 CHAPTER X Three years glided by with Richard Shackford as swiftly as those periods of time which are imagined to elapse between the acts of a play. They were eventless, untroubled years, and have no history. Nevertheless, certain changes had taken place. Little by little Mr. Slocum had relinquished the supervision of the workshops to Richard. Until now, the affairs of the yard rested chiefly on his shoulders. It was like a dream to him when he looked directly back to his humble beginning. Though as he reflected upon it, and retraced his progress step by step, he saw there was nothing illogical or astonishing in his good fortune. He had won it by downright hard work and the faithful exercise of a sufficing talent. In his relations with Margaret, Richard's attitude had undergone no appreciable change. Her chance visits to the studio through the week and those pleasant half-idle Saturday afternoons had become to both Richard and Margaret a matter of course, like the sunlight or the air they breathed. To Richard, Margaret's Slocum at nineteen was simply a charming, frank girl, a type of gracious young womanhood. He was conscious of her influence. He was very fond of Margaret, but she had not yet taken on for him that magic individuality which makes a woman the one woman in the world to her lover. Though Richard had scant experience in such matters, he was not wrong in accepting Margaret as the type of a class of New England girls which, fortunately for New England, is not a small class. These young women, for the most part, lead quiet and restricted lives so far as the actualities are concerned, but very deep and full lives, in the world of books and imagination, to which they make early escapes. They have the high instincts that come of good blood, the physique that naturally fits fine manners, and when Chance takes one of these maidens from her island country home, or from some sleepy town on the seaboard, and sets her amid the complications of city existence, she is an unabashed and unassuming lady. If in Paris she differs from the Parisians only in the greater delicacy of her life beauty, her innocence which is not ignorance, and her French pronunciation. If in London she differs from English girls only in the matter of rosy cheeks and the rising inflection, should none of these fortunate transplantings befall her, she always merits them, by adorning with grace and industry and intelligence, the narrower sphere to which destiny has assigned her. Destiny had assigned Margaret Slocum to a very narrow sphere. It had shut her up in an obscure New England manufacturing village, with no society, strictly speaking, and no outlets whatever, to large experiences. To her father's affection, Richard's friendship, and her household duties, she was forced to look for her happiness. If life held wider possibilities for her, she had not dreamed of them. She looked up to Richard with respect, perhaps with a dash of sentiment in the respect. There was something at once gentle and virile in his character which she admired and leaned upon. In his presence the small housekeeping troubles always slipped from her, but her heart, to use a pretty French phrase, had not consciously spoken. Possibly it had murmured a little, incoherently, to itself. But it had not spoken out aloud, as perhaps it would have done long ago if an impediment had been placed in the way of their intimacy. With all her subtler intuitions Margaret was as far as Richard from suspecting the strength and direction of the current with which they were drifting. Freedom, habit, and the nature of their environment conspired to prolong this mutual lack of perception. The hour had sounded, however, when these two were to see each other in a different light. One Monday morning in March at the close of the three years in question, as Richard mounted the outside staircase leading to his studio in the extension, the servant made back into him from the kitchen window. Margaret had failed to come to the studio the previous Saturday afternoon. Richard had worked at cross purposes and returned to his boarding house vaguely dissatisfied, as always happened to him on those rare occasions when she missed the appointment. But he had thought little of the circumstance, nor had he been disturbed on Sunday at seeing the slow compu vacant during both services. The heavy snowstorm which had begun the night before accounted for at least Margaret's absence. Mr. Slocum told me to tell you that he wouldn't be in the yard today, said the girl. Miss Margaret is very ill. Ill, Richard repeated, and the smile with which he had leaned over the rail towards the window went out instantly on his lip. Dr. Weld was with her until five o'clock this morning, said the girl, fingering the corner of her apron. She's that low. What is the matter? It's a fever. What kind of fever? I don't mind me what the doctor called it. He thinks it comes from something wrong with the drains. He didn't say typhoid. Yes, that's the name of it. Richard ascended the stairs with a slow step, and a moment afterwards stood stupidly in the middle of the workshop. Margaret is going to die, he said to himself, giving voice to the dark foreboding that had instantly seized upon him. And in a swift vision he saw the end of all that simple, fortunate existence which he had lived without once reflecting it could ever end. He mechanically picked up a tool from the table and laid it down again. Then he seated himself on the low bench between the windows. It was Margaret's favourite place. It was not four days since she sat there reading to him. Already it appeared long ago, years and years ago. He could hardly remember when he did not have this heavy weight on his heart. His life of yesterday abruptly presented itself to him as a reminiscence. He saw now how happy that life had been, and how lightly he had accepted it. It took to itself all that precious quality of things irrevocably lost. The clamour of the bell in the south church striking noon and the shrilling of the steam whistle softened by the thick falling snow roused Richard from his abstraction. He was surprised that it was noon. He rose from the bench and went home through the storm, scarcely heating the sleet that slapped in his face like whiplashes. Margaret was going to die. For four or five weeks the world was nearly a blank to Richard Chakford. The insidious fever that came and went, bringing alternate despair and hope to the watchers in the hushed room, was in his veins also. He passed the days between his lonely lodgings in Lime Street and the studio, doing nothing, restless and episodic by turns, but with always a poignant sense of anxiety. He ceased to take any distinct measurement of time, further than to note that an interval of months seemed to separate Monday from Monday. Meanwhile, if new patterns had been required by the men, the work in the carving departments would have come to a deadlock. At length the shadow lifted, and there fell a day of soft may weather when Margaret, muffled in shawls and as white as death, was seated once more in her accustomed corner by the west window. She had insisted on being brought there the first practicable moment. No where else in the house was such sunshine, and Mr. Slokin himself had brought her in his arms. She leaned back against the pillows, smiling faintly. Her fingers lay locked on her lap, and the sunlight showed through the narrow, transparent palace. It was as if her hands were full of blush-roses. Richard breathed again, but not with so free a heart as before. What if she had died? He felt an immense pity for himself when he thought of that, and he thought of it continually as the days wore on. Either a great alteration had wrought itself in Margaret, or Richard beheld her through a clearer medium during the weeks of convalescence that followed. Was this the slight, sharp-faced girl he used to know? The eyes and the hair were the same, but the smile was deeper, and the pliant figure had lost its extreme slimmness without a sacrifice to its delicacy. The spring air was filling her veins with abundant health, and mantling her cheeks with a richer duskiness than they had ever worn. Margaret was positively handsome. Her beauty had come all in a single morning, like the crocuses. This beauty began to all Richard. It had the effect of seeming to remove her further and further from him. He grew moody and restless when they were together, and was wretched alone. His constraint did not escape Margaret. She watched him and wondered at his inexplicable depression, when everyone in the household was rejoicing in her recovery. By and by this depression wounded her, but she was too spirited to show the hurt. She always brought a book with her now, in her visits to the studio. It was less awkward to read than to sit silent and unspoken to over a piece of needlework. How very odd you are, said Margaret one afternoon, closing the volume which she had held mutely for several minutes, waiting for Richard to grasp the fact that she was reading aloud. I, odd, protested Richard, breaking with a jerk from one of his long reveries, in what way? As if I could explain, when you put the quotation suddenly like that. I didn't intend to be abrupt. I was curious to know. And then the charge itself was a trifle unexpected, if you will look at it. But never mind, he added with a smile. Think it over and tell me to-morrow. No, I will tell you now, since you are willing to wait. I wasn't really willing to wait, but I knew if I didn't pretend to be, I should never get it out of you. Very well, then, your duplicity is successful, Richard. I was puzzled where to begin with your oddities. Begin at the beginning. No, I will take the nearest. When a young lady is affable enough to read aloud to you, the least you can do is to listen to her. That is a deference you owe the author, when it happens to be Hawthorne, to say nothing of the young lady. But I have been listening, Margaret, every word. Where did I leave off? It was where the—and Richard knitted his brows in the vain effort to remember. Where the young daggerotypist—what's his name?—took up his residence in the house of Seven Gables. No, sir, you stand convicted. It was ten pages further on. The last words were—and Margaret read from the book. Good-night, cousin, said Phoebe, strangely affected by Hepshiba's manner. If you begin to love me, I am glad. There, sir, what do you say to that? Richard did not say anything, but he gave a guilty start, and shot a rapid glance at Margaret, coolly enjoying her triumph. In the next place, she continued soberly after a pause, I think it very odd in you not to reply to me. Oh, not now, for, of course, you are without a word of justification. But at other times, frequently, when I speak to you, you look at me so, making a vacant little face, and then suddenly disappear. I don't mean bodily, but mentally. I am no great talker at best, said Richard with a helpless air. I seldom speak unless I have something to say. But other people do. I, for instance. Oh, you, Margaret, that is different. When you talk, I don't much mind what you are talking about. I like a neat, delicate compliment like that. What a perverse girl you are today! cried Richard. You won't understand me. I mean that your words and your voice are so pleasant they make anything interesting, whether it's important or not. If no one were to speak until he had something important to communicate, observed Margaret, conversation in this world would come to a general stop. Then she added with a little ironical smile, even you, Richard, wouldn't be talking all the time. Formerly, Margaret's little sarcasm, even when they struck him point-blank, used amuse, Richard, but now he winced at being merely grazed. Margaret went on. But it's not a bit necessary to be circular or instructive with me. I am interested in trivial matters, in the weather, in my spring hat, in what you are going to do next, and the like. One must occupy oneself with something. But you, Richard, nowadays you seem interested in nothing, and have nothing whatever to say. Poor Richard, he had a great deal to say, but he did not know how, nor if it were wise to breathe it. Just three little words, murmured or whispered, and the whole conditions would be changed. With those fateful words uttered, what would be Margaret's probable attitude, and what Mr. Slocums? Though the line which formally drew itself between employer and employee had grown faint with time, it still existed in Richard's mind, and now came to the surface with great distinctness, like a word written in sympathetic ink. If he spoke, and Margaret was startled or offended, then there was an end to their free, unembarrassed intercourse, perhaps an end to all intercourse. By keeping his secret in his breast, he at least secured the present. But that was to risk everything. Any day somebody might come and carry Margaret off under his very eyes. As he reflected on this, the shadow of John Dana, the son of the rich iron manufacturer, etched itself sharply upon Richard's imagination. Within the week, young Dana had declared in the presence of Richard that Margaret's Slocum was an awfully nice little thing, and the Othello in Richard's blood had been set seething. Then his thought glanced from John Dana to Mr. Pinkham, and the reverend Arthur Langley, both of whom were assiduous visitors at the house. The former had lately taken to accompanying Margaret on the piano with his dismal little flute, and the latter was perpetually making a moth of himself about her class at Sunday School. Richard stood with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon the plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things. Presently he heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere in the distance, saying, I have not finished yet, Richard. Go on, said Richard, falling to work again with a kind of galvanic action. Go on, please. I have a serious grievance. Frankly, I am hurt by your preoccupation and indifference, your want of openness or cordiality. I don't know how to name it. You are the only person who seems to be unaware that I escaped a great danger a month ago. I am obliged to remember all the agreeable hours I have spent in the studio, to keep off the impression that during my illness you got used to not seeing me, and that now my presence somehow obstructs your