Old Milligen had the gout: not suppressed gout, or gouty indigestion,
or any of the forms which are fashionable to-day, but the old original
complaint, such as Chatham and the great men of his time knew. Like
them Milligen had it, and like theirs his temper suffered; also his
wife—he had no family at home to suffer, his daughters being married
and his sons dead. The gout, while it was at its acutest, prevented
him from attending to anything much besides itself; when it lessened a
little he attended, so far as he was able, to his own business. Later
he attended to that of the town council. He was still more or less of a
prisoner to the house; indeed, he had only got so far as his own works
once or twice, and with great difficulty, much bad language, and, the
doctor said, some risk. Consequently, even when he turned his attention
to the council, he was not able to go personally to the offices, nor
yet to the private residences or business premises of any of the
members. He was consequently driven to writing to the body, although
pen and ink were not the medium in which he felt at home.
His letter, which began “_Dear Misters_,” and concluded “_and may the
devil take the lot of you for scabs.—Yours obedtly, James Milligen_,”
contained matter which, in some parts of England, would have been
considered more than grounds for a libel action. In this town such a
remedy occurred to no one; town councillors, and old Milligen too,
were not far enough removed from the time when such differences were
settled with coats off in the yard—a simpler, and, on the whole,
pleasanter as well as cheaper remedy. One cannot, of course, settle it
in that way with a man suffering from gout; nor can one with credit do
it if one is a town councillor. Those concerned laboured under this
disadvantage, also they were rather too old and too well-to-do; they
merely replied in kind, abused Milligen roundly to all who would carry
word back to him, and, unofficially, to himself too, and officially
wrote and advised him, in polite language, to mind his own business.
“My business!” he roared when he read it. He did not mind the abuse at
all, but he did object to the official advice, also his foot gave him a
sudden twinge at the moment. “I’ll see to the business, my lads! I’ll
make your ears tingle for as mean a set of scrogs as ever built shoddy
and winked at it! Maria! Maria, woman! D’ye hear! Fetch me that paper!”
Maria fetched it, a newspaper of large local circulation: an issue now
some weeks old, which contained a report of the affair at the council
power station. Old Milligen had been taken ill the day the account
appeared, and so had not read it till some time after, and had not
been well enough to take any steps in the matter for some time after
that; and when he had written the council had not been in any hurry to
acknowledge his letter. What with one thing and another the matter was
already a thing of the past in local interest. Not so in Milligen’s.
He read the report all over again, flushing as he did so, and rolling
a sentence on his tongue now and again—“An unforeseen accident,”
“providentially, the damage was comparatively small, the matter never
assuming alarming proportions,” “the council’s employees, ably directed
by Mr. William Heath, rose splendidly to the occasion: the thanks of
the community are due to them and to a gentleman from a neighbouring
factory, who, with considerable presence of mind, turned off the
dynamos.”
“‘Due to ’em!’ Due to Willy Heath! Yes, and there’s something else due
to you, Willy, and that’s a piece of my mind, and you’ll have it, my
lad, when I’m about again! ‘A gentleman from a neighbouring factory’!
Maria, tell Turner to look in this evening, I’d like another chat with
Turner; he’ll be pleased with these ——’s letter.”
“Yes,” Maria said, although she knew another chat with Turner would
further excite the gout and her irascible lord. But she never attempted
to interfere with him in what she deemed men’s matters; and he never
thought of interfering in what was reckoned women’s. When their
interests were mutual and clashed, as had sometimes happened when
the children were at home, they settled it in a verbal bout slightly
reminiscent of the backyard days.
Turner came that evening and read the council’s letter, and told again,
as he had told before, what had happened at the power station on the
night the chimney fell. As he was himself employed there: indeed, was
almost the first man to recover his presence of mind on that eventful
night, he was in a position to do so, and to give a further and fuller
account of Michael’s share than the paper did. It is true he repeated
on this occasion, as on others when he talked to old Milligen, that
no use was to be made of what he said; it was all in confidence, and
he could not afford to lose his job. But that did not matter; there
were too many men in the station that night, most of them more or
less acquainted with Milligen, for information to be traced to one
particularly; besides, plenty of others outside possessed it in some
form now; the thing was not done in a hole and corner, as Milligen
said to Turner. And said again when later he called at the council
offices.
When he did call there the members of the council expressed themselves
glad to see him about again. They were too, he was a fellow-townsman
with mutual interests, one of themselves, as it were; they thought no
more of his letter than they would of an explosion of abuse from one
of their own body in the heat of passing argument. He did not either;
he might have called them names, all the same they were his very good
friends, always were, and always would be, even though he had come
about the original subject now.
