Part 18

And Laurence seemed desirous to wash his hands of the responsibility.

“The fact is,” said Mr. Aspinall, coming to his son’s rescue, “Laurence had taken more wine than his young head would stand on both occasions. It takes years to season a cask, you know, Mr. Ashton, and we must not be too hard on young fellows, if they slip sometimes. We have all had some wild oats to sow.”

This was a platitude of the period, but Mr. Ashton’s “Just so!” was not a cordial assent; and Laurence, fearing the conversation was taking an unfortunate turn, led it back to its original request. But Mr. Ashton tapped his box, and, offering it to his interlocutors, took a pinch himself, and then a second, before he came to a decision. It was evidently a debatable question.

“I will mention your request to Mrs. Ashton, young gentleman, and if I find her agreeable to receive you, I can take you across with me to-morrow morning, provided you meet me here. Good day.”

Mr. Aspinall’s “Good day” was somewhat stiff. He had held his head very high all his life, metaphorically as well as physically, and was not disposed to be snubbed by one whose status he considered scarcely on a par with his own. He was disposed to look on his son’s peccadilloes as some of those “wild oats” which young gentlemen of spirit were expected to sow, and considered his fine figure and beautiful features, his education, accomplishments, and prospects, passports to any society; and that Mr. Ashton should for one moment hesitate to open his heart and his doors to _his_ son, was an indignity not to be borne.

“The fact is, Laurence, that, if you make an apology to those people after this, you have less spirit than I take you to have!” was his conclusion.

“Never you mind, father, I know what I’m about. I want to get my foot in there,” answered subtle Laurence. And he managed it.

Mr. Ashton went home to dinner full of his conversation on the Portico steps, and set his romantic daughter’s heart in a flutter by mooting the point at issue in her presence.

“Oh, papa! do bring him; I want to see him again, he is so handsome!”

“‘Handsome is that handsome does,’ Augusta,” was Mrs. Ashton’s commentary on that young lady’s impulsive exclamation.

“Charlotte says he is very wild,” remarked Ellen, “and I feel as if I should shudder at the sight of him, after his conduct at Peterloo.”

“You don’t shudder when Captain Travis calls, and you don’t shut the door in John Walmsley’s face, and they may have done things just as bad, if you did but know it, Ellen,” retorted Augusta, standing on the defensive for the absent “Adonis.”

“Just so, my dear, so they might,” admitted Mr. Ashton, whilst Ellen held her peace, silenced by something in her cousin’s retort.

“Yes, William, but look on the poor bandaged neck and shoulders of our child, and think of that ruffian’s cruelty to Jabez and others when a schoolboy. I don’t think either John Walmsley or Mr. Travis could have done anything so bad.”

“Well, but, mamma,” argued spoiled Augusta, “Jabez forgave him; and I think Madame Broadbent is more to blame than Mr. Aspinall—he only offered to bring me home.”

Mrs. Ashton shook her head as she rose from table.

“Besides, mamma, he says he only wants to apologise, and you know you need not invite him again unless you like. It would be so rude to refuse.”

“Just so, just so,” assented Mr. Ashton, willing to humour his pet in her invalid state, “and perhaps it might do the young fellow good to see the consequences of his folly.”

As usual, where Augusta enlisted her father on her side, Mrs. Ashton’s dissent grew feebler.

The next day Mr. Ashton made at least _one_ false step in his life, and brought over his own threshold a blight.

Faultless were the curves of the stylish hat, faultless the fit of pantaloons, and coat, and Hessian boots, and York-tan gloves; graceful the figure they adorned; graceful the apology tendered so adroitly—more to the mother than to the daughter—but if ever a graceless good-for-nothing cast a shadow on a good man’s hearth, it was the wolf in sheep’s clothing whose hungry jaws were watering for the pet lamb of the fold, and who made so courtly an exit full in the sight of Jabez, as he crossed the end of the hall to his solitary dinner in his own room.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

MANHOOD.

Young as he was, Laurence Aspinall was wont to say he “wouldn’t give a fig for any man who could not be anything in any society; and the Laurence Aspinall of the cock-pit, the ring, and the bar-parlour, was a very different being from the Laurence Aspinall of the Assembly or drawing-room. He could be a blackguard amongst blackguards, a gentleman amongst ladies.”

