“O, my boy, my boy!” cried a dreadful voice at this moment. “I will see my boy, I will see who murdered him, I will have revenge on whoever murdered him! O, you are cruel to keep me away! I will have revenge on ye all!”
It was the unhappy mother, who had heard that her son was killed, but did not know how. She was so possessed by the idea that he had been destroyed by human force, that when she saw him she was not undeceived, and continued to vow revenge.
“Revenge is not so easy to be had,” observed the quiet man. “You may pull the machine to pieces, but it will feel nothing, and so do you no good; and they that put up the machine are too high for the revenge of such as we are.”
“They are not,” cried the passionate man. “If we pull their works to pieces, we only take what is our right as wages; and do you think it will not gall our masters to see us take our own? If it did not, would they not give us our own? As for you, poor creature,” he continued, addressing the mother, who was passionately wailing over the body, “take your own. Take the cold clay that should have been alive and strong before you this many a year. Close his eyes that always looked bright upon you. Nay, never grasp his hand in that manner. Those hands should have brought you bread when your own are feeble; they should have smoothed your pillow when you could only have raised yours to his head to bless him. Cover up his face, you that stand there! His mother will forget his pretty smile, and this ghastly look of his will haunt her, night and day, till she goes to her grave. It is well he cannot smile again; it would make her forget her revenge.”
“Who dares talk of revenge? Upon whom do you seek revenge?” cried a powerful voice from the outskirts of the crowd, which had, by this time, assembled. It was Paul, who had arrived so as to hear the last words, and had more courage than the overlooker to interfere.
“I demand revenge,” shrieked the mother, starting up with clenched hands and glaring eyes, while her hair fell over her shoulders.
“Was it you?” replied Paul in a gentle voice, as he made his way to her. “I thought it had been another voice. Come with me,” he added, drawing her arm within his own; “I will take you home. He will follow,”—seeing that she was going to lay hold of the body. “They will bring him home, and you will be quieter there.”
“Quieter! quiet enough when I shall have no son to speak to me night nor morning,” cried the woman, bursting into another passion of grief.
“She does not want quiet, she wants revenge, and it was my voice you heard say so,” exclaimed the passionate man.
“Then you did not know what you were saying,” replied Paul gravely.
“You shall say the same, you shall be one of us, or I will knock you down,” cried the man.
“I will not say so, for nobody has been injured that I know of——”
Paul could not proceed for the outcry. “Nobody injured! Was it no injury for a widow woman to have her son killed at his work by an unnatural accident like this? She was as much injured as if his throat had been cut before her eyes by the masters’ own hands.” Inflamed more than ever by this outcry, the passionate man rushed upon Paul, and tried to knock him down. But Paul had the advantage of being cool, and was besides a very powerful man. He stood the attack, and then floored his adversary. It was a dreadful sight to see the mother, who should by this time have been hiding her grief at home, helping the fight. The flush and sneer of passion were on her face as she tried to raise and encourage the fallen man. Paul had nearly lost his temper on so unprovoked an attack; but one glance at the woman brought tears into his eyes.
At this moment the clatter of a horse’s feet was heard, and Mr. Wallace, who had been absent from the works for some hours, rode up. The overlooker now seemed to recover the use of his limbs and his senses. He made way for his employer, who showed by his countenance more than by words how much he was shocked that such a scene should take place on such an occasion. He rode between the two fighters, and desired them to depart by opposite ways, gave the unhappy woman into the charge of the overlooker, and sent the bystanders about their business.
In half an hour, Mrs. Wallace, who had heard of the accident merely from common report, and knew none of the succeeding circumstances, was sitting beside the poor woman, endeavouring to comfort her and to keep her quiet from the intrusions of her neighbours. This was construed into a new offence by the discontented; and when the sufferer was found to have changed her tone, to speak calmly of her loss, and gratefully of the attentions that were paid to her, she was told that the lady only came to speak her fair and make her give up her revenge. One said they had got something by their discontent already, for it was a fine thing to see an elegant lady come on foot to a labourer’s cottage and sit down as if she lived in a cottage herself; and another asked what sort of a story she had wheedled the mourner into believing about the new machinery.
The woman replied that it was not the first time by many that Mrs. Wallace had come down among them, to say nothing of the other ladies, who spoke with one or another every day of their lives. Mrs. Wallace was a tender-hearted lady, she would say that for her, though she seemed high when nothing happened to make her take particular notice. She had never so much as mentioned the new machinery, and knew nothing about it, it seemed. It was not to be supposed that ladies were told all that was going on at the works; and though the offence was not to be forgiven or forgotten, it was to be brought home to the partners and not to their families, to whom she, for one, should never mention it.
“’Tis all the lady’s art,” cried one. “She has gained you over by a few soft words,” said another. “I wonder you let yourself be so taken in,” added a third; so that the poor woman, who was of a changeable temper at all times, and now weakened by what had happened, was persuaded to think as ill of Mrs. Wallace as her neighbours would have her.
When the lady came early after breakfast the next morning, she observed that the children ran out to stare at her, and that their mothers looked scornfully upon her from the windows. This was very painful to her; and she passed on quickly till she reached the house of the woman she came to seek. The door was locked, and when she tapped to ask admittance, a lattice above was flung open, and she was told by a saucy voice that the person she wanted did not wish to be interrupted.
“Will you come down, then, and let me speak a few words to you about the funeral?”
The neighbour above drew back as if to repeat what was said. In a moment the mourner (who could not be interrupted) took her place, and screamed out like a virago, as she looked,—
“Let alone me and mine at your peril. They that killed my boy shall not bury him.” And she continued to pour out such a torrent of abuse that the lady, who had never before heard such language, was ready to sink to the ground. Her servant-boy, who had stayed a little behind on an errand, now came up, and looked so fierce on those who dared to insult his lady, that her fear of the consequences recalled her presence of mind. When her spirit was once roused, no one had more courage or good sense. Determining instantly what to do, she held up her finger as a sign to John to be quiet, laid her commands on him to make no reply to anything that was said, and stood at the window-sill to write a few words on a slip of paper which she bade him carry to Mr. Bernard or one of his sons, absolutely forbidding him to let her husband know, even if he should meet him, how she was placed.
“I cannot leave you, ma’am, among these wretches,” cried John, looking round on the mob of women and children who were collecting.
