The World's Coarse Thumb

Front matter

SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON The Duchess Lass. By CAROLINE MASTERS. Uniform with this Volume. THE BLACKBURN TIMES.-' We shall be surprised if Miss Masters. who is an East Lancashire lady, does not ultimately achieve a wide reputation as a novelist. She has an intimate knowledge of the work. ways, and speech of the Lancashire cotton operative, and she is able to conjure up before us scenes and incidents that used to be familiar. The "Duchess Lass" is one of the finest stories of l.ancashire life ever written, and there are indications in the book of qualities which make us look forward to the time when Miss Masters will be recognised amongst novelists of the very front rank.' THE SCOTSMAN. — ' Miss Masters is clearly at home in Lancashire, and her stories of the busy industrial life of that great county are bound to occupy a position of merit in contemporary fiction.

Her new novel is in its way delightful.' THE NOTTINGHAM DAILY CUARDIAN.-' Miss Masters has introduced abundance of incident into the tale, and the characters, especially of the three independent spinster sisters, are well drawn. It is an interesting and wholesome story, and Mr. Lancelot Speed's illustra tions are excellent.' THE GLOBE. — ' Miss Masters develops her story with skill, and her portraits of three independent spinster sisters are amusing and pathetic' DUNDEE ADVERTISER.—' It is certain of popularity alike from its literary beauty and its wholesome invigorating moral tone.' THE BIRMINGHAM POST.— ' Many of the scenes are brought out with vivid dramatic force.' GLASGOW HERALD. — ' Readers will enjoy its quiet power and sustained interest. The author has the touch of an artist and a pleasant vein of humour.' ABERDEEN FREE PRESS.— 'In "The Shuttle of Fate" Caroline Masters gave us a story full of movement, fresh, natural, invigorating.

In "The Duchess Lass" she has done more than maintain her reputation. The novel is full of pure human interest, well constructed, nervous with incident, and just sensational enough to make the reader catch breath once and again. The writer knows how to captivate the imagination of the average lover of work-a-day stories.' London: FREDERICK WARNE & CO., and New York. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON The Shuttle of Fate. By CAROLINE MASTERS. Uniform with this Volume. THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.— ' We have not, for a long time, read a more interesting and faithful story of Lancashire life. In telling the story, the author shows great insight into the peculiarities of Lancashire character. The sturdy independence, the native wit, the broad humour, the devoted loyalty of some, and the unreasoning hatred of others, are vividly portrayed in the sketches of the different characters, and the tale is varied by touches of genuine pathos.' THE MANCHESTER COURIER.— ' The tale is undoubtedly a powerful one, both in its conception of character and arrangement of incident, whilst the description of the little towns and villages along the bottom of the ' Earnshaw Valley ' is realistic enough to recall more than one such Lancashire scene.

Chapter I. Looking Back

IT is a trite saying that ' the boy is father to the man ' ; nevertheless, the triteness does not lessen the truth, and it seems, indeed, that one in cident of Brian Arkwright's school-days will make the reader understand the course he took in after life far better than many explanations. Some ten or twelve years before the events which are about to be related took place, two boys were standing in a small, half-dismantled study belonging to one of the large public schools of which English men are so fond. One of them, a tall lad about sixteen, was leaning against the window, a proud, defiant expression upon his dark, square-cut face, as though he held, alone, his whole small world at bay. ' Be quick and get done, can't you ? instead of staring as though you were stuck!' he said shortly at last, aiming a roll of paper at the head of a small boy, who stood gazing at him as though fascinated.

The boy jumped at the sudden speaking of one who for the past half-hour had stood in gloomy, unheeding silence, and began hurriedly to put a pile of books into the open box before him. ' Clear the whole shelf whilst you are about it. Those two that belong to Brown you can take down to his study when you have done.' ' Brown went home to-day, Arkwright, so they may as well stay where they are till next term.' ' Till next term ? I shan't be here next term to see about borrowed goods.' His little fag let the armful of books he was carry ing fall to the ground with a clatter. ' You'll — not — be — here ?' he gasped. Brian Arkwright turned upon his questioner in a perfect blaze of anger : ' What do you take me for ? Do you think that I, an Arkwright of Stanesdale, would come back to a place where they suspect me of taking another fellow's crib ?' ' But — Arkwright, why — why did you not deny it all?' ' I did, before the whole form,' he answered bitterly. ' Oh yes, I know ; but old Weston is so awfully deaf.

