increasing every year. This is the way capital grows by saving. Labour does not grow by saving in like manner; but methods of improving and economizing it have been found, and more are invented every year. Labour is saved by machinery, when a machine either does what man cannot do so well, or when it does in a shorter time, or at a less expense, the work which man can do equally well in other respects. This last was the case with our new machinery. It did not, like the furnaces and rollers, do what man could not do; but it did in a quicker and cheaper manner what man had hitherto done. It was a saving of labour; and as all saving of labour is a good thing, our machinery was a good thing.
“You wish to interrupt me, I see. You wish to say that though it is a good thing for us capitalists, it is not for you labourers. Hear me while I show you the truth. If we could have brought back the state of the world to what it was four years ago; if we could have made the foreign iron-works melt into air, and some nearer home sink into the ground; if we could have made the demand what it once was, and have raised the prices to the highest ever known, you would not have cared whether we put up machinery or not, because there would have been employment enough for everybody notwithstanding. You care for it now because it throws some people out of work; but you should remember, that it has also kept many busy who must be idle, now that it is destroyed.
We should be as glad as you if there was work enough for all the men and all the machinery together that our concern could contain; but when changes which we could not prevent or repair brought before us the question whether we should employ two-thirds of our people with machinery, or none without, we saw it to be for the interest of all to set up our new labourers in the midst of the grumblings of the old. We tell you plainly that we could not have employed any of you for the last six months, but for the saving caused by the new machinery; and that, now it is gone, we can employ none of you any longer.
“You may say that the county will repair our losses, and that we may soon build up what is destroyed, and go on as before. It is true that the damages must be paid out of the public fund; but it is not so true that a remedy will thus be found for the distress which violence has brought upon you. The state of trade being what it is, and confidence being so completely destroyed between the two parties to the original contract, there is little encouragement to enter on a new one. My partner and his family will depart immediately. I shall remain with a very few men under me to assist in disposing of our stock, and to wind up the concern; and then this place, lately so busy, and so fruitful of the necessaries and comforts of life to so many hundred persons, will present a melancholy picture of desertion and ruin. If, in after years, any of your descendants, enriched by the labours of generations, should come hither and provide the means of enriching others, may they meet with more success than we have done! May they have to do with men informed respecting the rights and interests of society, as happy in their prosperity as you once were, and more patient and reasonable in adversity!
“If these should ever inquire respecting the transactions of this day, it will strike them that the revenge which you have snatched—for I am told you call it revenge—is as foolish as it is wicked. Of all the parties concerned in this outrage, your masters suffer the least—though their sufferings are not small—and yourselves the most. Your occupation is gone; the public resources, to which many here have contributed, must be wasted in repairing the damage intended for us; and worst of all, disgrace and the penalties of the law await many with whom you are closely connected. Having enjoyed from their birth the security and various benefits of the social state, they have thought fit to forfeit their privileges by a breach of the laws; and they must take the consequences. How many of the guilty are now mourning that those consequences cannot be confined to themselves! How many—but I will not pursue this subject further, for I see you cannot bear it. I only entreat those of you who hold your children by the hand, and see them wondering at the mournful solemnities of this day, to impress upon them that the laws must be obeyed, and to assure them from your own experience that, however sad undeserved poverty may be, it is easily endurable in comparison with the thought which will haunt some of you to your dying day—‘my own hands have brought this misery upon myself, and upon those who lookup to me for bread.’
“I have only to add that which it may be a satisfaction to some of you to know, that we freely forgive to such the injury they have meditated against us. We are indeed too deeply concerned for your misfortunes to have much thought to bestow upon our own. Farewell.”
The people slowly and silently dispersed, and few showed their faces abroad again that day.
CHAPTER IX.
ALL QUIET AGAIN.
