King of the Castle

“You’re my master, and pay me my wage, and I earn it honest. That’s 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.”

“I’m 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, don’t get in a way, master,” said the man coolly. “If you go on like that you’ll be having another fit, and I’m sure you oughtn’t to cut short such a life as yours.”

“Isaac Woodham, one of these days you’ll tempt me to knock you down. Insolent brute! And now, look here; I’ve told you before that I would not have dynamite used in my quarry. I’ll have my work done as it always has been done – with powder. The first man who uses a charge of that cursed stuff I’ll discharge.”

“It’s better, and does its work cleaner,” grumbled the man sullenly; and he gave his superior a morose look from under his shaggy brows.

“I don’t care if it’s 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 there’s no trusting that other stuff, or they’re not fit to be trusted with it. Now go, and don’t 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?”

“I’m speaking to another man, I being a man,” said Woodham sturdily. “I don’t know nothing about no gentlemen. I’m 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?”

“I’ve 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, I’m 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 man’s 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. They’re spoiled, that’s 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 one’s 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 it’s some one from the quarry, tell him I’m engaged.”

“Mr Glyddyr, sir.”

“Why didn’t you say so before? Where is he?”

“In the drawing-room, sir.”

Norman Gartram sprung at once from his chair, hurriedly crossed the room, stepped out of the window on to the granite paving, which did duty in his garden for a gravel walk, carefully closed the French casement, and locked it with a small pass-key he carried in his pocket, and walked round to the verandah in front of the house, entering by the French window of the drawing-room, where a tall, handsome man of about thirty was leaning against a table, apparently admiring the brown leather shoes which formed part of his yachting costume.

“Ah, Mr Glyddyr, glad to see you. Kept your word, then?”

“Oh, yes; I always do that,” said the visitor, shaking hands warmly. “Not come at an inconvenient time, have I – not too busy?”

“Never too busy to receive friends,” said Gartram. “Sit down, sit down.”

“Miss Gartram none the worse for her visit to the yacht?”

“Oh, by no means; enjoyed it thoroughly.”

“I could see that little Miss Dillon did, but I thought Miss Gartram seemed rather bored.”

“Oh dear, no; nothing of the kind; but you’ll have something?”

“Eh? No, thanks. Too early.”

“A cigar?”

“Cigar? Oh, come, I can’t refuse that.”

“Come into my room, then. Obliged to obey the female tyranny of my household, Mr Glyddyr. I’m supposed to be master, but woman rules, sir, woman rules. My daughter does what she pleases with me.”

“Happy man!”

“Eh?”

“I say happy man, sir, to be ruled by such a queen.”

Norman Gartram gave him a keen look.

“Don’t pay compliments, sir – society compliments. We are out of all society. I’ve kept my daughter out of it. Only a tradesman.”

“Lord Gartram’s brother a tradesman, sir?”

“Yes; why not? Why shouldn’t he be? My father left my brother and me with a few hundred pounds a-piece, and the prestige of being nobleman’s sons, sir. I had to consider what I should do – loaf about through drawing-rooms as a beggarly aristocrat, always in debt till I could cajole a rich girl into making me her poodle; or take off my coat and go to work like a man. Be a contemptible hanger-on, too poor to dress well, or a sturdy, hardworking human being.”

“And your choice, sir?” said the visitor, inquiring for what he knew by heart.

“The latter, sir. I bit my nails down to the quick till I had an idea – sitting out on this very coast. I was yonder smoking a bad cigar which my brother had given me. I couldn’t afford to buy cigars, neither could he, but he bought them all the same. I sat smoking that cigar and thought out what I was sitting upon – granite – and went back to the hotel where we were staying, and told my brother what I had thought out. He called me a fool, and went his way. I, being a fool, went mine.”

“Yes, sir?”

“My brother,” said Gartram, “married a shrewish, elderly woman with some money. I spent all I had in buying a few acres of the cliff land by the side of this coast. Brother Fred said I must be mad. Perhaps I am; but my cliff quarry has supplied granite for some of the finest buildings in England. It has made me a rich man, while my Lord Gartram has to ask his wife for every shilling he wants to spend – when he does not ask me. But here, come along; I never know when to stop if I begin talking about myself. This way.”

He led the visitor into his study, unlocked an oaken door in the wall with a bright key, and it swung open heavily, showing that the oak covered a slab of granite, and that the closet was formed of the same glittering stone.