Front matter (continued 2)

“To the guillotine,” I interposed.

“Packing, I say, and the fat parsons, faithless shepherds of an abandoned flock, packing with them. Then the people begin to put things to rights.”

“And a pretty mess they made of it,” I put in.

“But all the kings and, emperors in Europe, an’ all th’ landlords an’ all that had got rich by robbery, an’ all th’ bishops and clergy, little an’ big, hangers on o’ th’ aristocrats to a man, took alarm. They thowt their turn would come next, an’ they raised the cry of England in danger. It wasn’t the people of England that wer’ fleyed. Not they. They knew well enough nowt could make them waur off nor they were. Th’ war were a put up job of th’ king and th’ nobles and th’ squires. And who profited by it? The noble and the squire an’ the sleek parson with his tithes. What has made corn as far beyond the poor man’s reach as though a grain of wheat were a ruby or a pearl? The wars, always the wars. And the people, the thousands upon thousands of men and women who have no part nor parcel in this war, save to send their children to die on a gory bed, what voice or what part have they in all this? The part and the part of sheep driven to the slaughter”—

“But what has Horsfall to do with all this?” I asked, very naturally I think.

“He has this to do with it, Ben. Ever since th’ bad times began, Englishmen ha’ been told to stand together shoulder to shoulder agen a common enemy. Th’ poor ha’ borne their sufferings wi’out much murmuring as long as they saw th’ rich suffer wi’ themselves. Patriotism isn’t a rich man’s monopoly. Poor folk love th’ owd country, though aw wonder sometimes what they love it for. But now what do we see? These new machines offer th’ masters th’ chance o’ supplying their customers at a less cost to theirsen than they ha’ done up to now. Aw’ll give yo’ an illustration of what aw mean. A lace frame such as they’re putting up i’ Nottingham costs £120. They say it’ll save the work of four. Th’ master saves in a year more than th’ cost o’ th’ machine. He saves it, but who loses it? Why th’ wage earners to be sure. And that’s what they call standing shoulder to shoulder. Aw call it deserting your comrade and leaving him to shift for his–sen. Th’ ‘Leeds Mercury’ only last week said there were twenty thousand stocking–makers out of employment in Nottingham, and yo’ may judge for yersen what that means.”

“But what can yo’ do, George? Yo’ cannot fight agen th’ law o’ th’ land. Th’ masters ha’ th’ law at their backs—yo’ll nobbut get yersen into trouble. It’s waur nor kickin’ agen th’ pricks. Yo’ surely wi’not ha’ ought to do wi’ machine breaking. That’ll nobbut land thee i’ towzer, an’ happen waur nor towzer.”

“It isn’t towzer ’ll stop me, Ben. Aw’m groping i’ th’ dark just now. Frame breaking and rick burning seems but spiteful work, but it is action, and action of some sort seems called for. If we submit like dumb cattle, our rulers say we are content and have no grievances; if we assemble in great numbers and proclaim our wrongs they hang us for sedition. What can we do, where shall we turn? Aw cannot see daylight which ever way aw turn.”

“Cannot yo’ let things bide, George? Happen things ’ll shape theirsen. It’s little such as us can do to mend things. If tha’ were Lord Dartmouth na’, tha’ might do some good. But aw can see nowt but trouble for thee i’ me’lling i’ this wark, and what hurts thee tha’ knows well will hurt me, George.”

“Aw know that, Ben. And aw’ve more reason nor ever o’ late for keeping out o’ trouble. Is there ought between thee and Mary, Ben?”

“What, our Mary?” I asked, bewildered, somewhat by so sudden a change of subject, and not seeing the working of George’s mind.

“Aye, your Mary,” said George.

“What does ta’ want to know for, George?” I asked; and I tried to ask as though I cared little for the answer, and yet I knew, all of a flash like, what the answer would be, and that somehow, and why I could scarce even myself say to myself, the answer would make me wince.

“Because, George, if ever aw wed, your Mary will be the lass.”

“Yo’ll happen ask her first,” I said, nettled.

“P’raps tha’s axed her already?”

“Tha’ knows very well aw hannot, Ben. It only came into my head last neet when ’oo were singing ‘Wild Shepherds.’ ’Oo’s a sweet voice, an’ th’ way she looks when ’oo sings makes yo’ think a bit o’ heaven’s opened up, an’ th’ light inside is shinin’ right down on her face—hasn’t ta’ noticed it, Ben?”

“Mary’s ower young for courtin’,” I said.

“But tha’ hasn’t told me, Ben, is there owt between yo’ and her? But there cannot be. Tha’d ha’ told me if there wor. Besides she’s too near o’ kin to thee an’ browt up i’ th’ same house too. She’ll be more sister like to thee, Ben, aw reckon. But is there owt?”

“Nay there’s nowt, George. She’s thine to win an’ to wear for me. But ’oo’s ovver young for courtin’, George. An’ if yo’r for our Mary, tha’ mun put all thowts out o’ thi yed but stickin’ to work an’ makin’ her a good home. And that reminds me. It ’ad welly slipt mi mind. Soldier Jack was hinting summat t’other day. Tha’ are’nt keeping owt back fra’ me, are ta, George?”

“Can aw trust thee, Ben?”

“Tha’ knows that best thissen, George.” We had reached the very crest of Stanedge, and were looking down upon the Diggle side and over towards Pots an’ Pans an’ where the road leads to St. Chad’s and winds round towards what is now called Bills o’ Jack’s. We came to a stand by common impulse. George stood right anent me.

“Can aw trust thee, Ben,” he asked again, and looked at me as though he would search my very heart.

“Tha’ knows best thissen,” I replied once more; for I should have thought to lower myself by protesting to him who had been my dearest, almost my only friend, since we were boys together.

“With my life, Ben,” he said very solemnly, and took my hand.

And then George told me something of what was afoot in Huddersfield. Steps were to be taken, he said, to dissuade the manufacturers from ousting manual labour in any of the various processes of the making and finishing of cloth, by the use of machinery. For this purpose the men were to bind themselves by solemn oath neither to work the new machines nor to work in any shop or mill into which they might be introduced. No violence of any sort was to be employed either against man or machine, at least not if the masters proved amenable to reason; and of that George thought there could be little question. “They cannot stand against us, if we are united,” said George; “our weakness lies in action unconcerted and without method. If we set our faces resolutely against the use of these new fangled substitutes for human labour, we can at least compel the masters to wait till times are better and trade mends. It may be that when the wars are over and the market calls for a larger and a quicker output, machinery may be gradually introduced without hardship to those who have grown old in the old methods and who cannot use themselves to new ways. Meantime we shall have learned the secret and the value of combination and we may turn our organization to the protection and the improvement of the worker and to the wresting of those rights that are now withheld.”

Now to this I could see no mariner of objection, and partly from curiosity, partly because my blood had been fired by George’s words, but much more because it was George who urged it, I promised to attend a meeting of some of George’s friends who were’ like–minded with himself; and promised too, though not so readily, to keep my own counsel about what he had talked on.

The early evening of winter was falling, and we turned homewards. We did not speak much. My cousin was deep in thoughts of his own, and I, too, had enough to ponder on. I did not half like my new departure. I was not much of a politician, and had always thought my part in public affairs would be to ride to York once in a while and vote for the Whigs as my father had done before me. As for setting the world straight, I had no ambition that way. In time I had no doubt I should be either a deacon at the Powle or a churchwarden at the church, and probably constable of the manor if I thrived. To make fair goods, to sell them at a fair price, to live in peace with my neighbours, and in time to marry, such was the sum of my ambition.

And that sent my mind in a bound to Mary. The house would look strange and lonesome without Mary. I should miss her saucy greeting of a morning; I should miss her gentle bantering, the sunshine of her sweet face and the music of her voice. The more I tried to think of the old place without Mary, the less I liked the picture. And when I tried to console myself with thinking that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, I failed dismally.

When we reached home keen set for tea, there was the table laid all ready, and a scolding too for being late. But I turned away my mother’s wrath by giving her Mr. Horsfall’s greetings, and set her talking of him and his wife and all the family tree. For mother had a rare gift that way, knowing the relationship by blood and marriage of every family for miles around, and able, in a way you must hear to believe, to count up cousinships and half–cousins, and uncles and great uncles, till your brain turned round. Except my lord’s family and the folk at the vicarage, who had come from the south, I think she made us akin to all the folk in Slaithwaite, Linthwaite and Lingards. As was natural, George took but little interest in this intimate pedigree, and about eight o’clock announced his resolve to take the road to the Brigg. He was greatly pressed to stay to supper, but would not, much to my mother’s concern, who had a firm persuasion, that town bred lads never got enough to eat, and cherished a suspicion that George, though as hale and hearty a youth as ever went on two legs, and one as little likely as any to be put on, was starved as to his body and broken as to his spirit by his step–father.

It befell that night, whether by chance or that my mother schemed it so, that she and I sat up by the fireside after all the others had gone to bed. My mother had her eternal knitting, and I tried to settle my mind to a book; but could not, for thinking of matters not on the printed page. I gave up the effort after a while, and set my mind resolutely to think on my promise to join the plot against the masters; but all to no good, for do what I would, my thoughts strayed to what George had said of Mary, and I liked it less and less. It gave me a turn when my mother said—

“Mary grows a fine lass and noan ill–favoured, think’st ta, Ben? Not ’at aw set much store on good looks, for beauty’s but skin deep, as is weel known. But Mary’s one ’at ’ll wear well, an’ keep her looks to th’ last,” continued my mother, without waiting for the opinion she had asked from me. “Aw was just such another misen when yo’r father begun a courting me.”

