The Shellback's Progress Part 8

This finished the controversy for a time, as the two combatants were prevailed upon to shake hands, and in spite of this spirited combat they were soon enjoying their long pipes and their grog together.

Just about the time the Radicals in the House of Commons, aided by the Irish Nationalists, were making a good stand-up fight for the abolition of flogging in the army and navy, Mr Charles Bradlaugh was elected as one of the members for Northampton, with Mr Henry Labouchere as his colleague. The sanct.i.ty of the nation was violently shocked at the effrontery of Northampton in electing so dangerous a Radical infidel to represent them in Parliament as the notorious "Iconoclast." A wave of screaming pa.s.sed over the fair Christian land; the notorious advocate of atheistic principles was proclaimed a menacing danger to the Christian edifice. Injustice and untruth joined against him; shocking stories of blasphemy were circulated with mad recklessness against him.

There was not a single word of truth in them. This was proved over and over again in courts of law, and yet the charges were encouraged and persisted in. Poor Bradlaugh; what a time he had of it until the tempest of folly subsided, and both the people and some of their representatives in Parliament came back to their senses, and not only allowed the member for Northampton to take his seat, but pa.s.sed an act giving members the option of affirming instead of taking the oath, and also ordered the erasing from the journals of the House those records which were said to justify Mr Bradlaugh's exclusion. It was not to be wondered at that this rapturous concert of pa.s.sion and prejudice should reach the impressionable sailors from one border of the ocean to the other, and formed part of their occasional riotous debates. Any one who has had the privilege of listening to the fiery arguments set forth by sailors on the Bradlaugh or any other topic of absorbing interest must ever cherish it as a memorable experience. There is seldom any regard for moderation in such conflicts, and the extraordinary confusion of ideas makes them fascinating. I have a vivid recollection of my attention being attracted to the clamour of about half a dozen weather-beaten nautical stagers that were seated outside a dram-shop which was known to fame as "Jack the Blaster's." It will be readily recognized that the name was given to it by a north-countryman. I stopped, asked for a chair, and saw the whole thing through.

Occasionally, while the controversy was travelling along its more turbulent stages, I was asked to intervene in some way or other, but I had to act with studied impartiality, so adopted a neutral course.

"They tell me," said burly Captain Harvey, "that he's the best speaker in England."

"Who's the best speaker in England?" asked Skipper Cowan; "do you mean that fellow that's givin' members of Parliament so much trouble just now?"

"I mean Bradlaugh," said Mr Harvey.

"Well then," said Mr Cowan, "you're decidedly in the wrong. I heard a Methodist parson beat him to fits at Blyth. Bradlaugh lost his temper, and after that the parson wiped the boards with him. They called the parson Harrison,[2] and the atheists were all frightened of him after that."

[2] The same Mr Harrison is now a clergyman of the Church of England, and is pastor of St Thomas's, Newcastle.

"I never heard that before," said Harvey.

"Very well," retorted his friend, "you hear it now. I'm telling you; and another thing, instead of making him a member of Parliament I'd put the fellow in gaol and stop him going about the country destroying religion and making people infidels. Lord Randolph is a grand chap; he won't have any of his affirmin'. No, no, Sir Randolph doesn't believe in that sort of cattle, and he means what he says. Randy's all their daddies [Randy is cleverer than they]. Look what he did when Bradlaugh kept running up to the bar of the House of Commons to kiss the book.

What did Randolph do, you say? Why he jumped after him every time, seized him by the coat tails, and said, 'Bradlaugh, stand back!' That's pluck, if you like. Of course he had what they call the sargent with a sword by his side ready to stick him had Randolph not been too many for him. And what do you think old Gladstone did? He's always up to some mischief. He wrote that pamphlet on the Bulgarian atrocities that brought about the war with Russia and Turkey. What did he do, sir? I'll tell you what he did. He said, 'Gentlemen, Bradlaugh's been elected; he must be allowed to come among us.' There's a fine Englishman for you!

But never mind, _his_ day will come!"

A bulbous, beery-looking skipper tapped a companion on the shoulder, and said in startled undertone, "Cowan said something about Bradlaugh running up to the bar of the House. Is there a bar there?" And Harvey overhearing, said:

"Yes, Mister, there's a bar in that house, but not the kind of bar you mean. It is a bar sir, not a drinking-bar, mind you."

