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A Rolling Stone, Vol. I

Chapter X

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Chapter X.

‘Wail, O ye autumn winds!
She lives no more—
The gentle summer, with her balmy breath,
Still sweeter than before,
When nearer death,
And brighter every day the smile she wore.’

The threshing was over at the farm. Stack after stack had yielded up its golden treasure; and Langridge found his most sanguine expectations realised when he counted the number of bushels. Nevertheless he would not acknowledge he had profited by this good harvest, so accustomed was he to speak of farming as a losing game, and to prove (to his own satisfaction) that his profits were invariably swallowed up by expenses. He would cover a large sheet of paper with his strange figures and stranger writing, setting down everything that by the most ingenious process of reasoning could be charged against the crop. His own time was included, and charged for at the regular wage for every hour during which he had been out of doors, since it was to be presumed that when there he was either assisting, advising, ordering, or superintending his workmen. He even debated whether page 130 he ought not to charge a double wage for his services.

‘I ought to be worth more to myself than any two hired men,’ he observed to Stephen, who, at his request, was looking over the long column of figures to detect mistakes. ‘I defy any one to say I don't do as much as any two of them.’

‘Well, I can make nothing of it,’ said Stephen in despair. ‘If your figures are correct you've lost instead of gained by this wheat-crop.’

‘Well, haven't I always said farming doesn't pay in this country?’

‘But what is the use of reckoning such things as these—the time of all the horses at a pound a day for each pair, or the wear and tear of harness and farm implements. And do you mean to say you yourself have worked ten hours every day from the sowing of the wheat to the threshing? That comes to something enormous. If you put all these things in, no wonder there isn't a balance. Strike them out and there's a very fair profit.’

‘Let it alone, Stephen, don't meddle with my figures,’ said Langridge, drawing the paper away, and proceeding to finish the calculation according to his pleasure, inserting two items he had forgotten: the food of the horses and the cost of a new waggon—the old one had broken down with a load of sacks.

Palmer had taken to the road again, and with his ponderous engine was on the way to other stubble fields and rickyards. He would not have to search page 131 long; a great part of the country had been white unto the harvest that year. As usual, he had changed most of his labourers before leaving the farm. Palmer was of the opinion that this frequent hiring answered two very good purposes—it helped and encouraged men who were seeking work, and it was only reasonable to suppose that more would be done by new hands than by those who had been long at the occupation and had tired of it, or, as he said, had learnt to cheat him. Otherwise there could be no truth in the well-worn saying relating to the performances of new brooms.

One of the new hands was Randall. An accident had given him the best place in Palmer's employ. Smithers, the engineer, who was constantly bearing the burden of his master's wrath, had at last filled up the measure of his offences and had been summarily dismissed. What he had done was not very clear. Palmer contented himself with saying that the various sins were too many to particularise. However, when no other man capable of filling his place appeared, and, as it seemed, none was forthcoming, he began to feel that even Smithers, with all his faults and frailties, was a man to be prized. Palmer had to do the work of his departed enginedriver for two whole days, and did not like it. On the third day he would gladly have recalled Smithers, could that worthy have been found; and having awakened to the consciousness that, form ignorance of the management of the engine, he was wasting page 132 both time and fuel, he impressively assured Langridge—this was before leaving that farmer's place—that an appearance of Smithers would be more gratifying to him than a vision of half the saints who had been thought worthy of canonisation.

‘Can you tell me how it is,’ he asked, ‘that so few men understand anything about an engine? As simple a thing as possible, and yet nine men out of ten, if one were left in their charge, would have a boiler explosion in less than six hours.’

‘Can't say that I understand them,’ said Langridge. ‘I never could. L've read a little about them, you know,—about the mighty power of steam and so on,—but I never could comprehend how it was made use of. I daresay Steve does; he ought to know those things, though it beats me to find out what he did learn at college.’

‘There's a great deal taught in colleges, but very little learned,’ said Palmer. ‘I wonder if your son could tell me where the safety-valve is.’

‘Blessed if I know where it is!’ candidly acknowledged Langridge.

‘Yes; and some men I've had have gone on as if there wasn't such a thing about the engine. They are ticklish things, these engines. They're always wanting tinkering at, for one thing. They and my other machinery cost me a tremendous sum in wear and tear. I don't understand them; I wish I could get a man who does. Last year I paid for enough oil to freight a ship, I believe, and where it has all page 133 gone to is a mystery. I'm sure the oil I've bought during the last month would have lubricated the engines of the Great Eastern.

‘Bless me! where does it all go to?’ exclaimed Langridge.

‘How am I to know? Ask Smithers; he could throw some light on that subject.’

