Henty George Alfred
Facing Death: or, The Hero of the Vaughan Pit: A Tale of the Coal Mines
CHAPTER XVI.
A NEW LIFE
Jack Simpson did not forget the advice Mr. Merton had given him about clothes, and a fortnight after his master had gone to Birmingham Jack went over on Saturday afternoon, and his kind friend accompanied him to one of the leading tailors there, and he was measured for two suits of clothes. He went to other shops and bought such articles as Mr. Merton recommended – hats, gloves, boots, &c. Mr. Merton smiled to himself at the grave attention which Jack paid to all he said upon the subject; but Jack was always earnest in all he undertook, and he had quite appreciated what his friend had told him as to the advantage of being dressed so as to excite no attention upon the part of those whom he would meet at Mr. Merton's.
The following Saturday he went over again, and went again to the tailor's to try his things on.
"Do you want a dress suit, sir?" the foreman asked with suppressed merriment.
"What is a dress suit?" Jack said simply. "I am ignorant about these matters."
"A dress suit," the foreman said, struck with the young fellow's freedom from all sort of pretence or assumption, "is the dress gentlemen wear of an evening at dinner parties or other gatherings. This is it," and he showed Jack an engraving.
Jack looked at it – he had never seen anyone so attired.
"He looks very affected," he said.
"Oh, that is the fault of the artist," the foreman answered. "Gentlemen look just as natural in these clothes as in any other. They are quite simple, you see – all black, with open vest, white shirt, white tie and gloves, and patent leather boots."
A quiet smile stole over Jack's face. Humour was by no means a strong point in his character, but he was not altogether deficient in it.
"I had better have them," he said; "it would look strange, I suppose, not to be dressed so when others are?"
"It would be a little marked in the event of a dinner or evening party," the foreman answered, and so Jack gave the order.
It was two weeks later before he paid his first visit to Mr. Merton; for the pretty little house which the latter had taken a mile out of the town had been in the hands of the workmen and furnishers, Mr. Merton having drawn on his little capital to decorate and fit up the house, so as to be a pretty home for his daughter.
It was, indeed, a larger house than, from the mere salary attached to his post, he could be able to afford, but he reckoned upon considerably increasing this by preparing young men for the university, and he was wise enough to know that a good establishment and a liberal table go very far in establishing and widening a connection, and in rendering people sensible to a man's merits, either in business or otherwise.
As Mr. Merton, M.A., late of St. John's, Cambridge, and third wrangler of his year, he had already been received with great cordiality by his colleagues, and at their houses had made the acquaintance of many of the best, if not the wealthiest men in Birmingham, for at Birmingham the terms were by no means more synonymous than they are elsewhere.
Jack had ordered his clothes to be sent to a small hotel near the railway station, and had arranged with the landlord that his portmanteau should be kept there, and a room be placed at his service on Saturday afternoon and Monday morning once a month for him to change his things. He had walked with Mr. Merton and seen the house, and had determined that he would always change before going there on a Saturday, in order to avoid comments by servants and others who might be visiting them.
In thus acting Jack had no personal thoughts in the matter; much as he always shrank from being put forward as being in any way different from others, he had otherwise no self-consciousness whatever. No lad on the pits thought less of his personal appearance or attire, and his friend Nelly had many times taken him to task for his indifference in this respect. Mr. Merton perceived advantages in Jack's position in life not being generally known, and Jack at once fell into the arrangement, and carried it out, as described, to the best of his ability. But even he could not help seeing, when he had attired himself for his first visit to Mr. Merton's house, how complete had been the change in his appearance.
"Who would have thought that just a little difference in the make of a coat would have made such an alteration in one's look?" he said to himself. "I feel different altogether; but that is nonsense, except that these boots are so much lighter than mine, that it seems as if I were in my stockings. Well, I suppose I shall soon be accustomed to it."
Packing a black coat and a few other articles in a hand-bag, and locking up the clothes he had taken off in his portmanteau, Jack started for Mr. Merton's. He was dressed in a well-fitting suit of dark tweed, with a claret-coloured neckerchief with plain gold scarf-ring. Jack's life of exercise had given him the free use of his limbs – he walked erect, and his head was well set back on his shoulders; altogether, with his crisp short waving hair, his good-humoured but resolute face, and his steadfast look, he was, although not handsome, yet a very pleasant-looking young fellow.
He soon forgot the fact of his new clothes, except that he was conscious of walking with a lightness and elasticity strange to him, and in half an hour rang at the visitors' bell of Mr. Merton's villa.
"A visitor, papa," said Alice, who was sitting near the window of the drawing-room. "How tiresome, just as we were expecting Jack Simpson. It is a gentleman. Why, papa!" and she clapped her hands, "it is Jack himself. I did not know him at first, he looks like a gentleman."
