Kitabı oku: «The Story of Antony Grace», sayfa 26
Chapter Fifty Five.
The Day of Triumph
The day of trial came at last; and after a sleepless night, I was trying to make a good breakfast before going down to Mr Ruddle’s with the inventor.
I believe I felt as nervous and excited as Hallett himself; for Mr Ruddle had spoken to me the night before about some unpleasant suspicions that he had.
“I don’t like to accuse any body, Grace,” he said; “but I’m afraid a certain person who shall be nameless has been setting some of the ignorant, drunken loafers of the trade against the machine.”
That was all then, but it was enough to make me uneasy, though I did not believe in the possibility of any trade outrage in the middle of London.
Hallett looked very pale, but I never saw him seem more manly, thoughtful, and handsome, as he stood there in his mother’s room, holding her hands.
“I shall come back, dear,” he said, kissing her tenderly, “telling you of my success. No, no, don’t shake your head. Good-bye, dear, wish me success. Good-bye, Linny, darling! Ah! Mr Girtley, you here?”
“To be sure,” cried Tom Girtley; “I’ve come to wish you success. Linny and I are going to throw old shoes after you. Mind! a champagne supper if you succeed. Tony and I will find the champagne. Hallo! here’s Papa Rowle.”
There was no mistaking that step, without the sound of the old man taking snuff, and he entered directly after; got up in grand style, and with a flower in his button-hole.
He had a bunch of flowers, too, for Mrs Hallett, and a kiss for Linny; and then, shaking hands all round, he began to rub his hands.
“It’s a winner, Hallett – a winner!” he exclaimed. “Come along, Girtley, you’ll make one. We want some big boys to cry ‘Hooray!’”
“I’ll come, then,” said Tom merrily; and directly after we went off, trying to look delighted, but all feeling exceedingly nervous and strange.
Hallett and Girtley went on in front, and Mr Jabez took my arm, holding me a little back.
“I’m glad Girtley’s coming, Grace,” he said; “he’s a big, strong fellow, and we may want him.”
“Why?” I said excitedly.
“I don’t know for certain, my boy, but I’m afraid there’s mischief brewing. I can’t swear to it, but I believe that devil, John Lister, has been stirring up the scoundreldom of the trade, with stuff about the machine taking the bread out of their mouths, and if the trial passes off without a hitch, I shall be surprised.”
“Mr Ruddle hinted something of the kind, last night,” I said.
“Yes, but don’t let Hallett know, poor fellow! He’s weak and ill enough already. He might break down. Ruddle had men watching the place all last night, so as to guard against any malicious attempts.”
“But do you think they would dare to injure the machine?” I exclaimed.
“Fools will do anything if they are set to do it,” said the old man, sententiously.
“If Lister is at the bottom of any such attempts he deserves to be shot,” I cried indignantly.
“And his carcase given to the crows,” said the old man. “But I say, Antony Grace, my boy, is Miss Carr likely to come to see the trial?”
“No,” I replied; “she asked me to let her know the time, but she said she could not come.”
“Humph! I should have liked her to see it,” he said. “But come along; don’t let’s lag behind; and mind this, my ideas may only be suspicions, and worth nothing at all.”
There was a group or two of men hanging about the rival office, bearing Lister’s name, at the end of the street, as we went up to the great building, and as I passed the timekeeper’s box I could not help thinking of the day when, a shivering, nervous boy, I had gone up only to meet with a rebuff; while now one of the first persons to come bustling up, looking very much older, but as pugnacious and important as ever, was Mr Grimstone, who was quite obsequious as he shook hands first with me, and then with Hallett.
“Very, very proud, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “very proud indeed. Great changes since you used to honour us with your assistance.”
“Yes, Mr Grimstone,” I said, laughing as I wondered how I could ever have trembled before him, “and time hasn’t stood still.”
“No, indeed, but we wear well, Mr Jabez Rowle and I, sir. Ha-ha-ha! Yes, old standards, sir, both of us, and we stand by the old establishment. We don’t want to go away inventing great machines.”
“Oh, Grimstone! the men are still there with the machine?” said Mr Ruddle, coming up.
“No, sir, not now. They went off when I came, but I’ve put the new watchman on.”
“Confound it all, Grimstone! You’ve never put a stranger there?” exclaimed Mr Ruddle furiously.
