Put Yourself in His Place

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


"Who lost her mother?" asked Mrs. Little.

"Miss Carden," said Henry, very softly.

The tone was not lost on Mrs. Little's fine and watchful ear; at least
her mind seized it a few seconds afterward.

"That is true," said she. "Poor girl! I remember hearing of it. Henry,
what is that to you? Don't you trouble your head about that young lady,
or she will trouble your heart. I wish you did not go near her."

And then came question upon question, and vague maternal misgivings.
Henry parried them as adroitly as he could: but never mentioned Miss
Carden's name again.

He thought of her all the more, and counted his gains every week, and
began to inquire of experienced persons how much money was wanted to
set up a wheel with steam power, and be a master instead of a man. He
gathered that a stranger could hardly start fair without L500.

"That is a good lump!" thought Henry: "but I'll have it, if I work night
as well as day."

Thus inspired, his life became a sweet delirium. When he walked, he
seemed to tread on air: when he forged, his hammer felt a feather in
his hand. The mountains in the way looked molehills, and the rainbow
tangible, to Youth, and Health, and Hope, and mighty Love.


One afternoon, as he put on his coat and crossed the yard, after a
day's work that had passed like a pleasant hour, being gilded with such
delightful anticipations, the foreman of the works made him a mysterious
signal. Henry saw it, and followed him into his office. Bayne looked
carefully out of all the doors, then closed them softly, and his face
betrayed anxiety, and even fear.

"Little," said he, almost in a whisper, "you know me: I'm a man of
peace, and so for love of peace I'm going to do something that might get
me into a wrangle. But you are the civillest chap ever worked under me
and the best workman, take you altogether, and I can't bear to see you
kept in the dark, when you are the man whose skin--only--if I act like a
man to you, will you act like one to me?"

"I will," said Henry; "there's my hand on it."

Then Bayne stepped to his desk, opened it, and took out some letters.

"You must never tell a soul I showed them you, or you will get me into a
row with Cheetham; and I want to be at peace in-doors as well as out."

"I give you my word."

"Then read that, to begin."

And he handed him a letter addressed to Mr. Cheetham.


"SIR,--We beg respectfully to draw your attention to a matter, which
is of a nature to cause unpleasantness between you and the Trades. We
allude to your bringing a workman in from another town to do work that
we are informed can be done on the premises by your own hands.

"We assure you it would be more to your interest to work in harmony
with the smiths and the handle-makers in your employ, and the trade
generally. Yours respectfully,

"THE COMMITTEE OF THE EDGE-TOOL FORGERS' UNION."


Henry colored up at this, and looked grieved; but he said, "I am sorry
to be the cause of any unpleasantness. But what can I do?"

"Oh," said Bayne, with a sardonic grin, "they are sure to tell you that,
soon or late. Read this:"

No. 2 was dated a week later, and ran thus:


"MR. CHEETHAM: SIR,--I think you do very ill to annoy a many craftsmen
for one. Remember, you have suffered loss and inconvenience whenever
you have gone against Trades. We had to visit you last year, and when
we came your bands went and your bellows gaped. We have no wish to come
again this year, if you will be reasonable. But, sir, you must part with
London hand, or take consequences.

"BALAAM."


Henry looked grave. "Can I see a copy of Mr. Cheetham's reply?"

Bayne stared at him, and then laughed in his face, but without the
gayety that should accompany a laugh. "Cheetham's reply to Balaam! And
where would he send it? To Mr. Beor's lodgings, No. 1 Prophet Place, Old
Testament Square. My poor chap, nobody writes replies to these letters.
When you get one, you go that minute to the secretary of whatever Union
you are wrong with, and you don't argue, or he bids you good-morning;
you give in to whatever he asks, and then you get civility; and justice
too, according to Trade lights. If you don't do that, and haven't
learned what a blessing Peace is, why, you make up your mind to fight
the Trade; and if you do, you have to fight them all; and you are safe
to get the worst of it, soon or late. Cheetham has taken no notice of
these letters. All the worse for him and you too. Read that."

No. 3 ran thus:


"DEAR SIR,--I take the liberty of addressing you on the subject of your
keeping on this knobstick, in defiance of them that has the power to
make stones of Hillsborough too hot for you and him. Are you deaf, or
blind, or a fool, Jack Cheatem? You may cheat the world, but you don't
cheat the devil, nor me. Turn cockney up, with no more ado, or you'll
both get kicked to hell some dark night by

"BALAAM'S ASS."


