Jack Carstairs of the power house

CHAPTER VIII

The works at Southville were rather larger than the works he had just left in the Midlands, and Carstairs felt a delightful sense of exaltation as he first took charge of a shift by himself. For eight hours he was entirely responsible for the efficient, economical, and safe working of about 6000 horsepower of plant. He felt a sense of responsibility, of age; he felt uplifted and steadied. He was very thoughtful, but very confident; he had taken great pains during the week he was on with Darwen to make himself thoroughly acquainted with everything about the station. His confidence was the direct outcome of his knowledge; he looked at the various engines, dynamos, boilers and switch gears, and felt that he fully grasped the why and wherefore of it all; he reviewed the possibilities of what might happen, what might break down, in the various component parts of the complicated whole, and what he would do to tackle it. He considered it all very solemnly and felt very confident; he knew he would not scare. Physically he was in the pink of condition, his head was very clear and his technical knowledge very bright from constant use.

The chief, an awkward-looking, flabby man, came down to see him on his first shift. "Well! do you think you can manage it?" he asked.

"Yes," Carstairs answered, looking his chief steadily in the eyes; the eyes were lack-lustre and heavy, they shifted uneasily and roamed round the engine room: he stepped up to a bit of bright brass work and rubbed his finger across it. "That won't do," he said, holding up a finger soiled with greasy dirt. "Make that man clean that." He turned and went away abruptly.

Carstairs called the engine driver, a little man of herculean build. "I knowed he'd spot that," the man said, in a tone of protest. "Got a eye like a hawk, he have."

It was the first time Carstairs had noticed this man particularly; they had been on different shifts before. He looked him over with approval; the arms, bare to the elbow, were astonishingly big and sinewy-looking; the chest was immensely deep, it arched fully outward from the base of the full, white throat; the top button of his shirt, left undone, showed a glimpse of a very white skin and the commencement of a tattoed picture ("Ajax defying his mother-in-law," the man called it); his eyes were a bright hazel brown, singularly piercing and steady.

"What's your name?"

"Bounce, sir." He stood up very straight, his piercing eyes resting with steady persistence on Carstairs' face.

The name seemed remarkably appropriate. The whole man was suggestive of indiarubber.

"Been a sailor or soldier, haven't you?"

"Sailor, sir. I done twelve year in the navy."

"Did you?" Carstairs looked at him, thoughtfully. "I've got an uncle in the navy."

"What name did you say, sir?"

"Carstairs."

"Carstairs, I knows him. Commander Carstairs. I was with him in the 'Mediterranean.' Nice bloke he was. You ask him if he remembers Bounce, sir, Algernon Edward Bounce, A.B., light-weight champion boxer of the Mediterranean Fleet. He was there when I won it at Malta."

The man's manner was exceedingly civil and respectful, but there was something about it that kept irresistibly before your mind all the time that he was an independent unit, a man. After twelve years of the sternest discipline in the world this man was as free as the air he breathed, there was no sign of servility. The thought passed through Carstairs' mind, as he looked at him, that this breed, truly, never could be slaves.

"I'll ask him when I see him. So you're a boxer, are you?"

"Yes, sir. Light weight, though I ought to go middle; eleven stone two pounds, that's my weight. I can get down to ten, but I ain't comfortable, though I 'ave a done it."

Carstairs measured him with his eyes. He seemed very little over five feet. Later on, he ascertained that he was exactly five feet three inches.

"I see. Just wipe over that brass work, will you?"

With remarkable alacrity, and a peculiarly prompt and decisive manner, the man saluted and set about his work.

Carstairs watched him in silence for some minutes, struck more than ever by the appropriateness of his name; he marvelled too at the singularity of his chief. In all that clean and bright engine room there was only that one bit of obscure brass work uncleaned, and the chief had spotted it. "An acutely observant man, evidently," Carstairs meditated.

Later on in the evening, the chief assistant dropped in. He was a big, heavily-built man with a well-shaped, massive head and handsome, even features with general indication of great strength—mental, moral, and physical; the sort of man many women go into ecstasies over: the element of the brute seemed fairly strong in him. To Carstairs' critical eyes and slow, careful scrutiny, he appeared, however, somewhat flabby. He stood behind Carstairs on the switchboard and watched him parallel machines.

Now the process known as "paralleling" or "synchronizing" alternating current dynamos or "alternators" is somewhat critical; the operator has to watch two voltmeters and get their reading exactly alike; he also has to watch two lamps (now usually supplanted by a small voltmeter) which grow dull and bright more or less quickly, from perhaps sixty times a minute to ten or twelve times per minute, as the engine drivers slowly vary the speed of the engines. When the voltmeters are reading alike, and during the small fraction of a minute when the lamps are at their brightest, the operator has to close a fairly ponderous switch; if he is too late or too early, but particularly if he is too late, there are unpleasant consequences: the machines groan and shriek with an awe-inspiring sound, keeping it up very often for a considerable time; all the lamps on the system surge badly, and the needle of every instrument on the switchboard does a little war dance on its own, till the machines settle down. Sometimes the consequences of a "bad shot" are even more dire. There once appeared in one of the technical journals a pathetic little poem about a pupil's "first shot," how "he gazed severely at the voltmeters," and "looked sternly at the lamps," then he "took a howler," and "switched out again," "wished he hadn't," "Plugged in again and—bolted." In a similar journal there was another sort of prose poem, too, written in mediæval English which finished up a long tale of woe thus: "He taketh a flying shot and shutteth down ye station."

