Plenty of you know Sheffield by name; but I think those who know it by
nature are few and far between. If you tried to give me your
impressions of the place, you would most likely begin to talk of a
black, smoky town, full of forges, factories, and furnaces, with steam
blasts hissing, and Nasmyth hammers thudding and thundering all day
long. But there you would stop, although you were right as far as you
went. Let me say a little more, speaking as one who knows the place,
and tell you that it lies snugly embosomed in glorious hills, curving
and sweeping between which are some of the loveliest vales in England.
The town is in parts dingy enough, and there is more smoke than is
pleasant; but don't imagine that all Sheffield's sons are toiling
continually in a choking atmosphere. There is a class of men--a large
class, and one that has attained to a not very enviable notoriety in
Sheffield--I mean the grinders--whose task is performed under far
different circumstances; and when I describe one wheel, I am only
painting one of hundreds clustering round the busy town, ready to
sharpen and polish the blades for which Sheffield has long been famed.
Through every vale there flows a stream, fed by lesser rivulets, making
their way down little valleys rich in wood and dell. Wherever such a
streamlet runs trickling over the rocks, or bubbling amongst the stones,
water rights have been established, hundreds of years old; busy hands
have formed dams, and the pent-up water is used for turning some huge
water-wheel, which in its turn sets in motion ten, twenty, or thirty
stones in the long shed beside it, the whole being known in the district
as "a wheel."
One of my favourite walks lay along by a tiny bubbling brook, overhung
with trees, up past wheel after wheel, following the streamlet towards
its head, higher up the gorge through which it ran--a vale where you
might stand and fancy yourself miles from man and his busy doings, as
you listened to the silvery tinkle of the water playing amidst the
pebbles, the sweet twittering song of birds overhead, or the hum of bees
busy amidst the catkins and the blossoms; watched the flashing of the
bright water as the sun glistened and darted amidst the leaves, till on
the breeze would come the "plash, plash," of the water-wheel, and the
faintly-heard harsh "chir-r-r-r" of blade upon grindstone, When,
recollecting that man was bound to earn his bread in the sweat of his
brow, one would leave the beauties around, and hurry on to some visit.
I had a patient who used to work in one of those pleasant little vales--
a patient to whom it fell to my lot to render, next to life, almost one
of the greatest services man can render to man.
He was genial and patient, handsome too, and I used to think what a fine
manly looking fellow he must have been before he suffered from the
dastardly outrage of which he was the victim.
He was very low spirited during the early part of his illness and he
used to talk to me in a quiet patient way about the valley, and I was
surprised to find how fond he was of nature and its beauties, some of
the sentiments that came from his lips being far above what one would
have expected from such a man.
My bill, I am sorry to say, was a very long one with him, but he laughed
and said that he had been a long patient.
"Why Doctor," he said one evening many many months after his accident,
and when he had quite recovered, and as he spoke he took his wife's
hand, "I shouldn't have found fault if it had been twice as much. I
only wish it was, and I had the money to pay you that or four times as
much. But you haven't made a very handsome job of me: has he, Jenny?"
There were tears in his wife's eyes, though there was a smile upon her
lip, and I knew that she was one who, as he told me, looked upon the
heart.
"Ah, Doctor," he said to me as he went over the troublous past, "it was
very pleasant there working where you had only to lift your eyes from
the wet whirling stone and look out of the open shed window at the
bright blue sky and sunshine. There was not much listening to the birds
there amongst the hurrying din of the rushing stones, and the chafing of
band, and shriek of steel blade being ground; but the toil seemed
pleasanter there, with nothing but the waving trees to stay the light of
God's sunshine, and I used to feel free and happy, and able to drink in
long draughts of bright, pure air, whenever I straightened myself from
my task, and gathered strength for the next spell.
"I could have been very happy there on that wheel, old and ramshackle
place as it was, if people would only have let me. I was making a
pretty good wage, and putting by a little every week, for at that time
it had come into my head that I should like to take to myself a wife.
Now, I'd lived nine-and-twenty years without such a thing coming
seriously to mind, but one Sunday, when having a stroll out on the
Glossop Road with John Ross--a young fellow who worked along with me--we
met some one with her mother and father; and from that afternoon I was a
changed man.