Paul was one of the very few whom his employer selected to remain with him till the stock should be sold off and the concern closed. The Jones family had been one of the first to depart of the many who were gone to seek employment and a home. They settled in the place where their sons were apprenticed to different trades, and where they had a good name for honesty, industry, and prudence. The fund which they had saved in better days was sufficient to maintain them for some time, if, as was not likely, people so respectable should find it difficult to obtain employment. They left Paul in possession of their cottage, as he was unwilling to shift his work-bench, or leave off cutting corks till the last moment.
As he was thus employed late one evening, Mr. and Mrs. Wallace came to him. Mr. Wallace had heard from a friend of his engaged in a neighbouring iron-work, who wished to know whether an able over-looker could be recommended to him from among those who would be thrown out by the closing concern. Mr. Wallace was glad of this opportunity of securing a good situation for Paul, to whom he felt himself greatly indebted for his conduct during the riots, and whom he knew to be competent to the duties of such an office. Paul was duly obliged by this offer, but requested time to consider of it, as he had already the choice of two modes of investing his little capital,—one in a shop in London, and another in a Birmingham concern.
Mr. Wallace was surprised at the good fortune which placed before one man, in days like these, three employments to choose out of. Paul answered with a stern smile, that he owed it to his reputation of being a miser; misers having two good qualifications for partnership,—the possession of money, and a close attachment to the main chance.
“I wish I could see any aim in this desperate pursuit of money,” said Mr. Wallace, gravely.
Paul answered by going into the inner room and bringing out the picture which hung there.
“Can you guess who that is?” said he.
“It has occurred to me that it might be yourself; but I can trace little or no likeness now.”
“No wonder,” said Paul, looking at his blackened hands and sordid dress.
“It is not myself, however, but a brother,—an only, elder brother, who died when I was twenty, and he twenty-one, just entering on the enjoyment of his property.”
“And did that property come to you?” asked Mrs. Wallace, in surprise.
“Every acre of it, with the mansion you see there. I lost it all by gaming and other pleasures—_pleasures_ indeed!—and in ten years was sitting in rags, without a crust in my wallet, as beggars usually have, on yonder hill where I traced the map of my future fortunes. I have an aim, sir. It is to get back that estate; to plant an oak for every one that has been felled; and to breed a buck for every one that has been slain since the gates were shut upon me for a graceless profligate.”
“Do you think you should be able to enjoy your property if you got it back again?” asked Mr. Wallace. “Or, perhaps, there is some family connexion to whom you wish to restore it by will?”
“Neither the one nor the other,” replied Paul. “I have not a relation in the world; and I see as clearly as you can do, that I shall be by that time too confirmed in my love of money to enjoy the pleasures of a fine estate. I shall screw my tenants, and grudge my venison, and sell all the furniture of the house but that of two rooms.”
“Then do propose to yourself some more rational object?” said Mrs.
Wallace, kindly. “Let those have your estate who can enjoy it, and leave off accumulating money before it is too late. As soon as you have enough to buy and furnish a cottage, and afford a small income, give up business, and occupy yourself with books, and politics, and works of benevolence, and country sports and employments; with anything that may take off your attention from the bad pursuit which is ruining your health, and your mind, and your reputation.”
“If you do not,” said Mr. Wallace, “I shall wish, as the best thing that could happen to you, that you may lose all your gains.”
Paul raised his clenched fist, and ground his teeth at the mention of such a possibility. Mrs. Wallace turned pale at such a symptom of passion; but she thought it right to add,— “You have twice had warning of the fleeting nature of riches. You have lost your own fortune, and seen the prosperity of this place overthrown.
If you still make wealth your god, I hope you prepare yourself to find it vanish when you need it most. I hope you picture to yourself what it will be to die destitute of that for which alone you have lived.”
“Yet this,” added her husband, “is a better lot than to live and die miserable in the possession of that for which alone he has lived. Take your choice, Paul; for the one lot or the other will be yours unless you make a grand effort now.”
