"I think so," said Mr. Wilton, "or, of course, I would not have fixed upon you. I want a fresh and virgin intelligence to observe and consider the country. It must be a mind free from prejudice, yet fairly informed on the great questions involved in the wealth of nations. I know you have read Adam Smith, and not lightly. Well, he is the best guide, though of course we must adapt his principles to the circ.u.mstances with which we have to deal. You have good judgment, great industry, a fairly quick perception, little pa.s.sion--perhaps hardly enough; but that is probably the consequence of the sorrows and troubles of early life. But, after all, there is no education like adversity."

"If it will only cease at the right time," said Endymion.

"Well, in that respect, I do not think you have anything to complain of," said Mr. Wilton. "The world is all before you, and I mistake if you do not rise. Perseverance and tact are the two qualities most valuable for all men who would mount, but especially for those who have to step out of the crowd. I am sure no one can say you are not a.s.siduous, but I am glad always to observe that you have tact. Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything."

CHAPTER LXII

Lancashire was not so wonderful a place forty years ago as it is at present, but, compared then with the rest of England, it was infinitely more striking. For a youth like Endymion, born and bred in our southern counties, the Berkshire downs varied by the bustle of Pall-Mall and the Strand--Lancashire, with its teeming and toiling cities, its colossal manufactories and its gigantic chimneys, its roaring engines and its flaming furnaces, its tramroads and its railroads, its coal and its cotton, offered a far greater contrast to the scenes in which he had hitherto lived, than could be furnished by almost any country of the European continent.

Endymion felt it was rather a crisis in his life, and that his future might much depend on the fulfilment of the confidential office which had been entrusted to him by his chief. He summoned all his energies, concentrated his intelligence on the one subject, and devoted to its study and comprehension every moment of his thought and time. After a while, he had made Manchester his head-quarters. It was even then the centre of a network of railways, and gave him an easy command of the contiguous districts.

Endymion had more than once inquired after the Anti-Corn-Law League, but had not as yet been so fortunate as to attend any of their meetings.

They were rarer than they afterwards soon became, and the great manufacturers did not encourage them. "I do not like extreme views,"

said one of the most eminent one day to Endymion. "In my opinion, we should always avoid extremes;" and he paused and looked around, as if he had enunciated a heaven-born truth, and for the first time. "I am a Liberal; so we all are here. I supported Lord Grey, and I support Lord Melbourne, and I am, in everything, for a liberal policy. I don"t like extremes. A wise minister should take off the duty on cotton wool. That is what the country really wants, and then everybody would be satisfied.

No; I know nothing about this League you ask about, and I do not know any one--that is to say, any one respectable--who does. They came to me to lend my name. "No," I said, "gentlemen; I feel much honoured, but I do not like extremes;" and they went away. They are making a little more noise now, because they have got a man who has the gift of the gab, and the people like to go and hear him speak. But as I said to a friend of mine, who seemed half inclined to join them, "Well; if I did anything of that sort, I would be led by a Lancashire lad. They have got a foreigner to lead them, a fellow out of Berkshire; an agitator--and only a print-work after all. No; that will never do.""

Notwithstanding these views, which Endymion found very generally entertained by the new world in which he mixed, he resolved to take the earliest opportunity of attending the meeting of the League, and it soon arrived.

It was an evening meeting, so that workmen--or the operatives, as they were styled in this part of the kingdom--should be able to attend. The a.s.sembly took place in a large but temporary building; very well adapted to the human voice, and able to contain even thousands. It was fairly full to-night; and the platform, on which those who took a part in the proceedings, or who, by their comparatively influential presence, it was supposed, might a.s.sist the cause, was almost crowded.

"He is going to speak to-night," said an operative to Endymion. "That is why there is such an attendance."

Remembering Mr. Wilton"s hint about not asking unnecessary questions which often arrest information, Endymion did not inquire who "he" was; and to promote communication merely observed, "A fine speaker, then, I conclude?"

"Well, he is in a way," said the operative. "He has not got Hollaballoo"s voice, but he knows what he is talking about. I doubt their getting what they are after; they have not the working cla.s.ses with them. If they went against truck, it would be something."

