He was an ignorant, churlish man who had worked his way up from the gutter to the command of enormous wealth; a man whose very name was a curse in the ears of the men who served him; a man who was both feared and hated, and credited truly with being the hardest taskmaster in the world. It was asserted by many that the foundation of Woolgar's fortune lay in usury—money lent to his fellow-workers at an enormous rate of interest—but whether this was true or not no one knew. All that was certain was that he owned more than half the town and ruled with the hand of a tyrant.
John Haverford had written down his wishes as to his boy's education and profession, but Matthew Woolgar sneered these wishes into thin air.
A pauper had no right to the training of a prince.
Without waiting to consult Octavia Haverford, he took matters into his own hands, and sent the boy into the factory.
Rupert Haverford wore the common clothes as the others did, he ate the same common food, he lived and moved and slept among these people who adored his father, and for whose children his father had lost his life. There was nothing outwardly to tell the difference between Rupert Haverford and any of the others, except when Matthew Woolgar paid one of his surprise visitations (as he was fond of doing) to the works, when he would be certain to single out "t' poor doctor's lad" for some sharp reproof or snarling word.
Then the mother had flashed into existence again.
She wrote from America, announcing that she was married a second time, and peremptorily commanding Rupert to join her.
Matthew Woolgar quietly and grimly refused to permit this.
In truth, Rupert himself had no desire to go. His mother was nothing to him, hardly a name. The passion, the intense love, of his childhood and boyhood had been given to his father; even to live in the place where his father had lived and died signified a sort of happiness to Rupert. It was because he felt he was doing what John Haverford had wished him to do that he gave his strange guardian such unquestioning obedience, and it was certainly the loved memory of his father that sustained him, that made life possible. Every day he toiled eight to nine hours in the factory; every night he sat for hours studying, teaching himself. He had dreams of his own. He would get promotion, earn more, save money, and even yet follow that career which his father had desired for him.
It was a task of incredible difficulty, but he was his mother's child, and the will that spurred her on to such questionable lengths ran like a steady fire in Rupert's veins. The very work that to some would have seemed so paralyzing, so harmful, served to urge the boy on; it gave him grit; it taught him more than books can teach.