The Measure of a Man

THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY

    Slowly, steadily, to and fro,
      Swings our life in its weary way;
    Now at its ebb, and now at its flow,
      And the evening and morning make up the day.

    Sorrow and happiness, peace and strife,
      Fear and rejoicing its moments know;
    Yet from the discords of such a life,
      The clearest music of heaven may flow.

Duty led John Hatton to take the quickest road to Hatton-in-Elmete, a small manufacturing town in a lovely district in Yorkshire.  In Saxon times it was covered with immense elm forests from which it was originally called Elmete, but nearly a century ago the great family of Hatton (being much reduced by the passage of the Reform Bill and their private misfortunes) commenced cotton-spinning here, and their mills, constantly increasing in size and importance, gave to the Saxon Elmete the name of Hatton-in-Elmete.

The little village had become a town of some importance, but nearly every household in it was connected in some way or other with the cotton mills, either as cotton masters or cotton operatives.  There were necessarily a few professional men and shopkeepers, but there was street after street full of cotton mills, and the ancient manor of the lords of Hatton had become thoroughly a manufacturing locality.

But Hatton-in-Elmete was in a beautiful locality, lying on a ridge of hills rising precipitously from the river, and these hills surrounded the town as with walls and appeared to block up the way into the world beyond.  The principal street lay along their base, and John Hatton rode up it at the close of the long summer day, when the mills were shut and the operatives gathered in groups about its places of interest.  Every woman smiled at him, every man touched his cap, but a stranger would have noticed that not one man bared his head.  Yorkshire men do not offer that courtesy to any man, for its neglect (originally the expression of strong individuality and self-respect) had become a habit as natural and spontaneous as their manner or their speech.

About a mile beyond the town, on the summit of a hill, stood Hatton Hall, and John felt a hurrying sense of home as soon as he caught a glimpse of its early sixteenth-century towers and chimneys.  The road to it was all uphill, but it was flagged with immense blocks of stone and shaded by great elm-trees; at the summit a high, old-fashioned iron gate admitted him into a delightful garden.  And in this sweet place there stood one of the most ancient and picturesque homes of England.

It is here to be noticed that in the early centuries of the English nation the homes of the nobles distinctly represented local feeling and physical conditions.  In the North they generally stood on hillsides apart where the winds rattled the boughs of the surrounding pines or elms and the murmur of a river could be heard from below.  The hill and the trees, the wind and the river, were their usual background, with the garden and park and the great plantations of trees belting the estate around; the house itself standing on the highest land within the circle.

Such was the location and adjuncts of the ancient home of the Hattons, and John Hatton looked up at the old face of it with a conscious love and pride.  The house was built of dark millstone grit in large blocks, many of them now green and mossy.  The roof was of sandstone in thin slabs, and in its angles grass had taken root.  In front there was a tower and tall gables, with balls and pinnacles.  The principal entrance was a doorway with a Tudor arch, and a large porch resting on stone pillars.  Within this porch there were seats and a table, pots of flowers, and a silver Jacobean bell.  And all round the house were gables and doorways and windows, showing carvings and inscriptions wherever the ivy had not hid them.

The door stood wide open and in the porch his mother was sitting.  She had a piece of old English lace in her hand, which she was carefully darning.  Suddenly she heard John’s footsteps and she lifted her head and listened intently.  Then with a radiant face she stood upright just as John came from behind the laurel hedge into the golden rays of the setting sun, and her face was transfigured as she called in a strong, joyful voice,

“O John!  John!  I’ve been longing for you days and days.  Come inside, my dear lad.  Come in!  I’ll be bound you are hungry.  What will you take?  Have a cup of tea, now, John; it will be four hours before suppertime, you know.”

“Very well, mother.  I haven’t had my tea today, and I am a bit hungry.”

“Poor lad!  You shall have your tea and a mouthful in a few minutes.”

