The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“Well, your father took me on a sudden. I hedn’t time to think before I spoke and when my heart gets busy, good-by to my head.”

“Mrs. Courtney has not been here for a long time.”

“She is a good deal away but I saw her in London last year every now and then. She is a careless woman; she goes it blind about everything, and yet she wants to be at the bottom of all county affairs.”

“Mother, could we not do a little shopping today?”

“At the fag end of the week? What are you talking about? Certainly not. Besides, thy father is worried about the meeting this afternoon. He says more may come of it than we can dream of.”

“How is that?”

“Why, Katherine, it might end in a factory here, or it might end in the weavers heving to leave Annis and go elsewhere.”

“Cannot they get work of some other kind, in, or near by Annis?”

“Nay, tha surely knows, that a weaver hes to keep his fingers soft, and his hands supple. Hard manual work would spoil his hands forever for the loom, and our men are born weavers. They doan’t fashion to any other work, and to be sure England hes to hev her weavers.”

“Mother, would it not be far better to have a factory? Lately, when I have taken a walk with father he always goes to the wold and looks all round considering just like a man who was wondering about a site for a building. It would be a good thing for us, mother, would it not?”

“It seems so, but father does not want it. He says it will turn Annis into a rough village, full of strangers, with bad ways, and also that it will spoil the whole country-side with its smoke and dirt.”

“But if it makes money?”

“Money isn’t iverything.”

“The want of it is dreadful.”

“Thy father got a thousand pounds this morning. If he does not put most of it into a factory, he will put it into bread, which will be eaten to-day and wanted again to-morrow. That would make short work of a thousand pounds.”

“Have you reminded father of that?”

“I doan’t need to. Father seems an easy-going man but he thinks of iverything; and when he hes to act no one strikes the iron quicker and harder. If thou saw him in London, if thou heard him in the House, brow-beating the Whigs and standing up for Peel and Wellington and others, thou would wonder however thou dared to tease, and contradict, and coax him in Annis. Thou would that! Now I am going to the lower summer house for an hour. Send away thy letters, and let me alone a bit.”

“I know. I saw father going down the garden. He is going to the summer house also; he intends to tell you, mother, what he is going to say to-night. He always reads, or recites his speeches to you. I have heard him sometimes.”

“Then thou ought to be ashamed to speak of it! I am astonished at thy want of honor! If by chance, thou found out some reserved way of thy father it should have been held by thee as a sacred, inviolable secret. Not even to me, should thou have dared to speak of it. I am sorry, indeed, to hev to teach thee this point of childhood’s honor. I thought it would be natural to the daughter of Antony and Annie Annis!”

“Mother! Forgive me! I am ashamed and sorry and oh, do not, for my sake, tell father! My dear, dear father! You have made it look like mocking him – I never thought how shameful it could look – oh, I never thought about it! I never spoke of it before! I never did!”

“Well, then, see thou never again listens to what was not intended for thee to hear. It would be a pretty state of things, if thy father hed to go somewhere out of the way of listeners to get a bit of private talk with me.”

“Mother, don’t be so cruel to me.”

“Was thou trying to compliment me or was thou scorning a bit about thy father’s ways? If thou thought I would feel complimented by being set above him that thought was as far wrong as it could possibly get.”

“Mother! Mother! You will break my heart! You never before spoke this way to me —Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

For a few minutes Madam let her weep, then she bent over the crouching, sobbing girl, and said, “There now! There now!”

“I am so sorry! So sorry!”

“Well, dearie, sorrow is good for sin. It is the only thing sorrow is good for. Dry thy eyes, and we will niver name the miserable subject again.”

“Was it really a sin, mother?”

“Hes thou forgotten the fifth commandment? That little laugh at thy father’s saying his speeches to me first was more than a bit scornful. It was far enough from the commandment ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ It wasn’t honoring either of us.”

“I can never forgive myself.”

“Nay! nay! Give me a kiss and go and look after thy letters; also tell Yates dinner must be on the table at one o’clock no matter what his watch says.” Then Katherine walked silently away and Madam went to the lower summer house, and the dinner was on the table at one o’clock. It was an exceedingly quiet meal, and immediately after it, the squire’s horse was brought to the door.

“So thou art going to ride, Antony!” said Mistress Annis, and the squire answered, “Ay, I hev a purpose in riding, Annie.”

“Thou art quite right,” was the reply, for she thought she divined his purpose and the shadow of a smile passed between them. Then he looked at his watch, mounted his horse and rode swiftly away. His wife watched him out of sight and, as she turned into the house, she told herself with a proud and happy smile, “He is the best and the handsomest man in the West Riding, and the horse suits him! He rides to perfection! God bless him!”

It was a point with the squire to be rigidly punctual. He was never either too soon, or too late. He knew that one fault was as bad as the other, though he considered the early mistake as the worst. It began to strike two as he reached the door of the Methodist Chapel, and saw Jonathan Hartley waiting there for him; and they walked at once to a rude platform that had been prepared for the speakers. There were several gentlemen standing there in a group, and the Chapel was crowded with anxious hungry-looking men.

It was the first time that Squire Annis had ever stepped inside a Methodist Chapel. The thought was like the crack of a whip in his conscience but at that moment he would not listen to any claim or reproof; for either through liking or disliking, he was sensitive at once to Bradley’s tall, burly predominance; and could not have said, whether it was pleasant or unpleasant to him. However, the moment he appeared, there was loud handclapping, and cries of “Squire Annis! Squire Annis! Put him in the chair! He’s our man!”

