Through The Fray: A Tale Of The Luddite Riots

by G. A. Henty

  Almost speechless with passion as he was he restrained himself from carrying out his threat and turning Ned at once from the house. Above all things he prized his position and popularity, and he felt that, as Ned had said, he would indeed incur a heavy odium by turning his wife's son from his doors. Captain Sankey's death had thrown almost a halo over his children. Mr. Mulready knew that he was already intensely unpopular among the operative class, but he despised this so long as he stood well with the rest of the townsmen; but he dared not risk Ned's going to work as an ordinary hand in one of the factories; public opinion is always against stepfathers, and assuredly this would be no exception. Hating him as he did, he dared not get rid of this insolent boy, who had struck and defied him. He cursed himself now with his rashness in letting his temper get the best of him and telling his wife

  openly that he had married her for her money; for this in Ned's hands would be a serious weapon against him.

  That his wife's feelings were hurt he cared not a jot, but it would be an awkward thing to have it repeated in the town. Then there was this threatening letter; what was he to do about that? Other men had had similar warnings. Some had defied Captain Lud, and fortified their mills and held them. Many had had their property burned to the ground; some had been murdered. It wouldn't be a pleasant thing to drive about in the country knowing that at any moment he might be shot dead. His mill was some little distance out of the town; the road was dark and lonely. He dared not risk it.

  Mr. Mulready was, like all tyrants, a coward at heart, and his face grew white again as he thought of the letter in his pocket. In the meantime Mrs. Mulready was alternately sobbing and upbraiding Ned as he quietly finished his breakfast. The boy did not answer, but continued his meal in dogged silence, and when it was over collected his books and without a word went off to school.

  Weeks went on, and no outward change took place. Ned continued to live at home. Mr. Mulready never addressed him, and beyond helping him to food entirely ignored his presence. At meal-times when he opened his lips it was either to snap at Charlie or Lucy, or to snarl at his wife, whose patience astonished Ned, and who never answered except by a smile or murmured excuse. The lad was almost as far separated from her now as from his stepfather. She treated him as if he only were to blame for

  the quarrel which had arisen. They had never understood each other, and while she was never weary o£ making-excuses for her husband, she could make none for her son. In the knowledge that the former had much to vex him she made excuses for him even in his worst moods. His new machinery was standing idle, his business was getting worse and worse, he was greatly pressed and worried, and it was monstrous, she told herself, that at such a time he should be troubled with Ned's defiant behaviour.

  A short time before the school Christmas holidays Ned knocked at the door of Mr. Porson's study. Since the conversation which they had had when first Ned heard of his mother's engagement Mr. Porson had seen in the lad's altered manner, his gloomy looks, and a hardness of expression which became more and more marked every week, that things were going on badly. Ned no longer evinced the same interest in his work, and frequently neglected it altogether; the master, however, had kept silence, preferring to wait until Ned should himself broach the subject.

  "Well, Sankey, what is it?" he asked kindly as the boy entered.

  "I don't think it's any use my going on any longer, Mr. Porson."

  "Well, Sankey, you have not been doing yourself much good this half, certainly. I have not said much to you about it, for it is entirely your own business: you know more than nineteen out of twenty of the young fellows who get commissions, so that if you choose to give up work it is your own affair."

  "I have made up my mind not to go into the army," Ned said quietly. Mr. Porson was silent a minute.

  "I hope, my dear lad," he said, "you will do nothing hastily about this. Here is a profession open to you which is your own choice and that of your father, and it should need some very strong and good reason for you to abandon it. Come let us talk the matter over together, my boy, not as a master and his pupil, but as two friends.

  "You know, my boy, how thoroughly I have your interest at heart. If you had other friends whom you could consult I would rather have given you no advice, for there is no more serious matter than to say anything which might influence the career of a young fellow just starting in life. Terrible harm often results from well-intentioned advice or opinions carelessly expressed to young men by their elders; it is a matter which few men are sufficiently careful about; but as I know that you have no friends to consult, Ned, and as I regard you with more than interest, I may say with affection, I think it would be well for you to tell me all that there is in your mind before you take a step which may wreck your whole life.

