The Revolution in Tanner's Lane Part 2

At half-past seven o'clock the Major and Zachariah departed. They walked across the top of Hatton Garden, and so onwards till they came to Red Lion Street. Entering a low pa.s.sage at the side of a small public-house, they went up some stairs, and found themselves opposite a door which was locked. The Major gave three taps and then paused.

A moment afterwards he tapped again twice; the lock was turned, and he was admitted. Zachariah found himself in a s.p.a.cious kind of loft.

There was a table running down the middle, and round it were seated about a dozen men, most of whom were smoking and drinking beer. They welcomed the Major with rappings, and he moved towards the empty chair at the head of the board.

"You're late, chairman," said one.

"Been to fetch a new comrade."

"Is that the cove? He looks all right. Here's your health, guv'nor, and d---n all tyrants." With that he took a pull at the beer.

"Swear him," said the Major.

A disagreeable-looking man with a big round nose, small red eyes, unshaven face, and slightly unsteady voice, rose, laid down his pipe, and beckoned to Zachariah, who advanced towards him.

The Secretary--for he it was--produced a memorandum-book, and began with a stutter:

"In the sacred name of--"

"Stop!" cried Zachariah, "I don't swear."

"That will do," shouted the Major across a hubbub which arose-- "religious. I'll answer for him: let him sign; that's enough."

"You ARE answerable," growled the Secretary "if he's a d---d spy we'll have his blood, that's all, and yours too, Major." The Major took no notice, and Zachariah put his name in the book, the roll of the Red Lion Friends of the People.

"Business, Mr. Secretary--the last minutes."

The minutes were read, and an adjourned debate was then renewed on a motion to organise public meetings to pet.i.tion in favour of Parliamentary Reform. The reader must understand that politics in those days were somewhat different from the politics of fifty or sixty years later. Bread was thirteenpence a quartern loaf; the national debt, with a much smaller population, was what it is now; everything was taxed, and wages were very low. But what was most galling was the fact that the misery, the taxes, and the debt had been acc.u.mulated, not by the will of the people, but by a corrupt House of Commons, the property of borough-mongers, for the sake of supporting the Bourbons directly, but indirectly and chiefly the House of Hanover and the hated aristocracy. There was also a scandalous list of jobs and pensions. Years afterwards, when the Government was forced to look into abuses, the Reverend Thomas Thurlow, to take one example amongst others, was awarded, as compensation for the loss of his two offices, Patentee of Bankrupts and Keeper of Hanaper, the modest allowance annually until his death of 11,380 pounds 14s. 6d. The men and women of that time, although there were scarcely any newspapers, were not fools, and there was not a Nottingham weaver who put a morsel of bread in his hungry belly who did not know that two morsels might have gone there if there were no impost on foreign corn to maintain rents, and if there were no interest to pay on money borrowed to keep these sacred kings and lords safe in their palaces and parks. Opinion at the Red Lion Friends of the People Club was much divided. Some were for demonstrations and agitation, whilst others were for physical force.

The discussion went on irregularly amidst much tumult.

"How long would they have waited over the water if they had done nothing but jaw? They met together and tore down the Bastile, and that's what we must do."

"That may be true," said a small white-faced man who neither smoked nor drank, "but what followed? You don't do anything really till you've reasoned it out."

"It's my belief, parson," retorted the other, "that you are in a d--- d funk. This is not the place for Methodists."

"Order, order!" shouted the chairman.

"I am not a Methodist," quietly replied the other; "unless you mean by Methodist a man who fears G.o.d and loves his Saviour. I am not ashamed to own that, and I am none the worse for it as far as I know.

As for being a coward, we shall see."

The Secretary meanwhile had gone on with his beer. Despite his notorious failing, he had been chosen for the post because in his sober moments he was quick with his pen. He was not a working man; nay, it was said he had been at Oxford. His present profession was that of attorney's clerk. He got up and began a harangue about Brutus.

"There's one way of dealing with tyrants--the old way, Mr. Chairman.

Death to them all, say I; the short cut; none of your palaver; what's the use of palavering?"

He was a little shaky, took hold of the rail of his chair, and as he sat down broke his pipe.

Some slight applause followed; but the majority were either against him, or thought it better to be silent.

The discussion continued irregularly, and Zachariah noticed that about half-a-dozen of those present took no part in it. At about ten o'clock the chairman declared the meeting at an end; and it was quite time he did so, for the smoke and the drink had done their work.

As Zachariah came out, a man stood by his side whom he had scarcely noticed during the evening. He was evidently a shoemaker. There was a smell of leather about him, and his hands and face were grimy. He had a slightly turned-up nose, smallish eyes, half hidden under very black eyebrows, and his lips were thin and straight. His voice was exceedingly high-pitched, and had something creaking in it like the sound of an ill-greased axle. He spoke with emphasis, but not quite like an Englishman, was fond of alliteration, and often, in the middle of a sentence, paused to search for a word which pleased him.

Having found it, the remainder of the sentence was poised and cast from him like a dart. His style was a curious mixture of foreign imperfection and rhetoric--a rhetoric, however, by no means affected.

It might have been so in another person, but it was not so in him.

"Going east?" said he.

"Yes."

