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Title: Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet

Author: Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

Release Date: June, 2005  [EBook #8374]
[This file was first posted on July 4, 2003]

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ALTON LOCKE,

TAILOR AND POET

An Autobiography.

BY THE REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY,

CANON OF WESTMINSTER, RECTOR OF EVERSLEY,
AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN AND PRINCE OF WALES,

_NEW EDITION_,







WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR BY THOMAS HUGHES, ESQ., Q.C.,

AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS."





CONTENTS.


PREFATORY MEMOIR

CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY

PREFACE--TO THE UNDERGRADUATES OF CAMBRIDGE

PREFACE--TO THE WORKING MEN OF GREAT BRITAIN

CHAPTER I. A POET'S CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER II. THE TAILORS' WORKROOM

CHAPTER III. SANDY MACKAYE

CHAPTER IV. TAILORS AND SOLDIERS

CHAPTER V. THE SCEPTIC'S MOTHER

CHAPTER VI. THE DULWICH GALLERY

CHAPTER VII. FIRST LOVE

CHAPTER VIII. LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE

CHAPTER IX. POETRY AND POETS

CHAPTER X. HOW FOLKS TURN CHARTISTS

CHAPTER XI. "THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE"

CHAPTER XII. CAMBRIDGE

CHAPTER XIII. THE LOST IDOL FOUND

CHAPTER XIV. A CATHEDRAL TOWN

CHAPTER XV. THE MAN OF SCIENCE

CHAPTER XVI. CULTIVATED WOMEN

CHAPTER XVII. SERMONS IN STONES

CHAPTER XVIII. MY FALL

CHAPTER XIX. SHORT AND SAD

CHAPTER XX. PEGASUS IN HARNESS

CHAPTER XXI. THE SWEATER'S DEN

CHAPTER XXII. AN EMERSONIAN SERMON

CHAPTER XXIII. THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

CHAPTER XXIV. THE TOWNSMAN'S SERMON TO THE GOWNSMAN

CHAPTER XXV. A TRUE NOBLEMAN

CHAPTER XXVI. THE TRIUMPHANT AUTHOR

CHAPTER XXVII. THE PLUSH BREECHES TRAGEDY

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MEN WHO ARE EATEN

CHAPTER XXIX. THE TRIAL

CHAPTER XXX. PRISON THOUGHTS

CHAPTER XXXI. THE NEW CHURCH

CHAPTER XXXII. THE TOWER OF BABEL

CHAPTER XXXIII. A PATRIOT'S REWARD

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TENTH OF APRIL

CHAPTER XXXV. THE LOWEST DEEP

CHAPTER XXXVI. DREAMLAND

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TRUE DEMAGOGUE

CHAPTER XXXVIII. MIRACLES ASD SCIENCE

CHAPTER XXXIX. NEMESIS

CHAPTER XL. PRIESTS AND PEOPLE

CHAPTER XLI. FREEDOM, EQUALITY, AND BROTHERHOOD




PREFATORY MEMOIR.


The tract appended to this preface has been chosen to accompany this
reprint of _Alton Locke_ in order to illustrate, from another side, a
distinct period in the life of Charles Kingsley, which stands out very much
by itself. It may be taken roughly to have extended from 1848 to 1856. It
has been thought that they require a preface, and I have undertaken to
write it, as one of the few survivors of those who were most intimately
associated with the author at the time to which the works refer.

No easy task; for, look at them from what point we will, these years must
be allowed to cover an anxious and critical time in modern English history;
but, above all, in the history of the working classes. In the first of them
the Chartist agitation came to a head and burst, and was followed by the
great movement towards association, which, developing in two directions and
by two distinct methods--represented respectively by the amalgamated Trades
Unions, and Co-operative Societies--has in the intervening years entirely
changed the conditions of the labour question in England, and the relations
of the working to the upper and middle classes. It is with this, the social
and industrial side of the history of those years, that we are mainly
concerned here. Charles Kingsley has left other and more important writings
of those years. But these are beside our purpose, which is to give some
such slight sketch of him as may be possible within the limits of a
preface, in the character in which he was first widely known, as the most
outspoken and powerful of those who took the side of the labouring classes,
at a critical time--the crisis in a word, when they abandoned their old
political weapons, for the more potent one of union and association, which
has since carried them so far.

To no one of all those to whom his memory is very dear can this seem a
superfluous task, for no writer was ever more misunderstood or better
abused at the time, and after the lapse of almost a quarter of a century
the misunderstanding would seem still to hold its ground. For through all
the many notices of him which appeared after his death in last January,
there ran the same apologetic tone as to this part of his life's work.
While generally, and as a rule cordially, recognizing his merits as an
author and a man, the writers seemed to agree in passing lightly over this
ground. When it was touched it was in a tone of apology, sometimes tinged
with sarcasm, as in the curt notice in the "Times"--"He was understood, to
be the Parson Lot of those 'Politics for the People' which made no little
noise in their time, and as Parson Lot he declared in burning language
that to his mind the fault in the 'People's Charter' was that it did not
go nearly far enough." And so the writer turns away, as do most of his
brethren, leaving probably some such impression as this on the minds of
most of their readers--"Young men of power and genius are apt to start with
wild notions. He was no exception. Parson Lot's sayings and doings may well
be pardoned for what Charles Kingsley said and did in after years; so let
us drop a decent curtain over them, and pass on."

Now, as very nearly a generation has passed since that signature used to
appear at the foot of some of the most noble and vigorous writing of our
time, readers of to-day are not unlikely to accept this view, and so to
find further confirmation and encouragement in the example of Parson Lot
for the mischievous and cowardly distrust of anything like enthusiasm
amongst young men, already sadly too prevalent in England. If it were only
as a protest against this "surtout point de zele" spirit, against which it
was one of Charles Kingsley's chief tasks to fight with all his strength,
it is well that the facts should be set right. This done, readers may
safely be left to judge what need there is for the apologetic tone in
connection with the name, the sayings, and doings of Parson Lot.

My first meeting with him was in the autumn of 1848, at the house of Mr.
Maurice, who had lately been appointed Reader of Lincolns Inn. No parochial
work is attached to that post, so Mr. Maurice had undertaken the charge of
a small district in the parish in which he lived, and had set a number of
young men, chiefly students of the Inns of Court who had been attracted by
his teaching, to work in it. Once a week, on Monday evenings, they used
to meet at his house for tea, when their own work was reported upon and
talked over. Suggestions were made and plans considered; and afterwards a
chapter of the Bible was read and discussed. Friends and old pupils of Mr.
Maurice's, residing in the country, or in distant parts of London, were
in the habit of coming occasionally to these meetings, amongst whom was
Charles Kingsley. He had been recently appointed Rector of Eversley, and
was already well known as the author of _The Saint's Tragedy_, his first
work, which contained the germ of much that he did afterwards.

His poem, and the high regard and admiration which Mr. Maurice had for
him, made him a notable figure in that small society, and his presence was
always eagerly looked for. What impressed me most about him when we first
met was, his affectionate deference to Mr. Maurice, and the vigour and
incisiveness of everything he said and did. He had the power of cutting
out what he meant in a few clear words, beyond any one I have ever met.
The next thing that struck one was the ease with which he could turn from
playfulness, or even broad humour, to the deepest earnest. At first I think
this startled most persons, until they came to find out the real deep
nature of the man; and that his broadest humour had its root in a faith
which realized, with extraordinary vividness, the fact that God's Spirit
is actively abroad in the world, and that Christ is in every man, and made
him hold fast, even in his saddest moments,--and sad moments were not
infrequent with him,--the assurance that, in spite of all appearances, the
world was going right, and would go right somehow, "Not your way, or my
way, but God's way." The contrast of his humility and audacity, of his
distrust in himself and confidence in himself, was one of those puzzles
which meet us daily in this world of paradox. But both qualities gave him a
peculiar power for the work he had to do at that time, with which the name
of Parson Lot is associated.

It was at one of these gatherings, towards the end of 1847 or early in
1848, when Kingsley found himself in a minority of one, that he said
jokingly, he felt much as Lot must have felt in the Cities of the Plain,
when he seemed as one that mocked to his sons-in-law. The name Parson Lot
was then and there suggested, and adopted by him, as a familiar _nom de
plume_, He used it from 1848 up to 1856; at first constantly, latterly
much more rarely. But the name was chiefly made famous by his writings in
"Politics for the People," the "Christian Socialist," and the "Journal of
Association," three periodicals which covered the years from '48 to '52; by
"Alton Locke"; and by tracts and pamphlets, of which the best known, "Cheap
Clothes and Nasty," is now republished.

In order to understand and judge the sayings and writings of Parson Lot
fairly, it is necessary to recall the condition of the England of that
day. Through the winter of 1847-8, amidst wide-spread distress, the cloud
of discontent, of which Chartism was the most violent symptom, had been
growing darker and more menacing, while Ireland was only held down by main
force. The breaking-out of the revolution on the Continent in February
increased the danger. In March there were riots in London, Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Liverpool, and other large towns. On April 7th, "the Crown
and Government Security Bill," commonly called "the Gagging Act," was
introduced by the Government, the first reading carried by 265 to 24,
and the second a few days later by 452 to 35. On the 10th of April the
Government had to fill London with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington
in command, who barricaded the bridges and Downing Street, garrisoned the
Bank and other public buildings, and closed the Horse Guards.

When the momentary crisis had passed, the old soldier declared in the House
of Lords that "no great society had ever suffered as London had during the
preceding days," while the Home Secretary telegraphed to all the chief
magistrates of the kingdom the joyful news that the peace had been kept
in London. In April, the Lord Chancellor, in introducing the Crown and
Government Security Bill in the House of Lords, referred to the fact
that "meetings were daily held, not only in London, but in most of the
manufacturing towns, the avowed object of which was to array the people
against the constituted authority of these realms." For months afterwards
the Chartist movement, though plainly subsiding, kept the Government in
constant anxiety; and again in June, the Bank, the Mint, the Custom House,
and other public offices were filled with troops, and the Houses of
Parliament were not only garrisoned but provisioned as if for a siege.

From that time, all fear of serious danger passed away. The Chartists were
completely discouraged, and their leaders in prison; and the upper and
middle classes were recovering rapidly from the alarm which had converted
a million of them into special constables, and were beginning to doubt
whether the crisis had been so serious after all, whether the disaffection
had ever been more than skin deep. At this juncture a series of articles
appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ on "London Labour and the London Poor,"
which startled the well-to-do classes out of their jubilant and scornful
attitude, and disclosed a state of things which made all fair minded people
wonder, not that there had been violent speaking and some rioting, but that
the metropolis had escaped the scenes which had lately been enacted in
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other Continental capitals.

It is only by an effort that one can now realize the strain to which the
nation was subjected during that winter and spring, and which, of course,
tried every individual man also, according to the depth and earnestness of
his political and social convictions and sympathies. The group of men who
were working under Mr. Maurice were no exceptions to the rule. The work of
teaching and visiting was not indeed neglected, but the larger questions
which were being so strenuously mooted--the points of the people's charter,
the right of public meeting, the attitude of the labouring-class to the
other classes--absorbed more and more of their attention. Kingsley was
very deeply impressed with the gravity and danger of the crisis--more so,
I think, than almost any of his friends; probably because, as a country
parson, he was more directly in contact with one class of the poor than any
of them. How deeply he felt for the agricultural poor, how faithfully he
reflected the passionate and restless sadness of the time, may be read in
the pages of "Yeast," which was then coming out in "Fraser." As the winter
months went on this sadness increased, and seriously affected his health.

"I have a longing," he wrote to Mr. Ludlow, "to do _something_--what, God
only knows. You say, 'he that believeth will not make haste,' but I think
he that believeth must _make_ haste, or get damned with the rest. But I
will do anything that anybody likes--I have no confidence in myself or in
anything but God. I am not great enough for such times, alas! '_ne pour
faire des vers_,' as Camille Desmoulins said."

This longing became so strong as the crisis in April approached, that he
came to London to see what could be done, and to get help from Mr. Maurice,
and those whom he had been used to meet at his house. He found them a
divided body. The majority were sworn in as special constables, and several
had openly sided with the Chartists; while he himself, with Mr. Maurice and
Mr. Ludlow, were unable to take active part with either side. The following
extract from a letter to his wife, written on the 9th of April, shows how
he was employed during these days, and how he found the work which he was
in search of, the first result of which was the publication of "those
'Politics for the People' which made no small noise in their times"--

"_April_ 11th, 1848.--The events of a week have been crowded into a few
hours. I was up till four this morning--writing posting placards, under
Maurice's auspices, one of which is to be got out to-morrow morning, the
rest when we can get money. Could you not beg a few sovereigns somewhere
to help these poor wretches to the truest alms?--to words, texts from the
Psalms, anything which may keep even one man from cutting his brother's
throat to-morrow or Friday? _Pray, pray, help us._ Maurice has given me
a highest proof of confidence. He has taken me to counsel, and we are to
have meetings for prayer and study, when I come up to London, and we are to
bring out a new set of real "Tracts for the Times," addressed to the higher
orders. Maurice is _a la hauteur des circonstances_--determined to make a
decisive move. He says, if the Oxford Tracts did wonders, why should not
we? Pray for us. A glorious future is opening, and both Maurice and Ludlow
seem to have driven away all my doubts and sorrow, and I see the blue sky
again, and my Father's face!"

The arrangements for the publication of "Politics for the People" were soon
made; and in one of the earliest numbers, for May, 1848, appeared the paper
which furnishes what ground there is for the statement, already quoted,
that "he declared, in burning language, that the People's Charter did not
go far enough" It was No. 1 of "Parson Lot's Letters to the Chartists." Let
us read it with its context.

"I am not one of those who laugh at your petition of the 10th of April: I
have no patience with those who do. Suppose there were but 250,000 honest
names on that sheet--suppose the Charter itself were all stuff--yet you
have still a right to fair play, a patient hearing, an honourable and
courteous answer, whichever way it may be. But _my only quarrel with the
Charter is that it does not go far enough in reform_. I want to see you
_free_, but I do not see that what you ask for will give you what you want.
I think you have fallen into just the same mistake as the rich, of whom you
complain--the very mistake which has been our curse and our nightmare. I
mean the mistake of fancying that _legislative_ reform is _social_ reform,
or that men's hearts can be changed by Act of Parliament. If any one will
tell me of a country where a Charter made the rogues honest, or the idle
industrious, I will alter my opinion of the Charter, but not till then. It
disappointed me bitterly when I read it. It seemed a harmless cry enough,
but a poor, bald constitution-mongering cry as ever I heard. The French cry
of 'organization of labour' is worth a thousand of it, but yet that does
not go to the bottom of the matter by many a mile." And then, after telling
how he went to buy a number of the Chartist newspaper, and found it in a
shop which sold "flash songsters," "the Swell's Guide," and "dirty milksop
French novels," and that these publications, and a work called "The Devil's
Pulpit," were puffed in its columns, he goes on, "These are strange times.
I thought the devil used to befriend tyrants and oppressors, but he seems
to have profited by Burns' advice to 'tak a thought and mend.' I thought
the struggling freeman's watchword was: 'God sees my wrongs.' 'He hath
taken the matter into His own hands.' 'The poor committeth himself unto
Him, for He is the helper of the friendless.' But now the devil seems all
at once to have turned philanthropist and patriot, and to intend himself to
fight the good cause, against which he has been fighting ever since Adam's
time. I don't deny, my friends, it is much cheaper and pleasanter to be
reformed by the devil than by God; for God will only reform society on the
condition of our reforming every man his own self--while the devil is quite
ready to help us to mend the laws and the parliament, earth and heaven,
without ever starting such an impertinent and 'personal' request, as that
a man should mend himself. _That_ liberty of the subject he will always
respect."--"But I say honestly, whomsoever I may offend, the more I have
read of your convention speeches and newspaper articles, the more I am
convinced that too many of you are trying to do God's work with the devil's
tools. What is the use of brilliant language about peace, and the majesty
of order, and universal love, though it may all be printed in letters a
foot long, when it runs in the same train with ferocity, railing, mad,
one-eyed excitement, talking itself into a passion like a street woman? Do
you fancy that after a whole column spent in stirring men up to fury, a few
twaddling copybook headings about 'the sacred duty of order' will lay the
storm again? What spirit is there but the devil's spirit in bloodthirsty
threats of revenge?"--"I denounce the weapons which you have been deluded
into employing to gain you your rights, and the indecency and profligacy
which you are letting be mixed up with them! Will you strengthen and
justify your enemies? Will you disgust and cripple your friends? Will you
go out of your way to do wrong? When you can be free by fair means will you
try foul? When you might keep the name of Liberty as spotless as the Heaven
from which she comes, will you defile her with blasphemy, beastliness, and
blood? When the cause of the poor is the cause of Almighty God, will you
take it out of His hands to entrust it to the devil? These are bitter
questions, but as you answer them so will you prosper."

In Letter II. he tells them that if they have followed, a different
"Reformer's Guide" from his, it is "mainly the fault of us parsons, who
have never told you that the true 'Reformer's Guide,' the true poor man's
book, the true 'Voice of God against tyrants, idlers, and humbugs, was the
Bible.' The Bible demands for the poor as much, and more, than they demand
for themselves; it expresses the deepest yearnings of the poor man's heart
far more nobly, more searchingly, more daringly, more eloquently than any
modern orator has done. I say, it gives a ray of hope--say rather a certain
dawn of a glorious future, such as no universal suffrage, free trade,
communism, organization of labour, or any other Morrison's-pill-measure can
give--and yet of a future, which will embrace all that is good in these--a
future of conscience, of justice, of freedom, when idlers and oppressors
shall no more dare to plead parchments and Acts of Parliament for their
iniquities. I say the Bible promises this, not in a few places only, but
throughout; it is the thought which runs through the whole Bible, justice
from God to those whom men oppress, glory from God to those whom men
despise. Does that look like the invention of tyrants, and prelates? You
may sneer, but give me a fair hearing, and if I do not prove my words, then
call me the same hard name which I shall call any man, who having read
the Bible, denies that it is the poor man's comfort and the rich man's
warning."

In subsequent numbers (as afterwards in the "Christian Socialist," and the
"Journal of Association") he dwells in detail on the several popular cries,
such as, "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," illustrating them from
the Bible, urging his readers to take it as the true Radical Reformer's
Guide, if they were longing for the same thing as he was longing for--to
see all humbug, idleness, injustice, swept out of England. His other
contributions to these periodicals consisted of some of his best short
poems: "The Day of the Lord;" "The Three Fishers;" "Old and New," and
others; of a series of Letters on the Frimley murder; of a short story
called "The Nun's Pool," and of some most charming articles on the pictures
in the National Gallery, and the collections in the British Museum,
intended to teach the English people how to use and enjoy their own
property.

I think I know every line which was ever published under the signature
Parson Lot; and I take it upon myself to say, that there is in all that
"burning language" nothing more revolutionary than the extracts given above
from his letters to the Chartists.

But, it may be said, apart from his writings, did not Parson Lot declare
himself a Chartist in a public meeting in London; and did he not preach in
a London pulpit a political sermon, which brought up the incumbent, who had
invited him, to protest from the altar against the doctrine which had just
been delivered?

Yes! Both statements are true. Here are the facts as to the speech, those
as to the sermon I will give in their place. In the early summer of 1848
some of those who felt with C. Kingsley that the "People's Charter" had not
had fair play or courteous treatment, and that those who signed it had real
wrongs to complain of, put themselves into communication with the leaders,
and met and talked with them. At last it seemed that the time was come for
some more public meeting, and one was called at the Cranbourn Tavern, over
which Mr. Maurice presided. After the president's address several very
bitter speeches followed, and a vehement attack was specially directed
against the Church and the clergy. The meeting waxed warm, and seemed
likely to come to no good, when Kingsley rose, folded his arms across his
chest, threw his head back, and began--with the stammer which always came
at first when he was much moved, but which fixed every one's attention at
once--"I am a Church of England parson"--a long pause--"and a Chartist;"
and then he went on to explain how far he thought them right in their claim
for a reform of Parliament; how deeply he sympathized with their sense of
the injustice of the law as it affected them; how ready he was to help in
all ways to get these things set right; and then to denounce their methods,
in very much the same terms as I have already quoted from his letters to
the Chartists. Probably no one who was present ever heard a speech which
told more at the time. I had a singular proof that the effect did not
pass away. The most violent speaker on that occasion was one of the staff
of the leading Chartist newspaper. I lost sight of him entirely for more
than twenty years, and saw him again, a little grey shrivelled man, by
Kingsley's side, at the grave of Mr. Maurice, in the cemetery at Hampstead.

The experience of this meeting encouraged its promoters to continue the
series, which they did with a success which surprised no one more than
themselves. Kingsley's opinion of them may be gathered from the following
extract from a letter to his wife:--

"_June_ 4, 1848, Evening.--A few words before bed. I have just come home
from the meeting. No one spoke but working men, gentlemen I should call
them, in every sense of the term. Even _I_ was perfectly astonished by the
courtesy, the reverence to Maurice, who sat there like an Apollo, their
eloquence, the brilliant, nervous, well-chosen language, the deep simple
earnestness, the rightness and moderation of their thoughts. And these are
the _Chartists_, these are the men who are called fools and knaves--who are
refused the rights which are bestowed on every profligate fop.... It is
God's cause, fear not He will be with us, and if He is with us, who shall
be against us?"

But while he was rapidly winning the confidence of the working classes, he
was raising up a host of more or less hostile critics in other quarters by
his writings in "Politics for the People," which journal was in the midst
of its brief and stormy career. At the end of June, 1848, he writes to Mr.
Ludlow, one of the editors--

"I fear my utterances have had a great deal to do with the 'Politics''
unpopularity. I have got worse handled than any of you by poor and rich.
There is one comfort, that length of ears is in the donkey species always
compensated by toughness of hide. But it is a pleasing prospect for me (if
you knew all that has been said and written about Parson Lot), when I look
forward and know that my future explosions are likely to become more and
more obnoxious to the old gentlemen, who stuff their ears with cotton, and
then swear the children are not screaming."

"Politics for the People" was discontinued for want of funds; but its
supporters, including all those who were working under Mr. Maurice--who,
however much they might differ in opinions, were of one mind as to the
danger of the time, and the duty of every man to do his utmost to meet that
danger--were bent upon making another effort. In the autumn, Mr. Ludlow,
and others of their number who spent the vacation abroad, came back with
accounts of the efforts at association which were being made by the
workpeople of Paris.

The question of starting such associations in England as the best means
of fighting the slop system--which the "Chronicle" was showing to lie at
the root of the misery and distress which bred Chartists--was anxiously
debated. It was at last resolved to make the effort, and to identify the
new journal with the cause of Association, and to publish a set of tracts
in connection with it, of which Kingsley undertook to write the first,
"Cheap Clothes and Nasty."

So "the Christian Socialist" was started, with Mr. Ludlow for editor, the
tracts on Christian Socialism begun under Mr. Maurice's supervision, and
the society for promoting working-men's associations was formed out of the
body of men who were already working with Mr. Maurice. The great majority
of these joined, though the name was too much for others. The question of
taking it had been much considered, and it was decided, on the whole, to be
best to do so boldly, even though it might cost valuable allies. Kingsley
was of course consulted on every point, though living now almost entirely
at Eversley, and his views as to the proper policy to be pursued may be
gathered best from the following extracts from letters of his to Mr.
Ludlow--

"We must touch the workman at all his points of interest. First and
foremost at association--but also at political rights, as grounded both
on the Christian ideal of the Church, and on the historic facts of the
Anglo-Saxon race. Then national education, sanitary and dwelling-house
reform, the free sale of land, and corresponding reform of the land laws,
moral improvement of the family relation, public places of recreation (on
which point I am very earnest), and I think a set of hints from history,
and sayings of great men, of which last I have been picking up from Plato,
Demosthenes, &c."

1849.--"This is a puling, quill-driving, soft-handed age--among our
own rank, I mean. Cowardice is called meekness; to temporize is to be
charitable and reverent; to speak truth, and shame the devil, is to
offend weak brethren, who, somehow or other, never complain of their weak
consciences till you hit them hard. And yet, my dear fellow, I still remain
of my old mind--that it is better to say too much than too little, and more
merciful to knock a man down with a pick-axe than to prick him to death
with pins. The world says, No. It hates anything demonstrative, or violent
(except on its own side), or unrefined."

1849.--"The question of property is one of these cases. We must face it in
this age--simply because it faces us."--"I want to commit myself--I want
to make others commit themselves. No man can fight the devil with a long
ladle, however pleasant it may be to eat with him with one. A man never
fishes well in the morning till he has tumbled into the water."

And the counsels of Parson Lot had undoubtedly great weight in giving an
aggressive tone both to the paper and the society. But if he was largely
responsible for the fighting temper of the early movement, he, at any rate,
never shirked his share of the fighting. His name was the butt at which all
shafts were aimed. As Lot "seemed like one that mocked to his sons-in-law,"
so seemed the Parson to the most opposite sections of the British nation.
As a friend wrote of him at the time, he "had at any rate escaped the
curse of the false prophets, 'Woe unto you when all men shall speak well
of you.'" Many of the attacks and criticisms were no doubt aimed not so
much at him personally as at the body of men with whom, and for whom,
he was working; but as he was (except Mr. Maurice) the only one whose
name was known, he got the lion's share of all the abuse. The storm
broke on him from all points of the compass at once. An old friend and
fellow-contributor to "Politics for the People," led the Conservative
attack, accusing him of unsettling the minds of the poor, making them
discontented, &c. Some of the foremost Chartists wrote virulently against
him for "attempting to justify the God of the Old Testament," who, they
maintained, was unjust and cruel, and, at any rate, not the God "of the
people." The political economists fell on him for his anti-Malthusian
belief, that the undeveloped fertility of the earth need not be overtaken
by population within any time which it concerned us to think about. The
quarterlies joined in the attack on his economic heresies. The "Daily
News" opened a cross fire on him from the common-sense Liberal battery,
denouncing the "revolutionary nonsense, which is termed Christian
Socialisms"; and, after some balancing, the "Guardian," representing in
the press the side of the Church to which he leant, turned upon him in a
very cruel article on the republication of "Yeast" (originally written
for "Fraser's Magazine"), and accused him of teaching heresy in doctrine,
and in morals "that a certain amount of youthful profligacy does no real
permanent harm to the character, perhaps strengthens it for a useful and
religious life."

In this one instance Parson Lot fairly lost his temper, and answered, "as
was answered to the Jesuit of old--_mentiris impudentissime_." With the
rest he seemed to enjoy the conflict and "kept the ring," like a candidate
for the wrestling championship in his own county of Devon against all
comers, one down another come on.

The fact is, that Charles Kingsley was born a fighting man, and believed
in bold attack. "No human power ever beat back a resolute forlorn hope,"
he used to say; "to be got rid of, they must be blown back with grape and
canister," because the attacking party have all the universe behind them,
the defence only that small part which is shut up in their walls. And he
felt most strongly at this time that hard fighting was needed. "It is a
pity" he writes to Mr. Ludlow, "that telling people what's right, won't
make them do it; but not a new fact, though that ass the world has quite
forgotten it; and assures you that dear sweet 'incompris' mankind only
wants to be told the way to the millennium to walk willingly into it--which
is a lie. If you want to get mankind, if not to heaven, at least out of
hell, kick them out." And again, a little later on, in urging the policy
which the "Christian Socialist" should still follow--

1851.--"It seems to me that in such a time as this the only way to fight
against the devil is to attack him. He has got it too much his own way
to meddle with us if we don't meddle with him. But the very devil has
feelings, and if you prick him will roar...whereby you, at all events, gain
the not-every-day-of-the-week-to-be-attained benefit of finding out where
he is. Unless, indeed, as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as
big grasshoppers do when you chase them), and puts you on a wrong scent,
by crying 'Fire!' out of saints' windows. Still, the odds are if you prick
lustily enough, you make him roar unawares."

The memorials of his many controversies lie about in the periodicals of
that time, and any one who cares to hunt them up will be well repaid, and
struck with the vigour of the defence, and still more with the complete
change in public opinion, which has brought the England of to-day clean
round to the side of Parson Lot. The most complete perhaps of his fugitive
pieces of this kind is the pamphlet, "Who are the friends of Order?"
published by J. W. Parker and Son, in answer to a very fair and moderate
article in "Fraser's Mazagine." The Parson there points out how he and
his friends were "cursed by demagogues as aristocrats, and by tories as
democrats, when in reality they were neither." And urges that the very fact
of the Continent being overrun with Communist fanatics is the best argument
for preaching association here.

But though he faced his adversaries bravely, it must not be inferred that
he did not feel the attacks and misrepresentations very keenly. In many
respects, though housed in a strong and vigorous body, his spirit was an
exceedingly tender and sensitive one. I have often thought that at this
time his very sensitiveness drove him to say things more broadly and
incisively, because he was speaking as it were somewhat against the grain,
and knew that the line he was taking would be misunderstood, and would
displease and alarm those with whom he had most sympathy. For he was by
nature and education an aristocrat in the best sense of the word, believed
that a landed aristocracy was a blessing to the country, and that no
country would gain the highest liberty without such a class, holding its
own position firmly, but in sympathy with the people. He liked their habits
and ways, and keenly enjoyed their society. Again, he was full of reverence
for science and scientific men, and specially for political economy and
economists, and desired eagerly to stand well with them. And it was a most
bitter trial to him to find himself not only in sharp antagonism with
traders and employers of labour, which he looked for, but with these
classes also.

On the other hand many of the views and habits of those with whom he found
himself associated were very distasteful to him. In a new social movement,
such as that of association as it took shape in 1849-50, there is certain
to be great attraction for restless and eccentric persons, and in point
of fact many such joined it. The beard movement was then in its infancy,
and any man except a dragoon who wore hair on his face was regarded as a
dangerous character, with whom it was compromising to be seen in any public
place--a person in sympathy with _sansculottes_, and who would dispense
with trousers but for his fear of the police. Now whenever Kingsley
attended a meeting of the promoters of association in London, he was
sure to find himself in the midst of bearded men, vegetarians, and other
eccentric persons, and the contact was very grievous to him. "As if we
shall not be abused enough," he used to say, "for what we must say and do
without being saddled with mischievous nonsense of this kind." To less
sensitive men the effect of eccentricity upon him was almost comic, as
when on one occasion he was quite upset and silenced by the appearance of
a bearded member of Council at an important deputation in a straw hat and
blue plush gloves. He did not recover from the depression produced by those
gloves for days. Many of the workmen, too, who were most prominent in the
Associations were almost as little to his mind--windy inflated kind of
persons, with a lot of fine phrases in their mouths which they did not know
the meaning of.

But in spite of all that was distasteful to him in some of its
surroundings, the co-operative movement (as it is now called) entirely
approved itself to his conscience and judgment, and mastered him so that he
was ready to risk whatever had to be risked in fighting its battle. Often
in those days, seeing how loath Charles Kingsley was to take in hand, much
of the work which Parson Lot had to do, and how fearlessly and thoroughly
he did it after all, one was reminded of the old Jewish prophets, such as
Amos the herdsman of Tekoa--"I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's
son, but I was an herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit: and the Lord
took me as I followed the flock, and said unto me, Go prophesy unto my
people Israel."

The following short extracts from his correspondence with Mr. Ludlow, as to
the conduct of the "Christian Socialist," and his own contributions to it,
may perhaps serve to show how his mind was working at this time:--

_Sept., 1850_.--"I cannot abide the notion of Branch Churches or Free
(sect) Churches, and unless my whole train of thought alters, I will resist
the temptation as coming from the devil. Where I am I am doing God's work,
and when the Church is ripe for more, the Head of the Church will put the
means our way. You seem to fancy that we may have a _Deus quidam Deceptor_
over us after all. If I did I'd go and blow my dirty brains out and be rid
of the whole thing at once. I would indeed. If God, when people ask Him to
teach and guide them, does not; if when they confess themselves rogues and
fools to Him, and beg Him to make them honest and wise, He does not, but
darkens them, and deludes them into bogs and pitfalls, is he a Father? You
fall back into Judaism, friend."

_Dec., 1850_.--"Jeremiah is my favourite book now. It has taught me more
than tongue can tell. But I am much disheartened, and am minded to speak
no more words in this name (Parson Lot); and yet all these bullyings teach
one, correct one, warn one--show one that God is not leaving one to go
one's own way. 'Christ reigns,' quoth Luther."

It was at this time, in the winter of 1850, that "Alton Locke" was
published. He had been engaged on it for more than a year, working at it
in the midst of all his controversies. The following extracts from his
correspondence with Mr. Ludlow will tell readers more about it than any
criticism, if they have at all realized the time at which it was written,
or his peculiar work in that time.

_February, 1849_.--"I have hopes from the book I am writing, which has
revealed itself to me so rapidly and methodically that I feel it comes
down from above, and that only my folly can spoil it, which I pray against
daily."

1849.--"I think the notion a good one (referring to other work for the
paper which he had been asked to do), but I feel no inspiration at all
that way; and I dread being tempted to more and more bitterness, harsh
judgment, and evil speaking. I dread it. I am afraid sometimes I shall end
in universal snarling. Besides, my whole time is taken up with my book,
and _that_ I do feel inspired to write. But there is something else which
weighs awfully on my mind--(the first number of _Cooper's Journal_, which
he sent me the other day). Here is a man of immense influence openly
preaching Strausseanism to the workmen, and in a fair, honest, manly way
which must tell. Who will answer him? Who will answer Strauss? [Footnote:
He did the work himself. After many interviews, and a long correspondence
with him, Thomas Cooper changed his views, and has been lecturing and
preaching for many years as a Christian.] Who will denounce him as a vile
aristocrat, robbing the poor man of his Saviour--of the ground of all
democracy, all freedom, all association--of the Charter itself? _Oh, si
mihi centum voces et ferrea lingua!_ Think about _that_."

_January, 1850_.--"A thousand thanks for your letter, though it only shows
me what I have long suspected, that I know hardly enough yet to make the
book what it should be. As you have made a hole, you must help to fill it.
Can you send me any publication which would give me a good notion of the
Independents' view of politics, also one which would give a good notion of
the Fox-Emerson-Strauss school of Blague-Unitarianism, which is superseding
dissent just now. It was with the ideal of Calvinism, and its ultimate
bearing on the people's cause, that I wished to deal. I believe that there
must be internecine war between the people's church--_i.e._, the future
development of Catholic Christianity, and Calvinism even in its mildest
form, whether in the Establishment or out of it--and I have counted the
cost and will give every _party_ its slap in their turn. But I will alter,
as far as I can, all you dislike."

_August, 1850_.--"How do you know, dearest man, that I was not right in
making the Alton of the second volume different from the first? In showing
the individuality of the man swamped and warped by the routine of misery
and discontent? How do you know that the historic and human interest of the
book was not intended to end with Mackay's death, in whom old radicalism
dies, 'not having received the promises,' to make room for the radicalism
of the future? How do you know that the book from that point was not
intended to take a mythic and prophetic form, that those dreams come in for
the very purpose of taking the story off the ground of the actual into the
deeper and wider one of the ideal, and that they do actually do what they
were intended to do? How do you know that my idea of carrying out Eleanor's
sermons in practice were just what I could not--and if I could, dared not,
give? that all that I could do was to leave them as seed, to grow by itself
in many forms, in many minds, instead of embodying them in some action
which would have been both as narrow as my own idiosyncrasy, gain the
reproach of insanity, and be simply answered by--'If such things have been
done, where are they?' and lastly, how do you know that I had not a special
meaning in choosing a civilized fine lady as my missionary, one of a class
which, as it does exist, God must have something for it to do, and, as
it seems, plenty to do, from the fact that a few gentlemen whom I could
mention, not to speak of Fowell Buxtons, Howards, Ashleys, &c., have
done, more for the people in one year than they have done for themselves
in fifty? If I had made her an organizer, as well as a preacher, your
complaint might have been just. My dear man, the artist is a law unto
himself--or rather God is a law to him, when he prays, as I have earnestly
day after day about this book--to be taught how to say the right thing
in the right way--and I assure you I did not get tired of my work, but
laboured as earnestly at the end as I did at the beginning. The rest of
your criticism, especially about the interpenetration of doctrine and
action, is most true, and shall be attended to.--Your brother,

"G. K."

The next letter, on the same topic, in answer to criticisms on "Alton
Locke," is addressed to a brother clergyman--

"EVERSLEY, _January 13, 1851_.

"Rec. dear Sir,--I will answer your most interesting letter as shortly as
I can, and if possible in the same spirit of honesty as that in which you
have written to me.

"_First_, I do not think the cry 'Get on' to be anything but a devil's cry.
The moral of my book is that the working man who tries to get on, to desert
his class and rise above it, enters into a lie, and leaves God's path for
his own--with consequences.

"_Second_, I believe that a man might be as a tailor or a costermonger,
every inch of him a saint, a scholar, and a gentleman, for I have seen some
few such already. I believe hundreds of thousands more would be so, if
their businesses were put on a Christian footing, and themselves given by
education, sanitary reforms, &c., the means of developing their own latent
capabilities--I think the cry, 'Rise in Life,' has been excited by the very
increasing impossibility of being anything but brutes while they struggle
below. I know well all that is doing in the way of education, &c., but
I do assert that the disease of degradation has been for the last forty
years increasing faster than the remedy. And I believe, from experience,
that when you put workmen into human dwellings, and give them a Christian
education, so far from wishing discontentedly to rise out of their class,
or to level others to it, exactly the opposite takes place. They become
sensible of the dignity of work, and they begin to see their labour as a
true calling in God's Church, now that it is cleared from the accidentia
which made it look, in their eyes, only a soulless drudgery in a devil's
workshop of a _World_.

"_Third_, From the advertisement of an 'English Republic' you send, I can
guess who will be the writers in it, &c., &c., being behind the scenes.
It will come to nought. Everything of this kind is coming to nought now.
The workmen are tired of idols, ready and yearning for the Church and the
Gospel, and such men as your friend may laugh at Julian Harney, Feargus
O'Connor, and the rest of that smoke of the pit. Only we live in a great
crisis, and the Lord requires great things of us. The fields are white to
harvest. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He may send forth
labourers into His harvest.

"_Fourth_, As to the capacities of working-men, I am afraid that your
excellent friend will find that he has only the refuse of working
intellects to form his induction on. The devil has got the best long ago.
By the neglect of the Church, by her dealing (like the Popish Church and
all weak churches) only with women, children, and beggars, the cream
and pith of working intellect is almost exclusively self-educated, and,
therefore, alas! infidel. If he goes on as he is doing, lecturing on
history, poetry, science, and all the things which the workmen crave for,
and can only get from such men as H----, Thomas Cooper, &c., mixed up with
Straussism and infidelity, he will find that he will draw back to his
Lord's fold, and to his lecture room, slowly, but surely, men, whose powers
will astonish him, as they have astonished me.

"_Fifth_, The workmen whose quarrels you mention are not Christians, or
socialists either. They are of all creeds and none. We are teaching them
to become Christians by teaching them gradually that true socialism, true
liberty, brotherhood, and true equality (not the carnal dead level equality
of the Communist, but the spiritual equality of the church idea, which
gives every man an equal chance of developing and using God's gifts, and
rewards every man according to his work, without respect of persons) is
only to be found in loyalty and obedience to Christ. They do quarrel, but
if you knew how they used to quarrel before association, the improvement
since would astonish you. And the French associations do not quarrel
at all. I can send you a pamphlet on them, if you wish, written by an
eyewitness, a friend of mine.

"_Sixth_, If your friend wishes to see what can be made of workmen's
brains, let him, in God's name, go down to Harrow Weald, and there see Mr.
Monro--see what he has done with his own national school boys. I have his
opinion as to the capabilities of those minds, which we, alas! now so sadly
neglect. I only ask him to go and ask of that man the question which you
have asked of me.

"_Seventh_, May I, in reference to myself and certain attacks on me, say,
with all humility, that I do not speak from hearsay now, as has been
asserted, from second-hand picking and stealing out of those 'Reports on
Labour and the Poor,' in the 'Morning Chronicle,' which are now being
reprinted in a separate form, and which I entreat you to read if you wish
to get a clear view of the real state of the working classes.

"From my cradle, as the son of an active clergyman, I have been brought
up in the most familiar intercourse with the poor in town and country. My
mother, a second Mrs. Fry, in spirit and act. For fourteen years my father
has been the rector of a very large metropolitan parish--and I speak what I
know, and testify that which I have seen. With earnest prayer, in fear and
trembling, I wrote my book, and I trust in Him to whom I prayed that He has
not left me to my own prejudices or idols on any important point relating
to the state of the possibilities of the poor for whom He died. Any use
which you choose you can make of this letter. If it should seem worth your
while to honour me with any further communications, I shall esteem them a
delight, and the careful consideration of them a duty.--Believe me, Rev.
and dear Sir, your faithful and obedient servant,

"C. KINGSLEY."

By this time the society for promoting associations was thoroughly
organized, and consisted of a council of promoters, of which Kingsley was a
member, and a central board, on which the managers of the associations and
a delegate from each of them sat. The council had published a number of
tracts, beginning with "Cheap Clothes and Nasty," which had attracted the
attention of many persons, including several of the London clergy, who
connected themselves more or less closely with the movement. Mr. Maurice,
Kingsley, Hansard, and others of these, were often asked to preach on
social questions, and when in 1851, on the opening of the Great Exhibition,
immense crowds of strangers were drawn to London, they were specially
in request. For many London incumbents threw open their churches, and
organized series of lectures, specially bearing on the great topic of the
day. It was now that the incident happened which once more brought upon
Kingsley the charge of being a revolutionist, and which gave him more pain
than all other attacks put together. One of the incumbents before referred
to begged Mr. Maurice to take part in his course of lectures, and to
ask Kingsley to do so; assuring Mr. Maurice that he "had been reading
Kingsley's works with the greatest interest, and earnestly desired to
secure him as one of his lecturers." "I promised to mention this request to
him," Mr. Maurice says, "though I knew he rarely came to London, and seldom
preached except in his own parish. He agreed, though at some inconvenience,
that he would preach a sermon on the 'Message of the Church to the
Labouring Man.' I suggested the subject to him. The incumbent intimated
the most cordial approval of it. He had asked us, not only with a previous
knowledge of our published writings, but expressly because he had that
knowledge. I pledge you my word that no questions were asked as to what we
were going to say, and no guarantees given. Mr. Kingsley took precisely
that view of the message of the Church to labouring men which every reader
of his books would have expected him to take."

Kingsley took his text from Luke iv. verses 16 to 21: "The spirit of the
Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor," &c. What then was that gospel? Kingsley asks, and goes on--"I assert
that the business for which God sends a Christian priest in a Christian
nation is, to preach freedom, equality, and brotherhood in the fullest,
deepest, widest meaning of those three great words; that in as far as he so
does, he is a true priest, doing his Lord's work with his Lord's blessing
on him; that in as far as he does not he is no priest at all, but a traitor
to God and man"; and again, "I say that these words express the very
pith and marrow of a priest's business; I say that they preach freedom,
equality, and brotherhood to rich and poor for ever and ever." Then he goes
on to warn his hearers how there is always a counterfeit in this world of
the noblest message and teaching.

Thus there are two freedoms--the false, where a man is free to do what he
likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.

Two equalities--the false, which reduces all intellects and all characters,
to a dead level, and gives the same power to the bad as to the good, to the
wise as to the foolish, ending thus in practice in the grossest inequality;
the true, wherein each man has equal power to educate and use whatever
faculties or talents God has given him, be they less or more. This is the
divine equality which the Church proclaims, and nothing else proclaims as
she does.

Two brotherhoods--the false, where a man chooses who shall be his brothers,
and whom he will treat as such; the true, in which a man believes that
all are his brothers, not by the will of the flesh, or the will of man,
but by the will of God, whose children they all are alike. The Church has
three special possessions and treasures. The Bible, which proclaims man's
freedom, Baptism his equality, the Lord's Supper his brotherhood.

At the end of this sermon (which would scarcely cause surprise to-day
if preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Chapel Royal), the
incumbent got up at the altar and declared his belief that great part of
the doctrine of the sermon was untrue, and that he had expected a sermon of
an entirely different kind. To a man of the preacher's vehement temperament
it must have required a great effort not to reply at the moment. The
congregation was keenly excited, and evidently expected him to do so.
He only bowed his head, pronounced the blessing, and came down from the
pulpit.

I must go back a little to take up the thread of his connection with, and
work for, the Society for Promoting Working Men's Associations. After it
had passed the first difficulties of starting, he was seldom able to
attend either Council or Central Board. Every one else felt how much more
important and difficult work he was doing by fighting the battle in the
press, down at Eversley, but he himself was eager to take part in the
everyday business, and uneasy if he was not well informed as to what was
going on.

Sometimes, however, he would come up to the Council, when any matter
specially interesting to him was in question, as in the following example,
when a new member of the Council, an Eton master, had objected to some
strong expressions in one of his letters on the Frimley murder, in the
"Christian Socialist":--

1849.--"The upper classes are like a Yankee captain sitting on the safety
valve, and serenely whistling--but what will be will be. As for the worthy
Eton parson, I consider it infinitely expedient that he be entreated to
vent his whole dislike in the open Council forthwith, under a promise on my
part not to involve him in any controversy or reprisals, or to answer in
any tone except that of the utmost courtesy and respect. Pray do this. It
will at once be a means of gaining him, and a good example, please God,
to the working men; and for the Frimley letter, put it in the fire if you
like, or send it back to have the last half re-written, or 'anything else
you like, my pretty little dear.'"

But his prevailing feeling was getting to be, that he was becoming an
outsider--

"Nobody deigns to tell me," he wrote to me, "how things go on, and who
helps, and whether I can help. In short, I know nothing, and begin to fancy
that you, like some others, think me a lukewarm and timeserving aristocrat,
after I have ventured more than many, because I had more to venture."

The same feeling comes out in the following letter, which illustrates
too, very well, both his deepest conviction as to the work, the mixture
of playfulness and earnestness with which he handled it, and his humble
estimate of himself. It refers to the question of the admission of a new
association to the Union. It was necessary, of course, to see that the
rules of a society, applying for admission to the Union, were in proper
form, and that sufficient capital was forthcoming, and the decision lay
with the Central Board, controlled in some measure by the Council of
Promoters.

An association of clay-pipe makers had applied for admission, and had been
refused by the vote of the central board. The Council, however, thought
there were grounds for reconsidering the decision, and to strengthen the
case for admission, Kingsley's opinion was asked. He replied:--

"EVERSLEY, _May 31, 1850_.

"The sight of your handwriting comforted me--for nobody takes any notice of
me, not even the printers; so I revenge myself by being as idle as a dog,
and fishing, and gardening, and basking in this glorious sun. But your
letter set me thanking God that he has raised up men to do the work of
which I am not worthy. As for the pipe-makers, give my compliments to the
autocrats, and tell them it is a shame. The Vegetarians would have quite
as much right to refuse the Butchers, because, forsooth, theirs is now
discovered not to be a necessary trade. Bosh! The question is this--If
association be a great Divine law and duty, the realization of the Church
idea, no man has _a right_ to refuse any body of men, into whose heart
God has put it to come and associate. It may be answered that these men's
motives are self-interested. I say, 'Judge no man.' You dare not refuse
a heathen baptism because you choose to think that his only motive for
turning Christian is the selfish one of saving his own rascally soul. No
more have you a right to refuse to men an entrance into the social Church.
They must come in, and they will, because association is not men's dodge
and invention but God's law for mankind and society, which He has made, and
we must not limit. I don't know whether I am intelligible, but what's more
important, I know I am right. Just read this to the autocrats, and tell
them, with my compliments, they are Popes, Tyrants, Manichees, Ascetics,
Sectarians, and everything else that is abominable; and if they used as
many pipes as I do, they would know the blessing of getting them cheap,
and start an associate baccy factory besides. Shall we try? But, this one
little mistake excepted (though, if they repeat it, it will become a great
mistake, and a wrong, and a ruinous wrong), they are much better fellows
than poor I, and doing a great deal more good, and at every fresh news of
their deeds I feel like Job's horse, when he scents the battle afar off."

No small part of the work of the Council consisted in mediating and
arbitrating in the disputes between the associates and their managers;
indeed, such work kept the legal members of the board (none of whom were
then overburdened with regular practice) pretty fully occupied. Some such
dispute had arisen in one of the most turbulent of these associations, and
had been referred to me for settlement. I had satisfied myself as to the
facts, and considered my award, and had just begun to write out the draft,
when I was called away from my chambers, and left the opening lines lying
on my desk. They ran as follows:--"The Trustees of the Mile End Association
of Engineers, seeing that the quarrels between the associates have not
ceased"--at which word I broke off. On returning to my chambers a quarter
of an hour later, I found a continuation in the following words:--

  "And that every man is too much inclined to behave himself like a beast,
  In spite of our glorious humanity, which requires neither God nor priest,
  Yet is daily praised and plastered by ten thousand fools at least--
  Request Mr. Hughes' presence at their jawshop in the East,
  Which don't they wish they may get it, for he goes out to-night to feast
  At the Rev. C. Kingsley's rectory, Chelsea, where he'll get his gullet
      greased
  With the best of Barto Valle's port, and will have his joys increased
  By meeting his old college chum, McDougal the Borneo priest--
  So come you thief, and drop your brief,
  At six o'clock without relief;
  And if you won't may you come to grief,
  Says Parson Lot the Socialist Chief,
  Who signs his mark at the foot of the leaf--thus"

and, at the end, a clenched fist was sketched in a few bold lines, and
under it, "Parson Lot, his mark" written.

I don't know that I can do better than give the history of the rest of the
day. Knowing his town habits well, I called at Parker, the publisher's,
after chambers, and found him there, sitting on a table and holding forth
on politics to our excellent little friend, John Wm. Parker, the junior
partner.

We started to walk down to Chelsea, and a dense fog came on before we had
reached Hyde Park Corner. Both of us knew the way well; but we lost it half
a dozen times, and his spirit seemed to rise as the fog thickened. "Isn't
this like life," he said, after one of our blunders: "a deep yellow fog all
round, with a dim light here and there shining through. You grope your way
on from one lamp to another, and you go up wrong streets and back again;
but you get home at last--there's always light enough for that." After a
short pause he said, quite abruptly, "Tom, do you want to live to be old?"
I said I had never thought on the subject; and he went on, "I dread it more
than I can say. To feel one's powers going, and to end in snuff and stink.
Look at the last days of Scott and Wordsworth, and Southey." I suggested
St. John. "Yes," he said, "that's the right thing, and will do for Bunsen,
and great, tranquil men like him. The longer they live the better for all.
But for an eager, fiery nature like mine, with fierce passions eating one's
life out, it won't do. If I live twenty years I know what will happen to
me. The back of my brain will soften, and I shall most likely go blind."

The Bishop got down somehow by six. The dinner did not last long, for the
family were away, and afterwards we adjourned to the study, and Parson Lot
rose to his best. He stood before the fire, while the Bishop and I took the
two fireside arm chairs, and poured himself out, on subject after subject,
sometimes when much moved taking a tramp up and down the room, a long
clay pipe in his right hand (at which he gave an occasional suck; it was
generally out, but he scarcely noticed it), and his left hand passed behind
his back, clasping the right elbow. It was a favourite attitude with him,
when he was at ease with his company.

We were both bent on drawing him out; and the first topic, I think, raised
by the Bishop was, Fronde's history, then recently published. He took up
the cudgels for Henry VIII., whom we accused of arbitrariness. Henry was
not arbitrary; arbitrary men are the most obstinate of men? Why? Because
they are weak. The strongest men are always ready to hear reason and change
their opinions, because the strong man knows that if he loses an opinion
to-day he can get just as good a one to-morrow in its place. But the weak
man holds on to his opinion, because he can't get another, and he knows it.

Soon afterwards he got upon trout fishing, which was a strong bond of union
between him and me, and discoursed on the proper methods of fishing chalk
streams. "Your flies can't be too big, but they must be on small gut, not
on base viol fiddle strings, like those you brought down to Farnham last
year. I tell you gut is the thing that does it. Trout know that flies don't
go about with a ring and a hand pole through their noses, like so many
prize bulls of Lord Ducie's."

Then he got on the possible effect of association on the future of England,
and from that to the first International Exhibition, and the building which
was going up in Hyde Park.

