Part 33

It was during the second summer of her widowhood, when Augusta accompanied her mother (not a whit the less stately than of yore) to Carr Cottage for the first time since her attempted elopement, that the feeling of all she had cast from her, and all that she had brought upon herself, all that might have been, and now never would be, pressed heaviest upon her. She had gone thoughtfully over the old ground, had trod the nettle-grown Lovers’ Walk, and sat down on the open window-ledge at the stair-foot as once before, and wept tears of penitent bitterness. How long she sat there she could not tell; she was weeping for a life lost and a love rejected. As once before, the voice of Jabez (whom she imagined eighteen miles away) broke upon her solitude, but now it thrilled through her.

There was a light touch upon her shoulder.

“Mrs. Aspinall?”

She shuddered.

“Oh! don’t call me by that name—_here!_” broke from her, imploringly.

“What name shall I call you by?” half wonderingly; then in a lower semi-smothered tone of entreaty—“Augusta?”

Lower sank her head in her hands; but there was no answer save her sobs. It was thus he had addressed her there once before.

“Augusta!”—and this time the hand on her shoulder shook—“Augusta—dear Augusta, once on this very spot I found you weeping thus, and I begged to be allowed to share your grief. I told you I would give my life to serve you—what I said then I repeat now—I _would_ give my life to serve you, and you _know_ it!” He gently drew one hand from her agitated face. “Tell me your trouble, as you would tell it to a brother!”

A brother—ah, that was it! She drew her hand back, but she did not rise, and her sobs seemed to choke her.

Again he took her hand, and his other arm went round her soothingly, protectingly. “Oh, Augusta, this is inexpressibly painful to me. I love you, as never man loved woman. Can you not tell me what troubles you?” and the earnest tenderness of his voice made strange music in her ears.

He had seated himself on the narrow window-ledge beside her, and now he thought she was about to punish his presumption and quit him haughtily as before.

But no! She only slid from his arm to his very feet, and cried, with still covered face—

“Oh, Jabez—_dear_ Jabez, forgive me all I made you suffer here; for oh! I have repented bitterly.”

He was stunned, bewildered. His passionate declaration of love was made as a claim to her confidence, not to her affection; and now—“_dear_ Jabez!” Did he hear aright? For an instant he was silent from very incapacity to speak. Her bent head touched his knees.

Slowly, reverently, as if she had been a saint, with every nerve of his strong frame trembling with emotion, he raised her from the ground; but no arm went round her now. He held both her hands in his, and looked steadfastly down upon her; but no answer made he to her plea for pardon. Constraint in voice and words was apparent and painful, but emotion grew too strong for control.

“Augusta, what is the meaning of this? For God’s sake do not mislead me! I seem on the threshold of heaven or madness. Is it possible that I, plain Jabez Clegg, can be ‘dear’ to you?”

“Dearer than life!”

Clear, full, and earnest came the words from her soul, clear and truthful were the eyes that now sought his.

“Thank God!”

He held her in his arms with a straining clasp, which told how long they had quivered to embrace her so. His eyes lit up with an intensity of love she knew not he could feel, and never had his lips met woman’s in such fond kisses as he pressed on hers.

The concentrated love of years seemed gathered to a focus then. “Life of my life!” he called her, and she knew and felt it was so.

If the shade of the departed Ellen could have looked upon them there, remembering how she had rushed to his embrace in that very spot, and how different had been the kiss imprinted on her wifely brow, would she have reproached him? I wis not.

Is it needful to add that, before the summer waned, the Manchester Man, rapidly rising into public note and favour, entered into another partnership; or that Jabez Clegg, in right of Augusta his wife, took possession of the mansion at Ardwick, to the satisfaction of Mrs. Ashton, who said, “Better late than never!” Or to tell how the trade of Ashton, Chadwick, Clegg, and Co. continued to extend? Or that Travis remained Co. to the end of the chapter—the children’s Co. never taking a wife unto himself?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Appendix.

[2] Prior to the close of the Fourteenth Century, Manchester was written Mamecester.

[3] Cradle.

[4] A sort of close pinafore.

[5] A short loose jacket.

