THE "DRAGON'S HEAD."
Harold's right hand healed quickly, and was free in a few days, but the
left had to be kept for some time in a sling, and be daily attended to,
though he heeded it but little, walking miles to look at horses and to
try them, for he could manage them perfectly with one hand, and in this
way he saw a good deal of Dermot Tracy, who exerted himself to find a
horse to carry the mighty frame.
The catastrophe at the fair had gained him two friends, entirely unlike
one another--Dermot, who thenceforward viewed him with unvarying
hero-worship, and accepted Eustace as his appendage; and George
Yolland, the very reverse of all Dermot's high-bred form of Irishism,
and careless, easy self-indulgence.
A rough-hewn, rugged young man, intensely in earnest, and therefore
neither popular nor successful was that young partner of Dr. Kingston.
Had Harold been squire, the resignation of the patient into his hands
would have been less facile; but as a mere Australian visitor, he was
no prize, and might follow his own taste if he preferred the
practitioner to whom club, cottage, and union patients were abandoned.
By him Harold was let into those secrets of the lower stratum of
society he had longed to understand. Attention to the poor boy who had
been torn by the lion brought him into the great village of workmen's
huts, that had risen up round the Hydriot clay works on the Lerne.
These had been set up by a company about eighteen years before, much
against all our wills. With Lord Erymanth at our head, we had opposed
with all our might the breaking up of the beautiful moorland that ran
right down into Mycening, and the defilement of our pure and rapid
Lerne; but modern progress had been too strong for us. Huge brick
inclosures with unpleasant smoky chimneys had arisen, and around them a
whole colony of bare, ugly little houses, filled with squalid women and
children, little the better for the men's wages when they were high,
and now that the Company was in a languishing state, miserable beyond
description. We county people had simply viewed ourselves as the
injured parties by this importation, bemoaned the ugliness of the
erections, were furious at the interruptions to our country walks,
prophesied the total collapse of the Company, and never suspected that
we had any duties towards the potters. The works were lingering on,
only just not perishing; the wages that the men did get, such as they
were, went in drink; the town in that quarter was really unsafe in the
evening; and the most ardent hope of all the neighbourhood was, that
the total ruin constantly expected would lead to the migration of all
the wretched population.
Mr. Yolland, who attended most of their sicknesses, used to tell
fearful things of the misery, vice, and hardness, and did acts of
almost heroic kindness among them, which did not seem consistent with
what, to my grief and dismay, was reported of this chosen companion of
Harold--that physical science had conducted him into materialism. The
chief comfort I had was that Miss Woolmer liked him and opened her
house to him. She was one of the large-hearted women who can see the
good through the evil, and was interested by contact with all phases of
thought; and, moreover, the lad should not be lost for want of the
entree to something like a home, because the upper crust of Mycening
considered him as "only Dr. Kingston's partner," and the Kingstons
themselves had the sort of sense that he was too much for them which
makes a spider dislike to have a bluebottle in his web.
She was interested, too, rather sadly in the crusade without the cross
that the two young men were trying to undertake against the
wretchedness of those potters.
It was much in their favour that the landlord, who was also the owner
of the "Dragon's Head," was invited to join a brother in America
without loss of time, and was ready to sell and give immediate
possession; so that Harry actually owned it in a fortnight from first
hearing of the offer, having, of course, given a heavy price for it.
The evening it came into his possession he went down, and, standing at
the door, tried to explain why he had closed it, and why he could not
bear to see its frequenters spending their wages on degrading
themselves and making their homes miserable. In no mood for a
temperance harangue, the men drowned, or would have drowned aught but
his short incisive sentences, in clamours for their beer, and one big
bully pushed forward to attack him. His left hand was still in the
sling, but with the other he caught hold of the fellow by the collar,
and swung him over the side of the stone steps as helpless as a puppy
dog, shaking him till his teeth chattered ere setting him on his feet.
"If you wish for any more," he said, "we'll have it out as soon as this
hand is well."
