Eustace Marchmont: a Friend of the People
Copyright© 2025 by Evelyn Everett-Green
Chapter 9: The Wave of Revolt
“FEGS! if theer’s tu be a bobbery up tu Pentreath, us lads o’ St. Bride’s wunt be left owt on’t!”
“Dashed if us wull! Wheer theer’s fightin’ and a fillyboo, theer’s more’n hard knocks to be gotten. Us’ll soon see what us can get by un!”
“Aw dally-buttons, that us wull! They du say as our Saul’s theer in t’ thick of un. But what’s it awl about? Dost any o’ yu knaw?”
The swarthy fishermen looked each other in the face with a grin, but nobody seemed ready with an answer.
“May’ap ‘tis because the king’s dead,” suggested one.
“Naw, ‘tidden that ezakally,” objected another. “‘Tis becos they Frenchers ‘ave abin an’ gone for tu ‘ave a new bobbery ower theer—what the great folks calls a reverlooshon. They’ve a druv theer king over tu England: that’s what ‘as set all the lads ower heer in a takin’ after theer roights.”
“‘Tidden theer roights theer a’ter,” remarked a woman who was sitting hunched up in the chimney-corner of the hut where this confabulation was going on, “‘tis other folks’ goods they want. They thinks wheerever a bobbery be theer’ll be gutterin’ and guzzlin’, and that’s all they care for. You’d a best ‘ave nowt tu du with un.”
But this piece of advice was received with ridicule and disfavour.
“Ef theer be zo much as gutterin’ and guzzlin’ why shetten us be left behind? ‘Tidden much of either us gets nowadays with those dashed customs-men always a’ter we. Crimminy! but us’ll take our share ef zo be as theer’s awght to be gotten. I’ve heerd tell theer be a real hollerballoo up tu Pentreath. I be agwaine to see un.”
“Zo be I! Zo be I!” echoed in turn a dozen or more voices, and from the dim chimney-corner there only came a rough snort of disapproval.
“Go ‘long wi’ ye then. When the dowl’s abroad ‘twidden be in yer to bide tu home. Go ‘long and help make the bobbery wusser. ‘Tidden hurt I. But it’ll be a poor-come-along-on’t for some o’ yu, I take it. Theer’ll be trouble at St. Bride along on’t.”
The men hesitated for a moment, for the old woman who thus spoke had won the not too enviable reputation of being next door to a witch, and of reading or moulding future events—which, it was not altogether certain in the minds of the people. She was a lonely widow woman, but lived in one of the best cottages in the place, where she kept a sort of private bar, selling spirits and tobacco to the fishermen, and allowing them to make use of her sanded kitchen, where at all seasons of the year a fire was burning, as a place of resort where all the gossip of the place could be discussed. They never put two and two together in seeking to account for the occult knowledge possessed by the old woman respecting the private concerns of the whole community. She affected to be rather deaf, and therefore low-toned conversations were carried on freely in her presence. Old Mother Clat was quite a character in her way, and a distinct power in the fishing community of St. Bride.
But her advice was not sufficient to deter the bolder spirits from taking part in the exciting scenes known to be passing in the country round them. At that moment England was passing through a crisis more perilous than was fully realised at the time. The sudden revolution in France, which had culminated in the abdication and flight of the king, the death of the English king, George the Fourth, at almost the same moment, and the whispers in the air that Belgium and other countries were about to imitate France, and rise in revolt against the oppression and tyranny of princes, acted in an extraordinary fashion upon the minds of the discontented population of this land. The long period of depression and distress, whilst it had ground down one section of the community to a state of passive despair, had aroused in others the spirit of insubordination and revolt. Like leaven in the loaf was this fermentation going on, greatly helped by the knowledge that the cause of the people was exercising the minds of many of the great ones of the land, and that in them they would find a mouthpiece if only they could succeed in making their voice heard.
Now when there is any great uprising in any one district, there is generally a local as well as a general cause of complaint; and in this remote West-Country district it was far less the question of reformed representation and the abolishment of certain grave abuses which was exercising the minds of the community than the fact that new machinery had recently been set up in some of the mills at Pentreath, and in some of the farmsteads scattered about the district; and the panic of the Midlands had spread down to the South and West, the people fully believing that this would be the last straw—the last drop of bitterness in their cup, and that nothing but absolute starvation lay before them unless they took prompt measures to defend themselves from the dreaded innovations.
The Midlands and North had set the example. Ever since the rising of the Luddites there had been more or less of disturbance in the manufacturing districts, where, of course, in the first instance the introduction of machinery did throw certain classes of operatives out of employment; and they were unable to realise that this would soon be more than made up to them by the increase of trade resulting from the improvement in the many complicated processes of manufacture. In the North the riots were on the wane. It was just beginning to dawn upon the minds of the more enlightened artisans, that if they would leave matters to take a peaceful course they would soon see themselves reinstated in the mills, where trade was growing more brisk and active than ever before. But away down in the remote West, any innovation was received with the greatest horror and aversion, and the people had heard just enough about their wrongs to be in that restless state when any sort of activity becomes attractive, and any uprising against authority appears in the light of an act of noble resistance to tyranny.
