Part 10

“Lad! thou hast borne a deal for me. It’s the meanest thing I ever did to leave thee to bear the brunt. Thou, who wert as innocent of any knowledge of it as the babe unborn. I’ll not bless thee for it. Blessing from such as me would not bring thee any good. Thou’lt love Mary, though she is my child.”

He ceased, and there was a pause for a few seconds.

Then Mr. Carson turned to go. When his hand was on the latch of the door, he hesitated for an instant.

“You can have no doubt for what purpose I go. Straight to the police-office, to send men to take care of you, wretched man, and your accomplice. To-morrow morning your tale shall be repeated to those who can commit you to gaol, and before long you shall have the opportunity of trying how desirable hanging is.”

“O sir!” said Mary, springing forward and catching hold of Mr. Carson’s arm, “my father is dying. Look at him, sir. If you want Death for Death, you have it. Don’t take him away from me these last hours. He must go alone through Death, but let me be with him as long as I can. O, sir! if you have any mercy in you, leave him here to die.”

John himself stood up, stiff and rigid, and replied:

“Mary, wench! I owe him summat. I will go die, where, and as he wishes me. Thou hast said true, I am standing side by side with Death; and it matters little where I spend the bit of time left of life. That time I must pass wrestling with my soul for a character to take into the other world. I’ll go where you see fit, sir. He’s innocent,” faintly indicating Jem, as he fell back in the chair.

“Never fear! They cannot touch him,” said Job Legh, in a low voice.

But as Mr. Carson was on the point of leaving the house with no sign of relenting about him, he was again stopped by John Barton, who had risen once more from his chair, and stood supporting himself on Jem while he spoke.

“Sir, one word! My hairs are grey with suffering, and yours with years——”

“And have I had no suffering?” asked Mr. Carson, as if appealing for sympathy, even to the murderer of his child.

And the murderer of his child answered to the appeal, and groaned in spirit over the anguish he had caused.

“Have I had no inward suffering to blanch these hairs? Have not I toiled and struggled even to these years with hopes in my heart that all centred in my boy! I did not speak of them, but were they not there? I seemed hard and cold; and so I might be to others, but not to him!—who shall ever imagine the love I bore to him? Even he never dreamed how my heart leapt up at the sound of his footstep, and how precious he was to his poor old father. And he is gone—killed—out of the hearing of all loving words—out of my sight for ever. He was my sunshine, and now it is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!” cried the old man aloud.

The eyes of John Barton grew dim with tears. Rich and poor, masters and men, were then brothers in the deep suffering of the heart; for was not this the very anguish he had felt for little Tom, in years so long gone by that they seemed like another life!

The mourner before him was no longer the employer; a being of another race, eternally placed in antagonistic attitude; going through the world glittering like gold, with a stony heart within, which knew no sorrow but through the accidents of Trade; no longer the enemy, the oppressor, but a very poor and desolate old man.

The sympathy for suffering, formerly so prevalent a feeling with him, again filled John Barton’s heart, and almost impelled him to speak (as best he could) some earnest tender words to the stern man, shaking in his agony.

But who was he that he should utter sympathy or consolation? The cause of all this woe.

Oh, blasting thought! Oh, miserable remembrance! He had forfeited all right to bind up his brother’s wounds.

Stunned by the thought, he sank upon the seat, almost crushed with the knowledge of the consequences of his own action; for he had no more imagined to himself the blighted home, and the miserable parents, than does the soldier, who discharges his musket, picture to himself the desolation of the wife, and the pitiful cries of the helpless little ones, who are in an instant to be made widowed and fatherless.

To intimidate a class of men, known only to those below them as desirous to obtain the greatest quantity of work for the lowest wages—at most, to remove an overbearing partner from an obnoxious firm, who stood in the way of those who struggled as well as they were able to obtain their rights—this was the light in which John Barton had viewed his deed; and even so viewing it, after the excitement had passed away, the Avenger, the sure Avenger, had found him out.

