Part 19

As it was, she kindly and thoughtfully considered that Jabez had no good parental home to return to; that she had no other use for the rooms he occupied, so she proposed to him that he should continue to occupy them whilst he thought fit, since he had elected to remain in their service.

He had already looked at lodgings in Charlotte Street, close at hand; but this unexpected proposal came like a reprieve to an exile, and he was as prompt in his acceptance as he had been in that previous decision which had so thoroughly swamped all Mr. Chadwick’s plans for his advancement. His eager “Oh, madam, you cannot mean it! You overwhelm me with kindness. Remain under this roof! It is a privilege I had not anticipated, and I shall be proud to embrace it!” sent Mrs. Ashton away well pleased.

It was doubly satisfactory to find the comforts of their home appreciated after seven years’ experience, and to be able to refute Mr. Ashton’s theory that “all young men like to shake a loose leg, and Jabez would be too glad to escape from grumbling Kezia’s jurisdiction to accept the offer.”

Mr. Ashton, however, did not abandon the opinion he had formed. “I’ll wager my gold snuff-box against a button-mould,” asserted he, “that Clegg only said ‘Yes’ because gratitude would not let him say ‘Nay!’ It’s not likely a young man would care to be always under the eyes of a master or mistress, however steady he may be.”

Ah, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ashton knew there was a magnet under their roof, stronger than all the ordinary inducements which might otherwise have drawn him away—and perhaps it was as well for him they did not.

Simon, who was present at the time, seemed literally overpowered with gratitude for all the good which was falling into the lap of the child of his adoption. He, however, took his own views of the matter, views not calculated to puff Jabez up in his own esteem, and when Mrs. Ashton was gone he broke out—

“Oh, Jabez, lad! but thah’s lit on thi feet! Thah’s bin a good lad, aw reckon, an’ thah’s sarved thi master gradely; but thah sees many a lad does that as never gets a lift such as thah’s getten. an’ aw canno’ but thenk it o’ comes o’ that prayer o’ thy Israelite neamesake, as aw towt thee when thou wer no bigger nor sixpenn’orth o’ copper. yo’ hanna furgetten it, aw hope?”

No, Jabez had not forgotten it! It would be strange if he had. Nay, only that morning, in the flush of success he had carried from the counting-house, with the buoyant presumption of youth, a conviction that it was not so much a prayer as a prophecy nearing fulfilment.

Simon brought his soaring pinions down from their Icarian flight.

“Well, lad, it may be ‘the Lord has enlarge thi coast,’ but if so be He han, thah sees theer’s moore room fur thee to slip as well as to stond, and theer’s moore rayson whoi thah shouldn be thenkful and humble! for the big book says, ‘Let him that stondeth tak’ heed lest he fall,’ an’ aw shouldna loike t’ see thi young yead torned wi proide.”

His lecture was somewhat of a cold shower-bath to Jabez in his hour of triumph, but no doubt it was salutary in its ultimate effects. At all events, it kept the vaulting ambition of the new man a little in check.

People—especially work-people—then observed early hours. At seven o’clock the outcome supper was on the tables at the “Concert Hall Tavern;” and the elder apprentices, and all such of the workmen as were absolutely engaged on the premises, were there to partake when Jabez found old Simon a seat, himself taking the head of the table, with the two senior apprentices on his right hand and left.

The cost of such suppers usually fell on the apprentice, but sometimes, as in this case, the master added his quota. If plain, the provision was substantial and ample. Rounds of beef and legs of mutton, piles of floury potatoes, and red cones of carrot on pale beds of mashed turnip, smoked on the board, and the two-pronged forks and horn-hafted knifes were flanked with earthenware jugs and horns of ale.

It was the first essay of Jabez in the art of carving, and no doubt he made rather an unskilful president. But in the then condition of the lower classes a large joint of meat was a rare sight to a working-man, and so he cut away with no fear of critics. Amidst the rattle of cutlery and crockery, and the rapid play of jaws, beef and mutton disappeared, and were succeeded by a tremendous plum-pudding—the contribution of old Mrs. Clowes—and half a cheese, which came to the table in the then common japanned receptacle locally known as a cheese-biggin.