‘I've just thought of a man who'd drive that engine capitally for you,’ said the farmer, his countenance suddenly illumined by this discovery.

‘Have you? There are plenty who say they can do it.’

‘But he can; he's a knowledge of most things—a sort of Jack-of-all-trades. Pity he should be here, when one considers what he must have been a few years ago. That extraordinary man, you know, that I picked up. Randall's his name. One of the other men who knew him at the Thames says he was engineer there for the battery of the Fiery Star.

‘Oh, I know whom you mean. I don't care to have to do with people who have seen better days; they're generally disappointing. But if he can do it he shall, for I'm sick of attending to my beautiful black diamond. It's smoking like a furnace now. What's that? We'd better look after our men. There's no trusting them even for five minutes.’

There was a loud jarring noise, and the sounds of quick snapping and cracking. Langridge and Palmer both rushed to the spot in hot haste, to find page 134 that a careless workman had dropped his fork into the threshing machine.

‘You'll be in yourself next,’ said Palmer, extracting the implement in small pieces. ‘Mind what you're about; remember that though I can give you a new fork I can't fix on an arm or a leg. Now, Langridge, where's that man? I mean to engage him at once. Randall—Randall, you said—that name's familiar to me.’

The name seemed to interest Palmer, for he wrote it down in his memorandum book, with a slight description of the owner underneath. ‘I haven't seen him before,’ he said to himself, ‘or I should remember. I seldom forget a face.’

The performances of the new engine-driver were very satisfactory to Palmer. ‘Why didn't you tell me about him before?’ he said. ‘I believe he could take an engine to pieces and put it together again blindfolded.’

‘I always said he was out of the common way, didn't I?’ cried Langridge.

‘You see the advantage of taking on men as they come,’ proceeded Palmer. ‘You are sure to light on a clever fellow at intervals. I've had some remarkable characters in my service, Langridge. I could write a book about them. Perhaps I shall some day.’

Palmer brought out these words with a jerk, as he attained to a secure seat on horseback. Although a skilled rider this was a work of some difficulty. He had a fondness for horses so spirited as to be page 135 almost unmanageable at times. He seldom had a riding horse that would stand patiently to be mounted. His method, therefore, was to make a sudden dash, and, instantly after, a spring that would have done credit to a professional acrobat, invariably alighting in the proper place. No one who witnessed this for the first time could tell exactly how it was done, or fail to be both surprised and amused at the feat.

‘Open the gate!’ commanded Palmer, as with much jumping and prancing on the part of his horse he progressed sideways towards the road. A boy flung the gate open, and the cavalcade of men, horses, and carts filed through with clatter and clash.

‘Thank goodness! they've gone,’ said Langridge, looking after them, ‘and they've broken that post again.’

A fortnight after, Palmer and his men were on the same road again, the produce of several farms having passed through the machines in the meantime. The road was dry and dusty as ever. The hawthorn hedges were choked with white dust, or they would have been beautiful with clusters of coral red berries. Scattered by the way were many bushes of sweetbriar, a plant which at least twice a year is fair to see—when its pale pink flowers are out, and when (as was the case now) it is decked with the showy fruit which school children love to string into necklaces. In the orchards and gardens the leaves were yellowing on the trees, and each gust of wind showered them down on the paths. The overcast page 136 sky and the cold wind which swept along the road with clouds of blinding dust were tokens of summer's swift decline.

Through the dust and against the wind men and horses struggled wearily. Even Palmer rode at a slow and steady pace. When they came to a turn in the road where a long green lane branched off, he suffered the men to pass into this lane, but himself remained on the highway, calling to Randall to join him. ‘Come and walk beside me,’ he said. ‘You needn't go with the men to Wingrove's. You won't be wanted there.’

‘But I thought,’ said Randall, who concluded that this was another instance of Palmer's extraordinary celerity in getting rid of his workmen, ‘that I should be wanted for a month at least. I understood you to say so.’

‘Oh, I want you; but you don't suit me at all as my engine-driver,’ said Palmer, with a peculiar glance and smile which were unintelligible to Randall.

It occurred to him, however, that the whole of that day Palmer had behaved and spoken to him in the strangest manner. He had been continually questioning him, not as if he simply wished to satisfy idle curiosity, but as if something he had found out stimulated his desire to know more of one who was supposed by his fellow-workers to have a history worth hearing, but who would not easily be persuaded to tell it.

