The Yoke of Freedom. A tale of home

Front matter

A TALE OF HOME BY CHARLES JAMES U^ AUTHOR OF 'ON TURNHAM GREEN,' 'AT THE SIGN OF THE OSTRICH,' ETC. 1 For all we thought and loved and did And hoped and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit.' Tennyson. LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON Publishers in ©rtiiv.trg to Jtjcr Jlajests the HJtueii 1896 {All rights reserved \ CONTENTS :hapter page I. THE TOOLS ..... I II. THE WORKMAN . . . .20 III. BADGER-BAITING . . . .40 IV. QUAILS AT A DISCOUNT . . '57 V. HIS LIFE IN HIS HANDS . . -71 VI. BACON A LUXURY . . . .84 VII. FOX AND GEESE .... IO3 VIII. WIND AND TIDE .... I24 IX. FACE TO FACE . . . . 140 X. DEBTOR AND CREDITOR . . 153 XI. SALT — AND PEPPER . . .165 XII. ' DANTON, NO WEAKNESS!' . . . l8l XIII. A CONFIDENCE . . . -197 XIV. NOOSE TIGHTENS . . . .211 CONTENTS VI CHAPTER |,AGE XV.

RESCUED AND LOST ! . - ' 9 XVI. LOADSTONE ROCK .... 230 XVII. THE WIND ..... -44 XVIII. A FAREWELL . . . 260 XIX. A BORN LEADER . . . • 277 XX. SALE AND BARTER .... 297 XXI. THE HEART OF A STORM . . • 311 XXII. THE END ..... 33I

Chapter I. The Tools

The town wherein the chief part of what follows in this little tale of mine came to happen, shall go by the name of Black church. Fifty or sixty years ago it was a rural village on the gentle slope of a hill rising up from a broad, silver river that goes coiling away amongst swampy, tree less marshes, to the distant level of the deep blue sea stretching out fiat on the horizon ever so far away. Blackchurch is changed now. Scraggs's Factory, covering acres and acres of land by the river's side, has sprung up since then and dominated everything in Black church. By day there is always a heavy smoke-cloud hanging above Blackchurch, and by night a sullen red glow is cast upon the sky. For the furnaces at Scraggs's never go out ; and there is always a thump ing and a whirring in the Blackchurch air, which is the result of machinery in motion behind those hundreds of yards of long, formal, many-windowed buildings radiating from the one tall, gaunt chimney that perpetually pours out wreathing smoke.

Streets of little soulless cottages — all exactly alike to a brick — have sprung up round Scraggs's, and straggled up the hill from the river almost to the ruins of the old castle that crowns that hill at its summit. Yes, the mean little houses have almost reached the outer bastion of the crumbling castle, with its jagged, ivy grown walls and its long, narrow slits for the shooting forth of defensive arrows ; have almost reached to where, in its decay, the old Feudalism which was of Might looks grimly down at the new Feudalism which is of Agitator-goaded Labour. Scraggs's Factory stands on the far brink of the river from the rows of trim new cottages stretching to the old castle's outer wall, and an iron bridge with trellis work sides has replaced the ancient narrow stone one that spanned a silver stream in days gone by.

Scraggs's has had a dis astrous effect upon the water : sucking it in silver at one point, and shooting it out lead a little lower down. All the workpeople living one side of the water, and the factory being on the other, it follows that all the ' hands ' cross it every day, out and home on their way to and from work. Such an interminable trooping of clean, work-worn faces one way — at I don't know what early hour in the morning — and such an interminable trooping of dirty, work-worn faces the other way — at I don't know what late hour in the evening ! Over the bridge they go ! It positively bends and trembles beneath the many feet ; is positively worn bv them ; and has its dark trellis sides scored with wavering lines where children trail door-keys or beer-cans or gin bottles against them in going by — perhaps where they trail their bony elbows against them : for in Blackchurch, alas ! there are many elbows as thin and angular and sharp as any door-key.

