Probation

In a week from that time the master’s face was beginning to be familiar to his work-people; and his business and its details were beginning to be a little less strange to him. Whatever Sebastian thought, felt, or endured, in the change so complete and entire, of habits, customs, and surroundings—and the contrast, and the effort to grow accustomed to it must have been pretty severe at times—he said nothing—made absolutely no remark, but quietly ‘went at it,’ with a cool, calm, comprehensive energy which amazed Wilson and the other secondary officials, and delighted little Mr. Sutcliffe.

It seemed as if, from the moment in which the young man had entered the place, work had walked up to him, ready to his hand, and that hand had grappled with it, and that head had bent itself to the understanding of it, without thought or intention of ever turning back, until the task were accomplished. His place was ready for him, and he stepped into it. He had a tenacious memory; he was rather fond of saying that it was the only mental advantage he possessed. He was a very quiet, undemonstrative person—never paraded any likes or dislikes: at the end of a week, his mother was amazed and angry to find, that though he had so completely worsted her on that eventful night when Helena Spenceley had dined with them, yet that she did not discover any pronounced points of character in him—no particular weaknesses or predilections on which she could lay hold, as handles by which to manage him. This annoyed her excessively: she puzzled over it, and tried to find a way out of it, and was, almost unknowingly to herself, nourishing towards her son an attitude which was beginning to be one of opposition.

Sebastian’s retentive memory held, amongst the other figures with which it was peopled, that of Myles Heywood in a conspicuous and prominent place. A most distinct impression remained in his mind of the workman’s defiant attitude and words. What Sebastian felt towards the young man would make too long a tale, and involve too much dry psychological analysis, to be here recorded. Mrs. Mallory had most truly told her son that whether she knew his habits or not, she was sure they were not the habits of Thanshope business men. Something happened just about this time—and Sebastian’s method of treating the matter would probably have made the hair of a Thanshope business man stand on end, or called forth from his tongue emphatically Doric epithets as to the young mill-owner’s sanity, and mental capacity in general.

Sebastian never beheld Myles’s firmly set lips and sharply contracting eyebrows without wondering whether those strongly marked features were merely signs of an absolutely crabbed disposition and bad temper, or whether they were only traits of a hot temper and quick disposition. He tried in half a dozen ways to find out, but in vain. Myles put on a silent dignity and reserve equal to Sebastian’s own, until at last pure accident put the matter to the test.

Some irregularity or insubordination had occurred in one of the rooms, which Sebastian had been discussing with Mr. Sutcliffe, and the latter had said that some one must be told off on the following day to superintend that room—some one in authority. The following morning Sebastian, coming down to the works, entered the outer office, and found Wilson and Myles there.

‘Has Mr. Sutcliffe come?’ he inquired.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilson. ‘He’s in his room.’

‘Did he give any orders about the beaming-room?’

‘No, sir. He hasn’t mentioned it to me.’

‘Oh! Well, Heywood, you had better go there and look over them this morning. I can’t have them idling about as they have been doing. You had better go at once.’

With that, and without waiting for any answer, he stepped forward into the inner office, and closed the door after him.

Myles went on with his work for some minutes, and then rose.

‘If you go to the beaming-room,’ observed Wilson, ‘I must take your place in the warehouse myself, I suppose.’

‘I’m not going to the beaming-room,’ was the tranquil reply.

‘Not going! But the master——’

‘I’m not a Jack-of-all-trades. I know what my business is, and how long it will take me to do it. It is not my business to overlook the beaming-room.’

‘But Mr. Mallory didn’t know that.’

‘So it appears,’ said Myles, with a disagreeable smile. ‘He’ll know it for the future. It’s all in the way of learning. You can find some one else to overlook the beamers. I’m off to the warehouse.’

With which he departed, leaving Wilson aghast.

It was through a mere casual question to Wilson that Sebastian found out, later, what had happened. Wilson’s evident confusion aroused his suspicions. Dropping his careless tone, he promptly bade the overlooker tell him all that had passed.

Wilson stammered out the whole story, even to Myles’s remark about it ‘all being in the way of learning,’ and then stood, looking miserable, and feeling no less so, listening for the command, ‘Send Heywood to me.’

But the command did not come, and Wilson concluded that the dismissal would perhaps be given through Mr. Sutcliffe. That it would be given, and that promptly, he did not doubt, nor was he reassured by the perfect calm and good temper of Mr. Mallory’s expression.

Several days passed, and still Myles Heywood, without let or hindrance, pursued his usual avocations undisturbed; and still Mr. Mallory, calm and good-tempered as ever, continued to learn away at his business; and still he made no remark upon the act of flagrant insubordination which had taken place.