“But I have, sir,” said the overseer importantly. “Here he is, sir. Bramah lock,” and he held out a bright new key.
“Oh, I see,” said Mr Ruddle, laughing. “Here’s Mr Girtley, senior.”
The great engineer came up, nodded to his son and me, shook hands with Hallett, and then we all went to the room where the machine had been set up, glistening, bright, and new, with the shaft and bands of the regular engine gear passing through above it.
The first thing noticed was that the window was open; and annoyed that the mist of a damp morning should be admitted, I hurriedly closed it, thinking then no more of the matter.
It wanted quite an hour to the time appointed, and the interval was employed in superintending the alteration of a few bolts and nuts, which Mr Girtley wanted tightened, and as I watched the great engineer, a man whose name was now an authority throughout Europe, and who was constantly refusing contracts, pull off his coat, take a spanner, and help his men, I began to realise that it was his personal attention to small matters and his watchful supervision that had raised him to his present position.
“Nice hands!” he said, laughing, as he held them out all over blacklead and oil. “Wise lad, you were, Tom, to leave it, and take to your parchment and pounce.”
There was a covert sneer in his words, which Tom seemed to take, for he said quickly:
“Perhaps, father, I may help you as much with my brain as I used to help you with my hands.”
“Yes, yes, of course, my boy, and we must have lawyers. Well, Grace, how do you feel about it now?”
“I think I’d ease that nut a little, sir,” I said, pointing to one part of the machine.
“Why?” he said sharply.
“I fancy that there will be so much stress upon that wheel that it will be better to give it as much freedom as we can, and, perhaps I am wrong, sir, but it strikes me – ” I glanced at Hallett, and felt the blood flush to my face, for I felt that what I was about to say must sound very cruel to him.
“Go on, Antony,” he said kindly; but I saw that he was very pale.
“It strikes you?” said Mr Girtley.
“That this is the weak part of the contrivance. Here falls the stress; and, when it is running at full speed, I feel sure that the slight structure of this portion will tell against the machine doing good work, and it may result in its breaking down.”
“Go on,” said Mr Girtley bluntly; for I had stopped, feeling uncomfortable at the dead silence that had fallen upon the group.
“It is not a question of efficiency,” I said, “but one of detail, of substantiality and durability. At first sight it seems as if it would make the machine cumbersome, but I feel sure that if we made that shaft and its wheel four times the thickness – that is to say, excessively massive, we should get a firm, solid regularity in the working, a fourth of the vibration, and be able to dispense with this awkward fly-wheel. My dear Hallett,” I exclaimed hurriedly, as I saw how his pallor had increased, “pray forgive me. I was quite led away by my thoughts. These are but suggestions. I daresay I was wrong.”
“Wrong!” exclaimed Mr Girtley, catching my hand in his, and giving it a grip that made me wince. “Every word you have said, my boy, is worth gold. Tom, I’d have given ten thousand pounds to have heard you speak like that.”
“But then, you see, I could not, father,” said his son good-humouredly. “Antony Grace here is a born engineer, and you’ll have to make him a partner one of these days.”
I hardly heard their words, for my anxiety about Hallett. I seemed to have been trampling upon his hopes, and as if I had been wanting in forethought after having the superintendence of the manufacture for so long.
“I ought to have suggested these alterations before,” I faltered.
“How could you?” said Mr Girtley gruffly. “You only saw the failing just now. I can see it, of course, when you point it out. We only climb by our falls, Grace. Locomotives were only got to their present perfection after no end of failures. Well, Mr Hallett, what do you say?”
“Antony Grace is quite right,” he replied. “That is undoubtedly a failing spot, and where, if driven at high speed, the machine would break down. I have had no training as an engineer, and have had to work blindfold, and in the midst of difficulties.”
“Mr Hallett,” said the great engineer, “I have had training as an engineer – a long and arduous training – and I tell you that if you had had twice as much experience as I, you would not have succeeded with your contrivance the very first time. I threw myself into this affair as soon as I saw it, for I felt that it was one of those machines that make their mark in history; and now that we are going to try it, even if it does not come up to our expectations, I say, don’t be discouraged, for I tell you it must and will succeed. I’m not a proud man, as a rule, but I am proud of my reputation, and if money is wanted to bring your great invention to perfection, the cash shall be forthcoming, even if we have to borrow.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Mr Jabez, and a slight flush appeared in Hallett’s pale face.
