The Spinners Part 12

Mr. Churchouse, carrying his new book, led the way and soon he heard of the younger man's anxieties. But the bookworm increased rather than allayed them.

"Do you see anything of Raymond?" began Daniel.

"A great deal of him. He often comes to supper. But I will be frank. He does not patronise my simple board for what he can get there, nor does he find my company very exciting. He wouldn't. The attraction, I'm afraid, is my housekeeper's daughter, Sabina. Sabina, I may tell you, is a very attractive girl, Daniel. It has been my pleasure during her youth to a.s.sist at her education, and she is well informed and naturally clever. She is inclined to be excitable, as many clever people are, but she is of a charming disposition and has great natural ability. I had thought she would very likely become a schoolmistress; but in this place the call of the mills is paramount and, as you know, the young women generally follow their mothers. So Sabina found the thought of the spinning attractive and is now, Mr. Best tells me, an amazingly clever spinner--his very first in fact. And it cannot be denied that Raymond sees a good deal of her. This is probably not wise, because friends.h.i.+p, at their tender ages, will often run into emotion, and, naturally flattered by his ingenuous attentions, Sabina might permit herself to spin dreams and so lessen her activities as a spinner of yarn. I say she might. These things mean more to a girl than a boy."

"What can I do about it? I was going to ask you to talk sense to Raymond."

"With all the will, I am not the man, I fear. Sense varies so much from the standpoint of the observer, my dear Daniel. You, for example, having an old head on young shoulders, would find yourself in agreement with my sentiments; Raymond, having a young and rather empty head on his magnificent shoulders, would not. I take the situation to be this.

Raymond's life has been suddenly changed and his prodigious physical activities reduced. He bursts with life. He is more alive than any youth I have ever known. Now all this exuberance of nature must have an outlet, and what more natural than that, in the presence of such an attractive young woman, the s.e.x instinct should begin to a.s.sert itself?"

"You don't mean he is in love, or anything like that?"

"That is just exactly what I do mean," answered Mr. Churchouse.

"I thought he probably liked to chatter to them all, and hear his own voice, and talk rubbish about what he'll do for them in the future."

"He has nebulous ideas about wages and so on; but women are quicker than men, and probably they understand perfectly well that he doesn't know what he's talking about so far as that goes. How would it be if you took him into the office at Bridport, where he would be more under your eye?"

"He must learn the business first and n.o.body can teach him like Best."

"Then I advise that you talk to him yourself. Don't let the fact that you are only a year and three months older than Raymond make you too tolerant. You are really ten, or twenty, years older than he is in certain directions, and you must lecture him accordingly. Be firm; be decisive. Explain to him that life is real and that he must approach it with the same degree of earnestness and self-discipline as he devotes to running and playing games and the like. I feel sure you will carry great weight. He is far from being a fool. In fact he is a very intelligent young man with excellent brains, and if he would devote them to the business, you would soon find him your right hand. The machinery does honestly interest him. But you must make it a personal thing. He must study political economy and the value of labour and its relations to capital and the market value of dry spun yarns. These vague ideas to better the lot of the working cla.s.ses are wholly admirable and speak of a good heart. But you must get him to listen to reason and the laws of supply and demand and so forth."

"What shall I say about the girls?"

"It is not so much the girls as the girl. If he had manifested a general interest in them, you need have said nothing; but, with the purest good will to Raymond and a great personal affection for Sabina, I do feel that this friends.h.i.+p is not desirable. Don't think I am cynical and worldly and take too low a view of human nature--far from it, my dear boy. Nothing would ever make me take a low view of human nature. But one has not lived for sixty years with one's eyes shut. Unhappy things occur and Nature is especially dangerous when you find her busy with such natural creatures as your brother and Sabina. A word to the wise. I would speak, but you will do so with far greater weight."

"I hate preaching and making Raymond think I'm a prig and all that sort of thing. It only hardens him against me."

"He knows better. At any rate try persuasion. He has a remarkably good temper and a child could lead him. In fact a child sometimes does. He'd do anything for Waldron's little girl. Just say you admire and share his ambitions for the welfare of the workers. Hint at supply and demand; then explain that all must go according to fixed laws, and amelioration is a question of time and combination, and so on. Then tackle him fearlessly about Sabina and appeal to his highest instincts. I, too, in my diplomatic way will approach him with modern instances. Unfortunately it is only too easy to find modern instances of what romance may end in.

And to say that modern instances are exceedingly like ancient ones, is merely to say, that human nature doesn't change."

Fired by this advice, Daniel went straight to the works, and it was about eleven o'clock in the day when he entered his brother's office above the Mill--to find it empty.

Descending to the main shop, he discovered Raymond showing a visitor round the machines. Little Estelle Waldron was paying her first visit to the spinners and, delighted at the distraction, Raymond, on whose invitation she had come, displayed all the operation of turning flax and hemp into yarn. He aired his knowledge, but it was incomplete and he referred constantly to the operators from stage to stage.

