“I believe I didn’t, though one day I thought I’d seen her many a time. You see,” said he, turning to Job Legh, “there were a day appointed for us to go to Parliament House. We were most on us biding at a public-house in Holborn, where they did very well for us. Th’ morning of taking our petition we had such a spread for breakfast as th’ Queen hersel might ha’ sitten down to. I suppose they thought we wanted putting in heart. There were mutton kidneys, and sausages, and broiled ham and fried beef and onions; more like a dinner nor a breakfast. Many on our chaps though, I could see, could eat but little. Th’ food stuck in their throats when they thought o’ them at home, wives and little ones, as had, maybe at that very time, nought to eat. Well, after breakfast, we were all set to walk in procession, and a time it took to put us in order, two and two, and the petition, as was yards long, carried by the foremost pairs. The men looked grave enough yo’ may ye sure; and such a set of thin, wan, wretched-looking chaps as they were!”
“Yourself is none to boast on.”
“Ay, but I were fat and rosy to many a one. Well, we walked on and on through many a street, much the same as Deansgate. We had to walk slowly, slowly, for th’ carriages an’ cabs as thronged th’ streets. I thought by-and-by we should maybe get clear on ’em, but as the streets grew wider they grew worse, and at last we were fairly blocked up at Oxford Street. We getten across it after a while though, and my eyes! the grand streets we were in then! They’re sadly puzzled how to build houses though in London; there’d be an opening for a good steady master builder there, as know’d his business. For yo see the houses are many on ’em built without any proper shape for a body to live in; some on ’em they’ve after thought would fall down, so they’ve stuck great ugly pillars out before ’em. And some on ’em (we thought they must be th’ tailors’ sign) had getten stone men and women as wanted clothes stuck on ’em. I were like a child, I forgot a’ my errand in looking about me. By this it were dinnertime, or better, as we could tell by the sun, right above our heads, and we were dusty and tired, going a step now and a step then. Well, at last we getten into a street grander nor all, leading to th’ Queen’s palace, and there it were I thought I saw th’ Queen. Yo’ve seen th’ hearses wi’ white plumes, Job?”
Job assented.
“Well, them undertaker folk are driving a pretty trade in London. Wellnigh every lady we saw in a carriage had hired one o’ them plumes for the day, and had it niddle noddling on her head. It were th’ Queen’s drawing-room, they said, and th’ carriages went bowling along towards her house, some wi’ dressed-up gentlemen like circus folk in ’em, and rucks o’ ladies in others. Carriages themselves were great shakes too. Some o’ th’ gentlemen as couldn’t get inside hung on behind, wi’ nosegays to smell at, and sticks to keep off folks as might splash their silk stockings. I wonder why they didn’t hire a cab rather than hang on like a whip-behind boy; but I suppose they wished to keep wi’ their wives, Darby and Joan like. Coachmen were little squat men, wi’ wigs like th’ oud-fashioned parsons’. Well, we could na get on for these carriages, though we waited and waited. Th’ horses were too fat to move quick; they never known want o’ food, one might tell by their sleek coats; and police pushed us back when we tried to cross. One or two of ’em struck wi’ their sticks, and coachmen laughed, and some officers as stood nigh put their spy-glasses in their eye, and left ’em sticking there like mountebanks. One o’ th’ police struck me. ‘Whatten business have you to do that?’ said I.
“‘You’re frightening them horses,’ says he, in his mincing way (for Londoners are mostly all tongue-tied, and can’t say their a’s and i’s properly), ‘and it’s our business to keep you from molesting the ladies and gentlemen going to her Majesty’s drawing-room.’
“‘And why are we to be molested,’ asked I, ‘going decently about our business, which is life and death to us, and many a little one clemming at home in Lancashire? Which business is of most consequence i’ the sight o’ God, think yo, our’n or them grand ladies and gentlemen as yo think so much on?’
“But I might as well ha’ held my peace, for he only laughed.”
John ceased. After waiting a little, to see if he would go on himself, Job said: