"A mixture of threats and bribes," Darwen suggested. "We'll capture him and frighten the wits out of him; say that we're going to give him in charge for attempted murder. Then you can offer him a small sum to go away and stay away. We'll explain that if he ever gets within speaking distance of you again, you'll promptly have him arrested."
"That's it," Bounce agreed.
"I suppose that is the best," Carstairs said, thoughtfully. "Do you know I feel when I think of him that a damn good licking is the only thing I can offer him. Yet when I consider that the poor devil is permanently lame because—well, because I went off with his girl, well, dash it, he has my entire sympathy. In my case I remember distinctly that it gave me a sensation of extreme pleasure to think I was whacking that brute for the sake of the girl. I'm not exactly pugilistic, but I've never experienced anything so pleasureable as the one or two smites I got home on him with the idea that they were for the girl. I can understand the persistence with which he is following me. She's the finest girl in all the world." His keen grey eyes seemed to glow with a fierce ardour. At that moment he was violently in love.
They looked at him in open wonder.
He stood up and stretched himself. "I should feel a better man if I went out now and searched out that gipsy and bashed him, and then went straight across to the girl and married her. What the devil are these wishy-washy dances, these tuppenny ha'penny jobs, this sham respectability? Simply a drag on a man's actions. I want to do something."
Bounce nodded vigorously. "You're fit," he said, "trained fine. In the pink of condition. That's how you feels when you comes ashore after a three months' cruise. 'To hell with everything. Let's do something.' That's it, ain't it?"
"That's it precisely."
"How you feel at the end of the 'footer' season," Darwen chimed in. "Or when a match is postponed and you've got to dissipate your energies on the desert air. Usually you make a thundering idiot of yourself."
"I suppose that is so, but you enjoy it." Carstairs became thoughtful again. "There are only certain times, practically moments, when you can do these things; you do not appreciate them in your normal condition, besides there's the guv'nor and the mater, and really I know very little about the girl."
Darwen clapped him on the shoulder. "Wake up, old chap! You're dreaming. You can't marry a gipsy girl; she'd want to feed you on gipsy stew and half-hatched pheasant's eggs."
"When you goes off to-night at twelve o'clock, me and Mister Darwen will shadow you like, and catch this yer Sam if he's knocking about. I'll have a line in my pocket so's we can tie him up." Bounce was very serious; he turned to Darwen. "When shall I meet you, sir?"
"Oh, at the corner, at five minutes to twelve."
"Five minutes to twelve at the corner? Very good, sir. Good night." Bounce was just going when a boy came in to say that a policeman had come to report some street light out. Darwen went out to see him. "Half a minute," he said. He was back in a few moments with glowing eyes. "By Jove! that's a whacking great chap, somewhere near seven feet, I should think."
Bounce snorted. "Them big blokes ain't much use," he observed.
"Would you like to take him on for a few rounds, Bounce?"
"Well now, maybe 'e'd be mistook if 'e was to try to 'lift' me an' I didn't want to go."
Darwen clapped his hands. "Well done. I'll tell you what. We'll put down five bob for the winner and half a crown for the loser, and you shall mutually arrest each other. Start at the boiler house and you chuck him into the street, or he lugs you into the engine room. How's that?"
"Very good, sir. If 'e'll take on, that five bob's mine." The little sailor was very confident.
"Hurray!" Darwen rushed out to the door to interview the policeman and explain the terms to him. The big man's eyes glistened. "There ain't no man in this town as I can't arrest," he said. He glanced up and down the street. "You'll make it all right if the sergeant comes, sir? You wanted my assistance to eject a drunk bloke or something, eh?" he winked, knowingly.
"That's alright. We'll put a boy to watch for the sergeant."
"Right you are, sir." The big man followed Darwen into the engine room with long, stately strides and easy, confident air. He towered a good six inches over Darwen's head.
Bounce stood up and eyed him up and down, then he put his hands to his mouth and gave a mock hail. "Main top there!" he yelled.
The policeman smiled. "Don't you come talking to growed-up men," he said. "Shall I take 'im now, sir?"
"Half a minute," Carstairs said. "Let's weigh the combatants."
So they proceeded in solemn procession to the coal scales.
Bounce was eleven stone eight and a half pounds. "'E oughtn't to be out without his p'rambulator," the guardian of the law remarked, as he stepped into the scales, and brought them up with a bang. They shifted the weight along the rod till at nineteen stone eight and a half pounds it balanced.
Bounce nodded approval. "'E'd go near ten stone with 'is boots off," he said, with conviction.
"How tall are you?" Darwen asked.
"Six feet and a half. I was the tallest man in the Grenadier Guards when I was in it."
They went back to the boiler house and stood in a clear space under an arc lamp. The policeman took off his long coat and helmet, "In case 'e wipes 'is boots in it while I'm carrying of 'im."
"Open them big doors," Bounce requested, "so as I won't 'ave to push 'im through the window."
The two men stood facing each other with smiling, confident faces. The big man stretched out a hand that would have supplied a whole cannibal tribe with a substantial meal. "Are you coming quiet?" he asked.
"No! I ain't," Bounce answered, circling slowly round him.
The whole works watched in eagerness.
Suddenly the big man made a short rush and a grab, but Bounce was not there; instead he had dived at the policeman's legs and pulled him down. He made another grab as he was falling, but the sailor was like an eel. He dodged, and slipping round to the back of him, took a grip with both hands on the policeman's collar. "Open them doors," he shouted, shuffling backwards and dragging the big man all along the dirty floor.
The entire staff, on the broad grin, lined the doorway, as Bounce dragged his burden through and deposited it on the pavement. Then he stood up and tossed his shoulders with a jaunty, nautical air. "Now, my lad, you run away, and play with the nurse-maids," he said.
In angry silence the policeman reached out for his helmet and coat; Darwen slipped half a crown into his hand, and he went out into the night, tramping sullenly along his beat.
Bounce beamed and pocketed his five shillings. "Them big blokes ain't never no use," he said. "Five minutes to twelve? Good night, sir!" He departed. But Darwen sat down on the edge of the table.
"Wonderful chap, Bounce." They chatted for some minutes, then dropped into silence. Darwen broke it.
"For God's sake, Carstairs, don't go and do anything silly over that gipsy girl. It would break your poor old guv'nor's heart; he was holding forth to me, when you were out, about how very careful a young man ought to be to avoid awkward entanglements: you were so very steady, he said. I think he rather fancied I was not so steady. 'Young men fly into an engagement with a girl because she sings nicely or something superficial like that.' Does the gipsy sing?" Darwen laughed.
"Yes, said she sang very well."
"Did she? What becoming modesty."
"She was natural, that's all. Her father told her she was good, and she repeated it."
"Her father? I didn't know that gipsies were always certain on these points. Did you see him?"
"Oh, yes, spoke to him; at least, listened to his music."
"His music?" Darwen made a motion of turning a handle.
"Oh, no; the violin. I'm not much of an authority on these things, but it seemed to me good, exceedingly good, the best I'd heard."
