The work of two years was complete, and I stood by Hallett as he watched
the trial of the machine where it was set up at our great factory; and
though we tried hard to find weak points, we were compelled to declare
that it was as near perfection as human hands could make it.
Hallett was very pale and quiet; he displayed no excitement, no joy; and
I felt rather disappointed at his apathy.
"Well," said Mr Jabez, aside to me, "if I didn't know that the poor
fellow was ill, I should have said that he didn't care _that_! whether
the thing succeeded or not."
_That_! was the snap of the fingers which followed the taking of a pinch
of snuff.
But he was ill. Poor fellow! He never seemed to have recovered from
the shock his system had received during his late illness; and, though
he had rallied and seemed strong and well, there had been times when he
would turn ghastly white, and startle me by his looks.
I mentioned it more than once to Miss Carr, who begged him to see a
physician; but he said it was nothing, and with a smile he used to tell
her that the perfection of the machine and a change would completely
restore him to health.
This we both believed;--and I can honestly say that I strove with all my
might to inspire the workmen with the spirit in which I toiled.
And now the new machine was finished. All that remained was to have it
removed to Mr Ruddle's place for a public inspection of its merits.
There had been something so depressing in the fate of the lost machine
that I strenuously advised that the trial should be made where the
present one now stood, but Hallett was averse to it.
"No, Antony," he said quietly; "I am neither vindictive nor spiteful,
and doubtless that man feels that he has good cause for hating me. Men
of his stamp always blame others for their own failings. I am, I say,
neither vindictive nor spiteful, but, feeling as I do, that he was the
cause of our last breakdown, I am determined that the scene of our last
failure shall also be the scene of our triumph."
This silenced opposition, and the workpeople were soon at work, taking
down and re-setting up Hallett's masterpiece at the old place.
For my part, I was regularly worn out. I had worked very hard, and felt
as if I was so deeply interested in the success that I must make it this
time a foregone conclusion. Hallett's health worried me a great, deal
too, and in addition to this, I was in more trouble than I can very well
express about my affair with Mr Blakeford.
My objections to the proceedings had come too late. As Tom Girtley
said, it was quite within our province to withdraw, and leave him in
possession of his ill-gotten gains, but the attack upon his character as
a solicitor was one which he was bound to disprove--in other words, he
could not afford to let it drop.
"And what is he doing?" I asked.
"Riding the high horse," said Tom. "Tony, my boy, I think you are
wrong."
"If Linny's father were alive, and he had injured you, Tom, would you
seize the first opportunity to ruin him?"
"Am I to answer that question as solicitor to client, or between
friends?"
"As you like, only let's have the truth."
Tom Girtley rubbed one of his ears, and a dry comical look came into his
countenance.
"Well, Tony, old fellow--" he began.
"Oh, come," I cried, "that form of address is not legal, so it is
between friends."
"Just as you like," he said, laughing. "Well, Tony, old fellow, under
the circumstances, I should put the screw on, especially if I knew him
to be a scoundrel. First and foremost, I should have his consent to our
marriage; secondly, I should inspect his money affairs, and if they were
in a satisfactory state, I should make the sneak disgorge."
"But you would not ruin him, and blast his character, for his child's
sake?"
"No, of course not."
"Then, suppose the young lady did not care for you?"
"Then I should fire at the old man hotter and stronger, so us to ease my
wounded feelings."
"No, you wouldn't, Tom," I said; "so don't humbug."
"You're a rum fellow, Tony," he retorted, "and 'pon my word it's
precious disappointing. Here's old Peter Rowle been hoarding this up
for his `dear boy,' as the smoky old cockolorum calls you, and old Jabez
in a high state of delight too. Then Miss Carr has spent no end over
it, and thought she had secured you your rights, and now you kick us all
over."
"I can't help it, Tom," I said. "I feel as if I should be a brute if I
went on."
"I say, Tony," he said, after a pause, "how long is it since you have
seen the young lady?"
"Nine years."
"What do you say to a run down to Rowford?"
"Run down?" I said eagerly. "No, I could not. I am too busy over the
preparations for the trial."
"Nonsense, man. You told me only yesterday that you had done all your
part, and that you meant to take a rest. I should like a run in the
country."
"At Miss Carr's expense," I said spitefully, "and charge it in her bill
of costs as out of pocket."
"Oh, that settles it," he cried, jumping up and stamping about the room,
roaring with laughter. "You must go for a run. Why, my dear boy, your
liver's out of order, or you, Antony Grace, the amiable, would never
have made a speech like that. Look here, Tony, you have overdone it,
and nothing will do you good but a week's walking-tour."
"Nonsense! Impossible!" I cried.
"Then you'll break down like the governor did once. Ever since, he says
that a man must oil his wheels and slacken his bands. Now you've got to
oil your wheels and slacken your bands for a week. When shall we
start?"
"I tell you it's impossible," I said testily.
