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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5301-0.txt b/5301-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0641ba --- /dev/null +++ b/5301-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10958 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Imperialist, by +(a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Imperialist + +Author: (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5301] +Posting Date: April 21, 2009 +Last Updated: November 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST *** + + + + +Produced by Gardner Buchanan + + + + + +THE IMPERIALIST + + +By Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1861-1922 (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes) + + +1904 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +It would have been idle to inquire into the antecedents, or even the +circumstances, of old Mother Beggarlegs. She would never tell; the +children, at all events, were convinced of that; and it was only the +children, perhaps, who had the time and the inclination to speculate. +Her occupation was clear; she presided like a venerable stooping hawk, +over a stall in the covered part of the Elgin market-place, where she +sold gingerbread horses and large round gingerbread cookies, and brown +sticky squares of what was known in all circles in Elgin as taffy. She +came, it was understood, with the dawn; with the night she vanished, +spending the interval on a not improbable broomstick. Her gingerbread +was better than anybody’s; but there was no comfort in standing, first +on one foot and then on the other, while you made up your mind--the +horses were spirited and you could eat them a leg at a time, but there +was more in the cookies--she bent such a look on you, so fierce and +intolerant of vacillation. She belonged to the group of odd characters, +rarer now than they used to be, etched upon the vague consciousness of +small towns as in a way mysterious and uncanny; some said that Mother +Beggarlegs was connected with the aristocracy and some that she had been +“let off” being hanged. The alternative was allowed full swing, but in +any case it was clear that such persons contributed little to the common +good and, being reticent, were not entertaining. So you bought your +gingerbread, concealing, as it were, your weapons, paying your copper +coins with a neutral nervous eye, and made off to a safe distance, +whence you turned to shout insultingly, if you were an untrounced young +male of Elgin, “Old Mother Beggarlegs! Old Mother Beggarlegs!” And why +“Beggarlegs” nobody in the world could tell you. It might have been +a dateless waggery, or it might have been a corruption of some more +dignified surname, but it was all she ever got. Serious, meticulous +persons called her “Mrs” Beggarlegs, slightly lowering their voices and +slurring it, however, it must be admitted. The name invested her with +a graceless, anatomical interest, it penetrated her wizened black and +derisively exposed her; her name went far indeed to make her dramatic. +Lorne Murchison, when he was quite a little boy was affected by this +and by the unfairness of the way it singled her out. Moved partly by +the oppression of the feeling and partly by a desire for information +he asked her sociably one day, in the act of purchase, why the gilt was +generally off her gingerbread. He had been looking long, as a matter +of fact, for gingerbread with the gilt on it, being accustomed to the +phrase on the lips of his father in connection with small profits. +Mother Beggarlegs, so unaccustomed to politeness that she could not +instantly recognize it, answered him with an imprecation at which he, +no doubt, retreated, suddenly thrown on the defensive hurling the usual +taunt. One prefers to hope he didn’t, with the invincible optimism one +has for the behaviour of lovable people; but whether or not his kind +attempt at colloquy is the first indication I can find of that active +sympathy with the disabilities of his fellow-beings which stamped him +later so intelligent a meliorist. Even in his boy’s beginning he had a +heart for the work; and Mother Beggarlegs, but for a hasty conclusion, +might have made him a friend. + +It is hard to invest Mother Beggarlegs with importance, but the date +helps me--the date I mean, of this chapter about Elgin; she was a person +to be reckoned with on the twenty-fourth of May. I will say at once, for +the reminder to persons living in England that the twenty-fourth of May +was the Queen’s Birthday. Nobody in Elgin can possibly have forgotten +it. The Elgin children had a rhyme about it-- + + The twenty-fourth of May + Is the Queen’s Birthday; + If you don’t give us a holiday, + We’ll all run away. + +But Elgin was in Canada. In Canada the twenty-fourth of May WAS the +Queen’s Birthday; and these were times and regions far removed from the +prescription that the anniversary “should be observed” on any of those +various outlying dates which by now, must have produced in her immediate +people such indecision as to the date upon which Her Majesty really +did come into the world. That day, and that only, was the observed, the +celebrated, a day with an essence in it, dawning more gloriously than +other days and ending more regretfully, unless, indeed, it fell on a +Sunday when it was “kept” on the Monday, with a slightly clouded feeling +that it wasn’t exactly the same thing. Travelled persons, who had spent +the anniversary there, were apt to come back with a poor opinion of +its celebration in “the old country”--a pleasant relish to the +more-than-ever appreciated advantages of the new, the advantages +that came out so by contrast. More space such persons indicated, more +enterprise they boasted, and even more loyalty they would flourish, +all with an affectionate reminiscent smile at the little ways of a +grandmother. A “Bank” holiday, indeed! Here it was a real holiday, that +woke you with bells and cannon--who has forgotten the time the ancient +piece of ordnance in “the Square” blew out all the windows in the +Methodist church?--and went on with squibs and crackers till you didn’t +know where to step on the sidewalks, and ended up splendidly with +rockets and fire-balloons and drunken Indians vociferous on their way to +the lock-up. Such a day for the hotels, with teams hitched three abreast +in front of their aromatic barrooms; such a day for the circus, with +half the farmers of Fox County agape before the posters--with all their +chic and shock they cannot produce such posters nowadays, nor are there +any vacant lots to form attractive backgrounds--such a day for Mother +Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for eating and +drinking, were the only places in which business was done; the public +sentiment put universal shutters up, but the public appetite insisted +upon excepting the means to carnival. An air of ceremonial festivity +those fastened shutters gave; the sunny little town sat round them, +important and significant, and nobody was ever known to forget that they +were up, and go on a fool’s errand. No doubt they had an impressiveness +for the young countryfolk that strolled up and down Main Street in their +honest best, turning into Snow’s for ice-cream when a youth was disposed +to treat. (Gallantry exacted ten-cent dishes, but for young ladies +alone, or family parties, Mrs Snow would bring five-cent quantities +almost without asking, and for very small boys one dish and the +requisite number of spoons.) There was discrimination, there was choice, +in this matter of treating. A happy excitement accompanied it, which you +could read in the way Corydon clapped his soft felt hat on his head as +he pocketed the change. To be treated--to ten-cent dishes--three times +in the course of the day by the same young man gave matter for private +reflection and for public entertainment, expressed in the broad grins of +less reckless people. I speak of a soft felt hat, but it might be more +than that: it might be a dark green one, with a feather in it; and here +was distinction, for such a hat indicated that its owner belonged to the +Independent Order of Foresters, who Would leave their spring wheat for +forty miles round to meet in Elgin and march in procession, wearing +their hats, and dazzlingly scatter upon Main Street. They gave the day +its touch of imagination, those green cocked hats; they were lyrical +upon the highways; along the prosaic sidewalks by twos and threes they +sang together. It is no great thing, a hat of any quality; but a small +thing may ring dramatic on the right metal, and in the vivid idea of +Lorne Murchison and his sister Advena a Robin Hood walked in every +Independent Forester, especially in the procession. Which shows the +risks you run if you, a person of honest livelihood and solicited vote, +adopt any portion of a habit not familiar to you, and go marching about +with a banner and a band. Two children may be standing at the first +street corner, to whom your respectability and your property may at once +become illusion and your outlawry the delightful fact. + +A cheap trip brought the Order of Green Hats to Elgin; and there were +cheap trips on this great day to persuade other persons to leave it. The +Grand Trunk had even then an idea of encouraging social combination for +change of scene, and it was quite a common thing for the operatives of +the Milburn Boiler Company to arrange to get themselves carried to the +lakeside or “the Falls” at half a dollar a head. The “hands” got it up +themselves and it was a question in Elgin whether one might sink one’s +dignity and go as a hand for the sake of the fifty-cent opportunity, +a question usually decided in the negative. The social distinctions of +Elgin may not be easily appreciated by people accustomed to the rough +and ready standards of a world at the other end of the Grand Trunk; but +it will be clear at a glance that nobody whose occupation prescribed a +clean face could be expected to travel cheek by jowl, as a privilege, +with persons who were habitually seen with smutty ones, barefaced smut, +streaming out at the polite afternoon hour of six, jangling an empty +dinner pail. So much we may decide, and leave it, reflecting as we go +how simple and satisfactory, after all, are the prejudices which can +hold up such obvious justification. There was recently to be pointed +out in England the heir to a dukedom who loved stoking, and got his +face smutty by preference. He would have been deplorably subversive of +accepted conventions in Elgin; but, happily or otherwise, such persons +and such places have at present little more than an imaginative +acquaintance, vaguely cordial on the one side, vaguely critical on the +other, and of no importance in the sum. + +Polite society, to return to it, preferred the alternative of staying +at home and mowing the lawn or drinking raspberry vinegar on its own +beflagged verandah; looking forward in the afternoon to the lacrosse +match. There was nearly always a lacrosse match on the Queen’s Birthday, +and it was the part of elegance to attend and encourage the home team, +as well as that of small boys, with broken straw hats, who sneaked an +entrance, and were more enthusiastic than anyone. It was “a quarter” to +get in, so the spectators were naturally composed of persons who could +afford the quarter, and persons like the young Flannigans and Finnigans, +who absolutely couldn’t, but who had to be there all the same. Lorne and +Advena Murchison never had the quarter, so they witnessed few lacrosse +matches, though they seldom failed to refresh themselves by a sight +of the players after the game when, crimson and perspiring, but still +glorious in striped jerseys, their lacrosses and running shoes slung +over one shoulder, these heroes left the field. + +The Birthday I am thinking of, with Mrs Murchison as a central figure in +the kitchen, peeling potatoes for dinner, there was a lacrosse match of +some importance for the Fox County Championship and the Fox County Cup +as presented by the Member for the South Riding. Mrs Murchison remains +the central figure, nevertheless, with her family radiating from her, +gathered to help or to hinder in one of those domestic crises which +arose when the Murchisons were temporarily deprived of a “girl.” + Everybody was subject to them in Elgin, everybody had to acknowledge and +face them. Let a new mill be opened, and it didn’t matter what you paid +her or how comfortable you made her, off she would go, and you might +think yourself lucky if she gave a week’s warning. Hard times shut down +the mills and brought her back again; but periods of prosperity were +very apt to find the ladies of Elgin where I am compelled to introduce +Mrs Murchison--in the kitchen. “You’d better get up--the girl’s gone,” + Lorne had stuck his head into his sister’s room to announce, while +yet the bells were ringing and the rifles of the local volunteers were +spitting out the feu de joie. “I’ve lit the fire an’ swep’ out the +dining-room. You tell mother. Queen’s Birthday, too--I guess Lobelia’s +about as mean as they’re made!” And the Murchisons had descended to face +the situation. Lorne had by then done his part, and gone out into the +chromatic possibilities of the day; but the sense of injury he had +communicated to Advena in her bed remained and expanded. Lobelia, it was +felt, had scurvily manipulated the situation--her situation, it might +have been put, if any Murchison had been in the temper for jesting. +She had taken unjustifiable means to do a more unjustifiable thing, +to secure for herself an improper and unlawful share of the day’s +excitements, transferring her work, by the force of circumstances, to +the shoulders of other people since, as Mrs Murchison remarked, somebody +had to do it. Nor had she her mistress testified the excuse of fearing +unreasonable confinement. “I told her she might go when she had done her +dishes after dinner,” said Mrs Murchison, “and then she had only to come +back at six and get tea--what’s getting tea? I advised her to finish her +ironing yesterday, so as to be free of it today; and she said she would +be very glad to. Now, I wonder if she DID finish it!” and Mrs Murchison +put down her pan of potatoes with a thump to look in the family clothes +basket. “Not she! Five shirts and ALL the coloured things. I call it +downright deceit!” + +“I believe I know the reason she’ll SAY,” said Advena. “She objects to +rag carpet in her bedroom. She told me so.” + +“Rag carpet--upon my word!” Mrs Murchison dropped her knife to exclaim. +“It’s what her betters have to do with! I’ve known the day when that +very piece of rag carpet--sixty balls there were in it and every one I +sewed with my own fingers--was the best I had for my spare room, with +a bit of ingrain in the middle. Dear me!” she went on with a smile that +lightened the whole situation, “how proud I was of that performance! She +didn’t tell ME she objected to rag carpet!” + +“No, Mother,” Advena agreed, “she knew better.” + +They were all there in the kitchen, supporting their mother, and it +seems an opportunity to name them. Advena, the eldest, stood by the long +kitchen table washing the breakfast cups in “soft” soap and hot water. +The soft soap--Mrs Murchison had a barrelful boiled every spring in +the back yard, an old colonial economy she hated to resign--made a +fascinating brown lather with iridescent bubbles. Advena poured cupfuls +of it from on high to see the foam rise, till her mother told her for +mercy’s sake to get on with those dishes. She stood before a long low +window, looking out into the garden and the light, filtering through +apple branches on her face showed her strongly featured and intelligent +for fourteen. Advena was named after one grandmother; when the next +girl came Mrs Murchison, to make an end of the matter, named it Abigail, +after the other. She thought both names outlandish and acted under +protest, but hoped that now everybody would be satisfied. Lorne came +after Advena, at the period of a naive fashion of christening the young +sons of Canada in the name of her Governor-General. It was a simple +way of attesting a loyal spirit, but with Mrs Murchison more particular +motives operated. The Marquis of Lorne was not only the deputy of the +throne, he was the son-in-law of a good woman of whom Mrs Murchison +thought more, and often said it, for being the woman she was than for +being twenty times a Queen; and he had made a metrical translation of +the Psalms, several of which were included in the revised psalter for +the use of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, from which the whole +of Knox Church sang to the praise of God every Sunday. These were +circumstances that weighed with Mrs Murchison, and she called her son +after the Royal representative, feeling that she was doing well for him +in a sense beyond the mere bestowal of a distinguished and a euphonious +name, though that, as she would have willingly acknowledged, was “well +enough in its place.” + +We must take this matter of names seriously; the Murchisons always did. +Indeed, from the arrival of a new baby until the important Sunday of +the christening, nothing was discussed with such eager zest and such +sustained interest as the name he should get--there was a fascinating +list at the back of the dictionary--and to the last minute it was +problematical. In Stella’s case, Mrs Murchison actually changed her mind +on the way to church; and Abby, who had sat through the sermon +expecting Dorothy Maud, which she thought lovely, publicly cried with +disappointment. Stella was the youngest, and Mrs Murchison was thankful +to have a girl at last whom she could name without regard to her own +relations or anybody else’s. I have skipped about a good deal, but I +have only left out two, the boys who came between Abby and Stella. In +their names the contemporary observer need not be too acute to discover +both an avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr Murchison’s +political views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie nor an Oliver Mowat +could very well grow up into anything but a sound Liberal in that part +of the world without feeling himself an unendurable paradox. To christen +a baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to public attention; the +faint relaxation about the lips of Dr Drummond--the best of the +Liberals himself, though he made a great show of keeping it out of +the pulpit--recognized this, and the just perceptible stir of the +congregation proved it. Sonorously he said it. “Oliver Mowat, I baptize +thee in the Name of the Father--” The compliment should have all the +impressiveness the rite could give it, while the Murchison brothers and +sisters, a-row in the family pew, stood on one foot with excitement as +to how Oliver Mowat would take the drops that defined him. The verdict +was, on the way home, that he behaved splendidly. Alexander Mackenzie, +the year before, had roared. + +He was weeping now, at the age of seven, silently, but very copiously, +behind the woodpile. His father had finally cuffed him for importunity; +and the world was no place for a just boy, who asked nothing but +his rights. Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood +inconscient and irresponsible for any share in his black circumstances; +and his tears fell among the lichens of the stump he was bowed on till, +observing them, he began to wonder whether he could cry enough to make a +pond there, and was presently disappointed to find the source exhausted. +The Murchisons were all imaginative. + +The others, Oliver and Abby and Stella, still “tormented.” Poor Alec’s +rights--to a present of pocket-money on the Queen’s Birthday--were +common ones, and almost statutory. How their father, sitting comfortably +with his pipe in the flickering May shadows under the golden pippin, +reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in the matter was +unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was certainly illiberal; they had a +feeling that it was illegal. A little teasing was generally necessary, +but the resistance today had begun to look ominous and Alec, as we know, +too temerarious, had retired in disorder to the woodpile. + +Oliver was wiping Advena’s dishes. He exercised himself ostentatiously +upon a plate, standing in the door to be within earshot of his father. + +“Eph Wheeler,” he informed his family, “Eph Wheeler, he’s got +twenty-five cents, an’ a English sixpence, an’ a Yankee nickel. An’ Mr +Wheeler’s only a common working man, a lot poorer’n we are.” + +Mr Murchison removed his pipe from his lips in order, apparently, to +follow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion’s leading article. Oliver +eyed him anxiously. “Do, Father,” he continued in logical sequence. “Aw +do.” + +“Make him, Mother,” said Abby indignantly. “It’s the Queen’s BIRTHDAY!” + +“Time enough when the butter bill’s paid,” said Mrs Murchison. + +“Oh the BUTTER bill! Say, Father, aren’t you going to?” + +“What?” asked John Murchison, and again took out his pipe, as if this +were the first he had heard of the matter. + +“Give us our fifteen cents each to celebrate with. You can’t do it under +that,” Oliver added firmly. “Crackers are eight cents a packet this +year, the small size.” + +“Nonsense,” said Mr Murchison. The reply was definite and final, and its +ambiguity was merely due to the fact that their father disliked giving +a plump refusal. “Nonsense” was easier to say, if not to hear than “No.” + Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by the pump, and +sought his brother behind the woodpile. Then he returned to the charge. + +“Look here, Father,” he said, “CASH DOWN, we’ll take ten.” + +John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were usually impregnated +with meaning, especially in anger. “No more of this,” he said. +“Celebrate fiddlesticks! Go and make yourselves of some use. You’ll get +nothing from me, for I haven’t got it.” So saying, he went through the +kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed. His eldest son, +arriving over the backyard fence in a state of heat, was just in time +to hear him. Lorne’s apprehension of the situation was instant, and his +face fell, but the depression plainly covered such splendid spirits that +his brother asked resentfully, “Well, what’s the matter with YOU?” + +“Matter? Oh, not much. I’m going to see the Cayugas beat the Wanderers, +that’s all; an’ Abe Mackinnon’s mother said he could ask me to come back +to tea with them. Can I, Mother?” + +“There’s no objection that I know of,” said Mrs Murchison, shaking her +apron free of stray potato-parings, “but you won’t get money for the +lacrosse match or anything else from your father today, _I_ can assure +you. They didn’t do five dollars worth of business at the store all day +yesterday, and he’s as cross as two sticks.” + +“Oh, that’s all right.” Lorne jingled his pocket and Oliver took +a fascinated step toward him. “I made thirty cents this morning, +delivering papers for Fisher. His boy’s sick. I did the North Ward--took +me over’n hour. Guess I can go all right, can’t I?” + +“Why, yes, I suppose you can,” said his mother. The others were dumb. +Oliver hunched his shoulders and kicked at the nearest thing that had +paint on it. Abby clung to the pump handle and sobbed aloud. Lorne +looked gloomily about him and went out. Making once more for the back +fence, he encountered Alexander in the recognized family retreat. “Oh, +my goodness!” he said, and stopped. In a very few minutes he was back +in the kitchen, followed sheepishly by Alexander, whose grimy face +expressed the hope that beat behind his little waistcoat. + +“Say, you kids,” he announced, “Alec’s got four cents, an’ he says he’ll +join up. This family’s going to celebrate all right. Come on down town.” + +No one could say that the Murchisons were demonstrative. They said +nothing, but they got their hats. Mrs Murchison looked up from her +occupation. + +“Alec,” she said, “out of this house you don’t go till you’ve washed +your face. Lorne, come here,” she added in a lower voice, producing a +bunch of keys. “If you look in the right-hand corner of the top small +drawer in my bureau you’ll find about twenty cents. Say nothing about +it, and mind you don’t meddle with anything else. I guess the Queen +isn’t going to owe it all to you.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + +“We’ve seen changes, Mr Murchison. Aye. We’ve seen changes.” + +Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door, over +which the sign “John Murchison: Hardware,” had explained thirty years of +varying commercial fortune. They had pretty well begun life together in +Elgin. John Murchison was one of those who had listened to Mr Drummond’s +trial sermon, and had given his vote to “call” him to the charge. Since +then there had been few Sundays when, morning and evening, Mr Murchison +had not been in his place at the top of his pew, where his dignified +and intelligent head appeared with the isolated significance of a strong +individuality. People looked twice at John Murchison in a crowd; so did +his own children at home. Hearing some discussion of the selection of a +premier, Alec, looking earnestly at him once said, “Why don’t they tell +Father to be it?” The young minister looked twice at him that morning +of the trial sermon, and asked afterward who he was. A Scotchman, Mr +Drummond was told, not very long from the old country, who had bought +the Playfair business on Main Street, and settled in the “Plummer +Place,” which already had a quarter of a century’s standing in the +annals of the town. The Playfair business was a respectable business to +buy; the Plummer Place, though it stood in an unfashionable outskirt, +was a respectable place to settle in; and the minister, in casting his +lot in Elgin, envisaged John Murchison as part of it, thought of him +confidently as a “dependance,” saw him among the future elders and +office-bearers of the congregation, a man who would be punctual with his +pew-rent, sage in his judgements, and whose views upon church attendance +would be extended to his family. + +So the two came, contemporaries, to add their labour and their lives +to the building of this little outpost of Empire. It was the frankest +transfer, without thought of return; they were there to spend and be +spent within the circumference of the spot they had chosen, with no +ambition beyond. In the course of nature, even their bones and their +memories would enter into the fabric. The new country filled their eyes; +the new town was their opportunity, its destiny their fate. They were +altogether occupied with its affairs, and the affairs of the growing +Dominion, yet obscure in the heart of each of them ran the undercurrent +of the old allegiance. They had gone the length of their tether, but the +tether was always there. Thus, before a congregation that always stood +in the early days, had the minister every Sunday morning for thirty +years besought the Almighty, with ardour and humility, on behalf of the +Royal Family. It came in the long prayer, about the middle. Not in the +perfunctory words of a ritual, but in the language of his choice, which +varied according to what he believed to be the spiritual needs of the +reigning House, and was at one period, touching certain of its members, +though respectful, extremely candid. The General Assembly of the Church +of Scotland, “now in session,” also--was it ever forgotten once? And +even the Prime Minister, “and those who sit in council with him,” with +just a hint of extra commendation if it happened to be Mr Gladstone. The +minister of Knox Church, Elgin, Ontario, Canada, kept his eye on them +all. Remote as he was, and concerned with affairs of which they could +know little, his sphere of duty could never revolve too far westward to +embrace them, nor could his influence, under any circumstances, cease +to be at their disposal. It was noted by some that after Mr Drummond had +got his D.D. from an American University he also prayed occasionally +for the President of the neighbouring republic; but this was rebutted +by others, who pointed out that it happened only on the occurrence of +assassinations, and held it reasonable enough. The cavillers mostly +belonged to the congregation of St Andrew’s, “Established”--a glum, +old-fashioned lot indeed--who now and then dropped in of a Sunday +evening to hear Mr Drummond preach. (There wasn’t much to be said for +the preaching at St Andrew’s.) The Established folk went on calling the +minister of Knox Church “Mr” Drummond long after he was “Doctor” to his +own congregation, on account of what they chose to consider the dubious +source of the dignity; but the Knox Church people had their own theory +to explain this hypercriticism, and would promptly turn the conversation +to the merits of the sermon. + +Twenty-five years it was, in point, this Monday morning when the +Doctor--not being Established we need not hesitate, besides by this time +nobody did--stood with Mr Murchison in the store door and talked about +having seen changes. He had preached his anniversary sermon the night +before to a full church when, laying his hand upon his people’s +heart, he had himself to repress tears. He was aware of another +strand completed in their mutual bond: the sermon had been a moral, +an emotional, and an oratorical success; and in the expansion of the +following morning Dr Drummond had remembered that he had promised his +housekeeper a new gas cooking-range, and that it was high time he should +drop into Murchison’s to inquire about it. Mrs Forsyth had mentioned at +breakfast that they had ranges with exactly the improvement she wanted +at Thompson’s, but the minister was deaf to the hint. Thompson was a +Congregationalist and, improvement or no improvement, it wasn’t likely +that Dr Drummond was going “outside the congregation” for anything he +required. It would have been on a par with a wandering tendency in his +flock, upon which he systematically frowned. He was as great an autocrat +in this as the rector of any country parish in England undermined by +Dissent; but his sense of obligation worked unfailingly both ways. + +John Murchison had not said much about the sermon; it wasn’t his way, +and Dr Drummond knew it. “You gave us a good sermon last night, Doctor”; +not much more than that, and “I noticed the Milburns there; we don’t +often get Episcopalians”; and again, “The Wilcoxes”--Thomas Wilcox, +wholesale grocer, was the chief prop of St Andrew’s--“were sitting just +in front of us. We overtook them going home, and Wilcox explained how +much they liked the music. ‘Glad to see you,’ I said. ‘Glad to see you +for any reason,’” Mr Murchison’s eye twinkled. “But they had a +great deal to say about ‘the music.’” It was not an effusive form of +felicitation; the minister would have liked it less if it had been, +felt less justified, perhaps, in remembering about the range on that +particular morning. As it was, he was able to take it with perfect +dignity and good humour, and to enjoy the point against the Wilcoxes +with that laugh of his that did everybody good to hear; so hearty it +was, so rich in the grain of the voice, so full of the zest and flavour +of the joke. The range had been selected, and their talk of changes had +begun with it, Mr Murchison pointing out the new idea in the boiler and +Dr Drummond remembering his first kitchen stove that burned wood and +stood on its four legs, with nothing behind but the stove pipe, and if +you wanted a boiler you took off the front lids and put it on, and how +remarkable even that had seemed to his eyes, fresh from the conservative +kitchen notions of the old country. He had come, unhappily, a widower +to the domestic improvements on the other side of the Atlantic. “Often +I used to think,” he said to Mr Murchison, “if my poor wife could have +seen that stove how delighted she would have been! But I doubt this +would have been too much for her altogether!” + +“That stove!” answered Mr Murchison. “Well I remember it. I sold it +myself to your predecessor, Mr Wishart, for thirty dollars--the last +purchase he ever made, poor man. It was great business for me--I +had only two others in the store like it. One of them old Milburn +bought--the father of this man, d’ye mind him?--the other stayed by me a +matter of seven years. I carried a light stock in those days.” + +It was no longer a light stock. The two men involuntarily glanced round +them for the satisfaction of the contrast Murchison evoked, though +neither of them, from motives of vague delicacy, felt inclined to dwell +upon it. John Murchison had the shyness of an artist in his commercial +success, and the minister possibly felt that his relation toward +the prosperity of a member had in some degree the embarrassment of a +tax-gatherer’s. The stock was indeed heavy now. You had to go upstairs +to see the ranges, where they stood in rows, and every one of them +bore somewhere upon it, in raised black letters, John Murchison’s name. +Through the windows came the iterating ring on the iron from the foundry +in Chestnut Street which fed the shop, with an overflow that found its +way from one end of the country to the other. Finicking visitors to +Elgin found this wearing, but to John Murchison it was the music that +honours the conqueror of circumstances. The ground floor was given up +to the small wares of the business, chiefly imported; two or three +young men, steady and knowledgeable-looking, moved about in their shirt +sleeves among shelves and packing-cases. One of them was our friend +Alec; our other friend Oliver looked after the books at the foundry. +Their father did everything deliberately; but presently, in his own good +time, his commercial letter paper would be headed, with regard to these +two, “John Murchison and Sons.” It had long announced that the business +was “Wholesale and Retail.” + +Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison, considering the changes in Elgin from the +store door, did it at their leisure, the merchant with his thumbs thrust +comfortably in the armholes of his waistcoat, the minister, with that +familiar trick of his, balancing on one foot and suddenly throwing his +slight weight forward on the other. “A bundle of nerves,” people called +the Doctor: to stand still would have been a penance to him; even as +he swayed backward and forward in talking, his hand must be busy at the +seals on his watch chain and his shrewd glance travelling over a dozen +things you would never dream so clever a man would take notice of. It +was a prospect of moderate commercial activity they looked out upon, +a street of mellow shopfronts on both sides, of varying height and +importance, wearing that air of marking a period, a definite stop +in growth, that so often coexists with quite a reasonable degree of +activity and independence in colonial towns. One could almost say, +standing there in the door at Murchison’s, where the line of legitimate +enterprise had been overpassed and where its intention had been none +too sanguine--on the one hand in the faded, and pretentious red brick +building with the false third storey, occupied by Cleary which must have +been let at a loss to dry-goods or anything else; on the other hand +in the solid “Gregory block,” opposite the market, where rents were as +certain as the dividends of the Bank of British North America. + +Main Street expressed the idea that, for the purpose of growing and +doing business, it had always found the days long enough. Drays passed +through it to the Grand Trunk station, but they passed one at a time; a +certain number of people went up and down about their affairs, but they +were never in a hurry; a street car jogged by every ten minutes or so, +but nobody ran after it. There was a decent procedure; and it was felt +that Bofield--he was dry-goods, too--in putting in an elevator was just +a little unnecessarily in advance of the times. Bofield had only two +storeys, like everybody else, and a very easy staircase, up which people +often declared they preferred to walk rather than wait in the elevator +for a young man to finish serving and work it. These, of course, were +the sophisticated people of Elgin; countryfolk, on a market day, would +wait a quarter of an hour for the young man and think nothing of it; +and I imagine Bofield found his account in the elevator, though he +did complain sometimes that such persons went up and down on frivolous +pretexts or to amuse the baby. As a matter of fact, Elgin had begun +as the centre of “trading” for the farmers of Fox County, and had soon +over-supplied that limit in demand; so that when other interests added +themselves to the activity of the town there was still plenty of room +for the business they brought. Main Street was really, therefore, not a +fair index; nobody in Elgin would have admitted it. Its appearance and +demeanour would never have suggested that it was now the chief artery +of a thriving manufacturing town, with a collegiate institute, eleven +churches, two newspapers, and an asylum for the deaf and dumb, to +say nothing of a fire department unsurpassed for organization and +achievement in the Province of Ontario. Only at twelve noon it might be +partly realized when the prolonged “toots” of seven factory whistles at +once let off, so to speak, the hour. Elgin liked the demonstration; it +was held to be cheerful and unmistakable, an indication of “go-ahead” + proclivities which spoke for itself. It occurred while yet Dr Drummond +and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door. + +“I must be getting on,” said the minister, looking at his watch. “And +what news have you of Lorne?” + +“Well, he seems to have got through all right.” + +“What--you’ve heard already, then?” + +“He telegraphed from Toronto on Saturday night.” Mr Murchison stroked +his chin, the better to retain his satisfaction. “Waste of money--the +post would have brought it this morning--but it pleased his mother. Yes, +he’s through his Law Schools examination, and at the top, too, as far as +I can make out.” + +“Dear me, and you never mentioned it!” Dr Drummond spoke with the +resigned impatience of a familiar grievance. It was certainly a trying +characteristic of John Murchison that he never cared about communicating +anything that might seem to ask for congratulation. “Well, well! I’m +very glad to hear it.” + +“It slipped my mind,” said Mr Murchison. “Yes, he’s full-fledged +‘barrister and solicitor’ now; he can plead your case or draw you up a +deed with the best of them. Lorne’s made a fair record, so far. We’ve no +reason to be ashamed of him.” + +“That you have not.” Personal sentiments between these two Scotchmen +were indicated rather than indulged. “He’s going in with Fulke and +Warner, I suppose--you’ve got that fixed up?” + +“Pretty well. Old man Warner was in this morning to talk it over. He +says they look to Lorne to bring them in touch with the new generation. +It’s a pity he lost that son of his.” + +“Oh, a great pity. But since they had to go outside the firm they +couldn’t have done better; they couldn’t have done better. I hope Lorne +will bring them a bit of Knox Church business too; there’s no reason why +Bob Mackintosh should have it all. They’ll be glad to see him back at +the Hampden Debating Society. He’s a great light there, is Lorne; and +the Young Liberals, I hear are wanting him for chairman this year.” + +“There’s some talk of it. But time enough--time enough for that! He’ll +do first-rate if he gets the law to practise, let alone the making of +it.” + +“Maybe so; he’s young yet. Well, good morning to you. I’ll just step +over the way to the Express office and get a proof out of them of +that sermon of mine. I noticed their reporter fellow--what’s his +name?--Rawlins, with his pencil out last night, and I’ve no faith in +Rawlins.” + +“Better cast an eye over it,” responded Mr Murchison cordially, and +stood for a moment or two longer in the door watching the crisp, +significant little figure of the minister as he stepped briskly over the +crossing to the newspaper office. There Dr Drummond sat down, before he +explained his errand, and wrote a paragraph. + +“We are pleased to learn,” it ran “that Mr Lorne Murchison, eldest son +of Mr John Murchison, of this town, has passed at the capital of the +Province his final examination in Law, distinguishing himself by coming +out at the top of the list. It will be remembered that Mr Murchison, +upon entering the Law Schools, also carried off a valuable scholarship. +We are glad to be able to announce that Mr Murchison, Junior, will +embark upon his profession in his native town, where he will enter the +well-known firm of Fulke and Warner.” + +The editor, Mr Horace Williams, had gone to dinner, and Rawlins was out +so Dr Drummond had to leave it with the press foreman. Mr Williams read +it appreciatively on his return, and sent it down with the following +addition: + +“This is doing it as well as it can be done. Elgin congratulates Mr L. +Murchison upon having produced these results, and herself upon having +produced Mr L. Murchison.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +From the day she stepped into it Mrs Murchison knew that the Plummer +Place was going to be the bane of her existence. This may have been +partly because Mr Murchison had bought it, since a circumstance welded +like that into one’s life is very apt to assume the character of a bane, +unless one’s temperament leads one to philosophy, which Mrs Murchison’s +didn’t. But there were other reasons more difficult to traverse: it was +plainly true that the place did require a tremendous amount of “looking +after,” as such things were measured in Elgin, far more looking after +than the Murchisons could afford to give it. They could never have +afforded, in the beginning, to possess it had it not been sold, under +mortgage, at a dramatic sacrifice. The house was a dignified old affair, +built of wood and painted white, with wide green verandahs compassing +the four sides of it, as they often did in days when the builder had +only to turn his hand to the forest. It stood on the very edge of +the town; wheatfields in the summer billowed up to its fences, and +corn-stacks in the autumn camped around it like a besieging army. The +plank sidewalk finished there; after that you took the road or, if you +were so inclined, the river, into which you could throw a stone from +the orchard of the Plummer Place. The house stood roomily and shadily in +ornamental grounds, with a lawn in front of it and a shrubbery at each +side, an orchard behind, and a vegetable garden, the whole intersected +by winding gravel walks, of which Mrs Murchison was wont to say that +a man might do nothing but weed them and have his hands full. In the +middle of the lawn was a fountain, an empty basin with a plaster Triton, +most difficult to keep looking respectable and pathetic in his frayed +air of exile from some garden of Italy sloping to the sea. There was +also a barn with stabling, a loft, and big carriage doors opening on a +lane to the street. The originating Plummer, Mrs Murchison often said, +must have been a person of large ideas, and she hoped he had the money +to live up to them. The Murchisons at one time kept a cow in the barn, +till a succession of “girls” left on account of the milking, and the +lane was useful as an approach to the backyard by the teams that brought +the cordwood in the winter. It was trying enough for a person with +the instinct of order to find herself surrounded by out-of-door +circumstances which she simply could not control but Mrs Murchison often +declared that she could put up with the grounds if it had stopped there. +It did not stop there. Though I was compelled to introduce Mrs Murchison +in the kitchen, she had a drawing-room in which she might have received +the Lieutenant-Governor, with French windows and a cut-glass chandelier, +and a library with an Italian marble mantelpiece. She had an icehouse +and a wine cellar, and a string of bells in the kitchen that connected +with every room in the house; it was a negligible misfortune that not +one of them was in order. She had far too much, as she declared, for +any one pair of hands and a growing family, and if the ceiling was not +dropping in the drawing-room, the cornice was cracked in the library +or the gas was leaking in the dining-room, or the verandah wanted +reflooring if anyone coming to the house was not to put his foot through +it; and as to the barn, if it was dropping to pieces it would just +have to drop. The barn was definitely outside the radius of possible +amelioration--it passed gradually, visibly, into decrepitude, and Mrs +Murchison often wished she could afford to pull it down. + +It may be realized that in spite of its air of being impossible +to “overtake”--I must, in this connection, continue to quote its +mistress--there was an attractiveness about the dwelling of the +Murchisons the attractiveness of the large ideas upon which it had +been built and designed, no doubt by one of those gentlefolk of reduced +income who wander out to the colonies with a nebulous view to economy +and occupation, to perish of the readjustment. The case of such persons, +when they arrive, is at once felt to be pathetic; there is a tacit local +understanding that they have made a mistake. They may be entitled +to respect, but nothing can save them from the isolation of their +difference and their misapprehension. It was like that with the house. +The house was admired--without enthusiasm--but it was not copied. It +was felt to be outside the general need, misjudged, adventitious; and it +wore its superiority in the popular view like a folly. It was in Elgin, +but not of it: it represented a different tradition; and Elgin made the +same allowance for its bedroom bells and its old-fashioned dignities +as was conceded to its original master’s habit of a six-o’clock dinner, +with wine. + +The architectural expression of the town was on a different scale, +beginning with “frame,” rising through the semidetached, culminating +expensively in Mansard roofs, cupolas and modern conveniences, and +blossoming, in extreme instances, into Moorish fretwork and silk +portieres for interior decoration. The Murchison house gained by force +of contrast: one felt, stepping into it, under influences of less +expediency and more dignity, wider scope and more leisured intention; +its shabby spaces had a redundancy the pleasanter and its yellow plaster +cornices a charm the greater for the numerous close-set examples of +contemporary taste in red brick which made, surrounded by geranium beds, +so creditable an appearance in the West Ward. John Murchison in taking +possession of the house had felt in it these satisfactions, had been +definitely penetrated and soothed by them, the more perhaps because he +brought to them a capacity for feeling the worthier things of life which +circumstances had not previously developed. He seized the place with a +sense of opportunity leaping sharp and conscious out of early years +in the grey “wynds” of a northern Scottish town; and its personality +sustained him, very privately but none the less effectively, through +the worry and expense of it for years. He would take his pipe and walk +silently for long together about the untidy shrubberies in the evening, +for the acute pleasure of seeing the big horse chestnuts in flower; and +he never opened the hall door without a feeling of gratification in +its weight as it swung under his hand. In so far as he could, he +supplemented the idiosyncrasies he found. The drawing-room walls, though +mostly bare in their old-fashioned French paper--lavender and gilt, a +grape-vine pattern--held a few good engravings; the library was reduced +to contain a single bookcase, but it was filled with English classics. +John Murchison had been made a careful man, not by nature, by the +discipline of circumstances; but he would buy books. He bought them +between long periods of abstinence, during which he would scout the +expenditure of an unnecessary dollar, coming home with a parcel under +his arm for which he vouchsafed no explanation, and which would disclose +itself to be Lockhart, or Sterne, or Borrow, or Defoe. Mrs Murchison +kept a discouraging eye upon such purchases; and when her husband +brought home Chambers’s Dictionary of English Literature, after shortly +and definitely repulsing her demand that he should get himself a new +winter overcoat, she declared that it was beyond all endurance. Mrs +Murchison was surrounded, indeed, by more of “that sort of thing” + than she could find use or excuse for; since, though books made but a +sporadic appearance, current literature, daily, weekly, and monthly, +was perpetually under her feet. The Toronto paper came as a matter of +course, as the London daily takes its morning flight into the provinces, +the local organ as simply indispensable, the Westminster as the +corollary of church membership and for Sunday reading. These were +constant, but there were also mutables--Once a Week, Good Words for +the Young, Blackwood’s, and the Cornhill they used to be; years of back +numbers Mrs Murchison had packed away in the attic, where Advena +on rainy days came into the inheritance of them, and made an early +acquaintance with fiction in Ready Money Mortiboy and Verner’s Pride, +while Lorne, flat on his stomach beside her, had glorious hours on The +Back of the North Wind. Their father considered such publications and +their successors essential, like tobacco and tea. He was also an easy +prey to the subscription agent, for works published in parts and +paid for in instalments, a custom which Mrs Murchison regarded with +abhorrence. So much so that when John put his name down for Masterpieces +of the World’s Art, which was to cost twenty dollars by the time it was +complete, he thought it advisable to let the numbers accumulate at the +store. + +Whatever the place represented to their parents, it was pure joy to the +young Murchisons. It offered a margin and a mystery to life. They saw +it far larger than it was; they invested it, arguing purely by its +difference from other habitations, with a romantic past. “I guess +when the Prince of Wales came to Elgin, Mother, he stayed here,” Lorne +remarked, as a little boy. Secretly he and Advena took up boards in more +than one unused room, and rapped on more than one thick wall to find a +hollow chamber; the house revealed so much that was interesting, it was +apparent to the meanest understanding that it must hide even more. +It was never half lighted, and there was a passage in which fear +dwelt--wild were the gallopades from attic to cellar in the early +nightfall, when every young Murchison tore after every other, possessed, +like cats, by a demoniac ecstasy of the gloaming. And the garden, with +the autumn moon coming over the apple trees and the neglected asparagus +thick for ambush, and a casual untrimmed boy or two with the delicious +recommendation of being utterly without credentials, to join in the rout +and be trusted to make for the back fence without further hint at the +voice of Mrs Murchison--these were joys of the very fibre, things to +push ideas and envisage life with an attraction that made it worth while +to grow up. + +And they had all achieved it--all six. They had grown up sturdily, +emerging into sobriety and decorum by much the same degrees as the old +house, under John Murchison’s improving fortunes, grew cared for and +presentable. The new roof went on, slate replacing shingles, the year +Abby put her hair up; the bathroom was contemporary with Oliver’s +leaving school; the electric light was actually turned on for the +first time in honour of Lorne’s return from Toronto, a barrister and +solicitor; several rooms had been done up for Abby’s wedding. Abby had +married, early and satisfactorily, Dr Harry Johnson, who had placidly +settled down to await the gradual succession of his father’s practice; +“Dr Harry and Dr Henry” they were called. Dr Harry lived next door to +Dr Henry, and had a good deal of the old man’s popular manner. It was +an unacknowledged partnership, which often provided two opinions for the +same price; the town prophesied well of it. That left only five at +home, but they always had Abby over in the West Ward, where Abby’s +housekeeping made an interest and Abby’s baby a point of pilgrimage. +These considerations almost consoled Mrs Murchison declaring, as she +did, that all of them might have gone but Abby, who alone knew how to be +“any comfort or any dependence” in the house; who could be left with a +day’s preserving; and I tell you that to be left by Mrs Murchison with a +day’s preserving, be it cherries or strawberries, damsons or pears, was +a mark of confidence not easy to obtain. Advena never had it; Advena, +indeed, might have married and removed no prop of the family economy. +Mrs Murchison would have been “sorry for the man”--she maintained +a candour toward and about those belonging to her that permitted no +illusions--but she would have stood cheerfully out of the way on her +own account. When you have seen your daughter reach and pass the age +of twenty-five without having learned properly to make her own bed, you +know without being told that she will never be fit for the management of +a house--don’t you? Very well then. And for ever and for ever, no matter +what there was to do, with a book in her hand--Mrs Murchison would put +an emphasis on the “book” which scarcely concealed a contempt for such +absorption. And if, at the end of your patience, you told her for any +sake to put it down and attend to matters, obeying in a kind of dream +that generally drove you to take the thing out of her hands and do it +yourself, rather than jump out of your skin watching her. + +Sincerely Mrs Murchison would have been sorry for the man if he had +arrived, but he had not arrived. Advena justified her existence by +taking the university course for women at Toronto, and afterward +teaching the English branches to the junior forms in the Collegiate +Institute, which placed her arbitrarily outside the sphere of domestic +criticism. Mrs Murchison was thankful to have her there--outside--where +little more could reasonably be expected of her than that she should +be down in time for breakfast. It is so irritating to be justified +in expecting more than seems likely to come. Mrs Murchison’s ideas +circulated strictly in the orbit of equity and reason; she expected +nothing from anybody that she did not expect from herself; indeed, she +would spare others in far larger proportion. But the sense of obligation +which led her to offer herself up to the last volt of her energy made +her miserable when she considered that she was not fairly done by in +return. Pressed down and running over were the services she offered to +the general good, and it was on the ground of the merest justice that +she required from her daughters “some sort of interest” in domestic +affairs. From her eldest she got no sort of interest, and it was +like the removal of a grievance from the hearth when Advena took up +employment which ranged her definitely beyond the necessity of being +of any earthly use in the house. Advena’s occupation to some extent +absorbed her shortcomings, which was much better than having to +attribute them to her being naturally “through-other,” or naturally +clever, according to the bias of the moment. Mrs Murchison no longer +excused or complained of her daughter; but she still pitied the man. + +“The boys,” of course, were too young to think of matrimony. They were +still the boys, the Murchison boys; they would be the boys at forty if +they remained under their father’s roof. In the mother country, men in +short jackets and round collars emerge from the preparatory schools; in +the daughter lands boys in tailcoats conduct serious affairs. Alec +and Oliver, in the business, were frivolous enough as to the feminine +interest. For all Dr Drummond’s expressed and widely known views upon +the subject, it was a common thing for one or both of these young men +to stray from the family pew on Sunday evenings to the services of other +communions, thereafter to walk home in the dusk under the maples with +some attractive young person, and be sedately invited to finish the +evening on her father’s verandah. Neither of them was guiltless of silk +ties knitted or handkerchiefs initialled by certain fingers; without +repeating scandal, one might say by various fingers. For while the +ultimate import of these matters was not denied in Elgin, there was +a general feeling against giving too much meaning to them, probably +originating in a reluctance among heads of families to add to their +responsibilities. These early spring indications were belittled and +laughed at; so much so that the young people them selves hardly +took them seriously, but regarded them as a form of amusement almost +conventional. Nothing would have surprised or embarrassed them more +than to learn that their predilections had an imperative corollary, +that anything should, of necessity, “come of it.” Something, of course, +occasionally did come of it; and, usually after years of “attention,” a +young man of Elgin found himself mated to a young woman, but never under +circumstances that could be called precipitate or rash. The cautious +blood and far sight of the early settlers, who had much to reckon with, +were still preponderant social characteristics of the town they cleared +the site for. Meanwhile, however, flowers were gathered, and all sorts +of evanescent idylls came and went in the relations of young men and +maidens. Alec and Oliver Murchison were already in the full tide of +them. + +From this point of view they did not know what to make of Lorne. It was +not as if their brother were in any way ill calculated to attract that +interest which gave to youthful existence in Elgin almost the only +flavour that it had. Looks are looks, and Lorne had plenty of them; +taller by an inch than Alec, broader by two than Oliver, with a fine +square head and blue eyes in it, and features which conveyed purpose and +humour, lighted by a certain simplicity of soul that pleased even when +it was not understood. “Open,” people said he was, and “frank”--so he +was, frank and open, with horizons and intentions; you could see them in +his face. Perhaps it was more conscious of them than he was. Ambition, +definitely shining goals, adorn the perspectives of young men in new +countries less often than is commonly supposed. Lorne meant to be a good +lawyer, squarely proposed to himself that the country should hold no +better; and as to more selective usefulness, he hoped to do a little +stumping for the right side when Frank Jennings ran for the Ontario +House in the fall. It wouldn’t be his first electioneering: from the day +he became chairman of the Young Liberals the party had an eye on him, +and when occasion arose, winter or summer, by bobsleigh or buggy, +weatherbeaten local bosses would convey him to country schoolhouses for +miles about to keep a district sound on railway policy, or education, +or tariff reform. He came home smiling with the triumphs of these +occasions, and offered them, with the slow, good-humoured, capable drawl +that inspired such confidence in him, to his family at breakfast, who +said “Great!” or “Good for you, Lorne!” John Murchison oftenest said +nothing, but would glance significantly at his wife, frowning and +pursing his lips when she, who had most spirit of them all, would +exclaim, “You’ll be Premier yet, Lorne!” It was no part of the Murchison +policy to draw against future balances: they might believe everything, +they would express nothing; and I doubt whether Lorne himself had any +map of the country he meant to travel over in that vague future, already +defining in local approbation, and law business coming freely in with +a special eye on the junior partner. But the tract was there, +subconscious, plain in the wider glance, the alerter manner; plain even +in the grasp and stride which marked him in a crowd; plain, too, in the +preoccupation with other issues, were it only turning over a leader +in the morning’s Dominion, that carried him along indifferent to the +allurements I have described. The family had a bond of union in their +respect for Lorne, and this absence of nugatory inclinations in him +was among its elements. Even Stella who, being just fourteen, was the +natural mouthpiece of family sentiment, would declare that Lorne had +something better to do than go hanging about after girls, and for her +part she thought all the more of him for it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +“I am requested to announce,” said Dr Drummond after the singing of the +last hymn, “the death, yesterday morning, of James Archibald Ramsay, +for fifteen years an adherent and for twenty-five years a member of this +church. The funeral will take place from the residence of the deceased, +on Court House Street, tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock. Friends and +acquaintances are respectfully--invited--to attend.” + +The minister’s voice changed with the character of its affairs. Still +vibrating with the delivery of his sermon, it was now charged with the +official business of the interment. In its inflections it expressed both +elegy and eulogy; and in the brief pause before and after “invited” and +the fall of “attend” there was the last word of comment upon the mortal +term. A crispation of interest passed over the congregation; every chin +was raised. Dr Drummond’s voice had a wonderful claiming power, but he +often said he wished his congregation would pay as undivided attention +to the sermon as they did to the announcements. + +“The usual weekly prayer meeting will be held in the basement of the +church on Wednesday evening.” Then almost in a tone of colloquy, and +with just a hint of satire about his long upper lip-- + +“I should be glad to see a better attendance of the young people at +these gatherings. Time was when the prayer meeting counted among our +young men and women as an occasion not to be lightly passed over. In +these days it would seem that there is too much business to be done, or +too much pleasure to be enjoyed, for the oncoming generation to remember +their weekly engagement with the Lord. This is not as it should be; and +I rely upon the fathers and mothers of this congregation, who brought +these children in their arms to the baptismal font, there to be admitted +to the good hopes and great privileges of the Church of God--I rely upon +them to see that there shall be no departure from the good old rule, and +that time is found for the weekly prayer meeting.” + +Mrs Murchison nudged Stella, who returned the attention, looking +elaborately uninterested, with her foot. Alec and Oliver smiled +consciously; their father, with an expression of severe gravity, backed +up the minister who, after an instant’s pause, continued-- + +“On Tuesday afternoon next, God willing, I shall visit the following +families in the East Ward--Mr Peterson, Mr Macormack, Mrs Samuel Smith, +and Mr John Flint. On Thursday afternoon in the South Ward, Mrs Reid, +Mr P. C. Cameron, and Mr Murchison. We will close by singing the Third +Doxology: Blessed, blessed be Jehovah, Israel’s God to all eternity--” + +The congregation trooped out; the Murchisons walked home in a clan, Mr +and Mrs Murchison, with Stella skirting the edge of the sidewalk beside +them, the two young men behind. Abby, when she married Harry, had “gone +over” to the Church of England. The wife must worship with the husband; +even Dr Drummond recognized the necessity, though he professed small +opinion of the sway of the spouse who, with Presbyterian traditions +behind her, could not achieve union the other way about; and Abby’s +sanctioned defection was a matter of rather shame-faced reference by her +family. Advena and Lorne had fallen into the degenerate modern habit of +preferring the evening service. + +“So we’re to have the Doctor on Thursday,” said Mrs Murchison, plainly +not displeased. “Well, I hope the dining-room carpet will be down.” + +“I expect he’ll be wanting his tea,” replied Mr Murchison. “He’s got you +in the right place on the list for that, Mother--as usual.” + +“I’d just like to see him go anywhere else for his tea the day he was +coming to our house,” declared Stella. “But he GENERALLY has too much +sense.” + +“You boys,” said Mrs Murchison, turning back to her sons, “will see that +you’re on hand that evening. And I hope the Doctor will rub it in about +the prayer meeting.” Mrs Murchison chuckled. “I saw it went home to both +of you, and well it might. Yes, I think I may as well expect him to tea. +He enjoys my scalloped oysters, if I do say it myself.” + +“We’ll get Abby over,” said Mr Murchison. “That’ll please the Doctor.” + +“I must say,” remarked Stella, “he seems to think a lot more of Abby now +that she’s Mrs Episcopal Johnson.” + +“Yes, Abby and Harry must come,” said Mrs Murchison, “and I was thinking +of inviting Mr and Mrs Horace Williams. We’ve been there till I’m +ashamed to look them in the face. And I’ve pretty well decided,” she +added autocratically, “to have chicken salad. So if Dr Drummond has made +up his mouth for scalloped oysters he’ll be disappointed.” + +“Mother,” announced Stella, “I’m perfectly certain you’ll have both.” + +“I’ll consider it,” replied her mother. “Meanwhile we would be better +employed in thinking of what we have been hearing. That’s the third +sermon from the Book of Job in six weeks. I must say, with the whole of +the two Testaments to select from, I don’t see why the Doctor should be +so taken up with Job.” + +Stella was vindicated; Mrs Murchison did have both. The chicken salad +gleamed at one end of the table and the scalloped oysters smoked +delicious at the other. Lorne had charge of the cold tongue and Advena +was entrusted with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were +expected to think about the tea biscuits and the cake, for Lobelia had +never yet had a successor that was any hand with company. Mrs Murchison +had enough to do to pour out the tea. It was a table to do anybody +credit, with its glossy damask and the old-fashioned silver and +best china that Mrs Murchison had brought as a bride to her +housekeeping--for, thank goodness, her mother had known what was what +in such matters--a generous attractive table that you took some +satisfaction in looking at. Mrs Murchison came of a family of noted +housekeepers; where she got her charm I don’t know. Six-o’clock tea, and +that the last meal in the day, was the rule in Elgin, and a good enough +rule for Mrs Murchison, who had no patience with the innovation of a +late dinner recently adopted by some people who could keep neither +their servants nor their digestions in consequence. It had been a crisp +October day; as Mr Murchison remarked, the fall evenings were beginning +to draw in early; everybody was glad of the fire in the grate and the +closed curtains. Dr Drummond had come about five, and the inquiries and +comments upon family matters that the occasion made incumbent had been +briskly exchanged, with just the word that marked the pastoral visit +and the practical interest that relieved it. And he had thought, on the +whole, that he might manage to stay to tea, at which Mrs Murchison’s +eyes twinkled as she said affectionately-- + +“Now, Doctor, you know we could never let you off.” + +Then Abby had arrived and her husband, and finally Mr and Mrs Williams, +just a trifle late for etiquette, but well knowing that it mustn’t be +enough to spoil the biscuits. Dr Drummond in the place of honour, +had asked the blessing, and that brief reminder of the semiofficial +character of the occasion having been delivered, was in the best of +humours. The Murchisons were not far wrong in the happy divination +that he liked coming to their house. Its atmosphere appealed to him; he +expanded in its humour, its irregularity, its sense of temperament. They +were doubtful allurements, from the point of view of a minister of the +Gospel, but it would not occur to Dr Drummond to analyse them. So far +as he was aware, John Murchison was just a decent, prosperous, Christian +man, on whose word and will you might depend, and Mrs Murchison a +stirring, independent little woman, who could be very good company when +she felt inclined. As to their sons and daughters, in so far as they +were a credit, he was as proud of them as their parents could possibly +be, regarding himself as in a much higher degree responsible for the +formation of their characters and the promise of their talents. And +indeed, since every one of them had “sat under” Dr Drummond from the +day he or she was capable of sitting under anybody, Mr and Mrs Murchison +would have been the last to dispute this. It was not one of those houses +where a pastor could always be sure of leaving some spiritual benefit +behind; but then he came away himself with a pleasant sense of nervous +stimulus which was apt to take his mind off the matter. It is not given +to all of us to receive or to extend the communion of the saints; Mr +and Mrs Murchison were indubitably of the elect, but he was singularly +close-mouthed about it, and she had an extraordinary way of seeing the +humorous side--altogether it was paralysing, and the conversation would +wonderfully soon slip round to some robust secular subject, public or +domestic. I have mentioned Dr Drummond’s long upper lip; all sorts +of racial virtues resided there, but his mouth was also wide and much +frequented by a critical, humorous, philosophical smile which revealed +a view of life at once kindly and trenchant. His shrewd grey eyes were +encased in wrinkles, and when he laughed his hearty laugh they almost +disappeared in a merry line. He had a fund of Scotch stories, and one +or two he was very fond of, at the expense of the Methodists, that were +known up and down the Dominion, and nobody enjoyed them more than he +did himself. He had once worn his hair in a high curl on his scholarly +forehead, and a silvering tuft remained brushed upright; he took the +old-fashioned precaution of putting cotton wool in his ears, which +gave him more than ever the look of something highly concentrated and +conserved but in no way detracted from his dignity. St Andrew’s folk +accused him of vanity because of the diamond he wore on his little +finger. He was by no means handsome, but he was intensely individual; +perhaps he had vanity; his people would have forgiven him worse things. +And at Mrs Murchison’s tea party he was certainly, as John Murchison +afterward said, “in fine feather.” + +An absorbing topic held them, a local topic, a topic involving loss and +crime and reprisals. The Federal Bank had sustained a robbery of five +thousand dollars, and in the course of a few days had placed their +cashier under arrest for suspected complicity. Their cashier was Walter +Ormiston, the only son of old Squire Ormiston, of Moneida Reservation, +ten miles out of Elgin, who had administered the affairs of the Indians +there for more years than the Federal Bank had existed. Mr Williams +brought the latest news, as was to be expected; news flowed in rivulets +to Mr Williams all day long; he paid for it, dealt in it, could spread +or suppress it. + +“They’ve admitted the bail,” Mr Williams announced, with an air of +self-surveillance. Rawlins had brought the intelligence in too late for +the current issue, and Mr Williams was divided between his human desire +to communicate and his journalistic sense that the item would be the +main feature of the next afternoon’s Express. + +“I’m glad of that. I’m glad of that,” repeated Dr Drummond. “Thank you, +Mrs Murchison, I’ll send my cup. And did you learn, Williams, for what +amount?” + +Mr Williams ran his hand through his hair in the effort to remember, and +decided that he might as well let it all go. The Mercury couldn’t fail +to get it by tomorrow anyhow. + +“Three thousand,” he said. “Milburn and Dr Henry Johnson.” + +“I thought Father was bound to be in it,” remarked Dr Harry. + +“Half and half?” asked John Murchison. + +“No,” contributed Mrs Williams. “Mr Milburn two and Dr Henry one. Mr +Milburn is Walter’s uncle, you know.” + +Mr Williams fastened an outraged glance on his wife, who looked another +way. Whatever he thought proper to do, it was absolutely understood that +she was to reveal nothing of what “came in,” and was even carefully to +conserve anything she heard outside with a view to bringing it in. Mrs +Williams was too prone to indiscretion in the matter of letting news +slip prematurely; and as to its capture, her husband would often +confess, with private humour, that Minnie wasn’t much of a mouser. + +“Well, that’s something to be thankful for,” said Mrs Murchison. “I lay +awake for two hours last night thinking of that boy in jail, and his +poor old father, seventy-nine years of age, and such a fine old man, so +thoroughly respected.” + +“I don’t know the young fellow,” said Dr Drummond, “but they say he’s +of good character, not over-solid, but bears a clean reputation. They’re +all Tories together, of course, the Ormistons.” + +“It’s an old U. E. Loyalist family,” remarked Advena. “Mr Ormiston has +one or two rather interesting Revolutionary trophies at his house out +there.” + +“None the worse for that. None the worse for that,” said Dr Drummond. + +“Old Ormiston’s father,” contributed the editor of the Express, “had a +Crown grant of the whole of Moneida Reservation at one time. Government +actually bought it back from him to settle the Indians there. He was a +well-known Family Compact man, and fought tooth and nail for the Clergy +Reserves in ‘fifty.” + +“Well, well,” said Dr Drummond, with a twinkle. “We’ll hope young +Ormiston is innocent, nevertheless.” + +“Nasty business for the Federal Bank if he is,” Mr Williams went on. +“They’re a pretty unpopular bunch as it is.” + +“Of course he’s innocent,” contributed Stella, with indignant eyes; “and +when they prove it, what can he do to the bank for taking him up? That’s +what I want to know.” + +Her elders smiled indulgently. “A lot you know about it, kiddie,” said +Oliver. It was the only remark he made during the meal. Alec passed +the butter assiduously, but said nothing at all. Adolescence was +inarticulate in Elgin on occasions of ceremony. + +“I hear they’ve piled up some big evidence,” said Mr Williams. “Young +Ormiston’s been fool enough to do some race-betting lately. Minnie, +I wish you’d get Mrs Murchison to show you how to pickle pears. Of +course,” he added, “they’re keeping it up their sleeve.” + +“It’s a hard place to keep evidence,” said Lorne Murchison at last with +a smile which seemed to throw light on the matter. They had all been +waiting, more or less consciously, for what Lorne would have to say. + +“Lorne, you’ve got it!” divined his mother instantly. + +“Got what, Mother?” + +“The case! I’ve suspected it from the minute the subject was mentioned! +That case came in today!” + +“And you sitting there like a bump on a log, and never telling us!” + exclaimed Stella, with reproach. + +“Stella, you have a great deal too much to say,” replied her brother. +“Suppose you try sitting like a bump on a log. We won’t complain. Yes, +the Squire seems to have made up his mind about the defence, and my +seniors haven’t done much else today.” + +“Rawlins saw him hitched up in front of your place for about two hours +this morning,” said Mr Williams. “I told him I thought that was good +enough, but we didn’t say anything, Rawlins having heard it was to be +Flynn from Toronto. And I hadn’t forgotten the Grand Trunk case we put +down to you last week without exactly askin’. Your old man was as mad as +a hornet--wanted to stop his subscription; Rawlins had no end of a time +to get round him. Little things like that will creep in when you’ve got +to trust to one man to run the whole local show. But I didn’t want the +Mercury to have another horse on us.” + +“Do you think you’ll get a look in, Lorne?” asked Dr Harry. + +“Oh, not a chance of it. The old man’s as keen as a razor on the case, +and you’d think Warner never had one before! If I get a bit of grubbing +to do, under supervision, they’ll consider I ought to be pleased.” It +was the sunniest possible tone of grumbling; it enlisted your sympathy +by its very acknowledgement that it had not a leg to stand on. + +“They’re pretty wild about it out Moneida way,” said Dr Harry. “My +father says the township would put down the bail three times over.” + +“They swear by the Squire out there,” said Mr Horace Williams, liberally +applying his napkin to his moustache. “He treated some of them more than +square when the fall wheat failed three years running, about ten years +back; do you remember, Mr Murchison? Lent them money at about half the +bank rate, and wasn’t in an awful sweat about getting it in at that +either.” + +“And wasn’t there something about his rebuilding the school-house at his +own expense not so long ago?” asked Dr Drummond. + +“Just what he did. I wanted to send Rawlins out and make a story of +it--we’d have given it a column, with full heads; but the old man didn’t +like it. It’s hard to know what some people will like. But it was my own +foolishness for asking. A thing like that is public property.” + +“There’s a good deal of feeling,” said Lorne. “So much that I understand +the bank is moving for change of venue.” + +“I hope they won’t get it,” said Dr Drummond sharply. “A strong local +feeling is valuable evidence in a case like this. I don’t half approve +this notion that a community can’t manage its own justice when it +happens to take an interest in the case. I’ve no more acquaintance with +the Squire than ‘How d’ye do?’ and I don’t know his son from Adam; but +I’d serve on the jury tomorrow if the Crown asked it, and there’s many +more like me.” + +Mr Williams, who had made a brief note on his shirt cuff, restored his +pencil to his waistcoat pocket. “I shall oppose a change of venue,” said +he. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +It was confidently expected by the Murchison family that when Stella was +old enough she would be a good deal in society. Stella, without doubt, +was well equipped for society; she had exactly those qualities which +appealed to it in Elgin, among which I will mention two--the quality +of being able to suggest that she was quite as good as anybody without +saying so, and the even more important quality of not being any better. +Other things being equal--those common worldly standards that prevailed +in Elgin as well as anywhere else in their degree--other things being +equal, this second simple quality was perhaps the most important of all. +Mr and Mrs Murchison made no claim and small attempt upon society. One +doubts whether, with children coming fast and hard times long at the +door, they gave the subject much consideration; but if they did, it is +highly unlikely to have occurred to them that they were too good +for their environment. Yet in a manner they were. It was a matter of +quality, of spiritual and mental fabric; they were hardly aware that +they had it, but it marked them with a difference, and a difference is +the one thing a small community, accustomed comfortably to scan its own +intelligible averages, will not tolerate. The unusual may take on +an exaggeration of these; an excess of money, an excess of piety, is +understood; but idiosyncrasy susceptible to no common translation is +regarded with the hostility earned by the white crow, modified among +law-abiding humans into tacit repudiation. It is a sound enough social +principle to distrust that which is not understood, like the strain of +temperament inarticulate but vaguely manifest in the Murchisons. Such +a strain may any day produce an eccentric or a genius, emancipated from +the common interests, possibly inimical to the general good; and when, +later on, your genius takes flight or your eccentric sells all that he +has and gives it to the poor, his fellow townsmen exchange shrewd nods +before the vindicating fact. + +Nobody knew it at all in Elgin, but this was the Murchisons’ case. They +had produced nothing abnormal, but they had to prove that they weren’t +going to, and Stella was the last and most convincing demonstration. +Advena, bookish and unconventional, was regarded with dubiety. She was +out of the type; she had queer satisfactions and enthusiasms. Once as a +little girl she had taken a papoose from a drunken squaw and brought it +home for her mother to adopt. Mrs Murchison’s reception of the suggested +duty may be imagined, also the comments of acquaintances--a trick like +that! The inevitable hour arrived when she should be instructed on +the piano, and the second time the music teacher came her pupil was +discovered on the roof of the house, with the ladder drawn up after +her. She did not wish to learn the piano, and from that point of vantage +informed her family that it was a waste of money. She would hide in +the hayloft with a novel; she would be off by herself in a canoe at +six o’clock in the morning; she would go for walks in the rain of windy +October twilights and be met kicking the wet leaves along in front of +her “in a dream.” No one could dream with impunity in Elgin, except +in bed. Mothers of daughters sympathized in good set terms with Mrs +Murchison. “If that girl were mine--” they would say, and leave you with +a stimulated notion of the value of corporal punishment. When she took +to passing examinations and teaching, Elgin considered that her parents +ought to be thankful in the probability that she had escaped some +dramatic end. But her occupation further removed her from intercourse +with the town’s more exclusive circles: she had taken a definite line, +and she pursued it, preoccupied. If she was a brand snatched from the +burning, she sent up a little curl of reflection in a safe place, where +she was not further interrupted. + +Abby, inheriting all these prejudices, had nevertheless not done so +badly; she had taken no time at all to establish herself; she had almost +immediately married. In the social estimates of Elgin the Johnsons were +“nice people,” Dr Henry was a fine old figure in the town, and Abby’s +chances were good enough. At all events, when she opened her doors as +a bride, receiving for three afternoons in her wedding dress, everybody +had “called.” It was very distinctly understood, of course, that this +was a civility that need not lead to anything whatever, a kind of bowing +recognition, to be formally returned and quite possibly to end there. +With Abby, in a good many cases, it hadn’t ended there; she was doing +very well, and as she often said with private satisfaction, if she went +out anywhere she was just as likely as not to meet her brothers. Elgin +society, shaping itself, I suppose, to ultimate increase and prosperity, +had this peculiarity, that the females of a family, in general +acceptance, were apt to lag far behind the males. Alec and Oliver +enjoyed a good deal of popularity, and it was Stella’s boast that if +Lorne didn’t go out much it needn’t be supposed he wasn’t asked. It was +an accepted state of things in Elgin that young men might be invited +without their sisters, implying an imperturbability greater than +London’s, since London may not be aware of the existence of sisters, +while Elgin knew all sorts of more interesting things about them. The +young men were more desirable than the young women; they forged ahead, +carrying the family fortunes, and the “nicest” of them were the young +men in the banks. Others might be more substantial, but there was an +allure about a young man in a bank as difficult to define as to resist. +To say of a certain party-giver that she had “about every bank clerk +in town” was to announce the success of her entertainment in ultimate +terms. These things are not always penetrable, but no doubt his +gentlemanly form of labour and its abridgement in the afternoons, when +other young men toiled on till the stroke of six, had something to do +with this apotheosis of the bank clerk, as well as his invariable taste +in tailoring, and the fact that some local family influence was probably +represented in his appointment. Privilege has always its last little +stronghold, and it still operates to admiration on the office stools of +minor finance in towns like Elgin. At all events, the sprouting tellers +and cashiers held unquestioned sway--young doctors and lawyers simply +didn’t think of competing; and since this sort of thing carries its own +penalty, the designation which they shared with so many distinguished +persons in history became a byword on the lips of envious persons +and small boys, by which they wished to express effeminacy and the +substantive of the “stuck-up.” “D’ye take me fur a bank clurk?” was +a form of repudiation among corner loafers as forcible as it was +unjustifiable. + +I seem to have embarked, by way of getting to the Milburns’ party--there +is a party at the Milburns’ and some of us are going--upon an analysis +of social principles in Elgin, an adventure of difficulty, as I have +once or twice hinted, but one from which I cannot well extricate myself +without at least leaving a clue or two more for the use of the curious. +No doubt these rules had their nucleus in the half-dozen families, among +whom we may count the shadowy Plummers, who took upon themselves for +Fox County, by the King’s pleasure, the administration of justice, the +practice of medicine and of the law, and the performance of the charges +of the Church of England a long time ago. Such persons would bring their +lines of demarcation with them, and in their new milieu of backwoods +settlers and small traders would find no difficulty in drawing them +again. But it was a very long time ago. The little knot of gentry-folk +soon found the limitations of their new conditions; years went by in +decades, aggrandizing none of them. They took, perforce, to the ways +of the country, and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody +dined late but the Judge. There came a time when the Sheriff’s whist +club and the Archdeacon’s port became a tradition to the oldest +inhabitant. Trade flourished, education improved, politics changed. Her +Majesty removed her troops--the Dominion wouldn’t pay, a poor-spirited +business--and a bulwark went with the regiment. The original dignified +group broke, dissolved, scattered. Prosperous traders foreclosed them, +the spirit of the times defeated them, young Liberals succeeded them in +office. Their grandsons married the daughters of well-to-do persons who +came from the north of Ireland, the east of Scotland, and the Lord knows +where. It was a sorry tale of disintegration with a cheerful sequel of +rebuilding, leading to a little unavoidable confusion as the edifice +went up. Any process of blending implies confusion to begin with; we are +here at the making of a nation. + +This large consideration must dispose of small anomalies, such as the +acceptance, without cant, of certain forms of the shop, euphemized as +the store, but containing the same old vertebral counter. Not all forms. +Dry-goods were held in respect and chemists in comparative esteem; house +furnishings and hardware made an appreciable claim, and quite a leading +family was occupied with seed grains. Groceries, on the other hand, were +harder to swallow, possibly on account of the apron, though the grocer’s +apron, being of linen, had several degrees more consideration than +the shoemaker’s, which was of leather; smaller trades made smaller +pretensions; Mrs Milburn could tell you where to draw the line. +They were all hard-working folk together, but they had their little +prejudices: the dentist was known as “Doc,” but he was not considered +quite on a medical level; it was doubtful whether you bowed to the +piano-tuner, and quite a curious and unreasonable contempt was bound up +in the word “veterinary.” Anything “wholesale” or manufacturing stood, +of course, on its own feet; there was nothing ridiculous in molasses, +nothing objectionable in a tannery, nothing amusing in soap. Such airs +and graces were far from Elgin, too fundamentally occupied with the +amount of capital invested, and too profoundly aware how hard it was to +come by. The valuable part of it all was a certain bright freedom, and +this was of the essence. Trade was a decent communal way of making a +living, rooted in independence and the general need; it had none of +the meaner aspects. Your bow was negligible to the piano-tuner, and +everything veterinary held up its head. And all this again qualified, +as everywhere, by the presence or absence of the social faculty, that +magnetic capacity for coming, as Mrs Murchison would say, “to the fore,” + which makes little of disadvantages that might seem insuperable and, in +default, renders null and void the most unquestionable claims. Anyone +would think of the Delarues. Mr Delarue had in the dim past married his +milliner, yet the Delarues were now very much indeed to the fore. And, +on the other hand, the Leverets of the saw mills, rich and benevolent; +the Leverets were not in society simply, if you analysed it, because +they did not appear to expect to be in it. Certainly it was well not to +be too modest; assuredly, as Mrs Murchison said, you put your own ticket +on, though that dear soul never marked herself in very plain figures, +not knowing, perhaps for one thing, quite how much she was worth. On the +other hand, “Scarce of company, welcome trumpery,” Mrs Murchison always +emphatically declared to be no part of her social philosophy. The upshot +was that the Murchisons were confined to a few old friends and looked, +as we know, half-humorously, half-ironically, for more brilliant +excursions, to Stella and “the boys.” + +It was only, however, the pleasure of Mr Lorne Murchison’s company that +was requested at the Milburns’ dance. Almost alone among those who had +slipped into wider and more promiscuous circles with the widening of the +stream, the Milburns had made something like an effort to hold out. +The resisting power was not thought to reside in Mr Milburn, who was +personally aware of no special ground for it, but in Mrs Milburn and her +sister, Miss Filkin, who seemed to have inherited the strongest ideas. +in the phrase of the place, about keeping themselves to themselves. +A strain of this kind is sometimes constant, even so far from the +fountainhead, with its pleasing proof that such views were once the most +general and the most sacred defence of middle-class firesides, and +that Thackeray had, after all, a good deal to excuse him. Crossing +the Atlantic they doubtless suffered some dilution; but all that was +possible to conserve them under very adverse conditions Mrs Milburn +and Miss Filkin made it their duty to do. Nor were these ideas opposed, +contested, or much traversed in Elgin. It was recognized that there was +“something about” Mrs Milburn and her sister--vaguely felt--that you did +not come upon that thinness of nostril, and slope of shoulder, and set +of elbow at every corner. They must have got it somewhere. A Filkin +tradition prevailed, said to have originated in Nova Scotia: the Filkins +never had been accessible, but if they wanted to keep to themselves, let +them. In this respect Dora Milburn, the only child, was said to be her +mother’s own daughter. The shoulders, at all events, testified to it; +and the young lady had been taught to speak, like Mrs Milburn, with what +was known as an “English accent.” The accent in general use in Elgin was +borrowed--let us hope temporarily--from the other side of the line. It +suffered local modifications and exaggerations, but it was clearly an +American product. The English accent was thoroughly affected, especially +the broad “a.” The time may come when Elgin will be at considerable +pains to teach itself the broad “a,” but that is in the embroidery of +the future, and in no way modifies the criticism of Dora Milburn. + +Lorne Murchison, however, was invited to the dance. The invitation +reached him through the post: coming home from office early on Saturday +he produced it from his pocket. Mrs Murchison and Abby sat on the +verandah enjoying the Indian summer afternoon; the horse chestnuts +dropped crashing among the fallen leaves, the roadside maples blazed, +the quiet streets ran into smoky purple, and one belated robin hopped +about the lawn. Mrs Murchison had just remarked that she didn’t know +why, at this time of year, you always felt as if you were waiting for +something. + +“Well, I hope you feel honoured,” remarked Abby. Not one of them +would have thought that Lorne should feel especially honoured; but the +insincerity was so obvious that it didn’t matter. Mrs Murchison, cocking +her head to read the card, tried hard not to look pleased. + +“Mrs Milburn. At Home,” she read. “Dancing. Well she might be at home +dancing, for all me! Why couldn’t she just write you a little friendly +note, or let Dora do it? It’s that Ormiston case,” she went on shrewdly. +“They know you’re taking a lot of trouble about it. And the least they +could do, too.” + +Lorne sat down on the edge of the verandah with his hands in his +trousers pockets, and stuck his long legs out in front of him. “Oh, I +don’t know,” he said. “They have the name of being nifty, but I haven’t +got anything against the Milburns.” + +“Name!” ejaculated Mrs Murchison. “Now long ago was it the Episcopalians +began that sewing-circle business for the destitute clergy of +Saskatchewan?” + +“Mother!” put in Abby, with deprecation. + +“Well, I won’t be certain about the clergy, but I tell you it had to do +with Saskatchewan, for that I remember! And anyhow, the first meeting +was held at the Milburns’--members lent their drawing-rooms. Well, Mrs +Leveret and Mrs Delarue went to the meeting--they were very thick just +then, the Leverets and the Delarues. They were so pleased to be going +that they got there about five minutes too soon, and they were the first +to come. Well, they rang the bell and in they went. The girl showed them +into the front drawing-room and asked them to sit down. And there in the +back drawing-room sat Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin, AND NEVER SPOKE TO +THEM! Took not the smallest notice, any more than if they had been stray +cats--not so much! Their own denomination, mind you, too! And there they +might have been sitting still if Mrs Leveret hadn’t had the spirit to +get up and march out. No thank you. No Milburns for me.” + +Lorne watched his mother with twinkling eyes till she finished. + +“Well, Mother, after that, if it was going to be a sewing circle I think +I’d send an excuse,” he said, “but maybe they won’t be so mean at a +dance.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Octavius Milburn would not, I think, have objected to being considered, +with relation to his own line in life, a representative man. He would +have been wary to claim it, but if the stranger had arrived unaided +at this view of him, he would have been inclined to think well of the +stranger’s power of induction. That is what he was--a man of averages, +balances, the safe level, no more disposed to an extravagant opinion +than to wear one side whisker longer than the other. You would take him +any day, especially on Sunday in a silk hat, for the correct medium: +by his careful walk with the spring in it, his shrewd glance with +the caution in it, his look of being prepared to account for himself, +categorically, from head to foot. He was fond of explaining, in +connection with an offer once made him to embark his capital in Chicago, +that he preferred a fair living under his own flag to a fortune under +the Stars and Stripes. There we have the turn of his mind, convertible +into the language of bookkeeping, a balance struck, with the profit on +the side of the flag, the patriotic equivalent in good sound terms of +dollars and cents. With this position understood, he was prepared to +take you up on any point of comparison between the status and privileges +of a subject and a citizen--the political MORALE of a monarchy and a +republic--the advantage of life on this and the other side of the line. +There was nothing he liked better to expatiate upon, with that +valuable proof of his own sincerity always at hand for reference +and illustration. His ideal was life in a practical, go-ahead, +self-governing colony, far enough from England actually to be disabused +of her inherited anachronisms and make your own tariff, near enough +politically to keep your securities up by virtue of her protection. He +was extremely satisfied with his own country; one saw in his talk the +phenomenon of patriotism in double bloom, flower within flower. I have +mentioned his side whiskers: he preserved that facial decoration of +the Prince Consort; and the large steel engraving that represents Queen +Victoria in a flowing habit and the Prince in a double-breasted frock +coat and a stock, on horseback, hung over the mantelpiece in his +drawing-room. If the outer patriotism was a little vague, the inner had +vigour enough. Canada was a great place. Mr Milburn had been born in the +country, and had never “gone over” to England; Canada was good enough +for him. He was born, one might say, in the manufacturing interest, and +inherited the complacent and Conservative political views of a tenderly +nourished industry. Mr Milburn was of those who were building up the +country; with sufficient protection he was prepared to go on doing it +long and loyally; meanwhile he admired the structure from all points of +view. As President of the Elgin Chamber of Commerce, he was enabled once +a year to produce no end of gratifying figures; he was fond of wearing +on such occasions the national emblem in a little enamelled maple leaf; +and his portrait and biography occupied a full page in a sumptuous +work entitled Canadians of Today, sold by subscription, where he was +described as the “Father of the Elgin Boiler.” + +Mr and Mrs Milburn were in the drawing-room to receive their young +guests, a circumstance which alone imparted a distinction to the +entertainment. At such parties the appearance of the heads of the house +was by no means invariable; frequently they went to bed. The simple +explanation was that the young people could stand late hours and be none +the worse next day; their elders had to be more careful if they wanted +to get down to business. Moreover, as in all new societies, between the +older and the younger generation there was a great gulf fixed, across +which intercourse was difficult. The sons and daughters, born to +different circumstances, evolved their own conventions, the old people +used the ways and manners of narrower days; one paralysed the other. It +might be gathered from the slight tone of patronage in the address +of youth to age that the advantage lay with the former; but +polite conversation, at best, was sustained with discomfort. Such +considerations, however, were far from operating with the Milburns. +Mrs Milburn would have said that they were characteristic of quite a +different class of people; and so they were. + +No one would have supposed, from the way in which the family disposed +itself in the drawing-room, that Miss Filkin had only just finished +making the claret cup, or that Dora had been cutting sandwiches till +the last minute, or that Mrs Milburn had been obliged to have a distinct +understanding with the maid--Mrs Milburn’s servants were all “maids,” + even the charwoman, who had buried three husbands--on the subject of +wearing a cap when she answered the door. Mrs Milburn sat on a chair +she had worked herself, occupied with something in the new stitch; Dora +performed lightly at the piano; Miss Filkin dipped into Selections +from the Poets of the Century, placed as remotely as possible from the +others; Mr Milburn, with his legs crossed, turned and folded a Toronto +evening paper. Mrs Milburn had somewhat objected to the evening paper +in the drawing-room. “Won’t you look at a magazine, Octavius?” she said; +but Mr Milburn advanced the argument that it removed “any appearance +of stiffness,” and prevailed. It was impossible to imagine a group more +disengaged from the absurd fuss that precedes a party among some classes +of people; indeed, when Mr Lorne Murchison arrived--like the unfortunate +Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, he was the first--they looked almost +surprised to see him. + +Lorne told his mother afterward that he thought, in that embarrassing +circumstance, of Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, and they laughed +consumedly together over his discomforture; but what he felt at the +moment was not the humour of the situation. To be the very first and +solitary arrival is nowhere esteemed the happiest fortune, but in +Elgin a kind of ridiculous humiliation attached to it, a greed for the +entertainment, a painful unsophistication. A young man of Elgin +would walk up and down in the snow for a quarter of an hour with the +thermometer at zero to escape the ignominy of it; Lorne Murchison would +have so walked. Our young man was potentially capable of not minding, +by next morning he didn’t mind; but immediately he was fast tied in the +cobwebs of the common prescription, and he made his way to each of the +points of the compass of the Milburns’ drawing-room to shake hands, +burning to the ears. Before he subsided into a chair near Mr Milburn he +grasped the collar of his dress coat on each side and drew it forward, +a trick he had with his gown in court, a nervous and mechanical +action. Dora, who continued to play, watched him over the piano with +an amusement not untinged with malice. She was a tall fair girl, with +several kinds of cleverness. She did her hair quite beautifully, and she +had a remarkable, effective, useful reticence. Her father declared +that Dora took in a great deal more than she ever gave out--an +accomplishment, in Mr Milburn’s eyes, on the soundest basis. She looked +remarkably pretty and had remarkably good style, and as she proceeded +with her mazurka she was thinking, “He has never been asked here before: +how perfectly silly he must feel coming so early!” Presently as Lorne +grew absorbed in talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further +reflected, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him till now in evening +dress; it does make him a good figure.” This went on behind a faultless +coiffure and an expression almost classical in its detachment; but if +Miss Milburn could have thought on a level with her looks I, for one, +would hesitate to take any liberty with her meditations. + +However, the bell began to ring with the briefest intermissions, the +maid in the cap to make constant journeys. She opened the door with a +welcoming smile, having practically no deportment to go with the cap: +human nature does not freeze readily anywhere. Dora had to leave the +piano: Miss Filkin decided that when fifteen had come she would change +her chair. Fifteen soon came, the young ladies mostly in light silks +or muslins cut square, not low, in the neck, with half-sleeves. This +moderation was prescribed in Elgin, where evening dress was more a +matter of material than of cut, a thing in itself symbolical if it were +desirable to consider social evolution here. For middle-aged ladies high +necks and long sleeves were usual; and Mrs Milburn might almost have +been expected to appear thus, in a nicely made black broche, perhaps. It +was recognized as like Mrs Milburn, in keeping with her unbending ideas, +to wear a dress cut as square as any young lady’s, with just a little +lace let in, of a lavender stripe. The young men were nearly all in the +tailor’s convention for their sex the world over, with here and there +a short coat that also went to church; but there some departures from +orthodoxy in the matter of collars and ties, and where white bows were +achieved, I fear none of the wearers would have dreamed of defending +them from the charge of being ready-made. + +It was a clear, cold January night and everybody, as usual, walked to +the party; the snow creaked and ground underfoot, one could hear the +arriving steps in the drawing-room. They stamped and scraped to get rid +of it in the porch, and hurried through the hall, muffled figures in +overshoes, to emerge from an upstairs bedroom radiant, putting a last +touch to hair and button hole, smelling of the fresh winter air. Such +gatherings usually consisted entirely of bachelors and maidens, with +one or two exceptions so recently yoked together that they had not yet +changed the plane of existence; married people, by general consent, +left these amusements to the unculled. They had, as I have hinted, +more serious preoccupations, “something else to do”; nobody thought of +inviting them. Nobody, that is, but Mrs Milburn and a few others of her +way of thinking, who saw more elegance and more propriety in a mixture. +On this occasion she had asked her own clergyman, the pleasant-faced +rector of St Stephen’s, and Mrs Emmett, who wore that pathetic +expression of fragile wives and mothers who have also a congregation +at their skirts. Walter Winter was there, too. Mr Winter had the +distinction of having contested South Fox in the Conservative interest +three time unsuccessfully. Undeterred, he went on contesting things: +invariably beaten, he invariably came up smiling and ready to try +again. His imperturbability was a valuable asset; he never lost heart or +dreamed of retiring from the arena, nor did he ever cease to impress +his party as being their most useful and acceptable representative. +His business history was chequered and his exact financial equivalent +uncertain, but he had tremendously the air of a man of affairs; as +the phrase went, he was full of politics, the plain repository of deep +things. He had a shrewd eye, a double chin, and a bluff, crisp, jovial +manner of talking as he lay back in an armchair with his legs crossed +and played with his watch chain, an important way of nodding assent, +a weighty shake of denial. Voting on purely party lines, the town had +later rewarded his invincible expectation by electing him Mayor, and +then provided itself with unlimited entertainment by putting in a +Liberal majority on his council, the reports of the weekly sittings +being constantly considered as good as a cake walk. South Fox, as people +said, was not a healthy locality for Conservatives. Yet Walter Winter +wore a look of remarkable hardiness. He had also tremendously the air +of a dark horse, the result both of natural selection and careful +cultivation. Even his political enemies took it kindly when he “got in” + for Mayor, and offered him amused congratulations. He made a personal +claim on their cordiality, which was not the least of his political +resources. Nature had fitted him to public uses; the impression +overflowed the ranks of his own supporters and softened asperity among +his opponents. Illustration lies, at this moment close to us. They had +not been in the same room a quarter of an hour before he was in deep +and affectionate converse with Lorne Murchison, whose party we know, +and whose political weight was increasing, as this influence often does, +with a rapidity out of proportion with his professional and general +significance. + +“It’s a pity now,” said Mr Winter, with genial interest, “you can’t get +that Ormiston defence into your own hands. Very useful thing for you.” + +The younger man shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. It is one +thing to entertain a private vision and another to see it materialized +on other lips. + +“Oh I’d like it well enough,” he said, “but it’s out of the question, of +course. I’m too small potatoes.” + +“There’s a lot of feeling for old Ormiston. Folks out there on the +Reserve don’t know how to show it enough.” + +“They’ve shown it a great deal too much. We don’t want to win on +‘feeling,’ or have it said either. And we were as near as possible +having to take the case to the Hamilton Assizes.” + +“I guess you were--I guess you were.” Mr Winter’s suddenly increased +gravity expressed his appreciation of the danger. “I saw Lister of the +Bank the day they heard from Toronto--rule refused. Never saw a man more +put out. Seems they considered the thing as good as settled. General +opinion was it would go to Hamilton, sure. Well I don’t know how you +pulled it off, but it was a smart piece of work, sir.” + +Lorne encountered Mr Winter’s frank smile with an expression of crude +and rather stolid discomfort. It had a base of indignation, corrected by +a concession to the common idea that most events, with an issue pendent, +were the result of a smart piece of work: a kind of awkward shrug was in +it. He had no desire to be unpleasant to Walter Winter--on the contrary. +Nevertheless, an uncompromising line came on each side of his mouth with +his reply. + +“As far as I know,” he said, “the application was dismissed on its +demerits.” + +“Of course it was,” said Mr Winter good-humouredly. “You don’t need to +tell me that. Well, now, this looks like dancing. Miss Filkin, I see, is +going to oblige on the piano. Now I wonder whether I’m going to get Miss +Dora to give me a waltz or not.” + +Chairs and table were in effect being pushed back, and folding doors +opened which disclosed another room prepared for this relaxation. Miss +Filkin began to oblige vigorously on the piano, Miss Dora granted Mr +Winter’s request, which he made with elaborate humour as an impudent old +bachelor whom “the boys” would presently take outside and kill. Lorne +watched him make it, envying him his assurance; and Miss Milburn was +aware that he watched and aware that he envied. The room filled with +gaiety and movement: Mr Milburn, sidling dramatically along the wall to +escape the rotatory couples, admonished Mr Murchison to get a partner. +He withdrew himself from the observation of Miss Dora and Mr Winter, and +approached a young lady on a sofa, who said “With very great pleasure.” + When the dance was over he re-established the young lady on the sofa +and fanned her with energy. Looking across the room, he saw that +Walter Winter, seated beside Dora, was fanning himself. He thought +it disgusting and, for some reason which he did not pause to explore, +exactly like Winter. He had met Miss Milburn once or twice before +without seeing her in any special way: here, at home, the centre of the +little conventions that at once protected and revealed her, conventions +bound up in the impressive figures of her mother and her aunt, she had +a new interest, and all the attraction of that which is not easily come +by. It is also possible that although Lorne had met her before, she +had not met him; she was meeting him now for the first time, as she +sat directly opposite and talked very gracefully to Walter Winter. +Addressing Walter Winter, Lorne was the object of her pretty remarks. +While Mr Winter had her superficial attention, he was the bland medium +which handed her on. Her consciousness was fixed on young Mr Murchison, +quite occupied with him: she could not imagine why they had not asked +him long ago; he wasn’t exactly “swell,” but you could see he was +somebody. So already she figured the potential distinction in the set +of his shoulders and the carriage of his head. It might have been +translated in simple terms of integrity and force by anyone who looked +for those things. Miss Milburn was incapable of such detail, but she saw +truly enough in the mass. + +Lorne, on the opposite sofa, looked at her across the town’s traditions +of Milburn exclusiveness. Oddly enough, at this moment when he might +have considered that he had overcome them, they seemed to gather force, +exactly in his line of vision. He had never before been so near Dora +Milburn, and he had never before perceived her so remote. He had a sense +of her distance beyond those few yards of carpet quite incompatible +with the fact. It weighed upon him, but until she sent him a sudden +unexpected smile he did not know how heavily. It was a dissipating +smile; nothing remained before it. Lorne carefully restored his +partner’s fan, bowed before her, and went straight across the room. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +It is determined with something like humour that communities very young +should occupy themselves almost altogether with matters of grave and +serious import. The vision of life at that period is no doubt unimpeded +and clear; its conditions offer themselves with a certain nakedness and +force, both as to this world and to that which is to come. The town of +Elgin thus knew two controlling interests--the interest of politics +and the interest of religion. Both are terms we must nevertheless +circumscribe. Politics wore a complexion strictly local, provincial, +or Dominion. The last step of France in Siam, the disputed influence of +Germany in the Persian Gulf, the struggle of the Powers in China were +not matters greatly talked over in Elgin; the theatre of European +diplomacy had no absorbed spectators here. Nor can I claim that interest +in the affairs of Great Britain was in any way extravagant. + +A sentiment of affection for the reigning house certainly prevailed. It +was arbitrary, rococo, unrelated to current conditions as a tradition +sung down in a ballad, an anachronism of the heart, cherished through +long rude lifetimes for the beauty and poetry of it--when you consider, +beauty and poetry can be thought of in this. Here was no Court aiding +the transmutation of the middle class, no King spending money; here +were no picturesque contacts of Royalty and the people, no pageantry, +no blazonry of the past, nothing to lift the heart but an occasional +telegram from the monarch expressing, upon an event of public +importance, a suitable emotion. Yet the common love for the throne +amounted to a half-ashamed enthusiasm that burned with something like +a sacred flame, and was among the things not ordinarily alluded to, +because of the shyness that attaches to all feeling that cannot be +justified in plain terms. A sentiment of affection for the reigning +house certainly prevailed; but it was a thing by itself. The fall of +a British Government would hardly fail to excite comment, and the +retirement of a Prime Minister would induce both the Mercury and the +Express to publish a biographical sketch of him, considerably shorter +than the leader embodying the editor’s views as to who should get +the electric light contract. But the Government might become the sole +employer of labour in those islands, Church and school might part +company for ever, landlords might be deprived of all but compassionate +allowances and, except for the degree of extravagance involved in these +propositions, they would hardly be current in Elgin. The complications +of England’s foreign policy were less significant still. It was +recognized dimly that England had a foreign policy, more or less had +to have it, as they would have said in Elgin; it was part of the huge +unnecessary scheme of things for which she was responsible--unnecessary +from Elgin’s point of view as a father’s financial obligations might be +to a child he had parted with at birth. It all lay outside the facts +of life, far beyond the actual horizon, like the affairs of a distant +relation from whom one has nothing to hope, not even personal contact, +and of whose wealth and greatness one does not boast much, because of +the irony involved. Information upon all these matters was duly put +before Elgin every morning in the telegrams of the Toronto papers; the +information came, until the other day, over cables to New York and was +disseminated by American news agencies. It was, therefore, not devoid of +bias; but if this was perceived it was by no means thought a matter +for protesting measures, especially as they would be bound to involve +expense. The injury was too vague, too remote, to be more than sturdily +discounted by a mental attitude. Belief in England was in the blood, +it would not yield to the temporary distortion of facts in the +newspapers--at all events, it would not yield with a rush. Whether there +was any chance of insidious sapping was precisely what the country was +too indifferent to discover. Indifferent, apathetic, self-centred--until +whenever, down the wind, across the Atlantic, came the faint far music +of the call to arms. Then the old dog of war that has his kennel in +every man rose and shook himself, and presently there would be a +baying! The sense of kinship, lying too deep for the touch of ordinary +circumstance, quickened to that; and in a moment “we” were fighting, +“we” had lost or won. + +Apart, however, from the extraordinary, the politics of Elgin’s daily +absorption were those of the town, the Province, the Dominion. Centres +of small circumference yield a quick swing; the concern of the average +intelligent Englishman as to the consolidation of his country’s +interests in the Yangtse Valley would be a languid manifestation beside +that of an Elgin elector in the chances of an appropriation for a +new court house. The single mind is the most fervid: Elgin had few +distractions from the question of the court house or the branch line +to Clayfield. The arts conspired to be absent; letters resided at the +nearest university city; science was imported as required, in practical +improvements. There was nothing, indeed, to interfere with Elgin’s +attention to the immediate, the vital, the municipal: one might almost +read this concentration of interest in the white dust of the rambling +streets, and the shutters closed against it. Like other movements of the +single mind, it had something of the ferocious, of the inflexible, of +the unintelligent; but it proudly wore the character of the go-ahead +and, as Walter Winter would have pointed out to you, it had granted +eleven bonuses to “capture” sound commercial concerns in six years. + +In wholesome fear of mistake, one would hesitate to put church matters +either before or after politics among the preoccupations of Elgin. It +would be safer and more indisputable to say that nothing compared with +religion but politics, and nothing compared with politics but religion. +In offering this proposition also we must think of our dimensions. There +is a religious fervour in Oxford, in Mecca, in Benares, and the sign +for these ideas is the same; we have to apply ourselves to the +interpretation. In Elgin religious fervour was not beautiful, or +dramatic, or self-immolating; it was reasonable. You were perhaps +your own first creditor; after that your debt was to your Maker. You +discharged this obligation in a spirit of sturdy equity: if the children +didn’t go to Sunday school you knew the reason why. The habit of church +attendance was not only a basis of respectability, but practically the +only one: a person who was “never known to put his head inside a church +door” could not be more severely reprobated, by Mrs Murchison at all +events. It was the normal thing, the thing which formed the backbone of +life, sustaining to the serious, impressive to the light, indispensable +to the rest, and the thing that was more than any of these, which you +can only know when you stand in the churches among the congregations. +Within its prescribed limitations it was for many the intellectual +exercise, for more the emotional lift, and for all the unfailing +distraction of the week. The repressed magnetic excitement in gatherings +of familiar faces, fellow-beings bound by the same convention to the +same kind of behaviour, is precious in communities where the human +interest is still thin and sparse. It is valuable in itself, and it +produces an occasional detached sensation. There was the case, in Dr +Drummond’s church, of placid-faced, saintly old Sandy MacQuhot, the +epileptic. It used to be a common regret with Lorne Murchison that as +sure as he was allowed to stay away from church Sandy would have a +fit. That was his little boy’s honesty; the elders enjoyed the fit and +deprecated the disturbance. + +There was a simple and definite family feeling within communions. “They +come to our church” was the argument of first force whether for calling +or for charity. It was impossible to feel toward a Congregationalist or +an Episcopalian as you felt toward one who sang the same hymns and +sat under the same admonition week by week, year in and year out, as +yourself. “Wesleyans, are they?” a lady of Knox Church would remark of +the newly arrived, in whom her interest was suggested. “Then let the +Wesleyans look after them.” A pew-holder had a distinct status; an +“adherent” enjoyed friendly consideration, especially if he adhered +faithfully; and stray attendants from other congregations were treated +with punctilious hospitality, places being found for them in the Old +Testament, as if they could hardly be expected to discover such things +for themselves. The religious interest had also the strongest domestic +character in quite another sense from that of the family prayers which +Dr Drummond was always enjoying. “Set your own house in order and then +your own church” was a wordless working precept in Elgin. Threadbare +carpet in the aisles was almost as personal a reproach as a hole +under the dining-room table; and self-respect was barely possible to a +congregation that sat in faded pews. The minister’s gown even was the +subject of scrutiny as the years went on. It was an expensive thing to +buy, but an oyster supper would do it and leave something over for the +organ. Which brings us to the very core and centre of these activities, +their pivot, their focus and, in a human sense, their inspiration--the +minister himself. + +The minister was curiously special among a people so general; he was in +a manner raised in life on weekdays as he was in the pulpit on Sundays. +He had what one might call prestige; some form of authority still +survived in his person, to which the spiritual democracy he presided +over gave a humorous, voluntary assent. He was supposed to be a person +of undetermined leisure--what was writing two sermons a week to earn +your living by?