“I’m very sorry I spoke, Hallett,” I whispered to him, as I took his hand.
“What, for giving me such great help?” he said, smiling. “You foolish fellow, Antony, I am not a spoilt child, that I cannot bear to listen to my mistakes.”
Our conversation was broken off here; for just then a couple of gentlemen arrived, and these were followed by others, till the room was quite full. For invitations had been sent out to some of the principal printers and newspaper proprietors to come and see the testing of the new machine.
Hallett, as the patentee, had to throw off his reserve, and come, as it were, out of his shell to answer questions, and point out the various peculiarities and advantages of his machine, all of which I noticed were received with a good deal of reserve; and there was a shrug of the shoulders here, a raising of the eyebrows there, while one coarse-minded fellow said brutally:
“Plaything, gentlemen, plaything. Such a machine cannot possibly answer. The whole principle is wrong, and it must break own.”
I was so annoyed at this bitter judgment, delivered by one who had not even a superficial knowledge of its properties, that I said quickly, and foolishly, I grant:
“That is what brainless people said of the steam-engine.”
“O!” he said sharply, “is it, boy? Well, you must know: you are so old and wise. Well, come, gentlemen, I have no time to waste. When is your plaything to be set going, Mr Ruddle?”
“Now,” said Hallett quietly, as he silenced me with a look, just as, like the foolish enthusiastic boy I was, some hot passionate retort was about to escape my lips.
Mr Girtley nodded, and he gave a glance round the machine. Then he looked up at the shaft that was revolving above our heads, and took hold of the great leather band that was to connect it with our machine, and I noticed that everyone but Hallett and myself drew back.
I was so angry and excited that if I had known that the whole machine was about to fly to pieces, I don’t think I should have stirred. Then, biting my lips, as I heard a derisive laugh from the Solon who had annoyed me, I saw Mr Girtley give the band that peculiar twitch born of long custom, when an undulation ran up the stout leather, it fitted itself, as it were, over both wheels; there was a rapid whirring noise, and the next instant the great heavy mass of machinery seemed as it were to breathe as it throbbed and panted, and its great cylinders revolved.
There was the glistening of the polished iron and brass, the twinkling of the well-oiled portions, the huge roll of paper began to turn, and I saw its virgin whiteness stamped directly after with thousands of lines of language. My doubts of success died away, and a hearty cheer broke forth from the assembled party; and then, as I felt a fervent wish that Miss Carr had been present to see our triumph, there was a horrible grinding, sickening crash; broken wheels flew here and there; bar and crank were bent in horrible distortion; there was an instantaneous stoppage of everything but the great fly-wheel, which, as if in derision, went spinning on, and there lay poor Hallett stunned and bleeding upon the floor.
“Foul play – foul play!” roared Mr Girtley, in a voice of thunder, in the midst of the ominous silence. “I was too late to stop the machine. Some scoundrel had placed a great pin underneath, and I saw it fall. Here, look! Here!” he roared, as he stamped with rage; and he pointed to a round bent bar of iron, such as is used to screw down a paper press. “There it is. It was placed on that ledge, so that it might fall with the jar. Mr Ruddle, this is some of your men’s work, and, blast them! they deserve to be hanged.”
Chapter Fifty Six.
John Lister’s Triumph
As Mr Girtley roared those words a sudden thought flashed through my mind, and I ran to the window, threw it open, and, as I did so, there beneath me, reaching down to the low roof of a building below, was a ladder, showing plainly enough the road by which the enemy had crept in.
From where I stood I looked out upon the backs of a score of buildings; printing-offices, warehouses, and the like, and at the window of one of these buildings I saw a couple of men, one of whom I felt certain was some one I had seen before, but where, I could not tell.
I was back and beside poor Hallett directly, giving both Mr Girtley and Tom a look which sent them to the window, to see that there was no doubt how the misfortune had occurred; but I was too much taken up with Hallett’s condition to say more then.
“Is he much hurt?” cried first one and then another.
“Looks like a judgment on him,” said the heavy, broad-faced man with whom I had had my short, verbal encounter.
“Why?” said Tom Girtley sharply.
“Inventing gimcrack things like that,” said the fellow in a tone of contempt, “to try and take the bread out of honest men’s mouths.”
