Sybil, or the Two Nations / Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-1881

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Title: Sybil, or the Two Nations

Author: Benjamin Disraeli

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SYBIL, OR THE TWO NATIONS

by Benjamin Disraeli




I would inscribe these volumes to one whose noble spirit and
gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the
suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often encouraged, and
whose taste and judgment have ever guided, their pages; the
most severe of critics, but--a perfect Wife!




Advertisement



The general reader whose attention has not been specially
drawn to the subject which these volumes aim to illustrate,
the Condition of the People, might suspect that the Writer had
been tempted to some exaggeration in the scenes which he has
drawn and the impressions which he has wished to convey.  He
thinks it therefore due to himself to state that he believes
there is not a trait in this work for which he has not the
authority of his own observation, or the authentic evidence
which has been received by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary
Committees.  But while he hopes he has alleged nothing which
is not true, he has found the absolute necessity of
suppressing much that is genuine.  For so little do we know of
the state of our own country that the air of improbability
that the whole truth would inevitably throw over these pages,
might deter many from their perusal.

Grosvenor-Gate,
May Day, 1845.




BOOK I


Book 1 Chapter 1



"I'll take the odds against Caravan."

"In poneys?"

"Done."

And Lord Milford, a young noble, entered in his book the bet
which he had just made with Mr Latour, a grey headed member of
the Jockey Club.

It was the eve of the Derby of 1837.  In a vast and golden
saloon, that in its decorations would have become, and in its
splendour would not have disgraced, Versailles in the days of
the grand monarch, were assembled many whose hearts beat at
the thought of the morrow, and whose brains still laboured to
control its fortunes to their advantage.

"They say that Caravan looks puffy," lisped in a low voice a
young man, lounging on the edge of a buhl table that had once
belonged to a Mortemart, and dangling a rich cane with
affected indifference in order to conceal his anxiety from
all, except the person whom he addressed.

"They are taking seven to two against him freely over the
way," was the reply.  "I believe it's all right."

"Do you know I dreamed last night something about Mango,"
continued the gentleman with the cane, and with a look of
uneasy superstition.

His companion shook his head.

"Well," continued the gentleman with the cane, "I have no
opinion of him.  I gave Charles Egremont the odds against
Mango this morning; he goes with us, you know.  By the bye,
who is our fourth?"

"I thought of Milford," was the reply in an under tone.  "What
say you?"

"Milford is going with St James and Punch Hughes."

"Well, let us come into supper, and we shall see some fellow
we like."

So saying, the companions, taking their course through more
than one chamber, entered an apartment of less dimensions than
the principal saloon, but not less sumptuous in its general
appearance.  The gleaming lustres poured a flood of soft yet
brilliant light over a plateau glittering with gold plate, and
fragrant with exotics embedded in vases of rare porcelain.
The seats on each side of the table were occupied by persons
consuming, with a heedless air, delicacies for which they had
no appetite; while the conversation in general consisted of
flying phrases referring to the impending event of the great
day that had already dawned.

"Come from Lady St Julian's, Fitz?" said a youth of very
tender years, and whose fair visage was as downy and as
blooming as the peach from which with a languid air he
withdrew his lips to make this inquiry of the gentleman with
the cane.

"Yes; why were not you there?"

"I never go anywhere," replied the melancholy Cupid,
"everything bores me so."

"Well, will you go to Epsom with us to-morrow, Alfred?" said
Lord Fitzheron.  "I take Berners and Charles Egremont, and
with you our party will be perfect."

"I feel so cursed blas‚!" exclaimed the boy in a tone of
elegant anguish.

"It will give you a fillip, Alfred," said Mr Berners; "do you
all the good in the world."

"Nothing can do me good," said Alfred, throwing away his
almost untasted peach, "I should be quite content if anything
could do me harm.  Waiter, bring me a tumbler of Badminton."

"And bring me one too," sighed out Lord Eugene De Vere, who
was a year older than Alfred Mountchesney, his companion and
brother in listlessness.  Both had exhausted life in their
teens, and all that remained for them was to mourn, amid the
ruins of their reminiscences, over the extinction of
excitement.

"Well, Eugene, suppose you come with us."  said Lord
Fitzheron.

"I think I shall go down to Hampton Court and play tennis,"
said Lord Eugene.  "As it is the Derby, nobody will be there."

"And I will go with you, Eugene," said Alfred Mountchesney,
"and we will dine together afterwards at the Toy.  Anything is
better than dining in this infernal London."

"Well, for my part," said Mr Berners.  "I do not like your
suburban dinners.  You always get something you can't eat, and
cursed bad wine."

"I rather like bad wine," said Mr Mountchesney; "one gets so
bored with good wine."

"Do you want the odds against Hybiscus, Berners?" said a
guardsman looking up from his book, which he had been very
intently studying.

"All I want is some supper, and as you are not using your
place--"

"You shall have it.  Oh!  here's Milford, he will give them
me."

And at this moment entered the room the young nobleman whom we
have before mentioned, accompanied by an individual who was
approaching perhaps the termination of his fifth lustre but
whose general air rather betokened even a less experienced
time of life.  Tall, with a well-proportioned figure and a
graceful carriage, his countenance touched with a sensibility
that at once engages the affections.  Charles Egremont was not
only admired by that sex, whose approval generally secures men
enemies among their fellows, but was at the same time the
favourite of his own.

"Ah, Egremont!  come and sit here," exclaimed more than one
banqueter.

"I saw you waltzing with the little Bertie, old fellow," said
Lord Fitzheron, "and therefore did not stay to speak to you,
as I thought we should meet here.  I am to call for you,
mind."

"How shall we all feel this time to-morrow?" said Egremont,
smiling.

"The happiest fellow at this moment must be Cockie Graves,"
said Lord Milford.  "He can have no suspense I have been
looking over his book, and I defy him, whatever happens, not
to lose."

"Poor Cockie."  said Mr Berners; "he has asked me to dine with
him at the Clarendon on Saturday."

"Cockie is a very good Cockie," said Lord Milford, "and
Caravan is a very good horse; and if any gentleman sportsman
present wishes to give seven to two, I will take him to any
amount."

"My book is made up," said Egremont; "and I stand or fall by
Caravan."

"And I."

"And I."

"And I."

"Well, mark my words," said a fourth, rather solemnly, "Rat-
trap wins."

"There is not a horse except Caravan," said Lord Milford, "fit
for a borough stake."

"You used to be all for Phosphorus, Egremont," said Lord
Eugene de Vere.

"Yes; but fortunately I have got out of that scrape.  I owe
Phip Dormer a good turn for that.  I was the third man who
knew he had gone lame."

"And what are the odds against him now."

"Oh!  nominal; forty to one,--what you please."

"He won't run," said Mr Berners, "John Day told me he had
refused to ride him."

"I believe Cockie Graves might win something if Phosphorus
came in first," said Lord Milford, laughing.

"How close it is to-night!" said Egremont.  "Waiter, give me
some Seltzer water; and open another window; open them all."

At this moment an influx of guests intimated that the assembly
at Lady St Julian's was broken up.  Many at the table rose and
yielded their places, clustering round the chimney-piece, or
forming in various groups, and discussing the great question.
Several of those who had recently entered were votaries of
Rat-trap, the favourite, and quite prepared, from all the
information that had reached them, to back their opinions
valiantly.  The conversation had now become general and
animated, or rather there was a medley of voices in which
little was distinguished except the names of horses and the
amount of odds.  In the midst of all this, waiters glided
about handing incomprehensible mixtures bearing aristocratic
names; mystical combinations of French wines and German
waters, flavoured with slices of Portugal fruits, and cooled
with lumps of American ice, compositions which immortalized
the creative genius of some high patrician name.

"By Jove!  that's a flash," exclaimed Lord Milford, as a blaze
of lightning seemed to suffuse the chamber, and the beaming
lustres turned white and ghastly in the glare.

The thunder rolled over the building.  There was a dead
silence.  Was it going to rain?  Was it going to pour?  Was
the storm confined to the metropolis?  Would it reach Epsom?
A deluge, and the course would be a quagmire, and strength
might baffle speed.

Another flash, another explosion, the hissing noise of rain.
Lord Milford moved aside, and jealous of the eye of another,
read a letter from Chifney, and in a few minutes afterwards
offered to take the odds against Pocket Hercules.  Mr Latour
walked to the window, surveyed the heavens, sighed that there
was not time to send his tiger from the door to Epsom, and get
information whether the storm had reached the Surrey hills,
for to-night's operations.  It was too late.  So he took a
rusk and a glass of lemonade, and retired to rest with a cool
head and a cooler heart.

The storm raged, the incessant flash played as it were round
the burnished cornice of the chamber, and threw a lurid hue on
the scenes of Watteau and Boucher that sparkled in the
medallions over the lofty doors.  The thunderbolts seemed to
descend in clattering confusion upon the roof.  Sometimes
there was a moment of dead silence, broken only by the
pattering of the rain in the street without, or the pattering
of the dice in a chamber at hand.  Then horses were backed,
bets made, and there were loud and frequent calls for brimming
goblets from hurrying waiters, distracted by the lightning and
deafened by the peal.  It seemed a scene and a supper where
the marble guest of Juan might have been expected, and had he
arrived, he would have found probably hearts as bold and
spirits as reckless as he encountered in Andalusia.




Book 1 Chapter 2



"Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?" sang out a
gentleman in the ring at Epsom.  It was full of eager groups;
round the betting post a swarming cluster, while the magic
circle itself was surrounded by a host of horsemen shouting
from their saddles the odds they were ready to receive or
give, and the names of the horses they were prepared to back
or to oppose.

"Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?"

"I'll give you five to one," said a tall, stiff Saxon peer, in
a white great coat.

"No; I'll take six."

The tall, stiff peer in the white great coat mused for a
moment with his pencil at his lip, and then said, "Well, I'll
give you six.  What do you say about Mango?"

"Eleven to two against Mango," called out a little humpbacked
man in a shrill voice, but with the air of one who was master
of his work.

"I should like to do a little business with you, Mr
Chippendale," said Lord Milford in a coaxing tone, "but I must
have six to one."

"Eleven to two, and no mistake," said this keeper of a second-
rate gaming-house, who, known by the flattering appellation of
Hump Chippendale, now turned with malignant abruptness from
the heir apparent of an English earldom.

"You shall have six to one, my Lord," said Captain Spruce, a
debonair personage with a well-turned silk hat arranged a
little aside, his coloured cravat tied with precision, his
whiskers trimmed like a quickset hedge.  Spruce, who had
earned his title of Captain on the plains of Newmarket, which
had witnessed for many a year his successful exploits, had a
weakness for the aristocracy, who knowing his graceful
infirmity patronized him with condescending dexterity,
acknowledged his existence in Pall Mall as well as at
Tattersalls, and thus occasionally got a point more than the
betting out of him.  Hump Chippendale had none of these gentle
failings; he was a democratic leg, who loved to fleece a
noble, and thought all men were born equal--a consoling creed
that was a hedge for his hump.

"Seven to four against the favourite; seven to two against
Caravan; eleven to two against Mango.  What about Benedict?
Will any one do anything about Pocket Hercules?  Thirty to one
against Dardanelles."

"Done."

"Five and thirty ponies to one against Phosphorus," shouted a
little man vociferously and repeatedly.

"I will give forty," said Lord Milford.  No answer,--nothing
done.

"Forty to one!" murmured Egremont who stood against
Phosphorus.  A little nervous, he said to the peer in the
white great coat, "Don't you think that Phosphorus may after
all have some chance?"

"I should be cursed sorry to be deep against him," said the
peer.

Egremont with a quivering lip walked away.  He consulted his
book; he meditated anxiously.  Should he hedge?  It was
scarcely worth while to mar the symmetry of his winnings; he
stood "so well" by all the favourites; and for a horse at
forty to one.  No; he would trust his star, he would not
hedge.

"Mr Chippendale," whispered the peer in the white great coat,
"go and press Mr Egremont about Phosphorus.  I should not be
surprised if you got a good thing."

At this moment, a huge, broad-faced, rosy-gilled fellow, with
one of those good-humoured yet cunning countenances that we
meet occasionally on the northern side of the Trent, rode up
to the ring on a square cob and dismounting entered the
circle.  He was a carcase butcher, famous in Carnaby market,
and the prime councillor of a distinguished nobleman for whom
privately he betted on commission.  His secret service to-day
was to bet against his noble employer's own horse, and so he
at once sung out, "Twenty to one against Man-trap."

A young gentleman just launched into the world, and who, proud
of his ancient and spreading acres, was now making his first
book, seeing Man-trap marked eighteen to one on the cards,
jumped eagerly at this bargain, while Lord Fitzheron and Mr
Berners who were at hand and who in their days had found their
names in the book of the carcase butcher, and grown wise by
it, interchanged a smile.

"Mr Egremont will not take," said Hump Chippendale to the peer
in the white great coat.

"You must have been too eager," said his noble friend.

The ring is up; the last odds declared; all gallop away to the
Warren.  A few minutes, only a few minutes, and the event that
for twelve months has been the pivot of so much calculation,
of such subtile combinations, of such deep conspiracies, round
which the thought and passion of the sporting world have hung
like eagles, will be recorded in the fleeting tablets of the
past.  But what minutes!  Count them by sensation and not by
calendars, and each moment is a day and the race a life.
Hogarth in a coarse and yet animated sketch has painted
"Before" and "After."  A creative spirit of a higher vein
might develope the simplicity of the idea with sublimer
accessories.  Pompeius before Pharsalia, Harold before
Hastings, Napoleon before Waterloo, might afford some striking
contrasts to the immediate catastrophe of their fortunes.
Finer still the inspired mariner who has just discovered a new
world; the sage who has revealed a new planet; and yet the
"Before" and "After" of a first-rate English race, in the
degree of its excitement, and sometimes in the tragic emotions
of its close, may vie even with these.

They are saddling the horses; Caravan looks in great
condition; and a scornful smile seems to play upon the
handsome features of Pavis, as in the becoming colours of his
employer, he gracefully gallops his horse before his admiring
supporters.  Egremont in the delight of an English patrician
scarcely saw Mango, and never even thought of Phosphorus--
Phosphorus, who, by the bye, was the first horse that showed,
with both his forelegs bandaged.

They are off!

As soon as they are well away, Chifney makes the running with
Pocket Hercules.  Up to the Rubbing House he is leading; this
is the only point the eye can select.  Higher up the hill,
Caravan, Hybiscus, Benedict, Mahometan, Phosphorus, Michel
Fell, and Rat-trap are with the grey, forming a front rank,
and at the new ground the pace has told its tale, for half a
dozen are already out of the race.

The summit is gained; the tactics alter: here Pavis brings up
Caravan, with extraordinary severity,--the pace round
Tattenham corner terrific; Caravan leading, then Phosphorus a
little above him, Mahometan next, Hybiscus fourth.  Rat-trap
looking badly, Wisdom, Benedict and another handy.  By this
time Pocket Hercules has enough, and at the road the tailing
grows at every stride.  Here the favourite himself is hors de
combat, as well as Dardanelles, and a crowd of lesser
celebrities.

There are now but four left in the race, and of these, two,
Hybiscus and Mahometan, are some lengths behind.  Now it is
neck and neck between Caravan and Phosphorus.  At the stand
Caravan has decidedly the best, but just at the post, Edwards,
on Phosphorus, lifts the gallant little horse, and with an
extraordinary effort contrives to shove him in by half a
length.

"You look a little low, Charley," said Lord Fitzheron, as
taking their lunch in their drag he poured the champagne into
the glass of Egremont.

"By Jove!" said Lord Milford, "Only think of Cockie Graves
having gone and done it!"




Book 1 Chapter 3



Egremont was the younger brother of an English earl, whose
nobility being of nearly three centuries' date, ranked him
among our high and ancient peers, although its origin was more
memorable than illustrious.  The founder of the family had
been a confidential domestic of one of the favourites of Henry
the Eighth, and had contrived to be appointed one of the
commissioners for "visiting and taking the surrenders of
divers religious houses."  It came to pass that divers of
these religious houses surrendered themselves eventually to
the use and benefit of honest Baldwin Greymount.  The king was
touched with the activity and zeal of his commissioner.  Not
one of them whose reports were so ample and satisfactory, who
could baffle a wily prior with more dexterity, or control a
proud abbot with more firmness.  Nor were they well-digested
reports alone that were transmitted to the sovereign: they
came accompanied with many rare and curious articles, grateful
to the taste of one who was not only a religious reformer but
a dilettante; golden candlesticks and costly chalices;
sometimes a jewelled pix; fantastic spoons and patens, rings
for the fingers and the ear; occasionally a fair-written and
blazoned manuscript--suitable offering to the royal scholar.
Greymount was noticed; sent for; promoted in the household;
knighted; might doubtless have been sworn of the council, and
in due time have become a minister; but his was a discreet
ambition--of an accumulative rather than an aspiring
character.  He served the king faithfully in all domestic
matters that required an unimpassioned, unscrupulous agent;
fashioned his creed and conscience according to the royal
model in all its freaks; seized the right moment to get sundry
grants of abbey lands, and contrived in that dangerous age to
save both his head and his estate.

The Greymount family having planted themselves in the land,
faithful to the policy of the founder, avoided the public gaze
during the troubled period that followed the reformation; and
even during the more orderly reign of Elizabeth, rather sought
their increase in alliances than in court favour.  But at the
commencement of the seventeenth century, their abbey lands
infinitely advanced in value, and their rental swollen by the
prudent accumulation of more than seventy years, a Greymount,
who was then a county member, was elevated to the peerage as
Baron Marney.  The heralds furnished his pedigree, and assured
the world that although the exalted rank and extensive
possessions enjoyed at present by the Greymounts, had their
origin immediately in great territorial revolutions of a
recent reign, it was not for a moment to be supposed, that the
remote ancestors of the Ecclesiastical Commissioner of 1530
were by any means obscure.  On the contrary, it appeared that
they were both Norman and baronial, their real name Egremont,
which, in their patent of peerage the family now resumed.

In the civil wars, the Egremonts pricked by their Norman
blood, were cavaliers and fought pretty well.  But in 1688,
alarmed at the prevalent impression that King James intended
to insist on the restitution of the church estates to their
original purposes, to wit, the education of the people and the
maintenance of the poor, the Lord of Marney Abbey became a
warm adherent of "civil and religious liberty,"--the cause for
which Hampden had died in the field, and Russell on the
scaffold,--and joined the other whig lords, and great lay
impropriators, in calling over the Prince of Orange and a
Dutch army, to vindicate those popular principles which,
somehow or other, the people would never support.  Profiting
by this last pregnant circumstance, the lay Abbot of Marney
also in this instance like the other whig lords, was careful
to maintain, while he vindicated the cause of civil and
religious liberty, a very loyal and dutiful though secret
correspondence with the court of St Germains.

The great deliverer King William the Third, to whom Lord
Marney was a systematic traitor, made the descendant of the
Ecclesiastical Commissioner of Henry the Eighth an English
earl; and from that time until the period of our history,
though the Marney family had never produced one individual
eminent for civil or military abilities, though the country
was not indebted to them for a single statesman, orator,
successful warrior, great lawyer, learned divine, eminent
author, illustrious man of science, they had contrived, if not
to engross any great share of public admiration and love, at
least to monopolise no contemptible portion of public money
and public dignities.  During the seventy years of almost
unbroken whig rule, from the accession of the House of Hanover
to the fall of Mr Fox, Marney Abbey had furnished a never-
failing crop of lord privy seals, lord presidents, and lord
lieutenants.  The family had had their due quota of garters
and governments and bishoprics; admirals without fleets, and
generals who fought only in America.  They had glittered in
great embassies with clever secretaries at their elbow, and
had once governed Ireland when to govern Ireland was only to
apportion the public plunder to a corrupt senate.

Notwithstanding however this prolonged enjoyment of undeserved
prosperity, the lay abbots of Marney were not content.  Not
that it was satiety that induced dissatisfaction.  The
Egremonts could feed on.  They wanted something more.  Not to
be prime ministers or secretaries of state, for they were a
shrewd race who knew the length of their tether, and
notwithstanding the encouraging example of his grace of
Newcastle, they could not resist the persuasion that some
knowledge of the interests and resources of nations, some
power of expressing opinions with propriety, some degree of
respect for the public and for himself, were not altogether
indispensable qualifications, even under a Venetian
constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so
eminent and responsible.  Satisfied with the stars and mitres
and official seals, which were periodically apportioned to
them, the Marney family did not aspire to the somewhat
graceless office of being their distributor.  What they aimed
at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest
class.  They observed that more than one of the other great
"civil and religious liberty" families,--the families who in
one century plundered the church to gain the property of the
people, and in another century changed the dynasty to gain the
power of the crown,--had their brows circled with the
strawberry leaf. And why should not this distinction be the
high lot also of the descendants of the old gentleman usher of
one of King Henry's plundering vicar-generals?  Why not?  True
it is, that a grateful sovereign in our days has deemed such
distinction the only reward for half a hundred victories.
True it is, that Nelson, after conquering the Mediterranean,
died only a Viscount!  But the house of Marney had risen to
high rank; counted themselves ancient nobility; and turned up
their noses at the Pratts and the Smiths, the Jenkinsons and
the Robinsons of our degenerate days; and never had done
anything for the nation or for their honours.  And why should
they now?  It was unreasonable to expect it.  Civil and
religious liberty, that had given them a broad estate and a
glittering coronet, to say nothing of half-a-dozen close seats
in parliament, ought clearly to make them dukes.

But the other great whig families who had obtained this
honour, and who had done something more for it than spoliate
their church and betray their king, set up their backs against
this claim of the Egremonts.  The Egremonts had done none of
the work of the last hundred years of political mystification,
during which a people without power or education, had been
induced to believe themselves the freest and most enlightened
nation in the world, and had submitted to lavish their blood
and treasure, to see their industry crippled and their labour
mortgaged, in order to maintain an oligarchy, that had neither
ancient memories to soften nor present services to justify
their unprecedented usurpation.

How had the Egremonts contributed to this prodigious result?
Their family had furnished none of those artful orators whose
bewildering phrase had fascinated the public intelligence;
none of those toilsome patricians whose assiduity in affairs
had convinced their unprivileged fellow-subjects that
government was a science, and administration an art, which
demanded the devotion of a peculiar class in the state for
their fulfilment and pursuit.  The Egremonts had never said
anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be
recalled.  It was decided by the Great Revolution families,
that they should not be dukes.  Infinite was the indignation
of the lay Abbot of Marney.  He counted his boroughs,
consulted his cousins, and muttered revenge.  The opportunity
soon offered for the gratification of his passion.

The situation of the Venetian party in the wane of the
eighteenth century had become extremely critical.  A young
king was making often fruitless, but always energetic,
struggles to emancipate his national royalty from the trammels
of the factious dogeship.  More than sixty years of a
government of singular corruption had alienated all hearts
from the oligarchy; never indeed much affected by the great
body of the people.  It could no longer be concealed, that by
virtue of a plausible phrase power had been transferred from
the crown to a parliament, the members of which were appointed
by an extremely limited and exclusive class, who owned no
responsibility to the country, who debated and voted in
secret, and who were regularly paid by the small knot of great
families that by this machinery had secured the permanent
possession of the king's treasury.  Whiggism was putrescent in
the nostrils of the nation; we were probably on the eve of a
bloodless yet important revolution; when Rockingham, a
virtuous magnifico, alarmed and disgusted, resolved to revive
something of the pristine purity and high-toned energy of the
old whig connection; appealed to his "new generation" from a
degenerate age, arrayed under his banner the generous youth of
the whig families, and was fortunate to enlist in the service
the supreme genius of Edmund Burke.

Burke effected for the whigs what Bolingbroke in a preceding
age had done for the tories: he restored the moral existence
of the party.  He taught them to recur to the ancient
principles of their connection, and suffused those principles
with all the delusive splendour of his imagination.  He raised
the tone of their public discourse; he breathed a high spirit
into their public acts.  It was in his power to do more for
the whigs than St John could do for his party.  The oligarchy,
who had found it convenient to attaint Bolingbroke for being
the avowed minister of the English Prince with whom they were
always in secret communication, when opinion forced them to
consent to his restitution, had tacked to the amnesty a clause
as cowardly as it was unconstitutional, and declared his
incompetence to sit in the parliament of his country.  Burke
on the contrary fought the whig fight with a two-edged weapon:
he was a great writer; as an orator he was transcendent.  In a
dearth of that public talent for the possession of which the
whigs have generally been distinguished, Burke came forward
and established them alike in the parliament and the country.
And what was his reward?  No sooner had a young and dissolute
noble, who with some of the aspirations of a Caesar oftener
realised the conduct of a Catiline, appeared on the stage, and
after some inglorious tergiversation adopted their colours,
than they transferred to him the command which had been won by
wisdom and genius, vindicated by unrivalled knowledge, and
adorned by accomplished eloquence.  When the hour arrived for
the triumph which he had prepared, he was not even admitted
into the Cabinet, virtually presided over by his graceless
pupil, and who, in the profuse suggestions of his teeming
converse, had found the principles and the information which
were among the chief claims to public confidence of Mr Fox.

Hard necessity made Mr Burke submit to the yoke, but the
humiliation could never be forgotten.  Nemesis favours genius:
the inevitable hour at length arrived.  A voice like the
Apocalypse sounded over England and even echoed in all the
courts of Europe.  Burke poured forth the vials of his hoarded
vengeance into the agitated heart of Christendom; he
stimulated the panic of a world by the wild pictures of his
inspired imagination; he dashed to the ground the rival who
had robbed him of his hard-earned greatness; rended in twain
the proud oligarchy that had dared to use and to insult him;
and followed with servility by the haughtiest and the most
timid of its members, amid the frantic exultation of his
country, he placed his heel upon the neck of the ancient
serpent.

Among the whig followers of Mr Burke in this memorable
defection, among the Devonshires and the Portlands, the
Spencers and the Fitzwi]liams, was the Earl of Marney, whom
the whigs would not make a duke.

What was his chance of success from Mr Pitt?

If the history of England be ever written by one who has the
knowledge and the courage, and both qualities are equally
requisite for the undertaking, the world would be more
astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
Generally speaking, all the great events have been distorted,
most of the important causes concealed, some of the principal
characters never appear, and all who figure are so
misunderstood and misrepresented, that the result is a
complete mystification, and the perusal of the narrative about
as profitable to an Englishman as reading the Republic of
Plato or the Utopia of More, the pages of Gaudentio di Lucca
or the adventures of Peter Wilkins.

The influence of races in our early ages, of the church in our
middle, and of parties in our modern history, are three great
moving and modifying powers, that must be pursued and analyzed
with an untiring, profound, and unimpassioned spirit, before a
guiding ray can be secured.  A remarkable feature of our
written history is the absence in its pages of some of the
most influential personages.  Not one man in a thousand for
instance has ever heard of Major Wildman: yet he was the soul
of English politics in the most eventful period of this
kingdom, and one most interesting to this age, from 1640 to
1688; and seemed more than once to hold the balance which was
to decide the permanent form of our government.  But he was
the leader of an unsuccessful party.  Even, comparatively
speaking, in our own times, the same mysterious oblivion is
sometimes encouraged to creep over personages of great social
distinction as well as political importance.

The name of the second Pitt remains, fresh after forty years
of great events, a parliamentary beacon.  He was the
Chatterton of politics; the "marvellous boy."  Some have a
vague impression that he was mysteriously moulded by his great
father: that he inherited the genius, the eloquence, the state
craft of Chatham.  His genius was of a different bent, his
eloquence of a different class, his state craft of a different
school.  To understand Mr Pitt, one must understand one of the
suppressed characters of English history, and that is Lord
Shelburne.

When the fine genius of the injured Bolingbroke, the only peer
of his century who was educated, and proscribed by the
oligarchy because they were afraid of his eloquence, "the
glory of his order and the shame," shut out from Parliament,
found vent in those writings which recalled to the English
people the inherent blessings of their old free monarchy, and
painted in immortal hues his picture of a patriot king, the
spirit that he raised at length touched the heart of Carteret
born a whig, yet scepticai of the advantages of that patrician
constitution which made the Duke of Newcastle the most
incompetent of men, but the chosen leader of the Venetian
party, virtually sovereign of England.  Lord Carteret had many
brilliant qualities: he was undaunted, enterprising, eloquent;
had considerable knowledge of continental politics, was a
great linguist, a master of public law; and though he failed
in his premature effort to terminate the dogeship of George
the Second, he succeeded in maintaining a considerable though
secondary position in public life.  The young Shelburne
married his daughter.  Of him it is singular we know less than
of his father-in-law, yet from the scattered traits some idea
may be formed of the ablest and most accomplished minister of
the eighteenth century.  Lord Shelburne, influenced probably
by the example and the traditionary precepts of his eminent
father-in-law, appears early to have held himself aloof from
the patrician connection, and entered public life as the
follower of Bute in the first great effort of George the Third
to rescue the sovereignty from what Lord Chatham called "the
Great Revolution families."  He became in time a member of
Lord Chatham's last administration: one of the strangest and
most unsuccessful efforts to aid the grandson of George the
Second in his struggle for political emancipation.  Lord
Shelburne adopted from the first the Bolingbroke system: a
real royalty, in lieu of the chief magistracy; a permanent
alliance with France, instead of the whig scheme of viewing in
that power the natural enemy of England: and, above all, a
plan of commercial freedom, the germ of which may be found in
the long-maligned negotiations of Utrecht, but which in the
instance of Lord Shelburne were soon in time matured by all
the economical science of Europe, in which he was a
proficient.  Lord Shelburne seems to have been of a reserved
and somewhat astute disposition: deep and adroit, he was
however brave and firm.  His knowledge was extensive and even
profound.  He was a great linguist; he pursued both literary
and scientific investigations; his house was frequented by men
of letters, especially those distinguished by their political
abilities or economical attainments.  He maintained the most
extensive private correspondence of any public man of his
time.  The earliest and most authentic information reached him
from all courts and quarters of Europe: and it was a common
phrase, that the minister of the day sent to him often for the
important information which the cabinet could not itself
command.  Lord Shelburne was the first great minister who
comprehended the rising importance of the middle class; and
foresaw in its future power a bulwark for the throne against
"the Great Revolution families."  Of his qualities in council
we have no record; there is reason to believe that his
administrative ability was conspicuous: his speeches prove
that, if not supreme, he was eminent, in the art of
parliamentary disputation, while they show on all the
questions discussed a richness and variety of information with
which the speeches of no statesman of that age except Mr Burke
can compare.

Such was the man selected by George the Third as his champion
against the Venetian party after the termination of the
American war.  The prosecution of that war they had violently
opposed, though it had originated in their own policy.  First
minister in the House of Lords, Shelburne entrusted the lead
in the House of Commons to his Chancellor of the Exchequer,
the youthful Pitt.  The administration was brief, but it was
not inglorious.  It obtained peace, and for the first time
since the Revolution introduced into modern debate the
legitimate principles on which commerce should be conducted.
It fell before the famous Coalition with which "the Great
Revolution families" commenced their fiercest and their last
contention for the patrician government of royal England.

In the heat of that great strife, the king in the second
hazardous exercise of his prerogative entrusted the perilous
command to Pitt.  Why Lord Shelburne on that occasion was set
aside, will perhaps always remain a mysterious passage of our
political history, nor have we space on the present occasion
to attempt to penetrate its motives.  Perhaps the monarch,
with a sense of the rising sympathies of his people, was
prescient of the magic power of youth in touching the heart of
a nation.  Yet it would not be an unprofitable speculation if
for a moment we paused to consider what might have been the
consequences to our country if Mr Pitt had been content for a
season again to lead the Commons under Lord Shelburne, and
have secured for England the unrivalled knowledge and
dexterity of that statesman in the conduct of our affairs
during the confounding fortunes of the French revolution.
Lord Shelburne was the only English minister competent to the
task; he was the only public man who had the previous
knowledge requisite to form accurate conclusions on such a
conjuncture: his remaining speeches on the subject attest the
amplitude of his knowledge and the accuracy of his views: and
in the rout of Jena, or the agony of Austerlitz, one cannot
refrain from picturing the shade of Shelburne haunting the
cabinet of Pitt, as the ghost of Canning is said occasionally
to linger about the speaker's chair, and smile sarcastically
on the conscientious mediocrities who pilfered his hard-earned
honours.

But during the happier years of Mr Pitt, the influence of the
mind of Shelburne may be traced throughout his policy.  It was
Lansdowne House that made Pitt acquainted with Dr Price, a
dissenting minister, whom Lord Shelburne when at the head of
affairs courageously offered to make his private secretary,
and who furnished Mr Pitt, among many other important
suggestions, with his original plan of the sinking fund.  The
commercial treaties of '87 were struck in the same mint, and
are notable as the first effort made by the English government
to emancipate the country from the restrictive policy which
had been introduced by the "glorious revolution;" memorable
epoch, that presented England at the same time with a corn law
and a public debt.. But on no subject was the magnetic
influence of the descendant of Sir William Petty more decided,
than in the resolution of his pupil to curb the power of the
patrician party by an infusion from the middle classes into
the government of the country.  Hence the origin of Mr Pitt's
famous and long-misconceived plans of parliamentary reform.
Was he sincere, is often asked by those who neither seek to
discover the causes nor are capable of calculating the effects
of public transactions.  Sincere!  Why, he was struggling for
his existence!  And when baffled, first by the Venetian party,
and afterwards by the panic of Jacobinism, he was forced to
forego his direct purpose, he still endeavoured partially to
effect it by a circuitous process.  He created a plebeian
aristocracy and blended it with the patrician oligarchy.  He
made peers of second-rate squires and fat graziers.  He caught
them in the alleys of Lombard Street, and clutched them from
the counting-houses of Cornhill.  When Mr Pitt in an age of
bank restriction declared that every man with an estate of ten
thousand a-year had a right to be a peer, he sounded the knell
of "the cause for which Hampden had died on the field, and
Sydney on the scaffold."

In ordinary times the pupil of Shelburne would have raised
this country to a state of great material prosperity, and
removed or avoided many of those anomalies which now perplex
us; but he was not destined for ordinary times; and though his
capacity was vast and his spirit lofty, he had not that
passionate and creative genius required by an age of
revolution.  The French outbreak was his evil daemon: he had
not the means of calculating its effects upon Europe.  He had
but a meagre knowledge himself of continental politics: he was
assisted by a very inefficient diplomacy.  His mind was lost
in a convulsion of which he neither could comprehend the
causes nor calculate the consequences; and forced to act, he
acted not only violently, but in exact opposition to the very
system he was called into political existence to combat; he
appealed to the fears, the prejudices, and the passions of a
privileged class, revived the old policy of the oligarchy he
had extinguished, and plunged into all the ruinous excesses of
French war and Dutch finance.

If it be a salutary principle in the investigation of
historical transactions to be careful in discriminating the
cause from the pretext, there is scarcely any instance in
which the application of this principle is more fertile in
results, than in that of the Dutch invasion of 1688.  The real
cause of this invasion was financial.  The Prince of Orange
had found that the resources of Holland, however considerable,
were inadequate to sustain him in his internecine rivalry with
the great sovereign of France.  In an authentic conversation
which has descended to us, held by William at the Hague with
one of the prime abettors of the invasion, the prince did not
disguise his motives; he said, "nothing but such a
constitution as you have in England can have the credit that
is necessary to raise such sums as a great war requires."  The
prince came, and used our constitution for his purpose: he
introduced into England the system of Dutch finance.  The
principle of that system was to mortgage industry in order to
protect property: abstractedly, nothing can be conceived more
unjust; its practice in England has been equally injurious.
In Holland, with a small population engaged in the same
pursuits, in fact a nation of bankers, the system was adapted
to the circumstances which had created it.  All shared in the
present spoil, and therefore could endure the future burthen.
And so to this day Holland is sustained, almost solely
sustained, by the vast capital thus created which still
lingers amongst its dykes.  But applied to a country in which
the circumstances were entirely different; to a considerable
and rapidly-increasing population; where there was a numerous
peasantry, a trading middle class struggling into existence;
the system of Dutch finance, pursued more or less for nearly a
century and a half, has ended in the degradation of a fettered
and burthened multitude.  Nor have the demoralizing
consequences of the funding system on the more favoured
classes been less decided.  It has made debt a national habit;
it has made credit the ruling power, not the exceptional
auxiliary, of all transactions; it has introduced a loose,
inexact, haphazard, and dishonest spirit in the conduct of
both public and private life; a spirit dazzling and yet
dastardly: reckless of consequences and yet shrinking from
responsibility.  And in the end, it has so overstimulated the
energies of the population to maintain the material
engagements of the state, and of society at large, that the
moral condition of the people has been entirely lost sight of.

A mortgaged aristocracy, a gambling foreign commerce, a home
trade founded on a morbid competition, and a degraded people;
these are great evils, but ought perhaps cheerfully to he
encountered for the greater blessings of civil and religious
liberty.  Yet the first would seem in some degree to depend
upon our Saxon mode of trial by our peers, upon the
stipulations of the great Norman charters, upon the practice
and the statute of Habeas Corpus,--a principle native to our
common law, but established by the Stuarts; nor in a careful
perusal of the Bill of Rights, or in an impartial scrutiny of
the subsequent legislation of those times, though some
diminution of our political franchises must be confessed, is
it easy to discover any increase of our civil privileges.  To
those indeed who believe that the English nation,--at all
times a religious and Catholic people, but who even in the
days of the Plantagenets were anti-papal,--were in any danger
of again falling under the yoke of the Pope of Rome in the
reign of James the Second, religious liberty was perhaps
acceptable, though it took the shape of a discipline which at
once anathematized a great portion of the nation, and
virtually establishing Puritanism in Ireland, laid the
foundation of those mischiefs which are now endangering the
empire.

That the last of the Stuarts had any other object in his
impolitic manoeuvres, than an impracticable scheme to blend
the two churches, there is now authority to disbelieve.  He
certainly was guilty of the offence of sending an envoy openly
to Rome, who, by the bye, was received by the Pope with great
discourtesy; and her Majesty Queen Victoria, whose
Protestantism cannot be doubted, for it is one of her chief
titles to our homage, has at this time a secret envoy at the
same court: and that is the difference between them: both
ministers doubtless working however fruitlessly for the same
object: the termination of those terrible misconceptions,
political and religious, that have occasioned so many
martyrdoms, and so many crimes alike to sovereigns and to
subjects.

If James the Second had really attempted to re-establish
Popery in this country, the English people, who had no hand in
his overthrow, would doubtless soon have stirred and secured
their "Catholic and Apostolic church," independent of any
foreign dictation; the church to which they still regularly
profess their adherence; and being a practical people, it is
possible that they might have achieved their object and yet
retained their native princes; under which circumstances we
might have been saved from the triple blessings of Venetian
politics, Dutch finance, and French wars: against which, in
their happiest days, and with their happiest powers, struggled
the three greatest of English statesmen,--Bolingbroke,
Shelburne, and lastly the son of Chatham.

We have endeavoured in another work, not we hope without
something of the impartiality of the future, to sketch the
character and career of his successors.  From his death to
1825, the political history of England is a history of great
events and little men.  The rise of Mr Canning, long kept down
by the plebeian aristocracy of Mr Pitt as an adventurer, had
shaken parties to their centre.  His rapid disappearance from
the scene left both whigs and tories in a state of
disorganization.  The distinctive principles of these
connexions were now difficult to trace.  That period of public
languor which intervenes between the breaking up of parties
and the formation of factions now transpired in England.  An
exhausted sensualist on the throne, who only demanded from his
ministers repose, a voluptuous aristocracy, and a listless
people, were content, in the absence of all public conviction
and national passion, to consign the government of the country
to a great man, whose decision relieved the sovereign, whose
prejudices pleased the nobles, and whose achievements dazzled
the multitude.

The DUKE OF WELLINGTON brought to the post of first minister
immortal fame; a quality of success which would almost seem to
include all others.  His public knowledge was such as might be
expected from one whose conduct already formed an important
portion of the history of his country.  He had a personal and
intimate acquaintance with the sovereigns and chief statesmen
of Europe, a kind of information in which English ministers
have generally been deficient, but without which the
management of our external affairs must at the best be
haphazard.  He possessed administrative talents of the highest
order.

The tone of the age, the temper of the country, the great
qualities and the high character of the minister, indicated a
long and prosperous administration.  The only individual in
his cabinet who, from a combination of circumstances rather
than from any intellectual supremacy over his colleagues, was
competent to be his rival, was content to be his successor.
In his most aspiring moments, Mr Peel in all probability aimed
at no higher reach; and with youth and the leadership of the
House of Commons, one has no reason to be surprised at his
moderation.  The conviction that the duke's government would
only cease with the termination of his public career was so
general, that the moment he was installed in office, the whigs
smiled on him; political conciliation became the slang of the
day, and the fusion of parties the babble of clubs and the
tattle of boudoirs.

How comes it then that so great a man, in so great a position,
should have so signally failed?  Should have broken up his
government, wrecked his party, and so completely annihilated
his political position, that, even with his historical
reputation to sustain him, he can since only re-appear in the
councils of his sovereign in a subordinate, not to say
equivocal, character?

With all those great qualities which will secure him a place
in our history not perhaps inferior even to Marlborough, the
Duke of Wellington has one deficiency which has been the
stumbling-block of his civil career.  Bishop Burnet, in
speculating on the extraordinary influence of Lord
Shaftesbury, and accounting how a statesman, so inconsistent
in his conduct and so false to his confederates, should have
so powerfully controlled his country, observes, "HIS STRENGTH
LAY IN HIS KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLAND."


Now that is exactly the kind of knowledge which the Duke of
Wellington never possessed.

When the king, finding that in Lord Goderich he had a minister
who, instead of deciding, asked his royal master for advice,
sent for the Duke of Wellington to undertake the government, a
change in the carriage of his grace was perceived by some who
had the opportunity to form an opinion on such a subject.  If
one might venture to use such a word in reference to such a
man, we might remark, that the duke had been somewhat daunted
by the selection of Mr Canning.  It disappointed great hopes,
it baffled great plans, and dispelled for a season the
conviction that, it is believed, had been long maturing in his
grace's mind; that he was the man of the age, that his
military career had been only a preparation for a civil course
not less illustrious; and that it was reserved for him to
control for the rest of his life undisputed the destinies of a
country, which was indebted to him in no slight degree for its
European pre-eminence.  The death of Mr Canning revived, the
rout of Lord Goderich restored, these views.

Napoleon, at St Helena, speculating in conversation on the
future career of his conqueror, asked, "What will Wellington
do?  After all he has done, he will not be content to be
quiet.  He will change the dynasty."

Had the great exile been better acquainted with the real
character of our Venetian constitution, he would have known
that to govern England in 1820, it was not necessary to change
its dynasty.  But the Emperor, though wrong in the main, was
right by the bye.  It was clear that the energies that had
twice entered Paris as a conqueror, and had made kings and
mediatised princes at Vienna, would not be content to subside
into ermined insignificance.  The duke commenced his political
tactics early.  The cabinet of Lord Liverpool, especially
during its latter term, was the hot-bed of many intrigues; but
the obstacles were numerous, though the appointing fate, in
which his grace believed, removed them.  The disappearance of
Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning from the scene was alike
unexpected.  The Duke of Wellington was at length prime
minister, and no individual ever occupied that post more
conscious of its power, and more determined to exercise it.

This is not the occasion on which we shall attempt to do
justice to a theme so instructive as the administration of his
grace.  Treated with impartiality and sufficient information,
it would be an invaluable contribution to the stores of our
political knowledge and national experience.  Throughout its
brief but eccentric and tumultuous annals we see continual
proof, how important is that knowledge "in which lay Lord
Shaftesbury's strength."  In twenty-four months we find an
aristocracy estranged, without a people being conciliated;
while on two several occasions, first, the prejudices, and
then the pretensions of the middle class, were alike treated
with contumely.  The public was astonished at hearing of
statesmen of long parliamentary fame, men round whom the
intelligence of the nation had gathered for years with
confidence, or at least with interest, being expelled from the
cabinet in a manner not unworthy of Colonel Joyce, while their
places were filled by second-rate soldiers, whose very names
were unknown to the great body of the people, and who under no
circumstances should have aspired beyond the government of a
colony.  This administration which commenced in arrogance
ended in panic.  There was an interval of perplexity; when
occurred the most ludicrous instance extant of an attempt at
coalition; subordinates were promoted, while negotiations were
still pending with their chiefs; and these negotiations,
undertaken so crudely, were terminated in pique; in a manner
which added to political disappointment personal offence.
When even his parasites began to look gloomy, the duke had a
specific that was to restore all, and having allowed every
element of power to escape his grasp, he believed he could
balance everything by a beer bill.  The growl of reform was
heard but it was not very fierce.  There was yet time to save
himself.  His grace precipitated a revolution which might have
been delayed for half a century, and never need have occurred
in so aggravated a form.  He rather fled than retired.  He
commenced his ministry like Brennus, and finished it like the
tall Gaul sent to murder the rival of Sylla, but who dropped
his weapon before the undaunted gaze of his intended victim.

Lord Marney was spared the pang of the catastrophe.  Promoted
to a high office in the household, and still hoping that, by
the aid of his party, it was yet destined for him to achieve
the hereditary purpose of his family, he died in the full
faith of dukism; worshipping the duke and believing that
ultimately he should himself become a duke.  It was under all
the circumstances an euthanasia; he expired leaning as it were
on his white wand and babbling of strawberry leaves.




Book 1 Chapter 4



"My dear Charles," said Lady Marney to Egremont the morning
after the Derby, as breakfasting with her in her boudoir he
detailed some of the circumstances of the race, "we must
forget your naughty horse.  I sent you a little note this
morning, because I wished to see you most particularly before
you went out.  Affairs," continued Lady Marney, first looking
round the chamber to see whether there were any fairy
listening to her state secrets, "affairs are critical."

"No doubt of that," thought Egremont, the horrid phantom of
settling-day seeming to obtrude itself between his mother and
himself; but not knowing precisely at what she was driving, he
merely sipped his tea, and innocently replied, "Why?"

"There will be a dissolution," said Lady Marney.

"What are we coming in?"

Lady Marney shook her head.

"The present men will not better their majority," said
Egremont.

"I hope not," said Lady Marney.

"Why you always said, that with another general election we
must come in, whoever dissolved."

"But that was with the court in our favour," rejoined Lady
Marney mournfully.

"What, has the king changed?" said Egremont.  "I thought it
was all right."

"All was right," said Lady Marney.  "These men would have been
turned out again, had he only lived three months more."

"Lived!" exclaimed Egremont.

"Yes," said Lady Marney; "the king is dying."

Slowly delivering himself of an ejaculation, Egremont leant
back in his chair.

"He may live a month," said Lady Marnev; "he cannot live two.
It is the greatest of secrets; known at this moment only to
four individuals, and I communicate it to you, my dear
Charles, in that absolute confidence which I hope will always
subsist between us, because it is an event that may greatly
affect your career."

"How so, my dear mother?"

"Marbury!  I have settled with Mr Tadpole that you shall stand
for the old borough.  With the government in our hands, as I
had anticipated at the general election, success I think was
certain: under the circumstances which we must encounter, the
struggle will be more severe, but I think we shall do it: and
it will be a happy day for me to have our own again, and to
see you in Parliament, my dear child."

"Well, my dear mother, I should like very much to be in
Parliament, and particularly to sit for the old borough; but I
fear the contest will be very expensive," said Egremont
inquiringly.

"Oh! I have no doubt," said Lady Marney, "that we shall have
some monster of the middle class, some tinker or tailor, or
candlestick-maker, with his long purse, preaching reform and
practising corruption: exactly as the liberals did under
Walpole: bribery was unknown in the time of the Stuarts; but
we have a capital registration, Mr Tadpole tells me.  And a
young candidate with the old name will tell," said Lady
Marney, with a smile: "and I shall go down and canvass, and we
must do what we can."

"I have great faith in your canvassing," said Egremont; "but
still, at the same time, the powder and shot--"

"Are essential," said Lady Marney, "I know it, in these
corrupt days: but Marney will of course supply those.  It is
the least he can do: regaining the family influence, and
letting us hold up our heads again.  I shall write to him the
moment I am justified," said Lady Marney, "perhaps you will do
so yourself, Charles."

"Why, considering I have not seen my brother for two years,
and we did not part on the best possible terms--"

"But that is all forgotten."

"By your good offices, dear mother, who are always doing good:
and yet," continued Egremont, after a moment's pause, "I am
not disposed to write to Marney, especially to ask a favour."

"Well, I will write," said Lady Marney; "though I cannot admit
it is any favour.  Perhaps it would be better that you should
see him first.  I cannot understand why he keeps so at the
Abbey.  I am sure I found it a melancholy place enough in my
time.  I wish you had gone down there, Charles, if it had been
only for a few days."

"Well I did not, my dear mother, and I cannot go now.  I shall
trust to you.  But are you quite sure that the king is going
to die?"

"I repeat to you, it is certain," replied Lady Marney, in a
lowered voice, but a decided tone; "certain, certain, certain.
My authority cannot be mistaken: but no consideration in the
world must throw you off your guard at this moment; breathe
not the shadow of what you know."

At this moment a servant entered and delivered a note to Lady
Marney, who read it with an ironical smile.  It was from Lady
St Julians, and ran thus:--


    "Most confidential.
    "My dearest Lady Marney,

    "It is a false report: he is ill, but not dangerously; the
hay
     fever; he always has it; nothing more: I will tell my
     authority when we meet; I dare not write it.  It will
satisfy
     you.  I am going on with my quadrille.

    "Most affectionately yours,
    "A. St J."


"Poor woman!  she is always wrong," said Lady Marney throwing
the note to Egremont.  "Her quadrille will never take place,
which is a pity, as it is to consist only of beauties and
eldest sons.  I suppose I must send her a line," and she
wrote:


    "My dearest Lady St Julians,

    "How good of you to write to me, and send me such cheering
     news!  I have no doubt you are right: you always are: I
know
     he had the hay fever last year.  How fortunate for your
     quadrille, and how charming it will be!  Let me know if
you
     hear anything further from your unmentionable quarter.

    "Ever your affectionate
    "C.M."




Book 1 Chapter 5



Lord Marney left several children; his heir was five years
older than the next son Charles who at the period of his
father's death was at Christchurch and had just entered the
last year of his minority.  Attaining that age, he received
the sum of fifteen thousand pounds, his portion, a third of
which amount his expenditure had then already anticipated.
Egremont had been brought up in the enjoyment of every comfort
and every luxury that refinement could devise and wealth
furnish.  He was a favourite child.  His parents emulated each
other in pampering and indulging him.  Every freak was
pardoned, every whim was gratified.  He might ride what horses
he liked, and if he broke their knees, what in another would
have been deemed a flagrant sin, was in him held only a proof
of reckless spirit.  If he were not a thoroughly selfish and
altogether wilful person, but very much the reverse, it was
not the fault of his parents, but rather the operation of a
benignant nature that had bestowed on him a generous spirit
and a tender heart, though accompanied with a dangerous
susceptibility that made him the child and creature of
impulse, and seemed to set at defiance even the course of time
to engraft on his nature any quality of prudence.  The tone of
Eton during the days of Charles Egremont was not of the high
character which at present distinguishes that community.  It
was the unforeseen eve of the great change, that, whatever was
its purpose or have been its immediate results, at least gave
the first shock to the pseudo-aristocracy of this country.
Then all was blooming; sunshine and odour; not a breeze
disturbing the meridian splendour.  Then the world was not
only made for a few, but a very few.  One could almost tell
upon one's fingers the happy families who could do anything,
and might have everything.  A school-boy's ideas of the Church
then were fat-livings, and of the State, rotten-boroughs.  To
do nothing and get something, formed a boy's ideal of a manly
career.  There was nothing in the lot, little in the
temperament, of Charles Egremont, to make him an exception to
the multitude.  Gaily and securely he floated on the brilliant
stream.  Popular at school, idolized at home, the present had
no cares, and the future secured him a family seat in
Parliament the moment he entered life, and the inheritance of
a glittering post at court in due time, as its legitimate
consequence.  Enjoyment, not ambition, seemed the principle of
his existence.  The contingency of a mitre, the certainty of
rich preferment, would not reconcile him to the self-sacrifice
which, to a certain degree, was required from a priest, even
in those days of rampant Erastianism.  He left the colonies as
the spoil of his younger brothers; his own ideas of a
profession being limited to a barrack in a London park, varied
by visits to Windsor.  But there was time enough to think of
these things.  He had to enjoy Oxford as he had enjoyed Eton.
Here his allowance from his father was extravagant, though
greatly increased by tithes from his mother's pin-money.
While he was pursuing his studies, hunting and boating,
driving tandems, riding matches, tempering his energies in the
crapulence of boyish banquets, and anticipating life, at the
risk of expulsion, in a miserable mimicry of metropolitan
dissipation, Dukism, that was supposed to be eternal, suddenly
crashed.

