A MAN, AFTER ALL | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1881

A MAN, AFTER ALL.

The following true incident was brought to my remembrance while listening to the rebellious words of a man who could not see his father's wisdom in desiring him to learn a trade.

"It will make a common man of me, father," he said, querulously. "I shall be as dirty as a blacksmith, and have hands like a coal heaver."

"And if you think, Fred, that wearing fine clothes and having white hands makes you a gentleman, let me tell you, sir, that you are a very common man, to begin with. A good trade might help you to truer notions of gentlemanhood."

Then I looked at the handsome young fellow—for he was handsome—and I thought just now of Steve Gaskill. Steve had made his mark now, but many years ago I heard just such a talk between him and old Josiah Gaskill, relative to the young man learning his father's trade of a wool-stapler.

"It's a dirty business, father," said the splendid Steve, in full evening dress, "and I hate the smell of oil and the sight of those men in blue linen blouses. I hope that I shall do something better for myself than that."

"Very well; what is it thou'd fain to be?" "A lawyer, father."

"They're naught but a lazy, quarrelsome set; but thou shalt not say that I stood in the gate. Be a lawyer; I will speak to Denham to-morrow about thee."

So young Steve was articled in Denham & Downs', to study law, especially conveyancing. He had three sisters, and over them and his mother he exercised supreme influence.

Whatever Steve did was right, whatever he said was beyond dispute. Even old Josiah, with all his sound sense, was in spite of himself swayed by the undisputed acknowledgement of Steve's superiority. He would not have advised his son to be a lawyer, but seeing that Steve was not afraid to be one, he was rather proud of the lad's pluck and ambition.

It cost them a good deal. Steve's tastes were expensive, and he fell naturally among a class of men who led him into many extravagances. There were occasionally awkward scenes, but Steve, supported by his mother and sisters, always cleared every scrape, and finally satisfied the family pride by being regularly admitted upon the roll of her Majesty's attorneys.

In the meantime, his father had been gradually failing in health; soon after this he died. Most of his savings had been secured for the helpless women of the Gaskill family. Steve now found himself with a profession and a thousand pounds to give him a fair start in it. People said that old Gaskill had acted very wisely, and Steve had sense enough to acquiesce in public opinion. He knew, too, that as long as his mother or sisters had a shilling they would share it with him.

So he hopefully opened an office in his native town of Leeds, and waited for clients. But Yorkshire men are proverbially cautious; a young lawyer was not their ideal. Steve could not look crafty and wise under any circumstances, and the first year he did not make enough to pay his rent. Nevertheless he did not in any way curtail his expenses, and when the summer holidays arrived, he went, as usual, to a fashionable watering place. It happened that year he saw the debut of Miss Elizabeth Braithwaite, a great heiress, and a very handsome girl. Steve was attracted by her beauty, and her great wealth was not a drawback in his eyes. In a short time he perceived that Miss Braithwaite favored him above all other pretenders to her hand, and he began to consider the advantages of a rich wife.

His profession had hitherto been a failure; his one thousand pounds was nearly spent; his three sisters were all on the point of marriage, a condition which might seriously modify their sisterly instincts, and his mother's income wouldn't support him a month—wouldn't it be the best plan to accept the good fortune evidently within his reach?

Elizabeth was handsome and inclined to favor him, and though she had the reputation of being authoritative in temper and economical in money matters, he did not doubt that she would finally acknowledge his power as completely as his mother and sisters. So he set himself to win Miss Braithwaite, and before Christmas they were married.

True, he had been compelled to give up a great deal more than he liked, but he promised himself post-marital compensations. Elizabeth insisted on keeping her own house, and as Steve had no house to offer her, he must needs go to Braithwaite Hall as the husband of its proprietress.

She insisted on his removing his office to Braithwaite, a small village, offering none of the advantages for killing time which a large village like Leeds did; and she had all her money scrupulously settled on herself, for her own use, and under her own control.

Steve felt very much as though his wife had bought him, but for a little time the éclat of marrying a great heiress, and the bridal festivities, and foreign travel compensated for the loss of his freedom. But when they returned to Braithwaite life showed a far more prosaic side. Mrs. Gaskill's economical disposition became particularly offensive to Steve. She inquired closely into his business, and did not scruple to make unpleasant witty remarks about his income. She rapidly developed, too, an authoritative disposition, against which Steve daily more and more rebelled. The young couple were soon very unhappy.

The truth was that a great transition was taking place in Steve's mind, and times of transition are always times of unrest and misery. The better part of his nature was beginning to claim a hearing. He had now seen all that good society could show him; he had tasted all the pleasures that money could buy, and he was unhappy.

She had no ennui or dissatisfaction herself. There were her large house to oversee, her gardens and conservatories, her servants and charity schools, her toilet, and a whole colony of pet animals. Her days were too short for all the small interests that filled her time; and these interests she would willingly have shared with Steve, but to him they soon became intolerable bores.