"This is interesting. Couldn't you introduce me to the family?"
"No. For the sake of my peace of mind I shall have to avoid that girl like the very devil."
"My dear chap! probably St James, the footman, has already supplanted you in the lady's affections. Wonderfully fascinating chaps, those footmen. By the way, it's not usual for gipsies to go into domestic service, is it?"
"No, I don't think it is." Carstairs pulled out his watch. "I must go and have a look round; the load is heavy to-night." He opened the door and Darwen followed him.
They went out through the engine room into the boiler house. Carstairs brightened up at once, the hum of running machinery, and the bustle of working men, was the breath of life to him; his face hardened and his eye brightened with the "splendid purpose." Darwen observed him closely.
"You're a born engineer, you know, Carstairs."
"Do you think so? Sometimes I think so myself." He looked around him with keen appreciation at the long row of boilers under steam, with the furnace-doors red hot, "a beautiful orange glow" he was wont to describe it as; at the coal-grimed, brawny men, with the sweat running off them as they sliced up the dazzling white fires. He gazed critically into the blinding glare as they opened the red hot doors, the radiant heat scorched his face and the intense light dazzled his eyes, so that for some minutes afterwards everything was green and blue to him. He looked at the men with their hard, strong faces and their bare muscular arms and chests, the whole scene gave him a sensation of extreme pleasure. To him it was more than beautiful, it was sublime. A sensation of majestic force, of overwhelming power, such as a towering mountain, the limitless ocean, or a vast moorland conjure up. This sensation was his now, and it was uplifting, artistic; he felt beyond the earth; yet in many ways there was little of the artist in him, he was essentially of the earth, earthly. Such is the best type of that modern product, the Engineer.
And that you may know him when you meet him, I will tell you that he is rather a rare bird. At the present time, probably, no profession contains more "wasters" than electrical engineering; this is because any man who can persuade a mayor and corporation or a chief engineer to give him the job, can take charge of many thousands of horse-power in boilers, and engines and dynamos, with infinite possibilities of damage, and the lives of many men resting on his direction, nerve and knowledge. Those dear men, who scorn to take an interest in their work, are not the breed I mean; nor are those greasy individuals who have arrived, oilcan in hand, from the engine bed: they are practical they say, which means that their minds are a storehouse of undoubtedly useful facts, they have a fairly clear recollection of a great number of engineering possibilities which they have actually witnessed; but, their reasoning powers are undeveloped, and their methods of procedure on new lines are particularly hap-hazard trial and error. The engineer to whom I refer is essentially a man of science; he is mathematical, theoretical, and practical; he holds an engineering degree and has been through the "shops"; he understands both men and materials and the methods of handling them; frequently he is a lonely sort of savage. He knows little of billiards, cards, or dancing; his work precludes him from much intercourse with other men except in business hours; often he is silent and somewhat shy with women; usually he is of good physique and logically minded; his life-work is the pursuit of truth; in the "shops" he learns to file "truly," then he learns to set a thing in the lathe "truly." He tests his finished work carefully to see that it runs "true," and on the test plate he learns to measure accurately, in the drawing office to calculate exactly; he works under, with, and over the working man, and learns to know him better than anyone else; he does not shine at football or cricket, but is often a particularly useful man in a rough and tumble fight, an accomplishment he acquires in his progress through the "shops"; he is an individual; he thinks and sees things as they are, for that is what his work teaches him; he regards things carefully, observing their quality, and speculating on the process of their manufacture; he sums up men quickly. In my opinion, he is only inferior to the sailor.
The æsthetic soul of Darwen was moved, too. "You're making 'em do their damnedest," he observed.
Carstairs nodded. "That's what I like; you know the Yankee definition, 'An engineer is a man who can do for one dollar what any fool can do for two.' It's not bad, but like most Yankee things, it's cheap and incomplete."
"The taint of the cheapness, old chap, is passing from the Americans to us. You can get quality in the States, if you pay for it, now."
"That is so in some things, and to my mind that's the most marked sign of progress; the nation without quality is as a house built upon the sand. The moral effect on the workman who manufactures cheap articles must be disastrous."
"The workmen, dear boy, are the people, and the people are mud. That is the one point upon which I disagree with dear old Nick Machiavelli."
"And probably, as far as I know, the one point on which I agree with him, if he says the people are not mud."
"He does. He quotes a proverb, 'He who builds on the people, builds on mud,' and disagrees with it. Personally, I think the people, the mass, don't matter tuppence. Our officers have made the riff raff of all nations fight like tigers."
"That's not correct. A relative of mine was in Ashantee, and the coast niggers there ran like sheep. They had to give them up as fighting material."
"Perhaps so, but it's only the exception that proves the rule, and that was because we were hampered by sentiment. A coward rightly handled, that is to say, brutally handled, will achieve more than many really brave men."
"I very much doubt that too. I get good results by giving the stokers a drink occasionally."
"Also you curse them occasionally."
"Well, not exactly curse them; you can't listen to all their complaints; some of 'em would never do any work at all if you did."
"Quite so!" They passed on into the engine room. "I observe again, Carstairs, that you make them do their damnedest."
"Again, I explain that I like doing so."
"Your coal costs are always points below mine."
"I am aware of it."
"Yet I bet the chief and old Robinson don't think any the more of you for it."
"I have heard that the chief so far committed himself as to say that you were the best engineer he'd ever had."
"I heard so too, which goes to prove my point. You are paid in this world, not for pleasing yourself, but pleasing others. I believe I could get my costs down to yours, but the chief and Robinson are eminently 'safe' men. I shall never get a shut-down. Old Robinson is on tenter hooks whenever you are on evening shift. 'That chap cuts things too fine,' he told me the other day."
"Did he? Well! he always leaves me severely alone on the evening shift."
"Of course, because if you get a shut-down it will be 'in the unavoidable absence of Mr Robinson or Mr Chief.' See?"
"Yes; I see and comprehend, but don't care."
Darwen's eyes glistened with honest admiration. "There is much of the aboriginal Saxon in you, Carstairs, with your grey eyes and light hair and that big, bull-dog jaw. Rightly, you should worship Thor and Odin, the gods of force. It's absurd for your guv'nor to be a minister of the Christian religion."
"I agree with your last point; we're a family of seamen, really. We worship Neptune."
"Ah! the sea, water, steam, electricity. Hence Jack Carstairs, electrical engineer, seaman twice removed, eh?"
"About that."
"These things are always interesting. It is essential to understand the machine you work with, and the people you live with. To properly grip the bent of a man's mind, it is necessary to know his antecedents. The seaman, we observe, has a natural aptitude for engineering, coupled with great tenacity and self-reliance, a particularly good friend, a just, but particularly unpleasant enemy; a touch of sentiment and superstition, the results of much battering and erratic favours from Father Neptune. The gipsy, on the other——"
"Oh, damn that gipsy," Carstairs flushed an angry red.
