The Spinners Part 58

To this end he established a Hemp Break, a Hemp Breaker and a Hemp Softener. The first was a wooden press used to crush the stalks of retted hemp straw, so that the harl came away and left the fibre clean.

The second shortened long hemp, that it might be more conveniently hackled and drawn. The third served greatly to improve the spinning quality of soft hemps by pa.s.sing them through a system of callender rollers. There were no hands available for the breakers and softeners, so Raymond increased his staff. He also took over ten acres of the North Hill House estate, ploughed up permanent gra.s.s, cleaned the ground with a root crop, and then started to renew the vanis.h.i.+ng industry of flax growing. He visited Belgium for the purpose of mastering the modern methods, found the soil of North Hill well suited to the crop, and was soon deeply interested in the enterprise. He first hoped to ret his flax in the Bride river, as he had seen it retted on the Lys, but was dissuaded from making this trial and, instead, built a hot water rettery. His experiments did not go unchallenged, and while the women always applauded any change that took strain off their muscles and improved the possibility of rest, the men were indifferent to this advantage. Mr. Baggs even condemned it.

He came to see the working of the Hemp Breaker, and perceived without difficulty that its operations must directly tend to diminish his own labour.

"You'll pull tons less of solid weight in a day, Levi," said Best, "when this gets going."

"And why should I be asked to pull tons less of solid weight? What's the matter with this?"

He thrust out his right arm with hypertrophied muscles hard as steel.

"It seems to me that a time's coming when the people won't want muscles any more," he said. "Steam has lowered our strength standards as it is, and presently labour will be called to do no more than press b.u.t.tons in the midst of a roaring h.e.l.l of machines. The people won't want no more strength than a daddy-long-legs; they that do the work will shrink away till they're gristle and bones, like gra.s.shoppers. And the next thing will be that they'll not be wanted either, but all will be done by just a handful of skilled creatures, that can work the machines from their desks, as easy as the organist plays the organ in church. G.o.d help the human frame then!"

"We shall never arrive at that, be sure," answered Best; "for that's to exalt the dumb material above the worker, and if things were reduced to such a pitch of perfection all round, there would be no need of large populations. But we're told to increase and multiply at the command of G.o.d, so you needn't fear machines will ever lower our power to do so. If that happened, it would be as much as to say G.o.d allowed us to produce something to our own undoing."

"He allows us to produce a fat lot of things to our own undoing,"

answered the hackler. "Ain't Nature under G.o.d's direction?"

"Without doubt, Levi."

"And don't Nature tickle us to our own undoing morning, noon, and night?

Ain't she always at it--always tempting us to go too far along the road of our particular weakness? And ain't laziness the particular weakness of all women and most men? 'Tis pandering to laziness, these machines, and for my part I wish Ironsyde would get a machine to hackle once and for all. Then I'd leave him and go where they still put muscles above machinery."

"Funny you should say that," answered the foreman. "He's had the thought of your retirement in his mind for a good bit now. Only consideration for your feelings has prevented him dropping a hint. He always likes it to come from us, rather than him, when anybody falls out."

Mr. Baggs took this with tolerable calm.

"I'll think of it next year," he said. "If I could get at him by a side wind as to the size of the pension--"

"That's hid with him. He'll follow his father's rule, you may be sure, and reward you according to your deserts."

"I don't expect that," said Mr. Baggs. "He don't know my deserts."

"Well, I shouldn't be in any great hurry for your own sake," advised Best. "You're well and hard, and can do your work as it should be done; but you must remember you've got no resources outside your hackling shop. Take you away from it and you're a blank. You never read a book, or go out for a walk, or even till your allotment ground. All you do is to sit at home and criticise other people. In fact, you're a very ignorant old man, Baggs, and if you retired, you'd find life hang that heavy on your hands you'd hardly know how to kill time between meals.

Then you'd get fat and eat too much and shorten your days. I've known it to happen, where a man who uses his muscles gives up work before his flesh fails him."

Raymond Ironsyde joined them at this juncture and presently, when Levi went back to his shop and the Hemp Breaker had been duly applauded, the master took John Best aside and discussed a private matter.

"The boy has come back for his holidays," he said; and Best, who knew that when Raymond spoke of 'the boy' he meant Sabina's son, nodded.

"I hope all goes well with him and that you hear good accounts," he answered.

"The reports are all much the same, term after term. He's said to have plenty of ability, but no perseverance."

"Think nothing of that," advised the foreman. "Schoolmasters expect boys to persevere all round, which is more than you can ask of human nature.

The thing is to find out what gets hold of a boy and what he does persevere at--then a sensible schoolmaster wouldn't make him waste half his working hours at other things, for which the boy's mind has got no place. Mechanics will be that boy's strong point, if I know anything about boys. And I believe all the fearful wickedness that prompted him to burn the place down is pretty well gone out of him by now."

