The Day of Judgment. Hocking Joseph
think you had done as well as that!"
"Well, you see," replied Paul, "I have had good wages and I've lived hard. I have spent nothing on luxuries. I have had no holidays."
"It must have cost you something for these," said Preston, looking at the well-filled bookcases on the wall.
"Oh, I forgot them," said Paul. "Yes. But, then, you see, I needed most of them, and books are my one extravagance. But why did you ask?"
"I want to propose a partnership," said Preston.
"Yes," said Paul. "In what?"
"In a weaving shed."
"A weaving shed? That's not my trade!"
"No, I know; but what you don't know about weaving isn't worth knowing. Although you started in Brunford as a loom-maker, you've picked up all there is to know about manufacturing. And you're a bit of a scientist, too. Well, I don't know so much about that part of it, but I do know about the buying and selling. I've not been a salesman with Robinson's for nothing, and I worked in the mills as a boy. You've got two hundred pounds, you say; so have I, and a bit more. It's enough for us to start on, lad. We can hire a shed, and we can hire power, and we can hire looms, and we can buy cotton."
Paul looked at him in astonishment. "But, man alive, Preston, four hundred pounds is not enough."
"Four hundred pounds is enough," replied the other. "And we can make the thing go; we will make it go, too. And I want to tell you this, too: I've a promise of a good backer."
"Who?" asked Paul.
"Well, to-day, as you know, your home-coming has been the talk of the town, and Ben Bierly was talking with me about you. As you know, he's a teacher at Hanover Sunday-school, and a few years agone he was a poor man himself, while now he's one of the biggest manufacturers in Brunford. Well, Paul, he sympathised with you, and he admires you too, and he told me that if you were willing to go into partnership with me he'd back us. He believes in you, and he believes in me, and if we want a thousand pounds, we can have it."
"You're surely not serious, Preston?"
"Ay, but I am. I mean every word of it, and I know this, too: cotton can be bought at great advantage just now, and trade's good. What do you think of it?"
"I have had no time to think yet," said Paul. "Give me till to-morrow night and let me look round a bit. But tell me this, what shed can we hire?"
"There's a shed at the back of St. James's Street," replied Preston. "I was looking at it only to-day. It'll suit us down to the ground, and we can get it cheap."
For an hour or more they talked, Paul asking keen, searching questions, which could only have been thought of by one who had thoroughly mastered the mysteries of cotton-weaving. Afterwards he went to bed, and thought long on the experiences of the day.
The next morning the town presented a new aspect. It no longer looked en fête, as on the previous evening. On every hand halt-consumed coals and strange smelling steams were being emitted from a hundred factories. The streets were empty save for heavy lorries and tramcars. Presently, at twelve o'clock, the mills would belch forth thousands of pale-faced operatives, who for long hours had been standing at the looms, but who, at present, were immured in those great noisome, prison-like buildings which form the main features of the town.
Paul made several visits that morning, and presently found his way to the empty weaving shed of which Preston had spoken the previous evening. After some difficulty he had an interview with its owner. Preston had told him that Fletcher was anxious to let this shed. It had been on his hands for several months, and no one seemed to want it. To his surprise, therefore, Fletcher met him coolly. "Well, they've let you out?" he said to Paul.
"Evidently, or I should not be here," laughed Paul.
"Well, be careful not to get up to your larks again!" said the other, and his tones were almost surly.
Paul took notice of this gibe, but as soon as he thought wise brought the conversation round to the object of his visit.
"I don't know that it's to let," replied Fletcher.
"No?" queried Paul. "Then I must have been misinformed."
"It wur to let," said Fletcher, "and I don't say it isn't now, but I'm noan sure."
"Why, George Preston told me yesterday that you had practically given him the refusal of it."
"Ay, practically, but that noan settles the business. I've had another offer since then."
"May I ask who has made the offer?" asked Paul.
"Thou may ask, but I don't say I shall tell. However, 'appen ow of the biggest manufacturers in the town 'll have it."
"A big manufacturer wouldn't look at it," said Paul. "It's only fit for a man in a small way of business."
Fletcher looked at him and laughed. "Good-morning," he said. "'Appen I can go into it further to-morrow, but not now." And then he turned on his heel and left Paul thinking.
Before the day was out Paul heard that young Edward Wilson, the son of the man who had prosecuted him, had hired the shed for a warehouse, although there seemed no reason at all why he should do so.
"This settles me," said Paul to Preston that night. "It's evident that Wilson has got his knife into me, and he, hearing what you had in your mind, determined to make it impossible. But, never mind," and Paul's somewhat prominent jaws became rigid and stern. "I don't know that I was so keen about manufacturing before, but I'd like to fight Wilson, and he shall see that I'm not easily beaten. But we must go quiet, Preston, and we'll have to be careful. There's not the slightest doubt about it that Wilson thinks he owes me a grudge for what happened nearly three years ago. But for that I shouldn't have had six months at Strangeways. Still, I'm not a chicken, neither are you."
And then the two young men talked long and seriously concerning other alternatives.
A week later the final step was taken, and Paul and Preston had signed a contract to hire a larger weaving shed than they had intended, and arrangements were pushed forward to start work immediately. Indeed, Paul's mind was so filled with the project he had in hand that almost everything else was forgotten. Two matters, however, must be mentioned. The one was a letter from his mother, to whom he had written, giving an account not only of his experiences in prison and of his home-coming, but also of the venture that he was making. "If I succeed, mother," he said, "you must come to Brunford to live. And I mean to succeed. In twelve months from now I am going to be a well-to-do man. I've learnt pretty much all there is to know about manufacturing, and I've a good partner. And I mean to get on. But don't think I've forgotten the real purpose for which I came to the North. I have not found out much about my father yet, although I've tried, tried hard. I can't understand it either. I've got hold of law books containing lists of the names of the barristers in England, and while there are a good many Grahams, none of them seem to tally with the descriptions you gave me. However, once let me get on with manufacturing and I shall have more time. I mean to go up to your father's farm and ask questions there, and you need not fear. I've got the name in Brunford for carrying out the thing I start upon, and I've promised you. But, as I said, as soon as I get on, you must come to Brunford to live with me, and then we can work together."
To this his mother had replied that she could never be a burden to him. "You don't want a woman worrying you, Paul," she had said. "I'm well enough off down here. You want to be free and unfettered. At the proper time I'll come to you, but not yet, and don't trouble about me."
Paul brooded long over this letter. He pictured her hard, lonely life away down in Cornwall, a few miles from Launceston, where she earned her living as a servant. On several occasions he had sent her money, but each time she had returned it, and it made him sad to think of what she must be suffering. He remembered his promise to her, and his resolution, dark and grim as it was, remained one of the most powerful factors in his life. "I wish she would come and live with me," he reflected. "I think I could bring some brightness into her life, and yet, perhaps,