"He is a gentleman," Mr. Merton said; "a true gentleman in thought, feeling, and speech, and will soon adapt himself to the society he will meet here. Do not remark upon his dress unless he says something about it himself."
"Oh, papa, I should not think of such a thing. I am not so thoughtless as that."
The door was opened and Jack was shown in.
"How are you, Jack? I am glad to see you."
"Thank you, sir, I am always well," Jack said. Then turning to Miss Merton he asked her how she liked Birmingham. He had seen her often since the time when he first met her at the commencement of the strike, as he had helped them in their preparations for removing from Stokebridge, and had entirely got over the embarrassment which he had felt on the first evening spent there.
After talking for a few minutes, Jack said gravely to Mr. Merton, "I hope that these clothes will do, Mr. Merton?"
"Excellently well, Jack," he answered smiling; "they have made just the difference I expected; my daughter hardly knew you when you rang at the bell."
"I hardly knew myself when I saw myself in a glass," Jack said. "Now, on what principle do you explain the fact that a slight alteration in the cutting and sewing together of pieces of cloth should make such a difference?"
"I do not know that I ever gave the philosophy of the question a moment's thought, Jack," said Mr. Merton smiling. "I can only explain it by the remark that the better cut clothes set off the natural curve of the neck, shoulders, and figure generally, and in the second place, being associated in our minds with the peculiar garb worn by gentlemen, they give what, for want of a better word, I may call style. A high black hat is the ugliest, most shapeless, and most unnatural article ever invented, but still a high hat, good and of the shape in vogue, certainly has a more gentlemanly effect, to use a word I hate, than any other. And now, my boy, you I know dined early, so did we. We shall have tea at seven, so we have three hours for work, and there are nearly six weeks' arrears, so do not let us waste any more time."
After this first visit Jack went out regularly once every four weeks. He fell very naturally into the ways of the house, and although his manner often amused Alice Merton greatly, and caused even her father to smile, he was never awkward or boorish.
As Alice came to know him more thoroughly, and their conversations ceased to be of a formal character, she surprised and sometimes quite puzzled him. The girl was full of fun and had a keen sense of humour, and her playful attacks upon his earnestness, her light way of parrying the problems which Jack, ever on the alert for information, was constantly putting, and the cheerful tone which her talk imparted to the general conversation when she was present, were all wholly new to the lad. Often he did not know whether she was in earnest or not, and was sometimes so overwhelmed by her light attacks as to be unable to answer.
Mr. Merton looked on, amused at their wordy conflicts; he knew that nothing does a boy so much good and so softens his manner as friendly intercourse with a well-read girl of about his own age, and undoubtedly Alice did almost as much towards preparing Jack's manner for his future career as her father had done towards preparing his mind.
As time went on Jack often met Mr. Merton's colleagues, and other gentlemen who came in in the evening. He was always introduced as "my young friend Simpson," with the aside, "a remarkably clever young fellow," and most of those who met him supposed him to be a pupil of the professor's.
Mr. Merton had, within a few months of his arrival at Birmingham, five or six young men to prepare for Cambridge. None of them resided in the house, but after Jack had become thoroughly accustomed to the position, Mr. Merton invited them, as well as a party of ladies and gentlemen, to the house on one of Jack's Saturday evenings.
Jack, upon hearing that a number of friends were coming in the evening, made an excuse to go into the town, and took his black bag with him.
Alice had already wondered over the matter.
"They will all be in dress, papa. Jack will feel awkward among them."
"He is only eighteen, my dear, and it will not matter his not being in evening dress. Jack will not feel awkward."
Alice, was, however, very pleased as well as surprised when, upon coming down dressed into the drawing-room, she found him in full evening dress chatting quietly with her father and two newly arrived guests. Jack would not have been awkward, but he would certainly have been uncomfortable had he not been dressed as were the others, for of all things he hated being different to other people.
He looked at Alice in a pretty pink muslin dress of fashionable make with a surprise as great as that with which she had glanced at him, for he had never before seen a lady in full evening dress.
Presently he said to her quietly, "I know I never say the right thing, Miss Merton, and I daresay it is quite wrong for me to express any personal opinions, but you do look – "
"No, Jack; that is quite the wrong thing to say. You may say, Miss Merton, your dress is a most becoming one, although even that you could not be allowed to say except to some one with whom you are very intimate. There are as many various shades of compliment as there are of intimacy. A brother may say to a sister, You look stunning to-night – that is a very slang word, Jack – and she will like it. A stranger or a new acquaintance may not say a word which would show that he observes a lady is not attired in a black walking dress."
