“That is so,” the policeman said; “let him come and go just as if you thought nothing more of him than before; if any good come of it, so much the better. If not, his visits won’t have done you any harm.”
And so it was settled. Since that conversation Mr. Barton had paid his seven visits with his usual punctuality—this was his eighth. No hint was ever given by John and Sarah that they suspected the cause of his coming, and to James they had never spoken of what had passed, for he had gone to bed at the time when their discovery of Mr. Barton’s occupation was made, and they agreed that it was much better to say nothing to him on the subject.
For some time the little party talked on indifferent matters, and then the cripple boy, who was rather fond of attacking William Holl, brought up the question of politics. James had read much, and variously. All these years that he had been crippled, he had had no other occupation, and he had thought as well as read; at ordinary times his diction, although better, still resembled that of those around him, but when he warmed into a subject he dropped this altogether, and spoke in the language of those in the world, of which he had seen so little and read so much. “Well, Uncle William, and how go on the Chartists?”
“The great cause goes on well, James, as well or better than we could hope. The working classes are everywhere moving, and a deep feeling of discontent at their condition is fast gaining ground among them.”
“And a great pity too, William,” Sarah Holl said; “we have always done very well before we got these Chartist notions into our heads, and for my part I can’t see what we want with them, or what good they are to do us, when we do get them.”
William Holl smiled pityingly, his wife sadly.
“Sairey is right,” her husband said. “We have done very well, and I for one don’t want no change. I should like to own my horse and cart, but I don’t see that the charter is going to give it me. So let well alone, says I.”
“Anyhow, William,” Sarah said, “it has done neither you nor Bessy any good. When I think of what you both were two years ago, and what you are now, it makes me sick of the very name of the Charter.”
“The first disciples of a cause always suffer,” William Holl said earnestly, “and Bessy and I must be content to do the same. When we look back some day upon our success, we shall be rewarded.”
“The success you will have to look back upon some day, William Holl, if you don’t watch it,” A 56 said, “will be finding yourself some fine morning shut up between four walls.”