Chapter 27

SARAH IS MUCH IMPROVED.

'George, I'm going to cheer mother up by telling her what a nice house we have had offered to us,' said Sarah, full of the new plans.

'I don't fancy anything will cheer mother while father lies there in that condition. However, she will be glad that Sykes has shown himself loyal,' replied George, who was just going down to the mills.

Mrs Clay had been sitting by her husband the whole of the day, and no power could induce her to leave him; but now Mr Howroyd had persuaded her to come and take some food. The two met George and Sarah in the passage.

'Going out, George? What are you living on to-day--air or excitement? Don't you know it's dinner-time?' he exclaimed when he saw that his nephew had his hat in his hand and was evidently going out.

'I was just going to the mills, uncle. I shall be back in half-an-hour,' said George.

'What are you going to do there? They are shut up, and Luke Mickleroyd and the other watchmen are in charge. Come and have some food, lad; it will help your mother to eat if she sees you eating. You must all badly want something; you've starved all day.'

George Clay put down his hat, remarking, 'I had no idea it was so late.--Come, mother, take my arm.'

'Mother, we have something so nice to tell you,' said Sarah, speaking in a gentler voice than was her wont to her mother.

''Ave you, my dear?' said Mrs Clay indifferently.

'Yes; we've got a house for you to live in already.'

'I know, Sarah. Your uncle is very kind. I'm sure I'm very grateful to 'im,' said Mrs Clay.

'Oh, but it isn't Uncle Howroyd; it's Sykes. He wants us to live in his Red House on the top of the hill,' cried Sarah, her face aglow with pleasure at the good news she was imparting.

'Sykes, our butler! I 'aven't come to sharin' my butler's 'ouse,' said Mrs Clay, bridling.

'But he's going to wait on us just as he used to do,' explained Sarah.

'Wat's the good o' talkin' nonsense, Sarah? 'Ow can I order a man about in 'is own 'ouse? An' 'ow can you want your poor father to open 'is eyes an' look upon the ruins o' 'is beautiful mansion? It's downright indecent o' you to be so glad that you've got to live in a poky little 'ouse; but, at least, you sha'n't drag your father an' me to live there, to be reminded o' the beautiful past,' said Mrs Clay.

'Nay, Polly, my dear, you are taking this quite wrong. The children are behaving as well as can be, and Sykes too; and it's not a poky house, by any means. In fact, it's as big as this, and I don't know that it would be a bad idea, after a little while,' urged Mr Howroyd.

'I'm sure, Bill, I don't want to complain; but it's all so strange without Mark, an' to think o' 'im in Syke's 'ouse, after w'at 'e's been used to,' said his sister-in-law.

Sarah restrained her first impulse to reply indignantly, and said, 'I don't think father would mind, and it was partly for his sake I was glad. I thought he could still have his park and grounds, and you forget he could not see the ruins of Balmoral, because the plantations come between.'

'Besides, mother, if things go well we shall perhaps be able to build the house again,' suggested George. But he was no more successful than his sister in cheering his mother.

She answered him, quite shortly for her, 'That you'll never do, George. There'll never be another Balmoral, so don't you think it. There are not many men like Mark, an' there never was a 'ouse like 'is now'ere, not even the King's, so I've 'eard, an' I'm glad an' proud to 'ave lived in it; but I'll try an' be resigned to the will o' Providence; an' if you both wish it, an' your uncle thinks it right, I'll go to Sykes's 'ouse w'en your father is able to be moved.'

Mrs Clay said 'Sykes's 'ouse' in a tone of such contempt that her brother-in-law observed, with his genial laugh, 'One would think it was the workhouse by the way you talk, instead of being as big as many a manufacturer's. But I know you are thinking of the old place, and, of course, after what you've been used to it is a trial; but you must pluck up courage and be thankful that you have your family still and no lost lives to mourn over.'

Mrs Clay shook her head in a melancholy way; she was not to be comforted, and the others gave it up.

