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<Inapoi la Cuprins

 Charles Dickens

 

BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la sumar


 

  CHAPTER LXIII  

 

Steel and Iron

 

George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and  George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his  rides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain  hand with which he guides his horse.  But not to-day is George so  occupied.  He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther  north to look about him.  As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green  woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and  ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching  fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the  features of the scenery.  Among such objects rides the trooper,  looking about him and always looking for something he has come to  find.  At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of  iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the  trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse  and 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 before  him. 

"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 back  again.  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 day  you might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but  his contracts take him away." 

And which is the factory?  Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest  ones!  Yes, he sees THEM.  Well!  Let him keep his eye on those  chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll  see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall  which forms one side of the street.  That's Rouncewell's.  The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about  him.  He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much  disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of  Rouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. 

Some of  Rouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem  to 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 great  perplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety  of shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in  axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and  wrenched into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of  machinery; mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant  furnaces of it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks  of it showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot  iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron  smell, 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 is  very like me before I was set up.  This ought to be my nephew, if  likenesses 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 with  him."  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 to  be found. 

"Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!"  thinks the trooper as he follows.  They come to a building in the  yard with an office on an upper floor.  At sight of the gentleman  in 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 the  office, who sits at a table with account-books before him and some  sheets of paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of  cunning shapes.  It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on  the iron view below.  Tumbled together on the table are some pieces  of iron, purposely broken to be tested at various periods of their  service, in various capacities.  There is iron-dust on everything;  and the smoke is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of  the tall chimneys to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon  of other chimneys. 

"I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman when his  visitor has taken a rusty chair. 

"Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward with his  left arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of  meeting his brother's eye, "I am not without my expectations that  in the present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome.  I  have served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I  was once rather partial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a  brother of yours.  I believe you had a brother who gave his family  some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping  away?" 

"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, calls  him by his name, and grasps him by both hands.  "You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears  springing out of his eyes. 

"How do you do, my dear old fellow?  I  never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me  as 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, the  trooper still coupling his "How do you do, my dear old fellow!"  with his protestation that he never thought his brother would have  been half so glad to see him as all this! 

"So far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of what  has preceded his arrival there, "I had very little idea of making  myself known.  I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my  name I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a  letter.  But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had  considered 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 could  not have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better.  I make an  agreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he  shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all  your travels.  She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your  nieces for a little polishing up in her education. 

We make a feast  of the event, and you will be made the hero of it."  Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that  he resists the proposed honour with great earnestness.  Being  overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whom  he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they  would have been half so glad to see him--he is taken home to an  elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be  observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the  father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station  and the higher fortunes of their children. 

Here Mr. George is much  dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are  and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be, and by the  affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives  in a sort of dream.  He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful  behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of  being a scapegrace.  However, there is great rejoicing and a very  hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluff  and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the  marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour.   A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the  state-bed of his brother's house to think of all these things and  to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their  floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over his  counterpane.  The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room,  where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show  how he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when  George squeezes his hand and stops him.  "Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly  welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than  brotherly intentions.  But my plans are made. 

Before I say a word  as to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point.  How,"  says the trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable  firmness at his brother, "how is my mother to be got to scratch  me?" 

"I am not sure that I understand you, George," replies the  ironmaster. 

"I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me?  She  must be got to do it somehow." 

"Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?" 

"Of course I do.  In short," says the trooper, folding his arms  more resolutely yet, "I mean--TO--scratch me!" 

"My dear George," returns his brother, "is it so indispensable that  you should undergo that process?" 

"Quite!  Absolutely!  I couldn't be guilty of the meanness of  coming back without it.  I should never be safe not to be off  again.  I have not sneaked home to rob your children, if not  yourself, brother, of your rights.  I, who forfeited mine long ago!   If I am to remain and hold up my head, I must be scratched.  Come.   You are a man of celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you  can tell me how it's to be brought about." 

"I can tell you, George," replies the ironmaster deliberately, "how  it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose  as well.  Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when  she recovered you.  Do you believe there is a consideration in the  world that would induce her to take such a step against her  favourite son?  Do you believe there is any chance of her consent,  to balance against the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old  lady!) to propose it?  If you do, you are wrong.  No, George!  You  must make up your mind to remain UNscratched, I think."  There is  an amused smile on the ironmaster's face as he watches his brother,  who is pondering, deeply disappointed. 

