Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet by Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

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"Och! are you mad, thin? He's a broth of a boy; and I'll tell ye. Shure he
knows all about the red-coats, case he's an arthillery man himself, and
that's the way he's found out his gran' combustible."

"An artilleryman?" said John. "He told me he was a writer for the press."

"Bedad, thin, he's mistaken himself intirely; for he tould me with his own
mouth. And I'll show you the thing he sowld me as is to do it. Shure, it'll
set fire to the stones o' the street, av' you pour a bit vitriol on it."

"Set fire to the stones? I must see that before I believe it."

"Shure an' ye shall then. Where'll I buy a bit? Sorra a shop is there open
this time o' night; an' troth I forgot the name o' it intirely! Poker o'
Moses, but here's a bit in my pocket!"

And out of his tattered coat-tail he lugged a flask of powder and a lump
of some cheap chemical salt, whose name I have, I am ashamed to say,
forgotten.

"You're a pretty fellow to keep such things in the same pocket with
gunpowder!"

"Come along to Mackaye's," said Crossthwaite. "I'll see to the bottom
of this. Be hanged, but I think the fellow's a cursed _mouchard_--some
government spy!"

"Spy is he, thin? Och, the thief o' the world! I'll stab him! I'll murther
him! an' burn the town afterwards, all the same."

"Unless," said I, "just as you've got your precious combustible to blaze
off, up he comes from behind the corner and gives you in charge to a
policeman. It's a villanous trap, you miserable fool, as sure as the moon's
in heaven."

"Upon my word, I am afraid it is--and I'm trapped too."

"Blood and turf! thin, it's he that I'll trap, thin. There's two million
free and inlightened Irishmen in London, to avenge my marthyrdom wi' pikes
and baggonets like raving salviges, and blood for blood!"

"Like savages, indeed!" said I to Crossthwaite, "And pretty savage company
we are keeping. Liberty, like poverty, makes a man acquainted with strange
companions!"

"And who's made 'em savages? Who has left them savages? That the greatest
nation of the earth has had Ireland in her hands three hundred years--and
her people still to be savages!--if that don't justify a revolution, what
does? Why, it's just because these poor brutes are what they are, that
rebellion becomes a sacred duty. It's for them--for such fools, brutes, as
that there, and the millions more like him, and likely to remain like him,
and I've made up my mind to do or die to-morrow!"

There was a grand half-truth, distorted, miscoloured in the words, that
silenced me for the time.

We entered Mackaye's door; strangely enough at that time of night, it stood
wide open. What could be the matter? I heard loud voices in the inner room,
and ran forward calling his name, when, to my astonishment, out past me
rushed a tall man, followed by a steaming kettle, which, missing him, took
full effect on Kelly's chest as he stood in the entry, filling his shoes
with boiling water, and producing a roar that might have been heard at
Temple Bar.

"What's the matter?"

"Have I hit him?" said the old man, in a state of unusual excitement.

"Bedad! it was the man Power! the cursed spy! An' just as I was going to
slate the villain nately, came the kittle, and kilt me all over!"

"Power? He's as many names as a pickpocket, and as many callings, too, I'll
warrant. He came sneaking in to tell me the sogers were a' ready to gie up
their arms if I'd come forward to them to-morrow. So I tauld him, sin' he
was so sure o't, he'd better gang and tak the arms himsel; an' then he let
out he'd been a policeman--"

"A policeman!" said both Crossthwaite and Kelly, with strong expletives.

"A policeman doon in Manchester; I thought I kenned his face fra the first.
And when the rascal saw he'd let out too much, he wanted to make out that
he'd been a' along a spy for the Chartists, while he was makin' believe to
be a spy o' the goovernment's. Sae when he came that far, I just up wi' the
het water, and bleezed awa at him; an' noo I maun gang and het some mair
for my drap toddy."

