“Just this; thou can’t drive men by machines of iron tethered to steam! It is an awful mastership, that it is! It is the drive of the devil. The slaves we are going to set free in the West Indies are better off, far better off than factory slaves. They hed at any rate human masters, that like as not, hev a heart somewhere about them. Machines hev no heart, and no sympathy and no weakness of any make. They are regular, untiring, inexorable, and——”
“They do more work and better work than men can do.”
“Mebbe they do, and so men to keep up wi’ them, hev to work longer, and harder, and wi’ constantly increasing peril o’ their lives. Yes, for the iron master, the man must work, work, work, till he falls dead at its iron feet. It is a cruel bad do! A bad do! Bradley, how can thou fashion to do such things? Oh, it isn’t fair and right, and thou knows it!”
“Well, Annis, thou may come to see things a good deal different and tha knows well I can’t quarrel wi’ thee. Does ta think I can iver forget March 21, 1823, when thou saved me and mine, from ruin?”
“Let that pass, Bradley. It went into God’s memory—into God’s memory only. Good morning to thee!” And the men parted with a feeling of kindness between them, though neither were able to put it into words.
Still the interview made the squire unhappy and he instantly thought of going home and telling his wife about it. “I can talk the fret away with Annie,” he thought, and he turned Annisward.
At this time Madam Annis was sitting in the morning sunshine, with her finest set of English laces in her hand. She was going carefully over them, lifting a stitch here and there, but frequently letting them fall to her lap while she rested her eyes upon the wealth of spring flowers in the garden which at this point came close up to the windows.
Madam Annis was fifty years old but still a beautiful woman, full of life, and of all life’s sweetest and bravest sympathies. She wore an Indian calico—for Manchester’s printed calicoes were then far from the perfection they have since arrived at—and its bizarre pattern, and wonderfully brilliant colors, suited well her fine proportions and regal manner. A small black silk apron with lace pockets and trimmings of lace, and black silk bows of ribbon—a silver chatelaine, and a little lace cap with scarlet ribbons on it, were the most noticeable items of her dress though it would hardly do to omit the scarlet morocco slippers, sandaled and trimmed with scarlet ribbon and a small silver buckle on the instep.
Suddenly she heard rapid footsteps descending the great stairway, and in the same moment she erected her position, and looked with kind but steady eyes at the door. It opened with a swift noiseless motion and a girl of eighteen years entered; a girl tall and slender, with masses of bright brown hair, a beautiful mouth and star-like eyes.
“Mother,” she said, “how am I to go to London this spring?”