Revolt: a tale for the times

Front matter

.■:■_ REVOLT REVOLT: A TALE FOR THE TIMES. BY RICHARD DAILLEY. Author of ' The Present ' ; ' Here ' ; ' A Defence of Carlyle ' ; etc.; etc. " I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since. With many an arrow deep infix'd My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades." Cow PER. LONDON : JOHN KENSIT, i8, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C 1897. BIRMINGHAM: W. E. Harris, Printer, <£.., Old Court House, High Street TO THE DEFENDERS OF BRITISH PROTESTANTISM MY FIRST ROMANCE is RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. INTRODUCTORY. "•=__ ® many garbled versions of this British vendetta have been 5 _§P current in Society, during the present reign, that the posthu mous publication of the extraordinary memoir — more or less imagin ative — -of the last member of an unfortunate family does not call for any apology from his literary-executor.

To the cultured reader, it will be painfully evident that the delicate task might have been entrusted to one having more leisure and more experience of the little pranks of composing-sticks and printers' devils. If, however, both in the revision of the manuscript and the correction of the proofs, numerous small errors and omissions escaped notice, the great lesson which the late earl desired to bequeath to his country man has never for once been lost sight of. Indeed, should the romantic history of this little book ever be made public, we believe that the most prejudiced of our critics will agree that the whole range of Victorian literature does not furnish a more striking example of how God's blessing resteth on those who, having something to say in defence of His Kingdom, are determined to say it.

Why, during his lifetime, the late earl treated with absolute indifference all the slanders and tittle-tattle of the habitues of ' The. Rov> ' is at last only too clear to us. His loyalty was thicker than bunting. As he avers, the 'greatest of modern swindles is modern Christianity.' The saddest feature of our time is the tyranny of Mammon over Righteousness. Under the paralyzing sway of Couponocracy, the nation is forgetting that, in religion and politics, " 'T is liberty alone lhat gives the flower OJ fleeting life its lustre and perfume . And we are weeds without it." When we see the frippery of Rome arrayed on the steps of St. Paul's ; when mitred writers of Essay* and Reviews' trick Church and State in the clerical scramble for the 'loaves and fishes' of Party ; when the wardrobes of ' The Poor Clergy ' are pilfered by Anglican Corporations for the benefit of Fagan the Jew and Parson Slop ; when such things are tolerated and defended by brazen-faced Hypocrisy with texts from Holy Writ ; it behooves us, as a people, to remember that, under whatever garb and in whatever clime, sacerdotalism is a curse to mankind.

Chapter I

Shows how Wealth and Poverty conspired to blot out a mysterious tragedy. •^yjfEAR St. Botolph's Church, Aldgate, London, a few yards ___.. UP Houndsditch, on the right-hand side, is all that remains of Gravel Lane ; a famous zig-zag thoroughfare, once leading into Petticoat Lane. An oil-shop, a green-grocer's and a packing-case maker's premises form one side of the lane, and a few mean cottages the other. Turning the first corner, you enter Back Gravel Lane. Sadler's Hall Court and Stoney Lane are to your left. Before you, is an imposing red pile of Buildings, called King's Block. Beyond, are the Warehouses of St. Katherine's Dock. You are on the outskirts of the great " East End." Slums teeming with the most wretched of Englishmen ; lodginghouses inscribed with the characters in which the Apostles wrote the New Testament ; pale-faced, black-haired people, of undoubted Jewish descent, are the features of city life which press themselves home upon your observation.

Remains of Old London abound on every hand. The print of the fight between Tom Cribb and Bendigo has been hanging in yonder window for ages. The houses are gabled and decayed. The streets are narrow and filthy. You know, without map or guide-book, that you are amongst the white slaves of Capital ; in the cess-pool of the grim monster Luxury ; which feeds on men and women, and keeps its victims on the garbage from its gilded den. Over half a century ago, one of those silent men who delight to be called in at the death of well-to-do people here established a concern doing business without the least trouble to patrons, and by methods strickly confidential. At a moment's notice, Mr. Esau Barker undertook to wait upon ladies or gentlemen, in town or country, and transfer dears departed, before they were cold, to the well appointed offices of No. i Back Gravel Lane ; the first corner house from Houndsditch.