They are a bony set altogether, the Blackchurch people. The faces of the children are all unduly old. Not a pale, deep-eyed work-girl of eighteen but looks a good ten years more ; and boys of thirteen are cunning in all dark cunning ness, and look like wicked old grandfathers in a state of dotage. A curious, sordid, materialistic place is Blackchurch altogether, where they call the ' hands ' to work by a demon-voiced steam siren-whistle, and dismiss them by the same medium ; where work by fire and steam has entered into and darkened the face of Nature : so that the few trees, and the distant hedgerows, and the old feudal castle ruins on the hill, and the ivy on them, and the gray-towered church down by the water's edge, and the many roofs and chimney-stacks, and the air and the bridge — the very water of the river, too, apparently, for it is black enough — have all ' caught the smoke ' in the superlative degree, and gone into a perpetual mourning for that sweet ' Rest from Labour ' that is dead and buried in Black church past all resurrection.

Even the glorious reds and yellows of the sunset-time cannot do much for Black church, save draw especial attention to its general griminess, and smear the dark river with a golden stain, and make it especially reflective of any stray figure that may chance to be upon the black bridge above it. The only figure to be reflected from it at the moment (the sun being on the point of going off duty after a long, hot, midsummer day) is the figure of a quaint little old woman in an antique bonnet with crape about it, and who wears a black-and-white check shawl wound round her, as though she didn't find eighty degrees in the shade quite warm enough for her. She stands alone, with her back to us, looking through the trellis of the bridge, and waiting for the siren-whistle to blow the workpeople away, in a deafened condition, for the day.

There she stands, rocking herself to and fro with a steady, rhythmic movement, and staring intently down into the stream. The shawl about her is bulged out in front somewhat curiously, and she rocks herself in such manner that this bulge nearly touches the trellis parapet at each move ment, but does not quite touch it. Probably she is waiting for a grandchild ' hand ' to come forth at the siren's bidding and lead her home. But an elfin boy of fourteen comes along presently. He is very slim and weird, very black and oily, and he gnaws a bit of stick he carries — apparently with a view to light refreshment on the way. 'What cheer!' says the weird boy, pausing with the stick still in process of mastication between his teeth. ' Hullo, Sprite !' She turns with her reply, so that her faceis visible.

Bless my soul ! Peggy Betters, by the Powers ! not more than twelve, and her back-view gave her as a grandmother ! ' Is that him as you calls Laddy ?' the weird boy inquires further, bringing his keen, feverishly vivid eyes peeringly nearer to the phenomenal bulge in the check shawl. ' Yes, that's Laddy.' Peggy somewhat opens the shawl as she speaks, and discloses a little waxen face and a head whose fiery hair is just beginning to ruffle into curls. ' Ain't he red, an' no mistake !' Sprite remarks, making critical examination as he speaks, and removing the piece of wood completely from his mouth to speak the clearer. ' 'Tis a pity as he's a cripple !' ' Yes, lad,' Peggy makes answer, in her old, old way. ' You're right ! But then ' —grown suddenly and thoughtfully philo sophic — ' what I often thinks is, it makes him all the dearer and all the sweeter.

Lor ! he is sweet now an' agen ! 'Twould surprise you, no mistake, to know how sweet he is sometimes !' She raises the far-famed Laddy at one end, at this, to exhibit him the better. It is the upper extremity that is thus revealed, and in the action it becomes evident that Peggy carries not only Laddy, but Laddy's refreshment bottled in fine condition, and provided with a foot of indiarubber tubing for the convenience of easy access. ' See how he'll take it !' she says, proudly, inserting the swollen and ivory disked end of the tube into Laddy's mouth ; whereupon he instantly justifies the remark by sucking with an energy and noise really quite surprising. ' What did I tell yer ?' Peggy asks with triumph. ' Lor! there never was the like of Laddy for goodness an' sense! 'Tis a pity about that leg, though, ain't it ?' She holds up the lower end ofthe shawl at the words, and reveals a poor little withered, misshapen leg and foot to the weird boy's glance — a glance that, ever since he had been in proximity to the infant, had been strangely compounded of elfdom, interest and awe. ' Who knows as what he mayn't grow out of it ?' he hazards.