"I tell you that, so far from its being impossible, if you don't give in
with a good grace--that isn't meant for a pun--I'll go and frighten Miss
Carr, and see the governor, and tell him how bad you are."
"Rubbish, Tom," I cried. "Why, you couldn't go and leave Linny Hallett
for a week," I added.
"Sneering, too," he said, with a mock assumption of concern. "My dear
Tony, this is getting serious. You are worse, far worse, than I thought
for."
"Don't talk stuff," I cried petulantly.
The result of it all was, that as he was pulling the string in the
direction that pleased me, I began to yield, and a proposition he made
carried the day.
"Look here, Tony," he cried, as if in a fit of inspiration. "A
walking-tour is the thing! you told me all about your tramp up when you
ran away from Blakeford's. Let's go and tramp it all down again, over
the very road."
His words seemed to strike an electric chord, and I grasped eagerly at
the plan. The result was, that after arranging with Hallett to keep an
eye on the preparations, and after winning from him a declaration that
he would not think I was forsaking him at a critical time, and also
after receiving endorsement and persuasion from Miss Carr, I found
myself one bright summer morning at Paddington, lightly equipped for the
start, and together Tom Girtley and I strode along by the side of the
dirty canal.
How familiar it all seemed again, as we walked on! There was the
public-house where I had obtained the pot of beer for Jack's father,
when I had to part, from them at the end of my journey up; and there,
too, directly after, was just such a boy in charge of a couple of bony
horses, one of which had a shallow tin bucket hanging from the
collar-hames, as they tugged at a long rope which kept splashing the
water, and drew on Londonward one of the narrow red and yellow-painted
canal-boats, covered in with just such a tarpaulin as that under which
Jack and I had slept.
Resting on the tiller was just such another heavy, red-faced, dreamy
man, staring straight before him as he sucked at a short black pipe,
while forming herself into a living kit-cat picture was the woman who
appeared to be his wife, her lower portions being down the square hatch
that led into the cabin where the fire burned, whose smoke escaped
through a little funnel.
I seemed to have dropped back into the boy again, and half wondered that
I was not tired and footsore, and longing for a ride on one of the bony
horses.
And so it was all through our journey down.
Every lock seemed familiar, and at more than one lock-house there were
the same green apples and cakes and glasses of sticky sweets, side by
side with two or three string-tied bottles of ginger-beer.
Two or three times over I found myself getting low-spirited as I dwelt
upon my journey up, and thought of what a poor, miserable little fellow
I was; but Tom was always in the highest of spirits, and they proved at
last to be infectious.
We had pretty well reached the spot at last where I had first struck the
river, when we stopped to see a canal-boat pass through the lock, the
one where I had stared with wonder to see the great boat sink down some
eight or nine feet to a lower level.
The boat, which was a very showily painted one, evidently quite new, was
deeply laden, and in one place a part of a glistening black tarpaulin
trailed in the water. As the boat's progress was checked, and the
lock-keeper came out, the short, thick-set man who had been at the
tiller shouted something, and a round-faced girl of about twenty, with a
bright-coloured cotton handkerchief pinned over her shoulders, came up
the hatch, and took the man's place, while he douched forward to alter
the tarpaulin where it trailed.
He was quite a young man, and I noticed that his hair was fair, short,
and crisp about his full neck, as he bent down, pipe in mouth, while a
something in the way in which he shouted to the boy in charge of the
horses settled my doubts.
"Jack!" I shouted.
He rose up very slowly, took the pipe out of his mouth, and spat in the
water; then, gradually turning himself in my direction, he stared hard
at me and said:
"Hello!"
"Don't you know me again, Jack?"
He stared hard at me for some moments, took his pipe out of his mouth
again, spat once more in the water, said surlily, "No!" and bent down
slowly to his work.
"Don't you remember my going up to London with you nine years ago this
summer?"
He assumed the perpendicular at once, stared, scowled, took his pipe out
of his mouth with his left hand, and then, as a great smile gradually
dawned all over his brown face, he gave one leg a smart slap with a
great palm, and seemed to shake himself from his shoulders to his heels,
which I found was his way of having a hearty laugh.
"Why, so it is!" he cried, in a sort of good-humoured growl. "Missus,
lash that there tiller and come ashore. Here's that there young chap."
To Tom's great amusement, Jack came ashore at the lock, and was followed
by his round-faced partner, for whom he showed his affection by giving
her a tremendous slap on the shoulder, to which she responded by driving
her elbow into his side, and saying, "Adone, Jack. Don't be a fool!"
and ending by staring at us hard.
"I didn't know yer agen," growled Jack. "Lor' ain't you growed!"
"Why, so have you, Jack," I exclaimed, shaking hands with him; and then
with the lady, for he joined our hands together, taking up hers and
placing it in mine, as if he were performing a marriage ceremony.
"Well, I s'pose I have," he said in his slow, cumbersome way. "This
here's my missus. We was only married larst week. This here's our
boat. She was born aboard one on 'em."
