by Ellen Wood
“But I tell you there was not any. I am certain upon the point.”
“Well, it was the only conclusion we could come to,” rejoined Mr. Peterby. “This Mr. Daw must have some grounds for urging the thing on; he wouldn’t be so stupid as to do so if he had none.”
“He has none,” said Chattaway.
“Ah, but I am sure he has. But for being convinced of this, do you suppose I should have come to you now, asking you to give up an estate which you have so long enjoyed? I assure you I came as much in your interests as in his. If there is anything in existence by which you can be disturbed, it is only fair you should know of it.”
Fair! In Mr. Chattaway’s frame of mind, he could scarcely tell what was fair and what was not fair. The interview was prolonged, but it brought forth no satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps none could be expected. Mr. Peterby took his departure, impressed with the conviction that the present owner of Trevlyn Hold would retain possession to the end, contesting it inch by inch; and as he walked down the avenue he asked himself whether he had not been induced to enter upon a foolish errand, in coming to suggest that it should be voluntarily resigned.
The master of Trevlyn Hold watched him away, and then opened the breakfast-room door. “Where’s Rupert?” he inquired, not seeing Rupert there.
“Rupert?” answered Mrs. Chattaway, looking up. “I think he has gone to Blackstone. He wished me good morning; and I saw him walk down the avenue.”
All things seemed to be against Mr. Chattaway. Here was Rupert out of sight now; it was hard to say where he might have gone, or what mischief he might be up to. As he turned from the door, Cris Chattaway’s horse — the unlucky new one which had damaged the dog-cart — was brought up, and Cris appeared, prepared to mount him.
“Where are you going, Cris?”
“Nowhere in particular this morning,” answered Cris. “I have a nasty headache, and a canter may take it away.”
“Then I’ll ride your horse to Blackstone,” returned Mr. Chattaway. “Alter the stirrups, Sam.”
“Why, where’s your own horse?” cried Cris, with a blank look.
“In the stable,” shortly returned Chattaway.
He mounted the horse and rode away, his many cares perplexing him. A hideous wall separating him from all good fortune seemed to be rising up round about him; and the catastrophe he so dreaded — a contest between himself and Rupert Trevlyn for possession of the Hold — appeared to be drawing within the range of probability. In the gloomy prospect before him, only one loophole of escape presented itself to his imagination — the death of Rupert.
But you must not think worse of Mr. Chattaway than he deserves. He did not deliberately contemplate such a calamity; or set himself to hope for it. The imagination is rebelliously evil, often uncontrollable; and the thought rose up unbidden and unwished for. Mr. Chattaway could not help it; could not at first drive it away again; the somewhat dangerous argument, “Were Rupert dead I should be safe, and it is the only means by which I can feel assured of safety,” did linger with him longer than was expedient; but he never for one moment contemplated the possibility as likely to take place; most certainly it never occurred to him that he could be accessory to it. Though not a good man, especially in the way of temper and covetousness, Chattaway would have started with horror had he supposed he could ever be so bad as that.
He rode swiftly along in the autumn morning, urging his horse to a hard gallop. Was his haste merely caused by his anxiety to be at Blackstone, or that he would escape from his own thoughts? He rode directly to the coal mine, up to the mouth of the pit. Two or three men, looking like blackamoors, were standing about.
“Why are you not down at work?” angrily demanded Mr. Chattaway. “What do you do idling here!”
They had been waiting for Pennet, the men replied. But word had just been brought that Pennet was not coming.
“Where is he?” asked Mr. Chattaway. “Skulking again?”
“I dunna think he be skulking, sir,” was the reply of one. “He’s bad a-bed.”
An angry frown darkened Mr. Chattaway’s countenance. Truth to say, this man, Pennet, though a valuable workman from his great strength, his perseverance when in the pit, did occasionally absent himself from it, to the wrath of his overseers; and Mr. Chattaway knew that illness might be only an excuse for taking a holiday in the drinking shop.
“I’ll soon see that,” he cried. “Bring that horse back. If Pennet is skulking, I’ll discharge him this very day.”