Peggy shook that grave, pale, dark eyed face of hers. ' No,' she said, sadly enough. ' He can't never grow out of it. He is but half a child, you see, after all — that's where it is.' ' Half a child ?' reiterated the weird boy, with symptoms of a congenial interest in the supernatural upon him. ' Half a child?' ' A twin. The other half (as was a girl) died right off with mother. Father says to me, crying as I never see him cry before — " Pegg," he says, " 'tis but half a child, yer see ; but we'll make up for that by givin' him the love what we should have given both. We'll have to love him double, Pegg."

Then the doctor come an' whispered in father's ear, and father turns to me — crying more than ever — an' says : " Pegg»" ne savs-> " we'll have to love him like. as we should have loved him and his little sister and poor mother, too," he says ; " for mother couldn't let the little gal go alone, yer see, Pegg, an' have gone along with 'er." ' The weird boy felt compelled to take a little more timber refreshment at this information, so simply given, and the effect ot the wood — or something else — brought the tears into his glittering eyes, and sent one or two beyond them, to draw zigzag paths, of surprisingly contrasting cleanness, down his grimy cheeks. ' There ! don't take on about it !' Peggy said consolingly. ' 'Twas my father as I was thinking on,' Sprite explained, his voice grown indistinct and shaky of timber and emotion. ' By the time as he were buried, there weren't nothink left for no black — nothink left, for the matter o' that, for anythink beyend bread fur two weeks arter the funeral. 'Twas the hearse what done it,' he added thoughtfully. ' But there ! as mother said, he were a good father to us, an' we couldn't let him be carried to the cemetery when two weeks without meat would pay the hearse !

He were a good father, too, no mistake ! 'Tis all as me and mother can do to keep the home together, that 'tis ! When the rent's paid, an' the Union fees, an' the fees fur Jack Charnel — our Rep-re-sent-a-tive in Parlia ment,' the boy added, with great pride and an especial care in the pronunciation of the syllables that showed he had only got them carefully by heart after hard study — ' when all that is paid, there ain't much left for feeding purposes, I can tell you !' As the two children stood there, so old and weird of mien and manner, so elfin and haggard, and as the baby lay there — so waxen, emaciated and big-eyed — in Peggy's arms, they formed a representative group of all the boy-children and girl children and of all the babies in Black church. ' 'Tis the same with us,' Peggy said, sadly enough. ' 'Tis close sometimes. 'Tis hot, too, where we live.

I wanted father to move higher up the street, so as to get nigher the fields, an' the hedges, an' the Castle; but father dursn't. There be that in the smoky air, you see, as don't make us want so much food — that's where 'tis. If we went higher up, father an' me ud be eating ourselves out o' house an' home. So we stays more towards the bottom of the street, though 'tis dreffle choky there now an' agen.' ■3 ' If it wasn't for the Union money, an' the money fur Jack Charnel, 'twould be better,' Sprite remarked thoughtfully. ' But I s'pose we must pay 'em both up.' ' Yes, they must both be paid,' Peggy told him gravely. ' Father says so. I put it to father once. I said, " Why need we pay them things ?" An' father looked up grave an' earnest — you know his way — an' says, " Why must we pay 'em, Pegg ?" he says ; " I'll tell 'ee.

Because it be right to pay 'em. Right — that's why. Right. Not altogether fur what you an' me will get back from it, fur the day mayn't never come as we shall need it. Not fur us, but fur all as works. Fur the cause o' Labour all over the land. Fur the little babies when they shall ha' crowed to be men an' women. Fur little Laddy theer, when he shall have growed a gray-haired man, maybe, an' shall look back an' say : ' 'Twas what father done have helped along this day. God bless dear father's name for all he pinched an' screwed to help along this day. God bless dear father's name, though the grass ha' bin green above him forty year !' Don t never go fur to question the need o' payin' up the Union or Jack Charnel's money," he says, " for they be right." ' Lor ! Well, I s'pose it be right enough — though nasty.

