Blade-O'-Grass. Golden Grain. and Bread and Cheese and Kisses.

by B. L. Farjeon

The meeting here was convulsed with laughter. Jimmy Virtue, in his excitement, had taken out his glass eye, and was polishing it vigorously with his red cotton handkerchief, perfectly unconscious that he was doing anything extraordinary.

'Go it, old chap,' cried a number of voices, 'with your one eye!'

'I can see as far,' retorted Jimmy Virtue, 'with my one eye as you can with two. And look 'ere, mates. This' (holding up the piece of glass) 'is the only sham thing I've got about me.'

This hit told well, and when the laughter had subsided there were calls for Robert Truefit's story.

'I won't keep you long, mates, and I'll commence after a good old-fashioned style. Once upon a time there lived on an island a great number of persons of all stations and degrees. Some were born with silver spoons in their mouths, some with iron ladles. Some were poor, some were rich; some idled and lived well; some worked all the working hours of the day and lived hard. These last were like ourselves, working men; and whilst they had much to be grateful for, they had also, no doubt, much to complain of. Many of them were married and had children; others were courting and on their road to wedlock. The wages they earned were about the same as we earn--say, from twenty to forty-five shillings a week--and they found they had as much as they could do to squeeze out a sufficient and reasonable subsistence for their families. This pressed heavily upon them, and they began to murmur at the inequality of things. "We can't enjoy ourselves as we ought," they said to one another; "we can't afford to eat meat every day; we can't afford to go to the theatres; we can't afford a holiday; we can't make any provision for sickness, or for the time when we are too old to work." These complaints they made, and a hundred others, many of which were undoubtedly well-founded from their point of view--and you will agree with me that the point of view which comes home to their own doors is the only point of view from which nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand care to argue, whether they be rich or poor. Some sensible and straightforward workmen among them resolved to agitate their grievances in such a manner as to make things better for their children, if not for themselves. You know, I daresay, what is the meaning of the Constitution: it is a system of fundamental principles for the government of rational and social beings. Well, these men were sensible enough to recognise that the Constitution by which they were governed, and which was accountable for the burdens which pressed heavily upon them, was not a creation, but a growth--a steady gradual growth of many centuries. Let us liken it to an old and deeply-rooted tree, which by undue favour or by force of circumstance had grown crooked--but a tree, nevertheless, from which they drew food and protection. The common sense of these men told them that desolation and misery would fall upon them if by violent and sudden means they strove to force the crooked tree straight. The violent straining of the fibres would weaken them, and would so destroy the power of reproduction that the tree would not be able to bear sufficient food for those who lived in the shadow of its branches. And as to planting another, and expecting it to grow up and have healthy limbs in a night----well, you know what a foolish expectation that would have been! "But," they said, "we can sow the seed for another and a healthier tree, and while it grows we will wait, and watch, and assist it to the extent of our wisdom, and we'll work steadily on the while--like men!" There were others who were for more violent means--with as much reason as would exist in the man who, having suffered all his life from an internal hereditary disease, goes abruptly to a physician, and demands a dose of medicine that shall cure him on the spot. But the sensible men were the most powerful body, although possibly not the most numerous, and they worked steadily on, educating their children, and taking advantage of those aids which their own persistence and the natural advancement of the times brought to them. In the midst of this, there comes to the island a ship, and the Captain, convening a meeting of working men, says, "I am one of yourselves, and I know a means of remedying your grievances. Sail under my colours, and the oligarchs who monopolise the fat of the land shall be mown down like chaff. There shall be no waiting! You shall have as much fresh meat every day as you can eat; you shall have good clothes always; you sha'n't know what it is to be pinched; you shall have a man's rights--full measure! And these things shall be accomplished at once." He spoke confidently and boldly, and his words were tempting, and made an impression even upon those whose views were in favour of more temperate action than he advocated. But some among them asked of themselves, "What is it that we are asked to do?" And they thought, after all, that there were worse lots than that they had to bear. Many of their homes were happy, though poor. By their own firesides they enjoyed the greatest blessings of life. They loved their wives; they loved their children. They saw these stems of theirs growing to womanhood and manhood under their loving protection. "If we stagger," they said to themselves, "they will fall and get hurt." And we know,' said Robert Truefit, with intense and heartfelt earnestness, 'we who are husbands and fathers--we know how our own hearts bleed when those who are dear to us suffer! Said these men to themselves, as they looked around upon other communities and other countries, "Here is a community that strove to accomplish by force what we are striving to accomplish by steady and reasonable means. What do we see as the result? Fire, pillage, murder, civil war; food-fields laid waste, homes burnt to the ground, families in mourning, lives wrecked! Shall we bring these things upon ourselves and upon our wives and children?" But still the captain urged his views. "Well, then," said they, turning to him'--and Robert Truefit with a startlingly significant movement turned towards Mark Mallard--'"prove to us at all events that you are honest--prove to us that you are one of ourselves--that the name you go by is your own, and has always been your own. Some of us fear that you have hoisted false colours, and they don't want to sail under them. Prove to us that our fears are unfounded, and then, when we are satisfied as to your honesty and integrity, we will give a more careful attention to the temptations you hold out, and shall be the better able to judge of their value."'

