Our conversation was broken off here; for just then a couple of gentlemen arrived, and these were followed by others, till the room was quite full. For invitations had been sent out to some of the principal printers and newspaper proprietors to come and see the testing of the new machine.
Hallett, as the patentee, had to throw off his reserve, and come, as it were, out of his shell to answer questions, and point out the various peculiarities and advantages of his machine, all of which I noticed were received with a good deal of reserve; and there was a shrug of the shoulders here, a raising of the eyebrows there, while one coarse-minded fellow said brutally:
“Plaything, gentlemen, plaything. Such a machine cannot possibly answer. The whole principle is wrong, and it must break own.”
I was so annoyed at this bitter judgment, delivered by one who had not even a superficial knowledge of its properties, that I said quickly, and foolishly, I grant:
“That is what brainless people said of the steam-engine.”
“O!” he said sharply, “is it, boy? Well, you must know: you are so old and wise. Well, come, gentlemen, I have no time to waste. When is your plaything to be set going, Mr Ruddle?”
“Now,” said Hallett quietly, as he silenced me with a look, just as, like the foolish enthusiastic boy I was, some hot passionate retort was about to escape my lips.
Mr Girtley nodded, and he gave a glance round the machine. Then he looked up at the shaft that was revolving above our heads, and took hold of the great leather band that was to connect it with our machine, and I noticed that everyone but Hallett and myself drew back.
I was so angry and excited that if I had known that the whole machine was about to fly to pieces, I don’t think I should have stirred. Then, biting my lips, as I heard a derisive laugh from the Solon who had annoyed me, I saw Mr Girtley give the band that peculiar twitch born of long custom, when an undulation ran up the stout leather, it fitted itself, as it were, over both wheels; there was a rapid whirring noise, and the next instant the great heavy mass of machinery seemed as it were to breathe as it throbbed and panted, and its great cylinders revolved.
There was the glistening of the polished iron and brass, the twinkling of the well-oiled portions, the huge roll of paper began to turn, and I saw its virgin whiteness stamped directly after with thousands of lines of language. My doubts of success died away, and a hearty cheer broke forth from the assembled party; and then, as I felt a fervent wish that Miss Carr had been present to see our triumph, there was a horrible grinding, sickening crash; broken wheels flew here and there; bar and crank were bent in horrible distortion; there was an instantaneous stoppage of everything but the great fly-wheel, which, as if in derision, went spinning on, and there lay poor Hallett stunned and bleeding upon the floor.
“Foul play – foul play!” roared Mr Girtley, in a voice of thunder, in the midst of the ominous silence. “I was too late to stop the machine. Some scoundrel had placed a great pin underneath, and I saw it fall. Here, look! Here!” he roared, as he stamped with rage; and he pointed to a round bent bar of iron, such as is used to screw down a paper press. “There it is. It was placed on that ledge, so that it might fall with the jar. Mr Ruddle, this is some of your men’s work, and, blast them! they deserve to be hanged.”
Chapter Fifty Six.
John Lister’s Triumph
As Mr Girtley roared those words a sudden thought flashed through my mind, and I ran to the window, threw it open, and, as I did so, there beneath me, reaching down to the low roof of a building below, was a ladder, showing plainly enough the road by which the enemy had crept in.
From where I stood I looked out upon the backs of a score of buildings; printing-offices, warehouses, and the like, and at the window of one of these buildings I saw a couple of men, one of whom I felt certain was some one I had seen before, but where, I could not tell.
I was back and beside poor Hallett directly, giving both Mr Girtley and Tom a look which sent them to the window, to see that there was no doubt how the misfortune had occurred; but I was too much taken up with Hallett’s condition to say more then.
“Is he much hurt?” cried first one and then another.
“Looks like a judgment on him,” said the heavy, broad-faced man with whom I had had my short, verbal encounter.
“Why?” said Tom Girtley sharply.
“Inventing gimcrack things like that,” said the fellow in a tone of contempt, “to try and take the bread out of honest men’s mouths.”
“Good heavens! man, leave the room!” cried Mr Girtley in a rage. “Go and take off your clothes; they’ve been made by machinery! Go and grub up roots with your dirty fingers! don’t dig them with a spade – it’s a machine! Go and exist, and grovel like a toad or a slug, or any other noisome creature; you are not fit for the society of men!”
