"'Couthon,' she said, 'are the Dupins to die?'

"'Yes, to-morrow.'

"'Dupin the younger is the father of my child.'

"'And he has deserted you, and you hate him. He shall die.'

"'Pardon me, I do not hate him.'

"'Ah, you love him still; but that is no reason why he should be spared, my pretty one. We must do our duty. They are plotters against the Republic, and must go.'

"'Couthon, they must live. Consider; shall that man ascend the scaffold with the thought in his heart that I could have rescued him, and that I did not; that I have had my revenge? Besides, what will be said?—that the Republic uses justice to satisfy private vengeance. All the women in my quarter know who I am.'

"'That is a fancy.'

"'Fancy! Is it a fancy to murder Dupin's wife—murder all that is good in her—murder the belief in her for ever that there is such a thing as generosity? You do not wish to kill the soul? That is the way with tyrants, but not with the Republic.'

"Thus Victorine strove with Couthon, and he at last yielded. Dupin and his father were released that night, and before daybreak they were all out of Paris and safe. In the morning Legouve found that they were liberated, and on asking Couthon the reason, was answered with a smile that they had an eloquent advocate. Victorine had warned Couthon not to mention her name, and he kept his promise; but Legouve conjectured but too truly. He went home, and in a furious rage taxed Victorine with infidelity to him, in favour of the man who had abandoned her. He would not listen to her, and thrust her from him with curses. I say nothing more about her history. I will only say this, that Pauline is that child who was born to her after Dupin left her. I say it because I am so proud that Pauline has had such a mother!"

"Pauline her daughter!" said Zachariah. "I thought she was your daughter."

"She is my daughter: I became her father."

Everybody was silent.

"Ah, you say nothing," said Caillaud; "I am not surprised. You are astonished. Well may you be so that such a creature should ever have lived. What would Jesus Christ have said to her?"

The company soon afterwards rose to go.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Coleman," said the Major in his careless way; "I am glad to find Manchester does not disagree with you. At least, I should think it does not."

"Oh no, Major Maitland, I like it quite as well as London. Mind, you promise to come again SOON—very soon."

The Major had gone downstairs first. She had followed him to the first landing, and then returned to bid Pauline and Caillaud good- bye. She stood like a statue while Pauline put on her hat.

"Good-night, madam," said Caillaud, slightly bowing.

"Good-night, madam," said Pauline, not bowing in the least.

"Good-night," she replied, without relaxing her rigidity.

As soon as they were in the street Pauline said, "Father, I abhor that woman. If she lives she will kill her husband."

Mrs. Coleman, on the other hand, at the same moment said, "Zachariah, Pauline and Caillaud cannot come to this house again."

"Why not?"

"Why not, Zachariah? I am astonished at you! The child of a woman who lived in open sin!"

He made no reply. Years ago not a doubt would have crossed his mind. That a member of Mr. Bradshaw's church could receive such people as Caillaud and Pauline would have seemed impossible. Nevertheless, neither Caillaud nor Pauline were now repugnant to him; nor did he feel that any soundless gulf separated them from him, although, so far as he knew his opinions had undergone no change.

Mrs. Coleman forbore to pursue the subject, for her thoughts went off upon another theme, and she was inwardly wondering whether the Major would ever invite her to the theatre again. Just as she was going to sleep, the figure of the Major hovering before her eyes, she suddenly bethought herself that Pauline, if not handsome, was attractive. She started, and lay awake for an hour. When she rose in the morning the same thought again presented itself, to dwell with her hence forwards, and to gnaw her continually like vitriol.



CHAPTER XI—POLITICS AND PAULINE



Soon after this visit debates arose in Zachariah's club which afterwards ended in the famous march of the Blanketeers, as they were called. Matters were becoming very serious, and the Government was thoroughly alarmed, as well it might be, at the discontent which was manifest all over the country. The Prince Regent was insulted as he went to open Parliament, and the windows of his carriage were broken. It was thought, and with some reason, that the army could not be trusted. One thing is certain, that the reformers found their way into the barracks at Knightsbridge and had lunch there at the expense of the soldiers, who discussed Hone's pamphlets and roared with laughter over the Political Litany. The Prince Regent communicated to both Houses certain papers, and recommended that they should at once be taken into consideration. They contained evidence, so the royal message asserted, of treasonable combinations "to alienate the affections of His Majesty's subjects from His Majesty's person and Government," &c. Secret committees were appointed to consider them both by Lords and Commons, and in about a fortnight they made their reports. The text was the Spitalfields meeting of the preceding 2nd of December. A mob had made it an excuse to march through the city and plunder some shops. Some of the charges brought against the clubs by the Lords' Committee do not now seem so very appalling. One was, that they were agitating for universal suffrage and annual Parliaments—"projects," say the Committee, "which evidently involve, not any qualified or partial change but a total subversion of the British constitution." Another charge was the advocacy of "parochial partnership in land, on the principle that the landholders are not proprietors in chief; that they are but stewards of the public; that the land is the people's farm; that landed monopoly is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and destructive of the independence and morality of mankind." The Reform party in Parliament endeavoured to prove that the country was in no real danger, and that the singularly harsh measures proposed were altogether unnecessary. That was true. There was nothing to be feared, because there was no organisation; but nevertheless, especially in the manufacturing towns, the suffering was fearful and the hatred of the Government most bitter. What is so lamentable in the history of those times is the undisciplined wildness and feebleness of the attempts made by the people to better themselves. Nothing is more saddening than the spectacle of a huge mass of humanity goaded, writhing, starving, and yet so ignorant that it cannot choose capable leaders, cannot obey them if perchance it gets them, and does not even know how to name its wrongs. The governing classes are apt to mistake the absurdity of the manner in which a popular demand expresses itself for absurdity of the demand itself; but in truth the absurdity of the expression makes the demand more noteworthy and terrible. Bamford, when he came to London in the beginning of 1817, records the impression which the clubs made upon him. He went to several and found them all alike; "each man with his porter-pot before him and a pipe in his mouth; many speaking at once, more talkers than thinkers; more speakers than listeners. Presently 'Order' would be called, and comparative silence would ensue; a speaker, stranger or citizen, would be announced with much courtesy and compliment. 'Hear, hear, hear' would follow, with clapping of hands and knocking of knuckles on the tables, till the half-pints danced; then a speech, with compliments to some brother orator or popular statesman; next a resolution in favour of Parliamentary Reform, and a speech to second it; an amendment on some minor point would follow; a seconding of that; a breach of order by some individual of warm temperament; half a dozen would rise to set him right; a dozen to put them down; and the vociferation and gesticulation would become loud and confounding."

The Manchester clubs had set their hearts upon an expedition to London—thousands strong; each man with a blanket to protect him and a petition in his hand. The discussion on this project was long and eager. The Major, Caillaud and Zachariah steadfastly opposed it; not because of its hardihood, but because of its folly. They were outvoted; but they conceived themselves loyally bound to make it a success. Zachariah and Caillaud were not of much use in organisation, and the whole burden fell upon the Major. Externally gay, and to most persons justifying the charge of frivolity, he was really nothing of the kind when he had once settled down to the work he was born to do. His levity was the mere idle sport of a mind unattached and seeking its own proper object. He was like a cat, which will play with a ball or its own tail in the sunshine, but if a mouse or a bird crosses its path will fasten on it with sudden ferocity. He wrought like a slave during the two months before the eventful 10th March 1817, and well nigh broke his heart over the business. Everything had to be done subterraneously; for though the Habeas Corpus Act was not yet suspended, preparations for what looked like war were perilous. But this was not the greatest difficulty. He pleaded for dictatorial powers, and at once found he had made himself suspected thereby. He was told bluntly that working men did not mean to exchange one despot for another, and that they were just as good as he was. Any other man would have thrown up his commission in disgust, but not so Major Maitland. He persevered unflaggingly, although a sub-committee had been appointed to act with him and check his proceedings. The secretary of this very sub-committee, who was also treasurer, was one of the causes of the failure of the enterprise, for when the march began neither he nor the funds with which he had been entrusted could be found. After the club meetings in the evening there was often an adjournment to Caillaud's lodgings, where the Major, Zachariah, Caillaud, and Pauline sat up till close upon midnight. One evening there was an informal conference of this kind prior to the club meeting on the following night. The Major was not present, for he was engaged in making some arrangements for the commissariat on the march. He had always insisted on it that they were indispensable, and he had been bitterly opposed the week before by some of his brethren, who were in favour of extempore foraging which looked very much like plunder. He carried his point, notwithstanding some sarcastic abuse and insinuations of half- heartedness, which had touched also Caillaud and Zachariah, who supported him. Zachariah was much depressed.

"Mr. Coleman, you are dull," said Pauline. "What is the matter?"

"Dull!—that's not exactly the word. I was thinking of to-morrow."

"Ah! I thought so. Well?"

Zachariah hesitated a little. "Is it worth all the trouble?" at last he said, an old familiar doubt recurring to him—"Is it worth all the trouble to save them? What are they?—and, after all, what can we do for them? Suppose we succeed, and a hundred thousand creatures like those who blackguarded us last week get votes, and get their taxes reduced, and get all they want, what then?"

