Henry Little, at this moment, was in very low spirits. His forge was in the yard, and a faithful body-guard at his service; but his right arm was in a sling, and so he was brought to a stand-still; and Coventry was with Grace at the house; and he, like her, was tortured with jealousies; and neither knew what the other suffered.
But everything vanished in a flood of joy when the carriage stopped and that enchanting face looked out at him, covered with blushes, that told him he could not be indifferent to her.
“Oh, Mr. Little, are you better?”
“I'm all right. But, you see, I can't work.”
“Ah, poor arm. But why should you work? Why not accept Mr. Raby's offer? How proud you are!”
“Should you have thought any better of me if I had?”
“No. I don't want you altered. It would spoil you. You will come and see us at Woodbine Villa! Only think how many things we have to talk of now.”
“May I?”
“Why, of course.”
“And will you wait two years for me?”
“Two years!” (blushing like a rose.) “Why, I hope it will not be two days before you come and see us.”
“Ah, you mock me.”
“No; no. But suppose you should take the advice I gave you in my mad letter?”
“There's no fear of that.”
“Are you sure?” (with a glance at Jael.)
“Quite sure.”
“Then—good-by. Please drive on.”
She wouldn't answer his question; but her blushes and her radiant satisfaction, and her modest but eloquent looks of love, fully compensated her silence on that head, and the carriage left him standing there, a figure of rapture.
Next day Dr. Amboyne rode up to the farm with a long envelope, and waved it over his head in triumph. It contained a communication from the Secretary of the Philanthropic Society. The committee were much struck with Mr. Little's report, but feared that no manufacturer would act on his suggestions. They were willing to advance L500 toward setting Mr. Little himself up as a manufacturer, if he would bind himself to adopt and carry out the improvements suggested in his report. The loan to bear no interest, and the return of the capital to depend upon the success of the scheme. Dr. Amboyne for the society, to have the right of inspecting Mr. Little's books, if any doubt should arise on that head. An agreement was inclosed, and this was more full, particular, and stringent in form than the above, but the purport substantially the same.
Little could not believe his good fortune at first. But there was no disbelieving it; the terms were so cold, precise, and business-like.
“Ah, doctor,” said he, “you have made a man of me; for this is your doing, I know.”
“Of course I used my influence. I was stimulated by two spurs, friendship and my hobby. Now shake hands over it, and no fine speeches, but tell me when you can begin. 'My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.'”
“Begin? Why as soon as I get the money.”
“That will come down directly, if I telegraph that you accept the terms. Call in a witness, and sign the agreement.”
Jael Dence was called in, and the agreement signed and witnessed, and away went the doctor in high spirits, after making an appointment with Henry in Hillsborough for the next day.
Henry and Jael Dence talked eagerly over his new prospects. But though they were great friends, there was nothing to excite Grace's jealousy. No sooner was Little proved to be Raby's nephew than Jael Dence, in her humility, shrank back, and was inwardly ashamed of herself. She became respectful as well as kind; called him “the young master” behind his back, and tried to call him “Sir” to his face, only he would not let her.
Next day Little went to his mother and told her all. She was deeply interested, but bitterly disappointed at Henry's refusal of Raby's offer. “He will never forgive us now,” she said. “And oh, Henry, if you love Grace Carden, that was the way to marry her.” This staggered him; but he said he had every reason to hope she would marry him without his sacrificing his independence, and waiting with his hands in his pockets for dead men's shoes.
Then he went to Dr. Amboyne, and there were the five hundred pounds waiting for him; but, never having possessed such a sum before, he begged the doctor to give him only L100 at a time. To finish for the present with this branch of the story, he was lucky enough to make an excellent bargain, bought the plant and stock of a small master-grinder recently deceased. He then confined the grinding to saws and razors; and this enabled him to set up his own forge on the premises, and to employ a few file-cutters. It was all he could do at starting. Then came the important question, What would the Trades say? He was not long in suspense; Grotait called on him, expressed his regret at the attack that had been made on him, and his satisfaction that now the matter could be happily arranged. “This,” said he, “is the very proposal I was going to make to you (but you wouldn't hear me), to set up as a small master, and sell your carving-tools to London instead of to Hillsboro'.”
“What! will that make me right with the trade?”
“Pretty near. We protect the workmen from unfair competition, not the masters. However, if you wish to cure the sore altogether, let your own hands grind the tools, and send them out to be handled by Parkin: he has got men on the box; trade is dull.”
“Well, I don't object to that.”
“Then, I say, let by-gones be gone-byes.”
They shook hands over this, and in a very few hours it was known that Mr. Little was right with the trade.
His early experiences as a philanthropic master were rather curious; but I shall ask leave to relate them in a series of their own, and to deal at present with matters of more common interest.
He called twice on Grace Carden; but she was out. The third time he found her at home; but there was a lady with her, talking about the ball Mr. and Miss Carden were about to give. It was a subject calculated to excite volubility, and Henry could not get in a word edgewise. But he received some kind glances that made his heart beat.
The young lady sat there and gabbled; for she felt sure that no topic imported by a male creature could compete in interest with “the ball.” So, at last, Henry rose in despair. But Grace, to whom her own ball had been a bore for the last half hour, went with him to the door; and he seized the opportunity to tell her he was a workmen no longer, but a master, having workmen under him.
Grace saw he was jubilant, so she was glad directly, and said so.
But then she shook her pretty head, and hoped he would not have to regret Mr. Raby's offer.
“Never,” said he, firmly; “unless I lose you. Now I'm a master, instead of a man, won't you wait two years for me?”
“No,” said Grace, archly. Then, with a look that sent him to heaven, “Not two, but TWENTY, sooner than you should be unhappy, after all you and I—”
The sentence was never completed. She clapped one hand swiftly before her scarlet face, and ran away to hide, and think of what she had done. It was full five minutes before she would bring her face under the eye of that young gossip in the drawing-room.
As for Henry, he received the blow full in his heart, and it quite staggered him. He couldn't believe it at first; but when he realized it, waves and waves of joy seemed to rise inside him, and he went off in such a rapture he hardly trod the earth.
He went home, and kissed his mother, and told her, and she sympathized with him perforce, though she was jealous at bottom, poor thing.
The next day Grace received an unexpected visitor—Jael Dence.
Grace stared at sight of her, and received her very coldly.
“Oh, miss,” said Jael, “don't look so at me that love you dearly;” and with this threw her arms round her neck, and kissed her.
Grace was moved by this; but felt uncomfortable, and even struggled a little, but in vain. Jael was gentle, but mighty. “It's about your letter, miss.”
“Then let me go,” cried Grace. “I wish I had never written it.”
“Nay; don't say so. I should never have known how good you are.”
“What a fool I am, you mean. How dare you read my letter? Oh! did he show it you? That was very cruel, if he did.”
“No, miss, he never showed it me; and I never read it. I call it mean to read another body's letter. But, you know, 'tisn't every woman thinks so: and a poor lass that is very fond of me—and I scold her bitterly—she took the letter out of his pocket, and told me what was in it.”
“Very well, then,” said Grace, coldly, “it is right you should also read his answer. I'll bring it you.”
“Not to-day, miss, if you please. There is no need. I know him: he is too much of a man to marry one girl when he loves another; and 'tis you he loves, and I hope you will be happy together.”
A few quiet tears followed these brave words, and Grace looked at her askant, and began to do her justice.
“Ah!” said she, with a twinge of jealousy, “you know him better than I. You have answered for him, in his very words. Yet you can't love him as I do. I hope you are not come to ask me to give him up again, for I can't.” Then she said, with quick defiance, “Take him from me, if you can.” Then, piteously, “And if you do, you will kill me.”
“Dear heart, I came of no such errand. I came to tell you I know how generous you have been to me, and made me your friend till death; and, when a Dence says that, she means it. I have been a little imprudent: but not so very. First word I said to him, in this very house, was, 'Are you really a workman?' I had the sense to put that question; for, the first moment I clapped eyes on him, I saw my danger like. Well, he might have answered me true; but you see he didn't. I think I am not so much to blame. Well, he is the young squire now, and no mate for me; and he loves you, that are of his own sort. That is sure to cure me—after a while. Simple folk like me aren't used to get their way, like the gentry. It takes a deal of patience to go through the world. If you think I'll let my heart cling to another woman's sweetheart—nay, but I'd tear it out of my breast first. Yes, I dare say, it will be a year or two before I can listen to another man's voice without hating him for wooing of me; but time cures all that don't fight against the cure. And YOU'LL love me a little, miss, now, won't you? You used to do, before I deserved it half as well as I do to-day.”
“Of course I shall love you, my poor Jael. But what is my love, compared with that you are now giving up so nobly?”
“It is not much,” said Jael, frankly; “but 'a little breaks a high fall.' And I'm one that can only enjoy my own. Better a penny roll with a clear conscience, than my neighbor's loaf. I'd liever take your love, and deserve it, than try to steal his.”
All this time Grace was silently watching her, to see if there was any deceit, or self-deceit, in all this; and, had there been, it could not have escaped so keen and jealous an eye. But no, the limpid eye, the modest, sober voice, that trembled now and then, but always recovered its resolution, repelled doubt or suspicion.
Grace started to her feet, and said, with great enthusiasm. “I give you the love and respect you deserve so well; and I thank God for creating such a character now and then—to embellish this vile world.”
Then she flung herself upon Jael, with wonderful abandon and grace, and kissed her so eagerly that she made poor Jael's tears flow very fast indeed.
She would not let her go back to Cairnhope.
Henry remembered about the ball, and made up his mind to go and stand in the road: he might catch a glimpse of her somehow. He told his mother he should not be home to supper; and to get rid of the time before the ball, he went to the theater: thence, at ten o'clock, to “Woodbine Villa,” and soon found himself one of a motley group. Men, women, and children were there to see the company arrive; and as, among working-people, the idle and the curious are seldom well-to-do, they were rather a scurvy lot, and each satin or muslin belle, brave with flowers and sparkling with gems, had to pass through a little avenue of human beings in soiled fustian, dislocated bonnets, rags, and unwashed faces.
Henry got away from this class of spectators, and took up his station right across the road. He leaned against the lamp-post, and watched the drawing-room windows for Grace.
The windows were large, and, being French, came down to the balcony. Little saw many a lady's head and white shoulders, but not the one he sought.
Presently a bedroom window was opened, and a fair face looked out into the night for a moment. It was Jael Dence.
She had assisted Miss Carden to dress, and had then, at her request, prepared the room, and decked it with flowers, to receive a few of the young lady's more favored friends. This done, she opened the window, and Henry Little saw her.
Nor was it long before she saw him; for the light of the lamp was full on him.
But he was now looking intently in at the drawing-room windows, and with a ghastly expression.
The fact is, that in the short interval between his seeing Jael and her seeing him, the quadrilles had been succeeded by a waltz, and Grace Carden's head and shoulders were now flitting at intervals, past the window in close proximity to the head of her partner. What with her snowy, glossy shoulders, her lovely face, and her exquisite head and brow encircled with a coronet of pearls, her beauty seemed half-regal, half-angelic; yet that very beauty, after the first thrill of joy which the sudden appearance of a beloved one always causes, was now passing cold iron through her lover's heart. For why? A man's arm was round the supple waist, a man's hand held that delicate palm, a man's head seemed wedded to that lovely head, so close were the two together. And the encircling arm, the passing hand, the head that came and went, and rose and sank, with her, like twin cherries on a stalk, were the arm, the hand, and the head of Mr. Frederick Coventry.
Every time those two heads flitted past the window together, they inflicted a spasm of agony on Henry Little, and, between the spasms, his thoughts were bitter beyond expression. An icy barrier still between them, and none between his rival and her! Coventry could dance voluptuously with her before all the world; but he could only stand at the door of that Paradise, and groan and sicken with jealous anguish at the sight.
Now and then he looked up, and saw Jael Dence. She was alone. Like him, she was excluded from that brilliant crowd. He and she were born to work; these butterflies on the first floor, to enjoy.
Their eyes met; he saw soft pity in hers. He cast a mute, but touching appeal. She nodded, and withdrew from the window. Then he knew the faithful girl would try and do something or other for him.
But he never moved from his pillar of torture. Jealous agony is the one torment men can not fly from; it fascinates, it holds, it maddens.
Jael came to the drawing-room door just as the waltz ended, and tried to get to Miss Carden; but there were too many ladies and gentlemen, especially about the door.
At last she caught Grace's eye, but only for a moment; and the young lady was in the very act of going out on the balcony for air, with her partner.
She did go out, accompanied by Mr. Coventry, and took two or three turns. Her cheek was flushed, her eye kindled, and the poor jealous wretch over the way saw it, and ascribed all that to the company of his rival.
While she walked to and fro with fawn-like grace, conversing with Mr. Coventry, yet secretly wondering what that strange look Jael had given her could mean, Henry leaned, sick at heart, against the lamp-post over the way; and, at last, a groan forced its way out of him.
Faint as the sound was, Grace's quick ear caught it, and she turned her head. She saw him directly, and blushed high, and turned pale, all in a moment; for, in that single moment, her swift woman's heart told her why he was so ghastly, and why that sigh of distress.
She stopped short in her walk, and began to quiver from head to foot.
But, after a few moments of alarm, distress, and perplexity, love and high spirit supplied the place of tact, and she did the best and most characteristic thing she could. Just as Mr. Coventry, who had observed her shiver, was asking her if she found it too cold, she drew herself up to her full height, and, turning round, kissed her hand over the balcony to Henry Little with a sort of princely grandeur, and an ardor of recognition and esteem that set his heart leaping, and his pale cheek blushing, and made Coventry jealous in his turn. Yes, one eloquent gesture did that in a moment.
But the brave girl was too sensitive to prolong such a situation: the music recommenced at that moment, and she seized the opportunity, and retired to the room; she courtesied to Little at the window, and this time he had the sense to lift his hat to her.
The moment she entered the room Grace Carden slipped away from Mr. Coventry, and wound her way like a serpent through the crowd, and found Jael Dence at the door. She caught her by the arm, and pinched her. She was all trembling. Jael drew her up the stairs a little way.
“You have seen him out there?”
“Yes; and I—oh!”
“There! there. Think of the folk. Fight it down.”
“I will. Go to him, and say I can't bear it. Him to stand there—while those I don't care a pin for—oh, Jael, for pity's sake get him home to his mother.”
“There, don't you fret. I know what to say.”
Jael went down; borrowed the first shawl she could lay her hand on; hooded herself with it, and was across the road in a moment.
“You are to go home directly.”
“Who says so?”
“She does.”
“What, does she tell me to go away, and leave her to him?”
“What does that matter? her heart goes with you.”
“No, no.”
“Won't you take my word for it? I'm not given to lying.”
“I know that. Oh, Jael, sweet, pretty, good-hearted Jael, have pity on me, and tell me the truth: is it me she loves, or that Coventry?”
“It is you.”
“Oh, bless you! bless you! Ah, if I could only be sure of that, what wouldn't I do for her? But, if she loves me, why, why send me away? It is very cruel that so many should be in the same room with her, and HE should dance with her, and I must not even look on and catch a glimpse of her now and then. I won't go home.”
“Ah!” said Jael, “you are like all the young men: you think only of yourself. And you call yourself a scholar of the good doctor's.”
“And so I am.”
“Then why don't you go by his rule, and put yourself in a body's place? Suppose you was in her place, master of this house like, and dancing with a pack of girls you didn't care for, and SHE stood out here, pale and sighing; and suppose things were so that you couldn't come out to her, nor she come in to you, wouldn't it cut you to the heart to see her stand in the street and look so unhappy—poor lad? Be good, now, and go home to thy mother. Why stand here and poison the poor young lady's pleasure—such as 'tis—and torment thyself.” Jael's own eyes filled, and that proof of sympathy inclined Henry all the more to listen to her reason.
“You are wise, and good, and kind,” he said. “But oh, Jael, I adore her so, I'd rather be in hell with her than in heaven without her. Half a loaf is better than no bread. I can't go home and turn my back on the place where she is. Yes, I'm in torments; but I see. They can't rob my EYES of her.”
“To oblige HER!”
“Yes; I'll do anything to oblige HER. If I could only believe she loves me.”
“Put it to the proof, if you don't believe me.”
“I will. Tell her I'd much rather stay all night, and catch a glimpse of her now and then; but yet, tell her I'll go home, if she will promise me not to dance with that Coventry again.”
“There is a condition!” said Jael.
“It is a fair one,” said Henry, doggedly, “and I won't go from it.”
Jael looked at him, and saw it was no use arguing the matter. So she went in to the house with his ultimatum.
She soon returned, and told him that Miss Grace, instead of being angry, as she expected, had smiled and looked pleased, and promised not to dance with Mr. Coventry nor any body else any more that night, “if he would go straight home and consult his beautiful mother.” “Those were her words,” said the loyal Dence. “She did say them twice over to make sure.”
“God bless her!” cried Henry, warmly; “and bless you too, my best friend. I'll go this moment.”
He cast a long, lingering look at the window, and went slowly down the street.
When he got home, his mother was still up and secretly anxious.
He sat down beside her, and told her where he had been and how it had all ended. “I'm to consult my beautiful mother,” said he, kissing her.
“What, does she think I am like my picture now?”
“I suppose so. And you are as beautiful as ever in my eyes, mother. And I do consult you.”
Mrs. Little's black eyes flashed; but she said, calmly,
“What about, dearest?”
“I really don't know. I suppose it was about what happened tonight. Perhaps about it all.”
Mrs. Little leaned her head upon her hand and thought.
After a moment's reflection, she said to Henry, rather coldly, “If she is not a very good girl, she must be a very clever one.”
“She is both,” said Henry, warmly.
“Of that I shall be the best judge,” said Mrs. Little, very coldly indeed.
Poor Henry felt quite chilled. He said no more; nor did his mother return to the subject till they parted for the night, and then it was only to ask him what church Miss Carden went to—a question that seemed to be rather frivolous, but he said he thought St. Margaret's.
Next Sunday evening, Mrs. Little and he being at tea together, she said to him quietly—“Well, Harry, I have seen her.”
“Oh mother! where?”
“At St. Margaret's Church.”
“But how did you know her? By her beauty?”
Mrs. Little smiled, and took a roll of paper out of her muff, that lay on the sofa. She unfolded it, and displayed a drawing. It represented Grace Carden in her bonnet, and was a very good likeness.
The lover bounced on it, and devoured it with astonishment and delight.
“Taken from the bust, and retouched from nature,” said Mrs. Little. “Yes, dear, I went to St. Margaret's, and asked a pew-opener where she sat. I placed myself where I could command her features; and you may be sure, I read her very closely. Well, dear, she bears examination. It is a bright face, a handsome face, and a good face; and almost as much in love as you are.”
“What makes you fancy that? Oh, you spoke to her?”
“Certainly not. But I observed her. Restless and listless by turns—her body in one place, her mind in another. She was so taken up with her own thoughts she could not follow the service. I saw the poor girl try very hard several times, but at last she gave it up in despair. Sometimes she knitted her brow and a young girl seldom does that unless she is thwarted in her love. And I'll tell you a surer sign still: sometimes tears came for no visible reason, and stood in her eyes. She is in love; and it can not be with Mr. Coventry of Bollinghope; for, if she loved him, she would have nothing to brood on but her wedding-dress; and they never knit their brows, nor bedew their eyes, thinking of that; that's a smiling subject. No, it is true love on both sides, I do believe; and that makes my woman's heart yearn. Harry, dear, I'll make you a confession. You have heard that a mother's love is purer and more unselfish than any other love: and so it is. But even mothers are not quite angels always. Sometimes they are just a little jealous: not, I think, where they are blessed with many children; but you are my one child, my playmate, my companion, my friend, my only love. That sweet girl has come, and I must be dethroned. I felt this, and—no, nothing could ever make me downright thwart your happiness; but a mother's jealousy made me passive, where I might have assisted you if I had been all a mother should be.”
“No, no, mother; I am the one to blame. You see, it looked so hopeless at first, I used to be ashamed to talk freely to you. It's only of late I have opened my heart to you as I ought.”
“Well, dear, I am glad you think the blame is not all with me. But what I see is my own fault, and mean to correct it. She gave you good advice, dear—to consult your mother. But you shall have my assistance as well; and I shall begin at once, like a zealous ally. When I say at once—this is Sunday—I shall begin to-morrow at one o'clock.”
Then Henry sat down at her knee, and took her white hand in his brown ones.
“And what shall you do at one o'clock, my beautiful mother?”
“I shall return to society.”
Next morning Mrs. Little gave her son the benefit of her night's reflections.
“You must let me have some money—all you can spare from your business; and whilst I am doing something with it for you, you must go to London, and do exactly what I tell you to do.”
“Exactly? Then please write it down.”
“A very good plan. Can you go by the express this morning?”
“Why, yes, I could; only then I must run down to the works this minute and speak to the foreman.”
“Well, dear, when you come back, your instructions shall be written, and your bag packed.”
“I say, mother, you are going into it in earnest. All the better for me.”
At twelve he started for London, with a beautiful set of carving-tools in his bag, and his mother's instructions in his pocket: those instructions sent him to a fashionable tailor that very afternoon. With some difficulty he prevailed on this worthy to make him a dress-suit in twenty-four hours. Next day he introduced himself to the London trade, showed his carving-tools, and, after a hard day's work, succeeded in obtaining several orders.
Then he bought some white ties and gloves and an opera hat, and had his hair cut in Bond Street.
At seven he got his clothes at the tailor's, and at eight he was in the stalls of the opera. His mother had sent him there, to note the dress and public deportment of gentlemen and ladies, and use his own judgment. He found his attention terribly distracted by the music and the raptures it caused him; but still he made some observations; and, consequently, next day he bought some fashionable shirts and sleeve studs and ribbon ties; ordered a morning suit of the same tailor, to be sent to him at Hillsborough; and after canvassing for customers all day, telegraphed his mother, and reached Hillsborough at eleven P.M.
At first sight of him Mrs. Little exclaimed:
“Oh! What have you done with your beautiful hair?”
He laughed, and said this was the fashion.
“But it is like a private soldier.”
“Exactly. Part of the Volunteer movement, perhaps.”
“Are you sure it is the fashion, dear?”
“Quite sure. All the swells in the opera were bullet-headed just like this.”
“Oh, if it is the fashion!” said Mrs. Little; and her mind succumbed under that potent word.
She asked him about the dresses of the ladies in the opera.
His description was very lame. He said he didn't know he was expected to make notes of them.
“Well, but you might be sure I should like to know. Were there no ladies dressed as you would like to see your mother dressed?”
“Good heavens, no! I couldn't fancy you in a lot of colors; and your beautiful head deformed into the shape of a gourd, with a beast of a chignon stuck out behind, made of dead hair.”
“No matter. Mr. Henry; I wish I had been with you at the opera. I should have seen something or other that would have become me.” She gave a little sigh.
He was not to come home to dinner that day, but stay at the works, till she sent for him.
At six o'clock, Jael Dence came for him in a fly, and told him he was to go home with her.
“All right,” said he; “but how did you come there?”
“She bade me come and see her again—that day I brought the bust. So I went to see her, and I found her so busy, and doing more than she was fit, poor thing, so I made bold to give her a hand. That was yesterday; and I shall come every day—if 'tis only for an hour—till the curtains are all up.”
