The Carbonels

Poor thing! Neither Judith nor Mr Harford could persuade her that there was a way to look which would have lightened all these troubles! But John had learnt how to stand alone, and he did so, not only by presenting himself for confirmation, but by becoming a Communicant. Not another lad did so, but his cousin George and his wife had begun at last, under the influence of Mr Harford’s sermons, and so had a few more in the parish. John, in his cousin’s workshop, was shielded from a good deal of the evil talk and jesting that went on among his fellows in the fields. He “took after” George in being grave and quiet, and he loved no company better than his invalid aunt’s; but to be a steady and religious youth was a more difficult matter in those days than at present, for harmless outlets for youthful spirits had not been devised, and to avoid mischief it was almost needful to abstain from almost all the company and pleasures of a country lad.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Threshing-Machine

“When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.”

    Cowper.

Captain Carbonel had made his farming answer better than his friends, or still more the farmers, had predicted. He had gone to the markets and talked with the farmers, and not shown off any airs, though, as they said, he was a gentleman, so known by his honest, straightforward dealing. Nor had he been tempted to launch out into experiments and improvements beyond what he could properly afford, though he kept everything in good order, and used new methods according to the soil of his farm.

Master Pucklechurch growled at first, and foretold that nothing would come of “thicken a’”; that the “mangled weazel,” as he called the mangel wurzel, would not grow; and that the cows would never eat “that there red clover as they calls apollyon;” but when the mangel swelled into splendid crimson root and the cows throve upon the bright fields of trifolium, he was as proud as any one, and he showed off the sleek sides of the kine, and the big mis-shapen roots of the beet with the utmost satisfaction.

Equal grumbling heralded the introduction of a threshing-machine, which Captain Carbonel purchased after long consideration. The beat of the flail on barn floors was a regular winter sound at Uphill, as in all the country round, but to get all the corn threshed and winnowed by a curious revolving fan with four canvas sails, was a troublesome affair, making farmers behindhand in coming to the market. And as soon as he could afford the venture the Captain obtained a machine to be worked by horse-power, for steam had hardly been brought as yet into use even for sea traffic, and the first railway was only opened late in 1830, the time of the accession of William the Fourth.

The farm people, with old Pucklechurch at their head, looked at the operations of the machine with some distrust, but this gradually became wonder and admiration on the part of the Greenhow labourers, for threshing with the flail was very hard work for the shoulders and back, and Captain Carbonel took care to find employment for the men in winter time, so that his men did not join in the complaint of Barton and Morris that there wouldn’t be nothing for a poor chap to get his bread by in the winter. In truth, the machine and its work were a perfect show to the neighbourhood for the first harvest or two, when Seddon was to be seen sitting aloft enthroned over a mist of dust, driving the horse that went round and round, turning the flails that beat out corn from the ears in the sheaves with which Pucklechurch and Truman fed the interior.

All Greenhow was proud of its “Mr Machy,” as the little Mary called it, thinking perhaps that it was a wonderful live creature.

The neighbourhood remained quiet even when George the Fourth died, and there was much hope and rejoicing over the accession of his brother, who was reported to be the friend of the people, and to mean to make changes in their favour. Poor old George Hewlett was, however, much exercised on the first Sunday, when, in the prayers for the king, Mr Harford inadvertently said George instead of William, and George Hewlett, the clerk, held it to be praying for the dead, which he supposed to be an act forbidden.

There was, of course, an election for the new parliament, but it did not greatly affect Uphill, as nobody had any votes, except Captain Carbonel, the farmers, and the landlord of the “Fox and Hounds,” and the place was too far from Minsterham for any one to share in the election news, except Dan Hewlett and Joe Todd, who tramped over thither to hear the speeches, swell the riotous multitude, and partake of all the beer to which both sides freely treated all comers. They came home full of news, and reported in the bar of the “Fox and Hounds” that there were to be grand doings in this new parliament; the people wasn’t going to stand it no longer, not if the right gentlemen got in; but there would be an end of they machines, as made horses do men’s work, and take the bread from their poor children. Beer would be ever so much cheaper, and every poor man would have a fat pig in his sty. That is, if Mr Bramdean, as was the people’s friend, got in.

“Why, he was the one as our Captain Gobbleall was agin,” observed Cox, who had come in to hear the news.

“To be sure he was; Gobbleall is hand and glove with all the tyrums. Ha’n’t he got a machine?” said Dan, in an oracular manner.

“No one will never tell me as how our captain ain’t a friend o’ the people,” returned Seddon. “Don’t he get coals reasonable for us, and didn’t he head the petition for your pig, Jim, and draw it up, too?”

“Ay, but what right had he to say my missus shouldn’t take it out of the parish?” said Jim Parsons. “We’d a made a couple of pounds more, if she’d been free to go her rounds, as Betty Blake did.”

“Ay, that’s the way of ’em. They grudges us everything what they don’t give themselves,” said Dan, “and little of that, too.”

No one understood the spirit which desired to make people independent, and raise them above indiscriminate beggary, and Todd said, with a grim laugh, “They would not see us make a little purse for ourselves, not if they can help it.”

Seddon feebly said the ladies was free enough with their gifts. “They had never had no one before to help the women folk and the children.”

“Pig’s wash! Much good may it do ’em,” said Dan, so contemptuously that Seddon durst not utter another word in the general laugh, though he carried home a little can of milk every day, and he and others well knew the store that their wives set by the assistance of their little ones.