Now I opened my eyes at this, for it had never occurred to me to think of my mother as a beauty.

“Not but what there’s points in Mary ’at could be mended,” went on my mother serenely. “She’s a notion o’ keepin’ things straight an’ tidy, but ’oo’s a bit too finickin’ in her ways an’ too mindful o’ her hair an’ careful o’ her hands, an’ happen too fond o’ colour in her ribbons; but ’oo’l mend o’ that when th’ children come. An’ she’s mebbe too free o’ her tongue.”

Oh, mother! mother!

“But that comes o’ your father encouragin’ her an’ laughin’ at her answerin’ back, when it would seem her better to hearken to what I have to say an’ be thankful ’oo has a aunt to tak’ pains wi’ her.”

“Aw dunnot doubt ’oo is,” I cried.

“An’ Mary’s noan ’bout brass, an’ though awst allus hold ’at it’s better to ha’ a fortin’ in a wife nor wi’ a wife, there’s summat i’ what th’ owd Quaker said, ’at it wer’ just as easy to fall i’ love where brass was as where it wasn’t. Ever sin’ my sister died, an’ Mary wer’ left o’ mi hands, her fortin’ has been out at interest, an’ we’n charged her nowt for her keep.”

“Aw should think not, indeed,” I cried, indignant at the very thought.

“There’s them ’at would,” said my mother tartly.

“We’re not o’ that breed, aw hope,” I said. “Anyways we ha’ not, so tha needn’t fluster thissen, though aw’ll tell thee, Ben, it’s better to be a bit too keen about brass nor a lump too careless. So Mary ’ll ha’ more nor her smock to her back, wed who she will, an’ a handy lass in a house, an’ th’ best of trainin, as all the country side will tell yo’. An’ for my part, when th’ parents is agreeable, an’ plenty o’ room i’ th’ house, an’ there’s th’ spare bedroom, an’ we could fit th’ lumber hoil up for th’ childer, an’ when yo’ve made up yo’r mind, it’s no good wastin’ time; an’ Easter’ll soon be here, an’ aw shouldn’t like a weddin’ ’atween Easter an’ Whissunday. Tha’d better see what Mary says, an’ aw’ll speak to yo’r father afore th’ week’s out.”

“But, mother,” I cried, “Mary’s nivver given me a thowt that way. Aw’m sure she just thinks o’ me as a brother. Aw shud only fley her an’ happen mak’ it uneasy for her to live here, if aw said owt and she didn’t like th’ thowts on it.”

“Who said she had given thee a thowt that way? Aw sud think she knows what becomes her better nor to be lettin’ her mind things till th’ man speaks. But Mary’s a good lass, an’ I’ll go bail ’oll wed to please them as brought her up.”

“Did yo, mother?” I asked with malice, for my father and mother had been married at Almondbury out of our parish, taking French leave of her folk. And as my mother rallied her thoughts for a reply, I made my escape to bed.

CHAPTER IV.

IN February of 1812, it was borne in upon our minds that something more than distress and disaffection were in our midst. These we were used to, and they had come to seem matters of course. It was painful to go to the Huddersfield Market these days. The old brick rotunda was opened as usual, and as usual the stalls were piled with cloth. The manufacturers stood by their wares, or gathered in anxious groupes in the alleys between the stalls. But buyers were rare, and prices ruinous. Shop–keepers in the New–street stood on their steps looking for a customer as eagerly as a becalmed captain for a cap of wind. Round the old market cross the famished workmen stood sullen and scowling. They had not much to say. They were too far gone even for anger. Their faces were now pinched and haggard. If a man had thrown a loaf among them they would have fought for it. It was said that at that time families had not twopence a head to live on each day. At the market dinners at the Cherry Tree and the Pack Horse the manufacturers dined together as usual but it was doleful work. We sat down to our meat as to funeral cakes.

Bad trade long drawn out had tired the staunchest of us, and there was not one ray of hope to brighten the outlook. War still dragged on, now a victory, now a defeat. But we had ceased to look for an issue from our troubles from the success of our arms. The contest seemed interminable, and meanwhile banks were breaking, credit was destroyed, old firms were failing; and men who had struggled on bravely, making goods to stock rather than close their mills and sack their old hands, saw no choice but to give up and own themselves beaten. Wheat was eight shillings a stone, and so bad at that, that it could not be baked; the poor rate was at twelve shillings in the pound, and worst of all, the poor were cursing their masters in their hearts and thinking their sufferings lay at their master’s doors.

Now I cannot for my part think such a time was fitting for bringing in machinery. I know full well that water power and steam power and improved machinery have been of untold good to the poor; but those who were to reap the first profit should to my thinking have bided their time. But Mr. Cartwright, of Rawfold, Mr. Horsfall, of Ottiwells and some others, seemed callous to the sufferings round them. Perhaps it was they looked so intently at the distant object, that they could not see the things at their feet. They were both men impatient of obstacles; they resented interference; they pooh–poohed those who counselled delay.

In that month of February we had the first news of any violence in our neighbourhood. Late of a Saturday night a number of men with faces blacked and their dress disguised, some wearing women’s gowns and others strange hood gear, broke into the dressing shop of Mr. Joseph Hirst, of Marsh, destroyed the dressing frames, the shears and other furniture of a gig–mill. The same evil fate befell Mr. James Balderson, of Crosland Moor, and Mr. William Hinchcliffe, of Leymoor. Then came the soldiers, the Scots Greys and the Second Dragoon Guards. They were billeted in the various hostelries of the town at free quarters, and it was not long before there was much scandal at their carrying on a drinking, swearing lot of men, a terror to decent girls, reeling on the streets in broad day with the loose women of the town, singing lewd songs, with no respect even to the gravest and most dignified magistrates in the town, paying heed only to their own officers, and that only when on guard or patrol. They were a bye–word and a reproach in the town, and of no sort of use at all.

Then, too, did the Head Constable of Huddersfield call upon all men over seventeen, and under fifty, paying rates to the poor, to enrol themselves as special constables, and among them was none other than John Wood, who looked mighty big with his constable’s staff, and talked large to my aunt and George and to me, when I called at the Brigg about the valiant deeds he would do if ever Luddite fell into his hands. For by this time the name “Luddite” had crept into the district, how I know not. And at his step–father’s big talk George Mellor smiled grimly.

I say I called at Mr. Wood’s house at Longroyd Bridge. I had meant to have a talk with George about the smashing of the machines of which, and of nothing but which, the market talk had been. I was not easy in my mind about the matter. I thought, after my promises to George, it was but my due to know if he had any share in these doings. But I was let. My aunt had her ailments to talk of, and burdened me with messages to my mother. Then Mr. Wood was there whilst we took a dish of tea, and all his talk was of the dressing the Luds would get. I asked him if he intended to try the new machines in his own shop, to which, for my aunt’s sake, we sent our own goods to be finished. But I gathered that my astute uncle deemed it safe to see how the cat jumped before committing himself. He was ever one for letting others do the fighting, and then coming softly in and reaping the spoils. So with one thing and another I got no talk with my cousin, and started off by my lone to walk to Slaithwaite over Crosland Moor. And near the Brigg itself I came on Soldier Jack, with a poke slung over his shoulder.

“Bide your time, Ben, and I’ll be with you,” he cried. “Good company makes short miles. I’ve a little errand o’ my own to see to on Paddock Brow. Will ta come as far as th’ Nag’s Head and drink a glass and tarry there for me, or will ta company me to th’ Brow? I’st noan be long, for it’s not exactly a wedding I’m bahn to.”

“Oh, I’ll go with you,” I said, willingly enough, for Jack was always well met.

“It’s Tom Sykes I’m bahn to see. Yo’ dunnot know him belike, a decent body but shiftless, and a ailing wife and a long family. There’s a sight o’ truth in what young Booth was reading to us th’ other neet from a great writer, a Mr. Malthus, ’at a man who is born into a world already possessed, or if society does not want his labour, has no claim or right to the smallest portion of food; and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature’s mighty feast there is no cover for him. That’s what you call pheelosophy. I’m bahn to comfort Tom Sykes wi’ a bit o’ pheelosophy.”

“And is that philosophy you’n got i’ your poke, Jack?” I asked “It seems weighty matter.”

“Noa, this is a few crumbs o’ arrant nonsense, fra’ th’ kitchen o’ th’ Cherry Tree. Th’ cook there’s a reight good sort, an’ some day or other, aw don’t say but I might—you know. But it’s ill puttin’ all yo’r eggs i’ one basket. An’ gi’ein’ a shillin’ to th’ parson to tie you is a tighter job nor takin’ th’ king’s shillin’. Yo’ can’t hop out o’ th’ holy estate as aw did aat o’ th’ army—on a gamey leg. But here we are at Tom’s.”

