The World's Greatest Books_ Volume 3 Part 46

The Chartist pet.i.tion was rejected by the House of Commons contemptuously. Riots took place in Birmingham. Sybil grew anxious for her father's safety.

Egremont's speech in parliament on the presentation of the national pet.i.tion created some perplexity among his aristocratic relatives and acquaintances. It was free from the slang of faction--the voice of a n.o.ble who had upheld the popular cause, who had p.r.o.nounced that the rights of labour were as sacred as those of property, that the social happiness of the millions should be the statesman's first object.

Sybil, enjoying the calm of St. James's Park on a summer morning, read the speech with emotion, and while she still held the paper the orator himself stood before her. She smiled without distress, and presently confided to Egremont that she was unhappy, about her father.

"I honour your father," said Egremont "Counsel him to return to Mowbray.

Exert every energy to get him to leave London at once--to-night if possible. After this business at Birmingham the government will strike at the convention. If your father returns to Mowbray and is quiet, he has a chance of not being disturbed."

Sybil returned and warned her father. "You are in danger," she cried, "great and immediate. Let us quit this city to-night."

"To-morrow, my child," Walter Gerard a.s.sured her, "we will return to Mowbray. To-night our council meets, and we have work of utmost importance. We must discountenance scenes of violence. The moment our council is over I will come back to you."

But Walter Gerard did not return. While Sybil sat and waited, Stephen Morley entered the room. His manner was strange and unusual.

"Your father is in danger; time is precious. I can endure no longer the anguish of my life. I love you, and if you will not be mine, I care for no one's fate. I can save your father. If I see him before eight o'clock, I can convince him that the government knows of his intentions, and will arrest him to-night. I am ready to do this service--to save the father from death and the daughter from despair, if she would but only say to me: 'I have but one reward, and it is yours.'"

"It is bitter, this," said Sybil, "bitter for me and mine; but for you pollution, this bargaining of blood. In the name of the Holy Virgin I answer you--no!"

Morley rushed frantically from the room.

Sybil, in despair, made her way to a coffee-house near Charing Cross, which she knew had been much frequented by members of the Chartist Convention. Here, after some delay, she was given the fatal address in Hunt Street, Seven Dials.

Sybil arrived at the meeting a few minutes before the police raided the premises. She was found with her father, and taken with him and six other men to Bow Street Police Station. A note to Egremont procured her release in the early hours of the morning.

Walter Gerard in due time was sent to trial, convicted and sentenced to eighteen month's confinement in York Castle.

_VI.--Within the Castle Walls_

In 1842 came the great stoppage of work. The mills ceased; the miners went "to play," despairing of a fair day's wage for a fair day's work; and the inhabitants of Woodgate--the h.e.l.l-cats, as they were called-- stirred up by a Chartist delegate, sallied forth with Simon Hatton, named the "liberator," at their head to deal ruthlessly with all "oppressors of the people."

They sacked houses, plundered cellars, ravaged provision shops, destroyed gas-works and stormed workhouses. In time they came to Mowbray. There the liberator came face to face with Baptist Hatton without recognising his brother.

Stephen Morley and Baptist Hatton were in close conference.

"The times are critical," said Hatton.

"Mowbray may be burnt to the ground before the troops arrive," Morley replied.

"And the castle, too," said Hatton quietly. "I was thinking only yesterday of a certain box of papers. To business, friend Morley. This savage relative of mine cannot be quiet. If he does not destroy Trafford's Mill it will be the castle. Why not the castle instead of the mill?"

Trafford's Mill was saved by the direct intervention of Walter Gerard.

All the people of Mowbray knew the good reputation of the Traffords, and Gerard's eloquence turned the mob from the attack.

While the liberator and the h.e.l.l-cats hesitated, a man named Dandy Mick, prompted by Morley, urged that a walk should be taken in Lord de Mowbray's park.

The proposition was received with shouts of approbation. Gerard succeeded in detaching a number of Mowbray men, but the h.e.l.l-cats, armed with bludgeons, poured into the park and on to the castle.

Lady de Mowbray and her friends made their escape, taking Sybil, who had sought refuge from the mob, with them.

