John Halifax, Gentleman Part 78

But John and I looked at the still, soft face, half a child's and half an angel's.

"Hus.h.!.+" he said, as if Ursula's fancy were profanity; then eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and laughed, confessing how angry he should be if anybody dared to "fall in love" with Muriel.

Next day was the one fixed for the trial of the new steam-engine; which trial being successful, we were to start at once in a post-chaise for Longfield; for the mother longed to be at home, and so did we all.

There was rather a dolorous good-bye, and much lamenting from good Mrs.

Tod, who, her own bairns grown up, thought there were no children worthy to compare with our children. And truly, as the three boys scampered down the road--their few regrets soon over, eager for anything new--three finer lads could not be seen in the whole country.

Mrs. Halifax looked after them proudly--mother-like, she gloried in her sons; while John, walking slowly, and a.s.suring Mrs. Tod over and over again that we should all come back next summer, went down the steep hill, carrying, hidden under many wraps and nestled close to his warm shoulder, his little frail winter-rose--his only daughter.

In front of the mill we found a considerable crowd; for the time being ripe, Mr. Halifax had made public the fact that he meant to work his looms by steam, the only way in which he could carry on the mill at all. The announcement had been received with great surprise and remarkable quietness, both by his own work-people and all along Enderley valley. Still there was the usual amount of contemptuous scepticism, incident on any new experiment. Men were peering about the locked door of the engine-room with a surly curiosity; and one village oracle, to prove how impossible it was that such a thing as steam could work anything, had taken the trouble to light a fire in the yard and set thereon his wife's best tea-kettle, which, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed angrily away, scalded him slightly, and caused him to limp away swearing, a painful ill.u.s.tration of the adage, that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

"Make way, my good people," said Mr. Halifax; and he crossed the mill-yard, his wife on his arm, followed by an involuntary murmur of respect.

"He be a fine fellow, the master; he sticks at nothing," was the comment heard made upon him by one of his people, and probably it expressed the feeling of the rest. There are few things which give a man more power over his fellows than the thoroughly English quality of daring.

Perhaps this was the secret why John had as yet pa.s.sed safely through the crisis which had been the destruction of so many mill-owners, namely, the introduction of a power which the mill-people were convinced would ruin hand-labour. Or else the folk in our valley, out of their very primitiveness, had more faith in the master; for certainly, as John pa.s.sed through the small crowd, there was only one present who raised the old fatal cry of "Down with machinery!"

"Who said that?"

At the master's voice--at the flash of the master's eye--the little knot of work-people drew back, and the malcontent, whoever he was, shrunk into silence.

Mr. Halifax walked past them, entered his mill, and unlocked the door of the room which he had turned into an engine-room, and where, along with the two men he had brought from Manchester, he had been busy almost night and day for this week past in setting up his machinery.

They worked--as the Manchester fellows said they had often been obliged to work--under lock and key.

"Your folk be queer 'uns, Mr. Halifax. They say there's six devils inside on her, theer."

And the man pointed to the great boiler which had been built up in an out-house adjoining.

"Six devils, say they?--Well, I'll be Maister Michael Scot--eh, Phineas?--and make my devils work hard."

He laughed, but he was much excited. He went over, piece by piece, the complicated but delicate machinery; rubbed here and there at the bra.s.s-work, which shone as bright as a mirror; then stepped back, and eyed it with pride, almost with affection.

"Isn't it a pretty thing?--If only I have set it up right--if it will but work."

His hands shook--his cheeks were burning--little Edwin came peering about at his knee; but he pushed the child hastily away; then he found some slight fault with the machinery, and while the workmen rectified it stood watching them, breathless with anxiety. His wife came to his side.

"Don't speak to me,--don't, Ursula. If it fails I am ruined."

"John!"--she just whispered his name, and the soft, firm fold of her fingers closed round his, strengthening, cheering. Her husband faintly smiled.

"Here!"--He unlocked the door, and called to the people outside. "Come in, two of you fellows, and see how my devils work. Now then! Boys, keep out of the way; my little girl"--his voice softened--"my pet will not be frightened? Now, my men--ready?"

He opened the valve.

With a strange noise, that made the two Enderley men spring back as if the six devils were really let loose upon them, the steam came rus.h.i.+ng into the cylinder. There was a slight motion of the piston-rod.

"All's right! it will work?"

No, it stopped.

John drew a deep breath.

It went on again, beginning to move slowly up and down, like the strong right arm of some automaton giant. Greater and lesser cog-wheels caught up the motive power, revolving slowly and majestically, and with steady, regular rotation, or whirling round so fast you could hardly see that they stirred at all. Of a sudden a soul had been put into that wonderful creature of man's making, that inert ma.s.s of wood and metal, mysteriously combined. The monster was alive!

Speechless, John stood watching it. Their trial over, his energies collapsed; he sat down by his wife's side, and taking Muriel on his knee, bent his head over hers.

"Is all right, father?" the child whispered.

"All quite right, my own."

"You said you could do it, and you have done it," cried his wife, her eyes glowing with triumph, her head erect and proud.

John dropped his lower, lower still. "Yes," he murmured; "yes, thank G.o.d."

Then he opened the door, and let all the people in to see the wondrous sight.

They crowded in by dozens, staring about in blank wonder, gaping curiosity, ill-disguised alarm. John took pains to explain the machinery, stage by stage, till some of the more intelligent caught up the principle, and made merry at the notion of "devils." But they all looked with great awe at the master, as if he were something more than man. They listened open-mouthed to every word he uttered, cramming the small engine-room till it was scarcely possible to breathe, but keeping at a respectful distance from the iron-armed monster, that went working, working on, as if ready and able to work on to everlasting.

John took his wife and children out into the open air. Muriel, who had stood for the last few minutes by her father's side, listening with a pleasing look to the monotonous regular sound, like the breathing of the demon, was unwilling to go.

"I am very glad I was with you to-day,--very glad, father," she kept saying.

He said, as often--twice as often--that next summer, when he came back to Enderley, she should be with him at the mills every day, and all day over, if she liked.

There was now nothing to be done but to hasten as quickly and as merrily as possible to our well-beloved Longfield.

Waiting for the post-chaise, Mrs. Halifax and the boys sat down on the bridge over the defunct and silenced water-fall, on the muddy steps of which, where the stream used to dash musically over, weeds and long gra.s.ses, mingled with the drooping water-fern, were already beginning to grow.

"It looks desolate, but we need not mind that now," said Mrs. Halifax.

"No," her husband answered. "Steam power once obtained, I can apply it in any way I choose. My people will not hinder; they trust me, they like me."

"And, perhaps, are just a little afraid of you. No matter, it is wholesome fear. I should not like to have married a man whom n.o.body was afraid of."

John smiled; he was looking at the horseman riding towards us along the high road. "I do believe that is Lord Luxmore. I wonder whether he has heard of my steam-engine. Love, will you go back into the mill or not?"

"Certainly not." The mother seated herself on the bridge, her boys around her; John avouched, with an air like the mother of the Gracchi, or like the Highland woman who trained one son after another to fight and slay their enemy--their father's murderer.

"Don't jest," said Ursula. She was much more excited than her husband.

Two angry spots burnt on her cheeks when Lord Luxmore came up, and, in pa.s.sing, bowed.

Mrs. Halifax returned it, haughtily enough. But at the moment a loud cheer broke out from the mill hard by, and "Hurrah for the master!"

"Hurrah for Mr. Halifax!" was distinctly heard. The mother smiled, right proudly.

Lord Luxmore turned to his tenant--they might have been on the best terms imaginable from his bland air.

"What is that rather harsh noise I hear, Mr. Halifax?"