Read the book: «The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor», page 11

“Nothing is settled, Sam, until it is settled right.”

“Lord Brougham, in a speech at Manchester, told us he would see it settled this session.”

“Lord Brougham thinks in impossibilities. He would make a contract with Parliament to govern England, or even Ireland. Let me tell thee all government is a thing of necessity, not of choice. England will not for any Bill dig under her foundations. Like Time, she destroys even great wrongs slowly. Her improvements hev to grow and sometimes they take a good while about it. You hev been crying for this Bill for forty years, you were not ready for it then. Few of you at that time hed any education. Now, many of your men can read and a lesser number write. Such men as Grey, Russell, Brougham and others hev led and taught you, and there’s no denying that you hev been varry apt scholars. Take your improvements easily, Sam. You won’t make any real progress by going over precipices.”

“Well, sir, we at least hev truth on our side.”

“Truth can only be on one side, Sam, I’m well pleased if you hev it.”

“All right, squire, but I can tell you this – if Parliament doesn’t help us varry soon now we will help oursens.”

“That is what you ought to be doing right now. Get agate, men! Go to your new loom, and make yersens masters of it. I will promise you in that case, that your new life will be, on the whole, better than the old one. As for going back to the old life, you can’t do it. Not for your immortal souls! Time never runs back to fetch any age of gold; and as for making a living in the old way and with the old hand loom, you may as well sow corn in the sea, and hope to reap it.”

“Squire, I want to get out of a country where its rulers can stop minding its desperate poverty, and can forget that it is on the edge of rebellion, and in the grip of some death they call cholera, and go home for their Easter holiday, quite satisfied with themsens. We want another Oliver Cromwell.”

“No, we don’t either. The world won’t be ready for another Cromwell, not for a thousand years maybe. Such men are only born at the rate of one in a millennium.”

“What’s a millennium, squire?”

“A thousand years, lad.”

“There wer’ men of the right kind in Cromwell’s day to stand by him.”

“Our fathers were neither better nor worse than oursens, Sam, just about thy measure, and my measure.”

“I doan’t know, sir. They fought King and Parliament, and got all they wanted. Then they went over seas and founded a big republic, and all hes gone well with them – and we could do the same.”

“Well, then, you hev been doing something like the same thing iver since Cromwell lived. Your people are busy at the same trade now. The English army is made up of working men. They are usually thrown in ivery part of the world, taking a sea port, or a state, or a few fertile islands that are lying loose and uncivilized in the southern seas. They do this for the glory and profit of England and in such ways they hev made pagans live like Christians, and taught people to obey the just laws of England, that hed niver before obeyed a decent law of any kind.”

“They don’t get for their work what Cromwell’s men got.”

“They don’t deserve it. Your mark can’t touch Cromwell’s mark; it was far above your reach. Your object is mainly a selfish one. You want more money, more power, and you want to do less work than you iver did. Cromwell’s men wanted one thing first and chiefly – the liberty to worship God according to their conscience. They got what they wanted for their day and generation, and before they settled in America, they made a broad path ready for John Wesley. Yes, indeed, Oliver Cromwell made John Wesley possible. Now, when you go to the wonderful new loom that hes been invented for you, and work it cheerfully, you’ll get your Bill, and all other things reasonable that you want.”

“The Parliament men are so everlastingly slow, squire,” said an old man sitting almost at the squire’s feet.

“That is God’s truth, friend. They are slow. It is the English way. You are slow yoursens. So be patient and keep busy learning your trade in a newer and cleverer way. I am going to bide in London till Parliament says, Yes or No. Afterwards I’ll go back to Annis, and learn a new life.” Then some man on the edge of the crowd put up his hand, and the squire asked:

“Whose cap is speaking now?”

“Israel Kinsman’s, sir. Thou knaws me, squire.”

“To be sure I do. What does tha want to say? And when did tha get home from America?”

“A matter of a year ago. I hev left the army and gone back to my loom. Now I want to ask thee, if thou are against men when they are oppressed fighting for their rights and their freedom?”

