Sybil, Benjamin Disraeli [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

“The Queen is with us,” said Mick. “It’s well known she sets her face against gals working in mills like blazes.”

“Well this is news,” said Mrs. Carey. “I always thought some good would come of having a woman on the throne;” and repeating her thanks and pinning on her shawl, the widow retired, eager to circulate the intelligence.

“And now that we are alone,” said Devilsdust, “the question is what are we to do here; and we came to consult you, Jack, as you know Mowbray better than any living man. This thing will spread. It won’t stop short. I have had a bird too singing something in my ear these two days past. If they do not stop it in Lancashire, and I defy them, there will be a general rising.”

“I have seen a many things in my time,” said Mr. Trotman; “some risings and some strikes, and as stiff turnouts as may be. But to my fancy there is nothing like a strike in prosperous times; there’s more money sent under those circumstances than you can well suppose, young gentlemen. It’s as good as Mowbray Staty any day.”

“But now to the point,” said Devilsdust. “The people are regularly sold; they want a leader.”

“Why there’s Gerard,” said Chaffing Jack; “never been a better man in my time. And Warner⁠—the greatest man the Handlooms ever turned out.”

“Ay, ay,” said Devilsdust; “but they have each of them had a year and a half, and that cools blood.”

“Besides,” said Mick, “they are too old; and Stephen Morley has got round them, preaching moral force and all that sort of gammon.”

“I never heard that moral force won the battle of Waterloo,” said Devilsdust. “I wish the capitalists would try moral force a little, and see whether it would keep the thing going. If the capitalists will give up their redcoats, I would be a moral force man tomorrow.”

“And the new police,” said Mick. “A pretty go when a fellow in a blue coat fetches you the Devil’s own con on your head and you get moral force for a plaister.”

“Why, that’s all very well,” said Chaffing Jack: “but I am against violence⁠—at least much. I don’t object to a moderate riot provided it is not in my quarter of the town.”

“Well that’s not the ticket now,” said Mick. “We don’t want no violence; all we want is to stop all the mills and hands in the kingdom, and have a regular national holiday for six weeks at least.”

“I have seen a many things in my time,” said Chaffing Jack solemnly, “but I have always observed that if the people had worked generally for half time for a week they would stand anything.”

“That’s a true bill,” said Mick.

“Their spirit is broken,” said Chaffing Jack, “or else they never would have let the Temple have been shut up.”

“And think of our Institute without a single subscriber!” said Mick. “The gals is the only thing what has any spirit left. Julia told me just now she would go to the cannon’s mouth for the Five Points8 any summer day.”

“You think the spirit can’t be raised, Chaffing Jack,” said Devilsdust very seriously. “You ought to be a judge.”

“If I don’t know Mowbray who does? Trust my word, the house won’t draw.”

“Then it is U-P,” said Mick.

“Hush!” said Devilsdust. “But suppose it spreads?”

“It won’t spread,” said Chaffing Jack. “I’ve seen a deal of these things. I fancy from what you say it’s a cotton squall. It will pass, Sir. Let me see the miners out and then I will talk to you.”

“Stranger things than that have happened,” said Devilsdust. “Then things get serious,” said Chaffing Jack. “Them miners is very stubborn, and when they gets excited ayn’t it a bear at play, that’s all?”

“Well,” said Devilsdust, “what you say is well worth attention; but all the same I feel we are on the eve of a regular crisis.”

“No, by jingo!” said Mick, and tossing his cap into the air he snapped his fingers with delight at the anticipated amusement.

“I don’t think I can stand this much longer,” said Mr. Mountchesney, the son-in-law of Lord de Mowbray, to his wife, as he stood before the empty fireplace with his back to the mantelpiece and his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat. “This living in the country in August bores me to extinction. I think we will go to Baden, Joan.”

“But papa is so anxious, dearest Alfred, that we should remain here at present and see the neighbours a little.”

“I might be induced to remain here to please your father, but as for your neighbours I have seen quite enough of them. They are not a sort of people that I ever met before, or that I wish to meet again. I do not know what to say to them, nor can I annex an idea to what they say to me. Heigho! certainly the country in August is a thing of which no one who has not tried it has the most remote conception.”

“But you always used to say you doted on the country, Alfred,” said Lady Joan in a tone of tender reproach.

“So I do; I never was happier than when I was at Melton, and even enjoyed the country in August when I was on the Moors.”

“But I cannot well go to Melton,” said Lady Joan.

“I don’t see why you can’t. Mrs. Shelldrake goes with her husband to Melton, and so does Lady Di with Barham; and a very pleasant life it is.”

“Well, at any rate we cannot go to Melton now,” said Lady Joan, mortified; “and it is impossible for me to go to the moors.”

“No, but I could go,” said Mr. Mountchesney, “and leave you here. I might have gone with Eugene de Vere and Milford and Fitz-heron. They wanted me very much. What a capital party it would have been, and what capital sport we should have had! And I need not have