Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  From this time the journey homeward proceeded without accident or adventure of any kind, and Mary would probably have shared the pleasure so energetically expressed by Mrs. Tremlett at being restored to the luxurious tranquillity of Milford Park, had not the heavy news she carried to the poor Armstrongs made her dread the day that would follow her reaching it.

  But how she got through that painful day, and all that resulted from it — how little Fanny Fletcher fared in her new and most strange home, and whether her patroness had most reason to bless or deplore the sudden movement which had caused her to hazard the blending thus the destiny of one so utterly unknown, with her own, must all be reserved for future narration, as the adventures of Michael Armstrong, of necessity, draw the pen of his historian elsewhere.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THE NARRATIVE RETURNS TO ITS HERO — AND RELATES WHY AND WHEREFORE HE WAS KEPT ALIVE — THE BOY GROWS TALL, AND TAKES TO THINKING.

  THE answer which Fanny Fletcher had received to her inquiries concerning Michael was as false as it was heedless. The little fellow who gave it had no intention of uttering what was untrue: he believed that the boy she inquired for was dead — so many had died, and been borne from the wretched garret where he had himself lain, battling with the fever, sometimes delirious, and sometimes asleep, that it was no great wonder he should blunder. But Michael Armstrong was not dead, though the state in which the malady left him was such, that for weeks the surly old woman, hired to supply the place of Mrs. Poulet, muttered curses on him for not being in a state to be quietly buried out of the way, like the rest.

  It was just five days after Fanny Fletcher left the Deep Valley Mills in company with Miss Brotherton, that Michael waked from that first sound healing sleep, which often announces the conquest of life over death, after a hard-fought struggle between them. —

  The little fellow raised himself upright on his straw pallet, and for a minute or two looked about him to make himself quite sure where he was; for so heavy had been his sleep that it was not immediately his senses could recover their usual powers of perception. But only too soon, alas! he made it all out. He was still in that foul den of misery and filth; and the first impulse of his fully-recovered intellect was to utter a bitter expression of regret that his life had been spared for further suffering, while so many had been mercifully permitted to sink into their peaceful graves. But even as he breathed the words, he repented of them. The image of his mother seemed to rise before him — be remembered that she had bade him ever to trust in God, and let no cause tempt him to take his name in vain. The quiet eye of his much-enduring brother rose to his memory, as he had seen it a thousand times fixed upon him, while he enjoined patience and submission for their dear mother’s sake; and the more recently-heard precepts of little Fanny, all preaching the same righteous, but hard lesson, came in their soft, pleading, innocent tone to give him strength to bear. Michael crossed his emaciated hands upon his breast, and murmured, “God forgive me!” — then dropping again into a gentle sleep, awoke not, till the old woman shook him rudely, rather for the gratification of her curiosity, than in performance of her duty, in order to see whether the “wiry, hard-skinned little varment wasn’t dead at last.”

  She started with a feeling very like terror, when the boy, opening his large eyes upon her, asked her to please to be so kind as to give him a drink of water.

  “What, then! — you don’t mean to die after all? If you bean’t born to be hanged, it’s a mystery. Water? — if you haven’t got summut in it after lying this fashion, the Lord knows how long, you’ll balk the hangman at last!” And with these words the crabbed crone retreated, hastening, with the consciousness of having something wonderful to tell, into the presence of Mr. Woodcomb.

  “There’s a boy, sir, as have been lying a dying amost ever since I comed, as is actually coming to, now; not but what he must still be within an inch of the grave, seeing what he has gone through — and he looks for all the world as if he had been buried and dug up again. Howsomever I don’t think but what he might come through, if so be as you thought it worth while to give him food. That sort of sleep as I waked him out of, shows plain enough as the fever is gone, and then you know, sir, as kitchen physic is all the cretur’s wants, perhaps, for the sake of preventing the burying beginning again, your honour might think it was as well to give him a little broth, and meat, too, after a bit, for he won’t do without it, that’s certain.”

  “I had clean forgot that there was one left up there, Molly,” replied the superintendent. “But in Heaven’s name, let him be fed, woman — I wouldn’t have to bury any more of ’em just now, for ever so — he’ll come round again, I suppose, before its very long? We are still very short of piecers, and it’s as well to keep him alive, you know, as to go after another.”

  “As for that, sir,” replied the old woman, “it won’t be to-morrow, nor next day, either, as he’ll pay for his salt; I’ll tell you that beforehand. So you had best please to make up your mind at once about the keeping him alive. There’s nothing will do it but giving him amost a bellyful every day, and maybe a little fresh air into the bargain, I’m thinking, seeing the time he’s laid stewing up there, with such lots dying all round him.”

  “If it wasn’t for the having to open ground for him again, I’d be hanged, drawn, and quartered, before I’d trouble myself about what sort of air a ‘prentice had to breathe. Howsomever, I have got my own reasons for not choosing to trouble the parson again, nor yet for doing the job without him. So cram the brat as much as you like — I suppose my leavings is good enough for him?”