Nature had done much for him, art had done more. Nature had given him at twenty-one a symmetrical figure, and art an easy carriage. Nature had given him the clear pink-and-white complexion which so often accompanies ruddy hair, and art had trained his early growth of whisker to counteract effeminacy of skin. Nature had given him a lofty forehead, art had clustered his bronze curls so as to hide how much that brow receded. Nature had given an aquiline nose, eyes of purest azure, flexile lips with curves like Cupid’s bow; and art had taught that eyes set so close, whose hue was so apt to change as temper swayed him, and lips so cruelly thin, might be tutored to obey volition, and contradict themselves, if so their owner willed. To crown all, nature had gifted him with a flexible voice, and art had set it to music.

The Liverpool schoolmaster had obeyed Mr. Aspinall’s instructions to the letter; all that education and accomplishments could do to polish and refine the physical man into the gentleman, as the word was then understood, had been done for him; but under the stucco was the rough brickwork Bob the groom had heaped together, and which no trained or loving hand had removed.

Be sure Laurence Aspinall did not carry this analysis into society, written on his forehead. Instead, he had cultivated the art of fascination; and in the brief space occupied by this apologetic introductory visit in Mosley Street he not only contrived to dazzle the romance-beclouded eyes of Augusta, but, what was almost as much to his purpose, to win over Mr. Ashton, and to weaken the prejudice of Miss Augusta’s less pliant mamma. Ellen Chadwick was the only one on whom he made no impression, the only one who retained a previous opinion—confirmed. Possibly, as Charlotte Walmsley’s sister she knew something of his life below the surface, and had imbibed that sister’s notion that he “led John Walmsley away.” Possibly, too, as Charles Chadwick’s daughter, she contrasted the silken speech of the drawing-room dandy with the hectoring, sword-in-hand, yeomanry cavalry lieutenant who, in striking at her father, had wounded Jabez his deliverer instead.

At all events, she met the enthusiastic admiration of Augusta after his departure, the gratified encomiums of her uncle, and the more subdued approbation of her aunt, with the unvarying expression, “He would have murdered my dear father but for Jabez Clegg, and Mr. Clegg is worth a hundred of him.”

Mr. Laurence knew better than to presume on that introduction all at once. From their gardens and greenhouses at Ardwick and Fallowfield, he sent small baskets of early flowers and fruit to Mrs. Ashton, for her daughter, with courteous inquiries; but he allowed several days to elapse before he presented himself in person, and then his call was of the briefest.

He knew he had prejudice to overcome, and worked his way gradually. Meanwhile Augusta progressed favourably; and if Aspinall grew in favour with the family, so did Jabez.

May, sweet-scented month of promise, brought to Jabez Clegg in 1820 his natural and legal heritage—manhood and manhood’s freedom. He was no longer an apprentice bound to a master by the will of others. He had a right to think and act for himself, subject only to the laws of God and of the realm. True, that free agency brought with it a train of responsibilities, but the new _man_ was not the one to overlook or ignore the fact. He had thought long and keenly of the coming change, and all it might involve, months before it came.

His fixed wages as an indoor apprentice, according to indenture, were no great matter; but, supplemented by coin he extracted from his paint-box after business hours, he had found a margin for saving, besides contributing to the humble wants of his early fosterers. The latter duty he had never neglected, but Simon was as sternly just as the lad had been gratefully generous, and, even when poverty bit the hardest, would never accept the whole of his earnings.

“Si thi, Jabez, if thah dunnot keep summat fur thisel’ to put by fur a nest-egg, thah’ll ne’er see the good o’ thi own earnin’s, an’ thah’ll lose heart in toime,” the old tanner had been wont to say, when sturdily limiting the extent to which his foster-son should open his small purse.

So Jabez, leading a steady, industrious life, spending little on personal gratification, save what he invested in books, had quite a little store laid by—the result of very small savings—against the time when he might have to shift for himself. Two things had troubled him—the possibility of having to find a situation elsewhere, Mr. Ashton having said no word of retaining him, though, on the contrary, he had said nothing of his removal; and the necessity for quitting the house which had been to him a home so long that even the grumbling cook and the affectionate dog had welded themselves into his daily life, how much more the kind master and mistress, and that beatific vision, their beautiful, bewitching daughter, who had held him in vassalage from the very day of his apprenticeship, and tyrannised over him as only a wayward, spoiled beauty—child or woman—could.

