Chapter 24

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXIV

I must now deal briefly with a distinct vein of incidents, that occurred between young Little's first becoming a master and the return of the Cardens from London.

Little, as a master, acted up to the philanthropic theories he had put forth when a workman.

The wet-grinders in his employ submitted to his improved plates, his paved and drained floor, and cozy fires, without a murmur or a word of thanks. By degrees they even found out they were more comfortable than other persons in their condition, and congratulated themselves upon it.

The dry-grinders consented, some of them, to profit by his improved fans. Others would not take the trouble to put the fans in gear, and would rather go on inhaling metal-dust and stone-grit.

Henry reasoned, but in vain; remonstrated, but with little success. Then he discharged a couple: they retired with mien of martyrs; and their successors were admitted on a written agreement that left them no option. The fan triumphed.

The file-cutters were more troublesome; they clung to death and disease, like limpets to established rocks; they would not try any other bed than bare lead, and they would not wash at the taps Little had provided, and they would smuggle in dinners and eat with poisoned hands.

Little reasoned, and remonstrated, but with such very trifling success, that, at last, he had to put down the iron heel; he gave the file-cutters a printed card, with warning to leave on one side, and his reasons on the other.

In twenty-four hours he received a polite remonstrance from the secretary of the File-Cutters' Union.

He replied that the men could remain, if they would sign an agreement to forego certain suicidal practices, and to pay fines in case of disobedience; said fines to be deducted from their earnings.

Then the secretary suggested a conference at the "Cutlers' Arms." Little assented: and there was a hot argument. The father of all file-cutters objected to tyranny and innovation: Little maintained that Innovation was nearly always Improvement--the world being silly--and was manifestly improvement in the case under consideration. He said also he was merely doing what the Union itself ought to do: protecting the life of Union men who were too childish and wrong-headed to protect it themselves.

"We prefer a short life and a merry one, Mr. Little," said the father of all file-cutters.

"A life of disease is not a merry one: slow poisoning is not a pleasant way of living, but a miserable way of dying. None but the healthy are happy. Many a Croesus would give half his fortune for a poor man's stomach; yet you want your cutlers to be sick men all their days, and not gain a shilling by it. Man alive, I am not trying to lower their wages."

"Ay, but you are going the way to do it."

"How do you make that out?"

"The trade is full already; and, if you force the men to live to threescore and ten, you will overcrowd it so, they will come to starvation wages."

Little was staggered at this thunderbolt of logic, and digested the matter in silence for a moment. Then he remembered something that had fallen from Dr. Amboyne; and he turned to Grotait. "What do you say to that, sir? would you grind Death's scythe for him (at the list price) to thin the labor market?"

Grotait hesitated for once. In his heart he went with the file-cutter: but his understanding encumbered him.

"Starvation," said he, "is as miserable a death as poisoning. But why make a large question out of a small one, with rushing into generalities? I really think you might let Mr. Little settle this matter with the individual workmen. He has got a little factory, and a little crochet; he chooses to lengthen the lives of six file-cutters. He says to them, 'My money is my own, and I'll give you so much of it, in return for so much work plus so much washing and other novelties.' The question is, does his pay cover the new labor of washing, etc., as well as the old?"

"Mr. Grotait, I pay the highest price that is going."

"In that case, I think the Unions are not bound to recognize the discussion. Mr. Little, I have some other reasons to lay before my good friend here, and I hope to convince him. Now, there's a little party of us going to dine to-morrow at 'Savage's Hotel,' up by the new reservoir; give us the pleasure of your company, will you? and, by that time, perhaps I may have smoothed this little matter for you." Little thanked him, accepted the invitation, and left the pair of secretaries together.

