"I trust more to you than myself," he answered.

CHAPTER X

THE ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT

Raymond Ironsyde had his way, and local justices, familiar with the situation, were content not to commit Abel, but leave the boy in his father's hands. He took all responsibility and, when the time came, sent his son to a good boarding-school at Yeovil. Sabina so far met him that the operation was conducted in her name, and since the case of Abel had been kept out of local papers, his fellow scholars knew nothing of his errors. But his difficulties of character were explained to those now set over him, and they were warned that his moral education, while attempted, had not so far been successful.

Perhaps only one of those concerned much sympathised with Ironsyde in his painful ordeal. Those who did not openly a.s.sert that he was reaping what he had sown, were indifferent. Some, like Mr. Motyer, held the incident a joke; one only possessed imagination sufficient to guess what these public events must mean to the father of Abel. Indeed, Estelle certainly suffered more for Raymond than he suffered for himself. She pictured poignantly his secret thoughts and sorrows at this challenge, and she could guess what it must be to have a child who hated you. In her maiden mind, however, the man's emotions were exaggerated, and she made the mistake of supposing that this grievous thing must be dominating Raymond's existence, instead of merely vexing it. In truth he suffered, but he was juster than Estelle, and, looking back, measured his liabilities pretty accurately. He had none but himself to thank for these inconveniences, and when he weighed them against the alternative of marriage with Sabina, he counted them as bearable. Abel tried him sorely, but he did not try him as permanent union with Abel's mother must have tried him. Since he had renewed speech with her, his conviction was increased that supreme disaster must have followed marriage. Moreover, there began to rise a first glimmer of the new situation already indicated. It had grown gradually and developed more intensely during his days of enforced idleness in his aunt's house. From that time, at any rate, he marked the change and saw his old regard and respect for Estelle wakening into something greater. Her sympathy quickened the new sentiments. He thought she was saner over Abel than anybody, for she never became sentimental, or pretended that nothing had happened which might not have been predicted. Her support was both human and practical. It satisfied him and showed him her good sense.

Miss Ironsyde had often reminded her nephew that he was the last of his line, and urged him to take a wife and found a family. That Raymond should marry seemed desirable to her; but she had not considered Estelle as a wife for him. Had she done so, Jenny must have feared the girl too young and too doubtful in opinions to promise complete success and safety for the master of the Mill. He would marry a mature woman and a steadfast Christian--so hoped Miss Ironsyde then.

There came a day when Raymond called on Mr. Churchouse. Business brought him and first he discussed the matter of an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"In these days," he said, "the compet.i.tion grows keener than ever. And I rather revel in it--as I do in the east wind. It's not pleasant at the time, but, if you're healthy, it's a tonic."

"And if you're not, it finds the weak places," added Mr. Churchouse. "No man over sixty has much good to say of the east wind."

"Well, the works are healthy enough and compet.i.tion is merely a tonic to us. We hold our own from year to year, and I've reached a conviction that my policy of ruthlessly sc.r.a.pping machinery the moment it's even on the down grade, is the only sound principle and pays in the long run.

And now I want something new in the advertis.e.m.e.nt line--something not mechanical at all, but human and interesting--calculated to attract, not middlemen and retailers, but the person who buys our string and rope to use it. In fact I want a little book about the romance of spinning, so that people may look at a ball of string, or shoe-thread, or fishing-line, intelligently, and realise about one hundredth part of all that goes to its creation. Now you could do a thing like that to perfection, Uncle Ernest, because you know the business inside out."

Mr. Churchouse was much pleased.

"An excellent idea--a brilliant idea, Raymond! We must insist on the romance of spinning--the poetry."

"I don't want it to be too flowery, but just interesting and direct. A glimpse of the raw material growing, then the history of its manufacture."

Ernest's eyes sparkled.

"From the beginning--from the very beginning," he said. "Pliny tells us how the Romans used hemp for their sails at the end of the first century. Is not the English word 'canvas' only 'cannabis' over again?

Herodotus speaks of the hempen robes of the Thracians as equal to linen in fineness. And as for cordage, the ships of Syracuse in 200 B.C.--"

He was interrupted.

"That's all right, but what I rather fancy is the development of the modern industry--here in Dorset."

"Good--that would follow with all manner of modern instances."

Mr. Churchouse drew a book from one of his shelves.