"I think you may manage  almost as well as if the thing were done, though." 

"How, brother?" 

"Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have  the misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know." 

"That's true!" says the trooper, pondering again.  Then he  wistfully asks, with his hand on his brother's,

"Would you mind  mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?" 

"Not at all." 

"Thank you.  You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an  undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and  not of the mean sort?"  The ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents. 

"Thank you.  Thank you.  It's a weight off my mind," says the  trooper with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a  hand on each leg, "though I had set my heart on being scratched,  too!"  The brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a  certain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the  world is all on the trooper's side. 

"Well," he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, "next and  last, those plans of mine.  You have been so brotherly as to  propose to me to fall in here and take my place among the products  of your perseverance and sense.  I thank you heartily.  It's more  than brotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it,"  shaking him a long time by the hand. 

"But the truth is, brother, I  am a--I am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a  regular garden." 

"My dear George," returns the elder, concentrating his strong  steady brow upon him and smiling confidently, "leave that to me,  and let me try."  George shakes his head. 

"You could do it, I have not a doubt, if  anybody could; but it's not to be done.  Not to be done, sir!   Whereas it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of  some trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness-- brought on by family sorrows--and that he would rather have that  help from our mother's son than from anybody else."  "Well, my dear George," returns the other with a very slight shade  upon his open face, "if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester  Dedlock's household brigade--" 

"There it is, brother," cries the trooper, checking him, with his  hand upon his knee again; "there it is!  You don't take kindly to  that idea; I don't mind it.  You are not used to being officered; I  am.  Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline;  everything about me requires to be kept so.  We are not accustomed  to carry things with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same  point.  I don't say much about my garrison manners because I found  myself pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be  noticed here, I dare say, once and away.  But I shall get on best  at Chesney Wold, where there's more room for a weed than there is  here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides.  Therefore  I accept of Sir Leicester Dedlock's proposals.  When I come over  next year to give away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have  the sense to keep the household brigade in ambuscade and not to  manoeuvre it on your ground.  I thank you heartily again and am  proud to think of the Rouncewells as they'll be founded by you." 

"You know yourself, George," says the elder brother, returning the  grip of his hand, "and perhaps you know me better than I know  myself.  Take your way.  So that we don't quite lose one another  again, take your way." 

"No fear of that!" returns the trooper. 

"Now, before I turn my  horse's head homewards, brother, I will ask you--if you'll be so  good--to look over a letter for me.  I brought it with me to send  from these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now  to the person it's written to.  I am not much accustomed to  correspondence myself, and I am particular respecting this present  letter because I want it to be both straightforward and delicate."  Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink  but in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows:   Miss Esther Summerson,   A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket of a  letter to myself being found among the papers of a certain person,  I take the liberty to make known to you that it was but a few lines  of instruction from abroad, when, where, and how to deliver an  enclosed letter to a young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in  England.  I duly observed the same.  I further take the liberty to make known to you that it was got  from me as a proof of handwriting only and that otherwise I would  not have given it up, as appearing to be the most harmless in my  possession, without being previously shot through the heart.  I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have supposed  a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in existence, I never  could and never would have rested until I had discovered his  retreat and shared my last farthing with him, as my duty and my  inclination would have equally been.  But he was (officially)  reported drowned, and assuredly went over the side of a transport- ship at night in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival  from the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers and  men on board, and know to have been (officially) confirmed.  I further take the liberty to state that in my humble quality as  one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever continue to be, your  thoroughly devoted and admiring servant and that I esteem the  qualities you possess above all others far beyond the limits of the  present dispatch.  I have the honour to be,  GEORGE   "A little formal," observes the elder brother, refolding it with a  puzzled face. 

"But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?" asks  the younger. 

"Nothing at all." 

Therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron  correspondence of the day.  This done, Mr. George takes a hearty  farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount.  His  brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to  ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will  bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a  servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old  grey from Chesney Wold.  The offer, being gladly accepted, is  followed by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant  breakfast, all in brotherly communion.  Then they once more shake  hands long and heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face  to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country.   Early in the afternoon the subdued sound of his heavy military trot  is heard on the turf in the avenue as he rides on with imaginary  clank and jingle of accoutrements under the old elm-trees.

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