Take Courage (16 page)

He took up his cloak and went out into the rain.

It seemed he was determined to send off the cloths to-morrow with the penny seals, and wanted to urge other Bradford clothiers to send theirs in the same way. It was very late that night before he returned, drenched to the skin; he had been down into Bradford and out as far as Manningham, and then back over the hills towards Halifax to North Owram and Coley, and he had found four Halifax clothiers, men of standing and good repute, who agreed to send off the kerseys which were to go to London to-morrow bearing only the penny seals. The pieces were to start from Halifax early in the morning, on pack-horses as usual, with two carriers in attendance, and John was to ride with the train till it was safely out of Yorkshire.

Accordingly we all rose very early next day, long before it was dawn. I gave John his breakfast by candlelight; as we sat I heard the horses stamping and blowing outside in the yard while Lister and the other two lads loaded them. To them it was a good joke to try to outwit the ulnager, but I was a little troubled, divided in my mind, about this matter of the ulnage. It seemed to me that since most commodities paid tax according to their weight, it
might well be the same with kerseys; if the cloths were much longer and heavier now than in the days when the tax was fixed, surely the tax should now be greater. But as regards the manner of the imposition of the tax, my mind was entirely with my husband. It was arbitrary, sudden and unlawful; to be commanded offhand, by an underling, to pay half as much tax again as formerly, without any official notice or Parliament discussion or opportunity for argument, was a thing intolerable to all free Englishmen. I agreed with John, too, that it was all of a piece with the King's tyranny, and ought to be resisted; nevertheless I was sorry that there was not a more lawful and peaceable manner of resistance. I was a little sorry, too, for I was always of a somewhat romantic disposition, that John's stand against tyranny should be concerned with money; Will's trouble about religion seemed to me nobler. But I could see that none of these thoughts troubled John, whose mind was set entirely on the idea of resistance, and I did not damp him by speaking of them, for I was glad to see him so fired and sure. Accordingly I helped him into his cloak and kissed him good-bye and wished him well with his enterprise, gravely but heartily.

It was five days before he returned to us, and during that time such, rumours came to our ears as blanched Mrs. Thorpe's cheek and made poor Mr. Thorpe ill with anxiety. For my part I was not afraid, for I knew my husband; though stubborn he was quiet and decent in manner, and he had money behind him, and so was a man difficult to put down because he was so plainly a respectable law-abiding citizen. When, therefore, we heard that the pack-horse train had been set upon by the ulnagers, that there had been a fight and a man killed and all the carriers thrown in prison, I did not believe it, for I knew John would not countenance such violence. But I had hard work to convince John's parents. His mother, though she made no open lament, as it were shrank into herself; her shoulders bowed and she became suddenly an old woman; while poor Mr. Thorpe wept in my arms and worked himself
into a fever, so that we were obliged to put him to bed and send for the physician. To distract their thoughts, I told them that I was again with child. This pleased them greatly. Mr. Thorpe stretched out his hand from beneath the coverlet and patted my arm.

“You are a good girl, Penninah,” he told me, weeping: “It has been pleasant at The Breck since you came here.”

Mrs. Thorpe opened her lips stiffly to say: “You are a good wife to your husband.” Her tone was somewhat grudging, but from her it was a great tribute.

I thanked her for it, calling her Mother, which I had never found it in my heart to do before.

It was while we were sitting thus in the Thorpes' bedchamber, all somewhat moved and full of affection to one another, that I heard a horse in the yard below, and a shout from Lister, and John's footsteps. Giving the baby to his grandmother, I ran down and threw myself on John's breast.

“Well, well!” said John, much pleased. “This is a very warm welcome to a gaolbird.”

“We thought you were dead,” shrilled Lister cheerfully.

“Nonsense,” said John. “Where is Thomas?”

I hurried him upstairs to his parents, explaining breathlessly as we went the fears roused in us by the many rumours. As we entered the room, Mrs. Thorpe rose to come to her son, and set Thomas on his feet beside her. The child swayed a moment, then ran full tilt across the room to his father. It was the first time he had walked alone.

“Eh! Bless him!” cried Mrs. Thorpe, throwing up her hands.