It was a low stone thatched house on the Lower Brow, and overlooked the river. Jack lifted the latch, and we walked into the living–room. It was bare of all furniture, save a round deal–topped table, three–legged, a low rocking chair by an empty fire–grate, a cradle and another, cane–bottomed chair, on which sat a man in his shirt sleeves, hushing a wailing child. The man was shock–headed. He had not been shaved for a week or more. His cheek bones stood out above shrunken cheeks. His eyes burned with an unnatural fire, and he had a hollow, hacking cough. He was trying to quiet the child, clumsily but patiently putting sips of a bluish fluid, milk and water, to its lips, with a crooked broken spoon. Another child, about seven years old, I judged, with neither clogs nor socks, all her covering a smock and a short frock scarce to her knees, was stretched on its face in a corner of the chimney, over a litter of sacks. And under the sacks lay—a something. We could see the straight outlines of a figure—I felt what it was, and my heart stood still. But Jack’s eyes were not so young as mine.

“Where’s yo’r missus, Tom?” he asked, swinging his bundle on to the ricketty table. “Th’ cook at th’ Cherry Tree has sent her a summat. See here’s th’ makin’s o’ a rare brew o’ tea, screwed up i’ this papper. Aw carried it i’ my weskit pocket, for fear o’ accidents. An’ there’s broken bread an’ moat an’—but what’s ta starin’ at? Where is ’oo aw say?”

“’Oo’s there, Jack—in th’ corner there, under Milly. Yo’ needn’t fear to wakken her—’oo sleeps very sound. Gi’ my compliments to Fat Ann at th’ Cherry Tree an’ tell her th’ missus is much obliged. But ’oo isn’t very hungry just now. Th’ parson says ’oo’s gone where there’s nother hunger nor sorrow. But aw reckon if there is such a shop, there’ll be no room there for my owd woman. Th’ rich folk ’ll ha’ spokken for them parts, th’ poor ’ll be crowded out, same as they are here. An’ yo’, Ben Bamforth, an’ yo’ come to look on your handiwork? Yo’ may lift th’ cuvverin’ for yersen. Novver mind Milly ’oo’ll greet hersen to sleep agen, when yo’re gone. Tak’ a good look, man—it’s nobbut a dead woman, improved off th’ face o’ th’ earth—clemmed to death bi improvements. Nay dunna flinch, man, ’oo’ll nother flyte thee nor bite thee” But I could not look, and I went silently out into the rutty, dirty lane and the murk night so cold and raw. For I had no words of comfort for the man—I could not speak in that silent presence—so I slipped away, only minding to pass a coin or two into the hands of Soldier Jack—“Light a fire and fetch a woman,” I whispered, and Jack nodded and made no effort to have me stay.

I was in a distracted state of mind, drawn now this way and now that, as I made my way to Slaithwaite. My promise to George lay heavy on me, and I loved the lad. The scene of which I had been just now the witness filled me with an intense sorrow for the suffering I knew to be rife around us. But I shrunk from violence of any kind and from conflict with the law, of which I had a wholesome dread. I confess here, once and for all, I am not made of the stuff of which captains, heroes and martyrs are made—I asked nothing better of the world than to go my own way quietly and doucely, earning by honest toil sufficient for my daily needs, sustained by the affection of those I loved and safe in the esteem and goodwill of my little world. I was not therefore best pleased when Mary met me at the door and handed me a note which had been brought by an unknown messenger, who had been charged, he said, to give it into her own hands, and to impress upon her that she herself should convey it safely to me. It was addressed to me, and though I had had few letters from George Mellor I knew his handwriting, and I judged, too, that Mary knew it, and had all a woman’s curiousness to know what the letter might say. It was brief enough, anyhow:

“Meet me on Thursday night at nine o’clock at the Inn at Buckstones.—George.”

The inn at Buckstones stands, or then stood, almost alone on the road from Outlane to Manchester. All around were desolate reaches of moorland, with here and there patches won by hard toil from the waste and enclosed by dry walling whose solidity bespoke the rich abundance of good stone and the little worth of human labour. There were no neighbours to make custom for the inn. The coach never stopped there. An occasional wayfarer, or holiday makers from the town, at times would call there, but mine host of the Buck would have fared badly but for his pigs and poultry. It was a little inn, remote, unaccustomed, unobserved, and only those would chose it as a meeting place whose business was one that shunned the open day and the eye of man. I put the letter carefully in my breast pocket, putting aside Mary’s questioning words and ignoring Mary’s questioning looks as best I could. And at this, after a while, Mary choose to take offence, tossing her head, and surmising that folk who had letters they could not show to their own cousins were up to no good.

I was at the Buck punctual to my time. The night was pitch dark. There was neither moon nor stars to light one along the road, and the road was bad enough in broad noon. A feeble light shone from the low window of the inn. The outer door was shut, and did not yield to my push when I lifted the sneck. It was opened from within by George Mellor.

“Yo’re to time, Ben,” he said in a low voice as he grasped my hand. “I knew tha’ wouldn’t fail us.”

“Who’s us?” I asked.

“Tha’ll know soon enough. They’re waitin’ for us i’ th’ room upstairs—but come into th’ snug an’ have a glass o’ ale. Tha looks breathed and flustered, an’ as if tha’d seen a boggart on th’ road. There’s a chap inside aw want thee to know—he’s a rare ’un. He’s a better scholard nor other thee nor me, Ben, and aw’se warrant tha’ll like him, when tha knows him.”

“Who is it, George?”

“They call him Booth, John Booth, th’ parson’s son at Lowmoor.”

“Is he one on yo’?” I asked.

“As close as th’ heft to th’ blade,” replied George. And I breathed more freely, for John Booth I had seen many a time at Mr. Wright’s, the saddler’s, in Huddersfield; and I, though I had had no speech with him, had heard much of his great learning and sweet temper. He was not one to harm a fly. His father was, I knew, the Vicar at Lowmoor Church, and a master cropper to boot. Surely the son of a parson and of a finisher was engaged in no enterprise that need daunt my father’s son.

He was sat in the snug, a pot of ale before him, scarce tasted; a youth not more than twenty–one or two years old, with pale face, long lank dark hair that fell on either side a high and narrow brow. His eye was dark and melancholy, his lip’s somewhat thin. His face was bare of beard, of an oval shape, and womanish. He had a low, soft voice, and spoke more town like than I was used to. But he had a sweet smile and a winning, caressing way that partly irritated me because I thought it out of place in a man. But it was very hard to stand against all the same.

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Bamforth,” he said, placing a hand that, despite his trade, was small and white, in my own big, brawny fist. He looked very slim by the side of me as we stood hand in hand, for I am six feet and more and big built, and thanks be to God hard as nails and little bent even yet. But it is mind, my children, not matter, that rules the world.See how he tickled me at the very start,—“Mr. Bamforth”—there was a whole page of delicate flattery in the very words and way of breathing on it. It meant I was a man. It meant I was of some place and power in his reckoning of me. I felt myself flush, and I grew bigger to myself. Why, I do not think anyone had ever called me “Mr. Bamforth” before. Even ’Siah, our teamer, called me “Ben.” The Vicar at the Church called me “Ben,” and ruffled me not a little by the patronizing way he had. Mr. Webster, at the Powle, called me “Ben;” but that I did not mind, for he said it as though he loved me.

“I am glad to see you. Any friend of George Mellor’s is welcome, but your father’s son is thrice welcome. George, do you go in and prepare our friends to receive a new member. Set all things in order, and I will talk meanwhile with your cousin.”

“And so, Mr. Bamforth,” he continued.

“Nay, call me Bamforth, or plain Ben,” I said. “Well, Ben be it then—And so, Ben, you, too, are willing to strike a blow for the poor and oppressed.”

“I don’t know about striking blows,” I said. “To tell the truth I am here because I said I would be here; but what I am here for I do not know, except that I am here to learn why I am here. It’s true enough my heart is heavy for the poor; but what I can do, and saving your presence what you can do, or George, or such as us, passes my wit.”

“We can try, at least, the force of union,” he made answer. “We can try what the force of numbers will do. We can entreat; we can threaten”—

“But what is a bark without a bite?” I asked. “And how can you bite without setting your own teeth on edge?”

“Ah! there’s the rub,” he said. “But we won’t jump before we get to the stile. One step at a time and await developments, say I. But come, we will join our friends. It will be a comfort to me to have one cool head in our number. We have no lack of madcaps.” The long low chamber which we now entered was in darkness, save for the light of two small lanthorns, placed on a long narrow table that ran down the centre of the room. Forms ran round three sides of the room. At the head of the table was an arm chair of ancient oak. In the centre of the table, flanked on either side by lanthorns, which turned their lights each to the other, was a human skull. In the chair sat one whom I felt rather than saw to be my cousin George. By his right hand was a Bible; on his left, one who acted as secretary and kept a roll of members, a precious document I would afterwards have given all I was worth to lay my hands on. The forms around the wall were close packed by masked men, in working dress, who rose as Booth led me into the room and placed me at the foot of the table confronting the president. All rose as we slowly made our way to that place, Booth holding me by the hand. I was in a cold sweat, and wished myself a thousand miles away. Booth left me standing there peering straight at him I knew to be my cousin.

“No. 20, I call upon you to explain to this candidate the principles of our order.”

