“There is a Sunday-school attached to the establishment?” said Mary in an accent of great satisfaction. “Yes, miss,” replied the man, “Messrs. Robert and Joseph Tomlins, the serious gentlemen as owns the factory, has built a school-room altogether at their own expense, and attends their ownselves in person every Sunday morning to see that both master and children puts the time to profit. Their factory is about a mile or so out of the town, but master says as he can let you have a carriage very reasonable.”
“I should wish to go there by all means,” replied Mary, “desire the carriage may be got ready for us directly.”
The man left the room to obey her.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Mary, as the door closed behind him, “there is, then, some Christian feeling still left among them here, as well as at Bradford. We shall not here, at least, be shocked by witnessing such degrading ignorance as that of the poor Drakes. — They are treated like Christian children, at any rate.”
“Most surely it is a pleasure to hear of it, my dear,” replied Mrs. Tremlett, “and it is quite as well, Mary, that we have got to ride to it — at least if you feel like me, my dear.”
Less than half an hour’s drive brought the travellers to a large factory, which, whatever it might be within, was on the outside, though in itself as grim as coal-smoke could make it, surrounded by a fine expanse of rural scenery. In answer to their application at the gates they were civilly desired to walk in, and presently found that the routine of exhibition was precisely similar to that of the morning. It struck them both, however, that if possible, the children looked more worn and weary, more miserably lean, and more frightfully pallid, than those they had seen before; nevertheless Mary failed not, when taking leave of their conductor, to request permission to attend the Sunday-school on the morrow.
“Certainly!” was the reply, pronounced in a tone as clearly announcing the speaker’s connexion with he party self-styled evangelical, as the broadest Irish brogue does the birthright of the speaker to call himself a son of the Emerald Isle. “Certainly! the Lord forbid that Christian women should ask to be present at the doings of the godly and be refused!”
On inquiring the hour at which they should be there, the man replied, “As the clock in the tower of the Lord’s house strikes seven, Mr. Joseph Tomlins, by the blessing of God, will begin to speak the exhortation. The prayer will follow from the lips of Mr. Robert, and then the schooling will begin.”
“We must be here, then, exactly at seven?” said Mary.
“Ten minutes earlier, would be more decent time,” replied the man, with a gravity of aspect that approached a frown, “our gentlemen are very strict as to their hours in all things.”
They civilly promised to be very punctual, and departed. The factory was built on the side of a hill, so steep, that the back part of it, to which the shed used as a school-room was attached, could not be safely approached by a carriage; Miss Brotherton, therefore, and her old friend, on arriving at the bottom of the hill on the following morning, got out, and, desiring the vehicle to await their return, proceeded on foot by the path pointed out to them as “the way to Master Tomlin’s school.” The ladies were more than punctual, for it still wanted a quarter to seven, they therefore seated themselves on a fallen tree by the road side, and watched the arrival of one or two miserable-looking children who were laggingly approaching the spot.
“You look half asleep my poor child!” said Mary, laying her hand on the shoulder of a little girl, who ragged, pale, half-washed, and with eyes half-closed, was being dragged onward by an older child, a boy, apparently about ten years old.
“She be so hard asleep by times,” said the boy, “that I can’t get heron.”
“But why is that, my dear? surely seven o’clock is not so very early!” said Mary.
“We were all to the mill till five minutes afore twelve,” said the boy, making another effort to pull his sister onward.
“How! — do you mean to tell me that you were working at midnight?” demanded Mary.
“Five minutes afore twelve we stopped— ‘cause it was Sunday,” replied the boy. “Come along Peggy!” he added with another stout tug, “I shall catch it to-morrow from the looker if I’se too late for the ‘sortation.”