The brute was about to reply, but there was such a shout of laughter at Mr Girtley’s denunciation and its truthfulness, that he hurried out of the place, just as Hallett sat up and stared round.
“No,” he said, “not much hurt; I’m better now. A piece of iron struck me on the head. It is a mere nothing. Stunned me, I suppose.”
He rose as he spoke, and there was a silence no one cared to break, as he looked at the wreck of his machine.
“Another failure, Mr Rowle,” he said sadly; and he took the old man’s hand, as if he were the one who needed all the sympathy. “I am very, very sorry – for your sake. I cannot say more now.”
“One word, Mr Hallett,” said the great engineer. “Do you know that this is all through malice?”
“Malice? No.”
“Some scoundrel has been here and thrust in this bar of iron. Gentlemen,” he said, looking round, “this is an unfortunate affair; but I speak to you as leading members of the printing business, and I tell you that Mr Hallett’s invention here means success, and a revolution in the trade, – This is a case of wanton destruction, the act of some contemptible scoundrel. You have seen the ruin here of something built up by immense labour, but I pledge you my word – my reputation – that before six months are past another and a better machine shall be running before you – perfect.”
There was a faint cheer, and quite a little crowd gathered round the wreck while Mr Girtley turned to speak to Hallett.
“Thank you,” said the latter, smiling; “you will excuse me now; I feel rather faint and giddy, and I will get off home.”
“I’ll go with you, Hallett,” I cried.
“No, no: I shall be all right,” he said, with a sad smile. “I’ll take a cab at the corner on the strength of my success. Come to me after you leave.”
“I would rather go with you,” I said.
“No, no, I want you to represent me here,” he whispered. “Stay, Antony; it will seem less as if I deserted the ruin like a rat, and I am not man enough to command myself now.”
“But you are not fit to go alone,” I said earnestly.
“Yes, I am,” he replied; “the sick feeling has gone off. It was nothing to mind. I am not much hurt.”
I should have pressed him, but he was so much in earnest that I drew back, and after a formal leave-taking he left the room, and descended the stairs, while a burst of angry remarks followed his departure.
“Ruddle,” said one grey-haired old gentleman, “I think, for your credit’s sake, you ought to have in a detective to try and trace out the offender.”
“I mean to,” said Mr Ruddle firmly, and he glanced at Grimstone, who seemed to shrink away, and looked thin and old.
“For my part,” said another, “I believe fully in the invention and I congratulate the man of genius who – halloa! what’s wrong?”
A burst of yells and hooting arose from the street below, and with one consent we hurried to the windows, to see poor Hallett standing at bay in a corner, hemmed in by about a hundred men and boys, evidently the off-scourings of the district, who, amidst a storm of cries of “Who robbed the poor man of his bread?” – “Who tries to stifle work?” and a babel of similar utterances, were pelting the poor fellow with filth, waste-paper full of printing-ink, mud, and indescribable refuse, evidently prepared for the occasion.
Heading the party, and the most demonstrative of all, was a fat ruffian, in inky apron and shirt-sleeves, whom I recognised as what should have been the manhood of my old enemy, Jem Smith, while in the same glance I saw, standing aloof upon a doorstep, a spectator of the degrading scene, no less a person than John Lister, fashionably dressed, and in strange contrast to the pallid, mud-bespattered man who stood there panting and too weak to repel assault.
What I have said here was seen in a moment, as I cried out, “Tom Girtley, quick!” rushed to the door, and down the stairs.
It took me very little time to reach the street, but it was long enough to bring my blood to fever-heat, as, closely followed by Tom, I rushed past John Lister, and fought my way through the yelling mob of ruffianly men and boys.
Before I could reach Hallett, though, I caught sight of a carriage farther up the street, and just then the noise and yelling ceased as if by magic, while my efforts to reach Hallett’s side became less arduous.
I, too, stopped short as I reached the inner edge of the ring which surrounded my friend, for there, richly dressed, and in strange opposition to the scene, was Miriam Carr, her veil thrown back, her handsome face white, and her large eyes flashing as she threw herself before Hallett.
“Cowards! wretches!” I heard her cry; and then, “Oh, help I help!”
For as, regardless of his state, she caught at Hallett, he reeled and seemed about to fall!
