Part 5 (1/2)

CHAPTER VII.

MAY INDICATE TO THE READER, AMONGST OTHER THINGS, SOME OF THE ADMIRABLE ARRANGEMENTS WHEREBY ENGLAND OBTAINS MEN FOR A STANDING ARMY.

Had Thomas Wanless known what was in store for him in the future he might have elected to leave Ashbrook for ever, and continue the life of a railway navvy. As such his pay was good, and by thrift he might save enough money either to venture on small contracts for himself, or start some kind of business in one of the growing midland towns. But Thomas did not consider these possibilities. The life he led grew more and more repulsive to him as time went on; and he yearned unceasingly for the quietude of his native village, and for his own fireside peace. Besides, he hungered to get back to work on the land. If he could not get fields of his own to till, at least he might hope to again help to till the fields of others, and to watch the corn bloom and ripen as of yore.

So when the local bit of railway was made, Thomas came home to Ashbrook, and once more went abroad among his neighbours; once more he accepted the labourer's lot, with its hard fare and starvation pay. He returned late in autumn when work was scarce; but his wife and he had saved money in the past two years, and he managed to live with the help of what odd jobs he could get, and without much trenching on his store till spring came round. Fortunately his son Thomas had been able to cultivate the allotment patch in his father's absence, and in spite of the fact that the new owner of the soil had doubled their rent, it had paid for its cultivation very well. The growing importance of Leamington provided all surrounding villages with an improving vegetable and fruit market, of which Thomas's wife and family had taken full advantage in his absence.

So well indeed had they done, that he himself indulged for a short time in dreams of becoming a market gardener; but he soon found that there was no chance for him in that direction. He might get work from the farmers around, but no landlord would rent him the few necessary acres.

A broken man when he left Ashbrook to become a navvy; his absence had not improved his position. On the contrary, the parish magnates rather looked upon him as a greater black sheep than ever. The old ideas about the rights of landowners to the labour of the hind, as well as to the lion's share of the products of that labour, had by no means died out, and it was still a moral crime in the eyes of the landlord for a labourer to have enough daring and independence of spirit, to enable him to seek work in another part of the country. In some respects Wanless was therefore a greater pariah when he came home than when he went away, and the summit of offence was reached when the report got abroad that he had actually made some money, and wanted to rent a little farm.

Squire Wiseman had condescended to mention this report to Parson Codling, and they both agreed that this kind of thing must be discountenanced, else the country would not be fit for respectable persons to live in. ”The idea,” Wiseman had exclaimed, ”of this d----d poacher-thief wanting to become a farmer! why bless my life, we shall have our butlers wanting to be members of parliament next.” And this seemed to be the general opinion, so that the only practical outcome of Thomas's ambition was a greater difficulty in procuring work, and a further advance in the rent of his allotment. The successor of old Captain Hawthorn took this mode of expressing his concurrence in the general opinion, rather than that of a summary ejectment, he being a practical man, and wise in his generation. It was better policy to take the profits of Thomas's labours than to turn him adrift, and have to pay rates for the maintenance of him and his family.

Against the odds and prejudices thus at work, Wanless fought manfully for more than two years. When he could get work he laboured at it early and late, and when, as often happened, work was denied him, he tended his little garden and his allotment patch with the closeness of a Chinese farmer. His flowers were the pride of the village, and his care coaxed the old trees in his garden into a degree of fruit-bearing that almost put to shame the vigour of their youth. Yet he could not always make ends meet; and when he began to see his little h.o.a.rd melting away, his heart once more failed him. If the farmers would not have him he must once more try elsewhere, and again a local railway afforded him a refuge. He became a ”ganger” on the Stratford line at 14s. a-week, and for more than four years made his daily journey backwards and forwards on his ”beat,” winter and summer, in cold and heat, well or ill. In one sense, this work was not so hard as a farm labourer's or a navvy's is, but it told on the health as much. Exposure, thin clothing, and poor food did their work rapidly enough, and Thomas's limbs began to stiffen, and his back to grow bent before his time. Like his fellows, he promised to become an old man at 50, but he would have stuck to his work had not a sharp attack of pleurisy laid him up in the winter of 1855, and once more compelled him to seek to live by farm labour. He could not face the bleak unsheltered railway track again, and even if he could, there was no room for him. His place had been filled up. With a weary heart and a spirit well-nigh crushed, Thomas once more looked for work on the farms around Ashbrook. ”Is there no hope for us, Sally, la.s.s?” he would often cry. ”Must we go to the workhouse at last?” ”Ay, the workhouse, the workhouse!” he would exclaim. ”The parsons promise us a deal in the other world, but that's the best they think we deserve here. Well, perhaps they mean to give us a better relish for the other world when it comes.”

Thomas had one thing to cheer him, though, and no doubt that gave him more courage to face the world again than he otherwise would have had.