Henry was silent; quite silent. When he did speak, it was to ask why Mr.
Cheetham had kept all this from him.

"Because you shouldn't take fright and leave him," was the unhesitating
reply.

"For that matter they threaten him more than they do me."

"They warn the master first; but the workman's turn is sure to come,
and he gets it hottest, because they have so many ways of doing him.
Cheetham, he lives miles from here, and rides in across country, and
out again, in daylight. But the days are drawing in, and you have got
to pass through these dark streets, where the Trades have a thousand
friends, and you not one. Don't you make any mistake: you are in their
power; so pray don't copy any hot-headed, wrong-headed gentleman like
Cheetham, but speak them fair. Come to terms--if you can--and let us be
at peace; sweet, balmy peace."

"Peace is a good thing, no doubt," said Henry, "but" (rather bitterly)
"I don't thank Cheetham for letting me run blindfold into trouble, and
me a stranger."

"Oh," said Bayne, "he is no worse than the rest, believe me. What does
any master care for a man's life? Profit and loss go down in figures;
but life--that's a cipher in all their ledgers."

"Oh, come," said Harry, "it is unphilosophical and narrow-minded to
fasten on a class the faults of a few individuals, that form a very
moderate portion of that class."

Bayne seemed staggered by a blow so polysyllabic; and Henry, to finish
him, added, "Where there's a multitude, there's a mixture." Now the
first sentence he had culled from the Edinburgh Review, and the second
he had caught from a fellow-workman's lips in a public-house; and
probably this was the first time the pair of phrases had ever walked out
of any man's mouth arm in arm. He went on to say, "And as for Cheetham,
he is not a bad fellow, take him altogether. But you are a better for
telling me the truth. Forewarned, forearmed."

He went home thoughtful, and not so triumphant and airy as yesterday;
but still not dejected, for his young and manly mind summoned its energy
and spirit to combat this new obstacle, and his wits went to work.

Being unable to sleep for thinking of what he should do he was the first
to reach the works in the morning. He lighted his furnace, and then went
and unlocked the room where he worked as a handle maker, and also as a
cutler. He entered briskly and opened the window. The gray light of the
morning came in, and showed him something on the inside of the door that
was not there when he locked it overnight. It was a very long knife,
broad toward the handle, but keenly pointed, and double-edged. It was
fast in the door, and impaled a letter addressed, in a vile hand--


"TO JAK THRE TRADES."


Henry took hold of the handle to draw the knife out; but the formidable
weapon had been driven clean through the door with a single blow.

Then Henry drew back, and, as the confusion of surprise cleared away,
the whole thing began to grow on him, and reveal distinct and alarming
features.

The knife was not one which the town manufactured in the way of
business, it was a long, glittering blade, double-edged, finely pointed,
and exquisitely tempered. It was not a tool, but a weapon.

Why was it there, and, above all, how did it come there?

He distinctly remembered locking the door overnight. Indeed, he had
found it locked, and the window-shutters bolted; yet there was this
deadly weapon, and on its point a letter, the superscription of which
looked hostile and sinister.

He drew the note gently across the edge of the keen knife, and the paper
parted like a cobweb. He took it to the window and read it. It ran thus:


"This knifs wun of too made ekspres t'other is for thy hart if thou
doesnt harken Trade and leve Chetm. Is thy skin thicks dore thinks
thou if not turn up and back to Lundon or I cum again and rip thy ----
carkiss with feloe blade to this thou ---- cokny

"SLIPER JACK."




CHAPTER IV.


Any one who reads it by the fireside may smile at the incongruous
mixture of a sanguinary menace with bad spelling. But deeds of blood had
often followed these scrawls in Hillsborough, and Henry knew it: and,
indeed, he who can not spell his own name correctly is the very man to
take his neighbor's life without compunction; since mercy is a fruit of
knowledge, and cruelty of ignorance.

And then there was something truly chilling in the mysterious entrance
of this threat on a dagger's point into a room he had locked overnight.
It implied supernatural craft and power. After this, where could a man
be safe from these all-penetrating and remorseless agents of a secret
and irresponsible tribunal.

Henry sat down awhile, and pored over the sanguinary scrawl, and glanced
from it with a shudder at the glittering knife. And, while he was in
this state of temporary collapse, the works filled, the Power moved, the
sonorous grindstones revolved, and every man worked at his ease, except
one, the best of them all beyond comparison.