Why did you not go and have it out with the doctor, straight ?' Brian gave a short laugh. LOOKING BACK 13 ' Have it out with the doctor ?' he echoed ; ' what does the lad mean?' Then, after a moment's silence, he went on ' Do you think I am the kind of fellow to go whining about from one authority to another ? When I say I have not done a thing, I have not done it, and there's an end of the matter. They can do as they like about believing me ; I am not going to bother about it. We Arkwrights are not of that sort.' ' But your father will never let you leave straight off, without a word ?' ' As it happens, I've not got one — as for my mother, she'll be as keen on my leaving a place where they don't take my word as I am myself. But never did I see such a chap as you are for asking questions. Why don't you go on with what you are doing ?' He turned to the window as he spoke, and looked upon the wide prospect before him.

The big playground was full of boys wrestling, shouting, struggling, laughing together in wildest spirits. The old gray building had echoed many boyish voices before Arkwright had been one of the merry throng, and it would echo them for many years to come, though the boy, who now looked out from one of its many windows, would never again help to swell the sound. ' I am not going to bother about it, not I. I shall have forgotten the whole place in a week,' he kept saying to himself, as he stood there with clenched hands. He little thought how often in the months to come there would appear before him, instead of great mountains and the dark waters of a lake, that flat, green plain, with its waving line of willows where the sluggish river wound its way ; he little knew how often the merry shouts and gay laughter of the boys below would ring in his ears, amid the solemn cawing of rooks or the bleating of mountain sheep fresh-shorn.

The sudden sound of a suppressed sob made him turn sharply round : ' Oh, come, I say, stop that, you young fool ! I don't want to take home my box half full of water !' As he spoke, Brian Arkwright put his hand upon the little boy's shoulder, and gave him a kindly shake. ' But what shall I do when you are gone, Ark wright ?' he spluttered, half choking with the effort to keep back his sobs. ' Oh, you'll not be long before you have a study and a fag of your own, Garton,' Brian answered cheerily. ' If ever I do, I'll choose the poorest, stupidest little chap in the school, as you chose me !' — looking up, as he spoke, with a queer little smile at the big, strong boy who had befriended him in his hour of need. ' Well, you were not up to much, certainly,' Ark wright answered carelessly, with true boyish candour. ' But if you'll stop talking such rot, I'll help you to get this packing done.' LOOKING BACK 15 Brian Arkwright had been quite right in saying that his mother would be as anxious for him to leave as he was himself.

Mrs. Arkwright was not a woman to bear meekly any insult either to herself or her son. If the boy were proud, she was prouder far ; if he were quick to resent a wrong, she was quicker still. So, in spite of his small fag's tears> and notwithstanding the master's letter of regret and explanation which followed him home a few days later, Brian Arkwright never returned to that big public school, and young Garton had to fight out his own battles alone without any strong hand to help him.

Chapter II. Bad News

STAN ESD ALE is situated in the very heart of the English Lake District — in the very heart of its northern part. The house is old and sombre, its walls are thick and weather-beaten, and its roof of stone is toned into many shades — from yellowish-red to coldest, darkest gray — by the varied actions of sun and storm. It stands upon the side of a rugged mountain, overlooking a little tarn, on the shore of which clusters a tiny hamlet. The mountains, like the other mountains round about this out-of-the-way, lonely place, are deceptive ; in spite of their boldness, they look short and somewhat wanting to the ordinary spectator, who is apt to forget that they rise from a plateau which is already many hundred feet above the far-famed lake at its foot. But to Brian Arkwright they were all that heart could desire.

What matter that they grew but scanty herbage for the sheep which sprang from rock to rock in search of food ? What matter that their fine gold and purple was but bracken and heather ? Was it not all his own as far as eye could reach — his own, and his father's before him ? Men who are proud of the houses they have built, of the money they have made, of the things they have created with their own hands, have little know ledge of, and less sympathy with, the pride of a man who is born possessor of his lands and moneys. They oftentimes speak of such an one as a drone, an idler ; they even quote, with pointed severity, ' In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread,' and they feel as they sit down to the pleasures of an ample table that they, at least, are obeying the Divine injunction. They do not realize that many of those who are born with hereditary lands or money have a pride far wider and less personal than their own — a pride which makes them determined to hand down intact to those who follow after the possessions which they themselves have received from the fathers who went before.