--and he was probably the more reverend, or the more +revered, from the fact that he was in the house all day. A particular +importance attached to everything he said and did; he was a person whose +life answered different springs, and was sustained on quite another +principle than that of supply and demand. The province of public +criticism was his; but his people made up for the meekness with which +they sat under it by a generous use of the corresponding privilege in +private. Comments upon the minister partook of hardiness; it was as +if the members were determined to live up to the fact that the +office-bearers could reduce his salary if they liked. Needless to say, +they never did like. Congregations stood loyally by their pastors, and +discussion was strictly intramural. If the Methodists handed theirs on +at the end of three years with a breath of relief, they exhaled it +among themselves; after all, for them it was a matter of luck. The +Presbyterians, as in the case of old Mr Jamesion of St Andrew’s, held +on till death, pulling a long upper lip: election was not a thing to be +trifled with in heaven or upon earth. + +It will be imagined whether Dr Drummond did not see in these conditions +his natural and wholesome element, whether he did not fit exactly in. +The God he loved to worship as Jehovah had made him a beneficent despot +and given him, as it were, a commission. If the temporal power had +charged him to rule an eastern province, he would have brought much the +same qualities to the task. Knox Church, Elgin, was his dominion, its +moral and material affairs his jealous interest, and its legitimate +expansion his chief pride. In “anniversary” sermons, which he always +announced the Sunday before, he seldom refrained from contrasting +the number on the roll of church membership, then and now, with the +particular increase in the year just closed. If the increase +was satisfactory, he made little comment beyond the duty of +thanksgiving--figures spoke for themselves. If it was otherwise Dr +Drummond’s displeasure was not a thing he would conceal. He would wing +it eloquently on the shaft of his grief that the harvest had been so +light; but he would more than hint the possibility that the labourers +had been few. Most important among his statistics was the number of +young communicants. Wanderers from other folds he admitted, with a +not wholly satisfied eye upon their early theological training, and to +persons duly accredited from Presbyterian churches elsewhere he gave the +right hand of fellowship; but the young people of his own congregation +were his chief concern always, and if a gratifying number of these had +failed to “come forward” during the year, the responsibility must +lie somewhere. Dr Drummond was willing to take his own share; “the +ministrations of this pulpit” would be more than suspected of having +come short, and the admission would enable him to tax the rest upon +parents and Bible-class teachers with searching effect. The congregation +would go gloomily home to dinner, and old Sandy MacQuhot would remark +to his wife, “It’s hard to say why will the Doctor get himself in sic +a state aboot mere numbers. We’re told ‘where two or three are gathered +together.’ But the Doctor’s all for a grand congregation.” + +Knox Church, under such auspices could hardly fail to enlarge her +borders; but Elgin enlarged hers faster. Almost before you knew where +you were there spread out the district of East Elgin, all stacks of tall +chimneys and rows of little houses. East Elgin was not an attractive +locality; it suffered from inundation sometimes, when the river was in +spring flood; it gave unresentful room to a tannery. It was the home of +dubious practices at the polls, and the invariable hunting-ground for +domestic servants. Nevertheless, in the view of Knox Church, it could +not bear a character wholly degraded; too many Presbyterians, Scotch +foremen, and others, had their respectable residence there. For these it +was a far cry to Dr Drummond in bad weather, and there began to be talk +of hiring the East Elgin schoolhouse for Sunday exercises if suitable +persons could be got to come over from Knox Church and lead them. I do +not know who was found to broach the matter to Dr Drummond; report says +his relative and housekeeper, Mrs Forsyth, who perhaps might do it under +circumstances of strategical advantage. Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, +had her reply in the hidden terms of an equation--was it any farther for +the people of East Elgin to walk to hear him preach than for him to walk +to minister to the people of East Elgin, which he did quite once a week, +and if so, how much? Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, might eliminate +the unknown quantity. It cannot be said that Dr Drummond discouraged the +project; he simply did not mention it and as it was known to have been +communicated to him this represented effectively the policy of the +closed door. He found himself even oftener in East Elgin, walking about +on his pastoral errands with a fierce briskness of aspect and a sharp +inquiring eye, before which one might say the proposition slunk +away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, it seemed, could tolerate +decentralization, or anything short of round dances, opened a chapel +with a cheerful sociable, and popularized the practice of backsliding +among those for whom the position was theologically impossible. Good +Presbyterians in East Elgin began to turn into makeshift Methodists. The +Doctor missed certain occupants of the gallery seats and felt the logic +of circumstances. Here we must all yield, and the minister concealed +his discomfiture in a masterly initiative. The matter came up again at +a meeting of the church managers, brought up by Dr Drummond, who had +the satisfaction of hearing that a thing put into the Doctor’s hands was +already half done. In a very few weeks it was entirely done. The use +of the schoolhouse was granted through Dr Drummond’s influence with the +Board free of charge; and to understand the triumph of this it should be +taken into account that three of the trustees were Wesleyans. Services +were held regularly, certain of Dr Drummond’s elders officiating; and +the conventicle in the schoolhouse speedily became known as Knox Church +Mission. It grew and prospered. The first night “I to the hills will +lift mine eyes” went up from East Elgin on the uplifting tune that +belongs to it, the strayed came flocking back. + +This kind never go forth again; once they refind the ark of the covenant +there they abide. In the course of time it became a question of a better +one, and money was raised locally to build it. Dr Drummond pronounced +the first benediction in Knox Mission Church, and waited, well knowing +human nature in its Presbyterian aspect, for the next development. It +came, and not later than he anticipated, in the form of a prayer to Knox +Church for help to obtain the services of a regularly ordained minister. +Dr Drummond had his guns ready: he opposed the application; where a +regularly ordained minister was already at the disposal of those who +chose to walk a mile and a half to hear him, the luxury of more locally +consecrated services should be at the charge of the locality. He himself +was willing to spend and be spent in the spiritual interests of East +Elgin; that was abundantly proven; what he could not comfortably +tolerate was the deviation of congregational funds, the very blood of +the body of belief, into other than legitimate channels. He fought +for his view with all his tactician’s resources, putting up one +office-bearer after another to endorse it but the matter was decided at +the general yearly meeting of the congregation; and the occasion showed +Knox Church in singular sympathy with its struggling offspring. Dr +Drummond for the first time in his ministry, was defeated by his people. +It was less a defeat than a defence, an unexpected rally round the +corporate right to direct corporate activities; and the congregation was +so anxious to wound the minister’s feelings as little as possible that +the grant in aid of the East Elgin Mission was embodied in a motion to +increase Dr Drummond’s salary by two hundred and fifty dollars a year. +The Doctor with a wry joke, swallowed his gilded pill, but no coating +could dissimulate its bitterness, and his chagrin was plain for long. +The issue with which we are immediately concerned is that three months +later Knox Church Mission called to minister to it the Reverend Hugh +Finlay, a young man from Dumfriesshire and not long out. Dr Drummond had +known beforehand what their choice would be. He had brought Mr Finlay to +occupy Knox Church pulpit during his last July and August vacation, +and Mrs Forsyth had reported that such midsummer congregations she +had simply never worshipped with. Mrs Forsyth was an excellent hand at +pressed tongue and a wonder at knitted counterpanes, but she had not +acquired tact and never would. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The suggestion that the Reverend Hugh Finlay preached from the pulpit +of Knox Church “better sermons” than its permanent occupant, would have +been justly considered absurd, and nobody pronounced it. The church was +full, as Mrs Forsyth observed, on these occasions; but there were many +other ways of accounting for that. The Murchisons, as a family, would +have been the last to make such an admission. The regular attendance +might have been, as much as anything, out of deference to the wishes +of the Doctor himself, who invariably and sternly hoped, in his last +sermon, that no stranger occupying his place would have to preach to +empty pews. He was thinking, of course, of old Mr Jamieson with whom he +occasionally exchanged and whose effect on the attendance had not failed +to reach him. With regard to Mr Jamieson he was compelled, in the end, +to resort to tactics: he omitted to announce the Sunday before that his +venerable neighbour would preach, and the congregation, outwitted, +had no resource but to sustain the beard-wagging old gentleman through +seventhly to the finish. There came a time when the dear human Doctor +also omitted to announce that Mr Finlay would preach, but for other +reasons, meanwhile, as Mrs Forsyth said, he had no difficulty in +conjuring a vacation congregation for his young substitute. They +came trooping, old and young. Mr and Mrs Murchison would survey their +creditable family rank with a secret compunction, remembering its +invariable gaps at other times, and then resolutely turn to the praise +of God with the reflection that one means to righteousness was as +blessed as another. They themselves never missed a Sunday, and as seldom +failed to remark on the way back that it was all very interesting, but +Mr Finlay couldn’t drive it home like the Doctor. There were times, +sparse and special occasions, when the Doctor himself made one of the +congregation. Then he would lean back luxuriously in the corner of +his own pew, his wiry little form half-lost in the upholstery his +arms folded, his knees crossed, his face all humorous indulgence; yes, +humorous. At the announcement of the text a twinkle would lodge in the +shrewd grey eyes and a smile but half-suppressed would settle about the +corners of the flexible mouth: he knew what the young fellow there would +be at. And as the young fellow proceeded, his points would be weighed to +the accompaniment of the Doctor’s pendent foot, which moved perpetually, +judiciously; while the smile sometimes deepened, sometimes lapsed, since +there were moments when any young fellow had to be taken seriously. +It was an attitude which only the Doctor was privileged to adopt thus +outwardly; but in private it was imitated all up and down the aisles, +where responsible heads of families sat considering the quality of the +manna that was offered them. When it fell from the lips of Mr Finlay the +verdict was, upon the whole, very favourable, as long as there was no +question of comparison with the Doctor. + +There could be, indeed, very little question of such comparison. There +was a generation between them and a school, and to that you had to add +every set and cast of mind and body that can make men different. Dr +Drummond, in faith and practice, moved with precision along formal and +implicit lines; his orbit was established, and his operation within +it as unquestionable as the simplest exhibit of nature. He took in a +wonderful degree the stamp of the teaching of his adolescent period; not +a line was missing nor a precept; nor was the mould defaced by a single +wavering tendency of later date. Religious doctrine was to him a thing +for ever accomplished, to be accepted or rejected as a whole. He taught +eternal punishment and retribution, reconciling both with Divine love +and mercy; he liked to defeat the infidel with the crashing question, +“Who then was the architect of the Universe?” The celebrated among such +persons he pursued to their deathbeds; Voltaire and Rousseau owed their +reputation, with many persons in Knox Church, to their last moments and +to Dr Drummond. He had a triumphant invective which drew the mind from +chasms in logic, and a tender sense of poetic beauty which drew it, when +he quoted great lines, from everything else. He loved the euphony of the +Old Testament; his sonorous delivery would lift a chapter from Isaiah to +the height of ritual, and every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether +he would or no. The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of +Issachar; and the parallels he would find for modern events in the +annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye +upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often +give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have +been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated. The survivors +of a convulsion of nature, for instance, might have learned from his +lips the cause and kind of their disaster traced back forcibly to +local acquiescence in iniquity, and drawn unflinchingly from the text, +“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” The militant history +of his Church was a passion with him; if ever he had to countenance +canonization he would have led off with Jenny Geddes. “A tremendous +Presbyterian” they called him in the town. To hear him give out a single +psalm, and sing it with his people, would convince anybody of that. +There was a choir, of course, but to the front pews, at all events, Dr +Drummond’s leading was more important than the choir’s. It was a note +of dauntless vigour, and it was plain by the regular forward jerk of his +surpliced shoulder that his foot was keeping time: + + Where the assemblies of the just + And congregations are. + +You could not help admiring, and you could not help respecting; you +were compelled by his natural force and his unqualified conviction, his +tireless energy and his sterling sort. + +It is possible to understand, however, that after sitting for +twenty-five years under direction so unfailing and so uncompromising, +the congregation of Knox Church might turn with a moderate curiosity +to the spiritual indications of the Reverend Hugh Finlay. He was a +passionate romantic, and his body had shot up into a fitting temple for +such an inhabitant as his soul. He was a great long fellow, with a shock +of black hair and deep dreams in his eyes; his head was what people +called a type, a type I suppose of the simple motive and the noble +intention, the detached point of view and the somewhat indifferent +attitude to material things, as it may be humanly featured anywhere. His +face bore a confusion of ideals; he had the brow of a Covenanter and +the mouth of Adonais, the flame of religious ardour in his eyes and the +composure of perceived philosophy on his lips. He was fettered by an +impenetrable shyness; it was in the pulpit alone that he could expand, +and then only upon written lines, with hardly a gesture, and the most +perfunctory glances, at conscientious intervals, toward his hearers. +A poor creature, indeed, in this respect, Dr Drummond thought him--Dr +Drummond, who wore an untrammelled surplice which filled like an +agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. “The man loses half +his points,” said Dr Drummond. I doubt whether he did, people followed +so closely, though Sandy MacQuhot was of the general opinion when he +said that it would do nobody any harm if Mr Finlay would lift his head +oftener from the book. + +Advena Murchison thought him the probable antitype of an Oxford don. She +had never seen an Oxford don, but Mr Finlay wore the characteristics +these schoolmen were dressed in by novelists; and Advena noted with +delight the ingenuity of fate in casting such a person into the pulpit +of the Presbyterian Church in a young country. She had her perception of +comedy in life; till Finlay came she had found nothing so interesting. +With his arrival, however, other preoccupations fell into their proper +places. + +Finlay, indeed, it may be confessed at once, he and not his message was +her engrossment from the beginning. The message she took with reverent +gentleness; but her passionate interest was for the nature upon which +it travelled, and never for the briefest instant did she confuse these +emotions. Those who write, we are told transcribe themselves in spite +of themselves; it is more true of those who preach, for they are also +candid by profession, and when they are not there is the eye and the +voice to help to betray them. Hugh Finlay, in the pulpit, made himself +manifest in all the things that matter to Advena Murchison in the pew; +and from the pew to the pulpit her love went back with certainty, clear +in its authority and worshipping the ground of its justification. When +she bowed her head it was he whom she heard in the language of his +invocations; his doctrine rode, for her, on a spirit of wide and sweet +philosophy; in his contemplation of the Deity she saw the man. He had +those lips at once mobile, governed and patient, upon which genius +chooses oftenest to rest. As to this, Advena’s convictions were so +private as to be hidden from herself; she never admitted that she +thought Finlay had it, and in the supreme difficulty of proving anything +else we may wisely accept her view. But he had something, the subtle +Celt; he had horizons, lifted lines beyond the common vision, and an eye +rapt and a heart intrepid; and though for a long time he was unconscious +of it, he must have adventured there with a happier confidence because +of her companionship. + +From the first Advena knew no faltering or fluttering, none of the baser +nervous betrayals. It was all one great delight to her, her discovery +and her knowledge and her love for him. It came to her almost in a +logical development; it found her grave, calm, and receptive. She had +even a private formula of gratitude that the thing which happened to +everybody, and happened to so many people irrelevantly, should arrive +with her in such a glorious defensible, demonstrable sequence. Toward +him it gave her a kind of glad secret advantage; he was loved and he was +unaware. She watched his academic awkwardness in church with the inward +tender smile of the eternal habile feminine, and when they met she could +have laughed and wept over his straightened sentences and his difficult +manner, knowing how little significant they were. With his eyes upon her +and his words offered to her intelligence, she found herself treating +his shy formality as the convention it was, a kind of make-believe which +she would politely and kindly play up to until he should happily forget +it and they could enter upon simpler relations. She had to play up to it +for a long time, but her love made her wonderfully clever and patient; +and of course the day came when she had her reward. Knowing him as she +did, she remembered the day and the difference it made. + +It was toward the end of an afternoon in early April; the discoloured +snow still lay huddled in the bleaker fence corners. Wide puddles stood +along the roadsides, reflecting the twigs and branches of the naked +maples; last year’s leaves were thick and wet underfoot, and a soft damp +wind was blowing. Advena was on her way home and Finlay overtook her. +He passed her at first, with a hurried silent lifting of his hat; then +perhaps the deserted street gave a suggestion of unfriendliness to his +act, or some freshness in her voice stayed him. At all events, he +waited and joined her, with a word or two about their going in the +same direction; and they walked along together. He offered her his +companionship, but he had nothing to say; the silence in which they +pursued their way was no doubt to him just the embarrassing condition he +usually had to contend with. To her it seemed pregnant, auspicious; it +drew something from the low grey lights of the wet spring afternoon and +the unbound heart-lifting wind; she had a passionate prevision that the +steps they took together would lead somehow to freedom. They went on in +that strange bound way, and the day drew away from them till they turned +a sudden corner, when it lay all along the yellow sky across the river, +behind a fringe of winter woods, stayed in the moment of its retreat on +the edge of unvexed landscape. They stopped involuntarily to look, and +she saw a smile come up from some depth in him. + +“Ah, well,” he said, as if to himself, “it’s something to be in a +country where the sun still goes down with a thought of the primaeval.” + +“I think I prefer the sophistication of chimney-pots,” she replied. +“I’ve always longed to see a sunset in London, with the fog breaking +over Westminster.” + +“Then you don’t care about them for themselves, sunsets?” he asked, with +the simplest absence of mind. + +“I never yet could see the sun go down, But I was angry in my heart,” + she said, and this time he looked at her. + +“How does it go on?” he said. + +“Oh, I don’t know. Only those two lines stay with me. I feel it that +way, too. It’s the seal upon an act of violence, isn’t it, a sunset? +Something taken from us against our will. It’s a hateful reminder, in +the midst of our delightful volitions, of how arbitrary every condition +of life is.” + +“The conditions of business are always arbitrary. Life is a business--we +have to work at ourselves till it is over. So much cut off and ended it +is,” he said, glancing at the sky again. “If space is the area of life +and time is its opportunity, there goes a measure of opportunity.” + +“I wonder,” said Advena, “where it goes?” + +“Into the void behind time?” he suggested, smiling straight at her. + +“Into the texture of the future,” she answered, smiling back. + +“We might bring it to bear very intelligently on the future, at any +rate,” he returned. “The world is wrapped in destiny, and but revolves +to roll it out.” + +“I don’t remember that,” she said curiously. + +“No you couldn’t,” he laughed outright. “I haven’t thought it good +enough to publish.” + +“And it isn’t the sort of thing,” she ventured gaily, “you could put in +a sermon.” + +“No, it isn’t.” They came to a corner of the street which led to Mr +Finlay’s boarding-house. It stretched narrowly to the north and there +was a good deal more snow on each side of it. They lingered together for +a moment talking, seizing the new joy in it which was simply the joy of +his sudden liberation with her consciously pushing away the moment of +parting; and Finlay’s eyes rested once again on the evening sky beyond +the river. + +“I believe you are right and I am a moralizer,” he said. “There IS +pain over there. One thinks a sunset beautiful and impressive, but one +doesn’t look at it long.” + +Then they separated, and he took the road to the north, which was still +snowbound, while she went on into the chilly yellow west, with the odd +sweet illusion that a summer day was dawning. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The office of Messrs Fulke, Warner, & Murchison was in Market Street, +exactly over Scott’s drug store. Scott with his globular blue and red +and green vessels in the window and his soda-water fountain inside; was +on the ground floor; the passage leading upstairs separated him from +Mickie, boots and shoes; and beyond Mickie, Elgin’s leading tobacconist +shared his place of business with a barber. The last two contributed +most to the gaiety of Market Street: the barber with the ribanded pole, +which stuck out at an angle; the tobacconist with a nobly featured squaw +in chocolate effigy who held her draperies under her chin with one hand +and outstretched a packet of cigars with the other. + +The passage staircase between Scott’s and Mickie’s had a hardened look, +and bore witness to the habit of expectoration; ladies, going up to Dr +Simmons, held their skirts up and the corners of their mouths down. Dr +Simmons was the dentist: you turned to the right. The passage itself +turned to the left, and after passing two doors bearing the law firm’s +designation in black letters on ground glass, it conducted you with +abruptness to the office of a bicycle agent, and left you there. +For greater emphasis the name of the firm of Messrs Fulke, Warner & +Murchison was painted on the windows also; it could be seen from any +part of the market square, which lay, with the town hall in the middle, +immediately below. During four days in the week the market square was +empty. Odds and ends of straw and paper blew about it; an occasional +pedestrian crossed it diagonally for the short cut to the post-office; +the town hall rose in the middle, and defied you to take your mind off +the ugliness of municipal institutions. On the other days it was a scene +of activity. Farmers’ wagons, with the shafts turned in were ranged +round three sides of it; on a big day they would form into parallel +lanes and cut the square into sections as well. The produce of all Fox +County filled the wagons, varying agreeably as the year went round. +Bags of potatoes leaned against the sidewalk, apples brimmed in bushel +measures, ducks dropped their twisted necks over the cart wheels; the +town hall, in this play of colour, stood redeemed. The produce was +mostly left to the women to sell. On the fourth side of the square +loads of hay and cordwood demanded the master mind, but small matters of +fruit, vegetables, and poultry submitted to feminine judgement. The men +“unhitched,” and went away on their own business; it was the wives you +accosted, as they sat in the middle, with their knees drawn up and their +skirts tucked close, vigilant in rusty bonnets, if you wished to buy. +Among them circulated the housewives of Elgin, pricing and comparing and +acquiring; you could see it all from Dr Simmons’s window, sitting in +his chair that screwed up and down. There was a little difficulty always +about getting things home; only very ordinary people carried their own +marketing. Trifling articles, like eggs or radishes, might be smuggled +into a brown wicker basket with covers; but it did not consort with +elegance to “trapes” home with anything that looked inconvenient or had +legs sticking out of it. So that arrangements of mutual obligation had +to be made: the good woman from whom Mrs Jones had bought her tomatoes +would take charge of the spring chickens Mrs Jones had bought from +another good woman just as soon as not, and deliver them at Mrs Jones’s +residence, as under any circumstances she was “going round that way.” + +It was a scene of activity but not of excitement, or in any sense of +joy. The matter was too hard an importance; it made too much difference +on both sides whether potatoes were twelve or fifteen cents a peck. +The dealers were laconic and the buyers anxious; country neighbours +exchanged the time of day, but under the pressure of affairs. Now and +then a lady of Elgin stopped to gossip with another; the countrywomen +looked on, curious, grim, and a little contemptuous of so much +demonstration and so many words. Life on an Elgin market day was a +serious presentment even when the sun shone, and at times when it rained +or snowed the aesthetic seemed a wholly unjustifiable point of view. +It was not misery, it was even a difficult kind of prosperity, but the +margin was small and the struggle plain. Plain, too, it was that here +was no enterprise of yesterday, no fresh broken ground of dramatic +promise, but a narrow inheritance of the opportunity to live which +generations had grasped before. There were bones in the village +graveyards of Fox County to father all these sharp features; Elgin +market square, indeed, was the biography of Fox County and, in little, +the history of the whole Province. The heart of it was there, the +enduring heart of the new country already old in acquiescence. It was +the deep root of the race in the land, twisted and unlovely, but holding +the promise of all. Something like that Lorne Murchison felt about it as +he stood for a moment in the passage I have mentioned and looked across +the road. The spectacle never failed to cheer him; he was uniformly in +gayer spirits, better satisfied with life and more consciously equal to +what he had to do, on days when the square was full than on days when +it was empty. This morning he had an elation of his own; it touched +everything with more vivid reality. The familiar picture stirred a joy +in him in tune with his private happiness; its undernote came to him +with a pang as keen. The sense of kinship surged in his heart; these +were his people, this his lot as well as theirs. For the first time he +saw it in detachment. Till now he had regarded it with the friendly eyes +of a participator who looked no further. Today he did look further: the +whole world invited his eyes, offering him a great piece of luck to look +through. The opportunity was in his hand which, if he could seize and +hold, would lift and carry him on. He was as much aware of its potential +significance as anyone could be, and what leapt in his veins till +he could have laughed aloud was the splendid conviction of resource. +Already in the door of the passage he had achieved, from that point he +looked at the scene before him with an impulse of loyalty and devotion. +A tenderness seized him for the farmers of Fox County, a throb of +enthusiasm for the idea they represented, which had become for +him suddenly moving and pictorial. At that moment his country came +subjectively into his possession; great and helpless it came into his +inheritance as it comes into the inheritance of every man who can take +it, by deed of imagination and energy and love. He held this microcosm +of it, as one might say, in his hand and looked at it ardently; then he +took his way across the road. + +A tall thickly built young fellow detached himself from a group, smiling +broadly at the sight of Murchison, and started to meet him. + +“Hello, Lorne,” he said. He had smiled all the way anticipating the +encounter. He was obviously in clothes which he did not put on every +day, but the seriousness of this was counteracted by his hard felt hat, +which he wore at an angle that disregarded convention. + +“Hello, Elmore! You back?” + +“That’s about it.” + +“You don’t say! Back to stay?” + +“Far’s I can see. Young Alf’s made up his mind to learn the dentist +business, and the old folks are backin’ him; so I don’t see but I’ve got +to stop on and run the show. Father’s gettin’ up in years now.” + +“Why, yes. I suppose he must be. It’s a good while since you went West. +Well, what sort of a country have they got out Swan River way? Booming +right along?” + +“Boom nothing. I don’t mean to say there’s anything the matter with +the country; there ain’t; but you’ve got to get up just as early in +the mornings out there as y’do anywhere, far’s I noticed. An’ it’s a +lonesome life. Now I AM back I don’t know but little old Ontario’s good +enough for me. ‘N I hear you’ve taken up the law, Lorne. Y’always had a +partiality for it, d’y’ remember, up there to the Collegiate? I used to +think it’d be fine to travel with samples, those days. But you were dead +gone on the law. ‘N by all reports it pans out pretty well don’t it?” + +The young men had taken their way among the shifting crowd together. +Lorne Murchison, although there was something too large about him +for the town’s essential stamp, made by contrast, as he threaded the +desultory groups of country people, a type of the conventional and the +formed; his companion glanced at him now and then with admiration. The +values of carriage and of clothes are relative: in Fifth Avenue Lorne +would have looked countrified, in Piccadilly colonial. Districts are +imaginable, perhaps not in this world, where the frequenters of even +those fashionable thoroughfares would attract glances of curiosity +by their failure to achieve the common standard in such things. Lorne +Murchison, to dismiss the matter, was well up to the standard of Elgin, +though he wore his straw hat quite on the back of his head and buried +both hands in his trousers pockets. His eye was full of pleasant easy +familiarity with the things he saw, and ready to see larger things; it +had that beam of active inquiry, curious but never amazed that marks +the man likely to expand his horizons. Meanwhile he was on capital terms +with his little world, which seemed to take pleasure in hailing him by +his Christian name; even morose Jim Webster, who had failed three times +in groceries, said “Morning, Lorne” with a look of toleration. He moved +alertly; the poise of his head was sanguine; the sun shone on him; the +timidest soul came nearer to him. He and Elmore Crow, who walked beside +him, had gone through the lower forms of the Elgin Collegiate Institute +together, that really “public” kind of school which has so much to do +with reassorting the classes of a new country. The Collegiate Institute +took in raw material and turned out teachers, more teachers than +anything. The teachers taught, chiefly in rural districts where they +could save money, and with the money they saved changed themselves into +doctors, Fellows of the University, mining engineers. The Collegiate +Institute was a potential melting-pot: you went in as your simple +opportunities had made you; how you shaped coming out depended upon what +was hidden in the core of you. You could not in any case be the same +as your father before you; education in a new country is too powerful +a stimulant for that, working upon material too plastic and too +hypothetical; it is not yet a normal force, with an operation to be +reckoned on with confidence. It is indeed the touchstone for character +in a new people, for character acquired as apart from that inherited; +it sometimes reveals surprises. Neither Lorne Murchison nor Elmore Crow +illustrates this point very nearly. Lorne would have gone into the law +in any case, since his father was able to send him, and Elmore would +inevitably have gone back to the crops since he was early defeated by +any other possibility. Nevertheless, as they walk together in my mind +along the Elgin market square, the Elgin Collegiate Institute rises +infallibly behind them, a directing influence and a responsible parent. +Lorne was telling his great news. + +“You don’t say!” remarked Elmore in response to it. “Lumbago is it? Pa’s +subject to that too; gets an attack most springs. Mr Fulke’ll have to +lay right up--it’s the only thing.” + +“I’m afraid he will. And Warner never appeared in court in his life.” + +“What d’ye keep Warner for, then?” + +“Oh, he does the conveyancing. He’s a good conveyancer, but he isn’t +any pleader and doesn’t pretend to be. And it’s too late to transfer the +case; nobody could get to the bottom of it as we have in the time. So it +falls on me.” + +“Caesar, his ghost! How d’ye feel about it, Lorne? I’d be scared green. +Y’don’t TALK nervous. Now I bet you get there with both feet.” + +“I hope to get there,” the young lawyer answered; and as he spoke a +concentration came into his face which drove the elation and everything +else that was boyish out of it. “It’s bigger business than I could have +expected for another five years. I’m sorry for the old man, though--HE’S +nervous, if you like. They can hardly keep him in bed. Isn’t that +somebody beckoning to you?” + +Elmore looked everywhere except in the right direction among the carts. +If you had been “to the Collegiate,” relatives among the carts selling +squashes were embarrassing. + +“There,” his companion indicated. + +“It’s Mother,” replied Mr Crow, with elaborate unconcern; “but I don’t +suppose she’s in anything of a hurry. I’ll just go along with you far’s +the post-office.” He kept his glance carefully from the spot at which +he was signalled, and a hint of copper colour crawled up the back of his +neck. + +“Oh, but she is. Come along, Elmore; I can go that way.” + +“It’ll be longer for you.” + +“Not a bit.” Lorne cast a shrewd glance at his companion. “And as we’re +passing, you might just introduce me to your mother; see?” + +“She won’t expect it, Lorne.” + +“That’s all right, my son. She won’t refuse to meet a friend of yours.” + He led the way as he spoke to the point of vantage occupied by Mrs Crow, +followed, with plain reluctance, by her son. She was a frail-looking +old woman, with a knitted shawl pinned tightly across her chest, and her +bonnet, in the course of commercial activity, pushed so far back as to +be almost falling off. + +“You might smarten yourself with that change, Elmore,” she addressed +him, ignoring his companion. “There’s folks coming back for it. +Two-dollar bill, wa’n’t it? Fifty cents--seventy-five--dollar’n a half. +That’s a Yankee dime, an’ you kin march straight back with it. They +don’t pass but for nine cents, as you’re old enough to know. Keep +twenty-five cents for your dinner--you’ll get most for the money at the +Barker House--an’ bring me back another quarter. Better go an’ get your +victuals now--it’s gone twelve--while they’re hot.” + +Elmore took his instructions without visible demur; and then, as +Lorne had not seen fit to detach himself, performed the ceremony +of introduction. As he performed it he drew one foot back and bowed +himself, which seemed obscurely to facilitate it. The suspicion faded +out of Mrs Crow’s tired old sharp eyes under the formula, and she said +she was pleased to make our friend’s acquaintance. + +“Mr Murchison’s changed some since the old days at the Collegiate,” + Elmore explained, “but he ain’t any different under his coat. He’s +practisin’ the law.” + +“Lawyers,” Mrs Crow observed, “are folks I like to keep away from.” + +“Quite right, too,” responded Lorne, unabashed. “And so you’ve got my +friend here back on the farm, Mrs Crow?” + +“Well, yes, he’s back on the farm, an’ when he’s wore out his Winnipeg +clothes and his big ideas, we’re lookin’ to make him some use.” Mrs +Crow’s intention, though barbed, was humorous, and her son grinned +broadly. + +“There’s more money in the law,” he remarked “once you get a start. +Here’s Mr Murchison goin’ to run the Ormiston case; his old man’s down +sick, an’ I guess it depends on Lorne now whether Ormiston gets off or +goes to penitentiary.” + +Mrs Crow’s face tied itself up into criticism as she looked our young +man up and down. “Depends upon you, does it?” she commented. “Well, all +I’ve got to say is it’s a mighty young dependence. Coming on next +week, ain’t it? You won’t be much older by then. Yes’m,” she turned to +business, “I don’t say but what it’s high for rhubarb, but there ain’t +another bunch in the market, and won’t be for a week yet.” + +Under cover of this discussion Lorne bade the Crows good morning, +retreating in the rear of the lady who found the rhubarb high. Mrs +Crow’s drop of acid combined with his saving sense of the humour of it +to adjust all his courage and his confidence, and with a braver face +than ever he involuntarily hastened his steps to keep pace with his +happy chance. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +In the wide stretches of a new country there is nothing to bound a local +excitement, or to impede its transmission at full value. Elgin was a +manufacturing town in southern Ontario, but they would have known every +development of the Federal Bank case at the North Pole if there had been +anybody there to learn. In Halifax they did know it, and in Vancouver, +B.C., while every hundred miles nearer it warmed as a topic in +proportion. In Montreal the papers gave it headlines; from Toronto they +sent special reporters. Of course, it was most of all the opportunity of +Mr Horace Williams, of the Elgin Express, and of Rawlins, who held all +the cards in their hands, and played them, it must be said, admirably, +reducing the Mercury to all sorts of futile expedients to score, which +the Express would invariably explode with a guffaw of contradiction the +following day. It was to the Express that the Toronto reporters came for +details and local colour; and Mr Williams gave them just as much as he +thought they ought to have and no more. It was the Express that managed, +while elaborately abstaining from improper comment upon a matter sub +judice, to feed and support the general conviction of young Ormiston’s +innocence, and thereby win for itself, though a “Grit” paper, wide +reading in that hotbed of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the +Conservative Mercury, with its reckless sympathy for an old party name, +made itself criminally liable by reviewing cases of hard dealing by +the bank among the farmers, and only escaped prosecution by the amplest +retraction and the most contrite apology. As Mr Williams remarked, there +was no use in dwelling on the unpopularity of the bank, that didn’t need +pointing out; folks down Moneida way could put any newspaper wise on the +number of mortgages foreclosed and the rate for secondary loans exacted +by the bank in those parts. That consideration, no doubt, human nature +being what it is, contributed the active principle to the feeling so +widely aroused by the case. We are not very readily the prey to +emotions of faith in our fellows, especially, perhaps, if we live under +conditions somewhat hard and narrow; the greater animosity behind is, +at all events, valuable to give force and relief and staying power to +a sentiment of generous conviction. But however we may depreciate its +origin, the conviction was there, widespread in the townships: young +Ormiston would “get clear”; the case for the defence might be heard over +every bushel of oats in Elgin market-place. + +In Elgin itself opinion was more reserved. There was a general view +that these bank clerks were fast fellows, and a tendency to contrast the +habits and the pay of such dashing young men, an exercise which ended +in a not unnatural query. As to the irritating caste feeling maintained +among them, young Ormiston perhaps gave himself as few airs as any. +He was generally conceded indeed by the judging sex to be “nice to +everybody”; but was not that exactly the nature for which temptations +were most easily spread? The town, moreover, had a sapience of its own. +Was it likely that the bank would bring a case so publicly involving its +character and management without knowing pretty well what it was about? +The town would not be committed beyond the circle of young Ormiston’s +intimate friends, which was naturally small if you compared it with the +public; the town wasn’t going to be surprised at anything that might be +proved. On the other hand, the town was much more vividly touched than +the country by the accident which had made Lorne Murchison practically +sole counsel for the defence, announced as it was by the Express with +every appreciation of its dramatic value. Among what the Express called +“the farming community” this, in so far as it had penetrated, was +regarded as a simple misfortune, a dull blow to expectancy, which +expectancy had some work to survive. Elgin, with its finer palate for +sensation, saw in it heightened chances, both for Lorne and for the +case; and if any ratepayer within its limits had remained indifferent to +the suit, the fact that one side of it had been confided to so young and +so “smart” a fellow townsman would have been bound to draw him into the +circle of speculation. Youth in a young country is a symbol wearing +all its value. It stands not only for what it is. The trick of augury +invests it, at a glance, with the sum of its possibilities, the augurs +all sincere, confident, and exulting. They have been justified so often; +they know, in their wide fair fields of opportunity, just what qualities +will produce what results. There is thus a complacence among adolescent +peoples which is vaguely irritating to their elders; but the greybeards +need not be over-captious; it is only a question of time, pathetically +short-lived in the history of the race. Sanguine persons in Elgin were +freely disposed to “bet on” Lorne Murchison, and there were none +so despondent as to take the view that he would not come out of it, +somehow; with an added personal significance. To make a spoon is a +laudable achievement, but it may be no mean business to spoil a horn. + +As the Express put it, there was as little standing room for ladies and +gentlemen in the courthouse the first day of the Spring Assizes as there +was for horses in the Court House Square. The County Crown Attorney +was unusually, oddly, reinforced by Cruickshank, of Toronto--the great +Cruickshank, K.C., probably the most distinguished criminal lawyer in +the Province. There were those who considered that Cruickshank should +not have been brought down, that it argued undue influence on the +part of the bank, and his retainer was a fierce fan to the feeling in +Moneida; but there is no doubt that his appearance added all that was +possible to the universal interest in the case. Henry Cruickshank was an +able man and, what was rarer a fastidious politician. He had held office +in the Dominion Cabinet, and had resigned it because of a difference +with his colleagues in the application of a principle; they called him, +after a British politician of lofty but abortive views, the Canadian +Renfaire. He had that independence of personality, that intellectual +candour, and that touch of magnetism which combine to make a man +interesting in his public relations. Cruickshank’s name alone would have +filled the courthouse, and people would have gone away quoting him. + +From the first word of the case for the prosecution there was that in +the leading counsel’s manner--a gravity, a kindness, an inclination to +neglect the commoner methods of scoring--that suggested, with the sudden +chill of unexpectedly bad news, a foregone conclusion. The reality of +his feeling reference to the painful position of the defendant’s father, +the sincerity of his regret on behalf of the bank, for the deplorable +exigency under which proceedings had been instituted, spread a kind of +blankness through the court; men frowned thoughtfully, and one or two +ladies shed furtive tears. Even the counsel for the defence, it was +afterward remembered, looked grave, sympathetic, and concerned, in +response to the brief but significant and moving sentences with which +his eminent opponent opened the case. It is not my duty to report the +trial for any newspaper; I will therefore spare myself more than the +most general references; but the facts undoubtedly were that a safe in +the strong room of the bank had been opened between certain hours on a +certain night and its contents abstracted; that young Ormiston, cashier +of the bank, was sleeping, or supposed to be sleeping, upon the premises +at this time, during the illness of the junior whose usual duty it was; +and that the Crown was in possession of certain evidence which would be +brought forward to prove collusion with the burglary on the part of +the defendant, collusion to cover deficits for which he could be held +responsible. In a strain almost apologetic, Mr Cruickshank explained +to the jury the circumstances which led the directors to the suspicion +which they now believed only too regrettably well founded. These +consisted in the fact that the young man was known to be living beyond +his means, and so to be constantly visited by the temptation to such +a crime; the special facilities which he controlled for its commission +and, in particular, the ease and confidence with which the actual +operation had been carried out, arguing no fear of detection on the +part of the burglars, no danger of interference from one who should have +stood ready to defend with his life the property in his charge, but who +would shortly be seen to have been toward it, first, a plunderer in his +own person, and afterward the accomplice of plunderers to conceal +his guilt. Examination showed the safe to have been opened with the +dexterity that demands both time and coolness; and the ash from a pipe +knocked out against the wall at the side of the passage offered ironical +testimony to the comfort in which the business had been done. + +The lawyer gave these considerations their full weight, and it was +in dramatic contrast with the last of them that he produced the first +significant fragment of evidence against Ormiston. There had been, after +all, some hurry of departure. It was shown by a sheet of paper bearing +the mark of a dirty thumb and a hasty boot-heel, bearing also the +combination formula for opening the safe. + +The public was familiar with that piece of evidence; it had gone +through every kind of mill of opinion; it made no special sensation. The +evidence of the caretaker who found the formula and of the witnesses who +established it to be in young Ormiston’s handwriting, produced little +interest. Mr Cruickshank, in elaborating his theory as to why with the +formula in their hands the depredators still found it necessary to pick +the lock, offered nothing to speculations already current--the duplicate +key with which they had doubtless been enabled to supply themselves +was a clumsy copy and had failed them; that conclusion had been drawn +commonly enough. The next scrap of paper produced by the prosecution was +another matter. It was the mere torn end of a greasy sheet; upon it was +written “Not less than 3,000 net,” and it had been found in the turning +out of Ormiston’s dressing-table. It might have been anything--a number +of people pursed their lips contemptuously--or it might have been, +without doubt, the fragment of a disreputable transaction that the +prosecuting counsel endeavoured to show it. Here, no doubt, was one of +the pieces of evidence the prosecution was understood to have up its +sleeve, and that portion of the prosecuting counsel’s garment was +watched with feverish interest for further disclosures. They came +rapidly enough, but we must hurry them even more. The name of Miss +Florence Belton, when it rose to the surface of the evidence, riveted +every eye and ear. Miss Belton was one of those ambiguous ladies who +sometimes drift out from the metropolitan vortex and circle restfully in +backwaters for varying periods, appearing and disappearing irrelevantly. +They dress beautifully; they are known to “paint” and thought to dye +their hair. They establish no relations, being much too preoccupied. +making exceptions only, as a rule, in favour of one or two young men, to +whom they extend amenities based--it is the common talk--upon late +hours and whiskey-and-soda. They seem superior to the little prevailing +conventions; they excite an unlawful interest; though nobody knows them +black nobody imagines them white; and when they appear upon Main Street +in search of shoelaces or elastic heads are turned and nods, possibly +nudges, exchanged. Miss Belton had come from New York to the Barker +House, Elgin, and young Ormiston’s intimacy with her was one of the +things that counted against him in the general view. It was to so count +more seriously in the particular instance. Witnesses were called to +prove that he had spent the evening of the burglary with Miss Belton at +her hotel, that he had remained with her until one o’clock, that he was +in the habit of spending his evenings with Miss Belton. + +Rawlins of the Express did not overdo the sensation which was caused in +the courtroom when the name of this lady herself was called to summon +her to the witness box. It was indeed the despair of his whole career. +He thought despondingly ever after of the thrill, to which he himself +was not superior and which, if he had only been able to handle it +adequately, might have led him straight up the ladder to a night +editorship. Miss Belton appeared from some unsuspected seat near the +door, throwing back a heavy veil, and walking as austerely as she could, +considering the colour of her hair. She took her place without emotion +and there she corroborated the evidence of the servants of the hotel. +To the grave questions of the prosecution she fluently replied that the +distraction of these evenings had been cards--cards played, certainly, +for money, and that she, certainly, had won very considerable sums from +the defendant from time to time. In Elgin the very mention of cards +played for money will cause a hush of something deeper than disapproval; +there was silence in the court at this. In producing several banknotes +for Miss Belton’s identification, Mr Cruickshank seemed to profit by the +silence. Miss Belton identified them without hesitation, as she might +easily, since they had been traced to her possession. Asked to account +for them; she stated, without winking, that they had been paid to her by +Mr Walter Ormiston at various times during the fortnight preceding the +burglary, in satisfaction of debts at cards. She, Miss Belton, had left +Elgin for Chicago the day after the burglary. Mr Ormiston knew that she +was going. He had paid her the four fifty-dollar notes actually traced, +the night before she left, and said. “You won’t need to break these +here, will you?” He seemed anxious that she should not, but it was +the merest accident that she hadn’t. In all, she had received from Mr +Ormiston four hundred and fifty dollars. No, she had no suspicion that +the young man might not be in a position to make such payments. She +understood that Mr Ormiston’s family was wealthy, and never thought +twice about it. + +She spoke with a hard dignity, the lady, and a great effect of doing +business, a kind of assertion of the legitimate. The farmers of Fox +County told each other in chapfallen appreciation that she was about as +level-headed as they make them. Lawyer Cruickshank, as they called him, +brought forth from her detail after detail, and every detail fitted +damningly with the last. The effect upon young Ormiston was so painful +that many looked another way. His jaw was set and his features +contorted to hold himself from the disgrace of tears. He was generally +acknowledged to be overwhelmed by the unexpected demonstration of his +guilt, but distress was so plain in him that there was not a soul in +the place that was not sorry for him. In one or two resolute faces hope +still glimmered, but it hardly survived the cross-examination of the +Crown’s chief witness by the counsel for the defence which, as far as +it went, had a perfunctory air and contributed little to the evidence +before the Court. It did not go all the way, however. The case having +opened late, the defence was reserved till the following day, when +proceedings would be resumed with the further cross-examination of Miss +Belton. + +As the defendant’s counsel went down the courthouse steps Rawlins came +up to him to take note of his demeanour and anything else that might be +going. + +“Pretty stiff row to hoe you’ve got there, Lorne,” he said. + +“Pretty stiff,” responded Lorne. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Imagination, one gathers, is a quality dispensed with of necessity in +the practice of most professions, being that of which nature is, for +some reason, most niggardly. There is no such thing as passing in +imagination for any department of public usefulness, even the government +of Oriental races; the list of the known qualified would be exhausted, +perhaps, in getting the papers set. Yet neither poet nor philosopher +enjoys it in monopoly; the chemist may have it, and the inventor must; +it has been proved the mainspring of the mathematician, and I have +hinted it the property of at least two of the Murchisons. Lorne was +indebted to it certainly for his constructive view of his client’s +situation, the view which came to him and stayed with him like a chapter +in a novel, from the hour in which Ormiston had reluctantly accounted +for himself upon the night of the burglary. It was a brilliant view, +that perceived the young clerk the victim of the conspiracy he was +charged with furthering; its justification lay back, dimly, among the +intuitions about human nature which are part of the attribute I +have quoted. I may shortly say that it was justified; another day’s +attendance at the Elgin Courthouse shall not be compulsory here, +whatever it may have been there. Young Ormiston’s commercial probity +is really no special concern of ours; the thing which does matter, and +considerably, is the special quality which Lorne Murchison brought to +the task of its vindication, the quality that made new and striking +appeal, through every channel of the great occasion, to those who heard +him. It was that which reinforced and comforted every friend Ormiston +had in the courtroom, before Lorne proceeded either to deal with the +evidence of the other side, or to produce any jot or tittle of his own; +and it was that which affected his distinguished opponent to the special +interest which afterward showed itself so pleasantly superior to the +sting of defeat. The fact that the defence was quite as extraordinarily +indebted to circumstantial evidence as the prosecution in no way +detracted from the character of Lorne’s personal triumph; rather, +indeed, in the popular view and Rawlins’s, enhanced it. There was in +it the primitive joy of seeing a ruffian knocked down with his own +illegitimate weapons, from the moment the dropped formula was proved to +be an old superseded one, and unexpected indication was produced that +Ormiston’s room, as well as the bank vault, had been entered the night +of the robbery, to the more glorious excitement of establishing Miss +Belton’s connection--not to be quoted--with a cracksman at that moment +being diligently inquired for by the New York police with reference to +a dramatically bigger matter. You saw the plot at once as he constructed +it; the pipe ash became explicable in the seduction of Miss Belton’s +charms. The cunning net unwove itself, delicately and deliberately, to +tangle round the lady. There was in it that superiority in the art of +legerdemain, of mere calm, astonishing manipulation, so applauded in +regions where romance has not yet been quite trampled down by reason. +Lorne scored; he scored in face of probability, expectation, fact; it +was the very climax and coruscation of score. He scored not only by the +cards he held but by the beautiful way he played them, if one may say +so. His nature came into this, his gravity and gentleness, his sympathy, +his young angry irony. To mention just one thing, there was the way he +held Miss Belton up, after the exposure of her arts, as the lady for +whom his client had so chivalric a regard that he had for some time +refused to state his whereabouts at the hour the bank was entered in +the fear of compromising her. For this, no doubt, his client could have +strangled him, but it operated, of course, to raise the poor fellow +in the estimation of every body, with the possible exception of his +employers. When, after the unmistakable summing-up, the foreman returned +in a quarter of an hour with the verdict of “Not guilty,” people +noticed that the young man walked out of court behind his father with +as drooping a head as if he had gone under sentence; so much so that +by common consent he was allowed to slip quietly away. Miss Belton +departed, followed by the detective, whose services were promptly +transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of those who scented +further entertainment in her perfumed, perjured wake. But the majority +hung back, leaving their places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd wanted +to shake hands with to say just a word of congratulation to, Lorne’s +triumph that they desired to enhance by a hearty sentence, or at least +an admiring glance. Walter Winter was among the most genial. + +“Young man,” he said, “what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you you ought +to take this case?” Mr Winter, with his chest thrust out, plumed and +strutted in justifiable pride of prophecy. “Now, I’ll tell you another +thing: today’s event will do more for you than it has for Ormiston. Mark +my words!” + +They were all of that opinion, all the fine foretellers of the profit +Lorne should draw from his spirited and conspicuous success; they +stood about in knots discussing it; to some extent it eclipsed the main +interest and issue of the day, at that moment driving out, free and +disconsolate, between the snake fences of the South Riding to Moneida +Reservation. The quick and friendly sense of opportunity was abroad on +Lorne Murchison’s behalf; friends and neighbours and Dr Drummond, and +people who hardly knew the fellow, exchanged wise words about what his +chance would do for him. What it would immediately do was present to +nobody so clearly, however, as to Mr Henry Cruickshank, who decided that +he would, after all, accept Dr Drummond’s invitation to spend the night +with him, and find out the little he didn’t know already about this +young man. + +That evening the Murchisons’ doorbell rang twice. The first time it was +to admit the Rev. Hugh Finlay, who had come to return Sordello, which he +had borrowed from Advena, and to find out whether she thought with him +about the interpretation of certain passages, and if not--there was +always the possibility--wherein their divergence lay. The second time +the door opened to Dr Drummond and Mr Cruickshank; and the electric +light had to be turned on in the drawing-room, since the library was +already occupied by Mr Finlay and Advena, Mr and Mrs Murchison never +having got over their early habit of sitting in the dining-room after +tea. Even then Mrs Murchison had to put away her workbasket, and John +Murchison to knock the ashes out of his pipe, looking at one another +with surprised inquiry when Eliza informed them of their visitors. +Luckily, Mr Lorne was also in, and Eliza was sent to tell him, and +Mr Lorne came down the stairs two at a time to join the party in the +drawing-room, which was presently supplied by Eliza with a dignified +service of cake and wine. The hall divided that room from the library, +and both doors were shut. We cannot hesitate about which to open; we +have only, indeed, to follow the recognized tradition of Elgin, which +would never have entered the library. No vivid conclusion should be +drawn, no serious situation may even be indicated. It would simply have +been considered, in Elgin, stupid to go into the library. + +“It isn’t a case for the High Commissioner for Canada,” Mr Cruickshank +was saying. “It’s a case for direct representation of the interests +concerned, and their view of the effect upon trade. That’s the only +voice to speak with if you want to get anything done. Conviction carries +conviction. The High Commissioner is a very useful fellow to live +in London and look after the ornamental, the sentimental, and +immigration--nobody could do it better than Selkirk. And in England, of +course, they like that kind of agency. It’s the good old dignified +way; but it won’t do for everything. You don’t find our friend Morgan +operating through the American equivalent of a High Commissioner.” + +“No, you don’t,” said John Murchison. + +“He goes over there as a principal, and the British Government, if he +wants to deal with it, is only another principal. That’s the way our +deputation will go. We’re practically all shippers, though of course the +matter of tenders will come later. There is big business for them here, +national business, and we propose to show it. The subsidy we want will +come back to the country four times over in two years. Freights from +Boston alone--” + +“It’s the patriotic, imperial argument you’ll have to press, I doubt,” + said John Murchison. “They’re not business people over there--the men in +office are not. How should they be? The system draws them from the +wrong class. They’re gentlemen--noblemen, maybe--first, and they’ve no +practical education. There’s only one way of getting it, and that’s to +make your own living. How many of them have ever made tuppence? There’s +where the Americans beat them so badly--they’ve got the sixth sense, +the business sense. No; you’ll not find them responding greatly to what +there is in it for trade--they’d like to well enough, but they just +won’t see it; and, by George! what a fine suspicion they’ll have of ye! +As to freights from Boston,” he continued, as they all laughed, “I’m +of opinion you’d better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a +friendly power! Tut, tut!” + +It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were all excited to a +pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank had brought with him an +event of extraordinary importance. It seemed to sit there with him, +significant and propitious, in the middle of the sofa; they all looked +at it in the pauses. Dr Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately +contemplated it and remembered to assert himself part of it. As head of +a deputation from the United Chambers of Commerce of Canada shortly +to wait on the British Government to press for the encouragement of +improved communications within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked +to select a secretary. The appointment, in view of the desirability, +for political reasons, of giving the widest publicity to the hopes +and motives of the deputation, was an important one. The action of the +Canadian Government, in extending conditional promises of support, had +to be justified to the Canadian taxpayer; and that shy and weary person +whose shoulders uphold the greatness of Britain, had also to receive +such conciliation and reassurance as it was possible to administer to +him, by way of nerving the administrative arm over there to an act of +enterprise. Mr Cruickshank had had two or three young fellows, mostly +newspaper men, in his mind’s eye; but when Lorne came into his literal +range of vision, the others had promptly been retired in our friend’s +favour. Young Mr Murchison, he had concluded, was the man they wanted; +and if his office could spare him, it would probably do young Mr +Murchison no harm in any sort of way to accompany the deputation to +London and throw himself into the matter the deputation had at heart. + +“But it’s the Empire!” said Lorne, with a sort of shy fire, when Mr +Cruickshank enunciated this. + +We need not, perhaps, dwell upon the significance of his agreement. It +was then not long since the maple leaf had been stained brighter than +ever, not without honour, to maintain the word that fell from him. The +three older men looked at him kindly; John Murchison, rubbing his chin +as he considered the situation, slightly shook his head. One took it +that in his view the Empire was not so readily envisaged. + +“That has a strong bearing,” Mr Cruickshank assented. + +“It’s the whole case--it seems to me,” repeated young Murchison. + +“It should help to knit us up,” said Dr Drummond. “I’ll put my name down +on the first passenger list, if Knox Church will let me off. See that +you have special rates,” he added, with a twinkle, “for ministers and +missionaries.” + +“And only ten days to get him ready in,” said Mrs Murchison. “It will +take some seeing to, I assure you; and I don’t know how it’s to be done +in the time. For once, Lorne, I’ll have to order you ready-made shirts, +and you’ll just have to put up with it. Nothing else could possibly get +back from the wash.” + +“I’ll put up with it, Mother.” + +They went into other details of Lorne’s equipment while Mrs Murchison’s +eye still wandered over the necessities of his wardrobe. They arranged +the date on which he was to meet the members of the deputation in +Montreal, and Mr Cruickshank promised to send him all available +documents and such presentation of the project as had been made in the +newspapers. + +“You shall be put in immediate possession of the bones of the thing,” + he said, “but what really matters,” he added pleasantly, “I think you’ve +got already.” + +It took, of course, some discussion, and it was quite ten o’clock before +everything was gone into, and the prospect was clear to them all. As +they emerged into the hall together, the door of the room opposite also +opened, and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their group. +They all made the best of the unexpected encounter. It was rather an +elaborate best, very polite and entirely grave, except in the instance +of Dr Drummond, who met his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality +struggled in vain to overcome the delighted humour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +It was the talk of the town, the pride of the market-place, Lorne +Murchison’s having been selected to accompany what was known as the +Cruickshank deputation to England. The general spirit of congratulation +was corrected by a tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on +the chairman’s part; Elgin wouldn’t be too flattered; Lawyer Cruickshank +couldn’t have done better. You may be sure the Express was well +ahead with it. “Honour to Our Young Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited +Compliment,” and Rawlins was round promptly next morning to glean +further particulars. He found only Mrs Murchison, on a stepladder tying +up the clematis that climbed about the verandah, and she told him a +little about clematis and a good deal about the inconvenience of having +to abandon superintending the spring cleaning in order to get Lorne +ready to go to the Old Country at such short notice, but nothing he +could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at the office, was hardly more +communicative. Mr Williams himself dropped in there. He said the Express +would now have a personal interest in the object of the deputation, and +proposed to strike out a broad line, a broader line than ever. + +“We’ve got into the way of taking it for granted,” said Mr Williams, +“that the subsidy idea is a kind of mediaeval idea. Raise a big enough +shout and you get things taken for granted in economics for a long +while. Conditions keep changing, right along, all the time, and +presently you’ve got to reconsider. There ain’t any sort of ultimate +truth in the finest economic position, my son; not any at all.” + +“We’ll subsidize over here, right enough,” said Lorne. + +“That’s the idea--that’s the prevailing idea, just now. But lots of +people think different--more than you’d imagine. I was talking to +old man Milburn just now--he’s dead against it. ‘Government has no +business,’ he said, ‘to apply the taxes in the interests of any company. +It oughtn’t to know how to spell “subsidy.” If the trade was there it +would get itself carried,’ he said.” + +“Well, that surprises me,” said Lorne. + +“Surprised me, too. But I was on the spot with him; just thought of it +in time. ‘Well, now, Mr Milburn,’ I said, ‘you’ve changed your mind. +Thought that was a thing you Conservatives never did,’ I said. ‘We +don’t--I haven’t,’ he said. ‘What d’ye mean? Twenty-five years ago,’ I +said, ‘when you were considering whether you’d start the Milburn Boiler +Works here or in Hamilton, Hamilton offered you a free site, and Elgin +offered you a free site and a dam for your water power. You took the +biggest subsidy an’ came here,’ I said.” + +Lorne laughed: “What did he say to that?” + +“Hadn’t a word. ‘I guess it’s up to me,’ he said. Then he turned round +and came back. ‘Hold on, Williams; he said. ‘You know so much already +about my boiler works, it wouldn’t be much trouble for you to write out +an account of them from the beginning, would it? Working in the last +quarter of a century of the town’s progress, you know, and all that. +Come round to the office tomorrow, and I’ll give you some pointers.’ And +he fixed up a two-column ad right away. He was afraid I’d round on him, +I suppose, if I caught him saying anything more about the immorality of +subsidies.” + +“He won’t say anything more.” + +“Probably not. Milburn hasn’t got much of a political conscience, but +he’s got a sense of what’s silly. Well, now, I expect you want all the +time there is.” + +Mr Williams removed himself from the edge of the table, which was strewn +with maps and bluebooks, printed official, and typewritten demi-official +papers. + +“Give ‘em a notion of those Assiniboian wheat acres, my boy, and the +ranch country we’ve got; tell ‘em about the future of quick passage and +cold storage. Get ‘em a little ashamed to have made so many fortunes for +Yankee beef combines; persuade ‘em the cheapest market has a funny way +of getting the dearest price in the end. Give it ‘em, Lorne, hot and +cold and fricasseed. The Express will back you up.” + +He slapped his young friend’s shoulder, who seemed occupied with +matters that prevented his at once feeling the value of this assurance. +“Bye-bye,” said Mr Williams. “See you again before you start.” + +“Oh, of course!” Lorne replied. “I’ll--I’ll come round. By the +way, Williams, Mr Milburn didn’t say anything--anything about me in +connection with this business? Didn’t mention, I suppose, what he +thought about my going?” + +“Not a word, my boy! He was away up in abstract principles; he generally +is. Bye-bye.” + +“It’s gone to his head a little bit--only natural,” Horace reflected as +he went down the stairs. “He’s probably just feeding on what folks think +of it. As if it mattered a pin’s head what Octavius Milburn thinks or +don’t think!” + +Lorne, however, left alone with his customs returns and his immigration +reports, sat still, attaching a weight quite out of comparison with a +pin’s head to Mr Milburn’s opinion. He turned it over and over, instead +of the tabulated figures that were his business: he had to show himself +his way to the conclusion that such a thing could not matter seriously +in the end, since Milburn hadn’t a dollar involved--it would be +different if he were a shareholder in the Maple Line. He wished +heartily, nevertheless, that he could demonstrate a special advantage +to boiler-makers in competitive freights with New York. What did they +import, confound them! Pig-iron? Plates and rivets? Fortunately he was +in a position to get at the facts, and he got at them with an interest +of even greater intensity than he had shown to the whole question since +ten that morning. Even now, the unprejudiced observer, turning up the +literature connected with the Cruickshank deputation, may notice a +stress laid upon the advantages to Canadian importers of ore in certain +stages of manufacture which may strike him as slightly, very slightly, +special. Of course there are a good many of them in the country. So +that Mr Horace Williams was justified to some extent in his kindly +observation upon the excusable egotism of youth. Two or three letters, +however, came in while Lorne was considering the relation of plates and +rivets to the objects of his deputation. They were all congratulatory; +one was from the chairman of the Liberal Association at its headquarters +in Toronto. Lorne glanced at them and stowed them away in his pocket. +He would read them when he got home, when it would be a pleasure to hand +them over to his mother. She was making a collection of them. + +He had a happy perception that same evening that Mr Milburn’s position +was not, after all, finally and invincibly taken against the deputation +and everything--everybody--concerned with it. He met that gentleman at +his own garden gate. Octavius paused in his exit, to hold it open for +young Murchison, thus even assisting the act of entry, a thing which +thrilled Lorne sweetly enough when he had time to ponder its possible +significance. Alas! the significance that lovers find! Lorne read a +world in the behaviour of Dora’s father in holding the gate open. He +saw political principle put aside in his favour, and social position +forgotten in kindness to him. He saw the gravest, sincerest appreciation +of his recent success, which he took as humbly as a dog will take a +bone; he read a fatherly thought at which his pulses bounded in an +arrogance of triumph, and his heart rose to ask its trust. And Octavius +Milburn had held the gate open because it was more convenient to hold +it open than to leave it open. He had not a political view in the world +that was calculated to affect his attitude toward a practical matter; +and his opinion of Lorne was quite uncomplicated: he thought him a very +likely young fellow. Milburn himself, in the Elgin way, preferred to +see no great significance of this sort anywhere. Young people were +young people; it was natural enough that they should like each other’s +society. They, the Milburns, were very glad to see Mr Murchison, very +glad indeed. It was frequent matter for veiled humorous reference at +the table that he had been to call again, at which Dora would look very +stiff and dignified, and have to be coaxed back into the conversation. +As to anything serious, there was no hurry; plenty of time to think of +that. Such matters dwelt under the horizon; there was no need to scan +them closely; and Mr Milburn went his way, conscious of nothing more +than a comfortable gratification that Dora, so far as the young men were +concerned, seemed as popular as other girls. + +Dora was not in the drawing-room. Young ladies in Elgin had always to +be summoned from somewhere. For all the Filkin instinct for the +conservation of polite tradition, Dora was probably reading the +Toronto society weekly--illustrated, with correspondents all over the +Province--on the back verandah and, but for the irruption of a visitor, +would probably not have entered the formal apartment of the house at +all that evening. Drawing-rooms in Elgin had their prescribed uses--to +receive in, to practise in, and for the last sad entertainment of the +dead, when the furniture was disarranged to accommodate the trestles; +but the common business of life went on outside them, even among +prosperous people, the survival, perhaps, of a habit based upon thrift. +The shutters were opened when Lorne entered, to let in the spring +twilight, and the servant pulled a chair into its proper relation with +the room as she went out. + +Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin both came in before Dora did. Lorne found +their conversation enchanting, though it was mostly about the difficulty +of keeping the lawn tidy; they had had so much rain. Mrs Milburn assured +him kindly that there was not such another lawn as his father’s in +Elgin. How Mr Murchison managed to have it looking so nice always she +could not think. Only yesterday she and Mr Milburn had stopped to admire +it as they passed. + +“Spring is always a beautiful time in Elgin,” she remarked. “There are +so many pretty houses here, each standing in its own grounds. Nothing +very grand, as I tell my friend, Miss Cham, from Buffalo where the +residences are, of course, on quite a different scale; but grandeur +isn’t everything, is it?” + +“No, indeed,” said Lorne. + +“But you will be leaving for Great Britain very soon now, Mr Murchison,” + said Miss Filkin. “Leaving Elgin and all its beauties! And I dare say +you won’t think of them once again till you get back!” + +“I hope I shall not be so busy as that, Miss Filkin.” + +“Oh, no, I’m sure Mr Murchison won’t forget his native town altogether,” + said Mrs Milburn, “though perhaps he won’t like it so well after seeing +dear old England!” + +“I expect,” said Lorne simply, “to like it better.” + +“Well, of course, we shall all be pleased if you say that, Mr +Murchison,” Mrs Milburn replied graciously. “We shall feel quite +complimented. But I’m afraid you will find a great deal to criticize +when you come back--that is, if you go at all into society over there. I +always say there can be nothing like good English society.” + +“I want to attend a sitting of the House,” Lorne said. “I hope I shall +have time for that. I want to see those fellows handling their public +business. I don’t believe I shall find our men so far behind, for point +of view and grasp and dispatch. Of course there’s always Wallingham to +make a standard for us all. But they haven’t got so many Wallinghams.” + +“Wasn’t it Wallingham, Louisa, that Mr Milburn was saying at breakfast +was such a dangerous man? So able, he said, but dangerous. Something to +do with the tariff.” + +“Oh?” said Lorne, and he said no more, for at that moment Dora came +in. She came in looking very straight and graceful and composed. Her +personal note was carried out in her pretty clothes, which hung and +“sat” upon her like the rhythm of verses; they could fall no other way. +She had in every movement the definite accent of young ladyhood; she was +very much aware of herself, of the situation, and of her value in it, +a setting for herself she saw it, and saw it truly. No one, from the +moment she entered the room, looked at anything else. + +“Oh, Mr Murchison,” she said. “How do you do? Mother, do you mind if I +open the window? It’s quite warm out of doors--regular summer.” + +Lorne sprang to open the window, while Miss Filkin, murmuring that it +had been a beautiful day, moved a little farther from it. + +“Oh, please don’t trouble, Mr Murchison; thank you very much!” Miss +Milburn continued, and subsided on a sofa. “Have you been playing tennis +this week?” + +Mr Murchison said that he had been able to get down to the club only +once. + +“The courts aren’t a bit in good order. They want about a week’s +rolling. The balls get up anywhere,” said Dora. + +“Lawn tennis,” Mrs Milburn asserted herself, “is a delightful exercise. +I hope it will never go out of fashion; but that is what we used to say +of croquet, and it has gone out and come in again.” + +Lorne listened to this with deference; there was a hint of patience in +the regard Dora turned upon her mother. Mrs Milburn continued to +dilate upon lawn tennis, dealt lightly with badminton, and brought the +conversation round with a graceful sweep to canoeing. Dora’s attitude +before she had done became slightly permissive, but Mrs Milburn held on +till she had accomplished her conception of conduct for the occasion; +then she remembered a meeting in the schoolhouse. + +“We are to have an address by an Indian bishop,” she told them. “He is +on his way to England by China and Japan, and is staying with our dear +rector, Mr Murchison. Such a treat I expect it will be.” + +“What I am dying to know,” said Miss Filkin, in a sprightly way, “is +whether he is black or white!” + +Mrs Milburn then left the room, and shortly afterward Miss Filkin +thought she could not miss the bishop either, conveying the feeling +that a bishop was a bishop, of whatever colour. She stayed three minutes +longer than Mrs Milburn, but she went. The Filkin tradition, though +strong, could not hold out entirely against the unwritten laws, the +silently claimed privileges, of youth in Elgin. It made its pretence and +vanished. + +Even as the door closed the two that were left looked at one another +with a new significance. A simpler relation established itself between +them and controlled all that surrounded them; the very twilight seemed +conscious with it; the chairs and tables stood in attentive harmony. + +“You know,” said Dora, “I hate your going, Lorne!” + +She did indeed seem moved, about the mouth, to discontent. There was +some little injury in the way she swung her foot. + +“I was hoping Mr Fulke wouldn’t get better in time; I was truly!” + +The gratitude in young Murchison’s eyes should have been dear to her. I +don’t know whether she saw it; but she must have been aware that she was +saying what touched him, making her point. + +“Oh, it’s a good thing to go, Dora.” + +“A good thing for you! And the regatta coming off the first week in +June, and a whole crowd coming from Toronto for it. There isn’t another +person in town I care to canoe with, Lorne, you know perfectly well!” + +“I’m awfully sorry!” said Lorne. “I wish--” + +“Oh, I’m GOING, I believe. Stephen Stuart has written from Toronto, and +asked me to sail with him. I haven’t told Mother, but he’s my second +cousin, so I suppose she won’t make a fuss.” + +The young man’s face clouded; seeing which she relented. “Oh, of course, +I’m glad you’re going, really,” she assured him. “And we’ll all be proud +to be acquainted with such a distinguished gentleman when you get back. +Do you think you’ll see the King? You might, you know, in London.” + +“I’ll see him if he’s visible,” laughed Lorne. “That would be something +to tell your mother, wouldn’t it? But I’m afraid we won’t be doing +business with His Majesty.” + +“I expect you’ll have the loveliest time you ever had in all your life. +Do you think you’ll be asked out much, Lorne?” + +“I can’t imagine who would ask me. We’ll get off easy if the street boys +don’t shout: ‘What price Canucks?’ at us! But I’ll see England, Dora; +I’ll feel England, eat and drink and sleep and live in England, for a +little while. Isn’t the very name great? I’ll be a better man for going, +till I die. We’re all right out here, but we’re young and thin and +weedy. They didn’t grow so fast in England, to begin with, and now +they’re rich with character and strong with conduct and hoary with +ideals. I’ve been reading up the history of our political relations with +England. It’s astonishing what we’ve stuck to her through, but you can’t +help seeing why--it’s for the moral advantage. Way down at the bottom, +that’s what it is. We have the sense to want all we can get of that +sort of thing. They’ve developed the finest human product there is, +the cleanest, the most disinterested, and we want to keep up the +relationship--it’s important. Their talk about the value of their +protection doesn’t take in the situation as it is now. Who would touch +us if we were running our own show?” + +“I don’t believe they are a bit better than we are,” replied Miss +Milburn. “I’m sure I haven’t much opinion of the Englishmen that come +out here. They don’t think anything of getting into debt, and as often +as not they drink, and they never know enough to--to come in out of the +rain. But, Lorne--” + +“Yes, but we’re very apt to get the failures. The fellows their folks +give five or six hundred pounds to and tell them they’re not expected +back till they’re making a living. The best men find their level +somewhere else, along recognized channels. Lord knows we don’t want +them--this country’s for immigrants. We’re manufacturing our own +gentlemen quite fast enough for the demand.” + +“I should think we were! Why, Lorne, Canadians--nice Canadians are just +as gentlemanly as they can be! They’ll compare with anybody. Perhaps +Americans have got more style:” she weighed the matter; “but Canadians +are much better form, I think. But, Lorne, how perfectly dear of you to +send me those roses. I wore them, and nobody there had such beauties. +All the girls wanted to know where I got them, but I only told Lily, +just to make her feel a pig for not having asked you--my very greatest +friend! She just about apologized--told me she wanted to ask about +twenty more people, but her mother wouldn’t let her. They’ve lost an +uncle or something lately, and if it hadn’t been for Clara Sims staying +with them they wouldn’t have been giving anything.” + +“I’ll try to survive not having been asked. But I’m glad you wore the +roses, Dora.” + +“I dropped one, and Phil Carter wanted to keep it. He’s so silly!” + +“Did you--did you let him keep it?” + +“Lorne Murchison! Do you think I’d let any man keep a rose I’d been +wearing?” + +He looked at her, suddenly emboldened. “I don’t know about roses, Dora, +but pansies--those are awfully nice ones in your dress. I’m very fond +of pansies; couldn’t you spare me one? I wouldn’t ask for a rose, but a +pansy--” + +His eyes were more ardent than what he found to say. Beneath them Dora +grew delicately pink. The pansies drooped a little; she put her slender +fingers under one, and lifted its petals. + +“It’s too faded for your buttonhole,” she said. + +“It needn’t stay in my buttonhole. I know lots of other places!” he +begged. + +Dora considered the pansy again, then she pulled it slowly out, and the +young man got up and went over to her, proffering the lapel of his coat. + +“It spoils the bunch,” she said prettily. “If I give you this you will +have to give me something to take its place.” + +“I will,” said Lorne. + +“I know it will be something better,” said Dora, and there was a little +effort in her composure. “You send people such beautiful flowers, +Lorne.” + +She rose beside him as she spoke, graceful and fair, to fasten it in; +and it was his hand that shook. + +“Then may I choose it?” said Lorne. “And will you wear it?” + +“I suppose you may. Why are you--why do you--Oh, Lorne, stand still!” + +“I’ll give you, you sweet girl, my whole heart!” he said in the vague +tender knowledge that he offered her a garden, where she had but to +walk, and smile, to bring about her unimaginable blooms. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May evening, Mr and +Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the Murchison Place in the town’s +mouth now, and that was only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the +Plummers. It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big horse +chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring dusk for them, +as it had done faithfully for thirty years. John was no longer in his +shirt-sleeves; the growing authority of his family had long prescribed +a black alpaca coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old +deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as considerately as he +held its original, which lasted him fifteen years. A great deal of +John Murchison’s character was there, in the way he held his pipe, his +gentleness and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet strength +of his nature. He smoked and read the paper the unfailing double solace +of his evenings. I should have said that it was Mrs Murchison who +talked. She had the advantage of a free mind, only subconsciously +occupied with her white wool and agile needles; and John had frequently +to choose between her observations and the politics of the day. + +“You saw Lorne’s letter this morning, Father?” + +John took his pipe out of his mouth. “Yes,” he said. + +“He seems tremendously taken up with Wallingham. It was all Wallingham, +from one end to the other.” + +“It’s not remarkable,” said John Murchison, patiently. + +“You’d think he had nothing else to write about. There was that +reception at Lord What-you-may-call-him’s, the Canadian Commissioner’s, +when the Prince and Princess of Wales came, and brought their family. +I’d like to have heard something more about that than just that he was +there. He might have noticed what the children had on. Now that Abby’s +family is coming about her I seem to have my hands as full of children’s +clothes as ever I had. Abby seems to think there’s nothing like my old +patterns; I’m sure I’m sick of the sight of them!” + +Mr Murchison refolded his newspaper, took his pipe once more from his +mouth, and said nothing. + +“John, put down that paper! I declare it’s enough to drive anybody +crazy! Now look at that boy walking across the lawn. He does it every +night, delivering the Express, and you take no more notice! He’s wearing +a regular path!” + +“Sonny,” said Mr Murchison, as the urchin approached, “you mustn’t walk +across the grass.” + +“Much good that will do!” remarked Mrs Murchison. “I’d teach him to +walk across the grass, if--if it were my business. Boy--isn’t your name +Willie Parker? Then it was your mother I promised the coat and the other +things to, and you’ll find them ready there, just inside the hall door. +They’ll make down very well for you, but you can tell her from me that +she’d better double-seam them, for the stuff’s apt to ravel. And attend +to what Mr Murchison says; go out by the gravel--what do you suppose +it’s there for?” + +Mrs Murchison readjusted her glasses, and turned another row of the tiny +sock. “I must say it’s a pleasure to have the lawn neat and green,” + she said, with a sigh. “Never did I expect to see the day it would be +anything but chickweed and dandelions. We’ve a great deal to be thankful +for, and all our children spared to us, too. John,” she continued, +casting a shrewd glance over her needles at nothing in particular; “do +you suppose anything was settled between Lorne and Dora Milburn before +he Started?” + +“He said nothing to me about it.” + +“Oh, well, very likely he wouldn’t. Young people keep such a tremendous +lot to themselves nowadays. But it’s my belief they’ve come to an +understanding.” + +“Lily might do worse,” said John Murchison, judicially. + +“I should think Dora might do worse! I don’t know where she’s going to +do better! The most promising young man in Elgin, well brought up, well +educated, well started in a profession! There’s not a young fellow in +this town to compare with Lorne, and perfectly well you know it, John. +Might do worse! But that’s you all over. Belittle your own belongings!” + +Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. “They’ve always got you to blow +their trumpet, Mother,” he replied. + +“And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about Lorne! He says +that if the English Government starts that line of boats to Halifax the +country will owe it to him, much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody +else.” + +“Dr Drummond likes to talk,” said John Murchison. + +“Lorne’s keeping his end up all right,” remarked Stella, jumping off +her bicycle in time to hear what her mother said. “It’s great, that old +Wallingham asking him to dinner. And haven’t I just been spreading it!” + +“Where have you been, Stella?” asked Mrs Murchison. + +“Oh, only over to the Milburns’. Dora asked me to come and show her +the new flower-stitch for table centres. Dora’s suddenly taken to fancy +work. She’s started a lot--a lot too much!” Stella added gloomily. + +“If Dora likes to do fancy work I don’t see why anybody should want to +stop her,” remarked Mrs Murchison, with a meaning glance at her husband. + +“I suppose she thinks she’s going to get Lorne,” said Stella. Her +resentment was only half-serious, but the note was there. + +“What put that into your head?” asked her mother. + +“Oh, well, anybody can see that he’s devoted to her, and has been +for ages, and it isn’t as if Lorne was one to HAVE girlfriends; she’s +absolutely the only thing he’s ever looked at twice. She hasn’t got a +ring, that’s true, but it would be just like her to want him to get it +in England. And I know they correspond. She doesn’t make any secret of +it.” + +“Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as well as you, +Stella,” said Mrs Murchison, stooping for her ball. “But there’s no need +to take things for granted at such a rate. And, above all, you’re not to +go TALKING, remember!” + +“Well, if you think Dora Milburn’s good enough,” returned Lorne’s +youngest sister in threatening accents, “it’s more than I do, that’s +all. Hello, Miss Murchison!” she continued, as Advena appeared. “You’re +looking ‘xtremely dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?” + +Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful amusement, which +Stella, bicycling forth again, received in the back of her head. + +“Father,” said Mrs Murchison, “if you had taken any share in the +bringing up of this family, Stella ought to have her ears boxed this +minute!” + +“We’ll have to box them,” said Mr Murchison, “when she comes back.” + Advena had retreated into the house. “IS she expecting his reverence?” + asked her father with a twinkle. + +“Don’t ask me! I’m sure it’s more than I can tell you. It’s a mystery +to me, that matter, altogether. I’ve known him come three evenings in a +week and not again for a month of Sundays. And when he does come there +they sit, talking about their books and their authors; you’d think the +world had nothing else in it! I know, for I’ve heard them, hard at it, +there in the library. Books and authors won’t keep their house or look +after their family for them; I can tell them that, if it does come to +anything, which I hope it won’t.” + +“Finlay’s fine in the pulpit,” said John Murchison cautiously. + +“Oh, the man’s well enough; it’s him I’m sorry for. I don’t call Advena +fitted to be a wife, and last of all a minister’s. Abby was a treasure +for any man to get, and Stella won’t turn out at all badly; she’s taking +hold very well for her age. But Advena simply hasn’t got it in her, and +that’s all there is to say about it.” Mrs Murchison pulled her needles +out right side out with finality. “I don’t deny the girl’s talented in +her own way, but it’s no way to marry on. She’d much better make up her +mind just to be a happy independent old maid; any woman might do worse. +And take no responsibilities.” + +“There would always be you, Mother, for them to fall back on.” It was as +near as John Murchison ever got to flattery. + +“No thank you, then! I’ve brought up six of my own, as well as I was +able, which isn’t saying much, and a hard life I’ve had of it. Now I’m +done with it; they’ll have to find somebody else to fall back on. If +they get themselves into such a mess”--Mrs Murchison stopped to laugh +with sincere enjoyment--“they needn’t look to me to get them out.” + +“I guess you’d have a hand, Mother.” + +“Not I. But the man isn’t thinking of any such folly. What do you +suppose his salary is?” + +“Eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. They raised it last month.” + +“And how far would Advena be able to make that go, with servants getting +the money they do and expecting the washing put out as a matter of +course? Do you remember Eliza, John, that we had when we were first +married? Seven dollars a month she got; she would split wood at a pinch, +and I’ve never had one since that could do up shirts like her. Three +years and a half she was with me, and did everything, everything I +didn’t do. But that was management, and Advena’s no manager. It would +be me that would tell him, if I had the chance. Then he couldn’t say he +hadn’t been warned. But I don’t think he has any such idea.” + +“Advena,” pronounced Mr Murchison, “might do worse.” + +“Well, I don’t know whether she might. The creature is well enough to +preach before a congregation. But what she can see in him out of the +pulpit is more than I know. A great gawk of a fellow, with eyes that +always look as if he were in the middle of next week! He may be able +to talk to Advena, but he’s no hand at general conversation; I know +he finds precious little to say to me. But he’s got no such notion. He +comes here because, being human, he’s got to open his mouth some time or +other, I suppose; but it’s my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody +else in his mind’s eye at present. He doesn’t go the right way about +it.” + +“H’m!” said John Murchison. + +“He brought her a book the last time he came--what do you think the name +of it was? The something or other of Plato! Do you call that a natural +gift from a young man who is thinking seriously of a girl? Besides, if +I know anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no writer for +a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I’d Plato him to the +rightabout if it was me!” + +“She might read worse than Plato,” remarked John. + +“Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She’s your own daughter for +outlandish books. Mercy on us, here comes the man! We’ll just say ‘How +d’ye do?’ to him, and then start for Abby’s, John. I’m not easy in my +mind about the baby, and I haven’t been over since the morning. Harry +says it’s nothing but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough when I +hear it. And if it is whooping-cough the boy will have to come here +and rampage, I suppose, till they’re clear of it. There’s some use in +grandmothers, if I do say it myself!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +If anyone had told Mr Hugh Finlay, while he was pursuing his rigorous +path to the ideals of the University of Edinburgh, that the first +notable interest of his life in the calling and the country to which +even then he had given his future would lie in his relations with any +woman, he would have treated the prediction as mere folly. To go far +enough back in accounting for this one would arrive at the female sort, +sterling and arid, that had presided over his childhood and represented +the sex to his youth, the Aunt Lizzie, widowed and frugal and spare, who +had brought him up; the Janet Wilson, who had washed and mended him from +babyhood, good gaunt creature half-servant and half-friend--the mature +respectable women and impossible blowsy girls of the Dumfriesshire +village whence he came. With such as these relations, actual or +imagined, could only be of the most practical kind, matters to be +arranged on grounds of expediency, and certainly not of the first +importance. The things of first importance--what you could do with your +energy and your brains to beat out some microscopic good for the +world, and what you could see and feel and realize in it of value to +yourself--left little room for the feminine consideration in Finlay’s +eyes; it was not a thing, simply, that existed there with any +significance. Woman in her more attractive presentment, was a daughter +of the poets, with an esoteric, or perhaps only a symbolic, or perhaps +a merely decorative function; in any case, a creature that required an +initiation to perceive her--a process to which Finlay would have been +as unwilling as he was unlikely to submit. Not that he was destitute +of ideals about women--they would have formed in that case a strange +exception to his general outlook--but he saw them on a plane detached +and impersonal, concerned with the preservation of society the +maintenance of the home, the noble devotions of motherhood. Women had +been known, historically, to be capable of lofty sentiments and fine +actions: he would have been the last to withhold their due from women. +But they were removed from the scope of his imagination, partly by the +accidents I have mentioned and partly, no doubt, by a simple lack in him +of the inclination to seek and to know them. + +So that Christie Cameron, when she came to stay with his aunt in Bross +during the few weeks after his ordination and before his departure for +Canada, found a fair light for judgement and more than a reasonable +disposition to acquiesce in the scale of her merits, as a woman, on the +part of Hugh Finlay. He was familiar with the scale of her merits before +she came; his Aunt Lizzie did little but run them up and down. When she +arrived she answered to every item she was a good height, but not too +tall; a nice figure of a woman, but not what you would call stout; +a fresh-faced body whose excellent principles were written in every +feature she had. She was five years older than Hugh, but even that he +came to accept in Aunt Lizzie’s skilful exhibition as something to the +total of her advantages. A pleasant independent creature with a hundred +a year of her own, sensible and vigorous and good-tempered, belonging as +well to the pre-eminently right denomination. She had virtues that might +have figured handsomely in an advertisement had Aunt Lizzie, in +the plenitude of her good will, thought fit to take that measure on +Christie’s behalf. But nothing was farther from Aunt Lizzie’s mind. +We must, in fairness, add Christie Cameron to the sum of Finlay’s +acquaintance with the sex; but even then the total is slender, little to +go upon. + +Yet the fact which Mr Finlay would in those days have considered so +unimaginable remained; it had come into being and it remained. The chief +interest of his life, the chief human interest, did lie in his relations +with Advena Murchison. He might challenge it, but he could not move it; +he might explain, but he could not alter it. And there had come no point +at which it would have occurred to him to do either. When at last he +had seen how simple and possible it was to enjoy Miss Murchison’s +companionship upon unoccupied evenings he had begun to do it with +eagerness and zest, the greater because Elgin offered him practically no +other. Dr Drummond lived, for purposes of intellectual contact, at the +other end of the century, the other clergy and professional men of the +town were separated from Finlay by all the mental predispositions that +rose from the virgin soil. He was, as Mrs Murchison said, a great gawk +of a fellow; he had little adaptability; he was not of those who spend +a year or two in the New World and go back with a trans-Atlantic +accent, either of tongue or of mind. Where he saw a lack of dignity, +of consideration, or of restraint, he did not insensibly become less +dignified or considerate or restrained to smooth out perceptible +differences; nor was he constituted to absorb the qualities of those +defects, and enrich his nature by the geniality, the shrewdness, the +quick mental movement that stood on the other side of the account. He +cherished in secret an admiration for the young men of Elgin, with their +unappeasable energy and their indomitable optimism, but he could not +translate it in any language of sympathy and but for Advena his soul +would have gone uncomforted and alone. + +Advena, as we know, was his companion. Seeing herself just that, +constantly content to be just that, she walked beside him closer than he +knew. She had her woman’s prescience and trusted it. Her own heart, all +sweetly alive, counselled her to patience; her instincts laid her in +bonds to concealment. She knew, she was sure; so sure that she could +play sometimes, smiling, with her living heart-- + + The nightingale was not yet heard + For the rose was not yet blown, + +she could say of his; and what was that but play, and tender laughter, +at the expense of her own? And then, perhaps, looking up from the same +book, she would whisper, alone in her room-- + + Oh, speed the day, thou dear, dear May, + +and gaze humbly through tears at her own face in the glass loving it on +his behalf. She took her passion with the weight of a thing ordained; +she had come upon it where it waited for her, and they had gone on +together, carrying the secret. There might be farther to go, but the way +could never be long. + +Finlay said when he came in that the heat for May was extraordinary; +and Advena reminded him that he was in a country where everything was +accomplished quickly, even summer. + +“Except perhaps civilization.” she added. They were both young enough to +be pleased with cleverness for its specious self. + +“Oh, that is slow everywhere,” he observed; “but how you can say so, +with every modern improvement staring you in the face--” + +“Electric cars and telephones! Oh, I didn’t say we hadn’t the products,” + and she laughed. “But the thing itself, the precious thing; that never +comes just by wishing, does it? The art of indifference, the art of +choice--” + +“If you had refinements in the beginning what would the end be?” he +demanded. “Anaemia.” + +“Oh, I don’t quarrel with the logic of it. I only point out the fact. +To do that is to acquiesce, really. I acquiesce; I have to. But one may +long for the more delicate appreciations that seem to flower where life +has gone on longer.” + +“I imagine,” Finlay said, “that to wish truly and ardently for such +things is to possess them. If you didn’t possess them you wouldn’t +desire them! As they say, as they say--” + +“As they say?” + +“About love. Some novelist does. To be conscious in any way toward it is +to be fatally infected.” + +“What novelist?” Advena asked, with shining interest. + +“Some novelist. I--I can’t have invented it,” he replied, somewhat +confounded. He got up and walked to the window, where it stood open upon +the verandah. “I don’t write novels,” he said. + +“Perhaps you live them,” suggested Advena. “I mean, of course,” she +added, laughing, “the highest class of fiction.” + +“Heaven forbid!” + +“Why Heaven forbid? You are sensitive to life, and a great deal of it +comes into your scope. You can’t see a thing truly without feeling it; +you can’t feel it without living it. I don’t write novels either, but I +experience--whole publishers’ lists.” + +“That means,” he said, smiling, “that your vision is up to date. You +see the things, the kind of things that you read of next day. The modern +moral sophistications--?” + +“Don’t make me out boastful,” she replied. “I often do.” + +“Mine would be old-fashioned, I am afraid. Old stories of pain”--he +looked out upon the lawn, white where the chestnut blossoms +were dropping, and his eyes were just wistful enough to stir her +adoration--“and of heroism that is quite dateless in the history of the +human heart. At least one likes to hope so.” + +“I somehow think,” she ventured timidly, “that yours would be classic.” + +Finlay withdrew his glance abruptly from the falling blossoms as if they +had tempted him to an expansion he could not justify. He was impatient +always of the personal note, and in his intercourse with Miss Murchison +he seemed of late to be constantly sounding it. + +“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, almost irritably. “I only meant that I +see the obvious things, while you seem to have an eye for the subtle. +There’s reward, I suppose, in seeing anything. But about those more +delicate appreciations of societies longer evolved, I sometimes think +that you don’t half realize, in a country like this, how much there is +to make up.” + +“Is there anything really to make up?” she asked. + +“Oh, so much! Freedom from old habits, inherited problems: look at the +absurd difficulty they have in England in handling such a matter as +education! Here you can’t even conceive it--the schools have been on +logical lines from the beginning, or almost. Political activity over +there is half-strangled at this moment by the secular arm of religion; +here it doesn’t even impede the circulation! Conceive any Church, or the +united Churches, for the matter of that, asking a place in the conduct +of the common schools of Ontario! How would the people take it? With +anger, or with laughter, but certainly with sense. ‘By all mean let the +ministers serve education on the School Boards,’ they would say, ‘by +election like other people’--an opportunity, by the way, which has just +been offered to me. I’m nominated for East Elgin in place of Leverett, +the tanner, who is leaving the town. I shall do my best to get in, too; +there are several matters that want seeing to over there. The girls’ +playground, for one thing, is practically under water in the spring.” + +“You should get in without the least difficulty. Oh, yes there is +something in a fresh start: we’re on the straight road as a nation, +in most respects; we haven’t any picturesque old prescribed lanes to +travel. So you think that makes up?” + +“It’s one thing. You might put down space--elbow-room.” + +“An empty horizon,” Advena murmured. + +“For faith and the future. An empty horizon is better than none. England +has filled hers up. She has now--these,” and he nodded at a window open +to the yellow west. Advena looked with him. + +“Oh, if you have a creative imagination,” she said “like Wallingham’s. +But even then your vision must be only political economic, material. You +can’t conceive the--flowers--that will come out of all that. And if you +could it wouldn’t be like having them.” + +“And the scope of the individual, his chance of self-respect, unhampered +by the traditions of class, which either deaden it or irritate it in +England! His chance of significance and success! And the splendid, +buoyant, unused air to breathe, and the simplicity of life, and the +plenty of things!” + +“I am to be consoled because apples are cheap.” + +“You are to be consoled for a hundred reasons. Doesn’t it console you +to feel under your very feet the forces that are working to the immense +amelioration of a not altogether undeserving people?” + +“No,” said Advena, rebelliously; and indeed he had been a trifle +didactic to her grievance. They laughed together, and then with a look +at her in which observation seemed suddenly to awake, Finlay said-- + +“And those things aren’t all, or nearly all. I sometimes think that the +human spirit, as it is set free in these wide unblemished spaces, may be +something more pure and sensitive, more sincerely curious about what is +good and beautiful--” + +He broke off, still gazing at her, as if she had been an idea and no +more. How much more she was she showed him by a vivid and beautiful +blush. + +“I am glad you are so well satisfied,” she said, and then, as if her +words had carried beyond their intention, she blushed again. + +Upon which Hugh Finlay saw his idea incarnate. