CHAPTER VIII.
MR. FFRENCH.
It was a week before affairs assumed their accustomed aspect. Not that the Works had been neglected, however. Each morning Haworth had driven down early and spent an hour in his office and about the place, reading letters, issuing orders and keeping a keen look-out generally.
"I'll have no spreeing here among you chaps," he announced. "Spree as much as you like when th' work's done, but you don't spree in my time. Look sharp after 'em, Kendal."
The day after his guests left him he appeared at his usual time, and sent at once for Murdoch.
On his arriving he greeted him, leaning back in his chair, his hands thrust into his pockets.
"Well, lad," he said, "it's over."
Almost unconsciously, Murdoch thrust his hands into his pockets also, but the action had rather a reflective than a defiant expression.
"It's lasted a pretty long time, hasn't it?" he remarked.
Haworth answered him with a laugh.
"Egad! You take it cool enough," he said.
Suddenly he got up and began to walk about, his air a mixture of excitement and braggadocio. After a turn or two he wheeled about.
"Why don't you say summat?" he demanded, sardonically. "Summat moral. You don't mean to tell me you've not got pluck enow?"
"I don't see," said Murdoch, deliberately,—"I don't see that there's anything to say. Do you?"
The man stared at him, reddening. Then he turned about and flung himself into his chair again.
"No," he answered. "By George! I don't."
They discussed the matter no further. It seemed to dispose of itself. Their acquaintance went on in the old way, but there were moments afterward when Murdoch felt that the man regarded him with something that might have been restrained or secret fear—a something which held him back and made him silent and unready of speech. Once, in the midst of a conversation taking a more confidential tone than usual, to his companion's astonishment he stopped and spoke bluntly:
"If I say aught as goes against the grain with you," he said, "speak up, lad. Blast it!" striking his fist hard against his palm, "I'd like to show my clean side to you."
It was at this time that he spoke first of his mother.
"When I run away from the poor-house," he said, "I left her there. She's a soft-hearted body—a good one too. As soon as I earned my first fifteen shillin' a week, I gave her a house of her own—and I lived hard to do it. She lives like a lady now, though she's as simple as ever. She knows naught of the world, and she knows naught of me beyond what she sees of me when I go down to the little country-place in Kent with a new silk gown and a lace cap for her. She scarce ever wears 'em, but she's as fond on 'em as if she got 'em from Buckingham Palace. She thinks I'm a lad yet, and say my prayers every night and the catechism on Sundays. She'll never know aught else, if I can help it. That's why I keep her where she is."
When he said that he intended to make "Haworth's" second to no place in England, he had not spoken idly. His pride in the place was a passion. He spent money lavishly but shrewdly; he paid his men well, but ruled them with an iron hand. Those of his fellow-manufacturers who were less bold and also less keen-sighted, regarded him with no small disfavor.
"He'll have trouble yet, that Haworth fellow," they said.
But "Haworth's" flourished and grew. The original works were added to, and new hands, being called for, flocked into Broxton with their families. It was Jem Haworth who built the rows of cottages to hold them, and he built them well and substantially, but as a sharp business investment and a matter of pride rather than from any weakness of regarding them from a moral stand-point.
"I'll have no poor jobs done on my place," he announced. "I'll leave that to the gentlemen manufacturers."
It was while in the midst of this work that he received a letter from Gerard Ffrench, who was still abroad.
Going into his room one day Murdoch found him reading it and looking excited.
"Here's a chap as would be the chap for me," he said, "if brass were iron—that chap Ffrench."
"What does he want?" Murdoch asked.
"Naught much," grimly. "He's got a notion of coming back here, and he'd like to go into partnership with me. That's what he's drivin' at. He'd like to be a partner with Jem Haworth."
"What has he to offer?"
"Cheek, and plenty on it. He says his name's well known, and he's got influence as well as practical knowledge. I'd like to have a bit of a talk with him."
Suddenly he struck his fist on the table before him.
"I've got a name that's enow for me," he said. "The day's to come yet when I ask any chap for name or money or aught else. Partner be damned! This here's 'Haworth's!'"