The Reform Act has not placed the administration of our
affairs in abler hands than conducted them previously to the
passing of the measure, for the most efficient members of the
present cabinet with some very few exceptions, and those
attended by peculiar circumstances, were ministers before the
Reform Act was contemplated.  Nor has that memorable statute
created a Parliament of a higher reputation for public
qualities, such as politic ability, and popular eloquence, and
national consideration, than was furnished by the old scheme.
On the contrary; one house of Parliament has been irremediably
degraded into the decaying position of a mere court of
registry, possessing great privileges, on condition that it
never exercises them; while the other chamber that, at the
first blush, and to the superficial, exhibits symptons of
almost unnatural vitality, engrossing in its orbit all the
business of the country, assumes on a more studious inspection
somewhat of the character of a select vestry, fulfilling
municipal rather than imperial offices, and beleaguered by
critical and clamorous millions, who cannot comprehend why a
privileged and exclusive senate is required to perform
functions which immediately concern all, which most personally
comprehend, and which many in their civic spheres believe they
could accomplish in a manner not less satisfactory, though
certainly less ostentatious.

But if it have not furnished us with abler administrators or a
more illustrious senate, the Reform Act may have exercised on
the country at large a beneficial influence.  Has it?  Has it
elevated the tone of the public mind?  Has it cultured the
popular sensibilities to noble and ennobling ends?  Has it
proposed to the people of England a higher test of national
respect and confidence than the debasing qualification
universally prevalent in this country since the fatal
introduction of the system of Dutch finance?  Who will pretend
it?  If a spirit of rapacious coveteousness, desecrating all
the humanities of life, has been the besetting sin of England
for the last century and a half, since the passing of the
Reform Act the altar of Mammon has blazed with triple worship.
To acquire, to accumulate, to plunder each other by virtue of
philosophic phrases, to propose an Utopia to consist only of
WEALTH and TOIL, this has been the breathless business of
enfranchised England for the last twelve years, until we are
startled from our voracious strife by the wail of intolerable
serfage.

Are we then to conclude, that the only effect of the Reform
Act has been to create in this country another of those class
interests, which we now so loudly accuse as the obstacles to
general amelioration?  Not exactly that.  The indirect
influence of the Reform Act has been not inconsiderable, and
may eventually lead to vast consequences.  It set men a-
thinking; it enlarged the horizon of political experience; it
led the public mind to ponder somewhat on the circumstances of
our national history; to pry into the beginnings of some
social anomalies which they found were not so ancient as they
had been led to believe, and which had their origin in causes
very different to what they had been educated to credit; and
insensibly it created and prepared a popular intelligence to
which one can appeal, no longer hopelessly, in an attempt to
dispel the mysteries with which for nearly three centuries it
has been the labour of party writers to involve a national
history, and without the dispersion of which no political
position can be understood and no social evil remedied.

The events of 1830 did not produce any change in the modes of
thought and life of Charles Egremont.  He took his political
cue from his mother, who was his constant correspondent.  Lady
Marney was a distinguished "stateswoman," as they called Lady
Carlisle in Charles the First's time, a great friend of Lady
St Julians, and one of the most eminent and impassioned
votaries of Dukism.  Her first impression on the overthrow of
her hero was, astonishment at the impertinence of his
adversaries, mingled with some lofty pity for their silly
ambition and short-lived career.  She existed for a week in
the delightful expectation of his grace being sent for again,
and informed every one in confidence, that "these people could
not form a cabinet."  When the tocsin of peace, reform, and
retrenchment sounded, she smiled bitterly; was sorry for poor
Lord Grey of whom she had thought better, and gave them a
year, adding with consoling malice, "that it would be another
Canning affair." At length came the Reform Bill itself, and no
one laughed more heartily than Lady Marney; not even the House
of Commons to whom it was presented.

The bill was thrown out, and Lady Marney gave a grand ball to
celebrate the event, and to compensate the London shopkeepers
for the loss of their projected franchise.  Lady Marney was
preparing to resume her duties at court when to her great
surprise the firing of cannon announced the dissolution of
Parliament.  She turned pale; she was too much in the secrets
of Tadpole and Taper to be deceived as to the consequences;
she sank into her chair, and denounced Lord Grey as a traitor
to his order.

Lady Marney who for six months had been writing to her son at
Oxford the most charming letters, full of fun, quizzing the
whole Cabinet, now announced to Egremont that a revolution was
inevitable, that all property would be instantly confiscated,
the poor deluded king led to the block or sent over to Hanover
at the best, and the whole of the nobility and principal
gentry, and indeed every one who possessed anything,
guillotined without remorse.

Whether his friends were immediately to resume power, or
whether their estates ultimately were to be confiscated, the
practical conclusion to Charles Egremont appeared to he the
same.  Carpe diem.  He therefore pursued his career at Oxford
unchanged, and entered life in the year 1833, a younger son
with extravagant tastes and expensive habits, with a
reputation for lively talents though uncultivated,--for his
acquisitions at Eton had been quite puerile, and subsequently
he had not become a student,--with many manly accomplishments,
and with a mien and visage that at once took the fancy and
enlisted the affections.  Indeed a physiologist would hardly
have inferred from the countenance and structure of Egremont
the career he had pursued, or the character which attached to
him.  The general cast and expression of his features when in
repose was pensive: an air of refinement distinguished his
well-moulded brow; his mouth breathed sympathy, and his rich
brown eye gleamed with tenderness.  The sweetness of his voice
in speaking was in harmony with this organization.

Two years passed in the most refined circles of our society
exercised a beneficial influence on the general tone of
Egremont, and may be said to have finished his education.  He
had the good sense and the good taste not to permit his
predilection for sports to degenerate into slang; he yielded
himself to the delicate and profitable authority of woman,
and, as ever happens, it softened his manners and brightened
his wit.  He was fortunate in having a clever mother, and he
appreciated this inestimable possession.  Lady Marney had
great knowledge of society, and some acquaintance with human
nature, which she fancied she had fathomed to its centre; she
piqued herself upon her tact, and indeed she was very quick,
but she was so energetic that her art did not always conceal
itself; very worldly, she was nevertheless not devoid of
impulse; she was animated and would have been extremely
agreeable, if she had not restlessly aspired to wit; and would
certainly have exercised much more influence in society, if
she had not been so anxious to show it.  Nevertheless, still
with many personal charms, a frank and yet, if need be, a
finished manner, a quick brain, a lively tongue, a buoyant
spirit, and a great social position.  Lady Marney was
universally and extremely popular; and adored by her children,
for indeed she was a mother most affectionate and true.

When Egremont was four-and-twenty, he fell in love--a real
passion.  He had fluttered like others from flower to flower,
and like others had often fancied the last perfume the
sweetest, and then had flown away.  But now he was entirely
captivated.  The divinity was a new beauty; the whole world
raving of her.  Egremont also advanced.  The Lady Arabella was
not only beautiful: she was clever, fascinating.  Her presence
was inspiration; at least for Egremont.  She condescended to
be pleased by him: she signalized him by her notice; their
names were mentioned together.  Egremont indulged in
flattering dreams.  He regretted he had not pursued a
profession: he regretted he had impaired his slender
patrimony; thought of love in a cottage, and renting a manor;
thought of living a good deal with his mother, and a little
with his brother; thought of the law and the church; thought
once of New Zealand.  The favourite of nature and of fashion,
this was the first time in the life of Egremont, that he had
been made conscious that there was something in his position
which, with all its superficial brilliancy, might prepare for
him, when youth had fled and the blaze of society grown dim, a
drear and bitter lot.

He was roused from his reveries by a painful change in the
demeanour of his adored.  The mother of the Lady Arabella was
alarmed.  She liked her daughter to be admired even by younger
sons when they were distinguished, but only at a distance.  Mr
Egremont's name had been mentioned too often.  It had appeared
coupled with her daughters, even in a Sunday paper.  The most
decisive measures were requisite, and they were taken.  Still
smiling when they met, still kind when they conversed, it
seemed, by some magic dexterity which even baffled Egremont,
that their meetings every day grew rarer, and their
opportunities for conversation less frequent.  At the end of
the season, the Lady Arabella selected from a crowd of
admirers equally qualified, a young peer of great estate, and
of the "old nobility," a circumstance which, as her
grandfather had only been an East India director, was very
gratifying to the bride.

This unfortunate passion of Charles Egremont, and its
mortifying circumstances and consequences, was just that
earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us; which
first makes us think.  We have all experienced that
disheartening catastrophe, when the illusions first vanish;
and our balked imagination, or our mortified vanity, first
intimates to us that we are neither infallible nor
irresistible.  Happily 'tis the season of youth for which the
first lessons of experience are destined; and bitter and
intolerable as is the first blight of our fresh feelings, the
sanguine impulse of early life bears us along.  Our first
scrape generally leads to our first travel.  Disappointment
requires change of air; desperation change of scene.  Egremont
quitted his country, never to return to it again; and returned
to it after a year and a-half's absence, a much wiser man.
Having left England in a serious mood, and having already
tasted with tolerable freedom of the pleasures and frivolities
of life, he was not in an inapt humour to observe, to enquire,
and to reflect.  The new objects that surrounded him excited
his intelligence; he met, which indeed is the principal
advantage of travel, remarkable men, whose conversation opened
his mind.  His mind was worth opening.  Energies began to stir
of which he had not been conscious; awakened curiosity led him
to investigate and to read; he discovered that, when he
imagined his education was completed, it had in fact not
commenced; and that, although he had been at a public school
and a university, he in fact knew nothing.  To be conscious
that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.  Before an
emancipated intellect and an expanding intelligence, the great
system of exclusive manners and exclusive feelings in which he
had been born and nurtured, began to tremble; the native
generosity of his heart recoiled at a recurrence to that
arrogant and frigid life, alike devoid of sympathy and real
grandeur.

In the early spring of 1837, Egremont re-entered the world,
where he had once sparkled, and which he had once conceived to
comprise within its circle all that could interest or occupy
man.  His mother, delighted at finding him again under her
roof, had removed some long-standing coolness between him and
his elder brother; his former acquaintance greeted him with
cordiality, and introduced him to the new heroes who had
sprung up during the season of his absence.  Apparently
Egremont was not disinclined to pursue, though without
eagerness, the same career that had originally engaged him.
He frequented assemblies, and lingered in clubs; rode in the
park, and lounged at the opera.  But there was this difference
in his existence, before and since his travels: he was now
conscious he wanted an object; and was ever musing over
action, though as yet ignorant how to act.  Perhaps it was
this want of being roused, that led him, it may be for
distraction, again to the turf.  It was a pursuit that seemed
to him more real than the life of saloons, full of
affectation, perverted ideas, and factitious passions.
Whatever might he the impulse Egremont however was certainly
not slightly interested in the Derby; and though by no means
uninstructed in the mysteries of the turf, had felt such
confidence in his information that, with his usual ardour, he
had backed to a considerable amount the horse that ought to
have won, but which nevertheless only ran a second.




Book 1 Chapter 6



Notwithstanding the confidence of Lady St Julians, and her
unrivalled information, the health of the king did not
improve: but still it was the hay fever, only the hay fever.
An admission had been allowed to creep into the Court
Circular, that "his majesty has been slightly indisposed
within the last few days;" but then it was soon followed by a
very positive assurance, that his majesty's favourite and
long-matured resolution to give a state banquet to the knights
of the four orders, was immediately to be carried into effect.
Lady St Julians had the first information of this important
circumstance; it confirmed her original conviction: she
determined to go on with her quadrille.  Egremont, with
something interesting at stake himself, was staggered by this
announcement, and by Lady St Julians' unshaken faith.  He
consulted his mother: Lady Marney shook her head.  "Poor
woman!" said Lady Marney, "she is always wrong.  I know,"
continued her ladyship, placing her finger to her lip, "that
Prince Esterhazy has been pressing his long-postponed
investiture as a Grand Cross, in order that he may dine at
this very banquet; and it has been announced to him that it is
impossible, the king's health will not admit of it.  When a
simple investiture is impossible, a state banquet to the four
orders is very probable.  No," said Lady Marney with a sigh;
"it is a great blow for all of us, but it is no use shutting
our eyes to the fact.  The poor dear king will never show
again.

And about a week after this there appeared the first bulletin.
From that instant, though the gullish multitude studied the
daily reports with grave interest; their hopes and
speculations and arrangements changing with each phrase; for
the initiated there was no suspense.  All knew that it was
over; and Lady St Julians, giving up her quadrille, began to
look about for seats in parliament for her sons.

"What a happiness it is to have a clever mother," exclaimed
Egremont, as he pondered over the returns of his election
agent.  Lady Marney, duly warned of the impending catastrophe,
was experiencing all the advantages of prior information.  It
delighted her to meet Lady St Julians driving distractedly
about town, calling at clubs, closeted with red tapers, making
ingenious combinations that would not work, by means of which
some one of her sons was to stand in coalition with some rich
parvenu; to pay none of the expenses and yet to come in first.
And all this time, Lady Marney, serene and smiling, had the
daily pleasure of assuring Lady St Julians what a relief it
was to her that Charles had fixed on his place.  It had been
arranged indeed these weeks past; "but then, you know,"
concluded Lady Marney in the sweetest voice and with a
blandishing glance, "I never did believe in that hay fever."

In the meantime the impending event changed the whole aspect
of the political world.  The king dying before the new
registration was the greatest blow to pseudo-toryism since his
majesty, calling for a hackney coach, went down and dissolved
parliament in 1831.  It was calculated by the Tadpoles and
Tapers that a dissolution by Sir Robert, after the
registration of 1837, would give him a clear majority, not too
great a one, but large enough: a manageable majority; some
five-and-twenty or thirty men, who with a probable peerage or
two dangling in the distance, half-a-dozen positive
baronetcies, the Customs for their constituents, and Court
balls for their wives, might be induced to save the state.  0!
England, glorious and ancient realm, the fortunes of thy
polity are indeed strange!  The wisdom of the Saxons, Norman
valour, the state-craft of the Tudors, the national sympathies
of the Stuarts, the spirit of the latter Guelphs struggling
against their enslaved sovereignty,--these are the high
qualities, that for a thousand years have secured thy national
developement.  And now all thy memorial dynasties end in the
huckstering rule of some thirty unknown and anonymous jobbers!
The Thirty at Athens were at least tyrants.  They were marked
men.  But the obscure majority, who under our present
constitution are destined to govern England, are as secret as
a Venetian conclave.  Yet on their dark voices all depends.
Would you promote or prevent some great measure that may
affect the destinies of unborn millions, and the future
character of the people,--take, for example, a system of
national education,--the minister must apportion the plunder
to the illiterate clan; the scum that floats on the surface of
a party; or hold out the prospect of honours, which are only
honourable when in their transmission they impart and receive
lustre; when they are the meed of public virtue and public
services, and the distinction of worth and of genius.  It is
impossible that the system of the thirty can long endure in an
age of inquiry and agitated spirit like the present.  Such a
system may suit the balanced interests and the periodical and
alternate command of rival oligarchical connections: but it
can subsist only by the subordination of the sovereign and the
degradation of the multitude; and cannot accord with an age,
whose genius will soon confess that Power and the People are
both divine.

"He can't last ten days," said a whig secretary of the
treasury with a triumphant glance at Mr Taper as they met in
Pall Mall; "You're out for our lives."

"Don't you make too sure for yourselves," rejoined in despair
the dismayed Taper.  "It does not follow that because we are
out, that you are in."

"How do you mean?"

"There is such a person as Lord Durham in the world," said Mr
Taper very solemnly.

"Pish," said the secretary.

"You may pish," said Mr Taper, "but if we have a radical
government, as I believe and hope, they will not be able to
get up the steam as they did in -31; and what with church and
corn together, and the Queen Dowager, we may go to the country
with as good a cry as some other persons."

"I will back Melbourne against the field, now," said the
secretary.

"Lord Durham dined at Kensington on Thursday," said Taper,
"and not a whig present."

"Ay; Durham talks very fine at dinner," said the secretary,
"but he has no real go in him.  When there is a Prince of
Wales, Lord Melbourne means to make Durham governor to the
heir apparent, and that will keep him quiet"

"What do you hear?" said Mr Tadpole, joining them; "I am told
he has quite rallied."

"Don't you flatter yourself," said the secretary.

"Well, we shall hear what they say on the hustings," said
Tadpole looking boldly.

"Who's afraid!" said the secretary.  "No, no, my dear fellow,
you are dead beat; the stake is worth playing for, and don't
suppose we are such flats as to lose the race for want of
jockeying.  Your humbugging registration will never do against
a new reign.  Our great men mean to shell out, I tell you; we
have got Croucher; we will denounce the Carlton and corruption
all over the kingdom; and if that won't do, we will swear till
we are black in the face, that the King of Hanover is engaged
in a plot to dethrone our young Queen:" and the triumphant
secretary wished the worthy pair good morning.

"They certainly have a very good cry," said Taper mournfully.

"After all, the registration might be better," said Tadpole,
"but still it is a very good one."

The daily bulletins became more significant; the crisis was
evidently at hand.  A dissolution of parliament at any time
must occasion great excitement; combined with a new reign, it
inflames the passions of every class of the community.  Even
the poor begin to hope; the old, wholesome superstition still
lingers, that the sovereign can exercise power; and the
suffering multitude are fain to believe that its remedial
character may be about to he revealed in their instance.  As
for the aristocracy in a new reign, they are all in a flutter.
A bewildering vision of coronets, stars, and ribbons; smiles,
and places at court; haunts their noontide speculations and
their midnight dreams.  Then we must not forget the numberless
instances in which the coming event is deemed to supply the
long-sought opportunity of distinction, or the long-dreaded
cause of utter discomfiture; the hundreds, the thousands, who
mean to get into parliament, the units who dread getting out.
What a crashing change from lounging in St James's street to
sauntering on Boulogne pier; or, after dining at Brookes and
supping at Crockford's, to be saved from destruction by the
friendly interposition that sends you in an official capacity
to the marsupial sympathies of Sydney or Swan River!

Now is the time for the men to come forward who have claims;
claims for spending their money, which nobody asked them to
do, but which of course they only did for the sake of the
party.  They never wrote for their party, or spoke for their
party, or gave their party any other vote than their own; but
they urge their claims,--to something; a commissionership of
anything, or a consulship anywhere; if no place to be had,
they are ready to take it out in dignities.  They once looked
to the privy council, but would now be content with an
hereditary honour; if they can have neither, they will take a
clerkship in the Treasury for a younger son.  Perhaps they may
get that in time; at present they go away growling with a
gaugership; or, having with desperate dexterity at length
contrived to transform a tidewaiter into a landwaiter. But
there is nothing like asking--except refusing.

Hark!  it tolls!  All is over.  The great bell of the
metropolitan cathedral announces the death of the last son of
George the Third who probably will ever reign in England.  He
was a good man: with feelings and sympathies; deficient in
culture rather than ability; with a sense of duty; and with
something of the conception of what should be the character of
an English monarch.  Peace to his manes!  We are summoned to a
different scene.

In a palace in a garden--not in a haughty keep, proud with the
fame, but dark with the violence of ages; not in a regal pile,
bright with the splendour, but soiled with the intrigues, of
courts and factions--in a palace in a garden, meet scene for
youth, and innocence, and beauty--came the voice that told the
maiden she must ascend her throne!

The council of England is summoned for the first time within
her bowers.  There are assembled the prelates and captains and
chief men of her realm; the priests of the religion that
consoles, the heroes of the sword that has conquered, the
votaries of the craft that has decided the fate of empires;
men grey with thought, and fame, and age; who are the stewards
of divine mysteries, who have encountered in battle the hosts
of Europe, who have toiled in secret cabinets, who have
struggled in the less merciful strife of aspiring senates; men
too, some of them, lords of a thousand vassals and chief
proprietors of provinces, yet not one of them whose heart does
not at this moment tremble as he awaits the first presence of
the maiden who must now ascend her throne.

A hum of half-suppressed conversation which would attempt to
conceal the excitement, which some of the greatest of them
have since acknowledged, fills that brilliant assemblage; that
sea of plumes, and glittering stars, and gorgeous dresses.
Hush!  the portals open; She comes!  The silence is as deep as
that of a noontide forest.  Attended for a moment by her royal
mother and the ladies of her court, who bow and then retire,
VICTORIA ascends her throne; a girl, alone, and for the first
time, amid an assemblage of men.

In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien which
indicates rather the absorbing sense of august duty than an
absence of emotion, THE QUEEN announces her accession to the
throne of her ancestors, and her humble hope that divine
providence will guard over the fulfilment of her lofty trust.

The prelates and captains and chief men of her realm then
advance to the throne, and kneeling before her, pledge their
troth, and take the sacred oaths of allegiance and supremacy.

Allegiance to one who rules over the land that the great
Macedonian could not conquer; and over a continent of which
even Columbus never dreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of
nations in every zone.

It is not of these that I would speak; but of a nation nearer
her foot-stool, and which at this moment looks to her with
anxiety, with affection, perhaps with hope.  Fair and serene,
she has the blood and beauty of the Saxon.  Will it be her
proud destiny at length to bear relief to suffering millions,
and with that soft hand which might inspire troubadours and
guerdon knights, break the last links in the chain of Saxon
thraldom?


END OF THE FIRST BOOK




BOOK II


Book 2 Chapter 1



The building which was still called MARNEY ABBEY, though
remote from the site of the ancient monastery, was an
extensive structure raised at the latter end of the reign of
James the First, and in the stately and picturesque style of
that age.  Placed on a noble elevation in the centre of an
extensive and well wooded park, it presented a front with two
projecting wings of equal dimensions with the centre, so that
the form of the building was that of a quadrangle, less one of
its sides.  Its ancient lattices had been removed, and the
present windows though convenient accorded little with the
structure; the old entrance door in the centre of the building
however still remained, a wondrous specimen of fantastic
carving: Ionic columns of black oak, with a profusion of
fruits and flowers, and heads of stags and sylvans.  The whole
of the building was crowned with a considerable pediment of
what seemed at the first glance fanciful open work, but which
examined more nearly offered in gigantic letters the motto of
the house of Marney.  The portal opened to a hall, such as is
now rarely found; with the dais, the screen, the gallery, and
the buttery-hatch all perfect, and all of carved black oak.
Modern luxury, and the refined taste of the lady of the late
lord, had made Marney Abbey as remarkable for its comfort and
pleasantness of accommodation as for its ancient state and
splendour.  The apartments were in general furnished with all
the cheerful ease and brilliancy of the modern mansion of a
noble, but the grand gallery of the seventeenth century was
still preserved, and was used on great occasions as the chief
reception-room.  You ascended the principal staircase to reach
it through a long corridor.  It occupied the whole length of
one of the wings; was one hundred feet long, and forty-five
feet broad, its walls hung with a collection of choice
pictures rich in history; while the Axminster carpets, the
cabinets, carved tables, and variety of easy chairs,
ingeniously grouped, imparted even to this palatian chamber a
lively and habitable air.

Lord Marney was several years the senior of Charles Egremont,
yet still a young man.  He was handsome; there was indeed a
general resemblance between the brothers, though the
expression of their countenances was entirely different; of
the same height and air, and throughout the features a certain
family cast; but here the likeness ceased.  The countenance of
Lord Marney bespoke the character of his mind; cynical, devoid
of sentiment, arrogant, literal, hard.  He had no imagination,
had exhausted his slight native feeling, but he was acute,
disputatious, and firm even to obstinacy.  Though his early
education had been very imperfect, he had subsequently read a
good deal, especially in French literature.  He had formed his
mind by Helvetius, whose system he deemed irrefutable, and in
whom alone he had faith.  Armed with the principles of his
great master, he believed he could pass through existence in
adamantine armour, and always gave you in the business of life
the idea of a man who was conscious you were trying to take
him in, and rather respected you for it, but the working of
whose cold, unkind, eye defied you.

There never had been excessive cordiality between the brothers
even in their boyish days, and shortly after Egremont's
entrance into life, they had become estranged.  They were to
meet now for the first time since Egremont's return from the
continent.  Their mother had arranged their reconciliation.
They were to meet as if no misunderstanding had ever existed
between them; it was specially stipulated by Lord Marney, that
there was to be no "scene."  Apprised of Egremont's impending
arrival, Lord Marney was careful to be detained late that day
at petty sessions, and entered the room only a few minutes
before dinner was announced, where he found Egremont not only
with the countess and a young lady who was staying with her,
but with additional bail against any ebullition of sentiment
in the shape of the Vicar of Marney, and a certain Captain
Grouse, who was a kind of aide-de-camp of the earl; killed
birds and carved them; played billiards with him, and lost;
had indeed every accomplishment that could please woman or
ease man; could sing, dance, draw, make artificial flies,
break horses, exercise a supervision over stewards and
bailiffs, and make every body comfortable by taking everything
on his own shoulders.

Lady Marney had received Egremont in a manner which expressed
the extreme satisfaction she experienced at finding him once
more beneath his brother's roof.  When he arrived indeed, he
would have preferred to have been shown at once to his rooms,
but a message immediately delivered expressed the wish of his
sister-in-law at once to see him.  She received him alone and
with great warmth.  She was beautiful, and soft as May; a
glowing yet delicate face; rich brown hair, and large blue
eyes; not yet a mother, but with something of the dignity of
the matron blending with the lingering timidity of the girl.

Egremont was glad to join his sister-in-law again in the
drawing-room before dinner.  He seated himself by her side;
and in answer to her enquiries was giving her some narrative
of his travels; the Vicar who was very low church, was shaking
his head at Lady Marney's young friend, who was enlarging on
the excellence of Mr Paget's tales; while Captain Grouse, in a
very stiff white neck-cloth, very tight pantaloons, to show
his very celebrated legs, transparent stockings and polished
shoes, was throwing himself into attitudes in the back ground,
and with a zeal amounting almost to enthusiasm, teaching Lady
Marney's spaniel to beg; when the door opened, and Lord Marney
entered, but as if to make security doubly sure, not alone.
He was accompanied by a neighbour and brother magistrate, Sir
Vavasour Firebrace, a baronet of the earliest batch, and a
gentleman of great family and great estate.

"Well Charles!"

"How are you George?"

And the brothers shook hands.

'Tis the English way; and if they had been inclined to fall
into each other's arms, they would not probably have done
more.

In a few minutes it was announced that dinner was served, and
so, secured from a scene, having a fair appetite, and
surrounded by dishes that could agreeably satisfy it, a kind
of vague fraternal sentiment began to stir the breast of Lord
Marney: he really was glad to see his brother again;
remembered the days when they rode their poneys and played
cricket; his voice softened, his eyes sparkled, and he at
length exclaimed, "Do you know, old fellow, it makes me quite
happy to see you here again.  Suppose we take a glass of
wine."

The softer heart and more susceptible spirit of Egremont were
well calculated to respond to this ebullition of feeling,
however slight; and truly it was for many reasons not without
considerable emotion, that he found himself once more at
Marney.  He sate by the side of his gentle sister-in-law, who
seemed pleased by the unwonted cordiality of her husband, and
anxious by many kind offices to second every indication of
good feeling on his part.  Captain Grouse was extremely
assiduous: the vicar was of the deferential breed, agreed with
Lady Marney on the importance of infant schools, but recalled
his opinion when Lord Marney expressed his imperious hope that
no infant schools would ever be found in his neighbourhood.
Sir Vavasour was more than middle aged, comely, very
gentlemanlike, but with an air occasionally of absence which
hardly agreed with his frank and somewhat hearty idiosyncracy;
his clear brow, florid complexion, and blue eye.  But Lord
Marney talked a good deal, though chiefly dogmatical or
argumentative.  It was rather difficult for him to find a
sufficient stock of opposition, but he laid in wait and seized
every opening with wonderful alacrity.  Even Captain Grouse
could not escape him; if driven to extremity Lord Marney would
even question his principles on fly-making.  Captain Grouse
gave up, but not too soon; he was well aware that his noble
friend's passion for controversy was equal to his love of
conquest.  As for Lady Marney, it was evident that with no
inconsiderable talents, and with an intelligence richly
cultivated, the controversial genius of her husband had
completely cowed her conversational charms.  She never
advanced a proposition that he did not immediately bristle up,
and she could only evade the encounter by a graceful
submission.  As for the vicar, a frequent guest, he would fain
have taken refuge in silence, but the earl, especially when
alone, would what he called "draw him out," and the game once
unearthed, with so skilled a pack there was but little fear of
a bad run.  When all were reduced to silence, Lord Marney
relinquishing controversy, assumed the positive.  He eulogized
the new poor law, which he declared would be the salvation of
the country, provided it was "carried out" in the spirit in
which it was developed in the Marney Union; but then he would
add that there was no district except their union in which it
was properly observed.  He was tremendously fierce against
allotments and analysed the system with merciless sarcasm,
Indeed he had no inconsiderable acquaintance with the
doctrines of the economists, and was rather inclined to carry
them into practice in every instance, except that of the
landed proprietary, which he clearly proved "stood upon
different grounds" to that of any other "interest."  There was
nothing he hated so much as a poacher, except a lease; though
perhaps in the catalogue of his aversions, we ought to give
the preference to his anti-ecclesiastical prejudice: this
amounted even to acrimony.  Though there was no man breathing
who was possessed with such a strong repugnance to
subscriptions of any kind, it delighted Lord Marney to see his
name among the contributors to all sectarian institutions.
The vicar of Marney, who had been presented by himself, was
his model of a priest: he left every body alone.  Under the
influence of Lady Marney, the worthy vicar had once warmed up
into some ebullition of very low church zeal; there was some
talk of an evening lecture, the schools were to be remodelled,
certain tracts were actually distributed.  But Lord Marney
soon stopped all this.  "No priestcraft at Marney," said this
gentle proprietor of abbey lands.

"I wanted very much to come and canvass for you," said Lady
Marney to Egremont, "but George did not like it."

"The less the family interfered the better," said Lord Marney;
"and for my part, I was very much alarmed when I heard my
mother had gone down."

"Oh! my mother did wonders," said Egremont: "we should have
been beat without her.  Indeed, to tell the truth, I quite
gave up the thing the moment they started their man.  Before
that we were on velvet; but the instant he appeared everything
was changed, and I found some of my warmest supporters,
members of his committee."

"You had a formidable opponent, Lord Marney told me," said Sir
Vavasour.  "Who was he?"

"Oh! a dreadful man!  A Scotchman, richer than Croesus, one
McDruggy, fresh from Canton, with a million of opium in each
pocket, denouncing corruption, and bellowing free trade."

"But they do not care much for free trade in the old borough?"
said Lord Marney.

"No, it was a mistake," said Egremont, "and the cry was
changed the moment my opponent was on the ground.  Then all
the town was placarded with 'Vote for McDruggy and our young
Queen,' as if he had coalesced with her Majesty."

"My mother must have been in despair," said Lord Marney.

"We issued our placard instantly of 'Vote for our young Queen
and Egremont,' which was at least more modest, and turned out
more popular."

"That I am sure was my mother," said Lord Marney.

"No," said Egremont; "it was the effusion of a far more
experienced mind.  My mother was in hourly communication with
head quarters, and Mr Taper sent down the cry by express."

"Peel, in or out, will support the Poor Law," said Lord
Marney, rather audaciously, as he reseated himself after the
ladies had retired.  "He must;" and he looked at his brother,
whose return had in a great degree been secured by crying that
Poor Law down.

"It is impossible," said Charles, fresh from the hustings, and
speaking from the card of Taper, for the condition of the
people was a subject of which he knew nothing.

"He will carry it out," said Lord Marney, "you'll see, or the
land will not support him."

"I wish," said Sir Vavasour, "we could manage some
modification about out-door relief."

"Modification!" said Lord Marney; "why there has been nothing
but modification.  What we want is stringency."

"The people will never bear it," said Egremont; "there must be
some change."

"You cannot go back to the abuses of the old system," said
Captain Grouse, making, as he thought, a safe observation.

"Better go back to the old system, than modify the new," said
Lord Marney.

"I wish the people would take to it a little more," said Sir
Vavasour; "they certainly do not like it in our parish."

"The people are very contented here, eh Slimsey?" said Lord
Marney.

"Very," said the vicar.

Hereupon a conversation took place, principally sustained by
the earl and the baronet, which developed all the resources of
the great parochial mind.  Dietaries, bastardy, gaol
regulations, game laws, were amply discussed; and Lord Marney
wound up with a declaration of the means by which the country
might be saved, and which seemed principally to consist of
high prices and low church.

"If the sovereign could only know her best friends," said Sir
Vavasour, with a sigh.

Lord Marney seemed to get uneasy.

"And avoid the fatal mistakes of her predecessor," continued
the baronet.

"Charles, another glass of claret," said the earl.

"She might yet rally round the throne a body of men"--

"Then we will go to the ladies," said the earl, abruptly
disturbing his guest.




Book 2 Chapter 2



There was music as they re-entered the drawing-room.  Sir
Vavasour attached himself to Egremont.

"It is a great pleasure for me to see you again, Mr Egremont;"
said the worthy baronet.  "Your father was my earliest and
kindest friend.  I remember you at Firebrace, a very little
boy.  Happy to see you again, Sir, in so eminent a position; a
legislator--one of our legislators.  It gave me a sincere
satisfaction to observe your return."

"You are very kind, Sir Vavasour."

"But it is a responsible position," continued the baronet.
"Think you they'll stand?  A majority.  I suppose, they have;
but, I conclude, in time; Sir Robert will have it in time?  We
must not be in a hurry; 'the more haste'--you know the rest.
The country is decidedly conservative.  All that we want now
is a strong government, that will put all things to rights.
If the poor king had lived--"

"He would have sent these men to the right-abouts;" said
Egremont, a young politician, proud of his secret
intelligence.

"Ah! the poor king!" said Sir Vavasour, shaking his head.

"He was entirely with us," said Egremont.

"Poor man" said Sir Vavasour.

"You think it was too late, then?" said his companion.

"You are a young man entering political life," said the
baronet, taking Egremont kindly by the arm, and leading him to
a sofa; "everything depends on the first step.  You have a
great opportunity.  Nothing can be done by a mere individual.
The most powerful body in this country wants a champion."

"But you can depend on Peel?" said Egremont.

"He is one of us: we ought to he able to depend on him.  But I
have spoken to him for an hour, and could get nothing out of
him."

"He is cautious; but depend upon it, he will stand or fall by
the land."

"I am not thinking of the land," said Sir Vavasour; "of
something much more important; with all the influence of the
land, and a great deal more besides; of an order of men who
are ready to rally round the throne, and are, indeed, if
justice were done to them, its natural and hereditary
champions (Egremont looked perplexity); I am speaking," added
Sir Vavasour, in a solemn voice, "I am speaking of the
baronets."

"The baronets!  And what do they want?"

"Their rights; their long withheld rights.  The poor king was
with us.  He has frequently expressed to me and other
deputies, his determination to do us justice; but he was not a
strong-minded man," said Sir Vavasour, with a sigh; "and in
these revolutionary and levelling times, he had a hard task
perhaps.  And the peers, who are our brethren, they were, I
fear, against us.  But in spite of the ministers, and in spite
of the peers, had the poor king lived, we should at least have
had the badge," added Sir Vavasour mournfully.

"The badge!"

"It would have satisfied Sir Grosvenor le Draughte," said Sir
Vavasour; "and he had a strong party with him; he was for
compromise, but d-- him, his father was only an accoucheur."

"And you wanted more?" inquired Egremont, with a demure look.

"All, or nothing," said Sir Vavasour; "principle is ever my
motto
--no expediency.  I made a speech to the order at the
Clarendon; there were four hundred of us; the feeling was very
strong."

"A powerful party," said Egremont.

"And a military order, sir, if properly understood.  What
could stand against us?  The Reform Bill could never have
passed if the baronets had been organized."

"I have no doubt you could bring us in now," said Egremont.

"That is exactly what I told Sir Robert.  I want him to be
brought in by his own order.  It would be a grand thing."

"There is nothing like esprit de corps," said Egremont.

"And such a body!" exclaimed Sir Vavasour, with animation.
"Picture us for a moment, to yourself going down in procession
to Westminster for example to hold a chapter.  Five or six
hundred baronets in dark green costume,--the appropriate dress
of equites aurati; each not only with his badge, but with his
collar of S.S.; belted and scarfed; his star glittering; his
pennon flying; his hat white with a plume of white feathers;
of course the sword and the gilt spurs.  In our hand, the
thumb ring and signet not forgotten, we hold our coronet of
two balls!"

Egremont stared with irrepressible astonishment at the excited
being, who unconsciously pressed his companion's arm, as he
drew this rapid sketch of the glories so unconstitutionally
withheld from him.

"A magnificent spectacle!" said Egremont.

"Evidently the body destined to save this country," eagerly
continued Sir Vavasour.  "Blending all sympathies: the crown
of which they are the peculiar champions; the nobles of whom
they are the popular branch; the people who recognize in them
their natural leaders.  But the picture is not complete.  We
should be accompanied by an equal number of gallant knights,
our elder sons, who, the moment they come of age, have the
right to claim knighthood of their sovereign, while their
mothers and wives, no longer degraded to the nomenclature of a
sheriff's lady, but resuming their legal or analogical
dignities, and styled the 'honourable baronetess,' with her
coronet and robe, or the 'honourable knightess,' with her
golden collar of S.S., and chaplet or cap of dignity, may
either accompany the procession, or ranged in galleries in a
becoming situation, rain influence from above."

"I am all for their going in the procession," said Egremont.

"The point is not so clear," said Sir Vavasour solemnly; "and
indeed, although we have been firm in defining our rightful
claims in our petitions, as for 'honorary epithets, secondary
titles, personal decorations, and augmented heraldic
bearings.'  I am not clear if the government evinced a
disposition for a liberal settlement of the question, I would
not urge a too stringent adherence to every point.  For
instance, I am prepared myself, great as would be the
sacrifice, even to renounce the claim of secondary titles for
our eldest sons, if for instance they would secure us our
coronet."

"Fie, fie, Sir Vavasour," said Egremont very seriously,
"remember principle: no expediency, no compromise."

"You are right," said the baronet, colouring a little; "and do
you know, Mr Egremont, you are the only individual I have yet
met out of the Order, who has taken a sensible view of this
great question, which, after all, is the question of the day."




Book 2 Chapter 3



The situation of the rural town of Marney was one of the most
delightful easily to be imagined.  In a spreading dale,
contiguous to the margin of a clear and lively stream,
surrounded by meadows and gardens, and backed by lofty hills,
undulating and richly wooded, the traveller on the opposite
heights of the dale would often stop to admire the merry
prospect, that recalled to him the traditional epithet of his
country.

Beautiful illusion!  For behind that laughing landscape,
penury and disease fed upon the vitals of a miserable
population!

The contrast between the interior of the town and its external
aspect, was as striking as it was full of pain.  With the
exception of the dull high street, which had the usual
characteristics of a small agricultural market town, some
sombre mansions, a dingy inn, and a petty bourse, Marney
mainly consisted of a variety of narrow and crowded lanes
formed by cottages built of rubble, or unhewn stones without
cement, and from age, or badness of the material, looking as
if they could scarcely hold together.  The gaping chinks
admitted every blast; the leaning chimneys had lost half their
original height; the rotten rafters were evidently misplaced;
while in many instances the thatch, yawning in some parts to
admit the wind and wet, and in all utterly unfit for its
original purpose of giving protection from the weather, looked
more like the top of a dunghill than a cottage.  Before the
doors of these dwellings, and often surrounding them, ran open
drains full of animal and vegetable refuse, decomposing into
disease, or sometimes in their imperfect course filling foul
pits or spreading into stagnant pools, while a concentrated
solution of every species of dissolving filth was allowed to
soak through and thoroughly impregnate the walls and ground
adjoining.

These wretched tenements seldom consisted of more than two
rooms, in one of which the whole family, however numerous,
were obliged to sleep, without distinction of age, or sex, or
suffering.  With the water streaming down the walls, the light
distinguished through the roof, with no hearth even in winter,
the virtuous mother in the sacred pangs of childbirth, gives
forth another victim to our thoughtless civilization;
surrounded by three generations whose inevitable presence is
more painful than her sufferings in that hour of travail;
while the father of her coming child, in another corner of the
sordid chamber, lies stricken by that typhus which his
contaminating dwelling has breathed into his veins, and for
whose next prey is perhaps destined, his new-born child.
These swarming walls had neither windows nor doors sufficient
to keep out the weather, or admit the sun or supply the means
of ventilation; the humid and putrid roof of thatch exhaling
malaria like all other decaying vegetable matter.  The
dwelling rooms were neither boarded nor paved; and whether it
were that some were situate in low and damp places,
occasionally flooded by the river, and usually much below the
level of the road; or that the springs, as was often the case,
would burst through the mud floor; the ground was at no time
better than so much clay, while sometimes you might see little
channels cut from the centre under the doorways to carry off
the water, the door itself removed from its hinges: a resting
place for infancy in its deluged home.  These hovels were in
many instances not provided with the commonest conveniences of
the rudest police; contiguous to every door might be observed
the dung-heap on which every kind of filth was accumulated,
for the purpose of being disposed of for manure, so that, when
the poor man opened his narrow habitation in the hope of
refreshing it with the breeze of summer, he was met with a
mixture of gases from reeking dunghills.

This town of Marney was a metropolis of agricultural labour,
for the proprietors of the neighbourhood having for the last
half century acted on the system of destroying the cottages on
their estates, in order to become exempted from the
maintenance of the population, the expelled people had flocked
to Marney, where, during the war, a manufactory had afforded
them some relief, though its wheels had long ceased to disturb
the waters of the Mar.

Deprived of this resource, they had again gradually spread
themselves over that land which had as it were rejected them;
and obtained from its churlish breast a niggardly subsistence.
Their re-entrance into the surrounding parishes was viewed
with great suspicion; their renewed settlement opposed by
every ingenious contrivance; those who availed themselves of
their labour were careful that they should not become dwellers
on the soil; and though, from the excessive competition, there
were few districts in the kingdom where the rate of wages was
more depressed, those who were fortunate enough to obtain the
scant remuneration, had, in addition to their toil, to endure
each morn and even a weary journey before they could reach the
scene of their labour, or return to the squalid hovel which
profaned the name of home.  To that home, over which Malaria
hovered, and round whose shivering hearth were clustered other
guests besides the exhausted family of toil--Fever, in every
form, pale Consumption, exhausting Synochus, and trembling
Ague,--returned after cultivating the broad fields of merry
England the bold British peasant, returned to encounter the
worst of diseases with a frame the least qualified to oppose
them; a frame that subdued by toil was never sustained by
animal food; drenched by the tempest could not change its
dripping rags; and was indebted for its scanty fuel to the
windfalls of the woods.

The eyes of this unhappy race might have been raised to the
solitary spire that sprang up in the midst of them, the bearer
of present consolation, the harbinger of future equality; but
Holy Church at Marney had forgotten her sacred mission.  We
have introduced the reader to the vicar, an orderly man who
deemed he did his duty if he preached each week two sermons,
and enforced humility on his congregation and gratitude for
the blessings of this life.  The high Street and some
neighbouring gentry were the staple of his hearers.  Lord and
Lady Marney came, attended by Captain Grouse, every Sunday
morning with commendable regularity, and were ushered into the
invisible interior of a vast pew, that occupied half of the
gallery, was lined with crimson damask, and furnished with
easy chairs, and, for those who chose them, well-padded stools
of prayer.  The people of Marney took refuge in conventicles,
which abounded; little plain buildings of pale brick with the
names painted on them, of Sion, Bethel, Bethesda: names of a
distant land, and the language of a persecuted and ancient
race: yet, such is the mysterious power of their divine
quality, breathing consolation in the nineteenth century to
the harassed forms and the harrowed souls of a Saxon
peasantry.

But however devoted to his flock might have been the Vicar of
Marney, his exertions for their well being, under any
circumstances, must have been mainly limited to spiritual
consolation.  Married and a father he received for his labours
the small tithes of the parish, which secured to him an income
by no means equal to that of a superior banker's clerk, or the
cook of a great loanmonger.  The great tithes of Marney, which
might he counted by thousands, swelled the vast rental which
was drawn from this district by the fortunate earls that bore
its name.

The morning after the arrival of Egremont at the Abbey, an
unusual stir might have been observed in the high Street of
the town.  Round the portico of the Green Dragon hotel and
commercial inn, a knot of principal personages, the chief
lawyer, the brewer, the vicar himself, and several of those
easy quidnuncs who abound in country towns, and who rank under
the designation of retired gentlemen, were in close and very
earnest converse.  In a short time a servant on horseback in
the Abbey livery galloped up to the portico, and delivered a
letter to the vicar.  The excitement apparently had now
greatly increased.  On the opposite side of the way to the
important group, a knot, larger in numbers but very deficient
in quality, had formed themselves, and remained transfixed
with gaping mouths and a Curious not to say alarmed air.  The
head constable walked up to the door of the Green Dragon, and
though he did not presume to join the principal group, was
evidently in attendance, if required.  The clock struck
eleven; a cart had stopped to watch events, and a gentleman's
coachman riding home with a led horse.

"Here they are!" said the brewer.

"Lord Marney himself," said the lawyer.

"And Sir Vavasour Firebrace, I declare.  I wonder how he came
here," said a retired gentleman, who had been a tallow-
chandler on Holborn Hill.

The vicar took off his hat, and all uncovered.  Lord Marney
and his brother magistrate rode briskly up to the inn and
rapidly dismounted.

"Well, Snigford," said his lordship, in a peremptory tone,
"this is a pretty business; I'll have this stopped directly."

Fortunate man if he succeed in doing so!  The torch of the
incendiary had for the first time been introduced into the
parish of Marney; and last night the primest stacks of the
Abbey farm had blazed a beacon to the agitated neighbourhood.




Book 2 Chapter 4



"It is not so much the fire, sir," said Mr Bingley of the
Abbey farm to Egremont, "but the temper of the people that
alarms me.  Do you know, sir, there were two or three score of
them here, and, except my own farm servants, not one of them
would lend a helping hand to put out the flames, though, with
water so near, they might have been of great service."

"You told my brother, Lord Marney, this?"

"Oh! it's Mr Charles I'm speaking to!  My service to you, sir;
I'm glad to see you in these parts again.  It's a long time
that we have had that pleasure, sir.  Travelling in foreign
parts, as I have heard say?"

"Something of that; but very glad to find myself at home once
more, Mr Bingley, though very sorry to have such a welcome as
a blazing rick at the Abbey farm."

Well, do you know, Mr Charles.  between ourselves," and Mr
Bingley lowered his tone, and looked around him, "Things is
very bad here; I can't make out, for my part, what has become
of the country.  Tayn't the same land to live in as it was
when you used to come to our moor coursing, with the old lord;
you remember that, I be sure, Mr Charles?"

"'Tis not easy to forget good sport, Mr Bingley.  With your
permission, I will put my horse up here for half an hour.  I
have a fancy to stroll to the ruins."

"You wunna find them much changed," said the farmer, smiling.
"They have seen a deal of different things in their time!  But
you will taste our ale, Mr Charles?"

"When I return."

But the hospitable Bingley would take no denial, and as his
companion waived on the present occasion entering his house,
for the sun had been some time declining, the farmer, calling
one of his labourers to take Egremont's horse, hastened into
the house to fill the brimming cup.

"And what do you think of this fire?" said Egremont to the
hind.

"I think 'tis hard times for the poor, sir."

"But rick-burning will not make the times easier, my good
man."

The man made no reply, but with a dogged look led away the
horse to his stable.

About half a mile from Marney, the dale narrowed, and the
river took a winding course.  It ran through meads, soft and
vivid with luxuriant vegetation, bounded on either side by
rich hanging woods, save where occasionally a quarry broke the
verdant bosom of the heights with its rugged and tawny form.
Fair stone and plenteous timber, and the current of fresh
waters, combined, with the silent and secluded scene screened
from every harsh and angry wind, to form the sacred spot that
in old days Holy Church loved to hallow with its beauteous and
enduring structures.  Even the stranger therefore when he had
left the town about two miles behind him, and had heard the
farm and mill which he had since passed, called the Abbey farm
and the Abbey mill, might have been prepared for the grateful
vision of some monastic remains.  As for Egremont, he had been
almost born amid the ruins of Marney Abbey; its solemn relics
were associated with his first and freshest fancies; every
footstep was as familiar to him as it could have been to one
of the old monks; yet never without emotion could he behold
these unrivalled remains of one of the greatest of the great
religious houses of the North.

Over a space of not less than ten acres might still be
observed the fragments of the great abbey: these were, towards
their limit, in general moss-grown and mouldering memorials
that told where once rose the offices and spread the terraced
gardens of the old proprietors; here might still be traced the
dwelling of the lord abbot; and there, still more distinctly,
because built on a greater scale and of materials still more
intended for perpetuity, the capacious hospital, a name that
did not then denote the dwelling of disease, but a place where
all the rights of hospitality were practised; where the
traveller from the proud baron to the lonely pilgrim asked the
shelter and the succour that never were denied, and at whose
gate, called the Portal of the Poor, the peasants on the Abbey
lands, if in want, might appeal each morn and night for
raiment and for food.

But it was in the centre of this tract of ruins, occupying a
space of not less than two acres, that, with a strength that
had defied time, and with a beauty that had at last turned
away the wrath of man, still rose if not in perfect, yet
admirable, form and state, one of the noblest achievements of
Christian art,--the Abbey church.  The summer vault was now
its only roof, and all that remained of its gorgeous windows
was the vastness of their arched symmetry, and some wreathed
relics of their fantastic frame-work, but the rest was
uninjured.

From the west window, looking over the transept chapel of the
Virgin, still adorned with pillars of marble and alabaster,
the eye wandered down the nave to the great orient light, a
length of nearly three hundred feet, through a gorgeous avenue
of unshaken walls and columns that clustered to the skies, On
each side of the Lady's chapel rose a tower.  One which was of
great antiquity, being of that style which is commonly called
Norman, short and very thick and square, did not mount much
above the height of the western front; but the other tower was
of a character very different, It was tall and light, and of a
Gothic style most pure and graceful; the stone of which it was
built, of a bright and even sparkling colour, and looking as
if it were hewn but yesterday.  At first, its turretted crest
seemed injured; but the truth is, it was unfinished; the
workmen were busied on this very tower the day that old
Baldwin Greymount came as the king's commissioner to inquire
into the conduct of this religious house.  The abbots loved to
memorise their reigns by some public work, which should add to
the beauty of their buildings or the convenience of their
subjects; and the last of the ecclesiastical lords of Marney,
a man of fine taste and a skilful architect, was raising this
new belfry for his brethren when the stern decree arrived that
the bells should no more sound.  And the hymn was no more to
be chaunted in the Lady's chapel; and the candles were no more
to be lit on the high altar; and the gate of the poor was to
be closed for ever; and the wanderer was no more to find a
home.

The body of the church was in many parts overgrown with
brambles and in all covered with a rank vegetation.  It had
been a very sultry day, and the blaze of the meridian heat
still inflamed the air; the kine for shelter, rather than for
sustenance, had wandered through some broken arches, and were
lying in the shadow of the nave.  This desecration of a spot,
once sacred, still beautiful and solemn, jarred on the
feelings of Egremont.  He sighed and turning away, followed a
path that after a few paces led him into the cloister garden.
This was a considerable quadrangle; once surrounding the
garden of the monks, but all that remained of that fair
pleasaunce was a solitary yew in its centre, that seemed the
oldest tree that could well live, and was, according to
tradition, more ancient than the most venerable walls of the
Abbey.  Round this quadrangle was the refectory, the library
and the kitchen, and above them the cells and dormitory of the
brethren.  An imperfect staircase, not without danger, led to
these unroofed chambers; but Egremont familiar with the way
did not hesitate to pursue it, so that he soon found himself
on an elevation overlooking the garden, while further on
extended the vast cloisters of the monks, and adjoining was a
cemetery, that had once been enclosed, and communicated with
the cloister garden.

It was one of those summer days that are so still, that they
seem as it were a holiday of nature.  The weary wind was
sleeping in some grateful cavern, and the sunbeams basking on
some fervent knoll; the river floated with a drowsy
unconscious course: there was no wave in the grass, no stir in
the branches.