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +If it were fair or adequate to so quote, I should be very much tempted +to draw the history of Lorne Murchison’s sojourn in England from his +letters home. He put his whole heart into these, his discoveries and his +recognitions and his young enthusiasm, all his claimed inheritance, all +that he found to criticize and to love. His mother said, half-jealously +when she read them, that he seemed tremendously taken up with the old +country; and of course she expressed the thing exactly, as she always +did: he was tremendously taken up with it. The old country fell into the +lines of his imagination, from the towers of Westminster to the shops +in the Strand; from the Right Hon. Fawcett Wallingham, who laid great +issues before the public, to the man who sang melancholy hymns to the +same public up and down the benevolent streets. It was naturally London +that filled his view; his business was in London and his time was short; +the country he saw from the train, whence it made a low cloudy frame for +London, with decorations of hedges and sheep. How he saw London, how he +carried away all he did in the time and under the circumstances, may +be thought a mystery; there are doubtless people who would consider his +opportunities too limited to gather anything essential. Cruickshank was +the only one of the deputation who had been “over” before; and they all +followed him unquestioningly to the temperance hotel of his preference +in Bloomsbury, where bedrooms were three and six and tea was understood +as a solid meal and the last in the day. Bates would have voted for the +Metropole, and McGill had been advised that you saw a good deal of life +at the Cecil, but they bowed to Cruickshank’s experience. None of them +were total abstainers, but neither had any of them the wine habit; they +were not inconvenienced, therefore, in taking advantage of the cheapness +with which total abstinence made itself attractive, and they took it, +though they were substantial men. As one of them put it, they weren’t +over there to make a splash, a thing that was pretty hard to do in +London, anyhow; and home comforts came before anything. The conviction +about the splash was perhaps a little the teaching of circumstances. +They were influential fellows at home, who had lived for years in the +atmosphere of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements were +observed in the newspapers; their names stood for wide interests, big +concerns. They had known the satisfaction of a positive importance, +not only in their community but in their country; and they had come to +England invested as well with the weight that is attached to a public +mission. It may very well be that they looked for some echo of what they +were accustomed to, and were a little dashed not to find it--to find the +merest published announcement of their arrival, and their introduction +by Lord Selkirk to the Colonial Secretary; and no heads turned in the +temperance hotel when they came into the dining-room. It may very well +be. It is even more certain, however that they took the lesson as they +found it, with the quick eye for things as they are which seems to +come of looking at things as they will be, and with just that humorous +comment about the splash. It would be misleading to say that they were +humbled; I doubt whether they even felt their relativity, whether they +ever dropped consciously, there in the Bloomsbury hotel, into their +places in the great scale of London. Observing the scale, recognizing +it, they held themselves unaffected by it; they kept, in a curious, +positive way, the integrity of what they were and what they had come +for; they maintained their point of view. So much must be conceded. The +Empire produces a family resemblance, but here and there, when oceans +intervene, a different mould of the spirit. + +Wallingham certainly invited them to dinner one Sunday, in a body, an +occasion which gave one or two of them some anxiety until they found +that it was not to be adorned by the ladies of the family. Tricorne +was there, President of the Board of Trade, and Fleming, who held the +purse-strings of the United Kingdom, two Ministers whom Wallingham had +asked because they were supposed to have open minds--open, that is to +say, for purposes of assimilation. Wallingham considered, and rightly, +that he had done very well for the deputation in getting these two. +There were other “colleagues” whose attendance he would have liked to +compel; but one of them, deep in the country, was devoting his weekends +to his new French motor, and the other to the proofs of a book upon +Neglected Periods of Mahommedan History, and both were at the breaking +strain with overwork. Wallingham asked the deputation to dinner. Lord +Selkirk, who took them to Wallingham, dined them too, and invited them +to one of those garden parties for the sumptuous scale of which he was +so justly famed; the occasion we have already heard about, upon which +royalty was present in two generations. They travelled to it by special +train, a circumstance which made them grave, receptive, and even +slightly ceremonious with one another. Lord Selkirk, with royalty on his +hands, naturally could not give them much of his time, and they moved +about in a cluster, avoiding the ladies’ trains and advising one another +that it was a good thing the High Commissioner was a man of large +private means; it wasn’t everybody that could afford to take the job. +Yet they were not wholly detached from the occasion; they looked at it, +after they had taken it in, with an air half-amused, half-proprietary. +All this had, in a manner, come out of Canada, and Canada was theirs. +One of them--Bates it was--responding to a lady who was effusive about +the strawberries, even took the modestly depreciatory attitude of the +host. “They’re a fair size for this country, ma’am, but if you want +berries with a flavour we’ll do better for you in the Niagara district.” + +It must be added that Cruickshank lunched with Wallingham at his club, +and with Tricorne at his; and on both occasions the quiet and attentive +young secretary went with him, for purposes of reference, his pocket +bulging with memoranda. The young secretary felt a little embarrassed +to justify his presence at Tricorne’s lunch, as the Right Honourable +gentleman seemed to have forgotten what his guests had come for beyond +it, and talked exclusively and exhaustively about the new possibilities +for fruit-farming in England. Cruickshank fairly shook himself into +his overcoat with irritation afterward. “It’s the sort of thing we must +except,” he said, as they merged upon Pall Mall. It was not the sort of +thing Lorne expected; but we know him unsophisticated and a stranger +to the heart of the Empire, which beats through such impediment +of accumulated tissue. Nor was it the sort of thing they got from +Wallingham, the keen-eyed and probing, whose skill in adjusting +conflicting interests could astonish even their expectation, and whose +vision of the essentials of the future could lift even their enthusiasm. +One would like to linger over their touch with Wallingham, that fusion +of energy with energy, that straight, satisfying, accomplishing dart. +There is more drama here; no doubt, than in all the pages that are to +come. But I am explaining now how little, not how much, the Cruickshank +deputation, and especially Lorne Murchison, had the opportunity of +feeling and learning in London, in order to show how wonderful it was +that Lorne felt and learned so widely. That, what he absorbed and +took back with him is, after all, what we have to do with; his actual +adventures are of no great importance. + +The deputation to urge improved communications within the Empire had few +points of contact with the great world, but its members were drawn +into engagements of their own, more, indeed, than some of them could +conveniently overtake. Mr Bates never saw his niece in the post-office, +and regrets it to this day. The engagements arose partly out of business +relations. Poulton who was a dyspeptic, complained that nothing could be +got through in London without eating and drinking; for his part he would +concede a point any time not to eat and drink, but you could not do it; +you just had to suffer. Poulton was a principal in one of the railway +companies that were competing to open up the country south of Hudson’s +Bay to the Pacific, but having dealt with that circumstance in the +course of the day he desired only to be allowed to go to bed on bread +and butter and a little stewed fruit. Bates, whose name was a nightmare +to every other dry-goods man in Toronto, naturally had to see a good +many of the wholesale people; he, too, complained of the number +of courses and the variety of the wines, but only to disguise his +gratification. McGill, of the Great Bear Line, had big proposals to +make in connection with southern railway freights from Liverpool; and +Cameron, for private reasons of magnitude, proposed to ascertain +the real probability of a duty to foreigners on certain forms of +manufactured leather--he turned out in Toronto a very good class of +suitcase. Cruickshank had private connections to which they were all +respectful. Nobody but Cruickshank found it expedient to look up the +lost leader of the Canadian House of Commons, contributed to a cause +still more completely lost in home politics; nobody but Cruickshank was +likely to be asked to dine by a former Governor-General of the Dominion, +an invitation which nobody but Cruickshank would be likely to refuse. + +“It used to be a ‘command’ in Ottawa,” said Cruickshank, who had got on +badly with his sovereign’s representative there, “but here it’s only a +privilege. There’s no business in it, and I haven’t time for pleasure.” + +The nobleman in question had, in effect, dropped back into the Lords. So +far as the Empire was concerned, he was in the impressive rearguard, and +this was a little company of fighting men. + +The entertainments arising out of business were usually on a scale more +or less sumptuous. They took place in big, well-known restaurants, and +included a look at many of the people who seem to lend themselves so +willingly to the great buzzing show that anybody can pay for in London, +their names in the paper in the morning, their faces at Prince’s in the +evening, their personalities no doubt advantageously exposed in various +places during the day. But there were others, humbler ones in Earl’s +Court Road or Maida Vale, where the members of the deputation had +relatives whom it was natural to hunt up. Long years and many billows +had rolled between, and more effective separations had arisen in the +whole difference of life; still, it was natural to hunt them up, to +seek in their eyes and their hands the old subtle bond of kin, and +perhaps--such is our vanity in the new lands--to show them what the +stock had come to overseas. They tended to be depressing these visits: +the married sister was living in a small way; the first cousin seemed to +have got into a rut; the uncle and aunt were failing, with a stooping, +trembling, old-fashioned kind of decrepitude, a rigidity of body and +mind, which somehow one didn’t see much over home. + +“England,” said Poulton, the Canadian-born, “is a dangerous country to +live in; you run such risks of growing old.” They agreed, I fear, for +more reasons than this that England was a good country to leave early; +and you cannot blame them--there was not one of them who did not offer +in his actual person proof of what he said. Their own dividing chance +grew dramatic in their eyes. + +“I was offered a clerkship with the Cunards the day before I sailed,” + said McGill. “Great Scott, if I’d taken that clerkship!” He saw all his +glorious past, I suppose, in a suburban aspect. + +“I was kicked out,” said Cameron, “and it was the kindest attention my +father ever paid me;” and Bates remarked that it was worth coming out +second-class, as he did, to go back in the best cabin in the ship. + +The appearance and opinions of those they had left behind them prompted +them to this kind of congratulation, with just a thought of compunction +at the back of it for their own better fortunes. In the further +spectacle of England most of them saw the repository of singularly +old-fashioned ideas the storehouse of a good deal of money; and the +market for unlimited produce. They looked cautiously at imperial +sentiment; they were full of the terms of their bargain and had, as they +would have said, little use for schemes that did not commend themselves +on a basis of common profit. Cruickshank was the biggest and the best of +them; but even Cruickshank submitted the common formulas; submitted them +and submitted to them. + +Only Lorne Murchison among them looked higher and further; only he was +alive to the inrush of the essential; he only lifted up his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Lorne was thus an atom in the surge of London. The members of the +deputation, as their business progressed, began to feel less like atoms +and more like a body exerting an influence, however obscurely hid in +a temperance hotel, upon the tide of international affairs; but their +secretary had naturally no initiative that appeared, no importance that +was taken account of. In these respects, no less than in the others, he +justified Mr Cruickshank’s selection. He did his work as unobtrusively +as he did it admirably well; and for the rest he was just washed +about, carried, hither and thither, generally on the tops of omnibuses, +receptive, absorbent, mostly silent. He did try once or twice to talk to +the bus drivers--he had been told it was a thing to do if you wanted +to get hold of the point of view of a particular class; but the thick +London idiom defeated him, and he found they grew surly when he asked +them too often to repeat their replies. He felt a little surly himself +after a while, when they asked him, as they nearly always did, if he +wasn’t an American. “Yes,” he would say in the end, “but not the United +States kind,” resenting the necessity of explaining to the Briton beside +him that there were other kinds. The imperial idea goes so quickly from +the heart to the head. He felt compelled, nevertheless, to mitigate his +denial to the bus drivers. + +“I expect it’s the next best thing.” he would say, “but it’s only the +next best.” + +It was as if he felt charged to vindicate the race, the whole of +Anglo-Saxondom, there in his supreme moment, his splendid position, on +the top of an omnibus lumbering west out of Trafalgar Square. + +One introduction of his own he had. Mrs Milburn had got it for him from +the rector, Mr Emmett, to his wife’s brother, Mr Charles Chafe, who +had interests in Chiswick and a house in Warwick Gardens. Lorne put off +presenting the letter--did not know, indeed, quite how to present it, +till his stay in London was half over. Finally he presented himself with +it, as the quickest way, at the office of Mr Chafe’s works at Chiswick. +He was cordially received, both there and in Warwick Gardens, where he +met Mrs Chafe and the family, when he also met Mr Alfred Hesketh. Lorne +went several times to the house in Warwick Gardens, and Hesketh--a +nephew--was there on the very first occasion. It was an encounter +interesting on both sides. He--Hesketh--was a young man with a good +public school and a university behind him, where his very moderate +degree, however, failed to represent the activity of his mind or the +capacity of his energy. He had a little money of his own, and no present +occupation; he belonged to the surplus. He was not content to belong to +it; he cast about him a good deal for something to do. There was always +the Bar, but only the best fellows get on there, and he was not quite +one of the best fellows; he knew that. He had not money enough for +politics or interest enough for the higher departments of the public +service, nor had he those ready arts of expression that lead naturally +into journalism. Anything involving further examinations he rejected +on that account; and the future of glassware, in view of what they were +doing in Germany, did not entice him to join his uncle in Chiswick. +Still he was aware of enterprise, convinced that he had loafed long +enough. + +Lorne Murchison had never met anyone of Hesketh’s age in Hesketh’s +condition before. Affluence and age he knew, in honourable retirement; +poverty and youth he knew, embarked in the struggle; indolence and youth +he also knew, as it cumbered the ground; but youth and a competence, +equipped with education, industry, and vigour, searching vainly in +fields empty of opportunity, was to him a new spectacle. He himself had +intended to be a lawyer since he was fourteen. There never had been any +impediment to his intention, any qualification to his desire. He was +still under his father’s roof, but that was for the general happiness; +any time within the last eighteen months, if he had chosen to hurry +fate, he might have selected another. He was younger than Hesketh by +a year, yet we may say that he had arrived, while Hesketh was still +fidgeting at the starting-point. + +“Why don’t you farm?” he asked once. + +“Farming in England may pay in a quarter of a century, not before. I +can’t wait for it. Besides, why should I farm? Why didn’t you?” + +“Well,” said Lorne, “in your case it seems about the only thing left. I? +Oh it doesn’t attract us over there. We’re getting away from it--leaving +it to the newcomers from this side. Curious circle, that: I wonder when +our place gets overcrowded, where we shall go to plough?” + +Hesketh’s situation occupied them a good deal; but their great topic had +a wider drift, embracing nothing less than the Empire, pausing nowhere +short of the flag. The imperial idea was very much at the moment in the +public mind; it hung heavily, like a banner, in every newspaper, it +was filtering through the slow British consciousness, solidifying as it +travelled. In the end it might be expected to arrive at a shape in which +the British consciousness must either assimilate it or cast it forth. +They were saying in the suburbs that they wanted it explained; at +Hatfield they were saying, some of them, with folded arms, that it was +self evident; other members of that great house, swinging their arms, +called it blackness of darkness and ruin, so had a prophet divided it +against itself. Wallingham, still in the Cabinet, was going up and down +the country trying not to explain too much. There was division in +the Cabinet, sore travail among private members. The conception being +ministerial, the Opposition applied itself to the task of abortion, +fearing the worst if it should be presented to the country fully +formed and featured, the smiling offspring of progress and imagination. +Travellers to Greater Britain returned waving joyous torches in the +insular fog; they shed a brilliance and infectious enthusiasm, but there +were not enough to do more than make the fog visible. Many persons found +such torches irritating. They pointed out that as England had groped +to her present greatness she might be trusted to feel her way further. +“Free trade,” they said, “has made us what we are. Put out these +lights!” + +Mr Chafe was one of these. He was a cautious, heavy fellow, full of +Burgundy and distrust. The basis of the imperial idea inspired him with +suspicion and hostility. He could accept the American tariff on English +manufactures; that was a plain position, simple damage, a blow full +in the face, not to be dodged. But the offer of better business in the +English colonies in exchange for a duty on the corn and meat of foreign +countries--he could see too deep for that. The colonials might or might +not be good customers; he knew how many decanters he sold in the United +States, in spite of the tariff. He saw that the tax on food-stuffs was +being commended to the working-man with the argument of higher wages. +Higher wages, with the competition of foreign labour, spelt only one +word to English manufacturers, and that was ruin. The bugbear of higher +wages, immediate, threatening, near, the terror of the last thirty +years, closed the prospect for Charles Chafe; he could see nothing +beyond. He did not say so, but to him the prosperity of the British +manufacturer was bound up in the indigence of the operative. Thriving +workmen, doing well, and looking to do better, rose before him in terms +of menace, though their prosperity might be rooted in his own. “Give +them cheap food and keep them poor,” was the sum of his advice. His +opinions had the emphasis of the unexpected, the unnatural: he was one +of the people whom Wallingham’s scheme in its legitimate development of +a tariff on foreign manufactures might be expected to enrich. This fact, +which he constantly insisted on, did give them weight; it made him look +like a cunning fellow not to be caught with chaff. He and his business +had survived free trade--though he would not say this either--and he +preferred to go on surviving it rather than take the chances of any +zollverein. The name of the thing was enough for him, a word made in +Germany, thick and mucky, like their tumblers. As to the colonies--Mr +Chafe had been told of a certain spider who devoured her young ones. He +reversed the figure and it stood, in the imperial connection, for all +the argument he wanted. + +Alfred Hesketh had lived always in the hearing of such doctrine; it had +stood to him for political gospel by mere force of repetition. But he +was young, with the curiosity and enterprise and impatience of dogma +of youth; he belonged by temperament and situation to those plastic +thousands in whom Wallingham hoped to find the leaven that should leaven +the whole lump. His own blood stirred with the desire to accomplish, to +carry further; and as the scope of the philanthropist did not attract +him, he was vaguely conscious of having been born too late in England. +The new political appeal of the colonies, clashing suddenly upon old +insular harmonies, brought him a sense of wider fields and chances; his +own case he freely translated into his country’s, and offered an open +mind to politics that would help either of them. He looked at the new +countries with interest, an interest evoked by their sudden dramatic +leap into the forefront of public concern. He looked at them with what +nature intended to be the eye of a practical businessman. He looked +at Lorne Murchison, too, and listened to him, with steady critical +attention. Lorne seemed in a way to sum it all up in his person, all the +better opportunity a man had out there; and he handled large matters of +the future with a confidence and a grip that quickened the circulation. +Hesketh’s open mind gradually became filled with the imperial view as +he had the capacity to take it; and we need not be surprised if Lorne +Murchison, gazing in the same direction, supposed that they saw the same +thing. + +Hesketh confessed, declared, that Murchison had brought him round; and +Lorne surveyed this achievement with a thrill of the happiest triumph. +Hesketh stood, to him, a product of that best which he was so occupied +in admiring and pursuing. Perhaps he more properly represented the +second best; but we must allow something for the confusion of early +impressions. Hesketh had lived always in the presence of ideals +disengaged in England as nowhere else in the world; in Oxford, Lorne +knew, they clustered thick. There is no doubt that his manners were +good, and his ideas unimpeachable in the letter; the young Canadian read +the rest into him and loved him for what he might have been. + +“As an Englishman,” said Hesketh one evening as they walked together +back from the Chafes’ along Knightsbridge, talking of the policy urged +by the Colonial representatives at the last Conference, “I could wish +the idea were more our own--that we were pressing it on the colonies +instead of the colonies pressing it on us.” + +“Doesn’t there come a time in the history of most families,” Lorne +replied, “when the old folks look to the sons and daughters to keep them +in touch with the times? Why shouldn’t a vigorous policy of Empire be +conceived by its younger nations--who have the ultimate resources to +carry it out? We’ve got them and we know it--the iron and the coal +and the gold, and the wheat-bearing areas. I dare say it makes us seem +cheeky, but I tell you the last argument lies in the soil and what you +can get out of it. What has this country got in comparison? A market of +forty million people, whom she can’t feed and is less and less able to +find work for. Do you call that a resource? I call it an impediment--a +penalty. It’s something to exploit, for the immediate profit in it, +something to bargain with; but even as a market it can’t preponderate +always, and I can’t see why it should make such tremendous claims.” + +“England isn’t superannuated yet, Murchison.” + +“Not yet. Please God she never will be. But she isn’t as young as she +was, and it does seem to me--” + +“What seems to you?” + +“Well, I’m no economist, and I don’t know how far to trust my +impressions, and you needn’t tell me I’m a rank outsider, for I know +that; but coming here as an outsider, it does seem to me that it’s from +the outside that any sort of helpful change in the conditions of this +country has got to come. England still has military initiative, though +it’s hard to see how she’s going to keep that unless she does something +to stop the degeneration of the class she draws her army from; but +what other kind do we hear about? Company-promoting, bee-keeping, +asparagus-growing, poultry-farming for ladies, the opening of a new +Oriental Tea-Pot in Regent Street, with samisen-players between four +and six, and Japanese attendants who take the change on their hands and +knees. London’s one great stomach--how many eating places have we passed +in the last ten minutes? The place seems all taken up with inventing new +ways of making rich people more comfortable and better-amused--I’m fed +up with the sight of shiny carriages with cockaded flunkeys on ‘em, +wooden-smart, rolling about with an elderly woman and a parasol and a +dog. England seems to have fallen back on itself, got content to spend +the money there is in the country already; and about the only line +of commercial activity the stranger sees is the onslaught on that +accumulation. London isn’t the headquarters for big new developing +enterprises any more. If you take out Westminster and Wallingham, London +is a collection of traditions and great houses, and newspaper offices, +and shops. That sort of thing can’t go on for ever. Already capital +is drawing away to conditions it can find a profit in--steel works in +Canada, woollen factories in Australia, jute mills in India. Do you +know where the boots came from that shod the troops in South Africa? +Cawnpore. The money will go, you know, and that’s a fact; the money will +go, and the people will go, anyhow. It’s only a case of whether England +sends them with blessing and profit and greater glory, or whether she +lets them slip away in spite of her.” + +“I dare say it will,” replied Hesketh; “I’ve got precious little, but +what there is I’d take out fast enough, if I saw a decent chance of +investing it. I sometimes think of trying my luck in the States. Two or +three fellows in my year went over there and aren’t making half a bad +thing of it.” + +“Oh, come,” said Lorne, half-swinging round upon the other, with his +hands in his pockets, “it isn’t exactly the time, is it, to talk about +chucking the Empire?” + +“Well, no, it isn’t,” Hesketh admitted. “One might do better to wait, +I dare say. At all events, till we see what the country says to +Wallingham.” + +They walked on for a moment or two in silence; then Lorne broke out +again. + +“I suppose it’s unreasonable, but there’s nothing I hate so much as to +hear Englishmen talk of settling in the United States.” + +“It’s risky, I admit. And I’ve never heard anybody yet say it was +comfortable.” + +“In a few years, fifty maybe, it won’t matter. Things will have taken +their direction by then; but now it’s a question of the lead. The +Americans think they’ve got it, and unless we get imperial federation +of course they have. It’s their plain intention to capture England +commercially.” + +“We’re a long way from that,” said Hesketh. + +“Yes, but it’s in the line of fate. Industrial energy is deserting this +country; and you have no large movement, no counter-advance, to make +against the increasing forces that are driving this way from over +there--nothing to oppose to assault. England is in a state of siege, and +doesn’t seem to know it. She’s so great--Hesketh, it’s pathetic!--she +offers an undefended shore to attack, and a stupid confidence, a kindly +blindness, above all to Americans, whom she patronizes in the gate.” + +“I believe we do patronize them,” said Hesketh. “It’s rotten bad form.” + +“Oh, form! I may be mad, but one seems to see in politics over here a +lack of definition and purpose, a tendency to cling to the abstract and +to precedent--‘the mainstay of the mandarin’ one of the papers calls +it; that’s a good word--that give one the feeling that this kingdom is +beginning to be aware of some influence stronger than its own. It lies, +of course, in the great West, where the corn and the cattle grow; and +between Winnipeg and Chicago choose quickly, England!” + +His companion laughed. “Oh, I’m with you,” he said, “but you take a +pessimistic view of this country, Murchison.” + +“It depends on what you call pessimism,” Lorne rejoined. “I see England +down the future the heart of the Empire, the conscience of the world. +and the Mecca of the race.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Cruickshank deputation returned across that North Atlantic which it +was their desire to see so much more than ever the track of the flag, +toward the middle of July. The shiny carriages were still rolling about +in great numbers when they left; London’s air of luxury had thickened +with the advancing season and hung heavily in the streets; people had +begun to picnic in the Park on Sundays. They had been from the beginning +a source of wonder and of depression to Lorne Murchison, the people +in the Park, those, I mean, who walked and sat and stood there for the +refreshment of their lives, for whom the place has a lyrical value +as real as it is unconscious. He noted them ranged on formal benches, +quiet, respectable, absorptive, or gathered heavily, shoulder to +shoulder, docile under the tutelage of policemen, listening to anyone +who would lift a voice to speak to them. London, beating on all borders, +hemmed them in; England outside seemed hardly to contain for them a +wider space. Lorne, with his soul full of free airs and forest +depths, never failed to respond to a note in the Park that left him +heavy-hearted, longing for an automatic distributing system for the +Empire. When he saw them bring their spirit-lamps and kettles and +sit down in little companies on four square yards of turf, under +the blackened branches, in the roar of the traffic, he went back to +Bloomsbury to pack his trunk, glad that it was not his lot to live with +that enduring spectacle. + +They were all glad, every one of them, to turn their faces to the West +again. The unready conception of things, the political concentration +upon parish affairs, the cumbrous social machinery, oppressed them +with its dull anachronism in a marching world; the problems of sluggish +overpopulation clouded their eager outlook. These conditions might have +been their inheritance. Perhaps Lorne Murchison was the only one who +thanked Heaven consciously that it was not so; but there was no man +among them whose pulse did not mark a heart rejoiced as he paced the +deck of the Allan liner the first morning out of Liverpool, because he +had leave to refuse them. None dreamed of staying, of “settling,” though +such a course was practicable to any of them except Lorne. They were +all rich enough to take the advantages that money brings in England, the +comfort, the importance, the state; they had only to add their wealth +to the sumptuous side of the dramatic contrast. I doubt whether the idea +even presented itself. It is the American who takes up his appreciative +residence in England. He comes as a foreigner, observant, amused, having +disclaimed responsibility for a hundred years. His detachment is as +complete as it would be in Italy, with the added pleasure of easy +comprehension. But homecomers from Greater Britain have never been +cut off, still feel their uneasy share in all that is, and draw a long +breath of relief as they turn again to their life in the lands where +they found wider scope and different opportunities, and that new quality +in the blood which made them different men. + +The deputation had accomplished a good deal; less, Cruickshank said, +than he had hoped, but more than he had expected. They had obtained +the promise of concessions for Atlantic services, both mail and certain +classes of freight, by being able to demonstrate a generous policy on +their own side. Pacific communications the home Government was more +chary of; there were matters to be fought out with Australia. The +Pacific was further away, as Cruickshank said, and you naturally can’t +get fellows who have never been there to see the country under the +Selkirks and south of the Bay--any of them except Wallingham, who had +never been there either, but whose imagination took views of the falcon. +They were reinforced by news of a shipping combination in Montreal to +lower freights to South Africa against the Americans; it wasn’t news to +them, some of them were in it; but it was to the public, and it helped +the sentiment of their aim, the feather on the arrow. They had secured +something, both financially and morally; what best pleased them, +perhaps, was the extent to which they got their scheme discussed. Here +Lorne had been invaluable; Murchison had done more with the newspapers, +they agreed, than any of them with Cabinet Ministers. The journalist +everywhere is perhaps more accessible to ideas, more susceptible to +enthusiasm, than his fellows, and Lorne was charged with the object of +his deputation in its most communicable, most captivating form. At all +events, he came to excellent understanding, whether of agreement or +opposition, with the newspapermen he met--Cruickshank knew a good +many of them and these occasions were more fruitful than the official +ones--and there is no doubt that the guarded approval of certain leading +columns had fewer ifs and buts and other qualifications in consequence, +while the disapproval of others was marked by a kind of unwilling +sympathy and a freely accorded respect. Lorne found London editors +surprisingly unbiased, London newspapers surprisingly untrammelled. +They seemed to him to suffer from no dictated views, no interests in the +background or special local circumstances. They had open minds, most of +them, and when a cloud appeared it was seldom more than a prejudice. It +was only his impression, and perhaps it would not stand cynical inquiry; +but he had a grateful conviction that the English Press occupied in the +main a lofty and impartial ground of opinion, from which it desired only +a view of the facts in their true proportion. On his return he confided +it to Horace Williams, who scoffed and ran the national politics of the +Express in the local interests of Fox County as hard as ever; but it had +fallen in with Lorne’s beautiful beliefs about England, and he clung to +it for years. + +The Williamses had come over the second evening following Lorne’s +arrival, after tea. Rawlins had gone to the station, just to see that +the Express would make no mistake in announcing that Mr L. Murchison had +“Returned to the Paternal Roof,” and the Express had announced it, +with due congratulation. Family feeling demanded that for the first +twenty-four hours he should be left to his immediate circle, but people +had been dropping in all the next day at the office, and now came the +Williamses “trapesing,” as Mrs Murchison said, across the grass, though +she was too content to make it more than a private grievance, to where +they all sat on the verandah. + +“What I don’t understand,” Horace Williams said to Mr Murchison, “was +why you didn’t give him a blow on the whistle. You and Milburn and a few +others might have got up quite a toot. You don’t get the secretary to a +deputation for tying up the Empire home every day.” + +“You did that for him in the Express,” said John Murchison, smiling as +he pressed down, with an accustomed thumb, the tobacco into his pipe. + +“Oh, we said nothing at all! Wait till he’s returned for South Fox,” + Williams responded jocularly. + +“Why not the Imperial Council--of the future--at Westminster while +you’re about it?” remarked Lorne, flipping a pebble back upon the gravel +path. + +“That will keep, my son. But one of these days, you mark my words, Mr +L. Murchison will travel to Elgin Station with flags on his engine and +he’ll be very much surprised to find the band there, and a large number +of his fellow-citizens, all able-bodied shouting men, and every factory +whistle in Elgin let off at once, to say nothing of kids with tin ones. +And if the Murchison Stove and Furnace Works siren stands out of that +occasion I’ll break in and pull it myself.” + +“It won’t stand out,” Stella assured him. “I’ll attend to it. Don’t you +worry.” + +“I suppose you had a lovely time, Mr Murchison?” said Mrs Williams, +gently tilting to and fro in a rocking-chair, with her pretty feet +in their American shoes well in evidence. It is a fact, or perhaps +a parable, that should be interesting to political economists, the +adaptability of Canadian feet to American shoes; but fortunately it is +not our present business. Though I must add that the “rocker” was also +American; and the hammock in which Stella reposed came from New York; +and upon John Murchison’s knee, with the local journal, lay a pink +evening paper published in Buffalo. + +“Better than I can tell you, Mrs Williams, in all sorts of ways. But +it’s good to be back, too. Very good!” Lorne threw up his head and drew +in the pleasant evening air of midsummer with infinite relish while his +eye travelled contentedly past the chestnuts on the lawn, down the vista +of the quiet tree-bordered street. It lay empty in the solace of +the evening, a blue hill crossed it in the distance, and gave it an +unfettered look, the wind stirred in the maples. A pair of schoolgirls +strolled up and down bareheaded; now and then a buggy passed. + +“There’s room here,” he said. + +“Find it kind of crowded up over there?” asked Mr Williams. “Worse than +New York?” + +“Oh, yes. Crowded in a patient sort of way--it’s enough to break your +heart--that you don’t see in New York! The poor of New York--well, +they’ve got the idea of not being poor. In England they’re resigned, +they’ve got callous. My goodness! the fellows out of work over +there--you can SEE they’re used to it, see it in the way they slope +along and the look in their eyes, poor dumb dogs. They don’t understand +it, but they’ve just got to take it! Crowded? Rather!” + +“We don’t say ‘rather’ in this country, mister,” observed Stella. + +“Well, you can say it now, kiddie.” + +They laughed at the little passage--the traveller’s importation of one +or two Britishisms had been the subject of skirmish before--but silence +fell among them for a moment afterward. They all had in the blood the +remembrance of what Lorne had seen. + +“Well, you’ve been doing big business,” said Horace Williams. + +Lorne shook his head. “We haven’t done any harm,” he said, “but our +scheme’s away out of sight now. At least it ought to be.” + +“Lost in the bigger issue.” said Williams, and Lorne nodded. + +The bigger issue had indeed in the meantime obscured the political +horizon, and was widely spreading. A mere colonial project might +well disappear in it. England was absorbed in a single contemplation. +Wallingham, though he still supported the disabilities of a right +honourable evangelist with a gospel of his own, was making astonishing +conversions; the edifice of the national economic creed seemed coming +over at the top. It was a question of the resistance of the base, and +the world was watching. + +“Cruickshank says if the main question had been sprung a month ago we +wouldn’t have gone over. As it is, on several points we’ve got to wait. +If they reject the preferential trade idea over there we shall have done +a little good, for any government would be disposed to try to patch up +something to take the place of imperial union in that case; and a few +thousands more for shipping subsidies and cheap cablegrams would have +a great look of strengthening the ties with the colonies. But if they +commit themselves to a zollverein with us and the rest of the family +you won’t hear much more about the need to foster communications. +Communications will foster themselves.” + +“Just so,” remarked John Murchison. “They’ll save their money.” + +“I wouldn’t think so before--I couldn’t,” Lorne went on, “but I’m afraid +it’s rather futile, the kind of thing we’ve been trying to do. It’s +fiddling at a superstructure without a foundation. What we want is the +common interest. Common interest, common taxation for defence, common +representation, domestic management of domestic affairs, and you’ve got +a working Empire.” + +“Just as easy as slippin’ off a log,” remarked Horace Williams. + +“Common interest, yes,” said his father; “common taxation, no, for +defence or any other purpose. The colonies will never send money to be +squandered by the London War Office. We’ll defend ourselves, as soon +as we can manage it, and buy our own guns and our own cruisers. We’re +better business people than they are, and we know it.” + +“I guess that’s right, Mr Murchison,” said Horace Williams. “Our own +army and navy--in the sweet bye-and-bye. And let ‘em understand they’ll +be welcome to the use of it, but quite in a family way--no sort of +compulsion.” + +“Well,” said Lorne, “that’s compatible enough.” + +“And your domestic affairs must include the tariff,” Mr Murchison went +on. “There’s no such possibility as a tariff that will go round. And +tariffs are kittle cattle to shoo behind.” + +“Has anybody got a Scotch dictionary?” inquired Stella. “This +conversation is making me tired.” + +“Suppose you run away and play with your hoop,” suggested her brother. +“I can’t see that as an insuperable difficulty, Father. Tariffs could +be made adaptable, relative to the common interest as well as to the +individual one. We could do it if we liked.” + +“Your adaptability might easily lead to other things. What’s to prevent +retaliation among ourselves? There’s a slump in textiles, and the +home Government is forced to let in foreign wool cheaper. Up goes the +Australian tax on the output of every mill in Lancashire. The last state +of the Empire might be worse than the first.” + +“It wouldn’t be serious. If I pinched Stella’s leg as I’m going to in a +minute, she will no doubt kick me; and her instincts are such that she +will probably kick me with the leg I pinched, but that won’t prevent our +going to the football match together tomorrow and presenting a united +front to the world.” + +They all laughed, and Stella pulled down her lengthening petticoats with +an air of great offence, but John Murchison shook his head. + +“If they manage it, they will be clever,” he said. + +“Talking of Lancashire,” said Williams, “there are some funny fellows +over there writing in the Press against a tax on foreign cotton because +it’s going to ruin Lancashire. And at this very minute thousands of +looms are shut down in Lancashire because of the high price of cotton +produced by an American combine--and worse coming, sevenpence a pound +I hear they’re going to have it, against the fourpence ha’penny they’ve +got it up to already. That’s the sort of thing they’re afraid to +discourage by a duty.” + +“Would a duty discourage it?” asked John Murchison. + +“Why not--if they let British-grown cotton in free? They won’t +discourage the combine much--that form of enterprise has got to be +tackled where it grows; but the Yankee isn’t the only person in the +world that can get to understand it. What’s to prevent preferential +conditions creating British combines, to compete with the American +article, and what’s to prevent Lancashire getting cheaper cotton in +consequence? Two combines are better than one monopoly any day.” + +“May be so. It would want looking into. We won’t see a duty on cotton +though, or wool either for that matter. The manufacturers would be +pleased enough to get it on the stuff they make, but there would be a +fine outcry against taxing the stuff they use.” + +“Did you see much of the aristocracy, Mr Murchison?” asked Mrs Williams. + +“No,” replied Lorne, “but I saw Wallingham.” + +“You saw the whole House of Lords,” interposed Stella, “and you were +introduced to three.” + +“Well, yes, that’s so. Fine-looking set of old chaps they are, too. +We’re a little too funny over here about the Lords--we haven’t had to +make any.” + +“What were they doing the day you were there, Lorne?” asked Williams. + +“Motorcar legislation,” replied Lorne. “Considerably excited about it, +too. One of them had had three dogs killed on his estate. I saw his +letter about it in the Times.” + +“I don’t see anything to laugh at in that,” declared Stella. “Dogs are +dogs.” + +“They are, sister, especially in England.” + +“Laundresses aren’t washerwomen there,” observed Mrs Murchison. “I’d +like you to see the colour of the things he’s brought home with him, Mrs +Williams. Clean or dirty, to the laundry they go--weeks it will take to +get them right again--ingrained London smut and nothing else.” + +“In this preference business they’ve got to lead the way,” Williams +reverted. “We’re not so grown up but what grandma’s got to march in +front. Now, from your exhaustive observation of Great Britain, extending +over a period of six weeks, is she going to?” + +“My exhaustive observation,” said Lorne, smiling, “enables me to tell +you one thing with absolute accuracy; and that is that nobody knows. +They adore Wallingham over there--he’s pretty nearly a god--and +they’d like to do as he tells them, and they’re dead sick of theoretic +politics; but they’re afraid--oh, they’re afraid!” + +“They’ll do well to ca’ canny,” said John Murchison. + +“There’s two things in the way, at a glance,” Lorne went on. “The +conservatism of the people--it isn’t a name, it’s a fact--the hostility +and suspicion; natural enough: they know they’re stupid, and they half +suspect they’re fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught them +that. Slow--oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence than +anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when things are being +done, mind, all over the world, done against them--when their shipping +is being captured, and their industries destroyed, and their goods +undersold beneath their very noses--and the thing they want to know +is--Why Are the Swallows Late? I read it myself, in a ha’penny morning +paper, too--that they think rather dangerously go-ahead--a whole column, +headed, to inquire what’s the matter with the swallows. The Times the +same week had a useful leader on Alterations in the Church Service, and +a special contribution on Prayers for the Dead. Lord, they need ‘em! +Those are the things they THINK about! The session’s nearly over, and +there’s two Church Discipline Bills, and five Church Bills--bishoprics +and benefices, and Lord knows what--still to get through. Lot of anxiety +about ‘em, apparently! As to a business view of politics, I expect the +climate’s against it. They’ll see over a thing--they’re fond of doing +that--or under it, or round one side of it, but they don’t seem to +have any way of seeing THROUGH it. What they just love is a good round +catchword; they’ve only got to hear themselves say it often enough, and +they’ll take it for gospel. They’re convinced out of their own mouths. +There was the driver of a bus I used to ride on pretty often, and if he +felt like talking, he’d always begin, ‘As I was a-saying of yesterday--’ +Well, that’s the general idea--to repeat what they were a-sayin’ of +yesterday; and it doesn’t matter two cents that the rest of the world +has changed the subject. They’ve been a-sayin’ a long time that they +object to import duties of any sort or kind, and you won’t get them to +SEE the business in changing. If they do this it won’t be because they +want to, it will be because Wallingham wants them to.” + +“I guess that’s so,” said Williams. “And if Wallingham gets them to he +ought to have a statue in every capital in the Empire. He will, too. +Good cigar this, Lorne! Where’d you get it?” + +“They are Indian cheroots--‘Planters,’ they call ‘em--made in Madras. +I got some through a man named Hesketh, who has friends out there, at a +price you wouldn’t believe for as decent a smoke. You can’t buy ‘em in +London; but you will all right, and here, too, as soon as we’ve got the +sense to favour British-grown tobacco.” + +“Lorne appreciates his family better than he did before,” remarked his +youngest sister, “because we’re British grown.” + +“You were saying you noticed two things specially in the way?” said his +father. + +“Oh, the other’s of course the awful poverty--the twelve millions that +haven’t got enough to do with. I expect it’s an outside figure and it +covers all sorts of qualifying circumstances; but it’s the one the Free +Fooders quote, and it’s the one Wallingham will have to handle. They’ve +muddled along until they’ve GOT twelve million people in that condition, +and now they have to carry on with the handicap. We ask them to put a +tax on foreign food to develop our wheat areas and cattle ranges. +We say, ‘Give us a chance and we’ll feed you and take your surplus +population.’ What is to be done with the twelve million while we are +growing the wheat? The colonies offer to create prosperity for everybody +concerned at a certain outlay--we’ve got the raw materials--and they +can’t afford the investment because of the twelve millions, and what may +happen meanwhile. They can’t face the meanwhile--that’s what it comes +to.” + +“Fine old crop of catchwords in that situation,” Mr Williams remarked; +and his eye had the spark of the practical politician. “Can’t you hear +‘em at it, eh?” + +“It scares them out of everything but hand-to-mouth politics. Any other +remedy is too heroic. They go on pointing out and contemplating and +grieving, with their percentages of misery and degeneration; and they go +on poulticing the cancer with benevolence--there are people over there +who want the State to feed the schoolchildren! Oh, they’re kind, good, +big-hearted people; and they’ve got the idea that if they can only give +enough away everything will come right. I was talking with a man one +day, and I asked him whether the existence of any class justified +governing a great country on the principle of an almshouse. He asked +me who the almsgivers ought to be, in any country. Of course it was +tampering with my figure--in an almshouse there aren’t any; but that’s +the way it presents itself to the best of them. Another fellow was +frantic at the idea of a tax on foreign food--he nearly cried--but would +be very glad to see the Government do more to assist emigration to the +colonies. I tried to show him it would be better to make it profitable +to emigrate first, but I couldn’t make him see it. + +“Oh, and there’s the old thing against them, of course--the handling of +imperial and local affairs by one body. Anybody’s good enough to attend +to the Baghdad Railway, and nobody’s too good to attend to the town +pump. Is it any wonder the Germans beat them in their own shops and +Russia walks into Thibet? The eternal marvel is that they stand where +they do.” + +“At the top,” said Mr Williams. + +“Oh--at the top! Think of what you mean when you say ‘England.’” + +“I see that the demand for a tariff on manufactured goods is growing,” + Williams remarked, “even the anti-food-tax organs are beginning to shout +for that.” + +“If they had put it on twenty years ago,” said Lorne, “there would be no +twelve million people making a problem for want of work, and it would be +a good deal easier to do imperial business today.” + +“You’ll find,” said John Murchison, removing his pipe, “that +protection’ll have to come first over there. They’ll put up a fence +and save their trade--in their own good time, not next week or next +year--and when they’ve done that they’ll talk to us about our big +ideas--not before. And if Wallingham hadn’t frightened them with the +imperial job, he never would have got them to take up the other. It’s +just his way of getting both done.” + +“I hope you’re right, Father,” said Lorne, with a covert glance at his +watch. “Horace--Mrs Williams--I’ll have to get you to excuse me. I have +an engagement at eight.” + +He left them with a happy spring in his step, left them looking after +him, talking of him, with pride and congratulation. Only Stella, with +a severe lip and a disapproving eye, noted the direction he took as he +left the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the pulpit steps of Knox +Church, and arranged the glass of water and the notices to be given out +beside it, twice every Sunday for twenty years. He was a small spare +man, with thin grey hair that fell back from the narrow dome of his +forehead to his coat collar, decent and severe. He ascended the pulpit +exactly three minutes before the minister did; and the dignity with +which he put one foot before the other made his appearance a ceremonious +feature of the service and a thing quoted. “I was there before Peter” + was a triumphant evidence of punctuality. Dr Drummond would have liked +to make it a test. It seemed to him no great thing to expect the people +of Knox Church to be there before Peter. + +Macfarlane was also in attendance in the vestry to help the minister off +with his gown and hang it up. Dr Drummond’s gown needed neither helping +nor hanging; the Doctor was deftness and neatness and impatience itself, +and would have it on the hook with his own hands, and never a fold +crooked. After Mr Finlay, on the contrary, Peter would have to pick up +and smooth out--ten to one the garment would be flung on a chair. Still, +he was invariably standing by to see it flung, and to hand Mr Finlay his +hat and stick. He was surprised and put about to find himself one Sunday +evening too late for this attendance. The vestry was empty, the gown +was on the floor. Peter gathered it up with as perturbed an air as if Mr +Finlay had omitted a point of church observance. “I doubt they get into +slack ways in these missions,” said Peter. He had been unable, with Dr +Drummond, to see the necessity for such extensions. + +Meanwhile Hugh Finlay, in secular attire, had left the church by the +vestry door, and was rapidly overtaking groups of his hearers as they +walked homeward. He was unusually aware of his change of dress because +of a letter in the inside pocket of his coat. The letter, in that +intimate place, spread a region of consciousness round it which hastened +his blood and his step. There was purpose in his whole bearing; Advena +Murchison, looking back at some suggestion of Lorne’s, caught it, and +lost for a moment the meaning of what she said. When he overtook them, +with plain intention, she walked beside the two men, withdrawn and +silent, like a child. It was unexpected and overwhelming, his joining +them after the service, accompanying them, as it were, in the flesh +after having led them so far in the spirit; he had never done it before. +She felt her heart confronted with a new, an immediate issue, and +suddenly afraid. It shrank from the charge for which it longed, and +would have fled; yet, paralysed with delight, it kept time with her +sauntering feet. + +They talked of the sermon, which had been strongly tinged with the issue +of the day. Dreamer as he was by temperament, Finlay held to the wisdom +of informing great public questions with the religious idea, vigorously +disclaimed that it was anywhere inadmissible. + +“You’ll have to settle with the Doctor, Mr Finlay,” Lorne warned him +gaily, “if you talk politics in Knox Church. He thinks he never does.” + +“Do you think,” said Finlay, “that he would object to--to one’s going as +far afield as I did tonight?” + +“He oughtn’t to,” said Lorne. “You should have heard him when old Sir +John Macdonald gerrymandered the electoral districts and gave votes to +the Moneida Indians. The way he put it, the Tories in the congregation +couldn’t say a word, but it was a treat for his fellow Grits.” + +Finlay smiled gravely. “Political convictions are a man’s birthright,” + he said. “Any man or any minister is a poor creature without them. But +of course there are limits beyond which pulpit influence should not go, +and I am sure Dr Drummond has the clearest perception of them. He seems +to have been a wonderful fellow, Macdonald, a man with extraordinary +power of imaginative enterprise. I wonder whether he would have seen his +way to linking up the Empire as he linked up your Provinces here?” + +“He’d have hated uncommonly to be in opposition, but I don’t see how +he could have helped it,” Lorne said. “He was the godfather of Canadian +manufacturers, you know--the Tories have always been the industrial +party. He couldn’t have gone for letting English stuff in free, or +cheap; and yet he was genuinely loyal and attached to England. He would +discriminate against Manchester with tears in his eyes! Imperialist in +his time spelled Conservative, now it spells Liberal. The Conservatives +have always talked the loudest about the British bond, but when it +lately came to doing we’re on record on the right side, and they’re on +record on the wrong. But it must make the old man’s ghost sick to see--” + +“To see his court suit stolen,” Advena finished for him. “As Disraeli +said--wasn’t it Disraeli?” She heard, and hated the note of constraint +in her voice. “Am I reduced,” she thought, indignantly, “to falsetto?” + and chose, since she must choose, the betrayal of silence. + +“It did one good to hear the question discussed on the higher level,” + said Lorne. “You would think, to read the papers, that all its merits +could be put into dollars and cents.” + +“I’ve noticed some of them in terms of sentiment--affection for the +mother country--” + +“Yes, that’s lugged in. But it doesn’t cover the moral aspect,” Lorne +returned. “It’s too easy and obvious, as well; it gives the enemy cause +to offend.” + +“Well, there’s a tremendous moral aspect,” Finlay said, “tremendous +moral potentialities hidden in the issue. England has more to lose than +she dreams.” + +“That’s just where I felt, as a practical politician, a little restless +while you were preaching,” said Lorne, laughing. “You seemed to think +the advantage of imperialism was all with England. You mustn’t press +that view on us, you know. We shall get harder to bargain with. Besides, +from the point of your sermon, it’s all the other way.” + +“Oh, I don’t agree! The younger nations can work out their own salvation +unaided; but can England alone? Isn’t she too heavily weighted?” + +“Oh, materially, very likely! But morally, no,” said Lorne, stoutly. +“There, if you like, she has accumulations that won’t depreciate. Money +isn’t the only capital the colonies offer investment for.” + +“I’m afraid I see it in the shadow of the degeneration of age and +poverty,” said Finlay, smiling--“or age and wealth, if you prefer it.” + +“And we in the disadvantage of youth and easy success,” Lorne retorted. +“We’re all very well, but we’re not the men our fathers were: we need a +lot of licking into shape. Look at that disgraceful business of ours in +the Ontario legislature the other day, and look at that fellow of +yours walking out of office at Westminster last session because of a +disastrous business connection which he was morally as clear of as +you or I! I tell you we’ve got to hang on to the things that make us +ashamed; and I guess we’ve got sense enough to know it. But this is my +corner. I am going to look in at the Milburns’, Advena. Good night, Mr +Finlay.” + +Advena, walking on with Finlay, became suddenly aware that he had not +once addressed her. She had the quick impression that Lorne left him +bereft of a refuge; his plight heartened her. + +“If the politicians on both sides were only as mutually appreciative,” + she said, “the Empire would soon be knit.” + +For a moment he did not answer. “I am afraid the economic situation is +not quite analogous,” he said, stiffly and absently, when the moment had +passed. + +“Why does your brother always call me ‘Mr’ Finlay?” he demanded +presently. “It isn’t friendly.” + +The note of irritation in his voice puzzled her. “I think the form is +commoner with us,” she said, “even among men who know each other fairly +well.” Her secret glance flashed over the gulf that nevertheless divided +Finlay and her brother, that would always divide them. She saw it with +something like pain, which struggled through her pride in both. “And +then, you know--your calling--” + +“I suppose it is that,” he replied, ill content. + +“I’ve noticed Dr Drummond’s way,” she told him, with rising spirits. +“It’s delightful. He drops the ‘Mr’ with fellow-ministers of his own +denomination only--never with Wesleyans or Baptists, for a moment. He +always comes back very genial from the General Assembly, and full of +stories. ‘I said to Grant,’ or ‘Macdonald said to me’--and he always +calls you ‘Finlay,’” she added shyly. “By the way, I suppose you know +he’s to be the new Moderator?” + +“Is he, indeed? Yes--yes, of course, I knew! We couldn’t have a better.” + +They walked on through the early autumn night. It was just not raining. +The damp air was cool and pungent with the smell of fallen leaves, which +lay thick under their feet. Advena speared the dropped horse chestnut +husks with the point of her umbrella as they went along. She had picked +up half a dozen when he spoke again. “I want to tell you--I have to tell +you--something--about myself, Miss Murchison.” + +“I should like,” said Advena steadily, “to hear.” + +“It is a matter that has, I am ashamed to confess, curiously gone out +of my mind of late--I should say until lately. There was little until +lately--I am so poor a letter writer--to remind me of it. I am engaged +to be married!” + +“But how interesting!” exclaimed Advena. + +He looked at her taken aback. His own mood was heavy; it failed to +answer this lightness from her. It is hard to know what he expected, +what his unconscious blood expected for him; but it was not this. If +he had little wisdom about the hearts of women, he had less about their +behaviour. She said nothing more, but inclined her head in an angle of +deference and expectation toward what he should further communicate. + +“I don’t know that I have ever told you much about my life in Scotland,” + he went on. “It has always seemed to me so remote and--disconnected with +everything here. I could not suppose it would interest anyone. I was +cared for and educated by my father’s only sister, a good woman. It was +as if she had whole charge of the part of my life that was not absorbed +in work. I don’t know that I can make you understand. She was identified +with all the rest--I left it to her. Shortly before I sailed for Canada +she spoke to me of marriage in connection with my work and--welfare, and +with--a niece of her husband’s who was staying with us at the time, +a person suitable in every way. Apart from my aunt, I do not +know--However, I owed everything to her, and I--took her advice in the +matter. I left it to her. She is a managing woman; but she can nearly +always prove herself right. Her mind ran a great deal, a little too +much perhaps, upon creature comforts, and I suppose she thought that in +emigrating a man might do well to companion himself.” + +“That was prudent of her,” said Advena. + +He turned a look upon her. “You are not--making a mock of it?” he said. + +“I am not making a mock of it.” + +“My aunt now writes to me that Miss Christie’s home has been broken +up by the death of her mother, and that if it can be arranged she is +willing to come to me here. My aunt talks of bringing her. I am to +write.” + +He said the last words slowly, as if he weighed them. They had passed +the turning to the Murchisons’, walking on with the single consciousness +of a path under them, and space before them. Once or twice before that +had happened, but Advena had always been aware. This time she did not +know. + +“You are to write,” she said. She sought in vain for more words; he +also, throwing back his head, appeared to search the firmament for +phrases without result. Silence seemed enforced between them, and walked +with them, on into the murky landscape, over the fallen leaves. Passing +a streetlamp, they quickened their steps, looking furtively at the +light, which seemed leagued against them with silence. + +“It seems so extraordinarily--far away,” said Hugh Finlay, of Bross, +Dumfries, at length. + +“But it will come near,” Advena replied. + +“I don’t think it ever can.” + +She looked at him with a sudden leap of the heart, a wild, sweet dismay. + +“They, of course, will come. But the life of which they are a part, and +the man whom I remember to have been me--there is a gulf fixed--” + +“It is only the Atlantic,” Advena said. She had recovered her vision; in +spite of the stone in her breast she could look. The weight and the hurt +she would reckon with later. What was there, after all, to do? Meanwhile +she could look, and already she saw with passion what had only begun to +form itself in his consciousness, his strange, ironical, pitiful plight. + +He shook his head. “It is not marked in any geography,” he said, and +gave her a troubled smile. “How can I make it clear to you? I have come +here into a new world, of interests unknown and scope unguessed before. +I know what you would say, but you have no way of learning the beauty +and charm of mere vitality--you have always been so alive. One finds a +physical freedom in which one’s very soul seems to expand; one hears the +happiest calls of fancy. And the most wonderful, most delightful thing +of all is to discover that one is oneself, strangely enough, able to +respond--” + +The words reached the woman beside him like some cool dropping balm, +healing, inconceivably precious. She knew her share in all this that he +recounted. He might not dream of it, might well confound her with the +general pulse; but she knew the sweet and separate subcurrent that her +life had been in his, felt herself underlying all these new joys of his, +could tell him how dear she was. But it seemed that he must not guess. + +It came to her with force that his dim perception of his case was +grotesque, that it humiliated him. She had a quick desire that he should +at least know that civilized, sentient beings did not lend themselves to +such outrageous comedies as this which he had confessed; it had somehow +the air of a confession. She could not let him fall so lamentably short +of man’s dignity, of man’s estate, for his own sake. + +“It is a curious history,” she said. “You are right in thinking I should +not find it quite easy to understand. We make those--arrangements--so +much more for ourselves over here. Perhaps we think them more important +than they are.” + +“But they are of the highest importance.” He stopped short, confounded. + +“I shall try to consecrate my marriage,” he said presently, more to +himself than to Advena. + +Her thought told him bitterly: “I am afraid it is the only thing you can +do with it,” but something else came to her lips. + +“I have not congratulated you. I am not sure,” she went on, with +astonishing candour, “whether I can. But I wish you happiness with all +my heart. Are you happy now?” + +He turned his great dark eyes on her. “I am as happy, I dare say, as I +have any need to be.” + +“But you are happier since your letter came?” + +“No,” he said. The simple word fell on her heart, and she forbore. + +They went on again in silence until they arrived at a place from which +they saw the gleam of the river and the line of the hills beyond. Advena +stopped. + +“We came here once before together--in the spring. Do you remember?” she +asked. + +“I remember very well.” She had turned, and he with her. They stood +together with darkness about them, through which they could just see +each other’s faces. + +“It was spring then, and I went back alone. You are still living up that +street? Good night, then, please. I wish again--to go back--alone.” + +He looked at her for an instant in dumb bewilderment, though her words +were simple enough. Then as she made a step away from him he caught her +hand. + +“Advena,” he faltered, “what has happened to us? This time I cannot let +you.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +“Lorne,” said Dora Milburn, in her most animated manner, “who do you +think is coming to Elgin? Your London friend, Mr Hesketh! He’s going to +stay with the Emmetts, and Mrs Emmett is perfectly distracted; she says +he’s accustomed to so much, she doesn’t know how he will put up with +their plain way of living. Though what she means by that, with late +dinner and afternoon tea every day of her life, is more than I know.” + +“Why, that’s splendid!” replied Lorne. “Good old Hesketh! I knew he +thought of coming across this fall, but the brute hasn’t written to +me. We’ll have to get him over to our place. When he gets tired of +the Emmetts’ plain ways he can try ours--they’re plainer. You’ll like +Hesketh; he’s a good fellow, and more go-ahead than most of them.” + +“I don’t think I should ask him to stay if I were you, Lorne. Your +mother will never consent to change her hours for meals. I wouldn’t +dream of asking an Englishman to stay if I couldn’t give him late +dinner; they think so much of it. It’s the trial of Mother’s life that +Father will not submit to it. As a girl she was used to nothing else. +Afternoon tea we do have, he can’t prevent that, but Father kicks at +anything but one o’clock dinner and meat tea at six, and I suppose he +always will.” + +“Doesn’t one tea spoil the other?” Lorne inquired. “I find it does +when I go to your minister’s and peck at a cress sandwich at five. You +haven’t any appetite for a reasonable meal at six. But I guess it won’t +matter to Hesketh; he’s got a lot of sense about things of that sort. +Why he served out in South Africa--volunteered. Mrs Emmett needn’t +worry. And if we find him pining for afternoon tea we can send him over +here.” + +“Well, if he’s nice. But I suppose he’s pretty sure to be nice. Any +friend of the Emmetts--What is he like, Lorne?” + +“Oh, he’s just a young man with a moustache! You seem to see a good many +over there. They’re all alike while they’re at school in round coats, +and after they leave school they get moustaches, and then they’re all +alike again.” + +“I wish you wouldn’t tease. How tall is he? Is he fair or dark? What +colour are his eyes?” + +Lorne buried his head in his hands in a pretended agony of recollection. + +“So far as I remember, not exactly tall, but you wouldn’t call him +short. Complexion--well, don’t you know?--that kind of middling +complexion. Colour of his eyes--does anybody ever notice a thing like +that? You needn’t take my word for it, but I should say they were a kind +of average coloured eyes.” + +“Lorne! You ARE--I suppose I’ll just have to wait till I see him. But +the girls are wild to know, and I said I’d ask you. He’ll be here in +about two weeks anyhow, and I dare say we won’t find him so much to make +a fuss about. The best sort of Englishmen don’t come over such a very +great deal, as you say. I expect they have a better time at home.” + +“Hesketh’s a very good sort of Englishman,” said Lorne. + +“He’s awfully well off, isn’t he?” + +“According to our ideas I suppose he is,” said Lorne. “Not according to +English ideas.” + +“Still less according to New York ones, then,” asserted Dora. “They +wouldn’t think much of it there even if he passed for rich in England.” + It was a little as if she resented Lorne’s comparison of standards, and +claimed the American one as at least cis-Atlantic. + +“He has a settled income,” said Lorne, “and he’s never had to work for +it, whatever luck there is in that. That’s all I know. Dora--” + +“Now, Lorne, you’re not to be troublesome.” + +“Your mother hasn’t come in at all this evening. Don’t you think it’s a +good sign?” + +“She isn’t quite so silly as she was,” remarked Dora. “Why I should +not have the same freedom as other girls in entertaining my gentleman +friends I never could quite see.” + +“I believe if we told her we had made up our minds it would be all +right,” he pleaded. + +“I’m not so sure Lorne. Mother’s so deep. You can’t always tell just by +what she DOES. She thinks Stephen Stuart likes me--it’s too perfectly +idiotic; we are the merest friends--and when it’s any question of you +and Stephen--well, she doesn’t say anything, but she lets me see! She +thinks such a lot of the Stuarts because Stephen’s father was Ontario +Premier once, and got knighted.” + +“I might try for that myself if you think it would please her,” said the +lover. + +“Please her! And I should be Lady Murchison!” she let fall upon his +ravished ears. “Why, Lorne, she’d just worship us both! But you’ll never +do it.” + +“Why not?” + +Dora looked at him with pretty speculation. She had reasons for +supposing that she did admire the young man. + +“You’re too nice,” she said. + +“That isn’t good enough,” he responded, and drew her nearer. + +“Then why did you ask me?--No, Lorne, you are not to. Suppose Father +came in?” + +“I shouldn’t mind--Father’s on my side, I think.” + +“Father isn’t on anybody’s side,” said his daughter, wisely. + +“Dora, let me speak to him!” + +Miss Milburn gave a clever imitation of a little scream of horror. + +“INDEED I won’t! Lorne, you are never, NEVER to do that! As if we were +in a ridiculous English novel!” + +“That’s the part of an English novel I always like,” said Lorne. “The +going and asking. It must about scare the hero out of a year’s growth; +but it’s a glorious thing to do--it would be next day, anyhow.” + +“It’s just the sort of thing to please Mother,” Dora meditated, “but she +can’t be indulged all the time. No, Lorne, you’ll have to leave it to +me--when there’s anything to tell.” + +“There’s everything to tell now,” said he, who had indeed nothing to +keep back. + +“But you know what Mother is, Lorne. Suppose they hadn’t any objection, +she would never keep it to herself! She’d want to go announcing it all +over the place; she’d think it was the proper thing to do.” + +“But, Dora, why not? If you knew how I want to announce it! I should +like to publish it in the sunrise--and the wind--so that I couldn’t go +out of doors without seeing it myself.” + +“I shouldn’t mind having it in Toronto Society, when the time comes. +But not yet, Lorne--not for ages. I’m only twenty-two--nobody thinks of +settling down nowadays before she’s twenty-five at the very earliest. +I don’t know a single girl in this town that has--among my friends, +anyway. That’s three years off, and you CAN’T expect me to be engaged +for three years.” + +“No.” said Lorne, “engaged six months, married the rest of the time. Or +the periods might run concurrently if you preferred--I shouldn’t mind.” + +“An engaged girl has the very worst time. She gets hardly any attention, +and as to dances--well, it’s a good thing for her if the person she’s +engaged to CAN dance,” she added, teasingly. + +Lorne coloured. “You said I was improving, Dora,” he said, and then +laughed at the childish claim. “But that isn’t really a thing that +counts, is it? If our lives only keep step it won’t matter much about +the ‘Washington Post.’ And so far as attention goes, you’ll get it as +long as you live, you little princess. Besides, isn’t it better to wear +the love of one man than the admiration of half a dozen?” + +“And be teased and worried half out of your life by everybody you meet? +Now, Lorne, you’re getting serious and sentimental, and you know I hate +that. It isn’t any good either--Mother always used to say it made me +more stubborn to appeal to me. Horrid nature to have, isn’t it?” + +Lorne’s hand went to his waistcoat pocket and came back with a tiny +packet. “It’s come, Dora--by this morning’s English mail.” + +Her eyes sparkled, and then rested with guarded excitement upon the +little case. “Oh, Lorne!” + +She said nothing more, but watched intently while he found the spring, +and disclosed the ring within. Then she drew a long breath. “Lorne +Murchison, what a lovely one!” + +“Doesn’t it look,” said he, “just a little serious and sentimental?” + +“But SUCH good style, too,” he declared, bending over it. “And quite +new--I haven’t seen anything a bit like it. I do love a design when it’s +graceful. Solitaires are so old-fashioned.” + +He kept his eyes upon her face, feeding upon the delight in it. +Exultation rose up in him: he knew the primitive guile of man, +indifferent to such things, alluring with them the other creature. He +did not stop to condone her weakness; rather he seized it in ecstasy; +it was all part of the glad scheme to help the lover. He turned the +diamonds so that they flashed and flashed again before her. Then, +trusting his happy instinct, he sought for her hand. But she held that +back. “I want to SEE it,” she declared, and he was obliged to let her +take the ring in her own way and examine it, and place it in every +light, and compare it with others worn by her friends, and make little +tentative charges of extravagance in his purchase of it, while he sat +elated and adoring, the simple fellow. + +Reluctantly at last she gave up her hand. “But it’s only trying on--not +putting on,” she told him. He said nothing till it flashed upon her +finger, and in her eyes he saw a spark from below of that instinctive +cupidity toward jewels that man can never recognize as it deserves in +woman, because of his desire to gratify it. + +“You’ll wear it, Dora?” he pleaded. + +“Lorne, you are the dearest fellow! But how could I? Everybody would +guess!” + +Her gaze, nevertheless, rested fascinated on the ring, which she posed +as it pleased her. + +“Let them guess! I’d rather they knew, but--it does look well on your +finger, dear.” + +She held it up once more to the light, then slipped it decisively off +and gave it back to him. “I can’t, you know, Lorne. I didn’t really say +you might get it; and now you’ll have to keep it till--till the time +comes. But this much I will say--it’s the sweetest thing, and you’ve +shown the loveliest taste, and if it weren’t such a dreadful give-away +I’d like to wear it awfully.” + +They discussed it with argument, with endearment, with humour, and +reproach, but her inflexible basis soon showed through their talk: she +would not wear the ring. So far he prevailed, that it was she, not +he, who kept it. Her insistence that he should take it back brought +something like anger out of him; and in the surprise of this she yielded +so much. She did it unwillingly at the time, but afterward, when she +tried on the thing again in the privacy of her own room; she was rather +satisfied to have it, safe under lock and key, a flashing, smiling +mystery to visit when she liked and reveal when she would. + +“Lorne could never get me such a beauty again if he lost it,” she +advised herself, “and he’s awfully careless. And I’m not sure that I +won’t tell Eva Delarue, just to show it to her. She’s as close as wax.” + +One feels a certain sorrow for the lover on his homeward way, squaring +his shoulders against the foolish perversity of the feminine mind, +resolutely guarding his heart from any hint of real reprobation. Through +the sweetness of her lips and the affection of her pretty eyes, through +all his half-possession of all her charms and graces, must have come +dully the sense of his great occasion manque, that dear day of love when +it leaves the mark of its claim. And in one’s regret there is perhaps +some alloy of pity, that less respectful thing. We know him elsewhere +capable of essaying heights, yet we seem to look down upon the drama of +his heart. It may be well to remember that the level is not everything +in love. He who carefully adjusts an intellectual machine may descry a +higher mark; he can construct nothing in a mistress; he is, therefore, +able to see the facts and to discriminate the desirable. But Lorne loved +with all his imagination. This way dares the imitation of the gods by +which it improves the quality of the passion, so that such a love stands +by itself to be considered, apart from the object, one may say. A strong +and beautiful wave lifted Lorne Murchison along to his destiny, since it +was the pulse of his own life, though Dora Milburn played moon to it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Alfred Hesketh had, after all, written to young Murchison about his +immediate intention of sailing for Canada and visiting Elgin; the letter +arrived a day or two later. It was brief and businesslike, but it gave +Lorne to understand that since his departure the imperial idea had been +steadily fermenting, not only in the national mind, but particularly in +Hesketh’s; that it produced in his case a condition only to be properly +treated by personal experience. Hesketh was coming over to prove +whatever advantage there was in seeing for yourself. That he was coming +with the right bias Lorne might infer, he said, from the fact that he +had waited a fortnight to get his passage by the only big line to +New York that stood out for our mercantile supremacy against American +combination. + +“He needn’t bother to bring any bias,” Lorne remarked when he had read +this, “but he’ll have to pay a lot of extra luggage on the one he takes +back with him.” + +He felt a little irritation at being offered the testimony of the Cunard +ticket. Back on his native soil, its independence ran again like sap +in him: nobody wanted a present of good will; the matter stood on its +merits. + +He was glad, nevertheless, that Hesketh was coming, gratified that it +would now be his turn to show prospects, and turn figures into facts, +and make plain the imperial profit from the further side. Hesketh was +such an intelligent fellow, there would be the keenest sort of pleasure +in demonstrating things, big things, to him, little things, too, ways +of living, differences of habit. Already in the happy exercise of his +hospitable instinct he saw how Hesketh would get on with his mother, +with Stella, with Dr Drummond. He saw Hesketh interested, domiciled, +remaining--the ranch life this side of the Rockies, Lorne thought, would +tempt him, or something new and sound in Winnipeg. He kept his eye +open for chances, and noted one or two likely things. “We want labour +mostly,” he said to Advena, “but nobody is refused leave to land because +he has a little money.” + +“I should think not, indeed,” remarked Mrs Murchison, who was present. +“I often wish your father and I had had a little more when we began. +That whole Gregory block was going for three thousand dollars then. I +wonder what it’s worth now?” + +“Yes, but you and Father are worth more, too,” remarked Stella acutely. + +“In fact, all the elder members of the family have approximated in +value, Stella,” said her brother, “and you may too, in time.” + +“I’ll take my chance with the country,” she retorted. They were all +permeated with the question of the day; even Stella, after holding +haughtily aloof for some time, had been obliged to get into step, as +she described it, with the silly old Empire. Whatever it was in England, +here it was a family affair; I mean in the town of Elgin, in the shops +and the offices, up and down the tree-bordered streets as men went +to and from their business, atomic creatures building the reef of +the future, but conscious, and wanting to know what they were about. +Political parties had long declared themselves, the Hampden Debating +Society had had several grand field nights. Prospective lifelong +friendships, male and female in every form of “the Collegiate,” had been +put to this touchstone, sometimes with shattering effect. If you would +not serve with Wallingham the greatness of Britain you were held to +favour going over to the United States; there was no middle course. +It became a personal matter in the ward schools and small boys pursued +small boys with hateful cries of “Annexationist!” The subject even +trickled about the apple-barrels and potato-bags of the market square. +Here it should have raged, pregnant as it was with bucolic blessing; but +our agricultural friends expect nothing readily except adverse weather, +least of all a measure of economic benefit to themselves. Those of Fox +County thought it looked very well, but it was pretty sure to work out +some other way. Elmore Crow failed heavily to catch a light even from +Lorne Murchison. + +“You keep your hair on, Lorne,” he advised. “We ain’t going to get such +big changes yet. An’ if we do the blooming syndicates ‘ll spoil ‘em for +us.” + +There were even dissentients among the farmers. The voice of one was +raised who had lived laborious years, and many of them in the hope of +seeing his butter and cheese go unimpeded across the American line. It +must be said, however, that still less attention was paid to him, and it +was generally conceded that he would die without the sight. + +It was the great topic. The day Wallingham went his defiant furthest +in the House and every colonial newspaper set it up in acclaiming +headlines, Horace Williams, enterprising fellow, remembered that Lorne +had seen the great man under circumstances that would probably pan out, +and send round Rawlins. Rawlins was to get something that would do to +call “Wallingham in the Bosom of his Family,” and as much as Lorne +cared to pour into him about his own view of the probable issue. Rawlins +failed to get the interview, came back to say that Lorne didn’t seem +to think himself a big enough boy for that, but he did not return +empty-handed. Mr Murchison sent Mr Williams the promise of some +contributions upon the question of the hour, which he had no objection +to sign and which Horace should have for the good of the cause. Horace +duly had them, the Express duly published them, and they were copied in +full by the Dominion and several other leading journals, with an amount +of comment which everyone but Mrs Murchison thought remarkable. + +“I don’t pretend to understand it,” she said, “but anybody can see +that he knows what he’s talking about.” John Murchison read them with a +critical eye and a pursed-out lip. + +“He takes too much for granted.” + +“What does he take for granted?” asked Mrs Murchison. + +“Other folks being like himself,” said the father. + +That, no doubt, was succinct and true; nevertheless, the articles +had competence as well as confidence. The writer treated facts with +restraint and conditions with sympathy. He summoned ideas from the +obscurity of men’s minds, and marshalled them in the light, so that many +recognized what they had been trying to think. He wrote with homeliness +as well as force, wishing much more to make the issue recognizable than +to create fine phrases, with the result that one or two of his sentences +passed into the language of the discussion which, as any of its +standard-bearers would have told you, had little use for rhetoric. The +articles were competent: if you listened to Horace Williams you would +have been obliged to accept them as the last, or latest, word of +economic truth, though it must be left to history to endorse Mr +Williams. It was their enthusiasm, however, that gave them the wing on +which they travelled. People naturally took different views, even of +this quality. “Young Murchison’s working the imperial idea for all it’s +worth,” was Walter Winter’s; and Octavius Milburn humorously summed up +the series as “tall talk.” + +Alfred Hesketh came, it was felt, rather opportunely into the midst of +this. Plenty of people, the whole of Market Square and East Elgin, a +good part, too, probably, of the Town Ward, were unaware of his arrival; +but for the little world he penetrated he was clothed with all the +interest of the great contingency. His decorous head in the Emmetts’ +pew on Sunday morning stood for a symbol as well as for a stranger. +The nation was on the eve of a great far-reaching transaction with the +mother country, and thrilling with the terms of the bargain. Hesketh +was regarded by people in Elgin who knew who he was with the mingled +cordiality and distrust that might have met a principal. They did not +perhaps say it, but it was in their minds. “There’s one of them,” was +what they thought when they met him in the street. At any other time he +would have been just an Englishman; now he was invested with the very +romance of destiny. The perception was obscure, but it was there. +Hesketh, on the other hand, found these good people a very well-dressed, +well-conditioned, decent lot, rather sallower than he expected, perhaps, +who seemed to live in a fair-sized town in a great deal of comfort, and +was wholly unconscious of anything special in his relation to them or +theirs to him. + +He met Lorne just outside the office of Warner, Fulke, and Murchison the +following day. They greeted heartily. “Now this IS good!” said Lorne, +and he thought so. Hesketh confided his first impression. “It’s not +unlike an English country town,” he said, “only the streets are wider, +and the people don’t look so much in earnest.” + +“Oh, they’re just as much in earnest some of the time,” Lorne laughed, +“but maybe not all the time!” + +The sun shone crisply round them; there was a brisk October market; on +the other side of the road Elmore Crow dangled his long legs over a cart +flap and chewed a cheroot. Elgin was abroad, doing business on its wide +margin of opportunity. Lorne cast a backward glance at conditions he had +seen. + +“I know what you mean,” he said. “Sharp of you to spot it so soon, old +chap! You’re staying with the English Church minister, aren’t you--Mr +Emmett? Some connection of yours, aren’t they?” + +“Mrs Emmett is Chafe’s sister--Mrs Chafe, you know, is my aunt,” Hesketh +reminded him. “I say, Murchison, I left old Chafe wilder than ever. +Wallingham’s committee keep sending him leaflets and things. They take +it for granted he’s on the right side, since his interests are. The +other day they asked him for a subscription! The old boy sent his reply +to the Daily News and carried it about for a week. I think that gave him +real satisfaction; but he hates the things by post.” + +Lorne laughed delightedly. “I expect he’s snowed under with them. I sent +him my own valuable views last week.” + +“I’m afraid they’ll only stiffen him. That got to be his great argument +after you left, the fact that you fellows over here want it. He doesn’t +approve of a bargain if the other side sees a profit. Curiously enough, +his foremen and people out in Chiswick are all for it. I was talking to +one of them just before I left--‘Stands to reason, sir,’ he said, ‘we +don’t want to pay more for a loaf than we do now. But we’ll do it, sir, +if it means downing them Germans; he said.” + +Lorne’s eyebrows half-perceptibly twitched. “They do ‘sir’ you a lot +over there, don’t they?” he said. “It was as much as I could do to get +at what a fellow of that sort meant, tumbling over the ‘sirs’ he propped +it up with. Well, all kinds of people, all kinds of argument, I suppose, +when it comes to trying to get ‘em solid! But I was going to say we are +all hoping you’ll give us a part of your time while you’re in Elgin. +My family are looking forward to meeting you. Come along and let me +introduce you to my father now--he’s only round the corner.” + +“By all means!” said Hesketh, and they fell into step together. As Lorne +said, it was only a short distance, but far enough to communicate a +briskness, an alertness, from the step of one young man to that of the +other. “I wish it were five miles,” Hesketh said, all his stall-fed +muscles responding to the new call of his heart and lungs. “Any good +walks about here? I asked Emmett, but he didn’t know--supposed you could +walk to Clayfield if you didn’t take the car. He seems to have lost his +legs. I suppose parsons do.” + +“Not all of them,” said Lorne. “There’s a fellow that has a church over +in East Elgin, Finlay his name is, that beats the record of anything +around here. He just about ranges the county in the course of a week.” + +“The place is too big for one parish, no doubt,” Hesketh remarked. + +“Oh, he’s a Presbyterian! The Episcopalians haven’t got any hold to +speak of over there. Here we are,” said Lorne, and turned in at the +door. The old wooden sign was long gone. “John Murchison and Sons” + glittered instead in the plate-glass windows, but Hesketh did not see +it. + +“Why do you think he’ll be in here?” he asked, on young Murchison’s +heels. + +“Because he always is when he isn’t over at the shop,” replied Lorne. +“It’s his place of business--his store, you know. There he is! Hard +luck--he’s got a customer. We’ll have to wait.” + +He went on ahead with his impetuous step; he did not perceive the +instant’s paralysis that seemed to overtake Hesketh’s, whose foot +dragged, however, no longer than that. It was an initiation; he had +been told he might expect some. He checked his impulse to be amused, and +guarded his look round, not to show unseemly curiosity. His face, +when he was introduced to Alec, who was sorting some odd dozens of +tablespoons, was neutral and pleasant. He reflected afterward that he +had been quite equal to the occasion. He thought, too, that he had shown +some adaptability. Alec was not a person of fluent discourse, and when +he had inquired whether Hesketh was going to make a long stay, the +conversation might have languished but for this. + +“Is that Birmingham?” he asked, nodding kindly at the spoons. + +“Came to us through a house in Liverpool,” Alec responded. “I expect you +had a stormy crossing, Mr Hesketh.” + +“It was a bit choppy. We had the fiddles on most of the time,” Hesketh +replied. “Most of the time. Now, how do you find the bicycle trade over +here? Languishing, as it is with us?” + +“Oh, it keeps up pretty well,” said Alec, “but we sell more spoons. ‘N’ +what do you think of this country, far as you’ve seen it?” + +“Oh, come now, it’s a little soon to ask, isn’t it? Yes--I suppose +bicycles go out of fashion, and spoons never do. I was thinking,” added +Hesketh, casting his eyes over a serried rank, “of buying a bicycle.” + +Alec had turned to put the spoons in their place on the shelves. “Better +take your friend across to Cox’s,” he advised Lorne over his shoulder. +“He’ll be able to get a motorbike there,” a suggestion which gave Mr +Hesketh to reflect later that if that was the general idea of doing +business it must be an easy country to make money in. + +The customer was satisfied at last, and Mr Murchison walked sociably to +the door with him; it was the secretary of the local Oddfellows’ Lodge, +who had come in about a furnace. + +“Now’s our chance,” said Lorne. “Father, this is Mr Hesketh, from +London--my father, Hesketh. He can tell you all you want to know about +Canada--this part of it, anyway. Over thirty years, isn’t it, Father, +since you came out?” + +“Glad to meet you,” said John Murchison, “glad to meet you, Mr Hesketh. +We’ve heard much about you.” + +“You must have been quite among the pioneers of Elgin, Mr Murchison,” + said Hesketh as they shook hands. Alec hadn’t seemed to think of that; +Hesketh put it down to the counter. + +“Not quite,” said John. “We’ll say among the early arrivals.” + +“Have you ever been back in your native Scotland?” asked Hesketh. + +“Aye, twice.” + +“But you prefer the land of your adoption?” + +“I do. But I think by now it’ll be kin,” said Mr Murchison. “It was good +to see the heather again, but a man lives best where he’s taken root.” + +“Yes, yes. You seem to do a large business here, Mr Murchison.” + +“Pretty well for the size of the place. You must get Lorne to take you +over Elgin. It’s a fair sample of our rising manufacturing towns.” + +“I hope he will. I understand you manufacture to some extent yourself?” + +“We make our own stoves and a few odd things.” + +“You don’t send any across the Atlantic yet?” queried Hesketh jocularly. + +“Not yet. No, sir!” + +Then did Mr Hesketh show himself in true sympathy with the novel and +independent conditions of the commonwealth he found himself in. + +“I beg you won’t use that form with me,” he said, “I know it isn’t the +custom of the country, and I am a friend of your son’s, you see.” + +The iron merchant looked at him, just an instant’s regard, in which +astonishment struggled with the usual deliberation. Then his considering +hand went to his chin. + +“I see. I must remember,” he said. + +The son, Lorne, glanced in the pause beyond John Murchison’s broad +shoulders, through the store door and out into the moderate commerce of +Main Street, which had carried the significance and the success of his +father’s life. His eye came back and moved over the contents of the +place, taking stock of it, one might say, and adjusting the balance with +pride. He had said very little since they had been in the store. Now he +turned to Hesketh quietly. + +“I wouldn’t bother about that if I were you,” he said. “My father spoke +quite--colloquially.” + +“Oh!” said Hesketh. + +They parted on the pavement outside. “I hope you understand,” said +Lorne, with an effort at heartiness, “how glad my parents will be to +have you if you find yourself able to spare us any of your time?” + +“Thanks very much,” said Hesketh; “I shall certainly give myself the +pleasure of calling as soon as possible.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +“Dear me!” said Dr Drummond. “Dear me! Well! And what does Advena +Murchison say to all this?” + +He and Hugh Finlay were sitting in the Doctor’s study, the pleasantest +room in the house. It was lined with standard religious philosophy, +standard poets, standard fiction, all that was standard, and nothing +that was not; and the shelves included several volumes of the Doctor’s +own sermons, published in black morocco through a local firm that did +business by the subscription method, with “Drummond” in gold letters +on the back. There were more copies of these, perhaps, than it would be +quite thoughtful to count, though a good many were annually disposed of +at the church bazaar, where the Doctor presented them with a generous +hand. A sumptuous desk, and luxurious leather-covered armchairs +furnished the room; a beautiful little Parian copy of a famous Cupid and +Psyche decorated the mantelpiece, and betrayed the touch of pagan in +the Presbyterian. A bright fire burned in the grate, and there was not a +speck of dust anywhere. + +Dr Drummond, lost in his chair, with one knee dropped on the other, +joined his fingers at the tips, and drew his forehead into a web of +wrinkles. Over it his militant grey crest curled up; under it his eyes +darted two shrewd points of interrogation. + +“What does Miss Murchison say to it?” he repeated with craft and +courage, as Finlay’s eyes dropped and his face slowly flushed under +the question. It was in this room that Dr Drummond examined “intending +communicants” and cases likely to come before the Session; he never +shirked a leading question. “Miss Murchison,” said Finlay, after a +moment, “was good enough to say that she thought her father’s house +would be open to Miss--to my friends when they arrived; but I thought it +would be more suitable to ask your hospitality, sir.” + +“Did she so?” asked Dr Drummond gravely. It was more a comment than an +inquiry. “Did she so?” Infinite kindness was in it. + +The young man assented with an awkward gesture, half-bend, half-nod, and +neither for a moment spoke again. It was one of those silences with a +character, conscious, tentative. Half-veiled, disavowed thoughts rose up +in it, awakened by Advena’s name, turning away their heads. The ticking +of the Doctor’s old-fashioned watch came through it from his waistcoat +pocket. It was he who spoke first. + +“I christened Advena Murchison,” he said. “Her father was one of those +who called me, as a young man, to this ministry. The names of both her +parents are on my first communion roll. Aye!”... + +The fire snapped and the watch went on ticking. + +“So Advena thought well of it all. Did she so?” + +The young man raised his heavy eyes and looked unflinchingly at Dr +Drummond. + +“Miss Murchison,” he said, “is the only other person to whom I have +confided the matter. I have written, fixing that date, with her +approval--at her desire. Not immediately. I took time to--think it over. +Then it seemed better to arrange for the ladies reception first, so +before posting I have come to you.” + +“Then the letter has not gone?” + +“It is in my pocket.” + +“Finlay, you will have a cigar? I don’t smoke myself; my throat won’t +stand it; but I understand these are passable. Grant left them here. +He’s a chimney, that man Grant. At it day and night.” + +This was a sacrifice. Dr Drummond hated tobacco, the smell of it, the +ash of it, the time consumed in it. There was no need at all to offer +Finlay one of the Reverend Grant’s cigars. Propitiation must indeed be +desired when the incense is abhorred. But Finlay declined to smoke. +The Doctor, with his hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, where +something metallic clinked in them, began to pace and turn. His mouth +had the set it wore when he handled a difficult motion in the General +Assembly. + +“I’m surprised to hear that, Finlay; though it may be well not to be +surprised at what a woman will say--or won’t say.” + +“Surprised?” said the younger man confusedly. “Why should anyone be +surprised?” + +“I know her well. I’ve watched her grow up. I remember her mother’s +trouble because she would scratch the paint on the pew in front of her +with the nails in her little boots. John Murchison sang in the choir in +those days. He had a fine bass voice; he has it still. And Mrs Murchison +had to keep the family in order by herself. It was sometimes as much as +she could do, poor woman. They sat near the front, and many a good +hard look I used to give them while I was preaching. Knox Church was a +different place then. The choir sat in the back gallery, and we had a +precentor, a fine fellow--he lost an arm at Ridgway in the Fenian raid. +Well I mind him and the frown he would put on when he took up the fork. +But, for that matter, every man Jack in the choir had a frown on in the +singing, though the bass fellows would be the fiercest. We’ve been twice +enlarged since, and the organist has long been a salaried professional. +But I doubt whether the praise of God is any heartier than it was when +it followed Peter Craig’s tuning-fork. Aye. You’d always hear John +Murchison’s note in the finish.” + +Finlay was listening with the look of a charmed animal. Dr Drummond’s +voice was never more vibrant, more moving, more compelling than when he +called up the past; and here to Finlay the past was itself enchanted. + +“She always had those wonderful dark eyes. She’s pale enough now, but +as a child she was rosy. Taking her place of a winter evening, with the +snow on her fur cap and her hair, I often thought her a picture. I liked +to have her attention while I was preaching, even as a child; and when +she was absent I missed her. It was through my ministrations that she +saw her way to professing the Church of Christ, and under my heartfelt +benediction that she first broke bread in her Father’s house. I hold the +girl in great affection, Finlay; and I grieve to hear this.” + +The other drew a long breath, and his hand tightened on the arm of his +chair. He was, as we know, blind to many of the world’s aspects, even to +those in which he himself figured; and Dr Drummond’s plain hypothesis of +his relations with Advena came before him in forced illumination, flash +by tragic flash. This kind of revelation is more discomforting than +darkness, since it carries the surprise of assault, and Finlay groped in +it, helpless and silent. + +“You are grieved, sir?” he said mechanically. + +“Man, she loves you!” exclaimed the Doctor, in a tone that would no +longer forbear. + +Hugh Finlay seemed to take the words just where they were levelled, in +his breast. He half leaped from his chair; the lower part of his face +had the rigidity of iron. + +“I am not obliged to discuss such a matter as that,” he said hoarsely, +“with you or with any man.” + +He looked confusedly about him for his hat, which he had left in the +hall; and Dr Drummond profited by the instant. He stepped across and +laid a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. Had they both been standing +the gesture would have been impossible to Dr Drummond with dignity; +as it was, it had not only that, but benignance, a kind of tender good +will, rare in expression with the minister, rare, for that matter, in +feeling with him too, though the chord was always there to be sounded. + +“Finlay,” he said; “Finlay!” + +Between two such temperaments the touch and the tone together made an +extraordinary demonstration. Finlay, with an obvious effort, let it lie +upon him. The tension of his body relaxed, that of his soul he covered, +leaning forward and burying his head in his hands. + +“Will you say I have no claim to speak?” asked Dr Drummond, and met +silence. “It is upon my lips to beg you not to send that letter, +Finlay.” He took his hand from the young man’s shoulder, inserted a +thumb in each of his waistcoat pockets, and resumed his walk. + +“On my own account I must send it,” said Finlay. “On Miss +Murchison’s--she bids me to. We have gone into the matter together.” + +“I can imagine what you made of it together. There’s a good deal of her +father in Advena. He would be the last man to say a word for himself. +You told her this tale you have told me, and she told you to get Miss +Christie out and marry her without delay, eh? And what would you expect +her to tell you--a girl of that spirit?” + +“I cannot see why pride should influence her.” + +“Then you know little about women. It was pride, pure and simple, +Finlay, that made her tell you that--and she’ll be a sorry woman if you +act on it.” + +“No,” said Finlay, suddenly looking up, “I may know little about women, +but I know more about Advena Murchison than that. She advised me in the +sense she thought right and honourable, and her advice was sincere. And, +Dr Drummond, deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison’s view of +the matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision to rest upon it. +It must stand by itself.” + +“You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt should not be +influenced by the fact that it means the wrecking of your own happiness +and that of another person. I can’t agree, Finlay. I spoke first of +Advena Murchison because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart. +I feel, too, that someone should put her case. Her own father would +never open his lips. If you’re to be hauled over the coals about this +I’m the only man to do it. And I’m going to.” + +A look of sharp determination came into the minister’s eyes; he had the +momentary air of a small Scotch terrier with a bidding. Finlay looked at +him in startled recognition of another possible phase of his dilemma; he +thought he knew it in every wretched aspect. It was a bold reference +of Dr Drummond’s; it threw down the last possibility of withdrawal for +Finlay; they must have it out now, man to man, with a little, perhaps, +even in that unlikely place, of penitent to confessor. It was an +exigency, it helped Finlay to pull himself together, and there was +something in his voice, when he spoke, like the vibration of relief. + +“I am pained and distressed more than I have any way of telling you, +sir,” he said, “that--the state of feeling--between Miss Murchison and +myself should have been so plain to you. It is incomprehensible to +me that it should be so, since it is only very lately that I have +understood it truly myself. I hope you will believe that it was the +strangest, most unexpected, most sudden revelation.” + +He paused and looked timidly at the Doctor; he, the great fellow, in +straining bondage to his heart, leaning forward with embarrassed tension +in every muscle, Dr Drummond alert, poised, critical, balancing his +little figure on the hearthrug. + +“I preach faith in miracles,” he said. “I dare say between you and her +it would be just that.” + +“I have been deeply culpable. Common sense, common knowledge of men and +women should have warned me that there might be danger. But I looked +upon the matter as our own--as between us only. I confess that I have +not till now thought of that part of it, but surely--You cannot mean +to tell me that what I have always supposed my sincere and devoted +friendship for Miss Murchison has been in any way prejudicial--” + +“To her in the ordinary sense? To her prospects of marriage and her +standing in the eyes of the community? No, Finlay. No. I have not heard +the matter much referred to. You seem to have taken none of the ordinary +means--you have not distinguished her in the eyes of gossip. If you had +it would be by no means the gravest thing to consider. Such tokens are +quickly forgotten, especially here, where attentions of the kind often, +I’ve noticed, lead to nothing. It is the fact, and not the appearance of +it, that I speak of--that I am concerned with.” + +“The fact is beyond mending,” said Finlay, dully. + +“Aye, the fact is beyond mending. It is beyond mending that Advena +Murchison belongs to you and you to her in no common sense. It’s beyond +mending that you cannot now be separated without such injury to you both +as I would not like to look upon. It’s beyond mending, Finlay, because +it is one of those things that God has made. But it is not beyond +marring, and I charge you to look well what you are about in connection +with it.” + +A flash of happiness, of simple delight, lit the young man’s sombre eyes +as the phrases fell. To the minister they were mere forcible words; +to Finlay they were soft rain in a famished land. Then he looked again +heavily at the pattern of the carpet. + +“Would you have me marry Advena Murchison?” he said, with a kind of +shamed yielding to the words. + +“I would--and no other. Man, I saw it from the beginning!” exclaimed the +Doctor. “I don’t say it isn’t an awkward business. But at least there’ll +be no heartbreak in Scotland. I gather you never said a word to the +Bross lady on the subject, and very few on any other. You tell me you +left it all with that good woman, your aunt, to arrange after you left. +Do you think a creature of any sentiment would have accepted you on +those terms? Not she. So far as I can make out, Miss Cameron is just a +sensible, wise woman that would be the first to see the folly in this +business if she knew the rights of it. Come, Finlay, you’re not such a +great man with the ladies--you can’t pretend she has any affection for +you.” + +The note of raillery in the Doctor’s voice drew Finlay’s brows together. + +“I don’t know,” he said, “whether I have to think of her affections, but +I do know I have to think of her dignity, her confidence, and her belief +in the honourable dealing of a man whom she met under the sanction of a +trusted roof. The matter may look light here; it is serious there. She +has her circle of friends; they are acquainted with her engagement. She +has made all her arrangements to carry it out; she has disposed of her +life. I cannot ask her to reconsider her lot because I have found a +happier adjustment for mine.” + +“Finlay,” said Dr Drummond, “you will not be known in Bross or anywhere +else as a man who has jilted a woman. Is that it?” + +“I will not be a man who has jilted a woman.” + +“There is no sophist like pride. Look at the case on its merits. On the +one side a disappointment for Miss Cameron. I don’t doubt she’s counting +on coming, but at worst a worldly disappointment. And the very grievous +humiliation for you of writing to tell her that you have made a mistake. +You deserve that, Finlay. If you wouldn’t be a man who has jilted a +woman you have no business to lend yourself to such matters with the +capacity of a blind kitten. That is the damage on the one side. On the +other--” + +“I know all that there is to be said,” interrupted Finlay, “on the +other.” + +“Then face it, man. Go home and write the whole truth to Bross. I’ll do +it for you--no, I won’t, either. Stand up to it yourself. You must hurt +one of two women; choose the one that will suffer only in her vanity. I +tell you that Scotch entanglement of yours is pure cardboard farce--it +won’t stand examination. It’s appalling to think that out of an +extravagant, hypersensitive conception of honour, egged on by that poor +girl, you could be capable of turning it into the reality of your life.” + +“I’ve taken all these points of view, sir, and I can’t throw the woman +over. The objection to it isn’t in reason--it’s somehow in the past and +the blood. It would mean the sacrifice of all that I hold most valuable +in myself. I should expect myself after that to stick at nothing--why +should I?” + +“There is one point of view that perhaps you have not taken,” said Dr +Drummond, in his gravest manner. “You are settled here in your charge. +In all human probability you will remain here in East Elgin, as I have +remained here, building and fortifying the place you have won for the +Lord in the hearts of the people. Advena Murchison’s life will also go +on here--there is nothing to take it away. You have both strong natures. +Are you prepared for that?” + +“We are both prepared for it. We shall both be equal to it. I count upon +her, and she counts upon me, to furnish in our friendship the greater +part of whatever happiness life may have in store for us.” + +“Then you must be a pair of born lunatics!” said Dr Drummond, his jaw +grim, his eyes snapping. “What you propose is little less than a crime, +Finlay. It can come to nothing but grief, if no worse. And your wife, +poor woman, whatever she deserves, it is better than that! My word, if +she could choose her prospect, think you she would hesitate? Finlay, I +entreat you as a matter of ordinary prudence, go home and break it +off. Leave Advena out of it--you have no business to make this marriage +whether or no. Leave other considerations to God and to the future. I +beseech you, bring it to an end!” + +Finlay got up and held out his hand. “I tell you from my heart it is +impossible,” he said. + +“I can’t move you?” said Dr Drummond. “Then let us see if the Lord can. +You will not object, Finlay, to bring the matter before Him, here and +now, in a few words of prayer? I should find it hard to let you go +without them.” + +They went down upon their knees where they stood; and Dr Drummond did +little less than order Divine interference; but the prayer that was +inaudible was to the opposite purpose. + +Ten minutes later the minister himself opened the door to let Finlay out +into the night. “You will remember,” he said as they shook hands, +“that what I think of your position in this matter makes no difference +whatever to the question of your aunt’s coming here with Miss Cameron +when they arrive. You will bring them to this house as a matter of +course. I wish you could be guided to a different conclusion but, after +all, it is your own conscience that must be satisfied. They will be +better here than at the Murchisons’,” he added with a last shaft of +reproach, “and they will be very welcome.” + +It said much for Dr Drummond that Finlay was able to fall in with the +arrangement. He went back to his boarding-house, and added a postscript +embodying it to his letter to Bross. Then he walked out upon the +midnight two feverish miles to the town, and posted the letter. The way +back was longer and colder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +“Well, Winter,” said Octavius Milburn, “I expect there’s business in +this for you.” + +Mr Milburn and Mr Winter had met in the act of unlocking their boxes at +the post-office. Elgin had enjoyed postal delivery for several years, +but not so much as to induce men of business to abandon the post-office +box that had been the great convenience succeeding window inquiry. +In time the boxes would go, but the habit of dropping in for your own +noonday mail on the way home to dinner was deep-rooted, and undoubtedly +you got it earlier. Moreover, it takes time to engender confidence in +a postman when he is drawn from your midst, and when you know perfectly +well that he would otherwise be driving the mere watering-cart, or +delivering the mere ice, as he was last year. + +“Looks like it,” responded Mr Winter, cheerfully. “The boys have been +round as usual. I told them they’d better try another shop this time, +but they seemed to think the old reliable was good enough to go on +with.” + +This exchange, to anyone in Elgin, would have been patently simple. On +that day there was only one serious topic in Elgin, and there could have +been only one reference to business for Walter Winter. The Dominion had +come up the day before with the announcement that Mr Robert Farquharson +who, for an aggregate of eleven years, had represented the Liberals of +South Fox in the Canadian House of Commons, had been compelled under +medical advice to withdraw from public life. The news was unexpected, +and there was rather a feeling among Mr Farquharson’s local support in +Elgin that it shouldn’t have come from Toronto. It will be gathered +that Horace Williams, as he himself acknowledged, was wild. The general +feeling, and to some extent Mr Williams’s, was appeased by the further +information that Mr Farquharson had been obliged to go to Toronto to +see a specialist, whose report he had naturally enough taken to party +headquarters, whence the Dominion would get it, as Mr Williams said, by +telephone or any quicker way there was. Williams, it should be added, +was well ahead with the details, as considerate as was consistent with +public enterprise, of the retiring member’s malady, its duration, +the date of the earliest symptoms, and the growth of anxiety in Mrs +Farquharson, who had finally insisted--and how right she was!--on the +visit to the specialist, upon which she had accompanied Mr Farquharson. +He sent round Rawlins. So that Elgin was in possession of all the facts, +and Walter Winter, who had every pretension to contest the seat again +and every satisfaction that it wouldn’t be against Farquharson, +might naturally be expected to be taken up with them sufficiently to +understand a man who slapped him on the shoulder in the post-office with +the remark I have quoted. + +“I guess they know what they’re about,” returned Mr Milburn. “It’s a bad +knock for the Grits, old Farquharson having to drop out. He’s getting up +in years, but he’s got a great hold here. He’ll be a dead loss in votes +to his party. I always said our side wouldn’t have a chance till the old +man was out of the way.” + +Mr Winter twisted the watch-chain across his protuberant waistcoat, and +his chin sank in reflective folds above his neck-tie. Above that again +his nose drooped over his moustache, and his eyelids over his eyes, +which sought the floor. Altogether he looked sunk, like an overfed bird, +in deferential contemplation of what Mr Milburn was saying. + +“They’ve nobody to touch him, certainly in either ability or +experience,” he replied, looking up to do it, with a handsome air of +concession. “Now that Martin’s dead, and Jim Fawkes come that howler +over Pink River, they’ll have their work cut out for them to find a man. +I hear Fawkes takes it hard, after all he’s done for ‘em, not to get the +nomination, but they won’t hear of it. Quite right, too; he’s let too +many people in over that concession of his to be popular, even among his +friends.” + +“I suppose he has. Dropped anything there yourself?