"I mean to run a muck soon," he said, "against all this talk about genius
and high art, and the rest of it. It will be the ruin of us, as it has been
of Germany. They have been for fifty years finding out, and showing people
how to do everything in heaven and earth, and have done nothing. They are
dead even yet, and will be till they get out of the high art fit. We were
dead, and the French were dead till their revolution; but that brought us
to life. Why didn't the Germans come to life too? Because they set to work
with their arts, sciences, and how to do this, that, and the other thing,
and doing nothing. Goethe was, in great part, the ruin of Germany. He was
like a great fog coming down on the German people, and wrapping them up."

Then he, in his turn, drew the Bishop about Borneo, and its people, and
fauna and flora; and we got some delightful stories of apes, and converts,
and honey bears, Kingsley showing himself, by his questions, as familiar
with the Bornean plants and birds, as though he had lived there. Later on
we got him on his own works, and he told us how he wrote. "I can't think,
even on scientific subjects, except in the dramatic form. It is what Tom
said to Harry, and what Harry answered him. I never put pen to paper till I
have two or three pages in my head, and see them as if they were printed.
Then I write them off, and take a turn in the garden, and so on again." We
wandered back to fishing, and I challenged his keenness for making a bag.
"Ah!" he said, "that's all owing to my blessed habit of intensity, which
has been my greatest help in life. I go at what I am about as if there were
nothing else in the world for the time being. That's the secret of all
hard-working men; but most of them can't carry it into their amusements.
Luckily for me I can stop from all work, at short notice, and turn head
over heels in the sight of all creation, and say, I won't be good or bad,
or wise, or anything, till two o'clock to-morrow."

At last the Bishop would go, so we groped our way with him into the King's
Road, and left him in charge of a link-boy. When we got back, I said
something laughingly about his gift of talk, which had struck me more that
evening than ever before.

"Yes," he said, "I have it all in me. I could be as great a talker as any
man in England, but for my stammering. I know it well; but it's a blessed
thing for me. You must know, by this time, that I'm a very shy man, and
shyness and vanity always go together. And so I think of what every fool
will say of me, and can't help it. When a man's first thought is not
whether a thing is right or wrong, but what will Lady A., or Mr. B. say
about it, depend upon it he wants a thorn in the flesh, like my stammer.
When I am speaking for God, in the pulpit, or praying by bedsides, I never
stammer. My stammer is a blessed thing for me. It keeps me from talking in
company, and from going out as much as I should do but for it."

It was two o'clock before we thought of moving, and then, the fog being as
bad as ever, he insisted on making me up a bed on the floor. While we were
engaged in this process, he confided to me that he had heard of a doctor
who was very successful in curing stammering, and was going to try him. I
laughed, and reminded him of his thorn in the flesh, to which he replied,
with a quaint twinkle of his eye, "Well, that's true enough. But a man has
no right to be a nuisance, if he can help it, and no more right to go about
amongst his fellows stammering, than he has to go about stinking."

At this time he was already at work on another novel; and, in answer to a
remonstrance from a friend, who was anxious that he should keep ail his
strength for social reform, writes--

1851.--"I know that He has made me a parish priest, and that that is the
duty which lies nearest me, and that I may seem to be leaving my calling
in novel writing. But has He not taught me all these very things _by my_
parish priest life? Did He, too, let me become a strong, daring, sporting,
wild man of the woods for nothing? Surely the education He has given me so
different from that which authors generally receive, points out to me a
peculiar calling to preach on these points from my own experience, as it
did to good old Isaac Walton, as it has done in our own day to that truly
noble man, Captain Marryat. Therefore I must believe, '_si tu sequi la tua,
stella_,' with Dante, that He who ordained my star will not lead me _into_
temptation, but _through_ it, as Maurice says. Without Him all places and
methods of life are equally dangerous--with Him, all equally safe. Pray for
me, for in myself I am weaker of purpose than a lost grey hound, lazier
than a dog in rainy weather."

While the co-operative movement was spreading in all directions, the same
impulse was working amongst the trades unions, and the engineers had set
the example of uniting all their branches into one society. In this winter
they believed themselves strong enough to try conclusions with their
employers. The great lock-out in January, 1852, was the consequence. The
engineers had appealed to the Council of Promoters to help them in putting
their case--which had been much misrepresented--fairly before the public,
and Kingsley had been consulted as the person best able to do it. He had
declined to interfere, and wrote me the following letter to explain his
views. It will show how far he was an encourager of violent measures or
views:--

"EVERSLEY, _January 28, 1852_.

"You may have been surprised at my having taken no part in this Amalgamated
Iron Trades' matter. And I think that I am bound to say why I have not, and
how far I wish my friends to interfere in it.

"I do think that we, the Council of Promoters, shall not be wise in
interfering between masters and men; because--1. I question whether the
points at issue between them can be fairly understood by any persons not
conversant with the practical details of the trade...

"2. Nor do I think they have put their case as well as they might. For
instance, if it be true that they themselves have invented many, or most,
of the improvements in their tools and machinery, they have an argument in
favour of keeping out unskilled labourers, which is unanswerable, and yet,
that they have never used--viz.: 'Your masters make hundreds and thousands
by these improvements, while we have no remuneration for this inventive
talent of ours, but rather lose by it, because it makes the introduction
of unskilled labour more easy. Therefore, the only way in which we can get
anything like a payment for this inventive faculty of which we make you a
present over and above our skilled labour, for which you bargained, is to
demand that we, who invent the machines, if we cannot have a share in the
profits of them, shall at least have the exclusive privilege of using them,
instead of their being, as now, turned against us.' That, I think, is a
fair argument; but I have seen nothing of it from any speaker or writer.

"3. I think whatever battle is fought, must be fought by the men
themselves. The present dodge of the Manchester school is to cry out
against us, as Greg did. 'These Christian Socialists are a set of mediaeval
parsons, who want to hinder the independence and self-help of the men, and
bring them back to absolute feudal maxims; and then, with the most absurd
inconsistency, when we get up a corporation workshop, to let the men work
on the very independence and self-help of which they talk so fine, they
turn round and raise just the opposite yell, and cry, The men can't be
independent of capitalists; these associations will fail _because_ the men
are helping themselves'--showing that what they mean is, that the men shall
be independent of every one but themselves--independent of legislators,
parsons, advisers, gentlemen, noblemen, and every one that tries to help
them by moral agents; but the slaves of the capitalists, bound to them by
a servitude increasing instead of lightening with their numbers. Now, the
only way in which we can clear the cause of this calumny is to let the men
fight their own battle; to prevent any one saying, 'These men are the tools
of dreamers and fanatics,' which would be just as ruinously blackening to
them in the public eyes, as it would be to let the cry get abroad, 'This is
a Socialist movement, destructive of rights of property, communism, Louis
Blanc and the devil, &c.' You know the infernal stuff which the devil gets
up on such occasions--having no scruples about calling himself hard names,
when it suits his purpose, to blind and frighten respectable old women.

"Moreover, these men are not poor distressed needlewomen or slop-workers.
They are the most intelligent and best educated workmen, receiving incomes
often higher than a gentleman's son whose education has cost L1000, and if
they can't fight their own battles, no men in England can, and the people
are not ripe for association, and we must hark back into the competitive
rot heap again. All, then, that we can do is, to give advice when asked--to
see that they have, as far as we can get at them, a clear stage and no
favour, but not by public, but by private influence.

"But we can help them in another way, by showing them the way to associate.
That is quite a distinct question from their quarrel with their masters,
and we shall be very foolish if we give the press a handle for mixing up
the two. We have a right to say to masters, men, and public, 'We know and
care nothing about the iron strike. Here are a body of men coming to us,
wishing to be shown how to do that which is a right thing for them to
do--well or ill off, strike or no strike, namely, associate; and we will
help and teach them to do _that_ to the very utmost of our power.'

"The Iron Workers' co-operative shops will be watched with lynx eyes,
calumniated shamelessly. Our business will be to tell the truth about them,
and fight manfully with our pens for them. But we shall never be able to
get the ears of the respectabilities and the capitalists, if we appear at
this stage of the business. What we must say is, 'If you are needy and
enslaved, we will fight for you from pity, whether you be associated or
competitive. But you are neither needy, nor, unless you choose, enslaved;
and therefore we will only fight for you in proportion as you become
associates. Do that, and see if we can't stand hard knocks for your
sake.'--Yours ever affectionate, C. KINGSLEY."

In the summer of 1852 (mainly by the continued exertions of the members of
the Council, who had supplied Mr. Slaney's committee with all his evidence,
and had worked hard in other ways for this object) a Bill for legalizing
Industrial Associations was about to be introduced into the House of
Commons. It was supposed at one time that it would be taken in hand by the
Government of Lord Derby, then lately come into office, and Kingsley had
been canvassing a number of persons to make sure of its passing. On hearing
that a Cabinet Minister would probably undertake it, he writes--

"Let him be assured that he will by such a move do more to carry out true
Conservatism, and to reconcile the workmen with the real aristocracy, than
any politician for the last twenty years has done. The truth is, we are in
a critical situation here in England. Not in one of danger--which is the
vulgar material notion of a crisis, but at the crucial point, the point of
departure of principles and parties which will hereafter become great and
powerful. Old Whiggery is dead, old true blue Toryism of the Robert Inglis
school is dead too-and in my eyes a great loss. But as live dogs are better
than dead lions, let us see what the live dogs are.

"1.--The Peelites, who will ultimately, be sure, absorb into themselves all
the remains of Whiggery, and a very large proportion of the Conservative
party. In an effete unbelieving age, like this, the Sadducee and the
Herodian will be the most captivating philosopher. A scientific laziness,
lukewarmness, and compromise, is a cheery theory for the young men of
the day, and they will take to it _con amore_. I don't complain of Peel
himself. He was a great man, but his method of compromise, though useful
enough in particular cases when employed by a great man, becomes a most
dastardly "_schema mundi_" when taken up by a school of little men.
Therefore the only help which we can hope for from the Peelites is that
they will serve as ballast and cooling pump to both parties, but their very
trimming and moderation make them fearfully likely to obtain power. It
depends on the wisdom of the present government, whether they do or not.

"2.--Next you have the Manchester school, from whom Heaven defend us; for
of all narrow, conceited, hypocritical, and anarchic and atheistic schemes
of the universe, the Cobden and Bright one is exactly the worst. I have no
language to express my contempt for it, and therefore I quote what Maurice
wrote me this morning. 'If the Ministry would have thrown Protection to
the dogs (as I trust they have, in spite of the base attempts of the Corn
Law Leaguers to goad them to committing themselves to it, and to hold them
up as the people's enemies), and thrown themselves into social measures,
who would not have clung to them, to avert that horrible catastrophe
of a Manchester ascendency, which I believe in my soul would be fatal
to intellect, morality, and freedom, and will be more likely to move a
rebellion among the working men than any Tory rule which can be conceived.'

"Of course it would. To pretend to be the workmen's friends, by keeping
down the price of bread, when all they want thereby is to keep down wages,
and increase profits, and in the meantime to widen the gulf between the
working man and all that is time-honoured, refined, and chivalrous in
English society, that they may make the men their divided slaves, that
is-perhaps half unconsciously, for there are excellent men amongst
them--the game of the Manchester School."

"I have never swerved from my one idea of the last seven years, that the
real battle of the time is, if England is to be saved from anarchy and
unbelief, and utter exhaustion caused by the competitive enslavement of
the masses, not Radical or Whig against Peelite or Tory--let the dead bury
their dead-but the Church, the gentlemen, and the workman, against the
shop-keepers and the Manchester School. The battle could not have been
fought forty years ago, because, on one side, the Church was an idle
phantasm, the gentleman too ignorant, the workman too merely animal; while,
on the other, the Manchester cotton-spinners were all Tories, and the
shopkeepers were a distinct class interest from theirs. But now these
two latter have united, and the sublime incarnation of shop-keeping and
labour-buying in the cheapest market shines forth in the person of Moses &
Son, and both cotton-spinners and shop-keepers say 'This is the man!'" and
join in one common press to defend his system. Be it so: now we know our
true enemies, and soon the working-men will know them also. But if the
present Ministry will not see the possibility of a coalition between them,
and the workmen, I see no alternative but just what we have been straining
every nerve to keep off--a competitive United States, a democracy before
which the work of ages will go down in a few years. A true democracy, such
as you and I should wish to see, is impossible without a Church and a
Queen, and, as I believe, without a gentry. On the conduct of statesmen it
will depend whether we are gradually and harmoniously to develop England
on her ancient foundations, or whether we are to have fresh paralytic
governments succeeding each other in doing nothing, while the workmen and
the Manchester School fight out the real questions of the day in ignorance
and fury, till the '_culbute generale_' comes, and gentlemen of ancient
family, like your humble servant, betake themselves to Canada, to escape,
not the Amalgamated Engineers, but their 'masters,' and the slop-working
savages whom their masters' system has created, and will by that time have
multiplied tenfold.

"I have got a Thames boat on the lake at Bramshill, and am enjoying
vigorous sculls. My answer to 'Fraser' is just coming out; spread it where
you can."

In the next year or two the first excitement about the co-operative
movement cooled down. Parson Lot's pen was less needed, and he turned to
other work in his own name. Of the richness and variety of that work this
is not the place to speak, but it all bore on the great social problems
which had occupied him in the earlier years. The Crimean war weighed on
him like a nightmare, and modified some of his political opinions. On the
resignation of Lord Aberdeen's Government on the motion for inquiry into
the conduct of the war, he writes, February 5, 1855, "It is a very bad job,
and a very bad time, be sure, and with a laughing House of Commons we shall
go to Gehenna, even if we are not there already--But one comfort is, that
even Gehenna can burn nothing but the chaff and carcases, so we shall be
none the poorer in reality. So as the frost has broken gloriously, I wish
you would get me a couple of dozen of good flies, viz., cock a bondhues,
red palmers with plenty of gold twist; winged duns, with bodies of hare's
ear and yellow mohair mixed well; hackle duns with grey bodies, and a wee
silver, these last tied as palmers, and the silver ribbed all the way down.
If you could send them in a week I shall be very glad, as fishing begins
early."

In the midst of the war he was present one day at a council meeting, after
which the manager of one of the associations referring to threatened bread
riots at Manchester, asked Kingsley's opinion as to what should be done.
"There never were but two ways," he said, "since the beginning of the world
of dealing with a corn famine. One is to let the merchants buy it up and
hold it as long as they can, as we do. And this answers the purpose best in
the long run, for they will be selling corn six months hence when we shall
want it more than we do now, and makes us provident against our wills.
The other is Joseph's plan." Here the manager broke in, "Why didn't our
Government step in then, and buy largely, and store in public granaries?"
"Yes," said Kingsley, "and why ain't you and I flying about with wings and
dewdrops hanging to our tails. Joseph's plan won't do for us. What minister
would we trust with money enough to buy corn for the people, or power to
buy where he chose." And he went on to give his questioner a lecture in
political economy, which the most orthodox opponent of the popular notions
about Socialism would have applauded to the echo.

By the end of the year he had nearly finished "Westward Ho!"--the most
popular of his novels, which the war had literally wrung out of him. He
writes--

? "_December 18, 1855_.

"I am getting more of a Government man every day. I don't see how they
could have done better in any matter, because I don't see but that _I_
should have done a thousand times worse in their place, and that is the
only fair standard.

"As for a ballad--oh! my dear lad, there is no use fiddling while Rome is
burning. I have nothing to sing about those glorious fellows, except 'God
save the Queen and them.' I tell you the whole thing stuns me, so I cannot
sit down to make fiddle rhyme with diddle about it--or blundered with
hundred like Alfred Tennyson. He is no Tyrtaeus, though he has a glimpse of
what Tyrtaeus ought to be. But I have not even that; and am going rabbit
shooting to-morrow instead. But every man has his calling, and my novel
is mine, because I am fit for nothing better. The book" ('Westward Ho!')
"will be out the middle or end of January, if the printers choose. It is
a sanguinary book, but perhaps containing doctrine profitable for these
times. My only pain is that I have been forced to sketch poor Paddy as a
very worthless fellow then, while just now he is turning out a hero. I have
made the deliberate _amende honorable_ in a note."

Then, referring to some criticism of mine on 'Westward Ho!'--"I suppose you
are right as to Amyas and his mother; I will see to it. You are probably
right too about John Hawkins. The letter in Purchas is to me unknown,
but your conception agrees with a picture my father says he has seen of
Captain John (he thinks at Lord Anglesey's, at Beaudesert) as a prim, hard,
terrier-faced, little fellow, with a sharp chin, and a dogged Puritan eye.
So perhaps I am wrong: but I don't think _that_ very important, for there
must have been sea-dogs of my stamp in plenty too." Then, referring to the
Crimean war--"I don't say that the two cases are parallel. I don't ask
England to hate Russia as she was bound to hate Spain, as God's enemy; but
I do think that a little Tudor pluck and Tudor democracy (paradoxical as
the word may seem, and inconsistently as it was carried out then) is just
what we want now."

"Tummas! Have you read the story of Abou Zennab, his horse, in Stanley's
'Sinai,' p. 67? What a myth! What a poem old Wordsworth would have writ
thereon! If I didn't cry like a babby over it. What a brick of a horse he
must have been, and what a brick of an old head-splitter Abou Zennab must
have been, to have his commandments keeped unto this day concerning of his
horse; and no one to know who he was, nor when, nor how, nor nothing. I
wonder if anybody'll keep _our_ commandments after we be gone, much less
say, 'Eat, eat, O horse of Abou Kingsley!'"

By this time the success of "Westward Ho!" and "Hypatia" had placed him in
the first rank of English writers. His fame as an author, and his character
as a man, had gained him a position which might well have turned any man's
head. There were those amongst his intimate friends who feared that it
might be so with him, and who were faithful enough to tell him so. And I
cannot conclude this sketch better than by giving his answer to that one
of them with whom he had been most closely associated in the time when, as
Parson Lot, every man's hand had been against him--

"MY DEAR LUDLOW,

"And for this fame, &c.,

"I know a little of her worth.

"And I will tell you what I know,

"That, in the first place, she is a fact, and as such, it is not wise to
ignore her, but at least to walk once round her, and see her back as well
as her front.

"The case to me seems to be this. A man feels in himself the love of
praise. Every man does who is not a brute. It is a universal human faculty;
Carlyle nicknames it the sixth sense. Who made it? God or the devil? Is
it flesh or spirit? a difficult question; because tamed animals grow to
possess it in a high degree; and our metaphysician does not yet allow
them spirit. But, whichever it be, it cannot be for bad: only bad when
misdirected, and not controlled by reason, the faculty which judges between
good and evil. Else why has God put His love of praise into the heart of
every child which is born into the world, and entwined it into the holiest
filial and family affections, as the earliest mainspring of good actions?
Has God appointed that every child shall be fed first with a necessary
lie, and afterwards come to the knowledge of your supposed truth, that the
praise of God alone is to be sought? Or are we to believe that the child is
intended to be taught as delicately and gradually as possible the painful
fact, that the praise of all men is not equally worth having, and to use
his critical faculty to discern the praise of good men from the praise
of bad, to seek the former and despise the latter? I should say that the
last was the more reasonable. And this I will say, that if you bring up
any child to care nothing for the praise of its parents, its elders, its
pastors, and masters, you may make a fanatic of it, or a shameless cynic:
but you will neither make it a man, an Englishman, or a Christian.

"But 'our Lord's words stand, about not seeking the honour which comes from
men, but the honour which comes from God only!' True, they do stand, and
our Lord's fact stands also, the fact that He has created every child to
be educated by an honour which comes from his parents and elders. Both are
true. Here, as in most spiritual things, you have an antinomia, an apparent
contradiction, which nothing but the Gospel solves. And it does solve it;
and your one-sided view of the text resolves itself into just the same
fallacy as the old ascetic one. 'We must love God alone, therefore we must
love no created thing.' To which St. John answers pertinently 'He who
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath
not seen?' If you love your brethren, you love Christ in them. If you love
their praise, you love the praise of Christ in them. For consider this,
you cannot deny that, if one loves any person, one desires that person's
esteem. But we are bound to love all men, and that is our highest state.
Therefore, in our highest state, we shall desire all men's esteem.
Paradoxical, but true. If we believe in Christmas-day; if we believe in
Whitsunday, we shall believe that Christ is in all men, that God's spirit
is abroad in the earth, and therefore the dispraise, misunderstanding, and
calumny of men will be exquisitely painful to us, and ought to be so; and,
on the other hand, the esteem of men, and renown among men for doing good
deeds will be inexpressibly precious to us. They will be signs and warrants
to us that God is pleased with us, that we are sharing in that 'honour and
glory' which Paul promises again and again, with no such scruples as yours,
to those who lead heroic lives. We shall not neglect the voice of God
within us; but we shall remember that there is also a voice of God without
us, which we must listen to; and that in a Christian land, _vox populi_,
patiently and discriminately listened to, is sure to be found not far off
from the _vox Dei_.

"Now, let me seriously urge this last fact on you. Of course, in listening
to the voice of the man outside there is a danger, as there is in the use
of any faculty. You may employ it, according to Divine reason and grace,
for ennobling and righteous purposes; or you may degrade it to carnal and
selfish ones; so you may degrade the love of praise into vanity, into
longing for the honour which comes from men, by pandering to their passions
and opinions, by using your powers as they would too often like to use
theirs, for mere self-aggrandisement, by saying in your heart--_quam
pulchrum digito monstrari el diceri hic est_. That is the man who wrote the
fine poem, who painted the fine picture, and so forth, till, by giving way
to this, a man may give way to forms of vanity as base as the red Indian
who sticks a fox's tail on, and dances about boasting of his brute cunning.
I know all about that, as well as any poor son of Adam ever did. But I
know, too, that to desire the esteem of as many rational men as possible;
in a word, to desire an honourable, and true renown for having done good
in my generation, has nothing to do with that; and the more I fear and
struggle against the former, the more I see the exceeding beauty and
divineness, and everlasting glory of the latter as an entrance into the
communion of saints.

"Of course, all this depends on whether we do believe that Christ is in
every man, and that God's spirit is abroad in the earth. Of course, again,
it will be very difficult to know who speaks by God's spirit, and who
sees by Christ's light in him; but surely the wiser, the humbler path, is
to give men credit for as much wisdom and rightness as possible, and to
believe that when one is found fault with, one is probably in the wrong.
For myself, on Looking back, I see clearly with shame and sorrow, that the
obloquy which I have brought often on myself and on the good cause, has
been almost all of it my own fault--that I have given the devil and bad
men a handle, not by caring what people would say, but by _not caring_--by
fancying that I was a very grand fellow, who was going to speak what I knew
to be true, in spite of all fools (and really did and do intend so to do),
while all the while I was deceiving myself, and unaware of a canker at
the heart the very opposite to the one against which you warn me. I mean
the proud, self-willed, self-conceited spirit which made no allowance for
other men's weakness or ignorance; nor again, for their superior experience
and wisdom on points which I had never considered--which took a pride in
shocking and startling, and defying, and hitting as hard as I could, and
fancied, blasphemously, as I think, that the word of God had come to me
only, and went out from me only. God forgive me for these sins, as well
as for my sins in the opposite direction; but for these sins especially,
because I see them to be darker and more dangerous than the others.

"For there has been gradually revealed to me (what my many readings in the
lives of fanatics and ascetics ought to have taught me long before), that
there is a terrible gulf ahead of that not caring what men say. Of course
it is a feeling on which the spirit must fall back in hours of need, and
cry, 'Thou, God, knowest mine integrity. I have believed, and therefore I
will speak; thou art true, though all men be liars!' But I am convinced
that that is a frame in which no man can live, or is meant to live;
that it is only to be resorted to in fear and trembling, after deepest
self-examination, and self-purification, and earnest prayer. For otherwise,
Ludlow, a man gets to forget that voice of God without him, in his
determination to listen to nothing but the voice of God within him, and so
he falls into two dangers. He forgets that there is a voice of God without
him. He loses trust in, and charity to, and reverence for his fellow-men;
he learns to despise, deny, and quench the Spirit, and to despise
prophesyings, and so becomes gradually cynical, sectarian, fanatical.

"And then comes a second and worse danger. Crushed into self, and his own
conscience and _schema mundi_, he loses the opportunity of correcting his
impression of the voice of God within, by the testimony of the voice of God
without; and so he begins to mistake more and more the voice of that very
flesh of his, which he fancies he has conquered, for the voice of God,
and to become, without knowing it, an autotheist. And out of that springs
eclecticism, absence of tenderness _for_ men, for want of sympathy _with_
men; as he makes his own conscience his standard for God, so he makes his
own character the standard for men; and so he becomes narrow, hard, and
if he be a man of strong will and feelings, often very inhuman and cruel.
This is the history of thousands-of Jeromes, Lauds, Puritans who scourged
Quakers, Quakers who cursed Puritans; nonjurors, who though they would die
rather than offend their own conscience in owning William, would plot with
James to murder William, or to devastate England with Irish Rapparees and
Auvergne dragoons. This, in fact, is the spiritual diagnosis of those many
pious persecutors, who though neither hypocrites or blackguards themselves,
have used both as instruments of their fanaticism.

"Against this I have to guard myself, you little know how much, and to
guard my children still more, brought up, as they will be, under a father,
who, deeply discontented with the present generation, cannot but express
that discontent at times. To make my children '_banausoi_,' insolent and
scoffing radicals, believing in nobody and nothing but themselves, would be
perfectly easy in me if I were to make the watchword of my house, 'Never
mind what people say.' On the contrary, I shall teach them that there are
plenty of good people in the world; that public opinion has pretty surely
an undercurrent of the water of life, below all its froth and garbage;
and that in a Christian country like this, where, with all faults, a man
(sooner or later) has fair play and a fair hearing, the esteem of good men,
and the blessings of the poor, will be a pretty sure sign that they have
the blessing of God also; and I shall tell them, when they grow older, that
ere they feel called on to become martyrs, in defending the light within
them against all the world, they must first have taken care most patiently,
and with all self-distrust and humility, to make full use of the light
which is around them, and has been here for ages before them, and would be
here still, though they had never been born or thought of. The antinomy
between this and their own conscience may be painful enough to them some
day. To what thinking man is it not a life-long battle? but I shall not
dream that by denying one pole of the antinomy I can solve it, or do
anything but make them, by cynicism or fanaticism, bury their talent in the
earth, and _not_ do the work which God has given them to do, because they
will act like a parson who, before beginning his sermon, should first kick
his congregation out of doors, and turn the key; and not like St. Paul, who
became all things to all men, if by any means he might save some.

"Yours ever affectionately, with all Christmas blessings,

"C. KINGSLEY.

"FARLY COURT, _December 26, 1855_.

"I should be very much obliged to you to show this letter to Maurice."

One more letter only I will add, dated about the end of the "Parson Lot"
period. He had written to inform me that one of the old Chartist leaders,
a very worthy fellow, was in great distress, and to ask me to do what I
could for him. In my reply I had alluded somewhat bitterly to the apparent
failure of the Association movement in London, and to some of our blunders,
acknowledging how he had often seen the weak places, and warned us against
them. His answer came by return of post:--

"EVERSLEY, _May, 1856_.

"DEAR TOM,--It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest; and don't cry
stinking fish, neither don't hollow till you're out of the wood--which you
oughtn't to have called yourself Tom fool, and blasphemed the holy name
thereby, till you knowed you was sich, which you wasn't, as appears by
particulars. And I have heard from T---- twice to-day, and he is agreeable,
which, if he wasn't, he is an ass, and don't know half a loaf is better
than no bread, and you musn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but all is as
right as a dog-fox down wind and vi. _millia passuum_, to the next gorse.
But this L25 of his is a grueller, and I learnt with interest that you are
inclined to get the fishes nose out of the weed. I have offered to lend him
L10--hopes it may be lending--and have written a desperate begging letter
to R. Monckton Milnes, Esq., which 'evins prosper. Poor T---- says to-night
that he has written to Forster about it--which he must have the small of
his back very hard against the ropes so to do, so the sooner we get the
ginger-beer bottle out the longer he'll fight, or else he'll throw up the
sponge at once; for I know his pride. I think we can raise it somehow. I
have a last card in old ----, the judge who tried and condemned him, and is
the dearest old soul alive, only he will have it T---- showed dunghill, and
don't carry a real game nackle. If I am to tackle he you must send me back
those letters to appeal to his piety and 'joys as does abound,' as your
incomparable father remarks. When _will_ you give me that canticle? He
says Tom Taylor (I believe all the world is called Thomas) has behaved to
him like a brother, which, indeed, was to be expexed, and has promised
him copying at a shilling an hour, and _will_ give him a chop daily free
gracious; but the landlord won't wait, which we musn't neither.

"Now, business afore pleasure. You are an old darling, and who says no,
I'd kick him, if it warn't for my cloth; but you are green in cottoning to
me about our '48 mess. Because why? I lost nothing--I risked nothing. You
fellows worked like bricks, spent money, and got midshipman's half-pay
(nothing a-day and find yourself), and monkey's allowance (more kicks than
halfpence). I risked no money; 'cause why, I had none; but _made_ money out
of the movement, and fame too. I've often thought what a dirty beast I was.
I made L150 by Alton Locke, and never lost a farthing; and I got, not in
spite of, but by the rows, a name and a standing with many a one who would
never have heard of me otherwise, and I should have been a stercoraceous
mendicant if I had hollowed when I got a facer, while I was winning by the
cross, though I didn't mean to fight one. No. And if I'd had L100,000, I'd
have, and should have, staked and lost it all in 1848-50. I should, Tom,
for my heart was and is in it, and you'll see it will beat yet; but we
ain't the boys. We don't see but half the bull's eye yet, and don't see
_at all_ the policeman which is a going on his beat behind the bull's eye,
and no thanks to us. Still, _some_ somedever, it's in the fates, that
Association is the pure caseine, and must be eaten by the human race if it
would save its soul alive, which, indeed, it will; only don't you think me
a good fellow for not crying out, when I never had more to do than scratch
myself and away went the fleas. But you all were real bricks; and if you
were riled, why let him that is without sin cast the first stone, or let me
cast it for him, and see if I don't hit him in the eye.

"Now to business; I have had a sorter kinder sample day. Up at 5, to see a
dying man; ought to have been up at 2, but Ben King the rat-catcher, who
came to call me, was taken nervous!!! and didn't make row enough; was from
5.30 to 6.30 with the most dreadful case of agony--insensible to me, but
not to his pain. Came home, got a wash and a pipe, and again to him at
8. Found him insensible to his own pain, with dilated pupils, dying of
pressure of the brain--going any moment. Prayed the commendatory prayers
over him, and started for the river with West. Fished all the morning
in a roaring N.E. gale, with the dreadful agonized face between me and
the river, pondering on THE mystery. Killed eight on 'March brown' and
'governor,' by drowning the flies, and taking _'em out gently to see_ if
ought was there--which is the only dodge in a north-easter. 'Cause why? The
water is warmer than the air--_ergo_, fishes don't like to put their noses
out o' doors, and feeds at home down stairs. It is the only wrinkle, Tom.
The captain fished a-top, and caught but three all day. They weren't going
to catch a cold in their heads to please him or any man. Clouds burn up at
1 P.M. I put on a minnow, and kill three more; I should have had lots, but
for the image of the dirty hickory stick, which would 'walk the waters like
a thing of life,' just ahead of my minnow. Mem.--Never fish with the sun in
your back; it's bad enough with a fly, but with a minnow it's strichnine
and prussic acid. My eleven weighed together four and a-half pounds--three
to the pound; not good, considering I had spased many a two-pound fish, I
_know_.

"Corollary.--Brass minnow don't suit the water. Where is your wonderful
minnow? Send him me down, or else a _horn_ one, which I believes in
desperate; but send me something before Tuesday, and I will send you P.O.O.
Horn minnow looks like a gudgeon, which is the pure caseine. One pounder I
caught to-day on the 'March brown' womited his wittles, which was rude, but
instructive; and among worms was a gudgeon three inches long and more. Blow
minnows--gudgeon is the thing.

"Came off the water at 3. Found my man alive, and, thank God, quiet. Sat
with him, and thought him going once or twice. What a mystery that long,
insensible death-struggle is! Why should they be so long about it? Then had
to go Hartley Row for an Archdeacon's Sunday-school meeting--three hours
useless (I fear) speechifying and 'shop'; but the Archdeacon is a good
man, and works like a brick beyond his office. Got back at 10:30, and sit
writing to you. So goes one's day. All manner of incongruous things to
do--and the very incongruity keeps one beany and jolly. Your letter was
delightful. I read part of it to West, who says, you are the best fellow on
earth, to which I agree.

"So no more from your sleepy and tired--C. KINGSLEY."

This was almost the last letter I ever received from him in the Parson Lot
period of his life, with which alone this notice has to do. It shows, I
think, very clearly that it was not that he had deserted his flag (as has
been said) or changed his mind about the cause for which he had fought so
hard and so well. His heart was in it still as warmly as ever, as he says
himself. But the battle had rolled away to another part of the field.
Almost all that Parson Lot had ever striven for was already gained. The
working-classes had already got statutory protection for their trade
associations, and their unions, though still outside the law, had become
strong enough to fight their own battles. And so he laid aside his fighting
name and his fighting pen, and had leisure to look calmly on the great
struggle more as a spectator than an actor.

A few months later, in the summer of 1856, when he and I were talking
over and preparing for a week's fishing in the streams and lakes of his
favourite Snowdonia, he spoke long and earnestly in the same key. I well
remember how he wound it all up with, "the long and short of it is, I am
becoming an optimist. All men, worth anything, old men especially, have
strong fits of optimism--even Carlyle has--because they can't help hoping,
and sometimes feeling, that the world is going right, and will go right,
not your way, or my way, but its own way. Yes; we've all tried our
Holloway's Pills, Tom, to cure all the ills of all the world--and we've
all found out I hope by this time that the tough old world has more in
its inside than any Holloway's Pills will clear out." A few weeks later I
received the following invitation to Snowdon, and to Snowdon we went in the
autumn of 1856.

THE INVITATION.

  Come away with me, Tom,
  Term and talk is done;
  My poor lads are reaping,
  Busy every one.
  Curates mind the parish,
  Sweepers mind the Court,
  We'll away to Snowdon
  For our ten days' sport,
  Fish the August evening
  Till the eve is past,
  Whoop like boys at pounders
  Fairly played and grassed.
  When they cease to dimple,
  Lunge, and swerve, and leap,
  Then up over Siabod
  Choose our nest, and sleep.
  Up a thousand feet, Tom,
  Round the lion's head,
  Find soft stones to leeward
  And make up our bed.
  Bat our bread and bacon,
  Smoke the pipe of peace,
  And, ere we be drowsy,
  Give our boots a grease.
  Homer's heroes did so,
  Why not such as we?
  What are sheets and servants?
  Superfluity.
  Pray for wives and children
  Safe in slumber curled,
  Then to chat till midnight
  O'er this babbling world.
  Of the workmen's college,
  Of the price of grain,
  Of the tree of knowledge,
  Of the chance of rain;
  If Sir A. goes Romeward,
  If Miss B. sings true,
  If the fleet comes homeward,
  If the mare will do,--
  Anything and everything--
  Up there in the sky
  Angels understand us,
  And no "_saints_" are by.
  Down, and bathe at day-dawn,
  Tramp from lake to lake,
  Washing brain and heart clean
  Every step we take.
  Leave to Robert Browning
  Beggars, fleas, and vines;
  Leave to mournful Ruskin
  Popish Apennines,
  Dirty Stones of Venice
  And his Gas-lamps Seven;
  We've the stones of Snowdon
  And the lamps of heaven.
  Where's the mighty credit
  In admiring Alps?
  Any goose sees "glory"
  In their "snowy scalps."
  Leave such signs and wonders
  For the dullard brain,
  As aesthetic brandy,
  Opium, and cayenne;
  Give me Bramshill common
  (St. John's harriers by),
  Or the vale of Windsor,
  England's golden eye.
  Show me life and progress,
  Beauty, health, and man;
  Houses fair, trim gardens,
  Turn where'er I can.
  Or, if bored with "High Art,"
  And such popish stuff,
  One's poor ears need airing,
  Snowdon's high enough.
  While we find God's signet
  Fresh on English ground,
  Why go gallivanting
  With the nations round?
  Though we try no ventures
  Desperate or strange;
  Feed on common-places
  In a narrow range;
  Never sought for Franklin
  Round the frozen Capes;
  Even, with Macdougall,
  Bagged our brace of apes;
  Never had our chance, Tom,
  In that black Redan;
  Can't avenge poor Brereton
  Out in Sakarran;
  Tho' we earn our bread, Tom,
  By the dirty pen,
  What we can we will be,
  Honest Englishmen.
  Do the work that's nearest,
  Though it's dull at whiles;
  Helping, when we meet them
  Lame dogs over stiles;
  See in every hedgerow
  Marks of angels' feet,
  Epics in each pebble
  Underneath our feet;
  Once a-year, like schoolboys,
  Robin-Hooding go.
  Leaving fops and fogies
  A thousand feet below.

T. H.




CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY.


King Ryence, says the legend of Prince Arthur, wore a paletot trimmed with
kings' beards. In the first French Revolution (so Carlyle assures us)
there were at Meudon tanneries of human skins. Mammon, at once tyrant and
revolutionary, follows both these noble examples--in a more respectable
way, doubtless, for Mammon hates cruelty; bodily pain is his devil--the
worst evil of which he, in his effeminacy, can conceive. So he shrieks
benevolently when a drunken soldier is flogged; but he trims his
paletots, and adorns his legs, with the flesh of men and the skins of
women, with degradation, pestilence, heathendom, and despair; and then
chuckles self-complacently over the smallness of his tailors' bills.
Hypocrite!--straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! What is flogging,
or hanging, King Ryence's paletot, or the tanneries of Meudon, to the
slavery, starvation, waste of life, year-long imprisonment in dungeons
narrower and fouler than those of the Inquisition, which goes on among
thousands of free English clothes-makers at this day?

"The man is mad," says Mammon, smiling supercilious pity. Yes, Mammon; mad
as Paul before Festus; and for much the same reason, too. Much learning has
made us mad. From two articles in the "Morning Chronicle" of Friday, Dec.
14th, and Tuesday, Dec. 18th, on the Condition of the Working Tailors,
we learnt too much to leave us altogether masters of ourselves. But there
is method in our madness; we can give reasons for it--satisfactory to
ourselves, perhaps also to Him who made us, and you, and all tailors
likewise. Will you, freshly bedizened, you and your footmen, from
Nebuchadnezzar and Co.'s "Emporium of Fashion," hear a little about how
your finery is made? You are always calling out for facts, and have a firm
belief in salvation by statistics. Listen to a few.

The Metropolitan Commissioner of the "Morning Chronicle" called two
meetings of the Working Tailors, one in Shad well, and the other at the
Hanover Square Rooms, in order to ascertain their condition from their
own lips. Both meetings were crowded. At the Hanover Square Rooms there
were more than one thousand men; they were altogether unanimous in their
descriptions of the misery and slavery which they endured. It appears
that there are two distinct tailor trades--the "honourable" trade, now
almost confined to the West End, and rapidly dying out there, and the
"dishonourable" trade of the show-shops and slop-shops--the plate-glass
palaces, where gents--and, alas! those who would be indignant at that
name--buy their cheap-and-nasty clothes. The two names are the tailors'
own slang; slang is true and expressive enough, though, now and then. The
honourable shops in the West End number only sixty; the dishonourable, four
hundred and more; while at the East End the dishonourable trade has it all
its own way. The honourable part of the trade is declining at the rate of
one hundred and fifty journeymen per year; the dishonourable increasing at
such a rate that, in twenty years it will have absorbed the whole tailoring
trade, which employs upwards of twenty-one thousand journeymen. At the
honourable shops the work is done, as it was universally thirty years ago,
on the premises and at good wages. In the dishonourable trade, the work is
taken home by the men, to be done at the very lowest possible prices, which
decrease year by year, almost month by month. At the honourable shops, from
36s. to 24s. is paid for a piece of work for which the dishonourable shop
pays from 22s. to 9s. But not to the workmen; happy is he if he really
gets two-thirds, or half of that. For at the honourable shops, the master
deals directly with his workmen; while at the dishonourable ones, the
greater part of the work, if not the whole, is let out to contractors, or
middle-men--"_sweaters_," as their victims significantly call them--who, in
their turn, let it out again, sometimes to the workmen, sometimes to fresh
middlemen; so that out of the price paid for labour on each article, not
only the workmen, but the sweater, and perhaps the sweater's sweater, and a
third, and a fourth, and a fifth, have to draw their profit. And when the
labour price has been already beaten down to the lowest possible, how much
remains for the workmen after all these deductions, let the poor fellows
themselves say!

One working tailor (at the Hanover Square Rooms Meeting) "mentioned a
number of shops, both at the east and west ends, whose work was all
taken by sweaters; and several of these shops were under royal and noble
patronage. There was one notorious sweater who kept his carriage. He was a
Jew, and, of course, he gave a preference to his own sect. Thus, another
Jew received it from him second hand and at a lower rate; then it went to a
third-till it came to the unfortunate Christian at perhaps the eighth rate,
and he performed the work at barely living prices; this same Jew required a
deposit of 5_l_. in money before he would give out a single garment to be
made. He need not describe the misery which this system entailed upon the
workmen. It was well known, but it was almost impossible, except for those
who had been at the two, to form an idea of the difference between the
present meeting and one at the East-end, where all who attended worked for
slop-shops and sweaters. The present was a highly respectable assembly; the
other presented no other appearance but those of misery and degradation."

Another says--"We have all worked in the honourable trade, so we know the
regular prices from our own personal experience. Taking the bad work with
the good work we might earn 11s. a week upon an average. Sometimes we do
earn as much as 15s.; but, to do this, we are obliged to take part of our
work home to our wives and daughters. We are not always fully employed. We
are nearly half our time idle. Hence, our earnings are, upon an average
throughout the year, not more than 5s. 6d. a week." "Very often I have made
only 3s. 4d. in the week," said one. "That's common enough with us all, I
can assure you," said another. "Last week my wages was 7s. 6d.," declared
one. "I earned 6s. 4d.," exclaimed the second. "My wages came to 9s. 2d.
The week before I got 6s. 3d." "I made 7s. 9d.," and "I 7s. or 8s., I can't
exactly remember which." "This is what we term the best part of our winter
season. The reason why we are so long idle is because more hands than
are wanted are kept on the premises, so that in case of a press of work
coming in, our employers can have it done immediately. Under the day work
system no master tailor had more men on the premises than he could keep
continually going; but since the change to the piecework system, masters
made a practice of engaging double the quantity of hands that they
have any need for, so that an order may be executed 'at the shortest
possible notice,' if requisite. A man must not leave the premises when,
unemployed,--if he does, he loses his chance of work coming in. I have been
there four days together, and had not a stitch of work to do." "Yes; that
is common enough." "Ay, and then you're told, if you complain, you can go,
if you don't like it. I am sure twelve hands would do all they have done at
home, and yet they keep forty of us. It's generally remarked that, however
strong and healthy a man may be when he goes to work at that shop, in a
month's time he'll be a complete shadow, and have almost all his clothes in
pawn. By Sunday morning, he has no money at all left, and he has to subsist
till the following Saturday upon about a pint of weak tea, and four slices
of bread and butter per day!!!"

"Another of the reasons for the sweaters keeping more hands than they want
is, the men generally have their meals with them. The more men they have
with them the more breakfasts and teas they supply, and the more profit
they make. The men usually have to pay 4d., and very often, 5d. for their
breakfast, and the same for their tea. The tea or breakfast is mostly a
pint of tea or coffee, and three to four slices of bread and butter. _I
worked for one sweater who almost starved the men; the smallest eater there
would not have had enough if he had got three times as much. They had only
three thin slices of bread and butter, not sufficient for a child, and the
tea was both weak and bad. The whole meal could not have stood him in 2d.
a head, and what made it worse was, that the men who worked there couldn't
afford to have dinners, so that they were starved to the bone._ The
sweater's men generally lodge where they work. A sweater usually keeps
about six men. These occupy two small garrets; one room is called the
kitchen, and the other the workshop; and here the whole of the six men, and
the sweater, his wife, and family, live and sleep. One sweater _I worked
with had four children and six men, and they, together with his wife,
sister-in-law, and himself, all lived in two rooms, the largest of which
was about eight feet by ten. We worked in the smallest room and slept there
as well--all six of us. There were two turnup beds in it, and we slept
three in a bed. There was no chimney, and, indeed, no ventilation whatever.
I was near losing my life there--the foul air of so many people working
all day in the place, and sleeping there at night, was quite suffocating.
Almost all the men were consumptive, and I myself attended the dispensary
for disease of the lungs. The room in which we all slept was not more than
six feet square. We were all sick and weak, and both to work._ Each of the
six of us paid 2s. 6d. a week for our lodging, or 15s. altogether, and I
am sure such a room as we slept and worked in might be had for 1s. a week;
you can get a room with a fire-place for 1s. 6d. a week. The usual sum that
the men working for sweaters pay for their tea, breakfasts, and lodging
is 6s. 6d. to 7s. a week, and they seldom earn more money in the week.
Occasionally at the week's end they are in debt to the sweater. This is
seldom for more than 6d., for the sweater will not give them victuals if
he has no work for them to do. Many who live and work at the sweater's are
married men, and are obliged to keep their wives and children in lodgings
by themselves. Some send them to the workhouse, others to their friends
in the country. Besides the profit of the board and lodging, the sweater
takes 6d. out of the price paid for every garment under 10s.; some take
1s., and I do know of one who takes as much as 2s. This man works for a
large show-shop at the West End. The usual profit of the sweater, over and
above the board and lodging, is 2s. out of every pound. Those who work
for sweaters soon lose their clothes, and are unable to seek for other
work, because they have not a coat to their back to go and seek it in.
_Last week, I worked with another man at a coat for one of her Majesty's
ministers, and my partner never broke his fast while he was making his half
of it._ The minister dealt at a cheap West End show-shop. All the workman
had the whole day-and-a-half he was making the coat was a little tea. But
sweaters' work is not so bad as government work after all. At that, we
cannot make more than 4s. or 5s. a week altogether--that is, counting the
time we are running after it, of course. _Government contract work is the
worst of all, and the starved-out and sweated-out tailor's last resource._
But still, government does not do the regular trade so much harm as the
cheap show and slop shops. These houses have ruined thousands. They have
cut down the prices, so that men cannot live at the work; and the masters
who did and would pay better wages, are reducing the workmen's pay every
day. They say they must either compete with the large show shops or go into
the 'Gazette.'"

Sweet competition! Heavenly maid!--Now-a-days hymned alike by
penny-a-liners and philosophers as the ground of all society--the only
real preserver of the earth! Why not of Heaven, too? Perhaps there is
competition among the angels, and Gabriel and Raphael have won their rank
by doing the maximum of worship on the minimum of grace? We shall know some
day. In the meanwhile, "these are thy works, thou parent of all good!"
Man eating man, eaten by man, in every variety of degree and method! Why
does not some enthusiastic political economist write an epic on "The
Consecration of Cannibalism"?

But if any one finds it pleasant to his soul to believe the poor
journeymen's statements exaggerated, let him listen to one of the sweaters
themselves:--

"I wish," says he, "that others did for the men as decently as I do. I
know there are many who are living entirely upon them. Some employ as many
as fourteen men. I myself worked in the house of a man who did this. The
chief part of us lived, and worked, and slept together in two rooms, on the
second floor. They charged 2s. 6d. per head for the lodging alone. Twelve
of the workmen, I am sure, lodged in the house, and these paid altogether
30s. a week rent to the sweater. I should think the sweater paid 8s. a week
for the rooms--so that he gained at least 22s. clear out of the lodging
of these men, and stood at no rent himself. For the living of the men he
charged--5d. for breakfasts, and the same for teas, and 8d. for dinner--or
at the rate of 10s. 6d. each per head. Taking one with the other, and
considering the manner in which they lived, I am certain that the cost for
keeping each of them could not have been more than 5s. This would leave 5s.
6d. clear profit on the board of each of the twelve men, or, altogether,
L3, 6s. per week; and this, added to the L1, 2s. profit on the rent, would
give L4, 8s. for the sweater's gross profit on the board and lodging of
the workmen in his place. But, besides this, he got 1s. out of each coat
made on his premises, and there were twenty-one coats made there, upon an
average, every week; so that, altogether, the sweater's clear gains out of
the men were L5, 9s. every week. Each man made about a coat and a half in
the course of the seven days (_for they all worked on a Sunday--they were
generally told to 'borrow a day off the Lord_.') For this coat and a half
each hand got L1, 2s. 6d., and out of it he had to pay 13s. for board and
lodging; so that there was 9s. 6d. clear left. These are the profits of the
sweater, and the earnings of the men engaged under him, when working for
the first rate houses. But many of the cheap houses pay as low as 8s. for
the making of each dress and frock coat, and some of them as low as 6s.
Hence the earnings of the men at such work would be from 9s. to 12s. per
week, and the cost of their board and lodging without dinners, for these
they seldom have, would be from 7s. 6d. to 8s. per week. Indeed, the men
working under sweaters at such prices generally consider themselves well
off if they have a shilling or two in their pockets for Sunday. The profits
of the sweater, however, would be from L4 to L5 out of twelve men, working
on his premises. The usual number of men working under each sweater is
about six individuals; and the average rate of profit, about L2, 10s.,
without the sweater doing any work himself. It is very often the case that
a man working under a sweater is obliged to pawn his own coat to get any
pocket-money that he may require. Over and over again the sweater makes out
that he is in his debt from 1s. to 2s. at the end of the week, and when
the man's coat is in pledge, he is compelled to remain imprisoned in the
sweater's lodgings for months together. In some sweating places, there is
an old coat kept called a "reliever," and this is borrowed by such men as
have none of their own to go out in. There are very few of the sweaters'
men who have a coat to their backs or a shoe to their feet to come out into
the streets on Sunday. Down about Fulwood's Rents, Holborn, I am sure I
would not give 6d. for the clothes that are on a dozen of them; and it is
surprising to me, working and living together in such numbers and in such
small close rooms, in narrow close back courts as they do, that they are
not all swept off by some pestilence. I myself have seen half-a-dozen men
at work in a room that was a little better than a bedstead long. It was as
much as one could do to move between the wall and the bedstead when it was
down. There were two bedsteads in this room, and they nearly filled the
place when they were down. The ceiling was so low, that I couldn't stand
upright in the room. There was no ventilation in the place. There was no
fireplace, and only a small window. When the window was open, you could
nearly touch the houses at the back, and if the room had not been at the
top of the house, the men could not have seen at all in the place. The
staircase was so narrow, steep, and dark, that it was difficult to grope
your way to the top of the house--it was like going up a steeple. This is
the usual kind of place in which the sweater's men are lodged. The reason
why there are so many Irishmen working for the sweaters is, because they
are seduced over to this country by the prospect of high wages and plenty
of work. They are brought over by the Cork boats at 10s. a-head, and when
they once get here, the prices they receive are so small, that they are
unable to go back. In less than a week after they get here, their clothes
are all pledged, and they are obliged to continue working under the
sweaters.

"The extent to which this system of 'street kidnapping' is carried on
is frightful. Young tailors, fresh from the country, are decoyed by the
sweaters' wives into their miserable dens, under extravagant promises of
employment, to find themselves deceived, imprisoned, and starved, often
unable to make their escape for months--perhaps years; and then only
fleeing from one dungeon to another as abominable."

In the meantime, the profits of the beasts of prey who live on these poor
fellows--both masters and sweaters--seem as prodigious as their cruelty.

