the Squire said peremptorily,–

“It is all right. Hold my horse, Jarum. I’ll have to cap this match myself. And stand back a bit, men, I want room enough to turn in.” He was taking off his fine broadcloth coat and vest as he spoke, and the lad he was to match, stood looking at him with his hands on his hips, and a smile on his handsome face. Perhaps the attitude and the smile nettled the Squire, for he added with some pride and authority,–

“I would like you to know that I am Squire Atheling; and I am not going to have a better wrestler than myself in Atheling Manor, young man, not if I can help it.”

“I know that you are Squire Atheling,” answered the stranger. “I have been living with your son Edgar for a year, why wouldn’t I know you? And if I prove myself the better man, then you shall stop and listen to me for half-an-hour, and you may stop a whole hour, if you want to; and I think you will.”

“I know nothing about Edgar Atheling, and I am not standing here either to talk to thee, or to listen to thee, but to give thee a fair ‘throw’ if I can manage it.” He stretched out his left hand as he spoke, and the young man grasped it with his right hand. This result was anticipated; there was a swift twist outward, and a lift upward, and before anyone realised what would happen, a pair of shapely young legs were flying over the Squire’s shoulder. Then there rose from twenty Yorkshire throats a roar of triumph, and the Squire put his hands on his hips, and looked complacently at the stranger flicking the Atheling dust from his trousers. He took his defeat as cheerily as his triumph. “It was a clever throw, Squire,” he said.

“Try it again, lad.”

“Nay, I have had enough.”

“I thought so. Now then, don’t brag of thy wrestling till thou understandest a bit of ‘In-play.’ But I’ll warrant thou canst talk, so I’ll give myself a few minutes to listen to thee. I should say, I am twice as old as thou art, but I notice that it is the babes and sucklings that know everything, these days.”

As the Squire was speaking, the youth leaped into an empty cart which someone pushed forward, and he was ready with his answer,–

“Squire,” he said, “it will take not babes, but men like you and these I see around me, for the wrestling match before us all. What we have to tackle is the British Government and the two Houses of Parliament.”

The Squire laughed scornfully. “They will ‘throw’ thee into the strongest jail in England, my lad; they will sink thee four feet under ground, if thou art bound for any of that nonsense.”

“They will have enough to do to take care of themselves soon.”

“Thou art saying more than thou knowest. Wouldst thou have the horrors of 1792 acted over again, in England? My lad, I was a youngster then, but I saw the red flag, dripping with blood, go round the Champ-de-Mars.”

“None of us want to carry the red flag, Squire. It is the tri-colour of Liberty we want; and that flag–in spite of all tyrants can do–will be carried round the world in glory! When I was in America–”

“Wilt thou be quiet about them foreign countries? We have bother enough at home, without going to the world’s end for more. And I will have no such talk in my manor. If thou dost not stop it, I shall have to make thee.”

“King William, and all his Lords and Commons, cannot stop such talk. It is on every honest tongue, and at every decent table. It is in the air, Squire, and the winds of heaven carry it wherever they go.”

“If thou saidst William Cobbett, thou mightst happen hit the truth. The winds of heaven have better work to do. What art thou after anyway?”

“Such a Parliamentary Reform as will give every honest man a voice in the Government.”

“Just so! Thou wouldst make the door of the House of Commons big enough for any rubbish to go through.”

“The plan has been tried, Squire, in America; and

“Stop there!” roared the Squire. “Nonsense in poetry is a bit worse than any other kind of nonsense. Speak in plain words, or be done with it! Do you know what you want?”

“That we do. We want the big towns, where working men are the many, and rich men, the few, to be represented. We want all sham boroughs thrown out. What do you think of Old Sarum sending a member to Parliament, when there isn’t any Old Sarum? There used to be, in the days of King Edward the First, but there is now no more left of it than there is of the Tower of Babel. What do you think of the Member for Ludgershall being not only the Member, but the whole constituency of Ludgershall? What do you think of Gatton having just seven voters, and sending two members to Parliament?”–then leaning forward, and with burning looks drinking the wind of his own passionate speech–“What do you think of Leeds! Manchester! Birmingham! Sheffield! being without any representation!”

“My lad,” cried the Squire, “have not Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, done very well without representation?”

“Squire, a child may grow to a man without love and without care; but he is a robbed and a wronged child, for all that.”

“The Government knows better than thee what to do with big towns full of unruly men and women.”

“That is just the question. They are not represented, because they are made up of the working population of England. But the working man has not only his general rights, he has also rights peculiar to his condition; and it is high time these rights were attended to. Yet these great cities, full of woollen and cotton weavers, and of fine workers in all kinds of metals, have not a man in Parliament to say a word for them.”

“What is there to say? What do they want Parliament to know?” asked the Squire, scornfully.

“They want Parliament to know that they are being forced to work twelve hours a day, for thirty pennies a week; and that they have to pay ten pennies for every four-pound loaf of bread. And they expect that when Parliament knows these two facts, something will be done to help them in their poverty and misery. They believe that the people of England will compel Parliament to do something.”

“There are Members in both Houses that know these things, why do they not speak?–if it was reasonable to do so.”

“Squire, they dare not. They have not the power, even if they had the will. The Peers and the great Landlords own two-thirds of the House of Commons. They own their boroughs and members, just as they own their parks and cattle. One duke returns eleven members; another duke returns nine members; and such a city as Manchester cannot return one! If this state of things does not need reforming, I do not know what does.”

So far his words had rushed rattling on one another, like the ring of iron on iron in a day of old-world battle; but at this point, the Squire managed again to interrupt them. From his saddle he had something of an advantage, as he called out in an angry voice,–

“And pray now, what are you to make by this business? Is it a bit of brass–or land–or power that you look forward to?”

“None of them. I have set my heart on the goal, and not on the prize. Let the men who come after me reap; I am glad enough if I may but plough and sow. The Americans–”

“Chaff, on the Americans! We are North-Riding men. We are Englishmen. We are sound-hearted, upstanding