  “Please master not to talk of my liking to cram ‘prentice brats,” retorted Molly. “Often and often, as I’ve been back and forward here, for one job or another, nobody ever saw me trying to pilfer any thing for their starving stomachs, the low creturs! I dispises ’em too much. But I knows what will save life, and what will lose it, better, maybe, than most folks, and so now you may do just as you please, without putting it upon my likes or dislikes.”

  “Don’t be so frumpish, Molly Bing,” replied Mr. Woodcomb, laughing, “there’s nobody going to charge you with being such a fool as to make a pet of a factory ‘prentice while there’s a puppy-dog to be had for love or money. Don’t you be scared at any such notion as that, for I knows ye a deal better, old woman, than to put any such affront upon ye. You just stop the creature from dying, if you can, for that will suit me a deal best just now.”

  The will of Mr. Woodcomb, thus clearly expressed, was acted upon with very implicit obedience; the consequence of which was, that Michael Armstrong was not only saved from death, but his constitution greatly benefited. Molly Bing had pledged her judgment upon the result of his case, and in order to prove it correct, she contrived that he should swallow about ten times as much nourishment as fell to the share of any other child in the mill. He had grown surprisingly during the period of his confinement, and this gave so lengthy a look to his thin person, that Molly more than once fancied the audacious little villain would give her the lie at last; so she not only fed him, but got leave for him to clean out the pig-sties, scrape up the filth from the yard, and sundry other jobs of the same description, all of which, however unsavoury in their nature, bore, as the sharp-witted old woman well knew, the balm of health in every movement they enforced, compared to the monotonous and grinding slavery of the mill. But in the course of a month or two, another glorious proof of England’s prosperity reached the Deep Valley, in the shape of a large order, and Mr. Elgood Sharpton, in communicating the cheering intelligence to his manager, enforced the necessity of strenuous exertion in the execution of it, by telling him that, sick or well, the children must work long hours, and that it was far better that they should a little overwork the hands, than run any risk of disappointing so valuable a customer.

  In consequence of these instructions, Michael was withdrawn from his out-door labours, and once more made to follow the mules. It was then, and then only, that he discovered the heavy los
s he had sustained by the departure of Fanny. While employed upon the out-of-door tasks assigned to him by the commands of Molly Bing, he had been strictly enjoined never to speak to any of the apprentices who might chance to pass while he was at work. His meals were eaten in Mr. Woodcomb’s kitchen, and the place assigned for his lodging by night, was a sort of closet that opened from it. No day, no hour had passed, unless in sleep, since he recovered his senses, without his thinking of her. At the risk, or rather with the certainty of cuffs and hard words, no foot-fall had ever passed within his hearing without causing him to turn his head to reconnoitre, and much as he preferred the labour on which he was now employed to that of the mill, he would willingly, nay joyfully, have exchanged it in the hope of again seeing his little friend. It was therefore with a feeling of gladness, instead of regret, that he received orders to turn into the factory.

  “That is queer!” thought the little fellow, as he bounded to obey the command, with the double energy of recovered health, and awakened hope, “it is queer for me to feel glad that I am going back to the factory!”

  As it happened, he was marshalled into the same room in which he had worked before his illness — but alas! when he turned his eyes to the spot which Fanny had formerly occupied near him, a singularly ill-favoured boy met his gaze, instead of the pretty creature he sought for. This was a death-blow to the joy which a few minutes before had given him a gait and an expression of countenance so unwonted in a factory-boy returning to his well-known sufferings. Nevertheless, though a tear blinded the eyes which at length settled reluctantly on the broken threads which awaited his fingers, he remembered that the factory had seven floors, and cruel as it was to lose the pleasure of giving his little friend a look or a word as they each paced their weary walk, he still thought he might get a sight of her at their dismal meals, and fancied that he should not greatly regret exchanging scraps of wholesome meat, for musty oatmeal, provided Fanny Fletcher was by to tell him not to mind it. But the musty oatmeal came all too soon, for no word or look of Fanny’s came with it; nor did any uncertainty long remain, on which to hang a lingering hope that some unfinished task detained her in the mill, and that he should see her soon. His first question, whispered to the girl who sat beside him, brought forth the history of Fanny’s wonderful departure, at as full length as the time and place would permit. At first he listened to it with incredulity. It seemed, he thought, like a story made up to deceive him, for fun; and little as the blighted young spirits of that sad fraternity were given to jesting, Michael clung to the belief that such was the case, as long as the meal lasted. But, as usual, a few minutes followed, during which they were left alone — an indulgence which necessarily arose from the fact, that even the niggardly allowance of time awarded by the regulations of Mr. Elgood Sharpton for their meals, was more than the famished children required for devouring the scanty portion set before them. No sooner had Mr. Poulet withdrawn himself, after witnessing the orderly consumption by each, of the allotted morsel, than such of the miserable crew as had survived the pestilence, and remembered the close alliance between Michael and the heroine of the marvellous tale which was still in every mouth, all rushed together towards him for the purpose of recounting it. Notwithstanding the confusion of tongues, their noisy testimony was too consistent to admit of doubt, and Michael remained with the astounding belief that his little friend was taken away to be made a great lady of.