It was for wise purposes ordained that those gloomy premises should, in my early boyhood, possess a strange fascination for me. The main window had had the bottom row of lights removed ; the spaces being closed with dirty, black panels ; in the centre of each of which a great effort had been made at ornamentation. The central panel bore a brazen Christian cross of very neglected appearance ; after the manner of true Christianity : on either side of it, a brazen Sun refused to shine on the verdigris-spotted cross : and the Suns, in turn, were flanked by heavy handles, also of brass ; very much reminding one of second-hand door-knockers, long out of date. Against the top row of panes, plates of tin, stamped with emblems of grief — weeping trees and cheru bims — lent a little brightness to the prevailing gloom.

The shutters of the window at the side of the premises were never removed, because of a scarcity of glass and brass. An emblazoned door, in two portions, at the top of three steps, led into the private apartments. The novelty, however, which most touched my boyish taste, was between the brazen ornaments and the block-tin angels ; and was, alas, a source of years of misery to me ; mingled, thank Heaven, with years of joy, Reclining from a large, well-bound copy of The Pilgrim's Progress was a little model, oaken chest, containing the wax-work of some fine, chubby-faced child ; a grim adver tisement, such as one now sees where death-rates (and all other rates) are high and tax-payers are the sport of disease and chartered corruption. After dark, a dismal dip illuminated the saffron-coloured doll I longed to make a present to my sister.

We had been taken by my mother to Salmon's Wax works, in Baker Street ; and I wondered, as I stared through Barker's dull panes, whether the baby belonged to either of the kings and queens we saw there, resplendent in plush and rabbit skins. Rarely a week passed without my spending a quiet five minutes at the corner of Gravel Lane. I might have tired of the sight had not Mrs. Barker one day felt ashamed of the state of her husband's advertisement. As my interest began to wane, she dusted the baby and provided it with a clean shroud. I remember feeling very pleased and telling Sally Sarson all about it, as we chatted in bed that night. Next day, I ran down Gravel Lane to see if any other improvements were affected. I was rewarded. Mr. Barker himself had been at work upon it. He had furnished the wax-work with eyes and stood it up in the window.

I made faces to it. I talked to it. I enticed it with the top of a brass candlestick, a treasure I had in my pocket. And I felt vexed, because it did not ' crow ' in response to my efforts to please ; instead of gazing at me so steadily-like the darling of a father with glass eyes. The Barkers' gruesome wax-work formed the tiny source of the great stream of adventure and experience down which we are to journey together ; sometimes for me to weep, sometimes to laugh, sometimes to curse, sometimes to bless ; always, I trust, for my reader to sail pleasantly onward to the ocean of my sorrow and my gladness, While I was, one day, puzzling over the extraordinary waking of that model, a covered waggon — a wide-wheeled, blanket-sheltered vehicle, of a type still to be seen in a few remote rural districts — drawn by a fine pair of dapped greys, slowly rumbled up to i, Back Gravel Lane, from Houndsditch.

The driver, was dressed like a teamster : — black, soft, wide-brimmed hat and red neckerchief ; shepherd's flaxen frock, to below the knees, cunningly worked at the breast and wrists after the manner of clerical vestments ; blue, worsted stockings ; and rough, heavy boots, warranted suitable for heir-looms. He did not look like a countryman, nevertheless. He was pale and agitated, observed a proud silence, and handled his horses with the command of an experienced 'whip.' His horses, too, appeared out of place drawing such a waggon ; the strong made, heavily-mounted harness hanging loosely about their bodies ; and their actions almost amount ing to resentment of degradation. They were, indeed, splendid animals ; built for speed, not for the removal of heavy loads. Their action was perfect. So full of fire were they that, though they had evidently been a long journey — at a pace very different to that at which they entered Gravel Lane — they were with difficulty restrained ; flakes of foam falling from champed bits, and steady wreaths of vapour from collars and traces.