Hear another working tailor on this point:--"In 1844, I belonged to the
honourable part of the trade. Our house of call supplied the present
show-shop with men to work on the premises. The prices then paid were at
the rate of 6d. per hour. For the same driving capes that they paid 18s.
then, they give only 12s. for now. For the dress and frock coats they gave
15s. then, and now they are 14s. The paletots and shooting coats were 12s.;
there was no coat made on the premises under that sum. At the end of the
season, they wanted to reduce the paletots to 9s. The men refused to make
them at that price, when other houses were paying as much as 15s. for them.
The consequence of this was, the house discharged all the men, and got a
Jew middle-man from the neighbourhood of Petticoat-lane, to agree to do
them all at 7s. 6d. a piece. The Jew employed all the poor people who were
at work for the slop warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This
Jew makes on an average 500 paletots a week. The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit
out of each, and having no sewing trimmings allowed to him, he makes the
work-people find them. The saving in trimmings alone to the firm, since
the workmen left the premises, must have realized a small fortune to them.
Calculating men, women, and children, I have heard it said that the cheap
house at the West End employs 1,000 hands. The trimmings for the work done
by these would be about 6d. a week per head, so that the saving to the
house since the men worked on the premises has been no less than L1,300
a year, and all this taken out of the pockets of the poor. The Jew who
contracts for making the paletots is no tailor at all. A few years ago he
sold sponges in the street, and now he rides in his carriage. The Jew's
profits are 500 half-crowns, or L60 odd, per week--that is upwards of
L3,000 a-year. Women are mostly engaged at the paletot work. When I came to
work for the cheap show-shop I had L5, 10s. in the saving bank; now I have
not a half-penny in it. All I had saved went little by little to keep me
and my family. I have always made a point of putting some money by when I
could afford it, but since I have been at this work it has been as much as
I could do to _live_, much more to _save_. One of the firm for which I work
has been heard publicly to declare that he employed 1,000 hands constantly.
Now the earnings of these at the honourable part of the trade would be upon
an average, taking the skilful with the unskilful, 15s. a week each, or
L39,000 a year. But since they discharged the men from off their premises,
they have cut down the wages of the workmen one-half--taking one garment
with another--_though the selling prices remain the same to the public_, so
that they have saved by the reduction of the workmen's wages no less than
L19,500 per year. Every other quarter of a year something has been 'docked'
off our earnings, until it is almost impossible for men with families to
live decently by their labour; and now, for the first time, they pretend
to feel for them. They even talk of erecting a school for the children of
their workpeople; but where is the use of erecting schools, when they know
as well as we do, that at the wages they pay, the children must be working
for their fathers at home? They had much better erect workshops, and employ
the men on the premises at fair living wages, and then the men could
educate their own children, without being indebted to their charity."

On this last question of what the master-cannibals had "much better do," we
have somewhat to say presently. In the meantime, hear another of the things
which they had much better _not_ do. "Part of the fraud and deception of
the slop trade consists in the mode in which the public are made believe
that the men working for such establishments earn more money than they
really do. The plan practised is similar to that adopted by the army
clothier, who made out that the men working on his establishment made per
week from 15s. to 17s. each, whereas, on inquiry, it was found that a
considerable sum was paid out of that to those who helped to do the looping
for those who took it home. When a coat is given to me to make, a ticket is
handed to me with the garment, similar to this one which I have obtained
from a friend of mine.

  +--------------------------------------------+
  | 448                                        |
  |   Mr. _Smith_ 6,675 Made by _M_            |
  |     _Ze_ = 12s. = _lined lustre            |
  |                    quilted double stitched |
  |                    each side seams_        |
  |                                            |
  | 448. No. 6,675.                            |
  |                 o'clock _Friday_           |
  |                                            |
  | Mr. _Smith_                                |
  +--------------------------------------------+

On this you see the price is marked at 12s.," continued my informant, "and
supposing that I, with two others, could make three of these garments in
the week, the sum of thirty-six shillings would stand in the books of the
establishment as the amount earned by me in that space of time. This would
be sure to be exhibited to the customers, immediately that there was the
least outcry made about the starvation price they paid for their work, as
a proof that the workpeople engaged on their establishment received the
full prices; whereas, of that 36s. entered against my name, _I should have
had to pay 24s. to those who assisted me_; besides this, my share of the
trimmings and expenses would have been 1s. 6d., and probably my share of
the fires would be 1s. more; so that the real fact would be, that I should
make 9s. 6d. clear, and this it would be almost impossible to do, if I did
not work long over hours. I am obliged to keep my wife continually at work
helping me, in order to live."

In short, the condition of these men is far worse than that of the wretched
labourers of Wilts or Dorset. Their earnings are as low and often lower;
their trade requires a far longer instruction, far greater skill and
shrewdness; their rent and food are more expensive; and their hours of
work, while they have work, more than half as long again. Conceive sixteen
or eighteen hours of skilled labour in a stifling and fetid chamber,
earning not much more than 6s. 6d. or 7s. a week! And, as has been already
mentioned in one case, the man who will earn even that, must work all
Sunday. He is even liable to be thrown out of his work for refusing to work
on Sunday. Why not? Is there anything about one idle day in seven to be
found among the traditions of Mammon? When the demand comes, the supply
must come; and will, in spite of foolish auld-warld notion about keeping
days holy--or keeping contracts holy either, for, indeed, Mammon has no
conscience--right and wrong are not words expressible by any commercial
laws yet in vogue; and therefore it appears that to earn this wretched
pittance is by no means to get it. "For," says one, and the practice is
asserted to be general, almost universal, "there is at our establishment a
mode of reducing the price of our labour even lower than we have mentioned.
The prices we have stated are those _nominally_ paid for making the
garments; but it is not an uncommon thing in our shop for a man to make a
garment, and receive nothing at all for it. I remember a man once having a
waistcoat to do, the price of making which was 2s., and when he gave the
job in he was told that he owed the establishment 6d. The manner in which
this is brought about is by a system of fines. We are fined if we are
behind time with our job, 6d. the first hour, and 3d. for each hour that we
are late." "I have known as much as 7s. 6d. to be deducted off the price of
a coat on the score of want of punctuality," one said; "and, indeed, very
often the whole money is stopped. It would appear, as if our employers
themselves strove to make us late with our work, and so have an opportunity
of cutting down the price paid for our labour. They frequently put off
giving out the trimmings to us till the time at which the coat is due has
expired. If to the trimmer we return an answer that is considered 'saucy,'
we are find 6d. or 1s., according to the trimmer's temper." "I was called a
thief," another of the three declared, "and because I told the man I would
not submit to such language, I was fined 6d. These are the principal of
the in-door fines. The out-door fines are still more iniquitous. There are
full a dozen more fines for minor offences; indeed, we are fined upon every
petty pretext. We never know what we have to take on a Saturday, for the
meanest advantages are taken to reduce our wages. If we object to pay these
fines, we are told that we may leave; but they know full well that we are
afraid to throw ourselves out of work."

Folks are getting somewhat tired of the old rodomontade that a slave is
free the moment he sets foot on British soil! Stuff!--are these tailors
free? Put any conceivable sense you will on the word, and then say--are
they free? We have, thank God, emancipated the black slaves; it would seem
a not inconsistent sequel to that act to set about emancipating these
white ones. Oh! we forgot; there is an infinite difference between the two
cases--the black slaves worked for our colonies; the white slaves work for
_us_. But, indeed, if, as some preach, self-interest is the mainspring
of all human action, it is difficult to see who will step forward to
emancipate the said white slaves; for all classes seem to consider it
equally their interest to keep them as they are; all classes, though by
their own confession they are ashamed, are yet not afraid to profit by the
system which keeps them down.

Not only the master tailors and their underlings, but the retail tradesmen,
too, make their profit out of these abominations. By a method which smacks
at first sight somewhat of benevolence, but proves itself in practice to be
one of those "precious balms which break," not "the head" (for that would
savour of violence, and might possibly give some bodily pain, a thing
intolerable to the nerves of Mammon) but the heart--an organ which, being
spiritual, can of course be recognized by no laws of police or commerce.
The object of the State, we are told, is "the conservation of body and
goods"; there is nothing in that about broken hearts; nothing which should
make it a duty to forbid such a system as a working-tailor here describes--

"Fifteen or twenty years ago, such a thing as a journeyman tailor having
to give security before he could get work was unknown; but now I and such
as myself could not get a stitch to do first handed, if we did not either
procure the security of some householder, or deposit L5 in the hands of the
employer. The reason of this is, the journeymen are so badly paid, that the
employers know they can barely live on what they get, and consequently they
are often driven to pawn the garments given out to them, in order to save
themselves and their families from starving. If the journeyman can manage
to scrape together L5, he has to leave it in the hands of his employer all
the time that he is working for the house. I know one person who gives out
the work for a fashionable West End slop-shop that will not take household
security, and requires L5 from each hand. I am informed by one of the
parties who worked for this man that he has as many as 150 hands in
his employ, and that each of these has placed L5 in his hands, so that
altogether the poor people have handed over L750 to increase the capital
upon which he trades, and for which he pays no interest whatsoever."

This recalls a similar case (mentioned by a poor stay-stitcher in another
letter, published in the "Morning Chronicle"), of a large wholesale
staymaker in the City, who had amassed a large fortune by beginning to
trade upon the 5s. which he demanded to be left in his hands by his
workpeople before he gave them employment.

"Two or three years back one of the slopsellers at the East End became
bankrupt, and the poor people lost all the money that had been deposited
as security for work in his hands. The journeymen who get the security
of householders are enabled to do so by a system which is now in general
practice at the East End. Several bakers, publicans, chandler-shop keepers,
and coal-shed keepers, make a trade of becoming security for those seeking
slop-work. They consent to be responsible for the workpeople upon the
condition of the men dealing at their shops. The workpeople who require
such security are generally very good customers, from the fact of their
either having large families, all engaged in the same work, or else several
females or males working under them, and living at their house. The parties
becoming securities thus not only greatly increase their trade, but furnish
a second-rate article at a first-rate price. It is useless to complain of
the bad quality or high price of the articles supplied by the securities,
for the shopkeepers know, as well as the workpeople, that it is impossible
for the hands to leave them without losing their work. I know one baker
whose security was refused at the slop-shop because he was already
responsible for so many, and he begged the publican to be his deputy, so
that by this means the workpeople were obliged to deal at both baker's
and publican's too. I never heard of a butcher making a trade of becoming
security, _because the slopwork people cannot afford to consume much meat_.

"The same system is also pursued by lodging-house keepers. They will become
responsible if the workmen requiring security will undertake to lodge at
their house."

But of course the men most interested in keeping up the system are those
who buy the clothes of these cheap shops. And who are they? Not merely
the blackguard gent--the butt of Albert Smith and Punch, who flaunts at
the Casinos and Cremorne Gardens in vulgar finery wrung out of the souls
and bodies of the poor; not merely the poor lawyer's clerk or reduced
half-pay officer who has to struggle to look as respectable as his class
commands him to look on a pittance often no larger than that of the day
labourer--no, strange to say--and yet not strange, considering our modern
eleventh commandment--"Buy cheap and sell dear," the richest as well as the
poorest imitate the example of King Ryence and the tanners of Meudon, At
a great show establishment--to take one instance out of many--the very
one where, as we heard just now, "however strong and healthy a man may be
when he goes to work at that shop, in a month's time he will be a complete
shadow, and have almost all his clothes in pawn"--

"We have also made garments for Sir ---- ----, Sir ---- ----, Alderman
----, Dr. ----, and Dr. ----. We make for several of the aristocracy. We
cannot say whom, because the tickets frequently come to us as Lord ---- and
the Marquis of ----. This could not be a Jew's trick, because the buttons
on the liveries had coronets upon them. And again, we know the house is
patronized largely by the aristocracy, clergy, and gentry, by the number of
court-suits and liveries, surplices, regimentals, and ladies' riding-habits
that we continually have to make up. _There are more clergymen among the
customers than any other class, and often we have to work at home upon
the Sunday at their clothes, in order to get a living._ The customers are
mostly ashamed of dealing at this house, for the men who take the clothes
to the customers' houses in the cart have directions to pull up at the
corner of the street. We had a good proof of the dislike of gentlefolks to
have it known that they dealt at that shop for their clothes, for when the
trousers buttons were stamped with the name of the firm, we used to have
the garments returned, daily, to have other buttons put on them, and now
the buttons are unstamped"!!!

We shall make no comment on this extract. It needs none. If these men know
how their clothes are made, they are past contempt. Afraid of man, and not
afraid of God! As if His eye could not see the cart laden with the plunder
of the poor, because it stopped round the corner! If, on the other hand,
they do _not_ know these things, and doubtless the majority do not,--it is
their sin that they do not know it. Woe to a society whose only apology to
God and man is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Men ought to know the condition
of those by whose labour they live. Had the question been the investment
of a few pounds in a speculation, these gentlemen would have been careful
enough about good security. Ought they to take no security when they invest
their money in clothes, that they are not putting on their backs accursed
garments, offered in sacrifice to devils, reeking with the sighs of the
starving, tainted--yes, tainted, indeed, for it comes out now that diseases
numberless are carried home in these same garments from the miserable
abodes where they are made. Evidence to this effect was given in 1844; but
Mammon was too busy to attend to it. These wretched creatures, when they
have pawned their own clothes and bedding, will use as substitutes the
very garments they are making. So Lord ----'s coat has been seen covering
a group of children blotched with small-pox. The Rev. D---- finds himself
suddenly unpresentable from a cutaneous disease, which it is not polite to
mention on the south of Tweed, little dreaming that the shivering dirty
being who made his coat has been sitting with his arms in the sleeves for
warmth while he stitched at the tails. The charming Miss C---- is swept off
by typhus or scarlatina, and her parents talk about "God's heavy judgment
and visitation"--had they tracked the girl's new riding-habit back to the
stifling undrained hovel where it served as a blanket to the fever-stricken
slopworker, they would have seen _why_ God had visited them, seen that His
judgments are true judgments, and give His plain opinion of the system
which "speaketh good of the covetous whom God abhorreth"--a system, to
use the words of the "Morning Chronicle's" correspondent, "unheard of
and unparalleled in the history of any country--a scheme so deeply laid
for the introduction and supply of under-paid labour to the market, that
it is impossible for the working man not to sink and be degraded, by it
into the lowest depths of wretchedness and infamy--a system which is
steadily and gradually increasing, and sucking more and more victims out
of the honourable trade, who are really intelligent artizans, living in
comparative comfort and civilization, into the dishonourable or sweating
trade in which the slopworkers are generally almost brutified by their
incessant toil, wretched pay, miserable food, and filthy homes."

But to us, almost the worse feature in the whole matter is, that the
government are not merely parties to, but actually the originators of this
system. The contract system, as a working tailor stated, in the name of the
rest, "had been mainly instrumental in destroying the living wages of the
working man. Now, the government were the sole originators of the system
of contracts and of sweating. Forty years ago, there was nothing known of
contracts, except government contracts; and at that period the contractors
were confined to making slops for the navy, the army, and the West India
slaves. It was never dreamt of then that such a system was to come
into operation in the better classes of trade, till ultimately it was
destructive of masters as well as men. The government having been the cause
of the contract system, and consequently of the sweating system, he called
upon them to abandon it. The sweating system had established the show shops
and the ticket system, both of which were countenanced by the government,
till it had become a fashion to support them.

"Even the court assisted to keep the system in fashion, and the royal arms
and royal warrants were now exhibited common enough by slopsellers."

Government said its duty was to do justice. But was it consistent with
justice to pay only 2s. 6d. for making navy jackets, which would be paid
10s. for by every 'honourable' tradesman? Was it consistent with justice
for the government to pay for Royal Marine clothing (private's coat and
epaulettes) 1s. 9d.? Was it consistent with justice for the government to
pay for making a pair of trousers (four or five hours' work) only 2-1/2d?
And yet, when a contractor, noted for paying just wages to those he
employed, brought this under the consideration of the Admiralty, they
declared they had nothing to do with it. Here is their answer:--

"Admiralty, March 19, 1847.

"Sir,--Having laid before my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, your
letter of the 8th inst., calling their attention to the extremely low
prices paid for making up articles of clothing, provided for Her Majesty's
naval service, I am commanded by their lordships to acquaint you, that
they have no control whatever over the wages paid for making up contract
clothing. Their duty is to take care that the articles supplied are of good
quality, and well made: the cost of the material and the workmanship are
matters which rest with the contractor; and if the public were to pay him a
higher price than that demanded, it would not ensure any advantage to the
men employed by him, as their wages depend upon the amount of competition
for employment amongst themselves. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

"H. G. WARD.

"W. Shaw, Esq."

Oh most impotent conclusion, however officially cautious, and
"philosophically" correct! Even if the wages did depend entirely on the
amount of competition, on whom does the amount of competition depend?
Merely on the gross numbers of the workmen? Somewhat, too, one would think,
on the system according to which the labour and the wages are distributed.
But right or wrong, is it not a pleasant answer for the poor working
tailors, and one likely to increase their faith, hope, and charity towards
the present commercial system, and those who deny the possibility of any
other?

"The government," says another tailor at the same meeting, "had really been
the means of reducing prices in the tailoring trade to so low a scale that
no human being, whatever his industry, could live and be happy in his lot.
The government were really responsible for the first introduction of female
labour. He would clearly prove what he had stated. He would refer first
to the army clothing. Our soldiers were comfortably clothed, as they had
a right to be; but surely the men who made the clothing which was so
comfortable, ought to be paid for their labour so as to be able to keep
themselves comfortable and their families virtuous. But it was in evidence,
that the persons working upon army clothing could not, upon an average,
earn more than 1s. a-day. Another government department, the post-office,
afforded a considerable amount of employment to tailors; but those who
worked upon the post-office clothing earned, at the most, only 1s. 6d.
a-day. The police clothing was another considerable branch of tailoring;
this, like the others, ought to be paid for at living prices; but the men
at work at it could only earn 1s. 6d. a-day, supposing them to work hard
all the time, fourteen or fifteen hours. The Custom House clothing gave
about the same prices. Now, all these sorts of work were performed by time
workers, who, as a natural consequence of the wages they received, were the
most miserable of human beings. Husband, wife, and family all worked at
it; they just tried to breathe upon it; to live it never could be called.
_Yet the same Government which paid such wretched wages, called upon the
wretched people to be industrious, to be virtuous, and happy_, How was
it possible, whatever their industry, to be virtuous and happy? The fact
was, the men who, at the slack season, had been compelled to fall back
upon these kinds of work, became so beggared and broken down by it,
notwithstanding the assistance of their wives and families, that they were
never able to rise out of it."

And now comes the question--What is to be done with these poor tailors, to
the number of between fifteen and twenty thousand? Their condition, as it
stands, is simply one of ever-increasing darkness and despair. The system
which is ruining them is daily spreading, deepening. While we write, fresh
victims are being driven by penury into the slopworking trade, fresh
depreciations of labour are taking place. Like Ulysses' companions in
the cave of Polyphemus, the only question among them is, to scramble so
far back as to have _a chance of being eaten at last_. Before them is
ever-nearing slavery, disease, and starvation. What can be done?

First--this can be done. That no man who calls himself a Christian--no
man who calls himself a man--shall ever disgrace himself by dealing at
any show-shop or slop-shop. It is easy enough to know them. The ticketed
garments, the impudent puffs; the trumpery decorations, proclaim
them,--every one knows them at first sight, He who pretends not to do so,
is simply either a fool or a liar. Let no man enter them--they are the
temples of Moloch--their thresholds are rank with human blood. God's curse
is on them, and on those who, by supporting them, are partakers of their
sins. Above all, let no clergyman deal at them. Poverty--and many clergymen
are poor--doubly poor, because society often requires them to keep up the
dress of gentlemen on the income of an artizan; because, too, the demands
on their charity are quadruple those of any other class--yet poverty is no
excuse. The thing is damnable--not Christianity only, but common humanity
cries out against it. Woe to those who dare to outrage in private the
principles which they preach in public! God is not mocked; and his curse
will find out the priest at the altar, as well as the nobleman in his
castle.

But it is so hard to deprive the public of the luxury of cheap clothes!
Then let the public look out for some other means of procuring that
priceless blessing. If that, on experiment, be found impossible--if the
comfort of the few be for ever to be bought by the misery of the many--if
civilization is to benefit every one except the producing class--then this
world is truly the devil's world, and the sooner so ill-constructed and
infernal a machine is destroyed by that personage, the better.

But let, secondly, a dozen, or fifty, or a hundred journeymen say to
one another: "It is competition that, is ruining us, and competition is
division, disunion, every man for himself, every man against his brother.
The remedy must be in association, co-operation, self-sacrifice for the
sake of one another. We can work together at the honourable tailor's
workshop--we can work and live together in the sweater's den for the
profit of our employers; why should we not work and live together in our
own workshops, or our own homes, for our own profit? The journeymen of
the honourable trade are just as much interested as the slopworkers in
putting down sweaters and slopsellers, since their numbers are constantly
decreasing, so that their turn must come some day. Let them, if no one else
does, lend money to allow us to set up a workshop of our own, a shop of our
own. If the money be not lent, still let us stint and strain ourselves to
the very bone, if it were only to raise one sweater's security-money, which
one of us should pay into the slopseller's hands, in his own name, but on
behalf of all: that will at least save one sweater's profit out of our
labour, and bestow it upon ourselves; and we will not spend that profit,
but hoard it, till we have squeezed out all the sweaters one by one. Then
we will open our common shop, and sell at as low a price as the cheapest
of the show shops. We _can_ do this,--by the abolition of sweaters'
profits,--by the using, as far as possible, of one set of fires, lights,
rooms, kitchens, and washhouses,--above all, by being true and faithful
to one another, as all partners should be. And, then, all that the master
slopsellers had better do, will be simply to vanish and become extinct."

And again, let one man, or half-a-dozen men arise, who believe that the
world is not the devil's world at all, but God's: that the multitude of
the people is not, as Malthusians aver, the ruin, but as Solomon believed,
"the strength of the rulers"; that men are not meant to be beasts of prey,
eating one another up by competition, as in some confined pike pond, where
the great pike having despatched the little ones, begin to devour each
other, till one overgrown monster is left alone to die of starvation. Let a
few men who have money, and believe that, arise to play the man.

Let them help and foster the growth of association by all means. Let them
advise the honourable tailors, while it is time, to save themselves from
being degraded into slopsellers by admitting their journeymen to a share in
profits. Let them encourage the journeymen to compete with Nebuchadnezzar &
Co. at their own game. Let them tell those journeymen that the experiment
is even now being tried, and, in many instances successfully, by no less
than one hundred and four associations of journeymen in Paris. Let them
remind them of that Great Name which the Parisian "ouvrier" so often
forgets--of Him whose everlasting Fatherhood is the sole ground of all
human brotherhood, whose wise and loving will is the sole source of all
perfect order and government. Let them, as soon as an association is
formed, provide for them a properly ventilated workshop, and let it out
to the associate tailors at a low, fair rent. I believe that they will
not lose by it--because it is right. God will take care of their money.
The world, it comes out now, is so well ordered by Him, that model
lodging-houses, public baths, wash-houses, insurance offices, all pay a
reasonable profit to those who invest money in them--perhaps associate
workshops may do the same. At all events, the owners of these show-shops
realize a far higher profit than need be, while the buildings required for
a tailoring establishment are surely not more costly than those absurd
plate-glass fronts, and brass scroll-work chandeliers, and puffs, and paid
poets. A large house might thus be taken, in some central situation, the
upper floors of which might be fitted up as model lodging-rooms for the
tailor's trade alone. The drawing-room floor might be the work-room; on the
ground floor the shop; and, if possible, a room of call or registration
office for unemployed journeymen, and a reading-room. Why should not this
succeed, if the owners of the house and the workers who rent it are only
true to one another? Every tyro in political economy knows that association
involves a saving both of labour and of capital. Why should it not succeed,
when every one connected with the establishment, landlords and workmen,
will have an interest in increasing its prosperity, and none whatever in
lowering the wages of any party employed?

But above all, so soon as these men are found working together for common
profit, in the spirit of mutual self-sacrifice, let every gentleman and
every Christian, who has ever dealt with, or could ever have dealt with,
Nebuchadnezzar and Co., or their fellows, make it a point of honour and
conscience to deal with the associated workmen, and get others to do the
like. _It is by securing custom, far more than by gifts or loans of money,
that we can help the operatives._ We should but hang a useless burthen of
debt round their necks by advancing capital, without affording them the
means of disposing of their produce.

Be assured, that the finding of a tailors' model lodging house, work rooms,
and shop, and the letting out of the two latter to an association, would
be a righteous act to do. If the plan does not pay, what then? only a part
of the money can be lost; and to have given that to an hospital or an
almshouse would have been called praiseworthy and Christian charity; how
much more to have spent it not in the cure, but in the prevention of
evil--in making almshouses less needful, and lessening the number of
candidates for the hospital!

Regulations as to police order, and temperance, the workmen must, and, if
they are worthy of the name of free men, they can organize for themselves.
Let them remember that an association of labour is very different from
an association of capital. The capitalist only embarks his money on the
venture; the workman embarks his time--that is, much at least of his
life. Still more different is the operatives' association from the single
capitalist, seeking only to realize a rapid fortune, and then withdraw. The
association knows no withdrawal from business; it must grow in length and
in breadth, outlasting rival slopsellers, swallowing up all associations
similar to itself, and which might end by competing with it. "Monopoly!"
cries a free-trader, with hair on end. Not so, good friend; there will
be no real free trade without association. Who tells you that tailors'
associations are to be the only ones?

Some such thing, as I have hinted, might surely be done. Where there is a
will there is a way. No doubt there are difficulties--Howard and Elizabeth
Fry, too, had their difficulties. Brindley and Brunel did not succeed at
the first trial. It is the sluggard only who is always crying, "There is a
lion in the streets." Be daring--trust in God, and He will fight for you;
man of money, whom these words have touched, godliness has the promise
of this life, as well as of that to come. The thing must be done, and
speedily; for if it be not done by fair means, it will surely do itself
by foul. The continual struggle of competition, not only in the tailors'
trade, but in every one which is not, like the navigator's or engineer's,
at a premium from its novel and extraordinary demand, will weaken and
undermine more and more the masters, who are already many of them
speculating on borrowed capital, while it will depress the workmen to a
point at which life will become utterly intolerable; increasing education
will serve only to make them the more conscious of their own misery; the
boiler will be strained to bursting pitch, till some jar, some slight
crisis, suddenly directs the imprisoned forces to one point, and then--

What then?

Look at France, and see.

PARSON LOT.




PREFACE

_To the UNDERGRADUATES of CAMBRIDGE._


I have addressed this preface to the young gentlemen of the University,
first, because it is my duty to teach such of them as will hear me, Modern
History; and I know no more important part of Modern History than the
condition and the opinions of our own fellow-countrymen, some of which are
set forth in this book.

Next, I have addressed them now, because I know that many of them, at
various times, have taken umbrage at certain scenes of Cambridge life drawn
in this book. I do not blame them for having done so. On the contrary, I
have so far acknowledged the justice of their censure, that while I have
altered hardly one other word in this book, I have re-written all that
relates to Cambridge life.

Those sketches were drawn from my own recollections of 1838-1842. Whether
they were overdrawn is a question between me and men of my own standing.

But the book was published in 1849; and I am assured by men in whom I have
the most thorough confidence, that my sketches had by then at least become
exaggerated and exceptional, and therefore, as a whole, untrue; that a
process of purification was going on rapidly in the University; and that I
must alter my words if I meant to give the working men a just picture of
her.

Circumstances took the property and control of the book out of my hand, and
I had no opportunity of reconsidering and of altering the passages. Those
circumstances have ceased, and I take the first opportunity of altering all
which my friends tell me should be altered.

But even if, as early as 1849, I had not been told that I must do so, I
should have done so of my own accord, after the experiences of 1861. I have
received at Cambridge a courtesy and kindness from my elders, a cordial
welcome from my co-equals, and an earnest attention from the undergraduates
with whom I have come in contact, which would bind me in honour to say
nothing publicly against my University, even if I had aught to say. But I
have nought. I see at Cambridge nothing which does not gain my respect for
her present state and hope for her future. Increased sympathy between the
old and young, increased intercourse between the teacher and the taught,
increased freedom and charity of thought, and a steady purpose of internal
self-reform and progress, seem to me already bearing good fruit, by making
the young men regard their University with content and respect. And
among the young men themselves, the sight of their increased earnestness
and high-mindedness, increased sobriety and temperance, combined with a
manliness not inferior to that of the stalwart lads of twenty years ago,
has made me look upon my position among them as most noble, my work among
them as most hopeful, and made me sure that no energy which I can employ in
teaching them will ever have been thrown away.

Much of this improvement seems to me due to the late High-Church movement;
much to the influence of Dr. Arnold; much to that of Mr. Maurice; much to
the general increase of civilization throughout the country: but whatever
be the causes of it, the fact is patent; and I take delight in thus
expressing my consciousness of it.

Another change I must notice in the tone of young gentlemen, not only
at Cambridge, but throughout Britain, which is most wholesome and most
hopeful. I mean their altered tone in speaking to and of the labouring
classes. Thirty years ago, and even later, the young men of the labouring
classes were "the cads," "the snobs," "the blackguards"; looked on with a
dislike, contempt, and fear, which they were not backward to return, and
which were but too ready to vent themselves on both sides in ugly words and
deeds. That hateful severance between the classes was, I believe, an evil
of recent growth, unknown to old England. From the middle ages, up to the
latter years of the French war, the relation between the English gentry and
the labourers seems to have been more cordial and wholesome than in any
other country of Europe. But with the French Revolution came a change for
the worse. The Revolution terrified too many of the upper, and excited too
many of the lower classes; and the stern Tory system of repression, with
its bad habit of talking and acting as if "the government" and "the people"
were necessarily in antagonism, caused ever increasing bad blood. Besides,
the old feudal ties between class and class, employer and employed,
had been severed. Large masses of working people had gathered in the
manufacturing districts in savage independence. The agricultural labourers
had been debased by the abuses of the old Poor-law into a condition upon
which one looks back now with half-incredulous horror. Meanwhile, the
distress of the labourers became more and more severe. Then arose Luddite
mobs, meal mobs, farm riots, riots everywhere; Captain Swing and his
rickburners, Peterloo "massacres," Bristol conflagrations, and all the
ugly sights and rumours which made young lads, thirty or forty years ago,
believe (and not so wrongly) that "the masses" were their natural enemies,
and that they might have to fight, any year, or any day, for the safety of
their property and the honour of their sisters.

How changed, thank God! is all this now. Before the influence of religion,
both Evangelical and Anglican; before the spread of those liberal
principles, founded on common humanity and justice, the triumph of which we
owe to the courage and practical good sense of the Whig party; before the
example of a Court, virtuous, humane, and beneficent; the attitude of the
British upper classes has undergone a noble change. There is no aristocracy
in the world, and there never has been one, as far as I know, which has so
honourably repented, and brought forth fruits meet for repentance; which
has so cheerfully asked what its duty was, that it might do it. It is not
merely enlightened statesmen, philanthropists, devotees, or the working
clergy, hard and heartily as they are working, who have set themselves to
do good as a duty specially required of them by creed or by station. In
the generality of younger laymen, as far as I can see, a humanity (in the
highest sense of the word) has been awakened, which bids fair, in another
generation, to abolish the last remnants of class prejudices and class
grudges. The whole creed of our young gentlemen is becoming more liberal,
their demeanour more courteous, their language more temperate. They inquire
after the welfare, or at least mingle in the sports of the labouring man,
with a simple cordiality which was unknown thirty years ago; they are
prompt, the more earnest of them, to make themselves of use to him on the
ground of a common manhood, if any means of doing good are pointed out to
them; and that it is in any wise degrading to "associate with low fellows,"
is an opinion utterly obsolete, save perhaps among a few sons of squireens
in remote provinces, or of parvenus who cannot afford to recognize the
class from whence they themselves have risen. In the army, thanks to the
purifying effect of the Crimean and Indian wars, the same altered tone
is patent. Officers feel for and with their men, talk to them, strive to
instruct and amuse them more and more year by year; and--as a proof that
the reform has not been forced on the officers by public opinion from
without, but is spontaneous and from within, another instance of the
altered mind of the aristocracy--the improvement is greatest in those
regiments which are officered by men of the best blood; and in care for
and sympathy with their men, her Majesty's Footguards stands first of all.
God grant that the friendship which exists there between the leaders and
the led may not be tested to the death amid the snow-drift or on the
battle-field; but if it be so, I know too that it will stand the test.

But if I wish for one absolute proof of the changed relation between
the upper and the lower classes, I have only to point to the volunteer
movement. In 1803, in the face of the most real and fatal danger, the
Addington ministry was afraid of allowing volunteer regiments, and Lord
Eldon, while pressing the necessity, could use as an argument that if the
people did not volunteer for the Government, they would against it. So
broad was even then the gulf between the governed and the governors. How
much broader did it become in after years! Had invasion threatened us at
any period between 1815 and 1830, or even later, would any ministry have
dared to allow volunteer regiments? Would they have been justified in doing
so, even if they had dared?

And now what has come to pass, all the world knows: but all the world
should know likewise, that it never would have come to pass save for--not
merely the late twenty years of good government in State, twenty years
of virtue and liberality in the Court, but--the late twenty years of
increasing right-mindedness in the gentry, who have now their reward in
finding that the privates in the great majority of corps prefer being
officered by men of a rank socially superior to their own. And as good
always breeds fresh good, so this volunteer movement, made possible by the
goodwill between classes, will help in its turn to increase that goodwill.
Already, by the performance of a common duty, and the experience of a
common humanity, these volunteer corps are become centres of cordiality
between class and class; and gentleman, tradesman, and workman, the more
they see of each other, learn to like, to trust, and to befriend each other
more and more; a good work in which I hope the volunteers of the University
of Cambridge will do their part like men and gentlemen; when, leaving this
University, they become each of them, as they ought, an organizing point
for fresh volunteers in their own districts.

I know (that I may return to Cambridge) no better example of the way in
which the altered tone of the upper classes and the volunteer movement
have acted and reacted upon each other, than may be seen in the
Cambridge Working Men's College, and its volunteer rifle corps, the 8th
Cambridgeshire.

There we have--what perhaps could not have existed, what certainly did not
exist twenty years ago--a school of a hundred men or more, taught for the
last eight years gratuitously by men of the highest attainments in the
University; by a dean--to whom, I believe, the success of the attempt is
mainly owing; by professors, tutors, prizemen, men who are now head-masters
of public schools, who have given freely to their fellow-men knowledge
which has cost them large sums of money and the heavy labour of years.
Without insulting them by patronage, without interfering with their
religious opinions, without tampering with their independence in any wise,
but simply on the ground of a common humanity, they have been helping to
educate these men, belonging for the most part, I presume, to the very
class which this book sets forth as most unhappy and most dangerous--the
men conscious of unsatisfied and unemployed intellect. And they have their
reward in a practical and patent form. Out of these men a volunteer corps
is organized, officered partly by themselves, partly by gentlemen of the
University; a nucleus of discipline, loyalty, and civilization for the
whole population of Cambridge.

A noble work this has been, and one which may be the parent of works nobler
still. It is the first instalment of, I will not say a debt, but a duty,
which the Universities owe to the working classes. I have tried to express
in this book, what I know were, twenty years ago, the feelings of clever
working men, looking upon the superior educational advantages of our class.
I cannot forget, any more than the working man, that the Universities
were not founded exclusively, or even primarily, for our own class; that
the great mass of students in the middle ages were drawn from the lower
classes, and that sizarships, scholarships, exhibitions, and so forth, were
founded for the sake of those classes, rather than of our own. How the case
stands now, we all know. I do not blame the Universities for the change. It
has come about, I think, simply by competition. The change began, I should
say, in the sixteenth century. Then, after the Wars of the Roses, and the
revival of letters, and the dissolution of the monasteries, the younger
sons of gentlemen betook themselves to the pursuit of letters, fighting
having become treasonable, and farming on a small scale difficult (perhaps
owing to the introduction of large sheep-farms, which happened in those
days), while no monastic orders were left to recruit the Universities, as
they did continually through the middle ages, from that labouring-class to
which they and their scholars principally belonged.

So the gentlemen's sons were free to compete against the sons of working
men; and by virtue of their superior advantages they beat them out of
the field. We may find through the latter half of the sixteenth and the
beginning of the seventeenth centuries, bequest after bequest for the
purpose of stopping this change, and of enabling poor men's sons to enter
the Universities; but the tendency was too strong to be effectually
resisted then. Is it too strong to be resisted now? Does not the increased
civilization and education of the working classes call on the Universities
to consider whether they may not now try to become, what certainly they
were meant to be, places of teaching and training for genius of every
rank, and not merely for that of young gentlemen? Why should not wealthy
Churchmen, in addition to the many good deeds in which they employ their
wealth now-a-days, found fresh scholarships and exhibitions, confined to
the sons of working men? If it be asked, how can they be so confined? What
simpler method than that of connecting them with the National Society, and
bestowing them exclusively on lads who have distinguished themselves in our
National Schools? I believe that money spent in such a way, would be well
spent both for the Nation, the Church, and the University. As for the
introduction of such a class of lads lowering the tone of the University, I
cannot believe it. There is room enough in Cambridge for men of every rank.
There are still, in certain colleges, owing to circumstances which I should
be very sorry to see altered, a fair sprinkling of young men who, at least
before they have passed through a Cambridge career, would not be called
well-bred. But they do not lower the tone of the University; the tone of
the University raises them. Wherever there is intellectual power, good
manners are easily acquired; the public opinion of young men expresses
itself so freely, and possibly coarsely, that priggishness and forwardness
(the faults to which a clever National School pupil would be most prone)
are soon hammered out of any Cambridge man; and the result is, that some of
the most distinguished and most popular men in Cambridge, are men who have
"risen from the ranks." All honour to them for having done so. But if they
have succeeded so well, may there not be hundreds more in England who would
succeed equally? and would it not be as just to the many, as useful to the
University, in binding her to the people and the people to her, to invent
some method for giving those hundreds a fair chance?

I earnestly press this suggestion (especially at the present time of
agitation among Churchmen on the subject of education) upon the attention,
not of the University itself, but of those wealthy men who wish well both
to the University and to the people. Not, I say, of the University: it is
not from her that the proposal must come, but from her friends outside. She
is doing her best with the tools which she has; fresh work will require
fresh tools, and I trust that such will be some day found for her.

I have now to tell those of them who may read this book, that it is not
altogether out of date.

Those political passions, the last outburst of which it described, have,
thank God, become mere matter of history by reason of the good government
and the unexampled prosperity of the last twelve years: but fresh outbursts
of them are always possible in a free country, whenever there is any
considerable accumulation of neglects and wrongs; and meanwhile it is
well--indeed it is necessary--for every student of history to know what
manner of men they are who become revolutionaries, and what causes drive
them to revolution; that they may judge discerningly and charitably of
their fellow-men, whenever they see them rising, however madly, against the
powers that be.

As for the social evils described in this book, they have been much
lessened in the last few years, especially by the movement for Sanatory
Reform: but I must warn young men that they are not eradicated; that for
instance, only last year, attention was called by this book to the working
tailors in Edinburgh, and their state was found, I am assured, to be
even more miserable than that of the London men in 1848. And I must warn
them also that social evils, like dust and dirt, have a tendency to
re-accumulate perpetually; so that however well this generation may have
swept their house (and they have worked hard and honestly at it), the
rising generation will have assuredly in twenty years' time to sweep it
over again.

One thing more I have to say, and that very earnestly, to the young men of
Cambridge. They will hear a "Conservative Reaction" talked of as imminent,
indeed as having already begun. They will be told that this reaction is
made more certain by the events now passing in North America; they will be
bidden to look at the madnesses of an unbridled democracy, to draw from
them some such lesson as the young Spartans were to draw from the drunken
Helots, and to shun with horror any further attempts to enlarge the
suffrage.

But if they have learnt (as they should from the training of this
University) accuracy of thought and language, they will not be content with
such vague general terms as "Conservatism" and "Democracy": but will ask
themselves--If this Conservative Reaction is at hand, what things is it
likely to conserve; and still more, what ought it to conserve? If the
violences and tyrannies of American Democracy are to be really warnings
to, then in what points does American Democracy coincide with British
Democracy?--For so far and no farther can one be an example or warning for
the other.

And looking, as they probably will under the pressure of present
excitement, at the latter question first, they will surely see that no
real analogy would exist between American and English Democracy, even were
universal suffrage to be granted to-morrow.

For American Democracy, being merely arithmocratic, provides no
representation whatsoever for the more educated and more experienced
minority, and leaves the conduct of affairs to the uneducated and
inexperienced many, with such results as we see. But those results are, I
believe, simply impossible in a country which possesses hereditary Monarchy
and a House of Lords, to give not only voice, but practical power to
superior intelligence and experience. Mr. J. S. Mill, Mr. Stapleton, and
Mr. Hare have urged of late the right of minorities to be represented as
well as majorities, and have offered plans for giving them a fair hearing.
That their demands are wise, as well as just, the present condition of the
Federal States proves but too painfully. But we must not forget meanwhile,
that the minorities of Britain are not altogether unrepresented. In a
hereditary Monarch who has the power to call into his counsels, private and
public, the highest intellect of the land; in a House of Lords not wholly
hereditary, but recruited perpetually from below by the most successful
(and therefore, on the whole, the most capable) personages; in a free
Press, conducted in all its most powerful organs by men of character and
of liberal education, I see safeguards against any American tyranny of
numbers, even if an enlargement of the suffrage did degrade the general
tone of the House of Commons as much as some expect.

As long, I believe, as the Throne, the House of Lords, and the Press, are
what, thank God, they are, so long will each enlargement of the suffrage be
a fresh source not of danger, but of safety; for it will bind the masses to
the established order of things by that loyalty which springs from content;
from the sense of being appreciated, trusted, dealt with not as children,
but as men.

There are those who will consider such language as this especially
ill-timed just now, in the face of Strikes and Trades' Union outrages.
They point to these things as proofs of the unfitness of workmen for the
suffrage; they point especially to the late abominable murder at Sheffield,
and ask, not without reason, would you give political power to men who
would do that?

Now that the Sheffield murder was in any wise planned or commanded by the
Trades' Unions in general, I do not believe; nor, I think, does any one
else who knows aught of the British workman. If it was not, as some of the
Sheffield men say, a private act of revenge, it was the act of only one
or two Trades' Unions of that town, which are known; and their conduct
has been already reprobated and denounced by the other Trades' Unions of
England, But there is no denying that the case as against the Trades'
Unions is a heavy one. It is notorious that they have in past years planned
and commanded illegal acts of violence. It is patent that they are too apt,
from a false sense of class-honour, to connive at such now, instead of
being, as they ought to be, the first to denounce them. The workmen will
not see, that by combining in societies for certain purposes, they make
those societies responsible for the good and lawful behaviour of all their
members, in all acts tending to further those purposes, and are bound to
say to every man joining a Trades' Union: "You shall do nothing to carry
out the objects which we have in view, save what is allowed by British
Law." They will not see that they are outraging the first principles of
justice and freedom, by dictating to any man what wages he should receive,
what master he shall work for, or any other condition which interferes with
his rights as a free agent.

But, in the face of these facts (and very painful and disappointing
they are to me), I will ask the upper classes: Do you believe that the
average of Trades' Union members are capable of such villanies as that at
Sheffield? Do you believe that the average of them are given to violence
or illegal acts at all, even though they may connive at such acts in their
foolish and hasty fellows, by a false class-honour, not quite unknown,
I should say, in certain learned and gallant professions? Do you fancy
that there are not in these Trades' Unions, tens of thousands of loyal,
respectable, rational, patient men, as worthy of the suffrage as any
average borough voter? If you do so, you really know nothing about the
British workman. At least, you are confounding the workman of 1861 with the
workman of 1831, and fancying that he alone, of all classes, has gained
nothing by the increased education, civilization, and political experience
of thirty busy and prosperous years. You are unjust to the workman; and
more, you are unjust to your own class. For thirty years past, gentlemen
and ladies of all shades of opinion have been labouring for and among the
working classes, as no aristocracy on earth ever laboured before; and do
you suppose that all that labour has been in vain? That it has bred in the
working classes no increased reverence for law, no increased content with
existing institutions, no increased confidence in the classes socially
above them? If so, you must have as poor an opinion of the capabilities of
the upper classes, as you have of those of the lower.

So far from the misdoings of Trades' Unions being an argument against the
extension of the suffrage, they are, in my opinion, an argument for it. I
know that I am in a minority just now. I know that the common whisper is
now, not especially of those who look for a Conservative reaction, that
these Trades' Unions must be put down by strong measures: and I confess
that I hear such language with terror. Punish, by all means, most severely,
all individual offences against individual freedom, or personal safety;
but do not interfere, surely, with the Trades' Unions themselves. Do not
try to bar these men of their right as free Englishmen to combine, if they
choose, for what they consider their own benefit. Look upon these struggles
between employers and employed as fair battles, in which, by virtue of the
irreversible laws of political economy, the party who is in the right is
almost certain to win; and interfere in no wise, save to see fair play, and
lawful means used on both sides alike. If you do more; if you interfere
in any wise with the Trades' Unions themselves, you will fail, and fail
doubly. You will not prevent the existence of combinations: you will only
make them secret, dark, revolutionary: you will demoralize the working man
thereby as surely as the merchant is demoralized by being converted into a
smuggler; you will heap up indignation, spite, and wrath against the day
of wrath; and finally, to complete your own failure, you will drive the
working man to demand an extension of the suffrage, in tones which will
very certainly get a hearing. He cares, or seems to care, little about
the suffrage now, just because he thinks that he can best serve his own
interests by working these Trades' Unions. Take from him that means of
redress (real or mistaken, no matter); and he will seek redress in a way in
which you wish him still less to seek it; by demanding a vote and obtaining
one.

That consummation, undesirable as it may seem to many, would perhaps be the
best for the peace of the trades. These Trades' Unions, still tainted with
some of the violence, secrecy, false political economy which they inherit
from the evil times of 1830-40, last on simply, I believe, because the
workman feels that they are his only organ, that he has no other means of
making his wants and his opinions known to the British Government. Had he a
vote, he believes (and I believe with him) he could send at least a few men
to Parliament who would state his case fairly in the House of Commons, and
would not only render a reason for him, but hear reason against him, if
need were. He would be content with free discussion if he could get that.
It is the feeling that he cannot get it that drives him often into crooked
and dark ways. If any answer, that the representatives, whom he would
choose would be merely noisy demagogues, I believe them to be mistaken.
No one can have watched the Preston strike, however much he may have
disapproved, as I did, of the strike itself, without seeing from the
temper, the self-restraint, the reasonableness, the chivalrous honour of
the men, that they were as likely to choose a worthy member for the House
of Commons as any town constituency in England; no one can have watched the
leaders of the working men for the last ten years without finding among
them men capable of commanding the attention and respect of the House of
Commons, not merely by their eloquence, surprising as that is, but by their
good sense, good feeling, and good breeding.

Some training at first, some rubbing off of angles, they might require:
though two at least I know, who would require no such training, and who
would be ornaments to any House of Commons; the most inexperienced of the
rest would not give the House one-tenth the trouble which is given by a
certain clique among the representatives of the sister Isle; and would,
moreover, learn his lesson in a week, instead of never learning it at all,
like some we know too well. Yet Catholic emancipation has pacified Ireland,
though it has brought into the House an inferior stamp of members: and much
more surely would an extension of the suffrage pacify the trades, while
it would bring into the House a far superior stamp of member to those who
compose the clique of which I have spoken.

But why, I hear some one say impatiently, talk about this subject of all
others at this moment, when nobody, not even the working classes, cares
about a Reform Bill?

Because I am speaking to young men, who have not yet entered public life;
and because I wish them to understand, that just because the question of
parliamentary reform is in abeyance now, it will not be in abeyance ten
years or twenty years hence. The question will be revived, ere they are
in the maturity of their manhood; and they had best face that certain
prospect, and learn to judge wisely and accurately on the subject, before
they are called on, as they will be, to act upon it. If it be true that the
present generation has done all that it can do, or intends to do, towards
the suffrage (and I have that confidence in our present rulers, that I
would submit without murmuring to their decision on the point), it is
all the more incumbent on the rising generation to learn how to do (as
assuredly they will have to do) the work which their fathers have left
undone. The question may remain long in abeyance, under the influence of
material prosperity such as the present; or under the excitement of a war,
as in Pitt's time; but let a period of distress or disaster come, and it
will be re-opened as of yore. The progress towards institutions more and
more popular may be slow, but it is sure. Whenever any class has conceived
the hope of being fairly represented, it is certain to fulfil its own
hopes, unless it employs, or provokes, violence impossible in England.
The thing will be. Let the young men of Britain take care that it is done
rightly when it is done.

And how ought it to be done? That will depend upon any circumstances now
future and uncertain. It will depend upon the pace at which sound education
spreads among the working classes. It will depend, too, very much--I fear
only too much--upon the attitude of the upper classes to the lower, in this
very question of Trades' Unions and of Strikes. It will depend upon their
attitude toward the unrepresented classes during the next few years, upon
this very question of extended suffrage. And, therefore, I should advise,
I had almost said entreat, any young men over whom I have any influence,
to read and think freely and accurately upon the subject; taking, if
I may propose to them a text-book, Mr. Mill's admirable treatise on
"Representative Government." As for any theory of my own, if I had one
I should not put it forward. How it will not be done, I can see clearly
enough. It will not be done well by the old charter. It will not be done
well by merely lowering the money qualification of electors. But it may
be done well by other methods beside; and I can trust the freedom and
soundness of the English mind to discover the best method of all, when it
is needed.

Let therefore this "Conservative Reaction" which I suspect is going on in
the minds of many young men at Cambridge, consider what it has to conserve.
It is not asked to conserve the Throne. That, thank God, can take good care
of itself. Let it conserve the House of Lords; and that will be conserved,
just in proportion as the upper classes shall copy the virtues of Royalty;
both of him who is taken from us, and of her who is left. Let the upper
classes learn from them, that the just and wise method of strengthening
their political power, is to labour after that social power, which comes
only by virtue and usefulness. Let them make themselves, as the present
Sovereign has made herself, morally necessary to the people; and then there
is no fear of their being found politically unnecessary. No other course
is before them, if they wish to make their "Conservative Reaction" a
permanent, even an endurable fact. If any young gentlemen fancy (and some
do) that they can strengthen their class by making any secret alliance with
the Throne against the masses, then they will discover rapidly that the
sovereigns of the House of Brunswick are grown far too wise, and far too
noble-hearted, to fall once more into that trap. If any of them (and some
do) fancy that they can better their position by sneering, whether in
public or in their club, at a Reformed House of Commons and a Free Press,
they will only accelerate the results which they most dread, by forcing
the ultra-liberal party of the House, and, what is even worse, the most
intellectual and respectable portion of the Press, to appeal to the people
against them; and if again they are tempted (as too many of them are) to
give up public life as becoming too vulgar for them, and prefer ease and
pleasure to the hard work and plain-speaking of the House of Commons; then
they will simply pay the same penalty for laziness and fastidiousness which
has been paid by the Spanish aristocracy; and will discover that if they
think their intellect unnecessary to the nation, the nation will rapidly
become of the same opinion, and go its own way without them.

But if they are willing to make themselves, as they easily can, the
best educated, the most trustworthy, the most virtuous, the most truly
liberal-minded class of the commonweal; if they will set themselves to
study the duties of rank and property, as of a profession to which they are
called by God, and the requirements of which they must fulfil; if they will
acquire, as they can easily, a sound knowledge both of political economy,
and of the social questions of the day; if they will be foremost with
their personal influence in all good works; if they will set themselves
to compete on equal terms with the classes below them, and, as they may,
outrival them: then they will find that those classes will receive them not
altogether on equal terms; that they will accede to them a superiority,
undefined perhaps, but real and practical enough to conserve their class
and their rank, in every article for which a just and prudent man would
wish.

But if any young gentlemen look forward (as I fear a few do still) to a
Conservative Reaction of any other kind than this; to even the least return
to the Tory maxims and methods of George the Fourth's time; to even the
least stoppage of what the world calls progress--which I should define
as the putting in practice the results of inductive science; then do
they, like king Picrochole in Rabelais, look for a kingdom which shall be
restored to them at the coming of the Cocqcigrues. The Cocqcigrues are
never coming; and none know that better than the present able and moderate
leaders of the Conservative party; none will be more anxious to teach that
fact to their young adherents, and to make them swim with the great stream,
lest it toss them contemptuously ashore upon its banks, and go on its way
unheeding.

Return to the system of 1800--1830, is, I thank God, impossible. Even
though men's hearts should fail them, they must onward, they know not
whither: though God does know. The bigot, who believes in a system, and not
in the living God; the sentimentalist, who shrinks from facts because they
are painful to his taste; the sluggard, who hates a change because it
disturbs his ease; the simply stupid person, who cannot use his eyes and
ears; all these may cry feebly to the world to do what it has never done
since its creation--stand still awhile, that they may get their breaths.
But the brave and honest gentleman--who believes that God is not the
tempter and deceiver, but the father and the educator of man--he will
not shrink, even though the pace may be at moments rapid, the path be at
moments hid by mist; for he will believe that freedom and knowledge, as
well as virtue, are the daughters of the Most High; and he will follow them
and call on the rest to follow them, whithersoever they may lead; and will
take heart for himself and for his class, by the example of that great
Prince who is of late gone home. For if, like that most royal soul, he and
his shall follow with single eye and steadfast heart, freedom, knowledge,
and virtue; then will he and his be safe, as Royalty is safe in England
now; because both God and man have need thereof.