--No? Nor I. When a +thing gets to the boom stage I say let it alone, even if there’s gold in +it and you’ve got a School of Mines man to tell you so. Fawkes came out +of it at the small end himself, I expect, but that doesn’t help him any +in the eyes of businessmen.” + +“I hear,” said Walter Winter, stroking his nose, “that old man Parsons +has come right over since the bosses at Ottawa have put so much money +on preference trade with the old country. He says he was a Liberal once, +and may be a Liberal again, but he doesn’t see his way to voting to give +his customers blankets cheaper than he can make them, and he’ll wait +till the clouds roll by.” + +“He won’t be the only one, either,” said Milburn. “Take my word for +it, they’ll be dead sick and sorry over this imperial craze in a year’s +time, every Government that’s taken it up. The people won’t have it. The +Empire looks nice on the map, but when it comes to practical politics +their bread and butter’s in the home industries. There’s a great +principle at stake, Winter; I must say I envy you standing up for it +under such favourable conditions. Liberals like Young and Windle may +talk big, but when it comes to the ballot-box you’ll have the whole +manufacturing interest of the place behind you, and nobody the wiser. +It’s a great thing to carry the standard on an issue above and beyond +party politics--it’s a purer air, my boy.” + +Walter Winter’s nod confirmed the sagacity of this, and appreciated the +highmindedness. It was a parting nod; Mr Winter had too much on hand +that morning to waste time upon Octavius Milburn; but it was full of the +qualities that ensure the success of a man’s relation with his fellows. +Consideration was in it, and understanding, and that kind of geniality +that offers itself on a plain business footing, a commercial heartiness +that has no nonsense about it. He had half a dozen casual chats like +this with Mr Milburn on his way up Main Street, and his manner expanded +in cordiality and respect with each, as if his growing confidence in +himself increased his confidence in his fellow-men. The same assurance +greeted him several times over. Every friend wanted to remind him of +the enemy’s exigency, and to assure him that the enemy’s new policy was +enough by itself to bring him romping in at last; and to every assurance +he presented the same acceptable attitude of desiring for particular +reasons to take special note of such valuable views. At the end he +had neither elicited nor imparted a single opinion of any importance; +nevertheless, he was quite entitled to his glow of satisfaction. + +Among Mr Winter’s qualifications for political life was his capacity +to arrive at an estimate of the position of the enemy. He was never +persuaded to his own advantage; he never stepped ahead of the facts. +It was one of the things that made him popular with the other side, +his readiness to do justice to their equipment, to acknowledge their +chances. There is gratification of a special sort in hearing your points +of vantage confessed by the foe; the vanity is soothed by his open +admission that you are worthy of his steel. It makes you a little less +keen somehow, about defeating him. It may be that Mr Winter had an +instinct for this, or perhaps he thought such discourse more profitable, +if less pleasant, than derisive talk in the opposite sense. At all +events, he gained something and lost nothing by it, even in his own +camp, where swagger might be expected to breed admiration. He was +thought a level-headed fellow who didn’t expect miracles; his forecast +in most matters was quoted, and his defeats at the polls had been to +some extent neutralized by his sagacity in computing the returns in +advance. + +So that we may safely follow Mr Winter to the conclusion that the +Liberals of South Fox were somewhat put to it to select a successor to +Robert Farquharson who could be depended upon to keep the party credit +exactly where he found it. The need was unexpected, and the two men +who would have stepped most naturally into Farquharson’s shoes were +disqualified as Winter described. The retirement came at a calculating +moment. South Fox still declared itself with pride an unhealthy division +for Conservatives; but new considerations had thrust themselves among +Liberal counsels, and nobody yet knew what the country would say to +them. The place was a “Grit” strong-hold, but its steady growth as an +industrial centre would give a new significance to the figures of the +next returns. The Conservative was the manufacturers’ party, and had +been ever since the veteran Sir John Macdonald declared for a protective +“National Policy,” and placed the plain issue before the country which +divided the industrial and the agricultural interests. A certain number +of millowners--Mr Milburn mentioned Young and Windle--belonged to the +Liberals, as if to illustrate the fact that you inherit your party in +Canada as you inherit your “denomination,” or your nose; it accompanies +you, simply, to the grave. But they were exceptions, and there was no +doubt that the other side had been considerably strengthened by the +addition of two or three thriving and highly capitalized concerns during +the past five years. Upon the top of this had come the possibility of a +great and dramatic change of trade relations with Great Britain, which +the Liberal Government at Ottawa had given every sign of willingness +to adopt--had, indeed, initiated, and were bound by word and letter to +follow up. Though the moment had not yet come, might never come, for +its acceptance or rejection by the country as a whole, there could be +no doubt that every by-election would be concerned with the policy +involved, and that every Liberal candidate must be prepared to stand by +it in so far as the leaders had conceived and pushed it. Party feeling +was by no means unanimous in favour of the change; many Liberals saw +commercial salvation closer in improved trade relations with the United +States. On the other hand, the new policy, clothed as it was in the +attractive sentiment of loyalty, and making for the solidarity of the +British race, might be depended upon to capture votes which had been +hitherto Conservative mainly because these professions were supposed +to be an indissoluble part of Conservatism. It was a thing to split the +vote sufficiently to bring an unusual amount of anxiety and calculation +into Liberal counsels. The other side were in no doubt or difficulty: +Walter Winter was good enough for them, and it was their cheerful +conviction that Walter Winter would put a large number of people wise +on the subject of preference trade bye-and-bye, who at present only knew +enough to vote for it. + +The great question was the practicability of the new idea and how much +further it could safely be carried in a loyal Dominion which was just +getting on its industrial legs. It was debated with anxiety at Ottawa, +and made the subject of special instruction to South Fox, where the +by-election would have all the importance of an early test. “It’s a +clear issue,” wrote an influential person at Ottawa to the local party +leaders at Elgin, “we don’t want any tendency to hedge or double. +It’s straight business with us, the thing we want, and it will be till +Wallingham either gets it through over there, or finds he can’t deal +with us. Meanwhile it might be as well to ascertain just how much there +is in it for platform purposes in a safe spot like South Fox, and how +much the fresh opposition will cost us where we can afford it. We can’t +lose the seat, and the returns will be worth anything in their bearing +on the General Election next year. The objection to Carter is that he’s +only half-convinced; he couldn’t talk straight if he wanted to, and +that lecture tour of his in the United States ten years ago pushing +reciprocity with the Americans would make awkward literature.” + +The rejection of Carter practically exhausted the list of men available +whose standing in the town and experience of its suffrages brought them +naturally into the field of selection; and at this point Cruickshank +wrote to Farquharson suggesting the dramatic departure involved in the +name of Lorne Murchison. Cruickshank wrote judiciously, leaving the main +arguments in Lorne’s favour to form themselves in Farquharson’s mind, +but countering the objections that would rise there by the suggestion +that after a long period of confidence and steady going, in fact of +the orthodox and expected, the party should profit by the swing of +the pendulum toward novelty and tentative, rather than bring forward a +candidate who would represent, possibly misrepresent, the same beliefs +and intentions on a lower personal level. As there was no first-rate +man of the same sort to succeed Farquharson, Cruickshank suggested the +undesirability of a second-rate man; and he did it so adroitly that the +old fellow found himself in a good deal of sympathy with the idea. He +had small opinion of the lot that was left for selection, and smaller +relish for the prospect of turning his honourable activity over to any +one of them. Force of habit and training made him smile at Cruickshank’s +proposition as impracticable, but he felt its attraction, even while +he dismissed it to an inside pocket. Young Murchison’s name would be so +unlooked-for that if he, Farquharson, could succeed in imposing it +upon the party it would be almost like making a personal choice of his +successor, a grateful idea in abdication. Farquharson wished regretfully +that Lorne had another five years to his credit in the Liberal record of +South Fox. By the time the young fellow had earned them he, the retiring +member, would be quite on the shelf, if in no completer oblivion; he +could not expect much of a voice in any nomination five years hence. He +sighed to think of it. + +It was at that point of his meditations that Mr Farquharson met +Squire Ormiston on the steps of the Bank of British North America, an +old-fashioned building with an appearance of dignity and probity, a look +of having been founded long ago upon principles which raised it above +fluctuation, exactly the place in which Mr Farquharson and Squire +Ormiston might be expected to meet. The two men, though politically +opposed, were excellent friends; they greeted cordially. + +“So you’re ordered out of politics, Farquharson?” said the squire. +“We’re all sorry for that, you know.” + +“I’m afraid so; I’m afraid so. Thanks for your letter--very friendly of +you, squire. I don’t like it--no use pretending I do--but it seems I’ve +got to take a rest if I want to be known as a going concern.” + +“A fellow with so much influence in committee ought to have more control +of his nerve centres,” Ormiston told him. The squire belonged to that +order of elderly gentlemen who will have their little joke. “Well, have +you and Bingham and Horace Williams made up your minds who’s to have the +seat?” + +Farquharson shook his head. “I only know what I see in the papers,” he +said. “The Dominion is away out with Fawkes, and the Express is about as +lukewarm with Carter as he is with federated trade.” + +“Your Government won’t be obliged to you for Carter,” said Mr Ormiston; +“a more slack-kneed, double-jointed scoundrel was never offered a +commission in a respectable cause. He’ll be the first to rat if things +begin to look queer for this new policy of yours and Wallingham’s.” + +“He hasn’t got it yet,” Farquharson admitted, “and he won’t with my good +will. So you’re with us for preference trade, Ormiston?” + +“It’s a thing I’d like to see. It’s a thing I’m sorry we’re not in a +position to take up practically ourselves. But you won’t get it, you +know. You’ll be defeated by the senior partner. It’s too much of a +doctrine for the people of England. They’re listening to Wallingham +just now because they admire him, but they won’t listen to you. I doubt +whether it will ever come to an issue over there. This time next year +Wallingham will be sucking his thumbs and thinking of something else. +No, it’s not a thing to worry about politically, for it won’t come +through.” + +The squire’s words suggested so much relief in that conviction that +Farquharson, sharp on the flair of the experienced nose for waverers, +looked at him observantly. + +“I’m not so sure It’s a doctrine with a fine practical application for +them as well as for us, if they can be got to see it, and they’re bound +to see it in time. It’s a thing I never expected to live to believe, +never thought would be practicable until lately, but now I think there’s +a very good chance of it. And, hang it all,” he added, “it may be +unreasonable, but the more I notice the Yankees making propositions to +get us away from it, the more I want to see it come through.” + +“I have very much the same feeling,” the squire acknowledged. “I’ve been +turning the matter over a good deal since that last Conference showed +which way the wind was blowing. And the fellows in your Government gave +them a fine lead. But such a proposition was bound to come from your +side. The whole political history of the country shows it. We’re pledged +to take care of the damned industries.” + +Farquharson smiled at the note of depression. “Well, we want a bigger +market somewhere,” he said with detachment “and it looks as if we could +get it now Uncle Sam has had a fright. If the question comes to be +fought out at the polls, I don’t see how your party could do better +than go in for a wide scheme of reciprocity with the Americans--in raw +products, of course with a tariff to match theirs on manufactured goods. +That would shut a pretty tight door on British connection though.” + +“They’ll not get my vote if they do,” said the squire, thrusting his +hands fiercely into his breeches pockets. + +“As you say, it’s most important to put up a man who will show the +constituency all the credit and benefit there is in it, anyhow,” + Farquharson observed. “I’ve had a letter this morning,” he added, +laughing, “from a fellow--one of the bosses, too--who wants us to +nominate young Murchison.” + +“The lawyer?” + +“That’s the man. He’s too young, of course--not thirty. But he’s well +known in the country districts; I don’t know a man of his age with a +more useful service record. He’s got a lot of friends, and he’s come a +good deal to the front lately through that inter-imperial communications +business--we might do worse. And upon my word, we’re in such a hole--” + +“Farquharson,” said old Squire Ormiston, the red creeping over features +that had not lost in three generations the lines of the old breed, “I’ve +voted in the Conservative interest for forty years, and my father before +me. We were Whigs when we settled in Massachusetts, and Whigs when we +pulled up stakes and came North rather than take up arms against the +King; but it seemed decent to support the Government that gave us a +chance again under the flag, and my grandfather changed his politics. +Now, confound it! the flag seems to be with the Whigs again, for +fighting purposes, anyhow; and I don’t seem to have any choice. I’ve +been debating the thing for some time now, and your talk of making +that fine young fellow your candidate settles it. If you can get your +committee to accept young Murchison, you can count on my vote, and I +don’t want to brag, but I think you can count on Moneida too, though +it’s never sent in a Grit majority yet.” + +The men were standing on the steps of the bank, and the crisp air +of autumn brought them both an agreeable tingle of enterprise. +Farquharson’s buggy was tied to the nearest maple. + +“I’m going over to East Elgin to look at my brick-kilns,” he said. “Get +in with me, will you?” + +As they drove up Main Street they encountered Walter Winter, who looked +after them with a deeply considering eye. + +“Old Ormiston always had the Imperial bee in his bonnet,” said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Alfred Hesketh was among the first to hear of Lorne’s nomination to +represent the constituency of South Fox in the Dominion Parliament. The +Milburns told him; it was Dora who actually made the communication. The +occasion was high tea; Miss Milburn’s apprehension about Englishmen and +late dinner had been dissipated in great amusement. Mr Hesketh liked +nothing better than high tea, liked nothing so much. He came often to +the Milburns’ after Mrs Milburn said she hoped he would, and pleased her +extremely by the alacrity with which he accepted her first invitation to +stay to what she described as their very simple and unconventional meal. +Later he won her approval entirely by saying boldly that he hoped he was +going to be allowed to stay. It was only in good English society, +Mrs Milburn declared, that you found such freedom and confidence; it +reminded her of Mrs Emmett’s saying that her sister-in-law in London +was always at home to lunch. Mrs Milburn considered a vague project of +informing a select number of her acquaintances that she was always +at home to high tea, but on reflection dismissed it, in case an +inconvenient number should come at once. She would never have gone into +detail, but since a tin of sardines will only hold so many, I may say +for her that it was the part of wisdom. + +Mr Hesketh, however, wore the safe and attractive aspect of a single +exceptional instance; there were always sardines enough for him. It +will be imagined what pleasure Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin took in his +visits, how he propped up their standard of behaviour in all things +unessential, which was too likely to be growing limp, so far from +approved examples. I think it was a real aesthetic satisfaction; I know +they would talk of it afterward for hours, with sighing comparisons of +the “form” of the young men of Elgin, which they called beside Hesketh’s +quite outre. It was a favourite word with Mrs Milburn--outre. She used +it like a lorgnette, and felt her familiarity with it a differentiating +mark. Mr Milburn, never so susceptible to delicate distinctions, looked +upon the young Englishman with benevolent neutrality. Dora wished it +to be understood that she reserved her opinion. He might be all that he +seemed, and again he might not. Englishmen were so deep. They might have +nice manners, but they didn’t always act up to them, so far as she had +noticed. There was that Honourable Somebody, who was in jail even +then for trying to borrow money under false pretences from the +Governor-General. Lorne, when she expressed these views to him, +reassured her, but she continued to maintain a guarded attitude upon Mr +Hesketh, to everybody except Mr Hesketh himself. + +It was Dora, as I have said, who imparted the news. Lorne had come over +with it in the afternoon, still a little dazed and unbelieving in the +face of his tremendous luck, helped by finding her so readily credulous +to thinking it reasonably possible himself. He could not have done +better than come to Dora for a correction of any undue exaltation that +he might have felt, however. She supplied it in ten minutes by reminding +him of their wisdom in keeping the secret of their relations. His +engagement to the daughter of a prominent Conservative would not indeed +have told in his favour with his party, to say nothing of the anomaly +of Mr Milburn’s unyielding opposition to the new policy. “I never knew +Father so nearly bitter about anything,” Dora said, a statement which +left her lover thoughtful, but undaunted. + +“We’ll bring him round,” said Lorne, “when he sees that the British +manufacturer can’t possibly get the better of men on the spot, who know +to a nut the local requirements.” + +To which she had responded, “Oh, Lorne, don’t begin THAT again,” and he +had gone away hot-foot for the first step of preparation. + +“It’s exactly what I should have expected,” said Hesketh, when she told +him. “Murchison is the very man they want. He’s cut out for a political +success. I saw that when he was in England.” + +“You haven’t been very long in the country, Mr Hesketh, or we shouldn’t +hear you saying that,” said Mr Milburn, amicably. “It’s a very +remarkable thing with us, a political party putting forward so young a +man. Now with you I expect a young fellow might get in on his rank +or his wealth--your principle of nonpayment of members confines your +selection more or less. I don’t say you’re not right, but over here we +do pay, you see, and it makes a lot of difference in the competition. It +isn’t a greater honour, but it’s more sought for. I expect there’ll be a +good many sore heads over this business.” + +“It’s all the more creditable to Murchison,” said Hesketh. + +“Of course it is--a great feather in his cap. Oh, I don’t say young +Murchison isn’t a rising fellow, but it’s foolishness for his party--I +can’t think who is responsible for it. However, they’ve got a pretty +foolish platform just now--they couldn’t win this seat on it with any +man. A lesson will be good for them.” + +“Father, don’t you think Lorne will get in?” asked Dora, in a tone of +injury and slight resentment. + +“Not by a handful,” said her father. “Mr Walter Winter will represent +South Fox in the next session of Parliament, if you ask my opinion.” + +“But, Father,” returned his daughter with an outraged inflection, +“you’ll vote for Lorne?” + +A smile went round the table, discreetest in Mrs Milburn. + +“I’m afraid not,” said Mr Milburn, “I’m afraid not. Sorry to disoblige, +but principles are principles.” + +Dora perceptibly pouted. Mrs Milburn created a diversion with green-gage +preserves. Under cover of it Hesketh asked, “Is he a great friend of +yours?” + +“One of my very greatest,” Dora replied. “I know he’ll expect Father to +vote for him. It makes it awfully embarrassing for me.” + +“Oh, I fancy he’ll understand!” said Hesketh, easily. “Political +convictions are serious things, you know. Friendship isn’t supposed to +interfere with them. I wonder,” he went on, meditatively, “whether I +could be of any use to Murchison. Now that I’ve made up my mind to +stop till after Christmas I’ll be on hand for the fight. I’ve had some +experience. I used to canvass now and then from Oxford; it was always a +tremendous lark.” + +“Oh, Mr Hesketh, DO! Really and truly he is one of my oldest friends, +and I should love to see him get in. I know his sister, too. They’re +a very clever family. Quite self-made, you know, but highly respected. +Promise me you will.” + +“I promise with pleasure. And I wish it were something it would give me +more trouble to perform. I like Murchison,” said Hesketh. + +All this transpiring while they were supposed to be eating green-gage +preserves, and Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin endeavoured to engage the +head of the house in the kind of easy allusion to affairs of the moment +to which Mr Hesketh would be accustomed as a form of conversation--the +accident to the German Empress, the marriage of one of the Rothschilds. +The ladies were compelled to supply most of the facts and all of the +interest but they kept up a gallant line of attack; and the young man, +taking gratified possession of Dora’s eyes, was extremely obliged to +them. + +Hesketh lost no time in communicating his willingness to be of use to +Murchison, and Lorne felt all his old friendliness rise up in him as he +cordially accepted the offer. It was made with British heartiness, it +was thoroughly meant. Lorne was half-ashamed in his recognition of its +quality. A certain aloofness had grown in him against his will since +Hesketh had prolonged his stay in the town, difficult to justify, +impossible to define. Hesketh as Hesketh was worthily admirable as ever, +wholesome and agreeable, as well turned out by his conscience as he was +by his tailor; it was Hesketh in his relation to his new environment +that seemed vaguely to come short. This in spite of an enthusiasm which +was genuine enough; he found plenty of things to like about the country. +It was perhaps in some manifestation of sensitiveness that he failed; +he had the adaptability of the pioneer among rugged conditions, but he +could not mingle quite immediately with the essence of them; he did not +perceive the genius loci. Lorne had been conscious of this as a kind of +undefined grievance; now he specified it and put it down to Hesketh’s +isolation among ways that were different from the ways he knew. You were +bound to notice that Hesketh as a stranger had his own point of view, +his own training to retreat upon. + +“I certainly liked him better over there,” Lorne told Advena, “but then +he was a part of it--he wasn’t separated out as he is here. He was just +one sort of fellow that you admired, and there were lots of sorts that +you admired more. Over here you seem to see round him somehow.” + +“I shouldn’t have thought it difficult,” said his sister. + +“Besides,” Lorne confessed, “I expect it was easier to like him when +you were inclined to like everybody. A person feels more critical of +a visitor, especially when he’s had advantages,” he added honestly. +“I expect we don’t care about having to acknowledge ‘em so very +much--that’s what it comes to.” + +“I don’t see them,” said Advena. “Mr Hesketh seems well enough in his +way, fairly intelligent and anxious to be pleasant. But I can’t say I +find him a specially interesting or valuable type.” + +“Interesting, you wouldn’t. But valuable--well, you see, you haven’t +been in England--you haven’t seen them over there, crowds of ‘em, piling +up the national character. Hesketh’s an average, and for an average he’s +high. Oh, he’s a good sort--and he just SMELLS of England.” + +“He seems all right in his politics,” said John Murchison, filling +his pipe from the tobacco jar on the mantelpiece. “But I doubt whether +you’ll find him much assistance the way he talks of. Folks over here +know their own business--they’ve had to learn it. I doubt if they’ll +take showing from Hesketh.” + +“They might be a good deal worse advised.” + +“That may be,” said Mr Murchison, and settled down in his armchair +behind the Dominion. + +“I agree with Father,” said Advena. “He won’t be any good, Lorne.” + +“Advena prefers Scotch,” remarked Stella. + +“I don’t know. He’s full of the subject,” said Lorne. “He can present it +from the other side.” + +“The side of the British exporter?” inquired his father, looking over +the top of the Dominion with unexpected humour. + +“No, sir. Though there are places where we might talk cheap overcoats +and tablecloths and a few odds and ends like that. The side of the +all-British loaf and the lot of people there are to eat it,” said Lorne. +“That ought to make a friendly feeling. And if there’s anything in the +sentiment of the scheme,” he added, “it shouldn’t do any harm to have a +good specimen of the English people advocating it. Hesketh ought to be +an object-lesson.” + +“I wouldn’t put too much faith in the object-lesson,” said John +Murchison. + +“Neither would I,” said Stella emphatically. “Mister Alfred Hesketh may +pass in an English crowd, but over here he’s just an ignorant young +man, and you’d better not have him talking with his mouth at any of your +meetings. Tell him to go and play with Walter Winter.” + +“I heard he was asking at Volunteer Headquarters the other night,” + remarked Alec, “how long it would be before a man like himself, if he +threw in his lot with the country, could expect to get nominated for a +provincial seat.” + +“What did they tell him?” asked Mr Murchison, when they had finished +their laugh. + +“I heard they said it would depend a good deal on the size of the lot.” + +“And a little on the size of the man,” remarked Advena. + +“He said he would be willing to take a seat in a Legislature and work +up,” Alec went on. “Ontario for choice, because he thought the people of +this Province more advanced.” + +“There’s a representative committee being formed to give the inhabitants +of the poor-house a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day,” said Advena. “He +might begin with that.” + +“I dare say he would if anybody told him. He’s just dying to be taken +into the public service,” Alec said. “He’s in dead earnest about it. He +thinks this country’s a great place because it gives a man the chance of +a public career.” + +“Why is it,” asked Advena “that when people have no capacity for private +usefulness they should be so anxious to serve the public?” + +“Oh, come,” said Lorne, “Hesketh has an income of his own. Why should +he sweat for his living? We needn’t pride ourselves on being so taken up +with getting ours. A man like that is in a position to do some good, and +I hope Hesketh will get a chance if he stays over here. We’ll soon +see how he speaks. He’s going to follow Farquharson at Jordanville on +Thursday week.” + +“I wonder at Farquharson,” said his father. + +By this time the candidature of Mr Lorne Murchison was well in the +public eye. The Express announced it in a burst of beaming headlines, +with a biographical sketch and a “cut” of its young fellow-townsman. +Horace Williams, whose hand was plain in every line apologized for the +brevity of the biography--quality rather than quantity, he said; it +was all good, and time would make it better. This did not prevent the +Mercury observing the next evening that the Liberal organ had omitted to +state the age at which the new candidate was weaned. The Toronto papers +commented according to their party bias, but so far as the candidate +was concerned there was lack of the material of criticism. If he had +achieved little for praise he had achieved nothing for detraction. +There was no inconsistent public utterance, no doubtful transaction, no +scandalous paper to bring forward to his detriment. When the fact that +he was but twenty-eight years of age had been exhausted in elaborate +ridicule, little more was available. The policy he championed, however, +lent itself to the widest discussion, and it was instructive to note how +the Opposition press, while continuing to approve the great principle +involved, found material for gravest criticism in the Government’s +projected application of it. Interest increased in the South Fox +by-election as its first touchstone, and gathered almost romantically +about Lorne Murchison as its spirited advocate. It was commonly said +that whether he was returned or not on this occasion, his political +future was assured; and his name was carried up and down the Dominion +with every new wind of imperial doctrine that blew across the Atlantic. +He himself felt splendidly that he rode upon the crest of a wave of +history. However the event appeared which was hidden beyond the horizon, +the great luck of that buoyant emotion, of that thrilling suspense, +would be his in a very special way. He was exhilarated by the sense of +crisis, and among all the conferences and calculations that armed him +for his personal struggle, he would now and then breathe in his private +soul, “Choose quickly, England,” like a prayer. + +Elgin rose to its liking for the fellow, and even his political enemies +felt a half-humorous pride that the town had produced a candidate whose +natural parts were held to eclipse the age and experience of party +hacks. Plenty of them were found to declare that Lorne Murchison would +poll more votes for the Grits than any other man they could lay their +hands on, with the saving clause that neither he nor any other man could +poll quite enough this time. They professed to be content to let the +issue have it; meanwhile they congratulated Lorne on his chance, telling +him that a knock or two wouldn’t do him any harm at his age. Walter +Winter, who hadn’t been on speaking terms with Farquharson, made a point +of shaking hands with Murchison in the publicity of the post-office, and +assuring him that he, Winter, never went into a contest more confident +of the straight thing on the part of the other side. Such cavilling +as there was came from the organized support of his own party and had +little importance because it did. The grumblers fell into line almost +as soon as Horace Williams said they would; a little oil, one small +appointment wrung from the Ontario Government--Fawkes, I believe, +got it--and the machine was again in good working order. Lorne even +profited, in the opinion of many, by the fact of his youth, with its +promise of energy and initiative, since Mr Farquharson had lately been +showing the defects as well as the qualities of age and experience, and +the charge of servile timidity was already in the mouths of his critics. + +The agricultural community took it, as usual, with phlegm; but there was +a distinct tendency in the bar at Barker’s, on market-days, to lay money +on the colt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +Mr Farquharson was to retain his seat until the early spring, for the +double purpose of maintaining his influence upon an important commission +of which he was chairman until the work should be done, and of giving +the imperial departure championed by his successor as good a chance as +possible of becoming understood in the constituency. It was understood +that the new writ would issue for a date in March; Elgin referred all +interest to that point, and prophesied for itself a lively winter. +Another event, of importance less general, was arranged for the end of +February--the arrival of Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon from Scotland. +Finlay had proposed an earlier date, but matters of business connected +with her mother’s estate would delay Miss Cameron’s departure. Her +arrival would be the decisive point of another campaign. He and Advena +faced it without misgiving, but there were moments when Finlay greatly +wished the moment past. + +Their intimacy had never been conspicuous, and their determination to +make no change in it could be carried out without attracting attention. +It was very dear to them, that determination. They saw it as a test, as +an ideal. Last of all, perhaps, as an alleviation. They were both too +much encumbered with ideas to move simply, quickly, on the impulse +of passion. They looked at it through the wrong end of the glass, and +thought they put it farther away. They believed that their relation +comprised, would always comprise, the best of life. It was matter for +discussion singularly attractive; they allowed themselves upon it wide +scope in theory. They could speak of it in the heroic temper, without +sadness or bitterness; the thing was to tear away the veil and look fate +in the face. The great thing, perhaps, was to speak of it while still +they could give themselves leave; a day would arrive, they acknowledged +with averted eyes, when dumbness would be more becoming. Meanwhile, Mrs +Murchison would have found it hard to sustain her charge against them +that they talked of nothing but books and authors; the philosophy of +life, as they were intensely creating it, was more entrancing than +any book or any author. Simply and definitely, and to their own +satisfaction, they had abandoned the natural demands of their state; +they lived in its exaltation and were far from accidents. Deep in both +of them was a kind of protective nobility; I will not say it cost them +nothing, but it turned the scenes between them into comedy of the better +sort, the kind that deserves the relief of stone or bronze. Advena, +had she heard it, would have repelled Dr Drummond’s warning with +indignation. If it were so possible to keep their friendship on an +unfaltering level then, with the latitude they had, what danger could +attend them later, when the social law would support them, divide them, +protect them? Dr Drummond, suspecting all, looked grimly on, and from +November to March found no need to invite Mr Finlay to occupy the pulpit +of Knox Church. + +They had come to full knowledge that night of their long walk in the +dark together; but even then, in the rush and shock and glory of +it, they had held apart; and their broken avowals had crossed with +difficulty from one to the other. The whole fabric of circumstance was +between them, to realize and to explore; later surveys, as we know, +had not reduced it. They gave it great credit as a barrier; I suppose +because it kept them out of each other’s arms. It had done that. + +It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should continue upon +terms of happy debt to one another, the balance always changing, the +account never closed and rendered. She no doubt felt that she might +impose the terms; she had unconsciously the sense of greater sacrifice, +and knew that she had been mistress of the situation long before he +was aware of it. He agreed with joy and with misgiving; he saw with +enthusiasm her high conception of their alliance, but sometimes +wondered, poor fellow, whether he was right in letting it cover him. +He came to the house as he had done before, as often as he could, and +reproached himself that he could not, after all, come very often. + +That they should discuss their relation as candidly as they sustained it +was perhaps a little peculiar to them, so I have laid stress on it; but +it was not by any means their sole preoccupation. They talked like +tried friends of their every-day affairs. Indeed, after the trouble and +intoxication of their great understanding had spent itself, it was the +small practical interests of life that seemed to hold them most. One +might think that Nature, having made them her invitation upon the higher +plane, abandoned them in the very scorn of her success to the warm human +commonplaces that do her work well enough with the common type. Mrs +Murchison would have thought better of them if she had chanced again to +overhear. + +“I wouldn’t advise you to have it lined with fur,” Advena was saying. +The winter had sharply announced itself, and Finlay, to her reproach +about his light overcoat, had declared his intention of ordering a +buffalo-skin the following day. “And the buffaloes are all gone, you +know--thirty years ago,” she laughed. “You really are not modern in +practical matters. Does it ever surprise you that you get no pemmican +for dinner, and hardly ever meet an Indian in his feathers?” + +He looked at her with delight in his sombre eyes. It was a new +discovery, her capacity for happily chaffing him, only revealed since +she had come out of her bonds to love; it was hard to say which of them +took the greater pleasure in it. + +“What is the use of living in Canada if you can’t have fur on your +clothes?” he demanded. + +“You may have a little--astrakhan, I would--on the collar and cuffs,” + she said. “A fur lining is too hot if there happens to be a thaw, and +then you would leave it off and take cold. You have all the look,” she +added, with a gravely considering glance at him, “of a person who ought +to take care of his chest.” + +He withdrew his eyes hurriedly, and fixed them instead on his pipe. He +always brought it with him, by her order, and Advena usually sewed. He +thought as he watched her that it made the silences enjoyable. + +“And expensive, I dare say, too,” he said. + +“Yes, more or less. Alec paid fifty dollars for his, and never liked +it.” + +“Fifty dollars--ten pounds! No vair for me!” he declared. “By the way, +Mrs Firmin is threatening to turn me out of house and home. A married +daughter is coming to live with her, and she wants my rooms.” + +“When does she come--the married daughter?” + +“Oh, not till the early spring! There’s no immediate despair,” said +Finlay, “but it is dislocating. My books and I had just succeeded in +making room for one another.” + +“But you will have to move, in any case, in the early spring.” + +“I suppose I will. I had--I might have remembered that.” + +“Have you found a house yet?” Advena asked him. + +“No.” + +“Have you been looking?” It was a gentle, sensible reminder. + +“I’m afraid I haven’t.” He moved in his chair as if in physical +discomfort. “Do you think I ought--so soon? There are always plenty +of--houses, aren’t there?” + +“Not plenty of desirable ones. Do you think you must live in East +Elgin?” + +“It would be rather more convenient.” + +“Because there are two semidetached in River Street, just finished, that +look very pretty and roomy. I thought when I saw them that one of them +might be what you would like.” + +“Thank you,” he said, and tried not to say it curtly. + +“They belong to White, the grocer. River Street isn’t East Elgin, but it +is that way, and it would be a great deal pleasanter for--for her.” + +“I must consider that, of course. You haven’t been in them? I should +hope for a bright sitting-room, and a very private study.” + +If Advena was aware of any unconscious implication, the pair of eyes she +turned upon him showed no trace of satisfaction in it. + +“No, I haven’t. But if I could be of any use I should be very glad to go +over them with you, and--” + +She stopped involuntarily, checked by the embarrassment in his face, +though she had to wait for his words to explain it. + +“I should be most grateful. But--but might it not be misunderstood?” + +She bent her head over her work, and one of those instants passed +between them which he had learned to dread. They were so completely +the human pair as they sat together, withdrawn in comfort and shelter, +absorbed in homely matters and in each other; it was easy to forget that +they were only a picture, a sham, and that the reality lay further on, +in the early spring. It must have been hard for him to hear without +resentment that she was ready to help him to make a home for that +reality. He was fast growing instructed in women, although by a +post-graduate course. + +Advena looked up. “Possibly,” she said, calmly, and their agitation +lay still between them. He was silently angry; the thing that stirred +without their leave had been sweet. + +“No,” said Advena, “I can’t go, I suppose. I’m sorry. I should have +liked so much to be of use.” She looked up at him appealingly, and +sudden tears came and stood in her eyes, and would perhaps have undone +his hurt but that he was staring into the fire. + +“How can you be of use,” he said, almost irritably, “in such ways as +those? They are not important, and I am not sure that for us they are +legitimate. If you were about to be--married”--he seemed to plunge at +the word--“I should not wish either to hasten you or to house you. I +should turn my back on it all. You should have nothing from me,” he went +on, with a forced smile, “but my blessing, delivered over my shoulder.” + +“I am sure they are not important,” she said humbly--privately all +unwilling to give up her martyrdom, “but surely they are legitimate. I +would like to help you in every little way I can. Don’t you like me in +your life? You have said that I may stay.” + +“I believe you think that by taking strong measures one can exorcise +things,” he said. “That if we could only write out this history of ours +in our hearts’ blood it would somehow vanish.” + +“No,” she said, “but I should like to do it all the same.” + +“You must bear with me if I refuse the heroic in little. It is even +harder than the other.” He broke off, leaning back and looking at +her from under his shading hand as if that might protect him from too +complete a vision. The firelight was warm on her cheek and hair, her +needle once again completed the dear delusion: she sat there, his wife. +This was an aspect he forbade, but it would return; here it was again. + +“It is good to have you in my life,” he said. “It is also good to +recognize one’s possibilities.” + +“How can you definitely lose me?” she asked, and he shook his head. + +“I don’t know. Now that I have found you it is as if you and I had been +rocked together on the tide of that inconceivable ocean that casts us +half-awake upon life,” he said dreamily. “It isn’t friendship of ideas, +it’s a friendship of spirit. Indeed, I hope and pray never wholly to +lose that.” + +“You never will,” she told him. “How many worlds one lives in as the day +goes by with the different people one cares for--one beyond the other, +concentric, ringing from the heart! Yours comprises all the others; it +lies the farthest out--and alas! at present, the closest in,” she added +irresistibly to the asking of his eyes. + +“But,” she hurried on, taking high ground to remedy her indiscretion, +“I look forward to the time when this--other feeling of ours will become +just an idea, as it is now just an emotion, at which we should try to +smile. It is the attitude of the gods.” + +“And therefore not becoming to men. Why should we, not being gods. +borrow their attitude?” said Finlay. + +“I could never kill it,” she put her work in her lap to say, “by any +sudden act of violence. It would seem a kind of suicide. While it rules +it is like one’s life--absolute. But to isolate it--to place it beyond +the currents from the heart--to look at it, and realize it, and conquer +it for what it is--I don’t think it need take so very long. And then our +friendship will be beautiful without reproach.” + +“I sometimes fear there may not be time enough in life,” he said. “And +if I find that I must simply go--to British Columbia, I think--those +mining missions would give a man his chance against himself. There is +splendid work to be done there, of a rough-and-ready kind that would +make it puerile to spend time in self-questioning.” + +She smiled as if at a violent boy. “We can do it. We can do it here,” + she said. “May I quote another religion to you? ‘From purification there +arises in the Yogi a thorough discernment of the cause and nature of the +body, whereupon he loses that regard which others have for the bodily +form.’ Then, if he loves, he loves in spirit and in truth. I look +forward to the time,” she went on calmly, “when the best that I can give +you or you can give me will ride upon a glance.” + +“I used to feel more drawn to the ascetic achievement and its rewards,” + he remarked thoughtfully, “than I do now.” + +“If I were not a Presbyterian in Canada,” she told him, “I would be a +Buddhist in Burma. But I have inherited the Shorter Catechism; I must +remain without the Law.” + +Finlay smiled. “They are the simple,” he said. “Our Law makes wise the +simple.” + +Advena looked for a moment into the fire. She was listening, with +admiration, to her heart; she would not be led to consider esoteric +contrasts of East and West. + +“Isn’t there something that appeals to you,” she said, “in the thought +of just leaving it, all unsaid and all undone, a dear and tender +projection upon the future that faded--a lovely thing we turned away +from, until one day it was no longer there?” + +“Charming,” he said, averting his eyes so that she should not see the +hunger in them. “Charming--literature!” + +She smiled and sighed, and he wrenched his mind to the consideration +of the Buddhism of Browning. She followed him obediently, but the lines +they wanted did not come easily; they were compelled to search and +verify. Something lately seemed lost to them of that kind of glad +activity; he was more aware of it than she, since he was less occupied +in the aesthetic ecstasy of self-torture. In the old time before the sun +rose they had been so conscious of realms of idea lying just beyond +the achievement of thought, approachable, visible by phrases, brokenly, +realms which they could see closer when they essayed together. He +constantly struggled to reach those enchanted areas again, but they +seemed to have gone down behind the horizon; and the only inspiration +that carried them far drew its impetus from the poetry of their plight. +They looked for verses to prove that Browning’s imagination carried him +bravely through lives and lives to come, and found them to speculate +whether in such chances they might hope to meet again. + +And the talk came back to his difficulties with his Board of Management, +and to her choice of a frame for the etching he had given her, by his +friend the Glasgow impressionist, and to their opinion of a common +acquaintance, and to Lorne and his prospects. He told her how little +she resembled her brother, and where they diverged, and how; and she +listened with submission and delight, enchanted to feel his hand upon +her intimate nature. She lingered in the hall while he got into his +overcoat, and saw that a glove was the worse for wear. “Would it be the +heroic-in-little,” she begged, “to let me mend that?” + +As he went out alone into the winter streets he too drew upon a pagan +for his admonition. “‘What then art thou doing here, O imagination?’” he +groaned in his private heart. “‘Go away, I entreat thee by the gods, for +I want thee not. But thou art come again according to thy old fashion. I +am not angry with thee, only go away!’” + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Miss Milburn pressed her contention that the suspicion of his desire +would be bad for her lover’s political prospects till she made him feel +his honest passion almost a form of treachery to his party. She also +hinted that, for the time being, it did not make particularly for her +own comfort in the family circle, Mr Milburn having grown by this time +quite bitter. She herself drew the excitement of intrigue from the +situation, which she hid behind her pretty, pale, decorous features, and +never betrayed by the least of her graceful gestures. She told herself +that she had never been so right about anything as about that affair of +the ring--imagine, for an instant, if she had been wearing it now! She +would have banished Lorne altogether if she could. As he insisted on +an occasional meeting, she clothed it in mystery, appointing it for an +evening when her mother and aunt were out, and answering his ring at the +door herself. To her family she remarked with detachment that you saw +hardly anything of Lorne Murchison now, he was so taken up with his +old election; and to Hesketh she confided her fear that politics did +interfere with friendship, whatever he might say. He said a good deal, +he cited lofty examples; but the only agreement he could get from her +was the hope that the estrangement wouldn’t be permanent. + +“But you are going to say something, Lorne,” she insisted, talking of +the Jordanville meeting. + +“Not much,” he told her. “It’s the safest district we’ve got, and they +adore old Farquharson. He’ll do most of the talking--they wouldn’t +thank me for taking up the time. Farquharson is going to tell them I’m a +first-class man, and they couldn’t do better, and I’ve practically only +to show my face and tell them I think so too.” + +“But Mr Hesketh will speak?” + +“Yes; we thought it would be a good chance of testing him. He may +interest them, and he can’t do much harm, anyhow.” + +“Lorne, I should simply love to go. It’s your first meeting.” + +“I’ll take you.” + +“Mr Murchison, HAVE you taken leave of your senses? Really, you are--” + +“All right, I’ll send you. Farquharson and I are going out to the +Crow place to supper, but Hesketh is driving straight there. He’ll be +delighted to bring you--who wouldn’t?” + +“I shouldn’t be allowed to go with him alone,” said Dora, thoughtfully. + +“Well, no. I don’t know that I’d approve of that myself,” laughed the +confident young man. “Hesketh is driving Mrs Farquharson, and the cutter +will easily hold three. Isn’t it lucky there’s sleighing?” + +“Mother couldn’t object to that,” said Dora. “Lorne, I always said you +were the dearest fellow! I’ll wear a thick veil, and not a soul will +know me.” + +“Not a soul would in any case,” said Lorne. “It’ll be a Jordanville +crowd, you know--nobody from Elgin.” + +“We don’t visit much in Jordanville, certainly. Well, Mother mayn’t +object. She has a great idea of Mrs Farquharson, because she +has attended eleven Drawing-Rooms at Ottawa, and one of them was +given--held, I should say--by the Princess Louise.” + +“I won’t promise you eleven,” said Lorne, “but there seems to be a +pretty fair chance of one or two.” + +At this she had a tale for him which charmed his ears. “I didn’t know +where to look,” she said. “Aunt Emmie, you know, has a very bad trick +of coming into my room without knocking. Well, in she walked last night, +and found me before the glass PRACTISING MY CURTSEY! I could have killed +her. Pretended she thought I was out.” + +“Dora, would you like ME to promise something?” he asked, with a +mischievous look. + +“Of course, I would. I don’t care how much YOU promise. What?” + +But already he repented of his daring, and sat beside her suddenly +conscious and abashed. Nor could any teasing prevail to draw from him +what had been on his audacious lips to say. + +Social precedents are easily established in the country. The accident +that sent the first Liberal canvasser for Jordanville votes to the Crow +place for his supper would be hard to discover now; the fact remains +that he has been going there ever since. It made a greater occasion than +Mrs Crow would ever have dreamed of acknowledging. She saw to it that +they had a good meal of victuals, and affected indifference to the +rest; they must say their say, she supposed. If the occasion had one +satisfaction which she came nearer to confessing than another, it was +that the two or three substantial neighbours who usually came to meet +the politicians left their wives at home, and that she herself, to avoid +giving any offence on this score, never sat down with the men. Quite +enough to do it was, she would explain later, for her and the hired girl +to wait on them and to clear up after them. She and Bella had their +bite afterward when the men had hitched up, and when they could exchange +comments of proud congratulation upon the inroads on the johnny-cake or +the pies. So there was no ill feeling, and Mrs Crow, having vindicated +her dignity by shaking hands with the guests of the evening in the +parlour, solaced it further by maintaining the masculine state of the +occasion, in spite of protests or entreaties. To sit down opposite Mr +Crow would have made it ordinary “company”; she passed the plates and +turned it into a function. + +She was waiting for them on the parlour sofa when Crow brought them in +out of the nipping early dark of December, Elmore staying behind in the +yard with the horses. She sat on the sofa in her best black dress with +the bead trimming on the neck and sleeves, a good deal pushed up +and wrinkled across the bosom, which had done all that would ever be +required of it when it gave Elmore and Abe their start in life. Her wiry +hands were crossed in her lap in the moment of waiting: you could tell +by the look of them that they were not often crossed there. They were +strenuous hands; the whole worn figure was strenuous, and the narrow set +mouth, and the eyes which had looked after so many matters for so long, +and even the way the hair was drawn back into a knot in a fashion that +would have given a phrenologist his opportunity. It was a different Mrs +Crow from the one that sat in the midst of her poultry and garden-stuff +in the Elgin market square; but it was even more the same Mrs Crow, the +sum of a certain measure of opportunity and service, an imperial figure +in her bead trimming, if the truth were known. + +The room was heated to express the geniality that was harder to put in +words. The window was shut; there was a smell of varnish and whatever +was inside the “suite” of which Mrs Crow occupied the sofa. Enlarged +photographs--very much enlarged--of Mr and Mrs Crow hung upon the walls, +and one other of a young girl done in that process which tells you at +once that she was an only daughter and that she is dead. There had been +other bereavements; they were written upon the silver coffin-plates +which, framed and glazed, also contributed to the decoration of the +room; but you would have had to look close, and you might feel a +delicacy. + +Mrs Crow made her greetings with precision, and sat down again upon the +sofa for a few minutes’ conversation. + +“I’m telling them,” said her husband, “that the sleighin’s just held +out for them. If it ‘ud been tomorrow they’d have had to come on wheels. +Pretty soft travellin’ as it was, some places, I guess.” + +“Snow’s come early this year,” said Mrs Crow. “It was an open fall, +too.” + +“It has certainly,” Mr Farquharson backed her up. “About as early as I +remember it. I don’t know how much you got out here; we had a good foot +in Elgin.” + +“‘Bout the same, ‘bout the same,” Mr Crow deliberated, “but it’s been +layin’ light all along over Clayfield way--ain’t had a pair of runners +out, them folks.” + +“Makes a more cheerful winter, Mrs Crow, don’t you think, when it comes +early?” remarked Lorne. “Or would you rather not get it till after +Christmas?” + +“I don’t know as it matters much, out here in the country. We don’t get +a great many folks passin’, best of times. An’ it’s more of a job to +take care of the stock.” + +“That’s so,” Mr Crow told them. “Chores come heavier when there’s snow +on the ground, a great sight, especially if there’s drifts.” + +And for an instant, with his knotted hands hanging between his knees +he pondered this unvarying aspect of his yearly experience. They all +pondered it, sympathetic. + +“Well, now, Mr Farquharson,” Mrs Crow turned to him. “An’ how reely +BE ye? We’ve heard better, an’ worse, an’ middlin’--there’s ben such +contradictory reports.” + +“Oh, very well, Mrs Crow. Never better. I’m going to give a lot more +trouble yet. I can’t do it in politics, that’s the worst of it. But +here’s the man that’s going to do it for me. Here’s the man!” + +The Crows looked at the pretendant, as in duty bound, but not any longer +than they could help. + +“Why, I guess you were at school with Elmore?” said Crow, as if the idea +had just struck him. + +“He may be right peart, for all that,” said Elmore’s mother, and Elmore, +himself, entering with two leading Liberals of Jordanville, effected a +diversion, under cover of which Mrs Crow escaped, to superintend, with +Bella, the last touches to the supper in the kitchen. + +Politics in and about Jordanville were accepted as a purely masculine +interest. If you had asked Mrs Crow to take a hand in them she would +have thanked you with sarcasm, and said she thought she had about enough +to do as it was. The school-house, on the night of such a meeting as +this, was recognized to be no place for ladies. It was a man’s affair, +left to the men, and the appearance there of the other sex would +have been greeted with remark and levity. Elgin, as we know, was more +sophisticated in every way, plenty of ladies attended political meetings +in the Drill Shed, where seats as likely as not would be reserved for +them; plenty of handkerchiefs waved there for the encouragement of the +hero of the evening. They did not kiss him; British phlegm, so far, had +stayed that demonstration at the southern border. + +The ladies of Elgin, however, drew the line somewhere, drew it at +country meetings. Mrs Farquharson went with her husband because, since +his state of health had handed him over to her more than ever, she saw +it a part of her wifely duty. His retirement had been decided upon for +the spring, but she would be on hand to retire him at any earlier moment +should the necessity arise. “We’ll be the only female creatures there, +my dear,” she had said to Dora on the way out, and Hesketh had praised +them both for public spirit. He didn’t know, he said, how anybody would +get elected in England without the ladies, especially in the villages, +where the people were obliged to listen respectfully. + +“I wonder you can afford to throw away all the influence you get in +the rural districts with soup and blankets,” he said; “but this is an +extravagant country in many ways.” Dora kept silence, not being sure of +the social prestige bound up with the distribution of soup and blankets, +but Mrs Farquharson set him sharply right. + +“I guess we’d rather do without our influence if it came to that,” she +said. + +Hesketh listened with deference to her account of the rural district +which had as yet produced no Ladies Bountiful, made mental notes +of several points, and placed her privately as a woman of more than +ordinary intelligence. I have always claimed for Hesketh an open mind; +he was filling it now, to its capacity, with care and satisfaction. + +The schoolroom was full and waiting when they arrived. Jordanville had +been well billed, and the posters held, in addition to the conspicuous +names of Farquharson and Murchison, that of Mr Alfred Hesketh (of +London, England). There was a “send-off” to give to the retiring member, +there was a critical inspection to make of the new candidate, and +there was Mr Alfred Hesketh, of London, England, and whatever he +might signify. They were big, quiet, expectant fellows, with less +sophistication and polemic than their American counterparts, less stolid +aggressiveness than their parallels in England, if they have parallels +there. They stood, indeed, for the development between the two; they +came of the new country but not of the new light; they were democrats +who had never thrown off the monarch--what harm did he do there +overseas? They had the air of being prosperous, but not prosperous +enough for theories and doctrines. The Liberal vote of South Fox had +yet to be split by Socialism or Labour. Life was a decent rough business +that required all their attention; there was time enough for sleep +but not much for speculation. They sat leaning forward with their +hats dropped between their knees, more with the air of big schoolboys +expecting an entertainment than responsible electors come together to +approve their party’s choice. They had the uncomplaining bucolic look, +but they wore it with a difference; the difference, by this time, was +enough to mark them of another nation. Most of them had driven to the +meeting; it was not an adjournment from the public house. Nor did the +air hold any hint of beer. Where it had an alcoholic drift the flavour +was of whisky; but the stimulant of the occasion had been tea or cider, +and the room was full of patient good will. + +The preliminaries were gone through with promptness; the Chair had +supped with the speakers, and Mr Crow had given him a friendly hint that +the boys wouldn’t be expecting much in the way of trimmings from HIM. +Stamping and clapping from the back benches greeted Mr Farquharson. +It diminished, grew more subdued, as it reached the front. The young +fellows were mostly at the back, and the power of demonstration had +somehow ebbed in the old ones. The retiring member addressed his +constituents for half an hour. He was standing before them as their +representative for the last time, and it was natural to look back and +note the milestones behind, the changes for the better with which he +could fairly claim association. They were matters of Federal business +chiefly, beyond the immediate horizon of Jordanville, but Farquharson +made them a personal interest for that hour at all events, and there +were one or two points of educational policy which he could illustrate +by their own schoolhouse. He approached them, as he had always done on +the level of mutual friendly interest, and in the hope of doing mutual +friendly business. “You know and I know,” he said more than once; they +and he knew a number of things together. + +He was afraid, he said, that if the doctors hadn’t chased him out of +politics, he never would have gone. Now, however, that they gave him no +choice, he was glad to think that though times had been pretty good for +the farmers of South Fox all through the eleven years of his appearance +in the political arena, he was leaving it at a moment when they promised +to be better still. Already, he was sure, they were familiar with the +main heads of that attractive prospect and, agreeable as the subject, +great as the policy was to him, he would leave it to be further unfolded +by the gentleman whom they all hoped to enlist in the cause, as his +successor for this constituency, Mr Lorne Murchison, and by his friend +from the old country, Mr Alfred Hesketh. He, Farquharson, would not take +the words out of the mouths of these gentlemen, much as he envied them +the opportunity of uttering them. The French Academy, he told them, that +illustrious body of literary and scientific men, had a custom, on the +death of a member and the selection of his successor, of appointing one +of their number to eulogize the newcomer. The person upon whom the task +would most appropriately fall, did circumstances permit, would be the +departing academician. In this case, he was happy to say, circumstances +did permit--his political funeral was still far enough off to enable him +to express his profound confidence in and his hearty admiration of the +young and vigorous political heir whom the Liberals of South Fox had +selected to stand in his shoes. Mr Farquharson proceeded to give his +grounds for this confidence and admiration, reminding the Jordanville +electors that they had met Mr Murchison as a Liberal standard-bearer in +the last general election, when he, Farquharson, had to acknowledge +very valuable services on Mr Murchison’s part. The retiring member then +thanked his audience for the kind attention and support they had given +him for so many years, made a final cheerful joke about a Pagan divinity +known as Anno Domini, and took his seat. + +They applauded him, and it was plain that they regretted him, the tried +friend, the man there was never any doubt about, whose convictions they +had repeated, and whose speeches in Parliament they had read with a kind +of proprietorship for so long. The Chair had to wait, before introducing +Mr Alfred Hesketh, until the backbenchers had got through with a double +rendering of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” which bolder spirits sent +lustily forth from the anteroom where the little girls kept their hats +and comforters, interspersed with whoops. Hesketh, it had been arranged, +should speak next, and Lorne last. + +Mr Hesketh left his wooden chair with smiling ease, the ease which is +intended to level distinctions and put everybody concerned on the +best of terms. He said that though he was no stranger to the work +of political campaigns, this was the first time that he had had the +privilege of addressing a colonial audience. “I consider,” said he +handsomely, “that it is a privilege.” He clasped his hands behind his +back and threw out his chest. + +“Opinions have differed in England as to the value of the colonies, and +the consequence of colonials. I say here with pride that I have +ever been among those who insist that the value is very high and the +consequence very great. The fault is common to humanity, but we are, I +fear, in England, too prone to be led away by appearances, and to forget +that under a rough unpolished exterior may beat virtues which are the +brightest ornaments of civilization, that in the virgin fields of the +possessions which the good swords of our ancestors wrung for us from +the Algonquins and the--and the other savages--may be hidden the most +glorious period of the British race.” + +Mr Hesketh paused and coughed. His audience neglected the opportunity +for applause, but he had their undivided attention. They were looking at +him and listening to him, these Canadian farmers, with curious interest +in his attitude, his appearance, his inflection, his whole personality +as it offered itself to them--it was a thing new and strange. Far out +in the Northwest, where the emigrant trains had been unloading all +the summer, Hesketh’s would have been a voice from home; but here, in +long-settled Ontario, men had forgotten the sound of it, with many other +things. They listened in silence, weighing with folded arms, appraising +with chin in hand; they were slow, equitable men. + +“If we in England,” Hesketh proceeded, “required a lesson--as perhaps we +did--in the importance of the colonies, we had it; need I remind you? in +the course of the late protracted campaign in South Africa. Then did +the mother country indeed prove the loyalty and devotion of her colonial +sons. Then were envious nations compelled to see the spectacle of +Canadians and Australians rallying about the common flag, eager to +attest their affection for it with their life-blood, and to demonstrate +that they, too, were worthy to add deeds to British traditions and +victories to the British cause.” + +Still no mark of appreciation. Hesketh began to think them an unhandsome +lot. He stood bravely, however, by the note he had sounded. He dilated +on the pleasure and satisfaction it had been to the people of England +to receive this mark of attachment from far-away dominions and +dependencies, on the cementing of the bonds of brotherhood by the blood +of the fallen, on the impossibility that the mother country should ever +forget such voluntary sacrifices for her sake, when, unexpectedly and +irrelevantly, from the direction of the cloakroom, came the expressive +comment “Yah!” + +Though brief, nothing could have been more to the purpose, and Hesketh +sacrificed several effective points to hurry to the quotation-- + + What should they know of England + Who only England know? + +which he could not, perhaps, have been expected to forbear. His +audience, however, were plainly not in the vein for compliment. The same +voice from the anteroom inquired ironically, “That so?” and the speaker +felt advised to turn to more immediate considerations. + +He said he had had the great pleasure on his arrival in this country +to find a political party, the party in power, their Canadian Liberal +party, taking initiative in a cause which he was sure they all had +at heart--the strengthening of the bonds between the colonies and the +mother country. He congratulated the Liberal party warmly upon having +shown themselves capable of this great function--a point at which he was +again interrupted; and he recapitulated some of the familiar arguments +about the desirability of closer union from the point of view of the +army, of the Admiralty, and from one which would come home, he knew, to +all of them, the necessity of a dependable food supply for the mother +country in time of war. Here he quoted a noble lord. He said that he +believed no definite proposals had been made, and he did not understand +how any definite proposals could be made; for his part, if the new +arrangement was to be in the nature of a bargain, he would prefer to +have nothing to do with it. + +“England,” he said, loftily, “has no wish to buy the loyalty of her +colonies, nor, I hope, has any colony the desire to offer her allegiance +at the price of preference in British markets. Even proposals for mutual +commercial benefit may be underpinned, I am glad to say, by loftier +principles than those of the market-place and the counting-house.” + +At this one of his hearers, unacquainted with the higher commercial +plane, exclaimed, “How be ye goin’ to get ‘em kept to, then?” + +Hesketh took up the question. He said a friend in the audience asked +how they were to ensure that such arrangements would be adhered to. His +answer was in the words of the Duke of Dartmoor, “By the mutual esteem, +the inherent integrity, and the willing compromise of the British race.” + +Here someone on the back benches, impatient, doubtless, at his own +incapacity to follow this high doctrine, exclaimed intemperately, “Oh, +shut up!” and the gathering, remembering that this, after all, was +not what it had come for, began to hint that it had had enough in +intermittent stamps and uncompromising shouts for “Murchison!” + +Hesketh kept on his legs, however, a few minutes longer. He had a +trenchant sentence to repeat to them which he thought they would take as +a direct message from the distinguished nobleman who had uttered it. +The Marquis of Aldeburgh was the father of the pithy thing, which he had +presented, as it happened, to Hesketh himself. The audience received +it with respect--Hesketh’s own respect was so marked--but with +misapprehension; there had been too many allusions to the nobility for a +community so far removed from its soothing influence. “Had ye no friends +among the commoners?” suddenly spoke up a dry old fellow, stroking a +long white beard; and the roar that greeted this showed the sense of the +meeting. Hesketh closed with assurances of the admiration and confidence +he felt toward the candidate proposed to their suffrages by the +Liberal party that were quite inaudible, and sought his yellow pinewood +schoolroom chair with rather a forced smile. It had been used once +before that day to isolate conspicuous stupidity. + +They were at bottom a good-natured and a loyal crowd, and they had not, +after all, come there to make trouble, or Mr Alfred Hesketh might have +carried away a worse opinion of them. As it was, young Murchison, +whose address occupied the rest of the evening, succeeded in making +an impression upon them distinct enough, happily for his personal +influence, to efface that of his friend. He did it by the simple +expedient of talking business, and as high prices for produce and low +ones for agricultural implements would be more interesting there than +here, I will not report him. He and Mr Farquharson waited, after the +meeting, for a personal word with a good many of those present, but it +was suggested to Hesketh that the ladies might be tired, and that he had +better get them home without unnecessary delay. Mrs Farquharson had less +comment to offer during the drive home than Hesketh thought might be +expected from a woman of her intelligence, but Miss Milburn was very +enthusiastic. She said he had made a lovely speech, and she wished her +father could have heard it. + +A personal impression, during a time of political excitement, travels +unexpectedly far. A week later Mr Hesketh was concernedly accosted in +Main Street by a boy on a bicycle. + +“Say, mister, how’s the dook?” + +“What duke?” asked Hesketh, puzzled. + +“Oh, any dook,” responded the boy, and bicycled cheerfully, away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Christmas came and went. Dr Drummond had long accepted the innovation +of a service on Christmas Day, as he agreed to the anthem while the +collection was being taken up, to flowers about the pulpit, and to +the habit of sitting at prayer. He was a progressive by his business +instinct, in everything but theology, where perhaps his business +instinct also operated the other way, in favour of the sure thing. The +Christmas Day service soon became one of those “special” occasions so +dear to his heart, which made a demand upon him out of the ordinary way. +He rose to these on the wing of the eagle, and his congregation never +lacked the lesson that could be most dramatically drawn from them. His +Christmas Day discourse gathered everything into it that could emphasize +the anniversary, including a vigorous attack upon the saints’ days and +ceremonies of the Church of England calculated to correct the concession +of the service, and pull up sharply any who thought that Presbyterianism +was giving way to the spurious attractions of sentimentality or ritual. +The special Easter service, with every appropriate feature of hymn and +invocation, was apt to be marked by an unsparing denunciation of +the pageants and practices of the Church of Rome. Balance was thus +preserved, and principle relentlessly indicated. + +Dr Drummond loved, as I have said, all that asked for notable comment; +the poet and the tragedian in him caught at the opportunity, and +revelled in it. Public events carried him far, especially if they were +disastrous, but what he most profited by was the dealing of Providence +with members of his own congregation. Of all the occasions that inspired +him, the funeral sermon was his happiest opportunity, nor was it, in his +hands, by any means unstinted eulogy. Candid was his summing-up, behind +the decent veil, the accepted apology of death; he was not afraid to +refer to the follies of youth or the weaknesses of age in terms as +unmistakable as they were kindly. + +“Grace,” he said once, of an estimable plain spinster who had passed +away, “did more for her than ever nature had done.” He repeated it, too. +“She was far more indebted, I say, to grace, than to nature,” and before +his sharp earnestness none were seen to smile. Nor could you forget +the note in his voice when the loss he deplored was that of a youth of +virtue and promise, or that of a personal friend. His very text would be +a blow upon the heart; the eyes filled from the beginning. People would +often say that they were “sorry for the family,” sitting through Dr +Drummond’s celebration of their bereavement; and the sympathy was +probably well founded. But how fine he was when he paid the last tribute +to that upright man, his elder and office-bearer, David Davidson! How +his words marched, sorrowing to the close! “Much I have said of him, +and more than he would have had me say.” Will it not stay with those who +heard it till the very end, the trenchant, mournful fall of that “more +than he would have had me say”? + +It was a thing that Hugh Finlay could not abide in Dr Drummond. + +As the winter passed, the little Doctor was hard put to it to keep his +hands off the great political issue of the year, bound up as it was in +the tenets of his own politics, which he held only less uncompromisingly +than those of the Shorter Catechism. It was, unfortunately for him, +a gradual and peaceful progress of opinion, marked by no dramatic +incidents; and analogy was hard to find in either Testament for a change +of fiscal policy based on imperial advantage. Dr Drummond liked a pretty +definite parallel; he had small opinion of the practice of drawing a +pint out of a thimble, as he considered Finlay must have done when he +preached the gospel of imperialism from Deuteronomy XXX, 14. “But the +word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou +mayest do it.” Moreover, to preach politics in Knox Church was a liberty +in Finlay. + +The fact that Finlay had been beforehand with him operated perhaps to +reconcile the Doctor to his difficulty; and the candidature of one of +his own members in what was practically the imperial interest no doubt +increased his embarrassment. Nevertheless, he would not lose sight of +the matter for more than two or three weeks together. Many an odd blow +he delivered for its furtherance by way of illustrating higher things, +and he kept it always, so to speak, in the practical politics of the +long prayer. + +It was Sunday evening, and Abby and her husband, as usual, had come to +tea. The family was complete with the exception of Lorne, who had driven +out to Clayfield with Horace Williams, to talk over some urgent matters +with persons whom he would meet at supper at the Metropole Hotel +at Clayfield. It was a thing Mrs Murchison thought little short of +scandalous--supper to talk business on the Sabbath day, and in a hotel, +a place of which the smell about the door was enough to knock you down, +even on a weekday. Mrs Murchison considered, and did not scruple to say +so, that politics should be left alone on Sundays. Clayfield votes +might be very important, but there were such things as commandments, +she supposed. “It’ll bring no blessing,” she declared severely, eyeing +Lorne’s empty place. + +The talk about the lamplit table was, nevertheless, all of the election, +blessed or unblessed. It was not in human nature that it shouldn’t be, +as Mrs Murchison would have very quickly told you if you had found her +inconsistent. There was reason in all things, as she frequently said. + +“I hear,” Alec had told them, “that Octavius Milburn is going around +bragging he’s got the Elgin Chamber of Commerce consolidated this time.” + +“Against us?” exclaimed Stella; and her brother said, “Of course!” + +“Those Milburns,” remarked Mrs Murchison, “are enough to make one’s +blood boil. I met Mrs Milburn in the market yesterday; she’d been +pricing Mrs Crow’s ducks, and they were just five cents too dear for +her, and she stopped--wonderful thing for her--and had SUCH an amount +to say about Lorne, and the honour it was, and the dear only knows what! +Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth--and Octavius Milburn doing all +he knew against him the whole time! That’s the Milburns! I cut her +remarkably short,” Mrs Murchison added, with satisfaction, “and when +she’d made up her mind she’d have to give that extra five cents for +the ducks because there weren’t any others to be had, she went back and +found I’d bought them.” + +“Well done, Mother!” said Alec, and Oliver remarked that if those were +today’s ducks they were too good for the Milburn crowd, a lot. + +“I expect she wanted them, too,” remarked Stella. “They’ve got the only +Mr Hesketh staying with them now. Miss Filkin’s in a great state of +excitement.” + +“I guess we can spare them Hesketh,” said John Murchison. + +“He’s a lobster,” said Stella with fervour. + +“He seems to bring a frost where he goes,” continued Abby’s husband, +“in politics, anyhow. I hear Lorne wants to make a present of him to the +other side, for use wherever they’ll let him speak longest. Is it true +he began his speech out at Jordanville--‘Gentlemen--and those of you who +are not gentlemen’?” + +“Could he have meant Mrs Farquharson and Miss Milburn?” asked Mr +Murchison quietly, when the derision subsided; and they laughed again. + +“He told me,” said Advena, “that he proposed to convert Mr Milburn to +the imperial policy.” + +“He’ll have his job cut out for him,” said her father. + +“For my part,” Abby told them, “I think the Milburns are beneath +contempt. You don’t know exactly what it is, but there’s something ABOUT +them--not that we ever come in contact with them,” she continued with +dignity. “I believe they used to be patients of Dr Henry’s till he got +up in years, but they don’t call in Harry.” + +“Maybe that’s what there is about them,” said Mr Murchison, innocently. + +“Father’s made up his mind,” announced Dr Harry, and they waited, +breathless. There could be only one point upon which Dr Henry could be +dubitating at that moment. + +“He’s going to vote for Lorne.” + +“He’s a lovely old darling!” cried Stella. “Good for Dr Henry Johnson! I +knew he would.” + +The rest were silent with independence and gratification. Dr Henry’s +Conservatism had been supposed to be invincible. Dr Harry they thought +a fair prey to Murchison influence, and he had capitulated early, but he +had never promised to answer for his father. + +“Yes, he’s taken his time about it, and he’s consulted about all the +known authorities,” said his son, humorously. “Went right back to the +Manchester school to begin with--sat out on the verandah reading Cobden +and Bright the whole summer; if anybody came for advice sent ‘em in to +me. I did a trade, I tell you! He thought they talked an awful lot of +sense, those fellows--from the English point of view. ‘D’ye mean to tell +me,’ he’d say, ‘that a generation born and bred in political doctrine +of that sort is going to hold on to the colonies at a sacrifice? They’d +rather let ‘em go at a sacrifice!’ Well, then he got to reading the +other side of the question, and old Ormiston lent him Parkin, and he +lent old Ormiston Goldwin Smith, and then he subscribed to the Times for +six months--the bill must have nearly bust him; and then the squire went +over without waiting for him and without any assistance from the Times +either; and finally--well, he says that if it’s good enough business for +the people of England it’s good enough business for him. Only he keeps +on worrying about the people of England, and whether they’ll make enough +by it to keep them contented, till he can’t next month all right, he +wants it to be distinctly understood that family connection has nothing +to do with it.” + +“Of course it hasn’t,” Advena said. + +“But we’re just as much obliged,” remarked Stella. + +“A lot of our church people are going to stay at home election day,” + declared Abby; “they won’t vote for Lorne, and they won’t vote against +imperialism, so they’ll just sulk. Silly, I call it.” + +“Good enough business for us,” said Alec. + +“Well, what I want to know is,” said Mrs Murchison, “whether you are +coming to the church you were born and brought up in, Abby, or not, +tonight? There’s the first bell.” + +“I’m not going to any church.” said Abby. “I went this morning. I’m +going home to my baby.” + +“Your father and mother,” said Mrs Murchison, “can go twice a day, and +be none the worse for it. By the way, Father, did you know old Mrs Parr +was dead? Died this morning at four o’clock. They telephoned for Dr +Drummond, and I think they had little to do, for he had been up with her +half the night already, Mrs Forsyth told me.” + +“Did he go?” asked Mr Murchison. + +“He did not, for the very good reason that he knew nothing about it. Mrs +Forsyth answered the telephone, and told them he hadn’t been two hours +in his bed, and she wouldn’t get him out again for an unconscious +deathbed, and him with bronchitis on him and two sermons to preach +today.” + +“I’ll warrant Mrs Forsyth caught it in the morning,” said John +Murchison. + +“That she did. The doctor was as cross as two sticks that she hadn’t had +him out to answer the phone. ‘I just spoke up,’ she said, ‘and told him +I didn’t see how he was going to do any good to the pour soul over a +telephone wire.’ ‘It isn’t that,’ he said, ‘but I might have put them +on to Peter Fratch for the funeral. We’ve never had an undertaker in the +church before,’ he said; ‘he’s just come, and he ought to be supported. +Now I expect it’s too late, they’ll have gone to Liscombe.’ He rang them +up right away, but they had.” + +“Dr Drummond can’t stand Liscombe,” said Alec, as they all laughed a +little at the Doctor’s foible, all except Advena, who laughed a +great deal. She laughed wildly, then weakly. “I wouldn’t--think it a +pleasure--to be buried by Liscombe myself!” she cried hysterically, and +then laughed again until the tears ran down her face, and she lay back +in her chair and moaned, still laughing. + +Mr and Mrs Murchison, Alec, Stella, and Advena made up the family party; +Oliver, for reasons of his own, would attend the River Avenue Methodist +Church that evening. They slipped out presently into a crisp white +winter night. The snow was banked on both sides of the street. Spreading +garden fir trees huddled together weighted down with it; ragged icicles +hung from the eaves or lay in long broken fingers on the trodden paths. +The snow snapped and tore under their feet; there was a glorious moon +that observed every tattered weed sticking up through the whiteness, and +etched it with its shadow. The town lay under the moon almost dramatic, +almost mysterious, so withdrawn it was out of the cold, so turned in +upon its own soul of the fireplace. It might have stood, in the snow and +the silence, for a shell and a symbol of the humanity within, for angels +or other strangers to mark with curiosity. Mr and Mrs Murchison were +neither angels nor strangers; they looked at it and saw that the +Peterson place was still standing empty, and that old Mr Fisher hadn’t +finished his new porch before zero weather came to stop him. + +The young people were well ahead; Mrs Murchison, on her husband’s arm, +stepped along with the spring of an impetus undisclosed. + +“Is it to be the Doctor tonight?” asked John Murchison. “He was so +hoarse this morning I wouldn’t be surprised to see Finlay in the pulpit. +They’re getting only morning services in East Elgin just now, while +they’re changing the lighting arrangements.” + +“Are they, indeed? Well, I hope they’ll change them and be done with +it, for I can’t say I’m anxious for too much of their Mr Finlay in Knox +Church.” + +“Oh, you like the man well enough for a change, Mother!” John assured +her. + +“I’ve nothing to say against his preaching. It’s the fellow himself. And +I hope we won’t get him tonight for, the way I feel now, if I see him +gawking up the pulpit steps it’ll be as much as I can do to keep in my +seat, and so I just tell you, John.” + +“You’re a little out of patience with him, I see,” said Mr Murchison. + +“And it would be a good thing if more than me were out of patience with +him. There’s such a thing as too much patience, I’ve noticed.” + +“I dare say,” replied her husband, cheerfully. + +“If Advena were any daughter of mine she’d have less patience with him.” + +“She’s not much like you,” assented the father. + +“I must say I like a girl to have a little spirit if a man has none. And +before I’d have him coming to the house week after week the way he has, +I’d see him far enough.” + +“He might as well come there as anywhere,” Mr Murchison replied, +ambiguously. “I suppose he has now and then time on his hands?” + +“Well, he won’t have it on his hands much longer.” + +“He won’t, eh?” + +“No, he won’t,” Mrs Murchison almost shook the arm she was attached to. +“John, I think you might show a little interest! The man’s going to be +married.” + +“You don’t say that?” John Murchison’s tone expressed not only +astonishment but concern. Mrs Murchison was almost mollified. + +“But I do say it. His future wife is coming here to Elgin next month, +she and her aunt, or her grandmother, or somebody, and they’re to stay +at Dr Drummond’s and be married as soon as possible.” + +“Nonsense,” said Mr Murchison, which was his way of expressing simple +astonishment. + +“There’s no nonsense about it. Advena told me herself this afternoon.” + +“Did she seem put out about it?” + +“She’s not a girl to show it,” Mrs Murchison hedged, “if she was. I just +looked at her. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s a piece of news. When did you +hear it?’ I said. ‘Oh, I’ve known it all the winter!’ says my lady. What +I wanted to say was that for an engaged man he had been pretty liberal +with his visits, but she had such a queer look in her eyes I couldn’t +express myself, somehow.” + +“It was just as well left unsaid,” her husband told her, thoughtfully. + +“I’m not so sure,” Mrs Murchison retorted. “You’re a great man, John, +for letting everything alone. When he’s been coming here regularly for +more than a year, putting ideas into the girl’s head--” + +“He seems to have told her how things were.” + +“That’s all very well--if he had kept himself to himself at the same +time.” + +“Well, Mother, you know you never thought much of the prospect.” + +“No, I didn’t,” Mrs Murchison said. “It wouldn’t be me that would be +married to him, and I’ve always said so. But I’d got more or less used +to it,” she confessed. “The man’s well enough in some ways. Dear knows +there would be a pair of them--one’s as much of a muddler as the other! +And anybody can see with half an eye that Advena likes him. It hasn’t +turned out as I expected, that’s a fact, John, and I’m just very much +annoyed.” + +“I’m not best pleased about it myself,” said John Murchison, expressing, +as usual, a very small proportion of the regret that he felt, “but I +suppose they know their own business.” + +Thus, in their different ways, did these elder ones also acknowledge +their helplessness before the advancing event. They could talk of it in +private and express their dissatisfaction with it, and that was all they +could do. It would not be a matter much further turned over between +them at best. They would be shy of any affair of sentiment in terms of +speech, and from one that affected a member of the family, self-respect +would help to pull them the other way. Mrs Murchison might remember it +in the list of things which roused her vain indignation; John Murchison +would put it away in the limbo of irremediables that were better +forgotten. For the present they had reached the church door. + +Mrs Murchison saw with relief that Dr Drummond occupied his own pulpit, +but if her glance had gone the length of three pews behind her she +would have discovered that Hugh Finlay made one of the congregation. +Fortunately, perhaps, for her enjoyment of the service, she did not +look round. Dr Drummond was more observing, but his was a position +of advantage. In the accustomed sea of faces two, heavy shadowed and +obstinately facing fate, swam together before Dr Drummond, and after he +had lifted his hands and closed his eyes for the long prayer he saw them +still. So that these words occurred, near the end, in the long prayer-- + +“O Thou Searcher of hearts, who hast known man from the beginning, to +whom his highest desires and his loftiest intentions are but as +the desires and intentions of a little child, look with Thine own +compassion, we beseech Thee, upon souls before Thee in any peculiar +difficulty. Our mortal life is full of sin, it is also full of the +misconception of virtue. Do Thou clear the understanding, O Lord, of +such as would interpret Thy will to their own undoing; do Thou teach +them that as happiness may reside in chastening, so chastening may +reside in happiness. And though such stand fast to their hurt, do Thou +grant to them in Thine own way, which may not be our way, a safe issue +out of the dangers that beset them.” + +Dr Drummond had his own method of reconciling foreordination and free +will. To Advena his supplication came with that mysterious double +emphasis of chance words that fit. Her thought played upon them all +through the sermon, rejecting and rejecting again their application +and their argument and the spring of hope in them. She, too, knew that +Finlay was in church and, half timidly, she looked back for him, as the +congregation filed out again into the winter streets. But he, furious, +and more resolved than ever, had gone home by another way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +Octavius Milburn was not far beyond the facts when he said that the +Elgin Chamber of Commerce was practically solid this time against the +Liberal platform, though to what extent this state of things was due +to his personal influence might be a matter of opinion. Mr Milburn was +President of the Chamber of Commerce, and his name stood for one of +the most thriving of Elgin’s industries, but he was not a person of +influence except as it might be represented in a draft on the Bank of +British North America. He had never converted anybody to anything, and +never would, possibly because the governing principle of his life was +the terror of being converted to anything himself. If an important +nonentity is an imaginable thing, perhaps it would stand for Mr Milburn; +and he found it a more valuable combination than it may appear, since +his importance gave him position and opportunity, and his nonentity +saved him from their risks. Certainly he had not imposed his view upon +his fellow-members--they would have blown it off like a feather--yet +they found themselves much of his mind. Most of them were manufacturing +men of the Conservative party, whose factories had been nursed by high +duties upon the goods of outsiders, and few even of the Liberals among +them felt inclined to abandon this immediate safeguard for a benefit +more or less remote, and more or less disputable. John Murchison +thought otherwise, and put it in few words as usual. He said he was more +concerned to see big prices in British markets for Canadian crops than +he was to put big prices on ironware he couldn’t sell. He was more +afraid of hard times among the farmers of Canada than he was of +competition by the manufacturers of England. That is what he said when +he was asked if it didn’t go against the grain a little to have to +support a son who advocated low duties on British ranges; and when he +was not asked he said nothing, disliking the discount that was naturally +put upon his opinion. Parsons, of the Blanket Mills, bolted at the first +hint of the new policy and justified it by reminding people that he +always said he would if it ever looked like business. + +“We give their woollen goods a pull of a third as it is,” he said, +“which is just a third more than I approve of. I don’t propose to vote +to make it any bigger--can’t afford it.” + +He had some followers, but there were also some, like Young, of the +Plough Works, and Windle, who made bicycles, who announced that there +was no need to change their politics to defeat a measure that had no +existence, and never would have. What sickened them, they declared, was +to see young Murchison allowed to give it so much prominence as Liberal +doctrine. The party had been strong enough to hold South Fox for the +best part of the last twenty years on the old principles, and this +British boot-licking feature wasn’t going to do it any good. It was fool +politics in the opinion of Mr Young and Mr Windle. + +Then remained the retail trades, the professions, and the farmers. Both +sides could leave out of their counsels the interests of the leisured +class, since the leisured class in Elgin consisted almost entirely of +persons who were too old to work, and therefore not influential. The +landed proprietors were the farmers, when they weren’t, alas! the banks. +As to the retail men, the prosperity of the stores of Main Street and +Market Street was bound up about equally with that of Fox County and +the Elgin factories. The lawyers and doctors, the odd surveyors and +engineers, were inclined, by their greater detachment, to theories and +prejudices, delightful luxuries where a certain rigidity of opinion +is dictated by considerations of bread and butter. They made a factor +debatable, but small. The farmers had everything to win, nothing to +lose. The prospect offered them more for what they had to sell, and less +for what they had to buy, and most of them were Liberals already; but +the rest had to be convinced, and a political change of heart in a bosom +of South Fox was as difficult as any other. Industrial, commercial, +professional, agricultural, Lorne Murchison scanned them all hopefully, +but Walter Winter felt them his garnered sheaves. + +It will be imagined how Mr Winter, as a practical politician, rejoiced +in the aspect of things. The fundamental change, with its incalculable +chances to play upon, the opening of the gate to admit plain detriment +in the first instance for the sake of benefit, easily beclouded, in the +second, the effective arm, in the hands of a satirist, of sentiment in +politics--and if there was a weapon Mr Winter owned a weakness for it +was satire--the whole situation, as he often confessed, suited him +down to the ground. He professed himself, though no optimist under any +circumstances very well pleased. Only in one other place, he declared, +would he have preferred to conduct a campaign at the present moment on +the issue involved, though he would have to change his politics to do +it there, and that place was England. He cast an envious eye across +the ocean at the trenchant argument of the dear loaf; he had no such +straight road to the public stomach and grand arbitrator of the fate of +empires. If the Liberals in England failed to turn out the Government +over this business, they would lose in his eyes all the respect he ever +had for them, which wasn’t much, he acknowledged. When his opponents +twitted him with discrepancy here, since a bargain so bad for one side +could hardly fail to favour the other, he poured all his contempt on the +scheme as concocted by damned enthusiasts for the ruin of businessmen of +both countries. Such persons, Mr Winter said, if they could have their +way, would be happy and satisfied; but in his opinion neither England +nor the colonies could afford to please them as much as that. He +professed loud contempt for the opinions of the Conservative party +organs at Toronto, and stood boldly for his own views. That was what +would happen, he declared, in every manufacturing division in the +country, if the issue came to be fought in a general election. He was +against the scheme, root and branch. + +Mr Winter was skilled, practised, and indefatigable. We need not follow +him in all his ways and works; a good many of his arguments, I fear, +must also escape us. The Elgin Mercury, if consulted, would produce +them in daily disclosure; so would the Clayfield Standard. One of these +offered a good deal of sympathy to Mayor Winter, the veteran of so many +good fights, in being asked to contest South Fox with an opponent who +had not so much as a village reeveship to his public credit. If the +Conservative candidate felt the damage to his dignity, however, he +concealed it. + +In Elgin and Clayfield, where factory chimneys had also begun to point +the way to enterprise, Winter had a clear field. Official reports gave +him figures to prove the great and increasing prosperity of the country, +astonishing figures of capital coming in, of emigrants landing, of new +lands broken, new mineral regions exploited, new railways projected, of +stocks and shares normal safe, assured. He could ask the manufacturers +of Elgin to look no further than themselves, which they were quite +willing to do, for illustration of the plenty and the promise which +reigned in the land from one end to the other. He could tell them that +in their own Province more than one hundred new industries had been +established in the last year. He could ask them, and he did ask them, +whether this was a state of things to disturb with an inrush from +British looms and rolling mills, and they told him with applause that it +was not. + +Country audiences were not open to arguments like these; they were +slow in the country, as the Mercury complained, to understand that +agricultural prospects were bound up with the prosperity of the towns +and cities; they had been especially slow in the country in England, as +the Express ironically pointed out, to understand it. So Winter and +his supporters asked the farmers of South Fox if they were prepared to +believe all they heard of the good will of England to the colonies, with +the flattering assumption that they were by no means prepared to believe +it. Was it a likely thing, Mr Winter inquired, that the people of Great +Britain were going to pay more for their flour and their bacon, their +butter and their cheese, than they had any need to do, simply out of a +desire to benefit countries which most of them had never seen, and never +would see? No, said Mr Winter, they might take it from him, that was not +the idea. But Mr Winter thought there was an idea, and that they and he +together would not have much trouble in deciphering it. He did not claim +to be longer-sighted in politics than any other man, but he thought the +present British idea was pretty plain. It was, in two words, to secure +the Canadian market for British goods, and a handsome contribution from +the Canadian taxpayer toward the expense of the British army and navy, +in return for the offer of favours to food supplies from Canada. But +this, as they all knew, was not the first time favours had been offered +by the British Government to food supplies from Canada. Just sixty years +ago the British Government had felt one of these spasms of benevolence +to Canada, and there were men sitting before him who could remember the +good will and the gratitude, the hope and the confidence, that greeted +Stanley’s bill of that year, which admitted Canadian wheat and flour at +a nominal duty. Some could remember, and those who could not remember +could read; how the farmers and the millers of Ontario took heart and +laid out capital, and how money was easy and enterprise was everywhere, +and how agricultural towns such as Elgin was at that time sent up +streets of shops to accommodate the trade that was to pour in under +the new and generous “preference” granted to the Dominion by the mother +country. And how long, Mr Winter demanded, swinging round in that +pivotal manner which seems assisted by thumbs in the armholes of the +waistcoat, how long did the golden illusion last? Precisely three +years. In precisely three years the British nation compelled the British +Government to adopt the Free Trade Act of ‘46. The wheat of the world +flowed into every port in England, and the hopes of Canada, especially +the hopes of Ontario, based then, as now, on “preferential” treatment, +were blasted to the root. Enterprise was laid flat, mortgages were +foreclosed, shops were left empty, the milling and forwarding interests +were temporarily ruined, and the Governor-General actually wrote to +the Secretary of State in England that things were so bad that not a +shilling could be raised on the credit of the Province. + +Now Mr Winter did not blame the people of England for insisting on free +food. It was the policy that suited their interests, and they had just +as good a right to look after their interests, he conceded handsomely, +as anybody else. But he did blame the British Government for holding out +hopes, for making definite pledges, to a young and struggling nation, +which they must have known they would not be able to redeem. He blamed +their action then, and he would blame it now, if the opportunity were +given to them to repeat it, for the opportunity would pass and the +pledge would pass into the happy hunting ground of unrealizable +politics, but not--and Mr Winter asked his listeners to mark this very +carefully--not until Canada was committed to such relations of trade +and taxes with the Imperial Government as would require the most heroic +efforts--it might run to a war--to extricate herself from. In plain +words, Mr Winter assured his country audiences, Great Britain had sold +them before, and she would sell them again. He stood there before them +as loyal to British connection as any man. He addressed a public as +loyal to British connection as any public. BUT--once bitten twice shy. + +Horace Williams might riddle such arguments from end to end in the next +day’s Express, but if there is a thing that we enjoy in the country, it +is having the dodges of Government shown up with ignominy, and Mr Winter +found his account in this historic parallel. + +Nothing could have been more serious in public than his line of defence +against the danger that menaced, but in friendly ears Mr Winter derided +it as a practical possibility, like the Liberals, Young and Windle. + +“It seems to me,” he said, talking to Octavius Milburn, “that the +important thing at present is the party attitude to the disposition +of Crown lands and to Government-made railways. As for this racket +of Wallingham’s, it has about as much in it as an empty bun-bag. He’s +running round taking a lot of satisfaction blowing it out just now, and +the swells over there are clapping like anything, but the first knock +will show that it’s just a bun-bag, with a hole in it.” + +“Folks in the old country are solid on the buns, though,” said Milburn +as they parted, and Alfred Hesketh, who was walking with his host, +said--“It’s bound in the end to get down to that, isn’t it?” + +Presently Hesketh came back to it. + +“Quaint idea, that--describing Wallingham’s policy as a bun-bag,” he +said, and laughed. “Winter is an amusing fellow.” + +“Wallingham’s policy won’t even be a bun-bag much longer,” said Milburn. +“It won’t be anything at all. Imperial union is very nice to talk about, +but when you come down to hard fact it’s Australia for the Australians, +Canada for the Canadians, Africa for the Africans, every time.” + +“Each for himself, and devil take the hindmost,” said Hesketh; “and when +the hindmost is England, as our friend Murchison declares it will be--” + +“So much the worse for England,” said Milburn, amiably. “But we should +all be sorry to see it and, for my part, I don’t believe such a thing +is at all likely. And you may be certain of one thing,” he continued, +impressively: “No flag but the Union Jack will ever wave over Canada.” + +“Oh, I’m sure of that!” Hesketh responded. “Since I have heard more of +your side of the question I am quite convinced that loyalty to England +and complete commercial independence--I might say even commercial +antagonism--may exist together in the colonies. It seems paradoxical, +but it is true.” + +Mr Hesketh had naturally been hearing a good deal more of Mr Milburn’s +side of the question, staying as he was under Mr Milburn’s hospitable +roof. It had taken the least persuasion in the world to induce him to +make the Milburns a visit. He found them delightful people. He described +them in his letters home as the most typically Canadian family he had +met, quite simple and unconventional, but thoroughly warm-hearted, and +touchingly devoted to far-away England. Politically he could not see eye +to eye with Mr Milburn, but he could quite perceive Mr Milburn’s grounds +for the view he held. One thing, he explained to his correspondents, you +learned at once by visiting the colonies, and that was to make allowance +for local conditions, both social and economic. + +He and Mr Milburn had long serious discussions, staying behind in the +dining-room to have them after tea, when the ladies took their fancy +work into the drawing-room, and Dora’s light touch was heard upon the +piano. It may be supposed that Hesketh brought every argument forward +in favour of the great departure that had been conceived in England; he +certainly succeeded in interesting his host very deeply in the English +point of view. He had, however, to encounter one that was made in +Canada--it resided in Mr Milburn as a stone might reside in a bag +of wool. Mr Milburn wouldn’t say that this preference trade idea, if +practicable, might not work out for the benefit of the Empire as a +whole. That was a thing he didn’t pretend to know. But it wouldn’t +work out for his benefit that was a thing he did know. When a man was +confronted with a big political change the question he naturally asked +himself was, “Is it going to be worth my while?” and he acted on the +answer to that question. He was able to explain to Hesketh, by a variety +of facts and figures, of fascinating interest to the inquiring mind, +just how and where such a concern as the Milburn Boiler Company would be +“hit” by the new policy, after which he asked his guest fairly, “Now, +if you were in my shoes, would you see your way to voting for any such +thing?” + +“If I were in your shoes,” said Hesketh, thoughtfully, “I can’t say I +would.” + +On grounds of sentiment, Octavius assured him, they were absolutely +at one, but in practical matters a man had to proceed on business +principles. He went about at this time expressing great esteem for +Hesketh’s capacity to assimilate facts. His opportunity to assimilate +them was not curtailed by any further demand for his services in the +South Fox campaign. He was as willing as ever, he told Lorne Murchison, +to enlist under the flag, and not for the first time; but Murchison and +Farquharson, and that lot, while grateful for the offer, seemed never +quite able to avail themselves of it: the fact was all the dates were +pretty well taken up. No doubt, Hesketh acknowledged, the work could be +done best by men familiar with the local conditions, but he could not +avoid the conviction that this attitude toward proffered help was very +like dangerous trifling. Possibly these circumstances gave him an +added impartiality for Mr Milburn’s facts. As the winter advanced his +enthusiasm for the country increased with his intelligent appreciation +of the possibilities of the Elgin boiler. The Elgin boiler was his +object-lesson in the development of the colonies; he paid, several +visits to the works to study it, and several times he thanked Mr Milburn +for the opportunity of familiarizing himself with such an important and +promising branch of Canadian industry. + +“It looks,” said Octavius one evening in early February, “as if the +Grits were getting a little anxious about South Fox--high time, too. +I see Cruickshank is down to speak at Clayfield on the seventh, and +Tellier is to be here for the big meeting at the opera house on the +eleventh.” + +“Tellier is Minister of Public Works, isn’t he?” asked Hesketh. + +“Yes--and Cruickshank is an ex-Minister,” replied Mr Milburn. “Looks +pretty shaky when they’ve got to take men like that away from their work +in the middle of the session.” + +“I shall be glad,” remarked his daughter Dora, “when this horrid +election is over. It spoils everything.” + +She spoke a little fretfully. The election and the matters it involved +did interfere a good deal with her interest in life. As an occupation +it absorbed Lorne Murchison even more completely than she occasionally +desired; and as a topic it took up a larger share of the attention of Mr +Alfred Hesketh than she thought either reasonable or pleasing. Between +politics and boilers Miss Milburn almost felt at times that the world +held a second place for her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The progress of Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Christie Cameron up the river +to Montreal, and so west to Elgin, was one series of surprises, most of +them pleasant and instructive to such a pair of intelligent Scotchwomen, +if we leave out the number of Roman Catholic churches that lift their +special symbol along the banks of the St Lawrence and the fact that Hugh +Finlay was not in Elgin to meet them upon their arrival. Dr Drummond, of +course, was there at the station to explain. Finlay had been obliged to +leave for Winnipeg only the day before, to attend a mission conference +in place of a delegate who had been suddenly laid aside by serious +illness. Finlay, he said, had been very loath to go, but there were many +reasons why it was imperative that he should; Dr Drummond explained them +all. “I insisted on it,” he assured them, frankly. “I told him I would +take the responsibility.” + +He seemed very capable of taking it, both the ladies must have thought, +with his quick orders about the luggage and his waiting cab. Mrs +Kilbannon said so. “I’m sure,” she told him, “we are better off with you +than with Hugh. He was always a daft dependence at a railway station.” + +They both--Mrs Kilbannon and Dr Drummond--looked out of the corners of +their eyes, so to speak, at Christie, the only one who might be expected +to show any sensitiveness; but Miss Cameron accepted the explanation +with readiness. Indeed, she said, she would have been real vexed if Mr +Finlay had stayed behind on her account--she showed herself well aware +of the importance of a nomination, and the desirability of responding to +it. + +“It will just give me an opportunity of seeing the town,” she said, +looking at it through the cab windows as they drove; and Dr Drummond had +to admit that she seemed a sensible creature. Other things being +equal, Finlay might be doing very well for himself. As they talked of +Scotland--it transpired that Dr Drummond knew all the braes about Bross +as a boy--he found himself more than ever annoyed with Finlay about the +inequality of other things; and when they passed Knox Church and Miss +Cameron told him she hadn’t realized it was so imposing an edifice, he +felt downright sorry for the woman. + +Dr Drummond had persuaded Finlay to go to Winnipeg with a vague hope +that something in the fortnight’s grace thus provided, might be +induced to happen. The form it oftenest took to his imagination was Miss +Christie’s announcement, when she set foot upon the station platform, +that she had become engaged, on the way over, to somebody else, some +fellow-traveller. Such things, Dr Drummond knew, did come about, usually +bringing distress and discomfiture in their train. Why, then, should +they not happen when all the consequences would be rejoiceful? + +It was plain enough, however, that nothing of the kind had come to pass. +Miss Christie had arrived in Elgin, bringing her affections intact; +they might have been in any one of her portmanteaux. She had come with +definite calm intention, precisely in the guise in which she should have +been expected. At the very hour, in the very clothes, she was there. +Robust and pleasant, with a practical eye on her promising future, she +had arrived, the fulfilment of despair. Dr Drummond looked at her with +acquiescence, half-cowed, half-comic, wondering at his own folly in +dreaming of anything else. Miss Cameron brought the situation, as it +were, with her; it had to be faced, and Dr Drummond faced it like a +philosopher. She was the material necessity, the fact in the case, the +substantiation of her own legend; and Dr Drummond promptly gave her all +the consideration she demanded in this aspect. Already he heard himself +pronouncing a blessing over the pair--and they would make the best of +it. With characteristic dispatch he decided that the marriage should +take place the first Monday after Finlay’s return. That would give them +time to take a day or two in Toronto, perhaps, and get back for Finlay’s +Wednesday prayer meeting. “Or I could take it off his hands,” said Dr +Drummond to himself. “That would free them till the end of the week.” + Solicitude increased in him that the best should be made of it; after +all, for a long time they had been making the worst. Mrs Forsyth, whom +it had been necessary to inform when Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Cameron +became actually imminent, saw plainly that the future Mrs Finlay +had made a very good impression on the Doctor; and as nature, in Mrs +Forsyth’s case, was more powerful than grace, she became critical +accordingly. Still, she was an honest soul: she found more fault with +what she called Miss Cameron’s “shirt-waists” than with Miss Cameron +herself, whom she didn’t doubt to be a good woman though she would +never see thirty-five again. Time and observation would no doubt mend or +remodel the shirt-waists; and meanwhile both they and Miss Cameron +would do very well for East Elgin, Mrs Forsyth avowed. Mrs Kilbannon, +definitely given over to caps and curls as they still wear them in +Bross, Mrs Forsyth at once formed a great opinion of. She might be +something, Mrs Forsyth thought, out of a novel by Mr Crockett, and made +you long to go to Scotland, where presumably everyone was like her. On +the whole the ladies from Bross profited rather than lost by the new +frame they stepped into in the house of Dr Drummond, of Elgin, Ontario. +Their special virtues, of dignity and solidity and frugality, stood out +saliently against the ease and unconstraint about them; in the profusion +of the table it was little less than edifying to hear Mrs Kilbannon, +invited to preserves, say, “Thank you, I have butter.” It was the +pleasantest spectacle, happily common enough, of the world’s greatest +inheritance. We see it in immigrants of all degrees, and we may perceive +it in Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. They come in couples and in +companies from those little imperial islands, bringing the crusted +qualities of the old blood bottled there so long, and sink with grateful +absorption into the wide bountiful stretches of the further countries. +They have much to take, but they give themselves; and so it comes about +that the Empire is summed up in the race, and the flag flies for its +ideals. + +Mrs Forsyth had been told of the approaching event; but neither Dr +Drummond, who was not fond of making communications he did not approve +of, nor the Murchisons, who were shy of the matter as a queer business +which Advena seemed too much mixed up with, had mentioned it to anyone +else. Finlay himself had no intimates, and moved into his new house in +River Street under little comment. His doings excited small surprise, +because the town knew too little about him to expect him to do one +thing more than another. He was very significant among his people, very +important in their lives but not, somehow, at any expense to his private +self. He knew them, but they did not know him; and it is high praise of +him that this was no grievance among them. They would tell you without +resentment that the minister was a “very reserved” man; there might +be even a touch of proper pride in it. The worshippers of Knox Church +mission were rather a reserved lot themselves. It was different with the +Methodists; plenty of expansion there. + +Elgin, therefore, knew nothing, beyond the fact that Dr Drummond had +two ladies from the old country staying with him, about whom particular +curiosity would hardly be expected outside of Knox Church. In view of +Finlay’s absence, Dr Drummond, consulting with Mrs Kilbannon, decided +that for the present Elgin need not be further informed. There was no +need, they agreed, to give people occasion to talk; and it would just be +a nuisance to have to make so many explanations. Both Mrs Kilbannon and +her niece belonged to the race that takes great satisfaction in keeping +its own counsel. Their situation gained for them the further interest +that nothing need be said about it; and the added importance of caution +was plainly to be discerned in their bearing, even toward one another. +It was a portentous business, this of marrying a minister, under the +most ordinary circumstances, not to be lightly dealt with, and even +more of an undertaking in a far new country where the very wind blew +differently, and the extraordinary freedom of conversation made it more +than ever necessary to take heed to what you were saying. So far as Miss +Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon were aware, the matter had not been “spoken +of” elsewhere at all. Dr Drummond, remembering Advena Murchison’s +acquaintance with it, had felt the weight of a complication, and had +discreetly held his tongue. Mrs Kilbannon approved her nephew in +this connection. “Hugh,” she said, “was never one to let on more than +necessary.” It was a fine secret between Hugh, in Winnipeg, whence +he had written all that was lawful or desirable, and themselves at Dr +Drummond’s. Miss Cameron said it would give her more freedom to look +about her. + +In the midst of all this security, and on the very first day after their +arrival, it was disconcerting to be told that a lady, whose name +they had never heard before, had called to see Miss Cameron and Mrs +Kilbannon. They had not even appeared at church, as they told one +another with dubious glances. They had no reason whatever to expect +visitors. Dr Drummond was in the cemetery burying a member; Mrs Forsyth +was also abroad. “Now who in the world,” asked Mrs Kilbannon of Miss +Cameron, “is Miss Murchison?” + +“They come to our church,” said Sarah, in the door. “They’ve got the +foundry. It’s the oldest one. She teaches.” + +Sarah in the door was even more disconcerting than an unexpected +visitor. Sarah invariably took them off their guard, in the door or +anywhere. She freely invited their criticism, but they would not have +known how to mend her. They looked at her now helplessly, and Mrs +Kilbannon said, “Very well. We will be down directly.” + +“It may be just some friendly body,” she said, as they descended the +stairs together, “or it may be common curiosity. In that case we’ll +disappoint it.” + +Whatever they expected, therefore, it was not Advena. It was not a tall +young woman with expressive eyes, a manner which was at once abrupt and +easy, and rather a lounging way of occupying the corner of a sofa. “When +she sat down,” as Mrs Kilbannon said afterward, “she seemed to untie and +fling herself as you might a parcel.” Neither Mrs Kilbannon nor Christie +Cameron could possibly be untied or flung, so perhaps they gave this +capacity in Advena more importance than it had. But it was only a part +of what was to them a new human demonstration, something to inspect very +carefully and accept very cautiously--the product, like themselves, yet +so suspiciously different, of these free airs and these astonishingly +large ideas. In some ways, as she sat there in her graceful dress and +careless attitude, asking them direct smiling questions about their +voyage, she imposed herself as of the class whom both these ladies of +Bross would acknowledge unquestioningly to be “above” them; in others +she seemed to be of no class at all; so far she came short of small +standards of speech and behaviour. The ladies from Bross, more and more +confused, grew more and more reticent, when suddenly, out of a simple +remark of Miss Cameron’s about missing in the train the hot-water cans +they gave you “to your feet” in Scotland, reticence descended upon Miss +Murchison also. She sat in an odd silence, looking at Miss Cameron, +absorbed apparently in the need of looking at her, finding nothing to +say, her flow of pleasant inquiry dried up, and all her soul at work, +instead, to perceive the woman. Mrs Kilbannon was beginning to think +better of her--it was so much more natural to be a little backward with +strangers--when the moment passed. Their visitor drew herself out of it +with almost a perceptible effort, and seemed to glance consideringly +at them in their aloofness, their incommunicativeness, their plain odds +with her. I don’t know what she expected; but we may assume that she was +there simply to offer herself up, and the impulse of sacrifice seldom +considers whether or not it may be understood. It was to her a normal, +natural thing that a friend of Hugh Finlay’s should bring an early +welcome to his bride; and to do the normal, natural thing at keen +personal cost was to sound that depth, or rise to that height of the +spirit where pain sustains. We know of Advena that she was prone to +this form of exaltation. Those who feel themselves capable may pronounce +whether she would have been better at home crying in her bedroom. + +She decided badly--how could she decide well?--on what she would say to +explain herself. + +“I am so sorry,” she told them, “that Mr Finlay is obliged to be away.” + +It was quite wrong; it assumed too much, her knowledge and their +confidence, and the propriety of discussing Mr Finlay’s absence. There +was even an unconscious hint of another kind of assumption in it--a +suggestion of apology for Mr Finlay. Advena was aware of it even as it +left her lips, and the perception covered her with a damning blush. She +had a sudden terrified misgiving that her role was too high for her, +that she had already cracked her mask. But she looked quietly at Miss +Cameron and smiled across the tide that surged in her as she added, “He +was very distressed at having to go.” + +They looked at her in an instant’s blank astonishment. Miss Cameron +opened her lips and closed them again, glancing at Mrs Kilbannon. They +fell back together, but not in disorder. This was something much more +formidable than common curiosity. Just what it was they would consider +later; meanwhile Mrs Kilbannon responded with what she would have called +cool civility. + +“Perhaps you have heard that Mr Finlay is my nephew?” she said. + +“Indeed I have. Mr Finlay has told me a great deal about you, Mrs +Kilbannon, and about his life at Bross,” Advena replied. “And he has +told me about you, too,” she went on, turning to Christie Cameron. + +“Indeed?” said she. + +“Oh, a long time ago. He has been looking forward to your arrival for +some months, hasn’t he?” + +“We took our passages in December,” said Miss Cameron. + +“And you are to be married almost immediately, are you not?” Miss +Murchison continued, pleasantly. + +Mrs Kilbannon had an inspiration. “Could he by any means have had the +banns cried?” she demanded of Christie, who looked piercingly at their +visitor for the answer. + +“Oh, no,” Advena laughed softly. “Presbyterians haven’t that custom over +here--does it still exist anywhere? Mr Finlay told me himself.” + +“Has he informed all his acquaintances?” asked Mrs Kilbannon. “We +thought maybe his elders would be expecting to hear, or his Board of +Management. Or he might have just dropped a word to his Sessions Clerk. +But--” + +Advena shook her head. “I think it unlikely,” she said. + +“Then why would he be telling you?” inquired the elder lady, bluntly. + +“He told me, I suppose, because I have the honour to be a friend of +his,” Advena said, smiling. “But he is not a man, is he, who makes many +friends? It is possible, I dare say, that he has mentioned it to no one +else.” + +Poor Advena! She had indeed uttered her ideal to unsympathetic +ears--brought her pig, as her father would have said, to the wrong +market. She sat before the ladies from Bross, Hugh Finlay’s only +confidante. She sat handsome and upheld and not altogether penetrable, a +kind of gipsy to their understanding, though indeed the Romany strain in +her was beyond any divining of theirs. They, on their part, reposed in +their clothes with all their bristles out--what else could have been +expected of them?