This was the operation then (in which every man needs all his wits and some more than they possess) in which Carstairs was engaged at a critical period of the load (for be it remembered the time available is always strictly limited) when the chief assistant stood behind him. He remained calm and impassive, as behoved his countenance, for some time, then, just when the phases were beginning to get longer, and Carstairs took hold of the switch handle in readiness to plug in; the chief assistant stepped excitedly up behind him. "Now! Be careful! Watch your volts! There! There! You might have had that one! Look out, here she comes! Watch your volts, man, watch your volts!"

Carstairs felt like knocking him down, he missed two good phases that he might have taken, then he "plugged in" rather early. The machines groaned a little, but soon settled down.

"Too soon! Too soon!" the chief assistant said,

In angry silence Carstairs turned and signalled the engine driver to speed up the machine. The chief assistant left the board, and went out without further comment.

"Does that ass always play the mountebank behind a chap when he's paralleling?" Carstairs asked his junior.

"Sometimes, he gets fits now and again: Fitsgerald, the chap that's just left, turned round and cursed him one day. I nearly fell off the board with laughing. Old Robinson looked at me. 'What the devil are you laughing at?' he said. I might have got your job if it hadn't been for that. Fitsgerald got the sack over it."

"Apparently I shouldn't have missed much," Carstairs said as he went away.

When he got home at about half-past twelve, Darwen was sitting up for him. "How did you get on?" he asked, with his genial smile.

"Oh, first-class." They sat down to supper. "Took rather a howler, paralleling six and seven. That ass Robinson was jigging about like a monkey-on-stick behind me, telling me what to do. Next time I shall stand aside and ask if he'd prefer to do it himself."

"Don't do that, old chap, he's a malice-bearing beast. Funks always are! Don't take any notice of him. Forget him, or send him away; ask if he'd mind watching the drivers, as they brought her down too quick, or something, last time."

Carstairs was silent.

"Fitsgerald got the sack for cursing him over the same thing. He was a red-headed chap. We were talking about Robinson's unpleasant ways (he'd had a go at me the day before). I said he wanted a good cursing to cure him of it, and I'm blowed if Fitz didn't curse him about a couple of days later." Darwen's eyes seemed to flicker with an uncanny sort of light, his voice dropped into a reflective tone. "Threatened to chuck him over the handrail if he didn't go off the switchboard. Hasty chaps those red-headed fellows are. We had a chap at school—what school were you at, Carstairs?"

"Cheltenham."

"Were you? I was at Clifton, went to Faraday House, after."

Pushing back his chair, Darwen, got up and went to the piano, he played some very slow, soft music, slow and soothing, it breathed the breath of peace into Carstairs' troubled soul.

"Robinson is only a fool," Darwen said over his shoulder. "I feel rather sorry for him—hasn't got the heart of a mouse—gets in a frightful stew when he's got to parallel himself—he's not a bad-hearted chap—done me one or two rather good turns."

"I thought he was alright too, at other times." Carstairs felt the spirit of peace stirring within him.

"It's kinder to him to let him drift, he doesn't mean anything—can't help himself—nervous, you know. I just smile at him."

"Suppose that is the best way. I'll have a shot next time, anyway. Made me rather ratty to-night."

Darwen played for some time in silence. "Chief come in at all?" he asked, at length.

"Yes. Came in and groused about a bit of brass work being dirty."

"That's like the chief. He'll never express an opinion on anything except its external appearance; very safe man, the chief, extremely safe, but stupid: he'll fail, not through what he does, but what he leaves undone." He ceased speaking, but the music went on slowly welling out, breathing good will and trust to all mankind. It died slowly away leaving the tired listener in a blissful state of rest. Darwen got up and looked at him with sparkling, observant eyes.

"Good-night, old chap. I'm going to bed."

Carstairs arose slowly from the big, easy chair, "Wish I could play like you, Darwen."

The rest of the week passed (at the works) with singular uneventfulness, in fact never afterwards did Carstairs have such an uneventful week on load shift; but all the same the memory of his first week on shift by himself remained always clear and distinct above all other experiences; never afterwards did he feel the delightful thrill of responsibility, of excitement, of awe almost, as he walked round the engine room and boiler house surveying the men and plant, for those first few days, and felt that for eight hours he was monarch of all he surveyed; with all the other men far out of call, spreading out in different parts of the town, reading their papers, at the theatre or music halls, while he was responsible for the lightening of their darkness, and the safe keeping of the men and plant around him. In after life he often reflected that the princely salary of £104 per annum was singularly inadequate for the kingly nature of his office; but the greengrocers, the doctors, and publicans thought it was remarkably good for a man who spent most of his time walking about with his hands in his pockets. These works had been making a financial loss of from £100 to £2000 every year since they started, with the exception of one year, when, by careful manipulation of the accounts, they managed to show a profit of £20, which, under the expert examination of a proper accountant, would probably have been converted to a loss of £500.

Darwen watched the finances with a keen interest. He was very chummy with Robinson; they studied the reports of the various stations together with great earnestness. "A loss or a profit doesn't matter much to a corporation as long as they have continuity of supply." Darwen laid it down as a law, and Robinson heartily agreed. That axiom was only a half truth, but the foundation of all municipal work is only a half truth, so it did not matter much.

Robinson was very proud. "We never have the lights out here," he said. And Darwen smiled approval. "That's so," he agreed, and on his shift he took care that it always should be so; he had every engine in the place warmed up, ready for instant use, and two boilers always lighted up and under pressure in case of necessity. Robinson approved of his method, and the chief—the chief grumbled about the boiler house being dirty, but on Darwen's shift it was cleaner and more tidy than on any other shift; also the engine room was brighter and more spotless, so much and so persistently so, in fact, that the cautious chief was drawn out of his shell to express a decided opinion to the chairman of the electricity committee (who remarked on it). "Yes," the chief said, with a little flicker of enthusiasm, "that man Darwen is decidedly the best engineer I've ever had." Which remark was not overlooked by the chairman, a doctor, a large man with a large imposing black beard, who had been struck, as who could fail to be, by the remarkable beauty of face and form and general impression of intelligence of the athletic young engineer.