Sandy had a little vitriol in the house, so we took the combustible down
into the cellar, and tried it. It blazed up: but burnt the stone as much as
the reader may expect. We next tried it on a lump of wood. It just scorched
the place where it lay, and then went out; leaving poor Kelly perfectly
frantic with rage, terror, and disappointment. He dashed up-stairs, and out
into the street, on a wild-goose chase after the rascal, and we saw no more
of him that night.

I relate a simple fact. I am afraid--perhaps, for the poor workmen's sake,
I should say I am glad, that it was not an unique one. Villains of this
kind, both in April and in June, mixed among the working men, excited
their worst passions by bloodthirsty declamations and extravagant promises
of success, sold them arms; and then, like the shameless wretch on whose
evidence Cuffy and Jones were principally convicted, bore witness against
their own victims, unblushingly declaring themselves to have been all
along the tools of the government. I entreat all those who disbelieve this
apparently prodigious assertion, to read the evidence given on the trial of
the John Street conspirators, and judge for themselves.

* * * * *

"The petition's filling faster than ever!" said Crossthwaite, as that
evening we returned to Mackaye's little back room.

"Dirt's plenty," grumbled the old man, who had settled himself again to his
pipe, with his feet on the fender, and his head half way up the chimney.

"Now, or never!" went on Crossthwaite, without minding him; "now, or never!
The manufacturing districts seem more firm than ever."

"An' words cheap," commented Mackaye, _sotto voce_.

"Well," I said, "Heaven keep us from the necessity of ulterior measures!
But what must be, must."

"The government expect it, I can tell you. They're in a pitiable funk, I
hear. One regiment is ordered to Uxbridge already, because they daren't
trust it. They'll find soldiers are men, I do believe, after all."

"Men they are," said Sandy; "an' therefore they'll no be fools eneugh to
stan' by an' see ye pu' down a' that is, to build up ye yourselves dinna
yet rightly ken what. Men? Ay, an' wi' mair common sense in them than some
that had mair opportunities."

"I think I've settled everything," went on Crossthwaite, who seemed not to
have heard the last speech--"settled everything--for poor Katie, I mean.
If anything happens to me, she has friends at Cork--she thinks so at
least--and they'd get her out to service somewhere--God knows!" And his
face worked fearfully a minute.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori!" said I.

"There are twa methods o' fulfilling that saw, I'm thinkin'. Impreemis, to
shoot your neebour; in secundis, to hang yoursel."

"What do you mean by grumbling at the whole thing in this way, Mr. Mackaye?
Are you, too, going to shrink back from The Cause, now that liberty is at
the very doors?"

"Ou, then, I'm stanch eneuch. I ha' laid in my ain stock o' weapons for the
fecht at Armageddon."

"You don't mean it? What have you got?"

"A braw new halter, an' a muckle nail. There's a gran' tough beam here
ayont the ingle, will haud me a' crouse and cantie, when the time comes."

"What on earth do you mean?" asked we both together.

"Ha' ye looked into the monster-petition?"

"Of course we have, and signed it too!"

"Monster? Ay, ferlie! Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen
ademptum. Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne. Leeberty, the bonnie
lassie, wi' a sealgh's fud to her! I'll no sign it. I dinna consort wi'
shoplifters, an' idiots, an' suckin' bairns--wi' long nose, an' short nose,
an' pug nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington, let alone a baker's dizen
o' Queens. It's no company, that, for a puir auld patriot!"

"Why, my dear Mackaye," said I, "you know the Reform Bill petitions were
just as bad."

"And the Anti-Corn-law ones, too, for that matter," said Crossthwaite. "You
know we can't help accidents; the petition will never be looked through."

"It's always been the plan with Whigs and Tories, too!"

"I ken that better than ye, I guess."

"And isn't everything fair in a good cause?" said Crossthwaite.

"Desperate men really can't be so dainty."