“Do not call them wretches, or look as if there was anything to be afraid of,” said his mistress, “but make haste, and then come to me under that tree.”
What she had written was, “Say nothing to my husband, but come and help me to clear up a mistake of some consequence.” When John disappeared with the note, which everybody had seen her write, the cry of abuse rose louder than ever. It was hard to bear; but the lady felt that if she retreated now, she should lose her own and injure her husband’s influence for ever among these people. The thought came across her, too, that she might owe some of this to the reserve of her usual demeanour; and as a punishment also she resolved to stand it well. She therefore only made her way to the tree she had pointed out, and sat down under it; a necessary proceeding, for she could scarcely stand. There she waited for John’s return with Mr. Bernard, longing to look every instant whether they were coming, but carefully refraining from turning her head that way, lest the people should see her anxiety.
“What is all this?” cried Mr. Bernard, when at length he arrived breathless, with John at his heels, wiping his brows. “Have these people dared to hurt you?”
“No: they have only railed at me, so that I could not make myself heard; and I want you to help me to find out why. Keep your temper, I implore you. I sent for you instead of my husband, because I was afraid he would not command himself.”
John was eager to explain why he had been so long. Mr. Bernard was not at the office, as John expected. Mr. Wallace was, and John had much ado to avoid telling him; but he held his peace and went on his errand. It seemed as if he had been gone for hours, he said, for he did not know what might have happened in his absence.
Mr. Bernard knew more of the present disposition and complaints of the people than Mrs. Wallace, and—what was on this occasion of as much consequence—he had a stronger voice; so that he soon got to the bottom of the matter.
He showed them the folly of supposing that the lady’s object was different now from what it had been in many former cases where she had shown kindness; and began to rate them soundly for their ingratitude and savage behaviour, when the lady interceded for them. When he stopped to listen to her, there was a dead silence. She said that she did not wish them to be reproached more than she was sure they would soon reproach themselves; that she did not come among them for the sake of making them grateful to her, but in order to show her good-will at times when good-will is worth more than anything else that can be given. As long as her neighbours were willing to accept this good-will as freely as it was offered, she should come among them, undeterred by the mistakes about her motives which a few might fall into; but that no person was called upon to encounter a second time such treatment as she had met with that day; and therefore, unless she was sent for, she should not appear among them again. If this should be the last time they should ever speak to one another, she hoped they would remember it was not by her wish, but their own.
The people were now in a condition to hear reason, and they believed the lady’s assurance, that when she came down the day before, she knew nothing whatever of the cause of the boy’s death, and was silent on the subject of the new machinery only because she had no idea how much the people were thinking and feeling on the subject. She was ready henceforth to talk about it as much as they pleased.
When she stood up and took Mr. Bernard’s arm to go homewards, nothing could exceed the attention of the people—so changeable were they in their moods. One brought water, which the lady accepted with a kind smile; and glad she was of it, for she was very thirsty. The mourner’s door was now wide open; and, with many curtseys, Mrs. Wallace was invited to enter and rest herself. This, however, she declined for the present day. The mothers called their children off as a huntsman calls off his dogs, and the hunted lady was at last left in peace with her friend and her servant. When Mr. Bernard had left her safe at home, her spirits sank. She did not fall into hysterics, nor alarm her household with an account of what she had gone through; but she sat alone in her dressing-room, dropping many a bitter tear over the blindness and folly of the people whose happiness seemed quite overthrown, and unable to keep down a thousand fears of what was to happen next.
The delusion that the improvement in machinery was the cause of a change in the times, and not the consequence of the future remedy for such a change, had become too general and too firmly established in this society to be removed by a few explanations or strong impressions here and there. Discontent grew hourly; and the complaints which had before been divided between the American and French iron-works, the rivals in the neighbourhood, the government of the country, and the whole body of customers who would not give so high a price as formerly for their iron, were now turned full upon the new machinery and those who had set it up. Growlings met the ears of the partners whereever they turned; the young men had to keep a constant restraint upon their tempers, and the ladies directed their walks where they might be out of hearing of threats which alarmed or murmurings which grieved them.
Two days after Mrs. Wallace’s adventure, her husband, on rising from the breakfast-table, saw Armstrong coming in at the gate.
“It is a sign of the times that you are here,” said he, as he shook hands with the old man. “How are we to read it?”
“As your discretion may direct when you have heard my story,” replied the old man gravely.
Mr. Wallace looked doubtfully at him, as if to ask whether they had not better save his wife from alarm by being private. Armstrong understood him.
“Sit down, madam, if you please,” said he. “Women are not often so cowardly as they are said to be, if they are but treated fairly, and given to understand what they are to expect. It is too much to look for courage from such as know that the worst they have to dread is often kept from them. So you shall hear, ma’am, and judge for yourself. Only do not turn pale before I begin, or you will make me look ashamed of having so little to tell.”
Comforted by the end of this speech as much as she had been alarmed by the beginning, Mrs. Wallace smiled in answer to her husband’s anxious looks, and drew her chair to listen.
Armstrong related that he had observed from his garden, after working hours the evening before, an unusual number of people sauntering about a field at a considerable distance from his dwelling. He had called his housekeeper out to look and guess what it might be. She had once seen Punch in a field with a crowd; and her only idea, therefore, was that it might be Punch; and when her master sent her for his telescope, she fixed it at the window before she brought it, and was almost sure she saw a stand with a red curtain such as she had seen when Punch appeared to her. Her master, however, who was not apt to see visions through his glass, could make out nothing but that all the people in the field seemed to be now collected in one place, and that one man was raised above the rest, and apparently haranguing them. He instantly resolved to go, partly from curiosity, and partly because he expected to hear complaints of the management of the neighbouring concern, complaints which, kind-hearted as he was, he loved to hear, because they confirmed his prejudices, which were dearer to him than even his friend Mr. Wallace or Mr. Wallace’s gentle wife. He did not give the account of his motives exactly as we have given it; but he conveyed it clearly enough by what he said to make Mr. and Mrs. Wallace glance at each other with a smile.