That made them cheer him, and the fellow slunk away; while Harold,
having gained a hearing, told them that he meant to make the former
"Dragon's Head" a place where they might smoke, read the papers, play
games, and have any refreshment such as coffee, tea, or ginger-beer, at
which they hissed, and only one or two observed, "I am sure you wishes
us well, sir."
It was a good-sized house, and he meant to put in a steady couple to
keep it, giving up two upper rooms to make a laboratory for Mr.
Yolland, whose soul was much set on experiments for which his lodgings
gave him no space; but the very day when Harold opened his
coffee-rooms, as he went down the street, an "Original Dragon's Head"
and a "Genuine Dragon's Head" grinned defiance at him, in the full
glory of teeth, fiery breath, and gilded scales, on the other side of
the way. I believe they had been beershops before; but, be that as it
may, they devoured quite as many as their predecessor, and though
newspapers and draught-boards lay all about the place, they attracted
only two clients!
And the intended closing of all the beer-houses on the Arghouse
property, except the time-honoured "Blue Boar" on the village green,
seemed likely to have the same effect; for the notices to their
holders, grimly resisted by Bullock, seemed only to cause dozens of
householders to represent the absolute need of such houses whenever
they did not belong to us.
"To destroy one is to produce two," sighed Harold.
"There's nothing to be done but to strike at the root," I said.
"What's that?" said Harold.
"Man's evil propensities," I said.
"Humph," said Harold. "If I could manage the works now! They say the
shares are to be had for an old song."
"Oh, Harry, don't have anything to do with them," I entreated. "They
have ruined every creature who has meddled with them, and done
unmitigated mischief."
Harold made no answer, but the next day he was greatly stimulated by a
letter from Prometesky, part of which he read to me, in its perfect
English, yet foreign idiom.
"I long to hear of the field of combat we had to quit, because one
party was too stolid, the other too ardent. I see it all before me
with the two new champions freshly girded for the strife, but a
peaceful strife, my friend. Let our experience be at least profitable
to you, and let it be a peaceful contention of emulation such as is
alone suited to that insular nation which finds its strongest stimulus
in domestic comfort and wealth. Apropos, has some one pursued a small
discovery of mine, that, had I not been a stranger of a proscribed
nation, and had not your English earl and the esquires been hostile to
all save the hereditary plough, might have found employment for
thousands and prevented the history of your fathers and of myself?
That bed of argillaceous deposit around the course of your Lerne, which
I found to be of the same quality as the porcelain clay of Meissen,
does it still merely bear a few scanty blades of corn, or is its value
appreciated, and is it occupying hundreds of those who starved and were
discontented, to the great surprise of their respectable landlords? I
wonder whether a few little figures that I modelled in the clay for
specimens, and baked in my hostess's oven, are still in existence. The
forms of clay were there. Alas! I asked in vain of your English
magnates for the fire from heaven to animate the earth, or rather I
would have brought it, and I suffered."
It was amusing to see how much delighted honest Harold was with this
letter, and how much honoured he seemed by his dear old Prometesky
having spent so much time and thought upon writing to him. It fired
him with doubled ardour to investigate the Hydriot Company, and he
could hardly wait till a reasonable hour the next day. Then he took
Eustace down with him and returned quite talkative (for him) with the
discoveries he had made, from one of the oldest workmen who had become
disabled from the damp of working in the clay.
The Company had been set up by a clever speculating young attorney, but
the old man remembered that "that there foreign gentleman, the same as
was sent to foreign parts with the poor young squires," was "always
a-puddling about in it; and they did say as how he tried to get my
lord, and Squire Horsman, and Squire Stympson to see to setting up
summut there; but they wasn't never for 'speriments, and there was no
more talk of it not till that there young Crabbe got hold, they say, of
some little images as he had made, and never rested till he had got up
the Company, and begun the works, having drawn in by his enthusiasm
half the tradesmen and a few of the gentlemen of the place."