Pauline broke in with all the eagerness of a woman who is struck with an idea—"Stop, stop, Mr. Coleman. Here is the mistake you make. Grant it all—grant your achievement is ridiculously small—is it not worth the sacrifice of two or three like you and me to accomplish it? That is our error. We think ourselves of such mighty importance. The question is, whether we are of such importance, and whether the progress of the world one inch will not be cheaply purchased by the annihilation of a score of us. You believe in what you call salvation. You would struggle and die to save a soul; but in reality you can never save a man; you must be content to struggle and die to save a little bit of him—to prevent one habit from descending to his children. You won't save him wholly, but you may arrest the propagation of an evil trick, and so improve a trifle—just a trifle- -whole generations to come. Besides, I don't believe what you will do is nothing. 'Give a hundred thousand blackguard creatures votes'- -well, that is something. You are disappointed they do not at once become converted and all go to chapel. That is not the way of the Supreme. Your hundred thousand get votes, and perhaps are none the better, and die as they were before they had votes. But the Supreme has a million, or millions, of years before Him."

Zachariah was silent. Fond of dialectic, he generally strove to present the other side; but he felt no disposition to do so now, and he tried rather to connect what she had said with something which he already believed.

"True," he said at last; "true, or true in part. What are we?—what are we?" and so Pauline's philosophy seemed to reconcile itself with one of his favourite dogmas, but it had not quite the same meaning which it had for him ten years ago.

"Besides," said Caillaud, "we hate Liverpool and all his crew. When I think of that speech at the opening of Parliament I become violent. There it is; I have stuck it up over the mantelpiece:

"Deeply as I lament the pressure of these evils upon the country, I am sensible that they are of a nature not to admit of an immediate remedy. But whilst I observe with peculiar satisfaction the fortitude with which so many privations have been borne, and the active benevolence which has been employed to mitigate them, I am persuaded that the great sources of our national prosperity are essentially unimpaired; and I entertain a confident expectation that the native energy of the country will at no distant period surmount all the difficulties in which we are involved."

"My God," continued Caillaud, "I could drive a knife into the heart of the man who thus talks!"

"No murder, Caillaud," said Zachariah.

"Well, no. What is it but a word? Let us say sacrifice. Do you call the death of your Charles a murder? No; and the reason why you do not is what? Not that it was decreed by a Court. There have been many murders decreed by Courts according to law. Was not the death of your Jesus Christ a murder? Murder means death for base, selfish ends. What said Jesus—that He came to send a sword? Of course He did. Every idea is a sword. What a God He was! He was the first who ever cared for the people—for the real people, the poor, the ignorant, the fools, the weak-minded, the slaves. The Greeks and Romans thought nothing of these. I salute thee, O Thou Son of the People!" and Caillaud took down a little crucifix which, strange to say, always hung in his room, and reverently inclined himself to it. "A child of the people," he continued, "in everything, simple, foolish, wise, ragged, Divine, martyred Hero."

Zachariah was not astonished at this melodramatic display, for he knew Caillaud well; and although this was a little more theatrical than anything he had ever seen before, it was not out of keeping with his friend's character. Nor was it insincere, for Caillaud was not an Englishman. Moreover, there is often more insincerity in purposely lowering the expression beneath the thought, and denying the thought thereby, than in a little exaggeration. Zachariah, although he was a Briton, had no liking for that hypocrisy which takes a pride in reducing the extraordinary to the commonplace, and in forcing an ignoble form upon that which is highest. The conversation went no further. At last Caillaud said:

"Come, Pauline, a tune; we have not had one for a long time."

Pauline smiled, and went into her little room. Meanwhile her father removed chairs and table, piling them one on another so as to leave a clear space. He and Zachariah crouched into the recess by the fireplace. Pauline entered in the self same short black dress trimmed with red, with the red artificial flower, wearing the same red stockings and dancing-slippers, but without the shawl. The performance this time was not quite what it was when Zachariah had seen it in London. Between herself and the corner where Zachariah and her father were seated she now had an imaginary partner, before whom she advanced, receded, bowed, displayed herself in the most exquisitely graceful attitudes, never once overstepping the mark, and yet showing every limb and line to the utmost advantage. Zachariah, as before, followed every movement with eager—shall we say with hungry eyes? He was so unused to exhibitions of this kind that their grace was not, as it should have been, their only charm; for, as we before observed, in his chapel circle even ordinary dancing was a thing prohibited. The severity of manners to which he had been accustomed tended to produce an effect the very opposite to that which was designed; for it can hardly be doubted that if it were the custom in England for women to conceal the face, a glimpse of an eye or a nose would excite unpleasant thoughts.

The dance came to an end, and as it was getting late Zachariah rose.

"Stop," said Caillaud. "It is agreed that if they persist on this march, one or the other of us goes too. The Major will be sure to go. Which shall it be, you or me?"

"We will draw lots."

"Good." And Zachariah departed, Pauline laughingly making him one of her costume curtseys. He was very awkward. He never knew how to conduct himself becomingly, or with even good manners, on commonplace occasions. When he was excited in argument he was completely equal to the best company, and he would have held his own on level terms at a Duke's dinner-party, provided only the conversation were interesting. But when he was not intellectually excited he was lubberly. He did not know what response to make to Pauline's graceful adieu, and retreated sheepishly. When he got home he found his wife waiting for him. The supper was cleared away, and, as usual, she was reading, or pretending to be reading, the Bible.

"You have had supper, of course?" There was a peculiar tone in the "of course," as if she meant to imply not merely that it was late, but that he had preferred to have it with somebody else.

"I do not want any."

"Then we had better have prayers."



CHAPTER XII—ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT



Next week Zachariah found it necessary to consult with Caillaud again. The Major was to be there. The intended meeting was announced to Mrs. Coleman by her husband at breakfast on the day before, and he informed her that he should probably be late, and that no supper need be kept for him.

"Why do you never meet here, Zachariah? Why must it always be at Caillaud's?"

"Did you not say that they should not come to this house again?"

"Yes; but I meant I did not want to see them as friends. On business there is no reason why Caillaud should not come."

"I cannot draw the line."

"Zachariah, do you mean to call unconverted infidels your friends?"

They were his friends—he felt they were—and they were dear to him; but he was hardly able as yet to confess it, even to himself.

"It will not do," he said. "Besides, Caillaud will be sure to bring his daughter."

"She will not be so bold as to come if she is not asked. Do I go with you anywhere except when I am asked?"

"She has always been used to go out with her father wherever he goes. She knows all his affairs, and is very useful to him."

"So it seems. She must be VERY useful. Well, if it must be so, and it is on business, invite her too."

"I think still it will be better at Caillaud's; there more room. There would be five of us."

"How do you make five?"

"There is the Major. And why, by the way, do you object to Caillaud and Pauline more than the Major? He is not converted."

"There is plenty of room here. I didn't say I didn't object to the Major. Besides, there is a difference between French infidels and English people, even if they are not church members. But I see how it is. You want to go there, and you will go. I am of no use to you. You care nothing for me. You can talk to such dreadful creatures as Caillaud and that woman who lives with him, and you never talk to me. Oh, I wish Mr. Bradshaw were here, or I were back again at home! What would Mr. Bradshaw say?"

Mrs. Coleman covered her face in her hands. Zachariah felt no pity. His anger was roused. He was able to say hard things at times, and there was even a touch of brutality in him.

"Whose fault is it that I do not talk to you? When did I ever get any help from you? What do you understand about what concerns me, and when have you ever tried to understand anything? Your home is no home to me. My life is blasted, and it might have been different. The meeting shall not be here, and I will do as I please."

He went out of the room in a rage, and downstairs into the street, going straight to his work. It is a terrible moment when the first bitter quarrel takes place, and when hatred, even if it be hatred for the moment only first finds expression. That moment can never be recalled! Is it ever really forgotten, or really forgiven? Some of us can call to mind a word, just one word, spoken, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago, which rings in our ears even to-day as distinctly as when it was uttered, and forces the blood into the head as it did then. When Zachariah returned that night he and his wife spoke to each other as if nothing had happened, but they spoke only about indifferent things. The next day Mrs. Coleman wondered whether, after all, he would repent; but the evening came and she waited and waited in vain. The poor woman for hours and hours had thought one thought and one thought only, until at last she could bear it no longer. At about eight o'clock she rose, put on her cloak, and went out of doors. She made straight for Caillaud's house. It was cold, and the sky was clear at intervals, with masses of clouds sweeping over the nearly full moon. What she was to do when she got to Caillaud's had not entered her head. She came to the door and stopped. It had just begun to rain heavily. The sitting- room was on the ground-floor, abutting on the pavement. The blind was drawn down, but not closely, and she could see inside. Caillaud Pauline, and Zachariah were there, but not the Major. Caillaud was sitting by the fireside; her husband and Pauline were talking earnestly across the table. Apparently both of them were much interested, and his face was lighted up as she never saw it when he was with her. She was fascinated, and could not move. It was a dull lonely street and nobody was to be seen that wet night. She had no protection from the weather but her cloak, and in ten minutes, as the rain came down more heavily, she was wet through and shivering from head to foot—she who was usually so careful, so precise, so singularly averse from anything like disorder. Still she watched— watched every movement of those two—every smile, every gesture; and when Caillaud went out of the room, perhaps to fetch something, she watched with increasing and self-forgetting intensity. She had not heard footsteps approaching. The wind had risen; the storm was ever fiercer and fiercer, and the feverish energy which poured itself into her eyes had drained and deadened every other sense.

