At the head of these came two figures, representing Adam and Eve, in a perfect bower of greenery, as representatives of the primitive condition before dress was invented. They were followed by a lurry, on which tailors (whose art is the first on record) sat cross-legged, and stitched and pressed, as if on a shopboard, whilst a select band of journeymen walked after, bearing minature miniature garments on wands, or ferruginous geese and sleeveboards.
The blacksmiths wrought on their anvil, and carried also on long poles, horse-shoes, &c. The brass and copper smiths, likewise at work, had a bright array of kettles, candlesticks, and a mounted man in armour, as had also the tin-plate workers. The glass-blowers made a goodly array, and gave away tokens as they went. The men wore hats and caps brittle and brilliant, with wavy plumes of spun glass, whilst birds, ships, goblets, and decanters on their poles glistened in the beams of the hot sun. A printing-press distributed appropriate verses, worked off in the course of the procession. And St. Crispin’s followers waxed their threads and plied their awls on boots and shoes as they and their benches were borne along, followed by their leather-aproned fraternity, holding aloft their productions, from the most gigantic of Wellingtons to the tiniest infant’s slipper.
All branches of the cotton trade were represented. There was cotton in bags; twist in bales; carding, roving, spinning, weaving, all going on under the eyes of the onlookers, with the workpeople following in their best and brightest.
Shouts and hurrahs attended the whole line of march, not wholly unaccompanied by hisses; but as the small-ware weavers passed Mr. Ashton’s the cheers were deafening. A loom was at work weaving lengths of binding for garters, on which was inwoven “God save King George IV.,” with the date, and these were lifted on long wands to the ladies at the windows on their way, or scattered to others in the street; and as Tom Hulme caught the eye of Jabez, he pointed proudly to their banner, which had no rival in all the elaborately painted flags waving in the wind, and the impromptu artist was well satisfied. But the brightest day has its cloud. As the Manchester Yeomanry went prancing past, Travis and Walmsley alike saluted the ladies at the drawing-room window, but to the pain of Jabez and the indignation of Mrs. Ashton, Lieutenant Aspinall had the audacity to kiss his hand to Augusta.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.
EVENING: INDOORS AND OUT!
THE two-miles-and-a-half-long procession was not the only popular demonstration which made the Coronation of George IV. memorable in the annals of Manchester. There were no telegraph wires to flash intelligence to the supporters of Queen Caroline that she had been repulsed from the Abbey gates, and driven thence to die broken-hearted and uncrowned. So, in the absence of a cause for indignation, loyalty, or its substitute, contrived to add a pendant of disorder and excess only to be recorded as the dung-heap out of which grew flowers of promise.
As in most of the private houses along the line of route, a cold collation had been prepared for the refreshment of the friends who crowded Mr. Ashton’s open windows. But no calculation had been made of the space the unwonted pageant would cover, or the time it would occupy in passing; and Mrs. Ashton, having discovered that sight-seeing in the dust and glare of July was parching and fatiguing, issued orders for tea to be handed round when the last banner had disappeared, and before her less intimate friends should rise to depart.
In giving these orders, she unwittingly stirred the kitchen fire into a white heat. Lavish hospitality was a characteristic of the time, and when a family of good position professed to keep “open house,” it was generally equal to the most extravagant demands. But, as a rule, Mrs. Ashton had little leaning towards impromptu parties, and Kezia considerably less, preferring those grand and formal receptions which involved elaborate preparation, and placed imaginary feathers in the caps of mistress and maids.
Kezia herself considered the honour of the house involved in everything under her control being “in apple-pie order;” and the surprise which put her on her mettle, put her also in a fume.