But although Mrs. Arkwright had trained up her son to think much of his land, of his money, of his birth, yet one thing she had ever put first and fore most, and that was his honour. Even as a baby it had been instilled into him ; as a boy it had grown with him pace by pace, and now that he was a man it had become the ruling passion of his life. ' Young Arkwright will never do anything that's not square,' ' You can be sure of Mr. Brian's doing the fair thing,' were common sayings in that wild countryside. Life had gone very smoothly for Brian Arkwright in the years since he had left school ; he had ridden and driven, fished and shot, visited his farms, in spected his tenants' cattle, kept his estate in repair, and generally passed his time as other young men do. To a certain extent, that is, for he never sought the companionship of those about him ; he was content to wander among the mountains in utter loneliness, for long hours in all varieties of weather, followed only by his big, rough-haired dog ; and at night his mother's fireside was enough to satisfy him after his hard day's work, perhaps because the stern, reticent woman was as silent as himself.

But one wild autumn day the crash came, and the whole tenor of Brian Arkwright's uneventful life was changed for ever — changed as with the suddenness of unexpected death. There are two different opinions current about the English Lake District — yet both these opinions are formed from a summer point of view. Some talk with glib enthusiasm about mountain passes, seen under golden haze from the top of a coach and four, or speak with rapture of cool, moonlit evenings on quiet lakes, when oars dip lazily in and out of shim mering waters, and boats glide slowly onward through the mysteries of light and shadow. On the other hand, there are many who speak in gloomy words ot rain and a drizzle — of perpetual rain and ceaseless drizzle ; of a land where the sun never shines, and the mists refuse to rise ; where mountains are seen by faith instead of sight, and every boat hired upon every dreary lake is damp with water freshly ladled out.

But, aster all, both theories deal with the long days of summer ; the average British tourist knows little or nothing of that country in the autumn, when every road is inches thick in mud, and every lane is a running brook, when the keen winds sweep down from the heights above, carrying with them, as they rush through the valley in wild eddies, the last few shrivelled leaves they have found, and raising upon the smooth waters of the lakes little white-tipped billows against which no pleasure boat of summer could hold its way. It was at the close of an exceptionally dreary day of an exceptionally dreary autumn that Brian Ark wright was nearing home after a long tramp over the mountains. The light was growing dim, and every now and then — well as he knew the rough, uneven path — he stumbled over some up-jutting rock.

The hail and rain beat against his head, bent to meet their force ; and the sheep, cowering here and there behind the shelter of some great rock, looked up and started off in dumb amazement as he went along. ' I shan't be sorry to get in — it is an awful night !' he muttered between his clenched teeth as he paused at the gate to let a wilder gust of wind and hail than usual sweep by, a gust which made him bend before it, strong man that he was. A great boulder of rock hid the lights of the old house from view, and before he had rounded it, he was startled by the sound of a horse's feet coming rapidly down the drive. For a moment he thought that his ears must have deceived him, that the howl- 2 — ing of the wind and the whizz of the heavy rain must have played him false. Who could be riding from Stanesdale on such a night in such untoward haste ?

Yet nearer and nearer came the unseen horse, so near, indeed, that Brian could recognise the very tread of his favourite mare, and, even as he wondered, she shot past him, her rider, with his head held low, evidently urging her on to the utmost speed. ' Holloa ! Stop there ! What's up ?' The rider pulled the mare back upon her haunches. He knew too well that, whatever might be the reason for haste, it was only wise to stop at that shouted command. Brian Arkwright seized the rein of the excited horse. ' What does all this mean, Jones ? ' Broadley told me to go to Kerstone without losing a moment, and fetch Dr. Grey. The missis is dying!' the man gasped. His master drew a long breath, and let the mare go. ' Come back to the house,' he said abruptly, with out any comment on the news. ' But — sir — Broadley,' stuttered Jones in his ex citement.

He only spoke to the wind, however, for Brian was rapidly climbing the hilly road which led to the house where his mother was said to be dying — his mother whom that very morning he had left in her usual health ; and the groom, after a few seconds' hesitation, turned his horse's head, and went up after his master. Brian Arkwright had, by this time, reached a low, wide old doorway, and, slinging open the door, stumbled down a step into a stone-paved passage. All was in darkness, either by the carelessness of the servants, who had completely lost their heads, or by the action of the gust of wind which had rushed in as he entered, blowing to some distant door with a hollow, ghostly sound. The next moment an old man appeared at the end of the narrow passage-like hall, the lighted candle in his trembling hand casting weird flickering gleams upon the dark, oak-panelled walls. 'Oh, Mr. Brian, sir, is that you at last?

