Читать книгу A Miner's Million - John Monk Foster - Страница 4

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Right in the very heart of Lancashire, where huge chimneys continuously belch forth thick columns of black smoke, where deep pits pierce the earth in many places, and where stacks of coal are more numerous than yellow cornfields, there is a town called Torleigh. Thirty years before the opening of this story Torleigh was a village, notable only because it possessed a fine old Saxon Church in an excellent state of preservation, a vicar who had written a tolerably accurate history of the shire, and a family, noble and ancient which had for many a generation contributed a member to the Tory Cabinet of the day.

In the short space of thirty years Torleigh had risen from a poor and almost unknown hamlet to a prosperous and well-populated little town. Half a dozen master-farmers and two score of agricultural labourers had been displaced by 100 capitalists and 10,000 workers in coal mine, cotton factory, and iron foundry. Streets of small houses, with shops and taverns at every corner, had taken the place of the pleasant green lanes; and where the weather-tanned, strong-limbed, healthful husbandmen once perambulated at their ease, there now hurried sallow-faced, crooked-framed, healthless creatures.

From its very inception as a town Torleigh had been decidedly Tory. Each of its ten Mayors had been follower of Peel, Derby, or Disraeli, and a great majority of the Aldermen and Town Councillors were politically similar. And yet, strangely enough, the man owing to whose exertions Torleigh's rapid rise was due, was an old Chartist; a demander of annual Parliaments, vote by ballot, paid members, and the rest of it. But for this man, Torleigh might still have been a green village, a pleasant place, if an obscure one.

Jacob Gray was what it is the fashion to phrase "a self-made man," although circumstances rather than any marked originality of character had been the cause of his success in life. The son of poor parents, he had received no education worth notice, and as his father chanced to be a pitman he was taken long before he reached his teens to work with his father and mother in the mine. Owd Bob Gray, as Jacob's father was called, was one of those strong-minded characterful men to be found so often amongst Lancashire pitmen, and although he was utterly devoid of larnin', as he termed it, "Owd Bob" was noted as one of the best miners in the shire. He had sunk more shafts and driven more tunnels than any other pitman within a score of miles of his native place.

To his father's mining ability Jacob Gray's success may be traced. "Owd Bob" taught Jacob all he knew of pitcraft, and the knowledge thus gleaned proved infinitely valuable in after years. At this time there was only one small pit at Torleigh, and at this colliery Jacob laboured in various capacities for nearly a quarter of a century. Going to the Moor Pit as a galloway driver he rose by slow stages to be the Manager, and shortly afterwards he became the owner of the pit he managed.

In his early manhood Jacob Gray was a big, handsome fellow, uncouth of speech, perhaps, but frank of manner, and bold as the proverbial lion. More than one workmate owed life or limb to Jacob's daring and strength, and once the whole shire and the Press had rung with his daring. The Moor Pit had got on fire, and with unexampled bravery Jacob had descended the pit and extinguished the flames. Soon after this he was installed as Manager.

But Jacob's daring did more than this for him—it won for him a wife. The owner of the Moor Pit had one child, a quiet-mannered and good-looking woman a year or two older than Jacob. Alice Wilson had long been attracted towards her father's employé. She took great interest in the career of the big, handsome pitman who was so shy in her presence, and her interest changed to something deeper when Jacob saved her father from ruin, and the shire was ringing with his daring.

When Jacob became Mr. Wilson's manager he was necessarily thrown much in Alice Wilson's company, and he soon learned sufficient from Alice's manner towards himself to make him propose for her hand. He was accepted, their marriage followed quickly, and soon after Jacob found himself, through his wife, a mine owner, his father-in-law having died.

At this time there was still but one pit in Torleigh. Local geologians and miners averred that there were no seams of coal at a workable depth save the one worked at the Moor Pit. But this was an opinion from which Jacob Gray had always stoutly dissented. Rich seams of coal and cannel were being got at Wigan and other places a dozen miles away, and he firmly believed that the same seams existed at Torleigh, and at a workable depth.

Soon after his marriage, Jacob commenced sinking operations on a large scale. He pierced the earth to the depth of half a mile, and there he discovered, not a thin and worthless seam, as had been prognosticated, but a seam of rich cannel fully a fathom thick.

'Twas a veritable gold mine to Jacob Gray. So confident had be felt of finding valuable seams that before he commenced sinking he had purchased the right of getting the coal for many a good acre, a right he had been able to purchase for a trifle, as no one believed there was anything worth working.

