the high desk and stool, it contained an oilcloth-topped hexagon table,
with a deep rim of partitioned drawers, three wooden chairs, a sort
of fire-guard fender, and a poker; but there was neither carpet nor
oil-cloth on the floor, and the walls had but a dim recollection of
paint.
Mr. Ashton, snuff-box in hand, occupied one of these chairs; Mr.
Chadwick, resting hands and chin on a stout walking-stick, another; the
third, a little apart, had been assigned to old Simon (now on the shady
side of seventy). Jabez remained standing.
Mr. Ashton, as was his manner, tapping his fingers on his snuff-box lid
whilst he spoke, opened fire, “No doubt, Jabez, you have been expecting
me to say something respecting your prospects and position when your
indentures are given up?”
“Well, sir,” answered Jabez with a frank smile, “I believe I have.”
“Just so! I knew you would. It was but likely. And I should have spoken
to you some time since, but for brother Chadwick here. Both Mrs. Ashton
and myself have watched your conduct and progress, during the whole
term of your apprenticeship, with entire satisfaction.”
Here a pinch of snuff emphasised the sentence, and both Simon and Jabez
felt their cheeks begin to glow.
“You have been unusually steady and persevering—have not been merely
obedient, but obliging, and your rectitude does full credit to the
‘honourable’ name Parson Brookes gave to you.”
This was quite a long speech for Mr. Ashton; he paused to take breath;
and old Simon, proud of the young man as if he had been his own son,
feeling the encomium as some sort of halo round his own grey head,
exclaimed—
“Aw’m downreet preawd to yer [hear] yo’ say it, sir. It’ll mak’ ar
Bess’s heart leap wi’ joy.”
But Jabez, blushing, half ashamed of hearing his own praises rung out
as from a belfry, could only stammer forth—
“I’ve endeavoured to do my duty, that is all, sir.”
“A—ll!” interjected Mr. Chadwick, in his imperfect speech, “Nelson
sa—said du—u—ty was all Engla—and expected of ev—ev’ry man, but it
w—won the b—battle of Tr—Trafalgar!”
“Duty wins the battle of life, brother,” put in Mrs. Ashton, who had
quietly entered the counting-house by the door behind Jabez.
“Just so, just so!” assented Mr. Ashton, as he rose and handed his
chair to the lady whose stately presence seemed to fill the room; “and
Jabez has only to continue doing his duty to win his battle of life, I
take it. But to our business. You have hitherto served us well, Jabez,
in the warehouse and out of it; you have been doubly useful to me as a
designer and as a detector of the roguery and mismanagement of others.
Then, to my daughter, who is far dearer than either warehouse or trade,
you have rendered more than one service.”
“Oh, sir, do not name it, I beg. It has been my highest pleasure to
serve Miss Ashton—or yourself,” Jabez exclaimed, the two last words
rising to his lips simultaneously with the thought that his sudden
outburst might fail of appreciation by Miss Ashton’s wealthy relatives.
“Just so! but I must name it, Jabez, as a reason for my proposal to
retain you in my employ, and for assigning to you a situation and
salary higher than is usually accorded to an apprentice just out of
his time. But as you have shown stability and judgment beyond your
years, and I know you to be honourable in _all_ respects, I feel I am
justified in making the offer.”
Mr. Ashton then stated, with a little seasoning of snuff, the salary
he proposed to give the young man, and the duties he required as an
equivalent, if Jabez accepted his proposition.
The eyes of Jabez sparkled and his cheeks glowed. As for Simon, he
seemed dumb with delight and astonishment at the good fortune of the
foundling.
“IF!” cried Jabez, “there can be no ‘if,’ sir; you overpower
me with an offer so far above my deserts. I accept it most gratefu——”
“Stay, Mr. Clegg,” interrupted Mrs. Ashton, as Mr. Chadwick raised his
head from its rest on his hands and stick, and made an ineffectual
effort to speak. “‘Think twice before you speak once,’ my bro——”
“Oh, madam! there is no need,” Jabez began, but she silenced him with a
mere gesture of her raised hand; and Mrs. Ashton, acting as interpreter
for her slow-tongued brother-in-law, resumed—
“You have done _us_ some services, Mr. Clegg, but ‘a man will give all
he possesses for his life,’ and Mr. Chadwick feels that his debt to you
is greater than ours.”
Jabez looked from one to another, bewildered.
