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§ 29

They might have been applied to the whole of England before that year was out. For that was the greater year of the Repeal, when to a starving countryside was brought the news that the dreadful wheat-tax had been taken off, that harvests would no longer be held back till labourers famished and small farmers failed, that bread no longer would cost two shillings a loaf and flour three shillings a stone, that snails and nettles would disappear from the diet of an Englishman, that honest fathers would not have to steal for their families, or pitiful mothers watch their infants starve at their breasts.

It was a great week throughout the land, as the news spread from those who read the newspapers to those who did not. In every tavern Sir Robert Peel's health was drunk, and the names of Cobden and Bright were blessed at the Plough and the Barley Mow. In Horsham fires were lit and the bells rang as on Gunpowder Night. From the high windows of the workhouse Susan saw the rejoicings in the street, and knew their meaning. "Repeal! Repeal!" was on everybody's lips.