“The curtains! what curtains?”
“Ask no questions, and you will hear no lies.”
Henry remonstrated; Jael recommended patience; and at last they reached a little villa half way up Heath Hill. “You are at home now,” said Jael, dryly. The new villa looked very gay that evening, for gas and fires were burning in every room.
The dining-room and drawing room were both on the ground-floor; had each one enormous window with plate glass, and were rooms of very fair size, divided by large folding-doors. These were now open, and Henry found his mother seated in the dining-room, with two workwomen, making curtains, and in the drawing-room were two more, sewing a carpet.
The carpet was down in the dining-room. The tea-table was set, and gave an air of comfort and housewifely foresight, in the midst of all the surrounding confusion.
Young Little stared. Mrs. Little smiled.
“Sit down, and never mind us: give him his tea, my good Jael.”
Henry sat down, and, while Jael was making the tea, ventured on a feeble expostulation. “It's all very fine, mother, but I don't like to see you make a slave of yourself.”
“Slaving!” said Jael, with a lofty air of pity. “Why, she is working for her own.” Rural logic!
“Oh,” said Mrs. Little to her, “these clever creatures we look up to so are rather stupid in some things. Slave! Why, I am a general leading my Amazons to victory.” And she waved her needle gracefully in the air.
“Well, but why not let the shop do them, where you bought the curtains?'
“Because, my dear, the shop would do them very badly, very dearly, and very slowly. Do you remember reading to me about Caesar, and what he said—'that a general should not say to his troops “GO and attack the enemy,” “but COME and attack the enemy”?' Well, that applies to needle-work. I say to these ladies, 'COME sew these curtains with me;' and the consequence is, we have done in three days what no shop in Hillsborough would have done for us in a fortnight; but, as for slaves, the only one has been my good Jael there. She insisted on moving all the heavy boxes herself. She dismissed the porter; she said he had no pith in his arms—that was your expression, I think?”
“Ay, ma'am; that was my word: and I never spoke a truer; the useless body. Why, ma'am, the girls in Cairnhope are most of them well-grown hussies, and used to work in the fields, and carry full sacks of grain up steps. Many's the time I have RUN with a sack of barley on my back: so let us hear no more about your bits of boxes. I wish my mind was as strong.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Mrs. Little, with comic fervor. Henry laughed. But Jael only stared, rather stupidly. By-and-by she said she must go now.
“Henry shall take you home, dear.”
“Nay, I can go by myself.”
“It is raining a little, he will take you home in the cab.”
“Nay, I've got legs of my own,” said the rustic.
“Henry, dear,” said the lady, quietly, “take her home in the cab, and then come back to me.”
At the gate of Woodbine Villa, Jael said “it was not good-night this time; it was good-by: she was going home for Patty's marriage.”
“But you will come back again?” said Henry.
“Nay, father would be all alone. You'll not see me here again, unless you were in sorrow or sickness.”
“Ah, that's like you, Jael. Good-by then, and God bless you wherever you go.”
Jael summoned all her fortitude, and shook hands with him in silence. They parted, and she fought down her tears, and he went gayly home to his mother. She told him she had made several visits, and been cordially received. “And this is how I paved the way for you. So, mind! I said my brother Raby wished you to take his name, and be his heir; but you had such a love of manufactures and things, you could not be persuaded to sit down as a country gentleman. 'Indeed,' I said, his 'love of the thing is so great that, in order to master it in all its branches, nothing less would serve him than disguising himself, and going as a workman. But now,' I said, 'he has had enough of that, so he has set up a small factory, and will, no doubt, soon achieve a success.' Then I told them about you and Dr. Amboyne. Your philanthropic views did not interest them for a single moment; but I could see the poor dear doctor's friendship was a letter of introduction. There will be no difficulty, dear. There shall be none. What society Hillsborough boasts, shall open its arms to you.”
“But I'm afraid I shall make mistakes.”
“Our first little parties shall be given in this house. Your free and easy way will be excused in a host; the master of the house has a latitude; and, besides, you and I will rehearse. By the way, please be more careful about your nails; and you must always wear gloves when you are not working; and every afternoon you will take a lesson in dancing with me.”
“I say, mother, do you remember teaching me to dance a minuet, when I was little?”
“Perfectly. We took great pains; and, at last, you danced it like an angel. And, shall I tell you, you carry yourself very gracefully?—well, that is partly owing to the minuet. But a more learned professor will now take you in hand. He will be here tomorrow at five o'clock.”
Mrs. Little's rooms being nearly square, she set up a round table, at which eight could dine. But she began with five or six.
Henry used to commit a solecism or two. Mrs. Little always noticed them, and told him. He never wanted telling twice. He was a genial young fellow, well read in the topics of the day, and had a natural wit; Mrs. Little was one of those women who can fascinate when they choose; and she chose now; her little parties rose to eight; and as, at her table, everybody could speak without rudeness to everybody else, this round table soon began to eclipse the long tables of Hillsborough in attraction.
She and Henry went out a good deal; and, at last, that which Mrs. Little's good sense had told her must happen, sooner or later, took place. They met.
He was standing talking with one of the male guests, when the servant announced Miss Carden; and, whilst his heart was beating high, she glided into the room, and was received by the mistress of the house with all that superabundant warmth which ladies put on and men don't: guess why?
When she turned round from this exuberant affection, she encountered Henry's black eye full of love and delight, and his tongue tied, and his swarthy cheek glowing red. She half started, and blushed in turn; and with one glance drank in every article of dress he had on. Her eyes beamed pleasure and admiration for a moment, then she made a little courtesy, then she took a step toward him, and held out her hand a little coyly.
Their hands and eyes encountered; and, after that delightful collision, they were both as demure as cats approaching cream.
Before they could say a word of any consequence, a cruel servant announced dinner, to the great satisfaction of every other soul in the room.
Of course they were parted at dinner-time; but they sat exactly opposite each other, and Henry gazed at her so, instead of minding his business, that she was troubled a little, and fain to look another way. For all that, she found opportunity once or twice to exchange thoughts with him. Indeed, in the course of the two hours, she gave him quite a lesson how to speak with the eye—an art in which he was a mere child compared with her.
She conveyed to him that she saw his mother and recognized her; and also she hoped to know her.
But some of her telegrams puzzled him.
When the gentlemen came up after dinner, she asked him if he would not present her to his mother.
“Oh, thank you!” said he, naively; and introduced them to each other.
The ladies courtesied with grace, but a certain formality, for they both felt the importance of the proceeding, and were a little on their guard.
But they had too many safe, yet interesting topics, to be very long at a loss.
“I should have known you by your picture, Mrs. Little.”
“Ah, then I fear it must be faded since I saw it last.”
“I think not. But I hope you will soon judge for yourself.”
Mrs. Little shook her head. Then she said, graciously, “I hear it is to you I am indebted that people can see I was once—what I am not now.”
Grace smiled, well pleased. “Ah,” said she, “I wish you could have seen that extraordinary scene, and heard dear Mr. Raby. Oh, madam, let nothing make you believe you have no place in his great heart!”
“Pray, pray, do not speak of that. This is no place. How could I bear it?” and Mrs. Little began to tremble.
Grace apologized. “How indiscreet I am; I blurt out every thing that is in my heart.”
“And so do I,” said Henry, coming to her aid.
“Ah, YOU,” said Grace, a little saucily.
“We do not accept you for our pattern, you see. Pray excuse our bad taste, Harry.”
“Oh, excuse ME, Mrs. Little. In some things I should indeed be proud if I could imitate him; but in others—of course—you know!”
“Yes, I know. My dear, there is your friend Mr. Applethwaite.”
“I see him,” said Henry, carelessly.
“Yes; but you don't see every thing,” said Grace, slyly.
“Not all at once, like you ladies. Bother my friend Applethwaite. Well, if I must, I must. Here goes—from Paradise to Applethwaite.”
He went off, and both ladies smiled, and one blushed; and, to cover her blush, said, “it is not every son that has the grace to appreciate his mother so.”
Mrs. Little opened her eyes at first, and then made her nearest approach to a laugh, which was a very broad smile, displaying all her white teeth. “That is a turn I was very far from expecting,” said she.
The ice was now broken, and, when Henry returned, he found them conversing so rapidly and so charmingly, that he could do little more than listen.
At last Mr. Carden came in from some other party, and carried his daughter off, and the bright evening came too soon to a close; but a great point had been gained: Mrs. Little and Grace Carden were acquaintances now, and cordially disposed to be friends.
The next time these lovers met, matters did not go quite so smoothly. It was a large party, and Mr. Coventry was there. The lady of the house was a friend of his, and assigned Miss Carden to him. He took her down to dinner, and Henry sat a long way off but on the opposite side of the table.
He was once more doomed to look on at the assiduities of his rival, and it spoiled his dinner for him.
But he was beginning to learn that these things must be in society; and his mother, on the other side of the table, shrugged her shoulders to him, and conveyed by that and a look that it was a thing to make light of.
In the evening the rivals came into contact.
Little, being now near her he loved, was in high spirits, and talked freely and agreeably. He made quite a little circle round him; and as Grace was one of the party, and cast bright and approving eyes on him, it stimulated him still more, and he became quite brilliant.
Then Coventry, who was smarting with jealousy, set himself to cool all this down by a subtle cold sort of jocoseness, which, without being downright rude, operates on conversation of the higher kind like frost on expanding buds. It had its effect, and Grace chafed secretly, but could not interfere. It was done very cleverly. Henry was bitterly annoyed; but his mother, who saw his rising ire in his eye, carried him off to see a flowering cactus in a hot-house that was accessible from the drawing-room. When she had got him there, she soothed him and lectured him. “You are not a match for that man in these petty acts of annoyance, to which a true gentleman and a noble rival would hardly descend, I think; at all events, a wise one would not; for, believe me, Mr. Coventry will gain nothing by this.”
“Isn't driving us off the field something? Oh, for the good old days when men settled these things in five minutes, like men; the girl to one, and the grave to t'other.”
“Heaven forbid those savage days should ever return. We will defeat this gentleman quietly, if you please.”
“How?”
“Well, whenever he does this sort of thing, hide your anger; be polite and dignified; but gradually drop the conversation, and manage to convey to the rest that it is useless contending against a wet blanket. Why, you foolish boy, do you think Grace Carden likes him any the better? Whilst you and I talk, she is snubbing him finely. So you must stay here with me, and give them time to quarrel. There, to lessen the penance, we will talk about her. Last time we met her, she told me you were the best-dressed gentleman in the room.”
“And did she like me any better for that?”
“Don't you be ungracious, dear. She was proud of you. It gratified her that you should look well in every way. Oh, if you think that we are going to change our very natures for you, and make light of dress—why did I send you to a London tailor? and why am I always at you about your gloves?”
“Mother, I am on thorns.”
“Well, we will go back. Stop; let me take a peep first.”
She took a peep, and reported,
“The little circle is broken up. Mr. Coventry could not amuse them as you did. Ah! she is in the sulks, and he is mortified. I know there's a French proverb 'Les absens ont toujours tort.' But it is quite untrue; judicious absence is a weapon, and I must show you how and when to use it.”
“Mother, you are my best friend. What shall we do next?”
“Why, go back to the room with me, and put on an imperturbable good humor, and ignore him; only mind you do that politely, or you will give him an advantage he is too wise to give you.”
Henry was about to obey these orders, but Miss Carden took the word out of his mouth.
“Well! the cactus?”
Then, as it is not easy to reply to a question so vague, Henry hesitated.
“There, I thought so,” said Grace.
“What did you think?” inquired Mrs. Little.
“Oh, people don't go into hot-houses to see a cactus; they go to flirt or else gossip. I'll tell Mrs. White to set a short-hand writer in the great aloe, next party she gives. Confess, Mrs. Little, you went to criticise poor us, and there is no cactus at all.”
“Miss Carden, I'm affronted. You shall smart for this. Henry, take her directly and show her the cactus, and clear your mother's character.”
Henry offered his arm directly, and they went gayly off.
“Is she gone to flirt, or to gossip?” asked a young lady.
“Our watches must tell us that,” said Mrs. Little. “If they stay five minutes—gossip.”
“And how many—flirtation?”
“Ah, my dear, YOU know better than I do. What do you say? Five-and-twenty?”
The young ladies giggled.
Then Mr. Coventry came out strong. He was mortified, he was jealous; he saw a formidable enemy had entered the field, and had just outwitted and out-maneuvered him. So what does he do but step up to her, and say to her, with the most respectful grace, “May I be permitted to welcome you back to this part of the world? I am afraid I can not exactly claim your acquaintance; but I have often heard my father speak of you with the highest admiration. My name is Coventry.”
“Mr. Coventry, of Bollinghope?” (He bowed.) “Yes; I had the pleasure of knowing your mother in former days.”
“You, have deserted us too long.”
“I do not flatter myself I have been missed.”
“Is anybody ever missed, Mrs. Little? Believe me, few persons are welcomed back so cordially as you are.”
“That is very flattering, Mr. Coventry. It is for my son's sake I have returned to society.”
“No doubt; but you will remain there for your own. Society is your place. You are at home in it, and were born to shine in it.”
“What makes you think that, pray?” and the widow's cheek flushed a little.
“Oh, Mrs. Little, I have seen something of the world. Count me amongst your most respectful admirers. It is a sentiment I have a right to, since I inherit it.”
“Well, Mr. Coventry, then I give you leave to admire me—if you can. Ah, here they come. Two minutes! I am afraid it was neither gossip nor flirtation, but only botany.”
Grace and Henry came back, looking very radiant.
“What do you think?” said Grace, “I never was more surprised in my life, there really is a cactus, and a night cereus into the bargain. Mrs. Little, behold a penitent. I bring you my apology, and a jardenia.”
“Oh, how sweet! Never mind the apology. Quarrel with me often, and bring me a jardenia. I'll always make it up on those terms.”
“Miss White,” said Grace, pompously, “I shall require a few dozen cuttings from your tree, please tell the gardener. Arrangements are such, I shall have to grow jardenias on a scale hitherto unprecedented.”
There was a laugh, and, in the middle of it, a servant announced Miss Carden's carriage.
“What attentive servants you have, Miss White. I requested that man to be on the watch, and, if I said a good thing, to announce my carriage directly; and he did it pat. Now see what an effective exit that gives me. Good-by, Miss White, good-by, Mrs. Little; may you all disappear as neatly.”
Mr. Coventry stepped smartly forward, and offered her his arm with courteous deference; she took it, and went down with him, but shot over his shoulder a side-glance of reproach at Little, for not being so prompt as his rival.
“What spirits!” said a young lady.
“Yes,” said another; “but she was as dull as the grave last time I met her.”
So ended that evening, with its little ups and downs.
Soon after this, Henry called on Miss Carden, and spent a heavenly hour with her. He told her his plans for getting on in the world, and she listened with a demure complacency, that seemed to imply she acknowledged a personal interest in his success. She told him she had always ADMIRED his independence in declining his uncle's offer, and now she was beginning to APPROVE it: “It becomes a man,” said she.
From the future they went to the past, and she reminded him of the snow-storm and the scene in the church; and, in speaking of it, her eye deepened in color, her voice was low and soft, and she was all tenderness.
If love was not directly spoken, it was constantly implied, and, in fact, that is how true love generally speaks. The eternal “Je vous aime” of the French novelist is false to nature, let me tell you.
“And, when I come back from London, I hope your dear mother will give me opportunities of knowing her better.”
“She will be delighted; but, going to London!”
“Oh, we spend six weeks in London every year; and this is our time. I was always glad to go, before—London is very gay now you know—but I am not glad now.”
“No more am I, I can assure you. I am very sorry.”
“Six weeks will soon pass.”
“Six weeks of pain is a good long time. You are the sunshine of my life. And you are going to shine on others, and leave me dark and solitary.”
“But how do you know I shall shine on others? Perhaps I shall be duller than you will, and think all the more of Hillsborough, for being in London.”
The melting tone in which this was said, and the coy and tender side-glance that accompanied it, were balm of Gilead to the lover.
He took comfort, and asked her, cheerfully, if he might write to her.
She hesitated a single moment, and then said “Yes.”
She added, however, after a pause, “But you can't; for you don't know my address.”
“But you will tell me.”
“Never! never! Fifty-eight Clarges Street.”
“When do you go?”
“The day after to-morrow: at twelve o'clock.”
“May I see you off at the train?”
She hesitated. “If—you—like,” said she, slowly: “but I think you had better not.”
“Oh, let me see the last of you.”
“Use your own judgment, dear.”
The monosyllable slipped out, unintentionally: she was thinking of something else. Yet, as soon as she had uttered it, she said “Oh!” and blushed all, over. “I forgot I was not speaking to a lady,” said she, innocently: then, right archly, “please forgive me.”
He caught her hand, and kissed it devotedly.
Then she quivered all over. “You mustn't,” said she with the gentlest possible tone of reproach. “Oh dear, I am so sorry I am going.” And she turned her sweet eyes on him, with tears in them.
Then a visitor was announced, and they parted.
He was deep in love. He was also, by nature, rather obstinate. Although she had said she thought it would be better for him not to see her off, yet he would go to the station, and see the last of her.
He came straight from the station to his mother. She was upstairs. He threw himself into a chair, and there she found him, looking ghastly.
“Oh, mother! what shall I do?”
“What is the matter, love?”
“She is false; she is false. She has gone up to London with that Coventry.”
APPENDIX.
EXTRACT FROM HENRY LITTLE'S REPORT.
The File-cutters.
“This is the largest trade, containing about three thousand men, and several hundred women and boys. Their diseases and deaths arise from poisoning by lead. The file rests on a bed of lead during the process of cutting, which might more correctly be called stamping; and, as the stamping-chisel can only be guided to the required nicety by the finger-nail, the lead is constantly handled and fingered, and enters the system through the pores.
“Besides this, fine dust of lead is set in motion by the blows that drive the cutting-chisel, and the insidious poison settles on the hair and the face, and is believed to go direct to the lungs, some of it.
“The file-cutter never lives the span of life allotted to man. After many small warnings his thumb weakens. He neglects that; and he gets touches of paralysis in the thumb, the arm, and the nerves of the stomach; can't digest; can't sweat; at last, can't work; goes to the hospital: there they galvanize him, which does him no harm; and boil him, which does him a deal of good. He comes back to work, resumes his dirty habits, takes in fresh doses of lead, turns dirty white or sallow, gets a blue line round his teeth, a dropped wrist, and to the hospital again or on to the file-cutter's box; and so he goes miserably on and off, till he drops into a premature grave, with as much lead in his body as would lap a hundredweight of tea.”
THE REMEDIES.
A. What the masters might do.
“1. Provide every forge with two small fires, eighteen inches from the ground. This would warm the lower limbs of the smiths. At present their bodies suffer by uneven temperature; they perspire down to the waist, and then freeze to the toe.
“2. For the wet-grinders they might supply fires in every wheel, abolish mud floors, and pave with a proper fall and drain.
“To prevent the breaking of heavy grinding-stones, fit them with the large strong circular steel plate—of which I subjoin a drawing—instead of with wedges or insufficient plates. They might have an eye to life, as well as capital, in buying heavy grindstones. I have traced the death of one grinder to the master's avarice: he went to the quarry and bought a stone for thirty-five shillings the quarry-master had set aside as imperfect; its price would have been sixty shillings if it had been fit to trust a man's life to. This master goes to church twice a Sunday, and is much respected by his own sort: yet he committed a murder for twenty-five shillings. Being Hillsborough, let us hope it was a murderer he murdered.
“For the dry-grinders they might all supply fans and boxes. Some do, and the good effect is very remarkable. Moreover the present fans and boxes could be much improved.
“One trade—the steel-fork grinders—is considerably worse than the rest; and although the fan does much for it, I'm told it must still remain an unhealthy trade. If so, and Dr. Amboyne is right about Life, Labor, and Capital, let the masters co-operate with the Legislature, and extinguish the handicraft.
“For the file-cutters, the masters might—
1st. Try a substitute for lead. It is all very well to say a file must rest on lead to be cut. Who has ever employed brains on that question? Who has tried iron, wood, and gutta-percha in layers? Who has ever tried any thing, least of all the thing called Thought?
“2d. If lead is the only bed—which I doubt, and the lead must be bare—which I dispute, then the master ought to supply every gang of file-cutters with hooks—taps, and basins and soap, in some place adjoining their work-rooms. Lead is a subtle, but not a swift, poison; and soap and water every two hours is an antidote.
“3d. They ought to forbid the introduction of food into file-cutting rooms. Workmen are a reckless set, and a dirty set; food has no business in any place of theirs, where poison is going.
“B. What the workmen might do.
“1st. Demand from the masters these improvements I have suggested, and, if the demand came through the secretaries of their unions, the masters would comply.
“2d. They might drink less and wash their bodies with a small part of the money so saved: the price of a gill of gin and a hot bath are exactly the same; only the bath is health to a dry-grinder, or tile-cutter; the gin is worse poison to him than to healthy men.
“3d. The small wet-grinders, who have to buy their grindstones, might buy sound ones, instead of making bargains at the quarry, which prove double bad bargains when the stone breaks, since then a new stone is required, and sometimes a new man, too.
“4th. They might be more careful not to leave the grindstone in water. I have traced three broken stones in one wheel to that abominable piece of carelessness.
“5th. They ought never to fix an undersized pulley wheel. Simmons killed himself by that, and by grudging the few hours of labor required to hang and race a sound stone.
“6th. If files can only be cut on lead, the file-cutters might anoint the lead over night with a hard-drying ointment, soluble in turps, and this ointment might even be medicated with an antidote to the salt of lead.
“7th. If files can only be cut on BARE lead, the men ought to cut their hair close, and wear a light cap at work. They ought to have a canvas suit in the adjoining place (see above); don it when they come, and doff it when they go. They ought to leave off their insane habit of licking the thumb and finger of the left hand—which is the leaded hand—with their tongues. This beastly trick takes the poison direct to the stomach. They might surely leave it to get there through the pores; it is slow, but sure. I have also repeatedly seen a file-cutter eat his dinner with his filthy poisoned fingers, and so send the poison home by way of salt to a fool's bacon. Finally, they ought to wash off the poison every two hours at the taps.
“8th. Since they abuse the masters and justly, for their greediness, they ought not to imitate their greediness by driving their poor little children into unhealthy trades, and so destroying them body and soul. This practice robs the children of education at the very seed-time of life, and literally murders many of them; for their soft and porous skins, and growing organs, take in all poisons and disorders quicker than an adult.
C. What the Legislature might do.
“It might issue a commission to examine the Hillsborough trades, and, when accurately informed, might put some practical restraints both on the murder and the suicide that are going on at present. A few of the suggestions I have thrown out might, I think, be made law.
“For instance, the master who should set a dry-grinder to a trough without a fan, or put his wet-grinders on a mud floor and no fire, or his file-cutters in a room without taps and basins, or who should be convicted of willfully buying a faulty grindstone, might be made subject to a severe penalty; and the municipal authorities invested with rights of inspection, and encouraged to report.