‘I say you don't suit me,’ repeated Palmer— page 137 ‘not as you are now; but I think you'll do very well for another place I want to fill. Besides, Smithers, who wasn't such a bad fellow after all, has written to me, begging to be taken on again. Really I feel that I ought to give him another chance. I don't believe anyone who knew him as I do would have him, but such men must live; they're in the world like the rest of us, and can't subsist on air, however balmy it may be. Just read his letter; it's a great sham, but it's really a wonderful composition for Smithers. I forgave him as soon as I read it.’

Palmer handed a dirty little scrap of paper to Randall who managed to decipher the following:—

Respeckted Sir,

Ever since you turned me off, which I will say was Richly deserved by me, as I had never done what you wanted, and had acted in the ingratefullest manner, I have been preying that I might be in your survice again. As true as this is written by me, I have had no Peace of Mind since, and can't hear of no work, and am like to starve before long if this goes on. I hoap you will let me come back. I would try to give Sattisfaction. I never took no Oil; not enough to grease a pear of boots. I'm sure I don't know where it went to. I would clean the Ingine raggarly if I had to sit up all night over it. Hoaping to be with you again, and humbly begging pardon for things said and done when I was besides myself,

Respeckted Sir, yrs. Obeadiently,

Timothy Smithers.

‘I shall try him again,’ said Palmer. ‘The scamp has directed it to Mr. Palmer, Thrasher.’

page 138

By this time they had come in sight of a long, low, dingy house, surrounded by sheds built after strange and new orders of architecture, and of various kinds of materials—corrugated iron, palings, rough slabs, or old timber that had been used before in other buildings. Some of the sheds were falling down, and others leaned like the tower of Pisa, and for the same reason—because they had been built so.

‘My house, such as it is,’ said Palmer. ‘Hallo! that woman again.’

Randall had caught sight of a pink gingham dress surmounted by a buff-coloured parasol, rapidly whisked across the road before them. Now that the dress and parasol approached, their owner also became visible, in the person of a lady who might be any age from thirty to fifty, and who, judging from her appearance, was not only on excellent terms with herself but desirous of being so with other people. The lady was neither good nor illlooking. She had also attained the happy medium in her figure: she was neither short nor tall, neither slim nor stout. She had a round fresh-coloured face, a hard gray eye, and a suspicious abundance of black hair. It was strange that part of this—that part which every one could see was attached by mean of firm roots to her head—was turning gray, and that the other part, tastefully arranged beneath a bonnet of a colour which really might be said to ‘strike the eye,’ yet bore the dark and page 139 glossy hue poetically attributed to the raven's wing.

‘I've half a mind to gallop past without speaking,’ grumbled Palmer.

‘How do you do, Mr. Palmer?’ said a voice drawn out to the extreme of silvery thinness. ‘Better than you look, I hope. You don't seem so well as your friends could wish.’

‘Good day, Mrs. Sligo,’ responded Palmer, in a gruff tone of voice. ‘Oh, yes, I'm all right; much obliged for your kind inquiries.’

‘I hope you take more care of yourself than you used to do a while since,’ continued the lady, coming a little nearer. ‘Oh, Mr. Palmer, when I think of that time——’

‘When I think of it,’ said Palmer, ‘I'm thankful it's over.’

‘I never know how to understand you,’ giggled Mrs. Sligo. ‘How are my poor flowers looking this dry weather, Mr Palmer?—those polargamiums I planted. Who'll water them now, I wonder?’

‘Don't think they'll need much attention,’ said Palmer. ‘I've had that piece ploughed up and sown with maize.’

‘Oh, you barbarous man! And the bees, my poor bees, dear, industrious little insects?’

‘Brimstoned!’ fiercely answered Palmer, preparing to ride on.

‘Cruel, cruel!’ cried Mrs. Sligo, shaking her parasol at him. This had the effect of frightening page 140 his horse, which plunged sideways into a deep rut.

‘You'll have me off if you don't mind, ma'am,’ said Palmer. ‘My horse isn't accustomed to being poked in the eye with parasols.’

‘Ah, what a beautiful creature!’ said Mrs. Sligo, attempting to stroke the horse's neck.

‘Mrs. Sligo, you'll oblige me by not detaining me any longer. I've been out ever since six this morning, and I want to get home.’

‘Oh, Mr. Palmer, you overwork yourself. I always say so. Do allow yourself some rest.’

‘People won't allow me to rest, ma'am. There isn't such a thing as rest in this world. Good afternoon.’

Mrs. Sligo smiled and bowed, and went round a turn in the road with a jaunty little skip.

‘She is a mass of falsity,’ said Palmer. ‘No one knows how much of that woman is natural and how much comes from the hairdresser, milliner, and draper. She was my housekeeper—only for six months though, and that was long enough. Now, Randall, come in; this is my castle.’