Amelia Barr - The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

So to the woman of one hundred years ago – and of much less time – a thorough house-cleaning, or a putting away of things for a visit or a journey was an exciting event. There was even a kind of pleasure in the discomfort and disorder it caused. The unhappy looks of the men of the house were rather agreeable to them. For a few days they had legitimate authority to make everyone miserable, and in doing so experienced a very actual nervous relief.

Madam Annis was in some measure influenced by similar conditions, for it takes a strong and powerfully constituted woman to resist the spirit and influence of the time and locality in which she lives. So the Hall was full of unrest, and the peaceful routine of life was all broken up. Ladies’ hide-covered trunks – such little baby trunks to those of the present day – and leather bags and portmanteaus littered the halls; and the very furniture had the neglected plaintive look of whatever is to be left behind.

At length, however, on the twenty-third of March, all was ready for the journey, and the squire was impatient to begin it. He was also continually worrying about his son. “Whereiver is Dick, I wonder? He ought to be here helping us, ought he not, mother?” he asked Madam reproachfully, as if he held her responsible for Dick’s absence and Madam answered sharply – “Indeed, Antony, thou ought to know best. Thou told Dick to stay in London and watch the ways of that wearisome Reform Bill and send thee daily word about its carryings on. The lad can’t be in two places at once, can he?”

“I hed forgotten mysen, Annie. How near art thou and Katherine ready to start?”

“Katherine and I are now waiting on your will and readiness.”

“Nay, then, Annie, if ta hes got to thy London English already, I’ll be quiet, I will.”

“I doan’t like thee to be unjust to Dick. He is doing, and doing well, just what thou told him to do. I should think thou couldn’t ask more than that – if thou was in thy right mind.”

“Dick is the best lad in Yorkshire, he is all that! Doan’t thee care if I seem a bit cross, Annie. I’ve been that worrited all morning as niver was. Doan’t mind it!”

“I doan’t, not in the least, Antony.”

“Well, then, can thou start to-morrow morning?”

“I can start, with an hour’s notice, any time.”

“I wouldn’t be too good, Annie. I’m not worth it.”

“Thou art worth all I can do for thee.”

“Varry good, dearie! Then we’ll start at seven to-morrow morning. We will drive to Leeds, and then tak t’ mail-coach for London there. If t’ roads don’t happen to be varry bad we may hev time enough in Leeds to go to the Queen’s Hotel and hev a plate o’ soup and a chop. I hev a bit o’ business at the bank there but it won’t keep me ten minutes. I hope we may hev a fairish journey, but the preacher tells me the whole country is in a varry alarming condition.”

“Antony, I am a little tired of the preacher’s alarm bell. He is always prophesying evil. Doan’t thee let him get too much influence over thee. Before thou knows what thou art doing thou wilt be going to a class meeting. What does the curate say? He has been fifty miles south, if not more.”

“He told me the roads were full of hungry, angry men, who were varry disrespectful to any of the Quality they met.”

Here Katherine entered the room. “Mother dear,” she said in an excited voice, “mother dear! My new traveling dress came home a little while ago, and I have put it on, to let you admire it. Is it not pretty? Is it not stylish? Is it not everything a girl would like? O Daddy! I didn’t see you.”

“I couldn’t expect thee to see me when tha hed a new dress on. I’ll tell thee, howiver, I doan’t like it as well as I liked thy last suit.”

“The little shepherd plaid? Oh, that has become quite common! This is the thing now. What do you say, mother?”

“I think it is all right. Put it on in the morning. We leave at seven o’clock.”

“Oh, delightful! I am so glad! Life is all in a mess here and I hate a tossed-up house.”

At this point the Reverend Mr. Yates entered. He had called to bid the squire and his family good-bye, but the ladies quickly left the room. They knew some apology was due the curate for placing the money intended for relieving the suffering in the village in the preacher’s care, and at his disposal. But the curate was reasonable, and readily acknowledged that “nearly all needing help were members of Mr. Foster’s church, and would naturally take relief better from him than from a stranger.”

The journey as far as Leeds was a very sad one, for the squire stopped frequently to speak to groups of despairing, desperate men and women: – “Hev courage, friends!” he said cheerfully to a gathering of about forty or more on the Green of a large village, only fourteen miles south of Annis. “Hev courage a little longer! I am Antony Annis, and I am on my way to London, with many more gentlemen, to see that the Reform Bill goes through the Lords, this time. If it does not then it will be the duty of Englishmen to know the reason why. God knows you hev borne up bravely. Try it a bit longer.”

“Squire,” said a big fellow, white with hunger, “Squire, I hevn’t touched food of any kind for forty hours. You count hours when you are hungry, squire.”

“We’re all o’ us,” said his companion, “faint and clemmed. We hevn’t strength to be men any longer. Look at me! I’m wanting to cry like a bairn.”

“I’m ready to fight, squire,” added a man standing near by; “I hev a bit o’ manhood yet, and I’d fight for my rights, I would that! – if I nobbnd hed a slice or two o’ bread.”

At the same time a young woman, little more than a child, came tottering forward, and stood at the side of Mistress Annis. She had a little baby in her arms, she did not speak, she only looked in the elder woman’s face then cast her eyes down upon the child. It was tugging at an empty breast with little sharp cries of hungry impatience. Then she said, “I hev no milk for him! The lile lad is sucking my blood!” Her voice was weak and trembling, but she had no tears left.

Madam covered her face, she was weeping, and the next moment Katherine emptied her mother’s purse into the starving woman’s hand. She took it with a great cry, lifting her face to heaven – “Oh God, it is money! Oh God, it is milk and bread!” Then looking at Katherine she said, “Thou hes saved two lives. God sent thee to do it” – and with the words, she found a sudden strength to run with her child to a shop across the street, where bread and milk were sold.

“It’s little Dinas Sykes,” said a man whose voice was weak with hunger. “Eh! but I’m glad, God hes hed mercy on her!” and all watched Dinas running for milk and bread with a grateful sympathy. The squire was profoundly touched, his heart melted within him, and he said to the little company with the voice of a companion, not of a master, “Men, how many of you are present?”

“About forty-four men – and a few half grown lads. They need food worse than men do – they suffer more – poor lile fellows!”

“And you all hev women at home? Wives and daughters?”

“Ay, squire, and mothers, too! Old and gray and hungry – some varry patient, and just dying on their feet, some so weak they are crying like t’ childer of two or four years old. My God! Squire, t’ men’s suffering isn’t worth counting, against that of t’ women and children.”

“Friends, I hev no words to put against your suffering and a ten pound note will be better than all the words I could give you. It will at least get all of you a loaf of bread and a bit of beef and a mug of ale. Who shall I give it to?”

“Ben Shuttleworth,” was the unanimous answer, and Ben stepped forward. He was a noble-looking old man just a little crippled by long usage of the hand loom. “Squire Annis,” he said, “I’ll gladly take the gift God hes sent us by thy hands and I’ll divide it equally, penny for penny, and may God bless thee and prosper thy journey! We’re none of us men used to saying ‘thank’ee’ to any man but we say it to thee. Yes, we say it to thee.”