Nineteen hundred? A forecast and a storyFarningham, Marianne
General
Nineteen hundred? A forecast and a story
Farningham, Marianne
Christian life -- Fiction; England -- Social conditions -- Fiction; Reformers -- Fiction
Mr. Knight chartered a special train for the use of his people, and
there was a great crowd at Euston Station to see them off. The poor have
many friends, and there were some pathetic leave-takings among them.
Wales was “them furren parts” to those who, most of them, had never been
five miles away from London. The journey was a great event in their
lives, but a pleasant one, too; and this new emigration had much of the
novelty and excitement of expectation, with very little of the pain of
an emigration of the ordinary kind.
When they had travelled rather more than half way the train stopped at a
small station, and the people were told to alight.
“The master has thought of everything. At this place is a substantial
meal of sandwiches, bread and butter, and tea and coffee, all at his
expense,” they were told.
The born leader of men knew how wearisome the journey might appear to
some of the women and children to whom the experience was the most
novel, and that when their heads and backs ached, and they got hungry,
their courage would begin to ooze away, and they would be half afraid of
the new life and regretful of the old; but this break in the journey
would cheer and refresh them all, and help them to complete the
remaining miles in better condition and spirits. It was but a little
thing, perhaps, but it was worth thinking of, and it was like Arthur
Knight to have arranged it.
He himself met them at the station, with two or three friends who were
already domiciled, and who had each his special part to perform in the
new village. First, there was the Rev. James Davies, the minister of the
church, who was entering upon his work with as much enthusiasm as Arthur
Knight himself; who would be the friend and brother as well as the
preacher, and who deeply felt the solemnity of his position, for to him
the care of the souls of these people had been given. Next, there was
Dr. Armitt, whose duty it would be to keep the community in health, as
far as in him lay, who was to administer advice and medicine without
charge, and who was to perform the duties of a sanitary inspector, with
the right to prevent everything likely to affect the health of the
community. There was another important person, Mr. Freeman, the manager
of the trade department, at whose handsome store-rooms the people could
purchase all necessities of food and clothing, and whose business was to
be regulated on co-operative principles. Besides these there were a few
men and women helpers who had prepared the homes. By the help of Mr. and
Mrs. Hancourt, the Basket Woman, and Fanny Burton, the head of each
family had a card with the name or number of his house, for they had
been located beforehand so as to prevent confusion on their arrival. It
was evening when they arrived, and Mr. Knight had a fire burning and a
table spread in every house to give it a home-like appearance; and, full
of happy expectations, he awaited the result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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