Читать книгу Ben o' Bill's, the Luddite: A Yorkshire Tale - D. F. E. Sykes - Страница 8

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IT WAS not often my father missed the Audit Dinner at the Dartmouth Arms, but for some reason I do not remember, he could not go to the November Audit of 1811. So I went in his place, as was but my due, seeing that in the course of time and nature the homestead would be mine, and I tenant to my lord in my father’s stead. So to the dinner I went in great state and no little fluster, having donned my Sunday clothes, and showing as fine a leg (though I say it that should not) as ever passed Slaithwaite Church. I went by the churchyard corner where old Mr. Meeke rested in his grave, and I did not fail to doff my beaver, for was I not taught all I ever knew at the Free School, founded by Mr. Meeke, and I was, too, ever a lover of the Church, though we had joined the Hard–bedders. There had been a wedding that day, and I should have been there, but none were invited save only family friends, owing to times being so bad. Jack o’ Jamie’s had wed Sue Lumb, and I knew Jack o’ Jamie’s and Sue both, as indeed I knew every mother’s son and lass in Slaithwaite; and my mother could tell their pedigree for generations back. Opposite the door of the Dartmouth Arms I came across a crowd different from ordinary, for in the midst was Jack donned in his Sunday best, and a great white rosette at his breast, and there was Sue with a white veil over her head and clinging to Jack’s arm and crying and coaxing, and Jack fuming and swearing and waving his arms and shaking his fist at his own father. Sure a rare sight for a wedding day, and I stayed to hear what might be the meaning of it all. I knew Jack for a decent, hard working lad that kept his father, a drunken neer–do–weel, from the rates. Old Jamie had a hang–dog look to be sure, as he kept away from his son’s reach and cowered behind his new daughter–in–law.

“It’s too bad,” Jack was crying, “It’s too bad; yo’ all know ’at awn kept mi father awmost even sin’ aw could addle a meg, an’ him doing nowt but tidy th’ house up an’ go a rattin’ with th’ dog an’ happen bring a rabbit home betimes—an’ aw never grudged him owt, for he’s mi own father, an’ mi mother ’at’s dead an’ gone left him to me. But, its too bad aw say—gise ’ang, it ud make a worm turn—here its mi wedding day, an’ aw thowt we’d have a bite an’ sup by ordinar. So aw off to Ned o’ Bill’s an’ bowt three p’und o’ good wheat flour, tho’ it’s well known, what price it’s at, an’ ill aw could spare th’ brass. But a felly doesn’t get wed every day. We calc’lated it ud mak ten cakes, an’ that ud be one round apiece an’ two to put bye for Sunday. Mi father baked ’em hissen three days sin’, for we thowt we munnot eit ’em till they were stale, new uns crumble so—an’ aw bowt a piece of th’ skirt o’ beef at lay me in five good shillin’—so when aw set off to take Sue here to th’ chuch aw left mi father to watch th’ beef afore t’ fire, an’ we borrowed some plates an’ knives an’ forks an’ three chairs, for aw thowt we’d all have a feast at ’ud make th’ weddin’ party remember mi weddin’ day as long as they lived. An’ after th’ knot wer’ teed an’ we were walkin’ th’ village so all could see what a lass awd gotten, we just looked in at th’ house door to see if th’ meat were nearly done—an would yo’ believe it, th’ owd glutton ’ud supped welly a gallon o’ th’ weddin’ ale an’ were wipin’ his chops wi t’ back o’ his coat sleeve, ’at weren’t his own, but borrowed o’ mi uncle Ben; an’ ther’ were nobbut four cakes left an’ a good p’und cut off th’ joint an’ th’ pan as bare o’ gravy as if it had been new scoured. Oh! tha’ brussen guts; if tha’ weren’t mi own father!” And here Jack shook his fist over Jamie’s head, and Sue tried to turn aside his wrath and to play the peace–maker, as a good woman ever will.

“For shame o’ thissen,” said one; “It ’ud sarve thi reight to put thee i’ th’ stocks,” said another; “Let’s stang him,” a woman cried. “Many a decent body’s been cucked for less,” said Moll o’ Stuarts, who knew what the cucking stool meant full well. And all felt that Jamie Thewlis had done as scurvy a trick as ever he had done in a scurvy life. Even those that drank with him, the loafers and vagabonds of the village, got to the outskirts of the crowd, and left him alone to his defence.