A silence so profound amid these solemn ruins, offered the
perfection of solitude; and there was that stirring in the
mind of Egremont which rendered him far from indisposed for
this loneliness.

The slight words that he had exchanged with the farmer and the
hind had left him musing.  Why was England not the same land
as in the days of his light-hearted youth?  Why were these
hard times for the poor?  He stood among the ruins that, as
the farmer had well observed, had seen many changes: changes
of creeds, of dynasties, of laws, of manners.  New orders of
men had arisen in the country, new sources of wealth had
opened, new dispositions of power to which that wealth had
necessarily led.  His own house, his own order, had
established themselves on the ruins of that great body, the
emblems of whose ancient magnificence and strength surrounded
him.  And now his order was in turn menaced.  And the People--
the millions of Toil, on whose unconscious energies during
these changeful centuries all rested--what changes had these
centuries brought to them?  Had their advance in the national
scale borne a due relation to that progress of their rulers,
which had accumulated in the treasuries of a limited class the
riches of the world; and made their possessors boast that they
were the first of nations; the most powerful and the most
free, the most enlightened, the most moral, and the most
religious?  Were there any rick-burners in the times of the
lord abbots?  And if not, why not?  And why should the stacks
of the Earls of Marney be destroyed, and those of the Abbots
of Marney spared?

Brooding over these suggestions, some voices disturbed him,
and looking round, he observed in the cemetery two men: one
was standing beside a tomb which his companion was apparently
examining.

The first was of lofty stature, and though dressed with
simplicity, had nothing sordid in his appearance.  His
garments gave no clue to his position in life: they might have
been worn by a squire or by his gamekeeper; a dark velveteen
dress and leathern gaiters.  As Egremont caught his form, he
threw his broad-brimmed country hat upon the ground and showed
a frank and manly countenance.  His complexion might in youth
have been ruddy, but time and time's attendants, thought and
passion, had paled it: his chesnut hair, faded, but not grey,
still clustered over a noble brow; his features were regular
and handsome, a well-formed nose, the square mouth and its
white teeth, and the clear grey eye which befitted such an
idiosyncracy.  His time of vigorous manhood, for he was much
nearer forty than fifty years of age, perhaps better suited
his athletic form, than the more supple and graceful season of
youth.

Stretching his powerful arms in the air, and delivering
himself of an exclamation which denoted his weariness, and
which had broken the silence, he expressed to his companion
his determination to rest himself under the shade of the yew
in the contiguous garden, and inviting his friend to follow
him, he took up his hat and moved away.

There was something in the appearance of the stranger that
interested Egremont; and waiting till he had established
himself in his pleasant resting place, Egremont descended into
the cloister garden and determined to address him.




Book 2 Chapter 5



"You lean against an ancient trunk," said Egremont, carelessly
advancing to the stranger, who looked up at him without any
expression of surprise, and then replied.  "They say 'tis the
trunk beneath whose branches the monks encamped when they came
to this valley to raise their building.  It was their house,
till with the wood and stone around them, their labour and
their fine art, they piled up their abbey.  And then they were
driven out of it, and it came to this.  Poor men! poor men!"

"They would hardly have forfeited their resting-place had they
deserved to retain it," said Egremont.

"They were rich.  I thought it was poverty that was a crime,"
replied the stranger in a tone of simplicity.

"But they had committed other crimes."

"It may be so; we are very frail.  But their history has been
written by their enemies; they were condemned without a
hearing; the people rose oftentimes in their behalf; and their
property was divided with those on whose reports it was
forfeited."

"At any rate, it was a forfeiture which gave life to the
community," said Egremont; "the lands are held by active men
and not by drones."

"A drone is one who does not labour," said the stranger;
"whether he wear a cowl or a coronet, 'tis the same to me.
Somebody I suppose must own the land; though I have heard say
that this individual tenure is not a necessity; but however
this may be, I am not one who would object to the lord,
provided he were a gentle one.  All agree the Monastics were
easy landlords; their rents were low; they granted leases in
those days.  Their tenants too might renew their term before
their tenure ran out: so they were men of spirit and property.
There were yeomen then, sir: the country was not divided into
two classes, masters and slaves; there was some resting-place
between luxury and misery.  Comfort was an English habit then,
not merely an English word."

"And do you really think they were easier landlords than our
present ones?" said Egremont, inquiringly.

"Human nature would tell us that, even if history did not
confess it.  The Monastics could possess no private property;
they could save no money; they could bequeath nothing.  They
lived, received, and expended in common.  The monastery too
was a proprietor that never died and never wasted.  The farmer
had a deathless landlord then; not a harsh guardian, or a
grinding mortgagee, or a dilatory master in chancery, all was
certain; the manor had not to dread a change of lords, or the
oaks to tremble at the axe of the squandering heir.  How proud
we are still in England of an old family, though, God knows,
'tis rare to see one now.  Yet the people like to say, We held
under him, and his father and his grandfather before him: they
know that such a tenure is a benefit.  The abbot was ever the
same.  The monks were in short in every district a point of
refuge for all who needed succour, counsel, and protection; a
body of individuals having no cares of their own, with wisdom
to guide the inexperienced, with wealth to relieve the
suffering, and often with power to protect the oppressed."

"You plead their cause with feeling," said Egremont, not
unmoved.

"It is my own; they were the sons of the People, like myself."

"I had thought rather these monasteries were the resort of the
younger branches of the aristocracy?" said Egremont.

"Instead of the pension list;" replied his companion, smiling,
but not with bitterness.  "Well, if we must have an
aristocracy, I would sooner that its younger branches should
be monks and nuns, than colonels without regiments, or
housekeepers of royal palaces that exist only in name.
Besides see what advantage to a minister if the unendowed
aristocracy were thus provided for now.  He need not, like a
minister in these days, entrust the conduct of public affairs
to individuals notoriously incompetent, appoint to the command
of expeditions generals who never saw a field, make governors
of colonies out of men who never could govern themselves, or
find an ambassador in a broken dandy or a blasted favourite.
It is true that many of the monks and nuns were persons of
noble birth.  Why should they not have been?  The aristocracy
had their share; no more.  They, like all other classes, were
benefitted by the monasteries: but the list of the mitred
abbots when they were suppressed, shows that the great
majority of the heads of houses were of the people."

"Well, whatever difference of opinion may exist on these
points," said Egremont, "there is one on which there can be no
controversy: the monks were great architects."

"Ah! there it is," said the stranger, in a tone of
plaintiveness; "if the world but only knew what they had lost!
I am sure that not the faintest idea is generally prevalent of
the appearance of England before and since the dissolution.
Why, sir, in England and Wales alone, there were of these
institutions of different sizes; I mean monasteries, and
chantries and chapels, and great hospitals; considerably
upwards of three thousand; all of them fair buildings, many of
them of exquisite beauty.  There were on an average in every
shire at least twenty structures such as this was; in this
great county double that number: establishments that were as
vast and as magnificent and as beautiful as your Belvoirs and
your Chatsworths, your Wentworths and your Stowes.  Try to
imagine the effect of thirty or forty Chatsworths in this
county the proprietors of which were never absent.  You
complain enough now of absentees.  The monks were never non-
resident.  They expended their revenue among those whose
labour had produced it.  These holy men too built and planted
as they did everything else for posterity: their churches were
cathedrals; their schools colleges; their halls and libraries
the muniment rooms of kingdoms; their woods and waters, their
farms and gardens, were laid out and disposed on a scale and
in a spirit that are now extinct: they made the country
beautiful, and the people proud of their country."

"Yet if the monks were such public benefactors, why did not
the people rise in their favour?"

"They did, but too late.  They struggled for a century, but
they struggled against property and they were beat.  As long
as the monks existed, the people, when aggrieved, had property
on their side.  And now 'tis all over," said the stranger;
"and travellers come and stare at these ruins, and think
themselves very wise to moralize over time.  They are the
children of violence, not of time.  It is war that created
these ruins, civil war, of all our civil wars the most
inhuman, for it was waged with the unresisting.  The
monasteries were taken by storm, they were sacked, gutted,
battered with warlike instruments, blown up with gunpowder;
you may see the marks of the blast against the new tower here.
Never was such a plunder.  The whole face of the country for a
century was that of a land recently invaded by a ruthless
enemy; it was worse than the Norman conquest; nor has England
ever lost this character of ravage.  I don't know whether the
union workhouses will remove it.  They are building something
for the people at last.  After an experiment of three
centuries, your gaols being full, and your treadmills losing
something of their virtue, you have given us a substitute for
the monasteries."

"You lament the old faith," said Egremont, in a tone of
respect.

"I am not viewing the question as one of faith," said the
stranger.  "It is not as a matter of religion, but as a matter
of right, that I am considering it: as a matter, I should say,
of private right and public happiness.  You might have changed
if you thought fit the religion of the abbots as you changed
the religion of the bishops: but you had no right to deprive
men of their property, and property moreover which under their
administration so mainly contributed to the welfare of the
community."

"As for community," said a voice which proceeded neither from
Egremont nor the stranger, "with the monasteries expired the
only type that we ever had in England of such an intercourse.
There is no community in England; there is aggregation, but
aggregation under circumstances which make it rather a
dissociating, than an uniting, principle."

It was a still voice that uttered these words, yet one of a
peculiar character; one of those voices that instantly arrest
attention: gentle and yet solemn, earnest yet unimpassioned.
With a step as whispering as his tone, the man who had been
kneeling by the tomb, had unobserved joined his associate and
Egremont.  He hardly reached the middle height; his form
slender, but well proportioned; his pale countenance, slightly
marked with the small pox, was redeemed from absolute ugliness
by a highly-intellectual brow, and large dark eyes that
indicated deep sensibility and great quickness of
apprehension.  Though young, he was already a little bald; he
was dressed entirely in black; the fairness of his linen, the
neatness of his beard, his gloves much worn, yet carefully
mended, intimated that his very faded garments were the result
of necessity rather than of negligence.

"You also lament the dissolution of these bodies," said
Egremont.

"There is so much to lament in the world in which we live,"
said the younger of the strangers, "that I can spare no pang
for the past."

"Yet you approve of the principle of their society; you prefer
it, you say, to our existing life."

"Yes; I prefer association to gregariousness."

"That is a distinction," said Egremont, musingly.

"It is a community of purpose that constitutes society,"
continued the younger stranger; "without that, men may be
drawn into contiguity, but they still continue virtually
isolated."

"And is that their condition in cities?"

"It is their condition everywhere; but in cities that
condition is aggravated.  A density of population implies a
severer struggle for existence, and a consequent repulsion of
elements brought into too close contact.  In great cities men
are brought together by the desire of gain.  They are not in a
state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of
fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of
neighbours.  Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as
ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbour."

"Well, we live in strange times," said Egremont, struck by the
observation of his companion, and relieving a perplexed spirit
by an ordinary exclamation, which often denotes that the mind
is more stirring than it cares to acknowledge, or at the
moment is capable to express.

"When the infant begins to walk, it also thinks that it lives
in strange times," said his companion.

"Your inference?" asked Egremont.

"That society, still in its infancy, is beginning to feel its
way."

"This is a new reign," said Egremont, "perhaps it is a new
era."

"I think so," said the younger stranger.

"I hope so," said the elder one.

"Well, society may be in its infancy," said Egremont slightly
smiling; "but, say what you like, our Queen reigns over the
greatest nation that ever existed."

"Which nation?" asked the younger stranger, "for she reigns
over two."

The stranger paused; Egremont was silent, but looked
inquiringly.

"Yes," resumed the younger stranger after a moment's interval.
"Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no
sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits,
thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different
zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by
a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered
by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws."

"You speak of--" said Egremont, hesitatingly.

"THE RICH AND THE POOR."

At this moment a sudden flush of rosy light, suffusing the
grey ruins, indicated that the sun had just fallen; and
through a vacant arch that overlooked them, alone in the
resplendent sky, glittered the twilight star.  The hour, the
scene, the solemn stillness and the softening beauty,
repressed controversy, induced even silence.  The last words
of the stranger lingered in the ear of Egremont; his musing
spirit was teeming with many thoughts, many emotions; when
from the Lady Chapel there rose the evening hymn to the
Virgin.  A single voice; but tones of almost supernatural
sweetness; tender and solemn, yet flexible and thrilling.

Egremont started from his reverie.  He would have spoken, but
he perceived that the elder of the strangers had risen from
his resting-place, and with downcast eyes and crossed arms,
was on his knees.  The other remained standing in his former
posture.

The divine melody ceased; the elder stranger rose; the words
were on the lips of Egremont, that would have asked some
explanation of this sweet and holy mystery, when in the vacant
and star-lit arch on which his glance was fixed, he beheld a
female form.  She was apparently in the habit of a Religious,
yet scarcely could be a nun, for her veil, if indeed it were a
veil, had fallen on her shoulders, and revealed her thick
tresses of long fair hair.  The blush of deep emotion lingered
on a countenance, which though extremely young, was impressed
with a character of almost divine majesty; while her dark eyes
and long dark lashes, contrasting with the brightness of her
complexion and the luxuriance of her radiant locks, combined
to produce a beauty as rare as it is choice; and so strange,
that Egremont might for a moment have been pardoned for
believing her a seraph, that had lighted on this sphere, or
the fair phantom of some saint haunting the sacred ruins of
her desecrated fane.




Book 2 Chapter 6



"I understand, then," said Lord Marney to his brother, as on
the evening of the same day they were seated together in the
drawing-room, in close converse "I understand then, that you
have in fact paid nothing, and that my mother will give you a
thousand pounds.  That won't go very far."

"It will hardly pay for the chairing," said Egremont; "the
restoration of the family influence was celebrated on so great
a scale."

"The family influence must be supported," said Lord Marney,
"and my mother will give you a thousand pounds; as I said,
that will not do much for you, but I like her spirit.
Contests are very expensive things, yet I quite approve of
what you have done, especially as you won.  It is a great
thing in these ten pound days to win your first contest, and
shows powers of calculation which I respect.  Everything in
this world is calculation; there is no such thing as luck,
depend upon it; and if you go on calculating with equal
exactness, you must succeed in life.  Now the question is,
what is to be done with your election bills?"

"Exactly."

"You want to know what I will do for you, or rather what I can
do for you; that is the point.  My inclination of course is to
do everything for you; but when I calculate my resources, I
may find that they are not equal to my inclination."

"I am sure, George, you will do everything, and more than
everything you ought."

"I am extremely pleased about this thousand pounds of my
mother, Charles."

"Most admirable of her!  But she always is so generous!"

"Her jointure has been most regularly paid," continued Lord
Marney.  "Always be exact in your payments, Charles.  There is
no end to the good it produces.  Now if I had not been so
regular in paying my mother her jointure, she would not in all
probability have been able to have given you this thousand
pounds; and, therefore, to a certain extent, you are indebted
for this thousand pounds to me."

Egremont drew up a little, but said nothing.

"I am obliged to pay my mother her jointure, whether ricks are
burnt or not," said Lord Marney.  "It's very hard, don't you
think so?"

"But these ricks were Bingley's?"

"But he was not insured, and he will want some reduction in
his rent, and if I do not see fit to allow it him, which I
probably shall not, for he ought to have calculated on these
things, I have ricks of my own, and they may be burnt any
night."

"But you, of course, are insured?"

"No, I am not; I calculate 'tis better to run the risk."

"I wonder why ricks are burnt now, and were not in old days,"
said Egremont.

"Because there is a surplus population in the kingdom," said
Lord Marney, "and no rural police in the county."

"You were speaking of the election, George," said Egremont,
not without reluctance, yet anxious, as the ice had been
broken, to bring the matter to a result.  Lord Marney, before
the election, had written, in reply to his mother consulting
him on the step a letter with which she was delighted, but
which Egremont at the time could have wished to have been more
explicit.  However in the excitement attendant on a first
contest, and influenced by the person whose judgment always
swayed, and, in the present case, was peculiarly entitled to
sway him, he stifled his scruples, and persuaded himself that
he was a candidate not only with the sanction, but at the
instance, of his brother.  "You were speaking of the election,
George," said Egremont.

"About the election, Charles.  Well, the long and short of it
is this: that I wish to see you comfortable.  To be harassed
about money is one of the most disagreeable incidents of life.
It ruffles the temper, lowers the spirits, disturbs the rest,
and finally breaks up one's health.  Always, if you possibly
can, keep square.  And if by any chance you do find yourself
in a scrape, come to me.  There is nothing under those
circumstances like the advice of a cool-headed friend."

"As valuable as the assistance of a cold-hearted one," thought
Egremont, who did not fancy too much the tone of this
conversation.

"But there is one thing of which you must particularly
beware," continued Lord Marney, "there is one thing worse even
than getting into difficulties--patching them up.  The
patching-up system is fatal; it is sure to break down; you
never get clear.  Now, what I want to do for you, Charles, is
to put you right altogether.  I want to see you square and
more than square, in a position which will for ever guarantee
you from any annoyance of this kind."

"He is a good fellow after all," thought Egremont.

"That thousand pounds of my mother was very … propos," said
Lord Marney; "I suppose it was a sop that will keep them all
right till we have made our arrangements."

"Oh! there is no pressure of that kind," said Egremont; "if I
see my way, and write to them, of course they will be quite
satisfied."

"Excellent," said Lord Marney; "and nothing could be more
convenient to me, for, between ourselves, my balances are very
low at this moment.  The awful expenditure of keeping up this
place!  And then such terrible incumbrances as I came to!"

"Incumbrances, George!  Why, I thought you had not any.  There
was not a single mortgage."

"No mortgages; they are nothing; you find them, you get used
to them, and you calculate accordingly.  You quite forget the
portions for younger children."

"Yes; but you had plenty of ready money for them."

"I had to pay them though," said Lord Marney.  "Had I not, I
might have bought Grimblethorpe with the money; such an
opportunity will never occur again."

"But you talked of incumbrances," said Egremont.

"Ah! my dear fellow," said Lord Marney, " you don't know what
it is to have to keep up an estate like this; and very lucky
for you.  It is not the easy life you dream of.  There's
buildings--I am ruined in buildings--our poor dear father
thought he left me Marney without an incumbrance; why, there
was not a barn on the whole estate that was weather-proof; not
a farm-house that was not half in ruins.  What I have spent in
buildings!  And draining!  Though I make my own tiles,
draining, my dear fellow, is a something of which you have not
the least idea!"

"Well," said Egremont, anxious to bring his brother back to
the point, "you think, then, I had better write to them and
say--"

"Ah! now for your business," said Lord Marney.  "Now, I will
tell you what I can do for you.  I was speaking to Arabella
about it last night; she quite approves my idea.  You remember
the De Mowbrays?  Well, we are going to stay at Mowbray
Castle, and you are to go with us.  It is the first time they
have received company since their great loss.  Ah! you were
abroad at the time, and so you are behind hand.  Lord
Mowbray's only son, Fitz-Warene, you remember him, a deuced
clever fellow, he died about a year ago, in Greece, of a
fever.  Never was such a blow!  His two sisters, Lady Joan and
Lady Maud, are looked upon as the greatest heiresses in the
kingdom; but I know Mowbray well; he will make an eldest son
of his eldest daughter.  She will have it all; she is one of
Arabella's dearest friends; and you are to marry her."

Egremont stared at his brother, who patted him on the back
with an expression of unusual kindness, and adding, "You have
no idea what a load this has taken off my mind, my dear
Charles; so great has my anxiety always been about you,
particularly of late.  To see you lord of Mowbray Castle will
realize my fondest hopes.  That is a position fit for a man,
and I know none more worthy of it than yourself, though I am
your brother who say so.  Now let us come and speak to
Arabella about it."

So saying, Lord Marney, followed somewhat reluctantly by his
brother, advanced to the other end of the drawing-room, where
his wife was employed with her embroidery-frame, and seated
next to her young friend, Miss Poinsett, who was playing chess
with Captain Grouse, a member of the chess club, and one of
the most capital performers extant.

"Well, Arabella," said Lord Marney, "it is all settled;
Charles
agrees with me about going to Mowbray Castle, and I think the
sooner we go the better.  What do you think of the day after
to-morrow?  That will suit me exactly, and therefore I think
we had better fix on it.  We will consider it settled."

Lady Marney looked embarrassed, and a little distressed.
Nothing could be more unexpected by her than this proposition;
nothing more inconvenient than the arrangement.  It was very
true that Lady Joan Fitz-Warene had invited them to Mowbray,
and she had some vague intention, some day or other, of
deliberating whether they should avail themselves of this
kindness; but to decide upon going, and upon going instantly,
without the least consultation, the least inquiry as to the
suitableness of the arrangement, the visit of Miss Poinsett
abruptly and ungraciously terminated, for example--all this
was vexatious, distressing: a mode of management which out of
the simplest incidents of domestic life contrived to extract
some degree of perplexity and annoyance.

"Do not you think, George," said Lady Marney, "that we had
better talk it over a little?"

"Not at all," said Lord Marney: "Charles will go, and it quite
suits me, and therefore what necessity for any consultation?"

"Oh! if you and Charles like to go, certainly."  said Lady
Marney in a hesitating tone; "only I shall be very sorry to
lose your society."

"How do you mean lose our society Arabella?  Of course you
must go with us.  I particularly want you to go.  You are Lady
Joan's most intimate friend; I believe there is no one she
likes so much."

"I cannot go the day after to-morrow," said Lady Marney,
speaking in a whisper, and looking volumes of deprecation.

"I cannot help it," said Lord Marney; "you should have told me
this before.  I wrote to Mowbray to-day, that we should be
with him the day after to-morrow, and stay a week."

"But you never mentioned it to me," said Lady Marney, slightly
blushing and speaking in a tone of gentle reproach.

"I should like to know when I am to find time to mention the
contents of every letter I write," said Lord Marney;
"particularly with all the vexatious business I have had on my
hands to-day.  But so it is; the more one tries to save you
trouble, the more discontented you get."

"No, not discontented, George."

"I do not know what you call discontented; but when a man has
made every possible arrangement to please you and every body,
and all his plans are to be set aside merely because the day
he has fixed on does not exactly suit your fancy, if that be
not discontent, I should like very much to know what is,
Arabella."

Lady Marney did not reply.  Always sacrificed, always
yielding, the moment she attempted to express an opinion, she
ever seemed to assume the position not of the injured but the
injurer.

Arabella was a woman of abilities, which she had cultivated.
She had excellent sense, and possessed many admirable
qualities; she was far from being devoid of sensibility; but
her sweet temper shrank from controversy, and Nature had not
endowed her with a spirit which could direct and control.  She
yielded without a struggle to the arbitrary will and
unreasonable caprice of a husband, who was scarcely her equal
in intellect, and far her inferior in all the genial qualities
of our nature, but who governed her by his iron selfishness.

Lady Marney absolutely had no will of her own.  A hard, exact,
literal, bustling, acute being environed her existence;
directed, planned, settled everything.  Her life was a series
of petty sacrifices and baulked enjoyments.  If her carriage
were at the door, she was never certain that she would not
have to send it away; if she had asked some friends to her
house, the chances were she would have to put them off; if she
were reading a novel, Lord Marney asked her to copy a letter;
if she were going to the opera, she found that Lord Marney had
got seats for her and some friend in the House of Lords, and
seemed expecting the strongest expressions of delight and
gratitude from her for his unasked and inconvenient kindness.
Lady Marney had struggled against this tyranny in the earlier
days of their union.  Innocent, inexperienced Lady Marney!  As
if it were possible for a wife to contend against a selfish
husband, at once sharp-witted and blunt-hearted!  She had
appealed to him, she had even reproached him; she had wept,
once she had knelt.  But Lord Marney looked upon these
demonstrations as the disordered sensibility of a girl unused
to the marriage state, and ignorant of the wise authority of
husbands, of which he deemed himself a model.  And so, after a
due course of initiation, Lady Marney invisible for days,
plunged in remorseful reveries in the mysteries of her
boudoir, and her lord dining at his club and going to the
minor theatres; the countess was broken in, and became the
perfect wife of a perfect husband.

Lord Marney, who was fond of chess, turned out Captain Grouse,
and very gallantly proposed to finish his game with Miss
Poinsett, which Miss Poinsett, who understood Lord Marney as
well as he understood chess, took care speedily to lose, so
that his lordship might encounter a champion worthy of him.
Egremont seated by his sister-in-law, and anxious by kind
words to soothe the irritation which he had observed with pain
his brother create, entered into easy talk, and after some
time, said, "I find you have been good enough to mould my
destiny."

Lady Marney looked a little surprised, and then said, "How
so?"

"You have decided on I hear the most important step of my
life."

"Indeed you perplex me."

"Lady Joan Fitz-Warene, your friend--"

The countess blushed; the name was a clue which she could
follow, but Egremont nevertheless suspected that the idea had
never previously occurred to her.  Lady Joan she described as
not beautiful; certainly not beautiful; nobody would consider
her beautiful, many would indeed think her quite the reverse;
and yet she had a look, one particular look when according to
Lady Marney, she was more than beautiful.  But she was very
clever, very indeed, something quite extraordinary.

"Accomplished?"

"Oh! far beyond that; I have heard even men say that no one
knew so much."

"A regular blue?"

"Oh! no; not at all a blue; not that kind of knowledge.  But
languages and learned books; Arabic, and Hebrew, and old
manuscripts.  And then she has an observatory, and was the
first person who discovered the comet.  Dr Buckland swears by
her; and she corresponds with Arago."

"And her sister, is she the same?"

"Lady Maud: she is very religious.  I do not know her so
well."

"Is she pretty?"

"Some people admire her very much."

"I never was at Mowbray.  What sort of a place is it?"

"Oh! it is very grand," said Lady Marney; "but like all places
in the manufacturing districts, very disagreeable.  You never
have a clear sky.  Your toilette table is covered with blacks;
the deer in the park seem as if they had bathed in a lake of
Indian ink; and as for the sheep, you expect to see chimney-
sweeps for the shepherds."

"And do you really mean to go on Thursday?" said Egremont:
"I think we had better put it off."

"We must go," said Lady Marney, with a sort of sigh, and
shaking her head.

"Let me speak to Marney."

"Oh! no.  We must go.  I am annoyed about this dear little
Poinsett: she has been to stay with me so very often, and she
has only been here three days.  When she comes in again, I
wish you would ask her to sing, Charles."

Soon the dear little Poinsett was singing, much gratified by
being invited to the instrument by Mr Egremont, who for a few
minutes hung over her, and then evidently under the influence
of her tones, walked up and down the room, and only speaking
to beg that she would continue her charming performances.
Lady Marney was engrossed with her embroidery; her lord and
the captain with their game.

And what was Egremont thinking of?  Of Mowbray be you sure.
And of Lady Joan or Lady Maud?  Not exactly.  Mowbray was the
name of the town to which the strangers he had met with in the
Abbey were bound.  It was the only piece of information that
he had been able to obtain of them; and that casually.

When the fair vision of the starlit arch, about to descend to
her two companions, perceived that they were in conversation
with a stranger, she hesitated, and in a moment withdrew.
Then the elder of the travellers, exchanging a glance with his
friend, bid good even to Egremont.

"Our way perhaps lies the same," said Egremont.

"I should deem not," said the stranger, "nor are we alone."

"And we must be stirring, for we have far to go," said he who
was dressed in black.

"My journey is very brief," said Egremont, making a desperate
effort to invite communication; "and I am on horseback!"

"And we on foot," said the elder; "nor shall we stop till we
reach Mowbray;" and with a slight salute, they left Egremont
alone.  There was something in the manner of the elder
stranger which repressed the possibility of Egremont following
him.  Leaving then the cloister garden in another direction,
he speculated on meeting them outside the abbey.  He passed
through the Lady's chapel.  The beautiful Religious was not
there.  He gained the west front; no one was visible.  He took
a rapid survey of each side of the abbey; not a being to be
recognized.  He fancied they must have advanced towards the
Abbey Farm; yet they might have proceeded further on in the
dale.  Perplexed, he lost time.  Finally he proceeded towards
the farm, but did not overtake them; reached it, but learned
nothing of them; and arrived at his brother's full of a
strange yet sweet perplexity.




Book 2 Chapter 7



In a commercial country like England, every half century
developes some new and vast source of public wealth, which
brings into national notice a new and powerful class.  A
couple of centuries ago, a Turkey merchant was the great
creator of wealth; the West Indian Planter followed him.  In
the middle of the last century appeared the Nabob.  These
characters in their zenith in turn merged in the land, and
became English aristocrats; while the Levant decaying, the
West Indies exhausted, and Hindostan plundered, the breeds
died away, and now exist only in our English comedies from
Wycherly and Congreve to Cumberland and Morton. The
expenditure of the revolutionary war produced the Loanmonger,
who succeeded the Nabob; and the application of science to
industry developed the Manufacturer, who in turn aspires to be
"large-acred," and always will, as long as we have a
territorial constitution; a better security for the
preponderance of the landed interest than any corn law, fixed
or fluctuating.

Of all these characters, the one that on the whole made the
largest fortunes in the most rapid manner,--and we do not
forget the marvels of the Waterloo loan, or the miracles of
Manchester during the continental blockade--was the Anglo-East
Indian about the time that Hastings was first appointed to the
great viceroyalty.  It was not unusual for men in positions so
obscure that their names had never reached the public in this
country, and who yet had not been absent from their native
land for a longer period than the siege of Troy, to return
with their million.

One of the most fortunate of this class of obscure adventurers
was a certain John Warren.  A very few years before the
breaking out of the American war, he was a waiter at a
celebrated club in St James's Street: a quick yet steady young
fellow; assiduous, discreet, and very civil.  In this
capacity, he pleased a gentleman who was just appointed to the
government of Madras, and who wanted a valet.  Warren, though
prudent, was adventurous; and accepted the opening which he
believed fortune offered him.  He was prescient.  The voyage
in those days was an affair of six months.  During this
period, Warren still more ingratiated himself with his master.
He wrote a good hand, and his master a very bad one.  He had a
natural talent for accounts; a kind of information which was
useful to his employer.  He arrived at Madras, no longer a
valet, but a private secretary.

His master went out to make a fortune; but he was indolent,
and had indeed none of the qualities for success, except his
great position.  Warren had every quality but that.  The basis
of the confederacy therefore was intelligible; it was founded
on mutual interests and cemented by reciprocal assistance.
The governor granted monopolies to the secretary, who
apportioned a due share to his sleeping partner.  There
appeared one of those dearths not unusual in Hindostan; the
population of the famished province cried out for rice; the
stores of which, diminished by nature, had for months
mysteriously disappeared.  A provident administration it seems
had invested the public revenue in its benevolent purchase;
the misery was so excessive that even pestilence was
anticipated, when the great forestallers came to the rescue of
the people over whose destinies they presided; and at the same
time fed and pocketed millions.

This was the great stroke of the financial genius of Warren.
He was satisfied.  He longed once more to see St James's
Street, and to become a member of the club, where he had once
been a waiter.  But he was the spoiled child of fortune, who
would not so easily spare him.  The governor died, and had
appointed his secretary his sole executor.  Not that his
excellency particularly trusted his agent, but he dared not
confide the knowledge of his affairs to any other individual.
The estate was so complicated, that Warren offered the heirs a
good round sum for his quittance, and to take the settlement
upon himself.  India so distant, and Chancery so near--the
heirs accepted the proposition.  Winding up this estate,
Warren avenged the cause of plundered provinces; and the House
of Commons itself, with Burke and Francis at its head, could
scarcely have mulcted the late governor more severely.

A Mr Warren, of whom no one had ever heard except that he was
a nabob, had recently returned from India and purchased a
large estate in the north of England, was returned to
Parliament one of the representatives of a close borough which
he had purchased: a quiet, gentlemanlike, middle-aged man,
with no decided political opinions; and, as parties were then
getting very equal, of course very much courted.  The throes
of Lord North's administration were commencing.  The minister
asked the new member to dine with him, and found the new
member singularly free from all party prejudices.  Mr Warren
was one of those members who announced their determination to
listen to the debates and to be governed by the arguments.
All complimented him, all spoke to him.  Mr Fox declared that
he was a most superior man; Mr Burke said that these were the
men who could alone save the country.  Mrs Crewe asked him to
supper; he was caressed by the most brilliant of duchesses.

At length there arrived one of those fierce trials of
strength, which precede the fall of a minister, but which
sometimes from peculiar circumstances, as in the instances of
Walpole and Lord North, are not immediate in their results.
How would Warren vote? was the great question.  He would
listen to the arguments.  Burke was full of confidence that he
should catch Warren.  The day before the debate there was a
levee, which Mr Warren attended.  The sovereign stopped him,
spoke to him, smiled on him, asked him many questions: about
himself, the House of Commons, how he liked it, how he liked
England.  There was a flutter in the circle; a new favourite
at court.

The debate came off, the division took place.  Mr Warren voted
for the minister.  Burke denounced him; the king made him a
baronet.

Sir John Warren made a great alliance, at least for him; he
married the daughter of an Irish earl; became one of the
king's friends; supported Lord Shelburne, threw over Lord
Shelburne, had the tact early to discover that Mr Pitt was the
man to stick to, stuck to him.  Sir John Warren bought another
estate, and picked up another borough.  He was fast becoming a
personage.  Throughout the Indian debates he kept himself
extremely quiet; once indeed in vindication of Mr Hastings,
whom he greatly admired, he ventured to correct Mr Francis on
a point of fact with which he was personally acquainted.  He
thought that it was safe, but he never spoke again.  He knew
not the resources of vindictive genius or the powers of a
malignant imagination.  Burke owed the Nabob a turn for the
vote which had gained him a baronetcy.  The orator seized the
opportunity and alarmed the secret conscience of the Indian
adventurer by his dark allusions, and his fatal familiarity
with the subject.

Another estate however and another borough were some
consolation for this little misadventure; and in time the
French Revolution, to Sir John's great relief, turned the
public attention for ever from Indian affairs.  The Nabob from
the faithful adherent of Mr Pitt had become even his personal
friend.  The wits indeed had discovered that he had been a
waiter; and endless were the epigrams of Fitzpatrick and the
jokes of Hare; but Mr Pitt cared nothing about the origin of
his supporters.  On the contrary, Sir John was exactly the
individual from whom the minister meant to carve out his
plebeian aristocracy; and using his friend as a feeler before
he ventured on his greater operations, the Nabob one morning
was transformed into an Irish baron.

The new Baron figured in his patent as Lord Fitz-Warene, his
Norman origin and descent from the old barons of this name
having been discovered at Herald's college.  This was a rich
harvest for Fitzpatrick and Hare; but the public gets
accustomed to everything, and has an easy habit of faith.  The
new Baron cared nothing for ridicule, for he was working for
posterity.  He was compensated for every annoyance by the
remembrance that the St James's Street waiter was ennobled,
and by his determination that his children should rank still
higher in the proud peerage of his country.  So he obtained
the royal permission to resume the surname and arms of his
ancestors, as well as their title.

There was an ill-natured story set afloat, that Sir John owed
this promotion to having lent money to the minister; but this
was a calumny.  Mr Pitt never borrowed money of his friends.
Once indeed, to save his library, he took a thousand pounds
from an individual on whom he had conferred high rank and
immense promotion: and this individual, who had the minister's
bond when Mr Pitt died, insisted on his right, and actually
extracted the 1,000 l. from the insolvent estate of his
magnificent patron.  But Mr Pitt always preferred an usurer to
a friend; and to the last day of his life borrowed money at
fifty per cent.

The Nabob departed this life before the Minister, but he lived
long enough to realize his most aspiring dream.  Two years
before his death the Irish baron was quietly converted into an
English peer; and without exciting any attention, all the
squibs of Fitzpatrick, all the jokes of Hare, quite forgotten,
the waiter of the St James's Street club took his seat in the
most natural manner possible in the House of Lords.

The great estate of the late Lord Fitz-Warene was situated at
Mowbray, a village which principally belonged to him, and near
which he had raised a gothic castle, worthy of his Norman name
and ancestry.  Mowbray was one of those places which during
the long war had expanded from an almost unknown village to a
large and flourishing manufacturing town; a circumstance,
which, as Lady Marney observed, might have somewhat
deteriorated the atmosphere of the splendid castle, but which
had nevertheless doubled the vast rental of its lord.  He who
had succeeded to his father was Altamont Belvidere (named
after his mother's family) Fitz-Warene, Lord Fitz-Warene.  He
was not deficient in abilities, though he had not his father's
talents, but he was over-educated for his intellect; a common
misfortune.  The new Lord Fitz-Warene was the most
aristocratic of breathing beings.  He most fully, entirely,
and absolutely believed in his pedigree; his coat of arms was
emblazoned on every window, embroidered on every chair, carved
in every corner.  Shortly after his father's death he was
united to the daughter of a ducal house, by whom he had a son
and two daughters, chrisened by names which the ancient
records of the Fitz-Warenes authorised.  His son, who gave
promise of abilities which might have rendered the family
really distinguished, was Valence; his daughters, Joan and
Maud.  All that seemed wanting to the glory of the house was a
great distinction of which a rich peer, with six seats in the
House of Commons, could not ultimately despair.  Lord Fitz-
Warene aspired to rank among the earls of England.  But the
successors of Mr Pitt were strong; they thought the Fitz-
Warenes had already been too rapidly advanced; it was
whispered that the king did not like the new man; that his
majesty thought him pompous, full of pretence, in short, a
fool.  But though the successors of Mr Pitt managed to govern
the country for twenty years and were generally very strong,
in such an interval of time however good their management or
great their luck, there were inevitably occasions when they
found themselves in difficulties, when it was necessary to
conciliate the lukewarm or to reward the devoted.  Lord Fitz-
Warene well understood how to avail himself of these
occasions; it was astonishing how conscientious and scrupulous
he became during Walcheren expeditions, Manchester massacres,
Queen's trials.  Every scrape of the government was a step in
the ladder to the great borough-monger.  The old king too had
disappeared from the stage; and the tawdry grandeur of the
great Norman peer rather suited George the Fourth.  He was
rather a favourite at the Cottage; they wanted his six votes
for Canning; he made his terms; and one of the means by which
we got a man of genius for a minister, was elevating Lord
Fitz-Warene in the peerage, by the style and title of Earl de
Mowbray of Mowbray Castle.




Book 2 Chapter 8



We must now for a while return to the strangers of the Abbey
ruins.  When the two men had joined the beautiful Religious,
whose apparition had so startled Egremont, they all three
quitted the Abbey by a way which led them by the back of the
cloister garden, and so on by the bank of the river for about
a hundred yards, when they turned up the winding glen of a
dried-up tributary stream.  At the head of the glen, at which
they soon arrived, was a beer-shop, screened by some huge elms
from the winds that blew over the vast moor, which, except in
the direction of Mardale, now extended as far as the eye could
reach.  Here the companions stopped, the beautiful Religious
seated herself on a stone bench beneath the trees, while the
elder stranger calling out to the inmate of the house to
apprise him of his return, himself proceeded to a neighbouring
shed, whence he brought forth a very small rough pony with a
rude saddle, but one evidently intended for a female rider.

"It is well," said the taller of the men "that I am not a
member of a temperance society like you, Stephen, or it would
be difficult to reward this good man for his care of our
steed.  I will take a cup of the drink of Saxon kings."  Then
leading up the pony to the Religious, he placed her on its
back with gentleness and much natural grace, saying at the
same time in a subdued tone, "And you--shall I bring you a
glass of nature's wine?"

"I have drank of the spring of the Holy Abbey," said the
Religious, "and none other must touch my lips this eve."

"Come, our course must be brisk," said the elder of the men as
he gave up his glass to their host and led off the pony,
Stephen walking on its other side.

Though the sun had fallen, the twilight was still glowing, and
even on this wide expanse the air was still.  The vast and
undulating surface of the brown and purple moor, varied
occasionally by some fantastic rocks, gleamed in the shifting
light.  Hesperus was the only star that yet was visible, and
seemed to move before them and lead them on their journey.

"I hope," said the Religious, turning to the elder stranger,
"that if ever we regain our right, my father, and that we ever
can save by the interposition of divine will seems to me
clearly impossible, that you will never forget how bitter it
is to he driven from the soil; and that you will bring back
the people to the land."

"I would pursue our right for no other cause," said the
father.  "After centuries of sorrow and degradation, it should
never be said, that we had no sympathy with the sad and the
oppressed."

"After centuries of sorrow and degradation," said Stephen,
"let it not be said that you acquired your right only to
create a baron or a squire."

"Nay, thou shalt have thy way, Stephen," said his companion,
smiling, "if ever the good hour come.  As many acres as thou
choosest for thy new Jerusalem."

"Call it what you will, Walter," replied Stephen; "but if I
ever gain the opportunity of fully carrying the principle of
association into practice, I will sing 'Nunc me dimittas.'"

"'Nunc me dimittas,'" burst forth the Religious in a voice of
thrilling melody, and she pursued for some minutes the divine
canticle.  Her companions gazed on her with an air of
affectionate reverence as she sang; each instant the stars
becoming brighter, the wide moor assuming a darker hue.

"Now, tell me, Stephen," said the Religious, turning her head
and looking round with a smile, "think you not it would be a
fairer lot to bide this night at some kind monastery, than to
be hastening now to that least picturesque of all creations, a
railway station."

"The railways will do as much for mankind as the monasteries
did," said Stephen.

"Had it not been for the railway, we should never have made
our visit to Marney Abbey," said the elder of the travellers.

"Nor seen its last abbot's tomb," said the Religious.  "When I
marked your name upon the stone, my father;--woe is me.  but I
felt sad indeed, that it was reserved for our blood to
surrender to ruthless men that holy trust."

"He never surrendered," said her father.  "He was tortured and
hanged."

"He is with the communion of saints," said the Religious.

"I would I could see a communion of Men," said Stephen, "and
then there would be no more violence, for there would be no
more plunder."

"You must regain our lands for us, Stephen," said the
Religious; "promise me my father that I shall raise a holy
house for pious women, if that ever hap."

"We will not forget our ancient faith," said her father, "the
only old thing that has not left us."

"I cannot understand," said Stephen, "why you should ever have
lost sight of these papers, Walter."

"You see, friend, they were never in my possession; they were
never mine when I saw them.  They were my father's; and he was
jealous of all interference.  He was a small yeoman, who had
risen in the war time, well to do in the world, but always
hankering after the old tradition that the lands were ours.
This Hatton got hold of him; he did his work well, I have
heard;--certain it is my father spared nothing.  It is twenty-
five years come Martinmas since he brought his writ of right;
and though baffled, he was not beaten.  But then he died; his
affairs were in great confusion; he had mortgaged his land for
his writ, and the war prices were gone.  There were debts that
could not be paid.  I had no capital for a farm.  I would not
sink to be a labourer on the soil that had once been our own.
I had just married; it was needful to make a great exertion.
I had heard much of the high wages of this new industry; I
left the land."

"And the papers?"

"I never thought of them, or thought of them with disgust, as
the cause of my ruin.  Then when you came the other day, and
showed me in the book that the last abbot of Marney was a
Walter Gerard, the old feeling stirred again; and I could not
help telling you that my fathers fought at Azincourt, though I
was only the overlooker at Mr Trafford's mill."

"A good old name of the good old faith," said the Religious;
"and a blessing be on it."

"We have cause to bless it," said Gerard.  "I thought it then
something to serve a gentleman; and as for my daughter, she,
by their goodness, was brought up in holy walls, which have
made her what she is."

"Nature made her what she is," said Stephen in a low voice,
and speaking not without emotion.  Then he continued, in a
louder and brisker tone, "But this Hatton--you know nothing of
his whereabouts?"

"Never heard of him since.  I had indeed about a year after my
father's death, cause to enquire after him; but he had quitted
Mowbray, and none could give me tidings of him.  He had lived
I believe on our law-suit, and vanished with our hopes."

After this, there was silence; each was occupied with his
thoughts, while the influence of the soft night and starry
hour induced to contemplation.

"I hear the murmur of the train," said the Religious.

"'Tis the up-train," said her father.  "We have yet a quarter
of an hour; we shall be in good time."

So saying, he guided the pony to where some lights indicated
the station of the railway, which here crossed the moor.
There was just time to return the pony to the person at the
station from whom it had been borrowed, and obtain their
tickets, when the bell of the down-train sounded, and in a few
minutes the Religious and her companions were on their way to
Mowbray, whither a course of two hours carried them.

It was two hours to midnight when they arrived at Mowbray
station, which was about a quarter of a mile from the town.
Labour had long ceased; a beautiful heaven, clear and serene,
canopied the city of smoke and toil; in all directions rose
the columns of the factories, dark and defined in the purple
sky; a glittering star sometimes hovering by the crest of
their tall and tapering forms.

The travellers proceeded in the direction of a suburb and
approached the very high wall of an extensive garden.  The
moon rose as they reached it, tipped the trees with light, and
revealed a lofty and centre portal, by the side of it a wicket
at which Gerard rang.  The wicket was quickly opened.

"I fear, holy sister," said the Religious, "that I am even
later than I promised."

"Those that come in our lady's name are ever welcome," was the
reply.

"Sister Marion," said Gerard to the porteress, "we have been
to visit a holy place."

"All places are holy with holy thoughts, my brother."

"Dear father, good night," said the Religious; "the blessings
of all the saints be on thee,--and on thee, Stephen, though
thou dost not kneel to them."

"Good night, mine own child," said Gerard.

"I could believe in saints when I am with thee," murmured
Stephen; "Good night,--SYBIL."




Book 2 Chapter 9



When Gerard and his friend quitted the convent they proceeded
at a brisk pace, into the heart of the town.  The streets were
nearly empty; and with the exception of some occasional burst
of brawl or merriment from a beer-shop, all was still.  The
chief street of Mowbray, called Castle Street after the ruins
of the old baronial stronghold in its neighbourhood, was as
significant of the present civilization of this community as
the haughty keep had been of its ancient dependence.  The
dimensions of Castle Street were not unworthy of the
metropolis: it traversed a great portion of the town, and was
proportionately wide; its broad pavements and its blazing gas-
lights indicated its modern order and prosperity; while on
each side of the street rose huge warehouses, not as beautiful
as the palaces of Venice, but in their way not less
remarkable; magnificent shops; and here and there, though
rarely, some ancient factory built among the fields in the
infancy of Mowbray by some mill-owner not sufficiently
prophetic of the future, or sufficiently confident in the
energy and enterprise of his fellow-citizens, to foresee that
the scene of his labours would be the future eye-sore of a
flourishing posterity.

Pursuing their course along Castle Street for about a quarter
of a mile, Gerard and Stephen turned down a street which
intersected it, and so on, through a variety of ways and
winding lanes, till they arrived at an open portion of the
town, a district where streets and squares and even rows,
disappeared, and where the tall chimneys and bulky barrack-
looking buildings that rose in all directions, clustering yet
isolated, announced that they were in the principal scene of
the industry of Mowbray.  Crossing this open ground they
gained a suburb, but one of a very different description to
that in which was situate the convent where they had parted
with Sybil.  This one was populous, noisy, and lighted.  It
was Saturday night; the streets were thronged; an infinite
population kept swarming to and fro the close courts and
pestilential cul-de-sacs that continually communicated with
the streets by narrow archways, like the entrance of hives, so
low that you were obliged to stoop for admission: while
ascending to these same streets, from their dank and dismal
dwellings by narrow flights of steps the subterraneous nation
of the cellars poured forth to enjoy the coolness of the
summer night, and market for the day of rest.  The bright and
lively shops were crowded; and groups of purchasers were
gathered round the stalls, that by the aid of glaring lamps
and flaunting lanthorns, displayed their wares.

"Come, come, it's a prime piece," said a jolly looking woman,
who was presiding at a stall which, though considerably
thinned by previous purchasers, still offered many temptations
to many who could not purchase.

"And so it is widow," said a little pale man, wistfully.

"Come, come, it's getting late, and your wife's ill; you're a
good soul, we'll say fi'pence a pound, and I'll throw you the
scrag end in for love."

"No butcher's meat to-morrow for us, widow," said the man.

"And why not, neighbour?  With your wages, you ought to live
like a prize-fighter, or the mayor of Mowbray at least."

"Wages!" said the man, "I wish you may get 'em.  Those
villains, Shuffle and Screw, have sarved me with another bate
ticket: and a pretty figure too."

"Oh! the carnal monsters!" exclaimed the widow.  "If their day
don't come, the bloody-minded knaves!"

"And for small cops, too!  Small cops be hanged!  Am I the man
to send up a bad-bottomed cop, Widow Carey?"

"You sent up for snicks!  I have known you man and boy John
Hill these twenty summers, and never heard a word against you
till you got into Shuffle and Screw's mill.  Oh! they are a
bad yarn, John."

"They do us all, widow.  They pretends to give the same wages
as the rest, and works it out in fines.  You can't come, and
you can't go, but there's a fine; you're never paid wages, but
there's a bate ticket.  I've heard they keep their whole
establishment on factory fines."

"Soul alive, but those Shuffle and Screw are rotten, snickey,
bad yarns," said Mistress Carey.  "Now ma'am, if you please;
fi'pence ha'penny; no, ma'am, we've no weal left.  Weal,
indeed! you look very like a soul as feeds on weal," continued
Mrs Carey in an under tone as her declining customer moved
away.  "Well, it gets late," said the widow, "and if you like
to take this scrag end home to your wife neighbour Hill, we
can talk of the rest next Saturday.  And what's your will,
sir?" said the widow with a stern expression to a youth who
now stopped at her stall.

He was about sixteen, with a lithe figure, and a handsome,
faded, impudent face.  His long, loose, white trousers gave
him height; he had no waistcoat, but a pink silk handkerchief
was twisted carelessly round his neck, and fastened with a
very large pin, which, whatever were its materials, had
unquestionably a very gorgeous appearance.  A loose frock-coat
of a coarse white cloth, and fastened by one button round his
waist, completed his habiliments, with the addition of the
covering to his head, a high-crowned dark-brown hat, which
relieved his complexion, and heightened the effect of his
mischievous blue eye.

"Well, you need not be so fierce, Mother Carey," said the
youth with an affected air of deprecation.

"Don't mother me," said the jolly widow with a kindling eye;
"go to your own mother, who is dying in a back cellar without
a winder, while you've got lodgings in a two pair."

"Dying; she's only drunk," said the youth.

"And if she is only drunk," rejoined Mrs Carey in a passion,
"what makes her drink but toil; working from five o'clock in
the morning to seven o'clock at night, and for the like of
such as you."

"That's a good one," said the youth; "I should like to know
what my mother ever did for me, but give me treacle and
laudanum when I was a babby to stop my tongue and fill my
stomach; by the token of which, as my gal says, she stunted
the growth of the prettiest figure in all Mowbray."  And here
the youth drew himself up, and thrust his hands in the side
pockets of his pea-jacket.

"Well, I never," said Mrs Carey.  "No; I never heard a thing
like that!"

"What, not when you cut up the jackass and sold it for veal
cutlets, mother."

"Hold your tongue, Mr Imperence," said the widow.  "It's very
well known you're no Christian, and who'll believe what you
say?"

"It's very well known that I'm a man what pays his way," said
the boy, "and don't keep a huckster's stall to sell carrion by
star-light; but live in a two pair, if you please, and has a
wife and family, or as good."

"O! you aggravating imp!" exclaimed the widow in despair,
unable to wreak her vengeance on one who kept in a secure
position, and whose movements were as nimble as his words.

"Why, Madam Carey, what has Dandy Mick done to thee?" said a
good-humoured voice, it came from one of two factory girls who
were passing her stall and stopped.  They were gaily dressed,
a light handkerchief tied under the chin, their hair
scrupulously arranged; they wore coral neck-laces and earrings
of gold.

"Ah! is it you, my child," said the widow, who was a good-
hearted creature.  "The dandy has been giving me some of his
imperence."

"But I meant nothing, dame," said Mick.  "It was a joke,--only
a joke."

"Well, let it pass," said Mrs Carey.  "And where have you been
this long time, my child; and who's your friend?" she added in
a lower tone.

"Well, I have left Mr Trafford's mill," said the girl.

"That's a bad job," said Mrs Carey; "for those Traffords are
kind to their people.  It's a great thing for a young person
to be in their mill."

"So it is," said the girl, "but then it was so dull.  I can't
stand a country life, Mrs Carey.  I must have company."

"Well, I do love a bit of gossip myself," said Mrs Carey, with
great frankness.

"And then I'm no scholar," said the girl, "and never could
take to learning.  And those Traffords had so many schools."