The bright morning of the fifth of May set this at rest. He was called into the inner counting-house, and passed the high stools of inquisitive-eyed, quill-driving clerks with a palpitating heart, conscious how much depended on the issue of that interview.

As he opened the curtained glass door, to his surprise he found himself confronted by not only Mr. Ashton, but Mr. Chadwick, and Simon Clegg, who had been brought from Whaley-Bridge for the occasion.

Business men, as a rule, are not demonstrative over business, and after the first salutations and surprised greetings, the congratulations of the day were soon said, and the stereotyped “And now to business” put sentiment to flight. And yet not entirely so, as will be seen.

There was nothing luxurious in that counting-house of the past. Besides the high desk and stool, it contained an oilcloth-topped hexagon table, with a deep rim of partitioned drawers, three wooden chairs, a sort of fire-guard fender, and a poker; but there was neither carpet nor oil-cloth on the floor, and the walls had but a dim recollection of paint.

Mr. Ashton, snuff-box in hand, occupied one of these chairs; Mr. Chadwick, resting hands and chin on a stout walking-stick, another; the third, a little apart, had been assigned to old Simon (now on the shady side of seventy). Jabez remained standing.

Mr. Ashton, as was his manner, tapping his fingers on his snuff-box lid whilst he spoke, opened fire, “No doubt, Jabez, you have been expecting me to say something respecting your prospects and position when your indentures are given up?”

“Well, sir,” answered Jabez with a frank smile, “I believe I have.”

“Just so! I knew you would. It was but likely. And I should have spoken to you some time since, but for brother Chadwick here. Both Mrs. Ashton and myself have watched your conduct and progress, during the whole term of your apprenticeship, with entire satisfaction.”

Here a pinch of snuff emphasised the sentence, and both Simon and Jabez felt their cheeks begin to glow.

“You have been unusually steady and persevering—have not been merely obedient, but obliging, and your rectitude does full credit to the ‘honourable’ name Parson Brookes gave to you.”

This was quite a long speech for Mr. Ashton; he paused to take breath; and old Simon, proud of the young man as if he had been his own son, feeling the encomium as some sort of halo round his own grey head, exclaimed—

“Aw’m downreet preawd to yer [hear] yo’ say it, sir. It’ll mak’ ar Bess’s heart leap wi’ joy.”

But Jabez, blushing, half ashamed of hearing his own praises rung out as from a belfry, could only stammer forth—

“I’ve endeavoured to do my duty, that is all, sir.”

“A—ll!” interjected Mr. Chadwick, in his imperfect speech, “Nelson sa—said du—u—ty was all Engla—and expected of ev—ev’ry man, but it w—won the b—battle of Tr—Trafalgar!”

“Duty wins the battle of life, brother,” put in Mrs. Ashton, who had quietly entered the counting-house by the door behind Jabez.

“Just so, just so!” assented Mr. Ashton, as he rose and handed his chair to the lady whose stately presence seemed to fill the room; “and Jabez has only to continue doing his duty to win his battle of life, I take it. But to our business. You have hitherto served us well, Jabez, in the warehouse and out of it; you have been doubly useful to me as a designer and as a detector of the roguery and mismanagement of others. Then, to my daughter, who is far dearer than either warehouse or trade, you have rendered more than one service.”

“Oh, sir, do not name it, I beg. It has been my highest pleasure to serve Miss Ashton—or yourself,” Jabez exclaimed, the two last words rising to his lips simultaneously with the thought that his sudden outburst might fail of appreciation by Miss Ashton’s wealthy relatives.

“Just so! but I must name it, Jabez, as a reason for my proposal to retain you in my employ, and for assigning to you a situation and salary higher than is usually accorded to an apprentice just out of his time. But as you have shown stability and judgment beyond your years, and I know you to be honourable in _all_ respects, I feel I am justified in making the offer.”

Mr. Ashton then stated, with a little seasoning of snuff, the salary he proposed to give the young man, and the duties he required as an equivalent, if Jabez accepted his proposition.