The chairman opened the proceedings; but was coldly received, though he spoke sensibly and at some length. He then introduced a gentleman, who was absolutely an alderman, to move a resolution condemnatory of the corn laws. The august position of the speaker atoned for his halting rhetoric, and a city which had only just for the first time been invested with munic.i.p.al privileges was hushed before a man who might in time even become a mayor.

Then the seconder advanced, and there was a general burst of applause.

"There he is," said the operative to Endymion; "you see they like him.

Oh, Job knows how to do it!"

Endymion listened with interest, soon with delight, soon with a feeling of exciting and not unpleasing perplexity, to the orator; for he was an orator, though then unrecognised, and known only in his district. He was a pale and slender man, with a fine brow and an eye that occasionally flashed with the fire of a creative mind. His voice certainly was not like Hollaballoo"s. It was rather thin, but singularly clear. There was nothing clearer except his meaning. Endymion never heard a case stated with such pellucid art; facts marshalled with such vivid simplicity, and inferences so natural and spontaneous and irresistible, that they seemed, as it were, borrowed from his audience, though none of that audience had arrived at them before. The meeting was hushed, was rapt in intellectual delight, for they did not give the speaker the enthusiasm of their sympathy. That was not shared, perhaps, by the moiety of those who listened to him. When his case was fairly before them, the speaker dealt with his opponents--some in the press, some in parliament--with much power of sarcasm, but this power was evidently rather repressed than allowed to run riot. What impressed Endymion as the chief quality of this remarkable speaker was his persuasiveness, and he had the air of being too prudent to offend even an opponent unnecessarily. His language, though natural and easy, was choice and refined. He was evidently a man who had read, and not a little; and there was no taint of vulgarity, scarcely a provincialism, in his p.r.o.nunciation.

He spoke for rather more than an hour; and frequently during this time, Endymion, notwithstanding his keen interest in what was taking place, was troubled, it might be disturbed, by pictures and memories of the past that he endeavoured in vain to drive away. When the orator concluded, amid cheering much louder than that which had first greeted him, Endymion, in a rather agitated voice, whispered to his neighbour, "Tell me--is his name Thornberry?"

"That is your time of day," said the operative. "Job Thornberry is his name, and I am on his works."

"And yet you do not agree with him?"

"Well; I go as far as he goes, but he does not go so far as I go; that"s it."

"I do not see how a man can go much farther," said Endymion. "Where are his works? I knew your master when he was in the south of England, and I should like to call on him."

"My employer," said the operative. "They call themselves masters, but we do not. I will tell you. His works are a mile out of town; but it seems only a step, for there are houses all the way. Job Thornberry & Co."s Print-works, Pendleton Road--any one can guide you--and when you get there, you can ask for me, if you like. I am his overlooker, and my name is ENOCH CRAGGS."

CHAPTER LXIII

"You are not much altered," said Thornberry, as he retained Endymion"s hand, and he looked at him earnestly; "and yet you have become a man.

I suppose I am ten years your senior. I have never been back to the old place, and yet I sometimes think I should like to be buried there. The old man has been here, and more than once, and liked it well enough; at least, I hope so. He told me a good deal about you all; some sorrows, and, I hope, some joys. I heard of Miss Myra"s marriage; she was a sweet young lady; the gravest person I ever knew; I never knew her smile. I remember they thought her proud, but I always had a fancy for her.

Well; she has married a topsawyer--I believe the ablest of them all, and probably the most unprincipled; though I ought not to say that to you.

However, public men are spoken freely of. I wish to Heaven you would get him to leave off tinkering those commercial treaties that he is always making such a fuss about. More pernicious nonsense was never devised by man than treaties of commerce. However, their precious most favoured nation clause will break down the whole concern yet. But you wish to see the works; I will show them to you myself. There is not much going on now, and the stagnation increases daily. And then, if you are willing, we will go home and have a bit of lunch--I live hard by. My best works are my wife and children: I have made that joke before, as you can well fancy."