“I’ll go to my room, mother, and wash my face and hands.  I am not fit company for a dame so sweet as you are,” and he lifted his right hand courteously as he passed her.

In less than half an hour there was tea and milk, cold meat and fruit before John, and his mother watched him eating with a beaming satisfaction.  And when John looked into her happy face he wondered at his dream in Edinburgh, and said gratefully to himself,

“All is right with mother.  Thank God for that!”

She did not talk while John was eating, but as he sat smoking in the porch afterwards, she said,

“I want to ask you where you have been all these weeks, John, but Harry isn’t here, and you won’t want to tell your story twice over, will you, now?”

“I would rather not, mother.”

“Your father wouldn’t have done it, whether he liked to or not.  I don’t expect you are any different to father.  I didn’t look for you, John, till next week.”

“But you needed me and wanted me?”

“Whatever makes you say that?”

“I dreamed that you wanted me, and I came home to see.”

“Was it last Sunday night?”

“Yes.”

“About eleven o’clock?”

“I did not notice the time.”

“Well, for sure, I was in trouble Sunday.  All day long I was in trouble, and I am in a lot of trouble yet.  I wanted you badly, John, and I did call you, but not aloud.  It was just to myself.  I wished you were here.”

“Then yourself called to myself, and here I am.  Whatever troubles you, mother, troubles me.”

“To be sure, I know that, John.  Well, then, it is your brother Harry.”

A look of anxiety came into John’s face and he asked in an anxious voice, “What is the matter with Harry?  Is he well?”

“Quite well.”

“Then what has he been doing?”

“Nay, it’s something he wants to do.”

“He wants to get married, I suppose?”

“Nay, I haven’t heard of any foolishness of that make.  I’ll tell you what he wants to do—­he wants to rent his share in the mill to Naylor’s sons.”

Then John leaped to his feet and said angrily, “Never!  Never!  It cannot be true, mother!  I cannot believe it!  Who told you?”

“Your overseer, Jonathan Greenwood, and Harry asked Greenwood to stand by him in the matter, but Jonathan wouldn’t have anything to do with such business, and he advised me to send for you.  He says the lad is needing looking after—­in more ways than one.”

“Where is Harry?”

“He went to Manchester last Saturday.”

“What for, mother?”

“I don’t know for certain.  He said on business.  You had better talk with Jonathan.  I didn’t like the way he spoke of Harry.  He ought to remember his young master is a bit above him.”

“That is the last thing Jonathan would remember, but he is a good-hearted, straight-standing man.”

“Very, if you can believe in his words and ways.  He came here Saturday to insinuate all kinds of ‘shouldn’t-be’s’ against Harry, and then on Sunday he was dropping his ‘Amens’ about the chapel so generously I felt perfectly sure they were worth nothing.”

“Well, mother, you may trust me to look after all that is wrong.  Let not your heart be troubled.  I will talk with Jonathan in the morning.”

“Nay, I’ll warrant he will be here tonight.  He will have heard thou art home, and he will be sure he is wanted before anybody else.”

“If he comes tonight, tell him I cannot see him until half-past nine in the morning.”

“That is right—­but what for?”

“Because I am much troubled and a little angry.  I wish to get myself in harness before I see anyone.”

“Well, you know, John, that Harry never liked the mill, but while father lived he did not dare to say so.  Poor lad!  He hated mill life.”

“He ought at least to remember what his grandfather and father thought of Hatton Mill.  Why, mother, on his twenty-first birthday, father solemnly told him the story of the mill and how it was the seal and witness between our God and our family—­yet he would bring strangers into our work!  I’ll have no partner in it—­not the best man in England!  Yet Harry would share it with the Naylors, a horse-racing, betting, irreligious crowd, who have made their money in byways all their generations.  Power of God!  Only to think of it!  Only to think of it!  Harry ought to be ashamed of himself—­he ought that.”