  " I have been waiting for some months in hopes that you would open your mind to me, for I have seen that you were unhappy; but it was not for me to force your confidence."

  " I don't know that there's much to tell," Ned said wearily. " Everything has happened just as it was certain it would do. Mulready is a brute; he ill-treats my

  mother, he ill-treats Charlie and Lucy, and he would ill-treat me if he dared."

  "All this is bad, Ned," Mr. Porson said gravely; "but of course much depends upon the amount of his ill-treatment. I assume that he does not actively ill-treat your mother."

  "No," Ned said with an angry look in his face; "and he'd better not."

  "Yes, Ned, he had better not, no doubt," Mr. Porson said soothingly; "but what I want to know, what it is essential I should know if I am to give you any advice worth having, is what you mean by ill-treatment—is he rough and violent in his way with her ? does he threaten her with violence? is he coarse and brutal ?"

  " No," Ned said somewhat reluctantly; "he is not that, sir; he is always snapping and snarling and finding-fault."

  " That is bad, Ned, but it does not amount to ill-treatment. When a man is put out in business and things go wrong with him it is unhappily too often his custom to vent his ill-temper upon innocent persons; and I fancy from what I hear—you know in a little place like this everyone's business is more or less known—Mr. Mulready has a good deal to put him out. He has erected new machinery and dare not put it to work, owing, as I hear —for he has laid the documents before the magistrates— to his having received threatening letters warning him against doing so. This is very trying to the man. Then, Ned, you will excuse my saying that perhaps he is some-

  what tried at home. It is no pleasant thing for a man to have a young fellow like yourself in the house taking up an attitude of constant hostility. I do not say that his conduct may or may not justify it; but you will not deny that from the first you were prepared to receive him as an enemy rather than as a friend. I heard a story some weeks ago in the town, which emanated no doubt from the servants, that you had actually struck him."

  " He hit Charlie, sir," Ned exclaimed.

  "That may be," Mr. Porson went on gravely; "and I have no doubt, Ned, that you considered then, and that you consider now, that you were acting rightly in interfering on behalf of your brother. But I should question much whether in such a matter you are the best judge. You unfortunately began with a very strong prejudice against this man; you took up the strongest attitude of hostility to him; you were prepared to find fault with everything he said and did; you put yourself in the position of the champion of your mother, brother, and sister against him. Under such circumstances it was hardly possible that things could go on well. Now I suppose, Ned, that the idea which you have in your mind in deciding to give up the profession you have chosen, is that you may remain as their champion and protector here."

  "Yes, sir," Ned said. " Father told me to be kind to mother, whatever happened."

  " Quite so, my boy; but the question is, Are you being kind ?"

  Ned looked surprised.

  " That you intend to be so, Ned, I am sure. The question is, Are you going the right way to work? Is this championship that you
have taken upon yourself increasing her happiness, or is it not ?"

  Ned was silent.

  " I do not think that it is, Ned. Your mother must be really fond of this man or she would not have married him. Do you think that it conduces to the comfort of her home to see the constant antagonism which prevails between you and him ? Is it not the fact that this ill-temper under which she suffers is the result of the irritation caused to him by your attitude? Do you not add to her burden rather than relieve it ?"

  Ned was still silent. He had so thoroughly persuaded himself that he was protecting his mother, his brother, and sister from Mr. Mulready that he had never considered the matter in this light.

  "Does your mother take his part or yours in these quarrels, Ned ?"

  " She takes his part, sir," said Ned indignantly.

  "Very well, Ned; that shows in itself that she does not wish for your championship, that in her eyes the trouble in the house is in fact caused by you. You must remember that when a woman loves a man she makes excuses for his faults of temper; his irritable moods, sharp expressions, and what you call snapping and snarling do not seem half so bad to her as they do to a third person, especially when that third person is her partisan. Instead of your adding to her happiness by renouncing

  your idea of going into the army, and of deciding to remain here in some position or other to take care of her, as, I suppose, is your intention, the result will be just the contrary. As to your sister, I think the same thing would happen.