Then into the squire’s heart his good angel put a good thought, and he walked to the front of the platform and said, “My men, and my friends, I’ll do something better for you. I’ll put the Reverend Samuel Foster in the chair. God’s servant stands above all others, and Mr. Foster knows all about your poverty and affliction. I am a bit ashamed to say, I do not.” This personal accusation was cut short by cries of “No! No! No! Thou hes done a great deal,” and then a cheer, that had in it all the Yorkshire spirit, though not its strength. The men were actually weak with hunger.

Mr. Foster took the chair to which the squire led him without any affectations of demur, and he was gladly welcomed. Indeed there were few things that would have pleased the audience more. They were nearly all Methodists, and their preacher alone had searched out their misery, and helped them to bear it with patience and with hope. He now stretched out his hands to them and said – “Friends, just give us four lines, and we will go at once to business”; and in a sweet, ringing voice, he began Newman’s exquisite hymn —

“Leave God to order all thy ways,
And hope in Him whate’er betide,
Thoul’t find Him in the evil days,
An all sufficient Strength and Guide.”

The words came fresh and wet with tears from every heart, and it was a five minutes’ interlude of that complete surrender, which God loves and accepts.

After a moment of intense silence, the preacher said, “We are met to-day to try and find out if hand-loom weaving must go, or if both hand-loom weaving and power-loom weaving have a chance for the weaver in them. There are many hand-loom weavers here present. They know all its good points and all points wherein it fails but they do not know either the good or bad points of power-loom weaving, and Mr. John Thomas Bradley has come to tell you something about this tremendous rival of your household loom. I will now introduce Mr. John.” He got no further in his introduction, for Bradley stepped forward, and with a buoyant good-nature said, “No need, sir, of any fine mastering or mistering between the Annis lads and mysen. We hev thrashed each ither at football, and chated each ither in all kinds of swapping odds too often, to hev forgotten what names were given us at our christening. There’s Israel Swale, he hes a bigger mill than I hev now-a-days, but he’s owing me three pence half-penny and eleven marbles, yet whenever I ask him for my brass and my marbles he says – ‘I’ll pay thee, John Thomas, when we play our next game.’ Now listen, lads, next Whitsunday holidays I’ll ask him to come and see me, and I’ll propose before a house full of company – and all ready for a bit of fun – that we hev our game of marbles in the bowling alley, and I’ll get Jonathan Hartley to give you all an invitation to come and see fair play between us. Will you come?”

Noisy laughing acceptances followed and one big Guisely weaver said, “He’d come too, and see that Israel played a straight game for once in his life.”

“I’m obliged to thee, Guisely,” answered Bradley, “I hope thou’lt come. Now then, lads, I hev to speak to you about business, and if you think what I say is right, go and do what I say, do it boldly; and if you aren’t sure, then let it alone: – till you are driven to it. I am told that varry few of the men here present iver saw a power loom. And yet you mostly think ill o’ it. That isn’t a bit Yorkshire. You treat a man as you find him, you ought to do the same to a machine, that is almost a man in intelligence – that is the most perfect bit of beauty and contrivance that man iver made since man himsen was fitted wi’ fingers and thumbs by the Great Machinist of heaven and earth.”

“What is it fashioned like, Bradley?”

“It is an exceedingly compact machine and takes up little room. It is easily worked and it performs every weaving operation with neatness and perfection. It makes one hundred and seventy picks a minute or six pieces of goods in a week – you know it was full work and hard work to make one piece a week with the home loom, even for a strong man. It is made mostly of shining metal, and it is a perfect darling. Why-a! the lads and lassies in Bradley mill call their looms after their sweethearts, or husbands, or wives, and I wouldn’t wonder if they said many a sweet or snappy word to the looms that would niver be ventured on with the real Bessie or the real Joe.

“Think of your old cumbersome wooden looms, so hard and heavy and dreary to work, that it wasn’t fit or right to put a woman down to one. Then go and try a power loom, and when you hev done a day’s work on it, praise God and be thankful! I tell you God saw the millions coming whom Yorkshire and Lancashire would hev to clothe, and He gave His servant the grave, gentle, middle-aged preacher Edmund Cartwright, the model of a loom fit for God’s working men and women to use. I tell you men the power loom is one of God’s latest Gospels. We are spelling yet, with some difficulty, its first good news, but the whole world will yet thank God for the power loom!”

Here the preacher on the platform said a fervent “Thank God!” But the audience was not yet sure enough for what they were to thank God, and the few echoes to the preacher’s invitation were strangely uncertain for a Yorkshire congregation. A few of the Annis weavers compromised on a solemn “Amen!” All, however, noticed that the squire remained silent, and they were “not going” – as Lot Clarke said afterwards – “to push themsens before t’ squire.”

Then Jonathan Hartley stepped into the interval, and addressing Bradley said, “Tha calls this wonderful loom a power-loom. I’ll warrant the power comes from a steam engine.”

“Thou art right, Jonathan. I wish tha could see the wonderful engine at Dalby’s Mill in Pine Hollow. The marvelous creature stands in its big stone stable like a huge image of Destiny. It is never still, but never restless, nothing rough; calm and steady like the waves of the full sea at Scarboro’. It is the nervous center, the life, I might say, of all going on in that big building above it. It moves all the machinery, it gives life to the devil,[1 - The devil, a machine containing a revolving cylinder armed with knives or spikes for tearing, cutting, or opening raw materials.] and speeds every shuttle in every loom.”