"Well, my good woman, what do you want?"

She turned with a start, and it was the Major!

"Mrs. Coleman! Good God! what are you doing here? You are soaked. Why don't you come in?"

"Oh no, Major Maitland indeed I cannot. I—I had been out, and I had just stopped a moment. I didn't know it was going to rain."

"But I say you are dripping. Come in and see you husband; he will go with you."

"Oh no, Major, please don't; please don't mention it to him; oh no, please don't; he would be very vexed. I shall be all right; I will go on at once and dry myself."

"You cannot go alone. I will see you as far as your house. Here, take my coat and put it over your shoulders."

The Major took off a heavy cloak with capes, wrapped it round her, drew her arm through his, and they went to her lodgings. She forgot Zachariah, Caillaud, and Pauline. When they arrived she returned the cloak and thanked him. She dared not ask him upstairs and he made no offer to stay.

"Please say nothing to my husband; promise you will not. He would be in such a way if he thought I had been out; but I could not help it."

"Oh, certainly not, Mrs. Coleman, if you wish it; though I am sure he wouldn't, he couldn't be angry with you."

She lingered as he took the coat.

"Come inside and put it on, Major Maitland; why, it is you who are dripping now. You will not wear that over your sopped clothes. Cannot I lend you something? Won't you have something hot to drink?"

"No, thank you. I think not; it is not so bad as all that."

He shook hands with her and had gone.

She went upstairs into her dark room. The fire was out. She lighted no candle, but sat down just as she was, put her head on the table, and sobbed as if her heart would break. She was very seldom overcome by emotion of this kind, and used to be proud that she had never once in her life fainted, and was not given to hysterics. Checked at last by a deadly shivering which came over her, she took off her wet garments, threw them over a chair, and crept into bed, revolving in her mind the explanation which she could give to her husband. When she saw him, and he inquired about her clothes, she offered some trifling excuse, which seemed very readily to satisfy him, for he made scarcely any reply, and was soon asleep. This time it was her turn to lie awake, and the morning found her restless, and with every symptom of a serious illness approaching.



CHAPTER XIII—TO THE GREEKS FOOLISHNESS



Neither Mrs. Coleman nor her husband thought it anything worse than a feverish cold, and he went to his work. It was a club night, the night on which the final arrangements for the march were to be made, and he did not like to be away. His wife was to lie in bed; but a woman in the house offered to wait upon her and bring what little food she wanted. It was settled at the club that the Major should accompany the expedition and Zachariah and Caillaud having drawn lots, the lot fell upon Caillaud. A last attempt was made to dissuade the majority from the undertaking; but it had been made before, not only by our three friends, but by other Lancashire societies, and had failed. The only effect its renewal had now was a disagreeable and groundless insinuation which was unendurable. On his return from the meeting Zachariah was alarmed. His wife was in great pain, and had taken next to nothing all day. Late as it was, he went for a doctor, who would give no opinion as to the nature of the disease then, but merely ordered her some kind of sedative mixture, which happily gave her a little sleep. Zachariah was a working man and a poor man. Occasionally it does happen that a working man and a poor man has nerves, and never does his poverty appear so hateful to him as when he has sickness in his house.

The mere discomforts of poverty are bad enough—the hunger and cold of it—but worse than all is the impossibility of being decently ill, or decently dying, or of paying any attention to those who take it into their heads to be ill or to die. A man tolerably well off can at least get his wife some help when she is laid up, and when she is near her end can remain with her to take her last kiss and blessing. Not so the bricklayer's labourer. If his wife is in bed, he must depend upon charity for medicine and attendance. And although he knows he will never see her again, he is forced away to the job on which he is employed; for if he does not go he will lose it, and must apply to the parish for a funeral. Happily the poor are not slow to help one another. The present writer has known women who have to toil hard all day long, sit up night after night with their neighbours, and watch them with the most tender care. Zachariah found it so in his case. A fellow-lodger, the mother of half-a-dozen children, a woman against whom the Colemans had conceived a prejudice, and whom they had avoided, came forward and modestly asked Zachariah if she might "look after" Mrs. Coleman while he was away. He thought for a moment of sundry harsh things which he had said about her, and then a well-known parable came into his mind about a certain Samaritan, and he could have hugged her with joy at her offer.

Mrs. Carter was one of those healthy, somewhat red-faced, gay creatures whom nothing represses. She was never melancholy with those who were suffering; not because she had no sympathy for she was profoundly sympathetic—but because she was subduable. Her pulse was quick, and her heart so sound that her blood, rich and strong—blood with never a taint in it—renewed every moment every fibre of her brain. Her very presence to those who were desponding was a magnetic charm and she could put to flight legions of hypochondriacal fancies with a cheery word. Critics said she ruled her husband; but what husband would not rejoice in being so ruled? He came home weary and he did not want to rule. He wanted to be directed, and he gladly saw the reins in the hands of his "missus," of whom he was justly proud. She conducted all the conversation; she spent his money, and even bought him his own clothes; and although she said a sharp thing or two now and then, she never really quarrelled with him. The eldest of her six children was only twelve years old, and she was not over methodical, so that her apartments were rather confused and disorderly. She was not, however, dirty, and would not tolerate dirt even in her boys, to whom, by the way, she administered very short and sharp corrections sometimes. If they came to the table with grimy paws, the first intimation they had that their mother noticed it was a rap on the knuckles with the handle of a knife which sent the bread and butter flying out of their fingers. She read no books, and, what was odd in those days, did not go to chapel or church; but she had her "opinions," as she called them, upon everything which was stirring in the world, and never was behindhand in the news. She was really happier when she found that she had to look after Mrs. Coleman. She bustled about, taking directions from the doctor—not without some scepticism, for she had notions of her own on the subject of disease—and going up and down stairs continually to see how her patient was getting on. It was curious that although she was a heavy woman she was so active. She was always on her legs from morning to night, and never seemed fatigued. Indeed, when she sat still she was rather uncomfortable; and this was her weak point, for her restlessness interfered with sewing and mending, which she abominated.

The time for the march was close at hand. The Habeas Corpus Act had meanwhile been suspended and every reformer had to walk very warily. Ogden, in whose office it will be remembered that Zachariah was engaged, had issued a handbill informing all the inhabitants of Manchester and its neighbourhood that on the 10th March a meeting would be held near St. Peter's Church of those persons who had determined to carry their petitions to London. Zachariah, going to his shop, as usual, on the morning of the 10th—a Monday—was astonished to find that Ogden was arrested and in prison.

We must, however, for a time, follow the fortunes of Caillaud and the Major on that day. They were both astir at five o'clock, and joined one another at the club. All the members were to assemble there at seven. Never was the Major more despondent. As for organisation, there was none, and every proposal he had made had been thwarted. He saw well enough, as a soldier, that ten times the enthusiasm at his command would never carry a hundred men to London in that cold weather, and that if twenty thousand started, the number would be the difficulty. The Yeomanry cavalry were under orders to oppose them, and what could an undisciplined mob do against a semi-military force? The end of it would be the prompt dispersion of the pilgrims and the discredit of the cause. Nevertheless, both he and Caillaud had determined not to desert it. The absence of all preparations on the part of these poor Blanketeers was, in truth, very touching, as it showed the innocent confidence which they had in the justice of their contention. Their avowed object was to present a petition personally to the Prince Regent, that they might "undeceive" him; as if such a thing were possible, or, being possible, would be of the slightest service. The whole country would rise and help them; their journey would be a triumphal procession; they were not a hostile army; the women would come to the doors and offer them bread and milk; they would reach London; Lord Liverpool would resign; and they would come back to Manchester with banners flying, having saved their country. At nine o'clock the club was in St. Peter's fields, and a kind of platform had been erected, from which an address was to be given. Caillaud and the Major were down below. Both of them were aghast at what they saw. Thousands of men were present with whom they were unacquainted, who had been attracted by Ogden's proclamation; some with coats; others without coats; some with sticks; some with petitions; but most of them with blankets, which they had rolled up like knapsacks. The Major's heart sank within him. What on earth could he do? Nothing except accompany them and try to prevent collision with the troops. The magistrates were distracted by no doubts whatever. They read the Riot Act, although there was no riot, nor the semblance of one, and forthwith surrounded the platform and carried off everyone on it to prison. The crowd was then chased by the soldiers and special constables, till all power of combination was at an end. About three hundred however, were collected, and found their way to Ardwick Green. They had been joined by others on the route, and the Major informally reviewed his men. Never, surely, was there such a regiment! never, surely, did any regiment go on such an errand! Ragged many of them; ignorant all, fanatical, penniless, they determined, in spite of all arguments, to proceed. He pointed out that if they could be so easily scattered when they were thousands strong, every one of them would be cut down or captured before they were twenty miles on the road. He was answered as before with contempt and suspicions of cowardice. A Methodist, half- starved, grey-haired, with black rings round his eyes and a yellow face, harangued them.

"My friends," he said, "we have been told to go back; that we are too few to accomplish the task to which we have set ourselves. What said the Lord unto Gideon, Judges vii.: 'The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Gilead.' Well, twenty-two thousand went back and at last Gideon had only the three hundred who lapped the water. By those three hundred Israel was saved from the Midianites. Our thousands have left us; but we shall triumph. It may be the Lord's will that more should depart. It may be that there are yet too many. I say, then, in the words of Gideon, 'Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return.' Is there anybody?" (Loud shouts answered "None.") "The Lord is with us," continued the speaker—"the sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" Every one shouted again.