His precious son, young Tom, had emigrated to Australia about a year before this terrible illness had enfeebled his father. He had gone as an a.s.sisted emigrant, but the old man had given him 10 of old Hawthorn's 20 to begin the New World upon. The parting had cost the family much, and the father most of all; but they felt it to be for the best. There was no room to grow in the old land; in the new there was a great freedom. The lad dreamt of gold nuggets; but the wiser father bade him stick to the land as soon as he could get a bit to stick to.

This departure was a loss to the family purse, for the youth had obtained pretty steady work, and generously gave all into the keeping of his mother. But Jane and Jacob were now also out into the world, winning such bread as they could get, and the family burden was therefore lighter. Jane was general servant to a dissenting draper in Leamington, and Jacob enjoyed the proud distinction of being waggoner's boy at Whitbury farm, now tenanted by a go-ahead Scotch ex-bailiff, who had succeeded the Pembertons when they went to the dogs with drink and horse-dealing. This hard-fisted, ferret-eyed agriculturist worked his men and boys as they had never been worked before, but he did not make the hours of labour so long, and he paid them a trifle better than his neighbours, whose jealousy and dislike he thereby increased. Probably he rather liked to be contemned by his fellows. It increased the self-sufficiency of his righteousness, and made him the more proud of being a strict Calvinistic Presbyterian, endowed with a conscience as inelastic as his creed. Be that as it may, this man gave Jacob Wanless 10s. a week and made the lad work for it. Jacob was not then 17, and at his previous place had only obtained half that sum with a grudge. But then his work had been a long day's drawl too often, while now his duty as under waggoner was practically a good 10 to 12 hours' toil as stable a.s.sistant, feeder of stalled cattle, and general labourer about the farm.

From these causes Wanless had some ground for hope, although work was difficult for him to get, and his power to do it when got less than it had been. And when he looked round him his causes for thankfulness multiplied. Was not his neighbour Hewens, the under gardener at the Grange, worse off than he, with a younger family of seven, one of whom was an object, and a weekly income averaging about 9s. a week all the year round. Thomas's old and tried friend Satchwell, the blacksmith, too, with his three children living and a wife dying in decline, had surely a harder lot than he, for all the coldness of farmers and contumely of parish deities.

As spring warmed into summer, indeed, Wanless's strength and heart came back to him in a measure. His hopes were chastened, but they were there still, and a.s.serted their life. Good news came from his far-away son, too. Young Tom had taken his father's advice, and, avoiding the charms of gold digging, had gone to work at high pay on a sheep run. Already he spoke of buying a farm of his own, and getting father and mother and all the rest to join him in the colony. Surely any man's heart would warm at prospects like these, and Thomas so far entertained the project as to talk it over with his friends, Brown, Satchwell, and Robins, who agreed in thinking it ”mighty fine,” and in wis.h.i.+ng that they could mount and go along. ”A vain wish, friends,” Brown would say, ”vain so far as I am concerned, for I cannot herd sheep or hold a plough, and they want neither parish clerks nor schoolmasters in the bush.” Robins felt that he was too old and too poor to think of the change, and Satchwell sighed often as he thought on what a sea voyage might yet do for his wife. But as for Thomas, of course he could go when his son sent him the money, they said; and he, remembering that he had still a few pounds of his h.o.a.rd unspent, almost thought that he could. His family should have the first chance, though. Jane and Jacob might both be able in another year to get away to the new country so full of hope; and it was best that the old hulk should stay at home, perhaps. So ran his thoughts for these two, but he always stopped when he reached Sally, his youngest living child, and precious to him as the apple of his eye. She was the fairest of the family, and her father's darling above all the others. Her, at all events, he felt he could not part with. If she went away at all her mother and he must go too.

As yet ”wee Sal,” as she was called, though by this time nigh fourteen years old, had not been suffered to go out to service. She had got more schooling than the others, thanks to the better means that her father had during part of her childish years; thanks likewise to his partiality for her. In this you will say he was weak; but let him who is strong on such a point fling stones. I cannot blame Thomas much for committing so common a sin as to love most yearningly his youngest child; but I admit that his fondness was perhaps to her hurt. Not that she was taught to love idleness or things above her station. Far from that. Kept at home though she was, she had to work. In the summer season she helped her mother to tend the garden, and to carry flowers, vegetables, and fruit to Leamington for sale. Under her mother's eye she at other times learned something of laundry work. But her schooling; what could she do with that? Did it not tend to give her vain thoughts above her lot; for her lot was fixed more even than that of her brothers. The peasant maid could never hope to advance to aught beyond some kind of upper service in a rich man's family; a service often increasingly degrading in proportion as it is nominally high. She might become a ladies' maid, perhaps, and marry a butler in time, or she might fill her head with vanities, and in apeing those above her sink to the gutter. The love of Thomas for his child exposed her to many risks, when it took the form of getting old Brown to teach her all he knew. If she could only get to the new country at the other end of the world all that might be changed. She might be happy and prosperous as an Australian farmer's wife. Yes, that would be best; but they must all go. Neither Thomas nor his wife, who shared his partiality, could think of parting with Sally. Jacob might go first to help Tom to gather means to take out the rest; and Jane might even go with him could a way be found; but not Sally: that sacrifice would be too much.