The disguised driver— for he certainly was disguised — jumped down immediately. Hastening to the heads of his horses, he patted them on their necks, and praised, in subdued tones, their faithful service. Poor brutes ! They were innocent accessories to an awful crime, and seemed to sniff the damning evidence behind them. Mr. Barker (up to this, hidden by the curtains) followed the driver from the waggon. , I observed that he was of middle age ; a strong made man, of medium height, with a massive head ; the forehead protruding, over dark, restless eyes, like a sixteenth century gable. His hair was black and remarkably sparse ; the baldness being made doubly noticeable by reason of the surviving locks having been skilfully trained to cover the roof of the gable in well defined stripes of fertility ; the stripes, when disordered, dangling about his head as grace fully as the feathers of a dusting-brush.

His thin, clean shaven face was well featured ; the nose, long and aquiline ; the mouth, firm and refined. He was very nimble ; possessed a harsh, carping kind of voice, used like a lash ; and wore a rusty 'stove-pipe' silk hat, a black, full-dress suit, of the same age as the ' stove-pipe,' and linen apparently washed in coffee. He tapped gently, with his knuckles, against the glass panels of his front door. I heard the driver say, in refined, vehement tones " For gwacious sake, undertaka, be quick, or I shall faint." Not a minute, my 1 , Sir driver" — replied Barker, blundering — " Not a minute." A young woman immediately answered the knocking. I assumed she was Mrs. Barker, whom I knew by sight ; but could not see her distinctly from where I stood. She admitted her husband and closed the door ; the uneasy driver trying, the while, to whistle "Jump, Jim Crow !

" which he did so indifferently as to convince one that he was not accustomed to such low music. I, accordingly, gave him a lesson from another choice ditty of the period, " Pop goes the Weasel." He paid for the lesson with a black look : very proper currency at an undertaker's, you will say. I instinctively saw that unusual business was on hand. I, therefore, passed to the back of the waggon and tried to see what was inside it. There was an abundance of straw ; in ths midst of which I could see something large and crimson. What it was I determined soon to know. In the meantime, I returned to the shop. I heard an altercation inside ; a woman's voice, shrill and angry, almost drowning those of two excited men. "You shall have no hand in it," I heard her protest. 1 ' Cease yer patter mistress " replied a strange, discordant, masculine voice.

"You'll hev a conquest of people round the door." I might have heard more, had I been allowed ; for, up to this point, my presence had been unheeded. But the driver, observing that I was listening, left his horses, and drove me around the corner with his long whip. If I had only taken heed of his threats and went my way ! I might never have been chosen to throw light upon a deed of darkness ! _ might never have known that royal blood ran through my veins ! I might never have seen the beloved of my manhood ! I might never have met " The Woman with a Babe' s Heart ! " I might never have interested myself in her life's mystery ! I might never have solved it ! I might never have shared her trials : have suffered for her and her's worse than death. But I should not murmur. Jehovah's ways are wonderful ways : bevond the ken of ephemeral man.

For many reasons it was well that I loitered in Gravel Lane. There is a bright as well as a dark side to this story. I have shared their triumphs : avenged their dead : brought vile wretches to acknowledge their innocence. Memories are mine more precious than life itself. I, therefore, repeat that it was well that I, as a child, pryed into Mr. Esau Barker's secrets. Whatever the significance of the wrangle the waggoner did not approve of my hearing, Barker soon came out and held a short confidential talk with him ; bringing out a drink of water, to prevent his fainting. While the driver was slaking his thirst, the owner of the discordant voice stood in the open doorway. He proved to be a strange being, as unnatural as his voice. Tony Mummery was a black-a-moor whom the climate of Britain had bleached with considerable success.

