Chapter I

I suppose there never was a man in the world who was as full of pride as Abraham Kellet was on the morning of the day which was to see him made Mayor of Sicaster. That particular 9th of November, as I remember very well, was more than usually dismal and foggy--there were thick mists lying all over the lowlands and curling up the hill-sides as I drove into the town to take part in the proceeding of the day (for I was an old school-fellow of Abraham's, and he had graciously invited me to witness his election), but I warrant that to his worship-to-be no July day ever seemed so glorious nor no May-day sun ever so welcome as the November greyness. All men have their ambitions--Abraham's one ambition since boyhood had been to wear the mayoral chain, the mayoral robes, to sit in the mayoral seat, to be the chief magistrate of his adopted town, to know himself its foremost burgess, to have everybody's cap raised to him, to have himself addressed by high and low as Mr. Mayor. It was a worthy ambition, and he had worked hard for it--now that at last he was within an ace of fulfilling it his pride became apparent to everybody. It was not a vaunting pride, nor the pride which is puffed up, but the pride of a man who knows that he has succeeded. He was a big-framed, broad-countenanced man, Abraham Kellet, who put down a firm foot and showed a portly front, and after it was settled that he was to be the next Mayor of Sicaster his tread was firmer than ever and his front more portly as he trod the cobble-paved streets of the little town. I can see him now--a big, fine figure of a man of not much over fifty, his six feet of height invariably habited in the best broadcloth; his linen as scrupulously white and glossy as he himself was scrupulously shaven; his boots as shining as the expensive diamond ring which he wore on the little finger of his left hand. Decidedly a man to fill a mayoral chair with dignity and fulness, was Abraham Kellet.

I thought as I rode into Sicaster that eventful morning of the story of its new mayor's life. Like myself, Abraham was the son of a farmer, but whereas my father was a man of considerable substance, his was a poor man who had to work hard, early and late, to make a living out of a farm the land of which was poor. I have always had an idea that it was my father who paid for Abraham's schooling at Sicaster Grammar School, though it is but an idea, because he was the last man in the world to let his left hand know what his right hand did. Anyway, Benjamin Kellet was a poor man, as things go, and had a growing family to keep, Abraham being the eldest, and none of his other children got more education than the village school afforded for the customary fee of two-pence a-week. Why Abraham went from the village school to Sicaster Grammar School was because he was regarded as a very promising youth, whose education ought to be improved. The village school-master, in fact, when Abraham was twelve years old, said that he could not teach him any more--no very great thing in those days when nothing was taught but reading, writing and arithmetic, with perhaps a smattering of English history and a little grammar and geography--and that it was no use his staying any longer at the red-tiled school-house, which lay under the shadow of the church. Possibly the parson and my father (who was vicar's churchwarden for many a long year before his death) put their heads together about Abraham. However the case may have been, Abraham was sent to Sicaster Grammar School with the understanding that he was to remain there two years, when it would be time for him to be apprenticed to some trade. He made his entrance there the same day that I did--that was where I got to know him better. I had known him, of course, all along, but not intimately, because my mother had insisted on having a governess for my two sisters--both dead now, many a long year ago!--and so I had never gone to the village school, nor had I mixed much with the village boys. But when I was nine years old, my father said I had had quite enough of apron-strings, and I must go to Sicaster Grammar School, as soon as the next half began.

"To Sicaster Grammar School!" said my mother, speaking as if my father had said I was to go to the Cannibal Islands. "Why, Sicaster's six miles off! The child can't walk twelve miles a day and learn his lessons as well."

"Who wants him to?" asked my father. "He can have the little pony and phaeton and drive himself in and out. I'll buy another for you and the girls. And there's that eldest lad of Keller's--he's going, too, and he can drive with him."

"And his dinner?" said my mother.

"Give him it in a basket every day," replied my father. "And--put plenty in for two. He can share with young Kellet."

That was how I came to go to school with Abraham Kellet. I used to set off with the little pony-phaeton at a quarter to eight every morning and pick Abraham up at the end of the lane which led to his father's farm. At first he used to bring his dinner with him, but it soon became an understood thing that his dinner was in my basket--we made no pretence, and had no false ideas about it on either side. We used to jog into Sicaster with great content, put the pony and trap up at the King George and go to school. In winter we used to eat our meat pasties and our fruit pies and drink our milk in one of the class-rooms; in summer we spread our cloth under the trees on a certain knoll in the play-ground. And afternoon, school over we jogged home again as easily as we had come.