He went to his friend Bayne, and said in a broken voice, "They have put
me in heart for work; given me a morning dram. Look here." Bayne was
shocked, but not surprised. "It is the regular routine," said he. "They
begin civil; but if you don't obey, they turn it over to the scum."

"Do you think my life is really in danger?"

"No, not yet; I never knew a man molested on one warning. This is just
to frighten you. If you were to take no notice, you'd likely get another
warning, or two, at most; and then they'd do you, as sure as a gun."

"Do me?"

"Oh, that is the Hillsborough word. It means to disable a man from work.
Sometimes they lie in wait in these dark streets, and fracture his skull
with life-preservers; or break his arm, or cut the sinew of his wrist;
and that they call DOING him. Or, if it is a grinder, they'll put powder
in his trough, and then the sparks of his own making fire it, and scorch
him, and perhaps blind him for life; that's DOING him. They have gone as
far as shooting men with shot, and even with a bullet, but never so as
to kill the man dead on the spot. They DO him. They are skilled workmen,
you know; well, they are skilled workmen at violence and all, and it is
astonishing how they contrive to stop within an inch of murder. They'll
chance it though sometimes with their favorite gunpowder. If you're very
wrong with the trade, and they can't DO you any other way, they'll blow
your house up from the cellar, or let a can of powder down the chimney,
with a lighted fuse, or fling a petard in at the window, and they take
the chance of killing a houseful of innocent people, to get at the one
that's on the black books of the trade, and has to be DONE."

"The beasts! I'll buy a six-shooter. I'll meet craft with craft, and
force with force."

"What can you do against ten thousand? No; go you at once to the
Secretary of the Edge-Tool Grinders, and get your trade into his Union.
You will have to pay; but don't mind that. Cheetham will go halves."

"I'll go at dinner-time."

"And why not now?"

"Because," said Henry, with a candor all his own, "I'm getting over my
fright a bit, and my blood is beginning to boil at being threatened by a
sneak, who wouldn't stand before me one moment in that yard, knife or no
knife."

Bayne smiled a friendly but faint smile, and shook his head with grave
disapprobation, and said, with wonder, "Fancy postponing Peace!"

Henry went to his forge and worked till dinner-time. Nay, more, was a
beautiful whistler, and always whistled a little at his work: so to-day
he whistled a great deal: in fact, he over-whistled.

At dinner-time he washed his face and hands and put on his coat to go
out.

But he had soon some reason to regret that he had not acted on Bayne's
advice to the letter. There had been a large trade's meeting overnight,
and the hostility to the London craftsman had spread more widely, in
consequence of remarks that had been there made. This emboldened the
lower class of workmen, who already disliked him out of pure envy, and
had often scowled at him in silence; and, now, as he passed them, they
spoke at him, in their peculiar language, which the great friend
and supporter of mechanics in general, The Hillsborough Liberal,
subsequently christened "THE DASH DIALECT."

"We want no ---- cockneys here, to steal our work."

"Did ever a ---- anvil-man handle his own blades in Hillsborough?"

"Not till this ---- knobstick came," said another.

Henry turned sharp round upon them haughtily, and such was the power of
his prompt defiant attitude, and his eye, which flashed black lightning,
that there was a slight movement of recoil among the actual speakers.
They recovered it immediately, strong in numbers; but in that same
moment Little also recovered his discretion, and he had the address to
step briskly toward the gate and call out the porter; he said to him in
rather a loud voice, for all to hear, "if anybody asks for Henry Little,
say he has gone to the Secretary of the Edge-Tool Forgers' Union." He
then went out of the works; but, as he went, he heard some respectable
workman say to the scum, "Come, shut up now. It is in better hands than
yours."

Mr. Jobson, the Secretary of the Edge-Tool Forgers, was not at home,
but his servant-girl advised Little to try the "Rising Sun;" and in the
parlor of that orb he found Mr. Jobson, in company with other magnates
of the same class, discussing a powerful leader of The Hillsborough
Liberal, in which was advocated the extension of the franchise,
a measure calculated to throw prodigious power into the hands of
Hillsborough operatives, because of their great number, and their habit
of living each workman in a tenement of his own, however small.

Little waited till The Liberal had received its meed of approbation,
and then asked respectfully if he might speak to Mr. Jobson on a trade
matter. "Certainly," said Mr. Jobson. "Who are you?"

"My name is Little. I make the carving-tools at Cheetham's."

