“Now, men of Atheling manor and village, you have been sulky and ugly for two or three weeks. You aren’t sulky and ugly without knowing why you are so. If you are Yorkshiremen worth your bread and bacon, you will out with your grievance–whatever it is. Tom Gisburn, what is it?”
“We can’t starve any longer, Squire. We want two shillings a week more wages. Me and mine would hev been in t’ churchyard if thy Missis hed been as hard-hearted as thysen.”
“I will give you all one shilling a week more.”
“Nay, but a shilling won’t do. Thy Missis is good, and Miss Kate is good; but we want our rights; and we hev made up our minds that two shillings a week more wage will nobbut barely cover them. We are varry poor, Squire! Varry poor indeed!”
The man spoke sadly and respectfully; and the Squire looked at him, and at the stolid, anxious faces around with an angry pity. “I’ll tell you what, men,” he continued; “everything in England is going to the devil. Englishmen are getting as ill to do with as a lot of grumbling, contrary, bombastic Frenchers. If you’ll promise me to stand by the King, and the land, and the laws, and give these trouble-making Reformers a dip in the horse-pond if any of them come to Atheling again–why, then, I will give you all–every one of you–two shillings a week more wage.”
“Nay, Squire, we’ll not sell oursens for two shillings a week; not one of us–eh, men?” and Gisburn looked at his fellows interrogatively.
“Sell oursens!” replied the Squire’s blacksmith, a big, hungry-looking fellow in a leather apron; “no! no, Squire! Thou oughtest to know us better. Sell oursens! Not for all the gold guineas in Yorkshire! We’ll sell thee our labour for two shilling a week more wage, and thankful; but our will, and our good-will, thou can’t buy for any money.”
There was a subdued cheer at these words from the men, and the Squire’s face suddenly lightened. His best self put his lower self behind him. “Sawley,” he answered, “thou art well nicknamed ‘Straight-up!’ and I don’t know but what I’m very proud of such an independent, honourable lot of men. Such as you won’t let the land suffer. Remember, you were all born on it, and you’ll like enough be buried in it. Stand by the land then; and if two shillings a week more wage will make you happy, you shall have it,–if I sell the gold buttons off my coat to pay it. Are we friends now?”
A hearty shout answered the question, and the Squire continued, “Then go into the barn, and eat and drink your fill. You’ll find a barrel of old ale, and some roast beef, and wheat bread there.”
In this way he turned the popular discontent from Atheling, and doubtless saved his barns and hay-ricks; but he went into his house angry at the men, and angry at his wife and daughter. They had evidently been aiding and succouring these discontents and their families; and–as he took care to point out to Kate–evil and not good had been the result. “I have to give now as a right,” he said, “what thee and thy mother have been giving as a kindness!” And his temper was not improved by hearing from the barn the noisy “huzzas” with which the name of “the young Squire” was received, and his health drank.