"Here we have a most interesting relic of the Berserk rage of the Norseman. If within reach, that gipsy would have a particularly rough time just at this moment."
"Oh, go to the devil, Darwen."
"Thanks very much for the advice, but I will return to the gipsy, who, as I was about to observe, is, on the other hand, naturally a poacher and very vindictive, and will therefore have to be poached, that is to say, captured by stealth which——"
A sudden flash like miniature lightning illuminated the engine room, followed immediately by a loud report.
Carstairs' big jaw tightened. Darwen's eyes glittered with an æsthetic sort of joy. "Breakdown," he observed, "and I'm a spectator."
A circuit fuse had blown, and was instantly followed by a continuous flash and bang of some half dozen fuses, going one after the other, like a straggling volley of small artillery. By an ingenious inter-connection of the network of main supply cables it is arranged that if one circuit fuse goes half a dozen immediately follow suit. This is one of the many diabolical devices on which mains superintendents particularly pride themselves. Carstairs strode up on to the switchboard, very alert, but very cool. He switched out all the switches, replaced the fuses by bigger ones, and switched in again, the switchboard attendant assisting him in a high state of nervous excitement. Now there is a piece of apparatus known as a magnetic automatic circuit breaker. It is carefully designed to come out at the wrong time and stay in at all other times; the good chief of Southville, in the simplicity of his trust in catalogues, had, "for safety," as he expressed it, two of these devices fixed on every machine; when, therefore, Carstairs plugged in again on the heavier fuses, these "safety" devices promptly opened, one after the other, all except one small one, which hung in with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. The station was plunged into instant inky darkness, relieved only by fitful flashes from the commutators of the idle machines, the governor of one of which having stuck, it raced away in a frantic effort to burst its fly-wheel and wreck the engine room; the one small machine, left all alone struggling valiantly with a load four times too big for it, first of all stopped dead till its field died away, then pounded into the work with little spurts and pauses, being helped out with a little juice from the kindly, helpful battery (which was ruining itself in the process). All the boiler feed pumps, fans, and condenser pumps stopped. (The chief, being a wireman, liked to have all the accessories electrically driven.) Pandemonium at once reigned. There was much shouting in the darkness, an engine-driver and a stoker, in their frantic efforts to do something, collided violently, and collapsed on the floor, groaning, to the accompaniment of soft nothings, whispered sweetly to the empty air; the boilers blew off, the steam roared and shrieked out of twelve safety valves like ten thousand fiends let loose; they were blowing off for high steam first of all, and very shortly afterwards for low water as well. In the middle of it all, the alternators (which were unaffected) hummed merrily in the darkness, while the telephone bell screamed an angry protest from an adjacent wall. At such moments the meek and lowly Shift Engineer feels that he is really alive; his only wish is that his chief may happen to drop in and share his happiness with him, or one or two of the councillors; he could accommodate them all with comfortable seats on the safety valves, and the possibility of a quick passage to heaven by the shortest route, straight upwards. Most chiefs are worse than useless on a switchboard during a breakdown; the Shift Engineer, handling the switches every day of his life, sometimes makes mistakes when he is in a hurry; the chief, who handles them once a year, always does; usually his nerves are not as steady as they should be; he wants to know what the Shift Engineer is going to do, and why he doesn't do it at once, then, just to add to the general concert, he plugs in a wrong switch. Councillors generally stand like fools, and wonder what it's all about, or else button-hole the Shift Engineer and demand an immediate explanation. In this case, no one appeared to hinder him, and Carstairs proceeded all alone. Striking a match, he went along the switchboard and pulled out all the circuit switches; the little machine and the battery, pulling together, then raced away joyously and lit up the station with a superabundant light; the switchboard attendant soon altered that, however, and Carstairs went quickly round the boiler house, switching out all the pumps, etc., as very few of them had "no load releases" on, and some that had were tied in; he glanced up at the boiler water gauges as he passed, for he did not want cold water to be suddenly pumped into empty boilers. It took him precisely one minute before he returned to the switchboard and put in the circuit breakers one by one, tieing them in with a piece of insulated wire. "Now!" he said, "we'll start again, more or less in comfort."
He plugged in a circuit and the fuse held though the lights grew dim, and the machines flashed and groaned. The switchboard attendant plugged in another, and the fuse blew in his face. He stood shielding his eyes in a dazed sort of way, the flash had temporarily blinded him. In those days things in central stations were carefully designed to kill and maim as many as possible; men have become more expensive since and a little more care is taken of them, almost as much, in fact, as of the machines. The fuses on this low tension switchboard were accurately adjusted to the level of an average man's eyes and the instrument placed just beneath, as a sort of bait, so that as he took a reading he got the full benefit of the flash and the molten metal flying about if a fuse went, which they did frequently. Carstairs stood up and pulled the switch out, he then replaced the fuse and switched in again. The machine gave a groan, and a fuse at the other end of the board blew simultaneously with the one he had just replaced.
Ejaculating a little word that went in rhyme with 'jam,' he brought the volts down again. "Here, shove in that other fuse, will you? Put a bigger one this time."
The switchboard attendant was dancing round like one possessed, fumbling and twitching. Carstairs replaced his fuse and went along to look at his assistant. He watched him fumbling for a few minutes, then took it out of his hands. "Go and sit down," he said. He finished the job himself. "Stand clear there!" He motioned the switchboard attendant back. "Stand by those engines. Watch the brushes and bring them forward when they spark, far forward. Do you hear?"
"Yes, sir," the engine drivers answered. They stood in expectant attitudes by their respective engines just below the switchboard gallery.
"Alright!" He plugged in, one after the other, ducking his head out of the way of the possible flash. The fuses held. "Bring her up there! Steady, not too quickly! Whoa!" He held up his hand with the fingers outspread, then made a circular motion. "Get round number five," he shouted.
Promptly the driver ran up another engine, and Carstairs put her on. He leaned over the railing and shouted down to Darwen, "I say, would you mind ringing up Farrell and telling him I'm pumping 500 amps extra into something on the Moorfields Road?"
Darwen laughed. "Right you are, old chap."
Farrell was the mains superintendent; it was his pleasant duty to turn out of his bed, round up a gang of navvies, and dig holes in the street all night to ascertain what that "something" was, and remove it. The only consolation a Shift Engineer feels for the arduousness of his existence is that sometimes the mains man (whose life is usually cast in pleasant places) has even a rougher time than he has.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how electricity is "made"—the same as everything else that is any good—by the sweat of men. And as men woo nature, and she reveals her secrets to them, she demands, in return, ever better and better of their best. Man moves, not to peace and plenty, to cowardice and luxury, but to sublime courage and arduous, soulful work, and he may not look back.
Half an hour later, Farrell, a fat, prosperous looking individual, rode up on a bicycle.
"Is it still on?" he asked.
"No, cleared itself some time ago."
"Damn! Just my luck! We shall have the devil's own job to find it now."
The two Shift Engineers laughed. "Sorry it's not raining, Farrell," Darwen observed.
