Mary Barton Page #61

Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of Manchester between 1839 and 1842, and deals with the difficulties faced by the Victorian working class.

• Novel

								

placard for the walls. He proposed sending delegates to entreat the
assistance of other Trades' Unions in other towns. He headed the list
of subscribing Unions, by a liberal donation from that with which
he was especially connected in London; and what was more, and more
uncommon, he paid down the money in real, clinking, blinking, golden
sovereigns! The money, alas, was cravingly required; but before
alleviating any private necessities on the morrow, small sums were
handed to each of the delegates, who were in a day or two to set out
on their expeditions to Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, &c. These
men were most of them members of the deputation who had that morning
waited upon the masters. After he had drawn up some letters, and
spoken a few more stirring words, the gentleman from London withdrew,
previously shaking hands all round; and many speedily followed him
out of the room, and out of the house.

The newly-appointed delegates, and one or two others, remained behind
to talk over their respective missions, and to give and exchange
opinions in more homely and natural language than they dared to use
before the London orator.

"He's a rare chap, yon," began one, indicating the departed delegate
by a jerk of his thumb towards the door. "He's gotten the gift of the
gab, anyhow!"

"Ay! ay! he knows what he's about. See how he poured it into us about
that there Brutus. He were pretty hard, too, to kill his own son!"

"I could kill mine if he took part wi' the masters; to be sure, he's
but a step-son, but that makes no odds," said another.

But now tongues were hushed, and all eyes were directed towards the
member of the deputation who had that morning returned to the hotel
to obtain possession of Harry Carson's clever caricature of the
operatives.

The heads clustered together, to gaze at and detect the likenesses.

"That's John Slater! I'd ha' known him anywhere, by his big nose.
Lord! how like; that's me, by G----, it's the very way I'm obligated
to pin my waistcoat up, to hide that I've gotten no shirt. That is
a shame, and I'll not stand it."

"Well!" said John Slater, after having acknowledged his nose and his
likeness; "I could laugh at a jest as well as e'er the best on 'em,
though it did tell again mysel, if I were not clemming" (his eyes
filled with tears; he was a poor, pinched, sharp-featured man, with
a gentle and melancholy expression of countenance), "and if I could
keep from thinking of them at home, as is clemming; but with their
cries for food ringing in my ears, and making me afeard of going
home, and wonder if I should hear 'em wailing out, if I lay cold and
drowned at th' bottom o' th' canal, there,--why, man, I cannot laugh
at ought. It seems to make me sad that there is any as can make game
on what they've never knowed; as can make such laughable pictures on
men, whose very hearts within 'em are so raw and sore as ours were
and are, God help us."

John Barton began to speak; they turned to him with great attention.
"It makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see
that folk can make a jest of earnest men; of chaps who comed to ask
for a bit o' fire for th' old granny, as shivers in th' cold; for a
bit o' bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife as lies in
labour on th' damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose
little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi' hunger.
For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more
wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want
gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes, and so that we
get 'em we'd not quarrel wi' what they're made on. We donnot want
their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the
snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless
ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes
why we brought 'em into th' world to suffer?" He lowered his deep
voice almost to a whisper.

"I've seen a father who had killed his child rather than let it clem
before his eyes; and he were a tender-hearted man."

He began again in his usual tone. "We come to th' masters wi' full
hearts, to ask for them things I named afore. We know that they've
gotten money, as we've earned for 'em; we know trade is mending, and
that they've large orders, for which they'll be well paid; we ask for
our share o' th' payment; for, say we, if th' masters get our share
of payment it will only go to keep servants and horses, to more dress
and pomp. Well and good, if yo choose to be fools we'll not hinder
you, so long as you're just; but our share we must and will have;
we'll not be cheated. We want it for daily bread, for life itself;
and not for our own lives neither (for there's many a one here, I
know by mysel, as would be glad and thankful to lie down and die out
o' this weary world), but for the lives of them little ones, who
don't yet know what life is, and are afeard of death. Well, we come
before th' masters to state what we want, and what we must have,
afore we'll set shoulder to their work; and they say, 'No.' One would
think that would be enough of hard-heartedness, but it isn't. They go
and make jesting pictures of us! I could laugh at mysel, as well as
poor John Slater there; but then I must be easy in my mind to laugh.
Now I only know that I would give the last drop o' my blood to avenge
us on yon chap, who had so little feeling in him as to make game on
earnest, suffering men!"

A low angry murmur was heard among the men, but it did not yet take
form or words. John continued--

"You'll wonder, chaps, how I came to miss the time this morning; I'll
just tell you what I was a-doing. Th' chaplain at the New Bailey sent
and gived me an order to see Jonas Higginbotham; him as was taken
up last week for throwing vitriol in a knob-stick's face. Well, I
couldn't help but go; and I didn't reckon it would ha' kept me so
late. Jonas were like one crazy when I got to him; he said he could
na get rest night or day for th' face of the poor fellow he had
damaged; then he thought on his weak, clemmed look, as he tramped,
foot-sore, into town; and Jonas thought, may be, he had left them
at home as would look for news, and hope and get none, but, haply,
tidings of his death. Well, Jonas had thought on these things till he
could not rest, but walked up and down continually like a wild beast
in his cage. At last he bethought him on a way to help a bit, and he
got th' chaplain to send for me; and he telled me this; and that th'
man were lying in th' Infirmary, and he bade me go (to-day's the day
as folk may be admitted into th' Infirmary) and get his silver watch,
as was his mother's, and sell it as well as I could, and take the
money, and bid the poor knob-stick send it to his friends beyond
Burnley; and I were to take him Jonas's kind regards, and he humbly
axed him to forgive him. So I did what Jonas wished. But bless your
life, none on us would ever throw vitriol again (at least at a
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