by G. A. Henty
" I can't see him, Abijah. I can't see him."
" I think you had better see him, ma'am. You always do see him, you know, and it will look so strange if. you don't. There, I will pop these things into the drawers again and hide the box."
Abijah bustled about actively, and before Mrs. Mul-ready had time to take any decided step Dr. Green knocked at the door and came in.
"How are you to-day, Mrs. Mulready?" he asked cheerfully. "This is a joyful day indeed for us all. The whole place is wild with the news, and I expect we shall be having a deputation presently to congratulate Ned."
" I am not feeling very well," Mrs. Mulready said faintly. " The shock has been too much for me."
"Very natural, very natural, indeed," Dr. Green said cheerily. "We could hardly hope it would be otherwise; but after this good news I expect we shall soon make a woman of you again. Your son will be the most popular man in the place. People will not know how to make enough of him. Porson and I, who have been cheering; him all along, will have to snub him now or his head will be turned. Now let me feel your pulse. Dear! dear! this will not do at all; it's going like a mill-engine. This will never do. If you do not calm yourself we shall be having you in bed again for a long bout. I will send
you a bottle of soothing medicine. You must take it every two hours, and keep yourself perfectly quiet. There, I will not talk to you now about this good news, for I see that you are not fit to stand it. You must lie down on the sofa at once, and not get off again to-day. I will look in this evening and see how you are."
Frightened at the threat that if she were not quiet she might be confined to her bed for weeks, Mrs. Mulready obeyed orders, took her medicine when it arrived, and lay quiet on the sofa. For a long time the sedative failed to have any effect. Every five minutes throughout the day there were knocks at the door. Every one who knew Ned, and many who did not, called to congratulate him. Some, like Mr. Thompson, made a half apology for having so long doubted him. A few, like Mr. Simmonds, were able heartily to assure him that they had never in their hearts believed it. Ned was too full of gratitude and happiness to cherish the slightest animosity, and he received warmly and thankfully the congratulations which were showered upon him.
"He looks another man," was the universal comment of his visitors; and, indeed, it was so. The cloud which had so long overshadowed him had passed away, and the look of cold reserve had vanished with it, and he was prepared again to receive the world as a friend. He was most moved when, early in the day, Mr. Porson and the whole of the boys arrived. As soon as he had left Mrs. Mulready, Dr. Green had hurried down to the school-house with the news, and Mr. Porson, as soon as he heard
it, had announced it from his desk, adding that after such news as that he could not expect them to continue their lessons, and that the rest of the day must therefore be regarded as a holiday. He yielded a ready assent when the boys entreated that they might go in a body to congratulate Ned.
Ned was speechless for some time as his old friend wrung his hand, and his former school-fellows clustered round him with a very Babel of congratulations and good wishes. Only the knowledge that his mother was ill above prevented them from breaking into uproarious cheering. In the afternoon, hearing that his mother was still awake, Ned, accompanied by Mr. Porson, went out for a stroll, telling Harriet that she was to remain at the open door while he was away, so as to prevent anyone from knocking. It was something of a trial to Ned to walk through the street which he had passed along so many times in the last year oblivious of all within it. Every man and woman he met insisted on shaking hands with him. Tradesmen left their shops and ran out to greet him, and there was no mistaking the general enthusiasm which was felt on the occasion, and the desire of every one to atone as far as possible for the unmerited suffering which had been inflicted on him.
When he returned at six o'clock he found Harriet still on the watch, and she said in low tones that Abijah had just come down-stairs with the news that her mistress had fallen asleep.
"I should not think anyone more will come, Harriet, but
I will get you to stop here for a little longer. Then we must fasten up the knocker and take off the bell. The doctor says that it is all-important that my mother should get a long and undisturbed sleep."
Dr. Green came in again in the evening, and had a long chat with Ned. It was nearly midnight before Mrs. Mulready awoke. On opening her eyes she saw Ned sitting at a short distance from the sofa. She gave a sudden start, and then a look of terror came into her face.
Ned rose to his feet and held out his arms with the one word " Mother!"
Mrs. Mulready slid from the sofa and threw herself on her knees with her hands clasped.
