I remember, as tho’ it were yesterday, one winter’s night about that time, my father was sat by the fire–side, smoking his pipe and taking a thoughtful pull at times at the yellow pewter pot from which he drank his ale; my mother in her rocking–chair knitting a pair of long, grey stockings for myself. I was reading by the candle–light a copy of Mr. Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man,” which I had bought at Nottingham, and which, despite the groanings of Mr. Webster, our pastor at Powle Moor, I found a very sound and proper book, as, indeed, I still maintain it to be; and Mary was looking at the prints in Mr. Miller’s Scripture History, with lives of the most celebrated Apostles, and wondering for the hundredth time how it came about that the frontispiece exhibits Father Adam with a full beard, whilst the very next print depicts him, after the fall, with a chin as smooth as an egg: for there is no mention of razors in the Garden of Eden. Martha was down in the village at a prayer–meeting; and Siah, the teamer, had had his porridge and his pint and had gone to bed. We could hear him, through the rafters, snoring in the room above. It must have been a Tuesday, for father had been to Huddersfield to market, and had come home, as he always did on market–days, more talkative than his wont.
“Aw rode as far as th’ Warrener, wi’ Horsfall, o’ Ottiwell,” I heard my father say. “He could talk o’ nowt but th’ new machines ’at he’s bahn to put i’ Ottiwells. He’s bahn, to ha’ all his wark done under his own roof, he says. He’s sick o’ croppers an’ their ways. An’, he says, too, ’at it ’ll noan be long afore there ’ll be a new kind o’ loom ’at ’ll run ommost by itsen, an’ pieces ’ll come dahn to next to nowt. He says time’s noan so far off when th’ old hand–loom weavers ’ll go dahn their own slot.”
“How long did you stop at th’ Warrener?” asked my mother, who had her own way of putting a point.
“Tha’ means it wor th’ ale were talking; but tha’s mista’en. He meant it every word. An’ he said, ’at them ’at lagged behind mun go to th’ wall, an’ he, for one, meant movin’ wi’ th’ times. Him an’ Enoch Taylor’s mighty thick, an’ Taylor’s putting th’ new machinery into Bradley Mills, and Vickerman’s. All th’ market’s talkin’ on it. Aw called at th’ Pack Horse—”.
“I warrant yo’ did,” observed my mother.
“At th’ Pack Horse,” proceeded my father, superior to innuendo, “an’ Horsfall wor there, an’ he said ’at th’ era o’ manual labour wor over, an’ th’ triumph o’ mechanic art had come. These were his very words. Aw thowt aw’d remember them to tell, yo’.”
“An’ little aw thank yo’ for yo’r trouble, William Bamforth,” observed my mother, “for that nor any other o’ your fine tales from th’ Pack Horse. Little it seems yo’, or Horsfall either, dandering about th’ Pack Horse after th’ market’s done, an’ me toiling my blood to water to make both ends tie. Th’ triumph o’ mechanic art, indeed! Triumph o’ fiddlesticks. Th’ hand–loom’s done well enough for thee, an’ for thi father afore thee, an’ where would you put yo’ new machines if yo’ got ’em, I’d like to know.”
“Ther’s that bit o’ money lying idle at Ingham’s, an’ we could build on th’ Intack, an’ ther’s a fine run o’ water, as Horsfall says it’s a sin an’ a shame to see running to waste, an’ ther’s that fortune of your Aunt Betty’s, at’s out at mortgage wi’ Lawyer Blackburn.”
“Aye, an’ there it ’ll stop for me,” cried my mother, “let well alone, says I. Wasn’t tha tellin’ me only th’ other neet’ o’ that poor man at Nottingham, ’at our Ben couldn’t sleep o’ neets for seein’ him starin’ ’at him? Dost tha want bringing home on a shutter, an’ me lonely enough as it is, what wi’ thee an’ Ben settin’ off nearly every week, an’ when yo’r back stopping at th’ Pack Horse every Tuesday till it’s a wonder a decent man an’ a deacon isn’t ashamed to be seen coming up th’ broo. I’ll ha’ na building wi’ my brass. There’s enough to follow as it is, an’ that girl, Martha, that soft as she thinks every man as says ‘It’s a fine day,’ means puttin’ t’ spurrins in, and na, nowt ’ll do but havin’ th’ masons and th’ joiners all ovver th’ place, an’ them so fond o’ drink too. Aw’m moithered to death as it is, an’ ’ll ha’ none on’t, so tha’ may put that maggot aat o’ thi yed, William Bamforth.”
“But Mr. Chew says” …..