He arrived on the spot only in time for the conclusion of the last speech, from which he gathered that the object of the meeting was to consider what measures should be taken with their employers to induce them to alter such of their plans as were displeasing to their men; and that it was determined that a deputation should wait upon the partners to demand that the quantity of labour which was displaced by machinery should be restored to human hands. In order to try the disposition of the masters, it was also to be demanded that every man, woman, and child in the society, except the few necessary to attend to the furnaces, should be allowed to follow the funeral of the deceased boy the next day. If both requests were refused, the people were to take their own way about attending the funeral, and another meeting was to be held round the boy’s grave, as soon as the service was over. Armstrong’s description of the vehemence with which this last resolution was agreed to, convinced Mr. Wallace that it was time to take more decided measures for keeping the peace than he had yet thought would be necessary. While he was musing, Armstrong continued,—
“I hate your iron-work, and everything (not everybody) belonging to it, as you know; but I had rather see it quietly given up than pulled to pieces. So, if you will let me, I will go and tell the magistrates in the next town the condition you are in, and bid them send a sufficient force for your safety. I am afraid there is no chance of your giving up your new-fangled machinery.”
“No chance whatever,” replied Mr. Wallace decidedly. “If we give up that we give up the bread of the hundreds who depend on us for employment. By means of this machinery, we can just manage to keep our business going, without laying by any profit whatever. If we give up any one of our measures of economy, the concern must be closed and all these people turned adrift. I shall tell them so, if they send a deputation to-day.”
Armstrong contented himself with shaking his head, as he had nothing wherewith he could gainsay Mr. Wallace. At length he asked what Mr. Wallace chose to do.
“To refuse both demands, stating my reasons. I am sure my partner will act with me in this. As to your kind offer of going to the magistrates, I will, if you please, consult him, and let you know in an hour or two. I have little doubt we shall accept your services; but I can do nothing so important without Mr. Bernard’s concurrence. Where will my messenger find you?”
“At home in my garden. But take care how you choose your messenger. Some of the people saw me in the field last night, and if anybody goes straight from you to me to-day, they may suspect something. I took care to come by a round-about way where nobody could see me; and by the same way I shall go back.”
“But why go back? Why not stay where nobody willwill be looking for you?”
“Because home is one stage of my journey to the town, and I can slip away quietly from my own gate. By the way, your messenger must be one who will not blab his errand to my housekeeper or to any one he may meet. Peg is silent enough when there is no one for her to speak to; but we cannot tell in these strange days who may cross her path.”
Who should the messenger be? Mrs. Wallace offered her services, thinking that a lady would hardly be suspected; but her husband would not hear of her stirring out that day.
“Why not use a signal?” asked Armstrong at length. “A white handkerchief tells no tales, and I can see your windows plainly enough with my glass from my garden hedge. So hang out your flag and I shall know.”
This was at once pronounced the best plan; and it was agreed that at three o’clock precisely (by which time the temper of the deputation would be known) Armstrong should watch for the signal. If he saw a white handkerchief, all would be well, and he might stay at home; if a red, he was to go to the magistrates and state the case, and leave them to judge what force should be provided for the defence of the works. Mr. Wallace furnished the old man with a written certificate that he was authorised by the firm, and then bidding his wife hope for the best, hastened away to business. Armstrong also took his leave; and the three meditated, as they pursued their different occupations, on the ignorance and weakness through which members of the same society, who ought to work together for the good of each and all, are placed in mutual opposition, and waste those resources in contest which ought to be improved by union.
During the whole morning the partners remained on the spot in expectation of the message they were to receive from the great body of their work people; but none came. All went quietly on with their business as if no unusual proceeding was meditated; so that when two o’clock came, Mr. Wallace went home to comfort his wife with the tidings that she might hang out a white flag. There was no use in speculating on what had changed the plan of the discontented; it was certain that no pretence remained for sending for civil or military protection. Relieved, for the present, of a load of anxiety, the lady ran up stairs to prepare her signal with a step as light as any with which she had ever led off a dance; while, on the distant height, Margaret wondered what had possessed John Armstrong that he could not mind his work this day, but must be peering through his glass every minute, till, after a long, low whistle, he laid it aside and looked no more. She was almost moved to ask him what he had seen; but habit was stronger than impulse with her, and she held her peace.
When Mr. Wallace went down to the works again, he observed that Paul, who, as furnace-keeper, was accustomed to keep his eye on his work as steadily as an astronomer on a newly-discovered star, looked up as his employer’s step drew near, and met his eye with a glance full of meaning. Mr. Wallace stopped; but as several people were by, explanation was impossible. “Paul, I want to know——but there is no use in asking you a question while you are busy. You will be meddled with by nobody at this time of day.”
“I had rather be questioned in broad day, when I am about my work,” replied Paul with another quick glance, “than at night when I am snug at home and think it is all over till the next day.”
“O ho!” thought Mr Wallace, “I understand. Well, but,” he continued, “the question I was going to ask is not about your furnace-work, but one of your other trades. If I came to you in the evening, I suppose you would bolt your door and send me away without an answer.”
“Not so,” said Paul; “for I think every man that asks a fair question should have a plain answer. Such a one I would give with all civility; but when that was done, I should say this was no time for talk, and wish you good evening.”
“And if I would not go till I had got all I wanted, would you call Jones and his lads to turn me out by force?”
“Not the first time; but if you grew angry at being sent away, I should take good care how I let you come near me again in a passion. If you put a finger on my work-bench, I should call the Joneses to rap your knuckles and cry ‘Hands off!’ So you see, sir, what you have to expect.”
“You are a strange fellow,” said Mr. Wallace; “but I thank you for warning me how to behave.”
“It would be well if he behaved himself a little more mannerly,” said one of the work-people near. “If any of us were to threaten a gentleman in that manner, what an outcry there would be about it!”
“Paul is an oddity, and does not mind being thought so,” observed Mr. Wallace. “But he shows us the respect of doing our work well, and taking as much care of our interests as if they were his own. Blunt speech and fair deeds for me, rather than fair words and rough deeds.”
“What do you think of rough words and deeds together?” said another workman. “They seem likely to be the order of the day.”
“No man is bound to put up with them,” replied his employer. “Here, at least, they shall not be borne.”
The man’s companion jogged his elbow, and he said no more.
The partners, in communicating with each other, agreed that it was probable, from what Paul had said, that a tumultuous demand for leave to attend the next day’s funeral would be made that night. As it was scarcely likely that the people would proceed to violence before the churchyard meeting they had appointed, it was determined that their absurd demand should be refused.
