahogany camp-bedstead, draped with chintz of most extraordinary device. The bed was of feathers—not flock. An oak chest of drawers, which did duty for a dressing-table, stood by the window, which itself overlooked the yard, and on the top stood a small oval swing looking-glass. There were small strips of carpet along the two sides of the bed, which did not touch the wall; an almost triangular washstand in one corner, and near the middle of the room a rush-bottom chair and a tripod table. There was also a cushioned easy-chair, which had a suggestiveness of being there for that special occasion only; and Jabez, who, on his first glance around began to speculate whether the whole would not vanish with his convalescence, was reassured when he saw that his wooden box had been brought from the attic and stood against the wall.

The six-foot, bronzed, bearded man of forty remains a child to the mother who bore him, or the woman who nursed him. And as she had laid him in his cradle when a baby, Bess helped Jabez to his new bed, fed him with the beef-tea which Kezia had prepared (for a wonder, without a grumble), gave him the cooling draught Mr. Huertley had sent in, smoothed his pillows for repose, and kissed his brow, with a “God bless thee!” much as she had done when he was an ailing child, but with all the access of motherliness her own maternity had given.

Nevertheless he did not sleep readily. Neither Bessy’s soothing hand nor the soft bed superinduced slumber. He was modest, and “Mr. Clegg” haunted him. He could not see the connection between his impulsive rush forward to check the yoeman’s plunging steed, and his employer’s recognition of the service rendered.

“I only did my duty,” he debated with himself, as he lay there, with a mere streak of light from the glimmering rush-light showing between the closely drawn-curtains—“I only did my duty. Anyone else would have done the same in my place. If I had once thought of consequences and grasped the reins deliberately, there would have been some bravery in _that_. But I never thought of the sword, not I. I only thought of poor old Mr. Chadwick and Molly; and I’m sure Mr. Mabbott’s ready hand did as good service as mine. Only I happened to get hurt. Yes, that’s it! And they are sorry for me. I wonder if that ruffianly fellow did know whom he was striking at? I hardly think he did, he was so very tipsy. If I fancied he did, I—but he could not. He was just blind drunk. What a pity, for such a handsome fellow, not older than I am, and a gentleman’s son too! Forgive him! I don’t think I’ve much to forgive. I’d bear the pain twice over for all the kind things that have been said and done since! Tea in the parlour with Parson Brookes and all! And this handsome bed-room [handsome only in untutored eyes]. And all the thanks I have had for so little. And, oh! the bliss of holding Augusta’s delicate hand in mine, and hearing the music those white fingers made. It’s worth the pain three times over. And Mr. Clegg too! _Mr._ Clegg! How like a gentleman it does sound! Will anybody call me Mr. Clegg besides Miss Chadwick? How fond she must be of her father, from the way she thanked me!”

(Ah Jabez! what oculist can cure blindness such as thine?)

If less consecutive, still in some such current ran the young man’s thoughts, until chaos came, and his closed eyes saw innumerable _Mr._ Cleggs written on walls, and floor, and curtains, and a delicious symphony seemed to chorus the words, and “lap him in Elysium.”

After that, once each day, Mrs. Ashton paid him a brief visit of inspection and inquiry, generally timed so as to meet the surgeon. Mr. Ashton, with less of ceremony, dropped in occasionally, to bring him a newspaper, book, or pamphlet to beguile the hours, and was not above loitering for a pleasant chat on matters indoors and out, the state of political feeling, and of business, in a manner so friendly Jabez was at a loss to account for it. Once or twice Augusta tapped at the door, to ask if Jabez was better, and to “hope he would soon be well,” and the simple words ran through his brain with a thousand chimerical meanings.

Joshua Brookes paid him a couple of visits, brought him papers of sweetmeats and messages from Mrs. Clowes, and a Latin Testament and a worn Æneid from his own stores, as a little light reading. Mrs. Chadwick, too, made her appearance at his bedside, with kindly and grateful words from her husband; and amongst them he was in a fair way of becoming elevated into a hero to his own hurt.