In ten years' time Jacob Gray was a rich man, and his riches kept steadily augmenting. He sank deeper still, discovering other rich seams, and many people wondered that the thing had not been done long and long before. The people who had sold to Gray the exclusive right of getting the coal under their property were, of course, greatly chagrined at his success. To these people there was something peculiarly annoying in the thought that for any number of years rich stuff had lain under their green acres, undreamt of, to be given away almost. Had Gray's venture turned out a failure and ruined him, these folks would have had cause to be satisfied, for then they could have congratulated themselves on the excellent bargains they had made.

After Gray's successful mining operations the rise of Torleigh was rapid. Whole streets of houses were needed for the miners; shops and beer-houses sprang up at street corners; fresh capital was attracted to the spot; cotton factories reared themselves in the air, and ironmasters founded works there because coal was to be had there cheaply for smelting purposes.

On a hill overlooking the town, Jacob Gray built himself a big, comfortable house. Unlike so many self-made men, he did not hasten to leave the place where he had founded his fortune. He loved to linger about the place that had made him opulent, and, to some extent, famous. It was pleasing to think that the thousands of houses, the cotton mills, iron foundries, the town itself, had been the result of his successful venture.

Jacob Gray identified himself so much with the place that he seemed part of it, and he never dreamt of quitting Torleigh save for a few days. He had been born there, there had he laboured and grown rich, and there would he die!

And Jacob Gray was dying.

In his quiet, dimly lit room, propped up with the softest of pillows, Jacob Gray lay. Tarnished and sunken eyes, pallid and hollow cheeks, clearly attested that "the reaper" was not far away. Half an hour ago a baroneted physician, a dapper little dandy, dressed in the most fashionable of garments, and hailing from the capital, had assured Jacob Gray that he had only a few days to live.

And the ailing man had received his physician's intelligence without words of regret. A faint, shadowy smile had even flickered over the worn face, as though death would not be unwelcomed when he came.

Jacob Gray had lived for near three score years and ten; he had drunk deep of the success men thirst for so hungrily, and he had also had his quota of care and sorrow.

His life had been a great success financially, but his domestic affairs had been less prosperous. Jacob and his wife were happy enough together, and probably would have known little trouble had they been childless.

A year after her marriage with her father's manager, Alice Gray had borne her spouse a fine male child. The little fellow was duly baptised, and the name given to him was Robert Wilson Gray. Jacob remembered his father reverently, and he called his first-born after him, and the child's second name was its mother's suggestion.

Mrs. Gray gave birth to several other children, but none of them lived long enough to toddle along unaided. The first-born seemed to have absorbed all his mother's vitality, for she was never the same woman after her first accouchement as before.

And Robert Wilson Gray grew up a vigorous lad; frank, healthy, and handsome, after his father's fashion, and, of course, he was fondled and spoiled, as only sons usually are.

Perhaps there exists no more wide-spread feeling amongst the uneducated than a belief in their dormant capabilities. Well-educated people whose faculties are cultivated know the extent of their power, and, when sensible, do not attempt what is beyond their strength. But the illiterate are not able to thus gauge their abilities. Their faculties are covered thickly with the cobwebs of neglect, and this very fact opens to them an imaginary realm to which the literate have got access. Every poor fellow dreams of what he might have done had he only been well educated. Old Jobson, the cobbler, who manufactured doggrel rhyme so fluently when carousing in the beer-vault with his brothers of the awl, firmly believes that he would have taken rank with Shelley, Byron, and Tennyson had he been educated, and I know fully a score of respectable people who stoutly support this belief. Then there is Bott, the blacksmith, who, having constructed a wooden engine in his youth, thinks himself an undeveloped Watts or Stephenson.

This belief in dormant capabilities was one of the articles of Jacob Gray's creed. Having succeeded so successfully as a master miner, he fancied he would have been equally successful in other lines had he only been educated. Lack of scholastic attainments had been a source of much trouble to him. By the exercise of much persevering study of an old Bible of his mother's he had managed to learn a smattering of reading and writing. This was in his early manhood, and afterwards in the excitement and hurry of success he had neither time nor inclination to extend his knowledge.

Lack of education, perhaps, more than its possession, teaches men its value, and Jacob Gray resolved that his son should not lack scholarship—at least, he should have the chance of attaining it. Robert Wilson Gray would be a very rich man some day, and his father wisely saw that a liberal education was necessary in order to fit him for the position he would one day occupy.