--convinced in their own minds that they had come not +only to a growing but to a forward country. + +Mrs Kilbannon was perhaps a little severe. “I wonder that we have not +heard of you, Miss Murchison,” said she, “but we are happy to make the +acquaintance of any of my nephew’s friends. You will have heard him +preach, perhaps?” + +“Often,” said Advena, rising. “We have no one here who can compare with +him in preaching. There was very little reason why you should have heard +of me. I am--of no importance.” She hesitated and fought for an instant +with a trembling of the lip. “But now that you have been persuaded to be +a part of our life here,” she said to Christie, “I thought I would +like to come and offer you my friendship because it is his already. I +hope--so much--that you will be happy here. It is a nice little place. +And I want you to let me help you--about your house, and in every way +that is possible. I am sure I can be of use.” She paused and looked at +their still half-hostile faces. “I hope,” she faltered, “you don’t mind +my--having come?” + +“Not at all,” said Christie, and Mrs Kilbannon added, “I’m sure you mean +it very kindly.” + +A flash of the comedy of it shot up in Advena’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, +“I do. Good-bye.” + +If they had followed her departure they would have been further +confounded to see her walk not quite steadily away; shaken with +fantastic laughter. They looked instead at one another, as if to find +the solution of the mystery where indeed it lay, in themselves. + +“She doesn’t even belong to his congregation,” said Christie. “Just a +friend, she said.” + +“I expect the friendship’s mostly upon her side,” remarked Mrs +Kilbannon. “She seemed frank enough about it. But I would see no +necessity for encouraging her friendship on my own account, if I were in +your place, Christie.” + +“I think I’ll manage without it,” said Christie. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The South Fox fight was almost over. Three days only remained before the +polling booths would be open, and the voters of the towns of Elgin and +Clayfield and the surrounding townships would once again be invited to +make their choice between a Liberal and a Conservative representative of +the district in the Dominion House of Commons. The ground had never been +more completely covered, every inch of advantage more stubbornly held, +by either side, in the political history of the riding. There was no +doubt of the hope that sat behind the deprecation in Walter Winter’s +eye, nor of the anxiety that showed through the confidence freely +expressed by the Liberal leaders. The issue would be no foregone +conclusion, as it had been practically any time within the last eleven +years; and as Horace Williams remarked to the select lot that met pretty +frequently at the Express office for consultation and rally, they had +“no use for any sort of carelessness.” + +It was undeniably felt that the new idea, the great idea whose putative +fatherhood in Canada certainly lay at the door of the Liberal party, +had drawn in fewer supporters than might have been expected. In England +Wallingham, wearing it like a medal, seemed to be courting political +excommunication with it, except that Wallingham was so hard to +effectively curse. The ex-Minister deserved, clearly, any ban that could +be put upon him. No sort of remonstrance could hold him from going +about openly and persistently exhorting people to “think imperially,” a +liberty which, as is well known, the Holy Cobdenite Church, supreme in +those islands, expressly forbids. Wallingham appeared to think that +by teaching and explaining he could help his fellow-islanders to see +further than the length of their fists, and exorcise from them +the spirit, only a century and a quarter older and a trifle more +sophisticated, that lost them the American colonies. But so far little +had transpired to show that Wallingham was stronger than nature and +destiny. There had been Wallingham meetings of remarkable enthusiasm; +his supporters called them epoch-making, as if epochs were made of +cheers. But the workingman of Great Britain was declaring stolidly in +the by-elections against any favour to colonial produce at his expense, +thereby showing himself one of those humble instruments that Providence +uses for the downfall of arrogant empires. It will be thus, no doubt, +that the workingman will explain in the future his eminent usefulness +to the government of his country, and it will be in these terms that +the cost of educating him by means of the ballot will be demonstrated. +Meanwhile we may look on and cultivate philosophy; or we may make war +upon the gods with Mr Wallingham which is, perhaps, the better part. + +That, to turn from recrimination, was what they saw in Canada looking +across--the queerest thing of all was the recalcitrance of the farm +labourer; they could only stare at that--and it may be that the +spectacle was depressing to hopeful initiative. At all events, it was +plain that the new policy was suffering from a certain flatness on the +further side. As a ballon d’essai it lacked buoyancy; and no doubt +Mr Farquharson was right in declaring that above all things it lacked +actuality, business--the proposition, in good set terms, for men to turn +over, to accept or reject. Nothing could be done with it, Mr Farquharson +averred, as a mere prospect; it was useful only to its enemies. We of +the young countries must be invited to deeds, not theories, of which we +have a restless impatience; and this particular theory, though of golden +promise, was beginning to recoil to some extent, upon the cause which +had been confident enough to adopt it before it could be translated into +action and its hard equivalent. The Elgin Mercury probably overstated +the matter when it said that the Grits were dead sick of the preference +they would never get; but Horace Williams was quite within the mark +when he advised Lorne to stick to old Reform principles--clean +administration, generous railway policy, sympathetic labour legislation, +and freeze himself a little on imperial love and attachment. + +“They’re not so sweet on it in Ottawa as they were, by a long chalk,” + he said. “Look at the Premier’s speech to the Chambers of Commerce +in Montreal. Pretty plain statement that, of a few things the British +Government needn’t expect.” + +“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lorne. “He was talking to manufacturers, you +know, a pretty skittish lot anywhere. It sounded independent, but if you +look into it you won’t find it gave the cause away any.” + +“The old man’s got to think of Quebec, where his fat little majority +lives,” remarked Bingham, chairman of the most difficult subdivision in +the town. “The Premier of this country drives a team, you know.” + +“Yes,” said Lorne, “but he drives it tandem, and Johnny Francois is the +second horse.” + +“Maybe so,” returned Mr Williams, “but the organ’s singing pretty small, +too. Look at this.” He picked up the Dominion from the office table and +read aloud: “‘If Great Britain wishes to do a deal with the colonies +she will find them willing to meet her in a spirit of fairness and +enthusiasm. But it is for her to decide, and Canada would be the last +to force her bread down the throat of the British labourer at a higher +price than he can afford to pay for it.’ What’s that, my boy? Is it +high-mindedness? No, sir, it’s lukewarmness.” + +“The Dominion makes me sick,” said young Murchison. “It’s so scared of +the Tory source of the scheme in England that it’s handing the whole +boom of the biggest chance this country ever had over to the Tories +here. If anything will help us to lose it that will. No Conservative +Government in Canada can put through a cent of preference on English +goods when it comes to the touch, and they know it. They’re full of +loyalty just now--baying the moon--but if anybody opens a window they’ll +turn tail fast enough.” + +“I guess the Dominion knows it, too,” said Mr Williams. “When Great +Britain is quite sure she’s ready to do business on preference lines +it’s the Liberal party on this side she’ll have to talk to. No use +showing ourselves too anxious, you know. Besides, it might do harm over +there. We’re all right; we’re on record. Wallingham knows as well as we +do the lines we’re open on--he’s heard them from Canadian Liberals more +than once. When they get good and ready they can let us know.” + +“Jolly them up with it at your meetings by all means,” advised Bingham, +“but use it as a kind of superfluous taffy; don’t make it your main +lay-out.” + +The Reform Association of South Fox had no more energetic officer than +Bingham, though as he sat on the edge of the editorial table chewing +portions of the margin of that afternoon’s Express, and drawling out +maxims to the Liberal candidate, you might not have thought so. He was +explaining that he had been in this business for years, and had never +had a job that gave him so much trouble. + +“We’ll win out,” he said, “but the canvass isn’t any Christmas joy--not +this time. There’s Jim Whelan,” he told them. “We all know what Jim +is--a Tory from way back, where they make ‘em so they last, and a soaker +from way back, too; one day on his job and two days sleepin’ off his +whiskey. Now we don’t need Jim Whelan’s vote, never did need it, but +the boys have generally been able to see that one of those two days was +election day. There’s no necessity for Jim’s putting in his paper--a +character like that--no necessity at all--he’d much better be +comfortable in bed. This time, I’m darned if the old boozer hasn’t sworn +off! Tells the boys he’s on to their game, and there’s no liquor in this +town that’s good enough to get him to lose his vote--wouldn’t get drunk +on champagne. He’s held out for ten days already, and it looks like +Winter’d take his cross all right on Thursday.” + +“I guess I’d let him have it, Bingham,” said Lorne Murchison with a kind +of tolerant deprecation, void of offence, the only manner in which +he knew how to convey disapproval to the older man. “The boys in your +division are a pretty tough lot, anyhow. We don’t want the other side +getting hold of any monkey tricks.” + +“It’s necessary to win this election, young man,” said Bingham, +“lawfully. You won’t have any trouble with my bunch.” + +It was not, as will be imagined, the first discussion, so late in +the day, of the value of the preference trade argument to the Liberal +campaign. They had all realized, after the first few weeks, that their +young candidate was a trifle overbitten with it, though remonstrance +had been a good deal curbed by Murchison’s treatment of it. When he +had brought it forward at the late fall fairs and in the lonely country +schoolhouses, his talk had been so trenchant, so vivid and pictorial, +that the gathered farmers listened with open mouths, like children, +pathetically used with life, to a grown-up fairy tale. As Horace +Williams said, if a dead horse could be made to go this one would have +brought Murchison romping in. And Lorne had taken heed to the counsel of +his party leaders. At joint meetings, which offered the enemy his best +opportunity for travesty and derision, he had left it in the background +of debate, devoting himself to arguments of more immediate utility. In +the literature of the campaign it glowed with prospective benefit, but +vaguely, like a halo of Liberal conception and possible achievement, +waiting for the word from overseas. The Express still approved it, but +not in headlines, and wished the fact to be widely understood that while +the imperial idea was a very big idea, the Liberals of South Fox were +going to win this election without any assistance from it. + +Lorne submitted. After all, victory was the thing. There could be no +conquest for the idea without the party triumph first. He submitted, +but his heart rebelled. He looked over the subdivisional reports with +Williams and Farquharson, and gave ear to their warning interpretations; +but his heart was an optimist, and turned always to the splendid +projection upon the future that was so incomparably the title to success +of those who would unite to further it. His mind accepted the old +working formulas for dealing with an average electorate, but to his +eager apprehending heart it seemed unbelievable that the great imperial +possibility, the dramatic chance for the race that hung even now, in +the history of the world, between the rising and the setting of the sun, +should fail to be perceived and acknowledged as the paramount issue, the +contingency which made the by-election of South Fox an extraordinary and +momentous affair. He believed in the Idea; he saw it, with Wallingham, +not only a glorious prospect, but an educative force; and never had he +a moment of such despondency that it confounded him upon his horizon in +the faded colours of some old Elizabethan mirage. + +The opera house, the night of Mr Murchison’s final address to the +electors of South Fox, was packed from floor to ceiling, and a large +and patient overflow made the best of the hearing accommodation of the +corridors and the foyer. A Minister was to speak, Sir Matthew Tellier, +who held the portfolio of Public Works; and for drawing a crowd in Elgin +there was nothing to compare with a member of the Government. He was +the sum of all ambition and the centre of all importance; he was held +to have achieved in the loftiest sense, and probably because he deserved +to; a kind of afflatus sat upon him. They paid him real deference and +they flocked to hear him. Cruickshank was a second attraction; and +Lorne himself, even at this stage of the proceedings, “drew” without +abatement. They knew young Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out +among them all his life; yet since he had come before them in this new +capacity a curious interest had gathered about him. People looked at him +as if he had developed something they did not understand, and perhaps +he had; he was in touch with the Idea. They listened with an intense +personal interest in him which, no doubt, went to obscure what he +said: perhaps a less absorbing personality would have carried the Idea +further. However, they did look and listen--that was the main point, and +on their last opportunity they were in the opera house in great numbers. + +Lorne faced them with an enviable security; the friendliness of the +meeting was in the air. The gathering was almost entirely of one +political complexion: the Conservatives of the town would have been glad +enough to turn out to hear Minister Tellier; but the Liberals were of no +mind to gratify them at the cost of having to stand themselves, and were +on hand early to assert a prior moral claim to chairs. In the seated +throng Lorne could pick out the fine head of his father, and his +mother’s face, bright with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, +too, and Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too conspicuous, +somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was in the second row, and a +couple of strange ladies with him: he was chuckling with uncommon +humour at some remark of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy +MacQuhot was in a good place; had been since six o’clock, and Peter +Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though Peter sat away back as beseemed +a modest functionary whose business was with the book and the bell. +Altogether, as Horace Williams leaned over to tell him, it was like a +Knox Church sociable--he could feel completely at home; and though the +audience was by no means confined to Knox Church, Lorne did feel at +home. Dora Milburn’s countenance he might perhaps have missed, but Dora +was absent by arrangement. Mr Milburn, as the fight went on, had shown +himself so increasingly bitter, to the point of writing letters in the +Mercury attacking Wallingham and the Liberal leaders of South Fox, that +his daughter felt an insurmountable delicacy in attending even Lorne’s +“big meeting.” Alfred Hesketh meant to have gone, but it was ten by the +Milburns’ drawing-room clock before he remembered. Miss Filkin actually +did go, and brought home a great report of it. Miss Filkin would no more +have missed a Minister than she would a bishop; but she was the only +one. + +Lorne had prepared for this occasion for a long time. It was certain +to come, the day of the supreme effort, when he should make his final +appeal under the most favourable circumstances that could be devised, +when the harassing work of the campaign would be behind him, and nothing +would remain but the luxury of one last strenuous call to arms. The +glory of that anticipation had been with him from the beginning; and in +the beginning he saw his great moment only in one character. For weeks, +while he plodded through the details of the benefits South Fox had +received and might expect to receive at the hands of the Liberal party, +he privately stored argument on argument, piled phrase on phrase, still +further to advance and defend the imperial unity of his vision on this +certain and special opportunity. His jihad it would be, for the faith +and purpose of his race; so he scanned it and heard it, with conviction +hot in him, and impulse strong, and intention noble. Then uneasiness had +arisen, as we know; and under steady pressure he had daily drawn himself +from these high intentions, persuaded by Bingham and the rest that +they were not yet “in shape” to talk about. So that his address on this +memorable evening would have a different stamp from the one he designed +in the early burning hours of his candidature. He had postponed +those matters, under advice, to the hour of practical dealing, when a +Government which it would be his privilege to support would consider and +carry them. He put the notes of his original speech away in his office +desk with solicitude--it was indeed very thorough, a grand marshalling +of the facts and review of the principles involved--and pigeonholed +it in the chambers of his mind, with the good hope to bring it forth +another day. Then he devoted his attention to the history of Liberalism +in Fox County--both ridings were solid--and it was upon the history of +Liberalism in Fox County, its triumphs and its fruits, that he embarked +so easily and so assuredly, when he opened his address in the opera +house that Tuesday night. + +Who knows at what suggestion, or even precisely at what moment, +the fabric of his sincere intention fell away? Bingham does not; Mr +Farquharson has the vaguest idea; Dr Drummond declares that he expected +it from the beginning, but is totally unable to say why. I can get +nothing more out of them, though they were all there, though they all +saw him, indeed a dramatic figure, standing for the youth and energy +of the old blood, and heard him, as he slipped away into his great +preoccupation, as he made what Bingham called his “bad break.” His +very confidence may have accounted for it; he was off guard against the +enemy, and the more completely off guard against himself. The history +of Liberalism in Fox County offered, no doubt, some inlet to the rush +of the Idea; for suddenly, Mr Farquharson says, he was “off.” Mr +Farquharson was on the platform, and “I can tell you,” said he, “I +pricked up my ears.” They all did; the Idea came in upon such a personal +note. + +“I claim it my great good fortune,” the young man was suddenly telling +them, in a note of curious gravity and concentration, “and however the +fight goes, I shall always claim it my great good fortune to have been +identified, at a critical moment, with the political principles that are +ennobled in this country by the imperialistic aim. An intention, a great +purpose in the endless construction and reconstruction of the world, +will choose its own agency; and the imperial design in Canada has chosen +the Liberal party, because the Liberal party in this country is the +party of the soil, the land, the nation as it springs from that which +makes it a nation; and imperialism is intensely and supremely a national +affair. Ours is the policy of the fields. We stand for the wheat-belt +and the stockyard, the forest and the mine, as the basic interests of +the country. We stand for the principles that make for nation-building +by the slow sweet processes of the earth, cultivating the individual +rooted man who draws his essence and his tissues from the soil and so, +by unhurried, natural, healthy growth, labour sweating his vices out +of him, forms the character of the commonwealth, the foundation of the +State. So the imperial idea seeks its Canadian home in Liberal councils. +The imperial idea is far-sighted. England has outlived her own body. +Apart from her heart and her history, England is an area where certain +trades are carried on--still carried on. In the scrolls of the future it +is already written that the centre of the Empire must shift--and where, +if not to Canada?” + +There was a half-comprehending burst of applause, Dr Drummond’s the +first clap. It was a curious change from the simple colloquial manner +in which young Murchison had begun and to which the audience were +accustomed; and on this account probably they stamped the harder. +They applauded Lorne himself; something from him infected them; they +applauded being made to feel like that. They would clap first and +consider afterward. John Murchison smiled with pleasure, but shook his +head. Bingham, doubled up and clapping like a repeating rifle, groaned +aloud under cover of it to Horace Williams: “Oh, the darned kid!” + +“A certain Liberal peer of blessed political memory,” Lorne continued, +with a humorous twist of his mouth, “on one of those graceful, elegant, +academic occasions which offer political peers such happy opportunities +of getting in their work over there, had lately a vision which he +described to his university audience of what might have happened if the +American colonies had remained faithful to Great Britain--a vision of +monarch and Ministers, Government and Parliament, departing solemnly +for the other hemisphere. They did not so remain; so the noble peer may +conjure up his vision or dismiss his nightmare as he chooses; and it is +safe to prophesy that no port of the United States will see that entry. +But, remembering that the greater half of the continent did remain +faithful, the northern and strenuous half, destined to move with sure +steps and steady mind to greater growth and higher place among the +nations than any of us can now imagine--would it be as safe to +prophesy that such a momentous sailing-day will never be more than the +after-dinner fantasy of aristocratic rhetoric? Is it not at least as +easy to imagine that even now, while the people of England send their +viceroys to the ends of the earth, and vote careless millions for a +reconstructed army, and sit in the wrecks of Cabinets disputing whether +they will eat our bread or the stranger’s, the sails may be filling, +in the far harbour of time which will bear their descendants to a +representative share of the duties and responsibilities of Empire in the +capital of the Dominion of Canada?” + +It was the boldest proposition, and the Liberal voters of the town of +Elgin blinked a little, looking at it. Still they applauded, hurriedly, +to get it over and hear what more might be coming. Bingham, on the +platform, laughed heartily and conspicuously, as if anybody could see +that it was all an excellent joke. Lorne half-turned to him with a +gesture of protest. Then he went on-- + +“If that transport ever left the shores of England we would go far, some +of us, to meet it; but for all the purposes that matter most it sailed +long ago. British statesmen could bring us nothing better than the +ideals of British government; and those we have had since we levied our +first tax and made our first law. That precious cargo was our heritage, +and we never threw it overboard, but chose rather to render what impost +it brought; and there are those who say that the impost has been heavy, +though never a dollar was paid.” + +He paused for an instant and seemed to review and take account of what +he had said. He was hopelessly adrift from the subject he had proposed +to himself, launched for better or for worse upon the theme that was +subliminal in him and had flowed up, on which he was launched, and +almost rudderless, without construction and without control. The speech +of his first intention, orderly, developed, was as far from him as the +history of Liberalism in Fox County. For an instant he hesitated; and +then, under the suggestion, no doubt, of that ancient misbehaviour in +Boston Harbour at which he had hinted, he took up another argument. I +will quote him a little. + +“Let us hold,” he said simply, “to the Empire. Let us keep this +patrimony that has been ours for three hundred years. Let us not +forget the flag. We believe ourselves, at this moment, in no danger of +forgetting it. The day after Paardeburg, that still winter day, did +not our hearts rise within us to see it shaken out with its message +everywhere, shaken out against the snow? How it spoke to us, and lifted +us, the silent flag in the new fallen snow! Theirs--and ours... That was +but a little while ago, and there is not a man here who will not bear me +out in saying that we were never more loyal, in word and deed, than we +are now. And that very state of things has created for us an undermining +alternative... + +“So long as no force appeared to improve the trade relations between +England and this country Canada sought in vain to make commercial +bargains with the United States. They would have none of us or our +produce; they kept their wall just as high against us as against the +rest of the world: not a pine plank or a bushel of barley could we get +over under a reciprocal arrangement. But the imperial trade idea has +changed the attitude of our friends to the south. They have small +liking for any scheme which will improve trade between Great Britain and +Canada, because trade between Great Britain and Canada must be improved +at their expense. And now you cannot take up an American paper without +finding the report of some commercial association demanding closer trade +relations with Canada, or an American magazine in which some far-sighted +economist is not urging the same thing. They see us thinking about +keeping the business in the family; with that hard American common sense +that has made them what they are, they accept the situation; and at this +moment they are ready to offer us better terms to keep our trade.” + +Bingham, Horace Williams, and Mr Farquharson applauded loudly. Their +young man frowned a little and squared his chin. He was past hints of +that kind. + +“And that,” he went on to say, “is, on the surface, a very satisfactory +state of things. No doubt a bargain between the Americans and ourselves +could be devised which would be a very good bargain on both sides. In +the absence of certain pressing family affairs, it might be as well +worth our consideration as we used to think it before we were invited +to the family council. But if anyone imagines that any degree of +reciprocity with the United States could be entered upon without killing +the idea of British preference trade for all time, let him consider what +Canada’s attitude toward that idea would be today if the Americans had +consented to our proposals twenty-five years ago, and we were invited to +make an imperial sacrifice of the American trade that had prospered, as +it would have prospered, for a quarter of a century! I doubt whether the +proposition would even be made to us... + +“But the alternative before Canada is not a mere choice of markets; we +are confronted with a much graver issue. In this matter of dealing +with our neighbour our very existence is involved. If we would preserve +ourselves as a nation, it has become our business, not only to reject +American overtures in favour of the overtures of our own great England, +but to keenly watch and actively resist American influence, as it +already threatens us through the common channels of life and energy. We +often say that we fear no invasion from the south, but the armies of +the south have already crossed the border. American enterprise, American +capital, is taking rapid possession of our mines and our water power, +our oil areas and our timber limits. In today’s Dominion, one paper +alone, you may read of charters granted to five industrial concerns +with headquarters in the United States. The trades unions of the two +countries are already international. American settlers are pouring into +the wheat-belt of the Northwest, and when the Dominion of Canada has +paid the hundred million dollars she has just voted for a railway to +open up the great lone northern lands between Quebec and the Pacific, +it will be the American farmer and the American capitalist who will +reap the benefit. They approach us today with all the arts of peace, +commercial missionaries to the ungathered harvests of neglected +territories; but the day may come when they will menace our coasts to +protect their markets--unless, by firm, resolved, whole-hearted action +now, we keep our opportunities for our own people.” + +They cheered him promptly, and a gathered intensity came into his face +at the note of praise. + +“Nothing on earth can hold him now,” said Bingham, as he crossed his +arms upon a breast seething with practical politics, and waited for the +worst. + +“The question of the hour for us,” said Lorne Murchison to his +fellow-townsmen, curbing the strenuous note in his voice, “is deeper +than any balance of trade can indicate, wider than any department of +statistics can prove. We cannot calculate it in terms of pig-iron, or +reduce it to any formula of consumption. The question that underlies +this decision for Canada is that of the whole stamp and character of +her future existence. Is that stamp and character to be impressed by the +American Republic effacing”--he smiled a little--“the old Queen’s head +and the new King’s oath? Or is it to be our own stamp and character, +acquired in the rugged discipline of our colonial youth, and developed +in the national usage of the British Empire?”... + +Dr Drummond clapped alone; everybody else was listening. + +“It is ours,” he told them, “in this greater half of the continent, to +evolve a nobler ideal. The Americans from the beginning went in a spirit +of revolt; the seed of disaffection was in every Puritan bosom. We from +the beginning went in a spirit of amity, forgetting nothing, disavowing +nothing, to plant the flag with our fortunes. We took our very +Constitution, our very chart of national life, from England--her laws, +her liberty, her equity were good enough for us. We have lived by them, +some of us have died by them...and, thank God, we were long poor... + +“And this Republic,” he went on hotly, “this Republic that menaces our +national life with commercial extinction, what past has she that is +comparable? The daughter who left the old stock to be the light woman +among nations, welcoming all comers, mingling her pure blood, polluting +her lofty ideals until it is hard indeed to recognize the features and +the aims of her honourable youth...” + +Allowance will be made for the intemperance of his figure. He believed +himself, you see, at the bar for the life of a nation. + +“...Let us not hesitate to announce ourselves for the Empire, to throw +all we are and all we have into the balance for that great decision. +The seers of political economy tell us that if the stars continue to +be propitious, it is certain that a day will come which will usher in +a union of the Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. As between England and +the United States the predominant partner in that firm will be the one +that brings Canada. So that the imperial movement of the hour may mean +even more than the future of the motherland, may reach even farther than +the boundaries of Great Britain...” + +Again he paused, and his eye ranged over their listening faces. He had +them all with him, his words were vivid in their minds; the truth of +them stood about him like an atmosphere. Even Bingham looked at him +without reproach. But he had done. + +“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice dropping, with a hint of +tiredness, to another level, “I have the honour to stand for your +suffrages as candidate in the Liberal interest for the riding of South +Fox in the Dominion House of Commons the day after tomorrow. I solicit +your support, and I hereby pledge myself to justify it by every means in +my power. But it would be idle to disguise from you that while I attach +all importance to the immediate interests in charge of the Liberal +party, and if elected shall use my best efforts to further them, the +great task before that party, in my opinion, the overshadowing task to +which, I shall hope, in my place and degree to stand committed from +the beginning, is the one which I have endeavoured to bring before your +consideration this evening.” + +They gave him a great appreciation, and Mr Cruickshank, following, spoke +in complimentary terms of the eloquent appeal made by the “young and +vigorous protagonist” of the imperial cause, but proceeded to a number +of quite other and apparently more important grounds why he should be +elected. The Hon. Mr Tellier’s speech--the Minister was always kept +to the last--was a defence of the recent dramatic development of the +Government’s railway policy, and a reminder of the generous treatment +Elgin was receiving in the Estimates for the following year--thirty +thousand dollars for a new Drill Hall, and fifteen thousand for +improvements to the post-office. It was a telling speech, with the +chink of hard cash in every sentence, a kind of audit by a chartered +accountant of the Liberal books of South Fox, showing good sound reason +why the Liberal candidate should be returned on Thursday, if only +to keep the balance right. The audience listened with practical +satisfaction. “That’s Tellier all over,” they said to one another... + +The effect in committee of what, in spite of the Hon. Mr Tellier’s +participation, I must continue to call the speech of the evening, may +be gathered from a brief colloquy between Mr Bingham and Mr Williams, in +the act of separating at the door of the opera house. + +“I don’t know what it was worth to preference trade,” said Bingham, “but +it wasn’t worth a hill o’ beans to his own election.” + +“He had as soft a snap,” returned Horace Williams, on the brink of +tears--“as soft a snap as anybody ever had in this town. And he’s +monkeyed it all away. All away.” + +Both the local papers published the speech in full the following day. +“If there’s anything in Manchester or Birmingham that Mr Lorne Murchison +would like,” commented the Mercury editorially, “we understand he has +only to call for it.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +The Milburns’ doorbell rang very early the morning of the election. +The family and Alfred Hesketh were just sitting down to breakfast. Mr +Hesketh was again the guest of the house. He had taken a run out to +Vancouver with Mr Milburn’s partner, who had gone to settle a point or +two in connection with the establishment of a branch there. The points +had been settled and Hesketh, having learned more than ever, had +returned to Elgin. + +The maid came back into the room with a conscious air, and said +something in a low voice to Dora, who flushed and frowned a little, +and asked to be excused. As she left the room a glance of intelligence +passed between her and her mother. While Miss Milburn was generally +thought to be “most like” her father both in appearance and disposition, +there were points upon which she could count on an excellent +understanding with her other parent. + +“Oh, Lorne,” she said, having carefully closed the drawing-room door, +“what in the world have you come here for? Today of all days! Did +anybody see you?” + +The young man, standing tall and broad-shouldered before the +mantelpiece, had yet a look of expecting reproach. + +“I don’t know,” he said humbly. + +“I don’t think Father would like it,” Dora told him, “if he knew you +were here. Why, we’re having an early breakfast on purpose to let +him get out and work for Winter. I never saw him so excited over an +election. To think of your coming today!” + +He made a step toward her. “I came because it is today,” he said. “Only +for a minute, dear. It’s a great day for me, you know--whether we win or +lose. I wanted you to be in it. I wanted you to wish me good luck.” + +“But you know I always do,” she objected. + +“Yes, I know. But a fellow likes to hear it, Dora--on the day, you know. +And I’ve seen so little of you lately.” + +She looked at him measuringly. “You’re looking awfully thin,” she +exclaimed, with sudden compunction. “I wish you had never gone into this +horrid campaign. I wish they had nominated somebody else.” + +Lorne smiled half-bitterly. “I shouldn’t wonder if a few other people +wished the same thing,” he said. “But I’m afraid they’ll have to make +the best of it now.” + +Dora had not sanctioned his visit by sitting down; and as he came nearer +to her she drew a step away, moving by instinct from the capture of the +lover. But he had made little of that, and almost as he spoke was at her +side. She had to yield her hands to him. + +“Well, you’ll win it for them if anybody could,” she assured him. + +“Say ‘win it for us,’ dear.” + +She shook her head. “I’m not a Liberal--yet,” she said, laughing. + +“It’s only a question of time.” + +“I’ll never be converted to Grit politics.” + +“No, but you’ll be converted to me,” he told her, and drew her nearer. +“I’m going now, Dora. I dare say I shouldn’t have come. Every minute +counts today. Good-bye.” + +She could not withhold her face from his asking lips, and he had bent to +take his privilege when a step in the hall threatened and divided them. + +“It’s only Mr Hesketh going upstairs,” said Dora, with relief. “I +thought it was Father. Oh, Lorne--fly!” + +“Hesketh!” Young Murchison’s face clouded. “Is he working for Winter, +too?” + +“Lorne! What a thing to ask when you know he believes in your ideas. +But he’s a Conservative at home, you see, so he says he’s in an awkward +position, and he has been taking perfectly neutral ground lately. He +hasn’t a vote, anyway.” + +“No,” said Lorne. “He’s of no consequence.” + +The familiar easy step in the house of his beloved, the house he was +being entreated to leave with all speed, struck upon his heart and his +nerves. She, with her dull surface to the more delicate vibrations of +things, failed to perceive this, or perhaps she would have thought it +worth while to find some word to bring back his peace. She disliked +seeing people unhappy. When she was five years old and her kitten broke +its leg, she had given it to a servant to drown. + +He took his hat, making no further attempt to caress her, and opened the +door. “I hope you WILL win, Lorne,” she said, half-resentfully, and he, +with forced cheerfulness, replied, “Oh, we’ll have a shot at it.” Then +with a little silent nod at her which, notwithstanding her provocations, +conveyed his love and trust, he went out into the struggle of the day. + +In spite of Squire Ormiston’s confident prediction, it was known that +the fight would be hottest, among the townships, in Moneida Reservation. +Elgin itself, of course, would lead the van for excitement, would be +the real theatre for the arts of practical politics; but things would be +pretty warm in Moneida, too. It was for that reason that Bingham and +the rest strongly advised Lorne not to spend too much of the day in +the town, but to get out to Moneida early, and drive around with +Ormiston--stick to him like a fly to poison-paper. + +“You leave Elgin to your friends,” said Bingham. “Just show your face +here and there wearing a smile of triumph, to encourage the crowd; but +don’t worry about the details--we’ll attend to them.” + +“We can’t have him upsettin’ his own election by any interference with +the boys,” said Bingham to Horace Williams. “He’s got too long a nose +for all kinds of things to be comfortable in town today. He’ll do a +great deal less harm trotting round the Reserve braced up against old +Ormiston.” + +So Elgin was left to the capable hands of the boys, for the furtherance +of the Liberal interest and the sacred cause of imperialism. Mr +Farquharson, whose experience was longer and whose nose presumably +shorter than the candidate’s, never abandoned the Town Ward. Bingham +skirmished between the polling-booths and the committee room. Horace +Williams was out all day--Rawlins edited the paper. The returns wouldn’t +be ready in time for anything but an extra anyhow, and the “Stand to +Arms, South Fox,” leader had been written two days ago. The rest was +millinery, or might be for all anybody would read of it. The other side +had a better idea of the value of their candidate than to send him into +the country. Walter Winter remained where he was most effective and most +at home. He had a neat little livery outfit, and he seemed to spend the +whole day in it accompanied by intimate personal friends who had never +spoken to him, much less driven with him, before. Two or three strangers +arrived the previous night at the leading hotels. Their business was +various, but they had one point in common: they were very solicitous +about their personal luggage. I should be sorry to assign their +politics, and none of them seemed to know much about the merits of +the candidates, so they are not perhaps very pertinent, except for the +curiosity shown by the public at the spectacle of gentlemen carrying +their own bags when there were porters to do it. + +It was a day long remembered and long quoted. The weather was +spring-like, sun after a week’s thaw; it was pleasant to be abroad in +the relaxed air and the drying streets, that here and there sent +up threads of steam after the winter house-cleaning of their wooden +sidewalks. Voting was a privilege never unappreciated in Elgin; and +today the weather brought out every soul to the polls; the ladies of +his family waiting, in many instances, on the verandah, with shawls over +their heads, to hear the report of how the fight was going. Abby saw Dr +Harry back in his consulting room, and Dr Henry safely off to vote, and +then took the two children and went over to her father’s house because +she simply could not endure the suspense anywhere else. The adventurous +Stella picketed herself at a corner near the empty grocery which served +as a polling-booth for Subdivision Eleven, one of the most doubtful, but +was forced to retire at the sight of the first carryall full of men from +the Milburn Boiler Company flaunting a banner inscribed “We are Solid +for W.W.” Met in the hall by her sister, she protested that she hadn’t +cried till she got inside the gate, anyhow. Abby lectured her soundly +on her want of proper pride: she was much too big a girl to be “seen +around” on a day when her brother was “running,” if it were only for +school trustee. The other ladies of the family, having acquired proper +pride kept in the back of the house so as not to be tempted to look out +of the front windows. Mrs Murchison assumed a stoical demeanour and +made a pudding; though there was no reason to help Eliza, who was +sufficiently lacking in proper pride to ask the milkman whether Mr Lorne +wasn’t sure to be elected down there now. The milkman said he guessed +the best man ‘ud get in, but in a manner which roused general suspicion +as to which he had himself favoured. + +“We’ll finish the month,” said Mrs Murchison, “and then not another +quart do we take from HIM--a gentleman that’s so uncertain when he’s +asked a simple question.” + +The butcher came, and brought a jovial report without being asked for +it; said he was the first man to hand in a paper at his place, but they +were piling up there in great shape for Mr Murchison when he left. + +“If he gets in, he gets in,” said Mrs Murchison. “And if he doesn’t +it won’t be because of not deserving to. Those were real nice cutlets +yesterday, Mr Price, and you had better send us a sirloin for tomorrow, +about six pounds; but it doesn’t matter to an ounce. And you can save us +sweetbreads for Sunday; I like yours better than Luff’s.” + +John Murchison, Alec, and Oliver came shortly up to dinner, bringing +stirring tales from the field. There was the personator in Subdivision +Six of a dead man--a dead Grit--wanted by the bloodhounds of the other +side and tracked to the Reform committee room, where he was ostensibly +and publicly taking refuge. + +“Why did he go there?” asked Stella, breathlessly. + +“Why, to make it look like a put-up job of ours, of course, “said her +brother. “And it was a put-up job, a good old Tory fake. But they didn’t +calculate on Bingham and Bingham’s memory. Bingham happened to be in the +committee room, and he recognized this fellow for a regular political +tough from up Muskoka way, where they get six for a bottle of Canadian +and ten if it’s Scotch. ‘Why, good morning,’ says Bingham, ‘thought you +were in jail,’ and just then he catches sight of a couple of trailers +from the window. Well, Bingham isn’t just lightning smart, but then he +isn’t SLOW, you know. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you can’t stop here,’ and in +another second he was throwing the fellow out. Threw him out pretty +hard, too. I guess; right down the stairs, and Bingham on top. Met +Winter’s men at the door. ‘The next time you want information from +the headquarters of this association, gentlemen,’ Bingham said, ‘send +somebody respectable.’ Bingham thought the man was just any kind of low +spy at first, but when they claimed him for personation, Bingham just +laughed. ‘Don’t be so hard on your friends; he said. I don’t think we’ll +hear much more about that little racket.” + +“Can’t anything be done to any of them?” asked Stella. “Not today, of +course, but when there’s time.” + +“We’ll have to see about it, Stella,” said Alec. “When there’s time.” + +“Talking about Bingham,” Oliver told them; “you know Bingham’s story +about Jim Whelan keeping sober for two weeks, for the first time in +twenty years, to vote for Winter? Wouldn’t touch a thing--no, he was +going to do it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to +refuse drinks, but it was going to be worth his while. Been boasting +about the post-office janitorship Winter was to give him if he got in. +Well, in he came to Number Eleven this morning all dressed up, with a +clean collar, looking thirstier than any man you ever saw, and gets +his paper. Young Charlie Bingham is deputy returning officer at Number +Eleven. In a second back comes Whelan. ‘This ballot’s marked; he says; +‘you don’t fool me.’ ‘Is it?’ says Charlie, taking it out of his hand. +‘That’s very wrong, Jim; you shouldn’t have marked it,’ and drops it +into the ballot-box. Oh, Jim was wild! The paper had gone in blank, you +see, and he’d lost all those good drunks and his vote too! He was going +to have Charlie’s blood right away. But there it was--done. He’d handed +in his ballot--he couldn’t have another.” + +They all laughed, I fear, at the unfortunate plight of the too +suspicious Whelan. “Why did he think the ballot was marked?” asked +Advena. + +“Oh, there was a little smudge on it--a fly-spot or something, Charlie +says. But you couldn’t fool Whelan.” + +“I hope,” said Stella meditatively, “that Lorne will get in by more than +one. He wouldn’t like to owe his election to a low-down trick like that” + +“Don’t you be at all alarmed, you little girlish thing,” replied her +brother. “Lorne will get in by five hundred.” + +John Murchison had listened to their excited talk, mostly in silence, +going on with his dinner as if that and nothing else were the important +matter of the moment. Mrs Murchison had had this idiosyncrasy of his +“to put up with” for over thirty years. She bore it now as long as she +could. + +“FATHER!” she exploded at last. “Do you think Lorne will get in by five +hundred?” + +Mr Murchison shook his head, and bestowed his whole attention upon the +paring of an apple. If he kept his hopes to himself, he also kept his +doubts. “That remains to be seen,” he said. + +“Well, considering it’s your own son, I think you might show a little +more confidence,” said Mrs Murchison. “No thank you; no dessert for +me. With a member of the family being elected--or not--for a seat in +Parliament, I’m not the one to want dessert.” + +Between Mr Murchison and the milkman that morning, Mrs Murchison felt +almost too much tried by the superior capacity for reticence. + +It was seven in the evening before the ballot-boxes were all in the +hands of the sheriff, and nine before that officer found it necessary to +let the town know that it had piled up a majority of three hundred for +Walter Winter. He was not a supporter of Walter Winter, and he preferred +to wait until the returns began to come in from Clayfield and the +townships, in the hope that they would make the serious difference that +was required of them. The results were flashed one after the other +to the total from the windows of the Express and the Mercury upon the +cheering crowd that gathered in Market Square. There were moments of +wild elation, moments of deep suspense upon both sides, but when the +final addition and subtraction was made the enthusiastic voters of South +Fox, including Jim Whelan, who had neglected no further opportunity, +read, with yells and groans, hurrahs and catcalls, that they had elected +Mr Lorne Murchison to the Dominion House of Commons by a majority of +seventy. + +Then the band began to play and all the tin whistles to rejoice. Young +and Windle had the grace to blow their sirens, and across the excited +darkness of the town came the long familiar boom of the Murchison Stove +Works. Every Liberal in Elgin who had any means of making a noise +made it. From the window of the Association committee room their young +fellow-townsman thanked them for the honour they had done him, while +his mother sat in the cab he had brought her down in and applauded +vigorously between tears, and his father took congratulations from a +hundred friendly hands. They all went home in a torchlight procession, +the band always playing, the tin whistles always performing; and it was +two in the morning before the occasion could in any sense be said to be +over. + +Lights burned quite as late, however, in the Conservative committee +room, where matters were being arranged to bark threateningly at the +heels of victory next day. Victory looked like something that might +be made to turn and parley. A majority of seventy was too small for +finality. Her attention was called without twenty-four hours’ delay to +a paragraph in the Elgin Mercury, plainly authoritative, to the effect +that the election of Mr Murchison would be immediately challenged, on +the ground of the infringement in the electoral district of Moneida of +certain provisions of the Ontario Elections Act with the knowledge and +consent of the candidate, whose claim to the contested seat, it was +confidently expected, would be rendered within a very short time null +and void. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +“You can never trust an Indian,” said Mrs Murchison at the anxious +family council. “Well do I remember them when you were a little thing, +Advena, hanging round the town on a market-day; and the squaws coming +to the back door with their tin pails of raspberries to sell, and just +knowing English enough to ask a big price for them. But it was on the +squaws we depended in those days, or go without raspberry preserves for +the winter. Slovenly-looking things they were with their three or four +coloured petticoats and their papooses on their backs. And for dirt--! +But I thought they were all gone long ago.” + +“There are enough of them left to make trouble all right,” said Alec. +“They don’t dress up like they used to, and I guess they send the +papooses to kindergarten now; but you’ll find plenty of them lying +around any time there’s nothing to do but vote and get drunk.” + +Allowing for the natural exaggeration of partisanship, the facts about +the remaining red man of Moneida were much as Alec described them. +On market-days he slid easily, unless you looked twice, into what the +Express continues to call the farming community. Invariably, if you did +look twice, you would note that his stiff felt hat was an inch taller +in the crown than those worn generally by the farming community, the +pathetic assertion, perhaps, of an old sovereignty; invariably, too +his coat and trousers betrayed a form within, which, in the effort at +adaptation, had become high-shouldered and lank of leg. And the brown +skin was there to be noticed, though you might pass it by, and the high +cheek-bones and the liquidly muddy eye. He had taken on the signs of +civilization at the level which he occupied; the farming community +had lent him its look of shrewdness in small bargains and its rakish +sophistication in garments, nor could you always assume with certainty, +except at Fox County fairs and elections, that he was intoxicated. So +much Government had done for him in Fox County, where the “Reservation,” + nursing the dying fragment of his race, testified that there is such a +thing as political compunction. Out in the wide spaces of the West he +still protects his savagery; they know an Indian there today as far as +they can see him, without a second glance. + +And in Moneida, upon polling-days, he still, as Alec said, “made +trouble.” Perhaps it would be more to the fact to say that he presented +the elements of which trouble is made. Civilization had given him a +vote, not with his coat and trousers, but shortly after; and he had not +yet learned to keep it anywhere but in his pocket, whence the transfer +was easy, and could be made in different ways. The law contemplated only +one, the straight drop into the ballot-box; but the “boys” had other +views. The law represented one level of political sentiment, the boys +represented another; both parties represented the law, both parties were +represented by the boys; and on the occasion of the South Fox election +the boys had been active in Moneida. There are, as we know, two kinds +of activity on these occasions, one being set to observe the other; +and Walter Winter’s boys, while presumably neglecting no legitimate +opportunity of their own, claimed to have been highly successful in +detecting the methods of the other side. + +The Indians owed their holdings, their allowances, their school, and +their protecting superintendent, Squire Ormiston, to a Conservative +Government. It made a grateful bond of which a later Conservative +Government was not, perhaps, unaware, when it added the ballot to +its previous benefits. The Indians, therefore, on election-days, were +supposed to “go solid” for the candidate in whom they had been taught +to see good will. If they did not go quite solid, the other side might +point to the evolution of the political idea in every dissentient--a +gladdening spectacle, indeed, on which, however, the other side seldom +showed any desire to dwell. + +Hitherto the desires and intentions of the “Reserve” had been +exemplified in its superintendent. Squire Ormiston had never led his +wards to the polls--there were strong reasons against that. But the +squire made no secret of his politics, either before or, unluckily, +after he changed them. The Indians had always known that they were +voting on the same side as “de boss.” They were likely, the friends +of Mr Winter thought, to know now that they were voting on a different +side. This was the secret of Mr Winter’s friends’ unusual diligence on +voting-day in Moneida. The mere indication of a wish on the part of the +superintendent would constitute undue influence in the eye of the law. +The squire was not the most discreet of men--often before it had been +the joke of Conservative councils how near the old man had come to +making a case for the Grits in connection with this chief or that. I +will not say that he was acquainted with the famous letter from Queen +Victoria, affectionately bidding her Indian children to vote for the +Conservative candidate. But perhaps he had not adhered to the strictest +interpretation of the law which gave him fatherly influence in +everything pertaining to his red-skinned charges’ interests temporal and +spiritual, excepting only their sacred privilege of the ballot. He may +even have held it in some genial derision, their sacred privilege; it +would be natural, he had been there among them in unquestioned authority +so long. Now it had assumed an importance. The squire looked at it with +the ardour of a converted eye. When he told Mr Farquharson that he could +bring Moneida with him to a Liberal victory, he thought and spoke of the +farmers of the township not of his wards of the Reserve. Yet as the day +approached these would infallibly become voters in his eyes, to swell or +to diminish the sum of Moneida’s loyalty to the Empire. They remembered +all this in the committee room of his old party. “The squire,” they said +to one another, “will give himself away this time if ever he did.” Then +young Murchison hadn’t known any better than to spend the best part of +the day out there, and there were a dozen witnesses to swear that old +Ormiston introduced him to three or four of the chiefs. That was basis +enough for the boys detailed to watch Moneida, basis enough in the end +for a petition constructed to travel to the High Court at Toronto +for the purpose of rendering null and void the election of Mr Lorne +Murchison, and transferring the South Fox seat to the candidate of the +opposite party. + +That possibility had been promptly frustrated by a cross petition. There +was enough evidence in Subdivision Eleven, according to Bingham, to +void the Tory returns on six different counts; but the house-cat sold by +Peter Finnigan to Mr Winter for five dollars would answer all practical +purposes. It was a first-rate mouser, Bingham said, and it would settle +Winter. They would have plenty of other charges “good and ready” if +Finnigan’s cat should fail them, but Bingham didn’t think the court +would get to anything else; he had great confidence in the cat. + +The petitions had been lodged with promptness. “Evidence,” as Mr Winter +remarked, “is like a good many other things--better when it’s hot, +especially the kind you get on the Reserve.” To which, when he heard it, +Bingham observed sarcastically that the cat would keep. The necessary +thousand dollars were ready on each side the day after the election, +lodged in court the next. Counsel were as promptly engaged--the Liberals +selected Cruickshank--and the suit against the elected candidate, +beginning with charges against his agents in the town, was shortly in +full hearing before the judges sent from Toronto to try it. Meanwhile +the Elgin Mercury had shown enterprise in getting hold of Moneida +evidence, and foolhardiness, as the Express pointed out, in publishing +it before the matter was reached in court. There was no foolhardiness +in printing what the Express knew about Finnigan’s cat; it was just +a common cat, and Walter Winter paid five dollars for it, Finnigan +declaring that if Mr Winter hadn’t filled him up with bad whiskey before +the bargain, he wouldn’t have let her go under ten, he was that fond +of the creature. The Express pointed out that this was grasping of +Finnigan, as the cat had never left him, and Mr Winter showed no +intention of taking her away; but there was nothing sub judice about the +cat. Finnigan, before he sobered up, had let her completely out of the +bag. It was otherwise with the charges that were to be made, according +to the Mercury, on the evidence of Chief Joseph Fry and another member +of his tribe, to the effect that he and his Conservative friends had +been instructed by Squire Ormiston and Mr Murchison to vote on this +occasion for both the candidates, thereby producing, when the box was +opened, eleven ballot-papers inscribed with two crosses instead of one, +and valueless. Here, should the charges against a distinguished and +highly respected Government official fail, as in the opinion of the +Express they undoubtedly would fail of substantiation was a big +libel case all dressed and ready and looking for the Mercury office. +“Foolish--foolish,” wrote Mr Williams at the close of his editorial +comments. “Very ill-advised.” + +“They’ve made no case so far,” Mr Murchison assured the family. “I saw +Williams on my way up, and he says the evidence of that corner grocery +fellow--what’s his name?--went all to pieces this morning. Oliver was in +court. He says one of the judges--Hooke--lost his patience altogether.” + +“They won’t do anything with the town charges,” Alec said, “and they +know it. They’re saving themselves for Moneida and old man Ormiston.” + +“Well, I heartily wish,” said Mrs Murchison, in a tone of grievance with +the world at large, and if you were not responsible you might keep out +of the way--“I heartily wish that Lorne had stayed at home that day and +not got mixed up with old man Ormiston.” + +“They’ll find it pretty hard to fix anything on Lorne,” said Alec. “But +I guess the Squire did go off his head a little.” + +“Have they anything more than Indian evidence?” asked Advena. + +“We don’t know what they’ve got,” said her brother darkly “and we won’t +till Wednesday, when they expect to get round to it.” + +“Indian evidence will be a poor dependence in Cruickshank’s hands,” Mr +Murchison told them, with a chuckle. “They say this Chief Joseph Fry is +going about complaining that he always got three dollars for one vote +before, and this time he expected six for two, and got nothing!” + +“Chief Joseph Fry!” exclaimed Alec. “They make me tired with their Chief +Josephs and Chief Henrys! White Clam Shell--that was the name he got +when he wasn’t christened.” + +“That’s the name,” remarked Advena, “that he probably votes under.” + +“Well,” said Mrs Murchison, “it was very kind of Squire Ormiston to +give Lorne his support, but it seems to me that as far as Moneida is +concerned he would have done better alone.” + +“No, I guess he wouldn’t, Mother,” said Alec. “Moneida came right round +with the Squire, outside the Reserve. If it hadn’t been for the majority +there we would have lost the election. The old man worked hard, and +Lorne is grateful to him, and so he ought to be.” + +“If they carry the case against Lorne,” said Stella, “he’ll be +disqualified for seven years.” + +“Only if they prove him personally mixed up in it,” said the father. +“And that,” he added with a concentration of family sentiment in the +emphasis of it, “they’ll not do.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +It was late afternoon when the train from the West deposited Hugh Finlay +upon the Elgin platform, the close of one of those wide, wet, uncertain +February days when the call of spring is on the wind though spring +is weeks away. The lights of the town flashed and glimmered down the +streets under the bare swaying maple branches. The early evening was +full of soft bluster; the air was conscious with an appeal of nature, +vague yet poignant. The young man caught at the strange sympathy that +seemed to be abroad for his spirit. He walked to his house, courting it, +troubled by it. They were expecting him that evening at Dr Drummond’s, +and there it was his intention to go. But on his way he would call for +a moment to see Advena Murchison. He had something to tell her. It would +be news of interest at Dr Drummond’s also; but it was of no consequence, +within an hour or so, when they should receive it there, while it was +of great consequence that Advena should hear it at the earliest +opportunity, and from him. There is no weighing or analysing the burden +of such a necessity as this. It simply is important: it makes its own +weight; and those whom it concerns must put aside other matters until +it has been accomplished. He would tell her: they would accept it for a +moment together, a moment during which he would also ascertain whether +she was well and strong, with a good chance of happiness--God protect +her--in the future that he should not know. Then he would go on to Dr +Drummond’s. + +The wind had risen when he went out again; it blew a longer blast, +and the trees made a steady sonorous rhythm in it. The sky was full of +clouds that dashed upon the track of a failing moon; there was portent +everywhere, and a hint of tumult at the end of the street. No two ways +led from Finlay’s house to his first destination. River Street made +an angle with that on which the Murchisons lived--half a mile to the +corner, and three-quarters the other way. Drops drove in his face as he +strode along against the wind, stilling his unquiet heart, that leaped +before him to that brief interview. As he took the single turning he +came into the full blast of the veering, irresolute storm. The street +was solitary and full of the sound of the blown trees, wild and +uplifting. Far down the figure of a woman wavered before the wind across +the zone of a blurred lamp-post. She was coming toward him. He bent his +head and lowered his umbrella and lost sight of her as they approached, +she with the storm behind her, driven with hardly more resistance than +the last year’s blackened leaves that blew with her, he assailed by it +and making the best way he could. Certainly the wind was taking her part +and his, when in another moment her skirt whipped against him and he saw +her face glimmer out. A mere wreck of lines and shadows it seemed in the +livid light, with suddenly perceiving eyes and lips that cried his name. +She had on a hat and a cloak, but carried no umbrella, and her hands +were bare and wet. Pitifully the storm blew her into his arms, a tossed +and straying thing that could not speak for sobs; pitifully and with a +rough incoherent sound he gathered and held her in that refuge. A rising +fear and a great solicitude laid a finger upon his craving embrace of +her; he had a sense of something strangely different in her, of the +unknown irremediable. Yet she was there, in his arms, as she had never +been before; her plight but made her in a manner sweeter; the storm that +brought her barricaded them in the empty spaces of the street with a +divinely entreating solitude. He had been prepared to meet her in the +lighted decorum of her father’s house and he knew what he should say. +He was not prepared to take her out of the tempest, helpless and weeping +and lost for the harbour of his heart, and nothing could he say. He +locked his lips against all that came murmuring to them. But his arms +tightened about her and he drew her into the shelter of a wall that +jutted out in the irregular street; and there they stood and clung +together in a long, close, broken silence that covered the downfall of +her spirit. It was the moment of their great experience of one another; +never again, in whatever crisis, could either know so deep, so wonderful +a fathoming of the other soul. Once as it passed, Advena put up her hand +and touched his cheek: There were tears on it, and she trembled, and +wound her arm about his neck, and held up her face to his. “No,” he +muttered, and crushed it against his breast. There without complaint +she let it lie; she was all submission to him: his blood leaped and his +spirit groaned with the knowledge of it. + +“Why did you come out? Why did you come, dear?” he said at last. + +“I don’t know. There was such a wind. I could not stay in the house.” + +She spoke timidly, in a voice that should have been new to him, but that +it was, above all, her voice. + +“I was on my way to you.” + +“I know. I thought you might perhaps come. If you had not--I think I was +on my way to you.” + +It seemed not unnatural. + +“Did you find--any message from me when you came?” she asked presently, +in a quieted, almost a contented tone. + +It shot--the message--before his eyes, though he had seen it no message, +in the preoccupation of his arrival. + +“I found a rose on my dressing-table,” he told her; and the rose stood +for him in a wonder of tenderness, looking back. + +“I smuggled it in,” she confessed, “I knew your old servant--she used +to be with us. The others--from Dr Drummond’s--have been there all day +making it warm and comfortable for you. I had no right to do anything +like that, but I had the right, hadn’t I, to bring the rose?” + +“I don’t know,” he answered her, hard-pressed, “how we are to bear +this.” + +She shrank away from him a little, as if at a glimpse of a surgeon’s +knife. + +“We are not to bear it,” she said eagerly. “The rose is to tell you +that. I didn’t mean it, when I left it, to be anything more--more than a +rose; but now I do. I didn’t even know when I came out tonight. But +now I do. We aren’t to bear it, Hugh. I don’t want it so--now. I +can’t--can’t have it so.” + +She came nearer to him again and caught with her two hands the lapels +of his coat. He closed his own over them and looked down at her in that +half-detachment, which still claimed and held her. + +“Advena,” he whispered, out of the sudden clamour in his mind, “she +can’t be--she isn’t--nothing has happened to her?” + +She smiled faintly, but her eyes were again full of fear at his +implication of the only way. + +“Oh, no!” she said. “But you have been away, and she has come. I have +seen her; and oh! she won’t care, Hugh--she won’t care.” + +Her asking, straining face seemed to gather and reflect all the light +there was in the shifting night about them. The rain had stopped, but +the wind still hurtled past, whirling the leaves from one darkness to +another. They were as isolated, as outlawed there in the wild wet wind +as they were in the confusion of their own souls. + +“We must care,” he said helplessly, clinging to the sound and form of +the words. + +“Oh, no!” she cried. “No, no! Indeed I know now what is possible and +what is not!” + +For an instant her eyes searched the rigid lines of his face in +astonishment. In their struggle to establish the impossible she had been +so far ahead, so greatly the more confident and daring, had tempted him +to such heights, scorning every dizzy verge, that now, when she turned +quite back from their adventure, humbly confessing it too hard, she +could not understand how he should continue to set himself doggedly +toward it. Perhaps, too, she trusted unconsciously in her prerogative. +He loved her, and she him: before she would not, now she would. Before +she had preferred an ideal to the desire of her heart; now it lay about +her; her strenuous heart had pulled it down to foolish ruin, and how +should she lie abased with it and see him still erect and full of the +deed they had to do? + +“Come,” he said, “let me take you home, dear,” and at that and some +accent in it that struck again at hope, she sank at his feet in a +torrent of weeping, clasping them and entreating him, “Oh send her away! +Send her away!” + +He lifted her, and was obliged literally to support her. Her hat had +fallen off; he stroked her hair and murmured such comfort to her as we +have for children in their extremity, of which the burden is chiefly +love and “Don’t cry.” She grew gradually quieter, drawing one knows not +what restitution from the intrinsic in him; but there was no pride in +her, and when she said “Let me go home now,” it was the broken word of +hapless defeat. They struggled together out into the boisterous street, +and once or twice she failed and had to stop and turn. Then she would +cling to a wall or a tree, putting his help aside with a gesture in +which there was again some pitiful trace of renunciation. They went +almost without a word, each treading upon the heart of the other toward +the gulf that was to come. They reached it at the Murchisons’ gate, and +there they paused, as briefly as possible, since pause was torture, and +he told her what he could not tell her before. + +“I have accepted the charge of the White Water Mission Station in +Alberta,” he said. “I, too, learned very soon after I left you what was +possible and what was not. I go as soon as--things can be set in order +here. Good-bye, my dear love, and may God help us both.” + +She looked at him with a pitiful effort at a steady lip. “I must try +to believe it,” she said. “And afterward, when it comes true for you, +remember this--I was ashamed.” + +Then he saw her pass into her father’s house, and he took the road to +his duty and Dr Drummond’s. + +His extremity was very great. Through it lines came to him from the +beautiful archaic inheritance of his Church. He strode along hearing +them again and again in the dying storm. + + So, I do stretch my hands + To Thee my help alone; + Thou only understands + All my complaint and moan. + +He listened to the prayer on the wind, which seemed to offer it for him, +listened and was gravely touched. But he himself was far from the throes +of supplication. He was looking for the forces of his soul; and by the +time he reached Dr Drummond’s door we may suppose that he had found +them. + +Sarah who let him in, cried, “How wet you are, Mr Finlay!” and took his +overcoat to dry in the kitchen. The Scotch ladies, she told him, and +Mrs Forsyth, had gone out to tea, but they would be back right away, and +meanwhile “the Doctor” was expecting him in the study--he knew the way. + +Finlay did know the way but, as a matter of fact, there had been time +for him to forget it; he had not crossed Dr Drummond’s threshold since +the night on which the Doctor had done all, as he would have said, that +was humanly possible to bring him, Finlay, to reason upon the matter of +his incredible entanglement in Bross. The door at the end of the passage +was ajar however, as if impatient; and Dr Drummond himself, standing in +it, heightened that appearance, with his “Come you in, Finlay. Come you +in!” + +The Doctor looked at the young man in a manner even more acute, more +shrewd, and more kindly than was his wont. His eye searched Finlay +thoroughly, and his smile seemed to broaden as his glance travelled. + +“Man,” he said, “you’re shivering,” and rolled him an armchair near the +fire. (“The fellow came into the room,” he would say, when he told the +story afterward to the person most concerned, “as if he were going to +the stake!”) “This is extraordinary weather we are having, but I think +the storm is passing over.” + +“I hope,” said Finlay, “that my aunt and Miss Cameron are well. I +understand they are out.” + +“Oh, very well--finely. They’re out at present, but you’ll see them +bye-and-bye. An excellent voyage over they had--just the eight days. But +we’ll be doing it in less than that when the new fast line is running to +Halifax. But four days of actual ocean travelling they say now it will +take. Four days from imperial shore to shore! That should incorporate +us--that should bring them out and take us home.” + +The Doctor had not taken a seat himself, but was pacing the study, his +thumbs in his waistcoat pockets; and a touch of embarrassment seemed +added to the inveterate habit. + +“I hear the ladies had pleasant weather.” Finlay remarked. + +“Capital--capital! You won’t smoke? I know nothing about these cigars; +they’re some Grant left behind him--a chimney, that man Grant. Well, +Finlay”--he threw himself into the arm-chair on the other side of the +hearth--“I don’t know what to say to you.” + +“Surely,” said Finlay restively, “it has all been said, sir.” + +“No, it has not all been said,” Dr Drummond retorted. “No, it has +not. There’s more to be said, and you must hear it, Finlay, with such +patience as you have. But I speak the truth when I say that I don’t know +how to begin.” + +The young man gave him opportunity, gazing silently into the fire. +He was hardly aware that Dr Drummond had again left his seat when he +started violently at a clap on the shoulder. + +“Finlay!” exclaimed the Doctor. “You won’t be offended? No--you couldn’t +be offended!” + +It was half-jocular, half-anxious, wholly inexplicable. + +“At what,” asked Hugh Finlay, “should I be offended?” + +Again, with a deep sigh, the Doctor dropped into his chair. “I see +I must begin at the beginning,” he said. But Finlay, with sudden +intuition, had risen and stood before him trembling, with a hand against +the mantelpiece. + +“No,” he said, “if you have anything to tell me of importance, for God’s +sake begin at the end.” + +Some vibration in his voice went straight to the heart of the Doctor, +banishing as it travelled, every irrelevant thing that it encountered. + +“Then the end is this, Finlay,” he said. “The young woman, Miss Christie +Cameron, whom you were so wilfully bound and determined to marry, has +thrown you over--that is, if you will give her back her word--has jilted +you--that is, if you’ll let her away. Has thought entirely better of the +matter.” + +(“He stared out of his great sockets of eyes as if the sky had fallen,” + Dr Drummond would say, recounting it.) + +“For--for what reason?” asked Finlay, hardly yet able to distinguish +between the sound of disaster and the sense that lay beneath. + +“May I begin at the beginning?” asked the Doctor, and Hugh silently +nodded. + +(“He sat there and never took his eyes off me, twisting his fingers. I +might have been in a confession-box,” Dr Drummond would explain to her.) + +“She came here, Miss Cameron, with that good woman, Mrs Kilbannon, it +will be three weeks next Monday,” he said, with all the air of beginning +a story that would be well worth hearing. “And I wasn’t very well +pleased to see her, for reasons that you know. However, that’s neither +here nor there. I met them both at the station, and I own to you that +I thought when I made Miss Cameron’s acquaintance that you were getting +better than you deserved in the circumstances. You were a thousand miles +away--now that was a fortunate thing!--and she and Mrs Kilbannon just +stayed here and made themselves as comfortable as they could. And that +was so comfortable that anyone could see with half an eye”--the Doctor’s +own eye twinkled--“so far as Miss Cameron was concerned, that she wasn’t +pining in any sense of the word. But I wasn’t sorry for you, Finlay, on +that account.” He stopped to laugh enjoyingly, and Finlay blushed like a +girl. + +“I just let matters bide and went about my own business. Though +after poor Mrs Forsyth here--a good woman enough, but the brains of a +rabbit--it was pleasant to find these intelligent ladies at every meal, +and wonderful how quick they were at picking up the differences between +the points of Church administration here and at home. That was a thing I +noticed particularly in Miss Cameron. + +“Matters went smoothly enough--smoothly enough--till one afternoon that +foolish creature Advena Murchison”--Finlay started--“came here to pay +a call on Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. It was well and kindly meant, +but it was not a wise-like thing to do. I didn’t exactly make it out, +but it seems that she came all because of you and on account of you; and +the ladies didn’t understand it, and Mrs Kilbannon came to me. My word, +but there was a woman to deal with! Who was this young lady, and what +was she to you that she should go anywhere or do anything in your name? +Without doubt”--he put up a staying hand--“it was foolish of Advena. And +what sort of freedom, and how far, and why, and what way, and I tell you +it was no easy matter, to quiet her. ‘Is Miss Cameron distressed about +it?’ said I. ‘Not a bit,’ said she, ‘but I am, and I must have the +rights of this matter,’ said she, ‘if I have to put it to my nephew +himself.’ + +“It was at that point, Finlay, that the idea--just then that the thought +came into my mind--well I won’t say absolutely, but practically for the +first time--Why can’t this matter be arranged on a basis to suit +all parties? So I said to her, ‘Mrs Kilbannon,’ I said, ‘if you had +reasonable grounds for it, do you think you could persuade your niece +not to marry Hugh Finlay?’ Wait--patience!” He held up his hand, and +Finlay gripped the arm of his chair again. + +“She just stared at me. ‘Are you gone clean daft, Dr Drummond?’ she +said. ‘There could be no grounds serious enough for that. I will not +believe that Hugh Finlay has compromised himself in any way.’ I had +to stop her; I was obliged to tell her there was nothing of the +kind--nothing of the kind; and later on I’ll have to settle with my +conscience about that. ‘I meant,’ I said, the reasonable grounds of an +alternative: ‘An alternative?’ said she. To cut a long story short,” + continued the Doctor, leaning forward, always with the finger in his +waistcoat pocket to emphasize what he said, “I represented to Mrs +Kilbannon that Miss Cameron was not in sentimental relations toward you, +that she had some reason to suspect you of having placed your affections +elsewhere, and that I myself was very much taken up with what I had seen +of Miss Cameron. In brief, I said to Mrs Kilbannon that if Miss Cameron +saw no objection to altering the arrangements to admit of it, I should +be pleased to marry her myself. The thing was much more suitable in +every way. I was fifty-three years of age last week, I told her, ‘but’ +I said, ‘Miss Cameron is thirty-six or seven, if she’s a day, and Finlay +there would be like nothing but a grown-up son to her. I can offer her +a good home and the minister’s pew in a church that any woman might be +proud of--and though far be it from me,’ I said, ‘to depreciate mission +work, either home or foreign, Miss Cameron in that field would be little +less than thrown away. Think it over,’ I said. + +“Well, she was pleased, I could see that. But she didn’t half like the +idea of changing the original notion. It was leaving you to your own +devices that weighed most with her against it; she’d set her heart on +seeing you married with her approval. So I said to her, to make an end +of it, ‘Well, Mrs Kilbannon,’ I said, ‘suppose we say no more about it +for the present. I think I see the finger of Providence in this matter; +but you’ll talk it over with Miss Cameron, and we’ll all just make it, +for the next few days, the subject of quiet and sober reflection. Maybe +at the end of that time I’ll think better of it myself, though that is +not my expectation.’ + +“‘I think,’ she said, ‘we’ll just leave it to Christie.’” + +As the Doctor went on with his tale, relaxation had stolen dumbly about +Finlay’s brow and lips. He dropped from the plane of his own absorption +to the humorous common sense of the recital: it claimed and held him +with infinite solace. His eyes had something like the light of laughter +in them, flashing behind a cloud, as he fixed them on Dr Drummond, and +said, “And did you?” + +“We did,” said Dr Drummond, getting up once more from his chair, and +playing complacently with his watch-charms as he took another turn about +the study. “We left it to Miss Cameron, and the result is”--the Doctor +stopped sharply and wheeled round upon Finlay--“the result is--why, the +upshot seems to be that I’ve cut you out, man!” + +Finlay measured the little Doctor standing there twisting his +watch-chain, beaming with achieved satisfaction, in a consuming desire +to know how far chance had been kind to him, and how far he had to be +simply, unspeakably, grateful. He stared in silence, occupied with his +great debt; it was like him that that, and not his liberty, should be +first in his mind. We who have not his opportunity may find it more +difficult to decide; but from our private knowledge of Dr Drummond we +may remember what poor Finlay probably forgot at the moment, that +even when pitted against Providence, the Doctor was a man of great +determination. + +The young fellow got up, still speechless, and confronted Dr Drummond. +He was troubled for something to say; the chambers of his brain seemed +empty or reiterating foolish sounds. He pressed the hand the minister +offered him and his lips quivered. Then a light came into his face, and +he picked up his hat. + +“And I’ll say this for myself,” chuckled Dr Drummond. “It was no hard +matter.” + +Finlay looked at him and smiled. “It would not be, sir,” he said lamely. +Dr Drummond cast a shrewd glance at him and dropped the tone of banter. + +“Aye--I know! It’s no joking matter,” he said, and with a hand behind +the young man’s elbow, he half pushed him to the door and took out his +watch. He must always be starting somebody, something, in the right +direction, the Doctor. “It’s not much after half-past nine, Finlay,” he +said. “I notice the stars are out.” + +It had the feeling of a colloquial benediction, and Finlay carried it +with him all the way. + +It was nevertheless nearly ten when he reached her father’s house, +so late that the family had dispersed for the night. Yet he had the +hardihood to ring, and the hour blessed them both, for Advena on the +stair, catching who knows what of presage out of the sound, turned, and +found him at the threshold herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +“I understand how you must feel in the matter, Murchison, said Henry +Cruickshank. “It’s the most natural thing in the world that you should +want to clear yourself definitely, especially as you say, since the +charges have been given such wide publicity. On the other hand, I think +it quite possible that you exaggerate the inference that will be drawn +from our consenting to saw off with the other side on the two principal +counts.” + +“The inference will be,” said Lorne “that there’s not a pin to choose +between Winter’s political honesty and my own. I’m no Pharisee, but +I don’t think I can sit down under that. I can’t impair my possible +usefulness by accepting a slur upon my reputation at the very +beginning.” + +“Politics are very impersonal. It wouldn’t be remembered a year.” + +“Winter of course,” said young Murchison moodily, “doesn’t want to take +any chances. He knows he’s done for if we go on. Seven years for him +would put him pretty well out of politics. And it would suit him down to +the ground to fight it over again. There’s nothing he would like better +to see than another writ for South Fox.” + +“That’s all right,” the lawyer responded, “but Moneida doesn’t look +altogether pleasant, you know. We may have good grounds for supposing +that the court will find you clear of that business; but Ormiston, so +far as I can make out, was playing the fool down there for a week before +polling-day, and there are three or four Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers +only too anxious to pay back a grudge on him. We’ll have to fight again, +there’s no doubt about that. The only question is whether we’ll ruin +Ormiston first or not. Have you seen Bingham?” + +“I know what Bingham thinks,” said Lorne, impatiently. “The Squire’s +position is a different consideration. I don’t see how I can--However, +I’ll go across to the committee room now and talk it over.” + +It is doubtful whether young Murchison knew all that Bingham thought; +Bingham so seldom told it all. There were matters in the back of +Bingham’s mind that prompted him to urge the course that Cruickshank had +been empowered by the opposing counsel to suggest--party considerations +that it would serve no useful purpose to talk over with Murchison. +Bingham put it darkly when he said he had quite as much hay on his +fork as he cared to tackle already, implying that the defence +of indiscretions in Moneida was quite an unnecessary addition. +Contingencies seemed probable, arising out of the Moneida charges that +might affect the central organization of the party in South Fox to an +extent wholly out of proportion with the mere necessity of a second +election. Bingham talked it over with Horace Williams, and both of +them with Farquharson; they were all there to urge the desirability of +“sawing off” upon Lorne when he found them at headquarters. Their most +potent argument was, of course, the Squire and the immediate dismissal +that awaited him under the law if undue influence were proved against +him. Other considerations found the newly elected member for South +Fox obstinate and troublesome, but to that he was bound to listen, and +before that he finally withdrew his objections. The election would +come on again, as happened commonly enough. Bingham could point to +the opening, in a few days, of a big flour-milling industry across +the river, which would help; operations on the Drill Hall and +the Post-Office would be hurried on at once, and the local party +organization would be thoroughly overhauled. Bingham had good reason for +believing that they could entirely regain their lost ground, and at the +same time dissipate the dangerous impression that South Fox was being +undermined. Their candidate gave a reluctant ear to it all, and in the +end agreed to everything. + +So that Chief Joseph Fry--the White Clam Shell of his own lost +fires--was never allowed the chance of making good the election losses +of that year, as he had confidently expected to do when the charge came +on; nor was it given to any of the Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers of Mr +Cruickshank’s citation to boast at the tribal dog-feasts of the future, +of the occasion on which they had bested “de boss.” Neither was any +further part in public affairs, except by way of jocular reference, +assigned to Finnigan’s cat. The proceedings of the court abruptly +terminated, the judges reported the desirability of a second contest, +and the public accepted with a wink. The wink in any form was hateful to +Lorne Murchison, but he had not to encounter it long. + +The young man had changed in none of the aspects he presented to his +fellow-citizens since the beginning of the campaign. In the public eye +he wore the same virtues as he wore the same clothes; he summed up even +a greater measure of success; his popularity was unimpaired. He went as +keenly about the business of life, handling its details with the same +capable old drawl. Only his mother, with the divination of mothers, +declared that since the night of the opera house meeting Lorne had +been “all worked up.” She watched him with furtive anxious looks, was +solicitous about his food, expressed relief when she knew him to be +safely in bed and asleep. He himself observed himself with discontent, +unable to fathom his extraordinary lapse from self-control on the night +of his final address. He charged it to the strain of unavoidable office +work on top of the business of the campaign, abused his nerves, talked +of a few days’ rest when they had settled Winter. He could think of +nothing but the points he had forgotten when he had his great chance. +“The flag should have come in at the end,” he would say to himself, +trying vainly to remember where it did come in. He was ill pleased with +the issue of that occasion; and it was small compensation to be told by +Stella that his speech gave her shivers up and down her back. + +Meanwhile the theory of Empire coursed in his blood, fed by the +revelation of the future of his country in every newspaper, by the +calculated prophecies of American onlookers, and by the telegrams which +repeated the trumpet notes of Wallingham’s war upon the mandarinate of +Great Britain. It occupied him so that he began to measure and limit +what he had to say about it, and to probe the casual eye for sympathy +before he would give an inch of rope to his enthusiasm. He found it as +hard as ever to understand that the public interest should be otherwise +preoccupied, as it plainly was, that the party organ, terrified of +Quebec, should shuffle away from the subject with perfunctory and +noncommittal reference, that among the men he met in the street, +nobody’s blood seemed stirred, whatever the day’s news was from England. +He subscribed to the Toronto Post, the leading organ of the Tories, +because of its fuller reports and more sympathetic treatment of the +Idea, due to the fact that the Idea originated in a brain temporarily +affiliated to the Conservative party. If the departure to imperial +preference had any damage in it for Canadian interests, it would be +for those which the Post made its special care; but the spirit of party +draws the breath of expediency, and the Post flaunting the Union Jack +every other day, put secondary manufactures aside for future discussion, +and tickled the wheat-growers with the two-shilling advantage they were +coming into at the hands of the English Conservatives, until Liberal +leaders began to be a little anxious about a possible loss of +wheat-growing votes. It was, as John Murchison said, a queer position +for everybody concerned; queer enough, no doubt, to admit a Tory journal +into the house on sufferance and as a special matter; but he had a +disapproving look for it as it lay on the hall floor, and seldom was the +first to open it. + +Nevertheless Lorne found more satisfaction in talking imperialism with +his father than with anyone else. While the practical half of John +Murchison was characteristically alive to the difficulties involved, +the sentimental half of him was ready at any time to give out cautious +sparks of sympathy with the splendour of Wallingham’s scheme; and he +liked the feeling that a son of his should hark back in his allegiance +to the old land. There was a kind of chivalry in the placing of certain +forms of beauty--political honour and public devotion, which blossomed +best, it seemed, over there--above the material ease and margin of the +new country, and even above the grand chance it offered for a man to +make his mark. Mr Murchison was susceptible to this in anyone, and +responsive to it in his son. + +As to the local party leaders, they had little more than a shrug for the +subject. So far as they were concerned, there was no Empire and no Idea; +Wallingham might as well not have been born. It seemed to Lorne that +they maintained toward him personally a special reticence about it. +Reticence indeed characterized their behaviour generally during the +period between the abandonment of the suits and the arrangement of the +second Liberal convention. They had little advice for him about his +political attitude, little advice about anything. He noticed that his +presence on one or two occasions seemed to embarrass them, and that his +arrival would sometimes have a disintegrating effect upon a group in the +post-office or at a street corner. He added it, without thinking, to his +general heaviness; they held it a good deal against him, he supposed, to +have reduced their proud standing majority to a beggarly two figures; he +didn’t blame them. + +I cannot think that the sum of these depressions alone would have +been enough to overshadow so buoyant a soul as Lorne Murchison’s. +The characteristics of him I have tried to convey were grafted on an +excellent fund of common sense. He was well aware of the proportions of +things; he had no despair of the Idea, nor would he despair should the +Idea etherealize and fly away. Neither had he, for his personal honour, +any morbid desires toward White Clam Shell or Finnigan’s cat. His luck +had been a good deal better than it might have been; he recognized that +as fully as any sensible young man could, and as for the Great Chance, +and the queer grip it had on him, he would have argued that too if +anyone had approached him curiously about it. There I think we might +doubt his conclusions. There is nothing subtler, more elusive to trace +than the intercurrents of the emotions. Politics and love are thought +of at opposite poles, and Wallingham perhaps would have laughed to know +that he owed an exalted allegiance in part to a half-broken heart. Yet +the impulse that is beyond our calculation, the thing we know potential +in the blood but not to be summoned or conditioned, lies always in the +shadow of the ideal; and who can analyse that, and say, “Of this class +is the will to believe in the integrity of the beloved and false; +of that is the desire to lift a nation to the level of its +mountain-ranges”? Both dispositions have a tendency to overwork the +heart; and it is easy to imagine that they might interact. Lorne +Murchison’s wish, which was indeed a burning longing and necessity, +to believe in the Dora Milburn of his passion, had been under a strain +since the night on which he brought her the pledge which she refused +to wear. He had hardly been conscious of it in the beginning, but by +constant suggestion it had grown into his knowledge, and for weeks he +had taken poignant account of it. His election had brought him no nearer +a settlement with her objection to letting the world know of their +relations. The immediate announcement that it was to be disputed gave +Dora another chance, and once again postponed the assurance that he +longed for with a fever which was his own condemnation of her, if he +could have read that sign. For months he had seen so little of her, had +so altered his constant habit of going to the Milburns’, that his family +talked of it, wondering among themselves; and Stella indulged in hopeful +speculations. They did not wonder or speculate at the Milburns’. It was +an axiom there that it is well to do nothing rashly. + +Lorne, in the office on Market Street, had been replying to Mr Fulke to +the effect that the convention could hardly be much longer postponed, +but that as yet he had no word of the date of it when the telephone bell +rang and Mr Farquharson’s voice at the other end asked him to come over +to the committee room. “They’ve decided about it now, I imagine,” + he told his senior, putting on his hat; and something of the wonted +fighting elation came upon him as he went down the stairs. He was right +in his supposition. They had decided about it, and they were waiting, +in a group that made every effort to look casual, to tell him when he +arrived. + +They had delegated what Horace Williams called “the job” to Mr +Farquharson, and he was actually struggling with the preliminaries of +it, when Bingham, uncomfortable under the curious quietude of the young +fellow’s attention, burst out with the whole thing. + +“The fact is, Murchison, you can’t poll the vote. There’s no man in the +Riding we’d be better pleased to send to the House; but we’ve got to win +this election, and we can’t win it with you.” + +“You think you can’t?” said Lorne. + +“You see, old man,” Horace Williams put in, “you didn’t get rid of that +save-the-Empire-or-die scheme of yours soon enough. People got to think +you meant something by it.” + +“I shall never get rid of it,” Lorne returned simply, and the others +looked at one another. + +“The popular idea seems to be,” said Mr Farquharson judicially, “that +you would not hesitate to put Canada to some material loss, or at least +to postpone her development in various important directions, for the +sake of the imperial connection.” + +“Wasn’t that,” Lorne asked him, “what, six months ago, you were all +prepared to do?” + +“Oh, no,” said Bingham, with the air of repudiating for everybody +concerned. “Not for a cent. We were willing at one time to work it +for what is was worth, but it never was worth that, and if you’d had a +little more experience, Murchison, you’d have realized it.” + +“That’s right, Lorne,” contributed Horace Williams. “Experience--that’s +all you want. You’ve got everything else, and a darned sight more. We’ll +get you there, all in good time. But this time--” + +“You want me to step down and out,” said Lorne. + +“That’s for you to say,” Bingham told him. “We can nominate you again +all right, but we’re afraid we can’t get you the convention. Young and +Windle have been working like moles for the past ten days--” + +“For Carter?” interrupted Lorne: “Carter, of course.” + +They nodded. Carter stood the admitted fact. + +“I’m sorry it’s Carter,” said Lorne thoughtfully. “However--” And he +dropped, staring before him, into silence. The others eyed him from +serious, underhung faces. Horace Williams, with an obvious effort, got +up and clapped him on the shoulder. + +“Brace up, old chap,” he said. “You made a blame good fight for us, and +we’ll do the same for you another day.” + +“However, gentlemen,” the young man gathered himself up to say, “I +believe I understand the situation. You are my friends and this is your +advice. We must save the seat. I’ll see Carter. If I can get anything +out of him to make me think he’ll go straight on the scheme to save the +Empire”--he smiled faintly--“when it comes to a vote, I’ll withdraw in +his favour at the convention. Horace here will think up something for +me--any old lie will do, I suppose? In any case, of course, I withdraw.” + +He took his hat, and they all got up, startled a little at the quick +and simple close of the difficult scene they had anticipated. Horace +Williams offered his hand. + +“Shake, Lorne,” he said, and the other two, coming nearer, followed his +example. + +“Why, yes,” said Lorne. + +He left them with a brief excuse, and they stood together in a moment’s +silence, three practical politicians who had delivered themselves from a +dangerous network involving higher things. + +“Dash these heart-to-heart talks,” said Bingham irritably, “it’s the +only thing to do, but why the devil didn’t he want something out of it? +I had that Registrarship in my inside pocket.” + +“If anybody likes to kick me round the room,” remarked Horace Williams +with depression, “I have no very strong objection.” + +“And now,” Mr Farquharson said with a sigh, “we understand it’s got +to be Carter. I suppose I’m too old a man to do jockey for a +three-year-old, but I own I’ve enjoyed the ride.” + +Lorne Murchison went out into the companionship of Main Street, the new +check in his fortunes hanging before him. We may imagine that it hung +heavily; we may suppose that it cut off the view. As Bingham would have +said, he was “up against it” and that, when one is confidently treading +the straight path to accomplishment, is a dazing experience. He was +up against it, yet already he had recoiled far enough to consider it; +already he was adapting his heart, his nerves, and his future to it. +His heart took it greatly, told him he had not yet force enough for the +business he had aspired to, but gave him a secret assurance. Another +time he would find more strength and show more cunning; he would not +disdain the tools of diplomacy and desirability, he would dream no more +of short cuts in great political departures. His heart bowed to its +sorry education and took counsel with him, bidding him be of good +courage and push on. He was up against it, but he would get round it, +and there on the other side lay the same wide prospect, with the +Idea shining high. At one point he faltered, but that was a matter of +expediency rather than of courage. He searched and selected, as he went +along the street, among phrases that would convey his disaster to Dora +Milburn. + +Just at that point, the turning to his own office, he felt it hard luck +that Alfred Hesketh should meet and want a word with him. Hesketh had +become tolerable only when other things were equal. Lorne had not seen +him since the night of his election, when his felicitations had seemed +to stand for very little one way or another. His manner now was more +important charged with other considerations. Lorne waited on the +word, uncomfortably putting off the necessity of coming out with his +misfortune. + +“I haven’t come across you, Murchison, but you’ve had my sympathy, I +needn’t say, all this time. A man can’t go into politics with gloves +on, there’s no doubt about that. Though mind you, I never for a moment +believed that you let yourself in personally. I mean, I’ve held you all +through, above the faintest suspicion.” + +“Have you?” said Lorne. “Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful.” + +“Oh, I have--I assure you! But give me a disputed election for the +revelation of a rotten state of things--eh?” + +“It does show up pretty low, doesn’t it?” + +“However, upon my word, I don’t know whether it’s any better in England. +At bottom we’ve got a lower class to deal with, you know. I’m +beginning to have a great respect for the electorate of this country, +Murchison--not necessarily the methods, but the rank and file of the +people. They know what they want, and they’re going to have it.” + +“Yes,” said Lorne, “I guess they are.” + +“And that brings me to my news, old man. I’ve given the matter a lot of +time and a lot of consideration, and I’ve decided that I can’t do better +than drive in a stake for myself in this new country of yours.” + +“It isn’t so very new,” Lorne told him, in rather dull response, “but I +expect that’s a pretty good line to take. Why, yes--first rate.” + +“As to the line,” Hesketh went on, weightily, leading the way through +an encumbering group of farmers at a corner, “I’ve selected that, too. +Traction-engines. Milburn has never built them yet, but he says the +opportunity is ripe--” + +“Milburn!” Lorne wheeled sharply. + +“My future partner. He was planning extensions just as I came along, a +fortunate moment, I hope it will prove, for us both. I’d like to go +into it with you, some time when you have leisure--it’s a scheme of +extraordinary promise. By the way, there’s an idea in it that ought to +appeal to you--driving the force that’s to subdue this wilderness of +yours.” + +“When you’ve lived here for a while,” said Lorne, painfully preoccupied, +“you’ll think it quite civilized. So you’re going in with Milburn?” + +“Oh, I’m proud of it already! I shall make a good Canadian, I trust. And +as good an imperialist,” he added, “as is consistent with the claims of +my adopted country.” + +“That seems to be the popular view,” said Lorne. + +“And a very reasonable view, too. But I’m not going to embark on that +with you, old fellow--you shan’t draw me in. I know where you are on +that subject.” + +“So do I--I’m stranded. But it’s all right--the subject isn’t,” Lorne +said quietly; and Hesketh’s exclamations and inquiries brought out the +morning’s reverse. The young Englishman was cordially sorry, full +of concern and personal disappointment, abandoning his own absorbing +affairs, and devoting his whole attention to the unfortunate exigency +which Lorne dragged out of his breast, in pure manfulness, to lay before +him. + +However, they came to the end of it, arriving at the same time at +the door which led up the stairs to the office of Fulke, Warner, and +Murchison. + +“Thank you,” said Lorne. ‘“Thank you. Oh, I dare say it will come all +right in the course of time. You return to England, I suppose--or do +you?--before you go in with Milburn?” + +“I sail next week,” said Hesketh, and a great relief shot into the face +of his companion. “I have a good deal to see to over there. I shan’t +get back much before June, I fancy. And--I must tell you--I am doing the +thing very thoroughly. This business of naturalizing myself, I mean. I +am going to marry that very charming girl--a great friend of yours, by +the way, I know her to be--Miss Milburn.” + +For accepting the strokes of fate we have curiously trivial +demonstrations. Lorne met Hesketh’s eye with the steadiness of a lion’s +in his own; the unusual thing he did was to take his hands out of his +pockets and let his arms hang loosely by his side. It was as tragic a +gesture of helplessness as if he had flung them above his head. + +“Dora is going to marry you?” + +“I believe she will do me that honour. And I consider it an honour. +Miss Milburn will compare with any English girl I ever met. But I +half expected you to congratulate me. I know she wrote to you this +morning--you were one of the first.” + +“I shall probably find the letter,” said Lorne mechanically, “when I go +home.” + +He still eyed Hesketh narrowly, as if he had somewhere concealed about +him the explanation of this final bitter circumstance. He had a desire +not to leave him, to stand and parley--to go upstairs to the office +would be to plunge into the gulf. He held back from that and leaned +against the door frame, crossing his arms and looking over into the +market-place for subjects to postpone Hesketh’s departure. They talked +of various matters in sight, Hesketh showing the zest of his newly +determined citizenship in every observation--the extension of the +electric tramway, the pulling down of the old Fire Hall. In one +consciousness Lorne made concise and relevant remarks; in another he sat +in a spinning dark world and waited for the crash. + +It seemed to come when Hesketh said, preparing to go, “I’ll tell Miss +Milburn I saw you. I suppose this change in your political prospects +won’t affect your professional plans in any way you’ll stick on here, at +the Bar?” + +It was the very shock of calamity, and for the instant he could see +nothing in the night of it but one far avenue of escape, a possibility +he had never thought of seriously until that moment. The conception +seemed to form itself on his lips, to be involuntary. + +“I don’t know. A college friend has been pressing me for some time to +join him in Milwaukee. He offers me plenty of work, and I am thinking +seriously of closing with him.” + +“Go over to the United States? You can’t mean that!” + +“Oh yes--it’s the next best thing!” + +Hesketh’s face assumed a gravity, a look of feeling and of remonstrance. +He came a step nearer and put a hand on his companion’s arm. + +“Come now, Murchison,” he said, “I ask you--is this a time to be +thinking of chucking the Empire?” + +Lorne moved farther into the passage with an abruptness which left his +interlocutor staring. He stood there for a moment in silence, and then +turned to mount the stair with a reply which a passing dray happily +prevented from reaching Hesketh’s ears. + +“No, damn you,” he said. “It’s not!” + +I cannot let him finish on that uncontrolled phrase, though it will be +acknowledged that his provocation was great. Nor must we leave him in +heavy captivity to the thought of oblivion in the unregarding welter +of the near republic, of plunging into more strenuous activities and +abandoning his ideal, in queer inverted analogy to the refuging of weak +women in a convent. We know that his ideal was strong enough to reassert +itself, under a keen irony of suggestion, in the very depth of his +overwhelming: and the thing that could rise in him at that black moment +may be trusted, perhaps, to reclaim his fortitude and reconsecrate his +energy when these things come again into the full current of his life. +The illness that, after two or three lagging days, brought him its +merciful physical distraction was laid in the general understanding +at the door of his political disappointment; and, among a crowd +of sympathizers confined to no party, Horace Williams, as his wife +expressed it, was pretty nearly wild during its progress. The power of +the press is regrettably small in such emergencies, but what restoration +it had Horace anxiously administered; the Express published a daily +bulletin. The second election passed only half-noticed by the Murchison +family; Carter very nearly re-established the Liberal majority. The +Dominion dwelt upon this repeated demonstration of the strength of +Reform principles in South Fox, and Mrs Murchison said they were welcome +to Carter. + +Many will sympathize with Mrs Murchison at this point, I hope, and +regret to abandon her in such equivocal approval of the circumstances +which have arisen round her. Too anxiously occupied at home to take her +share in the general pleasant sensation of Dr Drummond’s marriage, she +was compelled to give it a hurried consideration and a sanction which +was practically wrested from her. She could not be clear as to the +course of events that led to it, nor entirely satisfied, as she said, +about the ins and outs of the affair; this although she felt she could +be clearer, and possibly had better grounds for being satisfied, than +other people. As to Advena’s simple statement that Miss Cameron had +made a second choice of the Doctor, changing her mind, as far as Mrs +Murchison could see, without rhyme or reason, that Mrs Murchison took +leave to find a very poor explanation. Advena’s own behaviour toward +the rejection is one of the things which her mother declares, probably +truly, that she never will understand. To pick up a man in the actual +fling of being thrown over, will never, in Mrs Murchison’s eyes, +constitute a decorous proceeding. I suppose she thinks the creature +might have been made to wait at least until he had found his feet. She +professes to cherish no antagonism to her future son-in-law on this +account, although, as she says, it’s a queer way to come into a family; +and she makes no secret of her belief that Miss Cameron showed excellent +judgement in doing as she did, however that far-seeing woman came to +have the opportunity. + +Hesketh had sailed before Lorne left his room, to return in June to +those privileges and prospects of citizenship which he so eminently +deserves to enjoy. When her brother’s convalescence and departure for +Florida had untied her tongue, Stella widely proclaimed her opinion that +Mr Hesketh’s engagement to Miss Milburn was the most suitable thing that +could be imagined or desired. We know the youngest Miss Murchison to be +inclined to impulsive views; but it would be safe, I think, to follow +her here. Now that the question no longer circles in the actual vortex +of Elgin politics Mr Octavius Milburn’s attitude toward the +conditions of imperial connection has become almost as mellow as +ever. Circumstances may arise any day, however, to stir up that latent +bitterness which is so potential in him: and then I fear there will be +no restraining him from again attacking Wallingham in the papers. + +Henry Cruickshank, growing old in his eminence and less secure, perhaps, +in the increasing conflict of loud voices, of his own grasp of the +ultimate best, fearing too, no doubt, the approach of that cynicism +which, moral or immoral, is the real hoar of age, wrote to young +Murchison while he was still examining the problems of the United States +with the half-heart of the alien, and offered him a partnership. The +terms were so simple and advantageous as only to be explicable on the +grounds I have mentioned, though no phrase suggested them in the brief +formulas of the letter, in which one is tempted to find the individual +parallel of certain propositions of a great government also growing old. +The offer was accepted, not without emotion, and there, too, it would +be good to trace the parallel, were we permitted; but for that it is too +soon, or perhaps it is too late. Here, for Lorne and for his country, +we lose the thread of destiny. The shuttles fly, weaving the will of the +nations, with a skein for ever dipped again; and he goes forth to his +share in the task among those by whose hand and direction the pattern +and the colours will be made. + + +END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Imperialist, by +(a.k.a. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/5301-0.zip b/5301-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f050917 --- /dev/null +++ b/5301-0.zip diff --git a/5301-h.zip b/5301-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..695df96 --- /dev/null +++ b/5301-h.zip diff --git a/5301-h/5301-h.htm b/5301-h/5301-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c3e143 --- /dev/null +++ b/5301-h/5301-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12473 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Imperialist, by Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1861-1922 (aka Mrs. Everard + Cotes) + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Imperialist, by +(a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Imperialist + +Author: (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan + +Release Date: April 21, 2009 [EBook #5301] +Last Updated: November 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST *** + + + + +Produced by Gardner Buchanan, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE IMPERIALIST + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1861-1922 (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes) + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1904 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + It would have been idle to inquire into the antecedents, or even the + circumstances, of old Mother Beggarlegs. She would never tell; the + children, at all events, were convinced of that; and it was only the + children, perhaps, who had the time and the inclination to speculate. Her + occupation was clear; she presided like a venerable stooping hawk, over a + stall in the covered part of the Elgin market-place, where she sold + gingerbread horses and large round gingerbread cookies, and brown sticky + squares of what was known in all circles in Elgin as taffy. She came, it + was understood, with the dawn; with the night she vanished, spending the + interval on a not improbable broomstick. Her gingerbread was better than + anybody’s; but there was no comfort in standing, first on one foot and + then on the other, while you made up your mind—the horses were + spirited and you could eat them a leg at a time, but there was more in the + cookies—she bent such a look on you, so fierce and intolerant of + vacillation. She belonged to the group of odd characters, rarer now than + they used to be, etched upon the vague consciousness of small towns as in + a way mysterious and uncanny; some said that Mother Beggarlegs was + connected with the aristocracy and some that she had been “let off” being + hanged. The alternative was allowed full swing, but in any case it was + clear that such persons contributed little to the common good and, being + reticent, were not entertaining. So you bought your gingerbread, + concealing, as it were, your weapons, paying your copper coins with a + neutral nervous eye, and made off to a safe distance, whence you turned to + shout insultingly, if you were an untrounced young male of Elgin, “Old + Mother Beggarlegs! Old Mother Beggarlegs!” And why “Beggarlegs” nobody in + the world could tell you. It might have been a dateless waggery, or it + might have been a corruption of some more dignified surname, but it was + all she ever got. Serious, meticulous persons called her “Mrs” Beggarlegs, + slightly lowering their voices and slurring it, however, it must be + admitted. The name invested her with a graceless, anatomical interest, it + penetrated her wizened black and derisively exposed her; her name went far + indeed to make her dramatic. Lorne Murchison, when he was quite a little + boy was affected by this and by the unfairness of the way it singled her + out. Moved partly by the oppression of the feeling and partly by a desire + for information he asked her sociably one day, in the act of purchase, why + the gilt was generally off her gingerbread. He had been looking long, as a + matter of fact, for gingerbread with the gilt on it, being accustomed to + the phrase on the lips of his father in connection with small profits. + Mother Beggarlegs, so unaccustomed to politeness that she could not + instantly recognize it, answered him with an imprecation at which he, no + doubt, retreated, suddenly thrown on the defensive hurling the usual + taunt. One prefers to hope he didn’t, with the invincible optimism one has + for the behaviour of lovable people; but whether or not his kind attempt + at colloquy is the first indication I can find of that active sympathy + with the disabilities of his fellow-beings which stamped him later so + intelligent a meliorist. Even in his boy’s beginning he had a heart for + the work; and Mother Beggarlegs, but for a hasty conclusion, might have + made him a friend. + </p> + <p> + It is hard to invest Mother Beggarlegs with importance, but the date helps + me—the date I mean, of this chapter about Elgin; she was a person to + be reckoned with on the twenty-fourth of May. I will say at once, for the + reminder to persons living in England that the twenty-fourth of May was + the Queen’s Birthday. Nobody in Elgin can possibly have forgotten it. The + Elgin children had a rhyme about it— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The twenty-fourth of May + Is the Queen’s Birthday; + If you don’t give us a holiday, + We’ll all run away. +</pre> + <p> + But Elgin was in Canada. In Canada the twenty-fourth of May WAS the + Queen’s Birthday; and these were times and regions far removed from the + prescription that the anniversary “should be observed” on any of those + various outlying dates which by now, must have produced in her immediate + people such indecision as to the date upon which Her Majesty really did + come into the world. That day, and that only, was the observed, the + celebrated, a day with an essence in it, dawning more gloriously than + other days and ending more regretfully, unless, indeed, it fell on a + Sunday when it was “kept” on the Monday, with a slightly clouded feeling + that it wasn’t exactly the same thing. Travelled persons, who had spent + the anniversary there, were apt to come back with a poor opinion of its + celebration in “the old country”—a pleasant relish to the + more-than-ever appreciated advantages of the new, the advantages that came + out so by contrast. More space such persons indicated, more enterprise + they boasted, and even more loyalty they would flourish, all with an + affectionate reminiscent smile at the little ways of a grandmother. A + “Bank” holiday, indeed! Here it was a real holiday, that woke you with + bells and cannon—who has forgotten the time the ancient piece of + ordnance in “the Square” blew out all the windows in the Methodist church?