Paul was not inclined to dispute this; but he was not, therefore, the more disposed to make the effort. He was pronounced by everybody a man of strong character. Whatever pride he had in himself was in his strength of character. Yet he was weak,—weak as an idiot,—in the most important point of all.
He was once seen to smile compassionately on the perseverance of a little child who laboured through a whole sultry day in digging a little pond in his garden. By the time it was finished, and before it could be filled, it was bed-time, and a rainy night rendered it useless.
When Paul despised the labour of this child, he little thought how his own life would resemble that sultry day. He, too, spent his sunshiny hours in laborious preparation; and fell into his long sleep to find on waking that his toil had been in vain.
When the Wallaces at length took their final leave of the place, they alighted at Armstrong’s, on their way, to say farewell. The old man was, as usual, in his garden.
“Are you the last, the very last?” said he.
“Except two or three workmen and servants who stay to pack a few things and lock up our house.”
“I hope then they will take down yonder clock which sounds to me like a funeral bell.”
“Can you hear it so far as this?”
“O yes. Hark! It is beginning to strike noon. I used to like its stroke when it brought the work-people flocking from their cottages in the morning, or when they came pouring out as it told their dinner hour. But now it only puts one in mind of days that are gone, and I shall be glad when it is down.”
“You do then see something to regret in the days you speak of?” said Mr.
Wallace. “This is more than I expected from you.
“I might not say so, perhaps,” returned the old man, “if yonder valley could be made what it once was. But that can never be; and there is no comparison between a settlement where art and industry thrive, and a greater number of human beings share its prosperity every year, and a scene like that, where there is everything to put one in mind of man but man himself.”
“And where,” said Mr. Wallace, “we are chiefly reminded of the ignorance and folly to which the change is owing. I should wish for your sake that we could raze all those buildings, and make the ground a smooth turf as it was before, if I did not hope that the works might be reopened,—though not by us,—in happier days.”
“I should be more glad to see such a day than I was to witness that which brought you here,” said the old man. “But my sands are nearly run; and, even if nobody shakes the glass, I can scarcely hope that anything will bring you back within my hour. But come,” he added, swallowing his emotion, “where’s your lady?”
“Gone to speak to Mrs. Margaret. Will you gather her a bunch of your flowers before we go?”
“Aye, and a choice one; for she is a choice flower herself,” said the old man. “From the hour that one saw her walking over the heath in the wintry wind in her cloak and thick shoes to show a poor neighbour how to manage a new-dropt calf, I pronounced you, sir, a happy man. Whatever fortune betides you, you will find a companion and helper in her.”
Mrs. Wallace appeared in time to put a stop to further praise of herself. She had left Mrs. Margaret engaged in admiration of a painting by the lady’s own hands, which she wished to leave as a remembrance, and which henceforth ornamented the chimney-piece of the cottage, and occasioned more discourse than any other possession they had ever had.
Armstrong handed the lady gently down to the chaise. When it was out of sight, he was a long time tethering the gate; and the housekeeper observed that he drew his hand across his eyes as he turned into his orchard plot.
_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._ CAPITAL is something produced with a view to employment in further production.
Labour is the origin, and Saving is the support, of Capital.
Capital consists of 1. Implements of labour.
2. Material, simple or compound, on which labour is employed.
3. Subsistence of labourers.
Of these three parts, the first constitutes Fixed Capital: the second and third, Reproducible Capital.
Since Capital is derived from Labour, whatever economizes Labour assists the growth of Capital.
Machinery economizes Labour, and therefore assists the growth of Capital.
The growth of Capital increases the demand for Labour.
Machinery, by assisting the growth of Capital, therefore increases the demand for Labour.
In other words, Productive Industry is proportioned to Capital, whether that Capital be fixed or reproducible.
The interests of the two classes of producers, Labourers and Capitalists, are therefore the same; the prosperity of both depending on the accumulation of CAPITAL.
------- London: Printed by W. CLOWES, Stamford-street.