Mr. Ashton took up the thread—“Just so! and that brings me to the point
we have been driving at. You see, Jabez, Mr. Chadwick is not so capable
of managing his business as he used to be; things go wrong he scarcely
knows how, and he is desirous to bring some one into his warehouse on
whom he can rely. He therefore offers to take you at a higher salary
than I think at all suitable for so young a man, and if you prove your
competence to take the management within a reasonable time, to give it
over into your hands, and ultimately—it may be in a very few years—to
give you a small partnership interest in the concern.”
It is difficult to say whether Jabez or Simon was the most completely
stunned.
“You must not look on this altogether as a testimony to your business
qualifications, Jabez, I think,” continued Mr. Ashton, “but as the
outflow of a grateful heart, and the proposition of a man who had no
son capable of keeping his trade together. Is not that so?”—turning to
Mr. Chadwick.
“Cer—certainly!”
Jabez looked from one to another, then to Simon, but no help was
forthcoming from that quarter.
Mrs. Ashton came to his relief: “I think, Mr. Clegg, you had better
‘look before you leap.’ Whatever decision you make will equally satisfy
us. But I see you need time to consider. Suppose you consult your
foster-father, and give Mr. Ashton your decision at the outcome-supper
to-night.”
The hesitation of Jabez was only momentary. We are told that all the
marvels and glories of Paradise were revealed to Mahomet before a
single drop of water had time to flow from a pitcher overturned in his
upward flight; and even whilst Mrs. Ashton spoke, Jabez had time to
think.
“Thank you, madam,” said he, “but I need no deliberation. I know not
for whose kindness to be most grateful; but I do know that I should be
most ungrateful if I were to quit the master and mistress to whom both
myself and my dear friends owe so very much, for the first tempting
offer made to me. Mr. Chadwick overrates my service; Mr. Mabbott
rendered quite as efficient aid; besides, I have no acquaintance with
the manufacture of piece-goods, and have no right to take advantage of
Mr. Chadwick’s extreme generosity, knowing my own disqualifications.
And pardon my saying so—if Mr. Chadwick has no mercantile son, he
may some day have a son-in-law better fitted in every way for the
office and promise held out to me.—I trust, Mr. Chadwick, you will not
consider me ungracious in declining your liberal offer, but indeed I
have been trained to the small-ware manufacture, and here lies my duty,
for here I feel I may be able to render something of a _quid pro quo_.”
Before anyone had time for reply, the Infirmary clock struck twelve;
and as if simultaneously, there was a rush from the warehouse into the
yard, an outcry and a din, as if Babel had broken loose, the sacred
precincts of the counting house was invaded, and Jabez was carried off
_vi et armis_.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.
ONCE IN A LIFE.
Customs change with the manners of the times, and as the apprentice
is no longer the absolute bond-slave of his master, release from the
seven years bondage is now seldom accompanied by the active and noisy
demonstration which of old marked that epoch of a tradesman’s or an
artisan’s career.
But, if the sudden uproar which chased quiet from the precincts of
Mr. Ashton’s warehouse and manufactory when the Infirmary clock told
noon, broke prematurely upon the conference in the counting-house,
it was not unexpected. Every apprentice had been similarly greeted
at the same period of his life. Until the clock proclaimed twelve,
business routine had been undisturbed, but those twelve beats of the
timekeeper’s hammer had been the signal for every apprentice and
workman on the premises to rush pell-mell into the yard, each bearing
with him some implement or symbol of his trade, anything which would
clash or clang being preferred. Remnants of fringe, bed-lace, and
carpet-binding, waved and fluttered like streamers from the hands of
the women; umbrella sticks were flourished; strings of waste ferrules,
brass wheels, brace-buckles, button and tassel-moulds, cops, and
spindles were jingled and jangled together; tin cans were beaten with
picking-rods, punches, hammers, leather stamps, and other tools, by
apprentices and men; whilst Jabez himself, hoisted on the shoulders
of the two smallware-weavers who had seized and borne him from his
master’s presence, claiming him as one of their own body, a recognised
lawful member of their craft, was paraded round and round that inner
court-yard, with the crowd in extemporised procession, amid shouts,
hurrahs, songs, and that peculiar instrumental accompaniment which
was—noise, not—music.
The household servants had crowded to the scullery door, clerks stood
aloof under the gateway, where Simon Clegg kept them company in an
ecstasy of satisfaction; Mr. and Mrs. Ashton and Mr. Chadwick surveyed
the proceedings from the counting house window, whilst even Ellen and
Augusta were curious enough to look on from those back hall steps where
they had once before received the hero of that scene, wounded, from a
very different one.
