touer

An' tell 'em this, too" and, as he rose, his whole face and figure assumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen before in him "tell them that ha' driven out and , an' every one that daur speak a word o' common sense, or common humanity them that stone the prophets, an' quench the Spirit o' God, and love a lie, an' them that mak the same them that think to bring about the reign o' love an' britherhood wi' pikes an' vitriol bottles, murther an' blasphemy tell 'em that ane o' fourscore years and mair ane that has grawn grey in the people's cause that sat at the feet o' Cartwright, an' knelt by the death-bed o' Rabbie Burns ane that cheerit Burdett as he went to the Touer, an' spent his wee earnings for Hunt an' Cobbett ane that beheld the shaking o' the nations in the Ninety-three, and heard the birth-shriek o' a newborn world ane that while he was yet a callant saw Liberty afar off, an' seeing her was glad, as for a bonny bride, an' followed her through the wilderness for threescore weary waeful years sends them the last message that e'er he'll send on airth: tell 'em that they're the slaves o' warse than priests and kings the slaves o' their ain lusts an' passions the slaves o' every loud-tongued knave an' mountebank that'll pamper them in their self-conceit; and that the gude God'll smite 'em down, and bring 'em to nought, and scatter 'em abroad, till they repent, an' get clean hearts and a richt speerit within them, and learn His lesson that he's been trying to teach 'em this threescore years that the cause o' the people is the cause o' Him that made the people; an' wae to them that tak' the deevil's tools to do his wark wi'! Gude guide us!

Charles Kingsley - Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: An Autobiography