As he was speaking the door on his left opened, and Lady Grace Ravelstoke entered with the lady passenger. The lady heard him speak, and there are some voices which a woman never forgets, and the dangerous journey over the rope had not passed in silence.
She laid her hand upon his arm, and said, “Oh, sir, how can I thank you?”
Tyrawley rose as in duty bound, saying, “Do not speak of it, I did not know when I came off, that I was to have the pleasure of assisting you.”
But the astonishment of the captain was beautiful to behold.
“Why you don’t mean to say Well, I never; — dash my wig — well I’m Here, shake hands, sir, will you.” And he stretched across the table a brawny hand, not much smaller than a shoulder of mutton.
The grip with which Tyrawley met his, seemed to do a great deal more to convince him of his identity, than the lady’s recognition of their preserver.
The day was as wet as the preceding. Half-an-hour after breakfast, Mr. Tyrawley lounged into the back drawing-room. There sat Miss Constance Baynton, and, by the singular coincidence which favours lovers or historians, she sat alone.
Now Constance had made up her mind that she was bound to apologise to Mr. Tyrawley for her rude speeches of yesterday; she had also decided that she would compliment him on his gallant conduct.
She had, in fact, arranged a neat, quiet, cold, formal, appropriate form of words in which she would give her views expression. And how do you think she delivered them? She got up, said, “O Mr. Tyrawley!” and burst into tears.
If a proud woman’s pride is a shield to thee, O man, as well as to her, against the arrows of love, remember, that if ever she throws it away — after she has compelled you to acknowledge its value — you are both left utterly defenceless.
Frederick Tyrawley capitulated at once. They are to be married this month. And if Mr. Tyrawley does not, at some future time, achieve a reputation which no mystery shall cloud, it will not be Mrs. Tyrawley’s fault.
Herbert Vaughan.
HANDS AND MACHINES.
AN EPISODE IN PROGRESS.
To be an Englishman in the full sense of the term is a thing to be proud of. To have grown on the same soil that has produced an Alfred, a Shakspeare, Milton, Hampden, Sydney, and others of our long line of worthies, is to be in some sort their foster-brother. And to be of the kin of Watt and Crompton, and Hargreaves, and the half Celt, half Saxon race, born mechanicians, along the course of Blackstone Edge, who nursed up Lancashire to its eminence, and clothed the whole world in cotton — albeit an exotic and not an indigenous trade — to claim the men of strong Northumberland and skilful Cornwall, and canny Yorkshire, as our brethren — and the noble army of railway-makers and improvers who—as the Free Masons of old went forth into all lands to build churches — go forth into all lands to lay down the iron cords that bind nations together, and so win the world from the wilderness; — all this stirs the blood in vein and artery, and impels us to cry out:
There be no men like Englishmen,
Such working men as they be.
“England expects that every man this day will do his duty,” said Nelson, and stern duty proved to be a stronger thing than dazzling glory, — it was gold versus gilding.
Hard has ever been the struggle of those men, who bent on physical progress have disturbed the even course of the Actual in their search after the To-come. No popular shouts greet them, till external success has stamped them with its vulgar fiat. Capital in employment is all against them, and capital in speculation is chary. It is not often that originality and capital get together at the outset, — not common for a Watt to meet with a Boulton; only the originality that is united to perseverance, hoping always against hope, can ensure success.
Few remember the struggle of steam to supplant horses on the highways. Many remember the struggle to supplant highways by railways, for the struggle was crowned by success, and men of all classes abandoned old pursuits for new. The iron wheel on the rail was substituted for the wooden-wheels on the gravel and macadam, and it was even thought that springs might be dispensed with, till the matter was put to the proof. All things were topsy-turvy, and fabulous prices were paid for some of the earlier railway-stock, but curiously enough the distribution of rewards gave as result the highest praises in proportion to the commonness of the work. The men who made the earthworks accumulated fortunes, those who made the locomotives barely got “salt to their porridge.” The reason is plain; business acuteness on a large scale is more accumulative than mechanical skill or genius.
The cost of manual labour, and that skilled labour of the highest kind, in working iron, very easily led the way to the use of machine-tools, while the softer material, wood, was left to the skill of the workman. And thus, long after the construction of locomotive-engines on railways was rendered tolerably automatic, wagons and carriages of all kinds still remained a mere handicraft. The circumstances which led to a change were peculiar.
An inventor, that is, a man of strong perceptive
faculties, united with mechanical instincts, whom we will agree to call John Smith, obtained a patent for certain improvements in transit, applicable to ordinary highways. An influential director of a railway, struck with its importance, called on John Smith and requested him to adapt it to railways. After considerable expense and time, this was done, and the success of the principle demonstrated, though the perfect adaptation was impracticable without the cooperation of the holders’ of stock. Every principle of trade competition forbade this, and therefore, as a next move, John Smith became a builder himself, aiming at