Most right things be nasty. My ! what's up wi' Laddy ?' He was a bold enough boy in a general way, but he had the genuine male dread of a baby, and, despite his elfdom, started back at least a yard and a half, with the question. Indeed, it was a terrible per formance — so deceptive and unexpected, too ! Laddv had dozed off after taking his refreshment ; then a sweet smile had come upon his face ; then it had deepened until it became a grimace ; then an agony ; then a convulsive, oblong-mouthed howl, with a wild lunging of little waxen hands clenched at an unseen enemy. ' Lor ! Whatever is it ?' inquired Sprite, from his safe distance, divided between curiosity and fear. But Peggy was quite unfluttered and very much equal to thfe occasion. ' Hush ! 'Tis the wind,' she said, pro ceeding to throw the unhappy Laddy over her shoulder and hit him so vigorously on the back, whilst balancing him in that position, as made it seem amazing she didn't hit the frail life out of him on the spot. ' T'is the wind, an' he has it that bad an' frequent 'tis awful !

There, Laddy, then ! Has it got ze naughty wind ? Has it, then ? Never mind ! 'Twill soon be better. There ! 'Tis all gone now — poor Laddy !' No duly certificated monthly nurse could have managed the paroxysm better, or been more certain what to do, or done it more effectively. Whether this skilful treatment alone would have so soon dis pelled the Eolian spirit troubling the child, or whether it wasn't to a great extent aided by the. sudden sound of the steam siren-whistle (the start produced by it apparently bringing matters to a crisis somewhat abruptly), are details immaterial to this narrative : whose point is, that, by the time Laddy was comfortably back in the folds of the black-and-white check shawl again, Peggy's watched-for parent was upon the bridge, homeward bound. There was a good deal ot weariness in Jem Betters' walk all the way from the factory to the first rise of the road for the bridge ; but that weariness vanished as by magic when he caught sight of Peggy and the baby waiting for him on the summit, and he strode on rapidly, and was kissing Peggy and having the shawl withdrawn for him to kiss Laddy, in halsa minute. 'What ha' I got here?' he asked cheerily, at the same time holding up something in a whity-brown paper bag, and doing it with great care. ' What ha' I got here, d'yer s'pose, eh, lass ? — eh, lad ?' with a turn to Sprite, who lounged rather foolishly against the trellis of the bridge, looking on.

As Jem Betters stood there, honourable in his workaday dirt, bright of his inno cent, earnest eyes, and bonily strong of his square-set figure, he seemed the concen trated embodiment of all the Blackchurch men. Nobody knew, or could make the faintest guess at, the contents of the whity-brown paper. Laddy endeavoured manfully to find out by the practical method of grabbing wildly at the bag held in his youthful face. ' Na ! na ! Don't 'ee go an' break 'em,' laughed Betters jovially. ' The young varmint, when he be scarce out o' one hisself.' ' Oh ! then now I know what you've got for supper,' Peggy said radiantly. ' F^ggs ! Lor ! And I am fond of 'em, too ! No mistake but they're good, not too much boiled, an' eaten with bread an' drippin'.' ' Then we'll go an' 'ave 'em !' Jem Betters told her, moving on. ' Sprite, my lad, if you cares for a hegg fur supper, come you in along o' us an' welcome.

There be one fur you an' one fur Pegg, an' as fur me, bread an' drippin' be good enough fur me onny night, fur I ain't no particular taste fur heggs myself.' But it so chanced that the Sprite had a much-delayed errand to go for his mother, and couldn't enjoy the proffered hospitality, so he took himself off at an abrupt angle when they got across the bridge, falling to upon the piece of wood for consolation, and trying, by means of his imagination, to give it an eggy flavour. ' 'Ere ! take the heggs an' give me the lad,' Jem said, a moment later ; and the exchange immediately took place. Thus father and daughter — she carrying the two eggs in the whity-brown paper bag, and he carrying the little crippled child, and talking to it, and without a murmur letting it tug painfully at the sadly gray whiskers fringing his honest, earnest face ; he was but fifty-two — trudged away to the supper of which he had so generously proffered his hard-earned share. ' Why did you offer Sprite to have your egg?' Peggy asked him on the way. ' Because I thought as he looked a bit down in the mouth when he seed the bag,' Jem answered guilelessly. ' 'Cause I holds as so to do were right.' Then Laddy hit him in the eye with surprising vigour, and celebrated that ' getting in with his right ' by another Eolian visitation, that had to be thumped out of his back, as before. ' If only he didn't have quite so much wind,' Peggy said gravely, and quite red in the face with the exertion of beating it out — ' if only he didn't have quite so much wind, how happy we might all of us be !' [ 2° ]