It was not very long after Darwen had observed the chief and chairman in conversation and looking pointedly at him, that he developed certain symptoms which, in his opinion, necessitated medical advice. Common sense, he explained to Carstairs, pointed out the chairman as the man to go to.

The doctor recognized him at once. "Hullo!" he said, looking him over with distinct approval, for Darwen's winning, frank smile captivated him at once. "Has the electricity got on your system?" The doctor was a jovial, hearty man.

Darwen laughed. He showed precisely the right amount of amusement at the joke, then, shortly and precisely, he stated (almost verbatim from a medical book he had looked up in the reference library) the symptoms of a more or less minor complaint.

Recognizing it at once, "I'll soon put that right for you," the doctor said, in his hearty, jovial way. His extensive practice was largely due to his jovial manner; he appreciated the clear and precise statement of the symptoms.

"It's nothing serious then, doctor?"

"Oh, no!—no! It might have been, of course, if you'd let it go on."

"Ah! that's just it; it's the same with an engine, you know, 'a stitch in time.' I like to get expert advice at the start."

This was business from the doctor's point of view. He became serious. "Most true," he said. "Still, people will aggravate their complaints by so-called home treatments."

"The penny-wise policy, doctor, the results of combined ignorance and meanness."

"I wonder," Darwen said, later on, as he poured the contents of a medicine bottle down the bathroom waste pipe, "I wonder what in thunder this is, a sort of elixir of life served out to most people for most complaints at a varying price. Funny what stuff people will pour down their necks."

Some hours later, as they sat facing each other in their big easy chairs, Darwen said: "Didn't you say your guv'nor was a parson, Carstairs?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because the time has arrived to trot him out."

"What do you mean?" Carstairs flushed rather angrily.

"I have not got a guv'nor," Darwen observed, sadly; "haven't any recollection of my guv'nor. He went down with the Peninsula coming home from Australia. He was a mining engineer."

Carstairs was softened. "Hard lines," he said, and there was much sympathy in his tone.

"It is," Darwen agreed. "A guv'nor helps one so much. I want you to get your guv'nor to come down and stay with us for a few days. What College was he at?"

"Christ Church, Oxford."

"Then it's almost a cert he'll bump up against some one he knows down here, some other parson, or somebody. I want to get into the chairman's crowd, he's churchwarden at St James'. I'm going there."

Carstairs removed his pipe slowly from his lips and stared more or less blankly. It was the limit of surprise he allowed himself ever to express.

"Yes, and I'm joining St James' Gym. and the Conservative Club. Robinson has introduced me to one or two rather decent people, too; Robinson belongs here, you know. To-morrow you and I are going to sign on for a dancing class; Robinson's people put me on to it; Robinson doesn't dance. I'm pretty good, and you'll be good with practice. Every fit man can dance well with practice."

Carstairs puffed silently at his pipe for some minutes. "Will the dividends on dancing, gymnastics, church-going, etc., pan out better than working?" he asked at length.

"Do you think you are getting the full value of your present stock of knowledge?"

"Not by chalks, but one never does."

"I beg to differ; some men get paid considerably over the value of their knowledge."

"Perhaps you're correct," Carstairs admitted, after a pause.

"Well, I want to join the happy band. Shove your knowledge forward, having due regard to the manner of your doing so, that it does not defeat its own ends. And that is wisdom; you're paid for the combined product of your knowledge and your wisdom. Wisdom is the most scarce, the most valuable, and the most difficult to acquire: it is the knowledge of the use of knowledge. Do you see?"

"They bear the relation to each other of theory and practice in engineering."

"Not quite. Theory is an effort of the imagination, either a spontaneous effort of your own, based on known facts, or an assimilation of the results of other men's practice as recorded by them in books. The sources of error are twofold; the limits of your own imagination, your own conception of the other man's description, and the limit of the other man's gift of expression and explanation. Practice is your own conception and remembrance of what you yourself have personally experienced. Both are knowledge; wisdom is distinct from either."

Carstairs smiled. "Well, it's your wisdom I doubt, not your knowledge. I mean to say, that my application of my knowledge to my conception of your application of your knowledge, as expressed by you in the present discussion, leads me to doubt the accuracy of your application of your knowledge to the case under discussion. The possible sources of error being in my imagination or your expression, and as my imagination is a fixed quantity, unless you can improve your expression, I shall fail to coincide with you. How's that?"

"That's very good." Darwen took a deep breath and laughed. "Let me have another shot. Who gets the most money, the successful professor or the successful business man?"

"The successful business man."

"Hear, hear! That's because he's selling wisdom, while the professor is selling knowledge."

"I disagree, on two points. Number one, the business man sells necessities, boots for instance; the professor sells luxuries, quaternions, for instance." Carstairs paused and quoted, "'What I like about quaternions, sir, is that they can't be put to any base utilitarian purpose.'"

"Quaternions, my dear chap——"

"Half a minute! Number two, the business man sells knowledge of men and affairs as opposed to the professor's knowledge of things only."

"The Lord has delivered you into my hands, Carstairs."

"I saw it as soon as I'd spoken."

"Well, let us acquire knowledge of men and affairs, instead of merely of things—engines."

"I admit that my conception of——"

"Chuck it."

"Well, you've made a good point."

"You're Harveyized steel, Carstairs, and it gives me immense satisfaction to see that I'm making some impression on you. Well, you may go on grinding away all your life, and if nobody knows of the knowledge you possess, you'll never get paid for it."

"But I will show it by the application of it in my work. The chief is bound to see it."