PREFACE.

_Written in 1854._

ADDRESSED TO THE WORKING MEN OF GREAT BRITAIN.


My Friends,--Since I wrote this book five years ago, I have seen a good
deal of your class, and of their prospects. Much that I have seen has given
me great hope; much has disappointed me; nothing has caused me to alter the
opinions here laid down.

Much has given me hope; especially in the North of England. I believe that
there, at least, exists a mass of prudence, self-control, genial and sturdy
manhood, which will be England's reserve-force for generations yet to come.
The last five years, moreover, have certainly been years of progress for
the good cause. The great drag upon it--namely, demagogism--has crumbled to
pieces of its own accord; and seems now only to exhibit itself in anilities
like those of the speakers who inform a mob of boys and thieves that wheat
has lately been thrown into the Thames to keep up prices, or advise them
to establish, by means hitherto undiscovered, national granaries, only
possible under the despotism of a Pharaoh. Since the 10th of April, 1848
(one of the most lucky days which the English workman ever saw), the trade
of the mob-orator has dwindled down to such last shifts as these, to which
the working man sensibly seems merely to answer, as he goes quietly about
his business, "Why will you still keep talking, Signor Benedick? Nobody
marks you."

But the 10th of April, 1848, has been a beneficial crisis, not merely in
the temper of the working men, so called, but in the minds of those who are
denominated by them "the aristocracy." There is no doubt that the classes
possessing property have been facing, since 1848, all social questions with
an average of honesty, earnestness, and good feeling which has no parallel
since the days of the Tudors, and that hundreds and thousands of "gentlemen
and ladies" in Great Britain now are saying, "Show what we ought to do to
be just to the workman, and we will do it, whatsoever it costs." They may
not be always correct (though they generally are so) in their conceptions
of what ought to be done; but their purpose is good and righteous; and
those who hold it are daily increasing in number. The love of justice and
mercy toward the handicraftsman is spreading rapidly as it never did before
in any nation upon earth; and if any man still represents the holders of
property, as a class, as the enemies of those whom they employ, desiring
their slavery and their ignorance, I believe that he is a liar and a child
of the devil, and that he is at his father's old work, slandering and
dividing between man and man. These words may be severe: but they are
deliberate; and working men are, I hope, sufficiently accustomed to hear me
call a spade a spade, when I am pleading for them, to allow me to do the
same when I am pleading to them.

Of the disappointing experiences which I have had I shall say nothing,
save in as far as I can, by alluding to them, point out to the working man
the causes which still keep him weak: but I am bound to say that those
disappointments have strengthened my conviction that this book, in the
main, speaks the truth.

I do not allude, of course, to the thoughts, and feelings of the hero. They
are compounded of right and wrong, and such as I judged (and working men
whom I am proud to number among my friends have assured me that I judged
rightly) that a working man of genius would feel during the course of
his self-education. These thoughts and feelings (often inconsistent and
contradictory to each other), stupid or careless, or ill-willed persons,
have represented as my own opinions, having, as it seems to me, turned
the book upside down before they began to read it. I am bound to pay the
working men, and their organs in the press, the compliment of saying that
no such misrepresentations proceeded from them. However deeply some of
them may have disagreed with me, all of them, as far as I have been able
to judge, had sense to see what I meant; and so, also, have the organs of
the High-Church party, to whom, differing from them on many points, I am
equally bound to offer my thanks for their fairness. But, indeed, the way
in which this book, in spite of its crudities, has been received by persons
of all ranks and opinions, who instead of making me an offender for a
word, have taken the book heartily and honestly, in the spirit and not in
the letter, has made me most hopeful for the British mind, and given me
a strong belief that, in spite of all foppery, luxury, covetousness, and
unbelief, the English heart is still strong and genial, able and willing
to do and suffer great things, as soon as the rational way of doing and
suffering them becomes plain. Had I written this book merely to please
my own fancy, this would be a paltry criterion, at once illogical and
boastful; but I wrote it, God knows, in the fear of God, that I might speak
what seems to me the truth of God. I trusted in Him to justify me, in spite
of my own youth, inexperience, hastiness, clumsiness; and He has done it;
and, I trust, will do it to the end.

And now, what shall I say to you, my friends, about the future? Your
destiny is still in your own hands. For the last seven years you have let
it slip through your fingers. If you are better off than you were in 1848,
you owe it principally to those laws of political economy (as they are
called), which I call the brute natural accidents of supply and demand, or
to the exertions which have been made by upright men of the very classes
whom demagogues taught you to consider as your natural enemies. Pardon me
if I seem severe; but, as old Aristotle has it, "Both parties being my
friends, it is a sacred duty to honour truth first." And is this not the
truth? How little have the working men done to carry out that idea of
association in which, in 1848-9, they were all willing to confess their
salvation lay. Had the money which was wasted in the hapless Preston strike
been wisely spent in relieving the labour market by emigration, or in
making wages more valuable by enabling the workman to buy from co-operative
stores and mills his necessaries at little above cost price, how much
sorrow and heart-burning might have been saved to the iron-trades. Had the
real English endurance and courage which was wasted in that strike been
employed in the cause of association, the men might have been, ere now, far
happier than they are ever likely to be, without the least injury to the
masters. What, again, has been done toward developing the organization
of the Trades' Unions into its true form, Association for distribution,
from its old, useless, and savage form of Association for the purpose of
resistance to masters--a war which is at first sight hopeless, even were it
just, because the opposite party holds in his hand the supplies of his foe
as well as his own, and therefore can starve him out at his leisure? What
has been done, again, toward remedying the evils of the slop system, which
this book especially exposed? The true method for the working men, if they
wished to save their brothers and their brothers' wives and daughters from
degradation, was to withdraw their custom from the slopsellers, and to
deal, even at a temporary increase of price, with associate workmen. Have
they done so? They can answer for themselves. In London (as in the country
towns), the paltry temptation of buying in the cheapest market has still
been too strong for the labouring man. In Scotland and in the North of
England, thank God, the case has been very different; and to the North I
must look still, as I did when I wrote Alton Locke, for the strong men in
whose hands lies the destiny of the English handicraftsman.

God grant that the workmen of the South of England may bestir themselves
ere it be too late, and discover that the only defence against want is
self-restraint; the only defence against slavery, obedience to rule; and
that, instead of giving themselves up, bound hand and foot, by their own
fancy for a "freedom" which is but selfish and conceited license, to the
brute accidents of the competitive system, they may begin to organize
among themselves associations for buying and selling the necessaries of
life, which may enable them to weather the dark season of high prices and
stagnation, which is certain sooner or later, to follow in the footsteps of
war.

On politics I have little to say. My belief remains unchanged that true
Christianity, and true monarchy also, are not only compatible with, but
require as their necessary complement, true freedom for every man of every
class; and that the Charter, now defunct, was just as wise and as righteous
a "Reform Bill" as any which England had yet had, or was likely to have.
But I frankly say that my experience of the last five years gives me little
hope of any great development of the true democratic principle in Britain,
because it gives me little sign that the many are fit for it. Remember
always that Democracy means a government not merely by numbers of isolated
individuals, but by a Demos--by men accustomed to live in Demoi, or
corporate bodies, and accustomed, therefore, to the self-control, obedience
to law, and self-sacrificing public spirit, without which a corporate body
cannot exist: but that a "democracy" of mere numbers is no democracy,
but a mere brute "arithmocracy," which is certain to degenerate into an
"ochlocracy," or government by the mob, in which the numbers have no real
share: an oligarchy of the fiercest, the noisiest, the rashest, and the
most shameless, which is surely swallowed up either by a despotism, as in
France, or as in Athens, by utter national ruin, and helpless slavery to
a foreign invader. Let the workmen of Britain train themselves in the
corporate spirit, and in the obedience and self-control which it brings, as
they easily can in associations, and bear in mind always that _only he who
can obey is fit to rule_; and then, when they are fit for it, the Charter
may come, or things, I trust, far better than the Charter; and till they
have done so, let them thank the just and merciful Heavens for keeping
out of their hands any power, and for keeping off their shoulders any
responsibility, which they would not be able to use aright. I thank God
heartily, this day, that I have no share in the government of Great
Britain; and I advise my working friends to do the same, and to believe
that, when they are fit to take their share therein, all the powers of
earth cannot keep them from taking it; and that, till then, happy is the
man who does the duty which lies nearest him, who educates his family,
raises his class, performs his daily work as to God and to his country, not
merely to his employer and himself; for it is only he that is faithful over
a few things who will be made, or will be happy in being made, ruler over
many things.

Yours ever,

C. K.




ALTON LOCKE,

TAILOR AND POET.




CHAPTER I.

A POET'S CHILDHOOD.


I am a Cockney among Cockneys. Italy and the Tropics, the Highlands
and Devonshire, I know only in dreams. Even the Surrey Hills, of whose
loveliness I have heard so much, are to me a distant fairy-land, whose
gleaming ridges I am worthy only to behold afar. With the exception of two
journeys, never to be forgotten, my knowledge of England is bounded by the
horizon which encircles Richmond Hill.

My earliest recollections are of a suburban street; of its jumble of little
shops and little terraces, each exhibiting some fresh variety of capricious
ugliness; the little scraps of garden before the doors, with their dusty,
stunted lilacs and balsam poplars, were my only forests; my only wild
animals, the dingy, merry sparrows, who quarrelled fearlessly on my
window-sill, ignorant of trap or gun. From my earliest childhood, through
long nights of sleepless pain, as the midnight brightened into dawn, and
the glaring lamps grew pale, I used to listen, with pleasant awe, to the
ceaseless roll of the market-waggons, bringing up to the great city the
treasures of the gay green country, the land of fruits and flowers, for
which I have yearned all my life in vain. They seemed to my boyish fancy
mysterious messengers from another world: the silent, lonely night, in
which they were the only moving things, added to the wonder. I used to get
out of bed to gaze at them, and envy the coarse men and sluttish women who
attended them, their labour among verdant plants and rich brown mould, on
breezy slopes, under God's own clear sky. I fancied that they learnt what
I knew I should have learnt there; I knew not then that "the eye only sees
that which it brings with it the power of seeing." When will their eyes be
opened? When will priests go forth into the highways and the hedges, and
preach to the ploughman and the gipsy the blessed news, that there too, in
every thicket and fallow-field, is the house of God,--there, too, the gate
of Heaven?

I do not complain that I am a Cockney. That, too, is God's gift. He
made me one, that I might learn to feel for poor wretches who sit
stifled in reeking garrets and workrooms, drinking in disease with every
breath,--bound in their prison-house of brick and iron, with their own
funeral pall hanging over them, in that canopy of fog and poisonous smoke,
from their cradle to their grave. I have drunk of the cup of which they
drink. And so I have learnt--if, indeed, I have learnt--to be a poet--a
poet of the people. That honour, surely, was worth buying with asthma,
and rickets, and consumption, and weakness, and--worst of all to me--with
ugliness. It was God's purpose about me; and, therefore, all circumstances
combined to imprison me in London. I used once, when I worshipped
circumstance, to fancy it my curse, Fate's injustice to me, which kept
me from developing my genius, asserting my rank among poets. I longed to
escape to glorious Italy, or some other southern climate, where natural
beauty would have become the very element which I breathed; and yet, what
would have come of that? Should I not, as nobler spirits than I have done,
have idled away my life in Elysian dreams, singing out like a bird into the
air, inarticulately, purposeless, for mere joy and fulness of heart; and
taking no share in the terrible questionings, the terrible strugglings of
this great, awful, blessed time--feeling no more the pulse of the great
heart of England stirring me? I used, as I said, to call it the curse of
circumstance that I was a sickly, decrepit Cockney. My mother used to tell
me that it was the cross which God had given me to bear. I know now that
she was right there. She used to say that my disease was God's will. I do
not think, though, that she spoke right there also. I think that it was
the will of the world and of the devil, of man's avarice and laziness and
ignorance. And so would my readers, perhaps, had they seen the shop in
the city where I was born and nursed, with its little garrets reeking
with human breath, its kitchens and areas with noisome sewers. A sanitary
reformer would not be long in guessing the cause of my unhealthiness. He
would not rebuke me--nor would she, sweet soul! now that she is at rest and
bliss--for my wild longings to escape, for my envying the very flies and
sparrows their wings that I might flee miles away into the country, and
breathe the air of heaven once, and die. I have had my wish. I have made
two journeys far away into the country, and they have been enough for me.

My mother was a widow. My father, whom I cannot recollect, was a small
retail tradesman in the city. He was unfortunate; and when he died, my
mother came down, and lived penuriously enough, I knew not how till I
grew older, down in that same suburban street. She had been brought
up an Independent. After my father's death she became a Baptist, from
conscientious scruples. She considered the Baptists, as I do, as the only
sect who thoroughly embody the Calvinistic doctrines. She held it, as I do,
an absurd and impious thing for those who believe mankind to be children
of the devil till they have been consciously "converted," to baptise
unconscious infants and give them the sign of God's mercy on the mere
chance of that mercy being intended for them. When God had proved by
converting them, that they were not reprobate and doomed to hell by His
absolute and eternal will, then, and not till then, dare man baptise them
into His name. She dared not palm a presumptuous fiction on herself,
and call it "charity." So, though we had both been christened during
my father's lifetime, she purposed to have us rebaptised, if ever that
happened--which, in her sense of the word, never happened, I am afraid, to
me.

She gloried in her dissent; for she was sprung from old Puritan blood,
which had flowed again and again beneath the knife of Star-Chamber
butchers, and on the battle-fields of Naseby and Sedgemoor. And on winter
evenings she used to sit with her Bible on her knee, while I and my little
sister Susan stood beside her and listened to the stories of Gideon and
Barak, and Samson and Jephthah, till her eye kindled up, and her thoughts
passed forth from that old Hebrew time home into those English times which
she fancied, and not untruly, like them. And we used to shudder, and yet
listen with a strange fascination, as she told us how her ancestor called
his seven sons off their small Cambridge farm, and horsed and armed them
himself to follow behind Cromwell, and smite kings and prelates with "the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon." Whether she were right or wrong, what
is it to me? What is it now to her, thank God? But those stories, and the
strict, stern Puritan education, learnt from the Independents and not the
Baptists, which accompanied them, had their effect on me, for good and ill.

My mother moved by rule and method; by God's law, as she considered, and
that only. She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. She never commanded
twice, without punishing. And yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness
in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense and insight. But she thought
herself as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some
ascetic of the middle ages--so do extremes meet! It was "carnal," she
considered. She had as yet no right to have any "spiritual affection" for
us. We were still "children of wrath and of the devil,"--not yet "convinced
of sin," "converted, born again." She had no more spiritual bond with us,
she thought, than she had with a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even
pray for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on every other subject.
For though the majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical
sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been decided
from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her prayers
alter that? If He had chosen us, He would call us in His own good time:
and, if not,--. Only again and again, as I afterwards discovered from a
journal of hers, she used to beseech God with agonized tears to set her
mind at rest by revealing to her His will towards us. For that comfort she
could at least rationally pray. But she received no answer. Poor, beloved
mother! If thou couldst not read the answer, written in every flower and
every sunbeam, written in the very fact of our existence here at all, what
answer would have sufficed thee.

And yet, with all this, she kept the strictest watch over our morality.
Fear, of course, was the only motive she employed; for how could our still
carnal understandings be affected with love to God? And love to herself
was too paltry and temporary to be urged by one who knew that her life was
uncertain, and who was always trying to go down to the deepest eternal
ground and reason of everything, and take her stand upon that. So our god,
or gods rather, till we were twelve years old, were hell, the rod, the ten
commandments, and public opinion. Yet under them, not they, but something
deeper far, both in her and us, preserved us pure. Call it natural
character, conformation of the spirit,--conformation of the brain, if you
like, if you are a scientific man and a phrenologist. I never yet could
dissect and map out my own being, or my neighbour's, as you analysts do. To
me, I myself, ay, and each person round me, seem one inexplicable whole; to
take away a single faculty whereof, is to destroy the harmony, the meaning,
the life of all the rest. That there is a duality in us--a lifelong battle
between flesh and spirit--we all, alas! know well enough; but which is
flesh and which is spirit, what philosophers in these days can tell us?
Still less bad we two found out any such duality or discord in ourselves;
for we were gentle and obedient children. The pleasures of the world
did not tempt us. We did not know of their existence; and no foundlings
educated in a nunnery ever grew up in a more virginal and spotless
innocence--if ignorance be such--than did Susan and I.

The narrowness of my sphere of observation only concentrated the faculty
into greater strength. The few natural objects which I met--and they, of
course, constituted my whole outer world (for art and poetry were tabooed
both by my rank and my mother's sectarianism, and the study of human beings
only develops itself as the boy grows into the man)--these few natural
objects, I say, I studied with intense keenness. I knew every leaf and
flower in the little front garden; every cabbage and rhubarb plant in
Battersea fields was wonderful and beautiful to me. Clouds and water I
learned to delight in, from my occasional lingerings on Battersea bridge,
and yearning westward looks toward the sun setting above rich meadows and
wooded gardens, to me a forbidden El Dorado.

I brought home wild-flowers and chance beetles and butterflies, and pored
over them, not in the spirit of a naturalist, but of a poet. They were to
me God's angels shining in coats of mail and fairy masquerading dresses. I
envied them their beauty, their freedom. At last I made up my mind, in the
simple tenderness of a child's conscience, that it was wrong to rob them of
the liberty for which I pined,--to take them away from the beautiful broad
country whither I longed to follow them; and I used to keep them a day or
two, and then, regretfully, carry them back, and set them loose on the
first opportunity, with many compunctions of heart, when, as generally
happened, they had been starved to death in the mean time.

They were my only recreations after the hours of the small day-school at
the neighbouring chapel, where I learnt to read, write, and sum; except,
now and then, a London walk, with my mother holding my hand tight the whole
way. She would have hoodwinked me, stopped my ears with cotton, and led
me in a string,--kind, careful soul!--if it had been reasonably safe on
a crowded pavement, so fearful was she lest I should be polluted by some
chance sight or sound of the Babylon which she feared and hated--almost as
much as she did the Bishops.

The only books which I knew were the Pilgrim's Progress and the Bible. The
former was my Shakespeare, my Dante, my Vedas, by which I explained every
fact and phenomenon of life. London was the City of Destruction, from
which I was to flee; I was Christian; the Wicket of the Way of Life I
had strangely identified with the turnpike at Battersea-bridge end; and
the rising ground of Mortlake and Wimbledon was the Land of Beulah--the
Enchanted Mountains of the Shepherds. If I could once get there I was
saved: a carnal view, perhaps, and a childish one; but there was a dim
meaning and human reality in it nevertheless.

As for the Bible, I knew nothing of it really, beyond the Old Testament.
Indeed, the life of Christ had little chance of becoming interesting to me.
My mother had given me formally to understand that it spoke of matters too
deep for me; that "till converted, the natural man could not understand the
things of God": and I obtained little more explanation of it from the two
unintelligible, dreary sermons to which I listened every dreary Sunday, in
terror lest a chance shuffle of my feet, or a hint of drowsiness,--natural
result of the stifling gallery and glaring windows and gas lights,--should
bring down a lecture and a punishment when I returned home. Oh, those
"sabbaths!"--days, not of rest, but utter weariness, when the beetles and
the flowers were put by, and there was nothing to fill up the long vacuity
but books of which I could not understand a word: when play, laughter,
or even a stare out of window at the sinful, merry, sabbath-breaking
promenaders, were all forbidden, as if the commandment had run, "In it thou
shalt take no manner of amusement, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter." By
what strange ascetic perversion has _that_ got to mean "keeping holy the
sabbath-day"?

Yet there was an hour's relief in the evening, when either my mother told
us Old Testament stories, or some preacher or two came in to supper after
meeting; and I used to sit in the corner and listen to their talk; not that
I understood a word, but the mere struggle to understand--the mere watching
my mother's earnest face--my pride in the reverent flattery with which the
worthy men addressed her as "a mother in Israel," were enough to fill up
the blank for me till bed-time.

Of "vital Christianity" I heard much; but, with all my efforts, could find
out nothing. Indeed, it did not seem interesting enough to tempt me to find
out much. It seemed a set of doctrines, believing in which was to have a
magical effect on people, by saving them from the everlasting torture due
to sins and temptations which I had never felt. Now and then, believing,
in obedience to my mother's assurances, and the solemn prayers of the
ministers about me, that I was a child of hell, and a lost and miserable
sinner, I used to have accesses of terror, and fancy that I should surely
wake next morning in everlasting flames. Once I put my finger a moment
into the fire, as certain Papists, and Protestants too, have done, not
only to themselves, but to their disciples, to see if it would be so very
dreadfully painful; with what conclusions the reader may judge.... Still, I
could not keep up the excitement. Why should I? The fear of pain is not the
fear of sin, that I know of; and, indeed, the thing was unreal altogether
in my case, and my heart, my common sense, rebelled against it again and
again; till at last I got a terrible whipping for taking my little sister's
part, and saying that if she was to die,--so gentle, and obedient, and
affectionate as she was,--God would be very unjust in sending her to
hell-fire, and that I was quite certain He would do no such thing--unless
He were the Devil: an opinion which I have since seen no reason to change.
The confusion between the King of Hell and the King of Heaven has cleared
up, thank God, since then!

So I was whipped and put to bed--the whipping altering my secret heart just
about as much as the dread of hell-fire did.

I speak as a Christian man--an orthodox Churchman (if you require that
shibboleth). Was I so very wrong? What was there in the idea of religion
which was represented to me at home to captivate me? What was the use
of a child's hearing of "God's great love manifested in the scheme of
redemption," when he heard, in the same breath, that the effects of that
redemption were practically confined only to one human being out of a
thousand, and that the other nine hundred and ninety-nine were lost and
damned from their birth-hour to all eternity--not only by the absolute
will and reprobation of God (though that infernal blasphemy I heard often
enough), but also, putting that out of the question, by the mere fact of
being born of Adam's race? And this to a generation to whom God's love
shines out in every tree and flower and hedge-side bird; to whom the
daily discoveries of science are revealing that love in every microscopic
animalcule which peoples the stagnant pool! This to working men, whose
craving is only for some idea which shall give equal hopes, claims, and
deliverances, to all mankind alike! This to working men, who, in the smiles
of their innocent children, see the heaven which they have lost--the
messages of baby-cherubs, made in God's own image! This to me, to whom
every butterfly, every look at my little sister, contradicted the lie! You
may say that such thoughts were too deep for a child; that I am ascribing
to my boyhood the scepticism of my manhood; but it is not so; and what went
on in my mind goes on in the minds of thousands. It is the cause of the
contempt into which not merely sectarian Protestantism, but Christianity
altogether, has fallen in the minds of the thinking workmen. Clergymen, who
anathematize us for wandering into Unitarianism--you, you have driven us
thither. You must find some explanation of the facts of Christianity more
in accordance with the truths which we do know, and will live and die for,
or you can never hope to make us Christians; or, if we do return to the
true fold, it will be as I returned, after long, miserable years of
darkling error, to a higher truth than most of you have yet learned to
preach.

But those old Jewish heroes did fill my whole heart and soul. I learnt from
them lessons which I never wish to unlearn. Whatever else I saw about them,
this I saw,--that they were patriots, deliverers from that tyranny and
injustice from which the child's heart,--"child of the devil" though you
may call him,--instinctively, and, as I believe, by a divine inspiration,
revolts. Moses leading his people out of Egypt; Gideon, Barak, and Samson,
slaying their oppressors; David, hiding in the mountains from the tyrant,
with his little band of those who had fled from the oppressions of an
aristocracy of Nabals; Jehu, executing God's vengeance on the kings--they
were my heroes, my models; they mixed themselves up with the dim legends
about the Reformation martyrs, Cromwell and Hampden, Sidney and Monmouth,
which I had heard at my mother's knee. Not that the perennial oppression
of the masses, in all ages and countries, had yet risen on me as an
awful, torturing, fixed idea. I fancied, poor fool! that tyranny was the
exception, and not the rule. But it was the mere sense of abstract pity
and justice which was delighted in me. I thought that these were old fairy
tales, such as never need be realized again. I learnt otherwise in after
years.

I have often wondered since, why all cannot read the same lesson as I did
in those old Hebrew Scriptures--that they, of all books in the world,
have been wrested into proofs of the divine right of kings, the eternal
necessity of slavery! But the eye only sees what it brings with it the
power of seeing. The upper classes, from their first day at school, to
their last day at college, read of nothing but the glories of Salamis and
Marathon, of freedom and of the old republics. And what comes of it? No
more than their tutors know will come of it, when they thrust into the
boys' hands books which give the lie in every page to their own political
superstitions.

But when I was just turned of thirteen, an altogether new fairy-land was
opened to me by some missionary tracts and journals, which were lent to my
mother by the ministers. Pacific coral islands and volcanoes, cocoa-nut
groves and bananas, graceful savages with paint and feathers--what an El
Dorado! How I devoured them and dreamt of them, and went there in fancy,
and preached small sermons as I lay in my bed at night to Tahitians and New
Zealanders, though I confess my spiritual eyes were, just as my physical
eyes would have been, far more busy with the scenery than with the souls
of my audience. However, that was the place for me, I saw clearly. And one
day, I recollect it well, in the little dingy, foul, reeking, twelve foot
square back-yard, where huge smoky party-walls shut out every breath of air
and almost all the light of heaven, I had climbed up between the water-butt
and the angle of the wall for the purpose of fishing out of the dirty fluid
which lay there, crusted with soot and alive with insects, to be renewed
only three times in the seven days, some of the great larvae and kicking
monsters which made up a large item in my list of wonders: all of a sudden
the horror of the place came over me; those grim prison-walls above, with
their canopy of lurid smoke; the dreary, sloppy, broken pavement; the
horrible stench of the stagnant cesspools; the utter want of form, colour,
life, in the whole place, crushed me down, without my being able to analyse
my feelings as I can now; and then came over me that dream of Pacific
Islands, and the free, open sea; and I slid down from my perch, and
bursting into tears threw myself upon my knees in the court, and prayed
aloud to God to let me be a missionary.

Half fearfully I let out my wishes to my mother when she came home. She
gave me no answer; but, as I found out afterwards,--too late, alas! for
her, if not for me,--she, like Mary, had "laid up all these things, and
treasured them in her heart."

You may guess, then, my delight when, a few days afterwards, I heard that a
real live missionary was coming to take tea with us. A man who had actually
been in New Zealand!--the thought was rapture. I painted him to myself over
and over again; and when, after the first burst of fancy, I recollected
that he might possibly not have adopted the native costume of that
island, or, if he had, that perhaps it would look too strange for him to
wear it about London, I settled within myself that he was to be a tall,
venerable-looking man, like the portraits of old Puritan divines which
adorned our day-room; and as I had heard that "he was powerful in prayer,"
I adorned his right hand with that mystic weapon "all-prayer," with
which Christian, when all other means have failed, finally vanquishes
the fiend--which instrument, in my mind, was somewhat after the model
of an infernal sort of bill or halbert--all hooks, edges, spikes, and
crescents--which I had passed, shuddering, once, in the hand of an old suit
of armour in Wardour Street.

He came--and with him the two ministers who often drank tea with my mother;
both of whom, as they played some small part in the drama of my after-life,
I may as well describe here. The elder was a little, sleek, silver-haired
old man, with a blank, weak face, just like a white rabbit. He loved me,
and I loved him too, for there were always lollipops in his pocket for me
and Susan. Had his head been equal to his heart!--but what has been was
to be--and the dissenting clergy, with a few noble exceptions among the
Independents, are not the strong men of the day--none know that better than
the workmen. The old man's name was Bowyer. The other, Mr. Wigginton, was a
younger man; tall, grim, dark, bilious, with a narrow forehead, retreating
suddenly from his eyebrows up to a conical peak of black hair over his
ears. He preached "higher doctrine," _i.e._, more fatalist and antinomian
than his gentler colleague,--and, having also a stentorian voice, was much
the greater favourite at the chapel. I hated him--and if any man ever
deserved hatred, he did.

Well, they came. My heart was in my mouth as I opened the door to them, and
sank back again to the very lowest depths of my inner man when my eyes fell
on the face and figure of the missionary--a squat, red-faced, pig-eyed,
low-browed man, with great soft lips that opened back to his very ears:
sensuality, conceit, and cunning marked on every feature--an innate
vulgarity, from which the artisan and the child recoil with an instinct as
true, perhaps truer, than that of the courtier, showing itself in every
tone and motion--I shrank into a corner, so crestfallen that I could not
even exert myself to hand round the bread and butter, for which I got duly
scolded afterwards. Oh! that man!--how he bawled and contradicted, and laid
down the law, and spoke to my mother in a fondling, patronizing way, which
made me, I knew not why, boil over with jealousy and indignation. How he
filled his teacup half full of the white sugar to buy which my mother had
curtailed her yesterday's dinner--how he drained the few remaining drops
of the threepennyworth of cream, with which Susan was stealing off to keep
it as an unexpected treat for my mother at breakfast the next morning--how
he talked of the natives, not as St. Paul might of his converts, but as a
planter might of his slaves; overlaying all his unintentional confessions
of his own greed and prosperity, with cant, flimsy enough for even a boy to
see through, while his eyes were not blinded with the superstition that a
man must be pious who sufficiently interlards his speech with a jumble of
old English picked out of our translation of the New Testament. Such was
the man I saw. I don't deny that all are not like him. I believe there are
noble men of all denominations, doing their best according to their light,
all over the world; but such was the one I saw--and the men who were sent
home to plead the missionary cause, whatever the men may be like who stay
behind and work, are, from my small experience, too often such. It appears
to me to be the rule that many of those who go abroad as missionaries, go
simply because they are men of such inferior powers and attainments that if
they stayed in England they would starve.

Three parts of his conversation, after all, was made up of abuse of the
missionaries of the Church of England, not for doing nothing, but for being
so much more successful than his own sect; accusing them, in the same
breath, of being just of the inferior type of which he was himself, and
also of being mere University fine gentlemen. Really, I do not wonder, upon
his own showing, at the savages preferring them to him; and I was pleased
to hear the old white-headed minister gently interpose at the end of one of
his tirades--"We must not be jealous, my brother, if the Establishment has
discovered what we, I hope, shall find out some day, that it is not wise to
draft our missionaries from the offscouring of the ministry, and serve God
with that which costs us nothing except the expense of providing for them
beyond seas."

There was somewhat of a roguish twinkle in the old man's eye as he said it,
which emboldened me to whisper a question to him.

"Why is it, Sir, that in olden times the heathens used to crucify the
missionaries and burn them, and now they give them beautiful farms, and
build them houses, and carry them about on their backs?"

The old man seemed a little puzzled, and so did the company, to whom he
smilingly retailed my question.

As nobody seemed inclined to offer a solution, I ventured one myself.

"Perhaps the heathens are grown better than they used to be?"

"The heart of man," answered the tall, dark minister, "is, and ever was,
equally at enmity with God."

"Then, perhaps," I ventured again, "what the missionaries preach now is not
quite the same as what the missionaries used to preach in St. Paul's time,
and so the heathens are not so angry at it?"

My mother looked thunder at me, and so did all except my white-headed
friend, who said, gently enough,

"It may be that the child's words come from God."

Whether they did or not, the child took very good care to speak no more
words till he was alone with his mother; and then finished off that
disastrous evening by a punishment for the indecency of saying, before his
little sister, that he thought it "a great pity the missionaries taught
black people to wear ugly coats and trousers; they must have looked so
much handsomer running about with nothing on but feathers and strings of
shells."

So the missionary dream died out of me, by a foolish and illogical
antipathy enough; though, after all, it was a child of my imagination only,
not of my heart; and the fancy, having bred it, was able to kill it also.
And David became my ideal. To be a shepherd-boy, and sit among beautiful
mountains, and sing hymns of my own making, and kill lions and bears,
with now and then the chance of a stray giant--what a glorious life! And
if David slew giants with a sling and a stone, why should not I?--at all
events, one ought to know how; so I made a sling out of an old garter and
some string, and began to practise in the little back-yard. But my first
shot broke a neighbour's window, value sevenpence, and the next flew
back in my face, and cut my head open; so I was sent supperless to bed
for a week, till the sevenpence had been duly saved out of my hungry
stomach--and, on the whole, I found the hymn-writing side of David's
character the more feasible; so I tried, and with much brains-beating,
committed the following lines to a scrap of dirty paper. And it was
strangely significant, that in this, my first attempt, there was an
instinctive denial of the very doctrine of "particular redemption," which
I had been hearing all my life, and an instinctive yearning after the
very Being in whom I had been told I had "no part nor lot" till I was
"converted." Here they are. I am not ashamed to call them--doggerel though
they be--an inspiration from Him of whom they speak. If not from Him, good
readers, from whom?

  Jesus, He loves one and all;
  Jesus, He loves children small;
  Their souls are sitting round His feet,
  On high, before His mercy-seat.

  When on earth He walked in shame,
  Children small unto Him came;
  At His feet they knelt and prayed,
  On their heads His hands He laid.

  Came a spirit on them then,
  Greater than of mighty men;
  A spirit gentle, meek, and mild,
  A spirit good for king and child.

  Oh! that spirit give to me,
  Jesus, Lord, where'er I be!
  So--

But I did not finish them, not seeing very clearly what to do with that
spirit when I obtained it; for, indeed, it seemed a much finer thing to
fight material Apollyons with material swords of iron, like my friend
Christian, or to go bear and lion hunting with David, than to convert
heathens by meekness--at least, if true meekness was at all like that of
the missionary whom I had lately seen.

I showed the verses in secret to my little sister. My mother heard us
singing them together, and extorted, grimly enough, a confession of the
authorship. I expected to be punished for them (I was accustomed weekly to
be punished for all sorts of deeds and words, of the harmfulness of which
I had not a notion). It was, therefore, an agreeable surprise when the old
minister, the next Sunday evening, patted my head, and praised me for them.

"A hopeful sign of young grace, brother," said he to the dark tall man.
"May we behold here an infant Timothy!"

"Bad doctrine, brother, in that first line--bad doctrine, which I am
sure he did not learn from our excellent sister here. Remember, my boy,
henceforth, that Jesus does _not_ love one and all--not that I am angry
with you. The carnal mind cannot be expected to understand divine things,
any more than the beasts that perish. Nevertheless, the blessed message of
the Gospel stands true, that Christ loves none but His Bride, the Church.
His merits, my poor child, extend to none but the elect. Ah! my dear sister
Locke, how delightful to think of the narrow way of discriminating grace!
How it enhances the believer's view of his own exceeding privileges, to
remember that there be few that be saved!"

I said nothing. I thought myself only too lucky to escape so well from the
danger of having done anything out of my own head. But somehow Susan and I
never altered it when we sang it to ourselves.

       *       *       *       *       *

I thought it necessary, for the sake of those who might read my story, to
string together these few scattered recollections of my boyhood,--to give,
as it were, some sample of the cotyledon leaves of my young life-plant, and
of the soil in which it took root, ere it was transplanted--but I will not
forestall my sorrows. After all, they have been but types of the woes of
thousands who "die and give no sign." Those to whom the struggles of every,
even the meanest, human being are scenes of an awful drama, every incident
of which is to be noted with reverent interest, will not find them void of
meaning; while the life which opens in my next chapter is, perhaps, full
enough of mere dramatic interest (and whose life is not, were it but truly
written?) to amuse merely as a novel. Ay, grim and real is the action and
suffering which begins with my next page,--as you yourself would have
found, high-born reader (if such chance to light upon this story), had
you found yourself at fifteen, after a youth of convent-like seclusion,
settled, apparently for life--in a tailor's workshop.

Ay--laugh!--we tailors can quote poetry as well as make your court-dresses:

  You sit in a cloud and sing, like pictured angels,
  And say the world runs smooth--while right below
  Welters the black fermenting heap of griefs
  Whereon your state is built....




CHAPTER II.

THE TAILOR'S WORKROOM.


Have you done laughing! Then I will tell you how the thing came to pass.

My father had a brother, who had steadily risen in life, in proportion as
my father fell. They had both begun life in a grocer's shop. My father
saved enough to marry, when of middle age, a woman of his own years, and
set up a little shop, where there were far too many such already, in the
hope--to him, as to the rest of the world, quite just and innocent--of
drawing away as much as possible of his neighbours' custom. He failed,
died--as so many small tradesmen do--of bad debts and a broken heart, and
left us beggars. His brother, more prudent, had, in the meantime, risen to
be foreman; then he married, on the strength of his handsome person, his
master's blooming widow; and rose and rose, year by year, till, at the
time of which I speak, he was owner of a first-rate grocery establishment
in the City, and a pleasant villa near Herne Hill, and had a son, a year
or two older than myself, at King's College, preparing for Cambridge and
the Church--that being now-a-days the approved method of converting a
tradesman's son into a gentleman,--whereof let artisans, and gentlemen
also, take note.

My aristocratic readers--if I ever get any, which I pray God I may--may
be surprised at so great an inequality of fortune between two cousins;
but the thing is common in our class. In the higher ranks, a difference
in income implies none in education or manners, and the poor "gentleman"
is a fit companion for dukes and princes--thanks to the old usages of
Norman chivalry, which after all were a democratic protest against the
sovereignty, if not of rank, at least of money. The knight, however
penniless, was the prince's equal, even his superior, from whose hands he
must receive knighthood; and the "squire of low degree," who honourably
earned his spurs, rose also into that guild, whose qualifications, however
barbaric, were still higher ones than any which the pocket gives. But in
the commercial classes money most truly and fearfully "makes the man." A
difference in income, as you go lower, makes more and more difference in
the supply of the common necessaries of life; and worse--in education and
manners, in all which polishes the man, till you may see often, as in
my case, one cousin a Cambridge undergraduate, and the other a tailor's
journeyman.

My uncle one day came down to visit us, resplendent in a black velvet
waistcoat, thick gold chain, and acres of shirt-front; and I and Susan were
turned to feed on our own curiosity and awe in the back-yard, while he and
my mother were closeted together for an hour or so in the living-room. When
he was gone, my mother called me in; and with eyes which would have been
tearful had she allowed herself such a weakness before us, told me very
solemnly and slowly, as if to impress upon me the awfulness of the matter,
that I was to be sent to a tailor's workrooms the next day.

And an awful step it was in her eyes, as she laid her hands on my head and
murmured to herself, "Behold, I send you forth as a lamb in the midst of
wolves. Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." And
then, rising hastily to conceal her own emotion, fled upstairs, where
we could hear her throw herself on her knees by the bedside, and sob
piteously.

That evening was spent dolefully enough, in a sermon of warnings against
all manner of sins and temptations, the very names of which I had never
heard, but to which, as she informed me, I was by my fallen nature
altogether prone: and right enough was she in so saying, though as often
happens, the temptations from which I was in real danger were just the ones
of which she had no notion--fighting more or less extinct Satans, as Mr.
Carlyle says, and quite unconscious of the real, modern, man-devouring
Satan close at her elbow.

To me, in spite of all the terror which she tried to awaken in me, the
change was not unwelcome; at all events, it promised me food for my eyes
and my ears,--some escape from the narrow cage in which, though I hardly
dare confess it to myself, I was beginning to pine. Little I dreamt to what
a darker cage I was to be translated! Not that I accuse my uncle of neglect
or cruelty, though the thing was altogether of his commanding. He was as
generous to us as society required him to be. We were entirely dependent on
him, as my mother told me then for the first time, for support. And had he
not a right to dispose of my person, having bought it by an allowance to my
mother of five-and-twenty pounds a year? I did not forget that fact; the
thought of my dependence on him rankled in me, till it almost bred hatred
in me to a man who had certainly never done or meant anything to me but in
kindness. For what could he make me but a tailor--or a shoemaker? A pale,
consumptive, rickety, weakly boy, all forehead and no muscle--have not
clothes and shoes been from time immemorial the appointed work of such? The
fact that that weakly frame is generally compensated by a proportionally
increased activity of brain, is too unimportant to enter into the
calculations of the great King Laissez-faire. Well, my dear Society, it is
you that suffer for the mistake, after all, more than we. If you do tether
your cleverest artisans on tailors' shopboards and cobblers' benches,
and they--as sedentary folk will--fall a thinking, and come to strange
conclusions thereby, they really ought to be much more thankful to you than
you are to them. If Thomas Cooper had passed his first five-and-twenty
years at the plough tail instead of the shoemaker's awl, many words would
have been left unsaid which, once spoken, working men are not likely to
forget.

With a beating heart I shambled along by my mother's side next day to Mr.
Smith's shop, in a street off Piccadilly; and stood by her side, just
within the door, waiting till some one would condescend to speak to us, and
wondering when the time would come when I, like the gentleman who skipped
up and down the shop, should shine glorious in patent-leather boots, and a
blue satin tie sprigged with gold.

Two personages, both equally magnificent, stood talking with their backs
to us; and my mother, in doubt, like myself, as to which of them was the
tailor, at last summoned up courage to address the wrong one, by asking if
he were Mr. Smith.

The person addressed answered by a most polite smile and bow, and assured
her that he had not that honour; while the other he-he'ed, evidently a
little flattered by the mistake, and then uttered in a tremendous voice
these words:

"I have nothing for you, my good woman--go. Mr. Elliot! how did you come to
allow these people to get into the establishment?"

"My name is Locke, sir, and I was to bring my son here this morning."

"Oh--ah!--Mr. Elliot, see to these persons. As I was saying, my lard,
the crimson velvet suit, about thirty-five guineas. By-the-by, that coat
ours? I thought so--idea grand and light--masses well broken--very fine
chiaroscuro about the whole--an aristocratic wrinkle just above the
hips--which I flatter myself no one but myself and my friend Mr. Cooke
really do understand. The vapid smoothness of the door dummy, my lard,
should be confined to the regions of the Strand. Mr. Elliot, where are you?
Just be so good as to show his lardship that lovely new thing in drab and
_blue fonce_. Ah! your lardship can't wait.--Now, my good woman, is this
the young man?"

"Yes," said my mother: "and--and--God deal so with you, sir, as you deal
with the widow and the orphan."

"Oh--ah--that will depend very much, I should say, on how the widow and
the orphan deal with me. Mr. Elliot, take this person into the office
and transact the little formalities with her, Jones, take the young man
up-stairs to the work-room."

I stumbled after Mr. Jones up a dark, narrow, iron staircase till we
emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of the house.
I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and here I was to
work--perhaps through life! A low lean-to room, stifling me with the
combined odours of human breath and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet
sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less disgusting one of new
cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of
thread, sat some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look
of care and recklessness that made me shudder. The windows were tight
closed to keep out the cold winter air; and the condensed breath ran in
streams down the panes, chequering the dreary outlook of chimney-tops and
smoke. The conductor handed me over to one of the men.

"Here, Crossthwaite, take this younker and make a tailor of him. Keep him
next you, and prick him up with your needle if he shirks."

He disappeared down the trap-door, and mechanically, as if in a dream,
I sat down by the man and listened to his instructions, kindly enough
bestowed. But I did not remain in peace two minutes. A burst of chatter
rose as the foreman vanished, and a tall, bloated, sharp-nosed young man
next me bawled in my ear,--

"I say, young'un, fork out the tin and pay your footing at Conscrumption
Hospital."

"What do you mean?"

"Aint he just green?--Down with the stumpy--a tizzy for a pot of
half-and-half."

"I never drink beer."

"Then never do," whispered the man at my side; "as sure as hell's hell,
it's your only chance."

There was a fierce, deep earnestness in the tone which made me look up at
the speaker, but the other instantly chimed in--

"Oh, yer don't, don't yer, my young Father Mathy? then yer'll soon learn it
here if yer want to keep yer victuals down."

"And I have promised to take my wages home to my mother."

"Oh criminy! hark to that, my coves! here's a chap as is going to take the
blunt home to his mammy."

"T'aint much of it the old'un'll see," said another. "Ven yer pockets it
at the Cock and Bottle, my kiddy, yer won't find much of it left o' Sunday
mornings."

"Don't his mother know he's out?" asked another, "and won't she know it--

 "Ven he's sitting in his glory
  Half-price at the Victory.

"Oh! no, ve never mentions her--her name is never heard. Certainly not, by
no means. Why should it?"

"Well, if yer won't stand a pot," quoth the tall man, "I will, that's all,
and blow temperance. 'A short life and a merry one,' says the tailor--

 "The ministers talk a great deal about port,
    And they makes Cape wine very dear,
  But blow their hi's if ever they tries
    To deprive a poor cove of his beer.

"Here, Sam, run to the Cock and Bottle for a pot of half-and-half to my
score."

A thin, pale lad jumped up and vanished, while my tormentor turned to me:

"I say, young'un, do you know why we're nearer heaven here than our
neighbours?"

"I shouldn't have thought so," answered I with a _naivete_ which raised a
laugh, and dashed the tall man for a moment.

"Yer don't? then I'll tell yer. A cause we're a top of the house in the
first place, and next place yer'll die here six months sooner nor if yer
worked in the room below. Aint that logic and science, Orator?" appealing
to Crossthwaite.

"Why?" asked I.

"A cause you get all the other floors' stinks up here as well as your
own. Concentrated essence of man's flesh, is this here as you're a
breathing. Cellar workroom we calls Rheumatic Ward, because of the damp.
Ground-floor's Fever Ward--them as don't get typhus gets dysentery, and
them as don't get dysentery gets typhus--your nose'd tell yer why if you
opened the back windy. First floor's Ashmy Ward--don't you hear 'um now
through the cracks in the boards, a puffing away like a nest of young
locomotives? And this here most august and upper-crust cockloft is the
Conscrumptive Hospital. First you begins to cough, then you proceeds
to expectorate--spittoons, as you see, perwided free gracious for
nothing--fined a kivarten if you spits on the floor--

 "Then your cheeks they grows red, and your nose it grows thin,
  And your bones they stick out, till they comes through your skin:

"and then, when you've sufficiently covered the poor dear shivering bare
backs of the hairystocracy--

 "Die, die, die,
  Away you fly,
  Your soul is in the sky!

"as the hinspired Shakspeare wittily remarks."

And the ribald lay down on his back, stretched himself out, and pretended
to die in a fit of coughing, which last was, alas! no counterfeit, while
poor I, shocked and bewildered, let my tears fall fast upon my knees.

"Fine him a pot!" roared one, "for talking about kicking the bucket. He's
a nice young man to keep a cove's spirits up, and talk about 'a short life
and a merry one.' Here comes the heavy. Hand it here to take the taste of
that fellow's talk out of my mouth."

"Well, my young'un," recommenced my tormentor, "and how do you like your
company?"

"Leave the boy alone," growled Crossthwaite; "don't you see he's crying?"

"Is that anything good to eat? Give me some on it if it is--it'll save me
washing my face." And he took hold of my hair and pulled my head back.

"I'll tell you what, Jemmy Downes," said Crossthwaite, in a voice which
made him draw back, "if you don't drop that, I'll give you such a taste of
my tongue as shall turn you blue."

"You'd better try it on then. Do--only just now--if you please."

"Be quiet, you fool!" said another. "You're a pretty fellow to chaff the
orator. He'll slang you up the chimney afore you can get your shoes on."

"Fine him a kivarten for quarrelling," cried another; and the bully
subsided into a minute's silence, after a _sotto voce_--"Blow temperance,
and blow all Chartists, say I!" and then delivered himself of his feelings
in a doggerel song:

   "Some folks leads coves a dance,
    With their pledge of temperance,
  And their plans for donkey sociation;
    And their pockets full they crams
    By their patriotic flams,
  And then swears 'tis for the good of the nation.

   "But I don't care two inions
    For political opinions,
  While I can stand my heavy and my quartern;
    For to drown dull care within,
    In baccy, beer, and gin,
  Is the prime of a working-tailor's fortin!

"There's common sense for yer now; hand the pot here."

I recollect nothing more of that day, except that I bent myself to my work
with assiduity enough to earn praises from Crossthwaite. It was to be done,
and I did it. The only virtue I ever possessed (if virtue it be) is the
power of absorbing my whole heart and mind in the pursuit of the moment,
however dull or trivial, if there be good reason why it should be pursued
at all.

I owe, too, an apology to my readers for introducing all this ribaldry. God
knows, it is as little to my taste as it can be to theirs, but the thing
exists; and those who live, if not by, yet still besides such a state of
things, ought to know what the men are like to whose labour, ay, lifeblood,
they own their luxuries. They are "their brothers' keepers," let them deny
it as they will. Thank God, many are finding that out; and the morals of
the working tailors, as well as of other classes of artisans, are rapidly
improving: a change which has been brought about partly by the wisdom
and kindness of a few master tailors, who have built workshops fit for
human beings, and have resolutely stood out against the iniquitous and
destructive alterations in the system of employment. Among them I may, and
will, whether they like it or not, make honourable mention of Mr. Willis,
of St. James's Street, and Mr. Stultz, of Bond Street.

But nine-tenths of the improvement has been owing, not to the masters, but
to the men themselves; and who among them, my aristocratic readers, do you
think, have been the great preachers and practisers of temperance, thrift,
charity, self-respect, and education. Who?--shriek not in your Belgravian
saloons--the Chartists; the communist Chartists: upon whom you and your
venal press heap every kind of cowardly execration and ribald slander. You
have found out many things since Peterloo; add that fact to the number.

It may seem strange that I did not tell my mother into what a pandemonium
I had fallen, and got her to deliver me; but a delicacy, which was not
all evil, kept me back; I shrank from seeming to dislike to earn my daily
bread, and still more from seeming to object to what she had appointed for
me. Her will had been always law; it seemed a deadly sin to dispute it. I
took for granted, too, that she knew what the place was like, and that,
therefore, it must be right for me. And when I came home at night, and
got back to my beloved missionary stories, I gathered materials enough
to occupy my thoughts during the next day's work, and make me blind and
deaf to all the evil around me. My mother, poor dear creature, would have
denounced my day-dreams sternly enough, had she known of their existence;
but were they not holy angels from heaven? guardians sent by that Father,
whom I had been taught _not_ to believe in, to shield my senses from
pollution?

I was ashamed, too, to mention to my mother the wickedness which I saw
and heard. With the delicacy of an innocent boy, I almost imputed the
very witnessing of it as a sin to myself; and soon I began to be ashamed
of more than the mere sitting by and hearing. I found myself gradually
learning slang-insolence, laughing at coarse jokes, taking part in angry
conversations; my moral tone was gradually becoming lower; but yet the
habit of prayer remained, and every night at my bedside, when I prayed to
"be converted and made a child of God," I prayed that the same mercy might
be extended to my fellow-workmen, "if they belonged to the number of the
elect." Those prayers may have been answered in a wider and deeper sense
than I then thought of.

But, altogether, I felt myself in a most distracted, rudderless state. My
mother's advice I felt daily less and less inclined to ask. A gulf was
opening between us; we were moving in two different worlds, and she saw
it, and imputed it to me as a sin; and was the more cold to me by day, and
prayed for me (as I knew afterwards) the more passionately while I slept.
But help or teacher I had none. I knew not that I had a Father in heaven.
How could He be my Father till I was converted? I was a child of the Devil,
they told me; and now and then I felt inclined to take them at their word,
and behave like one. No sympathizing face looked on me out of the wide
heaven--off the wide earth, none. I was all boiling with new hopes, new
temptations, new passions, new sorrows, and "I looked to the right hand and
to the left, and no man cared for my soul."

I had felt myself from the first strangely drawn towards Crossthwaite,
carefully as he seemed to avoid me, except to give me business directions
in the workroom. He alone had shown me any kindness; and he, too, alone was
untainted with the sin around him. Silent, moody, and preoccupied, he was
yet the king of the room. His opinion was always asked, and listened to.
His eye always cowed the ribald and the blasphemer; his songs, when he
rarely broke out into merriment, were always rapturously applauded. Men
hated, and yet respected him. I shrank from him at first, when I heard
him called a Chartist; for my dim notions of that class were, that they
were a very wicked set of people, who wanted to kill all the soldiers and
policemen and respectable people, and rob all the shops of their contents.
But, Chartist or none, Crossthwaite fascinated me. I often found myself
neglecting my work to study his face. I liked him, too, because he was as I
was--small, pale, and weakly. He might have been five-and-twenty; but his
looks, like those of too many a working man, were rather those of a man
of forty. Wild grey eyes gleamed out from under huge knitted brows, and a
perpendicular wall of brain, too large for his puny body. He was not only,
I soon discovered, a water-drinker, but a strict "vegetarian" also; to
which, perhaps, he owed a great deal of the almost preternatural clearness,
volubility, and sensitiveness of his mind. But whether from his ascetic
habits, or the un-healthiness of his trade, the marks of ill-health were
upon him; and his sallow cheek, and ever-working lip, proclaimed too
surely--

  The fiery soul which, working out its way,
  Fretted the pigmy body to decay;
  And o'er informed the tenement of clay.

