THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as well as to
every position in life. I turned this truism over in my mind as, in the
frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried down the steep and now
icy street which descended from Mrs. King’s to the Close. The factory
workpeople had preceded me by nearly an hour, and the mill was all
lighted up and in full operation when I reached it. I repaired to my
post in the counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as
yet only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and sat
down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in half-frozen water, were
still numb; I could not write till they had regained vitality, so I
went on thinking, and still the theme of my thoughts was the “climax.”
Self-dissatisfaction troubled exceedingly the current of my meditations.
“Come, William Crimsworth,” said my conscience, or whatever it is that
within ourselves takes ourselves to task--“come, get a clear notion of
what you would have, or what you would not have. You talk of a climax;
pray has your endurance reached its climax? It is not four months old.
What a fine resolute fellow you imagined yourself to be when you told
Tynedale you would tread in your father’s steps, and a pretty treading
you are likely to make of it! How well you like X----! Just at this
moment how redolent of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops,
its warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers
you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings,
letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find pleasure
in Brown’s, nor Smith’s, nor Nicholl’s, nor Eccle’s company; and as
to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be derived from his
society--he! he! how did you like the taste you had of him last night?
was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an original-minded man, and even
he does not like you; your self-respect defies you to like him; he has
always seen you to disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage;
your positions are unequal, and were they on the same level your
minds could not assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of
friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are
your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee
would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your aspirations spread eager
wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight--in
X---- daylight--you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those
three you will never meet in this world; they are angels. The souls of
just men made perfect may encounter them in heaven, but your soul will
never be made perfect. Eight o’clock strikes! your hands are thawed, get
to work!”
“Work? why should I work?” said I sullenly: “I cannot please though I
toil like a slave.” “Work, work!” reiterated the inward voice. “I may
work, it will do no good,” I growled; but nevertheless I drew out a
packet of letters and commenced my task--task thankless and bitter as
that of the Israelite crawling over the sun-baked fields of Egypt in
search of straw and stubble wherewith to accomplish his tale of bricks.
About ten o’clock I heard Mr. Crimsworth’s gig turn into the yard, and
in a minute or two he entered the counting-house. It was his custom to
glance his eye at Steighton and myself, to hang up his mackintosh, stand
a minute with his back to the fire, and then walk out. Today he did
not deviate from his usual habits; the only difference was that when
he looked at me, his brow, instead of being merely hard, was surly; his
eye, instead of being cold, was fierce. He studied me a minute or two
longer than usual, but went out in silence.
Twelve o’clock arrived; the bell rang for a suspension of labour; the
workpeople went off to their dinners; Steighton, too, departed, desiring
me to lock the counting-house door, and take the key with me. I
was tying up a bundle of papers, and putting them in their place,
preparatory to closing my desk, when Crimsworth reappeared at the door,
and entering closed it behind him.
“You’ll stay here a minute,” said he, in a deep, brutal voice, while his
nostrils distended and his eye shot a spark of sinister fire.
Alone with Edward I remembered our relationship, and remembering that
forgot the difference of position; I put away deference and careful
forms of speech; I answered with simple brevity.
“It is time to go home,” I said, turning the key in my desk.
“You’ll stay here!” he reiterated. “And take your hand off that key!
leave it in the lock!”
“Why?” asked I. “What cause is there for changing my usual plans?”
“Do as I order,” was the answer, “and no questions! You are my servant,
obey me! What have you been about--?” He was going on in the same
breath, when an abrupt pause announced that rage had for the moment got
the better of articulation.
“You may look, if you wish to know,” I replied. “There is the open desk,
there are the papers.”
“Confound your insolence! What have you been about?”
“Your work, and have done it well.”
“Hypocrite and twaddler! Smooth-faced, snivelling greasehorn!” (This
last term is, I believe, purely ----shire, and alludes to the horn of
black, rancid whale-oil, usually to be seen suspended to cart-wheels,
and employed for greasing the same.)
“Come, Edward Crimsworth, enough of this. It is time you and I wound up
accounts. I have now given your service three months’ trial, and I find
it the most nauseous slavery under the sun. Seek another clerk. I stay
no longer.”
“What! do you dare to give me notice? Stop at least for your wages.” He
took down the heavy gig whip hanging beside his mackintosh.
I permitted myself to laugh with a degree of scorn I took no pains to
temper or hide. His fury boiled up, and when he had sworn half-a-dozen
vulgar, impious oaths, without, however, venturing to lift the whip, he
continued:
“I’ve found you out and know you thoroughly, you mean, whining
lickspittle! What have you been saying all over X---- about me? answer
me that!”
“You? I have neither inclination nor temptation to talk about you.”
“You lie! It is your practice to talk about me; it is your constant
habit to make public complaint of the treatment you receive at my hands.
You have gone and told it far and near that I give you low wages and
knock you about like a dog. I wish you were a dog! I’d set-to this
minute, and never stir from the spot till I’d cut every strip of flesh
from your bones with this whip.”
He flourished his tool. The end of the lash just touched my forehead.
A warm excited thrill ran through my veins, my blood seemed to give a
bound, and then raced fast and hot along its channels. I got up nimbly,
came round to where he stood, and faced him.
“Down with your whip!” said I, “and explain this instant what you mean.”
“Sirrah! to whom are you speaking?”
“To you. There is no one else present, I think. You say I have been
calumniating you--complaining of your low wages and bad treatment. Give
your grounds for these assertions.”
Crimsworth had no dignity, and when I sternly demanded an explanation,
he gave one in a loud, scolding voice.
“Grounds! you shall have them; and turn to the light that I may see your
brazen face blush black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and
a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the
pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the
question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant
about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such
trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy
mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the
quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I
saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you
in close conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know
that you were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.”
“Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss
you, he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse
man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom
existed.”
“Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe,
he cracked the whip straight over my head.
A minute sufficed to wrest it from him, break it in two pieces, and
throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded,
and said--
“Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.”
Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate
something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought
before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After
an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed
to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient
superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer
and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of
personal chastisement.
“Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at
that door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get
transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into
my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground
belonging to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.”
“It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what
temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a
tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so
no fear of my coming back.”
“Go, or I’ll make you!” exclaimed Crimsworth.
I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were
my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the
key on the top.
“What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the millowner.
“Leave all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search
you.”
“Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my
gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house--walked out of it
to enter it no more.
I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr.
Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had
rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to
hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images
of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and
tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I
only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize
with the action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could
I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and
liberated. I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of
resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced
circumstances; circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me;
no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding
Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far
subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer
boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo!
straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles
out of X----. The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined
sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising
from the river on which X---- stands, and along whose banks the road I
had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy
blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the
time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed
within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being
yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for
the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow.
I stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current:
I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear
and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years.
Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of
that day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some
very old oak trees surrounding the church--its light coloured and
characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the
sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear,
eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my
face towards X----.