Saturday came some three days after the occurrence just described. It was late in the afternoon, and work had been over for an hour and a half, but the mill was not yet closed, for Mr. Mallory and Mr. Sutcliffe were in the inner office, in consultation, and Ben, the office boy, stood lounging outside, wishing that his superiors would bring their parley to an end and let him lock up and get home to his holiday.

Within, at that moment, there ensued a little pause, and Sebastian rose, looking thoughtful, and leaning against the mantelpiece. Presently he said,

‘Well, I suppose there is nothing else for it; we had better put up the half-time notice this afternoon.’

‘Yes. There is nothing else for it,’ echoed Mr. Sutcliffe. ‘It will be no time at all in a few weeks. We can’t hold out much longer.’

‘Ah!’ said Sebastian, and again seemed to fall into a train of thought, until he said,

‘I wonder how it will all end? What is there in this life of yours, Mr. Sutcliffe, that gives it its interest? I feel more as if I was really living now than I ever did before. The cotton trade is on its last legs, for a time; and a young man who dislikes me has behaved with insubordination and impertinence; and yet, though there is nothing intrinsically interesting in those facts, and no connection between them, I feel intensely interested in both.’

‘You will excuse my saying it, Mr. Mallory, but it is not discipline to have allowed Heywood to remain a single day in your employment after his openly disobeying an order of yours. It goes very much against my judgment.’

‘I know it is neither business nor discipline,’ said Sebastian, apologetically; ‘but you must allow me a little tether now and then, till I am more used to run in harness in this way. I am trying an experiment in regard to that young man. It is a delightful diversion from business. How long has he been here, did you say?’

‘Fifteen years, and his sister eleven. Except in the strike, four years ago, they have never missed a day.’

‘Exactly, it would decidedly displease me—it would humiliate me to think that a man who had amicably worked fifteen years during my absence should have to—hook it within a fortnight after my arrival. Besides, he is unusually intelligent, and an admirable workman.’

‘Ay, he is. He could direct and manage if ever he got a rise in life. He has a head on his shoulders as good as any one else’s, but that temper of his will be the ruin of him.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Sebastian, reflectively, as if discoursing with himself. ‘That temper of his—I should dearly like to subdue it.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr. Sutcliffe, to whom this was as so much Sanscrit.

Sebastian looked up with a smile.

‘Leave me my own way in this matter, Mr. Sutcliffe. I promise that, if things do not turn out as I expect, I will dismiss Heywood on Monday.’

At this moment Ben put his head in at the door, and remarked,

‘Please, sir, there’s your carriage, and the young gentleman in it, a-come for you; and Heywood, he wants to know if he can speak to you.’

‘Show him in here, and tell the gentleman I will join him in a few minutes.’

Ben disappeared. Mr. Sutcliffe rose.

‘I’ll leave you alone with your rebel, Mr. Mallory. I shall be curious to know whether he has come to beg pardon, or to give notice.’

‘For my part,’ said Sebastian, ‘I have no more idea which he will do than an owl in the parish church tower.’

Mr. Sutcliffe laughed and went away, and a moment afterwards Myles Heywood entered the office. Sebastian, still leaning up against the mantelpiece, looked at him, and could read nothing from his expression. He felt that he did not know the man, and he also felt an inexplicable anxiety that the man should not say he was going to leave his service.

‘Good afternoon,’ said he, courteously; ‘you wish to speak to me?’

Myles had taken off his cap, a sign which Sebastian noted instantly.

‘Yes,’ said he, slowly, but not ungraciously. ‘You gave me an order the other day, which I took no notice of, and I spoke of you as I ought not to have done. I am sorry that I did so, and I beg your pardon.’

Sebastian had watched him intently, and with keen interest. He saw that Myles had strung himself up to say the words from a sheer sense of what was right and fitting, and from honest conviction that he had done wrong; not from any sudden leaning towards him, Sebastian. And he saw that the anxiety and the uneasiness followed, not preceded, the words. He saw that Myles laid great importance upon the manner in which his words were taken.

‘It is granted freely,’ said Mallory. ‘I felt sure that you were too manly not to do this. You have felt that I had no wish to be capricious, or put you to work that was not yours, when I gave you that order?’

‘Yes; I have thought it over, and felt that that was the case.’

‘You have worked here fifteen years, and it would have troubled me very much if you had, from any reason, been obliged to leave me as soon as I got here.’