His age, perhaps, was over half a century ; for his skin was as wrinkled as a dried pippin and somewhat of the same hue. Iron-gray ringlets almost covered a narrow forehead, and grizzly eyebrows a pair of black and white eyes ; making more noticeable an ill-shaped nose and thick-lipped, gaping mouth, about which a few bristles struggled defiantly to survive the cutting treatment of Master Lather. Yet, the black blessed the day on which he was born. He was as proud as Lucifer. If seedy, his black was whole. If not of eighteen carat gold, the ring on his finger was of great weight ; and his watch and guard were of very attractive make ; these occupying his thoughts more than the seam across his nose or the abnormal length of his arms. He appeared alike proud of his calling, Mute Extra ordinary to Mr. Esau Barker ; who, chancing to look around, ordered him into the shop with a crack or two of his snappish tongue.

The black out of sight, the waggon was turned about and backed over the curb, close to the door ; Mr. Barker returning to the shop. A minute or two, perhaps five, elapsed. Several idlers began to gather. When the undertaker came out and saw them, he ordered them away : but there they remained ; like myself, determined to see a sight, to kill time. For certain, Mr. Barker did not want spectators. He tried to tire them. He sent the black out with a few deals ; a ruse which partly succeeded. Everyone left, except a drunken hag and a very small boy — my unfortunate self — little imagining that I was watch ing the blotting out of the sacrifice of one to whom I might justly claim blood relationship — and in whose cold, stiff, right hand there was a priceless treasure which, in due season, would settle all doubts, and prove the final link in a chain of evidence bringing his murderers to justice.

At length, delay getting more dangerous than onlookers, Mr. Barker, for the third time, consulted the teamster. A bright idea had struck one or the other. They smiled, or rather tried to smile — it was a miserable smirk in each case. The smirks fled. Barker again went out to the black. Assis ted by him, a full-sized coffin was borne to the waggon. Hurriedly lifting the woollen curtain of the waggon, the undertaker pushed the chest in amongst the straw. The teamster groaned in mental agony. His accomplice asked the woman, in tones mockingly polite, if she was 'satisfied.' " When Jack Ketch has yer I shall be," was the unexpected retort. And Barker without replying, jumped into the wag gon ; which rumbled slowly towards Devonshire Square. They did not go far, reader. Such crimes rarely go unpunished.

Conscience carries a keen dagger. All that harrowing uncertainty was the outcome of blood-guiltiness. It availed them not. It availed not the clergyman, who waited, in painful suspense, for the return of the dapped greys. In a few years all was to be clear. The waggon, after proceeding two or three hundred yards, was doubled about and reappeared. As it again reached No. I, the undertaker called to the driver to come to him. It was clear that Mr. Barker had been at work amongst the straw and had not succeeded in his task. The worthy teamster, first anxiously looking at his restive horses, stopped as directed, and disappeared also under the blanket covering. In a minute or two, both men looked up and down the lane. No idlers were now to be seen. They, therefore, got down, rushed to the back of the vehicle, and tried to drag the chest towards them.

It was empty when put in. It was not empty now. They could not move it. Esau stood perplexed thereat. Then, running into his shop, he cried " Nan ! Nan ! Tony ! Tony ! — Anybody ! — Help ! " Mrs. Nancy Barker was gone. But the black-a-moor hurried from the back of the premises to the assistance of his master. Together they tackled the chest, this time moving it. Satan held the horses. The guilty men staggered into the shop. The door was closed. The last trace of that foul murder seemed blotted out. My narrative, so far, is rather a halting narrative ; for my old heart sickens as my young heart then sickened within me. I fancied I heard them let fall their grim burden. Another dip was lighted. The door was unlocked. The driver, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, came out; blasphemously exclaiming "Thank Heaven!

Thank Heaven ! He is gone ! " He took a parting look at Gravel Lane, mounted the box, and drove off, at a smart trot, towards Mile End, to meet me again, after many years, face to face. It was now dusk. I should have been home. I knew my mother would be angry with me. " Very likely" thought I, " Sally Sarson is searching for the lost lamb. Perhaps father is on his way to Bow Street. Perhaps a man with a cocked hat and a big bell is crying ' Oh hear 1 Oh hear ! ' Such thoughts flitted through my young mind. They did not send me home, however. On the contrary, I crossed the street and put one of my eyes against Mr. Esau Barker's key-hole. The key was in the lock ; but I noticed a larger hole in the middle of the door, through which the shutters were bolted by night. It was pierced to enable me to bear witness to that dastardly murder.