I longed to open my heart to him. Instinctively I felt that he was a
kindred spirit. Often, turning round suddenly in the workroom, I caught him
watching me with an expression which seemed to say, "Poor boy, and art thou
too one of us? Hast thou too to fight with poverty and guidelessness, and
the cravings of an unsatisfied intellect, as I have done!" But when I tried
to speak to him earnestly, his manner was peremptory and repellent. It was
well for me that so it was--well for me, I see now, that it was not from
him my mind received the first lessons in self-development. For guides did
come to me in good time, though not such, perhaps, as either my mother or
my readers would have chosen for me.

My great desire now was to get knowledge. By getting that I fancied, as
most self-educated men are apt to do, 1 should surely get wisdom. Books, I
thought, would tell me all I needed. But where to get the books? And which?
I had exhausted our small stock at home; I was sick and tired, without
knowing why, of their narrow conventional view of everything. After all,
I had been reading them all along, not for their doctrines but for their
facts, and knew not where to find more, except in forbidden paths. I dare
not ask my mother for books, for I dare not confess to her that religious
ones were just what I did not want; and all history, poetry, science, I had
been accustomed to hear spoken of as "carnal learning, human philosophy,"
more or less diabolic and ruinous to the soul. So, as usually happens
in this life--"By the law was the knowledge of sin"--and unnatural
restrictions on the development of the human spirit only associated with
guilt of conscience, what ought to have been an innocent and necessary
blessing.

My poor mother, not singular in her mistake, had sent me forth, out of an
unconscious paradise into the evil world, without allowing me even the sad
strength which comes from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil;
she expected in me the innocence of the dove, as if that was possible on
such an earth as this, without the wisdom of the serpent to support it. She
forbade me strictly to stop and look into the windows of print shops, and
I strictly obeyed her. But she forbade me, too, to read any book which I
had not first shown her; and that restriction, reasonable enough in the
abstract, practically meant, in the case of a poor boy like myself, reading
no books at all. And then came my first act of disobedience, the parent of
many more. Bitterly have I repented it, and bitterly been punished. Yet,
strange contradiction! I dare not wish it undone. But such is the great law
of life. Punished for our sins we surely are; and yet how often they become
our blessings, teaching us that which nothing else can teach us! Nothing
else? One says so. Rich parents, I suppose, say so, when they send their
sons to public schools "to learn life." We working men have too often no
other teacher than our own errors. But surely, surely, the rich ought to
have been able to discover some mode of education in which knowledge may be
acquired without the price of conscience, Yet they have not; and we must
not complain of them for not giving such a one to the working man when they
have not yet even given it to their own children.

In a street through which I used to walk homeward was an old book shop,
piled and fringed outside and in with books of every age, size, and colour.
And here I at last summoned courage to stop, and timidly and stealthily
taking out some volume whose title attracted me, snatch hastily a few pages
and hasten on, half fearful of being called on to purchase, half ashamed of
a desire which I fancied every one else considered as unlawful as my mother
did. Sometimes I was lucky enough to find the same volume several days
running, and to take up the subject where I had left it off; and thus I
contrived to hurry through a great deal of "Childe Harold," "Lara," and the
"Corsair"--a new world of wonders to me. They fed, those poems, both my
health and my diseases; while they gave me, little of them as I could
understand, a thousand new notions about scenery and man, a sense of poetic
melody and luxuriance as yet utterly unknown. They chimed in with all
my discontent, my melancholy, my thirst after any life of action and
excitement, however frivolous, insane, or even worse. I forgot the
Corsair's sinful trade in his free and daring life; rather, I honestly
eliminated the bad element--in which, God knows, I took no delight--and
kept the good one. However that might be, the innocent--guilty pleasure
grew on me day by day. Innocent, because human--guilty, because
disobedient. But have I not paid the penalty?

One evening, however, I fell accidentally on a new book--"The Life and
Poems of J. Bethune." I opened the story of his life--became interested,
absorbed--and there I stood, I know not how long, on the greasy pavement,
heedless of the passers who thrust me right and left, reading by the
flaring gas-light that sad history of labour, sorrow, and death.--How
the Highland cotter, in spite of disease, penury, starvation itself, and
the daily struggle to earn his bread by digging and ditching, educated
himself--how he toiled unceasingly with his hands--how he wrote his poems
in secret on dirty scraps of paper and old leaves of books--how thus he
wore himself out, manful and godly, "bating not a jot of heart or hope,"
till the weak flesh would bear no more; and the noble spirit, unrecognized
by the lord of the soil, returned to God who gave it. I seemed to see in
his history a sad presage of my own. If he, stronger, more self-restrained,
more righteous far than ever I could be, had died thus unknown, unassisted,
in the stern battle with social disadvantages, what must be my lot?

And tears of sympathy, rather than of selfish fear, fell fast upon the
book.

A harsh voice from the inner darkness of the shop startled me.

"Hoot, laddie, ye'll better no spoil my books wi' greeting ower them."

I replaced the book hastily, and was hurrying on, but the same voice called
me back in a more kindly tone.

"Stop a wee, my laddie. I'm no angered wi' ye. Come in, and we'll just ha'
a bit crack thegither."

I went in, for there was a geniality in the tone to which I was
unaccustomed, and something whispered to me the hope of an adventure, as
indeed it proved to be, if an event deserves that name which decided the
course of my whole destiny.

"What war ye greeting about, then? What was the book?"

"'Bethune's Life and Poems,' sir," I said. "And certainly they did affect
me very much."

"Affect ye? Ah, Johnnie Bethune, puir fellow! Ye maunna take on about sic
like laddies, or ye'll greet your e'en out o' your head. It's mony a braw
man beside Johnnie Bethune has gane Johnnie-Bethune's gate."

Though unaccustomed to the Scotch accent, I could make out enough of
this speech to be in nowise consoled by it. But the old man turned the
conversation by asking me abruptly my name, and trade, and family.

"Hum, hum, widow, eh? puir body! work at Smith's shop, eh? Ye'll ken John
Crossthwaite, then? ay? hum, hum; an' ye're desirous o' reading books? vara
weel--let's see your cawpabilities."

And he pulled me into the dim light of the little back window, shoved back
his spectacles, and peering at me from underneath them, began, to my great
astonishment, to feel my head all over.

"Hum, hum, a vara gude forehead--vara gude indeed. Causative organs large,
perceptive ditto. Imagination superabundant--mun be heeded. Benevolence,
conscientiousness, ditto, ditto. Caution--no that large--might be
developed," with a quiet chuckle, "under a gude Scot's education. Just turn
your head into profile, laddie. Hum, hum. Back o' the head a'thegither
defective. Firmness sma'--love of approbation unco big. Beware o' leeing,
as ye live; ye'll need it. Philoprogenitiveness gude. Ye'll be fond o'
bairns, I'm guessing?"

"Of what?"

"Children, laddie,--children."

"Very," answered I, in utter dismay at what seemed to me a magical process
for getting at all my secret failings.

"Hum, hum! Amative and combative organs sma'--a general want o' healthy
animalism, as my freen' Mr. Deville wad say. And ye want to read books?"

I confessed my desire, without, alas! confessing that my mother had
forbidden it.

"Vara weel; then books I'll lend ye, after I've had a crack wi'
Crossthwaite aboot ye, gin I find his opinion o' ye satisfactory. Come
to me the day after to-morrow. An' mind, here are my rules:--a' damage
done to a book to be paid for, or na mair books lent; ye'll mind to
take no books without leave; specially ye'll mind no to read in bed o'
nights,--industrious folks ought to be sleeping' betimes, an' I'd no be a
party to burning puir weans in their beds; and lastly, ye'll observe not to
read mair than five books at once."

I assured him that I thought such a thing impossible; but he smiled in his
saturnine way, and said--

"We'll see this day fortnight. Now, then, I've observed ye for a month past
over that aristocratic Byron's poems. And I'm willing to teach the young
idea how to shoot--but no to shoot itself; so ye'll just leave alane that
vinegary, soul-destroying trash, and I'll lend ye, gin I hear a gude report
of ye, 'The Paradise Lost,' o' John Milton--a gran' classic model; and
for the doctrine o't, it's just aboot as gude as ye'll hear elsewhere the
noo. So gang your gate, and tell John Crossthwaite, privately, auld Sandy
Mackaye wad like to see him the morn's night."

I went home in wonder and delight. Books! books! books! I should have my
fill of them at last. And when I said my prayers at night, I thanked God
for this unexpected boon; and then remembered that my mother had forbidden
it. That thought checked the thanks, but not the pleasure. Oh, parents! are
there not real sins enough in the world already, without your defiling it,
over and above, by inventing new ones?




CHAPTER III.

SANDY MACKAYE.


That day fortnight came,--and the old Scotchman's words came true. Four
books of his I had already, and I came in to borrow a fifth; whereon he
began with a solemn chuckle:

"Eh, laddie, laddie, I've been treating ye as the grocers do their new
prentices. They first gie the boys three days' free warren among the figs
and the sugar-candy, and they get scunnered wi' sweets after that. Noo,
then, my lad, ye've just been reading four books in three days--and here's
a fifth. Ye'll no open this again."

"Oh!" I cried, piteously enough, "just let me finish what I am reading. I'm
in the middle of such a wonderful account of the Hornitos of Jurullo."

"Hornets or wasps, a swarm o' them ye're like to have at this rate; and
a very bad substitute ye'll find them for the Attic bee. Now tak' tent.
I'm no in the habit of speaking without deliberation, for it saves a man
a great deal of trouble in changing his mind. If ye canna traduce to me
a page o' Virgil by this day three months, ye read no more o' my books.
Desultory reading is the bane o' lads. Ye maun begin with self-restraint
and method, my man, gin ye intend to gie yoursel' a liberal education. So
I'll just mak' you a present of an auld Latin grammar, and ye maun begin
where your betters ha' begun before you."

"But who will teach me Latin?"

"Hoot, man! who'll teach a man anything except himsel'? It's only
gentlefolks and puir aristocrat bodies that go to be spoilt wi' tutors and
pedagogues, cramming and loading them wi' knowledge, as ye'd load a gun, to
shoot it all out again, just as it went down, in a college examination, and
forget all aboot it after."

"Ah!" I sighed, "if I could have gone to college!"

"What for, then? My father was a Hieland farmer, and yet he was a weel
learned man: and 'Sandy, my lad,' he used to say, 'a man kens just as
much as he's taught himsel', and na mair. So get wisdom; and wi' all your
getting, get understanding.' And so I did. And mony's the Greek exercise
I've written in the cowbyres. And mony's the page o' Virgil, too, I've
turned into good Dawric Scotch to ane that's dead and gane, poor hizzie,
sitting under the same plaid, with the sheep feeding round us, up among
the hills, looking out ower the broad blue sea, and the wee haven wi' the
fishing cobles--"

There was a long solemn pause. I cannot tell why, but I loved the man from
that moment; and I thought, too, that he began to love me. Those few words
seemed a proof of confidence, perhaps all the deeper, because accidental
and unconscious.

I took the Virgil which he lent me, with Hamilton's literal translation
between the lines, and an old tattered Latin grammar; I felt myself quite
a learned man--actually the possessor of a Latin book! I regarded as
something almost miraculous the opening of this new field for my ambition.
Not that I was consciously, much less selfishly, ambitious. I had no idea
as yet to be anything but a tailor to the end; to make clothes--perhaps in
a less infernal atmosphere--but still to make clothes and live thereby. I
did not suspect that I possessed powers above the mass. My intense longing
after knowledge had been to me like a girl's first love--a thing to be
concealed from every eye--to be looked at askance even by myself, delicious
as it was, with holy shame and trembling. And thus it was not cowardice
merely, but natural modesty, which put me on a hundred plans of concealing
my studies from my mother, and even from my sister.

I slept in a little lean-to garret at the back of the house, some ten feet
long by six wide. I could just stand upright against the inner wall, while
the roof on the other side ran down to the floor. There was no fireplace in
it, or any means of ventilation. No wonder I coughed all night accordingly,
and woke about two every morning with choking throat and aching head. My
mother often said that the room was "too small for a Christian to sleep in,
but where could she get a better?"

Such was my only study. I could not use it as such, however, at night
without discovery; for my mother carefully looked in every evening, to
see that my candle was out. But when my kind cough woke me, I rose, and
creeping like a mouse about the room--for my mother and sister slept in the
next chamber, and every sound was audible through the narrow partition--I
drew my darling books out from under a board of the floor, one end of which
I had gradually loosened at odd minutes, and with them a rushlight, earned
by running on messages, or by taking bits of work home, and finishing them
for my fellows.

No wonder that with this scanty rest, and this complicated exertion of
hands, eyes, and brain, followed by the long dreary day's work of the shop,
my health began to fail; my eyes grew weaker and weaker; my cough became
more acute; my appetite failed me daily. My mother noticed the change,
and questioned me about it, affectionately enough. But I durst not, alas!
tell the truth. It was not one offence, but the arrears of months of
disobedience which I should have had to confess; and so arose infinite
false excuses, and petty prevarications, which embittered and clogged still
more my already overtasked spirit. About my own ailments--formidable as
I believed they were--I never had a moment's anxiety. The expectation of
early death was as unnatural to me as it is, I suspect, to almost all. I
die? Had I not hopes, plans, desires, infinite? Could I die while they were
unfulfilled? Even now, I do not believe I shall die yet. I will not believe
it--but let that pass.

Yes, let that pass. Perhaps I have lived long enough--longer than many a
grey-headed man.

  There is a race of mortals who become
  Old in their youth, and die ere middle age.

And might not those days of mine then have counted as months?--those days
when, before starting forth to walk two miles to the shop at six o'clock in
the morning, I sat some three or four hours shivering on my bed, putting
myself into cramped and painful postures, not daring even to cough, lest my
mother should fancy me unwell, and come in to see me, poor dear soul!--my
eyes aching over the page, my feet wrapped up in the bedclothes, to keep
them from the miserable pain of the cold; longing, watching, dawn after
dawn, for the kind summer mornings, when I should need no candlelight.
Look at the picture awhile, ye comfortable folks, who take down from your
shelves what books you like best at the moment, and then lie back, amid
prints and statuettes, to grow wise in an easy-chair, with a blazing fire
and a camphine lamp. The lower classes uneducated! Perhaps you would be so
too, if learning cost you the privation which it costs some of them.

But this concealment could not last. My only wonder is, that I continued to
get whole months of undiscovered study. One morning, about four o'clock, as
might have been expected, my mother heard me stirring, came in, and found
me sitting crosslegged on my bed, stitching away, indeed, with all my
might, but with a Virgil open before me.

She glanced at the book, clutched it with one hand and my arm with the
other, and sternly asked,

"Where did you get this heathen stuff?"

A lie rose to my lips; but I had been so gradually entangled in the loathed
meshes of a system of concealment, and consequent prevarication, that
I felt as if one direct falsehood would ruin for ever my fast-failing
self-respect, and I told her the whole truth. She took the book and left
the room. It was Saturday morning, and I spent two miserable days, for she
never spoke a word to me till the two ministers had made their appearance,
and drank their tea on Sunday evening: then at last she opened:

"And now, Mr. Wigginton, what account have you of this Mr. Mackaye, who has
seduced my unhappy boy from the paths of obedience?"

"I am sorry to say, madam," answered the dark man, with a solemn snuffle,
"that he proves to be a most objectionable and altogether unregenerate
character. He is, as I am informed, neither more nor less than a Chartist,
and an open blasphemer."

"He is not!" I interrupted, angrily. "He has told me more about God, and
given me better advice, than any human being, except my mother."

"Ah! madam, so thinks the unconverted heart, ignorant that the god of the
Deist is not the God of the Bible--a consuming fire to all but His beloved
elect; the god of the Deist, unhappy youth, is a mere self-invented,
all-indulgent phantom--a will-o'-the-wisp, deluding the unwary, as he has
deluded you, into the slough of carnal reason and shameful profligacy."

"Do you mean to call me a profligate?" I retorted fiercely, for my blood
was up, and I felt I was fighting for all which I prized in the world:
"if you do, you lie. Ask my mother when I ever disobeyed her before? I
have never touched a drop of anything stronger than water; I have slaved
over-hours to pay for my own candle, I have!--I have no sins to accuse
myself of, and neither you nor any person know of any. Do you call me a
profligate because I wish to educate myself and rise in life?"

"Ah!" groaned my poor mother to herself, "still unconvinced of sin!"

"The old Adam, my dear madam, you see,--standing, as he always does, on his
own filthy rags of works, while all the imaginations of his heart are only
evil continually. Listen to me, poor sinner--"

"I will not listen to you," I cried, the accumulated disgust of years
bursting out once and for all, "for I hate and despise you, eating my poor
mother here out of house and home. You are one of those who creep into
widows' houses, and for pretence make long prayers. You, sir, I will hear,"
I went on, turning to the dear old man who had sat by shaking his white
locks with a sad and puzzled air, "for I love you."

"My dear sister Locke," he began, "I really think sometimes--that is,
ahem--with your leave, brother--I am almost disposed--but I should wish to
defer to your superior zeal--yet, at the same time, perhaps, the desire for
information, however carnal in itself, may be an instrument in the Lord's
hands--you know what I mean. I always thought him a gracious youth, madam,
didn't you? And perhaps--I only observe it in passing--the Lord's people
among the dissenting connexions are apt to undervalue human learning as a
means--of course, I mean, only as a means. It is not generally known, I
believe, that our reverend Puritan patriarchs, Howe and Baxter, Owen and
many more, were not altogether unacquainted with heathen authors; nay, that
they may have been called absolutely learned men. And some of our leading
ministers are inclined--no doubt they will be led rightly in so important
a matter--to follow the example of the Independents in educating their
young ministers, and turning Satan's weapons of heathen mythology against
himself, as St. Paul is said to have done. My dear boy, what books have you
now got by you of Mr. Mackaye's?"

"Milton's Poems and a Latin Virgil."

"Ah!" groaned the dark man; "will poetry, will Latin save an immortal
soul?"

"I'll tell you what, sir; you say yourself that it depends on God's
absolute counsel whether I am saved or not. So, if I am elect, I shall be
saved whatever I do; and if I am not, I shall be damned whatever I do; and
in the mean time you had better mind your own business, and let me do the
best I can for this life, as the next is all settled for me."

This flippant, but after all not unreasonable speech, seemed to silence the
man; and I took the opportunity of running up-stairs and bringing down my
Milton. The old man was speaking as I re-entered.

"And you know, my dear madam, Mr. Milton was a true converted man, and a
Puritan."

"He was Oliver Cromwell's secretary," I added.

"Did he teach you to disobey your mother?" asked my mother.

I did not answer; and the old man, after turning over a few leaves, as if
he knew the book well, looked up.

"I think, madam, you might let the youth keep these books, if he will
promise, as I am sure he will, to see no more of Mr. Mackaye."

I was ready to burst out crying, but I made up my mind and answered,

"I must see him once again, or he will think me so ungrateful. He is the
best friend that I ever had, except you, mother. Besides, I do not know if
he will lend me any, after this."

My mother looked at the old minister, and then gave a sullen assent.

"Promise me only to see him once--but I cannot trust you. You have deceived
me once, Alton, and you may again!"

"I shall not, I shall not," I answered proudly. "You do not know me"--and I
spoke true.

"You do not know yourself, my poor dear foolish child!" she replied--and
that was true too.

"And now, dear friends," said the dark man, "let us join in offering up a
few words of special intercession."

We all knelt down, and I soon discovered that by the special intercession
was meant a string of bitter and groundless slanders against poor me,
twisted into the form of a prayer for my conversion, "if it were God's
will." To which I responded with a closing "Amen," for which I was sorry
afterwards, when I recollected that it was said in merely insolent mockery.
But the little faith I had was breaking up fast--not altogether, surely, by
my own fault. [Footnote: The portraits of the minister and the missionary
are surely exceptions to their class, rather than the average. The Baptists
have had their Andrew Fuller and Robert Hall, and among missionaries Dr.
Carey, and noble spirits in plenty. But such men as those who excited
Alton Locke's disgust are to be met with, in every sect; in the Church of
England, and in the Church of Rome. And it is a real and fearful scandal
to the young, to see such men listened to as God's messengers, in spite
of their utter want of any manhood or virtue, simply because they are
"orthodox," each according to the shibboleths of his hearers, and possess
that vulpine "discretion of dulness," whose miraculous might Dean Swift
sets forth in his "Essay on the Fates of Clergymen." Such men do exist, and
prosper; and as long as they are allowed to do so, Alton Lockes will meet
them, and be scandalized by them.--ED.]

At all events, from that day I was emancipated from modern Puritanism. The
ministers both avoided all serious conversation with me; and my mother
did the same; while, with a strength of mind, rare among women, she never
alluded to the scene of that Sunday evening. It was a rule with her never
to recur to what was once done and settled. What was to be, might be prayed
over. But it was to be endured in silence; yet wider and wider ever from
that time opened the gulf between us.

I went trembling the next afternoon to Mackaye and told my story. He first
scolded me severely for disobeying my mother. "He that begins o' that gate,
laddie, ends by disobeying God and his ain conscience. Gin ye're to be a
scholar, God will make you one--and if not, ye'll no mak' yoursel' ane
in spite o' Him and His commandments." And then he filled his pipe and
chuckled away in silence; at last he exploded in a horse-laugh.

"So ye gied the ministers a bit o' yer mind? 'The deil's amang the tailors'
in gude earnest, as the sang says. There's Johnnie Crossthwaite kicked the
Papist priest out o' his house yestreen. Puir ministers, it's ill times wi'
them! They gang about keckling and screighing after the working men, like
a hen that's hatched ducklings, when she sees them tak' the water. Little
Dunkeld's coming to London sune, I'm thinking.

 "Hech! sic a parish, a parish, a parish;
  Hech! sic a parish as little Dunkeld!
  They hae stickit the minister, hanged the precentor,
  Dung down the steeple, and drucken the bell."

"But may I keep the books a little while, Mr. Mackaye?"

"Keep them till ye die, gin ye will. What is the worth o' them to me? What
is the worth o' anything to me, puir auld deevil, that ha' no half a dizen
years to live at the furthest. God bless ye, my bairn; gang hame, and mind
your mither, or it's little gude books'll do ye."




CHAPTER IV.

TAILORS AND SOLDIERS.


I was now thrown again utterly on my own resources. I read and re-read
Milton's "Poems" and Virgil's "AEneid" for six more months at every spare
moment; thus spending over them, I suppose, all in all, far more time than
most gentlemen have done. I found, too, in the last volume of Milton, a few
of his select prose works: the "Areopagitica," the "Defence of the English
People," and one or two more, in which I gradually began to take an
interest; and, little of them as I could comprehend, I was awed by their
tremendous depth and power, as well as excited by the utterly new trains of
thought into which they led me. Terrible was the amount of bodily fatigue
which I had to undergo in reading at every spare moment, while walking to
and fro from my work, while sitting up, often from midnight till dawn,
stitching away to pay for the tallow-candle which I burnt, till I had to
resort to all sorts of uncomfortable contrivances for keeping myself awake,
even at the expense of bodily pain--Heaven forbid that I should weary
my readers by describing them! Young men of the upper classes, to whom
study--pursue it as intensely as you will--is but the business of the day,
and every spare moment relaxation; little you guess the frightful drudgery
undergone by a man of the people who has vowed to educate himself,--to live
at once two lives, each as severe as the whole of yours,--to bring to the
self-imposed toil of intellectual improvement, a body and brain already
worn out by a day of toilsome manual labour. I did it. God forbid, though,
that I should take credit to myself for it. Hundreds more have done it,
with still fewer advantages than mine. Hundreds more, an ever-increasing
army of martyrs, are doing it at this moment: of some of them, too, perhaps
you may hear hereafter.

I had read through Milton, as I said, again and again; I had got out of
him all that my youth and my unregulated mind enabled me to get. I had
devoured, too, not without profit, a large old edition of "Fox's Martyrs,"
which the venerable minister lent me, and now I was hungering again for
fresh food, and again at a loss where to find it.

I was hungering, too, for more than information--for a friend. Since my
intercourse with Sandy Mackaye had been stopped, six months had passed
without my once opening my lips to any human being upon the subjects with
which my mind was haunted day and night. I wanted to know more about
poetry, history, politics, philosophy--all things in heaven and earth. But,
above all, I wanted a faithful and sympathizing ear into which to pour all
my doubts, discontents, and aspirations. My sister Susan, who was one year
younger than myself, was growing into a slender, pretty, hectic girl of
sixteen. But she was altogether a devout Puritan. She had just gone through
the process of conviction of sin and conversion; and being looked upon
at the chapel as an especially gracious professor, was either unable or
unwilling to think or speak on any subject, except on those to which I
felt a growing distaste. She had shrunk from me, too, very much, since my
ferocious attack that Sunday evening on the dark minister, who was her
special favourite. I remarked it, and it was a fresh cause of unhappiness
and perplexity.

At last I made up my mind, come what would, to force myself upon
Crossthwaite. He was the only man whom I knew who seemed able to help me;
and his very reserve had invested him with a mystery, which served to
heighten my imagination of his powers. I waylaid him one day coming out of
the workroom to go home, and plunged at once desperately into the matter.

"Mr. Crossthwaite, I want to speak to you. I want to ask you to advise me."

"I have known that a long time."

"Then why did you never say a kind word to me?"

"Because I was waiting to see whether you were worth saying a kind word to.
It was but the other day, remember, you were a bit of a boy. Now, I think,
I may trust you with a thing or two. Besides, I wanted to see whether you
trusted me enough to ask me. Now you've broke the ice at last, in with you,
head and ears, and see what you can fish out."

"I am very unhappy--"

"That's no new disorder that I know of."

"No; but I think the reason I am unhappy is a strange one; at least, I
never read of but one person else in the same way. I want to educate
myself, and I can't."

"You must have read precious little then, if you think yourself in a
strange way. Bless the boy's heart! And what the dickens do you want to be
educating yourself for, pray?"

This was said in a tone of good-humoured banter, which gave me courage. He
offered to walk homewards with me; and, as I shambled along by his side, I
told him all my story and all my griefs.

I never shall forget that walk. Every house, tree, turning, which we passed
that day on our way, is indissolubly connected in my mind with some strange
new thought which arose in me just at each spot; and recurs, so are the
mind and the senses connected, as surely as I repass it.

I had been telling him about Sandy Mackaye. He confessed to an acquaintance
with him; but in a reserved and mysterious way, which only heightened my
curiosity.

We were going through the Horse Guards, and I could not help lingering
to look with wistful admiration on the huge mustachoed war-machines who
sauntered about the court-yard.

A tall and handsome officer, blazing in scarlet and gold, cantered in on a
superb horse, and, dismounting, threw the reins to a dragoon as grand and
gaudy as himself. Did I envy him? Well--I was but seventeen. And there is
something noble to the mind, as well as to the eye, in the great strong
man, who can fight--a completeness, a self-restraint, a terrible sleeping
power in him. As Mr. Carlyle says, "A soldier, after all, is--one of the
few remaining realities of the age. All other professions almost promise
one thing, and perform--alas! what? But this man promises to fight, and
does it; and, if he be told, will veritably take out a long sword and kill
me."

So thought my companion, though the mood in which he viewed the fact was
somewhat different from my own.

"Come on," he said, peevishly clutching me by the arm; "what do you want
dawdling? Are you a nursery-maid, that you must stare at those red-coated
butchers?" And a deep curse followed.

"What harm have they done you?"

"I should think I owed them turn enough."

"What?"

"They cut my father down at Sheffield,--perhaps with the very swords he
helped to make,--because he would not sit still and starve, and see us
starving around him, while those who fattened on the sweat of his brow, and
on those lungs of his, which the sword-grinding dust was eating out day by
day, were wantoning on venison and champagne. That's the harm they've done
me, my chap!"

"Poor fellows!--they only did as they were ordered, I suppose."

"And what business have they to let themselves be ordered? What right, I
say--what right has any free, reasonable soul on earth, to sell himself for
a shilling a day to murder any man, right or wrong--even his own brother
or his own father--just because such a whiskered, profligate jackanapes
as that officer, without learning, without any god except his own
looking-glass and his opera-dancer--a fellow who, just because he is born
a gentleman, is set to command grey-headed men before he can command his
own meanest passions. Good heavens! that the lives of free men should be
entrusted to such a stuffed cockatoo; and that free men should be such
traitors to their country, traitors to their own flesh and blood, as to
sell themselves, for a shilling a day and the smirks of the nursery-maids,
to do that fellow's bidding!"

"What are you a-grumbling here about, my man?--gotten the cholera?" asked
one of the dragoons, a huge, stupid-looking lad.

"About you, you young long-legged cut-throat," answered Crossthwaite, "and
all your crew of traitors."

"Help, help, coomrades o' mine!" quoth the dragoon, bursting with laughter;
"I'm gaun be moorthered wi' a little booy that's gane mad, and toorned
Chartist."

I dragged Crossthwaite off; for what was jest to the soldiers, I saw, by
his face, was fierce enough earnest to him. We walked on a little, in
silence.

"Now," I said, "that was a good-natured fellow enough, though he was a
soldier. You and he might have cracked many a joke together, if you did but
understand each other;--and he was a countryman of yours, too."

"I may crack something else besides jokes with him some day," answered he,
moodily.

"'Pon my word, you must take care how you do it. He is as big as four of
us."

"That vile aristocrat, the old Italian poet--what's his
name?--Ariosto--ay!--he knew which quarter the wind was making for, when he
said that fire-arms would be the end of all your old knights and gentlemen
in armour, that hewed down unarmed innocents as if they had been sheep.
Gunpowder is your true leveller--dash physical strength! A boy's a man with
a musket in his hand, my chap!"

"God forbid," I said, "that I should ever be made a man of in that way, or
you either. I do not think we are quite big enough to make fighters; and if
we were, what have we got to fight about?"

"Big enough to make fighters?" said he, half to himself; "or strong enough,
perhaps?--or clever enough?--and yet Alexander was a little man, and the
Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Caesar, too; and so was Saul of Tarsus,
and weakly he was into the bargain. AEsop was a dwarf, and so was Attila;
Shakspeare was lame; Alfred, a rickety weakling; Byron, clubfooted;--so
much for body _versus_ spirit--brute force _versus_ genius--genius."

I looked at him; his eyes glared like two balls of fire. Suddenly he turned
to me.

"Locke, my boy, I've made an ass of myself, and got into a rage, and broken
a good old resolution of mine, and a promise that I made to my dear little
woman--bless her! and said things to you that you ought to know nothing of
for this long time; but those red-coats always put me beside myself. God
forgive me!" And he held out his hand to me cordially.

"I can quite understand your feeling deeply on one point," I said, as I
took it, "after the sad story you told me; but why so bitter on all? What
is there so very wrong about things, that we must begin fighting about it?"

"Bless your heart, poor innocent! What is wrong?--what is not wrong? Wasn't
there enough in that talk with Mackaye, that you told me of just now, to
show anybody that, who can tell a hawk from a hand-saw?"

"Was it wrong in him to give himself such trouble about the education of a
poor young fellow, who has no tie on him, who can never repay him?"

"No; that's just like him. He feels for the people, for he has been one of
us. He worked in a printing-office himself many a year, and he knows the
heart of the working man. But he didn't tell you the whole truth about
education. He daren't tell you. No one who has money dare speak out his
heart; not that he has much certainly; but the cunning old Scot that he is,
he lives by the present system of things, and he won't speak ill of the
bridge which carries him over--till the time comes."

I could not understand whither all this tended, and walked on silent and
somewhat angry, at hearing the least slight cast on Mackaye.

"Don't you see, stupid?" he broke out at last. "What did he say to you
about gentlemen being crammed by tutors and professors? Have not you as
good a right to them as any gentleman?"

"But he told me they were no use--that every man must educate himself."

"Oh! all very fine to tell you the grapes are sour, when you can't reach
them. Bah, lad! Can't you see what comes of education?--that any dolt,
provided he be a gentleman, can be doctored up at school and college,
enough to make him play his part decently--his mighty part of ruling us,
and riding over our heads, and picking our pockets, as parson, doctor,
lawyer, member of parliament--while we--you now, for instance--cleverer
than ninety-nine gentlemen out of a hundred, if you had one-tenth the
trouble taken with you that is taken with every pig-headed son of an
aristocrat--"

"Am I clever?" asked I, in honest surprise.

"What! haven't you found that out yet? Don't try to put that on me. Don't a
girl know when she's pretty, without asking her neighbours?"

"Really, I never thought about it."

"More simpleton you. Old Mackaye has, at all events; though, canny
Scotchman that he is, he'll never say a word to you about it, yet he makes
no secret of it to other people. I heard him the other day telling some of
our friends that you were a thorough young genius."

I blushed scarlet, between pleasure and a new feeling; was it ambition?

"Why, hav'n't you a right to aspire to a college education as any
do-nothing canon there at the abbey, lad?"

"I don't know that I have a right to anything."

"What, not become what Nature intended you to become? What has she given
you brains for, but to be educated and used? Oh! I heard a fine lecture
upon that at our club the other night. There was a man there--a gentleman,
too, but a thorough-going people's man, I can tell you, Mr. O'Flynn. What
an orator that man is to be sure! The Irish AEschines, I hear they call
him in Conciliation Hall. Isn't he the man to pitch into the Mammonites?
'Gentlemen and ladies,' says he, 'how long will a diabolic society'--no, an
effete society it was--'how long will an effete, emasculate, and effeminate
society, in the diabolic selfishness of its eclecticism, refuse to
acknowledge what my immortal countryman, Burke, calls the "Dei voluntatem
in rebus revelatam"--the revelation of Nature's will in the phenomena of
matter? The cerebration of each is the prophetic sacrament of the yet
undeveloped possibilities of his mentation. The form of the brain alone,
and not the possession of the vile gauds of wealth and rank, constitute
man's only right to education--to the glories of art and science. Those
beaming eyes and roseate lips beneath me proclaim a bevy of undeveloped
Aspasias, of embryo Cleopatras, destined by Nature, and only restrained by
man's injustice, from ruling the world by their beauty's eloquence. Those
massive and beetling brows, gleaming with the lambent flames of patriotic
ardour--what is needed to unfold them into a race of Shakspeares and of
Gracchi, ready to proclaim with sword and lyre the divine harmonies of
liberty, equality, and fraternity, before a quailing universe?'"

"It sounds very grand," replied I, meekly; "and I should like very much
certainly to have a good education. But I can't see whose injustice keeps
me out of one if I can't afford to pay for it."

"Whose? Why, the parson's to be sure. They've got the monopoly of education
in England, and they get their bread by it at their public schools and
universities; and of course it's their interest to keep up the price of
their commodity, and let no man have a taste of it who can't pay down
handsomely. And so those aristocrats of college dons go on rolling in
riches, and fellowships, and scholarships, that were bequeathed by the
people's friends in old times, just to educate poor scholars like you and
me, and give us our rights as free men."

"But I thought the clergy were doing so much to educate the poor. At
least, I hear all the dissenting ministers grumbling at their continual
interference."

"Ay, educating them to make them slaves and bigots. They don't teach them
what they teach their own sons. Look at the miserable smattering of general
information--just enough to serve as sauce for their great first and last
lesson of 'Obey the powers that be'--whatever they be; leave us alone in
our comforts, and starve patiently; do, like good boys, for it's God's
will. And then, if a boy does show talent in school, do they help him up
in life? Not they; when he has just learnt enough to whet his appetite for
more, they turn him adrift again, to sink and drudge--to do his duty, as
they call it, in that state of life to which society and the devil have
called him."

"But there are innumerable stories of great Englishmen who have risen from
the lowest ranks."

"Ay; but where are the stories of those who have not risen--of all the
noble geniuses who have ended in desperation, drunkenness, starvation,
suicide, because no one would take the trouble of lifting them up, and
enabling them to walk in the path which Nature had marked out for them?
Dead men tell no tales; and this old whited sepulchre, society, ain't going
to turn informer against itself."

"I trust and hope," I said, sadly, "that if God intends me to rise, He
will open the way for me; perhaps the very struggles and sorrows of a poor
genius may teach him more than ever wealth and prosperity could."

"True, Alton, my boy! and that's my only comfort. It does make men of us,
this bitter battle of life. We working men, when we do come out of the
furnace, come out, not tinsel and papier mache, like those fops of red-tape
statesmen, but steel and granite, Alton, my boy--that has been seven times
tried in the fire: and woe to the papier mache gentleman that runs against
us! But," he went on, sadly, "for one who comes safe through the furnace,
there are a hundred who crack in the burning. You are a young bear, my
lad, with all your sorrows before you; and you'll find that a working
man's training is like the Red Indian children's. The few who are
strong enough to stand it grow up warriors; but all those who are not
fire-and-water-proof by nature--just die, Alton, my lad, and the tribe
thinks itself well rid of them."

So that conversation ended. But it had implanted in my bosom a new seed of
mingled good and evil, which was destined to bear fruit, precious perhaps
as well as bitter. God knows, it has hung on the tree long enough. Sour
and harsh from the first, it has been many a year in ripening. But the
sweetness of the apple, the potency of the grape, as the chemists tell
us, are born out of acidity--a developed sourness. Will it be so with
my thoughts? Dare I assert, as I sit writing here, with the wild waters
slipping past the cabin windows, backwards and backwards ever, every plunge
of the vessel one forward leap from the old world--worn-out world I had
almost called it, of sham civilization and real penury--dare I hope ever to
return and triumph? Shall I, after all, lay my bones among my own people,
and hear the voices of freemen whisper in my dying ears?

Silence, dreaming heart! Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof--and
the good thereof also. Would that I had known that before! Above all, that
I had known it on that night, when first the burning thought arose in my
heart, that I was unjustly used; that society had not given me my rights.
It came to me as a revelation, celestial-infernal, full of glorious hopes
of the possible future in store for me through the perfect development of
all my faculties; and full, too, of fierce present rage, wounded vanity,
bitter grudgings against those more favoured than myself, which grew in
time almost to cursing against the God who had made me a poor untutored
working man, and seemed to have given me genius only to keep me in a
Tantalus' hell of unsatisfied thirst.

Ay, respectable gentlemen and ladies, I will confess all to you--you shall
have, if you enjoy it, a fresh opportunity for indulging that supreme
pleasure which the press daily affords you of insulting the classes
whose powers most of you know as little as you do their sufferings. Yes;
the Chartist poet is vain, conceited, ambitious, uneducated, shallow,
inexperienced, envious, ferocious, scurrilous, seditious, traitorous.--Is
your charitable vocabulary exhausted? Then ask yourselves, how often have
you yourself honestly resisted and conquered the temptation to any one of
these sins, when it has come across you just once in a way, and not as they
came to me, as they come to thousands of the working men, daily and hourly,
"till their torments do, by length of time, become their elements"? What,
are we covetous too? Yes! And if those who have, like you, still covet
more, what wonder if those who have nothing covet something? Profligate
too? Well, though that imputation as a generality is utterly calumnious,
though your amount of respectable animal enjoyment per annum is a hundred
times as great as that of the most self-indulgent artizan, yet, if you had
ever felt what it is to want, not only every luxury of the senses, but even
bread to eat, you would think more mercifully of the man who makes up by
rare excesses, and those only of the limited kinds possible to him, for
long intervals of dull privation, and says in his madness, "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die!" We have our sins, and you have yours. Ours
may be the more gross and barbaric, but yours are none the less damnable;
perhaps all the more so, for being the sleek, subtle, respectable,
religious sins they are. You are frantic enough, if our part of the press
calls you hard names, but you cannot see that your part of the press
repays it back to us with interest. _We_ see those insults, and feel them
bitterly enough; and do not forget them, alas! soon enough, while they pass
unheeded by your delicate eyes as trivial truisms. Horrible, unprincipled,
villanous, seditious, frantic, blasphemous, are epithets, of course, when
applied to--to how large a portion of the English people, you will some day
discover to your astonishment. When will that come, and how? In thunder,
and storm, and garments rolled in blood? Or like the dew on the mown grass,
and the clear shining of the sunlight after April rain?

Yes, it was true. Society had not given me my rights. And woe unto the man
on whom that idea, true or false, rises lurid, filling all his thoughts
with stifling glare, as of the pit itself. Be it true, be it false, it is
equally a woe to believe it; to have to live on a negation; to have to
worship for our only idea, as hundreds of thousands of us have this day,
the hatred, of the things which are. Ay, though, one of us here and there
may die in faith, in sight of the promised land, yet is it not hard, when
looking from the top of Pisgah into "the good time coming," to watch the
years slipping away one by one, and death crawling nearer and nearer, and
the people wearying themselves in the fire for very vanity, and Jordan not
yet passed, the promised land not yet entered? While our little children
die around us, like lambs beneath the knife, of cholera and typhus and
consumption, and all the diseases which the good time can and will prevent;
which, as science has proved, and you the rich confess, might be prevented
at once, if you dared to bring in one bold and comprehensive measure,
and not sacrifice yearly the lives of thousands to the idol of vested
interests, and a majority in the House. Is it not hard to men who smart
beneath such things to help crying aloud--"Thou cursed Moloch-Mammon, take
my life if thou wilt; let me die in the wilderness, for I have deserved
it; but these little ones in mines and factories, in typhus-cellars, and
Tooting pandemoniums, what have they done? If not in their fathers' cause,
yet still in theirs, were it so great a sin to die upon a barricade?"

Or after all, my working brothers, is it true of our promised land, even as
of that Jewish one of old, that the _priests'_ feet must first cross the
mystic stream into the good land and large which God has prepared for us?

Is it so indeed? Then in the name of the Lord of Hosts, ye priests of His,
why will ye not awake, and arise, and go over Jordan, that the people of
the Lord may follow you?




CHAPTER V.

THE SCEPTIC'S MOTHER.


My readers will perceive from what I have detailed, that I was not likely
to get any positive ground of comfort from Crossthwaite; and from within
myself there was daily less and less hope of any. Daily the struggle became
more intolerable between my duty to my mother and my duty to myself--that
inward thirst for mental self-improvement, which, without any clear
consciousness of its sanctity or inspiration, I felt, and could not help
feeling, that I _must_ follow. No doubt it was very self-willed and
ambitious of me to do that which rich men's sons are flogged for not doing,
and rewarded with all manner of prizes, scholarships, fellowships for
doing. But the nineteenth year is a time of life at which self-will is apt
to exhibit itself in other people besides tailors; and those religious
persons who think it no sin to drive their sons on through classics and
mathematics, in hopes of gaining them a station in life, ought not to be
very hard upon me for driving myself on through the same path without any
such selfish hope of gain--though perhaps the very fact of my having no
wish or expectation of such advantage will constitute in their eyes my sin
and folly, and prove that I was following the dictates merely of a carnal
lust, and not of a proper worldly prudence. I really do not wish to be
flippant or sneering. I have seen the evil of it as much as any man, in
myself and in my own class. But there are excuses for such a fault in the
working man. It does sour and madden him to be called presumptuous and
ambitious for the very same aspirations which are lauded up to the skies in
the sons of the rich--unless, indeed, he will do one little thing, and so
make his peace with society. If he will desert his own class; if he will
try to become a sham gentleman, a parasite, and, if he can, a Mammonite,
the world will compliment him on his noble desire to "_rise in life_."
He will have won his spurs, and be admitted into that exclusive pale of
knighthood, beyond which it is a sin to carry arms even in self-defence.
But if the working genius dares to be true to his own class--to stay among
them--to regenerate them--to defend them--to devote his talents to those
among whom God placed him and brought him up--then he is the demagogue, the
incendiary, the fanatic, the dreamer. So you would have the monopoly of
talent, too, exclusive worldlings? And yet you pretend to believe in the
miracle of Pentecost, and the religion that was taught by the carpenter's
Son, and preached across the world by fishermen!

I was several times minded to argue the question out with my mother, and
assert for myself the same independence of soul which I was now earning for
my body by my wages. Once I had resolved to speak to her that very evening;
but, strangely enough, happening to open the Bible, which, alas! I did
seldom at that time, my eye fell upon the chapter where Jesus, after having
justified to His parents His absence in the Temple, while hearing the
doctors and asking them questions, yet went down with them to Nazareth
after all, and was subject unto them. The story struck me vividly as a
symbol of my own duties. But on reading further, I found more than one
passage which seemed to me to convey a directly opposite lesson, where His
mother and His brethren, fancying Him mad, attempted to interfere with His
labours, and asserting their family rights as reasons for retaining Him,
met with a peremptory rebuff. I puzzled my head for some time to find
out which of the two cases was the more applicable to my state of
self-development. The notion of asking for teaching from on high on
such a point had never crossed me. Indeed, if it had, I did not believe
sufficiently either in the story or in the doctrines connected with it,
to have tried such a resource. And so, as may be supposed, my growing
self-conceit decided for me that the latter course was the fitting one.

And yet I had not energy to carry it out. I was getting so worn out in body
and mind from continual study and labour, stinted food and want of sleep,
that I could not face the thought of an explosion, such as I knew must
ensue, and I lingered on in the same unhappy state, becoming more and more
morose in manner to my mother, while I was as assiduous as ever in all
filial duties. But I had no pleasure in home. She seldom spoke to me.
Indeed, there was no common topic about which we could speak. Besides, ever
since that fatal Sunday evening, I saw that she suspected me and watched
me. I had good reason to believe that she set spies upon my conduct. Poor
dear mother! God forbid that I should accuse thee for a single care of
thine, for a single suspicion even, prompted as they all were by a mother's
anxious love. I would never have committed these things to paper, hadst
thou not been far beyond the reach or hearing of them; and only now, in
hopes that they may serve as a warning, in some degree to mothers, but ten
times more to children. For I sinned against thee, deeply and shamefully,
in thought and deed, while thou didst never sin against me; though all thy
caution did but hasten the fatal explosion which came, and perhaps must
have come, under some form or other, in any case.

I had been detained one night in the shop till late; and on my return my
mother demanded, in a severe tone, the reason of my stay; and on my telling
her, answered as severely that she did not believe me; that she had too
much reason to suspect that I had been with bad companions.

"Who dared to put such a thought into your head?"

She "would not give up her authorities, but she had too much reason to
believe them."

Again I demanded the name of my slanderer, and was refused it. And then.
I burst out, for the first time in my life, into a real fit of rage with
her. I cannot tell how I dared to say what I did, but I was weak, nervous,
irritable--my brain excited beyond all natural tension. Above all, I felt
that she was unjust to me; and my good conscience, as well as my pride,
rebelled.

"You have never trusted me," I cried, "you have watched me--"

"Did you not deceive me once already?"

"And if I did," I answered, more and more excited, "have I not slaved for
you, stinted myself of clothes to pay your rent? Have I not run to and fro
for you like a slave, while I knew all the time you did not respect me or
trust me? If you had only treated me as a child and an idiot, I could have
borne it. But you have been thinking of me all the while as an incarnate
fiend--dead in trespasses and sins--a child of wrath and the devil. What
right have you to be astonished if I should do my father's works?"

"You may be ignorant of vital religion," she answered; "and you may insult
me. But if you make a mock of God's Word, you leave my house. If you can
laugh at religion, you can deceive me."

The pent-up scepticism of years burst forth.

"Mother," I said, "don't talk to me about religion, and election, and
conversion, and all that--I don't believe one word of it. Nobody does,
except good kind people--(like you, alas! I was going to say, but the devil
stopped the words at my lips)--who must needs have some reason to account
for their goodness. That Bowyer--he's a soft heart by nature, and as he
is, so he does--religion has had nothing to do with that, any more than it
has with that black-faced, canting scoundrel who has been telling you lies
about me. Much his heart is changed. He carries sneak and slanderer written
in his face--and sneak and slanderer he will be, elect or none. Religion?
Nobody believes in it. The rich don't; or they wouldn't fill their churches
up with pews, and shut the poor out, all the time they are calling them
brothers. They believe the gospel? Then why do they leave the men who make
their clothes to starve in such hells on earth as our workroom? No more
do the tradespeople believe in it; or they wouldn't go home from sermon
to sand the sugar, and put sloe-leaves in the tea, and send out lying
puffs of their vamped-up goods, and grind the last farthing out of the
poor creatures who rent their wretched stinking houses. And as for the
workmen--they laugh at it all, I can tell you. Much good religion is doing
for them! You may see it's fit only for women and children--for go where
you will, church or chapel, you see hardly anything but bonnets and babies!
I don't believe a word of it,--once and for all. I'm old enough to think
for myself, and a free-thinker I will be, and believe nothing but what I
know and understand."

I had hardly spoken the words, when I would have given worlds to recall
them--but it was to be--and it was.

Sternly she looked at me full in the face, till my eyes dropped before her
gaze. Then she spoke steadily and slowly:

"Leave this house this moment. You are no son of mine henceforward. Do you
think I will have my daughter polluted by the company of an infidel and a
blasphemer?"

"I will go," I answered fiercely; "I can get my own living at all events!"
And before I had time to think, I had rushed upstairs, packed up my bundle,
not forgetting the precious books, and was on my way through the frosty,
echoing streets, under the cold glare of the winter's moon.

I had gone perhaps half a mile, when the thought of home rushed over
me--the little room where I had spent my life--the scene of all my childish
joys and sorrows--which I should never see again, for I felt that my
departure was for ever. Then I longed to see my mother once again--not to
speak to her--for I was at once too proud and too cowardly to do that--but
to have a look at her through the window. One look--for all the while,
though I was boiling over with rage and indignation, I felt that it was all
on the surface--that in the depths of our hearts I loved her and she loved
me. And yet I wished to be angry, wished to hate her. Strange contradiction
of the flesh and spirit!

Hastily and silently I retraced my steps to the house. The gate was
padlocked. I cautiously stole over the palings to the window--the shutter
was closed and fast. I longed to knock--I lifted my hand to the door, and
dare not: indeed, I knew that it was useless, in my dread of my mother's
habit of stern determination. That room--that mother I never saw again. I
turned away; sickened at heart, I was clambering back again, looking behind
me towards the window, when I felt a strong grip on my collar, and turning
round, had a policeman's lantern flashed in my face.

"Hullo, young'un, and what do you want here?" with a strong emphasis, after
the fashion of policemen, on all his pronouns.

"Hush! or you'll alarm my mother!"

"Oh! eh! Forgot the latch-key, you sucking Don Juan, that's it, is it? Late
home from the Victory?"

I told him simply how the case stood, and entreated him to get me a night's
lodging, assuring him that my mother would not admit me, or I ask to be
admitted.

The policeman seemed puzzled, but after scratching his hat in lieu of his
head for some seconds, replied,

"This here is the dodge--you goes outside and lies down on the kerb-stone;
whereby I spies you a-sleeping in the streets, contrary to Act o'
Parliament; whereby it is my duty to take you to the station-house; whereby
you gets a night's lodging free gracious for nothing, and company perwided
by her Majesty."

"Oh, not to the station-house!" I cried in shame and terror.

"Werry well; then you must keep moving all night continually, whereby you
avoids the hact; or else you goes to a twopenny-rope shop and gets a lie
down. And your bundle you'd best leave at my house. Twopenny-rope society
a'n't particular. I'm going off my beat; you walk home with me and leave
your traps. Everybody knows me--Costello, V 21, that's my number."

So on I went with the kind-hearted man, who preached solemnly to me all the
way on the fifth commandment. But I heard very little of it; for before I
had proceeded a quarter of a mile, a deadly faintness and dizziness came
over me, I staggered, and fell against the railings.

"And have you been drinking arter all?"

"I never--a drop in my life--nothing but bread-and-water this fortnight."

And it was true. I had been paying for my own food, and had stinted
myself to such an extent, that between starvation, want of sleep, and
over-exertion, I was worn to a shadow, and the last drop had filled the
cup; the evening's scene and its consequences had been too much for me, and
in the middle of an attempt to explain matters to the policeman, I dropped
on the pavement, bruising my face heavily.

He picked me up, put me under one arm and my bundle under the other, and
was proceeding on his march, when three men came rollicking up.

"Hullo, Poleax--Costello--What's that? Work for us? A demp unpleasant
body?"

"Oh, Mr. Bromley, sir! Hope you're well, sir! Werry rum go this here, sir!
I finds this cove in the streets. He says his mother turned him out o'
doors. He seems very fair spoken, and very bad in he's head, and very bad
in he's chest, and very bad in he's legs, he does. And I can't come to no
conclusions respecting my conduct in this here case, nohow!"

