Sybil, Or, The Two Nations

See too these emerge from the bowels of the earth! Infants of four and five years of age, many of them girls, pretty and still soft and timid; entrusted with the fulfilment of most responsible duties, and the nature of which entails on them the necessity of being the earliest to enter the mine and the latest to leave it. Their labour indeed is not severe, for that would be impossible, but it is passed in darkness and in solitude. They endure that punishment which philosophical philanthropy has invented for the direst criminals, and which those criminals deem more terrible than the death for which it is substituted. Hour after hour elapses, and all that reminds the infant Trappers of the world they have quitted and that which they have joined, is the passage of the coal-waggons for which they open the air-doors of the galleries, and on keeping which doors constantly closed, except at this moment of passage, the safety of the mine and the lives of the persons employed in it entirely depend.

Sir Joshua, a man of genius and a courtly artist, struck by the seraphic countenance of Lady Alice Gordon, when a child of very tender years, painted the celestial visage in various attitudes on the same canvass, and styled the group of heavenly faces—guardian angels!

We would say to some great master of the pencil, Mr Landseer or Mr Etty, go thou to the little trappers and do likewise!

A small party of miners approached a house of more pretension than the generality of the dwellings, and announcing its character by a very flagrant sign of the Rising Sun. They entered it as men accustomed, and were greeted with smiles and many civil words from the lady at the bar, who inquired very cheerfully what the gentlemen would have. They soon found themselves seated in the tap, and, though it was not entirely unoccupied, in their accustomed places, for there seemed a general understanding that they enjoyed a prescriptive right.

With hunches of white bread in their black hands, and grinning with their sable countenances and ivory teeth, they really looked like a gang of negroes at a revel.

The cups of ale circulated, the pipes were lighted, the preliminary puffs achieved. There was at length silence, when he who seemed their leader and who filled a sort of president’s seat, took his pipe from his mouth, and then uttering the first complete sentence that had yet been expressed aloud, thus delivered himself.

“The fact is we are tommied to death.”

“You never spoke a truer word, Master Nixon,” said one of his companions.

“It’s gospel, every word of it,” said another.

“And the point is,” continued Master Nixon, “what are we for to do?”

“Ay, surely,” said a collier; “that’s the marrow.”

“Ay, ay,” agreed several; “there it is.”

“The question is,” said Nixon, looking round with a magisterial air, “what is wages? I say, tayn’t sugar, tayn’t tea, tayn’t bacon. I don’t think it’s candles; but of this I be sure, tayn’t waistcoats.”

Here there was a general groan.

“Comrades,” continued Nixon, “you know what has happened; you know as how Juggins applied for his balance after his tommy-book was paid up, and that incarnate nigger Diggs has made him take two waistcoats. Now the question rises, what is a collier to do with waistcoats? Pawn ‘em I s’pose to Diggs’ son-in-law, next door to his father’s shop, and sell the ticket for sixpence. Now there’s the question; keep to the question; the question is waistcoats and tommy; first waistcoats and then tommy.”

“I have been making a pound a-week these two months past,” said another, “but as I’m a sinner saved, I have never seen the young queen’s picture yet.”

“And I have been obliged to pay the doctor for my poor wife in tommy,” said another. “‘Doctor,’ I said, says I, ‘I blush to do it, but all I have got is tommy, and what shall it be, bacon or cheese?’ ‘Cheese at tenpence a pound,’ says he, ‘which I buy for my servants at sixpence. Never mind,’ says he, for he is a thorough Christian, ‘I’ll take the tommy as I find it.’”

“Juggins has got his rent to pay and is afeard of the bums,” said Nixon; “and he has got two waistcoats!”

“Besides,” said another, “Diggs’ tommy is only open once a-week, and if you’re not there in time, you go over for another seven days. And it’s such a distance, and he keeps a body there such a time—it’s always a day’s work for my poor woman; she can’t do nothing after it, what with the waiting and the standing and the cussing of Master Joseph Diggs,—for he do swear at the women, when they rush in for the first turn, most fearful.”

“They do say he’s a shocking little dog.”

“Master Joseph is wery wiolent, but there is no one like old Diggs for grabbing a bit of one’s wages. He do so love it! And then he says you never need be at no loss for nothing; you can find everything under my roof. I should like to know who is to mend our shoes. Has Gaffer Diggs a cobbler’s stall?”