They knew it well enough, though they were afraid to maintain the cause of the Gobblealls before such an orator as Dan; and nothing worse than these grumblings took place all harvest time, where the whole families were fully employed, the men each taking a portion of the field, while their wives and children aided in the reaping and binding, and earned sums amongst them which would pay the quarter’s rent, buy the pig, and provide huge boots for the father, if for no others of the family. The farmers provided substantial luncheons and suppers for the toilers in the field; and, when all was over, and the last load carried, amid joyful shouts, there was a great harvest supper at each farm, where songs were sung, dances were danced, and there was often a most unlimited quantity of beer swallowed.

No one had then thought of harvest thanksgivings; but at Greenhow there was as usual the farm supper, but with only ale enough for good and not for harm; the ladies came to hear the songs in the great farm kitchen, and the party had to break up at nine o’clock. The women, especially Mrs Mole, were glad; but the men, even the steady ones, did not like having only half an evening of it, and “such a mean sup of beer.” It really was excellent strong beer—far better than the farmers’ brew—but that did not matter to the discontented, who, instead of letting themselves be taken home by their wives, adjourned to the “Fox and Hounds,” and there sat over their pint cups, replenished from time to time, while they discussed the captain’s meanness, and listened to a dirty old newspaper, which told of the doings of Jack Swing, who was going about in Wiltshire, raising mobs, threatening farmers and squires, and destroying machines. There was much excitement among the gentry about Reform, but apparently the poor cared not about it.

To the Uphill mind, Wiltshire was as strange and distant a country as Australia, and this made little impression, so that, as the days went on, everybody went to their usual work, and there was no alarm.

“Oh no,” said Mrs Carbonel, “the people here have far too much good sense to want to molest their best friends. They quite admire our threshing-machine; and see what a saving of labour it is!”

However, it was thought right to raise a body of yeomanry for the defence of the country, in case the disaffection should become more serious, and the assistance of Captain Carbonel at the county town was urgently requested to organise the members of it. He left home for a few days without the least anxiety. And Mr Harford, too, went on the Monday to attend a college meeting at Oxford, and would not return till he had visited his patient lady-love. The Selbys were away, spending the autumn at Cheltenham.

Chapter Nineteen.

A Night Journey

“And he must post, without delay,
Along the bridge and through the dale.
And by the church and o’er the down.”

    Wordsworth.

John Hewlett had finished his day’s work, and come home in the dusk of an October evening. He found the house hung all over with the family linen, taken in to shelter from a shower; but not before it had become damp enough to need to be put by the fire before it could be ironed or folded. His mother was moaning over it, and there was no place to sit down. He did not wonder that Jem had taken his hunch of bread and gone away with it, nor that his father was not at home; but he took off his boots at the back door, as his aunt never liked his coming into her room in them—though they were nothing to what he would have worn had he worked in the fields—and then climbed up the stairs.

Judith was sitting up in bed, with her teapot, tea-cup, and a piece of stale loaf, laid out on a tray before her; and little Judy beside her, drinking out of a cracked mug. Judith’s eyes had a strange look of fright in them, but there was an air of relief when she saw Johnnie.

“Well, aunt, is that all you have got for tea?”

“Poor mother has been hindered; but never mind that,” returned Judith, in a quick, agitated tone. “Judy, my dear, drink up your tea and run down to help mother, there’s a dear.”

“You haven’t brought nothing, Johnnie,” Judy lingered to ask.

“No, not I. I’ve worked too late to go to shop,” said Johnnie.

“Go down, my dear, as I told you,” said Judith, with a little unwonted tone of impatience, which made the youth certain that she had something important to tell him; and as soon as the little girl began clumping down the stairs, she held out her hand and said in the lowest of voices, “Come near, Johnnie, that you may hear.” He came near; she put out her hand to pull him on his knees, so that his ear might be close to her, and whispered, “Jack Swing is coming to Greenhow to-morrow.”

“The captain away! How do you know?”

“A man came and talked with your father in the back garden—just under this window. Mother had run up to shop for a bit of soap; but they thought she might come in any minute, and so went out at the back door, so that I heard them all the better.”

“They never thought of that! Well?”

“They mean to come on Greenhow, ask for money and arms, break up the machine, and burn the ricks if they don’t get what they want. Father said they might be sure of the Downhill men, and most of ’em here, for they all hate that there machine that is to starve poor folk in winter time; and those that were not of that way would be afraid to hold back, or they would show them the reason why.”

“And the captain away. It is enough to be the death of madam and the little ones.”

“That’s just what I thought. Oh, Johnnie dear, can’t you help to save them, and hinder it?”

“Master wouldn’t go along with such doings,” said John.

“I wouldn’t answer for George! He’s a steady man, and would do no harm if he’s let alone; but he’s a mortal fearsome one! No, John, there’s no help for it, but that you should get over in time to fetch the captain, and let him take away the ladies, or stand up for them. He’ll know what to be at!”

“But will it get father into trouble?” asked John.

“Not among so many. He’s sharp enough. The captain, if he were only at home, would see how to get them away. Anyway, think of the poor ladies and the little children!”

John stood for a minute or two by the window thinking, while Judith sat up in her bed gazing at him with eager, anxious eyes; and at last he turned back, and would have spoken aloud but that she raised her hand to caution him. He knelt down again beside her, and said, “No, aunt, I couldn’t rest to think of all those rough brutes of chaps from we don’t know where coming and playing their rigs, and bullying the ladies, with no one to help. There was a lady frightened to death with them,—master was reading it out in the paper. Yes, I’ll go and fetch the captain home to take care of them. Where is he?”