Probation

CHAPTER I.

OF AN ABSENTEE EMPLOYER.

‘The perfection of mechanism, human and metallic.’

You, at any rate, Lancashire reader, know this place; the large somewhat low room; the long lines of looms; the wheels, straps, and beams; the rows of standing work-people, men, women, and children; the dimness of the dust-laden atmosphere. You know, too, the roar of noise—how deafening, stunning, and overwhelming it is to the stranger who may happen casually to encounter it, yet how easily those in the habit of working in it can make themselves intelligible to one another. You know all this, and your accustomed eye recognises at once one division of the ‘weaving shed’ of a large cotton factory; which forms, with its perfect mechanism, the ‘metallic and the human,’ a most wonderful sight to any eyes but the too careless or the too accustomed.

There is an air of calm, leisurely ease about the process which might be apt to lead the uninitiated astray, and make him suppose that not so much accuracy of eye, delicacy of manipulation, sensitiveness of touch, was required as is really the case. Which are the most alive—the girls in the cotton dresses, and the men in their fustian clothes, who move lightly to and fro, adjusting their work, keeping watch and ward over the flying shuttle; or that flying shuttle itself, which seems instinct with vitality, darting with vivid, almost oppressive, regularity of activity backwards and forwards—indulging sometimes in a malicious vagary, worthy of a human being, such as flying suddenly out from its groove, and perhaps striking its human fellow-worker a sharp blow on the forehead, or in the eye? It would be difficult to say—the definition at the head of the chapter forms also the best description of the whole—‘the perfection of mechanism, human and metallic.’

It was during the afternoon hours of work; the day’s labour was drawing to a close; the great ceaseless roar and buzz and rush seemed to grow rhythmic, harmonious in its monotonous continuity; through the thick-ribbed panes of glass, distorted yellow sunbeams came streaming, golden, hazy, smoky, dusty, striking here and there upon the face of some laughing or languid girl; here into the eyes of some lad—an imp of mischief—or a youth of thoughtful and serious aspect.

That was the head overlooker who came in, looked round, stopped the loom of one of the said laughing girls, fingered the cloth, remarked warningly, ‘Now, Sarah Alice! this won’t do! You must look out, or there’ll be some mischief;’ then passed on his round, stopping more looms; examining more cloth, and then went out of the room altogether.

A steady progression, for a time, of the rhythmic toil, till the same door was again opened, and a young man, who also appeared to be a person of some authority, stepped in, and paused, note-book and pencil in hand. This was the second overlooker, a person who of necessity must possess considerable intelligence—being generally, as in this case, a working-man born and bred—some discrimination and tact also, since he fulfilled the duties, in some measure, both of a workman and a superior. In addition to his position as overlooker, he also performed the functions of what is known in factory parlance as ‘head cut-looker:’ and a cut-looker is a man who examines each piece or ‘cut’ of cloth after it leaves the loom; notes the flaws, and deducts from the wages of the weaver in compensation for the same. Perhaps this ‘cut-looking’ and over-looking may be like criticising—they may have a tendency to produce a turn of mind sceptical as to the merits of the work with which the cut-looker, or the critic, has to do. Incessant flaws, ‘scamped’ work, broken threads, ill-joined ends, an uneven weft, a rough warp—the parallel is certainly a striking one; and a long career of cut-looking, to say nothing of criticising, may tend to make the temper quick, and the tone just a little imperious.

The individual whose occupation was something like criticism was a tall young man, dressed in grey clothes, which looked in some way cleaner, or better, or different from the clothes of the others, and a white linen jacket, which gave a cool and airy look to the whole costume, and was far from unbecoming to the spare, yet very strong, well-built figure, and to the dark, handsome, sharply cut face belonging to it.

A right workmanlike figure. There was power and capacity—skilled power and capacity, too, in the supple, lissome figure, in the brown hands, long and slim, yet strong and muscular, which looked as if they were well-accustomed to do fine work, and to do it well. The loose linen jacket was by no means new, though clean; it bore here and there traces of having been mended, and sat in the easy creases and folds of a much-worn old friend, from whose shape no washing and starching can quite banish the accustomed outline, given by the wearer’s form. Above the collar of this jacket was a narrow line of grey waistcoat; then a white collar, and a narrow black tie. The whole costume was as pleasant and as becoming to look at as it was practical, fit, and workmanlike.

The face was rather thin and rather square; the complexion pale. The eyes were very dark and very steady—at the moment very quiet, though with a touch of defiance in them which was habitual; the forehead broad and thoughtful—the level eyebrows had a trick of contracting sharply, which took away from the calmness which might have seemed at first the dominant characteristic of the ample brow. The nose was rather long and sharp—the mouth firm, and a little cross: the lips looked as if they would more readily tighten in irritation at the stupidity of others, than part in wonder or amaze at their cleverness—and their expression did not belie the truth. The whole face was more clearly cut, more decided in feature, more distinct in expression than the faces of many—nay, of most of his class in the same place. Perhaps it answered to a clearer mental outline—was the distinct objective side of a well-defined subjectivity. Be that as it may, the figure was a manly and a good one—the face no less so.