"I don't know anything about beauty, and features, and that sort of
thing; but I know that Jenny Lee's face was the sweetest and brightest I
ever saw; and for the rest of the time we were together I could do
nothing but feast upon it with my eyes.
"John Ross knew the old people; and when I came to reckon afterwards, I
could see plainly enough why my companion had chosen the Glossop Road:
for they asked us to walk with them as far as their cottage, which was
nigh at hand; and we did, and stayed to tea, and then they walked part
of the way back in the cool of the evening. When we parted, and John
Ross began to chatter about them, it seemed as if a dark cloud was
settling down over my life, and that all around was beginning to look
black and dismal.
"`You'll go with me again, Harry?' he said to me as we parted. `I
shan't wait till Sunday, but run over on Wednesday night.'
"`I don't know, I'll see,' I said; and then we parted.
"I went out that afternoon happy and light-hearted, I came back mad and
angry. `He wants me to go with him to talk to the old people, while he
can chatter, and say empty nothings to that girl, who is as much too
good for him as she is for--'
"`Me!' I said after a pause, for I seemed to grow sensible all at once,
and to see that I was making myself what I called rather stupid. Then I
began to take myself to task, and to consider about the state of
affairs, seeing how that John Ross's visits were evidently favoured by
the old people, perhaps by their daughter, and therefore, why was I to
thrust myself in the way, and, besides being miserable myself, make two
or three others the same?
"`I'll go to bed and have a good night's rest,' I said, `and so forget
all about it.'
"How easy it is to make one's arrangements, but how hard sometimes to
follow them out! I had no sleep at all that night; and so far from
getting up and going to begin the fresh week's work light-hearted and
happy, and determined not to pay any more visits along with John Ross, I
was dull, disheartened, and worrying myself as to whether Jenny Lee
cared anything for my companion.
"`If she does,' I said to myself, `I'll keep away, but if she does not,
why may she not be brought to think about me?'
"Somehow or another, John Ross had always made companion of me, in spite
of our having very different opinions upon certain subjects. He was
for, and I was strongly against trades unions. He always used to tell
me that he should convert me in time; but although we had been intimate
for three years, that time had not come yet. On the contrary, certain
outrages that had disgusted the working men, had embittered me against
the unions. However, we kept friends; and it was not upon that question
that he became my most bitter enemy.
"After many a long consultation with myself, I had determined to go with
Ross to the Lees only once more, and had gone; but somehow that `only
once more' grew into another and another visit; till from going with
John Ross alone, I got into the habit of calling without him, and was
always well received. Jenny was pleasant and merry, and chatty, and the
old folks were sociable; and the pleasure derived from these visits
smothered the remorse I might otherwise have felt, for I could plainly
see, from John Ross's manner, how jealous and annoyed he was. And yet
his visits always seemed welcome. There was the same cheery greeting
from the old folks, the same ready hand-shake from Jenny; but matters
went on until, from being friends, John Ross and I furiously hated one
another, even to complete avoidance; while, from the honest, matured
thoughts of later years, I can feel now that it was without cause,
Jenny's feelings towards us being as innocent and friendly as ever dwelt
in the breast of a true-hearted English girl.
"But we could not see that, and in turn accused her of lightness and
coquetry, of playing off one against the other, and thought bitterly of
much that was kindly, true, and well meant.
"As may be supposed, each feelings bore bitter fruit. John Ross accused
me of treachery, and sowing dissension, ending by desiring, with
threats, that I should go to the Lees no more; while I, just as angry,
declared that unless forbidden by Jenny, I should go there as frequently
as I desired.
"We came to blows. It was during dinner hour, and the wheel was
stopped; we had been talking by the dam side, and at last, when in his
anger he had struck me, I had furiously returned the blow; then more
passed, and after a sharp struggle, I shook myself free, when, unable to
save himself, John Ross fell heavily into the deep water, and plunged
out of sight for a few moments. But there was no danger, for as he came
up he was within reach, and he seized my outstretched hand, and I helped
him out, my anger gone, and ready to laugh at him, as he stood there
pale and dripping.
"`I shan't forget this,' he said, shaking his fist in my face.