But now he knew that he had killed a man and a brother—now he knew that no good thing could come out of this evil, even to the sufferers whose cause he had so blindly espoused.

He lay across the table, broken-hearted. Every fresh quivering sob of Mr. Carson’s stabbed him to his soul.

He felt execrated by all; and as if he could never lay bare the perverted reasonings which had made the performance of undoubted sin appear a duty. The longing to plead some faint excuse grew stronger and stronger. He feebly raised his head, and looking at Job Legh, he whispered out:

“I did not know what I was doing, Job Legh; God knows I didn’t! O, sir!” said he wildly, almost throwing himself at Mr. Carson’s feet, “say you forgive me the anguish I now see I have caused you. I care not for pain, or death; you know I don’t; but oh, man! forgive me the trespass I have done!”

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” said Job, solemnly and low, as if in prayer: as if the words were suggested by those John Barton had used.

Mr. Carson took his hands away from his face. I would rather see death than the ghastly gloom which darkened that countenance.

“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”

There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving, cruel deeds are acted blasphemy.

Mr. Carson left the house. And John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.

They lifted him up, and almost hoping that that deep trance might be to him the end of all earthly things, they bore him to his bed.

For a time they listened with divided attention to his faint breathings; for in each hasty hurried step that echoed in the street outside they thought they heard the approach of the officers of justice.

When Mr. Carson left the house he was dizzy with agitation; the hot blood went careering through his frame. He could not see the deep blue of the night heavens for the fierce pulses which throbbed in his head. And partly to steady and calm himself, he leaned against a railing, and looked up into those calm majestic depths with all their thousand stars.

And by-and-by his own voice returned upon him, as if the last words he had spoken were being uttered through all that infinite space; but in their echoes there was a tone of unutterable sorrow.

“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”

He tried to shake off the spiritual impression made by this imagination. He was feverish and ill—and no wonder.

So he turned to go homewards; not, as he had threatened, to the police-office. After all (he told himself) that would do in the morning. No fear of the man escaping, unless he escaped to the grave.

So he tried to banish the phantom voices and shapes which came unbidden to his brain, and to recall his balance of mind by walking calmly and slowly, and noticing everything which struck his senses.

It was a warm soft evening in spring, and there were many persons in the streets. Among others a nurse with a little girl in her charge, conveying her home from some children’s gaiety—a dance most likely, for the lovely little creature was daintily decked out in soft, snowy muslin; and her fairy feet tripped along by her nurse’s side as if to the measure of some tune she had lately kept time to.

Suddenly, up behind her there came a rough, rude errand-boy, nine or ten years of age; a giant he looked by the fairy-child as she fluttered along. I don’t know how it was, but in some awkward way he knocked the poor little girl down upon the hard pavement as he brushed rudely past, not much caring whom he hurt so that he got along.

The child arose, sobbing with pain; and not without cause, for blood was dropping down from the face but a minute before so fair and bright—dropping down on the pretty frock, making those scarlet marks so terrible to little children.

The nurse, a powerful woman, had seized the boy just as Mr. Carson (who had seen the whole transaction) came up.

“You naughty little rascal! I’ll give you to a policeman, that I will! Do you see how you’ve hurt the little girl? Do you?” accompanying every sentence with a violent jerk of passionate anger.

The lad looked hard and defying; but withal terrified at the threat of the policeman, that ogre of our streets to all unlucky urchins. The nurse saw it, and began to drag him along, with a view of making what she called “a wholesome impression.”

His terror increased, and with it his irritation; when the little sweet face, choking away its sobs, pulled down nurse’s head, and said—

“Please, dear nurse, I’m not much hurt; it was very silly to cry, you know. He did not mean to do it. _He did not know what he was doing_, did you, little boy? Nurse won’t call a policeman, so don’t be frightened.” And she put up her little mouth to be kissed by her injurer, just as she had been taught to do at home to “make peace.”

