The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“I mean nothing wrong, Josepha. I only want to be let alone a bit until I find mysen.”

“Find thysen?”

“To be sure. Here’s our medical man at the mill telling me ‘I hev what he calls nerves.’ I hevn’t! Not I! I’m a bit tired of the days being all alike. I’d enjoy a bit of a scolding from Annie now for lying in bed half the morning, and as sure as I hev a varry important engagement at the mill, I hear the hounds, and the view, holloa! and it is as much as I can do to hold mysen in my chair. It is that thou doesn’t understand, I suppose.”

“I do understand. I hev the same feeling often. I want to do things I would do if I was only a man. Do exactly as thou feels to do, Antony, while the mill is out of sight and hearing.”

“Ay, I will.”

“How is our mill doing?”

“If tha calls making money doing well, then the Temple and Annis mill can’t be beat, so far.”

“I am glad to hear it. Wheniver the notion takes thee, come and see me. I hev a bit of private business that I want to speak to thee about.”

“To be sure I’ll come and see thee – often.”

“Then I’ll leave thee to thysen”

“I’ll be obliged to thee, Josepha. Thou allays hed more sense than the average woman, who never seems to understand that average men like now and then to be left to their awn will and way.”

“I’ll go back with thee to Annis and we can do all our talking there.”

“That’s sensible. We will take the early coach two weeks from to-day. I’ll call for thee at eleven o’clock, and we’ll stay over at the old inn at Market Harborough.”

“That is right. I’ll go my ways now. Take care of thysen and behave thysen as well as tha can,” and then she clasped his hand and went good-naturedly away. But as she rode home, she said to herself – “Poor lad! I’ll forgive and help him, whativer he does. I hope Annie will be as loving. I wonder why God made women so varry good. He knew what kind of men they would mebbe hev to live with. Poor Antony! I hope he’ll hev a real good time – I do that!” and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders and kept the rest of her speculations to herself.

The two weeks the squire had specified went its daily way, and Josepha received no letter from her brother, but at the time appointed he knocked at her door promptly and decidedly. Josepha had trusted him. She met him in warm traveling clothes, and they went away with a smile and a perfect trust in each other. Josepha knew better than to ask a man questions. She let him talk of what he had seen and heard, she made no inquiries as to what he had done, and when they were at Market Harborough he told her he had slept every hour away except those he spent in The House. “I felt as if I niver, niver, could sleep enough, Josepha. It was fair wonderful, and as it happened there were no night sessions I missed nothing I wanted to see or hear. But tha knows I’ll hev to tell Annie and mebbe others about The House, so I’ll keep that to mysen till we get all together. It wouldn’t bear two talks over. Would it now?”

“It would be better stuff than usual if it did, Antony. Thou wilt be much missed when it comes to debating.”

“I think I shall. I hev my word ready when it is the right time to say it, that is, generally speaking.”

Josepha’s visit was unexpected but Annie took it with apparent enthusiasm, and the two women together made such a fuss over the improvement in the squire’s appearance that Josepha could not help remembering the plaintive remarks of her brother about being too much cared for. However, nothing could really dampen the honest joy in the squire’s return, and when the evening meal had been placed upon the table and the fire stirred to a cheering blaze, the room was full of a delightful sense of happiness. A little incident put the finishing touch to Annie’s charming preparation. A servant stirred the fire with no apparent effect. Annie then tried to get blaze with no better result. Then the squire with one of his heartiest laughs took the apparently ineffectual poker.

“See here, women!” he cried. “You do iverything about a house better than a man except stirring a fire. Why? Because a woman allays stirs a fire from the top. That’s against all reason.” Then with a very decided hand he attacked the lower strata of coals and they broke up with something like a big laugh, crackling and sputtering flame and sparks, and filling the room with a joyful illumination. And in this happy atmosphere they sat down to eat and to talk together.