In all probability the emigration plan might have been carried out in this sense that very winter, if an emigration agent could have been got to take Jacob and Jane, had not misfortune once more found the labourer and smitten his hopes. Jacob enlisted. He was by no means a bad boy, but like all youths, enjoyed what is called a bit of fun; and, in fun, he had betaken himself to a kind of hiring fair held in Warwick, in November, and called the ”Mop.” There was no need for him to go, as he was not out of work, but the day was a kind of prescriptive holiday, and others were going, so why not Jacob? Idle, careless, and brisk as a lark, the lad followed where others led; drank for the sake of good companions.h.i.+p more than his unaccustomed head could carry; and when in a wild, devil-may-care mood was picked up by a recruiting sergeant, who soon joked and argued him into taking the s.h.i.+lling. A neighbour saw the boy, half-tipsy, following the sergeant and his party through the fair with recruit's ribbons fluttering round his head, and rushed home to tell Thomas as fast as his legs could carry him. The old man was horror-struck; and the boy's mother broke into bitter wailing. Thomas, however, wasted no time in useless grief, but took the road for Warwick, within three minutes of hearing the news, in the hope of being in time to buy his boy off. He had an idea that if he managed to pay the smart-money before Jacob was sworn in, the lad might escape with little difficulty. But he was too late. The sergeant was too well up to his work to wait in Warwick all night, in order that parents might come in the morning and beleaguer him for their betrayed children. Long before Thomas reached the town and began his search for his son the sergeant had gone off with his entire netful to Birmingham.

As soon as Thomas found this to be the case he made for the railway station, intending to follow his boy without asking himself whether it would do any good. But there again he was baulked. The cheap train to Birmingham had pa.s.sed long before, a porter told him, and there was nothing that night but the late and dear express. For this Thomas had not enough money in addition to what would be required to buy off Jacob, so he had no help for it but to go home. This he did with a heart heavy enough. Well did he know that ere he could reach Birmingham to-morrow he would be too late. Recruiting sergeants do not linger at their work, especially after the army had been reduced by war and disease as it then had been in the Crimea. Before ten o'clock next morning Jacob, still dazed with yesterday's unwonted debauch, was sworn in before a Birmingham J.P., and not all the money his father possessed could then release him. Henceforth, till his years of service were out, he must go and kill or be killed at the bidding of these ”sovereigns and statesmen,” whose business it still, alas, is to make strife in the world.

This untoward event was in many ways a knock-down blow to the old labourer and his wife. She, however, sorrowed mostly on personal grounds, and dwelt on gloomy prospects of wounds and violent deaths as the only lot now open for her son--bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh--whom she had nursed and tended from the womb only for this. Like a good housewife, she mourned also the loss of Jacob's wages, which not only helped to keep the wolf from the door, but also served to nourish the hope that one day all might yet see the new land of promise. If any savings could be pointed to they were always in the mother's eyes due to those wonderful earnings of her boy's.

Thomas shared these feelings with his wife, but he had others into which she did not enter. The emigration scheme had, perforce, to be given up, and that was to him a far more bitter thought than to his wife, who declared that she did not mind if they all went, but hung back at the thought of ”putting one after another of her children into a living tomb,” as she phrased it. But the deepest pain of all to Thomas probably lay in the humiliation he felt in having a son a soldier. The trade of murder, as he called it, was to his mind the most degrading to which a man's hands could be set. He firmly believed that standing armies were a mockery of the Almighty, and that the nations which fostered them would sooner or later sink to perdition beneath the blows of divine vengeance.

Armies led to wars, and wars were the curse of the world, he averred, and when contradicted was ready to prove to his antagonist that all the wars in which England had been engaged since the revolution of 1688, were dictated by the worst pa.s.sions of mankind. Either, he said, they were undertaken to consolidate the power of a rapacious faction over the lives, liberties, and means of the people at large, or they were actuated by mere b.e.s.t.i.a.l greed, by inordinate vanity and love of power, or by mulish obstinacy and hatred or fear of liberty, and it was amazing to hear what arrays of facts he brought forth in support of his thesis. As a general conclusion he, of course, urged that, but for kings and priests, most of the wars of the modern world would never have come about. He did not know which cause was most effective, but inclined to think it was the priests. Certainly the sight of ministers of Christ so-called, unctuously blessing red-handed and red-coated murderers by wholesale, and training their children to go and do likewise, was in his opinion one of the most revolting things under G.o.d's sky.