"How lang ha' ye learnit that deil's lee, Johnnie? Ye were no o' that mind
five years agone, lad. Ha' ye been to Exeter Hall the while? A's fair in
the cause o' Mammon; in the cause o' cheap bread, that means cheap wages;
but in the cause o' God--wae's me, that ever I suld see this day ower
again! ower again! Like the dog to his vomit--just as it was ten, twenty,
fifty year agone. I'll just ha' a petition a' alane to mysel--I, an' a twa
or three honest men. Besides, ye're just eight days ower time wi' it."

"What do you mean?"

"Suld ha' sent it in the 1st of April, an' no the 10th; a' fool's day wud
ha' suited wi' it ferlie!"

"Mr. Mackaye," said Crossthwaite, in a passion, "I shall certainly inform
the Convention of your extraordinary language!"

"Do, laddie! do, then! An' tell 'em this, too"--and, as he rose, his whole
face and figure assumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen
before in him--"tell them that ha' driven out * * * * and * * * *, an'
every one that daur speak a word o' common sense, or common humanity--them
that stone the prophets, an' quench the Spirit o' God, and love a lie, an'
them that mak the same--them that think to bring about the reign o' love
an' britherhood wi' pikes an' vitriol bottles, murther an' blasphemy--tell
'em that ane o' fourscore years and mair--ane that has grawn grey in the
people's cause--that sat at the feet o' Cartwright, an' knelt by the
death-bed o' Rabbie Burns--ane that cheerit Burdett as he went to the
Touer, an' spent his wee earnings for Hunt an' Cobbett--ane that beheld the
shaking o' the nations in the Ninety-three, and heard the birth-shriek o'
a newborn world--ane that while he was yet a callant saw Liberty afar off,
an' seeing her was glad, as for a bonny bride, an' followed her through the
wilderness for threescore weary waeful years--sends them the last message
that e'er he'll send on airth: tell 'em that they're the slaves o' warse
than priests and kings--the slaves o' their ain lusts an' passions--the
slaves o' every loud-tongued knave an' mountebank that'll pamper them in
their self-conceit; and that the gude God'll smite 'em down, and bring 'em
to nought, and scatter 'em abroad, till they repent, an' get clean hearts
and a richt speerit within them, and learn His lesson that he's been trying
to teach 'em this threescore years--that the cause o' the people is the
cause o' Him that made the people; an' wae to them that tak' the deevil's
tools to do his wark wi'! Gude guide us!--What was yon, Alton, laddie?"

"What?"

"But I saw a spunk o' fire fa' into your bosom! I've na faith in siccan
heathen omens; but auld carlins wud say it's a sign o' death within the
year--save ye from it, my puir misguidit bairn! Aiblins a fire-flaught o'
my een, it might be--I've had them unco often, the day--"

And he stooped down to the fire, and began to light his pipe, muttering to
himself--

"Saxty years o' madness! saxty years o' madness! How lang, O Lord, before
thou bring these puir daft bodies to their richt mind again?"

We stood watching him, and interchanging looks--expecting something, we
knew not what.

Suddenly he sank forward on his knees, with his hands on the bars of the
grate; we rushed forward, and caught him up. He turned his eyes up to me,
speechless, with a ghastly expression; one side of his face was all drawn
aside--and helpless as a child, he let us lift him to his bed, and there he
lay staring at the ceiling.

* * * * *

Four weary days passed by--it was the night of the ninth of April. In the
evening of that day his speech returned to him on a sudden--he seemed
uneasy about something, and several times asked Katie the day of the month.

"Before the tenth--ay, we maun pray for that. I doubt but I'm ower hearty
yet--I canna bide to see the shame o' that day--

* * * * *

"Na--I'll tak no potions nor pills--gin it were na for scruples o'
conscience, I'd apocartereeze a'thegither, after the manner o' the ancient
philosophers. But it's no' lawful, I misdoubt, to starve onesel."

"Here is the doctor," said Katie.