work and annoys you. Richard threw his chisel on the bench, and crossed over to the window where Margaret was. You are as wrong as can be, he said, looking down on her half lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding, for the abruptness of Richard's movement had startled her. I am glad if I am wrong. It is nearly an unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark as you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had died that time, you would have been very sorry. Sorry? No. That doesn't express it. One outlives near her sorrow. If anything had happened to you, I should never have got over it. You don't know what those five weeks were to me. It was a kind of death to come to this room day after day and not find you. Margaret rested her eyes thoughtfully on the space occupied by Richard, rather than on Richard himself, seeming to look through and beyond him as if he were in corporeal. You missed me like that, she said slowly. I missed you like that. Margaret meditated a moment. In the first days of my illness I wondered if you didn't miss me a little. Afterwards everything was confused in my mind. When I tried to think, I seemed to be somebody else. I seemed to be you, waiting for me here in the studio. Wasn't that singular? But when I recovered and returned to my old place, I began to suspect I had been bearing your anxiety, that I had been distressed by the absence to which you had grown accustomed. I never got used to it, Margaret. It became more and more unendurable. This workshop was full of your absence. There wasn't a sketch or a cast or an object in the room that didn't remind me of you, and seemed to mock at me for having let the most precious moments of my life slip away unheeded. That bit of geranium in the glass yonder seemed to say with its dying breath, you have cared for neither of us, as you ought to have cared. My scent and her goodness have been all one to you, things to take or to leave. It was for no merit of yours that she was always planning something to make life smoother and brighter for you. What had you done to deserve it? How unselfish and generous and good she had been to you for years and years. What would have become of you without her? She left me here on purpose. It's the geranium leaf that is speaking all the while, Margaret. To say this to you, and to tell you that she was not half-appreciated, but now you have lost her. As she leaned forward listening, with her lips slightly parted, Margaret gave an unconscious, little approbative nod of the head. Richard's fanciful accusation of himself caused her a singular thrill of pleasure. He had never before spoken to her in just this fashion. The subterfuge which his tenderness had employed, the little detour it had made in order to get at her, was a novel species of flattery. She recognized the ring of a distinctly new note in his voice, but strangely enough, the note lost its unfamiliarity in an instant. Margaret recognized that fact also, and as she swiftly speculated upon the phenomenon, her pulse went one or two strokes faster. Oh, you poor boy, she said, looking up with a laugh, and a flush so interfused that they seemed one. That geranium took a great deal upon itself. It went quite beyond its instructions, which were simply to remind you of me now and then. One day, while you were out, the day before I was taken ill, I placed the flowers on the desk there, perhaps with a kind of premonition that I was going away from you for a time. What if you had never come back? I wouldn't think of that if I were you, said Margaret softly. But it haunts me, that thought. Sometimes of a morning, after I unlocked the workshop door, I stand hesitating, with my hand on the latch, as one might hesitate a few seconds, before stepping into a tomb. There were days last month, Margaret, when this chamber did appear to me like a tomb. All that was happy in my past seemed to lie buried here. It was something visible and tangible. I used to steal in and look upon it. Oh, Richard! If you only knew what a life I led as a boy in my cousin's house, and what a doleful existence for years afterwards, until I found you, perhaps you would understand my despair, when I saw everything suddenly slipping away from me. Margaret, the day your father brought you in here, I had all I could do not to kneel down at your feet. Richard, stop short. I didn't mean to tell you that, he said, turning towards the work-table. Then he checked himself, and came and stood in front of her again. He had gone too far not to go further. While you were ill, I made a great discovery. What was that, Richard? I discovered that I had been blind for two or three years. Blind, repeated Margaret. Stone blind. I discovered it by suddenly seeing, by seeing that I had loved you all the while, Margaret. Are you offended? No, said Margaret slowly. She was a moment finding her voice to say it. I ought I to be offended? Not if you are not, said Richard. Then I am not. I—I've made little discoveries myself, murmured Margaret, going into full mourning with her eyelashes. But it was only for an instant. She refused to take her happiness shyly or insincerely. It was something too sacred. She was a trifle appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met him with some natural coca-tree. But Richard's tone and manner had been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration, moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or less plain to her that last month, and she had diligently disciplined herself to accept Richard's friendship, since it seemed all he had to give. Indeed, it had seemed at times as if he had not even that. When Margaret lifted her eyes to him, a second after her confession, they were full of a sweet seriousness, and she had no thought of withdrawing the hands which Richard had taken and was holding lightly, that she might withdraw them if she willed. She felt no impulse to do so, though as Margaret looked up she saw her father standing a few paces behind Richard. With an occult sense of another presence in the room, Richard turned at the same instant. Mr. Slocum had advanced two steps into the apartment, and had been brought to a dead halt by the surprising tableau in the embrasure of the window. He stood motionless with an account book under his arm, while a dozen expressions chased each other over his countenance. Mr. Slocum, said Richard, who saw that only one course lay open to him. I love Margaret, and I have been telling her. At that the flitting shadows on Mr. Slocum's face settled into one grave look. He did not reply immediately, but let his glance wander from Margaret to Richard and back again to Margaret, slowly digesting the fact. It was evident he had not relished it. Meanwhile the girl had risen from the chair and was moving towards her father. That strikes me as very extraordinary, he said at last. You have never given any intimation that such a feeling existed. How long has this been going on? I have always been fond of Margaret, sir, but I was not aware of the strength of the attachment until the time of her illness when I—that is, we—came near to losing her. And you, Margaret? As Mr. Slocum spoke, he instinctively put one arm around Margaret, who had crept closely to his side. I don't know when I began to love Richard, said Margaret simply. You don't know? Perhaps it was while I was ill. Perhaps it was long before that. Maybe my liking for him commenced as far back as the time he made the cast of my hand. How can I tell, Papa? I don't know. There appears to be an amazing diffusion of ignorance here. Margaret bit her lip and kept still. Her father was taking it a great deal more seriously than she had expected. A long, awkward silence ensued. Richard broke it at last by remarking uneasily. Nothing has ever been or was to be concealed from you. Before going to sleep tonight, Margaret would have told you all I've said to her. You should have consulted with me before saying anything. I intended to do so, but my words got away from me. I hope you will overlook it, sir, and not oppose my loving Margaret, though I see as plainly as you do, that I am not worthy of her. I have not said that. I base my disapproval on entirely different ground. Margaret is too young, a girl of seventeen or eighteen. Nineteen, said Margaret parenthetically. Of nineteen, then, has no business to bother her head with such matters. Only yesterday she was a child. Richard glanced across at Margaret, an endeavor to recall her as she impressed him that first afternoon, when she knocked defiantly at the workshop door, to inquire if he wanted any pans and pales. But he was totally unable to reconstruct that crude little figure with the glossy black head, all eyes and beak like a young hawk's. My objection is impersonal, continued Mr. Slocum. I object to the idea. I wish this had not happened. I might not have disliked it years hence. I don't say, but I dislike it now. Richard's face brightened. It will be years hence in a few years. Mr. Slocum replied with a slow, grave smile. I am not going to be unreasonable in a matter where I find Margaret's happiness concerned. And yours, Richard. I care for that, too. But I'll have no entanglements. You and she are to be good friends and nothing beyond. I prefer that Margaret should not come to the studio so often. You shall see her whenever you like at our fireside. Of an evening. I don't think the condition's hard. Mr. Slocum had dictated terms. But it was virtually a surrender. Margaret listened to him with her cheek resting against his arm, and a warm light nestled down deep under her eyelids. Mr. Slocum drew a half-pathetic sigh. I presume I have not done wisely. Everyone bullies me. The Marble Workers Association ruins my yard for me. And now my daughter is taken off my hands. By the way, Richard, he said, interrupting himself brusquely, and with an air of dismissing the subject. I forgot what I came for. I am thinking over Turini's case, and have concluded that you had better make up his account and discharge him. Certainly, sir, replied Richard, with a shadow of descent in his manner, if you wish it. He causes a great deal of trouble in the yard. I am afraid he does. Such a clean workman when he's sober. But he is never sober. He has been in a bad way lately, I admit. His example demoralizes the men. I can see it day by day. I wish you were not so necessary at this moment, observed Richard. I don't know who else could be trusted with the frazz for the soldier's monument. I'd like to keep him on a week or ten days longer. Suppose I have a plain talk with Turini. Surely we have enough good hands to stand the loss of one. For a special kind of work there is nobody in the yard like Turini. That is one reason why I want to hold on to him for a while, and there are other reasons. Such as what? Well, I think it would not be holy politic to break with him just now. Why not now, as well as any time? He has lately been elected Secretary of the Association. What of that? He has a great deal of influence there. If we put him out of the works, it seems to me he would lose his importance, if he really has any to speak of. You are mistaken, if you doubt it. His position gives him a chance to do much mischief, and he would avail himself of it very adroitly, if he had a personal grievance. I believe you are actually afraid of the fellow. Richard smiled. No, I am not afraid of him, but I don't underrate him. The men look up to Turini as a sort of leader. He's an effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a dissatisfaction. Either he or some other disturbing element has recently been at work among the men. There's considerable grumbling in the yard. They are always grumbling, aren't they? Most always, but this is more serious than usual. There appears to be a general stir among the trades in the village. I don't understand it clearly. The marble workers have been holding secret meetings. They mean business, you think? They mean increased wages, perhaps. But we are now paying from five to ten percent more than any trade in the place. What are they after? So far as I can gather, sir, the finishers and the slab sores want in advance. I don't know how much. Then there's some talk about having the yard closed an hour earlier on Saturdays. All this is merely rumour, but I am sure there is something in it. Khan found the whole lot. If we can't discharge a drunken hand without raising the pay of all the rest, we had better turn over the entire business to the association. But do as you like, Richard. You see how I am bullied, Margaret? He runs everything. Come, dear. And Mr. Slocum quitted the workshop, taking Margaret with him. Richard remained standing a while by the table in a deep study, with his eyes fixed on the floor. He thought of his early days in the separable house in Welch's Court, of his wanderings abroad, his long years of toil since then, and this sudden blissful love that had come to him and Mr. Slocum's generosity. Then he thought of Terini, and went down into the yard gently to admonish the man. For Richard's heart, that hour, was full of kindness for all the world. In spite of Mr. Slocum's stipulations, respecting the frequency of Margaret's visits to the studio, she was free to come and go as she liked. It was easy for him to say, be good friends, and nothing beyond. But after that day in the workshop, it was impossible for Richard and Margaret to be anything but lovers. The hollowness of pretending otherwise was clear even to Mr. Slocum. In the love of a father for a daughter, there is always a vague jealousy which refuses to render a coherent explanation of itself. Mr. Slocum did not escape this, but he managed, nevertheless, to accept the inevitable with very fair grace, and presently to confess to himself that the occurrence which had at first taken him aback was the most natural in the world. That Margaret and Richard, thrown together as they had been, should end by falling in love with each other was not a result to justify much surprise. Indeed, there was a special propriety in their doing so. The Shackfords had always been reputable people in the village, down to Lemuel Shackford, who of course was an old muskrat. The family attributes of amiability and honesty had skipped him, but they had reappeared in Richard. It was through his foresight and personal energy that the