—and + went on with squibs and crackers till you didn’t know where to step on the + sidewalks, and ended up splendidly with rockets and fire-balloons and + drunken Indians vociferous on their way to the lock-up. Such a day for the + hotels, with teams hitched three abreast in front of their aromatic + barrooms; such a day for the circus, with half the farmers of Fox County + agape before the posters—with all their chic and shock they cannot + produce such posters nowadays, nor are there any vacant lots to form + attractive backgrounds—such a day for Mother Beggarlegs! The hotels, + and the shops and stalls for eating and drinking, were the only places in + which business was done; the public sentiment put universal shutters up, + but the public appetite insisted upon excepting the means to carnival. An + air of ceremonial festivity those fastened shutters gave; the sunny little + town sat round them, important and significant, and nobody was ever known + to forget that they were up, and go on a fool’s errand. No doubt they had + an impressiveness for the young countryfolk that strolled up and down Main + Street in their honest best, turning into Snow’s for ice-cream when a + youth was disposed to treat. (Gallantry exacted ten-cent dishes, but for + young ladies alone, or family parties, Mrs Snow would bring five-cent + quantities almost without asking, and for very small boys one dish and the + requisite number of spoons.) There was discrimination, there was choice, + in this matter of treating. A happy excitement accompanied it, which you + could read in the way Corydon clapped his soft felt hat on his head as he + pocketed the change. To be treated—to ten-cent dishes—three + times in the course of the day by the same young man gave matter for + private reflection and for public entertainment, expressed in the broad + grins of less reckless people. I speak of a soft felt hat, but it might be + more than that: it might be a dark green one, with a feather in it; and + here was distinction, for such a hat indicated that its owner belonged to + the Independent Order of Foresters, who Would leave their spring wheat for + forty miles round to meet in Elgin and march in procession, wearing their + hats, and dazzlingly scatter upon Main Street. They gave the day its touch + of imagination, those green cocked hats; they were lyrical upon the + highways; along the prosaic sidewalks by twos and threes they sang + together. It is no great thing, a hat of any quality; but a small thing + may ring dramatic on the right metal, and in the vivid idea of Lorne + Murchison and his sister Advena a Robin Hood walked in every Independent + Forester, especially in the procession. Which shows the risks you run if + you, a person of honest livelihood and solicited vote, adopt any portion + of a habit not familiar to you, and go marching about with a banner and a + band. Two children may be standing at the first street corner, to whom + your respectability and your property may at once become illusion and your + outlawry the delightful fact. + </p> + <p> + A cheap trip brought the Order of Green Hats to Elgin; and there were + cheap trips on this great day to persuade other persons to leave it. The + Grand Trunk had even then an idea of encouraging social combination for + change of scene, and it was quite a common thing for the operatives of the + Milburn Boiler Company to arrange to get themselves carried to the + lakeside or “the Falls” at half a dollar a head. The “hands” got it up + themselves and it was a question in Elgin whether one might sink one’s + dignity and go as a hand for the sake of the fifty-cent opportunity, a + question usually decided in the negative. The social distinctions of Elgin + may not be easily appreciated by people accustomed to the rough and ready + standards of a world at the other end of the Grand Trunk; but it will be + clear at a glance that nobody whose occupation prescribed a clean face + could be expected to travel cheek by jowl, as a privilege, with persons + who were habitually seen with smutty ones, barefaced smut, streaming out + at the polite afternoon hour of six, jangling an empty dinner pail. So + much we may decide, and leave it, reflecting as we go how simple and + satisfactory, after all, are the prejudices which can hold up such obvious + justification. There was recently to be pointed out in England the heir to + a dukedom who loved stoking, and got his face smutty by preference. He + would have been deplorably subversive of accepted conventions in Elgin; + but, happily or otherwise, such persons and such places have at present + little more than an imaginative acquaintance, vaguely cordial on the one + side, vaguely critical on the other, and of no importance in the sum. + </p> + <p> + Polite society, to return to it, preferred the alternative of staying at + home and mowing the lawn or drinking raspberry vinegar on its own + beflagged verandah; looking forward in the afternoon to the lacrosse + match. There was nearly always a lacrosse match on the Queen’s Birthday, + and it was the part of elegance to attend and encourage the home team, as + well as that of small boys, with broken straw hats, who sneaked an + entrance, and were more enthusiastic than anyone. It was “a quarter” to + get in, so the spectators were naturally composed of persons who could + afford the quarter, and persons like the young Flannigans and Finnigans, + who absolutely couldn’t, but who had to be there all the same. Lorne and + Advena Murchison never had the quarter, so they witnessed few lacrosse + matches, though they seldom failed to refresh themselves by a sight of the + players after the game when, crimson and perspiring, but still glorious in + striped jerseys, their lacrosses and running shoes slung over one + shoulder, these heroes left the field. + </p> + <p> + The Birthday I am thinking of, with Mrs Murchison as a central figure in + the kitchen, peeling potatoes for dinner, there was a lacrosse match of + some importance for the Fox County Championship and the Fox County Cup as + presented by the Member for the South Riding. Mrs Murchison remains the + central figure, nevertheless, with her family radiating from her, gathered + to help or to hinder in one of those domestic crises which arose when the + Murchisons were temporarily deprived of a “girl.” Everybody was subject to + them in Elgin, everybody had to acknowledge and face them. Let a new mill + be opened, and it didn’t matter what you paid her or how comfortable you + made her, off she would go, and you might think yourself lucky if she gave + a week’s warning. Hard times shut down the mills and brought her back + again; but periods of prosperity were very apt to find the ladies of Elgin + where I am compelled to introduce Mrs Murchison—in the kitchen. + “You’d better get up—the girl’s gone,” Lorne had stuck his head into + his sister’s room to announce, while yet the bells were ringing and the + rifles of the local volunteers were spitting out the feu de joie. “I’ve + lit the fire an’ swep’ out the dining-room. You tell mother. Queen’s + Birthday, too—I guess Lobelia’s about as mean as they’re made!” And + the Murchisons had descended to face the situation. Lorne had by then done + his part, and gone out into the chromatic possibilities of the day; but + the sense of injury he had communicated to Advena in her bed remained and + expanded. Lobelia, it was felt, had scurvily manipulated the situation—her + situation, it might have been put, if any Murchison had been in the temper + for jesting. She had taken unjustifiable means to do a more unjustifiable + thing, to secure for herself an improper and unlawful share of the day’s + excitements, transferring her work, by the force of circumstances, to the + shoulders of other people since, as Mrs Murchison remarked, somebody had + to do it. Nor had she her mistress testified the excuse of fearing + unreasonable confinement. “I told her she might go when she had done her + dishes after dinner,” said Mrs Murchison, “and then she had only to come + back at six and get tea—what’s getting tea? I advised her to finish + her ironing yesterday, so as to be free of it today; and she said she + would be very glad to. Now, I wonder if she DID finish it!” and Mrs + Murchison put down her pan of potatoes with a thump to look in the family + clothes basket. “Not she! Five shirts and ALL the coloured things. I call + it downright deceit!” + </p> + <p> + “I believe I know the reason she’ll SAY,” said Advena. “She objects to rag + carpet in her bedroom. She told me so.” + </p> + <p> + “Rag carpet—upon my word!” Mrs Murchison dropped her knife to + exclaim. “It’s what her betters have to do with! I’ve known the day when + that very piece of rag carpet—sixty balls there were in it and every + one I sewed with my own fingers—was the best I had for my spare + room, with a bit of ingrain in the middle. Dear me!” she went on with a + smile that lightened the whole situation, “how proud I was of that + performance! She didn’t tell ME she objected to rag carpet!” + </p> + <p> + “No, Mother,” Advena agreed, “she knew better.” + </p> + <p> + They were all there in the kitchen, supporting their mother, and it seems + an opportunity to name them. Advena, the eldest, stood by the long kitchen + table washing the breakfast cups in “soft” soap and hot water. The soft + soap—Mrs Murchison had a barrelful boiled every spring in the back + yard, an old colonial economy she hated to resign—made a fascinating + brown lather with iridescent bubbles. Advena poured cupfuls of it from on + high to see the foam rise, till her mother told her for mercy’s sake to + get on with those dishes. She stood before a long low window, looking out + into the garden and the light, filtering through apple branches on her + face showed her strongly featured and intelligent for fourteen. Advena was + named after one grandmother; when the next girl came Mrs Murchison, to + make an end of the matter, named it Abigail, after the other. She thought + both names outlandish and acted under protest, but hoped that now + everybody would be satisfied. Lorne came after Advena, at the period of a + naive fashion of christening the young sons of Canada in the name of her + Governor-General. It was a simple way of attesting a loyal spirit, but + with Mrs Murchison more particular motives operated. The Marquis of Lorne + was not only the deputy of the throne, he was the son-in-law of a good + woman of whom Mrs Murchison thought more, and often said it, for being the + woman she was than for being twenty times a Queen; and he had made a + metrical translation of the Psalms, several of which were included in the + revised psalter for the use of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, from + which the whole of Knox Church sang to the praise of God every Sunday. + These were circumstances that weighed with Mrs Murchison, and she called + her son after the Royal representative, feeling that she was doing well + for him in a sense beyond the mere bestowal of a distinguished and a + euphonious name, though that, as she would have willingly acknowledged, + was “well enough in its place.” + </p> + <p> + We must take this matter of names seriously; the Murchisons always did. + Indeed, from the arrival of a new baby until the important Sunday of the + christening, nothing was discussed with such eager zest and such sustained + interest as the name he should get—there was a fascinating list at + the back of the dictionary—and to the last minute it was + problematical. In Stella’s case, Mrs Murchison actually changed her mind + on the way to church; and Abby, who had sat through the sermon expecting + Dorothy Maud, which she thought lovely, publicly cried with + disappointment. Stella was the youngest, and Mrs Murchison was thankful to + have a girl at last whom she could name without regard to her own + relations or anybody else’s. I have skipped about a good deal, but I have + only left out two, the boys who came between Abby and Stella. In their + names the contemporary observer need not be too acute to discover both an + avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr Murchison’s political + views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie nor an Oliver Mowat could very well + grow up into anything but a sound Liberal in that part of the world + without feeling himself an unendurable paradox. To christen a baby like + that was, in a manner, a challenge to public attention; the faint + relaxation about the lips of Dr Drummond—the best of the Liberals + himself, though he made a great show of keeping it out of the pulpit—recognized + this, and the just perceptible stir of the congregation proved it. + Sonorously he said it. “Oliver Mowat, I baptize thee in the Name of the + Father—” The compliment should have all the impressiveness the rite + could give it, while the Murchison brothers and sisters, a-row in the + family pew, stood on one foot with excitement as to how Oliver Mowat would + take the drops that defined him. The verdict was, on the way home, that he + behaved splendidly. Alexander Mackenzie, the year before, had roared. + </p> + <p> + He was weeping now, at the age of seven, silently, but very copiously, + behind the woodpile. His father had finally cuffed him for importunity; + and the world was no place for a just boy, who asked nothing but his + rights. Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood inconscient + and irresponsible for any share in his black circumstances; and his tears + fell among the lichens of the stump he was bowed on till, observing them, + he began to wonder whether he could cry enough to make a pond there, and + was presently disappointed to find the source exhausted. The Murchisons + were all imaginative. + </p> + <p> + The others, Oliver and Abby and Stella, still “tormented.” Poor Alec’s + rights—to a present of pocket-money on the Queen’s Birthday—were + common ones, and almost statutory. How their father, sitting comfortably + with his pipe in the flickering May shadows under the golden pippin, + reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in the matter was + unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was certainly illiberal; they had a + feeling that it was illegal. A little teasing was generally necessary, but + the resistance today had begun to look ominous and Alec, as we know, too + temerarious, had retired in disorder to the woodpile. + </p> + <p> + Oliver was wiping Advena’s dishes. He exercised himself ostentatiously + upon a plate, standing in the door to be within earshot of his father. + </p> + <p> + “Eph Wheeler,” he informed his family, “Eph Wheeler, he’s got twenty-five + cents, an’ a English sixpence, an’ a Yankee nickel. An’ Mr Wheeler’s only + a common working man, a lot poorer’n we are.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Murchison removed his pipe from his lips in order, apparently, to + follow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion’s leading article. Oliver eyed + him anxiously. “Do, Father,” he continued in logical sequence. “Aw do.” + </p> + <p> + “Make him, Mother,” said Abby indignantly. “It’s the Queen’s BIRTHDAY!” + </p> + <p> + “Time enough when the butter bill’s paid,” said Mrs Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Oh the BUTTER bill! Say, Father, aren’t you going to?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” asked John Murchison, and again took out his pipe, as if this were + the first he had heard of the matter. + </p> + <p> + “Give us our fifteen cents each to celebrate with. You can’t do it under + that,” Oliver added firmly. “Crackers are eight cents a packet this year, + the small size.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense,” said Mr Murchison. The reply was definite and final, and its + ambiguity was merely due to the fact that their father disliked giving a + plump refusal. “Nonsense” was easier to say, if not to hear than “No.” + Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by the pump, and + sought his brother behind the woodpile. Then he returned to the charge. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Father,” he said, “CASH DOWN, we’ll take ten.” + </p> + <p> + John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were usually impregnated + with meaning, especially in anger. “No more of this,” he said. “Celebrate + fiddlesticks! Go and make yourselves of some use. You’ll get nothing from + me, for I haven’t got it.” So saying, he went through the kitchen with a + step that forbade him to be followed. His eldest son, arriving over the + backyard fence in a state of heat, was just in time to hear him. Lorne’s + apprehension of the situation was instant, and his face fell, but the + depression plainly covered such splendid spirits that his brother asked + resentfully, “Well, what’s the matter with YOU?” + </p> + <p> + “Matter? Oh, not much. I’m going to see the Cayugas beat the Wanderers, + that’s all; an’ Abe Mackinnon’s mother said he could ask me to come back + to tea with them. Can I, Mother?” + </p> + <p> + “There’s no objection that I know of,” said Mrs Murchison, shaking her + apron free of stray potato-parings, “but you won’t get money for the + lacrosse match or anything else from your father today, <i>I</i> can + assure you. They didn’t do five dollars worth of business at the store all + day yesterday, and he’s as cross as two sticks.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that’s all right.” Lorne jingled his pocket and Oliver took a + fascinated step toward him. “I made thirty cents this morning, delivering + papers for Fisher. His boy’s sick. I did the North Ward—took me + over’n hour. Guess I can go all right, can’t I?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes, I suppose you can,” said his mother. The others were dumb. + Oliver hunched his shoulders and kicked at the nearest thing that had + paint on it. Abby clung to the pump handle and sobbed aloud. Lorne looked + gloomily about him and went out. Making once more for the back fence, he + encountered Alexander in the recognized family retreat. “Oh, my goodness!” + he said, and stopped. In a very few minutes he was back in the kitchen, + followed sheepishly by Alexander, whose grimy face expressed the hope that + beat behind his little waistcoat. + </p> + <p> + “Say, you kids,” he announced, “Alec’s got four cents, an’ he says he’ll + join up. This family’s going to celebrate all right. Come on down town.” + </p> + <p> + No one could say that the Murchisons were demonstrative. They said + nothing, but they got their hats. Mrs Murchison looked up from her + occupation. + </p> + <p> + “Alec,” she said, “out of this house you don’t go till you’ve washed your + face. Lorne, come here,” she added in a lower voice, producing a bunch of + keys. “If you look in the right-hand corner of the top small drawer in my + bureau you’ll find about twenty cents. Say nothing about it, and mind you + don’t meddle with anything else. I guess the Queen isn’t going to owe it + all to you.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + “We’ve seen changes, Mr Murchison. Aye. We’ve seen changes.” + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door, over which + the sign “John Murchison: Hardware,” had explained thirty years of varying + commercial fortune. They had pretty well begun life together in Elgin. + John Murchison was one of those who had listened to Mr Drummond’s trial + sermon, and had given his vote to “call” him to the charge. Since then + there had been few Sundays when, morning and evening, Mr Murchison had not + been in his place at the top of his pew, where his dignified and + intelligent head appeared with the isolated significance of a strong + individuality. People looked twice at John Murchison in a crowd; so did + his own children at home. Hearing some discussion of the selection of a + premier, Alec, looking earnestly at him once said, “Why don’t they tell + Father to be it?” The young minister looked twice at him that morning of + the trial sermon, and asked afterward who he was. A Scotchman, Mr Drummond + was told, not very long from the old country, who had bought the Playfair + business on Main Street, and settled in the “Plummer Place,” which already + had a quarter of a century’s standing in the annals of the town. The + Playfair business was a respectable business to buy; the Plummer Place, + though it stood in an unfashionable outskirt, was a respectable place to + settle in; and the minister, in casting his lot in Elgin, envisaged John + Murchison as part of it, thought of him confidently as a “dependance,” saw + him among the future elders and office-bearers of the congregation, a man + who would be punctual with his pew-rent, sage in his judgements, and whose + views upon church attendance would be extended to his family. + </p> + <p> + So the two came, contemporaries, to add their labour and their lives to + the building of this little outpost of Empire. It was the frankest + transfer, without thought of return; they were there to spend and be spent + within the circumference of the spot they had chosen, with no ambition + beyond. In the course of nature, even their bones and their memories would + enter into the fabric. The new country filled their eyes; the new town was + their opportunity, its destiny their fate. They were altogether occupied + with its affairs, and the affairs of the growing Dominion, yet obscure in + the heart of each of them ran the undercurrent of the old allegiance. They + had gone the length of their tether, but the tether was always there. + Thus, before a congregation that always stood in the early days, had the + minister every Sunday morning for thirty years besought the Almighty, with + ardour and humility, on behalf of the Royal Family. It came in the long + prayer, about the middle. Not in the perfunctory words of a ritual, but in + the language of his choice, which varied according to what he believed to + be the spiritual needs of the reigning House, and was at one period, + touching certain of its members, though respectful, extremely candid. The + General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, “now in session,” also—was + it ever forgotten once? And even the Prime Minister, “and those who sit in + council with him,” with just a hint of extra commendation if it happened + to be Mr Gladstone. The minister of Knox Church, Elgin, Ontario, Canada, + kept his eye on them all. Remote as he was, and concerned with affairs of + which they could know little, his sphere of duty could never revolve too + far westward to embrace them, nor could his influence, under any + circumstances, cease to be at their disposal. It was noted by some that + after Mr Drummond had got his D.D. from an American University he also + prayed occasionally for the President of the neighbouring republic; but + this was rebutted by others, who pointed out that it happened only on the + occurrence of assassinations, and held it reasonable enough. The cavillers + mostly belonged to the congregation of St Andrew’s, “Established”—a + glum, old-fashioned lot indeed—who now and then dropped in of a + Sunday evening to hear Mr Drummond preach. (There wasn’t much to be said + for the preaching at St Andrew’s.) The Established folk went on calling + the minister of Knox Church “Mr” Drummond long after he was “Doctor” to + his own congregation, on account of what they chose to consider the + dubious source of the dignity; but the Knox Church people had their own + theory to explain this hypercriticism, and would promptly turn the + conversation to the merits of the sermon. + </p> + <p> + Twenty-five years it was, in point, this Monday morning when the Doctor—not + being Established we need not hesitate, besides by this time nobody did—stood + with Mr Murchison in the store door and talked about having seen changes. + He had preached his anniversary sermon the night before to a full church + when, laying his hand upon his people’s heart, he had himself to repress + tears. He was aware of another strand completed in their mutual bond: the + sermon had been a moral, an emotional, and an oratorical success; and in + the expansion of the following morning Dr Drummond had remembered that he + had promised his housekeeper a new gas cooking-range, and that it was high + time he should drop into Murchison’s to inquire about it. Mrs Forsyth had + mentioned at breakfast that they had ranges with exactly the improvement + she wanted at Thompson’s, but the minister was deaf to the hint. Thompson + was a Congregationalist and, improvement or no improvement, it wasn’t + likely that Dr Drummond was going “outside the congregation” for anything + he required. It would have been on a par with a wandering tendency in his + flock, upon which he systematically frowned. He was as great an autocrat + in this as the rector of any country parish in England undermined by + Dissent; but his sense of obligation worked unfailingly both ways. + </p> + <p> + John Murchison had not said much about the sermon; it wasn’t his way, and + Dr Drummond knew it. “You gave us a good sermon last night, Doctor”; not + much more than that, and “I noticed the Milburns there; we don’t often get + Episcopalians”; and again, “The Wilcoxes”—Thomas Wilcox, wholesale + grocer, was the chief prop of St Andrew’s—“were sitting just in + front of us. We overtook them going home, and Wilcox explained how much + they liked the music. ‘Glad to see you,’ I said. ‘Glad to see you for any + reason,’” Mr Murchison’s eye twinkled. “But they had a great deal to say + about ‘the music.’” It was not an effusive form of felicitation; the + minister would have liked it less if it had been, felt less justified, + perhaps, in remembering about the range on that particular morning. As it + was, he was able to take it with perfect dignity and good humour, and to + enjoy the point against the Wilcoxes with that laugh of his that did + everybody good to hear; so hearty it was, so rich in the grain of the + voice, so full of the zest and flavour of the joke. The range had been + selected, and their talk of changes had begun with it, Mr Murchison + pointing out the new idea in the boiler and Dr Drummond remembering his + first kitchen stove that burned wood and stood on its four legs, with + nothing behind but the stove pipe, and if you wanted a boiler you took off + the front lids and put it on, and how remarkable even that had seemed to + his eyes, fresh from the conservative kitchen notions of the old country. + He had come, unhappily, a widower to the domestic improvements on the + other side of the Atlantic. “Often I used to think,” he said to Mr + Murchison, “if my poor wife could have seen that stove how delighted she + would have been! But I doubt this would have been too much for her + altogether!” + </p> + <p> + “That stove!” answered Mr Murchison. “Well I remember it. I sold it myself + to your predecessor, Mr Wishart, for thirty dollars—the last + purchase he ever made, poor man. It was great business for me—I had + only two others in the store like it. One of them old Milburn bought—the + father of this man, d’ye mind him?—the other stayed by me a matter + of seven years. I carried a light stock in those days.” + </p> + <p> + It was no longer a light stock. The two men involuntarily glanced round + them for the satisfaction of the contrast Murchison evoked, though neither + of them, from motives of vague delicacy, felt inclined to dwell upon it. + John Murchison had the shyness of an artist in his commercial success, and + the minister possibly felt that his relation toward the prosperity of a + member had in some degree the embarrassment of a tax-gatherer’s. The stock + was indeed heavy now. You had to go upstairs to see the ranges, where they + stood in rows, and every one of them bore somewhere upon it, in raised + black letters, John Murchison’s name. Through the windows came the + iterating ring on the iron from the foundry in Chestnut Street which fed + the shop, with an overflow that found its way from one end of the country + to the other. Finicking visitors to Elgin found this wearing, but to John + Murchison it was the music that honours the conqueror of circumstances. + The ground floor was given up to the small wares of the business, chiefly + imported; two or three young men, steady and knowledgeable-looking, moved + about in their shirt sleeves among shelves and packing-cases. One of them + was our friend Alec; our other friend Oliver looked after the books at the + foundry. Their father did everything deliberately; but presently, in his + own good time, his commercial letter paper would be headed, with regard to + these two, “John Murchison and Sons.” It had long announced that the + business was “Wholesale and Retail.” + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison, considering the changes in Elgin from the + store door, did it at their leisure, the merchant with his thumbs thrust + comfortably in the armholes of his waistcoat, the minister, with that + familiar trick of his, balancing on one foot and suddenly throwing his + slight weight forward on the other. “A bundle of nerves,” people called + the Doctor: to stand still would have been a penance to him; even as he + swayed backward and forward in talking, his hand must be busy at the seals + on his watch chain and his shrewd glance travelling over a dozen things + you would never dream so clever a man would take notice of. It was a + prospect of moderate commercial activity they looked out upon, a street of + mellow shopfronts on both sides, of varying height and importance, wearing + that air of marking a period, a definite stop in growth, that so often + coexists with quite a reasonable degree of activity and independence in + colonial towns. One could almost say, standing there in the door at + Murchison’s, where the line of legitimate enterprise had been overpassed + and where its intention had been none too sanguine—on the one hand + in the faded, and pretentious red brick building with the false third + storey, occupied by Cleary which must have been let at a loss to dry-goods + or anything else; on the other hand in the solid “Gregory block,” opposite + the market, where rents were as certain as the dividends of the Bank of + British North America. + </p> + <p> + Main Street expressed the idea that, for the purpose of growing and doing + business, it had always found the days long enough. Drays passed through + it to the Grand Trunk station, but they passed one at a time; a certain + number of people went up and down about their affairs, but they were never + in a hurry; a street car jogged by every ten minutes or so, but nobody ran + after it. There was a decent procedure; and it was felt that Bofield—he + was dry-goods, too—in putting in an elevator was just a little + unnecessarily in advance of the times. Bofield had only two storeys, like + everybody else, and a very easy staircase, up which people often declared + they preferred to walk rather than wait in the elevator for a young man to + finish serving and work it. These, of course, were the sophisticated + people of Elgin; countryfolk, on a market day, would wait a quarter of an + hour for the young man and think nothing of it; and I imagine Bofield + found his account in the elevator, though he did complain sometimes that + such persons went up and down on frivolous pretexts or to amuse the baby. + As a matter of fact, Elgin had begun as the centre of “trading” for the + farmers of Fox County, and had soon over-supplied that limit in demand; so + that when other interests added themselves to the activity of the town + there was still plenty of room for the business they brought. Main Street + was really, therefore, not a fair index; nobody in Elgin would have + admitted it. Its appearance and demeanour would never have suggested that + it was now the chief artery of a thriving manufacturing town, with a + collegiate institute, eleven churches, two newspapers, and an asylum for + the deaf and dumb, to say nothing of a fire department unsurpassed for + organization and achievement in the Province of Ontario. Only at twelve + noon it might be partly realized when the prolonged “toots” of seven + factory whistles at once let off, so to speak, the hour. Elgin liked the + demonstration; it was held to be cheerful and unmistakable, an indication + of “go-ahead” proclivities which spoke for itself. It occurred while yet + Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door. + </p> + <p> + “I must be getting on,” said the minister, looking at his watch. “And what + news have you of Lorne?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he seems to have got through all right.” + </p> + <p> + “What—you’ve heard already, then?” + </p> + <p> + “He telegraphed from Toronto on Saturday night.” Mr Murchison stroked his + chin, the better to retain his satisfaction. “Waste of money—the + post would have brought it this morning—but it pleased his mother. + Yes, he’s through his Law Schools examination, and at the top, too, as far + as I can make out.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear me, and you never mentioned it!” Dr Drummond spoke with the resigned + impatience of a familiar grievance. It was certainly a trying + characteristic of John Murchison that he never cared about communicating + anything that might seem to ask for congratulation. “Well, well! I’m very + glad to hear it.” + </p> + <p> + “It slipped my mind,” said Mr Murchison. “Yes, he’s full-fledged + ‘barrister and solicitor’ now; he can plead your case or draw you up a + deed with the best of them. Lorne’s made a fair record, so far. We’ve no + reason to be ashamed of him.” + </p> + <p> + “That you have not.” Personal sentiments between these two Scotchmen were + indicated rather than indulged. “He’s going in with Fulke and Warner, I + suppose—you’ve got that fixed up?” + </p> + <p> + “Pretty well. Old man Warner was in this morning to talk it over. He says + they look to Lorne to bring them in touch with the new generation. It’s a + pity he lost that son of his.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a great pity. But since they had to go outside the firm they couldn’t + have done better; they couldn’t have done better. I hope Lorne will bring + them a bit of Knox Church business too; there’s no reason why Bob + Mackintosh should have it all. They’ll be glad to see him back at the + Hampden Debating Society. He’s a great light there, is Lorne; and the + Young Liberals, I hear are wanting him for chairman this year.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s some talk of it. But time enough—time enough for that! + He’ll do first-rate if he gets the law to practise, let alone the making + of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe so; he’s young yet. Well, good morning to you. I’ll just step over + the way to the Express office and get a proof out of them of that sermon + of mine. I noticed their reporter fellow—what’s his name?—Rawlins, + with his pencil out last night, and I’ve no faith in Rawlins.” + </p> + <p> + “Better cast an eye over it,” responded Mr Murchison cordially, and stood + for a moment or two longer in the door watching the crisp, significant + little figure of the minister as he stepped briskly over the crossing to + the newspaper office. There Dr Drummond sat down, before he explained his + errand, and wrote a paragraph. + </p> + <p> + “We are pleased to learn,” it ran “that Mr Lorne Murchison, eldest son of + Mr John Murchison, of this town, has passed at the capital of the Province + his final examination in Law, distinguishing himself by coming out at the + top of the list. It will be remembered that Mr Murchison, upon entering + the Law Schools, also carried off a valuable scholarship. We are glad to + be able to announce that Mr Murchison, Junior, will embark upon his + profession in his native town, where he will enter the well-known firm of + Fulke and Warner.” + </p> + <p> + The editor, Mr Horace Williams, had gone to dinner, and Rawlins was out so + Dr Drummond had to leave it with the press foreman. Mr Williams read it + appreciatively on his return, and sent it down with the following + addition: + </p> + <p> + “This is doing it as well as it can be done. Elgin congratulates Mr L. + Murchison upon having produced these results, and herself upon having + produced Mr L. Murchison.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + From the day she stepped into it Mrs Murchison knew that the Plummer Place + was going to be the bane of her existence. This may have been partly + because Mr Murchison had bought it, since a circumstance welded like that + into one’s life is very apt to assume the character of a bane, unless + one’s temperament leads one to philosophy, which Mrs Murchison’s didn’t. + But there were other reasons more difficult to traverse: it was plainly + true that the place did require a tremendous amount of “looking after,” as + such things were measured in Elgin, far more looking after than the + Murchisons could afford to give it. They could never have afforded, in the + beginning, to possess it had it not been sold, under mortgage, at a + dramatic sacrifice. The house was a dignified old affair, built of wood + and painted white, with wide green verandahs compassing the four sides of + it, as they often did in days when the builder had only to turn his hand + to the forest. It stood on the very edge of the town; wheatfields in the + summer billowed up to its fences, and corn-stacks in the autumn camped + around it like a besieging army. The plank sidewalk finished there; after + that you took the road or, if you were so inclined, the river, into which + you could throw a stone from the orchard of the Plummer Place. The house + stood roomily and shadily in ornamental grounds, with a lawn in front of + it and a shrubbery at each side, an orchard behind, and a vegetable + garden, the whole intersected by winding gravel walks, of which Mrs + Murchison was wont to say that a man might do nothing but weed them and + have his hands full. In the middle of the lawn was a fountain, an empty + basin with a plaster Triton, most difficult to keep looking respectable + and pathetic in his frayed air of exile from some garden of Italy sloping + to the sea. There was also a barn with stabling, a loft, and big carriage + doors opening on a lane to the street. The originating Plummer, Mrs + Murchison often said, must have been a person of large ideas, and she + hoped he had the money to live up to them. The Murchisons at one time kept + a cow in the barn, till a succession of “girls” left on account of the + milking, and the lane was useful as an approach to the backyard by the + teams that brought the cordwood in the winter. It was trying enough for a + person with the instinct of order to find herself surrounded by + out-of-door circumstances which she simply could not control but Mrs + Murchison often declared that she could put up with the grounds if it had + stopped there. It did not stop there. Though I was compelled to introduce + Mrs Murchison in the kitchen, she had a drawing-room in which she might + have received the Lieutenant-Governor, with French windows and a cut-glass + chandelier, and a library with an Italian marble mantelpiece. She had an + icehouse and a wine cellar, and a string of bells in the kitchen that + connected with every room in the house; it was a negligible misfortune + that not one of them was in order. She had far too much, as she declared, + for any one pair of hands and a growing family, and if the ceiling was not + dropping in the drawing-room, the cornice was cracked in the library or + the gas was leaking in the dining-room, or the verandah wanted reflooring + if anyone coming to the house was not to put his foot through it; and as + to the barn, if it was dropping to pieces it would just have to drop. The + barn was definitely outside the radius of possible amelioration—it + passed gradually, visibly, into decrepitude, and Mrs Murchison often + wished she could afford to pull it down. + </p> + <p> + It may be realized that in spite of its air of being impossible to + “overtake”—I must, in this connection, continue to quote its + mistress—there was an attractiveness about the dwelling of the + Murchisons the attractiveness of the large ideas upon which it had been + built and designed, no doubt by one of those gentlefolk of reduced income + who wander out to the colonies with a nebulous view to economy and + occupation, to perish of the readjustment. The case of such persons, when + they arrive, is at once felt to be pathetic; there is a tacit local + understanding that they have made a mistake. They may be entitled to + respect, but nothing can save them from the isolation of their difference + and their misapprehension. It was like that with the house. The house was + admired—without enthusiasm—but it was not copied. It was felt + to be outside the general need, misjudged, adventitious; and it wore its + superiority in the popular view like a folly. It was in Elgin, but not of + it: it represented a different tradition; and Elgin made the same + allowance for its bedroom bells and its old-fashioned dignities as was + conceded to its original master’s habit of a six-o’clock dinner, with + wine. + </p> + <p> + The architectural expression of the town was on a different scale, + beginning with “frame,” rising through the semidetached, culminating + expensively in Mansard roofs, cupolas and modern conveniences, and + blossoming, in extreme instances, into Moorish fretwork and silk portieres + for interior decoration. The Murchison house gained by force of contrast: + one felt, stepping into it, under influences of less expediency and more + dignity, wider scope and more leisured intention; its shabby spaces had a + redundancy the pleasanter and its yellow plaster cornices a charm the + greater for the numerous close-set examples of contemporary taste in red + brick which made, surrounded by geranium beds, so creditable an appearance + in the West Ward. John Murchison in taking possession of the house had + felt in it these satisfactions, had been definitely penetrated and soothed + by them, the more perhaps because he brought to them a capacity for + feeling the worthier things of life which circumstances had not previously + developed. He seized the place with a sense of opportunity leaping sharp + and conscious out of early years in the grey “wynds” of a northern + Scottish town; and its personality sustained him, very privately but none + the less effectively, through the worry and expense of it for years. He + would take his pipe and walk silently for long together about the untidy + shrubberies in the evening, for the acute pleasure of seeing the big horse + chestnuts in flower; and he never opened the hall door without a feeling + of gratification in its weight as it swung under his hand. In so far as he + could, he supplemented the idiosyncrasies he found. The drawing-room + walls, though mostly bare in their old-fashioned French paper—lavender + and gilt, a grape-vine pattern—held a few good engravings; the + library was reduced to contain a single bookcase, but it was filled with + English classics. John Murchison had been made a careful man, not by + nature, by the discipline of circumstances; but he would buy books. He + bought them between long periods of abstinence, during which he would + scout the expenditure of an unnecessary dollar, coming home with a parcel + under his arm for which he vouchsafed no explanation, and which would + disclose itself to be Lockhart, or Sterne, or Borrow, or Defoe. Mrs + Murchison kept a discouraging eye upon such purchases; and when her + husband brought home Chambers’s Dictionary of English Literature, after + shortly and definitely repulsing her demand that he should get himself a + new winter overcoat, she declared that it was beyond all endurance. Mrs + Murchison was surrounded, indeed, by more of “that sort of thing” than she + could find use or excuse for; since, though books made but a sporadic + appearance, current literature, daily, weekly, and monthly, was + perpetually under her feet. The Toronto paper came as a matter of course, + as the London daily takes its morning flight into the provinces, the local + organ as simply indispensable, the Westminster as the corollary of church + membership and for Sunday reading. These were constant, but there were + also mutables—Once a Week, Good Words for the Young, Blackwood’s, + and the Cornhill they used to be; years of back numbers Mrs Murchison had + packed away in the attic, where Advena on rainy days came into the + inheritance of them, and made an early acquaintance with fiction in Ready + Money Mortiboy and Verner’s Pride, while Lorne, flat on his stomach beside + her, had glorious hours on The Back of the North Wind. Their father + considered such publications and their successors essential, like tobacco + and tea. He was also an easy prey to the subscription agent, for works + published in parts and paid for in instalments, a custom which Mrs + Murchison regarded with abhorrence. So much so that when John put his name + down for Masterpieces of the World’s Art, which was to cost twenty dollars + by the time it was complete, he thought it advisable to let the numbers + accumulate at the store. + </p> + <p> + Whatever the place represented to their parents, it was pure joy to the + young Murchisons. It offered a margin and a mystery to life. They saw it + far larger than it was; they invested it, arguing purely by its difference + from other habitations, with a romantic past. “I guess when the Prince of + Wales came to Elgin, Mother, he stayed here,” Lorne remarked, as a little + boy. Secretly he and Advena took up boards in more than one unused room, + and rapped on more than one thick wall to find a hollow chamber; the house + revealed so much that was interesting, it was apparent to the meanest + understanding that it must hide even more. It was never half lighted, and + there was a passage in which fear dwelt—wild were the gallopades + from attic to cellar in the early nightfall, when every young Murchison + tore after every other, possessed, like cats, by a demoniac ecstasy of the + gloaming. And the garden, with the autumn moon coming over the apple trees + and the neglected asparagus thick for ambush, and a casual untrimmed boy + or two with the delicious recommendation of being utterly without + credentials, to join in the rout and be trusted to make for the back fence + without further hint at the voice of Mrs Murchison—these were joys + of the very fibre, things to push ideas and envisage life with an + attraction that made it worth while to grow up. + </p> + <p> + And they had all achieved it—all six. They had grown up sturdily, + emerging into sobriety and decorum by much the same degrees as the old + house, under John Murchison’s improving fortunes, grew cared for and + presentable. The new roof went on, slate replacing shingles, the year Abby + put her hair up; the bathroom was contemporary with Oliver’s leaving + school; the electric light was actually turned on for the first time in + honour of Lorne’s return from Toronto, a barrister and solicitor; several + rooms had been done up for Abby’s wedding. Abby had married, early and + satisfactorily, Dr Harry Johnson, who had placidly settled down to await + the gradual succession of his father’s practice; “Dr Harry and Dr Henry” + they were called. Dr Harry lived next door to Dr Henry, and had a good + deal of the old man’s popular manner. It was an unacknowledged + partnership, which often provided two opinions for the same price; the + town prophesied well of it. That left only five at home, but they always + had Abby over in the West Ward, where Abby’s housekeeping made an interest + and Abby’s baby a point of pilgrimage. These considerations almost + consoled Mrs Murchison declaring, as she did, that all of them might have + gone but Abby, who alone knew how to be “any comfort or any dependence” in + the house; who could be left with a day’s preserving; and I tell you that + to be left by Mrs Murchison with a day’s preserving, be it cherries or + strawberries, damsons or pears, was a mark of confidence not easy to + obtain. Advena never had it; Advena, indeed, might have married and + removed no prop of the family economy. Mrs Murchison would have been + “sorry for the man”—she maintained a candour toward and about those + belonging to her that permitted no illusions—but she would have + stood cheerfully out of the way on her own account. When you have seen + your daughter reach and pass the age of twenty-five without having learned + properly to make her own bed, you know without being told that she will + never be fit for the management of a house—don’t you? Very well + then. And for ever and for ever, no matter what there was to do, with a + book in her hand—Mrs Murchison would put an emphasis on the “book” + which scarcely concealed a contempt for such absorption. And if, at the + end of your patience, you told her for any sake to put it down and attend + to matters, obeying in a kind of dream that generally drove you to take + the thing out of her hands and do it yourself, rather than jump out of + your skin watching her. + </p> + <p> + Sincerely Mrs Murchison would have been sorry for the man if he had + arrived, but he had not arrived. Advena justified her existence by taking + the university course for women at Toronto, and afterward teaching the + English branches to the junior forms in the Collegiate Institute, which + placed her arbitrarily outside the sphere of domestic criticism. Mrs + Murchison was thankful to have her there—outside—where little + more could reasonably be expected of her than that she should be down in + time for breakfast. It is so irritating to be justified in expecting more + than seems likely to come. Mrs Murchison’s ideas circulated strictly in + the orbit of equity and reason; she expected nothing from anybody that she + did not expect from herself; indeed, she would spare others in far larger + proportion. But the sense of obligation which led her to offer herself up + to the last volt of her energy made her miserable when she considered that + she was not fairly done by in return. Pressed down and running over were + the services she offered to the general good, and it was on the ground of + the merest justice that she required from her daughters “some sort of + interest” in domestic affairs. From her eldest she got no sort of + interest, and it was like the removal of a grievance from the hearth when + Advena took up employment which ranged her definitely beyond the necessity + of being of any earthly use in the house. Advena’s occupation to some + extent absorbed her shortcomings, which was much better than having to + attribute them to her being naturally “through-other,” or naturally + clever, according to the bias of the moment. Mrs Murchison no longer + excused or complained of her daughter; but she still pitied the man. + </p> + <p> + “The boys,” of course, were too young to think of matrimony. They were + still the boys, the Murchison boys; they would be the boys at forty if + they remained under their father’s roof. In the mother country, men in + short jackets and round collars emerge from the preparatory schools; in + the daughter lands boys in tailcoats conduct serious affairs. Alec and + Oliver, in the business, were frivolous enough as to the feminine + interest. For all Dr Drummond’s expressed and widely known views upon the + subject, it was a common thing for one or both of these young men to stray + from the family pew on Sunday evenings to the services of other + communions, thereafter to walk home in the dusk under the maples with some + attractive young person, and be sedately invited to finish the evening on + her father’s verandah. Neither of them was guiltless of silk ties knitted + or handkerchiefs initialled by certain fingers; without repeating scandal, + one might say by various fingers. For while the ultimate import of these + matters was not denied in Elgin, there was a general feeling against + giving too much meaning to them, probably originating in a reluctance + among heads of families to add to their responsibilities. These early + spring indications were belittled and laughed at; so much so that the + young people them selves hardly took them seriously, but regarded them as + a form of amusement almost conventional. Nothing would have surprised or + embarrassed them more than to learn that their predilections had an + imperative corollary, that anything should, of necessity, “come of it.” + Something, of course, occasionally did come of it; and, usually after + years of “attention,” a young man of Elgin found himself mated to a young + woman, but never under circumstances that could be called precipitate or + rash. The cautious blood and far sight of the early settlers, who had much + to reckon with, were still preponderant social characteristics of the town + they cleared the site for. Meanwhile, however, flowers were gathered, and + all sorts of evanescent idylls came and went in the relations of young men + and maidens. Alec and Oliver Murchison were already in the full tide of + them. + </p> + <p> + From this point of view they did not know what to make of Lorne. It was + not as if their brother were in any way ill calculated to attract that + interest which gave to youthful existence in Elgin almost the only flavour + that it had. Looks are looks, and Lorne had plenty of them; taller by an + inch than Alec, broader by two than Oliver, with a fine square head and + blue eyes in it, and features which conveyed purpose and humour, lighted + by a certain simplicity of soul that pleased even when it was not + understood. “Open,” people said he was, and “frank”—so he was, frank + and open, with horizons and intentions; you could see them in his face. + Perhaps it was more conscious of them than he was. Ambition, definitely + shining goals, adorn the perspectives of young men in new countries less + often than is commonly supposed. Lorne meant to be a good lawyer, squarely + proposed to himself that the country should hold no better; and as to more + selective usefulness, he hoped to do a little stumping for the right side + when Frank Jennings ran for the Ontario House in the fall. It wouldn’t be + his first electioneering: from the day he became chairman of the Young + Liberals the party had an eye on him, and when occasion arose, winter or + summer, by bobsleigh or buggy, weatherbeaten local bosses would convey him + to country schoolhouses for miles about to keep a district sound on + railway policy, or education, or tariff reform. He came home smiling with + the triumphs of these occasions, and offered them, with the slow, + good-humoured, capable drawl that inspired such confidence in him, to his + family at breakfast, who said “Great!” or “Good for you, Lorne!” John + Murchison oftenest said nothing, but would glance significantly at his + wife, frowning and pursing his lips when she, who had most spirit of them + all, would exclaim, “You’ll be Premier yet, Lorne!” It was no part of the + Murchison policy to draw against future balances: they might believe + everything, they would express nothing; and I doubt whether Lorne himself + had any map of the country he meant to travel over in that vague future, + already defining in local approbation, and law business coming freely in + with a special eye on the junior partner. But the tract was there, + subconscious, plain in the wider glance, the alerter manner; plain even in + the grasp and stride which marked him in a crowd; plain, too, in the + preoccupation with other issues, were it only turning over a leader in the + morning’s Dominion, that carried him along indifferent to the allurements + I have described. The family had a bond of union in their respect for + Lorne, and this absence of nugatory inclinations in him was among its + elements. Even Stella who, being just fourteen, was the natural mouthpiece + of family sentiment, would declare that Lorne had something better to do + than go hanging about after girls, and for her part she thought all the + more of him for it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + “I am requested to announce,” said Dr Drummond after the singing of the + last hymn, “the death, yesterday morning, of James Archibald Ramsay, for + fifteen years an adherent and for twenty-five years a member of this + church. The funeral will take place from the residence of the deceased, on + Court House Street, tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock. Friends and + acquaintances are respectfully—invited—to attend.” + </p> + <p> + The minister’s voice changed with the character of its affairs. Still + vibrating with the delivery of his sermon, it was now charged with the + official business of the interment. In its inflections it expressed both + elegy and eulogy; and in the brief pause before and after “invited” and + the fall of “attend” there was the last word of comment upon the mortal + term. A crispation of interest passed over the congregation; every chin + was raised. Dr Drummond’s voice had a wonderful claiming power, but he + often said he wished his congregation would pay as undivided attention to + the sermon as they did to the announcements. + </p> + <p> + “The usual weekly prayer meeting will be held in the basement of the + church on Wednesday evening.” Then almost in a tone of colloquy, and with + just a hint of satire about his long upper lip— + </p> + <p> + “I should be glad to see a better attendance of the young people at these + gatherings. Time was when the prayer meeting counted among our young men + and women as an occasion not to be lightly passed over. In these days it + would seem that there is too much business to be done, or too much + pleasure to be enjoyed, for the oncoming generation to remember their + weekly engagement with the Lord. This is not as it should be; and I rely + upon the fathers and mothers of this congregation, who brought these + children in their arms to the baptismal font, there to be admitted to the + good hopes and great privileges of the Church of God—I rely upon + them to see that there shall be no departure from the good old rule, and + that time is found for the weekly prayer meeting.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs Murchison nudged Stella, who returned the attention, looking + elaborately uninterested, with her foot. Alec and Oliver smiled + consciously; their father, with an expression of severe gravity, backed up + the minister who, after an instant’s pause, continued— + </p> + <p> + “On Tuesday afternoon next, God willing, I shall visit the following + families in the East Ward—Mr Peterson, Mr Macormack, Mrs Samuel + Smith, and Mr John Flint. On Thursday afternoon in the South Ward, Mrs + Reid, Mr P. C. Cameron, and Mr Murchison. We will close by singing the + Third Doxology: Blessed, blessed be Jehovah, Israel’s God to all eternity—” + </p> + <p> + The congregation trooped out; the Murchisons walked home in a clan, Mr and + Mrs Murchison, with Stella skirting the edge of the sidewalk beside them, + the two young men behind. Abby, when she married Harry, had “gone over” to + the Church of England. The wife must worship with the husband; even Dr + Drummond recognized the necessity, though he professed small opinion of + the sway of the spouse who, with Presbyterian traditions behind her, could + not achieve union the other way about; and Abby’s sanctioned defection was + a matter of rather shame-faced reference by her family. Advena and Lorne + had fallen into the degenerate modern habit of preferring the evening + service. + </p> + <p> + “So we’re to have the Doctor on Thursday,” said Mrs Murchison, plainly not + displeased. “Well, I hope the dining-room carpet will be down.” + </p> + <p> + “I expect he’ll be wanting his tea,” replied Mr Murchison. “He’s got you + in the right place on the list for that, Mother—as usual.” + </p> + <p> + “I’d just like to see him go anywhere else for his tea the day he was + coming to our house,” declared Stella. “But he GENERALLY has too much + sense.” + </p> + <p> + “You boys,” said Mrs Murchison, turning back to her sons, “will see that + you’re on hand that evening. And I hope the Doctor will rub it in about + the prayer meeting.” Mrs Murchison chuckled. “I saw it went home to both + of you, and well it might. Yes, I think I may as well expect him to tea. + He enjoys my scalloped oysters, if I do say it myself.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll get Abby over,” said Mr Murchison. “That’ll please the Doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “I must say,” remarked Stella, “he seems to think a lot more of Abby now + that she’s Mrs Episcopal Johnson.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Abby and Harry must come,” said Mrs Murchison, “and I was thinking + of inviting Mr and Mrs Horace Williams. We’ve been there till I’m ashamed + to look them in the face. And I’ve pretty well decided,” she added + autocratically, “to have chicken salad. So if Dr Drummond has made up his + mouth for scalloped oysters he’ll be disappointed.” + </p> + <p> + “Mother,” announced Stella, “I’m perfectly certain you’ll have both.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll consider it,” replied her mother. “Meanwhile we would be better + employed in thinking of what we have been hearing. That’s the third sermon + from the Book of Job in six weeks. I must say, with the whole of the two + Testaments to select from, I don’t see why the Doctor should be so taken + up with Job.” + </p> + <p> + Stella was vindicated; Mrs Murchison did have both. The chicken salad + gleamed at one end of the table and the scalloped oysters smoked delicious + at the other. Lorne had charge of the cold tongue and Advena was entrusted + with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were expected to think + about the tea biscuits and the cake, for Lobelia had never yet had a + successor that was any hand with company. Mrs Murchison had enough to do + to pour out the tea. It was a table to do anybody credit, with its glossy + damask and the old-fashioned silver and best china that Mrs Murchison had + brought as a bride to her housekeeping—for, thank goodness, her + mother had known what was what in such matters—a generous attractive + table that you took some satisfaction in looking at. Mrs Murchison came of + a family of noted housekeepers; where she got her charm I don’t know. + Six-o’clock tea, and that the last meal in the day, was the rule in Elgin, + and a good enough rule for Mrs Murchison, who had no patience with the + innovation of a late dinner recently adopted by some people who could keep + neither their servants nor their digestions in consequence. It had been a + crisp October day; as Mr Murchison remarked, the fall evenings were + beginning to draw in early; everybody was glad of the fire in the grate + and the closed curtains. Dr Drummond had come about five, and the + inquiries and comments upon family matters that the occasion made + incumbent had been briskly exchanged, with just the word that marked the + pastoral visit and the practical interest that relieved it. And he had + thought, on the whole, that he might manage to stay to tea, at which Mrs + Murchison’s eyes twinkled as she said affectionately— + </p> + <p> + “Now, Doctor, you know we could never let you off.” + </p> + <p> + Then Abby had arrived and her husband, and finally Mr and Mrs Williams, + just a trifle late for etiquette, but well knowing that it mustn’t be + enough to spoil the biscuits. Dr Drummond in the place of honour, had + asked the blessing, and that brief reminder of the semiofficial character + of the occasion having been delivered, was in the best of humours. The + Murchisons were not far wrong in the happy divination that he liked coming + to their house. Its atmosphere appealed to him; he expanded in its humour, + its irregularity, its sense of temperament. They were doubtful + allurements, from the point of view of a minister of the Gospel, but it + would not occur to Dr Drummond to analyse them. So far as he was aware, + John Murchison was just a decent, prosperous, Christian man, on whose word + and will you might depend, and Mrs Murchison a stirring, independent + little woman, who could be very good company when she felt inclined. As to + their sons and daughters, in so far as they were a credit, he was as proud + of them as their parents could possibly be, regarding himself as in a much + higher degree responsible for the formation of their characters and the + promise of their talents. And indeed, since every one of them had “sat + under” Dr Drummond from the day he or she was capable of sitting under + anybody, Mr and Mrs Murchison would have been the last to dispute this. It + was not one of those houses where a pastor could always be sure of leaving + some spiritual benefit behind; but then he came away himself with a + pleasant sense of nervous stimulus which was apt to take his mind off the + matter. It is not given to all of us to receive or to extend the communion + of the saints; Mr and Mrs Murchison were indubitably of the elect, but he + was singularly close-mouthed about it, and she had an extraordinary way of + seeing the humorous side—altogether it was paralysing, and the + conversation would wonderfully soon slip round to some robust secular + subject, public or domestic. I have mentioned Dr Drummond’s long upper + lip; all sorts of racial virtues resided there, but his mouth was also + wide and much frequented by a critical, humorous, philosophical smile + which revealed a view of life at once kindly and trenchant. His shrewd + grey eyes were encased in wrinkles, and when he laughed his hearty laugh + they almost disappeared in a merry line. He had a fund of Scotch stories, + and one or two he was very fond of, at the expense of the Methodists, that + were known up and down the Dominion, and nobody enjoyed them more than he + did himself. He had once worn his hair in a high curl on his scholarly + forehead, and a silvering tuft remained brushed upright; he took the + old-fashioned precaution of putting cotton wool in his ears, which gave + him more than ever the look of something highly concentrated and conserved + but in no way detracted from his dignity. St Andrew’s folk accused him of + vanity because of the diamond he wore on his little finger. He was by no + means handsome, but he was intensely individual; perhaps he had vanity; + his people would have forgiven him worse things. And at Mrs Murchison’s + tea party he was certainly, as John Murchison afterward said, “in fine + feather.” + </p> + <p> + An absorbing topic held them, a local topic, a topic involving loss and + crime and reprisals. The Federal Bank had sustained a robbery of five + thousand dollars, and in the course of a few days had placed their cashier + under arrest for suspected complicity. Their cashier was Walter Ormiston, + the only son of old Squire Ormiston, of Moneida Reservation, ten miles out + of Elgin, who had administered the affairs of the Indians there for more + years than the Federal Bank had existed. Mr Williams brought the latest + news, as was to be expected; news flowed in rivulets to Mr Williams all + day long; he paid for it, dealt in it, could spread or suppress it. + </p> + <p> + “They’ve admitted the bail,” Mr Williams announced, with an air of + self-surveillance. Rawlins had brought the intelligence in too late for + the current issue, and Mr Williams was divided between his human desire to + communicate and his journalistic sense that the item would be the main + feature of the next afternoon’s Express. + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad of that. I’m glad of that,” repeated Dr Drummond. “Thank you, + Mrs Murchison, I’ll send my cup. And did you learn, Williams, for what + amount?” + </p> + <p> + Mr Williams ran his hand through his hair in the effort to remember, and + decided that he might as well let it all go. The Mercury couldn’t fail to + get it by tomorrow anyhow. + </p> + <p> + “Three thousand,” he said. “Milburn and Dr Henry Johnson.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought Father was bound to be in it,” remarked Dr Harry. + </p> + <p> + “Half and half?” asked John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “No,” contributed Mrs Williams. “Mr Milburn two and Dr Henry one. Mr + Milburn is Walter’s uncle, you know.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Williams fastened an outraged glance on his wife, who looked another + way. Whatever he thought proper to do, it was absolutely understood that + she was to reveal nothing of what “came in,” and was even carefully to + conserve anything she heard outside with a view to bringing it in. Mrs + Williams was too prone to indiscretion in the matter of letting news slip + prematurely; and as to its capture, her husband would often confess, with + private humour, that Minnie wasn’t much of a mouser. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that’s something to be thankful for,” said Mrs Murchison. “I lay + awake for two hours last night thinking of that boy in jail, and his poor + old father, seventy-nine years of age, and such a fine old man, so + thoroughly respected.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know the young fellow,” said Dr Drummond, “but they say he’s of + good character, not over-solid, but bears a clean reputation. They’re all + Tories together, of course, the Ormistons.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s an old U. E. Loyalist family,” remarked Advena. “Mr Ormiston has one + or two rather interesting Revolutionary trophies at his house out there.” + </p> + <p> + “None the worse for that. None the worse for that,” said Dr Drummond. + </p> + <p> + “Old Ormiston’s father,” contributed the editor of the Express, “had a + Crown grant of the whole of Moneida Reservation at one time. Government + actually bought it back from him to settle the Indians there. He was a + well-known Family Compact man, and fought tooth and nail for the Clergy + Reserves in ‘fifty.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, well,” said Dr Drummond, with a twinkle. “We’ll hope young Ormiston + is innocent, nevertheless.” + </p> + <p> + “Nasty business for the Federal Bank if he is,” Mr Williams went on. + “They’re a pretty unpopular bunch as it is.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course he’s innocent,” contributed Stella, with indignant eyes; “and + when they prove it, what can he do to the bank for taking him up? That’s + what I want to know.” + </p> + <p> + Her elders smiled indulgently. “A lot you know about it, kiddie,” said + Oliver. It was the only remark he made during the meal. Alec passed the + butter assiduously, but said nothing at all. Adolescence was inarticulate + in Elgin on occasions of ceremony. + </p> + <p> + “I hear they’ve piled up some big evidence,” said Mr Williams. “Young + Ormiston’s been fool enough to do some race-betting lately. Minnie, I wish + you’d get Mrs Murchison to show you how to pickle pears. Of course,” he + added, “they’re keeping it up their sleeve.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a hard place to keep evidence,” said Lorne Murchison at last with a + smile which seemed to throw light on the matter. They had all been + waiting, more or less consciously, for what Lorne would have to say. + </p> + <p> + “Lorne, you’ve got it!” divined his mother instantly. + </p> + <p> + “Got what, Mother?” + </p> + <p> + “The case! I’ve suspected it from the minute the subject was mentioned! + That case came in today!” + </p> + <p> + “And you sitting there like a bump on a log, and never telling us!” + exclaimed Stella, with reproach. + </p> + <p> + “Stella, you have a great deal too much to say,” replied her brother. + “Suppose you try sitting like a bump on a log. We won’t complain. Yes, the + Squire seems to have made up his mind about the defence, and my seniors + haven’t done much else today.” + </p> + <p> + “Rawlins saw him hitched up in front of your place for about two hours + this morning,” said Mr Williams. “I told him I thought that was good + enough, but we didn’t say anything, Rawlins having heard it was to be + Flynn from Toronto. And I hadn’t forgotten the Grand Trunk case we put + down to you last week without exactly askin’. Your old man was as mad as a + hornet—wanted to stop his subscription; Rawlins had no end of a time + to get round him. Little things like that will creep in when you’ve got to + trust to one man to run the whole local show. But I didn’t want the + Mercury to have another horse on us.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you’ll get a look in, Lorne?” asked Dr Harry. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not a chance of it. The old man’s as keen as a razor on the case, and + you’d think Warner never had one before! If I get a bit of grubbing to do, + under supervision, they’ll consider I ought to be pleased.” It was the + sunniest possible tone of grumbling; it enlisted your sympathy by its very + acknowledgement that it had not a leg to stand on. + </p> + <p> + “They’re pretty wild about it out Moneida way,” said Dr Harry. “My father + says the township would put down the bail three times over.” + </p> + <p> + “They swear by the Squire out there,” said Mr Horace Williams, liberally + applying his napkin to his moustache. “He treated some of them more than + square when the fall wheat failed three years running, about ten years + back; do you remember, Mr Murchison? Lent them money at about half the + bank rate, and wasn’t in an awful sweat about getting it in at that + either.” + </p> + <p> + “And wasn’t there something about his rebuilding the school-house at his + own expense not so long ago?” asked Dr Drummond. + </p> + <p> + “Just what he did. I wanted to send Rawlins out and make a story of it—we’d + have given it a column, with full heads; but the old man didn’t like it. + It’s hard to know what some people will like. But it was my own + foolishness for asking. A thing like that is public property.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a good deal of feeling,” said Lorne. “So much that I understand + the bank is moving for change of venue.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope they won’t get it,” said Dr Drummond sharply. “A strong local + feeling is valuable evidence in a case like this. I don’t half approve + this notion that a community can’t manage its own justice when it happens + to take an interest in the case. I’ve no more acquaintance with the Squire + than ‘How d’ye do?’ and I don’t know his son from Adam; but I’d serve on + the jury tomorrow if the Crown asked it, and there’s many more like me.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Williams, who had made a brief note on his shirt cuff, restored his + pencil to his waistcoat pocket. “I shall oppose a change of venue,” said + he. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + It was confidently expected by the Murchison family that when Stella was + old enough she would be a good deal in society. Stella, without doubt, was + well equipped for society; she had exactly those qualities which appealed + to it in Elgin, among which I will mention two—the quality of being + able to suggest that she was quite as good as anybody without saying so, + and the even more important quality of not being any better. Other things + being equal—those common worldly standards that prevailed in Elgin + as well as anywhere else in their degree—other things being equal, + this second simple quality was perhaps the most important of all. Mr and + Mrs Murchison made no claim and small attempt upon society. One doubts + whether, with children coming fast and hard times long at the door, they + gave the subject much consideration; but if they did, it is highly + unlikely to have occurred to them that they were too good for their + environment. Yet in a manner they were. It was a matter of quality, of + spiritual and mental fabric; they were hardly aware that they had it, but + it marked them with a difference, and a difference is the one thing a + small community, accustomed comfortably to scan its own intelligible + averages, will not tolerate. The unusual may take on an exaggeration of + these; an excess of money, an excess of piety, is understood; but + idiosyncrasy susceptible to no common translation is regarded with the + hostility earned by the white crow, modified among law-abiding humans into + tacit repudiation. It is a sound enough social principle to distrust that + which is not understood, like the strain of temperament inarticulate but + vaguely manifest in the Murchisons. Such a strain may any day produce an + eccentric or a genius, emancipated from the common interests, possibly + inimical to the general good; and when, later on, your genius takes flight + or your eccentric sells all that he has and gives it to the poor, his + fellow townsmen exchange shrewd nods before the vindicating fact. + </p> + <p> + Nobody knew it at all in Elgin, but this was the Murchisons’ case. They + had produced nothing abnormal, but they had to prove that they weren’t + going to, and Stella was the last and most convincing demonstration. + Advena, bookish and unconventional, was regarded with dubiety. She was out + of the type; she had queer satisfactions and enthusiasms. Once as a little + girl she had taken a papoose from a drunken squaw and brought it home for + her mother to adopt. Mrs Murchison’s reception of the suggested duty may + be imagined, also the comments of acquaintances—a trick like that! + The inevitable hour arrived when she should be instructed on the piano, + and the second time the music teacher came her pupil was discovered on the + roof of the house, with the ladder drawn up after her. She did not wish to + learn the piano, and from that point of vantage informed her family that + it was a waste of money. She would hide in the hayloft with a novel; she + would be off by herself in a canoe at six o’clock in the morning; she + would go for walks in the rain of windy October twilights and be met + kicking the wet leaves along in front of her “in a dream.” No one could + dream with impunity in Elgin, except in bed. Mothers of daughters + sympathized in good set terms with Mrs Murchison. “If that girl were mine—” + they would say, and leave you with a stimulated notion of the value of + corporal punishment. When she took to passing examinations and teaching, + Elgin considered that her parents ought to be thankful in the probability + that she had escaped some dramatic end. But her occupation further removed + her from intercourse with the town’s more exclusive circles: she had taken + a definite line, and she pursued it, preoccupied. If she was a brand + snatched from the burning, she sent up a little curl of reflection in a + safe place, where she was not further interrupted. + </p> + <p> + Abby, inheriting all these prejudices, had nevertheless not done so badly; + she had taken no time at all to establish herself; she had almost + immediately married. In the social estimates of Elgin the Johnsons were + “nice people,” Dr Henry was a fine old figure in the town, and Abby’s + chances were good enough. At all events, when she opened her doors as a + bride, receiving for three afternoons in her wedding dress, everybody had + “called.” It was very distinctly understood, of course, that this was a + civility that need not lead to anything whatever, a kind of bowing + recognition, to be formally returned and quite possibly to end there. With + Abby, in a good many cases, it hadn’t ended there; she was doing very + well, and as she often said with private satisfaction, if she went out + anywhere she was just as likely as not to meet her brothers. Elgin + society, shaping itself, I suppose, to ultimate increase and prosperity, + had this peculiarity, that the females of a family, in general acceptance, + were apt to lag far behind the males. Alec and Oliver enjoyed a good deal + of popularity, and it was Stella’s boast that if Lorne didn’t go out much + it needn’t be supposed he wasn’t asked. It was an accepted state of things + in Elgin that young men might be invited without their sisters, implying + an imperturbability greater than London’s, since London may not be aware + of the existence of sisters, while Elgin knew all sorts of more + interesting things about them. The young men were more desirable than the + young women; they forged ahead, carrying the family fortunes, and the + “nicest” of them were the young men in the banks. Others might be more + substantial, but there was an allure about a young man in a bank as + difficult to define as to resist. To say of a certain party-giver that she + had “about every bank clerk in town” was to announce the success of her + entertainment in ultimate terms. These things are not always penetrable, + but no doubt his gentlemanly form of labour and its abridgement in the + afternoons, when other young men toiled on till the stroke of six, had + something to do with this apotheosis of the bank clerk, as well as his + invariable taste in tailoring, and the fact that some local family + influence was probably represented in his appointment. Privilege has + always its last little stronghold, and it still operates to admiration on + the office stools of minor finance in towns like Elgin. At all events, the + sprouting tellers and cashiers held unquestioned sway—young doctors + and lawyers simply didn’t think of competing; and since this sort of thing + carries its own penalty, the designation which they shared with so many + distinguished persons in history became a byword on the lips of envious + persons and small boys, by which they wished to express effeminacy and the + substantive of the “stuck-up.” “D’ye take me fur a bank clurk?” was a form + of repudiation among corner loafers as forcible as it was unjustifiable. + </p> + <p> + I seem to have embarked, by way of getting to the Milburns’ party—there + is a party at the Milburns’ and some of us are going—upon an + analysis of social principles in Elgin, an adventure of difficulty, as I + have once or twice hinted, but one from which I cannot well extricate + myself without at least leaving a clue or two more for the use of the + curious. No doubt these rules had their nucleus in the half-dozen + families, among whom we may count the shadowy Plummers, who took upon + themselves for Fox County, by the King’s pleasure, the administration of + justice, the practice of medicine and of the law, and the performance of + the charges of the Church of England a long time ago. Such persons would + bring their lines of demarcation with them, and in their new milieu of + backwoods settlers and small traders would find no difficulty in drawing + them again. But it was a very long time ago. The little knot of + gentry-folk soon found the limitations of their new conditions; years went + by in decades, aggrandizing none of them. They took, perforce, to the ways + of the country, and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody + dined late but the Judge. There came a time when the Sheriff’s whist club + and the Archdeacon’s port became a tradition to the oldest inhabitant. + Trade flourished, education improved, politics changed. Her Majesty + removed her troops—the Dominion wouldn’t pay, a poor-spirited + business—and a bulwark went with the regiment. The original + dignified group broke, dissolved, scattered. Prosperous traders foreclosed + them, the spirit of the times defeated them, young Liberals succeeded them + in office. Their grandsons married the daughters of well-to-do persons who + came from the north of Ireland, the east of Scotland, and the Lord knows + where. It was a sorry tale of disintegration with a cheerful sequel of + rebuilding, leading to a little unavoidable confusion as the edifice went + up. Any process of blending implies confusion to begin with; we are here + at the making of a nation. + </p> + <p> + This large consideration must dispose of small anomalies, such as the + acceptance, without cant, of certain forms of the shop, euphemized as the + store, but containing the same old vertebral counter. Not all forms. + Dry-goods were held in respect and chemists in comparative esteem; house + furnishings and hardware made an appreciable claim, and quite a leading + family was occupied with seed grains. Groceries, on the other hand, were + harder to swallow, possibly on account of the apron, though the grocer’s + apron, being of linen, had several degrees more consideration than the + shoemaker’s, which was of leather; smaller trades made smaller + pretensions; Mrs Milburn could tell you where to draw the line. They were + all hard-working folk together, but they had their little prejudices: the + dentist was known as “Doc,” but he was not considered quite on a medical + level; it was doubtful whether you bowed to the piano-tuner, and quite a + curious and unreasonable contempt was bound up in the word “veterinary.” + Anything “wholesale” or manufacturing stood, of course, on its own feet; + there was nothing ridiculous in molasses, nothing objectionable in a + tannery, nothing amusing in soap. Such airs and graces were far from + Elgin, too fundamentally occupied with the amount of capital invested, and + too profoundly aware how hard it was to come by. The valuable part of it + all was a certain bright freedom, and this was of the essence. Trade was a + decent communal way of making a living, rooted in independence and the + general need; it had none of the meaner aspects. Your bow was negligible + to the piano-tuner, and everything veterinary held up its head. And all + this again qualified, as everywhere, by the presence or absence of the + social faculty, that magnetic capacity for coming, as Mrs Murchison would + say, “to the fore,” which makes little of disadvantages that might seem + insuperable and, in default, renders null and void the most unquestionable + claims. Anyone would think of the Delarues. Mr Delarue had in the dim past + married his milliner, yet the Delarues were now very much indeed to the + fore. And, on the other hand, the Leverets of the saw mills, rich and + benevolent; the Leverets were not in society simply, if you analysed it, + because they did not appear to expect to be in it. Certainly it was well + not to be too modest; assuredly, as Mrs Murchison said, you put your own + ticket on, though that dear soul never marked herself in very plain + figures, not knowing, perhaps for one thing, quite how much she was worth. + On the other hand, “Scarce of company, welcome trumpery,” Mrs Murchison + always emphatically declared to be no part of her social philosophy. The + upshot was that the Murchisons were confined to a few old friends and + looked, as we know, half-humorously, half-ironically, for more brilliant + excursions, to Stella and “the boys.” + </p> + <p> + It was only, however, the pleasure of Mr Lorne Murchison’s company that + was requested at the Milburns’ dance. Almost alone among those who had + slipped into wider and more promiscuous circles with the widening of the + stream, the Milburns had made something like an effort to hold out. The + resisting power was not thought to reside in Mr Milburn, who was + personally aware of no special ground for it, but in Mrs Milburn and her + sister, Miss Filkin, who seemed to have inherited the strongest ideas. in + the phrase of the place, about keeping themselves to themselves. A strain + of this kind is sometimes constant, even so far from the fountainhead, + with its pleasing proof that such views were once the most general and the + most sacred defence of middle-class firesides, and that Thackeray had, + after all, a good deal to excuse him. Crossing the Atlantic they doubtless + suffered some dilution; but all that was possible to conserve them under + very adverse conditions Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin made it their duty to + do. Nor were these ideas opposed, contested, or much traversed in Elgin. + It was recognized that there was “something about” Mrs Milburn and her + sister—vaguely felt—that you did not come upon that thinness + of nostril, and slope of shoulder, and set of elbow at every corner. They + must have got it somewhere. A Filkin tradition prevailed, said to have + originated in Nova Scotia: the Filkins never had been accessible, but if + they wanted to keep to themselves, let them. In this respect Dora Milburn, + the only child, was said to be her mother’s own daughter. The shoulders, + at all events, testified to it; and the young lady had been taught to + speak, like Mrs Milburn, with what was known as an “English accent.” The + accent in general use in Elgin was borrowed—let us hope temporarily—from + the other side of the line. It suffered local modifications and + exaggerations, but it was clearly an American product. The English accent + was thoroughly affected, especially the broad “a.” The time may come when + Elgin will be at considerable pains to teach itself the broad “a,” but + that is in the embroidery of the future, and in no way modifies the + criticism of Dora Milburn. + </p> + <p> + Lorne Murchison, however, was invited to the dance. The invitation reached + him through the post: coming home from office early on Saturday he + produced it from his pocket. Mrs Murchison and Abby sat on the verandah + enjoying the Indian summer afternoon; the horse chestnuts dropped crashing + among the fallen leaves, the roadside maples blazed, the quiet streets ran + into smoky purple, and one belated robin hopped about the lawn. Mrs + Murchison had just remarked that she didn’t know why, at this time of + year, you always felt as if you were waiting for something. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I hope you feel honoured,” remarked Abby. Not one of them would + have thought that Lorne should feel especially honoured; but the + insincerity was so obvious that it didn’t matter. Mrs Murchison, cocking + her head to read the card, tried hard not to look pleased. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs Milburn. At Home,” she read. “Dancing. Well she might be at home + dancing, for all me! Why couldn’t she just write you a little friendly + note, or let Dora do it? It’s that Ormiston case,” she went on shrewdly. + “They know you’re taking a lot of trouble about it. And the least they + could do, too.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne sat down on the edge of the verandah with his hands in his trousers + pockets, and stuck his long legs out in front of him. “Oh, I don’t know,” + he said. “They have the name of being nifty, but I haven’t got anything + against the Milburns.” + </p> + <p> + “Name!” ejaculated Mrs Murchison. “Now long ago was it the Episcopalians + began that sewing-circle business for the destitute clergy of + Saskatchewan?” + </p> + <p> + “Mother!” put in Abby, with deprecation. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I won’t be certain about the clergy, but I tell you it had to do + with Saskatchewan, for that I remember! And anyhow, the first meeting was + held at the Milburns’—members lent their drawing-rooms. Well, Mrs + Leveret and Mrs Delarue went to the meeting—they were very thick + just then, the Leverets and the Delarues. They were so pleased to be going + that they got there about five minutes too soon, and they were the first + to come. Well, they rang the bell and in they went. The girl showed them + into the front drawing-room and asked them to sit down. And there in the + back drawing-room sat Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin, AND NEVER SPOKE TO + THEM! Took not the smallest notice, any more than if they had been stray + cats—not so much! Their own denomination, mind you, too! And there + they might have been sitting still if Mrs Leveret hadn’t had the spirit to + get up and march out. No thank you. No Milburns for me.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne watched his mother with twinkling eyes till she finished. + </p> + <p> + “Well, Mother, after that, if it was going to be a sewing circle I think + I’d send an excuse,” he said, “but maybe they won’t be so mean at a + dance.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + Octavius Milburn would not, I think, have objected to being considered, + with relation to his own line in life, a representative man. He would have + been wary to claim it, but if the stranger had arrived unaided at this + view of him, he would have been inclined to think well of the stranger’s + power of induction. That is what he was—a man of averages, balances, + the safe level, no more disposed to an extravagant opinion than to wear + one side whisker longer than the other. You would take him any day, + especially on Sunday in a silk hat, for the correct medium: by his careful + walk with the spring in it, his shrewd glance with the caution in it, his + look of being prepared to account for himself, categorically, from head to + foot. He was fond of explaining, in connection with an offer once made him + to embark his capital in Chicago, that he preferred a fair living under + his own flag to a fortune under the Stars and Stripes. There we have the + turn of his mind, convertible into the language of bookkeeping, a balance + struck, with the profit on the side of the flag, the patriotic equivalent + in good sound terms of dollars and cents. With this position understood, + he was prepared to take you up on any point of comparison between the + status and privileges of a subject and a citizen—the political + MORALE of a monarchy and a republic—the advantage of life on this + and the other side of the line. There was nothing he liked better to + expatiate upon, with that valuable proof of his own sincerity always at + hand for reference and illustration. His ideal was life in a practical, + go-ahead, self-governing colony, far enough from England actually to be + disabused of her inherited anachronisms and make your own tariff, near + enough politically to keep your securities up by virtue of her protection. + He was extremely satisfied with his own country; one saw in his talk the + phenomenon of patriotism in double bloom, flower within flower. I have + mentioned his side whiskers: he preserved that facial decoration of the + Prince Consort; and the large steel engraving that represents Queen + Victoria in a flowing habit and the Prince in a double-breasted frock coat + and a stock, on horseback, hung over the mantelpiece in his drawing-room. + If the outer patriotism was a little vague, the inner had vigour enough. + Canada was a great place. Mr Milburn had been born in the country, and had + never “gone over” to England; Canada was good enough for him. He was born, + one might say, in the manufacturing interest, and inherited the complacent + and Conservative political views of a tenderly nourished industry. Mr + Milburn was of those who were building up the country; with sufficient + protection he was prepared to go on doing it long and loyally; meanwhile + he admired the structure from all points of view. As President of the + Elgin Chamber of Commerce, he was enabled once a year to produce no end of + gratifying figures; he was fond of wearing on such occasions the national + emblem in a little enamelled maple leaf; and his portrait and biography + occupied a full page in a sumptuous work entitled Canadians of Today, sold + by subscription, where he was described as the “Father of the Elgin + Boiler.” + </p> + <p> + Mr and Mrs Milburn were in the drawing-room to receive their young guests, + a circumstance which alone imparted a distinction to the entertainment. At + such parties the appearance of the heads of the house was by no means + invariable; frequently they went to bed. The simple explanation was that + the young people could stand late hours and be none the worse next day; + their elders had to be more careful if they wanted to get down to + business. Moreover, as in all new societies, between the older and the + younger generation there was a great gulf fixed, across which intercourse + was difficult. The sons and daughters, born to different circumstances, + evolved their own conventions, the old people used the ways and manners of + narrower days; one paralysed the other. It might be gathered from the + slight tone of patronage in the address of youth to age that the advantage + lay with the former; but polite conversation, at best, was sustained with + discomfort. Such considerations, however, were far from operating with the + Milburns. Mrs Milburn would have said that they were characteristic of + quite a different class of people; and so they were. + </p> + <p> + No one would have supposed, from the way in which the family disposed + itself in the drawing-room, that Miss Filkin had only just finished making + the claret cup, or that Dora had been cutting sandwiches till the last + minute, or that Mrs Milburn had been obliged to have a distinct + understanding with the maid—Mrs Milburn’s servants were all “maids,” + even the charwoman, who had buried three husbands—on the subject of + wearing a cap when she answered the door. Mrs Milburn sat on a chair she + had worked herself, occupied with something in the new stitch; Dora + performed lightly at the piano; Miss Filkin dipped into Selections from + the Poets of the Century, placed as remotely as possible from the others; + Mr Milburn, with his legs crossed, turned and folded a Toronto evening + paper. Mrs Milburn had somewhat objected to the evening paper in the + drawing-room. “Won’t you look at a magazine, Octavius?” she said; but Mr + Milburn advanced the argument that it removed “any appearance of + stiffness,” and prevailed. It was impossible to imagine a group more + disengaged from the absurd fuss that precedes a party among some classes + of people; indeed, when Mr Lorne Murchison arrived—like the + unfortunate Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, he was the first—they + looked almost surprised to see him. + </p> + <p> + Lorne told his mother afterward that he thought, in that embarrassing + circumstance, of Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, and they laughed consumedly + together over his discomforture; but what he felt at the moment was not + the humour of the situation. To be the very first and solitary arrival is + nowhere esteemed the happiest fortune, but in Elgin a kind of ridiculous + humiliation attached to it, a greed for the entertainment, a painful + unsophistication. A young man of Elgin would walk up and down in the snow + for a quarter of an hour with the thermometer at zero to escape the + ignominy of it; Lorne Murchison would have so walked. Our young man was + potentially capable of not minding, by next morning he didn’t mind; but + immediately he was fast tied in the cobwebs of the common prescription, + and he made his way to each of the points of the compass of the Milburns’ + drawing-room to shake hands, burning to the ears. Before he subsided into + a chair near Mr Milburn he grasped the collar of his dress coat on each + side and drew it forward, a trick he had with his gown in court, a nervous + and mechanical action. Dora, who continued to play, watched him over the + piano with an amusement not untinged with malice. She was a tall fair + girl, with several kinds of cleverness. She did her hair quite + beautifully, and she had a remarkable, effective, useful reticence. Her + father declared that Dora took in a great deal more than she ever gave out—an + accomplishment, in Mr Milburn’s eyes, on the soundest basis. She looked + remarkably pretty and had remarkably good style, and as she proceeded with + her mazurka she was thinking, “He has never been asked here before: how + perfectly silly he must feel coming so early!” Presently as Lorne grew + absorbed in talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further reflected, “I + don’t think I’ve ever seen him till now in evening dress; it does make him + a good figure.” This went on behind a faultless coiffure and an expression + almost classical in its detachment; but if Miss Milburn could have thought + on a level with her looks I, for one, would hesitate to take any liberty + with her meditations. + </p> + <p> + However, the bell began to ring with the briefest intermissions, the maid + in the cap to make constant journeys. She opened the door with a welcoming + smile, having practically no deportment to go with the cap: human nature + does not freeze readily anywhere. Dora had to leave the piano: Miss Filkin + decided that when fifteen had come she would change her chair. Fifteen + soon came, the young ladies mostly in light silks or muslins cut square, + not low, in the neck, with half-sleeves. This moderation was prescribed in + Elgin, where evening dress was more a matter of material than of cut, a + thing in itself symbolical if it were desirable to consider social + evolution here. For middle-aged ladies high necks and long sleeves were + usual; and Mrs Milburn might almost have been expected to appear thus, in + a nicely made black broche, perhaps. It was recognized as like Mrs + Milburn, in keeping with her unbending ideas, to wear a dress cut as + square as any young lady’s, with just a little lace let in, of a lavender + stripe. The young men were nearly all in the tailor’s convention for their + sex the world over, with here and there a short coat that also went to + church; but there some departures from orthodoxy in the matter of collars + and ties, and where white bows were achieved, I fear none of the wearers + would have dreamed of defending them from the charge of being ready-made. + </p> + <p> + It was a clear, cold January night and everybody, as usual, walked to the + party; the snow creaked and ground underfoot, one could hear the arriving + steps in the drawing-room. They stamped and scraped to get rid of it in + the porch, and hurried through the hall, muffled figures in overshoes, to + emerge from an upstairs bedroom radiant, putting a last touch to hair and + button hole, smelling of the fresh winter air. Such gatherings usually + consisted entirely of bachelors and maidens, with one or two exceptions so + recently yoked together that they had not yet changed the plane of + existence; married people, by general consent, left these amusements to + the unculled. They had, as I have hinted, more serious preoccupations, + “something else to do”; nobody thought of inviting them. Nobody, that is, + but Mrs Milburn and a few others of her way of thinking, who saw more + elegance and more propriety in a mixture. On this occasion she had asked + her own clergyman, the pleasant-faced rector of St Stephen’s, and Mrs + Emmett, who wore that pathetic expression of fragile wives and mothers who + have also a congregation at their skirts. Walter Winter was there, too. Mr + Winter had the distinction of having contested South Fox in the + Conservative interest three time unsuccessfully. Undeterred, he went on + contesting things: invariably beaten, he invariably came up smiling and + ready to try again. His imperturbability was a valuable asset; he never + lost heart or dreamed of retiring from the arena, nor did he ever cease to + impress his party as being their most useful and acceptable + representative. His business history was chequered and his exact financial + equivalent uncertain, but he had tremendously the air of a man of affairs; + as the phrase went, he was full of politics, the plain repository of deep + things. He had a shrewd eye, a double chin, and a bluff, crisp, jovial + manner of talking as he lay back in an armchair with his legs crossed and + played with his watch chain, an important way of nodding assent, a weighty + shake of denial. Voting on purely party lines, the town had later rewarded + his invincible expectation by electing him Mayor, and then provided itself + with unlimited entertainment by putting in a Liberal majority on his + council, the reports of the weekly sittings being constantly considered as + good as a cake walk. South Fox, as people said, was not a healthy locality + for Conservatives. Yet Walter Winter wore a look of remarkable hardiness. + He had also tremendously the air of a dark horse, the result both of + natural selection and careful cultivation. Even his political enemies took + it kindly when he “got in” for Mayor, and offered him amused + congratulations. He made a personal claim on their cordiality, which was + not the least of his political resources. Nature had fitted him to public + uses; the impression overflowed the ranks of his own supporters and + softened asperity among his opponents. Illustration lies, at this moment + close to us. They had not been in the same room a quarter of an hour + before he was in deep and affectionate converse with Lorne Murchison, + whose party we know, and whose political weight was increasing, as this + influence often does, with a rapidity out of proportion with his + professional and general significance. + </p> + <p> + “It’s a pity now,” said Mr Winter, with genial interest, “you can’t get + that Ormiston defence into your own hands. Very useful thing for you.” + </p> + <p> + The younger man shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. It is one + thing to entertain a private vision and another to see it materialized on + other lips. + </p> + <p> + “Oh I’d like it well enough,” he said, “but it’s out of the question, of + course. I’m too small potatoes.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a lot of feeling for old Ormiston. Folks out there on the Reserve + don’t know how to show it enough.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ve shown it a great deal too much. We don’t want to win on + ‘feeling,’ or have it said either. And we were as near as possible having + to take the case to the Hamilton Assizes.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you were—I guess you were.” Mr Winter’s suddenly increased + gravity expressed his appreciation of the danger. “I saw Lister of the + Bank the day they heard from Toronto—rule refused. Never saw a man + more put out. Seems they considered the thing as good as settled. General + opinion was it would go to Hamilton, sure. Well I don’t know how you + pulled it off, but it was a smart piece of work, sir.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne encountered Mr Winter’s frank smile with an expression of crude and + rather stolid discomfort. It had a base of indignation, corrected by a + concession to the common idea that most events, with an issue pendent, + were the result of a smart piece of work: a kind of awkward shrug was in + it. He had no desire to be unpleasant to Walter Winter—on the + contrary. Nevertheless, an uncompromising line came on each side of his + mouth with his reply. + </p> + <p> + “As far as I know,” he said, “the application was dismissed on its + demerits.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it was,” said Mr Winter good-humouredly. “You don’t need to + tell me that. Well, now, this looks like dancing. Miss Filkin, I see, is + going to oblige on the piano. Now I wonder whether I’m going to get Miss + Dora to give me a waltz or not.” + </p> + <p> + Chairs and table were in effect being pushed back, and folding doors + opened which disclosed another room prepared for this relaxation. Miss + Filkin began to oblige vigorously on the piano, Miss Dora granted Mr + Winter’s request, which he made with elaborate humour as an impudent old + bachelor whom “the boys” would presently take outside and kill. Lorne + watched him make it, envying him his assurance; and Miss Milburn was aware + that he watched and aware that he envied. The room filled with gaiety and + movement: Mr Milburn, sidling dramatically along the wall to escape the + rotatory couples, admonished Mr Murchison to get a partner. He withdrew + himself from the observation of Miss Dora and Mr Winter, and approached a + young lady on a sofa, who said “With very great pleasure.” When the dance + was over he re-established the young lady on the sofa and fanned her with + energy. Looking across the room, he saw that Walter Winter, seated beside + Dora, was fanning himself. He thought it disgusting and, for some reason + which he did not pause to explore, exactly like Winter. He had met Miss + Milburn once or twice before without seeing her in any special way: here, + at home, the centre of the little conventions that at once protected and + revealed her, conventions bound up in the impressive figures of her mother + and her aunt, she had a new interest, and all the attraction of that which + is not easily come by. It is also possible that although Lorne had met her + before, she had not met him; she was meeting him now for the first time, + as she sat directly opposite and talked very gracefully to Walter Winter. + Addressing Walter Winter, Lorne was the object of her pretty remarks. + While Mr Winter had her superficial attention, he was the bland medium + which handed her on. Her consciousness was fixed on young Mr Murchison, + quite occupied with him: she could not imagine why they had not asked him + long ago; he wasn’t exactly “swell,” but you could see he was somebody. So + already she figured the potential distinction in the set of his shoulders + and the carriage of his head. It might have been translated in simple + terms of integrity and force by anyone who looked for those things. Miss + Milburn was incapable of such detail, but she saw truly enough in the + mass. + </p> + <p> + Lorne, on the opposite sofa, looked at her across the town’s traditions of + Milburn exclusiveness. Oddly enough, at this moment when he might have + considered that he had overcome them, they seemed to gather force, exactly + in his line of vision. He had never before been so near Dora Milburn, and + he had never before perceived her so remote. He had a sense of her + distance beyond those few yards of carpet quite incompatible with the + fact. It weighed upon him, but until she sent him a sudden unexpected + smile he did not know how heavily. It was a dissipating smile; nothing + remained before it. Lorne carefully restored his partner’s fan, bowed + before her, and went straight across the room. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + It is determined with something like humour that communities very young + should occupy themselves almost altogether with matters of grave and + serious import. The vision of life at that period is no doubt unimpeded + and clear; its conditions offer themselves with a certain nakedness and + force, both as to this world and to that which is to come. The town of + Elgin thus knew two controlling interests—the interest of politics + and the interest of religion. Both are terms we must nevertheless + circumscribe. Politics wore a complexion strictly local, provincial, or + Dominion. The last step of France in Siam, the disputed influence of + Germany in the Persian Gulf, the struggle of the Powers in China were not + matters greatly talked over in Elgin; the theatre of European diplomacy + had no absorbed spectators here. Nor can I claim that interest in the + affairs of Great Britain was in any way extravagant. + </p> + <p> + A sentiment of affection for the reigning house certainly prevailed. It + was arbitrary, rococo, unrelated to current conditions as a tradition sung + down in a ballad, an anachronism of the heart, cherished through long rude + lifetimes for the beauty and poetry of it—when you consider, beauty + and poetry can be thought of in this. Here was no Court aiding the + transmutation of the middle class, no King spending money; here were no + picturesque contacts of Royalty and the people, no pageantry, no blazonry + of the past, nothing to lift the heart but an occasional telegram from the + monarch expressing, upon an event of public importance, a suitable + emotion. Yet the common love for the throne amounted to a half-ashamed + enthusiasm that burned with something like a sacred flame, and was among + the things not ordinarily alluded to, because of the shyness that attaches + to all feeling that cannot be justified in plain terms. A sentiment of + affection for the reigning house certainly prevailed; but it was a thing + by itself. The fall of a British Government would hardly fail to excite + comment, and the retirement of a Prime Minister would induce both the + Mercury and the Express to publish a biographical sketch of him, + considerably shorter than the leader embodying the editor’s views as to + who should get the electric light contract. But the Government might + become the sole employer of labour in those islands, Church and school + might part company for ever, landlords might be deprived of all but + compassionate allowances and, except for the degree of extravagance + involved in these propositions, they would hardly be current in Elgin. The + complications of England’s foreign policy were less significant still. It + was recognized dimly that England had a foreign policy, more or less had + to have it, as they would have said in Elgin; it was part of the huge + unnecessary scheme of things for which she was responsible—unnecessary + from Elgin’s point of view as a father’s financial obligations might be to + a child he had parted with at birth. It all lay outside the facts of life, + far beyond the actual horizon, like the affairs of a distant relation from + whom one has nothing to hope, not even personal contact, and of whose + wealth and greatness one does not boast much, because of the irony + involved. Information upon all these matters was duly put before Elgin + every morning in the telegrams of the Toronto papers; the information + came, until the other day, over cables to New York and was disseminated by + American news agencies. It was, therefore, not devoid of bias; but if this + was perceived it was by no means thought a matter for protesting measures, + especially as they would be bound to involve expense. The injury was too + vague, too remote, to be more than sturdily discounted by a mental + attitude. Belief in England was in the blood, it would not yield to the + temporary distortion of facts in the newspapers—at all events, it + would not yield with a rush. Whether there was any chance of insidious + sapping was precisely what the country was too indifferent to discover. + Indifferent, apathetic, self-centred—until whenever, down the wind, + across the Atlantic, came the faint far music of the call to arms. Then + the old dog of war that has his kennel in every man rose and shook + himself, and presently there would be a baying! The sense of kinship, + lying too deep for the touch of ordinary circumstance, quickened to that; + and in a moment “we” were fighting, “we” had lost or won. + </p> + <p> + Apart, however, from the extraordinary, the politics of Elgin’s daily + absorption were those of the town, the Province, the Dominion. Centres of + small circumference yield a quick swing; the concern of the average + intelligent Englishman as to the consolidation of his country’s interests + in the Yangtse Valley would be a languid manifestation beside that of an + Elgin elector in the chances of an appropriation for a new court house. + The single mind is the most fervid: Elgin had few distractions from the + question of the court house or the branch line to Clayfield. The arts + conspired to be absent; letters resided at the nearest university city; + science was imported as required, in practical improvements. There was + nothing, indeed, to interfere with Elgin’s attention to the immediate, the + vital, the municipal: one might almost read this concentration of interest + in the white dust of the rambling streets, and the shutters closed against + it. Like other movements of the single mind, it had something of the + ferocious, of the inflexible, of the unintelligent; but it proudly wore + the character of the go-ahead and, as Walter Winter would have pointed out + to you, it had granted eleven bonuses to “capture” sound commercial + concerns in six years. + </p> + <p> + In wholesome fear of mistake, one would hesitate to put church matters + either before or after politics among the preoccupations of Elgin. It + would be safer and more indisputable to say that nothing compared with + religion but politics, and nothing compared with politics but religion. In + offering this proposition also we must think of our dimensions. There is a + religious fervour in Oxford, in Mecca, in Benares, and the sign for these + ideas is the same; we have to apply ourselves to the interpretation. In + Elgin religious fervour was not beautiful, or dramatic, or + self-immolating; it was reasonable. You were perhaps your own first + creditor; after that your debt was to your Maker. You discharged this + obligation in a spirit of sturdy equity: if the children didn’t go to + Sunday school you knew the reason why. The habit of church attendance was + not only a basis of respectability, but practically the only one: a person + who was “never known to put his head inside a church door” could not be + more severely reprobated, by Mrs Murchison at all events. It was the + normal thing, the thing which formed the backbone of life, sustaining to + the serious, impressive to the light, indispensable to the rest, and the + thing that was more than any of these, which you can only know when you + stand in the churches among the congregations. Within its prescribed + limitations it was for many the intellectual exercise, for more the + emotional lift, and for all the unfailing distraction of the week. The + repressed magnetic excitement in gatherings of familiar faces, + fellow-beings bound by the same convention to the same kind of behaviour, + is precious in communities where the human interest is still thin and + sparse. It is valuable in itself, and it produces an occasional detached + sensation. There was the case, in Dr Drummond’s church, of placid-faced, + saintly old Sandy MacQuhot, the epileptic. It used to be a common regret + with Lorne Murchison that as sure as he was allowed to stay away from + church Sandy would have a fit. That was his little boy’s honesty; the + elders enjoyed the fit and deprecated the disturbance. + </p> + <p> + There was a simple and definite family feeling within communions. “They + come to our church” was the argument of first force whether for calling or + for charity. It was impossible to feel toward a Congregationalist or an + Episcopalian as you felt toward one who sang the same hymns and sat under + the same admonition week by week, year in and year out, as yourself. + “Wesleyans, are they?” a lady of Knox Church would remark of the newly + arrived, in whom her interest was suggested. “Then let the Wesleyans look + after them.” A pew-holder had a distinct status; an “adherent” enjoyed + friendly consideration, especially if he adhered faithfully; and stray + attendants from other congregations were treated with punctilious + hospitality, places being found for them in the Old Testament, as if they + could hardly be expected to discover such things for themselves. The + religious interest had also the strongest domestic character in quite + another sense from that of the family prayers which Dr Drummond was always + enjoying. “Set your own house in order and then your own church” was a + wordless working precept in Elgin. Threadbare carpet in the aisles was + almost as personal a reproach as a hole under the dining-room table; and + self-respect was barely possible to a congregation that sat in faded pews. + The minister’s gown even was the subject of scrutiny as the years went on. + It was an expensive thing to buy, but an oyster supper would do it and + leave something over for the organ. Which brings us to the very core and + centre of these activities, their pivot, their focus and, in a human + sense, their inspiration—the minister himself. + </p> + <p> + The minister was curiously special among a people so general; he was in a + manner raised in life on weekdays as he was in the pulpit on Sundays. He + had what one might call prestige; some form of authority still survived in + his person, to which the spiritual democracy he presided over gave a + humorous, voluntary assent. He was supposed to be a person of undetermined + leisure—what was writing two sermons a week to earn your living by?