You can, therefore, well understand with what bitterness of heart he thought of the fate of his boy. He brooded over it; it became more terrible in his sight than an actual crime. If Jacob had stolen and been transported for breaking the law, Thomas could not have felt more shame and humiliation than now haunted him. He almost cursed his son, and he did unstintedly curse the system under which the lad had been caught up by the agent of the State and spirited away from his labour. How it was done he knew but too well; and when afterwards Jacob himself told the story, it only confirmed what he had all along felt to be true. The boy had never intended to enlist; but the drink, imprudently taken, had gone to his head. The sergeant first cajoled him, and then, when he had taken the fatal s.h.i.+lling, terrified him with threats of what would befall if he broke faith with the Queen. So he took the oaths and went away to practice the goose step, and moralise on the oddness of things in the world. An officer, he now learnt, could sell out at a high price and retire; but the common soldier belonged to the State, and had to be bought back therefrom if he wished to be free. For Jacob there came no such redress.

Gloom settled on the heart of his father, and on the little home in Ashbrook after this great blow, and, but for the spur of hard necessity, Thomas thought he should have laid down his burden altogether. Happily, duty called him to work for others, if not for himself; and work brought its usual blessing--a healing of the wounds and a revival of life in the heart. All was not yet lost, though the buffets of adversity were frequent and sore.

Indeed, in one sense Jacob's enlistment brought good to the family, for it gave Thomas work at Whitbury Farm. Once more, after so many vicissitudes, he came back to the old place. A changed place it proved to be, but, on the whole, the change was for the better. The work was hard, but the farmer was not brutal like the Pembertons, who had ruined themselves by wild living, been sold up, and had disappeared none knew whither.

Jacob himself had plenty of time to rue his folly, and he did rue it bitterly. At first in Chatham, and afterwards in various Irish barracks, he spent seven dreary years, wis.h.i.+ng many a time he were dead, and regretting that his fate did not lead him to India, where a mutineer's bullet might have ended his career. Possessing much of his father's energy of nature and many of his father's habits of thought, the idle and seemingly purposeless life of a barrack became at times almost more than the young man could endure. Had he fallen into the loose ways of many among his comrades, it is probable that he would have capped the folly of enlisting by the military crime of desertion. Fortunately he kept his soul clean, and managed to utilise some portion of his time in improving his mind. The mental wants of the soldier were not cared for in his time, as they have begun to be since; but there were a few books available in most barracks, and in Ireland a kindly old adjutant, who had himself risen from the ranks, discovered Jacob's thirst in time to afford him some a.s.sistance. Save for ”providences” like these, and for the stout heart that grew within him as he developed into full manhood, Jacob's life as a soldier would have represented only wasted years.

Three more years in this way pa.s.sed over Thomas Wanless and his family--years marked by no incident of great importance. The dull uniformity of their struggles with the ills of life has no dramatic interest. Under it characters may be shaped and twisted like trees by the east wind; but the graduations of change are mostly imperceptible to those that endure the daily buffetings, and are beyond the scope of the chronicler. Some day in the lapse of years, a man wakes up suddenly to find himself changed, and looks back upon a former self with wonder and astonishment, with thankfulness, it may be, for the drastic cleansing he has endured, or with that flash of horror at the sudden vision of the pit into which he has all the time been slowly sinking. In these years, while a father labours for his children's bread, and thanks G.o.d that the bread comes to him for his labour, his children grow up, develop characters, a.s.sume att.i.tudes in the world he never suspects, bringing him joy or sorrow as the fruit is bitter or sweet. All is changing ever; life moves onward, and the one generation perceives not the path that the next shall follow. Ah! the mystery of life. What does it all mean? The wrong triumphs often; the high hopes are dashed; weariness and pain haunt us wherever we go; the fruit of the sweet blossom is ashes and exceeding great bitterness; yet we hope on, plod on, battle till the end comes--and the judgment: then perhaps we shall know.

As yet, however, the unkindly blows of a hard fate had not broken Thomas Wanless's spirit: far otherwise. His heart might fail him beneath the greater of his misfortunes, but when the storm had overpa.s.sed, his head rose again, his eye yet brightened, and the laughter of hope broke forth once more: so was it now. Steady work soothed the pain of Jacob's disgrace, and in time the boy's own cheerfulness and manifest improvement made his father begin to think good might be brought forth out of evil in this case also. His daughter Jane continued to do well, and was looking towards promotion in her sphere--such promotion as consists in being one among many fellows, instead of the solitary drudge in the family of a small retail merchant. With the higher wages that followed elevation, Jane hoped also to be able to help her parents more.

That was Jane's ambition, so far as confessed, and it did her credit.