Part 19 (2/2)
But it was singular, that every one of the six who had merely professed their conditional readiness to sign the protest, were contumeliously discharged the next day, without any reason being a.s.signed. It was evident that there had been a traitor at the meeting; and every one suspected Jemmy Downes, especially as he fell into the new system with suspiciously strange alacrity. But it was as impossible to prove the offence against him, as to punish him for it. Of that wretched man, too, and his subsequent career, I shall have somewhat to say hereafter. Verily, there is a G.o.d who judgeth the earth!
But now behold me and my now intimate and beloved friend, Crossthwaite, with nothing to do--a gentlemanlike occupation; but, unfortunately, in our cla.s.s, involving starvation. What was to be done? We applied for work at several ”honourable shops”; but at all we received the same answer. Their trade was decreasing--the public ran daily more and more to the cheap show-shops--and they themselves were forced, in order to compete with these latter, to put more and more of their work out at contract prices. _Facilis descensus Averni!_ Having once been hustled out of the serried crowd of competing workmen, it was impossible to force our way in again. So, a week or ten days past, our little stocks of money were exhausted. I was down-hearted at once; but Crossthwaite bore up gaily enough.
”Katie and I can pick a crust together without snarling over it. And, thank G.o.d, I have no children, and never intend to have, if I can keep true to myself, till the good times come.”
”Oh! Crossthwaite, are not children a blessing?”
”Would they be a blessing to me now? No, my lad.--Let those bring slaves into the world who will! I will never beget children to swell the numbers of those who are trampling each other down in the struggle for daily bread, to minister in ever deepening poverty and misery to the rich man's luxury--perhaps his l.u.s.t.”
”Then you believe in the Malthusian doctrines?”
”I believe them to be an infernal lie, Alton Locke; though good and wise people like Miss Martineau may sometimes be deluded into preaching them. I believe there's room on English soil for twice the number there is now; and when we get the Charter we'll prove it; we'll show that G.o.d meant living human heads and hands to be blessings and not curses, tools and not burdens. But in such times as these, let those who have wives be as though they had none--as St. Paul said, when he told his people under the Roman Emperor to be above begetting slaves and martyrs. A man of the people should keep himself as free from enc.u.mbrances as he can just now. He win find it all the more easy to dare and suffer for the people, when their turn comes--”
And he set his teeth, firmly, almost savagely.
”I think I can earn a few s.h.i.+llings, now and then, by writing for a paper I know of. If that won't do, I must take up agitating for a trade, and live by spouting, as many a Tory member as well as Radical ones do. A man may do worse, for he may do nothing. At all events, my only chance now is to help on the Charter; for the sooner it comes the better for me. And if I die--why, the little woman won't be long in coming after me, I know that well; and there's a tough business got well over for both of us!”
”Hech,” said Sandy,
”To every man Death comes but once a life--
”as my countryman, Mr. Macaulay, says, in thae gran' Roman ballants o' his.
But for ye, Alton, laddie, ye're owre young to start off in the People's Church Meelitant, sae just bide wi' me, and the barrel o' meal in the corner there winna waste, nae mair than it did wi' the widow o' Zareptha; a tale which coincides sae weel wi' the everlasting righteousness, that I'm at times no inclined to consider it a'thegither mythical.”
But I, with thankfulness which vented itself through my eyes, finding my lips alone too narrow for it, refused to eat the bread of idleness.
”Aweel, then, ye'll just mind the shop, and dust the books whiles; I'm getting auld and stiff, and ha' need o' help i' the business.”
”No,” I said; ”you say so out of kindness; but if you can afford no greater comforts than these, you cannot afford to keep me in addition to yourself.”
”Hech, then! How do ye ken that the auld Scot eats a' he makes? I was na born the spending side o' Tweed, my man. But gin ye daur, why dinna ye pack up your duds, and yer poems wi' them, and gang till your cousin i' the university? he'll surely put you in the way o' publis.h.i.+ng them. He's bound to it by blude; and there's na shame in asking him to help you towards reaping the fruits o' yer ain labours. A few punds on a bond for repayment when the addition was sauld, noo,--I'd do that for mysel; but I'm thinking ye'd better try to get a list o' subscribers. Dinna mind your independence; it's but spoiling the Egyptians, ye ken, and the bit ballants will be their money's worth, I'll warrant, and tell them a wheen facts they're no that weel acquent.i.t wi'. Hech? Johnnie, my Chartist?”
”Why not go to my uncle?”
”Puir sugar-and-spice-selling bailie body! is there aught in his ledger about poetry, and the incommensurable value o' the products o' genius? Gang till the young scholar; he's a canny one, too, and he'll ken it to be worth his while to fash himsel a wee anent it.”
So I packed up my little bundle, and lay awake all that night in a fever of expectation about the as yet unknown world of green fields and woods through which my road to Cambridge lay.
CHAPTER XI.
”THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE.”
I may be forgiven, surely, if I run somewhat into detail about this my first visit to the country.
I had, as I have said before, literally never been further afield than Fulham or Battersea Rise. One Sunday evening, indeed, I had got as far as Wandsworth Common; but it was March, and, to my extreme disappointment, the heath was not in flower.
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