Chapter I: Like Father Unlike Son

"AND so you want to be a-setting up for a gentleman, do you? You think you know better than anybody else, and that what has been good enough for me—and my father and grandfather too, for that matter—is not good enough for you. You are going to be dressed up in broadcloth on week days, and work with your coat on, are you? Grimblethorpe isn't big enough for a fine fellow like you to swagger about in. You must have a market-town, must you? And I suppose you'll be going up and down the streets o' nights, like plenty more of the same sort that are 'shamed of the honest work that their fathers took their coats off to do, and gloried in doing well. You'll be smoking cigars next, and wearing a top hat, and going in for all the new-fangled ways of spending money that young fellows practise nowadays, because they have never known what went to the earning of it. But you'll rue not having taken my advice, as sure as your name is Mark Walthew."

The speaker, Daniel Walthew, and father of Mark, paused for a minute, not because he had finished, or that he desired any reply from his son; he was only out of breath, and was fain to recover it.

More than once Mark had tried to answer these hard words, which pained him sorely; but all to no purpose. From his earliest childhood he had been told to speak when he was spoken to. But, though he was now long past childhood, he was rarely allowed to speak at all if his father were holding forth, and especially if he were not in a very happy frame of mind at the time.

Daniel Walthew had always prided himself on what he called "keeping to his own rut." By this he meant holding to the same opinions, keeping to the same habits, living on the same spot, doing the same kind of work as he had done ever since he could remember, and thus following in the steps of the father and grandfather who had gone before him. Each of these had saved a good bit of money, and handed it down to be added to by the next generation. Daniel Walthew had been the only son of his father, and though there had been three children born to himself, Mark was the only survivor.

Everybody in Grimblethorpe knew that Daniel Walthew must be well-off, but nobody, his wife and son included, could have told how well. Daniel considered that to let a woman or a young man know the length of his purse would be a great mistake, and only teach idleness, pride, and extravagance. It was commonly reported that even on his wedding-day he had half killed his bride by making her walk some twelve miles, on a hot summer's afternoon, from her native village, where they were married, to the cottage at Grimblethorpe which was to be her new home.

"We'll send the boxes by carrier," said Daniel; "you and I can walk. I mean to begin as we shall go on, Barbara."

So the newly-wedded couple walked the dozen miles, side by side when they started, the young wife plodding on behind, and being waited for at intervals when she could not keep up with the bridegroom's steady stride. Daniel was thirty-five at the time, and he had waited until after his mother's death before he made up his mind to marry. He meant to live in the old home always, married or single, and he did not believe in two mistresses under the same roof. He surprised everybody by taking to wife Barbara Sharp, aged twenty-two, and consequently thirteen years younger than himself.

A far-seeing man was Daniel, even in this matter. He had watched the girl closely, for she was in service at Grimblethorpe, before he popped the question. He knew how thrifty she was, and that, instead of wearing feathers and finery, and aping those who could afford such things, and whose position they became, she made her simple garments last twice as long as most did, and put them together with her own clever fingers. She liked saving almost as well as he did, and had a "nice bit" in the bank already.

Of course he might have married somebody higher up than a mere servant. But would one of the farmers' or tradesmens' daughters have stepped beside him in his rut? By no means. They would have wanted to drag him into a wider one, and to scatter to the winds some of the dearly-loved savings that it had been the work of three generations to bring together.

It would be different with Barbara Sharp. She would be lifted into a higher part of the road, albeit the rut might be narrow, and be mistress instead of maid, though in a much smaller dwelling than the one in which she served.

Even in the matter of age Daniel had made his calculations. "A wife should be a dozen years younger than her husband, so as to be able to nurse him when he gets a good way on in life. A woman gets looked after by other women folk; but for a man, his wife is the natural nurse." (Daniel said "natteral.") "And it is very upsetting for him to have anyone else about him in his latter days."

Self came first with Daniel, even in his way of looking right on to the very end of life.

He was dreadfully upset on his wedding-day, for just when home was reached, Barbara's face went white, and down she dropped in a dead faint on the floor of the "house," as the apartment was called which did everyday duty for sitting-room and kitchen. There was a parlour, but it was kept sacred to Sundays and state occasions.

This fainting fit filled Daniel with misgivings. Not so much on account of the hardships to which he had subjected his bride in making her walk so many miles during the heat of the day, but lest after all he had married a delicate woman, and might find her a burden instead of a helpmeet.

Such, however, was not the case. Barbara, on coming to, seemed properly ashamed of herself for having excited such a commotion; said such a thing had never happened before, and she did not think it would again. She had been mistimed, having worked early and late to do everything in the way of preparation for her marriage, instead of spending a needless shilling. On the top of all this, the walk had been too much for her—that was all, so Daniel was comforted.