"It's all very well for you chaps to laugh." Farrell went away in disgust.
Soon a little stream of men filtered in; jointers, half awake and surly; navvies, limply, subdued, bearing pick and shovel; it meant overtime for them.
Darwen and Carstairs stood on the doorway and watched them disappear into the night with a hand-cart full of tools and instruments.
They had been gone some time, Carstairs was preparing to go home, when the telephone bell rang violently. It was Farrell, very excited. "What do you think?" he asked. "Got it first shot, just outside that big house at the corner. When the lights went out, the footman was rushing about to get candles and lamps and unearthed a burglar, the burglar they think, skulking in the shrubbery. He bolted at once and the footman chased him all down the road. He'd have got away too, but a paving stone blew up right under his feet and tripped him up. Of course, that's the fault we were looking for."
"Of course; but how do they know he's a burglar?"
"Oh, he had a bludgeon with him and a big knife. One of the windows had been forced, and they found some jewellery in his pockets."
"Have you seen him? What's he like?"
"A rough looking handful, they say, sort of a gipsy, a bit lame in one leg, but he ran like a hare. Strong as a tiger too, nearly strangled the footman before help arrived. The police have noticed him skulking round that neighbourhood for some time."
"Is that so? Well, he's done us a good turn, anyhow." Carstairs was very casual, very slow, there was no emotion whatever in his voice; he said, "good night," and rang off. "Ye gods," he ejaculated to himself. "That's my way home, of course. Wonder what he'll get? Jewellery in his pockets, too, those great big pockets, built for hares and pheasants. 'To what ignoble uses,' etc., as Darwen would say. Still 'living on the country,' I suppose, as they call it in warfare."
About a quarter of an hour afterwards he saw Darwen and Bounce. It was with a keen sense of amusement that he observed them "shadowing" him. He slipped into a gateway and waited unobserved till they approached, and then sprang out on them unawares.
"What the devil are you chaps following me for?" he demanded with mock severity.
"Hang it all, Carstairs, you fool. Play the game! You've probably spoilt the whole show now."
"I'm sorry, but it's not necessary now, the man's in 'quod' for burgling."
"What!"
Carstairs told them the tale.
"Well, I'm blowed, these 'ere police are always shoving their noses into somebody else's business," Bounce growled.
That night Carstairs slept with singular peacefulness.
CHAPTER XI
With keen curiosity Carstairs turned up at the police court to watch the trial of "Sam Lee, of no fixed abode," on a charge of burglary. The prisoner pleaded not guilty, but the evidence was too damning, and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
Carstairs came away with a feeling of relief like a schoolboy on holidays. Any lingering feeling of pity that he had entertained for the man he felt he had wronged, was dispelled by the sight of the hard, savage face in the dock. He studied it closely at his leisure and in the daylight, as the man stood there on his defence, the beau ideal of the Bill Sykes of fiction. A face of very great animal strength, showing extreme tenacity of purpose, and unrestrained passion, in every line of the features; he was considerably thicker and heavier about the chest and shoulders than when Carstairs had met him face to face in the dim light of the dawn in Scotland; the eyes had not the shifty, suspicious expression that one associates with the habitual criminal; they were dark and deep set, protected by massive bony projections all round; eyebrow and cheek bone rose in strong relief above and below; the eye itself was steady and slowly moving, it glowed with a sort of slumbering, malignant hatred; he looked the magistrate and the police and everyone else steadily in the eyes with a surly defiance. This was the child of the moorland and the wood transplanted to the slums, absorbing into the depths of his strong, deep nature the terrible germs of the diseased life of the city. Apparently he didn't see Carstairs, or if he did, he gave no sign of recognition.
The following Sunday Darwen was on shift, but Carstairs went to church all alone, to St James'. On the way out the vicar's wife and two daughters met him. The good lady greeted him effusively.
"And where's Mr Darwen?" she asked. Carstairs observed that both the daughters' eyes seemed to light up with super-added interest as they awaited his reply. "He's on shift," he said.
"How horrid," the elder daughter remarked, "to have to go to—er—business on Sunday."
Carstairs laughed. "Call it work," he said, "sort of thing you take your coat off to."
"But not on Sunday?"
"Well, perhaps a little less than on other days. As a matter of fact it's mostly pretence, just to show you are really ready if necessary. But what you really do is to walk about with your eyes and ears as wide open as they'll go, like the officer of a ship, you know."
"Oh, but the officers do more than that. I've seen them."
"So do we sometimes; in fact, in some of the cheap and nasty stations, where the chief is an ex-ironmonger, and the councillors are labourers out of a job, we have to do quite a lot with our hands, and so, of course, do less with our heads."
"Why! the chief here is an ex-ironmonger, isn't he?" Carstairs raised his eyebrows. "Not exactly an ironmonger, was he?"
The vicar's wife intervened. "Do you think he is really competent? There has been a lot of dissatisfaction in the town, you know."
"Well, we caught a burglar for you the other night," Carstairs evaded the question.
"Yes, I'm so glad! Oh! I hope you and Mr Darwen will come to our little dances; we hold a series every winter, you know. They're rather nice. Mrs Mellor is the moving spirit and men are so scarce. They start soon now."
"Thanks very much, I shall be very pleased to, and I know Darwen will."
Talking thus, Carstairs accompanied them till their ways divided, then he proceeded thoughtfully by himself to his diggings. He sat down in the big easy chair. Darwen's book-shelf was at his elbow; he glanced idly along the names on the backs. "Curious taste for an engineer to read poetry," he mused. His eye rested on "The Prince" by Machiavelli. "Darwen's favourite," he thought. He took it down and glanced through it. It was a dainty, leather-covered volume with gilt edges. Three hours later when Darwen returned, he found Carstairs deeply immersed in the last chapter of his favourite book.
He looked at him curiously. "Hullo! Got 'The Prince,' have you? How do you like it?"
"Well, I want to think about it. He seems to point out that you mustn't do things by halves. By the way, I went to church this morning."
"Good man."
"Had a long yarn with Mrs Moorhouse and the little Moorhouses."
"What had they got to say for themselves?"
"Said the lights were bad."
"Good."
"And that the chief was an ironmonger."
"Good."
"And they've got some dances coming off which they hope we'll attend."
"You said we would, of course."
"Yes, and to-morrow I'm going to look up a dancing expert and take lessons. It's as well to do the thing well while you're about it."
"I say again, Carstairs, there's much of the original Saxon in you. How long did it take you to come to this decision?"
"About half an hour—that is to say, it took me that time to decide that I would go in for dancing. The rest followed as a sort of corollary."
Darwen's eyes gleamed with approval. "I'll play you a tune," he said; he struck a note idly and listened to the vibrations tentatively for a few moments. "The foundation of engineering science is a knowledge of the strength of material," he observed thoughtfully. "Before one builds a bridge or an engine it is necessary to correctly apportion the size and quality of the various parts." He struck up into a lively dance tune.
"That's a waltz, isn't it?"