"I've left him severely alone," said Raymond. "I've said to myself that not for three whole years will I approach him again. Meantime I don't feel any too satisfied with the school. I fancy they are a bit soft there. Private schools are like that. They daren't be too strict for fear the children will complain and be taken away. But there are others.

I can move him if need be. And I'll ask you, Best, to keep your eye on him these holidays, as far as you reasonably can, when he comes here. It is understood he may. Try and get him to talk and see if he's got any ideas."

"He puts me a good bit in mind of what poor Mister Daniel was at that age. He's keen about spinning, and if I was to let him mind a can now and again he'd be very proud of himself."

"Rum that he should like the works and hate me. Yes, he hates me all right still, for Mister Churchouse has sounded him and finds that it is so. It's in the young beggar's blood and there seems to be no operation that will get it out."

Best considered.

"He'll come round. No doubt his schooling is making his mind larger, and, presently, he'll feel the force of Christianity also; and that should conquer the old Adam in him. By the same token the less he sees of Levi, the better. Baggs is no teacher for youth, but puts his own wrong and rebellious ideas into their heads, and they think it's fine to be up against law and order. I'll always say 'twas half the fault of Baggs the boy thought to burn us down; yet, of course, n.o.body was more shocked and scandalised than Levi when he heard about it. And until the boy's come over to your side, he'll do well not to listen to the seditious old dog."

"Keep him out of the hackling shop, then. Tell him he's not to go there."

Best shook his head.

"The very thing to send him. He's like that. He'd smell a rat very quick if he was ordered not to see Baggs. And then he'd haunt Baggs. I shan't trust the boy a yard, you understand. You mustn't ask me to do that after the past. But I'm hopeful that his feeling for the craft will lift him up and make him straight. To a craftsman, his work is often more powerful for salvation than his faith. In fact, his work is his faith; and from the way things run in the blood, I reckon that Sabina's son might rise into a spinner."

"I don't want anything of that sort to happen, and I'm sure she doesn't."

"There's a hang-dog look in his eyes I'd like to see away," confessed John. "He's been mismanaged, I reckon, and hasn't any sense of righteousness yet. All for justice he is, so I hear he tells Mister Churchouse. Many are who don't know the meaning of the word. I'll do what I can when he comes here."

"He's old for his age in some ways and young in others," explained Raymond. "I feel nothing much can be done till he gets friendly with me."

"You're doing all any man could do."

"At some cost too, John. You, at any rate, can understand what a ghastly situation this is. There seems no end to it."

"Consequences often bulk much bigger than causes," said Best. "In fact, to our eyes, consequences do generally look a most unfair result of causes; as a very small seed will often grow up into a very big tree.

You'll never find any man, or woman, satisfied with the price they're called to pay for the privilege of being alive. And in this lad's case, him being built contrary and not turned true--warped no doubt by the accident of his career--you've got to pay a far heavier price than you would have been called to pay if you'd been his lawful begetter. But seeing the difficulty lies in the boy's nature alone, we'll hope that time will cure it, when he's old enough to look ahead and see which side his bread's b.u.t.tered, if for no higher reason."

Ironsyde left the Mill depressed; indeed, Abel's recurring holidays always did depress him. As yet no hoped-for sign of reconciliation could be chronicled.

To-day, however, a gleam appeared to dawn, for on calling at 'The Magnolias' to see Ernest Churchouse, Raymond was cheered by a promised event which might contain possibilities. Estelle had scored a point and got Abel to promise to come for a picnic.

"He made a hard bargain though," she said. "He's to light a fire and boil the kettle. And we are to stop at the old store in West Haven for one good hour on the road home. I've agreed to the terms and shall give him the happiest time I know how."

"Is his mother going?"

"Yes--he insists on that. And Sabina will come."

"But don't hope too much of it," said Ernest. "I regard this as the thin end of the wedge--no more than that. If Estelle can win his confidence, then she may do great things; but she won't win it at one picnic. I know him too well. He's a ma.s.s of contradictions. Some days most communicative, other days not a syllable. Some days he seems to trust you with his secrets, other days he is suspicious if you ask him the simplest question. He's still a wild animal, who occasionally, for his own convenience, pretends to be tame."

"I shan't try to tame him," said Estelle. "I respect wild things a great deal too much to show them the charms of being tame. But it's something that he's coming, and if once he will let me be his chum in holidays, I might bring him round to Ray."

She planned the details of the picnic and invited Raymond to imagine himself a boy again. This he did and suggested various additions to the entertainment.

"Did Sabina agree easily?" he asked, still returning to the event as something very great and gratifying.

"Not willingly, but gradually and cautiously."

"She's softer and gentler than she was, however. I can a.s.sure you of that," said Mr. Churchouse.

"She thought it might be a trap at first," confessed Estelle.