BROOKE AND BROOKE FARM.
=A Tale.= BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
--- 1833.
CONTENTS.
------- Chap. Page 1. Brooke and its Politicians 3001 2. George Gray’s Way of Living 3016 3. George Gray in the Way to Prosper 3028 4. A Conversation under the Limes 3040 5. Past, Present, and to Come 3056 7. Great Changes at Brooke 3083 8. Small Farming 3092 9. Great Joy at Brooke 3106 10. What Joe Harper saw Abroad 3114 11. What must come at last 3127 12. Prosperity to Brooke! 3132 BROOKE AND BROOKE FARM.
CHAPTER I.
BROOKE AND ITS POLITICIANS.
There is not a village in England that I love so well as Brooke: but I was born and have always lived there, and this is probably the reason why I see beauty in it; for strangers do not appear struck with it.
There is one long, straggling street where the blacksmith, the publican, the grocer, and the haberdasher live; their houses being separated, some by gardens, others by cowsheds or pigsties. My father’s house stands a little way out of the village, just a quarter of a mile from the “Withers’ Arms,” the only public-house in the place. Our dwelling stands so far back from the road, and is just so much planted with trees and shrubs, as to be free from noise and dust; while it is not so retired as to appear ashamed of keeping company with the houses in the neighbourhood. The children playing in the road may see the ladies at work in the bow-window by peeping through the bars of the white gate; and if any little boy should venture in to pick up his ball or recover his kite, he may chance to meet the master looking after his fruit-trees, or to catch a glimpse of the mistress cutting her roses.
Our house is, however, only the second-best in the place, without reckoning Sir Henry Withers’s fine old castle, which, besides being five miles off, is too grand to be brought into comparison with any neighbouring estate. Brooke Farm is a far larger and handsomer place than ours. The house, a solid old English mansion with many modern additions, which have been made as its owner, Mr. Malton, grew rich, is approached from the village by an avenue of fine chestnuts; but there are sundry other approaches which are much preferred by those who, like myself, frequent the fields and lanes of Brooke Farm. There is a green lane where wild anemones grow in profusion, and at the end of which, close by the back of the mansion, stand some tall elms, the habitation of a society of rooks. When I go to visit Mrs. Malton, I generally choose this road, and pay my respects to the rookery before doing the same to the lady.—Mr. Malton is by far the largest land-owner within a circuit of many miles, and has added to his property, year by year, till it has become as extensive as he can manage himself. Up to this point he believed himself justified in enlarging his farm, but not beyond; for he knows well that the personal superintendence of the proprietor is necessary to the due improvement of an estate of any kind, and especially of a farm.
At the west end of the village street stands the church, upon a rising ground planted with evergreens, while the modest parsonage retires behind it, with its little court in front, and its blooming pear-tree trained against the walls. Beyond, are a fine range of fields and some flourishing young plantations; but in my early days they were not to be seen. There was, instead, a wide common, skirted in some parts with very poor cottages. No trees, no gardens were seen around them. I remember how bleak and bare the situation of those dwellings used to appear. A pool of muddy water was before the doors of some, and a dunghill was heaped up against the wall of others. Each had a cowshed, such as it was, with its ragged thatch and its sides full of holes, through which the wind whistled. Each cottager possessed a cow which grazed on the common, and which, though lean from being only half-fed, was the best wealth of its master. As each villager had a right of common, every housekeeper possessed a cow; and often in my evening walk I met eight or nine of these miserable cattle coming home to be milked. Little John Todd, the blacksmith’s son, used to drive in several in company with his father’s. He took charge of Miss Black’s the milliner, of Wickstead’s the publican, and of Harper’s the grocer. With all these cows, there was no great abundance of milk, butter, and cheese, in the place; for no more milk was yielded than was wanted for each family. There were tribes of children in most of the cottages; and the grocer had his shop-boy, the publican his stable-boy, and the milliner her apprentice, to feed; so that there was a demand for as much milk as the poor animals could supply. A donkey or two, and a few pigs and geese, were also to be seen on the common, grazing or drinking from the pools, or dabbling in them.