"Yes, why?"
"I want to get the hang of the tune, that's all."
Darwen laughed, and rattled on waltz after waltz, till he was tired.
Next day Carstairs consulted the local directory and made a note of all the teachers of dancing, and for the following three weeks, he waltzed for an hour a day, as regular as clockwork. Darwen alternately chaffed and encouraged him, but he took it all alike with a steady, tolerant smile, puffing slowly at his pipe. Then the first of the little dances came off; a select gathering of about sixty dancers with two dear old ladies to see that the proprieties were observed. It was a suite of rooms in a comparatively big house which had once been the residence of wealthy gentlemen, but had now dropped into the professional quarters of a dancing master. Carstairs acquitted himself with credit, and Darwen with distinction. He spotted the elder Miss Jameson (daughter of the chairman of the electricity committee) and asked to be introduced; he danced three times with her with great success.
She was rather small, distinctly pretty, of the doll type; with innocent, wide-open, blue eyes, and a perfect little mouth. She was a good talker in a slightly affected juvenile sort of way; her brain, however, was more active than it appeared; she had a lively sense of precisely what was best for Miss Jameson. Darwen was a good talker too, so they rattled on brightly and humorously from one subject to another. She had a fine sense of humour, which he appreciated immensely. He brought the subject round to the electricity works.
"I'm assisting the corporation on its way to bankruptcy," he remarked, laughing lightly.
"How?" she enquired, and he observed by the solid interest in her eye that she had swallowed the bait.
"Oh! I'm not doing it maliciously, of course, only following my instructions, which are, to waste coal."
"Really?" she asked, in doubt how to take him.
He laughed again. "I'm not giving it away to the poor, or anything of that sort, you know. But we're very, very safe here, safe from possible failure as far as steam goes, and the price we pay for our safety is high, excessive, it seems to me, in the matter of coal."
"Oh, but it's better to be safe, isn't it?"
"I don't know! Life is run on sporting chances, you know. It's the ultra-cautious man who makes a mess of things and dies young."
She laughed. "I went over the electricity works once with father and Mr Jones."
"What did you think of it?"
"Just nothing at all. Father and Mr Jones were explaining one against the other. I don't think either of them knew much about it."
"Poor Jones! he's not really an engineer, you know."
"No, I know; he used to keep an ironmonger's shop."
"So I've heard. Would you care to come round again under—h'm—more competent guidance?"
She laughed lightly and fixed him at once. "Thanks, very much, I will, and I shall bring a friend, an awfully clever girl, a B.Sc. She's interested in these sort of things, and mother."
"I shall be really delighted; as long as you come, I don't care who you bring."
On their way home after it was all over, Darwen said to Carstairs, "Truly, fortune favours the bold. Do you remember that passage of old Nick's about fortune and women, that they both favoured the young? Youth is simply a matter of indiscretions; many old fools of sixty ought to be wheeled round in perambulators."
Carstairs paused to light a cigarette, his face illuminated by the fitful flare of the match, was pre-occupied, absent. "From which I conclude," he observed between the puffs, "that you have been indiscreet."
"Not indiscreet, simply bold, and you, you seem to have something on your mind."
"Ye—es! It's being borne in upon me very forcibly that there is no girl that I have met yet to compare in face or form or intelligence, that is to say, my idea of intelligence, with a certain gipsy maiden in Scotland, or at least, Chilcombe."
Darwen's eyes gleamed—the thrill of the waltz, the excitement of the evening, was in his blood. "Damme! I must see this girl. I observe that in many things our tastes agree, perhaps I may be able to relieve you of her."
"No! By Jove! you won't!" Carstairs faced round abruptly and looked him in the eyes.
They looked at each other for some moments, then Darwen smiled. "By Jove, Carstairs, you are badly hit."
"Well, perhaps I am. But, you know, none of those girls to-night gave me an impression of genuineness; artificial and superficial, stereotyped, unoriginal, like the pawns on a chess-board, only capable of moving (intellectually) in one direction; they all held precisely the same views on precisely the same subjects, and they had absolutely no reasons for holding them, and yet they are so superlative."
"Dear boy, they're young."
"So was the kid. Seventeen, I think she said. Yet she gave me the impression of having thought about things."
"You're Saxon, Germanic, heavy. Have you read any German philosophy?"
"No! Why?"
"It suggests lager beer and sausage, many generations of 'em. Flat, ponderous, indigestible. I prefer champagne, and—er—some of those French dishes, you know."
"No, I don't know."
"Well! damn you for a Saxon, I don't either, but I've heard of 'em. You ought to have said you knew! Don't you see how you prick the effervescing bubbles of conversation?"
"Not at all! It seems to me I'm keeping it going."
"Yes, with a sledge hammer."
"Alright. England was built with the sledge hammer. I admit that I'm naturally a slogger."
"Precisely; you prefer the cutlass to the rapier."
"Not a bit, I prefer the twelve-inch gun. Which brings me naturally to Bounce. Do you admire Bounce?"
"I do."
"Then I can explain. Bounce bears the same relation to the other men that the gipsy kid bears to other girls."
"Then I admit that she must be good."
They let themselves into their diggings, and Darwen sat down in an easy chair, and whistling softly to himself one of the tunes he had just been dancing to, he gazed absently in front of him, but there was a happy light in his eyes; he stopped whistling suddenly and addressed Carstairs, who was mixing himself a whiskey and soda.
"Do you know I have an idea that our respected chief will not be with us much longer?"
"Why?"
"He'll get the sack, or have to resign."
"In that case he'll get his deserts. Can't understand how he got the job."
"No, you have no comprehension whatever of the rapier, or perhaps we should say the stiletto, or the back stairs."
"Suppose Robinson will get the job."
"Robinson will go first, I'm afraid." There was a touch of real sorrow in Darwen's voice.
"You're a funny chap, you know, Darwen. Who's going to get it, then?"
"Well, I shall have a shot for it, of course. How would you like Robinson's job?"
"First class, for a time."
"Precisely. 'For a time.' I don't imagine that either of us will petrify here." Darwen's eyes had a strangely humorous glitter, he arose and stretched his arms above his head and yawned. "Good-night, old chap!"
"Good-night."
A few days later Darwen showed Mrs and Miss Jameson and their clever friend (who was also exceedingly plain, such is the balance of nature) round the works. Carstairs was on shift. His coat was off, his hands grimy. Darwen introduced him, the old lady and the clever girl took possession of him. The clever girl catechised and examined Carstairs like a police court lawyer. The old lady listened with dignity and entire mental oblivion.
Darwen and Miss Jameson wandered off by themselves.
While the clever girl was asking Carstairs for precise chemical information as to the residual scale left in the boiler, Darwen was explaining in an obscure corner of the works that that collection of big tanks was a water softener, where there were great big hammers going round to crack up the lumps in the water.
Carstairs and the clever girl argued about "ides" and "ates." Darwen and the pretty girl laughed and joked and made ribald remarks in the face of dignified 1000 H.P. engines.