“In restraint of the workmen, the Legislature ought to extend the Factory Acts to Hillsborough trades, and so check the heartless avarice of the parents. At present, no class of her Majesty's subjects cries so loud, and so vainly, to her motherly bosom, and the humanity of Parliament as these poor little children; their parents, the lowest and most degraded set of brutes in England, teach them swearing and indecency at home, and rob them of all decent education, and drive them to their death, in order to squeeze a few shillings out of their young lives; for what?—to waste in drink and debauchery. Count the public houses in this town.
“As to the fork-grinding trade, the Legislature might assist the masters to extinguish it. It numbers only about one hundred and fifty persons, all much poisoned, and little paid. The work could all be done by fifteen machines and thirty hands, and, in my opinion, without the expense of grindstones. The thirty men would get double wages: the odd hundred and twenty would, of course, be driven into other trades, after suffering much distress. And, on this account, I would call in Parliament, because then there would be a temporary compensation offered to the temporary sufferers by a far-sighted and, beneficent measure. Besides, without Parliament, I am afraid the masters could not do it. The fork-grinders would blow up the machines, and the men who worked them, and their wives and their children, and their lodgers, and their lodgers' visitors.
“For all that, if your theory of Life, Labor, and Capital is true, all incurably destructive handicrafts ought to give way to machinery, and will, as Man advances.”
“What! eloped?”
“Heaven forbid! Why, mother, I didn't say she was alone with him; her father was of the party.”
“Then surely you are distressing yourself more than you need. She goes to London with her papa, and Mr. Coventry happens to go up the same day; that is really all.”
“Oh, but, mother, it was no accident. I watched his face, and there was no surprise when he came up with his luggage and saw her.”
Mrs. Little pondered for a minute, and then said, “I dare say all her friends knew she was going up to London to-day; and Mr. Coventry determined to go up the same day. Why, he is courting her: my dear Henry, you knew before to-day that you had a rival, and a determined one. If you go and blame her for his acts, it will be apt to end in his defeating you.”
“Will it? Then I won't blame her at all.”
“You had better not till you are quite sure: it is one way of losing a high-spirited girl.”
“I tell you I won't. Mother!”
“Well, dear?”
“When I asked leave to come to the station and see her off, she seemed put out.”
“Did she forbid you?”
“No; but she did not like it somehow. Ah, she knew beforehand that Coventry would be there.”
“Gently, gently! She might think it possible, and yet not know it. More likely it was on account of her father. You have never told him that you love his daughter?”
“No.”
“And he is rather mercenary: perhaps that is too strong a word; but, in short, a mere man of the world. Might it not be that Grace Carden would wish him to learn your attachment either from your lips or from her own, and not detect it in an impetuous young man's conduct on the platform of a railway, at the tender hour of parting?”
“Oh, how wise you are, and what an insight you have got! Your words are balm. But, there—he is with her for ever so long, and I am here all alone.”
“Not quite alone, love; your counselor is by your side, and may, perhaps, show you how to turn this to your advantage. You write to her every day, and then the postman will be a powerful rival to Mr. Coventry, perhaps a more powerful one than Mr. Coventry to you.”
Acting on this advice, Henry wrote every day to Grace Carden. She was not so constant in her replies; but she did write to him now and then, and her letters breathed a gentle affection that allayed his jealousy, and made this period of separation the happiest six weeks he had ever known. As for Grace, about three o'clock she used to look out for the postman, and be uneasy and restless if he was late, and, when his knock came, her heart would bound, and she generally flew upstairs with the prize, to devour it in secret. She fed her heart full with these letters, and loved the writer better and better. For once the present suitor lost ground, and the absent suitor gained it. Mrs. Little divined as much from Grace's letters and messages to herself; and she said, with a smile, “You see 'Les absents n'ont pas toujours tort.'”
I must now deal briefly with a distinct vein of incidents, that occurred between young Little's first becoming a master and the return of the Cardens from London.
Little, as a master, acted up to the philanthropic theories he had put forth when a workman.
The wet-grinders in his employ submitted to his improved plates, his paved and drained floor, and cozy fires, without a murmur or a word of thanks. By degrees they even found out they were more comfortable than other persons in their condition, and congratulated themselves upon it.
The dry-grinders consented, some of them, to profit by his improved fans. Others would not take the trouble to put the fans in gear, and would rather go on inhaling metal-dust and stone-grit.
Henry reasoned, but in vain; remonstrated, but with little success. Then he discharged a couple: they retired with mien of martyrs; and their successors were admitted on a written agreement that left them no option. The fan triumphed.
The file-cutters were more troublesome; they clung to death and disease, like limpets to established rocks; they would not try any other bed than bare lead, and they would not wash at the taps Little had provided, and they would smuggle in dinners and eat with poisoned hands.
Little reasoned, and remonstrated, but with such very trifling success, that, at last, he had to put down the iron heel; he gave the file-cutters a printed card, with warning to leave on one side, and his reasons on the other.
In twenty-four hours he received a polite remonstrance from the secretary of the File-Cutters' union.
He replied that the men could remain, if they would sign an agreement to forego certain suicidal practices, and to pay fines in case of disobedience; said fines to be deducted from their earnings.
Then the secretary suggested a conference at the “Cutlers' Arms.” Little assented: and there was a hot argument. The father of all file-cutters objected to tyranny and innovation: Little maintained that Innovation was nearly always Improvement—the world being silly—and was manifestly improvement in the case under consideration. He said also he was merely doing what the union itself ought to do: protecting the life of union men who were too childish and wrong-headed to protect it themselves.
“We prefer a short life and a merry one, Mr. Little,” said the father of all file-cutters.
“A life of disease is not a merry one: slow poisoning is not a pleasant way of living, but a miserable way of dying. None but the healthy are happy. Many a Croesus would give half his fortune for a poor man's stomach; yet you want your cutlers to be sick men all their days, and not gain a shilling by it. Man alive, I am not trying to lower their wages.”
“Ay, but you are going the way to do it.”
“How do you make that out?”
“The trade is full already; and, if you force the men to live to threescore and ten, you will overcrowd it so, they will come to starvation wages.”
Little was staggered at this thunderbolt of logic, and digested the matter in silence for a moment. Then he remembered something that had fallen from Dr. Amboyne; and he turned to Grotait. “What do you say to that, sir? would you grind Death's scythe for him (at the list price) to thin the labor market?”
Grotait hesitated for once. In his heart he went with the file-cutter: but his understanding encumbered him.
“Starvation,” said he, “is as miserable a death as poisoning. But why make a large question out of a small one, with rushing into generalities? I really think you might let Mr. Little settle this matter with the individual workmen. He has got a little factory, and a little crochet; he chooses to lengthen the lives of six file-cutters. He says to them, 'My money is my own, and I'll give you so much of it, in return for so much work plus so much washing and other novelties.' The question is, does his pay cover the new labor of washing, etc., as well as the old?”
“Mr. Grotait, I pay the highest price that is going.”
“In that case, I think the unions are not bound to recognize the discussion. Mr. Little, I have some other reasons to lay before my good friend here, and I hope to convince him. Now, there's a little party of us going to dine to-morrow at 'Savage's Hotel,' up by the new reservoir; give us the pleasure of your company, will you? and, by that time, perhaps I may have smoothed this little matter for you.” Little thanked him, accepted the invitation, and left the pair of secretaries together.
When he was gone, Grotait represented that public opinion would go with Little on this question; and the outrages he had sustained would be all ripped up by the Hillsborough Liberal, and the two topics combined in an ugly way; and all for what?—to thwart a good-hearted young fellow in a philanthropical crotchet, which, after all, did him honor, and would never be imitated by any other master in Hillsborough. And so, for once, this Machiavel sided with Henry, not from the purest motives, yet, mind you, not without a certain mixture of right feeling and humanity.
On the Sunday Henry dined with him and his party, at “Savage's Hotel,” and the said dinner rather surprised Henry; the meats were simple, but of good quality, and the wines, which were all brought out by Grotait, were excellent. That Old Saw, who retailed ale and spirits to his customers, would serve nothing less to his guests than champagne and burgundy. And, if the cheer was generous, the host was admirable; he showed, at the head of his genial board, those qualities which, coupled with his fanaticism, had made him the Doge of the Hillsborough trades. He was primed on every subject that could interest his guests, and knew something about nearly everything else. He kept the ball always going, but did not monologuize, except when he was appealed to as a judge, and then did it with a mellow grace that no man can learn without Nature's aid. There is no society, however distinguished, in which Grotait would not have been accepted as a polished and admirable converser.
Add to this that he had an art, which was never quite common, but is now becoming rare, of making his guests feel his friends—for the time, at all events.
Young Little sat amazed, and drank in his words with delight, and could not realize that this genial philosopher was the person who had launched a band of ruffians at him. Yet, in his secret heart, he could not doubt it: and so he looked and listened with a marvelous mixture of feelings, on which one could easily write pages of analysis, very curious, and equally tedious.
They dined at three; and, at five, they got up, as agreed beforehand, and went to inspect the reservoir in course of construction. A more compendious work of art was never projected: the contractors had taken for their basis a mountain gorge, with a stream flowing through it down toward Hillsborough; all they had to do was to throw an embankment across the lower end of the gorge, and turn it to a mighty basin open to receive the stream, and the drainage from four thousand acres of hill. From this lake a sixty-foot wear was to deal out the water-supply to the mill-owners below, and the surplus to the people of Hillsborough, distant about eight miles on an easy decline.
Now, as the reservoir must be full at starting, and would then be eighty feet deep in the center, and a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad, on the average, an embankment of uncommon strength was required to restrain so great a mass of water; and this was what the Hillsborough worthies were curious about. They strolled out to the works, and then tea was to come out after them, the weather being warm and soft. Close to the works they found a foreman of engineers smoking his pipe, and interrogated him. He showed them a rising wall, five hundred feet wide at the base, and told them it was to be ninety feet high, narrowing, gradually, to a summit twelve feet broad. As the whole embankment was to be twelve hundred feet long at the top, this gave some idea of the bulk of the materials to be used: those materials were clay, shale, mill-stone, and sandstone of looser texture. The engineer knew Grotait, and brought him a drawing of the mighty cone to be erected. “Why, it will be a mountain!” said Little.
“Not far from that, sir: and yet you'll never see half the work. Why, we had an army of navvies on it last autumn, and laid a foundation sixty feet deep and these first courses are all bonded in to the foundation, and bonded together, as you see. We are down to solid rock, and no water can get to undermine us. The puddle wall is sixteen feet wide at starting, and diminishes to four feet at the top: so no water can creep in through our jacket.”
“But what are these apertures?” inquired Grotait.
“Oh, those are the waste-pipes. They pass through the embankment obliquely, to the wear-dam: they can be opened, or shut, by valves, and run off ten thousand cubic feet of water a minute.”
“But won't that prove a hole in your armor? Why, these pipes must be in twenty joints, at least.”
“Say fifty-five; you'll be nearer the mark.”
“And suppose one or two of these fifty-five joints should leak? You'll have an everlasting solvent in the heart of your pile, and you can't get at them, you know, to mend them.”
“Of course not; but they are double as thick as ever were used before; and have been severely tested before laying 'em down: besides, don't you see each of them has got his great-coat on? eighteen inches of puddle all the way.”
“Ah,” said Grotait, “all the better. But it is astonishing what big embankments will sometimes burst if a leaky pipe runs through them. I don't think it is the water, altogether; the water seems to make air inside them, and that proves as bad for them as wind in a man's stomach.”
“Governor,” said the engineer, “don't you let bees swarm in your bonnet. Ousely reservoir will last as long as them hills there.”
“No, doubt, lad, since thou's had a hand in making it.”
The laugh this dry rejoinder caused was interrupted by the waitress bringing out tea; and these Hillsborough worthies felt bound to chaff her; but she, being Yorkshire too, gave them as good as they brought, and a trifle to spare.
Tea was followed by brandy-and-water and pipes: and these came out in such rapid succession, that when Grotait drove Little and two others home, his utterance was thick, and his speech sententious.
Little found Bayne waiting for him, with the news that he had left Mr. Cheetham.
“How was that?”
“Oh, fell between two stools. Tried to smooth matters between Cheetham and the hands: but Cheetham, he wants a manager to side with him through thick and thin; and the men want one to side with them. He has sacked me, and the men are glad I'm going: and this comes of loving peace, when the world hates it.”
“And I am glad of it, for now you are my foreman. I know what you are worth, if those fools don't.”
“Are you in earnest, Little?”
“Why not?”
“I hear you have been dining with Grotait, and he always makes the liquor fly. Wait till tomorrow. Talk it over with Mrs. Little here. I'm afraid I'm not the right sort for a servant. Too fond of 'the balmy,' and averse to the whole hog.” (The poor fellow was quite discouraged.)
“The very man I want to soothe me at odd times: they rile me so with their suicidal folly. Now, look here, old fellow, if you don't come to me, I'll give you a good hiding.”
“Oh! well, sooner than you should break the peace—. Mrs. Little, I'd rather be with him at two guineas a week, than with any other master at three.”
When he had got this honest fellow to look after his interests, young Little gave more way than ever to his natural bent for invention, and he was often locked up for twelve hours at a stretch, in a room he called his studio. Indeed, such was his ardor, that he sometimes left home after dinner, and came back to the works, and then the fitful fire of his forge might be seen, and the blows of his hammer heard, long after midnight.
Dr. Amboyne encouraged him in this, and was, indeed, the only person admitted to his said studio. There the Democritus of Hillsborough often sat and smoked his cigar, and watched the progress toward perfection of projected inventions great and small.
One day the doctor called and asked Bayne whether Henry was in his studio. Bayne said no; he thought he had seen him in the saw-grinders' hull. “And that struck me; for it is not often his lordship condescends to go there now.”
“Let us see what 'his lordship' is at.”
They approached stealthily, and, looking through a window, saw the inventor standing with his arms folded, and his eyes bent on a grinder at his work: the man was pressing down a six-feet saw on a grindstone with all his might and Little was looking on, with a face compounded of pity, contempt, and lofty contemplation.
“That is the game now, sir,” whispered Bayne: “always in the clouds, or else above 'em. A penny for your thoughts, sir!”
Henry started, as men do who are roused from deep contemplation; however, he soon recovered himself, and, with a sort of rude wit of his own, he held out his hand for the penny.
Amboyne fumbled in his pocket, and gave him a stamp.
Little seized it, and delivered himself as follows: “My thoughts, gentlemen, were general and particular. I was making a reflection how contented people are to go bungling on, doing a thing the wrong way, when the right way is obvious: and my particular observation was—that these long saws are ground in a way which offends the grammar of mechanics. Here's a piece of steel six feet long, but not so wide as the grindstone:—what can be plainer than that such a strip ought to be ground lengthwise? then the whole saw would receive the grindstone in a few seconds. Instead of that, on they go, year after year, grinding them obliquely, and with a violent exertion that horrifies a fellow like me, who goes in for economy of labor, and have done all my life. Look at that fellow working. What a waste of muscle! Now, if you will come to my studio, I think I can show you how long saws WILL be ground in the days of civilization.”
His eye, which had been turned inward during his reverie, dullish and somewhat fish-like, now sparkled like a hot coal, and he led the way eagerly.
“Pray humor him, sir,” said Bayne, compassionately.
They followed him up a horrid stair, and entered his studio and a marvelous place it was: a forge on one side, a carpenter's bench and turning-lathe on the other and the floor so crowded with models, castings, and that profusion of new ideas in material form which housewives call litter, that the artist had been obliged to cut three little ramified paths, a foot wide, and so meander about the room, as struggles a wasp over spilt glue.
He gave the doctor the one chair, and wriggled down a path after pencil and paper: he jumped with them, like a cat with a mouse, on to the carpenter's bench, and was soon absorbed in drawing.
When he had drawn a bit, he tore up the paper, and said, “Let me think.”
“The request is unusual,” said Dr. Amboyne; “however, if you will let us smoke, we will let you think.”
No reply from the inventor, whose eye was already turned inward, and fish-like again.
Dr. Amboyne and Bayne smoked peaceably awhile. But presently the inventor uttered a kind of shout.
“Eureka,” said the doctor calmly, and emitted a curly cloud.
Little dashed at the paper, and soon produced a drawing. It represented two grindstones set apparently to grind each other, a large one below, a small one above.
“There—the large stone shall revolve rapidly, say from north to south; the small one from south to north: that is the idea which has just struck me, and completes the invention. It is to be worked, not by one grinder, but two. A stands south, and passes the saw northward between the two grindstones to B. The stones must be hung so as just to allow the passage of the saw. B draws it out, and reverses it, and passes it back to A. Those two journeys of the saw will grind the whole length of it for a breath of two or three inches, and all in forty seconds. Now do you see what I meant by the grammar of mechanics? It was the false grammar of those duffers, grinding a long thing sideways instead of lengthways, that struck my mind first. And now see what one gets to at last if one starts from grammar. By this machine two men can easily grind as many big saws as twenty men could grind on single stones: and instead of all that heavy, coarse labor, and dirt, and splashing, my two men shall do the work as quietly and as easily as two printers, one feeding a machine with paper, and his mate drawing out the printed sheet at the other end.”
“By Jove,” said Dr. Amboyne, “I believe this is a great idea. What do you say, Mr. Bayne?”
“Well, sir, a servant mustn't always say his mind.”
“Servant be hanged!” said Little. “THAT for a friend who does not speak his mind.”
“Well, then, gentlemen, it is the most simple and beautiful contrivance I ever saw. And there's only one thing to be done with it.”
“Patent it?”
“No; hide it; lock it up in your own breast, and try and forget it. Your life won't be worth a week's purchase, if you set up that machine in Hillsborough.”
“Hillsborough is not all the world. I can take it to some free country—America or—Russia; there's a fortune in it. Stop; suppose I was to patent it at home and abroad, and then work it in the United States and the Canadas. That would force the invention upon this country, by degrees.”
“Yes, and then, if you sell the English patent and insure the purchaser's life, you may turn a few thousands, and keep a whole skin yourself.”
Little assured Bayne he had no intention of running his head against the Saw-grinders' union. “We are very comfortable as it is, and I value my life more than I used to do.”
“I think I know why,” said Dr. Amboyne. “But, whatever you do, patent your invention. Patent them all.”
Henry promised he would; but soon forgot his promise, and, having tasted blood, so to speak, was soon deep in a far more intricate puzzle, viz., how to grind large circular saws by machinery. This problem, and his steel railway clip, which was to displace the present system of fastening down the rails, absorbed him so, that he became abstracted in the very streets, and did not see his friends when they passed.
One day, when he was deeply engaged in his studio, Bayne tapped at the door, and asked to speak to him.
“Well, what is it?” said the inventor, rather peevishly.
“Oh, nothing,” said Bayne, with a bitter air of mock resignation. “Only a cloud on the peaceful horizon; that is all. A letter from Mary Anne.”
“SIR,—Four of your saws are behindhand with their contributions, and, being deaf to remonstrance, I am obliged to apply to you, to use your influence.
“MARY ANNE.”
“Well,” said Henry, “Mary Anne is in the right. Confound their dishonesty: they take the immense advantages the Saw-grinders' union gives them, yet they won't pay the weekly contribution, without which the union can't exist. Go and find out who they are, and blow them up.”
“What! me disturb the balmy?”
“Bother the balmy! I can't be worried with such trifles. I'm inventing.”
“But, Mr. Little, would not the best way be for YOU just to stop it quietly and peaceably out of their pay, and send it to Grotait?”
Little, after a moment's reflection, said he had no legal right to do that. Besides, it was not his business to work the Saw-grinders' union for Grotait. “Who is this Mary Anne?”
“The saw-grinders, to be sure.”
“What, all of them? Poor Mary Anne!”
He then inquired how he was to write back to her.
“Oh, write under cover to Grotait. He is Mary Anne, to all intents and purposes.”
“Well, write the jade a curt note, in both our names, and say we disapprove the conduct of the defaulters, and will signify our disapproval to them; but that is all we can do.”
This letter was written, and Bayne made it as oleaginous as language permits; and there the matter rested apparently.
But, as usual, after the polite came the phonetic. Next week Henry got a letter thus worded:—
“MISTER LITL,—If them grinders of yores dosent send their money i shall com an' fech strings if the devil stans i' t' road.
“MOONRAKER.”
Mr. Little tossed this epistle contemptuously into the fire, and invented on.
Two days after that he came to the works, and found the saw grinders standing in a group, with their hands in their pockets.
“Well, lads, what's up?”
“Mary Anne has been here.”
“And two pair of wheel-bands gone.”
“Well, men, you know whose fault it is.”
“Nay, but it is —— hard my work should be stopped because another man is in arrears with trade. What d'ye think to do, Governor? buy some more bands?”
“Certainly not. I won't pay for your fault. It is a just claim, you know. Settle it among yourselves.”
With this he retired to his studio.
When the men saw he did not care a button whether his grindstones revolved or not, they soon brought the defaulters to book. Bayne was sent upstairs, to beg Mr. Little to advance the trade contributions, and step the amount from the defaulters' wages.
This being settled, Little and Bayne went to the “Cutlers' Arms,” and Bayne addressed the barmaid thus, “Can we see Mary Anne?”
“He is shaving.”
“Well, when she is shaved, we shall be in the parlor, tell her.”
In a moment or two Grotait bustled in, wiping his face with a towel as he came, and welcomed his visitors cordially. “Fine weather, gentlemen.”
Bayne cut that short. “Mr. Grotait, we have lost our bands.”
“You surprise me.”
“And perhaps you can tell us how to get them back.”
“Experience teaches that they always come back when the men pay their arrears.”
“Well, it is agreed to stop the sum due, out of wages.”
“A very proper course.”
“What is it we have got to pay?”
“How can I tell you without book? Pray, Mr. Little, don't imagine that I set these matters agate. All I do is to mediate afterward. I'll go and look at the contribution-book.”
He went out, and soon returned, and told them it was one sovereign contribution from each man, and five shillings each for Mary Anne.
“What, for her services in rattening us?” said Little, dryly.
“And her risk,” suggested Grotait, in dulcet tones.
Little paid the five pounds, and then asked Grotait for the bands.
“Good heavens, Mr. Little, do you think I have got your bands?”
“You must excuse Mr. Little, sir,” said Bayne. “He is a stranger, and doesn't know the comedy. Perhaps you will oblige us with a note where we can find them.”
“Hum!” said Grotait, with the air of one suddenly illuminated. “What did I hear somebody say about these bands? Hum! Give me an hour or two to make inquiries.”
“Don't say an hour or two, sir, when the men have got to make up lost time. We will give you a little grace; we will take a walk down street, and perhaps it will come to your recollection.”
“Hum!” said Grotait; and as that was clearly all they were to get out of him just then they left and took a turn.
In half an hour they came back again, and sat down in the parlor.
Grotait soon joined them. “I've been thinking,” said he, “what a pity it is we can't come to some friendly arrangement with intelligent masters, like Mr. Little, to deduct the natty money every week from the men's wages.”
“Excuse me,” said Bayne, “we are not here for discussion. We want our bands.”
“Do you doubt that you will get them, sir? Did ever I break faith with master or man?”