'One would think he had been the best and kindest husband in the world, instead of being'----began Sarah after dinner, when her mother had hurried back to her husband's room; but here she checked herself.

'Well, there's one thing--you'll excite no envy, hatred, and malice at the Red House; and you know the proverb, "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith,"' said their uncle.

'Oh!' cried Sarah, and then explained, 'That's just what I said when we lived at Balmoral; but I didn't mean it to come about in this dreadful way.'

'Ay; but things never do come about in the way we want or expect,' said Mr Howroyd as he rose from the table, leaving the brother and sister together.

'George, what are you thinking of?' asked his sister abruptly, after the former had sat for some time smoking a cigarette, and leaning back in his old indolent way.

'Thinking of? I'm thinking that I've undertaken a task too big for me, and that I should do better to accept Uncle Howroyd's offer of winding up affairs,' he replied.

'Then you are a coward! And I only wish I were your age and a man, and I'd carry on the mills myself, and show people.'

George looked at his sister with an amused smile, which was his usual way of treating her outbursts, and which always exasperated her; but he hastened to say, 'Steady there, Sarah! I never said I was going to back out, only that things seem more difficult than they did when I began.'

'Why? After Sykes's offer, and Tom Fox's? I never told mother of him. It didn't seem to be any use, because she doesn't care for anything or feel grateful about anything.'

'I hope I shall have as good a wife; but she will be difficult to find,' observed George.

'You'll probably marry a virago; easy-going people like you generally do, and you'll be henpecked all your life,' was Sarah's consoling remark.

Then they both laughed, which did them good. Not very long after they went to bed, and, being young and full of hope, to sleep.

It seemed to them both that they had just shut their eyes when they heard the clanging of a bell; and, starting up in alarm, they recognised it as the bell of their uncle's mill calling the people to work.

George decided to go down to the mills, and a very short time saw him dressed and at the gates.

''Tis young Clay,' he heard as he passed down the street, through groups of idle men, women, and girls, whom he guessed to be their former employés. They had nothing to get up for; but habit was too strong for them, and they had risen and turned out at the same hour.

'What'll he be going to do at t' old mills?' some of them inquired of each other.

'I be main sorry for him. He's a right good young gentleman, they say,' said one woman.

'I wish he'd run the mills. I'd work for him,' said another.

'If he'd have you; but I doubt he'd not have one of his father's hands after what's happened,' was the retort.

'He's but a youngster; he can't run the mills. They'll have to shut down till the old master comes to, or this one gets old enough,' said a shrewd old hand.

'Yes, 'twould never do for he to start blanket-making without experience; he'd soon run aground. I'd not work for him,' remarked another old man.

Evidently no one had any idea that George intended to try his hand at the business, in spite of inexperience and youth; and, indeed, as he went down the street he found himself wondering how he was to set about it, and whether he had not better brave Sarah's scorn and give it up. But he reasoned with himself, 'I will go on till my private capital is exhausted, and if I have failed by then I'll own it and give up.' With new resolve, he walked briskly on and entered the silent mills.

The clang of the gate as it shut after him struck painfully on his ears, and he went to the office and sat down to think. 'If only I knew what to do! Perhaps this room will inspire me,' he murmured. But the room did not seem to do so; on the contrary, he was oppressed with the sense of the failure in which all the business done in that room had ended.

Suddenly the door opened, and Sarah, dainty and fresh in the muslin Naomi had thoughtfully brought her, almost her only possession in the way of clothes, came in. 'George, I have an inspiration,' she said.

Her brother looked up with a smile. 'That's funny,' he replied, 'for that's just what I was sitting here waiting for.'

'That's a nice, useless thing to do!' said Sarah.

'On the contrary, it appears to have been answered,' he said.

'Oh, well, it wasn't your sitting there that made me come and have that inspiration; it was the clanging of Uncle Howroyd's bell. Why don't you do the same thing?' inquired Sarah.

'Do what?' demanded George, who did not think much of this inspiration.

