“We can play skittles, and cricket, and have a bit of wrestling.”
“Or sit in the public house, and drink more beer. I don’t think your wives will like that. Besides, if you work less time won’t you get less wage? Do you think I am going to pay for twelve hours’ work and get ten? Would you? Will the mill-owners run factories for the fun of running them? Would you? And they say they hardly pay with twelve hours’ work. Men, I tell you truly, I know no more than the babe unborn what Reform will bring us. It may be better times; it may be ruin. But I can say one thing, sure and certain, you will get more trouble than you bargain for if you take to rioting about it. Your grandfathers and your fathers fought this question; and they left it to you to quarrel over. Very well, as long as you keep your quarrel in the Parliament Houses, I want you to have fair play. But if ever you should forget that there is the great Common Law behind all of us, rich and poor, and think to right yourselves with fire and blood, then I–your true friend–would be the first to answer you with cannon, and turn my scythes and shares into swords against you. Wait patiently a bit longer. In a few more weeks I do verily believe you will have Reform, and then I hope, in my soul, you will be pleased with your bargain. I don’t think, as far as I am concerned, Reform will change me or my ways one particle.”
“We don’t want you changed, Squire; you are good enough as you are.”
“I’m glad you think so, very glad. Now here is Atheling and Belward meadows and corn-fields. We can raise our wheat and cattle and wool, and carry on our farms–you and I together, for I could not do without you; and if I do right by you is there any reason to want better than right? And if I do not do right, then shout ‘Reform,’ and come and tell me what you want, and we will pass our own Reform Bill. Will that suit you?”
And they answered him with cheers, and he sent them into the Atheling Arms for a good dinner, and then rode slowly home. But a great sadness came over him, and he said to himself:
“It is not capital; it is not labour; it is not land: it is a bit of human kindness and human relations that lie at the root of all Reform. Maude says true enough, that we don’t know the people, and don’t feel for them, and don’t care for them. A word of reason, a word of truth and trust and of mutual good-will, and how pleased them poor fellows were! Reform has nothing on earth to do with Toryism or Whigism. God bless my soul! what kind of a head must the man have that could think so? I begin to see–I begin to see!”
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH
LADY OF EXHAM HALL AT LAST
The three weeks’ recess was full of grave anxiety; and the Squire had many fears they were to be the last weeks of peace and home before civil war called him to fulfil the promise he had made to his working-men. The Birmingham Political Union declared that if there was any further delay after Easter, two hundred thousand men would go forth from their shops and forges, and encamp in the London squares, till they knew the reason why the Reform Bill was not passed. The Scots Greys, who were quartered at Birmingham, had been employed the previous Sabbath in grinding their swords; and it was asserted that the Duke of Wellington stood pledged to the Government to quiet the country in ten days. These facts sufficiently indicated to the Squire the temper of the people; and he set himself, as far as he could, to take all the sweetness out of his home life possible. The memory of it might have to comfort him for many days.
With his daughter always by his side, he rode up and down the lands he loved; unconsciously giving directions that might be serviceable if he had to go to a stormier field than the House of Commons. To Mrs. Atheling he hardly suggested the possibility; for if he did, she always answered cheerfully, “Nonsense, John! The Bill will pass; and if it does not pass, Englishmen have more sense than they had in the days of Cromwell. They aren’t going to kill one another for an Act of Parliament.”