CHAPTER I.--BEFORE THE IMPRISONMENT.
That day is chilled in my memory when I first set out for Cheltenham.
It was in December 1840. The snow had been frozen on the ground a
fortnight. There were three of us, Mrs. Holyoake, Madeline (our first
child), and myself. I had been residing in Worcester, which was the
first station to which I had been appointed as a Social Missionary. My
salary (16s. per week) was barely sufficient to keep us alive in summer.
In winter it was inherent obstinacy alone which made us believe that we
existed. I feel now the fierce blast which came in at the train windows
from 'the fields of Tewkesbury,' on the day on which we travelled from
Worcester to Cheltenham. The intense cold wrapped us round like a cloak
of ice.
The shop lights threw their red glare over the snow-bedded ground as we
entered the town of Cheltenham, and nothing but the drift and ourselves
moved through the deserted streets. When at last we found a fire we had
to wait to thaw before we could begin to speak. When tea was over we
were-escorted to the house where we were to stay for the night. I was
told it was 'a friend's house.' Cheltenham is a fashionable town, a
watering, visiting place, where everything is genteel and thin. As the
parlours of some prudent house-wives are kept for show, and not to sit
in, so in Cheltenham numerous houses are kept 'to be let,' and not
to live in. The people who belong to the apartments are like the
supernumeraries on a stage, they are employed in walking over them.
Their clothes are decent--but they cannot properly be said to wear them:
they carry them about with them (on their backs of course, because that
mode is most convenient) but simply to show that they have such things.
In the same manner eating and drinking is partly pantomime, and not a
received reality. Such a house as I have suggested was the 'friend's
house' to which we were conducted till lodgings could be found. We were
asked to sit by the kitchen fire on 'the bench in the corner,' and there
we sat from eight till one o'clock, without being asked to take anything
to eat. Madeline, deprived of her usual rest, continued sucking at
the breast till her mother was literally too exhausted to speak.
A neighbouring festivity kept my 'friends' up that night till two
o'clock--up to which time we saw no prospect of bed or supper. As we
entered the house, Eleanor, with a woman's prescience, said 'George, you
had better go and buy some food.' 'Buy food,' I replied, in simplicity,
'the people at this fine house will be outraged to see me bring in
food.' Retribution was not far off. I repented me of my credulity that
night. When at last I clearly comprehended that we were to have nothing
to eat, I proceeded to take affairs into my own hands, and being too
well assured of the insensibility of my host, I did it in a way that I
conceived suited to his capacity, and began as follows:
'We have talked all night about social progress, and if you have
no objection we will make some. And if eating,' I added, 'be not an
irregular thing in your house, we will take some supper.'
'I am very sorry to say,' he answered, 'we have nothing to offer you.'
'Charge me bed and board while we are with you,' I rejoined, 'but let us
have _both_. You have bread, I suppose?'
'We have some rice bread.'
'Perhaps you will toast it.' 'Will you have it _toasted?_
