“It is not as bad as it has been,” Etruria answered. “Three years ago there were hundreds of thousands out of work. There are thousands, scores of thousands, still; and thousands have no food but what’s given them. And charity is bitter to many,” she added, “and the poorhouse is bitter to all.”
“But what has caused things to be so bad?”
“Some say one thing and some another. But most that machines lower wages, Miss, and the bread-tax raises food.”
“Ah!” Mary said. And she looked more closely at the girl who knew so much that was at odds with her station.
“Others,” Etruria continued, a faint color in her cheeks, “think that it is selfishness, that every one is for himself and no one for one another, and — —”
“Yes?” Mary said, seeing that she hesitated.
“And that if every one thought as much of his neighbor as of himself, or even of his neighbor as well as of himself, it would not be machines nor corn-taxes nor poorhouses would be strong enough to take the bread out of the children’s mouths or the work out of men’s hands!”
Mary had an inspiration. “Etruria,” she cried, “some one has been teaching you this.”
The girl blushed. “Well, Miss,” she said simply, “it was at church I learned most of it.”
“At church? What church? Not Riddsley?” For it was to Riddsley, to a service as dull as it was long, that they proceeded on Sundays in a chaise as slow as the reader.
“No, Miss, not Riddsley,” Etruria answered. “It’s at Brown Heath on the Chase. But it’s not a real church, Miss. It’s a room.”
“Oh!” Mary replied. “A meeting-house!”
For some reason Etruria’s eyes gleamed. “No, Miss,” she said. “It’s the curate at Riddsley has a service in a room at Brown Heath on Thursdays.”
“And you go?”
“When I can, Miss.”
The idea of attending church on a week-day was strange to Mary; as strange as to that generation was the zeal that passed beyond the common channel to refresh those whom migrations of population or changes in industry had left high and dry. The Tractarian movement was giving vigor not only to those who supported it, but to those who withstood it.
“And you’ve a sermon?” Mary said. “What was the text last Thursday, Etruria?”
The girl hesitated, considered, then looked with appeal at her mistress. She clasped her hands. “‘Two are better than one,’” she replied, “‘because they have good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to lift him up.’”
“Gracious, Etruria!” Mary cried. “Is that in the Bible?”
Etruria nodded.
“And what did your preacher say about it?”
“That the employer and the workman were fellows, and if they worked together and each thought for the other they would have a good reward for their labor; that if one fell, it was the duty of the other to help him up. And again, that the land and the mill were fellows — the town and the country — and if they worked together in love they would have a good return, and if trouble came to one the other should bear with him. But all the same,” Etruria added timidly, “that the bread-taxes were wrong.”
“Etruria,” Mary said. “To-morrow is Thursday. I shall go with you to Brown Heath.”
CHAPTER X
NEW THINGS
Mary Audley, crossing the moor to a week-day service, was but one of many who in the ‘forties were venturing on new courses. In religion there were those who fancied that by a return to primitive forms they might recapture the primitive fervor; and those again who, like the curate whom Mary was going to hear, were bent on pursuing the beaten path into new places. Some thought that they had found a panacea for the evils of the day in education, and put their faith in workmen’s institutes and night schools. Others were satisfied with philanthropy, and proclaimed that infants of seven ought not to toil for their living, that coal-pits were not fit places for women, and that what paid was not the only standard of life. A few dreamt of a new England in which gentle and simple were to mix on new-old terms; and a multitude, shrewd and hard-headed, believed in the Corn Law League, whose speakers travelled from Manchester to carry the claims of cheap bread to butter crosses and market towns, and there bearded the very landlord’s agent.
The truth was that the country was lying sick with new evils, and had perforce to find a cure, whether that cure lay in faith, or in the primer, or in the Golden Rule, or in Adam Smith. For two generations men had been quitting the field for the mill, the farm for the coal-pit. They had followed their work into towns built haphazard, that grew presently into cities. There, short of light, of air, of water, lacking decency, lacking even votes — for the Reform Bill, that was to give everything to everybody, had stopped at the masters — lacking everything but wages, they swarmed in numbers stupendous and alarming to the mind of that day. And then the wages failed. Machines pushed out hands, though
Tools were made, and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Machines lowered wages, machines glutted the markets. Men could get no work, masters could sell no goods. On the top of this came bad seasons and dear bread. Presently hundreds of thousands were living on public charity, long lists of masters were in the Gazette. In the gloomy cities of the North, masses of men heaved and moaned as the sea when the south-west wind falls upon it.
All but the most thoughtless saw danger as well as unhappiness in this, and called on their gods. The Chartists proclaimed that safety lay in votes. The landed interest thought that a little more protection might mend matters. The Golden Rulers were for shorter hours. But the men who were the loudest and the most confident cried that cheap bread would mend all. The poor, they said, would have to eat and to spend. They would buy goods, the glut would cease. The wheels would turn again, there would be work and wages. The Golden Age would return. So preached the Manchester men.
