Ellen Chadwick was busy helping Augusta to make favours for the men. She looked up.
“Do you not think Mr. Clegg could paint you one?” she suggested.
Mr. Ashton brightened, but his “Just so!” was nipped in the bud by the recollection that there was no time.
“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” said Mrs. Ashton, and sought out Jabez.
“It is quite out of my line, but I can try. It would be a pity to disappoint the men,” answered he.
“And nothing beats trying but doing!” added Mrs. Ashton.
Silk and colours were procured. There was no leisure for complex design or elaboration. At that time the dark blue covers of the Dutch tapes in gross bore the symbolic device of the flax plant within a rude scroll. This Jabez transferred in colours to his silk on a colossal scale, both sides bearing the same emblem of their trade, more effective on its completion than any elaborate work. He had bargained to be left without interruption. The men fidgeted about the warehouse in a state of nervous trepidation (it was an important matter to them), but at dawn on the 19th it was finished, and borne off by the weavers in triumph and exultation.
Market Street Lane being in ruins at one end, and a narrow gully at the other, Mosley Street became the natural course for the procession (two miles and a half in length) from Peter’s Field to the Green, where a royal salute was to be fired; and like every other house on the line of route, Mr. Ashton’s was filled with guests, and from garret to basement every window had its streamer, and was crowded with gaily-dressed spectators, mostly feminine, the gentlemen of the town taking part in the procession, officially or otherwise. The Chadwicks and Mrs. Walmsley were there of course, and Mrs. Clough amongst others; and on another floor Jabez—who being above the warehousemen, and not a master, did not walk—had as a companion good Bess Hulme, who with her husband had come over from Whaley-Bridge, where there was, of course, a holiday. To Tom had been assigned the honour of chief standard bearer.
In all such processions the military element, with its brilliant uniforms and stirring music prevails. But here (where every item of the cavalcade had its own brass band) were also all the dignitaries of the church, with every silver badge of office resplendently burnished for the occasion; the borough-reeve, and other magistrates, and constabulary, in new uniforms; the lamplighters with new smocks, carrying their ladders and cans; the firemen and fire-engines, bright as paint and polish could make them; the gentlemen of the town, all with favours; the Sunday-school children, marshalled under their respective banners or tablets, walking six abreast; the Ladies’ Jubilee School; the Green-Coat School; and the Blue-Coat School, on which Jabez looked down with curiously-mingled feelings.
But the marked feature of the magnificent procession was the display made by the trades, with their banners, a lurry accompanying each, bearing well-dressed workmen and machines in full operation.