Three years of success; then came a bad manager; young Crabbe struggled
in vain to set things right, broke down, and died of the struggle; and
ever since the unhappy affair had lingered on, starving its workmen,
and just keeping alive by making common garden pots and pans and
drain-tiles. Most people who could had sold out of it, thanking the
Limited Liabilities for its doing them no further harm; and the small
remnant only hung on because no one could be found to give them even
the absurdly small amount that was still said to be the value of their
shares.
That they would find now Harold had fallen in with young Yolland, who
had been singing the old song, first of Prometesky, then of Crabbe, and
had made him listen to it. Five pounds would now buy a share that used
to be worth a hundred, and that with thanks from the seller that he got
anything from what had long ceased to pay the ghost of a dividend. And
loose cash was not scarce with Harold; he was able to buy up an amount
which perfectly terrified me, and made me augur that the Hydriot would
swallow all Boola Boola, and more too; and as to Mr. Yolland's promises
of improvements, no one, after past experience, could believe in them.
"Now, Harold, you know nothing of all this intricate business; and as
to these chemical agencies, I am sure you know nothing about them."
"I shall learn."
"You will only be taken in," I went on in my character as good aunt,
"and utterly ruined."
"No matter if I am."
"Only please, at least, don't drag in Eustace and Arghouse."
"Eustace will only have five shares standing in his name to enable him
to be chairman."
"Five too many! Harold! I cannot see why you involve yourself in all
this. You are well off! You don't care for these foolish hopes of
gain."
"I can't see things go so stupidly to wrack."
The truth was that he saw in it a continuation of Prometesky's work and
his father's, so expostulations were vain. He had been thoroughly
bitten, and was the more excited at finding that Dermot and Viola Tracy
were both shareholders. Their father had been a believer in Crabbe,
and had taken a good many shares, and these had been divided between
them at his death. They could not be sold till they were of age, and
by the time Dermot was twenty-one, no one would buy them; and now, when
they were recalled to his mind, he would gladly have made Harold a
present of them, but Harold would not even buy them; he declared that
he wanted Dermot's vote, as a shareholder, to help in the majority;
and, in fact, the effective male shareholders on the spot were only
just sufficient to furnish directors. Mr. Yolland bought two shares
that he might have a voice; Eustace was voted into the chair, and the
minority was left to consist of the greatly-soured representative of
the original Crabbe, and one other tradesman, who held on for the sake,
as it seemed, of maintaining adherence to the red pots and pans, as, at
any rate, risking nothing.
Of course I hated and dreaded it all, and it was only by that power
which made it so hard to say nay to Harold, that he got me down to look
at the very lair of the Hydriot Company. It was a melancholy place;
the buildings were so much larger, and the apparatus so much more
elaborate than there was any use for; and there were so few workmen,
and those so unhealthy and sinister-looking.
I remember the great red central chimney with underground furnaces all
round, which opened like the fiery graves where Dante placed the bad
Popes; and how dreadfully afraid I was that Dora would tumble into one
of them, so that I was glad to see her held fast by the fascination of
the never-superseded potter and his wheel fashioning the clay, while
Mr. Yolland discoursed and Harold muttered assents to some wonderful
scheme that was to economise fuel--the rock on which this furnace had
split.
It has been explained to me over and over again, and I never did more
than understand it for one moment, and if I did recollect all about it,
like a scientific dialogue, nobody would thank me for putting it in
here, so it will be enough to say that it sounded to me very
bewildering and horribly dangerous, not so much to the body as to the
pocket, and I thought the Hydriot bade fair to devour Boola Boola and
Harold, if not Arghouse and Eustace into the bargain.
They meant to have a Staffordshire man down to act as foreman and put
things on a better footing.
"I'll write to my brother to send one," said Mr. Yolland. "He's a
curate in the potteries; has a wonderful turn for this sort of thing."
"Have you a brother a clergyman?" I said, rather surprised, and to fill
up Harold's silence.
"Yes, my brother Ben. It's his first curacy, and his two years are all
but up. I don't know if he will stay on. He's a right down jolly good
fellow is Ben, and I wish he would come down here."
