Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

“’Tidden theer roights theer a’ter,” remarked a woman who was sitting hunched up in the chimney-corner of the hut where this confabulation was going on, “’tis other folks’ goods they want. They thinks wheerever a bobbery be theer’ll be gutterin’ and guzzlin’, and that’s all they care for. You’d a best ’ave nowt tu du with un.”

But this piece of advice was received with ridicule and disfavour.

“Ef theer be zo much as gutterin’ and guzzlin’ why shetten us be left behind? ’Tidden much of either us gets nowadays with those dashed customs-men always a’ter we. Crimminy! but us’ll take our share ef zo be as theer’s awght to be gotten. I’ve heerd tell theer be a real hollerballoo up tu Pentreath. I be agwaine to see un.”

“Zo be I! Zo be I!” echoed in turn a dozen or more voices, and from the dim chimney-corner there only came a rough snort of disapproval.

“Go ’long wi’ ye then. When the dowl’s abroad ’twidden be in yer to bide tu home. Go ’long and help make the bobbery wusser. ’Tidden hurt I. But it’ll be a poor-come-along-on’t for some o’ yu, I take it. Theer’ll be trouble at St. Bride along on’t.”

The men hesitated for a moment, for the old woman who thus spoke had won the not too enviable reputation of being next door to a witch, and of reading or moulding future events—which, it was not altogether certain in the minds of the people. She was a lonely widow woman, but lived in one of the best cottages in the place, where she kept a sort of private bar, selling spirits and tobacco to the fishermen, and allowing them to make use of her sanded kitchen, where at all seasons of the year a fire was burning, as a place of resort where all the gossip of the place could be discussed. They never put two and two together in seeking to account for the occult knowledge possessed by the old woman respecting the private concerns of the whole community. She affected to be rather deaf, and therefore low-toned conversations were carried on freely in her presence. Old Mother Clat was quite a character in her way, and a distinct power in the fishing community of St. Bride.

But her advice was not sufficient to deter the bolder spirits from taking part in the exciting scenes known to be passing in the country round them. At that moment England was passing through a crisis more perilous than was fully realised at the time. The sudden revolution in France, which had culminated in the abdication and flight of the king, the death of the English king, George the Fourth, at almost the same moment, and the whispers in the air that Belgium and other countries were about to imitate France, and rise in revolt against the oppression and tyranny of princes, acted in an extraordinary fashion upon the minds of the discontented population of this land. The long period of depression and distress, whilst it had ground down one section of the community to a state of passive despair, had aroused in others the spirit of insubordination and revolt. Like leaven in the loaf was this fermentation going on, greatly helped by the knowledge that the cause of the people was exercising the minds of many of the great ones of the land, and that in them they would find a mouthpiece if only they could succeed in making their voice heard.

Now when there is any great uprising in any one district, there is generally a local as well as a general cause of complaint; and in this remote West-Country district it was far less the question of reformed representation and the abolishment of certain grave abuses which was exercising the minds of the community than the fact that new machinery had recently been set up in some of the mills at Pentreath, and in some of the farmsteads scattered about the district; and the panic of the Midlands had spread down to the South and West, the people fully believing that this would be the last straw—the last drop of bitterness in their cup, and that nothing but absolute starvation lay before them unless they took prompt measures to defend themselves from the dreaded innovations.

The Midlands and North had set the example. Ever since the rising of the Luddites there had been more or less of disturbance in the manufacturing districts, where, of course, in the first instance the introduction of machinery did throw certain classes of operatives out of employment; and they were unable to realise that this would soon be more than made up to them by the increase of trade resulting from the improvement in the many complicated processes of manufacture. In the North the riots were on the wane. It was just beginning to dawn upon the minds of the more enlightened artisans, that if they would leave matters to take a peaceful course they would soon see themselves reinstated in the mills, where trade was growing more brisk and active than ever before. But away down in the remote West, any innovation was received with the greatest horror and aversion, and the people had heard just enough about their wrongs to be in that restless state when any sort of activity becomes attractive, and any uprising against authority appears in the light of an act of noble resistance to tyranny.

Pentreath was an ancient town, though a small one. It sent a member to Parliament, although the huge and fast-increasing towns of the North did not. Of late years it had become a small centre of manufacturing industry, the water-power there being considerable. There were two cloth-mills and one silk-mill, a paper manufactory, and another where soap and essences were made. One reason why the district round Pentreath was not feeling the general poverty and distress very keenly was that from the rural districts men who could not get employment upon the land could generally find it in the mills. But when almost at one and the same time improved machinery became introduced both into agriculture and manufacture, the sense of revolt was deeply stirred. A certain number of turbulent spirits had been simultaneously dismissed both from the farms and from the mills, and these two contingents at once banded together in somewhat dangerous mood to talk over the situation and their own private grievances, and to set about to find a remedy.