“We are banded together,” said a voice from the line of figures on my right, a voice I knew at once to be Booth’s; for no other man I ever knew, scarce any woman, had a voice so gentle, so plaintive. “We are banded together to assert the rights of labour, to resist the encroachments and the cruelty of capital. We seek to succour the needy and to solace the sorrowing. We aim to educate the toilers to a sense of their just rights, to amend the political, the social, and the economic condition of those whose only wealth is their labour, whose only birth–right is to toil. Our methods are persuasion, argument, united representation of our claims, and if need be, the removal of those mechanic rivals of human effort by which callous and heartless employers are bent on supplanting the labour of our hands. But this only in the last resort, all other means exhausted, our righteous claims flouted, our fair demands denied.”

“Benjamin Bamforth,” came my cousin’s voice across the gloom.

“You have heard the statement of our aims. Are you willing to ally yourself with us and to aid us in our cause? If so, answer ‘I am.’”

“I am.”

“We are witnesses of your solemn obligation. Who vouches for Benjamin Bamforth?”

“That do I,” said Booth.

“That, too, do I,” said another voice that sounded familiar to my ears.

“Place before him the Book. Place your hands, Brother Bamforth, upon the Bible and fix your eyes upon these emblems of mortality. As they are, so be you, if you falter, or if you fail. Repeat after me the words of our oath.”

Then, phrase by phrase, in a silence only broken by the voices of us twain and the heavy breathing of that grim group, I repeated after the playfellow of my boyhood and my manhood’s friend the solemn words: “I, Benjamin Bamforth, of my own voluntary will, do declare and solemnly swear that I never will reveal to any person or persons under the canopy of heaven the names of the persons who comprise this secret committee their proceedings, meetings, places of abode, dress, features, complexion, or anything else that might lead to a discovery of the same, either by word, deed or sign, under the penalty of being sent out of the world by the first brother who shall meet me, and my name and character blotted out of existence, and never to be remembered but with contempt and abhorrence. And I further do swear, to use my best endeavours to punish by death any traitor or traitors, should any rise up among us, wherever I may find him or them, and though he should fry to the verge of nature I will pursue him with unceasing vengeance, so help me God and bless me, to keep this my oath inviolate.”

“Kiss the Book.”

I kissed the Bible.

“Show more light.”

In each quarter of the room a light shone forth, its rays till now obscured.

“Brethren, unmask, and let our brother know his brethren.”

I looked around me blinking in the sudden glare. There were many I knew not. More than one I knew. The voice that had haunted was the voice of Soldier Jack, who looked, I thought, somewhat foolish as my eye fell on him. There was William Thorpe, a cropper at Fisher’s, of the Brigg, and Ben Walker and William Smith, who worked at my uncle Wood’s. Thorpe, I knew, was a mate of my cousin George, and I was not much surprised to see him. Smith I knew only by sight, having seen him when I had taken work to be finished at the Brigg. Walker I knew somewhat better. His father was ever styled Buck Walker, having been somewhat of a gallant in his younger days, and even now fancying himself not a little. Ben o’ Buck’s was a young man of about my own age, dark and sallow, with deep set eyes and a sly fawning way. He had gone out of his way to be civil to me, and more than once in the summer–time had walked of a Sunday from Powle Chapel, where his father was a deacon, across the fields home with us. He was attentive in a quiet way to Mary to whom he spoke, I understood, chiefly about his sins, which troubled him greatly. Martha said it was his stomach that was wrong. She knew it by his pasty face and by his hands, cold and damp, like a fish tail. Martha was a lass of some prejudices. My father was rather partial to Ben, a quiet harmless lad, he judged, that would run steady and show no nonsense. I did not greatly care for him myself, but I wondered rather to see him where he was, not having given him credit for so much spunk. But most I marvelled, at Soldier Jack, yet did I gather courage from his presence, for I leaned on his stout heart and his worldly knowledge, gleaned in many strange scenes and lands.

But George was speaking to me again.

“There are signs in our Order, Brother Bamforth, and I will now communicate them to you. The first, the right hand passed behind the neck, thus, signifies ‘Are you a Lud?’ The party challenged should reply by placing two forefingers on his chin, thus. We have also a password which will admit you to our meetings, and to those of others in our movement. It is ‘Work, Win.’ You will now take your seat among the brethren and the business of the meeting will be resumed. ‘Any reports?’”

“Enoch Taylors taken on six more men,” said a Marsden man. “They’re making frames as fast as they can. Orders are rolling in. Horsfall’s putting them into Ottiwells as quick as they’re made. Th’ owd hands are told they’re no use, an’ young ’uns is being browt fra’ no one knows where, to work th’ shearing frames. Aw’n seen some cloth ’ats been finished on a frame, an’ it welly broke my heart. Aw’n been a cropper, lad and man, for thirty year, an’ aw nivver turned aht owt like it. It were as smooth as a babby’s cheek. An’ th’ frame can do th’ work of four men awn heerd th’ mester tell. It’s ruination, stark ruination, an’ me wi’ five childer an’ yar Emma lying in.”

“That’s noan hauf o’ th’ tale—Horsfall’s fair wild wi’ joy. He says he’ll feight Napoleon wi’ a finishin’ frame. He cries shame on th’ Nottingham police. He says th’ magistrates there owt to be drummed off th’ bench. He says they’re a pigeon–livered lot, an’ if he’d been there, he’d a ridden up to th’ saddle girths i’ th’ blood o’ th’ Luds before he’d ha’ been baulked o’ his way.”

“Shame on him, shame on him!” broke out fierce voices.

“Reports come from Liversedge that Cartwright, of Rawfolds, has ordered a set of machines from Taylor. William Hall, have yo’ owt to say?”

A man about thirty, dirty and slovenly, with a blotched face and slouching look, who it turned out lived at Hightown and had been dismissed from Mr. Jackson’s there and had been taken on at Wood’s, then rose. He had a great deal to say. He spoke of Mr. Cartwright: more of a foreigner nor an Englishmen, he called him. A quiet man with a cutting tongue. Had ne’er a civil word for a man an’ down on him in a jiffy if he looked at a pot o’ beer. Drank nowt himself, which Hall looked on as a bad sign and unEnglish. Was sacking th’ owd hands and stocking Rawfolds with machines and Parson Roberson was worse nor him. I had a sight of that same fighting parson not many months after, and Bill Hall was not far off the mark.

“Has any brother owt more to say anent Horsfall or Cartwright?” asked Mellor.

“I move they’re warned,” cried one.

“I’ll second it,” said another.

“Give it ’em hot,” cried a third. “Tell ’em plain we mean business. I’m sick o’ letter writin’. They laugh at our letters.” “Let them laugh,” said George; “they’ll laugh at wrong side o’ their mouths afore we’n done wi’ them. And now, lads, enough o’ business. Th’ landlord ’ll be thinking we’re poor customers. Let’s have some ale and drive dull care away. A song, boys; who’ll sing us a song?”

“That will I, George, but I mun drink first. My belly’s beginnin’ to think ahn cut mi throat.”

A brother had left the room, and now appeared with an immense jug of ale, and tots were handed round. Cutty pipes were produced and coarse tobacco. Who paid the shot I do not know. But I have heard tell that some masters who were threatened paid quit money, and others even gave money that their neighbours’ mills might be visited. But this I know not of a certainty, and only set it down as a thing that was said. This I know, there was no lack of ale among the lads, and money, too, came from somewhere.

“Now for your song, Soldier,” said George, and the men settled themselves for a spree and a fuddle. The croppers were ever a free lot given to roystering and cock fighting and bull baiting and other vanities.

And thus sang Soldier Jack, and all that knew the song joined lustily in the chorus, for that wild moor there was no fear of intruders, and our host had not love enough for the justices to set them on good customers.

“Come cropper lads of high renown,

Who love to drink good ale that’s brown,

And strike each haughty tyrant down,

With hatchet, pike, and gun!

Oh, the cropper lads for me,

The gallant lads for me,

Who with lusty stroke,

The shear frames broke,

The cropper lads for me!

What though the specials still advance,

And soldiers rightly round us prance,

The cropper lads still lead the dance,

With hatchet, pike, and gun!

Oh, the cropper lads for me,

The gallant lads for me,

Tho with lusty stroke

The shear frames broke,

The cropper lads for me!

And night by night when all is still

And the moon is hid behind the hill,

We forward march to do our will

With hatchet, pike, and gun!

Oh, the cropper lads for me,

The gallant lads for me,

Who with lusty stroke

The shear frames broke,

The cropper lads for me!

Great Enoch still shall lead the van.

Stop him who dare! Stop him who can!

Press forward every gallant man

With hatchet, pike, and gun!

Oh, the cropper lads for me,

The gallant lads for me,

Who with lusty stroke

The shear frames broke,

The cropper lads for me!”

The song was chorused with gusto by most there, and it was plain enough to see that the meeting had more hopes from great Enoch, as the Luds called the hammer used in machine smashing, after Enoch Taylor of Marsden, than they had from either persuasion or threats. That something more than words was in their minds was evident enough later on when we all turned out into a field at the back of the Buck. There was a watery moon in the sky that gave a ghostly sort of light. By this light Soldier Jack drew up the twenty or thirty men who left their cups and followed him into the fold. And there did Jack put us through our drill. One or two had muskets, a few had pikes. They had been fetched out of the mistal, where by day they lay concealed on the hay bowk. It was rare to see Jack at his drilling. We were formed in line fronting him, and Jack did gravely walk down the line, commenting on our appearance, and trying to bring us to some fashion of military time.

And this was the style of drill.

“Hold thi head up, man; thi breast’s noan th’ place for thi chin.” This to No. 1.

“Dal thi, No. 2, will ta’ square thi shoulders back or will ta’ not? Hast ta’ getten th’ bellywark ’at tha’ draws thissen in like that?”

“Turn th’ toes ’aat, No. 3. I said heels together not toes, tha’ gaumless idiot.”

“Na’ then, tenshun! Eyes front. Shoulder arms, right wheel. Mar———ch!” And away walked Jack with his head up and an old sabre over his shoulder, disguising his limp as best he could, at the head of his little column, as proud, I verily believe, as though he captained a company. It seemed to me poor fooling, then and always, but it gave such huge satisfaction to Soldier Jack, I never had the heart to tell him so, nor to shirk my drill.

“A poor shiftless lot,” he complained to me as we walked near midnight across Cupwith Common, the three rough miles that lay between the Buck and Lower Holm. “A peer shiftless lot, but what could you expect from a lot of croppers?”

“What do you think to make of them, Jack?” I asked.

“Why, nowt,” he answered. “Just nowt; but then yo’ see they mun do something. It’s all very well to go to th’ Buck an’ drink ale an’ sing songs. I’ll back th’ croppers at drinkin’ ale an’ singing songs against th’ best regiment the Duke has in Spain. But if all this meeting an’ masking an’ speechifyin’ is to do any good and lead to owt, there must be action, sooner or later. And in that day it will be well for th’ Luds if there is even one voice which they have learned to obey. Do you think it’s the great generals that win battles?”

“Why, of course, it is?” I answered.

“That’s just where yo’re out,” said Jack.

“It’s th’ sergeants and th’ corporals. Yo’ see in a feight yo’ cannot see much further nor yo’r nose end. All yo’n got to do for th’ most part is to keep your eye an’ yo’r ear on th’ sergeant that’s drilled yo’ sin’ yon learned the goose step, an’ do as he tells you. As long as he keeps his head an yo’ hear his voice, calm an’ cheerful, just as if yo’ were in the barrack yard or on parade, yo’r all reight an’ yo do as you’re told, like Tommy Tun, whoever he wer.”

“I never heard on him, Jack. Whose lad was he?”

“Aw don’t rightly know, but aw reckon he were famous for keepin’ in step. Howsomever, mark my words, George Mellor’s a good lad, wi’ fire enough for hauf a dozen. That lad o’ Parson Booth’s, ’at ’ud be better employed if he wer’ at home helpin’ his mother to rock th’ craddle, is a rare ’un to talk. Thorpe’s a good ’un if it comes to fisticuffs, but it’ll be Soldier Jack they’ll all look to when th’ bullets is whizzing ovver their heads, an’ what little wit they have is scattered an gone.”

“But, surely, Jack, there’ll be no whizzing of bullets?”

“Oh! won’t there? Aye that an’ waur. Do yo’ know Horsfall, o’ Ottiwell’s, has got th’ soldiers billetted in th’ town, th’ King’s Bays. Aw’ve drunk wi’ sum o’ them, an’ had a crack about old times. Oh! curses on this gamey heel o’ mine that keeps me limping o’er Cupwith Common when I might be stepping out behind the colours to the merry music of fife an’ drum. Yo’ll never know, lad, the savage joy of battle. It is the wine o’ life. When yo’ve once tasted it, even love an’ liquor are flat beside it. But what can’t be cured mun be endured. Well aw say, aw’n talked wi’ a sergeant at th’ Red Lion i’ Marsden. They’re patrolling th’ district ivvery night. If we go to Ottiwell’s, there’ll be a warm welcome for us.”

“But why are yo’ in it, Jack, that’s what caps me?” I said. “Yo’re nawther a cropper nor th’ son of a cropper.”

“No. What o’ thissen Ben?”

“Well, yo see, I promised George. I cannot run off mi word. An’ George sees further, perhaps, nor I do. Then young Booth says its opposition or submission. Opposition may mean imprisonment or worse, but submission can only mean pining to death.”

“Then yo’r in for George?” Jack asked.

“Well if you like to put it so, Soldier, yo’ll none be so far off th’ mark.”

“Well then say aw’m in it for yo’ an’ for sport, an’ cause an’ its i’ mi natur. But most, Ben Bamforth, it’s for yo’ an’ another lad or two, ’at’ll need a true friend an’ a shrewd head an’ a tricky tongue before this work’s through. And so, good neet, an’ wipe th’ muck off thi boots, else that saucy Mary o’ yours ’ll be axing more questions nor yo’ll care to answer.”

CHAPTER V

THE last day of March of that year of 1812 was a big day for me. I came of age. It would little seem me to say what mariner of man I was in the flush and vigour of my early manhood, but I was such a one as simple habits and plain fare and mountain air make of most. I was tall above the common, though even then not come to my full stature. And I was strong with a strength that frightened me. Folk marvelled at my height, for my father was but a small man, though wiry, and my mother matched my father. I had in those days ever to be careful of my head when I visited at folks’ houses, for the doorways were low and there were joists in unexpected places, and many a rude knock did my poll sustain before I learned caution by hard dints. Many youths do overgrow their strength, but that did not I, and though I had not ’Siah’s skill in wrestling, nor knew the tricks of the fall, ’Siah could not throw me, and once I got him in my arms, though he was thick set and solid, I could strain him in my hug till his very bones could crack. But my inches, three Score and fourteen, were much mocked by the lads about, who would make a spy–glass of their hands, and fixing an earnest gaze upon the crown of my head, would ask with mock concern if it were warm up there.

Now on this, my birthday, nought would satisfy my mother but that we should have a tea–drinking. I was in no great mood for such doings, but my mother must ever have her way. She said it was no, ordinary birthday. A man became a man but once in a life–time, and moreover, and this settled the matter with her, in no decent family was such an event allowed to pass unmarked. Times were bad she granted, but it was not as though we were bound to live from hand to mouth. So I bid my friends. Of course, George must come, and a handsomer, brighter lad never set foot in Lower Holme than George looked that night, all fun and laughter, with a jest for everyone. And he brought with him Ben Walker, whom I made welcome, as I should have made welcome the Evil One himself had George brought him. And I liked Walker as little. From the very first I misdoubted that man. I disliked his toad’s hand, his shifty eye, his low speech. There was something sly in his very tread, and his laugh had no heartiness in it. Then he was so cursedly civil to everybody. He praised my mother’s cakes: never were such cakes, and though, God knows he was welcome enough to eat his fill, he did not praise them without fair trial. He praised the tea, he praised the pig–cheek, he set little Mr. Webster all of a glow by telling him how edified he was by his last discourse at Powle Moor, but he had like to have come to grief with Soldier Jack by belittling the great Duke. Then he fell to praising Mary, and here he had like to have spoiled all, for as he spoke of her good looks he let his eye dwell upon her features with a look so gross that Mary coloured red with wrath, and my mother told him sharply Mary was not a slave for sale in the market, and we needed no inventory of her charms. So he at Mr. Webster again on religion, and as Buck Walker, his father, had turned pious in his latter days, and was now a leader at the Powle, the good man and Ben hit it rarely together. But his eye, I noted, ever wandered to Mary, and it liked me not.

I had asked, too, John Booth and his sister Faith, a demure young maid as ever made a courtesy. She was just all that Mary was not, and yet she pleased, which, when you think of it, should set us marvelling at the great goodness of God that hath so fashioned our maids that even their very extremes are admirable. For Mary was rosy and plump, with auburn curling hair, that would never be kept by net or string, but would escape and wanton over her face and neck, and had a laughing eye of blue, with rosy lips, and a saucy tongue. A very ray of warm sunshine was Mary.

But Faith was dark as a sloe as to hair and eye, with a skin of delicate white, and slender as a lily’s stalk, and gentle of speech and somewhat shy of manner, yet with no awkwardness withal. My heart, did warm to her from the first, and I think too she favoured me from the very day her brother made us acquaint at his master’s shop in Huddersfield. Perhaps because I was so big and strong, whilst her brother, though wonderful far learned in books, and with as big a soul as was ever put in man’s body, was only a short remove from a woman in those things which women love in man. And strange as it is that two maids so unlike should both be so sweet to live with and to think upon, is it not stranger still that two men so unlike as Soldier Jack and myself should be at one about Faith’s sweetness and loveableness.

Jack, if we might credit his own word in the matter, had a wide experience in the lists of love, but chiefly, I fear, among the hussies that followed the camp and the warm and yielding beauties of sunny Spain. Yet did this tried veteran surrender the garrison of his heart without parley and without terms to the gentle assault of this pure and modest lass, but with no thought of other love than a father’s or a brother’s, for Jack was well into the forties, and had had his fill of the burnings of a warmer flame.