I have no great recollection of what I did at school, except that I had the usual healthy boy's dislike of mere book-learning, and was always unfeignedly glad when half-past four struck. Horses and dogs and the open air, cricket and fishing, and running after the fox-hounds when they came our way, appealed much more to me than anything else. I believe Abraham did most of my home exercises as we drove to and from school. As for himself he learned all he could--within certain limits. He would have nothing of Latin or Greek, but he slaved like a nigger at French, and during play-hours was always scheming to get into the company of the French teacher. He cared little about history, but a good deal about geography--French, arithmetic, and, above all, book-keeping were Abraham's great loves. His handwriting brought tears of joy and pride into the eyes of the writing-master; his figures might have been printed; his specimens of book-keeping would have done credit to a chartered accountant.

The reason of Abraham's devotion to these particular subjects was this--he had set his mind on being a--Draper. Not a small, pettifogging draper, to deal in cheap lines of goods, but a draper of the big sort who would call himself Silk Mercer. There stood in the centre of the market-place at Sicaster such an establishment--it was the daily sight of it which inspired Abraham's dreams. A solid, highly respectable establishment it was--though it would be thought old-fashioned now, it was considered to be something very grand then, and in its windows were set out the latest London and Paris fashions. There was a severely plain sign in black and gold over the windows under the Royal Arms, with an equally plain inscription--Paulsford and Tatham, Silk Mercers and Drapers to H.M. the Queen.

"That's where I mean to be apprenticed, Poskitt," said Abraham, as we set out one afternoon across the market-place. "That's the trade I fancy. No farming for me. Farming! Slaving all day after a plough and coming home up to your eyes in clay and as tired as a dog--and then nothing to show at the year-end! No, thank you!"

"That's not my father's life," I said.

He shook his head knowingly.

"Your father's a rich man," he said. "I know. I keep my eyes open. No--I'm going into that business."

I looked at him, trying to imagine him behind a counter, selling laces and ribbons. He was a big, heavy boy, whose clothes were always too small for him, and it seemed to me even then that it would look queer to see such big hands handling delicate things.

"That's why I give so much attention to figures and to French, you see, Poskitt," he said presently. "You can't get on in business unless you're good at figures and book-keeping, and if you can speak French you're at a great advantage over fellows who can't, because you stand a chance of being sent over to Paris to see and buy the latest fashions."

"Give me farming and a good horse and a good dog and gun!" said I.

"Yes," he said, "but you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I've got my way to make. I shall make it. I'll be Mayor of Sicaster some day."

The first step towards Abraham's attainment of that wish came when he left the Grammar School and was duly apprenticed to Messrs. Paulsford and Tatham. He was then fourteen, and because of his big frame, heavy countenance, and solemn expression, looked older. I used to see him in the shop sometimes when I went there with my mother or sisters--he assumed a tailed coat at a very early age and put on the true manner with it. His term of apprenticeship, as was usual in those days, was seven years--whether his indentures were cancelled or not I do not know, but he was buyer to the firm at eighteen and manager when he was twenty-one. He became known in Sicaster. His conduct was estimable, and everybody spoke well of him. Six days of the week found him at his post from eight to eight, and on Saturdays till ten; the seventh found him diligent in attendance on the services of the Church, and in teaching in the Sunday-school. He lodged with a highly-respectable widow lady, the relict of a deceased tradesman, and he was never known to pay anything but the most decorous attention to young women.

In this way ten years of Abraham's life passed--to all outward appearance with absolute smoothness. The wiseacres of Sicaster, especially those who congregated in snug bar-parlours and smoked their pipes and drank their grog of a winter's evening, wagged their heads and said that young Kellet must be saving a pretty penny, and that he well knew what he was about. And I believe that few people, either in Sicaster itself, or in the neighbourhood, were at all surprised when it was suddenly announced in the _Sicaster Sentinel_ that the old-established business of Messrs. Paulsford and Tatham had, because of the great age and failing health of the sole remaining partner, Mr. Jonas Tatham, been sold to their manager, Mr. Abraham Kellet, who would in future carry it on in his own name.