Simon Clegg (who pulled off his thick Sunday shoes in the kitchen, and went up-stairs in his stocking feet, lest he should make a clatter, and spoil the carpets) counteracted the mischief, and somewhat clipped the pinions of soaring imagination.

Jabez, his arm bandaged and sustained by a sling, lay with his head against the straight, high back of his padded chair, between the window and the fireplace, which glowed, not with live coals, but a beau-pot of sunflowers and hollyhocks from Simon’s garden. At his feet lay little Sam, fast asleep, with his fat arms round the neck of Nelson, the black retriever, which had somehow contrived to sneak past Kezia with his tail between his legs, and to follow Bess up-stairs, where he had established himself in perfect content.

Simon greeted his foster-son with bated breath, awed no doubt by the lamp-bearing statues in hall and staircase, and hardly raised his voice above a whisper while he stayed. He had much to tell which the reader already knows, but he took his leave with quite a long oration, impressed no doubt by the comfort in that chamber, as well as by the grandeur in rooms of which he had caught a glimpse through open doors. Jabez himself, being still feeble, had spoken but little.

“Moi lad,” said he, “this is a grand place, but dunnot yo’ let it mak’ yo’ preawd; an’ aw hope as yo’re thankful yo’ han fallen among sich koind folk.”

“Indeed I am.”

“Yo’ did nowt but whatn wur yo’r duty, moi lad, as aw trust thah allays wilt; and thah’s gotten a mester and missis i’ ten theawsand, to mak’ so mich on a cut in a ’prentice’s arm—ay, tho it _wur_ got i’ savin’ one o’ theer own kin! Luk yo’, Jabez: o’ th’ mesters aw ever saw afore thowt as ’prentices, body an’ soul, wur theer own; an’ yo’ve lit on yo’r feet, aw con tell yo’. an’ yo’ conno’ do too mich for sich folk. Aw see they’re makkin’ a man on yo’, an’ dunnot yo’ spoil o’ by thinkin’ yo’ han earnt it, an’ han a reet to it. We’re unprofitable sarvants, th’ best on us, an’ dunnot yo’ harbour anny malice agen th’ chap as chopped at yo’. Them Yowmanry Calvary wur as drunk as fiddlers, an’ as blind as bats. Thah tuk thi chance wi’ the ruck, an’ came off better than some folk. So thenk God it’s no waur, an’ bear no malice; an’ thenk God as sent yo’ theer i’ the nick o’ time.”

In little more than a fortnight Jabez was downstairs again, although his arm, not being thoroughly healed, yet needed support, and he was not hurried into the warehouse. Neither was he again invited to join the family, Mrs. Ashton having objected to Mr. Ashton’s proposition.

“It would lift the young man out of his sphere, William, and do him more harm than good. Only very strong heads can stand sudden elevation; and it is well to make no more haste than good speed.”

But Mr. Ashton’s “Just so” was less definite than ordinary, and he took a second pinch of snuff unawares, with a prolonged emphasis, which supplied the place of words. To the observant, Mr. Ashton’s snuff-box contained as much eloquence as did Lord Burleigh’s celebrated wig. He had taken a liking to the lad from the first, paid very little deference to Mrs. Grundy, and gave Jabez credit for a stronger head than did his more cautious and philosophic lady.

Yet Jabez, to his surprise, found that his little room down stairs had undergone a transformation. It was no longer a bare office, fitted only with a desk and stool. Desk and stool were there still, but a carpet, hanging shelves, a few useful books, and other furniture had been introduced, the result being a compact parlour. Mrs. Ashton had her own way of showing goodwill.