“Yo’ see it were this way,” said Thewlis, when he could get a hearing. “Th’ table’ wor set all ready for th’ weddin’ party. Aw’d laid a clean cloth on th’ table. There were a plate an’ a knife an’ fork for every one that were comin’. Th’ house were tidied up an’ as clean yo’ could had etten yor dinner off th’ floor. Then Jack started off to fetch Susan. Th’ cakes were on th’ table, one bi each plate. Aw put th’ joint on th’ jack afore th’ fire just as he’d told me bi th’ clock. Then aw set me dahn to watch it. It wor a grand joint. Aw could ha’ fair hugged it when aw took it up, so plump an’ red and firm, wi’ streaks o’ fat runnin’ in an’ among th’ lean like rivers o’ cream in a bank o’ strawberries. Th’ fire were just reight, banked down an’ hot, an’ aw ca–ered me dahn first o’ one side o’ th’ hearth an’ then on t’ other, an’ began to watch th’ hands o’ t’ clock an’ wish it wor dinner time. Dinner time it were bi reights, but we’d put th’ dinner back so’s Jim an’ his frien’s could walk through th’ village. Then th’ skin o’ th’ joint began to crack, an’ th’ fat to fizzle an’ ooze ‘aat an spit. Aw looked at th’ clock. Aw’ll swear th’ han’s hedn’t moved for half–an–hour, an’ yet it were tickin’ reg’lar—aw nivver felt hauf as hungry i’ mi life afore. Aw’d had no breakfas’, for awd said to mi sen it ’ud nivver do to shame yar Jack’s weddin’ dinner bi not doin’ reight bi it. Then all at once th’ jack gay’ a click an’ summut splurted aat, an’ all at once there wer’ a smell at fair made mi belly leap inside me. But aw’d promised yar Jack at aw’d do fair—so aw went to th’ cellar–head to see if ther’ wer’ happen a crust or owt to stay mi innards, but ther’ wer’ nowt. Then ther’ wer’ another click, an’ another spurt, an’ th’ room wer’ fair full o’ th’ smell. It awmost turned me dizzy. Aw looked at th’ clock agen, an’ guise ’ang me, if th’ hand had stirred aboon an inch, an’ dinner seemed as far off as ivver. Then aw thowt awd fetch th’ ale. So aw got th’ jug an’ a milkin’ can an’ started off to th’ Globe. Aw tried hard to strap a gill, but th’ owd skin–flint wouldn’t trust me. Aw’d awmost talked her into it when t’ thowt cam’ into mi head at happen one o’ th’ naybors ’at hedn’t bin axed to th’ weddin’ might be after th’ joint; an’ aw span home as fast as aw could for fear o’ spillin’. Then when aw oppened th’ door ther’ war’ a fair blast o’ th’ smell o’ gravy right i’ mi face. It just took mi breath away, an’ aw had to tak’ a pull at th’ jug to steady misen. That heartened me up a bit, an’ aw just took one o’ th’ cakes, mi own at wer’ to be an’ set i’ my own place at th’ table, so it were no robbery,—an aw put it i’ th’ pan under th’ meat; an’, by gow, it wer’ a sop an’ gradely. Aw think aw mun ha’ put too much salt on it, for aw felt as dry as a lime–kiln. Then aw had another swig at th’ jug, an’ looked aat for th’ weddin’, but aw could see no’ signs on ’em. Then aw bethowt me at th’ fiddler were’ nobbut a little un, an’ could mak’ hauf a cake do, so aw made hauf a sop. Then th’ gravy began to run red an’ brown into th’ pan, an’ ow knew th’ meat wer’ near enuff—an’ still ther’ wer’ no signs o’ anybody. Howsomever, aw thought my share shouldn’t be spoiled for any tomfoolery such as walkin’ th’ village wi’ a lass o’ my arm, as if yo’ couldn’t do that ony time. So aw just cut a slice aat an’ put it on a shive an et it o’ mi knee, an’ had a swallow out o’ th’ piggin’ to make it equal wi’ th’ jug. Then aw thowt aw meight as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, an’ aw ate mi fill. Tha’ ma’ poise me, Jack, if tha’ likes, but tha’ll noan poise th’ meat out o’ me, that’s one comfort. It’s th’ first time for six months ’at mi back an’ mi belly ha’ not shakken hands, an’ aw’ll ta’ thi poisin’, an’ thank yo’ for it.”

But long before Jamie had done his story he was out of danger of a hiding. There was not one there that did not feel hungry with the very story, and the party trudged homewards with a laugh and a cheer to make out as best they could on what was left—Jamie, forgiven and impenitent, not last in the joking throng.