“That lad will mind, and be more gentle for the time to come, I’ll be bound, thanks to that little lady,” said a passer by, half to himself and half to Mr. Carson, whom he had observed to notice the scene.

The latter took no apparent heed of the remark, but passed on. But the child’s pleading reminded him of the low, broken voice he had so lately heard, penitently and humbly urging the same extenuation of his great guilt.

“I did not know what I was doing.”

He had some association with those words; he had heard or read of that plea somewhere before. Where was it?

Could it be——?

He would look when he got home. So when he entered his house he went straight and silently upstairs to his library, and took down the large handsome Bible, all grand and golden, with its leaves adhering together from the bookbinder’s press, so little had it been used.

On the first page (which fell open to Mr. Carson’s view) were written the names of his children, and his own.

“Henry John, son of the above John and Elizabeth Carson Born, Sept. 29th, 1815.”

To make the entry complete, his death should now be added. But the page became hidden by the gathering mist of tears.

Thought upon thought, and recollection upon recollection, came crowding in, from the remembrance of the proud day when he had purchased the costly book in order to write down the birth of the little babe of a day old.

He laid his head down on the open page, and let the tears fall slowly on the spotless leaves.

His son’s murderer was discovered; had confessed his guilt; and yet (strange to say) he could not hate him with the vehemence of hatred he had felt when he had imagined him a young man, full of lusty life defying all laws, human and divine. In spite of his desire to retain the revengeful feeling he considered as a duty to his dead son, something of pity would steal in for the poor, wasted skeleton of a man, the smitten creature, who had told him of his sin, and implored his pardon that night.

In the days of his childhood and youth, Mr. Carson had been accustomed to poverty, but it was honest, decent poverty; not the grinding, squalid misery he had remarked in every part of John Barton’s house, and which contrasted strangely with the pompous sumptuousness of the room in which he now sat. Unaccustomed wonder filled his mind at the reflection of the different lots of the brethren of mankind.

Then he roused himself from his reverie, and turned to the object of his search—the Gospel, where he half expected to find the tender pleading: “They know not what they do.”

It was murk midnight by this time, and the house was still and quiet. There was nothing to interrupt the old man in his unwonted study.

Years ago the Gospel had been his task-book in learning to read. So many years ago that he had become familiar with the events before he could comprehend the Spirit that made the Life.

He fell to the narrative now afresh, with all the interest of a little child. He began at the beginning, and read on almost greedily, understanding for the first time the full meaning of the story. He came to the end; the awful End. And there were the haunting words of pleading.

He shut the book and thought deeply.

All night long, the Archangel combated with the Demon.

All night long others watched by the bed of Death. John Barton had revived a fitful intelligence. He spoke at times with even something of his former energy, and in the racy Lancashire dialect he had always used when speaking freely.

“You see, I’ve so often been hankering after the right way; and it’s a hard one for a poor man to find. At least it’s been so to me. No one learned me, and no one telled me. When I was a little chap they taught me to read, and then they never gave no books; only I heard say the Bible was a good book. So when I grew thoughtful and puzzled, I took to it. But you’d never believe black was black, or night was night, when you saw all about you acting as if black was white, and night was day. It’s not much I can say for myself in t’other world, God forgive me; but I can say this, I would fain have gone after the Bible rules if I’d seen folk credit it; they all spoke up for it, and went and did clean contrary. In those days I would ha’ gone about wi’ my Bible, like a little child, my finger in th’ place, and asking the meaning of this or that text, and no one told me. Then I took out two or three texts as clear as glass, and I tried to do what they bid me do. But I don’t know how it was, masters and men, all alike cared no more for minding those texts than I did for th’ Lord Mayor of London; so I grew to think it must be a sham put upon poor ignorant folk, women, and such like.