most lucrative branch of the trade had been established. His services entitled him to a future interest in the business, and Mr. Slocum intended he should have it. Mr. Slocum had not dreamed of throwing in Margaret also, but since that addition had suggested itself, it seemed to him one of the happy features of the arrangement. Richard would thus be doubly identified with the yard, to which in fact he had become more necessary than Mr. Slocum himself. He has more backbone with the men than I have, acknowledged Mr. Slocum. He knows how to manage them, and I don't. As soft as Slocum was a still-water proverb. Richard certainly had plenty of backbone. It was his only capital. In Mr. Slocum's estimation it was sufficient capital, but Lemuel Shackford was a very rich man, and Mr. Slocum could not avoid seeing that it would be decent in Richard's only surviving relative if, at this juncture, he were to display a little interest in a young fellow's welfare. If he would only offer to advance a few thousand dollars for Richard, said Mr. Slocum one evening to Margaret, with whom he had been talking over the future, the property must all come to him sometime, it would be a vast satisfaction to me to tell the old man that we can get along without any of his ill-gotten gains. He made the bulk of his fortune during the war, you know, the old sea-serpent, continued Mr. Slocum, with hopeless confusion of metaphor, had a hand in fitting out more than one blockade-runner. They used to talk of a ship that got away from Charleston with a cargo of cotton that netted the shareholders upwards of two hundred thousand dollars. He denies it now, but everybody knows, Shackford, he'd betray his country for fifty cents in postage stamps. Oh, Papa, you are too hard on him. In words dropped cursorily from time to time Margaret imparted to Richard the substance of her father's speech, and it set Richard reflecting. It was not among the probabilities that Lemuel Shackford would advance a dollar to establish Richard, but if he could induce his cousin even to take the matter into consideration, Richard felt that it would be a kind of moral support to him circumstance as he was. His pride revolted at the idea of coming quite unbacked and disowned, as well as empty-handed to Mr. Slocum. For the last twelve months there had been a cessation of ordinary courtesies between the two cousins. They now passed each other on the street without recognition. A year previously Mr. Shackford had fallen ill, and Richard, aware of the inefficient domestic arrangements in Welch's court, had gone to the house out of Sherpity. The old man was in bed and weak with fever, but at seeing Richard he managed to race himself on one elbow. Oh, it's you. He exclaimed mockingly, when our rich man is sick, the anxious heirs crowd around him, but they're twice as honestly anxious when he is perfectly well. I came to see if I could do anything for you, cried Richard, with a ferocious glare, and in a tone that went curiously with his words, and shook to the foundations his character of good Samaritan. The only thing you can do for me is to go away. I'll do that with pleasure, retorted Richard bitterly, and Richard went, vowing he would never set foot across the threshold again. He could not help having ugly thoughts. Why should all the efforts to bring about a reconciliation and all the forbearance be on his side? Thenceforth the crabed old man might go to perdition if he wanted to. And now here was Richard meditating a visit to that same house to beg a favour. Nothing but his love for Margaret could have dragged him to such a banquet of humble pie as he knew was spread for his delectation, the morning he passed up the main street of Stillwater and turned into Welch's court. As Richard laid his hand on the latch of the gate, Mr. Shackford, who was digging in the front garden, looked up and saw him. Without paying any heed to Richard's amicable salutation, the old man left the shovel sticking in the sod and walked stiffly into the house. At another moment this would have amused Richard, but now he gravely followed his kinsmen and overtook him at the foot of the staircase. Cousin Shackford, can you spare me five or ten minutes? Don't know as I can, said Mr. Shackford, with one foot on the lower stair. Time is valuable. What do you want? You want something? Certainly, or I wouldn't think of trespassing on your time. Has Slocum thrown you over? Inquired the old man, turning quickly. A straw, which he held between his thin lips, helped to give him a singularly alert expression. No, Mr. Slocum and I agree the best in the world. I want to talk with you briefly on certain matters. I want to be on decent terms with you, if you will let me. Decent terms means money, doesn't it? said Mr. Shackford, with a face as wary and lean as a shark's. I do wish to talk about money, among other things, returned Richard, whom this brutal directness disconcerted a little. Money on satisfactory security. You can get it anywhere with that. So I might, and be asking no favour, but I would rather get it of you and consider it an obligation. I would rather you wouldn't. Listen to me a moment. Well, I'm listening. Mr. Shackford stood in an attitude of attention, with his head canted on one side, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and the straw between his teeth tilted up at an angle of forty degrees. I have, as you know, worked my way in the marble yard to the position of General Manager, began Richard. I didn't know, said Mr. Shackford, but I understand. You're a sort of head gravestone-maker. That is taking a rather gloomy view of it, said Richard, but no matter. The point is, I hold a responsible position, and I now have a chance to purchase a share in the works. Slocum is willing to take in, eh? Yes. Then the concern is hit. Hit? Slocum is going into bankruptcy. You are wrong there. The yard was never so prosperous. The coming year we shall coin money like a mint. You ought to know, said Mr. Shackford, ruminatively. A thing as good as a mint must be a good thing. If I were a partner in the business, I could marry Margaret. Who's Margaret? Mr. Slocum's daughter. That's where the wind is. Now how much capital would it take to do all that? Inquired Mr. Shackford, with an air of affable speculation. Three or four thousand dollars, perhaps less. Well, I wouldn't give you three or four cents to have you marry Slocum's daughter. Richard, you can't pull any chestnuts out of the fire with my paw. Mr. Shackford's interrogation and his more than usual conciliatory manner had lighted a hope which Richard had not brought with him. Its sudden extinguishment was, in consequence, doubly aggravating. Slocum's daughter, repeated Mr. Shackford. I'd assume you'd marry Crazy Nan up at the work-house. The association of Crazy Nan with Margaret sent a red flush into Richard's cheek. He turned angrily towards the door, and then halted, recollecting the resolve he had made not to lose his temper, come what would. If the interview was to end there, it had better not have taken place. I had no expectation that you would assist me pecuniarily, said Richard, after a moment. Let us drop the money question. It shouldn't have come up between us. I want you to aid me, not by lending me money, but by giving me your countenance as the head of the family, by showing a natural interest in my affairs, and seeming disposed to promote them. By just seeming? That is really all I desire. If you were to propose to put capital into the concern, Mr. Slocum would refuse it. Slocum would refuse it? Why in the devil should he refuse it? Because— Richard hesitated, finding himself unexpectedly on delicate ground, because he would not care to enter into business relations with you under the circumstances. Mr. Shackford removed the straw from his mouth, and holding it between his thumb and forefinger, peered steadily through his half-closed eyelids at Richard. I don't understand you. The dispute you had long ago, over the piece of metal land behind the marble yard, Mr. Slocum felt that you bore on him rather heavily in that matter, and has not quite forgiven you for forcing him to rebuild the sheds. Father Slocum and his sheds, I understand him. What I don't understand is you. I am to offer Slocum three or four thousand dollars to set you up, and he is to decline to take it. Is that it? That is not it at all, returned Richard. My statement was this. If you were to propose purchasing a share for me in the works, Mr. Slocum would not entertain the proposition, thinking, as I don't think, that he would mortify you by the refusal of your money. The only way Slocum could mortify me would be by getting hold of it. But what are you driving at, anyhow? In one breath you demand several thousand dollars, and in the next breath you tell me that nobody expects it or wants it, or could be induced to have it on any terms. Perhaps you will inform me what you are here for. That is what you will never discover, cried Richard. It is not in you to comprehend the ties of sympathy that ought to hold between two persons situated as we are. In most families this sympathy binds closely at times, at christnings or burials, or when some member is about to take an important step in life. Generally speaking, blood is thicker than water, but your blood, Cousin Shackford, seems to be a good deal thinner. I came here to consult with you as my sole remaining kinsman, as one authorized by years and physician to give me wise counsel and kindly encouragement at the turning point in my fortune. I didn't wish to go among those people like a tramp, with neither kith nor kin to say a word for me. Of course you don't understand that. How should you? A sentiment of that kind is something quite beyond your conception. Richard's words went into one ear and out the other, without seeming for an instant to arrest Mr. Shackford's attention. The idea of Slocum not accepting money, anybody's money, presented itself to Mr. Shackford in so facetious a light as nearly to throw him into good humor. His foot was on the first step of the staircase, which he now began slowly to mount, giving vent as he ascended to a series of indescribable chuckles. At the top of the landing he halted and leaned over the rail. To think of Slocum refusing, that's a good one. In the midst of his jocularity a sudden thought seemed to strike Mr. Shackford. His features underwent a swift transformation, and as he grasped the rail in front of him with both hands a malicious cunning writhed and squirmed in every wrinkle of his face. Sir, he shrieked, it was a trap. Slocum would have taken it. If I had been ass-enough to make any such offer, he would have jumped at it. What do you and Slocum take me for? You are a pair of rascals. Richard staggered back, bewildered and blinded, as if he had received a blow in the eyes. No, continued Mr. Shackford, with a gesture of intense contempt. You are less than rascals. You are fools. Our rascal has to have brains. You, shameless old man, cried Richard, as soon as he could get his voice. To do Mr. Shackford justice, he was thoroughly convinced that Richard had lent himself to a preposterous attempt to obtain money from him. The absence of ordinary shrewdness in the method stamped it at once as belonging to Slocum, of whose mental caliber Mr. Shackford entertained no flattering estimate. Slocum! He muttered, grinding the word between his teeth. Family ties! he cried, hurling the word scornfully over the banister as he disappeared into one of the upper chambers. Richard stood with one hand on the nule-post, white at the lip with rage. For a second he had a wild impulse to spring up the staircase, but, controlling this, he turned and hurried out of the house. At the gate he brushed roughly against a girl, who halted and stared. It was a strange thing to see Mr. Richard Shackford, who always had a pleasant word for a body, go by in that blind, excited fashion, striking one fist into the palm of the other hand, and talking to his own self. Mary Hennessey watched him, until he wheeled out of Welch's court, and then picking up her basket which he had rested on the fence, went her way. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII OF THE STILLWOODER TRAGEDY This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. THE STILLWOODER TRAGEDY by Thomas Bailey Aldrich CHAPTER XII At the main entrance to the marble-works, Richard nearly walked over a man who was coming out, intently mopping his forehead with a very dirty calico handkerchief. It was an English stone-dresser, named Denevin. Richard did not recognize him at first. That you, Denevin, what has happened? I've had a bit of a scrimmage, sir. A scrimmage in the yard, in work hours? The man nodded. With whom? Tarini, sir. He's awful bad this day. Tarini, it's always Tarini. It seems odd that one man should be everlastingly at the bottom of everything wrong. How did it happen? Give it to me straight, Denevin. I don't want a crooked story. This thing has got to stop in Slocum's yard. The way of it was this, sir. Tarini wasn't at the shop this morning. He had a day off. I know. But about one o'clock, sir. He came into the yard. He had been in the public house, sir. And he was humming. First he went among the carvers, talking Italian to him and making him laugh, though he was in a precious bad humor, himself. By and by he came over to where me and my mates was, and began chafing us. Which we didn't mind it. See, and he was heavy in the head. He was as clear as a foghorn all the same. But when he took to banging the tools on the blocks, I sings out, And's off! And then he fetched me a clip. I was never looking for nothing less than eat it me. I was a-smiling at the instant. He must be drunker than usual. Effidently, sir. I went down between two slabs as soft as you please. When I got on my pins, I whispered chokin' him a bit, But my mates held us apart. That's the ol' of it, sir. They'll tell you the same within. Are you hurt, Donovan? Only a bit but a scratch over the eye, sir. And a nose. And the man began mopping his brow tenderly. I'd like to have that Italian for about ten minutes some day when he's sober. Over yonder on the green. I'm afraid he would make the ten minutes seem long to you. Well, sir. I'd willingly let him try his hand. How is it, Donovan? said Richard, that you insensible working men like you have