The partition of the upper story of the Dartmouth Arms had been removed, and thereby room was made for the poorer tenantry who came this year in great numbers, many there being who came to plead the hard times and escape their remit, but joined in the rude scramble for the thick slices of meat and bread and the brimming pewters that were their yearly gift from the lord. But in the long room, on the top floor, was more decent seeming and good manners; for the tenants of the larger holdings at that time paid to the host of the inn each man eighteenpence that there might be a well–spread board. Mr. Joseph Scott, who lived at Woodsome (none of my lord’s family being then in residence), did sit at the head of the table, and gave us the health of the king, which we drank with a good will, for there was none that did not grieve for the old man so sore stricken in his latter days. Then did Mr. Scott call upon us to toast His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, and many did drink the health with a hip, hip, hurrah but for my part, though I hate to waste good liquor, I poured my ale into the spitoon, for stories not a few had come to our ears of the wild doings of the Prince and of his cruel treatment of his consort. Mr. Fox, to be sure, and other leaders of the Whigs in Parliament, did excuse the wildness of the Prince, and some did even bear a railing tongue against the hapless princess; but for me, who am perhaps too little learned to judge of princes and courts, I deemed such naughtiness should not be in high places more than in men of less degree, and my loyalty went into the sawdust. But I took a double draughty to the health of my lord and his lady.

There was no lack of subjects for our tongues to wag upon when the ale had loosed them, and a well–lined waist set the oil of gladness on our faces. There was, for one, the never failing theme of Lord Wellington’s doings among the Dons. But a few days previous, General Marmont had raised the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, and our spirits had been greatly stirred by the discovery of one of his dispatches, in which he boasted that he would have pursued the British forces to the lines of Lisbon “if the moment designed for the catastrophe of England had arrived.” That put our English up, and was as good as a score of recruiting sergeants to our army. Catastrophe, we knew well, might come to us as it has done to other nations; but never, we vowed, should or could it come through a frog–eating Frenchman. We gladly turned from that topic to news nearer home. There was the great fight at Thissleton Gap, for instance, which showed what British grit and muscle and pluck could do; and we were all ready to wager all we had that if you searched France from north to south you could find no champion like Crib, who had near been the death of Molineux in a fight near Grantham, breaking his jaw, and leaving him senseless on the field. There had not been a bed to be had for love or money for twenty miles round Thissleton Gap the night before the fight, said the “Leeds Mercury,” and all the nobility and gentry of the county had been there; and after his great victory Crib, carrying away a purse of £400, had driven to London in a carriage and four, the postillions decked with blue ribands and streamers, and the whole populace in every town and hamlet by the way turning out to cheer the wearer of the belt. Then, too, there was much talk of the progress making with the cutting of the new canal that was to tie the eastern and the western seas; and we had not yet done marvelling at the boring of the waterway under Stanedge. Then, again, we must gossip to one another anent that strange portent of the skies, the wondrous comet, that still made our early morns so beautiful and yet so fraught with dread. The wise men said its tail was over twenty million miles long, as it streamed away from Charles’s Wain across the distant sky, and Mr. Mellor, the schoolmaster, did try to show me how the calculation had been made; whilst Mr. Varley, of the corn mill, who had a merry wit, did say that coals would soon be cheaper, for the Welsh were counting on the comet coming so near, they might toast their cheese by it. Mr. Mellor was somewhat ruffled that his serious discourse should be turned to levity, and said that as perchance Mr. Varley could not be expected to understand the deep subtleties of astronomy, he would try him on a subject nearer his heart.

“I will, to–morrow,” said Mr. Mellor, “bring to your house twenty golden guineas, and in return you shall give me your written bond to give me therefor, one grain of good wheat, two grains and no more on the day following, four on the next, and so on each day thereafter for six months by the calendar, every day doubling the number of the day before.”

“Done, and done to it,” cried Mr. Varley, and all the company exclaimed that so rare a bargain the miller never made in his life before and for an hour after that I saw Mr. Varley was doing sums in his head, and chuckling feebly to himself but in time he ceased to laugh, and his brow wrinkled and his eye was anxious, and he was seen to add figures secretly in his bulky pocket–book, and ever as he worked he grew sadder; till at length he cried that not all the corn that grew that year in Yorkshire could pay his wager, and he was fain to fill our measures round with best ale to be quit of his bargain. And all that went away sober that night told their wives how the schoolmaster had bested the miller, and were the more resolved their lads should mind their books and be good at figuring. And I was very glad that my old master had come off with so great credit, for Mr. Varley, by reason of being the lord’s agent, was something prone to give himself an air.