“Good heavens! man, leave the room!” cried Mr Girtley in a rage. “Go and take off your clothes; they’ve been made by machinery! Go and grub up roots with your dirty fingers! don’t dig them with a spade – it’s a machine! Go and exist, and grovel like a toad or a slug, or any other noisome creature; you are not fit for the society of men!”
The brute was about to reply, but there was such a shout of laughter at Mr Girtley’s denunciation and its truthfulness, that he hurried out of the place, just as Hallett sat up and stared round.
“No,” he said, “not much hurt; I’m better now. A piece of iron struck me on the head. It is a mere nothing. Stunned me, I suppose.”
He rose as he spoke, and there was a silence no one cared to break, as he looked at the wreck of his machine.
“Another failure, Mr Rowle,” he said sadly; and he took the old man’s hand, as if he were the one who needed all the sympathy. “I am very, very sorry – for your sake. I cannot say more now.”
“One word, Mr Hallett,” said the great engineer. “Do you know that this is all through malice?”
“Malice? No.”
“Some scoundrel has been here and thrust in this bar of iron. Gentlemen,” he said, looking round, “this is an unfortunate affair; but I speak to you as leading members of the printing business, and I tell you that Mr Hallett’s invention here means success, and a revolution in the trade, – This is a case of wanton destruction, the act of some contemptible scoundrel. You have seen the ruin here of something built up by immense labour, but I pledge you my word – my reputation – that before six months are past another and a better machine shall be running before you – perfect.”
There was a faint cheer, and quite a little crowd gathered round the wreck while Mr Girtley turned to speak to Hallett.
“Thank you,” said the latter, smiling; “you will excuse me now; I feel rather faint and giddy, and I will get off home.”
“I’ll go with you, Hallett,” I cried.
“No, no: I shall be all right,” he said, with a sad smile. “I’ll take a cab at the corner on the strength of my success. Come to me after you leave.”
“I would rather go with you,” I said.
“No, no, I want you to represent me here,” he whispered. “Stay, Antony; it will seem less as if I deserted the ruin like a rat, and I am not man enough to command myself now.”
“But you are not fit to go alone,” I said earnestly.
“Yes, I am,” he replied; “the sick feeling has gone off. It was nothing to mind. I am not much hurt.”
I should have pressed him, but he was so much in earnest that I drew back, and after a formal leave-taking he left the room, and descended the stairs, while a burst of angry remarks followed his departure.
“Ruddle,” said one grey-haired old gentleman, “I think, for your credit’s sake, you ought to have in a detective to try and trace out the offender.”
“I mean to,” said Mr Ruddle firmly, and he glanced at Grimstone, who seemed to shrink away, and looked thin and old.
“For my part,” said another, “I believe fully in the invention and I congratulate the man of genius who – halloa! what’s wrong?”
A burst of yells and hooting arose from the street below, and with one consent we hurried to the windows, to see poor Hallett standing at bay in a corner, hemmed in by about a hundred men and boys, evidently the off-scourings of the district, who, amidst a storm of cries of “Who robbed the poor man of his bread?” – “Who tries to stifle work?” and a babel of similar utterances, were pelting the poor fellow with filth, waste-paper full of printing-ink, mud, and indescribable refuse, evidently prepared for the occasion.
Heading the party, and the most demonstrative of all, was a fat ruffian, in inky apron and shirt-sleeves, whom I recognised as what should have been the manhood of my old enemy, Jem Smith, while in the same glance I saw, standing aloof upon a doorstep, a spectator of the degrading scene, no less a person than John Lister, fashionably dressed, and in strange contrast to the pallid, mud-bespattered man who stood there panting and too weak to repel assault.
What I have said here was seen in a moment, as I cried out, “Tom Girtley, quick!” rushed to the door, and down the stairs.
It took me very little time to reach the street, but it was long enough to bring my blood to fever-heat, as, closely followed by Tom, I rushed past John Lister, and fought my way through the yelling mob of ruffianly men and boys.
Before I could reach Hallett, though, I caught sight of a carriage farther up the street, and just then the noise and yelling ceased as if by magic, while my efforts to reach Hallett’s side became less arduous.
I, too, stopped short as I reached the inner edge of the ring which surrounded my friend, for there, richly dressed, and in strange opposition to the scene, was Miriam Carr, her veil thrown back, her handsome face white, and her large eyes flashing as she threw herself before Hallett.