When he was gone, Grotait represented that public opinion would go with Little on this question; and the outrages he had sustained would be all ripped up by the Hillsborough Liberal, and the two topics combined in an ugly way; and all for what?--to thwart a good-hearted young fellow in a philanthropical crotchet, which, after all, did him honor, and would never be imitated by any other master in Hillsborough. And so, for once, this Machiavel sided with Henry, not from the purest motives, yet, mind you, not without a certain mixture of right feeling and humanity.

On the Sunday Henry dined with him and his party, at "Savage's Hotel," and the said dinner rather surprised Henry; the meats were simple, but of good quality, and the wines, which were all brought out by Grotait, were excellent. That Old Saw, who retailed ale and spirits to his customers, would serve nothing less to his guests than champagne and burgundy. And, if the cheer was generous, the host was admirable; he showed, at the head of his genial board, those qualities which, coupled with his fanaticism, had made him the Doge of the Hillsborough trades. He was primed on every subject that could interest his guests, and knew something about nearly everything else. He kept the ball always going, but did not monologuize, except when he was appealed to as a judge, and then did it with a mellow grace that no man can learn without Nature's aid. There is no society, however distinguished, in which Grotait would not have been accepted as a polished and admirable converser.

Add to this that he had an art, which was never quite common, but is now becoming rare, of making his guests feel his friends--for the time, at all events.

Young Little sat amazed, and drank in his words with delight, and could not realize that this genial philosopher was the person who had launched a band of ruffians at him. Yet, in his secret heart, he could not doubt it: and so he looked and listened with a marvelous mixture of feelings, on which one could easily write pages of analysis, very curious, and equally tedious.

They dined at three; and, at five, they got up, as agreed beforehand, and went to inspect the reservoir in course of construction. A more compendious work of art was never projected: the contractors had taken for their basis a mountain gorge, with a stream flowing through it down toward Hillsborough; all they had to do was to throw an embankment across the lower end of the gorge, and turn it to a mighty basin open to receive the stream, and the drainage from four thousand acres of hill. From this lake a sixty-foot wear was to deal out the water-supply to the mill-owners below, and the surplus to the people of Hillsborough, distant about eight miles on an easy decline.

Now, as the reservoir must be full at starting, and would then be eighty feet deep in the center, and a mile long, and a quarter of a mile broad, on the average, an embankment of uncommon strength was required to restrain so great a mass of water; and this was what the Hillsborough worthies were curious about. They strolled out to the works, and then tea was to come out after them, the weather being warm and soft. Close to the works they found a foreman of engineers smoking his pipe, and interrogated him. He showed them a rising wall, five hundred feet wide at the base, and told them it was to be ninety feet high, narrowing, gradually, to a summit twelve feet broad. As the whole embankment was to be twelve hundred feet long at the top, this gave some idea of the bulk of the materials to be used: those materials were clay, shale, mill-stone, and sandstone of looser texture. The engineer knew Grotait, and brought him a drawing of the mighty cone to be erected. "Why, it will be a mountain!" said Little.

"Not far from that, sir: and yet you'll never see half the work. Why, we had an army of navvies on it last autumn, and laid a foundation sixty feet deep and these first courses are all bonded in to the foundation, and bonded together, as you see. We are down to solid rock, and no water can get to undermine us. The puddle wall is sixteen feet wide at starting, and diminishes to four feet at the top: so no water can creep in through our jacket."

"But what are these apertures?" inquired Grotait.

"Oh, those are the waste-pipes. They pass through the embankment obliquely, to the wear-dam: they can be opened, or shut, by valves, and run off ten thousand cubic feet of water a minute."

"But won't that prove a hole in your armor? Why, these pipes must be in twenty joints, at least."

"Say fifty-five; you'll be nearer the mark."

"And suppose one or two of these fifty-five joints should leak? You'll have an everlasting solvent in the heart of your pile, and you can't get at them, you know, to mend them."

"Of course not; but they are double as thick as ever were used before; and have been severely tested before laying 'em down: besides, don't you see each of them has got his great-coat on? eighteen inches of puddle all the way."