“Now, John, my dear lad, I will not hear Harry blamed when he is not here to speak for himself—­no, I will not!  Wait till he is, and it will be fair enough then to say what you want to.  I am Harry’s mother, and I will see he gets fair play.  I will that.  It is my bounden duty to do so, and I’ll do it.”

“You are right, mother, we must all have fair judgment, and I will see that the brother I love so dearly gets it.”

“God love thee, John.”

“And, mother, keep a brave and cheerful heart.  I will do all that is possible to satisfy Harry.”

“I can leave him safely with God and his brother.  And tomorrow I can now look after the apricot-preserving.  Barker told me the fruit was all ready today, but I could not frame myself to see it properly done, but tomorrow it will be different.”  Then because she wanted to reward John for his patience, and knowing well what subject was close to his heart, she remarked in a casual manner,

“Mrs. Harlow was here yesterday, and she said her apricots were safely put away.”

“Was Miss Harlow with her?”

“No.  There was a tennis game at Lady Thirsk’s.  I suppose she was there.”

“Have you seen her lately?”

“She took tea with me last Wednesday.  What a beauty she is!  Such color in her cheeks!  It was like the apricots when the sun was on them.  Such shining black hair so wonderfully braided and coiled!  Such sparkling, flashing black eyes!  Such a tall, splendid figure!  Such a rosy mouth!  It seemed as if it was made for smiles and kisses.”

“And she walks like a queen, mother!”

“She does that.”

“And she is so bright and independent!”

“Well, John, she is.  There’s no denying it.”

“She is finely educated and also related to the best Yorkshire families.  Could I marry any better woman, mother?”

“Well, John, as a rule men don’t approve of poor wives, but Miss Jane Harlow is a fortune in herself.”

“Two months ago I heard that Lord Thirsk was very much in love with her.  I saw him with her very often.  I was very unhappy, but I could not interfere, you know, could I?”

“So you went off to sea, and left mother and Harry and your business to anybody’s care.  It wasn’t like you, John.”

“No, it was not.  I wanted you, mother, a dozen times a day, and I was half-afraid to come back to you, lest I should find Miss Jane married or at least engaged.”

“She is neither one nor the other, or I am much mistaken.  Whatever are you afraid of?  Jane Harlow is only a woman beautiful and up to date, she is not a ‘goddess excellently fair’ like the woman you are always singing about, not she!  I’m sure I often wonder where she got her beauty and high spirit.  Her father was just a proud hanger-on to his rich relations; he lived and died fighting his wants and his debts.  Her mother is very near as badly off—­a poor, wuttering, little creature, always fearing and trembling for the day she never saw.”

“Perhaps this poverty and dependence may make her marry Lord Thirsk.  He is rich enough to get the girl he wants.”

“His money would not buy Jane, if she did not like him; and she doesn’t like him.”

“How do you know that, mother?”

“I asked her.  While we were drinking our tea, I asked her if she were going to make herself Lady Thirsk.  She made fun of him.  She mocked the very idea.  She said he had no chin worth speaking of and no back to his head and so not a grain of forthput in him of any kind.  ’Why, he can’t play a game of tennis,’ she said, ’and when he loses it he nearly cries, and what do you think, Mrs. Hatton, of a lover like that?’ Those were her words, John.”

“And you believe she was in earnest?”

“Yes, I do.  Jane is too proud and too brave a girl to lie—­unless——­”

“Unless what, mother?”

“It was to her interest.”

“Tell me all she said.  Her words are life or death to me.”

“They are nothing of the kind.  Be ashamed of yourself, John Hatton.”

“You are right, mother.  My life and death are by the will of God, but I can say that my happiness or wretchedness is in Jane Harlow’s power.”

“Your happiness is in your own power.  Her ‘no’ might be a disappointment in hours you weren’t busy among your looms and cotton bales, or talking of discounts and the money market, but its echo would grow fainter every hour of your life, and then you would meet the other girl, whose ‘yes’ would put the ‘no’ forever out of your memory.”