"In Tudor times it was ordered by Act of Parliament that ropes should be twisted and made nowhere else than here. Leland, that industrious chronicler, came to grief in this matter, for he calls Bridport 'a fair, large town,' where 'be made good daggers.' He shows the danger of taking words too literally, since a 'Bridport dagger' is only another name for the hangman's rope."

"That's the sort of thing," said Raymond. "An article we can ill.u.s.trate, showing the hemp and flax growing in Russia and Italy, then all the business of pulling, steeping and retting, drying and scutching. That would be one chapter."

"It shall be done. I see it--I see the whole thing--an elegant brochure and well within my power. I am fired with the thought. There is only one objection, however."

"None in the world. I see you know just what I'm after--a little pamphlet well ill.u.s.trated."

"The objection is that Estelle Waldron would do it a thousand times better than I can. She has a more modern outlook and a more modern touch. I feel confident that with me to supply the matter, she would produce a much more attractive and readable work."

Raymond considered.

"I suppose she would. I hadn't thought of her."

"Believe me, she would succeed to admiration. For your sake as well as mine, she would produce a little masterpiece."

"She'd do anything to please you, we all know; but I've no right to bother her with details of business. Of course, if you do it, it is a commission and you would name your honorarium, Uncle Ernest."

The old man laughed.

"We'll see--we'll see. Perhaps I should ask too high a price. But Estelle will not be so grasping. And as to your right to bother her with the details of business, anything she can do for you is a very great privilege to her."

"I believe I owe her more than a man can ever pay a woman, already."

"Most men are insolvent to the other s.e.x. Woman's n.o.ble tradition is to give more than she gets, and let us off the reckoning, quite well knowing it beyond our feeble powers to cry quits with her."

Raymond was moved at this challenge, for in the light that Estelle threw upon them, women interested him more to-day than they had for ten years.

"One takes old Arthur's daughter for granted rather too much," he said; "we always take good women for granted too much, I suppose. It's the other sort who look out we shan't take them for granted, but at their own valuation. Estelle--she's so many-sided--difficult, too, in some things."

"She is," admitted Ernest. "And just for this reason. She always argues on her own basis of perfect ingenuous honesty. She a.s.sumes certain rational foundations for all human relations; and if such bases really existed, then it would be the best possible world, no doubt, and we should all do to our neighbour as we would have him do to us. But the Golden Rule doesn't actuate the bulk of mankind, unfortunately. Men and women are not as good as Estelle thinks them."

Raymond agreed eagerly.

"You've hit it," he said. "It is just that. She's right in theory every time; and if people were all as straight and altruistic and high-principled as she is, there'd really be no more bother about morals in the world. Native good sense would decide. Even as it is, the native good sense of mankind is deciding certain questions and will presently push the lawyers into codifying their mouldy laws, and then give reason a chance to cleanse the whole archaic lump of them; but as it is, Estelle--Take Marriage, for example. I agree with her all the way--in theory. But when you come to view the situation in practice--you're up against things as they are, and you never want people you love to be martyrs, however n.o.ble the cause. Estelle says the law of s.e.x relationships is barbaric, and that marriage is being submitted to increasing rational criticism, which the law and the Church both conspire to ignore. She thinks that these barriers to progress ought to be swept away, because they have a vicious effect on the inst.i.tution and degrade men and women. She's always got her eye on the future, and the result is sometimes that she doesn't focus the present too exactly. It's n.o.ble, but not practical."

"The inst.i.tution of marriage will last Estelle's time, I think,"

declared Mr. Churchouse.

"One hopes so heartily--for her own sake. One knows very well it's an obsolescent sort of state, and can't bear the light of reason, and must be reformed, so that intelligent people can enter it in a self-respecting spirit; but if there is one inst.i.tution that defies the pioneers, it is marriage. The law's far too strong for us there. And I don't want to see her misunderstood."

They parted soon after this speech, and the older man, who had long suspected the fact, now perceived that Raymond was beginning to think of Estelle in new terms and elevating her to another place in his thoughts.

It was the personal standpoint that challenged Ironsyde's mind. His old sentiments and opinions respecting the marriage bond took a very different colour before the vision of an Estelle united to himself. Thus circ.u.mstances alter opinions, and the theories he had preached to Sabina went down the wind when he thought of Estelle. The touchstone of love vitiates as well as purifies thinking.

CHAPTER XI

THE HEMP BREAKER

Ironsyde attached increasing importance to the fullest possible treatment of the raw material before actual spinning, and was not only always on the lookout for the best hemps and flaxes grown, but spared no pains to bring them to the Card and Spread Board as perfect as possible.