There was a pretty pond of clear water near the pathway which led across the common; and it was overhung on one side by a clump of beeches which formed a pleasant shade in summer, and were a relief to the eye in winter when the ground was covered with snow. Behind this clump the common was no longer level, but swelled into heathy hillocks, bright with gorse and broom, and the variety of plants which usually flourish in company with them. The view of the church and parsonage from the highest of these hills was particularly pretty when the setting sun shone full on their windows and on the bench in the churchyard, where the old men used to go to enjoy its last beams. I have sat on that hill for many an hour, watching the children at their sports about the pond, or tending the cows; and have remained there with my father till no sound was heard but the dying hum from a distance, and nothing was to be seen of the village but the sparks from the blacksmith’s forge.—My father agrees with me that Brooke is one of the prettiest villages in England.
The character of the place and of the people is, however, very much changed within my remembrance;—whether for the better or the worse, the reader will judge for himself when I have described the changes to which I refer. A few years ago, as I have said, the cottages on the common wore a comfortless appearance. The families they contained, some large, some small, were, however, supported in independence, and few complaints were heard, though the children went barefoot and half-naked, and had never thought of such a thing as learning to read. Blacksmiths are always sure of a living; and Mr. Todd was then neither better nor worse off than at present. The same may be said of Wickstead the publican. The grocer has got on in the world considerably; and Miss Black’s window displays a much grander assortment of caps and ribbons than in former days. But as she has grown rich, some of her neighbours have grown poor; and parish relief is sought by several families who would have little thought of such a mode of subsistence ten years ago.
I well remember the day when my father announced to us a piece of news which nearly concerned the interests of our village. As we were sitting round the table after dinner, my mother remarked that she had seen Sir Henry Withers ride down the street in the morning, and thought he was going to call; but that just as he had reached the gate, he turned his horse’s head another way.
“He came to speak to me on business,” said my father, “and seeing me a little way farther on the road, he chose to overtake me instead of turning in here. He left his respects for you, and was sorry he had no time afterwards to call.”
My mother was sorry too, for she wanted to give him some instructions about rearing a foreign plant which he thought was drooping.
“He will be here again in a day or two,” said my father. “If the news he brought has got wind, as I believe it has through his groom, he will scarcely be so well received as usual in the village.”
A piece of news being a rare and welcome thing among the inhabitants of Brooke, whether high or low, the whole family party looked eagerly to my father for an explanation. He went on: “Sir Henry tells me that an act of Parliament is likely to be obtained for inclosing Brooke common.”
“O, our pretty common!” cried I. “So we shall see it all divided into patches, with ugly hedges and ditches between. I shall never have any pleasure in walking there again.”
“And we must give up playing hide and seek among the hillocks,” said one of the boys.
“And there will be no place for me to fly my kite,” exclaimed Frederick; “and Arthur must not swim his boat on the pond, I suppose.”
“What are the poor people to do with their cows?” added my mother.
“You too, my dear!” exclaimed my father, smiling. “I was going to tell the children that they must not set an example of discontent to their poor neighbours; and now, I am afraid, I must begin my lecture with you.”
“You will not need,” replied my mother. “I am well convinced that it is right that waste lands should be inclosed: but the first thought which occurred to me was the immediate distress which such a change would cause among the cottagers.”
“I am sorry for them,” said my father,“ because they will be full of alarm, and may, by mismanagement, make that an evil which ought to be none. If they choose, they may be the better for this change. Whether they will choose it is the question.”
“That they will be the better in the end, I have no doubt,” replied my mother. “But how are they to do without pasture for their cows in the mean time?”
“An allotment of land will be given to each,” replied my father, “which may be made much more valuable than the right of common, of which people think so much.”