A week later the second of the little dances came off. Carstairs took it seriously, and Darwen lightly. One of the dear old ladies who acted as chaperone this time was Mrs Jameson. Darwen was most attentive. He fetched her wraps when she got cold, and saw that she had a liberal supply of the best refreshments going. He was asked to call on Sunday.
He did so. The old doctor and he discussed the electricity works. "The place ought to pay, you know," Darwen said, and the doctor shook his head.
Then a big dance came off, and Darwen sent Miss Jameson a spray of flowers, white roses. He was a regular caller at the house now.
It was well into December and the mayor was holding a huge reception at the Town Hall, when the electric light failed and could not be got on again. Darwen was on shift. The entire switchboard was burnt down. The mayor in his robes and the other councillors in evening dress, descended in anger upon the works, which were not far from the Town Hall. The chief was away, but Robinson was sent for in a cab. He came, he saw, and remained helpless and useless.
Darwen was very cool and very civil, but the councillors did not bully him, he stood inches taller than any one of them, and there was a sort of snaky glitter in his eye; he did not seem the sort of man to be bullied. It was obvious he was master of the situation, the massive-looking Robinson was in a pitiable state of collapse.
Next day in answer to a wire the chief returned. The gods (which is the press) called for a human sacrifice. The local influence of Robinson was big, but the chairman seemed unaccountably heavy in favour of Darwen; then the mayor and several aldermen had seen that Darwen knew his work, while apparently Robinson did not. The chief sacked Robinson, and Darwen, as next in seniority, was promoted in his stead.
A month later the engagement of Darwen to Miss Jameson was publicly announced.
All this time Carstairs had pursued the even tenor of his way undisturbed. He grew more silent and thoughtful than ever; of Darwen he saw very little, except when they met at the works, or at dances, which Carstairs still consistently attended. There was a light of triumph continually in Darwen's eyes; he seemed very happy over his engagement. After he was made chief assistant he and Carstairs saw more of each other at the works; they spent long hours in consultation about the work, a common bond seemed to be drawing them even closer together. One day Carstairs remarked, "I'm going home for a week end next week. Would you and Miss Jameson care to come with me?"
"Thanks, old man, I should like to go, and I think the girl would too."
On the Saturday afternoon the three of them set out for Chilcombe. When they arrived there was quite a house party. Stephen, Jack's artist brother, was at home, and Commander John Carstairs and the Bevengtons were invited to spend Sunday. As the five big men sat smoking after dinner, the old vicar repeated his congratulations to Darwen. "I hope Jack will be as lucky," he observed. "Hasn't he shown any decided preference at any of those dances yet?"
"No! honestly I can't say that I've observed it."
"Oh, but Jack's booked," Commander Carstairs remarked.
"How? To whom?"
"Why! the girl he pulled out of the river, of course. You can't get out of that, Jack."
"Pulled out of the river?" Darwen asked in surprise. "You never told me, Jack."
"No. I don't think the subject ever arose, did it?" Jack puffed solemnly at his pipe.
"There's no need to talk about it, it's a settled thing, eh, Jack?" the sailor would not be denied his chaff.
They looked expectantly at him, but he continued to puff away in silence, there was just a suspicion of a twinkle in his eye.
"What's her name?" Darwen asked.
"Bessie Bevengton. She's coming here to-morrow."
"That's alright, Jack; I'll see that you're not disturbed," Commander Carstairs said boisterously.
"Jack'll have to make up his mind soon then; she's a catch in the marriage market now. Her uncle left her ten thousand pounds the other day."
"Ten thousand pounds! Why, that would cover a multitude of sins," Darwen observed.
The Reverend Hugh smiled. "Oh, but I'm sure she doesn't want any gilding. She's a very nice girl and good looking."
The budding artist opened his mouth languidly, he was going to speak. They paused to listen, it seemed that he had something weighty to say. "She's—ah!—somewhat obese, don't you know." They laughed. This young man had been budding for a very long time, but as yet he had produced no appreciable flower. Cheltenham and Oxford had made him a finished gentleman, but not apparently able to earn his own living. He was a taller edition of Jack, rather better looking, but he lacked the steadiness of eye and firmness of mouth. "If I had ten thousand pounds I'd go to Paris and settle down."
"What should you do, Jack?"
"Jack and I are working out a patent in the corporation's time." Darwen looked at the Reverend Hugh with bright, hopeful eyes.
"Ah! is that the thing you told me about, Jack?" his father asked.
"No—o, this is another."
"Something better?"
"Well, hardly as valuable I expect."
"Is that the——" Darwen paused, but Carstairs said no word, so he proceeded. "The thing you're working out on the night shift?"
"Was working out. It's finished now, or very nearly."
"Finished!" Darwen's eyes grew abnormally large and bright. "Have you patented it?"
"No. It's in the rough yet. Quite a secret still."
"At the works?"
"No—o."
"Going to make more than ten thousand out of it, Jack?" The sailor had been watching Darwen intently.
"I rather hope so."
Next day the Bevengtons came back from church with them, and spent the entire day at the Vicarage. They were a jolly party. Darwen, as usual, was the life and soul of it. He was very attentive to Miss Jameson, but he often caught Bessie Bevengton's eye. Jack and she were never left alone, they exchanged common-places and chaff.
"Oh, Jack!" she said, and she seemed to watch him closely. "You know that handsome housemaid at Lady Cleeve's?"
"Yes!" Jack answered, and Darwen gave him a quick glance that Bessie saw.
"Well, a little while ago she horsewhipped the footman; he offended her somehow. They say she's stronger than a good many men."
Again Darwen shot a meaning glance at Carstairs, and again Bessie saw it.
"Bully for the girl," and there was a thrill of admiration in his voice that was apparent to all.
"Personally, I don't like amazons," the artist remarked.
"I suppose she got the sack?" Jack asked.
"Oh no. Lady Cleeve is quite interested in her. The footman was discharged."
"Serve him right."
There was an awkward pause in the conversation, then Jack spoke again. "Do you remember a man called Bounce sailing with you, uncle? A sailor, an A.B., a boxer."
"Bounce? Bounce?"
"He was on the 'Mediterranean.'"
"Ah! Yes! I remember. Bull-dog Bounce, they called him; he had half a dozen other nicknames, too. I remember one night hearing a voice on the lower deck, 'Halgernon Hedward, I shall tell your ma'ma of you.' He was a splendid fellow, great pity he left the Service."
"Yes. He's sorry himself now. He's an engine-driver with us."
"A pity, a great pity! He dived overboard once in the Indian Ocean, swarming with sharks, to get his straw hat which had dropped over. I had to reprimand him for quitting the ship without leave."
They all laughed, and the sailor launched into a host of anecdotes.
On the following Monday as they went back together, Miss Jameson said, "What an exceedingly nice girl Miss Bevengton is."
Jack answered "yes," so that when they were alone together, his fiancée told Darwen that Carstairs was not in love with Bessie Bevengton.