[6] Ugliest.

[7] Inquired.

[8] See Appendix B.

[9] See Appendix B.

[10] Bleacher.

[11] Properly.

[12] 3 Chron. iv. 9, 10.

[13] Leaping-pole.

[14] Brooks.

[15] Heaps—impediments.

[16] See Appendix C.

[17] See Appendix.

[18] See Appendix.

[19] See Appendix.

[20] See Appendix.

[21] See Appendix.

THE END.

APPENDIX.

In the foregoing story of the “Manchester Man,” I have in a great measure dealt with history, recorded and unrecorded, with absolute people, events, and places.

I have not thought it advisable to break the narrative with cumbrous foot-notes calculated to disturb the general reader; but I consider an elucidating Appendix due alike to myself and all those who, in perusing a work of this kind, care to discriminate fact from fiction.

Little of the Manchester I have depicted remains intact, a whirlwind of improvement (!) has swept over the town, but old inhabitants will, I think, recognise the faithfulness of my descriptions, as they will remember many of the persons who come and go incidentally throughout.

CHAP. I.—After writing this chapter, I learned that a cradled infant was washed down the Irwell from the Broughton, not the Smedley and _Irk_ side, in the flood of 1837. I was familiar with the incident I relate when I was quite a child myself, and I am now fifty-three.

The two cases are therefore distinct, yet equally facts. In 1771, during the floods which swept away Tyne Bridge, Newcastle, a vessel took up at sea a cradle in which was a child alive and well.

CHAP. III. (B).—The Rev. Joshua Brookes comes into my pages naturally—no story of Manchester life at the commencement of this century would be complete without him. I have endeavoured to do justice to a little-understood man. Many of his eccentricities are on record. At my own baptism and my mother’s churching, occurred the scene which I have endeavoured to reproduce; that delicate lady pushed and pulled about was a stranger to my mother and sponsors. A characteristic anecdote, which I have not met with in print, may not be out of of place here.

A printer, of republican tendencies, named Cowdroy, took his son to the font, and on the child’s name being required, answered “Citizen!”—“Citizen?” growled Joshua, “that’s no name. I shall not give the child a name like that!” “I’ve a _right_ to call my child what name I please, and I dare you to baptise him otherwise,” boldly asserted Mr. Cowdroy. “Oh, you may call him Beelzebub if you like!” testily responded the chaplain, and Citizen the boy was accordingly baptized: and the large signboard of C. Cowdroy, Printer, overlooked the Old Churchyard long after Joshua Brookes was laid low in dust and ashes.

His odd friendship with old Mrs. Clowes is matter of fact. Similar scenes to those I have described took place at funerals and weddings when he officiated; and his last contest with the Grammar School boys may be found in Harland’s “Collectanea.”

CHAPS. IV. and V. (C)—The little girl who made her way into the presence of Prince William, sat on his knee and amused him and his suite with details of toilettes in progress at home, to be rewarded with a plain shilling, the required information, and a bow as the _cortége_ passed down Oldham Street, was Amelia Daniels, in after years my own mother. The incident of the falling platform on Sale Moor is noted in history.

CHAP. VII.—Mrs. Clowes was as eccentric in her way as Parson Brookes; but beyond her dealings with the chaplain and school-boys, her journey to Liverpool, her Sabbath dinners to the poor, and her attire, her place in this story belongs to the region of fiction. Her shop passed to a relative, but the date of her death is unknown to the writer.

CHAPS. XVIII. and XIX.—Peterloo is rapidly passing out of remembrance, and those who were not themselves eye-witnesses may accuse me of exaggeration. To such I can only say that I have had my details from actors or spectators. The house I have assigned to Mr. Chadwick in Oldham Street, was occupied by my maternal grandfather, John Daniels, and he was the paralysed old gentleman in charge of his servant Molly, who, but for the timely interposition of a young man named Tomlinson, one of his own weavers, and Mr. Mabbott, would have been cut down. His daughters, anxious for his safety, looking out for his return home from the warehouse, saw from their open window more than I describe; for one thing—a woman passed with her breast cut off; the two vaunting officers who reared their steeds against the house with threats, were a cousin and a _fiancé_; the man who was shot down in Ancoats Lane, whilst bidding _his_ girls to retire, was, I believe, my grandfather’s tenant. The female sabred on the hustings was a Mrs. Fildes when I knew her. Her son, Henry Hunt Fildes, was in my father’s employ; and either that same son, or a grandson, is now an artist not altogether unknown to the world. From Miss Hindley I had nine years ago the story of her father’s fall. The author of the satire on the yeomanry was my paternal grandfather, James Varley, of Pendleton.