"`Pooh! nonsense, man!' I exclaimed, catching the threatening hand in
both mine. `Let bygones be bygones, and make friends.' But snatching
his hand away, he dashed in amongst the trees, and in a few moments was
out of sight.
"I did not go up to the Lees that night, but the next evening upon
walking up after work-hours, I found John Ross there; and that on all
sides I was received with a studied coldness. The old people were quite
gruff, and their daughter only replied quietly to my questions. I soon
found that my presence acted as a restraint upon the party, and with a
reproachful look at Jenny I rose to go.
"I did not see the tears that rose to Jenny's eyes as I left; for I was
meeting the triumphant looks of John Ross, and trying to smother down
the bitterness that rose in my breast.
"`He must have been poisoning them against me,' I muttered, as I took my
solitary way towards the town. `I wonder what he has said!' then I
began to think of how I had come between him and his happiness, and
accused myself of selfishness, and at last reached my lodgings
determined to fight down my disappointment, and to try to forget it in
work.
"I fought hard, and it would be beyond words to tell the misery of my
solitary heart as I kept steadfastly from the Lees, working early and
late to drive away my thoughts, and too much taken up with my own
affairs to observe the strange, sullen way in which I was treated by the
other men in the wheel. I did notice John Ross's scowls; but knowing
their cause, I did not pay much heed to them, telling myself that I was
serving him to the best of my ability, and that if he knew all I
suffered, he would only be too glad to offer me the hand of good
fellowship.
"`He'll find it out for himself some day,' I said, with a sigh, and went
on with my work.
"Of course you know what I mean by the wheel-bands, doctor? You know
that to every grindstone there are endless leathern straps, to connect
them with the main shafts set in motion by the water-wheel; and by means
of these connections each man's stone is made to revolve. As a matter
of course, if these bands were removed, a man's grindstone would be
motionless, and work impossible; and though such acts were common enough
in some wheels, nothing of the kind had taken place on our stream, so
that I was perfectly astounded one morning upon going to work to find
that my bands had been cut.
"I took it to be meant as a joke, so, though much annoyed, I merely set
to, and looking as good-humoured as possible, repaired my bands after a
rough fashion, so that, saving one or two breaks down, I managed to get
a pretty good day's work done.
"There was plenty of bantering going on, not of a pleasant, jovial kind,
but of a sneering, harsh nature, and I went home that night disheartened
and put out. I did not give John Ross the credit of the trick, as being
too small; and I began to hope, too, that he saw me in my right light.
But there was another stab for me that night, for passing along one of
the streets whom should I meet but John himself, walking by the side of
Jenny Lee and her mother.
"Jenny gazed hard at me, for I moved to her as I passed; but it seemed
to me that she only looked on my salute with contempt, and I passed on
feeling more bitter than ever.
"The next morning on going to work my bands were gone, and the only
reply to my inquiries was a hoarse kind of laughter mingled with jeers.
I could see now plainly enough that, probably incited by John Ross, the
men intended to make my life so unpleasant at the wheel that I should be
glad to seek for work elsewhere.
"`Don't want no such independent men here,' shouted somebody, and
several other remarks were made of a like nature.
"`I can give way when I'm in the wrong, John Ross,' I muttered to
myself; `but if you're at the bottom of this, I intend to show you that
mine is consistency of behaviour and not cowardice.' So, quietly
leaving the wheel, I took no heed of the laughter and jeers of the men,
but went back to the town, bought new bands, and, to the surprise of
those who had thought me driven away, went on with my work as though
nothing had happened.
"`I should take them bands home t'-night, lad,' said one, jeeringly.
"`Ay, they wean't be safe here,' said another.
"But I let them banter away, though I took care that my new bands should
not be stolen, rolling them up and carrying them away with me every
night when I left off work.
"This only served to increase the animosity of the men, and sneers and
sullen looks were hurled at me from morn till night, till at times I
began to ask myself whether it would not be wiser to seek elsewhere for
work. But I always came to one conclusion--that I was in the right, and
that it would be miserable cowardice on my part to give up.
"So I kept on suffering in silence every insult and annoyance, such as,
to their disgrace be it said, some working men are only too ready to
heap upon any fellow-toiler who has had the misfortune to make himself
obnoxious.