“No, no,” said the pacific Bayne, alarmed at the sudden sternness of his tone. “You are as square as a die—when you get it all your own way. Why, Mr. Little, Cheetham's bands were taken one day, and, when he had made the men pay their arrears, he was directed where to find the bands; but, meantime, somebody out of trade had found them, and stolen them. Down came bran-new bands to the wheel directly, and better than we had lost. And my cousin Godby, that has a water-wheel, was rattened, by his scythe-blades being flung in the dam. He squared with Mary Anne, and then he got a letter to say where the blades were. But one was missing. He complained to Mr. Grotait here, and Mr. Grotait put his hand in his pocket directly, and paid the trade-price of the blade—three shillings, I think it was.”
“Yes,” said Grotait; “'but,' I remember I said at the time, 'you must not construe this that I was any way connected with the rattening.' But some are deaf to reason. Hallo!”
“What is the matter, sir?”
“Why, what is that in the fender? Your eyes are younger than mine.”
And Mr. Grotait put up his gold double eyeglass, and looked with marked surprise and curiosity, at a note that lay in the fender.
Mr. Bayne had been present at similar comedies, and was not polite enough to indorse Mr. Grotait's surprise. He said, coolly, “It will be the identical note we are waiting for.” He stooped down and took it out of the fender, and read it.
“'To Mr. LITTLE, or MR. BAYNE.
“'GENTLEMEN,—In the bottom hull turn up the horsing, and in the trough all the missing bands will be found. Apologizing for the little interruption, it is satisfactory things are all arranged without damage, and hope all will go agreeably when the rough edge is worn off. Trusting these nocturnal visits will be no longer necessary, I remain,
“'THE SHY MAIDEN.'”
As soon as he had obtained this information, Bayne bustled off; but Mary Anne detained Henry Little, to moralize.
Said she, “This rattening for trade contributions is the result of bad and partial laws. If A contracts with B, and breaks his contract, B has no need to ratten A: he can sue him. But if A, being a workman, contracts with B and all the other letters, and breaks his contract, B and all the other letters have no legal remedy. This bad and partial law, occurring in a country that has tasted impartial laws, revolts common sense and the consciences of men. Whenever this sort of thing occurs in any civilized country, up starts that pioneer judge we call Judge Lynch; in other words, private men combine, and make their own laws, to cure the folly of legislatures. And, mark me, if these irregular laws are unjust, they fail; if they are just, they stand. Rattening could never have stood its ground so many years in Hillsborough, if it had not been just, and necessary to the place, under the partial and iniquitous laws of Great Britain.”
“And pray,” inquired Little, “where is the justice of taking a master's gear because his paid workman is in your debt?”
“And where is the justice of taking a lodger's goods in execution for the house-tenant's debt, which debt the said lodger is helping the said tenant to pay? We must do the best we can. No master is rattened for a workman's fault without several warnings. But the masters will never co-operate with justice till their bands and screws go. That wakes them up directly.”
“Well, Mr. Grotait, I never knew you worsted in an argument: and this nut is too hard for my teeth, so I'm off to my work. Ratten me now and then for your own people's fault, if you are QUITE sure justice and public opinion demand it; but no more gunpowder, please.”
“Heaven forbid, Mr. Little. Gunpowder! I abhor it.”
There came a delightful letter from Grace Carden, announcing her return on a certain evening, and hoping to see Henry next morning.
He called accordingly, and was received with outstretched hands and sparkling eyes, and words that repaid him for her absence.
After the first joyful burst, she inquired tenderly why he was so pale: had he been ill?
“No.”
“No trouble nor anxiety, dear?”
“A little, at first, till your sweet letters made me happy. No; I did not even know that I was pale. Overstudy, I suppose. Inventing is hard work.”
“What are you inventing?”
“All manner of things. Machine to forge large axes; another to grind circular saws; a railway clip: but you don't care about such things.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I care about whatever interests you.”
“Well, these inventions interest me very much. One way or other, they are roads to fortune; and you know why I desire fortune.”
“Ah, that I do. But excuse me, you value independence more. Oh, I respect you for it. Only don't make yourself pale, or you will make me unhappy, and a foe to invention.”
On this Mr. Little made himself red instead of pale, and beamed with happiness.
They spent a delightful hour together, and, even when they parted, their eyes lingered on each other.
Soon after this the Cardens gave a dinner-party, and Grace asked if she might invite Mrs. Little and Mr. Little.
“What, is he presentable?”
“More than that,” said Grace, coloring. “They are both very superior to most of our Hillsborough friends.”
“Well, but did you not tell me he had quarreled with Mr. Raby?”
“No, not quarreled. Mr. Raby offered to make him his heir: but he chooses to be independent, and make his own fortune, that's all.”
“Well, if you think our old friend would not take it amiss, invite them by all means. I remember her a lovely woman.”
So the Littles were invited; and the young ladies admired Mr. Little on the whole, but sneered at him a little for gazing on Miss Carden, as if she was a divinity: the secret, which escaped the father, girls of seventeen detected in a minute, and sat whispering over it in the drawing-room.
After this invitation, Henry and his mother called, and then Grace called on Mrs. Little; and this was a great step for Henry, the more so as the ladies really took to each other.
The course of true love was beginning to run smooth, when it was disturbed by Mr. Coventry.
That gentleman's hopes had revived in London; Grace Carden had been very kind and friendly to him, and always in such good spirits, that he thought absence had cured her of Little, and his turn was come again. The most experienced men sometimes mistake a woman in this way. The real fact was that Grace, being happy herself, thanks to a daily letter from the man she adored, had not the heart to be unkind to another, whose only fault was loving her, and to whom she feared she had not behaved very well. However, Mr. Coventry did mistake her. He was detained in town by business, but he wrote Mr. Carden a charming letter, and proposed formally for his daughter's hand.
Mr. Carden had seen the proposal coming this year and more; so he was not surprised; but he was gratified. The letter was put into his hand while he was dressing for dinner. Of course he did not open the subject before the servants: but, as soon as they had retired, he said, “Grace, I want your attention on a matter of importance.”
Grace stared a little, but said faintly, “Yes, papa,” and all manner of vague maidenly misgivings crowded through her brain.
“My child, you are my only one, and the joy of the house; and need I say I shall feel your loss bitterly whenever your time comes to leave me?”
“Then I never will leave you,” cried Grace, and came and wreathed her arms round his neck.
He kissed her, and parting her hair, looked with parental fondness at her white brow, and her deep clear eyes.
“You shall never leave me, for the worse,” said he: “but you are sure to marry some day, and therefore it is my duty to look favorably on a downright good match. Well, my dear, such a match offers itself. I have a proposal for you.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“Wait till you hear who it is. It is Mr. Coventry, of Bollinghope.”
Grace sighed, and looked very uncomfortable.
“Why, what is the matter? you always used to like him.”
“So I do now; but not for a husband.”
“I see no one to whom I could resign you so willingly. He is well born and connected, has a good estate, not too far from your poor father.”
“Dear papa!”
“He speaks pure English: now these Hillsborough manufacturers, with their provincial twang, are hardly presentable in London society.”
“Dear papa, Mr. Coventry is an accomplished gentleman, who has done me the highest honor he can. You must decline him very politely: but, between ourselves, I am a little angry with him, because he knows I do not love him; and I am afraid he has made this offer to YOU, thinking you might be tempted to constrain my affections: but you won't do that, my own papa, will you? you will not make your child unhappy, who loves you?”
“No, no. I will never let you make an imprudent match; but I won't force you into a good one.”
“And you know I shall never marry without your consent, papa. But I'm only nineteen, and I don't want to be driven away to Bollinghope.”
“And I'm sure I don't want to drive you away anywhere. Mine will be a dull, miserable home without you. Only please tell me what to say to him.”
“Oh, I leave that to you. I have often admired the way you soften your refusals. 'Le seigneur Jupiter sait dorer la pillule'—there, that's Moliere.”
“Well, I suppose I must say—”
“Let me see what HE says first.”
She scanned the letter closely, to see whether there was any thing that could point to Henry Little. But there was not a word to indicate he feared a rival, though the letter was any thing but presumptuous.
Then Grace coaxed her father, and told him she feared her inexperience had made her indiscreet. She had liked Mr. Coventry's conversation, and perhaps had, inadvertently, given him more encouragement than she intended: would he be a good, kind papa, and get her out of the scrape, as creditably as he could? She relied on his superior wisdom. So then he kissed her, and said he would do his best.
He wrote a kind, smooth letter, gilding and double-gilding the pill. He said, amongst the rest, that there appeared to be no ground of refusal, except a strong disinclination to enter the wedded state. “I believe there is no one she likes as well as you; and, as for myself, I know no gentleman to whom I would so gladly confide my daughter's happiness,” etc., etc.
He handed this letter to his daughter to read, but she refused. “I have implicit confidence in you,” said she.
Mr. Coventry acknowledged receipt of the letter, thanked Mr. Carden for the kind and feeling way in which he had inflicted the wound, and said that he had a verbal communication to make before he could quite drop the matter; would be down in about a fort-night.
Soon after this Grace dined with Mrs. Little: and, the week after that, Henry contrived to meet her at a ball, and, after waiting patiently some time, he waltzed with her.
This waltz was another era in their love. It was an inspired whirl of two lovers, whose feet hardly felt the ground, and whose hearts bounded and thrilled, and their cheeks glowed, and their eyes shot fire; and when Grace was obliged to stop, because the others stopped, her elastic and tense frame turned supple and soft directly, and she still let her eyes linger on his, and her hand nestle in his a moment: this, and a faint sigh of pleasure and tenderness, revealed how sweet her partner was to her.
Need I say the first waltz was not the last? and that evening they were more in love than ever, if possible.
Mr. Coventry came down from London, and, late that evening, he and Mr. Carden met at the Club.
Mr. Carden found him in an arm-chair, looking careworn and unhappy, and felt quite sorry for him. He hardly knew what to say to him; but Coventry with his usual grace relieved him; he rose, and shook hands, and even pressed Mr. Carden's hand, and held it.
Mr. Carden was so touched, that he pressed his hand in return, and said, “Courage! my poor fellow; the case is not desperate, you know.”
Mr. Coventry shook his head, and sat down. Mr. Carden sat down beside him.
“Why, Coventry, it is not as if there was another attachment.”
“There IS another attachment; at least I have too much reason to fear so. But you shall judge for yourself. I have long paid my respectful addresses to Miss Carden, and I may say without vanity that she used to distinguish me beyond her other admirers; I was not the only one who thought so; Mr. Raby has seen us together, and he asked me to meet her at Raby Hall. There I became more particular in my attentions, and those attentions, sir, were well received.”
“But were they UNDERSTOOD? that is the question.”
“Understood and received, upon my honor.”
“Then she will marry you, soon or late: for I'm sure there is no other man. Grace was never deceitful.”
“All women are deceitful.”
“Oh, come!”
“Let me explain: all women, worthy of the name, are cowards; and cowardice drives them to deceit, even against their will. Pray bear me to an end. On the fifth of last December, I took Miss Carden to the top of Cairnhope hill. I showed her Bollinghope in the valley, and asked her to be its mistress.”
“And what did she say? Yes, or no?”
“She made certain faint objections, such as a sweet, modest girl like her makes as a matter of course, and then she yielded.”
“What! consented to be your wife?”
“Not in those very words; but she said she esteemed me, and she knew I loved her; and, when I asked her whether I might speak to you, she said 'Yes.'”
“But that was as good as accepting you.”
“I am glad you agree with me. You know, Mr. Carden, thousands have been accepted in that very form. Well, sir, the next thing was we were caught in that cursed snow-storm.”
“Yes, she has told me all about that.”
“Not all, I suspect. We got separated for a few minutes, and I found her in an old ruined church, where a sort of blacksmith was working at his forge. I found her, sir, I might say almost in the blacksmith's arms. I thought little of that at first: any man has a right to succor any woman in distress: but, sir, I discovered that Miss Carden and this man were acquaintances: and, by degrees, I found, to my horror, that he had a terrible power over her.”
“What do you mean, sir? Do you intend to affront us?”
“No. And, if the truth gives you pain, pray remember it gives me agony. However, I must tell you the man was not what he looked, a mere blacksmith; he is a sort of Proteus, who can take all manner of shapes: at the time I'm speaking of, he was a maker of carving tools. Well, sir, you could hardly believe the effect of this accidental interview with that man: the next day, when I renewed my addresses, Miss Carden evaded me, and was as cold as she had been kind: she insisted on it she was not engaged to me, and said she would not marry anybody for two years; and this, I am sorry to say, was not her own idea, but this Little's; for I overheard him ask her to wait two years for him.”
“Little! What, Raby's new nephew?”
“That is the man.”
Mr. Carden was visibly discomposed by this communication. He did not choose to tell Coventry how shocked he was at his own daughter's conduct; but, after a considerable pause, he said, “If what you have told me is the exact truth, I shall interpose parental authority, and she shall keep her engagement with you, in spite of all the Littles in the world.”
“Pray do not be harsh,” said Coventry.
“No, but I shall be firm.”
“Insanity in his family, for one thing,” suggested Coventry, scarcely above a whisper.
“That is true; his father committed suicide. But really that consideration is not needed. My daughter must keep her engagements, as I keep mine.”
With this understanding the friends parted.
Grace happened to have a headache next morning, and did not come down to breakfast: but it was Saturday, and Mr. Carden always lunched at home on that day. So did Grace, because it was one of Little's days. This gave Mr. Carden the opportunity he wanted. When they were alone he fixed his eyes on his daughter, and said quietly, “What is your opinion of—a jilt?”
“A heartless, abominable creature,” replied Grace, as glibly as if she was repeating some familiar catechism.
“Would you like to be called one?”
“Oh, papa!”
“Is there nobody who has the right to apply the term to you?”
“I hope not.” (Red.)
“You encouraged Mr. Coventry's addresses?”
“I am afraid I did not discourage them, as I wish I had. It is so hard to foresee every thing.”
“Pray do you remember the fifth day of last December?”
“Can I ever forget it?” (Redder.)
“Is it true that Mr. Coventry proposed for you, that day?”
“Yes.”
“And you accepted him.”
“No; no. Then he has told you so? How ungenerous! All I did was, I hesitated, and cried, and didn't say 'no,' downright—like a fool. Oh, papa, have pity on me, and save me.” And now she was pale.
Mr. Carden's paternal heart was touched by this appeal, but he was determined to know the whole truth. “You could love him, in time, I suppose?”
“Never.”
“Why?”
“Because—”
“Now tell me the truth. Have you another attachment?”
“Yes, dear papa.” (In a whisper and as red as fire.)
“Somebody of whom you are not proud.”
“I AM proud of him. He is Mr. Coventry's superior. He is everybody's superior in everything in the world.”
“No, Grace, you can hardly be proud of your attachment; if you had been, you would not have hidden it all this time from your father.” And Mr. Carden sighed.
Grace burst out crying, and flung herself on her knees and clung, sobbing, to him.
“There, there,” said he, “I don't want to reproach you; but to advise you.”
“Oh, papa! Take and kill me. Do: I want to die.”
“Foolish child! Be calm now; and let us talk sense.”
At this moment there was a peculiar ring at the door, a ring not violent, but vigorous.
Grace started and looked terrified: “Papa!” said she, “say what you like to me, but do not affront HIM; for you might just as well take that knife and stab your daughter to the heart. I love him so. Have pity on me.”
The servant announced “Mr. Little!”
Grace started up, and stood with her hand gripping the chair; her cheek was pale, and her eyes glittered; she looked wild, and evidently strained up to defend her lover.
All this did not escape Mr. Carden. He said gently, “Show him into the library.” Then to Grace as soon as the servant had retired, “Come here, my child.”
She knelt at his knees again, and turned her imploring, streaming eyes up to him.
“Is it really so serious as all this?”
“Papa, words cannot tell you how I love. But if you affront him, and he leaves me, you will see how I love him; you will know, by my grave-side, how I love him.”
“Then I suppose I must swallow my disappointment how I can.”
“It shall be no disappointment; he will do you honor and me too.”
“But he can't make a settlement on his wife, and no man shall marry my daughter till he can do that.”
“We can wait,” said Grace, humbly.
“Yes, wait—till you and your love are both worn out.”
“I shall wear out before my love.”
Mr. Carden looked at her, as she knelt before him, and his heart was very much softened. “Will you listen to reason at all?” said he.
“From you, I will, dear papa.” She added, swiftly, “and then you will listen to affection, will you not?”
“Yes. Promise me there shall be no formal engagement, and I will let him come now and then.”
This proposal, though not very pleasant, relieved Grace of such terrible fears, that she consented eagerly.
Mr. Carden then kissed her, and rose, to go to young Little; but, before he had taken three steps, she caught him by the arm, and said, imploringly, “Pray remember while you are speaking to him that you would not have me to bestow on any man but for him; for he saved my life, and Mr. Coventry's too. Mr. Coventry forgets that: but don't you: and, if you wound him, you wound me; he carries my heart in his bosom.”
Mr. Carden promised he would do his duty as kindly as possible; and with that Grace was obliged to content herself.
When he opened the library door, young Little started up, his face irradiated with joy. Mr. Carden smiled a little satirically, but he was not altogether untouched by the eloquent love for his daughter, thus showing itself in a very handsome and amiable face. He said, “It is not the daughter this time, sir, it is only the father.”
Little colored up and looked very uneasy.
“Mr. Little, I am told you pay your addresses to Miss Carden. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have never given me any intimation.”
Little colored still more. He replied, with some hesitation, “Why, sir, you see I was brought up amongst workmen, and they court the girl first, and make sure of her, before they trouble the parents; and, besides, it was not ripe for your eye yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm no match for Miss Carden. But I hope to be, some day.”
“And she is to wait for you till then?”
“She says she will.”
“Well, Mr. Little, this is a delicate matter; but you are a straightforward man, I see, and it is the best way. Now I must do my duty as a parent, and I am afraid I shall not be able to do that without mortifying you a little; but believe me, it is not from any dislike or disrespect to you, but only because it IS my duty.”
“I am much obliged to you, sir; and I'll bear more from you than I would from any other man. You are her father, and I hope you'll be mine one day.”
“Well, then, Mr. Little, I always thought my daughter would marry a gentleman in this neighborhood, who has paid her great attention for years, and is a very suitable match for her. You are the cause of that match being broken off, and I am disappointed. But although I am disappointed, I will not be harsh nor unreasonable to you. All I say is this: my daughter shall never marry any man, nor engage herself to any man, who cannot make a proper settlement on her. Can YOU make a proper settlement on her?”
“Not at present,” said Little, with a sigh.
“Then I put it to you, as a man, is it fair of you to pay her open attentions, and compromise her? You must not think me very mercenary; I am not the man to give my daughter to the highest bidder. But there is a medium.”
“I understand you, sir, so far. But what am I to do? Am I to leave off loving, and hoping, and working, and inventing? You might as well tell me to leave off living.”
“No, my poor boy; I don't say that, neither. If it is really for her you work, and invent, and struggle with fortune so nobly as I know you do, persevere, and may God speed you. But, meantime, be generous, and don't throw yourself in her way to compromise her.”
The young man was overpowered by the kindness and firmness of his senior, who was also Grace's father. He said, in a choking voice, there was no self-denial he would not submit to, if it was understood that he might still love Grace, and might marry her as soon as he could make a proper settlement on her.
Then Mr. Carden, on his part, went further than he had intended, and assented distinctly to all this, provided the delay was not unreasonable in point of time. “I can't have her whole life wasted.”
“Give me two years: I'll win her or lose her in that time.” He then asked, piteously, if he might see her.
“I am sorry to say No to that,” was the reply; “but she has been already very much agitated, and I should be glad to spare her further emotion. You need not doubt her attachment to you, nor my esteem. You are a very worthy, honest young man, and your conduct does much to reconcile me to what I own is a disappointment.”
Having thus gilded the pill, Mr. Carden shook hands with Henry Little, and conducted him politely to the street door.
The young man went away slowly; for he was disconsolate at not seeing Grace.
But, when he got home, his stout Anglo-Saxon heart reacted, and he faced the situation.
He went to his mother and told her what had passed. She colored with indignation, but said nothing.
“Well, mother, of course it might be better; but then it might be worse. It's my own fault now if I lose her. Cutlery won't do it in the time, but Invention will: so, from this hour, I'm a practical inventor, and nothing but death shall stop me.”
Grace Carden ran to the window, and saw Henry Little go away slowly, and hanging his head. This visible dejection in her manly lover made her heart rise to her throat, and she burst out sobbing and weeping with alarming violence.
Mr. Carden found her in this state, and set himself to soothe her. He told her the understanding he had come to with Mr. Little, and begged her to be as reasonable and as patient as her lover was. But the appeal was not successful. “He came to see me,” she cried, “and he has gone away without seeing me. You have begun to break both our hearts, with your reason and your prudence. One comfort, mine will break first; I have not his fortitude. Oh, my poor Henry! He has gone away, hanging his head, broken-hearted: that is what you have DONE for me. After that, what are words? Air—air—and you can't feed hungry hearts with air.”
“Well, my child, I am sorry now I did not bring him in here. But I really did it for the best. I wished to spare you further agitation.”
“Agitation!” And she opened her eyes with astonishment. “Why, it is you who agitate me. He would have soothed me in a moment. One kind and hopeful word from him, one tender glance of his dear eye, one pressure of his dear hard hand, and I could have borne anything; but that drop of comfort you denied us both. Oh, cruel! cruel!”
“Calm yourself, Grace, and remember whom you are speaking to. It was an error in judgment, perhaps—nothing more.”
“But, then, if you know nothing about love, and its soothing power, why meddle with it at all?”
“Grace,” said Mr. Carden, sadly, but firmly, “we poor parents are all prepared for this. After many years of love and tenderness bestowed on our offspring, the day is sure to come when the young thing we have reared with so much care and tenderness will meet a person of her own age, a STRANGER; and, in a month or two, all our love, our care, our anxiety, our hopes, will be nothing in the balance. This wound is in store for us all. We foresee it; we receive it; we groan under it; we forgive it. We go patiently on, and still give our ungrateful children the benefit of our love and our experience. I have seen in my own family that horrible mixture, Gentility and Poverty. In our class of life, poverty is not only poverty, it is misery, and meanness as well. My income dies with me. My daughter and her children shall not go back to the misery and meanness out of which I have struggled. They shall be secured against it by law, before she marries, or she shall marry under her father's curse.”
Then Grace was frightened, and said she should never marry under her father's curse; but (with a fresh burst of weeping) what need was there to send Henry away without seeing her, and letting them comfort each other under this sudden affliction? “Ah, I was too happy this morning,” said the poor girl. “I was singing before breakfast. Jael always told me not to do that. Oh! oh! oh!”
Mr. Carden kept silence; but his fortitude was sorely tried.
That day Grace pleaded headache, and did not appear to dinner. Mr. Carden dined alone, and missed her bright face sadly. He sent his love to her, and went off to the club, not very happy. At the club he met Mr. Coventry, and told him frankly what he had done. Mr. Coventry, to his surprise, thanked him warmly. “She will be mine in two years,” said he. “Little will never be able to make a settlement on her.” This remark set Mr. Carden thinking.
Grace watched the window day after day, but Henry never came nor passed. She went a great deal more than usual into the town, in hopes of meeting him by the purest accident. She longed to call on Mrs. Little, but feminine instinct withheld her; she divined that Mrs. Little must be deeply offended.