The little girl who had fallen fairly asleep, during this short delay, being thus roused again, stumbled onwards, leaving Mrs. Tremlett and Mary alike undeceived as to the humanity of instituting a school to be carried on under such regulations. They determined, however, to witness with their own eyes the operation of teaching children to read, who were fast asleep, and walking on came within sight of the schoolroom door just as Mr. Joseph Tomlins showed himself on the step before it, with his watch in one hand and a bible in the other.
“Wicked and ungrateful children!” he began, “Is this the way you obey your earthly master, who leaves his comfortable bed, and his breakfast untouched, to lead you to the feet of your heavenly one! Wicked, idle, and ungrateful—” But at this moment Miss Brotherton and Mrs. Tremlett appeared in sight, and in a voice suddenly changed from reprobation into drawling softness, he went on, “Come unto Him little children — I forbid you not, but urge you with tender Christian love, early and late, late and early, to hear His word, and sing His praise.”
Here he stopped, and bowing to the ladies offered to lead them to a place where they might be well accommodated for the exhortation and prayer, and for hearing the children also, if they wished it.
As soon as they had entered the sort of pew to which Mr. Tomlins led them, the twenty or thirty miserable-looking children who were assembled in the room were called upon by a loud word of command to “KNEEL!” and down they tumbled, the elder ones in several instances taking the little creatures already asleep beside them, and placing them on the floor as nearly as they could in the attitude commanded. The sonorous voice of Mr. Joseph Tomlins was then heard pronouncing an exhortation, intended to show that obedience to their earthly masters was the only way of saving children from the eternal burning, prepared for those who were disobedient, in the world to come.
Mary, as she looked earnestly round upon every child present, greatly doubted if there was one sufficiently awake to listen to this; and in her heart she blessed the heaviness which saved them from hearing the mercy of their Maker blasphemed. A prayer followed this exhortation, as little like what a prayer ought to be, as was the preparation of the little congregation who listened to it for bearing part in a religious ceremony. Still Mary Brotherton waited to the end, nor left her station till the nominal business of instruction had proceeded sufficiently to convince her that poor Sophy Drake’s account was strictly true when she said “keeping our eyes open Sundays wasn’t possible, ‘cause they didn’t strap us.” The children were not strapped, and consequently they were, with very few exceptions, literally fast asleep during the hour and half that this ostentatious form of instruction was going on.
Unwilling to attract more notice than was necessary, Miss Brotherton and her companion remained till the drowsy tribe were roused, awakened, and dismissed by the loud voice of Mr. Joseph Tomlins, and then they also slipped away, regained the carriage that waited for them, and returned to.”
“Now then,” said Mary, as their one horse dragged them deliberately along, “now then, dear Tremlett, our search must really begin. As soon as we have breakfasted we will set off in this same equipage for — Mill, that being the first on my list where apprentices are taken, and, moreover, within a morning’s drive of.”
“And how shall you endeavour to gain admittance my dear?” demanded her friend.
“As we did yesterday — merely stating that we are strangers, travelling, who are desirous of seeing the factories,” replied Mary.
“But you don’t expect to get in, my dear, do you? — after all Mr. Bell told you about apprentices!” exclaimed Mrs. Tremlett.
“Probably not,” was the answer, “and in that case, my dear woman, you know what is to happen.”
“You
are really in earnest then, Miss Mary?” rejoined her friend in an accent which betrayed some nervousness. “You really mean to do all you said when we were shut up together?”
“Most certainly I, do,” replied Miss Brotherton, gravely. “Did you suppose I was jesting, nurse Tremlett, in what I then said to you?”
“Not jesting, Miss Mary. — No, certainly, not jesting. Only I thought that may be after a little more thinking about it you might change your mind.”
“You do not yet understand me, nurse!” said Mary, with vexation. “You do not yet comprehend how determined I am to persevere in the business I have undertaken.”
“Do not say so, dearest Miss Mary!” replied the old woman with emotion, “I do understand you, — I do know that you will leave no stone unturned to obtain your object, — and indeed, indeed, I love you a thousand times better than ever I did, and that is just because I do understand you; only I did not feel quite sure that you would have courage.”