Meanwhile things at the electricity works had progressed, there had been another failure of the supply. All the churches in the town were in darkness on Sunday night, and a steam pipe had burst and scalded a man to death. The papers were frantic. Some demanded a complete review of the staff of the electricity works, others suggested that the chief be asked to resign. All agreed that something would have to be done.
The committee sat in solemn conclave. "Who shall we sacrifice?" they asked, and the heavy weight of Dr Jameson made it the chief. He pointed out that during the short time Darwen had been chief assistant, the coal costs had gone down enormously, and he was in a position to say that still further sweeping reductions could be made if that brilliant young engineer were allowed a free hand. Dr Jameson was known as the strong man of the council; he usually had things his way, and he did so now.
So Mr Jones was asked to resign, and Mr Darwen promoted in his stead at a salary of £350 per annum. Jones had had £500, but this was only to commence. It was probable, the doctor said, that if he made it pay, he would have no difficulty in getting £750 in time.
Carstairs was made chief assistant at £200 per annum to commence.
"I suppose you'll get married soon now," Carstairs asked.
Darwen smiled happily. "Not very long I expect. I'm giving up these diggings, though, of course. The mater is coming over to live with me," he said.
CHAPTER XII
For the next month Carstairs saw little of Darwen except at the works; he was busy with his mother, getting a house and supervising the moving. At the works they talked simply "shop." Carstairs was absolutely lost to everything except engines, boilers, dynamos, etc. For twelve hours a day he was at the works planning, improving, overhauling.
"We'll mop off that £1000 debt, and show a profit in the first year," he announced to Darwen enthusiastically.
"Yes," Darwen agreed, and his marvellous eyes shone with an even greater enthusiasm. "We'll show 'em how to run things on this job, eh?"
"I think so."
"Rather, not a doubt of it."
In three months they knocked £1000 off the coal bill, in spite of the strenuous opposition of certain members of the council.
"Rummy things, those chaps making such a row about our getting different coal and weighing it ourselves, isn't it?" Carstairs asked.
Darwen smiled. "The application of a little oil," he observed, "but they've got up against the wrong men this time, eh? We have the doctor solid behind us, too."
A sudden light seemed to break in upon Carstairs. "Oh!" he said, almost in horror. He was honest to the core, every fibre in his body vibrated in disgust at such treacherous roguery laid bare under his very eyes, as it were.
"Didn't you really tumble to it?" Darwen seemed genuinely astonished.
"No, I'm blowed if I did! but I shall know where to look in the future."
"Ah, quite so!" Darwen was thoughtful, he knew that Carstairs was a particularly keen observer.
They reconstructed switchboards and overhauled engines. They tested and calibrated all the consumers' meters; some had been paying for juice they had never used; others, and the great majority, had been using current far in excess of that for which they paid. Carstairs found a meter in a councillor greengrocer's shop that must have been entirely stopped for months.
The genial representative of the people descended into his cellar and watched the new meter being installed. "Are you going to make my bill lighter, Mr Carstairs?" he asked, with an anticipatory smile.
"No, heavier, I'm afraid, Mr Green."
"What!" The smile faded at once. "Very well, I shall have it taken out."
Carstairs looked at him calmly, searchingly. "Just as you like, of course, Mr Green. We can't afford to give the juice away, you know."
"You can't afford! What do you mean? That's not the way to talk to consumers. I'm afraid you don't know your business, Mr Carstairs."
"On the contrary, I think I know it very well, Mr Green."
"Very well, I shall bring the matter up at the next committee. Things are going from bad to worse."
"I think not! However, I hope you'll do everything possible to satisfy yourself on that point Mr Green." Carstairs spoke very slowly and very quietly, it was a way he had when his anger was rising.
"That man," Darwen observed, when Carstairs told the story, "is a little rogue. It never pays to be little in anything. It's a sign of intellectual incompetence, lack of courage and general feebleness. I'm glad you told me; we'll have this out in committee. I'll break that man just to encourage the others, eh?" There was a glitter in his eye that Carstairs could not quite understand. Carstairs' brain was somewhat heavy and ponderous, but once on the move in any direction, it rolled onwards with an irresistible sweep; he was a ruthless searcher after truth according to his light. Darwen himself had set the wonderful mechanism of his brain moving in the direction of suspicion, he now began almost unconsciously to suspect his friend.
At the next committee meeting Darwen awaited the attack of Mr Green in smiling affability, but it never came. The little rogue had thought better of it. However, Darwen was not to be baulked. Producing a number of bills, consumers' meter reading, calculations of probable consumption, etc., he attacked Mr Green. The little man arose in his wrath, lost his head and shouted. Darwen smiled and smiled, and played with him, as a cat plays with a mouse; then he squashed him with overwhelming evidence and demanded an apology for personalities. The little man gave in, he almost wept; Darwen was so big, so suave, so very acute, so merciless and so cool; it almost broke his heart; he got up, a shattered, nerveless wreck, and left the room.
"Now, gentlemen, I think we may proceed to business." The talons were sheathed, he was so genial, so pleasant, that it was scarcely possible to grasp the fact that this was the same man who had just crumpled up the little greengrocer like an empty paper bag. Many of the other councillors shifted uneasily in their seats and fear gnawed at their hearts; they cast shifty, uneasy glances at the young handsome engineer. What was this awful thing they had raised up in their midst? Even the massive, grand old doctor at the head of the table was subdued; he gazed straight at Darwen in solemn thought; perhaps he was wondering whether this was, after all, the sort of man he ought to entrust his daughter's happiness to.
That evening the proceedings in the committee room were reported verbatim in the local papers, and more than that, some of the London papers had a short pithy paragraph exaggerating the event. Of course there was nothing for it, the little councillor had to resign.
Darwen's mother had taken a nice house, small, but in a good part of the town, and the day after the eventful committee meeting, Carstairs went there to dinner. The rooms were tastefully furnished. Carstairs commented to himself that the feminine eye and hand were apparent everywhere; he went in with Darwen, and, as he was left in the drawing-room alone for a few minutes while Darwen went to look for his mother, he looked round at the water colour paintings on the walls, the cabinet of old china, the frequent ornaments, statuettes, bronze and marble: he felt somehow that it had a Frenchy tone; at any rate, was unlike any other room he had ever been in; it was the sort of thing he felt that his brother Stephen, the artist, would admire. Darwen's mother he imagined as tall, artistic, graceful (bearing in mind Darwen's face and form), beautiful and brilliant. The poets, that he remembered in their diggings, were scattered over the table; he noted that the bindings of all were beautiful and expensive, too. "The Prince" was not among them.
He heard voices outside, Darwen's he knew; and another, full, rich, contralto.
The door opened. "Let me introduce you to the mater, Carstairs."