She fretted for a sight of Henry, and for an explanation, in which she might clear herself, and show her love, without being in the least disobedient to her father. Now all this was too subtle to be written. So she fretted and pined for a meeting.
While she was in this condition, and losing color every day, who should call one day—to reconnoiter, I suppose—but Mr. Coventry.
Grace was lying on the sofa, languid and distraite, when he was announced. She sat up directly, and her eye kindled.
Mr. Coventry came in with his usual grace and cat-like step. “Ah, Miss Carden!”
Miss Carden rose majestically to her feet, made him a formal courtesy, and swept out of the room, without deigning him a word. She went to the study, and said, “Papa, here's a friend of yours—Mr. Coventry.”
“Dear me, I am very busy. I wish you would amuse him for a few minutes till I have finished this letter.”
“Excuse me, papa; I cannot stay in the same room with Mr. Coventry.”
“Why not, pray?”
“He is a dangerous man: he compromises one. He offered me an engagement-ring, and I refused it; yet he made you believe we were engaged. You have taken care I shall not be compromised with the man I love; and shall I be compromised with the man I don't care for? No, thank you.”
“Very well, Grace,” said Mr. Carden, coldly.
Shortly after this Mr. Carden requested Dr. Amboyne to call; he received the doctor in his study, and told him that he was beginning to be uneasy about Grace; she was losing her appetite, her color, and her spirits. Should he send her to the seaside?
“The seaside! I distrust conventional remedies. Let me see the patient.”
He entered the room and found her coloring a figure she had drawn: it was a beautiful woman, with an anchor at her feet. The door was open, and the doctor, entering softly, saw a tear fall on the work from a face so pale and worn with pining, that he could hardly repress a start; he did repress it though, for starts are unprofessional; he shook hands with her in his usual way. “Sorry to hear you are indisposed, my dear Miss Grace.” He then examined her tongue, and felt her pulse; and then he sat down, right before her, and fixed his eyes on her. “How long have you been unwell?”
“I am not unwell that I know of,” said Grace, a little sullenly.
“One reason I ask, I have another patient, who has been attacked somewhat in the same way.”
Grace colored, and fixed a searching eye on the doctor. “Do I know the lady?”
“No. For it happens to be a male patient.”
“Perhaps it is going about.”
“Possibly; this is the age of competition. Still it is hard you can't have a little malady of this kind all to yourself; don't you think so?”
At this Grace laughed hysterically.
“Come, none of that before me,” said the doctor sternly.
She stopped directly, frightened. The doctor smiled.
Mr. Carden peeped in from his study. “When you have done with her, come and prescribe for me. I am a little out of sorts too.” With this, he retired. “That means you are to go and tell him what is the matter with me,” said Grace bitterly.
“Is his curiosity unjustifiable?”
“Oh no. Poor papa!” Then she asked him dryly if he knew what was the matter with her.
“I think I do.”
“Then cure me.” This with haughty incredulity.
“I'll try; and a man can but do his best. I'll tell you one thing: if I can't cure you, no doctor in the world can: see how modest I am. Now for papa.”
She let him go to the very door: and then a meek little timid voice said, in a scarce audible murmur, “Doctor!”
Now when this meek murmur issued from a young lady who had, up to this period of the interview, been rather cold and cutting, the sagacious doctor smiled. “My dear?” said he, in a very gentle voice.
“Doctor! about your other patient!”
“Well?”
“Is he as bad as I am? For indeed, my dear friend, I feel—my food has no taste—life itself no savor. I used to go singing, now I sit sighing. Is he as bad as I am?”
“I'll tell you the truth; his malady is as strong as yours; but he has the great advantage of being a man; and, again, of being a man of brains. He is a worker, and an inventor; and now, instead of succumbing tamely to his disorder, he is working double tides, and inventing with all his might, in order to remove an obstacle between him and one he loves with all his manly soul. A contest so noble and so perpetual sustains and fortifies the mind. He is indomitable; only, at times, his heart of steel will soften, and then he has fits of deep dejection and depression, which I mourn to see; for his manly virtues, and his likeness to one I loved deeply in my youth, have made him dear to me.”
During this Grace turned her head away, and, ere the doctor ended, her tears were flowing freely; for to her, being a woman, this portrait of a male struggle with sorrow was far more touching than any description of feminine and unresisted grief could be: and, when the doctor said he loved his patient, she stole her little hand into his in a way to melt Old Nick, if he is a male. Ladies, forgive the unchivalrous doubt.
“Doctor,” said she, affecting all of a sudden a little air of small sprightliness, very small, “now, do—you—think—it would do your patient—the least good in the world—if you were to take him this?”
She handed him her work, and then she blushed divinely.
“Why, it is a figure of Hope.”
“Yes.”
“I think it might do him a great deal of good.”
“You could say I painted it for him.”
“So I will. That will do him no harm neither. Shall I say I found you crying over it?”
“Oh, no! no! That would make him cry too, perhaps.”
“Ah, I forgot that. Grace, you are an angel.”
“Ah, no. But you can tell him I am—if you think so. That will do him no great harm—will it?”
“Not an atom to him; but it will subject me to a pinch for stale news. There, give me my patient's picture, and let me go.”
She kissed the little picture half-furtively, and gave it him, and let him go; only, as he went out at the door, she murmured, “Come often.”
Now, when this artful doctor got outside the door, his face became grave all of a sudden, for he had seen enough to give him a degree of anxiety he had not betrayed to his interesting patient herself.
“Well, doctor?” said Mr. Carden, affecting more cheerfulness than he felt. “Nothing there beyond your skill, I suppose?”
“Her health is declining rapidly. Pale, hollow-eyed, listless, languid—not the same girl.”
“Is it bodily do you think, or only mental?”
“Mental as to its cause; but bodily in the result. The two things are connected in all of us, and very closely in Miss Carden. Her organization is fine, and, therefore, subtle. She is tuned in a high key. Her sensibility is great; and tough folk, like you and me, must begin by putting ourselves in her place before we prescribe for her, otherwise our harsh hands may crush a beautiful, but too tender, flower.”
“Good heavens!” said Carden, beginning to be seriously alarmed, “do you mean to say you think, if this goes on, she will be in any danger?”
“Why, if it were to go on at the same rate, it would be very serious. She must have lost a stone in weight already.”
“What, my child! my sweet Grace! Is it possible her life—”
“And do you think your daughter is not mortal like other people? The young girls that are carried past your door to the churchyard one after another, had they no fathers?”
At this blunt speech the father trembled from head to foot.
“Doctor,” said Mr. Carden, “you are an old friend, and a discreet man; I will confide the truth to you.”
“You may save yourself the trouble. I have watched the whole progress of this amour up to the moment when you gave them the advantage of your paternal wisdom, and made them both miserable.”
“It is very unreasonable of them, to be miserable.”
“Oh, lovers parted could never yet make themselves happy with reason.”
“But why do you say parted? All I said was, 'No engagement till you can make a settlement: and don't compromise her in the meanwhile.' I did not mean to interdict occasional visits.”
“Then why not say so? That is so like people. You made your unfavorable stipulation plain enough; but the little bit of comfort, you left that in doubt. This comes of not putting yourself in his place. I have had a talk with him about it, and he thinks he is not to show his face here till he is rich enough to purchase your daughter of you.”
“But I tell you he has misunderstood me.”
“Then write to him and say so.”
“No, no; you take an opportunity to let him know he has really rather overrated my severity, and that I trust to his honor, and do not object to a visit—say once a week.”
“It is a commission I will undertake with pleasure.”
“And do you really think that will do her bodily health any good?”
Before Doctor Amboyne could reply, the piano was suddenly touched in the next room, and a sweet voice began to sing a cheerful melody. “Hush!” said Doctor Amboyne. “Surely I know that tune. Yes, I have heard THE OTHER whistle it.”
“She has not sung for ever so long,” remarked Mr. Carden.
“And I think I can tell you why she is singing now: look at this picture of Hope; I just told her I had a male patient afflicted with her complaint, and the quick-witted creature asked me directly if I thought this picture would do him any good. I said yes, and I'd take it to him.”
“Come, doctor, that couldn't make her SING.”
“Why not? Heart can speak to heart, even by a flower or a picture. The separation was complete; sending this symbol has broken it a little, and so she is singing. This is a lesson for us ruder and less subtle spirits. Now mind, thwarted love seldom kills a busy man; but it often kills an idle woman, and your daughter is an idle woman. He is an iron pot, she is a china vase. Please don't hit them too hard with the hammer of paternal wisdom, or you will dent my iron pot, and break your china vase to atoms.”
Having administered this warning, Dr. Amboyne went straight from Woodbine Villa to Little's factory; but Little was still in London; he had gone there to take out patents. Bayne promised to send the doctor a line immediately on his return. Nevertheless, a fortnight elapsed, and then Dr. Amboyne received a short, mysterious line to tell him Mr. Little had come home, and would be all the better of a visit. On receipt of this the doctor went at once to the works, and found young Little lying on his carpenter's bench in a sort of gloomy apathy. “Hallo!” said the doctor, in his cheerful way, “why what's the matter now?”
“I'm fairly crushed,” groaned the inventor.
“And what has crushed you?”
“The roundabout swindle.”
“There, now, he invents words as well as things. Come, tell me all about the roundabout swindle.”
“No, no; I haven't the heart left to go through it all again, even in words. One would think an inventor was the enemy of the human race. Yes, I will tell you; the sight of you has revived me a bit; it always does. Well, then, you know I am driven to invention now; it is my only chance; and, ever since Mr. Carden spoke to me, I have given my whole soul to the best way of saw-grinding by machinery. The circular saws beat me for a while, but I mastered them; see, there's the model. I'm going to burn it this very afternoon. Well, a month ago, I took the other model—the long-saw grinder—up to London, to patent the invention, as you advised me. I thought I'd just have to exhibit the model, and lodge the description in some Government office, and pay a fee, of course, to some swell, and so be quit of it. Lord bless you—first I had to lay the specification before the Court of Chancery, and write a petition to the Queen, and pay, and, what is worse, wait. When I had paid and waited, I got my petition signed, not by the Queen, but by some go-between, and then I must take it to the Attorney-general. He made me pay—and wait. When I had waited ever so long, I was sent back to where I had come from—the Home Office. But even then I could not get to the Queen. Another of her go-betweens nailed me, and made me pay, and wait: these locusts steal your time as well as your money. At last, a copy of a copy of a copy of my patent got to the Queen, and she signed it like a lady at once, and I got it back. Then I thought I was all right. Not a bit of it: the Queen's signature wasn't good till another of her go-betweens had signed it. I think it was the Home Secretary this time. This go-between bled me again, and sent me with my hard-earned signatures to the Patent Office. There they drafted, and copied, and docketed, and robbed me of more time and money. And, when all was done, I had to take the document back to one of the old go-betweens that I hoped I had worn out, the Attorney-general. He signed, and bled me out of some more money. From him to the other go-betweens at Whitehall. From them to the Stamp Office, if I remember right, and oh Lord, didn't I fall among leeches there? They drafted, they copied, they engrossed, they juggled me out of time and money without end. The first leech was called the Lord Keeper of the Seal; the second leech was called the Lord Chancellor; it was some go-between that acted in his name; the third leech was the Clerk of the Patents. They demanded more copies, and then employed more go-betweens to charge ten times the value of a copy, and nailed the balance, no doubt. 'Stand and deliver thirty pounds for this stamp.' 'Stand and deliver to me that call myself the Chancellor's purse-bearer—and there's no such creature—two guineas.' 'Stand and deliver seven, thirteen, to the clerk of the Hanaper'—and there's no such thing as a Hanaper. 'Stand and deliver three, five,' to a go-between that calls himself the Lord Chancellor again, and isn't. 'Stand and deliver six, naught, to a go-between that acts for the deputy, that ought to put a bit of sealing-wax on the patent, but hasn't the brains to do it himself, so you must pay ME a fancy price for doing it, and then I won't do it; it will be done by a clerk at twenty-five shillings a week.' And, all this time, mind you, no disposition to soften all this official peculation by civility; no misgiving that the next wave of civilization may sweep nil these go-betweens and leeches out of the path of progress; no, the deputy-vice-go-betweens all scowled, as well as swindled: they broke my heart so, often I sat down in their antechambers and the scalding tears ran down my cheeks, at being pillaged of my time as well as my money, and treated like a criminal—for what? For being, in my small way, a national benefactor.”
“Ay,” said the doctor, “you had committed the crime of brains; and the worse crime of declining to be starved in return for them. I don't rebel against the fees so much: their only fault is that they are too heavy, since the monopoly they profess to secure is short-lived, and yet not very secure; the Lord Chancellor, as a judge, has often to upset the patent which he has sold in another character. But that system of go-betweens, and deputy-go-betweens, and deputy-lieutenant-go-betweens and nobody doing his own business in matters of State, it really is a national curse, and a great blot upon the national intellect. It is a disease; so let us name it. We doctors are great at naming diseases; greater than at curing them.
“'Let us call it VICARIA,
This English malaria.'
“Of this Vicaria, the loss of time and money you have suffered is only one of the fruits, I think.”
“All I know is, they made my life hell for more than a month; and if I have ever the misfortune to invent any thing more, I'll keep it to myself. I'll hide it, like any other crime. But no; I never will invent another thing: never, never.”
“Stuff! Methinks I hear a duck abjure natation. You can't help inventing.”
“I will help it. What, do you think I'll be such an ass as to have Brains in a country where Brains are a crime? Doctor, I'm in despair.”
“Then it is time to cast your eyes over this little picture.”
The inventor turned the little picture listlessly about. “It is a woman, with an anchor. It's a figure of Hope.”
“Beautifully painted, is it not?”
“The tints are well laid on: but, if you'll excuse me, it is rather flat.” He laid the picture down, and turned away from it. “Ah, Hope, my lass, you've come to the wrong shop.”
“Not she. She was painted expressly for you, and by a very beautiful girl.”
“Oh, doctor, not by—”
“Yes; she sends it you.”
“Ah!” And he caught Hope up, and began to devour her with kisses, and his eyes sparkled finely.
“I have some good news, too, for you. Mr. Carden tells me he never intended to separate you entirely from his daughter. If you can be moderate, discreet, old before your time, etc., and come only about once a week, and not compromise her publicly, you will be as welcome as ever.”
“That IS good news, indeed. I'll go there this very day; and I'll patent the circular saw.”
“There's a non-sequitur for you!”
“Nothing of the kind, sir. Why, even the Queen's go-betweens will never daunt me, now I can go and drink love and courage direct from HER eyes; and nothing can chill nor discourage me now. I'll light my forge again and go to work, and make a few sets of carving-tools, and that will pay the go-betweens for patenting my circular-saw grinder. But first I'll put on my coat and go to heaven.”
“Had you not better postpone that till the end of your brilliant career as an inventor and a lover?”
“No; I thirst for heaven, and I'll drink it.” So he made his toilet, thanked and blessed the good doctor, and off to Woodbine Villa.
Grace Carden saw him coming, and opened the door to him herself, red as scarlet, and her eyes swimming. She scarcely made an effort to contain herself by this time, and when she got him into the drawing-room all to herself, she cried, for joy and tenderness, on his shoulder; and, it cost him a gulp or two, I can tell you: and they sat hand in hand, and were never tired of gazing at each other; and the hours flew by unheeded. All their trouble was as though it had never been. Love brightened the present, the future, and even the past. He did not tell Grace one word of what he had suffered from Vicaria—I thank thee, doctor, for teaching me that word—it had lost all interest to him. Love and happiness had annihilated its true character—like the afternoon sun gilding a far-off pig-sty. He did mention the subject, however, but it was in these terms: “And, dearest, I'm hard at work inventing, and I patent all my inventions; so I hope to satisfy your father before two years.”
And Grace said, “Yes; but don't overwork your poor brain and worry yourself. I am yours in heart, and that is something, I hope. I know it is to me; I wouldn't change with any wife in Christendom.”
At the end of two months the situation of affairs was as follows:
Grace Carden received a visit every week from Henry, and met him now and then at other houses: she recovered her health and spirits, and, being of a patient sex, was quite contented, and even happy. Frederick Coventry visited her often, and she received his visits quite graciously, now that the man she loved was no longer driven from her. She even pitied him, and was kind to him and had misgivings that she had used him ill. This feeling he fostered, by a tender, dejected, and inoffensive manner. Boiling with rage inside, this consummate actor had the art to feign resignation; whereas, in reality, he was secretly watching for an opportunity to injure his rival. But no such opportunity came.
Little, in humble imitation of his sovereign, had employed a go-between to employ a go-between, to deal with the State go-betweens, and deputy-go-betweens, that hampered the purchase—the word “grant” is out of place, bleeding is no boon—of a patent from the crown, and by this means he had done, in sixty days, what a true inventor will do in twenty-four hours, whenever the various metallic ages shall be succeeded by the age of reason; he had secured his two saw-grinding inventions, by patent, in Great Britain, the Canadas, and the United States of America. He had another invention perfected; it was for forging axes and hatchets by machinery: but this he did not patent: he hoped to find his remuneration in the prior use of it for a few months. Mere priority is sometimes a great advantage in this class of invention, and there are no fees to pay for it nor deputy-lieutenant-vice-go-betweens' antechambers for genius to cool its heels and heart in.
But one thing soon became evident. He could not work his inventions without a much larger capital.
Dr. Amboyne and he put their heads together over this difficulty, and the doctor advised him in a more erudite style than usual.
“True invention,” said he, “whether literary or mechanical, is the highest and hardest effort of the mind. It is an operation so absorbing that it often weakens those pettier talents which make what we call the clever man. Therefore the inventor should ally himself with some person of talent and energy, but no invention. Thus supported, he can have his fits of abstraction, his headaches, his heartaches, his exultations, his depressions, and no harm done; his dogged associate will plow steadily on all the time. So, after all, your requiring capital is no great misfortune; you must look out for a working capitalist. No sleeping partner will serve your turn; what you want is a good rich, vulgar, energetic man, the pachydermatouser the better.”
Henry acted on this advice, and went to London in search of a moneyed partner. Oh, then it was he learned—
“The hell it is in suing long to bide.”
He found capitalists particularly averse to speculate in a patent. It took him many days to find out what moneyed men were open to that sort of thing at all; and, when he got to them, they were cold.
They had all been recently bitten by harebrained inventors.
Then he represented that it was a matter of judgment, and offered to prove by figures that his saw-grinding machines must return three hundred per cent. These he applied to would not take the trouble to study his figures. In another words, he came at the wrong time. And the wrong time is as bad as the wrong thing, or worse.
Take a note of that, please: and then forget it.
At last he gave up London in despair, and started for Birmingham.
The train stepped at Tring, and, as it was going on again, a man ran toward the third-class carriage Little was seated in. One of the servants of the company tried to stop him, very properly. He struggled with that official, and eventually shook him off. Meantime the train was accelerating its pace. In spite of that, this personage made a run and a bound, and, half leaping, half scrambling, got his head and shoulders over the door, and there oscillated, till Little grabbed him with both hands, and drew him powerfully in, and admonished him. “That is a foolhardy trick, sir, begging your pardon.”
“Young man,” panted the invader, “do you know who you're a-speaking to?”
“No. The Emperor of China?”
“No such trash; it's Ben Bolt, a man that's bad to beat.”
“Well, you'll get beat some day, if you go jumping in and out of trains in motion.”
“A many have been killed that way,” suggested a huge woman in the corner with the meekest and most timid voice imaginable.
Mr. Bolt eyed the speaker with a humorous voice. “Well, if I'm ever killed that way, I'll send you a letter by the post. Got a sweetheart, ma'am?”
“I've got a good husband, sir,” said she, with mild dignity, and pointed to a thin, sour personage opposite, with his nose in a newspaper. Deep in some public question, he ignored this little private inquiry.
“That's unlucky,” said Bolt, “for here am I, just landed from Victoria, and money in both pockets. And where do you think I am going now? to Chester, to see my father and mother, and show them I was right after all. They wanted me to go to school; I wouldn't. Leathered me; I howled, but wouldn't spell; I was always bad to beat. Next thing was, they wanted to make a tanner of me. I wouldn't. 'Give me fifty pounds and let me try the world,' says I. THEY wouldn't. We quarreled. My uncle interfered one day, and gave me fifty pounds. 'Go to the devil,' said he, 'if you like; so as you don't come back.' I went to Sydney, and doubled my fifty; got a sheep-run, and turned my hundred into a thousand. Then they found gold, and that brought up a dozen ways of making money, all of 'em better than digging. Why, ma'am, I made ten thousand pounds by selling the beastliest lemonade you ever tasted for gold-dust at the mines. That was a good swop, wasn't it? So now I'm come home to see if I can stand the Old Country and its ways; and I'm going to see the old folk. I haven't heard a word about them this twenty years.”
“Oh, dear, sir,” said the meek woman, “twenty years is a long time. I hope you won't find them dead an' buried.”
“Don't say that; don't say that!” And the tough, rough man showed a grain of feeling. He soon recovered himself, though, and said more obstreperously than ever, “If they are, I disown 'em. None of your faint-hearted people for me. I despise a chap that gives in before eighty. I'm Ben Bolt, that is bad to beat. Death himself isn't going to bowl me out till I've had my innings.”
“La, sir; pray don't talk so, or you'll anger them above, and, ten to one, upset the train.”
“That's one for me, and two for yourself, ma'am.”
“Yes, sir,” said the mild soul. “I have got my husband with me, and you are only a bachelor, sir.”
“How d'ye know that?”
“I think you'd ha' been softened down a bit, if you'd ever had a good wife.”
“Oh, it is because I speak loud. That is with bawling to my shepherds half a mile off. Why, if I'm loud, I'm civil. Now, young man, what is YOUR trouble?”
Henry started from his reverie, and looked astonished.
“Out with it,” shouted Mr. Bolt; “don't sit grizzling there. What with this lady's husband, dead and buried in that there newspaper, and you, that sets brooding like a hen over one egg, it's a Quaker's meeting, or nearly. If you've been and murdered anybody, tell us all about it. Once off your mind, you'll be more sociable.”
“A man's thoughts are his own, Mr. Bolt. I'm not so fond of talking about myself as you seem to be.”
“Oh, I can talk, or I can listen. But you won't do neither. Pretty company YOU are, a-hatching of your egg.”
“Well, sir,” said the meek woman to Henry, “the rough gentleman he is right. If you are in trouble, the best way is to let your tongue put it off your heart.”
“I'm sure you are very kind,” said Henry, “but really my trouble is one of those out-of-the-way things that do not interest people. However, the long and the short is, I'm an inventor. I have invented several things, and kept them dark, and they have paid me. I live at Hillsborough. But now I have found a way of grinding long saws and circular saws by machinery, at a saving of five hundred per cent labor. That saving of labor represents an enormous profit—a large fortune; so I have patented the invention at my own expense. But I can't work it without a capitalist. Well, I have ransacked London, and all the moneyed men shy me. The fools will go into railways, and bubbles, and a lot of things that are blind chance, but they won't even study my drawings and figures, and I made it clear enough too.”
“I'm not of their mind then,” said Bolt. “My rule is never to let another man work my money. No railway shares nor gold mines for Ben Bolt. My money goes with me, and I goes with my money.”