I heard Barker and Tony talking. I grew eager to know the subject. Certain of no interference, I put my right eye to the bolt-hole ; to catch, if possible, what was going on inside ; to see the victim they had been at such pains to dispose of unseen. I saw it all. The vile work of a noble House was before me. In the line of sight was the coffin taken from the waggon. They slowly lifted from it a body wrapped in crimson damask; a curtain or table cover, trimmed with deep, yellow, silken fringe. Beneath, was a piece of carpet ; of deeper red, almost brick-colour, mixed with black. This the undertaker took out and threw to the back of the shop, as if for distruc tion. It was not long in the line of sight ; but I noticed it had been cut from a larger piece, the edges been very jagged indeed, and frayed in some places ; an observation which subsequently proved of the utmost importance ; as also my seeing them remove from the coffin what appeared to be a leaden shell.

Up to this, I had not seen the body itself. Mummery, however, to satisfiy his own curiosity, threw back the damask. It did not need the green cord, tied tightly about the neck of the victim, to tell one he had certainly met a voilent death. Before me, forsooth, was the victim of some villain or villains who relied on Mr. Esau Barker to hide their guilt for ever. A few hours thence, it was hoped, the last trace of that crime would have been blotted out. It was not to be so. The murder would out. A child was the chosen avenger. At the time, however, I was much perplexed as to whether the man was dead. I thought of the mysterious resurrection of the wax-work. I had never seen a corpse before. Though I assumed that he was dead, I expected to see him move and speak, arise and walk. In the midst of my bewilderment, the black, hearing his master coming, replaced the damask.

But I had seen enough— too much for the peace of mind of the guilty. Ihe victim's right hand was clenched tightly in death — and in its cold, clay palm, unknown to his enemies, he carried to his grave a damning piece of evidence against them. 1 tried to depart. I was conscious I had better lessen the distance between myself and Brick Lane. A surprise, however, was in store for me. I had but just adjusted my other eye to take a last peep at the evidence of Barker's guilt, when I became aware, abruptly aware, of the presence of someone sharing my interest in passing events. An unseen hand closed the idle eye ; the one engaged, with a violent shock, was forced against the door ; and in less time than it takes a Peeping Tom to look through a key hole, a loud bang and a second fight of mental rockets sent my head crashing through the glass of Mr. Esau Barker's front door.

Who do you think was by my side ? Mrs. Barker, usually called Nan, had put an end to my prying. Vexed with her devoted ; she must have gone out at the side door when the men brooked no interference. She now wreaked her spleen on me ; intimating her return by thus boxing my compass. Mrs. Barker dreaded the consequences of her husband's crime. When she heard the glass smash, the alarming shouts of the undertaker and his mute (who passed hurriedly through the premises to the garden wall) and, worse still, saw a scarlet stream trickling down my fore head, she dreaded the consequences ten-fold. But there was no time for indecision. Mrs. Barker saw peril. She faced it. Gripping me by the collar, she dragged me around the corner ; lifted me into the house, most unceremoniously ; and threw me to the floor, shrieking as piteously as a young porker aware of his imminent conversion into chines and chitlings.

Chapter II

The life of the child witness trembles in a balance. a»^RS. NANCY BARKER was right. Her hnsband's ■*a___. greatest danger was from passers by. One or two, who saw the assault, stopped to remonstrate with her. She ' ought to know better ; ' they wished they knew ' where I lived ; ' she deserved ' seven days ; ' and the heroic threat of one to punch her head ' for two pins,' were some of the remarks of a tumultuous scene. Out of sight, however, I passed out of mind. It was not the Divine will that I should go my way as they went their way. I was taken to a room, at the back of the shop, next to the one into which Mrs. Barker had hurled me ; a dismal place, fitted as an armoury of Death ; black staves frowning in flexible authority on whomsoever served Mr. Esau Barker ; and an assortment of dark cloaks and russet beavers frowning inflexible authority on the black staves, as to gether they daily surrounded corruption and poverty with a little respect : two chairs and two planks on tressels affording sitting accommodation to the wearers of the old clothes and the bearers of the staves.

