The Spinners Part 2

"I only want to do my duty," said the young man. "By stopping away to-day Raymond hasn't made me feel any kinder to him, and if he were not so stupid in some ways, he must have known it would be so; but I am not going to let that weigh against him. How do you read the fact that my father directs Raymond's allowance to cease, Uncle Ernest?"

Mr. Churchouse bore no real connection to the Ironsydes; but his relations had always been close and cordial after he relinquished his share in the business of the mills, and the younger generation was brought up to call him 'uncle.'

"I read it like this," answered the elder. "It means that Raymond is to look to you in future, and that henceforth you may justly demand that he should not live in idleness. There is nothing more demoralising for youth than to live upon money it doesn't earn. I should say--subject to your aunt's opinion, to which I attach the greatest importance--that it is your place to give your brother an interest in life and to show him, what you know already, the value and dignity of work."

"I entirely agree," said Jenny Ironsyde. "I can go further and declare from personal knowledge that my brother had shadowed the idea in his mind."

They both regarded Daniel.

"Then leave it there," he bade them, "leave it there and I'll think it out. My father was the fairest man I ever met, and I'll try and be as fair. It's up to Raymond more than me."

"You can bring a horse to the water, though you can't make him drink,"

admitted Mr. Churchouse. "But if you bring your horse to the water, you've done all that reason and sense may ask you to do."

Miss Ironsyde, from larger knowledge of the circ.u.mstances, felt disposed to carry the question another step. She opened her mouth and drew in her breath to speak--making that little preliminary sound only audible when nothing follows it. But she did not speak.

"Come into the garden and see Magnolia grandiflora," said Mr.

Churchouse. "There are twelve magnificent blossoms open this morning, and I should have picked every one of them for my dear friend's grave, only the direction was clear, that there were to be no flowers."

"Henry disliked any attempt to soften the edges at such a time,"

explained the dead man's sister. "He held that death was the skeleton at the feast of life--a wholesome and stark reminder to the thoughtless living that the grave is the end of our mortal days. He liked a funeral to be a funeral--black--black. He did not want the skeleton at the feast to be decked in roses and lilies."

"An opinion worthy of all respect," declared Mr. Churchouse.

Then he asked after the health of his guest and expressed sympathy for her sorrow and great loss.

"He'd been so much better lately that it was a shock," she said, "but he died as he wanted to die--as all Ironsydes do die--without an illness.

It is a tradition that never seems to fail. That reconciled us in a way.

And you--how are you? You seldom come to Bridport nowadays."

Mr. Churchouse rarely talked about himself.

"True. I have been immersed in literary work and getting on with my _magnum opus_: 'The Church Bells of Dorset.' You see one does not obtain much help here--no encouragement. Not that I expect it. We men of letters have to choose between being hermits, or humbugs."

"I always thought a hermit was a humbug," said Jenny, smiling for the first time.

"Not always. When I say 'hermit,' I mean 'recluse.' With all the will to be a social success and identify myself with the welfare of the place in which I dwell, my powers are circ.u.mscribed. Do not think I put myself above the people, or pretend any intellectual superiority, or any nonsense of that sort. No, it is merely a question of time and energy.

My antiquarian work demands both, and so I am deprived by duty from mixing in the social life as much as I wish. This is not, perhaps, understood, and so I get a character for aloofness, which is not wholly deserved."

"Don't worry," said Miss Ironsyde. "Everybody cares for you. People don't think about us and our doings half as much as we are p.r.o.ne to fancy. I liked your last article in the _Bridport Gazette_. Only I seemed to have read most of it before."

"Probably you have. The facts, of course, were common property. My task is to collect data and retail them in a luminous and illuminating way."

"So you do--so you do."

He looked away, where Daniel stood by himself with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the river.

"A great responsibility for one so young; but he will rise to it."

"D'you mean his brother, or the Mill?"

"Both," answered Ernest Churchouse. "Both."

Mrs. Dinnett came down the garden.

"The mourning coach is at the door," she said.

"Daniel insisted that we went home in a mourning coach," explained Miss Ironsyde. "He felt the funeral was not ended until we returned home.

That shows imagination, so you can't say he hasn't got any."

"You can never say anybody hasn't got anything," declared Mr.

Churchouse. "Human nature defeats all calculations. The wisest only generalise about it."

CHAPTER II

AT 'THE TIGER'

The munic.i.p.al borough of Bridport stretches itself luxuriously from east to west beneath a wooded hill. Southward the land slopes to broad water-meadows where rivers meet and Brit and Asker wind to the sea.

Evidences of the great local industry are not immediately apparent; but streamers and wisps of steam scattered above the red-tiled roofs tell of work, and westward, where the land falls, there stand shoulder to shoulder the busy mills.

From single yarn that a child could break, to hawsers strong enough to hold a battles.h.i.+p, Bridport meets every need. Her twines and cords and nets are famous the world over; her ropes, cables, cablets and canvas rigged the fleet that scattered the Spanish Armada.

The broad streets with deep, unusual side-walks are a sign of Bridport's past, for they tell of the days when men and women span yarn before their doors, and rope-walks ran their amber and silver threads of hemp and flax along the pavements. But steel and steam have taken the place of the hand-spinners, though their industry has left its sign-manual upon the towns.h.i.+p. For the great, open side-walks make for distinction and s.p.a.ciousness, and there shall be found in all Dorset, no brighter, cheerfuller place than this. Bridport's very workhouse, south-facing and bowered in green, blinks half a hundred windows amiably at the noonday sun and helps to soften the life-failure of those who dwell therein. Off Barrack Street it stands, and at the time of the terror, when Napoleon threatened, soldiers hived here and gave the way its name.

Not far from the workhouse two inns face each other in Barrack Street--'The Tiger' upon one side of the way, 'The Seven Stars' upon the other; and at the moment when Henry Ironsyde's dust was reaching the bottom of his grave at Bridetown, a young man of somewhat inane countenance, clad in garments that displayed devotion to sport and indifference to taste, entered 'The Tiger's' private bar.

Behind the counter stood Richard Gurd, a middle-aged, broad-shouldered publican with a large and clean-shaven face, heavy-jaw, rather sulky eyes and mighty hands.

"The usual," said the visitor. "Ray been here?"

Mr. Gurd shook his head.

"No, Mr. Ned--nor likely to. They're burying his father this morning."

The publican poured out a gla.s.s of cherry brandy as he spoke and Mr.

Neddy Motyer rolled a cigarette.

"Ray ain't going," said the customer.

"Not going to his father's funeral!"

"For a very good reason, too; he's cut off with a s.h.i.+lling."

"Dear, dear," said Mr. Gurd. "That's bad news, though perhaps not much of a surprise to Mr. Raymond."