More than six years had elapsed since the last indoor apprentice had
been borne in triumph round that yard (Kit Townley’s indentures had
been prematurely cancelled), and Jabez may be pardoned if he contrasted
the two occasions, and construed the wilder excitement and enthusiasm
of this in his own favour, when his employers and their daughter
noticed it also.
“It is easy to tell what a favourite Jabez must be in the warehouse, by
the uproar. The last outcome, I remember, was quite tame beside this.”
“Well, Augusta,” answered Ellen, “I believe he deserves it. I know my
father thinks there is not such another young man as Mr. Clegg in all
Manchester.”
“Yes, he’s very kind, and obliging, and clever, and perserving, and all
that, and I like him very well; but then you know, Ellen, he is not a
gentleman, and he is not handsome by any means,” responded Augusta, in
quite a patronising tone.
Ellen looked grave.
“He is all that is good and noble, if he was not born a gentleman; and
_I_ think him handsome. He has a frank, open, expressive countenance,
and a good figure, and good manners, and what more would you have?”
Augusta turned her head sharply, and looked up archly in her cousin’s
face.
“It’s well Captain Travis does not hear you, Ellen, or he might be
jealous of the prentice-knight,” she said, banteringly.
Ellen coloured painfully.
“When shall I make you understand that Mr. Travis is nothing to me?”
asked she.
“When my cousin makes me understand that she is nothing to Mr. Travis,”
was the quick reply, as Jabez was being borne past for the last time,
and the young ladies once more waved their handkerchiefs in salutation.
It may be very gratifying and very triumphant to be borne aloft on
other men’s shoulders, but it is neither dignified, nor graceful, nor
comfortable; and Jabez, being carried off bareheaded, had neither hat
nor cap to wave in return. He made the best use of his right hand,
his left being required to steady himself, yet I am afraid he was more
desirous to make a good impression on the romantic young lady muffled
in a shawl—to hide the swathing bandages—than on his less-attractive
and elder champion by her side.
It was half-past twelve; the dinner-bell rang, Jabez was lowered to
_terra firma_, and there was a general rush to the packing-room, which
had been cleared out to receive tressels and planks for tables, and an
abundant supply of cold meat, cheese, bread, and ale, provided by the
master.
And then and there, before a mouthful was cut, Mr. Ashton, standing
at the head of the table, with Mr. Chadwick by his side, and Simon
Clegg close at hand, presented Jabez with his indentures, with many
expressions of his good will and his good opinion, and an intimation to
those assembled that Mr. Clegg would in all probability continue in his
employ, an announcement which was received with loud acclaim: and the
hungry operatives set to at the collation with right good will.
This was the master’s feast; that of the apprentice, for which it was
customary to save up long in advance, was at night, and held at the
neighbouring “Concert-Hall Tavern” in York Street, opposite to the then
“Gentleman’s Concert-Hall.”
Prior to that, however, Mrs. Ashton had somewhat to say to the young
man, and she chose his own sitting-room to say it in. Of course, his
apprenticeship over, it behoved him to shift his quarters; and he had
looked forward to his abdication with regret undreamed of by Mrs.
Ashton, or she would certainly have hesitated ere she made the proposal
she did.
As it was, she kindly and thoughtfully considered that Jabez had no
good parental home to return to; that she had no other use for the
rooms he occupied, so she proposed to him that he should continue to
occupy them whilst he thought fit, since he had elected to remain in
their service.
He had already looked at lodgings in Charlotte Street, close at hand;
but this unexpected proposal came like a reprieve to an exile, and
he was as prompt in his acceptance as he had been in that previous
decision which had so thoroughly swamped all Mr. Chadwick’s plans
for his advancement. His eager “Oh, madam, you cannot mean it! You
overwhelm me with kindness. Remain under this roof! It is a privilege
I had not anticipated, and I shall be proud to embrace it!” sent Mrs.
Ashton away well pleased.
It was doubly satisfactory to find the comforts of their home
appreciated after seven years’ experience, and to be able to refute
Mr. Ashton’s theory that “all young men like to shake a loose leg, and
Jabez would be too glad to escape from grumbling Kezia’s jurisdiction
to accept the offer.”
Mr. Ashton, however, did not abandon the opinion he had formed. “I’ll
wager my gold snuff-box against a button-mould,” asserted he, “that
Clegg only said ‘Yes’ because gratitude would not let him say ‘Nay!’
