Tenants’ right and tenants’ wrong by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 241 in the eighth instalment (July 1855). Steel-engraving. 9.1 cm high by 13 cm wide (3 ½ by 5 ⅛ inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, for Chapter XXII, "A Day 'After'." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Mary advocates for the Martins' tenants with Lady Dorothea
Kate Henderson, who sat with bent-down head during this speech, contrived to steal a glance at the speaker so meaningful and so supplicating that Mary faltered, and as a deep blush covered her cheek, she hastily added: “But this is really not the question. This miserable contest has done us all harm; but let us not perpetuate its bitterness! We have been beaten in an election, but I don't think we ought to be worsted in a struggle of generosity and good feeling. Come over, dear aunt, and see these poor creatures.”
“I shall certainly do no such thing, Miss Martin. In the first place, the fever never leaves that village.”
“Very true, aunt; and it will be worse company if our kindness should desert them. But if you will not come, take my word for the state of their destitution. We have nothing so poor on the whole estate.”
“It is but a moment back I was told that the spirit of resistance to our influence here arose from the wealthy independence of the people; now, I am informed it is their want and destitution suggest the opposition. I wish I could ascertain which of you is right.”
“It's little matter if our theory does not lead us to injustice,” said Mary, boldly. “Let me only ride back to the quarries, aunt, and tell these poor people that they've nothing to fear,—that there is no thought of withdrawing from them their labor nor its hire. Their lives are, God knows, not overlaid with worldly blessings; let us not add one drop that we can spare to their cup of sorrow.”
“The young leddy says na mair than the fact; they're vara poor, and they're vara dangerous!”
“How do you mean dangerous, sir?” asked Lady Dorothea, hastily.
“There's more out o' that barony at the assizes, my Leddy, than from any other on the property.” [Chapter XXII, "A Day 'After'," 242]
Commentary: The Conflicting Counsels of Henderson and Mary Martin
Mary enters in her mud-splashed riding-habit as Lady Dorothea quizzes her estate manager, the canny Scot who is the governess's father, as to which cottiers and tenants she should turn out. Her object is to punish those who in the recent poll supported the Liberal candidate, if not with their votes (for such peasantry would hardly have met the voter's property qualification prior to the Great Reform Bill of 1832), then with their voices and actions. Lady Dorothea has wilfully discharged the poorest of the Martins' cottiers, the quarry workers of Kyle's Wood. However, as the estate manager, Mr. Henderson, points out, she cannot touch the principal adherents of the Radicals who brought down the Tory candidate and helped elect Jack Massingbred, "as the chief o' the lot are men o' mark and means, wi' plenty o' siller" (241). She is determined to turn out the Radical supporters who are in arrears with their rents, but just as Henderson is about to explain how he and Lady Dorothea are powerless to act against the more prosperous tenants, Mary breaks in with a plea for mercy and charity. When Lady Dorothea refuses to relent about the quarriers, Mary dashes out of the room to ask her uncle to countermand the order. Kate Henderson, "the only daughter of Paul Henderson, Land Steward" (247), looks on distressed, while her father derides the practice of spreading literacy among the peasantry, for reading only makes them more reflective: "I foresaw that if they grew richer they'd grow sturdier; and if they learned to read, they'd begin to reflect. Ay, my Leddy, a vara dangerous practice this same habit of reflection is to folk who wear ragged clothes and dine on potatoes!" (240).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'"Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907.
Steig, Michael. Chapter VII, "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XII, "Aspirant for Preferment, 1854-1856." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 203-220.
Created 24 September 2022