Respectable Manchester was frightened when the Blanketeers met, and laughed them to scorn when they were dispersed. No wonder at the laughter. What could be more absurd? And yet, when we call to mind the THING then on the throne; the THING that gave 180 pounds for an evening coat, and incurred enormous debts, while his people were perishing; the THING that drank and lied and whored; the THING that never did nor said nor thought anything that was not utterly brutish and contemptible—when we think that the THING was a monarch, Heaven- ordained, so it was said, on which side does the absurdity really lie? Of a truth, not only is the wisdom of this world foolishness, as it ever was, but that which to this world is foolishness is adjudged wisdom by the Eternal Arbiter. The Blanketeers shivering on Ardwick Green, the weavers who afterwards drilled on the Lancashire moors, and were hung according to law, or killed at Peterloo, are less ridiculous than those who hung or sabred them, less ridiculous than the Crimean war and numberless dignified events in human history, the united achievements of the sovereigns and ministries of Europe.

The route of the three hundred was towards Stockport; but when they reached the bridge they found it occupied by the Yeomanry and a troop of the Life Guards. To attempt to force a passage was impossible; but numbers threw themselves into the river, and so crossed. The soldiers then withdrew into Stockport town, and the bridge was left open to the main body. When they got into the street on the other side the soldiers and police dashed at them, and arrested everybody whom they could catch. The Major was foremost in the crowd, endeavouring to preserve some sort of discipline, and one of the Yeomanry, suspecting him to be a leader, rode up to him, and, leaning from his horse, collared him. He was unarmed; but he was a powerful man, and wrenched himself free. The soldier drew his sword, and although Caillaud was close by, and attempted to parry the blow with a stick, the Major lay a dead man on the ground. The next moment, however, the soldier himself was dead—dead from a pistol-shot fired by Caillaud, who was instantly seized, handed over to a guard, and marched off with a score of others to Manchester jail. A remnant only of the Blanketeers escaped from Stockport, and a smaller remnant got to Macclesfield. There there was no shelter for them, and many of them lay in the streets all night. When the morning dawned only twenty went on into Staffordshire, and these shortly afterwards separated, and wandered back to Manchester. The sword of Gideon was, alas! not the sword of the Lord, and aching hearts in that bitter March weather felt that there was something worse than the cold to be borne at they struggled homewards. Others, amongst whom was our Methodist orator, were not discouraged. It is a poor religion which makes no provision for disaster, and even for apparently final failure. The test of faith is its power under defeat, and these silly God-fearing souls argued to themselves that their Master's time was not their time; that perhaps they were being punished for their sins, and that when it pleased Him they would triumph. Essentially right they were, right in every particular, excepting, perhaps, that it was not for their own sins that this sore visitation came upon them. Visitation for sin it was certainly, but a visitation for the sins of others—such is the way of Providence, and has been ever since the world began, much to the amazement of many reflective persons. Thou hast laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and Jesus is crucified rather than the Scribes and Pharisees! Yet could we really wish it otherwise? Would it have been better in the end that Caiaphas and the elders should have been nailed upon Calvary, and Jesus die at a good old age, crowned with honour? It was not yet God's time in 1817, but God's time was helped forward, as it generally is, by this anticipation of it. It is a commonplace that a premature outbreak puts back the hands of the clock and is a blunder. Nine times out of ten this is untrue, and a revolt instantaneously quenched in blood is not merely the precursor, but the direct progenitor of success.

We will spend no time over the death of Major Maitland. The tragic interest, as one of our greatest masters has said, lies not with the corpse but with the mourners, and we turn back to Zachariah. Ogden's office was shut. On the night after the breakdown at Stockport a note in pencil was left at Zachariah's house, in Pauline's handwriting. It was very short: —"Fly for your life—they will have you to-night—P."

Fly for his life! But how could he fly, with his wife in bed and with no work before him? Would it not be base to leave her? Then it occurred to him that if he were taken and imprisoned, he would be altogether incapable of helping her. He determined to speak to Mrs. Carter. He showed her the note, and she was troubled with no hesitation of any kind.

"My good man," she said, "you be off this minute. That's what you've got to do. Never mind your wife; I'll see after her. Expense? Lord, Mr. Coleman what's that? She don't eat much. Besides, we'll settle all about that afterwards."

Zachariah hesitated.

"Now don't stand shilly-shallying and a-thinking and a-thinking,— that never did anybody any good. I can't a-bear a man as thinks and thinks when there's anything to be done as plain as the nose in his face. Where's your bag?"

Mrs. Carter was out of the room in an instant, and in ten minutes came back with a change of clothes.

"Now, let us know where you are; but don't send your letters here. You write to my sister; there's her address. You needn't go up there; your wife's asleep. I'll bid her good-bye for you. Take my advice—get out of this county somewhere, and get out of Manchester to-night."

"I must go upstairs to get some money," and Zachariah stole into his bedroom to take half a little hoard which was in a desk there. His wife, as Mrs. Carter had said, was asleep. He went to her bedside and looked at her. She was pale and worn. Lying there unconscious, all the defects which had separated him from her vanished. In sleep and death the divine element of which we are compounded reappears, and we cease to hate or criticise; we can only weep or pray. He looked and looked again. The hours of first love and courtship passed before him; he remembered what she was to him then, and he thought that perhaps the fault, after all, might have been on his side, and that he had perhaps not tried to understand her. He thought of her loneliness—taken away by him into a land of strangers—and now he was about to desert her; he thought, too, that she also was one of God's children just as much as he was; perhaps more so. The tears filled his eyes, although he was a hard, strong man not used to tears, and something rose in his throat and almost choked him. He was about to embrace her; but he dared not disturb her. He knelt down at the foot of the bed, and in an agony besought his God to have mercy on him. "God have mercy on me! God have mercy on her!" That was all he could say—nothing else, although he had been used to praying habitually. His face was upon her feet, as she lay stretched out there, and he softly uncovered one of them, so gently that she could not perceive it. Spotlessly white it was, and once upon a time she was so attractive to him because she was so exquisitely scrupulous! He bent his lips over it, kissed it—she stirred, but did not wake; a great cry almost broke from him, but he stifled it and rose. There was a knock at the door, and he started. It was Mrs. Carter.

"Come," she said as he went out, "you have been here long enough. Poor dear man!—there, there—of course it's hard to bear—poor dear man!"—and the good creature put her hand affectionately on his shoulder.

"I don't know how it is," she continued, wiping her eyes with her apron, "I can't a-bear to see a man cry. It always upsets me. My husband ain't done it above once or twice in his life, and, Lord, I'd sooner a cried myself all night long. Good-bye, my dear, good-bye, good-bye; God bless you! It will all come right."

In another minute Zachariah was out of doors. It was dark, and getting late. The cold air revived him but he could not for some time come to any determination as to what he ought to do next. He was not well acquainted with the country round Manchester, and he could not decide to what point of the compass it would be safest to bend his steps. At last he remembered that at any rate he must escape from the town boundaries, and get a night's lodging somewhere outside them. With the morning some light would possibly dawn upon him.

Pauline's warning was well-timed, for the constables made a descent upon Caillaud's lodgings as soon as they got him into jail, and thence proceeded to Coleman's. They insisted on a search, and Mrs. Carter gave them a bit of her mind, for they went into every room of the house, and even into Mrs. Coleman's bedroom.

"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Nadin," she said, turning towards the notorious chief constable, "if God A'mighty had to settle who was to be hung in Manchester, it wouldn't be any of them poor Blanketeers. Wouldn't you like to strip the clothes off the bed? That would be just in your line."

"Hold your damned tongue!" quoth Mr. Nadin; but, nevertheless, seeing his men grinning and a little ashamed of themselves, he ordered them back.

Meanwhile Zachariah pursued his way north-westward unchallenged, and at last came to a roadside inn, which he thought looked safe. He walked in, and found half a dozen decent-looking men sitting round a fire and smoking. One of them was a parson, and another was one of the parish overseers. It was about half-past ten, and they were not merry, but a trifle boozy and stupid. Zachariah called for a pint of beer and some bread and cheese, and asked if he could have a bed. The man who served him didn't know; but would go and see. Presently the overseer was beckoned out of the room, and the man came back again and informed Zachariah that there was no bed for him, and that he had better make haste with his supper, as the house would close at eleven. In a minute or two the door opened again, and a poor, emaciated weaver entered and asked the overseer for some help. His wife, he said, was down with the fever; he had no work; he had had no victuals all day, and he and his family were starving. He was evidently known to the company.

"Ah," said the overseer, "no work, and the fever and starving; that's what they always say. I'll bet a sovereign you've been after them Blanketeers."

"It's a judgment on you," observed the parson. "You and your like go setting class against class; you never come near the church, and then you wonder God Almighty punishes you."

"You can come on your knees to us when it suits you, and you'd burn my rick to-morrow," said a third.

"There's a lot of fever amongst 'em down my way," said another, whose voice was rather thick, "and a damned lot of expense they are, too, for physic and funerals. It's my belief that they catch it out of spite."

"Aren't you going to give me nothing?" said the man. "There isn't a mouthful of food in the place, and the wife may be dead before the morning."