It’s not likely a young man would care to be always under the eyes of a
master or mistress, however steady he may be.”
Ah, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ashton knew there was a magnet under their
roof, stronger than all the ordinary inducements which might otherwise
have drawn him away—and perhaps it was as well for him they did not.
Simon, who was present at the time, seemed literally overpowered with
gratitude for all the good which was falling into the lap of the child
of his adoption. He, however, took his own views of the matter, views
not calculated to puff Jabez up in his own esteem, and when Mrs. Ashton
was gone he broke out—
“Oh, Jabez, lad! but thah’s lit on thi feet! Thah’s bin a good lad, aw
reckon, an’ thah’s sarved thi master gradely; but thah sees many a lad
does that as never gets a lift such as thah’s getten. an’ aw canno’
but thenk it o’ comes o’ that prayer o’ thy Israelite neamesake, as aw
towt thee when thou wer no bigger nor sixpenn’orth o’ copper. yo’ hanna
furgetten it, aw hope?”
No, Jabez had not forgotten it! It would be strange if he had. Nay,
only that morning, in the flush of success he had carried from the
counting-house, with the buoyant presumption of youth, a conviction
that it was not so much a prayer as a prophecy nearing fulfilment.
Simon brought his soaring pinions down from their Icarian flight.
“Well, lad, it may be ‘the Lord has enlarge thi coast,’ but if so be He
han, thah sees theer’s moore room fur thee to slip as well as to stond,
and theer’s moore rayson whoi thah shouldn be thenkful and humble! for
the big book says, ‘Let him that stondeth tak’ heed lest he fall,’ an’
aw shouldna loike t’ see thi young yead torned wi proide.”
His lecture was somewhat of a cold shower-bath to Jabez in his hour of
triumph, but no doubt it was salutary in its ultimate effects. At all
events, it kept the vaulting ambition of the new man a little in check.
People—especially work-people—then observed early hours. At seven
o’clock the outcome supper was on the tables at the “Concert Hall
Tavern;” and the elder apprentices, and all such of the workmen as were
absolutely engaged on the premises, were there to partake when Jabez
found old Simon a seat, himself taking the head of the table, with the
two senior apprentices on his right hand and left.
The cost of such suppers usually fell on the apprentice, but sometimes,
as in this case, the master added his quota. If plain, the provision
was substantial and ample. Rounds of beef and legs of mutton, piles of
floury potatoes, and red cones of carrot on pale beds of mashed turnip,
smoked on the board, and the two-pronged forks and horn-hafted knifes
were flanked with earthenware jugs and horns of ale.
It was the first essay of Jabez in the art of carving, and no doubt
he made rather an unskilful president. But in the then condition
of the lower classes a large joint of meat was a rare sight to a
working-man, and so he cut away with no fear of critics. Amidst the
rattle of cutlery and crockery, and the rapid play of jaws, beef and
mutton disappeared, and were succeeded by a tremendous plum-pudding—the
contribution of old Mrs. Clowes—and half a cheese, which came to
the table in the then common japanned receptacle locally known as a
cheese-biggin.
Appetite and the viands fled together, the noise of tongues succeeded
to the noise of knives and forks, and Lancashire humour vented itself
in jest and repartee, sometimes coarse, but seldom mischievous. Old
Simon enjoyed it immensely. It seemed like a renewal of his own youth.
It was not, however, until the supper-table was cleared that the
chief ceremonial of the evening took place. Then an arm-chair was
mounted upon the table, in which Jabez was enthroned, the two eldest
apprentices standing, also on the table on either hand as supporters.
An immense bowl of steaming punch was brought in, which was held
over the head of Jabez by the one apprentice (when he was said to be
crowned), whilst the other, wielding the punch-ladle as a symbol of
authority, with many a theatrical grimace, began to ladle the odorous
compound into the glasses of the guests; and the head over-looker
of the manufactory, from the opposite end of the table, prepared to
propose the health of the late apprentice, as a new member of their
craft.
At this juncture in walked their master, Mr. Ashton, closely followed
by Mr. Chadwick, leaning on the arm of the Rev. Joshua Brookes, who
with many a “pish!” and “pshaw!” and “pooh!” had professed to come
reluctantly, “to see a sensible lad make a fool of himself.” Their
entrance, and the volley of cheers which greeted it, made a momentary
pause in the proceedings. Then Mr. Ashton, being duly supplied with a
ladleful of punch, took his overlooker’s place, and the glass serving
as a substitute for his snuff-box, he proposed and drank “Mr. Clegg’s
health and prosperity,” and welcomed him among the confraternity of
small-ware weavers.