Then I was at his side.
“Don’t touch me!” he gasped, recovering himself and recoiling from the vision that seemed to have come between him and his persecutors. “Miss Carr, for heaven’s sake! – away from here!”
For answer she caught his hand in hers, and drew his befouled arm through her own.
“Come,” she said, as her eyes flashed with anger; “lean on me. They will not dare to treat a woman ill.”
“Antony,” cried Hallett hoarsely. “Miss Carr – take her away!”
“Lean on me,” she cried proudly. “Antony, beat a way for us through these curs.”
I took Hallett’s other arm, and as we stepped forward, Jem Smith uttered a loud “Yah!” but it seemed as if it was broken before it left his lips, and he went staggering back from a tremendous blow right in the teeth, delivered by Tom Girtley.
Then there was an interlude, for some one else forced his way to the front.
“Miss Carr! great heavens! what is all this?” he cried. “Give me your hand. This is no place for you. What does this outrage mean? Quick! let me help you. This is horrible.”
“Stand back, sir!”
“You are excited,” he cried. “You don’t know me. I see now; there is your carriage. Stand away, you ruffians. How thankful I am that I was near! Take this man away. Is he drunk?”
As he spoke, John Lister, with a look of supreme disgust, pushed poor fainting Hallett back, and tried to draw Miss Carr out of the crowd.
“Coward! Villain! This is your work!” she cried in a low, strange voice; and as he tried to draw her away, she sharply thrust him from her.
The crowd uttered a cry of excitement as they witnessed the act; and, stung almost to madness with rage and mortification, Lister turned upon me.
But I again found a good man at my back, for, boiling with rage, Tom Girtley struck at him fiercely and kept him off, while in the midst of the noise, pushing, and hustling of the crowd, a confusion that seemed to me now as unreal as some dream, we got Hallett along towards the carriage, he, poor fellow, seeming ready to sink at every step, while the true-hearted woman at his side clung to him and passed one arm round him to help him.
The coachman now saw that his mistress seemed to be in need of help, and he shortened the distance by forcing his horses onward through the gathering crowd.
But the danger was past, for those who now thronged out from the buildings on either side were workpeople attracted by the noise, and they rapidly outnumbered John Lister’s gang of scoundrels, got together by his lieutenant, Jem Smith, for the mortification of the man he hated, while his triumph had been that the woman they loved had come to his rival’s help, glorified him, as it were, by her presence, and rained down scorn and contempt upon his own wretched head.
As I said before, it seems now like some terrible dream, in which I found myself in Miss Carr’s carriage, with her sister looking ghastly with fear beside me, and Hallett in the back seat, nearly unconscious, beside Miss Carr.
“Tell the coachman to stop at the nearest doctor’s, Antony,” she said; and I lowered the glass and told Tom Girtley, who had mounted to the driver’s side.
“No, no,” said Hallett, faintly, for her words seemed to bring him to. “For pity’s sake. To my own home. Why have you done this?”
She did not speak, but I saw her take his hand, and her eyes fix themselves, as it were, upon his, while a great sob laboured from her breast.
“Mr Grace,” faltered Miss Carr’s sister, “this is very dreadful;” and I saw her frightened eyes wander from the mud-besmeared object opposite her to her sister’s injured attire, and the sullied linings of the carriage.
“Antony,” said Miss Carr then, “do what is for the best.”
For answer, I lowered the window again and uttered to Tom Girtley the one word, “Home.”
Fortunately, Revitts was on night duty, and ready to come as the carriage stopped at the door, where we had to lift the poor fellow out, and carry him to his bed, perfectly insensible now from the effects of the blow.
I was rather surprised to find the carriage gone when I descended, but my suspense was of short duration, for it soon came back with a neighbouring doctor, whom Miss Carr had fetched.
Mary was at hand to show him up, while I ran down to the carriage-door, where Miss Carr grasped my hand for a moment, her face now looking flushed and strange.
“Come to me to-night, Antony,” she said in a low voice – “come and tell me all.”
She sank back in the carriage then, as if to hide herself from view, while in obedience to her mute signal, I bade the coachman drive her and her sister home.
Chapter Fifty Seven.