“We shall see, nurse Tremlett. Courage, I believe, often depends more upon the earnestness of the will than the strength of the nerves,” said Mary.
Their attempt to get admittance to the apprentice factory was, as they both expected, abortive; they were told that no persons were admitted there except on business, and having nothing such to plead, they retreated as they had advanced, somewhat fearful lest their having taken so much trouble for nothing, might excite the alarming observation, “It is very odd,” on the part of their driver or some of his gossips.
The distance was considerably greater than they had expected, and they had little more time on their return to, than sufficed for securing places in a cross-country coach for the morrow, which would convey them to a small town named by Mr. Bell, within a morning’s drive of which were two establishments known to receive apprentices, howsoever and wheresoever they could get them.
Having again booked their places in the name of Tremlett, prepared their travelling luggage for a further progress, and taken a meal that served for dinner and tea in one, they went to rest. But it was long ere the excited mind of Mary permitted her to sleep; nor did she, in fact, close her eyes till, after repeated consideration, she had decided totally to change the plan of operations she had fixed upon for the morrow.
Mrs. Tremlett had not yet left her bed, when her young mistress appeared at the foot of it, on the following morning, with her ivory tablets in her hand. “Nurse Tremlett,” she said, “do you remember which, among all the places mentioned here, was the one Mr. Bell declared that he considered as the most likely for Sir Matthew to have selected, if his purpose was to keep the abode of Michael Armstrong unknown?”
“Dear me! My dear Miss Mary! Only think of your being up already and me lying abed so!” was the reply she received.
“Never mind that, dear nurse. It is not getting-up time yet — only I am restless. Do you remember the name of the mills Mr. Bell particularly dwelt upon?”
“I dare say I might, Miss Mary, if I was to hear it spoken again,” said the old woman, sitting up in bed, and endeavouring to feel awake.
“Now then listen, dear soul, and stop me when you think I name the right.” Mary then turned to her tablets, and read the names, with the descriptions of the localities inscribed there. It was not till she had reached the last in the list that Mrs. Tremlett again spoke, and then she exclaimed promptly, “That is it, Mary! I am quite sure that is the place!— ‘I will bet ten to one,’ he said, ‘that if Sir Matthew has been for putting the boy out of sight, Deep Valley Mill is where he will have lodged him.’ Those were his words, Miss Mary — I could quite swear it.”
“I was pretty sure of it before, nurse Tremlett, but now no doubt can possibly remain. Hear me, then, my dear kind friend, and tell me truly if I am right or wrong. I settled last night, nurse, to set off and visit all these factories exactly in the order in which they are here set down. But, after I went to bed, it struck me that it would be surely better to begin with the place pointed out by our good friend as the most likely to afford success. I like the business quite as little as you do, nurse, and would gladly shorten it, if possible.”
“But, my dear, won’t the stage we are going in take us the wrong way?”
“A little round about — but I see no objection in that; we have no particular wish, you know, to have our course traced, and this setting off in one direction, when our purpose is to take another, must go far towards preventing it. So that you see we have no immediate change to make, and you have only to get up, and eat your breakfast in time to be ready for the coach, that is to stop for us here.”
“God bless your dear heart!” said the old woman. “You think ten times more of me than you do of yourself, darling! Little sleep last night, Mary, and getting up before any body else in the morning, is not the way to be quite strong and composed by-and-by.”
“Fear nothing — I feel perfectly well, and greatly pleased by our change of plans. I have great faith in this visit to Deep Valley, and long to have the experiment made and over.”
Mary Brotherton was quite correct in her geography; the place to which the coach conveyed them was at about the same distance from Deep Valley as from; and, without making any further inquiries concerning that mysterious spot, which indeed the memoranda received from Mr. Bell rendered quite unnecessary, she ordered a chaise, on quitting the stage-coach, to convey them to the nearest town at which he had stated that it would be likely they should find decent accommodation for the night.