But Mr. Webster was not too pleased that Mr. Varley should have jested of the comet. It had exercised him sore in the searching of the Scriptures, and oftentimes had he pointed to its presence in the heavens, and many a restless night had he given to my mother.

Mr. Webster would have it that the comet did foretell the coming of the Son of Man in a cloud with power and great glory, and the good man rejoiced thereat, seeing nought to cause us grief, but rather joy, that there were “great earthquakes in divers places, and famines and pestilences, and fearful sights and great signs from heaven.” And he would exultingly call us to witness the fulfilment of prophesy for that there were signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which were coming on earth. But my mother lived to laugh at her fears, and even to wear a dress that became the fashion, of which the body was of pale red silk, a star of gold thread standing for the comet’s head, and a fan shaped tail of silver spangles spreading out in likeness of the comet’s tail.

It was my great honour after the dinner, and whilst the company sat over their cups, to be invited to the head of the table by Mr. Joseph Scott, of Woodsome, who was then lately become a magistrate, a handsome man of some forty years. He asked most kindly after the health of my father and mother, and bade the tapster who waited on the upper end of the table charge me a bumper of the wine of Oporto, which did fill my heart with a great warmth. Then when I would have returned to my seat by the schoolmaster he bade me remain, and I listened with all my ears to the talk of my betters. I noticed that Mr. Scott spoke mostly with Mr. William Horsfall, of Marsden. I knew Mr. Horsfall well by sight, having seen him often on the road as he went to or returned from market, a man in his prime, with a keen, resolute look; not easily turned from his purpose, I warrant you. Impatient of opposition, I judged him even then, brusque, and a little petulant, but not unkindly of heart as I had heard, for those that worked for him had ever a good name for him—but a masterful man.

The talk between these two was much of the coolness there then was between America and England. Mr. Horsfall was very bitter about this. “It is all the fault of those accursed Orders in Council,” he said. “Before our benighted Government issued the Orders in Council, America took twelve million pounds worth of our manufactures—now not one penny–worth. Withdraw the Orders and you conciliate America; you bind her to us by the closest tie of all, the tie of self–interest. So long as these Orders remain in force it is futile to talk of negotiations. It is beating the air. We are alienating our own flesh and blood, we are running grave risk of having another enemy on our hands, and that of our own household, our cousins if not our brothers. Here are we pulling our own nose to spite Napoleon’s face. It is suicidal, it is criminal!”—and I know not how many other hard names Mr. Horsfall hurled at the poor Government whilst Mr. Scott, with the ink scarce dry on his commission, fidgetted in his seat and was, I thought, hard put to it to defend the Government. At last when Mr. Horsfall grew more vehement in his denunciation of ministers, Mr. Scott bade him remember that it was the Whigs who in January, 1807, issued the first counterblast to Napoleon’s Berlin Decree; and then did these two Englishmen, the one a Whig and the other a Tory, get so warm about Whiggery and Toryism that I had much to do to get to the truth of the matter. In a lull of the storm I did so far presume upon the great condescension that Mr. Scott had shewn to me, for my father’s sake, as to ask him what these same Orders in Council might be, and how they bore upon us humble folk in Slaithwaite, for save that every one did speak of them as the cause of much of our bad trade and sore distress, I knew little for certain about them. “You must know then,” explained Mr. Scott, “that in 1806 Napoleon issued from Berlin a proclamation, addressed to all the world, declaring the island of Great Britain in a state of blockade, all British subjects, wherever found, prisoners of war, and all British goods, wherever taken, lawful prize, and excluding from all the ports of France every vessel which had touched at any British port, no matter to what nation such vessel might belong.”——

“But surely, sir,” I said timidly, for I knew little of such great matters, “surely, that was to declare war on all the countries of the world.”

“‘Rem acu tetigisti’—thou hast touched the point with a pin,” cried Mr. Mellor, who had drawn near, whereat I blushed mightily, for I knew a little of the Latin, thank to much persistence of my good dominie, and by this time all the company had ceased their jesting and coffing and idle gossip, and all ears were cocked to hear what Mr. Scott and our neighbour Horsfall were so hot about.

“Then did the Whig Government,” continued Mr. Scott, triumphantly, “issue an Order in Council, declaring that England was authorized by the Berlin Decree to blockade the whole seaboard of France; to prohibit all vessels which had touched at a French port from entering our harbours, and making their cargoes fair prize. It was that Order which estranged America, and has made it so that all our foreign trade has been cut off as with a knife.”