“Not I! Men, even under divine guidance, hev taken that sharp road many times. The God who made iron knew men would make swords of it – just as He also knew they would make plowshares. Making war is sometimes the only way to make peace. If the cause is a just one the Lord calls himself the God of battles. He knows, and we know, that

 
“Peace is no peace, if it lets the ill grow stronger,
Only cheating destiny a very little longer;
War with its agonies, its horrors, and its crimes,
Is cheaper if discounted, and taken up betimes.
Foolish, indeed, are many other teachers;
Cannons are God’s preachers, when the time is ripe for
war.
 

“Now, men, there is no use in discussing a situation not likely to trouble England in this nineteenth century. I believe the world is growing better constantly, and that eventually all men will do, or cause to be done, whatever is square, straight and upright, as the caps on your heads. I believe it, because the good men will soon be so immensely in excess that bad men will hev to do right, and until that day comes, we will go on fighting for freedom in ivery good shape it can come; knowing surely and certainly, that

 
“Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is always won.
 

“That is a truth, men, you may all of you cap to,” and as the squire lifted his riding cap high above his head, more than two hundred paper caps followed it, accompanied by a long, joyful shout for the good time promised, and certainly coming.

“Now, men,” said the squire, “let us see what ‘cap money’ we can collect for those who are poor and helpless. Israel Naylor and John Moorby will collect it. It will go for the spreading of the children’s table in Leeds and Israel will see it gets safely there.”

“We’ll hev thy cap, squire,” said Israel. “The man who proposes a cap collection salts his awn cap with his awn money first.” And the squire laughed good-humoredly, lifted his cap, and in their sight dropped five gold sovereigns into it. Then Dick offered his hat to his father, saying he had his opera hat in his pocket and the two happy men went away together, just as some musical genius had fitted Byron’s three lines to a Methodist long-metre, so they were followed by little groups straying off in different directions, and all singing,

 
“For Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is always won!
Is always won! Is always won!”
 

Dick did not enter the Clarendon with his father. He knew that he might be a little superfluous. The squire had a certain childlike egotism which delighted in praising himself, and in telling his own story; and Annie was audience sufficient. If she approved, there was no more to be desired, the third person was often in the way. In addition to this wish to give the squire the full measure of his success, Dick was longing passionately to be with his love and his hopes. The squire would not speak of Faith, and Dick wanted to talk about her. Her name beat upon his lips, and oh, how he longed to see her! To draw her to his side, to touch her hair, her eyes, her lips! He told himself that the promise of silence until the Bill was passed, or thrown out was a great wrong, that he never ought to have made it, that his father never ought to have asked for it. He wondered how he was to get the time over; the gayeties of London had disappeared, the Leylands thought it prudent to live quietly, his mother and Katherine were tired of the city, and longed to be at home; and Harry, whose sympathy he had always relied on, was somewhere in Norfolk, and had not even taken the trouble to write and tell him the reason for his visit, to such a tame, bucolic county.

Yet with the hope of frequent letters, and his own cheerful optimistic temper, he managed to reach the thirtieth of May. On that morning he took breakfast with his parents, and the squire said in a positive voice that he was “sure the Bill would pass the House of Lords before May became June; and if you remember the events since the seventh of April, Dick, you will also be sure.”

“But I do not remember much about public affairs during that time, father. I was in Annis, and here and there, and in every place it was confusion and anger and threats. I really do not remember them.”

“Then thou ought to, and thou may as well sit still, and let me tell thee some things thou should niver forget.” But as the squire’s method was discursive, and often interrupted by questions and asides from Mistress Annis and Dick, facts so necessary may be told without such delay, and also they will be more easily remembered by the reader.

Keeping in mind then that Parliament adjourned at seven o’clock in the morning, on April fourteenth until the seventh of May, it is first to be noted that during this three weeks’ vacation there was an incessant agitation, far more formidable than fire, rioting, and the destruction of property. Petitions from every populous place to King William entreated him to create a sufficient number of peers to pass the Bill in spite of the old peers. The Press, nearly a unit, urged as the most vital and necessary thing the immediate passage of the Bill, predicting a United Rebellion of England, Scotland and Ireland, if longer delayed. On the seventh of May, the day Parliament reassembled, there was the largest public meeting that had ever been held in Great Britain, and with heads uncovered, and faces lifted to heaven, the crowd took the following oath: —

“With unbroken faith through every peril and privation, we here devote ourselves and our children to our country’s cause!”