For the purpose of my narrative, I have antedated an occurrence in the Theatre Royal. I was myself the little miss who cried out in alarm that Edmund Kean was “killing Mrs. McGibbon,” but it was a few years later. Mrs. Broadbent’s school occupied the next box to our party on that occasion. I need scarcely add that I have drawn that lady, her school-room, &c., from information and observation. The broken collar-bone is not an invention.

CHAPS. XXIX. and XXX.—The skating incident on Ardwick Green Pond was an episode in the early life of the same John Daniels before-named. Blindness followed his long immersion, and when all remedies known in the last century failed, he regained his sight by swimming across the Mersey, as related. I owe it to his memory to say that he must not otherwise be confounded with the man whom I have called Laurence Aspinall.

CHAP. XXXII.—The Act for widening Market Street was obtained in 1821; but I find that the ancient houses did not begin to “crumble into dust” until the following year.

CHAP. XXXVIII.—“I’ll please my eye if I plague my heart,” with its answer and consequences, formed the original base of this story; the wilful girl and her handsome savage of a husband being in _all_ respects but their names realities. They were both in their graves before the period I assign to their union. The old Hall which witnessed so many outrages and such sad catastrophes, may be found in the map of Hardwicke’s History of Preston under its true name.

CHAP. XLVI.—For much information respecting the fatal launch of the _Emma_, I am indebted to the courtesy of the Secretary of the Bridgewater Navigation Company, and also to Mrs. Abel Heywood, who has just presented to Manchester a statue of Oliver Cromwell, in the name of her former husband, Mr. Goadsby, who had been Mayor of the city. Mrs. Heywood was originally the Miss Grimes who christened the luckless flat.

I cannot close this Appendix without acknowledging much kind assistance from literary and and antiquarian friends in my researches. Of these the late John Harland, Esq., antiquary and historian, the late Thomas Jones, Esq., librarian of Chetham Hospital, and the Rev. J. Finch Smith, M.A., R.D., must be placed foremost.

ISABELLA BANKS.

_London_, January, 1876.

APPENDIX No. II.

Since the publication of the last edition of “The Manchester Man,” the following letter has appeared in the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_, April 5th, 1879. It is here reproduced in the hope that for some of my readers it may have interest, since it adds a new feature to my portrait of Madame Broadbent:—

_To the editor of the “Sheffield Daily Telegraph.”_

“Sir,—In your advertisement of the new tale by Mrs. Linnæus Banks, about to appear in the pages of your journal, you quote some critiques on ‘The Manchester Man,’ by the same author. One of the characters is true to the very life. Hers was the first school I ever attended, and I have a vivid recollection of the venerable, stately, little dame—a rigid martinet, exacting the utmost deference from all who approached her, and invariably addressed as ‘Madam’ Broadbent. I have often since recalled my feelings of delight when for the first time I went with her and my schoolfellows in great state to the theatre, as described in the novel. She educated the daughters of most of the leading Manchester merchants of that day, the wife of a recent mayor being one of them.

“Madame Broadbent did not profess the innumerable subjects now required, but all that was attempted was well taught. She inculcated habits of the strictest order, neatness, and regularity. The needlework was very beautiful, and would excite astonishment in these sewing machine days. The punishment for talking was very ludicrous. The delinquent was required to sit with her face to the wall—a hideous contrivance of red cloth called the ‘red tongue’ hanging down her back; it was considered a great disgrace. She succeeded in teaching a deaf and dumb girl to speak—a feat of which she was justly proud.

“If you think the above remarks on a character well known in Manchester during the early part of the present century are of interest, they are at your service.”