"And what is the exact degree of intimacy in which one may say as you denoted, 'Miss Merton, your dress is a most becoming one?'"
"I should say," the girl said gravely, "it might be used by a cousin or by an old gentleman, a friend of the family."
Then with a laugh she went off to receive the guests, now beginning to arrive in earnest.
After this Mr. Merton made a point of having an "at home" every fourth Saturday, and these soon became known as among the most pleasant and sociable gatherings in the literary and scientific world of Birmingham.
So young Jack Simpson led a dual life, spending twenty-six days of each month as a pit lad, speaking a dialect nearly as broad as that of his fellows, and two as a quiet and unobtrusive young student in the pleasant home of Mr. Merton.
Before a year had passed the one life seemed as natural to him as the other. Even with his friends he kept them separate, seldom speaking of Stokebridge when at Birmingham, save to answer Mr. Merton's questions as to old pupils; and giving accounts, which to Nelly Hardy appeared ridiculously meagre, of his Birmingham experience to his friends at home.
This was not from any desire to be reticent, but simply because the details appeared to him to be altogether uninteresting to his friends.
"You need not trouble to tell me any more, Jack," Nelly Hardy said indignantly. "I know it all by heart. You worked three hours with Mr. Merton; dinner at six; some people came at eight, no one in particular; they talked, and there was some playing on the piano; they went away at twelve. Next morning after breakfast you went to church, had dinner at two, took a walk afterwards, had tea at half-past six, supper at nine, then to bed. I won't ask you any more questions, Jack; if anything out of the way takes place you will tell me, no doubt."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE DOG FIGHT
Saturday afternoon walks, when there were no special games on hand, became an institution among what may be called Jack Simpson's set at Stokebridge. The young fellows had followed his lead with all seriousness, and a stranger passing would have been astonished at the talk, so grave and serious was it. In colliery villages, as at school, the lad who is alike the head of the school and the champion at all games, is looked up to and admired and imitated, and his power for good or for evil is almost unlimited among his fellows. Thus the Saturday afternoon walks became supplements to the evening classes, and questions of all kinds were propounded to Jack, whose attainments they regarded as prodigious.
On such an afternoon, as Jack was giving his friends a brief sketch of the sun and its satellites, and of the wonders of the telescope, they heard bursts of applause by many voices, and a low, deep growling of dogs.
"It is a dog fight," one of the lads exclaimed.
"It is a brutal sport," Jack said. "Let us go another way."
One of the young fellows had, however, climbed a gate to see what was going on beyond the hedge.
"Jack," he exclaimed, "there is Bill Haden fighting his old bitch Flora against Tom Walker's Jess, and I think the pup is a-killing the old dorg."
With a bound Jack Simpson sprang into the field, where some twenty or thirty men were standing looking at a dog fight. One dog had got the other down and was evidently killing it.
"Throw up the sponge, Bill," the miners shouted. "The old dorg's no good agin the purp."
Jack dashed into the ring, with a kick he sent the young dog flying across the ring, and picked up Flora, who, game to the last, struggled to get at her foe.
A burst of indignation and anger broke from the men.
"Let un be." "Put her down." "Dang thee, how dare'st meddle here?" "I'll knock thee head off," and other shouts sounded loudly and threateningly.
"For shame!" Jack said indignantly. "Be ye men! For shame, Bill Haden, to match thy old dog, twelve year old, wi' a young un. She's been a good dorg, and hast brought thee many a ten-pun note. If be'est tired of her, gi' her poison, but I woant stand by and see her mangled."
"How dare 'ee kick my dorg?" a miner said coming angrily forward; "how dare 'ee come here and hinder sport?"
"Sport!" Jack said indignantly, "there be no sport in it. It is brutal cruelty."
"The match be got to be fought out," another said, "unless Bill Haden throws up the sponge for his dog."
"Come," Tom Walker said putting his hand on Jack's shoulder, "get out o' this; if it warn't for Bill Haden I'd knock thee head off. We be coom to see spoort, and we mean to see it."
"Spoort!" Jack said passionately. "If it's spoort thee want'st I'll give it thee. Flora sha'n't go into the ring agin, but oi ull. I'll fight the best man among ye, be he which he will."
A chorus of wonder broke from the colliers.
"Then thou'st get to fight me," Tom Walker said. "I b'liev'," he went on looking round, "there bean't no man here ull question that. Thou'st wanted a leathering for soom time, Jack Simpson, wi' thy larning and thy ways, and I'm not sorry to be the man to gi' it thee."
"No, no," Bill Haden said, and the men round for the most part echoed his words. "'Taint fair for thee to take t' lad at his word. He be roight. I hadn't ought to ha' matched Flora no more. She ha' been a good bitch in her time, but she be past it, and I'll own up that thy pup ha' beaten her, and pay thee the two pounds I lay on her, if ee'll let this matter be."