"Memorialize the Health of Towns Commission," suggested one.

"Bleed him in the great toe," said the second.

"Put a blister on the back of his left eye-ball," said a third.

"Case of male asterisks," observed the first. "Rj. Aquae pumpis purae
quantum suff. Applicatur extero pro re nata. J. Bromley, M.D., and don't
he wish he may get through!"--

"Tip us your daddle, my boy," said the second speaker. "I'll tell you what,
Bromley, this fellow's very bad. He's got no more pulse than the
Pimlico sewer. Run in into the next pot'us. Here--you lay hold of him,
Bromley--that last round with the cabman nearly put my humerus out."

The huge, burly, pea-jacketed medical student--for such I saw at once
he was--laid hold of me on the right tenderly enough, and walked me off
between him and the policeman.

I fell again into a faintness, from which I was awakened by being shoved
through the folding-doors of a gin-shop, into a glare of light and hubbub
of blackguardism, and placed on a settle, while my conductor called out--

"Pots round, Mary, and a go of brandy hot with, for the patient. Here,
young'un, toss it off, it'll make your hair grow."

I feebly answered that I never had drunk anything stronger than water.

"High time to begin, then; no wonder you're so ill. Well, if you won't,
I'll make you--"

And taking my head under his arm, he seized me by the nose, while another
poured the liquor down my throat--and certainly it revived me at once.

A drunken drab pulled another drunken, drab off the settle to make room for
the "poor young man"; and I sat there with a confused notion that something
strange and dreadful had happened to me, while the party drained their
respective quarts of porter, and talked over the last boat-race with the
Leander.

"Now then, gen'l'men," said the policeman, 'if you think he's recovered,
we'll take him home to his mother; she ought for to take him in, surely."

"Yes, if she has as much heart in her as a dried walnut."

But I resisted stoutly; though I longed to vindicate my mother's affection,
yet I could not face her. I entreated to be taken to the station-house;
threatened, in my desperation, to break the bar glasses, which, like Doll
Tearsheet's abuse, only elicited from the policeman a solemn "Very well";
and under the unwonted excitement of the brandy, struggled so fiercely, and
talked so incoherently, that the medical students interfered.

"We shall have this fellow in phrenitis, or laryngitis, or dothenenteritis,
or some other itis, before long, if he's aggravated."

"And whichever it is, it'll kill him. He has no more stamina left than a
yard of pump water."

"I should consider him chargeable to the parish," suggested the bar-keeper.

"Exactually so, my Solomon of licensed victuallers. Get a workhouse order
for him, Costello."

"And I should consider, also, sir," said the licensed victualler, with
increased importance, "having been a guardian myself, and knowing the hact,
as the parish couldn't refuse, because they're in power to recover all
hexpenses out of his mother."

"To be sure; it's all the unnatural old witch's fault."

"No, it is not," said I, faintly.

"Wait till your opinion's asked, young'un. Go kick up the authorities,
policeman."

"Now, I'll just tell you how that'll work, gemmen," answered the policeman,
solemnly. "I goes to the overseer--werry good sort o' man--but he's in bed.
I knocks for half an hour. He puts his nightcap out o' windy, and sends me
to the relieving-officer. Werry good sort o' man he too; but he's in bed.
I knocks for another half-hour. He puts his nightcap out o' windy--sends
me to the medical officer for a certificate. Medical officer's gone to a
midwifery case. I hunts him for an hour or so. He's got hold of a babby
with three heads, or summat else; and two more women a-calling out for him
like blazes. 'He'll come to-morrow morning.' Now, I just axes your opinion
of that there most procrastinationest go."

The big student, having cursed the parochial authorities in general,
offered to pay for my night's lodging at the public-house. The good man of
the house demurred at first, but relented on being reminded of the value
of a medical student's custom: whereon, without more ado, two of the rough
diamonds took me between them, carried me upstairs, undressed me, and put
me to bed, as tenderly as if they had been women.

"He'll have the tantrums before morning, I'm afraid," said one.

"Very likely to turn to typhus," said the other.

"Well, I suppose--it's a horrid bore, but

 "What must be must; man is but dust,
  If you can't get crumb, you must just eat crust.

"Send me up a go of hot with, and I'll sit up with him till he's asleep,
dead, or better."

"Well, then, I'll stay too; we may just as well make a night of it here as
well as anywhere else."

And he pulled a short black pipe out of his pocket, and sat down to
meditate with his feet on the hobs of the empty grate; the other man went
down for the liquor; while I, between the brandy and exhaustion, fell fast
asleep, and never stirred till I woke the next morning with a racking
headache, and saw the big student standing by my bedside, having, as I
afterwards heard, sat by me till four in the morning.

"Hallo, young'un, come to your senses? Headache, eh? Slightly
comato-crapulose? We'll give you some soda and salvolatile, and I'll pay
for your breakfast."

And so he did, and when he was joined by his companions on their way to St.
George's, they were very anxious, having heard my story, to force a few
shillings on me "for luck," which, I need not say, I peremptorily refused,
assuring them that I could and would get my own living, and never take a
farthing from any man.

"That's a plucky dog, though he's a tailor," I heard them say, as, after
overwhelming them with thanks, and vowing, amid shouts of laughter, to
repay them every farthing I had cost them, I took my way, sick and stunned,
towards my dear old Sandy Mackaye's street.

Rough diamonds indeed! I have never met you again, but I have not forgotten
you. Your early life may be a coarse, too often a profligate one--but you
know the people, and the people know you: and your tenderness and care,
bestowed without hope of repayment, cheers daily many a poor soul in
hospital wards and fever-cellars--to meet its reward some day at the
people's hands. You belong to us at heart, as the Paris barricades can
tell. Alas! for the society which stifles in after-life too many of your
better feelings, by making you mere flunkeys and parasites, dependent for
your livelihood on the caprices and luxuries of the rich.




CHAPTER VI.

THE DULWICH GALLERY.


Sandy Mackaye received me in a characteristic way--growled at me for
half an hour for quarrelling with my mother, and when I was at my wit's
end, suddenly offered me a bed in his house and the use of his little
sitting-room--and, bliss too great to hope! of his books also; and when I
talked of payment, told me to hold my tongue and mind my own business. So
I settled myself at once; and that very evening he installed himself as my
private tutor, took down a Latin book, and set me to work on it.

"An' mind ye, laddie," said he, half in jest and half in earnest, "gin I
find ye playing truant, and reading a' sorts o' nonsense instead of minding
the scholastic methods and proprieties, I'll just bring ye in a bill at the
year's end o' twa guineas a week for lodgings and tuition, and tak' the law
o' ye; so mind and read what I tell ye. Do you comprehend noo?"

I did comprehend, and obeyed him, determining to repay him some day--and
somehow--how I did not very clearly see. Thus I put myself more or less
into the old man's power; foolishly enough the wise world will say. But I
had no suspicion in my character; and I could not look at those keen grey
eyes, when, after staring into vacancy during some long preachment, they
suddenly flashed round at me, and through me, full of fun and quaint
thought, and kindly earnestness, and fancy that man less honest than his
face seemed to proclaim him.

By-the-by, I have as yet given no description of the old eccentric's
abode--an unpardonable omission, I suppose, in these days of Dutch painting
and Boz. But the omission was correct, both historically and artistically,
for I had as yet only gone to him for books, books, nothing but books; and
I had been blind to everything in his shop but that fairy-land of shelves,
filled, in my simple fancy, with inexhaustible treasures, wonder-working,
omnipotent, as the magic seal of Solomon.

It was not till I had been settled and at work for several nights in his
sanctum, behind the shop, that I began to become conscious what a strange
den that sanctum was.

It was so dark, that without a gaslight no one but he could see to read
there, except on very sunny days. Not only were the shelves which covered
every inch of wall crammed with books and pamphlets, but the little window
was blocked up with them, the floor was piled with bundles of them, in some
places three feet deep, apparently in the wildest confusion--though there
was some mysterious order in them which he understood, and symbolized,
I suppose, by the various strange and ludicrous nicknames on their
tickets--for he never was at fault a moment if a customer asked for a
book, though it were buried deep in the chaotic stratum. Out of this book
alluvium a hole seemed to have been dug near the fireplace, just big enough
to hold his arm-chair and a table, book-strewn like everything else, and
garnished with odds and ends of MSS., and a snuffer-tray containing scraps
of half-smoked tobacco, "pipe-dottles," as he called them, which were
carefully resmoked over and over again, till nothing but ash was left.
His whole culinary utensils--for he cooked as well as eat in this strange
hole--were an old rusty kettle, which stood on one hob, and a blue plate
which, when washed, stood on the other. A barrel of true Aberdeen meal
peered out of a corner, half buried in books, and a "keg o' whusky, the
gift o' freens," peeped in like case out of another.

This was his only food. "It was a' poison," he used to say, "in London.
Bread full o' alum and bones, and sic filth--meat over-driven till it was
a' braxy--water sopped wi' dead men's juice. Naething was safe but gude
Scots parrich and Athol brose." He carried his water-horror so far as to
walk some quarter of a mile every morning to fill his kettle at a favourite
pump. "Was he a cannibal, to drink out o' that pump hard-by, right under
the kirkyard?" But it was little he either ate or drank--he seemed to live
upon tobacco. From four in the morning till twelve at night, the pipe
never left his lips, except when he went into the outer shop. "It promoted
meditation, and drove awa' the lusts o' the flesh. Ech! it was worthy o'
that auld tyrant, Jamie, to write his counter-blast to the poor man's
freen! The hypocrite! to gang preaching the virtues o' evil-savoured smoke
'ad daemones abigendos,--and then rail again tobacco, as if it was no as
gude for the purpose as auld rags and horn shavings!"

Sandy Mackaye had a great fancy for political caricatures, rows of which,
there being no room for them on the walls, hung on strings from the
ceiling--like clothes hung out to dry--and among them dangled various books
to which he had taken an antipathy, principally High Tory and Benthamite,
crucified, impaled through their covers, and suspended in all sorts of
torturing attitudes. Among them, right over the table, figured a copy of
Icon Basilike dressed up in a paper shirt, all drawn over with figures of
flames and devils, and surmounted by a peaked paper cap, like a victim
at an _auto-da-fe_. And in the midst of all this chaos grinned from the
chimney-piece, among pipes and pens, pinches of salt and scraps of butter,
a tall cast of Michael Angelo's well-known skinless model--his pristine
white defaced by a cap of soot upon the top of his scalpless skull, and
every muscle and tendon thrown into horrible relief by the dirt which had
lodged among the cracks. There it stood, pointing with its ghastly arm
towards the door, and holding on its wrist a label with the following
inscription:--

  Here stand I, the working man,
  Get more off me if you can.

I questioned Mackaye one evening about those hanged and crucified books,
and asked him if he ever sold any of them.

"Ou, ay," he said; "if folks are fools enough to ask for them, I'll just
answer a fool according to his folly."

"But," I said, "Mr. Mackaye, do you think it right to sell books of the
very opinions of which you disapprove so much?"

"Hoot, laddie, it's just a spoiling o' the Egyptians; so mind yer book, and
dinna tak in hand cases o' conscience for ither folk. Yell ha' wark eneugh
wi' yer ain before ye're dune."

And he folded round his knees his Joseph's coat, as he called it, an old
dressing-gown with one plaid sleeve, and one blue one, red shawl-skirts,
and a black broadcloth back, not to mention, innumerable patches of every
imaginable stuff and colour, filled his pipe, and buried his nose in
"Harrington's Oceana." He read at least twelve hours every day of his life,
and that exclusively old history and politics, though his favourite books
were Thomas Carlyle's works. Two or three evenings in the week, when he had
seen me safe settled at my studies, he used to disappear mysteriously
for several hours, and it was some time before I found out, by a chance
expression, that he was attending some meeting or committee of working-men.
I begged him to take me there with him. But I was stopped by a laconic
answer--

"When ye're ready."

"And when shall I be ready, Mr. Mackaye?"

"Read yer book till I tell ye."

And he twisted himself into his best coat, which had once been black,
squeezed on his little Scotch cap, and went out.

       *       *       *       *       *

I now found myself, as the reader may suppose, in an element far more
congenial to my literary tastes, and which compelled far less privation of
sleep and food in order to find time and means for reading; and my health
began to mend from the very first day. But the thought of my mother haunted
me; and Mackaye seemed in no hurry to let me escape from it, for he
insisted on my writing to her in a penitent strain, informing her of my
whereabouts, and offering to return home if she should wish it. With
feelings strangely mingled between the desire of seeing her again and the
dread of returning to the old drudgery of surveillance, I sent the letter,
and waited the whole week without any answer. At last, one evening, when
I returned from work, Sandy seemed in a state of unusual exhilaration. He
looked at me again and again, winking and chuckling to himself in a way
which showed me that his good spirits had something to do with my concerns:
but he did not open on the subject till I had settled to my evening's
reading. Then, having brewed himself an unusually strong mug of
whisky-toddy, and brought out with great ceremony a clean pipe, he
commenced.

"Alton, laddie, I've been fiechting Philistines for ye the day."

"Ah! have you heard from my mother?"

"I wadna say that exactly; but there's been a gran bailie body wi' me that
calls himsel' your uncle, and a braw young callant, a bairn o' his, I'm
thinking."

"Ah! that's my cousin--George; and tell me--do tell me, what you said to
them."

"Ou--that'll be mair concern o' mine than o' yourn. But ye're no going back
to your mither."

My heart leapt up with--joy; there is no denying it--and then I burst into
tears.

"And she won't see me? Has she really cast me off?"

"Why, that'll be verra much as ye prosper, I'm thinking. Ye're an
unaccreedited hero, the noo, as Thomas Carlyle has it. 'But gin ye do weel
by yoursel', saith the Psalmist, 'ye'll find a' men speak well o' ye'--if
ye gang their gate. But ye're to gang to see your uncle at his shop o'
Monday next, at one o'clock. Now stint your greeting, and read awa'."

On the next Monday I took a holiday, the first in which I had ever indulged
myself; and having spent a good hour in scrubbing away at my best shoes
and Sunday suit, started, in fear and trembling, for my uncle's
"establishment."

I was agreeably surprised, on being shown into the little back office at
the back of the shop, to meet with a tolerably gracious reception from the
good-natured Mammonite. He did not shake hands with me, it is true;--was
I not a poor relation? But he told me to sit down, commended me for the
excellent character which he had of me both from my master and Mackaye,
and then entered on the subject of my literary tastes. He heard I was a
precious clever fellow. No wonder, I came of a clever stock; his poor dear
brother had plenty of brains for everything but business. "And you see, my
boy" (with a glance at the big ledgers and busy shop without), "I knew
a thing or two in my time, or I should not have been here. But without
capital, _I_ think brains a curse. Still we must make the best of a bad
matter; and if you are inclined to help to raise the family name--not
that I think much of book writers myself--poor starving devils, half of
them--but still people do talk about them--and a man might get a snug thing
as newspaper editor, with interest; or clerk to something or other--always
some new company in the wind now--and I should have no objection, if you
seemed likely to do us credit, to speak a word for you. I've none of your
mother's confounded puritanical notions, I can tell you; and, what's more,
I have, thank Heaven, as fine a city connexion as any man. But you must
mind and make yourself a good accountant--learn double entry on the Italian
method--that's a good practical study; and if that old Sawney is soft
enough to teach you other things gratis, he may as well teach you that
too. I'll bet he knows something about it--the old Scotch fox. There
now--that'll do--there's five shillings for you--mind you don't lose
them--and if I hear a good account of you, why, perhaps--but there's no use
making promises."

At this moment a tall handsome young man, whom I did not at first recognize
as my cousin George, swung into the office, and shook me cordially by the
hand.

"Hullo, Alton, how are you? Why, I hear you're coming out as a regular
genius--breaking out in a new place, upon my honour! Have you done with
him, governor?"

"Well, I think I have. I wish you'd have a talk with him, my boy. I'm sorry
I can't see more of him, but I have to meet a party on business at the
West-end at two, and Alderman Tumbril and family dine with us this evening,
don't they? I think our small table will be full."

"Of course it will. Come along with me, and we'll have a chat in some quiet
out-of-the-way place. This city is really so noisy that you can't hear your
own ears, as our dean says in lecture."

So he carried me off, down back streets and alleys, a little puzzled at the
extreme cordiality of his manner. Perhaps it sprung, as I learned afterward
to suspect, from his consistent and perpetual habit of ingratiating himself
with every one whom he approached. He never cut a chimney-sweep if he
knew him. And he found it pay. The children of this world are in their
generation wiser than the children of light.

Perhaps it sprung also, as I began to suspect in the first hundred yards of
our walk, from the desire of showing off before me the university clothes,
manners, and gossip, which he had just brought back with him from
Cambridge.

I had not seen him more than three or four times in my life before, and
then he appeared to me merely a tall, handsome, conceited, slangy boy. But
I now found him much improved--in all externals at least. He had made it
his business, I knew, to perfect himself in all athletic pursuits which
were open to a Londoner. As he told me that day--he found it pay, when one
got among gentlemen. Thus he had gone up to Cambridge a capital
skater, rower, pugilist--and billiard player. Whether or not that last
accomplishment ought to be classed in the list of athletic sports, he
contrived, by his own account, to keep it in that of paying ones. In
both these branches he seemed to have had plenty of opportunities of
distinguishing himself at college; and his tall, powerful figure showed
the fruit of these exercises in a stately and confident, almost martial,
carriage. Something jaunty, perhaps swaggering, remained still in his air
and dress, which yet sat not ungracefully on him; but I could see that he
had been mixing in society more polished and artificial than that to which
we had either of us been accustomed, and in his smart Rochester, well-cut
trousers, and delicate French boots, he excited, I will not deny it, my
boyish admiration and envy.

"Well," he said, as soon as we were out of the shop, "which way? Got a
holiday? And how did you intend to spend it?"

"I wanted very much," I said, meekly, "to see the pictures at the National
Gallery."

"Oh! ah! pictures don't pay; but, if you like--much better ones at
Dulwich--that's the place to go to--you can see the others any day--and
at Dulwich, you know, they've got--why let me see--" And he ran over
half-a-dozen outlandish names of painters, which, as I have never again
met with them, I am inclined on the whole to consider as somewhat
extemporaneous creations. However, I agreed to go.

"Ah! capital--very nice quiet walk, and convenient for me--very little out
of my way home. I'll walk there with you."

"One word for your neighbour and two for yourself," thought I; but on
we walked. To see good pictures had been a long cherished hope of mine.
Everything beautiful in form or colour was beginning of late to have an
intense fascination for me. I had, now that I was emancipated, gradually
dared to feed my greedy eyes by passing stares into the print-shop windows,
and had learnt from them a thousand new notions, new emotions, new longings
after beauties of Nature, which seemed destined never to be satisfied. But
pictures, above all, foreign ones, had been in my mother's eyes, Anathema
Maranatha, as vile Popish and Pagan vanities, the rags of the scarlet woman
no less than the surplice itself--and now, when it came to the point, I
hesitated at an act of such awful disobedience, even though unknown to
her. My cousin, however, laughed down my scruples, told me I was out of
leading-strings now, and, which was true enough, that it was "a * * * *
deal better to amuse oneself in picture galleries without leave, than live
a life of sneaking and lying under petticoat government, as all home-birds
were sure to do in the long-run." And so I went on, while my cousin kept up
a running fire of chat the whole way, intermixing shrewd, bold observations
upon every woman who passed, with sneers at the fellows of the college to
which we were going--their idleness and luxury--the large grammar-school
which they were bound by their charter to keep up, and did not--and hints
about private interest in high quarters, through which their wealthy
uselessness had been politely overlooked, when all similar institutions
in the kingdom were subject to the searching examination of a government
commission. Then there were stories of boat-races and gay noblemen,
breakfast parties, and lectures on Greek plays flavoured with a spice of
Cambridge slang, all equally new to me--glimpses into a world of wonders,
which made me feel, as I shambled along at his side, trying to keep step
with his strides, more weakly and awkward and ignorant than ever.

We entered the gallery. I was in a fever of expectation.

The rich sombre light of the rooms, the rich heavy warmth of the
stove-heated air, the brilliant and varied colouring and gilded frames
which embroidered the walls, the hushed earnestness of a few artists,
who were copying, and the few visitors who were lounging from picture to
picture, struck me at once with mysterious awe. But my attention was in a
moment concentrated on one figure opposite to me at the furthest end. I
hurried straight towards it. When I had got half-way up the gallery I
looked round for my cousin. He had turned aside to some picture of a Venus
which caught my eye also, but which, I remember now, only raised in me then
a shudder and a blush, and a fancy that the clergymen must be really as
bad as my mother had taught me to believe, if they could allow in their
galleries pictures of undressed women. I have learnt to view such things
differently now, thank God. I have learnt that to the pure all things are
pure. I have learnt the meaning of that great saying--the foundation of all
art, as well as all modesty, all love, which tells us how "the man and his
wife were both naked, and not ashamed." But this book is the history of my
mental growth; and my mistakes as well as my discoveries are steps in that
development, and may bear a lesson in them.

How I have rambled! But as that day was the turning-point of my whole short
life, I may be excused for lingering upon every feature of it.

Timidly, but eagerly, I went up to the picture, and stood entranced before
it. It was Guido's St. Sebastian. All the world knows the picture, and all
the world knows, too, the defects of the master, though in this instance he
seems to have risen above himself, by a sudden inspiration, into that true
naturalness, which is the highest expression of the Spiritual. But the
very defects of the picture, its exaggeration, its theatricality, were
especially calculated to catch the eye of a boy awaking out of the narrow
dulness of Puritanism. The breadth and vastness of light and shade upon
those manly limbs, so grand and yet so delicate, standing out against the
background of lurid night, the helplessness of the bound arms, the arrow
quivering in the shrinking side, the upturned brow, the eyes in whose dark
depths enthusiastic faith seemed conquering agony and shame, the parted
lips, which seemed to ask, like those martyrs in the Revelations,
reproachful, half-resigned, "O Lord, how long?"--Gazing at that picture
since, I have understood how the idolatry of painted saints could arise in
the minds even of the most educated, who were not disciplined by that stern
regard for fact which is--or ought to be--the strength of Englishmen. I
have understood the heart of that Italian girl, whom some such picture of
St. Sebastian, perhaps this very one, excited, as the Venus of Praxiteles
the Grecian boy, to hopeless love, madness, and death. Then I had never
heard of St. Sebastian. I did not dream of any connexion between that, or
indeed any picture, and Christianity; and yet, as I stood before it, I
seemed to be face to face with the ghosts of my old Puritan forefathers, to
see the spirit which supported them on pillories and scaffolds--the spirit
of that true St. Margaret, the Scottish maiden whom Claverhouse and his
soldiers chained to a post on the sea-sands to die by inches in the rising
tide, till the sound of her hymns was slowly drowned in the dash of the
hungry leaping waves. My heart swelled within me, my eyes seemed bursting
from my head with the intensity of my gaze, and great tears, I knew not
why, rolled slowly down my face.

A woman's voice close to me, gentle yet of deeper tone than most, woke me
from my trance.

"You seem to be deeply interested in that picture?"

I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes before they could meet
hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet
beheld. And what--what--have I seen equal to her since? Strange, that I
should love to talk of her. Strange, that I fret at myself now because
I cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful
loveliness of which--. But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as
Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold self-consciousness,
what volumes of similes and conceits I might pour out, connecting that
peerless face and figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth
contain. As it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat
to the end again and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond all
statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen--slight but rounded, a
masque and features delicate and regular, as if fresh from the chisel of
Praxiteles--I must try to describe after all, you see--a skin of alabaster
(privet-flowers, Horace and Ariosto would have said, more true to Nature),
stained with the faintest flush; auburn hair, with that peculiar crisped
wave seen in the old Italian pictures, and the warm, dark hazel eyes which
so often accompany it; lips like a thread of vermillion, somewhat too thin,
perhaps--but I thought little of that then; with such perfect finish and
grace in every line and hue of her features and her dress, down to the
little fingers and nails, which showed through her thin gloves, that she
seemed to my fancy fresh from the innermost chamber of some enchanted
palace, "where no air of heaven could visit her cheek too roughly." I
dropped my eyes quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a lady
who stood with her, whose face I remarked then--as I did to the last,
alas!--too little; dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps because
so utterly unaccustomed to it.

"It is indeed a wonderful picture," I said, timidly. "May I ask what is the
subject of it?"

"Oh! don't you know?" said the young beauty, with a smile that thrilled
through me. "It is St. Sebastian."

"I--I am very much ashamed," I answered, colouring up, "but I do not know
who St. Sebastian was. Was he a Popish saint?"

A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two ladies, laughed kindly.
"No, not till they made him one against his will; and at the same time, by
putting him into the mill which grinds old folks young again, converted him
from a grizzled old Roman tribune into the young Apollo of Popery."

"You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle," said the same deep-toned
woman's voice which had first spoken to me. "As you volunteered the saint's
name, Lillian, you shall also tell his history."

Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to send through me a fresh
thrill of delighted interest, without trenching the least on the most
stately reserve, she told me the well known history of the saint's
martyrdom.

If I seem minute in my description, let those who read my story remember
that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it
is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my
mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all
my little sister's careless ease.

"What a beautiful poem the story would make!" said I, as soon as I
recovered my thoughts.

"Well spoken, young man," answered the old gentleman. "Let us hope that
your seeing a subject for a good poem will be the first step towards your
writing one."

As he spoke, he bent on me two clear grey eyes, full of kindliness, mingled
with practised discernment. I saw that he was evidently a clergyman; but
what his tight silk stockings and peculiar hat denoted I did not know.
There was about him the air of a man accustomed equally to thought, to men,
and to power. And I remarked somewhat maliciously, that my cousin, who had
strutted up towards us on seeing me talking to two ladies, the instant
he caught sight of those black silk stockings and that strange hat,
fell suddenly in countenance, and sidling off somewhat meekly into the
background, became absorbed in the examination of a Holy Family.

I answered something humbly, I forget what, which led to a conversation.
They questioned me as to my name, my mother, my business, my studies; while
I revelled in the delight of stolen glances at my new-found Venus Victrix,
who was as forward as any of them in her questions and her interest.
Perhaps she enjoyed, at least she could not help seeing, the admiration
for herself which I took no pains to conceal. At last the old man cut the
conversation short by a quiet "Good morning, sir," which astonished me. I
had never heard words whose tone was so courteous and yet so chillingly
peremptory. As they turned away, he repeated to himself once or twice,
as if to fix them in his mind, my name and my master's, and awoke in me,
perhaps too thoughtlessly, a tumult of vain hopes. Once and again the
beauty and her companion looked back towards me, and seemed talking of
me, and my face was burning scarlet, when my cousin swung up in his hard,
off-hand way.

"By Jove, Alton, my boy! you're a knowing fellow. I congratulate you! At
your years, indeed! to rise a dean and two beauties at the first throw, and
hook them fast!"

"A dean!" I said, in some trepidation.

"Ay, a live dean--didn't you see the cloven foot sticking out from under
his shoe-buckle? What news for your mother! What will the ghosts of your
grandfathers to the seventh generation say to this, Alton? Colloquing in
Pagan picture galleries with shovel-hatted Philistines! And that's not the
worst, Alton," he ran on. "Those daughters of Moab--those daughters of
Moab--."

"Hold your tongue," I said, almost crying with vexation.

"Look there, if you want to save your good temper. There, she is looking
back again--not at poor me, though. What a lovely girl she is!--and a real
lady--_l'air noble_--the real genuine grit, as Sam Slick says, and no
mistake. By Jove, what a face! what hands! what feet! what a figure--in
spite of crinolines and all abominations! And didn't she know it? And
didn't she know that you knew it too?" And he ran on descanting coarsely on
beauties which I dared not even have profaned by naming, in a way that made
me, I knew not why, mad with jealousy and indignation. She seemed mine
alone in all the world. What right had any other human being, above all,
he, to dare to mention her? I turned again to my St. Sebastian. That
movement only brought on me a fresh volley of banter.

"Oh, that's the dodge, is it, to catch intellectual fine ladies?--to fall
into an ecstatic attitude before a picture--But then we must have Alton's
genius, you know, to find out which the fine pictures are. I must read up
that subject, by-the-by. It might be a paying one among the dons. For
the present, here goes in for an attitude. Will this do, Alton?" And he
arranged himself admiringly before the picture in an attitude so absurd and
yet so graceful, that I did not know whether to laugh at him or hate him.

"At all events," he added, dryly, "it will be as good as playing the
Evangelical at Carus's tea-parties, or taking the sacrament regularly for
fear one's testimonials should be refused." And then he looked at me, and
through me, in his intense, confident way, to see that his hasty words had
not injured him with me. He used to meet one's eye as boldly as any man I
ever saw; but it was not the simple gaze of honesty and innocence, but an
imperious, searching look, as if defying scrutiny. His was a true mesmeric
eye, if ever there was one. No wonder it worked the miracles it did.

"Come along," he said, suddenly seizing my arm. "Don't you see they're
leaving? Out of the gallery after them, and get a good look at the carriage
and the arms upon it. I saw one standing there as we came in. It may pay
us--you, that is--to know it again."

We went out, I holding him back, I knew not why, and arrived at the outer
gate just in time to see them enter the carriage and drive off. I gazed to
the last, but did not stir.

"Good boy," he said, "knowing still. If you had bowed, or showed the least
sign of recognition, you would have broken the spell."

But I hardly heard what he said, and stood gazing stupidly after the
carriage as it disappeared. I did not know then what had happened to me. I
know now, alas! too well.




CHAPTER VII.

FIRST LOVE.


Truly I said, I did not know what had happened to me. I did not attempt to
analyse the intense, overpowering instinct which from that moment made the
lovely vision I had seen the lodestar of all my thoughts. Even now, I can
see nothing in those feelings of mine but simple admiration--idolatry, if
you will--of physical beauty. Doubtless there was more--doubtless--I had
seen pretty faces before, and knew that they were pretty, but they had
passed from my retina, like the prints of beauties which I saw in the
shop windows, without exciting a thought--even a conscious emotion of
complacency. But this face did not pass away. Day and night I saw it, just
as I had seen it in the gallery. The same playful smile--the same glance
alternately turned to me, and the glowing picture above her head--and that
was all I saw or felt. No child ever nestled upon its mother's shoulder
with feelings more celestially pure, than those with which I counted
over day and night each separate lineament of that exceeding loveliness.
Romantic? extravagant? Yes; if the world be right in calling a passion
romantic just in proportion as it is not merely hopeless, but pure and
unselfish, drawing its delicious power from no hope or faintest desire of
enjoyment, but merely from simple delight in its object--then my passion
was most romantic. I never thought of disparity in rank. Why should I? That
could not blind the eyes of my imagination. She was beautiful, and that was
all, and all in all to me; and had our stations been exchanged, and more
than exchanged; had I been King Cophetua, or she the beggar-maid, I should
have gloried in her just as much.

Beloved sleepless hours, which I spent in picturing that scene to myself,
with all the brilliance of fresh recollection! Beloved hours! how soon
you pass away! Soon--soon my imagination began to fade; the traces of her
features on my mind's eye became confused and dim; and then came over me
the fierce desire to see her again, that I might renew the freshness of
that charming image. Thereon grew up an agony of longing--an agony of
weeks, and months, and years. Where could I find that face again? was my
ruling thought from morning till eve. I knew that it was hopeless to look
for her at the gallery where I had first seen her. My only hope was, that
at some place of public resort at the West End I might catch, if but for a
moment, an inspiring glance of that radiant countenance. I lingered round
the Burton Arch and Hyde Park Gate--but in vain. I peered into every
carriage, every bonnet that passed me in the thoroughfares--in vain. I
stood patiently at the doors of exhibitions and concerts, and playhouses,
to be shoved back by policemen, and insulted by footmen--but in vain. Then
I tried the fashionable churches, one by one; and sat in the free seats,
to listen to prayers and sermons, not a word of which, alas! I cared to
understand, with my eyes searching carefully every pew and gallery, face
by face; always fancying, in self-torturing waywardness, that she might be
just in the part of the gallery which I could not see. Oh! miserable
days of hope deferred, making the heart sick! Miserable gnawing of
disappointment with which I returned at nightfall, to force myself down to
my books! Equally miserable rack of hope on which my nerves were stretched
every morning when I rose, counting the hours till my day's work should be
over, and my mad search begin again! At last "my torment did by length of
time become my element." I returned steadily as ever to the studies which
I had at first neglected, much to Mackaye's wonder and disgust; and a vain
hunt after that face became a part of my daily task, to be got through with
the same dull, sullen effort, with which all I did was now transacted.

Mackaye, I suppose, at first, attributed my absences and idleness to my
having got into bad company. But it was some weeks before he gently enough
told me his suspicions, and they were answered by a burst of tears, and a
passionate denial, which set them at rest forever. But I had not courage to
tell him what was the matter with me. A sacred modesty, as well as a sense
of the impossibility of explaining my emotions, held me back. I had a
half-dread, too, to confess the whole truth, of his ridiculing a fancy,
to say the least, so utterly impracticable; and my only confidant was
a picture in the National Gallery, in one of the faces of which I had
discovered some likeness to my Venus; and there I used to go and stand
at spare half hours, and feel the happier for staring and staring, and
whispering to the dead canvas the extravagances of my idolatry.

But soon the bitter draught of disappointment began to breed harsher
thoughts in me. Those fine gentlemen who rode past me in the park, who
rolled by in carriages, sitting face to face with ladies, as richly
dressed, if not as beautiful, as she was--they could see her when they
liked--why not I? What right had their eyes to a feast denied to mine?
They, too, who did not appreciate, adore that beauty as I did--for who
could worship her like me? At least they had not suffered for her as I
had done; they had not stood in rain and frost, fatigue, and blank
despair--watching--watching--month after month; and I was making coats for
them! The very garment I was stitching at, might, in a day's time, be in
her presence--touching her dress; and its wearer bowing, and smiling, and
whispering--he had not bought that bliss by watching in the ram. It made me
mad to think of it.

I will say no more about it. That is a period of my life on which I cannot
even now look back without a shudder.

At last, after perhaps a year or more, I summoned up courage to tell my
story to Sandy Mackaye, and burst out with complaints more pardonable,
perhaps, than reasonable.

"Why have I not as good a right to speak to her, to move in the same
society in which she moves, as any of the fops of the day? Is it because
these aristocrats are more intellectual than I? I should not fear to
measure brains against most of them now; and give me the opportunities
which they have, and I would die if I did not outstrip them. Why have I not
those opportunities? Is that fault of others to be visited on me? Is it
because they are more refined than I? What right have they, if this said
refinement be so necessary a qualification, a difference so deep--that,
without it, there is to be an everlasting gulf between man and man--what
right have they to refuse to let me share in it, to give me the opportunity
of acquiring it?"

"Wad ye ha' them set up a dancing academy for working men, wi' 'manners
tocht here to the lower classes'? They'll no break up their ain monopoly;
trust them for it! Na: if ye want to get amang them, I'll tell ye the
way o't. Write a book o' poems, and ca' it 'A Voice fra' the Goose, by a
working Tailor'--and then--why, after a dizen years or so of starving and
scribbling for your bread, ye'll ha' a chance o' finding yoursel' a lion,
and a flunkey, and a licker o' trenchers--ane that jokes for his dinner,
and sells his soul for a fine leddy's smile--till ye presume to think
they're in earnest, and fancy yoursel' a man o' the same blude as they, and
fa' in love wi' one o' them--and then they'll teach you your level, and
send ye off to gauge whusky like Burns, or leave ye' to die in a ditch as
they did wi' puir Thom."

"Let me die, anywhere or anyhow, if I can but be near her--see her--"

"Married to anither body?--and nursing anither body's bairns. Ah boy,
boy--do ye think that was what ye were made for; to please yersel wi' a
woman's smiles, or e'en a woman's kisses--or to please yersel at all? How
do ye expect ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at a', as long as ye go
on looking to enjoy yersel--yersel? I ha' tried it. Mony was the year I
looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it was a'

 "Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye,
  There he sits singing the lang simmer's day;
  Lassies gae to him,
  And kiss him, and woo him--
  Na bird is sa merry as Sandy Mackaye.

"An' muckle good cam' o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour,
disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth living
for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and there's na
hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I think: 'a universal
liars--rock substrawtum,' as Mr. Carlyle says. I'm a great liar often
mysel, especially when I'm praying. Do ye think I'd live on here in this
meeserable crankit auld bane-barrel o' a body, if it was not for The Cause,
and for the puir young fellows that come in to me whiles to get some
book-learning about the gran' auld Roman times, when folks didna care for
themselves, but for the nation, and a man counted wife and bairns and money
as dross and dung, in comparison wi' the great Roman city, that was the
mither o' them a', and wad last on, free and glorious, after they and their
bairns were a' dead thegither? Hoot, man! If I had na The Cause to care for
and to work for, whether I ever see it triumphant on earth or no--I'd just
tak' the cauld-water-cure off Waterloo-bridge, and mak' mysel a case for
the Humane Society."

"And what is The Cause?" I asked.

"Wud I tell ye? We want no ready-made freens o' The Cause. I dinna hauld
wi' thae French indoctrinating pedants, that took to stick free opinions
into a man as ye'd stick pins into a pincushion, to fa' out again the first
shake. Na--The Cause must find a man, and tak' hauld o' him, willy-nilly,
and grow up in him like an inspiration, till he can see nocht but in the
light o't. Puir bairn!" he went on, looking with a half-sad, half-comic
face at me--"puir bairn--like a young bear, wi' a' your sorrows before ye!
This time seven years ye'll ha' no need to come speering and questioning
what The Cause is, and the Gran' Cause, and the Only Cause worth working
for on the earth o' God. And noo gang your gate, and mak' fine feathers for
foul birds. I'm gaun whar ye'll be ganging too, before lang."

As I went sadly out of the shop, he called me back.

"Stay a wee, bairn; there's the Roman History for ye. There ye'll read what
The Cause is, and how they that seek their ain are no worthy thereof."

I took the book, and found in the legends of Brutus, and Cocles, and
Scaevola, and the retreat to the Mons Sacer, and the Gladiator's war, what
The Cause was, and forgot awhile in those tales of antique heroism and
patriotic self-sacrifice my own selfish longings and sorrows.

       *       *       *       *       *

But, after all, the very advice which was meant to cure me of those selfish
longings, only tended, by diverting me from my living outward idol, to turn
my thoughts more than ever inward, and tempt them to feed on their
own substance. I passed whole days on the workroom floor in brooding
silence--my mind peopled with an incoherent rabble of phantasms patched
up from every object of which I had ever read. I could not control my
daydreams; they swept me away with them over sea and land, and into the
bowels of the earth. My soul escaped on every side from my civilized
dungeon of brick and mortar, into the great free world from which my body
was debarred. Now I was the corsair in the pride of freedom on the dark
blue sea. Now I wandered in fairy caverns among the bones of primaeval
monsters. I fought at the side of Leonidas, and the Maccabee who stabbed
the Sultan's elephant, and saw him crushed beneath its falling bulk. Now
I was a hunter in tropic forests--I heard the parrots scream, and saw the
humming birds flit on from gorgeous flower to flower. Gradually I took
a voluntary pleasure in calling up these images, and working out their
details into words with all the accuracy and care for which my small
knowledge gave me materials. And as the self-indulgent habit grew on me,
I began to live two lives--one mechanical and outward, one inward and
imaginative. The thread passed through my fingers without my knowing it;
I did my work as a machine might do it. The dingy stifling room, the wan
faces of my companions, the scanty meals which I snatched, I saw dimly, as
in a dream. The tropics, and Greece, the imaginary battles which I fought,
the phantoms into whose mouths I put my thoughts, were real and true to
me. They met me when I woke--they floated along beside me as I walked to
work--they acted their fantastic dramas before me through the sleepless
hours of night. Gradually certain faces among them became familiar--certain
personages grew into coherence, as embodiments of those few types of
character which had struck me the most, and played an analogous part in
every fresh fantasia. Sandy Mackaye's face figured incongruously enough as
Leonidas, Brutus, a Pilgrim Father; and gradually, in spite of myself, and
the fear with which I looked on the recurrence of that dream, Lillian's
figure re-entered my fairy-land. I saved her from a hundred dangers; I
followed her through dragon-guarded caverns and the corridors of magic
castles; I walked by her side through the forests of the Amazon....

And now I began to crave for some means of expressing these fancies
to myself. While they were mere thoughts, parts of me, they were
unsatisfactory, however delicious. I longed to put them outside me, that I
might look at them and talk to them as permanent independent things. First
I tried to sketch them on the whitewashed walls of my garret, on scraps
of paper begged from Mackaye, or picked up in the workroom. But from my
ignorance of any rules of drawing, they were utterly devoid of beauty, and
only excited my disgust. Besides, I had thoughts as well as objects to
express--thoughts strange, sad, wild, about my own feelings, my own
destiny, and drawing could not speak them for me.

Then I turned instinctively to poetry: with its rules I was getting rapidly
conversant. The mere desire of imitation urged me on, and when I tried, the
grace of rhyme and metre covered a thousand defects. I tell my story, not
as I saw it then, but as I see it now. A long and lonely voyage, with its
monotonous days and sleepless nights--its sickness and heart-loneliness,
has given me opportunities for analysing my past history which were
impossible then, amid the ceaseless in-rush of new images, the ceaseless
ferment of their re-combination, in which my life was passed from sixteen
to twenty-five. The poet, I suppose, must be a seer as long as he is a
worker, and a seer only. He has no time to philosophize--to "think about
thinking," as Goethe, I have somewhere read, says that he never could do.
It is too often only in sickness and prostration and sheer despair, that
the fierce veracity and swift digestion of his soul can cease, and give him
time to know himself and God's dealings with him; and for that reason it is
good for him, too, to have been afflicted.

I do not write all this to boast of it; I am ready to bear sneers at my
romance--my day-dreams--my unpractical habits of mind, for I know that I
deserve them. But such was the appointed growth of my uneducated mind; no
more unhealthy a growth, if I am to believe books, than that of many a
carefully trained one. Highborn geniuses, they tell me, have their idle
visions as well as we working-men; and Oxford has seen of late years as
wild Icarias conceived as ever were fathered by a red Republic. For,
indeed, we have the same flesh and blood, the same God to teach us, the
same devil to mislead us, whether we choose to believe it or not. But there
were excuses for me. We Londoners are not accustomed from our youth to the
poems of a great democratic genius, as the Scotchmen are to their glorious
Burns. We have no chance of such an early acquaintance with poetic art
as that which enabled John Bethune, one of the great unrepresented--the
starving Scotch day-labourer, breaking stones upon the parish roads, to
write at the age of seventeen such words as these:--

  Hail, hallow'd evening! sacred hour to me!
  Thy clouds of grey, thy vocal melody,
  Thy dreamy silence oft to me have brought
  A sweet exchange from toil to peaceful thought.
  Ye purple heavens! how often has my eye,
  Wearied with its long gaze on drudgery,
  Look'd up and found refreshment in the hues
  That gild thy vest with colouring profuse!

    O, evening grey! how oft have I admired
  Thy airy tapestry, whose radiance fired
  The glowing minstrels of the olden time,
  Until their very souls flow'd forth in rhyme.
  And I have listened, till my spirit grew
  Familiar with their deathless strains, and drew
  From the same source some portion of the glow
  Which fill'd their spirits, when from earth below
  They scann'd thy golden imagery. And I
  Have consecrated _thee_, bright evening sky
  My fount of inspiration; and I fling
  My spirit on thy clouds--an offering
  To the great Deity of dying day.
  Who hath transfused o'er thee his purple ray.
       *       *       *       *       *

After all, our dreams do little harm to the rich. Those who consider
Chartism as synonymous with devil-worship, should bless and encourage them,
for the very reason for which we working men ought to dread them; for,
quickened into prurient activity by the low, novel-mongering press, they
help to enervate and besot all but the noblest minds among us. Here and
there a Thomas Cooper, sitting in Stafford gaol, after a youth spent in
cobbling shoes, vents his treasures of classic and historic learning in a
"Purgatory of Suicides"; or a Prince becomes the poet of the poor, no
less for having fed his boyish fancy with "The Arabian Nights" and "The
Pilgrim's Progress." But, with the most of us, sedentary and
monotonous occupations, as has long been known, create of themselves a
morbidly-meditative and fantastic turn of mind. And what else, in
Heaven's name, ye fine gentlemen--what else can a working man do with
his imagination, but dream? What else will you let him do with it, oh ye
education-pedants, who fancy that you can teach the masses as you would
drill soldiers, every soul alike, though you will not bestir yourselves
to do even that? Are there no differences of rank--God's rank, not
man's--among us? You have discovered, since your schoolboy days, the
fallacy of the old nomenclature which civilly classed us altogether as "the
snobs," "the blackguards"; which even--so strong is habit--tempted
Burke himself to talk of us as "the swinish multitude." You are finding
yourselves wrong there. A few more years' experience not in mis-educating
the poor, but in watching the poor really educate themselves, may teach you
that we are not all by nature dolts and idiots; that there are differences
of brain among us, just as great as there is between you; and that there
are those among us whose education ought not to end, and will not end, with
the putting off of the parish cap and breeches; whom it is cruelty, as well
as folly, to toss back into the hell of mere manual drudgery, as soon as
you have--if, indeed, you have been even so bountiful as that--excited in
them a new thirst of the intellect and imagination. If you provide that
craving with no wholesome food, you at least have no right to blame it if
it shall gorge itself with poison.

Dare for once to do a strange thing, and let yourself be laughed at; go to
a workman's meeting--a Chartist meeting, if you will; and look honestly
at the faces and brows of those so-called incendiaries, whom your venal
caricaturists have taught you to believe a mixture of cur-dog and
baboon--we, for our part, shall not be ashamed to show foreheads against
your laughing House of Commons--and then say, what employment can those men
find in the soulless routine of mechanical labour for the mass of brain
which they almost universally possess? They must either dream or agitate;
perhaps they are now learning how to do both to some purpose.

But I have found, by sad experience, that there is little use in
declamation. I had much better simply tell my story, and leave my readers
to judge of the facts, if, indeed, they will be so far courteous as to
believe them.




CHAPTER VIII.

LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE.


So I made my first attempt at poetry--need I say that my subject was the
beautiful Lillian? And need I say, too, that I was as utterly disgusted
at my attempt to express her in words, as I had been at my trial with the
pencil? It chanced also, that after hammering out half a dozen verses, I
met with Mr. Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled sketches of women that I
found there, while they had, with the rest of the book, a new and
abiding influence on my mind, were quite enough to show me my own fatal
incompetency in that line. I threw my verses away, never to resume them.
Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affection. Our mightiest feelings,
are always those which remain most unspoken. The most intense lovers and
the greatest poets have generally, I think, written very little personal
love-poetry, while they have shown in fictitious characters a knowledge of
the passion too painfully intimate to be spoken of in the first person.

But to escape from my own thoughts, I could not help writing something; and
to escape from my own private sorrows, writing on some matter with which
I had no personal concern. And so, after much casting about for subjects,
Childe Harold and the old missionary records contrived to celebrate
a spiritual wedding in my brain, of which anomalous marriage came a
proportionately anomalous offspring.

My hero was not to be a pirate, but a pious sea-rover, who, with a crew of
saints, or at least uncommonly fine fellows, who could be very manly
and jolly, and yet all be good Christians, of a somewhat vague and
latitudinarian cast of doctrine (for my own was becoming rapidly so),
set forth under the red-cross flag to colonize and convert one of my old
paradises, a South Sea Island.

I forget most of the lines--they were probably great trash, but I hugged
them to my bosom as a young mother does her first child.

    'Twas sunset in the lone Pacific world,
    The rich gleams fading in the western sky;
    Within the still Lagoon the sails were furled,
    The red-cross flag alone was flaunting high.
  Before them was the low and palm-fringed shore,
  Behind, the outer ocean's baffled roar.

After which valiant plunge _in medias res_, came a great lump of deception,
after the manner of youths--of the island, and the whitehouses, and the
banana groves, and above all, the single volcano towering over the whole,
which

  Shaking a sinful isle with thundering shocks,
  Reproved the worshippers of stones and stocks.

Then how a line of foam appears on the Lagoon, which is supposed at
first to be a shoal of fish, but turns out to be a troop of naked island
beauties, swimming out to the ship. The decent missionaries were certainly
guiltless of putting that into my head, whether they ever saw it or not--a
great many things happening in the South Seas of which they find it
convenient to say nothing. I think I picked it up from Wallis, or Cook, or
some other plain spoken voyager.

The crew gaze in pardonable admiration, but the hero, in a long speech,
reproves them for their lightmindedness, reminds them of their sacred
mission, and informs them that,

  The soldiers of the cross should turn their eyes
  From carnal lusts and heathen vanities;

beyond which indisputable assertion I never got; for this being about
the fiftieth stanza, I stopped to take breath a little; and reading and
re-reading, patching and touching continually, grew so accustomed to my
bantling's face, that, like a mother, I could not tell whether it was
handsome or hideous, sense or nonsense. I have since found out that the
true plan, for myself at least, is to write off as much as possible at a
time, and then lay it by and forget it for weeks--if I can, for months.
After that, on returning to it, the mind regards it as something altogether
strange and new, and can, or rather ought to, judge of it as it would of
the work of another pen.

But really, between conceit and disgust, fancying myself one day a great
new poet, and the next a mere twaddler, I got so puzzled and anxious, that
I determined to pluck up courage, go to Mackaye, and ask him to solve the
problem for me.

"Hech, sirs, poetry! I've been expecting it. I suppose it's the appointed
gate o' a workman's intellectual life--that same lust o' versification.
Aweel, aweel,--let's hear."

Blushing and trembling, I read my verses aloud in as resonant and
magniloquent a voice as I could command. I thought Mackaye's upper lip
would never stop lengthening, or his lower lip protruding. He chuckled
intensely at the unfortunate rhyme between "shocks" and "stocks." Indeed,
it kept him in chuckling matter for a whole month afterwards; but when I
had got to the shoal of naked girls, he could bear no more, and burst out--

"What the deevil! is there no harlotry and idolatry here in England, that
ye maun gang speering after it in the Cannibal Islands? Are ye gaun to be
like they puir aristocrat bodies, that wad suner hear an Italian dog howl,
than an English nightingale sing, and winna harken to Mr. John Thomas
till he calls himself Giovanni Thomasino; or do ye tak yourself for a
singing-bird, to go all your days tweedle-dumdeeing out into the lift,
just for the lust o' hearing your ain clan clatter? Will ye be a man or a
lintic? Coral Islands? Pacific? What do ye ken about Pacifics? Are ye a
Cockney or a Cannibal Islander? Dinna stand there, ye gowk, as fusionless
as a docken, but tell me that! Whaur do ye live?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Mackaye?" asked I, with a doleful and disappointed
visage.

"Mean--why, if God had meant ye to write aboot Pacifics, He'd ha' put ye
there--and because He means ye to write aboot London town, He's put ye
there--and gien ye an unco sharp taste o' the ways o't; and I'll gie ye
anither. Come along wi' me."

And he seized me by the arm, and hardly giving me time to put on my hat,
marched me out into the streets, and away through Clare Market to St.
Giles's.

It was a foul, chilly, foggy Saturday night. From the butchers' and
greengrocers' shops the gas lights flared and flickered, wild and ghastly,
over haggard groups of slip-shod dirty women, bargaining for scraps of
stale meat and frost-bitten vegetables, wrangling about short weight and
bad quality. Fish-stalls and fruit-stalls lined the edge of the greasy
pavement, sending up odours as foul as the language of sellers and buyers.
Blood and sewer-water crawled from under doors and out of spouts, and
reeked down the gutters among offal, animal and vegetable, in every stage
of putrefaction. Foul vapours rose from cowsheds and slaughter houses, and
the doorways of undrained alleys, where the inhabitants carried the filth
out on their shoes from the back-yard into the court, and from the court
up into the main street; while above, hanging like cliffs over the
streets--those narrow, brawling torrents of filth, and poverty, and
sin,--the houses with their teeming load of life were piled up into the
dingy, choking night. A ghastly, deafening sickening sight it was. Go,
scented Belgravian! and see what London is! and then go to the library
which God has given thee--one often fears in vain--and see what science
says this London might be!

"Ay," he muttered to himself, as he strode along, "sing awa; get yoursel
wi' child wi' pretty fancies and gran' words, like the rest o' the poets,
and gang to hell for it."

"To hell, Mr. Mackaye?"