"Well, what do you say, parson?" said the overseer.

"I say we've got quite enough to do to help those who deserve help," he replied, "and that it's flying in the face of Providence to interfere with its judgment." With that he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and took a great gulp of his brandy-and-water.

There was an echo of assent.

"God have mercy on me!" said the man, as he sat down on the form by the table. Zachariah touched him gently, and pushed the plate and jug to him. He looked at Zachariah, and without saying a word, devoured it greedily. He just had time to finish, for the landlord, entering the room, roughly ordered them to turn out. Out they went accordingly.

"The Lord in heaven curse them!" exclaimed Zachariah's companion when they were in the road. "I could have ripped 'em up, every one of 'em. My wife is in bed with her wits a-wandering, and there a'nt a lump of coal, nor a crumb of bread, nor a farthing in the house."

"Hush, my friend, cursing is of no use."

"Ah! it's all very well to talk; you've got money maybe."

"Not much. I too have no work, no lodging, and I'm driven away from home. Here's half of what's left."

"What a sinner I am!" said the other. "You wouldn't think it, to hear me go on as I did, but I am a Methodist. The last two or three days, though, I've been like a raving madman. That's the worst of it. Starvation has brought the devil into me. I'm not a-going to take all that though, master; I'll take some of it; and if ever I prayed to the Throne of Grace in my life, I'll pray for you. Who are you? Where are you going?"

Zachariah felt that he could safely trust him, and told him what had happened.

"I haven't got a bit of straw myself on which to put you; but you come along with me."

They walked together for about half a mile, till they came to a barn. There was a haystack close by, and they dragged some of the dry hay into it.

"You'd better be away from these parts afore it's light, and, if you take my advice, Liverpool is the best place for you."

He was right. Liverpool was a large town, and, what was of more consequence, it was not so revolutionary as Manchester, and the search there for the suspected was not so strict. The road was explained, so far as Zachariah's friend knew it, and they parted.

Zachariah slept but little, and at four o'clock, with a bright moon, he started. He met with no particular adventure, and in the evening found himself once more in a wilderness of strange streets, with no outlook, face to face with the Red Sea. Happy is the man who, if he is to have an experience of this kind, is trained to it when young, and is not suddenly brought to it after a life of security. Zachariah, although he was desponding, could now say he had been in the same straits before, and had survived. That is the consolation of all consolations to us. We have actually touched and handled the skeleton, and after all we have not been struck dead. {132}

"O socii, neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum, O passi graviora, dabit Deus his quoque finem. Vos et Scyllaeam rabiem penitusque sonantes Accestis scopulos; vos et Cyclopia saxa Experti. Revocate animos, moestumque timorem Mittite; forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit."

He wandered down to the water and saw a ship cleared for some port across the Atlantic. A longing seized him to go with her. Over the sea,—he thought there he would be at rest. So we all think, and as we watch the vessels dropping below the horizon in the sunset cloud, we imagine them bound with a happy crew to islands of the blest, the truth being that the cloud is a storm, and the destined port is as commonplace and full of misery as the one they have left. Zachariah, however, did not suffer himself to dream. He went diligently and systematically to work; but this time all his efforts were fruitless. He called on every printing-office he could find, and there was not one which wanted a hand, or saw any prospect of wanting one. He thought of trying the river-side; but he stood no chance there, as he had never been accustomed to carry heavy weights. His money was running short, and at last, when evening came on the third day, and he was faint with fatigue, his heart sank. He was ill, too, and sickness began to cloud his brain. As the power of internal resistance diminishes, the circumstance of the external world presses on us like the air upon an exhausted glass ball, and finally crushes us. It saddened him, too, to think, as it has saddened thousands before him, that the fight which he fought, and the death which, perhaps, was in front of him, were so mean. Ophelia dies; Juliet dies, and we fancy that their fate, although terrible, is more enviable than that of a pauper who drops undramatically on London stones. He came to his lodging at the close of the third day, wet, tired, hungry, and with a headache. There was nobody to suggest anything to him or offer him anything. He went to bed, and a thousand images, uncontrolled, rushed backwards and forwards before him. He became excited, so that he could not rest, and after walking about his room till nearly daylight, turned into bed again. When morning had fairly arrived he tried to rise, but he was beaten. He lay still till about eleven, and then the woman who kept the lodging- house appeared and asked him if he was going to stay all day where he was. He told her he was very bad; but she went away without a word, and he saw nothing more of her. Towards night he became worse and finally delirious.



CHAPTER XIV—THE SCHOOL OF ADVERSITY THE SIXTH FORM THEREOF



When Zachariah came to himself he was in a large, long, whitewashed room, with twenty beds or more in it. A woman in a greyish check dress was standing near him.

"Where am I?" he said.

"Where are yer?" she said; "why, in the workus infirmary, to be sure, with me a-looking after yer. Where would yer be?"

Zachariah relapsed and was still. The next time he opened his eyes the woman had left him. It was true he was in the workhouse, and a workhouse then was not what it is now. Who can possibly describe what it was? Who can possibly convey to anybody who has not known what it was by actual imprisonment in it any adequate sense of its gloom; of the utter, callous, brutal indifference of the so-called nurses; of the neglect of the poor patients by those who were paid to attend to them; of the absence of even common decency; of the desperate persistent attempts made by everybody concerned to impress upon the wretched mortals who were brought there that they were chargeable to the parish and put there for form's sake, prior to being shovelled into a hole in the adjoining churchyard? The infirmary nurses were taken from the other side of the building— sometimes for very strange reasons. The master appointed them, and was not bound to account to anybody for his preferences. One woman had given him much trouble. She was a stout, lazy brute, who had no business in the House, and who went in and out just as she liked. One day something displeased her, and she attacked him with such fury and suddenness that he would have been a dead man in a few minutes if she had not been pulled off. But he dared not report her. She knew too much about him, and she was moved a few days afterwards to look after the sick. She it was who spoke to Zachariah. She, however, was not by any means the worst. Worse than her were the old, degraded, sodden, gin-drinking hags, who had all their lives breathed pauper air and pauper contamination; women with not one single vestige of their Maker's hand left upon them, and incapable, even under the greatest provocation, of any human emotion; who would see a dying mother call upon Christ, or cry for her husband and children, and would swear at her and try to smother her into silence. As for the doctor, he was hired at the lowest possible rate, and was allowed a certain sum for drugs. It was utterly insufficient to provide anything except the very commonest physic; and what could he do in the midst of such a system, even if he had been inclined to do anything? He accordingly did next to nothing; walked through the wards, and left his patients pretty much to Providence. They were robbed even of their food. They were not much to be pitied for being robbed of the stimulants, for every drop, including the "port wine," was obtained by the directors from those of their number or from their friends who were in the trade, and it was mostly poisonous. Death is always terrible—terrible on the battlefield; terrible in a sinking ship; terrible to the exile—but the present writer, who has seen Death in the "House" of years gone by, cannot imagine that he can ever be so distinctively the King of Terrors as he was there. The thought that thousands and thousands of human beings, some of them tender-hearted, have had to face him there is more horrifying than the thought of French soldiers freezing in their blood on the Borodino, or of Inquisitional tortures. It is one of those thoughts which ought not to be thought—a thought to be suppressed, for it leads to atheism, or even something worse than mere denial of a God. Thank Heaven that the present generation of the poor has been relieved at least of one argument in favour of the creed that the world is governed by the Devil! Thank Heaven that the modern hospital, with its sisters gently nurtured, devoted to their duty with that pious earnestness which is a true religion, has supplied some evidence of a Theocracy.

Zachariah looked round again. There was an old male attendant near him. He had on a brown rough coat with brass buttons, and shoes which were much too big for him. They were supplied in sizes, and never fitted. The old men always took those that were too large. They had as their place of exercise a paved courtyard surrounded by high brick walls, and they all collected on the sunny side, and walked up and down there, making a clapping noise with their feet as the shoes slipped off their heels. This sound was characteristic of the whole building. It was to be heard everywhere.

"You've been very bad," said the old man, "but you'll get better now; it a'nt many as get better here."

He was a poor-looking, half-fed creature, with a cadaverous face. He had the special, workhouse, bloodless aspect—just as if he had lived on nothing stronger than gruel and had never smelt fresh air. The air, by the way, of those wards was something peculiar. It had no distinctive odour—that is to say, no odour which was specially this or that; but it had one that bore the same relation to ordinary odours which well-ground London mud bears to ordinary colours. The old man's face, too, had nothing distinctive in it. The only thing certainly predicable of him was, that nothing could be predicated of him. He was neither selfish nor generous; neither a liar nor truthful; neither believed anything, nor disbelieved anything; was neither good nor bad; had no hope hereafter, nor any doubt.

"Who are you?" said Zachariah.

"Well, that ain't easy to say. I does odd jobs here as the nurses don't do, and I gets a little extra ration."

"How long have I been here?"

"About a fortnight."