“Or sell us a penn-orth of potatoes,” said another. “Or a ha’porth of milk.”

“No; and so to get them one is obliged to go and sell some tommy, and much one gets for it. Bacon at ninepence a-pound at Diggs’, which you may get at a huckster’s for sixpence, and therefore the huckster can’t be expected to give you more than fourpence halfpenny, by which token the tommy in our field just cuts our wages atween the navel.”

“And that’s as true as if you heard it in church, Master Waghorn.”

“This Diggs seems to be an oppressor of the people,” said a voice from a distant corner of the room.

Master Nixon looked around, smoked, puffed, and then said, “I should think he wor; as bloody-a-hearted butty as ever jingled.”

“But what business has a butty to keep a shop?” inquired the stranger. “The law touches him.”

“I should like to know who would touch the law,” said Nixon; “not I for one. Them tommy shops is very delicate things; they won’t stand no handling, I can tell you that.”

“But he cannot force you to take goods,” said the stranger; “he must pay you in current coin of the realm, if you demand it.”

“They only pay us once in five weeks,” said a collier; “and how is a man to live meanwhile. And suppose we were to make shift for a month or five weeks, and have all our money coming, and have no tommy out of the shop, what would the butty say to me? He would say, ‘do you want e’er a note this time’ and if I was to say ‘no,’ then he would say, ‘you’ve no call to go down to work any more here.’ And that’s what I call forsation.”

“Ay, ay,” said another collier; “ask for the young queen’s picture, and you would soon have to put your shirt on, and go up the shaft.”

“It’s them long reckonings that force us to the tommy shops,” said another collier; “and if a butty turns you away because you won’t take no tommy, you’re a marked man in every field about.”1

“There’s wus things as tommy,” said a collier who had hitherto been silent, “and that’s these here butties. What’s going on in the pit is known only to God Almighty and the colliers. I have been a consistent methodist for many years, strived to do well, and all the harm I have ever done to the butties was to tell them that their deeds would not stand on the day of judgment.

“They are deeds of darkness surely; for many’s the morn we work for nothing, by one excuse or another, and many’s the good stint that they undermeasure. And many’s the cup of their ale that you must drink before they will give you any work. If the queen would do something for us poor men, it would be a blessed job.”

“There ayn’t no black tyrant on this earth like a butty, surely,” said a collier; “and there’s no redress for poor men.”

“But why do not you state your grievances to the landlords and lessees,” said the stranger.

“I take it you be a stranger in these parts, sir,” said Master Nixon, following up this remark by a most enormous puff. He was the oracle of his circle, and there was silence whenever he was inclined to address them, which was not too often, though when he spoke, his words, as his followers often observed, were a regular ten-yard coal.

“I take it you be a stranger in these parts, sir, or else you would know that it’s as easy for a miner to speak to a mainmaster, as it is for me to pick coal with this here clay. Sir, there’s a gulf atween ‘em. I went into the pit when I was five year old, and I count forty year in the service come Martinmas, and a very good age, sir, for a man what does his work, and I knows what I’m speaking about. In forty year, sir, a man sees a pretty deal, ‘specially when he don’t move out of the same spot and keeps his ‘tention. I’ve been at play, sir, several times in forty year, and have seen as great stick-outs as ever happened in this country. I’ve seen the people at play for weeks together, and so clammed that I never tasted nothing but a potatoe and a little salt for more than a fortnight. Talk of tommy, that was hard fare, but we were holding out for our rights, and that’s sauce for any gander. And I’ll tell you what, sir, that I never knew the people play yet, but if a word had passed atween them and the main-masters aforehand, it might not have been settled; but you can’t get at them any way. Atween the poor man and the gentleman there never was no connection, and that’s the wital mischief of this country.

“It’s a very true word, Master Nixon, and by this token that when we went to play in —28, and the masters said they would meet us; what did they do but walk about the ground and speak to the butties. The butties has their ear.”

“We never want no soldiers here if the masters would speak with the men; but the sight of a pitman is pison to a gentleman, and if we go up to speak with ‘em, they always run away.”

“It’s the butties,” said Nixon; “they’re wusser nor tommy.”