The gates of both dwellings were early closed that evening, and the doors well fastened. The ladies were not kept in ignorance of what was expected; for their companions had confidence in their courage, and remembered besides that it would add much to whatever confusion might occur to have consternation within the house, at the same time as tumult without.
It must be owned that Mrs. Wallace fell into a reverie more than once while her husband read to her; and that the young ladies at Mr. Bernard’s played their duet more by rote than con amore this night. In all the pauses they listened for shouting or the trampling of feet; and when they had done, their father himself opened the shutters, and looked out and commanded silence. The moon had not risen, and there was no light but from the furnace-fires below, which sent up a red cloud into the sky; and there was no sound but the distant roar and rumble of the works. It was a warm evening, and the family stood for some time at the open window, talking little, but some trying to distinguish the stars through the columns of smoke, and others wondering what would have happened by the same hour the next night, while the little ones kept as quiet as possible in the hope that their papa and Mrs. Sydney would forget to send them to bed.
“Father!” cried Frank, “I saw a man leap the hedge,—there,—in that corner.” All had heard the rustling among the shrubs.
“Who is there?” demanded Mr. Bernard.
“Shut your shutters, Sir, I advise you,” said Jones in a low voice. “They are near, and they should not see your lights as they turn the corner. I ran on first, and Paul is gone with the party to Mr. Wallace’s. I must make haste and join them again before I am missed. I only came to see that you were fast.”
“Will they proceed to violence to-night?” asked Mr. Bernard before he closed the window.
“No fear if you are decided and civil-spoken; but I won’t answer for so much for to-morrow.”to-morrow.”
So saying, Jones ran off and climbed the hedge again, that he might drop in at the rear of the party, the glare of whose torches began to appear at the turn of the road.
“Upstairs, all of you, and let nobody appear at the windows but my lads and myself,” said Mr. Bernard. “And do not be afraid. You heard that there is no fear of violence to-night.”
There was a tremendous knocking and ringing at the door before all the family were up stairs.
“What do you want with me?” asked Mr. Bernard, throwing up a sash of the second story.
“We want, in the first place, your promise to take to pieces the new machinery, which keeps so many people out of work, and never to use it again without the consent of all parties concerned.”
“A reasonable request, truly! I believe there is more to be said, to bring us into the same mind on that point, than can be got through in a short summer’s night.”
“Answer us Yes or No,” cried the speaker.
“Tell him the conditions,” said the man next to him. “Let him know what he has to expect either way.”
“No; tell me of no conditions,” said Mr. Bernard; “I deny your right to impose any, and I will not hear them. As long as my partners and I are in business, we will keep the management of our own concerns. So say nothing of conditions.”
“Answer us Yes or No, then,” repeated the first speaker. “Will you pull down the machinery, or will you not?”
“I will not. So you have my answer. My reasons are at your service whenever you choose to ask for them in a proper time and manner.”
The crowd murmured at the mention of reasons; but a man who flitted about among them, urged them to bring forward their second demand. This man was Jones; and his object was to shorten the scene, and get the people to disperse.
“Your reply is taken down, Sir——”
“Where it will never be forgotten,” growled a deep voice.
“And we proceed to request that all the people in the works may attend the funeral of James Fry to-morrow, and not return to work till the next day, with the exception of the smallest number necessary to keep the furnaces.”
“For what purpose?”
“For the purpose of expressing their abhorrence of the means by which the boy came by his death.”
“What could make you suppose my partner and I should grant your request?”
“Not any idea that you would like it, certainly. But what should hinder our taking leave, if you will not give it?”
“Hear my answer, and then spend to-morrow as you may choose. I refuse permission to any man to quit the work he has agreed to perform, with the exception of the four named by the boy’s mother to attend the funeral. All besides who quit their work to-morrow, quit it for ever.”
“Suppose we make you quit your works?” cried an insolent voice.
“You have it in your power to do so by withdrawing your labour; but the day when yonder furnaces are out of blast will be the day of your ruin. If you force us to choose between two evils, we had rather close our concern, and go whence we came, than carry on the most prosperous business under the control of those who depend on our capital for subsistence.”
Another murmur arose at the last sentence.—“We will soon see what becomes of your capital!” “What is your capital to us, if you are so afraid of having anybody to touch it but yourselves?” “We will carry away our labour, and then much good may your capital do you!”
“Just as much, and no more,” said Mr. Bernard, “than your labour can do without our capital. Remember, it is not our wish that the two powers should be separated to the ruin of us all. If you throw up your work to-morrow, our concern is ruined. If you will have a little patience, and supply your share of our contract, we may all see better days. Judge for yourselves.”
He shut down the window and closed the shutters. The crowd below, after uttering various strange noises, and vehemently cheering sentiments proposed by their leaders, dispersed, and by midnight the shrubbery looked as still in the moonlight as if no intruder’s step had been there.
A nearly similar scene, with a corresponding conclusion, had been exhibited at Mr. Wallace’s. As soon as the people were gone, that gentleman determined to lose no time in communicating with Armstrong, as it was now evident that protection would be necessary if the people chose to gratify their passions by attending the funeral and subsequent meeting.
Mr. Wallace was little disposed for sleep, and thought a moonlight walk would refresh him, and remembered that he should be his own safest messenger; so when all was silent, he set forth, telling his wife that he should be back within two hours, when he hoped to inform her that Armstrong was gone to bespeak the necessary assistance.
It was just eleven when he reached the steps below Armstrong’s gate. As he climbed the gate, the dog barked, growled, and made ready for a spring.
“How now, Keeper!” cried the master from within and his guest without, at the same moment. The dog knew Mr. Wallace’s voice, but was not sure enough of his man, muffled in a cloak as he was, to give over his alarm at once. He leaped and frisked about, still growling while the old man held forth a gleaming pistol in the moonlight from his lattice. “Stand off, or I’ll fire,” cried he. But when he heard “Do not be in a hurry to shoot your friend Wallace,” he was in greater alarm than before. He hastened to let in his guest, that he might hear what had happened.
Mr. Wallace observed with some surprise that he had not called the old man from his bed. Armstrong had been sitting, with his labourer’s dress on, beside the table, where lay his open Bible, his pistols, his spectacles, and the lamp. Before the visitorvisitor had time to ask what kept his friend up so late, the housekeeper put her night-capped head into the room.