"Not a ha'porth, my boy. And if he does, the chances are that he'll depreciate it in the eyes of the world, or get you the sack, because he'll be afraid of you."

"I admit the probability of those possibilities."

"As an engineer you must never forget the interdependence of parts: as a successful man you must never overlook the interdependence of everything in nature. Smile at men as if you were overjoyed to see them and they'll give you anything, as long as it's not their own property."

"Hear, hear!"

"Our object in life is to persuade the councillors to dole us out an extra dose of the ratepayers' money."

"I admit the correctness of the conclusion."

"Then let us, with all circumspection, smile on the councillors and their wives and daughters, particularly the daughters."

"Nothing would please me more, provided the daughters reciprocate the smile."

"They'll do that alright, old chap, if you only do it the right way. The most potent force in nature is the love of women; it behoves us as engineers to utilize this force. There is nothing much that a woman in love won't do, and there is even less that she won't make the poor fool, who imagines she is in love with him, do."

"It's supposed to be specially dangerous to run two girls in parallel."

"You may take it as proved that, 'In the same town and on the same side of it, there cannot be two girls in love with the same man, etc.' All the same, the idea of it is rather fascinating." Darwen's eyes sparkled.

"We are wandering from the point."

"Quite so. Are you going to get your guv'nor down?"

"Look here. Have you got any money?"

"Well, I'm not absolutely stony."

"Then lend me two quid and I'll go home for a week-end and bring him back."

Darwen fished out his purse with a smile. "The seeds of wisdom are in you, I perceive," he said.

Suddenly the strains of music were wafted in to them through the open window. "What in thunder is that?" Darwen asked, getting up with a puzzled look and gazing out into the street. "By Jove, it's a kid with a mouth organ, looks like a gipsy kid."

With a serious face Carstairs got up and looked out of the window too. The boy was looking directly up at the window; as soon as he caught sight of Carstairs, he changed his tune abruptly.

"What's that tune, Darwen? I seem to know it."

"That's 'The Gipsy's Warning.' The kid plays very well, too, for an instrument like that. I thought it was a violin for a minute."

They stood up at the window and watched. The boy played the same thing twice over, then he played a Scotch tune. Then he opened the gate and walking across the little lawn stood under the window and touched his cap.

Carstairs put his hand in his pocket and pulled out sixpence. "Wait a minute," he said to the boy. He went downstairs and spoke to him. "Do you come from Scotland?"

"Yes, sir; I seen you there. Sam's down here and he's after you." He turned and went out into the road again and disappeared.

Carstairs looked after him with a troubled frown, then he returned to the sitting-room.

Darwen looked at him with observant, surprised eyes. "Did you know that kid?" he asked.

"No, but he knew me. I once had a row with a gipsy in Scotland; flattened him out, broke his leg; he's been after me ever since. That kid came to tell me he's in this town now. Next pay day I shall invest in a young bull dog."

Carstairs sat down again in the big easy chair and gazed at nothing. His thoughts were far away; he had no doubt who had sent the gipsy boy to warn him. "The most potent force, the love of women." Good God! and what of the love of men? A gipsy girl. It was quite impossible.

Then Darwen played—pleading, soothing music—and Carstairs told him the whole story.

"You'll have to remove that gipsy, that Sam—in self-defence, mind, of course. And the girl—you couldn't marry a gipsy, of course, but it's not necessary."

And Carstairs listened in silence.

CHAPTER IX

Time passed, and although Carstairs kept a good look out, he saw nothing of Sam, the gipsy; he bought a substantial ash walking stick which he kept constantly by him. On the night shift he tackled Bounce, the ex-sailor. "Can you fence?"

"Yes, sir, I'm very good at fencing."

Carstairs smiled, but he knew all the same that it was a simple statement of the truth without any affected modesty or blatant boasting. "I'll bring down a couple of sticks, and you can give me a little instruction if you will."

"I shall be very pleased, sir."

He had a manner all his own of making even this simple statement; it suggested an equality of manhood while admitting an inferiority of station; every word and action showed a confident, self-contained, self-respecting man.

So in the wee sma' hours of the morning, when everyone else was in bed, Carstairs and Bounce fenced with single sticks in a clear space in the engine room. They got very chummy over these contests. Carstairs had frequently had long yarns with Bounce before in the quietness of the night watch, but now as they smote each other good and hard (for they wore neither helmets, jackets, nor aprons) and Carstairs smiled and Bounce grinned like a merry imp, and occasionally apologized for an "extra stiff un," they seemed to draw very close together, so much so, that one night Carstairs told him the tale of Sam the gipsy.

Bounce shook his head seriously. "Gipsies is nasty blokes," he observed, pondering deeply. "Some good fighting men amongst 'em, too." He pondered again. "I should think now that a bit of boxing would be more useful to you than fencing. Or—have you got a pistol?"

"Yes, and a set of gloves. I'll bring them both down to-morrow."

Next night Bounce's eyes scintillated light as he fingered the well-made brown leather boxing gloves, and examined the beautiful little American target revolver. "This is fancy," he said, in regard to the latter. "It wouldn't stop a man, though."

"Depends where you hit him," suggested Carstairs.

"That's true, sir."

They retired to a secluded corner of the boiler house, and Bounce fastened a piece of board on the wall and stuck three tin tacks in it, then he drew back as far as the dimensions of the place would admit, which was about fifteen yards. "Shall I have first shot, sir?" he asked.

Carstairs handed him the revolver, and then a box of cartridges. He loaded, then raised his arm, and, taking a fairly long sight at the board, fired. "That's a miss," he observed. "I'll get a bit of chalk."

Stepping up to the board, Carstairs saw that he had missed the head of a tin tack by about a sixteenth of an inch.