He had despatched his horse round to the stable; but now mounted him again, and was riding away, after ordering the men down to their work, when he stopped to ask a question respecting one of his overseers.
“Is Bean down the shaft?”
No; the men thought not. They believed he was round at the office.
Mr. Chattaway turned his horse’s head towards the office, and galloped off, reining in at the door. The clerk Ford and Rupert Trevlyn both came out.
“Oh, so you have got here!” ungraciously grunted Mr. Chattaway to Rupert. “I want Bean.”
“Bean’s in the pit, sir,” replied Ford.
“The man told me he was not in the pit,” returned Mr. Chattaway. “They said he was here.”
“Then they knew nothing about it,” observed Ford. “Bean has been down the pit all the morning.”
Mr. Chattaway turned to Rupert. “Go down the shaft and tell Bean to come up. I want him.”
He rode off as he spoke, and Rupert departed for the pit. The man Pennet lived in a hovel, one of many, about a mile and a half away. Chattaway, between haste and temper, was in a heat when he arrived. A masculine-looking woman with tangled hair came out to salute him.
“Where’s Pennet?”
“He’s right bad, master.”
Mr. Chattaway’s lip curled. “Bad from drink?”
“No,” replied the woman, defiantly; for the owner of the mine was held in no favour, and this woman was of too independent a nature to conceal her sentiments when provoked. “Bad from rheumatiz.”
He got off his horse, rudely pushed her aside, and went in. Pennet was dressed, but was lying on a wooden settle, as the benches were called in that district.
“I be too bad for the pit to-day, sir; I be, indeed. This, rheumatiz have been a-flying about me for weeks; and now it’s settled in my loins, and I can’t stir.”
“Let’s see you walk,” responded Chattaway.
Pennet got off the bench with difficulty, and walked across the brick floor slowly, his arms behind him.
“I thought so,” said Chattaway. “I knew you were skulking. You are as well able to walk as I am. Be off to the pit.”
The man lifted his face. “If you was in the pain I be, master, you wouldn’t say so. I mote drag myself down to ‘im, but I couldn’t work.”
“We will see about that,” said Mr. Chattaway, in his determined manner. “You work to-day, my man, or you never work again for me: so take your choice.”
There was a pause. Pennet looked irresolute, the woman bitter. Perhaps what these people hated most of all in Chattaway was his personal interference and petty tyranny. What he was doing now — looking up the hands — was the work of an overseer; not of the owner.
“Come,” he authoritatively repeated. “I shall see you start before me. We are too busy for half of you to be basking in idleness. Are you going? Work to-day, or leave the pit, just which you please.”
The man glanced at his children — a ragged little group, cowering in silence in a corner, awed by the presence of the master; took his cap without a word, and limped slowly away, though apparently scarcely able to drag one foot before the other.
“Where be your bowels of compassion?” cried the woman, in her audacity, placing herself before Mr. Chattaway.
“I know where my whip will be if you don’t get out of my way and change your tone,” was his answer. “What do you mean, woman, by speaking so to me?”
“Them as have no compassion for their men, but treads ’
em down like beasts o’ burden, may come, perhaps, to be treaded down themselves,” was the woman’s retort, as she withdrew out of Mr. Chattaway’s vicinity.
He made no answer, except that he lifted his whip significantly. As he rode off, he saw Pennet pursuing his way to the mine by the nearest path — one inaccessible to horses. When he was near the man, he lifted his whip as significantly at him as he had done at the wife, and then urged his horse to a gallop. It was a busy day, both in the office and in the mine; and Chattaway, taking as you perceive a somewhat practical part in his affairs, had wished to be present some two hours before. Consequently, these delays had not improved his temper.
About midway between the Pennets’ hut and the mine were the decaying walls of what had once been a shed. Part of the wall was still standing, about four feet high. It lay right in Mr. Chattaway’s way: one single minute given to turning either to the right or left, and he would have avoided it. But he saw no reason for avoiding it: he had leaped it often: it was not likely that he would in his hurry turn from it now.