Appetite and the viands fled together, the noise of tongues succeeded to the noise of knives and forks, and Lancashire humour vented itself in jest and repartee, sometimes coarse, but seldom mischievous. Old Simon enjoyed it immensely. It seemed like a renewal of his own youth.

It was not, however, until the supper-table was cleared that the chief ceremonial of the evening took place. Then an arm-chair was mounted upon the table, in which Jabez was enthroned, the two eldest apprentices standing, also on the table on either hand as supporters. An immense bowl of steaming punch was brought in, which was held over the head of Jabez by the one apprentice (when he was said to be crowned), whilst the other, wielding the punch-ladle as a symbol of authority, with many a theatrical grimace, began to ladle the odorous compound into the glasses of the guests; and the head over-looker of the manufactory, from the opposite end of the table, prepared to propose the health of the late apprentice, as a new member of their craft.

At this juncture in walked their master, Mr. Ashton, closely followed by Mr. Chadwick, leaning on the arm of the Rev. Joshua Brookes, who with many a “pish!” and “pshaw!” and “pooh!” had professed to come reluctantly, “to see a sensible lad make a fool of himself.” Their entrance, and the volley of cheers which greeted it, made a momentary pause in the proceedings. Then Mr. Ashton, being duly supplied with a ladleful of punch, took his overlooker’s place, and the glass serving as a substitute for his snuff-box, he proposed and drank “Mr. Clegg’s health and prosperity,” and welcomed him among the confraternity of small-ware weavers.

This was succeeded by a prolonged cheer; and then, as one by one each man’s glass was filled, ere he touched it with his lips he sang separately (with whatsoever voice he might happen to have, musical or otherwise) the following toast to proclaim the released apprentice a freeman of the trade, the chorus being taken up afresh after every repetition of the quatrain:—

“Here’s a health to he that’s now set free, That once was a ’prentice bound, And for his sake this merriment we make, So let his health go round; Go round, go round, go round, brave boys, Until it comes to me; For the longer we sit here and drink, The merrier we shall be.”

_Chorus_—“Go round, go round,” &c.

Mr. Ashton had ordered up another bowl of punch, and that being distributed with like ceremony over the new small-ware monarch’s head, Jabez, from his temporary throne, with all the warmth of freshly-stimulated gratitude, delivered a very genuine oration on the excellence of the master then present, and proposed as a toast, “Mr. and Mrs. Ashton, our worthy and esteemed master and mistress.”

Now-a-days I’m afraid the master would have been dubbed a “governor,” and the mistress ignored altogether; but though it is only fifty-five years since, servants were not ashamed to own they had masters and mistresses, and consequently were not above being amenable to rule.

During this digression, at a hint from some one (I believe old Simon), Jabez, whose eloquence must surely have come from the punch-bowl, dilated on the spiritual relation between the reverend chaplain and the party assembled, there being scarcely an individual present who had not been either baptised or married by the Rev. Joshua Brookes; and he wished “health and long life to him” with much sincerity.

A general shout rose in response, but Joshua made no other reply than to turn on his heel (the better to hide his face), and growl out, “Long life indeed! Ugh! pack of tomfoolery!” as he hurried from the room, before either Mr. Ashton or his paralysed brother-in-law could follow. Yet, in spite of his gruff disclaimer, he added another bowl of punch to the “tomfoolery”—at least, one was brought in soon after, and no one there was called upon to pay for it.

Relieved from the restraining presence of the gentlemen, tongues wagged freely, long pipes were introduced, song, jest, and toast succeeded each other, and as the fun grew and the smoke thickened, they mingled confusedly, until at length clear-headed Simon drew his arm through that of the novice, and watching his opportunity, led him unnoticed into the open air, with his head spinning like a teetotum.

