The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“I’m ready to fight, squire,” added a man standing near by; “I hev a bit o’ manhood yet, and I’d fight for my rights, I would that! – if I nobbnd hed a slice or two o’ bread.”

At the same time a young woman, little more than a child, came tottering forward, and stood at the side of Mistress Annis. She had a little baby in her arms, she did not speak, she only looked in the elder woman’s face then cast her eyes down upon the child. It was tugging at an empty breast with little sharp cries of hungry impatience. Then she said, “I hev no milk for him! The lile lad is sucking my blood!” Her voice was weak and trembling, but she had no tears left.

Madam covered her face, she was weeping, and the next moment Katherine emptied her mother’s purse into the starving woman’s hand. She took it with a great cry, lifting her face to heaven – “Oh God, it is money! Oh God, it is milk and bread!” Then looking at Katherine she said, “Thou hes saved two lives. God sent thee to do it” – and with the words, she found a sudden strength to run with her child to a shop across the street, where bread and milk were sold.

“It’s little Dinas Sykes,” said a man whose voice was weak with hunger. “Eh! but I’m glad, God hes hed mercy on her!” and all watched Dinas running for milk and bread with a grateful sympathy. The squire was profoundly touched, his heart melted within him, and he said to the little company with the voice of a companion, not of a master, “Men, how many of you are present?”

“About forty-four men – and a few half grown lads. They need food worse than men do – they suffer more – poor lile fellows!”

“And you all hev women at home? Wives and daughters?”

“Ay, squire, and mothers, too! Old and gray and hungry – some varry patient, and just dying on their feet, some so weak they are crying like t’ childer of two or four years old. My God! Squire, t’ men’s suffering isn’t worth counting, against that of t’ women and children.”

“Friends, I hev no words to put against your suffering and a ten pound note will be better than all the words I could give you. It will at least get all of you a loaf of bread and a bit of beef and a mug of ale. Who shall I give it to?”

“Ben Shuttleworth,” was the unanimous answer, and Ben stepped forward. He was a noble-looking old man just a little crippled by long usage of the hand loom. “Squire Annis,” he said, “I’ll gladly take the gift God hes sent us by thy hands and I’ll divide it equally, penny for penny, and may God bless thee and prosper thy journey! We’re none of us men used to saying ‘thank’ee’ to any man but we say it to thee. Yes, we say it to thee.”

Kindred scenes occurred in every village and they did not reach Leeds in time for the mail coach they intended to take. The squire was not troubled at the delay. He said, “he hed a bit of his awn business to look after, and he was sure Katherine hed forgotten one or two varry necessary things, that she could buy in Leeds.”

Katherine acknowledged that she had forgotten her thimble and her hand glass, and said she had “been worrying about her back hair, which she could not dress without one.”

Madam was tired and glad to rest. “But Antony,” she said, “Dick will meet this coach and when we do not come by it, he will have wonders and worries about us.”

“Not he! Dick knows something about women, and also, I told him we might sleep a night or two at some town on the way, if you were tired.”

The next day they began the journey again, half-purposing to stop and rest at some half-way town. The squire said Dick understood them. He would be on hand if they loitered a week. And Madam was satisfied; she thought it likely Dick had instructions fitting his father’s uncertainty.

Yet though the coach prevented actual contact with the miserable famine sufferers, it could not prevent them witnessing the silent misery sitting on every door step, and looking with such longing eyes for help from God or man. Upon the whole it was a journey to break a pitiful heart, and the squire and his family were glad when the coach drew up with the rattle of wheels and the blowing of the guard’s horn at its old stand of Charing Cross.

The magic of London was already around them, and the first face they saw was the handsome beaming face of Dick Annis. He nodded and smiled to his father, who was sitting – where he had sat most of the journey – at the side of the driver. Dick would have liked to help him to the street, but he knew that his father needed no help and would likely be vexed at any offer of it, but Dick’s mother and sister came out of the coach in his arms, and the lad kissed them and called them all the fond names he could think of. Noticing at the same time his father’s clever descent, he put out his left hand to him, for he had his mother guarded with his right arm. “You did that jump, dad, better than I could have done it. Are you tired?”

“We are all tired to death, Dick. Hev you a cab here?”

“To be sure, I have! Your rooms at the Clarendon are in order, and there will be a good dinner waiting when you are ready for it.”

In something less than an hour they were all ready for a good dinner; their faces had been washed, Katherine’s hair smoothed and Madam’s cap properly adjusted. The squire was standing on the hearthrug in high spirits. The sight of his son, the touch of the town, the pleasant light and comfort of his surroundings, the prospect of dinner, made him forget for a few minutes the suffering he had passed through, until his son asked, “And did you have a pleasant journey, father?”