“Well, mother, you have given me hope, and I have been comforted by you ‘as one whom his mother comforteth.’  If the dear girl is not to be won by Thirsk’s title and money, I will see what love can do.”

“I’ll tell you, John, what love can do”—­and she went to a handsome set of hanging book shelves containing the favorite volumes of Dissent belonging to John’s great-grandfather, Burnet, Taylor, Doddridge, Wesley, Milton, Watts, quaint biographies, and books of travel.  From them she took a well-used copy of Taylor’s “Holy Living and Dying,” and opening it as one familiar with every page, said,

“Listen, John, learn what Love can do.

“Love solves where learning perplexes.  Love attracts the best in every one, for it gives the best, Love redeemeth, Love lifts up, Love enlightens, Love hath everlasting remembrance, Love advances the Soul, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are a prayer.  Love is life.  So much Love, so much Life.  Oh, little Soul, if rich in Love, thou art mighty.”

“My dear mother, thank you.  You are best of all mothers.  God bless you.”

“Your father, John, was a man of few words, as you know.  He copied that passage out of this very book, and he wrote after it, ’Martha Booth, I love you.  If you can love me, I will be at the chapel door after tonight’s service, then put your hand in mine, and I will hope to give you hand and heart and home as long as I live.’  And for years he kept his word, John—­he did that!”

“Father always kept his word.  If he but once said a thing, no power on earth could make him unsay it.  He was a handsome, well-built man.”

“Well, then, what are you thinking of?”

“I was thinking that Lord Thirsk is, by the majority of women, considered handsome.”

“What kind of women have that idea?”

“Why, mother, I don’t exactly know.  If I go into my tailor’s, I am told about his elegant figure, if into my shoemaker’s, I hear of his small feet, if to Baylor’s glove counter, some girl fitting my number seven will smilingly inform me that Lord Thirsk wears number four.  And if you see him walking or driving, he always has some pretty woman at his side.”

“What by all that?  His feet are fit for nothing but dancing.  He could not take thy long swinging steps for a twenty-mile walk; he couldn’t take them for a dozen yards.  His hands may be small enough, and white enough, and ringed enough for a lady, but he can’t make a penny’s worth with them.  I’ve heard it said that if he goes to stay all night with a friend he has to take his valet with him—­can’t dress himself, I suppose.”

“He is always dressed with the utmost nicety and in the tip-top of the fashion.”

“I’ll warrant him.  Jane told me he wore a lace cravat at the Priestly ball, and I have no doubt that his pocket handkerchief was edged with lace.  And yet she said, ‘No woman there laughed at him.’”

“At any rate he has fine eyes and hair and a pleasant face.”

“I wouldn’t bother myself to deny it.  If anyone fancies curly hair and big brown eyes and white cheeks and no chin to speak of and no feet fit to walk with and no hands to work with, it isn’t Martha Hatton and it isn’t Jane Harlow, I can take my affidavit on that,” and the confident smile which accompanied these words was better than any sworn oath to John Hatton.

“You see, John,” she continued, “I talked the man up and down with Jane, from his number four gloves to his number four shoes, and I know what she said—­what she said in her own way, mind you.  For Jane’s way is to pretend to like what she does not like, just to let people feel the road to her real opinions.”

“I do not quite understand you, mother.”

“I don’t know whether I quite understand myself, and it isn’t my way to explain my words—­people usually know what I mean—­but I will do it for once, as John Hatton is wanting it.  For instance, I was talking to Jane about her lovers—­I did not put you among them—­and she said, ’Mrs. Hatton, there are no lovers in these days.  The men that are men are no longer knights-errant.  They don’t fight in the tournament lists for their lady-love, nor even sing serenades under her window in the moonlight.  We must look for them,’ she said, ’in Manchester warehouses, or Yorkshire spinning-mills.  The knights-errant are all on the stock exchange, and the poets write for Punch.’  And I could not help laughing, and she laughed too, and her laugh was so infectious I could not get clear of it, and so poured my next cup of tea on the tea board.”