This was the greeting, sincere but not unkind, of Job Thornberry to Endymion on the day after the meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law League. To Endymion it was an interesting, and, as he believed it would prove, a useful encounter.

The print-works were among the most considerable of their kind at Manchester, but they were working now with reduced numbers and at half-time. It was the energy and the taste and invention of Thornberry that had given them their reputation, and secured them extensive markets. He had worked with borrowed capital, but had paid off his debt, and his establishment was now his own; but, stimulated by his success, he had made a consignment of large amount to the United States, where it arrived only to be welcomed by what was called the American crash.

Turning from the high road, a walk of half a mile brought them to a little world of villas; varying in style and size, but all pretty, and each in its garden. "And this is my home," said Thornberry, opening the wicket, "and here is my mistress and the young folks"--pointing to a pretty woman, but with an expression of no inconsiderable self-confidence, and with several children clinging to her dress and hiding their faces at the unexpected sight of a stranger. "My eldest is a boy, but he is at school," said Thornberry. "I have named him, after one of the greatest men that ever lived, John Hampden."

"He was a landed proprietor," observed Endymion rather drily; "and a considerable one."

"I have brought an old friend to take cheer with us," continued Thornberry; "one whom I knew before any here present; so show your faces, little people;" and he caught up one of the children, a fair child like its mother, long-haired and blushing like a Worcestershire orchard before harvest time. "Tell the gentleman what you are."

"A free-trader," murmured the infant.

Within the house were several shelves of books well selected, and the walls were adorned with capital prints of famous works of art. "They are chiefly what are called books of reference," said Thornberry, as Endymion was noticing his volumes; "but I have not much room, and, to tell you the truth, they are not merely books of reference to me--I like reading encyclopaedia. The "Dictionary of Dates" is a favourite book of mine. The mind sometimes wants tone, and then I read Milton. He is the only poet I read--he is complete, and is enough. I have got his prose works too. Milton was the greatest of Englishmen."

The repast was simple, but plenteous, and nothing could be neater than the manner in which it was served.

"We are teetotallers," said Thornberry; "but we can give you a good cup of coffee."

"I am a teetotaller too at this time of the day," said Endymion; "but a good cup of coffee is, they say, the most delicious and the rarest beverage in the world."

"Well," continued Thornberry; "it is a long time since we met, Mr.

Ferrars--ten years. I used to think that in ten years one might do anything; and a year ago, I really thought I had done it; but the accursed laws of this blessed country, as it calls itself, have nearly broken me, as they have broken many a better man before me."

"I am sorry to hear this," said Endymion; "I trust it is but a pa.s.sing cloud."

"It is not a cloud," said Thornberry; "it is a storm, a tempest, a wreck--but not only for me. Your great relative, my Lord Roehampton, must look to it, I can tell you that. What is happening in this country, and is about to happen, will not be cured or averted by commercial treaties--mark my words."

"But what would cure it?" said Endymion.

"There is only one thing that can cure this country, and it will soon be too late for that. We must have free exchange."

"Free exchange!" murmured Endymion thoughtfully.

"Why, look at this," said Thornberry. "I had been driving a capital trade with the States for nearly five years. I began with nothing, as you know. I had paid off all my borrowed capital; my works were my own, and this house is a freehold. A year ago I sent to my correspondent at New York the largest consignment of goods I had ever made and the best, and I cannot get the slightest return for them. My correspondent writes to me that there is no end of corn and bread-stuffs which he could send, if we could only receive them; but he knows very well he might as well try and send them to the moon. The people here are starving and want these bread-stuffs, and they are ready to pay for them by the products of their labour--and your blessed laws prevent them!"

"But these laws did not prevent your carrying on a thriving trade with America for five years, according to your own account," said Endymion.

"I do not question what you say; I am asking only for information."

"What you say is fairly said, and it has been said before," replied Thornberry; "but there is nothing in it. We had a trade, and a thriving trade, with the States; though, to be sure, it was always fitful and ought to have been ten times as much, even during those five years. But the fact is, the state of affairs in America was then exceptional. They were embarked in great public works in which every one was investing his capital; shares and stocks abounded, and they paid us for our goods with them."