The Parson O' Dumford

“I cannot enter into that,” said the vicar. “If one man does wrong, it is no excuse for the wrong of others. Our salutary laws will protect even a murderer, and then punish him according to his deserts. But listen – In a few words, you have been led away to conspire for the accomplishment of a most dastardly outrage. I have just come from the works, and I tell you, as a man, that if the scheme had succeeded, they would have been destroyed.”

“Serve him right,” growled a voice. “All the houses round would have been injured, and the loss of life would have been frightful.”

“Nay, nay, parson,” said Stockton. “I am giving you my honest conviction, my men,” continued the vicar. “A hundred pounds of powder in a confined space is sufficient to commit awful ravages; and you forget what would have followed if that tremendous chimney had fallen. But I have not told you all. If the powder had been fired, three people in the works would have been killed. Those people were Mr Richard Glaire – ”

“Weer he theer, sir?” exclaimed Stockton.

“He was,” said the vicar; “he has been in hiding there from your violence for days. I knew some plot was hatching, and, to save both him and you, I advised his staying in the works, so that you might think he had left the town.”

“Which we did,” muttered two or three.

“I shudder when I think of the consequences of my advice. But listen – there would have been two more horribly mutilated and shattered corpses at this moment – the remains of your foreman and his poor child, Daisy Banks.”

“Oh, coom, parson!” said Stockton.

“I tell you, man, as I rushed in, they were all three there. How they came there together I do not know. I do not want to know. All I know is that it has pleased God to spare us from a sin for which we should never have forgiven ourselves.”

“I don’t see as yow had much to do wi’ it, parson,” said a voice, sneeringly.

“My men, my men,” cried the vicar, in a deeply moved voice, “do you think I live here among you without feeling that your joys and sorrows are mine? and your sins are mine as well, for I ought to have taught you better. For God’s sake let us have no more of these wretched meetings; break up your society, and act as man to man. Suffer and be strong. Have forbearance, and try to end these dreadful strikes, which fall not on you, but on your wives and children.”

“But what call hev you got to interfere?” cried a surly voice.

“Howd hard theer,” cried Stockton; “parson’s i’ the raight. He’s spent three hundred pound, if he’s spent a penny, over them as was ’most pined to dead.”

“That’s raight,” cried several voices.

“Never mind that, my men; it was my duty, even as it is to be the friend and brother of all who are here. But listen – ”

“I didn’t come to hear parson preach,” cried a voice,

“One word – listen to me for your own sakes,” cried the vicar, in impassioned tones. “Suppose you had succeeded without the horrible loss of life that must have occurred through your ignorance of the force of powder – suppose the works had been, with all the costly machinery, turned into a heap of ruins?”

“It would hev sarved Richard Glaire well raight,” said some one.

“Grant that it would, but what then, my lads? For Heaven’s sake look a little further than the satisfaction of a paltry, unmanly desire for revenge.”

“It would hev ruined Dicky Glaire,” cried Stockton.

“Yes, my men; but it would have ruined you as well. Those works could not have been restored for years: perhaps never; the trade would have gone elsewhere, and, as I take it, over two hundred men and their wives and children must have gone elsewhere for bread.”

“That’s raight enew, parson,” cried Stockton; “but all the same if some cursed, cowardly spy hadn’t betrayed us the wucks would hev been down.”

“That betrayal of your evil plans came about more strangely than you can imagine,” said the vicar. “I have suspected something, and been constantly on the watch.”

“Strange and kind of you, too, parson,” said Stockton, with a laugh.

“You will think so some day, my man.”

“Bud I know who it weer,” said Stockton. “Theer he stands; it were Tom Podmore. He weer not sweered in.”

“Then he did not betray you,” said the vicar, as a menacing growl arose; but Tom stood perfectly firm.

“No, it weern’t Tom Podmore,” cried Big Harry, stalking forward, one big shoulder at a time. “If you want to know who did it, here he is – I did; and I’m glad on it. Dal me! I’m glad as th’owd wucks aint down, and I’ll faight any two o’ you as don’t like it; so now then.”

There was another growl, but no one took up the challenge.

“See here, lads,” cried Harry. “I went awaya so as to hev now’t to do wi’ it, and I didn’t tell anybody; only telled parson to give Dicky Glaire the word to look out.”

“And you was sweered in, Harry,” cried Stockton.

“So I weer,” said the big fellow; “and, as I said afore, I’ll faight any man as don’t like it. Well, I goes on to Sheffle to get wuck, and there I happened o’ Daisy Banks; and when the poor little lass got howd o’ me, and begged me to tell all about her owd man, why dal me, I weer obliged to tell her how he was a-going to – dal it, parson, don’t slap a man o’ the mooth that how.”

“You’ve said enough, Harry,” cried the vicar. “We want to know no more. I answer for you that you did quite right, and some day these men will thank you, as I do now, for saving us all from this horror. Now, my men, you know that Slee and Barker, that stranger, are in the station.”

“Oh, ay, we know that,” said Stockton; “and I vote, lads, we hev ’em out.”

“No, no; let them get the punishment they deserve,” cried the vicar.

“Well, lookye here, parson,” cried Stockton; “the game’s up, I s’pose, and you’ve got the police outside. I was in it, and I’m not going to turn tail. Here I am.”

“My man, I will not know your name, nor the name of any man here. I will not recognise anybody; I came as your friend, not as a spy. I came to ask you to break up your wretched bond of union, and to go forth home as honest men. Where a union is made for the fair protection of a workman’s rights, I can respect it; but a brotherhood that blasphemes its own name by engaging in what may prove wholesale murder, is a monster that you yourselves must crush. I have no more to say. Go home.”

“Parson’s raight, lads!” said Stockton, throwing off his defiant air. “Let’s go. Parson, it was a damned cowardly trick, but Dicky Glaire had made us strange and mad.”

“It weer owd Simmy Slee as made it wuss, wi’ cootting o’ them bands,” said Big Harry. “We should ha’ been at wuck again if it hadn’t been for that.”

“Quick, lads!” cried a man, running in. “Sim Slee and Barker’s broke out o’ th’ owd shop, and the police are coming down here.”

“Theer, parson,” said Stockton, with a bitter smile; “th’ game’s oop.”

For answer, the vicar pointed to the windows, and in less than a minute the room was empty, though there would have been plenty of time to escape by the door, for the one policeman coming on the mission to see if Slee had made for the meeting-place of his party did not hurry his footsteps, partly from reasons of dignity, and partly because he was alone.

Volume Three – Chapter Fourteen.

A Faithful Lover

The announcement was quite correct. Sim Slee and his companions had broken away through the ceiling, dislodged the tiles, and escaped; and when the vicar reached home, he found Mrs Slee waiting up for him, trembling and pale, while her eyes were red with weeping. She clung to him hysterically, and asked if the news was true, and that her husband was in prison.

“They came and told me the police had got him,” she sobbed. “Ah, he’s a bad one sometimes, but he’s my maister, sir, he’s my maister.”

“He was taken, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar, “I’m sorry to say. I was present. You know I went out to-night, for I was in dread of some outrage; and after being about a time, I found that something was wrong, for the men were all waiting as in expectation.”

“He always would mix himself up with these troubles i’stead o’ wucking,” sobbed the poor woman.

“Fortunately I met two of the men I could trust, and found that an attempt was to be made to blow up the works.”

“Ah, but Sim wouldn’t do that, sir,” sobbed Mrs Slee. “He dursen’t.”