“Then you are a man of sense; and I only wish you had money enough to go into this with me.”
“How do you know how much money I've got? You show me how to turn twenty thousand into forty thousand, or forty thousand into eighty thousand, and I'll soon find the money.”
“Oh, I could show you how to turn fifteen thousand into fifty thousand.” He then unlocked his black bag, and showed Bolt some drawings that represented the grinders by hand at work on long saws and circular saws. “This,” said he, “is the present system.” He then pointed out its defects. “And this,” said he, “is what I propose to substitute.” Then he showed him drawings of his machines at work. “And these figures represent the saving in labor. Now, in this branch of cutlery, the labor is the manufacturer's main expense. Make ten men grind what fifty used, you put forty workmen's wages in your pocket.”
“That's tall talk.”
“Not an inch taller than the truth.”
Mr. Bolt studied the drawings, and, from obstreperous, became quite quiet and absorbed. Presently he asked Henry to change places with him; and, on this being complied with, he asked the meek woman to read him Henry's figures, slowly. She stared, but complied. Mr. Bolt pondered the figures, and examined the drawings again. He then put a number of questions to Henry, some of them very shrewd; and, at last, got so interested in the affair that he would talk of nothing else.
As the train slackened for Birmingham, he said to Henry, “I'm no great scholar; I like to see things in the body. On we go to Hillsborough.”
“But I want to talk to a capitalist or two at Birmingham.”
“That is not fair; I've got the refusal.”
“The deuce you have!”
“Yes, I've gone into it with you; and the others wouldn't listen. Said so yourself.”
“Well, but, Mr. Bolt, are you really in earnest? Surely this is quite out of your line?”
“How can it be out of my line if it pays? I've bought and sold sheep, and wool, and land, and water, and houses, and tents, and old clothes, and coffee, and tobacco, and cabs. And swopped—my eye, how I have swopped! I've swopped a housemaid under articles for a pew in the church, and a milch cow for a whale that wasn't even killed yet; I paid for the chance. I'm at all in the ring, and devilish bad to beat. Here goes—high, low, Jack, and the game.”
“Did you ever deal in small beer?” asked Henry, satirically.
“No,” said Bolt, innocently. “But I would in a minute if I saw clear to the nimble shilling. Well, will you come on to Hillsborough and settle this? I've got the refusal for twenty-four hours, I consider.”
“Oh, if you think so, I will go on to Hillsborough. But you said you were going to see your parents, after twenty years' absence and silence.”
“So I am; but they can keep; what signifies a day or two more after twenty years?” He added, rather severely, as one whose superior age entitled him to play the monitor, “Young man, I never make a toil of a pleasure.”
“No more do I. But how does that apply to visiting your parents?”
“If I was to neglect business to gratify my feelings, I should be grizzling all the time; and wouldn't that be making a toil of a pleasure?”
Henry could only grin in reply to this beautiful piece of reasoning; and that same afternoon the pair were in Hillsborough, and Mr. Bolt, under Henry's guidance, inspected the grinding of heavy saws, both long and circular. He noted, at Henry's request, the heavy, dirty labor. He then mounted to the studio, and there Henry lectured on his models, and showed them working. Bolt took it all in, his eye flashed, and then he put on, for the first time, the coldness of the practiced dealer. “It would take a good deal of money to work this properly,” said he, shaking his head.
“It has taken a good deal of brains to invent it.”
“No doubt, no doubt. Well, if you want me to join you, it must be on suitable terms. Money is tight.”
“Well, propose your own terms.”
“That's not my way. I'll think it over before I put my hand to paper. Give me till to-morrow.”
“Certainly.”
On this Mr. Bolt went off as if he had been shot.
He returned next day, and laid before Henry an agreement drawn by the sharpest attorney in Hillsborough, and written in a clerk's hand. “There,” said he, briskly, “you sign that, and I'll make my mark, and at it we go.”
“Stop a bit,” said Henry. “You've been to a lawyer, have you? Then I must go to one, too; fair play's a jewel.”
Bolt looked disappointed; but the next moment he affected cheerfulness, and said, “That is fair. Take it to your lawyer directly.”
“I will,” said Henry; but, instead of a lawyer, he took it to his friend Dr. Amboyne, told him all about Ben Bolt, and begged his advice on the agreement. “Ought he to have the lion's share like this?”
“The moneyed man generally takes that. No commodity is sold so far beyond its value as money. Let me read it.”
The purport of the agreement was as follows:—New premises to be built by Bolt, a portion of the building to be constructed so that it could be easily watched night and day, and in that part the patent saw-grinding machines to be worked. The expenses of this building to be paid off by degrees out of the gross receipts, and meanwhile Mr. Bolt was to receive five per cent. interest for his outlay and two-thirds of the profits, if any. Mr. Little to dispose of his present factory, and confine his patents to the joint operation.
Dr. Amboyne, on mature consideration, advised Little to submit to all the conditions, except the clause confining his operations and his patents. They just drew their pen through that clause, and sent the amended agreement to Bolt's hotel. He demurred to the amendment; but Henry stood firm, and proposed a conference of four. This took place at Dr. Amboyne's house, and at last the agreement was thus modified: the use of the patents in Hillsborough to be confined to the firm of Bolt and Little: but Little to be free to sell them, or work them in any other town, and also free, in Hillsborough, to grind saws by hand, or do any other established operation of cutlery.
The parties signed; and Bolt went to work in earnest. With all his resolution, he did not lack prudence. He went into the suburbs for his site and bought a large piece of ground. He advertised for contracts and plans, and brought them all to Henry, and profited by his practical remarks.
He warned the builders it must be a fortress, as well as a factory: but, at Henry's particular request, he withheld the precise reason. “I'm not to be rattened,” said he. “I mean to stop that little game. I'm Ben Bolt, that's bad to beat.”
At last the tender of Mr. White was accepted, and as Mr. Bolt, experienced in the delays of builders, tied him tight as to time, he, on his part, made a prompt and stringent contract with Messrs. Whitbread, the brickmakers, and began to dig the foundations.
All this Henry communicated to Grace, and was in high spirits over it, and then so was she. He had a beautiful frame made for the little picture she had given him, and hung it up in his studio. It became the presiding genius, and indeed the animating spirit, of his life.
Both to him and Grace the bright and hopeful period of their love had come at last. Even Bolt contributed something to Little's happiness. The man, hard as he was in business, was not without a certain rough geniality; and then he was so brisk and bustling. His exuberant energy pleased the inventor, and formed an agreeable relief to his reveries and deep fits of study.
The prospect was bright, and the air sunny. In the midst of all which there rose in the horizon a cloud, like that seen by Elijah's servant, a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.
Bolt burst into the studio one day, like a shell, and, like a shell, exploded.
“Here's a pretty go! We're all at a standstill. The brickmakers have struck.”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“Fourpence. Young Whitbread, our brickmaker's son, is like you—a bit of an inventor; he altered the shape of the bricks, to fit a small hand-machine, and Whitbreads reckoned to save tenpence a thousand. The brickmakers objected directly. Whitbreads didn't want a row, so they offered to share the profit. The men sent two of their orators to parley; I was standing by Whithread when they came up; you should have heard 'em; anybody would have sworn the servants were masters, and the masters negro slaves. When the servants had hectored a bit, the masters, meek and mild, said they would give them sixpence out of the tenpence sooner than they should feel dissatisfied. No; that wouldn't do. 'Well, then,' says young Whitbread, 'are you agreed what will do?' 'Well,' said one of the servants, 'we WILL ALLOW YOU TO MAKE THE BRICKS, if you give us the tenpence.'”
“That was cool,” said Henry. “To be sure, all brainless beggars try to starve invention.”
“Yes, my man: and you grumbled at my taking two-thirds. Labor is harder on you inventors than capital is, you see. Well, I told 'em I wondered at their cheek; but the old man stopped me, and spoke quite mild: says he, 'You are too hard on us; we ought to gain a trifle by our own improvement; if it had come from you, we should pay you for it;' and he should stand by his offer of sixpence. So then the men told them it would be the worse for them, and the old gentleman gave a bit of sigh, and said he couldn't help that, he must live in the trade, or leave it, he didn't much care which. Next morning they all struck work; and there we are—stopped.”
“Well,” said Henry, “it is provoking; but you mustn't ask me to meddle. It's your business.”
“It is, and I'll show you I'm bad to beat.” With this doughty resolve he went off and drove the contractors; they drove the brickmakers, and the brickmakers got fresh hands from a distance, and the promise of some more.
Bolt rubbed his hands, and kept popping into the yard to see how they got on. By this means he witnessed an incident familiar to brickmakers in that district, but new to him. Suddenly loud cries of pain were heard, and two of the brickmakers held up hands covered with blood, and transfixed by needles. Some ruffian had filled the clay with needles. The sufferers were both disabled, and one went to the hospital. Tempered clay enough to make two hundred thousand bricks had been needled, and had to be cleared away at a loss of time and material.
Bolt went and told Henry, and it only worried him; he could do nothing. Bolt went and hired a watchman and a dog, at his own expense. The dog was shot dead one dark night, and the watchman's box turned over and sat upon, watchman included, while the confederates trampled fifty thousand raw bricks into a shapeless mass.
The brickmasters, however, stood firm, and at last four of the old hands returned to him, and accepted the sixpence profit due to the master's invention. These four were contribution-men, that is to say, they paid the union a shilling per week for permission to make bricks; but this weekly payment was merely a sort of blackmail, it entitled them to no relief from the union when out of work: so a three-weeks' strike brought them to starvation, and they could cooperate no longer with the genuine union men, who were relieved from the box all this time. Nevertheless, though their poverty, and not their will, brought them back to work, they were all threatened, and found themselves in a position that merits the sympathy of all men, especially of the very poor. Starvation on one side, sanguinary threats on the other, from an union which abandoned them in their need, yet expected them to stick by it and starve. In short, the said union was no pupil of Amboyne; could not put itself in the place of these hungry men, and realize their dilemma; it could only see the situation from its own point of view. From that intellectual defect sprang a crime. On a certain dark night, Thomas Wilde, one of these contribution-men, was burning bricks all by himself, when a body of seven men came crawling up to within a little distance. These men were what they call “victims,” i.e., men on strike, and receiving pay from the box.
Now, when a man stands against the fire of a kiln, he cannot see many yards from him: so five of the “victims” stood waiting, and sent two forward. These two came up to Wilde, and asked him a favor. “Eh, mister, can you let me and my mate lie down for an hour by your fire?”
“You are welcome,” said honest Wilde. He then turned to break a piece of coal, and instantly one of those who had accepted his hospitality struck him on the back of the head, and the other five rushed in, and they all set on him, and hit him with cartlegs, and kicked him with their heavy shoes. Overpowered as he was, he struggled away from them, groaning and bleeding, and got to a shed about thirty yards off. But these relentless men, after a moment's hesitation, followed him, and rained blows and kicks on him again, till he gave himself up for dead. He cried out in his despair, “Lord, have mercy on me; they have finished me!” and fainted away in a pool of his own blood. But, just before he became insensible, he heard a voice say, “Thou'll burn no more bricks.” Then the “victims” retired, leaving this great criminal for dead.
After a long while he came to himself, and found his arm was broken, and his body covered with cuts and bruises. His house was scarcely a furlong distant, yet he was an hour crawling to it. His room was up a short stair of ten steps. The steps beat him; he leaned on the rail at the bottom, and called out piteously, “My wife! my wife! my wife!” three times.
Mrs. Wilde ran down to him, and caught hold of his hand, and said, “Whatever is to do?”
When she took his hand the pain made him groan, and she felt something drip on to her hand. It was blood from his wounded arm. Then she was terrified, and, strong with excitement, she managed to get him into the house and lay him on the floor. She asked him, had he fallen off the kiln? He tried to reply, but could not, and fainted again. This time he was insensible for several hours. In the morning he came to, and told his cruel story to Whitbread, Bolt, and others. Bolt and Whitbread took it most to heart. Bolt went to Mr. Ransome, and put the case in his hands.
Ransome made this remark:—“Ah, you are a stranger, sir. The folk hereabouts never come to us in these union cases. I'll attend to it, trust me.”
Bolt went with this tragedy to Henry, and it worried him; but he could do nothing. “Mr. Bolt,” said he, “I think you are making your own difficulties. Why quarrel with the Brickmakers' union? Surely that is superfluous.”
“Why, it is them that quarreled with me; and I'm Ben Bolt, that is bad to beat.” He armed himself with gun and revolver, and watched the Whitbreads' yard himself at night.
Two days after this, young Whitbread's wife received an anonymous letter, advising her, as a friend, to avert the impending fate of her husband, by persuading him to dismiss the police and take back his Hands. The letter concluded with this sentence, “He is generally respected; but we have come to a determination to shoot him.”
Young Whitbread took no apparent notice of this, and soon afterward the secretary of the union proposed a conference. Bolt got wind of this, and was there when the orators came. The deputation arrived, and, after a very short preamble, offered to take the six-pence.
“Why,” said Bolt, “you must be joking. Those are the terms poor Wilde came back on, and you have hashed him for it.”
Old Whitbread looked the men in the face, and said, gravely, “You are too late. You have shed that poor man's blood; and you have sent an anonymous letter to my son's wife. That lady has gone on her knees to us to leave the trade, and we have consented. Fifteen years ago, your union wrote letters of this kind to my wife (she was pregnant at the time), and drove her into her grave, with fright and anxiety for her husband. You shall not kill Tom's wife as well. The trade is a poor one at best, thanks to the way you have ground your employers down, and, when you add to that needling our clay, and burning our gear, and beating our servants to death's door, and driving our wives into the grave, we bid you good-by. Mr. Bolt, I'm the sixth brickmaster this union has driven out of the trade by outrages during the last ten years.”
“Thou's a wrong-headed old chap,” said the brickmakers' spokesman; “but thou canst not run away with place. Them as takes to it will have to take us on.”
“Not so. We have sold our plant to the Barton Machine Brickmaking Company; and you maltreated them so at starting that now they won't let a single union man set his foot on their premises.”
The company in question made bricks better and cheaper than any other brickmaster; but, making them by machinery, were ALWAYS at war with the Brickmakers' union, and, whenever a good chance occurred for destroying their property, it was done. They, on their part, diminished those chances greatly by setting up their works five miles from the town, and by keeping armed watchmen and police. Only these ran away with their profits.
Now, when this company came so near the town, and proceeded to work up Whitbread's clay, in execution of the contract with which their purchase saddled them, the Brickmakers' union held a great meeting, in which full a hundred brickmakers took part, and passed extraordinary resolutions, and voted extraordinary sums of money, and recorded both in their books. These books were subsequently destroyed, for a reason the reader can easily divine who has read this narrative with his understanding.
Soon after that meeting, one Kay, a brickmaker, who was never seen to make a brick—for the best of all reasons, he lived by blood alone—was observed reconnoitering the premises, and that very night a quantity of barrows, utensils, and tools were heaped together, naphtha poured over them, and the whole set on fire.
Another dark night, twenty thousand bricks were trampled so noiselessly that the perpetrators were neither seen nor heard.
But Bolt hired more men, put up a notice he would shoot any intruder dead, and so frightened them by his blustering that they kept away, being cowards at bottom, and the bricks were rapidly made, and burnt, and some were even delivered; these bricks were carted from the yard to the building site by one Harris, who had nothing to do with the quarrel; he was a carter by profession, and wheeled bricks for all the world.
One night this poor man's haystack and stable were all in flames in a moment, and unearthly screams issued from the latter.
The man ran out, half-naked, and his first thought was to save his good gray mare from the fire. But this act of humanity had been foreseen and provided against. The miscreants had crept into the stable, and tied the poor docile beast fast by the head to the rack; then fired the straw. Her screams were such as no man knew a horse could utter. They pierced all hearts, however hard, till her burnt body burst the burnt cords, and all fell together. Man could not aid her. But God can avenge her.
As if the poor thing could tell whether she was drawing machine-made bricks, or hand-made bricks!
The incident is painful to relate; but it would be unjust to omit it. It was characteristic of that particular union; and, indeed, without it my reader could not possibly appreciate the brickmaking mind.
Bolt went off with this to Little; but Amboyne was there, and cut his tales short. “I hope,” said he, “that the common Creator of the four-legged animal and the two-legged beasts will see justice done between them; but you must not come here tormenting my inventor with these horrors. Your business is to relieve him of all such worries, and let him invent in peace.”
“Yes,” said Little, “and I have told Mr. Bolt we can't avoid a difficulty with the cutlers. But the brickmakers—what madness to go and quarrel with them! I will have nothing to do with it, Mr. Bolt.”
“The cutlers! Oh, I don't mind them,” said Bolt. “They are angels compared with the brickmakers. The cutlers don't poison cows, and hamstring horses, and tie them to fire; the cutlers don't fling little boys into water-pits, and knock down little girls with their fists, just because their fathers are non-union men; the cutlers don't strew poisoned apples and oranges about, to destroy whole families like rats. Why, sir, I have talked with a man the brickmakers tried to throw into boiling lime; and another they tried to poison with beer, and, when he wouldn't drink it, threw vitriol in his eyes, and he's blind of an eye to this day. There's full half a dozen have had bottles of gunpowder and old nails flung into their rooms, with lighted fuses, where they were sleeping with their families; they call that 'bottling a man;' it's a familiar phrase. I've seen three cripples crawling about that have been set on by numbers and spoiled for life, and as many fired at in the dark; one has got a slug in his head to this day. And, with all that, the greatest cowards in the world—daren't face a man in daylight, any two of them; but I've seen the woman they knocked down with their fists, and her daughter too, a mere child at the time. No, the cutlers are men, but the brickmakers are beasts.”
“All the more reason for avoiding silly quarrels with the brickmakers,” said Little.
Thus snubbed, Mr. Bolt retired, muttering something about “bad to beat.” He found Harris crying over the ashes of his mare, and the man refused to wheel any more machine-made bricks. Other carters, being applied to, refused also. They had received written warning, and dared not wheel one of those bricks for their lives.
The invincible Bolt bought a cart and a horse, hired two strangers, armed them and himself with revolvers, and carted the bricks himself. Five brickmakers waylaid him in a narrow lane; he took out his revolver, and told them he'd send them all to hell if one laid a finger on him; at this rude observation they fled like sheep.
The invincible carted his bricks by day, and at night rode the horse away to an obscure inn, and slept beside him, armed to the teeth.
The result of all which was that one day he burst into Little's studio shouting “Victory!” and told him two hundred thousand bricks were on the premises, and twenty bricklayers would be at work on the foundations that afternoon.
Henry Little was much pleased at that, and when Bolt told him how he had carted the bricks in person, said, “You are the man for me; you really are bad to beat.”
While they were congratulating each other on this hard-earned victory, Mr. Bayne entered softly, and said, “Mr. White—to speak to Mr. Bolt.”
“That is the builder,” said Bolt. “Show him up.”
Mr. White came in with a long face.
“Bad news, gentlemen; the Machine Brickmaking Company retires from business, driven out of trade by their repeated losses from violence.”
“All the worse for the nation,” said Bolt; “houses are a fancy article—got to be. But it doesn't matter to us. We have got bricks enough to go on with.”
“Plenty, sir; but that is not where the shoe pinches now. The Brickmakers' union has made it right with the Bricklayers' union, and the Bricklayers' union orders us to cart back every one of those machine-made bricks to the yard.”
“See them —— first,” said Bolt.
“Well, sir, have you considered the alternative?”
“Not I. What is it?”
“Not a bricklayer in Hillsboro', or for fifty miles round, will set a brick for us; and if we get men from a distance they will be talked away, or driven away, directly. The place is picketed on every side at this moment.”
Even Bolt was staggered now. “What is to be done, I wonder?”
“There's nothing to be done but submit. When two such powerful unions amalgamate, resistance is useless, and the law of the land a dead letter. Mr. Bolt, I'm not a rich man; I've got a large family; let me beg of you to release me from the contract.”
“White, you are a cur. Release you? never!”
“Then, sir, I'll go through the court and release myself.”
Henry Little was much dejected by this monstrous and unforeseen obstacle arising at the very threshold of his hopes. He felt so sad, that he determined to revive himself with a sight of Grace Carden. He pined for her face and voice. So he went up to Woodbine Villa, though it was not his day. As he drew near that Paradise, the door opened, and Mr. Frederick Coventry came out. The two men nearly met at the gate. The rejected lover came out looking bright and happy, and saw the accepted lover arrive, looking depressed and careworn; he saw in a moment something was going wrong, and turned on his heel with a glance of triumph.
Henry Little caught that glance, and stood at the gate black with rage. he stood there about a minute, and then walked slowly home again: he felt he should quarrel with Grace if he went in, and, by a violent effort of self-restraint, he retraced his steps; but he went home sick at heart.
The mother's eye read his worn face in a moment, and soon she had it all out of him. It cost her a struggle not to vent her maternal spleen on Grace; but she knew that would only make her son more unhappy. She advised him minutely what to say to the young lady about Mr. Coventry: and, as to the other matters she said, “You have found Mr. Bolt not so bad to beat as he tells you: for he is beaten, and there's an end of him. Now let ME try.”
“Why, what on earth can you do in a case of this kind?”
“Have I ever failed when you have accepted my assistance?”
“No: that's true. Well, I shall be glad of your assistance now, heaven knows; only I can't imagine—”
“Never mind: will you take Grace Carden if I throw her into your arms?”
“Oh, mother, can you ask me?”
Mrs. Little rang the bell, and ordered a fly. Henry offered to accompany her. She declined. “Go to bed early,” said she, “and trust to your mother. We are harder to beat sometimes than a good many Mr. Bolts.”
She drove to Dr. Amboyne's house, and sent in her name. She was ushered into the doctor's study, and found him shivering over an enormous fire. “Influenza.”
“Oh dear,” said she, “I'm afraid you are very ill.”
“Never mind that. Sit down. You will not make me any worse, you may be sure of that.” And he smiled affectionately on her.
“But I came to intrude my own troubles on you.”
“All the better. That will help me forget mine.”
Mrs. Little seated herself, and, after a slight hesitation, opened her battery thus:—“Well, my good friend, I am come to ask you a favor. It is to try and reconcile my brother and me. If any one can do it, you can.”
“Praise the method, not the man. If one could only persuade you to put yourself in his place, and him to put himself in yours, you would be both reconciled in five minutes.”
“You forget we have been estranged this five-and-twenty years.”
“No I don't. The only question is, whether you can and will deviate from the practice of the world into an obese lunatic's system, both of you.”
“Try ME, to begin.”
The doctor's eyes sparkled with satisfaction. “Well, then,” said he, “first you must recollect all the differences you have seen between the male and female mind, and imagine yourself a man.”
“Oh, dear! that is so hard. But I have studied Henry. Well, there—I have unsexed myself—in imagination.”
“You are not only a man but a single-minded man, with a high and clear sense of obligation. You are a trustee, bound by honor to protect the interests of a certain woman and a certain child. The lady, under influence, wishes to borrow her son's money, and risk it on rotten security. You decline, and the lady's husband affronts you. In spite of that affront, being a high-minded man not to be warped by petty irritation, you hurry to your lawyers to get two thousand pounds of your own, for the man who had affronted you.”
“Is that so?” said Mrs. Little. “I was not aware of that.”