"If you want company, I'll walk with you. What do you think of the Friends?"

Zachariah, it will be borne in mind, although he was a Democrat, had never really seen the world. He belonged to a religious sect. He believed in the people, it is true, but it was a people of Cromwellian Independents. He purposely avoided the company of men who used profane language, and never in his life entered a tavern.

He did not know what the ma.s.ses really were; for although he worked with his hands, printers were rather a superior set of fellows, and his was an old-established shop which took the best of its cla.s.s.

When brought actually into contact with swearers and drunkards as patriots and reformers he was more than a little shocked.

"Not much," quoth he.

"Not worse than our virtuous subst.i.tute for a sovereign?"

"No, certainly."

"You object to giving them votes, but is not the opinion of the silliest as good as that of Lord Sidmouth?"

"That's no reason for giving them votes."

"I should like to behold the experiment of a new form of misgovernment. If we are to be eternally enslaved to fools and swindlers, why not a change? We have had regal misrule and aristocratic swindling long enough."

"Seriously, my friend," he continued, "study that immortal charter, the Declaration of the Rights of Man."

He stopped in the street, and with an oratorical air repeated the well-known lines, "Men are born and always continue free, and equal in respect of their rights. . . . Every citizen has a right, either by himself or by his representative, to a free voice in determining the necessity of public contributions, the appropriation of them, and their amount, mode of a.s.sessment, and duration." He knew them by heart. "It is the truth," he continued: "you must come to that, unless you believe in the Divine appointment of dynasties. There is no logical repose between Lord Liverpool and the Declaration. What is the real difference between him and you? None but a question of degree. He does not believe in absolute monarchy, and stays at this point. You go a little lower. You are both alike. How dare you say, 'My brother, I am more honest and more religious than you; pay me half-a-crown and I will spend it for your welfare'? You cannot tell me that. You know I should have a RIGHT to reject you. I refuse to be coerced. I prefer freedom to--felicity."

Zachariah was puzzled. He was not one of those persons who can see no escape from an argument and yet are not convinced; one of those happy creatures to whom the operations of the intellect are a joke-- who, if they are shown that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, decline to disprove it, but act as if they were but one. To Zachariah the appeal "Where will you stop?" was generally successful. If his understanding told him he could not stop, he went on. And yet it so often happens that if we do go on we are dissatisfied; we cannot doubt each successive step, but we doubt the conclusion. We arrive serenely at the end, and lo! it is an absurdity which common sense, as we call it, demolishes with scoffs and laughter.

They had walked down to Holborn in order to avoid the rather dangerous quarter of Gray's Inn Lane. Presently they were overtaken by the Secretary, staggering under more liquor. He did not recognise them, and rolled on. The shoemaker instantly detached himself from Zachariah and followed the drunken official. He was about to turn into a public-house, when his friend came up to him softly, abstracted a book which was sticking out of his pocket, laid hold of him by the arm, and marched off with him across the street and through Great Turnstile.

Sunday came, and Zachariah and his wife attended the services at Pike Street Meeting-house, conducted by that worthy servant of G.o.d, the Reverend Thomas Bradshaw. He was at that time preaching a series of sermons on the Gospel Covenant, and he enlarged upon the distinction between those with whom the covenant was made and those with whom there was none, save of judgment. The poorest and the weakest, if they were sons of G.o.d, were more blessed than the strongest who were not. These were nothing: "they should go out like the smoke of a candle with an ill favour; whereas the weak and simple ones are upholden, and go from strength to strength, and increase with the increasings of G.o.d." Zachariah was rather confused by what had happened during the week, and his mind, especially during the long prayer, wandered a good deal much to his discomfort.

CHAPTER III--THE THEATRE

Major Maitland was very fond of the theatre, and as he had grown fond of Zachariah, and frequently called at his house, sometimes on business and sometimes for pleasure, he often asked his friend to accompany him. But for a long time he held out. The theatre and dancing in 1814 were an abomination to the Independents. Since 1814 they have advanced, and consequently they not only go to plays and dance like other Christians, but the freer, less prejudiced, and more enlightened encourage the ballet, spend their holidays in Paris, and study French character there. Zachariah, however, had a side open to literature, and though he had never seen a play acted, he read plays.

He read Shakespeare, and had often thought how wonderful one of his dramas must be on the stage. So it fell out that at last he yielded, and it was arranged that Mrs. and Mr. Coleman should go with the Major to Drury Lane to see the great Edmund Kean in "Oth.e.l.lo." The day was fixed, and Mrs. Coleman was busy for a long time beforehand in furbishing up and altering her wedding-dress, so that she might make a decent figure. She was all excitement, and as happy as she could well be. For months Zachariah had not known her to be so communicative. She seemed to take an interest in politics; she discussed with him the report that Bonaparte was mad, and Zachariah, on his part, told her what had happened to him during the day, and what he had read in the newspapers. The Prince Regent had been to Oxford, and verses had been composed in his honour. Mr. Bosanquet had recited to the Prince an ode, or something of the kind, and had ventured, after dilating on the enormous services rendered by kings in general to the community during the last twenty years, to warn them:

"But ye yourselves must bow: your praise be given To Him, the Lord of lords, your King in heaven."