“Nay but,” said Mr. Horsfall, “you should not forget to say that Mr. Percival, your Tory minister, has not only continued the Order but extended it; that the Whigs have admitted the error of their policy, that petition after petition has gone from the manufacturers of Yorkshire, praying for a Repeal of the Order’s, and that Mr. Brougham is never weary striving for that good end. But we know how it is—the war may ruin us manufacturers, but it pays the landowner. It keeps up the price of corn and stock, it finds pay and promotion for the young bloods of the aristocracy, it distracts the minds of the people at home from domestic reforms, it keeps up the hideous system of privilege, by which peer and prelate batten on the spoils of a people oppressed to the limits of endurance, and it is mighty convenient to keep Napoleon as a bogy man to frighten the people withal when they cry for reform.” And then did these two good men at it again hammer and tongs, and others joined in, and the ale and the wine talked louder than sense and knowledge, and you could make neither head nor tail of all the talk. But presently they simmered down, and Mr. Horsfall was drinking to the health of Mrs. Scott, whom he vowed he knew when she was the beauty of Storthes Hall, as if nothing had come between them to raise a dust, and all the more that, as good chance would have it, they hit on a subject on which they had little variance.

“I hear,” said Mr. Scott, “that you are trying these new finishing frames of the Taylor’s, at Ottiwell’s.”

“I am that,” said Mr. Horsfall, “and well content I am with them. They finish the cloth better far than the best croppers ever did or could, and one machine can do the work of four men.”

“Then you will need less men,” said Mr. Scott, “and this is no time to be sacking men—I remember what happened twenty years ago when Grimshaw, of Manchester, arranged with Dr. Cartwright, the new Bishop Blaize as they called him, to set up four hundred looms at Manchester to be run by a steam engine. Grimshaw received hundreds of threatening letters, he was fired at more than once, his wife nearly fell into a decline from constant fear, and just when the mill was built, for four hundred looms, and part of the machines were in, mill and looms and all were swallowed up in a fire, and who made the fire you may well guess. It ruined Grimshaw, and now he goes about saying he wishes Bishop Blaize had been in blazes ’fore ever he had tempted him with his fine stories. But you Whigs will never be content with the wisdom of our forefathers. You must have something new fangled, either in mill or state“—and so they off again into politics; and having promised my mother to be home by milking time, and fearful if I stayed longer the fumes of the tobacco and the wine would be too much for an unseasoned head, I took my leave of Mr. Scott and won my way into the open air.

By the stepping–stones that crossed the river, who should I see but Soldier Jack and a merry party that had been out with the harriers. They had come trooping down Kitchen Fold from over Crosland Moor way, and were in high feather, shouting and singing, while the hounds bayed in chorus. Soldier Jack was no man’s lad, a bye–blow. He had been left on the Workhouse steps tied in a bundle, and nought to show who was his father or who his mother. Then when he was a lad of ten years old the Overseer had ’prenticed him out to a shoemaker in Huddersfield, but he had been a sore trial to his master—disappearing and appearing when he liked, and neither fair words nor the strap, of which his master was not sparing if Jack spoke truth, availing to make him follow the old adage and stick to the last. Then one fine day the recruiting sergeant, in all his bravery, had put up at the Rose and Crown, and called on all gallant lads to take the king’s shilling and fight for glory and their country. “That’s the colour for me to dye,” thought Jack, and braving the law, which would have laid him by the heels for breaking his writings, he ’listed in a foot regiment, and was off for the wars with a heart as light as the heels he showed his master. Then many a year passed. Jack was unseen and forgotten in the haunts of his youth, when lo! he appeared, from God knows where, straight as a picking rod, brown as a berry, minus the left arm, and with a limp of his right leg; but otherwise sound as a bell and tight as a drum. He had some money, in the coinage of all the countries of Europe well nigh; and, as I heard tell, right royally did Jack live while his money lasted. He had no fixed quarters in the early days of his return from the wars, but of recent years he had dwelt much among the Burn Platters, an uncanny race of outlaws that some said were Frenchmen and some said were gypsies, that lived at Burn Platts on the moors on the edge of Slaithwaite, and of whose savagery and evil ways many stories were told. But Soldier Jack ever kept himself spruce and trim, and was a welcome visitor at every house on all that country side. How he lived none did know for gospel. At times in his cups he talked mysteriously of golden crosses and rare stones that he had lighted on in the sack of holy houses in Spain; but this, I think, was mere embroidery of his adventures. Lord! what a life had been Soldier Jack’s—what sieges he had seen, what pitched battles he had fought in, what prisoners he had taken, what forlorn hopes he had led, what distressed damsels he had rescued, how many haughty hidalgos he had slain with his own hand! Even Lord Wellington himself had been under obligation to him, and he had all but seized with his own hands the awful person of Napoleon himself. How he lived I say I know not. Belike he had some small pension from the king. At haymaking time, too, he turned a good cock and an honest penny, despite his one arm. He never missed a market or a fair, could be trusted above the common to carry a message, and was something of a farrier. But set job he had none, and yet never wanted. To be sure he had free quarters in nigh every hostelry all the country round, and if truth were told could hang up his hat when he would, for good and all, at the Black Bull; for widow Walker, who kept that house, was known to be widowing, and a fair and buxom dame withal.