"Noa," Tom Walker said, "the young 'un ha' challenged the best man here, and I be a-goaing to lick him if he doant draw back."
"I shall not draw back," Jack said divesting himself of his coat, waistcoat, and shirt. "Flora got licked a'cause she was too old, maybe I'll be licked a'cause I be too young; but she made a good foight, and so'll oi. No, dad, I won't ha' you to back me. Harry here shall do that."
The ring was formed again. The lads stood on one side, the men on the other. It was understood now that there was to be a fight, and no one had another word to say.
"I'll lay a fi'-pound note to a shilling on the old un," a miner said.
"I'll take 'ee," Bill Haden answered. "It hain't a great risk to run, and Jack is as game as Flora."
Several other bets were made at similar odds, the lads, although they deemed the conflict hopeless, yet supporting their champion.
Tom Walker stood but little taller than Jack, who was about five feet six, and would probably grow two inches more; but he was three stone heavier, Jack being a pound or two only over ten while the pitman reached thirteen. The latter was the acknowledged champion of the Vaughan pits, as Jack was incontestably the leader among the lads. The disproportion in weight and muscle was enormous; but Jack had not a spare ounce of flesh on his bones, while the pitman was fleshy and out of condition.
It is not necessary to give the details of the fight, which lasted over an hour. In the earlier portion Jack was knocked down again and again, and was several times barely able to come up to the call of time; but his bull-dog strain, as he called it, gradually told, while intemperate habits and want of condition did so as surely upon his opponent.
The derisive shouts with which the men had hailed every knock-down blow early in the fight soon subsided, and exclamations of admiration at the pluck with which Jack, reeling and confused, came up time after time took their place.
"It be a foight arter all," one of them said at the end of the first ten minutes. "I wouldn't lay more nor ten to one now."
"I'll take as many tens to one as any o' ye like to lay," Bill Haden said, but no one cared to lay even these odds.
At the end of half an hour the betting was only two to one. Jack, who had always "given his head," that is, had always ducked so as to receive the blows on the top of his head, where they were supposed to do less harm, was as strong as he was after the first five minutes. Tom Walker was panting with fatigue, wild and furious at his want of success over an adversary he had despised.
The cheers of the lads, silent at first, rose louder with each round, and culminated in a yell of triumph when, at the end of fifty-five minutes, Tom Walker, having for the third time in succession been knocked down, was absolutely unable to rise at the call of "time" to renew the fight.
Never had an event created such a sensation in Stokebridge. At first the news was received with absolute incredulity, but when it became thoroughly understood that Bill Haden's boy, Jack Simpson, had licked Tom Walker, the wonder knew no bounds. So struck were some of the men with Jack's courage and endurance, that the offer was made to him that, if he liked to go to Birmingham and put himself under that noted pugilist the "Chicken," his expenses would be paid, and £50 be forthcoming for his first match. Jack, knowing that this offer was made in good faith and with good intentions, and was in accordance with the custom of mining villages, declined it courteously and thankfully, but firmly, to the surprise and disappointment of his would-be backers, who had flattered themselves that Stokebridge was going to produce a champion middle-weight.
He had not come unscathed from the fight, for it proved that one of his ribs had been broken by a heavy body hit; and he was for some weeks in the hands of the doctor, and was longer still before he could again take his place in the pit.
Bill Haden's pride in him was unbounded, and during his illness poor old Flora, who seemed to recognize in him her champion, lay on his bed with her black muzzle in the hand not occupied with a book.
The victory which Jack had won gave the finishing stroke to his popularity and influence among his companions, and silenced definitely and for ever the sneers of the minority who had held out against the change which he had brought about. He himself felt no elation at his victory, and objected to the subject even being alluded to.
"It was just a question of wind and last," he said. "I was nigh being done for at the end o' the first three rounds. I just managed to hold on, and then it was a certainty. If Tom Walker had been in condition he would have finished me in ten minutes. If he had come on working as a getter, I should ha' been nowhere; he's a weigher now and makes fat, and his muscles are flabby. The best dorg can't fight when he's out o' condition."
But in spite of that, the lads knew that it was only bull-dog courage that had enabled Jack to hold out over these bad ten minutes.
As for Jane Haden, her reproaches to her husband for in the first place matching Flora against a young dog, and in the second for allowing Jack to fight so noted a man as Tom Walker, were so fierce and vehement, that until Jack was able to leave his bed and take his place by the fire, Bill was but little at home; spending all his time, even at meals, in that place of refuge from his wife's tongue, – "the Chequers."