Thomas staggered and fell into his father's arms, who swung him up above his head and gently shook him. The child laughed and kicked delightedly.

“Well, my little son!” said John in a loving tone; and we fell to discussing the child's age and how he compared, in learning to walk, with other children.

“He was born the day my indentures terminated,” cried Lister, sticking in his head.

“Fetch me a drink of ale, Lister,” said John, to get rid of him.

But it was never easy to get rid of Lister, whose interest in all our doings was insatiable, so when he returned with the ale and seemed inclined to stay, John left private matters and began to tell us of his doings with the ulnagers.

The carriers had travelled through the first day of the journey without mishap, he said, and they all put up for the night at an inn in Wombwell, near Barnsley. The horses were stabled, and the packs of cloth stacked under cover at the side of the inn yard. He himself had not slept well, his mind being full of many matters, and while he was lying awake he heard sounds below him in the yard; he hurried down, and found Scaife and two other men tearing open the packs and scattering the pieces. He bade them desist, and when they would not, called for help; the carriers came running down and there was much shouting and pushing; the innkeeper and the other guests were roused, and seeing strangers attacking property in the yard, naturally took the carriers' side and routed the ulnagers. The innkeeper then fetched a lantern and John and the carriers began to sort out the cloths and replace them in the packs, but while they were busy with this, back came Scaife with the Constable of Wombwell, whereupon the innkeeper changed his tune. Scaife made out he was an officer of the Crown, being deputy ulnager, and had John and the carriers arrested, and took all the thirty-three kerseys from the packs into his possession.

At this a groan came from poor old Mr. Thorpe. I looked at him, and saw that his plump face was quite contorted with anxiety and fear, and his old hands quivering. I directed John's eyes to his father with a glance, and tried to urge him silently to give the old man reassurance.

“There is no need to trouble yourself, Father,” said John shortly. “I have recovered all the cloths, and they have gone on to London——”

“Ah!” sighed Mr. Thorpe. He sank back and shut his eyes, relieved.

“Except those which were spoiled by being thrown about the innyard,” finished John.

“Spoiled? Spoiled?” exclaimed Mr. Thorpe in an agony, opening his rheumy eyes again.

The next day, went on John, he and the carriers had been taken before the magistrates. The carriers by his instructions disclaimed all responsibility for the seals on the cloths, and he himself had lodged a complaint against the ulnagers. There was no official warrant for the extra tax, he said; how were the clothiers to know that it was not a mere private exaction of Scaife's? The ulnagers had damaged the cloths by throwing them in the dust, and caused the clothiers to miss the next London market, and were now detaining property which was not their own. The magistrates began to look very doubtful at all this, and Scaife's manner, screaming and gabbling, had lowered his credit; the decision was put off till the next day, and then the next again, John and the carriers being allowed out of prison on John's bail, and then John shrewdly put in a claim against Scaife for their keep and that of the horses, and Scaife grew frightened; and what with one thing and another the magistrates had released them, horses and men and cloth, and here John was home again.

“Hast done well, lad,” said Mr. Thorpe. He spoke feebly, for he seemed tired with the long tale. “But don't begin such a job again.”

John set his lips. “Father, we shall bring a suit against the ulnagers,” he said in his level steady tones.

Mr. Thorpe sighed. “Well, I suppose you'll do as you please,” he said. “But don't let me hear owt of it; I'm too old.”

John took him at his word, and never mentioned ulnage to him of his own accord again; but it was impossible for anyone living at The Breck to remain in comfortable ignorance of the matter, for to bring the suit properly before the Court of Exchequer cost time and money and an infinity of trouble. It was John who urged on the other clothiers, and revived their determination when it flagged;
he rode hither and thither, and wrote many letters, and received many clothiers at The Breck. Many times he was vexed—with the clothiers, with the rules of the Court, with the lawyer who was drawing up the bill of complaint—and when John was vexed everyone in The Breck knew it. Not that he ever vented his anger unjustly on us, or fell into a temper, or scolded warmly, like Will; when he was vexed John grew merely very quiet and grim. But he was pretty much master at The Breck now, Mr. Thorpe failing so rapidly; and when the master of a house has a brow like a thundercloud—dear John!—there is little sunshine in the sky for the rest of its inhabitants. I was not afraid of him in these moods, but I knew it was no use to notice them or to try to coax him out of them; I just went quietly on in my usual way, and Mrs. Thorpe did the same. But Mr. Thorpe suffered greatly from John's disappointments; ever a cheerful man and fond of jokes, he could not endure gloom and silence, and when he saw a cloud on John's forehead, he seemed to think he could dissipate it by asking questions. As John's answers grew shorter and shorter, the poor old man's face grew longer and longer, until his distress was quite affecting. He was greatly troubled, too, by the difficulties of getting seals from the ulnagers; the pile of unsold pieces mounted and mounted in the loom-chamber, Scaife refusing John seals unless he paid the extra halfpenny, and John refusing to pay it. I found Mr. Thorpe gazing in on them, one afternoon when John was in Halifax, his lame foot propped up on a piece, shaking his old head heavily.