"Ah," said Grotait, "all the better. But it is astonishing what big embankments will sometimes burst if a leaky pipe runs through them. I don't think it is the water, altogether; the water seems to make air inside them, and that proves as bad for them as wind in a man's stomach."

"Governor," said the engineer, "don't you let bees swarm in your bonnet. Ousely reservoir will last as long as them hills there."

"No, doubt, lad, since thou's had a hand in making it."

The laugh this dry rejoinder caused was interrupted by the waitress bringing out tea; and these Hillsborough worthies felt bound to chaff her; but she, being Yorkshire too, gave them as good as they brought, and a trifle to spare.

Tea was followed by brandy-and-water and pipes: and these came out in such rapid succession, that when Grotait drove Little and two others home, his utterance was thick, and his speech sententious.

Little found Bayne waiting for him, with the news that he had left Mr. Cheetham.

"How was that?"

"Oh, fell between two stools. Tried to smooth matters between Cheetham and the hands: but Cheetham, he wants a manager to side with him through thick and thin; and the men want one to side with them. He has sacked me, and the men are glad I'm going: and this comes of loving peace, when the world hates it."

"And I am glad of it, for now you are my foreman. I know what you are worth, if those fools don't."

"Are you in earnest, Little?"

"Why not?"

"I hear you have been dining with Grotait, and he always makes the liquor fly. Wait till tomorrow. Talk it over with Mrs. Little here. I'm afraid I'm not the right sort for a servant. Too fond of 'the balmy,' and averse to the whole hog." (The poor fellow was quite discouraged.)

"The very man I want to soothe me at odd times: they rile me so with their suicidal folly. Now, look here, old fellow, if you don't come to me, I'll give you a good hiding."

"Oh! well, sooner than you should break the peace--. Mrs. Little, I'd rather be with him at two guineas a week, than with any other master at three."

When he had got this honest fellow to look after his interests, young Little gave more way than ever to his natural bent for invention, and he was often locked up for twelve hours at a stretch, in a room he called his studio. Indeed, such was his ardor, that he sometimes left home after dinner, and came back to the works, and then the fitful fire of his forge might be seen, and the blows of his hammer heard, long after midnight.

Dr. Amboyne encouraged him in this, and was, indeed, the only person admitted to his said studio. There the Democritus of Hillsborough often sat and smoked his cigar, and watched the progress toward perfection of projected inventions great and small.

One day the doctor called and asked Bayne whether Henry was in his studio. Bayne said no; he thought he had seen him in the saw-grinders' hull. "And that struck me; for it is not often his lordship condescends to go there now."

"Let us see what 'his lordship' is at."

They approached stealthily, and, looking through a window, saw the inventor standing with his arms folded, and his eyes bent on a grinder at his work: the man was pressing down a six-feet saw on a grindstone with all his might and Little was looking on, with a face compounded of pity, contempt, and lofty contemplation.

"That is the game now, sir," whispered Bayne: "always in the clouds, or else above 'em. A penny for your thoughts, sir!"

Henry started, as men do who are roused from deep contemplation; however, he soon recovered himself, and, with a sort of rude wit of his own, he held out his hand for the penny.

Amboyne fumbled in his pocket, and gave him a stamp.

Little seized it, and delivered himself as follows: "My thoughts, gentlemen, were general and particular. I was making a reflection how contented people are to go bungling on, doing a thing the wrong way, when the right way is obvious: and my particular observation was--that these long saws are ground in a way which offends the grammar of mechanics. Here's a piece of steel six feet long, but not so wide as the grindstone:--what can be plainer than that such a strip ought to be ground lengthwise? then the whole saw would receive the grindstone in a few seconds. Instead of that, on they go, year after year, grinding them obliquely, and with a violent exertion that horrifies a fellow like me, who goes in for economy of labor, and have done all my life. Look at that fellow working. What a waste of muscle! Now, if you will come to my studio, I think I can show you how long saws WILL be ground in the days of civilization."

