Ulverton (16 page)

but the Squire is the most insufferable of all: he has ten pairs of tall boots that creak like a coach – & a temper attuned to the weather, that holds his sport in the cup of its hand – a tyranny he will not stand for, but with less elegance in his rhetoric than that famous senator to Vespasian. He brings me cups of warm Port of an evening, settles me before his blazing hearth, and proceeds to vie with the Labouring Classes I have endured all day for bluntness of interest and the complete omission of that essential quality of eloquence that once parted us from the barbarians as flesh of peach from its hairy stone. This is how our rustic gentlemen cross the Rubicon – not with theatre & dancing on the ship but only talk of yields, & the price of corn, & harness, & nags’ teeth – & if they grow witty it is like spinning a top with a flail – and if rude – nay not
lente
but quickly run, you horses of the night! Did I tell you that I knew his son at Winchester? I believe I gave him a welt or two, for he was Junior by three years – a pretty fellow, but a dullard of the first order. He is now in speculation from America

said we did not have number enough to break his machine. He said we did not deserve 2/6d a day for we were paltry fellows who could not turn a Plough without making wind. We left him without abuse because he had stood like a man. We said we would return and went to join the persons that were at Fogbourne. We staid in Fogbourne until one o’clock, breaking there three machines and an iron Plough, & a winnower was already broke by a farmer. We collected £6. We returned to Ulverton where we met the Mob in the Square & we broke the said Farmer Walters’ Machine. Then some of us, about fifty persons, went to the Kistle Cross (upon Furzecombe Down) for a meeting where many spoke as we were all one, and a man I do not know in a black hat & Cloak said as we mean to circulate the Gentlemen’s blood with the leave of God to make our own blood good. Then over the crest to Effley and beyond

while the Briefs grow into bundles but my hand is sagging – it droops like the houses here, that are all sunk into their mud as if they wish to depart whence they came: for the walls are nothing more than earth and straw, and the roofs likewise – veritable pigsties all – nay, the pigs have better accomodation, & their (meaning the pigs) sour vapours blow less sulphurously past one’s nostrils – tho’ the desire to expectorate it from one’s lungs be equal & said desire quite overcomes those venerable parental injunctions in both cases, alas. There is a noisome mill thankfully distant, & an exceedingly ivied church, & the odd Fine house – in a good red brick, but inhabited by species of country tradesmen only a glove’s thickness off those they revile for having hands chapped by their business. These men have daughters shut away like Proserpine in a gloom, awaiting God knows what release by a bachelor with means – once a year, it appears, they ascend to the House where they gaze upon grandiosity and aldermen in equal quantity. Vile is this place of strangled opportunities, and rough fellows not in the least chastened by our proper Oaths and bundles of Terms & brass Ink-pots! Our witnesses creep out from under stones & demand more shillings than we have right to give them – but I give them anyway. So the great weight of the Law descends like some dusty-wigged behemoth in a scarlet stagecoach too small for the ride, and I must look stern and patch up the springs & be forever running to keep up. The dreadful Squire has a plan to carve a Horse on the hillside. All flesh is grass (or in this instance, the reverse

John Stiff, Farmer, saith that on Monday 22nd November instant about one hundred and fifty persons unlawfully entered his Court yard at Mapleash Farm near Ulverton in the said county and Examinant spoke to the Prisoner John Oadam who demanded of him 40s and his machine must be broke and they must have 12s a week in wages after Ladyday or they would bring the Country down like a barn with dry Rot. The Examinant gave the said Prisoner £10 in shillings and said that they must spare any more destruction, for they had already broke his machine. I did not see who broke the Machine, but I believe it was the said Prisoner among them –

not heedful, your father will lose you to his sight – unless you obey his command more peremptorily than good sense will allow, and the heart guide. Does it rain in Matlock?

This vagrant was not given relief. He gave much abuse to the magistrate and was committed to the Cage for a week. The Mob demanded of me the key at six o’clock on the following morning, this being Sunday the 21st of November instant

& it was most amusing. Squire Norcoat placed the flags himself upon the hillside that is South-west of the village, while I looked on in apparent admiration – for I could not see, from my vantage point close by, how this miscellany of fluttering cloth could possibly conform to anything of the remotest resemblance to a horse – save an extremely attenuated hippogriff, with bandy legs, and a neck like an ostrich –

Thereupon they broke ope the door, and drew him (the said vagrant Thomas Durner)

believe it – on both of us mounting the hill a mile away, to the north, with a decent view of Louzy Down (upon which the flags were positioned) this famished Monster began to jostle, and shift, and lose an appendage here and fatten another there – and so, guiding by means of a brass speaking-trumpet, and the breeze advantageous to his bawlings, the Squire had it a Horse within the two hours: those men working gallantly as if under Wellington to move about those flags upon the farthest slope at such distant command.