“No thieves, Peg,” said her master, and the head withdrew; for Margaret did not see that she had any business with what brought Mr. Wallace there at so strange an hour. Her master was quite of her mind; for, when it was settled what he was to do, he tapped at her door and only said,
“I am going out, and if I should not be back till dinner to-morrow, don’t be frightened. Keeper will take good care of you.”
And then he set off to rouse the magistrates, while Mr. Wallace proceeded homewards, pausing now and then to hear whether all was quiet below, and watching how the twinkling lights went out (so much later than usual) one by one in the cottage windows.
Early the next morning a messenger came to the Joneses’ door to let them know that the funeral procession would form at the widow Fry’s, at eight o’clock, and that punctuality was particularly requested. Paul asked what this message meant, as nobody in that house was going to attend. The messenger was sorry for it. He had been ordered to give notice from house to house, and he believed almost every body meant to go.
“Then, Jones,” said Paul, “the sooner we are off to our work the better. Example may do something in such a case.”
These two and a few others went to their work earlier than usual, for the sake of example. More kept close at home, and only came forth when the procession was out of sight, creeping quietly to their business, as if they were ashamed or afraid. But by far the greater number followed the coffin to its burial-place in a churchyard among the hills, near the Ranters’ place of meeting. These walked arm in arm, four abreast, keeping a gloomy silence, and looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.
It had occurred to Mr. Bernard that the clergyman who was to perform the service might exert a very useful influence in favour of peace over those who were brought together on such an occasion. He therefore sent a letter to him by a man and horse, communicating the present position of affairs.
The clergyman was young and timid; and being unable to determine what he should do, he did the very worst thing of all: he escaped in an opposite direction, leaving no account of where he might be found. He was waited for till the people, already in an irritable mood, became very impatient; and when a party, who had gone to his house to hasten him, brought news of his absence, the indignation of the crowd was unbounded. They at once jumped to the conclusion that their employers had chosen to prevent the interment taking place, and to delay them thus for the sake of making fools of them. They forgot, in their rage, that their masters’ best policy was to get the coffin of the poor lad underground and out of sight as soon as possible, and to conciliate rather than exasperate their people.
Mrs. Wallace kept as constant a watch from her upper windows this day as sister Ann in Blue-beard. Many a cloud of dust did she fancy she saw on the distant road; many a time did she tremble when any sound came over the brow of the opposite hills. All her hopes were fixed on the highway; all her fears upon the path to the churchyard. The safety of the concern, and perhaps of her husband, seemed to depend on whether the civil or rebellious force should arrive first. It was not long doubtful.
The crowd came pouring over the opposite ridge, not in order of march as they went, but pell-mell, brandishing clubs and shouting as if every man of them was drunk. In front was a horrid figure. It was the mother of the lad who had been placed in his grave without Christian burial. The funeral festival seemed likely to be as little Christian as the manner of interment, to judge from the frantic screams of his mother, and the gestures with which she pointed to the works as the scene where the people must gratify their revenge.
They made a sudden halt at the bottom of the hill, as if at the voice of a leader; and then, forming themselves rapidly into a compact body, they marched almost in silence, but with extreme rapidity, till they had surrounded the building they meant first to attack. The labourers in it had but just time to escape by a back way before the doors were down and a hundred hands busy within knocking the machinery to pieces, and gutting the place. This done, they went to a second and a third building, when there arose a sudden cry of “fire!” The leaders rushed out and saw indeed a volume of smoke making its way out of the doors and windows of one of the offices where the books were kept and the wages paid. The least ignorant among the rioters saw at a glance that this kind of destruction would ensure the total ruin of the iron-work and of all belonging to it. With vehement indignation they raised three groans for the incendiary, and hastened to put out the fire and save the books and papers. At the door they met the furious woman they had made one of their leaders, brandishing a torch and glorying in the act she had done. Her former companions looked full of rage, and shook their fists at her as they passed.
“Stop her! Lay her fast, or she will be the ruin of us all,” cried several voices. With some difficulty this was done, and the poor wretch conveyed to her own house and locked in.
It was a singular sight to see the gentlemen and Paul, and a portion of the mob labouring together at the fire, while the rest of the rioters were pushing their work of destruction, unresisted but by the small force of orderly work-people, which they soon put to flight. It was the aim of the leaders to show that they confined their vengeance to the machinery; but when vengeance once begins, there is no telling where it will stop. The very sight of the fire was an encouragement to the evil-disposed, and many thefts were committed and much violence done which had no connection with machinery.
Paul was among the most active of the defenders. Seeing that as many hands as could assist were engaged at the fire, he bethought himself of a building where there was a great deal of valuable machinery which was likely to fall a sacrifice if undefended. He ran thither and found all quiet. He locked himself in and began to barricade the windows. He had not half done when the rioters arrived, and, finding the door fastened, applied to the window. This was soon forced; but then Paul appeared with a huge iron bar, with which he threatened to break the sculls of all who came within reach. He stood at some height above them, so as to have greatly the advantage over them, and there was a moment’s pause. Some were for forcing the door, but they did not know how many iron bars might be ready there to fall on the heads of those who first entered. “Smoke them out!” was the cry at length, and half a dozen lighted torches were presently thrown in. Paul stamped out as many as he could reach with either foot; but while he was trying to do this with one which had already caught some light wood beside it, three men took advantage of his attention being divided to leap up to the window, wrench his bar from him, and fling it down below. Paul lost not his presence of mind for a moment. He snatched up a blazing torch in each hand, and thrust them in the faces of his enemies, who, not much relishing this kind of salute, jumped down again whence they came. “It is my turn to smoke out,” cried he; but this was his last act of defence. The three men had been long enough on the window to perceive that Paul was the entire garrison of the place; and while they kept up a show of attack at the window, the door was forced, and the building filled without resistance. When it was about half gutted, Paul thought he heard a welcome sound without above the crashing and cries within. It was the galloping of horse; and the sabres of soldiers were soon seen glittering in the red light from the fire. They rode up and surrounded the building, making Paul, who was still astride on the window, their first prisoner. He smiled at this, knowing he should soon be set free; but he was presently touched by the earnestness with which some of the guilty protested his innocence and begged his discharge. When one of the masters came up and had him released, he had a painful duty to perform in pointing out which of the people who remained cooped up in the place had been the most guilty. He was, however, sufficiently aware of its being a duty to do it without flinching; and he marked the men who had first broken the window, thrown the first torches, and burst in the door.