Jabez awakened the next morning with a terrible headache, and a dim recollection of having encountered stately Mrs. Ashton in the hall overnight, when the very statues had seemed to shake their heads at him, and her mild, “Fie, Jabez!” followed him upstairs, apparently carpeted with moss or india-rubber for the nonce. It was his first dissipation, _and his last_. He never forgot it. And if anything was wanting to destroy the germs of self-sufficiency and elation, it was found in the consciousness of his own frailty, and the sense of shame and self-reproach it engendered.

Experienced heads knew that the surrounding fumes of liquor and tobacco had been more potential than the small quantity of punch he had imbibed. But he did not know it, and by the hail-fellow-well-metishness of those workmen who were most inclined at all times to keep Saint Monday, and who came to their work, or stayed from their work, unfit for their work, was a sensitive chord of his nature struck, far more than by the quiet caution of Simon, the light badinage of Mr. Ashton, or the jeers of captious Kezia.

In making light of it, Jabez felt they made light of him, and he was long after afraid lest those whose opinion he held in esteem should make light of him also—Augusta Ashton chief of these.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.[20]

ON ARDWICK GREEN POND.

It was in vain Madame Broadbent waited on Mrs. and Mr. Ashton, and solicited Miss Ashton’s return to her establishment on her ultimate recovery. The pupil was not more shudderingly reluctant to be re-placed under her despotic rule than the parents were peremptory in their refusal.

When her plea for the “maintenance of discipline” failed, and she tried cajolery as ineffectually, she gave way to the expression of her natural fears that it would “be the ruin of the Academy” if Mr. Ashton did not reverse his decision. He loved his daughter too well to yield, and Mrs. Broadbent went back to Bradshaw Street to find, as years rolled on, that she had been a true prophetess.

The injury done to Miss Ashton’s collar-bone had been bruited about, and slowly but surely it helped to sap the foundation of the once-flourishing seminary. It continued to exist for some years, but its prestige was gone, its glory departed. Yet she maintained her personal importance to the last, and exhibited her flock in the “lower boxes” of the Theatre Royal on Mrs. M‘Gibbon’s benefit nights with undiminished dignity through successive seasons.

The rapidly-ripening young lady had her will; she had done with the schoolroom for ever, and her lessons on the harp from Mr. Horobin, and on the piano from George Ware, the leader of the Gentleman’s Concerts, came under quite another category. Nor did she think it beneath her aspirations to retain her place in Mr. Bland’s fashionable dancing-room, where she practised cotillons, quadrilles, and the newly-imported waltz, with partners on a par with herself. But these were _accomplishments_, and we all know, or ought to know by this time, that accomplishments require much more prolonged and arduous application than the merely useful and essential branches of knowledge, theorists for the higher education of women notwithstanding.

Miss Augusta was desirous to be captivating and shine in society, and so proud was Mr. Ashton of his beautiful daughter, that he fell in readily with the expansive views of the incipient belle; and new steps or new melodies were paraded for his gratification week by week. But Mrs. Ashton, telling her daughter that “knowledge was light of carriage,” sent her to Mr. Mabbott’s to take lessons in cookery and confectionery, and into the kitchen to put them in practice under the eye of Kezia; and, exercise being good for health, according to the same sensible mother, she was required to assist in bed-making, furniture polishing, dusting and general household matters, for which the young lady had little liking, and was not to be spurred into liking by any citation of her cousin Ellen’s qualifications in these respects. She preferred to dress with all the art at her command to make her beauty more bewildering, and to take her place at harp or piano, or embroidery frame, ready to receive visitors either with or without her mother, and to be as fascinating as possible, especially when Laurence Aspinall was the caller; or she would sit in déshabillé in the retirement of her own chamber, and read Moore and Byron because they were tabooed and the handsome lieutenant quoted them so enchantingly; whilst Cicily, who had something to answer for in this respect, bustled about and overworked herself to spare her darling Miss Augusta, who, with all her faults, must have been a loving and lovable creature to win such devotion from a dependent.