This was succeeded by a prolonged cheer; and then, as one by one
each man’s glass was filled, ere he touched it with his lips he sang
separately (with whatsoever voice he might happen to have, musical or
otherwise) the following toast to proclaim the released apprentice a
freeman of the trade, the chorus being taken up afresh after every
repetition of the quatrain:—
“Here’s a health to he that’s now set free,
That once was a ’prentice bound,
And for his sake this merriment we make,
So let his health go round;
Go round, go round, go round, brave boys,
Until it comes to me;
For the longer we sit here and drink,
The merrier we shall be.”
_Chorus_—“Go round, go round,” &c.
Mr. Ashton had ordered up another bowl of punch, and that being
distributed with like ceremony over the new small-ware monarch’s
head, Jabez, from his temporary throne, with all the warmth of
freshly-stimulated gratitude, delivered a very genuine oration on the
excellence of the master then present, and proposed as a toast, “Mr.
and Mrs. Ashton, our worthy and esteemed master and mistress.”
Now-a-days I’m afraid the master would have been dubbed a “governor,”
and the mistress ignored altogether; but though it is only fifty-five
years since, servants were not ashamed to own they had masters and
mistresses, and consequently were not above being amenable to rule.
During this digression, at a hint from some one (I believe old Simon),
Jabez, whose eloquence must surely have come from the punch-bowl,
dilated on the spiritual relation between the reverend chaplain and the
party assembled, there being scarcely an individual present who had not
been either baptised or married by the Rev. Joshua Brookes; and he
wished “health and long life to him” with much sincerity.
A general shout rose in response, but Joshua made no other reply than
to turn on his heel (the better to hide his face), and growl out, “Long
life indeed! Ugh! pack of tomfoolery!” as he hurried from the room,
before either Mr. Ashton or his paralysed brother-in-law could follow.
Yet, in spite of his gruff disclaimer, he added another bowl of punch
to the “tomfoolery”—at least, one was brought in soon after, and no one
there was called upon to pay for it.
Relieved from the restraining presence of the gentlemen, tongues wagged
freely, long pipes were introduced, song, jest, and toast succeeded
each other, and as the fun grew and the smoke thickened, they mingled
confusedly, until at length clear-headed Simon drew his arm through
that of the novice, and watching his opportunity, led him unnoticed
into the open air, with his head spinning like a teetotum.
Jabez awakened the next morning with a terrible headache, and a dim
recollection of having encountered stately Mrs. Ashton in the hall
overnight, when the very statues had seemed to shake their heads at
him, and her mild, “Fie, Jabez!” followed him upstairs, apparently
carpeted with moss or india-rubber for the nonce. It was his first
dissipation, _and his last_. He never forgot it. And if anything was
wanting to destroy the germs of self-sufficiency and elation, it was
found in the consciousness of his own frailty, and the sense of shame
and self-reproach it engendered.
Experienced heads knew that the surrounding fumes of liquor and tobacco
had been more potential than the small quantity of punch he had
imbibed. But he did not know it, and by the hail-fellow-well-metishness
of those workmen who were most inclined at all times to keep Saint
Monday, and who came to their work, or stayed from their work, unfit
for their work, was a sensitive chord of his nature struck, far more
than by the quiet caution of Simon, the light badinage of Mr. Ashton,
or the jeers of captious Kezia.
In making light of it, Jabez felt they made light of him, and he was
long after afraid lest those whose opinion he held in esteem should
make light of him also—Augusta Ashton chief of these.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.[20]
ON ARDWICK GREEN POND.
It was in vain Madame Broadbent waited on Mrs. and Mr. Ashton, and
solicited Miss Ashton’s return to her establishment on her ultimate
recovery. The pupil was not more shudderingly reluctant to be re-placed
under her despotic rule than the parents were peremptory in their
refusal.
When her plea for the “maintenance of discipline” failed, and she
tried cajolery as ineffectually, she gave way to the expression of her
natural fears that it would “be the ruin of the Academy” if Mr. Ashton
did not reverse his decision. He loved his daughter too well to yield,
and Mrs. Broadbent went back to Bradshaw Street to find, as years
rolled on, that she had been a true prophetess.