"Learning is better than house and land," said Mrs Carey;
"though I'm no scholar myself; but then, in my time, things
was different.  But young persons--"

"Yes," said Mick; "I don't think I could get through the day,
if it wurno' for our Institute."

"And what's that?" asked Mrs Carey with a sneer.

"The Shoddy-Court Literary and Scientific, to be sure," said
Mick; "we have got fifty members, and take in three London
papers; one 'Northern Star' and two 'Moral Worlds.'"

"And where are you now, child?" continued the widow to the
girl.

"I am at Wiggins and Webster's," said the girl; "and this is
my partner.  We keep house together; we have a very nice room
in Arbour Court, No. 7, high up; it's very airy.  If you will
take a dish of tea with us to-morrow, we expect some friends."

"I take it kindly," said Mrs Carey; "and so you keep house
together!  All the children keep house in these days.  Times
is changed indeed!"

"And we shall be happy to see you, Mick; and Julia, if you are
not engaged;" continued the girl; and she looked at her
friend, a pretty demure girl, who immediately said, but in a
somewhat faultering tone, "Oh! that we shall."

"And what are you going to do now, Caroline?" said Mick.

"Well, we had no thoughts; but I said to Harriet, as it is a
fine night, let us walk about as long as we can and then to-
morrow we will lie in bed till afternoon."

"That's all well eno' in winter time with plenty of baccy,"
said Mick, "but at this season of the year I must have life.
The moment I came out I bathed in the river, and then went
home and dressed," he added in a satisfied tone; "and now I am
going to the Temple.  I'll tell you what, Julia has been
pricked to-day with a shuttle, 'tis not much, but she can't go
out; I'll stand treat, and take you and your friend to the
Temple."

"Well, that's delight," said Caroline.  "There's no one does
the handsome thing like you, Dandy Mick, and I always say so.
Oh! I love the Temple!  'Tis so genteel!  I was speaking of it
to Harriet last night; she never was there.  I proposed to go
with her--but two girls alone,--you understand me.  One does
not like to be seen in these places, as if one kept no
company."

"Very true," said Mick; "and now we'll be off.  Good night,
widow."

"You'll remember us to-morrow evening," said Caroline.  "To-
morrow evening!  The Temple!" murmured Mrs Carey to herself.
"I think the world is turned upside downwards in these parts.
A brat like Mick Radley to live in a two pair, with a wife and
family, or as good as he says; and this girl asks me to take a
dish of tea with her and keeps house!  Fathers and mothers
goes for nothing," continued Mrs Carey, as she took a very
long pinch of snuff and deeply mused.  "'tis the children gets
the wages," she added after a profound pause, "and there it
is."




Book 2 Chapter 10



In the meantime Gerard and Stephen stopped before a tall,
thin, stuccoed house, ballustraded and friezed, very much
lighted both within and without, and, from the sounds that
issued from it, and the persons who retired and entered,
evidently a locality of great resort and bustle.  A sign,
bearing the title of the Cat and Fiddle, indicated that it was
a place of public entertainment, and kept by one who owned the
legal name of John Trottman, though that was but a vulgar
appellation, lost in his well-earned and far-famed title of
Chaffing Jack.

The companions entered the spacious premises; and making their
way to the crowded bar, Stephen, with a glance serious but
which indicated intimacy, caught the eye of a comely lady, who
presided over the mysteries, and said in a low voice, "Is he
here?"

"In the Temple, Mr Morley, asking for you and your friend more
than once.  I think you had better go up.  I know he wishes to
see you."

Stephen whispered to Gerard and after a moment's pause, he
asked the fair president for a couple of tickets for each of
which he paid threepence; a sum however, according to the
printed declaration of the voucher, convertible into potential
liquid refreshments, no great compensation to a very strict
member of the Temperance Society of Mowbray.

A handsome staircase with bright brass bannisters led them to
an ample landing-place, on which opened a door, now closed and
by which sate a boy who collected the tickets of those who
would enter it.  The portal was of considerable dimensions and
of architectural pretension; it was painted of a bright green
colour, the panels gilt.  Within the pediment, described in
letters of flaming gas, you read, "THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSES."


Gerard and Morley entered an apartment very long and
sufficiently lofty, though rather narrow for such proportions.
The ceiling was even richly decorated; the walls were painted,
and by a brush of considerable power.  Each panel represented
some well-known scene from Shakespeare, Byron, or Scott: King
Richard, Mazeppa, the Lady of the Lake were easily recognized:
in one panel, Hubert menaced Arthur; here Haidee rescued Juan;
and there Jeanie Deans curtsied before the Queen.  The room
was very full; some three or four hundred persons were seated
in different groups at different tables, eating, drinking,
talking, laughing, and even smoking, for notwithstanding the
pictures and the gilding it was found impossible to forbid,
though there were efforts to discourage, this practice, in the
Temple of the Muses.  Nothing however could be more decorous
than the general conduct of the company, though they consisted
principally of factory people.  The waiters flew about with as
much agility as if they were serving nobles.  In general the
noise was great, though not disagreeable; sometimes a bell
rang and there was comparative silence, while a curtain drew
up at the further end of the room, opposite to the entrance,
and where there was a theatre, the stage raised at a due
elevation, and adorned with side scenes from which issued a
lady in a fancy dress who sang a favourite ballad; or a
gentleman elaborately habited in a farmer's costume of the old
comedy, a bob-wig, silver buttons and buckles, and blue
stockings, and who favoured the company with that melancholy
effusion called a comic song.  Some nights there was music on
the stage; a young lady in a white robe with a golden harp,
and attended by a gentleman in black mustachios.  This was
when the principal harpiste of the King of Saxony and his
first fiddler happened to be passing through Mowbray, merely
by accident, or on a tour of pleasure and instruction, to
witness the famous scenes of British industry.  Otherwise the
audience of the Cat and Fiddle, we mean the Temple of the
Muses, were fain to be content with four Bohemian brothers, or
an equal number of Swiss sisters.  The most popular amusements
however were the "Thespian recitations:" by amateurs, or
novices who wished to become professional.  They tried their
metal on an audience which could be critical.

A sharp waiter, with a keen eye on the entering guests,
immediately saluted Gerard and his friend, with profuse offers
of hospitality: insisting that they wanted much refreshment;
that they were both very hungry and very thirsty: that, if not
hungry, they should order something to drink that would give
them an appetite: if not inclined to quaff, something to eat
that would make them athirst.  In the midst of these
embarrassing attentions, he was pushed aside by his master
with, "There, go; hands wanted at the upper end; two American
gentlemen from Lowell singing out for Sherry Cobler; don't
know what it is; give them our bar mixture; if they complain,
say it's the Mowbray slap-bang, and no mistake.  Must have a
name, Mr Morley; name's everything; made the fortune of the
Temple: if I had called it the Saloon, it never would have
filled, and perhaps the magistrates never have granted a
licence."

The speaker was a very portly man who had passed the maturity
of manhood, but active as Harlequin.  He had a well-favoured
countenance; fair, good-humoured, but very sly.  He was
dressed like the head butler of the London Tavern, and was
particular as to his white waistcoats and black silk
stockings, punctilious as to his knee-buckles, proud of his
diamond pin; that is to say when he officiated at the Temple.

"Your mistress told us we should find you here," said Stephen,
"and that you wished to see us.

"Plenty to tell you," said their host putting his finger to
his nose.  "If information is wanted in this part of the
world, I flatter myself--Come, Master Gerard, here's a table;
what shall I call for?  glass of the Mowbray slap-bang?  No
better; the receipt has been in our family these fifty years.
Mr Morley I know won't join us.  Did you say a cup of tea, Mr
Morley?  Water, only water; well, that's strange.  Boy alive
there, do you hear me call?  Water wanted, glass of water for
the Secretary of the Mowbray Temperance and Teatotal.  Sing it
out.  I like titled company.  Brush!"

"And so you can give us some information about this--"

"Be back directly."  exclaimed their host: and darting off
with a swift precision, that carried him through a labyrinth
of tables without the slightest inconvenience to their
occupiers.  "Beg pardon, Mr Morley," he said, sliding again
into his chair; "but saw one of the American gentlemen
brandishing his bowie-knife against one of my waiters; called
him Colonel; quieted him directly; a man of his rank brawling
with a help; oh! no; not to be thought of; no squabbling here;
licence in danger."

"You were saying--" resumed Morley.

"Ah! yes, about that man Hatton; remember him perfectly well;
a matter of twenty or it may be nineteen years since he
bolted.  Queer fellow; lived upon nothing; only drank water;
no temperance and teetotal then, so no excuse.  Beg pardon, Mr
Morley; no offence I hope; can't bear whims; but respectable
societies, if they don't drink, they make speeches, hire your
rooms, leads to business."

"And this Hatton--" said Gerard.

"Ah! a queer fellow; lent him a one-pound note--never saw it
again--always remember it--last one-pound note I had.  He
offered me an old book instead; not in my way; took a china
jar for my wife.  He kept a curiosity shop; always prowling
about the country, picking up old books and hunting after old
monuments; called himself an antiquarian; queer fellow, that
Hatton."

"And you have heard of him since?" said Gerard rather
impatiently.

"Not a word," said their host; "never knew any one who had."

"I thought you had something to tell us about him," said
Stephen.

"So I have; I can put you in the way of getting hold of him
and anything else.  I havn't lived in Mowbray man and boy for
fifty years; seen it a village, and now a great town full of
first-rate institutions and establishments like this," added
their host surveying the Temple with a glance of admiring
complacency; "I say I havn't lived here all this time and
talked to the people for nothing."

"Well, we are all attention," said Gerard with a smile.

"Hush!" said their host as a bell sounded, and he jumped up.
"Now ladies, now gentlemen, if you please; silence if you
please for a song from a Polish lady.  The Signora sings
English like a new-born babe;" and the curtain drew up amid
the hushed voices of the company and the restrained clatter of
their knives and forks and glasses.

The Polish lady sang "Cherry Ripe" to the infinite
satisfaction of her audience.  Young Mowbray indeed, in the
shape of Dandy Mick and some of his followers and admirers,
insisted on an encore.  The lady as she retired curtseyed like
a Prima Donna; but the host continued on his legs for some
time, throwing open his coat and bowing to his guests, who
expressed by their applause how much they approved his
enterprise.  At length he resumed his seat; "It's almost too
much."  he exclaimed; "the enthusiasm of these people.  I
believe they look upon me as a father."

"And you think you have some clue to this Hatton?" resumed
Stephen.

"They say he has no relations," said their host.

"I have heard as much."

"Another glass of the bar mixture, Master Gerard.  What did we
call it?  Oh! the bricks and beans--the Mowbray bricks and
beans; known by that name in the time of my grandfather.  No
more!  No use asking Mr Morley I know.  Water! well, I must
say--and yet, in an official capacity, drinking water is not
so unnatural."

"And Hatton."  said Gerard; "they say he has no relations,
eh?"

"They do, and they say wrong.  He has a relation; he has a
brother; and I can put you in the way of finding him."

"Well, that looks like business," said Gerard; "and where may
he be?"

"Not here," said their host; "he never put his foot in the
Temple to my knowledge; and lives in a place where they have
as much idea of popular institutions as any Turks or heathen
you ever heard of."

"And where might we find him?" said Stephen.

"What's that?" said their host jumping up and looking around
him.  "Here boys, brush about.  The American gentleman is a
whittling his name on that new mahogany table.  Take him the
printed list of rules, stuck up in a public place, under a
great coat, and fine him five shillings for damaging the
furniture.  If he resists (he has paid for his liquor), call
in the police; X. Z. No. 5 is in the bar, taking tea with your
mistress.  Now brush."

"And this place is--"

"In the land of mines and minerals," said their host; "about
ten miles from ---.  He works in metals on his own account.
You have heard of a place called Hell-house Yard; well, he
lives there; and his name is Simon."

"And does he keep up any communication with his brother, think
you?" said Gerard.

"Nay, I know no more; at least at present," said their host.
"The secretary asked me about a person absent without leave
for twenty years and who was said to have no relations, I
found you one and a very near one.  You are at the station and
you have got your ticket.  The American gentleman's wiolent.
Here's the police.  I must take a high tone."  And with these
words Chaffing Jack quitted them.

In the meantime, we must not forget Dandy Mick and his two
young friends whom he had so generously offered to treat to
the Temple.

"Well, what do you think of it?" asked Caroline of Harriet in
a whisper as they entered the splendid apartment.

"It's just what I thought the Queen lived in," said Harriet;
"but indeed I'm all of a flutter."

"Well, don't look as if you were," said her friend.

"Come along gals," said Mick; "who's afraid?  Here, we'll sit
down at this table.  Now, what shall we have?  Here waiter; I
say waiter!"

"Yes, sir, yes, sir."

"Well, why don't you come when I call," said Mick with a
consequential air.  "I have been hallooing these ten minutes.
Couple of glasses of bar mixture for these ladies and go of
gin for myself.  And I say waiter, stop, stop, don't be in
such a deuced hurry; do you think folks can drink without
eating;--sausages for three; and damme, take care they are not
burnt."

"Yes, sir, directly, directly."

"That's the way to talk to these fellows," said Mick with a
self-satisfied air, and perfectly repaid by the admiring gaze
of his companions.

"It's pretty Miss Harriet," said Mick looking up at the
ceiling with a careless nil admirari glance.

"Oh! it is beautiful," said Harriet.

"You never were here before; it's the only place.  That's the
Lady of the Lake," he added, pointing to a picture; "I've seen
her at the Circus, with real water."

The hissing sausages crowning a pile of mashed potatoes were
placed before them; the delicate rummers of the Mowbray slap-
bang, for the girls; the more masculine pewter measure for
their friend.

"Are the plates very hot?" said Mick;

"Very sir."

"Hot plates half the battle," said Mick.

"Now, Caroline; here, Miss Harriet; don't take away your
plate, wait for the mash; they mash their taters here very
elegant."

It was a very happy and very merry party.  Mick delighted to
help his guests, and to drink their healths.

"Well," said he when the waiter had cleared away their plates,
and left them to their less substantial luxuries.  "Well,"
said Mick, sipping a renewed glass of gin twist and leaning
back in his chair, "say what they please, there's nothing like
life."

"At the Traffords'," said Caroline, "the greatest fun we ever
had was a singing class."

"I pity them poor devils in the country," said Mick; "we got
some of them at Collinson's--come from Suffolk they say; what
they call hagricultural labourers, a very queer lot, indeed."

"Ah! them's the himmigrants," said Caroline; "they're sold out
of slavery, and sent down by Pickford's van into the labour
market to bring down our wages."

"We'll teach them a trick or two before they do that," urged
Mick.  "Where are you, Miss Harriet?"

"I'm at Wiggins and Webster's, sir."

"Where they clean machinery during meal-time; that won't do,"
said Mick.  "I see one of your partners coming in," said Mick,
making many signals to a person who very soon joined them.
"Well, Devilsdust, how are you?"

This was the familiar appellation of a young gentleman, who
really had no other, baptismal or patrimonial.  About a
fortnight after his mother had introduced him into the world,
she returned to her factory and put her infant out to nurse,
that is to say, paid threepence a week to an old woman who
takes charge of these new-born babes for the day, and gives
them back at night to their mothers as they hurriedly return
from the scene of their labour to the dungeon or the den,
which is still by courtesy called "home."  The expense is not
great: laudanum and treacle, administered in the shape of some
popular elixir, affords these innocents a brief taste of the
sweets of existence, and keeping them quiet, prepares them for
the silence of their impending grave.  Infanticide is
practised as extensively and as legally in England, as it is
on the banks of the Ganges; a circumstance which apparently
has not yet engaged the attention of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.  But the vital
principle is an impulse from an immortal artist, and sometimes
baffles, even in its tenderest phasis, the machinations of
society for its extinction.  There are infants that will defy
even starvation and poison, unnatural mothers and demon
nurses.  Such was the nameless one of whom we speak.  We
cannot say he thrived; but he would not die.  So at two years
of age, his mother being lost sight of, and the weekly payment
having ceased, he was sent out in the street to "play," in
order to be run over.  Even this expedient failed.  The
youngest and the feeblest of the band of victims, Juggernaut
spared him to Moloch.  All his companions were disposed of.
Three months' "play" in the streets got rid of this tender
company,--shoeless, half-naked, and uncombed,--whose age
varied from two to five years.  Some were crushed, some were
lost, some caught cold and fevers, crept back to their garret
or their cellars, were dosed with Godfrey's cordial, and died
in peace.  The nameless one would not disappear.  He always
got out of the way of the carts and horses, and never lost his
own.  They gave him no food: he foraged for himself, and
shared with the dogs the garbage of the streets.  But still he
lived; stunted and pale, he defied even the fatal fever which
was the only habitant of his cellar that never quitted it.
And slumbering at night on a bed of mouldering straw, his only
protection against the plashy surface of his den, with a
dungheap at his head and a cesspool at his feet, he still
clung to the only roof which shielded him from the tempest.

At length when the nameless one had completed his fifth year,
the pest which never quitted the nest of cellars of which he
was a citizen, raged in the quarter with such intensity, that
the extinction of its swarming population was menaced.  The
haunt of this child was peculiarly visited.  All the children
gradually sickened except himself; and one night when he
returned home he found the old woman herself dead, and
surrounded only by corpses.  The child before this had slept
on the same bed of straw with a corpse, but then there were
also breathing beings for his companions.  A night passed only
with corpses seemed to him in itself a kind of death.  He
stole out of the cellar, quitted the quarter of pestilence,
and after much wandering laid down near the door of a factory.
Fortune had guided him.  Soon after break of day, he was woke
by the sound of the factory bell, and found assembled a crowd
of men, women, and children.  The door opened, they entered,
the child accompanied them.  The roll was called; his
unauthorized appearance noticed; he was questioned; his
acuteness excited attention.  A child was wanted in the
Wadding Hole, a place for the manufacture of waste and damaged
cotton, the refuse of the mills, which is here worked up into
counterpanes and coverlids.  The nameless one was prefered to
the vacant post, received even a salary, more than that, a
name; for as he had none, he was christened on the spot--
DEVILSDUST.

Devilsdust had entered life so early that at seventeen he
combined the experience of manhood with the divine energy of
youth.  He was a first-rate workman and received high wages;
he had availed himself of the advantages of the factory
school; he soon learnt to read and write with facility, and at
the moment of our history, was the leading spirit of the
Shoddy-Court Literary and Scientific Institute.  His great
friend, his only intimate, was Dandy Mick.  The apparent
contrariety of their qualities and structure perhaps led to
this.  It is indeed the most assured basis of friendship.
Devilsdust was dark and melancholy; ambitious and
discontented; full of thought, and with powers of patience and
perseverance that alone amounted to genius.  Mick was as
brilliant as his complexion; gay, irritable, evanescent, and
unstable.  Mick enjoyed life; his friend only endured it; yet
Mick was always complaining of the lowness of his wages and
the greatness of his toil; while Devilsdust never murmured,
but read and pondered on the rights of labour, and sighed to
vindicate his order.

"I have some thoughts of joining the Total Abstinence," said
Devilsdust; "ever since I read Stephen Morley's address it has
been in my mind.  We shall never get our rights till we leave
off consuming exciseable articles; and the best thing to begin
with is liquors."

"Well, I could do without liquors myself," said Caroline.  "If
I was a lady, I would never drink anything except fresh milk
from the cow."

"Tea for my money," said Harriet; "I must say there's nothing
I grudge for good tea.  Now I keep house, I mean always to
drink the best."

"Well, you have not yet taken the pledge, Dusty," said Mick:
"and so suppose we order a go of gin and talk this matter of
temperance over."

Devilsdust was manageable in little things, especially by
Mick; he acceded, and seated himself at their table.

"I suppose you have heard this last dodge of Shuffle and
Screw, Dusty," said Mick.

"What's that?"

"Every man had his key given him this evening--half-a-crown a
week round deducted from wages for rent.  Jim Plastow told
them he lodged with his father and didn't want a house; upon
which they said he must let it."

"Their day will come," said Devilsdust, thoughtfully.  "I
really think that those Shuffle and Screws are worse even than
Truck and Trett.  You knew where you were with those fellows;
it was five-and-twenty per cent, off wages and very bad stuff
for your money.  But as for Shuffle and Screw, what with their
fines and their keys, a man never knows what he has to spend.
Come," he added filling his glass, "let's have a toast--
Confusion to Capital."

"That's your sort," said Mick.  "Come, Caroline; drink to your
partner's toast, Miss Harriet.  Money's the root of all evil,
which nobody can deny.  We'll have the rights of labour yet;
the ten-hour bill, no fines, and no individuals admitted to
any work who have not completed their sixteenth year."

"No, fifteen," said Caroline eagerly.

"The people won't bear their grievances much longer," said
Devilsdust.

"I think one of the greatest grievances the people have," said
Caroline, "is the beaks serving notice on Chaffing Jack to
shut up the Temple on Sunday nights."

"It is infamous," said Mick; "aynt we to have no recreation?
One might as well live in Suffolk, where the immigrants come
from, and where they are obliged to burn ricks to pass the
time."

"As for the rights of labour," said Harriet, "the people goes
for nothing with this machinery."

"And you have opened your mouth to say a very sensible thing
Miss Harriet," said Mick; "but if I were Lord Paramount for
eight-and-forty hours, I'd soon settle that question.
Wouldn't I fire a broadside into their 'double deckers?' The
battle of Navarino at Mowbray fair with fourteen squibs from
the admiral's ship going off at the same time, should be
nothing to it."

"Labour may be weak, but Capital is weaker," said Devilsdust.
"Their capital is all paper."

"I tell you what," said Mick, with a knowing look, and in a
lowered tone, "The only thing, my hearties, that can save this
here nation, is--a--good strike."




Book 2 Chapter 11



"Your lordship's dinner is served," announced the groom of the
chambers to Lord de Mowbray; and the noble lord led out Lady
Marney.  The rest followed.  Egremont found himself seated
next to Lady Maud Fitz-Warene, the younger daughter of the
earl.  Nearly opposite to him was Lady Joan.

The ladies Fitz-Warene were sandy girls, somewhat tall, with
rather good figures and a grand air; the eldest very ugly, the
second rather pretty; and yet both very much alike.  They had
both great conversational powers, though in different ways.
Lady Joan was doctrinal; Lady Maud inquisitive: the first
often imparted information which you did not previously
possess; the other suggested ideas which were often before in
your own mind, but lay tranquil and unobserved, till called
into life and notice by her fanciful and vivacious tongue.
Both of them were endowed with a very remarkable self-
possession; but Lady Joan wanted softness, and Lady Maud
repose.

This was the result of the rapid observation of Egremont, who
was however experienced in the world and quick in his
detection of manner and of character.

The dinner was stately, as becomes the high nobility.  There
were many guests, yet the table seemed only a gorgeous spot in
the capacious chamber.  The side tables were laden with silver
vases and golden shields arranged on shelves of crimson
velvet.  The walls were covered with Fitz-Warenes, De
Mowbrays, and De Veres.  The attendants glided about without
noise, and with the precision of military discipline.  They
watched your wants, they anticipated your wishes, and they
supplied all you desired with a lofty air of pompous devotion.

"You came by the railroad?" enquired Lord de Mowbray
mournfully, of Lady Marney.

"From Marham; about ten miles from us," replied her ladyship.

"A great revolution!"

"Isn't it?"

"I fear it has a very dangerous tendency to equality," said
his lordship shaking his head; "I suppose Lord Marney gives
them all the opposition in his power."

"There is nobody so violent against railroads as George," said
Lady Marney; "I cannot tell you what he does not do!  He
organized the whole of our division against the Marham line!"

"I rather counted on him," said Lord de Mowbray, to assist me
in resisting this joint branch here; but I was surprised to
learn he had consented."

"Not until the compensation was settled," innocently remarked
Lady Marney; "George never opposes them after that.  He gave
up all opposition to the Marham line when they agreed to his
terms."

"And yet," said Lord de Mowbray, "I think if Lord Marney would
take a different view of the case and look to the moral
consequences, he would hesitate.  Equality, Lady Marney,
equality is not our m‚tier.  If we nobles do not make a stand
against the levelling spirit of the age, I am at a loss to
know who will fight the battle.  You many depend upon it that
these railroads are very dangerous things."

"I have no doubt of it.  I suppose you have heard of Lady
Vanilla's trip from Birmingham?  Have you not, indeed!  She
came up with Lady Laura, and two of the most gentlemanlike men
sitting opposite her; never met, she says, two more
intelligent men.  She begged one of them at Wolverhampton to
change seats with her, and he was most politely willing to
comply with her wishes, only it was necessary that his
companion should move at the same time, for they were chained
together!  Two of the swell mob, sent to town for picking a
pocket at Shrewsbury races."

"A countess and a felon!  So much for public conveyances,"
said Lord Mowbray.  "But Lady Vanilla is one of those who will
talk with everybody."

"She is very amusing though," said Lady Marney.

"I dare say she is," said Lord de Mowbray; "but believe me, my
dear Lady Marney, in these times especially, a countess has
something else to do than be amusing."

"You think as property has its duties as well as its rights,
rank has its bores as well as its pleasures."

Lord Mowbray mused.

"How do you do, Mr Jermyn?" said a lively little lady with
sparkling beady black eyes, and a very yellow complexion,
though with good features; "when did you arrive in the North?
I have been fighting your battles finely since I saw you," she
added shaking her head, rather with an expression of
admonition than of sympathy.

"You are always fighting one's battles Lady Firebrace; it is
very kind of you.  If it were not for you, we should none of
us know how much we are all abused," replied Mr Jermyn, a
young M.P.

"They say you gave the most radical pledges," said Lady
Firebrace eagerly, and not without malice.  "I heard Lord
Muddlebrains say that if he had had the least idea of your
principles, you would not have had his influence."

"Muddlebrains can't command a single vote," said Mr Jermyn.
"He is a political humbug, the greatest of all humbugs; a man
who swaggers about London clubs and consults solemnly about
his influence, and in the country is a nonentity."

"Well, that can't be said of Lord Clarinel," rejoined Lady
Firebrace.

"And have you been defending me against Lord Clarinel's
attacks?" inquired Mr Jermyn.

"No; but I am going to Wemsbury, and then I have no doubt I
shall have the opportunity."

"I am going to Wemsbury myself," said Mr Jermyn.

"And what does Lord Clarinel think of your pledge about the
pension list?" said Lady Firebrace daunted but malignant.

"He never told me," said Mr Jermyn.

"I believe you did not pledge yourself to the ballot?"
inquired Lady Firebrace with an affected air of
inquisitiveness.

"It is a subject that requires some reflection," said Mr
Jermyn.  "I must consult some profound politician like Lady
Firebrace. By the bye, you told my mother that the
conservatives would have a majority of fifteen.  Do you think
they will have as much?" said Mr Jermyn with an innocent air,
it now being notorious that the whig administration had a
majority of double that amount.

"I said Mr Tadpole gave us a majority of fifteen," said Lady
Firebrace.  "I knew he was in error; because I had happened to
see Lord Melbourne's own list, made up to the last hour; and
which gave the government a majority of sixty.  It was only
shown to three members of the cabinet," she added in a tone of
triumphant mystery.

Lady Firebrace, a great stateswoman among the tories, was
proud of an admirer who was a member of the whig cabinet.  She
was rather an agreeable guest in a country-house, with her
extensive correspondence, and her bulletins from both sides.
Tadpole flattered by her notice, and charmed with female
society that talked his own slang, and entered with affected
enthusiasm into all his dirty plots and barren machinations,
was vigilant in his communications; while her whig cavalier,
an easy individual who always made love by talking or writing
politics, abandoned himself without reserve, and instructed
Lady Firebrace regularly after every council.  Taper looked
grave at this connection between Tadpole and Lady Firebrace;
and whenever an election was lost, or a division stuck in the
mud, he gave the cue with a nod and a monosyllable, and the
conservative pack that infests clubs, chattering on subjects
of which it is impossible they can know anything, instantly
began barking and yelping, denouncing traitors, and wondering
how the leaders could be so led by the nose, and not see that
which was flagrant to the whole world.  If, on the other hand,
the advantage seemed to go with the Canton Club, or the
opposition benches, then it was the whig and liberal hounds
who howled and moaned, explaining everything by the
indiscretion, infatuation, treason, of Lord Viscount Masque,
and appealing to the initiated world of idiots around them,
whether any party could ever succeed, hampered by such men,
and influenced by such means.

The best of the joke was, that all this time Lord Masque and
Tadpole were two old foxes, neither of whom conveyed to Lady
Firebrace a single circumstance but with the wish, intention,
and malice aforethought, that it should be communicated to his
rival.

"I must get you to interest Lord de Mowbray in our cause,"
said Sir Vavasour Firebrace, in an insinuating voice to his
neighbour, Lady Joan; "I have sent him a large packet of
documents.  You know, he is one of us; still one of us.  Once
a baronet, always a baronet.  The dignity merges, but does not
cease; and happy as I am to see one covered with high honours,
who is in every way so worthy of them, still I confess to you
it is not so much as Earl de Mowbray that your worthy father
interests me, as in his undoubted character and capacity of
Sir Altamont Fitz-Warene, baronet."

"You have the data on which you move I suppose well digested,"
said Lady Joan, attentive but not interested.

"The case is clear; as far as equity is concerned,
irresistible; indeed the late king pledged himself to a
certain point.  But if you would do me the favour of reading
our memorial."

"The proposition is not one adapted to our present
civilisation," said Lady Joan.  "A baronetcy has become the
distinction of the middle class; a physician, our physician
for example, is a baronet; and I dare say some of our
tradesmen; brewers, of people of that class.  An attempt to
elevate them into an order of nobility, however inferior,
would partake in some degree of the ridiculous."

"And has the duke escaped his gout this year?" enquired Lord
Marney of Lady de Mowbray.

"A very slight touch; I never knew my father so well.  I
expect you will meet him here.  We look for him daily."

"I shall be delighted; I hope he will come to Marney in
October.  I keep the blue ribbon cover for him."

"What you suggest is very just," said Egremont to Lady Maud.
"If we only in our own spheres made the exertion, the general
effect would be great.  Marney Abbey, for instance, I believe
one of the finest of our monastic remains,--that indeed is not
disputed--diminished yearly to repair barns; the cattle
browsing in the nave; all this might be prevented, If my
brother would not consent to preserve or to restore, still any
member of the family, even I, without expense, only with a
little zeal as you say, might prevent mischief, might stop at
least demolition."

"If this movement in the church had only revived a taste for
Christian architecture," said Lady Maud, "it would not have
been barren, and it has done so much more!  But I am surprised
that old families can be so dead to our national art; so full
of our ancestors, their exploits, their mind.  Indeed you and
I have no excuse for such indifference Mr Egremont."

"And I do not think I shall ever again be justly accused of
it," replied Egremont, "you plead its cause so effectively.
But to tell you the truth, I have been thinking of late about
these things; monasteries and so on; the influence of the old
church system on the happiness and comfort of the People."

"And on the tone of the Nobles--do not you think so?" said
Lady Maud.  "I know it is the fashion to deride the crusades,
but do not you think they had their origin in a great impulse,
and in a certain sense, led to great results?  Pardon me, if I
speak with emphasis, but I never can forget I am a daughter of
the first crusaders."

"The tone of society is certainly lower than of yore," said
Egremont.  "It is easy to say we view the past through a
fallacious medium.  We have however ample evidence that men
feel less deeply than of old and act with less devotion.  But
how far is this occasioned by the modern position of our
church?  That is the question."

"You must speak to Mr St Lys about that," said Lady Maud.  "Do
you know him?" she added in a lowered tone.

"No; is he here?"

"Next to mamma."

And looking in that direction, on the left hand of Lady
Mowbray, Egremont beheld a gentleman in the last year of his
youth, if youth according to the scale of Hippocrates cease at
thirty-five.  He was distinguished by that beauty of the noble
English blood, of which in these days few types remain; the
Norman tempered by the Saxon; the fire of conquest softened by
integrity; and a serene, though inflexible habit of mind.  The
chains of convention, an external life grown out of all
proportion with that of the heart and mind, have destroyed
this dignified beauty.  There is no longer in fact an
aristocracy in England, for the superiority of the animal man
is an essential quality of aristocracy.  But that it once
existed, any collection of portraits from the sixteenth
century will show.

Aubrey St Lys was a younger son of the most ancient Norman
family in England.  The Conqueror had given them the moderate
estate on which they now lived, and which, in spite of so many
civil conflicts and religious changes, they had handed down to
each other, from generation to generation, for eight
centuries.  Aubrey St Lys was the vicar of Mowbray.  He had
been the college tutor of the late Lord Fitz-Warene, whose
mind he had formed, whose bright abilities he had cultivated,
who adored him.  To that connection he owed the slight
preferment which he possessed, but which was all he desired.
A bishopric would not have tempted him from his peculiar
charge.

In the centre of the town of Mowbray teeming with its toiling
thousands, there rose a building which might vie with many of
the cathedrals of our land.  Beautiful its solemn towers, its
sculptured western front; beautiful its columned aisles and
lofty nave; its sparkling shrine and delicate chantry; most
beautiful the streaming glories of its vast orient light!

This magnificent temple, built by the monks of Mowbray, and
once connected with their famous house of which not a trace
now remained, had in time become the parish church of an
obscure village, whose population could not have filled one of
its side chapels.  These strange vicissitudes of
ecclesiastical buildings are not singular in the north of
England.

Mowbray Church remained for centuries the wonder of passing
peasants, and the glory of county histories.  But there is a
magic in beautiful buildings which exercises an irresistible
influence over the mind of man.  One of the reasons urged for
the destruction of the monasteries after the dispersion of
their inhabitants, was the pernicious influence of their
solemn and stately forms on the memories and imagination of
those that beheld them.  It was impossible to connect
systematic crime with the creators of such divine fabrics.
And so it was with Mowbray Church.  When manufactures were
introduced into this district, which abounded with all the
qualities which were necessary for their successful pursuit,
Mowbray offering equal though not superior advantages to other
positions, was accorded the preference, "because it possessed
such a beautiful church."  The lingering genius of the monks
of Mowbray hovered round the spot which they had adorned, and
sanctified, and loved; and thus they had indirectly become the
authors of its present greatness and prosperity.

Unhappily for a long season the vicars of Mowbray had been
little conscious of their mission.  An immense population
gathered round the sacred citadel and gradually spread on all
sides of it for miles.  But the parish church for a long time
remained the only one at Mowbray when the population of the
town exceeded that of some European capitals.  And even in the
parish church the frigid spell of Erastian self-complacency
fatally prevailed.  A scanty congregation gathered together
for form, and as much influenced by party as higher
sentiments.  Going to church was held more genteel than going
to meeting.  The principal tradesmen of the neighbouring great
houses deemed it more "aristocratic;" using a favourite and
hackneyed epithet which only expressed their own servility.
About the time the Church Commission issued, the congregation
of Mowbray was approaching zero.  There was an idea afloat for
a time of making it the seat of a new bishopric; the cathedral
was ready; another instance of the influence of fine art.  But
there was no residence for the projected prelate, and a
jobbing bishop on the commission was afraid that he might have
to contribute to building one.  So the idea died away; and the
living having become vacant at this moment, instead of a
bishop, Mowbray received a humble vicar in the shape of Aubrey
St Lys, who came among a hundred thousand heathens to preach
"the Unknown God."




Book 2 Chapter 12



"And how do you find the people about you, Marney?" said Lord
de Mowbray seating himself on a sofa by his guest.

"All very well, my lord," replied the earl, who ever treated
Lord de Mowbray with a certain degree of ceremony, especially
when the descendant of the crusaders affected the familiar.
There was something of a Puck-like malignity in the
temperament of Lord Marney, which exhibited itself in a
remarkable talent for mortifying persons in a small way; by a
gesture, an expression, a look, cloaked too very often with
all the character of profound deference.  The old nobility of
Spain delighted to address each other only by their names,
when in the presence of a spick-and-span grandee; calling each
other, "Infantado," "Sidonia," "Ossuna," and then turning
round with the most distinguished consideration, and appealing
to the Most Noble Marquis of Ensenada.

"They begin to get a little uneasy here," said Lord de
Mowbray.

"We have nothing to complain of," said Lord Marney.  "We
continue reducing the rates, and as long as we do that the
country must improve.  The workhouse test tells.  We had the
other day a case of incendiarism, which frightened some
people: but I inquired into it, and am quite satisfied it
originated in purely accidental circumstances; at least
nothing to do with wages.  I ought to be a judge, for it was
on my own property."

"And what is the rate of wages, in your part of the world,
Lord Marney?" inquired Mr St Lys who was standing by.

"Oh! good enough: not like your manufacturing districts; but
people who work in the open air, instead of a furnace, can't
expect, and don't require such.  They get their eight
shillings a week; at least generally."

"Eight shillings a week!" said Mr St Lys.  "Can a labouring
man with a family, perhaps of eight children, live on eight
shillings a week!"

"Oh! as for that," said Lord Marney; "they get more than that,
because there is beer-money allowed, at least to a great
extent among us, though I for one do not approve of the
practice, and that makes nearly a shilling per week
additional; and then some of them have potatoe grounds, though
I am entirely opposed to that system.

"And yet," said Mr St Lys, "how they contrive to live is to me
marvellous."

"Oh! as for that," said Lord Marney, "I have generally found
the higher the wages the worse the workman.  They only spend
their money in the beer-shops.  They are the curse of this
country."

"But what is a poor man to do," said Mr St Lys; "after his
day's work if he returns to his own roof and finds no home:
his fire extinguished, his food unprepared; the partner of his
life, wearied with labour in the field or the factory, still
absent, or perhaps in bed from exhaustion, or because she has
returned wet to the skin, and has no change of raiment for her
relief.  We have removed woman from her sphere; we may have
reduced wages by her introduction into the market of labour;
but under these circumstances what we call domestic life is a
condition impossible to be realized for the people of this
country; and we must not therefore be surprised that they seek
solace or rather refuge in the beer-shop.

Lord Marney looked up at Mr St Lys, with a stare of high-bred
impertinence, and then carelessly observed, without directing
his words to him, "They may say what they like, but it is all
an affair of population."

"I would rather believe that it is an affair of resources,"
said Mr St Lys; "not what is the amount of our population, but
what is the amount of our resources for their maintenance.

"It comes to the same thing," said Lord Marney.  "Nothing can
put this country right but emigration on a great scale; and as
the government do not choose to undertake it, I have commenced
it for my own defence on a small scale.  I will take care that
the population of my parishes is not increased.  I build no
cottages and I destroy all I can; and I am not ashamed or
afraid to say so."

"You have declared war to the cottage, then," said Mr St Lys,
smiling.  "It is not at the first sound so startling a cry as
war to the castle."

"But you think it may lead to it?" said Lord Mowbray.

"I love not to be a prophet of evil," said Mr St Lys.

Lord Marney rose from his seat and addressed Lady Firebrace,
whose husband in another part of the room had caught Mr
Jermyn, and was opening his mind on "the question of the day;"
Lady Maud, followed by Egremont, approached Mr St Lys, and
said, "Mr Egremont has a great feeling for Christian
architecture, Mr St Lys, and wishes particularly to visit our
church of which we are so proud."  And in a few moments they
were seated together and engaged in conversation.

Lord Mowbray placed himself by the side of Lady Marney, who
was seated by his countess.

"Oh! how I envy you at Marney," he exclaimed.  "No
manufactures, no smoke; living in the midst of a beautiful
park and surrounded by a contented peasantry!"

"It is very delightful," said Lady Marney, "but then we are so
very dull; we have really no neighbourhood."

"I think that such a great advantage," said Lady Mowbray: "I
must say I like my friends from London.  I never know what to
say to the people here.  Excellent people, the very best
people in the world; the way they behaved to poor dear Fitz-
Warene, when they wanted him to stand for the county, I never
can forget; but then they do not know the people we know, or
do the things we do; and when you have gone through the
routine of county questions, and exhausted the weather and all
the winds, I am positively, my dear Lady Marney, aux abois,
and then they think you are proud, when really one is only
stupid."

"I am very fond of work," said Lady Marney, "and I talk to
them always about it."

"Ah! you are fortunate, I never could work; and Joan and Maud,
they neither of them work.  Maud did embroider a banner once
for her brother; it is in the hail.  I think it beautiful; but
somehow or other she never cultivated her talent."

"For all that has occurred or may occur," said Mr St Lys to
Egremont, "I blame only the Church.  The church deserted the
people; and from that moment the church has been in danger and
the people degraded.  Formerly religion undertook to satisfy
the noble wants of human nature, and by its festivals relieved
the painful weariness of toil.  The day of rest was
consecrated, if not always to elevated thought, at least to
sweet and noble sentiments.  The church convened to its
solemnities under its splendid and almost celestial roofs amid
the finest monuments of art that human hands have raised, the
whole Christian population; for there, in the presence of God,
all were brethren.  It shared equally among all its prayer,
its incense, and its music; its sacred instructions, and the
highest enjoyments that the arts could afford."

"You believe then in the efficacy of forms and ceremonies?"

"What you call forms and ceremonies represent the divinest
instincts of our nature.  Push your aversion to forms and
ceremonies to a legitimate conclusion, and you would prefer
kneeling in a barn rather than in a cathedral.  Your tenets
would strike at the very existence of all art, which is
essentially spiritual."

"I am not speaking abstractedly," said Egremont, "but rather
with reference to the indirect connection of these forms and
ceremonies with another church.  The people of this country
associate them with an enthralling superstition and a foreign
dominion."

"With Rome," said Mr St Lys; "yet forms and ceremonies existed
before Rome."

"But practically," said Egremont.  "has not their revival in
our service at the present day a tendency to restore the
Romish system in this country?"

"It is difficult to ascertain what may be the practical effect
of certain circumstances among the uninformed," said Mr St
Lys.  "The church of Rome is to be respected as the only
Hebraeo-christian church extant; all other churches
established by the Hebrew apostles have disappeared, but Rome
remains; and we must never permit the exaggerated position
which it assumed in the middle centuries to make us forget its
early and apostolical character, when it was fresh from
Palestine and as it were fragrant from Paradise.  The church
of Rome is sustained by apostolical succession; but
apostolical succession is not an institution complete in
itself; it is a part of a whole; if it be not part of a whole
it has no foundation.  The apostles succeeded the prophets.
Our Master announced himself as the last of the prophets.
They in their turn were the heirs of the patriarchs: men who
were in direct communication with the Most High.  To men not
less favoured than the apostles, the revelation of the
priestly character was made, and those forms and ceremonies
ordained, which the church of Rome has never relinquished.
But Rome did not invent them: upon their practice, the duty of
all congregations, we cannot consent to her founding a claim
to supremacy.  For would you maintain then that the church did
not exist in the time of the prophets?  Was Moses then not a
churchman?  And Aaron, was he not a high priest?  Ay! greater
than any pope or prelate, whether he be at Rome or at Lambeth.

"In all these church discussions, we are apt to forget that
the second Testament is avowedly only a supplement.  Jehovah-
Jesus came to complete the 'law and the prophets.'
Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing.
Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, as Judaism
is incomplete; without Christianity.  What has Rome to do with
its completion; what with its commencement?  The law was not
thundered forth from the Capitolian mount; the divine
atonement was not fulfilled upon Mons Sacer.  No; the order of
our priesthood comes directly from Jehovah; and the forms and
ceremonies of His church are the regulations of His supreme
intelligence.  Rome indeed boasts that the authenticity of the
second Testament depends upon the recognition of her
infallibility.  The authenticity of the second Testament
depends upon its congruity with the first.  Did Rome preserve
that?  I recognize in the church an institution thoroughly,
sincerely, catholic: adapted to all climes and to all ages.  I
do not bow to the necessity of a visible head in a defined
locality; but were I to seek for such, it would not be at
Rome.  I cannot discover in its history however memorable any
testimony of a mission so sublime.  When Omnipotence deigned
to be incarnate, the Ineffable Word did not select a Roman
frame.  The prophets were not Romans; the apostles were not
Romans; she, who was blessed above all women, I never heard
she was a Roman maiden.  No, I should look to a land more
distant than Italy, to a city more sacred even than Rome."




Book 2 Chapter 13



It was a cloudy, glimmering dawn.  A cold withering east wind
blew through the silent streets of Mowbray.  The sounds of the
night had died away, the voices of the day had not commenced.
There reigned a stillness complete and absorbing.

Suddenly there is a voice, there is movement.  The first
footstep of the new week of toil is heard.  A man muffled up
in a thick coat, and bearing in his hand what would seem at
the first glance to be a shepherd's crook, only its handle is
much longer, appears upon the pavement.  He touches a number
of windows with great quickness as he moves rapidly along.  A
rattling noise sounds upon each pane.  The use of the long
handle of his instrument becomes apparent as he proceeds,
enabling him as it does to reach the upper windows of the
dwellings whose inmates he has to rouse.  Those inmates are
the factory girls, who subscribe in districts to engage these
heralds of the dawn; and by a strict observance of whose
citation they can alone escape the dreaded fine that awaits
those who have not arrived at the door of the factory before
the bell ceases to sound.

The sentry in question, quitting the streets, and stooping
through one of the small archways that we have before noticed,
entered a court.  Here lodged a multitude of his employers;
and the long crook as it were by some sleight of hand seemed
sounding on both sides and at many windows at the same moment.
Arrived at the end of the court, he was about to touch the
window of the upper story of the last tenement, when that
window opened, and a man, pale and care-worn and in a
melancholy voice spoke to him.

"Simmons," said the man, "you need not rouse this story any
more; my daughter has left us."

"Has she left Webster's?"

"No; but she has left us.  She has long murmured at her hard
lot; working like a slave and not for herself.  And she has
gone, as they all go, to keep house for herself."

"That's a bad business," said the watchman, in a tone not
devoid of sympathy.

"Almost as bad as for parents to live on their childrens'
wages," replied the man mournfully.

"And how is your good woman?"

"As poorly as needs be.  Harriet has never been home since
Friday night.  She owes you nothing?"

"Not a halfpenny.  She was as regular as a little bee and
always paid every Monday morning.  I am sorry she has left
you, neighbour."

"The Lord's will be done.  It's hard times for such as us,"
said the man; and leaving the window open, he retired into his
room.

It was a single chamber of which he was the tenant.  In the
centre, placed so as to gain the best light which the gloomy
situation could afford, was a loom.  In two corners of the
room were mattresses placed on the floor, a check curtain hung
upon a string if necessary concealing them.  In one was his
sick wife; in the other, three young children : two girls.
the eldest about eight years of age; between them their baby
brother.  An iron kettle was by the hearth, and on the mantel-
piece, some candles, a few lucifer matches, two tin mugs, a
paper of salt, and an iron spoon.  In a farther part, close to
the wall, was a heavy table or dresser; this was a fixture, as
well as the form which was fastened by it.

The man seated himself at his loom; he commenced his daily
task.

"Twelve hours of daily labour at the rate of one penny each
hour; and even this labour is mortgaged!  How is this to end?
Is it rather not ended?"  And he looked around him at his
chamber without resources: no food, no fuel, no furniture, and
four human beings dependent on him, and lying in their
wretched beds because they had no clothes.  "I cannot sell my
loom," he continued, "at the price of old firewood, and it
cost me gold.  It is not vice that has brought me to this, nor
indolence, nor imprudence.  I was born to labour, and I was
ready to labour.  I loved my loom and my loom loved me.  It
gave me a cottage in my native village, surrounded by a garden
of whose claims on my solicitude it was not jealous.  There
was time for both.  It gave me for a wife the maiden that I
had ever loved; and it gathered my children round my hearth
with plenteousness and peace.  I was content: I sought no
other lot.  It is not adversity that makes me look back upon
the past with tenderness.

"Then why am I here?  Why am I, and six hundred thousand
subjects of the Queen, honest, loyal, and industrious, why are
we, after manfully struggling for years, and each year sinking
lower in the scale, why are we driven from our innocent and
happy homes, our country cottages that we loved, first to bide
in close towns without comforts, and gradually to crouch into
cellars, or find a squalid lair like this, without even the
common necessaries of existence; first the ordinary
conveniences of life, then raiment, and, at length, food,
vanishing from us.

"It is that the Capitalist has found a slave that has
supplanted the labour and ingenuity of man.  Once he was an
artizan: at the best, he now only watches machines; and even
that occupation slips from his grasp, to the woman and the
child.  The capitalist flourishes, he amasses immense wealth;
we sink, lower and lower; lower than the beasts of burthen;
for they are fed better than we are, cared for more.  And it
is just, for according to the present system they are more
precious.  And yet they tell us that the interests of Capital
and of Labour are identical.

"If a society that has been created by labour suddenly becomes
independent of it, that society is bound to maintain the race
whose only property is labour, from the proceeds of that
property, which has not ceased to be productive.

"When the class of the Nobility were supplanted in France,
they did not amount in number to one-third of us Hand-Loom
weavers; yet all Europe went to war to avenge their wrongs,
every state subscribed to maintain them in their adversity,
and when they were restored to their own country, their own
land supplied them with an immense indemnity.  Who cares for
us?  Yet we have lost our estates.  Who raises a voice for us?
Yet we are at least as innocent as the nobility of France.  We
sink among no sighs except our own.  And if they give us
sympathy--what then?  Sympathy is the solace of the Poor; but
for the Rich, there is Compensation."

"Is that Harriet?" said his wife moving in her bed.

The Hand-Loom weaver was recalled from his reverie to the
urgent misery that surrounded him.

"No!" he replied in a quick hoarse voice, "it is not Harriet."

"Why does not Harriet come?"

"She will come no more!" replied the weaver; "I told you so
last night: she can bear this place no longer; and I am not
surprised."

"How are we to get food then?" rejoined his wife; "you ought
not to have let her leave us.  You do nothing, Warner.  You
get no wages yourself; and you have let the girl escape."

"I will escape myself if you say that again," said the weaver:
"I have been up these three hours finishing this piece which
ought to have been taken home on Saturday night."

"But you have been paid for it beforehand.  You get nothing
for your work.  A penny an hour!  What sort of work is it,
that brings a penny an hour?"

"Work that you have often admired, Mary; and has before this
gained a prize.  But if you don't like the work," said the man
quitting his loom, "let it alone.  There was enough yet owing
on this piece to have allowed us to break our fast.  However,
no matter; we must starve sooner or later.  Let us begin at
once."

"No, no, Philip! work.  Let us break our fast come what may."

"Twit me no more then," said the weaver resuming his seat, "or
I throw the shuttle for the last time."

"I will not taunt you," said his wife in a kinder tone.  "I
was wrong; I am sorry; but I am very ill.  It is not for
myself I speak; I want not to eat; I have no appetite; my lips
are so very parched.  But the children, the children went
supperless to bed, and they will wake soon."

"Mother, we ayn't asleep," said the elder girl.

"No, we aynt asleep, mother," said her sister; "we heard all
that you said to father."

"And baby?"

"He sleeps still."

"I shiver very much!" said the mother.  "It's a cold day.
Pray shut the window Warner.  I see the drops upon the pane;
it is raining.  I wonder if the persons below would lend us
one block of coal."

"We have borrowed too often," said Warner.

"I wish there were no such thing as coal in the land," said
his wife, "and then the engines would not be able to work; and
we should have our rights again."

"Amen!" said Warner.

"Don't you think Warner," said his wife, "that you could sell
that piece to some other person, and owe Barber for the money
he advanced?"

"No!" said her husband shaking his head.  "I'll go straight."

"And let your children starve," said his wife.  "when you
could get five or six shillings at once.  But so it always was
with you!  Why did not you go to the machines years ago like
other men and so get used to them?"

"I should have been supplanted by this time," said Warner, "by
a girl or a woman!  It would have been just as bad!"

"Why there was your friend Walter Gerard; he was the same as
you, and yet now he gets two pound a-week; at least I have
often heard you say so."

"Walter Gerard is a man of great parts," said Warner, "and
might have been a master himself by this time had he cared."

"And why did he not?"

"He had no wife and children," said Warner; "he was not so
blessed."

The baby woke and began to cry.

"Ah! my child!" exclaimed the mother.  "That wicked Harriet!
Here Amelia, I have a morsel of crust here.  I saved it
yesterday for baby; moisten it in water, and tie it up in this
piece of calico: he will suck it; it will keep him quiet; I
can bear anything but his cry."

"I shall have finished my job by noon," said Warner; "and
then, please God, we shall break our fast."