I did not stop them. The Prisoner Scalehorn who is a cripple was among them & also the Prisoner John Oadam. They were civil to me but I heard Oadam say as they wd be having the good things now

tho’ it was a deal too cold for my liking up there: my chest grew tight as a drum with the wind, & I kept my mouth closed or I wd have been taken with a Fit again. It has blown a chill wind here for three days – my throat aches deucedly. Dearest Emily

I told him he could not abuse the Law, for the vagrant had trespassed and used foul language to the Justice. I said that on the Holy day this action (meaning the release of the said vagrant) was blasphemous, and that they shd rest on the Lord’s day. He called me a Blackguard, and no man of the cloth, or God, and went into my Kitchen where he took a loaf of bread from the cupboard and stated that if a gallon loaf for each child was not forthcoming bellies would be crying out for justice to Heaven & the Almighty Himself wd weep etc. He waved the loaf in my face as if it was a weapon. Several of the men demanded I should lower my tithes and added – that was the farmers’ desire also. I promised then to consider their case, and gave them assurance of this with 3 Sovereigns, for I found it expedient to do so before further abuse was made to my person or Property. They left and I continued with my breakfast. The Mob returned the following afternoon of Monday the 22nd of November tho’ much reduced, for many had been taken in the Fight in the early morning of that day instant.

you think we shall marry with or without Consent? If only I had inheritance! Seven hundred a year would do admirably. I dream of this while these fellows are shuffled in, clutching their Caps, and stand mumbling into their beards (tho’ I had the Rector Willington come yesterday – insufferably upright). Seven hundred! Surely that avuncular codicil shall be untied soon, my
Emily
– and my Devotion answered! I have broke a pen this morning – in the middle of Depositioning, as it were, a young Shepherd fellow who is accused of Arson. He cannot be more than fourteen, exceedingly thin-faced but scrofulous, with a tall stovepipe and a spattered smock to his ankles that was no doubt his grandfather’s – there are so many of these Wretches they do not clothe them in our dungy prison – he burnt an iron Plough. How extraordinary these actions, that destroy the very Property from whence the means of subsistence are to be supplied. At the very least he will be in Van Diemen’s Land before a twelvemonth is out – he cannot imagine what distance lies between. I mean – between here and that infernal burning place

Edmund Bunce. He had a tinderbox & I saw him put it to the straw

so many of these fellows he might do better to Say Nothing, than mitigate himself into lying. Starvation never loosened the rope, as one might say. Tho’ I am not wholly convinced of this hollow-belly
wretchedness
that The Times is so full of: most of these fellows look apple-cheeked enough to me, tho’ slow as oxen (whether from hunger I doubt) and with moist, red eyes – from a combination, I suspect, of wind and ale-house. Some, indeed, have an attenuated look – that have
guttered
, as it were, into a pool of pauperism, at the base of the Candle. I thought all Ploughmen to be strapping, yet half of these look hardly capable of the said task, with thin shoulders as tho’ they have sat at a desk since birth – and with whining, girlish voices that set my teeth on edge. But when I think what I have seen in London – that hardly bears the description of humanity – pestilential – hard by the Inns of

said they had nor warmth nor sufficient bread, and proceeded to abuse the said Edward Hobbs. I heard a gun let off, and saw a
man
fall. I don’t know who fired the gun. I struck the said Giles Griffin with my stick. Griffin kicked my person. Edward Hobbs knocked the said Griffin to the ground & he was trampled upon by diverse persons in the Mob, who were fleeing the horses. Griffin rose and thereupon struck this Examinant with a potato-lifter upon the jaw

digging began yesterday – and this being a most instructive business to witness, as I was able to do in my free hour: the turf is cut into squares – lifted like the peel of an apple – and thus revealing, as it were, the Flesh beneath

in Maddle Lane with my wife & five children. My mother lives with us also. I heard a horn blown & went to the Window. There were many persons outside: they said we are all one & I must go with them & I shd carry a stick. We have no fire so I took a spoon. They said we must collect money as at Whitsun feast.