In the meantime the doctors wrangled, and the patient grew a little, not much, better. And Mary Audley and Etruria walked across the moorland in the evening sunshine, with a light breeze stirring the bracken, and waves of shadow moving athwart the stretches of purple ling. They seemed very far, very remote from the struggle for life and work and bread that was passing in the world below.
Presently they dropped into a fern-clad dingle and saw below them, beside the rivulet that made music in its bottom, a house or two. Descending farther, they came on more houses, crawling up the hill slopes, and on a few potato patches and ash-heaps. As the sides of the valley rose higher and closed in above the walkers cottages fell into lines on either side of the brook, and began to show one behind the other in rough terraces, with middens that slid from the upper to the lower level. The valley bent to the left, and quickly tall chimneys became visible, springing from a huddle of mean roofs through which no other building of size, no tower, no steeple, rose to break the ugly sameness. This was Brown Heath.
“It’s a rough place,” Etruria said as they picked their way. “But don’t be afraid, Miss. I’m often passing, and they know me.”
Still it was a rough place. The roadway was a cinder-track, and from the alleys and lanes above it open drains wormed their way across the path and into the stream, long grown foul. The air was laden with smoke, coal dust lay everywhere; the most cleanly must have despaired. Men seated, pipe in mouth, on low walls, watched the two go by — not without some rude banter; frowsy women crouching on door-steps and nursing starveling babes raised sullen faces. Lads in clogs made way for them unwillingly. In one place a crowd seethed from a side street and, shouting and struggling, overflowed the roadway before them and threatened to bar their path.
“It’s a dog-fight,” Etruria said. “They are rare and fond of them, Miss. We’d best get by quickly.”
They passed in safety, passed, too, a brawl between two colliers, the air about them thick with oaths, passed a third eddy round two
women fighting before a public-house. “The chaps are none so gentle,” Etruria said, falling unconsciously into a commoner way of speaking. “They’re all for fighting, dogs or men, and after dark I’m not saying we’d be safe. But we’ll be over the moor by dusk, Miss.”
They came, as she spoke, to a triangular space, sloping with the hill, skirted by houses, and crossed by an open sewer. It was dreary and cinder-covered, but five publics looked upon it and marked it for the centre of Brown Heath. Etruria crossed the triangle to a building a little cleaner than its neighbors; it was the warehouse, she told her mistress, of a sack-maker who had failed. She entered, and her companion followed her.
Mary found herself in a bare barn-like room, having two windows set high in the walls, the light from which fell coldly on a dozen benches ranged one behind the other, but covering only a portion of the floor. On these were seated, when they entered, about twenty persons, mainly women, but including three or four men of the miner class. No attempt had been made to alter the character of the place, and of formality there was as little. The two had barely seated themselves before a lean young man, with a long pale face and large nose, rose from the front bench, and standing before the little congregation, opened his book. He wore shabby black, but neither surplice nor gown.
The service lasted perhaps twenty minutes, and Mary was not much moved by it. The young man’s voice was weak, the man himself looked under-fed. She noticed, however, that as the service went on the number in the room grew, and when it closed she found that all the seats were filled, and that there were even a few men — some of them colliers fresh from the pit — standing at the back. Remembering the odd text that the clergyman had given out the week before, she wondered what he would choose to-day, and, faintly amused, she stole a glance at her companion. But Etruria’s rapt face was a reproach to her levity.
The young clergyman pushed back the hair from his forehead. His posture was ungainly, he did not know what to do with his hands, he opened his mouth and shut it again. Then with an effort he began. “My text, my friends,” he said, “is but one word, ‘Love.’ Where will you find it in the Scriptures? In every chapter and in every verse. In the dark days of old the order was ‘Thou shalt live!’ The new order in these days is ‘Thou shalt love!’” He began by describing the battle of life in the animal and vegetable world, where all things lived at the cost of others; and he admitted that the struggle for life, for bread, for work, as they saw it around them, resembled that struggle. In moving terms he enlarged on the distress, on the vast numbers lately living on the rates, on the thousands living, where even the rates fell short, on Government aid. He described the fireless homes, the foodless children, the strong men hopeless. And he showed them that others were stricken, that masters suffered, tradesmen were ruined, the country languished. “The worst may be past,” he said. “You are working half-time, you are living on half-wages, you are thankful that things are better.” Then he told them that for his part he did not presume to say what was at the root of these unhappy conditions, but that of one thing he felt sure — and this was his message to them — that if the law of love, if the golden rule of preferring another to one’s self, if the precept of that charity,
Which seeketh not itself to please
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
if that were followed by all, then all
Might build a heaven in hell’s despair.
And in words more eloquent than he had yet compassed he begged them to set that example of brotherhood, in the certainty that the worst social evils, nay, all evils save pain and death, would be cured by the love that thought for others, that in the master preferred the servant’s welfare and in the servant put first his master’s interests. Finally he quoted his old text, “Let two work together, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow!”