The work of destruction was now stopped; but the state of things was little less wretched than if it had continued. The partners were seen in gloomy conference with the commanding officer. The steady workmen, whose means of subsistence had been destroyed before their faces, stood with folded arms gazing on the smoke which slowly rose from the ruins. There was a dull silence in the empty building where the prisoners were guarded by a ring of soldiers, who sat like so many statues on their horses. At the houses of the partners there were sentinels at the gates and before the parlour windows, and the ladies within started every time a horse pawed the gravel walk. The anxious housekeeper, meantime, was trying to keep the frightened servants in order; for they had much to do in preparing refreshments for the soldiers. But, perhaps, the most wretched of all were those who hid their grief within their humble homes. The little children, who were forbidden by their mothers to stray beyond the rows of labourers’ cottages, came running in with tidings from time to time, and many times did the anxious wife, or sister, or mother, lift her head in the hope of hearing “Father is coming over the green,” or “John is safe, for here he is,” or “Now we shall hear all about it, for Will is telling neighbour so and so;” and as often was the raised head drooped again when the news was “Neighbour such-a-one is a prisoner,” or “Neighbour Brown is crying because her son is going to jail,” or “Mary Dale is gone down to try and get sight of her husband, if the soldiers will let her; for she won’t believe he set fire to any place.”
Again and again the children resolved, “I won’t go in to mother any more till she has done crying,” and again some fresh piece of bad news sent them in to make the tears flow afresh.
It was found that the prisoners could not be removed till the next day; and when food, and drink, and straw to sleep on was being supplied to them, it was melancholy to see how the relations of the men wandered about hoping to find means to speak to one or another. Many an entreaty was addressed to the soldiers just to be permitted to step up to the window between the horses, and see whether John, or Will, or George wanted anything or had anything to say. This could not of course be allowed; but it was long after dark before the last lingerer had shut herself into her cheerless home to watch for the morning.
That morning rose fair and bright as a June morning can be. Mr. Wallace opened the shutters of his drawing-room, where, with Mr. Bernard, he had passed the night, arranging plans for their next proceedings, and writing letters to their partners in London respecting the readiest mode of closing their concern; and to their law officers, respecting the redress which they should obtain for the injury done to their property. The crimson light of the dawn, the glittering of the dew on the shrubs, and the cheruping of the waking birds, were so beautiful a contrast to the lamp-light and silence within, that Mr. Wallace felt his spirits rise at once. They were at once depressed, however, when he saw the glancing of weapons in the first rays of the sun, and observed that the furnaces were out, and that all the scene, usually so busy, was as still as if it had been wasted by the plague. Manly as he was, and well as he had sustained himself and everybody about him till now, he could not bear these changes of feeling; and tears, of which he had no reason to be ashamed, rolled down his cheeks.
“You dread the sending off the prisoners,” said his partner. “So do I; and the sooner we can get it done the better.”
They therefore went out and saw that their sentinels were properly refreshed, and that every thing was prepared for their departure as speedily as might be. No one who walked about the place that morning could think for a moment that any further violence was to be apprehended. The most restless spirits were well guarded; and of those who were at large, all, the injurers and the injured, seemed equally subdued by sorrow and fear.
Just as the great clock of the works struck eight, a waggon drew up to the door of the building where the prisoners were confined. In a few minutes the whole population was on the spot. The soldiers kept a space clear, and obliged the people to form a half-circle, within which stood the partners and the commanding officer; and here the relations of each prisoner were allowed to come as he was brought out. The parting was so heart-breaking a scene that it was found necessary to shorten it; and for the sake of the prisoners themselves, it was ordered that they should only take one farewell embrace. Some took a shorter leave still; for there were wives and sisters—though not one mother—who would not own a relation in disgrace, and hid themselves when entreated by the prisoner to come and say “Farewell.” The entreaty was not in one instance repeated. A look of gloomy displeasure was all the further notice taken by the culprit as he mounted to his seat in the waggon.
At length, the last prisoner was brought out; the soldiers formed themselves round the waggon, and it drove off, amidst a chorus of lamentation from the crowd. Almost every face was turned to watch it till it was out of sight; but some few stole into the place which had lately been a prison, and sank down in the straw to hide their shame and their tears.
The partners thought that no time could be fitter than this for explaining to the assembled people the present state of affairs as it regarded them, and the prospect which lay before them. Mr. Wallace, who, as longest known to the people, had agreed to make this explanation, mounted to the window of a neighbouring building, and, while Mr. Bernard and his sons stood beside him, thus addressed the crowd below:—
“It is partly for our own sakes, though chiefly for yours, that we now offer to explain to you the condition and prospects of this concern. We still say, what we have often said, that we are accountable to no man for our manner of conducting our own affairs; but we wish you clearly to understand why we close our iron-work, in order that you may see that we cannot help doing so, and that it is through no act of ours that so many industrious and sober labourers are turned out of work in one day. We make this explanation for your sakes; because we hope that those among you who have been guilty of the intention, if not the deed of riot, will learn the folly as well as the sin of such proceedings, and that those who are innocent will train up their children in such a knowledge of facts as will prevent their ever bringing destruction on themselves and others by such errors as have ruined our concern.
“When we came here to settle, an agreement was made, in act if not in words, between the two classes who hoped to make profit out of these works. You offered your labour in return for a subsistence paid out of our capital. We spent the money we and our fathers had earned in buying the estate, building the furnaces, making or improving roads, and paying the wages which were your due. Both parties were satisfied with an agreement by which both were gainers, and hoped that it would long be maintained without difficulty or misunderstanding. No promise was or could reasonably be made as to how long the labour should be furnished on the one side and the capital on the other, in the same proportions; for it was impossible for either party to tell what might happen to the other.other. It was possible that so great a demand for labour might take place in some other manufacture as to justify your asking us for higher wages, or leaving us if we did not think proper to give them. It was equally possible that the prices of our manufacture might fall so as to justify us in lowering your wages, or in getting a part of our work done without your assistance.
