I, Thou, and the Other One Part 35

Oh, sweet domestic love! Surely _it is_ the spiritual world, the abiding kingdom of heaven, not far from any one of us.

With a heavy heart the Squire went back to London. Mrs. Atheling took his gloom for a good sign. "Your father is always what the Scotch call 'fay' before trouble," she said to Kate. "The day your sister Edith died his ways made me angry. You would have thought some great joy had come to Atheling. He said he was sure Edith was going to live; and I knew she was going to die. I am glad he has gone to London sighing and shaking his head; it is a deal better sign than if he had gone laughing and shaking his bridle. He will meet Edgar in London, and Edgar won't let him look forward to trouble."

But the Squire found Edgar was not in London when he arrived there; and Piers was as silent and as gloomy a companion as a worrying man could desire. He came to dine with his friend, and he listened to all his doleful prognostications; but his interest was forced and languid. For he also had lost the convictions that made the contest possible to him, and there was at the bottom of all his reasoning that little doubt as to the justice of his cause which likewise infected the Squire's more p.r.o.nounced opinions.

They were sitting one evening, after dinner, almost silent, the Squire smoking, Piers apparently reading the _Times_, when Edgar, with an almost boyish demonstrativeness, entered the room. He drew a chair between them, and sat down, saying, "I have just returned from the great Newhall Hill meeting. Father, think of two hundred thousand men gathered there for one united purpose."

"I hope I have a few better thoughts to keep me busy, Edgar."

Piers looked up with interest. "It must have been an exciting hour or two," he said.

"I hardly knew whether I was in the body or out of the body," answered Edgar. "For a little while, at least, I was not conscious of the flesh.

I had a taste of how the work of eternity may be done with the soul."

"The _Times_ admits the two hundred thousand," said Piers, "and also that it was a remarkably orderly meeting. Who opened it? Was it Mr.

O'Connell?"

"The meeting was opened by the singing of a hymn. There were nine stanzas in it, and every one was sung with the most enthusiastic feeling.

I remember only the opening lines:

"'Over mountain, over plain, Echoing wide from sea to sea, Peals--and shall not peal in vain-- The trumpet call of Liberty!'

But can you imagine what a majestic volume of sonorous melody came from those two hundred thousand hearts? It was heard for miles. The majority of the singers believed, with all their souls, that it was heard in heaven."

"Well, I never before heard of singing a hymn to open a political meeting," said the Squire. "It does not seem natural."

"But, Father, you are used to political meetings opened by prayer, for the House has its chaplain. The Rev. Hugh Hutton prayed after the hymn."

"I never heard of the Rev. Hugh Hutton."

"I dare say not, Father. He is an Unitarian minister; for it is only the Unitarians that will pray with, or pray for, Radicals. I should not quite say that. There is a Roman Catholic priest who is a member of the Birmingham Union,--a splendid-looking man, a fine orator, and full of the n.o.blest public spirit; but a Birmingham meeting would never think of asking him to pray. They would not believe a Catholic could get a blessing down from heaven if he tried."[3]

------ [Footnote 3: This intolerance, general and common in the England of that day, is now happily much mitigated.]

"What of O'Connell?" said the Squire; "he interests me most."

"O'Connell outdid himself. About four hundred women in one body had been allowed to stand near the platform, and the moment his eyes rested on them his quick instinct decided the opening sentence of his address. He bowed to them, and said, 'Surrounded as I am by the fair, the good, and the gentle.' They cheered at these words; and then the men behind them cheered, and the crowds behind cheered, because the crowds before cheered; and then he launched into such an arraignment of the English Government as human words never before compa.s.sed. And in it he was guilty of one delightful bull. It was in this way. Among other grave charges, he referred to the fact that births had decreased in Dublin five thousand every year for the last four years, and then pa.s.sionately exclaimed, 'I charge the British Government with the murder of those twenty thousand infants!' and really, for a few moments, the audience did not see the delightful absurdity."

"Twenty thousand infants who were never born," laughed the Squire.

"That is worthy of O'Connell. It is worthy of Ireland."

"And did he really manage that immense crowd?" asked Piers. "I see the _Times_ gives him this credit."

"Sir Bulwer Lytton in a few lines has painted him for all generations at this meeting. Listen!" and Edgar took out of his pocket a slip of paper, and read them:--

"'Once to my sight the giant thus was given-- Walled by wide air, and roofed by boundless heaven; Methought, no clarion could have sent its sound Even to the centre of the hosts around.

And as I thought, rose the sonorous swell As from some church tower swings the silver bell.

Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide, It glided easy as a bird may glide, To the last verge of that vast audience.'"

"After O'Connell, who would try to manage such a crowd?" asked Piers.

"They behaved splendidly whoever spoke; and finally Mr. Salt stood forward, and, uncovering his head, bid them all uncover, and raise their right hands to heaven while they repeated, after him, the comprehensive obligation which had been given in printed form to all of them:

"'_With unbroken faith, through every peril, through every privation, we here devote ourselves, and our children, to our country's cause!_'

And while those two hundred thousand men were taking that oath together, I find the House of Lords was going into Committee on the Reform Bill.

This time it _must_ pa.s.s."

"It will _not_ pa.s.s," said Piers, "without the most extreme measures are resorted to."