His eye, which had been turned inward during his reverie, dullish and somewhat fish-like, now sparkled like a hot coal, and he led the way eagerly.

"Pray humor him, sir," said Bayne, compassionately.

They followed him up a horrid stair, and entered his studio and a marvelous place it was: a forge on one side, a carpenter's bench and turning-lathe on the other and the floor so crowded with models, castings, and that profusion of new ideas in material form which housewives call litter, that the artist had been obliged to cut three little ramified paths, a foot wide, and so meander about the room, as struggles a wasp over spilt glue.

He gave the doctor the one chair, and wriggled down a path after pencil and paper: he jumped with them, like a cat with a mouse, on to the carpenter's bench, and was soon absorbed in drawing.

When he had drawn a bit, he tore up the paper, and said, "Let me think."

"The request is unusual," said Dr. Amboyne; "however, if you will let us smoke, we will let you think."

No reply from the inventor, whose eye was already turned inward, and fish-like again.

Dr. Amboyne and Bayne smoked peaceably awhile. But presently the inventor uttered a kind of shout.

"Eureka," said the doctor calmly, and emitted a curly cloud.

Little dashed at the paper, and soon produced a drawing. It represented two grindstones set apparently to grind each other, a large one below, a small one above.

"There--the large stone shall revolve rapidly, say from north to south; the small one from south to north: that is the idea which has just struck me, and completes the invention. It is to be worked, not by one grinder, but two. A stands south, and passes the saw northward between the two grindstones to B. The stones must be hung so as just to allow the passage of the saw. B draws it out, and reverses it, and passes it back to A. Those two journeys of the saw will grind the whole length of it for a breath of two or three inches, and all in forty seconds. Now do you see what I meant by the grammar of mechanics? It was the false grammar of those duffers, grinding a long thing sideways instead of lengthways, that struck my mind first. And now see what one gets to at last if one starts from grammar. By this machine two men can easily grind as many big saws as twenty men could grind on single stones: and instead of all that heavy, coarse labor, and dirt, and splashing, my two men shall do the work as quietly and as easily as two printers, one feeding a machine with paper, and his mate drawing out the printed sheet at the other end."

"By Jove," said Dr. Amboyne, "I believe this is a great idea. What do you say, Mr. Bayne?"

"Well, sir, a servant mustn't always say his mind."

"Servant be hanged!" said Little. "THAT for a friend who does not speak his mind."

"Well, then, gentlemen, it is the most simple and beautiful contrivance I ever saw. And there's only one thing to be done with it."

"Patent it?"

"No; hide it; lock it up in your own breast, and try and forget it. Your life won't be worth a week's purchase, if you set up that machine in Hillsborough."

"Hillsborough is not all the world. I can take it to some free country--America or--Russia; there's a fortune in it. Stop; suppose I was to patent it at home and abroad, and then work it in the United States and the Canadas. That would force the invention upon this country, by degrees."

"Yes, and then, if you sell the English patent and insure the purchaser's life, you may turn a few thousands, and keep a whole skin yourself."

Little assured Bayne he had no intention of running his head against the Saw-grinders' Union. "We are very comfortable as it is, and I value my life more than I used to do."

"I think I know why," said Dr. Amboyne. "But, whatever you do, patent your invention. Patent them all."

Henry promised he would; but soon forgot his promise, and, having tasted blood, so to speak, was soon deep in a far more intricate puzzle, viz., how to grind large circular saws by machinery. This problem, and his steel railway clip, which was to displace the present system of fastening down the rails, absorbed him so, that he became abstracted in the very streets, and did not see his friends when they passed.

One day, when he was deeply engaged in his studio, Bayne tapped at the door, and asked to speak to him.

"Well, what is it?" said the inventor, rather peevishly.

"Oh, nothing," said Bayne, with a bitter air of mock resignation. "Only a cloud on the peaceful horizon; that is all. A letter from Mary Anne."