This great public meeting included all the large political unions, and its solemn enthusiasm was remarkable for the same fervor and zeal of the old Puritan councils. Its solemn oath was taken while Parliament was reassembling in its two Houses. On that afternoon the House of Lords took up first the disfranchising of the boroughs, and a week of such intense excitement followed, as England had not seen since the Revolution of 1688.

On the eighth of May, Parliament asked the King to sanction a large creation of new peers. The king angrily refused his assent. The ministers then tendered their resignation. It was accepted. On the evening of the ninth, their resignation was announced to the Lords and Commons. On the eleventh Lord Ebrington moved that “the House should express to the King their deep distress at a change of ministers, and entreat him only to call to his councils such persons as would carry through The Bill with all its demands unchanged and unimpaired.”

This motion was carried, and then for one week the nation was left to its conjectures, to its fears, and to its anger at the attitude of the government. Indeed for this period England was without a government. The Cabinet had resigned, leaving not a single officer who would join the cabinet which the king had asked the Duke of Wellington to form. In every city and town there were great meetings that sent petitions to the House of Commons, praying that it would grant no supplies of any kind to the government until the Bill was passed without change or mutilation. A petition was signed in Manchester by twenty-three thousand persons in three hours, and the deputy who brought it informed the Commons that the whole north of England was in a state of indignation impossible to describe. Asked if the people would fight, he answered, “They will first of all demand that Parliament stop all government supplies – the tax gatherer will not be able to collect a penny. All civil tribunals will be defied, public credit shaken, property insecure, the whole frame of society will hasten to dissolution, and great numbers of our wealthiest families will transfer their homes to America.”

Lord Wellington utterly failed in all his attempts to form a ministry, Sir Robert Peel refused to make an effort to do so, and on the fifteenth of May it was announced in both Houses, that “the ministers had resumed their communication with his majesty.” On the eighteenth Lord Grey said in the House of Lords that “he expected to carry the Reform Bill unimpaired and immediately.” Yet on the day before this statement, Brougham and Grey had an interview with the King, in which his majesty exhibited both rudeness and ill-temper. He kept the two peers standing during the whole interview, a discourtesy contrary to usage. Both Grey and Brougham told the King that they would not return to office unless he promised to create the necessary number of peers to insure the passage of the Reform Bill just as it stood; and the King consented so reluctantly that Brougham asked for his permission in writing.

The discussion of these facts occupied the whole morning and after an early lunch the squire prepared to go to The House; then Dick noticed that even after he was hatted and coated for his visit, he kept delaying about very trivial things. So he resolved to carry out his part of their secret arrangement, and remove himself from all temptation to tell his mother he was going to marry Faith Foster. His father understood the lad so like himself, and Dick knew what his father feared. So he bid his mother good-by, and accompanied his father to the street. There the latter said plainly, “Thou did wisely, Dick. If I hed left thee alone with thy mother, thou would hev told her all that thou knew, and thought, and believed, and hoped, and expected from Faith. Thou couldn’t hev helped it – and I wouldn’t hev blamed thee.”

CHAPTER X – THE GREAT BILL PASSES

“In relation to what is to be, all Work is sacred because it is the work given us to do.”

“Their cause had been won, but the victory brought with it a new situation and a new struggle.”

“Take heed to your work, your name is graven on it.”

ALTHOUGH Dick pretended an utter disbelief in Grey’s prophecy, it really came true; and the Reform Bill passed the House of Lords on the last day of May. Then the Annis family were in haste to return home. The feeling of being on a pleasure visit was all past and gone, and the bare certainties and perplexities of life confronted them. For the first time in all his days, the squire felt anxious about money matters, and actually realized that he was going to be scrimped in coin for his household expenses. This fact shocked him, he could hardly believe it. Annie, however, knew nothing of this dilemma and when her husband spoke of an immediate return home, said:

“I am glad we are going home. To-morrow, I will see my dressmaker and finish my shopping;” and the squire looked at her with such anxious eyes that she immediately added – “unless, Antony, thou would like me to pack my trunks at once.”

“I would like that, Annie. It would help me above a bit.”

“All right. Kitty is ready to start at any hour. She wants to go home.”