In his early years Wilson Gray had private tutors, and the rapidity with which the young lad picked up learning of all kinds gladdened his parents' hearts, and augured well for his future.

On reaching his teens young Gray was sent to Eton to mix with the sons of aristocrats and moneyed men, and though Wilson's success at the great public school was less than his parents anticipated, still nothing transpired there to give an inkling as to his succeeding career.

When Wilson Gray left Eton for Cambridge he was a splendid fellow. About this time Wilson brought home with him young Lord Hayburne, son and heir of the Earl of Arrodale, an ancient peer, if a poor one. The young men had been at Eton together, and they left at the same time, going to the same college on the banks of the Cam. Hayburne and Gray were fast friends, a modern edition of Damon and Pythias, and Wilson's father and mother were proud of their son's friend. Lord Hayburne was welcomed at The Platts, and he made a stay of some weeks, going down the pits and flirting with the Forleigh mill-girls when chance permitted.

Truly, writers in general and novelists in particular, have written much rubbish concerning the nameless grace and distinguished manner ancient lineage confers upon its children. I should like to have confronted one of these writers with Lord Hayburne and Wilson Gray, one the son of an earl whose remotest ancestor fought side by side with the Norman Robber at Hastings; the other an undiluted plebian, the child of an ex-pitman.

Into what an egregious blunder these gentlemen would have stumbled, imagining that they were confirming by actual observation what they had previously written. Not one of them all but would have taken plebian for aristocrat, aristocrat for plebian.

Wilson Gray was tall, elegantly shaped and handsome of face; Lord Hayburne was short, thick-set, and coarse-featured; the former was frank, generous, and romantic, distinguished in speech, gesture, and appearance; the latter was secretive, selfish, and worldly, with nothing uncommon about him.

But ultimately Jacob Gray and his wife had ample cause to regret the intimacy that existed between their son and the Earl of Arrodale's heir. At Cambridge the young men picked up with a wild lot of young fellows, sons of noblemen and great financiers, who cared little for scholarship and much for pleasure.

Studies were neglected, University ordinances broken, College dons laughed at, practical jokes played; there were feasting and drinking, and in the end the whole lot were rusticated.

Jacob Gray was annoyed by his son's ejectment from Cambridge, but he was not yet seriously alarmed for Wilson's future. He set the young man's escapade down to youth and high spirits, believing that he would become all that was desirable after he had had his fling.

After being rusticated Hayburne and Gray took up their abode in London, engaging apartments in a fashionable quarter, and prepared to take a still deeper draught of pleasure which they had promised themselves.

By nature and the quality of his expectations Wilson Gray was quite unfitted for the world into which he was thrown. An open-handed, kindly-hearted young fellow whose father is said to be a millionaire stands in need of much stricter supervision than one less generous, and whose prospects are not so promising.

The best society was open to the Earl of Arrodale's heir, and through Hayburne Wilson Gray had the entrée to plenty of good houses. The young men became members of fashionable clubs where high play was allowed, and in a little while Wilson Gray and his aristocratic comrade were going the pace with the best or the worst of their fellows.

'Twas the old, common enough story: a weak man unable to resist life's allurements. Wilson's allowance, generous though it was, was all too insufficient. Pleasure was ever so much pleasanter to follow than duty, and Wilson went to the Jews, who, of course, obliged him. At 24 young Gray was well known "about town" as the heir of the great Lancashire mine-owner, and he enjoyed a certain meed of fame. At race meetings he was pointed out; had a lord for a "pal;" was termed a "good fellow," and he figured as debtor in certain usurers' books to the tune of £10,000.

No need to prolong the story. 'Tis only told because it bears on the tale I have to tell. The crash came. A certain horse was bound to win a big race—but it did not. Wilson Gray laid heavy wagers on the result, expecting to win sufficient to clear off all his debts and set him on his feet. But the Gypsy was rather too slow, coming in second instead of first, and Wilson found himself entangled in a huge network of "debts of honour," some of which were scarcely honourable.

Escape from his difficulties presented itself in three shapes—suicide, flight, appeal. Suicide seldom commends itself to sane young men, no matter how "hard up" they may he; flight is uncomfortable when one has no money, so Wilson Gray humbled himself before his father; his debts were paid, he received a scathing letter denouncing him for his unmanliness and extravagance. He promised to reform, and twelve months after he was deep in the mire again—ay, deeper than before.