"I'll go home with you; my house is hard by."

When they got to the house, Jobson told him to sit down, and asked
him, in a smooth and well-modulated voice, what was the nature of the
business. This query, coming from him, who had set the stone rolling
that bade fair to crush him, rather surprised Henry. He put his hand
into his pocket, and produced the threatening note, but said nothing as
to the time or manner of its arrival.

Mr. Jobson perused it carefully, and then returned it to Henry. "What
have we to do with this?" and he looked quite puzzled.

"Why, sir, it is the act of your Union."

"You are sadly misinformed, Mr. Little. WE NEVER THREATEN. All we do
is to remind the master that, if he does not do certain things, certain
other things will probably be done by us; and this we wrap up in the
kindest way."

"But, sir, you wrote to Cheetham against me."

"Did we? Then it will be in my letter-book." He took down a book,
examined it, and said, "You are quite right. Here's a copy of the
letter. Now surely, sir, comparing the language, the manners, and
the spelling, with that of the ruffian whose scrawl you received this
morning--"

"Then you disown the ruffian's threat?"

"Most emphatically. And if you can trace it home, he shall smart for
interfering in our business."

"Oh, if the trade disowns the blackguard, I can despise him. But
you can't wonder at my thinking all these letters were steps of the
same--yes, and Mr. Bayne thought so too; for he said this was the
regular routine, and ends in DOING a poor fellow for gaining his bread."

Mr. Jobson begged to explain.

"Many complaints are brought to us, who advise the trades. When they
are frivolous, we are unwilling to disturb the harmony of employers and
workmen; we reason with the complainant, and the thing dies away. When
the grievance is substantial, we take it out of the individual's hands
and lay it before the working committee. A civil note is sent to the
master; or a respectable member of the committee calls on him, and urges
him to redress the grievance, but always in kind and civil terms. The
master generally assents: experience has taught him it is his wisest
course. But if he refuses, we are bound to report the refusal to a
larger committee, and sometimes a letter emanates from them, reminding
the master that he has been a loser before by acts of injustice, and
hinting that he may be a loser again. I do not quite approve this form
of communication. But certainly it has often prevented the mischief
from spreading further. Well, but perhaps he continues rebellious. What
follows? We can't lock up facts that affect the trade; we are bound to
report the case at the next general meeting. It excites comments, some
of them perhaps a little intemperate; the lower kind of workmen get
inflamed with passion, and often, I am sorry to say, write ruffianly
letters, and now and then do ruffianly acts, which disgrace the town,
and are strongly reprobated by us. Why, Mr. Little, it has been my lot
to send a civil remonstrance, written with my own hand, in pretty fair
English--for a man who plied bellows and hammer twenty years of my
life--and be treated with silent contempt; and two months after to be
offering a reward of twenty or thirty pounds, for the discovery of some
misguided man, that had taken on himself to right this very matter with
a can of gunpowder, or some such coarse expedient."

"Yes, but, sir, what hurts me is, you don't consider me to be worth a
civil note. You only remonstrated with Cheetham."

"You can't wonder at that. Our trade hasn't been together many years:
and what drove us together? The tyranny of our employers. What has kept
us together? The bitter experience of hard work and little pay, whenever
we were out of union. Those who now direct the trades are old enough to
remember when we were all ground down to the dust by the greedy masters;
and therefore it is natural, when a grievance arises, we should be
inclined to look to those old offenders for redress in the first
instance. Sometimes the masters convince us the fault lies with workmen;
and then we trouble the master no more than we are forced to do in
order to act upon the offenders. But, to come to the point: what is your
proposal?"

"I beg to be admitted into the union."

"What union?"

"Why, of course, the one I have offended, through ignorance. The
edge-tool forgers."

Jobson shook his head, and said he feared there were one or two
objections.

Henry saw it was no use bidding low. "I'll pay L15 down," said he,
"and I'll engage not to draw relief from your fund, unless disabled by
accident or violence."

"I will submit your offer to the trade," said Jobson. He added, "Then
there, I conclude, the matter rests for the present."

Henry interpreted this to mean that he had nothing to apprehend, unless
his proposal should be rejected. He put the L15 down on the table,
though Mr. Jobson told him that was premature, and went off as light as
a feather. Being nice and clean, and his afternoon's work spoiled, he
could not resist the temptation; he went to "Woodbine Villa." He found
Miss Carden at home, and she looked quietly pleased at his unexpected
arrival: but Jael's color came and went, and her tranquil bosom rose and
fell slowly, but grandly, for a minute, as she lowered her head over her
work.