'Ring the bell--the big bell, I mean--to call the hands in, just as if nothing had happened,' urged Sarah.

'Nothing would happen if I did, except that we should have a gaping crowd round the gate, and the fire-brigade coming to see if we had a fire. So, if that's your inspiration, I'm inclined to agree with you that my waiting for it has been useless,' returned George.

'I wish you'd try, George. I believe the hands would all come back, and we should get the contract done after all,' persisted Sarah. 'They looked at me in quite a friendly way as I passed, and lots of the men touched their hats, a thing they never did before.'

George hesitated. 'But I don't feel that I could take them back again,' he said.

'Then what do you mean to do? You can't run the mills with new hands,' she protested.

'No; but I can't take back the men who have destroyed our property,' he declared.

'They are, or soon will be, taken up; so they won't apply,' began Sarah, when her brother interrupted her.

'Sarah,' he cried with sudden vigour, 'you have inspired me after all! I will have the bell rung, and when the people come, as some are sure to come, out of curiosity, I will make them a speech, and explain that those whom my father dismissed are still dismissed, but that the rest I shall be glad to have back. I'll speak to the manager, and see what he thinks.'

The manager and Ben looked admiringly at George.

'There's pluck for you! Let's hope it will be rewarded. At any rate, we can but try,' they said; and they gave orders for the big mills-bell to be rung, and the few faithful ones stood in the yard, making a kind of bodyguard round George, and waited for the curious crowd to arrive.

Sarah watched from the office window, and her eyes shone with excitement as she heard the sound of clogs and many footsteps coming down the street. 'I was right' she cried. 'It's our old hands! I knew they'd come.'

And they did come, till the mill-yard was packed, and then George made them a speech.

'My father is stricken down by the misdeeds of some of his former employés, and in his absence I am going, with the help of my good friends here, to run my father's mills. Those of you who voluntarily left his employ are welcome to return to it; those he discharged will not be admitted.'

Such, in brief, was the young man's speech. The hands noticed that he had not called them 'friends,' nor, indeed, had his tone been friendly, but only business-like and curt, in marked contradiction to the way he had spoken of 'my good friends here,' alluding to those who had remained at their posts. But they were just men, and they respected the young man all the more for bravely and boldly 'standing up to them,' and showing his loyalty to his father and those who had stood by his father.

Some few slunk away. They were those Mr Clay had discharged--an act which had brought about the strike. But this time their discharge was accepted. Without exception the hands took up their old places; the engine, which had stopped, went on again; the fires, which had not yet gone out, were replenished; and before William Howroyd could get down to see what new misfortune this was, Clay's Mills had ceased to 'play.'

'Nay, my lass, you can't be serious. Men are not a flock of sheep to come back to you just because the bell rings,' he protested when Sarah told him the tale.

'Just go into the rooms and see for yourself,' she said. 'They are all setting to work with a will.'

'But I meant to have a talk with George and try to arrange things,' objected Mr Howroyd. 'One can't restart a business like this in this hap-hazard manner.'

'It's not hap-hazard; it's just natural. They're sorry for us and for everything, and they've just come back as if nothing had happened. I really think George is a born business man; he's quite left off being half-asleep all the time,' cried Sarah.

'It's my belief he's been more wide awake than we knew "all the time,"' quoted her uncle.

'Anyway, he's quite wide awake now. And, oh! it's so funny to hear him when they come and ask him some questions he doesn't know anything about. He puts up his pince-nez, looks very wise, and says, "You had better go on as you have always done for the present."'

Mr Howroyd pinched her cheek. 'You are far too wide awake, especially when it comes to criticising other people. Well, I expect I can go back to my own mill. I'm not wanted here. I shall soon be coming to your George for advice. Dear, dear! who would have thought it? He looked as if it was too much trouble to live. This bad business has done you both good--you as well as him, and you badly wanted some improvement, my lass. It'll be a proud day for your father when he hears what you have both done,' said Mr Howroyd as he went off, looking bright and cheery again.