"It is yet two hours to noon," said his wife.  "And Barber
always keeps you so long!  I cannot bear that Barber: I dare
say he will not advance you money again as you did not bring
the job home on Saturday night.  If I were you, Philip, I
would go and sell the piece unfinished at once to one of the
cheap shops."

"I have gone straight all my life," said Warner.

"And much good it has done you," said his wife.

"My poor Amelia!  How she shivers!  I think the sun never
touches this house.  It is indeed a most wretched place!"

"It will not annoy you long, Mary," said her husband: "I can
pay no more rent; and I only wonder they have not been here
already to take the week."

"And where are we to go?" said the wife.

"To a place which certainly the sun never touches," said her
husband, with a kind of malice in his misery,--"to a cellar!"

"Oh! why was I ever born!" exclaimed his wife.  "And yet I was
so happy once!  And it is not our fault.  I cannot make it out
Warner, why you should not get two pounds a-week like Walter
Gerard?"

"Bah!" said the husband.

"You said he had no family," continued his wife.  "I thought
he had a daughter."

"But she is no burthen to him.  The sister of Mr Trafford is
the Superior of the convent here, and she took Sybil when her
mother died, and brought her up."

"Oh! then she is a nun?"

"Not yet; but I dare say it will end in it."

"Well, I think I would even sooner starve," said his wife,
"than my children should be nuns."

At this moment there was a knocking at the door.  Warner
descended from his loom and opened it.

"Lives Philip Warner here?" enquired a clear voice of peculiar
sweetness.

"My name is Warner."

"I come from Walter Gerard," continued the voice.  "Your
letter reached him only last night.  The girl at whose house
your daughter left it has quitted this week past Mr Trafford's
factory."

"Pray enter."

And there entered SYBIL.




Book 2 Chapter 14



"Your wife is ill?" said Sybil.

"Very!" replied Warner's wife.  "Our daughter has behaved
infamously to us.  She has quitted us without saying by your
leave or with your leave.  And her wages were almost the only
thing left to us; for Philip is not like Walter Gerard you
see: he cannot earn two pounds a-week, though why he cannot I
never could understand."

"Hush, hush, wife!" said Warner.  "I speak I apprehend to
Gerard's daughter?"

"Just so."

"Ah! this is good and kind; this is like old times, for Walter
Gerard was my friend, when I was not exactly as I am now."

"He tells me so: he sent a messenger to me last night to visit
you this morning.  Your letter reached him only yesterday."

"Harriet was to give it to Caroline," said the wife.  "That's
the girl who has done all the mischief and inveigled her away.
And she has left Trafford's works, has she?  Then I will be
bound she and Harriet are keeping house together."

"You suffer?" said Sybil, moving to the bed-side of the woman;
"give me your hand," she added in a soft sweet tone.  "'Tis
hot."

"I feel very cold," said the woman.  "Warner would have the
window open, till the rain came in."

"And you, I fear, are wet," said Warner, addressing Sybil, and
interrupting his wife.

"Very slightly.  And you have no fire.  Ah!  I have brought
some things for you, but not fuel."

"If he would only ask the person down stairs," said his wife,
"for a block of coal; I tell him, neighbours could hardly
refuse; but he never will do anything; he says he has asked
too often."

"I will ask," said Sybil.  "But first, I have a companion
without," she added, "who bears a basket for you.  Come in,
Harold."

The baby began to cry the moment a large dog entered the room;
a young bloodhound of the ancient breed, such as are now found
but in a few old halls and granges in the north of England.
Sybil untied the basket, and gave a piece of sugar to the
screaming infant.  Her glance was sweeter even than her
remedy; the infant stared at her with his large blue eyes; for
an instant astonished, and then he smiled.

"Oh! beautiful child!" exclaimed Sybil; and she took the babe
up from the mattress and embraced it.

"You are an angel from heaven," exclaimed the mother, "and you
may well say beautiful.  And only to think of that infamous
girl, Harriet, to desert us all in this way."

Sybil drew forth the contents of the convent basket, and
called Warner's attention to them.  "Now," she said, "arrange
all this as I tell you, and I will go down stairs and speak to
them below as you wish, Harold rest there;" and the dog laid
himself down in the remotest corner.

"And is that Gerard's daughter?" said the weaver's wife.
"Only think what it is to gain two pounds a-week, and bring up
your daughters in that way--instead of such shameless husseys
as our Harriet!  But with such wages one can do anything.
What have you there, Warner?  Is that tea?  Oh! I should like
some tea.  I do think tea would do me some good.  I have quite
a longing for it.  Run down, Warner, and ask them to let us
have a kettle of hot water.  It is better than all the fire in
the world.  Amelia, my dear, do you see what they have sent
us.  Plenty to eat.  Tell Maria all about it.  You are good
girls; you will never be like that infamous Harriet.  When you
earn wages you will give them to your poor mother and baby,
won't you?"

"Yes, mother," said Amelia.

"And father, too," said Maria.

"And father, too," said the wife.  "He has been a very good
father to you all; and I never can understand why one who
works so hard should earn so little; but I believe it is the
fault of those machines.  The police ought to put them down,
and then every body would be comfortable."

Sybil and Warner re-entered; the fire was lit, the tea made,
the meal partaken.  An air of comfort, even of enjoyment, was
diffused over this chamber, but a few minutes back so desolate
and unhappy.

"Well," said the wife, raising herself a little up in her bed,
"I feel as if that dish of tea had saved my life.  Amelia,
have you had any tea?  And Maria?  You see what it is to be
good girls; the Lord will never desert you.  The day is fast
coming when that Harriet will know what the want of a dish of
tea is, with all her fine wages.  And I am sure," she added,
addressing Sybil, "what we all owe to you is not to be told.
Your father well deserves his good fortune, with such a
daughter."

"My father's fortunes are not much better than his
neighbours," said Sybil, "but his wants are few; and who
should sympathise with the poor, but the poor?  Alas! none
else can.  Besides, it is the Superior of our convent that has
sent you this meal.  What my father can do for you, I have
told your husband.  'Tis little; but with the favour of
heaven, it may avail.  When the people support the people, the
divine blessing will not be wanting."

"I am sure the divine blessing will never be wanting to you,"
said Warner in a voice of great emotion.

There was silence; the querulous spirit of the wife was
subdued by the tone of Sybil; she revolved in her mind the
present and the past; the children pursued their ungrudged and
unusual meal; the daughter of Gerard, that she might not
interfere with their occupation, walked to the window and
surveyed the chink of troubled sky, which was visible in the
court.  The wind blew in gusts; the rain beat against the
glass.  Soon after this, there was another knock at the door.
Harold started from his repose, and growled.  Warner rose, and
saying.  "they have come for the rent.  Thank God, I am
ready," advanced and opened the door.  Two men offered with
courtesy to enter.

"We are strangers," said he who took the lead, "but would not
be such.  I speak to Warner?"

"My name."

"And I am your spiritual pastor, if to be the vicar of Mowbray
entitles me to that description."

"Mr St Lys."

"The same.  One of the most valued of my flock, and the most
influential person in this district, has been speaking much of
you to me this morning.  You are working for him.  He did not
hear of you on Saturday night; he feared you were ill.  Mr
Barber spoke to me of your distress, as well as of your good
character.  I came to express to you my respect and my
sympathy, and to offer you my assistance."

"You are most good, sir, and Mr Barber too, and indeed, an
hour ago, we were in as great straits--."

"And are now, sir," exclaimed his wife interrupting him.  "I
have been in this bed a-week, and may never rise from it
again; the children have no clothes; they are pawned;
everything is pawned; this morning we had neither fuel, nor
food.  And we thought you had come for the rent which we
cannot pay.  If it had not been for a dish of tea which was
charitably given me this morning by a person almost as poor as
ourselves that is to say, they live by labour, though their
wages are much higher, as high as two pounds a-week, though
how that can be I never shall understand, when my husband is
working twelve hours a day, and gaining only a penny an hour--
if it had not been for this I should have been a corpse; and
yet he says we were in straits, merely because Walter Gerard's
daughter, who I willingly grant is an angel from heaven for
all the good she has done us, has stepped into our aid.  But
the poor supporting the poor, as she well says, what good can
come from that!"

During this ebullition, Mr St Lys had surveyed the apartment
and recognised Sybil.

"Sister," he said when the wife of Warner had ceased, "this is
not the first time we have met under the roof of sorrow."

Sybil bent in silence, and moved as if she were about to
retire: the wind and rain came dashing against the window.
The companion of Mr St Lys, who was clad in a rough great
coat, and was shaking the wet off an oilskin hat known by the
name of a 'south-wester,' advanced and said to her, "It is but
a squall, but a very severe one; I would recommend you to stay
for a few minutes."

She received this remark with courtesy but did not reply.

"I think," continued the companion of Mr St Lys, "that this is
not the first time also that we have met?"

"I cannot recall our meeting before," said Sybil.

"And yet it was not many days past; though the sky was so very
different, that it would almost make one believe it was in
another land and another clime."

Sybil looked at him as if for explanation.

"It was at Marney Abbey," said the companion of Mr St Lys.

"I was there; and I remember, when about to rejoin my
companions, they were not alone."

"And you disappeared; very suddenly I thought: for I left the
ruins almost at the same moment as your friends, yet I never
saw any of you again."

"We took our course; a very rugged one; you perhaps pursued a
more even way."

"Was it your first visit to Marney?"

"My first and my last.  There was no place I more desired to
see; no place of which the vision made me so sad."

"The glory has departed," said Egremont mournfully.

"It is not that," said Sybil: "I was prepared for decay, but
not for such absolute desecration.  The Abbey seems a quarry
for materials to repair farm-houses; and the nave a cattle
gate.  What people they must be--that family of sacrilege who
hold these lands!"

"Hem!" said Egremont.  "They certainly do not appear to have
much feeling for ecclesiastical art."

"And for little else, as we were told," said Sybil.  "There
was a fire at the Abbey farm the day we were there, and from
all that reached us, it would appear the people were as little
tendered as the Abbey walls."

"They have some difficulty perhaps in employing their
population in those parts."

"You know the country?"

"Not at all: I was travelling in the neighbourhood, and made a
diversion for the sake of seeing an abbey of which I had heard
so much."

"Yes; it was the greatest of the Northern Houses.  But they
told me the people were most wretched round the Abbey; nor do
I think there is any other cause for their misery, than the
hard hearts of the family that have got the lands."

"You feel deeply for the people!" said Egremont looking at her
earnestly.

Sybil returned him a glance expressive of some astonishment,
and then said, "And do not you?  Your presence here assures me
of it."

"I humbly follow one who would comfort the unhappy."

"The charity of Mr St Lys is known to all."

"And you--you too are a ministering angel."

"There is no merit in my conduct, for there is no sacrifice.
When I remember what this English people once was; the truest,
the freest, and the bravest, the best-natured and the best-
looking, the happiest and most religious race upon the surface
of this globe; and think of them now, with all their crimes
and all their slavish sufferings, their soured spirits and
their stunted forms; their lives without enjoyment and their
deaths without hope; I may well feel for them, even if I were
not the daughter of their blood."

And that blood mantled to her cheek as she ceased to speak,
and her dark eye gleamed with emotion, and an expression of
pride and courage hovered on her brow.  Egremont caught her
glance and withdrew his own; his heart was troubled.

St Lys.  who had been in conference with the weaver, left him
and went to the bedside of his wife.  Warner advanced to
Sybil, and expressed his feelings for her father, his sense of
her goodness.  She, observing that the squall seemed to have
ceased, bade him farewell, and calling Harold, quitted the
chamber.




Book 2 Chapter 15



"Where have you been all the morning, Charles?" said Lord
Marney coming into his brother's dressing-room a few minutes
before dinner; "Arabella had made the nicest little riding
party for you and Lady Joan, and you were to be found nowhere.
If you go on in this way, there is no use of having
affectionate relations, or anything else."

"I have been walking about Mowbray.  One should see a factory
once in one's life."

"I don't see the necessity," said Lord Marney; "I never saw
one, and never intend.  Though to be sure, when I hear the
rents that Mowbray gets for his land in their neighbourhood, I
must say I wish the worsted works had answered at Marney.  And
if it had not been for our poor dear father, they would."

"Our family have always been against manufactories, railroads-
-everything," said Egremont.

"Railroads are very good things, with high compensation," said
Lord Marney; "and manufactories not so bad, with high rents;
but, after all, these are enterprises for the canaille, and I
hate them in my heart."

"But they employ the people, George."

"The people do not want employment; it is the greatest mistake
in the world; all this employment is a stimulus to population.
Never mind that; what I came in for, is to tell you that both
Arabella and myself think you talk too much to Lady Maud."

"I like her the best."

"What has that to do with it my dear fellow?  Business is
business.  Old Mowbray will make an elder son out of his elder
daughter.  The affair is settled; I know it from the best
authority.  Talking to Lady Maud is insanity.  It is all the
same for her as if Fitz-Warene had never died.  And then that
great event, which ought to be the foundation of your fortune,
would be perfectly thrown away.  Lady Maud, at the best, is
nothing more than twenty thousand pounds and a fat living.
Besides, she is engaged to that parson fellow, St Lys.

"St Lys told me to-day that nothing would ever induce him to
marry.  He would practise celibacy, though he would not enjoin
it."

"Enjoin fiddle-stick!  How came you to be talking to such a
sanctified imposter; and, I believe, with all his fine
phrases, a complete radical.  I tell you what, Charles, you
must really make way with Lady Joan.  The grandfather has come
to-day, the old Duke.  Quite a family party.  It looks so
well.  Never was such a golden opportunity.  And you must be
sharp too.  That little Jermyn, with his brown eyes and his
white hands, has not come down here, in the month of August,
with no sport of any kind, for nothing."

"I shall set Lady Firebrace at him."

"She is quite your friend, and a very sensible woman too,
Charles, and an ally not to be despised.  Lady Joan has a very
high opinion of her.  There's the bell.  Well, I shall tell
Arabella that you mean to put up the steam, and Lady Firebrace
shall keep Jermyn off.  And perhaps it is as well you did not
seem too eager at first.  Mowbray Castle, my dear fellow, in
spite of its manufactories, is not to be despised.  And with a
little firmness, you could keep the people out of your park.
Mowbray could do it, only he has no pluck.  He is afraid
people would say he was the son of a footman."

The Duke, who was the father of the Countess de Mowbray, was
also lord lieutenant of the county.  Although advanced in
years, he was still extremely handsome; with the most winning
manners; full of amenity and grace.  He had been a rou‚ in his
youth, but seemed now the perfect representative of a
benignant and virtuous old age.  He was universally popular;
admired by young men, adored by young ladies.  Lord de Mowbray
paid him the most distinguished consideration.  It was
genuine.  However maliciously the origin of his own father
might be represented, nobody could deprive him of that great
fact, his father-in-law; a duke, a duke of a great house who
had intermarried for generations with great houses, one of the
old nobility, and something even loftier.

The county of which his grace was Lord Lieutenant was very
proud of its nobility; and certainly with Marney Abbey at one
end, and Mowbray Castle at the other, it had just cause; but
both these illustrious houses yielded in importance, though
not in possessions, to the great peer who was the governor of
the province.

A French actress, clever as French actresses always are, had
persuaded, once upon a time, an easy-tempered monarch of this
realm, that the paternity of her coming babe was a distinction
of which his majesty might be proud.  His majesty did not much
believe her; but he was a sensible man, and never disputed a
point with a woman; so when the babe was born, and proved a
boy, he christened him with his name; and elevated him to the
peerage in his cradle by the title of Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine
and Marquis of Gascony.

An estate the royal father could not endow him with, for he
had spent all his money, mortgaged all his resources, and was
obliged to run in debt himself for the jewels of the rest of
his mistresses; but he did his best for the young peer, as
became an affectionate father or a fond lover.  His majesty
made him when he arrived at man's estate the hereditary keeper
of a palace which he possessed in the north of England; and
this secured his grace a castle and a park.  He could wave his
flag and kill his deer; and if he had only possessed an
estate, he would have been as well off as if he had helped
conquer the realm with King William, or plundered the church
for King Harry.  A revenue must however be found for the Duke
of Fitz-Aquitaine, and it was furnished without the
interference of Parliament, but with a financial dexterity
worthy of that assembly--to whom and not to our sovereigns we
are obliged for the public debt.  The king granted the duke
and his heirs for ever, a pension on the post-office, a light
tax upon coals shipped to London, and a tithe of all the
shrimps caught on the southern coast.  This last source of
revenue became in time, with the development of watering-
places, extremely prolific.  And so, what with the foreign
courts and colonies for the younger sons, it was thus
contrived very respectably to maintain the hereditary dignity
of this great peer.

The present Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine had supported the Reform
Bill, but had been shocked by the Appropriation clause; very
much admired Lord Stanley, and was apt to observe, that if
that nobleman had been the leader of the conservative party,
he hardly knew what he might not have done himself.  But the
duke was an old whig, had lived with old whigs all his life,
feared revolution, but still more the necessity of taking his
name out of Brookes', where he had looked in every day or
night since he came of age.  So, not approving of what was
going on, yet not caring to desert his friends, he withdrew,
as the phrase runs, from public life; that is to say, was
rarely in his seat; did not continue to Lord Melbourne the
proxy that had been entrusted to Lord Grey; and made tory
magistrates in his county though a whig lord lieutenant.

When forces were numbered, and speculations on the future
indulged in by the Tadpoles and Tapers, the name of the Duke
of Fitz-Aquitaine was mentioned with a knowing look and in a
mysterious tone.  Nothing more was necessary between Tadpole
and Taper; but, if some hack in statu pupillari happened to be
present at the conference, and the gentle novice greedy for
party tattle, and full of admiring reverence for the two great
hierophants of petty mysteries before him, ventured to
intimate his anxiety for initiation, the secret was entrusted
to him, "that all was right there; that his grace only watched
his opportunity; that he was heartily sick of the present men;
indeed, would have gone over with Lord Stanley in 1835, had he
not had a fit of the gout, which prevented him from coming up
from the north; and though to be sure his son and brother did
vote against the speaker, still that was a mistake; if a
letter had been sent, which was not written, they would have
voted the other way, and perhaps Sir Robert might have been in
at the present moment."

The Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine was the great staple of Lady
Firebrace's correspondence with Mr Tadpole.  "Woman's mission"
took the shape to her intelligence of getting over his grace
to the conservatives.  She was much assisted in these
endeavours by the information which she so dexterously
acquired from the innocent and incautious Lord Masque.

Egremont was seated at dinner to-day by the side of Lady Joan.
Unconsciously to himself this had been arranged by Lady
Marney.  The action of woman on our destiny is unceasing.
Egremont was scarcely in a happy mood for conversation.  He
was pensive, inclined to be absent; his thoughts indeed were
of other things and persons than those around him.  Lady Joan
however only required a listener.  She did not make enquiries
like Lady Maud, or impart her own impressions by suggesting
them as your own.  Lady Joan gave Egremont an account of the
Aztec cities, of which she had been reading that morning, and
of the several historical theories which their discovery had
suggested; then she imparted her own, which differed from all,
but which seemed clearly the right one.  Mexico led to Egypt.
Lady Joan was as familiar with the Pharaohs as with the
Caciques of the new world.  The phonetic system was despatched
by the way.  Then came Champollion; then Paris; then all its
celebrities, literary and especially scientific; then came the
letter from Arago received that morning; and the letter from
Dr Buckland expected to-morrow.  She was delighted that one
had written; wondered why the other had not.  Finally before
the ladies had retired, she had invited Egremont to join Lady
Marney in a visit to her observatory, where they were to
behold a comet which she had been the first to detect.

Lady Firebrace next to the duke indulged in mysterious fiddle-
fadde as to the state of parties.  She too had her
correspondents, and her letters received or awaited.  Tadpole
said this; Lord Masque, on the contrary, said that: the truth
lay perhaps between them; some result developed by the clear
intelligence of Lady Firebrace acting on the data with which
they supplied her.  The duke listened with calm excitement to
the transcendental revelations of his Egeria.  Nothing
appeared to be concealed from her; the inmost mind of the
sovereign: there was not a royal prejudice that was not mapped
in her secret inventory; the cabinets of the whigs and the
clubs of the tories, she had the "open sesame" to all of them.
Sir Somebody did not want
office, though he pretended to; and Lord Nobody did want
office, though he pretended he did not.  One great man thought
the pear was not ripe; another that it was quite rotten; but
then the first was coming on the stage, and the other was
going off.  In estimating the accuracy of a political opinion,
one should take into consideration the standing of the
opinionist.

At the right moment, and when she was sure she was not
overheard, Lady Firebrace played her trump card, the pack
having been previously cut by Mr Tadpole.

"And who do you think Sir Robert would send to Ireland?" and
she looked up in the face of the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine.

"I suppose the person he sent before," said his grace.

Lady Firebrace shook her head.

"Lord Haddington will not go to Ireland again," replied her
ladyship, mysteriously; "mark me.  And Lord De Grey does not
like to go; and if he did, there are objections.  And the Duke
of Northumberland, he will not go.  And who else is there?  We
must have a nobleman of the highest rank for Ireland; one who
has not mixed himself up with Irish questions; who has always
been in old days for emancipation; a conservative, not an
orangeman.  You understand.  That is the person Sir Robert
will send, and whom Sir Robert wants."

"He will have some difficulty in finding such a person," said
the duke.  "If, indeed, the blundering affair of 1834 had not
occurred, and things had taken their legitimate course, and we
had seen a man like Lord Stanley for instance at the head of
affairs, or leading a great party, why then indeed your
friends the conservatives,--for every sensible man must be a
conservative, in the right sense of the word,--would have
stood in a very different position; but now--," and his grace
shook his head.

"Sir Robert will never consent to form a government again
without Lord Stanley," said Lady Firebrace.

"Perhaps not," said the duke.

"Do you know whose name I have heard mentioned in a certain
quarter as the person Sir Robert would wish to see in
Ireland?" continued Lady Firebrace.

His grace leant his ear.

"The Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine," said Lady Firebrace.

"Quite impossible," said the duke.  "I am no party man; if I
be anything, I am a supporter of the government.  True it is I
do not like the way they are going on, and I disapprove of all
their measures; but we must stand by our friends, Lady
Firebrace.  To be sure, if the country were in danger, and the
Queen personally appealed to one, and the conservative party
were really a conservative party, and not an old crazy faction
vamped up and whitewashed into decency--one might pause and
consider.  But I am free to confess I must see things in a
very different condition to what they are at present before I
could be called upon to take that step.  I must see men like
Lord Stanley--"

"I know what you are going to say, my dear Duke of Fitz-
Aquitaine.  I tell you again Lord Stanley is with us, heart
and soul; and before long I feel persuaded I shall see your
grace in the Castle of Dublin."

"I am too old; at least, I am afraid so," said the Duke of
Fitz-Aquitaine, with a relenting smile.




Book 2 Chapter 16



About three miles before it reaches the town, the river Mowe
undulates through a plain.  The scene, though not very
picturesque, has a glad and sparkling character.  A stone
bridge unites the opposite banks by three arches of good
proportion; the land about consists of meads of a vivid
colour, or vegetable gardens to supply the neighbouring
population, and whose various hues give life and lightness to
the level ground.  The immediate boundaries of the plain on
either side are chiefly woods; above the crest of which in one
direction expands the brown bosom of a moor.  The few cottages
which are sprinkled about this scene being built of stone, and
on an ample scale, contribute to the idea of comfort and
plenty which, with a serene sky and on a soft summer day, the
traveller willingly associates with it.

Such was the sky and season in which Egremont emerged on this
scene a few days after the incidents recorded in our last
chapter.  He had been fishing in the park of Mowbray, and had
followed the rivulet through many windings until, quitting the
enclosed domain it had forced its way through some craggy
underwood at the bottom of the hilly moors we have noticed,
and finally entering the plain, lost itself in the waters of
the greater stream.

Good sport had not awaited Egremont.  Truth to say, his rod
had played in a very careless hand.  He had taken it, though
an adept in the craft when in the mood, rather as an excuse to
be alone, than a means to be amused.  There are seasons in
life when solitude is a necessity; and such a one had now
descended on the spirit of the brother of Lord Marney.

The form of Sybil Gerard was stamped upon his brain.  It
blended with all thoughts; it haunted every object.  Who was
this girl, unlike all women whom he had yet encountered, who
spoke with such sweet seriousness of things of such vast
import, but which had never crossed his mind, and with a kind
of mournful majesty bewailed the degradation of her race?  The
daughter of the lowly, yet proud of her birth.  Not a noble
lady in the land who could boast a mien more complete, and
none of them thus gifted, who possessed withal the fascinating
simplicity that pervaded every gesture and accent of the
daughter of Gerard.

Yes! the daughter of Gerard; the daughter of a workman at a
manufactory.  It had not been difficult, after the departure
of Sybil, to extract this information from the garrulous wife
of the weaver.  And that father,--he was not unknown to
Egremont.  His proud form and generous countenance were still
fresh in the mind's eye of our friend.  Not less so his
thoughtful speech; full of knowledge and meditation and
earnest feeling!  How much that he had spoken still echoed in
the heart, and rung in the brooding ear of Egremont.  And his
friend, too, that pale man with those glittering eyes, who
without affectation, without pedantry, with artlessness on the
contrary and a degree of earnest singleness, had glanced like
a master of philosophy at the loftiest principles of political
science,--was he too a workman?  And are these then THE
PEOPLE?  If so, thought Egremont, would that I lived more
among them!  Compared with their converse, the tattle of our
saloons has in it something humiliating.  It is not merely
that it is deficient in warmth, and depth, and breadth; that
it is always discussing persons instead of principles, and
cloaking its want of thought in mimetic dogmas and its want of
feeling in superficial raillery; it is not merely that it has
neither imagination, nor fancy, nor sentiment, nor feeling,
nor knowledge to recommend it; but it appears to me, even as
regards manner and expression, inferior in refinement and
phraseology; in short, trivial, uninteresting, stupid, really
vulgar.

It seemed to Egremont that, from the day he met these persons
in the Abbey ruins, the horizon of his experience had
insensibly expanded; more than that, there were streaks of
light breaking in the distance, which already gave a new
aspect to much that was known, and which perhaps was
ultimately destined to reveal much that was now utterly
obscure.  He could not resist the conviction that from the
time in question, his sympathies had become more lively and
more extended; that a masculine impulse had been given to his
mind; that he was inclined to view public questions in a tone
very different to that in which he had surveyed them a few
weeks back, when on the hustings of his borough.

Revolving these things, he emerged, as we have stated, into
the plain of the Mowe, and guiding his path by the course of
the river, he arrived at the bridge which a fancy tempted him
to cross.  In its centre, was a man gazing on the waters below
and leaning over the parapet.  His footstep roused the
loiterer, who looked round; and Egremont saw that it was
Walter Gerard.

Gerard returned his salute, and said, "Early hours on Saturday
afternoon make us all saunterers;" and then, as their way was
the same, they walked on together.  It seemed that Gerard's
cottage was near at hand, and having inquired after Egremont's
sport, and receiving for a reply a present of a brace of
trout,--the only one, by the bye, that was in Egremont's
basket,--he could scarcely do less than invite his companion
to rest himself.

"There is my home," said Gerard, pointing to a cottage
recently built, and in a pleasing style.  Its materials were
of a fawn-coloured stone, common in the Mowbray quarries.  A
scarlet creeper clustered round one side of its ample porch;
its windows were large, mullioned, and neatly latticed; it
stood in the midst of a garden of no mean dimensions but every
bed and nook of which teemed with cultivation; flowers and
vegetables both abounded, while an orchard rich with promise
of many fruits; ripe pears and famous pippins of the north and
plums of every shape and hue; screened the dwelling from that
wind against which the woods that formed its back-ground were
no protection.

"And you are well lodged!  Your garden does you honour."

"I'll be honest enough to own I have no claim to the credit,"
said Gerard.  "I am but a lazy chiel."

They entered the cottage, where a hale old woman greeted them.

"She is too old to be my wife, and too young to be my mother,"
said Gerard smiling; "but she is a good creature, and has
looked after me many a long day.  Come, dame," he said,
"thou'lt bring us a cup of tea; 'tis a good evening beverage,"
he added, turning to Egremont.  "and what I ever take at this
time.  And if you care to light a pipe, you will find a
companion."

"I have renounced tobacco," said Egremont; "tobacco is the
tomb of love," and they entered a neatly-furnished chamber,
that had that habitable look which the best room of a
farmhouse too often wants.  Instead of the cast-off furniture
of other establishments, at the same time dingy and tawdry.
mock rosewood chairs and tarnished mahogany tables, there was
an oaken table, some cottage chairs made of beech wood, and a
Dutch clock.  But what surprised Egremont was the appearance
of several shelves well lined with volumes.  Their contents
too on closer inspection were very remarkable.  They indicated
a student of a high order.  Egremont read the titles of works
which he only knew by fame, but which treated of the loftiest
and most subtle questions of social and political philosophy.
As he was throwing his eye over them, his companion said, "Ah!
I see you think me as great a scholar as I am a gardener: but
with as little justice; these hooks are not mine."

"To whomsoever they belong," said Egremont, "if we are to
judge from his collection, he has a tolerably strong head."

"Ay, ay," said Gerard, "the world will hear of him yet, though
he was only a workman, and the son of a workman.  He has not
been at your schools and your colleges, but he can write his
mother tongue, as Shakespeare and Cobbett wrote it; and you
must do that, if you wish to influence the people."

"And might I ask his name," said Egremont.

"Stephen Morley, my friend."

"The person I saw with you at Marney Abbey?"

"The same."

"And he lives with you?"

"Why, we kept house together, if you could call it so.
Stephen does not give much trouble in that way.  He only
drinks water and only eats herbs and fruits.  He is the
gardener," added Gerard, smiling.  "I don't know how we shall
fare when he leaves me."

"And is he going to leave you?"

"Why in a manner he has gone.  He has taken a cottage about a
quarter of a mile up the dale; and only left his books here,
because he is going into --shire in a day or two, on some
business, that may be will take him a week or so.  The books
are safer here you see for the present, for Stephen lives
alone, and is a good deal away, for he edits a paper at
Mowbray, and that must be looked after.  He is to be my
gardener still.  I promised him that.  Well done, dame," said
Gerard, as the old woman entered; "I hope for the honour of
the house a good brew.  Now comrade sit down: it will do you
good after your long stroll.  You should eat your own trout if
you would wait?"

"By no means.  You will miss your friend, I should think?"

"We shall see a good deal of him, I doubt not, what with the
garden and neighbourhood and so on; besides, in a manner, he
is master of his own time.  His work is not like ours; and
though the pull on the brain is sometimes great, I have often
wished I had a talent that way.  It's a drear life to do the
same thing every day at the same hour.  But I never could
express my ideas except with my tongue; and there I feel
tolerably at home."

"It will be a pity to see this room without these books," said
Egremont, encouraging conversation on domestic subjects.

"So it will," said Gerard.  "I have got very few of my own.
But my daughter will be able to fill the shelves in time, I
warrant."

"Your daughter--she is coming to live with you?"

"Yes; that is the reason why Stephen quits us.  He only
remained here until Sybil could keep my house, and that happy
day is at hand."

"That is a great compensation for the loss of your friend,"
said Egremont.

"And yet she talks of flitting," said Gerard, in a rather
melancholy tone.  "She hankers after the cloister.  She has
passed a still, sweet life in the convent here; the Superior
is the sister of my employer and a very saint on earth; and
Sybil knows nothing of the real world except its sufferings.
No matter," he added more cheerfully; "I would not have her
take the veil rashly, but if I lose her it may be for the
best.  For the married life of a woman of our class in the
present condition of our country is a lease of woe," he added
shaking his head, "slaves, and the slaves of slaves?  Even
woman's spirit cannot stand against it; and it can bear
against more than we can, master."

"Your daughter is not made for the common cares of life," said
Egremont.

"We'll not talk of them," said Gerard.  "Sybil has an English
heart, and that's not easily broken.  And you, comrade, you
are a traveller in these parts, eh?"

"A kind of traveller; something in the way of your friend
Morley--connected with the press."

"Indeed! a reporter, eh?  I thought you had something about
you a little more knowing than we provincials."

"Yes; a reporter; they want information in London as to the
real state of the country, and this time of the year,
Parliament not sitting--"Ah; I understand, a flying commission
and a summer tour.  Well, I often wish I were a penman; but I
never could do it.  I'll read any day as long as you like, but
that writing, I could never manage.  My friend Morley is a
powerful hand at it.  His journal circulates a good deal about
here; and if as I often tell him he would only sink his high-
flying philosophy and stick to old English politics, he might
make a property of it.  You'll like to know him?"

"Much."

"And what first took you to the press, if I may ask!"

"Why--my father was a gentleman--, said Egremont in a
hesitating tone, "and I was a younger son."

"Ah!" said Gerard, "that is as bad as being a woman."

"I had no patrimony," continued Egremont, "and I was obliged
to work; I had no head I believe for the law; the church was
not exactly in my way; and as for the army, how was I to
advance without money or connexions!  I had had some
education, and so I thought I would turn it to account."

"Wisely done! you are one of the working classes, and will
enlist I hope in the great struggle against the drones.  The
natural friends of the people are younger sons, though they
are generally enlisted against us.  The more fools they; to
devote their energies to the maintenance of a system which is
founded on selfishness and which leads to fraud; and of which
they are the first victims.  But every man thinks he will be
an exception."

"And yet," said Egremont, "a great family rooted in the land,
has been deemed to be an element of political strength."

"I'll tell you what," said Gerard, there is a great family in
this country and rooted in it, of which we have heard much
less than they deserved, but of which I suspect we shall hear
very soon enough to make us all think a bit."

"In this county?"

"Ay; in this county and every other one; I mean the PEOPLE."


"Ah!" said Egremont, "that family has existed for a long
time."

"But it has taken to increase rapidly of late, my friend--how
may I call you?"

"They call me, Franklin."

"A good English name of a good English class that has
disappeared.  Well, Mr Franklin, be sure of this, that the
Population Returns of this country are very instructive
reading."

"I can conceive so."

"I became a man when the bad times were beginning," said
Gerard; "I have passed through many doleful years.  I was a
Franklin's son myself, and we had lived on this island at
least no worse for a longer time than I care to recollect as
little as what I am now.  But that's nothing; I am not
thinking of myself.  I am prosperous in a fashion; it is the
serfs I live among of whom I am thinking.  Well, I have heard,
in the course of years, of some specifics for this constant
degradation of the people; some thing or some person that was
to put all right; and for my part, I was not unready to
support any proposal or follow any leader.  There was reform,
and there was paper money, and no machinery, and a thousand
other remedies; and there were demagogues of all kinds, some
as had as myself, and some with blood in their veins almost as
costly as flows in those of our great neighbour here.  Earl de
Mowbray, and I have always heard that was very choice: but I
will frankly own to you, I never had much faith in any of
these proposals or proposers; but they were a change, and that
is something.  But I have been persuaded of late that there is
something going on in this country of more efficacy; a
remedial power, as I believe, and irresistible; but whether
remedial or not, at any rate a power that will mar all or cure
all.  You apprehend me?  I speak of the annual arrival of more
than three hundred thousand strangers in this island.  How
will you feed them?  How will you clothe them?  How will you
house them?  They have given up butcher's meat; must they give
up bread?  And as for raiment and shelter, the rags of the
kingdom are exhausted and your sinks and cellars already swarm
like rabbit warrens.

"'Tis an awful consideration," said Egremont musing.

"Awful," said Gerard; "'tis the most solemn thing since the
deluge.  What kingdom can stand against it?  Why go to your
history--you're a scholar,--and see the fall of the great
Roman empire--what was that?  Every now and then, there came
two or three hundred thousand strangers out of the forests and
crossed the mountains and rivers.  They come to us every year
and in greater numbers.  What are your invasions of the
barbarous nations, your Goths and Visigoths, your Lombards and
Huns, to our Population Returns!"


END OF THE SECOND BOOK




BOOK III


Book 3 Chapter 1



The last rays of the sun, contending with clouds of smoke that
drifted across the country, partially illumined a peculiar
landscape.  Far as the eye could reach, and the region was
level, except where a range of limestone hills formed its
distant limit, a wilderness of cottages or tenements that were
hardly entitled to a higher name, were scattered for many
miles over the land; some detached, some connected in little
rows, some clustering in groups, yet rarely forming continuous
streets, but interspersed with blazing furnaces, heaps of
burning coal, and piles of smouldering ironstone; while forges
and engine chimneys roared and puffed in all directions, and
indicated the frequent presence of the mouth of the mine and
the bank of the coal-pit.  Notwithstanding the whole country
might be compared to a vast rabbit warren, it was nevertheless
intersected with canals crossing each other at various levels,
and though the subterranean operations were prosecuted with so
much avidity that it was not uncommon to observe whole rows of
houses awry, from the shifting and hollow nature of the land,
still, intermingled with heaps of mineral refuse or of
metallic dross, patches of the surface might here and there be
recognised, covered, as if in mockery, with grass and corn,
looking very much like those gentlemen's sons that we used to
read of in our youth, stolen by the chimneysweeps and giving
some intimations of their breeding beneath their grimy livery.
But a tree or a shrub--such an existence was unknown in this
dingy rather than dreary region.

It was the twilight hour; the hour at which in southern climes
the peasant kneels before the sunset image of the blessed
Hebrew maiden; when caravans halt in their long course over
vast deserts, and the turbaned traveller bending in the sand,
pays his homage to the sacred stone and the sacred city; the
hour, not less holy, that announces the cessation of English
toil, and sends forth the miner and the collier to breathe the
air of earth, and gaze on the light of heaven.

They come forth: the mine delivers its gang and the pit its
bondsmen; the forge is silent and the engine is still.  The
plain is covered with the swarming multitude: bands of
stalwart men, broad-chested and muscular, wet with toil, and
black as the children of the tropics; troops of youth--alas!
of both sexes,--though neither their raiment nor their
language indicates the difference; all are clad in male
attire; and oaths that men might shudder at, issue from lips
born to breathe words of sweetness.  Yet these are to be--some
are--the mothers of England!  But can we wonder at the hideous
coarseness of their language when we remember the savage
rudeness of their lives?  Naked to the waist, an iron chain
fastened to a belt of leather runs between their legs clad in
canvas trousers, while on hands and feet an English girl, for
twelve, sometimes for sixteen hours a-day, hauls and hurries
tubs of coals up subterranean roads, dark, precipitous, and
plashy: circumstances that seem to have escaped the notice of
the Society for the Abolition of Negro Slavery.  Those worthy
gentlemen too appear to have been singularly unconscious of
the sufferings of the little Trappers, which was remarkable,
as many of them were in their own employ.

See too these emerge from the bowels of the earth!  Infants of
four and five years of age, many of them girls, pretty and
still soft and timid; entrusted with the fulfilment of most
responsible duties, and the nature of which entails on them
the necessity of being the earliest to enter the mine and the
latest to leave it.  Their labour indeed is not severe, for
that would be impossible, but it is passed in darkness and in
solitude.  They endure that punishment which philosophical
philanthropy has invented for the direst criminals, and which
those criminals deem more terrible than the death for which it
is substituted.  Hour after hour elapses, and all that reminds
the infant Trappers of the world they have quitted and that
which they have joined, is the passage of the coal-waggons for
which they open the air-doors of the galleries, and on keeping
which doors constantly closed, except at this moment of
passage, the safety of the mine and the lives of the persons
employed in it entirely depend.

Sir Joshua, a man of genius and a courtly artist, struck by
the seraphic countenance of Lady Alice Gordon, when a child of
very tender years, painted the celestial visage in various
attitudes on the same canvass, and styled the group of
heavenly faces--guardian angels!

We would say to some great master of the pencil, Mr Landseer
or Mr Etty, go thou to the little trappers and do likewise!

A small party of miners approached a house of more pretension
than the generality of the dwellings, and announcing its
character by a very flagrant sign of the Rising Sun.  They
entered it as men accustomed, and were greeted with smiles and
many civil words from the lady at the bar, who inquired very
cheerfully what the gentlemen would have.  They soon found
themselves seated in the tap, and, though it was not entirely
unoccupied, in their accustomed places, for there seemed a
general understanding that they enjoyed a prescriptive right.

With hunches of white bread in their black hands, and grinning
with their sable countenances and ivory teeth, they really
looked like a gang of negroes at a revel.

The cups of ale circulated, the pipes were lighted, the
preliminary puffs achieved.  There was at length silence, when
he who seemed their leader and who filled a sort of
president's seat, took his pipe from his mouth, and then
uttering the first complete sentence that had yet been
expressed aloud, thus delivered himself.

"The fact is we are tommied to death."

"You never spoke a truer word, Master Nixon," said one of his
companions.

"It's gospel, every word of it," said another.

"And the point is," continued Master Nixon, "what are we for
to do?"

"Ay, surely," said a collier; "that's the marrow."

"Ay, ay," agreed several; "there it is."

"The question is," said Nixon, looking round with a
magisterial air, "what is wages?  I say, tayn't sugar, tayn't
tea, tayn't bacon.  I don't think it's candles; but of this I
be sure, tayn't waistcoats."

Here there was a general groan.

"Comrades," continued Nixon, "you know what has happened; you
know as how Juggins applied for his balance after his tommy-
book was paid up, and that incarnate nigger Diggs has made him
take two waistcoats.  Now the question rises, what is a
collier to do with waistcoats?  Pawn 'em I s'pose to Diggs'
son-in-law, next door to his father's shop, and sell the
ticket for sixpence.  Now there's the question; keep to the
question; the question is waistcoats and tommy; first
waistcoats and then tommy."

"I have been making a pound a-week these two months past,"
said another, "but as I'm a sinner saved, I have never seen
the young queen's picture yet."

"And I have been obliged to pay the doctor for my poor wife in
tommy," said another.  "'Doctor,' I said, says I, 'I blush to
do it, but all I have got is tommy, and what shall it be,
bacon or cheese?' 'Cheese at tenpence a pound,' says he,
'which I buy for my servants at sixpence.  Never mind,' says
he, for he is a thorough Christian, 'I'll take the tommy as I
find it.'"

"Juggins has got his rent to pay and is afeard of the bums,"
said Nixon; "and he has got two waistcoats!"

"Besides," said another, "Diggs' tommy is only open once
aweek, and if you're not there in time, you go over for
another seven days.  And it's such a distance, and he keeps a
body there such a time--it's always a day's work for my poor
woman; she can't do nothing after it, what with the waiting
and the standing and the cussing of Master Joseph Diggs,--for
he do swear at the women, when they rush in for the first
turn, most fearful."

"They do say he's a shocking little dog."

"Master Joseph is wery wiolent, but there is no one like old
Diggs for grabbing a bit of one's wages.  He do so love it!
And then he says you never need be at no loss for nothing; you
can find everything under my roof.  I should like to know who
is to mend our shoes.  Has Gaffer Diggs a cobbler's stall?"

"Or sell us a penn-orth of potatoes," said another.  "Or a
ha'porth of milk"

"No; and so to get them one is obliged to go and sell some
tommy, and much one gets for it.  Bacon at ninepence a-pound
at Diggs', which you may get at a huckster's for sixpence.
and therefore the huckster can't be expected to give you more
than fourpence halfpenny, by which token the tommy in our
field just cuts our wages atween the navel."

"And that's as true as if you heard it in church, Master
Waghorn."

"This Diggs seems to be an oppressor of the people," said a
voice from a distant corner of the room.

Master Nixon looked around, smoked, puffed, and then said, "I
should think he wor; as bloody-a-hearted butty as ever
jingled."

"But what business has a butty to keep a shop?" inquired the
stranger.  "The law touches him."

"I should like to know who would touch the law," said Nixon;
"not I for one.  Them tommy shops is very delicate things;
they won't stand no handling, I can tell you that."

"But he cannot force you to take goods," said the stranger;
"he must pay you in current coin of the realm, if you demand
it."

"They only pay us once in five weeks," said a collier; "and
how is a man to live meanwhile.  And suppose we were to make
shift for a month or five weeks, and have all our money
coming, and have no tommy out of the shop, what would the
butty say to me?  He would say, 'do you want e'er a note this
time' and if I was to say 'no,' then he would say, 'you've no
call to go down to work any more here.' And that's what I call
forsation."

"Ay, ay," said another collier; "ask for the young queen's
picture, and you would soon have to put your shirt on, and go
up the shaft."

"It's them long reckonings that force us to the tommy shops,"
said another collier; "and if a butty turns you away because
you won't take no tommy, you're a marked man in every field
about."*

    *A Butty in the mining districts is a middleman: a Doggy
is
     his manager.  The Butty generally keeps a Tommy or Truck
shop
     and pays the wages of his labourers in goods.  When
miners
     and colliers strike they term it, "going to play."

"There's wus things as tommy," said a collier who had hitherto
been silent, "and that's these here butties.  What's going on
in the pit is known only to God Almighty and the colliers.  I
have been a consistent methodist for many years, strived to do
well, and all the harm I have ever done to the butties was to
tell them that their deeds would not stand on the day of
judgment.

"They are deeds of darkness surely; for many's the morn we
work for nothing, by one excuse or another, and many's the
good stint that they undermeasure.  And many's the cup of
their ale that you must drink before they will give you any
work.  If the queen would do something for us poor men, it
would be a blessed job."

There ayn't no black tyrant on this earth like a butty,
surely," said a collier; "and there's no redress for poor
men."

"But why do not you state your grievances to the landlords and
lessees," said the stranger.

"I take it you be a stranger in these parts, sir," said Master
Nixon, following up this remark by a most enormous puff.  He
was the oracle of his circle, and there was silence whenever
he was inclined to address them, which was not too often,
though when he spoke, his words, as his followers often
observed, were a regular ten-yard coal.

"I take it you be a stranger in these parts, sir, or else you
would know that it's as easy for a miner to speak to a
mainmaster, as it is for me to pick coal with this here clay.
Sir, there's a gulf atween 'em.  I went into the pit when I
was five year old, and I count forty year in the service come
Martinmas, and a very good age, sir, for a man what does his
work, and I knows what I'm speaking about.  In forty year,
sir, a man sees a pretty deal, 'specially when he don't move
out of the same spot and keeps his 'tention.  I've been at
play, sir, several times in forty year, and have seen as great
stick-outs as ever happened in this country.  I've seen the
people at play for weeks together, and so clammed that I never
tasted nothing but a potatoe and a little salt for more than a
fortnight.  Talk of tommy, that was hard fare, but we were
holding out for our rights, and that's sauce for any gander.
And I'll tell you what, sir, that I never knew the people play
yet, but if a word had passed atween them and the main-masters
aforehand, it might not have been settled; but you can't get
at them any way.  Atween the poor man and the gentleman there
never was no connection, and that's the wital mischief of this
country.

"It's a very true word, Master Nixon, and by this token that
when we went to play in --28, and the masters said they would
meet us; what did they do but walk about the ground and speak
to the butties.  The butties has their ear."

"We never want no soldiers here if the masters would speak
with the men; but the sight of a pitman is pison to a
gentleman, and if we go up to speak with 'em, they always run
away."

"It's the butties," said Nixon; "they're wusser nor tommy."

"The people will never have their rights," said the stranger,
"until they learn their power.  Suppose instead of sticking
out and playing, fifty of your families were to live under one
roof.  You would live better than you live now; you would feed
more fully, and he lodged and clothed more comfortably, and
you might save half the amount of your wages; you would become
capitalists; you might yourselves hire your mines and pits
from the owners, and pay them a better rent than they now
obtain, and yet yourselves gain more and work less."

"Sir," said Mr Nixon, taking his pipe from his mouth, and
sending forth a volume of smoke, "you speak like a book."

"It is the principle of association," said the stranger; "the
want of the age."

"Sir," said Mr Nixon, "this here age wants a great deal, but
what it principally wants is to have its wages paid in the
current coin of the realm."

Soon after this there were symptoms of empty mugs and
exhausted pipes, and the party began to stir.  The stranger
addressing Nixon, enquired of him what was their present
distance from Wodgate.

"Wodgate!" exclaimed Mr Nixon with an unconscious air.

"The gentleman means Hell-house Yard," said one of his
companions.

"I'm at home," said Mr Nixon, "but 'tis the first time I ever
heard Hell-house Yard called Wodgate."

"It's called so in joggraphy," said Juggins.

"But you hay'nt going to Hell-house Yard this time of night!"
said Mr Nixon.  "I'd as soon think of going down the pit with
the windlass turned by lushy Bob."

"Tayn't a journey for Christians," said Juggins.

"They're a very queer lot even in sunshine," said another.

"And how far is it?" asked the stranger.

"I walked there once in three hours," said a collier, "but
that was to the wake.  If you want to see divils carnal,
there's your time of day.  They're no less than heathens, I be
sure.  I'd be sorry to see even our butty among them, for he
is a sort of a Christian when he has taken a glass of ale."




Book 3 Chapter 2



Two days after the visit of Egremont to the cottage of Walter
Gerard, the visit of the Marney family to Mowbray terminated,
and they returned to the Abbey.

There is something mournful in the breaking up of an agreeable
party, and few are the roofs in which one has sojourned, which
are quitted without some feeling of depression.  The sudden
cessation of all those sources of excitement which pervade a
gay and well arranged mansion in the country, unstrings the
nervous system.  For a week or so, we have done nothing which
was not agreeable, and heard nothing which was not pleasant.
Our self-love has been respected; there has been a total
cessation of petty cares; all the enjoyment of an
establisnment without any of its solicitude.  We have beheld
civilization only in its favoured aspect, and tasted only the
sunny side of the fruit.  Sometimes there are associations
with our visit of a still sweeter and softer character, but on
these we need not dwell: glances that cannot be forgotten, and
tones that linger in the ear; sentiment that subdues the soul,
and flirtation that agitates the fancy.  No matter, whatever
may be the cause, one too often drives away from a country-
house, rather hipped.  The specific would be immediately to
drive to another, and it is a favourite remedy.  But sometimes
it is not in our power; sometimes for instance we must return
to our household gods in the shape of a nursery; and though
this was not the form assumed by the penates of Lord Marney,
his presence, the presence of an individual so important and
so indefatigable, was still required.  His Lordship had passed
his time at Mowbray to his satisfaction.  He had had his own
way in everything.  His selfishness had not received a single
shock.  He had lain down the law and it had not been
questioned.  He had dogmatised and impugned, and his
assertions had passed current, and his doctrines been accepted
as orthodox.  Lord Mowbray suited him; he liked the
consideration of so great a personage.  Lord Marney also
really liked pomp; a curious table and a luxurious life; but
he liked them under any roof rather than his own.  Not that he
was what is commonly called a Screw; that is to say he was not
a mere screw; but he was acute and malicious; saw everybody's
worth and position at a glance; could not bear to expend his
choice wines and costly viands on hangers-on and toad-eaters,
though at the same time no man encouraged and required
hangers-on and toad-eaters more.  Lord Marney had all the
petty social vices, and none of those petty social weaknesses
which soften their harshness or their hideousness.  To receive
a prince of the blood or a great peer he would spare nothing.
Had he to fulfil any of the public duties of his station, his
performance would baffle criticism.  But he enjoyed making the
Vicar of Marney or Captain Grouse drink some claret that was
on the wane, or praise a bottle of Burgundy that he knew was
pricked.

Little things affect little minds.  Lord Marney rose in no
very good humour; he was kept at the station, which aggravated
his spleen.  During his journey on the railroad he spoke
little, and though he more than once laboured to get up a
controversy he was unable, for Lady Marney, who rather dreaded
her dull home, and was not yet in a tone of mind that could
hail the presence of the little Poinsett as full compensation
for the brilliant circle of Mowbray, replied in amiable
monosyllables, and Egremont himself in austere ones, for he
was musing over Sybil Gerard and a thousand things as wild and
sweet.

Everything went wrong this day.  Even Captain Grouse was not
at the Abbey to welcome them back.  He was playing in a
cricket match, Marney against Marham.  Nothing else would have
induced him to be absent.  So it happened that the three
fellow-travellers had to dine together, utterly weary of
themselves and of each other.  Captain Grouse was never more
wanted; he would have amused Lord Marney, relieved his wife
and brother, reported all that had been said and done in their
neighbourhood during their absence, introduced a new tone, and
effected a happy diversion.  Leaving Mowbray, detained at the
station, Grouse away, some disagreeable letters, or letters
which an ill-humoured man chooses to esteem disagreeable,
seemed to announce a climax.  Lord Marney ordered the dinner
to be served in the small dining-room, which was contiguous to
a saloon in which Lady Marney, when they were alone, generally
passed the evening.