Now after our tea–drinking was done, my father and Mr. Webster settled down by the fireside to smoke their pipes and talk of town’s affairs and the ever pressing sufferings of the poor. Mr. Webster’s talk was heavy hearing. He knew every family on that hill–side, and scarce one was free from griping want. The parson’s voice would falter and tears come to his eyes as he told his tale, and I could see my father shift uneasily in his chair and his hand wander to his pocket, and my mother would break in with “Hear to him, now!” “The likes o’ that,” “God save us,” and so on. And presently she went into the outer kitchen where leavings of our feast were spread, and when Mr. Webster went home that night Josiah trudged by his side with a hamper of good things. Not, be sure, for Mr. Webster himself, for of his own needs, though these were rather suspected than known for sure, the good man spoke not at all; and I will go bail he proved a trusty steward of the comforts borne on ’Siah’s broad shoulders.

For us younger ones there was no lack of sport, Postman’s Knock and Forfeits and other games in which there is overmuch kissing to my present thinking though I did not think so then. And if, whenever the rules of the game did give me occasion, I chose Faith rather than Mary, had I not reason in that Faith was the greater stranger to our house, and I was ever taught to be civil to our guests. And I was no little nettled by the carryings on of Mary and George. In my heart I cried shame on Mary, and said to myself it was unseemly that a maiden of a respectable family should so set herself at any man. It was “George” here and “George” there, and “Cousin Mellor” and “Cousin Mary,” though what kinship of blood there was between them was so slight it was a manifest pretence and cloak to make so much of it. I do hate a forward girl, and it was not like our Mary to make herself so sheap. Why, but the week before, being moved thereto on seeing her more tantalizingly pretty than common, I had made to give her a cousinly salute, and she had smacked me smartly on the cheek and started away in a rare pet. But I took care this night she should see I could play the swain as well as any George among them, and Faith seemed nothing loth. Not that she was over–bold. When I would kiss her she would turn her cheek to me with a pretty readiness, and seemed in no wise to mind it; but when George could spare a thought for any but Mary, and choose Faith, the colour would crimson her cheeks and brow, and she would turn her face away, and then, lo! all her flush would fade and leave her pale and trembling.

But we were perhaps getting over old for such games not yet old enough for the whist to which our elders had betaken themselves. So Mary, after no little urging thereto, did seat herself at the spinnet, which was a new joy in our house and had been the occasion of some bitterness to our friends. And touching the keys softly thus she sang very roguishly:—

“Love was once a little boy,

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

Then with him ’twas sweet to toy

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

He was then so innocent,

Not as now on mischief bent;

Free he came; and harmless went,

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

Love is now a little man,

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

And a very saucy one,

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

He walks so gay and looks so smart,

As if he owned each maiden’s heart

I wish he felt his own keen dart,

Heigh ho! heigh ho’!

Love, they say, is growing old,

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

Half his life’s already told,

Heigh ho! heigh ho!

When, he’s dead and buried too.

What shall we poor maidens do?

I’m sure I cannot tell—can you?

Heigh ho! heigh ho!”

Whereat my father and Soldier Jack shouted lustily “Heigh ho’! heigh ho!” and my mother shook her head but with a smile, and Mr. Webster must confess it was a pretty air and taking one, and trusted the singing thereof was not a holding of the candle to the Evil One. But Mary made a mouth at him and said, ’twould be time enough to be sad when she was too old to be merry.

Now after the singing of this catch it so befell that my mother had some occasion to desire from the village some small matter for the supper table, and Martha being intent upon getting ready the supper she bid Mary privily slip away and fetch the things she needed. This did Ben Walker overhear, though it was no business of his, and when Mary, watching her chance, had gone softly out of the one door, Ben, making some excuse, did steal away by the other, a thing we thought nothing of, deeming it but natural that a young man should seek to company a maid, and I not uneasy on Mary’s account, the night being fine and clear, and decent women being not molested in our parts, where strangers came little, and all were as friends and neighbours.

Now she had been gone some three parts of an hour, when I heard the front door open hurriedly and then slam to. My mother rose quickly and went into the parlour. It was in darkness, for we seldom used it save for company, and for our company of this night it was not large enough. But despite the gloom I knew it was Mary. My mother drew her into the house and placed her in her own rocking–chair. All had risen to their feet. Mary’s hat was hanging by its strings down her back. Her decent neckerchief that covered her neck and bosom had been torn aside, and some of the fastenings of her dress undone. She was panting hard for breath, and for a time could form no word.

“Where’s Ben Walker?” I said, and then Mary found her voice.

“Aye,” she cried, “where is he? Oh! the coward, the coward!” and then she sobbed and cried again “Oh! the coward, the coward.” And just then the sneck was lifted and Ben Walker walked in.

He stood in the door way; but I banged the door behind him; and Soldier Jack took him by the arm and drew him into the room, whilst Faith soothed Mary and straightened her dress.

“And now, Ben Walker, give an account o’ thissen,” said George, standing before the shrinking man, with clenched fist and a flashing eye.

And Walker shamed and faltered. His eye wandered from one face to another, and found no comfort anywhere.

“It’s noan o’ my doing, George. Tha’ needn’t look so fierce. Awn laid no hand on her, han aw Mary? Speak th’ truth, choose what tha’ does, it goes th’ furthest.”

“Oh! you coward, you pitiful coward!” was all that Mary could say; but she was calmer now.

“It wer’ this way,” continued Walker reluctantly. “We’d done th’ shopping at Ned o’ Bill’s, an’ had passed th’ church an’ got well into th’ lane comin’ back. Aw wer’ carryin’ th’ basket.”

“Where is th’ basket?” cried my mother.

“By gow, I reckon aw mun ha’ dropped it. Aw nivver gav’ it a thowt’, an’ aw nivver missed it till nah. As aw wer’ saying’, aw wer’ huggin’ th’ basket wi’ one arm, an’ aw’d axed Mary to hold on to th’ other.”

“As if aw’d link wi’ sich as thee,” said Mary, bridling again.

“An all at onst, about half–way up th’ broo’ a felly lope ovver th’ wall. He wer’ a big un, aw tell yo’, an’ ther’ wer’ more behind, aw heard ’em eggin’ ’im on. If he’d been by hissen aw’d ha stood up to him if he’d been as big as a steeple. He said nowt to me, but he gate hold o’ Mary an ’oo started to scream an’ struggle, an’ aw heerd him say he’d have a kiss if he died for it. Aw wer’ for parting on ’em, but he gav’ me such a look, an’ aw thowt aw heerd others comin, so aw just made off across th’ fields. Tha’ knows, George, duty afore everything, an’ if th’ soldiers is about they’re happen comin’ here an’ tha’ knows best whether tha’ wants to see ’em.”

“A soldier was it,” I cried. “What mak’ o’ man wor he?”

“Aw tell thee bigger nor thissen, wi’ a black poll an’ a eye like a dagger blade for keen, an’ ther’ were a scar across his face.”

“It were one o’ them chaps ’at’s stayin’ at John Race’s at th’ Red Lion i’ Marsden,” said Mary. “He stopped me once afore a week back, when aw wer’ walkin’ out that way on. But he spoke me civil then, an’ aw thowt nowt on it. But he’s been drinkin’ to–neet an’ used me rough an’ fleyed me. But aw reckon he’ll keep his distance another time. It’ll be a lesson to him.”

“How does ta mean, Mary?” said my mother. “Aw got one o’ his fingers between my teeth an’ aw bit him, an’ bit him, an’ bit him, an’ he had hard to do to throw me off. Then he called me a vicious little devil, an’ aw tucked up my skirts an’ ran for it. Aw wer’ more fleyed nor hurt. But thee! Ben Walker, thee!” and she turned from him, with a look of such contempt and scorn that Ben hung his head with a hang–dog look and mumbling something about outstaying his welcome and making his way shorter, he slunk off, no one staying him.

And thus was my birthday party dashed. We could settle down to nought after that. Mary was feverish, and laughed over much. My father talked of going down on the morrow to Milnsbridge and laying complaint to Justice Radcliffe. Little Mr. Webster said something, in a very half–hearted way, about praying for those that despitefully use us, and my mother flighted Mary, most unjustly I thought, for having ever spoken to the man at all, and so encouraged him. Soldier Jack said little, but I know he resented the outrage, for it is one thing for soldiers to make light with other folks’ women–kind and another guess sort of thing to have your own friends fall into their clutches. But George was warmest of all. He made us a grand speech agen the army and officers and men, which Soldier Jack swallowed with an ill grace. Hetty listened to him with all her ears, and you could see she liked to hear him rave on. And Mary, too, when first he began, harkened keen enough, but soon she turned away impatiently and busied herself with setting the supper, and I thought she had looked for something from George which did not come.