“About that business up at the station,” he began.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Milligen,” the chairman said, “The question of
compensation, of course——”
“Compensation be damned,” Milligen said benevolently. “What’s that
between friends? We can settle that any time to the satisfaction of
all parties. I see your fellers have already put me up a tidy little
bit o’ wall.” (They had, a wall eighteen inches thick of the best blue
acid-proof bricks, at the town’s expense, Milligen saw to that.) “It’s
‘the gentleman from the neighbouring factory’ I’ve come to talk about.
What about compensating him?”
“Did he lose anything?” inquired Mr. Heath.
“Did you, Willy?” Milligen asked. “What, not the toe o’ your boot when
you tripped over the hydrant?”
The council laughed here, and afterwards called themselves to order
and suggested that Mr. Milligen should state his business. Accordingly
he did: it was to give the name and address of the gentleman from the
neighbouring factory, so that the council should be able to forward him
some suitable reward and recognition of his invaluable services on the
disastrous night. So Milligen said in quite a fine speech, obviously
prepared beforehand, though concluded with a sentence which was not.
“He saved the whole blamed thing from going to kingdom come, and you
from being hauled up before the Local Government Board, if not the
beaks—and you know it. Now, what’re you going to do?”
“Are you acting for him?” inquired Mr. Heath.
“No, I ain’t,” the other retorted; “he was acting for me that night,
looking at my winding gear. And he did it to rights too! I’ve got
something now that’ll wipe the eye of some folks before we’re much
older. Lord! But it was a treat to see him touch a machine or handle a
tool! He touched ’em as if he loved ’em, his fingers, the very skin of
his fingers, was all alive to ’em! My old engines knew him for all the
world like horses, they behaved sweetly!”
Mr. Heath cleared his throat and said it was interesting. He personally
had seen this magician at work, and though he knew nothing of
machinery, could have certified him capable—also disrespectful, and
entirely unwilling to take orders. He did not say so, however; he
glanced from the subject rather quickly, and brought forward another
for consideration. He said, since Mr. Milligen was now here, it was a
good opportunity to discuss with him, in a friendly way, a complaint
which had been recently brought against him, or rather against the
drainage of his dyeing works.
“Our men, when putting up the wall,” he said, “complained a good deal
of smells; it might perhaps be in the interest of public health if our
inspector were to come——”
“And put his head in one o’ my dye-vats?” Milligen interrupted. “Now,
look you here, Willy, my drains are as right as yours any day. If
there’s a stink up at my place, there’s a stink. Who’s having dye
without it? It’s none of the council’s business. You aren’t the father
and mother of every evil in this town, and I’ve told you so before. You
let them alone that don’t concern you. I don’t know as I should be in a
hurry to adopt every orphan ill about, if I was you, seeing the hefty
little family of your own you have, with a factory chimney for a fine
upstanding eldest daughter—at least, she didn’t stand up, she sat down
on a man or so.”
“Come, come, Mr. Milligen,” the chairman said pacifically, “don’t let’s
be unneighbourly, on your first coming down town again too. Let’s come
to business in a friendly spirit.”
They came, for they really understood one another on the whole, and the
chairman and a few members of the council already shared Milligen’s
opinion, in a more moderate form, that there should be some recognition
of the man who had rendered them such great service. These were in
the minority certainly, and they were not very strong in their views,
and since the man had not come forward or in any way obtruded himself
upon public notice, they had not troubled in the matter. The financial
condition of the council in the face of the costly disaster was not
such as to induce them to spend money unnecessarily. Also, since all
were concerned in minimising the seriousness of the affair, none were
concerned in emphasising the magnitude of the service rendered. But
Milligen’s coming put rather a different complexion on things; he
stood out for a reward, and he stood obstinately, showing every sign
of making a considerable talk not only to the council itself. In the
end most of the councillors came to be of his way of thinking; at all
events, the discussion, which had begun rather acrimoniously, ended in
a friendly talk as to what form the recognition should take. It was
finally agreed, after much debate then and later, that a medal and
a cheque for fifty pounds should be forwarded. Milligen wanted an
illuminated address of thanks as well, but there was no support for
that idea, so he expressed himself content without.
However, it befell that Michael did not after all receive quite what
was decided upon. It happened one day that Mr. Heath mentioned the
proposed reward to his nephew, the present head engineer at the power
station; he also by chance mentioned the name of the man who was to
receive it, and which the head engineer had not heard before.
He looked up now quickly. “Michael Annarly?” he said. “Is that who it
is?”
“Why, do you know him?” the uncle inquired.