Myles looked up, surprised, but, as Sebastian plainly saw, with a flush of self-reproach. It had not entered into his calculations that Sebastian could possibly take any interest in him or his. The latter went on,

‘I am new to my work; you must remember that. Another time, don’t let a mistake go so near costing you your place, and me my best workman.’

Myles’s face flushed.

‘I will certainly bear it in mind,’ said he. ‘I have a hasty temper, and it leads me astray often, I know.’

‘And you do not like me,’ said Sebastian, looking steadily at him.

Myles’s eyes were also fixed upon his.

‘I have not liked you,’ he said; ‘I should tell a lie if I said even now that I liked you; but I respect you. I shall respect you from this day, and I don’t think you will ever have to complain either of disrespect or disobedience from me again.’

‘You have relieved my mind very much. I am glad we have had this explanation. It does you credit.’

‘The credit is not all with me,’ said Myles, hastily, with a rising colour and a conscious look, which Sebastian remarked. ‘I had some advice from some one, that finished it off. I must go now. Good afternoon.’

‘Good afternoon,’ said Sebastian, who would have prolonged the conversation if he could; but Myles departed, and Sebastian followed him out of the office.

Standing just without was Sebastian’s phaeton, with Hugo holding the reins, and carrying on a conversation with Ben at the same time. Sebastian heard the words:

‘Ay, and his mother never got o’er it, hoo didn’t. It were main stupid o’ Sally Whittaker to say what hoo did——’

Ben stopped abruptly and grew very red in the face, as Sebastian tapped him on the shoulder, inquiring, as he climbed into his place,

‘What was so stupid?’

‘Go on!’ said Hugo to the boy. ‘He’s telling me about a boy that he knew, who was killed at a factory. Go on! What did Sally Whittaker say?’

‘Well, it were i’ this way, yo’ seen. It were at Ormerod’s works as th’ lad were killed, and Ormerod come round just as they was takin’ th’ body away on a shutter; and he says, “Now then, where are you boun’?” he says. And they told him they were for takkin’ him to his mother, and they doubted it would kill her too, for hoo were main fond on him. “Eh, what?” he says. “Yo munnot do so. Yo mun one on yo go afore, and warn her—prepare her like a bit,” he says. “Let one o’ these ’ere wenches go on afore.” So Sally Whittaker, hoo knew his mother, and hoo said hoo’d go and tell her, and hoo went on afore. Eh, bi’ th’ mass! but hoo is a gradely foo’, is Sally Whittaker! and hoo walks into Emma’s kitchen, and hoo says, straight out, hoo says, “Eh, Emmer, but troubles is never to seech,” hoo says. “Your Johnny’s killed as dead as a stoan!”’

‘What did the poor woman do?’ asked Sebastian, with interest.

‘Eh, hoo just dropped the fryin’-pan, and hoo gave a screech yo’ mowt a yeard down to the town-hall, and then hoo begun to cry, and then they browt him whoam. Mun I lock up, sir, now? Have you finished?’

‘Yes, quite,’ said Sebastian, with a good-natured nod. ‘Lock up, and go home. You’ve not had much of a holiday this afternoon’

‘Bless you, sir, it’s no soart o’ consequence,’ said Ben, with a gratified look at this mark of attention; and he retired to lock up again.

‘Will you drive?’ asked Hugo, when they were alone.

‘No; I’ll let you drive on, if you will. And, stay! What do you say to a drive in the country before dinner? It will be daylight for a long time yet. If there is any country about here?’ he added, with a disparaging look around.

‘Oh, lots! While you have been so industriously grubbing away at those figures, and showing me quite a new phase in your character, I have been exploring the interior. I know of four separate and distinct routes to the country. Certainly it is rather stony when one does get there; but it is country all the same. Will you go north, south, east, or west?’

‘Hurrah for the North!’ said Sebastian, drily. ‘Turn the horses’ heads towards Yorkshire, mein Hugo!’

Hugo complied. Very soon they were rattling through the main street. Hugo’s attention was taken up with the guiding of his cattle. Sebastian leaned back, a little wearily, and was long silent, until they had left the town behind them—left the dirty straggling suburb called Bridgehouse, and passed through the neighbouring manufacturing village of Hamerton, with its stately houses of gentry and rich mill-owners, and were put out upon a wide, open road, driving past a solemn old house called Stanlaw, deeply sunk in trees. Beyond that, the purple moors spread before them, rising every moment higher and nearer. The sky was pure, the air sweet. As if with a sudden impulse, they both turned and looked behind them. A heavy cloud of smoke showed where Thanshope lay below, in the distance.

Hugo shrugged his shoulders.

‘Comfort yourself,’ said Sebastian. ‘It won’t be there long. Soon we shall see what Thanshope looks like without smoke.’

