A stranger might have thought Claude was nervous about the risks of the path as it went round some pool, with the rocks coming down perpendicularly to the deep, dark water. Or that she was in dread of encountering graver difficulties in the lonely ravine, whose almost perpendicular sides were clothed with growth of a hundred tints. Far beneath them, flashing, foaming, and hurrying on with a deep, murmuring sound, ran the little river, from rapid to fall, and from fall to deep, dark, sluggish-looking hole; while in places the trees, which had contrived to get a footing in some crevice of the rock, overhung the river, and threw the water beneath into the deepest shade.
They reached, at length, a more open part, where the sun shone down brightly, and their way lay through a patch of moss-grown hazel stubbs, which after a few steps made a complete screen from the suns rays, and they walked over a verdant carpet which silenced every footfall.
We shall have plenty of time, said Mary, as they reached the farther edge of the hazel clump, and we may as well sit down on the rocks and read.
No, not now, said Claude hastily. Then in an agitated whisper, as a peculiar whizzing noise was heard: Oh, Mary, this is too cruel. Why have you brought me here?
Because it was not considered good for Adam to live alone in Paradise. Theres poor Adam alone and disconsolate, fishing to pass time away. Paradise in the glen is very pretty, but dull. Enter Eve. Now, Claude, dear, show yourself worthy of the name of woman. Go on!
Volume One Chapter Two. Things go Crooked
Well? he said sharply.
Dont believe she can be his bairn, said the workman to himself, as he returned his employers angry stare.
I said Well !
I heard you, master. Neednt shout.
What do you want?
Come about the big block at the corner. Time it was blasted down.
Then blast it down; and how many more times am I to tell you to say sir to me?
Youre my master, and pay me my wage, and I earn it honest. Thats all there is between us, for the Lord made all men equal, and
Look here, Isaac Woodham, once for all I will not have any of your Little Bethel cant in my presence. Now about this block; let it be deeply tamped, and the powder put well home.
Im going to blast it down with dinnymite.
The elder man flushed up scarlet, and the veins in his forehead swelled up into knotted network.
Once for all he thundered.
There, dont get in a way, master, said the man coolly. If you go on like that youll be having another fit, and Im sure you oughtnt to cut short such a life as yours.
Isaac Woodham, one of these days youll tempt me to knock you down. Insolent brute! And now, look here; Ive told you before that I would not have dynamite used in my quarry. Ill have my work done as it always has been done with powder. The first man who uses a charge of that cursed stuff Ill discharge.
Its better, and does its work cleaner, grumbled
the man sullenly; and he gave his superior a morose look from under his shaggy brows.
I dont care if its a hundred times better. Go and blast the block down with powder, as it always has been done, I tell you again. I want my men; and theres no trusting that other stuff, or theyre not fit to be trusted with it. Now go, and dont come here again without being summoned.
Too grand for the likes o me, eh, Master Gartram?
Will you have the goodness to recollect that you are speaking to a gentleman, sir?
Im speaking to another man, I being a man, said Woodham sturdily. I dont know nothing about no gentlemen. Im speaking to Norman Gartram, quarry-owner, who lives here in riches and idleness upon what we poor slaves have made for him by the sweat of our brows.
What does this mean? cried the old man. Have you turned Socialist?
Ive turned nowt. But as a Christian man I warn you, Norman Gartram, that for all your fine house and your bags of money, and company and purple and fine linen, the Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away.
You
There, Im going to do my work honest, master, and earn my wages.
And blast that granite down with powder, sir.
I know my work, grumbled the man, and he backed out of the room without another word.
Norman Gartram the King of the Castle, as he was called at Danmouth stood listening to the mans footsteps, at first heavy and dull as they passed over the carpet, and then loud and echoing as he reached the granite paving outside, till they died away, and then, with his face still flushed, he laid his hand gently on his temples.
A little hot, he muttered. A fit? Enough to give any man a fit to be spoken to like that by the canting scum. Theyre spoiled, thats what it is spoiled. Claude is always fooling and petting them, and the more there is done for them the worse they work, and the more exacting they grow. I believe they think ones capital is to be sunk solely to benefit them. What the deuce do you want now?
This to the servant, who had timidly opened the door.
I beg your pardon, sir.
If its some one from the quarry, tell him Im engaged.