Through the Fray: A Tale of the Luddite Riots by G. A. Henty (best novels to read for beginners .TXT) 📗

The weavers were affected even more than the croppers, for strength and skill were not so needed to tend the power looms as to work the hand looms. Women and boys could do the work previously performed by men, and the tendency of wages was everywhere to fall.

For years a deep spirit of discontent had been seething among the operatives in the cotton and woolen manufactures, and there had been riots more or less serious in Derbyshire, Nottingham, Lancashire and Yorkshire, which in those days were the headquarters of these trades. Factories had been burned, employers threatened and attacked, and the obnoxious machines smashed. It was the vain struggle of the ignorant and badly paid people to keep down production and to keep up wages, to maintain manual labor against the power of the steam engine.

Hitherto factories had been rare, men working the frames in their own homes, and utilizing the labor of their wives and families, and the necessity of going miles away to work in the mills, where the looms were driven by steam, added much to the discontent.

Having found his fishing appliances Ned hurried off to the school, where his chum Tompkins was already waiting him, and the two set out at once on their expedition.

They had four miles to walk to reach the spot where they intended to fish. It was a quiet little stream with deep pools and many shadows, and had its source in the heart of the moorlands. Neither of them had ever tried it before, but they had heard it spoken of as one of the best streams for fish in that part. On reaching its banks the rods were put together, the hooks were baited with worms, and a deep pool being chosen they set to work. After fishing for some time without success they tried a pool higher up, and so mounted higher and higher up the stream, but ever with the same want of success.

“How could they have said that this was a good place for fish?” Tompkins said angrily at last. “Why, by this time it would have been hard luck if we had not caught a dozen between us where we usually fish close to the town, and after our long walk we have not had even a bite.”

“I fancy, Tompkins,” Ned said, “that we are a couple of fools. I know it is trout that they catch in this stream, and of course, now I think of it, trout are caught in clear water with a fly, not with a worm. Father said the other day he would take me out some Saturday and give me a lesson in fly fishing. How he will laugh when I tell him we have wasted all our afternoon in trying to catch trout with worms!”

“I don't see anything to laugh at,” Tompkins grumbled. “Here we waste a whole half holiday, and nothing to show for it, and have got six or seven miles at least to tramp back to school.”

“Well, we have had a nice walk,” Ned said, “even if we are caught in the rain. However, we may as well put up our rods and start. I vote we try to make a straight cut home; it must be ever so much shorter to go in a straight line than to follow all the windings of this stream.”

They had long since left the low lands, where trees and bushes bordered the stream, and were in a lonely valley where the hills came down close to the little stream, which sparkled among the boulders at their feet. The slopes were covered with a crop of short wiry grass through which the gray stone projected here and there. Tiny rills of water made their way down the hillside to swell the stream, and the tinge of brown which showed up wherever these found a level sufficient to form a pool told that they had their source in the bogs on the moorland above. Tompkins looked round him rather disconcertedly.

“I don't know,” he said. “It's a beastly long way to walk round; but suppose we got lost in trying to make our way across the hills.”

“Well, just as you like,” Ned said, “I am game to walk back the way we came or to try and make a straight cut, only mind don't you turn round and blame me afterward. You take your choice; whichever you vote for I am ready to do.”

“My shoes are beginning to rub my heels,” Tompkins said, “so I will take the shortest way and risk it. I don't see we can go far out of our way.”

“I don't see that we can,” Ned replied. “Marsden lies to the east, so we have only to keep our backs to the sun; it won't be down for another two hours yet, and before that we ought to be in.”

By this time they had taken their rods to pieces, wound up their lines, and were ready to start. A few minutes' sharp climbing took them to the top of the slope. They were now upon the moor, which stretched away with slight undulations as far as they could see.

“Now,” Ned said, “we will make for that clump of rocks. They seem to be just in the line we ought to take, and by fixing our eyes upon them we shall go straight.”

This, however, was not as easy to do as Ned had fancied; the ground was in many places so soft and boggy that they were forced to make considerable detours. Nevertheless the rocks served as a beacon, and enabled them to keep the right direction; but although they made their way at the best of their speed it was an hour after starting before they approached the rock.

When they were within fifty yards of it a figure suddenly rose. It was that of a boy some fifteen years of age.

“Goa back,” he shouted; “dang yer, what be'est a cooming here vor?”

The two boys stopped astonished.

“We are going to Marsden,” Ned replied; “but what's that to you?”

“Doan't ee moind wot it be to oi,” the boy said; “oi tell ee ee can't goa no further; yoi've got ter go back.”

“We shan't go back,” Ned said; “we have got as much right to go this way as you have. This is not your land; and if it is, we ain't hurting it.”

By this time they were at the foot of the pile of rocks, and the lad was standing some ten feet above them.

“Oi tell ee,” he repeated doggedly, “yoi've got vor to go back.”

The boy was so much bigger and stronger than either Ned or his companion that the former, although indignant at this interference, did not deem it prudent to attempt to climb the crag, so he said to Tompkins: “Of course we ain't going back, but we had better take a turn so as to get out of the way of this fellow.”

So saying they turned to the right and prepared to scout round the rock and continue their way; but this did not suit their obstructor.

“If ee doan't go back at oncet oi'll knock the heads off thee shoulders.”

“We can't go back,” Tompkins said desperately, “we are both as tired as we can be, and my heel is so sore that I can hardly walk. We shouldn't get to