"What do they call it a bar for, then?" asked the beery person; "a bar's a bar, isn't it?"

"Yes, a bar's a bar, and you've got a lot to learn yet. What do they call the speaker 'the speaker' for?"

"Because he can speak, of course," said the beery gentleman.

"Shut up, man," said Cowan; "don't show your ignorance, and let me go on with the argument. It's not that at all."

"What is it, then?" said the inconvenient heckler.

"Never mind what it is. It's not what you say it is," remarked Cowan.

"By George, he was well served when they locked him up in the Clock Tower for his impudence. Why, at one time it took ten bobbies to keep him from mauling a lot of Christian gentleman that had taken the oath and kissed the Bible over and over again. They tore his clothes, and the pity is they were not torn off him altogether. Where was his cheek to talk about his conscience? And as to Gladstone, well, he's a fine Englishman to back a man up in his infidel works. He deserves as much as Bradlaugh; and as to Northampton, they should take away the vote from it."

The orator had completely exhausted and entwined a rich fund of adjectives into his harangue as he went along; and, when he ceased speaking, a warm supporter of his gave some applause, and nudging the bulbous person, he remarked:

"He's a long-headed fellow, isn't he? Eh, what a wonderful man for politics, and what a speaker! Why, Bradlaugh wouldn't have much chance with him. He should be in Parliament hissel'. By gum, he'd make them sit up. What do you say?"

His companion looked wise, and seemed smitten with awe. He could not trust himself to speak of the brilliant oration they had just listened to. Harvey followed up the debate by defending the right of freedom of action and freedom of speech all round.

"What business is it of these members of Parliament to interfere with what people think or say? I say 'no business at all.' Why, they tell me that when Bradlaugh beat them and took his seat and defied them, the Tories flocked round him and said: 'Bradlaugh, we're glad to see you in this honourable House, and congratulate you as one of ourselves.' Now there was brazen hypocrisy for you; and what do you think he said in reply? He stood up and said: 'Gentlemen, I know you of old, but I'm not going to be sucked in by any of your snakish ways.' Wasn't that fine?"

"Where did you hear that?" said Cowan.

"I saw'd in the papers; it's all right," said Harvey.

"Yes, and what's more," said Cowan, "I saw that Bradlaugh had become very popular with everybody, and the Tories said he was a rare good sort."

"Then I don't believe it," said Harvey.

"But I tell you I saw'd in the papers."

"Well," said Cowan, "if you hadn't telled me that, I wouldn't have believed it."

"But I'm telling ye," said Harvey; "and what is more, there's Labouchere: he's a queer 'un. He has a paper they call _Truth_, and he writes all about the Queen and the aristocracy. He knows everything about them, and doesn't care a d.a.m.n for anybody. He's been had up for libel many a time, but that never makes any difference. He goes on worse. They call him a Radical. He belongs to that lot that wants everything for themselves."

"But what about them Prussians wantin' to steal Denmark? What do you call that but cowardly work; and had it not been that Austria, the other bully, came to their a.s.sistance, the little Danes had the Prussians by the throat, and then, like all bullies, they fell out about the spoil and began to fight among themselves. No wonder that the Germans are hated; everybody liked the Danes. And where was your England then? Was she frightened of Von Bismarck? Yes, I says; yes! Was Palmerston frightened of him or of all the Prussians in the world? No, certainly not! He said: 'Gentlemen, let us draw the sword for the father of the Princess of Wales'; but these great Christian members of Parliament that you've been talking about so much said: 'No, we'll fight for n.o.body but ourselves.' Where is your Waterloo, your Corunna and Balaclava now? What about that foggy mornin' in the Baltic Sea when the fog cleared away and we were right in the centre of the Danish line-of-battleships, and the whole crew wanted to join the Danish navy, and the skipper said: 'No, men, you must stick to your own ship.' But we saluted them with the old flag, and gave them three good English cheers, and they cheered us, and the skipper said: 'Ah, they're fine fellows. What is England doin' of not to help them? There's no ill-feelin' left about Nelson puttin' the spy-gla.s.s to his blind eye and blowing Copenhagen down about their ears.'"

"Talk about makin' the Queen Empress of India? By George! Gladstone did walk into Disraeli about that, and it was said the Queen got her hump up about it."

"Well she might," said Cowan; "what business had Gladstone to interfere? He's always interfering."