On the planks, a broken quart jug and two dirty glasses remained since the last health had been drank to a soul entering Hades. I took a furtive glance at these things, as by their side I was soon seated by Mrs. Barker. She plainly enough realized that her husband was an accessory, after the fact, to a brutal, cold-blooded murder. What for ? So far as he was concerned, the crime was an utterly purposeless crime. The wretched man, whose mortal remains were lying, stiff and stark, in the shop adjoining, had never done him nor his the slightest wrong. He knew not his name nor his nationality. He never enquired how he had come to so untimely an end ; whether by accident, by suicide, in a quarrel, or assassinated with malice afore thought. The appearance of the body pointed conclusively to the latter ; to foul murder, to nothing short of it.

Yet the miserable Barker had asked few questions, had done his work with despatch, and was to be paid accordingly. He argued with, but did not convince himself it was no part of his business to ascertain why or how a precious life, in the heyday of manhood, had been so ruthlessly sacrificed. His own life was another matter. Above the clink, clink of the glass, he heard the shrill voice of his missing Nan. Observing, at a glance, the situation, he hurried into the shop ; blew out the candles ; took the one from the window ; and hastened to express his mind to us as freely as he considered we deserved. " It's my fault," began Mrs. Barker, " The young monkey was prying through the door. I slapped his face. His head, boy like, bumped through the glass and " " Through the devil ! " interrupted her enraged husband.

"Before night, as-sure-as-your-name's-Nan, we're in the jug. My pretty-cad-aver-boxer. Look at him ! — Blood ! — Blood ! — Blood ! — all over the place, inside-and-out. Accursed — bungler. If worst comes to worst, we swing side-by-side. As for you— youngster," said he, turning to me " I've two minds to — to — to make you pay for the glass." A momentary impulse of ill omen to me passed through Barker's mind. The negro, Tony Mummery, — who had graduated in back-slang in the dens of the ' East End,' and thereby almost lost the dialect of the West Indies, — saw it immediately, and sniffed blood like a famished hound. " Scrag ! " he advised, tersely, " Es well be topp'd for a sheep es " " Rogue ! " cried his mistress, busy dressing my wounded forehead. " We shall all see Newgate as it is. I'll tidy the boy and send him home with a flea in his ear.

What does he know, poor little fellow ! " " Throttle the imp ! " continued the black, rubbing his hands gleefully. " Searchers '11 trace him," replied Barker, not quite endorsing the black's sinister promptings. "Searchers?" rejoined the black, contemptuously. " Dis senters ground ! — No Certifikits ! Boy lost !— Yah ! — Yah ! —Yah ! " "He's too well known — several saw glass smash "— replied Barker, perplexed. "Wound fatal! — No address!" suggested the black, doggedly pressing for my despatch. " 'Twont wash ; I tellyOu ! " snapped his master. " He knows it wont," added Mrs. Barker ; who, over whelmed with forebodings of further crime, tired of the argument. She had washed the wound — which, though not deep, had bled freely — had put on a plaster, and had tied my head in a 'belcher'; a dark blue handkerchief, with large white spots, each dotted a darker blue in the middle ; a pattern for which, ever since that fatal day, I bear a fond regard.

She wished to set me free. Prevented from doing so, she did her best to assure me of safety and gave me an apple to still my trembling limbs. Either her kind words or the apple had a wonderful effect on my nerves. I almost forgot the corpse in crimson damask. An extraordinary measure of assurance and goodness took hold of me. I began to eat and look upon Mrs Barker as a friend, eying the while the coloured enemy ; who, deprived of the pleasure of " scragging " me, sought to effect an awful compromise to gratify his murderous instincts ; a compro mise more likely to encompass the ruin of his master than my death even. " Cut out his tongue ! No blabbing " he began. "What?" hissed Mrs. Barker. "You black old sinner. Are you not afraid God will strike you dumb? I'll tongue you ! " — and she put my little head under her shawl, and pressed it to her side affectionately.