Chapter II. The Workman

In a comfortable room of a set of apart ments in a not unfashionable quarter of London, a man sat over the remnants of a breakfast and smoked a good cigar. Round about him lay scattered a sea of newspapers he had been glancing over in the progress ofhis meal, and had cast aside now that it was finished. He was a man with a pale, close-shaved face, keen dark eyes and wavy black hair, worn rather long. Jack Charnel, thirty-five, Labour Leader and Member of Parliament for Black church ; a man of some superficial educa tion, of many plausible words, and with an impassioned style and manner in public speech which could inflame and excite the hearts of his hearers to a frenzy when he would. Time was, when he had worked with his hands in the Blackchurch Factory, but now he worked entirely with his head, and found it in all ways preferable.

A coming man in every sense of the words, if not, indeed, a come man, securely established upon a sound foundation. Step by step, bit by bit, whilst working at the factory, he had gauged the characters of his fellowwork men, had noted the points of their weakness and their strength, the way in which he could turn those points to his advantage, and the way in which he could not so turn them, and had, when time was ripe, commenced operations on his own account. They must be Free, he told them, to begin with. Freedom is a glorious word to conjure with ; and Jem Betters, whose earnestness and worth made him a man ot THE YOKE UF FREEDOM 22 weight with his fellowworkmen, had risen gravely from the body of the meeting and said : ' Yes, lad, that be good. That be right ; fur 'tis right fur men to be free !' Such a speech from such a man at such a time helped the object of Jack Charnel's meeting greatly.

It was ready to follow him wheresoever he was prepared to lead. What had he to propose to lead them nearer to the glorious goal of Freedom ? The institution of a trades-union amongst them, it seemed, was the first step, and, following that, the affiliation of it with the great trades-union of the kingdom. Those were the first steps. Were they prepared to follow him in that ? He pointed out the vast advantages it would confer upon them in the way of freedom ; how their employer would stand appalled and at their mercy, once they were united — were they prepared to follow him that far? They were! with cheer on cheer. It would bring a better time for their hardworked wives; for their little pale-faced children. They were ! they were ! with rounds of roaring cheers. That was the commencement of Jack Charnel's success.

The second step was to convince those people that they could never hope for real prosperity until they had a spokesman in Parliament. Who so fit a representative as he, conferrer of the first step to Freedom upon them ? Clearly, no one ! But it took money. Those people found it. There was many a pinched and scanty table in Blackchurch for many a week, and many a pale-faced child went supperless to bed ; but those good people, for the sake of their wives and little ones in the future, and for the benefits the sacrifice would ultimately yield them, found the money, and when the election day came round sent Jack Charnel to the head of the poll, and then greeted their new Labour Member with cheer on cheer, and illu minated cottages — on which blazing sight the grim old Castle on the hill looked down, bathed in the doubtful reflection ot the New Feudalism lighting up the relic ofthe Old.

On a sea of excited faces the new Labour Member also looked down that night, not without a certain triumph in his own face, and told them the old order had given place to the new. In the future, with a representative of their own, they might look on themselves as already Free. Cheer on cheer once more, and such a demonstration of Freedom from the newly-enfranchised ones, that the opposition candidate was greeted with brickbats and rotten eggs by way of outward applica tion ; and his small band of supporters somewhat resenting this form of treatment, Freedom proved itself to extend to fight ing, and wild disorder, and the trampling to death of two tiny children in the con fusion ofthe moment. The new-made member was dragged to the railway-station by an enthusiastic crowd that night with a face wreathed in smiles; but in two darkened rooms two mothers sat amid all the triumphant roaring and flaring of the town, with their heads bent over two little crushed and crumpled figures, dead of excessive Freedom.

