Ben o' Bill's, the Luddite: A Yorkshire Tale

by D. F. E. Sykes; George Henry Walker

“With my life, Ben,” he said very solemnly, and took my hand.

And then George told me something of what was afoot in Huddersfield. Steps were to be taken, he said, to dissuade the manufacturers from ousting manual labour in any of the various processes of the making and finishing of cloth, by the use of machinery. For this purpose the men were to bind themselves by solemn oath neither to work the new machines nor to work in any shop or mill into which they might be introduced. No violence of any sort was to be employed either against man or machine, at least not if the masters proved amenable to reason; and of that George thought there could be little question. “They cannot stand against us, if we are united,” said George; “our weakness lies in action unconcerted and without method. If we set our faces resolutely against the use of these new fangled substitutes for human labour, we can at least compel the masters to wait till times are better and trade mends. It may be that when the wars are over and the market calls for a larger and a quicker output, machinery may be gradually introduced without hardship to those who have grown old in the old methods and who cannot use themselves to new ways. Meantime we shall have learned the secret and the value of combination and we may turn our organization to the protection and the improvement of the worker and to the wresting of those rights that are now withheld.”

Now to this I could see no mariner of objection, and partly from curiosity, partly because my blood had been fired by George’s words, but much more because it was George who urged it, I promised to attend a meeting of some of George’s friends who were’ like–minded with himself; and promised too, though not so readily, to keep my own counsel about what he had talked on.

The early evening of winter was falling, and we turned homewards. We did not speak much. My cousin was deep in thoughts of his own, and I, too, had enough to ponder on. I did not half like my new departure. I was not much of a politician, and had always thought my part in public affairs would be to ride to York once in a while and vote for the Whigs as my father had done before me. As for setting the world straight, I had no ambition that way. In time I had no doubt I should be either a deacon at the Powle or a churchwarden at the church, and probably constable of the manor if I thrived. To make fair goods, to sell them at a fair price, to live in peace with my neighbours, and in time to marry, such was the sum of my ambition.

And that sent my mind in a bound to Mary. The house would look strange and lonesome without Mary. I should miss her saucy greeting of a morning; I should miss her gentle bantering, the sunshine of her sweet face and the music of her voice. The more I tried to think of the old place without Mary, the less I liked the picture. And when I tried to console myself with thinking that there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, I failed dismally.

When we reached home keen set for tea, there was the table laid all ready, and a scolding too for being late. But I turned away my mother’s wrath by giving her Mr. Horsfall’s greetings, and set her talking of him and his wife and all the family tree. For mother had a rare gift that way, knowing the relationship by blood and marriage of every family for miles around, and able, in a way you must hear to believe, to count up cousinships and half–cousins, and uncles and great uncles, till your brain turned round. Except my lord’s family and the folk at the vicarage, who had come from the south, I think she made us akin to all the folk in Slaithwaite, Linthwaite and Lingards. As was natural, George took but little interest in this intimate pedigree, and about eight o’clock announced his resolve to take the road to the Brigg. He was greatly pressed to stay to supper, but would not, much to my mother’s concern, who had a firm persuasion, that town bred lads never got enough to eat, and cherished a suspicion that George, though as hale and hearty a youth as ever went on two legs, and one as little likely as any to be put on, was starved as to his body and broken as to his spirit by his step–father.

It befell that night, whether by chance or that my mother schemed it so, that she and I sat up by the fireside after all the others had gone to bed. My mother had her eternal knitting, and I tried to settle my mind to a book; but could not, for thinking of matters not on the printed page. I gave up the effort after a while, and set my mind resolutely to think on my promise to join the plot against the masters; but all to no good, for do what I would, my thoughts strayed to what George had said of Mary, and I liked it less and less. It gave me a turn when my mother said—

“Mary grows a fine lass and noan ill–favoured, think’st ta, Ben? Not ’at aw set much store on good looks, for beauty’s but skin deep, as is weel known. But Mary’s one ’at ’ll wear well, an’ keep her looks to th’ last,” continued my mother, without waiting for the opinion she had asked from me. “Aw was just such another misen when yo’r father begun a courting me.”

Now I opened my eyes at this, for it had never occurred to me to think of my mother as a beauty.

“Not but what there’s points in Mary ’at could be mended,” went on my mother serenely. “She’s a notion o’ keepin’ things straight an’ tidy, but ’oo’s a bit too finickin’ in her ways an’ too mindful o’ her hair an’ careful o’ her hands, an’ happen too fond o’ colour in her ribbons; but ’oo’l mend o’ that when th’ children come. An’ she’s mebbe too free o’ her tongue.”