"I'm glad to see you again, Jack," I said, as the recollection of our
journey up recurred to me, strengthened by our meeting.
"So am I," he growled. "Lor'! I do wish my old man was here, too: he
often talked about you."
"About me, Jack?"
"Ah! 'member that pot o' beer you stood for him when you was going
away--uppards--you know?"
"Yes; I remember."
"So do he. He says it was the sweetest drop he ever had in his life;
and he never goes by that 'ere house without drinking your health."
"Jack often talks about you," said "my missus."
"I should think I do!" growled Jack. "I say, missus, what's in the
pot?"
"Biled rabbit, inguns, and bit o' bacon," was the prompt reply.
"Stop an' have a bit o' dinner with us, then. I've got plenty o' beer."
I was about to say no, as I glanced at Tom; but his eyes were full of
glee, and he kept nodding his head, so I said _yes_.
The result was that the barge was taken through the lock, and
half-a-mile lower down drawn close in beneath some shady trees, where we
partook of Jack's hospitality--his merry-hearted, girlish wife, when she
was not staring at us, striving hard to make the dinner prepared for two
enough for four.
I dare say it was very plebeian taste, but Tom and I declared honestly
that we thoroughly enjoyed the dinner partaken of under the trees upon
the grass; and I said I never knew how good Dutch cheese and new crusty
country loaf, washed down by beer from a stone bottle, were before.
We parted soon after, Jack and I exchanging rings; for when I gave him a
plain gold gipsy ring for his handkerchief, he insisted upon my taking
the home-made silver one he wore; while his wife was made happy with a
gaily coloured silk handkerchief which I used to wear at night.
The last I saw of them was Jack standing up waving his red cap over his
head, and "my missus" the gaily coloured handkerchief. After that they
passed on down stream, and Tom and I went our way.
I could not have been a very good walker in my early days, for my
companion and I soon got over the ground between the river and Rowford,
even though I stopped again and again--to show where I had had my fight;
where I had hidden from Blakeford when the pony-chaise went by; and, as
if it had never been moved, there by the road was a heap of stones where
I had slept and had my bundle stolen.
It was one bright summer's evening that we entered Rowford, which seemed
to have shrunk and its houses to have grown dumpy since the days when I
used to go out to post letters for Mr Blakeford.
"There's his house, Tom," I said; and I felt my pulses accelerate their
beat, as I saw the gates, and the wall over which I had climbed, and
found myself wondering whether the same dog was in there still.
We were too tired with our long walk to take much notice, and made
straight for the inn, where, after a hearty meal, we were glad to go
early to bed.
Tom was sleeping soundly when I woke the next morning, and finding it
was not yet seven, I dressed and went out for a walk, to have a good
look round the old place, and truth to tell, to walk by Mr Blakeford's
house, thinking I might perhaps see Hetty.
We had made no plans. I was to come down to Rowford, and the next day
but one I was due in London, for our walk had taken some time--though a
few hours by rail would suffice to take us back.
It was one of those delicious fresh mornings when, body and mind at
rest, all nature seems beautiful, and one feels it a joy only to exist.
I was going along the main street on the opposite side of the way, when
I saw a tall slight figure in deep mourning come out of Mr Blakeford's
gateway, and go on towards the end of the town.
I followed with my heart beating strangely. I had not seen her face,
but I seemed to feel that it was Hetty, and following her slowly right
out of the town, and along the main road for a time till she struck up a
side lane, I kept on wondering what she would be like, and whether she
would know me; and if she did--what then?
Perhaps after all it was not Hetty. It might be some friend; and as I
thought this, a strange pang of disappointment shot through me, and I
seemed to have some faint dawning realisation of what Stephen Hallett's
feelings must have been at many a bitter time.
Is this love? I asked myself as I walked on, drinking in the
deliciously sweet morning scents, and listening to the songs of the
birds and the hum of the insects in the bright June sunshine.
I could not answer the question: all I knew was that I was in an agony
to see that face, to be out of my state of misery and doubt; but though
a dozen times over I was on the point of walking on fast and then
turning back so as to meet her, I had not the courage.
For quite half-an-hour this went on, she being about a hundred yards in
advance. We were now in rather a secluded lane, and I was beginning to
fear that she intended to cut across the fields, and return by the lower
road, when, all at once, she faced round and began to retrace her steps.
I saw her hesitate a moment as she became aware that she had been
followed, but she came straight on, and as she drew near my doubts were
set at rest. It was unmistakably Hetty, but grown sweeter looking and
more beautiful, and my heart began to throb wildly as the distance
between us grew short.
She did not know me--that was evident; and yet there was a look of doubt
and hesitation in her face, while after a moment's wonder as to how I
should address her, I saw her countenance change, and troubled no more
about etiquette, but, carried away by my feelings, I exclaimed: "Hetty!
dear Hetty!" and clasped her hands in mine.