Into the rut stepped Barbara, and kept therein close beside her husband. She had few relatives, and by degrees, as no visits were paid on either side, she lost sight of these. She was not an inquisitive woman, and was content to know that there was no fear of want before their eyes, and to work, that additions might be made to whatever savings already existed.

The few acres about the cottage belonged to Daniel, and furnished him with occupation. Her household work, the dairy, poultry, and pigs found enough for his wife to do. Too much when there was a baby as well. But Barbara managed. She never dreamed of employing a servant, and she was so habitually careful and orderly, that both work and expenditure were reduced to the lowest possible amount.

The two first children, both boys, died just when the toils of nursing were over, and each could patter unassisted over the red-tiled house-floor.

It was a very silent place after that. Barbara grieved, and worked more mechanically, and Daniel mourned after his fashion, thinking to himself that there was to be no son to follow father and grandfather in the old rut.

Yet the expenditure was not increased. Every apple in the orchard, every cabbage in the garden, every scrap of produce that could be turned into a penny or the half of one, was so turned to account. Slowly and surely the money kept growing, for the little holding furnished nearly all that the pair required, and clothes seemed, in Barbara's careful hands, to grow little the worse for wear.

Daniel's hoards grew—Mr. Mitcheson, the chief lawyer at Claybury, could have told how fast; for though Barbara did not know it, her husband was adding field to field, and rents and interest were being turned into principal, and let out on safe mortgages to increase the income that was never to be spent, but to go on increasing still.

Daniel liked Mr. Mitcheson, chiefly because he kept in the same rut as his father and grandfather had followed before him. It was as natural for a Mitcheson to be the chief lawyer at Claybury, as for Daniel Walthew to plough, sow, and reap the fields that his forefathers had first earned, then owned.

Daniel was forty-one and Barbara twenty-eight when their second child died. Five years later a third child was given them, and the gift remained. That he had all the affection of which his father was capable may well be imagined. In the depths of her heart, his mother longed to do more and better for her boy, to make his young life brighter and more childlike. But she had been trained to keep in one rut, and felt that there was no stepping out of it. She had no will but that of her husband, and she must teach little Mark to keep within the same bounds.

The child was not stinted in one way. He was fed with food convenient for him; his clothing was good and comfortable, and shaped to promote freedom of limb and preserve health, by the careful hands of his mother. She watched him, worked for him, nursed him, as no hireling could have done; though, thank God! There are many nurses not mothers who look for their reward less in pounds, shillings, and pence than in the well-being of the little ones committed to their charge.

But though little Mark's bodily wants were well supplied, his young heart hungered for young companionship, and no small feet except his own ever crossed the red-tiled floor. Father could not be troubled with other people's children; they would be noisy, and sometimes need asking to a meal. Mother had trained her own little man to the tidiest, cleanest ways imaginable. She rubbed and scraped his boot soles till his feet glowed again, and his tread left no mark of mud on step or ruddy floor. Mrs. Walthew had no time to look after other people's children, so, though a little schoolfellow might come with Mark as far as the gate, he came no further. Father and mother knew at what time to expect the boy, and, in their cut-to-pattern fashion, rejoiced at his coming.

But if he were later than usual, the time had to be accounted for, and he was ever admonished to come straight home, and not loiter or play on the road.

No wonder the boy grew old too fast, and felt that he was doing so—that in sheer desperation, he worked too hard at his books, and distanced the motley group of boys and girls that together made up the village school.

Fortunately, Mr. Mitcheson, after long striving, succeeded in persuading Mark's father to send him to a high-class grammar school at Claybury, the one at which he had been taught, and to which his own sons were now going.

Daniel Walthew hardly thought it possible for Mr. Mitcheson to make a mistake. All his investments, made by that gentleman's advice, had been so satisfactory, and the interest was so regularly paid, that he was delighted Mr. Mitcheson claimed no credit for this.

Daniel Walthew was too wise a man to ask for large percentages. He always said, "High interest means great risk. I want nothing beyond five per cent., and if that means risk, four and safety." So the lawyer found it easy to place his client's money in good hands, and insure the regular payments of interest in which Daniel delighted.

He alone knew what the sum total of these amounted to, but he was also aware that a good deal of money went straight into Daniel's hands every six months without passing through his own.

Mr. Mitcheson looked ahead, and in imagination saw the boy Mark grown into the man, and heir to all this wealth.

"It would be too terrible," he said, "if that fine lad were to have his life narrowed down to the limits which at present confine them. The old man's one ambition is that the boy may keep to the same rut as he walks in, but I will do my best to free him from such bondage."

Airs. Mitcheson agreed with her husband, and said, "If Mr. Walthew will send his boy to Claybury as a weekly boarder, we can do something to brighten the lad's life between Mondays and Saturdays. He will listen to you if he will to anybody."

But Mr. Mitcheson would have failed in his efforts but for the help of an unexpected ally, and an unforeseen trouble with regard to Mark himself.