: The Life of Thomas Wanless Peasant by Wilson A J Alexander Johnstone - Peasants England Fiction

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h, and one or two others; but old Hawthorn let it be widely known that if any steps were taken to prosecute the labourers, he would not only provide means for their defence, but enable them also to raise counter actions, in support of which he would compel the Vicar to enter the witness-box. That did not suit the farmers or their abettors, still less Codling, so after a little noisy squabbling the matter dropped.

Thomas Wanless had a soul above petty thieving of this kind. Not only was he naturally high-spirited and jealous of a good conscience, but his mind had become considerably expanded by diligent cultivation. He did not again forget his reading, and though his books were few, he still contrived to read enough on odd Sundays in summer, and in the winter evenings, to stimulate his naturally strong thinking powers. His friends, the blacksmith and the parish clerk, were also often in his company, and the three discussed matters of Church and State in the freest possible style over their jugs of thin ale. Poor Brown, the parish clerk and schoolmaster, had not improved his prospects by settling in Ashbrook, for the vicar had long ceased to interest himself in the education of the poor, and the school emoluments had become meagre enough. But Brown had married, and so was, in a measure, rooted to the spot, not knowing where to better himself.

He eked out his parish clerkship with odd accountant jobs for surrounding farmers, and occasionally picked up a crown or two by acting as clerk at country auctions, and his greatest earthly blessing was a contested parliamentary election. Yet life was hard for him withal, and his Radicalism naturally was bitter, for adversity is the best nursery of democratic ideas. It is only the noblest natures that can enjoy prosperity, and yet be just and considerate towards all men. Too often the man who when poor was a blatant Radical becomes a hollow tin kettle sort of creature when he has struggled up from the earth where his Radicalism took birth. I say not that Brown was of this sort, but undeniably poverty and disappointment put an edge on his wit when he dealt with the inequalities of life, and under his leadership Thomas Wanless stood in no danger of becoming an unquestioning pauper. The three friends solved social problems in a style that would have amazed their superiors had they known; nay, that they would have even startled some of the limp and dilettante friends of the people who, in these days, haunt London clubs, and dilate with wondrous volubility on social reform. Thomas's Radicalism, however, never interfered with his work, for his family was more to him than the ills of the State. He viewed these wrongs, perhaps, from too narrow a standpoint for him to be a great social reformer. He felt for his little ones, and for his once blooming, patient wife--now grown brown, gaunt, and hollow-eyed from incessant care, toil, and privation--and the disjointed order of society was to him a personal wrong. His life was, indeed, cheerless; and after his father died and his brother had been killed by a fall from a rick, he often felt lonely and sullen at the heart, working against his fate as a prisoner might in chains. For him this life had no hope, no prospect of rest but the grave.

Struggling bravely, though bitter at the heart, Thomas dragged his family through the terrible years that followed the passing of the Reform Bill--years during which his wife and children were almost as familiar with want as with the light of the sun. How they survived he could hardly tell. "My remembrance of that time," he one day said to me, "is but a kind of confused dream. I ceased to think or feel. I just worked where and when I could; and I swallowed my crust like a dumb beast. But now I thank God that I had health, though then to commit murder would at times to me have seemed as nothing."

In that time Thomas became a strong Chartist, and was a leader among his fellows; and, feeling as he did, it says much for his force of character that there were no outbreaks by the Ashbrook villagers such as occurred in many parts of Warwickshire at that time. His opinions, however, were well known, and he was called a rogue freely enough by his enemies the farmers. More than once he might have suffered unjust imprisonment for his freedom of speech at village gatherings and elsewhere, had not old Squire Hawthorn stood his friend. Ever since Ashbrook fight, that strange old man had taken a special interest in Thomas. It only extended, however, to occasional efforts to keep him out of the grip of the justices, and could hardly perhaps have gone further, for Thomas was proud; and, besides, he was a labourer, and in that lowly lot he was predestined by the laws of the landed oligarchy to remain. Over the great gulf fixed by that mighty trades union of the Take-alls he could never pass.