Zachariah was too weak to say anything more, and fell asleep again. Next day he was better, and he then thought of his wife; he thought of Caillaud, the Major, and Pauline; but he had no power to reflect connectedly. He was in that miserable condition in which objects present themselves in a tumbling crowd, one following the other with inconceivable rapidity, the brain possessing no power to disentangle the chaos. He could not detach the condition of his wife, for example, and determine what ought to be done; he could not even bring himself to decide if it would be best to let her know where he was. No sooner did he try to turn his attention to her, even for a moment, than the Major came before him, and then his other friends, and then the workhouse and the dread of death there. Mercifully he went to sleep again, and after another long night's rest he was much stronger. He was able now—first sign of restored power—to settle that he ought before everything to communicate with Mrs. Carter, and he inquired of the old man if he could write.

"Oh, yes, I can write," said he, and something like a gleam of light passed over his countenance at being asked to practise an art almost forgotten in those walls.

A letter was accordingly written to Mrs. Carter, at her sister's address, telling her briefly what had happened, but that she was not to be alarmed, as the writer was rapidly recovering. He was able to sign his name; but when the letter was finished, he reflected that he had not got a coin in his pocket with which to pay the postage. One of the institutions of the workhouse was, however, a kind of pawnshop kept by one of the under-masters, as they were called, and Zachariah got a shilling advanced on a pocket-knife. The letter, therefore, was duly despatched, and he gave his secretary a penny for his trouble. This led to a little further intimacy, and Zachariah asked him how he came there.

"I don't know," he replied. "I was born in the country, and when I was fourteen, my father apprenticed me to the watchmaking. He was well off—my father was—and when I was out of my time he set me up in business in Liverpool. It was a business as had been established some time—a fairish business it was. But when I came to Liverpool I felt dull."

"What do you mean by dull? Stupid?"

"No, not exactly that. You know what dull means, don't you?—low- spirited like—got nothing to talk about. Well, I can't tell how it come about, but I was always dull, and have been so ever since. I got married soon after I was settled. My wife was a good sort of woman, but she wasn't cheerful, and she wasn't very strong. Somehow the business fell off. Customers as used to come didn't come, and I got no new ones. I did my work pretty well; but still, for all that, things went down and down by degrees. I never could make out why, except that people liked to be talked to, and I had nothing particular to say to any of them when they came in. The shop, too, ought to have been painted more often, and I ought to have had something in the window, but, as I say, I was always dull, and my wife wasn't strong. At last I was obliged to give up and go to journey-work; but when I got old I couldn't see, and was put in here."

"But," said Zachariah, "is that all? Why, you are nearly seventy years old. You must have something more to tell me."

"No. I don't know as I have; that seems about all."

"But what became of your father? He was well off. What became of his money when he died?"

"I'd had my share."

"Had you no brothers nor sisters to help you?"

"Yes, I had some."

"Did they let you come here?"

"Why, you see, as I've told you before, I was dull, and my wife wasn't strong. They never came much to see me. It was my fault; I never had nothing to say to them."

"Had you no children?"

"Yes, I had a son and daughter."

"Are they alive now?"

"Yes—both of them; at least I haven't heard as they are dead."

"And able to keep themselves?"

"They used to be."

"And do you mean that your son and daughter let you go to the workhouse?"

The old man was a little disturbed, and for a moment some slight sign of nervous excitement revealed itself in his lustreless eyes.

"I haven't see anything of 'em for years."

"Did you quarrel?"

"No, we didn't quarrel; but they left off visiting us. They both of them married, and went out a good bit, and were gayer than we were. We used to ask them, and then they'd look in sometimes: but never except when they were asked, and always seemed to wish to get away. We never had nothing to show anybody, nor nothing to give anybody; for we didn't drink and I never smoked. They went away too, both of them, from Liverpool, somewhere towards London."

"But when you broke down didn't you inform them?"

"No. I hadn't heard anything of them for so long. I thought I might as well get into the House. It will do very well."

"Didn't you know anybody belonging to your church or chapel?"

"Well, we went to church; but when the business dropped we left off going, for nothing much seemed to come of it, and nobody ever spoke to us."

"Wouldn't you like to get out of this place?"

"No—I don't know as I should now; I shouldn't know what to do, and it won't last long."

"How old are you?"

"Sixty-five."

It puzzled Zachariah that the man's story of his life was so short— all told in five minutes.

"But did you never have any adventures? Did you never hear about anything, or see anybody worth remembering? Tell me all about yourself. We've got nothing to do."

"I don't recollect anything particular after I came to Liverpool. Things seemed to go on pretty much in the same way."

"But you got married, and your wife died?"

"Yes—I got married, and she died."

"What was your wife's name?"

"Her name was Jenkins; she was the daughter of the saddler that lived next door."

"Couldn't her friends have helped you?"

"After she died they had nothing more to do with me."

"And you really cannot tell me any more?"

"No—how can I? What more is there to tell? It's all alike."

The old pauper was called away, and went shuffling along to the door, leaving Zachariah to his meditations.

Another day passed, and he was lying half asleep when a visitor was announced, and close upon the announcement stood before him—who should it be?—no other than Mrs. Carter, out of breath, radiant, healthy, impetuous.

"God bless the poor dear man!" she burst out; "to think of finding you here, and not to have told us before. But I suppose you couldn't. Directly as I got your letter off I came, and here I am, you see."

Her presence was like the south-west wind and sunlight after long north-easterly gloom and frost. Astonishing is that happy power which some people possess which enables them at once to dispel depression and even disease. A woman like Mrs. Carter comes into a house where there is misery and darkness; where the sufferer is possessed by demons; unnameable apprehensions, which thicken his blood and make him cry for death, and they retreat precipitately, as their brethren were fabled to retreat at the sign of the cross. No man who is so blessed as to have a friend with that magnetic force in him need disbelieve in much of what is recorded as miraculous. Zachariah felt as if a draught of good wine had been poured down his throat. But he instantly asked:

"How is my wife?"

"She is all right; but you mustn't bother about her. You must come out at once. You mustn't go back to Manchester just yet—not as they'd care much about you now; Nadin's got plenty of work to do, and wouldn't concern himself about you—but you aren't well enough and are better away. Now, look here—I'll tell you what I've been and done. I've got a cousin living here in Liverpool, as good a soul as ever lived. I goes to her and tells her you must stay there."

"But how can I? Just think of the trouble and expense. I don't know her."

"Lord a mercy, there you are again—trouble and expense! What trouble will you be? And as for expense, one would think you'd been living like a Lord Mayor to hear you talk. What are we made for if not to help one another?"

"I can't walk; and shouldn't I be obliged to get the doctor's permission?"

"Walk! Of course you can't. And what did my husband say to me before I started? Says he, 'You'll have to get a conveyance to take him.' 'Leave me alone for that,' says I; 'although right you are.' And I says to my cousin's husband, who drives a hackney coach, 'Just you drop down and carry him home. It won't be ten minutes out of your time.' So he'll be here in about a quarter of an hour. As for the doctor, I understand as much about you as he does, and, doctor or no doctor, you won't sleep in this bed to-night. I'll go and tell the head nurse or master, or somebody or the other, that you are off. You just put on your clothes."

In a short time she returned, found Zachariah dressed, wrapped him round in shawls and rugs, helped him downstairs, put him into the coach, and brought him to her cousin's. It was a little house, in a long uniform street; but a good deal of pains had been taken with it to make it something special. There were two bedroom windows in front, on the upper storey, and each one had flowers outside. The flower-pots were prevented from falling off the ledge by a lattice- work wrought in the centre into a little gate—an actual little gate. What purpose it was intended to answer is a mystery; but being there the owner of the flower-pots unfastened it every morning when the sill was dusted, and removed them through it, although lifting them would have been a much simpler operation. There were flowers in the sitting-room downstairs too; but they were inside, as the window was flush with the pavement. This sitting-room was never used except on Sundays. It was about nine feet square, and it had in it a cupboard on either side of the fireplace, a black horse-hair sofa alongside the wall on the right-hand side of the door, red curtains, a black horse-hair arm-chair, three other chairs to match, a little round table, two large shells, a framed sampler on the wall representing first the letters of the alphabet, then the figures 1, 2, 3, &c., and, finally, a very blue Jesus talking to a very red woman of Samaria on a very yellow well—underneath, the inscription and date, "Margaret Curtin, 10th March 1785." The only other decorations—for pictures were dear in those days—were two silhouettes, male, and female, one at each corner of the mantelpiece, and two earthenware dogs which sat eternally looking at one another on the top of one of the cupboards. On the cupboard farthest away from the window was a large Bible with pictures in it and notes, and, strange to say, a copy of Ferguson's Astronomy and a handsome quarto edition in three volumes of Cook's First Voyage. Everything was as neat and clean as it could possibly be; but Mr. and Mrs. Hocking had no children, and had saved a little money.