Under such circumstances he might have found his work in the ordering and investigation of his wife's large estate, but Elizabeth was far too cautious to trust her business to untried hands. Her father's agent was her agent; her banker managed all her investments; her parks and farms and gardens were under the care of old and experienced servants, who looked upon Steve merely as "Missis' husband."

In the second year of their marriage he began to have some thoughts which would have astonished his wife, had she thought it worth while to inquire what occupied his mind in the long hours when he paced the shrubbery, or sat silently looking out of the window. But Steve was now ready for any employment that would take him out of the purposely dependent life which he had so foolishly chosen for himself.

One day, greatly to his surprise, Elizabeth said to him:— "Steve, I have a letter from a cousin of mother's who lives in Glasgow. She is going to Australia, and wants me to buy her house. She says it is a great bargain, and I wrote a letter to Barret to go and see about it. I have a letter this morning saying he is too ill to leave his bed. I wonder if you could go and attend to it?"

Anything for a change. Steve showed a very business-like interest, and said:— "Yes, I would be very glad to go." "Very well, I should think you knew enough of titles and deeds and conveyances and all that sort of thing. I will trust the affair to you, Steve."

So the next morning Steve found himself on the Caledonia line, with £100 in his pocket and valuable business on hand. The first twenty miles out of Leeds he enjoyed with all the abandon of a bird set free. Then he began to think again. At Crewe he missed a train, and he wandered about the station, and fell to talking to the engineer of the next one, who was cleaning and examining the engine with all the love and pride a mother gives her favorite child.

The two men fraternized at once, and Steve made a trip over the line in the engineer's small cuddy. He was a fine young fellow, "one of seven, all machinists and engineers"; he was only serving his time—learning every branch of the business practically. He had brothers who made engines, and he hoped to do so, too, some time.

In spite of his soiled face and greasy clothes, Steve recognized that refinement that comes with education, and when his new friend called upon him at the Queens's Hotel he would not have been ashamed of him even in his most fastidious days.

"Mr. Dalrymple, I am glad to see you," said Steve, holding out both hands to him. "I thought you would be, sir; it is not often I make mistakes in my likings. I will go with you now to see my father's works if it suits you."

Never had such a place entered Stephen Gaskill's conception. The immense furnaces, the hundreds of giants working around them, the clang of machinery, the mighty struggle of mind with matter was to him a revelation. He envied those cyclops in their leathern masks and aprons; he longed to lift their heavy hammers. He looked upon the craftsmen, with their bare, brawny arms and blackened hands, and felt his heart glow with admiration when he saw the mighty works those hands had fashioned. The tears were in his eyes when Dalrymple and he parted at the gate of the great walled-in yard.

"Thank you," he said, "you have done me the greatest possible service. I shall remember it."

That night Steve formed a strange but noble resolution. First of all he devoted himself to his wife's business, and accomplished it in a manner which elicited Mr. Barett's warm praise, and made Elizabeth wonder whether she might not spare her agent's fees for the future. Then he had a long confidential talk with the owner of the Dalrymple iron and machine works, the result of which was the following letter to Mrs. Gaskill:—

MY DEAR WIFE: I shall not be at home again for at least two years, for I have begun an apprenticeship to Dalrymple as an iron-master. I propose to learn the process practically. I have lived too long on your bounty, for I have lost your esteem as well as my own, and I do not say but that I have deserved the loss. Please God I will redeem my wasted past, and with his help make a man of myself. When I am worthy to be your husband you will respect me, and until then think as kindly as possible of STEPHEN GASKILL.

The letter struck the first noble chord in Elizabeth's heart. From that hour not even her favorite maid dared to make little compassionate sneers at "poor master."

Steve, in leather apron and coarse working clothes, began laborious, happy days, which brought him nights of sweetest sleep, and Elizabeth started a series of letters to her husband, which were soon imbued with the tenderest interest and respect. In a few weeks she visited him, of her own free will, and going to the works she saw her half-banished lord wielding a ponderous hammer upon a bar of red-hot iron.

Swarthy, bare armed, clothed in leather, he had never looked so handsome to Elizabeth, and her eyes revealed this fact to Steve, for in them was the tender light of love founded upon genuine respect. Steve deserved it. He wrought faithfully out his two years' service, cheered by his wife's letters and visits, and when he came out of the Dalrymple works there was no more finished iron-master than he.

He held up his head frankly now, and looked fortune boldly in the face. He could earn his living anywhere, and, better than all, he had conquered his wife—won her esteem, and compelled her to acknowledge a physical strength and moral purpose greater than her own.

Between Leeds and Braithwaite Hall there have been for many years gigantic iron works. The mills and railways on the West Riding know them well. Their work is famed for its excellence, for the master is a practical machinist and overlooks every detail. Their profits are enormous, and Stephen Gaskill, their proprietor, is also the well-beloved and respected Master of Braithwaite Hall.