Josepha had found a few minutes to wash her face and put her hair straight, the squire had been pottering about his wife and the luggage and the fire and was still in his fine broadcloth traveling suit, which with its big silver buttons, its smart breeches and top boots, its line of scarlet waistcoat and plentiful show of white cambric round the throat, made him an exceedingly handsome figure. And if the husbands who may chance to read of this figure will believe it, this good man, so carefully dressed, had thought as he put on every garment, of the darling wife he wished still to please above all others.

The first thing the squire noticed was the absence of Dick and Faith.

“Where are they?” he asked in a disappointed tone.

“Well, Antony,” said Josepha, “Annie was just telling me that Dick hed gone to Bradford to buy a lot of woolen yarns; if so be he found they were worth the asking price, and as Faith’s father is now in Bradford, it was only natural she should wish to go with him.”

“Varry natural, but was it wise? I niver could abide a woman traipsing after me when I hed any business on hand.”

“There’s where you made a mistake, Antony. If Annie hed been a business woman, you would hev built yoursen a mill twenty years ago.”

“Ay, I would, if Annie hed asked me. Not without. When is Dick to be home?”

“Some time to-morrow,” answered Annie. “He is anxious to see thee. He isn’t on any loitering business.”

“Well, Josepha, there is no time for loitering. All England is spinning like a whipped top at full speed. In Manchester and Preston the wheels of the looms go merrily round. Oh, there is so much I want to do!”

They had nearly finished a very happy meal when there was a sound of men’s voices coming nearer and nearer and the silver and china stopped their tinkling and the happy trio were still a moment as they listened. “It will be Jonathan and a few of the men to get the news from me,” said the squire.

“Well, Antony, I thought of that and there is a roaring fire in the ballroom and the chairs are set out, and thou can talk to them from the orchestra.” And the look of love that followed this information made Annie’s heart feel far too big for everyday comfort.

There were about fifty men to seat. Jonathan was their leader and spokesman, and he went to the orchestra with the squire and stood by the squire’s chair, and when ordinary courtesies had been exchanged, Jonathan said, “Squire, we want thee to tell us about the Reform Parliament. The Yorkshire Post says thou were present, and we felt that we might ask thee to tell us about it.”

“For sure I will. I was there as soon as the House was opened, and John O’Connell went in with me. He was one of the ‘Dan O’Connell household brigade,’ which consists of old Dan, his three sons, and two sons-in-law. They were inclined to quarrel with everyone, and impudently took their seats on the front benches as if to awe the Ministerial Whigs who were exactly opposite them. William Cobbett was the most conspicuous man among them. He was poorly dressed in a suit of pepper and salt cloth, made partly like a Quaker’s and partly like a farmer’s suit, and he hed a white hat on.3 His head was thrown backward so as to give the fullest view of his shrewd face and his keen, cold eyes. Cobbett had no respect for anyone, and in his first speech a bitter word niver failed him if he was speaking of the landed gentry whom he called ‘unfeeling tyrants’ and the lords of the loom he called ‘rich ruffians.’ Even the men pleading for schools for the poor man’s children were ‘education-cantors’ to him, and he told them plainly that nothing would be good for the working man that did not increase his victuals, his drink and his clothing.

“Is that so, men?” asked the squire. He was answered by a “No!” whose style of affirmation was too emphatic to be represented by written words.

“But the Reform Bill, squire? What was said about the Reform Bill and the many good things it promised us?”

“I niver heard it named, men. And I may as well tell you now that you need expect nothing in a hurry. All that really has been given you is an opportunity to help yoursens. Listen to me. The Reform Bill has taken from sixty boroughs both their members, and forty-seven boroughs hev been reduced to one member. These changes will add at least half a million voters to the list, and this half-million will all come from the sturdy and generally just, great middle class of England. It will mebbe take another generation to include the working class, and a bit longer to hev the laboring class educated sufficiently to vote. That is England’s slow, sure way. It doan’t say it is the best way, but it is our way, and none of us can hinder or hasten it.4

“In the meantime you have received from your own class of famous inventors a loom that can make every man a master. Power-loom weaving is the most healthy, the best paid, and the pleasantest of all occupations. With the exception of the noise of the machinery, it has nothing disagreeable about it. You that already own your houses take care of them. Every inch of your ground will soon be worth gold. I wouldn’t wonder to see you, yoursens, build your awn mills upon it. Oh, there is nothing difficult in that to a man who trusts in God and believes in himsen.

