The Story of Antony Grace

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!”