“I have just learned it, accidentally, from the son of the solicitor Raby went to that fatal night.”
A tear stole down Mrs. Little's cheek.
“Now, remember, you are not a woman, but a brave, high-minded man. In that character you pity poor Mr. Little, but you blame him a little because he fled from trouble, and left his wife and child in it. To you, who are Guy Raby—mind that, please—it seems egotistical and weak to desert your wife and child even for the grave.” (The widow buried her face and wept. Twenty-five years do something to withdraw the veil the heart has cast over the judgment.) “But, whatever you feel, you utter only regret, and open your arms to your sister. She writes back in an agony, for which, being a man, you can not make all the allowance you would if you were a woman, and denounces you as her husband's murderer, and bids you speak to her and write to her no more, and with that she goes to the Littles. Can you blame yourself that, after all this, you wait for her to review your conduct more soberly, and to invite a reconciliation.”
Mrs. Little gave Dr. Amboyne her hand, “Bitter, but wholesome medicine!” she murmured, and then was too overcome to speak for a little while.
“Ah, my good, wise friend!” said she at last, “thick clouds seem clearing from my mind; I begin to see I was the one to blame.”
“Yes; and if Raby will be as docile as you, and put himself in your place, he will tell me he was the one to blame. There's no such thing as 'the one to blame;' there very seldom is. You judged him as if he was a woman, he judged you as if you were a man. Enter an obese maniac, and applies the art of arts; the misunderstanding dissolves under it, and you are in each other's arms. But, stop”—and his countenance fell again a little: “I am afraid there is a new difficulty. Henry's refusal to take the name of Raby and be his heir. Raby was bitterly mortified, and I fear he blames me and my crotchets; for he has never been near me since. To be sure you are not responsible for Henry's act.”
“No, indeed; for, between you and me, it mortified me cruelly. And now things have taken a turn—in short, what with his love, and his jealousy, and this hopeless failure to make a fortune by inventing, I feel I can bring him to his senses. I am not pleased with Grace Carden about something; but no matter, I shall call on her and show her she must side with me in earnest. You will let my brother know I was always on his side in THAT matter, whatever other offense I may have given him years ago.”
“And I am on your side, too. Your son has achieved a small independence. Bayne can carry on the little factory, and Henry can sell or lease his patents; he can never sink to a mere dependent. There, I throw my crotchets to the wind, and we will Raby your son, and marry him to Grace Carden.”
“God bless you, my good and true friend! How can I ever thank you?” Her cheek flushed, and her great maternal eye sparkled, and half the beauty of her youth came back. Her gratitude gave a turn to the conversation which she neither expected nor desired.
“Mrs. Little,” said Dr. Amboyne, “this is the first time you have entered my den, and the place seems transformed by your presence. My youth comes back to me with the feelings I thought time had blunted; but no, I feel that, when you leave my den again, it will be darker than ever, if you do not leave me a hope that you will one day enter it for good.”
“For shame! At our age!—” said the widow.
But she spoilt the remonstrance by blushing like a girl of eighteen.
“You are not old in my eyes; and, as for me, let my years plead for me, since all those years I have lived single for your sake.”
This last appeal shook Mrs. Little. She said she could not entertain any such thoughts whilst her son was unhappy. “But marry him to his Grace, and then—I don't know what folly I might not be persuaded into.”
The doctor was quite content with that. He said he would go to Raby, as soon as he could make the journey with safety, and her troubles and her son's should end.
Mrs. Little drove home, a happy mother. As for the promise she had made her old friend, it vexed her a little, she was so used to look at him in another light; but she shrugged her maternal shoulders, as much as to say, “When once my Henry leaves me—why not?”
She knew she must play the politician a little with Henry, so she opened the battery cautiously. “My dear,” said she, at breakfast, “good news! Dr. Amboyne undertakes to reconcile us both to your uncle.”
“All the better. Mr. Raby is a wrong-headed man, but he is a noble-minded one, that is certain.”
“Yes, and I have done him injustice. Dr. Amboyne has shown me that.”
She said no more. One step at a time.
Henry went up to Woodbine Villa and Grace received him a little coldly. He asked what was the matter. She said, “They tell me you were at the very door the other day, and did not come in.”
“It is true,” said he. “Another had just come out—Mr. Coventry.”
“And you punished ME because that poor man had called on me. Have you not faith in me? or what is it? I shall be angry one of these days.”
“No, you will not, if I can make you understand my feelings. Put yourself in my place, dearest. Here am I, fighting the good fight for you, against long odds; and, at last, the brickmakers and bricklayers have beat us. Now you know that is a bitter cup for me to drink. Well, I come up here for my one drop of comfort; and out walks my declared rival, looks into my face, sees my trouble there, and turns off with a glance of insolent triumph.” (Grace flushed.) “And then consider: I am your choice, yet I am only allowed to visit you once a week.”
“That is papa's doing.”
“No matter; so it is. Yet my rival can come when he pleases: and no doubt he does come every other day.”
“You fancy that.”
“It is not all fancy; for—by heaven! there he is at the gate. Two visits to my one; there. Well, all the better, I'll talk to HIM.”
He rose from his seat black with wrath.
Grace turned pale, and rang the bell in a moment.
The servant entered the room, just as Mr. Coventry knocked at the door.
“Not at home to anybody,” said she.
Mr. Coventry's voice was heard to say incredulously, “Not at home?” Then he retired slowly, and did not leave the neighborhood. He had called at an hour when Grace was always at home.
Henry sat down, and said, “Thank you, Grace.” But he looked very gloomy and disturbed.
She sat down too, and then they looked at each other.
Henry was the first to speak. “We are both pupils of the good doctor. Put yourself in my place. That man troubles our love, and makes my heavy heart a sore heart.”
The tears were in Grace's eyes. “Dearest,” said she, “I will not put myself in your place; you would lose by that, for I love you better than myself. Yes, it is unjust that you should be allowed to visit me but once a week, and he should visit me when he chooses. I assure you I have permitted his visits out of pure good-nature; and now I will put an end to them.”
She drew her desk toward her, and wrote to Mr. Coventry. It took her some little time. She handed Henry the letter to read. He took it in his hand; but hesitated. He inquired what would be the effect of it?
“That he will never visit me again till you and I are married, or engaged, and that is the same thing. Why don't you read it?”
“I don't know: it goes against me, somehow. Seems unmanly. I'll take your word for it.”
This charmed Grace. “Ah,” said she, “I have chosen right.”
Then he kissed her hands, and blessed her: and then she told him it was nothing; he was a goose, and had no idea what she would do for him; “more than you would do for me, I know,” said she.
That he denied, and then she said she might perhaps put him to the proof some day.
They were so happy together, time slipped away unheeded. It was full three hours before Henry could tear himself away, though he knew he was wanted at the works; and he went out at the gate, glowing with happiness: and Coventry, who was ready to drop with the fatigue of walking and watching just above, saw him come out triumphant.
Then it was his turn to feel a deadly qualm. However, he waited a little longer, and then made his call.
“Not at home.”
Henry, on his way to the works, looked in on his mother, and told her how nobly Grace had behaved.
Mrs. Little was pleased, and it smoothed down her maternal bristles, and made it much easier for her to carry out her design. For the first time since Mr. Carden had offended her by his cold-blooded treatment of her son, she called at Woodbine Villa.
Grace was at home to see her, and met her with a blushing timidity, and piteous, wistful looks, not easy to misunderstand nor to resist.
They soon came to an understanding, and Mrs. Little told Grace what Dr. Amboyne had promised to do, and represented to her how much better it would be for Henry to fall into his uncle Raby's views, than to engage in hopeless struggles like that in which Mr. Bolt and he had just been so signally defeated. “And then, you know, my dear, you could marry next month—you two; that is to say, if YOU felt disposed: I will answer for Henry.”
Grace's red face and swimming eyes told how this shaft went home. In short, she made a coy promise that she would co-operate with Mrs. Little “and,” said she, “how lucky! he has almost promised to grant me the first favor I ask him. Well, I shall entreat him to be a good nephew, and do whatever dear Mr. Raby asks him. But of course I shall not say, and then if you do, you and I”—here the young lady cut her sentence very short.
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Little. “THAT will follow as a matter of course. Now, my dear, you and I are conspirators—for his good: and we must write often and let each other know all we do.”
With this understanding, and a good many pretty speeches and kisses, they parted.
Dr. Amboyne did not recover so quickly as they could have wished; but they employed the interval. Feelers were adroitly applied to Henry by both ladies, and they were pleased to find that he rather admired his wrong-headed uncle, and had been deeply touched by the old gentleman's address to his mother's picture.
Bolt never came near him, and the grass was beginning to grow on the condemned bricks. In short, every thing seemed to incline in one direction.
There was, however, something very serious going on out of their sight.
“Not at home!” That white lie made Mr. Coventry feel sick at heart. He went home disconsolate. The same evening he received Miss Carden's letter.
The writer treated him like a gentleman, said a few words about her own peculiar position, and begged him to consider that position, and to be very generous; to cease his visits entirely for the present, and so give himself one more title to her esteem, which was all she had to give him. This was the purport, and the manner was simply perfect, so gentle yet firm; and then she flattered his amour propre by asking that from his generosity which she could have taken as a right: she did all she could to soften the blow. But she failed. The letter was posted too soon after Henry's visit. Behind the velvet paw that struck him, Coventry saw the claws of the jealous lover. He boiled with rage and agony, and cursed them both in his fury.
After an hour or two of frenzy, he sat down and wrote back a letter full of bitter reproaches and sneers. He reflected. He lighted a cigar and smoked it, biting it almost through, now and then. He burned his letter. He lay awake all night, raging and reflecting alternately, as passion or judgment got the upper hand.
In the morning he saw clearer. “Don't quarrel with HER. Destroy HIM.” He saw this as plainly as if it was written.
He wrote Grace a few sad lines, to say that of course he submitted to her will. The letter ended thus: “Since I can do nothing to please you, let me suffer to please you: even that is something.”
(This letter brought the tears to Grace's eyes, and she pitied and esteemed the writer.)
He put on a plain suit, and drove into Hillsborough, burning with wild ideas of vengeance. He had no idea what he should do; but he was resolved to do something. He felt capable of assassinating Little with his own hand.
I should be sorry to gain any sympathy for him; but it is only fair the reader should understand that he felt deeply aggrieved, and that we should all feel aggrieved under similar circumstances. Priority is a title, all the world over; and he had been the lady's lover first, had been encouraged, and supplanted.
Longing to wound, but not knowing how to strike, he wandered about the town, and went into several factories, and talked to some of the men, and contrived to bring the conversation round to Little, and learn what he was doing. But he gathered no information of any use to him. Then he went to Grotait's place, and tried to pump him. That sagacious man thought this odd, and immediately coupled this with his previous denunciation of Little, and drew him on.
Coventry was too much under the influence of passion to be quite master of himself that day; and he betrayed to this other Machiavel that he wished ill to Henry Little. As soon as he had thoroughly ascertained this, Grotrait turned coolly on him, and said, “I am sorry Mr. Little has got enemies; for he and his partner talk of building a new factory, and that will be a good thing for us: take a score of saw-grinders off the box.” Then Coventry saw he had made a mistake, and left “The Cutlers' Arms” abruptly.
Next day he took a lodging in the town, and went about groping for information, and hunting for a man whose face he knew, but not his name. He learned all about Bolt and Little's vain endeavor to build, and went and saw the place, and the condemned bricks. The sight gratified him. He visited every saw-grinder's place he could hear of; and, at last, he fell in with Sam Cole, and recognized him at once. That worthy affected not to know him, and went on grinding a big saw. Coventry stepped up to him, and said in his ear, “I want to speak with you. Make an appointment.”
Cole looked rather sulky and reluctant at being drawn from his obscurity. However, he named a low public-house in a back slum, and there these two met that night, and for greater privacy were soon seated in a place bigger than a box and smaller than a room with discolored walls, and a rough wooden table before them splashed with beer. It looked the very den to hatch villainy in, and drink poison to its success.
Coventry, pale and red alternately, as fear and shame predominated, began to beat about the bush.
“You and I have reason to hate the same man. You know who I mean.”
“I can guess. Begins with a Hel.”
“He has wronged me deeply; and he hurt you.”
“That is true, sir. I think he broke my windpipe, for I'm as hoarse as a raven ever since: and I've got one or two of the shot in my cheek still.”
“Well, then, now is your time to be revenged.”
“Well, I don't know about that. What he done was in self-defense; and if I play bowls I must look for rubs.”
Coventry bit his lip with impatience. After a pause, he said, “What were you paid for that job?”
“Not half enough.”
“Twenty pounds?”
“Nor nothing like it.”
“I'll give you a hundred to do it again, only more effectually.” He turned very pale when he had made this offer.
“Ah,” said Cole, “anybody could tell you was a gentleman.”
“You accept my offer, then?”
“Nay, I mean it is easy to see you don't know trades. I musn't meddle with Mr. Little now; he is right with the Trade.”
“What, not if I pay you five times as much? say ten times then; two hundred pounds.”
“Nay, we union chaps are not malefactors. You can't buy us to injure an unoffending man. We have got our laws, and they are just ones, and, if a man will break them, after due warning, the order is given to 'do' him, and the men are named for the job, and get paid a trifle for their risk; and the risk is not much, the Trade stand by one another too true, and in so many ways. But if a man is right with the Trade, it is treason to harm him. No, I mustn't move a finger against Little.”
“You have set up a conscience!” said Coventry bitterly.
“You dropped yours, and I picked it up,” was the Yorkshireman's ready reply. He was nettled now.
At this moment the door was opened and shut very swiftly, and a whisper came in through the momentary aperture, “Mind your eye, Sam Cole.”
Coventry rushed to the door and looked out; there was nobody to be seen.
“You needn't trouble yourself,” said Cole. “You might as well run after the wind. That was a friendly warning. I know the voice, and Grotait must be on to us. Now, sir, if you offered me a thousand pounds, I wouldn't touch a hair of Mr. Little: he is right with the Trade, and we should have Grotait and all the Trade as bitter as death against us. I'll tell you a secret, sir, that I've kept from my wife”—(he lowered his voice to a whisper)—“Grotait could hang me any day he chose. You must chink your brass in some other ear, as the saying is: only mind, you did me a good turn once, and I'll do you one now; you have been talking to somebody else besides me, and blown yourself: so now drop your little game, and let Little alone, or the Trade will make it their job to LAY YOU.”
Coventry's face betrayed so much alarm, that the man added, “And penal servitude wouldn't suit the likes of you. Keep out of it.”
With this rough advice the conference ended, and Mr. Coventry went home thoroughly shaken in his purpose, and indeed not a little anxious on his own account. Suppose he had been overheard! his offer to Cole was an offense within reach of the criminal law. What a mysterious labyrinth was this Trade confederacy, into which he had put his foot so rashly, and shown his game, like a novice, to the subtle and crafty Grotait. He now collected all his powers, not to injure Little, but to slip out of his own blunder.
He seized this opportunity to carry out a coup he had long meditated: he went round to a dozen timber-merchants, and contracted with them for the sale of every tree, old or young, on his estate; and, while the trees were falling like grain, and the agents on both sides measuring the fallen, he vanished entirely from Hillsborough and Bollinghope.
Dr. Amboyne's influenza was obstinate, and it was nearly a fortnight before he was strong enough to go to Cairnhope; but at last Mrs. Little received a line from him, to say he was just starting, and would come straight to her on his return: perhaps she would give him a cup of tea.
This letter came very opportunely. Bolt had never shown his face again; and Henry had given up all hopes of working his patents, and had said more than once he should have to cross the water and sell them.
As for Mrs. Little, she had for some time maintained a politic silence. But now she prepared for the doctor's visit as follows: “So, then, you have no more hopes from the invincible Mr. Bolt?”
“None whatever. He must have left the town in disgust.”
“He is a wise man. I want you to imitate his example. Henry, my dear, what is the great object of your life at present? Is it not to marry Grace Carden?”
“You know it is.”
“Then take her from my hands. Why do you look so astonished? Have you forgotten my little boast?” Then, in a very different tone, “You will love your poor mother still, when you are married? You will say, 'I owe her my wife,' will you not?”
Henry was so puzzled he could not reply even to this touching appeal, made with eyes full of tears at the thought of parting with him.
Mrs. Little proceeded to explain: “Let me begin at the beginning. Dr. Amboyne has shown me I was more to blame than your uncle, was. Would you believe it? although he refused your poor father the trust-money, he went that moment to get L2000 of his own, and lend it to us. Oh, Henry, when Dr Amboyne told me that, and opened my eyes, I could have thrown myself at poor Guy's feet. I have been the most to blame in our unhappy quarrel; and I have sent Dr. Amboyne to say so. Now, Henry, my brother will forgive me, the doctor says; and, oh, my heart yearns to be reconciled. You will not stand in my way, dearest?”
“Not likely. Why, I am under obligations to him, for my part.”
“Yes, but Dr. Amboyne says dear Guy is deeply mortified by your refusal to be his heir. For my sake, for your own sake, and for Grace Carden's sake; change your mind now.”
“What, go into his house, and wait for dead men's shoes! Find myself some day wishing in my heart that noble old fellow would die! Such a life turns a man's stomach even to think of it.”
“No, no. Dr. Amboyne says that Mr. Bayne can conduct your business here, and hand you a little income, without your meddling.”
“That is true.”
“And, as for your patents, gentlemen can sell them to traders, or lease them out. My brother would make a settlement on Grace and you—she is his goddaughter—now that is all Mr. Carden demands. Then you could marry, and, on your small present income, make a little tour together; and dispose of your patents in other places.”
“I could do great things with them in the United States.”
“That is a long way.”
“Why, it is only twelve days.”
“Well, marry first,” said the politic mother.
Henry flushed all over. “Ah!” said he, “you tempt me. Heaven seems to open its gates as you speak. But you can not be in earnest; he made it an express condition I should drop my father's name, and take his. Disown my poor dead father? No, no, no!”
Now in reality this condition was wormwood to Mrs. Little; but she knew that if she let her son see her feeling, all was over. She was all the mother now, and fighting for her son's happiness: so she sacrificed truth to love with an effort, but without a scruple. “It is not as if it was a strange name. Henry, you compel me to say things that tear my heart to say, but—which has been your best friend, your mother, or your poor dear father?”
Henry was grieved at the question: but he was a man who turned his back on nothing. “My father loved me,” said he: “I can remember that; but he deserted me, and you, in trouble; but you—you have been friend, parent, lover, and guardian angel to me. And, oh, how little I have done to deserve it all!”
“Well, dear, the mother you value so highly, her name was Raby. Yes, love; and, forgive me, I honor and love my mother's name even more than I do the name of Little”—(the tears ran out of her eyes at this falsehood)—“pray take it, to oblige me, and reconcile me to my dear brother, and end our troubles forever.” Then she wept on his neck, and he cried with her.
After a while, he said, “I feel my manhood all melting away together. I am quite confused. It is hard to give up a noble game. It is hard to refuse such a mother as you. Don't cry any more, for mercy's sake! I'm like to choke. Mind, crying is work I'm not used to. What does SHE say? I am afraid I shall win her, but lose her respect.”
“She says she admires your pride; but you have shown enough. If you refuse any longer, she will begin to fear you don't love her as well as she loves you.”
This master-stroke virtually ended the battle. Henry said nothing, but the signs of giving way were manifest in him, so manifest that Mrs. Little became quite impatient for the doctor's arrival to crown all.
He drove up to the door at last, and Henry ran out and brought him in. He looked pale, and sat down exhausted.
Mrs. Little restrained her impatience, and said, “We are selfish creatures to send you on our business before you are half well.”
“I am well enough in health,” said he, “but I am quite upset.”
“What is the matter? Surely you have not failed? Guy does not refuse his forgiveness?”
“No, it is not that. Perhaps, if I had been in time—but the fact is, Guy Raby has left England.”
“What, for good? Impossible!”
“Who can tell? All I know is that he has sold his horses, discharged his servants all but one, and gone abroad without a word. I was the friend of his youth—his college chum; he must be bitterly wounded to go away like that, and not even let me know.”
Mrs. Little lifted up her hands. “What have we done? what have we done? Wounded! no wonder. Oh, my poor, wronged, insulted brother!”
She wept bitterly, and took it to heart so, it preyed on her health and spirits. She was never the same woman from that hour.
While her son and her friend were saying all they could to console her, there appeared at the gate the last man any of them ever expected to see—Mr. Bolt.
Henry saw him first, and said so.
“Keep him out,” cried the doctor, directly. “Don't let that bragging fool in to disturb our sorrow.” He opened the door and told the servant-girl to say “Not at home.”
“Not at home,” said the girl.
“That's a lie!” shouted Bolt, and shoved her aside and burst into the room. “None of your tricks on travelers,” said he, in his obstreperous way. “I saw your heads through the window. Good news, my boy! I've done the trick. I wouldn't say a word till it was all settled, for Brag's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better. I've sold my building-site to some gents that want to speculate in a church, and I've made five hundred pounds profit by the sale. I'm always right, soon or late. And I've bought a factory ready made—the Star Works; bought 'em, sir, with all the gear and plant, and working hands.”
“The Star Works? The largest but one in Hillsborough!”
“Ay, lad. Money and pluck together, they'll beat the world. We have got a noble place, with every convenience. All we have got to do now is to go in and win.”
Young Little's eyes sparkled. “All right,” said he, “I like this way the best.”
Mrs. Little sighed.
In that part of London called “the City” are shady little streets, that look like pleasant retreats from the busy, noisy world; yet are strongholds of business.
One of these contained, and perhaps still contains, a public office full of secrets, some droll, some sad, some terrible. The building had a narrow, insignificant front, but was of great depth, and its south side lighted by large bay windows all stone and plate-glass; and these were open to the sun and air, thanks to a singular neighbor. Here, in the heart of the City, was wedged a little rustic church, with its church-yard, whose bright-green grass first startled, then soothed and refreshed the eye, in that wilderness of stone—an emerald set in granite. The grass flowed up to the south wall of the “office;” those massive stone windows hung over the graves; the plumed clerks could not look out of window and doubt that all men are mortal: and the article the office sold was immortality.
It was the Gosshawk Life Insurance.
On a certain afternoon anterior to the Hillsborough scenes last presented, the plumed clerks were all at the south windows, looking at a funeral in the little church-yard, and passing some curious remarks; for know that the deceased was insured in the Gosshawk for nine hundred pounds, and had paid but one premium.
The facts, as far as known, were these. Mr. Richard Martin, a Londoner by birth, but residing in Wales, went up to London to visit his brother. Toward the end of the visit the two Martins went up the river in a boat, with three more friends, and dined at Richmond. They rowed back in the cool of the evening. At starting they were merely jovial; but they stopped at nearly all the public-houses by the water-side, and, by visible gradations, became jolly—uproarious—sang songs—caught crabs. At Vauxhall they got a friendly warning, and laughed at it: under Southwark bridge they ran against an abutment, and were upset in a moment: it was now dusk, and, according to their own account, they all lost sight of each other in the water. One swam ashore in Middlesex, another in Surrey, a third got to the chains of a barge, and was taken up much exhausted, and Robert Martin laid hold of the buttress itself, and cried loudly for assistance. They asked anxiously after each other, but their anxiety appeared to subside in an hour or two, when they found there was nobody missing but Richard Martin. Robert told the police it was all right, Dick could swim like a cork. However, next morning he came with a sorrowful face to say his brother had not reappeared, and begged them to drag the river. This was done, and a body found, which the survivors and Mrs. Richard Martin disowned.
