‘Why, he is always tempted to say to himself, “Whatever happens to me, the parish must keep me. If I am sick it must doctor me; if I am worn out it must feed me; if I die it must bury me; if I leave my children paupers the parish must look after them, and they’ll be as well off with the parish as they were with me. Now they’ve only got just enough to keep body and soul together, and the parish can’t give them less than that. What’s the use of cutting myself off from sixpenny-worth of pleasure here, and sixpenny-worth there. I’m not saving money for my children, I’m only saving the farmers’ rates.” There it is, sir,’ said Tregarva; ‘that’s the bottom of it, sir,—“I’m only saving the farmers’ rates. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!”’
‘I don’t see my way out of it,’ said Lancelot.
‘So says everybody, sir. But I should have thought those members of parliament, and statesmen, and university scholars have been set up in the high places, out of the wood where we are all struggling and scrambling, just that they might see their way out of it; and if they don’t, sir, and that soon, as sure as God is in heaven, these poor fellows will cut their way out of it.’
‘And blindfolded and ignorant as they are,’ said Lancelot, ‘they will be certain to cut their way out just in the wrong direction.’
‘I’m not so sure of that, sir,’ said Tregarva, lowering his voice. ‘What is written’? That there is One who hears the desire of the poor. “Lord, Thou preparest their hearts and Thine ear hearkeneth thereto, to help the fatherless and poor unto their right, that the man of the earth be no more exalted against them.”’
‘Why, you are talking like any Chartist, Tregarva!’
‘Am I, sir? I haven’t heard much Scripture quoted among them myself, poor fellows; but to tell you the truth, sir, I don’t know what I am becoming. I’m getting half mad with all I see going on and not going on; and you will agree, sir, that what’s happened this day can’t have done much to cool my temper or brighten my hopes; though, God’s my witness, there’s no spite in me for my own sake. But what makes me maddest of all, sir, is to see that everybody sees these evils, except just the men who can cure them—the squires and the clergy.’
‘Why surely, Tregarva, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of clergymen and landlords working heart and soul at this moment, to better the condition of the labouring classes!’
‘Ay, sir, they see the evils, and yet they don’t see them. They do not see what is the matter with the poor man; and the proof of it is, sir, that the poor have no confidence in them. They’ll take their alms, but they’ll hardly take their schooling, and their advice they won’t take at all. And why is it, sir? Because the poor have got in their heads in these days a strange confused fancy, maybe, but still a deep and a fierce one, that they haven’t got what they call their rights. If you were to raise the wages of every man in this country from nine to twelve shillings a-week to-morrow, you wouldn’t satisfy them; at least, the only ones whom you would satisfy would be the mere hogs among them, who, as long as they can get a full stomach, care for nothing else.’
‘What, in Heaven’s name, do they want?’ asked Lancelot.