But, meantime, they cleared out two adjacent rooms: one was called the studio, the other the experiment-room.
In due course they hired a couple of single men from Birmingham to work the machine under lock and key.
Little with his own hands, affected2 an aperture3 in the party-wall, and thus conveyed long saws from his studio to the machine, and received them back ground.
Then men were lodged4 three miles off, were always kept at work half an hour later than the others, and received six pounds per week apiece, on pain of instant dismissal should they breathe a syllable5. They did the work of twenty-four men; so even at that high rate of wages, the profit was surprising. It actually went beyond the inventor's calculation, and he saw himself at last on the road to rapid fortune, and, above all, to Grace Carden.
This success excited Bolt's cupidity6, and he refused to contract the operation any longer.
Then the partners had a quarrel, and nearly dissolved. However, it ended in Little dismissing his Birmingham hands and locking up his “experiment-room,” and in Bolt openly devoting another room to the machines: two long, two circular.
These machines coined money, and Bolt chuckled7 and laughed at his partner's apprehensions8 for the space of twenty-one days.
On the twenty-second day, the Saw-grinders' union, which had been stupefied at first, but had now realized the situation, sent Messrs. Bolt and Little a letter, civil and even humble9; it spoke10 of the new invention as one that, if adopted, would destroy their handicraft, and starve the craftsmen11 and their families, and expressed an earnest hope that a firm which had shown so much regard for the health and comfort of the workmen would not persist in a fatal course, on which they had entered innocently and for want of practical advice.
The partners read this note differently. Bolt saw timidity in it. Little saw a conviction, and a quiet resolution, that foreboded a stern contest.
No reply was sent, and the machines went on coining.
Then came a warning to Little, not violent, but short, and rather grim. Little took it to Bolt, and he treated it with contempt.
Two days afterward12 the wheel-bands vanished, and the obnoxious13 machines stood still.
Little was for going to Grotait, to try and come to terms. Bolt declined. He bought new bands, and next day the machines went on again.
This pertinacity14 soon elicited15 a curious epistle:
“MESSRS. BOLT AND LITTLE,—When the blood is in an impure16 state, brimstone and treacle17 is applied18 as a mild purgative19; our taking the bands was the mild remedy; but, should the seat of disease not be reached, we shall take away the treacle, and add to the brimstone a necessary quantity of saltpetre and charcoal20.
“TANTIA TOPEE.”
On receipt of this, Little, who had tasted the last-mentioned drugs, showed such undisguised anxiety that Bolt sent for Ransome. He came directly, and was closeted with the firm. Bolt handed him the letters, told him the case, and begged leave to put him a question. “Is the police worth any thing, or nothing, in this here town?”
“It is worth something, I hope, gentlemen.”
“How much, I wonder? Of all the bands that have been stolen, and all the people that have been blown up, and scorched21 and vitrioled, and shot at, and shot, by union men, did ever you and your bobbies nail a single malefactor22?”
Now Mr. Ransome was a very tall man, with a handsome, dignified23 head, a long black beard, and pleasant, dignified manners. When short, round, vulgar Mr. Bolt addressed him thus, it really was like a terrier snapping at a Newfoundland dog. Little felt ashamed, and said Mr. Ransome had been only a few months in office in the place. “Thank you, Mr. Little,” said the chief constable24. “Mr Bolt, I'll ask you a favor. Meet me at a certain place this evening, and let me reply to your question then and there.”
This singular proposal excited some curiosity, and the partners accepted the rendezvous25. Ransome came to the minute, and took the partners into the most squalid part of this foul26 city. At the corner of a narrow street he stepped and gave a low whistle. A policeman in plain clothes came to him directly.
“They are both in the 'Spotted27 Dog,' sir, with half a dozen more.”
“Follow me, and guard the door. Will you come, too, gentlemen?”
The “Spotted Dog” was a low public, with one large room and a sanded floor. Mr. Ransome walked in and left the door open, so that his three companions heard and saw all that passed.
“Holland and Cheetham, you are wanted.”
“What for?”
“Wilde's affair. He has come to himself, and given us your names.”
On this the two men started up and were making for the door. Ransome whipped before it. “That won't do.”
Then there was a loud clatter28 of rising feet, oaths, threats, and even a knife or two drawn29; and, in the midst of it all, the ominous30 click of a pistol, and then dead silence; for it was Ransome who had produced that weapon. “Come, no nonsense,” said he. “Door's guarded, street's guarded, and I'm not to be trifled with.”
He then handed his pistol to the officer outside with an order, and, stepping back suddenly, collared Messrs. Holland and Cheetham with one movement, and, with a powerful rush, carried them out of the house in his clutches. Meantime the policeman had whistled, there was a conflux of bobbies, and the culprits were handcuffed and marched off to the Town Hall.
“Five years' penal31 servitude for that little lot,” said Ransome.