The dinner was silent and sombre; happily it was also short.
Lord Marney tasted several dishes, ate of none; found fault
with his own claret, though the butler had given him a choice
bottle; praised Lord Mowbray's, wondered where he got it, "all
the wines at Mowbray were good;" then for the twentieth time
wondered what could have induced Grouse to fix the cricket
match the day he returned home, though he chose to forget that
he had never communicated to Grouse even the probable day on
which he might be expected.

As for Egremont it must be admitted that he was scarcely in a
more contented mood than his brother, though he had not such
insufficient cause for his dark humours.  In quitting Mowbray,
he had quitted something else than merely an agreeable circle:
enough had happened in that visit to stir up the deep recesses
of his heart, and to prompt him to investigate in an unusual
spirit the cause and attributes of his position.  He had found
a letter on his return to the Abbey, not calculated to dispel
these somewhat morbid feelings; a letter from his agent,
urging the settlement of his election accounts, the primary
cause of his visit to his brother.

Lady Marney left the dining-room; the brothers were alone.
Lord Marney filled a bumper, which he drank off rapidly,
pushed the bottle to his brother, and then said again, "What a
cursed bore it is that Grouse is not here."

"Well, I cannot say, George, that I particularly miss the
presence of Captain Grouse," said his brother.

Lord Marney looked at Egremont pugnaciously, and then
observed, "Grouse is a capital fellow; one is never dull when
Grouse is here."

"Well, for my part," said Egremont, "I do not much admire that
amusement which is dependent on the efforts of hangers-on."

"Grouse is no more a hanger-on than any one else," said Lord
Marney, rather fiercely.

"Perhaps not," said Egremont quietly; "I am no judge of such
sort of people."

"I should like to know what you are a judge of; certainly not
of making yourself agreeable to young ladies.  Arabella cannot
he particularly charmed with the result of your visit to
Mowbray, as far as Lady Joan is concerned, Arabella's most
intimate friend by the bye.  If for no other reason, you ought
to have paid her more attention."

"I cannot pay attention unless I am attracted," said Egremont;
"I have not the ever-ready talent of your friend, Captain
Grouse."

"I do not know what you mean by my friend Captain Grouse.
Captain Grouse is no more my friend than your friend.  One
must have people about the house to do a thousand things which
one cannot do oneself, and which one cannot trust to servants,
and Grouse does all this capitally."

"Exactly; he is just what I said, a capital hanger-on if you
like, but still a hanger-on."

"Well, and what then!  Suppose he is a hanger-on; may I not
have hangers-on as well as any other man?"

"Of course you may; but I am not bound to regret their
absence."

"Who said you were?  But I will regret their absence, if I
choose.  And I regret the absence of Grouse, regret it very
much; and if he did happen to be inextricably engaged in this
unfortunate match, I say, and you may contradict me if you
please, that he ought to have taken care that Slimsey dined
here, to tell me all that had happened."

"I am very glad he omitted to do so," said Egremont; "I prefer
Grouse to Slimsey."

"I dare say you do," said Lord Marney, filling his glass and
looking very black; "you would like, I have no doubt, to see a
fine gentleman-saint, like your friend Mr St Lys, at Marney,
preaching in cottages, filling the people with discontent,
lecturing me about low wages, soliciting plots of grounds for
new churches, and inveigling Arabella into subscriptions to
painted windows."

"I certainly should like to see a man like Aubrey St Lys at
Marney," said Egremont quietly, but rather doggedly.

"And if he were here, I would soon see who should be master,"
said Lord Marney; "I would not succumb like Mowbray.  One
might as well have a jesuit in the house at once."

"I dare say St Lys would care very little about entering your
house," said Egremont.  "I know it was with great reluctance
that he ever came to Mowbray Castle."

"I dare say; very great reluctance indeed.  And very reluctant
he was, I make no doubt, to sit next to Lady Maud.  I wonder
he does not fly higher, and preach to Lady Joan; but she is
too sensible a woman for such fanatical tricks."

"St Lys thinks it his duty to enter all societies.  That is
the reason why he goes to Mowbray Castle, as well as to the
squalid courts and cellars of the town.  He takes care that
those who are clad in purple and fine linen shall know the
state of their neighbours.  They cannot at least plead
ignorance for the nonfulfilment of their duty.  Before St
Lys's time, the family at Mowbray Castle might as well have
not existed, as far as benefiting their miserable vicinage.
It would be well perhaps for other districts not less
wretched, and for other families as high and favoured as the
Mowbrays, if there were a Mr St Lys on the spot instead of a
Mr Slimsey."

"I suppose that is meant for a cut," said Lord Marney; "but I
wish the people were as well off in every part of the country
as they are on my estate.  They get here their eight shillings
a week, always at least seven, and every hand is at this
moment in employ, except a parcel of scoundrels who prefer
woodstealing and poaching, and who would prefer wood-stealing
and poaching if you gave them double the wages.  The rate of
wages is nothing: certainty is the thing; and every man at
Marney may he sure of his seven shillings a-week for at least
nine months in the year; and for the other three, they can go
to the House, and a very proper place for them; it is heated
with hot air, and has every comfort.  Even Marney Abbey is not
heated with hot air.  I have often thought of it; it makes me
mad sometimes to think of those lazy, pampered menials passing
their lives with their backs to a great roaring fire; but I am
afraid of the flues."

"I wonder, talking of fires, that you are not more afraid of
burning ricks," said Egremont.

"It's an infernal lie," said Lord Marney, very violently.

"What is?" said Egremont.

"That there is any incendiarism in this neighbourhood."

"Why, there was a fire the day after I came."

"That had nothing to do with wages; it was an accident.  I
examined into it myself; so did Grouse, so did Slimsey; I sent
them about everywhere.  I told them I was sure the fire was
purely accidental, and to go and see about it; and they came
back and agreed that it was purely accidental."

"I dare say they did," said Egremont; "but no one has
discovered the accident."

"For my part, I believe it was spontaneous combustion," said
Lord Marney.

"That is a satisfactory solution." said Egremont, "but for my
part, the fire being a fact, and it being painfully notorious
that the people of Marney--"

"Well, sir, the people of Marney"--said his lordship fiercely.

"Are without question the most miserable population in the
county."

"Did Mr St Lys tell you that?" interrupted Lord Marney, white
with rage.

"No, not Mr Lys, but one better acquainted with the
neighbourhood."

"I'll know your informant's name," said Lord Marney with
energy.

"My informant was a woman," said Egremont.

"Lady Maud, I suppose; second-hand from Mr St Lys."

"Mv informant was a woman, and one of the people," said
Egremont.

"Some poacher's drab!  I don't care what women say, high or
low, they always exaggerate."

"The misery of a family who live upon seven or even eight
shillings a-week can scarcely be exaggerated."

"What should you know about it?  Did you ever live on seven or
eight shillings a-week?  What can you know about the people
who pass your time at London clubs or in fine country houses?
I suppose you want the people to live as they do at a house
dinner at Boodle's.  I say that a family can live very well on
seven shillings a-week, and on eight shillings very well
indeed.  The poor are very well off,at least the agricultural
poor, very well off indeed.  Their incomes are certain, that
is a great point, and they have no cares, no anxieties; they
always have a resource, they always have the House.  People
without cares do not require as much food as those whose life
entails anxieties.  See how long they live!  Compare the rate
of mortality among them with that of the manufacturing
districts.  Incendiarism indeed!  If there had been a proper
rural police, such a thing as incendiarism would never have
been heard of!"

There was a pause.  Lord Marney dashed off another bumper;
Egremont sipped his wine.  At length he said, "This argument
made me forget the principal reason, George, why I am glad
that we are alone together to-day.  I am sorry to bore you,
but I am bored myself deucedly.  I find a letter from my
agent.  These election accounts must be settled."

"Why, I thought they were settled."

"How do you mean?"

"I thought my mother had given you a thousand pounds."

"No doubt of that, but that was long ago disposed of."

"In my opinion quite enough for a seat in these times.
Instead of paying to get into Parliament, a man ought to be
paid for entering it."

"There may be a good deal in what you say," said Egremont;
"but it is too late to take that view of the business.  The
expense has been incurred and must be met."

"I don't see that," said Lord Marney, "we have paid one
thousand pounds and there is a balance unsettled.  When was
there ever a contest without a balance being unsettled?  I
remember hearing my father often say that when he stood for
this county, our grandfather paid more than a hundred thousand
pounds, and yet I know to this day there are accounts
unsettled.  Regularly every year I receive anonymous letters
threatening me with fearful punishment if I don't pay one
hundred and fifty pounds for a breakfast at the Jolly
Tinkers."

"You jest: the matter indeed requires a serious vein.  I wish
these accounts to be settled at once."

"And I should like to know where the funds are to come from!
I have none.  The quantity of barns I am building now is
something tremendous!  Then this rage for draining; it would
dry up any purse.  What think you of two million tiles this
year?  And rents,--to keep up which we are making these awful
sacrifices--they are merely nominal, or soon will be.  They
never will be satisfied till they have touched the land.  That
is clear to me.  I am prepared for a reduction of five-and-
twenty per cent; if the corn laws are touched, it can't be
less than that.  My mother ought to take it into consideration
and reduce her jointure accordingly.  But I dare say she will
not; people are so selfish; particularly as she has given you
this thousand pounds, which in fact after all comes out of my
pocket."

"All this you have said to me before.  What does it mean?  I
fought this battle at the instigation of the family, from no
feeling of my own.  You are the head of the family and you
were consulted on the step.  Unless I had concluded that it
was with your sanction, I certainly should not have made my
appearance on the hustings."

"I am very glad you did though," said Lord Marney; "Parliament
is a great point for our class: in these days especially, more
even than in the old time.  I was truly rejoiced at your
success, and it mortified the whigs about us most
confoundedly.  Some people thought there was only one family
in the world to have their Richmond or their Malton.  Getting
you in for the old borough was really a coup."

"Well now, to retain our interest," said Egremont, "quick
payment of our expenses is the most efficient way, believe
me."

"You have got six years, perhaps seven," said Lord Marney,
"and long before that I hope to find you the husband of Lady
Joan Fitz-Warene."

"I do not wish to connect the two contingencies," said
Egremont firmly.

"They are inseparable," said Lord Marney.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I think this pedantic acquittance of an
electioneering account is in the highest degree ridiculous,
and that I cannot interfere in it.  The legal expenses are you
say paid; and if they were not, I should feel myself bound, as
the head of the family, to defray them, but I can go no
further.  I cannot bring myself to sanction an expenditure for
certainly very unnecessary, perhaps, and I much fear it, for
illegal and very immoral purposes."

"That really is your determination?"

"After the most mature reflection, prompted by a sincere
solicitude for your benefit."

"Well, George, I have often suspected it, but now I feel quite
persuaded, that you are really the greatest humbug that ever
existed."

"Abuse is not argument, Mr Egremont."

"You are beneath abuse, as you are beneath every sentiment but
one, which I most entirely feel," and Egremont rose from the
table.

"You may thank your own obstinacy and conceit," said Lord
Marney.  "I took you to Mowbray Castle, and the cards were in
your own hands if you chose to play them."

"You have interfered with me once before on such a subject.
Lord Marney," said Egremont, with a kindling eye and a cheek
pallid with rage.

"You had better not say that again," said Lord Marney in a
tone of menace.

"Why not?" asked Egremont fiercely.  "Who and what are you to
dare to address me thus?"

"I am your elder brother, sir, whose relationship to you is
your only claim to the consideration of society."

"A curse on the society that has fashioned such claims." said
Egremont in an heightened tone--"claims founded in
selfishness, cruelty, and fraud, and leading to
demoralization, misery, and crime."

"Claims which I will make you respect, at least in this house,
sir," said Lord Marney, springing from his chair.

"Touch me at your peril!" exclaimed Egremont, "or I will
forget you are my mother's son, and cleave you to the ground.
You have been the blight of my life; you stole from me my
bride, and now you would rob me of my honour."

"Liar and villain!" exclaimed Lord Marney, darting forward:
but at this moment his wife rushed into the apartment and
clung to him.  "For heaven's sake," she exclaimed, "What is
all this?  George, Charles, dearest George!"

"Let me go, Arabella."

"Let him come on."

But Lady Marney gave a piercing shriek, and held out her arms
to keep the brothers apart.  A sound was heard at the other
door; there was nothing in the world that Lord Marney dreaded
so much as that his servants should witness a domestic scene.
He sprang forward to the door to prevent any one entering;
partially opening it, he said Lady Marney was unwell and
desired her maid; returning, he found Arabella insensible on
the ground, and Egremont vanished!




Book 3 Chapter 3



It was a wet morning; there had been a heavy rain since dawn,
which impelled by a gusty south-wester came driving on a crowd
of women and girls who were assembled before the door of a
still unclosed shop.  Some protected themselves with
umbrellas; some sought shelter beneath a row of old elms that
grew alongside the canal that fronted the house.
Notwithstanding the weather, the clack of tongues was
incessant.

"I thought I saw the wicket of the yard gates open," said a
woman.

"So did I," said her neighbour; "but it was shut again
immediately."

"It was only Master Joseph," said a third.  "He likes to see
us getting wet through."

"If they would only let us into the yard and get under one of
the workshop sheds, as they do at Simmon's," said another.

"You may well say Simmon's, Mrs Page; I only wish my master
served in his field."

"I have been here since half-past four, Mrs Grigsby, with this
chilt at my breast all the time.  It's three miles for me
here, and the same back, and unless I get the first turn, how
are my poor boys to find their dinner ready when they come out
of the pit?"

"A very true word, Mrs Page; and by this token, that last
Thursday I was here by half-past eleven, certainly afore noon,
having only called at my mother-in-law's in the way, and it
was eight o'clock before I got home.  Ah! it's cruel work, is
the tommy shop."

"How d'ye do neighbour Prance?" said a comely dame with a
large white basket, "And how's your good man?  They was saying
at Belfy's he had changed his service.  I hear there's a new
butty in Mr Parker's field; but the old doggy kept on; so I
always thought, he was always a favourite, and they do say
measured the stints very fair.  And what do you hear bacon is
in town?  They do tell me only sixpence and real home-cured.
I wonder Diggs has the face to be selling still at nine-pence,
and so very green!  I think I see Dame Toddles; how wonderful
she do wear!  What are you doing here, little dear; very young
to fetch tommy; keeping place for mother, eh! that's a good
girl; she'd do well to be here soon, for I think the strike's
on eight.  Diggs is sticking it on yellow soap very terrible.
What do you think--Ah! the doors are going to open.  No--a
false alarm."

"How fare you neighbour?" said a pale young woman carrying an
infant to the comely dame.  "Here's an awful crowd, surely.
The women will be fighting and tearing to get in, I guess.  I
be much afeard."

"Well, 'first come, first served,' all the world over," said
the comely dame.  "And you must put a good heart on the
business and tie your bonnet.  I dare guess there are not much
less than two hundred here.  It's grand tommy day you know.
And for my part I don't care so much for a good squeedge; one
sees so many faces one knows."

"The cheese here at sixpence is pretty tidy," said a crone to
her companion; "but you may get as good in town for
fourpence."

"What I complain is the weights," replied her companion.  "I
weighed my pound of butter bought last tommy day, and it was
two penny pieces too light.  Indeed! I have been, in my time,
to all the shops about here, for the lads or their father, but
never knew tommy so bad as this.  I have two children at home
ill from their flour; I have been very poorly myself; one is
used to a little white clay, but when they lay it on thick,
it's very grave."

"Are your girls in the pit?"

"No; we strive to keep them out, and my man has gone scores of
days on bread and water for that purpose; and if we were not
forced to take so much tommy, one might manage--but tommy will
beat anything; Health first, and honesty afterwards, that's my
say."

"Well, for my part," said the crone, "meat's my grievance: all
the best bits go to the butties, and the pieces with bone in
are chopped off for the colliers' wives."

"Dame, when will the door open?" asked a very little palefaced
boy.  I have been here all this morn, and never broke my
fast."

"And what do you want, chilt?"

I want a loaf for mother; but I don't feel I shall ever get
home again, I'm all in a way so dizzy."

"Liza Gray," said a woman with black beady eyes and a red
nose, speaking in a sharp voice and rushing up to a pretty
slatternly woman in a straw bonnet with a dirty fine ribbon,
and a babe at her breast; "you know the person I'm looking
for."

"Well, Mrs Mullins, and how do you do?" she replied, in a
sweet sawney tone."

"How do you do, indeed!  How are people to do in these bad
times?"

"They is indeed hard Mrs Mullins.  If you could see my tommy
book!  How I wish I knew figures!  Made up as of last Thursday
night by that little divil, Master Joe Diggs.  He has stuck it
in here and stuck it in there, till it makes one all of a-
maze.  I'm sure I never had the things; and my man is out of
all patience, and says I can no more keep house than a natural
born."

"My man is a-wanting to see your man," said Mrs Mullins, with
a flashing eye; "and you know what about."

"And very natural, too," said Liza Gray; "but how are we to
pay the money we owe him, with such a tommy-book as this, good
neighbour Mullins?"

"We're as poor as our neighbours Mrs Gray; and if we are not
paid, we must borrow.  It's a scarlet shame to go to the spout
because money lent to a friend is not to be found.  You had it
in your need, Liza Gray, and we want it in our need; and have
it I will, Liza Gray."

"Hush, hush!" said Liza Gray; "don't wake the little-un, for
she is very fretful."

"I will have the five shillings, or I will have as good," said
Mrs Mullins.

"Hush, hush, neighbour; now, I'll tell you--you shall have it;
but yet a little time.  This is great tommy-day, and settles
our reckoning for five weeks; but my man may have a draw after
to-morrow, and he shall draw five shillings, and give you
half."

"And the other half?" said Mrs Mullins.

"Ah! the other half," said Liza Gray, with a sigh.  "Well,
then--we shall have a death in our family soon--this poor babe
can't struggle on much longer; it belongs to two burial clubs-
-that will be three pounds from each, and after the drink and
the funeral, there will be enough to pay all our debts and put
us all square."

The doors of Mr Diggs' tommy-shop opened.  The rush was like
the advance into the pit of a theatre when the drama existed;
pushing, squeezing, fighting, tearing, shrieking.  On a high
seat, guarded by rails from all contact, sate Mr Diggs senior,
with a bland smile on his sanctified countenance, a pen behind
his ear, and recommending his constrained customers in honeyed
tones to be patient and orderly.  Behind the substantial
counter which was an impregnable fortification, was his
popular son, Master Joseph; a short, ill-favoured cur, with a
spirit of vulgar oppression and malicious mischief stamped on
his visage.  His black, greasy lank hair, his pug nose, his
coarse red face, and his projecting tusks, contrasted with the
mild and lengthened countenance of his father, who looked very
much like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

For the first five minutes Master Joseph Diggs did nothing but
blaspheme and swear at his customers, occasionally leaning
over the counter and cuffing the women in the van or lugging
some girl by the hair.

"I was first, Master Joseph," said a woman eagerly.

"No; I was," said another.

"I was here," said the first, "as the clock struck four, and
seated myself on the steps, because I must be home early; my
husband is hurt in the knee."

"If you were first, you shall be helped last." said Master
Joseph, "to reward you for your pains!" and he began taking
the orders of the other woman.

"O! Lord have mercy on me!" said the disappointed woman; "and
I got up in the middle of the night for this!"

"More fool you!  And what you came for I am sure I don't
know," said Master Joseph; "for you have a pretty long figure
against you, I can tell you that."

"I declare most solemnly--" said the woman.

"Don't make a brawling here," said Master Joseph, "or I'll
jump over this here counter and knock you down, like nothing.
What did you say, woman?  are you deaf?  what did you say?
how much best tea do you want?"

"I don't want any, sir."

"You never want best tea; you must take three ounces of best
tea, or you shan't have nothing.  If you say another word,
I'll put you down four.  You tall gal, what's your name, you
keep back there, or I'll fetch you such a cut as'll keep you
at home till next reckoning.  Cuss you, you old fool, do you
think I am to be kept all day while you are mumbling here?
Who's pushing on there?  I see you, Mrs Page.  Won't there be
a black mark against you?  Oh! its Mrs Prance, is it?  Father,
put down Mrs Prance for a peck of flour.  I'll have order
here.  You think the last bacon a little too fat: oh! you do,
ma'am, do you?  I'll take care you shan't complain in futur; I
likes to please my customers.  There's a very nice flitch
hanging up in the engine-room; the men wanted some rust for
the machinery; you shall have a slice of that; and we'll say
ten-pence a pound, high-dried, and wery lean--will that
satisfy you!

Order there, order; you cussed women, order, or I'll be among
you.  And if I just do jump over this here counter, won't I
let fly right and left?  Speak out, you ideot! do you think I
can hear your muttering in this Babel?  Cuss them; I'll keep
them quiet," and so he took up a yard measure, and leaning
over the counter, hit right and left.

"Oh! you little monster!" exclaimed a woman, "you have put out
my babby's eye."

There was a murmur; almost a groan.  "Whose baby's hurt?"
asked Master Joseph in a softened tone.

"Mine, sir," said an indignant voice; "Mary Church."

"Oh! Mary Church, is it!" said the malicious imp, "then I'll
put Mary Church down for half a pound of best arrow-root;
that's the finest thing in the world for babbies, and will
cure you of bringing your cussed monkeys here, as if you all
thought our shop was a hinfant school.

"Where's your book, Susan Travers!  Left at home!  Then you
may go and fetch it.  No books, no tommy.  You are Jones's
wife, are you?  Ticket for three and sixpence out of eighteen
shillings wages.  Is this the only ticket you have brought?
There's your money; and you may tell your husband he need not
take his coat off again to go down our shaft.  He must think
us cussed fools!  Tell him I hope he has got plenty of money
to travel into Wales, for he won't have no work in England
again, or my name ayn't Diggs.  Who's pushing there?  I'll be
among you; I'll close the shop.  If I do get hold of some of
you cussed women, you shan't forget it.  If anybody will tell
me who is pushing there, they shall have their bacon for
seven-pence.  Will nobody have bacon for seven-pence?  Leagued
together, eh!  Then everybody shall have their bacon for ten-
pence.  Two can play at that.  Push again, and I'll be among
you," said the infuriated little tyrant.  But the waving of
the multitude, impatient, and annoyed by the weather, was not
to be stilled; the movement could not be regulated; the shop
was in commotion; and Master Joseph Diggs, losing all
patience, jumped on the counter, and amid the shrieks of the
women, sprang into the crowd.  Two women fainted; others cried
for their bonnets; others bemoaned their aprons; nothing
however deterred Diggs, who kicked and cuffed and cursed in
every quarter, and gave none.  At last there was a general
scream of horror, and a cry of "a boy killed."

The senior Diggs, who, from his eminence, had hitherto viewed
the scene with unruffled complacency; who, in fact, derived
from these not unusual exhibitions the same agreeable
excitement which a Roman emperor might have received from the
combats of the circus; began to think that affairs were
growing serious, and rose to counsel order and enforce amiable
dispositions.  Even Master Joseph was quelled by that mild
voice which would have become Augustus.  It appeared to he
quite true that a boy was dead.  It was the little boy who,
sent to get a loaf for his mother, had complained before the
shop was opened of his fainting energies.  He had fallen in
the fray, and it was thought, to use the phrase of the comely
dame who tried to rescue him, "that he was quite smothered."

They carried him out of the shop; the perspiration poured off
him; he had no pulse.  He had no friends there.  "I'll stand
by the body," said the comely dame, "though I lose my turn."

At this moment, Stephen Morley, for the reader has doubtless
discovered that the stranger who held colloquy with the
colliers was the friend of Walter Gerard, arrived at the
tommy-shop, which was about half-way between the house where
he had passed the night and Wodgate.  He stopped, inquired,
and being a man of science and some skill, decided, after
examining the poor boy, that life was not extinct.  Taking the
elder Diggs aside, he said, "I am the editor of the Mowbray
Phalanx; I will not speak to you before these people; but I
tell you fairly you and your son have been represented to me
as oppressors of the people.  Will it be my lot to report this
death and comment on it?  I trust not.  There is yet time and
hope."

"What is to be done, sir," inquired the alarmed Mr Diggs; "a
fellow-creature in this condition--"

"Dont talk but act," said Morley.  "There is no time to be
lost.  The boy must be taken up stairs and put to bed; a warm
bed, in one of your best rooms, with every comfort.  I am
pressed for business, but I will wait and watch over him till
the crisis is passed.  Come, let you and I take him in our
arms, and carry him up stairs through your private door.
Every minute is precious." And so saying, Morley and the elder
Diggs entered the house.




Book 3 Chapter 4



Wodgate, or Wogate, as it was called on the map, was a
district that in old days had been consecrated to Woden, and
which appeared destined through successive ages to retain its
heathen character.  At the beginning of the revolutionary war,
Wodgate was a sort of squatting district of the great mining
region to which it was contiguous, a place where adventurers
in the industry which was rapidly developing, settled
themselves; for though the great veins of coal and ironstone
cropped up, as they phrase it, before they reached this bare
and barren land, and it was thus deficient in those mineral
and metallic treasures which had enriched its neighbourhood,
Wodgate had advantages of its own, and of a kind which touch
the fancy of the lawless.  It was land without an owner; no
one claimed any manorial right over it; they could build
cottages without paying rent.  It was a district recognized by
no parish; so there were no tithes, and no meddlesome
supervision.  It abounded in fuel which cost nothing, for
though the veins were not worth working as a source of mining
profit, the soil of Wodgate was similar in its superficial
character to that of the country around.  So a population
gathered, and rapidly increased, in the ugliest spot in
England, to which neither Nature nor art had contributed a
single charm; where a tree could not be seen, a flower was
unknown, where there was neither belfry nor steeple, nor a
single sight or sound that could soften the heart or humanise
the mind.

Whatever may have been the cause, whether, as not unlikely,
the original squatters brought with them some traditionary
skill, or whether their isolated and unchequered existence
concentrated their energies on their craft, the fact is
certain, that the inhabitants of Wodgate early acquired a
celebrity as skilful workmen.  This reputation so much
increased, and in time spread so far, that for more than a
quarter of a century, both in their skill and the economy of
their labour, they have been unmatched throughout the country.
As manufacturers of ironmongery, they carry the palm from the
whole district; as founders of brass and workers of steel,
they fear none; while as nailers and locksmiths, their fame
has spread even to the European markets, whither their most
skilful workmen have frequently been invited.

Invited in vain!  No wages can tempt the Wodgate man from his
native home, that squatters' seat which soon assumed the form
of a large village, and then in turn soon expanded into a
town, and at the present moment numbers its population by
swarming thousands, lodged in the most miserable tenements in
the most hideous burgh in the ugliest country in the world.

But it has its enduring spell.  Notwithstanding the spread of
its civic prosperity, it has lost none of the characteristics
of its original society; on the contrary it has zealously
preserved them.  There are no landlords, head-lessees, main-
masters, or butties in Wodgate.  No church there has yet
raised its spire; and as if the jealous spirit of Woden still
haunted his ancient temple, even the conventicle scarcely
dares show its humble front in some obscure corner.  There is
no municipality, no magistrate, no local acts, no vestries, no
schools of any kind.  The streets are never cleaned; every man
lights his own house; nor does any one know anything except
his business.

More than this, at Wodgate a factory or large establishment of
any kind is unknown.  Here Labour reigns supreme.  Its
division indeed is favoured by their manners, but the
interference or influence of mere capital is instantly
resisted.  The business of Wodgate is carried on by master
workmen in their own houses, each of whom possesses an
unlimited number of what they call apprentices, by whom their
affairs are principally conducted, and whom they treat as the
Mamlouks treated the Egyptians.

These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor
is it possible to conceive one apparently more oppressive.
They are ruthless tyrants; they habitually inflict upon their
subjects punishments more grievous than the slave population
of our colonies were ever visited with; not content with
beating them with sticks or flogging them with knotted ropes,
they are in the habit of felling them with hammers, or cutting
their heads open with a file or lock.  The most usual
punishment however, or rather stimulus to increase exertion,
is to pull an apprentice's ears till they run with blood.
These youths too are worked for sixteen and even twenty hours
a day; they are often sold by one master to another; they are
fed on carrion, and they sleep in lofts or cellars: yet
whether it be that they are hardened by brutality, and really
unconscious of their degradation and unusual sufferings, or
whether they are supported by the belief that their day to be
masters and oppressors will surely arrive, the aristocracy of
Wodgate is by no means so unpopular as the aristocracy of most
other places.

In the first place it is a real aristocracy; it is privileged,
but it does something for its privileges.  It is distinguished
from the main body not merely by name.  It is the most knowing
class at Wodgate; it possesses indeed in its way complete
knowledge; and it imparts in its manner a certain quantity of
it to those whom it guides.  Thus it is an aristocracy that
leads, and therefore a fact.  Moreover the social system of
Wodgate is not an unvarying course of infinite toil.  Their
plan is to work hard, but not always.  They seldom exceed four
days of labour in the week.  On Sunday the masters begin to
drink; for the apprentices there is dog-fighting without any
stint.  On Monday and Tuesday the whole population of Wodgate
is drunk; of all stations, ages, and sexes; even babes, who
should be at the breast; for they are drammed with Godfrey's
cordial.  Here is relaxation, excitement; if less vice
otherwise than might be at first anticipated, we must remember
that excesses are checked by poverty of blood and constant
exhaustion.  Scanty food and hard labour are in their way, if
not exactly moralists, a tolerably good police.

There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control.  It is
not that the people are immoral, for immorality implies some
forethought; or ignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they
are animals; unconscious; their minds a blank; and their worst
actions only the impulse of a gross or savage instinct.  There
are many in this town who are ignorant of their very names;
very few who can spell them.  It is rare that you meet with a
young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who
has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower.  Ask them
the name of their sovereign, and they will give you an
unmeaning stare; ask them the name of their religion, and they
will laugh: who rules them on earth, or who can save them in
heaven, are alike mysteries to them.

Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle.
Wodgate had the appearance of a vast squalid suburb.  As you
advanced, leaving behind you long lines of little dingy
tenements, with infants lying about the road, you expected
every moment to emerge into some streets and encounter
buildings bearing some correspondence in their size and
comfort to the considerable population swarming and busied
around you.  Nothing of the kind.  There were no public
buildings of any sort; no churches, chapels, town-hall,
institute, theatre; and the principal streets in the heart of
the town in which were situate the coarse and grimy shops,
though formed by houses of a greater elevation than the
preceding, were equally narrow and if possible more dirty.  At
every fourth or fifth house, alleys seldom above a yard wide
and streaming with filth, opened out of the street.  These
were crowded with dwellings of various size, while from the
principal court often branched out a number of smaller alleys
or rather narrow passages, than which nothing can be conceived
more close and squalid and obscure.  Here during the days of
business, the sound of the hammer and the file never ceased,
amid gutters of abomination and piles of foulness and stagnant
pools of filth; reservoirs of leprosy and plague, whose
exhalations were sufficient to taint the atmosphere of the
whole kingdom and fill the country with fever and pestilence.

A lank and haggard youth, ricketty and smoke-dried, and black
with his craft, was sitting on the threshold of a miserable
hovel and working at the file.  Behind him stood a stunted and
meagre girl, with a back like a grasshopper; a deformity
occasioned by the displacement of the bladebone, and prevalent
among the girls of Wodgate from the cramping posture of their
usual toil.  Her long melancholy visage and vacant stare at
Morley as he passed, attracted his notice, and it occurring to
him that the opportunity was convenient to enquire something
of the individual of whom he was in search, he stopped and
addressed the workman:

"Do you happen to know friend a person here or hereabouts by
name Hatton?"

"Hatton!" said the youth looking up with a grin, yet still
continuing his labour, "I should think I did!"

"Well, that's fortunate; you can tell me something about him?"

"Do you see this here?" said the youth still grinning, and
letting the file drop from his distorted and knotty hand, he
pointed to a deep scar that crossed his forehead, "he did
that."

"An accident?"

"Very like.  An accident that often happened.  I should like
to have a crown for every time he has cut my head open.  He
cut it open once with a key and twice with a lock; he knocked
the corner of a lock into my head twice, once with a bolt and
once with a shut; you know what that is; the thing what runs
into the staple.  He hit me on the head with a hammer once.
That was a blow!  I fell away that time.  When I came to,
master had stopped the blood with some fur off his hat.  I had
to go on with my work immediately; master said I should do my
stint if I worked till twelve o'clock at night.  Many's the
ash stick he has broken on my body; sometimes the weals
remained on me for a-week; he cut my eyelid open once with a
nutstick; cut a regular hole in it, and it bled all over the
files I was working at.  He has pulled my ears sometimes that
I thought they must come off in his hand.  But all this was a
mere nothin to this here cut; that was serous; and if I hadn't
got thro' that they do say there must have been a crowner's
quest; though I think that gammon, tor old Tugsford did for
one of his prentices, and the body was never found.  And now
you ask me if I know Hatton?  I should think I did!"  And the
lank, haggard youth laughed merrily, as if he had been
recounting a series of the happiest adventures.

"But is there no redress for such iniquitous oppression," said
Morley, who had listened with astonishment to this complacent
statement.  "Is there no magistrate to apply to?"

"No no," said the filer with an air of obvious pride, "we
don't have no magistrates at Wodgate.  We've got a constable,
and there was a prentice who coz his master laid it on, only
with a seat rod, went over to Ramborough and got a warrant.
He fetched the summons himself and giv it to the constable,
but he never served it.  That's why they has a constable
here."

"I am sorry," said Morley, "that I have affairs with such a
wretch as this Hatton."

"You'll find him a wery hearty sort of man," said the filer,
"if he don't hap to be in drink.  He's a little robustious
then, but take him all in all for a master, you may go further
and fare worse.

"What! this monster!"

"Lord bless you, it's his way, that's all, we be a queer set
here; but he has his pints.  Give him a lock to make, and you
won't have your box picked; he's wery lib'ral too in the
wittals.  Never had horse-flesh the whole time I was with him;
they has nothin' else at Tugsford's; never had no sick cow
except when meat was very dear.  He always put his face agin
still-born calves; he used to say he liked his boys to have
meat what was born alive and killed alive.  By which token
there never was any sheep what had bust in the head sold in
our court.  And then sometimes he would give us a treat of
fish, when it had been four or five days in town and not sold.
No, give the devil his due, say I.  There never was no want
for anything at meals with the Bishop, except time to eat them
in."

"And why do you call him the Bishop?"

"That's his name and authority; for he's the governor here
over all of us.  And it has always been so that Wodgate has
been governed by a bishop; because as we have no church, we
will have as good.  And by this token that this day sen'night,
the day my time was up, he married me to this here young lady.
She is of the Baptist school religion, and wanted us to be
tied by her clergyman, but all the lads that served their time
with me were married by the Bishop, and many a more, and I saw
no call to do no otherwise.  So he sprinkled some salt over a
gridiron, read "Our Father" backwards, and wrote our name in a
book: and we were spliced; but I didn't do it rashly, did I,
Suky, by the token that we had kept company for two years, and
there isn't a gal in all Wodgate what handles a file, like
Sue."

"And what is your name, my good fellow?"

"They call me Tummas, but I ayn't got no second name; but now
I am married I mean to take my wife's, for she has been
baptised, and so has got two."

"Yes sir," said the girl with the vacant face and the back
like a grasshopper; "I be a reg'lar born Christian and my
mother afore me, and that's what few gals in the Yard can say.
Thomas will take to it himself when work is slack; and he
believes now in our Lord and Saviour Pontius Pilate who was
crucified to save our sins; and in Moses, Goliath, and the
rest of the Apostles."

"Ah! me," thought Morley, "and could not they spare one
Missionary from Tahiti for their fellow countrymen at
Wodgate!"




Book 3 Chapter 5



The summer twilight had faded into sweet night; the young and
star-attended moon glittered like a sickle in the deep purple
sky; of all the luminous host, Hesperus alone was visible; and
a breeze, that bore the last embrace of the flowers by the
sun, moved languidly and fitfully over the still and odorous
earth.

The moonbeam fell upon the roof and garden of Gerard.  It
suffused the cottage with its brilliant light, except where
the dark depth of the embowered porch defied its entry.  All
around the beds of flowers and herbs spread sparkling and
defined.  You could trace the minutest walk; almost
distinguish every leaf.  Now and then there came a breath, and
the sweet-peas murmured in their sleep; or the roses rustled,
as if they were afraid they were about to be roused from their
lightsome dreams.  Farther on the fruit-trees caught the
splendour of the night; and looked like a troop of sultanas
taking their gardened air, when the eye of man could not
profane them, and laden with jewels.  There were apples that
rivalled rubies; pears of topaz tint: a whole paraphernalia of
plums, some purple as the amethyst, others blue and brilliant
as the sapphire; an emerald here, and now a golden drop that
gleamed like the yellow diamond of Gengis Khan.

Within--was the scene less fair?  A single lamp shed over the
chamber a soft and sufficient light.  The library of Stephen
Morley had been removed, but the place of his volumes had been
partly supplied, for the shelves were far from being empty.
Their contents were of no ordinary character: many volumes of
devotion, some of church history, one or two on ecclesiastical
art, several works of our elder dramatists, some good reprints
of our chronicles, and many folios of church music, which last
indeed amounted to a remarkable collection.  There was no
musical instrument however in the room of any kind, and the
only change in its furniture, since we last visited the room
of Gerard, was the presence of a long-backed chair of antique
form, most beautifully embroidered, and a portrait of a female
saint over the mantel-piece.  As for Gerard himself he sat
with his head leaning on his arm, which rested on the table,
while he listened with great interest to a book which was read
to him by his daughter, at whose feet lay the fiery and
faithful bloodhound.

"So you see, my father," said Sybil with animation, and
dropping her book which however her hand did not relinquish,
"even then all was not lost.  The stout earl retired beyond
the Trent, and years and reigns elapsed before this part of
the island accepted their laws and customs."

"I see," said her father, "and yet I cannot help wishing that
Harold--, Here the hound, hearing his name, suddenly rose and
looked at Gerard, who smiling, patted him and said, "We were
not talking of thee, good sir, but of thy great namesake; but
ne'er mind, a live dog they say is worth a dead king."

"Ah! why have we not such a man now," said Sybil, "to protect
the people!  Were I a prince I know no career that I should
deem so great."

"But Stephen says no," said Gerard: "he says that these great
men have never made use of us but as tools; and that the
people never can have their rights until they produce
competent champions from their own order."

"But then Stephen does not want to recall the past," said
Sybil with a kind of sigh; "he wishes to create the future."

"The past is a dream," said Gerard.

"And what is the future?" enquired Sybil.

"Alack! I know not; but I often wish the battle of Hastings
were to be fought over again and I was going to have a hand in
it."

"Ah! my father," said Sybil with a mournful smile, "there is
ever your fatal specific of physical force.  Even Stephen is
against physical force, with all his odd fancies."

"All very true," said Gerard smiling with good nature; "but
all the same when I was coming home a few days ago, and
stopped awhile on the bridge and chanced to see myself in the
stream, I could not help fancying that my Maker had fashioned
these limbs rather to hold a lance or draw a bow, than to
supervise a shuttle or a spindle."

"Yet with the shuttle and the spindle we may redeem our race,"
said Sybil with animation, "if we could only form the minds
that move those peaceful weapons.  Oh! my father, I will
believe that moral power is irresistible, or where are we to
look for hope?"

Gerard shook his head with his habitual sweet good-tempered
smile.  "Ah!" said he, "what can we do; they have got the
land, and the land governs the people.  The Norman knew that,
Sybil, as you just read.  If indeed we had our rights, one
might do something; but I don't know; I dare say if I had our
land again, I should be as bad as the rest."

"Oh! no, my father," exclaimed Sybil with energy, "never,
never!  Your thoughts would be as princely as your lot.  What
a leader of the people you would make!"

Harold sprang up suddenly and growled.

"Hush!" said Gerard; "some one knocks:" and he rose and left
the room.  Sybil heard voices and broken sentences: "You'll
excuse me"--"I take it kindly"--"So we are neighbours." And
then her father returned, ushering in a person and saying,
"Here is my friend Mr Franklin that I was speaking of, Sybil,
who is going to be our neighbour; down Harold, down!" and he
presented to his daughter the companion of Mr St Lys in that
visit to the Hand-loom weaver when she had herself met the
vicar of Mowbray.

Sybil rose, and letting her book drop gently on the table,
received Egremont with composure and native grace.  It is
civilization that makes us awkward, for it gives us an
uncertain position.  Perplexed, we take refuge in pretence;
and embarrassed, we seek a resource in affectation.  The
Bedouin and the Red Indian never lose their presence of mind;
and the wife of a peasant, when you enter her cottage, often
greets you with a propriety of mien which favourably contrasts
with your reception by some grand dame in some grand assembly,
meeting her guests alternately with a caricature of courtesy
or an exaggeradon of supercilious self-control.

"I dare say," said Egremont bowing to Sybil, "you have seen
our poor friend the weaver since we met there."

"The day I quitted Mowbray," said Sybil.  "They are not
without friends."

"Ah! you have met my daughter before."

"On a mission of grace," said Egremont.

"And I suppose you found the town not very pleasant, Mr
Franklin," continued Gerard.

"No; I could not stand it, the nights were so close.  Besides
I have a great accumulation of notes, and I fancied I could
reduce them into a report more efficiently in comparative
seclusion.  So I have got a room near here, with a little
garden, not so pretty as yours; but still a garden is
something; and if I want any additional information, why,
after all, Mowbray is only a walk."

"You say well and have done wisely.  Besides you have such
late hours in London, and hard work.  Some country air will do
you all the good in the world.  That gallery must be tiresome.
Do you use shorthand?"

"A sort of shorthand of my own," said Egremont.  "I trust a
good deal to my memory."

"Ah! you are young.  My daughter also has a wonderful memory.
For my own part, there are many things which I am not sorry to
forget."

"You see I took you at your word, neighbour," said Egremont.
"When one has been at work the whole day one feels a little
lonely towards night."

"Very true; and I dare say you find desk work sometimes very
dull; I never could make anything of it myself.  I can manage
a book well enough, if it be well written, and on points I
care for; but I would sooner listen than read any time," said
Gerard.  "Indeed I should be right glad to see the minstrel
and the storyteller going their rounds again.  It would be
easy after a day's work, when one has not, as I have now, a
good child to read to me."

"This volume?" said Egremont drawing his chair to the table
and looking at Sybil, who intimated assent by a nod.

"Ah! it's a fine book," said Gerard, "though on a sad
subject."

"The History of the Conquest of England by the Normans," said
Egremont, reading the title page on which also was written
"Ursula Trafford to Sybil Gerard."

"You know it?" said Sybil.

"Only by fame."

"Perhaps the subject may not interest you so much as it does
us," said Sybil.

"It must interest all and all alike," said her father; "for we
are divided between the conquerors and the conquered."

"But do not you think," said Egremont, "that such a
distinction has long ceased to exist?"

"In what degree?" asked Gerard.  "Many circumstances of
oppression have doubtless gradually disappeared: but that has
arisen from the change of manners, not from any political
recognition of their injustice.  The same course of time which
has removed many enormities, more shocking however to our
modern feelings than to those who devised and endured them,
has simultaneously removed many alleviating circumstances.  If
the mere baron's grasp be not so ruthless, the champion we
found in the church is no longer so ready.  The spirit of
Conquest has adapted itself to the changing circumstances of
ages, and however its results vary in form, in degree they are
much the same."

"But how do they show themselves?"

"In many circumstances, which concern many classes; but I
speak of those which touch my own order; and therefore I say
at once--in the degradation of the people."

"But are the people so degraded?"

"There is more serfdom in England now than at any time since
the Conquest.  I speak of what passes under my daily eyes when
I say.  that those who labour can as little choose or change
their masters now, as when they were born thralls.  There are
great bodies of the working classes of this country nearer the
condition of brutes, than they have been at any time since the
Conquest.  Indeed I see nothing to distinguish them from
brutes, except that their morals are inferior.  Incest and
infanticide are as common among them as among the lower
animals.  The domestic principle waxes weaker and weaker every
year in England: nor can we wonder at it, when there is no
comfort to cheer and no sentiment to hallow the Home."

"I was reading a work the other day," said Egremont, "that
statistically proved that the general condition of the people
was much better at this moment than it had been at any known
period of history."

"Ah! yes, I know that style of speculation," said Gerard;
"your gentleman who reminds you that a working man now has a
pair of cotton stockings, and that Harry the Eighth himself
was not as well off.  At any rate, the condition of classes
must be judged of by the age, and by their relation with each
other.  One need not dwell on that.  I deny the premises.  I
deny that the condition of the main body is better now than at
any other period of our history; that it is as good as it has
been at several.  I say, for instance, the people were better
clothed, better lodged, and better fed just before the war of
the Roses than they are at this moment.  We know how an
English peasant lived in those times: he eat flesh every day,
he never drank water, was well housed, and clothed in stout
woollens.  Nor are the Chronicles necessary to tell us this.
The acts of Parliament from the Plantagenets to the Tudors
teach us alike the price of provisions and the rate of wages;
and we see in a moment that the wages of those days brought as
much sustenance and comfort as a reasonable man could desire."

"I know how deeply you feel upon this subject," said Egremont
turning to Sybil.

"Indeed it is the only subject that ever engages my thought,"
she replied, "except one."

"And that one?"

"Is to see the people once more kneel before our blessed
Lady," replied Sybil.

"Look at the average term of life," said Gerard, coming
unintentionally to the relief of Egremont, who was a little
embarrassed.  "The average term of life in this district among
the working classes is seventeen.  What think you of that?  Of
the infants born in Mowbray, more than a moiety die before the
age of five."

"And yet," said Egremont, "in old days they had terrible
pestilences."

"But they touched all alike," said Gerard.  "We have more
pestilence now in England than we ever had, but it only
reaches the poor.  You never hear of it.  Why Typhus alone
takes every year from the dwellings of the artisan and peasant
a population equal to that of the whole county of
Westmoreland.  This goes on every year, but the
representatives of the conquerors are not touched: it is the
descendants of the conquered alone who are the victims."

"It sometimes seems to me," said Sybil despondingly, "that
nothing short of the descent of angels can save the people of
this kingdom."

"I sometimes think I hear a little bird," said Gerard, "who
sings that the long frost may yet break up.  I have a friend,
him of whom I was speaking to you the other day, who has his
remedies."

"But Stephen Morley does not believe in angels," said Sybil
with a sigh; "and I have no faith in his plan."

"He believes that God will help those who help themselves,"
said Gerard.

"And I believe," said Sybil, "that those only can help
themselves whom God helps."

All this time Egremont was sitting at the table, with the book
in his hand, gazing fitfully and occasionally with an air of
absence on its title-page, whereon was written the name of its
owner.  Suddenly he said "Sybil."

"Yes," said the daughter of Gerard, with an air of some
astonishment.

"I beg your pardon," said Egremont blushing; "I was reading
your name.  I thought I was reading it to myself.  Sybil
Gerard!  What a beautiful name is Sybil!"

"My mother's name," said Gerard; "and my grandame's name, and
a name I believe that has been about our hearth as long as our
race; and that's a very long time indeed," he added smiling,
"for we were tall men in King John's reign, as I have heard
say."

"Yours is indeed an old family."

"Ay, we have some English blood in our veins, though peasants
and the sons of peasants.  But there was one of us who drew a
bow at Azincourt; and I have heard greater things, but I
believe they are old wives' tales."

"At least we have nothing left," said Sybil, "but our old
faith; and that we have clung to through good report and evil
report."

"And now," said Gerard, "I rise with the lark, good neighbour
Franklin; but before you go, Sybil will sing to us a requiem
that I love: it stills the spirit before we sink into the
slumber which may this night be death, and which one day must
be."




Book 3 Chapter 6



A bloom was spread over the morning sky.  A soft golden light
bathed with its fresh beam the bosom of the valley, except
where a delicate haze, rather than a mist, still partially
lingered over the river, which yet occasionally gleamed and
sparkled in the sunshine.  A sort of shadowy lustre suffused
the landscape, which, though distinct, was mitigated in all
its features--the distant woods, the clumps of tall trees that
rose about the old grey bridge, the cottage chimneys that sent
their smoke into the blue still air, amid their clustering
orchards and garden of flowers and herbs.

Ah! what is there so fresh and joyous as a summer morn!  That
spring time of the day, when the brain is bright, and the
heart is brave; the season of daring and of hope; the
renovating hour!

Came forth from his cottage room the brother of Lord Marney,
to feel the vigorous bliss of life amid sunshiny gardens and
the voices of bees and birds.

"Ah! this is delicious!" he felt.  "This is existence!  Thank
God I am here; that I have quitted for ever that formal and
heartless Marney.  Were it not for my mother, I would remain
Mr Franklin for ever.  Would I were indeed a journalist;
provided I always had a mission to the vale of Mowbray.  Or
anything, so that I were ever here.  As companions,
independent of everything else, they are superior to any that
I have been used to.  Why do these persons interest me?  They
feel and they think: two habits that have quite gone out of
fashion, if ever they existed, among my friends.  And that
polish of manners, that studied and factitious refinement,
which is to compensate for the heartlessness or the stupidity
we are doomed to--is my host of last night deficient in that
refinement?  If he do want our conventional discipline, he has
a native breeding which far excels it.  I observe no word or
action which is not prompted by that fine feeling which is the
sure source of good taste.  This Gerard appears to me a real
genuine man; full of knowledge worked out by his own head;
with large yet wholesome sympathies; and a deuced deal better
educated than Lord de Mowbray or my brother--and they do
occasionally turn over a book, which is not the habit of our
set.

"And his daughter--ay, his daughter!  There is something
almost sublime about that young girl, yet strangely sweet
withal; a tone so lofty combined with such simplicity is very
rare.  For there is no affectation of enthusiasm about her;
nothing exaggerated, nothing rhapsodical.  Her dark eyes and
lustrous face, and the solemn sweetness of her thrilling
voice--they haunt me; they have haunted me from the first
moment I encountered her like a spirit amid the ruins of our
abbey.  And I am one of 'the family of sacrilege.'  If she
knew that!  And I am one of the conquering class she
denounces.  If also she knew that!  Ah! there is much to know!
Above all--the future.  Away! the tree of knowledge is the
tree of death.  I will have no thought that is not as bright
and lovely as this morn."

He went forth from his little garden, and strolled along the
road in the direction of the cottage of Gerard, which was
about three quarters of a mile distant.  You might see almost
as far; the sunshiny road a little winding and rising a very
slight ascent.  The cottage itself was hid by its trees.
While Egremont was still musing of one who lived under that
roof, he beheld in the distance Sybil.

She was springing along with a quick and airy step.  Her black
dress displayed her undulating and elastic figure.  Her little
foot bounded from the earth with a merry air.  A long rosary
hung at her side; and her head was partly covered with a hood
which descended just over her shoulders.  She seemed gay, for
Harold kept running before her with a frolicsome air, and then
returning to his mistress, danced about her, and almost
overpowered her with his gambols.

"I salute thee, holy sister," said Egremont.

"Oh! is not this a merry morn!" she exclaimed with a bright
and happy face.

"I feel it as you.  And whither do you go?"

"I go to the convent; I pay my first visit to our Superior
since I left them."

"Not very long ago," said Egremont, with a smile, and turning
with her.

"It seems so," said Sybil.

They walked on together; Sybil glad as the hour; noticing a
thousand cheerful sights, speaking to her dog in her ringing
voice, as he gambolled before them, or seized her garments in
his mouth, and ever and anon bounded away and then returned,
looking up in his mistress' face to inquire whether he had
been wanted in his absence.

"What a pity it is that your father's way each morning lies up
the valley," said Egremont; "he would be your companion to
Mowbray."

"Ah! but I am so happy that he has not to work in a town,"
said Sybil.  "He is not made to be cooped up in a hot factory
in a smoky street.  At least he labours among the woods and
waters.  And the Traffords are such good people!  So kind to
him and to all."

"You love your father very much."

She looked at him a little surprised; and then her sweet
serious face broke into a smile and she said, "And is that
strange?"

"I think not," said Egremont; "I am inclined to love him
myself."

"Ah! you win my heart," said Sybil, "when you praise him.  I
think that is the real reason why I like Stephen; for
otherwise he is always saying something with which I cannot
agree, which I disapprove; and yet he is so good to my
father!"

"You speak of Mr Morley--"

"Oh! we don't call him 'Mr'," said Sybil slightly laughing.

"I mean Stephen Morley," said Egremont recalling his position,
"whom I met in Marney Abbey.  He is very clever, is he not?"

