How the Third Floor Knew the Potteries

How the Third Floor Knew the Potteries
by Amelia B. Edwards
1863

I am a plain man, Major, and you may not dislike to hear a plain
statement of facts from me. Some of those facts lie beyond my
understanding. I do not pretend to explain them. I only know that they
happened as I relate them, and that I pledge myself for the truth of
every word of them.
I began life roughly enough, down among the Potteries. I was an
orphan; and my earliest recollections are of a great porcelain
manufactory in the country of the Potteries, where I helped about the
yard, picked up what halfpence fell in my way, and slept in a
harness-loft over the stable. Those were hard times; but things bettered
themselves as I grew older and stronger, especially after George
Barnard had come to be foreman of the yard.
George Barnard was a Wesleyan -- we were mostly dissenters in the
Potteries -- sober, clear-headed, somewhat sulky and silent, but a good
fellow every inch of him, and my best friend at the time when I most
needed a good friend. He took me out of the yard, and set me to the
furnace-work. He entered me on the books at a fixed rate of wages. He
helped me to pay for a little cheap schooling four nights a week; and he
led me to go with him on Sundays to the chapel down by the river-side,
where I first saw Leah Payne. She was his sweetheart, and so pretty that
I used to forget the preacher and everybody else, when I looked at her.
When she joined in the singing, I heard no voice but hers. If she asked
me for the hymn-book, I used to blush and tremble. I believe I
worshipped her, in my stupid ignorant way; and I think I worshipped
Barnard almost as blindly, though after a different fashion. I felt I owed
him everything. I knew that he had saved me, body and mind; and I

looked up to him as a savage might look up to a missionary.
Leah was the daughter of a plumber, who lived close by the chapel. She
was twenty, and George about seven or eight-and-thirty. Some captious
folks said there was too much difference in their ages; but she was so
serious-minded, and they loved each other so earnestly and quietly, that,
if nothing had come between them during their courtship, I don't
believe the question of disparity would ever have troubled the
happiness of their married lives. Something did come, however; and
that something was a Frenchman, called Louis Laroche. He was a
painter on porcelain, from the famous works at Sèvres; and our master,
it was said, had engaged him for three years certain, at such wages as
none of our own people, however skilful, could hope to command. It
was about the beginning or middle of September when he first came
among us. He looked very young; was small, dark, and well made; had
little white soft hands, and a silky moustache; and spoke English nearly
as well as I do. None of us liked him; but that was only natural, seeing
how he was put over the head of every Englishman in the place.
Besides, though he was always smiling and civil, we couldn't help
seeing that he thought himself ever so much better than the rest of us;
and that was not pleasant. Neither was it pleasant to see him strolling
about the town, dressed just like a gentleman, when working hours
were over; smoking good cigars, when we were forced to be content
with a pipe of common tobacco; hiring a horse on Sunday afternoons,
when we were trudging a-foot; and taking his pleasure as if the world
was made for him to enjoy, and us to work in.
"Ben, boy," said George, "there's something wrong about that
Frenchman."
It was on a Saturday afternoon, and we were sitting on a pile of empty
seggars against the door of my furnace-room, waiting till the men
should all have cleared out of the yard. Seggars are deep earthen boxes
in which the pottery is put, while being fired in the kiln.
I looked up, inquiringly.
"About the Count?" said I, for that was the nickname by which he went

in the pottery.
George nodded, and paused for a moment with his chin resting on his
palms.
"He has an evil eye," said he; "and a false smile. Something wrong
about him."
I drew nearer, and listened to George as if he had been an oracle.
"Besides," added he, in his slow quiet way, with his eyes fixed straight
before him as if he was thinking aloud, "there's a young look about him
that isn't natural. Take