“The people will never have their rights,” said the stranger, “until they learn their power. Suppose instead of sticking out and playing, fifty of your families were to live under one roof. You would live better than you live now; you would feed more fully, and he lodged and clothed more comfortably, and you might save half the amount of your wages; you would become capitalists; you might yourselves hire your mines and pits from the owners, and pay them a better rent than they now obtain, and yet yourselves gain more and work less.”

“Sir,” said Mr Nixon, taking his pipe from his mouth, and sending forth a volume of smoke, “you speak like a book.”

“It is the principle of association,” said the stranger; “the want of the age.”

“Sir,” said Mr Nixon, “this here age wants a great deal, but what it principally wants is to have its wages paid in the current coin of the realm.”

Soon after this there were symptoms of empty mugs and exhausted pipes, and the party began to stir. The stranger addressing Nixon, enquired of him what was their present distance from Wodgate.

“Wodgate!” exclaimed Mr Nixon with an unconscious air.

“The gentleman means Hell-house Yard,” said one of his companions.

“I’m at home,” said Mr Nixon, “but ‘tis the first time I ever heard Hell-house Yard called Wodgate.”

“It’s called so in joggraphy,” said Juggins.

“But you hay’nt going to Hell-house Yard this time of night!” said Mr Nixon. “I’d as soon think of going down the pit with the windlass turned by lushy Bob.”

“Tayn’t a journey for Christians,” said Juggins.

“They’re a very queer lot even in sunshine,” said another.

“And how far is it?” asked the stranger.

“I walked there once in three hours,” said a collier, “but that was to the wake. If you want to see divils carnal, there’s your time of day. They’re no less than heathens, I be sure. I’d be sorry to see even our butty among them, for he is a sort of a Christian when he has taken a glass of ale.”

Book 3 Chapter 2

Two days after the visit of Egremont to the cottage of Walter Gerard, the visit of the Marney family to Mowbray terminated, and they returned to the Abbey.

There is something mournful in the breaking up of an agreeable party, and few are the roofs in which one has sojourned, which are quitted without some feeling of depression. The sudden cessation of all those sources of excitement which pervade a gay and well arranged mansion in the country, unstrings the nervous system. For a week or so, we have done nothing which was not agreeable, and heard nothing which was not pleasant. Our self-love has been respected; there has been a total cessation of petty cares; all the enjoyment of an establisnment without any of its solicitude. We have beheld civilization only in its favoured aspect, and tasted only the sunny side of the fruit. Sometimes there are associations with our visit of a still sweeter and softer character, but on these we need not dwell: glances that cannot be forgotten, and tones that linger in the ear; sentiment that subdues the soul, and flirtation that agitates the fancy. No matter, whatever may be the cause, one too often drives away from a country-house, rather hipped. The specific would be immediately to drive to another, and it is a favourite remedy. But sometimes it is not in our power; sometimes for instance we must return to our household gods in the shape of a nursery; and though this was not the form assumed by the penates of Lord Marney, his presence, the presence of an individual so important and so indefatigable, was still required. His Lordship had passed his time at Mowbray to his satisfaction. He had had his own way in everything. His selfishness had not received a single shock. He had lain down the law and it had not been questioned. He had dogmatised and impugned, and his assertions had passed current, and his doctrines been accepted as orthodox. Lord Mowbray suited him; he liked the consideration of so great a personage. Lord Marney also really liked pomp; a curious table and a luxurious life; but he liked them under any roof rather than his own. Not that he was what is commonly called a Screw; that is to say he was not a mere screw; but he was acute and malicious; saw everybody’s worth and position at a glance; could not bear to expend his choice wines and costly viands on hangers-on and toad-eaters, though at the same time no man encouraged and required hangers-on and toad-eaters more. Lord Marney had all the petty social vices, and none of those petty social weaknesses which soften their harshness or their hideousness. To receive a prince of the blood or a great peer he would spare nothing. Had he to fulfil any of the public duties of his station, his performance would baffle criticism. But he enjoyed making the Vicar of Marney or Captain Grouse drink some claret that was on the wane, or praise a bottle of Burgundy that he knew was pricked.