permitted such a quarrelsome and irresponsible fellow to become a leader in the association. He's secretary or something, isn't he? Well, sir. He writes at an uncommonly clean fist. And then he's a born orator. He's up to all the parliamentary dodges. Must have had no end of experience in them or things on the other side. No doubt, and that accounts for him being over here. As far organized as I meet in, sir. I know. Torini has a great deal of that kind of ability, perhaps a trifle too much for his own good or anybody else's. There was never any trouble to speak of among the trades in still water, till he or two or three others came here with foreign grievances. These men get three times the pay they ever received in their own land and are treated like human beings for the first time in their lives. But what do they do? They squander a quarter of their week's wages at the tavern. No rich man could afford to put a fourth of his income into drink and make windy speeches at the union. I don't say all of them, but too many of them. The other night I understand Torini compared Mr. Slocum to Nero. Mr. Slocum, the fairest and gentlest man that ever breathed, what rubbish. It wasn't just that way, sir. His words were, and I heard him, from Nero down to Slocum. It amounts to the same thing, and is enough to make one laugh if he didn't make one want to swear. I hear that it was a very lively meeting the other night. What was that nonsense about the privileged class? Well, that is a privileged class in the States. So there is, but it's a large class then of in. Every soul of us has the privilege of bettering our condition if we have the brain and the industry to do it. Energy and intelligence come to the front and have the right to be there. A skillful workman gets double the pay of a bungler and deserves it. Of course there will always be rich and poor and sick and sound, and I don't see how that can be changed. But no door is shut against ability, black or white. Before the year 2400, we shall have a chrome yellow president and a black and tan secretary of the treasury. But seriously, Denevint, whoever talks about privileged classes here does it to make mischief. There are certain small politicians who reap their harvest in times of public confusion, just as pickpockets do. Nobody can play the tyrant or the bully in this country, not even a working man. Here's the association, dead against an employer who, two years ago, ran his yard full-handed for a twelve-month at a loss, rather than shut down, as every other mill and factory in Stillwater did. For years and years the association has prevented this employer from training more than two apprentices annually. The result is 80 hands find work instead of 180. Now that can't last. It keeps wages fixed in Stillwater, sir. It keeps out a hundred workmen. It sends away capital. Tarini says, sir. Steer clear of Tarini and what he says. He is a dangerous fellow for his friends. It is handsome in you, Denevint, to speak up for him. With that eye of yours. Oh, I don't love the man when it comes to that. But there's no denying he's right smart, replied Denevint, who occasionally marred his vernacular with Americanisms. The association can do without him. But Slocum's yard can, said Richard, irritated to observe the influence Tarini exerted on even such men as Denevint. That's between you and him, sir, of course, but what? Well, sir, I can't say exactly, but if I was you, I would buy it a bit. No, I think Tarini's time has come. I don't make bold to advise you, sir. I merely toss out the observation. With that, Denevint departed to apply to his bruises such herbs and symbols as a long experience had taught him to be efficacious. He had gone only a few rods, however, when it occurred to him that there were probabilities of a stormy scene in the yard, so he turned on his tracks and followed Richard Shackford. Tarini was a Neapolitan who had come to the country seven or eight years before. He was a man above the average intelligence of his class, a marble worker by trade, but he had been a fisherman, a mountain guide among the Abruzi, a soldier in the papal guard, and what not, and had contrived to pick up two or three languages, among the rest English, which he spoke with purity. His lingual gift was one of his misfortunes. Among the exotics in Stillwater, which even boasted of a featureless celestial, who had unobtrusively extinguished himself with a stovepipe hat, Tarini was the only figure that approached picturesqueness. With his swarthy complexion and large indolent eyes, in which a southern ferocity slept lightly, he seemed to Richard a peace out of his own foreign experience. To him Tarini was the crystallization of Italy, or so much of that Italy as Richard had caught a glimpse of at Genoa. To the town folks Tarini perhaps vaguely suggested hand-organs and the limo-scenario pennies, but Richard never looked at the straight-limbed handsome fellow without recalling the frigid and cap-sailors of the Mediterranean. On this account, and for other reasons, Richard had taken a great fancy to the man. Tarini had worked in the ornamental department from the first, and was a rapid and expert carver when he chose. He had carried himself steadily enough in the beginning, but in these later days, as Mr. Slocum had stated, he was scarcely ever sober. Richard had stood between him and his discharge on several occasions, partly because he was so skillful a workman, and partly through pity for his wife and children, who were unable to speak a word of English. But Tarini's influence on the men in the yard, especially on the younger hands, who needed quite other influences, and his intemperate speeches at the trade union, where he had recently gained a kind of ascendancy by his daring, were producing the worst effects. At another hour, Richard might have been inclined to condone this last offense, as he had condoned others. But when he parted from Denevin, Richard's heart was still hot with his cousin's insult, as he turned into the yard, not with his usual swinging gait, but with a quick, wide step. There was an unpleasant dilation about young Shackford's nostrils. Tarini was seated on a block of granite in front of the upper sheds, flourishing a small chisel in one hand, and addressing the men, a number of whom had stopped work to listen to him. At sight of Richard they made a show of handling their tools, but it was so clear something grave was going to happen that the pretense fell through. They remained motionless, resting on their mallets, with their eyes turned towards Richard. Tarini followed the general glance, and paused in his harangue. "'Talk of the devil,' he muttered, and then apparently continuing the threat of his discourse, broke into a strain of noisy declination. Richard walked up to him quietly. "'Tarini,' he said, "'you can't be allowed to speak here, you know.' "'I can speak what I like,' replied Tarini gravely. He was drunk, but the intoxication was not in his tongue. His head, as Denevin had asserted, was as clear as a foghorn. "'When you are sober you can come to the desk and get your pay and your kit. You are discharged from the yard.' Richard was standing within two paces of the man, who looked up with an uncertain smile, as if he had not quite taken in the sense of the words. Then, suddenly straightening himself, he exclaimed, "'Slocum, don't dare do it!' "'But I do.' "'You?' "'When I do a thing, Mr. Slocum backs me.' "'But who backs Slocum, the association, maybe?' "'Certainly the association ought to. I want you to leave the yard now.' "'He backs Slocum,' said Tarini, settling himself on the block again, and Slocum backs down.' At which there was a laugh among the men. Richard made a step forward. "'Hands off!' cried a voice from under the sheds. "'Who said that?' demanded Richard, wheeling around. No one answered, but Richard had recognized Durgin's voice. "'Tarini, if you don't quit the yard in two minutes by the clock yonder, I shall put you out by the neck. Do you understand?' Tarini glared about him confusedly for a moment and broke into voluble Italian. Then, without a warning gesture, sprung to his feet and struck at Richard. A straight red line, running vertically the length of his cheek, showed where the chisel had grazed him. The shops were instantly in a tumult, the men dropping their tools and stumbling over the blocks, with cries of, "'Keep them apart!' "'Shame on you! Look out, Mr. Shackford!' "'Is it mad, yeah, Tarini?' cried Michael Hennessy, hurrying from the saw-bench. Durgin held him back by the shoulders. "'Let him alone!' said Durgin. The steel flashed again in the sunlight, but fell harmlessly, and before the blow could be repeated, Richard had knitted his fingers in Tarini's neckerchief and twisted it so tightly that the man gasped. Holding him by this, Richard dragged Tarini across the yard and let him drop on the sidewalk outside the gate, where he lay in a heap inert. "'That was Nate!' said Michael Hennessy, senticiously. Richard stood leaning on the gate-post to recover his breath. His face was colorless, and the crimson line defined itself sharply against the pallor. But the rage was dead within him. It had been one of his own kind of rages, like lightning out of a blue sky. As he stood there, a smile was slowly gathering on his lip. A score or two of the men had followed him, and now lounged in a half-circle a few paces in the rear. When Richard was aware of their presence, the glow came into his eyes again. "'Who ordered you to knock off work?' "'That was a foul blow of Tarini, sir,' said Stephen, stepping forward. "'And I, for one, come to see fair play.' "'Give us your hand, mate,' said Denevin. "'There's a pair of us.' "'Thanks,' said Richard, softening at once, but there's no need. Every man could go to his job. Denevin may stay, if he likes.' The men lingered a moment, irresolute, and returned to the sheds in silence. Presently, Tarini stretched out one leg, then the other, and slowly rose to his feet, giving a stupid glance at his empty hands as he did so. "'Here's your tool,' said Richard, stirring the chisel with the toe of his boot. "'If that's what you're looking for?' Tarini advanced a step as if to pick it up, then appeared to alter his mind, hesitated perhaps a dozen seconds, and turning abruptly on his heel, walked down the street without a stagger. "'I think his legs are shut off from the rest of his body by watertight compartments,' remarked Denevin, regarding Tarini's steady gait with mingled amusement and envy. "'Are you hurt, sir?' "'Only a bit of a scratch in the hay,' replied Richard with a laugh. "'As I observe just not to Mr. Stephen, sir, there's a pair of us.' End of CHAPTER XIII After a turn through the shops to assure himself that order was restored, Richard withdrew in the direction of his studio. Margaret was standing at the head of the stairs, half hidden by the scarlet creeper, which draped that end of the veranda. "'What are you doing here?' said Richard, looking up with a bright smile. "'Oh, Richard, I saw it all.' "'You didn't see anything worth having white cheeks about?' "'But he struck you. With the knife, did he not?' said Margaret, clinging to his arm anxiously. "'He didn't have a knife, dear, only a small chisel, which couldn't hurt anyone. See for yourself, it is merely a cat scratch.' Margaret satisfied herself that it was nothing more, but she nevertheless insisted on leading Richard into the workshop, and soothing the slight inflammation with her handkerchief dipped in arnica and water. The elusive, faint fragrance of Margaret's hair, as she busied herself about him, would of itself have consoled Richard for a deep wound. All this pretty solicitude and ministration was new and sweet to him. And when the arnica turned out to be cologne and scorched his cheek, Margaret's remorse was so delicious that Richard half-wished the mixture had been aquaforsia. "'You shouldn't have been looking into the yard,' he said. "'If I had known that you were watching us, it would have distracted me. When I am thinking of you, I cannot think of anything else, and I had need of my wits for a moment.' "'I happened to be on the veranda, and was too frightened to go away. Why did you quarrel?' In giving Margaret an account of the matter, Richard refrained from any mention of his humiliating visit to Welch's court that morning. He could neither speak of it, nor reflect upon it with composure. The cloud which shattered his features from time to time was attributed by Margaret to the affair in the yard. "'But this is the end of it, is it not?' she asked, with troubled eyes. "'You will not have any further words with him?' "'You needn't worry. If Terini had not been drinking, he would never have lifted his hand against me. When he comes out of his present state, he will be heartily ashamed of himself. His tongue is the only malicious part of him, if he hadn't a taste for drink in oratory, if he was not a born orator, as Dennevin calls him, he would do well enough.' "'No, Richard. He's a dreadful man. I shall never forget his face. It was some wild animals.' "'And you, Richard?' added Margaret softly. It grieved me to see you look like that.' "'I was wolfish for a moment, I suppose. Things had gone wrong generally. But if you're going to scold me, Margaret, I would rather have some more, Arnica.' "'I am not going to scold. But while you stood there, so white and terrible, so unlike yourself, I felt that I did not know you, Richard. Of course you had to defend yourself when the man attacked you. But I thought for an instant you would kill him.' "'Not I,' said Richard uneasily, dreading anything like a rebuke from Margaret. I am mortified that I gave up to my anger. There was no occasion. If an intoxicated person were to wander into the yard, Papa would send for a constable, and have the person removed. "'Your father is an elderly man,' returned Richard, not relishing this oblique criticism of his own simpler method. What would be proper in his case would be considered terribly in mine. It was my duty to discharge the fellow, and not let him dispute my authority. I ought to have been cooler, of course. But I should have lost cast and influence with the men if I had shown the least personal fear of Terini. If, for example, I had summoned somebody else to do what I didn't dare do myself. I was brought up in the