It seemed as if he had done. He was silent; his hearers waited. Then with an effort he continued:
“I have a word to say about something which fell from me in this place last week. While I did not venture, unskilled as I am, to say where lies the cause of our distress, I did say that I found it hard to believe that the system which taxes the bread you earn in the sweat of your brow, which takes a disproportionate part from the scanty crust of the widow and from the food of the child, was in accordance with the law of love. I repeat that now; and because I have been told that I dare not say in the pulpit of Riddsley church what I say here, I shall on the first opportunity state my belief there. You may ask why I have not done so; my answer is, that I am there the representative of another, whereas in this voluntary work I am myself more responsible. In saying that I ask you to judge me, as we should judge all, with that charity which believeth no evil.”
A moment later Mary, deeply moved, was passing out with the crowd. As she stood, caught in the press by the door, an old man in horn-rimmed glasses, who was waiting there, held out his hand. She was going to take it, when she saw that it was not meant for her, but for the young clergyman who was following at her heels.
“Master, dunno you do it,” the old fellow growled. “You’ll break your pick, and naught gotten. Naught gotten, that’ll serve. Your gaffer’ll not abide it, and you’ll lose your job!”
“Would you have me take it,” the young man answered, “and not do the work, Cluff? Never fear for me.”
“Dunno you be rash, master!” the other rejoined, clutching his sleeve and detaining him. “You be sure — —”
Mary heard no more. She felt Etruria’s hand pressing her arm. “We’d best lose no time,” the girl whispered. And she drew Mary onward, across the triangle and into the lane which led to the moor.
“Are we so late?” The sun had set, but it was still light. “We’d best hurry,” Etruria persisted, increasing her speed.
Mary looked at her and saw that she was troubled, but at the moment she set this down to the influence of the sermon, and her own mind went back to it. “I am glad you brought me, Etruria,” she said. “I shall always be glad that I came.”
“We’d best be getting home now,” was Etruria’s only answer, but this time Mary’s ear caught the sound of footsteps behind them, and she turned. The young clergyman was hastening after them.
“Etruria!” he cried.
For a moment Mary fancied that Etruria did not hear. The girl hurried on. But Mary saw no occasion to run away, and she halted. Then Etruria, with a gesture of despair, stopped.
“It is no use,” she said.
The young man came up with them. His head was bare, his hat was in his hand, his long plain face was aglow with the haste he had made. He had heard Etruria’s words, and “It is of every use,” he said.
“This is — my mistress,” Etruria said.
“Miss Audley?”
“I am Miss Audley,” Mary announced, wondering much.
“I thought that it might be so,” he replied. “I have waited for such an occasion. I am Mr. Colet, the curate at Riddsley. Etruria and I love one another,” he continued. “We are going to be married, if ever my means allow me to marry.”
“No, we are not,” the girl rejoined sharply. “Mr. Colet knows my mind,” she continued, her eyes turned away. “I have told him many times that I am a servant, the daughter of a servant, in a different class from his, and I’ll never be the one to ruin him and be a disgrace to him! I’ll never marry him! Never!”
“And I have told Etruria,” he replied, “that I will never take that answer. We love one another. It is nothing to me that she is a servant. My work is to serve. I am as poor as it is possible to be, with as poor prospects as it is possible to have. I shall never be anything but what I am, and I shall think myself rich when I have a hundred pounds a year. I who have so little, who look for so little, am I to give up this happiness because Etruria has less? I, too, say, Never!”
Mary, standing between them, did not know what to answer, and it was Etruria who replied. “It is useless,” she said. And the
n, in a tone of honest scorn, “Who ever heard,” she cried, “of a clergyman who married a servant? Or who ever heard of good coming of it?”
Mary had an inspiration. “Does Etruria’s father know?” she asked.
“He knows and approves,” the young man replied, his eyes bent fondly on his mistress.
Mary too looked at Etruria — beautiful, patient, a servant, loved. And she wondered. All these weeks she had been rubbing elbows with this romance, and she had not discerned it! Now, while her sympathies flew to the lover’s side, her prejudices rose up against him. They echoed Etruria’s words, “Who ever heard of good coming of such a match?” The days had been, as Mary knew, when the chaplain had married the lady’s maid. But those days were gone. Meantime the man waited, and she did not know what to say.
“After all,” she said at last, “it is for Etruria to decide.”
“No, it is for us both to decide,” he replied. And then, as if he thought that he had sufficiently stated his case, “I ask your pardon, Miss Audley, for intruding,” he continued. “I am keeping you, and as I am going your way that is needless. I have had a message from a sick woman, and I am on my way to see her.”
He took permission for granted, and though Etruria’s very shoulders forbade him, he moved on beside them. “Conditions are better here than in many places,” he said, “but in this village you would see much to sadden you.”
“I have seen enough,” Mary answered, “to know that.”
“Ten years ago there was not a house here. Now there is a population of two thousand, no church, no school, no gentry, no one of the better class. There is a kind of club, a centre of wild talk; better that, perhaps, than apathy.”
“Is it in Riddsley parish?” Mary asked. They were nearly clear of the houses, and the slopes of the hill, pale green in the peaceful evening light, began to rise on either side. It was growing dusk, and from the moorland above came the shrill cries of plovers.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 584