Now on this night of the Rent Audit Soldier Jack was pleased to leave the hunters and walk homewards with me, though his comrades were clamorous for him to join them in another bout at the ale. Though times were never so bad, it went hard with the weavers if they could not leave their shuttles and follow the hounds; and somehow they had ever wherewith to guzzle at the inn. But Jack was maybe wearied with the trail, and we took our way past the church and up the hill towards Holm. For some short distance Jack walked with never a word, though I wanted news of the hunt, where they had killed, and whose hound showed the truer scent. Then without prelude Jack began.

“Ben, I want a word with thee. You and me has ever been friends, and your mother, God bless her, ever the soft word and the open hand. And yo’r father, a good man, though over hard on the slips o’ youth”—now Jack was forty if a week—“But there are things brewing it is right yo’ should know on; for them tha’s ’kin to yo’ are like to be tangled in em.”

“Whatever do yo’ mean, Jack?” I asked, trying to speer at him in the gloom, for I thought maybe the ale had got into his head.

“There’s a deal o’ sufferin’ about these parts, Ben. More nor yo’ think on. Yo’ happen think ’at because th’ lads about are after th’ hounds an’ have a bit to spend on drink ’at they’re better off nor they are. But yo’ see I’m more about nor yo’ an’ more intimate like. Folk is sellin’ their bits o’ stuff quiet like. Mony a decent woman ’at wouldn’t have it known has sent me wi’ ’owd keepsakes an’ heirlooms like to th’ silversmith i’ Huddersfelt an’ Owdham. They put a brave face on it an’ talk little, but aw know there’s scores o’ fam’lies i’ this valley and on these hill sides, ’at’s welly clammin’! It isn’t them as goes ‘afore the overseers ’at’s the worst off. There’s scores an’ scores livin’ on the town ’at go reg’lar every week for th’ town ’lowance. They’n got th’ length o’ th’ ovverseer’s foot, an’ its not for the like o’ me to blame ’em.”

“Crows shouldn’t pike crows’ ’een, eh Jack?” I put in.

“Th’ ovverseer’s fair game,” continued Jack, unmoved. “But he’s a fool for all his stuck up ways. Aw tell yo’ ’at there’s hundreds awmost sucking their finger ends, like bears do their paws, ’at winnot go on to th’ parish. An’ mark yo’, th’ poor ha’ borne wi’ slack work an’ mullocked on as best they could, as long as they thought th’ wars and bad harvests were to blame. An’ they’ve bided in hope, for harvests winnot all be bad, an’ we’st beat the little Corporal yet. But now th’ mesters are for makin’ bad worse wi’ this new machinery. They’re crying ‘Every man for hissen an’ devil take the hindmost.’ They’re bringing wood and iron to do the work of willing hands and arms, an’, by gow, the lads about won’t see their craft ruined, an’ them an’ theirs pined to death, wi’out a blow struck. Aw tell yo’, Ben, there’s mischief brewin’, or my name’s not Soldier Jack; an’ if yo’ want to know more, yo’ mun ask yon mettlesome cousin o’ yours, Judd Mellor, o’ th’ Brigg.”—

“What! George Mellor?” I cried; “why, what has he to do with it?” For such an ending to the soldier’s tale I never thought nor dreamed of.

“I’ve said my say, Ben, and yo’ll get no more out o’ me. It’s no use pumpin’ at a dry well tha’ knows. So aw’ll say good neet, an’ my duty to thi father an’ mother.” And resisting my entreaty that he would go onwards to our house and take pot luck at supper, Jack wheeled off into the dark, and I heard his stride, firm and martial still, despite the gamey leg, as he made across a footpath to the left, and his voice humming a stave of Lillibulero.