Robert Truefit paused, and from the hearty cheers that were given as he retreated a step and laid his hand on Jimmy Virtue's shoulder, it was evident that his sentiments were indorsed by the better class of men in the meeting, and that they would not allow him or his friend to be put down. Mark Mallard saw that there was no escape for him, and without the slightest suspicion of the shot Jimmy Virtue was about to fire, said, in a blustering tone,

'Now, then, say what you've got to say, and be done with it.'

'I will,' replied Jimmy Virtue; 'and as you don't seem willin' to say what's your trade, I won't press you there. I'll just be satisfied with an answer to two questions, and I'll put 'em both in one breath.' The "two" men were standing in front of the platform in a line by themselves, and the eyes of all were upon them. Crooking the forefinger of his right hand, extending his arm, and bending forward towards Mark Mallard with an earnestness there was no withstanding, Jimmy Virtue said, 'Tell this meetin' if you ever lived in a place they calls Stoney-alley, and then tell 'em what's become of the wife you left there to starve!'

Mark Mallard staggered as if shot, and a deathly paleness came into his face.

'I knowed it!' cried Jimmy Virtue. 'Look at 'im, mates, look at 'im! I never set my eyes on a man but what I'd swear to 'im ag'in if there was fifty year atween! Look 'ere, mates'--(Jimmy's excitement was wonderful to witness)--'Look 'ere, mates. This man 'as come 'ere and starts a Temple o' Liberty 'as got no more right to the name of Mark Mallard than I've got to the name of Tippitiwitchet. Twenty-two year ago he lived four doors from where my shop is now in Stoney-alley. All the while he lives there he never does a stroke o' work, but passes his time in pot-'ouses, drinkin' the beer as is given to 'im freely because he's got the gift o' the gab, as we've 'eerd to-night. Don't think, mates, I'm agin a poor man 'avin 'is beer; I ain't one as 'd rob 'im of it. I'm for it! though I do believe at the same time that the poor man makes a sight too much of it--a blessed sight too much--as if 'is liberty and the whole blessed constitootion depended on it! Well, this man goes about pot-'ouses talkin' o' the Rights o' Man and leavin' 'is wife to starve. He pawns every blessed thing of 'er'n he can lay 'is 'ands on--she's 'eavy in the family-way, mind you!--he pawns 'er weddin' ring, and 'ere it is. I lent 'im money on it myself. And a week afore 'is wife's confined; he carries out the Rights o' Man, and makes a end of 'em, so to speak, by cuttin' away, and leavin' 'er without a loaf o' bread, or as much as 'd buy one! Nothin' more 's 'eerd of 'im; 'is wife she's confined with twins, and dies a week arterwards from sorrer and starvation. And I put it to you, mates,--I put it to you, whether a mean thief like 'im is the proper sort o' man to set up a Temple o' Liberty and to come preachin' to us about the Rights o' Man!'