D. F. E. Sykes

“ Wright’s, the saddler’s, in Huddersfield; and I, though I had had no speech with him, had heard much of his great learning and sweet temper. He was not one to harm a fly. His father was, I knew, the Vicar at Lowmoor Church, and a master cropper to boot. Surely the son of a parson and of a finisher was engaged in no enterprise that need daunt my father’s son.
He was sat in the snug, a pot of ale before him, scarce tasted; a youth not more than twenty–one or two years old, with pale face, long lank dark hair that fell on either side a high and narrow brow. ”

“ To stand up in fair fight, to pit strength against strength, craft against craft, to stake limb for limb, life for life, why, that, who shall cry fie upon. But to steal upon your foe in the dark, to stab in the back, to smite him unawares, to speed him unsummoned and unfit to judgment—there is no cause so righteous as to redeem an act so dastard. And that George, so frank, so full of sunshine and gay candour, should do this cowardly deed, passed comprehension. ”

“ And yet some manufacturers persisted in putting in machines that could have but one effect, to turn adrift many of those who still had work. And with it all arose in the minds not only of the croppers but of all the working people for miles around a feeling of injustice, of oppression, a rankling sense of wrong. And the poor felt for the poor. They got it into their heads that the rich cared nought about them, that their only thought was to look after themselves, to fill their own pockets, and the working folk might rot in their rags for ought they cared. ”

“ George was at home and fortunately we were not interrupted. He was in a towering rage, and I could not have found a worse time for my errand.
“Yo’re just the man I wanted to see, Ben,” he said. “I feel I must talk to somebody and let th’ steam off a bit. But somebody’st smart for this. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth th’ old Book says, an’ a blow for a blow too, say I. Aye, by God, a blow for a blow, a hundred blows for one, insult for insult, outrage for outrage, and ruin for oppression. The proud insolence of the man! ”

“ Yo’ may build a mill, but bigger men will build bigger mills, and the bigger mills will swallow up the less, and thou and thy son, and even Mary yonder may be fain, thou in thy old age and they in their prime, to take wage at another’s hand, and to do a hireling’s task in another’s mill. ”

“ I never knew those horse soldiers one bit of use all the time, and with their loose ways they did much harm. Those that had a tale which could pass muster would walk past them bold as brass. Those that couldn’t face them just avoided them, which was easy enough whether by day or night, for stone fences are good for men to hide behind, and at the best it is a hard country for men on cavalry horses.
At the Nag’s Head, at Paddock, we found George Mellor, William Smith, Thorpe, Ben o’ Buck’s, his brother John, Tom Brooke, Bill Hall, and two or three others who worked at Wood’s. ”

“ Ben, yo’ mun forgive me. But aw’ll never forgive missen.”
What is the magic of a woman’s kiss and how comes it that under some conditions the touch of her lips will stir you not at all, and under others will kindle in your heart a flame that lasts your life–time. Till that moment I vow I had had no love for my cousin Mary, save such as a brother may have for his sister, between which and a lover’s love is, I take it, the difference between the light of the moon, and the light of the sun. ”

“ This is my last venture, Ben.”
“Aye and mine by moonlight, John Daylight or nowt, say I.”
“It is my last, Ben. There will be sharp work at Rawfolds. The mill is well garrisoned, Cartwright is a bold, a resolute man. He will defend his machines at any hazard and at any cost. Still you need not despair. If you can but win your way in, you may overpower him and the men he has with him. But, Ben, have you thought of it? There will be bloodshed. There must be bloodshed. Cartwright will not ask quarter, nor will he give it. ”

“ To refuse to answer would be construed as a sure sign of guilty knowledge, if not of actual partnership: so people made themselves as gaumless as they could, and when driven into a corner lied like blacks.
The manufacturers who felt themselves or their goods in danger took heart. All eyes at this time were fixed on Marsden. Enoch and James Taylor, who made the new cropping frames, were looked upon as marked men, and Woodbottom mill was fortified as if for a siege; soldiers sleeping in the mill at night.
“Arthur Hirst’s a main clever chap,” said ’Siah, with unwilling admiration. ”

“ A man became a man but once in a life–time, and moreover, and this settled the matter with her, in no decent family was such an event allowed to pass unmarked. Times were bad she granted, but it was not as though we were bound to live from hand to mouth. So I bid my friends. Of course, George must come, and a handsomer, brighter lad never set foot in Lower Holme than George looked that night, all fun and laughter, with a jest for everyone. And he brought with him Ben Walker, whom I made welcome, as I should have made welcome the Evil One himself had George brought him. ”

“ Th’ war were a put up job of th’ king and th’ nobles and th’ squires. And who profited by it? The noble and the squire an’ the sleek parson with his tithes. What has made corn as far beyond the poor man’s reach as though a grain of wheat were a ruby or a pearl? The wars, always the wars. And the people, the thousands upon thousands of men and women who have no part nor parcel in this war, save to send their children to die on a gory bed, what voice or what part have they in all this? The part and the part of sheep driven to the slaughter”—
“But what has Horsfall to do with all this?” ”