Little things affect little minds. Lord Marney rose in no very good humour; he was kept at the station, which aggravated his spleen. During his journey on the railroad he spoke little, and though he more than once laboured to get up a controversy he was unable, for Lady Marney, who rather dreaded her dull home, and was not yet in a tone of mind that could hail the presence of the little Poinsett as full compensation for the brilliant circle of Mowbray, replied in amiable monosyllables, and Egremont himself in austere ones, for he was musing over Sybil Gerard and a thousand things as wild and sweet.

Everything went wrong this day. Even Captain Grouse was not at the Abbey to welcome them back. He was playing in a cricket match, Marney against Marham. Nothing else would have induced him to be absent. So it happened that the three fellow-travellers had to dine together, utterly weary of themselves and of each other. Captain Grouse was never more wanted; he would have amused Lord Marney, relieved his wife and brother, reported all that had been said and done in their neighbourhood during their absence, introduced a new tone, and effected a happy diversion. Leaving Mowbray, detained at the station, Grouse away, some disagreeable letters, or letters which an ill-humoured man chooses to esteem disagreeable, seemed to announce a climax. Lord Marney ordered the dinner to be served in the small dining-room, which was contiguous to a saloon in which Lady Marney, when they were alone, generally passed the evening.

The dinner was silent and sombre; happily it was also short. Lord Marney tasted several dishes, ate of none; found fault with his own claret, though the butler had given him a choice bottle; praised Lord Mowbray’s, wondered where he got it, “all the wines at Mowbray were good;” then for the twentieth time wondered what could have induced Grouse to fix the cricket match the day he returned home, though he chose to forget that he had never communicated to Grouse even the probable day on which he might be expected.

As for Egremont it must be admitted that he was scarcely in a more contented mood than his brother, though he had not such insufficient cause for his dark humours. In quitting Mowbray, he had quitted something else than merely an agreeable circle: enough had happened in that visit to stir up the deep recesses of his heart, and to prompt him to investigate in an unusual spirit the cause and attributes of his position. He had found a letter on his return to the Abbey, not calculated to dispel these somewhat morbid feelings; a letter from his agent, urging the settlement of his election accounts, the primary cause of his visit to his brother.

Lady Marney left the dining-room; the brothers were alone. Lord Marney filled a bumper, which he drank off rapidly, pushed the bottle to his brother, and then said again, “What a cursed bore it is that Grouse is not here.”

“Well, I cannot say, George, that I particularly miss the presence of Captain Grouse,” said his brother.

Lord Marney looked at Egremont pugnaciously, and then observed, “Grouse is a capital fellow; one is never dull when Grouse is here.”

“Well, for my part,” said Egremont, “I do not much admire that amusement which is dependent on the efforts of hangers-on.”

“Grouse is no more a hanger-on than any one else,” said Lord Marney, rather fiercely.

“Perhaps not,” said Egremont quietly; “I am no judge of such sort of people.”

“I should like to know what you are a judge of; certainly not of making yourself agreeable to young ladies. Arabella cannot he particularly charmed with the result of your visit to Mowbray, as far as Lady Joan is concerned, Arabella’s most intimate friend by the bye. If for no other reason, you ought to have paid her more attention.”

“I cannot pay attention unless I am attracted,” said Egremont; “I have not the ever-ready talent of your friend, Captain Grouse.”

“I do not know what you mean by my friend Captain Grouse. Captain Grouse is no more my friend than your friend. One must have people about the house to do a thousand things which one cannot do oneself, and which one cannot trust to servants, and Grouse does all this capitally.”

“Exactly; he is just what I said, a capital hanger-on if you like, but still a hanger-on.”

“Well, and what then! Suppose he is a hanger-on; may I not have hangers-on as well as any other man?”

“Of course you may; but I am not bound to regret their absence.”

“Who said you were? But I will regret their absence, if I choose. And I regret the absence of Grouse, regret it very much; and if he did happen to be inextricably engaged in this unfortunate match, I say, and you may contradict me if you please, that he ought to have taken care that Slimsey dined here, to tell me all that had happened.”

“I am very glad he omitted to do so,” said Egremont; “I prefer Grouse to Slimsey.”

“I dare say you do,” said Lord Marney, filling his glass and looking very black; “you would like, I have no doubt, to see a fine gentleman-saint, like your friend Mr St Lys, at Marney, preaching in cottages, filling the people with discontent, lecturing me about low wages, soliciting plots of grounds for new churches, and inveigling Arabella into subscriptions to painted windows.”