yard, remember, and to a certain extent I have to submit to being weighed in the yard's own scales.' "'But a thing cannot be weighed in the scale incapable of containing it,' answered Margaret. The judgment of these rough, uninstructed men is too narrow for such as you. They quarrel and fight among themselves and have their ideas of daring, but there is a higher sort of bravery, the bravery of self-control, which I fancy they do not understand very well. So their opinion of it is not worth considering. However, you know better than I.' "'No, I do not,' said Richard. Your instinct is finer than my reason, but you are scolding me, Margaret.' "'No, I am loving you,' she said softly. How can I do that more faithfully than by being dissatisfied with anything but the best in you?' "'I wasn't at my best a while ago.' "'No, Richard. I can never hope to be worthy of you.' But Margaret protested against that. Having forced him to look at his action through her eyes, she outdid him in humility, and then the conversation drifted off into half-breathed nothings, which, though they were satisfactory enough for these two, would have made a third person yawn. The occurrence at Slocum's Yard was hotly discussed that night at the Stillwater Hotel. Discussions in that long, low bar room, where the latest village scandal always came to receive the finishing gloss, were apt to be hot. In their criticism of outside men and measures, as well as in their mutual vivisections, there was an unflinching directness among Mr. Snelling's guests, which is not to be found in more artificial grades of society. The popular verdict on Young Shackford's conduct was, as might not have been predicted, strongly in his favour. He had displayed pluck, and pluck of the tougher fibre was a quality held in so high esteem in Stillwater that any manifestation of it commanded respect. And Young Shackford had shown a great deal. He had made short work of the most formidable man in the Yard and given the rest to understand that he was not to be tampered with. This had taken many by surprise, for hitherto an imperturbable amiability had been the leading characteristic of Slocum's manager. I didn't think he had it in him, declared Dexter. Well, ya might, replied Michael Hennessey. Look at the lads eye in the muscles of him. He stands on his own two legs like a monument so he does. Never saw a monument with two legs, Mike. Dingy, wait till you're late and at the foot of one. But ye'll wait many a day, my boy. Ye'll be lucky if you're subploid with a headstone made out of a dail board. Couldn't get a wooden headstone short of Ireland, Mike. Retorted Dexter with a laugh. You'd have to import it. And so I will. But it won't be cut over in time. If you go on interrupting gentlemen when they're discursing. What was I saying, anyway? When the blackard chipped in, continued Mr. Hennessey, appealing to the company, as he emptied the ashes from his pipe by knocking the bowl on the side of his chair. You as talking a dick-shack for his muscle, said Durgen, and yet never talked wider of the mark. It doesn't take much muscle or much courage either to knock a man about when he's in liquor, that too wasn't fairly matched. Ya'll right there, Durgen, said Stevens, laying down his newspaper. They weren't fairly matched. Both men have the same pounds and inches, but Tarini had a weapon, and that mad strength that comes to some folks would drink. If Shackford hadn't made any twist in a neckerchief, he wouldn't have got off with a scratch. Shackford had no call to lay hands on him. There you are wrong, Durgen, replied Stevens. Tarini had no call in the yard. He was making a nuisance of himself. Shackford spoke to him and told him to go, and when he didn't go, Shackford put him out, and he put him out handsomely, with neatness and dispatch, as Slocum's prospectus has it. He was right all the time, said Pickett. He didn't strike Tarini before or after he was down, and stood at the gate like a gentleman, ready to give Tarini his chance if he wanted it. Tarini didn't want it, observed Jemmy Wilson. There isn't nothing mean about Tarini. But yeah, a dozen minds about coming back, said Dennevin. We ought to have got him out of the place quietly, said Jeff Stavres. That was our end of the mistake. He's not a bad fellow, but he shouldn't drink. He was crazy to come to the yard. When a man, as a day off, observed Dennevin, and the beer isn't nasty, he had better stick to the public house. Oh, you, exclaimed Durgen, your opinion, don't weigh. You took a black eye of him. Yes, I took a black eye, and I can give one in an emergency. Yes, I give and takes. That's where we differ, returned Durgen. I do a more genteel business. I give and don't take. Unless you're uncommon careful, said Dennevin, pulling away at his pipe, you'll find yourself someday enlarging your business. Dennevin pushed back at his stool. Gentlemen, gentlemen, interposed Mr. Snelling, appearing from behind the bar with a lemon squeezer in his hand. We'll have no black eyes here that wasn't born so. I'm partial to them myself when nature gives them, and I propose the health of Miss Molly Hennessey, with a sly glance at Durgen, who colored, to be drank at the expense of the house. Name your taps, gentlemen. Snelling me by, you'd wint the bird from the bush with your baguille in ways, you've brought proud tears to the eyes of an aged parent, and had he guss up on that high-shouldered bottle which you cape under the counter, for the gentle folk in the other room. A general laugh greeted Mr. Hennessey's selection, and peace was restored, but the majority of those present were workmen from Slocums, and the event of the afternoon remained the uppermost theme. Shockford is a different build from Slocum, said Pickett. I guess the yard will find out when he gets to be proprietor, rejoined Durgen, clicking his spoon against the empty glass to attract Snelling's attention. Going to be proprietor, is he? Some day or other, answered Durgen, first he'll step into the business, and then into the family. He's at his eye on Slocum's girl these four or five years, got a cast of her fist up in his workshop, leave Dick Shackford alone for lining his nest and making it soft all round. Why shouldn't he? said Stevens. He deserves a good girl, and there's none better. If sickness or any sort of trouble comes to a poor man's door, she's never far off with her kind words, and them things the rich have when they are laid up. Oh, the girl is well enough. You couldn't say less. Before your mother died, Mrs. Durgen had died the previous autumn. I see that angel go into your house many a day, with a little basket of comforts tucked under her wing, but she's too good to be praised in such a place as this, added Stevens. After a pause he inquired, what makes you down on Shackford? He has always been a friend to you. One of those friends who'll walk over your head, replied Durgen. I was in the yard two years before him, and see where he is. Lord love you, said Stevens, leaning back in his chair and contemplating Durgen thoughtfully. There is marble and marble. Some is Carrera marble, and some isn't. The fine grain takes a polish. You can't get on to the other. Of course, he's statuary marble, an handful of seams and felts bar. You are like the most of us, not the kind that can be worked up into anything very ornamental. Thank you for nothing, said Durgen, turning away. I came from as good a quarry as ever Dick Shackford. Where's Terini tonight? Nobody has seen him since the difficulty, said Dexter, except Peters. Terini sent for him after supper. As Dexter spoke, the door opened, and Peters entered. He went directly to the group composed chiefly of Slocum's men, and without making any remark, began to distribute among them certain small blue tickets, which they pocketed in silence. Glancing carelessly at his piece of cardboard, Durgen said to Peters. Then it's decided? Peters nodded. How's Terini? He's all right. What does he say? Nothing in particular, responded Peters, and nothing at all about his little skylock with Shackford. He's a cool one, exclaimed Durgen. Though the slips of blue passport had been delivered and accepted without comment, it was known in a second through the bar room that a special meeting had been convened for the next night by the officers of the Marble Workers Association. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of the Stillwater Tragedy This Libervox recording is in the public domain. The Stillwater Tragedy by Thomas Bailey Aldridge Chapter 14 On the third morning after Terini's expulsion from the yard, Mr. Slocum walked into the studio with a printed slip in his hand. A similar slip lay crumpled under a workbench where Richard had tossed it. Mr. Slocum's kindly visage was full of trouble and perplexity as he raised his eyes from the paper which he had been rereading on the way upstairs. Look at that! Yes, remarked Richard. I have been honoured with one of those documents. What does it mean? It means business. The paper in question contained a series of resolutions unanimously adopted at a meeting of the Marble Workers Association of Stillwater, held in Grimsey's Hall the previous night. Dropping the preamble, these resolutions which were neatly printed with a typewriting machine on a half-letter sheet ran as follows. Resolved that on and after the 1st of June, Proximo, the pay of carvers at Slocum's marble yard shall be two dollars and seventy-five cents per day instead of two dollars and fifty cents, as here to four. Resolved that on and after the same date, the rubbers and polishers shall have two dollars per day instead of one dollar and seventy-five cents, as here to four. Resolved that on and after the same date, the mill men are to have two dollars per day instead of one dollar and seventy-five cents, as here to four. Resolved that during the months of June, July, and August, the shops shall knock off work on Saturdays at five p.m., instead of at six p.m. Resolved that a printed copy of these resolutions be laid before the proprietor of Slocum's marble yard, and that his immediate attention to them be respectfully requested per order of Committee Marble Workers Association. Terrini is at the bottom of that, said Mr. Slocum. I hardly think so. This arrangement, as I told you the other day before I had the trouble with him, has been in contemplation several weeks. Undoubtedly, Terrini used his influence to hasten the movement already planned. The association has too much shrewdness to espouse the quarrel of an individual. What are we to do? If you are in the same mind you were when we talked over the possibility of an unreasonable demand like this, there is only one thing to do. Fight it. Fight it. I have been resolute, and all that sort of thing in time has passed, observed Mr. Slocum, glancing out of the tail of his eye at Richard, and have always come off second best. The association has drawn up most of my rules for me, and it has its own way, generally. Since my time you have never been in so strong a position to make a stand. We have got all the larger contracts out of the way. For seeing what was likely to come I have lately thought shy of taking new ones. Here are heavy orders from Rafter and Son, the builders' company, and others. We must decline them by tonight's mail. Is it really necessary? asked Mr. Slocum, knitting his forehead into what would have been a scowl if his mild pinkish eyebrows had permitted it. I think so. I hate to do that. Then we are at the mercy of the association. If we do not come to their terms, you seriously believe they will strike? I do, replied Richard, and we should be in a pretty fix. But these demands are ridiculous! The men are not aware of our situation. They imagine we have a lot of important jobs on hand, as usual at this season. Formerly the foreman of a shop had access to the order book, but for the last year or two I have kept it in the safe here. The other day Dexter came to me and wanted to see what work was set down already in the blotter, but I had an inspiration and didn't let him post himself. Is not some kind of compromise possible? Suggested Mr. Slocum looking over the slip again. Now this fourth clause about closing the yard an hour early on Saturdays. I don't strongly object to that, though with eighty hands it means every week, eighty hours work which the yard pays for and doesn't get. I should advise granting that request. Such concessions are never wasted. But Mr. Slocum, this is not going to satisfy them. They have thrown in one reasonable demand merely to flavor the rest. I happen to know that they are determined to stand by their program to the last letter. You know that? I have a friend at court. Of course this is not to be breathed, but Denevin, without being at all false to his comrades, talks freely with me. He says they are resolved not to give an inch. Then we will close the works. That is what I wanted you to say, sir, cried Richard. With this new scale of prices and plenty of work we might probably come out a little ahead the next six months. But it wouldn't pay for the trouble and the capital invested. Then when trade slackened we'd be running at a loss and there'd be another wrangle of a reduction. We had better lie idle. Stick to that, sir, and maybe it will not be necessary. But if they strike, they won't all strike. At least, added Richard, I hope not. I have indirectly sounded several of the older hands, and they have half-promised to hold on. Only half-promised, for every man of them at heart, fears the trade unions more than no bread, until no bread comes. Whom have you spoken with? Lumley, Giles, Peterson, and some others. Your pensioners, I call them. Yes, they were in the yard in my father's time. They have not been worth their assault these ten years. When the business was turned over to me I didn't discharge any old hand who had given his best days to the yard. Somehow I couldn't throw away the squeezed lemons. An employer owes a good workman something beyond the wages paid. And a workman owes a good employer something beyond the work done. You stood by these men after they outlived their usefulness and if they do not stand by you now they are a shabby set. I fancy they will, Richard. I think they had better and I wish they would. We have enough odds and ends to keep them busy a while and I shouldn't like to have the clinking of