His previous application to work in that room, when his fellow-apprentices in over hours were cracking jokes on the kitchen settle, lounging about the yard, tormenting or being tormented by Kezia, had served somewhat to isolate and lift him above them, albeit he took his meals in the kitchen with the rest. This separation was now confirmed by orders Kezia received to “serve Clegg’s dinner in his own room,” orders which Kezia resented with asperity, and at least three days’ ill-humour, and which James declined to execute. He was “not goin’ to disgrace his cloth by waitin’ on ’prentice lads!” Ready-handed Cicily came to the rescue, and took the office on herself, amid the banter of the kitchen, which the quick-witted maid returned with right good will and right good temper.

Permission to receive his friends in his own room occasionally had been graciously accorded by Mrs. Ashton herself, with the characteristic observation—

“They are worthy people, Jabez Clegg, and you owe them a son’s duty; besides, you need some relaxation—‘The over-strained bow is apt to snap,’ and ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’”

Altogether he was more than satisfied. He was not demonstrative, but his heart swelled as he felt within himself that all these little things were stepping stones upwards; and he mentally resolved to mount them fairly. He recognised that he was rising, and ere the week was out he found that others recognised it also.

His blood-stained garments had been removed, whither he knew not, and he had had to fall back on his grey frieze Sunday suit. Be sure he began to calculate the chances of getting a fresh one.

As he was able to go out, he was employed on out-door business until his arm should regain its full vitality, and one of his errands was with a note to Mr. Chadwick’s tailor, in King Street. At first he thought there was some mistake when the fraction of a man proceeded without more ado to take his measure.

Saturday night proved there had been no mistake. On his bed, accompanied by a very kind note from Mr. Chadwick (written with his left hand), lay not only a well-cut, well-made suit of clothes, but a hat, white linen shirts, neck-cloths, and hose.

Did ever young girl turn up her back hair, or young man assume his first coat indifferently? To Jabez—the foundling—the Blue-coat apprentice, this was not merely a first coat, not merely a badge of approaching manhood. The whole outfit, provided as it was by his master’s brother-in-law, seemed a recognition of the station he was henceforth to fill. No clerk in the counting-house was so well equipped as he, when he stood before his oval swing-glass (for the first time far too small), and endeavoured to survey himself therein, that fine September Sunday morning.

I will not presume to say that he looked the conventional gentleman in that suit of glossy brown broadcloth, and beaver hat; I will not say that he did not feel stiff in them. Only use gives ease; but this I will say, that a more manly figure never gave shape to garments, or a more noble head to a hat, albeit there was more of strength than beauty in the face it shaded.

His forehead was broad and well developed; the reflective as well as the perceptive faculties were there. There was just a slight defensive rise on the else straight nose; the eyebrows were full save where a scar broke the line of one. Firm but pleasant were mouth and dimpled chin, and the lower jaw was somewhat massive; but his full grey eyes, dark almost to blackness, and standing far apart, were clear and deep as wells where truth lay hid, though deep emotion had power to kindle them with the luminosity of stars.

I am afraid he was not the only one on whom Parson Gatliffe’s eloquence was thrown away that Sabbath morning. If he looked up at the Blue-coat boys in the Chetham Gallery with their quaint blue robes and neat bands, to throw memory back and imagination forward, others were doing likewise, from old Simon in his free seat to his envious fellow-’prentices in the pew, whose mocking grimaces drew upon them the sharp censure of the beadle.

Party spirit was then at a white heat. Had Peterloo been written on his forehead it could not have marked him out for curious eyes more surely than his sling.

Greetings, not altogether congratulatory, followed him through the churchyard. But old Simon caught his left hand in a tremulous grasp, his eyes moist with proud emotion. Tom Hulme beamed upon him, and Mrs. Clowes, energetic as ever, overtook them a few yards from the chapter-house, just as Joshua Brookes emerged from the door.

“Well, my lad, I’m glad to see you at church again!” she exclaimed, shaking him warmly by the left hand. “I hardly knew you in your fine clothes. They’ve made quite a gentleman of you. We shall have to call you Mr. Clegg now, I reckon.”