This young man, holding his pencil suspended over his note-book, looked reflectively around the room, standing erect, though the wall was just behind him to lean upon. Walls to lean upon, moral or material, are irresistible to some people. His eyes fell upon the different workers as they moved hither and thither, adjusting their work, or stepping from one loom to another. Those eyes presently fell upon a young woman who was standing at the far end of the room, and whose face happened to be turned towards him. Her glance met his: they nodded and smiled to one another, and his smile flashed across his dark face with an effect which the smiles of fair faces and light eyes can never have.

This young man’s name was Myles Heywood, and the scene of his labours was the factory of Sebastian Mallory, the largest mill and property owner but one in the town of Thanshope, in Lancashire. He was, then, clever, honest, proud to excess, and self-opinionated, though few people could help liking him, even when his opinions and prejudices, with both of which articles he was well provided, might rub against theirs. One thing deserves recording of him, which alone would have shown him to be somewhat aloof from his fellow-workmen—he had no nickname; and in that district, where often a man’s real name was quite hidden under a cloud of bynames and nicknames, this was at least peculiar.

Myles Heywood, after spending a few moments looking down the shed, through the mist of cotton fluff which made the air dim and the lungs irritable, turned and went into a neighbouring room, where they were twisting—a monotonous task—the rapid twisting together of the ends of cotton of two warps, paid for at the rate of threepence per thousand ends—a fact which had caused our critic in the linen jacket much thought at different times.

Out of this twisting-room into a large square yard or court, with the engine-house and its neighbouring boilers on one side; offices on another, and the great wall of the mill on the third. On the fourth, a blank wall and huge gates, at present standing open, and affording a glimpse into the dingy street.

The engineer, this warm August afternoon, was standing in the full glow of the furnace: his face was black, and shone as if recently it had been anointed with oil. His arms were bare and sinewy, and they were black too. His shirt, whatever its original hue, was black now, and his other garments, reduced to as scanty a quantity as was compatible with decency, were black also with oil, and grease, and coal-dust. He paused to mop away a swarthy perspiration with a dingy-looking handkerchief, as Myles went by, looking clean and cool, and aggravatingly comfortable.

‘Hey, Miles, lad, what time dost make it? I’m too hot to get my watch.’

‘Ten to six,’ said Myles, looking at his watch.

‘The Lord be praised!’ responded the engineer piously, ‘and send us a speedy deliverance. It’s as hot as hell here of a summer afternoon, and no jokin’. Hast had thi’ baggin?’[1]

‘I don’t take baggin,’ said Myles, a little contemptuously, as he took his way to the office, where he found a man and a boy behind a desk, on which was a heap of gold, silver, and copper coins, and a number of books and papers. It was Friday afternoon—pay-day.

‘Oh, you’re there, Myles,’ said the man. ‘You may take your wages now, if you like.’

‘All right!’ said Myles, picking up two sovereigns from the heap of gold, and slipping them into his pocket. Then he twisted himself over the counter and seated himself on a high stool beside the desk.

‘By your leave, I’ll just wait here till my lass comes, and then we’ll go home together.’

Wilson, the head-overlooker and cashier, assented. Myles folded his arms before him, and began to whistle a tune to himself. It was the tune of the song, ‘Life let us cherish!’ and when Myles had nothing else to do, he generally did whistle it—unthinkingly, almost unconsciously. While he whistled he looked through the dingy panes of a small window upon a prospect as dingy as the panes.

There was nothing but a short patch of grey-looking street, and over the way the multitudinous windows of a great foundry, from the back premises of which came loud sonorous clangs, as of metal striking against metal—a maddening and a deafening sound to ears unused to it, but which, from long habit, failed to disturb the workers in ‘Mallory’s Factory.’ It had become not exactly inaudible to them, but part of the day’s features—as clouds, or wind, or rain. They would, to use a Hibernicism, only have noticed it if it had left off.

It still wanted some eight or nine minutes to the time when the bell would ring for ‘knocking off’ work, and that interval was used by those present to discuss with their tongues that with which their heads happened to be concerned, for the truth is, that out of the emptiness of the head, much oftener than out of the fulness of the heart, does the mouth speak.

‘Hast heerd news, Myles?’ inquired the lad.

The whistle ceased for a moment.

‘What news?’

‘We have heard say,’ said the other man, ‘as how he’s coming home.’

‘Who?’

Wilson pointed northwards, over his shoulder, with his thumb.