chisels die out altogether under the old sheds. Nor I, returned Mr. Slocum, with a touch of sadness in his intonation. It has grown to be a kind of music to me. And he paused to listen to the sounds of ringing steel that floated up from the workshop. Whatever happens, that music shall not cease in the yard except on Sundays if I have to take them out and go at a slab all alone. Slocum's yard with a single workman and it would be a pleasing spectacle, said Mr. Slocum, smiling ruefully. It wouldn't be a bad time for that workman to strike, returned Richard with a laugh. He could dictate his own terms, returned Mr. Slocum soberly. Well, I suppose you cannot help thinking about Margaret. But don't think of her now. Tell me what answer you propose to give the association. How you mean to put it, for I leave the matter wholly to you. I shall have no hand in it further than to endorse your action. Tomorrow, then, said Richard, for it is no use to hurry up a crisis. I shall go to the workshops and inform them that their request for short hours on Saturdays is granted, but that the other changes they suggest are not to be considered. There will never be a better opportunity, Mr. Slocum, to settle another question which has been allowed to run too long. What's that? The apprentice question. Would it be wise to touch on that at present? While we are straightening out matters and putting things on a solid basis, it seems to me essential to settle that. There was never a greater imposition or one more short-sighted than this rule which prevents the training of sufficient workmen. The trade union will discover their error someday when they have succeeded in forcing manufacturers to import skilled labor by the wholesale. I would like to tell the Marble Workers Association that Slocum's yard has resolved to employ as many apprentices each year as there is room for. I wouldn't dare risk it. It will have to be done sooner or later. It would be a capital flank movement now. They have laid themselves open to an attack on that quarter. I might as well close the gates for good and all. So you will, if it comes to that. You can afford to close the gates, and they can't afford to have you. In a week they'll be back, asking you to open them. Then you could have your pick of the live hands and drop the dead wood. If Giles or Peterson or Lumley or any of those desert us, they are not to be let on again. I hope you will promise me that, sir. If the occasion offers, you shall reorganize the shops in your own way. I haven't a nerve for this kind of business, though I have seen a great deal of it in the villages, first and last. Strikes are terrible mistakes. Even when they succeed, what pays for the lost time and the money squandered over the tavern bar? What makes up for the days or weeks, when the fire was out on the hearth, and the children had no bread? This is what happens, you know. There is no remedy for such calamities, Richard answered, yet I can imagine occasions when it would be better to let the fire go out and the children want for bread. You are not advocating strikes, exclaimed Mr. Stokum. Why not? I thought you were for fighting them. So I am, in this instance. But the question has two sides. Every man has the right to set a price on his own labor, and to refuse to work for less. The wisdom of it is another matter. He puts himself in the wrong, only when he menaces the person or the property of the man who has an equal right not to employ him. That is the blunder strikers usually make in the end, and one by which they lose public sympathy, even when they are fighting an injustice. Now sometimes it is an injustice that is being fought, and then it is right to fight it, with the only weapon a poor man has to wield against a power which possesses a hundred weapons, and that's a strike. For example, the smelters and casters and a minute-to-wanna ironworks are meanly underpaid. What, have they struck? There's a general strike threatened in the village, foundry men, spinners, and all. So much the worse for everybody. I did not suppose it was as bad as that. What has become of Terini? The day after he left us, he was taken on as forgemen at Dana's. I am glad Dana has got him. At the meeting last night, Terini gave in his resignation as Secretary of the Association. Being no longer a marble worker, he was not qualified to serve. We unhorsed him, then. Rather, I am half sorry, too. Richard, said Mr. Slocum, halting in one of his nervous walks up and down the room. You are the oddest composition of hardness and softness I ever saw. Am I? One moment you stand braced like a lion to fight the whole yard, and the next moment you are pitying a miscreant, who would have laid your head open without the slightest compunction. Oh, I forgive him, said Richard. I was a trifle hasty myself. Margaret thinks so, too. Much Margaret knows about it. I was inconsiderate, to say the least. When a man picks up a tool by the wrong end, he must expect to get cut. You didn't have a choice. I shouldn't have touched Terini. After discharging him and finding him disposed to resist my order to leave the yard, I ought to have called in a constable. Usually it is very hard to anger me, but three or four times in my life I have been carried away by a devil of a temper, which I couldn't control. It seized me so unawares. That was one of the times. The mallets and chisels were executing a Blythe staccato movement in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one walking among the diligent gangs and observing the placid faces of the men as they bent over their tasks would have suspected that they were awaiting the word that meant bread and meat and home to them. As Richard passed through the shops, dropping a word to a workman here and there, the man-addressed looked up cheerfully and made a furtive dab at the brown paper cap, and Richard returned the salute smilingly, but he was sad within. The foolish fellows, he said to himself, they are throwing away a full loaf and are likely to get none at all. Giles and two or three of the ancients were squaring a block of marble under a shelter by themselves. Richard made it a point to cross over and speak to them. In past days he had not been exacting with these old boys, and they always had a welcome for him. Slocum's yard seldom presented a serene air of contented industry than it wore that morning. But in spite of all this smooth outside, it was a foregone conclusion, with most of the men that Slocum, with Shackford behind him, would never submit to the new scale of wages. There were a few who had protested against these resolutions and still disapproved of them, but were forced to go with the association, which had really been dragged into the current by the other trades. The Dana Mills and the Minnetwana ironworks were paying lighter wages than similar establishments nearer the great city. The managers contended that they were paying as high, if not higher, rates, taking into consideration the cheaper cost of living in still water. But you get city prices for your wares, retorted the union. You don't pay city rents, and you shall pay city wages. Meanings were held at Grimsey's Hall, and the subject was canvassed, at first calmly, and then stormily. Among the molders, and possibly the sheet-iron workers, there was cause for dissatisfaction, but the dissatisfaction spread to where no grievance existed. It seized upon the spinners, and finally upon the marble workers. Tarini fan the flame there. Taking for his text the rentage question, he argued that Slocum was well able to give a trifle more for labor than his city competitors. The annual rent of a yard like Slocum's would be four thousand or five thousand dollars in the city. It doesn't cost Slocum two hundred dollars. It is no more than just that the laborer should have a share. He only asked a beggarly share of the prosperity which he has helped to build up. This was specious and taking. Then there came down from the great city a glib person disguised as the working man's friend, no working man himself, mind you, but a ghoul that lives upon subscriptions and sucks the senses out of innocent human beings, who managed to set the place by the ears. The result of all which was that one May morning every shop, mill, and factory in Stillwater was served with a notice from the trades union and a general strike threatened. But our business at present is exclusively with Slocum's yard. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of the Stillwater Tragedy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Stillwater Tragedy by Thomas Bailey Aldridge Chapter 15 Since we are in fort, said Mr. Slocum the next morning, put the case to them squarely. Mr. Slocum's vertebrae had stiffened overnight. Leave that to me, sir, Richard replied. I have been shaping out in my mind a little speech, which I flatter myself will cover the points. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we are about to have the clearest of understandings. I never saw the man quieter. I don't altogether admire that. It looks as if they hadn't any doubt as to the issue. The clearest headed have no doubt. They know as well as you and I do, the flimsiness of those resolutions. But the thick heads are in a fog. Every man naturally likes his pay increased. If a simple fellow is told five or six hundred times that his wages ought to be raised, the idea is so agreeable and insidious that by and by he begins to believe himself grossly underpaid, though he may be getting twice what he is worth. He doesn't reason about it. That's the last thing he'll do for you. In this mood he lets himself be flown away by the breath of some loudmouth demagogue who has no interest in the matter beyond hearing his own talk, and passing round the hat after the meeting is over. That is what has happened to our folks below, but they are behaving handsomely. Yes, and I don't like it. Since seven o'clock the most unimpeachable decorum had reigned in the workshops. It was now nine, and this brief dialogue had occurred between Mr. Slokom and Richard on the veranda, just as the latter was on the point of descending into the yard to have his talk with the men. The workshops, or rather the shed in which the workshops were, for it was one low structure, eighteen or twenty feet wide, and open on the west side, ran the length of the yard, and with the short extension at the subtly end formed the letter L. There were no partitions and imaginary lines separating the different gangs of workers. A person standing at the head of the building could make himself heard more or less distinctly in the remotest part. The grating lisp of the wet saws eating their way into the marble boulder and the irregular quick taps of the seventy or eighty mallets were not suspended as Richard took his stand beside a tall funeral urn at the head of the principal workshop. After a second's faltering he wrapped smartly on the lip of the urn with the key of his studio door. Instantly every arm appeared paralyzed and the men stood motionless with the tools in their hands. Richard began in a clear but not loud voice, though it seemed to ring on the sudden silence. Mr. Slocum has asked me to say a few words to you this morning about those resolutions and one or two other matters that have occurred to him in this connection. I am no speech-maker. I never learned that trade. Never learned any trade, muttered Durgin inaudibly. But I think I can manage some plain honest talk for straightforward men. Richard's exhortium was listened to with painful attention. In the first place, he continued, I want to remind you, especially the newer men, that Slocum's yard has always given steady work and prompt pay to still water hands. No hand has ever been turned off without sufficient cause or kept on through mere favoritism. Favorites have been shown, but they have been shown to all alike. If anything has gone crooked it has been straightened out as soon as Mr. Slocum knew of it. That has been the course of the yard in the past, and the proprietor doesn't want you to run away with the idea that that course is going to be changed. One change for the time being is going to be made at your own suggestion. From now on, until the 1st of September, this yard will close gates on Saturdays at 5 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. Several voices cried, Good for Slocum! Where is Slocum? Why don't Slocum speak for himself? cried one voice. It is Mr. Slocum's habit, answered Richard, to give his directions to me. I give them to the foreman and the foreman to the shops. Mr. Slocum follows that custom on this occasion. With regard to the new scale of wages, which the association has submitted to him, the proprietor refuses to accept it or any modification of it. A lone murmur ran through the workshops. What's a modification, sir? asked Jimmy Wilson, stepping forward and scratching his left ear diffidently. A modification, replied Richard, considerably embarrassed to give an instant definition, is a—a—a splitting of the difference by, shouted somebody in the third shop. Thank you, said Richard, glancing in the direction of his impromptu webster's unabridged. Mr. Slocum does not propose to split the difference. The wages in every department are to be just what they are, neither more nor less. If anybody wishes to make a remark, he added, observing a restlessness in several of the men, I beg he will hold on until I get through. I shall not detain you much longer, as the parson says, before he has reached the middle of his sermon. What I say now, I was charged to make particularly clear to you. It is this. In future, Mr. Slocum intends to run Slocum's yard himself. Neither you nor I, nor the association, will be allowed to run it for him. Sensation. Until now, the association has tied him down to two apprentices a year. From this hour out, Mr. Slocum will take on not two or twenty, but two hundred apprentices, if the business warrants it. The words were not clearly off Richard's lips, when the foreman of the shop in which he was speaking picked up a couple of small drills and knocked them together with a sharp click. In an instant, the men laid aside their aprons, bundled up their tools, and marched out of the shed, two by two, in dead silence. The same click was repeated almost simultaneously in the second shop, and the same evolution took place. Then