“ On Sundays we nearly always had beef or mutton and Yorkshire pudding, and my mother’s home–brewed was famous throughout all the country side. Mr. Wilson, the parson of the church, always called when he came to Holme, though my father had grieved him sore by taking a pew at Powle Moor Chapel, and sitting under that godly man, Abraham Webster; and Mr. Wilson always declared to my mother’s own face that her home–brewed was better drinking than any to be got even at the Black Bull Inn, at Kitchen Fold, which boasted the best “tap” outside Huddersfield itself. ”

“ The scholars, boys and girls both, would wait till service was done that they might walk homewards with Miss Faith, and it was as sweet a sight as ever gladdened the eye of man to see her crossing the fields by the narrow lanes through the waving, nodding, rustling grass, that now began to sigh its own dirge, for hay–time drew near, a crowd of children in her train, a toddling urchin on either side clutching with chubby hand the folds of her skirt, and an advanced guard of sturdy lads marching on in front prepared to face imaginary lions and tigers in defence of their beloved teacher. ”

“ Webster, perhaps noticing my silence and to give me time to gather my thoughts. “You see, Ben, a young man like you is scarcely his own master. If you had been ’Siah, now, it would have been different. A decent man is your servant, Brother Bamforth, and helps my infirmity mightily when he lights me home of a dark night, a decent man though with still a strong leaven of the old Adam and much given to the vanities of the flesh and idle conversation. But ’Siah is his own master though your man. ”

“ Was not the natural man, since the Fall, prone to murder, lust, evil imaginings, covetousness, hardness of heart, vain glory, malice, and all unworthiness, all being, by nature, the children of wrath, and only that small handful of the dust of Zion, of all that great valley, called forth and justified before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. ”

“ Mr. Webster was sat in my father’s arm chair, his little legs, with their worsted stockings, hardly reaching the ground, and I make no doubt he would have been more comfortable on the settle, which was lower; but it was a point of civility with my father to surrender the master’s chair to an honoured guest. A long churchwarden sent its reek up the broad chimney, and a little glass of weak gin and water stood by the parson’s right hand convenient on the table. Not that Mr. Webster took much of either ale or strong waters ”

“ I confess here, once and for all, I am not made of the stuff of which captains, heroes and martyrs are made—I asked nothing better of the world than to go my own way quietly and doucely, earning by honest toil sufficient for my daily needs, sustained by the affection of those I loved and safe in the esteem and goodwill of my little world. ”

“ Somebody must have crammed him that the tailor makes the man: but Lord! a tailor from heaven, if there are such there, couldn’t have made a man of Ben Walker. Neither could ale nor strong waters. He had evidently been trying for a bit back to import courage from Holland, for his face was patchy and mezzled and his eye was filmy and his body jerky. We had heard that he was making the money fly down at th’ Brigg, tho’ it was not easy to get anyone to drink with him. ”

“ My father’s custom lay mainly in the country market towns, and the high price of corn caused by the ceaseless wars kept squire and farmer in rich content, and they paid for their cloth like men. It was the manufacturers who had made and relied on a foreign market for their goods, who cursed Napoleon, and cursed, too, our own Government, that was ever at daggers drawn with him. ”

“ George cried. Th’ specials is fleyed on us. They take care to watch an’ ward just where they know we’re not. Th’ soldiers don’t like their job. It’s poor work for lads o’ mettle hunting starving croppers. Th’ people are with us. But we must strike a decisive blow that will once and for all show our purpose and our power. Every frame in the West Riding must be broken into matchwood; every master must learn that he has resolute and united men to reckon with. ”

“ Why, man, his head’s full of nonsense, just pack full. All about the rights o’ man, and reform and striking down the oppressors of the poor. As if such as him can do owt! We’re all melling wi’ things too big for the likes o’ us, Ben, an’ fools as we all are, George is the biggest o’ th’ lot, for he hasn’t sense enough to know he is a fool.”
Now there was just enough in this to make it sting the keener. So I pulled up short and said:
“If that’s your opinion about George, go tell him so thissen. An’ if yo’ve ought more to say about our Mary go say it to hersen. Yo’ll get your answer straight.” ”

“ It keeps up the price of corn and stock, it finds pay and promotion for the young bloods of the aristocracy, it distracts the minds of the people at home from domestic reforms, it keeps up the hideous system of privilege, by which peer and prelate batten on the spoils of a people oppressed to the limits of endurance, and it is mighty convenient to keep Napoleon as a bogy man to frighten the people withal when they cry for reform. ”

“ It’s all property, property.”
“Nay, George, yo’re riding yo’r high horse again,” I said; but I couldn’t help admiring him, for he spoke well, and his face was all lit up with the glow of intellect and passion.
“It’s God’s truth aw’m speaking, Ben, and pity o’t it ‘tis true, as th’ player says. What is it keeps folk so poor? Bad trade. What is it keeps trade so bad? Th’ wars. Allus wars. For twenty years it’s been war and war to it. What are we fighting for, I ask you?” ”

“ Let us once show our strength, and we will not rest till things are bettered for all of us. But we must strike a blow that will be felt the length and breadth of the land. It is baby work that we have been on to–night. We must go for the leaders of the masters, for those who hearten up such men as S———, of Marsh, the men who have both the brains and the pluck, curse ’em, not for the sheep who follow the bell–wether.
“Cartwright, of Rawfolds,” cried a Liversedge man.
“Horsfall, of Ottiwell’s,” said a Marsden cropper. ”