Neither of us echoed the wish. Harold had no turn for clergymen after
the specimen of Mr. Smith; and Mr. Yolland, though I could specify
nothing against him but that he was rough and easy, had offended me by
joining us, when I wanted Harold all to myself. Besides, was he not
deluding my nephews into this horrid Hydriot Company, of which they
would be the certain victims?
The Staffordshire man came, and the former workmen looked very bitter
on him. After a meeting, in which the minority made many vehement
objections, Eustace addressed the workmen in the yards--that is to say,
he thought he did; but Harold and Mr. Yolland made his meaning more
apparent. A venture in finer workmanship, imitating Etruscan ware, was
to be made, and, if successful, would much increase trade and profits,
and a rise in wages was offered to such as could undertake the
workmanship. Moreover, it was held out to them that they might become
the purchasers of shares or half shares at the market price, and thus
have an interest in the concern, whereat they sneered as at some new
dodge of the Company for taking them in. It did not seem to me that
much was done, save making Harry pore over books and accounts, and run
his hands through his hair, till his thick curls stood up in all
directions.
And Miss Woolmer herself was sorry. She remembered the old story--nay,
she had one of Prometesky's own figures modelled in terra cotta,
defective, of course, as a work of art, but with that fire that genius
can breathe into the imperfect. She believed it had been meant for the
Hope of Poland. Alas! the very name reminded one of the old word for
despair, "Wanhope." But Harold admired it greatly, and both he and
George Yolland seemed to find inspiration in it.
But one summer evening, when the young men were walking up and down the
garden, smoking, we heard something that caused us to look round for a
thunder-cloud, though none could be seen in the clear sky, and some
quarter of an hour after, Richardson hurried out to us with the
tidings, "I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a person come up to say
there has been an explosion at the Hydriot works."
"Impossible!" said Harold. "There's nothing to explode!"
"I beg your pardon, sir, but it is Mr. Yolland they say has blowed
himself up with his experiments, and all the old 'Dragon's Head' in
Lerne Street, and he is buried under the ruins. It is all one mass of
ruin, sir, and he under it."
Harold rushed off, without further word or query, and Eustace after
him, and I had almost to fight to hold back Dora, and should hardly
have succeeded if the two had not disappeared so swiftly that she could
not hope to come up with them.
I let her put on her things and come down with me to the lodge-gate to
watch. I was afraid to go any farther, and there we waited, without
even the relief of a report, till we had heard the great clock strike
quarter after quarter, and were expecting it to strike eleven, when
steps came near at last, and Eustace opened the gate. We threw
ourselves upon him, and he cried out with surprise, then said, "He is
alive!"
"Who! Harold?"
"Harold! Nonsense. What should be the matter with Harold? But he is
going to stay with him--Yolland I mean--for the night! It was all his
confounded experiments. It was very well that I went down--nothing was
being done without a head to direct, but they always know what to be at
when _I_ come among them."
No one there knew the cause of the accident, except that it had taken
place in Mr. Yolland's laboratory, where he had been trying
experiments. The house itself had been violently shattered, and those
nearest had suffered considerably. Happily, it stood in a yard of its
own, so that none adjoined it, and though the fronts of the two
opposite "Dragon's Heads" had broken windows and torn doors, no person
within them had been more than stunned and bruised. But the former
"Dragon's Head" itself had become a mere pile of stones, bricks, and
timbers. The old couple in charge had happily been out, and stood in
dismay over the heap, which Harold and a few of the men were trying to
remove, in the dismal search for Mr. Yolland and the boy he employed to
assist him. The boy was found first, fearfully burnt about the face
and hands, but protected from being crushed by the boards which had
fallen slantwise over him. And under another beam, which guarded his
head, but rested on his leg, lay young Yolland.
Harold's strength had raised the beam, and he was drawn out. He
revived as the night air blew on his face, looked up as Harold lifted
him, said, "I have it," and fainted the next moment. They had taken
him to his lodgings, where Dr. Kingston had set the broken leg and
bound the damaged rib, but could not yet pronounce on the other
injuries, and Harold had taken on himself the watch for the night.
