The Revolution in Tanner's Lane

by William Hale White

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Allen, “when she has a family she will be better.”

Mrs. Allen had a belief that children cured a woman of many follies.

Nevertheless the mother could not refrain, when she had to talk to George about his engagement, from “letting out” just a word.

“I hope you will be happy, my dear boy. The great thing is not to have a fool for a wife. There has never, to my knowledge, been a woman amongst the Burtons or the Allens who was a fool.”

George felt nothing at the time, for he suspected nothing; but the words somehow remained with him, and reappeared later on in black intensity like invisible writing under heat.

So they were married, and went to live in a cottage, small, but very respectable, in the Shott Road. For the first six months both were in bliss. Priscilla was constantly backwards and forwards to her mother, who took upon herself at once the whole direction of her affairs; but there was no rupture with the Allens, for, whatever her other faults might be, Priscilla was not given to making quarrels, and there was little or no bitterness or evil temper in her. George came home after his work was over at the shop, and sometimes went out to supper with his wife, or read to her the newspaper, which came once a week. Like his father, he was an ardent politician, and, from the very beginning of the struggle, an enthusiastic Free Trader. The Free Trade creed was, indeed, the cause of serious embarrassment, for not only were the customers agricultural and Protectionist, but the deacons at Tanner’s Lane, being nearly all either farmers or connected with the land, were also Protectionist, and Mr. Broad had a hard time of it. For himself, he expressed no opinion; but once, at a deacons’ meeting, when it looked as if some controversy would arise, he begged Brother Allen to remember that, though we might be wise as serpents, we were also commanded to be harmless as doves. There was a small charity connected with the chapel, which was distributed, not in money, but in bread, and Brother Allen, not being able to contain himself, had let fall a word or two about the price of bread which would have raised a storm if Mr. Broad had not poured on the troubled waters that oil of which he was a perfect reservoir.

George did his best to instruct his wife in the merits of the controversy, and when he found anything in his newspaper read it aloud to her.

“You see, Priscilla,” he said one evening, “it stands to reason that if foreign corn pays a duty, the price of every quarter grown here is raised, and this increased price goes into the farmer’s or landlord’s pocket: Why should I, or why should my men, pay twopence more for every loaf to buy Miss Wootton a piano?”

“Really, George, do you mean to say that they are going to buy Miss Wootton a piano?”

“My dear, I said that when they buy a loaf of bread twopence out of it goes to buy Miss Wootton’s piano!” repeated George, laying an emphasis on every word. “I did not mean, of course, that they put their twopences in her pocket. The point is, that the duty enables Wootton to get more for his corn.”