THE PLOT AGAINST COALCHESTER

Old Mrs. Talbot had been prepared for some such invasion, and had an excellent rabbit-pie awaiting them. There was a delightful trait of old Mrs. Talbot's which I would like to record, a curious chronological method of remembering great occasions and startling events by the food of the day. Thus, for example, when with eyes that would still fill with tears, though it was ten years ago, she would tell the story of how her only boy had been brought home dead one night from an accident at his workshop, she would fix the date by saying, "It was about six o'clock at night, and I'd just got a nice little bit of liver and bacon cooking for your father's dinner, when there came a knock at the door ..." Sometimes it was, "I'd just sent Liz out for a little bit of fish," or it would be Spanish onions maybe, or a lovely little rabbit, that marked the day.

The night when the attack on Coalchester was planned was marked, as I have said, by rabbit-pie. Mrs. Talbot would hardly have understood the significance of that rabbit-pie, though in the course of her occasional bobbings in and out of the room, to see that the young men were doing justice to her food,--she had a curious notion that young men never ate enough,--she would hear snatches of what she called "deep talk," or shake her old head at her coming son-in-law, whom she already adored and mothered, with a "Law! what a boy it is!" She wasn't quite sure sometimes as to the soundness of his "doctrine," but wisely decided that her business was rather with his stomach than his brains,--which no doubt God Almighty would look after for himself.

Wit at the expense of Coalchester can only be of interest to Coalchester wits and their butts, so I shall not record the bright and animated talk which helped to digest Mrs. Talbot's rabbit-pie, but confine myself to a practical outcome of it.

What interests me specially about these young men was their rare practicality. They were no mere dreamers, helpless visionaries, with ideas they had no notion how to embody. Dreamers, of course, they were,--otherwise there had been no point in their being practical,--but they were dreamers who understood something of how dreams are best got on to the market of realities.

Characteristically, it was the poet of the party from whom the most practical suggestion came. In itself, of course, there was no great originality in the idea of a weekly paper to be called "The Dawn," devoted to the dissemination of the new light on every possible subject,--politics and municipal misgovernment; the new social ideals; the newest and most delicate forms of art, music, and literature. It was in the suggested method of publication and circulation that the originality lay. The paper was to be given away and made to pay its expenses by tradesmen's advertisements, a guarantee of a certain minimum distribution being given. This method had, of course, been tried before for purposes of mere publicity, but never, I think, for the dissemination of truth and beauty. The truth about life was to be paid for by lies about bacon and butter,--or, let us say, business exaggerations rendered innocuous by custom, and therefore as harmless as truth.

Obviously Mr. Moggridge, who not unnaturally had felt a sense of moving about in worlds not realised during much of the deep talk, was here an authority of importance, and the idea at once appealed to him. He would promise a permanent advertisement, and he even promised illustrations, in the form of blocks already engraved and occasionally used by the "Argus," of the flourishing shops at 33, 34, 35 High Street, and 58, 59 Zion Street. He had also some blocks of gigantic hams most hammily pictured, which might also be of use, and he would also be able to bring in a number of his fellow tradesmen. Invaluable Mr. Moggridge! What were truth without you!

The poet, on his part, guaranteed to supply all the poetry that might be required, and indeed agreed to do special rhyming advertisements, at, say, half a guinea apiece. He would also assist Londonderry in the political and municipal departments, not only in the higher flights, but lend a hand even in castigations of local jobs, abuses, and absurdities.

Gentle James Whalley would write round-about essays, for which he had a charming gift, and generally take in charge the aesthetic interests of the paper, though, as all were lovers of art and literature, those subjects would be handled now by one and now by another. Even Jenny was to have her place on the staff, and write dress articles, which would not only tend to improve the aspect of Coalchester streets, but attract millinery advertisements. She already announced the title of her first article, which was very grand: "Dress as a form of self-expression."

It was two in the morning before the proceedings terminated, and even then good old Mrs. Talbot was still up to press steaming bumpers of very hot whisky and water upon the wayfarers; "to keep the cold out," she explained--though I need hardly say that the project had not waited till that hour to be suitably recommended to the god of all enterprises.