Both the young and the old lady were rather surprised, on reaching this place, to find every house in it that offered public accommodation so poor and miserable looking, as to make them almost afraid to enter. Their driver, however, soon drew up to one which, upon Mrs. Tremlett’s inquiring if it were the best, he assured them, was not only the best, but the only one that ladies could find comfortable. “Here then we will get out,” said Mary, courageously, and giving her friend an encouraging smile, she preceded her into a room that smelt strongly of tobacco-smoke, ale, and gin.
“Can we have an up-stairs room that might be more open and airy like?” said Mrs. Tremlett, looking anxiously at her young mistress.
“To sleep in?” demanded the woman who had received them.
“A sitting-room, good woman, I mean,” responded the meek-spirited Mrs. Tremlett, half frightened by the woman’s look and accent.
“What, this is not good enough, I suppose? Then you may trudge — it is good enough for your betters,” replied the woman, looking most alarmingly sulky. Had the last been addressed to herself, Mary Brotherton would have thought it one of the duties imposed by her pilgrimage to endure it; but, as it was, she slipped out of the dungeon-parlour with great celerity, and reached the house-door before the postboy had succeeded in his attempts to untie the cord which fastened their trunks behind the chaise. Apparently hands were scarce at this unpromising hostelry, for he was performing the business alone, at which Mary greatly rejoiced, as it enabled her to address him unobserved. “This does not seem a comfortable house, my lad, that you have brought us to. Don’t you think we might do better if we tried another?”
“It be the best in the town,” was the reply.
“Then could you not drive us a mile or two out of it?” said Mary, in a very coaxing voice. “We should like to sleep at any little country inn by the roadside a great deal better than this.”
“And how would my master’s horses like it I wonder?” said the postboy. By this time Mary’s purse was visible in her hand. The youth’s countenance softened as he gazed upon it, and he presently gave an unequivocal symptom of relenting, by scratching his head. Miss Brotherton held half-a-sovereign between her finger and thumb—” I will give you this, she said, beyond the sum you are to receive for the horses, if you will drive us on to some clean country inn at which we could sleep.”
“Where is the old lady?” demanded the boy in something like a whisper.
“I will bring her out this moment,” said she; and, without waiting fu
rther parley, Mary flitted back again through the vapour of tobacco and spirits to rescue her old friend, — a deed of daring that found its reward in the look of gentle satisfaction with which her signal to quit the parlour was obeyed; for Mrs. Tremlett was one who could not bandy words, and she had therefore endured, without intermission or resistance, as much insolence as could be compressed into the period of her abode in the apartment.
“Why did you not follow me at once, dear nurse?” said Mary, as soon as the postboy had closed the carriage-door upon them.
“Bless you, my dear, I never thought of getting away again till tomorrow morning, and I staid with her to prevent her following you. How very glad I am we are got away safe and sound from that terrible woman! How could you have the courage and cleverness to think of it, Mary? Sure enough, dear, it is you that take care of me — and that’s a shame, isn’t it?”
“It is but fair, nurse, that we should divide the labours of the road between us. It is you who always take care that we are not starved, and it is not too much in return that I should be watchful for your preservation from all the wild cats and tigresses we may chance to encounter.”
The postboy earned his golden gratuity, greatly to the contentment of its donor, by drawing up at a small but perfectly neat little mansion, where milk-pans set on end to dry before the door offered a delightful contrast to all that had been visible at the sign of the Three Crowns. The clean-coifed landlady looked a little surprised at being asked for sleeping-rooms by ladies entitled to so splendid a mode of travelling, but the demand being satisfactorily answered, they were quickly installed in a parlour smelling of geraniums instead of gin, and giving orders for their evening meal to the bustling good woman of the house with an air of old acquaintanceship, that looked as if they had been her guests for a month.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 200