C. B.

“Rotherham, March 30th, 1879.”

I regret that at the time this letter—of so much interest to me—appeared I was too ill to communicate with the writer through the medium of the newspaper, and so the opportunity for thanks or correspondence was lost.

It is also possible that some of those who have followed the Rev. Joshua Brookes through this narrative may be amused by the following category of the Books in his library as advertised for sale after his decease[,] it not only affording some insight into the inner self of the man, but being characteristic of the advertising of the period:

“Library of the late Rev. Joshua Brookes, consisting of nearly six thousand volumes.

“To be Sold by Auction by Mr. Thomas Dodd, at his Auction Repertory, No. 28. King-street, Manchester, on Monday, May 13th, 1822, and nine following days, Saturday and Sunday excepted. To commence precisely at half-past ten in the forenoon and at three in the afternoon of each day.

“The interesting Collection of Books is replete in the most valuable works in Divinity and Ecclesiastical History, Classics, Lives, Memoirs, History and Important Events, Voyages, Travels, Tours, Poetry, Education, Bibliography, Magazines, Reviews, Tracts, and a profusion of Miscellaneous Facetia of the most enlivening and entertaining description, abounding in Prophetic Admonitions, Solid Remarks, Comfortable Treatises, Learned Compendiums, Solid Discourses, Pious Devotions, Moral Emblems, Profound Researches, Happy Thoughts, Gospel Treasures, Choice Gleanings, Unerring Guides, Divine Parables, Pleasant Reflections, Poetical Blossoms, Flowers of Literature, Wonderful Predictions, Notable Discoveries, Desirable Acquisitions, Remarkable Adventures, Profitable Pursuits, Diverting Anecdotes, Lively Sallies, Singular Occurrences, Chronological Details, Curious Paradoxes, Astonishing Conjurations, Strange Bubbles, Elegant Epistles, Select Letters, Acute Criticisms, Charming Themes, Delightful Novels, Old Romances, Comical Works, Droll Transactions, Exquisite Epigrams, Smart Repartees, Fairy Tales, Facetious Puns, Humourous Stories, Merry Lucubrations, Love Stratagems, Ingenious Enigmas, Revealed Mysteries. Useful Hints, Magical Tricks, Whimsical Customs, Odd Freaks, Queer Jokes, Flim Flams, Entertaining Recreations, Experimental Philosophy, Classical Odes, Delphic Oracles, Eloquent Orations, Keen Satires, Striking Incidents Happy Intelligence, Tea Table Chat; and, lastly, Wine and Oil for Drooping Souls.

“The Books may be viewed on Thursday, May 9th. and previous to the Days of Sale, when Catalogues maybe had at one shilling each.”

It is only honest to add that I am indebted to a correspondent of the _Manchester City News_ “Notes and Queries” for the above.

I. B.

_London_, April, 1881.

APPENDIX No. III.

When in Manchester last Autumn, at the house of a friend at Heaton Moor, I was introduced to a lady whose father had occupied premises as a tea-merchant at the New Cross end of Oldham Street, at the time of the Peterloo disturbance, and from her obtained the following particulars, which I have her sanction to put on record, and give in her own words:—

“On that memorable 16th of August, my father was from home, my mother ill in bed, when the household were startled by the entrance of soldiers with drawn swords, or sabres, which they swept under sofas or any place where fugitives might hide; the men were drunk. One little girl ran into the sick room saying the soldiers were murdering her sisters and brothers (the eldest of whom was a pupil of ‘Madame Broadbent’.) The mob outside unpaved Oldham Street in an incredibly short time to provide themselves with missiles wherewith to pelt their pursuers. The blinds were drawn down, and all the children kept from the windows lest any stones should be sent that way. The soldiers did not go upstairs. Four volleys were fired at New Cross one down each road.” And I may add that no one in Mr. W—— ’s house was sabred. What the alarm was to the young mother (a second wife, the mother of my informant), then in bed with her first baby, there is no telling. The fright to the children of the first marriage was ineffaceable. The eldest girl had seen the horrors in the street.

June, 1882. I. B.