“We shall be ruined, Penninah, ruined!” said he. “Your son will have to beg his bread from door to door.”

“I have been young and now am old,” sang out Lister from the loom: “But never saw I yet the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread.”

“You are not old, Lister,” said Mr. Thorpe reprovingly. “You are not old, and you have seen it.”

He shook his head mournfully, and I knew he was thinking of my father's children.

“Holy Writ cannot lie,” cried Lister.

Mr. Thorpe's face twitched. “Obstinate, pig-headed fellow!” he whispered in my ear. “But he's a good weaver. But what's the use of weaving,” he wailed aloud: “If the pieces are to rot unsold? We shall be ruined, Penninah, ruined!”

I coaxed him back to the hearth, for the day was cold and the place where he stood draughty, and reassured him; but he wept on my shoulder, wiping his eyes with a trembling hand, so that it was pitiful to see him.

That night I told John that I really feared for his father's health if the kerseys were not disposed of. John was quite astounded; it seemed he had no notion of his father's trouble, and he was very sorry for it.

Next day Mr. Thorpe kept his bed with a cold, his foot pained him greatly and he seemed very low; towards evening he startled me by twice addressing me as Sybil. For a moment I could not think who Sybil could be; then I remembered it was his sister, Mrs. Ferrand. It was Tuesday, Market Day in Leeds, and John was late in returning. When at last he came in, Thomas had long been asleep in his cradle, Mrs. Thorpe was upstairs with her husband, and I was sitting sewing by the fire. John over his supper explained to me with a cheerful look that he had that day arranged to send his cloths to another clothier's, Isaac Baume, a neighbour of ours in Little Holroyd, to be sealed. This Baume had paid the extra halfpenny for quietness' sake, but he was on John's side in the ulnage business, and he had promised to get the seals for the Thorpe cloth without revealing whose it was, so that John's resistance would not be compromised. It was a trick, said John, and as such distasteful to him, but for his father's sake he would stomach it for a time.

Mrs. Thorpe came downstairs as he was speaking.

“It will not be for long,” concluded John. “The Exchequer suit will surely come on soon.”

“However soon it comes,” said Mrs. Thorpe: “It will be too late for your father.”

John stared.

“What do you mean, Mother?” he said.

“What I say,” replied Mrs. Thorpe stolidly.

“Don't talk in riddles, Mother,” said John. “Is my father very ill?”

“He won't last the week,” said Mrs. Thorpe briefly.

She had ever a horrid prescience of misfortune. Mr. Thorpe was already in a fever; the gout in his foot, as the physician now called it, had struck in, and in the next few days he slipped down the last slope rapidly. By the following morning he already seemed far away from us; it was impossible to tell whether he even understood the explanation about the cloth seals which John eagerly gave him, for he only murmured: “Aye. Well,” and moved his head restlessly. I urged John to send for Mrs. Ferrand, and he promised to do so; but Mrs. Thorpe constantly postponed the message, saying it was too soon. At last on Friday morning I could bear it no longer, for Mr. Thorpe's eyes seemed to me to wander continually over us in search of someone who was not there; John was out, so I went into the loom-chamber and bade Lister send one of the boys over to Holroyd Hall. But Lister scowled and rolled his eyes, and amid a shower of Scripture texts informed me he took orders only from Mester John; so I took a cloak from behind the door and went to Holroyd Hall myself by the lane.