Bounce returned from the engine room with a piece of chalk and whitened over the heads of the tin tacks. "I ain't had a shot with a revolver for two years, or more," he observed, apologetically. Then he took another shot and burst the head of one tin tack; his next shot bent the second tin tack over on one side. The third shot drove the remaining tack right home. "There you are, sir," he said, with some pride, handing Carstairs the revolver.

"Look here, Bounce! Is there anything much in the way of offence and defence that you can't do?" Carstairs asked with open admiration.

"Well, I don't think there is very much, sir. I've fired everything up to a six-inch gun, over that I ain't quite sure. Mind, I have afired a twelve-inch, but I ain't quite sure. A twelve-inch takes some handling, see." He stood up very straight, looking Carstairs steadily in the eyes as he made this simple statement.

Then they boxed, and the applicability of his surname struck Carstairs more than ever; he seemed literally to bounce out of the way, just when Carstairs was going to hit him, and he bounced in again with singular directness and precision immediately Carstairs had missed him. Every night for the rest of the week they boxed for half an hour at a time, and Carstairs, with his clear head and steady nerves, soon began to make progress.

"What you wants, principally, is to hit hard, an' quick an' straight." Bounce laid it down as a law, and suiting his own actions accordingly, he bounced in and hit Carstairs in the eye, so that it afterwards turned a lively shade of deep, blue-black.

Bounce apologized, then he grinned like a healthy fiend. "It do show up," he observed, "but a black eye ain't near so painful as a good un on the nose."

Carstairs smiled too. "Oh! it doesn't matter in the least," he said. "It's part of the game. Unfortunately I'm going home to see my people to-morrow." He gazed at it thoughtfully in the looking-glass in the lavatory. "The guv'nor'll understand, but the mater——"

"I knows, sir."

Next day Carstairs went home to the little vicarage of Chilcombe, and on his way to the station he caught sight of a rough-looking man in well-worn gaiters, a fur cap and a heavy coat with big poacher's pockets, limping down a side street. Carstairs felt angry. "That's the swine," he said, to himself. Then a sudden surge of pity overwhelmed him. "Poor devil! he does limp."

He got a seat in the corner of an empty third-class carriage and opened a paper he had purchased, but he did not read, he thought of the rough-looking man with the limp, of the beautiful girl in Scotland and Darwen—the three seemed inextricably mixed up, somehow. "Darwen's a skunk," he said, but that was the only definite conclusion at which he could arrive.

Meanwhile the train hurried him homewards, and very soon he arrived at the main line junction, and changed into the crawling local. He had written to say which train he would arrive by, and as the train drew up at the pretty country station, he saw the tall, black-garbed figure of his father on the platform. They shook hands solemnly, and eyes so much like his own beamed approval and pleasure as the strong brown cricketer's hand gripped his. Suddenly they sobered down into a look half amusement, half pain, as they rested on the discoloured skin (by careful doctoring reduced to a bright yellow) round his eye.

"What's the matter with the eye, Jack?"

"Oh, that's boxing."

"Ah!" It was a sigh of relief and distinct approval.

"Yes; a man at the works, engine driver, you know, ex-sailor, light-weight champion of the Mediterranean Fleet, he's coaching me."

"Ah, very good, excellent sport. Suppose you don't lose your temper?"

"Oh, no! Not with Bounce." He laughed. "How's the mater and all the rest of them?"

"Your mother's very well, very well indeed. Phillip is going on very well in India."

"Got a rise yet?"

"Rise?—er—no. In fact, you're doing the best of any, so far. Mrs Bevengton was inquiring about you; she and Bessie are coming over to tea to-morrow." He shot a sudden, keen glance at his son. "Very nice girl, Bessie, extremely nice."

"That's so," Jack admitted.

"Have you seen anything more of your gipsy maiden?" There was a note of anxiety in his father's voice.

"Yes; seen her once for a few minutes."

"Ah!" It seemed as if Jack had explained something, some obscure point.

"Her fancy man flattened me out."

"Flattened you out?"

"Hit me on the back of the head with a stick."

"Nothing very serious, I suppose; still it's a pity you got mixed up with those people."

"Yes; the girl came down next night with another stick to flatten out her fancy man." Unconsciously there was a note of pride in Jack's voice.

"Dear me, what terrible people! It's a very great pity you got mixed up with them at all—a very great pity."

"Yes, it is a pity," Jack agreed. He seemed so pensive that his father regarded him in some concern.

"Many young men entirely wreck their lives by these youthful entanglements," he said. "Those sort of girls, who appear beautiful and fascinating at your age, usually strike one as coarse and outré a few years later."

"That's very possible," Jack admitted, and he smiled as though a weight had been lifted off his mind.

They turned in at the big double gates.

"By the way, there is—er—no necessity to mention that little affair to your mother. Women brood over these things, and build up all sorts of vague horrors and possibilities of their own."

"Quite so," Jack admitted, very soberly, so that his father glanced quickly at him again. But they were at the house and there was no time for further questioning.

Jack's mother noticed his discoloured eye at once. "Oh, Jack, whatever have you been doing?"

"Only boxing, mother."

"I wish you'd be more careful; you're so violent. I'm sure cricket and lawn tennis are much nicer."

"They're nice enough, mater, but not nearly so useful."

There was a seriousness in the way he said it that made both father and mother look at him sharply. "Useful?"

He smiled, his calm, easy smile. "I mean to say, stokers and so on sometimes get abusive, you know, and in the interests of real peace it is best to know how to flatten 'em out if necessary."

"I wish Jack, you wouldn't use such slangy expressions."

"Very sorry, mater."