It happened that the young lady received visitors alone more frequently than was desirable, Mrs. Ashton being unusually tied to the warehouse through the interest Mr. Ashton took in the establishment of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and in the project for the widening of Market Street, and others of the cramped thoroughfares of the growing town—which necessarily took him much from home and his private business—to say nothing of the excitement consequent on the trial of Queen Caroline during its long progress.

But the year 1820, which had opened only to close the long volume of George the Third’s life, and to open that of George the Fourth’s reign at a chapter of regal wife persecution which has few parallels, had itself grown old and died, and 1821 had thrust itself prominently forward.

It came with a white robe and a frost-bitten countenance, which grew sharper and more pinched as weeks and months went by. It looked down on the currents of rivers and canals, on the secluded still waters of Strangeways Park, the oblong pond in front of the Infirmary, and the leech-shaped lakelet within the area of Ardwick Green, until their ripples curdled under the chilling glance of the New Year.

Sterner grew its aspect as the shivering weeks counted themselves into months, and the shrinking waters spread first a thin film, then a thick and a thicker barrier of ice between them and the freezing atmosphere. Every gutter had its slide, along which clattering clogs sped noiselessly; every pool its vociferous throng of boys, and every pond its mingled concourse of skaters and sliders. Of these, the Infirmary and Ardwick Green waters were most patronised; the former having the more numerous the latter having the more select body of skaters, and consequently the more fashionable surrounding of spectators.

The amusements of the town were then on so limited and exclusive a scale that long frost was quite a boon to the younger portion of the community; and during the sixteen weeks of its continuance, the Green became a promenade gay with the warm hues of feminine attire, as ladies flocked to witness and extol the feats of husbands, brothers, cousins or particular friends. There was no fear of vulgar overcrowding (except on Sundays); working-hours were long, and there were no Saturday half-holidays, so that only those whose time was at their own disposal could share the sport or overlook it.

Amongst these, much to the annoyance of Mr. Aspinall, his son Laurence chose to enrol himself, with less regard to the fluctuation of the cotton market, or the comparative value of American or East India staples than the Cannon Street merchant thought necessary to fit him for his future partner or successor. The younger man had chosen to construe liberally the word “gentleman,” which had been the be-all and end-all of his training, and to regard elegant idleness as its synonym. What availed his fine figure and proficiency in arts and athletics, if he had no opportunity for the display of his person or his skill? And to throw away the rare chance the Winter had provided was clearly to scorn the gift of the gods.

Accordingly he spent more time on Ardwick Green Pond than in the counting-house, varied occasionally with a visit to the Assembly Billiard-room in Back Mosley Street, or a morning promenade in the Infirmary Gardens, from the open gates of which he generally contrived to emerge as Miss Ashton descended the steps from Mr. Mabbott’s, and just in time to hand her courteously and daintily across the roadway, and bear her company to her own door, discoursing of recent assemblies or concerts, from the former of which she had hitherto been debarred, and of the last occasion on which he had “the exquisite pleasure of seeing her at Ardwick Green”—occasions which were seldom reported at home, any more than the chance meetings on her way from Mr. Mabbott’s; and the reticence, be sure, boded no good.

Dr. Hull had long ago advised “out-door exercise” for the rapidly-growing girl, and there was no embargo on her walks abroad, Mrs. Ashton suspecting no danger, and no surreptitious meetings. Her visits to the Green during the long skating season were quite as unrestrained, except that an escort became a necessity. Occasionally her mother accompanied her, sometimes Mrs. Walmsley and John (then there was generally a nurse and baby in the rear), sometimes Ellen and Mrs. Chadwick; and Augusta had always returned so exhilarated by her country walk, and so delighted with all she had seen, that once or twice, when imperative business withheld Mrs. Ashton from bearing her daughter company, as promised, rather than disappoint, the lady had made Mr. Clegg her deputy, an honour on which he perhaps set far too high a value.