“I know of him.”
“What? What do you know? Old Milligen talked a deal of his doings; he’s
worked him out something or other that’s going to put the old man on
his legs again he believes.”
“Very likely,” the words were spoken dryly, “he’s said—by some—to be
about the first engineer in England at the present time, and one of the
best all round ones.”
Mr. Heath stared; his nephew was not habitually lavish in his praise of
other men’s abilities or achievements, and though his tone was peculiar
now it did not suggest sarcasm. “What was he doing at old Milligen’s
shanty?” he asked.
“That’s just it,” the other answered; “what was he?” A large stretch
of land and a complicated railway journey lay between the town and
the great Galhardy foundries, which were not even in the same county:
the head engineer’s home, which was situated between the two, was not
either. But it was near enough for him to know some of the talk of
Galhardy’s: every engineering centre in the country knew some of the
talk of it, for all sent students and apprentices there, and most men
of any standing in the profession, and many of none, knew of the talk
that clung about the name of Michael Annarly, his striking ability,
his early brilliant success, and his sudden dropping out. Mr. Heath’s
nephew did not know much; but he knew some, and he readily undertook to
find out more. He would have done so, apart from obliging his uncle,
for he was not unnaturally curious himself.
The consequence of what he found and passed on to the council was that
that respectable body came to the conclusion fifty pounds and a medal
were an unsuitable reward, much beyond the requirements of the case.
It is true the man had served them well, but he had done it on his
own initiative and to please himself; he expected nothing, for he had
not even left his name with the engineer. He had good reason not to
do so, and not to be proud of it, or anxious for it to get into the
papers, even in a creditable connection. They felt it was not for
them, as honest traders and works owners or managers, to countenance
in any way one who had transgressed the first principle of the code of
such institutions. They argued the matter a good deal, wrangled over
it considerably, for there were some who still felt he ought to have
something, and there was Milligen who thought he ought to have a good
deal, and who, as he said, did not care a damn for Galhardy’s or any
of the other aristocrats of commerce. The subject of the reward was a
standing dish at the council meetings all the summer, and a favourite
topic of discussion when members of the council and intimates came
together at Masonic meetings and other friendly occasions. At last,
in September, the matter was settled, probably a little for the same
reason that the Unjust Judge settled the matter of the widow who cried
continually before him—old Milligen playing the part of the widow.
In full meeting it was voted that a cheque for twenty-five pounds
should be sent to Mr. Michael Annarly in recognition of useful service
rendered to the council on the 26th May last. And in due course the
clerk of the council forwarded the cheque, requesting a receipt in the
course of post.
The letter, addressed to Michael in London, was sent on by Nan to him,
at work now for the steamship company on the Clyde. With it there came
another letter, enclosing in a large envelope a printed card. The card
had, at the first glance, some resemblance to a memorial card of the
old-fashioned type; indeed, it was of the sort which are designed for
that purpose, and which can be ordered blank through the undertaker
and filled in with name, date, and text to suit the case. It is the
cheapest way of getting an effective commemorative card, the reason,
no doubt, why old Milligen selected it, though he probably considered
it suitable too; the mourning figures embossed upon the surface might
be regarded as lamenting the meanness of the town council, and the urn
upon which they leaned as containing the ashes of the portion of the
power station and employees destroyed. Upon the card was printed:
_To Michael Annarly, Esq., Engineer_
~In Memoriam~
(these were the Gothic letters of the original lithography)
_of May 26th and an act of signal courage and
Common Sense_
“_Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might._”
Michael did not laugh when he read it through, his lips twitched, and
the corners of his eyes crinkled a little; there was another feeling
mixed with the amusement, and one stronger than it, the card touched
him curiously. After all, it was recognition of sorts, the best sort
that the old man could compass; a rather fine sort in his estimation,
no doubt; he would be quite proud of it and very serious about it—one
reckons motives in estimating values—at least, one does when one is no
longer very young. Michael was not young; he had travelled a long way
from the man who thought a handsome income and a seat on the advisory
board of Galhardy’s small recognition to ask for unique work done. He
looked long at the card now, and put it away carefully, rather glad to
have it. When he wrote to acknowledge it to Milligen he pleased him by
asking him to send another. Nan might like one, she would understand as
he did, and the old man evidently hoped he would ask for another.