‘Oh, him!’ said Myles, with again the touch of contempt which came a little too often to his voice. And he shrugged his shoulders—another gesture betraying his unlikeness in temper and temperament to those with whom he was surrounded.

‘Ay, him!’

‘Is it true?’ inquired Heywood.

‘Don’t know. I’ve only heard say so.’

‘Who said so?’

‘Why, I believe it were one of the men from the stables at Mrs. Mallory’s.’

‘Servants’ gossip!’ said Myles, trenchantly, unsuccessfully trying to turn up his nose. ‘Never believe what they say. Flunkeys by trade, and liars by nature, the whole lot of ’em, or they wouldn’t be where they are.’

‘I’m none so keen about believing everything that any one says to me,’ said Wilson, with a slightly offended air, ‘but this seems to me so uncommonly probable, with things in the state that they are. Why shouldn’t he come back?’

‘Ay, why shouldn’t he?’ echoed Ben, the office boy, feeling a dawning sense of coming pleasure in the idea of having given Myles a poser.

‘Why shouldn’t he?’ began Myles.

‘That makes three times as it’s been said,’ observed Ben, with an intelligent smile. ‘Well?’

‘Young one, keep your fingers out of the pie!’ said Myles, ‘and answer me this—why should he?’

Crestfallen silence on the part of Wilson and Ben, till the former began rather feebly,

‘Well, he’s been abroad for years and years, and when he’s a fine property like this awaiting for him to step into, as it were, and a fine house, and a fine mother——’

‘Ha, ha!’ said Myles, and his laugh was by no means one of unsophisticated enjoyment.

‘And with things in the state that they are,’ Wilson again repeated, as if much impressed with that state. ‘With these Yankees and Southerners at it like cat and dog, and cotton going up, and no prospect of any end to it yet. Mr. Sutcliffe said to me, he says, ‘Wilson, we don’t know what’s before us yet. If I’m not much mistaken,’ he says, ‘there’ll be a famine in the land before this time next year.’ And I say, if a master shouldn’t come home under those circumstances, when should he?’

‘Should! Ought!’ repeated Heywood, in sarcastic tones; his scornful smile lighting his face and gleaming in his eyes. ‘What’s that to do with it? I’ll tell you why he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, and won’t come.’

The others settled themselves more attentively in their positions to hear the riddle answered.

‘Because he’s proud and lazy, and likes amusing himself better than working,’ said Myles, with a strong flavour of contempt and dislike in his voice. ‘Because the money’s there, and let who may have made it, choose how they’ve sweated for it, it’s got into his hands, whether he deserves it or not, and it’s his to do as he likes with—so he does what he likes with it. He’s got such a manager as there isn’t another like him in Lancashire. Mr. Sutcliffe can do anything; it’s he that has slaved and made this business what it is—the biggest in Thanshope, next to Spenceley’s. He’s got this manager, and if he chooses to think that he hasn’t got a duty in this mortal world, except to muddle his head with foreign politics, as I hear he does, and amuse himself by dancing attendance on a lot of fine ladies, and stroll about foreign countries, and stare himself blind up at pictures as big as the side of a house, and as black as my hat, and figures of men and women without any clothes on——’

‘Lord!’ said Ben, awestruck and shocked.

‘And go rambling about, admiring scenery, and wondering what to do with himself next—well, what is it to us?’

As Wilson and Ben really did not see what it was to them, but had an uncomfortable sensation that their hitherto revered and honoured Mr. Sutcliffe was in some way a wronged and slighted individual, and that they ought to feel it all to be a great deal to them, and a subject of soreness and offence, they waited humbly for the keynote, nodding their heads, and trying to look wise.

‘It’s true,’ went on Myles, more warmly—‘it’s true, he’s got this big business here, which makes his money, and hundreds of hands who work for him, and who are, so to speak, under his care; and it’s true that some people—old-fashioned idiots, of course—might think that a big property has its duties as well as its pleasures, and that a capitalist has, or ought to have, something else to do than take and spend his money, and never inquire how he got it, nor what state the machine is in that made it for him; but what is that to us? If we’re going to have a famine in the land, it would be unpleasant for a person not accustomed to this kind of thing—all the more reason for him to keep away. My lord likes the company of lords and ladies, and he thinks Thanshope is only fit for tradespeople.’

‘I bet he’s ne’er seen nowt finer nor the new town-hall, choose where he may have been!’ said Ben, aggressively.

‘And,’ went on Myles, whose mouth had grown very cross indeed, and whose eyebrows met in a straight line across his frowning brow, ‘he’s a Tory—a Tory; if I’d said that at first, I shouldn’t have needed to say all the rest. A Tory, in these times, and in Thanshope!’

Wilson and Ben laughed, but not quite a whole-hearted laugh. A Tory—every species of Conservative—was a poor thing, was the general Thanshope opinion, but they had always thought of Tories more as harmless old women, or vulgar ‘risen’ men, like Mr. Spenceley, than as anything so actively mischievous and to be eschewed as their absentee employer, Sebastian Mallory.

