The Master; a Novel

by Israel Zangwill

Matthew Strang.

P.S.—When I come over I will change my name if you like, so as not to clash with yours. I know you would not like it if people thought you had done my pictures.

P.P.S.—Besides, my real name now might be Matthew Hailey, as mother has changed hers to that.

This letter evoked no answer.

When Matt’s apprenticeship was at an end, the first item of his programme broke down, for he lacked the money to carry him to the States, so he had to stay on at Cattermole’s farm at a petty wage, though a larger than Mrs. Cattermole was aware of, till he had scraped a little together. And then an accident occurred that bade fair to dispose of all the other items. He was at work in the saw-mill, when his leg got jammed between the log he was operating upon and the carriage that was bearing it towards the gang of up-and-down saws. There would not be room for his body to pass between the gang of saws and the framework that held them. It was an awful instant. He cried out, but his voice was lost in the roar of the water and the clatter of the machinery. Round went the water-wheel, the carriage glided along, offering inch after inch of the log to the cruel teeth, and Matt was drawn steadily with it towards the fatal point. With an inspiration he drew out the stout string he always carried in his pocket, and, making a noose, threw it towards a lever. It caught, and Matt was saved, for he had only to pull this lever to close the gate in the flume and shut out the water. When the machinery stopped the racket ceased, too, and Matt’s voice could be heard, and Cattermole rushed in from the adjoining furniture manufactory, and, knocking away the dogs at the end of the log, lifted it and released the prisoner, and then made him kneel down and offer a prayer for his salvation. Matt’s awakening sense of logic dimly insinuated that this was thanking Providence for having failed to mutilate him, but the atmosphere of Puritan acceptance in which he moved and had his being asphyxiated the nascent scepticism.

Shortly after, Matt bade farewell to Cattermole farm, with its complex appurtenances—a proceeding which Mrs. Cattermole christened “onchristian ingratitood.” She declared that he ought to strip off the clothes she had made him, and depart naked as he had come. From a dim corner of the kitchen Cattermole’s face signalled, “Don’t mind her. God bless you.”

Softened by the saw-mill accident, Matt tramped to Cobequid to see his mother before departing for Boston, and thence ultimately for England. He felt guilty, a sort of Prodigal Son, and kept assuring himself of his innocence and economy. The third Mrs. Hailey received him with a rapture that almost surpassed Billy’s. She hugged him to her bosom with sobs and told him her grievances. These were manifold, but seemed analyzable into four categories: one, the remissness of Harriet, whose visits were rare, and whose baby had bow-legs; two, the naughtiness of the children, of whom Matt had always been the only satisfactory specimen; three, the cruelty of their step-father in chastising them for the same; four, the deacon’s breach of contract in refusing to migrate to Halifax, or to permit her to hold Baptist prayer-meetings. Her black eyes flashed with strange fire when she spoke of her new husband’s crimes and derelictions. And there was the old dreaded hysteria in her threats to throw up the position. Evidently remarriage had not made her happy, he thought with added tenderness. Perhaps nothing could. He shuddered at his own deeper perception of unhappiness implanted in temperament and finding nutriment in any conditions.

In conclusion, she besought her boy—the only person in the world who loved her, the only person to whom she could tell her troubles—to go to Halifax instead of the States. It was far nearer, and money could be made just as easily. Her folks lived at Halifax, and though he must not dream of seeking their assistance, for they had been very bad to her, mewing her up strictly so that she had been forced to elope with her poor Davie, still it would be a consolation to know that he was near her own people, likewise not far from herself, in case of anything happening to either of them. Perhaps she would persuade her husband to move there, after all—who knew? Or she might come there herself and stay with him, for a week or two at any rate, and meantime he should write to her about the dear old town. Moved by her lack of reproaches and by her misery, and impressed into his olden subjugation to the handsome, masterful woman, Matt acquiesced. Perhaps his main motives were the comparative cheapness of the journey and the reinflammation of his childish curiosity concerning the gay city.

It was Saturday, but Matt suffered such tortures under the moral but mumbled exordiums of “Ole Hey,” of which his unaccustomed ear took in less than ever, that he determined to depart on the Monday. The deacon seemed to have aged considerably, his beard was matted and thick, and his dicky was stained with tobacco-juice. For the rest, Matt discovered that most of the children were employed about the farm or the works, and that they had ceased to go to school, the deacon having converted Ruth into a school-mistress when she could be spared from keeping the books of his tannery and grist-mill. Ruth herself he met with indifference that the stateliness of her unexpectedly tall presence did nothing to thaw. He was surprised to hear from Billy, whose bed he shared that night, and who was more greedy to hear Matt’s adventures than to talk, that they were all very fond of her, and that she could still romp heartily. But Ruth had gradually grown shadowy to his imagination beside his burning dreams of Art, and the sight of her seemed to add the last touch of insubstantiality to her image. And yet, in the boredom of the Sunday services, with his eye roving restlessly about the severe, unlovely meeting-house in search of distractions, he could not but be conscious that she was the sweetest and sedatest figure in the village choir that sang and flirted in the rising tiers of the gallery over the vestibule; and when Deacon Hailey, tapping his tuning-fork on the rails, imitated its note with a rasping croak, Matt had a flash of sympathy with the divined inner life of the girl in this discordant environment. He told her briefly of his plans—to save up enough money to get to his uncle in London, who would doubtless put him in the way of studying Art seriously. She said she wished she had something as fine to live and work for; still she was busy enough, what with book-keeping and teaching school, as she put it smilingly. Their parting, like their meeting, was awkward. Self-consciousness and shyness had come into their simple relation. Neither dared take the initiative of a kiss, which for the rest was a rare caress in Cobequid save between children and lovers. Relatives shook hands; even women were not free of one another’s lips. And for the lad’s part, timidity was all he felt in the presence of this sweet graceful stranger. Only at the last moment, when she handed him a keepsake in the shape of a prize copy of the Arabian Nights her music-mistress had given her, did their looks meet as of yore, and then it was more the young painter than the old playmate who was touched by the earnest radiance of her eyes and the flicker of rose across the delicate fairness of her cheek. He made a little sketch of her in return, and sent it her from Halifax.