“What is the matter with Kitty? She isn’t like hersen lately? Is she sick?”

“I think there is a little falling out between Harry and her. That is common enough in all love affairs.”

Here a servant entered with a letter and gave it to the squire. He looked at it a moment and then said to his wife – “It is from Josepha. She wants to see me varry particular, and hopes I will come to her at once. She thinks I had better drop in for dinner and says she will wait for me until half-past five.”

“That is just like her unreasonableness. If she knows the Bill is passed, she must know also that we are packing, and as busy as we can be.”

“Perhaps she does not know that the great event has happened.”

“That is nonsense. Half a dozen people would send her word, or run with the news themselves.”

“Well, Annie, she is my only sister, and she is varry like my mother. I must give her an hour. I could not be happy if I did not;” and there was something in the tone of his voice which Annie knew she need not try to alter. So she wisely acquiesced in his resolve, pitying him the while for having the claims of three women to satisfy. But the squire went cheerfully enough to his sister. The claims of kindred were near and dear to him and a very sincere affection existed between him and his sister Jo-sepha. She was waiting for him. She was resolved to have a talk with him about the Bradleys, and she had a proposal to make, a proposal on which she had set her heart.

So she met him at the open door, and said – with a tight clasp of his big hand – “I am right glad to see thee, brother. Come in here,” and she led him to a small parlor used exclusively by herself.

“I cannot stop to dinner, Josey,” he said kindly, but he kept her hand in his hand, until he reached the chair his sister pointed out. Then she sat down beside him and said, “Antony, my dear brother, thou must answer me a few questions. If thou went home and left me in doubt, I should be a varry unhappy woman.”

“Whativer art thou bothering thysen about?”

“About thee. I’ll speak out plain and thou must answer me in the same fashion. What is tha going to do about thy living? Thou hes no business left, and I know well thou hes spent lavishly iver since thou came here with thy wife and daughter.”

“To be sure I hev. And they are varry welcome to ivery penny of the outlay. And I must say, Josey, thou has been more extravagant about both Annie and Kitty than I hev been.”

“Well then Kitty is such a darling – thou knows.”

“Ay, she is that.”

“And Annie is more tolerant with me than she iver was before.”

“To be sure. Iveryone gets more kindly as he grows older. And she knaws thee better, which is a great deal. Annie is good from the beginning to the end.”

“Nobody will say different, but that is not what I am wanting to talk to thee about. Listen to me now, my dear lad! What art thou going to do? I am in earnest anxiety. Tell me, my brother.”

The squire was silent and looked steadily down on the table for a few minutes. Josepha did not by the slightest movement interfere but her steady, kindly gaze was fixed upon the silent man. Perhaps he felt, though he did not see, the love that shone upon him, for he lifted his face with a broad smile, and answered —

“My dear lass, I don’t know.”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Now speak straight words to me as plain as thou spoke to the Annis weavers last week.”

“My dear sister, I shall do right, and let come what will.”

“And what does tha call doing right?”

“I think of two ways and both seem right to me.”

“What are they? Perhaps I can help thee to decide that one is better than the other. Dear lad, I want to help thee to do the best thing possible for thysen, and thy children.”

There was no resisting the persuasion in her face, voice and manner, and the squire could not resist its influence. “Josey,” he said, as he covered her small plump hand with his own in a very masterful way – “Josey! Josey! I am in the thick of a big fight with mysen. I did really promise a crowd of Annis weavers that if the Reform Bill passed I would build a mill and give them all work, and that would let them come home again. Tha sees, they all own, or partly own, their cottages, and if I can’t find them work, they will hev to give up their homes mebbe, to a varry great disadvantage.”

“To be plain with thee, thou could in such a case, buy them all back for a song.”

“Does tha really think thou hes an up and down blackguard for thy brother? I’m not thinking of buying poor men’s houses for a song – nor yet of buying them at any price.”

“A perfectly fair price, eh?”

“No. There could not be a fair price under such conditions. The poor would be bound to get the worst of the bargain, unless I ruined mysen to be square and just. I doan’t want to sit in hell, trying to count up what I hed made by buying poor men’s homes at a bargain.”

“Hes tha any plan that will help thee to build a mill and give thy old weavers a chance?”

“The government will loan to old employers money to help them build a mill, and so give work and bread.”