I've been wearying for you, sir, though it's a sorry home coming for you, it is for sure ! Who would have thought when you went out this morning that such a thing would have happened before you got back ? Law, sir ! how you startled me !' Brian had suddenly put a heavy hand on the old man's shoulder, giving him a little shake as he did so — anything to stop his quavering garrulity. ' What is the matter ?' he asked hoarsely. ' There is a deal the matter, sir — a deal the matter ! I said last night when old Towser moaned and howled so that it wasn't for naught, and no more it hasn't been ! Oh, my poor mistress ! To think I've served her for thirty years, and it has come to this at last ! I've seen many a one carried out from this house, sir, I have ' ' Where is Rachel ?' Brian asked, putting the old man abruptly upon one side as he spoke.

At the same moment a trim, elderly woman came down the short flight of stairs. ' I'm glad you've come, Mr. Brian; Mrs. Arkwright has been taken very ill,' she said. ' Ah ! is that you, Rachel ? Now I shall get a straight tale. Jones and Broadley seem to have lost their heads. What is the matter with my mother?' It was not long before Brian Arkwright knew all that had happened since he left the house in the morning. Rachel, in her deliberate, unemotional way, had told him that her mistress had seemed far from well all day, but had been much displeased at its being mentioned; that she had gone on from bad to worse, until she was now lying unconscious upon her bed upstairs. A short order to the old butler was Brian's only comment upon the maid's news. ' Broadley, tell Jones to put the mare into the dog cart ; I will fetch the doctor myself.' ' You must have something to eat if you do, Mr. Brian.

There's no sense in going a journey like that when you are fasting,' said the calm-voiced Rachel. Brian turned away, with a nod of assent to the proposal, and in another ten minutes he had started off on his long, rough drive. It was characteristic of the feeling which existed between him and his mother that he never for an instant thought of going up to the darkened room, where she lay, before he again went out to face the blustering wind and driving rain in order to bring her help. It was an awful night. The wind, and rain, and the darkness all seemed to have combined their forces in order to retard his pace; but Brian Ark wright took no heed — as fast as his horse could go, so fast he went, only slackening his speed to allow the groom to get down and open some gate which stopped his course.

But when he reached Kerstone and pulled up at the doctor's door, all his old carelessness of manner returned. ' My mother has been taken ill, and I want you to come back with me,' he said in an undemon strative tone — which to outsiders would have sounded like indifference — as he shook hands with the little gray-haired doctor who bustled out to meet him. ' If I do, my boy, you will have to send me home again ; I've a case on hand I can't leave for the night,' the old man answered briskly ; then he added, as he looked out, ' Ugh ! it's an awful night. Won't Mrs. Arkwright be all right till morning, don't you think?' ' No,' Brian replied concisely ; ' she was unconscious when I left. That means something radically wrong.' The doctor said no more, and in a few more moments they were driving up towards Stanesdale in pretty much the same mad style as Brian had driven down.

At last, to the elder man's relies, they stopped at their destination. As he said some hours later lo his elderly wife, 'My dear, talk of Jehll I why, I tell you I held my life in my hand the whole of the way.' The door was thrown wide open as they drew up, and the anxious face of old I '.roadley peered on I : 'Ah, doctor, I'm glad to see you! I'm sorely feared my poor mistress is going fast. That there dog of yours, Mr. Brian, lias been howling and tiying like something human all the time you've been gone.' And even as he spoke, down the long passage echoed the distant, mournful sound. Brian Ark wright took no heed : ' Go and tell Rachel that Dr. Grey is here, Broadley,' he said abruptly. In another moment the quiet voice of his mother's maid was heard : ' Sir, my mistress is conscious now, and has asked several times for you.' 'Ah ! she is better, then,' Brian said in a tone of relies. ' Doctor, I hope I have not brought you here on a wild-goose chase, after all.' ' Let us go up and sec her,' was Dr. Grey's only reply.

He had caught sight of Rachel's expression and the grave shake of her head. Up the short flight of stairs, along a narrow passage, round a corner, down two or three steps, and then down another long passage, the two men went, following the uncertain light of Ra< bel's candle. ' Mind the step,' Brian whispered, as they turned in at his mother's door. If the way there had been gloomy, the room, now it was reached, was infinitely more so. All was cold, dark, hard — a fitting surrounding for the resolute woman who sat propped up in her bed awaiting their coming. The light of the solitary lamp fell on no warm, cosy draperies, nor on soft carpet and easy-chairs ; its rays were reflected back with sinister gleams by a highly-polished wooden floor, by oak-panelled walls and stiff-backed, grotesquely carved seats.

