Put Yourself in His Place

C >> Charles Reade >> Put Yourself in His Place


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.




CHAPTER XXX.


In that part of London called "the City" are shady little streets,
that look like pleasant retreats from the busy, noisy world; yet are
strongholds of business.

One of these contained, and perhaps still contains, a public office
full of secrets, some droll, some sad, some terrible. The building had a
narrow, insignificant front, but was of great depth, and its south side
lighted by large bay windows all stone and plate-glass; and these were
open to the sun and air, thanks to a singular neighbor. Here, in
the heart of the City, was wedged a little rustic church, with its
church-yard, whose bright-green grass first startled, then soothed
and refreshed the eye, in that wilderness of stone--an emerald set in
granite. The grass flowed up to the south wall of the "office;" those
massive stone windows hung over the graves; the plumed clerks could not
look out of window and doubt that all men are mortal: and the article
the office sold was immortality.

It was the Gosshawk Life Insurance.

On a certain afternoon anterior to the Hillsborough scenes last
presented, the plumed clerks were all at the south windows, looking at a
funeral in the little church-yard, and passing some curious remarks;
for know that the deceased was insured in the Gosshawk for nine hundred
pounds, and had paid but one premium.

The facts, as far as known, were these. Mr. Richard Martin, a Londoner
by birth, but residing in Wales, went up to London to visit his brother.
Toward the end of the visit the two Martins went up the river in a boat,
with three more friends, and dined at Richmond. They rowed back in
the cool of the evening. At starting they were merely jovial; but they
stopped at nearly all the public-houses by the water-side, and, by
visible gradations, became jolly--uproarious--sang songs--caught crabs.
At Vauxhall they got a friendly warning, and laughed at it: under
Southwark bridge they ran against an abutment, and were upset in a
moment: it was now dusk, and, according to their own account, they all
lost sight of each other in the water. One swam ashore in Middlesex,
another in Surrey, a third got to the chains of a barge, and was taken
up much exhausted, and Robert Martin laid hold of the buttress itself,
and cried loudly for assistance. They asked anxiously after each other,
but their anxiety appeared to subside in an hour or two, when they found
there was nobody missing but Richard Martin. Robert told the police it
was all right, Dick could swim like a cork. However, next morning he
came with a sorrowful face to say his brother had not reappeared, and
begged them to drag the river. This was done, and a body found, which
the survivors and Mrs. Richard Martin disowned.

The insurance office was informed, and looked into the matter; and Mrs.
Martin told their agent, with a flood of tears, she believed her husband
had taken that opportunity to desert her, and was not drowned at all. Of
course this went to the office directly.

But a fortnight afterward a body was found in the water down at
Woolwich, entangled in some rushes by the water-side.

Notice was given to all the survivors.

The friends of Robert Martin came, and said the clothes resembled those
worn by Richard Martin; but beyond that they could not be positive.

But, when the wife came, she recognized the body at once.

The brother agreed with her, but, on account of the bloated and
discolored condition of the face, asked to have the teeth examined:
his poor brother, he said, had a front tooth broken short in two. This
broken tooth was soon found; also a pencil-case, and a key, in the
pocket of the deceased. These completed the identification.

Up to this moment the conduct of Richard Martin's relatives and friends
had been singularly apathetic; but now all was changed; they broke into
loud lamentations, and he became the best of husbands, best of men:
his lightest words were sacred. Robert Martin now remembered that "poor
Dick" had stood and looked into that little church-yard and said, "If
you outlive me, Bob, bury me in this spot; father lies here." So Robert
Martin went to the church-warden, for leave to do this last sad office.
The church-warden refused, very properly, but the brother's entreaties,
the widow's tears, the tragedy itself, and other influences, extorted at
last a reluctant consent, coupled with certain sanatory conditions.