“Cowards! wretches!” I heard her cry; and then, “Oh, help I help!”
For as, regardless of his state, she caught at Hallett, he reeled and seemed about to fall!
Then I was at his side.
“Don’t touch me!” he gasped, recovering himself and recoiling from the vision that seemed to have come between him and his persecutors. “Miss Carr, for heaven’s sake! – away from here!”
For answer she caught his hand in hers, and drew his befouled arm through her own.
“Come,” she said, as her eyes flashed with anger; “lean on me. They will not dare to treat a woman ill.”
“Antony,” cried Hallett hoarsely. “Miss Carr – take her away!”
“Lean on me,” she cried proudly. “Antony, beat a way for us through these curs.”
I took Hallett’s other arm, and as we stepped forward, Jem Smith uttered a loud “Yah!” but it seemed as if it was broken before it left his lips, and he went staggering back from a tremendous blow right in the teeth, delivered by Tom Girtley.
Then there was an interlude, for some one else forced his way to the front.
“Miss Carr! great heavens! what is all this?” he cried. “Give me your hand. This is no place for you. What does this outrage mean? Quick! let me help you. This is horrible.”
“Stand back, sir!”
“You are excited,” he cried. “You don’t know me. I see now; there is your carriage. Stand away, you ruffians. How thankful I am that I was near! Take this man away. Is he drunk?”
As he spoke, John Lister, with a look of supreme disgust, pushed poor fainting Hallett back, and tried to draw Miss Carr out of the crowd.
“Coward! Villain! This is your work!” she cried in a low, strange voice; and as he tried to draw her away, she sharply thrust him from her.
The crowd uttered a cry of excitement as they witnessed the act; and, stung almost to madness with rage and mortification, Lister turned upon me.
But I again found a good man at my back, for, boiling with rage, Tom Girtley struck at him fiercely and kept him off, while in the midst of the noise, pushing, and hustling of the crowd, a confusion that seemed to me now as unreal as some dream, we got Hallett along towards the carriage, he, poor fellow, seeming ready to sink at every step, while the true-hearted woman at his side clung to him and passed one arm round him to help him.
The coachman now saw that his mistress seemed to be in need of help, and he shortened the distance by forcing his horses onward through the gathering crowd.
But the danger was past, for those who now thronged out from the buildings on either side were workpeople attracted by the noise, and they rapidly outnumbered John Lister’s gang of scoundrels, got together by his lieutenant, Jem Smith, for the mortification of the man he hated, while his triumph had been that the woman they loved had come to his rival’s help, glorified him, as it were, by her presence, and rained down scorn and contempt upon his own wretched head.
As I said before, it seems now like some terrible dream, in which I found myself in Miss Carr’s carriage, with her sister looking ghastly with fear beside me, and Hallett in the back seat, nearly unconscious, beside Miss Carr.
“Tell the coachman to stop at the nearest doctor’s, Antony,” she said; and I lowered the glass and told Tom Girtley, who had mounted to the driver’s side.
“No, no,” said Hallett, faintly, for her words seemed to bring him to. “For pity’s sake. To my own home. Why have you done this?”
She did not speak, but I saw her take his hand, and her eyes fix themselves, as it were, upon his, while a great sob laboured from her breast.
“Mr Grace,” faltered Miss Carr’s sister, “this is very dreadful;” and I saw her frightened eyes wander from the mud-besmeared object opposite her to her sister’s injured attire, and the sullied linings of the carriage.
“Antony,” said Miss Carr then, “do what is for the best.”
For answer, I lowered the window again and uttered to Tom Girtley the one word, “Home.”
Fortunately, Revitts was on night duty, and ready to come as the carriage stopped at the door, where we had to lift the poor fellow out, and carry him to his bed, perfectly insensible now from the effects of the blow.
I was rather surprised to find the carriage gone when I descended, but my suspense was of short duration, for it soon came back with a neighbouring doctor, whom Miss Carr had fetched.
Mary was at hand to show him up, while I ran down to the carriage-door, where Miss Carr grasped my hand for a moment, her face now looking flushed and strange.
“Come to me to-night, Antony,” she said in a low voice – “come and tell me all.”
She sank back in the carriage then, as if to hide herself from view, while in obedience to her mute signal, I bade the coachman drive her and her sister home.