He urged his horse to it, and the animal was in the very act of taking the leap, when a sudden obstacle interposed. A beggar, who had been quietly ensconced on the other side, basking in the sun and eating his dinner, heard the movement, and not wishing to be run over started up to escape the danger. The movement frightened the horse, causing him to strike the wall instead of clearing it: he fell, and his master with him.
The horse was not hurt, and soon found its legs. If the animal had misbehaved himself a few days previously, under the hands of Mr. Cris, he appeared determined to redeem his character now. He stood patient and silent, turning his head to Mr. Chattaway, as if waiting for him to get up.
Which that gentleman strove to do. But he found he could not. Something was the matter with one of his ankles, and he was in a towering passion. The offending beggar scampered off, frightened at his unbounded rage and threats of vengeance.
The intemperate words did him no good; you may be very sure of that; they never do any one good. For more than an hour Mr. Chattaway lay there, his horse patiently standing by him, and no one coming to his aid. It would have seemed that he lay three times as long, but that he had his watch, and could consult it as often as he pleased. It was an unfrequented by-road, leading nowhere in particular, except to the hovels; and Chattaway had therefore full benefit of the solitude.
The first person to come up was no other than Mrs. Pennet — Meg Pennet, as she was familiarly called. Her tall, gaunt form came striding along, and her large eyes grew larger as she saw who was lying there.
“Ah, master! what’s it your turn a’ready! Have you been there ever sin’? Can’t you get up?”
“Find assistance,” he cried in curt tones of authority. “Mount my horse and you’ll go the quicker.”
“Na, na; I mount na horse. The brute might be flinging me, as it seems he ha’ flinged you. Women and horses be best apart. Shall I help you up?”
His haughty, ill-conditioned spirit would have prompted him to say “No”; his helplessness and impatience obliged him to say “Yes.” The powerful woman took him by the shoulders and raised him. So far, so good. But his ankle gave him intense pain; was, in short, almost useless; and a cry escaped him. In his agony, he flung her rudely from him with his elbow. “Go and get assistance, woman.”
“Be that’n the thanks I get? Ah! it be coming home to ye, be it! Ye sent my man off to work in pain; he couldn’t hardly crawl: how d’you like pain yerself? If the leg’s broke, Squire, you’ll ha’ time to lie and think on’t.”
She strode on, Chattaway sending an ugly word after her, and soon came in sight of the mine — which appeared to be in an unusual bustle. A crowd had collected round the mouth of the pit, and people were running to it from all quarters. Loud talking, gesticulating, confusion prevailed: what could be causing it?
“Happen they be looking for him as is lying yonder!” quoth she. But scarcely were the words out of her mouth when a group of women running, filling the air with cries and lamentations, came in sight. Her coarse face grew white and her heart turned sick as the fatal truth burst upon her conviction. There had been an accident in the mine!
CHAPTER XXXI
DOWN THE SHAFT
It was only too true. Whether from fire-damp, the rushing in of water, or some other mischief to which coal-pits are liable, was as yet scarcely known: nothing was certain except the terrible calamity itself. Of the men who had gone down the mine that morning, some were dead, others dying. Meg Pennet echoed the shrieks of the women as she flew forward and pushed through the crowd collected round the mouth of the pit. The same confusion prevailed there that prevails in similar scenes of distress and disaster elsewhere.
“And Mr. Chattaway himself was down the shaft, you say? He went down this morning? My friends, it is altogether an awful calamity.”
The woman pushed in yet further and confronted the speaker, her white face drawn with anguish. He was the minister of a dissenting chapel, a Mr. Lloyd, and well known to the miners, some of whom went regularly to hear him preach.
“No, sir; Chattaway was na down the shaft; he is na one of the dead, more luck to him,” she said, her words brought out brokenly, her bosom heaving. “Chattaway have this morning made me a widda and my young children fatherless. My man was stiff with rheumatiz, he was — no more fit to go to work nor I be to go down that shaft and carry up his poor murdered body. I knowed his errand as soon as I heerd his horse’s feet. He made him get off the settle, and druv him out to work as he’d drive a dog; and when I told him of his hardness, he lifted up his whip agin me. Yes! Pennet’s down with the rest of ‘em; sent by him: and I be a lone widda.”