“But, mamma,” said I, “you spoke of the common as waste land, just as if it was of no use to anybody. Surely, if it feeds cows for the whole village, and geese besides, it is quite useful enough?”
“Not if it can be made more useful by cultivation, Lucy,” said my father. “It is now but poor pasture for a score of cows and a few geese.
If it can be made to produce abundant food for double the number of cattle, and some hundreds of human beings besides, we may well call its present condition waste, in comparison with that which will be.”
“But it will be very expensive work to bring it to this state,” argued I. “How much it will cost to make the fences and prepare the ground before anything will grow in it!”
“That is the affair of those who are going to lay out their capital upon it,” replied he. “You may trust them for having made their calculations that they will be repaid in time. If you should see that day, if you live to admire fine fields of corn and valuable plantations flourishing where nothing grows now but heath and broom, you will wonder that you could ever lament the change because it has cost you the loss of a pretty walk.”
I was ready to allow that my regret was selfish.
“As for you, children,” added my father, turning to the little boys, “it is natural that you should ask about your kite and your boat. I can tell you for your comfort that the pond is not to be touched, and that there will be plenty of room for some years to come for all your sports. The whole common will not be enclosed at once, and the level ground will be taken in first. So you may play at hide and seek among the hillocks till you grow too old for the game.”
As we went for our evening walk, we could perceive that there was an unusual stir in the village. Two or three old men, who were always to be seen about sunset sitting on the bench under the elm in front of the public-house, were smoking their pipes very quietly; but more than the usual number of gossips was standing round them, and the politicians who took the lead in the discussion of the news were holding forth with more than common energy of speech and action.—On one side of the tree two men appeared engaged in an argument less vehement, and to which there were no listeners. One was Sergeant Rayne, who, having spent many years in foreign parts and lost an arm there, had come back, covered with glory, to spend his remaining days in his native village, where he was looked up to as a kind of oracle on account of his superior knowledge of the world. His companion was the grocer, who conceived himself to be little less of a man of the world than Sergeant Rayne, since he had paid three visits to London, and many more to the market town of M——.
I directed my father’s attention to this pair of speakers, exclaiming, “How I should like to know what they are saying! They look as earnest as their neighbours, though they are less noisy.”
“It is easy to see,” replied my father, “that there is speechifying going on on one side of the elm, and argument on the other. I am glad of it, if, as I suppose, they are discussing the inclosure-bill; for I was afraid they were all of one mind, all opposed to it.”
As we passed Miss Black’s, we saw her talking at the door with Mr.
Gregson, the smart young haberdasher, who was the lady’s man of the village. As it was a rare thing for her to condescend to gossip with her neighbours, except at the tea-table, we concluded that she too had heard the news, and that concern for the interests of her cow had overcome her usual dignity.
We were always sure of hearing the substance and result of every argument which took place within the parish of Brooke, in the space of twenty-four hours at farthest, from a reporter as faithful as he was minute.
Carey the barber, who shaved and dressed my father every morning, would as soon have thought of appearing unprovided with razor and soap as with a report of what passed under the elm the evening before. All that he heard there was told, whether my father listened or not. If left to talk without interruption, he was satisfied with the mere pleasure of talking. If encouraged by observation and reply, he was doubly pleased.
He considered that it was his office to speak and my father’s to hear, and was resolved that the duty should be thoroughly performed on his part at least. Happy would it be for society if every office were filled with equal zeal and industry!
“I hope, sir,” said he, the morning after the occurrences I have related,—“I hope, sir, you enjoyed your walk last evening? Charming evening, sir! I saw you pass as I was with my neighbours at the Arms.
Charming evening, indeed!”
“Very pleasant; and I suppose your neighbours found it so, as they did not disperse till late. We were home later than usual, and yet you were all as busy talking when we returned as at sunset.”