But his father's keen, blue eyes continued to watch him steadily, and after Mrs Carstairs had gone to bed, he stayed down for half an hour chatting with his son. "I suppose," he said, "there is no possibility of those gipsies molesting you further?"

Jack shrugged his shoulders. "Can't say," he drawled. "I left them in Scotland."

"They wander, these people, you know."

"That's true; however, there is always the police, you know." Jack was very unconcerned. "By the way, guv'nor, could you come back and stay with me for a few days? Another fellow and myself are digging together, you know. He's a jolly decent sort; opens his mouth rather wide at times, says more than he means, you know, but he's a good sort. Got me my job, as a matter of fact. He wants you to come too. Wants to get to know some decent people; he's a dancing man and that sort of thing. Thinks you'll probably bump up against some one you know, give us a lift in our jobs besides making things more pleasant. You understand."

The Reverend Carstairs' shrewd eyes twinkled merrily. "You want to utilize your old father, eh? What about this young man's father?"

"He hasn't got one; drowned at sea when he was a kid."

"Ah!" The grey eyes softened into sympathy at once. "Of course I'll come. It's quite the right view to take; young men cast adrift in a strange town usually get acquainted with quite the wrong people. Southville? Southville? Ah, yes. I think the vicar of St James' there is an old Christ Church man. Let me see." He got up and reached down a book of reference. "Here we are. Southville, St James. Yes! Moorhouse. Ah! I thought so. He was not exactly a chum, but a friend. I've no doubt he'll be pleased to see me. What is your friend like?"

"Oh, about the same as myself, but exceedingly handsome, striking, you know. Sort of chap you turn round to look at. Very dark, almost Italian looking."

"Ah! You ought to be able to make things very pleasant for yourselves down there. I'll go back with you on Monday." His father stood up.

"Thanks very much. Shall I turn out the light?"

"Thanks, if you will. Good night."

So Jack turned in once more in the old familiar bed in the old familiar room at the corner of the house, with windows overlooking a wide sweep of the rolling Cotswold Hills.

Next morning after church he met Mrs Bevengton and Bessie; she coloured slightly as she shook hands with him, and her dimples sprang into prominent evidence in a smile that expressed more than pleasure.

Jack regarded her thoughtfully, with very great pleasure too. She seemed the personification of beauty, not so much in the physical as the moral sense; as he walked by her side slowly down the brown-gravel path in the warm light of an autumn sun, countless little incidents of his childhood's days returned to him, bearing a fuller and a newer meaning; this girl had always been clean, clean as it is understood in England, honest and unspiteful, she never cheated. When he parted at the gate it was with a distinct sense of pleasure that he was to meet her again in the afternoon. She laughed, a jolly, happy laugh, when he explained the discolouration of his eye.

Mrs Carstairs and Mrs Bevengton coming behind had observed them with mutual approval: "Don't you think Bessie's improved?" Jack's mother said to him as they walked home together.

"She's better looking if that's what you mean, otherwise she was always a jolly decent girl."

"Yes, there are not many girls like her."

"In that, mater, your opinion should be of considerably more value than mine, I haven't met very many girls."

"You're getting old enough to think about these things now."

"Yes, mater, to think about them."

About three o'clock in the afternoon, Dr and Mrs Bevengton and Bessie arrived. After half an hour's exchange of family greetings, Jack and Bessie went out into the garden, leaving the old people indoors.

"Shall we go for a stroll through Cleeve woods?" Jack asked, presently.

"Yes, I haven't been there for a long time."

Cleeve woods were the private property of Lady Cleeve, but Jack and Bessie were privileged persons, allowed to trespass whenever they liked. They wandered along the well-known paths, going very slowly; every tree and bush held its own secret for them, recalling each its own little tragedy or comedy of their early lives.

Bessie stopped in front of a tall pine tree. "Do you remember when you climbed up there and took the kestrel's eggs?"

"I remember curly-haired 'Fatty,' and Jim down below keeping 'cave,' in case the keeper came."

The dimples burst out anew. "I was a fatty then, wasn't I? You came down all the way without a word. I knew you'd got eggs by the careful way you were watching your pockets. I thought it was only a magpie's, then you glanced round like a burglar and just showed one eye over the top of your pocket, I knew it was a hawk's because it was red."

"A kestrel is a falcon, Bessie, not a hawk. You said, 'O-oh,' under your breath, and Jim whispered 'what is it?' Jim never could tell one egg from another."

"We all felt like desperate poachers and crept out of the wood in breathless haste, and you blew them under the chestnut tree on your lawn."

Jack looked at her with a sudden admiration.

"You were always a pal and full of pluck," he said. "When I was up old Giles' apple tree and he came out with his dog, Jim bolted like a rabbit, but you stayed behind like a brick and waited for me."

"Yes, I remember, my knees were knocking together with fright."

"Oh, you crammer, you threw an apple at the dog."

Bessie laughed. "Old Giles was a good sort. He knew who we were right enough, but he never told father."

Talking thus they strolled on till they came out on the trimmed laurels and well-kept lawn that surrounded Lady Cleeve's house. Jack stopped. "I expect the footman will come out and ask impertinent questions if we go over the lawn, won't he?"

"Oh, no! he knows me very well."

Still they stopped for some time admiring the house and the well-kept grounds. It was just getting dusk and lights were already beginning to appear in some of the windows of the big old house. "I should like to own a place like this some day," Jack said. He stepped on to the lawn. "By Jove! these lawns are grand, aren't they? Do you remember that time I was on holidays from Cheltenham, when they gave a sort of tea fight to the whole village? And the yokels were playing kiss-in-ring on the lawn?"

Bessie coloured a good red and looked down at the smooth carpet-like grass, poking aimlessly with the point of her umbrella. They were fairly close to the house. Suddenly one of the near windows sprang into a glare of light, showing up everything within with great distinctness. A female servant, in cap and apron, was lighting the gas. Her profile showed clear and distinct against the light.