_I have had two or three taken off_, he wrote in the letter which
accompanied the card, _so, besides one which I am keeping myself, I
can let you have another or so for any lady friend you might fancy
to forward it to. My own is framed and hung up, so that any of
those Scrogs of the Council who happen to look in for a pipe and a
glass can’t fail to see it. If it don’t make them feel ashamed, it
ought._
_I am pleased to say the work you did for me is better than you
promised; I can now deal with endless yarns, as no other man in the
trade can. I am proud to have met you, and now conclude by saying
that if there is anything in the small way I can do for you at any
time, please command_
_Yours obediently,_
JAMES MILLIGEN.
“At least, I have satisfied one man,” Michael thought as he put the
letter down, and he was glad of it. The more glad, perhaps, because
the piece of work, unimportant though it was, was a good piece of
work—a neat and complicated adjustment, very perfectly conceived, which
satisfied his own critical faculty too.
He turned to the other letter and was astonished to find, after
Milligen’s slighting reference to the council, the cheque it contained.
He did not feel himself insulted by it, nor did any question of
inadequacy trouble him; it would see him through at least the
preliminary stages of patenting his automatic switch for alternating
currents; that mattered so much more than anything else to him now that
he never gave anything else a thought.
The working out and perfecting the automatic switch invention had been
the one tolerable thing since he had been on the Clyde. It had been
done in spare hours, and was almost purely theoretical, to work at it
practically had been extremely difficult. Still, the mere fact of being
again among machines, in well-appointed shops and great engine-rooms,
was very stimulating to him. His mind, long fallow, responded eagerly
to the stimulant, and many possibilities and ideas were generating
and evolving besides the one of the switch which was already near
perfection. Possibly the company for which he worked, had they been
consulted, would have said he had no business to develop any ideas but
theirs and those connected with their work. But it would have been
quite useless for either he or they to try and limit thus; placed in
such circumstances and surroundings the conception and evolution of
ideas were as inevitable with him as the inhaling and exhaling of
breath in the air. And after all, the company had little to complain
of; they had bought him very considerably: bought him body and soul, it
seemed to him, and every bit of liberty too.
The position was all he had foreseen and worse, though less, perhaps,
because it was different from what he had anticipated than because
he had not quite realised what it would be in the working out. He
said little about it; he had no one at hand to say anything to, for
he lived an absolutely isolated life, associating with no one and
working ceaselessly, in season and out of season, in the old insatiable
way—with an additional touch of that desperation which tradition
ascribes to the damned, who strive so to keep the devils at bay. He
wrote to Nan occasionally: always about the work, the mechanical and
constructive difficulties, the ideas in connection with them, and other
ideas which came to him. Principally he wrote of the last, it was the
realm of faerie to him, the dream-world wherein the artist-souled, even
mathematical and machine artists, comfort themselves for the hardness
of the way. And when he wrote of these his letters, quite impersonal,
sometimes mere engineering treatises, were happy. But in spite of
these and in spite of the tone of his other letters and all that was
left out of them, Nan had more than an idea of the situation and the
almost unendurable fret of it. She did not refer to it in her replies,
she never touched on what he did not tell her; but she did her best to
infuse into her letters some little of the patience and courage which
might make the position tenable. And in a measure she succeeded; he
told her so when in September he came to London on business for the
firm.
It was only a flying visit, with no more than an hour or two in Soho,
but during the time the truth was out. It was bound to be; Nan would
have divined it, if he had said nothing; and, for the life of him, he
could not have helped saying something.
“It doesn’t matter talking to you,” he said; “it doesn’t seem like
whining. I suppose I ought not to whine; I suppose I knew what was
coming, but—sometimes I think I can’t stand it!”
Nan nodded. “Does Mr. McFarline take the interest in the work that was
threatened?” she asked.
“McFarline? Oh, yes. He’s a small part though; he and his interest
were a mere figure of speech. He does take an interest, intelligent
on the whole; he’s a man of sense and ability, though Scotch of the
Scotch. You know what that is to work with—or, perhaps, you don’t; it’s
the devil if you are a Southerner and the work is such as calls for a
margin to handle efficiently. But McFarline’s nothing, little more than
the name they put on the whole system.”
“And that is——?”
“Report, report, report. Suspected, watched at every turn. Oh, not
obviously; they are decent about it on the whole, all the bosses
pretend there is no suspecting; they are quite gentlemen; all the
underlings, having less manners and nothing to gain by me being there,
make it perfectly obvious. Why, sometimes I doubt if a greaser would
trust me with his pocket-knife!”
Nan could guess how he felt, how such morbid imaginings must arise.
“Isn’t that last just a little unfair to the men?” she suggested.
“I suppose it is,” he answered. “Of course it is really. But the whole
thing gets on my nerves when I sit alone and stew and stew over it; I
don’t see it fairly. I am a silly ass, I know that. But it is pretty
awful.”