“True sir; very true: though I am ashamed to say I did not see you pass the second time. Yet not ashamed either, for I believe it was quite dark. We had a very animated discussion, sir. We were occupied with a subject of very unusual interest, sir; though I assure you it did not prevent my observing to Wickstead that I supposed you had gone round by the lanes, as nobody had seen you return. But, as I was saying, sir, if we had remained under the elm till this time, it would not have been very surprising.”
He paused to observe whether he had raised my father’s curiosity. He was satisfied by the reply:— “Indeed! I do not remember that even when the French invasion was expected, any discussion lasted all night. It must be something of high importance indeed.”
“It is sir, as you say, something of the utmost importance,—as much as the event you speak of. It is in fact an invasion that we apprehend, sir: an invasion of our privileges, of our rights, which are perhaps as valuable to us as our country itself.”
“What can have happened?” said my father. “You alarm me, Carey.”
“I am happy to hear it, sir. The best service which I can render to myself and my friends is to alarm those who have the power to defend our rights. It was agreed last night that as it would be proper to rouse Jowler if your house was attacked, it was now our part to awaken you, sir, to guard our properties. I hope no offence, sir, in comparing you to Jowler; but you perceive what we mean; or rather what Tom Webster means, for it was he that said it, being, as it were, the speaker of the assembly. But I assure you, sir, when your constant anxiety for our welfare was mentioned, we all said ‘Amen!’ so that you perceive no disrespect was meant by the comparison of Jowler.”
“But let me hear what it is that you apprehend,” said my father. “What is this terrible news?”
“It is said, sir, that an Act of Parliament is to be obtained for enclosing Brooke common.”
“So I have heard,” replied my father, quietly.
“Then I conclude it is true,” continued Carey; “and the only obstacle to our proceeding immediately to action is removed. Our meeting will no doubt be held without delay.”
“What meeting?”
“I will tell you, sir, briefly what passed last night. As soon as I arrived at the Arms, I heard from Wickstead that Sir Henry Withers’s groom had called in the morning and announced the news of which we are speaking;—that the common is to be inclosed, and that we are to be deprived in consequence of the right of grazing our cows there.”
“Without any exchange?” inquired my father. “Without any advantage being afforded instead of it?”
“The groom mentioned none, sir. Sergeant Rayne said, indeed, that in these cases a piece of land was given to each person instead of the right of common; but we do not know whether it is true. And if it is, what then? What am I, for instance, to do with a bit of land? Only conceive, sir!—Well: we were all of one mind at once, with the exception of Sergeant Rayne, who, between ourselves, has the most extraordinary notions on some subjects. We at once determined to make a stand against oppression; but we should not have known the best method of doing so if it had not been for Tom Webster.”
“Who is he?” asked my father. “I did not know we had a person of that name in the village.”
“No wonder sir, for he has only just arrived—two days ago, I think. He is a cousin of Harper’s,—a very fine young man, but out of health. He lives at M——, and is come on a visit for the sake of country air and quiet. A very fine young man he is, sir, and has seen a great deal of the world. If he stays long enough, I should hope he may infuse much spirit into our meetings, and impart a degree of polish to our society.”
“And what is his advice on the present occasion?”
“That a public meeting should be held, sir, at the Withers’ Arms, and that a petition should be presented to the legislature against the threatened measure. He offered (having been engaged in a public meeting at M——) to prepare and move the resolutions, and proposed that Sergeant Rayne should be invited to take the chair, in case you, sir, as we feared, should decline doing us the honour of presiding.”
“I disapprove the object of such a meeting, and could not therefore preside,” said my father.
“We feared so, sir; as the groom said he believed you and his master were both of one mind,—both opposed to our opinions.”
“And what says Sergeant Rayne?”
“He too is of the objective school, sir.”
“Indeed! And were his objections listened to?”
“We thought it better to defer the consideration of them till the day of meeting. Every one, as Tom Webster says, will then have fair play, be he friend or be he enemy. So we proceeded with our arrangements till the