"Ay, to a verra real hell, Alton Locke, laddie--a warse ane than ony
fiends' kitchen, or subterranean Smithfield that ye'll hear o' in the
pulpits--the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a humbug, and a useless
peacock, wasting God's gifts on your ain lusts and pleasures--and kenning
it--and not being able to get oot o' it, for the chains o' vanity and
self-indulgence. I've warned ye. Now look there--"

He stopped suddenly before the entrance of a miserable alley--

"Look! there's not a soul down that yard but's either beggar, drunkard,
thief, or warse. Write anent that! Say how you saw the mouth o' hell, and
the twa pillars thereof at the entry--the pawnbroker's shop o' one side,
and the gin palace at the other--twa monstrous deevils, eating up men, and
women, and bairns, body and soul. Look at the jaws o' the monsters, how
they open and open, and swallow in anither victim and anither. Write anent
that."

"What jaws, Mr. Mackaye?"

"They faulding-doors o' the gin shop, goose. Are na they a mair damnable
man-devouring idol than ony red-hot statue o' Moloch, or wicker Gogmagog,
wherein thae auld Britons burnt their prisoners? Look at thae bare-footed
bare-backed hizzies, with their arms roun' the men's necks, and their
mouths full o' vitriol and beastly words! Look at that Irishwoman pouring
the gin down the babbie's throat! Look at that rough o' a boy gaun out
o' the pawn shop, where he's been pledging the handkerchief he stole the
morning, into the gin shop, to buy beer poisoned wi' grains o'
paradise, and cocculus indicus, and saut, and a' damnable, maddening,
thirst-breeding, lust-breeding drugs! Look at that girl that went in wi'
a shawl on her back and cam' out wi'out ane! Drunkards frae the
breast!--harlots frae the cradle! damned before they're born! John Calvin
had an inkling o' the truth there, I'm a'most driven to think, wi' his
reprobation deevil's doctrines!"

"Well--but--Mr. Mackaye, I know nothing about these poor creatures."

"Then ye ought. What do ye ken anent the Pacific? Which is maist to your
business?--thae bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot o' the other side
o' the warld, or these--these thousands o' bare-backed hizzies that play
the harlot o' your ain side--made out o' your ain flesh and blude? You a
poet! True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at hame. If ye'll
be a poet at a', ye maun be a cockney poet; and while the cockneys be what
they be, ye maun write, like Jeremiah of old, o' lamentation and mourning
and woe, for the sins o' your people. Gin you want to learn the spirit o' a
people's poet, down wi' your Bible and read thae auld Hebrew prophets; gin
ye wad learn the style, read your Burns frae morning till night; and gin
ye'd learn the matter, just gang after your nose, and keep your eyes open,
and ye'll no miss it."

"But all this is so--so unpoetical."

"Hech! Is there no the heeven above them there, and the hell beneath them?
and God frowning, and the deevil grinning? No poetry there! Is no the verra
idea of the classic tragedy defined to be, man conquered by circumstance?
Canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man
conquering circumstance?--and I'll show you that, too--in mony a garret
where no eye but the gude God's enters, to see the patience, and the
fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the luve stronger than death, that's
shining in thae dark places o' the earth. Come wi' me, and see."

We went on through a back street or two, and then into a huge, miserable
house, which, a hundred years ago, perhaps, had witnessed the luxury, and
rung to the laughter of some one great fashionable family, alone there
in their glory. Now every room of it held its family, or its group of
families--a phalanstery of all the fiends;--its grand staircase, with the
carved balustrades rotting and crumbling away piecemeal, converted into a
common sewer for all its inmates. Up stair after stair we went, while wails
of children, and curses of men, steamed out upon the hot stifling rush of
air from every doorway, till, at the topmost story, we knocked at a garret
door. We entered. Bare it was of furniture, comfortless, and freezing cold;
but, with the exception of the plaster dropping from the roof, and the
broken windows, patched with rags and paper, there was a scrupulous
neatness about the whole, which contrasted strangely with the filth and
slovenliness outside. There was no bed in the room--no table. On a broken
chair by the chimney sat a miserable old woman, fancying that she was
warming her hands over embers which had long been cold, shaking her head,
and muttering to herself, with palsied lips, about the guardians and the
workhouse; while upon a few rags on the floor lay a girl, ugly, small-pox
marked, hollow eyed, emaciated, her only bed clothes the skirt of a large
handsome new riding-habit, at which two other girls, wan and tawdry, were
stitching busily, as they sat right and left of her on the floor. The old
woman took no notice of us as we entered; but one of the girls looked up,
and, with a pleased gesture of recognition, put her finger up to her lips,
and whispered, "Ellen's asleep."

"I'm not asleep, dears," answered a faint, unearthly voice; "I was only
praying. Is that Mr. Mackaye?"

"Ay, my lassies; but ha' ye gotten na fire the nicht?"

"No," said one of them, bitterly, "we've earned no fire to-night, by fair
trade or foul either."

The sick girl tried to raise herself up and speak, but was stopped by a
frightful fit of coughing and expectoration, as painful, apparently, to the
sufferer as it was, I confess, disgusting even to me.

I saw Mackaye slip something into the hand of one of the girls, and
whisper, "A half-hundred of coals;" to which she replied, with an eager
look of gratitude that I never can forget, and hurried out. Then the
sufferer, as if taking advantage of her absence, began to speak quickly and
eagerly.

"Oh, Mr. Mackaye--dear, kind Mr. Mackaye--do speak to her; and do speak to
poor Lizzy here! I'm not afraid to say it before her, because she's more
gentle like, and hasn't learnt to say bad words yet--but do speak to them,
and tell them not to go the bad Way, like all the rest. Tell them it'll
never prosper. I know it is want that drives them to it, as it drives all
of us--but tell them it's best to starve and die honest girls, than to go
about with the shame and the curse of God on their hearts, for the sake of
keeping this poor, miserable, vile body together a few short years more in
this world o' sorrow. Do tell them, Mr. Mackaye."

"I'm thinking," said he, with the tears running down his old withered face,
"ye'll mak a better preacher at that text than I shall, Ellen."

"Oh, no, no; who am I, to speak to them?--it's no merit o' mine, Mr.
Mackaye, that the Lord's kept me pure through it all. I should have been
just as bad as any of them, if the Lord had not kept me out of temptation
in His great mercy, by making me the poor, ill-favoured creature I am. From
that time I was burnt when I was a child, and had the small-pox afterwards,
oh! how sinful I was, and repined and rebelled against the Lord! And now I
see it was all His blessed mercy to keep me out of evil, pure and unspotted
for my dear Jesus, when He comes to take me to Himself. I saw Him last
night, Mr. Mackaye, as plain as I see you now, ail in a flame of beautiful
white fire, smiling at me so sweetly; and He showed me the wounds in His
hands and His feet, and He said, 'Ellen, my own child, those that suffer
with me here, they shall be glorified with me hereafter, for I'm coming
very soon to take you home.'"

Sandy shook his head at all this with a strange expression of face, as if
he sympathized and yet disagreed, respected and yet smiled at the shape
which her religious ideas had assumed; and I remarked in the meantime that
the poor girl's neck and arm were all scarred and distorted, apparently
from the effects of a burn.

"Ah," said Sandy, at length, "I tauld ye ye were the better preacher of the
two; ye've mair comfort to gie Sandy than he has to gie the like o' ye. But
how is the wound in your back the day?"

Oh, it was wonderfully better! the doctor had come and given her such
blessed ease with a great thick leather he had put under it, and then she
did not feel the boards through so much. "But oh, Mr. Mackaye, I'm so
afraid it will make me live longer to keep me away from my dear Saviour.
And there's one thing, too, that's breaking my heart, and makes me long to
die this very minute, even if I didn't go to Heaven at all, Mr. Mackaye."
(And she burst out crying, and between her sobs it came out, as well as
I could gather, that her notion was, that her illness was the cause of
keeping the girls in "_the bad ivay_," as she called it.) "For Lizzy here,
I did hope that she had repented of it after all my talking to her; but
since I've been so bad, and the girls have had to keep me most o' the time,
she's gone out of nights just as bad as ever."

Lizzy had hid her face in her hands the greater part of this speech. Now
she looked up passionately, almost fiercely--

"Repent--I have repented--I repent of it every hour--I hate myself, and
hate all the world because of it; but I must--I must; I cannot see her
starve, and I cannot starve myself. When she first fell sick she kept on as
long as she could, doing what she could, and then between us we only earned
three shillings a week, and there was ever so much to take off for fire,
and twopence for thread, and fivepence for candles; and then we were always
getting fined, because they never gave us out the work till too late on
purpose, and then they lowered prices again; and now Ellen can't work at
all, and there's four of us with the old lady, to keep off two's work that
couldn't keep themselves alone."

"Doesn't the parish allow the old lady anything?" I ventured to ask.

"They used to allow half-a-crown for a bit; and the doctor ordered Ellen
things from the parish, but it isn't half of 'em she ever got; and when the
meat came, it was half times not fit to eat, and when it was her stomach
turned against it. If she was a lady she'd be cockered up with all sorts of
soups and jellies, and nice things, just the minute she fancied 'em, and
lie on a water bed instead of the bare floor--and so she ought; but where's
the parish'll do that? And the hospital wouldn't take her in because she
was incurable; and, besides, the old'un wouldn't let her go--nor into the
union neither. When she's in a good-humour like, she'll sit by her by the
hour, holding her hand and kissing of it, and nursing of it, for all the
world like a doll. But she won't hear of the workhouse; so now, these last
three weeks, they takes off all her pay, because they says she must go into
the house, and not kill her daughter by keeping her out--as if they warn't
a killing her themselves."

"No workhouse--no workhouse!" said the old woman, turning round suddenly,
in a clear, lofty voice. "No workhouse, sir, for an officer's daughter!"

And she relapsed into her stupor.

At that moment the other girl entered with the coals--but without staying
to light the fire, ran up to Ellen with some trumpery dainty she had
bought, and tried to persuade her to eat it.

"We have been telling Mr. Mackaye everything," said poor Lizzy.

"A pleasant story, isn't it? Oh! if that fine lady, as we're making that
riding-habit for, would just spare only half the money that goes to
dressing her up to ride in the park, to send us out to the colonies,
wouldn't I be an honest girl there?--maybe an honest man's wife! Oh, my
God, wouldn't I slave my fingers to the bone to work for him! Wouldn't I
mend my life then! I couldn't help it--it would be like getting into heaven
out of hell. But now--we must--we must, I tell you. I shall go mad soon, I
think, or take to drink. When I passed the gin-shop down there just now,
I had to run like mad for fear I should go in; and if I once took to
that--Now then, to work again. Make up the fire, Mrs. * * * *, please do."

And she sat down, and began stitching frantically at the riding-habit,
from which the other girl had hardly lifted her hands or eyes for a moment
during our visit.

We made a motion, as if to go.

"God bless you," said Ellen; "come again soon, dear Mr. Mackaye."

"Good-bye," said the elder girl; "and good-night to you. Night and day's
all the same here--we must have this home by seven o'clock to-morrow
morning. My lady's going to ride early, they say, whoever she may be, and
we must just sit up all night. It's often we haven't had our clothes off
for a week together, from four in the morning till two the next morning
sometimes--stitch, stitch, stitch. Somebody's wrote a song about that--I'll
learn to sing it--it'll sound fitting-like up here."

"Better sing hymns," said Ellen.

"Hymns for * * * * * *?" answered the other, and then burst out into that
peculiar, wild, ringing, fiendish laugh--has my reader never heard it?

I pulled out the two or three shillings which I possessed, and tried to
make the girls take them, for the sake of poor Ellen.

"No; you're a working man, and we won't feed on you--you'll want it some
day--all the trade's going the same way as we, as fast as ever it can!"

Sandy and I went down the stairs.

"Poetic element? Yon lassie, rejoicing in her disfigurement and not her
beauty--like the nuns of Peterborough in auld time--is there na poetry
there? That puir lassie, dying on the bare boards, and seeing her Saviour
in her dreams, is there na poetry there, callant? That auld body owre the
fire, wi' her 'an officer's dochter,' is there na poetry there? That
ither, prostituting hersel to buy food for her freen--is there na poetry
there?--tragedy--

 "With hues as when some mighty painter dips
  His pen in dyes of earthquake and eclipse.

"Ay, Shelley's gran'; always gran'; but Fact is grander--God and Satan are
grander. All around ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are
God and Satan at death grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or
Paradise Regained; and will ye think it beneath ye to be the 'People's
Poet?'"




CHAPTER IX.

POETRY AND POETS.


In the history of individuals, as well as in that of nations, there is
often a period of sudden blossoming--a short luxuriant summer, not without
its tornadoes and thunder-glooms, in which all the buried seeds of past
observation leap forth together into life, and form, and beauty. And such
with me were the two years that followed. I thought--I talked poetry
to myself all day long. I wrote nightly on my return from work. I am
astonished, on looking back, at the variety and quantity of my productions
during that short time. My subjects were intentionally and professedly
cockney ones. I had taken Mackaye at his word. I had made up my mind, that
if I had any poetic powers I must do my duty therewith in that station of
life to which it had pleased God to call me, and look at everything simply
and faithfully as a London artizan. To this, I suppose, is to be attributed
the little geniality and originality for which the public have kindly
praised my verses--a geniality which sprung, not from the atmosphere whence
I drew, but from the honesty and single-mindedness with which, I hope, I
laboured. Not from the atmosphere, indeed,--that was ungenial enough; crime
and poverty, all-devouring competition, and hopeless struggles against
Mammon and Moloch, amid the roar of wheels, the ceaseless stream of pale,
hard faces, intent on gain, or brooding over woe; amid endless prison walls
of brick, beneath a lurid, crushing sky of smoke and mist. It was a dark,
noisy, thunderous element that London life; a troubled sea that cannot
rest, casting up mire and dirt; resonant of the clanking of chains, the
grinding of remorseless machinery, the wail of lost spirits from the pit.
And it did its work upon me; it gave a gloomy colouring, a glare as of some
Dantean "Inferno," to all my utterances. It did not excite me or make me
fierce--I was too much inured to it--but it crushed and saddened me; it
deepened in me that peculiar melancholy of intellectual youth, which
Mr. Carlyle has christened for ever by one of his immortal
nicknames--"Werterism"; I battened on my own melancholy. I believed, I
loved to believe, that every face I passed bore the traces of discontent as
deep as was my own--and was I so far wrong? Was I so far wrong either in
the gloomy tone of my own poetry? Should not a London poet's work just now
be to cry, like the Jew of old, about the walls of Jerusalem, "Woe, woe
to this city!" Is this a time to listen to the voices of singing men and
singing women? or to cry, "Oh! that my head were a fountain of tears, that
I might weep for the sins of my people"? Is it not noteworthy, also, that
it is in this vein that the London poets have always been greatest? Which
of poor Hood's lyrics have an equal chance of immortality with "The Song of
the Shirt" and "The Bridge of Sighs," rising, as they do, right out of
the depths of that Inferno, sublime from their very simplicity? Which
of Charles Mackay's lyrics can compare for a moment with the Eschylean
grandeur, the terrible rhythmic lilt of his "Cholera Chant"--

  Dense on the stream the vapours lay,
  Thick as wool on the cold highway;
  Spungy and dim each lonely lamp
  Shone o'er the streets so dull and damp;
  The moonbeams could not pierce the cloud
  That swathed the city like a shroud;
  There stood three shapes on the bridge alone,
  Three figures by the coping-stone;
  Gaunt and tall and undefined,
  Spectres built of mist and wind.
  *       *       *       *       *
  I see his footmarks east and west--
  I hear his tread in the silence fall--
  He shall not sleep, he shall not rest--
  He comes to aid us one and all.
  Were men as wise as men might be,
  They would not work for you, for me,
  For him that cometh over the sea;
  But they will not hear the warning voice:
  The Cholera comes,--Rejoice! rejoice!
  He shall be lord of the swarming town!
  And mow them down, and mow them down!
  *       *       *       *       *

Not that I neglected, on the other hand, every means of extending the
wanderings of my spirit into sunnier and more verdant pathways. If I had to
tell the gay ones above of the gloom around me, I had also to go forth into
the sunshine, to bring home if it were but a wild-flower garland to those
that sit in darkness and the shadow of death. That was all that I could
offer them. The reader shall judge, when he has read this book throughout,
whether I did not at last find for them something better than even all the
beauties of nature.

But it was on canvas, and not among realities, that I had to choose my
garlands; and therefore the picture galleries became more than ever my
favourite--haunt, I was going to say; but, alas! it was not six times a
year that I got access to them. Still, when once every May I found myself,
by dint of a hard saved shilling, actually within the walls of that to me
enchanted palace, the Royal Academy Exhibition--Oh, ye rich! who gaze round
you at will upon your prints and pictures, if hunger is, as they say,
a better sauce than any Ude invents, and fasting itself may become the
handmaid of luxury, you should spend, as I did perforce, weeks and months
shut out from every glimpse of Nature, if you would taste her beauties,
even on canvas, with perfect relish and childish self-abandonment. How
I loved and blessed those painters! how I thanked Creswick for every
transparent shade-chequered pool; Fielding, for every rain-clad down;
Cooper, for every knot of quiet cattle beneath the cool grey willows;
Stanfield, for every snowy peak, and sheet of foam-fringed sapphire--each
and every one of them a leaf out of the magic book which else was ever
closed to me. Again, I say, how I loved and blest those painters! On the
other hand, I was not neglecting to read as well as to write poetry; and,
to speak first of the highest, I know no book, always excepting Milton,
which at once so quickened and exalted my poetical view of man and his
history, as that great prose poem, the single epic of modern days, Thomas
Carlyle's "French Revolution." Of the general effect which his works had on
me, I shall say nothing: it was the same as they have had, thank God, on
thousands of my class and of every other. But that book above all first
recalled me to the overwhelming and yet ennobling knowledge that there
was such a thing as Duty; first taught me to see in history not the mere
farce-tragedy of man's crimes and follies, but the dealings of a righteous
Ruler of the universe, whose ways are in the great deep, and whom the sins
and errors, as well as the virtues and discoveries of man, must obey and
justify.

Then, in a happy day, I fell on Alfred Tennyson's poetry, and found there,
astonished and delighted, the embodiment of thoughts about the earth around
me which I had concealed, because I fancied them peculiar to myself. Why is
it that the latest poet has generally the greatest influence over the minds
of the young? Surely not for the mere charm of novelty? The reason is that
he, living amid the same hopes, the same temptations, the same sphere of
observation as they, gives utterance and outward form to the very questions
which, vague and wordless, have been exercising their hearts. And what
endeared Tennyson especially to me, the working man, was, as I afterwards
discovered, the altogether democratic tendency of his poems. True, all
great poets are by their office democrats; seers of man only as man;
singers of the joys, the sorrows, the aspirations common to all humanity;
but in Alfred Tennyson there is an element especially democratic, truly
levelling; not his political opinions, about which I know nothing, and
care less, but his handling of the trivial every-day sights and sounds of
nature. Brought up, as I understand, in a part of England which possesses
not much of the picturesque, and nothing of that which the vulgar call
sublime, he has learnt to see that in all nature, in the hedgerow and the
sandbank, as well as in the alp peak and the ocean waste, is a world of
true sublimity,--a minute infinite,--an ever fertile garden of poetic
images, the roots of which are in the unfathomable and the eternal, as
truly as any phenomenon which astonishes and awes the eye. The descriptions
of the desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of
the silvery marsh mosses by Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations.
I always knew there was something beautiful, wonderful, sublime, in those
flowery dykes of Battersea Fields; in the long gravelly sweeps of that lone
tidal shore; and here was a man who had put them into words for me! This
is what I call democratic art--the revelation of the poetry which lies in
common things. And surely all the age is tending in that direction: in
Landseer and his dogs--in Fielding and his downs, with a host of noble
fellow-artists--and in all authors who have really seized the nation's
mind, from Crabbe and Burns and Wordsworth to Hood and Dickens, the great
tide sets ever onward, outward, towards that which is common to the many,
not that which is exclusive to the few--towards the likeness of Him who
causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and His sun to shine on
the evil and the good; who knoweth the cattle upon a thousand hills, and
all the beasts of the field are in His sight.

Well--I must return to my story. And here some one may ask me, "But did
you not find this true spiritual democracy, this universal knowledge and
sympathy, in Shakspeare above all other poets?" It may be my shame to have
to confess it; but though I find it now, I did not then. I do not think,
however, my case is singular: from what I can ascertain, there is, even
with regularly educated minds, a period of life at which that great writer
is not appreciated, just on account of his very greatness; on account of
the deep and large experience which the true understanding of his plays
requires--experience of man, of history, of art, and above all of those
sorrows whereby, as Hezekiah says, and as I have learnt almost too
well--"whereby men live, and in all which, is the life of the spirit." At
seventeen, indeed, I had devoured Shakspeare, though merely for the food to
my fancy which his plots and incidents supplied, for the gorgeous colouring
of his scenery: but at the period of which I am now writing, I had
exhausted that source of mere pleasure; I was craving for more explicit and
dogmatic teaching than any which he seemed to supply; and for three years,
strange as it may appear, I hardly ever looked into his pages. Under what
circumstances I afterwards recurred to his exhaustless treasures, my
readers shall in due time be told.

So I worked away manfully with such tools and stock as I possessed, and
of course produced, at first, like all young writers, some sufficiently
servile imitations of my favourite poets.

"Ugh!" said Sandy, "wha wants mongrels atween Burns and Tennyson? A gude
stock baith: but gin ye'd cross the breed ye maun unite the spirits, and
no the manners, o' the men. Why maun ilk a one the noo steal his neebor's
barnacles, before he glints out o' windows? Mak a style for yoursel,
laddie; ye're na mair Scots hind than ye are Lincolnshire laird: sae gang
yer ain gate and leave them to gang theirs; and just mak a gran', brode,
simple, Saxon style for yoursel."

"But how can I, till I know what sort of a style it ought to be?"

"Oh! but yon's amazing like Tom Sheridan's answer to his father. 'Tom,'
says the auld man, 'I'm thinking ye maun tak a wife.' 'Verra weel, father,'
says the puir skellum; 'and wha's wife shall I tak?' Wha's style shall I
tak? say all the callants the noo. Mak a style as ye would mak a wife, by
marrying her a' to yoursel; and ye'll nae mair ken what's your style till
it's made, than ye'll ken what your wife's like till she's been mony a year
by your ingle."

"My dear Mackaye," I said, "you have the most unmerciful way of raising
difficulties, and then leaving poor fellows to lay the ghost for
themselves."

"Hech, then, I'm a'thegither a negative teacher, as they ca' it in the new
lallans. I'll gang out o' my gate to tell a man his kye are laired, but I'm
no obligated thereby to pu' them out for him. After a', nae man is rid o' a
difficulty till he's conquered it single-handed for himsel: besides, I'm na
poet, mair's the gude hap for you."

"Why, then?"

"Och, och! they're puir, feckless, crabbit, unpractical bodies, they poets;
but if it's your doom, ye maun dree it; and I'm sair afeard ye ha' gotten
the disease o' genius, mair's the pity, and maun write, I suppose,
willy-nilly. Some folks' booels are that made o' catgut, that they canna
stir without chirruping and screeking."

However, _aestro percitus_, I wrote on; and in about two years and a half
had got together "Songs of the Highways" enough to fill a small octavo
volume, the circumstances of whose birth shall be given hereafter. Whether
I ever attained to anything like an original style, readers must judge for
themselves--the readers of the same volume I mean, for I have inserted none
of those poems in this my autobiography; first, because it seems too like
puffing my own works; and next, because I do not want to injure the as yet
not over great sale of the same. But, if any one's curiosity is so far
excited that he wishes to see what I have accomplished, the best advice
which I can give him is, to go forth, and buy all the working-men's
poetry which has appeared during the last twenty years, without favour or
exception; among which he must needs, of course, find mine, and also, I am
happy to say, a great deal which is much better and more instructive than
mine.




CHAPTER X.

HOW FOLKS TURN CHARTISTS.


Those who read my story only for amusement, I advise to skip this chapter.
Those, on the other hand, who really wish to ascertain what working men
actually do suffer--to see whether their political discontent has not its
roots, not merely in fanciful ambition, but in misery and slavery most real
and agonizing--those in whose eyes the accounts of a system, or rather
barbaric absence of all system, which involves starvation, nakedness,
prostitution, and long imprisonment in dungeons worse than the cells of the
Inquisition, will be invested with something at least of tragic interest,
may, I hope, think it worth their while to learn how the clothes which they
wear are made, and listen to a few occasional statistics, which, though
they may seem to the wealthy mere lists of dull figures, are to the workmen
symbols of terrible physical realities--of hunger, degradation, and
despair. [Footnote: Facts still worse than those which Mr. Locke's story
contains have been made public by the _Morning Chronicle_ in a series of
noble letters on "Labour and the Poor"; which we entreat all Christian
people to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." "That will be better
for them," as Mahomet, in similar cases, used to say.]

Well: one day our employer died. He had been one of the old sort of
fashionable West-end tailors in the fast decreasing honourable trade;
keeping a modest shop, hardly to be distinguished from a dwelling-house,
except by his name on the window blinds. He paid good prices for work,
though not as good, of course, as he had given twenty years before, and
prided himself upon having all his work done at home. His workrooms, as I
have said, were no elysiums; but still, as good, alas! as those of three
tailors out of four. He was proud, luxurious, foppish; but he was honest
and kindly enough, and did many a generous thing by men who had been long
in his employ. At all events, his journeymen could live on what he paid
them.

But his son, succeeding to the business, determined, like Rehoboam of old,
to go ahead with the times. Fired with the great spirit of the nineteenth
century--at least with that one which is vulgarly considered its especial
glory--he resolved to make haste to be rich. His father had made money very
slowly of late; while dozens, who had begun business long after him, had
now retired to luxurious ease and suburban villas. Why should he remain in
the minority? Why should he not get rich as fast as he could? Why should he
stick to the old, slow-going, honourable trade? Out of some four hundred
and fifty West-end tailors, there were not one hundred left who were
old-fashioned and stupid enough to go on keeping down their own profits by
having all their work done at home and at first-hand. Ridiculous scruples!
The government knew none such. Were not the army clothes, the post-office
clothes, the policemen's clothes, furnished by contractors and sweaters,
who hired the work at low prices, and let it out again to journeymen
at still lower ones? Why should he pay his men two shillings where the
government paid them one? Were there not cheap houses even at the West-end,
which had saved several thousands a year merely by reducing their workmen's
wages? And if the workmen chose to take lower wages, he was not bound
actually to make them a present of more than they asked for? They would go
to the cheapest market for anything they wanted, and so must he. Besides,
wages had really been quite exorbitant. Half his men threw each of them as
much money away in gin and beer yearly, as would pay two workmen at cheap
house. Why was he to be robbing his family of comforts to pay for their
extravagance? And charging his customers, too, unnecessarily high
prices--it was really robbing the public!

Such, I suppose, were some of the arguments which led to an official
announcement, one Saturday night, that our young employer intended to
enlarge his establishment, for the purpose of commencing business in the
"show-trade"; and that, emulous of Messrs. Aaron, Levi, and the rest of
that class, magnificent alterations were to take place in the premises, to
make room for which our workrooms were to be demolished, and that for that
reason--for of course it was only for that reason--all work would in future
be given out, to be made up at the men's own homes.

Our employer's arguments, if they were such as I suppose, were reasonable
enough according to the present code of commercial morality. But, strange
to say, the auditory, insensible to the delight with which the public would
view the splendid architectural improvements--with taste too grovelling
to appreciate the glories of plate-glass shop-fronts and brass scroll
work--too selfish to rejoice, for its own sake, in the beauty of arabesques
and chandeliers, which, though they never might behold, the astonished
public would--with souls too niggardly to leap for joy at the thought that
gents would henceforth buy the registered guanaco vest, and the patent
elastic omni-seasonum paletot half-a-crown cheaper than ever--or that
needy noblemen would pay three-pound-ten instead of five pounds for their
footmen's liveries--received the news, clod-hearted as they were, in sullen
silence, and actually, when they got into the street, broke out into
murmurs, perhaps into execrations.

"Silence!" said Crossthwaite; "walls have ears. Come down to the nearest
house of call, and talk it out like men, instead of grumbling in the street
like fish-fags."

So down we went. Crossthwaite, taking my arm, strode on in moody
silence--once muttering to himself, bitterly--

"Oh, yes; all right and natural! What can the little sharks do but follow
the big ones?"

We took a room, and Crossthwaite coolly saw us all in; and locking the
door, stood with his back against it.

"Now then, mind, 'One and all,' as the Cornishmen say, and no peaching. If
any man is scoundrel enough to carry tales, I'll--"

"Do what?" asked Jemmy Downes, who had settled himself on the table, with a
pipe and a pot of porter. "You arn't the king of the Cannibal Islands, as I
know of, to cut a cove's head off?"

"No; but if a poor man's prayer can bring God's curse down upon a traitor's
head--it may stay on his rascally shoulders till it rots."

"If ifs and ans were pots and pans. Look at Shechem Isaacs, that sold
penknives in the street six months ago, now a-riding in his own carriage,
all along of turning sweater. If God's curse is like that--I'll be happy to
take any man's share of it."

Some new idea seemed twinkling in the fellow's cunning bloated face as he
spoke. I, and others also, shuddered at his words; but we all forgot them a
moment afterwards, as Crossthwaite began to speak.

"We were all bound to expect this. Every working tailor must come to this
at last, on the present system; and we are only lucky in having been spared
so long. You all know where this will end--in the same misery as fifteen
thousand out of twenty thousand of our class are enduring now. We shall
become the slaves, often the bodily prisoners, of Jews, middlemen, and
sweaters, who draw their livelihood out of our starvation. We shall have to
face, as the rest have, ever decreasing prices of labour, ever increasing
profits made out of that labour by the contractors who will employ
us--arbitrary fines, inflicted at the caprice of hirelings--the competition
of women, and children, and starving Irish--our hours of work will increase
one-third, our actual pay decrease to less than one-half; and in all this
we shall have no hope, no chance of improvement in wages, but ever more
penury, slavery, misery, as we are pressed on by those who are sucked by
fifties--almost by hundreds--yearly, out of the honourable trade in which
we were brought up, into the infernal system of contract work, which is
devouring our trade and many others, body and soul. Our wives will be
forced to sit up night and day to help us--our children must labour from
the cradle without chance of going to school, hardly of breathing the
fresh air of heaven,--our boys, as they grow up, must turn beggars or
paupers--our daughters, as thousands do, must eke out their miserable
earnings by prostitution. And after all, a whole family will not gain what
one of us had been doing, as yet, single-handed. You know there will be no
hope for us. There is no use appealing to government or parliament. I don't
want to talk politics here. I shall keep them for another place. But you
can recollect as well as I can, when a deputation of us went up to a
member of parliament--one that was reputed a philosopher, and a political
economist, and a liberal--and set before him the ever-increasing penury
and misery of our trade, and of those connected with it; you recollect his
answer--that, however glad he would be to help us, it was impossible--he
could not alter the laws of nature--that wages were regulated by the amount
of competition among the men themselves, and that it was no business of
government, or any one else, to interfere in contracts between the employer
and employed, that those things regulated themselves by the laws of
political economy, which it was madness and suicide to oppose. He may have
been a wise man. I only know that he was a rich one. Every one speaks well
of the bridge which carries him over. Every one fancies the laws which fill
his pockets to be God's laws. But I say this, If neither government nor
members of parliament can help us, we must help ourselves. Help yourselves,
and heaven will help you. Combination among ourselves is the only chance.
One thing we can do--sit still."

"And starve!" said some one.

"Yes, and starve! Better starve than sin. I say, it is a sin to give in to
this system. It is a sin to add our weight to the crowd of artizans who are
now choking and strangling each other to death, as the prisoners did in the
black hole of Calcutta. Let those who will turn beasts of prey, and feed
upon their fellows; but let us at least keep ourselves pure. It may be the
law of political civilization, the law of nature, that the rich should eat
up the poor, and the poor eat up each other. Then I here rise up and curse
that law, that civilization, that nature. Either I will destroy them,
or they shall destroy me. As a slave, as an increased burden on my
fellow-sufferers, I will not live. So help me God! I will take no work
home to my house; and I call upon every one here to combine, and to sign a
protest to that effect."

"What's the use of that, my good Mr. Crossthwaite?" interrupted some one,
querulously. "Don't you know what came of the strike a few years ago, when
this piece-work and sweating first came in? The masters made fine promises,
and never kept 'em; and the men who stood out had their places filled up
with poor devils who were glad enough to take the work at any price--just
as ours will be. There's no use kicking against the pricks. All the rest
have come to it, and so must we. We must live somehow, and half a loaf is
better than no bread; and even that half loaf will go into other men's
mouths, if we don't snap at it at once. Besides, we can't force others to
strike. We may strike and starve ourselves, but what's the use of a dozen
striking out of 20,000?"

"Will you sign the protest, gentlemen, or not?" asked Crossthwaite, in a
determined voice.

Some half-dozen said they would if the others would.

"And the others won't. Well, after all, one man must take the
responsibility, and I am that man. I will sign the protest by myself. I
will sweep a crossing--I will turn cress-gatherer, rag-picker; I will
starve piecemeal, and see my wife starve with me; but do the wrong thing I
will not! The Cause wants martyrs. If I must be one, I must."

All this while my mind had been undergoing a strange perturbation. The
notion of escaping that infernal workroom, and the company I met there--of
taking my work home, and thereby, as I hoped, gaining more time for
study--at least, having my books on the spot ready at every odd moment, was
most enticing. I had hailed the proposed change as a blessing to me, till I
heard Crossthwaite's arguments--not that I had not known the facts before;
but it had never struck me till then that it was a real sin against my
class to make myself a party in the system by which they were allowing
themselves (under temptation enough, God knows) to be enslaved. But now
I looked with horror on the gulf of penury before me, into the vortex
of which not only I, but my whole trade, seemed irresistibly sucked. I
thought, with shame and remorse, of the few shillings which I had earned
at various times by taking piecework home, to buy my candles for study.
I whispered my doubts to Crossthwaite, as he sat, pale and determined,
watching the excited and querulous discussions among the other workmen.

"What? So you expect to have time to read? Study after sixteen hours a
day stitching? Study, when you cannot earn money enough to keep you from
wasting and shrinking away day by day? Study, with your heart full of shame
and indignation, fresh from daily insult and injustice? Study, with the
black cloud of despair and penury in front of you? Little time, or heart,
or strength, will you have to study, when you are making the same coats you
make now, at half the price."

I put my name down beneath Crossthwaite's, on the paper which he handed me,
and went out with him.

"Ay," he muttered to himself, "be slaves--what you are worthy to be, that
you will be! You dare not combine--you dare not starve--you dare not
die--and therefore you dare not be free! Oh! for six hundred men like
Barbaroux's Marseillois--'who knew how to die!'"

"Surely, Crossthwaite, if matters were properly represented to the
government, they would not, for their own existence' sake, to put
conscience out of the question, allow such a system to continue growing."

"Government--government? You a tailor, and not know that government are the
very authors of this system? Not to know that they first set the example,
by getting the army and navy clothes made by contractors, and taking the
lowest tenders? Not to know that the police clothes, the postmen's clothes,
the convicts' clothes, are all contracted for on the same infernal plan, by
sweaters, and sweaters' sweaters, and sweaters' sweaters' sweaters, till
government work is just the very last, lowest resource to which a poor
starved-out wretch betakes himself to keep body and soul together? Why,
the government prices, in almost every department, are half, and less than
half, the very lowest living price. I tell you, the careless iniquity of
government about these things will come out some day. It will be known, the
whole abomination, and future generations will class it with the tyrannies
of the Roman emperors and the Norman barons. Why, it's a fact, that the
colonels of the regiments--noblemen, most of them--make their own vile
profit out of us tailors--out of the pauperism of the men, the slavery of
the children, the prostitution of the women. They get so much a uniform
allowed them by government to clothe the men with; and then--then, they
let out the jobs to the contractors at less than half what government
give them, and pocket the difference. And then you talk of appealing to
government."

"Upon my word," I said, bitterly, "we tailors seem to owe the army a double
grudge. They not only keep under other artizans, but they help to starve us
first, and then shoot us, if we complain too loudly."

"Oh, ho! your blood's getting up, is it? Then you're in the humour to be
told what you have been hankering to know so long--where Mackaye and I go
at night. We'll strike while the iron's hot, and go down to the Chartist
meeting at * * * * *.

"Pardon me, my dear fellow," I said. "I cannot bear the thought of being
mixed up in conspiracy--perhaps, in revolt and bloodshed. Not that I am
afraid. Heaven knows I am not. But I am too much harassed, miserable,
already. I see too much wretchedness around me, to lend my aid in
increasing the sum of suffering, by a single atom, among rich and poor,
even by righteous vengeance."

"Conspiracy? Bloodshed? What has that to do with the Charter? It suits the
venal Mammonite press well enough to jumble them together, and cry 'Murder,
rape, and robbery,' whenever the six points are mentioned; but they know,
and any man of common sense ought to know, that the Charter is just as much
an open political question as the Reform Bill, and ten times as much as
Magna Charter was, when it got passed. What have the six points, right or
wrong, to do with the question whether they can be obtained by moral
force, and the pressure of opinion alone, or require what we call ulterior
measures to get them carried? Come along!"

So with him I went that night.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well, Alton! where was the treason and murder? Your nose must have been a
sharp one, to smell out any there. Did you hear anything that astonished
your weak mind so very exceedingly, after all?"

"The only thing that did astonish me was to hear men of my own class--and
lower still, perhaps some of them--speak with such fluency and eloquence.
Such a fund of information--such excellent English--where did they get it
all?"

"From the God who knows nothing about ranks. They're the unknown great--the
unaccredited heroes, as Master Thomas Carlyle would say--whom the flunkeys
aloft have not acknowledged yet--though they'll be forced to, some day,
with a vengeance. Are you convinced, once for all?"

"I really do not understand political questions, Crossthwaite."

"Does it want so very much wisdom to understand the rights and the wrongs
of all that? Are the people represented? Are you represented? Do you feel
like a man that's got any one to fight your battle in parliament, my young
friend, eh?"

"I'm sure I don't know--"

"Why, what in the name of common sense--what interest or feeling of yours
or mine, or any man's you ever spoke to, except the shopkeeper, do Alderman
A---- or Lord C---- D---- represent? They represent property--and we have
none. They represent rank--we have none. Vested interests--we have
none. Large capitals--those are just what crush us. Irresponsibility of
employers, slavery of the employed, competition among masters, competition
among workmen, that is the system they represent--they preach it, they
glory in it.--Why, it is the very ogre that is eating us all up. They are
chosen by the few, they represent the few, and they make laws for the
many--and yet you don't know whether or not the people are represented!"

We were passing by the door of the Victoria Theatre; it was just half-price
time--and the beggary and rascality of London were pouring in to their low
amusement, from the neighbouring gin palaces and thieves' cellars. A herd
of ragged boys, vomiting forth slang, filth, and blasphemy, pushed past us,
compelling us to take good care of our pockets.

"Look there! look at the amusements, the training, the civilization, which
the government permits to the children of the people! These licensed pits
of darkness, traps of temptation, profligacy, and ruin, triumphantly
yawning night after night--and then tell me that the people who see their
children thus kidnapped into hell are represented by a government who
licenses such things!"

"Would a change in the franchise cure that?"

"Household suffrage mightn't--but give us the Charter, and we'll see about
it! Give us the Charter, and we'll send workmen, into parliament that shall
soon find out whether something better can't be put in the way of the ten
thousand boys and girls in London who live by theft and prostitution, than
the tender mercies of the Victoria--a pretty name! They say the Queen's
a good woman--and I don't doubt it. I wonder often if she knows what her
precious namesake here is like."

"But really, I cannot see how a mere change in representation can cure such
things as that."

"Why, didn't they tell us, before the Reform Bill, that extension of the
suffrage was to cure everything? And how can you have too much of a good
thing? We've only taken them at their word, we Chartists. Haven't all
politicians been preaching for years that England's national greatness was
all owing to her political institutions--to Magna Charta, and the Bill of
Rights, and representative parliaments, and all that? It was but the
other day I got hold of some Tory paper, that talked about the English
constitution, and the balance of queen, lords, and commons, as the
'Talismanic Palladium' of the country. 'Gad, we'll see if a move onward in
the same line won't better the matter. If the balance of classes is such a
blessed thing, the sooner we get the balance equal, the better; for it's
rather lopsided just now, no one can deny. So, representative institutions
are the talismanic palladium of the nation, are they? The palladium of the
classes that have them, I dare say; and that's the very best reason why the
classes that haven't got 'em should look out for the same palladium for
themselves. What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, isn't it?
We'll try--we'll see whether the talisman they talk of has lost its power
all of a sudden since '32--whether we can't rub the magic ring a little for
ourselves and call up genii to help us out of the mire, as the shopkeepers
and the gentlemen have done."

       *       *       *       *       *

From that night I was a Chartist, heart and soul--and so were a million and
a half more of the best artisans in England--at least, I had no reason to
be ashamed of my company. Yes; I too, like Crossthwaite, took the upper
classes at their word; bowed down to the idol of political institutions,
and pinned my hopes of salvation on "the possession of one ten-thousandth
part of a talker in the national palaver." True, I desired the Charter, at
first (as I do, indeed, at this moment), as a means to glorious ends--not
only because it would give a chance of elevation, a free sphere of action,
to lowly worth and talent; but because it was the path to reforms--social,
legal, sanatory, educational--to which the veriest Tory--certainly not the
great and good Lord Ashley--would not object. But soon, with me, and I am
afraid with many, many more, the means became, by the frailty of poor human
nature, an end, an idol in itself. I had so made up my mind that it was
the only method of getting what I wanted, that I neglected, alas! but too
often, to try the methods which lay already by me. "If we had but the
Charter"--was the excuse for a thousand lazinesses, procrastinations. "If
we had but the Charter"--I should be good, and free, and happy. Fool that I
was! It was within, rather than without, that I needed reform.

And so I began to look on man (and too many of us, I am afraid, are doing
so) as the creature and puppet of circumstances--of the particular outward
system, social or political, in which he happens to find himself. An
abominable heresy, no doubt; but, somehow, it appears to me just the same
as Benthamites, and economists, and high-churchmen, too, for that matter,
have been preaching for the last twenty years with great applause from
their respective parties. One set informs the world that it is to be
regenerated by cheap bread, free trade, and that peculiar form of the
"freedom of industry" which, in plain language, signifies "the despotism
of capital"; and which, whatever it means, is merely some outward system,
circumstance, or "dodge" _about_ man, and not _in_ him. Another party's
nostrum is more churches, more schools, more clergymen--excellent things in
their way--better even than cheap bread, or free trade, provided only that
they are excellent--that the churches, schools, clergymen, are good ones.
But the party of whom I am speaking seem to us workmen to consider the
quality quite a secondary consideration, compared with the quantity. They
expect the world to be regenerated, not by becoming more a Church--none
would gladlier help them in bringing that about than the Chartists
themselves, paradoxical as it may seem--but by being dosed somewhat more
with a certain "Church system," circumstance, or "dodge." For my part, I
seem to have learnt that the only thing to regenerate the world is not more
of any system, good or bad, but simply more of the Spirit of God.

About the supposed omnipotence of the Charter, I have found out my mistake.
I believe no more in "Morison's-Pill-remedies," as Thomas Carlyle calls
them. Talismans are worthless. The age of spirit-compelling spells, whether
of parchment or carbuncle, is past--if, indeed, it ever existed. The
Charter will no more make men good, than political economy, or the
observance of the Church Calendar--a fact which we working men, I really
believe, have, under the pressure of wholesome defeat and God-sent
affliction, found out sooner than our more "enlightened" fellow-idolaters.
But at that time, as I have confessed already, we took our betters at their
word, and believed in Morison's Pills. Only, as we looked at the world from
among a class of facts somewhat different from theirs, we differed from
them proportionably as to our notions of the proper ingredients in the said
Pill.

       *       *       *       *       *

But what became of our protest?

It was received--and disregarded. As for turning us off, we had, _de
facto_, like Coriolanus, banished the Romans, turned our master off. All
the other hands, some forty in number, submitted and took the yoke upon
them, and went down into the house of bondage, knowing whither they went.
Every man of them is now a beggar, compared with what he was then. Many are
dead in the prime of life of consumption, bad food and lodging, and the
peculiar diseases of our trade. Some have not been heard of lately--we
fancy them imprisoned in some sweaters' dens--but thereby hangs a tale,
whereof more hereafter.

But it was singular, that every one of the six who had merely professed
their conditional readiness to sign the protest, were contumeliously
discharged the next day, without any reason being assigned. It was evident
that there had been a traitor at the meeting; and every one suspected Jemmy
Downes, especially as he fell into the new system with suspiciously strange
alacrity. But it was as impossible to prove the offence against him, as to
punish him for it. Of that wretched man, too, and his subsequent career, I
shall have somewhat to say hereafter. Verily, there is a God who judgeth
the earth!

But now behold me and my now intimate and beloved friend, Crossthwaite,
with nothing to do--a gentlemanlike occupation; but, unfortunately, in our
class, involving starvation. What was to be done? We applied for work at
several "honourable shops"; but at all we received the same answer. Their
trade was decreasing--the public ran daily more and more to the cheap
show-shops--and they themselves were forced, in order to compete with these
latter, to put more and more of their work out at contract prices. _Facilis
descensus Averni!_ Having once been hustled out of the serried crowd of
competing workmen, it was impossible to force our way in again. So, a
week or ten days past, our little stocks of money were exhausted. I was
down-hearted at once; but Crossthwaite bore up gaily enough.

"Katie and I can pick a crust together without snarling over it. And, thank
God, I have no children, and never intend to have, if I can keep true to
myself, till the good times come."

"Oh! Crossthwaite, are not children a blessing?"

"Would they be a blessing to me now? No, my lad.--Let those bring slaves
into the world who will! I will never beget children to swell the numbers
of those who are trampling each other down in the struggle for daily
bread, to minister in ever deepening poverty and misery to the rich man's
luxury--perhaps his lust."

"Then you believe in the Malthusian doctrines?"

"I believe them to be an infernal lie, Alton Locke; though good and wise
people like Miss Martineau may sometimes be deluded into preaching them. I
believe there's room on English soil for twice the number there is now; and
when we get the Charter we'll prove it; we'll show that God meant living
human heads and hands to be blessings and not curses, tools and not
burdens. But in such times as these, let those who have wives be as though
they had none--as St. Paul said, when he told his people under the Roman
Emperor to be above begetting slaves and martyrs. A man of the people
should keep himself as free from encumbrances as he can just now. He win
find it all the more easy to dare and suffer for the people, when their
turn comes--"

And he set his teeth, firmly, almost savagely.

"I think I can earn a few shillings, now and then, by writing for a paper I
know of. If that won't do, I must take up agitating for a trade, and live
by spouting, as many a Tory member as well as Radical ones do. A man may do
worse, for he may do nothing. At all events, my only chance now is to
help on the Charter; for the sooner it comes the better for me. And if I
die--why, the little woman won't be long in coming after me, I know that
well; and there's a tough business got well over for both of us!"

"Hech," said Sandy,

                  "To every man
  Death comes but once a life--

"as my countryman, Mr. Macaulay, says, in thae gran' Roman ballants o' his.
But for ye, Alton, laddie, ye're owre young to start off in the People's
Church Meelitant, sae just bide wi' me, and the barrel o' meal in the
corner there winna waste, nae mair than it did wi' the widow o' Zareptha; a
tale which coincides sae weel wi' the everlasting righteousness, that I'm
at times no inclined to consider it a'thegither mythical."

But I, with thankfulness which vented itself through my eyes, finding my
lips alone too narrow for it, refused to eat the bread of idleness.

"Aweel, then, ye'll just mind the shop, and dust the books whiles; I'm
getting auld and stiff, and ha' need o' help i' the business."

"No," I said; "you say so out of kindness; but if you can afford no greater
comforts than these, you cannot afford to keep me in addition to yourself."

"Hech, then! How do ye ken that the auld Scot eats a' he makes? I was na
born the spending side o' Tweed, my man. But gin ye daur, why dinna ye pack
up your duds, and yer poems wi' them, and gang till your cousin i' the
university? he'll surely put you in the way o' publishing them. He's bound
to it by blude; and there's na shame in asking him to help you towards
reaping the fruits o' yer ain labours. A few punds on a bond for repayment
when the addition was sauld, noo,--I'd do that for mysel; but I'm thinking
ye'd better try to get a list o' subscribers. Dinna mind your independence;
it's but spoiling the Egyptians, ye ken, and the bit ballants will be their
money's worth, I'll warrant, and tell them a wheen facts they're no that
weel acquentit wi'. Hech? Johnnie, my Chartist?"

"Why not go to my uncle?"

"Puir sugar-and-spice-selling bailie body! is there aught in his ledger
about poetry, and the incommensurable value o' the products o' genius? Gang
till the young scholar; he's a canny one, too, and he'll ken it to be worth
his while to fash himsel a wee anent it."

So I packed up my little bundle, and lay awake all that night in a fever
of expectation about the as yet unknown world of green fields and woods
through which my road to Cambridge lay.




CHAPTER XI.

"THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE."


I may be forgiven, surely, if I run somewhat into detail about this my
first visit to the country.

I had, as I have said before, literally never been further afield than
Fulham or Battersea Rise. One Sunday evening, indeed, I had got as far as
Wandsworth Common; but it was March, and, to my extreme disappointment, the
heath was not in flower.

But, usually, my Sundays had been spent entirely in study; which to me was
rest, so worn out were both my body and my mind with the incessant drudgery
of my trade, and the slender fare to which I restricted myself. Since I had
lodged with Mackaye certainly my food had been better. I had not required
to stint my appetite for money wherewith to buy candles, ink, and pens.
My wages, too, had increased with my years, and altogether I found myself
gaining in strength, though I had no notion how much I possessed till I set
forth on this walk to Cambridge.

It was a glorious morning at the end of May; and when. I escaped from
the pall of smoke which hung over the city, I found the sky a sheet of
cloudless blue. How I watched for the ending of the rows of houses, which
lined the road for miles--the great roots of London, running far out
into the country, up which poured past me an endless stream of food and
merchandise and human beings--the sap of the huge metropolitan life-tree!
How each turn of the road opened a fresh line of terraces or villas, till
hope deferred made the heart sick, and the country seemed--like the place
where the rainbow touches the ground, or the El Dorado of Raleigh's Guiana
settler--always a little farther off! How between gaps in the houses, right
and left, I caught tantalizing glimpses of green fields, shut from me by
dull lines of high-spiked palings! How I peeped through gates and over
fences at trim lawns and gardens, and longed to stay, and admire, and
speculate on the name of the strange plants and gaudy flowers; and then
hurried on, always expecting to find something still finer ahead--something
really worth stopping to look at--till the houses thickened again into a
street, and I found myself, to my disappointment, in the midst of a town!
And then more villas and palings; and then a village;--when would they
stop, those endless houses?

At last they did stop. Gradually the people whom I passed began to look
more and more rural, and more toil-worn and ill-fed. The houses ended,
cattle-yards and farm-buildings appeared; and right and left, far away,
spread the low rolling sheet of green meadows and cornfields. Oh, the joy!
The lawns with their high elms and firs, the green hedgerows, the delicate
hue and scent of the fresh clover-fields, the steep clay banks where I
stopped to pick nosegays of wild flowers, and became again a child,--and
then recollected my mother, and a walk with her on the river bank towards
the Red House--and hurried on again, but could not be unhappy, while my
eyes ranged free, for the first time in my life, over the chequered squares
of cultivation, over glittering brooks, and hills quivering in the green
haze, while above hung the skylarks, pouring out their souls in melody.
And then, as the sun grew hot, and the larks dropped one by one into the
growing corn, the new delight of the blessed silence! I listened to the
stillness; for noise had been my native element; I had become in London
quite unconscious of the ceaseless roar of the human sea, casting up mire
and dirt. And now, for the first time in my life, the crushing, confusing
hubbub had flowed away, and left my brain calm and free. How I felt at that
moment a capability of clear, bright meditation, which was as new to me,
as I believe it would have been to most Londoners in my position. I cannot
help fancying that our unnatural atmosphere of excitement, physical as well
as moral, is to blame for very much of the working man's restlessness and
fierceness. As it was, I felt that every step forward, every breath of
fresh air, gave me new life. I had gone fifteen miles before I recollected
that, for the first time for many months, I had not coughed since I rose.

So on I went, down the broad, bright road, which seemed to beckon me
forward into the unknown expanses of human life.