I Find I Have a Temper
I went to Miss Carr’s nearly every evening now, to report progress; for her instructions to me, after a consultation between Mr Jabez, Mr Ruddle, Mr Girtley, and myself, were that neither expense nor time was to be spared in perfecting the machine.
We had gone carefully into the reasons for the breakdown, and were compelled reluctantly to own that sooner or later the mechanism would have failed; for besides the part I named, we found several weak points in the construction – faults that only a superhuman intelligence could have guarded against. The malignant act had only hastened the catastrophe.
It was a cruel trick, and though we could not bring it home, we had not a doubt that the dastardly act was committed by Jem Smith, who was the instrument of John Lister. A little examination showed how easily the back premises could be entered by anyone coming along behind from Lister’s, and there was some talk of prosecution, but Hallett was ill, and it was abandoned.
For the blow he had received from a piece of the machinery had produced serious injury to the head, and day after day I had very bad news to convey to Miss Carr. The poor fellow seemed to have broken down utterly, and kept his bed. He used to try to appear cheerful; but it was evident that he took the matter bitterly to heart, and at times gave up all hope of ever perfecting the machine.
It was pitiful to see his remorseful looks when Mr Jabez came to see him of an evening; Mr Peter, who always accompanied his brother, stopping in my room to smoke a long pipe I kept on purpose for him, whether I was at home or no, and from time to time he had consultations with Tom Girtley, who kept putting off a communication that he said he had to make till he had his task done.
I used to notice that he and Mr Peter had a great deal to say to each other, but I was too much taken up with my troubles about Hallett and the machine to pay much heed; for sometimes the idea forced itself upon me that my poor friend would never live to realise his hopes.
Time glided on, and I used to sit with him in an evening, and tell him how we had progressed during the day; but it made no impression whatever; he used only to lie and dream, never referring once to Miss Carr’s behaviour on that wretched day; in fact, I used to fancy sometimes that he was in such a state from his injury that he had not thoroughly realised what did occur.
It was indeed a dreary time; for poor Mrs Hallett, when, led by a sense of duty, I used to go and sit with her, always had a reproachful look for me, and, no matter what I said, she always seemed to make the worst of matters.
But for Linny and Tom Girtley, the place would have been gloomy indeed, but the latter was always bright and cheerful, and Linny entirely changed. There was no open love-making, but a quiet feeling of respect seemed to have sprung up between them, and I hardly knew what was going on, only when it was brought to my attention by Mr Jabez, or Revitts, or Mary.
“I should have thought as you wouldn’t have liked that there friend of yourn cutting you out in the way he do, Ant’ny,” said Revitts, one day; “I don’t want to make mischief, but this here is my – our – house,” he added by way of correction, “and I don’t think as a young man as is a friend of yourn ought to come down my stairs with his arm round a certain young lady’s waist.”
“Go along, do, with your stuff and nonsense, William,” exclaimed Mary sharply. “What do you know about such things?”
“Lots,” said Bill, grinning with delight, and then becoming preternaturally serious; “I felt it to be my dooty to tell Ant’ny, and I have.”
“You don’t know nothing about it,” said Mary, tittering; “he don’t know what we know, do he, Master Antony?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mary,” I replied.
“Oh do, of course not, Master Antony; but I shouldn’t like a certain young lady down at Rowford to hear you say so.”
“Phew!” whistled Revitts, and feeling very boyish and conscious, I made my retreat, for I was bound for Westmouth Street, and had stopped to have ten minutes’ chat downstairs with my old friends on the way.
I found Miss Carr looking very thin and anxious, and she listened eagerly to my account of howl was progressing at the works.
“Mr Girtley tells me that you are doing wonders, Antony,” she said, in a curious, hesitating way, for we both seemed to be fencing, and as if we disliked to talk of the subject nearest to our hearts.
She was the first to cast off the foolish reserve though, and to ask after Hallett’s health.
“The doctors don’t seem to help him a bit,” I said sadly. “Poor fellow! he thinks so much about the failure of his hopes, and it is heart-breaking to see him. He toiled for it so long. Oh, Miss Carr, if I only knew for certain that it was John Lister who caused the breakdown, I should almost feel as if I could kill him.”
“Kill him with your contempt, Antony,” she said sternly; and then, as we went on talking about Hallett’s illness, she became very much agitated, and I saw that she was in tears, which she hastily repressed as her sister entered the room.