The eyes of Jabez sparkled and his cheeks glowed. As for Simon, he seemed dumb with delight and astonishment at the good fortune of the foundling.

“IF!” cried Jabez, “there can be no ‘if,’ sir; you overpower me with an offer so far above my deserts. I accept it most gratefu——”

“Stay, Mr. Clegg,” interrupted Mrs. Ashton, as Mr. Chadwick raised his head from its rest on his hands and stick, and made an ineffectual effort to speak. “‘Think twice before you speak once,’ my bro——”

“Oh, madam! there is no need,” Jabez began, but she silenced him with a mere gesture of her raised hand; and Mrs. Ashton, acting as interpreter for her slow-tongued brother-in-law, resumed—

“You have done _us_ some services, Mr. Clegg, but ‘a man will give all he possesses for his life,’ and Mr. Chadwick feels that his debt to you is greater than ours.”

Jabez looked from one to another, bewildered.

Mr. Ashton took up the thread—“Just so! and that brings me to the point we have been driving at. You see, Jabez, Mr. Chadwick is not so capable of managing his business as he used to be; things go wrong he scarcely knows how, and he is desirous to bring some one into his warehouse on whom he can rely. He therefore offers to take you at a higher salary than I think at all suitable for so young a man, and if you prove your competence to take the management within a reasonable time, to give it over into your hands, and ultimately—it may be in a very few years—to give you a small partnership interest in the concern.”

It is difficult to say whether Jabez or Simon was the most completely stunned.

“You must not look on this altogether as a testimony to your business qualifications, Jabez, I think,” continued Mr. Ashton, “but as the outflow of a grateful heart, and the proposition of a man who had no son capable of keeping his trade together. Is not that so?”—turning to Mr. Chadwick.

“Cer—certainly!”

Jabez looked from one to another, then to Simon, but no help was forthcoming from that quarter.

Mrs. Ashton came to his relief: “I think, Mr. Clegg, you had better ‘look before you leap.’ Whatever decision you make will equally satisfy us. But I see you need time to consider. Suppose you consult your foster-father, and give Mr. Ashton your decision at the outcome-supper to-night.”

The hesitation of Jabez was only momentary. We are told that all the marvels and glories of Paradise were revealed to Mahomet before a single drop of water had time to flow from a pitcher overturned in his upward flight; and even whilst Mrs. Ashton spoke, Jabez had time to think.

“Thank you, madam,” said he, “but I need no deliberation. I know not for whose kindness to be most grateful; but I do know that I should be most ungrateful if I were to quit the master and mistress to whom both myself and my dear friends owe so very much, for the first tempting offer made to me. Mr. Chadwick overrates my service; Mr. Mabbott rendered quite as efficient aid; besides, I have no acquaintance with the manufacture of piece-goods, and have no right to take advantage of Mr. Chadwick’s extreme generosity, knowing my own disqualifications. And pardon my saying so—if Mr. Chadwick has no mercantile son, he may some day have a son-in-law better fitted in every way for the office and promise held out to me.—I trust, Mr. Chadwick, you will not consider me ungracious in declining your liberal offer, but indeed I have been trained to the small-ware manufacture, and here lies my duty, for here I feel I may be able to render something of a _quid pro quo_.”

Before anyone had time for reply, the Infirmary clock struck twelve; and as if simultaneously, there was a rush from the warehouse into the yard, an outcry and a din, as if Babel had broken loose, the sacred precincts of the counting house was invaded, and Jabez was carried off _vi et armis_.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

ONCE IN A LIFE.

Customs change with the manners of the times, and as the apprentice is no longer the absolute bond-slave of his master, release from the seven years bondage is now seldom accompanied by the active and noisy demonstration which of old marked that epoch of a tradesman’s or an artisan’s career.