Carstairs stood up and held out his hand. His face showed no emotion whatever, but in his brain was deepest wonder. The woman who stood before him, the mother of that graceful, accomplished son, the designer of these rooms, was almost short and very broad, full chested, broad hipped, her hair was light brown and very luxuriant. But the face—probably at one time it had been handsome in a masculine sort of way, now—the skin was of an exceedingly coarse texture, lined with innumerable small wrinkles and of a uniform weather-beaten red; the eyes were bloodshot, clouded; the eyes of a drunkard, or at least a heavy drinker.
"How do you do, Mr Carstairs? Do sit down."
The manner was distinctly "loud," and looking at the speaker, the voice seemed to lose half its charm.
"How do you like our home, Mr Carstairs?"
"Very much indeed. I was admiring this room when you came in!"
The clouded eyes seemed to light up with a flash of pleasure. "Charlie does all this. I haven't got any taste in these things." Carstairs was more astonished than ever, but he made a remark which occurred to him as suitable, then they drifted into generalities. She asked Carstairs about his home. "I know that part fairly well," she explained. "I've hunted over a good bit of it."
"Have you?" Carstairs was genuinely surprised. Darwen had never told him.
Mrs Darwen laughed, rather a coarse laugh. "That is to say, I followed the hounds, while Charlie was at school at Clifton. I used to have a day out occasionally, just to remind me of old times." She sighed deeply. "I was brought up in the Quorn district, you know."
"That's Leicester way, isn't it?"
"Round there. That was where I met Charlie's father. Poor dear Tom, he wasn't much of a horseman."
"I used to follow them sometimes when I was a kid," Carstairs observed.
"Did you? I suppose you would." She looked him over with approving eyes, somewhat, he felt, as a groom looks over a nice horse; and there was no doubt Carstairs was a very fine animal.
A gong sounded in the hall, and Mrs Darwen rose. "That's dinner," she said, "come on in."
She led the way and Carstairs followed, lost in wonder, as he contemplated a rear view of her squat, ungainly figure. At dinner she drank a stiff glass of whisky and soda. Carstairs carefully avoided looking at it; he knew Darwen was watching him closely. Both the young men were rather silent, but the old lady rattled away.
"Do you play football—rugby? Yes, you would of course! Charlie's a splendid player. I used to turn out and watch him, stood about in the damp grass and got the rheumatism thoroughly into my old bones," she laughed again, a louder, coarser laugh.
"Not so very old, I expect, Mrs Darwen," Carstairs was trying his 'prentice hand at a compliment.
She laughed aloud. "Ha, ha! Charlie'd do better than that, he can pay compliments like his father. Ah! his father was a rare hand at that game, or any other game. So's Charlie, he's a thorough sportsman. 'Always go straight, boy,' that's what I taught, 'over hedges and ditches, straight ahead.'" She gesticulated with her arms.
Carstairs felt rather embarrassed. Darwen was unusually silent, but his mother talked away and laughed and joked. After dinner they smoked a cigar apiece and Darwen seemed to wake up, but still he was serious. "From your description, mater, I imagine the guv'nor was something like Carstairs here."
"Well, yes, something."
"But dark, I suppose?" Carstairs asked, looking at Darwen's almost swarthy complexion.
"Oh, dear no! He was fair, quite as fair as you."
"Was he really?"
Perhaps it was in answer to Carstairs' puzzled look, or perhaps just as the wayward fit took her. Anyhow, she volunteered an explanation.
"The Darwens were French," she said, "a good French family—Huguenots. They came to England about six generations ago. They were fair, but there was once an inter-marriage with a noble Florentine lady, and ever since then there have been occasional dark Darwens. Charlie is one." She threw back her head. There was much pride and something of defiance in her tone.
"Mater, you never told me before."
"My boy, you never asked me."
"No, that's true." Darwen was very silent for some minutes, and Carstairs could find nothing to say. "Then it's possible that I may have some of the blood of Old Nick in me." It was said quite seriously.
Mrs Darwen burst into a harsh scream of charwoman laughter. "My boy, you've got a touch of the devil in you right enough."
"I meant Machiavelli," Darwen explained.
"Who is he?"
"Oh, mater! He was an exceedingly clever Italian. He stripped the common facts of human existence of their halo of sentiment and showed things as they are; here in England we suffer from the despotic sway of a fetish called 'fair play.'"
"Fair play is a jewel," Carstairs observed, doggedly.
"There you are! Look at that!" Darwen pointed excitedly at Carstairs. "Behold the Saxon, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, clasping his gilded idol frantically to his bosom."
"He's not yellow-haired and he's not blue-eyed, and he's clasping his own big biceps across his bosom," Mrs Darwen observed laughing.
Carstairs, leaning back with folded arms, laughed too.
Darwen shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I'm in a strange country, I cannot comprehend. 'Don't hit a man when he's down,' you say. Why! that's the only time you've got a chance to really punish him. Oh, the fearful and wonderful Saxon brain!" He stood up, and stretching both arms above his head, gazed upwards at the ceiling. "Surely, surely, the Saxon is the devil personified. The Lord, the great Lord Nature, has endowed the Saxon with mighty biceps and a head of surpassing density. The yellow-haired son of darkness has spread himself over the globe. 'I cannot think: thou shalt not think,' has been his maxim and his passport, and, because of the magnitude of his biceps and the paucity of his ideas, he has cramped the intellect of the world. With his biceps the Lord endowed the Saxon with one idea, one commandment, 'Thou shalt not yield.' And the races of mankind, the multitudes of humanity, have spent themselves in vain endeavours to combat this idea. He has driven the Red man from America, the Black man from Australia. He stole the very country he lives in from a more intellectual, more civilized, and more refined race. Not once but many times has he been beaten, well beaten and rightfully beaten, but he could not see it." Darwen let his arms drop listlessly to his sides. "The Saxon has broken the heart of the world."
His mother went over to him and put her hand affectionately on his shoulder; she seemed rather concerned. "My boy! You were always a sportsman, always clean; many's the time I turned out in the rain on the wet grass, in the wind or the frost to watch you play, and you were always straight, always clean; I knew the game and I watched you."
He looked into his mother's eyes. "I was, mater, always straight, never cheated."
She looked proud and happy. "I know, I know!" she said. "You got that from me, from my side, your grandfather was a splendid sportsman. He rode right across country, straight as the crow flies, over hedges and ditches and walls, always straight, quite straight."
"Yes," he agreed, "that's how I played, always straight. But I never, for the life of me, could see why."
She shook her head. "Because it's not right, you wouldn't feel the same if you won by cheating."
"You're the best mater in all the world." He smiled at her affectionately. "But you have the intellectual limitation of the Saxon; history teaches me that it's useless to argue with you."
Carstairs had been sitting still, staring straight ahead; he arose and looked at his watch. "I'm afraid I must be going. I want to get out those figures——"
"Nonsense, my dear chap," Darwen took him by the arm. "Come on into the other room, and I'll play you a tune."
"What do you say, Mrs Darwen?" Carstairs looked at her quite seriously.
"Oh, you'll stay, of course."
So he stayed.
"You and the mater," Darwen remarked, as they made their way into the other room, "ought to get on as thick as thieves, you're both so very Saxon."