“It was not long I tried to live Gospelwise, but it was liker heaven than any other bit of earth has been. I’d old Alice to strengthen me; but everyone else said, ‘Stand up for thy rights, or thou’lt never get them;’ and wife and children never spoke, but their helplessness cried aloud, and I was driven to do as others did—and then Tom died. You know all about that—I’m getting scant o’ breath, and blind like.”

Then again he spoke, after some minutes of hushed silence.

“All along it came natural to love folk, though now I am what I am. I think one time I could e’en have loved the masters if they’d ha’ letten me; that was in my Gospel-days, afore my child died o’ hunger. I was tore in two oftentimes, between my sorrow for poor, suffering folk, and my trying to love them as caused their sufferings (to my mind).

“At last I gave it up in despair, trying to make folks’ actions square wi’ th’ Bible; and I thought I’d no longer labour at following th’ Bible mysel’. I’ve said all this afore, maybe. But from that time I’ve dropped down, down—down.”

After that he only spoke in broken sentences.

“I did not think he’d been such an old man—oh, that he had but forgiven me!” and then came earnest, passionate, broken words of prayer.

Job Legh had gone home like one struck down with the unexpected shock. Mary and Jem together waited the approach of death; but as the final struggle drew on, and morning dawned, Jem suggested some alleviation to the gasping breath, to purchase which he left the house in search of a druggist’s shop which should be open at that early hour.

During his absence, Barton grew worse; he had fallen across the bed, and his breathing seemed almost stopped; in vain did Mary strive to raise him, her sorrow and exhaustion had rendered her too weak.

So, on hearing someone enter the house-place below, she cried out for Jem to come to her assistance.

A step, which was not Jem’s, came up the stairs.

Mr. Carson stood in the doorway. In one instant he comprehended the case.

He raised up the powerless frame; and the departing soul looked out of the eyes with gratitude. He held the dying man propped in his arms. John Barton folded his hands as if in prayer.

“Pray for us,” said Mary, sinking on her knees, and forgetting in that solemn hour all that had divided her father and Mr. Carson.

No other words would suggest themselves than some of those he had read only a few hours before:

“God be merciful to us sinners.—Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”

And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson’s arms.

So ended the tragedy of a poor man’s life.

Job Legh Defends John Barton

From _Mary Barton_, 1848

“John Barton was not a man to take counsel with people; nor did he make many words about his doings. So I can only judge from his way of thinking and talking in general, never having heard him breathe a syllable concerning this matter in particular. You see, he were sadly put about to make great riches and great poverty square with Christ’s Gospel”—Job paused in order to try and express what was clear enough in his own mind as to the effect produced on John Barton by the great and mocking contrasts presented by the varieties of human condition. Before he could find suitable words to explain his meaning, Mr. Carson spoke.

“You mean he was an Owenite; all for equality and community of goods, and that kind of absurdity.”

“No, no! John Barton was no fool. No need to tell him that were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow. Nor yet did he care for goods, nor wealth; no man less, so that he could get daily bread for him and his; but what hurt him sore, and rankled in him as long as I knew him (and, sir, it rankles in many a poor man’s heart far more than the want of any creature comforts, and puts a sting into starvation itself), was that those who wore finer clothes and ate better food, and had more money in their pockets, kept him at arm’s length, and cared not whether his heart was sorry or glad; whether he lived or died—whether he was bound for heaven or hell. It seemed hard to him that a heap of gold should part him and his brother so far asunder. For he was a loving man before he grew mad with seeing such as he was slighted, as if Christ Himself had not been poor. At one time, I’ve heard him say, he felt kindly towards every man, rich or poor, because he thought they were all men alike. But latterly he grew aggravated with the sorrows and suffering that he saw, and which he thought the masters might help if they would.”

“That’s the notion you’ve all of you got,” said Mr. Carson. “Now, how in the world can we help it? We cannot regulate the demand for labour. No man or set of men can do it. It depends on events which God alone can control. When there is no market for our goods we suffer just as much as you can do.”