Mrs. Ashton would have drawn herself up with double dignity, and repudiated as an insult the suggestion of any other of their salesmen or clerks as an escort for her beautiful daughter; but Jabez lived in the house, had lived there so long, had even from her childhood been the girl’s frequent guardian, and proved himself so worthy of the trust, that she committed her to his care now much as of old, and perhaps all the more readily because she saw, or fancied she saw, a disinclination on Miss Augusta’s part to be so accompanied.

In March the cold was as intense as in January, and Miss Ashton as eager to watch the skaters. One afternoon towards the close of the month, when the breaking up of the frost was anticipated, quite a family party had gone to the Green, wrapped in fur-trimmed pelisses of velvet or woollen, with fur-rimmed hats and Brobdignagian muffs.

It was not quite closing time when Mr. Ashton, always disposed to be friendly with Jabez, accosted him.

“The ladies are gone to the Green, Clegg. Suppose you lend me an arm along the slippery roads, and we go to meet them, eh?”

The sparkling eyes of Jabez confirmed his ready tongue’s “With pleasure, sir,” as, sensible of the honour done him, he left the sale-room, whistled his black friend Nelson from the yard, and they set off at a brisk pace, to keep the blood in circulation, the dog leaping, bounding, and barking before them, in token of good fellowship. As they passed the Infirmary pond, Jabez remarked that the ice began to look watery, to which Mr. Ashton replied,

“Yes; I think Jack Frost’s long visit is near its end, and there must be some truth in the old saw that ‘a thaw is colder than a frost.’”

At that moment Mr. Aspinall’s carriage rolled past them, bearing the merchant homewards in distinguished state (private carriages were by no means common), whereat Mr. Ashton observed with a shrug,

“How pride punishes itself! Fancy a tall fellow like Mr. Aspinall cramped up in a stifling box upon wheels on a day like this, when he has the free use of his limbs!”

Contrary to expectation, they did not come in sight of the ladies until they gained the Green, which they found a scene of wild hubbub and commotion; skaters and spectators gathering towards the centre of the Green, whence came a confused noise of voices, shouting, crying, and screaming.

The quick eye of Jabez was at once arrested by the figure of Augusta on the opposite bank, the centre of an appalled group, wringing her hands in the very impotence of terror, and as he penetrated the excited crowd, he saw the hatless head of a man, whose body was submerged, resting with its chin upon a ledge of the ice, which had apparently broken under him. At the first glance he failed to distinguish the head from the distance, and rushed forward, apprehensive lest it should be that of either Mr. Walmsley or his friend Travis, whom he knew to be of the party.

Recognition came accompanied by a shock that staggered him. If the ice had attractions for Aspinall and Walmsley, Ellen Chadwick had certainly as great attractions for Ben Travis; but it is certain that neither cousins, nor mother, nor aunt were sensible that they had been drawn thither simply as a sort of decorous train to Miss Augusta Ashton, whose inspiriting had in turn been the fascinating lieutenant, the most graceful and accomplished skater on the pond. Perhaps she hardly knew it herself, not being given to searching her own heart for its motives. But a hint from him had set her longing for “another sight of the skating before the chance was gone,” and her imperative will no less than her persuasive voice had swayed the rest.

Laurence had made the most of the occasion, glad of an opportunity to cultivate the acquaintance of the whole family, and display his graceful figure, and his skill to the best advantage. Now and then he joined the Chadwicks and the Ashtons on the bank, anon darted off, wheeling hither and thither, so swift in his evolutions, the eye could scarcely follow him.

Amongst the skaters the man and his feats stood out. He was the observed of all observers, and not vainer was he of his accomplishments than was Augusta at being singled out for attention in the face of so many damsels of his acquaintance, all, as she foolishly supposed, equally desirous to bask in the sun of his smile.