  The heart of Michael Armstrong proved itself to be a very generous one on this occasion.

  “Some natural tears he shed, but wiped them soon.” as he remembered that the more miserable the situation in which he was left, the more he ought to rejoice that Fanny had been taken from it. And he did rejoice; truly, sincerely, and at the very bottom of his heart did he rejoice. As day after day the hateful routine of unvarying suffering again laid its grasp upon his existence, with a power as irresistible as that of the vast engine which within those prison-walls seemed “lord of all,” the generous heart of Michael felt thankful that Fanny Fletcher shared in it no longer. It had been quite in vain that he had laboured to persuade himself, while listening to the reasonings of his little friend, that they ought mutually to rejoice in the probability of each other’s death. Though he had allowed that as far as he was himself concerned he might easily be brought to think that it would be a comfort to die, he could never reach the pitch of sublimity necessary to form the wish that Fanny might die before him. But now it was evident that this weakness, which had more than once caused his little monitress to shake her head, and say that he did not love her as well as she loved him, it was now quite evident that it was no selfish motive which had caused it.

  By degrees this truly noble feeling, this generous power of living, as it were, in the prosperity of another, so strengthened the character of the boy, as perfectly to save him from that worst result of youthful suffering, a reckless, desperate despair, which by destroying hope, that beautiful mainspring of all our best actions, leaves the poor spiritless machine alive only to the wretched consciousness of its capacity for pain. It is, beyond all question, this bitter hopelessness which deteriorates in so remarkable a manner the moral character of operatives under the present factory system. In no other situation, excepting only that of slaves purchased and paid for like an ox, or an ass, is the destiny of a human being placed so wholly and completely beyond the reach of his own control. He is, as Wordsworth truly says,

  “A slave to whom release comes not,

  And cannot come.”

  In no other situation do labouring men, women, and children, feel and know that unless they submit in all things to the behests of their employer, they must die — and that too by a process ten thousand times worse than either the hangman’s cord, or the headsman’s axe — they must die the death of famine. If their lingering hours of labour be prolonged beyond the stipulated time for which they are paid, they cannot turn and say, “I will not, for it is not in the bond,” for the ready answer is, “Go. We employ none who make conditions with us.” And where are they to go? To the parish officers? As ready an answer meets them there: “Go. We relieve none who can get work, and refuse it.” If they are fined, however unjustly, however arbitrarily, if the iniquitous truck system be resorted to for payment of wages, instead of money, if their women be insulted, or their children crippled, and remonstrance follow, the same death-dooming reply awaits them: “Go. We employ no grumblers here.”

  Then to what quarter can they look with hope? Where are they to find that only elixir by which human strength is mercifully made for ever equal to sustain human suffering? The sparkling draught is not for them! The factory operative alone, of all to whom God has given the power of thought, is denied the delicious privilege of hope. It is this which degrades their nature; it is this which from youth to age renders one ruinous hour of brutal debauchery more precious, than all that steadfast sober industry can promise or bestow.

  It was long, very long, ere this intellectual blight, this smothering mildew of the soul fell upon Michael, for he seemed to possess a sort of twofold existence, “the worser half of it,” being his poor self, while the better was found in the happy destiny of Fanny. Countless were the miles that he walked backwards and forwards before the mules, during which he cheered his fancy by painting her in the midst of liberty and green fields. Sometimes he thought that if she were rich, she would remember all he had told her about his mother and Edward — that she would find them out — would take compassion on their poverty — would talk of him — would sooth and comfort them.

  All this may seem, to happier beings, but a frail support, under incessant labour, accompanied by every species of privation, yet it did Michael service — it kept his faculties alive; for it gave a theme, and a pleasant one, on which to fix his thoughts, and half the tedium of his own sad life was forgotten, as he meditated on the probable happiness of hers.

  Sometimes, it must be owned, — though he always told himself that such thoughts were nonsense, — ideas would sugg
est themselves less abstractedly disinterested; for it would now and then come into his head, that Fanny Fletcher knew where Sir Matthew had sent him, if nobody else did; and that, perhaps, if she grew to be a great girl, with power to do what she liked, she might think of him, and try to do something to rescue him. Vague as was this notion, vague as he himself felt it to be, it was a blessing to him. When such thoughts arose, his bodily strength seemed to revive, his aching knees no longer bent under him, his gait was no longer that of an ordinary factory-child, the energy of his mind lent itself to his limbs, and wearily as he stretched himself upon his bed of straw, and long and lanky as his half-starved person grew, Michael Armstrong did not become a cripple. —