The insurance office was informed, and looked into the matter; and Mrs. Martin told their agent, with a flood of tears, she believed her husband had taken that opportunity to desert her, and was not drowned at all. Of course this went to the office directly.
But a fortnight afterward a body was found in the water down at Woolwich, entangled in some rushes by the water-side.
Notice was given to all the survivors.
The friends of Robert Martin came, and said the clothes resembled those worn by Richard Martin; but beyond that they could not be positive.
But, when the wife came, she recognized the body at once.
The brother agreed with her, but, on account of the bloated and discolored condition of the face, asked to have the teeth examined: his poor brother, he said, had a front tooth broken short in two. This broken tooth was soon found; also a pencil-case, and a key, in the pocket of the deceased. These completed the identification.
Up to this moment the conduct of Richard Martin's relatives and friends had been singularly apathetic; but now all was changed; they broke into loud lamentations, and he became the best of husbands, best of men: his lightest words were sacred. Robert Martin now remembered that “poor Dick” had stood and looked into that little church-yard and said, “If you outlive me, Bob, bury me in this spot; father lies here.” So Robert Martin went to the church-warden, for leave to do this last sad office. The church-warden refused, very properly, but the brother's entreaties, the widow's tears, the tragedy itself, and other influences, extorted at last a reluctant consent, coupled with certain sanatory conditions.
The funeral was conducted unobtrusively, and the grave dug out of sight of Gosshawk. But of course it could not long escape observation; that is to say, it was seen by the clerks; but the directors and manager were all seated round a great table upstairs absorbed in a vital question, viz., whether or not the Gosshawk should imitate some other companies, and insure against fire as well as death. It was the third and last discussion; the minority against this new operation was small, but obstinate and warm, and the majority so absorbed in bringing them to reason, that nobody went to the window until the vote had passed, and the Gosshawk was a Life and Fire Insurance. Then some of the gentlemen rose and stretched their legs, and detected the lugubrious enormity. “Hallo!” cried Mr. Carden, and rang a bell. Edwards, an old clerk, appeared, and, in reply to Mr. Carden, told him it was one of their losses being buried—Richard Martin.
Mr. Carden said this was an insult to the office, and sent Edwards out to remonstrate.
Edwards soon reappeared with Robert Martin, who represented, with the utmost humility, that it was the wish of the deceased, and they had buried him, as ordered, in three feet of charcoal.
“What, is the ceremony performed?”
“Yes, sir, all but filling in the grave. Come and see the charcoal.”
“Hang the charcoal!”
“Well,” said the humane but somewhat pompous director, “if the ceremony has gone so far—but, Mr. Martin, this must never recur, charcoal or no charcoal.”
Mr. Martin promised it never should: and was soon after observed in the church-yard urging expedition.
The sad company speedily dispersed, and left nothing to offend nor disgust the Life and Fire Insurance, except a new grave, and a debt of nine hundred pounds to the heirs or assigns of Richard Martin.
Not very far from this church-yard was a public-house; and in that public-house a small parlor upstairs, and in that parlor a man, who watched the funeral rites with great interest; but not in a becoming spirit; for his eyes twinkled with the intensest merriment all the time, and at each fresh stage of the mournful business he burst into peals of laughter. Never was any man so thoroughly amused in the City before, at all events in business hours.
Richard Martin's executor waited a decent time, and then presented his claim to the Gosshawk. His brother proved a lien on it for L300 and the rest went by will to his wife. The Gosshawk paid the money after the delay accorded by law.
Messrs. Bolt and Little put their heads together, and played a prudent game. They kept the works going for a month, without doing anything novel, except what tended to the health and comfort of their workmen.
But, meantime, they cleared out two adjacent rooms: one was called the studio, the other the experiment-room.
In due course they hired a couple of single men from Birmingham to work the machine under lock and key.
Little with his own hands, affected an aperture in the party-wall, and thus conveyed long saws from his studio to the machine, and received them back ground.
Then men were lodged three miles off, were always kept at work half an hour later than the others, and received six pounds per week apiece, on pain of instant dismissal should they breathe a syllable. They did the work of twenty-four men; so even at that high rate of wages, the profit was surprising. It actually went beyond the inventor's calculation, and he saw himself at last on the road to rapid fortune, and, above all, to Grace Carden.
This success excited Bolt's cupidity, and he refused to contract the operation any longer.
Then the partners had a quarrel, and nearly dissolved. However, it ended in Little dismissing his Birmingham hands and locking up his “experiment-room,” and in Bolt openly devoting another room to the machines: two long, two circular.
These machines coined money, and Bolt chuckled and laughed at his partner's apprehensions for the space of twenty-one days.
On the twenty-second day, the Saw-grinders' union, which had been stupefied at first, but had now realized the situation, sent Messrs. Bolt and Little a letter, civil and even humble; it spoke of the new invention as one that, if adopted, would destroy their handicraft, and starve the craftsmen and their families, and expressed an earnest hope that a firm which had shown so much regard for the health and comfort of the workmen would not persist in a fatal course, on which they had entered innocently and for want of practical advice.
The partners read this note differently. Bolt saw timidity in it. Little saw a conviction, and a quiet resolution, that foreboded a stern contest.
No reply was sent, and the machines went on coining.
Then came a warning to Little, not violent, but short, and rather grim. Little took it to Bolt, and he treated it with contempt.
Two days afterward the wheel-bands vanished, and the obnoxious machines stood still.
Little was for going to Grotait, to try and come to terms. Bolt declined. He bought new bands, and next day the machines went on again.
This pertinacity soon elicited a curious epistle:
“MESSRS. BOLT AND LITTLE,—When the blood is in an impure state, brimstone and treacle is applied as a mild purgative; our taking the bands was the mild remedy; but, should the seat of disease not be reached, we shall take away the treacle, and add to the brimstone a necessary quantity of saltpetre and charcoal.
“TANTIA TOPEE.”
On receipt of this, Little, who had tasted the last-mentioned drugs, showed such undisguised anxiety that Bolt sent for Ransome. He came directly, and was closeted with the firm. Bolt handed him the letters, told him the case, and begged leave to put him a question. “Is the police worth any thing, or nothing, in this here town?”
“It is worth something, I hope, gentlemen.”
“How much, I wonder? Of all the bands that have been stolen, and all the people that have been blown up, and scorched and vitrioled, and shot at, and shot, by union men, did ever you and your bobbies nail a single malefactor?”
Now Mr. Ransome was a very tall man, with a handsome, dignified head, a long black beard, and pleasant, dignified manners. When short, round, vulgar Mr. Bolt addressed him thus, it really was like a terrier snapping at a Newfoundland dog. Little felt ashamed, and said Mr. Ransome had been only a few months in office in the place. “Thank you, Mr. Little,” said the chief constable. “Mr Bolt, I'll ask you a favor. Meet me at a certain place this evening, and let me reply to your question then and there.”
This singular proposal excited some curiosity, and the partners accepted the rendezvous. Ransome came to the minute, and took the partners into the most squalid part of this foul city. At the corner of a narrow street he stepped and gave a low whistle. A policeman in plain clothes came to him directly.
“They are both in the 'Spotted Dog,' sir, with half a dozen more.”
“Follow me, and guard the door. Will you come, too, gentlemen?”
The “Spotted Dog” was a low public, with one large room and a sanded floor. Mr. Ransome walked in and left the door open, so that his three companions heard and saw all that passed.
“Holland and Cheetham, you are wanted.”
“What for?”
“Wilde's affair. He has come to himself, and given us your names.”
On this the two men started up and were making for the door. Ransome whipped before it. “That won't do.”
Then there was a loud clatter of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a knife or two drawn; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous click of a pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that weapon. “Come, no nonsense,” said he. “Door's guarded, street's guarded, and I'm not to be trifled with.”
He then handed his pistol to the officer outside with an order, and, stepping back suddenly, collared Messrs. Holland and Cheetham with one movement, and, with a powerful rush, carried them out of the house in his clutches. Meantime the policeman had whistled, there was a conflux of bobbies, and the culprits were handcuffed and marched off to the Town Hall.
“Five years' penal servitude for that little lot,” said Ransome.
“And now, Mr. Bolt, I have answered your question to the best of my ability.”
“You have answered it like a man. Will you do as much for us?”
“I'll do my best. Let me examine the place now that none of them are about.”
Bolt and Ransome went together, but Little went home: he had an anxiety even more pressing, his mother's declining health. She had taken to pining and fretting ever since Dr. Amboyne brought the bad news from Cairnhope; and now, instead of soothing and consoling her son, she needed those kind offices from him; and, I am happy to say, she received them. He never spent an evening away from her. Unfortunately he did not succeed in keeping up her spirits, and the sight of her lowered his own.
At this period Grace Carden was unmixed comfort to him; she encouraged him to encroach a little, and visit her twice a week instead of once, and she coaxed him to confide all his troubles to her. He did so; he concealed from his mother that he was at war with the trade again, but he told Grace everything, and her tender sympathy was the balm of his life. She used to put on cheerfulness for his sake, even when she felt it least.
One day, however, he found her less bright than usual, and she showed him an advertisement—Bollinghope house and park for sale; and she was not old enough nor wise enough to disguise from him that this pained her. Some expressions of regret and pity fell from her; that annoyed Henry, and he said, “What is that to us?”
“Nothing to you: but I feel I am the cause. I have not used him well, that's certain.”
Henry said, rather cavalierly, that Mr. Coventry was probably selling his house for money, not for love, and (getting angry) that he hoped never to hear the man's name mentioned again.
Grace Carden was a little mortified by his tone, but she governed herself and said sadly, “My idea of love was to be able to tell you every thought of my heart, even where my conscience reproaches me a little. But if you prefer to exclude one topic—and have no fear that it may lead to the exclusion of others—”
They were on the borders of a tiff; but Henry recovered himself and said firmly, “I hope we shall not have a thought unshared one day; but, just for the present, it will be kinder to spare me that one topic.”
“Very well, dearest,” said Grace. “And, if it had not been for the advertisement—” she said no more, and the thing passed like a dark cloud between the lovers.
Bollinghope house and park were actually sold that very week; they were purchased, at more than their value, by a wealthy manufacturer: and the proceeds of this sale and the timber cleared off all Coventry's mortgages, and left him with a few hundred pounds in cash, and an estate which had not a tree on it, but also had not a debt upon it.
Of course he forfeited, by this stroke, his position as a country gentleman; but that he did not care about, since it was all done with one view, to live comfortably in Paris far from the intolerable sight of his rival's happiness with the lady he loved.
He bought in at the sale a few heirlooms and articles of furniture—who does not cling, at the last moment, to something of this kind?—and rented a couple of unfurnished rooms in Hillsborough to keep them in. He fixed the day of his departure, arranged his goods, and packed his clothes. Then he got a letter of credit on Paris, and went about the town buying numerous articles of cutlery.
But this last simple act led to strange consequences. He was seen and followed; and in the dead of the evening, as he was cording with his own hands a box containing a few valuables, a heavy step mounted the stair, and there was a rude knock at the door.
Mr. Coventry felt rather uncomfortable, but he said, “Come in.”
The door was opened, and there stood Sam Cole.
Coventry received him ill. He looked up from his packing and said, “What on earth do you want, sir?”
But it was not Cole's business to be offended. “Well, sir,” said he, “I've been looking out for you some time, and I saw you at our place; so I thought I'd come and tell you a bit o' news.”
“What is that?”
“It is about him you know of; begins with a hel.”
“Curse him! I don't want to hear about him. I'm leaving the country. Well, what is it?”
“He is wrong with the trade again.”
“What is that to me?—Ah! sit down, Cole, and tell me.”
Cole let him know the case, and assured him that, sooner or later, if threats did not prevail, the union would go any length.
“Should you be employed?”
“If it was a dangerous job, they'd prefer me.”
Mr. Coventry looked at his trunks, and then at Sam Cole. A small voice whispered “Fly.” He stifled that warning voice, and told Cole he would stay and watch this affair, and Cole was to report to him whenever any thing fresh occurred. From that hour this gentleman led the life of a malefactor, dressed like a workman, and never went out except at night.
Messrs. Bolt and Little were rattened again, and never knew it till morning. This time it was not the bands, but certain axle-nuts and screws that vanished. The obnoxious machines came to a standstill, and Bolt fumed and cursed. However, at ten o'clock, he and the foreman were invited to the Town hall, and there they found the missing gear, and the culprit, one of the very workmen employed at high wages on the obnoxious machines.
Ransome had bored a small hole in the ceiling, by means of which this room was watched from above; the man was observed, followed, and nabbed. The property found on him was identified and the magistrate offered the prisoner a jury, which he declined; then the magistrate dealt with the case summarily, refused to recognize rattening, called the offense “petty larceny,” and gave the man six months' prison.
Now as Ransome, for obvious reasons, concealed the means by which this man had been detected, a conviction so mysterious shook that sense of security which ratteners had enjoyed for many years, and the trades began to find that craft had entered the lists with craft.
Unfortunately, those who directed the Saw-grinders' union thought the existence of the trade at stake, and this minor defeat merely exasperated them.
Little received a letter telling him he was acting worse than Brinsley, who had been shot in the Briggate; and asking him, as a practical man, which he thought was likely to die first, he or the union? “You won't let us live; why should we let you?”
Bolt was threatened in similar style, but he merely handed the missives to Ransome; he never flinched.
Not so Little. He got nervous; and, in a weak moment, let his mother worm out of him that he was at war with the trades again.
This added anxiety to her grief, and she became worse every day.
Then Dr. Amboyne interfered, and, after a certain degree of fencing—which seems inseparable from the practice of medicine—told Henry plainly he feared the very worst if this went on; Mrs. Little was on the brink of jaundice. By his advice Henry took her to Aberystwith in Wales, and, when he had settled her there, went back to his troubles.
To those was now added a desolate home; gone was the noble face, the maternal eye, the soothing voice, the unfathomable love. He never knew all her value till now.
One night, as he sat by himself sad and disconsolate, his servant came to tell him there was a young woman inquiring for Mrs. Little. Henry went out to her, and it was Jael Dence. He invited her in, and told her what had happened. Jael saw his distress, and gave him her womanly sympathy. “And I came to tell her my own trouble,” said she; “fie on me!”
“Then tell it me, Jael. There, take off your shawl and sit down. They shall make you a cup of tea.”
Jael complied, with a slight blush; but as to her trouble, she said it was not worth speaking of in that house.
Henry insisted, however, and she said, “Mine all comes of my sister marrying that Phil Davis. To tell you the truth, I went to church with a heavy heart on account of their both beginning with a D—Dence and Davis; for 'tis an old saying—
“'If you change the name, and not the letter,
You change for the worse, and not for the better.'
“Well, sir, it all went wrong somehow. Parson, he was South country; and when his time came to kiss the bride, he stood and looked ever so helpless, and I had to tell him he must kiss her; and even then he stared foolish-like a bit before he kissed her, and the poor lass's face getting up and the tear in her eye at being slighted. And that put Patty out for one thing: and then she wouldn't give away the ribbon to the fastest runner—the lads run a hundred yards to the bride, for ribbon and kiss, you know;—wasn't the ribbon she grudged, poor wench; but the fastest runner in Cairnhope town is that Will Gibbon, a nasty, ugly, slobbering chap, that was always after her, and Philip jealous of him; so she did for the best, and Will Gibbon safe to win it. But the village lads they didn't see the reason, and took it all to themselves. Was she better than their granddam? and were they worse than their grandsires? They ran on before, and fired the anvil when she passed: just fancy! an affront close to her own door: and, sir, she walked in a doors crying. There was a wedding for you! George the blacksmith was that hurt at their making free with his smithy to affront her, he lifted his arm for the first time, and pretty near killed a couple of them, poor thoughtless bodies. Well, sir, Phil Davis always took a drop, you know, and, instead of mending, he got worse; they live with father, and of course he has only to go to the barrel; old-fashioned farmers like us don't think to spy on the ale. He was so often in liquor, I checked him; but Patty indulged him in every thing. By-and-by my lord gets ever so civil to me; 'What next?' said I to myself. One fine evening we are set upstairs at our tea; in he comes drunk, and says many things we had to look at one another and excuse. Presently he tells us all that he has made a mistake; he has wedded Patty, and I'm the one he likes the best. But I thought the fool was in jest; but Patty she gave a cry as if a knife had gone through her heart. Then my blood got up in a moment. 'That's an affront to all three,' said I: 'and take your answer, ye drunken sow,' said I. I took him by the scruff of the neck and just turned him out of the room and sent him to the bottom of the stairs headforemost. Then Patty she quarreled with me, and father he sided with her. And so I gave them my blessing, and told them to send for me in trouble; and I left the house I was born in. It all comes of her changing her name, and not her letter.” Here a few tears interrupted further comment.
Henry consoled her, and asked her what she was going to do.
She said she did not know; but she had a good bit of money put by, and was not afraid of work, and, in truth, she had come there to ask Mrs. Little's advice, “poor lady. Now don't you mind me, Mr. Henry, your trouble is a deal worse than mine.”
“Jael,” said he, “you must come here and keep my house till my poor mother is better.”
Jael colored and said, “Nay, that will not do. But if you could find me something to do in your great factory—and I hear you have enemies there; you might as well have a friend right in the middle of them. Eh, but I'd keep my eyes and ears open for you.”
Henry appreciated this proposal, and said there were plenty of things she could do; she could hone, she could pack, she could superintend, and keep the girls from gabbling; “That,” said he, “is the real thing that keeps them behind the men at work.”
So Jael Dence lodged with a female cousin in Hillsborough, and filled a position of trust in the factory of Bolt and Little: she packed, and superintended, and the foreman paid her thirty shillings a week. The first time this was tendered her she said severely, “Is this right, young man?” meaning, “Is it not too much?”
“Oh, you will be raised if you stay with us three months.”
“Raised?” said the virtuous rustic! Then, looking loftily round on the other women, “What ever do these factory folk find to grumble at?”
Henry told Grace all about this, and she said, rather eagerly, “Ah, I am glad of that. You'll have a good watch-dog.”
It was a shrewd speech. The young woman soon found out that Little was really in danger, and she was all eyes and ears, and no tongue.
Yet neither her watchfulness, nor Ransome's, prevailed entirely against the deviltries of the offended union. Machinery was always breaking down by pure accident; so everybody swore, and nobody believed: the water was all let out of the boiler, and the boiler burst. Bands were no longer taken but they were cut. And, in short, the works seemed to be under a curse.
And, lest the true origin of all these mishaps should be doubted, each annoyance was followed by an anonymous letter. These were generally sent to Little. A single sentence will indicate the general tone of each.
1. “All these are but friendly warnings, to save your life if possible.”
2. “I never give in. I fight to death, and with more craft and duplicity than Bolt and Ransome. They will never save you from me, if you persist. Ask others whether I ever failed to keep my word.”
3. “If I but move my finger, you are sent into eternity.”
Henry Little's nerve began to give way more and more.
Meantime Cole met Mr. Coventry, and told him what was going on beneath the surface: at the same time he expressed his surprise at the extraordinary forbearance shown by the union. “Grotait is turning soft, I think. He will not give the word to burn Sebastopol.”
“Then do it without him.”
Cole shook his head, and said he daren't. But, after some reflection, he said there was a mate of his who was not so dependent on Grotait: he might be tempted perhaps to do something on his own hook, Little being wrong with the trade, and threatened. “How much would you stand?”
“How far would your friend go?”
“I'll ask him.”
Next day Cole walked coolly into the factory at dinner-time and had a conversation with Hill, one of the workmen, who he knew was acting for the union, and a traitor in his employers' camp. He made Hill a proposal. Hill said it was a very serious thing; he would think of it, and meet him at a certain safe place and tell him.
Cole strolled out of the works, but not unobserved. Jael Dence had made it her business to know every man in the factory by sight, and observing, from a window, a stranger in conversation with Hill, she came down and met Cole at the gate. She started at sight of him: he did not exactly recognize her; but, seeing danger in her eye, took to his heels, and ran for it like a deer: but Jael called to some of the men to follow him, but nobody moved. They guessed it was a union matter. Jael ran to Little, and told him that villain, who had escaped from Raby Hall, had been in the works colloguing with one of the men.
Ransome was sent for, and Cole described to him.
As for Hill, Jael watched him like a cat from that hour, since a man is known by his friends. She went so far as to follow him home every evening.
Cole got fifty pounds out of Coventry for Hill, and promised him twenty. For this sum Hill agreed to do Little. But he demanded some time to become proficient in the weapon he meant to use.
During the interval events were not idle. A policeman saw a cutter and a disguised gentleman talking together, and told Ransome. He set spies to discover, if possible, what that might mean.
One day the obnoxious machines were stopped by an ACCIDENT to the machinery, and Little told Jael this, and said, “Have you a mind to earn five pound a week?”
“Ay, if I could do it honestly?”
“Let us see the arm that flung Phil Davis down-stairs.”
Jael colored a little, but bared her left arm at command.
“Good heavens!” cried Little. “What a limb! Why mine is a shrimp compared with it.”
“Ay, mine has the bulk, but yours the pith.”
“Oh, come; if your left arm did that, what must your right be?”
“Oh,” said Jael, “you men do every thing with your right hand; but we lasses know no odds. My left is as strong as my right, and both at your service.”
“Then come along with me.”
He took her into the “Experiment Room,” explained the machine to her, gave her a lesson or two; and so simple was the business that she soon mastered her part of it; and Little with his coat off, and Jael, with her noble arms bare, ground long saws together secretly; and Little, with Bolt's consent, charged the firm by the gross. He received twenty-four pounds per week, out of which he paid Jael six, in spite of her “How can a lass's work be worth all that?” and similar remonstrances.
Being now once more a workman, and working with this loyal lass so many hours a day, his spirits rose a little, and his nerves began to recover their tone.
But meantime Hill was maturing his dark design.
In going home, Little passed through one place he never much liked, it was a longish close, with two sharp rectangular turns.
Since he was threatened by the trade, he never entered this close without looking behind him. He did not much fear an attack in front, being always armed with pistols now.
On a certain night he came to this place as usual, went as far as the first turn, then looked sharply round to see if he was followed; but there was nobody behind except a woman, who was just entering the court. So he went on.
But a little way down this close was a small public-house, and the passage-door was ajar, and a man watching. No sooner was Little out of sight than he emerged, and followed him swiftly on tiptoe.
The man had in his hand a weapon that none but a Hillsborough cutler would have thought of; yet, as usual, it was very fit for the purpose, being noiseless and dangerous, though old-fashioned. It was a long strong bow, all made of yew-tree. The man fitted an arrow to this, and running lightly to the first turn, obtained a full view of Little's retiring figure, not fifteen yards distant.
So well was the place chosen, that he had only to discharge his weapon and then run back. His victim could never see him.
He took a deliberate aim at Little's back, drew the arrow to the head, and was about to loose it, when a woman's arm was flung round his neck.