The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, bart., M.P., formerly known as "Tommy Upmore". R. D. Blackmore
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knocked horses on the head durst hang out the red rag, up our Lane.
I speak of this, only as a circumstance to prove that our neighbourhood was Constitutional, and that the Radical element, however respectable it might have been when kept at home, had no right whatever to come invading us, and desiring to trample on our principles. They knew that for nearly three hundred and fifty yards, the inhabitants were all true-Blue, beginning with the Indigo factory on the South, and going all through the ash-heaps, and ending with my father. But in the wantonness of triumph, when their majority was posted up 2,000 [though our side claimed 1,500 in front] these "Demi-Cats"—as Bill had sent us word from Oxford to entitle them, and so we did—must needs assemble at King's Cross, in their thousands, and resolve to storm every Blue house in Maiden Lane.
The beginning of their enterprise was most glorious; nothing could stand before them. They broke all the glass that had a blue flag near it, and they knocked down every man who had got blue eyes. The premises of Mr. Chumps were sacked; his legs of mutton walked off, as if they were alive, and his salt beef was stuck on poles, even bigger than the skewers he weighed it out with; every drop in the cellars of the Conservative Hotel ran uphill inside a big Radical, and Mr. John Windsor lost soap enough pretty nearly to clean half the Liberals. However, he contrived to get over a back wall, together with his wife and daughter Polly—Jack was luckily at the Partheneion, and the other four gone to see their Aunt, with old Fangs to protect them from the Liberals—and by taking an in-and-out way through the cinders, the three arrived safely at our back door, without breath enough to blow out one of their own dips.
Till now my father had scarcely struck a blow on behalf of the Constitution, beyond giving his vote, and knocking down a man who was anxious to do the like to him; but now it did seem a bit too hard that the Liberals should extinguish thus all liberty of opinion.
"John," he said now, as he brought in the fugitives, and heard a tremendous noise coming up the Lane, "this is what I call coming it too strong. Mrs. Windsor, ma'am, you are all of a tremble. Sophy, get whiskey and water, at once."
"Bubbly," poor Mr. Windsor gasped, "this is most kind, and cordial of you. My dear, you require a stimulant, however much you dislike it. But, Upmore, down with your flag, at once! Down with your flag, that the fellows may go by."
"Oh yes, Mr. Upmore," implored Mrs. Windsor, a lady of a most superior kind; "please not to lose a moment in hauling down your flag; it is flying in the face of Providence. Do cut the ropes, if it won't untie."
"Will I?" said my father, and his face took on, as my mother said afterwards, a very fine expression; "lower my flag, to the scum of the earth! Ladies, go down to the cellar, and keep quiet. You will have no one here, while my flag is flying. Mr. Windsor is a man of high spirit, as he has proved many times, in our debates. He, and I, will go to the boiling-house, and defend the true-blue, come what will."
My mother declares that Mr. Windsor was going, at his best pace, to the cellar-stairs, when she locked him out, and pulled out the key; but mother was always severe upon him, because of his wholesale ways, and talk. At any rate, he did not flag or fly, although he may have longed to do so perhaps.
"Now, John," said my father, as he took his arm, to confirm his courage (which required it), and led him down the red-tiled passage to the boiling-house; "you have had a great many good laughs at my little steam-engine, haven't you? Very well, we'll try it on the 'Great unwashed;' if there happens to be a bit of fire left. My men are all away, the same as yours—or else these fellows would not come to sack us. I gave them the quarter-day to vote, the same as you did with yours; and mine are gone the right colour to a man, I do believe. But I happened to say, 'leave a little steam on;' and I can get up a great deal in ten minutes, and the blackguards won't be here for twenty. They've got three blue houses yet to wreck, and my double-gates will keep them out, at least five minutes."
"I see, I see, what you mean to do. What a glorious fellow you are, Bubbly! I'll go half the waste of phleg."
"Then go and see that all the bolts are right, while I get up steam, and have the double hose ready."
These two gallant, and sturdy, boilers very soon had the front and back gates barred and bolted, and strengthened with struts against the styles; so that all the men who could get at them must take at least five minutes to get through them; and meanwhile the furnace of the little engine was beginning to roar, and the steam to puff.
"Capital! I call this first-rate stoking;" exclaimed my father, as he stopped to breathe. "Now you understand the hose, John? It is only three-inch pipe, and therefore as handy as a walking-stick. You put your nozzle upon that trestle, commanding the back doors, while I keep ready for the time they have broken the front gate down. We have got a big vat of hot stuff to draw from; but I don't think they'll want half of it."
"Bubbly, I don't seem to understand it," said Mr. Windsor, who was slow-headed, and losing his presence of mind, perhaps (although he had got his coat off) from working so hard while he was fat, and with terrible Liberal screeches already arising in the air, above the rattle of the gates; "suppose, my dear friend, that we killed some fellow!"
"No hope of that," said my father, being now in a rancorous, and determined frame; "I am afraid that the temperature won't be above 160°, if so much; and it cools in passing through the air too fast. It will only make their eyes sharp, and their faces clean, as they should be on a holiday. No white feather, John Windsor, now! Ah, they've fetched the blacksmith, as I knew they would. Think of your wife and children, John, and of the British Constitution. Things must be come to a very pretty pass, if a man mayn't syringe a born jackass! Especially when the jackass kicks his gate in."
"In for a penny, then, in for a pound," his brother boiler answered, with his courage up; "whatever you order shall be done, friend Bubbly. This vat shall run away, before I do."
"I'll go bail for the front gate, Johnny, if you'll be ready for the rear attack, supposing they've the cheek to try one. This engine works a double hose, you see, on the principle of a well-coil. Now, my fine fellows, what do you want here?"
The blacksmith, though working against his will—for my father always paid him ready money—had prized one heavy gate off its hinges, and the other was swagging to fall with it.
"We wants you, guv'nor, and your scurvy flag;" cried the leader of the mob, a chimney-sweep.
"B'iler, b'iler; we wants the Tory b'iler!" cried a hundred dirty fellows, as the gates crashed in.
"Well, and you shall have him," said my father, who was standing just outside the slow-house door, with the nozzle of the hose tucked under his arm, and a rod in his right hand to put the pressure on; "if you come a yard further, you shall taste the boiler. Only let blacksmith Grimes get out of the way. I don't wish to boil a respectable neighbour. And I don't want to boil you, unless you insist on it."
Not only Grimes, but a great many others would have liked to get out of the way at this; but the bulk of the tumult behind shoved on, and the heads, that were fain to hang back, got jammed up in front against the smash, and then shot over. Father just waited, till the chimney-sweep, a termagant of the highest rank, was hurra-ing, and waving a soot-brush—and then he let go hot candles at them. In a long white column, flew the scalding fluid, spreading, like a sheaf, when it met their faces, and coating every man of them with poisonous gray froth. No man could swear, for his mouth was bunged up; and no man could strike, for his arms were stuck to him, with a weight of deposit, like a stalactite. Good stearine it was, of the value of at least three halfpence a pound, in the unrefined state; and it went inside their shirts, and stung like hornets, and settled into every cracked place of the skin, and made a man tight in his linings. And to add to their grief, such a steam arose among them—not to mention something else beginning with same letters—that the slits of any eyes, that were left half open, were as useless as in a thick London fog.
"There's a deal more to come," said my father calmly; "noble reformers, stand shoulder to shoulder; as one of your writers has beautifully said—the deeper we go, the more strength we get."
The issue is told in a ballad written that same night at "The Best End of the Scrag;" which—though