This was a heavenly change to Henry Little. Away from the deafening
workshop, and the mean jealousies and brutality of his inferiors, who
despised him, to the presence of a beautiful and refined girl, who was
his superior, yet did not despise him. From sin to purity, from din to
cleanliness, from war to peace, from vilest passions to Paradise.

Her smile had never appeared so fascinating, her manner never so polite
yet placid. How softly and comfortably she and her ample dress nestled
into the corner of the sofa and fitted it! How white her nimble hand!
how bright her delicious face! How he longed to kiss her exquisite
hand, or her little foot, or her hem, or the ground she walked on, or
something she had touched, or her eye had dwelt on.

But he must not even think too much of such delights, lest he should
show his heart too soon. So, after a short lesson, he proposed to go
into the lumber-room and find something to work upon. "Yes, do," said
Grace. "I would go too; but no; it was my palace of delight for years,
and its treasures inexhaustible. I will not go to be robbed of one more
illusion, it is just possible I might find it really is what the profane
in this house call it--a lumber-room--and not what memory paints it,
a temple of divine curiosities." And so she sent them off, and she set
herself to feel old--"oh, so old!"

And presently Henry came back, laden with a great wooden bust of Erin,
that had been the figure-head of a wrecked schooner; and set it down,
and told her he should carve that into a likeness of herself, and she
must do her share of the work.

Straightway she forgot she was worn out; and clapped her hands, and her
eyes sparkled. And the floor was prepared, and Henry went to work like
one inspired, and the chips flew in every direction, and the paint was
chiseled away in no time, and the wood proved soft and kindly, and
just the color of a delicate skin, and Henry said, "The Greek Statues,
begging their pardons, have all got hair like mops; but this shall have
real hair, like your own: and the silk dress, with the gloss on; and the
lace; but the face, the expression, how can I ever--?"

"Oh, never mind THEM," cried Grace. "Jael, this is too exciting. Please
go and tell them 'not at home' to anybody."

Then came a pretty picture: the workman, with his superb hand, brown and
sinewy, yet elegant and shapely as a duchess's, and the fingers almost
as taper, and his black eye that glowed like a coal over the model,
which grew under his masterly strokes, now hard, now light: the
enchanting girl who sat to him, and seemed on fire with curiosity and
innocent admiration: and the simple rural beauty, that plied the needle,
and beamed mildly with demure happiness, and shot a shy glance upward
now and then.

Yes, Love was at his old mischievous game.

Henry now lived in secret for Grace Carden, and Jael was garnering Henry
into her devoted heart, unobserved by the object of her simple devotion.
Yet, of the three, these two, that loved with so little encouragement,
were the happiest. To them the world was Heaven this glorious afternoon.
Time, strewing roses as he went, glided so sweetly and so swiftly,
that they started with surprise when the horizontal beams glorified the
windows, and told them the brightest day of their lives was drawing to
its end.

Ah, stay a little while longer for them, Western Sun. Stand still,
not as in the cruel days of old, to glare upon poor, beaten, wounded,
panting warriors, and rob them of their last chance, the shelter of the
night: but to prolong these holy rapturous hours of youth, and hope, and
first love in bosoms unsullied by the world--the golden hours of life,
that glow so warm, and shine so bright, and flee so soon; and return in
this world--Never more!




CHAPTER V.


Henry Little began this bust in a fervid hour, and made great progress
the first day; but as the work grew on him, it went slower and slower;
for his ambitious love drove him to attempt beauties of execution that
were without precedent in this kind of wood-carving; and, on the other
hand, the fastidiousness of a true craftsman made him correct his
attempts again and again. As to those mechanical parts, which he
intrusted at first to his pupil, she fell so far short of his ideal even
in these, that he told her bluntly she must strike work for the present:
he could not have THIS spoiled.

Grace thought it hard she might not be allowed to spoil her own image;
however, she submitted, and henceforth her lesson was confined to
looking on. And she did look on with interest, and, at last, with
profound admiration. Hitherto she had thought, with many other persons,
that, if a man's hand was the stronger, a woman's was the neater; but
now she saw the same hand, which had begun by hewing away the coarse
outlines of the model, bestow touches of the chisel so unerring and
effective, yet so exquisitely delicate, that she said to herself, "No
woman's hand could be so firm, yet so feather-like, as all this."