To appeal again was useless. Suicide was still unpleasant, so Wilson took to flight; but ere doing so he capped all his follies by forging his father's name for a large sum. Where the young man went to, his parents never learned. Jacob never made enquiry, though unknown to her husband, Wilson's mother employed a private enquiry officer to find out the lad's whereabouts, but without success.

Mrs. Gray died soon after, her life hurried to its close, and made miserable at its finish by her lad's folly.

This happened about fifteen years before the opening of this story, and soon after Jacob Gray was left a legacy in the shape of a little lad of 5 or 6, the only son of the mine-owner's brother, a widower just deceased.

Jacob adopted the lad gladly. The follies and flight of his son, and the death of his wife soon after, tore a large piece off a heart more generous and loving than many thought it. Having no taste for travel, nor wish for the society to which his wealth would have gained him admission, he hungered for something to fill the void in his heart, and his nephew did this.

He gave the lad a good education, and Walter Gray was now a fine lad of 21, by profession a mining engineer, and quite filled with his work at his uncle's pits.

The events of his life rolled slowly past Jacob Gray's mental vision as he reclined on his pillows. 'Twas a fine afternoon in early spring. The air was filled with soft warm sunshine; the sparrows were chirruping loudly and flitting from house to house, and outside the town the hedges and trees and fields were beginning to sprout.

The whirr of cotton-spinning machinery, the rapid revolution of the huge pulleys suspended over the coalpits, the boom of the hammers in the iron foundries half a mile away fell on Jacob Gray's hearing, but his ears caught only a soft continuous murmur like the roar of the sea softened by distance.

The rich coalowner, whom the world envied, was thinking how little of real happiness his great commercial success had brought him, when a tap was heard on the chamber door, it was pushed open, and Walter Gray entered, walking quickly but noiselessly to the bedside, where he seated himself.

"How are you this afternoon, uncle?" Walter said in a cheery tone. "Better I expect?"

"I'm no better, lad; about the same, I think," Jacob replied, speaking slowly. "What a time you have been, I've been waiting a good while for you."

"I have been down the new pit, or I should have been home an hour since. But a word would have fetched me. Did you want me?"

"Yes." Turning to the nurse who sat mutely by. "You may go for a walk, Mrs. Dobbs." Then he continued, "Yes, I want you, Walter. We must have a long talk together. You are my only relative, and all I have will be yours when I go."

"Don't talk like that, uncle," the young man cried earnestly rising partly from his seat. "You talk as if you were going to die, and I'm sure there's ten years life in you yet."

"Nay, nay, lad," Jacob replied, the faintest tremor perceptible in his voice, "I am bad enough, lad, I know, and I'd better make things square before I go."

"But I don't believe you are so bad, uncle," the young man persisted.

"Sir David told me that I couldn't last more than a day or two at the longest, and I feel that he spoke the truth. I'm gettin' old now, and may as well tell you now what I have to say as some other time—but give me a drink, Walter."

Walter Gray complied with his relative's request, then reseating himself he waited for Jacob to speak.

"Fourteen years ago, Walter, I made a will. 'Twas just after the death of your aunt that I made it—yes, I made it. The 'torneys did'nt help me to scrape my money together, and I thought I could leave it to somebody without them too. I made my will two or three weeks after you came here; I've never altered a word of it since then, and I'm as well satisfied with it now as I was the day I made it."

Jacob paused to regain his breath, and his nephew ventured to say—

"Pardon me, uncle, but you made this will of which you speak after my cousin Wilson went out of the country."

"Certainly," the old man replied somewhat testily; "what made you ask such a question?"

"Because I thought you had made it at a time when you were naturally vexed with my cousin's foolish mistake, and would be harshly disposed towards him. You will think more leniently of him now."

"Perhaps I do; but it doesn't matter now, I fancy. He must have been dead long enough, or I should have heard of him long since."

"Perhaps not, uncle. He may be still——"

"I don't want to talk about him, Walter—I'll not talk about him!" Jacob Gray exclaimed feebly. "I want to talk to you about the will. I want you to fetch it and read it to me."

"Where is it?"

"In the library, on the top shelf, in a book. There's an old copy of Tim Bobbin's works in that corner of the case nearest the door."

"I know where you mean."

"Well, go for it at once."