For me, I am slow of speech, stupid, Mary ever said. But I thought to myself: “A long, tall man, as big as a steeple, with a black poll, and a scar on his cheek,” and long after George and John Booth and pretty prim Faith had started for Huddersfield, and Soldier Jack and Mr. Webster had gone Powle way, I lay awake in bed thinking of a thing. The next morning I was up betimes. My father was away after the forenoon drinking, to try to sell a piece or two, a thing that every week became more difficult. There was no work to be done after the cattle had been foddered. We had almost given up work at our trade. We bad as many pieces in stock as we had room for it had gone hard with us to stop the output of country work, but what would you with the best mind in the world, you cannot go on forever making to stock. So our looms were still and time hung heavy on our bands. In the shippon I had had a word with ’Siah and when, dressed in my Sunday best, I struck off towards Marsden. I found him waiting for me on the road. “Yo’ mun keep’ yo’re head, Ben,” he said, “Watch his een. Face him square an’ watch his een. He’s a big ’un wi’ a long reach. He’ll likely come: at thee like a mad bull. Keep out on his way when he rushes. Let him tire hissen. Keep thi’ wind. Dunnot let him blow thee, let him blow hissen. He’ll be in bad fettle, wi’ no stay in him. Th’ way these sogers ha’ been living lately, he’ll ha’ more water nor wind in him, an’ more ale nor water. Then, when he shows signals o’ distress, work slowly in, and when tha’ gets a fair chance, hug him, break his ribs, squeeze th’ guts out on him. Glory hallelujah, he’ll gasp like a cod!” Then would ’Siah, after looking carefully round to see we were not observed, stop in his walk and feel my arms and legs as if I were a horse he wished to buy; then at it again with more advice. Once, with a wistful air, he surmised it might be better to fight by proxy, to let him pick a quarrel with Long Tom, as he said they called the soldier who had misused our Mary so. But he did not try long on that tack and had to content himself with hoping that some day or night, one of the red coats would try his game on with Martha and then—Glory Hallelujah! I smiled and ’Siah read my thoughts but he only said: “Oh! them sort’s noan particular. An’ there’s points about Martha, mind you, there’s points about Martha.”

At the Red Lion we found John Race, the little, round, red faced landlord in no very good humour. It was early in the day for drinking, to my taste, but ’Siah having a nice sense of honour in these matters, declared we must have some thing for the good of the house and offered, if I could not stomach a pint myself, to drink my share. So I called for a quart for ’Siah. Race handled my money very lovingly and then spit over it for luck.

“It’s little of the ready comes my way now, Ben,” he said.

“What! and a houseful of soldiers, John?”

“Oh! dun–not speak on it, Ben,” he cried. “It’s a ruined man I shall be if this goes on another month. It’s ‘John’ here and ‘landlord’ there from morning till night or till next morning rather. And paying for their drink is just the last thing they think of. Th’ kitchen door is white wi’ chalk, and, well I know it’s no use keeping the scores. It’s just force of habit.

“But surely, John, you need not serve them unless they pay.”

“It’s easy talking, Ben. Th’ law’s one thing, but a house full o’ soldiers is another. And aw cannot be everywhere an’ my dowter an’ th’ servant, an’ for owt aw know th’ missus hersen are all just in a league to ruin me. Their heads are all turned wi’ th’ soldiers an’ such carryin’s on in a decent man’s house wer nivver seen before or since.”

“But what about the officer in command?”

“What, him! Complaining to him is just like falling out with the devil an’ going to hell for justice. Sometimes he laughs at me, sometimes he swears at me, sometimes he sneers at me, and to cap all, when I turn, as a trodden worm will turn at times, he just tells me to go clean the pewters, and send mi dowter to amuse him. An’ th’ warst on it is ’oo’s willin’ enough to go. What will be th’ end of it all, is fair beyond me. But nine months ’ll tell a tale i’ Marsden, or my name’s not John Race.”

John would have run on for ever, but I was anxious to get my own business done so I bade him show me up to the Captain’s room. The landlord’s own private sitting room and an adjoining bedroom had been appropriated by the officer, and I followed John up the narrow, creaking, stairs. At a door on the landing he knocked, and a thin voice within called on us to enter and be damned to us.

The room was small and low and packed with furniture of all styles and ages, more like a dealer’s shop than an ordinary room. Folk said that many a quaint and costly ornament had found its way to John Race’s in settlement of ale shots and gone to deck the room which was his wife’s delight. But Captain Northman or his friends had treated it with scant reverence. On a table in the centre were a pack or two of cards and a couple of candles, that had guttered in the socket. A decanter half full of brandy stood by their side, whilst another, empty, and the fragments of a glass, lay on the floor. Boots, spurs, gloves, swords canes, were strewn about on the chairs, and the scent of stale tobacco reek and fumes of strong waters filled the room. A table, with an untasted breakfast set upon it, was drawn to the window, and by it, in a cushioned chair, sat a young man of some five and twenty years, dressed in his small clothes and a gaudy dressing–gown, yawning wofully and raising with unsteady hand a morning draught to his tremulous lips. He had evidently had a night of it and his temper was none the better for it. I raised my hand respectfully to my forehead as I had seen soldiers do, but he only stretched out his legs and stared me rudely in the face.

“Well, fellow,” he said at length, “what’s your pleasure of me that you must break in on my breakfast?”

“My name, sir, is Benjamin Bamforth.”

“Ben o’ Bill’s o’ Holme,” said the landlord.

“Well, why the devil can’t he stop at home?” said my lord. “Come, sir, your business.”

“Captain Northman,” I said civilly, and speaking my finest, nothing daunted by his captaincy, but nettled by his slack manners, for even Mr. Chew, the vicar, treated me with civility as my father’s son; “Captain Northman, you have in your Company, a soldier known as Long Tom, his proper name I know not, nor his rank.”

“Corporal Tom, well, what of him?”

“Sir, I complain that last night he did wantonly and without enticement or other warrant insult my own cousin Mary, as she was returning home late in the evening.”

“Well, sir?”

“And I lay this complaint that he may be punished as he deserves.”

“And is that all?”

“And enough too, it seems to me, Captain Northman.”

“Good God! was ever the like heard!” exclaimed the Captain. “Here I am half pulled out of my bed in the small hours by a giant boor, my head all splitting with this vile liquor not fit for hog wash, and all because Long Tom chooses to kiss a pretty girl, who ten to one was nothing loth.”

“Captain Northman,” I said, very quietly, “I may be a boor, but I am one of the boors that pay your wages. Neither is it the part of a gentleman to meet a request for redress by an added insult. But I see I mistook my man and now I shall take my own course.” So I turned on my heels and strode down the steps.

“Long Tom’s in the kitchen,” whispered ’Siah, and to the kitchen I strode.

Here were about a dozen men in shirt sleeves, lounging and lolling about, some smoking, some pipe–claying their belts and polishing their arms, others drinking and at cards even thus early. It was not difficult to pick out my man. He was stood with legs outstretched before the fire. I made straight to him, and by the look he gave I knew he guessed my errand. I strode straight to him and without a word I smote him with the back of my hand across the face. The angry blood rushed to his cheeks, and he clenched his fist. The other soldiers jumped to their feet. “Fair play” cried ’Siah. “Man to man and fair play.”

“A fight, a fight.”

“A ring, a ring.”

“Into the yard with you my bully boys” said one who seemed to have authority, and into the yard we went, the whole company behind us, in great good humour at anything that promised sport.

“Two cans to one on Long Tom,” I heard. “I lay even on the bumpkin,” said another, and I was grateful even for that bit of backing.

“Keep thi’ temper an’ bide your chance,” whispered ’Siah, anxious to the last.

And then we faced each other, Long Tom and I. He was stripped to the shirt and I stripped too. He was as big a man as I with more flesh and more skill. But all the loose living had told on him and he soon began to blow. He hammered at me lustily and I took it smiling. If he brayed my face to a pulp I meant to get one in at him. My chance came at last. I put all my force and all my weight into one blow full at his mouth. He guarded and made as tho’ to counter. But his guard went back on himself, and my fist went plumb on his month. He went down like a felled ox and rolled on the ground kicking his heels and spitting out blood and his teeth. Then ’Siah raised a great shout and even some of the soldiers seemed not sorry to see the mighty fallen. And ’Siah led me off, feeling dazed and weak as a woman, and with a strong bent to blubber like a baby, now it was all over, for I am not used to fighting, and would any day rather give a point or two than fratch.

John Race, in a quiet way, was as rejoiced as ’Siah, but dare not show it too openly, for fear of angering the soldiers, of whom he was in great dread. But as I put my head under the pump and swilled my face he brought me a stiff runner of brandy and would take no pay. And presently others of the company came a round me and pressed me to drink, and the little captain, who had watched us from the window, came down and urged me to take the King’s shilling. “Faith,” said he, “there’s blood in you, man. I thought they put sizing in your veins, but it’s blood after all.” “Aye, my little tom tit,” said ’Siah who had no reverence for dignities. “It’s blood ’at wouldn’t stand mastering by sich as thee. Tha’ need’nt fluster thissen. Aw’m noan bahn to hurt thee. But if tha’ can get any o’ these felly’s to back thee, aw’ll be glad to feight the two on you. Will’nt one on yo’ oblige me? Noa? Weel nivver mind, cap’n, aw’ll happen come across thee in a year or twi when th’art full grown, an’ if thi’ mother ’ll let thee, tha’ may happen ha’ a bang at me. Come, Ben, let’s go back to yar wark. This is nobbut babby lakin!” And so, ’Siah bore me off, with colours flying.

On our homeward way we had much scheming as to how I should account for my face, which began to puff and show divers colours.