"Oh! my boy, my boy!" she cried, "can you forgive me?" Then, as he raised her in his arms, she fainted.
It was a happy party, indeed, that assembled round the breakfast-table next morning. Mrs. Mulready was at the head of the table making tea, looking pale and weak but with a look of quiet happiness and contentment on her face, such as her children had never seen there before, but which was henceforth to be its habitual expression.
Ned did not carry out his original intention of entering the army. Mr. Simmonds warmly offered to make the application for a commission for him, but Ned declined. He had made up his mind, he said, to stick to the mill; there was plenty of work to be done there, and he foresaw that with a continued improvement of machinery there was a great future for the manufacturing interests of England.
The Luddite movement gradually died out. The high rewards offered for the discovery of the murderers of Mr. Horsfall and of the assailants of Cartwright's mill had their effect. Three croppers, Mellor, Thorpe, and Smith, were denounced and brought to trial. All three had been concerned in the murder, together with Walker, who turned King's evidence for the reward—Mellor and Thorpe having fired the fatal shots. The same men had been the leaders in the attack on Cartwright's mill.
They were tried at the assizes at York on the 2d of January, 1813, with sixty-four of their comrades, before Baron Thomas and Judge Le Blanc, and were found guilty, although they were defended by Henry (afterward Lord) Brougham. Mellor, Thorpe, and Smith were executed three days afterwards. Fourteen of the others were hung, as were five Luddites who were tried before another tribunal.
After this wholesale act of severity the Luddite disturbances soon came to an end. The non-success which had attended their efforts, and the execution of all their leaders, thoroughly cowed the rioters, and their ranks were speedily thinned by the number of hands who found employment in the rapidly-increasing mills in the district. Anyhow from that time the Luddite conspiracy ceased to be formidable.
The Sankeys' mill at Marsden flourished greatly under Ned's management. Every year saw additions to the buildings and machinery until it became one of the largest concerns in Yorkshire. He was not assisted, as he had at one time hoped he should be, by his brother in the management; but he was well contented when Charlie, on leaving school, declared his wish to go to Cambridge, and then to enter the church, a life for which he was far better suited by temperament than for the active life of a man of business.
The trial through which Ned Sankey had passed had a lasting effect upon his character. Whatever afterwards occurred to vex him in business he was never known to utter a hasty word, or to form a hasty judgment He was ever busy in devising schemes for the benefit of his workpeople, and to be in Sankey's mill was considered as the greatest piece of good fortune which could befall a hand.
Four years after the confession of John Stukeley Ned married the daughter of his friend George Cartwright, and settled down in a handsome house which he had built for himself a short distance out of Marsden. Lucy was soon afterwards settled in a house of her own, having married a young land-owner with ample estates.
Mrs. Mulready, in spite of the urgent persuasions of her son and his young wife, refused to take up her residence with them, but established herself in a pretty little house close at hand, spending
, however, a considerable portion of each day with him at his home. The trials through which she had gone had done even more for her than for Ned. All her querulous listlessness had disappeared. She was bright, cheerful, and even-tempered. Ned used to tell her that she grew younger looking every day.
Her pride and happiness in her son were unbounded,
and these culminated when, ten years after his accession to the management of the mill, Ned acceded to the re-quest of a large number of manufacturers in the district, to stand for Parliament as the representative of the mill-owning interest, and was triumphantly returned at the head of the poll.
Of the other characters of this story little need be said. Dr. Green and Mr. and Mrs. Porson remained Ned's closest friends to the end of their lives. Mary Powlett did not compel Bill Swinton to wait until the situation of foreman of the mill became vacant, but married him two years after the death of John Stukeley. Bill became in time not only foreman but the confidential manager of the mill, and he and his wife were all their lives on the footing of dear friends with Mr. and Mrs. Sankey.
Luke Marner remained foreman of his room until too old for further work, when he retired on a comfortable pension, and was succeeded in his post by his son George. Ned and Amy Sankey had a large family, who used to listen with awe and admiration to the tale of the terrible trial which had once befallen their father, and of the way in which he had indeed been "tried in the fire."
THE END.
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G.A. Henty
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