She knew that it must be, and led him to talk of it.
“It doesn’t sound much reduced to words,” he told her, “you can’t tell
from that quite how it works out; the whole atmosphere and feeling
is no mean part of it. Of course, it is frightfully hampering—and
humiliating too—to have to supply duplicate copies of all notes,
drawings, designs, and everything else to the chief draughtsman. I have
to do that; and he has to, or thinks he has to, go into them all and
try and understand the why and the wherefore. He can’t, and he gets
huffy about it, and I get so exasperated that I feel I shall murder
him one day. Then, all orders for plant have to be put through the
superintendent of shops, with detailed drawings of every one. That, you
know, is hopeless. If you give a man any sort of position you ought not
to expect that; still, I must own the superintendent is pretty decent.
I couldn’t have gone on at all, if he hadn’t been. But perhaps the
thing I most mind, over and above the general feeling, is the weekly
report. I have to supply a full report of everything done, thought
of, about to be done or thought of, and the rest to the secretary
every week. And he——. Well, he’s not a supercilious sneak like Brett
certainly, but he’s a fish—a sort of machine that registers things
by ticks, observes the omission of a comma, and must have everything
foursquare, reduced to set terms, and pigeon-holed for reference. Think
of it when it’s ideas, when it’s inventions, possibilities, nebulous
things that may never become facts! Think of subtracting last week’s
work from this, dividing the result by the week before, and giving the
answer in pounds sterling!”
Nan could think of it, but could think of little to say to mitigate it.
“You see,” he admitted later on, “I was used to having a freer hand
than many people; I know now that I had it at Galhardy’s, though I used
to go on about their red-tape. I don’t seem as if I could work without
freedom. After all, if one does work that others don’t, if one is
expected to turn out higher-class work and more than the average, one
ought not to be tied down to average conditions. That is what I used to
think—what I still think. But now I haven’t even average conditions, or
anything approaching them.”
Again Nan could only sympathise, and afterwards induce him to talk of
the inventions and ideas which were his consolation. He responded to
the sympathy, and told her about them so long as time held: explained
how he had taken out a provisional patent for the automatic switch, and
what must be done next, and might be done eventually. It was not till
just as he was going that they referred again to his present situation;
then Nan put the question plainly:
“Shall you stop?”
“I mayn’t have the chance,” he answered. “Brett is staying with
McFarline now; I didn’t know till lately that he knew the little beast.
I don’t think he does know him well, or see him often.”
“Will it make a difference?”
“May. He’ll clear me out, if he can. One thing, I don’t much care if he
does. It would settle the question of whether or not I could go on with
it, wouldn’t it? I shouldn’t care if it were not for——”
He broke off, he was standing on the doorstep when he spoke, and he
glanced up at the old house.
She followed the direction of his thought. “If it were not for coming
back here?” she said. “You remember what I said about that? There is
always a place for you here; you must always come. Besides, I believe
my father would be glad. I think he misses you.”
He looked at her a little incredulously. “It’s good of you to say it,”
he said.
“I would not, if I did not think it true,” she answered.
And he knew it, and found it rather comforting.
He found it comforting in the time which followed, when, it must be
owned, he stood in some need of comfort. If the situation was difficult
before, it became a hundred times worse now. He wrote of it fairly
frankly to her, after their talk it was only natural, also it was some
relief, though he did not tell her all or nearly all of the fresh
troubles and humiliations which beset him. Brett, though he had not
convinced all the directors that they were better without the services
of Michael Annarly, had succeeded in inducing so great a degree of
uneasiness and suspicion on their part that the position was almost
untenable. What little Michael’s personality may have done to mitigate
former suspicions, and what beneficial influence the already obvious
value of his work may have had, were a great deal more than done away
with by the warnings given (and very likely at least partly believed)
by Brett during his Scotch visit. The opinion held after that was such
that, had it been held earlier, Michael would as soon have been offered
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer as employment with the company. As
it was though, in the face of what he clearly could do for them, some
were in favour of a continuation, others were for a termination of his
services on any terms, and all were for a policy of such care that the
conditions were about unendurable, and with most men would have had the
same result as dismissal.
Still Michael remained, doggedly remained, only telling Nan a part of
the bitterness of his soul. And she, by inference and deduction as much
as anything, divined the rest, and hesitated whether to advise him to
hold on or to give up. At last she wrote, “_Why not come back? I do
not believe you will be able to work out anything worth having under
the present conditions. Perhaps by and by you may be able to do the
engine for these people or some others, but now it seems as if it were
impossible, only a waste of time to try. Come back here._”