John Halifax, Gentleman Part 22

"What do you want?"

"Nought wi' thee. We wants Abel Fletcher. Where is 'um?"

"I shall certainly not tell you."

As John said this again the noise arose, and again Jacob Baines seemed to have power to quiet the rest.

John Halifax never stirred. Evidently he was pretty well known. I caught many a stray sentence, such as "Don't hurt the lad."--"He were kind to my lad, he were."--"No, he be a real gentleman."--"No, he comed here as poor as us," and the like. At length one voice, sharp and shrill, was heard above the rest.

"I zay, young man, didst ever know what it was to be pretty nigh vamished?"

"Ay, many a time."

The answer, so brief, so unexpected, struck a great hush into the throng. Then the same voice cried--

"Speak up, man! we won't hurt 'ee! You be one o' we!"

"No, I am not one of you. I'd be ashamed to come in the night and burn my master's house down."

I expected an outbreak, but none came. They listened, as it were by compulsion, to the clear, manly voice that had not in it one shade of fear.

"What do you do it for?" John continued. "All because he would not sell you, or give you, his wheat. Even so--it was HIS wheat, not yours. May not a man do what he likes with his own?"

The argument seemed to strike home. There is always a lurking sense of rude justice in a mob--at least a British mob.

"Don't you see how foolish you were?--You tried threats, too. Now you all know Mr. Fletcher; you are his men--some of you. He is not a man to be threatened."

This seemed to be taken rather angrily; but John went on speaking, as if he did not observe the fact.

"Nor am I one to be threatened, neither. Look here--the first one of you who attempted to break into Mr. Fletcher's house I should most certainly have shot. But I'd rather not shoot you, poor, starving fellows! I know what it is to be hungry. I'm sorry for you--sorry from the bottom of my heart."

There was no mistaking that compa.s.sionate accent, nor the murmur which followed it.

"But what must us do, Mr. Halifax?" cried Jacob Baines: "us be starved a'most. What's the good o' talking to we?"

John's countenance relaxed. I saw him lift his head and shake his hair back, with that pleased gesture I remember so well of old. He went down to the locked gate.

"Suppose I gave you something to eat, would you listen to me afterwards?"

There arose up a frenzied shout of a.s.sent. Poor wretches! they were fighting for no principle, true or false, only for bare life. They would have bartered their very souls for a mouthful of bread.

"You must promise to be peaceable," said John again, very resolutely, as soon as he could obtain a hearing. "You are Norton Bury folk, I know you. I could get every one of you hanged, even though Abel Fletcher is a Quaker. Mind, you'll be peaceable?"

"Ay--ay! Some'at to eat; give us some'at to eat."

John Halifax called out to Jael; bade her bring all the food of every kind that there was in the house, and give it to him out of the parlour-window. She obeyed--I marvel now to think of it--but she implicitly obeyed. Only I heard her fix the bar to the closed front door, and go back, with a strange, sharp sob, to her station at the hall-window.

"Now, my lads, come in!" and he unlocked the gate.

They came thronging up the steps, not more than two score, I imagined, in spite of the noise they had made. But two score of such famished, desperate men, G.o.d grant I may never again see!

John divided the food as well as he could among them; they fell to it like wild beasts. Meat, cooked or raw, loaves, vegetables, meal; all came alike, and were clutched, gnawed, and scrambled for, in the fierce selfishness of hunger. Afterwards there was a call for drink.

"Water, Jael; bring them water."

"Beer!" shouted some.

"Water," repeated John. "Nothing but water. I'll have no drunkards rioting at my master's door."

And, either by chance or design, he let them hear the click of his pistol. But it was hardly needed. They were all cowed by a mightier weapon still--the best weapon a man can use--his own firm indomitable will.

At length all the food we had in the house was consumed. John told them so; and they believed him. Little enough, indeed, was sufficient for some of them; wasted with long famine, they turned sick and faint, and dropped down even with bread in their mouths, unable to swallow it.

Others gorged themselves to the full, and then lay along the steps, supine as satisfied brutes. Only a few sat and ate like rational human beings; and there was but one, the little, shrill-voiced man, who asked me if he might "tak a bit o' bread to the old wench at home?"

John, hearing, turned, and for the first time noticed me.

"Phineas, it was very wrong of you; but there is no danger now."

No, there was none--not even for Abel Fletcher's son. I stood safe by John's side, very happy, very proud.

"Well, my men," he said, looking round with a smile, "have you had enough to eat?"

"Oh, ay!" they all cried.

And one man added--"Thank the Lord!"

"That's right, Jacob Baines: and, another time, trust the Lord. You wouldn't then have been abroad this summer morning"--and he pointed to the dawn just reddening in the sky--"this quiet, blessed summer morning, burning and rioting, bringing yourselves to the gallows, and your children to starvation."

"They be nigh that a'ready," said Jacob, sullenly. "Us men ha' gotten a meal, thankee for it; but what'll become o' the little 'uns at home?

I say, Mr. Halifax," and he seemed waxing desperate again, "we must get some food somehow."

John turned away, his countenance very sad. Another of the men plucked at him from behind.

"Sir, when thee was a poor lad I lent thee a rug to sleep on; I doan't grudge 'ee getting on; you was born for a gentleman, sure-ly. But Master Fletcher be a hard man."

"And a just one," persisted John. "You that work for him, did he ever stint you of a halfpenny? If you had come to him and said, 'Master, times are hard, we can't live upon our wages,' he might--I don't say that he would--but he MIGHT even have given you the food you tried to steal."

"D'ye think he'd give it us now?" And Jacob Baines, the big, gaunt, savage fellow, who had been the ringleader--the same, too, who had spoken of his "little 'uns"--came and looked steadily in John's face.

"I knew thee as a lad; thee'rt a young man now, as will be a father some o' these days. Oh! Mr. Halifax, may 'ee ne'er want a meal o' good meat for the missus and the babbies at home, if ee'll get a bit o'

bread for our'n this day."

"My man, I'll try."

He called me aside, explained to me, and asked my advice and consent, as Abel Fletcher's son, to a plan that had come into his mind. It was to write orders, which each man presenting at our mill, should receive a certain amount of flour.

"Do you think your father would agree?"