"SIR,--Four of your saws are behindhand with their contributions, and, being deaf to remonstrance, I am obliged to apply to you, to use your influence.

"MARY ANNE."

"Well," said Henry, "Mary Anne is in the right. Confound their dishonesty: they take the immense advantages the Saw-grinders' Union gives them, yet they won't pay the weekly contribution, without which the Union can't exist. Go and find out who they are, and blow them up."

"What! me disturb the balmy?"

"Bother the balmy! I can't be worried with such trifles. I'm inventing."

"But, Mr. Little, would not the best way be for YOU just to stop it quietly and peaceably out of their pay, and send it to Grotait?"

Little, after a moment's reflection, said he had no legal right to do that. Besides, it was not his business to work the Saw-grinders' Union for Grotait. "Who is this Mary Anne?"

"The saw-grinders, to be sure."

"What, all of them? Poor Mary Anne!"

He then inquired how he was to write back to her.

"Oh, write under cover to Grotait. He is Mary Anne, to all intents and purposes."

"Well, write the jade a curt note, in both our names, and say we disapprove the conduct of the defaulters, and will signify our disapproval to them; but that is all we can do."

This letter was written, and Bayne made it as oleaginous as language permits; and there the matter rested apparently.

But, as usual, after the polite came the phonetic. Next week Henry got a letter thus worded:--

"MISTER LITL,--If them grinders of yores dosent send their money i shall com an' fech strings if the devil stans i' t' road.

"MOONRAKER."

Mr. Little tossed this epistle contemptuously into the fire, and invented on.

Two days after that he came to the works, and found the saw grinders standing in a group, with their hands in their pockets.

"Well, lads, what's up?"

"Mary Anne has been here."

"And two pair of wheel-bands gone."

"Well, men, you know whose fault it is."

"Nay, but it is ---- hard my work should be stopped because another man is in arrears with trade. What d'ye think to do, Governor? buy some more bands?"

"Certainly not. I won't pay for your fault. It is a just claim, you know. Settle it among yourselves."

With this he retired to his studio.

When the men saw he did not care a button whether his grindstones revolved or not, they soon brought the defaulters to book. Bayne was sent upstairs, to beg Mr. Little to advance the trade contributions, and step the amount from the defaulters' wages.

This being settled, Little and Bayne went to the "Cutlers' Arms," and Bayne addressed the barmaid thus, "Can we see Mary Anne?"

"He is shaving."

"Well, when she is shaved, we shall be in the parlor, tell her."

In a moment or two Grotait bustled in, wiping his face with a towel as he came, and welcomed his visitors cordially. "Fine weather, gentlemen."

Bayne cut that short. "Mr. Grotait, we have lost our bands."

"You surprise me."

"And perhaps you can tell us how to get them back."

"Experience teaches that they always come back when the men pay their arrears."

"Well, it is agreed to stop the sum due, out of wages."

"A very proper course."

"What is it we have got to pay?"

"How can I tell you without book? Pray, Mr. Little, don't imagine that I set these matters agate. All I do is to mediate afterward. I'll go and look at the contribution-book."

He went out, and soon returned, and told them it was one sovereign contribution from each man, and five shillings each for Mary Anne.

"What, for her services in rattening us?" said Little, dryly.

"And her risk," suggested Grotait, in dulcet tones.

Little paid the five pounds, and then asked Grotait for the bands.

"Good heavens, Mr. Little, do you think I have got your bands?"

"You must excuse Mr. Little, sir," said Bayne. "He is a stranger, and doesn't know the comedy. Perhaps you will oblige us with a note where we can find them."

"Hum!" said Grotait, with the air of one suddenly illuminated. "What did I hear somebody say about these bands? Hum! Give me an hour or two to make inquiries."

"Don't say an hour or two, sir, when the men have got to make up lost time. We will give you a little grace; we will take a walk down street, and perhaps it will come to your recollection."