“I wish I had been present.”

“So do I, John.  Perhaps then you would have understood the contradictious girl, as well as I did.  You see, she wanted me to know that she preferred the Manchester warehouse men, and the Yorkshire spinners, and the share-tumblers of the stock exchange to knights and poets and that make of men.  Now, some women would have said the words straightforward, but not Jane.  She prefers to state her likings and dislikings in riddles and leave you to find out their meaning.”

“That is an uncomfortable, uncertain way.”

“To be sure it is, but if you want to marry Jane Harlow, you had better take it into account.  I never said she was perfect.”

“If ever she is my wife, I shall teach her very gently to speak straightforward words.”

“Then you have your work set, John.  Whether you can do it or not, is a different thing.  I don’t want you to marry Jane Harlow, but as you have set your heart on her, I have resolved to make the most of her strong points and the least of her weak ones.  You had better do the same.”

There was silence for a few moments, then John asked, “Was that all, mother?”

“We had more to say, but it was of a personal nature—­I don’t think it concerns you at present.”

“Nay, but it does, mother.  Everything connected with Jane concerns me.”

Mrs. Hatton appeared reluctant to speak, but John’s anxiety was so evident, she answered, “Well, then, it was about my children.”

“What about them?”

“She said she had heard her mother speak of my ‘large family’ and yet she had never seen any of them but Henry and yourself.  She wondered if her mother had been mistaken.  And I said, ’Nay, your mother told the truth, thank God!’

“‘You see,’ she continued, ’I was at school until a year ago, and our families were not at all intimate.’  I said, ’Not at all.  Your father was a proud man, Miss Harlow, and he would not notice a cotton-spinner on terms of social equality.  And Stephen Hatton thought himself as good as the best man near him.  So he was.  And no worse for the mill.  It kept up the Hall, so it did.’  She said I was right, and would I tell her about my children.”

“I hope you did, mother.  I do hope you did.”

“Why not?  I am proud of them all, living or dead—­here or there.  So I said, ’Well, Miss Harlow, John is not my firstborn.  There was a lovely little girl, who went back to God before she was quite a year old.  People said I ought to think it a great honor to give my first child to God, but it was a great grief to me.  Soon after her death John was born, and after John came Clara Ann.  She married before she was eighteen, a captain of artillery in the army, and she has ever since been with him in India, Africa, or elsewhere.  Then I had Stephen, who is now a well-known Manchester warehouse man and seldom gets away from his business.  Then Paul was given to me.  He is a good boy, and a fine sailor.  His ship is the Ajax, a first-class line of battleship.  I see him now and then and get a letter from every port he touches.  Then came Harry, who served an apprenticeship with his father, but never liked the mill; and at last, the sweetest gift of all God’s gifts, twin daughters, called Dora and Edith.  They lived with us nearly eight years, and died just before their father.  They were born in the same hour and died within five minutes of each other.  The Lord gave them, and the Lord took them away, and blessed be the name of the Lord!’ This is about what I said, John.”

The conversation was interrupted here, by the entrance of a parlor-maid.  She said, “Sir, Jonathan Greenwood is here to ask if you can see him this evening.”

“Tell him I cannot.  I will see him at the mill about half-past nine in the morning.”

The girl went away, but returned immediately.  “Jonathan says, sir, that will do.  He wants to go to a meeting tonight, sir.”  Then Mrs. Hatton looked at her son, and exclaimed, “How very kind of your overseer to make your time do!  Is that his usual way?”

“About it.  He is a very independent fellow, and he knows no other way of talking.  But father found it worth his while to put up with his free speech.  Jonathan has a knowledge of manufactures and markets which enables him to protect our interests, and entitles him to speak his mind in his own way.”