“And now, Mr. Bolt, I have answered your question to the best of my ability.”
“You have answered it like a man. Will you do as much for us?”
“I'll do my best. Let me examine the place now that none of them are about.”
Bolt and Ransome went together, but Little went home: he had an anxiety even more pressing, his mother's declining health. She had taken to pining and fretting32 ever since Dr. Amboyne brought the bad news from Cairnhope; and now, instead of soothing33 and consoling her son, she needed those kind offices from him; and, I am happy to say, she received them. He never spent an evening away from her. Unfortunately he did not succeed in keeping up her spirits, and the sight of her lowered his own.
At this period Grace Carden was unmixed comfort to him; she encouraged him to encroach a little, and visit her twice a week instead of once, and she coaxed34 him to confide35 all his troubles to her. He did so; he concealed36 from his mother that he was at war with the trade again, but he told Grace everything, and her tender sympathy was the balm of his life. She used to put on cheerfulness for his sake, even when she felt it least.
One day, however, he found her less bright than usual, and she showed him an advertisement—Bollinghope house and park for sale; and she was not old enough nor wise enough to disguise from him that this pained her. Some expressions of regret and pity fell from her; that annoyed Henry, and he said, “What is that to us?”
“Nothing to you: but I feel I am the cause. I have not used him well, that's certain.”
Henry said, rather cavalierly, that Mr. Coventry was probably selling his house for money, not for love, and (getting angry) that he hoped never to hear the man's name mentioned again.
Grace Carden was a little mortified37 by his tone, but she governed herself and said sadly, “My idea of love was to be able to tell you every thought of my heart, even where my conscience reproaches me a little. But if you prefer to exclude one topic—and have no fear that it may lead to the exclusion38 of others—”
They were on the borders of a tiff39; but Henry recovered himself and said firmly, “I hope we shall not have a thought unshared one day; but, just for the present, it will be kinder to spare me that one topic.”
“Very well, dearest,” said Grace. “And, if it had not been for the advertisement—” she said no more, and the thing passed like a dark cloud between the lovers.
Bollinghope house and park were actually sold that very week; they were purchased, at more than their value, by a wealthy manufacturer: and the proceeds of this sale and the timber cleared off all Coventry's mortgages, and left him with a few hundred pounds in cash, and an estate which had not a tree on it, but also had not a debt upon it.
Of course he forfeited40, by this stroke, his position as a country gentleman; but that he did not care about, since it was all done with one view, to live comfortably in Paris far from the intolerable sight of his rival's happiness with the lady he loved.
He bought in at the sale a few heirlooms and articles of furniture—who does not cling, at the last moment, to something of this kind?—and rented a couple of unfurnished rooms in Hillsborough to keep them in. He fixed41 the day of his departure, arranged his goods, and packed his clothes. Then he got a letter of credit on Paris, and went about the town buying numerous articles of cutlery.
But this last simple act led to strange consequences. He was seen and followed; and in the dead of the evening, as he was cording with his own hands a box containing a few valuables, a heavy step mounted the stair, and there was a rude knock at the door.
Mr. Coventry felt rather uncomfortable, but he said, “Come in.”
The door was opened, and there stood Sam Cole.
Coventry received him ill. He looked up from his packing and said, “What on earth do you want, sir?”
But it was not Cole's business to be offended. “Well, sir,” said he, “I've been looking out for you some time, and I saw you at our place; so I thought I'd come and tell you a bit o' news.”
“What is that?”
“It is about him you know of; begins with a hel.”
“Curse him! I don't want to hear about him. I'm leaving the country. Well, what is it?”
“He is wrong with the trade again.”
“What is that to me?—Ah! sit down, Cole, and tell me.”
Cole let him know the case, and assured him that, sooner or later, if threats did not prevail, the union would go any length.
“Should you be employed?”
“If it was a dangerous job, they'd prefer me.”
Mr. Coventry looked at his trunks, and then at Sam Cole. A small voice whispered “Fly.” He stifled42 that warning voice, and told Cole he would stay and watch this affair, and Cole was to report to him whenever any thing fresh occurred. From that hour this gentleman led the life of a malefactor, dressed like a workman, and never went out except at night.
Messrs. Bolt and Little were rattened again, and never knew it till morning. This time it was not the bands, but certain axle-nuts and screws that vanished. The obnoxious machines came to a standstill, and Bolt fumed43 and cursed. However, at ten o'clock, he and the foreman were invited to the Town hall, and there they found the missing gear, and the culprit, one of the very workmen employed at high wages on the obnoxious machines.
Ransome had bored a small hole in the ceiling, by means of which this room was watched from above; the man was observed, followed, and nabbed. The property found on him was identified and the magistrate44 offered the prisoner a jury, which he declined; then the magistrate dealt with the case summarily, refused to recognize rattening, called the offense
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