"You mean that the King will be compelled to create as many new peers as will carry it through the House of Lords."

"Yes; but can the King be 'compelled'?"

"He will find that out."

"Now, Edgar, that is as far as I am going to listen."

Then Piers put down his paper, and said, "The House was in session, and would the Squire go down to it?" And the Squire said, "No. If there is to be any 'compelling' of His Majesty, I will keep out of it."

The stress of this compulsion came the very next day. Lord Lyndhurst began the usual policy by proposing important clauses of the Bill should be postponed; and the Cabinet at once decided to ask the King to create more peers. Sydney Smith had written to Lady Grey that he was, "For forty, in order to make sure;" but the number was not stipulated. The King promptly refused. The Reform Ministry tendered their resignation, and it was accepted. For a whole week the nation was left to its fears, its anger, and its despair. It was, however, almost insanely active. In Manchester twenty-five thousand people, in the s.p.a.ce of three hours, signed a pet.i.tion to the King, telling him in it that "the whole North of England was in a state of indignation impossible to be described." Meanwhile, the Duke of Wellington had failed to form a Cabinet, and Peel had refused; and the King was compelled to recall Lord Grey to power, and to consent to any measures necessary to pa.s.s the Reform Bill. It was evident, even to royalty, that it had at length become--The Bill or The Crown. For His Majesty was now aware that he was denounced from one end of England to the other; and several painful experiences convinced him that his carriage could not appear in London without being surrounded by an indignant, hooting, shrieking crowd.

Yet it was in a very wrathful mood he sent for Grey and Brougham, so wrathful that he kept them standing during the whole audience, although this att.i.tude was contrary to usage. "My people are gone mad," he said, "and must be humoured like mad people. They will have Reform.

Very well. I give you my royal a.s.sent to create a sufficient number of new peers to carry Reform through the House of Lords. It is an insult to my loyal and sensible peers; but they will excuse the circ.u.mstances that force me to such a measure." His manner was extremely sullen, and became indignantly so when Lord Brougham requested this permission to be given them in the King's handwriting. The request was, however, necessary, and was reluctantly granted.

With the King's concession, the great struggle virtually ended. For the creation of new peers was not necessary. A private message from the King to the House of Lords effected what the long-continued protestations and entreaties of the whole nation had failed to effect. Led by the Duke of Wellington, those Lords who were determined _not_ to vote for Reform left the House until the Bill was pa.s.sed; and thus a decided majority for its success was a.s.sured. They felt it to be better for their order to retire to their castles, than to suffer the "swamping of the House of Lords" by a force of new peers pledged to Reform, and sure to control all their future deliberations. Consequently, in about two weeks, the famous Bill was triumphantly carried by a majority of eighty-four; and three days afterwards it received the royal a.s.sent.

The long struggle was over; and the tremendous strain on the feelings of the nation relieved itself by an universal and unbounded rejoicing.

All night long, the church bells answered one another from city to city, and from hamlet to hamlet. It was said to be impossible to escape, from one end of the country to the other, the _tin_-_tan_-_tabula_ of their jubilation. Illuminations must have made the Island at night a blaze of light; the people went about singing and congratulating each other; and for a few hours the tie of humanity was a tie of brotherhood, even when men and women were perfect strangers.

The Duke of Richmoor retired with the majority of his peers, and shut himself up in his Yorkshire Castle, a victim to the most absurd but yet the most sincere despondency. The Squire applied for the Chiltern Hundreds, and returned to Atheling as soon as possible. Edgar remained in the House until its dissolution in August. As for Piers, he had taken the turn of affairs with a composure that had produced decided differences between the Duke and himself; and he lingered in London until he heard of the Squire's departure for the North. Then he sought him with a definite purpose. "Squire," he said, "may I go back to Exham in your company?"

"I'll be glad if you do, Piers," was the answer.

The young man laid his hand on the Squire's hand, and looked at him steadily and entreatingly. "Squire, I am going away from England. Let me see Kate before I go."

"You are asking me to break my word, Piers."

"The law of kindness may sometimes be greater than the law of truth; the greatest of these is charity--is love. I love her so! I love her so that I am only half alive without her. I do entreat you to have pity on me--on us both! She loves me!" and Piers pleaded until the Squire's eyes were full of tears. He could not resist words so hot from a true and loving heart; and he finally said,--

"It may be that my word, and my pride in my word, are of less consequence than the trouble of two suffering human hearts; Piers, right or wrong, you may see Kitty. I am not sure I am doing right, but I will risk the uncertainty--this time."

However, if the Squire had any qualms of conscience on the subject, they were driven away by Kitty's grat.i.tude and delight. He arrived at Atheling about the noon hour, and Kitty was the first to see and to welcome him. She had been gathering cherries, and was coming through the garden with her basket full of the crimson drupes, when he entered the gates. She set the fruit on the ground, and ran to meet him, and took him proudly in to her mother, and fussed over his many little comforts to his heart's content and delight.

Nothing was said about Piers until after dinner, which was hurried forward at the Squire's request; but afterwards, when he sat at the open cas.e.m.e.nt smoking, he called Kate to him. He took her on his knee and whispered, "Kate, there is somebody coming this afternoon."

"Yes," she said, "we have sent word to Annie. She will be here."