“Nothing was said, therefore, about the length of time that your labour and our capital were to work together: and it was well that there was not; for in time both the changes happened that I have described. First, the demand for labour increased so much that you asked higher wages, which we cheerfully gave, because the prosperous state of trade pointed them out as your due. After a while the opposite change took place. Demand declined, prices fell, and we could not afford to give you such high wages, and you agreed to take less, and again less, as trade grew worse. So far both parties were of one mind. Both felt the change of times, and were sorry on account of all; but neither supposed that the other could have helped the misfortune. The point on which they split—unhappily for both—was the introduction of new machinery.”
Here there was a murmur and bustle among the people below, which seemed to betoken that they were unwilling to hear. Some, however, were curious to know what Mr. Wallace would say, and cried “Silence!” “Hush!” with so much effect that the speaker was soon able to proceed.
“As no profit can be made, no production raised from the ground, or manufactured in the furnace or the loom, or conveyed over land and sea, without the union of capital and labour, it is clear that all attempts to divide the two are foolish and useless. As all profit is in proportion to the increase of labour and capital, as all the comforts every man enjoys become more common and cheap in proportion as these two grow in amount, it is clear that it must be for the advantage of everybody that labour and capital should be saved to the utmost, that they may grow as fast as possible. The more capital and labour, for instance, there is spent upon procuring and preparing mahogany, the more cheap will be mahogany tables and chairs, and the more common in the cottages of the working classes. In the same way, broad-cloth was once a very expensive article, because very few attempted to manufacture it; but now, when many more capitalists have set up their manufactories of broad-cloth, and much more labour is spent upon it, every decent man has his cloth coat for Sundays. In like manner the more capital and labour can be saved to be employed in the iron-trade, the cheaper and more common will iron be: and if it can be an evil to us that it is already cheaper, we must find a remedy in making it more common, more extensively used, so that the quantity we sell may make up for the lowering of the price. It is plain, then, that all economy of capital and labour is a good thing for everybody in the long run. How is this saving to be effected?
“Capital is made to grow by adding to it as much as can be spared of the profit it brings. We all know that if a hundred pounds bring in five pounds’ interest at the year’s end, and if two of the five pounds only are spent, the capital of the next year will be a hundred and three pounds, and the interest five pounds, three shillings; and so on, increasing every year. This is the way capital grows by saving. Labour does not grow by saving in like manner; but methods of improving and economizing it have been found, and more are invented every year. Labour is saved by machinery, when a machine either does what man cannot do so well, or when it does in a shorter time, or at a less expense, the work which man can do equally well in other respects. This last was the case with our new machinery. It did not, like the furnaces and rollers, do what man could not do; but it did in a quicker and cheaper manner what man had hitherto done. It was a saving of labour; and as all saving of labour is a good thing, our machinery was a good thing.
“You wish to interrupt me, I see. You wish to say that though it is a good thing for us capitalists, it is not for you labourers. Hear me while I show you the truth. If we could have brought back the state of the world to what it was four years ago; if we could have made the foreign iron-works melt into air, and some nearer home sink into the ground; if we could have made the demand what it once was, and have raised the prices to the highest ever known, you would not have cared whether we put up machinery or not, because there would have been employment enough for everybody notwithstanding. You care for it now because it throws some people out of work; but you should remember, that it has also kept many busy who must be idle, now that it is destroyed. We should be as glad as you if there was work enough for all the men and all the machinery together that our concern could contain; but when changes which we could not prevent or repair brought before us the question whether we should employ two-thirds of our people with machinery, or none without, we saw it to be for the interest of all to set up our new labourers in the midst of the grumblings of the old. We tell you plainly that we could not have employed any of you for the last six months, but for the saving caused by the new machinery; and that, now it is gone, we can employ none of you any longer.
“You may say that the county will repair our losses, and that we may soon build up what is destroyed, and go on as before. It is true that the damages must be paid out of the public fund; but it is not so true that a remedy will thus be found for the distress which violence has brought upon you. The state of trade being what it is, and confidence being so completely destroyed between the two parties to the original contract, there is little encouragement to enter on a new one. My partner and his family will depart immediately. I shall remain with a very few men under me to assist in disposing of our stock, and to wind up the concern; and then this place, lately so busy, and so fruitful of the necessaries and comforts of life to so many hundred persons, will present a melancholy picture of desertion and ruin. If, in after years, any of your descendants, enriched by the labours of generations, should come hither and provide the means of enriching others, may they meet with more success than we have done! May they have to do with men informed respecting the rights and interests of society, as happy in their prosperity as you once were, and more patient and reasonable in adversity!
“If these should ever inquire respecting the transactions of this day, it will strike them that the revenge which you have snatched—for I am told you call it revenge—is as foolish as it is wicked. Of all the parties concerned in this outrage, your masters suffer the least—though their sufferings are not small—and yourselves the most. Your occupation is gone; the public resources, to which many here have contributed, must be wasted in repairing the damage intended for us; and worst of all, disgrace and the penalties of the law await many with whom you are closely connected. Having enjoyed from their birth the security and various benefits of the social state, they have thought fit to forfeit their privileges by a breach of the laws; and they must take the consequences. How many of the guilty are now mourning that those consequences cannot be confined to themselves! How many—but I will not pursue this subject further, for I see you cannot bear it. I only entreat those of you who hold your children by the hand, and see them wondering at the mournful solemnities of this day, to impress upon them that the laws must be obeyed, and to assure them from your own experience that, however sad undeserved poverty may be, it is easily endurable in comparison with the thought which will haunt some of you to your dying day—‘my own hands have brought this misery upon myself, and upon those who lookup to me for bread.’
“I have only to add that which it may be a satisfaction to some of you to know, that we freely forgive to such the injury they have meditated against us. We are indeed too deeply concerned for your misfortunes to have much thought to bestow upon our own. Farewell.”
The people slowly and silently dispersed, and few showed their faces abroad again that day.
Paul was one of the very few whom his employer selected to remain with him till the stock should be sold off and the concern closed. The Jones family had been one of the first to depart of the many who were gone to seek employment and a home. They settled in the place where their sons were apprenticed to different trades, and where they had a good name for honesty, industry, and prudence. The fund which they had saved in better days was sufficient to maintain them for some time, if, as was not likely, people so respectable should find it difficult to obtain employment. They left Paul in possession of their cottage, as he was unwilling to shift his work-bench, or leave off cutting corks till the last moment.