“Not as much, I’m sure, sir; though I’m not given to Political Economy, I know that much. I’m wanting in learning, I’m aware; but I can use my eyes. I never see the masters getting thin and haggard for want of food; I hardly ever see them making much change in their way of living, though I don’t doubt they’ve got to do it in bad times. But it’s in things for show they cut short; while for such as me, it’s in things for life we’ve to stint. For sure, sir, you’ll own it’s come to a hard pass when a man would give aught in the world for work to keep his children from starving, and can’t get a bit, if he’s ever so willing to labour. I’m not up to talking as John Barton would have done, but that’s clear to me at any rate.”

“My good man, just listen to me. Two men live in a solitude; one produces loaves of bread, the other coats—or what you will. Now, would it not be hard if the bread-producer were forced to give bread for the coats, whether he wanted them or not, in order to furnish employment to the other: that is the simple form of the case; you’ve only to multiply the numbers. There will come times of great changes in the occupation of thousands when improvements in manufactures and machinery are made. It’s all nonsense talking—it must be so!”

Job Legh pondered a few moments.

“It’s true it was a sore time for the hand-loom weavers when power-looms came in; them new-fangled things make a man’s life like a lottery; and yet I’ll never misdoubt that power-looms, and railways, and all such-like inventions are the gifts of God. I have lived long enough, too, to see that it is a part of His plan to send suffering to bring out a higher good; but surely it’s also a part of His plan that so much of the burden of the suffering as can be should be lightened by those whom it is His pleasure to make happy and content in their own circumstances. Of course, it would take a deal more thought and wisdom than me or any other man has to settle out of hand how this should be done. But I’m clear about this, when God gives a blessing to be enjoyed, He gives it with a duty to be done; and the duty of the happy is to help the suffering to bear their woe.”

“Still facts have proved, and are daily proving, how much better it is for every man to be independent of help, and self-reliant,” said Mr. Carson thoughtfully.

“You can never work facts as you would fixed quantities, and say, given two facts, and the product is so and so. God has given men feelings and passions which cannot be worked into the problem, because they are for ever changing and uncertain. God has also made some weak; not in any one way, but in all. One is weak in body, another in mind, another in steadiness of purpose, a fourth can’t tell right from wrong, and so on; or if he can tell the right, he wants strength to hold by it. Now, to my thinking, them that is strong in any of God’s gifts is meant to help the weak—be hanged to the facts! I ask your pardon, sir; I can’t rightly explain the meaning that is in me. I’m like a tap as won’t run, but keeps letting it out drop by drop, so that you’ve no notion of the force of what’s within.”

Job looked and felt very sorrowful at the want of power in his words, while the feeling within him was so strong and clear.

“What you say is very true, no doubt,” replied Mr. Carson; “but how would you bring it to bear upon the masters’ conduct—on my particular case?” added he gravely.

“I’m not learned enough to argue. Thoughts come into my head that I’m sure are as true as Gospel, though maybe they don’t follow each other like the Q.E.D. of a Proposition. The masters has it on their own conscience—you have it on yours, sir, to answer for to God whether you’ve done, and are doing, all in your power to lighten the evils that seem always to hang on the trades by which you make your fortunes. It’s no business of mine, thank God. John Barton took the question in hand, and his answer to it was NO! Then he grew bitter and angry, and mad; and in his madness he did a great sin, and wrought a great woe; and repented him with tears of blood, and will go through his penance humbly and meekly in t’other place, I’ll be bound. I never seed such bitter repentance as his that last night.”

There was a silence of many minutes. Mr. Carson had covered his face, and seemed utterly forgetful of their presence; and yet they did not like to disturb him by rising to leave the room.

At last he said, without meeting their sympathetic eyes:

“Thank you both for coming—and for speaking candidly to me. I fear, Legh, neither you nor I have convinced each other, as to the power, or want of power, in the masters to remedy the evils the men complain of.”