"Doctor? Wha ca'd for doctors? Canst thou administer to a mind diseased?
Can ye tak long nose, an' short nose, an' snub nose, an' seventeen Deuks
o' Wellington out o' my puddins? Will your castor oil, an' your calomel,
an' your croton, do that? D'ye ken a medicamentum that'll put brains into
workmen--? Non tribus Anti-cyrus! Tons o' hellebore--acres o' strait
waistcoats--a hall police-force o' head-doctors, winna do it. Juvat
insanire--this their way is their folly, as auld Benjamin o' Tudela
saith of the heathen. Heigho! 'Forty years lang was he grevit wi' this
generation, an' swore in his wrath that they suldna enter into his rest.'
Pulse? tongue? ay, shak your lugs, an' tak your fee, an' dinna keep auld
folk out o' their graves. Can ye sing?"

The doctor meekly confessed his inability.

"That's pity--or I'd gar ye sing Auld-lang-syne,--

"We twa hae paidlit in the burn--

"Aweel, aweel, aweel--"

* * * * *

Weary and solemn was that long night, as we sat there, with the crushing
weight of the morrow on our mind, watching by that death-bed, listening
hour after hour to the rambling soliloquies of the old man, as "he babbled
of green fields"; yet I verily believe that to all of us, especially to
poor little Katie, the active present interest of tending him kept us from
going all but mad with anxiety and excitement. But it was weary work:--and
yet, too, strangely interesting, as at times there came scraps of old
Scotch love-poetry, contrasting sadly with the grim withered lips that
uttered them--hints to me of some sorrow long since suffered, but never
healed. I had never heard him allude to such an event before but once, on
the first day of our acquaintance.

"I went to the kirk,
My luve sat afore me;
I trow my twa een
Tauld him a sweet story.

"Aye wakin o'--
Wakin aye and weary--
I thocht a' the kirk
Saw me and my deary.

"'Aye wakin o'!'--Do ye think, noo, we sall ha' knowledge in the next warld
o' them we loved on earth? I askit that same o' Rab Burns ance; an' he
said, puir chiel, he 'didna ken ower well, we maun bide and see';--bide and
see--that's the gran' philosophy o' life, after a'. Aiblins folk'll ken
their true freens there; an' there'll be na mair luve coft and sauld for
siller--

"Gear and tocher is needit nane
I' the country whaur my luve is gane.

* * * * *

"Gin I had a true freen the noo! to gang down the wynd, an' find if it war
but an auld Abraham o' a blue-gown, wi' a bit crowd, or a fizzle-pipe, to
play me the Bush aboon Traquair! Na, na, na; it's singing the Lord's song
in a strange land, that wad be; an' I hope the application's no irreverent,
for ane that was rearit amang the hills o' God, an' the trees o' the forest
which he hath planted.

"Oh the broom, and the bonny yellow broom,
The broom o' the Cowden-knowes.

"Hech, but she wud lilt that bonnily!

* * * * *

"Did ye ever gang listering saumons by nicht? Ou, but it's braw sport, wi'
the scars an' the birks a' glowering out blude-red i' the torchlight, and
the bonnie hizzies skelping an' skirling on the bank--

* * * * *

"There was a gran' leddy, a bonny leddy, came in and talked like an angel o'
God to puir auld Sandy, anent the salvation o' his soul. But I tauld her
no' to fash hersel. It's no my view o' human life, that a man's sent into
the warld just to save his soul, an' creep out again. An' I said I wad
leave the savin' o' my soul to Him that made my soul; it was in richt gude
keepin' there, I'd warrant. An' then she was unco fleyed when she found I
didna haud wi' the Athanasian creed. An' I tauld her, na; if He that died
on cross was sic a ane as she and I teuk him to be, there was na that pride
nor spite in him, be sure, to send a puir auld sinful, guideless body to
eternal fire, because he didna a'thegither understand the honour due to his
name."

"Who was this lady?"

He did not seem to know; and Katie had never heard of her before--"some
district visitor" or other.