Mr. St. Lys gathered a body of men in defence of the castle, but came too late to prevent the entrance of the h.e.l.l-cats. Singularly enough, Morley and one or two of his followers entered with the liberator.

The first great rush was to the cellars, and the invaders were quickly at work knocking off the heads of bottles, and brandishing torches.

Morley and his lads traced their way down a corridor to the winding steps of the Round Tower, and forced their way into the muniment room of the castle. It was not till his search had nearly been abandoned in despair that he found the small blue box blazoned with the arms of Valence. He pa.s.sed it hastily to a trusted companion, Dandy Mick, and bade him deliver it to Sybil Gerard at the convent.

At this moment the noise of musketry was heard; the yeomanry were on the scene.

Morley, cut off from flight by the military, was shot, pistol in hand, with the name of Sybil on his lips. "The world will misjudge me," he thought--"they will call me hypocrite, but the world is wrong."

The man with the box escaped through the window, and in spite of the fire, troopers, and mob, reached the convent in safety.

The castle was burnt to the ground by the torches of the h.e.l.l-cats.

Sybil, separated from her friends, found herself surrounded by a band of drunken ruffians. She was rescued by a yeomanry officer, who pressed her to his heart.

"Never to part again," said Egremont.

Under Egremont's protection, Sybil returned to the convent, and there in the courtyard they found Dandy Mick, who had refused to deliver his charge, and was lying down with the blue box for his pillow. He had fulfilled his mission. Sybil, too agitated to perceive all its import, delivered the box into the custody of Egremont, who, bidding farewell to Sybil, bade Mick follow him to his hotel.

While these events were happening, Lord Marney, hearing an alarmed and exaggerated report of the insurrection, and believing that Egremont's forces were by no means equal to the occasion, had set out for Mowbray with his own troop of yeomanry.

Crossing the moor, he encountered Walter Gerard with a great mult.i.tude, whom Gerard headed for purposes of peace.

His mind inflamed, and hating at all times any popular demonstration, Lord Marney hastily read the Riot Act, and the people were fired on and sabred. The indignant spirit of Gerard resisted, and the father of Sybil was shot dead. Instantly arose a groan, and a feeling of frenzy came over the people. Armed only with stones and bludgeons they defied the troopers, and rushed at the hors.e.m.e.n; a shower of stones rattled without ceasing on the helmet of Lord Marney, nor did the people rest till Lord Marney fell lifeless on Mowbray Moor, stoned to death.

The writ of right against Lord de Mowbray proved successful in the courts, and his lordship died of the blow.

For a long time after the death of her father Sybil remained in helpless woe. The widowed Lady Marney, however, came over one day, and carried her back to Marney Abbey, never again to quit it until the bridal day, when the Earl and Countess of Marney departed for Italy.

Though the result was not what Mr. Hatton had once antic.i.p.ated, the idea that he had deprived Sybil of her inheritance had, ever since he had become acquainted with her, been the plague-spot of Hatton's life, and there was nothing he desired more than to see her restored to those rights, and to be instrumental in that restoration.

Dandy Mick was rewarded for all the dangers he had encountered in the service of Sybil, and was set up in business by Lord Marney. A year after the burning of Mowbray Castle, on the return of the Earl and Countess of Marney to England, the romantic marriage and the enormous wealth of Lord and Lady Marney were still the talk in fashionable circles.

Tancred, or the New Crusade

"Tancred," published in 1847, completes the trilogy, which began with "Coningsby" in 1844, and had its second volume in "Sybil" in 1845. In these three novels Disraeli gave to the world his political, social, and religious philosophy.

"Coningsby" was mainly political, "Sybil" mainly social, and in "Tancred," as the author tells us, Disraeli dealt with the origin of the Christian Church of England and its relation to the Hebrew race whence Christianity sprang. "Public opinion recognized the truth and sincerity of these views," although their general spirit ran counter to current Liberal utilitarianism. Although "Tancred" lacks the vigour of "Sibyl"

and the wit of "Coningsby," it is full of the colour of the East, and the satire and irony in the part relating to Tancred's life in England are vastly entertaining. As in others of Disraeli's novels, many of the characters here are portraits of real personages.

_I.--Tancred Goes Forth on His Quest_