They drove quickly on in the sharp, delicious October afternoon air, along the upland road. The heather sprang from the very roadside, and rich, mellow purple, brown, and crimson, the moors spread themselves around, under the pale, chill blue of the cloudless sky. The peculiar scent of the ling and heather rose like a pastoral incense around them; far away glittered the sinuous line of a canal, and a silvery pond or two. The crack of a gun broke the stillness once or twice.

‘Did I not tell you I would bring you into the country?’ said Hugo.

‘You always manage to keep your promises, somehow’ (they were speaking German now). ‘How goes the music under these changed conditions, Hugo?’

The lad smiled his odd smile, and said,

‘The more prosaic the surroundings, the more need one has of something like music to brighten them. Don’t you think so?’

‘Just so. I only asked because I have not noticed you practising, and as for sitting down and listening to you—why, the last time I did that was when Miss Spenceley was at the Oakenrod.’

‘You have been so busy. I have practised hard enough, only your mind was taken up with other things.’

‘Ay, with things less artistic than the Sonatas of Beethoven.’

‘But not more earnest and workmanlike. Do you know, I like this Thanshope. There is something real in the life these people lead.’

‘There is so! And in the things they say, and the way in which they remind you of your duties. There is a fellow I am very curious to know something more about. Do you remember that brusque individual who confronted us the first time we drove to the office?’

‘Perfectly well. Do you never see him?’

‘Oh, daily. I have just had another shindy with him. He piques me excessively. Every time I see the fellow, with his handsome face and defiant eyes—he has a pair of eyes—I feel as if I must stop and question him upon his thoughts and feelings. It is a most insane idea, and I know it makes him exceedingly angry; but it is so, all the same. What is that air you are humming, Hugo?’

Hugo held the reins loosely between his fingers, while the horses climbed slowly up the hill: he hummed to himself the half-melancholy air of the German Volkslied—Der Verschmähete; and Sebastian listened attentively with a half-smile.

‘Aren’t you tired, Hugo? Let me take the reins.’

‘As you will!’ said Hugo, changing places with him, and they turned homewards again.

‘Do you remember when we last heard Der Verschmähete?’ asked Hugo, smiling to himself.

‘Perfectly,’ said Sebastian, concisely. ‘Corona Müller sang it, and....’

‘There was instrumental music, too,’ put in Hugo; ‘one of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies—ay, ay! And it was a Rhapsody too! How splendidly she played it! It would have delighted Liszt himself. Do you remember the end?’

‘Yes, yes! Un poco pesante!’ said Sebastian, who listened attentively to the reminiscences, but volunteered no remark upon the subject.

They were now again in Thanshope, and the dusk was beginning to fall, though it was still far from dark. There had been a silence. Now as they turned into the main street, Hugo, suddenly taking courage, looked up into his companion’s face, and said,

‘Sebastian, do you know where she went with her father, from Wetzlar?’

‘No I have seen nothing, and heard nothing of her, since then.’

‘But you have inquired?’

‘Inquired—naturally. But—ah, there’s my handsome young democrat. Just take a good look at him, Hugo—quick! before he turns off—do you hear? What? Impossible!’

Hugo had touched his arm, so that his attention was diverted from the figure of Myles Heywood, who was in the act of turning off down a side street, and directed towards that of a young lady going straight down the main street, and whom they were now in the act of passing.

It was nothing remarkable for an expression of lively excitement, pleasurable or otherwise, to be seen upon Hugo’s face, but such a look upon Sebastian Mallory’s countenance was a rare visitor; and it painted itself there at this moment, as his eye fastened upon the slight figure of the girl, who was pursuing her way, looking neither to right nor left of her. Would she see them? Would she turn? No—yes—no! The phaeton had just passed her, when she casually raised her eyes, and glanced towards the road; and then into her face, too, leapt the same startled look—the same surprise and vivid emotion of some kind, as that which already brightened Sebastian’s. She made a visible pause, as her eyes fell upon the occupants of the carriage. Both hats were lifted, two deep bows were made at the same moment; four earnest eyes looked eagerly into her face. With a sudden, quick, warm flush, she returned the bow of the young men, and then they had driven on, and left her behind them.

They were almost at home now, close to the Oakenrod. No word was spoken, until, as they sprang out of the carriage, their eyes met, Hugo’s full of inquiry, Sebastian’s of a trouble and excitement strange to them.

‘Are you glad?’ asked the boy, in a low voice, as they hung up their hats in the vestibule.

‘Nay, mein Bester—time alone can tell me that. I know no more than you. But here—how did she come here?’