were of course sometimes played off upon them, which appear to have greatly irritated them. Jonathan Ovenden, a blanket weaver, who resided in one of the houses at Cawley hill, determined to play the soldiers a prank, and with the aid of one or two cronies, loaded a cannon such as boys have on Guy Fawkes's day, and fired it in the evening when all was quiet. In a very short time the soldiers were riding up the hill at great speed, with drawn swords, presenting in fact such a martial aspect that Jonathan became seriously alarmed, and hiding his cannon in an ashpit, he esconced himself in a neighbouring hay mow. On arriving at the top of the hill, the soldiers made diligent and careful search in and around the houses, but as they could find nothing, they were obliged to march down the hill again, disappointed and chagrined at their failure. It is also handed down amongst the traditions of this stirring period that Stephen Greenald, of Healey, then a youth sowing his wild oats, once caused serious perturbation of mind to Mr. Robert Dex, and consequences of a still more direful nature to a doughty soldier who was helping him to keep watch over some cropping machines, in the mill now occupied by Messrs. John Burnley and Sons (or rather in what then existed of the mill). Passing down the road a night or two after the attack on Cartwright's mill, Greenald threw a stone through one of the windows. "The Philistines are upon us," cried Dex, and summoned his martial companion to the defence, but found, alas! that he had fainted with terror. Stephen ran down the town pursued by the patrol, but succeeded in hiding in Royle's fold, under the sheltering wing of Mrs. Nancy Leadbeater, the mother of the present chairman of the Heckmondwike Board of Health.

His horse's clanging hoof spurning the solid ground,
As if 'ware of lurking danger."-WILLIS.

Although the check which the Luddites received at Cartwright's mill seemed to depress the members of the fraternity and check the practice of frame breaking for a short time, there were no signs that the movement was put down and that the men were likely to return peaceably to their avocations and accept their defeat quietly. Throughout the country the half-starved populace rose time after time in rebellion and the military were greatly harrassed in attempting to put them down. A tumult took place at Sheffield on the Tuesday after the attack on Cartwright's mill. A great advance had taken place in the price of potatoes, and an unreasoning multitude assembled in the market-place and attacked the potato dealers. In the struggle which ensued bushels of the article were scattered about the streets and large quantities were carried away in carts, &c. Two or three sacks of corn were also purloined, and large quantities of butter and fish speedily disappeared from the stalls. After two hours the magistrates prevailed upon the rioters to disperse, but unfortunately in one division of them a cry was set up, To the volunteer depot for arms!" and thousands swarmed in that direction, but luckily the arms were got away; the disappointed rioters in their rage however broke the drums, &c., and did much damage before they were dispersed by the hussars. On the day following, a riot broke out at Barnsley, caused also by the high price of provisions, especially potatoes and flour, and the royal volunteers and Wakefield yeoman cavalry had to be sent for to put down the tumult. At Stockport riots also took place, while at Middleton, a few miles from Manchester, four Luddites who were attacking a mill were killed by Mr. E. Burton and a guard of sixteen men, who, encouraged by the example of Cartwright, had determined to defend it.

Throughout the whole of this immediate locality, great alarm and uneasiness prevailed, and the military and magistrates were kept unceasingly at work. The Rev. Hammond Roberson, the martial parson referred to in a previous chapter, was very busy, but the result of his labours to discover lurking Luddites was on the whole of a very unsatisfactory character. The Huddersfield authorites were well aware that the great bulk of the men who had attacked the mill at Rawfolds came from their town, and they were busy all the week hunting supposed culprits. Very few however were convicted, as little or no evidence could be obtained, and matters generally wore a very unsatisfactory aspect. Numbers of croppers disappeared from the town: some enlisted for soldiers and were never seen again in their old haunts; while others who had gone away, returned after the disturbances were finally over. Wounded men who had received their injuries at the famous attack on the mill were kept carefully concealed until they had recovered from their hurts. Three were seen in the little plantation near Lower Blacup farm on the morning after the conflict, laid helpless on the ground, unable to proceed, but when the authorities reached the place they had been spirited away, and no one was able to trace them further. The inference is that some of their friends in the adjoining town of Cleckheaton had conveyed them to their homes, or it may be that they had been taken away and cared for by some who sympathised with the movement. As we have before said, the authorities found themselves baffled at every turn, owing to the unmistakable sympathy of the general body of the people with the desperate wretches who in many cases were positively starving. Anyone who has studied the history of this country will be well aware what great effects have been produced by ballads in which the uncultured minstrels of the time enshrined the records of the notable deeds of some great leader, or of some popular movement, and there are evidences that the Luddite rebellion was not destitute of poets who celebrated in rough but vigorous rhyme 'the progress of the triumphant croppers in their crusades against the machines that robbed their children of their food; or appealed solemnly to the God of Heaven to smite with swift vengeance the oppressors who despised the cries of the poor and needy and ground them down to very dust. Most of these ballads are triumphant pœans on the glorious deeds of the "cropper lads," but some are full of expressions of bitter hatred of Cartwright, who, under a thinly disguised cognomen, is likened to a bloodhound delighting in hunting to death those who opposed his arbitrary will. No doubt these rude home-spun songs which are now remembered only in disjointed fragments by the few old people who have a personal knowledge of those unhappy times, have often been chanted to the music of the sounding "shears," and have fired the heart and stirred the sluggish blood of many of the dreaded fraternity whose deeds at one time daunted the bravest. We were fortunate enough the other day to fall in with an intelligent, bright eyed old lady, who, though she is nearly four score, still retains all her faculties unimpaired. She is