And grimly unmoved upon the hill, the stony ruins of the Old Feudalism looked down stolidly upon the creation of the New. From that moment to this, when Jack Charnel sits over the remnants of his breakfast, smoking a cigar, his career has been easy to him. A little intellect, backed by a great deal of brass, will carry a man almost anywhere, and when the owner ship of a Labour newspaper is added, quite anywhere. Labour representative and owner and editor of the Cap of Liberty make Jack Charnel a personage in the House of Commons. The Right Honourable Gentleman, the figurehead of the Government, has been heard to ask with some trepidation, when discussing a new measure, how Charnel would take it ; and has been known to add, on hearing the method of Charnel's taking it was doubtful, that the thing had better be left alone until it could be found out for certain.

Duchesses on the eager look-out for novelties for their garden or dinner parties often invite Charnel as a kind of horrible, interesting sensation — as a warranted-tame panther might be provided — for the entertainment of their friends ; and rank old Tory gentle men of rank have been observed to keep a close but surreptitious glance upon him at the table, lest he should make sudden onslaught on their vitals with the whole armoury of Mappin and Webb. To these feasts and festivals Jack Charnel goes with a light heart, and goodness knows how much pinching and screwing and self-denial embodied in his fashionable clothes and elegant boots. Little Sue had three nightly suppers of bread without dripping to provide that simply chaste cambric tie. Fathers innumerable cut their beer down by half, and abstained wholly from tobacco, for I know not how long, to pay for that excellently-cut dress suit.

Mothers without number have gone out on Sunday without any gloves at all, to keep up that constant supply of spot less lavender ones, which delicately cover the hands of Jack Charnel every night, and lightly press those of dainty Duchesses. Out of a tribute of the people's blood and bone do such vampires as Jack Charnel strut before the world gorgeously arrayed. In such wise has the New Feudalism replaced the Old ! When he has finished his cigar and his newspapers, this Friend of the People (as he loves to be called) goes down in a cab to the office of the Cap of Liberty, attends to his correspondence, interviews many individuals — officials of trades-unionism, and others — lunches comfortably and well, and then, once more taking a cab, hies him to the House of Commons cheerily. It is ' question-time ' in the House ; but that is of daily occurrence, and nothing.

But it happens, also, to be question-time in Jack Charnel's heart, and that is of such rare occasion as to be a very great deal. He leans back in his place, with his eyes closed, and a series of questions that are very annoying recurring to his brain behind them. Whither is he leading these true, honest, earnest, innocent followers of his down at Blackchurch and elsewhere ? for he is the general Friend ot the People now, not only at Blackchurch, but all over England where work is done by human hands, and that is everywhere. If he could do with out the people's aid, and were independent, would he teach them what he teaches them now ? Would he ever in his wildest, callowest youth have taught them what he has taught them, had he not been compelled to draw a living out of their confidence and their privations ?

To his own heart, is what he teaches them in his speeches, and through the Cap, false or true ? Air and light and movement are neces sary to dispel these haunting demons of unanswered and unanswerable questions. He passes out of the House presently, out of the precincts of the House, walks on to Westminster Bridge, and stands still there to get what water-breeze may be stirring that hot June day. Stands upon it, and looks down at the eddying stream and the steamboats, surrounded by the crowding of many busy feet. His personal appearance is pretty well known, and rough-clad workmen, with voices softening strangely as they do it, give him a ' God bless you, sir !' or a ' Thank vou, sir, for what you're a-doin' for us as can't do for ourselves !' in going by him ; and women, huddling babies to their breasts, turn those babies' faces towards him, and whisper that he is their friend, and is bringing better times and more food for them all in the glad future. sack Charnel takes himself away after a few moments of this public adoration, and re-enters the House. ' I never had these grippings ot con science before to-night,' he tells himself, half angrily. ' Why the deuce do I have them now, I wonder?' ' Charnel, are you going to Lady Badger to-night ?' He is in the lobby, and a man, often spoken of as a future Home Secretary, puts the question with a laugh in the tone of his voice as he does so. ' I've accepted ; but that doesn't say I shall put in an appearance, does it ?' ' It won't be Jack Charnel, if you don't!