"He is a great writer and a great student; and what he is he
has made himself.  I hear too that you follow the same
pursuit," said Sybil.

"But I am not a great writer or a great student," said
Egremont.

"Whatever you be, I trust," said Sybil, in a more serious
tone,
"that you will never employ the talents that God has given you
against the People."

"I have come here to learn something of their condition," said
Egremont.  "That is not to be done in a great city like
London.  We all of us live too much in a circle.  You will
assist me, I am sure," added Egremont; "your spirit will
animate me.  You told me last night that there was no other
subject, except one, which ever occupied your thoughts."

"Yes," said Sybil, "I have lived under two roofs, only two
roofs; and each has given me a great idea; the Convent and the
Cottage.  One has taught me the degradation of my faith, the
other of my race.  You should not wonder, therefore, that my
heart is concentrated on the Church and the People."

"But there are other ideas," said Egremont, "that might
equally be entitled to your thought."

"I feel these are enough," said Sybil; "too great, as it is,
for my brain."




Book 3 Chapter 7



At the end of a court in Wodgate, of rather larger dimensions
than usual in that town, was a high and many-windowed house,
of several stories in height, which had been added to it at
intervals.  It was in a most dilapidated state; the principal
part occupied as a nail-workshop, where a great number of
heavy iron machines were working in every room on each floor;
the building itself in so shattered a condition that every
part of it creaked and vibrated with their motion.  The
flooring was so broken that in many places one could look down
through the gaping and rotten planks, while the upper floors
from time to time had been shored up with props.

This was the Palace of the Bishop of Wodgate, and here with
his arms bare and black, he worked at those locks, which
defied any skeleton key that was not made by himself.  He was
a short, thickset man, powerfully made, with brawny arms
disproportionately short even for his height, and with a
countenance, as far as one could judge of a face so disfigured
by his grimy toil, rather brutal than savage.  His choice
apprentices, full of admiration and terror, worked about him;
lank and haggard youths, who never for an instant dared to
raise their dingy faces and lack-lustre eyes from their
ceaseless labour.  On each side of their master, seated on a
stool higher than the rest, was an urchin of not more than
four or five years of age, serious and demure, and as if proud
of his eminent position, or working incessantly at his little
file;--these were two sons of the bishop.

"Now boys," said the bishop, in a hoarse, harsh voice,
"steady, there; steady.  There's a file what don't sing; can't
deceive my ear; I know all their voices.  Don't let me find
that un out, or I won't walk into him, won't I?  Ayn't you
lucky boys, to have reg'lar work like this, and the best of
prog!  It worn't my lot, I can tell you that.  Give me that
shut, you there, Scrubbynose, can't you move?  Look sharp, or
I won't move you, won't I?  Steady, steady!  All right!
That's music.  Where will you hear music like twenty files all
working at once!  You ought to be happy boys, oughtn't you?
Won't there be a treat of fish after this, that's all!
Hulloa, there, you red-haired varmint, what are you looking
after?  Three boys looking about them; what's all this?  Won't
I be among you?" and he sprang forward and seized the luckless
ears of the first apprentice he could get hold off, and wrung
them till the blood spouted forth.

"Please, bishop," sang out the boy, "it worn't my fault.
Here's a man what wants you."

"Who wants me?" said the bishop, looking round, and he caught
the figure of Morley who had just entered the shop.

"Well, what's your will?  Locks or nails?"

"Neither," said Morley; "I wish to see a man named Hatton."

"Well, you see a man named Hatton," said the bishop; "and now
what do want of him?"

"I should like to say a word to you alone," said Morley.

"Hem! I should like to know who is to finish this lock, and to
look after my boys!  If it's an order, let us have it at
once."

"It is not an order," said Morley.

"Then I don't want to hear nothing about it," said the bishop.

"It's about family matters," said Morley.

"Ah!" said Hatton, eagerly, "what, do you come from him?"

"It may be," said Morley.

Upon this the bishop, looking up to the ceiling of the room in
which there were several large chinks, began calling out
lustily to some unseen person above, and immediately was
replied to in a shrill voice of objurgation, demanding in
peremptory words, interlarded with many oaths, what he wanted.
His reply called down his unseen correspondent, who soon
entered his workshop.  It was the awful presence of Mrs
Hatton; a tall, bearded virago, with a file in her hand, for
that seemed the distinctive arm of the house, and eyes
flashing with unbridled power.

"Look after the boys," said Hatton, "for I have business."

"Won't I?" said Mrs Hatton; and a thrill of terror pervaded
the assembly.  All the files moved in regular melody; no one
dared to raise his face; even her two young children looked
still more serious and demure.  Not that any being present
flattered himself for an instant that the most sedulous
attention on his part could prevent an outbreak; all that each
aspired to, and wildly hoped, was that he might not be the
victim singled out to have his head cut open, or his eye
knocked out, or his ears half pulled off by the being who was
the terror not only of the workshop, but of Wodgate itself,--
their bishop's gentle wife.

In the meantime, that worthy, taking Morley into a room where
there were no machines at work except those made of iron,
said, "Well, what have you brought me?"

"In the first place," said Morley, "I would speak to you of
your brother."

"I concluded that," said Hatton, "when you spoke of family
matters bringing you here; he is the only relation I have in
this world, and therefore it must be of him."

"It is of him," said Morley.

"Has he sent anything?"

"Hem!" said Morley, who was by nature a diplomatist, and
instantly comprehended his position, being himself pumped when
he came to pump; but he resolved not to precipitate the
affair.  "How late is it since you heard from him?" he asked.

"Why, I suppose you know," said Hatton, "I heard as usual."

"From his usual place?" inquired Morley.

"I wish you would tell me where that is," said Hatton,
eagerly.

"Why, he writes to you?"

"Blank letters; never had a line except once, and that is more
than twelve year ago.  He sends me a twenty-pound note every
Christmas; and that is all I know about him."

"Then he is rich, and well to do in the world?  said Morley."

"Why, don't you know?" said Hatton; "I thought you came from
him!"

"I came about him.  I wished to know whether he were alive,
and that you have been able to inform me: and where he was;
and that you have not been able to inform me."

"Why, you're a regular muff!" said the bishop.




Book 3 Chapter 8



A few days after his morning walk with Sybil, it was agreed
that Egremont should visit Mr Trafford's factory, which he had
expressed a great desire to inspect.  Gerard always left his
cottage at break of dawn, and as Sybil had not yet paid her
accustomed visit to her friend and patron, who was the
employer of her father, it was arranged that Egremont should
accompany her at a later and more convenient hour in the
morning, and then that they should all return together.

The factory was about a mile distant from their cottage.
which belonged indeed to Mr Trafford, and had been built by
him.  He was the younger son of a family that had for
centuries been planted in the land, but who, not satisfied
with the factitious consideration with which society
compensates the junior members of a territorial house for
their entailed poverty, had availed himself of some
opportunities that offered themselves, and had devoted his
energies to those new sources of wealth that were unknown to
his ancestors.  His operations at first had been extremely
limited, like his fortunes; but with a small capital, though
his profits were not considerable, he at least gained
experience.  With gentle blood in his veins, and old English
feelings, he imbibed, at an early period of his career, a
correct conception of the relations which should subsist
between the employer and the employed.  He felt that between
them there should be other ties than the payment and the
receipt of wages.

A distant and childless relative, who made him a visit,
pleased with his energy and enterprise, and touched by the
development of his social views, left him a considerable sum,
at a moment too when a great opening was offered to
manufacturing capital and skill.  Trafford, schooled in rigid
fortunes, and formed by struggle, if not by adversity, was
ripe for the occasion, and equal to it.  He became very
opulent, and he lost no time in carrying into life and being
the plans which he had brooded over in the years when his good
thoughts were limited to dreams.  On the banks of his native
Mowe he had built a factory which was now one of the marvels
of the district; one might almost say, of the country: a
single room, spreading over nearly two acres, and holding more
than two thousand work-people.  The roof of groined arches,
lighted by ventilating domes at the height of eighteen feet,
was supported by hollow cast-iron columns, through which the
drainage of the roof was effected.  The height of the ordinary
rooms in which the work-people in manufactories are engaged is
not more than from nine to eleven feet; and these are built in
stories, the heat and effluvia of the lower rooms communicated
to those above, and the difficulty of ventilation
insurmountable.  At Mr Trafford's, by an ingenious process,
not unlike that which is practised in the House of Commons,
the ventilation was also carried on from below, so that the
whole building was kept at a steady temperature, and little
susceptible to atmospheric influence.  The physical advantages
of thus carrying on the whole work in one chamber are great:
in the improved health of the people, the security against
dangerous accidents for women and youth.  and the reduced
fatigue resulting from not having to ascend and descend and
carry materials to the higher rooms.  But the moral advantages
resulting from superior inspection and general observation are
not less important: the child works under the eye of the
parent, the parent under that of the superior workman; the
inspector or employer at a glance can behold all.

When the workpeople of Mr Trafford left his factory they were
not forgotten.  Deeply had he pondered on the influence of the
employer on the health and content of his workpeople.  He knew
well that the domestic virtues are dependent on the existence
of a home, and one of his first efforts had been to build a
village where every family might be well lodged.  Though he
was the principal proprietor, and proud of that character, he
nevertheless encouraged his workmen to purchase the fee: there
were some who had saved sufficient money to effect this: proud
of their house and their little garden, and of the
horticultural society, where its produce permitted them to be
annual competitors.  In every street there was a well: behind
the factory were the public baths; the schools were under the
direction of the perpetual curate of the church, which Mr
Trafford, though a Roman Catholic, had raised and endowed.  In
the midst of this village, surrounded by beautiful gardens,
which gave an impulse to the horticulture of the community,
was the house of Trafford himself, who comprehended his
position too well to withdraw himself with vulgar
exclusiveness from his real dependents, but recognized the
baronial principle reviving in a new form, and adapted to the
softer manners and more ingenious circumstances of the times.

And what was the influence of such an employer and such a
system of employment on the morals and manners of the
employed?  Great: infinitely beneficial.  The connexion of a
labourer with his place of work, whether agricultural or
manufacturing, is itself a vast advantage.  Proximity to the
employer brings cleanliness and order, because it brings
observation and encouragement.  In the settlement of Trafford
crime was positively unknown: and offences were very slight.
There was not a single person in the village of a reprobate
character.  The men were well clad; the women had a blooming
cheek; drunkenness was unknown; while the moral condition of
the softer sex was proportionately elevated.

The vast form of the spreading factory, the roofs and gardens
of the village, the Tudor chimneys of the house of Trafford,
the spire of the gothic church, with the sparkling river and
the sylvan hack-ground, came rather suddenly on the sight of
Egremont.  They were indeed in the pretty village-street
before he was aware he was about to enter it.  Some beautiful
children rushed out of a cottage and flew to Sybil, crying
out, "the queen, the queen;" one clinging to her dress,
another seizing her arm, and a third, too small to struggle,
pouting out its lips to be embraced.

"My subjects," said Sybil laughing, as she greeted them all;
and then they ran away to announce to others that their queen
had arrived.

Others came: beautiful and young.  As Sybil and Egremont
walked along, the race too tender for labour, seemed to spring
out of every cottage to greet "their queen."  Her visits had
been very rare of late, but they were never forgotten; they
formed epochs in the village annals of the children, some of
whom knew only by tradition the golden age when Sybil Gerard
lived at the great house, and daily glanced like a spirit
among their homes, smiling and met with smiles, blessing and
ever blessed.

"And here," she said to Egremont, "I must bid you good bye;
and this little boy," touching gently on his head a very
serious urchin who had never left her side for a moment, proud
of his position, and holding tight her hand with all his
strength, "this little boy shall be your guide.  It is not a
hundred yards.  Now, Pierce, you must take Mr Franklin to the
factory, and ask for Mr Gerard."  And she went her way.

They had not separated five minutes when the sound of whirling
wheels caught the ear of Egremont, and, looking round, he saw
a cavalcade of great pretension rapidly approaching; dames and
cavaliers on horseback; a brilliant equipage, postilions and
four horses; a crowd of grooms.  Egremont stood aside.  The
horsemen and horsewomen caracoled gaily by him; proudly swept
on the sparkling barouche; the saucy grooms pranced in his
face.  Their masters and mistresses were not strangers to him:
he recognized with some dismay the liveries, and then the arms
of Lord de Mowbray, and caught the cold, proud countenance of
Lady Joan, and the flexible visage of Lady Maud, both on
horseback, and surrounded by admiring cavaliers.

Egremont flattered himself that he had not been recognised,
and dismissing his little guide, instead of proceeding to the
factory he sauntered away in an opposite direction, and made a
visit to the church.

The wife of Trafford embraced Sybil, and then embraced her
again.  She seemed as happy as the children of the village,
that the joy of her roof, as of so many others, had returned
to them, though only for a few hours.  Her husband she said
had just quitted the house; he was obliged to go to the
factory to receive a great and distinguished party who were
expected this morning, having written to him several days
before for permission to view the works.  "We expect them to
lunch here afterwards," said Mrs Trafford, a very refined
woman, but unused to society, and who rather trembled at the
ceremony; "Oh! do stay with me, Sybil, to receive them."

This intimation so much alarmed Sybil that she rose as soon as
was practicable; and saying that she had some visits to make
in the village, she promised to return when Mrs Trafford was
less engaged.

An hour elapsed; there was a loud ring at the hall-door, the
great and distinguished party had arrived.  Mrs Trafford
prepared for the interview, and tried to look very composed as
the doors opened, and her husband ushered in and presented to
her Lord and Lady de Mowbray, their daughters, Lady Firebrace,
Mr Jermyn, who still lingered at the castle, and Mr Alfred
Mountchesney and Lord Milford, who were mere passing guests,
on their way to Scotland, but reconnoitering the heiresses in
their course.

Lord de Mowbray was profuse of praise and compliments.  His
lordship was apt to be too civil.  The breed would come out
sometimes.  To-day he was quite the coffee-house waiter.  He
praised everything: the machinery, the workmen, the cotton
manufactured and the cotton raw, even the smoke.  But Mrs
Trafford would not have the smoke defended, and his lordship
gave the smoke up, but only to please her.  As for Lady de
Mowbray, she was as usual courteous and condescending, with a
kind of smouldering smile on her fair aquiline face, that
seemed half pleasure and half surprise at the strange people
she was among.  Lady Joan was haughty and scientific, approved
of much, but principally of the system of ventilation, of
which she asked several questions which greatly perplexed Mrs
Trafford, who slightly blushed, and looked at her husband for
relief, but he was engaged with Lady Maud, who was full of
enthusiasm, entered into everything with the zest of sympathy,
identified herself with the factory system almost as much as
she had done with the crusades, and longed to teach in singing
schools, found public gardens, and bid fountains flow and
sparkle for the people.

"I think the works were very wonderful," said Lord Milford, as
he was cutting a pasty; "and indeed, Mrs Trafford, everything
here is quite charming; but what I have most admired at your
place is a young girl we met--the most beautiful I think I
ever saw."

"With the most beautiful dog," said Mr Mountchesney.

"Oh! that must have been Sybil!" exclaimed Mrs Trafford.

"And who is Sybil?" asked Lady Maud.  "That is one of our
family names.  We all thought her quite beautiful."

"She is a child of the house," said Mrs Trafford, "or rather
was, for I am sorry to say she has long quitted us."

"Is she a nun?" asked Lord Milford, "for her vestments had a
conventual air."

"She has just left your convent at Mowbray," said Mr Trafford,
addressing his answer to Lady Maud, "and rather against her
will.  She clings to the dress she was accustomed to there."

"And now she resides with you?"

"No; I should be very happy if she did.  I might almost say
she was brought up under this roof.  She lives now with her
father."

"And who is so fortunate as to be her father?" enquired Mr
Mountchesney.

"Her father is the inspector of my works; the person who
accompanied us over them this morning."

"What! that handsome man I so much admired," said Lady Maud,
"so very aristocratic-looking.  Papa," she said, addressing
herself to Lord de Mowbray, "the inspector of Mr Trafford's
works we are speaking of, that aristocratic-looking person
that I observed to you, he is the father of the beautiful
girl."

"He seemed a very intelligent person," said Lord de Mowbray
with many smiles.

"Yes," said Mr Trafford; "he has great talents and great
integrity.  I would trust him with anything and to any amount.
All I wish," he added, with a smile and in a lower tone to
Lady de Mowbray, "all I wish is, that he was not quite so fond
of politics."

"Is he very violent?" enquired her ladyship in a sugary tone.

"Too violent," said Mr Trafford, "and wild in his ideas."

"And yet I suppose," said Lord Milford, "he must be very well
off?"

"Why I must say for him it is not selfishness that makes him a
malcontent," said Mr Trafford; "he bemoans the condition of
the people."

"If we are to judge of the condition of the people by what we
see here," said Lord de Mowbray, "there is little to lament in
it.  But I fear these are instances not so common as we could
wish.  You must have been at a great outlay, Mr Trafford?"

"Why," said Mr Trafford, "for my part.  I have always
considered that there was nothing so expensive as a vicious
population.  I hope I had other objects in view in what I have
done than a pecuniary compensation.  They say we all have our
hobbies; and it was ever mine to improve the condition of my
workpeople, to see what good tenements and good schools and
just wages paid in a fair manner, and the encouragement of
civilizing pursuits, would do to elevate their character.  I
should find an ample reward in the moral tone and material
happiness of this community; but really viewing it in a
pecuniary point of view, the investment of capital has been
one of the most profitable I ever made; and I would not, I
assure you.  for double its amount, exchange my workpeople for
the promiscuous assemblage engaged in other factories."

"The influence of the atmosphere on the condition of the
labourer is a subject which deserves investigation," said Lady
Joan to Mr Jermyn, who stared and bowed.

"And you do not feel alarmed at having a person of such
violent opinions as your inspector at the head of your
establishment," said Lady Firebrace to Mr Trafford, who smiled
a negative.

"What is the name of the intelligent individual who
accompanied us?" enquired Lord de Mowbray.

"His name is Gerard," said Mr Trafford.

"I believe a common name in these parts," said Lord de Mowbray
looking a little confused.

"Not very," said Mr Trafford; "'tis an old name and the stock
has spread; but all Gerards claim a common lineage I believe,
and my inspector has gentle blood, they say, in his veins."

"He looks as if he had," said Lady Maud.

"All persons with good names affect good blood," said Lord de
Mowbray; and then turning to Mrs Trafford he overwhelmed her
with elaborate courtesies of phrase; praised everything again;
first generally and then in detail; the factory, which he
seemed to prefer to his castle--the house, which he seemed to
prefer even to the factory--the gardens, from which he
anticipated even greater gratification than from the house.
And this led to an expression of a hope that he would visit
them.  And so in due time the luncheon was achieved.  Mrs
Trafford looked at her guests, there was a rustling and a
stir, and everybody was to go and see the gardens that Lord de
Mowbray had so much praised.

"I am all for looking after the beautiful Nun," said Mr
Mountchesney to Lord Milford.

"I think I shall ask the respectable manufacturer to introduce
me to her," replied his lordship.

In the meantime Egremont had joined Gerard at the factory.

"You should have come sooner," said Gerard, "and then you
might have gone round with the fine folks.  We have had a
grand party here from the castle."

"So I perceived," said Egremont, "and withdrew."

"Ah! they were not in your way, eh?" he said in a mocking
smile.  "Well, they were very condescending--at least for such
great people.  An earl!  Earl de Mowbray,--I suppose he came
over with William the Conqueror.  Mr Trafford makes a show of
the place.  and it amuses their visitors I dare say, like
anything else that's strange.  There were some young gentlemen
with them, who did not seem to know much about anything.  I
thought I had a right to be amused too; and I must say I liked
very much to see one of them looking at the machinery through
his eye-glass.  There was one very venturesome chap: I thought
he was going to catch hold of the fly-wheel, but I gave him a
spin which I believed saved his life, though he did rather
stare.  He was a lord."

"They are great heiresses, his daughters, they say at
Mowbray," said Egremont.

"I dare say," said Gerard.  "A year ago this earl had a son--
an only son, and then his daughters were not great heiresses.
But the son died and now it's their turn.  And perhaps some
day it will be somebody else's turn.  If you want to
understand the ups and downs of life, there's nothing like the
parchments of an estate.  Now master, now man!  He who served
in the hall now lords in it: and very often the baseborn
change their liveries for coronets, while gentle blood has
nothing left but--dreams; eh, master Franklin?"

"It seems you know the history of this Lord de Mowbray?"

"Why a man learns a good many things in his time; and living
in these parts.  there are few secrets of the notables.  He
has had the title to his broad acres questioned before this
time, my friend."

"Indeed!"

"Yes: I could not help thinking of that to-day," said Gerard,
"when he questioned me with his mincing voice and pulled the
wool with his cursed white hands and showed it to his dame,
who touched it with her little finger; and his daughters who
tossed their heads like pea-hens--Lady Joan and Lady Maud.
Lady Joan and Lady Maud!" repeated Gerard in a voice of bitter
sarcasm.  "I did not care for the rest; but I could not stand
that Lady Joan and that Lady Maud.  I wonder if my Sybil saw
them."

In the meantime, Sybil had been sent for by Mrs Trafford.  She
had inferred from the message that the guests had departed,
and her animated cheek showed the eagerness with which she had
responded to the call.  Bounding along with a gladness of the
heart which lent additional lustre to her transcendent
brightness, she suddenly found herself surrounded in the
garden by Lady Maud and her friends.  The daughter of Lord de
Mowbray, who could conceive nothing but humility as the cause
of her alarmed look, attempted to re-assure her by
condescending volubility, turning often to her friends and
praising in admiring interrogatories Sybil's beauty.

"And we took advantage of your absence," said Lady Maud in a
tone of amiable artlessness, "to find out all about you.  And
what a pity we did not know you when you were at the convent,
because then you might have been constantly at the castle;
indeed I should have insisted on it.  But still I hear we are
neighbours; you must promise to pay me a visit, you must
indeed.  Is not she beautiful?" she added in a lower but still
distinct voice to her friend.  "Do you know I think there is
so much beauty among the lower order."

Mr Mountchesney and Lord Milford poured forth several insipid
compliments, accompanied with some speaking looks which they
flattered themselves could not be misconstrued.  Sybil said
not a word, but answered each flood of phrases with a cold
reverence.

Undeterred by her somewhat haughty demeanour, which Lady Maud
only attributed to the novelty of her situation, her ignorance
of the world, and her embarrassment under this overpowering
condescension, the good-tempered and fussy daughter of Lord de
Mowbray proceeded to re-assure Sybil, and to enforce on her
that this perhaps unprecedented descent from superiority was
not a mere transient courtliness of the moment, and that she
really might rely on her patronage and favourable feeling.

"You really must come and see me," said Lady Maud, "I shall
never be happy till you have made me a visit.  Where do you
live?  I will come and fetch you myself in the carriage.  Now
let us fix a day at once.  Let me see; this is Saturday.  What
say you to next Monday?"

"I thank you," said Sybil, very gravely, "but I never quit my
home."

"What a darling!" exclaimed Lady Maud looking round at her
friends.  "Is not she?  I know exactly what you feel.  But
really you shall not be the least embarrassed.  It may feel
strange at first, to be sure, but then I shall be there; and
do you know I look upon you quite as my prot‚g‚e."

"Prot‚g‚e," said Sybil.  "I live with my father."

"What a dear!" said Lady Maud looking round to Lord Milford.
"Is not she naive?"

"And are you the guardian of these beautiful flowers?" said Mr
Mountchesney.

Sybil signified a negative, and added "Mrs Trafford is very
proud of them."

"You must see the flowers at Mowbray Castle," said Lady Maud.
"They are unprecedented, are they not, Lord Milford? You know
you said the other day that they were almost equal to Mrs
Lawrence's.  I am charmed to find you are fond of flowers,"
continued Lady Maud; "you will be so delighted with Mowbray.
Ah! mama is calling us.  Now fix--shall it be Monday?"

"Indeed," said Sybil, "I never leave my home.  I am one of the
lower order, and live only among the lower order.  I am here
to-day merely for a few hours to pay an act of homage to a
benefactor."

"Well I shall come and fetch you," said Maud, covering her
surprise and mortification by a jaunty air that would not
confess defeat.

"And so shall I," said Mr Mountchesney.

"And so shall I," whispered Lord Milford lingering a little
behind.

The great and distinguished party had disappeared; their
glittering barouche, their prancing horses, their gay grooms,
all had vanished; the sound of their wheels was no longer
heard.  Time flew on; the bell announced that the labour of
the week had closed.  There was a half holiday always on the
last day of the week at Mr Trafford's settlement; and every
man, woman, and child, were paid their wages in the great room
before they left the mill.  Thus the expensive and evil habits
which result from wages being paid in public houses were
prevented.  There was also in this system another great
advantage for the workpeople.  They received their wages early
enough to repair to the neighbouring markets and make their
purchases for the morrow.  This added greatly to their
comfort, and rendering it unnecessary for them to run in debt
to the shopkeepers, added really to their wealth.  Mr Trafford
thought that next to the amount of wages, the most important
consideration was the method in which wages are paid; and
those of our readers who may have read or can recall the
sketches, neither coloured nor exagerated, which we have given
in the early part of this volume of the very different manner
in which the working classes may receive the remuneration for
their toil, will probably agree with the sensible and virtuous
master of Walter Gerard.

He, accompanied by his daughter and Egremont, is now on his
way home.  A soft summer afternoon; the mild beam still
gilding the tranquil scene; a river, green meads full of kine,
woods vocal with the joyous song of the thrush and the
blackbird; and in the distance, the lofty breast of the purple
moor, still blazing in the sun: fair sights and renovating
sounds after a day of labour passed in walls and amid the
ceaseless and monotonous clang of the spindle and the loom.
So Gerard felt it, as he stretched his great limbs in the air
and inhaled its perfumed volume.

"Ah! I was made for this, Sybil," he exclaimed; "but never
mind, my child, never mind; tell me more of your fine
visitors."

Egremont found the walk too short; fortunately from the
undulation of the vale, they could not see the cottage until
within a hundred yards of it.  When they were in sight, a man
came forth from the garden to greet them; Sybil gave an
exclamation of pleasure; it was MORLEY.




Book 3 Chapter 9



Morley greeted Gerard and his daughter with great warmth, and
then looked at Egremont.  "Our companion in the ruins of
Marney Abbey," said Gerard; "you and our friend Franklin here
should become acquainted, Stephen, for you both follow the
same craft.  He is a journalist like yourself, and is our
neighbour for a time, and yours."

"What journal are you on, may I ask?" enquired Morley.

Egremont reddened, was confused, and then replied, "I have no
claim to the distinguished title of a journalist.  I am but a
reporter; and have some special duties here."

"Hem!" said Morley, and then taking Gerard by the arm, he
walked away with him, leaving Egremont and Sybil to follow
them.

"Well I have found him, Walter."

"What, Hatton?"

"No, no; the brother."

"And what knows he?"

"Little enough; yet something.  Our man lives and prospers;
these are facts, but where he is, or what he is--not a clue."

"And this brother cannot help us?"

"On the contrary, he sought information from me; he is a
savage, beneath even our worst ideas of popular degradation.
All that is ascertained is that our man exists and is well to
do in the world.  There comes an annual and anonymous
contribution, and not a light one, to his brother.  I examined
the post-marks of the letters, but they all varied, and were
evidently arranged to mislead.  I fear you will deem I have
not done much; yet it was wearisome enough I can tell you."

"I doubt it not; and I am sure Stephen, you have done all that
man could.  I was fancying that I should hear from you to-day;
for what think you has happened?  My Lord himself, his family
and train, have all been in state to visit the works, and I
had to show them.  Queer that, wasn't it?  He offered me money
when it was over.  How much I know not, I would not look at
it.  Though to be sure, they were perhaps my own rents, eh?
But I pointed to the sick box and his own dainty hand
deposited the sum there."

"'Tis very strange.  And you were with him face to face?"

"Face to face.  Had you brought me news of the papers, I
should have thought that providence had rather a hand in it--
but now, we are still at sea."

"Still at sea," said Morley musingly, "but he lives and
prospers.  He will turn up yet, Walter."

"Amen!  Since you have taken up this thing, Stephen, it is
strange how my mind has hankered after the old business, and
yet it ruined my father, and mayhap may do as bad for his
son."

"We will not think that," said Morley.  "At present we will
think of other things.  You may guess I am a bit wearied; I
think I'll say good night; you have strangers with you."

"Nay, nay man; nay.  This Franklin is a likely lad enough; I
think you will take to him.  Prithee come in.  Sybil will not
take it kindly if you go, after so long an absence; and I am
sure I shall not."

So they entered together.

The evening passed in various conversation, though it led
frequently to the staple subject of talk beneath the roof of
Gerard--the Condition of the People.  What Morley had seen in
his recent excursion afforded materials for many comments.

"The domestic feeling is fast vanishing among the working
classes of this country," said Gerard; "nor is it wonderful--
the Home no longer exists."

"But there are means of reviving it," said Egremont; "we have
witnessed them to-day.  Give men homes, and they will have
soft and homely notions, If all men acted like Mr Trafford,
the condition of the people would be changed."

"But all men will not act like Mr Trafford," said Morley.  "It
requires a sacrifice of self which cannot be expected, which
is unnatural.  It is not individual influence that can
renovate society: it is some new principle that must
reconstruct it.  You lament the expiring idea of Home.  It
would not be expiring, if
it were worth retaining.  The domestic principle has fulfilled
its purpose.  The irresistible law of progress demands that
another should be developed.  It will come; you may advance or
retard, but you cannot prevent it.  It will work out like the
development of organic nature.  In the present state of
civilization and with the scientific means of happiness at our
command, the notion of home should be obsolete.  Home is a
barbarous idea; the method of a rude age; home is isolation;
therefore anti-social.  What we want is Community."

"It is all very fine," said Gerard, "and I dare say you are
right, Stephen; but I like stretching my feet on my own
hearth."




Book 3 Chapter 10



Time passes with a measured and memorable wing during the
first period of a sojourn in a new place, among new characters
and new manners.  Every person, every incident, every feeling,
touches and stirs the imagination.  The restless mind creates
and observes at the same time.  Indeed there is scarcely any
popular tenet more erroneous than that which holds that when
time is slow, life is dull.  It is very often and very much
the reverse.  If we look back on those passages of our life
which dwell most upon the memory, they are brief periods full
of action and novel sensation.  Egremont found this so during
the first days of his new residence in Mowedale.  The first
week, an epoch in his life, seemed an age; at the end of the
first month, he began to deplore the swiftness of time and
almost to moralize over the brevity of existence.  He found
that he was leading a life of perfect happiness, but of
remarkable simplicity; he wished it might never end, but felt
difficulty in comprehending how in the first days of his
experience of it, it had seemed so strange; almost as strange
as it was sweet.  The day that commenced early, was past in
reading--books lent him often too by Sybil Gerard--sometimes
in a ramble with her and Morley, who had time much at his
command, to some memorable spot in the neighbourhood, or in
the sport which the river and the rod secured Egremont.  In
the evening, he invariably repaired to the cottage of Gerard,
beneath whose humble roof he found every female charm that can
fascinate, and conversation that stimulated his intelligence.
Gerard was ever the same; hearty, simple, with a depth of
feeling and native thought on the subjects on which they
touched, and with a certain grandeur of sentiment and
conception which contrasted with his social position, but
which became his idiosyncracy.  Sybil spoke little, but hung
upon the accents of her father; yet ever and anon her rich
tones conveyed to the charmed ear of Egremont some deep
conviction, the earnestness of her intellect as remarkable as
the almost sacred repose of her mien and manner.  Of Morley,
at first Egremont saw a great deal: he lent our friend books,
opened with unreserve and with great richness of speculative
and illustrative power, on the questions which ever engaged
him, and which were new and highly interesting to his
companion.  But as time advanced, whether it were that the
occupations of Morley increased, and the calls on his hours
left him fewer occasions for the indulgence of social
intercourse, Egremont saw him seldom, except at Gerard's
cottage, where generally he might be found in the course of
the week, and their rambles together had entirely ceased.

Alone, Egremont mused much over the daughter of Gerard, but
shrinking from the precise and the definite, his dreams were
delightful, but vague.  All that he asked was, that his
present life should go on for ever; he wished for no change,
and at length almost persuaded himself that no change could
arrive; as men who are basking in a summer sun, surrounded by
bright and beautiful objects, cannot comprehend how the
seasons can ever alter; that the sparkling foliage should
shrivel and fall away, the foaming waters become icebound, and
the blue serene, a dark and howling space.

In this train of mind, the early days of October having
already stolen on him, an incident occurred which startled him
in his retirement, and rendered it necessary that he should
instantly quit it.  Egremont had entrusted the secret of his
residence to a faithful servant who communicated with him when
necessary, under his assumed name.  Through these means he
received a letter from his mother, written from London, where
she had unexpectedly arrived, entreating him, in urgent terms,
to repair to her without a moment's delay, on a matter of
equal interest and importance to herself and him.  Such an
appeal from such a quarter, from the parent that had ever been
kind, and the friend that had been ever faithful, was not for
a moment to be neglected.  Already a period had elapsed since
its transmission, which Egremont regretted.  He resolved at
once to quit Mowedale, nor could he console himself with the
prospect of an immediate return.  Parliament was to assemble
in the ensuing month, and independent of the unknown cause
which summoned him immediately to town, he was well aware that
much disagreeable business awaited him which could no longer
be postponed.  He had determined not to take his seat unless
the expenses of his contest were previously discharged, and
despairing of his brother's aid, and shrinking from
trespassing any further on his mother's resources, the future
looked gloomy enough: indeed nothing but the frequent presence
and the constant influence of Sybil had driven from his mind
the ignoble melancholy which, relieved by no pensive fancy, is
the invariable attendant of pecuniary embarrassment.

And now he was to leave her.  The event, rather the
catastrophe, which under any circumstances, could not be long
postponed, was to be precipitated.  He strolled up to the
cottage to bid her farewell and to leave kind words for her
father.  Sybil was not there.  The old dame who kept their
home informed him that Sybil was at the convent, but would
return in the evening.  It was impossible to quit Mowedale
without seeing Sybil; equally impossible to postpone his
departure.  But by travelling through the night, the lost
hours might be regained.  And Egremont made his arrangements,
and awaited with anxiety and impatience the last evening.

The evening, like his heart, was not serene.  The soft air
that had lingered so long with them, a summer visitant in an
autumnal sky and loth to part, was no more present.  A cold
harsh wind, gradually rising, chilled the system and grated on
the nerves.  There was misery in its blast and depression in
its moan.  Egremont felt infinitely dispirited.  The landscape
around him that he had so often looked upon with love and joy,
was dull and hard; the trees dingy, the leaden waters
motionless, the distant hills rough and austere.  Where was
that translucent sky, once brilliant as his enamoured fancy;
those bowery groves of aromatic fervor wherein he had loved to
roam and muse; that river of swift and sparkling light that
flowed and flashed like the current of his enchanted hours?
All vanished--as his dreams.

He stood before the cottage of Gerard; he recalled the eve
that he had first gazed upon its moonlit garden.  What wild
and delicious thoughts were then his!  They were gone like the
illumined hour.  Nature and fortune had alike changed.
Prescient of sorrow, almost prophetic of evil, he opened the
cottage door, and the first person his eye encountered was
Morley.

Egremont had not met him for some time, and his cordial
greeting of Egremont to-night contrasted with the coldness,
not to say estrangement, which to the regret and sometimes the
perplexity of Egremont had gradually grown up between them.
Yet on no occasion was his presence less desired by our
friend.  Morley was talking as Egremont entered with great
animation; in his hand a newspaper, on a paragraph contained
in which he was commenting.  The name of Marney caught the ear
of Egremont who turned rather pale at the sound, and hesitated
on the threshold.  The unembarrassed welcome of his friends
however re-assured him, and in a moment he even ventured to
enquire the subject of their conversation.  Morley immediately
referring to the newspaper said, "This is what I have just
read--

"EXTRAORDINARY SPORT AT THE EARL OF MARNEY'S.

On Wednesday, in a small cover called the Horns, near Marney
Abbey, his grace the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, the Earl of
Marney, Colonel Rippe and Captain Grouse, with only four hours
shooting, bagged the extraordinary number of seven hundred and
thirty head of game, namely hares three hundred and
thirtynine; pheasants two hundred and twenty-one; partridges
thirtyfour; rabbits eighty-seven; and the following day
upwards of fifty hares, pheasants, &c., (wounded the previous
day) were picked up.  Out of the four hours' shooting two of
the party were absent an hour and a-half, namely the Earl of
Marney and Captain Grouse, attending an agricultural meeting
in the neighbourhood; the noble earl with his usual
considerate condescension having kindly consented personally
to distribute the various prizes to the labourers whose good
conduct entitled them to the distinction."

"What do you think of that, Franklin?" said Morley.  "That is
our worthy friend of Marney Abbey, where we first met.  You do
not know this part of the country, or you would smile at the
considerate condescension of the worst landlord in England;
and who was, it seems, thus employed the day or so after his
battue, as they call it."  And Morley turning the paper read
another paragraph:--

"At a Petty Sessions holden at the Green Dragon Inn, Marney,
Friday, October--, 1837.

"Magistrates present: The Earl of Marney, the Rev. Felix
Flimsey, and Captain Grouse.

"Information against Robert Hind for a trespass in pursuit of
game in Blackrock Wood, the property of Sir Vavasour
Firebrace, Bart.  The case was distinctly proved; several
wires being found in the pocket of the defendant.  Defendant
was fined in the full penalty of forty shillings and costs
twenty-seven; the Bench being of opinion there was no excuse
for him, Hind being in regular employ as a farm labourer and
gaining his seven shillings a-week.  Defendant being unable to
pay the penalty, was sent for two months to Marham Gaol."

"What a pity," said Morley, "that Robert Hind, instead of
meditating the snaring of a hare, had not been fortunate
enough to pick up a maimed one crawling about the fields the
day after the battue.  It would certainly have been better for
himself; and if he has a wife and family, better for the
parish."

"Oh!" said Gerard, "I doubt not they were all picked up by the
poulterer who has the contract: even the Normans did not sell
their game."

"The question is," said Morley, "would you rather be barbarous
or mean; that is the alternative presented by the real and the
pseudo Norman nobility of England.  Where I have been lately,
there is a Bishopsgate Street merchant who has been made for
no conceiveable public reason a baron bold.  Bigod and Bohun
could not enforce the forest laws with such severity as this
dealer in cotton and indigo."

"It is a difficult question to deal with--this affair of the
game laws," said Egremont; "how will you reach the evil?
Would you do away with the offence of trespass?  And if so,
what is your protection for property?"

"It comes to a simple point though," said Morley, "the
Territorialists must at length understand that they cannot at
the same time have the profits of a farm and the pleasures of
a chase."

At this moment entered Sybil.  At the sight of her, the
remembrance that they were about to part, nearly overwhelmed
Egremont.  Her supremacy over his spirit was revealed to him,
and nothing but the presence of other persons could have
prevented him avowing his entire subjection.  His hand
trembled as he touched her's, and his eye, searching yet
agitated, would have penetrated her serene soul.  Gerard and
Morley, somewhat withdrawn, pursued their conversation; while
Egremont hanging over Sybil, attempted to summon courage to
express to her his sad adieu.  It was in vain.  Alone, perhaps
he might have poured forth a passionate farewell.  But
constrained he became embarrassed; and his conduct was at the
same time tender and perplexing.  He asked and repeated
questions which had already been answered.  His thoughts
wandered from their conversation but not from her with whom he
should have conversed.  Once their eyes met, and Sybil
observed his suffused with tears.  Once he looked round and
caught the glance of Morley, instantly withdrawn, but not easy
to be forgotten.

Shortly after this and earlier than his wont, Morley rose and
wished them good night.  He shook hands with Egremont and bade
him farewell with some abruptness.  Harold who seemed half
asleep suddenly sprang from the side of his mistress and gave
an agitated bark.  Harold was never very friendly to Morley,
who now tried to soothe him, but in vain.  The dog looked
fiercely at him and barked again, but the moment Morley had
disappeared, Harold resumed his usual air of proud high-bred
gentleness, and thrust his nose into the hand of Egremont, who
patted him with fondness.

The departure of Morley was a great relief to Egremont, though
the task that was left was still a painful effort.  He rose
and walked for a moment up and down the room, commenced an
unfinished sentence, approached the hearth and leant over the
mantel; and then at length extending his hand to Gerard he
exclaimed, in a trembling voice, "Best of friends, I must
leave Mowedale."

"I am very sorry," said Gerard; "and when?"

"Now," said Egremont.

"Now!" said Sybil.

"Yes; this instant.  My summons is urgent.  I ought to have
left this morning.  I came here then to bid you farewell," he
said looking at Sybil, "to express to you how deeply I was
indebted to you for all your goodness--how dearly I shall
cherish the memory of these happy days--the happiest I have
ever known;" and his voice faltered.  "I came also to leave a
kind message for you, my friend, a hope that we might meet
again and soon--but your daughter was absent, and I could not
leave Mowedale without seeing either of you.  So I must
contrive to get on through the night."

"Well we lose a very pleasant neighbour," said Gerard; "we
shall miss you, I doubt not, eh, Sybil?"

But Sybil had turned away her head; she was leaning over and
seemed to be caressing Harold and was silent.

How much Egremont would have liked to have offered or invited
correspondence; to have proffered his services when the
occasion permitted; to have said or proposed many things that
might have cherished their acquaintance or friendship; but
embarrassed by his incognito and all its consequent deception,
he could do nothing but tenderly express his regret at
parting, and speak vaguely and almost mysteriously of their
soon again meeting.  He held out again his hand to Gerard who
shook it heartily: then approaching Sybil, Egremont said, "you
have shewn me a thousand kindnesses, which I cherish," he
added in a lower tone, "above all human circumstances.  Would
you deign to let this volume lie upon your table," and he
offered Sybil an English translation of Thomas a Kempis,
illustrated by some masterpieces.  In its first page was
written "Sybil, from a faithful friend."

"I accept it," said Sybil with a trembling voice and rather
pale, "in remembrance of a friend."  She held forth her hand
to Egremont, who retained it for an instant, and then bending
very low, pressed it to his lips.  As with an agitated heart,
he hastily crossed the threshold of the cottage, something
seemed to hold him back.  He turned round.  The bloodhound had
seized him by the coat and looked up to him with an expression
of affectionate remonstrance against his departure.  Egremont
bent down, caressed Harold and released himself from his
grasp.

When Egremont left the cottage, he found the country enveloped
in a thick white mist, so that had it not been for some huge
black shadows which he recognized as the crests of trees, it
would have been very difficult to discriminate the earth from
the sky, and the mist thickening as he advanced, even these
fallacious landmarks threatened to disappear.  He had to walk
to Mowbray to catch a night train for London.  Every moment
was valuable, but the unexpected and increasing obscurity
rendered his progress slow and even perilous.  The contiguity
to the river made every step important.  He had according to
his calculations proceeded nearly as far as his old residence,
and notwithstanding the careless courage of youth and the
annoyance of relinquishing a project, intolerable at that
season of life, was meditating the expediency of renouncing
that night the attempt on Mowbray and of gaining his former
quarters for shelter.  He stopped, as he had stopped several
times before, to calculate rather than to observe.  The mist
was so thick that he could not see his own extended hand.  It
was not the first time that it had occurred to him that some
one or something was hovering about his course.

"Who is there?" exclaimed Egremont.  But no one answered.

He moved on a little, but very slowly.  He felt assured that
his ear caught a contiguous step.  He repeated his
interrogatory in a louder tone, but it obtained no response.
Again he stopped.  Suddenly he was seized; an iron grasp
assailed his throat, a hand of steel griped his arm.  The
unexpected onset hurried him on.  The sound of waters assured
him that he was approaching the precipitous bank of that part
of the river which, from a ledge of pointed rocks, here formed
rapids.  Vigorous and desperate, Egremont plunged like some
strong animal on whom a beast of prey had made a fatal spring.
His feet clung to the earth as if they were held by some
magnetic power.  With his disengaged arm he grappled with his
mysterious and unseen foe.

At this moment he heard the deep bay of a hound.

"Harold!" he exclaimed.  The dog, invisible, sprang forward
and seized upon his assailant.  So violent was the impulse
that Egremont staggered and fell, but he fell freed from his
dark enemy.  Stunned and exhausted, some moments elapsed
before he was entirely himself.  The wind had suddenly
changed; a violent gust had partially dispelled the mist; the
outline of the landscape was in many places visible.  Beneath
him were the rapids of the Mowe, over which a watery moon
threw a faint, flickering light.  Egremont was lying on its
precipitous bank; and Harold panting was leaning over him and
looking in his face, and sometimes licking him with that
tongue which, though not gifted with speech, had spoken so
seasonably in the moment of danger.


END OF THE THIRD BOOK




BOOK IV


Book 4 Chapter 1



"Are you going down to the house, Egerton?"  enquired Mr
Berners at Brookes" of a brother M.P., about four o'clock in
the early part of the spring of 1839.

"The moment I have sealed this letter; we will walk down
together, if you like!" and in a few minutes they left the
club.

"Our fellows are in a sort of fright about this Jamaica bill,"
said Mr Egerton in an undertone, as if he were afraid a
passer-by might overhear him.  "Don't say anything about it,
but there's a screw loose."

"The deuce!  But how do you mean?"

"They say the Rads are going to throw us over."

"Talk, talk.  They have threatened this half-a-dozen times.
Smoke, sir; it will end in smoke."

I hope it may; but I know, in great confidence mind you, that
Lord John was saying something about it yesterday."

"That may be; I believe our fellows are heartily sick of the
business, and perhaps would be glad of an excuse to break up
the government: but we must not have Peel in; nothing could
prevent a dissolution."

"Their fellows go about and say that Peel would not dissolve
if he came in."

"Trust him!"

"He has had enough of dissolutions they say."

"Why, after all they have not done him much harm.  Even --34
was a hit."

"Whoever dissolves," said Mr Egerton, "I don't think there
will be much of a majority either way in our time."

"We have seen strange things," said Mr Berners.

"They never would think of breaking up the government without
making their peers," said Mr Egerton.

"The Queen is not over partial to making more peers; and when
parties are in the present state of equality, the Sovereign is
no longer a mere pageant."

"They say her Majesty is more touched about these affairs of
the Chartists than anything else," said Mr Egerton.

"They are rather queer; but for my part I have no serious
fears of a Jacquerie."

"Not if it comes to an outbreak; but a passive resistance
Jacquerie is altogether a different thing.  When we see a
regular Convention assembled in London and holding its daily
meetings in Palace Yard; and a general inclination evinced
throughout the country to refrain from the consumption of
exciseable articles, I cannot help thinking that affairs are
more serious than you imagine.  I know the government are all
on the 'qui vive.'"

"Just the fellows we wanted!" exclaimed Lord Fitz-Heron, who
was leaning on the arm of Lord Milford, and who met Mr Egerton
and his friend in Pall Mall.

"We want a brace of pairs," said Lord Milford.  "Will you two
fellows pair?"

"I must go down," said Mr Egerton; "but I will pair from
halfpast seven to eleven."

"I just paired with Ormsby at White's," said Berners; "not
half an hour ago.  We are both going to dine at Eskdale's, and
so it was arranged.  Have you any news to-day?"

"Nothing; except that they say that Alfred Mountchesney is
going to marry Lady Joan Fitz-Warene," said Lord Milford.

"She has been given to so many," said Mr Egerton.

"It is always so with these great heiresses," said his
companion.  "They never marry.  They cannot bear the thought
of sharing their money.  I bet Lady Joan will turn out another
specimen of the TABITHA CROESUS."

"Well, put down our pair, Egerton," said Lord Fitz-Heron.
"You do not dine at Sidonia's by any chance?"

"Would that I did!  You will have the best dishes and the best
guests.  I feed at old Malton's; perhaps a tˆte a tˆte: Scotch
broth, and to tell him the news!"

"There is nothing like being a dutiful nephew, particularly
when one's uncle is a bachelor and has twenty thousand a-
year," said Lord Milford.  "Au revoir! I suppose there will be
no division to-night."

"No chance."

Egerton and Berners walked on a little further.  As they came
to the Golden Ball, a lady quitting the shop was just about to
get into her carriage; she stopped as she recognized them.  It
was Lady Firebrace.

"Ah! Mr Berners, how d'ye do?  You were just the person I
wanted to see!  How is Lady Augusta, Mr Egerton?  You have no
idea, Mr Berners, how I have been fighting your battles!"

"Really, Lady Firebrace," said Mr Berners rather uneasy, for
he had perhaps like most of us a peculiar dislike to being
attacked or cheapened.  "You are too good."

"Oh! I don't care what a person's politics are!" exclaimed
Lady Firebrace with an air of affectionate devotion.  "I
should be very glad indeed to see you one of us.  You know
your father was!  But if any one is my friend I never will
hear him attacked behind his back without fighting his
battles; and I certainly did fight yours last night."

"Pray tell me where it was?"

"Lady Crumbleford--"

"Confound Lady Crumbleford!" said Mr Berners indignant but a
little relieved.

"No, no; Lady Crumbleford told Lady Alicia Severn."

"Yes, yes," said Berners, a little pale, for he was touched.

"But I cannot stop," said Lady Firebrace.  "I must be with
Lady St Julians exactly at a quarter past four;" and she
sprang into her carriage.

"I would sooner meet any woman in London than Lady Firebrace,"
said Mr Berners; "she makes me uneasy for the day: she
contrives to convince me that the whole world are employed
behind my back in abusing or ridiculing me."

"It is her way," said Egerton; "she proves her zeal by showing
you that you are odious.  It is very successful with people of
weak nerves.  Scared at their general unpopularity, they seek
refuge with the very person who at the same time assures them
of their odium and alone believes it unjust.  She rules that
poor old goose, Lady Gramshawe, who feels that Lady Firebrace
makes her life miserable, but is convinced that if she break
with the torturer, she loses her only friend."

"There goes a man who is as much altered as any fellow of our
time."

"Not in his looks; I was thinking the other night that he was
better-looking than ever."

"Oh! no; not in his looks; but in his life.  I was at
Christchurch with him, and we entered the world about the same
time.  I was rather before him.  He did everything; and did it
well.  And now one never sees him, except at the House.  He
goes nowhere; and they tell me he is a regular reading man."

"Do you think he looks to office?"

"He does not put himself forward."

"He attends; and his brother will always be able to get
anything for him," said Egerton.

"Oh! he and Marney never speak; they hate each other,"

"By Jove! However there is his mother; with this marriage of
hers and Deloraine House, she will be their grandest dame."

"She is the only good woman the tories have: I think their
others do them harm, from Lady St Julians down to your friend
Lady Firebrace.  I wish Lady Deloraine were with us.  She
keeps their men together wonderfully; makes her house
agreeable; and then her manner--it certainly is perfect;
natural, and yet refined."

"Lady Mina Blake has an idea that far from looking to office,
Egremont's heart is faintly with his party; and that if it
were not for the Marchioness--"

"We might gain him, eh?"

"Hem; I hardly know that: he has got crotchets about the
people I am told."

"What, the ballot and household suffrage?"

"Gad, I believe it is quite a different sort of a thing.  I do
not know what it is exactly; but I understand he is
crotchetty."

"Well, that will not do for Peel.  He does not like crotchetty
men.  Do you see that, Egerton?"

At this moment, Mr Egerton and his friend were about to step
over from Trafalgar square to Charing Cross.  They observed
the carriages of Lady St Julians and the Marchioness of
Deloraine drawn up side by side in the middle of the street,
and those two eminent stateswomen in earnest conversation.
Egerton and Berners bowed and smiled, but could not hear the
brief but not uninteresting words that have nevertheless
reached us.

"I give them eleven," said Lady St Julians.

"Well, Charles tells me," said Lady Deloraine, "that Sir
Thomas says so, and he certainly is generally right; but it is
not Charles' own opinion."

"Sir Thomas, I know, gives them eleven," said Lady St Julians;
"and that would satisfy me; and we will say eleven.  But I
have a list here," and she slightly elevated her brow, and
then glanced at Lady Deloraine with a piquant air, "which
proves that they cannot have more than nine; but this is in
the greatest confidence: of course between us there can be no
secrets.  It is Mr Tadpole's list; nobody has seen it but me;
not even Sir Robert.  Lord Grubminster has had a stroke: they
are concealing it, but Mr Tadpole has found it out.  They
wanted to pair him off with Colonel Fantomme, who they think
is dying: but Mr Tadpole has got a Mesmerist who has done
wonders for him, and who has guaranteed that he shall vote.
Well, that makes a difference of one."

