“I am that,” said Mr. Horsfall, “and well content I am with them. They finish the cloth better far than the best croppers ever did or could, and one machine can do the work of four men.”
“Then you will need less men,” said Mr. Scott, “and this is no time to be sacking men—I remember what happened twenty years ago when Grimshaw, of Manchester, arranged with Dr. Cartwright, the new Bishop Blaize as they called him, to set up four hundred looms at Manchester to be run by a steam engine. Grimshaw received hundreds of threatening letters, he was fired at more than once, his wife nearly fell into a decline from constant fear, and just when the mill was built, for four hundred looms, and part of the machines were in, mill and looms and all were swallowed up in a fire, and who made the fire you may well guess. It ruined Grimshaw, and now he goes about saying he wishes Bishop Blaize had been in blazes ’fore ever he had tempted him with his fine stories. But you Whigs will never be content with the wisdom of our forefathers. You must have something new fangled, either in mill or state“—and so they off again into politics; and having promised my mother to be home by milking time, and fearful if I stayed longer the fumes of the tobacco and the wine would be too much for an unseasoned head, I took my leave of Mr. Scott and won my way into the open air.
By the stepping–stones that crossed the river, who should I see but Soldier Jack and a merry party that had been out with the harriers. They had come trooping down Kitchen Fold from over Crosland Moor way, and were in high feather, shouting and singing, while the hounds bayed in chorus. Soldier Jack was no man’s lad, a bye–blow. He had been left on the Workhouse steps tied in a bundle, and nought to show who was his father or who his mother. Then when he was a lad of ten years old the Overseer had ’prenticed him out to a shoemaker in Huddersfield, but he had been a sore trial to his master—disappearing and appearing when he liked, and neither fair words nor the strap, of which his master was not sparing if Jack spoke truth, availing to make him follow the old adage and stick to the last. Then one fine day the recruiting sergeant, in all his bravery, had put up at the Rose and Crown, and called on all gallant lads to take the king’s shilling and fight for glory and their country. “That’s the colour for me to dye,” thought Jack, and braving the law, which would have laid him by the heels for breaking his writings, he ’listed in a foot regiment, and was off for the wars with a heart as light as the heels he showed his master. Then many a year passed. Jack was unseen and forgotten in the haunts of his youth, when lo! he appeared, from God knows where, straight as a picking rod, brown as a berry, minus the left arm, and with a limp of his right leg; but otherwise sound as a bell and tight as a drum. He had some money, in the coinage of all the countries of Europe well nigh; and, as I heard tell, right royally did Jack live while his money lasted. He had no fixed quarters in the early days of his return from the wars, but of recent years he had dwelt much among the Burn Platters, an uncanny race of outlaws that some said were Frenchmen and some said were gypsies, that lived at Burn Platts on the moors on the edge of Slaithwaite, and of whose savagery and evil ways many stories were told. But Soldier Jack ever kept himself spruce and trim, and was a welcome visitor at every house on all that country side. How he lived none did know for gospel. At times in his cups he talked mysteriously of golden crosses and rare stones that he had lighted on in the sack of holy houses in Spain; but this, I think, was mere embroidery of his adventures. Lord! what a life had been Soldier Jack’s—what sieges he had seen, what pitched battles he had fought in, what prisoners he had taken, what forlorn hopes he had led, what distressed damsels he had rescued, how many haughty hidalgos he had slain with his own hand! Even Lord Wellington himself had been under obligation to him, and he had all but seized with his own hands the awful person of Napoleon himself. How he lived I say I know not. Belike he had some small pension from the king. At haymaking time, too, he turned a good cock and an honest penny, despite his one arm. He never missed a market or a fair, could be trusted above the common to carry a message, and was something of a farrier. But set job he had none, and yet never wanted. To be sure he had free quarters in nigh every hostelry all the country round, and if truth were told could hang up his hat when he would, for good and all, at the Black Bull; for widow Walker, who kept that house, was known to be widowing, and a fair and buxom dame withal.
Now on this night of the Rent Audit Soldier Jack was pleased to leave the hunters and walk homewards with me, though his comrades were clamorous for him to join them in another bout at the ale. Though times were never so bad, it went hard with the weavers if they could not leave their shuttles and follow the hounds; and somehow they had ever wherewith to guzzle at the inn. But Jack was maybe wearied with the trail, and we took our way past the church and up the hill towards Holm. For some short distance Jack walked with never a word, though I wanted news of the hunt, where they had killed, and whose hound showed the truer scent. Then without prelude Jack began.
“Ben, I want a word with thee. You and me has ever been friends, and your mother, God bless her, ever the soft word and the open hand. And yo’r father, a good man, though over hard on the slips o’ youth”—now Jack was forty if a week—“But there are things brewing it is right yo’ should know on; for them tha’s ’kin to yo’ are like to be tangled in em.”
“Whatever do yo’ mean, Jack?” I asked, trying to speer at him in the gloom, for I thought maybe the ale had got into his head.
“There’s a deal o’ sufferin’ about these parts, Ben. More nor yo’ think on. Yo’ happen think ’at because th’ lads about are after th’ hounds an’ have a bit to spend on drink ’at they’re better off nor they are. But yo’ see I’m more about nor yo’ an’ more intimate like. Folk is sellin’ their bits o’ stuff quiet like. Mony a decent woman ’at wouldn’t have it known has sent me wi’ ’owd keepsakes an’ heirlooms like to th’ silversmith i’ Huddersfelt an’ Owdham. They put a brave face on it an’ talk little, but aw know there’s scores o’ fam’lies i’ this valley and on these hill sides, ’at’s welly clammin’! It isn’t them as goes ‘afore the overseers ’at’s the worst off. There’s scores an’ scores livin’ on the town ’at go reg’lar every week for th’ town ’lowance. They’n got th’ length o’ th’ ovverseer’s foot, an’ its not for the like o’ me to blame ’em.”
“Crows shouldn’t pike crows’ ’een, eh Jack?” I put in.
“Th’ ovverseer’s fair game,” continued Jack, unmoved. “But he’s a fool for all his stuck up ways. Aw tell yo’ ’at there’s hundreds awmost sucking their finger ends, like bears do their paws, ’at winnot go on to th’ parish. An’ mark yo’, th’ poor ha’ borne wi’ slack work an’ mullocked on as best they could, as long as they thought th’ wars and bad harvests were to blame. An’ they’ve bided in hope, for harvests winnot all be bad, an’ we’st beat the little Corporal yet. But now th’ mesters are for makin’ bad worse wi’ this new machinery. They’re crying ‘Every man for hissen an’ devil take the hindmost.’ They’re bringing wood and iron to do the work of willing hands and arms, an’, by gow, the lads about won’t see their craft ruined, an’ them an’ theirs pined to death, wi’out a blow struck. Aw tell yo’, Ben, there’s mischief brewin’, or my name’s not Soldier Jack; an’ if yo’ want to know more, yo’ mun ask yon mettlesome cousin o’ yours, Judd Mellor, o’ th’ Brigg.”—
“What! George Mellor?” I cried; “why, what has he to do with it?” For such an ending to the soldier’s tale I never thought nor dreamed of.