Wodgate, or Wogate, as it was called on the map, was a district thatin old days had been consecrated to Woden, and which appeared destinedthrough successive ages to retain its heathen character. At thebeginning of the revolutionary war, Wodgate was a sort of squattingdistrict of the great mining region to which it was contiguous, a placewhere adventurers in the industry which was rapidly developing, settledthemselves; for though the great veins of coal and ironstone cropped up,as they phrase it, before they reached this bare and barren land, andit was thus deficient in those mineral and metallic treasures which hadenriched its neighbourhood, Wodgate had advantages of its own, and of akind which touch the fancy of the lawless. It was land without an owner;no one claimed any manorial right over it; they could build cottageswithout paying rent. It was a district recognized by no parish; so therewere no tithes, and no meddlesome supervision. It abounded in fuel whichcost nothing, for though the veins were not worth working as a sourceof mining profit, the soil of Wodgate was similar in its superficialcharacter to that of the country around. So a population gathered, andrapidly increased, in the ugliest spot in England, to which neitherNature nor art had contributed a single charm; where a tree could not beseen, a flower was unknown, where there was neither belfry nor steeple,nor a single sight or sound that could soften the heart or humanise themind.
Whatever may have been the cause, whether, as not unlikely, the originalsquatters brought with them some traditionary skill, or whether theirisolated and unchequered existence concentrated their energies ontheir craft, the fact is certain, that the inhabitants of Wodgateearly acquired a celebrity as skilful workmen. This reputation so muchincreased, and in time spread so far, that for more than a quarter of acentury, both in their skill and the economy of their labour, they havebeen unmatched throughout the country. As manufacturers of ironmongery,they carry the palm from the whole district; as founders of brass andworkers of steel, they fear none; while as nailers and locksmiths, theirfame has spread even to the European markets, whither their most skilfulworkmen have frequently been invited.
Invited in vain! No wages can tempt the Wodgate man from his nativehome, that squatters' seat which soon assumed the form of a largevillage, and then in turn soon expanded into a town, and at the presentmoment numbers its population by swarming thousands, lodged in the mostmiserable tenements in the most hideous burgh in the ugliest country inthe world.
But it has its enduring spell. Notwithstanding the spread of its civicprosperity, it has lost none of the characteristics of its originalsociety; on the contrary it has zealously preserved them. There are nolandlords, head-lessees, main-masters, or butties in Wodgate. No churchthere has yet raised its spire; and as if the jealous spirit of Wodenstill haunted his ancient temple, even the conventicle scarcely daresshow its humble front in some obscure corner. There is no municipality,no magistrate, no local acts, no vestries, no schools of any kind. Thestreets are never cleaned; every man lights his own house; nor does anyone know anything except his business.
More than this, at Wodgate a factory or large establishment of any kindis unknown. Here Labour reigns supreme. Its division indeed is favouredby their manners, but the interference or influence of mere capitalis instantly resisted. The business of Wodgate is carried on by masterworkmen in their own houses, each of whom possesses an unlimited numberof what they call apprentices, by whom their affairs are principallyconducted, and whom they treat as the Mamlouks treated the Egyptians.
These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor is itpossible to conceive one apparently more oppressive. They are ruthlesstyrants; they habitually inflict upon their subjects punishments moregrievous than the slave population of our colonies were ever visitedwith; not content with beating them with sticks or flogging them withknotted ropes, they are in the habit of felling them with hammers, orcutting their heads open with a file or lock. The most usual punishmenthowever, or rather stimulus to increase exertion, is to pull anapprentice's ears till they run with blood. These youths too are workedfor sixteen and even twenty hours a day; they are often sold by onemaster to another; they are fed on carrion, and they sleep in loftsor cellars: yet whether it be that they are hardened by brutality,and really unconscious of their degradation and unusual sufferings, orwhether they are supported by the belief that their day to be mastersand oppressors will surely arrive, the aristocracy of Wodgate is by nomeans so unpopular as the aristocracy of most other places.
In the first place it is a real aristocracy; it is privileged, but itdoes something for its privileges. It is distinguished from the mainbody not merely by name. It is the most knowing class at Wodgate; itpossesses indeed in its way complete knowledge; and it imparts in itsmanner a certain quantity of it to those whom it guides. Thus it is anaristocracy that leads, and therefore a fact. Moreover the social systemof Wodgate is not an unvarying course of infinite toil. Their plan is towork hard, but not always. They seldom exceed four days of labour in theweek. On Sunday the masters begin to drink; for the apprentices thereis dog-fighting without any stint. On Monday and Tuesday the wholepopulation of Wodgate is drunk; of all stations, ages, and sexes; evenbabes, who should be at the breast; for they are drammed with Godfrey'scordial. Here is relaxation, excitement; if less vice otherwise thanmight be at first anticipated, we must remember that excesses arechecked by poverty of blood and constant exhaustion. Scanty food andhard labour are in their way, if not exactly moralists, a tolerably goodpolice.
There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control. It is not thatthe people are immoral, for immorality implies some forethought; orignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they are animals; unconscious;their minds a blank; and their worst actions only the impulse of a grossor savage instinct. There are many in this town who are ignorant oftheir very names; very few who can spell them. It is rare that you meetwith a young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy whohas seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them the name oftheir sovereign, and they will give you an unmeaning stare; ask them thename of their religion, and they will laugh: who rules them on earth, orwho can save them in heaven, are alike mysteries to them.
Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle. Wodgatehad the appearance of a vast squalid suburb. As you advanced, leavingbehind you long lines of little dingy tenements, with infants lyingabout the road, you expected every moment to emerge into some streetsand encounter buildings bearing some correspondence in their size andcomfort to the considerable population swarming and busied around you.Nothing of the kind. There were no public buildings of any sort; nochurches, chapels, town-hall, institute, theatre; and the principalstreets in the heart of the town in which were situate the coarse andgrimy shops, though formed by houses of a greater elevation than thepreceding, were equally narrow and if possible more dirty. At everyfourth or fifth house, alleys seldom above a yard wide and streamingwith filth, opened out of the street. These were crowded with dwellingsof various size, while from the principal court often branched out anumber of smaller alleys or rather narrow passages, than which nothingcan be conceived more close and squalid and obscure. Here during thedays of business, the sound of the hammer and the file never ceased,amid gutters of abomination and piles of foulness and stagnant poolsof filth; reservoirs of leprosy and plague, whose exhalations weresufficient to taint the atmosphere of the whole kingdom and fill thecountry with fever and pestilence.
A lank and haggard youth, ricketty and smoke-dried, and black with hiscraft, was sitting on the threshold of a miserable hovel and working atthe file. Behind him stood a stunted and meagre girl, with a back likea grasshopper; a deformity occasioned by the displacement of thebladebone, and prevalent among the girls of Wodgate from the crampingposture of their usual toil. Her long melancholy visage and vacant stareat Morley as he passed, attracted his notice, and it occurring tohim that the opportunity was convenient to enquire something of theindividual of whom he was in search, he stopped and addressed theworkman:
"Do you happen to
know friend a person here or hereabouts by nameHatton?"
"Hatton!" said the youth looking up with a grin, yet still continuinghis labour, "I should think I did!"
"Well, that's fortunate; you can tell me something about him?"
"Do you see this here?" said the youth still grinning, and letting thefile drop from his distorted and knotty hand, he pointed to a deep scarthat crossed his forehead, "he did that."
"An accident?"
"Very like. An accident that often happened. I should like to have acrown for every time he has cut my head open. He cut it open once with akey and twice with a lock; he knocked the corner of a lock into my headtwice, once with a bolt and once with a shut; you know what that is;the thing what runs into the staple. He hit me on the head with a hammeronce. That was a blow! I fell away that time. When I came to, master hadstopped the blood with some fur off his hat. I had to go on with my workimmediately; master said I should do my stint if I worked till twelveo'clock at night. Many's the ash stick he has broken on my body;sometimes the weals remained on me for a-week; he cut my eyelid openonce with a nutstick; cut a regular hole in it, and it bled all over thefiles I was working at. He has pulled my ears sometimes that I thoughtthey must come off in his hand. But all this was a mere nothin to thishere cut; that was serous; and if I hadn't got thro' that they do saythere must have been a crowner's quest; though I think that gammon, torold Tugsford did for one of his prentices, and the body was never found.And now you ask me if I know Hatton? I should think I did!" And thelank, haggard youth laughed merrily, as if he had been recounting aseries of the happiest adventures.
"But is there no redress for such iniquitous oppression," said Morley,who had listened with astonishment to this complacent statement. "Isthere no magistrate to apply to?"
"No no," said the filer with an air of obvious pride, "we don't have nomagistrates at Wodgate. We've got a constable, and there was a prenticewho coz his master laid it on, only with a seat rod, went over toRamborough and got a warrant. He fetched the summons himself and givit to the constable, but he never served it. That's why they has aconstable here."
"I am sorry," said Morley, "that I have affairs with such a wretch asthis Hatton."
"You'll find him a wery hearty sort of man," said the filer, "if hedon't hap to be in drink. He's a little robustious then, but take himall in all for a master, you may go further and fare worse.
"What! this monster!"
"Lord bless you, it's his way, that's all, we be a queer set here; buthe has his pints. Give him a lock to make, and you won't have your boxpicked; he's wery lib'ral too in the wittals. Never had horse-flesh thewhole time I was with him; they has nothin' else at Tugsford's; neverhad no sick cow except when meat was very dear. He always put his faceagin still-born calves; he used to say he liked his boys to have meatwhat was born alive and killed alive. By which token there never was anysheep what had bust in the head sold in our court. And then sometimeshe would give us a treat of fish, when it had been four or five days intown and not sold. No, give the devil his due, say I. There never was nowant for anything at meals with the Bishop, except time to eat them in."
"And why do you call him the Bishop?"
"That's his name and authority; for he's the governor here over allof us. And it has always been so that Wodgate has been governed by abishop; because as we have no church, we will have as good. And by thistoken that this day sen'night, the day my time was up, he married me tothis here young lady. She is of the Baptist school religion, and wantedus to be tied by her clergyman, but all the lads that served their timewith me were married by the Bishop, and many a more, and I saw no callto do no otherwise. So he sprinkled some salt over a gridiron, read 'OurFather' backwards, and wrote our name in a book: and we were spliced;but I didn't do it rashly, did I, Suky, by the token that we had keptcompany for two years, and there isn't a gal in all Wodgate what handlesa file, like Sue."
"And what is your name, my good fellow?"
"They call me Tummas, but I ayn't got no second name; but now I ammarried I mean to take my wife's, for she has been baptised, and so hasgot two."
"Yes sir," said the girl with the vacant face and the back like agrasshopper; "I be a reg'lar born Christian and my mother afore me, andthat's what few gals in the Yard can say. Thomas will take to it himselfwhen work is slack; and he believes now in our Lord and Saviour PontiusPilate who was crucified to save our sins; and in Moses, Goliath, andthe rest of the Apostles."
"Ah! me," thought Morley, "and could not they spare one Missionary fromTahiti for their fellow countrymen at Wodgate!"
Book 3 Chapter 5