"And then Sir Henry Churton--"

"Oh! you know it," said Lady St Julians, looking slightly
mortified.  "Yes: he votes with us."

Lady Deloraine shook her head.  "I think," she said, "I know
the origin of that report.  Quite a mistake.  He is in a had
humour, has been so the whole session, and he was at Lady
Alice Fermyne's, and did say all sorts of things.  All that is
true.  But he told Charles this morning on a committee, that
he should vote with the Government."

"Stupid man!" exclaimed Lady St Julians; "I never could bear
him.  And I have sent his vulgar wife and great staring
daughter a card for next Wednesday!  Well, I hope affairs will
soon be brought to a crisis, for I do not think I can bear
much longer this life of perpetual sacrifice," added Lady St
Julians a little out of temper, both because she had lost a
vote and found her friend and rival better informed than
herself.

"There is no chance of a division to-night," said Lady
Deloraine.

"That is settled," said Lady St Julians.  "Adieu, my dear
friend.  We meet, I believe, at dinner?"

"Plotting," said Mr Egerton to Mr Berners, as they passed the
great ladies.

"The only consolation one has," said Berners, "is, that if
they do turn us out, Lady Deloraine and Lady St Julians must
quarrel, for they both want the same thing."

"Lady Deloraine will have it," said Egerton.

Here they picked up Mr Jermyn, a young tory M.P., who perhaps
the reader may remember at Mowbray Castle; and they walked on
together, Egerton and Berners trying to pump him as to the
expectations of his friends.

"How will Trodgits go?"  said Egerton.

"I think Trodgits will stay away," said Jermyn.

"Who do you give that new man to--that north-country borough
fellow;--what's his name?"  said Berners.

"Blugsby! Oh, Blugsby dined with Peel," said Jermyn.

"Our fellows say dinners are no good," said Egerton; "and they
certainly are a cursed bore: but you may depend upon it they
do for the burgesses.  We don't dine our men half enough.  Now
Blugsby was just the sort of fellow to be caught by dining
with Peel: and I dare say they made Peel remember to take wine
with him.  We got Melbourne to give a grand feed the other day
to some of our men who want attention they say, and he did not
take wine with a single guest.  He forgot.  I wonder what they
are doing at the House!  Here's Spencer May, he will tell us.
Well, what is going on?"

"WISHY is up, and WASHY follows."

"No division, of course?"

"Not a chance; a regular covey ready on both sides."




Book 4 Chapter 2



On the morning of the same day that Mr Egerton and his friend
Mr Berners walked down together to the House of Commons, as
appears in our last chapter, Egremont had made a visit to his
mother, who had married since the commencement of this history
the Marquis of Deloraine, a great noble who had always been
her admirer.  The family had been established by a lawyer, and
recently in our history.  The present Lord Deloraine, though
he was gartered and had been a viceroy, was only the grandson
of an attorney, but one who, conscious of his powers, had been
called to the bar and died an ex-chancellor.  A certain talent
was hereditary in the family.  The attorney's son had been a
successful courtier, and had planted himself in the cabinet
for a quarter of a century.  It was a maxim in this family to
make great alliances; so the blood progressively refined, and
the connections were always distinguished by power and
fashion.  It was a great hit, in the second generation of an
earldom, to convert the coronet into that of a marquis; but
the son of the old chancellor lived in stirring times, and
cruised for his object with the same devoted patience with
which Lord Anson watched for the galleon.  It came at last, as
everything does if men are firm and calm.  The present
marquis, through his ancestry and his first wife, was allied
with the highest houses of the realm and looked their peer.
He might have been selected as the personification of
aristocracy: so noble was his appearance, so distinguished his
manner; his bow gained every eye, his smile every heart.  He
was also very accomplished, and not ill-informed; had read a
little, and thought a little, and was in every respect a most
superior man; alike famed for his favour by the fair, and the
constancy of his homage to the charming Lady Marney.

Lord Deloraine was not very rich; but he was not embarrassed,
and had the appearance of princely wealth; a splendid family
mansion with a courtyard; a noble country-seat with a
magnificent park, including a quite celebrated lake, but with
very few farms attached to it.  He however held a good patent
place which had been conferred on his descendants by the old
chancellor, and this brought in annually some thousands.  His
marriage with Lady Marney was quite an affair of the heart;
her considerable jointure however did not diminish the lustre
of his position.

It was this impending marriage, and the anxiety of Lady Marney
to see Egremont's affairs settled before it took place, which
about a year and a half ago had induced her to summon him so
urgently from Mowedale, which the reader perhaps may have not
forgotten.  And now Egremont is paying one of his almost daily
visits to his mother at Deloraine House.

"A truce to politics, my dear Charles," said Lady Marney; "you
must be wearied with my inquiries.  Besides, I do not take the
sanguine view of affairs in which some of our friends indulge.
I am one of those who think the pear is not ripe.  These men
will totter on, and longer perhaps than even themselves
imagine.  I want to speak of something very different.  To-
morrow, my dear son, is your birth-day.  Now I should grieve
were it to pass without your receiving something which showed
that its recollection was cherished by your mother.  But of
all silly things in the world, the silliest is a present that
is not wanted.  It destroys the sentiment a little perhaps but
it enhances the gift, if I ask you in the most literal manner
to assist me in giving you something that really would please
you?"

"But how can I, my dear mother?"  said Egremont.  "You have
ever been so kind and so generous that I literally want
nothing."

"Oh! you cannot be such a fortunate man as to want nothing,
Charles," said Lady Marney with a smile.  "A dressing-case you
have: your rooms are furnished enough: all this is in my way;
but there are such things as horses and guns of which I know
nothing, but which men always require.  You must want a horse
or a gun, Charles.  Well, I should like you to get either; the
finest, the most valuable that money can purchase.  Or a
brougham, Charles; what do you think of a new brougham?  Would
you like that Barker should build you a brougham?"

"You are too good, my dear mother.  I have horses and guns
enough; and my present carriage is all I can desire."

"You will not assist me, then?  You are resolved that I shall
do something very stupid.  For to give you something I am
determined."

"Well my dear mother," said Egremont smiling and looking
round, "give me something that is here."

"Choose then," said Lady Marney, and she looked round the blue
satin walls of her apartment, covered with cabinet pictures of
exquisite art, and then at her tables crowded with precious
and fantastic toys.

"It would be plunder, my dear mother," said Egremont.

"No, no; you have said it; you shall choose something.  Will
you have those vases?"  and she pointed to an almost matchless
specimen of old Sevres porcelain.

"They are in too becoming a position to be disturbed," said
Egremont, "and would ill suit my quiet chambers, where a
bronze or a marble is my greatest ornament.  If you would
permit me, I would rather choose a picture?"

"Then select one at once," said Lady Marney; "I make no
reservation, except that Watteau, for it was given me by your
father before we were married.  Shall it be this Cuyp?"

"I would rather choose this," said Egremont, and he pointed to
the portrait of a saint by Allori : the face of a beautiful
young girl, radiant and yet solemn, with rich tresses of
golden brown hair, and large eyes dark as night, fringed with
ebon lashes that hung upon the glowing cheek.

"Ah! you choose that!  Well, that was a great favourite of
poor Sir Thomas Lawrence.  But for my part I have never seen
any one in the least like it, and I think I am sure that you
have not."

"It reminds me--" said Egremont musingly.

"Of what you have dreamed," said Lady Marney.

"Perhaps so," said Egremont; "indeed I think it must have been
a dream."

"Well, the vision shall still hover before you," said his
mother; "and you shall find this portrait to-morrow over your
chimney in the Albany."




Book 4 Chapter 3



"Strangers must withdraw."

"Division: clear the gallery.  Withdraw."

"Nonsense; no; it's quite ridiculous; quite absurd.  Some
fellow must get up.  Send to the Carlton; send to the Reform;"
send to Brookes's.  Are your men ready?  No; are your's?  I am
sure I can't say.  What does it mean?  Most absurd!  Are there
many fellows in the library?  The smoking-room is quite full.
All our men are paired till half-past eleven.  It wants five
minutes to the halfhour.  What do you think of Trenchard's
speech?  I don't care for ourselves; I am sorry for him.  Well
that is very charitable.  Withdraw, withdraw; you must
withdraw."

"Where are you going, Fitztheron?"  said a Conservative
whipling.

"I must go; I am paired till half-past eleven, and it wants
some minutes, and my man is not here."

"Confound it!"

"How will it go?"

"Gad, I don't know."

"Fishy eh?"

"Deuced!" said the under-whip in an under-tone, pale and
speaking behind his teeth.

The division bell was still ringing; peers and diplomatists
and strangers were turned out; members came rushing in from
library and smoking-room; some desperate cabs just arrived in
time to land their passengers in the waiting-room.  The doors
were locked.

The mysteries of the Lobby are only for the initiated.  Three
quarters of an hour after the division was called, the result
was known to the exoteric world.  Majority for Ministers
thirty-seven!  Never had the opposition made such a bad
division, and this too on their trial of strength for the
session.  Everything went wrong.  Lord Milford was away
without a pair.  Mr Ormsby, who had paired with Mr Berners,
never came, and let his man poll; for which he was infinitely
accursed, particularly by the expectant twelve hundred a-
yearers, but not wanting anything himself, and having an
income of forty thousand pounds paid quarterly, Mr Ormsby bore
their reported indignation like a lamb.

There were several other similar or analogous mischances; the
whigs contrived to poll Lord Grubminster in a wheeled chair;
he was unconscious but had heard as much of the debate as a
good many.  Colonel Fantomme on the other hand could not come
to time; the mesmerist had thrown him into a trance from which
it was fated he should never awake: but the crash of the night
was a speech made against the opposition by one of their own
men, Mr Trenchard, who voted with the government.

"The rest may be accounted for," said Lady St Julians to Lady
Deloraine the morning after; "it is simply vexatious; it was a
surprise and will be a lesson: but this affair of this Mr
Trenchard--and they tell me that William Loraine was
absolutely cheering him the whole time--what does it mean?  Do
you know the man?"

"I have heard Charles speak of him, and I think much in his
favour," said Lady Deloraine; "if he were here, he would tell
us more about it.  I wonder he does not come: he never misses
looking in after a great division and giving me all the news."

"Do you know, my dear friend," said Lady St Julians with an
air of some solemnity, "I am half meditating a great stroke?
This is not a time for trifling.  It is all very well for
these people to boast of their division of last night, but it
was a surprise, and as great to them as to us.  I know there
is dissension in the camp; ever since that Finality speech of
Lord John, there has been a smouldering sedition.  Mr Tadpole
knows all about it; he has liaisons with the frondeurs.  This
affair of Trenchard may do us the greatest possible injury.
When it comes to a fair fight, the government have not more
than twelve or so.  If this Mr Trenchard and three or four
others choose to make themselves of importance--you see?  The
danger is imminent, it must be met with decision."

"And what do you propose doing?"

"Has he a wife?"

"I really do not know.  I wish Charles would come, perhaps he
could tell us."

"I have no doubt he has," said Lady St Julians.  "One would
have met him, somehow or other in the course of two years, if
he had not been married.  Well, married or unmarried, with his
wife, or without his wife,--I shall send him a card for
Wednesday."  And Lady St Julians paused, overwhelmed as it
were by the commensurate vastness of her idea and her
sacrifice.

"Do not you think it would be rather sudden?"  said Lady
Deloraine.

"What does that signify?  He will understand it; he will have
gained his object; and all will be right."

"But are you sure it is his object?  We do not know the man."

"What else can be his object?"  said Lady St Julians.  "People
get into Parliament to get on; their aims are indefinite.  If
they have indulged in hallucinations about place before they
enter the House, they are soon freed from such distempered
fancies; they find they have no more talent than other people,
and if they had, they learn that power, patronage and pay are
reserved for us and our friends.  Well then like practical
men, they look to some result, and they get it.  They are
asked out to dinner more than they would be; they move
rigmarole resolutions at nonsensical public meetings; and they
get invited with their women to assemblies at their leader's
where they see stars and blue ribbons, and above all, us, whom
they little think in appearing on such occasions, make the
greatest conceivable sacrifice.  Well then, of course such
people are entirely in one's power, if one only had time and
inclination to notice them.  You can do anything with them.
Ask them to a ball, and they will give you their votes; invite
them to dinner and if necessary they will rescind them; but
cultivate them, remember their wives at assemblies and call
their daughters, if possible, by their right names; and they
will not only change their principles or desert their party
for you; but subscribe their fortunes if necessary and lay
down their lives in your service."

"You paint them to the life, my dear Lady St Julians," said
Lady Deloraine laughing; "but with such knowledge and such
powers, why did you not save our boroughs?"

"We had lost our heads, then, I must confess," said Lady St
Julians.  "What with the dear King and the dear Duke, we
really had brought ourselves to believe that we lived in the
days of Versailles or nearly; and I must admit I think we had
become a little too exclusive.  Out of the cottage circle,
there was really no world, and after all we were lost not by
insulting the people but by snubbing the aristocracy."

The servant announced Lady Firebrace.  "Oh! my dear Lady
Deloraine.  Oh! my dear Lady St Julians!" and she shook her
head.

"You have no news, I suppose," said Lady St Julians.

"Only about that dreadful Mr Trenchard; you know the reason
why he ratted?"

"No, indeed," said Lady St Julians with a sigh.

"An invitation to Lansdowne House, for himself and his wife!"

"Oh! he is married then?"

"Yes; she is at the bottom of it all.  Terms regularly settled
beforehand.  I have a note here--all the facts."  And Lady
Firebrace twirled in her hand a bulletin from Mr Tadpole.

"Lansdowne House is destined to cross me," said Lady St
Julians with bitterness.

"Well it is very provoking," said Lady Deloraine, "when you
had made up your mind to ask them for Wednesday."

"Yes, that alone is a sacrifice," said Lady St Julians.

"Talking over the division I suppose," said Egremont as he
entered.

"Ah! Mr Egremont," said Lady St Julians.  "What a hachis you
made of it

Lady Firebrace shook her head, as it were reproachfully.

"Charles," said Lady Deloraine, "we were talking of this Mr
Trenchard.  Did I not once hear you say you knew something of
him?"

"Why, he is one of my intimate acquaintance."

"Heavens! what a man for a friend!" said Lady St Julians.

"Heavens!" echoed Lady Firebrace raising her hands.

"And why did you not present him to me, Charles," said Lady
Deloraine.

"I did; at Lady Peel's."

"And why did you not ask him here?"

"I did several times; but he would not come."

"He is going to Lansdowne House, though," said Lady Firebrace.

"I suppose you wrote the leading article in the Standard which
I have just read," said Egremont smiling.  "It announces in
large type the secret reasons of Mr Trenchard's vote."

"It is a fact," said Lady Firebrace.

"That Trenchard is going to Lansdowne House to-night; very
likely.  I have met him at Lansdowne House half-a-dozen times.
He is very intimate with the family and lives in the same
county."

"But his wife," said Lady Firebrace; "that's the point: he
never could get his wife there before."

"He has none," said Egremont very quietly.

"Then we may regain him," said Lady St Julians with energy.
"You shall make a little dinner to Greenwich, Mr Egremont, and
I will sit next to him."

"Fortunate Trenchard!" said Egremont.  "But do you know I fear
he is hardly worthy of his lot.  He has a horror of fine
ladies; and there is nothing in the world he more avoids than
what you call society.  At home, as this morning when I
breakfasted with him, or in a circle of his intimates, he is
the best company in the world; no one so well informed, fuller
of rich humour, and more sincerely amiable.  He is popular
with all who know him--except Taper, Lady St Julians, and
Tadpole, Lady Firebrace."

"Well, I think I will ask him still for Wednesday," said Lady
St Julians; "and I will write him a little note.  If society
is not his object, what is?"

"Ay!" said Egremont, "there is a great question for you and
Lady Firebrace to ponder over.  This is a lesson for you fine
ladies, who think you can govern the world by what you call
your social influences: asking people once or twice a-year to
an inconvenient crowd in your house; now haughtily smirking,
and now impertinently staring, at them; and flattering
yourselves all this time, that to have the occasional
privilege of entering your saloons and the periodical
experience of your insolent recognition, is to be a reward for
great exertions, or if necessary an inducement to infamous
tergiversation."




Book 4 Chapter 4



It was night: clear and serene, though the moon had not risen;
and a vast concourse of persons were assembling on Mowbray
Moor.  The chief gathering collected in the vicinity of some
huge rocks, one of which, pre-eminent above its fellows, and
having a broad flat head, on which some twenty persons might
easily stand at the same time, was called the Druid's Altar.
The ground about was strewn with stony fragments, covered
tonight with human beings, who found a convenient resting-
place amid these ruins of some ancient temple or relics of
some ancient world.  The shadowy concourse increased, the dim
circle of the nocturnal assemblage each moment spread and
widened; there was the hum and stir of many thousands.
Suddenly in the distance the sound of martial music: and
instantly, quick as the lightning and far more wild, each
person present brandished a flaming torch, amid a chorus of
cheers, that, renewed and resounding, floated far away over
the broad bosom of the dusk wilderness.

The music and the banners denoted the arrival of the leaders
of the people.  They mounted the craggy ascent that led to the
summit of the Druid's Altar, and there, surrounded by his
companions, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the multitude,
Walter Gerard came forth to address a TORCH-LIGHT MEETING.

His tall form seemed colossal in the uncertain and flickering
light, his rich and powerful voice reached almost to the
utmost limit of his vast audience, now still with expectation
and silent with excitement.  Their fixed and eager glance, the
mouth compressed with fierce resolution or distended by novel
sympathy, as they listened to the exposition of their wrongs,
and the vindication of the sacred rights of labour--the shouts
and waving of the torches as some bright or bold phrase
touched them to the quick--the cause, the hour, the scene--all
combined to render the assemblage in a high degree exciting.

"I wonder if Warner will speak to-night," said Dandy Mick to
Devilsdust.

"He can't pitch it in like Gerard," replied his companion.

"But he is a trump in the tender," said the Dandy.  "The
Handlooms looks to him as their man, and that's a powerful
section."

"If you come to the depth of a question, there's nothing like
Stephen Morley," said Devilsdust.  "'Twould take six clergymen
any day to settle him.  He knows the principles of society by
heart.  But Gerard gets hold of the passions."

"And that's the way to do the trick," said Dandy Mick.  "I
wish he would say march, and no mistake."

"There is a great deal to do before saying that," said
Devilsdust.  "We must have discussion, because when it comes
to reasoning, the oligarchs have not got a leg to stand on;
and we must stop the consumption of exciseable articles, and
when they have no tin to pay the bayonets and their b--y
police, they are dished."

"You have a long head, Dusty," said Mick.

"Why I have been thinking of it ever since I knew two and two
made four," said his friend.  "I was not ten years old when I
said to myself--It's a pretty go this, that I should be
toiling in a shoddy-hole to pay the taxes for a gentleman what
drinks his port wine and stretches his legs on a Turkey
carpet.  Hear, hear," he suddenly exclaimed, as Gerard threw
off a stinging sentence.  "Ah! that's the man for the people.
You will see, Mick, whatever happens, Gerard is the man who
will always lead."

Gerard had ceased amid enthusiastic plaudits, and Warner--that
hand-loom weaver whom the reader may recollect, and who had
since become a popular leader and one of the principal
followers of Gerard--had also addressed the multitude.  They
had cheered and shouted, and voted resolutions, and the
business of the night was over.  Now they were enjoined to
disperse in order and depart in peace.  The band sounded a
triumphant retreat; the leaders had descended from the Druid's
Altar; the multitude were melting away, bearing back to the
town their high resolves and panting thoughts, and echoing in
many quarters the suggestive appeals of those who had
addressed them.  Dandy Mick and Devilsdust departed together;
the business of their night had not yet commenced, and it was
an important one.

They took their way to that suburb whither Gerard and Morley
repaired the evening of their return from Marney Abbey; but it
was not on this occasion to pay a visit to Chaffing Jack and
his brilliant saloon.  Winding through many obscure lanes,
Mick and his friend at length turned into a passage which
ended in a square court of a not inconsiderable size, and
which was surrounded by high buildings that had the appearance
of warehouses.  Entering one of these, and taking up a dim
lamp that was placed on the stone of an empty hearth,
Devilsdust led his friend through several unoccupied and
unfurnished rooms, until he came to one in which there were
some signs of occupation.

"Now, Mick," said he, in a very earnest, almost solemn tone,
"are you firm?"

"All right, my hearty," replied his friend, though not without
some affectation of ease.

"There is a good deal to go through," said Devilsdust.  "It
tries a man."

"You don't mean that?"

"But if you are firm, all's right.  Now I must leave you."

"No, no, Dusty," said Mick.

"I must go," said Devilsdust; "and you must rest here till you
are sent for.  Now mind--whatever is bid you, obey; and
whatever you see, be quiet.  There," and Devilsdust taking a
flask out of his pocket, held it forth to his friend, "give a
good pull, man, I can't leave it you, for though your heart
must be warm, your head must be cool," and so saying he
vanished.

Notwithstanding the animating draught, the heart of Mick
Radley trembled.  There are some moments when the nervous
system defies even brandy.  Mick was on the eve of a great and
solemn incident, round which for years his imagination had
gathered and brooded.  Often in that imagination he had
conceived the scene, and successfully confronted its perils or
its trials.  Often had the occasion been the drama of many a
triumphant reverie, but the stern presence of reality had
dispelled all his fancy and all his courage.  He recalled the
warning of Julia, who had often dissuaded him from the
impending step; that warning received with so much scorn and
treated with so much levity.  He began to think that women
were always right; that Devilsdust was after all a dangerous
counsellor; he even meditated over the possibility of a
retreat.  He looked around him: the glimmering lamp scarcely
indicated the outline of the obscure chamber.  It was lofty,
nor in the obscurity was it possible for the eye to reach the
ceiling, which several huge beams seemed to cross
transversally, looming in the darkness.  There was apparently
no windows, and the door by which they had entered was not
easily to be recognised.  Mick had just taken up the lamp and
was surveying his position, when a slight noise startled him,
and looking round he beheld at some little distance two forms
which he hoped were human.

Enveloped in dark cloaks and wearing black masks, a conical
cap of the same colour adding to their considerable height,
each held a torch.  They stood in silence--two awful sentries.

Their appearance appalled, their stillness terrified, Mick: he
remained with his mouth open and the lamp in his extended arm.
At length, unable any longer to sustain the solemn mystery,
and plucking up his natural audacity, he exclaimed, "I say.
what do you want?"

All was silent.

"Come, come," said Mick much alarmed; "none of this sort of
thing.  I say, you must speak though."

The figures advanced: they stuck their torches in a niche that
was by; and then they placed each of them a hand on the
shoulder of Mick.

"No, no; none of that," said Mick, trying to disembarrass
himself.

But, notwithstanding this fresh appeal, one of the silent
masks pinioned his arms; and in a moment the eyes of the
helpless friend of Devilsdust were bandaged.

Conducted by these guides, it seemed to Mick that he was
traversing interminable rooms, or rather galleries, for once
stretching out his arm, while one of his supporters had
momentarily quitted him to open some gate or door, Mick
touched a wall.  At length one of the masks spoke, and said,
"In five minutes you will be in the presence of the SEVEN--
prepare."

At this moment rose the sound of distant voices singing in
concert, and gradually increasing in volume as Mick and the
masks advanced.  One of these attendants now notifying to
their charge that he must kneel down, Mick found he rested on
a cushion, while at the same time his arms still pinioned, he
seemed to be left alone.

The voices became louder and louder; Mick could distinguish
the words and burthen of the hymn; he was sensible that many
persons were entering the apartment; he could distinguish the
measured tread of some solemn procession.  Round the chamber,
more than once, they moved with slow and awful step.  Suddenly
that movement ceased; there was a pause of a few minutes; at
length a voice spoke.  "I denounce John Briars."

"Why?"  said another.

"He offers to take nothing but piece-work; the man who does
piece-work is guilty of less defensible conduct than a
drunkard.  The worst passions of our nature are enlisted in
support of piece-work.  Avarice, meanness, cunning, hypocrisy,
all excite and feed upon the miserable votary who works by the
task and not by the hour.  A man who earns by piece-work forty
shillings per week, the usual wages for day-work being twenty,
robs his fellows of a week's employment; therefore I denounce
John Briars."

"Let it go forth," said the other voice; "John Briars is
denounced.  If he receive another week's wages by the piece,
he shall not have the option of working the week after for
time.  No.87, see to John Briars."

"I denounce Claughton and Hicks," said another voice.

"Why?"

"They have removed Gregory Ray from being a superintendent,
because he belonged to this lodge."

"Brethren, is it your pleasure that there shall be a turn out
for ten days at Claughton and Hicks?"

"It is our pleasure," cried several voices.

"No.34, give orders to-morrow that the works at Claughton and
Hicks stop till further orders."

"Brethren," said another voice, "I propose the expulsion from
this Union, of any member who shall be known to boast of his
superior ability, as to either the quantity or quality of work
he can do, either in public or private company.  Is it your
pleasure?"

"It is our pleasure."

"Brethren," said a voice that seemed a presiding one, "before
we proceed to the receipt of the revenue from the different
districts of this lodge, there is I am informed a stranger
present, who prays to be admitted into our fraternity.  Are
all robed in the mystic robe?  Are all masked in the secret
mask?"

"All

"Then let us pray!" And thereupon after a movement which
intimated that all present were kneeling, the presiding voice
offered up an extemporary prayer of great power and even
eloquence.  This was succeeded by the Hymn of Labour, and at
its conclusion the arms of the neophyte were unpinioned, and
then his eyes were unbandaged.

Mick found himself in a lofty and spacious room lighted with
many tapers.  Its walls were hung with black cloth; at a table
covered with the same material, were seated seven persons in
surplices and masked, the president on a loftier seat; above
which on a pedestal was a skeleton complete.  On each side of
the skeleton was a man robed and masked, holding a drawn
sword; and on each of Mick was a man in the same garb holding
a battle-axe.  On the table was the sacred volume open, and at
a distance, ranged in order on each side of the room, was a
row of persons in white robes and white masks, and holding
torches.

"Michael Radley," said the President.  "Do you voluntarily
swear in the presence of Almighty God and before these
witnesses, that you will execute with zeal and alacrity, as
far as in you lies, every task and injunction that the
majority of your brethren testified by the mandate of this
grand committee, shall impose upon you, in futherance of our
common welfare, of which they are the sole judges; such as the
chastisement of Nobs, the assassination of oppressive and
tyrannical masters, or the demolition of all mills, works and
shops that shall be deemed by us incorrigible.  Do you swear
this in the presence of Almighty God and before these
witnesses?"

"I do swear it," replied a tremulous voice.

"Then rise and kiss that book."

Mick slowly rose from his kneeling position, advanced with a
trembling step, and bending, embraced with reverence the open
volume.

Immediately every one unmasked; Devilsdust came forward, and
taking Mick by the hand led him to the President, who received
him pronouncing some mystic rhymes.  He was covered with a
robe and presented with a torch, and then ranged in order with
his companions.  Thus terminated the initiation of Dandy Mick
into a TRADES UNION.




Book 4 Chapter 5



"His lordship has not yet rung his bell, gentlemen."

It was the valet of Lord Milford that spoke, addressing from
the door of a house in Belgrave Square, about noon, a
deputation from the National Convention, consisting of two of
its delegates, who waited on the young viscount in common with
other members of the legislature, in order to call his
particular attention to the National Petition which the
Convention had prepared, and which in the course of the
session was to be presented by one of the members for
Birmingham.

"I fear we are too early for these fine birds," said one
delegate to the other.  "Who is next on our list?"

"No.27, --- Street, close by; Mr THOROUGH BASE: he ought to be
with the people, for his father was only a fiddler; but I
understand he is quite an aristocrat and has married a widow
of quality."

"Well, knock."

Mr Thorough Base was not at home; had received the card of the
delegates apprising him of the honour of their intended visit,
but had made up his mind on the subject.

No.18 in the same street received them more courteously.  Here
resided Mr KREMLIN, who after listening with patience if not
with interest, to their statement, apprised them that forms of
government were of no consequence, and domestic policy of no
interest; that there was only one subject which should engage
the attention of public men, because everything depended on
it,--that was our external system; and that the only specific
for a revival of trade and the contentment of the people, was
a general settlement of the boundary questions.  Finally, Mr
Kremlin urged upon the National Convention to recast their
petition with this view, assuring them that on foreign policy
they would have the public with them.

The deputation in reply might have referred as an evidence of
the general interest excited by questions of foreign policy,
to the impossibility even of a leader making a house on one;
and to the fact that there are not three men in the House of
Commons who even pretend to have any acquaintance with the
external circumstances of the country; they might have added,
that even in such an assembly Mr Kremlin himself was
distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea,--and
that was wrong.

Their next visit was to WRIGGLE, a member for a metropolitan
district, a disciple of Progress, who went with the times, but
who took particular good care to ascertain their complexion;
and whose movements if expedient could partake of a regressive
character.  As the Charter might some day turn up trumps as
well as so many other unexpected cards and colours, Wriggle
gave his adhesion to it, but of course only provisionally;
provided that is to say, he might vote against it at present.
But he saw no harm in it--not he, and should be prepared to
support it when circumstances, that is to say the temper of
the times, would permit him.  More could hardly be expected
from a gentleman in the delicate position in which Wriggle
found himself at this moment, for he had solicited a baronetcy
of the whigs, and had secretly pledged himself to Taper to
vote against them on the impending Jamaica division.

BOMBASTES RIP snubbed them, which was hard, for he had been
one of themselves, had written confidential letters in 1831 to
the secretary of the Treasury, and "provided his expenses were
paid," offered to come up from the manufacturing town he now
represented, at the head of a hundred thousand men, and burn
down Apsley House.  But now Bombastes Rip talked of the great
middle class; of public order and public credit.  He would
have said more to them, but had an appointment in the city,
being a most active member of the committee for raising a
statue to the Duke of Wellington.

FLOATWELL received them in the politest manner, though he did
not agree with them.  What he did agree with was difficult to
say.  Clever, brisk, and bustling, with an university
reputation and without patrimony, Floatwell shrunk from the
toils of a profession, and in the hurry skurry of reform found
himself to his astonishment a parliament man.  There he had
remained, but why, the Fates alone knew.  The fun of such a
thing must have evaporated with the novelty.  Floatwell had
entered public life in complete ignorance of every subject
which could possibly engage the attention of a public man.  He
knew nothing of history, national or constitutional law, had
indeed none but puerile acquirements, and had seen nothing of
life.  Assiduous at committees he gained those superficial
habits of business which are competent to the conduct of
ordinary affairs, and picked up in time some of the slang of
economical questions.  Floatwell began at once with a little
success, and he kept his little success; nobody envied him it;
he hoarded his sixpences without exciting any evil emulation.
He was one of those characters who above all things shrink
from isolation, and who imagine they are getting on if they
are keeping company with some who stick like themselves.  He
was always an idolater of some great personage who was on the
shelf, and who he was convinced, because the great personage
assured him of it after dinner, would sooner or later turn out
the man.  At present, Floatwell swore by Lord Dunderhead; and
the game of this little coterie, who dined together and
thought they were a party, was to be courteous to the
Convention.

After the endurance of an almost interminable lecture on the
currency from Mr KITE, who would pledge himself to the charter
if the charter would pledge itself to one-pound notes, the two
delegates had arrived in Piccadilly, and the next member upon
their list was Lord Valentine.

"It is two o'clock," said one of the delegates, "I think we
may venture;" so they knocked at the portal of the court yard,
and found they were awaited.

A private staircase led to the suite of rooms of Lord
Valentine, who lived in the family mansion.  The delegates
were ushered through an ante-chamber into a saloon which
opened into a very fanciful conservatory, where amid tall
tropical plants played a fountain.  The saloon was hung with
blue satin, and adorned with brilliant mirrors: its coved
ceiling was richly painted, and its furniture became the rest
of its decorations.  On one sofa were a number of portfolios,
some open, full of drawings of costumes; a table of pietra
dura was covered with richly bound volumes that appeared to
have been recently referred to; several ancient swords of
extreme beauty were lying on a couch; in a corner of the room
was a figure in complete armour, black and gold richly inlaid,
and grasping in its gauntlet the ancient standard of England.

The two delegates of the National Convention stared at each
other, as if to express their surprise that a dweller in such
an abode should ever have permitted them to enter it; but ere
either of them could venture to speak, Lord Valentine made his
appearance.

He was a young man, above the middle height, slender, broad-
shouldered, small-waisted, of a graceful presence; he was very
fair, with dark blue eyes, bright and intelligent, and
features of classic precision; a small Greek cap crowned his
long light-brown hair, and he was enveloped in a morning robe
of Indian shawls.

"Well, gentlemen," said his lordship, as he invited them to be
seated, in a clear and cheerful voice, and with an unaffected
tone of frankness which put his guests at their ease; "I
promised to see you; well, what have you got to say?"

The delegates made their accustomed statement; they wished to
pledge no one; all that the people desired was a respectful
discussion of their claims; the national petition, signed by
nearly a million and a half of the flower of the working
classes, was shortly to be presented to the House of Commons,
praying the House to take into consideration the five points
in which the working classes deemed their best interests
involved; to wit, universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual
parliaments, salaried members, and the abolition of the
property qualification.

"And supposing these five points conceded," said Lord
Valentine, "what do you mean to do?"

"The people then being at length really represented," replied
one of the delegates, "they would decide upon the measures
which the interests of the great majority require."

"I am not so clear about that," said Lord Valentine; "that is
the very point at issue.  I do not think the great majority
are the best judges of their own interests.  At all events,
gentlemen, the respective advantages of aristocracy and
democracy are a moot point.  Well then, finding the question
practically settled in this country, you will excuse me for
not wishing to agitate it.  I give you complete credit for the
sincerity of your convictions; extend the same confidence to
me.  You are democrats; I am an aristocrat.  My family has
been ennobled for nearly three centuries; they bore a knightly
name before their elevation.  They have mainly and materially
assisted in making England what it is.  They have shed their
blood in many battles; I have had two ancestors killed in the
command of our fleets.  You will not underrate such services,
even if you do not appreciate their conduct as statesmen,
though that has often been laborious, and sometimes
distinguished.  The finest trees in England were planted by my
family; they raised several of your most beautiful churches;
they have built bridges, made roads, dug mines, and
constructed canals, and drained a marsh of a million of acres
which bears our name to this day, and is now one of the most
flourishing portions of the country.  You talk of our taxation
and our wars; and of your inventions and your industry.  Our
wars converted an island into an empire, and at any rate
developed that industry and stimulated those inventions of
which you boast.  You tell me that you are the delegates of
the unrepresented working classes of Mowbray.  Why, what would
Mowbray have been if it had not been for your aristocracy and
their wars?  Your town would not have existed; there would
have been no working classes there to send up delegates.  In
fact you owe your every existence to us.  I have told you what
my ancestors have done; I am prepared, if the occasion
requires it, not to disgrace them; I have inherited their
great position, and I tell you fairly, gentlemen, I will not
relinquish it without a struggle."

"Will you combat the people in that suit of armour, my lord?"
said one of the delegates smiling, but in a tone of kindness
and respect.

"That suit of armour has combated for the people before this,"
said Lord Valentine, "for it stood by Simon de Montfort on the
field of Evesham."

"My lord," said the other delegate, "it is well known that you
come from a great and honoured race; and we have seen enough
to-day to show that in intelligence and spirit you are not
unworthy of your ancestry.  But the great question, which your
lordship has introduced, not us, is not to be decided by a
happy instance.  Your ancestors may have done great things.
What wonder!  They were members of a very limited class which
had the monopoly of action.  And the people, have not they
shed their blood in battle, though they may have commanded
fleets less often than your lordship's relatives?  And these
mines and canals that you have excavated and constructed,
these woods you have planted, these waters you have drained--
had the people no hand in these creations?  What share in
these great works had that faculty of Labour whose sacred
claims we now urge, but which for centuries have been passed
over in contemptuous silence?  No, my lord, we call upon you
to decide this question by the result.  The Aristocracy of
England have had for three centuries the exercise of power;
for the last century and a half that exercise has been
uncontrolled; they form at this moment the most prosperous
class that the history of the world can furnish: as rich as
the Roman senators, with sources of convenience and enjoyment
which modern science could alone supply.  All this is not
denied.  Your order stands before Europe the most gorgeous of
existing spectacles; though you have of late years dexterously
thrown some of the odium of your polity upon that middle class
which you despise, and who are despicable only because they
imitate you, your tenure of power is not in reality impaired.
You govern us still with absolute authority--and you govern
the most miserable people on the face of the globe."

"And is this a fair description of the people of England?"
said Lord Valentine.  "A flash of rhetoric, I presume, that
would place them lower than the Portuguese or the Poles, the
serfs of Russia or the Lazzaroni of Naples."

"Infinitely lower," said the delegate, "for they are not only
degraded, but conscious of their degradation.  They no longer
believe in any innate difference between the governing and the
governed classes of this country.  They are sufficiently
enlightened to feel they are victims.  Compared with the
privileged classes of their own land, they are in a lower
state than any other population compared with its privileged
classes.  All is relative, my lord, and believe me, the
relations of the working classes of England to its privileged
orders are relations of enmity, and therefore of peril."

"The people must have leaders," said Lord Valentine.

"And they have found them," said the delegate.

"When it comes to a push they will follow their nobility,"
said Lord Valentine.

"Will their nobility lead them?"  said the other delegate.
"For my part I do not pretend to be a philosopher, and if I
saw a Simon de Montfort again I should be content to fight
under his banner."

"We have an aristocracy of wealth," said the delegate who had
chiefly spoken.  "In a progressive civilization wealth is the
only means of class distinction: but a new disposition of
wealth may remove even this."

"Ah! you want to get at our estates," said Lord Valentine
smiling; "but the effort on your part may resolve society into
its original elements, and the old sources of distinction may
again develope themselves."

"Tall barons will not stand against Paixhans rockets," said
the delegate.  "Modern science has vindicated the natural
equality of man."

"And I must say I am very sorry for it," said the other
delegate; "for human strength always seems to me the natural
process of settling affairs."

"I am not surprised at your opinion," said Lord Valentine,
turning to the delegate and smiling.  "I should not be over-
glad to meet you in a fray.  You stand some inches above six
feet, or I am mistaken."

"I was six feet two inches when I stopped growing," said the
delegate; "and age has not stolen any of my height yet."

"That suit of armour would fit you," said Lord Valentine, as
they all rose.

"And might I ask your lordship," said the tall delegate, "why
it is here?"

"I am to represent Richard Coeur de Lion at the Queen's ball,"
said Lord Valentine; "and before my sovereign I will not don a
Drury-Lane cuirass, so I got this up from my father's castle."

"Ah! I almost wish the good old times of Coeur de Lion were
here again," said the tall delegate.

"And we should be serfs," said his companion.

"I am not sure of that," said the tall delegate.  "At any rate
there was the free forest."

"I like that young fellow," said the tall delegate to his
companion, as they descended the staircase.

"He has awful prejudices," said his friend.

"Well, well; he has his opinions and we have ours.  But he is
a man; with clear, straightforward ideas, a frank, noble,
presence; and as good-looking a fellow as I ever set eyes on.
Where are we now?"

"We have only one more name on our list to-day, and it is at
hand.  Letter K, No.1, Albany.  Another member of the
aristocracy, the Honourable Charles Egremont."

"Well, I prefer them, as far as I can judge, to Wriggle, and
Rip, and Thorough Base," said the tall delegate laughing.  "I
dare say we should have found Lord Milford a very jolly
fellow, if he had only been up."

"Here we are," said his companion, as he knocked.  "Mr
Egremont, is he at home?"

"The gentlemen of the deputation?  Yes, my master gave
particular orders that he was at home to you.  Will you walk
in, gentlemen?"

"There you see," said the tall delegate.  "This would be a
lesson to Thorough Base."

They sat down in an antechamber: the servant opened a mahogany
folding-door which he shut after him and announced to his
master the arrival of the delegates.  Egremont was seated in
his library, at a round table covered with writing materials,
books, and letters.  On another table were arranged his
parliamentary papers, and piles of blue books.  The room was
classically furnished.  On the mantelpiece were some ancient
vases, which he had brought with him from Italy, standing on
each side of that picture of Allori of which we have spoken.

The servant returned to the ante-room, and announcing to the
delegates that his master was ready to receive them, ushered
into the presence of Egremont--WALTER GERARD and STEPHEN
MORLEY.




Book 4 Chapter 6



It is much to be deplored that our sacred buildings are
generally closed except at the stated periods of public
resort.  It is still more to be regretted that when with
difficulty entered, there is so much in their arrangements to
offend the taste and outrage the feelings.  In the tumult of
life, a few minutes occasionally passed in the solemn shadow
of some lofty and ancient aisle, exercise very often a
salutary influence: they purify the heart and elevate the
mind; dispel many haunting fancies, and prevent many an act
which otherwise might be repented.  The church would in this
light still afford us a sanctuary; not against the power of
the law but against the violence of our own will; not against
the passions of man but against our own.

The Abbey of Westminster rises amid the strife of factions.
Around its consecrated precinct some of the boldest and some
of the worst deeds have been achieved or perpetrated:
sacrilege, rapine, murder, and treason.  Here robbery has been
practised on the greatest scale known in modern ages: here ten
thousand manors belonging to the order of the Templars,
without any proof, scarcely with a pretext, were forfeited in
one day and divided among the monarch and his chief nobles;
here the great estate of the church, which, whatever its
articles of faith, belonged and still belongs to the people,
was seized at various times, under various pretences, by an
assembly that continually changed the religion of their
country and their own by a parliamentary majority, but which
never refunded the booty.  Here too was brought forth that
monstrous conception which even patrician Rome in its most
ruthless period never equalled--the mortgaging of the industry
of the country to enrich and to protect property; an act which
is now bringing its retributive consequences in a degraded and
alienated population.  Here too have the innocent been
impeached and hunted to death; and a virtuous and able monarch
martyred, because, among other benefits projected for his
people, he was of opinion that it was more for their advantage
that the economic service of the state should be supplied by
direct taxation levied by an individual known to all, than by
indirect taxation, raised by an irresponsible and fluctuating
assembly.  But thanks to parliamentary patriotism, the people
of England were saved from ship-money, which money the wealthy
paid, and only got in its stead the customs and excise, which
the poor mainly supply.  Rightly was King Charles surnamed the
Martyr; for he was the holocaust of direct taxation.  Never
yet did man lay down his heroic life for so great a cause: the
cause of the Church and the cause of the Poor.

Even now in the quiet times in which we live, when public
robbery is out of fashion and takes the milder title of a
commission of inquiry, and when there is no treason except
voting against a Minister, who, though he may have changed all
the policy which you have been elected to support, expects
your vote and confidence all the same; even in this age of
mean passions and petty risks, it is something to step aside
from Palace Yard and instead of listening to a dull debate,
where the facts are only a repetition of the blue books you
have already read, and the fancy an ingenious appeal to the
recrimination of Hansard, to enter the old abbey and listen to
an anthem!

This was a favourite habit of Egremont, and though the mean
discipline and sordid arrangements of the ecclesiastical body
to which the guardianship of the beautiful edifice is
intrusted, have certainly done all that could injure and
impair the holy genius of the place, it still was a habit
often full of charm and consolation.

There is not perhaps another metropolitan population in the
world that would tolerate such conduct as is pursued to "that
great lubber, the public" by the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster, and submit in silence to be shut out from the
only building in the two cities which is worthy of the name of
a cathedral.  But the British public will bear anything; they
are so busy in speculating in railroad shares.

When Egremont had entered on his first visit to the Abbey by
the south transept, and beheld the boards and the spikes with
which he seemed to be environed as if the Abbey were in a
state of siege; iron gates shutting him out from the solemn
nave and the shadowy aisles; scarcely a glimpse to be caught
of a single window; while on a dirty form, some noisy vergers
sate like ticket-porters or babbled like tapsters at their
ease,--the visions of abbatial perfection in which he had
early and often indulged among the ruins of Marney rose on his
outraged sense, and he was then about hastily to retire from
the scene he had so long purposed to visit, when suddenly the
organ burst forth, a celestial symphony floated in the lofty
roof, and voices of plaintive melody blended with the swelling
sounds.  He was fixed to the spot.

Perhaps it was some similar feeling that influenced another
individual on the day after the visit of the deputation to
Egremont.  The sun, though in his summer heaven he had still a
long course, had passed his meridian by many hours, the
service was performing in the choir, and a few persons
entering by the door into that part of the Abbey Church which
is so well known by the name of Poet's Corner, proceeded
through the unseemly stockade which the chapter have erected,
and took their seats.  One only, a female, declined to pass,
notwithstanding the officious admonitions of the vergers that
she had better move on, but approaching the iron grating that
shut her out from the body of the church, looked wistfully
down the long dim perspective of the beautiful southern aisle.
And thus motionless she remained in contemplation, or it might
be prayer, while the solemn peals of the organ and the sweet
voices of the choir enjoyed that holy liberty for which she
sighed, and seemed to wander at their will in every sacred
recess and consecrated corner.

The sounds--those mystical and thrilling sounds that at once
elevate the soul and touch the heart--ceased, the chaunting of
the service recommenced; the motionless form moved; and as she
moved Egremont came forth from the choir, and his eye was at
once caught by the symmetry of her shape and the picturesque
position which she gracefully occupied; still gazing through
that grate, while the light pouring through the western
window, suffused the body of the church with a soft radiance,
just touching the head of the unknown with a kind of halo.
Egremont approached the transept door with a lingering pace,
so that the stranger, who he observed was preparing to leave
the church, might overtake him.  As he reached the door,
anxious to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he turned
round and his eye at once caught the face of Sybil.  He
started, he trembled; she was not two yards distant, she
evidently recognised him; he held open the swinging postern of
the Abbey that she might pass, which she did and then stopped
on the outside, and said "Mr Franklin!"

It was therefore clear that her father had not thought fit, or
had not yet had an opportunity, to communicate to Sybil the
interview of yesterday.  Egremont was still Mr Franklin.  This
was perplexing.  Egremont would like to have been saved the
pain and awkwardness of the avowal, yet it must be made,
though not with unnecessary crudeness.  And so at present he
only expressed his delight, the unexpected delight he
experienced at their meeting.  And then he walked on by her
side.

"Indeed," said Sybil, "I can easily imagine you must have been
surprised at seeing me in this great city.  But many things,
strange and unforeseen, have happened to us since you were at
Mowedale.  You know, of course you with your pursuits must
know, that the People have at length resolved to summon their
own parliament in Westminster.  The people of Mowbray had to
send up two delegates to the Convention, and they chose my
father for one of them.  For so great is their confidence in
him none other would content them."

"He must have made a great sacrifice in coming?"  said
Egremont.

"Oh! what are sacrifices in such a cause!" said Sybil.  "Yes;
he made great sacrifices," she continued earnestly; "great
sacrifices, and I am proud of them.  Our home, which was a
happy home, is gone; he has quitted the Traffords to whom we
were knit by many, many ties," and her voice faltered--"and
for whom, I know well he would have perilled his life.  And
now we are parted," said Sybil, with a sigh, "perhaps for
ever.  They offered to receive me under their roof," she
continued, with emotion.  "Had I needed shelter there was
another roof which has long awaited me: but I could not leave
my father at such a moment.  He appealed to me: and I am here.
All I desire, all I live for, is to soothe and support him in
his great struggle; and I should die content if the People
were only free, and a Gerard had freed them."

Egremont mused: he must disclose all, yet how embarrassing to
enter into such explanations in a public thoroughfare!  Should
he bid her after a-while farewell, and then make his
confession in writing?  Should he at once accompany her home,
and there offer his perplexing explanations?  Or should he
acknowledge his interview of yesterday with Gerard, and then
leave the rest to the natural consequences of that
acknowledgment when Sybil met her father!  Thus pondering,
Egremont and Sybil, quitting the court of the Abbey, entered
Abingdon Street.

"Let me walk home with you," said Egremont, as Sybil seemed to
intimate her intention here to separate.

"My father is not there," said Sybil; "but I will not fail to
tell him that I have met his old companion."

"Would he had been as frank!" thought Egremont.  And must he
quit her in this way.  Never! "You must indeed let me attend
you!" he said aloud.

"It is not far," said Sybil.  "We live almost in the Precinct-
-in an old house with some kind old people, the brother of one
of the nuns of Mowbray.  The nearest way to it is straight
along this street, but that is too bustling for me.  I have
discovered," she added with a smile, "a more tranquil path."
And guided by her they turned up College Street.

"And how long have you been in London?"

"A fortnight.  'Tis a great prison.  How strange it is that,
in a vast city like this, one can scarcely walk alone?"

"You want Harold," said Egremont.  "How is that most faithful
of friends?"

"Poor Harold!  To part with him too was a pang."

"I fear your hours must be heavy," said Egremont.

"Oh! no," said Sybil, "there is so much at stake; so much to
hear the moment my father returns.  I take so much interest
too in their discussions; and sometimes I go to hear him
speak.  None of them can compare with him.  It seems to me
that it would be impossible to resist our claims if our rulers
only heard them from his lips."

Egremont smiled.  "Your Convention is in its bloom, or rather
its bud," he said; "all is fresh and pure now; but a little
while and it will find the fate of all popular assemblies.
You will have factions."

"But why?"  said Sybil.  "They are the real representatives of
the people, and all that the people want is justice; that
Labour should be as much respected by law and society as
Property."

While they thus conversed they passed through several clean,
still streets, that had rather the appearance of streets in a
very quiet country town than of abodes in the greatest city in
the world, and in the vicinity of palaces and parliaments.
Rarely was a shop to be remarked among the neat little
tenements, many of them built of curious old brick, and all of
them raised without any regard to symmetry or proportion.  Not
the sound of a single wheel was heard; sometimes not a single
individual was visible or stirring.  Making a circuitous
course through this tranquil and orderly district, they at
last found themselves in an open place in the centre of which
rose a church of vast proportions, and built of hewn stone in
that stately, not to say ponderous, style which Vanburgh
introduced.  The area round it, which was sufficiently ample,
was formed by buildings, generally of a very mean character:
the long back premises of a carpenter, the straggling yard of
a hackney-man: sometimes a small, narrow isolated private
residence, like a waterspout in which a rat might reside:
sometimes a group of houses of more pretension.  In the
extreme corner of this area, which was dignified by the name
of Smith's Square, instead of taking a more appropriate title
from the church of St John which it encircled, was a large old
house, that had been masked at the beginning of the century
with a modern front of pale-coloured bricks, but which still
stood in its courtyard surrounded by its iron railings,
withdrawn as it were from the vulgar gaze like an individual
who had known higher fortunes, and blending with his humility
something of the reserve which is prompted by the memory of
vanished greatness.

"This is my home," said Sybil.  "It is a still place and suits
us well."

Near the house was a narrow passage which was a thoroughfare
into the most populous quarter of the neighbourhood.  As
Egremont was opening the gate of the courtyard, Gerard
ascended the steps of this passage and approached them.




Book 4 Chapter 7



When Gerard and Morley quitted the Albany after their visit to
Egremont, they separated, and Stephen, whom we will accompany,
proceeded in the direction of the Temple, in the vicinity of
which he himself lodged, and where he was about to visit a
brother journalist, who occupied chambers in that famous inn
of court.  As he passed under Temple Bar his eye caught a
portly gentleman stepping out of a public cab with a bundle of
papers in his hand, and immediately disappearing through that
well-known archway which Morley was on the point of reaching.
The gentleman indeed was still in sight, descending the way,
when Morley entered, who observed him drop a letter.  Morley
hailed him, but in vain; and fearing the stranger might
disappear in one of the many inextricable courts, and so lose
his letter, he ran forward, picked up the paper, and then
pushed on to the person who dropped it, calling out so
frequently that the stranger at length began to suspect that
he himself might be the object of the salute, and stopped and
looked round.  Morley almost mechanically glanced at the
outside of the letter, the seal of which was broken, and which
was however addressed to a name that immediately fixed his
interest.  The direction was to "Baptist Hatton, Esq., Inner
Temple."

"This letter is I believe addressed to you, Sir," said Morley,
looking very intently upon the person to whom he spoke--a
portly man and a comely; florid, gentleman-like, but with as
little of the expression which Morley in imagination had
associated