click, click, click went the drills, sounding fainter and fainter in the distant departments, and in less than three minutes there was not a soul left in Slocum's yard except the orator of the day. Richard had anticipated some demonstration, either noisy or violent, perhaps both, but this solemn orderly desertion dashed him. He stepped into the middle of the yard, and glancing up beheld Margaret and Mr. Slocum standing on the veranda. Even at that distance he could perceive the pallor on one face and the consternation written all over the other. Hanging his head with sadness, Richard crossed the yard, which gave out mournful echoes to his footfalls, and swung to the large gate, nearly catching old giles by the heel as he did so. Looking through the slats, he saw Lumley and Peterson hobbling arm and arm down the street, after more than twenty-five years of kindly treatment. Move number one, said Richard, lifting the heavy cross-piece into its place and fastening it with a wooden pin. Now I must go and prop up, Mr. Slocum. crowded a moment since. The busy, intense life that has gone from it mysteriously leaves behind enough of itself to make the stillness poignant. One might imagine the invisible ghost of doomed toil wandering from bench to bench, and noiselessly fingering the dropped tools, still warm from the workman's palm. Perhaps this impalpable presence is the artisan's anxious thought, stolen back to brood over the uncompleted task. Though Mr. Slocum had spoken lightly of Slocum's yard with only one workman in it, when he came to contemplate the actual fact, he was struck by the pathos of it, and the resolution with which he awoke that morning began to desert him. The worst is over, exclaimed Richard, joining his two friends on the veranda, and everything went smoother than I expected. Everything went, sure enough, said Mr. Slocum gloomily. They all went. Old giles and Lumley and everybody. We somewhat expected that, you know. Yes, I expected it, and wasn't prepared for it. It was very bad, said Richard, shaking his head. The desertion of giles and his superannuated mates especially touched Mr. Slocum. Bad is no word, it was damnable. Oh, Papa! Pardon me, dear, I couldn't help it. When a man's pensioners throw him over, he must be pretty far gone. The undertow was too strong for them, sir, and they were swept away with the rest, and they all but promised to stay. They will be the very first to come back. Of course, we shall have to take the old fellows on again, said Mr. Slocum, relenting characteristically. Never, cried Richard. I wish I had some of your grit. I have none to spare. To tell the truth, when I stood up there to speak, with every eye working on me like a half-inch drill, I would have sold myself at a low figure. But you were a perfect wedges' name. Demosthenes, said Mr. Slocum, with a faint smile. We could hear you. I don't believe Demosthenes ever moved an audience as I did mine, cried Richard Gailey. If his orations produced a like effect, I am certain that the Grecian Lecture Bureau never sent him twice to the same place. I don't think Richard I would engage you over again. I am sure Richard spoke very well, interrupted Margaret. His speech was short. Say shortened, Margaret, for I hadn't got through when they left. No, I will not jest about it. It is too serious for jesting. What is to become of the families of all these men suddenly thrown out of employment? They threw themselves out, Mag, said her father. That does not men the matter, Papa. There will be great destitution and suffering in the village, with every mill closed, and they are all going to close, Bridget says. Thank heaven that this did not happen in the winter. They always picked their weather, observed Mr. Slocum. It will not be for long, said Richard encouragingly. Our own hands and the spinners, who had no ground for complaint, will return to work shortly, and the managers of the iron mills will have to yield a point or two. In a week at the outside everything will be running smoothly, and on a sounder foundation than before. I believe the strike will be an actual benefit to everybody in the end. By dint of such arguments and his own sanguine temperament, Richard succeeded in reassuring Mr. Slocum for the time being, though Richard did not hide from himself the gravity of the situation. There was a general strike in the village. Eight hundred men were without work. That meant, or would mean in a few days, two or three thousand women and children without bread. It does not take the wolf long to reach a poor man's door when it is left ajar. The trades union had a fund for emergencies of this sort, and some outside aid might be looked for, but such supplies are in their nature precarious and soon exhausted. It is a noticeable feature of strikes, that the moment a workman's pay stops his living expenses increase. Even the more economical becomes improvident. If he has money, the tobacco shop and the tavern are likely to get more of it than the butcher's cart. The prolonged strain is too great to be endured without stimulant. During the first and second days of the strike, Stillwater presented an animated and even a festive appearance. Thongs of operatives in their Sunday clothes strolled through the streets, or lounge at the corners chatting with other groups. Some wandered into the suburbs, and lay in the long grass under the elms. Others, again, though these were few, took to the turnpike or the railroad track and tramped across country. It is needless to say that the bar room of the tavern was crowded from early morning down to the hour when the law compelled Mr. Snelling to shut off his gas, after which John Brown's soul could be heard marching on in the darkness through various crooked lanes and alleys until nearly daybreak. Among the earliest decent trouble in the air was Han Lin, the Chinaman before mentioned. He kept a small laundry in Bud Lane where his name was painted perpendicularly on a light of glass in the basement window of a tenement house. Han Lin intended to be buried some day in a sky blue coffin in his own land and have a dozen packs of firecrackers decorously exploded over his remains. In order to reserve himself for this and other ceremonies involving the burning of a great quantity of guilt paper, he quietly departed for Boston at the first sign of popular discontent. As Dexter described it, Han Lin coiled up his pigtail, put forty grams of rice in a yaller bag, enough to last him a month, and toddled off in his two-story wooden shoes. He could scarcely have done a wiser thing, for poor Han Lin's laundry was turned wrongside out within thirty-six hours afterwards. The strike was popular, the spirit of its spread, as fire and fever and all elemental forces spread. The two apprentices in Brackett's Bakery had a dozen minds about striking that first morning. The younger lad, Joe Wigan, plucked up courage to ask Brackett for a day off, and was lucky enough to dodge a piece of dough weighing nearly four pounds. Brackett was making bread while the sun shone. He knew that before the week was over there would be no cash customers, and he proposed then to shut up shop. On the third and fourth days there was no perceptible fall in the barometer. Trade was brisk with snelling, and a brass band was playing national airs on a staging erected on the green in front of the post office. Nightly meetings took place at Grimsley's Hall, and the audiences were good-humored and orderly. Terrini advanced some utopian theories, touching a universal distribution of wealth, which were listened to attentively, but failed to produce steep impression. That's a healthy idea of Terrini's about to riden up property, said Jimmy Wilson. I've heard it before, but it's singular. I never know to fellow with any property to have that idea. There's a great deal in it, I can tell ye, replied Michael Hennessy, with a well-blackened wood-stock pipe between his teeth and his hands tucked under his coattails. Isn't there, Mr. Stevens? When Michael had on his bottle-green, swallow-tailed coat with the brass buttons, he invariably assumed a kind of lofty air of ceremony in addressing his companions. It is sorta pleasant to look at, returned Stevens, but it don't seem to me an idea that would work. Suppose that, after all the property was divided, a fresh shipload of your friends was to land at New York or Boston. Would there be a new deal? No, sir, by no means, exclaimed Michael excitedly. The fairness is counted out. But you're a foreigner yourself, Mike. Am I, then? Be dead, I'm not. I'm a real American, no nothing. Well, Mike, said Stevens maliciously. When it comes to her regular drizzling of lands and greenbacks in the United States, I go in for the Chinese having their share. The Chinese? shouted Michael. Oh, there's her, Mr. Stevens. Yeah, wouldn't be for dividing with them blacker skates. Yes, with them, as well as the rest. Returned Stevens dryly. Meanwhile, the directors and stockholders of the various mills took counsel in a room at the rear of the National Bank. Mr. Slocum, following Richard's advice, declined to attend the meeting in person or to allow his name to figure on the list of vice presidents. Why should we hitch our good cause to their doubtful one? reflected Richard. We have no concessions or proposals to make. When our men are ready to come back to us, they will receive just wages and fair treatment. They know that. We do not want to fight the molders. Let the iron mills do their own fighting. And Richard stolidly employed himself in taking an account of stock and forwarding by express to their destination the 10 or 12 carved mental pieces that happily completed the last contract. Then his responsibility shrunk to winding up the office clock and keeping Mr. Slocum firmly on his legs. The latter was by far the more onerous duty, for Mr. Slocum ran down two or three times in the course of every 24 hours, while the clock once wound was fixed for the day. If I could only have a good set of Walthman works put into your father, said Richard to Margaret, after one of Mr. Slocum's relapses, he would go better. Poor Papa, he's not a fighter like you. Your father is what I call a belligerent non-combatant. Richard was seeing a great deal of Margaret these days. Mr. Slocum had invited him to sleep in the studio, until the excitement was passed. Margaret was afraid to have him take that long walk between the yard and his lodgings in Lime Street, and then her father was an old man to be without any protection in the house in such untoward times. So Richard slept in the studio and had his plate at table, like one of the family. This arrangement was favorable to many a stolen five minutes with Margaret, in the hall or on the staircase. In these fortuitous moments he breathed an atmosphere that sustained him in his task of dispelling Mr. Slocum's recurrent fits of despondency. Margaret had her duties too at this period, and the four noons were sacred to them. One morning as she passed down the street with a small wicker basket on her arm, Richard said to Mr. Slocum, Margaret has joined the strikers. The time had already come to Stillwater, when many a sharp face little urchin, as dear to the warm, deep bosom that had nursed it, as though it were a crown prince, would not have had a crust to gnaw, if Margaret Slocum had not joined the strikers. Sometimes her heart drooped on the way home from these errands, upon seeing how little of the misery she could ward off. On her rounds there was one cottage in a squalid lane, where the children asked for bread in Italian. She never omitted to halt at that door. Is it quite prudent for Margaret to be going about so? queried Mr. Slocum. She is perfectly safe, said Richard, as safe as a sister of charity, which she is. Indeed Margaret might then have gone loaded with diamonds through the street at midnight. There was not a rough man in Stillwater who would not have reached forth an arm to shield her. It is costing me nearly as much as it would to carry on the yard, said Mr. Slocum, but I never put out any stamps more willingly. You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed to keep Margaret's basket filled. It is an investment in real estate, hereafter. I hope so, answered Mr. Slocum, and I know it's a good thing now. Of the morals of Stillwater at this time, or at any time, the less said the better, but out of the slime and ooze below sprang the white flower of charity. The fifth day fell on a Sabbath, and the churches were crowded. The Reverend Arthur Langley selected his text from St. Matthew, Chapter 22, Verse 21. Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesars. But as he did not make it quite plain, which was Caesar, the trades union, or the Minantawanna ironworks, the sermon went for nothing, unless it could be regarded as a hint to those persons who had stolen a large piece of belting from the Dana Mills. On the other hand, Father O'Meara that morning bravely told his children to conduct themselves in an orderly manner while they were out of work, or they would catch it in this world and in the next. On the sixth day, a cane observer might have detected a change in the atmosphere. The streets were thronged as usual, and the idlers still wore their Sunday clothes, but the holiday buoyancy of the earlier part of the week had evaporated. A turnout on the part of one of the trades, though it was accompanied by music and a banner with a lively inscription, failed to arouse general enthusiasm. A serious and even a sullen face was not rare among the crowds that wandered aimlessly up and down the village. On the seventh day it required no penetration to see the change. There was decidedly less good-natured chafing and more drunkenness, though Snelling had invoked popular contumely and decimated his bar room by refusing to trust for drinks. Brackett had let his ovens cool, and his shutters were up. The treasury of the trades union was nearly drained, and there were growlings that too much had been fooled away on banners and a brass band for the Iron Men's Parade the previous forenoon. It was when Brackett's eye sighted the banner, with bread or blood on it, that he had put up his shutters. Tarini was now making violent harangues at Grimsey's Hall to largely augmented listeners, whom his words irritated without convincing. Shut off from the tavern, the men flocked to hear him and the other speakers, for born orators were just then as thick as unripe wattleberries. There was nowhere else to go. At home were reproaches that maddened and darkness for the kerosene had given out. Though all the trades had been swept into the movement, it is not to be understood that every workman was losing his head. There were men who owned their cottages and had small sums laid by in the Savings Bank, who had always sent their children to the district school and listened themselves to at least one of Mr. Langley's sermons or one of Father O'Mearest's discourses every Sunday. These were anchored to good order. They neither frequented the bar room nor attended the conclaves at Grimsey's Hall, but deplored as deeply as anyone the spirit that was manifesting itself. They would have returned to work now, if they had dared. To this class belonged Stevens. Why don't you come up to the Hall nights? Asked Durgen, accosting him on the street one afternoon. You had run a chance of hearing me hold forth some of these evenings. You have answered your own question, William. I shouldn't like to see you making an idiot of yourself. This is a square fight between labour and capital. Returned Durgen with dignity. And every man ought to take a hand in it. William, said Stevens meditatively. Do you know about the Siamese twins? What about them? They're dead, ain't they? replied Durgen with surprise. I believe so, but when they was alive, if you was to pinch one of those fellows, the other fellow would sing out. If you was to black the eye of the left-hand chap, the right-hand chap wouldn't have been able to see for a week, when either of them fetched the other a clip. He knocked himself down. Labour and capital is joined just as those two was. When you've got this fact well into your skull, William, I shall be pleased to listen to your ideas at Grimsey's Hall or anywhere else. Such conservatism as Stevens, however, was necessarily swept out of sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a state bordering on panic, all but Mr. Lumiel Shackford. In his flapping linen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr. Shackford was seen darting excitedly from street to street and hovering about the feverish crowds, like the stormy petrol, wheeling on the edges of a gale. Usually, as cherry of his sympathies as of his gold, he astonished everyone by evincing an abnormal interest in the strikers. The old man declined to put down anything on the subscription paper then circulating, but he put down his sympathies to any amount. He held no stock in the concerns involved. He hated Slocum, and he hated the directors of the Minnetawana ironworks. The least he hoped was that Roland Slocum would be laid out. So far the strikers had committed no overt act of note, unless it was the demolition of Hanlin's laundry. Stubbs, the provision-dealer, had been taught the rashness of exposing samples of potatoes in his doorway, and the tonsorial emporium of Professor Brown, a colored citizen, had been invaded by two humorists, who, after having their hair curled, refused to pay for it, and the Professor had been too agitated to insist. The story transpiring, ten or twelve of the boys had dropped in during the morning and got shaved on the same terms. By golly, gentlemen, expositulated the Professor, if this yachting goes on, this doggie will be cleaned clear out, fold a week's done. No act of real violence had been perpetrated as yet, but with bands of lawless men roaming over the village at all hours of the day and night, the situation was critical. The wheel of what small social life there was in Stillwater had ceased to revolve. With the single exception of Lemuel Shackford, the more respectable inhabitants kept indoors as much as practicable. From the first, neither Mr. Craigy nor lawyer Perkins had gone to the hotel to consult the papers in the reading-room, and Mr. Pinkham did not dare to play on his flute of an evening. The Reverend Arthur Langley found it politic to do but little visiting in the parish. His was not the opinion to buff it with a wind like this, and indeed he was not explicitly called upon to do so. He sat sorrowfully in his study day by day, preparing the weekly sermon. A gentle, pensive person, inclined in the best of weather to melancholia. If Mr. Langley had gone into a boraculture instead of into the ministry, he would have planted nothing but weeping willows. In the meantime the mill directors continued their deliberations in the bank building, and had made several abortive attempts to effect an arrangement with the leaders of the union. This seemed every hour less possible and more necessary. On the afternoon of the seventh day of the strike, a crowd gathered in front of the residence of Mr. Alexander, the superintendent of the Minnetawanna Ironworks, and began groaning and hooting. Mr. Alexander sought out Mr. Craigy and urged him, as a man of local weight, and one accustomed to addressing the populace, to speak a few words to the mob. That was setting Mr. Craigy on the horns of a cruel dilemma. He was afraid to disoblige the representative of so powerful a corporation as the Minnetawanna Ironworks, but he equally dreaded to risk his popularity with seven or eight hundred voters. So, like the crafty chancellor in Tennyson's poem, he dallyed with his golden chain and, smiling, put the question by, Drack the man, muttered Mr. Craigy. Does he want to blast my whole political career? I can't pitch into our adopted countrymen. There was a blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Craigy, which he was very anxious not to have uncovered by any chance in these latter days, his ancient affiliation with the deceased Native American party. The mob dispersed without doing damage, but the fact that it had collected and had shown an ugly temper sent a thrill of apprehension through the village. Mr. Slokum came in a great flurry to Richard. This thing ought to be stopped, said Mr. Slokum. I agree to that, replied Richard, bracing himself not to agree to anything else. If we were to drop that stipulation as to the increase of apprentices, no doubt many of the men would give over insisting on an advance. Our only salvation is to stick to our right to train as many workmen as we choose. The question of wages is of no account compared with that. The rate of wages will adjust itself. If we could manage it somehow with the marble workers, suggested Mr. Slokum, that would demoralize the other trades, and they'd be obliged to fall in. I don't see that they lack demoralization. If something isn't done, they'll end up by knocking in our front doors, or burning us all up. Let them. It is very well to say, let them, exclaimed Mr. Slokum petulantly, when you haven't any front door to be knocked in. But I have you and Margaret to consider, if there were actual danger, when anything like violence threatens, there's an honest shoulder for every one of the hundred and fifty muskets in the armory. Those muskets might get on the wrong shoulders. That isn't likely. You do not seem to know, sir, that there is a strong guard at the armory day and night. I was not aware of that. It is a fact all the same, said Richard, and Mr. Slokum went away easier in his mind, and remained so, two or three hours. On the eighth, ninth, and tenth days the clouds lay very black along the horizon. The marble workers, who began to see their mistake, were approaching the foundry men, with enticing them into coalition, and the spinners were hot in their denunciations of the molders. Ancient personal antagonisms that had been slumbering started to their feet. Terini fell out of favor, and in the midst of one of his finest preparations, uncomplimentary missiles selected from the animal kingdom had been thrown at him. The grand torchlight procession of the night of the ninth culminated in a disturbance in which many men got injured, several badly, and the windows of Brackett's Bakery were stove in. A point of light had pierced the darkness, the trades were quarreling among themselves. The select men had sworn in special constables among the citizens, and some of the more retired streets were now patrolled after dark, for there had been threats of incendiarism. Bishop's stables burst into flames one midnight, whether fired intentionally or accidentally was not known, but the giant bellows at Dana's Mills was slit and two belts were cut at the Minnetawanna ironworks that same night. At this juncture a report that out-of-town hands were coming to replace the strikers acted on the public mine like petroleum on fire. A large body of workmen assembled near the railway station to welcome them. There was another rumour which caused the marble workers to stare at each other aghast. It was to the effect that Mr. Slocum, having long meditated retiring from business, had now decided to do so and was consulting with Wyndham, the keeper of the greenhouse, about removing the division wall and turning the marble yard into a peach garden. This was an unlooked-for solution of the difficulty. Stillwater, without any Slocum's marble yard, was chaos come again. Good Lord, boys, cried Pickett, if Slocum should do that. Meanwhile, Snelling's Bar had been suppressed by the authorities and a posse of policemen, borrowed from South Millville, occupied the premises. Knots of beetle-browed men no longer in holiday gear, but chiefly in their shirt sleeves, collected from time to time at the head of the main street and glowered threateningly at the single policemen pacing the porch of the tavern. The Stillwater Greys were under arms in the armory over Dundon's drugstore. The thoroughfare had ceased to be safe for any one, and Margaret's merciful errands were necessarily brought to an end. How the poor creatures who had depended on her bounty now continued to exist was a sorrowful problem. Matters were at this point when on the morning of the thirteenth day Richard noticed the cadaverous face of a man peering into the yard through the slats of the main gate. Richard sauntered down there, with his hands in his pockets. The man was all giles, and with him stood Lumley and Peterson, gazing thoughtfully at the sign outside, no admittance except on business. The roughly-lettered clapboard, which they had heedlessly passed a thousand times, seemed to have taken a novel significance to them. What's wanted there? We was looking round for a job, Mr. Shackford. We are not taking on any hands at present. Didn't know but you was. Somebody said you was. Somebody was mistaken. Perhaps tomorrow or next day? Rather doubtful giles. Mr. Slokum ain't gonna give up business, is he? Why shouldn't he if it doesn't pay? The business is carried on for his amusement and profit. When the profit stops, it won't be amusing any longer. Mr. Slokum is not going to run the yard for the sake of the Marble Worker's Association. He would rather drive a junk cart. He might be allowed to steer that himself. Oh, good morning, giles. Marne and Mr. Shackford. Richard rushed back to Mr. Slokum. The strike is broken, sir. What do you mean? The thing has collapsed, the tide is turning, and has washed in a whole lot of dead wood. Thank God! cried Mr. Slokum. An hour or so later, a deputation of four, consisting of Stevens, Denevin, Durgin, and Pickett, waited upon Mr. Slokum in his private office, and offered, on behalf of all the departments, to resume work at the old rates. Mr. Slokum replied that he had not objected to the old rates, but the new, and that he accepted their offer conditionally. You have overlooked one point, Mr. Stevens. Which one, sir? The apprentices. We thought you might not insist there, sir. I insist on conducting my own business in my own way. The voice was the voice of Slokum, but the backbone was Richard. Then, sir, the association don't object to a reasonable number of apprentices. How many is that? As many as you want, I expect, sir, said Stevens, shuffling his feet. Farewell, Stevens. Go round to the front gate, and Mr. Shackford will let you in. There were two doors to the office, one leading into the yard, and the other, by which the deputation had entered and was now making its exit, opened upon the street. Richard heaved a vast sigh of relief, as he took down the beam, securing the principal entrance. Good morning, boys, he chirped, with a smile as bright as newly minted gold. I do hope you enjoyed yourselves. The quartet ducked their heads bashfully, and Stevens replied. Can't speak for the others, Mr. Shackford, but I never enjoyed myself worse. Pigot lingered a moment behind the rest, and looking back over his shoulder said, That peach garden was what fetched us. Richard gave a loud laugh, for the peach garden had been a horticultural invention of his own. In the course of the forenoon the majority of the hands presented themselves at the office, dropping into the yard in gangs of five or six, and nearly all were taken on. To dispose definitely of Lumley, Giles, and Peterson, they were not taken on at Slocum's yard, though they continued to be, directly or indirectly, Slocum's pensioners, even after they were retired to the town farm. Once more the chisel sounded merrily under the long shed. That same morning the spinners went back to the mules, but the molders held out until nightfall, when it was signified to them that their demands would be complied with. The next day the steam whistles of the Miantawana ironworks and Dana's mills sent the echoes flying beyond that undulating line of pines and hemlocks, which half encircle still water, and falls away loosely on either side, like an unclasped girdle. A calm as if from the claveless blue sky that arched it day after day seemed to drift down upon the village. Han Lin, with no more facial expression than an orange, suddenly reappeared on the streets, and went about repairing his laundry unmolested. The children were playing in the sunny lanes again, unafraid, and mothers sat on doorsteps in the summer twilight, singing softly to the baby in arm. There was meat on the table, and the teakettle hummed comfortably at the back of the stove. The very winds that rustled through the fragrant pines, and wandered fitfully across the vivid green of the salt marshes, breathed peace and repose. Then, one morning, this blissful tranquility was rudely shattered. Old Mr. Lemuel Shackford had been found murdered in his own house in Welch's Court.