As he was thus employed late one evening, Mr. and Mrs. Wallace came to him. Mr. Wallace had heard from a friend of his engaged in a neighbouring iron-work, who wished to know whether an able over-looker could be recommended to him from among those who would be thrown out by the closing concern. Mr. Wallace was glad of this opportunity of securing a good situation for Paul, to whom he felt himself greatly indebted for his conduct during the riots, and whom he knew to be competent to the duties of such an office. Paul was duly obliged by this offer, but requested time to consider of it, as he had already the choice of two modes of investing his little capital,—one in a shop in London, and another in a Birmingham concern.
Mr. Wallace was surprised at the good fortune which placed before one man, in days like these, three employments to choose out of. Paul answered with a stern smile, that he owed it to his reputation of being a miser; misers having two good qualifications for partnership,—the possession of money, and a close attachment to the main chance.
“I wish I could see any aim in this desperate pursuit of money,” said Mr. Wallace, gravely.
Paul answered by going into the inner room and bringing out the picture which hung there.
“Can you guess who that is?” said he.
“It has occurred to me that it might be yourself; but I can trace little or no likeness now.”
“No wonder,” said Paul, looking at his blackened hands and sordid dress. “It is not myself, however, but a brother,—an only, elder brother, who died when I was twenty, and he twenty-one, just entering on the enjoyment of his property.”
“And did that property come to you?” asked Mrs. Wallace, in surprise.
“Every acre of it, with the mansion you see there. I lost it all by gaming and other pleasures—pleasures indeed!—and in ten years was sitting in rags, without a crust in my wallet, as beggars usually have, on yonder hill where I traced the map of my future fortunes. I have an aim, sir. It is to get back that estate; to plant an oak for every one that has been felled; and to breed a buck for every one that has been slain since the gates were shut upon me for a graceless profligate.”
“Do you think you should be able to enjoy your property if you got it back again?” asked Mr. Wallace. “Or, perhaps, there is some family connexion to whom you wish to restore it by will?”
“Neither the one nor the other,” replied Paul. “I have not a relation in the world; and I see as clearly as you can do, that I shall be by that time too confirmed in my love of money to enjoy the pleasures of a fine estate. I shall screw my tenants, and grudge my venison, and sell all the furniture of the house but that of two rooms.”
“Then do propose to yourself some more rational object?” said Mrs. Wallace, kindly. “Let those have your estate who can enjoy it, and leave off accumulating money before it is too late. As soon as you have enough to buy and furnish a cottage, and afford a small income, give up business, and occupy yourself with books, and politics, and works of benevolence, and country sports and employments; with anything that may take off your attention from the bad pursuit which is ruining your health, and your mind, and your reputation.”
“If you do not,” said Mr. Wallace, “I shall wish, as the best thing that could happen to you, that you may lose all your gains.”
Paul raised his clenched fist, and ground his teeth at the mention of such a possibility. Mrs. Wallace turned pale at such a symptom of passion; but she thought it right to add,—
“You have twice had warning of the fleeting nature of riches. You have lost your own fortune, and seen the prosperity of this place overthrown. If you still make wealth your god, I hope you prepare yourself to find it vanish when you need it most. I hope you picture to yourself what it will be to die destitute of that for which alone you have lived.”
“Yet this,” added her husband, “is a better lot than to live and die miserable in the possession of that for which alone he has lived. Take your choice, Paul; for the one lot or the other will be yours unless you make a grand effort now.”
Paul was not inclined to dispute this; but he was not, therefore, the more disposed to make the effort. He was pronounced by everybody a man of strong character. Whatever pride he had in himself was in his strength of character. Yet he was weak,—weak as an idiot,—in the most important point of all.
He was once seen to smile compassionately on the perseverance of a little child who laboured through a whole sultry day in digging a little pond in his garden. By the time it was finished, and before it could be filled, it was bed-time, and a rainy night rendered it useless.
When Paul despised the labour of this child, he little thought how his own life would resemble that sultry day. He, too, spent his sunshiny hours in laborious preparation; and fell into his long sleep to find on waking that his toil had been in vain.
When the Wallaces at length took their final leave of the place, they alighted at Armstrong’s, on their way, to say farewell. The old man was, as usual, in his garden.
“Are you the last, the very last?” said he.
“Except two or three workmen and servants who stay to pack a few things and lock up our house.”
“I hope then they will take down yonder clock which sounds to me like a funeral bell.”
“Can you hear it so far as this?”
“O yes. Hark! It is beginning to strike noon. I used to like its stroke when it brought the work-people flocking from their cottages in the morning, or when they came pouring out as it told their dinner hour. But now it only puts one in mind of days that are gone, and I shall be glad when it is down.”
“You do then see something to regret in the days you speak of?” said Mr. Wallace. “This is more than I expected from you.
“I might not say so, perhaps,” returned the old man, “if yonder valley could be made what it once was. But that can never be; and there is no comparison between a settlement where art and industry thrive, and a greater number of human beings share its prosperity every year, and a scene like that, where there is everything to put one in mind of man but man himself.”
“And where,” said Mr. Wallace, “we are chiefly reminded of the ignorance and folly to which the change is owing. I should wish for your sake that we could raze all those buildings, and make the ground a smooth turf as it was before, if I did not hope that the works might be reopened,—though not by us,—in happier days.”
“I should be more glad to see such a day than I was to witness that which brought you here,” said the old man. “But my sands are nearly run; and, even if nobody shakes the glass, I can scarcely hope that anything will bring you back within my hour. But come,” he added, swallowing his emotion, “where’s your lady?”
“Gone to speak to Mrs. Margaret. Will you gather her a bunch of your flowers before we go?”
“Aye, and a choice one; for she is a choice flower herself,” said the old man. “From the hour that one saw her walking over the heath in the wintry wind in her cloak and thick shoes to show a poor neighbour how to manage a new-dropt calf, I pronounced you, sir, a happy man. Whatever fortune betides you, you will find a companion and helper in her.”
Mrs. Wallace appeared in time to put a stop to further praise of herself. She had left Mrs. Margaret engaged in admiration of a painting by the lady’s own hands, which she wished to leave as a remembrance, and which henceforth ornamented the chimney-piece of the cottage, and occasioned more discourse than any other possession they had ever had.
Armstrong handed the lady gently down to the chaise. When it was out of sight, he was a long time tethering the gate; and the housekeeper observed that he drew his hand across his eyes as he turned into his orchard plot.