The Revolution in Tanner's Lane

by William Hale White

The band of rescuers had passed George as he stood in the garden, and when they had gone he knocked at the door. It was a long time before anybody came, but at last it was partly opened, just as far as the chain would permit, and the Reverend John Broad, looking very white and with a candle in his hand appeared.

“It is I, George, Mr. Broad. Please tell me how Priscilla is, and—how you all are after your fright. I will not come in if you are all well.”

“No, Mr. George, you will not come in. I little thought that a member of Tanner’s Lane Church, and my daughter’s husband, would associate himself with such disgraceful proceedings as those we have witnessed this evening.”

“But, Mr. Broad, you are quite mistaken. I was not with the mob. I came here as soon as I could to protect you.”

Mr. Broad, terrified and wrathful, had, however, disappeared, and George heard the bolts drawn. He was beside himself with passion, and knocked again and again, but there was no answer. He was inclined to try and break open the door at first, or seek an entrance through a window, but he thought of Priscilla, and desisted.

He was turning homewards, when he reflected that it would be useless to attempt to go to sleep, and he wandered out into the country towards Piddingfold, pondering over many things. The reaction of that night had been too severe. His ardour was again almost entirely quenched when he saw the men for whom he had worked, and who professed themselves his supporters, filthily drunk. A noble sentence, however, from the Idler came into his mind—his mother had a copy of the Idler in her bedroom, and read and re-read it, and oftentimes quoted it to her husband and her son—“He that has improved the virtue or advanced the happiness of one fellow-creature . . . may be contented with his own performance; and, with respect to mortals like himself, may demand, like Augustus, to be dismissed at his departure with applause.” He reflected that he, an ironmonger’s son, was not born to save the world, and if the great Dr. Johnson could say what he did, with how little ought not a humble Cowfold tradesman to be satisfied! We all of us have too vast a conception of the duty which Providence has imposed upon us; and one great service which modern geology and astronomy have rendered is the abatement of the fever by which earnest people are so often consumed. But George’s meditations all through that night were in the main about his wife, and as soon as he reached his shop in the morning, the first thing he did was to write a note to her telling her to come home. This she did, although her mother and father objected, and George found her there at dinner-time. She looked pale and careworn, but this, of course, was set down to fright. She was unusually quiet, and George forbore to say anything about her father’s behaviour. He dreaded rather to open the subject; he could not tell to what it might lead. Priscilla knew all about George’s repulse from her father’s door, and George could tell she knew it.

His father and he had determined that Cowfold would not be a pleasant place for them on the following Sunday, and that business, moreover, demanded their presence in London. Thither, accordingly, they went on the Saturday, as usual; and Priscilla naturally communicating their intention to her mother, Mr. Thomas Broad received an epistle from his father something like one we have already read, but still more imperative in its orders that the dutiful son should see whether the Allens made Zachariah’s house their head-quarters. That they did not sleep there was well-known, but it was believed they had constant intercourse with that unregenerate person, a disciple of Voltaire, as the Reverend John Broad firmly believed, and it would be “advantageous to possess accumulated evidence of the fact.” Priscilla knew that they lodged always at the “George and Blue Boar”; but how they spent their time on Sunday she did not know. There was also a postscript, this time with a new import:

“It has been reported that Coleman’s daughter is a young female not without a certain degree of attractiveness. It may perhaps, my dear Thomas, be some day of service to me and to the church if you were to inform me whether you have observed any tendencies towards familiarity between George and this person. I need not at the present moment give you my reasons for this inquiry. It will be sufficient to say that I have nothing more in view than the welfare of the flock which Divine Providence has committed to my charge.”

Mr. Thomas did his duty, and a letter was received by his father on the following Tuesday, which was carefully locked up in the drawer in which the sermons were preserved.

The next day—that is to say, on Wednesday—George was at work, as usual, when his little maid came to say that her mistress was very bad, and would he go home directly? She had been unwell for some days, but it was not thought that there was anything serious the matter with her. George followed the girl at once, and found Priscilla in bed with a violent headache and very feverish. The doctor came, and pronounced it a case of “low fever,” a disease well enough known in Cowfold. Let us make the dismal story as brief as possible. Nurse Barton, hearing of her “dear boy’s” trouble, presented herself uninvited that evening at ten o’clock, and insisted that George should not sit up. She remained in the house, notwithstanding Mrs. Broad’s assurances that she really was not wanted, and watched over Priscilla till the end came.