  " Your mother is certainly greatly attached to her; and owing to her changed habits—for I understand that she is now a far more active, and I may say, Ned, a more sensible woman than before her marriage—I see no reason why Lucy should not be happy with her, especially if the element of discord—I mean yourself—were out of the way. As to Charlie, at the worst I don't think that he would suffer from your absence. His stepfather's temper will be less irritable; and as Charlie is away at school all day, and has to prepare his lessons in the evening, there is really but slight opportunity for his stepfather treating him with any active unkindness, even should he be disposed to do so.

  "Did I think, my boy, that your presence here would be likely to benefit your family I should be the last person to advise you to avoid making a sacrifice of your private wishes to what you consider your duty; but upon the contrary I am convinced that the line which you have, with the best intention, taken up has been altogether a mistake, that your stay at home does vastly more harm than good, and that things would go on very much better in your absence."

  This was a bitter mortification for Ned, who had hitherto nursed the idea that he was performing rather

  a heroic part, and was sacrificing himself for the sake of his mother,

  "You don't know the fellow as I do," he said sullenly at last.

  "I do not, Ned; but I know human nature, and I know that any man would show himself at his worst under such circumstances as those in which you have placed him. It is painful to have to say, but I am sure that you have done harm rather than good, and that things will get on much better in your absence."

  " I believe he is quite capable of killing her," Ned said passionately, " if he wanted her out of the way."

  "That is a hard thing to say, Ned; but even were it so, we have no reason for supposing that he does want her out of the way. Come, Sankey, I am sure you have plenty of good sense. Hitherto you have been acting rather blindly in this matter. You have viewed it from one side only, and with the very best intentions in the world have done harm rather than good.

  " I am convinced that when you come to think it over you will see that, in following out your own and your father's intentions and wishes as to your future career you will really best fulfil his last injunctions and will show the truest kindness to your mother. Don't give me any answer now, but take time to think it over. Try and see the case from every point of view, and I think you will come to the conclusion that what I have been saying, although it may seem rather hard to you at first, is true, and that you had best go into the army, as you had

  intended. I am sure in any case you will know that what I have said, even if it seems unkind, has been for your good."

  "Thank you, Mr. Porson," Ned replied; "I am quite sure of that. Perhaps you are right, and I have been making a fool of myself all along. But anyhow I will think it over."

  ,*-#-»)•

  CHAPTER XL

  THE NEW MACHINERY.

  T is rather hard for a lad who thinks that he has been behaving somewhat as a hero to come to the conclusion that he has been making a fool of himself; but this was the result of Ned Sankey's cogitation over what Mr. Porson had said to him. Perhaps he arrived more easily at that conclusion because he was not altogether unwilling to do so. It was very mortifying to allow that he had been altogether wrong; but, on the other hand, there was a feeling of deep pleasure at the thought that he could, in Mr. Por-son's deliberate opinion, go into the army and carry out all his original hopes and plans. His heart had been set upon this as long as he could remember, and it had been a bitter disappointment to him when he had arrived at the conclusion that it was his duty to abandon the idea. He did not now come to the conclusion hastily that Mr. Porson's view of the case was the correct one; but after a fortnight's consideration he went down on New Year's-day to the school, and told his master that he had made up his mind.

  " I see, sir," he said, " now that I have thought it all over, that you are quite right, and that I have been behaving like an ass, so I shall set to work again and try and make up the lost time. I have only six months longer, for Easter is the time when Mr. Simmonds said that I should be old enough, and he will write to the lord-lieutenant, and I suppose that in three months after that I should get my commission."

  " That is right, Ned. I am exceedingly glad you have been able to take my view of the matter. I was afraid you were bent upon spoiling your life, and I am heartily glad that you have been able to see the matter in a different light."