"Oh! there's that new maid who's just come to the Hall. Don't you think she's remarkably handsome, Jack?"

Carstairs looked up, the girl in the room turned, so that the light was full on her face, and every feature was distinct: the blood seemed to bound in his veins, he was astonished at the thrill he felt.

It was some seconds, perhaps a minute, before he answered, then it was a very slow drawl. "Yes, exceedingly handsome."

Then they went home almost in silence, for Carstairs had recognized in Lady Cleeve's new housemaid, his gipsy girl from Scotland.

CHAPTER X

Early on the Monday morning the Reverend Hugh and his son Jack entrained for Southville. Jack was pre-occupied with some deep thought, and his father noticed it.

"Sorry to leave the old place, Jack?"

"Er—yes. Nothing touches this place for me."

"You must get to know some nice people at Southville."

Jack pulled himself together; he had been gazing earnestly at Lady Cleeve's house nestling in among the pine trees; the slope of a hill suddenly shut out the view, and Jack turned to his father with attention undivided. "You know I'm not so keen on the people as the work, but Darwen seems to think that in municipal work you can't get on at all without friends."

The parson's eyes lighted up with approval as he listened to his son. "Work is the thing that makes life enjoyable, but you must have friends, you know."

Jack was silent for some time. "It seems a rotten state of things," he observed at length, and his father laughed aloud.

Darwen was on shift when they arrived, but Jack took his father to their diggings, and very soon after Darwen came in; his handsome face lighted up with a beaming smile as he shook hands with the Reverend Hugh. "I say," he said, "I should have known you for Jack's father if I had met you in the street alone."

The old parson smiled with approval as his shrewd grey eyes took in a complete impression of face and form and expression. He succumbed at once to the charming manner and charming personality of the tall, clean-looking young engineer. "Wholesome, athletic, happy-go-lucky, but intelligent," was his mental summing up. Such were the sort of friends he expected his son to make; he looked from one to the other with keen approval. They pushed forward the easiest chair and plied him with cushions and tobacco. They took him back to his own college days.

"You fellows seem very comfortable here," he said.

"Not bad," they agreed.

He smiled. "It was always 'not bad,'" he said. "Hullo!" he glanced along the backs of the books on the shelf at his side. "Tennyson, Keats, Dante, Shelley, 'Hamlet,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Barrack Room Ballads,' 'The Prince'! I didn't know you had a fancy for poetry, Jack."

"Not guilty! Those are Darwen's." Jack was stretched out, six feet of muscularity, full length on a slender-looking couch. He puffed slowly at his pipe. "Those are mine"—he pointed to a shelf on the other side.

His father glanced along the backs of them, reading the names aloud. "'Dynamo, Electric Machinery,' h-m, bulky volume that! 'Manual of the Steam Engine'; 'The Steam Engine,' h-m, three volumes. 'Polyphase Currents,' ah! 'Text Book of Heat,' 'Theoretical Chemistry,' 'Trigonometry,' 'Integral Calculus,' 'Differential Calculus' (Todhunter). That's mine, I think. I thought Edwards was the man on the Calculus nowadays."

"Ye-es, Darwen's got him somewhere. I prefer Todhunter, leaves more to the imagination, you know."

"Ah, the imagination. Quite so."

"Seems to me the limit of a man's possibility in anything is the limit of his imagination."

"And his control of it, Jack."

"Exactly."

Darwen had his chair tilted back wards, blowing clouds of smoke vertically upwards to the ceiling. He spoke slowly between the puffs. "Carstairs—Jack, has got no soul above machines, inanimate lumps of iron; the hum of a smoothly running engine is the only poetry that appeals to him, so it does to me, but I like a change; little bits of Shelley, little drops of Kipling——"

"I admit that 'M'Andrews' Hymn' is a real poem."

"Shut up! You reek of the engine room. I like a change. Variety is the soul of amusement." He dropped his chair on to its front legs again and looked at Jack's father. "Hasn't some one said that?" he asked.

"I really couldn't say, perhaps so." He smiled with amusement.

Darwen looked at him steadily, thoughtfully, for a moment. "Do you know I think there's a touch of the Dago in me—or perhaps it's Celt. Do you think I'm Irish?"

"My dear boy, you should know that best."

"That's so! English, the mater says, pure English, but I don't know. I'm a bit of a rogue, you know; the instinct of dishonesty is very strong at times."

The Reverend Hugh laughed, and Darwen jumped up. "I'll play you a tune, if you'll stand it," he said. He sat down and played, wandering on from one thing to another, ever and anon glancing at the old vicar, then he got up. "Does that bore you?" he asked.

"Bore me? My dear fellow, you are an accomplished musician."

He flushed slightly with pleasure. "I like music. Let's have a trot round the town and show your guv'nor the sights, Carstairs."

"The guv'nor knows the vicar of St James."

"Does he? By Jove! that's good."

So they went avisiting.

The Reverend Moorhouse was short and very broad, he had more the legal than the clerical type of face; an old international Rugby footballer, the impress of the game was still strong on him, vigorous, keen, bluff. It was evident he was pleased to see his old friend, he said so, and invited all three of them to dinner the next night.

The dinner was good; Mrs Moorhouse was plain, stout, chatty, and exceedingly kind; the Misses Moorhouse, two of them, were tall, athletic, and pretty. They talked about hockey and tennis and swimming; the two young men were charmed. Carstairs was quite vivacious, Darwen seemed to scintillate; Mrs Moorhouse watched him with approving eyes, and later on, when he played and sang with the elder Miss Moorhouse, she took possession of him; crossing the room she sat down beside him. "You must come and help us at the church," she said.