Pentreath was an ancient town, though a small one. It sent a member to Parliament, although the huge and fast-increasing towns of the North did not. Of late years it had become a small centre of manufacturing industry, the water-power there being considerable. There were two cloth-mills and one silk-mill, a paper manufactory, and another where soap and essences were made. One reason why the district round Pentreath was not feeling the general poverty and distress very keenly was that from the rural districts men who could not get employment upon the land could generally find it in the mills. But when almost at one and the same time improved machinery became introduced both into agriculture and manufacture, the sense of revolt was deeply stirred. A certain number of turbulent spirits had been simultaneously dismissed both from the farms and from the mills, and these two contingents at once banded together in somewhat dangerous mood to talk over the situation and their own private grievances, and to set about to find a remedy.
It was the Duke who first introduced the machinery into the neighbourhood, although he had dismissed no servant of his until three of his men were found tampering with and injuring the new machine, when he promptly sent them about their business. Their bad example was followed by others, and four more were summarily dismissed; whereupon the Duke let it be thoroughly understood that any servant of his taking that line would be promptly discharged, but that he had no intention of dismissing any of those on his estate who were orderly and obedient, and used the improved implements in a right and workmanlike way. This declaration had the effect at Penarvon of stopping depredations for the moment, and no more labourers were sent away; but those who had already received notice were not taken on again: for the Duke, though a just and liberal master, was a stern upholder of law and order, and had no intention of having his will or his authority set at naught by a handful of ill-conditioned fellows, who refused to listen to any other guides than their own blind passions.
These men gravitated naturally into Pentreath, in the hope of finding employment there, only to be met by the news that the mills were turning off hands, owing to the saving of labour by the introduction of improved machinery. The band of what in these days would be termed “unemployed” gathered together by common accord, and roved the streets by day, begging and picking up odd jobs of work as they could get them, and meeting at night in a low tavern on the outskirts of the town to spend their pittance generally on raw spirit, and to talk sedition and treason.
Possibly, had no other power been at work just at that juncture, the whole thing might have begun and ended in talk; but there were other forces in operation, all favourable to the spirit of revolt and vengeful hatred which actuated this small band; and as discontented men of every class draw together by common consent, however various their grievances may be, so did the newly aroused politicians of the place, eager and anxious to awaken the country to a sense of its political grievances, and the urgent need of parliamentary reform, gravitate towards the little band of discontented labourers and operatives, sure of finding in them allies in the general feeling of revolt against the prevailing system, which they had set themselves to amend, and hoping quickly to arouse in them the patriotic enthusiasm which kindled their own hearts.
Saul’s friend the cobbler was the first to address these men on the subject of the hoped-for reform. He went to them upon several evenings, strove to arouse in them a sense of indignation against prevailing abuses and evils, and found his task an easy one. Wherever he made out that the country was suffering from the oppression of tyrants and the greed of the rich, he was received with howls of approval and delight. The answer of his audience was invariably a cry of “Down with it! Down with them!” They would have rushed with the greatest pleasure through the streets, and attacked the houses of the mill-owners, or have broken into the mills and gutted them, had there been any to lead them. But the cobbler was a man of words rather than of action. He was one to foster fierce passions, but his talents did not lie in directing the action which follows upon such an arousing. One Sunday afternoon, it is true, he headed a procession which marched through the streets, shouting and threatening, so that the people shut their shutters in haste, and begged that the watchmen or the military might go out and disperse the mob. No harm, however, came of the demonstration, save that an uneasy feeling was aroused in the minds of the townfolk, who looked askance upon the haggard men seeking alms or employment about their doors, and were less disposed to help them than they had been at first.
Thus the ill-feeling between class and class grew and increased, and it was to a band of men rendered well-nigh desperate by misery and a sense of burning wrong that Saul came down one Sunday, his own heart inflamed by passion and hatred, to supplement the efforts of the cobbler by one of his own harangues, which had already won for their author a certain measure of celebrity.
Saul had greatly changed during the past six months, changed and developed in a remarkable manner. When he stood by the orchard wall making love to Genefer Teazel, he had looked a very fine specimen of his race, and superior in many points to the labourers with whom he consorted, and whose toil he shared; but since the rapid development of his mental faculties had set in, he had altered wonderfully in his outward man, and no one to look at him would believe, save from his dress and the hardness of his hands, that he had spent his life in mere manual toil on a farm. His face, always well-featured, had now taken an expression of concentration and purpose, seldom seen in a labouring man; the eyes were very intense in their expression, and, as the fisher-folk were wont to say, went through you like a knife. His tall figure had grown rather thin and gaunt, as though the activity of the mind had reacted on the body, or else that he had been denying himself the needful support for his strong frame. He looked like a man whom it would not be well to incite to anger. There was a sufficient indication in his face of suppressed passion and fury held under firm control, yet ready to blaze up into a fierce life under provocation. He looked like a man born to be an Ishmaelite in his life’s pilgrimage—his hand against every man, and every man’s hand against him—a man in revolt against the world, against society, against himself. A keen and yet sympathetic physiognomist could hardly study that face without a sigh of compassion. Saul Tresithny, with his nature, his temperament, his antecedents, could scarcely have any but an unhappy life—unless he had been able to yield himself in childlike submission to the teachings of his grandfather, and look for peace and happiness beyond the troublous waves of this world, to the far haven of everlasting peace.
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