“I certainly should like to see a man like Aubrey St Lys at Marney,” said Egremont quietly, but rather doggedly.

“And if he were here, I would soon see who should be master,” said Lord Marney; “I would not succumb like Mowbray. One might as well have a jesuit in the house at once.”

“I dare say St Lys would care very little about entering your house,” said Egremont. “I know it was with great reluctance that he ever came to Mowbray Castle.”

“I dare say; very great reluctance indeed. And very reluctant he was, I make no doubt, to sit next to Lady Maud. I wonder he does not fly higher, and preach to Lady Joan; but she is too sensible a woman for such fanatical tricks.”

“St Lys thinks it his duty to enter all societies. That is the reason why he goes to Mowbray Castle, as well as to the squalid courts and cellars of the town. He takes care that those who are clad in purple and fine linen shall know the state of their neighbours. They cannot at least plead ignorance for the nonfulfilment of their duty. Before St Lys’s time, the family at Mowbray Castle might as well have not existed, as far as benefiting their miserable vicinage. It would be well perhaps for other districts not less wretched, and for other families as high and favoured as the Mowbrays, if there were a Mr St Lys on the spot instead of a Mr Slimsey.”

“I suppose that is meant for a cut,” said Lord Marney; “but I wish the people were as well off in every part of the country as they are on my estate. They get here their eight shillings a week, always at least seven, and every hand is at this moment in employ, except a parcel of scoundrels who prefer woodstealing and poaching, and who would prefer wood-stealing and poaching if you gave them double the wages. The rate of wages is nothing: certainty is the thing; and every man at Marney may be sure of his seven shillings a-week for at least nine months in the year; and for the other three, they can go to the House, and a very proper place for them; it is heated with hot air, and has every comfort. Even Marney Abbey is not heated with hot air. I have often thought of it; it makes me mad sometimes to think of those lazy, pampered menials passing their lives with their backs to a great roaring fire; but I am afraid of the flues.”

“I wonder, talking of fires, that you are not more afraid of burning ricks,” said Egremont.

“It’s an infernal lie,” said Lord Marney, very violently.

“What is?” said Egremont.

“That there is any incendiarism in this neighbourhood.”

“Why, there was a fire the day after I came.”

“That had nothing to do with wages; it was an accident. I examined into it myself; so did Grouse, so did Slimsey; I sent them about everywhere. I told them I was sure the fire was purely accidental, and to go and see about it; and they came back and agreed that it was purely accidental.”

“I dare say they did,” said Egremont; “but no one has discovered the accident.”

“For my part, I believe it was spontaneous combustion,” said Lord Marney.

“That is a satisfactory solution.” said Egremont, “but for my part, the fire being a fact, and it being painfully notorious that the people of Marney—”

“Well, sir, the people of Marney”—said his lordship fiercely.

“Are without question the most miserable population in the county.”

“Did Mr St Lys tell you that?” interrupted Lord Marney, white with rage.

“No, not Mr Lys, but one better acquainted with the neighbourhood.”

“I’ll know your informant’s name,” said Lord Marney with energy.

“My informant was a woman,” said Egremont.

“Lady Maud, I suppose; second-hand from Mr St Lys.”

“Mv informant was a woman, and one of the people,” said Egremont.

“Some poacher’s drab! I don’t care what women say, high or low, they always exaggerate.”

“The misery of a family who live upon seven or even eight shillings a-week can scarcely be exaggerated.”

“What should you know about it? Did you ever live on seven or eight shillings a-week? What can you know about the people who pass your time at London clubs or in fine country houses? I suppose you want the people to live as they do at a house dinner at Boodle’s. I say that a family can live very well on seven shillings a-week, and on eight shillings very well indeed. The poor are very well off, at least the agricultural poor, very well off indeed. Their incomes are certain, that is a great point, and they have no cares, no anxieties; they always have a resource, they always have the House. People without cares do not require as much food as those whose life entails anxieties. See how long they live! Compare the rate of mortality among them with that of the manufacturing districts. Incendiarism indeed! If there had been a proper rural police, such a thing as incendiarism would never have been heard of!”