Round-eyed and attentive, Estelle poured her whole heart and soul into the business. She showed a quick perception and asked questions that interested the girls. Some, indeed, they could not answer. Estelle's mind approached their work from a new angle and saw in it mysteries and points calling for solution that had never challenged them. Neither had her problems much struck Raymond, but he saw their force when she raised them and p.r.o.nounced them most important.

"Why, that's fundamental, really," he said, "and yet, be shot, if I ever thought of it! Only Best will know and I shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't."

They stood at the First Drawing Frame when Daniel appeared. They had followed the flat ribbon of sliver from the Carding Machine. At the Drawing Frame six ribbons from the Carder were all brought together into one ribbon and so gained in quality, while losing more impurities during a second severe process of combing out.

"And even now it's not ready for spinning," explained Raymond. "Now it goes on to the Second Drawing Frame, and four of these ribbons from the First Drawer are brought together into one ribbon again. So you see that no less than twenty-four ribbons from the Carder are brought together to make stuff good enough to spin."

"What do the Drawing Frames do to it?" asked Estelle; "it looks just the same."

"Blessed if I know," confessed Raymond. "What do they do to it, Mrs.

Chick?"

A venerable old woman, whose simple task was to wind away the flowing sliver into cans, made answer. She was clad in a dun overall and had a dim scarlet cap of worsted drawn over her white hair. The remains of beauty homed in her brown and wrinkled face; her grey eyes were gentle, and her expression wistful and kindly.

"The Drawing Heads level the 'sliver,' and true it, and make it good,"

she said. "All the rubbish is dragged out on the teeth and now, though it seems thinner and weaker, it isn't really. Now it goes to the Roving Frame and that makes it still better and ready for the spinners."

Then came Daniel, and Raymond, leaving Estelle with Mrs. Chick, departed at his brother's wish. The younger antic.i.p.ated trouble and began to excuse himself.

"Waldron's so jolly friendly that I thought you wouldn't mind if I showed his little girl round the works. She's tremendously clever and intelligent."

"Of course I don't mind. That's nothing, but I want to speak to you on the general question. I do wish, Raymond, you'd be more dignified."

"Dignified! Me? Good Lord!"

"Well, if you don't like that word, say 'self-respecting.' You might take longer views and look ahead."

"You may bet your boots I do that, Dan. This life isn't so delightful that I am content to live in the present hour, I a.s.sure you. I look ahead all right."

"I mean look ahead for the sake of the business, not for your own sake.

I don't want to preach, or any nonsense of that kind; but there's n.o.body else to speak, so I must. The point is that you don't see in the least what you are doing here. In the future my idea was--and yours, too, I suppose--that you came into the business as joint partner with me in everything."

"Jolly sporting of you, Dan."

"But that being so, can't you see you ought to support me in everything?"

"I do."

"No, you don't. You're not taking the right line in the least, and what's more, I believe you know it yourself. Don't think I'm selfish and careless about our people, or indifferent to their needs and rights.

I'm quite as keen about their welfare as you are; but one can't do everything in a moment. And you're not helping them and only hindering me by talking a lot of rubbish to them."

"It isn't rubbish, Dan. I had all the facts from Levi Baggs, the hackler. He understands the claims of capital and what labour is ent.i.tled to, and all the rest of it."

"Baggs is a sour, one-sided man and will only give you a biased and wrong view. If you want to know the truth, you can come into Bridport and study it. Then you'll see exactly what things are worth, and what we get paid in open market for our goods. All you do by listening to Levi is to waste your time and waste his. And then you wander about among the women talking nonsense. And remember this: they know it's nonsense.

They understand the question very much better than you do, and instead of respecting you, as they ought to respect a future master, they only laugh at you behind your back. And what will the result be? Why, when you come to have a voice in the thing, they'll remind you of all your big talk. And then you've got to climb down and they'll not respect you, or take you seriously."

"All right, old chap--enough said. Only you needn't think the people wouldn't respect me. I get on jolly well with them as a matter of fact.

And I do look ahead--perhaps further than you do. I certainly wouldn't promise anything I wouldn't try to perform. In fact, I'm very keen about them. And I believe if we sc.r.a.pped all the machinery and got new--"

"When you've mastered the present machinery, it will be time to talk about sc.r.a.pping it," answered Daniel. "People are always shouting out for new things, and when they get them--and sacrifice a year's profits very likely in doing so--often the first thing they hear from the operatives is, that the old machinery was much better. Our father always liked to see other firms make the experiments."

"That's the way to get left, if you ask me."

"I don't ask you," answered the master. "I'm telling you, Raymond; and you ought to remember that I very well know what I'm talking about and you don't. You must give me some credit. To question me is to question our father, for I learned everything from him."

"But times change. You don't want to be left high and dry in the march of progress, my dear chap."

"No--you needn't fear that. If you're young, you're a part of progress; you belong to it. But you must get a general knowledge of the present situation in our trade before you can do anything rational in the shape of progress. I've been left a very fine business with a very honoured name to keep up, and if I begin trying to run before I can walk, I should very soon fall down. You must see that."

Raymond nodded.

"Yes, that's all right. I'm a learner and I know you can teach me a lot."