"And so matters went on till one morning, when, passing a number of
lowering faces, I made my way to my seat, slipped on my bands, and then,
not noticing that the others were lingering about against door and
window, took up the first of the knife-blades I had to grind, and
applied it to the stone. There was the sharp `chirring' noise, the
sparks darted away from beneath the blade, and then there was a sharp
blinding flash, a dull report, and I felt myself dashed back, scorched,
half stunned, and helpless, but still sensible enough to know that some
cowardly hand had placed a quantity of gunpowder where the sparks from
my stone would fly--a cruel unmanly trick that was not new in those
days--and as I lay there and groaned, I believe it was as much from
agony of mind as of body; for it seemed so mean, so despicable, that it
was hard to believe that men living in a Christian country could be
guilty of such an act.
"But there were some there who did not sympathise with the outrage; and
three or four lifted me up, and would have taken me to the infirmary,
but I begged them to bear me to my lodgings, and then fetch a doctor,
and they brought you.
"`I'd tell 'ee, lad, who put in the poother,' said one of them,
whispering in my ear, `but I darn't.'
"`I don't want to know, Jack Burkin,' I groaned, as I lay there in the
dark, `I'd rather not hear;' and as I spoke, my heart seemed to tell me
who was my enemy.
"`I wish the poor girl might have chosen a better husband,' I said to
myself that night, as I lay there sleepless from pain, when you had done
what you could for me, and I lay waiting for the day. Not that I could
see it, for all was blank to me now; and as I thought, I pictured myself
as I felt I should be in the future--a tall, stout man, with vacant eyes
and a seamed and scarred face: for I knew that I was fearfully scorched,
and that hair, eyebrows, and lashes were burned off, and my face
terribly disfigured.
"It was a bitter time that, but though the pain was still most keen, I
laughed at it after the first four-and-twenty hours, glorying in and
blessing the day that had laid me helpless there; and I'll tell you the
reason why.
"John Ross had overshot the mark, while I had been blinder than I was at
the present time, when a happy light darted into my understanding, and I
learnt that I was not to be the solitary man I had expected.
"I was lying in pain and bitterness on the afternoon after the accident,
all in darkness. You remember you had been to dress my blackened face
and hands once more, but you did not give me much comfort when I asked
you about my sight.
"`Remember' I said, `I told you to be hopeful, for I was in great
doubt.'
"`And what was I to do when blind?' I asked myself. Certainly, I had
saved up a little money, but I knew that would not last long, and that
it would be sunken by the doctor's bill.
"`Pity I did not go into the infirmary,' I groaned, and then I felt
ready to eat my words, for a sweet little sad voice, that made my heart
leap, said, `May I come in?'
"I could not have answered to have saved my life, but only groan and try
to turn away my face, lest she should see it--my blackened and scarred
face, disfigured with cotton-wool and dressing, my head with every scrap
of hair scorched off--and, had I been able, I should have tried to hide
it with my hands, but they too, with my arms, were burned and bandaged,
and I could only slightly turn my head and groan, as I thought of my
past manly looks, and trembled to be seen by the bright-faced girl who
had first made my heart to beat more swiftly.
"`May I come in?' was repeated again, but still I could not answer; and
then there was the light sound of a step crossing the chamber floor, a
rustle by the bedside, and I heard some one go down upon her knees, and
felt two little gentle hands laid upon one of my arms, and a sweet
little voice sobbing, `Oh, Harry! oh, Harry! that it should come to
this!'
"Speak? I could not speak; and as to pain, I believe, with the
exultation then in my heart, I could have borne the keenest pangs that
ever fell to the lot of man.
"She did not love John Ross, then, and never had, or she would not have
come to me thus to lay bare the secret of her pure young heart. Had I
been well and strong, and had the sense to have followed up the
opportunity once given, she would have been quiet and retiring; but now,
in this perilous time--for I learnt after that I was in danger, and that
this was known--Jenny had come to my bedside, like some ministering
angel, to tend and comfort me.
"I could speak at last though, even if it was but in a whisper; and in
those long hours, as she sat by my bed, all reserve was cast aside; and,
speaking as one who only looked upon things as they might have been, I
told her how I loved her, and how I had kept away, believing that she
would be happier with John Ross.