The funeral was conducted unobtrusively, and the grave dug out of sight
of Gosshawk. But of course it could not long escape observation; that
is to say, it was seen by the clerks; but the directors and manager were
all seated round a great table upstairs absorbed in a vital question,
viz., whether or not the Gosshawk should imitate some other companies,
and insure against fire as well as death. It was the third and last
discussion; the minority against this new operation was small, but
obstinate and warm, and the majority so absorbed in bringing them to
reason, that nobody went to the window until the vote had passed, and
the Gosshawk was a Life and Fire Insurance. Then some of the gentlemen
rose and stretched their legs, and detected the lugubrious enormity.
"Hallo!" cried Mr. Carden, and rang a bell. Edwards, an old clerk,
appeared, and, in reply to Mr. Carden, told him it was one of their
losses being buried--Richard Martin.

Mr. Carden said this was an insult to the office, and sent Edwards out
to remonstrate.

Edwards soon reappeared with Robert Martin, who represented, with the
utmost humility, that it was the wish of the deceased, and they had
buried him, as ordered, in three feet of charcoal.

"What, is the ceremony performed?"

"Yes, sir, all but filling in the grave. Come and see the charcoal."

"Hang the charcoal!"

"Well," said the humane but somewhat pompous director, "if the ceremony
has gone so far--but, Mr. Martin, this must never recur, charcoal or no
charcoal."

Mr. Martin promised it never should: and was soon after observed in the
church-yard urging expedition.

The sad company speedily dispersed, and left nothing to offend nor
disgust the Life and Fire Insurance, except a new grave, and a debt of
nine hundred pounds to the heirs or assigns of Richard Martin.

Not very far from this church-yard was a public-house; and in that
public-house a small parlor upstairs, and in that parlor a man, who
watched the funeral rites with great interest; but not in a becoming
spirit; for his eyes twinkled with the intensest merriment all the time,
and at each fresh stage of the mournful business he burst into peals of
laughter. Never was any man so thoroughly amused in the City before, at
all events in business hours.

Richard Martin's executor waited a decent time, and then presented his
claim to the Gosshawk. His brother proved a lien on it for L300 and the
rest went by will to his wife. The Gosshawk paid the money after the
delay accorded by law.




CHAPTER XXXI.


Messrs. Bolt and Little put their heads together, and played a prudent
game. They kept the works going for a month, without doing anything
novel, except what tended to the health and comfort of their workmen.

But, meantime, they cleared out two adjacent rooms: one was called the
studio, the other the experiment-room.

In due course they hired a couple of single men from Birmingham to work
the machine under lock and key.

Little with his own hands, affected an aperture in the party-wall, and
thus conveyed long saws from his studio to the machine, and received
them back ground.

Then men were lodged three miles off, were always kept at work half an
hour later than the others, and received six pounds per week apiece, on
pain of instant dismissal should they breathe a syllable. They did the
work of twenty-four men; so even at that high rate of wages, the profit
was surprising. It actually went beyond the inventor's calculation, and
he saw himself at last on the road to rapid fortune, and, above all, to
Grace Carden.

This success excited Bolt's cupidity, and he refused to contract the
operation any longer.

Then the partners had a quarrel, and nearly dissolved. However, it
ended in Little dismissing his Birmingham hands and locking up his
"experiment-room," and in Bolt openly devoting another room to the
machines: two long, two circular.

These machines coined money, and Bolt chuckled and laughed at his
partner's apprehensions for the space of twenty-one days.

On the twenty-second day, the Saw-grinders' Union, which had been
stupefied at first, but had now realized the situation, sent Messrs.
Bolt and Little a letter, civil and even humble; it spoke of the new
invention as one that, if adopted, would destroy their handicraft, and
starve the craftsmen and their families, and expressed an earnest hope
that a firm which had shown so much regard for the health and comfort
of the workmen would not persist in a fatal course, on which they had
entered innocently and for want of practical advice.

The partners read this note differently. Bolt saw timidity in it.
Little saw a conviction, and a quiet resolution, that foreboded a stern
contest.

No reply was sent, and the machines went on coining.

Then came a warning to Little, not violent, but short, and rather grim.
Little took it to Bolt, and he treated it with contempt.

Two days afterward the wheel-bands vanished, and the obnoxious machines
stood still.

Little was for going to Grotait, to try and come to terms. Bolt
declined. He bought new bands, and next day the machines went on again.

