George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, andGeorge himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in hisrides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertainhand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George sooccupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farthernorth to look about him.
As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh greenwoods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits andashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorchingfires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become thefeatures of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper,looking about him and always looking for something he has come tofind.
At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang ofiron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, thetrooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horseand asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts.
"Why, master," quoth the workman, "do I know my own name?""'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?" asks the trooper.
"Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right.""And where might it be now?" asks the trooper with a glance beforehim.
"The bank, the factory, or the house?" the workman wants to know.
"Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper,stroking his chin, "that I have as good as half a mind to go backagain. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr.
Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?""Tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the dayyou might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; buthis contracts take him away."And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallestones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on thosechimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'llsee 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wallwhich forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's.
The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking abouthim. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is muchdisposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some ofRouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some ofRouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seemto be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong,are Rouncewell's hands--a little sooty too.
He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a greatperplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast varietyof shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, inaxles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted andwrenched into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts ofmachinery; mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distantfurnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworksof it showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hotiron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an ironsmell, and a Babel of iron sounds.
"This is a place to make a man's head ache too!" says the trooper,looking about him for a counting-house. "Who comes here? This isvery like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, iflikenesses run in families. Your servant, sir.""Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?""Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?""Yes.""I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word withhim."The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time,for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is tobe found. "Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!"thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in theyard with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentlemanin the office, Mr. George turns very red.
"What name shall I say to my father?" asks the young man.
George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers "Steel,"and is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in theoffice, who sits at a table with account-books before him and somesheets of paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings ofcunning shapes. It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking onthe iron view below. Tumbled together on the table are some piecesof iron, purposely broken to be tested at various periods of theirservice, in various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything;and the smoke is seen through the windows rolling heavily out ofthe tall chimneys to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylonof other chimneys.
"I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman when hisvisitor has taken a rusty chair.
"Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward with hisleft arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary ofmeeting his brother's eye, "I am not without my expectations thatin the present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. Ihave served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that Iwas once rather partial to was, if I don't deceive myself, abrother of yours. I believe you had a brother who gave his familysome trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keepingaway?""Are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice,"that your name is Steel?"The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, callshim by his name, and grasps him by both hands.
"You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tearsspringing out of his eyes. "How do you do, my dear old fellow? Inever could have thought you would have been half so glad to see meas all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!"They shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, thetrooper still coupling his "How do you do, my dear old fellow!"with his protestation that he never thought his brother would havebeen half so glad to see him as all this!
"So far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of whathas preceded his arrival there, "I had very little idea of makingmyself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to myname I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing aletter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you hadconsidered it anything but welcome news to hear of me.""We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George,"returns his brother. "This is a great day at home, and you couldnot have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make anagreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth heshall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in allyour travels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of yournieces for a little polishing up in her education. We make a feastof the event, and you will be made the hero of it."Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect thathe resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Beingoverborne, however, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whomhe renews his protestations that he never could have thought theywould have been half so glad to see him--he is taken home to anelegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to beobserved a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of thefather and mother with such as are suited to their altered stationand the higher fortunes of their children. Here Mr. George is muchdismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that areand by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be, and by theaffectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receivesin a sort of dream. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutifulbehaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him ofbeing a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a veryhearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluffand martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at themarriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour.
A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in thestate-bed of his brother's house to think of all these things andto see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in theirfloating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over hiscounterpane.
The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room,where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to showhow he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, whenGeorge squeezes his hand and stops him.
"Brother, I thank you a million times for your m............