Thus commanded, Walter Gray left the room at once, and descending the stairs to the ground floor he entered a dark and neglected apartment dignified by the name of library. In his earlier and busier days Jacob Gray had used the room to transact his business in, but it had been unused for years. On one of the walls there was a large old-fashioned oaken bookcase, partly filled with books now read only by bookworms.

In the corner indicated Walter found the volume mentioned, and glancing along the shelf he saw in the other corner a copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress," bound in stout brown leather.

Lifting down the work he wanted, Walter tapped it smartly against the table, to shake off the thick coat of dust, and as he did so a slip of paper, which had once been white, fluttered to the floor at his feet. The top of the paper was exposed to his sight, and he could not help reading the following words as he stooped to pick up the paper,

"THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JACOB GRAY, MINEOWNER, TORLEIGH, LANCASHIRE."

Few men would have been satisfied to read so much and no more of a similar document. The title of the paper would have acted as an overpowering allurement, and only the last word would have sated the curiosity the first few words had excited. Naturally Walter Gray felt more interest in his uncle's last testament than any other person could have experienced, except Wilson Gray. Walter had lived with his uncle for fifteen years; his cousin was regarded as dead by every one, and Jacob's nephew had always passed as his uncle's heir.

Walter felt strangely curious regarding the contents of the papers he held in his hand. Some words his uncle had dropped shortly before intensified this feeling, "You are my only relative, and all I have will be yours when I go." His uncle's words uttered only a few minutes before came back to him as he paused a moment or two with the will in his hand. At the time those words were spoken he had given them not the slightest thought. Loving his uncle sincerely he had felt only concern for his life. But the full meaning of the words dawned upon him now.

"All I have will be yours when I go." Could it be possible that his uncle intended to leave all his enormous wealth to him? As this thought passed through Walter's brain it suggested another. He could easily satisfy himself of the truth or falsity of his relative's words by reading the will his right hand tightly clutched. No! He would not satisfy his curiosity at the expense of his honour!

Sometimes a train of thought rises unsought, and darts through the mind defiant of restraint. So it was with Walter Gray. As he flouted the thought of reading the will a host of kindred thoughts bubbled up in his brain.

His uncle lay dying overhead; he was his heir, according to his relative's own words. But Jacob Gray had never mentioned such a thing before, and the will in his hand might be in favour of some one else. If his uncle died without a will he would be the heir, failing the return of Robert Wilson Gray, which was scarcely probable after all these years.

With an effort Walter shook his head clear of these unsought thoughts, which had taken scarcely half a dozen moments to think. He opened the volume from which he had just shaken the dust, placed the will between the leaves, closed the book, and walked quickly from the library, wondering greatly at his own thoughts.

How mean and selfish it was of him to ponder all these worldly thoughts while his ailing, perhaps dying, relative was anxiously awaiting his reappearance with the will he had made so many years before. Although Walter chided himself for his remissions, he could not help feeling that the thoughts were not his own. It seemed to him that some being at the bottom of his mind had uttered the thoughts, and that he had only listened to them.

"What's the matter, you fool? Is this the time or place to tear along like that?"

Walter Gray was addressing one of the younger servants. Coming out of the library he had been rudely collided against by a girl who was running down the lobby at the foot of the staircase. The girl's face was white and she trembled violently. She was either breathless or too frightened to speak, and Walter again demanded—

"What's the matter?"

"Master's dead! Master's dead!" she cried, at last finding speech.

"Dead? God forgive me if he is."

He pushed past the housemaid, feeling almost like a murderer. While he had dallied in the library his uncle had died. Quickly but quietly he mounted the staircase, crossed the landing, opened his uncle's chamber door, and paused on the threshold, the book containing the will tightly clasped in his hand, though at that exciting moment he had forgotten its existence.

Within the room all was still, save the gentle flapping of the window curtains, stirred by the soft spring air that stole through the slightly dropped window. Stretched out on the bed Walter could see his uncle's shrunken form, with the face turned from him.

A moment he paused to note if the body moved ever so slightly; to listen for sound of breathing, no matter how faint. But neither motion nor sound struck eye or ear, and unable to bear the mighty suspense any longer, he stepped quickly forward to the bedside, exclaiming in a low intense tone—

"Uncle, Uncle Jacob, I am here, speak to me. I have got the will!"

There was no response to his impassioned utterance. Walter's heart gave a mighty throb; a big lump rose in his throat; the book dropped with a clatter on the floor, and he fell on his knees by the bed sobbing like a child.