Into this apartment Zachariah was brought. There was a fire burning, though it was not cold, and on the table, covered with a perfectly white cloth, stood a basin of broth, with some toast, a little brandy in a wine-glass, a jug of water, and a tumbler. The books, including the Bible, had apparently not been read much, and were probably an heirloom. As Zachariah began to recover strength he read the Ferguson. It was the first time he had ever thought seriously of Astronomy, and it opened a new world to him. His religion had centred all his thoughts upon the earth as the theatre of the history of the universe, and although he knew theoretically that it was but a subordinate planet, he had not realised that it was so. For him, practically, this little globe had been the principal object of the Creator's attention. Ferguson told him also, to his amazement, that the earth moved in a resisting medium, and that one day it would surely fall into the sun. That day would be the end of the world, and of everything in it. He learned something about the magnitude of the planets and the distances of the fixed stars, and noted that his author, pious as he is, cannot admit that planets or stars were created for the sake of man. He dwelt upon these facts, more especially upon the first till the ground seemed to disappear under his feet, and he fell into that strange condition in which people in earthquake countries are said to be when their houses begin to tremble. We may laugh, and call him a fool to be disturbed by a forecast of what is not going to happen for millions of years; but he was not a fool. He was one of those unhappy creatures whom an idea has power to shake, and almost to overmaster. Ferguson was a Christian, and the thought of the destruction of our present dwelling-place, with every particle of life on it, did not trouble him. He had his refuge in Revelation. Zachariah too was a Christian, but the muscles of his Christianity were—now at any rate, whatever they may once have been—not firm enough to strangle this new terror. His supernatural heaven had receded into shadow; he was giddy, and did not know where he was. He did not feel to their full extent the tremendous consequences of this new doctrine, and the shock which it has given to so much philosophy and so many theories, but he felt quite enough, and wished he had never opened the volume. There are many truths, no doubt, which we are not robust enough to bear. In the main it is correct that the only way to conquer is boldly to face every fact, however horrible it may seem to be, and think, and think, till we pass it and come to a higher fact; but often we are too weak, and perish in the attempt. As we lie prostrate, we curse the day on which our eyes were opened, and we cry in despair that it would have been better for us to have been born oxen or swine than men. It is an experience, I suppose, not new that in certain diseased conditions some single fear may fasten on the wretched victim so that he is almost beside himself. He is unaware that this fear in itself is of no importance, for it is nothing but an index of ill-health, which might find expression in a hundred other ways. He is unconscious of the ill-health except through his fancy, and regards it as an intellectual result. It is an affliction worse ten thousand times than any direct physical pain which ends in pain. Zachariah could not but admit that he was still physically weak; he had every reason, therefore, for supposing that his mental agony was connected with his sickness, but he could not bring himself to believe that it was so, and he wrestled with his nightmares and argued with them as though they were mere logical inferences. However, he began to get better, and forthwith other matters occupied his mind. His difficulty was not fairly slain, pierced through the midst by some heaven-directed arrow, but it was evaded and forgotten. Health, sweet blood, unimpeded action of the heart, are the divine narcotics which put to sleep these enemies to our peace and enable us to pass happily through life. Without these blessings a man need not stir three steps without finding a foe able to give him his death- stroke.

Zachariah longed to see his wife again; but he could not bring her to Liverpool until he had some work to do. At last the day came when he was able to say that he was once more earning his living, and one evening when he reached home she was there too. Mrs. Carter had herself brought her to Liverpool, but had gone back again to Manchester at once, as she could not stay the night. When he first set eyes on his wife he was astonished at the change in her. She was whiter, if possible, than ever, thin in the face, dark-ringed about the eyes, and very weak. But otherwise she was what she had always been. The hair was just as smooth, everything about her just as spotlessly clean and unruffled, and she sat as she always did, rather upright and straight, as if she preferred the discomfort of a somewhat rigid position to the greater discomfort of disarranging her gown.

Zachariah had much to say. During the whole of the four hours before bedtime he did not once feel that drying-up of conversation which used to be so painful to him. It is true she herself said little or nothing, but that was of no moment. She was strengthless, and he did not expect her to talk. So long as he could speak he was happy. The next morning came, and with it came Hope, as it usually came to him in the morning, and he kissed her with passionate fervour as he went out, rejoicing to think that, although she was so feeble, she was recovering; that he could once more look forward as in earlier days, to the evening, and forgetting every cloud which had ever come between them. Alas, when the night of that very day came he found his little store exhausted, and he and the companion of his life sat together for a quarter of an hour or more without speaking a word. He proposed reading a book, and took up the Ferguson, thinking he could extract from it something which might interest her; but she was so irresponsive, and evidently cared so little for it, that he ceased. It was but eight o'clock, and how to fill up the time he did not know. At last he said he would just take a turn outside and look at the weather. He went out and stood under the stars of which he had been reading. The meeting, after such a separation, was scarcely twenty-four hours old, and yet he felt once more the old weariness and the old inability to profit by her society or care for it. He wished, or half wished, that there might have existed such differences between them that they could have totally disregarded or even hated one another. The futility, however, of any raving was soon perfectly clear to him. He might as well have strained at a chain which held him fast by the leg, and he therefore strove to quiet himself. He came back, after being absent longer than he intended and found she was upstairs. He sat down and meditated again, but came to no conclusion, for no conclusion was possible. The next evening, after they had sat dumb for some moments, he said, "My dear; you don't seem well."

"I am not well, as you know. You yourself don't seem well."

He felt suddenly as if he would have liked to throw himself on his knees before her, and to have it all out with her; to say to her all he had said to himself; to expose all his misery to her; to try to find out whether she still loved him; to break or thaw the shell of ice which seemed to have frozen round her. But he could not do it. He was on the point of doing it, when he looked at her face, and there was something in it which stopped him. No such confidence was possible, and he went back into himself again.

"Shall I read to you?"

"Yes, if you like."

"What shall I read?

"I don't care; anything you please."

"Shall it be Cook's Voyages?"

"I have just said I really do not care."

He took down the Cook's Voyages; but after about ten minutes he could not go on and he put it back in its place.

"Caillaud's trial is to take place next week," he observed after a long pause.

"Horrible man!" she exclaimed, with a sudden increase of energy. "I understand that it was in defending him Major Maitland lost his life."

"My dear, you are quite wrong. He was defending Major Maitland, and shot the soldier who killed him."

"Quite wrong, am I? Of course I am quite wrong!"

"I was at head-quarters, you remember."

"Yes, you were; but you were not near Major Maitland."

Zachariah raised his eyes; he thought he detected, he was sure he detected, in the tone of this sentence a distinct sneer.

"I was not with Major Maitland; my duties called me elsewhere; but I am more likely to know what happened than any gossiping outsider."

"I don't believe in your foreign infidels."

"MY foreign infidels! You have no right to call them my infidels, if you mean that, I am one. But let me tell you again you are mistaken. Besides, supposing you are right, I don't see why he should be a horrible man. He will probably be executed for what he did."

"It was he and that daughter of his who dragged you and the Major into all this trouble."

"On the contrary, Caillaud, as well as myself and the Major, did all we could to prevent the march. You must admit I understand what I am talking about. I was at every meeting."

"As usual, nothing I say is right. It was to be expected that you would take the part of the Caillauds."

Zachariah did not reply. It was supper-time; the chapter from the Bible was duly read, the prayer duly prayed, and husband and wife afterwards once more, each in turn, silently at the bedside, with more or less of sincerity or pathos, sought Him who was the Maker of both. It struck Zachariah during his devotions—a rather unwelcome interruption—that his wife as well as himself was in close communication with the Almighty.



CHAPTER XV—END OF THE BEGINNING



The trial took place at Lancaster. Zachariah was sorely tempted to go; but, in the first place, he had no money, and, in the second place, he feared arrest. Not that he would have cared two pins if he had been put into jail; but he could not abandon his wife. He was perfectly certain what the result would be, but nevertheless, on the day when the news was due, he could not rest. There was a mail coach which ran from Lancaster to Liverpool, starting from Lancaster in the afternoon and reaching Liverpool between eleven and twelve at night. He went out about that time and loitered about the coach-office as if he were waiting for a friend. Presently he heard the wheels and the rapid trot of the horses. His heart failed him, and he could almost have fainted.

"What's the news?" said the clerk to the coachman. "All the whole d- —d lot convicted, and one of 'em going to be hung."

"One of them hung! Which one is that?"

"Why, him as killed the soldier, of course—the Frenchman."

"A d—-d good job too," replied the clerk. "I should like to serve every —- Frenchman in the country the same way."

Zachariah could not listen any longer, but went home, and all night long a continuous series of fearful images passed before his eyes— condemned cells, ropes, gallows and the actual fall of the victim, down to the contortion of his muscles. He made up his mind on the following day that he would see Caillaud before he died, and he told his wife he was going. She was silent for a moment, and then she said:

"You will do as you like, I suppose: but I cannot see what is the use of it. You can do no good; you will lose your place here; it will cost you something; and when you get there you may have to stop there."

Zachariah could not restrain himself.

"Good God!" he cried, "you hear that one of my best friends is about to be hung, and you sit there like a statue—not a single word of sympathy or horror—you care no more than a stone. USE of going! I tell you I will go if I starve, or have to rot in jail all my lifetime. Furthermore, I will go this instant."

He went out of the room in a rage, rammed a few things into a bag, and was out of the house in ten minutes. He was excusably unjust to his wife—excusably, because he could not help thinking that she was hard, and even cruel. Yet really she was not so, or if she was, she was not necessarily so, for injustice, not only to others, but to ourselves, is always begotten by a false relationship. There were multitudes of men in the world, worse than Zachariah, with whom she would have been, not only happier, but better. He, poor man, with all his virtues, stimulated and developed all that was disagreeable in her.