‘He’s ashamed of the place, and the people, and the business that has made him what he is. And that’s why he won’t come back.’

‘I say, Myles, who told you all this?’ inquired Wilson, deferentially.

‘That I’m not at liberty to say; but not one of the men from the stables, old lad,’ said Myles. ‘But my authority is a good one, and it’s what I’ve suspected for years. I’ve heard of his doings. He goes about with parsons. He’s trying all he can to shake himself free of trade. He’ll try to do it by marrying a lord’s daughter—that’s what these shoddy Conservatives always do—she’ll spend his money for him, and if he says anything, she’ll tell him it smells of cotton, and she wants to get rid of it.’

‘Nay, nay, now!’ interrupted Ben, with feeling.

‘But she will,’ said Myles, looking as angry as if the fair and contemptuous aristocrat stood in person before them. ‘I know. Don’t we all know what happened to Jack Brierley’s lad, and how——’

Clang, clang, clang! went the great bell in the courtyard. It was two minutes past six. Wilson raised himself rapidly from his recumbent attitude, and began to turn over his papers, calling Ben to his side to help him. The discussion as to the merits or demerits of Sebastian Mallory, who certainly formed a striking instance of the theory that les absents ont toujours tort, was over; soon the office was filled with a pushing, elbowing crowd, waiting more or less impatiently to receive the hire of their week’s labour.

Myles sat upon his high stool in the background, and watched, while Wilson and his assistant paid out the wages. It was rather a dingy-looking crowd that he saw, and was apparent to nose, as well as to eye, by the unmistakable odour of oil and fluff which emanated from it. Bare-armed girls with long, greasy pinafores, loud voices, and ungainly gestures, elbowing their way through the lads, and exchanging with them chaff of the roughest description. Small, pale, stunted-looking men; sometimes downright hideously ugly and mean-looking, or again, only sallow, pale, and subdued by a sedentary occupation, with here and there a tremendous massive brow; here and there a pair of eyes so deep and glowing as to cause a shock and thrill to one who encountered them; here a mouth of poetical delicacy and sensitiveness; there a jaw so strong and heavy, that, comparing it with the eyes, brows, and mouths before spoken of, one no longer felt cause for surprise in hearing such aphorisms as ‘Manchester rules England,’ ‘What Lancashire thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow.’ It was, taken all in all, an ugly crowd, but in its way a commanding one. It might have moved the soul of a ‘Corn-Law Rhymer,’ a Gerald Massey, a ‘Lancashire Lad;’ it would probably have been repulsive to more refined bards and writers, and the poet of the brush and canvas would have found absolutely nothing here with which to gladden his eye.

Myles, a striking exception to almost every one of the men in point of good looks and fine physical development, if not in point of intelligent expression, sat upon his stool; and his monotonous whistle continued as he scanned the faces, and returned a nod here and there. Many a girl looked at him, and smiled her brightest as she caught his grave eyes.

He was not quite like the other workmen in more things than beauty, and a somewhat higher position, and none knew that better than the workwomen. The smiles and amiable looks provoked little answer. Myles was not rude to girls; he never chaffed them in the rough manner of some of his fellow-workmen; but, on the other hand, he very seldom took any notice of them at all, having very little to say to any young woman out of his own family.

They passed before him in varied array; ugly, and pretty, and mediocre; fair girls and dark girls, stout girls and thin ones, tall and short, stupid and intelligent-looking. Here and there a pale, pensive face, with a head of flaxen hair, and long, delicate, Madonna-like features; now a brunette, with high complexion, and flashing black eyes, that showed the brighter under the thick white powdering of cotton fluff with which her head was covered; piquante and placid, merry and melancholy; but not for one in all the crowd did his cheek flush in the least, not once did the calm indifference in his eyes change, nor did his low, careless whistle cease for an instant. He stared over or between their heads, or—which was the most irritating of all—right at them, without once noticing them, until a girl, somewhat taller than the majority of her companions, came in, and stood waiting with a group of others near the door, until her turn should come to go up for her wages.

Then Myles stopped whistling, and got off his stool, remarking, half to himself, ‘There’s Mary, at last!’ and applied to Wilson for the sum of eighteen shillings, that being the amount of his sister’s wages. He received the money, and made his way through the crowd towards the door.

‘Eh, Myles, art there?’ said the young woman. ‘Wait of me a minute, while I get my wages.’

‘They’re here,’ said he, putting the money into her hand. ‘So come along, lass! Let’s get out of this shop.’

They passed out at the door, and walked together down the sloping street—a tall and well-looking pair. It was very seldom, indeed, that Myles Heywood and his sister Mary failed to walk home from their work together.