But, if the sudden uproar which chased quiet from the precincts of Mr. Ashton’s warehouse and manufactory when the Infirmary clock told noon, broke prematurely upon the conference in the counting-house, it was not unexpected. Every apprentice had been similarly greeted at the same period of his life. Until the clock proclaimed twelve, business routine had been undisturbed, but those twelve beats of the timekeeper’s hammer had been the signal for every apprentice and workman on the premises to rush pell-mell into the yard, each bearing with him some implement or symbol of his trade, anything which would clash or clang being preferred. Remnants of fringe, bed-lace, and carpet-binding, waved and fluttered like streamers from the hands of the women; umbrella sticks were flourished; strings of waste ferrules, brass wheels, brace-buckles, button and tassel-moulds, cops, and spindles were jingled and jangled together; tin cans were beaten with picking-rods, punches, hammers, leather stamps, and other tools, by apprentices and men; whilst Jabez himself, hoisted on the shoulders of the two smallware-weavers who had seized and borne him from his master’s presence, claiming him as one of their own body, a recognised lawful member of their craft, was paraded round and round that inner court-yard, with the crowd in extemporised procession, amid shouts, hurrahs, songs, and that peculiar instrumental accompaniment which was—noise, not—music.

The household servants had crowded to the scullery door, clerks stood aloof under the gateway, where Simon Clegg kept them company in an ecstasy of satisfaction; Mr. and Mrs. Ashton and Mr. Chadwick surveyed the proceedings from the counting house window, whilst even Ellen and Augusta were curious enough to look on from those back hall steps where they had once before received the hero of that scene, wounded, from a very different one.

More than six years had elapsed since the last indoor apprentice had been borne in triumph round that yard (Kit Townley’s indentures had been prematurely cancelled), and Jabez may be pardoned if he contrasted the two occasions, and construed the wilder excitement and enthusiasm of this in his own favour, when his employers and their daughter noticed it also.

“It is easy to tell what a favourite Jabez must be in the warehouse, by the uproar. The last outcome, I remember, was quite tame beside this.”

“Well, Augusta,” answered Ellen, “I believe he deserves it. I know my father thinks there is not such another young man as Mr. Clegg in all Manchester.”

“Yes, he’s very kind, and obliging, and clever, and perserving, and all that, and I like him very well; but then you know, Ellen, he is not a gentleman, and he is not handsome by any means,” responded Augusta, in quite a patronising tone.

Ellen looked grave.

“He is all that is good and noble, if he was not born a gentleman; and _I_ think him handsome. He has a frank, open, expressive countenance, and a good figure, and good manners, and what more would you have?”

Augusta turned her head sharply, and looked up archly in her cousin’s face.

“It’s well Captain Travis does not hear you, Ellen, or he might be jealous of the prentice-knight,” she said, banteringly.

Ellen coloured painfully.

“When shall I make you understand that Mr. Travis is nothing to me?” asked she.

“When my cousin makes me understand that she is nothing to Mr. Travis,” was the quick reply, as Jabez was being borne past for the last time, and the young ladies once more waved their handkerchiefs in salutation.

It may be very gratifying and very triumphant to be borne aloft on other men’s shoulders, but it is neither dignified, nor graceful, nor comfortable; and Jabez, being carried off bareheaded, had neither hat nor cap to wave in return. He made the best use of his right hand, his left being required to steady himself, yet I am afraid he was more desirous to make a good impression on the romantic young lady muffled in a shawl—to hide the swathing bandages—than on his less-attractive and elder champion by her side.

It was half-past twelve; the dinner-bell rang, Jabez was lowered to _terra firma_, and there was a general rush to the packing-room, which had been cleared out to receive tressels and planks for tables, and an abundant supply of cold meat, cheese, bread, and ale, provided by the master.

And then and there, before a mouthful was cut, Mr. Ashton, standing at the head of the table, with Mr. Chadwick by his side, and Simon Clegg close at hand, presented Jabez with his indentures, with many expressions of his good will and his good opinion, and an intimation to those assembled that Mr. Clegg would in all probability continue in his employ, an announcement which was received with loud acclaim: and the hungry operatives set to at the collation with right good will.

This was the master’s feast; that of the apprentice, for which it was customary to save up long in advance, was at night, and held at the neighbouring “Concert-Hall Tavern” in York Street, opposite to the then “Gentleman’s Concert-Hall.”

Prior to that, however, Mrs. Ashton had somewhat to say to the young man, and she chose his own sitting-room to say it in. Of course, his apprenticeship over, it behoved him to shift his quarters; and he had looked forward to his abdication with regret undreamed of by Mrs. Ashton, or she would certainly have hesitated ere she made the proposal she did.