  The world was all before me, where to choose,

and I saw it both with my eyes and my imagination, in the temper of a boy
broke loose from school. My heart kept holiday. I loved and blessed the
birds which flitted past me, and the cows which lay dreaming on the sward.
I recollect stopping with delight at a picturesque descent into the road,
to watch a nursery-garden, full of roses of every shade, from brilliant
yellow to darkest purple; and as I wondered at the innumerable variety of
beauties which man's art had developed from a few poor and wild species, it
seemed to me the most delightful life on earth, to follow in such a
place the primaeval trade of gardener Adam; to study the secrets of the
flower-world, the laws of soil and climate; to create new species, and
gloat over the living fruit of one's own science and perseverance. And then
I recollected the tailor's shop, and the Charter, and the starvation, and
the oppression which I had left behind, and ashamed of my own selfishness,
went hurrying on again.

At last I came to a wood--the first real wood that I had ever seen; not a
mere party of stately park trees growing out of smooth turf, but a real
wild copse; tangled branches and grey stems fallen across each other; deep,
ragged underwood of shrubs, and great ferns like princes' feathers, and gay
beds of flowers, blue and pink and yellow, with butterflies flitting about
them, and trailers that climbed and dangled from bough to bough--a poor,
commonplace bit of copse, I dare say, in the world's eyes, but to me a
fairy wilderness of beautiful forms, mysterious gleams and shadows, teeming
with manifold life. As I stood looking wistfully over the gate, alternately
at the inviting vista of the green-embroidered path, and then at the grim
notice over my head, "All trespassers prosecuted," a young man came up
the ride, dressed in velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, sufficiently
bedrabbled with mud. A fishing-rod and basket bespoke him some sort of
destroyer, and I saw in a moment that he was "a gentleman." After all,
there is such a thing as looking like a gentleman. There are men whose
class no dirt or rags could hide, any more than they could Ulysses. I
have seen such men in plenty among workmen, too; but, on the whole, the
gentlemen--by whom I do not mean just now the rich--have the superiority
in that point. But not, please God, for ever. Give us the same air,
water, exercise, education, good society, and you will see whether this
"haggardness," this "coarseness," &c., &c., for the list is too long to
specify, be an accident, or a property, of the man of the people.

"May I go into your wood?" asked I at a venture, curiosity conquering
pride.

"Well! what do you want there, my good fellow?"

"To see what a wood is like--I never was in one in my life."

"Humph! well--you may go in for that, and welcome. Never was in a wood in
his life--poor devil!"

"Thank you!" quoth I. And I slowly clambered over the gate. He put his hand
carelessly on the top rail, vaulted over it like a deer, and then turned to
stare at me.

"Hullo! I say--I forgot--don't go far in, or ramble up and down, or you'll
disturb the pheasants."

I thanked him again for what license he had given me--went in, and lay down
by the path-side.

Here, I suppose, by the rules of modern art, a picturesque description of
the said wood should follow; but I am the most incompetent person in the
world to write it. And, indeed, the whole scene was so novel to me, that I
had no time to analyse; I could only enjoy. I recollect lying on my face
and fingering over the delicately cut leaves of the weeds, and wondering
whether the people who lived in the country thought them as wonderful and
beautiful as I did;--and then I recollected the thousands whom I had left
behind, who, like me, had never seen the green face of God's earth; and the
answer of the poor gamin in St. Giles's, who, when he was asked what the
country was, answered, "_The yard where the gentlemen live when they go out
of town_"--significant that, and pathetic;--then I wondered whether the
time would ever come when society would be far enough advanced to open to
even such as he a glimpse, if it were only once a year, of the fresh, clean
face of God's earth;--and then I became aware of a soft mysterious hum,
above and around me, and turned on my back to look whence it proceeded,
and saw the leaves gold-green and transparent in the sunlight, quivering
against the deep heights of the empyrean blue; and hanging in the sunbeams
that pierced the foliage, a thousand insects, like specks of fire, that
poised themselves motionless on thrilling wings, and darted away, and
returned to hang motionless again;--and I wondered what they eat, and
whether they thought about anything, and whether they enjoyed the
sunlight;--and then that brought back to me the times when I used to lie
dreaming in my crib on summer mornings, and watched the flies dancing reels
between me and the ceilings;--and that again brought the thought of Susan
and my mother; and I prayed for them--not sadly--I could not be sad
there;--and prayed that we might all meet again some day and live happily
together; perhaps in the country, where I could write poems in peace; and
then, by degrees, my sentences and thoughts grew incoherent, and in happy,
stupid animal comfort, I faded away into a heavy sleep, which lasted an
hour or more, till I was awakened by the efforts of certain enterprising
great black and red ants, who were trying to found a small Algeria in my
left ear.

I rose and left the wood, and a gate or two on, stopped again to look
at the same sportsman fishing in a clear silver brook. I could not help
admiring with a sort of childish wonder the graceful and practised aim with
which he directed his tiny bait, and called up mysterious dimples on the
surface, which in a moment increased to splashings and stragglings of a
great fish, compelled, as if by some invisible spell, to follow the point
of the bending rod till he lay panting on the bank. I confess, in spite of
all my class prejudices against "game-preserving aristocrats," I almost
envied the man; at least I seemed to understand a little of the universally
attractive charms which those same outwardly contemptible field sports
possess; the fresh air, fresh fields and copses, fresh running brooks, the
exercise, the simple freedom, the excitement just sufficient to keep alive
expectation and banish thought.--After all, his trout produced much the
same mood in him as my turnpike-road did in me. And perhaps the man did not
go fishing or shooting every day. The laws prevented him from shooting, at
least, all the year round; so sometimes there might be something in which
he made himself of use. An honest, jolly face too he had--not without
thought and strength in it. "Well, it is a strange world," said I to
myself, "where those who can, need not; and those who cannot, must!"

Then he came close to the gate, and I left it just in time to see a little
group arrive at it--a woman of his own rank, young, pretty, and simply
dressed, with a little boy, decked out as a Highlander, on a shaggy
Shetland pony, which his mother, as I guessed her to be, was leading. And
then they all met, and the little fellow held up a basket of provisions
to his father, who kissed him across the gate, and hung his creel of fish
behind the saddle, and patted the mother's shoulder, as she looked up
lovingly and laughingly in his face. Altogether, a joyous, genial bit
of--Nature? Yes, Nature. Shall I grudge simple happiness to the few,
because it is as yet, alas! impossible for the many.

And yet the whole scene contrasted so painfully with me--with my past,
my future, my dreams, my wrongs, that I could not look at it; and with a
swelling heart I moved on--all the faster because I saw they were looking
at me and talking of me, and the fair wife threw after me a wistful,
pitying glance, which I was afraid might develop itself into some offer of
food or money--a thing which I scorned and dreaded, because it involved the
trouble of a refusal.

Then, as I walked on once more, my heart smote me. If they had wished to be
kind, why had I grudged them the opportunity of a good deed? At all events,
I might have asked their advice. In a natural and harmonious state, when
society really means brotherhood, a man could go up to any stranger, to
give and receive, if not succour, yet still experience and wisdom: and was
I not bound to tell them what I knew? was sure that they did not know? Was
I not bound to preach the cause of my class wherever I went? Here were
kindly people who, for aught I knew, would do right the moment they were
told where it was wanted; if there was an accursed artificial gulf between
their class and mine, had I any right to complain of it, as long as I
helped to keep it up by my false pride and surly reserve? No! I would speak
my mind henceforth--I would testify of what I saw and knew of the wrongs,
if not of the rights of the artisan, before whomsoever I might come. Oh!
valiant conclusion of half an hour's self-tormenting scruples! How I kept
it, remains to be shown.

I really fear that I am getting somewhat trivial and prolix; but there was
hardly an incident in my two days' tramp which did not give me some small
fresh insight into the _terra incognita_ of the country; and there may be
those among my readers, to whom it is not uninteresting to look, for once,
at even the smallest objects with a cockney workman's eyes.

Well, I trudged on--and the shadows lengthened, and I grew footsore and
tired; but every step was new, and won me forward with fresh excitement for
my curiosity.

At one village I met a crowd of little, noisy, happy boys and girls pouring
out of a smart new Gothic school-house. I could not resist the temptation
of snatching a glance through the open door. I saw on the walls maps,
music, charts, and pictures. How I envied those little urchins! A solemn,
sturdy elder, in a white cravat, evidently the parson of the parish, was
patting children's heads, taking down names, and laying down the law to a
shrewd, prim young schoolmaster.

Presently, as I went up the village, the clergyman strode past
me, brandishing a thick stick and humming a chant, and joined a
motherly-looking wife, who, basket on arm, was popping in and out of the
cottages, looking alternately serious and funny, cross and kindly--I
suppose, according to the sayings and doings of the folks within.

"Come," I thought, "this looks like work at least." And as I went out
of the village, I accosted a labourer, who was trudging my way, fork on
shoulder, and asked him if that was the parson and his wife?

I was surprised at the difficulty with which I got into conversation with
the man; at his stupidity, feigned or real, I could not tell which; at the
dogged, suspicious reserve with which he eyed me, and asked me whether I
was "one of they parts"? and whether I was a Londoner, and what I wanted on
the tramp, and so on, before he seemed to think it safe to answer a single
question. He seemed, like almost every labourer I ever met, to have
something on his mind; to live in a state of perpetual fear and
concealment. When, however, he found I was both a cockney and a passer-by,
he began to grow more communicative, and told me, "Ees--that were the
parson, sure enough."

"And what sort of a man was he?"

"Oh! he was a main kind man to the poor; leastwise, in the matter of
visiting 'em, and praying with 'em, and getting 'em to put into clubs, and
such like; and his lady too. Not that there was any fault to find with the
man about money--but 'twasn't to be expected of him."

"Why, was he not rich?"

"Oh, rich enough to the likes of us. But his own tithes here arn't more
than a thirty pounds we hears tell; and if he hadn't summat of his own, he
couldn't do not nothing by the poor; as it be, he pays for that ere school
all to his own pocket, next part. All the rest o' the tithes goes to some
great lord or other--they say he draws a matter of a thousand a year out of
the parish, and not a foot ever he sot into it; and that's the way with a
main lot o' parishes, up and down."

This was quite a new fact to me. "And what sort of folks were the parsons
all round."

"Oh, some of all sorts, good and bad. About six and half a dozen. There's
two or three nice young gentlemen come'd round here now, but they're all
what's-'em-a-call it?--some sort o' papishes;--leastwise, they has prayers
in the church every day, and doesn't preach the Gospel, no how, I hears
by my wife, and she knows all about it, along of going to meeting. Then
there's one over thereaway, as had to leave his living--he knows why. He
got safe over seas. If he had been a poor man, he'd been in * * * * *
gaol, safe enough, and soon enough. Then there's two or three as goes
a-hunting--not as I sees no harm in that; if a man's got plenty of money,
he ought to enjoy himself, in course: but still he can't be here and there
too, to once. Then there's two or three as is bad in their healths, or
thinks themselves so--or else has livings summer' else; and they lives
summer' or others, and has curates. Main busy chaps is they curates,
always, and wonderful hands to preach; but then, just as they gets a little
knowing like at it, and folks gets to like 'em, and run to hear 'em, off
they pops to summat better; and in course they're right to do so; and so
we country-folks get nought but the young colts, afore they're broke, you
see."

"And what sort of a preacher was his parson?"

"Oh, he preached very good Gospel, not that he went very often himself,
acause he couldn't make out the meaning of it; he preached too high, like.
But his wife said it was uncommon good Gospel; and surely when he come to
visit a body, and talked plain English, like, not sermon-ways, he was a
very pleasant man to heer, and his lady uncommon kind to nurse folk. They
sot up with me and my wife, they two did, two whole nights, when we was in
the fever, afore the officer could get us a nurse."

"Well," said I, "there are some good parsons left."

"Oh, yes; there's some very good ones--each one after his own way; and
there'd be more on 'em, if they did but know how bad we labourers was off.
Why bless ye, I mind when they was very different. A new parson is a mighty
change for the better, mostwise, we finds. Why, when I was a boy, we never
had no schooling. And now mine goes and learns singing and jobrafy, and
ciphering, and sich like. Not that I sees no good in it. We was a sight
better off in the old times, when there weren't no schooling. Schooling
harn't made wages rise, nor preaching neither."

"But surely," I said, "all this religious knowledge ought to give you
comfort, even if you are badly off."

"Oh! religion's all very well for them as has time for it; and a very good
thing--we ought all to mind our latter end. But I don't see how a man can
hear sermons with an empty belly; and there's so much to fret a man, now,
and he's so cruel tired coming home o' nights, he can't nowise go to pray a
lot, as gentlefolks does."

"But are you so ill off?"

"Oh! he'd had a good harvesting enough; but then he owed all that for he's
rent; and he's club money wasn't paid up, nor he's shop. And then, with
he's wages"--(I forget the sum--under ten shillings)--"how could a man
keep his mouth full, when he had five children! And then, folks is so
unmarciful--I'll just tell you what they says to me, now, last time I was
over at the board--"

And thereon he rambled off into a long jumble of medical-officers, and
relieving-officers, and Farmer This, and Squire That, which indicated a
mind as ill-educated as discontented. He cursed or rather grumbled at--for
he had not spirit, it seemed, to curse anything--the New Poor Law; because
it "ate up the poor, flesh and bone";--bemoaned the "Old Law," when "the
Vestry was forced to give a man whatsomdever he axed for, and if they
didn't, he'd go to the magistrates and make 'em, and so sure as a man got a
fresh child, he went and got another loaf allowed him next vestry, like a
Christian;"--and so turned through a gate, and set to work forking up some
weeds on a fallow, leaving me many new thoughts to digest.

That night, I got to some town or other, and there found a night's lodging,
good enough for a walking traveller.




CHAPTER XII.

CAMBRIDGE.


When I started again next morning, I found myself so stiff and footsore,
that I could hardly put one leg before the other, much less walk upright. I
was really quite in despair, before the end of the first mile; for I had no
money to pay for a lift on the coach, and I knew, besides, that they would
not be passing that way for several hours to come. So, with aching back and
knees, I made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and ended by sitting
down for a couple of hours, and looking about me, in a country which would
have seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but a freshly-liberated
captive, such as I was. At last I got up and limped on, stiffer than ever
from my rest, when a gig drove past me towards Cambridge, drawn by a stout
cob, and driven by a tall, fat, jolly-looking farmer, who stared at me as
he passed, went on, looked back, slackened his pace, looked back again, and
at last came to a dead stop, and hailed me in a broad nasal dialect--

"Whor be ganging, then, boh?"

"To Cambridge."

"Thew'st na git there that gate. Be'est thee honest man?"

"I hope so," said I, somewhat indignantly.

"What's trade?"

"A tailor," I said.

"Tailor!--guide us! Tailor a-tramp? Barn't accoostomed to tramp, then?"

"I never was out of London before," said I, meekly--for I was too worn-out
to be cross--lengthy and impertinent as this cross-examination seemed.

"Oi'll gie thee lift; dee yow joomp in. Gae on, powney! Tailor, then! Oh!
ah! tailor, saith he."

I obeyed most thankfully, and sat crouched together, looking up out of
the corner of my eyes at the huge tower of broad-cloth by my side, and
comparing the two red shoulders of mutton which held the reins, with my own
wasted, white, woman-like fingers.

I found the old gentleman most inquisitive. He drew out of me all my
story--questioned me about the way "Lunnon folks" lived, and whether they
got ony shooting or "pattening"--whereby I found he meant skating--and
broke in, every now and then, with ejaculations of childish wonder, and
clumsy sympathy, on my accounts of London labour and London misery.

"Oh, father, father!--I wonders they bears it. Us'n in the fens wouldn't
stand that likes. They'd roit, and roit, and roit, and tak' oot the
dook-gunes to un--they would, as they did five-and-twenty year agone. Never
to goo ayond the housen!--never to go ayond the housen! Kill me in a three
months, that would--bor', then!"

"Are you a farmer?" I asked, at last, thinking that my turn for questioning
was come.

"I bean't varmer; I be yooman born. Never paid rent in moy life, nor never
wool. I farms my own land, and my vathers avore me, this ever so mony
hoondred year. I've got the swoord of 'em to home, and the helmet that they
fut with into the wars, then when they chopped off the king's head--what
was the name of um?"

"Charles the First?"

"Ees--that's the booy. We was Parliament side--true Britons all we was,
down into the fens, and Oliver Cromwell, as dug Botsham lode, to the head
of us. Yow coom down to Metholl, and I'll shaw ye a country. I'll shaw
'ee some'at like bullocks to call, and some'at like a field o' beans--I
wool,--none o' this here darned ups and downs o' hills" (though the country
through which we drove was flat enough, I should have thought, to please
any one), "to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards--all so flat as a
barn's floor, for vorty mile on end--there's the country to live in!--and
vour sons--or was vour on 'em--every one on 'em fifteen stone in his shoes,
to patten again' any man from Whit'sea Mere to Denver Sluice, for twenty
pounds o' gold; and there's the money to lay down, and let the man as
dare cover it, down with his money, and on wi' his pattens, thirteen-inch
runners, down the wind, again' either a one o' the bairns!"

And he jingled in his pockets a heavy bag of gold, and winked, and
chuckled, and then suddenly checking himself, repeated in a sad, dubious
tone, two or three times, "Vour on 'em there was--vour on 'em there was;"
and relieved his feelings by springing the pony into a canter till he came
to a public-house, where he pulled up, called for a pot of hot ale, and
insisted on treating me. I assured him that I never drank fermented
liquors.

"Aw? Eh? How can yow do that then? Die o' cowd i' the fen, that gate, yow
would. Love ye then! they as dinnot tak' spirits down thor, tak' their
pennord o' elevation, then--women-folk especial."

"What's elevation?"

"Oh! ho! ho!--yow goo into druggist's shop o' market-day, into Cambridge,
and you'll see the little boxes, doozens and doozens, a' ready on the
counter; and never a ven-man's wife goo by, but what calls in for her
pennord o' elevation, to last her out the week. Oh! ho! ho! Well, it keeps
women-folk quiet, it do; and it's mortal good agin ago pains."

"But what is it?"

"Opium, bor' alive, opium!"

"But doesn't it ruin their health? I should think it the very worst sort of
drunkenness."

"Ow, well, yow moi soy that-mak'th 'em cruel thin then, it do; but what can
bodies do i' th'ago? Bot it's a bad thing, it is. Harken yow to me. Didst
ever know one called Porter, to yowr trade?"

I thought a little, and recollected a man of that name, who had worked with
us a year or two before--a great friend of a certain scatter-brained Irish
lad, brother of Crossthwaite's wife.

"Well, I did once, but I have lost sight of him twelve months, or more."

The old man faced sharp round on me, swinging the little gig almost over,
and then twisted himself back again, and put on a true farmer-like look of
dogged, stolid reserve. We rolled on a few minutes in silence.

"Dee yow consider, now, that a mon mought be lost, like, into Lunnon?"

"How lost?"

"Why, yow told o' they sweaters--dee yow think a mon might get in wi' one
o' they, and they that mought be looking for un not to vind un?"

"I do, indeed. There was a friend of that man Porter got turned away from
our shop, because he wouldn't pay some tyrannical fine for being saucy, as
they called it, to the shopman; and he went to a sweater's--and then to
another; and his friends have been tracking him up and down this six
months, and can hear no news of him."

"Aw! guide us! And what'n, think yow, be gone wi' un?"

"I am afraid he has got into one of those dens, and has pawned his clothes,
as dozens of them do, for food, and so can't get out."

"Pawned his clothes for victuals! To think o' that, noo! But if he had
work, can't he get victuals?"

"Oh!" I said, "there's many a man who, after working seventeen or eighteen
hours a day, Sundays and all, without even time to take off his clothes,
finds himself brought in in debt to his tyrant at the week's end. And if
he gets no work, the villain won't let him leave the house; he has to stay
there starving, on the chance of an hour's job. I tell you, I've known half
a dozen men imprisoned in that way, in a little dungeon of a garret, where
they had hardly room to stand upright, and only just space to sit and work
between their beds, without breathing the fresh air, or seeing God's sun,
for months together, with no victuals but a few slices of bread-and-butter,
and a little slop of tea, twice a day, till they were starved to the very
bone."

"Oh, my God! my God!" said the old man, in a voice which had a deeper
tone of feeling than mere sympathy with others' sorrow was likely to have
produced. There was evidently something behind all these inquiries of his.
I longed to ask him if his name, too, was not Porter.

"Aw yow knawn Billy Porter? What was a like? Tell me, now--what was a like,
in the Lord's name! what was a like unto?"

"Very tall and bony," I answered.

"Ah! sax feet, and more? and a yard across?--but a was starved, a was a'
thin, though, maybe, when yow sawn un?--and beautiful fine hair, hadn't a,
like a lass's?"

"The man I knew had red hair," quoth I.

"Ow, ay, an' that it wor, red as a rising sun, and the curls of un like
gowlden guineas! And thou knew'st Billy Porter! To think o' that, noo."--

Another long silence.

"Could you find un, dee yow think, noo, into Lunnon? Suppose, now,
there was a mon 'ud gie--may be five pund--ten pund--twenty pund, by
* * *--twenty pund down, for to ha' him brocht home safe and soun'--Could
yow do't, bor'? I zay, could yow do't?"

"I could do it as well without the money as with, if I could do it at all.
But have you no guess as to where he is?"

He shook his head sadly.

"We--that's to zay, they as wants un--hav'n't heerd tell of un vor this
three year--three year coom Whitsuntide as ever was--" And he wiped his
eyes with his cuff.

"If you will tell me all about him, and where he was last heard of, I will
do all I can to find him."

"Will ye, noo? will ye? The Lord bless ye for zaying that." And he grasped
my hand in his great iron fist, and fairly burst out crying.

"Was he a relation of yours?" I asked, gently.

"My bairn--my bairn--my eldest bairn. Dinnot yow ax me no moor--dinnot
then, bor'. Gie on, yow powney, and yow goo leuk vor un."

Another long silence.

"I've a been to Lunnon, looking vor un."

Another silence.

"I went up and down, up and down, day and night, day and night, to all
pot-houses as I could zee; vor, says I, he was a'ways a main chap to drink,
he was. Oh, deery me! and I never cot zight on un--and noo I be most spent,
I be."--

And he pulled up at another public-house, and tried this time a glass of
brandy. He stopped, I really think, at every inn between that place and
Cambridge, and at each tried some fresh compound; but his head seemed, from
habit, utterly fire-proof.

At last, we neared Cambridge, and began to pass groups of gay horsemen, and
then those strange caps and gowns--ugly and unmeaning remnant of obsolete
fashion.

The old man insisted on driving me up to the gate of * * * College, and
there dropped me, after I had given him my address, entreating me to "vind
the bairn, and coom to zee him down to Metholl. But dinnot goo ax for
Farmer Porter--they's all Porters there away. Yow ax for Wooden-house
Bob--that's me; and if I barn't to home, ax for Mucky Billy--that's my
brawther--we're all gotten our names down to ven; and if he barn't to home,
yow ax for Frog-hall--that's where my sister do live; and they'll all veed
ye, and lodge ye, and welcome come. We be all like one, doon in the ven;
and do ye, do ye, vind my bairn!" And he trundled on, down the narrow
street.

I was soon directed, by various smart-looking servants, to my cousin's
rooms; and after a few mistakes, and wandering up and down noble courts and
cloisters, swarming with gay young men, whose jaunty air and dress seemed
strangely out of keeping with the stem antique solemnity of the Gothic
buildings around, I espied my cousin's name over a door; and, uncertain how
he might receive me, I gave a gentle, half-apologetic knock, which,
was answered by a loud "Come in!" and I entered on a scene, even more
incongruous than anything I had seen outside.

"If we can only keep away from Jesus as far as the corner, I don't care."

"If we don't run into that first Trinity before the willows, I shall care
with a vengeance."

"If we don't it's a pity," said my cousin. "Wadham ran up by the side of
that first Trinity yesterday, and he said that they were as well gruelled
as so many posters, before they got to the stile."

This unintelligible, and to my inexperienced ears, irreverent conversation,
proceeded from half a dozen powerful young men, in low-crowned
sailors' hats and flannel trousers, some in striped jerseys, some in
shooting-jackets, some smoking cigars, some beating up eggs in sherry;
while my cousin, dressed like "a fancy waterman," sat on the back of a
sofa, puffing away at a huge meerschaum.

"Alton! why, what wind on earth has blown you here?"

By the tone, the words seemed rather an inquiry as to what wind would be
kind enough to blow me back again. But he recovered his self-possession in
a moment.

"Delighted to see you! Where's your portmanteau? Oh--left it at the Bull!
Ah! I see. Very well, we'll send the gyp for it in a minute, and order some
luncheon. We're just going down to the boat-race. Sorry I can't stop, but
we shall all be fined--not a moment to lose. I'll send you in luncheon as
I go through the butteries; then, perhaps, you'd like to come down and see
the race. Ask the gyp to tell you the way. Now, then, follow your noble
captain, gentlemen--to glory and a supper." And he bustled out with his
crew.

While I was staring about the room, at the jumble of Greek books,
boxing-gloves, and luscious prints of pretty women, a shrewd-faced, smart
man entered, much better dressed than myself.

"What would you like, sir? Ox-tail soup, sir, or gravy-soup, sir? Stilton
cheese, sir, or Cheshire, sir? Old Stilton, sir, just now."

Fearing lest many words might betray my rank--and, strange to say, though
I should not have been afraid of confessing myself an artisan before the
"gentlemen" who had just left the room, I was ashamed to have my low estate
discovered, and talked over with his compeers, by the flunkey who waited on
them--I answered, "Anything--I really don't care," in as aristocratic and
off-hand a tone as I could assume.

"Porter or ale, sir?"

"Water," without a "thank you," I am ashamed to say for I was not at that
time quite sure whether it was well-bred to be civil to servants.

The man vanished, and reappeared with a savoury luncheon, silver forks,
snowy napkins, smart plates--I felt really quite a gentleman.

He gave me full directions as to my "way to the boats, sir;" and I started
out much refreshed; passed through back streets, dingy, dirty, and
profligate-looking enough; out upon wide meadows, fringed with enormous
elms; across a ferry; through a pleasant village, with its old grey church
and spire; by the side of a sluggish river, alive with wherries. I had
walked down some mile or so, and just as I heard a cannon, as I thought,
fire at some distance, and wondered at its meaning, I came to a sudden bend
of the river, with a church-tower hanging over the stream on the opposite
bank, a knot of tall poplars, weeping willows, rich lawns, sloping down to
the water's side, gay with bonnets and shawls; while, along the edge of
the stream, light, gaudily-painted boats apparently waited for the
race,--altogether the most brilliant and graceful group of scenery which I
had beheld in my little travels. I stopped to gaze; and among the ladies on
the lawn opposite, caught sight of a figure--my heart leapt into my mouth!
Was it she at last? It was too far to distinguish features; the dress was
altogether different--but was it not she? I saw her move across the lawn,
and take the arm of a tall, venerable-looking man; and his dress was the
same as that of the Dean, at the Dulwich Gallery--was it? was it not?
To have found her, and a river between us! It was ludicrously
miserable--miserably ludicrous. Oh, that accursed river, which debarred me
from certainty, from bliss! I would have plunged across--but there were
three objections--first, that I could not swim; next, what could I do when
I had crossed? and thirdly, it might not be she after all.

And yet I was certain--instinctively certain--that it was she, the idol of
my imagination for years. If I could not see her features under that little
white bonnet, I could imagine them there; they flashed up in my memory as
fresh as ever. Did she remember my features, as I did hers? Would she know
me again? Had she ever even thought of me, from that day to this? Fool!
But there I stood, fascinated, gazing across the river, heedless of the
racing-boats, and the crowd, and the roar that was rushing up to me at the
rate of ten miles an hour, and in a moment more, had caught me, and swept
me away with it, whether I would or not, along the towing-path, by the side
of the foremost boats.

And yet, after a few moments, I ceased to wonder either at the Cambridge
passion for boat-racing, or at the excitement of the spectators. "_Honi
soit qui mal y pense_." It was a noble sport--a sight such as could only be
seen in England--some hundred of young men, who might, if they had chosen,
been lounging effeminately about the streets, subjecting themselves
voluntarily to that intense exertion, for the mere pleasure of toil.
The true English stuff came out there; I felt that, in spite of all
my prejudices--the stuff which has held Gibraltar and conquered at
Waterloo--which has created a Birmingham and a Manchester, and colonized
every quarter of the globe--that grim, earnest, stubborn energy, which,
since the days of the old Romans, the English possess alone of all the
nations of the earth. I was as proud of the gallant young fellows as if
they had been my brothers--of their courage and endurance (for one could
see that it was no child's-play, from the pale faces, and panting lips),
their strength and activity, so fierce and yet so cultivated, smooth,
harmonious, as oar kept time with oar, and every back rose and fell in
concert--and felt my soul stirred up to a sort of sweet madness, not merely
by the shouts and cheers of the mob around me, but by the loud fierce pulse
of the rowlocks, the swift whispering rush of the long snake-like eight
oars, the swirl and gurgle of the water in their wake, the grim, breathless
silence of the straining rowers. My blood boiled over, and fierce tears
swelled into my eyes; for I, too, was a man, and an Englishman; and when I
caught sight of my cousin, pulling stroke to the second boat in the long
line, with set teeth and flashing eyes, the great muscles on his bare arms
springing up into knots at every rapid stroke, I ran and shouted among the
maddest and the foremost.

But I soon tired, and, footsore as I was, began to find my strength fail
me. I tried to drop behind, but found it impossible in the press. At last,
quite out of breath, I stopped; and instantly received a heavy blow from
behind, which threw me on my face; and a fierce voice shouted in my ear,
"Confound you, sir! don't you know better than to do that?" I looked up,
and saw a man twice as big as myself sprawling over me, headlong down the
bank, toward the river, whither I followed him, but alas! not on my feet,
but rolling head over heels. On the very brink he stuck his heels into the
turf, and stopped dead, amid a shout of, "Well saved, Lynedale!" I did not
stop; but rolled into some two-feet water, amid the laughter and shouts of
the men.

I scrambled out, and limped on, shaking with wet and pain, till I was
stopped by a crowd which filled the towing-path. An eight-oar lay under the
bank, and the men on shore were cheering and praising those in the boat for
having "bumped," which word I already understood to mean, winning a race.

Among them, close to me, was the tall man who had upset me; and a very
handsome, high-bred looking man he was. I tried to slip by, but he
recognized me instantly, and spoke.

"I hope I didn't hurt you much, Really, when I spoke so sharply, I did not
see that you were not a gownsman!"

The speech, as I suppose now, was meant courteously enough. It indicated
that though he might allow himself liberties with men of his own class, he
was too well bred to do so with me. But in my anger I saw nothing but the
words, "not a gownsman." Why should he see that I was not a gownsman?
Because I was shabbier?--(and my clothes, over and above the ducking they
had had, were shabby); or more plebeian in appearance (whatsoever that may
mean)? or wanted something else, which the rest had about them, and I had
not? Why should he know that I was not a gownsman? I did not wish,
of course, to be a gentleman, and an aristocrat; but I was nettled,
nevertheless, at not being mistaken for one; and answered, sharply enough--

"No matter whether I am hurt or not. It serves me right for getting among
you cursed aristocrats."

"Box the cad's ears, Lord Lynedale," said a dirty fellow with a long
pole--a cad himself, I should have thought.

"Let him go home and ask his mammy to hang him out to dry," said another.

The lord (for so I understood he was) looked at me with an air of surprise
and amusement, which may have been good-natured enough in him, but did not
increase the good-nature in me.

"Tut, tut, my good fellow. I really am very sorry for having upset you.
Here's half-a-crown to cover damages."

"Better give it me than a muff like that," quoth he of the long pole; while
I answered, surlily enough, that I wanted neither him nor his money, and
burst through the crowd toward Cambridge. I was so shabby and plebeian,
then, that people actually dare offer me money! Intolerable!

The reader may say that I was in a very unwholesome and unreasonable frame
of mind.

So I was. And so would he have been in my place.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE LOST IDOL FOUND.


On my return, I found my cousin already at home, in high spirits at having,
as he informed me, "bumped the first Trinity." I excused myself for my
dripping state, simply by saying that I had slipped into the river. To tell
him the whole of the story, while the fancied insult still rankled fresh in
me, was really too disagreeable both to my memory and my pride.

Then came the question, "What had brought me to Cambridge?" I told him all,
and he seemed honestly to sympathize with my misfortunes.

"Never mind; we'll make it all right somehow. Those poems of yours--you
must let me have them and look over them; and I dare say I shall persuade
the governor to do something with them. After all, it's no loss for you;
you couldn't have got on tailoring--much too sharp a fellow for that;--you
ought to be at college, if one could only get you there. These sizarships,
now, were meant for--just such cases as yours--clever fellows who could not
afford to educate themselves; if we could only help you to one of them,
now--

"You forget that in that case," said I, with something like a sigh, "I
should have to become a member of the Church of England."

"Why, no; not exactly. Though, of course, if you want to get all out of the
university which you ought to get, you must do so at last."

"And pretend to believe what I do not; for the sake of deserting my own
class, and pandering to the very aristocrats, whom--"

"Hullo!" and he jumped with a hoarse laugh. "Stop that till I see whether
the door is sported. Why, you silly fellow, what harm have the aristocrats,
as you call them, ever done you? Are they not doing you good at this
moment? Are you not, by virtue of their aristocratic institutions, nearer
having your poems published, your genius recognized, etc. etc., than ever
you were before?"

"Aristocrats? Then you call yourself one?"

"No, Alton, my boy; not yet," said he quietly and knowingly. "Not yet: but
I have chosen the right road, and shall end at the road's end; and I advise
you--for really, as my cousin, I wish you all success, even for the mere
credit of the family, to choose the same road likewise."

"What road?"

"Come up to Cambridge, by hook or by crook, and then take orders."

I laughed scornfully.

"My good cousin, it is the only method yet discovered for turning a snob
(as I am, or was) into a gentleman; except putting him into a heavy cavalry
regiment. My brother, who has no brains, preferred the latter method. I,
who flatter myself that I have some, have taken the former." The thought
was new and astonishing to me, and I looked at him in silence while he ran
on--

"If you are once a parson, all is safe. Be you who you may before, from
that moment you are a gentleman. No one will offer an insult. You are good
enough for any man's society. You can dine at any nobleman's table. You can
be friend, confidant, father confessor, if you like, to the highest women
in the land; and if you have person, manners, and common sense, marry one
of them into the bargain, Alton, my boy."

"And it is for that that you will sell your soul--to become a hanger-on of
the upper classes, in sloth and luxury?"

"Sloth and luxury? Stuff and nonsense! I tell you that after I have taken
orders, I shall have years and years of hard work before me; continual
drudgery of serving tables, managing charities, visiting, preaching, from
morning till night, and after that often from night to morning again.
Enough to wear out any but a tough constitution, as I trust mine is. Work,
Alton, and hard work, is the only way now-a-days to rise in the Church, as
in other professions. My father can buy me a living some day: but he
can't buy me success, notoriety, social position, power--" and he stopped
suddenly, as if he had been on the point of saying something more which
should not have been said.

"And this," I said, "is your idea of a vocation for the sacred ministry? It
is for this, that you, brought up a dissenter, have gone over to the Church
of England?"

"And how do you know"--and his whole tone of voice changed instantly
into what was meant, I suppose, for a gentle seriousness and reverent
suavity--"that I am not a sincere member of the Church of England? How do
you know that I may not have loftier plans and ideas, though I may not
choose to parade them to everyone, and give that which is holy to the
dogs?"

"I am the dog, then?" I asked, half amused, for I was too curious about his
state of mind to be angry.

"Not at all, my dear fellow. But those great men to whom we (or at least I)
owe our conversion to the true Church, always tell us (and you will feel
yourself how right they are) not to parade religious feelings; to look upon
them as sacred things, to be treated with that due reserve which springs
from real reverence. You know, as well as I, whether that is the fashion
of the body in which we were, alas! brought up. You know, as well as I,
whether the religious conversation of that body has heightened your respect
for sacred things."

"I do, too well." And I thought of Mr. Wigginton and my mother's tea
parties.

"I dare say the vulgarity of that school has, ere now, shaken your faith in
all that was holy?"

I was very near confessing that it had: but a feeling came over me, I knew
not why, that my cousin would have been glad to get me into his power, and
would therefore have welcomed a confession of infidelity. So I held my
tongue.

"I can confess," he said, in the most confidential tone, "that it had for a
time that effect on me. I have confessed it, ere now, and shall again and
again, I trust. But I shudder to think of what I might have been believing
or disbelieving now, if I had not in a happy hour fallen in with Mr.
Newman's sermons, and learnt from them, and from his disciples, what the
Church of England really was; not Protestant, no; but Catholic in the
deepest and highest sense."

"So you are one of these new Tractarians? You do not seem to have adopted
yet the ascetic mode of life, which I hear they praise up so highly,"

"My dear Alton, if you have read, as you have, your Bible, you will
recollect a text which tells you not to appear to men to fast. What I do
or do not do in the way of self-denial, unless I were actually profligate,
which I give you my sacred honour I am not, must be a matter between Heaven
and myself."

There was no denying that truth; but the longer my cousin talked the less I
trusted in him--I had almost said, the less I believed him. Ever since the
tone of his voice had changed so suddenly, I liked him less than when he
was honestly blurting out his coarse and selfish ambition. I do not think
he was a hypocrite. I think he believed what he said, as strongly as he
could believe anything. He proved afterwards that he did so, as far as
man can judge man, by severe and diligent parish work: but I cannot help
doubting at times, if that man ever knew what believing meant. God forgive
him! In that, he is no worse than hundreds more who have never felt the
burning and shining flame of intense conviction, of some truth rooted in
the inmost recesses of the soul, by which a man must live, for which he
would not fear to die.

And therefore I listened to him dully and carelessly; I did not care to
bring objections, which arose thick and fast, to everything he said. He
tried to assure me--and did so with a great deal of cleverness--that this
Tractarian movement was not really an aristocratic, but a democratic one;
that the Catholic Church had been in all ages the Church of the poor; that
the clergy were commissioned by Heaven to vindicate the rights of the
people, and to stand between them and the tyranny of Mammon. I did not
care to answer him that the "Catholic Church" had always been a Church of
slaves, and not of free men; that the clergy had in every age been the
enemies of light, of liberty; the oppressors of their flocks; and that to
exalt a sacerdotal caste over other aristocracies, whether of birth or
wealth, was merely to change our tyrants. When he told me that a clergyman
of the Established Church, if he took up the cause of the working classes,
might be the boldest and surest of all allies, just because, being
established, and certain of his income, he cared not one sixpence what he
said to any man alive, I did not care to answer him, as I might--And more
shame upon the clergy that, having the safe vantage-ground which you
describe, they dare not use it like men in a good cause, and speak their
minds, if forsooth no one can stop them from so doing. In fact, I was
distrustful, which I had a right to be, and envious also; but if I had a
right to be that, I was certainly not wise, nor is any man, in exercising
the said dangerous right as I did, and envying my cousin and every man in
Cambridge.

But that evening, understanding that a boating supper, or some jubilation
over my cousin's victory, was to take place in his rooms, I asked leave to
absent myself--and I do not think my cousin felt much regret at giving me
leave--and wandered up and down the King's Parade, watching the tall gables
of King's College Chapel, and the classic front of the Senate House, and
the stately tower of St. Mary's, as they stood, stern and silent, bathed in
the still glory of the moonlight, and contrasting bitterly the lot of those
who were educated under their shadow to the lot which had befallen me.
[Footnote: It must be remembered that these impressions of, and comments on
the universities, are not my own. They are simply what clever working men
thought about them from 1845 to 1850; a period at which I had the fullest
opportunities for knowing the thoughts of working men.]

"Noble buildings!" I said to myself, "and noble institutions! given freely
to the people, by those who loved the people, and the Saviour who died
for them. They gave us what they had, those mediaeval founders: whatsoever
narrowness of mind or superstition defiled their gift was not their fault,
but the fault of their whole age. The best they knew they imparted freely,
and God will reward them for it. To monopolize those institutions for the
rich, as is done now, is to violate both the spirit and the letter of
the foundations; to restrict their studies to the limits of middle-aged
Romanism, their conditions of admission to those fixed at the Reformation,
is but a shade less wrongful. The letter is kept--the spirit is thrown
away. You refuse to admit any who are not members of the Church of England,
say, rather, any who will not sign the dogmas of the Church of England,
whether they believe a word of them or not. Useless formalism! which lets
through the reckless, the profligate, the ignorant, the hypocritical:
and only excludes the honest and the conscientious, and the mass of the
intellectual working men. And whose fault is it that THEY are not members
of the Church of England? Whose fault is it, I ask? Your predecessors
neglected the lower orders, till they have ceased to reverence either you
or your doctrines, you confess that, among yourselves, freely enough. You
throw the blame of the present wide-spread dislike to the Church of England
on her sins during 'the godless eighteenth century.' Be it so. Why are
those sins to be visited on us? Why are we to be shut out from the
universities, which were founded for us, because you have let us grow
up, by millions, heathens and infidels, as you call us? Take away your
subterfuge! It is not merely because we are bad churchmen that you exclude
us, else you would be crowding your colleges, now, with the talented poor
of the agricultural districts, who, as you say, remain faithful to the
church of their fathers. But are there six labourers' sons educating in
the universities at this moment! No! the real reason for our exclusion,
churchmen or not, is, because we are _poor_--because we cannot pay your
exorbitant fees, often, as in the case of bachelors of arts, exacted for
tuition which is never given, and residence which is not permitted--because
we could not support the extravagance which you not only permit, but
encourage--because by your own unblushing confession, it insures the
university 'the support of the aristocracy.'"

"But, on religious points, at least, you must abide by the statutes of the
university."

Strange argument, truly, to be urged literally by English Protestants in
possession of Roman Catholic bequests! If that be true in the letter,
as well as in the spirit, you should have given place long ago to the
Dominicans and the Franciscans. In the spirit it is true, and the Reformers
acted on it when they rightly converted the universities to the uses of the
new faith. They carried out the spirit of the founders' statutes by making
the universities as good as they could be, and letting them share in the
new light of the Elizabethan age. But was the sum of knowledge, human and
divine, perfected at the Reformation? Who gave the Reformers, or you, who
call yourselves their representatives, a right to say to the mind of man,
and to the teaching of God's Spirit, "Hitherto, and no farther"? Society
and mankind, the children of the Supreme, will not stop growing for your
dogmas--much less for your vested interests; and the righteous law of
mingled development and renovation, applied in the sixteenth century, must
be reapplied in the nineteenth; while the spirits of the founders, now
purged from the superstitions and ignorances of their age, shall smile from
heaven, and say, "So would we have had it, if we had lived in the great
nineteenth century, into which it has been your privilege to be born."

But such thoughts soon passed away. The image which I had seen that
afternoon upon the river banks had awakened imperiously the frantic
longings of past years; and now it reascended its ancient throne, and
tyrannously drove forth every other object, to keep me alone with its own
tantalizing and torturing beauty. I did not think about her--No; I only
stupidly and steadfastly stared at her with my whole soul and imagination,
through that long sleepless night; and, in spite of the fatigue of my
journey, and the stiffness proceeding from my fall and wetting, I lay
tossing till the early sun poured into my bedroom window. Then I arose,
dressed myself, and went out to wander up and down the streets, gazing
at one splendid building after another, till I found the gates of King's
College open. I entered eagerly, through a porch which, to my untutored
taste, seemed gorgeous enough to form the entrance to a fairy palace, and
stood in the quadrangle, riveted to the spot by the magnificence of the
huge chapel on the right.

If I had admired it the night before, I felt inclined to worship it this
morning, as I saw the lofty buttresses and spires, fretted with all their
gorgeous carving, and "storied windows richly dight," sleeping in the glare
of the newly-risen sun, and throwing their long shadows due westward down
the sloping lawn, and across the river which dimpled and gleamed below,
till it was lost among the towering masses of crisp elms and rose-garlanded
chestnuts in the rich gardens beyond.

Was I delighted? Yes--and yet no. There is a painful feeling in seeing
anything magnificent which one cannot understand. And perhaps it was a
morbid sensitiveness, but the feeling was strong upon me that I was an
interloper there--out of harmony with the scene and the system which had
created it; that I might be an object of unpleasant curiosity, perhaps of
scorn (for I had not forgotten the nobleman at the boat-race), amid those
monuments of learned luxury. Perhaps, on the other hand, it was only from
the instinct which makes us seek for solitude under the pressure of intense
emotions, when we have neither language to express them to ourselves, nor
loved one in whose silent eyes we may read kindred feelings--a sympathy
which wants no words. Whatever the cause was, when a party of men, in their
caps and gowns, approached me down the dark avenue which led into the
country, I was glad to shrink for concealment behind the weeping-willow
at the foot of the bridge, and slink off unobserved to breakfast with my
cousin.

We had just finished breakfast, my cousin was lighting his meerschaum, when
a tall figure passed the window, and the taller of the noblemen, whom I
had seen at the boat-race, entered the room with a packet of papers in his
hand.

"Here, Locule mi! my pocket-book--or rather, to stretch a bad pun till
it bursts, my pocket-dictionary--I require the aid of your
benevolently-squandered talents for the correction of these proofs. I am,
as usual, both idle and busy this morning; so draw pen, and set to work for
me."

"I am exceedingly sorry, my lord," answered George, in his most obsequious
tone, "but I must work this morning with all my might. Last night,
recollect, was given to triumph, Bacchus, and idleness."

"Then find some one who will do them for me, my Ulysses polumechane,
polutrope, panurge."

"I shall be most happy (with a half-frown and a wince) to play Panurge to
your lordship's Pantagruel, on board the new yacht."

"Oh, I am perfect in that character, I suppose? And is she after all, like
Pantagruel's ship, to be loaded with hemp? Well, we must try two or three
milder cargoes first. But come, find me some starving genius--some graeculus
esuriens--"

"Who will ascend to the heaven of your lordship's eloquence for the
bidding?"

"Five shillings a sheet--there will be about two of them, I think, in the
pamphlet."

"May I take the liberty of recommending my cousin here?"

"Your cousin?" And he turned to me, who had been examining with a sad and
envious eye the contents of the bookshelves. Our eyes met, and first a
faint blush, and then a smile of recognition, passed over his magnificent
countenance.

"I think I had--I am ashamed that I cannot say the pleasure, of meeting him
at the boat race yesterday."

My cousin looked inquiringly and vexed at us both. The nobleman smiled.

"Oh, the fault was mine, not his."

"I cannot think," I answered, "that you have any reasons to remember with
shame your own kindness and courtesy. As for me," I went on bitterly, "I
suppose a poor journeyman tailor, who ventures to look on at the sports of
gentlemen, only deserves to be run over."

"Sir," he said, looking at me with a severe and searching glance, "your
bitterness is pardonable--but not your sneer. You do not yourself think
what you say, and you ought to know that I think it still less than
yourself. If you intend your irony to be useful, you should keep it till
you can use it courageously against the true offenders."

I looked up at him fiercely enough, but the placid smile which had returned
to his face disarmed me.

"Your class," he went on, "blind yourselves and our class as much by
wholesale denunciations of us, as we, alas! who should know better, do by
wholesale denunciations of you. As you grow older, you will learn that
there are exceptions to every rule."

"And yet the exception proves the rule."

"Most painfully true, sir. But that argument is two-edged. For instance,
am I to consider it the exception or the rule, when I am told that you, a
journeyman tailor, are able to correct these proofs for me?"

"Nearer the rule, I think, than you yet fancy."

"You speak out boldly and well; but how can you judge what I may please to
fancy? At all events, I will make trial of you. There are the proofs. Bring
them to me by four o'clock this afternoon, and if they are well done, I
will pay you more than I should do to the average hack-writer, for you will
deserve more."

I took the proofs; he turned to go, and by a side-look at George beckoned
him out of the room. I heard a whispering in the passage; and I do not deny
that my heart beat high with new hopes, as I caught unwillingly the words--

"Such a forehead!--such an eye!--such a contour of feature as that!--Locule
mi--that boy ought not to be mending trousers."

My cousin returned, half laughing, half angry.

"Alton, you fool, why did you let out that you were a snip?"

"I am not ashamed of my trade."

"I am, then. However, you've done with it now; and if you can't come the
gentleman, you may as well come the rising genius. The self-educated dodge
pays well just now; and after all, you've hooked his lordship--thank me for
that. But you'll never hold him, you impudent dog, if you pull so hard
on him"--He went on, putting his hands into his coat-tail pockets, and
sticking himself in front of the fire, like the Delphic Pythoness upon the
sacred tripod, in hopes, I suppose, of some oracular afflatus--"You will
never hold him, I say, if you pull so hard on him. You ought to 'My lord'
him for months yet, at least. You know, my good fellow, you must take every
possible care to pick up what good breeding you can, if I take the trouble
to put you in the way of good society, and tell you where my private
birds'-nests are, like the green schoolboy some poet or other talks of."

"He is no lord of mine," I answered, "in any sense of the word, and
therefore I shall not call him so."

"Upon my honour! here is a young gentleman who intends to rise in the
world, and then commences by trying to walk through the first post he
meets! Noodle! can't you do like me, and get out of the carts' way when
they come by? If you intend to go ahead, you must just dodge in and out
like a dog at a fair. 'She stoops to conquer' is my motto, and a precious
good one too."

"I have no wish to conquer Lord Lynedale, and so I shall not stoop to him."

"I have, then; and to very good purpose, too. I am his whetstone, for
polishing up that classical wit of his on, till he carries it into
Parliament to astonish the country squires. He fancies himself a second
Goethe, I hav'n't forgot his hitting at me, before a large supper party,
with a certain epigram of that old turkeycock's about the whale having his
unmentionable parasite--and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide
my time, Alton, my boy--I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat
look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout
holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a pity,
Alton my boy!"

And he burst into a coarse laugh, tossed himself down on the sofa, and
re-lighted his meerschaum.

"He seemed to me," I answered, "to have a peculiar courtesy and liberality
of mind towards those below him in rank."

"Oh! he had, had he? Now, I'll just put you up to a dodge. He intends to
come the Mirabeau--fancies his mantle has fallen on him--prays before the
fellow's bust, I believe, if one knew the truth, for a double portion of
his spirit; and therefore it is a part of his game to ingratiate himself
with all pot-boy-dom, while at heart he is as proud, exclusive an
aristocrat, as ever wore nobleman's hat. At all events, you may get
something out of him, if you play your cards well--or, rather, help me
to play mine; for I consider him as my property, and you only as my
aide-de-camp."

"I shall play no one's cards," I answered, sulkily. "I am doing work
fairly, and shall be fairly paid for it, and keep my own independence."

"Independence--hey-day! Have you forgotten that, after all, you are
my--guest, to call it by the mildest term?"

"Do you upbraid me with that?" I said, starting up. "Do you expect me to
live on your charity, on condition of doing your dirty work? You do not
know me, sir. I leave your roof this instant!"

"You do not!" answered he, laughing loudly, as he sprang over the sofa, and
set his back against the door. "Come, come, you Will-o'-the-Wisp, as full
of flights, and fancies, and vagaries, as a sick old maid! can't you see
which side your bread is buttered? Sit down, I say! Don't you know that I'm
as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, although I do parade a little Gil
Bias morality now and then, just for fun's sake? Do you think I should be
so open with it, if I meant anything very diabolic? There--sit down, and
don't go into King Cambyses' vein, or Queen Hecuba's tears either, which
you seem inclined to do."

"I know you have been very generous to me," I said, penitently; "but a
kindness becomes none when you are upbraided with it."

"So say the copybooks--I deny it. At all events, I'll say no more; and
you shall sit down there, and write as still as a mouse till two, while
I tackle this never-to-be-enough-by-unhappy-third-years'-men-execrated
Griffin's Optics."

       *       *       *       *       *

At four that afternoon, I knocked, proofs in hand, at the door of Lord
Lynedale's rooms in the King's Parade. The door was opened by a little
elderly groom, grey-coated, grey-gaitered, grey-haired, grey-visaged. He
had the look of a respectable old family retainer, and his exquisitely
neat groom's dress gave him a sort of interest in my eyes. Class costumes,
relics though they are of feudalism, carry a charm with them. They are
symbolic, definitive; they bestow a personality on the wearer, which
satisfies the mind, by enabling it instantly to classify him, to connect
him with a thousand stories and associations; and to my young mind, the
wiry, shrewd, honest