Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli (10 best novels of all time txt) 📕

It was Monday morning. Hatton, enveloped in his chamber robe and wearing his velvet cap, was lounging in the best room of the principal commercial inn of Mowbray, over a breakfast table covered with all the delicacies of which a northern matin meal may justly boast. There were pies of spiced meat and trout fresh from the stream, hams that Westphalia never equalled, pyramids of bread of every form and flavour adapted to the surrounding fruits, some conserved with curious art, and some just gathered from the bed or from the tree.

“It’s very odd,” said Hatton to his companion Morley, “you can’t get coffee anywhere.”

Morley who had supposed that coffee was about the commonest article of consumption in Mowbray, looked a little surprised; but at this moment Hatton’s servant entered with a mysterious yet somewhat triumphant air, and ushering in a travelling biggin of their own fuming like one of the springs of Geyser.

“Now try that,” said Hatton to Morley, as the servant poured him out a cup; “you won’t find that so bad.”

“Does the town continue pretty quiet?” enquired Morley of the servant as he was leaving the room.

“Quite quiet I believe, Sir; but a great many people in the streets. All the mills are stopped.”

“Well, this is a strange business,” said Hatton when they were once more alone. “You had no idea of it when I met you on Saturday?”

“None; on the contrary, I felt convinced that there were no elements of general disturbance in this district. I thought from the first that the movement would be confined to Lancashire and would easily be arrested; but the feebleness of the government, the want of decision, perhaps the want of means, have permitted a flame to spread the extinction of which will not soon be witnessed.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Whenever the mining population is disturbed the disorder is obstinate. On the whole they endure less physical suffering than most of the working classes, their wages being considerable; and they are so brutalized that they are more difficult to operate on than our reading and thinking population of the factories. But when they do stir there is always violence and a determined course. When I heard of their insurrection on Saturday I was prepared for great disturbances in their district, but that they should suddenly resolve to invade another country as it were, the seat of another class of labour, and where the hardships however severe are not of their own kind, is to me amazing, and convinces me that there is some political head behind the scenes, and that this move, however unintentional on the part of the miners themselves, is part of some comprehensive scheme which, by widening the scene of action and combining several counties and classes of labour in the broil, must inevitably embarrass and perhaps paralyse the Government.”

“There is a good deal in what you say,” said Hatton, taking a strawberry with a rather absent air, and then he added, “You remember a conversation we once had, the eve of my departure from Mowbray in ‘39?”

“I do,” said Morley reddening.

“The miners were not so ready then,” said Hatton.

“They were not,” said Morley speaking with some confusion.

“Well they are here now,” said Hatton.

“They are,” said Morley thoughtfully, but more collected.

“You saw them enter yesterday?” said Hatton. “I was sorry I missed it, but I was taking a walk with the Gerards up Dale to see the cottage where they once lived, and which they used to talk of so much! Was it a strong body?”

“I should say about two thousand men, and as far as bludgeons and iron staves go, armed.”

“A formidable force with no military to encounter them.”

“Irresistible, especially with a favourable population.”

“You think the people were not grieved to see them?”

“Certainly. Left alone they might have remained quiet; but they only wanted the spark. We have a number of young men here who have for a long time been murmuring against our inaction and what