"Can you wonder if our friends suspect you?" said Crossthwaite. "Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkeydom and the Cause, like a donkey between two bundles of hay? Have you not neglected our meetings? Have you not picked all the spice out of your poems? Though Sandy is too kind-hearted to tell you, you have disappointed us both miserably, and there's the long and short of it."
I hid my face in my hands. My conscience told me that I had nothing to answer.
Mackaye, to spare me, went on to talk of the agricultural distress, and Crossthwaite explained that he wanted to send a deputation down to the country to spread the principles of the Charter.
"I will go," I said, starting up. "They shall see I do care for the Cause. Where is the place?"
"About ten miles from D----."
"D----!" My heart sank. If it had been any other spot! But it was too late to retract.
With many instructions from our friends and warnings from Mackaye, I started next day on my journey. I arrived in the midst of a dreary, treeless country, and a little pert, snub-nosed shoemaker met me, and we walked together across the open down towards a circular camp, the earthwork, probably, of some old British town.
Inside it, some thousand or so of labouring people, all wan and haggard, with many women among them, were swarming restlessly round a single large block of stone.
I made my way to the stone, and listened as speaker after speaker poured out a string of incoherent complaints. Only the intense earnestness gave any force to the speeches.
I noticed that many of the crowd carried heavy sticks, and pitchforks, and other tools which might be used as fearful weapons; and when a fierce man with a squint asked who would be willing to come "and pull the farm about the folks' ears," I felt that now or never was the time for me to speak. If once the spirit of mad, aimless riot broke loose, I had not only no chance of a hearing, but every likelihood of being implicated in deeds which I abhorred.