He was in no mood to rest, and walked on all that night. Amidst all his troubles he could not help being struck with the solemn, silent procession overhead. It was perfectly clear—so clear that the heavens were not a surface, but a depth, and the stars of a lesser magnitude were so numerous and brilliant that they obscured the forms of the greater constellations. Presently the first hint of day appeared in the east. We must remember that this was the year 1817, before, so it is commonly supposed, men knew what it was properly to admire a cloud or a rock. Zachariah was not, therefore, on a level with the most ordinary subscriber to a modern circulating library. Nevertheless he could not help noticing—we will say he did no more— the wonderful, the sacredly beautiful, drama which noiselessly displayed itself before him. Over in the east the intense deep blue of the sky softened a little. Then the trees in that quarter began to contrast themselves against the background and reveal their distinguishing shapes. Swiftly, and yet with such even velocity that in no one minute did there seem to be any progress compared with the minute preceding, the darkness was thinned, and resolved itself overhead into pure sapphire, shaded into yellow below and in front of him, while in the west it was still almost black. The grassy floor of the meadows now showed its colour, grey green, with the dew lying on it, and in the glimmer under the hedge might be discerned a hare or two stirring. Star by star disappeared, until none were left, save Venus, shining like a lamp till the very moment almost when the sun's disc touched the horizon. Half a dozen larks mounted and poured forth that ecstasy which no bird but the lark can translate. More amazing than the loveliness of scene, sound, and scent around him was the sense of irrestisible movement. He stopped to watch it, for it grew so rapid that he could almost detect definite pulsations. Throb followed throb every second with increasing force, and in a moment more a burning speck of gold was visible, and behold it was day! He slowly turned his eyes away and walked onwards.

Lancaster was reached on the second evening after he left Liverpool. He could not travel fast nor long together, for he was not yet completely strong. He secured a bed in a low part of the town, at a public-house, and on the morning of the third day presented himself at the prison door. After some formalities he was admitted, and taken by a warder along a corridor with whitewashed walls to the condemned cell where Caillaud lay. The warder looked through a grating, and said to Zachariah that a visitor was already there. Two were not allowed at a time, but he would tell the prisoner that somebody was waiting for him.

"Let's see, what's your name?" said the warder. Then it suddenly struck him that he had been fool enough, in the excitement of entering the prison, to sign his real name in the book. There was no help for it now, and he repeated that it was Coleman.

"Ah yes, Coleman," echoed the man, in a manner which was significant.

"Who is the other visitor?" said Zachariah.

"It is his daughter."

His first thought was to ask to be let in, but his next was, that it would be profanity to disturb the intercourse of father and child, and he was silent. However, he had been announced, and Caillaud appeared at the grating begging permission for his friend to enter. It was at first refused; but presently something seemed to strike the jailer, for he relented with a smile.

"You won't want to come again?" he observed interrogatively.

"No; that is to say, I think not."

"No; that is to say, I think not," he repeated slowly, word for word, adding, "I shall have to stay with you while you are together."

Zachariah entered, the warder locking the door behind him, and seating himself on the edge of the bedstead, where he remained during the whole of the interview, jingling his keys and perfectly unmoved.

The three friends spoke not a word for nearly five minutes. Zachariah was never suddenly equal to any occasion which made any great demands upon him. It often made him miserable that it was so. Here he was, in the presence of one whom he had so much loved, and who was about to leave him for ever, and he had nothing to say. That could have been endured could he but have FELT and showed his feeling, could he but have cast himself upon his neck and wept over him, but he was numbed and apparently immovable. It was Caillaud who first broke the silence.

"It appears I shall have to console you rather than you me; believe me, I care no more about dying, as mere dying, than I do about walking across this room. There are two things which disturb me—the apprehension of some pain, and bidding good-bye to Pauline and you, and two or three more."

There was, after all, but just a touch needed to break up Zachariah and melt him.

"You are happier than I," he cried. "Your work is at an end. No more care for things done or undone; you are discharged, and nobly discharged, with honour. But as for me!"

"With honour!" and Caillaud smiled. "To be hung like a forger of bank-notes—not even to be shot—and then to be forgotten. Forgotten utterly! This does not happen to be one of those revolutions which men remember."

"No! men will not remember," said Pauline, with an elevation of voice and manner almost oratorical. "Men will not remember, but there is a memory in the world which forgets nothing."

"Do you know," said Caillaud, "I have always loved adventure, and at times I look forward to death with curiosity and interest, just as if I were going to a foreign country."

"Tell me," said Zachariah, "if there is anything I can do."

"Nothing. I would ask you to see that Pauline comes to no harm, but she can take care of herself. I have nothing to give you in parting. They have taken everything from me."

"What a brute I am! I shall never see you again, and I cannot speak," sobbed Zachariah.

"Speak! What need is there of speaking? What is there which can be said at such a time? To tell you the truth, Coleman, I hardly cared about having you here. I did not want to imperil the calm which is now happily upon me; we all of us have something unaccountable and uncontrollable in us, and I do not know how soon it may wake in me. But I did wish to see you, in order that your mind might be at peace about me. Come, good-bye!"

Caillaud put his hand on Zachariah's shoulder.

"This will not do," he said. "For my sake forbear. I can face what I have to go through next Monday if am not shaken. Come, Pauline, you too, my child, must leave me for a bit."

Zachariah looked at Pauline, who rose and threw her shawl over her shoulders. Her lips were tightly shut, but she was herself. The warder opened the door. Zachariah took his friend's hand, held it for a moment, and then threw his arms round his neck. There is a pathos in parting which the mere loss through absence does not explain. We all of us feel it, even if there is to be a meeting again in a few months, and we are overcome by incomprehensible emotion when we turn back down the pier, unable any longer to discern the waving of the handkerchief, or when the railway train turns the curve in the cutting and leaves us standing on the platform. Infinitely pathetic, therefore, is the moment when we separate for ever.

Caillaud was unsettled for an instant, and then, slowly untwining the embrace, he made a sign to Pauline, who took Zachariah's hand and led him outside; the heavy well-oiled bolt of the lock shooting back under the key with a smooth strong thud between them. She walked down the corridor alone, not noticing that he had not followed her, and had just passed out of sight when an officer stepped up to him and said:

"Your name is Coleman?"

"Yes."

"Sorry to hear it. My name is Nadin. You know me, I think. You must consider yourself my prisoner."

Zachariah was in prison for two years. He had not been there three months when his wife died.

* * * *

Let us now look forward to 1821; let us walk down one of the new streets just beginning to stretch northwards from Pentonville; let us stop opposite a little house, with a little palisade in front, enclosing a little garden five and twenty feet long and fifteen feet broad; let us peep through the chink between the blind and the window. We see Zachariah and Pauline. Another year passes; we peep through the same chink again. A cradle is there, in which lies Marie Pauline Coleman; but where is the mother? She is not there, and the father alone sits watching the child.



CHAPTER XVI—COWFOLD



Cowfold, half village, half town, lies about three miles to the west of the great North Road from London to York. As you go from London, about fifty miles from the Post-Office in St. Martin's le Grand—the fiftieth milestone is just beyond the turning—you will see a hand- post with three arms on it; on one is written in large letters, "To LONDON;" on the second, in equally large letters, "To YORK;" and on the third, in small italic letters, "To Cowfold." Two or three years before the events narrated in the following chapters took place—that is to say, about twenty years after the death of Zachariah's second wife—a hundred coaches a day rolled past that hand-post, and about two miles beyond it was a huge inn, with stables like cavalry barracks, where horses were changed. No coach went through Cowfold. When the inhabitants wished to go northwards or southwards they walked or drove to the junction, and waited on the little grassy triangle till a coach came by which had room for them. When they returned they were deposited at the same spot, and the passengers who were going through from London to York or Scotland, or who were coming up to London, always seemed to despise people who were taken up or who were left by the roadside there.

There was, perhaps, some reason for this contempt. The North Road was at that time one of the finest roads in the world, broad, hard- metalled, and sound in the wettest weather. That which led to Cowfold was under the control of the parish, and in winter-time was very bad indeed. When you looked down it it seemed as if it led nowhere, and indeed the inhabitants of the town were completely shut off from any close communication with the outer world. How strange it was to emerge from the end of the lane and to see those wonderful words, "To LONDON," "To YORK!" What an opening into infinity! Boys of a slightly imaginative turn of mind—for there were boys with imagination even in Cowfold—would, on a holiday trudge the three miles eastward merely to get to the post and enjoy the romance of those mysterious fingers. No wonder; for the excitement begotten by the long stretch of the road—London at one end, York at the other— by the sight of the Star, Rover, Eclipse, or Times racing along at twelve miles an hour, and by the inscriptions on them, was worth a whole afternoon's cricket or wandering in the fields. Cowfold itself supplied no such stimulus. The only thing like it was the mail-cart, which every evening took the letters from the post-office, disappeared into the dark, nobody could tell whither, and brought letters in the morning, nobody could tell whence, before the inhabitants were out of bed. There was a vague belief that it went about fifteen miles and "caught" something somewhere; but nobody knew for certain, except the postmistress and the mail-cart driver, who were always remarkably reticent on the point. The driver was dressed in red, carried a long horn slung at the side of the cart, and was popularly believed also to have pistols with him. He never accosted anybody; sat on a solitary perch just big enough for him; swayed always backwards and forwards a little in a melancholy fashion as he rode; was never seen during the day-time, and was not, in any proper sense, a Cowfold person.

Cowfold had four streets, or, more correctly, only two, which crossed one another at right angles in the middle of the town, and formed there a kind of square or open place, in which, on Saturdays, a market was held.