“The government is not lending money, except with some excellent security.”

“Land, I have plenty. I could spare some land.”

“No. Thou could not spare the government one acre.”

“Then I cannot build a mill and furnish it with looms and all necessary.”

“Yes, thou can easily do it – if thou wilt take a partner.”

“Does tha know anyone suitable?”

“I do.”

“Do I know the person?”

“Varry well. It is mysen. It is Josepha Temple.” The squire fairly started. He looked straight into Josepha’s eyes and she continued, “Take me for thy partner, Antony. I will build thee the biggest, and most completely finished mill in the West Riding – or anywhere else – cotton or wool – whichiver thou likes. Bradley’s is mainly cotton, thou hed better stick to wool. Thou hes two hundred sheep of thy awn, on thy awn fells, and wold. Stick to the wool, dear lad.”

“Art thou in very earnest, Josepha?”

“Sure as life and death! I am in earnest. Say the word, and I’ll build, and fit the mill, just as tha wants it.”

“And thy share in it will be – ”

“We will divide equally – half and half. I want to buy a partnership with my money. ‘Annis and Temple’ will suit me well. I will find all the wherewithal required – money for building, looms, engines, wool or cotton yarns, just as thou wishes. Thou must give the land, and the varry best bit of land for the purpose, that thou hes on thy estate in Annis, or elsewhere.”

“Dost tha knaw how much money tha will hev to spend for what thou proposes?”

“I should think I do and it will every farthing of it be Annis money. I hev speculated, and dealt wisely with the money the good Admiral left me. I hev made, made mysen, more money than we shall require for the mill and all its necessary furniture, and if it was not enough, I could double it and not feel a pound poorer. The outlay is mine, all of it; the land, and the management is thy affair. It is only by my name, which is well known among monied men, that I shall appear in the business.”

“Josepha! Thou art my good angel!”

“I am thy sister. We are both Annis folk. We were both rooted in the soil of this bit of England. We had the same good father and mother, the same church, and the same dear old home. God forbid we should iver forget that! No, we can not! These memories run with our blood, and throb in our hearts. All that is mine is thine. Thou art dear to me as my awn life. Thy son and daughter are my son and daughter. My money is thy money, to its last penny. Now, wilt thou hev me for thy partner?” The squire had buried his face in his hands, and Josepha knew he was hiding his feelings from everyone but God, and she stepped to the window and drew up the shade, and let the sunshine flood the room. As she did so, the squire called to himself – “Be of good courage, Antony!” And he rose quickly, and so met his sister coming back to her chair, and took her in his arms, and kissed her and said: “Josey, dear, there was a load on my heart I was hardly able to bear; thou hes lifted it, and I love and thank thee! We will work together, and we will show Yorkshire that landed gentlefolk can do a bit of business, above all their ideas, and above all thou can imagine it pleases me, that I may then redeem my promises to the men that hev worked so long, and so faithfully for me.”

And then it was Josepha that had to dry her eyes as she said: “Thy kiss, Antony, was worth all I hev promised. It was the signing of our contract.”

“I felt, Josey, when I entered this house, that my life had come to an end, and that I could only write ‘defeated’ over it.”

“Thy real life begins at this hour. Thy really fine business faculties, corroded with rust and dust of inaction, will yet shine like new silver. There is no defeat, except from within. And the glad way in which thou can look forward, and take up a life so different to that thou hes known for more than fifty years, shows plainly that you can, and will, redeem every fault of the old life. As thou art so busy and bothered to-night, come to-morrow and I will hev my lawyer, and banker, also a first rate factory architect, here to meet thee.”

“At what hour?”

“From ten o’clock to half-past twelve are my business hours. If that time is too short, we will lengthen it a bit. Dick has asked me to tell thee something thou ought to know, but which he cannot talk to thee about.”

“Is it about Faith Foster?”

“Not it! Varry different.”

“What, or who, then?”

“John Thomas Bradley.”

“Then don’t thee say a word about the man. Thy words hev been so good, so wonderfully good, that I will not hev meaner ones mixed up with them. They may come to-morrow after law and money talk, but not after thy loving, heartening promises. No! No!”

“Well, then, go home and tell Annie, and let that weary Reform Bill business drop out of thy mind.”