“Her says right,” interposed a voice. “It wasn’t the master as went down the shaft; it were young Rupert Trevlyn.”
“Rupert Trevlyn,” uttered the minister in startled tones. “I hope he is not down.”
“Yes, he’s down, sir.”
“But where can Mr. Chattaway be?” exclaimed Ford, the clerk, who made one of the throng. “Do you know, Meg Pennet?”
“He’s where ill-luck have overtook him for his cruelty to us,” answered Meg Pennet, flinging her hair from her sorrowful face. “I telled him the ill he forced on others might happen come home to him — that he might soon be lying in his pain, for aught he knew. And he went right off to the ill then and there — and he’s a-lying in it.”
The sympathies of the hearers were certainly not given to Mr. Chattaway. He was no favourite with his dependants at Blackstone, any more than with his neighbours around the Hold. But the woman’s words were strange, and they pressed for an explanation.
“He be lying under the wall o’ the old ruin,” was her reply. “I come upon him there, and I guess his brave horse had flung him. When I’d ha’ lifted him, he cried out with pain — as my poor man was a-crying in the night with his back — and I saw him lay hisself down again after I’d left him. And Chattaway he swore at me for my help — and you can go to him and be swore at too. Happen his leg be broke.”
The minister turned away to seek Mr. Chattaway. Unless completely disabled, it was necessary that he should be at the scene; no one of any particular authority was there to give orders; and the inevitable confusion attendant on such a calamity was thereby increased. Ford, the clerk, sped after Mr. Lloyd, and one or two stragglers followed him; but the rest were chained to the more exciting scene of the disaster.
Mr. Chattaway had raised himself when they reached him, and was holding on by the wall. He broke into a storm of grumbling, especially at Ford, and asked why he could not have found him out sooner. As if Ford could divine what had befallen him! Mr. Lloyd stooped and touched the ankle, which was a good deal swollen. It was sprained, Chattaway said; but he thought he could manage to get on his horse with their assistance. He abused the beggar unmercifully, and expressed his intention of calling a meeting of his brother-magistrates, that measures might be taken to rid the country of tramps and razor-g
rinders; and he finished up in the heat of argument by calling the accident which had befallen him a cursed misfortune.
“Hush!” quietly interrupted Mr. Lloyd. “I should call it a blessing.”
Chattaway stared at him and deemed that he was carrying religion rather too far. As he looked, it struck him that both his rescuers wore very sad countenances; Ford in particular was excessively crestfallen. A sarcastic smile crossed his face.
“A blessing! to have my ankle sprained, and waste my morning in this fashion? Thank you, Mr. Lloyd! You gentlemen who have nothing better to do with your time than preach it away may think little of such an interruption, but to men of business it is not agreeable. A blessing!”
“Yes, I believe it to have come to you as such — sent direct from God. Were you not going into the pit this morning?”
“Yes, I was,” impatiently answered Mr. Chattaway. “I should be there now, but for this — blessing! I wish you would not — —”
“Just so,” interrupted Mr. Lloyd, calmly. “And this fall has no doubt saved your life. There has been an accident in the pit, and the poor fellows who went down a few hours ago full of health and life, are about to be carried up dead.”
The words brought Mr. Chattaway to his senses. “An accident!” he repeated. “What accident? — of what nature?” turning hastily to Ford.
“Fire-damp, I believe, sir.”
“Who was down?” was the next eager question.
“The usual men, sir. And — and — Mr. Rupert Trevlyn.”
Chattaway with some difficulty repressed a shout. Idea after idea crowded upon his brain, one chasing another. Foremost amongst them rose distinctly the one thought of the morning from which he had striven to escape and could not: “Nothing can bring me security save the death of Rupert.” Had the half-encouraged wish brought its realisation.
“Rupert Trevlyn down the shaft!” he repeated, the moisture breaking over his face. “I know he went down; I sent him; but — but — did he not come up again?”
“No,” gloomily replied Ford, who really liked Rupert; “he is down now. There’s no hope that he’ll come up alive.”