North and South
being suddenly wanted to fill up a gap.
Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both absorbed in the continuation of some
object which had been started at their last meeting. Margaret was
recalled to a sense of the present by some trivial, low-spoken remark of
her mother’s; and on suddenly looking up from her work, her eye was
caught by the difference of outward appearance between her father and
Mr. Thornton, as betokening such distinctly opposite natures. Her father
was of slight figure, which made him appear taller than he really was,
when not contrasted, as at this time, with the tall, massive frame of
another. The lines in her father’s face were soft and waving, with a
frequent undulating kind of trembling movement passing over them,
showing every fluctuating emotion; the eyelids were large and arched,
giving to the eyes a peculiar languid beauty which was almost feminine.
The brows were finely arched, but were by the very size of the dreamy
lids, raised to a considerable distance from the eyes. Now, in Mr.
Thornton’s face the straight brows fell low over the clear, deep-set,
earnest eyes, which without being unpleasantly sharp, seemed intent
enough to penetrate into the very heart and core of what he was looking
at. The lines in the face were few but firm, as if they were carved in
marble, and lay principally about the lips, which were slightly
compressed, over a set of teeth so faultless and beautiful as to give
the effect of sudden sunlight when the rare bright smile, coming in an
instant and shining out of the eyes, changed the whole look from the
severe and resolved expression of a man ready to do and dare everything,
to the keen, honest, enjoyment of the moment, which is seldom shown so
fearlessly and instantaneously except by children. Margaret liked this
smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her
father’s; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details
of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the
attraction they evidently felt towards each other.
She rearranged her mother’s worsted-work, and fell back into her own
thoughts—as completely forgotten by Mr. Thornton as if she had not been
in the room, so thoroughly was he occupied in explaining to Mr. Hale the
magnificent power, yet delicate adjustment of the might of the
steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful
stories of subservient genii in the Arabian Nights—one moment
stretching from earth to sky and filling all the width of the horizon,
at the next obediently compressed into a vase small enough to be borne
in the hand of a child.
“And this imagination of power, this practical realisation of a gigantic
thought, came out of one man’s brain in our good town. That very man has
it within him to mount, step by step, on each wonder he achieves to
higher marvels still. And I’ll be bound to say, we have many among us
who, if he were gone, could spring into the breach and carry on the war
which compels, and shall compel, all material power to yield to
science.”
“Your boast reminds me of the old lines—
‘I’ve a hundred captains in England,’ he said,
‘As good as ever was he.’”
At her father’s quotation Margaret looked suddenly up, with inquiring
wonder in her eyes. How in the world had they got from the cog-wheels to
Chevy Chace?
“It is no boast of mine,” replied Mr. Thornton; “it is plain
matter-of-fact. I won’t deny that I am proud of belonging to a town—or
perhaps I should rather say a district—the necessities of which give
birth to such grandeur of conception. I would rather be a man toiling,
suffering—nay, failing and successless—here, than lead a dull
prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more
aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless
ease. One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.”
“You are mistaken,” said Margaret, roused by the aspersion on her
beloved South to a fond vehemence of defence, that brought the colour
into her cheeks and the angry tears into her eyes. “You do not know
anything about the South. If there is less adventure or less progress—I
suppose I must not say less excitement—from the gambling spirit of
trade, which seems requisite to force out these wonderful inventions,
there is less suffering also. I see men here going about in the streets
who look ground down by some pinching sorrow or care—who are not only
sufferers but haters. Now, in the South we have our poor, but there is
not that terrible expression in their countenances of a sullen sense of
injustice which I see here. You do not know the South, Mr. Thornton,”
she concluded, collapsing into a determined silence, and angry with
herself for having said so much.
“And may I say you do not know the North?” asked he, with an
inexpressible gentleness in his tone, as he saw that he had really hurt
her. She continued resolutely silent; yearning after the lovely haunts
she had left far away in Hampshire, with a passionate longing that made
her feel her voice would be unsteady and trembling if she spoke.
“At any rate, Mr. Thornton,” said Mrs. Hale, “you will allow that Milton
is a much more smoky, dirty town than you will ever meet with in the
South.”
“I’m afraid I must give up its cleanliness,” said Mr. Thornton, with the
quick gleaming smile. “But we are bidden by parliament to burn our own
smoke; so I suppose, like good little children, we shall do as we are
bid—some time.”
“But I think you told me you had altered your chimneys so as to consume
the smoke, did you not?” asked Mr. Hale.