just one of those garrulous, sharp witted people, full of old world tales and folk-lore, which it delights the hearts of antiquaries to converse with. She knew a great deal about the Luddites, and. gave us snatches of ballads which were universally sung amongst them in those troubled times. Here is a specimen verse of one composed after the destruction of the mill between Horbury and Ossett, referred to in a former chapter, in which many from Heckmondwike, Liversedge, and the district round took part :

"Come all ye croppers stout and bold,
Let your faith grow stronger still;
Oh, the cropper lads in the county of York
Broke the shears at Foster's mill.
The wind it blew,

The sparks they flew,

Which alarmed the town full soon ;
And out of bed poor people did creep,
And ran by the light of the moon;
Around and around they all did stand,'
And solemnly did swear,

Neither bucket, nor kit, nor any such thing
Should be of assistance there."

We will give a specimen verse of another, of a less jubilant char acter, composed after the failure of the attack on Cartwright's mill, and then introduce our readers once more to the head quarters of the Luddites in Yorkshire :

66

How gloomy and dark is the day

When men have to fight for their bread;

Some judgment will sure clear the way,

And the poor shall to triumph be led.
Come listen to this, my sad story,
Of woe be to valour most brave,
While some have escap'd up to glory,
The tyrant hangs over the grave."

Although the authorities were not quite satisfied about some of the croppers at John Wood's workshop, they had not been able to find any positive evidence of wrong doing on their part. Most of them had showed themselves openly in Huddersfield on the morning after the attack on Cartwright's mill, and had done their utmost to ward off suspicion by attending strictly to their work on the week following. We must now ask our readers to accompany us again to this famous finishing shop. Most of the men who were present at the initiation of poor John Booth into the Luddite brotherhood a few short weeks before are present now. Instead however of being dressed in the croppers' working garb, they have all their best clothes on. Some are attired in black-rather rusty in most instances it is true-and all have bands of crape round their hats. They have all been into the town to attend the funeral of Booth, whose body, as we stated in a previous chapter, it had been publicly

announced would be interred about noon. When they entered the busy main streets they encountered many who, like themselves, had come to join in the melancholy procession, and learned to their mortification that the alarmed authorities had caused the body to be interred many hours before. If there existed in George Mellor's dark, flinty heart a particle of feeling, it had been entirely monopolised by his dead friend, Booth, and when he ascertained that he had been deprived of the melancholy satisfaction of following Booth's dead body to the grave, his whole frame quivered with passion, and his alarmed comrades, afraid of what he might divulge in his wild outburst, persuaded him to return with them to the workshop. Arrived there, his long suppressed emotion found vent and he raged about the room like an imprisoned tiger. His companions listened for some time in gloomy silence to his wild curses, but his fellow workman, Smith, at length attempted to pacify him. 'Come, Mellor," said he, "if we cannot storm and curse as heartily as thee, we all feel the loss of poor Booth as well as thou does. If cursing could do any good I should say curse on and would do my best to help thee, but it will not, and I think it behoves us to consider the living as well as the dead."

'Curse the villain, Cartwright! I will yet have his heart's blood," yelled Mellor ferociously, his lurid eyes flashing fire. "Lads," said he, and his voice suddenly changed to a low tone, "have you heard he is coming here on Saturday?"

Coming where?" asked Thorpe, in a startled tone.

'Coming to Huddersfield to be a witness at the trial of the soldier who is to be brought before a court martial on that day, because he would not fire at us out of the mill. I am told by one of my friends at the barracks that the trial will begin at two o'clock. Now Cartwright puts up at the 'Plough,' can't some of us go there, and poison, stab, or shoot the villain ?"

Poison him you can't," replied Thorpe. "Joe Drake, who sweethearts the barmaid, says he neither tastes nor sups anything at the Plough.' The grim looking old bloodhound pays for his dinner and his glass, but he finds some one else to eat and drink for him. Since the Ludds threatened his life he suspects everybody, and will neither bite nor sup anything at the inn. He seldom leaves the town now later than four o'clock in the afternoon, and then when in a lonely place tears away at the greatest speed of his horse."

"

·

Well, now, look here," said Mellor, after a long pause, during which he stood with knitted brow and bent head, let some of us go to Bradley Wood and wait his coming. If we plant ourselves on each side of the road we can surely hit him. Come, now, we'll draw lots who takes the job."

silently, but upon

About a dozen men stood round and drew lots whom the lots fell is not positively known. Suffice it to say that when the day came the two avengers," as they were called, wer at their posts.