’Siah was for telling the story as it was, but I had no mind that Mary’s name should be mixed up in it. So we kept abroad the whole day and to my mother’s great grief and my father’s anger we presented ourselves late at night; ’Siah really, and myself feigning to be drunk. And Mary was so disgusted that she would scarce look at me, saying the sight of my face set her against her food. But towards the week end, Martha musts have got the secret from ’Siah and passed it on, for one night when I sat brooding by the fire, with no light but the glow of the embers, a light form stole softly behind my chair, and a pair of warm arms went round my neck and a tearful voice sobbed.

“O! Ben, yo’ mun forgive me. But aw’ll never forgive missen.”

What is the magic of a woman’s kiss and how comes it that under some conditions the touch of her lips will stir you not at all, and under others will kindle in your heart a flame that lasts your life–time. Till that moment I vow I had had no love for my cousin Mary, save such as a brother may have for his sister, between which and a lover’s love is, I take it, the difference between the light of the moon, and the light of the sun. I had sometimes kissed her and she had submitted as not minding. But of late she had eluded me when I had sought to salute her, which skittishness I had put down to what was going on between her and George. And now, unsought, she had put her arms about my neck and drawn back my head to the warm cushion of her breast and pressed a kiss upon my brow. And lo! love, glorious love, full grown and lusty, leaped into the ocean of my being and ruled it thenceforth for even. And yet when I sprung to my feet and held out my arms and would have taken Mary to my heart, she sprung away and bade me keep my distance, and when I made to take what she would not grant, she grew angered, so that my heart fell and I was sick with doubts and sadness. And here, tho’ little given to preaching, I would deliver my homily anent all shams and make–believes. Here was Mary setting my thoughts once more on a wrong tack so that I had no choice but return to what I had taken for granted, that it was a made up thing between her and George Mellor. And but for that belief many things that happened might not have befallen. Then, too, after my fight with Long Tom, my father gave me a talking to on my loose and raffish ways, and yet the very next market day, I heard of his boasting to all and sundry of my deeds, and the rumour thereof grew so much beyond the simple truth that I should not have some day been surprised to hear that I had routed a whole regiment. My mother, too, scolded me not a little and wept over my bruised skin, but among the women folk of our parish she bragged so much of my strength and my courage that I had like to become a laughing stock among the men. Even little Mr. Webster, who spoke to me at nigh an hour’s length on the sinfulness of brawling and on the Christian duty of turning, the other cheek to the smiter, did ever after that honour me by asking the support of my arm when he returned late home, saying no one would molest him while I was by. Only Martha, among them all, was honest, for she made no secret of her delight in me, loading me with praises so that ’Siah began to look at me with an evil eye, and she insisted on giving me each day to breakfast a double portion of porridge and piling up blankets on my bed till I was like to be smothered.

But Mary spoke of my doings not at all, whilst Faith, when she heard of the fray, prattled prettily a whole afternoon, and said so many sweet things to me that Mary became waspish and told her I was set up enough by nature without folk going out of their way to spoil me by soft sawder. Then Faith must unsay half she had said and finished by opining that, after all, the proper course would have been to horse–whip Captain Northman before his own Company.

And this, she thought, was what George would have done.

CHAPTER VI.

It must not be supposed, because I have turned aside to tell of my own poor affairs, that the Luddites were idle all this while. Indeed it is very difficult for me to give any notion of the state of this part of the country at that time. Trade was as bad as bad could be. Nobody seemed to have any money to spend on clothes. It took most folk all their time to line the inside, and the outside had to make shift as best it could. It was cruel to see the homes of those who had no back set and depended on their daily toil for their daily bread. And yet some manufacturers persisted in putting in machines that could have but one effect, to turn adrift many of those who still had work. And with it all arose in the minds not only of the croppers but of all the working people for miles around a feeling of injustice, of oppression, a rankling sense of wrong. And the poor felt for the poor. They got it into their heads that the rich cared nought about them, that their only thought was to look after themselves, to fill their own pockets, and the working folk might rot in their rags for ought they cared. And added to this was a chafing sense of their own helplessness. They felt like prisoned birds dashing against the bars of a cage. You see they had no say in anything at all. They were Englishmen only in name their lives, even when times were fairly good, were none of the brightest. It was mostly work and bed and not too much bed. Hard work and scant fare and little pleasure. They had love and friendship, for these come by nature, but they had little else to bring a ray or two of sunshine into their lives. When people in those days met together to set forth their grievances they were persecuted for sedition; when they didn’t meet and were quiet and law–abiding our betters said we had no grievances. Nay, if there was no violence both of speech and action the wise–acres in London said and thought all things were for the best in the best of all possible worlds. You couldn’t talk sense into them, you just had to poise it into them. So what would you?

Anyway, before the Luddites had been banded together many weeks it was well understood that we existed for bigger things than to break shears and cropping frames. Booth was always dinning this into me when I hinted at the wastefulness of smashing costly frames and other such like mischief. “We must arouse the conscience of our rulers,” he said. “They cannot, or will not, see how desperate is our plight. Besides, nine tenths of them have a personal interest in war, in prolonging shutting our ports. Their sense of right will not move them: we must frighten them.” Then he would smile in his sweet, sad way and say something in the French which he explained to mean that folk cannot have pancakes without breaking eggs, and after that I never lifted a hammer to smash a frame but my mind went to Shrove Tuesday and I had a vision of Mary with sleeves rolled up and face flushed by the heat of the fire, her dress tucked between her knees, tossing pancakes up the big chimney, and catching them sissing as they fell with the browned side up into the spurting fat.

Not that I did much machine breaking myself. There is a canny thriftiness in my nature that made me dislike such wantonness. Besides George Mellor was really the soul of the whole affair: and where George was there was no peace. He seemed like one possessed. From the Shears Inn at Hightown to the Nag’s Head at Paddock, from the Nag’s Head to the Buck, night after night, swearing in men, arranging midnight visits, dropping into this shop, loitering by that, counselling one man, winning another, he seemed to be everywhere at once, to know every man’s wants and every man’s grievance. What master to leave alone, what to fley. How he did it all and when he slept is a mystery to me. And he never lost heart never wavered from his purpose and there never was a moment when we didn’t, all trust him and all love him —save only one.

I say I didn’t handle Enoch much myself. We called the big sledge hammer that we battered the frames with, Enoch, after Mr. Taylor of Marsden. George saw I did not like the work, and the distance of my home from Longroyd Bridge made a good excuse for me. But ’Siah gloried in the work and when I saw him of a morning dull–eyed and weary and his clogs dirty with fresh clay I guessed what he had been at, and so in time did Martha too. But I could not always shirk my share of this midnight work, little, as it was to my liking. ’Siah had brought an earnest, message to me from George. “Yo’ mun go, Ben. Th’ lads are talking,” ’Siah had said.

And so, after milking time one night in the first week in April I told my mother I must go down to th’ Brigg, and she must not be uneasy if I did not come home that night, as I should probably stay at my aunt’s; and my mother must needs send by me a basket of eggs and a cream cheese for her sister, and a rubbing bottle for her rheumatism with full directions for its use. I saw a look pass between Martha and Mary when I said I was going to th’ Brigg, and Mary said:

“Mind yo’ don’t bring a black eye home wi’ thee, i’ th’ mornin’, Ben. But if th’ art so set up wi’ thissen for feightin’, do it by daylight. It’s ill wark that winnot bear th’ sun’s face,” and then I knew Martha had been talking. But I reckoned not to understand her, and off I set with as poor a heart for my job as if I were going to be hanged.

Up by Kitchen Fold I came up with ’Siah and Soldier Jack. It was a darkish night, wet, drizzling and cold. We made off over by Crosland Moor, and never a soul did we meet till we were falling into Milnsbridge where Justice Radcliffe’s house was. Then we passed a patrol of horse. They challenged us, and each of us had to tell a different lie. But they had no ground for stopping us, and they went their way over the moor, their horses pacing slowly and the riders peering on either side into the darkness of the night. I never knew those horse soldiers one bit of use all the time, and with their loose ways they did much harm. Those that had a tale which could pass muster would walk past them bold as brass. Those that couldn’t face them just avoided them, which was easy enough whether by day or night, for stone fences are good for men to hide behind, and at the best it is a hard country for men on cavalry horses.

At the Nag’s Head, at Paddock, we found George Mellor, William Smith, Thorpe, Ben o’ Buck’s, his brother John, Tom Brooke, Bill Hall, and two or three others who worked at Wood’s. We had a glass apiece, and we needed it, or thought we did, which comes to the same thing in the end. These new–fangled teetotal fads hadn’t come in then, and when folk didn’t drink it was because they couldn’t get it. Anyhow a glass of hot rum and water, on a perishing night, warms the cockles of your heart, and for my part I should have been well content to stretch my legs before the big kitchen fire at the Nag’s Head and caress my stomach with another glass. But George was impatient for us to be off. So we up Paddock, by Jim–lane to the bottom of Marsh. There is a two–storied stone house there looking over to Gledholt, with a mill at the back of it. I knew the owner by sight well enough, a little spindle–shanked man, with a squeaky voice. I had seen him many’s the time at the Cherry Tree. Fond of his glass he was, and a great braggart when warmed with liquor. He was a foremost man in the Watch and Ward, and I had heard him boast oft enough of what he would do if the Luddites ever came his way. So I sniggered a bit to myself when we came on to the road in front of the house. The windows were all dark in front. We went up the house side to the mill yard. Here was a door barring the way into the yard.