This pertinacity soon elicited a curious epistle:


"MESSRS. BOLT AND LITTLE,--When the blood is in an impure state,
brimstone and treacle is applied as a mild purgative; our taking the
bands was the mild remedy; but, should the seat of disease not be
reached, we shall take away the treacle, and add to the brimstone a
necessary quantity of saltpetre and charcoal.

"TANTIA TOPEE."


On receipt of this, Little, who had tasted the last-mentioned drugs,
showed such undisguised anxiety that Bolt sent for Ransome. He came
directly, and was closeted with the firm. Bolt handed him the letters,
told him the case, and begged leave to put him a question. "Is the
police worth any thing, or nothing, in this here town?"

"It is worth something, I hope, gentlemen."

"How much, I wonder? Of all the bands that have been stolen, and all the
people that have been blown up, and scorched and vitrioled, and shot
at, and shot, by Union men, did ever you and your bobbies nail a single
malefactor?"

Now Mr. Ransome was a very tall man, with a handsome, dignified head,
a long black beard, and pleasant, dignified manners. When short,
round, vulgar Mr. Bolt addressed him thus, it really was like a terrier
snapping at a Newfoundland dog. Little felt ashamed, and said Mr.
Ransome had been only a few months in office in the place. "Thank you,
Mr. Little," said the chief constable. "Mr Bolt, I'll ask you a favor.
Meet me at a certain place this evening, and let me reply to your
question then and there."

This singular proposal excited some curiosity, and the partners accepted
the rendezvous. Ransome came to the minute, and took the partners into
the most squalid part of this foul city. At the corner of a narrow
street he stepped and gave a low whistle. A policeman in plain clothes
came to him directly.

"They are both in the 'Spotted Dog,' sir, with half a dozen more."

"Follow me, and guard the door. Will you come, too, gentlemen?"

The "Spotted Dog" was a low public, with one large room and a sanded
floor. Mr. Ransome walked in and left the door open, so that his three
companions heard and saw all that passed.

"Holland and Cheetham, you are wanted."

"What for?"

"Wilde's affair. He has come to himself, and given us your names."

On this the two men started up and were making for the door. Ransome
whipped before it. "That won't do."

Then there was a loud clatter of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a
knife or two drawn; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous click of a
pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that
weapon. "Come, no nonsense," said he. "Door's guarded, street's guarded,
and I'm not to be trifled with."

He then handed his pistol to the officer outside with an order, and,
stepping back suddenly, collared Messrs. Holland and Cheetham with one
movement, and, with a powerful rush, carried them out of the house in
his clutches. Meantime the policeman had whistled, there was a conflux
of bobbies, and the culprits were handcuffed and marched off to the Town
Hall.

"Five years' penal servitude for that little lot," said Ransome.

"And now, Mr. Bolt, I have answered your question to the best of my
ability."

"You have answered it like a man. Will you do as much for us?"

"I'll do my best. Let me examine the place now that none of them are
about."

Bolt and Ransome went together, but Little went home: he had an anxiety
even more pressing, his mother's declining health. She had taken to
pining and fretting ever since Dr. Amboyne brought the bad news from
Cairnhope; and now, instead of soothing and consoling her son, she
needed those kind offices from him; and, I am happy to say, she received
them. He never spent an evening away from her. Unfortunately he did not
succeed in keeping up her spirits, and the sight of her lowered his own.

At this period Grace Carden was unmixed comfort to him; she encouraged
him to encroach a little, and visit her twice a week instead of once,
and she coaxed him to confide all his troubles to her. He did so; he
concealed from his mother that he was at war with the trade again, but
he told Grace everything, and her tender sympathy was the balm of his
life. She used to put on cheerfulness for his sake, even when she felt
it least.

One day, however, he found her less bright than usual, and she showed
him an advertisement--Bollinghope house and park for sale; and she was
not old enough nor wise enough to disguise from him that this pained
her. Some expressions of regret and pity fell from her; that annoyed
Henry, and he said, "What is that to us?"

"Nothing to you: but I feel I am the cause. I have not used him well,
that's certain."