The effect was dull, for the bared space was not sufficiently lily-white – as your arms are, my Emily – on account of a flintiness, and the sticky boots of the labourers. A quarry has been made for the chalk nearby, that replaces the removed soil, and as I write they are carrying the stone (from which all dark matter has been excised) to the equine place and tipping it & patting it in, this albescence being effected by manual means only – the Squire’s efforts are designed for the express purpose of keeping the Devil afar off from otherwise idle hands, and those inflammatory minds certain to see in our carriage of Justice a suitable Pyre for their needs. There has been a pamphlet circulating over the beer-pots that wd drain the bloom from your loveliness

said to him that we have no tatoes nor bread and our children
cannot
sleep, for they go bedward without sup, only watered milk & sugar, & hardly fire to cook by if we had these things: I said there is hardly ash to sweep into one hand at the end of the day. He answered this will turn to ashes in your mouth, & we must not be tearing the Notices down, for they are good advice. I said, D—n it, these people want money, & they shall have it. He answered that if we wd get money by any means in the open day, we would likewise pay in the open day

& the blacksmith, a great hairy fellow who blows out his cheeks before he speaks, and strikes his knees as tho’ they were his anvil (I colour the description somewhat – all tedious here – he is a smallish fellow that reeks of beer-shops and has
grey
hands) will Hang for certain, as he is down for robbery, Arson, machine-breaking, and extortion. He told me he had robbed only his own shop. He sobbed in the middle point of his Deposition. A fellow sobbing is a most ungainly sight, like seeing a horse limp.

that he has nothing to say.

it aid matters and move your father to be more disposed to this legal fellow who is swollen with love for his daughter more than a Judge with muffins, if this said legal fellow rapt with speechless admiration for a certain countenance was to place his spectacles firmly on his nose – and dip his pen – and commiserate whole-heartedly with said paternal being in his mercantile misfortune?

no answer to this Charge.

ing the sole path, as the said legal fellow sees it, out of anguish and sobs and into illumination namely that glittering Paradise of unearthly delights namely betrothal to said counten

hedging in Little Hangy, by the crab-apple. I saw the Mob come over the crest towards me & I thought it was Whitsun, for they were merry & dressed in their best cloathes & wore ribands. They broke the hedge in many places. Some of them came up to me. I asked them why it was Whitsun now, & where was the feast

I merely blackly gloom my days away to an attenuated end – forever yearning – in the Exile, as it were, of love? No more of this. The Horse proceeds upon the hill in all its creamy glory with men about it like flies, tho’ this horse cannot flick its mane. There is a frosty glistening to it of a morning and when the mist settles of a late afternoon I almost think it looms like a spectre, like some
ideal
mount searching for its rider

I read the Riot Act to the assembled Mob. Upon perceiving the riotousness of the said persons to be unabated, I returned immediately to the House, to await the said force of Yeomanry Cavalry. The force came at about eight o’clock. It was fully light by then and the force proceeded to position itself in the woods behind the Doric Temple as it had been ascertained that the Mob were feloniously intent on causing destruction to my own Household,

most tedious supper, announced by a gong, and a gurgle in the throat from the housekeeper, who does not speak, and has a chin mottled in the pattern of a leaf – as if one has fallen thereupon, and sunk in long ago. The Squire, when intoxicated, glares across the dining-table as if intent on finding in one’s
waistcoat
the horizon that might settle him, and his voice has no need of a speaking-trumpet were it to be issuing instructions on a battlefield. He has eyes like a cotter’s windows under thatch – suspicious, yet promising warmth that on further exploration – turns to a chill – and grows damper by the long hour, until it altogether hisses into a kind of well, dark and dismal. Yet on the morrow he will be in a crumpled cheerfulness, and all bustle – if the weather allows it. His White Horse has turned him boyish, tho’ he powders his head in the fashion of his portraits. Several of the farmers here wear pigtails still. Yesterday I visited the House (a stiff and lofty pile) to Examine (if that term might be used of the discourse) his Lordship Chalmers. His ears are uncommonly large, and his nose looks at you in the place of eyes. He has a thumb-joint that clicks alarmingly in the spaces between words, like a fowling-piece. But I don’t think him a bad fellow.