“And men, when you hev grown to be rich men, doan’t forget your God and your Country. Stick to your awn dear country. Make your money in it. Be Englishmen until God gives you a better country, Which won’t be in this world. But whether you go abroad, or whether you stay at home, niver forget the mother that bore you. She’ll niver forget you. And if a man hes God and his mother to plead for him, he is well off, both for this world and the next.”

“That is true, squire.”

“God has put us all in the varry place he thought best for the day’s work He wanted from us. It is more than a bit for’ardson in us telling Him we know better than He does, and go marching off to Australia or New Zealand or Canada. It takes a queer sort of a chap to manage life in a strange country full of a contrary sort of human beings. Yorkshire men are all Yorkshire. They hevn’t room in their shape and make-up for new-fangled ways and ideas. You hev a deal to be proud of in England that wouldn’t be worth a half-penny anywhere else. It’s a varry difficult thing to be an Englishman and a Yorkshireman, which is the best kind of an Englishman, as far as I know, and not brag a bit about it. There’s no harm in a bit of honest bragging about being himsen a Roman citizen and I do hope a straight for-ard Englishman may do what St. Paul did – brag a bit about his citizenship. And as I hev just said, I say once more, don’t leave England unless you hev a clear call to do so; but if you do, then make up your minds to be a bit more civil to the strange people than you usually are to strangers. It is a common saying in France and Italy that Englishmen will eat no beef but English beef, nor be civil to any God but their awn God. I doan’t say try to please iverybody, just do your duty, and do it pleasantly. That’s about all we can any of us manage, eh, Jonathan?”

“We are told, sir, to do to others as we would like them to do to us.”

“For sure! But a great many Yorkshire people translate that precept into this – ‘Tak’ care of Number One.’ Let strangers’ religion and politics alone. Most – I might as well say all– of you men here, take your politics as seriously as you take your religion, and that is saying a great deal. I couldn’t put it stronger, could I, Jonathan?”

“No, sir! I doan’t think you could. It is a varry true comparison. It is surely.”

“Now, lads, in the future, it is to be work and pray, and do the varry best you can with your new looms. It may so happen that in the course of years some nation that hes lost the grip of all its good and prudent senses, will try to invade England. It isn’t likely, but it might be. Then I say to each man of you, without an hour’s delay, do as I’ve often heard you sing —

“ ‘Off with your labor cap! rush to the van!The sword is your tool, and the height of your planIs to turn yoursen into a fighting man.’

“Lads, I niver was much on poetry but when I was a varry young man, I learned eleven lines that hev helped me in many hours of trial and temptation to remember that I was an English gentleman, and so bound by birth and honor to behave like one.”

“Will tha say them eleven lines to us, squire? Happen they might help us a bit, too.”

“I am sure of it, Jonathan.” With these words, the kind-hearted, scrupulously honorable gentleman lifted his hat, and as he did so, fifty paper caps were lifted as if by one hand and the men who wore them rose as one man.

“You may keep your standing, lads, the eleven lines are worthy of that honor; and then in a proud, glad enthusiasm, the squire repeated them with such a tone of love and such a grandeur of diction and expression as no words can represent: —

“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-Paradise;This fortress built by Nature for herself,Against infection, and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall —Or as a moat defensive to a house —Against the envy of less happier lands.This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England!”

And the orator and his audience were all nearer crying than they knew, for it was pride and love that made their hearts beat so high and their eyes overflow with happy tears. The room felt as if it was on fire, and every man that hour knew that Patriotism is one of the holiest sentiments of the soul. With lifted caps, they went away in the stillness of that happiness, which the language of earth has not one word to represent.