The next evening when I went, I found her alone, for her sister had gone to stay a few days with some friends. My news was worse than ever, and there was no fencing the question that night, as she turned very pale when I gave my report.
“But the invention, Antony,” she exclaimed excitedly; “tell me how it is going on.”
“We are working at it as fast as possible,” I replied; “it takes a long time, but that is unavoidable.”
“If you love Stephen Hallett,” she said suddenly, and she looked full in my face, “get his invention finished and perfect. Let it succeed, and you will have done more for him than any doctor. Work, Antony, work. I ask you for – for – Pray, pray strive on.”
“I will – I am striving,” I said, “with all my might. It was a cruel blow for him though, just as success was in his grasp.”
“Mr Lister is here, ma’am,” said the servant, entering the room.
“I have forbidden Mr Lister my house,” said Miss Carr sternly.
“Yes, ma’am, but he forced his way in, and – ”
Before the man could finish his sentence, John Lister was in the room, looking flushed and excited, and he almost thrust the servant out and closed the door.
As he caught sight of me his face turned white with rage, but he controlled himself, and turned to where Miss Carr was standing, looking very beautiful in her anger.
I had started up, and stepped between them, but she motioned me back to my seat, while he joined his hands in a piteous way, and said in a low voice:
“I could not help it. I was obliged to come. Pray, pray, Miriam, hear me now.”
“Mr Lister!” she said, with a look of contempt that should have driven him away – “Mr Lister! and once more here?”
“Miriam,” he exclaimed, “you drive me to distraction. Do you think that such a love as mine is to be crushed?”
“Love!” she said, looking: at him contemptuously.
“Yes; love,” he cried. “I’ll prove to you my love by saying that now – even now, knowing what I do, I will forgive the past, and will try to save you from disgrace.”
“Mr Lister, you force me to listen to you,” she replied, “for I will not degrade you by ringing for the servants and having you removed. Pray say what you mean. Hush, Antony, let him speak. Perhaps after he has said all he wishes, he may leave me in peace.”
“Leave you in peace – you will not degrade me!” he cried, stung to madness and despair by her looks and words. “Look here, Miriam Carr, you compel me to speak as I do before this wretched boy.”
“Hush, Antony, be silent,” she cried, as I started up, stung in my turn by his contemptuous tone.
“Yes: sit down, spaniel, lap-dog – miserable cur!” he cried; and I felt my teeth grit together with such a sensation of rage a as I had never known before. “And now, as for you – you blind, foolish woman,” he continued, as I awakened to the fact that he had been drinking heavily, “since fair means will not succeed, foul means shall.”
“Say what you wish to say, Mr Lister,” she replied coldly, “for I warn you that this is the last time you shall speak to me. If you force yourself into my presence again, my servants shall hand you over to the police.”
“What!” he cried, with a forced laugh, “me? – hand me over to the police? You – you think I have been drinking, but you are wrong.”
No one had hinted at such a thing, but he felt it, and went on.
“I came to tell you to-night, that I will ignore the past, that I will overlook your disgraceful intimacy with this low, contemptible compositor, the blackguardly friend of this boy – the man who has obtained a hold upon you, and who, with his companions, is draining your purse – I say I will overlook all this, and, ignoring the past, take you for my wife, if you will promise to give up this wretched crew.”
There was no answer, but I sat there feeling as if I must fling myself at him, young and slight as I was, in her defence, but she stood there like a statue, fixing him with her eyes, while he went on raving. His face was flushed, and there was a hot, fiery look in his eyes, while his lips were white and parched.
“You shall not go on like this,” he continued. “You are my betrothed wife, and I will not stand by and see your name dragged in the mire by these wretched adventurers. Even now your name has become a by-word and a shame, the talk in every pot-house where low-class printers meet, and it is to save you from this that I would still take you to be my wife.”
Still she did not speak, and a look from her restrained me, when I would have done something to protect her from his insults, every one of which seemed to sting me to the heart.
“I know I am to blame,” he said passionately, “for letting you take and warm that young viper into life; but I could not tell. It shall end, though, now. I have written to your brother-in-law, and he will help to drag you from amongst this swindling crew.”
“Have you said all you wish to say, Mr Lister?” she replied coldly.