The explanation that we all held by was, that the damage was caused by
an officious act of the assistant, who, perceiving that it was growing
dark, fired a match, and began to light the gas at the critical moment
of the experiment, by which the means of obtaining the utmost heat at
the smallest expense of fuel was to be attained. It was one of those
senseless acts that no one would have thought of forbidding; and though
the boy, on recovering his senses, owned that the last thing he
remembered was getting the matches and Mr. Yolland shouting to stop
him, there were many who never would believe anything but that it was
blundering of his, and that he was a dangerous and mischievous person
to have in the town.
Harold came home for a little while just as we were having breakfast,
to bring a report that his patient had had a much quieter night than he
expected, and to say that he had telegraphed for the brother and wanted
Eustace to meet him at the station. The landlady was sitting with the
patient now, and Harold had come home for ice, strawberries, and, above
all, to ask for help in nursing, for the landlady could not, and would
not, do much. I mentioned a motherly woman as, perhaps, likely to be
useful, but Harold said, "I could do best with Dora."
He had so far learnt that it was not the Bush as not to expect me to
offer, and was quite unprepared for the fire that Eustace and I opened
on him as to the impossibility of his request. "Miss Alison, _my_
sister," as Eustace said, "going down to a little, common, general
practitioner to wait on him;" while I confined myself to "It won't do
at all, Harold," and promised to hunt up the woman and to send her to
his aid. But when I had seen her, arranged my housekeeping affairs,
and called Dora to lessons, she was nowhere to be found.
"Then she has gone after Harold!" indignantly exclaimed Eustace. "It
is too bad! I declare I will put a stop to it! To have _my_ sister
demeaning herself to put herself in such a situation for a little Union
doctor!"
I laughed, and observed that no great harm was done with so small a
person, only I could not think what use Harold could make of her; at
which Eustace was no less surprised, for a girl of eight or nine was of
no small value in the Bush, and he said Dora had been most helpful in
the care of her father. But his dignity was so much outraged that he
talked big of going to bring her home--only he did not go. I was a
little wounded at Harold having taken her in the face of my opposition,
but I found that that had not been the case, for Eustace had walked to
the lodge with him, and she had rushed after and joined him after he
was in the town. And at luncheon Eustace fell on me with entreaties
that I would come with him and help him meet "this parson," whom he
seemed to dread unreasonably, as, in fact, he always did shrink from
doing anything alone when he could get a helper. I thought this would
be, at least, as queer as Dora's nursing of the other brother; but it
seemed so hard for the poor man, coming down in his anxiety, to be met
by Eustace either in his vague or his supercilious mood, that I
consented at last, so that he might have someone of common sense, and
walked down with him.
We could not doubt which was the right passenger, when a young
clergyman, almost as rough-looking as his brother, and as much bearded,
but black where he was yellow, sprang out of a second-class with
anxious looks. It was I who said at one breath, "There he is! Speak to
him, Eustace! Mr. Yolland--he is better--he will do well--"
"Thank--thank you--" And the hat was pushed back, with a long breath;
then, as he only had a little black bag to look after, we all walked
together to the lodgings, while the poor man looked bewildered and
unrealising under Eustace's incoherent history of the accident--a far
more conjectural and confused story than it became afterwards.
I waited till Harold came down with Dora; and to my "How could you?"
and Eustace's more severe and angry blame, she replied, "He wanted me;
so of course I went."
Harold said not a word in defence of her or of himself; but when I
asked whether she had been of any use, he said, smiling affectionately
at her, "Wasn't she?"
Then we went and looked at the shattered houses, and Harold showed us
where he had drawn out his poor friend, answering the aggrieved owners
opposite that there would be an inquiry, and means would be found for
compensation.
And when I said, "It is a bad beginning for the Hydriot plans!" he
answered, "I don't know that," and stood looking at the ruins of his
"Dragon's Head" in a sort of brown study, till we grew impatient, and
dragged him home.