CHAPTER XIV – A RECALL

AFTER this event I never saw Squire Antony Annis any more. Within a week, I had left the place, and I was not there again until the year A. D. 1884, a period of fifty-one years. Yet the lovely village was clear enough in my memory. I approached it by one of the railroads boring their way through the hills and valleys surrounding the place, and as I did so, I recalled vividly its pretty primitive cottages – each one set in its own garden of herbs and flowers. I could hear the clattering of the looms in the loom sheds attached to most of these dwellings. I could see the handsome women with their large, rosy families, and the burly men standing in groups discussing some recent sermon, or horse race, or walking with their sweethearts; and perhaps singing “The Lily of the Valley,” or “There is a Land of Pure Delight!” I could hear or see the children laughing or quarreling, or busy with their bobbins at the spinning wheel, and I could even follow every note of the melody the old church chimes were flinging into the clear, sweet atmosphere above me.

In reality, I had no hopes of seeing or hearing any of these things again, and the nearer I approached Annis Railroad Station, the more surely I was aware that my expectation of disappointment was a certain presage. I found the once lovely village a large town, noisy and dirty and full of red mills. There were whole streets of them, their lofty walls pierced with more windows than there are days in a year, and their enormously high chimneys shutting out the horizon as with a wall. The street that had once overlooked the clear fast-running river was jammed with mills, the river had become foul and black with the refuse of dyeing materials and other necessities of mill labor.

The village had totally disappeared. In whatever direction I looked there was nothing but high brick mills, with enormously lofty chimneys lifted up into the smoky atmosphere. However, as my visit was in the winter, I had many opportunities of seeing these hundreds and thousands of mill windows lit up in the early mornings and in the twilight of the autumn evenings. It was a marvelous and unforget-able sight. Nothing could make commonplace this sudden, silent, swift appearance of light from the myriad of windows, up the hills, and down the hills, through the valleys, and following the river, and lighting up the wolds, every morning and every evening, just for the interval of dawning and twilight. As a spectacle it is indescribable; there is no human vocabulary has a word worthy of it.

The operatives were as much changed as the place. All traces of that feudal loyalty which had existed between Squire Annis and his weavers, had gone forever, with home and hand-labor, and individual bargaining. The power-loom weaver was even then the most independent of all workers. And men, women and children were well educated, for among the first bills passed by Parliament after the Reform Bill was one founding National schools over the length and breadth of England; and the third generation since was then entering them. “Now that you have given the people the vote,” said Lord Brougham, “you must educate them. The men who say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to England’s national problems must be able to read all about them.” So National Schools followed The Bill, and I found in Annis a large Public Library, young men’s Debating Societies, and courses of lectures, literary and scientific.

On the following Sunday night, I went to the Methodist chapel. The old one had disappeared, but a large handsome building stood on its site. The moment I entered it, I was met by the cheerful Methodist welcome and because I was a stranger I was taken to the Preacher’s pew. Someone was playing a voluntary, on an exceptionally fine organ, and in the midst of a pathetic minor passage – which made me feel as if I had just lost Eden over again – there was a movement, and with transfigured faces the whole congregation rose to its feet and began to sing. The voluntary had slipped into the grand psalm tune called “Olivet” and a thousand men and women, a thousand West Riding voices, married the grand old Psalm tune to words equally grand —

“Lo! He comes with clouds descending,Once for favored sinners slain;Thousand, thousand saints attending,Swell the triumph of his train.Halleluiah!God appears on the earth to reign.“Yea, Amen! let all adore thee,High on Thy eternal throne;Savior, take the power and glory!Claim the kingdom for Thine own.Halleluiah!Everlasting God come down!”

And at this hour I am right glad, because my memory recalls that wonderful congregational singing; even as I write the words, I hear it. It was not Emotionalism. No, indeed! It was a good habit of the soul.

The next morning I took an early train to the cathedral city of Ripon, and every street I passed through on my way to the North-Western Station was full of mills. You could not escape the rattle of their machinery, nor the plunging of the greasy piston rods at every window. It was not yet eight o’clock, but the station was crowded with men carrying samples of every kind of wool or cotton. They were neighbors, and often friends, but they took no notice of each other. They were on business, and their hands were full of bundles. So full that I saw several men who could not manage their railway ticket, and let the conductor take it from their teeth.

