Flash for Freedom!. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ in Trafalgar Square, and that in a few days there was to be a great rally of Chartists – ‘spawn of Beelzebub’ he called them – on Kennington Common, and that it was feared they would invade London itself.

      To my astonishment, when I went out next day to take my bearings, I discovered there was something in it. At Horse Guards there were rumours that regiments were being brought secretly to town, the homes of Ministers were to be guarded, and supplies of cutlasses and firearms were being got ready. Special constables were being recruited to oppose the mob, and the Royal Family were leaving town. It all sounded d----d serious, but my Uncle Bindley, who was on the staff, told me that the Duke was confident nothing would come of it.

      ‘So you’ll win no more medals this time,’ says he, sniffing. ‘I take it, now that you have consented to honour us with your presence again, that you are looking to your family’ (he meant the Pagets, my mother’s tribe) ‘to find you employment again.’

      ‘I’m in no hurry, thank’ee,’ says I. ‘I’m sure you’d agree that in a time of civil peril a gentleman’s place is in his home, defending his dear ones.’

      ‘If you mean the Morrisons,’ says he, ‘I cannot agree with you. Their rightful place is with the mob, from which they came.’

      ‘Careful, uncle,’ says I. ‘You never know – you might be in need of a Scotch pension yourself some day.’ And with that I left him, and sauntered home.

      The place was in a ferment. Old Morrison, carried away by terror for his strong-boxes, had actually plucked up courage to go to Marlborough Street and ’test as a special constable, and when I came home he was standing in the drawing-room looking at his truncheon as though it was a snake. Mrs Morrison, my Medusa-in-law, was lying on the sofa, with a maid dabbing her temples with eau-de-cologne, Elspeth’s two sisters were weeping in a corner, and Elspeth herself was sitting, cool as you please, with a shawl round her shoulders, eating chocolates and looking beautiful. As always, she was the one member of the family who was quite unruffled.

      Old Morrison looked at me and groaned, and looked at the truncheon again.

      ‘It’s a terrible thing to tak’ human life,’ says he.

      ‘Don’t take it, then,’ says I. ‘Strike only to wound. Get your back against a brick wall and smash ’em across the knees and elbows.’

      The females set up a great howl at this, and old Morrison looked ready to faint.

      ‘D’ye think … it’ll come tae … tae bloodshed?’

      ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ says I, very cool.

      ‘Ye’ll come with me,’ he yammered. ‘You’re a soldier – a man of action – aye, ye’ve the Queen’s Medal an’ a’. Ye’ve seen service – aye – against the country’s enemies! Ye’re the very man tae stand up to this … this trash. Ye’ll come wi’ me – or maybe tak’ my place!’

      Solemnly I informed him that the Duke had given it out that on no account were the military to be involved in any disturbance that might take place when the Chartists assembled. I was too well known; I should be recognised.

      ‘I’m afraid it is for you civilians to do your duty,’ says I. ‘But I shall be here, at home, so you need have no fear. And if the worst befalls, you may be sure that my comrades and I shall take stern vengeance.’

      I left that drawing-room sounding like the Wailing Wall, but it was nothing to the scenes which ensued on the morning of the great Chartist meeting at Kennington. Old Morrison set off, amidst the lamentations of the womenfolk, truncheon in hand, to join the other specials, but was back in ten minutes having sprained his ankle, he said, and had to be helped to bed. I was sorry, because I’d been hoping he might get his head stove in, but it wouldn’t have happened anyway. The Chartists did assemble, and the specials were mustered in force to guard the bridges – it was then that I saw Gladstone with the other specials, with his nose dripping, preparing to sell his life dearly for the sake of constitutional liberty and his own investments. But it poured down, everyone was soaked, the foreign agitators who were on hand got nowhere, and all the inflamed mob did was to send a monstrous petition across to the House of Commons. It had five million signatures, they said; I know it had four of mine, one in the name of Obadiah Snooks, and three others in the shape of X’s beside which I wrote, ‘John Morrison, Arthur Wellesley, Henry John Temple Palmerston, their marks’.

      But the whole thing was a frost, and when one of the Frog agitators in Trafalgar Square got up and d----d the whole lot of the Chartists for English cowards, a butcher’s boy tore off his coat, squared up to the Frenchy, and gave the snail-chewing scoundrel the finest thrashing you could wish for. Then, of course, the whole crowd carried the butcher’s boy shoulder high, and finished up singing ‘God Save the Queen’ with tremendous gusto. A thoroughly English revolution, I daresay.¹

      You may wonder what all this had to do with my thinking about entering politics. Well, as I’ve said, it had lowered my opinion of asses like Gladstone still further, and caused me to speculate that if I were an M.P. I couldn’t be any worse than that sorry pack of fellows, but this was just an idle thought. However, if my chief feeling about the demonstration was disappointment that so little mischief had been done, it had a great effect on my father-in-law, crouched at home with the bed-clothes over his head, waiting to be guillotined.

      You’d hardly credit it, but in a way he’d had much the same thought as myself, although I don’t claim to know by what amazing distortions of logic he arrived at it. But the upshot of his panic-stricken meditations on that day and the following night, when he was still expecting the mob to reassemble and run him out of town on a rail, was the amazing notion that I ought to go into Parliament.

      ‘It’s your duty,’ cries he, sitting there in his night-cap with his ankle all bandaged up, while the family chittered round him, offering gruel. He waved his spoon at me. ‘Ye should hiv a seat i’ the Hoose.’

      I’m well aware that when a man has been terrified out of his wits, the most lunatic notions occur to him as sane and reasonable, but I couldn’t follow this.

      ‘Me, in Parliament?’ I loosed a huge guffaw. ‘What the devil would I do there? D’ye think that would keep the Chartists at bay?’

      At this he let loose a great tirade about the parlous state of the country, and the impending dissolution of constitutional government, and how it was everyone’s duty to rally to the flag. Oddly enough, it reminded me of the kind of claptrap I’d heard from Bismarck – strong government, and lashing the workers – but I couldn’t see how Flashy, M.P., was going to bring that about.

      ‘If yesterday’s nonsense has convinced you that we need a change at Westminster,’ says I, ‘– and I’d not disagree with you there – why don’t you stand yourself?’

      He glowered at me over his gruel-bowl. ‘I’m no’ the Hero of Kabul,’ says he. ‘Forbye, I’ve business enough to attend to. But you – ye’ve nothing to hinder ye. Ye’re never tired o’ tellin’ us whit a favourite ye are wi’ the public. Here’s your chance to make somethin’ o’t.’

      ‘You’re out of your senses,’ says I. ‘Who would elect me?’

      ‘Anybody,’ snaps he. ‘A pug ape frae the zoological gardens could win a seat in this country, if it was managed right.’ Buttering me up, I could see.

      ‘But I’m not a politician,’ says I. ‘I know nothing about it, and care even less.’

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