“I’m glad the same rule does not go in my kitchen.  I have a first-class cook, but if she asked me for a holiday and I gave her two days and she said nothing but, ‘That will do,’ I would tell her to her face I was giving her something out of my comfort and my pocket, and not something that would only ‘do’ in the place of what she wanted.  I would show her my side of the question.  I would that.”

“For what reason?”

“I would be doing my duty.”

“Well, mother, you could not match her and the bits of radicalism she would give you.  Keep the peace, mother; you have not her weapons in your armory.”

“I am just talking to relieve myself, John.  I know better than to fratch with anyone—­at least I think I do.”

“Just before I went away, mother, Jonathan came to me and said, ’Sir, I hev confidence in human nature, generally speaking, but there’s tricks and there’s turns, and if I was you I would run no risks with them Manchester Sulbys’.  Then he put the Sulby case before me, and if I had not taken his advice, I would have lost three hundred pounds.  It is Jonathan’s way to love God and suspect his neighbor.”

“He will find it hard to do the two things at the same time, John.”

“I do not understand how John works the problem, mother, but he does it at least to his own satisfaction.  He has told us often in the men’s weekly meeting that he is ’safe religiously, and that all his eternal interests are settled,’ but I notice that he trusts no man until he has proved him honest.”

“I don’t believe in such Christians, John, and I hope there are not very many of the same make.”

“Indeed, mother, this union of a religious profession with a sharp worldly spirit is the common character among our spinners.  Jonathan has four sons, and he has brought every one of them up in the same way.”

“One of the four got married last week—­married a girl who will have a factory and four hundred looms for her fortune—­old Aker’s granddaughter, you know.”

“Yes, I know.  Jonathan told me about it.  He looked on the girl as a good investment for his family, and discussed her prospects just as he would have discussed discounts or the money market.”

Then John went to look after the condition of the cattle and horses on the home farm.  He found all in good order, told the farmer he had done well, and made him happy with a few words of praise and appreciation.  But he said little to Mrs. Hatton on the subject, for his thoughts were all close to the woman he loved.  As they sat at supper he continually wondered about her—­where she was, what she was doing, what company she was with, and even how she was dressed.

Mrs. Hatton did not always answer these queries satisfactorily.  In fact, she was a little weary of “dear Jane,” and had already praised her beyond her own judgment.  So she was not always as sympathetic to this second appeal for information as she might have been.

“I’ll warrant, John,” she answered a little judicially, “that Jane is at some of the quality houses tonight; and she’ll be singing or dancing or playing bridge with one or other of that pale, rakish lot I see when I drive through the town.”

“Mother!”

“Yes, John, a bad, idle, lounging lot, that don’t do a day’s work to pay for their living.”

“They are likely gentlemen, mother, who have no work to do.”

“Gentlemen!  No, indeed!  I will give them the first four letters of the word—­no more.  They are not gentlemen, but they may be gents.  We don’t expect much from gents, and how the women of today stand them beats me.”

John laughed a little, but he said he was weary and would go to his room.  And as he stood at Mrs. Hatton’s side, telling her that he was glad to be with her again, she found herself in the mood that enabled her to say,

“John, my dear lad, you will soon marry, either Jane or some other woman.  You must do it, you know, for you must have sons and daughters, that you may inherit the promise of God’s blessing which is for you and your children.  Then your family must have a home, but not in Hatton Hall—­not just yet.  There cannot be two mistresses in one house, can there?”

“No, but by my father’s will and his oft-repeated desire, this house is your home, mother, as long as you live.  I am going to build my own house on the hill, facing the east, in front of the Ash plantation.”

“You are wise.  Our chimneys will smoke all the better for being a little apart.”

“And you, my mother, are lady and mistress of Hatton Hall as long as you live.  I will suffer no one to infringe on your rights.”  Then he stooped his handsome head to her lifted face and kissed it with great tenderness; and she turned away with tears in her eyes, but a happy smile on her lips.  And John was glad that this question had been raised and settled, so quickly, and so lovingly.