‘I always knew, my lord,’ said the cobbler, ‘that it was stuff an’ nonsense, them and their submission. Yah! some day there was bound to be a row. Don’t let ‘em go back, my lord. I’ll stick by your lordship.’
(‘It is a very odd thing,’ said the Professor, when she heard the story, ‘that cobblers have always been atheists.’)
What next?
Lord Chester had now got his men—a band forty-seven strong, nearly all farm-labourers—within the iron gates of his park, and these were closed and locked. They were as fine a body of men, both young and old together, as could be collected anywhere. But they understood as yet nothing of what was going to be done, and they slouched along wondering stupidly, yet excited at the risk they were running.
Lord Chester made them a speech.
‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that the prisons of England are full of men charged with wife-beating. They never had an opportunity of defending themselves; they are tortured day and night. You may, all of you—any of you—be charged with this offence. Your word is not taken; you are carried off to hopeless imprisonment. Is that a pleasant thing for you?’
They murmured. But Tom the blacksmith waved his hammer, and Harry the keeper his gun, and the cobbler his bradawl, and these three shouted.
‘Who asked you,’ cried Lord Chester, ‘if you wanted to marry an old woman? Did any of you choose her for yourselves? Why, when there were girls in the village, sweet and young and pretty, longing for your love, is it likely you would take an old woman?’
Then the girl they called Susan, who had followed with Tom, sprang to the front.
‘Look at me, all of you,’ she cried. ‘Tom and me was courtin’ since we were children—wasn’t we, Tom.’ Tom nodded assent. ‘And she comes and takes him from me. And the Passon said it was all right, because a man must obey, and sweetheartin’ was nonsense. How long are you going to stand it? If I was a man, and strong, would I let the women have their own way? How long will you stand it, I say?’