So now the old sign came down and a new one went up, and Abraham was no longer the watchful, ubiquitous manager, but the lynx-eyed omnipresent master. The look of power came into his eyes and manner; he trod the streets and crossed the market-place with the tread of a man who had a stake in the town. Men who knew him as an apprentice boy were quick to "sir" him; some, to cap him; he had shown that he could make money. Everybody knew now that he was going to write his name in large letters on the rolls of Sicaster, whereon there were already a good many names that were not of inconsiderable note.

And then, just as Abraham seemed to have settled down to the opening stages of a brilliant commercial career of his own building, a great calamity happened. It happened just when it might have been least expected to happen--for all things seemed auspicious for Abraham's greatness. He had bought a handsome house and was furnishing it handsomely. He had just become engaged to the daughter and only child of Alderman John Chepstow, who was a heiress in her own right and might be expected to inherit her father's considerable fortune in due time. Fortune seemed to be smiling upon him in her widest and friendliest fashion. Suddenly she frowned.

One night the quiet, sleeping streets of Sicaster were suddenly roused to hitherto unknown noise and activity. The rushing of feet on the pavement, the rattle of horses' hoofs on the cobble-stones, the throwing up of casements, the inarticulate cries of frightened people--all these things culminated in one great cry--_Fire_! And men and women rushing into the market-place saw that the stately old shop, Paulsford and Tatham's for sixty years, and Abraham Kellet's for two, was on fire from top to bottom, and that high above the holocaust of flame a thick cloud of black smoke rose slowly towards the moon-lit sky.

Kellet's, late Paulsford and Tatham's, was burnt to the ground ere the daylight came. There was one small fire-engine in the basement of the Town Hall, which spat at the fire as a month-old kitten spits at a mastiff, and when the brigades arrived from Clothford, twelve miles away in one direction, and Wovefield, eight in another, there was little but a few walls. They who saw it, told me that Abraham Kellet, arriving early on the scene and seeing the hopelessness of the situation, took up his stand on the steps of the market-cross, opposite, and watched his property burn until the roof fell in. He never uttered a word all that time, though several spoke to him, and when all was over, he turned away home. Then a reporter tugged at his elbow, and asked him if he was insured. He stared at the man for a moment as if he was mad; then he nodded his head.

"Yes--yes!" he answered. "Oh, yes!"

Everybody was very sorry for Abraham Kellet--although he was insured against fire it seemed to the Sicaster folk that a disaster like this must cripple his business. But they did not know Abraham. He seemed to be the only person who was really unconcerned, and he immediately developed a condition of extraordinary activity. There was a large building in the town which had been built as a circus--before ten o'clock of the morning after the fire Abraham had taken this and had sent circulars round announcing that his business would be carried on there until his new premises were built. He added that the temporary premises would be ready for the reception of customers in four days. Then he completely disappeared. People laughed, and said that he must have lost his reason. How could he have temporary premises open in four days when every rag of his stock had perished? How could he make that old circus, damp and musty, into a place where people could go shopping?

But Abraham was one of those men who refuse to believe in impossibilities. How he managed to do it, no one ever knew who was not actively concerned. But when the temporary premises were opened the old circus had been transformed into a sort of bazaar, and there was such a stock as had never been seen in the old shop. The whole town crowded there, and the county families came, and everybody wanted to congratulate Abraham. But having seen the temporary premises fairly going, Abraham was off on another track--he was busy with architects about the plans of the new shop. He laid the foundation stone of that himself, well within a month of the big fire.

The new shop was finished and opened just twelve months later--competent critics said it was as fine as a London or Paris shop, excepting, of course, for size. The day after the opening Abraham married Miss Chepstow, and indulged himself with a week's holiday. Then Mr. and Mrs. Kellet settled down in their fine house to a life of money-making and social advancement. And Abraham in time had leisure to devote to municipal affairs and became a councillor, and then an alderman, and at last reached the height of his ambition and saw the mayoral chair and chain and robes before him--close at hand.

"_I've got my way to make. I shall make it. I'll be Mayor of Sicaster some day!_"