"I shall be delighted," he answered, with real pleasure shining in his eyes.

The vicar's wife was business-like and decisive, she fastened him down by compact and contract at once.

Altogether it was a merry and delightful evening, and when they at length departed it was in a particularly bright and happy mood. They walked back; it was not very far and a beautiful starry night; there was a tinge of frost in the air; Jack Carstairs threw his chest out and took a deep gulp of the fresh, crisp air.

"I believe these little diversions do improve one's form, you know, I feel like a sprint." He looked up and down the long silent street of semi-detached, shrubbery-enclosed villas. As he looked back his face suddenly hardened into a fierce look of anger, his mouth shut like a steel trap, and his grey eyes took on a cold, steely glitter; for just as he glanced round, a rough-looking man, carrying a big stick had limped past a lamp light on the other side of the road. Carstairs said no word, but there was an abruptness in his manner that attracted his father's attention.

"What's the matter, Jack?" He glanced round and Darwen followed suit, but the man was now in the shade and hardly noticeable.

"Nothing," he answered, staring straight ahead; but out of the corner of his eye he caught a meaning look from Darwen, and in response jerked his head ever so slightly backwards and to one side.

Promptly Darwen dropped back to do up his bootlace. A few seconds later, the man with the limp, who had crossed the road and was now directly behind them, quickened his pace and limped past. Carstairs stopped and faced round as the limping step drew near, but the man's face was averted and he went on without a word or sign; some way ahead they saw that he was joined by another man, hitherto unobserved, who, without any word of greeting, stepped out of the shadow and walked along with him; he seemed exceptionally short, but his hands hung down below his knees—probably a hunchback.

"Those men are after no good," the Reverend Hugh observed.

"No. I expect not. There have been several burglaries round here lately."

Darwen held out his walking-stick. "Do you notice the sticks we carry? Guaranteed to kill at one smite." He laughed lightly. Something of the spirit of the party returned to them, and they went home more or less lighthearted.

After the old vicar was safely in bed, Darwen went along to Jack's bedroom. He was half expected; he sat down on a chair while Carstairs stretched himself, half undressed, on the bed.

"That was Sam?" Darwen asked.

"Yes, I'm sure of it! Don't know who the other chap is, seems as if he's rounding up a gang. What do you think of putting the police on it?"

"Don't see how you can! Anyhow the scandal of it, if there was an exposure, would wreck your rosy prospects in this town. A young man with a fancy for spending his nights in the woods with charming gipsy maidens is not the sort that the wife of the vicar of St James can allow to associate with her daughters."

Carstairs swore volubly. "Do you know she's got a slavey's job at Lady Cleeve's, the local big bug's at home."

"Did she know where you lived?"

"Yes, I told her."

"You were a fool."

"I don't know." Carstairs was very thoughtful. "Damn it, she knocks spots off any girl I've seen yet. She's improving, too."

Darwen's eyes glistened. "I like playing with fire myself," he said.

"It's our job," Carstairs answered, cynically. "We're paid to do it."

"It is damn rotten for you, I admit. Have you got a revolver?"

"Yes."

"Oh! but that's no good either, you mustn't attract attention in that way. I tell you what, we'll set a trap and collar the brute. You'll have to be the bait. And—say Bounce and I, we ought to be able to effect a capture."

"That's so, but what then?"

"Oh, anything. Bribery, threats, or we might shanghai the beast off to Australia."

Carstairs was dubious. "They'll give it a rest for a bit now. He's as cunning as a fox, that gipsy, he knows I recognized him. Damn him! I'd have hit him over the head with my stick as he passed if the guv'nor hadn't been there."

"Well, anyway, shall we call in Bounce? You've already told him the story, haven't you?"

"Yes. Bounce's great idea is a heavy right on the jaw. 'Get in close and hit hard,'" he said.

"That's very sound, too. After your guv'nor's gone, we'll hold a council of war. Bounce may have some reliable pals. Good night, old chap, keep your pecker up."

"Thanks. It's jolly good of you to lend me a hand over a rotten business like this."

"That's alright. As I observed before, I like playing with fire."

"Well, I hope you won't get burnt over this. Good night."

"Good night."

Next day the old vicar went back to his flock again leaving a cordial invitation for Darwen to come and see them. Jack saw him off.

"A very fine young fellow that. I'm glad you've made friends with him."

"Yes! he's a jolly good sort," Jack answered, enthusiastically, having fresh in his memory Darwen's offer of assistance.

The same night, Carstairs, Bounce, and Darwen held a council of war in the shift engineer's office. "What we wants to do," Bounce said, "is to find out what 'e wants. If it's murder 'e's after, we'll shanghai 'im, if it's only a row, we'll give 'im that, but the first thing to do is to capture 'im."

Carstairs sat on the side of the table puffing slowly at his pipe. "Thanks very much for the suggestion and offer of assistance, Bounce, but I don't want to shanghai him, I only want to get a fair show, also I don't mind giving him a fair show if that will satisfy him."

The Quixotic strain of the Englishman was coming out in him. They observed him in wonder. "Giving him a fair show?" they queried in a breath.

He drawled very slowly. "I mean to say," he said, "I broke his leg. I beat him once, but I had some assistance; if he fancies he can give me a licking fair and square, I don't mind giving him a trial, provided, of course, that that is really what is worrying him, you understand."

Bounce nodded, a compound now of comprehension and disapproval, his face expressed a keen appreciation of the principle involved, but a strong objection to the practice suggested. "It's revenge 'e's after, 'e don't want no fair play. Them sort o' blokes don't appreciate fair play. You give 'im a licking once, 'e wants to give you one in the back now. Most like you could buy 'im off."