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.