“Reform was a great need. It was a good thing to see it come, and Grey and Brougham hev proved themsens to be great men.”

“I don’t deny it, and it is allays so ordered, that in all times, great men can do great things.”

With a light heart and a quick step the squire hurried back to the Clarendon. He had been given to drink of the elixir of life, the joy of work, the pleasure of doing great good to many others, the feeling that he was going to redeem his lost years. He had not walked with such a light purposeful step for twenty years, and Annie was amazed when she heard it. She was still more amazed when she heard him greet some acquaintance whom he met in the corridor. Now Annie had resolved to be rather cool and silent with her husband. He had overstayed his own time nearly two hours, and she thought he ought to be made to feel the enormity of such a delinquency; especially, when he was hurrying their departure, though she had yet a great many little things to attend to.

She quickly changed her intentions. She only needed one glance at her husband to make her rise to her feet, and go to meet him with a face full of wonder. “Why! Antony! Antony, whativer hes come to thee? Thou looks – thou looks – ”

“How, Annie? How do I look?”

“Why! Like thou looked – on thy wedding day! Whativer is it, dear?”

“Annie! Annie! I feel varry like I did that day. Oh, Annie, I hev got my life given back to me! I am going to begin it again from this varry hour! I am going to work, to be a big man of business, Annie. I’m going to build a factory for a thousand power looms. Oh, my wife! My wife! I’m so proud, so happy, I seem to hev been dead and just come back to life again.”

“I am so glad for thee, dear. Who, or what, hes brought thee this wonderful good?”

“Sit thee down beside me, and let me hold thy hand, or I’ll mebbe think I am dreaming. Am I awake? Am I in my right mind? Or is it all a dream, Annie? Tell me the truth.”

“Tell thy wife what hes happened, then I can tell thee the truth.”

“Why-a! thy husband, the squire of Annis, is going to build the biggest and handsomest factory in the whole West Riding – going to fill it with steam power looms – going to manufacture woolen goods for the whole of England – if England will hev the sense to buy them; for they will be well made, and of tip-top quality. Annis village is going to be a big spinning and weaving town! O Annie! Annie! I see the vision. I saw it as I came through Piccadilly. The little village seemed to be in midair, and as I looked, it changed, and I saw it full of big buildings, and high chimneys, and hurrying men and women, and I knew that I was looking at what, please God, I shall live to see in reality. Annie, I hev begun to live this varry day. I have been in a sweet, sweet sleep for more than fifty years, but I hev been awakened, and now I am going to work for the new Annis, and redeem all the years I hev loitered away through the old.”

“I am glad for thee, Antony. Glad for thee! How is tha going to manage it? I am sorry Kitty and I hev made thee spend so much good gold on our foolishness!”

“Nay, nay, I am glad you both hed all you wanted. This morning I was feeling down in the depths. I hedn’t but just money enough to take us home, and I was wondering how iver I was to make buckle and belt meet. Then tha knows I got a letter from Jo-sepha, and I went to see her, and she told me she was going to build the biggest factory in the West Riding. She told me that she hed made money enough to do this: that it was Annis money, ivery farthing of it, and it was coming to Annis, and Annis only. Then she told me what her big plans were, bigger than I could fairly swallow at first, and oh, dear lass, she asked me to be her partner. I hev to give the land and my time. She does all the rest.”

“Thy sister hes a great heart. I found that out this winter.”

“Ay, and she found out that thou were a deal sweeter than she thought before, and she opened her heart to thee, and Dick, and Kitty.”

“Will she live in Annis?”

“Not she! No one could get her away from London, and the house her Admiral built for her. She will come down to our regular meeting once a quarter. She won’t bother thee.”

“No, indeed, she won’t! After this wonderful kindness to thee, she can’t bother me. She is welcome to iverything that is mine, even to my warmest and truest love. The best room at Annis Hall is hers, and we will both love and honor her all the days of our lives.”

“Now, then, I am quite happy, as happy as God and His gift can make a man; and if I was a Methodist, I would go to their chapel at once and tell them all what a good and great thing God hed done for them, as well as mysen. Thou sees they were thought of, no doubt, when I was thought of, for God knew I’d do right by His poor men and women and little childer.”