* * * * *

"I sair misdoubt but the auld creeds are in the right anent Him, after a'.
I'd gie muckle to think it--there's na comfort as it is. Aiblins there
might be a wee comfort in that, for a poor auld worn-out patriot. But it's
ower late to change. I tauld her that, too, ance. It's ower late to put new
wine into auld bottles. I was unco drawn to the high doctrines ance, when
I was a bit laddie, an' sat in the wee kirk by my minnie an' my daddie--a
richt stern auld Cameronian sort o' body he was, too; but as I grew, and
grew, the bed was ower short for a man to stretch himsel thereon, an' the
plaidie ower strait for a man to fauld himself therein; and so I had to
gang my gate a' naked in the matter o' formulæ, as Maister Tummas has it."

"Ah! do send for a priest, or a clergyman!" said Katie, who partly
understood his meaning.

"Parson? He canna pit new skin on auld scars. Na bit stickit curate-laddie
for me, to gang argumentin' wi' ane that's auld enough to be his
gran'father. When the parsons will hear me anent God's people, then I'll
hear them anent God.

"--Sae I'm wearing awa, Jean,
To the land o' the leal--

"Gin I ever get thither. Katie, here, hauds wi' purgatory, ye ken! where
souls are burnt clean again--like baccy pipes--

"When Bazor-brigg is ower and past,
Every night and alle;
To Whinny Muir thou comest at last,
And God receive thy sawle.

"Gin hosen an' shoon thou gavest nane
Every night and alle;
The whins shall pike thee intil the bane,
And God receive thy sawle.

"Amen. There's mair things aboon, as well as below, than are dreamt o'
in our philosophy. At least, where'er I go, I'll meet no long nose, nor
short nose, nor snub nose patriots there; nor puir gowks stealing the
deil's tools to do God's wark wi'. Out among the eternities an' the
realities--it's no that dreary outlook, after a', to find truth an'
fact--naught but truth an' fact--e'en beside the worm that dieth not, and
the fire that is not quenched!"

"God forbid!" said Katie.

"God do whatsoever shall please Him, Katie--an' that's aye gude like
Himsel'. Shall no the Judge of all the earth do right--right--right?"

And murmuring that word of words to himself, over and over, more and more
faintly, he turned slowly over, and seemed to slumber--

Some half hour passed before we tried to stir him. He was dead.

And the candles waned grey, and the great light streamed in through every
crack and cranny, and the sun had risen on the Tenth of April. What would
be done before the sun had set?

What would be done? Just what we had the might to do; and therefore,
according to the formula on which we were about to act, that mights are
rights, just what we had a right to do--nothing. Futility, absurdity,
vanity, and vexation of spirit. I shall make my next a short chapter. It is
a day to be forgotten--and forgiven.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE TENTH OF APRIL.

And he was gone at last! Kind women, whom his unknown charities had saved
from shame, laid him out duly, and closed his eyes, and bound up that face
that never would beam again with genial humour, those lips that would
never again speak courage and counsel to the sinful, the oppressed, the
forgotten. And there he lay, the old warrior, dead upon his shield; worn
out by long years of manful toil in The People's Cause; and, saddest
thought of all, by disappointment in those for whom he spent his soul.
True, he was aged; no one knew how old. He had said, more than eighty
years; but we had shortened his life, and we knew it. He would never see
that deliverance for which he had been toiling ever since the days when as
a boy he had listened to Tooke and Cartwright, and the patriarchs of the
people's freedom. Bitter, bitter were our thoughts, and bitter were our
tears, as Crossthwaite and I stood watching that beloved face, now in death
refined to a grandeur, to a youthful simplicity and delicacy, which we had
never seen on it before--calm and strong--the square jaws set firm even
in death--the lower lip still clenched above the upper, as if in a divine
indignation and everlasting protest, even in the grave, against the
devourers of the earth. Yes, he was gone--the old lion, worn out with many
wounds, dead in his cage. Where could we replace him? There were gallant
men amongst us, eloquent, well-read, earnest--men whose names will ring
through this land ere long--men who had boon taught wisdom, even as he, by
the sinfulness, the apathy, the ingratitude, as well as by the sufferings
of their fellows. But where should we two find again the learning, the
moderation, the long experience, above all the more than women's tenderness
of him whom we had lost? And at that time, too, of all others! Alas! we had
despised his counsel: wayward and fierce we would have none of his reproof;
and now God has withdrawn him from us; the righteous was taken away from
the evil to come. For we knew that evil was coming. We felt all along that
we should _not_ succeed. But we were desperate; and his death made us more
desperate; still at the moment it drew us nearer to each other. Yes--we
were rudderless upon a roaring sea, and all before us blank with lurid
blinding mist: but still we were together, to live and die; and as we
looked into each other's eyes, and clasped each other's hands above the
dead man's face, we felt that there was love between us, as of Jonathan and
David, passing the love of woman.