"Yes," said Harvey; "and a good job for England he is."

"What d'ye say? Good job for England? What about the Fenians? What about Parnell and them Irishmen? What about the rascals who were nabbed settin' fire to infernal machinery for blowing up the House of Parliament? And then he talks of givin' them Home Rule! What about Piggott, Parnell and company?"

"Yes, and what about the forgeries, Mr Sniggins," said Harvey.

"Don't call me Sniggins!" said Captain Cowan, "I'm a respectable man."

"Don't you say this and that about Gladstone, then," said Harvey.

"We will if we like," said the bulbous friend, who showed in his phlegmatic way signs of taking sides against the great Liberal leader.

"What do you know about it?" contemptuously interposed Harvey. "My advice is to you, 'keep yourself sober and your mouth shut, and don't show your empty-headedness to people who have forgotten more than ever you knew!' _You_ talk about Gladstone! Why, you would never have known there was such a man if I hadn't told you. Of all the brazen cheek, well! You take the cake to talk to me about a man that made England and stopped the gentry from pilfering the whole thing."

"Get away, man!" replied our portly friend; "you would swear you were the Duke of Argyle. I tell you he would have given the country away to the foreigners if we hadn't stepped in."

"Do _you_ call yourself '_we_'!" interjected Harvey, his utterance almost incoherent with anger; "you want to go to school again and get some learnin'."

"Get some learnin', d'ye say, Mr Know-all? What has Gladstone done for the sailors, you an' me? That's a poser for you; and look at the money he gave away about the _Alabama_ to the Yankees, instead of fightin'

them for it like an Englishman. That's another poser for you!" retorted the big, burly antagonist who had wakened up and entered into the discussion with elephantine zeal. "Some of you would let foreigners jump on your stomachs, but Captain Cowan and me says, 'England for ever!' Why, if it hadn't been for Palmerston and the old Jew, we would all have been Russians or blooming Germans before now."

"Bravo, John Bird, well said! That's a clinker for you, Harvey," chimed in the devoted supporter of the previous speaker. "Fine Britishers they are, givin' away the country of their birth in lumps at a time!"

Harvey was purple; his blood was at boiling pitch, and his poignant attack on Captain John Bird gave that gentleman some concern lest it should reach to something more than mere words. His peroration consisted of a luxuriant use of imprecating adjectives which stamped him as a person of original thought. He apologized to his Creator as he pa.s.sed from point to point of these profane heights, and was obviously sure that this chaste mode of seeking forgiveness commended his observations to the Deity. The attack on Gladstone's and his own patriotism roused him to produce prodigies of declamatory ill.u.s.trations.

"Givin' the country away," he said. "Gladstone's trying to stop them dukes and earls and such like from stealing it. What does he say that the House of Lords should be shut up for, and these gentry made to work like other folk? I'll tell you what he says that for: because he wants it fairly shared, and the men that go down to the sea in ships to have a bit of it."

"Now you needn't repeat Scripture after you've been swearin' see hard,"

interposed Captain Cowan.

"No, sir, I'm not using Scripture. I'm saying that Gladstone wants to turn them fellows in the House of Lords out to work for their living, instead of cribbing all the land and gettin' such as you to back them up and crawl on your bended knees and kiss their hands for them; but I'm not one of them sort. I says what Joe Cowan says: 'The land for the people if they pay for it.' Wasn't it Gladstone and Bright that said no good would ever be done until the House of Lords was pulled down, and wasn't it Joe Cowan that stood up for them when they wanted to make the Queen the Empress of India? Didn't he say: 'No, gentlemen, the Queen of England's good enough for me; I wants no Empress'? And didn't that favourite Jew of yours say to him it was a grand speech? But I'm not goin' to open my mouth to fill your empty heads. You don't know your A B C's yet; and you talk to me about givin' away England, and about Dizzy, and you haven't a good word to say about your own countrymen who want to get you a bit of the land to grow something on. I tell you, you're nothing better than nincomp.o.o.ps, hobbledehoys that knows no more about politics than the old hookers you're skippers of do." He emphasized these last remarks by bringing his fist heavily down on the table, knocking the gla.s.ses off, and then in a patronizing way he walked from them a short distance, turned round quickly as though a sudden impulse had seized him, and shouted at the top of his voice:

"You want to go to school again, if you've ever been there, but I don't think you have!"