“Mine were altered by my own will, before parliament meddled with the
affair. It was an immediate outlay, but it repays me in the saving of
coal. I’m not sure whether I should have done it, if I had waited until
the act was passed. At any rate, I should have waited to be informed
against and fined, and given all the trouble in yielding that I legally
could. But all laws which depend for their enforcement upon informers
and fines, become inert from the odiousness of the machinery. I doubt if
there has been a chimney in Milton informed against for five years past,
although some are constantly sending out one-third of their coal in what
is called here unparliamentary smoke.”
“I only know it is impossible to keep the muslin blinds clean here above
a week together; and at Helstone we have had them up for a month or
more, and they have not looked dirty at the end of that time. And as for
hands—Margaret, how many times did you say you had washed your hands
this morning before twelve o’clock? Three times, was it not?”
“Yes, mamma.”
“You seem to have a strong objection to acts of parliament and all
legislation affecting your mode of management down here at Milton,” said
Mr. Hale.
“Yes, I have; and many others have as well. And with justice, I think.
The whole machinery—I don’t mean the wood and iron machinery now—of
the cotton trade is so new that it is no wonder if it does not work well
in every part all at once. Seventy years ago what was it? And now what
it is not? Raw, crude materials came together; men of the same level, as
regarded education and station, took suddenly the different position of
masters and men, owing to the motherwit, as regarded opportunities and
probabilities, which distinguished some, and made them far-seeing as to
what great future lay concealed in that rude model of Sir Richard
Arkwright’s. The rapid development of what might be called a new trade,
gave those early masters enormous power of wealth and command. I don’t
mean merely over the workmen; I mean over purchasers—over the whole
world’s market. Why, I may give you, as an instance, an advertisement,
inserted not fifty years ago in a Milton paper, that so-and-so (one of
the half-dozen calico-printers of the time) would close his warehouse at
noon each day; therefore, that all purchasers must come before that
hour. Fancy a man dictating in this manner the time when he would sell
and when he would not sell. Now, I believe, if a good customer chose to
come at midnight, I should get up, and stand hat in hand to receive his
orders.”
Margaret’s lip curled, but somehow she was compelled to listen; she
could no longer abstract herself in her own thoughts.
“I only name such things to show what almost unlimited power the
manufacturers had about the beginning of this century. The men were
rendered dizzy by it. Because a man was successful in his ventures,
there was no reason that in all other things his mind should be
well-balanced. On the contrary, his sense of justice, and his
simplicity, were often utterly smothered under the glut of wealth that
came down upon him; and they tell strange tales of the wild extravagance
of living indulged in on gala-days by those early cotton-lords. There
can be no doubt, too, of the tyranny they exercised over their
work-people. You know the proverb, Mr. Hale, ‘Set a beggar on horseback,
and he’ll ride to the devil,’—well, some of these early manufacturers
did ride to the devil in a magnificent style—crushing human bone and
flesh under their horses’ hoofs without remorse. But by-and-by came a
reaction; there were more factories, more masters; more men were wanted.
The power of masters and men became more evenly balanced; and now the
battle is pretty fairly waged between us. We will hardly submit to the
decision of an umpire, much less to the interference of a meddler with
only a smattering of the knowledge of the real facts of the case, even
though that meddler be called the High Court of Parliament.”
“Is there necessity for calling it a battle between the two classes?”
asked Mr. Hale. “I know, from your using the term, it is one which gives
a true idea of the real state of things to your mind.”
“It is true; and I believe it to be as much a necessity as that prudent
wisdom and good conduct are always opposed to, and doing battle with
ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the great beauties of our
system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position
of a master by his own exertions and behaviour; that, in fact, every one
who rules himself to decency and sobriety of conduct, and attention to
his duties, comes over to our ranks; it may not be always as a master,
but as an overlooker, a cashier, a book-keeper, a clerk, one on the side
of authority and order.”
“You consider all who are unsuccessful in raising themselves in the
world, from whatever cause, as your enemies, then, if I understand you
rightly,” said Margaret, in a clear, cold voice.
“As their own enemies, certainly,” said he, quickly, not a little
piqued by the haughty disapproval her form of expression and tone of
speaking implied. But, in a moment, his straightforward honesty made him
feel that his words were but a poor and quibbling answer to what she had
said, and, be she as scornful as she liked, it was a duty he owed to
himself to explain, as truly as he could, what he did mean. Yet it was
very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from
his meaning. He could best have illustrated what he wanted to say by
telling them something of his own life; but was it not too personal a
subject to speak about to strangers? Still, it was the simple
straightforward way of explaining his meaning; so, putting aside the
touch of shyness that brought a momentary flush of colour into his dark
cheek, he said:
“I am not speaking without book. Sixteen years ago, my father died under
very miserable circumstances. I was taken from school, and had to become
a man (as well as I could) in a few days. I had such a mother as few are
blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve. We went into a
small country town, where living was cheaper than in Milton, and where I