So passed the years of my friend's early manhood. He was familiar with care; poverty was his abiding portion. A young family gathered round his knee; which he tried to bring up in less ignorance than had been his early lot, but whom he could not always keep less hungry. Thomas had many times difficulty in providing his household with a sufficiency of coarse dry bread. Insufficiently nourished his children were weakly and stunted; little able to wrestle with disease. His two eldest boys were sent to work for good at the age of ten; and the younger of the two died through exposure and hunger before he was twelve. The girls were kept longer at home, hard though the fight for life was; but the third boy was taken on at Squire Hawthorn's own farm, at 2s. per week, when he was little over nine. That same year, Thomas himself had had a fine spell of harvesting; and his wife, having no new baby to provide for, had saved a few shillings by selling vegetables from the allotment garden, to people in Warwick town, so that the winter was faced by the couple in better heart than they had known almost since the day they were married. A pound or two in hand after meeting the bills that the harvest money had to pay! Surely greater bliss no man could know. The thought of such riches made Thomas declare that he might yet escape the workhouse, as, thank God, his father had done. Already, though not forty years old, the shadow of that accursed refuge of the English poor had begun to loom over Thomas's future, grim and horrible as the gate of Hell. As he thought, in his hours of bitterness, of whither his endless toil was carrying him, of the sole "good" that the Take-alls left to him and such as him, he set his teeth and cursed his country. Nor would he believe that for this he had been born. His soul was bitter within him, and, young as he yet was, hard work and harder fare were telling on his stalwart frame.

But this autumn had brought him a gleam of hope; and the stirring events of the time helped to strengthen that hope. All things were changing. The great towns had been roused into political activity by the Reform Bill, and railways were fast revolutionising the habits of the people the land through, as well as opening up new fields of labour. At last, then, and even in sleepy, wealth worshipping, hide-bound England, democracy might be considered born. Thomas was sanguine that in the coming struggles the people would win, and, like all sanguine believers in the future good, his belief expected instant fulfilment. The apostles themselves lived in the belief that the end of the world was at hand. Might not the way-worn and heart-weary agricultural labourer therefore hope? Thomas Wanless, at least, did so. The world was changing for others; for him and his also better times might be at hand. Hitherto, alas, the changes had been mostly to his hurt. Railway-making itself had done his class harm rather than good, for the new iron roads linked the country more and more closely to the great centres of industry. Prices of all kinds of agricultural produce went higher and higher, but without bringing a corresponding increase in the labourer's pay. The landowner grabbed all he could of the augmented gains, and what he left the farmer took. For the hind was there not still the workhouse? Yet the demand for labour was increasing fast, and not all the hungry kerns of Ireland seemed able to meet that demand. For once Thomas and his wife had enjoyed a good year. Was not Leamington Priors growing a big town moreover, and going to have a college of its own to outshine Rugby itself? Surely Ashbrook would benefit from the nearness of so much wealth as this implied. The grounds for this hope were many and obvious. Thomas might yet rent his own little farm, and be independent. His ambition ran no higher, yet the indulgence of it proved him to be a short-sighted fool.

At this time Thomas was an odd or day labourer, taking contract jobs on his own account when he could get them, and working for a daily wage when these failed. This winter found him at work grubbing up old hedges, and helping to lay out anew some land on a farm of Lord Duckford's beyond Radbury. He had to walk about four miles each way daily to and from his work, but as the days were short he lost no time, and the company of a fellow villager engaged with him at the same job made the trudge lighter. And the hopes that lay around his heart helped him more than aught else, as they always help us poor will-o'-the-wisp-led mortals in this dark world.

Alas for these hopes! Thomas Wanless had not been a month at his new work when an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out at Ashbrook, and amongst the first to catch the disease was his youngest child, a girl of two years. Ere ten days had elapsed five out of his seven surviving children were down with the treacherous disease. His eldest boy and girl had had it years before, but the boy was sent home from the farm where he worked for fear of spreading contagion, and the girl was little more than nine years old, so that she could not do much to help the overworked mother.

Crowded together in the long low-roofed attic of the cottage, three of the five lay helpless and wailing for many days. After the first week the other two whose attack had been slight got out of bed, but were kept in the same room to avoid cold. The food of all was poor, the medical attendance miserable and infrequent. Thomas's heart was nearly broken. All his hopes vanished, and the old bitterness settled down on his spirit. The rage of helplessness often swept over him as he looked at his tired and harassed wife, or thought of her left alone, day in and out, with those sick children. The little savings would mostly be needed for the doctor's bill; there was only the 10s. a-week that Thomas happily still earned to stand between the whole family and want. Can anyone wonder that Thomas grew moody, and glowered at the world to which he owed so little?

One evening, in the middle of the third week of their affliction, as he and neighbour Robins were trudging home together through the perplexing obscurity of a grey November fog, the latter said--

"Couldn't we get a rabbit or two, Tummas? They'd make a nice pot for the young ones, poor things; better nor barley gruel, any way."

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