“A journey, Dick, to break a man’s heart. It hes turned me from a Tory into a Radical. This government must feed the people or – we will kick them back – ”

“Dear father, we will talk of that subject by ourselves. It isn’t fit for two tired women, now is it?”

“Mebbe not; but I hev seen and I hev heard these last two or three days, Dick, what I can niver forget. Things hev got to be altered. They hev that, or – ”

“We will talk that over after mother and Kitty have gone to sleep. We won’t worry them to-night. I have ordered mother’s favorite Cabinet pudding for her, and some raspberry cream for Kitty. It wouldn’t be right to talk of unhappy things with good things in our mouths, now would it?”

“They are coming. I can hear Kitty’s laugh, when I can hear nothing else. Ring the bell, Dick, we can hev dinner now.”

There were a few pleasant moments spent in choosing their seats, and as soon as they were taken, a dish of those small delicious oysters for which England has been famous since the days of the Roman Emperors were placed before them. “I had some scalloped for mother and Kitty,” Dick said. “Men can eat them raw, alive if they choose, but women – Oh no! It isn’t womanlike! Mother and Kitty wouldn’t do it! Not they!”

“And what else hes ta got for us, Dick?” asked the squire. “I’m mortal hungry.”

The last word shocked him anew. He wished he had not said it. What made him do it? Hungry! He had never been really hungry in all his life; and those pallid men and women, with that look of suffering on their faces, and in their dry, anxious eyes, how could he ever forget them?

He was suddenly silent, and Katherine said: “Father is tired. He would drive so much. I wonder the coachman let him.”

“Father paid for the privilege of doing the driver’s work for him. I have no doubt of that, my dears,” said Madam. “Well, Dick, when did you see Jane?”

“Do you not observe, mother, that I am in evening dress? Jane has a dance and supper to-night. Members from the government side will be dropping in there after midnight, for refreshment. Both Houses are in all-night sittings now.”

“How does Leyland vote?”

“He is tremendously royal and loyal. You will have to mind your p’s and q’s with him now, father.”

“Not I! I take my awn way. Leyland’s way and mine are far apart. How is your Aunt Josepha?”

“She is all right. She is never anything else but all right. Certainly she is vexed that Katherine is not to stay with her. Jane has been making a little brag about it, I suppose.”

“Katherine could stay part of the time with her,” said the squire.

“She had better be with Jane. Aunt will ask O’Connell to her dinners, and others whom Katherine would not like.”

“Why does she do it? She knows better.”

“I suspect we all know better than we do. She says, ‘O’Connell keeps the dinner table lively.’ So he does. The men quarrel all the time they eat and the women really admire them for it. They say ‘Oh!’ at a very strong word, but they would love to see them really fighting. Women affect tenderness and fearfulness; they are actually cruel creatures. Aunt says, ‘that was what her dear departed told her, and she had no doubt he had had experiences.’ Jane sent her love to all of you, and she purposes coming for Katherine about two o’clock to-morrow.”

“Oh!” said Madam, in a rather indifferent way, “Katherine and I can find plenty to do, and to see, in London. Jane told me recently, she had a new carriage.”

“One of the finest turn-outs Long Acre could offer her. The team is good also. Leyland is a judge of horses, and he has chosen a new livery with his new honors – gray with silver trimmings. It looks handsome and stylish.”

“And will spoil quickly,” said Madam. “Jane asked me about the livery, and I told her to avoid light colors.”

“Then you should have told her to choose light colors. Jane lives and votes with the opposition.” In pleasant domestic conversation the hours slipped happily away, but after the ladies had retired, Dick did not stay long. The squire was really weary, though he “pooh-poohed” the idea. “A drive from Leeds to London, with a rest between, what is that to tire a man?” he asked, adding, “I hev trotted a Norfolk cob the distance easy in less time, and I could do it again, if I wanted to.”

“Of course you could, father. Oh, I wish to ask you if you know anything of the M.P. from Appleby?”

“A little.”

“What can you say about him?”

“He made a masterly speech last session, in favor of Peel’s ministry. I liked it then. I hevn’t one good word for it now.”

“He is a very fine looking man. I suppose he is wealthy. He lives in good style here.”

“I know nothing about his money. The De Burgs are a fine family – among the oldest in England – Cumberland, I believe, down Furness way. Why art thou bothering thysen about him?”

“He is one of Jane’s favorites. He goes to Ley-land’s house a deal. I was thinking of Katherine.”

“What about Katherine? What about Katherine?” the squire asked sharply.