“Anyways, I’ll ask you to try it out of my house,” Musters said. “I’ve a good landlord and I’ll not hear him abused!”
“Hear! Hear! Musters! Quite right!”
“I’ve not said an uncivil word,” the Manchester man rejoined. “I shall leave your house to-morrow, not an hour before. I’ll add only one word, gentlemen. Bread is the staff of life. Isn’t it the last thing you should tax?”
“True,” Mr. Pepper replied. “But isn’t agriculture the staple industry? Isn’t it the base on which all other industries stand? Isn’t it the mainstay of the best constitution in the world? And wasn’t it the land that steadied England, and kept it clear of Bonaparte and Wooden Shoes——”
“Ay, wooden ships against wooden shoes for ever!” broke in old Hayward, in great excitement. “Where were the oaks grown as beat Bony! No, master, protect the oak and protect the wheat, and England’ll never lack ships nor meat! Your cotton-printers and ironfounders they’re great folks now, great folks, with their brass and their votes, and so they’ve a mind to upset the gentry. It’s the town against the country, and new money against the old acres that have fed us and our fathers before us world without end! But put one of my lads in your mills, and amid your muck, and in twelve months he’d not pitch hay, no not three hours of the day!”
Basset could hear the free trader’s chair grate on the sanded floor as he pushed it back. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I’ll not quarrel with you. I wish you all the protection you deserve—and I think Sir Robert will give it you! For us, I’m not saying that we are not thinking of our own interests.”
“Devil a doubt of that!” muttered the farmer.
“And some of us may have been cold-shouldered by my lord. But you may take it from me that there’s some of us, too, are as anxious to better the poor man’s lot—ay, as Lord Ashley himself! That’s all! Good-night, gentlemen.”
When he was gone, “Gi’ me a coal for my pipe, John,” said the Duke. “I never heard the like of that in Riddsley. He’s a gallus glib chap that!”
“I won’t say,” said Mr. Pepper cautiously, “that there’s nothing in it.”