Dr. Grey gave a little shiver as he looked round, Mrs. Arkwright had been taken so recently ill that there were none of the small, comfortable arrange ments which so soon soften and make home-like a sick-room. ' Why in the wide world don't you light a fire ?' he asked Rachel in a low voice, looking at the empty grate, with its cold blue tiles and heavy overmantel of black oak. ' Because I don't require one,' said a deep, abrupt voice from the bed. Dr. Grey went up to his patient, and Mrs. Ark wright held out a thin hand glistening with rings. 'Good-evening, doctor; I shall not require any thing here much longer, and so I could have told that foolish boy as well as you can. It is a pity to have brought you so far on such a night for no purpose ; you may stop a woman's pain and disease, Dr. Grey, but you'll never stop her dying!

It is death I am grappling with now !' ' Come, come, Mrs. Arkwright, don't lose heart.' But after a few moments the old man rose to his feet with a graver look in his eyes, and Mrs. Ark wright gave him a mocking little smile, which looked ghastly on her drawn, white face. ' Ah, doctor, you see I am right. What ! you will not own it yet ? Ah, well !' But when, after a few more words, Brian followed the doctor out of the room, he heard the peremptory voice of his mother call him back. ' Brian, come here ! No, come closer. There is something I want to tell you. Come back as soon as Dr. Grey has gone.' Then she motioned for him to lean down, and added in a hoarse whisper : ' Be sure he does go. Don't ask him to stay all night on any account. When you have heard what I have to tell you, you will not want him any more than I do.'

Chapter III

A DREARY VIGIL. BRIAN ARKWRIGHT followed the doctor along the passage and downstairs in a state of utter perplexity. That his mother was in any danger of her life he did not grasp in the least, but what could she have to say to him that required such secrecy ? Could she be quite in possession of her senses ? Why, after the silence of so many years, should she choose such a time for telling him some thing which she evidently considered of dire importance ? But if, when he came down, the mysterious secret which his mother was about to reveal occupied all his thoughts, it was in a very different frame of mind that he slowly made his way back to his mother's room after the doctor had gone. The old man had bluntly told him the bare fact that, before the next daybreak, Mrs. Arkwright would in all probability be dead, and this short statement had stunned Brian Arkwright — deadened him to all that was passing around, just as would have done an actual bodily blow.

His mother dying ! His mother, whom he had left to all appearances strong and well that very morning ! His mother, from whom he had never heard a complaint of pain in his whole life! Oh, there was some blunder ! Doctors had often been mistaken before now. Nevertheless, when he went in again to the room where Mrs. Arkwright lay, her piercing eyes saw that a great change had come over her son. ' Ah, Brian, so Dr. Grey has told you that there is no chance for me. I have known it for long. Well, well, I'm glad it has come quickly at the last.' She said the last few words in a slow, musing voice, very different from her ordinary decisive way of speaking ; but in a second she was herself again. ' Draw up that chair close to the bed and sit down — no, not there : lower down where I can see you. I hate to talk to a man with his face hidden,' she added sharply.

Her son did as he was ordered, without any remark, looking keenly at her as he did so. ' I've sent Rachel to bed. Has Broadley gone ?' Brian gave a nod in the affirmative, but did not speak. ' That is well. I have something to tell you to night that you will not care for any chance person to overhear.' She spoke in a hoarse, low tone, which made her son half shudder. ' Brian, you're a proud fellow. You've always held your head high, and prided yourself upon being an Arkwright, and the son of an Arkwright ; but you cannot say you ever heard me say anything of the kind, can you ?' A DREARY VIGIL 29 Brian stared at her in silence for a few seconds, letting his mind run back into the past. ' No,' he said slowly ; ' now I think of it, I don't remember that you did. You were always so great on your own family, you know,' he finished, with a half-laugh. ' They were better worth it, my son — they were better worth it.

I would have given anything if you had been one of them — if you could have borne their name, instead of the name of Arkwright! Brian, I tell you I would rather you were the son of a shoe black than the son of your father!' Her voice rose to a shriek as she ended, and echoed through the gloomy room like the voice of a spirit seeking rest and finding none. ' Hush, mother ! Whatever he was, he was my father,' Brian said, with a heavy frown. Mrs. Arkwright had sunk back exhausted after her outbreak, and there was silence for a space after Brian had spoken. When she began again, it was in a half-whisper : ' I have kept silence all these years, and I thought of keeping it to the end. But now, when I come to die, things look different, and I see that every man must fight his own fight, and meet his own troubles.