Few words passed. Even our passionate artizan-nature, so sensitive
and voluble in general, in comparison with the cold reserve of the
field-labourer and the gentleman, was hushed in silent awe between the
thought of the past and the thought of the future. We felt ourselves
trembling between two worlds. We felt that to-morrow must decide our
destiny--and we felt rightly, though little we guessed what that destiny
would be!

But it was time to go. We had to prepare for the meeting, We must be at
Kennington Common within three hours at furthest; and Crossthwaite hurried
away, leaving Katie and me to watch the dead.

And then came across me the thought of another deathbed--my mother's--How
she had lain and lain, while I was far away--And then I wondered whether
she had suffered much, or faded away at last in a peaceful sleep, as he
had--And then I wondered how her corpse had looked; and pictured it to
myself, lying in the little old room day after day, till they screwed the
coffin down--before I came!--Cruel! Did she look as calm, as grand in death
as he who lay there? And as I watched the old man's features, I seemed
to trace in them the strangest likeness to my mother's. The strangest
likeness! I could not shake it off. It became intense--miraculous. Was it
she, or was it he, who lay there? I shook myself and rose. My loins ached,
my limbs were heavy; my brain and eyes swam round. I must be over fatigued
by excitement and sleeplessness. I would go down stairs into the fresh air,
and shake it off.

As I came down the passage, a woman, dressed in black, was standing at the
door, speaking to one of the lodgers. "And he is dead! Oh, if I had but
known sooner that he was even ill!"

That voice--that figure-surely, I knew them!--them, at least, there was
no mistaking! Or, was it another phantom of my disordered brain! I pushed
forward to the door, and as I did so, she turned and our eyes met full. It
was she--Lady Ellerton! sad, worn, transformed by widow's weeds, but that
face was like no other's still. Why did I drop my eyes and draw back at the
first glance like a guilty coward? She beckoned me towards her, went out
into the street, and herself began the conversation, from which I shrank, I
know not why.

"When did he die?"

"Just at sunrise this morning. But how came you here to visit him? Were you
the lady who, as he said, came to him a few days since?"

She did not answer my question. "At sunrise this morning?--A fitting time
for him to die, before he sees the ruin and disgrace of those for whom he
laboured. And you, too, I hear, are taking your share in this projected
madness and iniquity?"

"What right have you," I asked, bristling up at a sudden suspicion that
crossed me, "to use such words about me?"

"Recollect," she answered, mildly but firmly, "your conduct, three years
ago, at D * * * *."

"What," I said, "was it not proved upon my trial, that I exerted all my
powers, endangered my very life, to prevent outrage in that case?"

"It was proved upon your trial," she replied, in a marked tone; "but we
were informed, and alas! from authority only too good, namely, from that of
an ear-witness, of the sanguinary and ferocious language which you were not
afraid to use at the meeting in London, only two nights before the riot."