"Hum!" said Grotait; and as that was clearly all they were to get out of him just then they left and took a turn.

In half an hour they came back again, and sat down in the parlor.

Grotait soon joined them. "I've been thinking," said he, "what a pity it is we can't come to some friendly arrangement with intelligent masters, like Mr. Little, to deduct the natty money every week from the men's wages."

"Excuse me," said Bayne, "we are not here for discussion. We want our bands."

"Do you doubt that you will get them, sir? Did ever I break faith with master or man?"

"No, no," said the pacific Bayne, alarmed at the sudden sternness of his tone. "You are as square as a die--when you get it all your own way. Why, Mr. Little, Cheetham's bands were taken one day, and, when he had made the men pay their arrears, he was directed where to find the bands; but, meantime, somebody out of trade had found them, and stolen them. Down came bran-new bands to the wheel directly, and better than we had lost. And my cousin Godby, that has a water-wheel, was rattened, by his scythe-blades being flung in the dam. He squared with Mary Anne, and then he got a letter to say where the blades were. But one was missing. He complained to Mr. Grotait here, and Mr. Grotait put his hand in his pocket directly, and paid the trade-price of the blade--three shillings, I think it was."

"Yes," said Grotait; "'but,' I remember I said at the time, 'you must not construe this that I was any way connected with the rattening.' But some are deaf to reason. Hallo!"

"What is the matter, sir?"

"Why, what is that in the fender? Your eyes are younger than mine."

And Mr. Grotait put up his gold double eyeglass, and looked with marked surprise and curiosity, at a note that lay in the fender.

Mr. Bayne had been present at similar comedies, and was not polite enough to indorse Mr. Grotait's surprise. He said, coolly, "It will be the identical note we are waiting for." He stooped down and took it out of the fender, and read it.

"'To Mr. LITTLE, or MR. BAYNE.

"'GENTLEMEN,--In the bottom hull turn up the horsing, and in the trough all the missing bands will be found. Apologizing for the little interruption, it is satisfactory things are all arranged without damage, and hope all will go agreeably when the rough edge is worn off. Trusting these nocturnal visits will be no longer necessary, I remain,

"'THE SHY MAIDEN.'"

As soon as he had obtained this information, Bayne bustled off; but Mary Anne detained Henry Little, to moralize.

Said she, "This rattening for trade contributions is the result of bad and partial laws. If A contracts with B, and breaks his contract, B has no need to ratten A: he can sue him. But if A, being a workman, contracts with B and all the other letters, and breaks his contract, B and all the other letters have no legal remedy. This bad and partial law, occurring in a country that has tasted impartial laws, revolts common sense and the consciences of men. Whenever this sort of thing occurs in any civilized country, up starts that pioneer judge we call Judge Lynch; in other words, private men combine, and make their own laws, to cure the folly of legislatures. And, mark me, if these irregular laws are unjust, they fail; if they are just, they stand. Rattening could never have stood its ground so many years in Hillsborough, if it had not been just, and necessary to the place, under the partial and iniquitous laws of Great Britain."

"And pray," inquired Little, "where is the justice of taking a master's gear because his paid workman is in your debt?"

"And where is the justice of taking a lodger's goods in execution for the house-tenant's debt, which debt the said lodger is helping the said tenant to pay? We must do the best we can. No master is rattened for a workman's fault without several warnings. But the masters will never co-operate with justice till their bands and screws go. That wakes them up directly."

"Well, Mr. Grotait, I never knew you worsted in an argument: and this nut is too hard for my teeth, so I'm off to my work. Ratten me now and then for your own people's fault, if you are QUITE sure justice and public opinion demand it; but no more gunpowder, please."

"Heaven forbid, Mr. Little. Gunpowder! I abhor it." _

Read next: Chapter 25

Read previous: Chapter 23

Table of content of Put Yourself in His Place


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book