Henry said, rather cavalierly, that Mr. Coventry was probably selling
his house for money, not for love, and (getting angry) that he hoped
never to hear the man's name mentioned again.

Grace Carden was a little mortified by his tone, but she governed
herself and said sadly, "My idea of love was to be able to tell you
every thought of my heart, even where my conscience reproaches me a
little. But if you prefer to exclude one topic--and have no fear that it
may lead to the exclusion of others--"

They were on the borders of a tiff; but Henry recovered himself and said
firmly, "I hope we shall not have a thought unshared one day; but, just
for the present, it will be kinder to spare me that one topic."

"Very well, dearest," said Grace. "And, if it had not been for the
advertisement--" she said no more, and the thing passed like a dark
cloud between the lovers.

Bollinghope house and park were actually sold that very week; they were
purchased, at more than their value, by a wealthy manufacturer: and
the proceeds of this sale and the timber cleared off all Coventry's
mortgages, and left him with a few hundred pounds in cash, and an estate
which had not a tree on it, but also had not a debt upon it.

Of course he forfeited, by this stroke, his position as a country
gentleman; but that he did not care about, since it was all done with
one view, to live comfortably in Paris far from the intolerable sight of
his rival's happiness with the lady he loved.

He bought in at the sale a few heirlooms and articles of furniture--who
does not cling, at the last moment, to something of this kind?--and
rented a couple of unfurnished rooms in Hillsborough to keep them in.
He fixed the day of his departure, arranged his goods, and packed his
clothes. Then he got a letter of credit on Paris, and went about the
town buying numerous articles of cutlery.

But this last simple act led to strange consequences. He was seen and
followed; and in the dead of the evening, as he was cording with his own
hands a box containing a few valuables, a heavy step mounted the stair,
and there was a rude knock at the door.

Mr. Coventry felt rather uncomfortable, but he said, "Come in."

The door was opened, and there stood Sam Cole.

Coventry received him ill. He looked up from his packing and said, "What
on earth do you want, sir?"

But it was not Cole's business to be offended. "Well, sir," said he,
"I've been looking out for you some time, and I saw you at our place; so
I thought I'd come and tell you a bit o' news."

"What is that?"

"It is about him you know of; begins with a hel."

"Curse him! I don't want to hear about him. I'm leaving the country.
Well, what is it?"

"He is wrong with the trade again."

"What is that to me?--Ah! sit down, Cole, and tell me."

Cole let him know the case, and assured him that, sooner or later, if
threats did not prevail, the Union would go any length.

"Should you be employed?"

"If it was a dangerous job, they'd prefer me."

Mr. Coventry looked at his trunks, and then at Sam Cole. A small voice
whispered "Fly." He stifled that warning voice, and told Cole he would
stay and watch this affair, and Cole was to report to him whenever any
thing fresh occurred. From that hour this gentleman led the life of a
malefactor, dressed like a workman, and never went out except at night.

Messrs. Bolt and Little were rattened again, and never knew it till
morning. This time it was not the bands, but certain axle-nuts and
screws that vanished. The obnoxious machines came to a standstill, and
Bolt fumed and cursed. However, at ten o'clock, he and the foreman were
invited to the Town hall, and there they found the missing gear, and the
culprit, one of the very workmen employed at high wages on the obnoxious
machines.

Ransome had bored a small hole in the ceiling, by means of which this
room was watched from above; the man was observed, followed, and nabbed.
The property found on him was identified and the magistrate offered the
prisoner a jury, which he declined; then the magistrate dealt with
the case summarily, refused to recognize rattening, called the offense
"petty larceny," and gave the man six months' prison.

Now as Ransome, for obvious reasons, concealed the means by which this
man had been detected, a conviction so mysterious shook that sense of
security which ratteners had enjoyed for many years, and the trades
began to find that craft had entered the lists with craft.

Unfortunately, those who directed the Saw-grinders' Union thought
the existence of the trade at stake, and this minor defeat merely
exasperated them.

Little received a letter telling him he was acting worse than Brinsley,
who had been shot in the Briggate; and asking him, as a practical man,
which he thought was likely to die first, he or the Union? "You won't
let us live; why should we let you?"