Sybil, Or, The Two Nations

by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli

  It was a cloudy, glimmering dawn. A cold withering east wind blewthrough the silent streets of Mowbray. The sounds of the night had diedaway, the voices of the day had not commenced. There reigned a stillnesscomplete and absorbing.

  Suddenly there is a voice, there is movement. The first footstep of thenew week of toil is heard. A man muffled up in a thick coat, and bearingin his hand what would seem at the first glance to be a shepherd'scrook, only its handle is much longer, appears upon the pavement. Hetouches a number of windows with great quickness as he moves rapidlyalong. A rattling noise sounds upon each pane. The use of the longhandle of his instrument becomes apparent as he proceeds, enabling himas it does to reach the upper windows of the dwellings whose inmateshe has to rouse. Those inmates are the factory girls, who subscribein districts to engage these heralds of the dawn; and by a strictobservance of whose citation they can alone escape the dreaded fine thatawaits those who have not arrived at the door of the factory before thebell ceases to sound.

  The sentry in question, quitting the streets, and stooping through oneof the small archways that we have before noticed, entered a court. Herelodged a multitude of his employers; and the long crook as it were bysome sleight of hand seemed sounding on both sides and at many windowsat the same moment. Arrived at the end of the court, he was about totouch the window of the upper story of the last tenement, when thatwindow opened, and a man, pale and care-worn and in a melancholy voicespoke to him.

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

  "Has she left Webster's?"

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

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

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

  "And how is your good woman?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "If a society that has been created by labour suddenly becomesindependent of it, that society is bound to maintain the race whose onlyproperty is labour, from the proceeds of that property, which has notceased to be productive.

  "When the class of the Nobility were supplanted in France, they did notamount in number to one-third of us Hand-Loom weavers; yet all Europewent to war to avenge their wrongs, every state subscribed to maintainthem in their adversity, and when they were restored to their owncountry, their own land supplied them with an immense indemnity. Whocares for us? Yet we have lost our estates. Who raises a voice for us?Yet we are at least as innocent as the nobility of France. We sinkamong no sighs except our own. And if they give us sympathy--whatthen? Sympathy is the solace of the Poor; but for the Rich, there isCompensation."

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

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

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

  "Why does not Harriet come?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "And baby?"

  "He sleeps still."

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

  "We have borrowed too often," said Warner.

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


  "Amen!" said Warner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "And why did he not?"

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

  The baby woke and began to cry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "It will not annoy you long, Mary," said her husband: "I can pay nomore rent; and I only wonder they have not been here already to take theweek."

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

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

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

  "Bah!" said the husband.

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

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

  "Oh! then she is a nun?"

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

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

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

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

  "My name is Warner."

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

  "Pray enter."

  And there entered SYBIL.

  Book 2 Chapter 14