Now when I travel, I like to talk with my company, but as I looked around, I could not persuade myself that any of these business-saturated men would condescend to converse with an inquisitive woman. However, a little further on, a very complete clergyman came into my compartment. He looked at me inquiringly, and I felt sure he was speculating about my social position. So I hastened to put him at ease, by some inquiries about the Annis family.

“O dear me!” he replied. “So you remember the old Squire Antony! How Time does fly! The Annis people still love and obey Squire Antony. I suppose he is the only person they do love and obey. How long is it since you were here?”

“Over fifty years. I saw the great Reform Bill passed, just before I left Annis in 1833.”

“You mean the first part of it?”

“Well, then, sir, had it more than one part?”

“I should say so. It seemed to need a deal of altering and repairing. The Bill you saw pass was Grey’s bill. It cleaned up the Lords and Commons, and landed gentlemen of England. Thirty-five years later, Derby and Disraeli’s Reform Bill gave the Franchise to the great middle class, mechanics and artizan classes, and this very year Gladstone extended the Bill to take in more than two millions of agricultural and day laborers. It has made a deal of difference with all classes.”

“I think it is quite a coincidence that I should be here at the finish of this long struggle. I have seen the beginning and the end of it. Really quite a coincidence,” and I laughed a little foolish laugh, for the clergyman did not laugh with me. On the contrary he said thoughtfully: “Coincidences come from higher intelligences than ourselves. We cannot control them, but they are generally fortunate.”

“Higher intelligences than ourselves?” I asked. “Yes. This world is both the workfield and the battlefield of those sent to minister unto souls who are to be heirs of salvation, and who perhaps, in their turn, become comforting and helpful spirits to the children of men. Yes. A coincidence is generally a fortunate circumstance. Someone higher than ourselves, has to do with it. Are you an American?”

“I have lived in America for half-a-century.”

“In what part of America?”

“In many parts, north and south and west. My life has been full of changes.”

“Change is good fortune. Yes, it is. To change is to live, and to have changed often, is to have had a perfect life.”

“Do you think the weavers of Annis much improved by all the changes that steam and machinery have brought to them?”

“No. Machinery confers neither moral nor physical perfection, and steam and iron and electricity do not in any way affect the moral nature. Men lived and died before these things were known. They could do so again.”

Here the guard came and unlocked our carriage, and my companion gathered his magazines and newspapers together and the train began to slow up. He turned to me with a smile and said, “Good-by, friend. Go on having changes, and fear not.”

“But if I do fear?”

“Look up, and say:

“O Thou who changest not! Abide with me!”

With these words he went away forever. I had not even asked his name, nor had he asked mine. We were just two wayfarers passing each other on life’s highway. He had brought me a message, and then departed. But there are other worlds beyond this. We had perhaps been introduced for this future. For I do believe that no one touches our life here, who has not some business or right to do so. For our lives before this life and our lives yet to be are all one, separated only by the little sleep we call death.

I reached Ripon just at nightfall, and the quiet of the cathedral city, its closed houses, and peaceful atmosphere, did not please me. After the stress and rush of the West Riding, I thought the place must be asleep. On the third morning I asked myself, “What are you doing here? What has the past to give you? To-day is perhaps yours – Yesterday is as unattainable as To-morrow.” Then the thought of New York stirred me, and I hastened and took the fastest train for Liverpool, and in eight days I had crossed the sea, and was in New York and happily and busily at work again.

But I did not dismiss Annis from my memory and when the first mutterings of the present war was heard, I remembered Squire Antony, and his charge to the weavers of Annis – “It may so happen,” he said, “that in the course of years, some nation, that has lost the grip of all its good senses, will try to invade England. It isn’t likely, but it might be so. Then I say to each of you, and every man of you, without one hour’s delay, do as I have often heard you sing, and say you would do: —

“ ‘Off with your Labor Cap! rush to the van!The sword for your tool, and the height of your planTo turn yoursen into a fighting man!

Would they do so?

As I repeated the squire’s order, I fell naturally into the Yorkshire form of speech and it warmed my heart and set it beating high and fast.