The Iron Master by Jean Stubbs Read Free Book Online

he was not impressed by this excuse of London business. ‘Secondly, to my wife, professionally known by the initials C.S.L., whose work will be honoured long after her beauty has gone to dust! Lastly to the infant who is shortly to take its place among us. If he be a son he is right welcome. If a daughter, then thrice welcome, for good women bless the house that they adorn.’
    ‘Amen to that, Toby!’ cried William.
    ‘And now to dinner, for it is nigh on six o’clock and I am famished,’ said Toby, and helped them all to soup.
    There were lengthy pauses between dishes while the servant washed up, but Toby was a fervent conversationalist and a generous wine-pourer, and William well-versed in discussion, so two leisurely hours passed before they reached the stage of tea-drinking. By this time Toby had taken the government apart (which William did not mind very much), attacked the Constitution (a more troublesome idea), and was now espousing open revolution. At this William held up his hand in protest, but spoke less heatedly than he felt because of Charlotte, who was looking anxiously from one man to the other.
    ‘Why, Toby, you had a taste of revolution here but five years since,’ said William lightly. ‘Did the Gordon riots not cure you of a fondness for civil war?’
    ‘What? An ignorant rabble running after a madman, crying No Popery ? Religious quibblers? Pox on them! Nay, Will, I do not speak of people’s prejudice but of people’s rights. The majority of folk are ruled and worked and robbed by a handful of rich and powerful men. And this new age of coal and iron and steam engine — aye, wait a bit, I know your interests! You shall have your turn, by and by — this age of mills and sweated labour will make rich men richer, and poor men poorer still. You must have seen that for yourself in Birmingham. I saw it in Preston. Aye, and took the trouble to look at Manchester where I discovered such a hell of want and misery as I had not seen before … ’
    ‘Then take trouble to look but a mile away,’ said William angrily, ‘and you shall find stews as dirty as any in the north.’
    ‘You are right, Will. And one hellish stew is no better than another. We should wipe them all out. They have hells in the back streets of Paris — but that is another story. The French monarchy is stirring a cauldron that is like to boil over upon them, but we English are content to be exploited … ’
    ‘Oh, the French!’ cried William scornfully. ‘A nation of lick-spittles and time-servers. They snap at our heels like a pack of vicious dogs. I care not whether they have a revolution or no. They are a scrubby nation.’
    ‘So speaks the man who has never — I dare say — so much as crossed the Channel to meet them!’
    ‘My reading is as wide as yours, sir,’ cried William, stung by this truth. ‘I am no ignoramus, mouthing opinion without a fact to prove it I dare swear you congratulate yourself upon shocking me with ideas hitherto unknown to me, and would like me to gape with admiration at your daring. But each morning my master, Bartholomew Scholes, would read the papers at breakfast and open up discussion with us all, family, friends and apprentices. So I have heard your arguments before and still think little of them! And when you speak of revolution, sir, you talk from the exalted view of a safe spectator. I have fought some private wars, sir, owing to my Quaker connections. England takes her religious quibblers seriously, and there were those who misliked the Scholes apprentices — whether they shared the Quaker faith or no. Had you been brutally waylaid, as I have, and fought until you were all blood and bruises — and then been beaten when you crawled home, for fighting! — you would not speak so freely of civil war. It is not battled on printing presses with paper and ink, sir!’
    Charlotte sat white and still, her hands knotted in her lap. But Toby laughed and said he loved a good argument, and that