"I learnt now of his pettiness, of the way in which he had defamed me;
but let that pass. I could forgive him all since I learned that he had
never gained entrance to the little heart beating by my side. I
learned, too, of Jenny's suspicions, aroused by a purchase she had seen
the young man make, at a shop in the town, one day when she was not
perceived; but I would not have the thought harboured, for I bore him no
malice then. And at last I groaned again, and the weak tears forced
themselves into my poor smarting eyes as the thought would come of what
might have been, and of how I must not indulge in such ideas now,
binding the fresh young girl by my side to a scarred and blinded man. I
knew that I must be hideous to look upon, but in my ignorance I knew not
the heart placed by God in a true woman's breast, and I could only groan
again as I felt a little soft cheek laid to mine, cruelly burned as it
was, and the tender sympathising voice ask me if I was in much pain.
"`Only of the heart, Jenny,' I whispered, `as I think of what I might
have been.'
"And then her sobbing question, as she asked me not to think it
unmaidenly and bold of her to come to me, and to talk as she had done.
"What could I say, but ask God's blessing upon her head as her little
light step crossed the floor? And then the brightness seemed to have
gone, and all was once more dark.
"Day after day she was at my side, to read to me gentle words of hope
and resignation; and when, more than once, I spoke of my altered looks,
my scarred face and sightless eyes, telling her how it cut me to the
heart to say it, but that all this must end, for I should not be acting
as a man if I bound her to such a wreck, spoiling her fair young life,
did she not tell me she could love me better than if I had been as I was
before, begging me not to send her away, lest I should break her heart?
"And it was almost in happiness that day that I lay there, very weak and
helpless. You remember when I had been delirious, and very nigh unto
death. The light still burned, but the oil was low and the flame danced
and flickered so that at any moment it might expire. In the days of my
strength I had looked upon death with horror, trembling almost at the
name; but now, quite sensible as I lay there, as I thought, waiting for
its coming, it was with a strange calm feeling of resignation. There
was no dread; I only felt happy and at ease, for those pure little lips
at my side had hour after hour offered up prayers in my behalf to where
prayers are heard, and with the sincere hope of forgiveness for what I
had done amiss, I lay waiting till my eyes should close in the last long
sleep. I was sorry, and yet glad, for I felt that it would be cruel to
poor Jenny to get well; and though I knew her true heart and her love
for me, what was there in the future for her if she took to her heart a
husband who was blind and maimed?
"And then the flame grew stronger, ceasing to flicker, and burning with
a faint but steady flame--a flame that brightened day by day, and hope
would come back, whispered as it was in my too willing ears.
"Then, too, there came a day when there was, as it were, a pale dawn
before my eyes--a dawn which took months before it fully broke into day;
when after a good long look at my altered face, I took the stick I had
not yet been able to lay aside, and one bright afternoon in early spring
made my way up to the Lees, to find the old folks out, but Jenny at
home.
"And we talked long and earnestly that day, for I had made up my mind to
be a man. I knew that I should always be plain, almost to distortion,
and I told myself that it was my duty to offer once more to set her
free.
"Jenny had been weeping silently for some time, when, turning to me, she
said, gently. `Don't think me irreverent, Harry, but do you remember
how God chose David to be king over his people?'
"I nodded, for my heart seemed swelled unto bursting, and I could not
speak.
"`He looked upon the heart,' sobbed Jenny; `and oh, Harry, I have tried
to choose my king like that.'
"People call this world a vale of sorrows, and I pity those who always
speak like that, for they can never have felt the happiness that was
mine that night, as two fond arms clasped my neck, and a loving cheek
was laid to mine, and they were those of her who has been my wife these
fifteen happy years.
"I believe that there are those who think us a strangely-matched couple,
and that our little ones all favour their mother; but they don't know
all, for my foolish little wife is even proud of her husband."
"And well she may be!" I said to myself as I went away, thinking what a
blot these trade outrages have been upon working-class history, and how
generous stout-hearted men often allow themselves to be led away by the
mouthing idlers of their workshops--by men who are constantly declaiming
against their betters, and who want as they say for all to be free and
equal, with as much sense as the child who cried for the moon.