  A day or two afterwards Ned took an opportunity of telling his mother that he intended at Easter to remind Mr. Simmonds of his promise to apply for a commission for him; and had he before had any lingering doubt that the decision was a wise one it would have been dissipated by the evident satisfaction and relief with which the news was received; nevertheless, he could not help a feeling of mortification at seeing; in his mother's face the gladness which the prospect of his leaving occasioned her.

  It was some time since Ned had seen his friend Bill Swinton, for Bill was now regularly at work in Mr. Mul-ready's factory and was only to be found at home in the evening, and Ned had been in no humour for going out. He now, however, felt inclined for a friendly talk again, and the next Sunday afternoon he started for Varley.

  "Well, Maister Ned," Bill said as he hurried to the

  door in answer to his knock, " it be a long time surely sin oi saw thee last—well-nigh six months, I should say."

  " It is a long time, Bill, but I haven't been up to anything, even to coming up here. Put on your cap and we will go for a walk across the moors together."

  In a few seconds Bill joined him, and they soon left the village behind.

  " Oi thought as how thou didn't feel oop to talking loike, Maister Ned. Oi heared tell as how thou did'st not get on well wi' Foxey; he be a roight down bad un, he be; it were the talk of the place as how you gived him a clout atween t' eyes, and oi laughed rarely to myself when oi seed him come through t' mill wi' black and blue all round 'em. There warn't a hand there but would have given a week's pay to have seen it done."

  " I am afraid I was wrong, Bill," Ned said, feeling ashamed rather than triumphant at the thought. " I oughtn't to have done it, but my beastly temper got the best of it."

  " Doan't say that, Maister Ned; he deserves ten toimes worse nor you gived him, and he will get it some time if he doan't mind. Oi tell ee there be lots of talk of him, and Captain Lud's gang be a getting stronger and stronger. Oi tell ye, t' maisters be agoing t
o have a bad time on it afore long, and Foxey be sure to be one of the first served out."

  " Well, don't you have anything to do with it, Bill. You know I have told you over and over again that no

  good can come of such bad doings, and that the men will only make matters much worse for themselves. My father used to say that no good ever came of mob violence. They may do some harm for a time, but it is sure to recoil on their own heads."

  " Oi doan't ha' nowt to do wi' it," Bill replied, "cause oi told yer oi wouldn't; but oi've some trouble to keep oot o't. Ye see oi am nointeen now, and most o' t' chaps o' moi age they be in't; they meet at the 'Dog' nigh every noight, and they drills regular out on t' moor here, and it doan't seem natural for oi not to be in it, especial as moi brothers be in it. They makes it rough for me in t' village, and says as how I ain't got no spirit, and even t' girls laughs at me."

  " Not Polly Powlett, I am sure, Bill."

  " No, not Polly," Bill replied. " She be a different sort. A' together it be a bit hard, and it be well for me as oi'm main strong and tough, for oi ha' to right pretty nigh every Saturday. However, oi ha' thrashed pretty nigh every young chap in Varley, and they be beginning now to leave oi alone."

  " That's right, Bill; I am sure I have no right to preach to you when I am always doing wrong myself; still I am quite sure you will be glad in the long run that you had nothing to do with King Lud. I know the times are very hard, but burning mills and murdering masters are not the way to make them better; you take my word for that. And now how are things going on in Varley?"

  "No great change here," Bill replied. "Polly Powlett

  bain't made up her moind yet atween t' chaps as is arter her. They say as she sent John Stukeley, the smith, to the roight about last Sunday; he ha' been arter her vor the last year. Some thowt she would have him, some didn't. He ha' larning, you see, can read and wroite foine, and ha' got a smooth tongue, and knows how to talk to gals, so some thought she would take him; oi knew well enough she wouldn't do nowt of the koind, for oi ha' heard her say he were a mischievous chap, and a cuss to Varley. Thou know'st, Maister Ned, they do say, but in course oi knows nowt about it, as he be the head of the Luddites in this part of Yorkshire.