—and + he was probably the more reverend, or the more revered, from the fact that + he was in the house all day. A particular importance attached to + everything he said and did; he was a person whose life answered different + springs, and was sustained on quite another principle than that of supply + and demand. The province of public criticism was his; but his people made + up for the meekness with which they sat under it by a generous use of the + corresponding privilege in private. Comments upon the minister partook of + hardiness; it was as if the members were determined to live up to the fact + that the office-bearers could reduce his salary if they liked. Needless to + say, they never did like. Congregations stood loyally by their pastors, + and discussion was strictly intramural. If the Methodists handed theirs on + at the end of three years with a breath of relief, they exhaled it among + themselves; after all, for them it was a matter of luck. The + Presbyterians, as in the case of old Mr Jamesion of St Andrew’s, held on + till death, pulling a long upper lip: election was not a thing to be + trifled with in heaven or upon earth. + </p> + <p> + It will be imagined whether Dr Drummond did not see in these conditions + his natural and wholesome element, whether he did not fit exactly in. The + God he loved to worship as Jehovah had made him a beneficent despot and + given him, as it were, a commission. If the temporal power had charged him + to rule an eastern province, he would have brought much the same qualities + to the task. Knox Church, Elgin, was his dominion, its moral and material + affairs his jealous interest, and its legitimate expansion his chief + pride. In “anniversary” sermons, which he always announced the Sunday + before, he seldom refrained from contrasting the number on the roll of + church membership, then and now, with the particular increase in the year + just closed. If the increase was satisfactory, he made little comment + beyond the duty of thanksgiving—figures spoke for themselves. If it + was otherwise Dr Drummond’s displeasure was not a thing he would conceal. + He would wing it eloquently on the shaft of his grief that the harvest had + been so light; but he would more than hint the possibility that the + labourers had been few. Most important among his statistics was the number + of young communicants. Wanderers from other folds he admitted, with a not + wholly satisfied eye upon their early theological training, and to persons + duly accredited from Presbyterian churches elsewhere he gave the right + hand of fellowship; but the young people of his own congregation were his + chief concern always, and if a gratifying number of these had failed to + “come forward” during the year, the responsibility must lie somewhere. Dr + Drummond was willing to take his own share; “the ministrations of this + pulpit” would be more than suspected of having come short, and the + admission would enable him to tax the rest upon parents and Bible-class + teachers with searching effect. The congregation would go gloomily home to + dinner, and old Sandy MacQuhot would remark to his wife, “It’s hard to say + why will the Doctor get himself in sic a state aboot mere numbers. We’re + told ‘where two or three are gathered together.’ But the Doctor’s all for + a grand congregation.” + </p> + <p> + Knox Church, under such auspices could hardly fail to enlarge her borders; + but Elgin enlarged hers faster. Almost before you knew where you were + there spread out the district of East Elgin, all stacks of tall chimneys + and rows of little houses. East Elgin was not an attractive locality; it + suffered from inundation sometimes, when the river was in spring flood; it + gave unresentful room to a tannery. It was the home of dubious practices + at the polls, and the invariable hunting-ground for domestic servants. + Nevertheless, in the view of Knox Church, it could not bear a character + wholly degraded; too many Presbyterians, Scotch foremen, and others, had + their respectable residence there. For these it was a far cry to Dr + Drummond in bad weather, and there began to be talk of hiring the East + Elgin schoolhouse for Sunday exercises if suitable persons could be got to + come over from Knox Church and lead them. I do not know who was found to + broach the matter to Dr Drummond; report says his relative and + housekeeper, Mrs Forsyth, who perhaps might do it under circumstances of + strategical advantage. Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, had her reply in + the hidden terms of an equation—was it any farther for the people of + East Elgin to walk to hear him preach than for him to walk to minister to + the people of East Elgin, which he did quite once a week, and if so, how + much? Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, might eliminate the unknown + quantity. It cannot be said that Dr Drummond discouraged the project; he + simply did not mention it and as it was known to have been communicated to + him this represented effectively the policy of the closed door. He found + himself even oftener in East Elgin, walking about on his pastoral errands + with a fierce briskness of aspect and a sharp inquiring eye, before which + one might say the proposition slunk away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, + it seemed, could tolerate decentralization, or anything short of round + dances, opened a chapel with a cheerful sociable, and popularized the + practice of backsliding among those for whom the position was + theologically impossible. Good Presbyterians in East Elgin began to turn + into makeshift Methodists. The Doctor missed certain occupants of the + gallery seats and felt the logic of circumstances. Here we must all yield, + and the minister concealed his discomfiture in a masterly initiative. The + matter came up again at a meeting of the church managers, brought up by Dr + Drummond, who had the satisfaction of hearing that a thing put into the + Doctor’s hands was already half done. In a very few weeks it was entirely + done. The use of the schoolhouse was granted through Dr Drummond’s + influence with the Board free of charge; and to understand the triumph of + this it should be taken into account that three of the trustees were + Wesleyans. Services were held regularly, certain of Dr Drummond’s elders + officiating; and the conventicle in the schoolhouse speedily became known + as Knox Church Mission. It grew and prospered. The first night “I to the + hills will lift mine eyes” went up from East Elgin on the uplifting tune + that belongs to it, the strayed came flocking back. + </p> + <p> + This kind never go forth again; once they refind the ark of the covenant + there they abide. In the course of time it became a question of a better + one, and money was raised locally to build it. Dr Drummond pronounced the + first benediction in Knox Mission Church, and waited, well knowing human + nature in its Presbyterian aspect, for the next development. It came, and + not later than he anticipated, in the form of a prayer to Knox Church for + help to obtain the services of a regularly ordained minister. Dr Drummond + had his guns ready: he opposed the application; where a regularly ordained + minister was already at the disposal of those who chose to walk a mile and + a half to hear him, the luxury of more locally consecrated services should + be at the charge of the locality. He himself was willing to spend and be + spent in the spiritual interests of East Elgin; that was abundantly + proven; what he could not comfortably tolerate was the deviation of + congregational funds, the very blood of the body of belief, into other + than legitimate channels. He fought for his view with all his tactician’s + resources, putting up one office-bearer after another to endorse it but + the matter was decided at the general yearly meeting of the congregation; + and the occasion showed Knox Church in singular sympathy with its + struggling offspring. Dr Drummond for the first time in his ministry, was + defeated by his people. It was less a defeat than a defence, an unexpected + rally round the corporate right to direct corporate activities; and the + congregation was so anxious to wound the minister’s feelings as little as + possible that the grant in aid of the East Elgin Mission was embodied in a + motion to increase Dr Drummond’s salary by two hundred and fifty dollars a + year. The Doctor with a wry joke, swallowed his gilded pill, but no + coating could dissimulate its bitterness, and his chagrin was plain for + long. The issue with which we are immediately concerned is that three + months later Knox Church Mission called to minister to it the Reverend + Hugh Finlay, a young man from Dumfriesshire and not long out. Dr Drummond + had known beforehand what their choice would be. He had brought Mr Finlay + to occupy Knox Church pulpit during his last July and August vacation, and + Mrs Forsyth had reported that such midsummer congregations she had simply + never worshipped with. Mrs Forsyth was an excellent hand at pressed tongue + and a wonder at knitted counterpanes, but she had not acquired tact and + never would. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + The suggestion that the Reverend Hugh Finlay preached from the pulpit of + Knox Church “better sermons” than its permanent occupant, would have been + justly considered absurd, and nobody pronounced it. The church was full, + as Mrs Forsyth observed, on these occasions; but there were many other + ways of accounting for that. The Murchisons, as a family, would have been + the last to make such an admission. The regular attendance might have + been, as much as anything, out of deference to the wishes of the Doctor + himself, who invariably and sternly hoped, in his last sermon, that no + stranger occupying his place would have to preach to empty pews. He was + thinking, of course, of old Mr Jamieson with whom he occasionally + exchanged and whose effect on the attendance had not failed to reach him. + With regard to Mr Jamieson he was compelled, in the end, to resort to + tactics: he omitted to announce the Sunday before that his venerable + neighbour would preach, and the congregation, outwitted, had no resource + but to sustain the beard-wagging old gentleman through seventhly to the + finish. There came a time when the dear human Doctor also omitted to + announce that Mr Finlay would preach, but for other reasons, meanwhile, as + Mrs Forsyth said, he had no difficulty in conjuring a vacation + congregation for his young substitute. They came trooping, old and young. + Mr and Mrs Murchison would survey their creditable family rank with a + secret compunction, remembering its invariable gaps at other times, and + then resolutely turn to the praise of God with the reflection that one + means to righteousness was as blessed as another. They themselves never + missed a Sunday, and as seldom failed to remark on the way back that it + was all very interesting, but Mr Finlay couldn’t drive it home like the + Doctor. There were times, sparse and special occasions, when the Doctor + himself made one of the congregation. Then he would lean back luxuriously + in the corner of his own pew, his wiry little form half-lost in the + upholstery his arms folded, his knees crossed, his face all humorous + indulgence; yes, humorous. At the announcement of the text a twinkle would + lodge in the shrewd grey eyes and a smile but half-suppressed would settle + about the corners of the flexible mouth: he knew what the young fellow + there would be at. And as the young fellow proceeded, his points would be + weighed to the accompaniment of the Doctor’s pendent foot, which moved + perpetually, judiciously; while the smile sometimes deepened, sometimes + lapsed, since there were moments when any young fellow had to be taken + seriously. It was an attitude which only the Doctor was privileged to + adopt thus outwardly; but in private it was imitated all up and down the + aisles, where responsible heads of families sat considering the quality of + the manna that was offered them. When it fell from the lips of Mr Finlay + the verdict was, upon the whole, very favourable, as long as there was no + question of comparison with the Doctor. + </p> + <p> + There could be, indeed, very little question of such comparison. There was + a generation between them and a school, and to that you had to add every + set and cast of mind and body that can make men different. Dr Drummond, in + faith and practice, moved with precision along formal and implicit lines; + his orbit was established, and his operation within it as unquestionable + as the simplest exhibit of nature. He took in a wonderful degree the stamp + of the teaching of his adolescent period; not a line was missing nor a + precept; nor was the mould defaced by a single wavering tendency of later + date. Religious doctrine was to him a thing for ever accomplished, to be + accepted or rejected as a whole. He taught eternal punishment and + retribution, reconciling both with Divine love and mercy; he liked to + defeat the infidel with the crashing question, “Who then was the architect + of the Universe?” The celebrated among such persons he pursued to their + deathbeds; Voltaire and Rousseau owed their reputation, with many persons + in Knox Church, to their last moments and to Dr Drummond. He had a + triumphant invective which drew the mind from chasms in logic, and a + tender sense of poetic beauty which drew it, when he quoted great lines, + from everything else. He loved the euphony of the Old Testament; his + sonorous delivery would lift a chapter from Isaiah to the height of + ritual, and every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether he would or no. + The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of Issachar; and the + parallels he would find for modern events in the annals of Judah and of + Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and + his reference to current events would often give his listeners an + audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have been easily discounted + by the argument they illustrated. The survivors of a convulsion of nature, + for instance, might have learned from his lips the cause and kind of their + disaster traced back forcibly to local acquiescence in iniquity, and drawn + unflinchingly from the text, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the + Lord.” The militant history of his Church was a passion with him; if ever + he had to countenance canonization he would have led off with Jenny + Geddes. “A tremendous Presbyterian” they called him in the town. To hear + him give out a single psalm, and sing it with his people, would convince + anybody of that. There was a choir, of course, but to the front pews, at + all events, Dr Drummond’s leading was more important than the choir’s. It + was a note of dauntless vigour, and it was plain by the regular forward + jerk of his surpliced shoulder that his foot was keeping time: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Where the assemblies of the just + And congregations are. +</pre> + <p> + You could not help admiring, and you could not help respecting; you were + compelled by his natural force and his unqualified conviction, his + tireless energy and his sterling sort. + </p> + <p> + It is possible to understand, however, that after sitting for twenty-five + years under direction so unfailing and so uncompromising, the congregation + of Knox Church might turn with a moderate curiosity to the spiritual + indications of the Reverend Hugh Finlay. He was a passionate romantic, and + his body had shot up into a fitting temple for such an inhabitant as his + soul. He was a great long fellow, with a shock of black hair and deep + dreams in his eyes; his head was what people called a type, a type I + suppose of the simple motive and the noble intention, the detached point + of view and the somewhat indifferent attitude to material things, as it + may be humanly featured anywhere. His face bore a confusion of ideals; he + had the brow of a Covenanter and the mouth of Adonais, the flame of + religious ardour in his eyes and the composure of perceived philosophy on + his lips. He was fettered by an impenetrable shyness; it was in the pulpit + alone that he could expand, and then only upon written lines, with hardly + a gesture, and the most perfunctory glances, at conscientious intervals, + toward his hearers. A poor creature, indeed, in this respect, Dr Drummond + thought him—Dr Drummond, who wore an untrammelled surplice which + filled like an agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. “The + man loses half his points,” said Dr Drummond. I doubt whether he did, + people followed so closely, though Sandy MacQuhot was of the general + opinion when he said that it would do nobody any harm if Mr Finlay would + lift his head oftener from the book. + </p> + <p> + Advena Murchison thought him the probable antitype of an Oxford don. She + had never seen an Oxford don, but Mr Finlay wore the characteristics these + schoolmen were dressed in by novelists; and Advena noted with delight the + ingenuity of fate in casting such a person into the pulpit of the + Presbyterian Church in a young country. She had her perception of comedy + in life; till Finlay came she had found nothing so interesting. With his + arrival, however, other preoccupations fell into their proper places. + </p> + <p> + Finlay, indeed, it may be confessed at once, he and not his message was + her engrossment from the beginning. The message she took with reverent + gentleness; but her passionate interest was for the nature upon which it + travelled, and never for the briefest instant did she confuse these + emotions. Those who write, we are told transcribe themselves in spite of + themselves; it is more true of those who preach, for they are also candid + by profession, and when they are not there is the eye and the voice to + help to betray them. Hugh Finlay, in the pulpit, made himself manifest in + all the things that matter to Advena Murchison in the pew; and from the + pew to the pulpit her love went back with certainty, clear in its + authority and worshipping the ground of its justification. When she bowed + her head it was he whom she heard in the language of his invocations; his + doctrine rode, for her, on a spirit of wide and sweet philosophy; in his + contemplation of the Deity she saw the man. He had those lips at once + mobile, governed and patient, upon which genius chooses oftenest to rest. + As to this, Advena’s convictions were so private as to be hidden from + herself; she never admitted that she thought Finlay had it, and in the + supreme difficulty of proving anything else we may wisely accept her view. + But he had something, the subtle Celt; he had horizons, lifted lines + beyond the common vision, and an eye rapt and a heart intrepid; and though + for a long time he was unconscious of it, he must have adventured there + with a happier confidence because of her companionship. + </p> + <p> + From the first Advena knew no faltering or fluttering, none of the baser + nervous betrayals. It was all one great delight to her, her discovery and + her knowledge and her love for him. It came to her almost in a logical + development; it found her grave, calm, and receptive. She had even a + private formula of gratitude that the thing which happened to everybody, + and happened to so many people irrelevantly, should arrive with her in + such a glorious defensible, demonstrable sequence. Toward him it gave her + a kind of glad secret advantage; he was loved and he was unaware. She + watched his academic awkwardness in church with the inward tender smile of + the eternal habile feminine, and when they met she could have laughed and + wept over his straightened sentences and his difficult manner, knowing how + little significant they were. With his eyes upon her and his words offered + to her intelligence, she found herself treating his shy formality as the + convention it was, a kind of make-believe which she would politely and + kindly play up to until he should happily forget it and they could enter + upon simpler relations. She had to play up to it for a long time, but her + love made her wonderfully clever and patient; and of course the day came + when she had her reward. Knowing him as she did, she remembered the day + and the difference it made. + </p> + <p> + It was toward the end of an afternoon in early April; the discoloured snow + still lay huddled in the bleaker fence corners. Wide puddles stood along + the roadsides, reflecting the twigs and branches of the naked maples; last + year’s leaves were thick and wet underfoot, and a soft damp wind was + blowing. Advena was on her way home and Finlay overtook her. He passed her + at first, with a hurried silent lifting of his hat; then perhaps the + deserted street gave a suggestion of unfriendliness to his act, or some + freshness in her voice stayed him. At all events, he waited and joined + her, with a word or two about their going in the same direction; and they + walked along together. He offered her his companionship, but he had + nothing to say; the silence in which they pursued their way was no doubt + to him just the embarrassing condition he usually had to contend with. To + her it seemed pregnant, auspicious; it drew something from the low grey + lights of the wet spring afternoon and the unbound heart-lifting wind; she + had a passionate prevision that the steps they took together would lead + somehow to freedom. They went on in that strange bound way, and the day + drew away from them till they turned a sudden corner, when it lay all + along the yellow sky across the river, behind a fringe of winter woods, + stayed in the moment of its retreat on the edge of unvexed landscape. They + stopped involuntarily to look, and she saw a smile come up from some depth + in him. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, well,” he said, as if to himself, “it’s something to be in a country + where the sun still goes down with a thought of the primaeval.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I prefer the sophistication of chimney-pots,” she replied. “I’ve + always longed to see a sunset in London, with the fog breaking over + Westminster.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you don’t care about them for themselves, sunsets?” he asked, with + the simplest absence of mind. + </p> + <p> + “I never yet could see the sun go down, But I was angry in my heart,” she + said, and this time he looked at her. + </p> + <p> + “How does it go on?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t know. Only those two lines stay with me. I feel it that way, + too. It’s the seal upon an act of violence, isn’t it, a sunset? Something + taken from us against our will. It’s a hateful reminder, in the midst of + our delightful volitions, of how arbitrary every condition of life is.” + </p> + <p> + “The conditions of business are always arbitrary. Life is a business—we + have to work at ourselves till it is over. So much cut off and ended it + is,” he said, glancing at the sky again. “If space is the area of life and + time is its opportunity, there goes a measure of opportunity.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” said Advena, “where it goes?” + </p> + <p> + “Into the void behind time?” he suggested, smiling straight at her. + </p> + <p> + “Into the texture of the future,” she answered, smiling back. + </p> + <p> + “We might bring it to bear very intelligently on the future, at any rate,” + he returned. “The world is wrapped in destiny, and but revolves to roll it + out.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t remember that,” she said curiously. + </p> + <p> + “No you couldn’t,” he laughed outright. “I haven’t thought it good enough + to publish.” + </p> + <p> + “And it isn’t the sort of thing,” she ventured gaily, “you could put in a + sermon.” + </p> + <p> + “No, it isn’t.” They came to a corner of the street which led to Mr + Finlay’s boarding-house. It stretched narrowly to the north and there was + a good deal more snow on each side of it. They lingered together for a + moment talking, seizing the new joy in it which was simply the joy of his + sudden liberation with her consciously pushing away the moment of parting; + and Finlay’s eyes rested once again on the evening sky beyond the river. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you are right and I am a moralizer,” he said. “There IS pain + over there. One thinks a sunset beautiful and impressive, but one doesn’t + look at it long.” + </p> + <p> + Then they separated, and he took the road to the north, which was still + snowbound, while she went on into the chilly yellow west, with the odd + sweet illusion that a summer day was dawning. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + The office of Messrs Fulke, Warner, & Murchison was in Market Street, + exactly over Scott’s drug store. Scott with his globular blue and red and + green vessels in the window and his soda-water fountain inside; was on the + ground floor; the passage leading upstairs separated him from Mickie, + boots and shoes; and beyond Mickie, Elgin’s leading tobacconist shared his + place of business with a barber. The last two contributed most to the + gaiety of Market Street: the barber with the ribanded pole, which stuck + out at an angle; the tobacconist with a nobly featured squaw in chocolate + effigy who held her draperies under her chin with one hand and + outstretched a packet of cigars with the other. + </p> + <p> + The passage staircase between Scott’s and Mickie’s had a hardened look, + and bore witness to the habit of expectoration; ladies, going up to Dr + Simmons, held their skirts up and the corners of their mouths down. Dr + Simmons was the dentist: you turned to the right. The passage itself + turned to the left, and after passing two doors bearing the law firm’s + designation in black letters on ground glass, it conducted you with + abruptness to the office of a bicycle agent, and left you there. For + greater emphasis the name of the firm of Messrs Fulke, Warner & + Murchison was painted on the windows also; it could be seen from any part + of the market square, which lay, with the town hall in the middle, + immediately below. During four days in the week the market square was + empty. Odds and ends of straw and paper blew about it; an occasional + pedestrian crossed it diagonally for the short cut to the post-office; the + town hall rose in the middle, and defied you to take your mind off the + ugliness of municipal institutions. On the other days it was a scene of + activity. Farmers’ wagons, with the shafts turned in were ranged round + three sides of it; on a big day they would form into parallel lanes and + cut the square into sections as well. The produce of all Fox County filled + the wagons, varying agreeably as the year went round. Bags of potatoes + leaned against the sidewalk, apples brimmed in bushel measures, ducks + dropped their twisted necks over the cart wheels; the town hall, in this + play of colour, stood redeemed. The produce was mostly left to the women + to sell. On the fourth side of the square loads of hay and cordwood + demanded the master mind, but small matters of fruit, vegetables, and + poultry submitted to feminine judgement. The men “unhitched,” and went + away on their own business; it was the wives you accosted, as they sat in + the middle, with their knees drawn up and their skirts tucked close, + vigilant in rusty bonnets, if you wished to buy. Among them circulated the + housewives of Elgin, pricing and comparing and acquiring; you could see it + all from Dr Simmons’s window, sitting in his chair that screwed up and + down. There was a little difficulty always about getting things home; only + very ordinary people carried their own marketing. Trifling articles, like + eggs or radishes, might be smuggled into a brown wicker basket with + covers; but it did not consort with elegance to “trapes” home with + anything that looked inconvenient or had legs sticking out of it. So that + arrangements of mutual obligation had to be made: the good woman from whom + Mrs Jones had bought her tomatoes would take charge of the spring chickens + Mrs Jones had bought from another good woman just as soon as not, and + deliver them at Mrs Jones’s residence, as under any circumstances she was + “going round that way.” + </p> + <p> + It was a scene of activity but not of excitement, or in any sense of joy. + The matter was too hard an importance; it made too much difference on both + sides whether potatoes were twelve or fifteen cents a peck. The dealers + were laconic and the buyers anxious; country neighbours exchanged the time + of day, but under the pressure of affairs. Now and then a lady of Elgin + stopped to gossip with another; the countrywomen looked on, curious, grim, + and a little contemptuous of so much demonstration and so many words. Life + on an Elgin market day was a serious presentment even when the sun shone, + and at times when it rained or snowed the aesthetic seemed a wholly + unjustifiable point of view. It was not misery, it was even a difficult + kind of prosperity, but the margin was small and the struggle plain. + Plain, too, it was that here was no enterprise of yesterday, no fresh + broken ground of dramatic promise, but a narrow inheritance of the + opportunity to live which generations had grasped before. There were bones + in the village graveyards of Fox County to father all these sharp + features; Elgin market square, indeed, was the biography of Fox County + and, in little, the history of the whole Province. The heart of it was + there, the enduring heart of the new country already old in acquiescence. + It was the deep root of the race in the land, twisted and unlovely, but + holding the promise of all. Something like that Lorne Murchison felt about + it as he stood for a moment in the passage I have mentioned and looked + across the road. The spectacle never failed to cheer him; he was uniformly + in gayer spirits, better satisfied with life and more consciously equal to + what he had to do, on days when the square was full than on days when it + was empty. This morning he had an elation of his own; it touched + everything with more vivid reality. The familiar picture stirred a joy in + him in tune with his private happiness; its undernote came to him with a + pang as keen. The sense of kinship surged in his heart; these were his + people, this his lot as well as theirs. For the first time he saw it in + detachment. Till now he had regarded it with the friendly eyes of a + participator who looked no further. Today he did look further: the whole + world invited his eyes, offering him a great piece of luck to look + through. The opportunity was in his hand which, if he could seize and + hold, would lift and carry him on. He was as much aware of its potential + significance as anyone could be, and what leapt in his veins till he could + have laughed aloud was the splendid conviction of resource. Already in the + door of the passage he had achieved, from that point he looked at the + scene before him with an impulse of loyalty and devotion. A tenderness + seized him for the farmers of Fox County, a throb of enthusiasm for the + idea they represented, which had become for him suddenly moving and + pictorial. At that moment his country came subjectively into his + possession; great and helpless it came into his inheritance as it comes + into the inheritance of every man who can take it, by deed of imagination + and energy and love. He held this microcosm of it, as one might say, in + his hand and looked at it ardently; then he took his way across the road. + </p> + <p> + A tall thickly built young fellow detached himself from a group, smiling + broadly at the sight of Murchison, and started to meet him. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Lorne,” he said. He had smiled all the way anticipating the + encounter. He was obviously in clothes which he did not put on every day, + but the seriousness of this was counteracted by his hard felt hat, which + he wore at an angle that disregarded convention. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Elmore! You back?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s about it.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t say! Back to stay?” + </p> + <p> + “Far’s I can see. Young Alf’s made up his mind to learn the dentist + business, and the old folks are backin’ him; so I don’t see but I’ve got + to stop on and run the show. Father’s gettin’ up in years now.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes. I suppose he must be. It’s a good while since you went West. + Well, what sort of a country have they got out Swan River way? Booming + right along?” + </p> + <p> + “Boom nothing. I don’t mean to say there’s anything the matter with the + country; there ain’t; but you’ve got to get up just as early in the + mornings out there as y’do anywhere, far’s I noticed. An’ it’s a lonesome + life. Now I AM back I don’t know but little old Ontario’s good enough for + me. ‘N I hear you’ve taken up the law, Lorne. Y’always had a partiality + for it, d’y’ remember, up there to the Collegiate? I used to think it’d be + fine to travel with samples, those days. But you were dead gone on the + law. ‘N by all reports it pans out pretty well don’t it?” + </p> + <p> + The young men had taken their way among the shifting crowd together. Lorne + Murchison, although there was something too large about him for the town’s + essential stamp, made by contrast, as he threaded the desultory groups of + country people, a type of the conventional and the formed; his companion + glanced at him now and then with admiration. The values of carriage and of + clothes are relative: in Fifth Avenue Lorne would have looked countrified, + in Piccadilly colonial. Districts are imaginable, perhaps not in this + world, where the frequenters of even those fashionable thoroughfares would + attract glances of curiosity by their failure to achieve the common + standard in such things. Lorne Murchison, to dismiss the matter, was well + up to the standard of Elgin, though he wore his straw hat quite on the + back of his head and buried both hands in his trousers pockets. His eye + was full of pleasant easy familiarity with the things he saw, and ready to + see larger things; it had that beam of active inquiry, curious but never + amazed that marks the man likely to expand his horizons. Meanwhile he was + on capital terms with his little world, which seemed to take pleasure in + hailing him by his Christian name; even morose Jim Webster, who had failed + three times in groceries, said “Morning, Lorne” with a look of toleration. + He moved alertly; the poise of his head was sanguine; the sun shone on + him; the timidest soul came nearer to him. He and Elmore Crow, who walked + beside him, had gone through the lower forms of the Elgin Collegiate + Institute together, that really “public” kind of school which has so much + to do with reassorting the classes of a new country. The Collegiate + Institute took in raw material and turned out teachers, more teachers than + anything. The teachers taught, chiefly in rural districts where they could + save money, and with the money they saved changed themselves into doctors, + Fellows of the University, mining engineers. The Collegiate Institute was + a potential melting-pot: you went in as your simple opportunities had made + you; how you shaped coming out depended upon what was hidden in the core + of you. You could not in any case be the same as your father before you; + education in a new country is too powerful a stimulant for that, working + upon material too plastic and too hypothetical; it is not yet a normal + force, with an operation to be reckoned on with confidence. It is indeed + the touchstone for character in a new people, for character acquired as + apart from that inherited; it sometimes reveals surprises. Neither Lorne + Murchison nor Elmore Crow illustrates this point very nearly. Lorne would + have gone into the law in any case, since his father was able to send him, + and Elmore would inevitably have gone back to the crops since he was early + defeated by any other possibility. Nevertheless, as they walk together in + my mind along the Elgin market square, the Elgin Collegiate Institute + rises infallibly behind them, a directing influence and a responsible + parent. Lorne was telling his great news. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t say!” remarked Elmore in response to it. “Lumbago is it? Pa’s + subject to that too; gets an attack most springs. Mr Fulke’ll have to lay + right up—it’s the only thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid he will. And Warner never appeared in court in his life.” + </p> + <p> + “What d’ye keep Warner for, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he does the conveyancing. He’s a good conveyancer, but he isn’t any + pleader and doesn’t pretend to be. And it’s too late to transfer the case; + nobody could get to the bottom of it as we have in the time. So it falls + on me.” + </p> + <p> + “Caesar, his ghost! How d’ye feel about it, Lorne? I’d be scared green. + Y’don’t TALK nervous. Now I bet you get there with both feet.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope to get there,” the young lawyer answered; and as he spoke a + concentration came into his face which drove the elation and everything + else that was boyish out of it. “It’s bigger business than I could have + expected for another five years. I’m sorry for the old man, though—HE’S + nervous, if you like. They can hardly keep him in bed. Isn’t that somebody + beckoning to you?” + </p> + <p> + Elmore looked everywhere except in the right direction among the carts. If + you had been “to the Collegiate,” relatives among the carts selling + squashes were embarrassing. + </p> + <p> + “There,” his companion indicated. + </p> + <p> + “It’s Mother,” replied Mr Crow, with elaborate unconcern; “but I don’t + suppose she’s in anything of a hurry. I’ll just go along with you far’s + the post-office.” He kept his glance carefully from the spot at which he + was signalled, and a hint of copper colour crawled up the back of his + neck. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but she is. Come along, Elmore; I can go that way.” + </p> + <p> + “It’ll be longer for you.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit.” Lorne cast a shrewd glance at his companion. “And as we’re + passing, you might just introduce me to your mother; see?” + </p> + <p> + “She won’t expect it, Lorne.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right, my son. She won’t refuse to meet a friend of yours.” He + led the way as he spoke to the point of vantage occupied by Mrs Crow, + followed, with plain reluctance, by her son. She was a frail-looking old + woman, with a knitted shawl pinned tightly across her chest, and her + bonnet, in the course of commercial activity, pushed so far back as to be + almost falling off. + </p> + <p> + “You might smarten yourself with that change, Elmore,” she addressed him, + ignoring his companion. “There’s folks coming back for it. Two-dollar + bill, wa’n’t it? Fifty cents—seventy-five—dollar’n a half. + That’s a Yankee dime, an’ you kin march straight back with it. They don’t + pass but for nine cents, as you’re old enough to know. Keep twenty-five + cents for your dinner—you’ll get most for the money at the Barker + House—an’ bring me back another quarter. Better go an’ get your + victuals now—it’s gone twelve—while they’re hot.” + </p> + <p> + Elmore took his instructions without visible demur; and then, as Lorne had + not seen fit to detach himself, performed the ceremony of introduction. As + he performed it he drew one foot back and bowed himself, which seemed + obscurely to facilitate it. The suspicion faded out of Mrs Crow’s tired + old sharp eyes under the formula, and she said she was pleased to make our + friend’s acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + “Mr Murchison’s changed some since the old days at the Collegiate,” Elmore + explained, “but he ain’t any different under his coat. He’s practisin’ the + law.” + </p> + <p> + “Lawyers,” Mrs Crow observed, “are folks I like to keep away from.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite right, too,” responded Lorne, unabashed. “And so you’ve got my + friend here back on the farm, Mrs Crow?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, yes, he’s back on the farm, an’ when he’s wore out his Winnipeg + clothes and his big ideas, we’re lookin’ to make him some use.” Mrs Crow’s + intention, though barbed, was humorous, and her son grinned broadly. + </p> + <p> + “There’s more money in the law,” he remarked “once you get a start. Here’s + Mr Murchison goin’ to run the Ormiston case; his old man’s down sick, an’ + I guess it depends on Lorne now whether Ormiston gets off or goes to + penitentiary.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs Crow’s face tied itself up into criticism as she looked our young man + up and down. “Depends upon you, does it?” she commented. “Well, all I’ve + got to say is it’s a mighty young dependence. Coming on next week, ain’t + it? You won’t be much older by then. Yes’m,” she turned to business, “I + don’t say but what it’s high for rhubarb, but there ain’t another bunch in + the market, and won’t be for a week yet.” + </p> + <p> + Under cover of this discussion Lorne bade the Crows good morning, + retreating in the rear of the lady who found the rhubarb high. Mrs Crow’s + drop of acid combined with his saving sense of the humour of it to adjust + all his courage and his confidence, and with a braver face than ever he + involuntarily hastened his steps to keep pace with his happy chance. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + In the wide stretches of a new country there is nothing to bound a local + excitement, or to impede its transmission at full value. Elgin was a + manufacturing town in southern Ontario, but they would have known every + development of the Federal Bank case at the North Pole if there had been + anybody there to learn. In Halifax they did know it, and in Vancouver, + B.C., while every hundred miles nearer it warmed as a topic in proportion. + In Montreal the papers gave it headlines; from Toronto they sent special + reporters. Of course, it was most of all the opportunity of Mr Horace + Williams, of the Elgin Express, and of Rawlins, who held all the cards in + their hands, and played them, it must be said, admirably, reducing the + Mercury to all sorts of futile expedients to score, which the Express + would invariably explode with a guffaw of contradiction the following day. + It was to the Express that the Toronto reporters came for details and + local colour; and Mr Williams gave them just as much as he thought they + ought to have and no more. It was the Express that managed, while + elaborately abstaining from improper comment upon a matter sub judice, to + feed and support the general conviction of young Ormiston’s innocence, and + thereby win for itself, though a “Grit” paper, wide reading in that hotbed + of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the Conservative Mercury, with its + reckless sympathy for an old party name, made itself criminally liable by + reviewing cases of hard dealing by the bank among the farmers, and only + escaped prosecution by the amplest retraction and the most contrite + apology. As Mr Williams remarked, there was no use in dwelling on the + unpopularity of the bank, that didn’t need pointing out; folks down + Moneida way could put any newspaper wise on the number of mortgages + foreclosed and the rate for secondary loans exacted by the bank in those + parts. That consideration, no doubt, human nature being what it is, + contributed the active principle to the feeling so widely aroused by the + case. We are not very readily the prey to emotions of faith in our + fellows, especially, perhaps, if we live under conditions somewhat hard + and narrow; the greater animosity behind is, at all events, valuable to + give force and relief and staying power to a sentiment of generous + conviction. But however we may depreciate its origin, the conviction was + there, widespread in the townships: young Ormiston would “get clear”; the + case for the defence might be heard over every bushel of oats in Elgin + market-place. + </p> + <p> + In Elgin itself opinion was more reserved. There was a general view that + these bank clerks were fast fellows, and a tendency to contrast the habits + and the pay of such dashing young men, an exercise which ended in a not + unnatural query. As to the irritating caste feeling maintained among them, + young Ormiston perhaps gave himself as few airs as any. He was generally + conceded indeed by the judging sex to be “nice to everybody”; but was not + that exactly the nature for which temptations were most easily spread? The + town, moreover, had a sapience of its own. Was it likely that the bank + would bring a case so publicly involving its character and management + without knowing pretty well what it was about? The town would not be + committed beyond the circle of young Ormiston’s intimate friends, which + was naturally small if you compared it with the public; the town wasn’t + going to be surprised at anything that might be proved. On the other hand, + the town was much more vividly touched than the country by the accident + which had made Lorne Murchison practically sole counsel for the defence, + announced as it was by the Express with every appreciation of its dramatic + value. Among what the Express called “the farming community” this, in so + far as it had penetrated, was regarded as a simple misfortune, a dull blow + to expectancy, which expectancy had some work to survive. Elgin, with its + finer palate for sensation, saw in it heightened chances, both for Lorne + and for the case; and if any ratepayer within its limits had remained + indifferent to the suit, the fact that one side of it had been confided to + so young and so “smart” a fellow townsman would have been bound to draw + him into the circle of speculation. Youth in a young country is a symbol + wearing all its value. It stands not only for what it is. The trick of + augury invests it, at a glance, with the sum of its possibilities, the + augurs all sincere, confident, and exulting. They have been justified so + often; they know, in their wide fair fields of opportunity, just what + qualities will produce what results. There is thus a complacence among + adolescent peoples which is vaguely irritating to their elders; but the + greybeards need not be over-captious; it is only a question of time, + pathetically short-lived in the history of the race. Sanguine persons in + Elgin were freely disposed to “bet on” Lorne Murchison, and there were + none so despondent as to take the view that he would not come out of it, + somehow; with an added personal significance. To make a spoon is a + laudable achievement, but it may be no mean business to spoil a horn. + </p> + <p> + As the Express put it, there was as little standing room for ladies and + gentlemen in the courthouse the first day of the Spring Assizes as there + was for horses in the Court House Square. The County Crown Attorney was + unusually, oddly, reinforced by Cruickshank, of Toronto—the great + Cruickshank, K.C., probably the most distinguished criminal lawyer in the + Province. There were those who considered that Cruickshank should not have + been brought down, that it argued undue influence on the part of the bank, + and his retainer was a fierce fan to the feeling in Moneida; but there is + no doubt that his appearance added all that was possible to the universal + interest in the case. Henry Cruickshank was an able man and, what was + rarer a fastidious politician. He had held office in the Dominion Cabinet, + and had resigned it because of a difference with his colleagues in the + application of a principle; they called him, after a British politician of + lofty but abortive views, the Canadian Renfaire. He had that independence + of personality, that intellectual candour, and that touch of magnetism + which combine to make a man interesting in his public relations. + Cruickshank’s name alone would have filled the courthouse, and people + would have gone away quoting him. + </p> + <p> + From the first word of the case for the prosecution there was that in the + leading counsel’s manner—a gravity, a kindness, an inclination to + neglect the commoner methods of scoring—that suggested, with the + sudden chill of unexpectedly bad news, a foregone conclusion. The reality + of his feeling reference to the painful position of the defendant’s + father, the sincerity of his regret on behalf of the bank, for the + deplorable exigency under which proceedings had been instituted, spread a + kind of blankness through the court; men frowned thoughtfully, and one or + two ladies shed furtive tears. Even the counsel for the defence, it was + afterward remembered, looked grave, sympathetic, and concerned, in + response to the brief but significant and moving sentences with which his + eminent opponent opened the case. It is not my duty to report the trial + for any newspaper; I will therefore spare myself more than the most + general references; but the facts undoubtedly were that a safe in the + strong room of the bank had been opened between certain hours on a certain + night and its contents abstracted; that young Ormiston, cashier of the + bank, was sleeping, or supposed to be sleeping, upon the premises at this + time, during the illness of the junior whose usual duty it was; and that + the Crown was in possession of certain evidence which would be brought + forward to prove collusion with the burglary on the part of the defendant, + collusion to cover deficits for which he could be held responsible. In a + strain almost apologetic, Mr Cruickshank explained to the jury the + circumstances which led the directors to the suspicion which they now + believed only too regrettably well founded. These consisted in the fact + that the young man was known to be living beyond his means, and so to be + constantly visited by the temptation to such a crime; the special + facilities which he controlled for its commission and, in particular, the + ease and confidence with which the actual operation had been carried out, + arguing no fear of detection on the part of the burglars, no danger of + interference from one who should have stood ready to defend with his life + the property in his charge, but who would shortly be seen to have been + toward it, first, a plunderer in his own person, and afterward the + accomplice of plunderers to conceal his guilt. Examination showed the safe + to have been opened with the dexterity that demands both time and + coolness; and the ash from a pipe knocked out against the wall at the side + of the passage offered ironical testimony to the comfort in which the + business had been done. + </p> + <p> + The lawyer gave these considerations their full weight, and it was in + dramatic contrast with the last of them that he produced the first + significant fragment of evidence against Ormiston. There had been, after + all, some hurry of departure. It was shown by a sheet of paper bearing the + mark of a dirty thumb and a hasty boot-heel, bearing also the combination + formula for opening the safe. + </p> + <p> + The public was familiar with that piece of evidence; it had gone through + every kind of mill of opinion; it made no special sensation. The evidence + of the caretaker who found the formula and of the witnesses who + established it to be in young Ormiston’s handwriting, produced little + interest. Mr Cruickshank, in elaborating his theory as to why with the + formula in their hands the depredators still found it necessary to pick + the lock, offered nothing to speculations already current—the + duplicate key with which they had doubtless been enabled to supply + themselves was a clumsy copy and had failed them; that conclusion had been + drawn commonly enough. The next scrap of paper produced by the prosecution + was another matter. It was the mere torn end of a greasy sheet; upon it + was written “Not less than 3,000 net,” and it had been found in the + turning out of Ormiston’s dressing-table. It might have been anything—a + number of people pursed their lips contemptuously—or it might have + been, without doubt, the fragment of a disreputable transaction that the + prosecuting counsel endeavoured to show it. Here, no doubt, was one of the + pieces of evidence the prosecution was understood to have up its sleeve, + and that portion of the prosecuting counsel’s garment was watched with + feverish interest for further disclosures. They came rapidly enough, but + we must hurry them even more. The name of Miss Florence Belton, when it + rose to the surface of the evidence, riveted every eye and ear. Miss + Belton was one of those ambiguous ladies who sometimes drift out from the + metropolitan vortex and circle restfully in backwaters for varying + periods, appearing and disappearing irrelevantly. They dress beautifully; + they are known to “paint” and thought to dye their hair. They establish no + relations, being much too preoccupied. making exceptions only, as a rule, + in favour of one or two young men, to whom they extend amenities based—it + is the common talk—upon late hours and whiskey-and-soda. They seem + superior to the little prevailing conventions; they excite an unlawful + interest; though nobody knows them black nobody imagines them white; and + when they appear upon Main Street in search of shoelaces or elastic heads + are turned and nods, possibly nudges, exchanged. Miss Belton had come from + New York to the Barker House, Elgin, and young Ormiston’s intimacy with + her was one of the things that counted against him in the general view. It + was to so count more seriously in the particular instance. Witnesses were + called to prove that he had spent the evening of the burglary with Miss + Belton at her hotel, that he had remained with her until one o’clock, that + he was in the habit of spending his evenings with Miss Belton. + </p> + <p> + Rawlins of the Express did not overdo the sensation which was caused in + the courtroom when the name of this lady herself was called to summon her + to the witness box. It was indeed the despair of his whole career. He + thought despondingly ever after of the thrill, to which he himself was not + superior and which, if he had only been able to handle it adequately, + might have led him straight up the ladder to a night editorship. Miss + Belton appeared from some unsuspected seat near the door, throwing back a + heavy veil, and walking as austerely as she could, considering the colour + of her hair. She took her place without emotion and there she corroborated + the evidence of the servants of the hotel. To the grave questions of the + prosecution she fluently replied that the distraction of these evenings + had been cards—cards played, certainly, for money, and that she, + certainly, had won very considerable sums from the defendant from time to + time. In Elgin the very mention of cards played for money will cause a + hush of something deeper than disapproval; there was silence in the court + at this. In producing several banknotes for Miss Belton’s identification, + Mr Cruickshank seemed to profit by the silence. Miss Belton identified + them without hesitation, as she might easily, since they had been traced + to her possession. Asked to account for them; she stated, without winking, + that they had been paid to her by Mr Walter Ormiston at various times + during the fortnight preceding the burglary, in satisfaction of debts at + cards. She, Miss Belton, had left Elgin for Chicago the day after the + burglary. Mr Ormiston knew that she was going. He had paid her the four + fifty-dollar notes actually traced, the night before she left, and said. + “You won’t need to break these here, will you?” He seemed anxious that she + should not, but it was the merest accident that she hadn’t. In all, she + had received from Mr Ormiston four hundred and fifty dollars. No, she had + no suspicion that the young man might not be in a position to make such + payments. She understood that Mr Ormiston’s family was wealthy, and never + thought twice about it. + </p> + <p> + She spoke with a hard dignity, the lady, and a great effect of doing + business, a kind of assertion of the legitimate. The farmers of Fox County + told each other in chapfallen appreciation that she was about as + level-headed as they make them. Lawyer Cruickshank, as they called him, + brought forth from her detail after detail, and every detail fitted + damningly with the last. The effect upon young Ormiston was so painful + that many looked another way. His jaw was set and his features contorted + to hold himself from the disgrace of tears. He was generally acknowledged + to be overwhelmed by the unexpected demonstration of his guilt, but + distress was so plain in him that there was not a soul in the place that + was not sorry for him. In one or two resolute faces hope still glimmered, + but it hardly survived the cross-examination of the Crown’s chief witness + by the counsel for the defence which, as far as it went, had a perfunctory + air and contributed little to the evidence before the Court. It did not go + all the way, however. The case having opened late, the defence was + reserved till the following day, when proceedings would be resumed with + the further cross-examination of Miss Belton. + </p> + <p> + As the defendant’s counsel went down the courthouse steps Rawlins came up + to him to take note of his demeanour and anything else that might be + going. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty stiff row to hoe you’ve got there, Lorne,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Pretty stiff,” responded Lorne. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI + </h2> + <p> + Imagination, one gathers, is a quality dispensed with of necessity in the + practice of most professions, being that of which nature is, for some + reason, most niggardly. There is no such thing as passing in imagination + for any department of public usefulness, even the government of Oriental + races; the list of the known qualified would be exhausted, perhaps, in + getting the papers set. Yet neither poet nor philosopher enjoys it in + monopoly; the chemist may have it, and the inventor must; it has been + proved the mainspring of the mathematician, and I have hinted it the + property of at least two of the Murchisons. Lorne was indebted to it + certainly for his constructive view of his client’s situation, the view + which came to him and stayed with him like a chapter in a novel, from the + hour in which Ormiston had reluctantly accounted for himself upon the + night of the burglary. It was a brilliant view, that perceived the young + clerk the victim of the conspiracy he was charged with furthering; its + justification lay back, dimly, among the intuitions about human nature + which are part of the attribute I have quoted. I may shortly say that it + was justified; another day’s attendance at the Elgin Courthouse shall not + be compulsory here, whatever it may have been there. Young Ormiston’s + commercial probity is really no special concern of ours; the thing which + does matter, and considerably, is the special quality which Lorne + Murchison brought to the task of its vindication, the quality that made + new and striking appeal, through every channel of the great occasion, to + those who heard him. It was that which reinforced and comforted every + friend Ormiston had in the courtroom, before Lorne proceeded either to + deal with the evidence of the other side, or to produce any jot or tittle + of his own; and it was that which affected his distinguished opponent to + the special interest which afterward showed itself so pleasantly superior + to the sting of defeat. The fact that the defence was quite as + extraordinarily indebted to circumstantial evidence as the prosecution in + no way detracted from the character of Lorne’s personal triumph; rather, + indeed, in the popular view and Rawlins’s, enhanced it. There was in it + the primitive joy of seeing a ruffian knocked down with his own + illegitimate weapons, from the moment the dropped formula was proved to be + an old superseded one, and unexpected indication was produced that + Ormiston’s room, as well as the bank vault, had been entered the night of + the robbery, to the more glorious excitement of establishing Miss Belton’s + connection—not to be quoted—with a cracksman at that moment + being diligently inquired for by the New York police with reference to a + dramatically bigger matter. You saw the plot at once as he constructed it; + the pipe ash became explicable in the seduction of Miss Belton’s charms. + The cunning net unwove itself, delicately and deliberately, to tangle + round the lady. There was in it that superiority in the art of + legerdemain, of mere calm, astonishing manipulation, so applauded in + regions where romance has not yet been quite trampled down by reason. + Lorne scored; he scored in face of probability, expectation, fact; it was + the very climax and coruscation of score. He scored not only by the cards + he held but by the beautiful way he played them, if one may say so. His + nature came into this, his gravity and gentleness, his sympathy, his young + angry irony. To mention just one thing, there was the way he held Miss + Belton up, after the exposure of her arts, as the lady for whom his client + had so chivalric a regard that he had for some time refused to state his + whereabouts at the hour the bank was entered in the fear of compromising + her. For this, no doubt, his client could have strangled him, but it + operated, of course, to raise the poor fellow in the estimation of every + body, with the possible exception of his employers. When, after the + unmistakable summing-up, the foreman returned in a quarter of an hour with + the verdict of “Not guilty,” people noticed that the young man walked out + of court behind his father with as drooping a head as if he had gone under + sentence; so much so that by common consent he was allowed to slip quietly + away. Miss Belton departed, followed by the detective, whose services were + promptly transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of those who + scented further entertainment in her perfumed, perjured wake. But the + majority hung back, leaving their places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd + wanted to shake hands with to say just a word of congratulation to, + Lorne’s triumph that they desired to enhance by a hearty sentence, or at + least an admiring glance. Walter Winter was among the most genial. + </p> + <p> + “Young man,” he said, “what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you you ought to + take this case?” Mr Winter, with his chest thrust out, plumed and strutted + in justifiable pride of prophecy. “Now, I’ll tell you another thing: + today’s event will do more for you than it has for Ormiston. Mark my + words!” + </p> + <p> + They were all of that opinion, all the fine foretellers of the profit + Lorne should draw from his spirited and conspicuous success; they stood + about in knots discussing it; to some extent it eclipsed the main interest + and issue of the day, at that moment driving out, free and disconsolate, + between the snake fences of the South Riding to Moneida Reservation. The + quick and friendly sense of opportunity was abroad on Lorne Murchison’s + behalf; friends and neighbours and Dr Drummond, and people who hardly knew + the fellow, exchanged wise words about what his chance would do for him. + What it would immediately do was present to nobody so clearly, however, as + to Mr Henry Cruickshank, who decided that he would, after all, accept Dr + Drummond’s invitation to spend the night with him, and find out the little + he didn’t know already about this young man. + </p> + <p> + That evening the Murchisons’ doorbell rang twice. The first time it was to + admit the Rev. Hugh Finlay, who had come to return Sordello, which he had + borrowed from Advena, and to find out whether she thought with him about + the interpretation of certain passages, and if not—there was always + the possibility—wherein their divergence lay. The second time the + door opened to Dr Drummond and Mr Cruickshank; and the electric light had + to be turned on in the drawing-room, since the library was already + occupied by Mr Finlay and Advena, Mr and Mrs Murchison never having got + over their early habit of sitting in the dining-room after tea. Even then + Mrs Murchison had to put away her workbasket, and John Murchison to knock + the ashes out of his pipe, looking at one another with surprised inquiry + when Eliza informed them of their visitors. Luckily, Mr Lorne was also in, + and Eliza was sent to tell him, and Mr Lorne came down the stairs two at a + time to join the party in the drawing-room, which was presently supplied + by Eliza with a dignified service of cake and wine. The hall divided that + room from the library, and both doors were shut. We cannot hesitate about + which to open; we have only, indeed, to follow the recognized tradition of + Elgin, which would never have entered the library. No vivid conclusion + should be drawn, no serious situation may even be indicated. It would + simply have been considered, in Elgin, stupid to go into the library. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t a case for the High Commissioner for Canada,” Mr Cruickshank was + saying. “It’s a case for direct representation of the interests concerned, + and their view of the effect upon trade. That’s the only voice to speak + with if you want to get anything done. Conviction carries conviction. The + High Commissioner is a very useful fellow to live in London and look after + the ornamental, the sentimental, and immigration—nobody could do it + better than Selkirk. And in England, of course, they like that kind of + agency. It’s the good old dignified way; but it won’t do for everything. + You don’t find our friend Morgan operating through the American equivalent + of a High Commissioner.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you don’t,” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “He goes over there as a principal, and the British Government, if he + wants to deal with it, is only another principal. That’s the way our + deputation will go. We’re practically all shippers, though of course the + matter of tenders will come later. There is big business for them here, + national business, and we propose to show it. The subsidy we want will + come back to the country four times over in two years. Freights from + Boston alone—” + </p> + <p> + “It’s the patriotic, imperial argument you’ll have to press, I doubt,” + said John Murchison. “They’re not business people over there—the men + in office are not. How should they be? The system draws them from the + wrong class. They’re gentlemen—noblemen, maybe—first, and + they’ve no practical education. There’s only one way of getting it, and + that’s to make your own living. How many of them have ever made tuppence? + There’s where the Americans beat them so badly—they’ve got the sixth + sense, the business sense. No; you’ll not find them responding greatly to + what there is in it for trade—they’d like to well enough, but they + just won’t see it; and, by George! what a fine suspicion they’ll have of + ye! As to freights from Boston,” he continued, as they all laughed, “I’m + of opinion you’d better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a + friendly power! Tut, tut!” + </p> + <p> + It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were all excited to a + pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank had brought with him an event of + extraordinary importance. It seemed to sit there with him, significant and + propitious, in the middle of the sofa; they all looked at it in the + pauses. Dr Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately contemplated it and + remembered to assert himself part of it. As head of a deputation from the + United Chambers of Commerce of Canada shortly to wait on the British + Government to press for the encouragement of improved communications + within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked to select a secretary. The + appointment, in view of the desirability, for political reasons, of giving + the widest publicity to the hopes and motives of the deputation, was an + important one. The action of the Canadian Government, in extending + conditional promises of support, had to be justified to the Canadian + taxpayer; and that shy and weary person whose shoulders uphold the + greatness of Britain, had also to receive such conciliation and + reassurance as it was possible to administer to him, by way of nerving the + administrative arm over there to an act of enterprise. Mr Cruickshank had + had two or three young fellows, mostly newspaper men, in his mind’s eye; + but when Lorne came into his literal range of vision, the others had + promptly been retired in our friend’s favour. Young Mr Murchison, he had + concluded, was the man they wanted; and if his office could spare him, it + would probably do young Mr Murchison no harm in any sort of way to + accompany the deputation to London and throw himself into the matter the + deputation had at heart. + </p> + <p> + “But it’s the Empire!” said Lorne, with a sort of shy fire, when Mr + Cruickshank enunciated this. + </p> + <p> + We need not, perhaps, dwell upon the significance of his agreement. It was + then not long since the maple leaf had been stained brighter than ever, + not without honour, to maintain the word that fell from him. The three + older men looked at him kindly; John Murchison, rubbing his chin as he + considered the situation, slightly shook his head. One took it that in his + view the Empire was not so readily envisaged. + </p> + <p> + “That has a strong bearing,” Mr Cruickshank assented. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the whole case—it seems to me,” repeated young Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “It should help to knit us up,” said Dr Drummond. “I’ll put my name down + on the first passenger list, if Knox Church will let me off. See that you + have special rates,” he added, with a twinkle, “for ministers and + missionaries.” + </p> + <p> + “And only ten days to get him ready in,” said Mrs Murchison. “It will take + some seeing to, I assure you; and I don’t know how it’s to be done in the + time. For once, Lorne, I’ll have to order you ready-made shirts, and + you’ll just have to put up with it. Nothing else could possibly get back + from the wash.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll put up with it, Mother.” + </p> + <p> + They went into other details of Lorne’s equipment while Mrs Murchison’s + eye still wandered over the necessities of his wardrobe. They arranged the + date on which he was to meet the members of the deputation in Montreal, + and Mr Cruickshank promised to send him all available documents and such + presentation of the project as had been made in the newspapers. + </p> + <p> + “You shall be put in immediate possession of the bones of the thing,” he + said, “but what really matters,” he added pleasantly, “I think you’ve got + already.” + </p> + <p> + It took, of course, some discussion, and it was quite ten o’clock before + everything was gone into, and the prospect was clear to them all. As they + emerged into the hall together, the door of the room opposite also opened, + and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their group. They all made + the best of the unexpected encounter. It was rather an elaborate best, + very polite and entirely grave, except in the instance of Dr Drummond, who + met his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality struggled in vain to + overcome the delighted humour. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII + </h2> + <p> + It was the talk of the town, the pride of the market-place, Lorne + Murchison’s having been selected to accompany what was known as the + Cruickshank deputation to England. The general spirit of congratulation + was corrected by a tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on the + chairman’s part; Elgin wouldn’t be too flattered; Lawyer Cruickshank + couldn’t have done better. You may be sure the Express was well ahead with + it. “Honour to Our Young Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited Compliment,” and + Rawlins was round promptly next morning to glean further particulars. He + found only Mrs Murchison, on a stepladder tying up the clematis that + climbed about the verandah, and she told him a little about clematis and a + good deal about the inconvenience of having to abandon superintending the + spring cleaning in order to get Lorne ready to go to the Old Country at + such short notice, but nothing he could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at + the office, was hardly more communicative. Mr Williams himself dropped in + there. He said the Express would now have a personal interest in the + object of the deputation, and proposed to strike out a broad line, a + broader line than ever. + </p> + <p> + “We’ve got into the way of taking it for granted,” said Mr Williams, “that + the subsidy idea is a kind of mediaeval idea. Raise a big enough shout and + you get things taken for granted in economics for a long while. Conditions + keep changing, right along, all the time, and presently you’ve got to + reconsider. There ain’t any sort of ultimate truth in the finest economic + position, my son; not any at all.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll subsidize over here, right enough,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “That’s the idea—that’s the prevailing idea, just now. But lots of + people think different—more than you’d imagine. I was talking to old + man Milburn just now—he’s dead against it. ‘Government has no + business,’ he said, ‘to apply the taxes in the interests of any company. + It oughtn’t to know how to spell “subsidy.” If the trade was there it + would get itself carried,’ he said.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, that surprises me,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “Surprised me, too. But I was on the spot with him; just thought of it in + time. ‘Well, now, Mr Milburn,’ I said, ‘you’ve changed your mind. Thought + that was a thing you Conservatives never did,’ I said. ‘We don’t—I + haven’t,’ he said. ‘What d’ye mean? Twenty-five years ago,’ I said, ‘when + you were considering whether you’d start the Milburn Boiler Works here or + in Hamilton, Hamilton offered you a free site, and Elgin offered you a + free site and a dam for your water power. You took the biggest subsidy an’ + came here,’ I said.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne laughed: “What did he say to that?” + </p> + <p> + “Hadn’t a word. ‘I guess it’s up to me,’ he said. Then he turned round and + came back. ‘Hold on, Williams; he said. ‘You know so much already about my + boiler works, it wouldn’t be much trouble for you to write out an account + of them from the beginning, would it? Working in the last quarter of a + century of the town’s progress, you know, and all that. Come round to the + office tomorrow, and I’ll give you some pointers.’ And he fixed up a + two-column ad right away. He was afraid I’d round on him, I suppose, if I + caught him saying anything more about the immorality of subsidies.” + </p> + <p> + “He won’t say anything more.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably not. Milburn hasn’t got much of a political conscience, but he’s + got a sense of what’s silly. Well, now, I expect you want all the time + there is.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Williams removed himself from the edge of the table, which was strewn + with maps and bluebooks, printed official, and typewritten demi-official + papers. + </p> + <p> + “Give ‘em a notion of those Assiniboian wheat acres, my boy, and the ranch + country we’ve got; tell ‘em about the future of quick passage and cold + storage. Get ‘em a little ashamed to have made so many fortunes for Yankee + beef combines; persuade ‘em the cheapest market has a funny way of getting + the dearest price in the end. Give it ‘em, Lorne, hot and cold and + fricasseed. The Express will back you up.” + </p> + <p> + He slapped his young friend’s shoulder, who seemed occupied with matters + that prevented his at once feeling the value of this assurance. “Bye-bye,” + said Mr Williams. “See you again before you start.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, of course!” Lorne replied. “I’ll—I’ll come round. By the way, + Williams, Mr Milburn didn’t say anything—anything about me in + connection with this business? Didn’t mention, I suppose, what he thought + about my going?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a word, my boy! He was away up in abstract principles; he generally + is. Bye-bye.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s gone to his head a little bit—only natural,” Horace reflected + as he went down the stairs. “He’s probably just feeding on what folks + think of it. As if it mattered a pin’s head what Octavius Milburn thinks + or don’t think!” + </p> + <p> + Lorne, however, left alone with his customs returns and his immigration + reports, sat still, attaching a weight quite out of comparison with a + pin’s head to Mr Milburn’s opinion. He turned it over and over, instead of + the tabulated figures that were his business: he had to show himself his + way to the conclusion that such a thing could not matter seriously in the + end, since Milburn hadn’t a dollar involved—it would be different if + he were a shareholder in the Maple Line. He wished heartily, nevertheless, + that he could demonstrate a special advantage to boiler-makers in + competitive freights with New York. What did they import, confound them! + Pig-iron? Plates and rivets? Fortunately he was in a position to get at + the facts, and he got at them with an interest of even greater intensity + than he had shown to the whole question since ten that morning. Even now, + the unprejudiced observer, turning up the literature connected with the + Cruickshank deputation, may notice a stress laid upon the advantages to + Canadian importers of ore in certain stages of manufacture which may + strike him as slightly, very slightly, special. Of course there are a good + many of them in the country. So that Mr Horace Williams was justified to + some extent in his kindly observation upon the excusable egotism of youth. + Two or three letters, however, came in while Lorne was considering the + relation of plates and rivets to the objects of his deputation. They were + all congratulatory; one was from the chairman of the Liberal Association + at its headquarters in Toronto. Lorne glanced at them and stowed them away + in his pocket. He would read them when he got home, when it would be a + pleasure to hand them over to his mother. She was making a collection of + them. + </p> + <p> + He had a happy perception that same evening that Mr Milburn’s position was + not, after all, finally and invincibly taken against the deputation and + everything—everybody—concerned with it. He met that gentleman + at his own garden gate. Octavius paused in his exit, to hold it open for + young Murchison, thus even assisting the act of entry, a thing which + thrilled Lorne sweetly enough when he had time to ponder its possible + significance. Alas! the significance that lovers find! Lorne read a world + in the behaviour of Dora’s father in holding the gate open. He saw + political principle put aside in his favour, and social position forgotten + in kindness to him. He saw the gravest, sincerest appreciation of his + recent success, which he took as humbly as a dog will take a bone; he read + a fatherly thought at which his pulses bounded in an arrogance of triumph, + and his heart rose to ask its trust. And Octavius Milburn had held the + gate open because it was more convenient to hold it open than to leave it + open. He had not a political view in the world that was calculated to + affect his attitude toward a practical matter; and his opinion of Lorne + was quite uncomplicated: he thought him a very likely young fellow. + Milburn himself, in the Elgin way, preferred to see no great significance + of this sort anywhere. Young people were young people; it was natural + enough that they should like each other’s society. They, the Milburns, + were very glad to see Mr Murchison, very glad indeed. It was frequent + matter for veiled humorous reference at the table that he had been to call + again, at which Dora would look very stiff and dignified, and have to be + coaxed back into the conversation. As to anything serious, there was no + hurry; plenty of time to think of that. Such matters dwelt under the + horizon; there was no need to scan them closely; and Mr Milburn went his + way, conscious of nothing more than a comfortable gratification that Dora, + so far as the young men were concerned, seemed as popular as other girls. + </p> + <p> + Dora was not in the drawing-room. Young ladies in Elgin had always to be + summoned from somewhere. For all the Filkin instinct for the conservation + of polite tradition, Dora was probably reading the Toronto society weekly—illustrated, + with correspondents all over the Province—on the back verandah and, + but for the irruption of a visitor, would probably not have entered the + formal apartment of the house at all that evening. Drawing-rooms in Elgin + had their prescribed uses—to receive in, to practise in, and for the + last sad entertainment of the dead, when the furniture was disarranged to + accommodate the trestles; but the common business of life went on outside + them, even among prosperous people, the survival, perhaps, of a habit + based upon thrift. The shutters were opened when Lorne entered, to let in + the spring twilight, and the servant pulled a chair into its proper + relation with the room as she went out. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin both came in before Dora did. Lorne found + their conversation enchanting, though it was mostly about the difficulty + of keeping the lawn tidy; they had had so much rain. Mrs Milburn assured + him kindly that there was not such another lawn as his father’s in Elgin. + How Mr Murchison managed to have it looking so nice always she could not + think. Only yesterday she and Mr Milburn had stopped to admire it as they + passed. + </p> + <p> + “Spring is always a beautiful time in Elgin,” she remarked. “There are so + many pretty houses here, each standing in its own grounds. Nothing very + grand, as I tell my friend, Miss Cham, from Buffalo where the residences + are, of course, on quite a different scale; but grandeur isn’t everything, + is it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, indeed,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “But you will be leaving for Great Britain very soon now, Mr Murchison,” + said Miss Filkin. “Leaving Elgin and all its beauties! And I dare say you + won’t think of them once again till you get back!” + </p> + <p> + “I hope I shall not be so busy as that, Miss Filkin.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no, I’m sure Mr Murchison won’t forget his native town altogether,” + said Mrs Milburn, “though perhaps he won’t like it so well after seeing + dear old England!” + </p> + <p> + “I expect,” said Lorne simply, “to like it better.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, of course, we shall all be pleased if you say that, Mr Murchison,” + Mrs Milburn replied graciously. “We shall feel quite complimented. But I’m + afraid you will find a great deal to criticize when you come back—that + is, if you go at all into society over there. I always say there can be + nothing like good English society.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to attend a sitting of the House,” Lorne said. “I hope I shall + have time for that. I want to see those fellows handling their public + business. I don’t believe I shall find our men so far behind, for point of + view and grasp and dispatch. Of course there’s always Wallingham to make a + standard for us all. But they haven’t got so many Wallinghams.” + </p> + <p> + “Wasn’t it Wallingham, Louisa, that Mr Milburn was saying at breakfast was + such a dangerous man? So able, he said, but dangerous. Something to do + with the tariff.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh?” said Lorne, and he said no more, for at that moment Dora came in. + She came in looking very straight and graceful and composed. Her personal + note was carried out in her pretty clothes, which hung and “sat” upon her + like the rhythm of verses; they could fall no other way. She had in every + movement the definite accent of young ladyhood; she was very much aware of + herself, of the situation, and of her value in it, a setting for herself + she saw it, and saw it truly. No one, from the moment she entered the + room, looked at anything else. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mr Murchison,” she said. “How do you do? Mother, do you mind if I + open the window? It’s quite warm out of doors—regular summer.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne sprang to open the window, while Miss Filkin, murmuring that it had + been a beautiful day, moved a little farther from it. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, please don’t trouble, Mr Murchison; thank you very much!” Miss + Milburn continued, and subsided on a sofa. “Have you been playing tennis + this week?” + </p> + <p> + Mr Murchison said that he had been able to get down to the club only once. + </p> + <p> + “The courts aren’t a bit in good order. They want about a week’s rolling. + The balls get up anywhere,” said Dora. + </p> + <p> + “Lawn tennis,” Mrs Milburn asserted herself, “is a delightful exercise. I + hope it will never go out of fashion; but that is what we used to say of + croquet, and it has gone out and come in again.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne listened to this with deference; there was a hint of patience in the + regard Dora turned upon her mother. Mrs Milburn continued to dilate upon + lawn tennis, dealt lightly with badminton, and brought the conversation + round with a graceful sweep to canoeing. Dora’s attitude before she had + done became slightly permissive, but Mrs Milburn held on till she had + accomplished her conception of conduct for the occasion; then she + remembered a meeting in the schoolhouse. + </p> + <p> + “We are to have an address by an Indian bishop,” she told them. “He is on + his way to England by China and Japan, and is staying with our dear + rector, Mr Murchison. Such a treat I expect it will be.” + </p> + <p> + “What I am dying to know,” said Miss Filkin, in a sprightly way, “is + whether he is black or white!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs Milburn then left the room, and shortly afterward Miss Filkin thought + she could not miss the bishop either, conveying the feeling that a bishop + was a bishop, of whatever colour. She stayed three minutes longer than Mrs + Milburn, but she went. The Filkin tradition, though strong, could not hold + out entirely against the unwritten laws, the silently claimed privileges, + of youth in Elgin. It made its pretence and vanished. + </p> + <p> + Even as the door closed the two that were left looked at one another with + a new significance. A simpler relation established itself between them and + controlled all that surrounded them; the very twilight seemed conscious + with it; the chairs and tables stood in attentive harmony. + </p> + <p> + “You know,” said Dora, “I hate your going, Lorne!” + </p> + <p> + She did indeed seem moved, about the mouth, to discontent. There was some + little injury in the way she swung her foot. + </p> + <p> + “I was hoping Mr Fulke wouldn’t get better in time; I was truly!” + </p> + <p> + The gratitude in young Murchison’s eyes should have been dear to her. I + don’t know whether she saw it; but she must have been aware that she was + saying what touched him, making her point. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it’s a good thing to go, Dora.” + </p> + <p> + “A good thing for you! And the regatta coming off the first week in June, + and a whole crowd coming from Toronto for it. There isn’t another person + in town I care to canoe with, Lorne, you know perfectly well!” + </p> + <p> + “I’m awfully sorry!” said Lorne. “I wish—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m GOING, I believe. Stephen Stuart has written from Toronto, and + asked me to sail with him. I haven’t told Mother, but he’s my second + cousin, so I suppose she won’t make a fuss.” + </p> + <p> + The young man’s face clouded; seeing which she relented. “Oh, of course, + I’m glad you’re going, really,” she assured him. “And we’ll all be proud + to be acquainted with such a distinguished gentleman when you get back. Do + you think you’ll see the King? You might, you know, in London.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll see him if he’s visible,” laughed Lorne. “That would be something to + tell your mother, wouldn’t it? But I’m afraid we won’t be doing business + with His Majesty.” + </p> + <p> + “I expect you’ll have the loveliest time you ever had in all your life. Do + you think you’ll be asked out much, Lorne?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine who would ask me. We’ll get off easy if the street boys + don’t shout: ‘What price Canucks?’ at us! But I’ll see England, Dora; I’ll + feel England, eat and drink and sleep and live in England, for a little + while. Isn’t the very name great? I’ll be a better man for going, till I + die. We’re all right out here, but we’re young and thin and weedy. They + didn’t grow so fast in England, to begin with, and now they’re rich with + character and strong with conduct and hoary with ideals. I’ve been reading + up the history of our political relations with England. It’s astonishing + what we’ve stuck to her through, but you can’t help seeing why—it’s + for the moral advantage. Way down at the bottom, that’s what it is. We + have the sense to want all we can get of that sort of thing. They’ve + developed the finest human product there is, the cleanest, the most + disinterested, and we want to keep up the relationship—it’s + important. Their talk about the value of their protection doesn’t take in + the situation as it is now. Who would touch us if we were running our own + show?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe they are a bit better than we are,” replied Miss Milburn. + “I’m sure I haven’t much opinion of the Englishmen that come out here. + They don’t think anything of getting into debt, and as often as not they + drink, and they never know enough to—to come in out of the rain. + But, Lorne—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but we’re very apt to get the failures. The fellows their folks give + five or six hundred pounds to and tell them they’re not expected back till + they’re making a living. The best men find their level somewhere else, + along recognized channels. Lord knows we don’t want them—this + country’s for immigrants. We’re manufacturing our own gentlemen quite fast + enough for the demand.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think we were! Why, Lorne, Canadians—nice Canadians are + just as gentlemanly as they can be! They’ll compare with anybody. Perhaps + Americans have got more style:” she weighed the matter; “but Canadians are + much better form, I think. But, Lorne, how perfectly dear of you to send + me those roses. I wore them, and nobody there had such beauties. All the + girls wanted to know where I got them, but I only told Lily, just to make + her feel a pig for not having asked you—my very greatest friend! She + just about apologized—told me she wanted to ask about twenty more + people, but her mother wouldn’t let her. They’ve lost an uncle or + something lately, and if it hadn’t been for Clara Sims staying with them + they wouldn’t have been giving anything.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll try to survive not having been asked. But I’m glad you wore the + roses, Dora.” + </p> + <p> + “I dropped one, and Phil Carter wanted to keep it. He’s so silly!” + </p> + <p> + “Did you—did you let him keep it?” + </p> + <p> + “Lorne Murchison! Do you think I’d let any man keep a rose I’d been + wearing?” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her, suddenly emboldened. “I don’t know about roses, Dora, + but pansies—those are awfully nice ones in your dress. I’m very fond + of pansies; couldn’t you spare me one? I wouldn’t ask for a rose, but a + pansy—” + </p> + <p> + His eyes were more ardent than what he found to say. Beneath them Dora + grew delicately pink. The pansies drooped a little; she put her slender + fingers under one, and lifted its petals. + </p> + <p> + “It’s too faded for your buttonhole,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “It needn’t stay in my buttonhole. I know lots of other places!” he + begged. + </p> + <p> + Dora considered the pansy again, then she pulled it slowly out, and the + young man got up and went over to her, proffering the lapel of his coat. + </p> + <p> + “It spoils the bunch,” she said prettily. “If I give you this you will + have to give me something to take its place.” + </p> + <p> + “I will,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “I know it will be something better,” said Dora, and there was a little + effort in her composure. “You send people such beautiful flowers, Lorne.” + </p> + <p> + She rose beside him as she spoke, graceful and fair, to fasten it in; and + it was his hand that shook. + </p> + <p> + “Then may I choose it?” said Lorne. “And will you wear it?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you may. Why are you—why do you—Oh, Lorne, stand + still!” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll give you, you sweet girl, my whole heart!” he said in the vague + tender knowledge that he offered her a garden, where she had but to walk, + and smile, to bring about her unimaginable blooms. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII + </h2> + <p> + They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May evening, Mr and + Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the Murchison Place in the town’s + mouth now, and that was only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the + Plummers. It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big horse + chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring dusk for them, as it + had done faithfully for thirty years. John was no longer in his + shirt-sleeves; the growing authority of his family had long prescribed a + black alpaca coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old + deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as considerately as he held + its original, which lasted him fifteen years. A great deal of John + Murchison’s character was there, in the way he held his pipe, his + gentleness and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet strength of + his nature. He smoked and read the paper the unfailing double solace of + his evenings. I should have said that it was Mrs Murchison who talked. She + had the advantage of a free mind, only subconsciously occupied with her + white wool and agile needles; and John had frequently to choose between + her observations and the politics of the day. + </p> + <p> + “You saw Lorne’s letter this morning, Father?” + </p> + <p> + John took his pipe out of his mouth. “Yes,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “He seems tremendously taken up with Wallingham. It was all Wallingham, + from one end to the other.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not remarkable,” said John Murchison, patiently. + </p> + <p> + “You’d think he had nothing else to write about. There was that reception + at Lord What-you-may-call-him’s, the Canadian Commissioner’s, when the + Prince and Princess of Wales came, and brought their family. I’d like to + have heard something more about that than just that he was there. He might + have noticed what the children had on. Now that Abby’s family is coming + about her I seem to have my hands as full of children’s clothes as ever I + had. Abby seems to think there’s nothing like my old patterns; I’m sure + I’m sick of the sight of them!” + </p> + <p> + Mr Murchison refolded his newspaper, took his pipe once more from his + mouth, and said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “John, put down that paper! I declare it’s enough to drive anybody crazy! + Now look at that boy walking across the lawn. He does it every night, + delivering the Express, and you take no more notice! He’s wearing a + regular path!” + </p> + <p> + “Sonny,” said Mr Murchison, as the urchin approached, “you mustn’t walk + across the grass.” + </p> + <p> + “Much good that will do!” remarked Mrs Murchison. “I’d teach him to walk + across the grass, if—if it were my business. Boy—isn’t your + name Willie Parker? Then it was your mother I promised the coat and the + other things to, and you’ll find them ready there, just inside the hall + door. They’ll make down very well for you, but you can tell her from me + that she’d better double-seam them, for the stuff’s apt to ravel. And + attend to what Mr Murchison says; go out by the gravel—what do you + suppose it’s there for?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs Murchison readjusted her glasses, and turned another row of the tiny + sock. “I must say it’s a pleasure to have the lawn neat and green,” she + said, with a sigh. “Never did I expect to see the day it would be anything + but chickweed and dandelions. We’ve a great deal to be thankful for, and + all our children spared to us, too. John,” she continued, casting a shrewd + glance over her needles at nothing in particular; “do you suppose anything + was settled between Lorne and Dora Milburn before he Started?” + </p> + <p> + “He said nothing to me about it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well, very likely he wouldn’t. Young people keep such a tremendous + lot to themselves nowadays. But it’s my belief they’ve come to an + understanding.” + </p> + <p> + “Lily might do worse,” said John Murchison, judicially. + </p> + <p> + “I should think Dora might do worse! I don’t know where she’s going to do + better! The most promising young man in Elgin, well brought up, well + educated, well started in a profession! There’s not a young fellow in this + town to compare with Lorne, and perfectly well you know it, John. Might do + worse! But that’s you all over. Belittle your own belongings!” + </p> + <p> + Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. “They’ve always got you to blow + their trumpet, Mother,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about Lorne! He says that + if the English Government starts that line of boats to Halifax the country + will owe it to him, much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody else.” + </p> + <p> + “Dr Drummond likes to talk,” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Lorne’s keeping his end up all right,” remarked Stella, jumping off her + bicycle in time to hear what her mother said. “It’s great, that old + Wallingham asking him to dinner. And haven’t I just been spreading it!” + </p> + <p> + “Where have you been, Stella?” asked Mrs Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, only over to the Milburns’. Dora asked me to come and show her the + new flower-stitch for table centres. Dora’s suddenly taken to fancy work. + She’s started a lot—a lot too much!” Stella added gloomily. + </p> + <p> + “If Dora likes to do fancy work I don’t see why anybody should want to + stop her,” remarked Mrs Murchison, with a meaning glance at her husband. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose she thinks she’s going to get Lorne,” said Stella. Her + resentment was only half-serious, but the note was there. + </p> + <p> + “What put that into your head?” asked her mother. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well, anybody can see that he’s devoted to her, and has been for + ages, and it isn’t as if Lorne was one to HAVE girlfriends; she’s + absolutely the only thing he’s ever looked at twice. She hasn’t got a + ring, that’s true, but it would be just like her to want him to get it in + England. And I know they correspond. She doesn’t make any secret of it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as well as you, + Stella,” said Mrs Murchison, stooping for her ball. “But there’s no need + to take things for granted at such a rate. And, above all, you’re not to + go TALKING, remember!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you think Dora Milburn’s good enough,” returned Lorne’s youngest + sister in threatening accents, “it’s more than I do, that’s all. Hello, + Miss Murchison!” she continued, as Advena appeared. “You’re looking + ‘xtremely dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?” + </p> + <p> + Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful amusement, which + Stella, bicycling forth again, received in the back of her head. + </p> + <p> + “Father,” said Mrs Murchison, “if you had taken any share in the bringing + up of this family, Stella ought to have her ears boxed this minute!” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll have to box them,” said Mr Murchison, “when she comes back.” Advena + had retreated into the house. “IS she expecting his reverence?” asked her + father with a twinkle. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t ask me! I’m sure it’s more than I can tell you. It’s a mystery to + me, that matter, altogether. I’ve known him come three evenings in a week + and not again for a month of Sundays. And when he does come there they + sit, talking about their books and their authors; you’d think the world + had nothing else in it! I know, for I’ve heard them, hard at it, there in + the library. Books and authors won’t keep their house or look after their + family for them; I can tell them that, if it does come to anything, which + I hope it won’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Finlay’s fine in the pulpit,” said John Murchison cautiously. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the man’s well enough; it’s him I’m sorry for. I don’t call Advena + fitted to be a wife, and last of all a minister’s. Abby was a treasure for + any man to get, and Stella won’t turn out at all badly; she’s taking hold + very well for her age. But Advena simply hasn’t got it in her, and that’s + all there is to say about it.” Mrs Murchison pulled her needles out right + side out with finality. “I don’t deny the girl’s talented in her own way, + but it’s no way to marry on. She’d much better make up her mind just to be + a happy independent old maid; any woman might do worse. And take no + responsibilities.” + </p> + <p> + “There would always be you, Mother, for them to fall back on.” It was as + near as John Murchison ever got to flattery. + </p> + <p> + “No thank you, then! I’ve brought up six of my own, as well as I was able, + which isn’t saying much, and a hard life I’ve had of it. Now I’m done with + it; they’ll have to find somebody else to fall back on. If they get + themselves into such a mess”—Mrs Murchison stopped to laugh with + sincere enjoyment—“they needn’t look to me to get them out.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you’d have a hand, Mother.” + </p> + <p> + “Not I. But the man isn’t thinking of any such folly. What do you suppose + his salary is?” + </p> + <p> + “Eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. They raised it last month.” + </p> + <p> + “And how far would Advena be able to make that go, with servants getting + the money they do and expecting the washing put out as a matter of course? + Do you remember Eliza, John, that we had when we were first married? Seven + dollars a month she got; she would split wood at a pinch, and I’ve never + had one since that could do up shirts like her. Three years and a half she + was with me, and did everything, everything I didn’t do. But that was + management, and Advena’s no manager. It would be me that would tell him, + if I had the chance. Then he couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. But I + don’t think he has any such idea.” + </p> + <p> + “Advena,” pronounced Mr Murchison, “might do worse.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don’t know whether she might. The creature is well enough to + preach before a congregation. But what she can see in him out of the + pulpit is more than I know. A great gawk of a fellow, with eyes that + always look as if he were in the middle of next week! He may be able to + talk to Advena, but he’s no hand at general conversation; I know he finds + precious little to say to me. But he’s got no such notion. He comes here + because, being human, he’s got to open his mouth some time or other, I + suppose; but it’s my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody else in his + mind’s eye at present. He doesn’t go the right way about it.” + </p> + <p> + “H’m!” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “He brought her a book the last time he came—what do you think the + name of it was? The something or other of Plato! Do you call that a + natural gift from a young man who is thinking seriously of a girl? + Besides, if I know anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no + writer for a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I’d Plato him to + the rightabout if it was me!” + </p> + <p> + “She might read worse than Plato,” remarked John. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She’s your own daughter for outlandish + books. Mercy on us, here comes the man! We’ll just say ‘How d’ye do?’ to + him, and then start for Abby’s, John. I’m not easy in my mind about the + baby, and I haven’t been over since the morning. Harry says it’s nothing + but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough when I hear it. And if it + is whooping-cough the boy will have to come here and rampage, I suppose, + till they’re clear of it. There’s some use in grandmothers, if I do say it + myself!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV + </h2> + <p> + If anyone had told Mr Hugh Finlay, while he was pursuing his rigorous path + to the ideals of the University of Edinburgh, that the first notable + interest of his life in the calling and the country to which even then he + had given his future would lie in his relations with any woman, he would + have treated the prediction as mere folly. To go far enough back in + accounting for this one would arrive at the female sort, sterling and + arid, that had presided over his childhood and represented the sex to his + youth, the Aunt Lizzie, widowed and frugal and spare, who had brought him + up; the Janet Wilson, who had washed and mended him from babyhood, good + gaunt creature half-servant and half-friend—the mature respectable + women and impossible blowsy girls of the Dumfriesshire village whence he + came. With such as these relations, actual or imagined, could only be of + the most practical kind, matters to be arranged on grounds of expediency, + and certainly not of the first importance. The things of first importance—what + you could do with your energy and your brains to beat out some microscopic + good for the world, and what you could see and feel and realize in it of + value to yourself—left little room for the feminine consideration in + Finlay’s eyes; it was not a thing, simply, that existed there with any + significance. Woman in her more attractive presentment, was a daughter of + the poets, with an esoteric, or perhaps only a symbolic, or perhaps a + merely decorative function; in any case, a creature that required an + initiation to perceive her—a process to which Finlay would have been + as unwilling as he was unlikely to submit. Not that he was destitute of + ideals about women—they would have formed in that case a strange + exception to his general outlook—but he saw them on a plane detached + and impersonal, concerned with the preservation of society the maintenance + of the home, the noble devotions of motherhood. Women had been known, + historically, to be capable of lofty sentiments and fine actions: he would + have been the last to withhold their due from women. But they were removed + from the scope of his imagination, partly by the accidents I have + mentioned and partly, no doubt, by a simple lack in him of the inclination + to seek and to know them. + </p> + <p> + So that Christie Cameron, when she came to stay with his aunt in Bross + during the few weeks after his ordination and before his departure for + Canada, found a fair light for judgement and more than a reasonable + disposition to acquiesce in the scale of her merits, as a woman, on the + part of Hugh Finlay. He was familiar with the scale of her merits before + she came; his Aunt Lizzie did little but run them up and down. When she + arrived she answered to every item she was a good height, but not too + tall; a nice figure of a woman, but not what you would call stout; a + fresh-faced body whose excellent principles were written in every feature + she had. She was five years older than Hugh, but even that he came to + accept in Aunt Lizzie’s skilful exhibition as something to the total of + her advantages. A pleasant independent creature with a hundred a year of + her own, sensible and vigorous and good-tempered, belonging as well to the + pre-eminently right denomination. She had virtues that might have figured + handsomely in an advertisement had Aunt Lizzie, in the plenitude of her + good will, thought fit to take that measure on Christie’s behalf. But + nothing was farther from Aunt Lizzie’s mind. We must, in fairness, add + Christie Cameron to the sum of Finlay’s acquaintance with the sex; but + even then the total is slender, little to go upon. + </p> + <p> + Yet the fact which Mr Finlay would in those days have considered so + unimaginable remained; it had come into being and it remained. The chief + interest of his life, the chief human interest, did lie in his relations + with Advena Murchison. He might challenge it, but he could not move it; he + might explain, but he could not alter it. And there had come no point at + which it would have occurred to him to do either. When at last he had seen + how simple and possible it was to enjoy Miss Murchison’s companionship + upon unoccupied evenings he had begun to do it with eagerness and zest, + the greater because Elgin offered him practically no other. Dr Drummond + lived, for purposes of intellectual contact, at the other end of the + century, the other clergy and professional men of the town were separated + from Finlay by all the mental predispositions that rose from the virgin + soil. He was, as Mrs Murchison said, a great gawk of a fellow; he had + little adaptability; he was not of those who spend a year or two in the + New World and go back with a trans-Atlantic accent, either of tongue or of + mind. Where he saw a lack of dignity, of consideration, or of restraint, + he did not insensibly become less dignified or considerate or restrained + to smooth out perceptible differences; nor was he constituted to absorb + the qualities of those defects, and enrich his nature by the geniality, + the shrewdness, the quick mental movement that stood on the other side of + the account. He cherished in secret an admiration for the young men of + Elgin, with their unappeasable energy and their indomitable optimism, but + he could not translate it in any language of sympathy and but for Advena + his soul would have gone uncomforted and alone. + </p> + <p> + Advena, as we know, was his companion. Seeing herself just that, + constantly content to be just that, she walked beside him closer than he + knew. She had her woman’s prescience and trusted it. Her own heart, all + sweetly alive, counselled her to patience; her instincts laid her in bonds + to concealment. She knew, she was sure; so sure that she could play + sometimes, smiling, with her living heart— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The nightingale was not yet heard + For the rose was not yet blown, +</pre> + <p> + she could say of his; and what was that but play, and tender laughter, at + the expense of her own? And then, perhaps, looking up from the same book, + she would whisper, alone in her room— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Oh, speed the day, thou dear, dear May, +</pre> + <p> + and gaze humbly through tears at her own face in the glass loving it on + his behalf. She took her passion with the weight of a thing ordained; she + had come upon it where it waited for her, and they had gone on together, + carrying the secret. There might be farther to go, but the way could never + be long. + </p> + <p> + Finlay said when he came in that the heat for May was extraordinary; and + Advena reminded him that he was in a country where everything was + accomplished quickly, even summer. + </p> + <p> + “Except perhaps civilization.” she added. They were both young enough to + be pleased with cleverness for its specious self. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that is slow everywhere,” he observed; “but how you can say so, with + every modern improvement staring you in the face—” + </p> + <p> + “Electric cars and telephones! Oh, I didn’t say we hadn’t the products,” + and she laughed. “But the thing itself, the precious thing; that never + comes just by wishing, does it? The art of indifference, the art of choice—” + </p> + <p> + “If you had refinements in the beginning what would the end be?” he + demanded. “Anaemia.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t quarrel with the logic of it. I only point out the fact. To + do that is to acquiesce, really. I acquiesce; I have to. But one may long + for the more delicate appreciations that seem to flower where life has + gone on longer.” + </p> + <p> + “I imagine,” Finlay said, “that to wish truly and ardently for such things + is to possess them. If you didn’t possess them you wouldn’t desire them! + As they say, as they say—” + </p> + <p> + “As they say?” + </p> + <p> + “About love. Some novelist does. To be conscious in any way toward it is + to be fatally infected.” + </p> + <p> + “What novelist?” Advena asked, with shining interest. + </p> + <p> + “Some novelist. I—I can’t have invented it,” he replied, somewhat + confounded. He got up and walked to the window, where it stood open upon + the verandah. “I don’t write novels,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you live them,” suggested Advena. “I mean, of course,” she added, + laughing, “the highest class of fiction.” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven forbid!” + </p> + <p> + “Why Heaven forbid? You are sensitive to life, and a great deal of it + comes into your scope. You can’t see a thing truly without feeling it; you + can’t feel it without living it. I don’t write novels either, but I + experience—whole publishers’ lists.” + </p> + <p> + “That means,” he said, smiling, “that your vision is up to date. You see + the things, the kind of things that you read of next day. The modern moral + sophistications—?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t make me out boastful,” she replied. “I often do.” + </p> + <p> + “Mine would be old-fashioned, I am afraid. Old stories of pain”—he + looked out upon the lawn, white where the chestnut blossoms were dropping, + and his eyes were just wistful enough to stir her adoration—“and of + heroism that is quite dateless in the history of the human heart. At least + one likes to hope so.” + </p> + <p> + “I somehow think,” she ventured timidly, “that yours would be classic.” + </p> + <p> + Finlay withdrew his glance abruptly from the falling blossoms as if they + had tempted him to an expansion he could not justify. He was impatient + always of the personal note, and in his intercourse with Miss Murchison he + seemed of late to be constantly sounding it. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, almost irritably. “I only meant that I see + the obvious things, while you seem to have an eye for the subtle. There’s + reward, I suppose, in seeing anything. But about those more delicate + appreciations of societies longer evolved, I sometimes think that you + don’t half realize, in a country like this, how much there is to make up.” + </p> + <p> + “Is there anything really to make up?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, so much! Freedom from old habits, inherited problems: look at the + absurd difficulty they have in England in handling such a matter as + education! Here you can’t even conceive it—the schools have been on + logical lines from the beginning, or almost. Political activity over there + is half-strangled at this moment by the secular arm of religion; here it + doesn’t even impede the circulation! Conceive any Church, or the united + Churches, for the matter of that, asking a place in the conduct of the + common schools of Ontario! How would the people take it? With anger, or + with laughter, but certainly with sense. ‘By all mean let the ministers + serve education on the School Boards,’ they would say, ‘by election like + other people’—an opportunity, by the way, which has just been + offered to me. I’m nominated for East Elgin in place of Leverett, the + tanner, who is leaving the town. I shall do my best to get in, too; there + are several matters that want seeing to over there. The girls’ playground, + for one thing, is practically under water in the spring.” + </p> + <p> + “You should get in without the least difficulty. Oh, yes there is + something in a fresh start: we’re on the straight road as a nation, in + most respects; we haven’t any picturesque old prescribed lanes to travel. + So you think that makes up?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s one thing. You might put down space—elbow-room.” + </p> + <p> + “An empty horizon,” Advena murmured. + </p> + <p> + “For faith and the future. An empty horizon is better than none. England + has filled hers up. She has now—these,” and he nodded at a window + open to the yellow west. Advena looked with him. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, if you have a creative imagination,” she said “like Wallingham’s. But + even then your vision must be only political economic, material. You can’t + conceive the—flowers—that will come out of all that. And if + you could it wouldn’t be like having them.” + </p> + <p> + “And the scope of the individual, his chance of self-respect, unhampered + by the traditions of class, which either deaden it or irritate it in + England! His chance of significance and success! And the splendid, + buoyant, unused air to breathe, and the simplicity of life, and the plenty + of things!” + </p> + <p> + “I am to be consoled because apples are cheap.” + </p> + <p> + “You are to be consoled for a hundred reasons. Doesn’t it console you to + feel under your very feet the forces that are working to the immense + amelioration of a not altogether undeserving people?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Advena, rebelliously; and indeed he had been a trifle didactic + to her grievance. They laughed together, and then with a look at her in + which observation seemed suddenly to awake, Finlay said— + </p> + <p> + “And those things aren’t all, or nearly all. I sometimes think that the + human spirit, as it is set free in these wide unblemished spaces, may be + something more pure and sensitive, more sincerely curious about what is + good and beautiful—” + </p> + <p> + He broke off, still gazing at her, as if she had been an idea and no more. + How much more she was she showed him by a vivid and beautiful blush. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad you are so well satisfied,” she said, and then, as if her words + had carried beyond their intention, she blushed again. + </p> + <p> + Upon which Hugh Finlay saw his idea incarnate. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV + </h2> + <p> + If it were fair or adequate to so quote, I should be very much tempted to + draw the history of Lorne Murchison’s sojourn in England from his letters + home. He put his whole heart into these, his discoveries and his + recognitions and his young enthusiasm, all his claimed inheritance, all + that he found to criticize and to love. His mother said, half-jealously + when she read them, that he seemed tremendously taken up with the old + country; and of course she expressed the thing exactly, as she always did: + he was tremendously taken up with it. The old country fell into the lines + of his imagination, from the towers of Westminster to the shops in the + Strand; from the Right Hon. Fawcett Wallingham, who laid great issues + before the public, to the man who sang melancholy hymns to the same public + up and down the benevolent streets. It was naturally London that filled + his view; his business was in London and his time was short; the country + he saw from the train, whence it made a low cloudy frame for London, with + decorations of hedges and sheep. How he saw London, how he carried away + all he did in the time and under the circumstances, may be thought a + mystery; there are doubtless people who would consider his opportunities + too limited to gather anything essential. Cruickshank was the only one of + the deputation who had been “over” before; and they all followed him + unquestioningly to the temperance hotel of his preference in Bloomsbury, + where bedrooms were three and six and tea was understood as a solid meal + and the last in the day. Bates would have voted for the Metropole, and + McGill had been advised that you saw a good deal of life at the Cecil, but + they bowed to Cruickshank’s experience. None of them were total + abstainers, but neither had any of them the wine habit; they were not + inconvenienced, therefore, in taking advantage of the cheapness with which + total abstinence made itself attractive, and they took it, though they + were substantial men. As one of them put it, they weren’t over there to + make a splash, a thing that was pretty hard to do in London, anyhow; and + home comforts came before anything. The conviction about the splash was + perhaps a little the teaching of circumstances. They were influential + fellows at home, who had lived for years in the atmosphere of appreciation + that surrounds success; their movements were observed in the newspapers; + their names stood for wide interests, big concerns. They had known the + satisfaction of a positive importance, not only in their community but in + their country; and they had come to England invested as well with the + weight that is attached to a public mission. It may very well be that they + looked for some echo of what they were accustomed to, and were a little + dashed not to find it—to find the merest published announcement of + their arrival, and their introduction by Lord Selkirk to the Colonial + Secretary; and no heads turned in the temperance hotel when they came into + the dining-room. It may very well be. It is even more certain, however + that they took the lesson as they found it, with the quick eye for things + as they are which seems to come of looking at things as they will be, and + with just that humorous comment about the splash. It would be misleading + to say that they were humbled; I doubt whether they even felt their + relativity, whether they ever dropped consciously, there in the Bloomsbury + hotel, into their places in the great scale of London. Observing the + scale, recognizing it, they held themselves unaffected by it; they kept, + in a curious, positive way, the integrity of what they were and what they + had come for; they maintained their point of view. So much must be + conceded. The Empire produces a family resemblance, but here and there, + when oceans intervene, a different mould of the spirit. + </p> + <p> + Wallingham certainly invited them to dinner one Sunday, in a body, an + occasion which gave one or two of them some anxiety until they found that + it was not to be adorned by the ladies of the family. Tricorne was there, + President of the Board of Trade, and Fleming, who held the purse-strings + of the United Kingdom, two Ministers whom Wallingham had asked because + they were supposed to have open minds—open, that is to say, for + purposes of assimilation. Wallingham considered, and rightly, that he had + done very well for the deputation in getting these two. There were other + “colleagues” whose attendance he would have liked to compel; but one of + them, deep in the country, was devoting his weekends to his new French + motor, and the other to the proofs of a book upon Neglected Periods of + Mahommedan History, and both were at the breaking strain with overwork. + Wallingham asked the deputation to dinner. Lord Selkirk, who took them to + Wallingham, dined them too, and invited them to one of those garden + parties for the sumptuous scale of which he was so justly famed; the + occasion we have already heard about, upon which royalty was present in + two generations. They travelled to it by special train, a circumstance + which made them grave, receptive, and even slightly ceremonious with one + another. Lord Selkirk, with royalty on his hands, naturally could not give + them much of his time, and they moved about in a cluster, avoiding the + ladies’ trains and advising one another that it was a good thing the High + Commissioner was a man of large private means; it wasn’t everybody that + could afford to take the job. Yet they were not wholly detached from the + occasion; they looked at it, after they had taken it in, with an air + half-amused, half-proprietary. All this had, in a manner, come out of + Canada, and Canada was theirs. One of them—Bates it was—responding + to a lady who was effusive about the strawberries, even took the modestly + depreciatory attitude of the host. “They’re a fair size for this country, + ma’am, but if you want berries with a flavour we’ll do better for you in + the Niagara district.” + </p> + <p> + It must be added that Cruickshank lunched with Wallingham at his club, and + with Tricorne at his; and on both occasions the quiet and attentive young + secretary went with him, for purposes of reference, his pocket bulging + with memoranda. The young secretary felt a little embarrassed to justify + his presence at Tricorne’s lunch, as the Right Honourable gentleman seemed + to have forgotten what his guests had come for beyond it, and talked + exclusively and exhaustively about the new possibilities for fruit-farming + in England. Cruickshank fairly shook himself into his overcoat with + irritation afterward. “It’s the sort of thing we must except,” he said, as + they merged upon Pall Mall. It was not the sort of thing Lorne expected; + but we know him unsophisticated and a stranger to the heart of the Empire, + which beats through such impediment of accumulated tissue. Nor was it the + sort of thing they got from Wallingham, the keen-eyed and probing, whose + skill in adjusting conflicting interests could astonish even their + expectation, and whose vision of the essentials of the future could lift + even their enthusiasm. One would like to linger over their touch with + Wallingham, that fusion of energy with energy, that straight, satisfying, + accomplishing dart. There is more drama here; no doubt, than in all the + pages that are to come. But I am explaining now how little, not how much, + the Cruickshank deputation, and especially Lorne Murchison, had the + opportunity of feeling and learning in London, in order to show how + wonderful it was that Lorne felt and learned so widely. That, what he + absorbed and took back with him is, after all, what we have to do with; + his actual adventures are of no great importance. + </p> + <p> + The deputation to urge improved communications within the Empire had few + points of contact with the great world, but its members were drawn into + engagements of their own, more, indeed, than some of them could + conveniently overtake. Mr Bates never saw his niece in the post-office, + and regrets it to this day. The engagements arose partly out of business + relations. Poulton who was a dyspeptic, complained that nothing could be + got through in London without eating and drinking; for his part he would + concede a point any time not to eat and drink, but you could not do it; + you just had to suffer. Poulton was a principal in one of the railway + companies that were competing to open up the country south of Hudson’s Bay + to the Pacific, but having dealt with that circumstance in the course of + the day he desired only to be allowed to go to bed on bread and butter and + a little stewed fruit. Bates, whose name was a nightmare to every other + dry-goods man in Toronto, naturally had to see a good many of the + wholesale people; he, too, complained of the number of courses and the + variety of the wines, but only to disguise his gratification. McGill, of + the Great Bear Line, had big proposals to make in connection with southern + railway freights from Liverpool; and Cameron, for private reasons of + magnitude, proposed to ascertain the real probability of a duty to + foreigners on certain forms of manufactured leather—he turned out in + Toronto a very good class of suitcase. Cruickshank had private connections + to which they were all respectful. Nobody but Cruickshank found it + expedient to look up the lost leader of the Canadian House of Commons, + contributed to a cause still more completely lost in home politics; nobody + but Cruickshank was likely to be asked to dine by a former + Governor-General of the Dominion, an invitation which nobody but + Cruickshank would be likely to refuse. + </p> + <p> + “It used to be a ‘command’ in Ottawa,” said Cruickshank, who had got on + badly with his sovereign’s representative there, “but here it’s only a + privilege. There’s no business in it, and I haven’t time for pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + The nobleman in question had, in effect, dropped back into the Lords. So + far as the Empire was concerned, he was in the impressive rearguard, and + this was a little company of fighting men. + </p> + <p> + The entertainments arising out of business were usually on a scale more or + less sumptuous. They took place in big, well-known restaurants, and + included a look at many of the people who seem to lend themselves so + willingly to the great buzzing show that anybody can pay for in London, + their names in the paper in the morning, their faces at Prince’s in the + evening, their personalities no doubt advantageously exposed in various + places during the day. But there were others, humbler ones in Earl’s Court + Road or Maida Vale, where the members of the deputation had relatives whom + it was natural to hunt up. Long years and many billows had rolled between, + and more effective separations had arisen in the whole difference of life; + still, it was natural to hunt them up, to seek in their eyes and their + hands the old subtle bond of kin, and perhaps—such is our vanity in + the new lands—to show them what the stock had come to overseas. They + tended to be depressing these visits: the married sister was living in a + small way; the first cousin seemed to have got into a rut; the uncle and + aunt were failing, with a stooping, trembling, old-fashioned kind of + decrepitude, a rigidity of body and mind, which somehow one didn’t see + much over home. + </p> + <p> + “England,” said Poulton, the Canadian-born, “is a dangerous country to + live in; you run such risks of growing old.” They agreed, I fear, for more + reasons than this that England was a good country to leave early; and you + cannot blame them—there was not one of them who did not offer in his + actual person proof of what he said. Their own dividing chance grew + dramatic in their eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I was offered a clerkship with the Cunards the day before I sailed,” said + McGill. “Great Scott, if I’d taken that clerkship!” He saw all his + glorious past, I suppose, in a suburban aspect. + </p> + <p> + “I was kicked out,” said Cameron, “and it was the kindest attention my + father ever paid me;” and Bates remarked that it was worth coming out + second-class, as he did, to go back in the best cabin in the ship. + </p> + <p> + The appearance and opinions of those they had left behind them prompted + them to this kind of congratulation, with just a thought of compunction at + the back of it for their own better fortunes. In the further spectacle of + England most of them saw the repository of singularly old-fashioned ideas + the storehouse of a good deal of money; and the market for unlimited + produce. They looked cautiously at imperial sentiment; they were full of + the terms of their bargain and had, as they would have said, little use + for schemes that did not commend themselves on a basis of common profit. + Cruickshank was the biggest and the best of them; but even Cruickshank + submitted the common formulas; submitted them and submitted to them. + </p> + <p> + Only Lorne Murchison among them looked higher and further; only he was + alive to the inrush of the essential; he only lifted up his heart. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI + </h2> + <p> + Lorne was thus an atom in the surge of London. The members of the + deputation, as their business progressed, began to feel less like atoms + and more like a body exerting an influence, however obscurely hid in a + temperance hotel, upon the tide of international affairs; but their + secretary had naturally no initiative that appeared, no importance that + was taken account of. In these respects, no less than in the others, he + justified Mr Cruickshank’s selection. He did his work as unobtrusively as + he did it admirably well; and for the rest he was just washed about, + carried, hither and thither, generally on the tops of omnibuses, + receptive, absorbent, mostly silent. He did try once or twice to talk to + the bus drivers—he had been told it was a thing to do if you wanted + to get hold of the point of view of a particular class; but the thick + London idiom defeated him, and he found they grew surly when he asked them + too often to repeat their replies. He felt a little surly himself after a + while, when they asked him, as they nearly always did, if he wasn’t an + American. “Yes,” he would say in the end, “but not the United States + kind,” resenting the necessity of explaining to the Briton beside him that + there were other kinds. The imperial idea goes so quickly from the heart + to the head. He felt compelled, nevertheless, to mitigate his denial to + the bus drivers. + </p> + <p> + “I expect it’s the next best thing.” he would say, “but it’s only the next + best.” + </p> + <p> + It was as if he felt charged to vindicate the race, the whole of + Anglo-Saxondom, there in his supreme moment, his splendid position, on the + top of an omnibus lumbering west out of Trafalgar Square. + </p> + <p> + One introduction of his own he had. Mrs Milburn had got it for him from + the rector, Mr Emmett, to his wife’s brother, Mr Charles Chafe, who had + interests in Chiswick and a house in Warwick Gardens. Lorne put off + presenting the letter—did not know, indeed, quite how to present it, + till his stay in London was half over. Finally he presented himself with + it, as the quickest way, at the office of Mr Chafe’s works at Chiswick. He + was cordially received, both there and in Warwick Gardens, where he met + Mrs Chafe and the family, when he also met Mr Alfred Hesketh. Lorne went + several times to the house in Warwick Gardens, and Hesketh—a nephew—was + there on the very first occasion. It was an encounter interesting on both + sides. He—Hesketh—was a young man with a good public school + and a university behind him, where his very moderate degree, however, + failed to represent the activity of his mind or the capacity of his + energy. He had a little money of his own, and no present occupation; he + belonged to the surplus. He was not content to belong to it; he cast about + him a good deal for something to do. There was always the Bar, but only + the best fellows get on there, and he was not quite one of the best + fellows; he knew that. He had not money enough for politics or interest + enough for the higher departments of the public service, nor had he those + ready arts of expression that lead naturally into journalism. Anything + involving further examinations he rejected on that account; and the future + of glassware, in view of what they were doing in Germany, did not entice + him to join his uncle in Chiswick. Still he was aware of enterprise, + convinced that he had loafed long enough. + </p> + <p> + Lorne Murchison had never met anyone of Hesketh’s age in Hesketh’s + condition before. Affluence and age he knew, in honourable retirement; + poverty and youth he knew, embarked in the struggle; indolence and youth + he also knew, as it cumbered the ground; but youth and a competence, + equipped with education, industry, and vigour, searching vainly in fields + empty of opportunity, was to him a new spectacle. He himself had intended + to be a lawyer since he was fourteen. There never had been any impediment + to his intention, any qualification to his desire. He was still under his + father’s roof, but that was for the general happiness; any time within the + last eighteen months, if he had chosen to hurry fate, he might have + selected another. He was younger than Hesketh by a year, yet we may say + that he had arrived, while Hesketh was still fidgeting at the + starting-point. + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you farm?” he asked once. + </p> + <p> + “Farming in England may pay in a quarter of a century, not before. I can’t + wait for it. Besides, why should I farm? Why didn’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Lorne, “in your case it seems about the only thing left. I? + Oh it doesn’t attract us over there. We’re getting away from it—leaving + it to the newcomers from this side. Curious circle, that: I wonder when + our place gets overcrowded, where we shall go to plough?” + </p> + <p> + Hesketh’s situation occupied them a good deal; but their great topic had a + wider drift, embracing nothing less than the Empire, pausing nowhere short + of the flag. The imperial idea was very much at the moment in the public + mind; it hung heavily, like a banner, in every newspaper, it was filtering + through the slow British consciousness, solidifying as it travelled. In + the end it might be expected to arrive at a shape in which the British + consciousness must either assimilate it or cast it forth. They were saying + in the suburbs that they wanted it explained; at Hatfield they were + saying, some of them, with folded arms, that it was self evident; other + members of that great house, swinging their arms, called it blackness of + darkness and ruin, so had a prophet divided it against itself. Wallingham, + still in the Cabinet, was going up and down the country trying not to + explain too much. There was division in the Cabinet, sore travail among + private members. The conception being ministerial, the Opposition applied + itself to the task of abortion, fearing the worst if it should be + presented to the country fully formed and featured, the smiling offspring + of progress and imagination. Travellers to Greater Britain returned waving + joyous torches in the insular fog; they shed a brilliance and infectious + enthusiasm, but there were not enough to do more than make the fog + visible. Many persons found such torches irritating. They pointed out that + as England had groped to her present greatness she might be trusted to + feel her way further. “Free trade,” they said, “has made us what we are. + Put out these lights!” + </p> + <p> + Mr Chafe was one of these. He was a cautious, heavy fellow, full of + Burgundy and distrust. The basis of the imperial idea inspired him with + suspicion and hostility. He could accept the American tariff on English + manufactures; that was a plain position, simple damage, a blow full in the + face, not to be dodged. But the offer of better business in the English + colonies in exchange for a duty on the corn and meat of foreign countries—he + could see too deep for that. The colonials might or might not be good + customers; he knew how many decanters he sold in the United States, in + spite of the tariff. He saw that the tax on food-stuffs was being + commended to the working-man with the argument of higher wages. Higher + wages, with the competition of foreign labour, spelt only one word to + English manufacturers, and that was ruin. The bugbear of higher wages, + immediate, threatening, near, the terror of the last thirty years, closed + the prospect for Charles Chafe; he could see nothing beyond. He did not + say so, but to him the prosperity of the British manufacturer was bound up + in the indigence of the operative. Thriving workmen, doing well, and + looking to do better, rose before him in terms of menace, though their + prosperity might be rooted in his own. “Give them cheap food and keep them + poor,” was the sum of his advice. His opinions had the emphasis of the + unexpected, the unnatural: he was one of the people whom Wallingham’s + scheme in its legitimate development of a tariff on foreign manufactures + might be expected to enrich. This fact, which he constantly insisted on, + did give them weight; it made him look like a cunning fellow not to be + caught with chaff. He and his business had survived free trade—though + he would not say this either—and he preferred to go on surviving it + rather than take the chances of any zollverein. The name of the thing was + enough for him, a word made in Germany, thick and mucky, like their + tumblers. As to the colonies—Mr Chafe had been told of a certain + spider who devoured her young ones. He reversed the figure and it stood, + in the imperial connection, for all the argument he wanted. + </p> + <p> + Alfred Hesketh had lived always in the hearing of such doctrine; it had + stood to him for political gospel by mere force of repetition. But he was + young, with the curiosity and enterprise and impatience of dogma of youth; + he belonged by temperament and situation to those plastic thousands in + whom Wallingham hoped to find the leaven that should leaven the whole + lump. His own blood stirred with the desire to accomplish, to carry + further; and as the scope of the philanthropist did not attract him, he + was vaguely conscious of having been born too late in England. The new + political appeal of the colonies, clashing suddenly upon old insular + harmonies, brought him a sense of wider fields and chances; his own case + he freely translated into his country’s, and offered an open mind to + politics that would help either of them. He looked at the new countries + with interest, an interest evoked by their sudden dramatic leap into the + forefront of public concern. He looked at them with what nature intended + to be the eye of a practical businessman. He looked at Lorne Murchison, + too, and listened to him, with steady critical attention. Lorne seemed in + a way to sum it all up in his person, all the better opportunity a man had + out there; and he handled large matters of the future with a confidence + and a grip that quickened the circulation. Hesketh’s open mind gradually + became filled with the imperial view as he had the capacity to take it; + and we need not be surprised if Lorne Murchison, gazing in the same + direction, supposed that they saw the same thing. + </p> + <p> + Hesketh confessed, declared, that Murchison had brought him round; and + Lorne surveyed this achievement with a thrill of the happiest triumph. + Hesketh stood, to him, a product of that best which he was so occupied in + admiring and pursuing. Perhaps he more properly represented the second + best; but we must allow something for the confusion of early impressions. + Hesketh had lived always in the presence of ideals disengaged in England + as nowhere else in the world; in Oxford, Lorne knew, they clustered thick. + There is no doubt that his manners were good, and his ideas unimpeachable + in the letter; the young Canadian read the rest into him and loved him for + what he might have been. + </p> + <p> + “As an Englishman,” said Hesketh one evening as they walked together back + from the Chafes’ along Knightsbridge, talking of the policy urged by the + Colonial representatives at the last Conference, “I could wish the idea + were more our own—that we were pressing it on the colonies instead + of the colonies pressing it on us.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t there come a time in the history of most families,” Lorne + replied, “when the old folks look to the sons and daughters to keep them + in touch with the times? Why shouldn’t a vigorous policy of Empire be + conceived by its younger nations—who have the ultimate resources to + carry it out? We’ve got them and we know it—the iron and the coal + and the gold, and the wheat-bearing areas. I dare say it makes us seem + cheeky, but I tell you the last argument lies in the soil and what you can + get out of it. What has this country got in comparison? A market of forty + million people, whom she can’t feed and is less and less able to find work + for. Do you call that a resource? I call it an impediment—a penalty. + It’s something to exploit, for the immediate profit in it, something to + bargain with; but even as a market it can’t preponderate always, and I + can’t see why it should make such tremendous claims.” + </p> + <p> + “England isn’t superannuated yet, Murchison.” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet. Please God she never will be. But she isn’t as young as she was, + and it does seem to me—” + </p> + <p> + “What seems to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’m no economist, and I don’t know how far to trust my impressions, + and you needn’t tell me I’m a rank outsider, for I know that; but coming + here as an outsider, it does seem to me that it’s from the outside that + any sort of helpful change in the conditions of this country has got to + come. England still has military initiative, though it’s hard to see how + she’s going to keep that unless she does something to stop the + degeneration of the class she draws her army from; but what other kind do + we hear about? Company-promoting, bee-keeping, asparagus-growing, + poultry-farming for ladies, the opening of a new Oriental Tea-Pot in + Regent Street, with samisen-players between four and six, and Japanese + attendants who take the change on their hands and knees. London’s one + great stomach—how many eating places have we passed in the last ten + minutes? The place seems all taken up with inventing new ways of making + rich people more comfortable and better-amused—I’m fed up with the + sight of shiny carriages with cockaded flunkeys on ‘em, wooden-smart, + rolling about with an elderly woman and a parasol and a dog. England seems + to have fallen back on itself, got content to spend the money there is in + the country already; and about the only line of commercial activity the + stranger sees is the onslaught on that accumulation. London isn’t the + headquarters for big new developing enterprises any more. If you take out + Westminster and Wallingham, London is a collection of traditions and great + houses, and newspaper offices, and shops. That sort of thing can’t go on + for ever. Already capital is drawing away to conditions it can find a + profit in—steel works in Canada, woollen factories in Australia, + jute mills in India. Do you know where the boots came from that shod the + troops in South Africa? Cawnpore. The money will go, you know, and that’s + a fact; the money will go, and the people will go, anyhow. It’s only a + case of whether England sends them with blessing and profit and greater + glory, or whether she lets them slip away in spite of her.” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say it will,” replied Hesketh; “I’ve got precious little, but what + there is I’d take out fast enough, if I saw a decent chance of investing + it. I sometimes think of trying my luck in the States. Two or three + fellows in my year went over there and aren’t making half a bad thing of + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come,” said Lorne, half-swinging round upon the other, with his hands + in his pockets, “it isn’t exactly the time, is it, to talk about chucking + the Empire?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, no, it isn’t,” Hesketh admitted. “One might do better to wait, I + dare say. At all events, till we see what the country says to Wallingham.” + </p> + <p> + They walked on for a moment or two in silence; then Lorne broke out again. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it’s unreasonable, but there’s nothing I hate so much as to + hear Englishmen talk of settling in the United States.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s risky, I admit. And I’ve never heard anybody yet say it was + comfortable.” + </p> + <p> + “In a few years, fifty maybe, it won’t matter. Things will have taken + their direction by then; but now it’s a question of the lead. The + Americans think they’ve got it, and unless we get imperial federation of + course they have. It’s their plain intention to capture England + commercially.” + </p> + <p> + “We’re a long way from that,” said Hesketh. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but it’s in the line of fate. Industrial energy is deserting this + country; and you have no large movement, no counter-advance, to make + against the increasing forces that are driving this way from over there—nothing + to oppose to assault. England is in a state of siege, and doesn’t seem to + know it. She’s so great—Hesketh, it’s pathetic!—she offers an + undefended shore to attack, and a stupid confidence, a kindly blindness, + above all to Americans, whom she patronizes in the gate.” + </p> + <p> + “I believe we do patronize them,” said Hesketh. “It’s rotten bad form.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, form! I may be mad, but one seems to see in politics over here a lack + of definition and purpose, a tendency to cling to the abstract and to + precedent—‘the mainstay of the mandarin’ one of the papers calls it; + that’s a good word—that give one the feeling that this kingdom is + beginning to be aware of some influence stronger than its own. It lies, of + course, in the great West, where the corn and the cattle grow; and between + Winnipeg and Chicago choose quickly, England!” + </p> + <p> + His companion laughed. “Oh, I’m with you,” he said, “but you take a + pessimistic view of this country, Murchison.” + </p> + <p> + “It depends on what you call pessimism,” Lorne rejoined. “I see England + down the future the heart of the Empire, the conscience of the world. and + the Mecca of the race.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII + </h2> + <p> + The Cruickshank deputation returned across that North Atlantic which it + was their desire to see so much more than ever the track of the flag, + toward the middle of July. The shiny carriages were still rolling about in + great numbers when they left; London’s air of luxury had thickened with + the advancing season and hung heavily in the streets; people had begun to + picnic in the Park on Sundays. They had been from the beginning a source + of wonder and of depression to Lorne Murchison, the people in the Park, + those, I mean, who walked and sat and stood there for the refreshment of + their lives, for whom the place has a lyrical value as real as it is + unconscious. He noted them ranged on formal benches, quiet, respectable, + absorptive, or gathered heavily, shoulder to shoulder, docile under the + tutelage of policemen, listening to anyone who would lift a voice to speak + to them. London, beating on all borders, hemmed them in; England outside + seemed hardly to contain for them a wider space. Lorne, with his soul full + of free airs and forest depths, never failed to respond to a note in the + Park that left him heavy-hearted, longing for an automatic distributing + system for the Empire. When he saw them bring their spirit-lamps and + kettles and sit down in little companies on four square yards of turf, + under the blackened branches, in the roar of the traffic, he went back to + Bloomsbury to pack his trunk, glad that it was not his lot to live with + that enduring spectacle. + </p> + <p> + They were all glad, every one of them, to turn their faces to the West + again. The unready conception of things, the political concentration upon + parish affairs, the cumbrous social machinery, oppressed them with its + dull anachronism in a marching world; the problems of sluggish + overpopulation clouded their eager outlook. These conditions might have + been their inheritance. Perhaps Lorne Murchison was the only one who + thanked Heaven consciously that it was not so; but there was no man among + them whose pulse did not mark a heart rejoiced as he paced the deck of the + Allan liner the first morning out of Liverpool, because he had leave to + refuse them. None dreamed of staying, of “settling,” though such a course + was practicable to any of them except Lorne. They were all rich enough to + take the advantages that money brings in England, the comfort, the + importance, the state; they had only to add their wealth to the sumptuous + side of the dramatic contrast. I doubt whether the idea even presented + itself. It is the American who takes up his appreciative residence in + England. He comes as a foreigner, observant, amused, having disclaimed + responsibility for a hundred years. His detachment is as complete as it + would be in Italy, with the added pleasure of easy comprehension. But + homecomers from Greater Britain have never been cut off, still feel their + uneasy share in all that is, and draw a long breath of relief as they turn + again to their life in the lands where they found wider scope and + different opportunities, and that new quality in the blood which made them + different men. + </p> + <p> + The deputation had accomplished a good deal; less, Cruickshank said, than + he had hoped, but more than he had expected. They had obtained the promise + of concessions for Atlantic services, both mail and certain classes of + freight, by being able to demonstrate a generous policy on their own side. + Pacific communications the home Government was more chary of; there were + matters to be fought out with Australia. The Pacific was further away, as + Cruickshank said, and you naturally can’t get fellows who have never been + there to see the country under the Selkirks and south of the Bay—any + of them except Wallingham, who had never been there either, but whose + imagination took views of the falcon. They were reinforced by news of a + shipping combination in Montreal to lower freights to South Africa against + the Americans; it wasn’t news to them, some of them were in it; but it was + to the public, and it helped the sentiment of their aim, the feather on + the arrow. They had secured something, both financially and morally; what + best pleased them, perhaps, was the extent to which they got their scheme + discussed. Here Lorne had been invaluable; Murchison had done more with + the newspapers, they agreed, than any of them with Cabinet Ministers. The + journalist everywhere is perhaps more accessible to ideas, more + susceptible to enthusiasm, than his fellows, and Lorne was charged with + the object of his deputation in its most communicable, most captivating + form. At all events, he came to excellent understanding, whether of + agreement or opposition, with the newspapermen he met—Cruickshank + knew a good many of them and these occasions were more fruitful than the + official ones—and there is no doubt that the guarded approval of + certain leading columns had fewer ifs and buts and other qualifications in + consequence, while the disapproval of others was marked by a kind of + unwilling sympathy and a freely accorded respect. Lorne found London + editors surprisingly unbiased, London newspapers surprisingly + untrammelled. They seemed to him to suffer from no dictated views, no + interests in the background or special local circumstances. They had open + minds, most of them, and when a cloud appeared it was seldom more than a + prejudice. It was only his impression, and perhaps it would not stand + cynical inquiry; but he had a grateful conviction that the English Press + occupied in the main a lofty and impartial ground of opinion, from which + it desired only a view of the facts in their true proportion. On his + return he confided it to Horace Williams, who scoffed and ran the national + politics of the Express in the local interests of Fox County as hard as + ever; but it had fallen in with Lorne’s beautiful beliefs about England, + and he clung to it for years. + </p> + <p> + The Williamses had come over the second evening following Lorne’s arrival, + after tea. Rawlins had gone to the station, just to see that the Express + would make no mistake in announcing that Mr L. Murchison had “Returned to + the Paternal Roof,” and the Express had announced it, with due + congratulation. Family feeling demanded that for the first twenty-four + hours he should be left to his immediate circle, but people had been + dropping in all the next day at the office, and now came the Williamses + “trapesing,” as Mrs Murchison said, across the grass, though she was too + content to make it more than a private grievance, to where they all sat on + the verandah. + </p> + <p> + “What I don’t understand,” Horace Williams said to Mr Murchison, “was why + you didn’t give him a blow on the whistle. You and Milburn and a few + others might have got up quite a toot. You don’t get the secretary to a + deputation for tying up the Empire home every day.” + </p> + <p> + “You did that for him in the Express,” said John Murchison, smiling as he + pressed down, with an accustomed thumb, the tobacco into his pipe. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, we said nothing at all! Wait till he’s returned for South Fox,” + Williams responded jocularly. + </p> + <p> + “Why not the Imperial Council—of the future—at Westminster + while you’re about it?” remarked Lorne, flipping a pebble back upon the + gravel path. + </p> + <p> + “That will keep, my son. But one of these days, you mark my words, Mr L. + Murchison will travel to Elgin Station with flags on his engine and he’ll + be very much surprised to find the band there, and a large number of his + fellow-citizens, all able-bodied shouting men, and every factory whistle + in Elgin let off at once, to say nothing of kids with tin ones. And if the + Murchison Stove and Furnace Works siren stands out of that occasion I’ll + break in and pull it myself.” + </p> + <p> + “It won’t stand out,” Stella assured him. “I’ll attend to it. Don’t you + worry.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you had a lovely time, Mr Murchison?” said Mrs Williams, gently + tilting to and fro in a rocking-chair, with her pretty feet in their + American shoes well in evidence. It is a fact, or perhaps a parable, that + should be interesting to political economists, the adaptability of + Canadian feet to American shoes; but fortunately it is not our present + business. Though I must add that the “rocker” was also American; and the + hammock in which Stella reposed came from New York; and upon John + Murchison’s knee, with the local journal, lay a pink evening paper + published in Buffalo. + </p> + <p> + “Better than I can tell you, Mrs Williams, in all sorts of ways. But it’s + good to be back, too. Very good!” Lorne threw up his head and drew in the + pleasant evening air of midsummer with infinite relish while his eye + travelled contentedly past the chestnuts on the lawn, down the vista of + the quiet tree-bordered street. It lay empty in the solace of the evening, + a blue hill crossed it in the distance, and gave it an unfettered look, + the wind stirred in the maples. A pair of schoolgirls strolled up and down + bareheaded; now and then a buggy passed. + </p> + <p> + “There’s room here,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Find it kind of crowded up over there?” asked Mr Williams. “Worse than + New York?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes. Crowded in a patient sort of way—it’s enough to break your + heart—that you don’t see in New York! The poor of New York—well, + they’ve got the idea of not being poor. In England they’re resigned, + they’ve got callous. My goodness! the fellows out of work over there—you + can SEE they’re used to it, see it in the way they slope along and the + look in their eyes, poor dumb dogs. They don’t understand it, but they’ve + just got to take it! Crowded? Rather!” + </p> + <p> + “We don’t say ‘rather’ in this country, mister,” observed Stella. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you can say it now, kiddie.” + </p> + <p> + They laughed at the little passage—the traveller’s importation of + one or two Britishisms had been the subject of skirmish before—but + silence fell among them for a moment afterward. They all had in the blood + the remembrance of what Lorne had seen. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you’ve been doing big business,” said Horace Williams. + </p> + <p> + Lorne shook his head. “We haven’t done any harm,” he said, “but our + scheme’s away out of sight now. At least it ought to be.” + </p> + <p> + “Lost in the bigger issue.” said Williams, and Lorne nodded. + </p> + <p> + The bigger issue had indeed in the meantime obscured the political + horizon, and was widely spreading. A mere colonial project might well + disappear in it. England was absorbed in a single contemplation. + Wallingham, though he still supported the disabilities of a right + honourable evangelist with a gospel of his own, was making astonishing + conversions; the edifice of the national economic creed seemed coming over + at the top. It was a question of the resistance of the base, and the world + was watching. + </p> + <p> + “Cruickshank says if the main question had been sprung a month ago we + wouldn’t have gone over. As it is, on several points we’ve got to wait. If + they reject the preferential trade idea over there we shall have done a + little good, for any government would be disposed to try to patch up + something to take the place of imperial union in that case; and a few + thousands more for shipping subsidies and cheap cablegrams would have a + great look of strengthening the ties with the colonies. But if they commit + themselves to a zollverein with us and the rest of the family you won’t + hear much more about the need to foster communications. Communications + will foster themselves.” + </p> + <p> + “Just so,” remarked John Murchison. “They’ll save their money.” + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn’t think so before—I couldn’t,” Lorne went on, “but I’m + afraid it’s rather futile, the kind of thing we’ve been trying to do. It’s + fiddling at a superstructure without a foundation. What we want is the + common interest. Common interest, common taxation for defence, common + representation, domestic management of domestic affairs, and you’ve got a + working Empire.” + </p> + <p> + “Just as easy as slippin’ off a log,” remarked Horace Williams. + </p> + <p> + “Common interest, yes,” said his father; “common taxation, no, for defence + or any other purpose. The colonies will never send money to be squandered + by the London War Office. We’ll defend ourselves, as soon as we can manage + it, and buy our own guns and our own cruisers. We’re better business + people than they are, and we know it.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess that’s right, Mr Murchison,” said Horace Williams. “Our own army + and navy—in the sweet bye-and-bye. And let ‘em understand they’ll be + welcome to the use of it, but quite in a family way—no sort of + compulsion.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Lorne, “that’s compatible enough.” + </p> + <p> + “And your domestic affairs must include the tariff,” Mr Murchison went on. + “There’s no such possibility as a tariff that will go round. And tariffs + are kittle cattle to shoo behind.” + </p> + <p> + “Has anybody got a Scotch dictionary?” inquired Stella. “This conversation + is making me tired.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose you run away and play with your hoop,” suggested her brother. “I + can’t see that as an insuperable difficulty, Father. Tariffs could be made + adaptable, relative to the common interest as well as to the individual + one. We could do it if we liked.” + </p> + <p> + “Your adaptability might easily lead to other things. What’s to prevent + retaliation among ourselves? There’s a slump in textiles, and the home + Government is forced to let in foreign wool cheaper. Up goes the + Australian tax on the output of every mill in Lancashire. The last state + of the Empire might be worse than the first.” + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn’t be serious. If I pinched Stella’s leg as I’m going to in a + minute, she will no doubt kick me; and her instincts are such that she + will probably kick me with the leg I pinched, but that won’t prevent our + going to the football match together tomorrow and presenting a united + front to the world.” + </p> + <p> + They all laughed, and Stella pulled down her lengthening petticoats with + an air of great offence, but John Murchison shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “If they manage it, they will be clever,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Talking of Lancashire,” said Williams, “there are some funny fellows over + there writing in the Press against a tax on foreign cotton because it’s + going to ruin Lancashire. And at this very minute thousands of looms are + shut down in Lancashire because of the high price of cotton produced by an + American combine—and worse coming, sevenpence a pound I hear they’re + going to have it, against the fourpence ha’penny they’ve got it up to + already. That’s the sort of thing they’re afraid to discourage by a duty.” + </p> + <p> + “Would a duty discourage it?” asked John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Why not—if they let British-grown cotton in free? They won’t + discourage the combine much—that form of enterprise has got to be + tackled where it grows; but the Yankee isn’t the only person in the world + that can get to understand it. What’s to prevent preferential conditions + creating British combines, to compete with the American article, and + what’s to prevent Lancashire getting cheaper cotton in consequence? Two + combines are better than one monopoly any day.” + </p> + <p> + “May be so. It would want looking into. We won’t see a duty on cotton + though, or wool either for that matter. The manufacturers would be pleased + enough to get it on the stuff they make, but there would be a fine outcry + against taxing the stuff they use.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see much of the aristocracy, Mr Murchison?” asked Mrs Williams. + </p> + <p> + “No,” replied Lorne, “but I saw Wallingham.” + </p> + <p> + “You saw the whole House of Lords,” interposed Stella, “and you were + introduced to three.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, yes, that’s so. Fine-looking set of old chaps they are, too. We’re + a little too funny over here about the Lords—we haven’t had to make + any.” + </p> + <p> + “What were they doing the day you were there, Lorne?” asked Williams. + </p> + <p> + “Motorcar legislation,” replied Lorne. “Considerably excited about it, + too. One of them had had three dogs killed on his estate. I saw his letter + about it in the Times.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see anything to laugh at in that,” declared Stella. “Dogs are + dogs.” + </p> + <p> + “They are, sister, especially in England.” + </p> + <p> + “Laundresses aren’t washerwomen there,” observed Mrs Murchison. “I’d like + you to see the colour of the things he’s brought home with him, Mrs + Williams. Clean or dirty, to the laundry they go—weeks it will take + to get them right again—ingrained London smut and nothing else.” + </p> + <p> + “In this preference business they’ve got to lead the way,” Williams + reverted. “We’re not so grown up but what grandma’s got to march in front. + Now, from your exhaustive observation of Great Britain, extending over a + period of six weeks, is she going to?” + </p> + <p> + “My exhaustive observation,” said Lorne, smiling, “enables me to tell you + one thing with absolute accuracy; and that is that nobody knows. They + adore Wallingham over there—he’s pretty nearly a god—and + they’d like to do as he tells them, and they’re dead sick of theoretic + politics; but they’re afraid—oh, they’re afraid!” + </p> + <p> + “They’ll do well to ca’ canny,” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “There’s two things in the way, at a glance,” Lorne went on. “The + conservatism of the people—it isn’t a name, it’s a fact—the + hostility and suspicion; natural enough: they know they’re stupid, and + they half suspect they’re fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught + them that. Slow—oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence + than anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when things are being + done, mind, all over the world, done against them—when their + shipping is being captured, and their industries destroyed, and their + goods undersold beneath their very noses—and the thing they want to + know is—Why Are the Swallows Late? I read it myself, in a ha’penny + morning paper, too—that they think rather dangerously go-ahead—a + whole column, headed, to inquire what’s the matter with the swallows. The + Times the same week had a useful leader on Alterations in the Church + Service, and a special contribution on Prayers for the Dead. Lord, they + need ‘em! Those are the things they THINK about! The session’s nearly + over, and there’s two Church Discipline Bills, and five Church Bills—bishoprics + and benefices, and Lord knows what—still to get through. Lot of + anxiety about ‘em, apparently! As to a business view of politics, I expect + the climate’s against it. They’ll see over a thing—they’re fond of + doing that—or under it, or round one side of it, but they don’t seem + to have any way of seeing THROUGH it. What they just love is a good round + catchword; they’ve only got to hear themselves say it often enough, and + they’ll take it for gospel. They’re convinced out of their own mouths. + There was the driver of a bus I used to ride on pretty often, and if he + felt like talking, he’d always begin, ‘As I was a-saying of yesterday—’ + Well, that’s the general idea—to repeat what they were a-sayin’ of + yesterday; and it doesn’t matter two cents that the rest of the world has + changed the subject. They’ve been a-sayin’ a long time that they object to + import duties of any sort or kind, and you won’t get them to SEE the + business in changing. If they do this it won’t be because they want to, it + will be because Wallingham wants them to.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess that’s so,” said Williams. “And if Wallingham gets them to he + ought to have a statue in every capital in the Empire. He will, too. Good + cigar this, Lorne! Where’d you get it?” + </p> + <p> + “They are Indian cheroots—‘Planters,’ they call ‘em—made in + Madras. I got some through a man named Hesketh, who has friends out there, + at a price you wouldn’t believe for as decent a smoke. You can’t buy ‘em + in London; but you will all right, and here, too, as soon as we’ve got the + sense to favour British-grown tobacco.” + </p> + <p> + “Lorne appreciates his family better than he did before,” remarked his + youngest sister, “because we’re British grown.” + </p> + <p> + “You were saying you noticed two things specially in the way?” said his + father. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the other’s of course the awful poverty—the twelve millions + that haven’t got enough to do with. I expect it’s an outside figure and it + covers all sorts of qualifying circumstances; but it’s the one the Free + Fooders quote, and it’s the one Wallingham will have to handle. They’ve + muddled along until they’ve GOT twelve million people in that condition, + and now they have to carry on with the handicap. We ask them to put a tax + on foreign food to develop our wheat areas and cattle ranges. We say, + ‘Give us a chance and we’ll feed you and take your surplus population.’ + What is to be done with the twelve million while we are growing the wheat? + The colonies offer to create prosperity for everybody concerned at a + certain outlay—we’ve got the raw materials—and they can’t + afford the investment because of the twelve millions, and what may happen + meanwhile. They can’t face the meanwhile—that’s what it comes to.” + </p> + <p> + “Fine old crop of catchwords in that situation,” Mr Williams remarked; and + his eye had the spark of the practical politician. “Can’t you hear ‘em at + it, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “It scares them out of everything but hand-to-mouth politics. Any other + remedy is too heroic. They go on pointing out and contemplating and + grieving, with their percentages of misery and degeneration; and they go + on poulticing the cancer with benevolence—there are people over + there who want the State to feed the schoolchildren! Oh, they’re kind, + good, big-hearted people; and they’ve got the idea that if they can only + give enough away everything will come right. I was talking with a man one + day, and I asked him whether the existence of any class justified + governing a great country on the principle of an almshouse. He asked me + who the almsgivers ought to be, in any country. Of course it was tampering + with my figure—in an almshouse there aren’t any; but that’s the way + it presents itself to the best of them. Another fellow was frantic at the + idea of a tax on foreign food—he nearly cried—but would be + very glad to see the Government do more to assist emigration to the + colonies. I tried to show him it would be better to make it profitable to + emigrate first, but I couldn’t make him see it. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, and there’s the old thing against them, of course—the handling + of imperial and local affairs by one body. Anybody’s good enough to attend + to the Baghdad Railway, and nobody’s too good to attend to the town pump. + Is it any wonder the Germans beat them in their own shops and Russia walks + into Thibet? The eternal marvel is that they stand where they do.” + </p> + <p> + “At the top,” said Mr Williams. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—at the top! Think of what you mean when you say ‘England.’” + </p> + <p> + “I see that the demand for a tariff on manufactured goods is growing,” + Williams remarked, “even the anti-food-tax organs are beginning to shout + for that.” + </p> + <p> + “If they had put it on twenty years ago,” said Lorne, “there would be no + twelve million people making a problem for want of work, and it would be a + good deal easier to do imperial business today.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll find,” said John Murchison, removing his pipe, “that protection’ll + have to come first over there. They’ll put up a fence and save their trade—in + their own good time, not next week or next year—and when they’ve + done that they’ll talk to us about our big ideas—not before. And if + Wallingham hadn’t frightened them with the imperial job, he never would + have got them to take up the other. It’s just his way of getting both + done.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you’re right, Father,” said Lorne, with a covert glance at his + watch. “Horace—Mrs Williams—I’ll have to get you to excuse me. + I have an engagement at eight.” + </p> + <p> + He left them with a happy spring in his step, left them looking after him, + talking of him, with pride and congratulation. Only Stella, with a severe + lip and a disapproving eye, noted the direction he took as he left the + house. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII + </h2> + <p> + Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the pulpit steps of Knox + Church, and arranged the glass of water and the notices to be given out + beside it, twice every Sunday for twenty years. He was a small spare man, + with thin grey hair that fell back from the narrow dome of his forehead to + his coat collar, decent and severe. He ascended the pulpit exactly three + minutes before the minister did; and the dignity with which he put one + foot before the other made his appearance a ceremonious feature of the + service and a thing quoted. “I was there before Peter” was a triumphant + evidence of punctuality. Dr Drummond would have liked to make it a test. + It seemed to him no great thing to expect the people of Knox Church to be + there before Peter. + </p> + <p> + Macfarlane was also in attendance in the vestry to help the minister off + with his gown and hang it up. Dr Drummond’s gown needed neither helping + nor hanging; the Doctor was deftness and neatness and impatience itself, + and would have it on the hook with his own hands, and never a fold + crooked. After Mr Finlay, on the contrary, Peter would have to pick up and + smooth out—ten to one the garment would be flung on a chair. Still, + he was invariably standing by to see it flung, and to hand Mr Finlay his + hat and stick. He was surprised and put about to find himself one Sunday + evening too late for this attendance. The vestry was empty, the gown was + on the floor. Peter gathered it up with as perturbed an air as if Mr + Finlay had omitted a point of church observance. “I doubt they get into + slack ways in these missions,” said Peter. He had been unable, with Dr + Drummond, to see the necessity for such extensions. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Hugh Finlay, in secular attire, had left the church by the + vestry door, and was rapidly overtaking groups of his hearers as they + walked homeward. He was unusually aware of his change of dress because of + a letter in the inside pocket of his coat. The letter, in that intimate + place, spread a region of consciousness round it which hastened his blood + and his step. There was purpose in his whole bearing; Advena Murchison, + looking back at some suggestion of Lorne’s, caught it, and lost for a + moment the meaning of what she said. When he overtook them, with plain + intention, she walked beside the two men, withdrawn and silent, like a + child. It was unexpected and overwhelming, his joining them after the + service, accompanying them, as it were, in the flesh after having led them + so far in the spirit; he had never done it before. She felt her heart + confronted with a new, an immediate issue, and suddenly afraid. It shrank + from the charge for which it longed, and would have fled; yet, paralysed + with delight, it kept time with her sauntering feet. + </p> + <p> + They talked of the sermon, which had been strongly tinged with the issue + of the day. Dreamer as he was by temperament, Finlay held to the wisdom of + informing great public questions with the religious idea, vigorously + disclaimed that it was anywhere inadmissible. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll have to settle with the Doctor, Mr Finlay,” Lorne warned him + gaily, “if you talk politics in Knox Church. He thinks he never does.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think,” said Finlay, “that he would object to—to one’s going + as far afield as I did tonight?” + </p> + <p> + “He oughtn’t to,” said Lorne. “You should have heard him when old Sir John + Macdonald gerrymandered the electoral districts and gave votes to the + Moneida Indians. The way he put it, the Tories in the congregation + couldn’t say a word, but it was a treat for his fellow Grits.” + </p> + <p> + Finlay smiled gravely. “Political convictions are a man’s birthright,” he + said. “Any man or any minister is a poor creature without them. But of + course there are limits beyond which pulpit influence should not go, and I + am sure Dr Drummond has the clearest perception of them. He seems to have + been a wonderful fellow, Macdonald, a man with extraordinary power of + imaginative enterprise. I wonder whether he would have seen his way to + linking up the Empire as he linked up your Provinces here?” + </p> + <p> + “He’d have hated uncommonly to be in opposition, but I don’t see how he + could have helped it,” Lorne said. “He was the godfather of Canadian + manufacturers, you know—the Tories have always been the industrial + party. He couldn’t have gone for letting English stuff in free, or cheap; + and yet he was genuinely loyal and attached to England. He would + discriminate against Manchester with tears in his eyes! Imperialist in his + time spelled Conservative, now it spells Liberal. The Conservatives have + always talked the loudest about the British bond, but when it lately came + to doing we’re on record on the right side, and they’re on record on the + wrong. But it must make the old man’s ghost sick to see—” + </p> + <p> + “To see his court suit stolen,” Advena finished for him. “As Disraeli said—wasn’t + it Disraeli?” She heard, and hated the note of constraint in her voice. + “Am I reduced,” she thought, indignantly, “to falsetto?” and chose, since + she must choose, the betrayal of silence. + </p> + <p> + “It did one good to hear the question discussed on the higher level,” said + Lorne. “You would think, to read the papers, that all its merits could be + put into dollars and cents.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve noticed some of them in terms of sentiment—affection for the + mother country—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that’s lugged in. But it doesn’t cover the moral aspect,” Lorne + returned. “It’s too easy and obvious, as well; it gives the enemy cause to + offend.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, there’s a tremendous moral aspect,” Finlay said, “tremendous moral + potentialities hidden in the issue. England has more to lose than she + dreams.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s just where I felt, as a practical politician, a little restless + while you were preaching,” said Lorne, laughing. “You seemed to think the + advantage of imperialism was all with England. You mustn’t press that view + on us, you know. We shall get harder to bargain with. Besides, from the + point of your sermon, it’s all the other way.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t agree! The younger nations can work out their own salvation + unaided; but can England alone? Isn’t she too heavily weighted?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, materially, very likely! But morally, no,” said Lorne, stoutly. + “There, if you like, she has accumulations that won’t depreciate. Money + isn’t the only capital the colonies offer investment for.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid I see it in the shadow of the degeneration of age and + poverty,” said Finlay, smiling—“or age and wealth, if you prefer + it.” + </p> + <p> + “And we in the disadvantage of youth and easy success,” Lorne retorted. + “We’re all very well, but we’re not the men our fathers were: we need a + lot of licking into shape. Look at that disgraceful business of ours in + the Ontario legislature the other day, and look at that fellow of yours + walking out of office at Westminster last session because of a disastrous + business connection which he was morally as clear of as you or I! I tell + you we’ve got to hang on to the things that make us ashamed; and I guess + we’ve got sense enough to know it. But this is my corner. I am going to + look in at the Milburns’, Advena. Good night, Mr Finlay.” + </p> + <p> + Advena, walking on with Finlay, became suddenly aware that he had not once + addressed her. She had the quick impression that Lorne left him bereft of + a refuge; his plight heartened her. + </p> + <p> + “If the politicians on both sides were only as mutually appreciative,” she + said, “the Empire would soon be knit.” + </p> + <p> + For a moment he did not answer. “I am afraid the economic situation is not + quite analogous,” he said, stiffly and absently, when the moment had + passed. + </p> + <p> + “Why does your brother always call me ‘Mr’ Finlay?” he demanded presently. + “It isn’t friendly.” + </p> + <p> + The note of irritation in his voice puzzled her. “I think the form is + commoner with us,” she said, “even among men who know each other fairly + well.” Her secret glance flashed over the gulf that nevertheless divided + Finlay and her brother, that would always divide them. She saw it with + something like pain, which struggled through her pride in both. “And then, + you know—your calling—” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it is that,” he replied, ill content. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve noticed Dr Drummond’s way,” she told him, with rising spirits. “It’s + delightful. He drops the ‘Mr’ with fellow-ministers of his own + denomination only—never with Wesleyans or Baptists, for a moment. He + always comes back very genial from the General Assembly, and full of + stories. ‘I said to Grant,’ or ‘Macdonald said to me’—and he always + calls you ‘Finlay,’” she added shyly. “By the way, I suppose you know he’s + to be the new Moderator?” + </p> + <p> + “Is he, indeed? Yes—yes, of course, I knew! We couldn’t have a + better.” + </p> + <p> + They walked on through the early autumn night. It was just not raining. + The damp air was cool and pungent with the smell of fallen leaves, which + lay thick under their feet. Advena speared the dropped horse chestnut + husks with the point of her umbrella as they went along. She had picked up + half a dozen when he spoke again. “I want to tell you—I have to tell + you—something—about myself, Miss Murchison.” + </p> + <p> + “I should like,” said Advena steadily, “to hear.” + </p> + <p> + “It is a matter that has, I am ashamed to confess, curiously gone out of + my mind of late—I should say until lately. There was little until + lately—I am so poor a letter writer—to remind me of it. I am + engaged to be married!” + </p> + <p> + “But how interesting!” exclaimed Advena. + </p> + <p> + He looked at her taken aback. His own mood was heavy; it failed to answer + this lightness from her. It is hard to know what he expected, what his + unconscious blood expected for him; but it was not this. If he had little + wisdom about the hearts of women, he had less about their behaviour. She + said nothing more, but inclined her head in an angle of deference and + expectation toward what he should further communicate. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know that I have ever told you much about my life in Scotland,” + he went on. “It has always seemed to me so remote and—disconnected + with everything here. I could not suppose it would interest anyone. I was + cared for and educated by my father’s only sister, a good woman. It was as + if she had whole charge of the part of my life that was not absorbed in + work. I don’t know that I can make you understand. She was identified with + all the rest—I left it to her. Shortly before I sailed for Canada + she spoke to me of marriage in connection with my work and—welfare, + and with—a niece of her husband’s who was staying with us at the + time, a person suitable in every way. Apart from my aunt, I do not know—However, + I owed everything to her, and I—took her advice in the matter. I + left it to her. She is a managing woman; but she can nearly always prove + herself right. Her mind ran a great deal, a little too much perhaps, upon + creature comforts, and I suppose she thought that in emigrating a man + might do well to companion himself.” + </p> + <p> + “That was prudent of her,” said Advena. + </p> + <p> + He turned a look upon her. “You are not—making a mock of it?” he + said. + </p> + <p> + “I am not making a mock of it.” + </p> + <p> + “My aunt now writes to me that Miss Christie’s home has been broken up by + the death of her mother, and that if it can be arranged she is willing to + come to me here. My aunt talks of bringing her. I am to write.” + </p> + <p> + He said the last words slowly, as if he weighed them. They had passed the + turning to the Murchisons’, walking on with the single consciousness of a + path under them, and space before them. Once or twice before that had + happened, but Advena had always been aware. This time she did not know. + </p> + <p> + “You are to write,” she said. She sought in vain for more words; he also, + throwing back his head, appeared to search the firmament for phrases + without result. Silence seemed enforced between them, and walked with + them, on into the murky landscape, over the fallen leaves. Passing a + streetlamp, they quickened their steps, looking furtively at the light, + which seemed leagued against them with silence. + </p> + <p> + “It seems so extraordinarily—far away,” said Hugh Finlay, of Bross, + Dumfries, at length. + </p> + <p> + “But it will come near,” Advena replied. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think it ever can.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him with a sudden leap of the heart, a wild, sweet dismay. + </p> + <p> + “They, of course, will come. But the life of which they are a part, and + the man whom I remember to have been me—there is a gulf fixed—” + </p> + <p> + “It is only the Atlantic,” Advena said. She had recovered her vision; in + spite of the stone in her breast she could look. The weight and the hurt + she would reckon with later. What was there, after all, to do? Meanwhile + she could look, and already she saw with passion what had only begun to + form itself in his consciousness, his strange, ironical, pitiful plight. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “It is not marked in any geography,” he said, and gave + her a troubled smile. “How can I make it clear to you? I have come here + into a new world, of interests unknown and scope unguessed before. I know + what you would say, but you have no way of learning the beauty and charm + of mere vitality—you have always been so alive. One finds a physical + freedom in which one’s very soul seems to expand; one hears the happiest + calls of fancy. And the most wonderful, most delightful thing of all is to + discover that one is oneself, strangely enough, able to respond—” + </p> + <p> + The words reached the woman beside him like some cool dropping balm, + healing, inconceivably precious. She knew her share in all this that he + recounted. He might not dream of it, might well confound her with the + general pulse; but she knew the sweet and separate subcurrent that her + life had been in his, felt herself underlying all these new joys of his, + could tell him how dear she was. But it seemed that he must not guess. + </p> + <p> + It came to her with force that his dim perception of his case was + grotesque, that it humiliated him. She had a quick desire that he should + at least know that civilized, sentient beings did not lend themselves to + such outrageous comedies as this which he had confessed; it had somehow + the air of a confession. She could not let him fall so lamentably short of + man’s dignity, of man’s estate, for his own sake. + </p> + <p> + “It is a curious history,” she said. “You are right in thinking I should + not find it quite easy to understand. We make those—arrangements—so + much more for ourselves over here. Perhaps we think them more important + than they are.” + </p> + <p> + “But they are of the highest importance.” He stopped short, confounded. + </p> + <p> + “I shall try to consecrate my marriage,” he said presently, more to + himself than to Advena. + </p> + <p> + Her thought told him bitterly: “I am afraid it is the only thing you can + do with it,” but something else came to her lips. + </p> + <p> + “I have not congratulated you. I am not sure,” she went on, with + astonishing candour, “whether I can. But I wish you happiness with all my + heart. Are you happy now?” + </p> + <p> + He turned his great dark eyes on her. “I am as happy, I dare say, as I + have any need to be.” + </p> + <p> + “But you are happier since your letter came?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said. The simple word fell on her heart, and she forbore. + </p> + <p> + They went on again in silence until they arrived at a place from which + they saw the gleam of the river and the line of the hills beyond. Advena + stopped. + </p> + <p> + “We came here once before together—in the spring. Do you remember?” + she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I remember very well.” She had turned, and he with her. They stood + together with darkness about them, through which they could just see each + other’s faces. + </p> + <p> + “It was spring then, and I went back alone. You are still living up that + street? Good night, then, please. I wish again—to go back—alone.” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her for an instant in dumb bewilderment, though her words + were simple enough. Then as she made a step away from him he caught her + hand. + </p> + <p> + “Advena,” he faltered, “what has happened to us? This time I cannot let + you.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX + </h2> + <p> + “Lorne,” said Dora Milburn, in her most animated manner, “who do you think + is coming to Elgin? Your London friend, Mr Hesketh! He’s going to stay + with the Emmetts, and Mrs Emmett is perfectly distracted; she says he’s + accustomed to so much, she doesn’t know how he will put up with their + plain way of living. Though what she means by that, with late dinner and + afternoon tea every day of her life, is more than I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, that’s splendid!” replied Lorne. “Good old Hesketh! I knew he + thought of coming across this fall, but the brute hasn’t written to me. + We’ll have to get him over to our place. When he gets tired of the + Emmetts’ plain ways he can try ours—they’re plainer. You’ll like + Hesketh; he’s a good fellow, and more go-ahead than most of them.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I should ask him to stay if I were you, Lorne. Your mother + will never consent to change her hours for meals. I wouldn’t dream of + asking an Englishman to stay if I couldn’t give him late dinner; they + think so much of it. It’s the trial of Mother’s life that Father will not + submit to it. As a girl she was used to nothing else. Afternoon tea we do + have, he can’t prevent that, but Father kicks at anything but one o’clock + dinner and meat tea at six, and I suppose he always will.” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t one tea spoil the other?” Lorne inquired. “I find it does when I + go to your minister’s and peck at a cress sandwich at five. You haven’t + any appetite for a reasonable meal at six. But I guess it won’t matter to + Hesketh; he’s got a lot of sense about things of that sort. Why he served + out in South Africa—volunteered. Mrs Emmett needn’t worry. And if we + find him pining for afternoon tea we can send him over here.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if he’s nice. But I suppose he’s pretty sure to be nice. Any friend + of the Emmetts—What is he like, Lorne?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he’s just a young man with a moustache! You seem to see a good many + over there. They’re all alike while they’re at school in round coats, and + after they leave school they get moustaches, and then they’re all alike + again.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn’t tease. How tall is he? Is he fair or dark? What + colour are his eyes?” + </p> + <p> + Lorne buried his head in his hands in a pretended agony of recollection. + </p> + <p> + “So far as I remember, not exactly tall, but you wouldn’t call him short. + Complexion—well, don’t you know?—that kind of middling + complexion. Colour of his eyes—does anybody ever notice a thing like + that? You needn’t take my word for it, but I should say they were a kind + of average coloured eyes.” + </p> + <p> + “Lorne! You ARE—I suppose I’ll just have to wait till I see him. But + the girls are wild to know, and I said I’d ask you. He’ll be here in about + two weeks anyhow, and I dare say we won’t find him so much to make a fuss + about. The best sort of Englishmen don’t come over such a very great deal, + as you say. I expect they have a better time at home.” + </p> + <p> + “Hesketh’s a very good sort of Englishman,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “He’s awfully well off, isn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “According to our ideas I suppose he is,” said Lorne. “Not according to + English ideas.” + </p> + <p> + “Still less according to New York ones, then,” asserted Dora. “They + wouldn’t think much of it there even if he passed for rich in England.” It + was a little as if she resented Lorne’s comparison of standards, and + claimed the American one as at least cis-Atlantic. + </p> + <p> + “He has a settled income,” said Lorne, “and he’s never had to work for it, + whatever luck there is in that. That’s all I know. Dora—” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Lorne, you’re not to be troublesome.” + </p> + <p> + “Your mother hasn’t come in at all this evening. Don’t you think it’s a + good sign?” + </p> + <p> + “She isn’t quite so silly as she was,” remarked Dora. “Why I should not + have the same freedom as other girls in entertaining my gentleman friends + I never could quite see.” + </p> + <p> + “I believe if we told her we had made up our minds it would be all right,” + he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not so sure Lorne. Mother’s so deep. You can’t always tell just by + what she DOES. She thinks Stephen Stuart likes me—it’s too perfectly + idiotic; we are the merest friends—and when it’s any question of you + and Stephen—well, she doesn’t say anything, but she lets me see! She + thinks such a lot of the Stuarts because Stephen’s father was Ontario + Premier once, and got knighted.” + </p> + <p> + “I might try for that myself if you think it would please her,” said the + lover. + </p> + <p> + “Please her! And I should be Lady Murchison!” she let fall upon his + ravished ears. “Why, Lorne, she’d just worship us both! But you’ll never + do it.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + Dora looked at him with pretty speculation. She had reasons for supposing + that she did admire the young man. + </p> + <p> + “You’re too nice,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “That isn’t good enough,” he responded, and drew her nearer. + </p> + <p> + “Then why did you ask me?—No, Lorne, you are not to. Suppose Father + came in?” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t mind—Father’s on my side, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Father isn’t on anybody’s side,” said his daughter, wisely. + </p> + <p> + “Dora, let me speak to him!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Milburn gave a clever imitation of a little scream of horror. + </p> + <p> + “INDEED I won’t! Lorne, you are never, NEVER to do that! As if we were in + a ridiculous English novel!” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the part of an English novel I always like,” said Lorne. “The + going and asking. It must about scare the hero out of a year’s growth; but + it’s a glorious thing to do—it would be next day, anyhow.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s just the sort of thing to please Mother,” Dora meditated, “but she + can’t be indulged all the time. No, Lorne, you’ll have to leave it to me—when + there’s anything to tell.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s everything to tell now,” said he, who had indeed nothing to keep + back. + </p> + <p> + “But you know what Mother is, Lorne. Suppose they hadn’t any objection, + she would never keep it to herself! She’d want to go announcing it all + over the place; she’d think it was the proper thing to do.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Dora, why not? If you knew how I want to announce it! I should like + to publish it in the sunrise—and the wind—so that I couldn’t + go out of doors without seeing it myself.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t mind having it in Toronto Society, when the time comes. But + not yet, Lorne—not for ages. I’m only twenty-two—nobody thinks + of settling down nowadays before she’s twenty-five at the very earliest. I + don’t know a single girl in this town that has—among my friends, + anyway. That’s three years off, and you CAN’T expect me to be engaged for + three years.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” said Lorne, “engaged six months, married the rest of the time. Or + the periods might run concurrently if you preferred—I shouldn’t + mind.” + </p> + <p> + “An engaged girl has the very worst time. She gets hardly any attention, + and as to dances—well, it’s a good thing for her if the person she’s + engaged to CAN dance,” she added, teasingly. + </p> + <p> + Lorne coloured. “You said I was improving, Dora,” he said, and then + laughed at the childish claim. “But that isn’t really a thing that counts, + is it? If our lives only keep step it won’t matter much about the + ‘Washington Post.’ And so far as attention goes, you’ll get it as long as + you live, you little princess. Besides, isn’t it better to wear the love + of one man than the admiration of half a dozen?” + </p> + <p> + “And be teased and worried half out of your life by everybody you meet? + Now, Lorne, you’re getting serious and sentimental, and you know I hate + that. It isn’t any good either—Mother always used to say it made me + more stubborn to appeal to me. Horrid nature to have, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + Lorne’s hand went to his waistcoat pocket and came back with a tiny + packet. “It’s come, Dora—by this morning’s English mail.” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes sparkled, and then rested with guarded excitement upon the little + case. “Oh, Lorne!” + </p> + <p> + She said nothing more, but watched intently while he found the spring, and + disclosed the ring within. Then she drew a long breath. “Lorne Murchison, + what a lovely one!” + </p> + <p> + “Doesn’t it look,” said he, “just a little serious and sentimental?” + </p> + <p> + “But SUCH good style, too,” he declared, bending over it. “And quite new—I + haven’t seen anything a bit like it. I do love a design when it’s + graceful. Solitaires are so old-fashioned.” + </p> + <p> + He kept his eyes upon her face, feeding upon the delight in it. Exultation + rose up in him: he knew the primitive guile of man, indifferent to such + things, alluring with them the other creature. He did not stop to condone + her weakness; rather he seized it in ecstasy; it was all part of the glad + scheme to help the lover. He turned the diamonds so that they flashed and + flashed again before her. Then, trusting his happy instinct, he sought for + her hand. But she held that back. “I want to SEE it,” she declared, and he + was obliged to let her take the ring in her own way and examine it, and + place it in every light, and compare it with others worn by her friends, + and make little tentative charges of extravagance in his purchase of it, + while he sat elated and adoring, the simple fellow. + </p> + <p> + Reluctantly at last she gave up her hand. “But it’s only trying on—not + putting on,” she told him. He said nothing till it flashed upon her + finger, and in her eyes he saw a spark from below of that instinctive + cupidity toward jewels that man can never recognize as it deserves in + woman, because of his desire to gratify it. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll wear it, Dora?” he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “Lorne, you are the dearest fellow! But how could I? Everybody would + guess!” + </p> + <p> + Her gaze, nevertheless, rested fascinated on the ring, which she posed as + it pleased her. + </p> + <p> + “Let them guess! I’d rather they knew, but—it does look well on your + finger, dear.” + </p> + <p> + She held it up once more to the light, then slipped it decisively off and + gave it back to him. “I can’t, you know, Lorne. I didn’t really say you + might get it; and now you’ll have to keep it till—till the time + comes. But this much I will say—it’s the sweetest thing, and you’ve + shown the loveliest taste, and if it weren’t such a dreadful give-away I’d + like to wear it awfully.” + </p> + <p> + They discussed it with argument, with endearment, with humour, and + reproach, but her inflexible basis soon showed through their talk: she + would not wear the ring. So far he prevailed, that it was she, not he, who + kept it. Her insistence that he should take it back brought something like + anger out of him; and in the surprise of this she yielded so much. She did + it unwillingly at the time, but afterward, when she tried on the thing + again in the privacy of her own room; she was rather satisfied to have it, + safe under lock and key, a flashing, smiling mystery to visit when she + liked and reveal when she would. + </p> + <p> + “Lorne could never get me such a beauty again if he lost it,” she advised + herself, “and he’s awfully careless. And I’m not sure that I won’t tell + Eva Delarue, just to show it to her. She’s as close as wax.” + </p> + <p> + One feels a certain sorrow for the lover on his homeward way, squaring his + shoulders against the foolish perversity of the feminine mind, resolutely + guarding his heart from any hint of real reprobation. Through the + sweetness of her lips and the affection of her pretty eyes, through all + his half-possession of all her charms and graces, must have come dully the + sense of his great occasion manque, that dear day of love when it leaves + the mark of its claim. And in one’s regret there is perhaps some alloy of + pity, that less respectful thing. We know him elsewhere capable of + essaying heights, yet we seem to look down upon the drama of his heart. It + may be well to remember that the level is not everything in love. He who + carefully adjusts an intellectual machine may descry a higher mark; he can + construct nothing in a mistress; he is, therefore, able to see the facts + and to discriminate the desirable. But Lorne loved with all his + imagination. This way dares the imitation of the gods by which it improves + the quality of the passion, so that such a love stands by itself to be + considered, apart from the object, one may say. A strong and beautiful + wave lifted Lorne Murchison along to his destiny, since it was the pulse + of his own life, though Dora Milburn played moon to it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX + </h2> + <p> + Alfred Hesketh had, after all, written to young Murchison about his + immediate intention of sailing for Canada and visiting Elgin; the letter + arrived a day or two later. It was brief and businesslike, but it gave + Lorne to understand that since his departure the imperial idea had been + steadily fermenting, not only in the national mind, but particularly in + Hesketh’s; that it produced in his case a condition only to be properly + treated by personal experience. Hesketh was coming over to prove whatever + advantage there was in seeing for yourself. That he was coming with the + right bias Lorne might infer, he said, from the fact that he had waited a + fortnight to get his passage by the only big line to New York that stood + out for our mercantile supremacy against American combination. + </p> + <p> + “He needn’t bother to bring any bias,” Lorne remarked when he had read + this, “but he’ll have to pay a lot of extra luggage on the one he takes + back with him.” + </p> + <p> + He felt a little irritation at being offered the testimony of the Cunard + ticket. Back on his native soil, its independence ran again like sap in + him: nobody wanted a present of good will; the matter stood on its merits. + </p> + <p> + He was glad, nevertheless, that Hesketh was coming, gratified that it + would now be his turn to show prospects, and turn figures into facts, and + make plain the imperial profit from the further side. Hesketh was such an + intelligent fellow, there would be the keenest sort of pleasure in + demonstrating things, big things, to him, little things, too, ways of + living, differences of habit. Already in the happy exercise of his + hospitable instinct he saw how Hesketh would get on with his mother, with + Stella, with Dr Drummond. He saw Hesketh interested, domiciled, remaining—the + ranch life this side of the Rockies, Lorne thought, would tempt him, or + something new and sound in Winnipeg. He kept his eye open for chances, and + noted one or two likely things. “We want labour mostly,” he said to + Advena, “but nobody is refused leave to land because he has a little + money.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think not, indeed,” remarked Mrs Murchison, who was present. “I + often wish your father and I had had a little more when we began. That + whole Gregory block was going for three thousand dollars then. I wonder + what it’s worth now?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but you and Father are worth more, too,” remarked Stella acutely. + </p> + <p> + “In fact, all the elder members of the family have approximated in value, + Stella,” said her brother, “and you may too, in time.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll take my chance with the country,” she retorted. They were all + permeated with the question of the day; even Stella, after holding + haughtily aloof for some time, had been obliged to get into step, as she + described it, with the silly old Empire. Whatever it was in England, here + it was a family affair; I mean in the town of Elgin, in the shops and the + offices, up and down the tree-bordered streets as men went to and from + their business, atomic creatures building the reef of the future, but + conscious, and wanting to know what they were about. Political parties had + long declared themselves, the Hampden Debating Society had had several + grand field nights. Prospective lifelong friendships, male and female in + every form of “the Collegiate,” had been put to this touchstone, sometimes + with shattering effect. If you would not serve with Wallingham the + greatness of Britain you were held to favour going over to the United + States; there was no middle course. It became a personal matter in the + ward schools and small boys pursued small boys with hateful cries of + “Annexationist!” The subject even trickled about the apple-barrels and + potato-bags of the market square. Here it should have raged, pregnant as + it was with bucolic blessing; but our agricultural friends expect nothing + readily except adverse weather, least of all a measure of economic benefit + to themselves. Those of Fox County thought it looked very well, but it was + pretty sure to work out some other way. Elmore Crow failed heavily to + catch a light even from Lorne Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “You keep your hair on, Lorne,” he advised. “We ain’t going to get such + big changes yet. An’ if we do the blooming syndicates ‘ll spoil ‘em for + us.” + </p> + <p> + There were even dissentients among the farmers. The voice of one was + raised who had lived laborious years, and many of them in the hope of + seeing his butter and cheese go unimpeded across the American line. It + must be said, however, that still less attention was paid to him, and it + was generally conceded that he would die without the sight. + </p> + <p> + It was the great topic. The day Wallingham went his defiant furthest in + the House and every colonial newspaper set it up in acclaiming headlines, + Horace Williams, enterprising fellow, remembered that Lorne had seen the + great man under circumstances that would probably pan out, and send round + Rawlins. Rawlins was to get something that would do to call “Wallingham in + the Bosom of his Family,” and as much as Lorne cared to pour into him + about his own view of the probable issue. Rawlins failed to get the + interview, came back to say that Lorne didn’t seem to think himself a big + enough boy for that, but he did not return empty-handed. Mr Murchison sent + Mr Williams the promise of some contributions upon the question of the + hour, which he had no objection to sign and which Horace should have for + the good of the cause. Horace duly had them, the Express duly published + them, and they were copied in full by the Dominion and several other + leading journals, with an amount of comment which everyone but Mrs + Murchison thought remarkable. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t pretend to understand it,” she said, “but anybody can see that he + knows what he’s talking about.” John Murchison read them with a critical + eye and a pursed-out lip. + </p> + <p> + “He takes too much for granted.” + </p> + <p> + “What does he take for granted?” asked Mrs Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Other folks being like himself,” said the father. + </p> + <p> + That, no doubt, was succinct and true; nevertheless, the articles had + competence as well as confidence. The writer treated facts with restraint + and conditions with sympathy. He summoned ideas from the obscurity of + men’s minds, and marshalled them in the light, so that many recognized + what they had been trying to think. He wrote with homeliness as well as + force, wishing much more to make the issue recognizable than to create + fine phrases, with the result that one or two of his sentences passed into + the language of the discussion which, as any of its standard-bearers would + have told you, had little use for rhetoric. The articles were competent: + if you listened to Horace Williams you would have been obliged to accept + them as the last, or latest, word of economic truth, though it must be + left to history to endorse Mr Williams. It was their enthusiasm, however, + that gave them the wing on which they travelled. People naturally took + different views, even of this quality. “Young Murchison’s working the + imperial idea for all it’s worth,” was Walter Winter’s; and Octavius + Milburn humorously summed up the series as “tall talk.” + </p> + <p> + Alfred Hesketh came, it was felt, rather opportunely into the midst of + this. Plenty of people, the whole of Market Square and East Elgin, a good + part, too, probably, of the Town Ward, were unaware of his arrival; but + for the little world he penetrated he was clothed with all the interest of + the great contingency. His decorous head in the Emmetts’ pew on Sunday + morning stood for a symbol as well as for a stranger. The nation was on + the eve of a great far-reaching transaction with the mother country, and + thrilling with the terms of the bargain. Hesketh was regarded by people in + Elgin who knew who he was with the mingled cordiality and distrust that + might have met a principal. They did not perhaps say it, but it was in + their minds. “There’s one of them,” was what they thought when they met + him in the street. At any other time he would have been just an + Englishman; now he was invested with the very romance of destiny. The + perception was obscure, but it was there. Hesketh, on the other hand, + found these good people a very well-dressed, well-conditioned, decent lot, + rather sallower than he expected, perhaps, who seemed to live in a + fair-sized town in a great deal of comfort, and was wholly unconscious of + anything special in his relation to them or theirs to him. + </p> + <p> + He met Lorne just outside the office of Warner, Fulke, and Murchison the + following day. They greeted heartily. “Now this IS good!” said Lorne, and + he thought so. Hesketh confided his first impression. “It’s not unlike an + English country town,” he said, “only the streets are wider, and the + people don’t look so much in earnest.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, they’re just as much in earnest some of the time,” Lorne laughed, + “but maybe not all the time!” + </p> + <p> + The sun shone crisply round them; there was a brisk October market; on the + other side of the road Elmore Crow dangled his long legs over a cart flap + and chewed a cheroot. Elgin was abroad, doing business on its wide margin + of opportunity. Lorne cast a backward glance at conditions he had seen. + </p> + <p> + “I know what you mean,” he said. “Sharp of you to spot it so soon, old + chap! You’re staying with the English Church minister, aren’t you—Mr + Emmett? Some connection of yours, aren’t they?” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs Emmett is Chafe’s sister—Mrs Chafe, you know, is my aunt,” + Hesketh reminded him. “I say, Murchison, I left old Chafe wilder than + ever. Wallingham’s committee keep sending him leaflets and things. They + take it for granted he’s on the right side, since his interests are. The + other day they asked him for a subscription! The old boy sent his reply to + the Daily News and carried it about for a week. I think that gave him real + satisfaction; but he hates the things by post.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne laughed delightedly. “I expect he’s snowed under with them. I sent + him my own valuable views last week.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid they’ll only stiffen him. That got to be his great argument + after you left, the fact that you fellows over here want it. He doesn’t + approve of a bargain if the other side sees a profit. Curiously enough, + his foremen and people out in Chiswick are all for it. I was talking to + one of them just before I left—‘Stands to reason, sir,’ he said, ‘we + don’t want to pay more for a loaf than we do now. But we’ll do it, sir, if + it means downing them Germans; he said.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne’s eyebrows half-perceptibly twitched. “They do ‘sir’ you a lot over + there, don’t they?” he said. “It was as much as I could do to get at what + a fellow of that sort meant, tumbling over the ‘sirs’ he propped it up + with. Well, all kinds of people, all kinds of argument, I suppose, when it + comes to trying to get ‘em solid! But I was going to say we are all hoping + you’ll give us a part of your time while you’re in Elgin. My family are + looking forward to meeting you. Come along and let me introduce you to my + father now—he’s only round the corner.” + </p> + <p> + “By all means!” said Hesketh, and they fell into step together. As Lorne + said, it was only a short distance, but far enough to communicate a + briskness, an alertness, from the step of one young man to that of the + other. “I wish it were five miles,” Hesketh said, all his stall-fed + muscles responding to the new call of his heart and lungs. “Any good walks + about here? I asked Emmett, but he didn’t know—supposed you could + walk to Clayfield if you didn’t take the car. He seems to have lost his + legs. I suppose parsons do.” + </p> + <p> + “Not all of them,” said Lorne. “There’s a fellow that has a church over in + East Elgin, Finlay his name is, that beats the record of anything around + here. He just about ranges the county in the course of a week.” + </p> + <p> + “The place is too big for one parish, no doubt,” Hesketh remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, he’s a Presbyterian! The Episcopalians haven’t got any hold to speak + of over there. Here we are,” said Lorne, and turned in at the door. The + old wooden sign was long gone. “John Murchison and Sons” glittered instead + in the plate-glass windows, but Hesketh did not see it. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you think he’ll be in here?” he asked, on young Murchison’s heels. + </p> + <p> + “Because he always is when he isn’t over at the shop,” replied Lorne. + “It’s his place of business—his store, you know. There he is! Hard + luck—he’s got a customer. We’ll have to wait.” + </p> + <p> + He went on ahead with his impetuous step; he did not perceive the + instant’s paralysis that seemed to overtake Hesketh’s, whose foot dragged, + however, no longer than that. It was an initiation; he had been told he + might expect some. He checked his impulse to be amused, and guarded his + look round, not to show unseemly curiosity. His face, when he was + introduced to Alec, who was sorting some odd dozens of tablespoons, was + neutral and pleasant. He reflected afterward that he had been quite equal + to the occasion. He thought, too, that he had shown some adaptability. + Alec was not a person of fluent discourse, and when he had inquired + whether Hesketh was going to make a long stay, the conversation might have + languished but for this. + </p> + <p> + “Is that Birmingham?” he asked, nodding kindly at the spoons. + </p> + <p> + “Came to us through a house in Liverpool,” Alec responded. “I expect you + had a stormy crossing, Mr Hesketh.” + </p> + <p> + “It was a bit choppy. We had the fiddles on most of the time,” Hesketh + replied. “Most of the time. Now, how do you find the bicycle trade over + here? Languishing, as it is with us?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it keeps up pretty well,” said Alec, “but we sell more spoons. ‘N’ + what do you think of this country, far as you’ve seen it?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come now, it’s a little soon to ask, isn’t it? Yes—I suppose + bicycles go out of fashion, and spoons never do. I was thinking,” added + Hesketh, casting his eyes over a serried rank, “of buying a bicycle.” + </p> + <p> + Alec had turned to put the spoons in their place on the shelves. “Better + take your friend across to Cox’s,” he advised Lorne over his shoulder. + “He’ll be able to get a motorbike there,” a suggestion which gave Mr + Hesketh to reflect later that if that was the general idea of doing + business it must be an easy country to make money in. + </p> + <p> + The customer was satisfied at last, and Mr Murchison walked sociably to + the door with him; it was the secretary of the local Oddfellows’ Lodge, + who had come in about a furnace. + </p> + <p> + “Now’s our chance,” said Lorne. “Father, this is Mr Hesketh, from London—my + father, Hesketh. He can tell you all you want to know about Canada—this + part of it, anyway. Over thirty years, isn’t it, Father, since you came + out?” + </p> + <p> + “Glad to meet you,” said John Murchison, “glad to meet you, Mr Hesketh. + We’ve heard much about you.” + </p> + <p> + “You must have been quite among the pioneers of Elgin, Mr Murchison,” said + Hesketh as they shook hands. Alec hadn’t seemed to think of that; Hesketh + put it down to the counter. + </p> + <p> + “Not quite,” said John. “We’ll say among the early arrivals.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever been back in your native Scotland?” asked Hesketh. + </p> + <p> + “Aye, twice.” + </p> + <p> + “But you prefer the land of your adoption?” + </p> + <p> + “I do. But I think by now it’ll be kin,” said Mr Murchison. “It was good + to see the heather again, but a man lives best where he’s taken root.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. You seem to do a large business here, Mr Murchison.” + </p> + <p> + “Pretty well for the size of the place. You must get Lorne to take you + over Elgin. It’s a fair sample of our rising manufacturing towns.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope he will. I understand you manufacture to some extent yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “We make our own stoves and a few odd things.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t send any across the Atlantic yet?” queried Hesketh jocularly. + </p> + <p> + “Not yet. No, sir!” + </p> + <p> + Then did Mr Hesketh show himself in true sympathy with the novel and + independent conditions of the commonwealth he found himself in. + </p> + <p> + “I beg you won’t use that form with me,” he said, “I know it isn’t the + custom of the country, and I am a friend of your son’s, you see.” + </p> + <p> + The iron merchant looked at him, just an instant’s regard, in which + astonishment struggled with the usual deliberation. Then his considering + hand went to his chin. + </p> + <p> + “I see. I must remember,” he said. + </p> + <p> + The son, Lorne, glanced in the pause beyond John Murchison’s broad + shoulders, through the store door and out into the moderate commerce of + Main Street, which had carried the significance and the success of his + father’s life. His eye came back and moved over the contents of the place, + taking stock of it, one might say, and adjusting the balance with pride. + He had said very little since they had been in the store. Now he turned to + Hesketh quietly. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn’t bother about that if I were you,” he said. “My father spoke + quite—colloquially.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Hesketh. + </p> + <p> + They parted on the pavement outside. “I hope you understand,” said Lorne, + with an effort at heartiness, “how glad my parents will be to have you if + you find yourself able to spare us any of your time?” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks very much,” said Hesketh; “I shall certainly give myself the + pleasure of calling as soon as possible.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI + </h2> + <p> + “Dear me!” said Dr Drummond. “Dear me! Well! And what does Advena + Murchison say to all this?” + </p> + <p> + He and Hugh Finlay were sitting in the Doctor’s study, the pleasantest + room in the house. It was lined with standard religious philosophy, + standard poets, standard fiction, all that was standard, and nothing that + was not; and the shelves included several volumes of the Doctor’s own + sermons, published in black morocco through a local firm that did business + by the subscription method, with “Drummond” in gold letters on the back. + There were more copies of these, perhaps, than it would be quite + thoughtful to count, though a good many were annually disposed of at the + church bazaar, where the Doctor presented them with a generous hand. A + sumptuous desk, and luxurious leather-covered armchairs furnished the + room; a beautiful little Parian copy of a famous Cupid and Psyche + decorated the mantelpiece, and betrayed the touch of pagan in the + Presbyterian. A bright fire burned in the grate, and there was not a speck + of dust anywhere. + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond, lost in his chair, with one knee dropped on the other, joined + his fingers at the tips, and drew his forehead into a web of wrinkles. + Over it his militant grey crest curled up; under it his eyes darted two + shrewd points of interrogation. + </p> + <p> + “What does Miss Murchison say to it?” he repeated with craft and courage, + as Finlay’s eyes dropped and his face slowly flushed under the question. + It was in this room that Dr Drummond examined “intending communicants” and + cases likely to come before the Session; he never shirked a leading + question. “Miss Murchison,” said Finlay, after a moment, “was good enough + to say that she thought her father’s house would be open to Miss—to + my friends when they arrived; but I thought it would be more suitable to + ask your hospitality, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she so?” asked Dr Drummond gravely. It was more a comment than an + inquiry. “Did she so?” Infinite kindness was in it. + </p> + <p> + The young man assented with an awkward gesture, half-bend, half-nod, and + neither for a moment spoke again. It was one of those silences with a + character, conscious, tentative. Half-veiled, disavowed thoughts rose up + in it, awakened by Advena’s name, turning away their heads. The ticking of + the Doctor’s old-fashioned watch came through it from his waistcoat + pocket. It was he who spoke first. + </p> + <p> + “I christened Advena Murchison,” he said. “Her father was one of those who + called me, as a young man, to this ministry. The names of both her parents + are on my first communion roll. Aye!”... + </p> + <p> + The fire snapped and the watch went on ticking. + </p> + <p> + “So Advena thought well of it all. Did she so?” + </p> + <p> + The young man raised his heavy eyes and looked unflinchingly at Dr + Drummond. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Murchison,” he said, “is the only other person to whom I have + confided the matter. I have written, fixing that date, with her approval—at + her desire. Not immediately. I took time to—think it over. Then it + seemed better to arrange for the ladies reception first, so before posting + I have come to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Then the letter has not gone?” + </p> + <p> + “It is in my pocket.” + </p> + <p> + “Finlay, you will have a cigar? I don’t smoke myself; my throat won’t + stand it; but I understand these are passable. Grant left them here. He’s + a chimney, that man Grant. At it day and night.” + </p> + <p> + This was a sacrifice. Dr Drummond hated tobacco, the smell of it, the ash + of it, the time consumed in it. There was no need at all to offer Finlay + one of the Reverend Grant’s cigars. Propitiation must indeed be desired + when the incense is abhorred. But Finlay declined to smoke. The Doctor, + with his hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, where something + metallic clinked in them, began to pace and turn. His mouth had the set it + wore when he handled a difficult motion in the General Assembly. + </p> + <p> + “I’m surprised to hear that, Finlay; though it may be well not to be + surprised at what a woman will say—or won’t say.” + </p> + <p> + “Surprised?” said the younger man confusedly. “Why should anyone be + surprised?” + </p> + <p> + “I know her well. I’ve watched her grow up. I remember her mother’s + trouble because she would scratch the paint on the pew in front of her + with the nails in her little boots. John Murchison sang in the choir in + those days. He had a fine bass voice; he has it still. And Mrs Murchison + had to keep the family in order by herself. It was sometimes as much as + she could do, poor woman. They sat near the front, and many a good hard + look I used to give them while I was preaching. Knox Church was a + different place then. The choir sat in the back gallery, and we had a + precentor, a fine fellow—he lost an arm at Ridgway in the Fenian + raid. Well I mind him and the frown he would put on when he took up the + fork. But, for that matter, every man Jack in the choir had a frown on in + the singing, though the bass fellows would be the fiercest. We’ve been + twice enlarged since, and the organist has long been a salaried + professional. But I doubt whether the praise of God is any heartier than + it was when it followed Peter Craig’s tuning-fork. Aye. You’d always hear + John Murchison’s note in the finish.” + </p> + <p> + Finlay was listening with the look of a charmed animal. Dr Drummond’s + voice was never more vibrant, more moving, more compelling than when he + called up the past; and here to Finlay the past was itself enchanted. + </p> + <p> + “She always had those wonderful dark eyes. She’s pale enough now, but as a + child she was rosy. Taking her place of a winter evening, with the snow on + her fur cap and her hair, I often thought her a picture. I liked to have + her attention while I was preaching, even as a child; and when she was + absent I missed her. It was through my ministrations that she saw her way + to professing the Church of Christ, and under my heartfelt benediction + that she first broke bread in her Father’s house. I hold the girl in great + affection, Finlay; and I grieve to hear this.” + </p> + <p> + The other drew a long breath, and his hand tightened on the arm of his + chair. He was, as we know, blind to many of the world’s aspects, even to + those in which he himself figured; and Dr Drummond’s plain hypothesis of + his relations with Advena came before him in forced illumination, flash by + tragic flash. This kind of revelation is more discomforting than darkness, + since it carries the surprise of assault, and Finlay groped in it, + helpless and silent. + </p> + <p> + “You are grieved, sir?” he said mechanically. + </p> + <p> + “Man, she loves you!” exclaimed the Doctor, in a tone that would no longer + forbear. + </p> + <p> + Hugh Finlay seemed to take the words just where they were levelled, in his + breast. He half leaped from his chair; the lower part of his face had the + rigidity of iron. + </p> + <p> + “I am not obliged to discuss such a matter as that,” he said hoarsely, + “with you or with any man.” + </p> + <p> + He looked confusedly about him for his hat, which he had left in the hall; + and Dr Drummond profited by the instant. He stepped across and laid a hand + on the younger man’s shoulder. Had they both been standing the gesture + would have been impossible to Dr Drummond with dignity; as it was, it had + not only that, but benignance, a kind of tender good will, rare in + expression with the minister, rare, for that matter, in feeling with him + too, though the chord was always there to be sounded. + </p> + <p> + “Finlay,” he said; “Finlay!” + </p> + <p> + Between two such temperaments the touch and the tone together made an + extraordinary demonstration. Finlay, with an obvious effort, let it lie + upon him. The tension of his body relaxed, that of his soul he covered, + leaning forward and burying his head in his hands. + </p> + <p> + “Will you say I have no claim to speak?” asked Dr Drummond, and met + silence. “It is upon my lips to beg you not to send that letter, Finlay.” + He took his hand from the young man’s shoulder, inserted a thumb in each + of his waistcoat pockets, and resumed his walk. + </p> + <p> + “On my own account I must send it,” said Finlay. “On Miss Murchison’s—she + bids me to. We have gone into the matter together.” + </p> + <p> + “I can imagine what you made of it together. There’s a good deal of her + father in Advena. He would be the last man to say a word for himself. You + told her this tale you have told me, and she told you to get Miss Christie + out and marry her without delay, eh? And what would you expect her to tell + you—a girl of that spirit?” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot see why pride should influence her.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you know little about women. It was pride, pure and simple, Finlay, + that made her tell you that—and she’ll be a sorry woman if you act + on it.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Finlay, suddenly looking up, “I may know little about women, + but I know more about Advena Murchison than that. She advised me in the + sense she thought right and honourable, and her advice was sincere. And, + Dr Drummond, deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison’s view of the + matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision to rest upon it. It + must stand by itself.” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt should not be + influenced by the fact that it means the wrecking of your own happiness + and that of another person. I can’t agree, Finlay. I spoke first of Advena + Murchison because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart. I feel, + too, that someone should put her case. Her own father would never open his + lips. If you’re to be hauled over the coals about this I’m the only man to + do it. And I’m going to.” + </p> + <p> + A look of sharp determination came into the minister’s eyes; he had the + momentary air of a small Scotch terrier with a bidding. Finlay looked at + him in startled recognition of another possible phase of his dilemma; he + thought he knew it in every wretched aspect. It was a bold reference of Dr + Drummond’s; it threw down the last possibility of withdrawal for Finlay; + they must have it out now, man to man, with a little, perhaps, even in + that unlikely place, of penitent to confessor. It was an exigency, it + helped Finlay to pull himself together, and there was something in his + voice, when he spoke, like the vibration of relief. + </p> + <p> + “I am pained and distressed more than I have any way of telling you, sir,” + he said, “that—the state of feeling—between Miss Murchison and + myself should have been so plain to you. It is incomprehensible to me that + it should be so, since it is only very lately that I have understood it + truly myself. I hope you will believe that it was the strangest, most + unexpected, most sudden revelation.” + </p> + <p> + He paused and looked timidly at the Doctor; he, the great fellow, in + straining bondage to his heart, leaning forward with embarrassed tension + in every muscle, Dr Drummond alert, poised, critical, balancing his little + figure on the hearthrug. + </p> + <p> + “I preach faith in miracles,” he said. “I dare say between you and her it + would be just that.” + </p> + <p> + “I have been deeply culpable. Common sense, common knowledge of men and + women should have warned me that there might be danger. But I looked upon + the matter as our own—as between us only. I confess that I have not + till now thought of that part of it, but surely—You cannot mean to + tell me that what I have always supposed my sincere and devoted friendship + for Miss Murchison has been in any way prejudicial—” + </p> + <p> + “To her in the ordinary sense? To her prospects of marriage and her + standing in the eyes of the community? No, Finlay. No. I have not heard + the matter much referred to. You seem to have taken none of the ordinary + means—you have not distinguished her in the eyes of gossip. If you + had it would be by no means the gravest thing to consider. Such tokens are + quickly forgotten, especially here, where attentions of the kind often, + I’ve noticed, lead to nothing. It is the fact, and not the appearance of + it, that I speak of—that I am concerned with.” + </p> + <p> + “The fact is beyond mending,” said Finlay, dully. + </p> + <p> + “Aye, the fact is beyond mending. It is beyond mending that Advena + Murchison belongs to you and you to her in no common sense. It’s beyond + mending that you cannot now be separated without such injury to you both + as I would not like to look upon. It’s beyond mending, Finlay, because it + is one of those things that God has made. But it is not beyond marring, + and I charge you to look well what you are about in connection with it.” + </p> + <p> + A flash of happiness, of simple delight, lit the young man’s sombre eyes + as the phrases fell. To the minister they were mere forcible words; to + Finlay they were soft rain in a famished land. Then he looked again + heavily at the pattern of the carpet. + </p> + <p> + “Would you have me marry Advena Murchison?” he said, with a kind of shamed + yielding to the words. + </p> + <p> + “I would—and no other. Man, I saw it from the beginning!” exclaimed + the Doctor. “I don’t say it isn’t an awkward business. But at least + there’ll be no heartbreak in Scotland. I gather you never said a word to + the Bross lady on the subject, and very few on any other. You tell me you + left it all with that good woman, your aunt, to arrange after you left. Do + you think a creature of any sentiment would have accepted you on those + terms? Not she. So far as I can make out, Miss Cameron is just a sensible, + wise woman that would be the first to see the folly in this business if + she knew the rights of it. Come, Finlay, you’re not such a great man with + the ladies—you can’t pretend she has any affection for you.” + </p> + <p> + The note of raillery in the Doctor’s voice drew Finlay’s brows together. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” he said, “whether I have to think of her affections, but I + do know I have to think of her dignity, her confidence, and her belief in + the honourable dealing of a man whom she met under the sanction of a + trusted roof. The matter may look light here; it is serious there. She has + her circle of friends; they are acquainted with her engagement. She has + made all her arrangements to carry it out; she has disposed of her life. I + cannot ask her to reconsider her lot because I have found a happier + adjustment for mine.” + </p> + <p> + “Finlay,” said Dr Drummond, “you will not be known in Bross or anywhere + else as a man who has jilted a woman. Is that it?” + </p> + <p> + “I will not be a man who has jilted a woman.” + </p> + <p> + “There is no sophist like pride. Look at the case on its merits. On the + one side a disappointment for Miss Cameron. I don’t doubt she’s counting + on coming, but at worst a worldly disappointment. And the very grievous + humiliation for you of writing to tell her that you have made a mistake. + You deserve that, Finlay. If you wouldn’t be a man who has jilted a woman + you have no business to lend yourself to such matters with the capacity of + a blind kitten. That is the damage on the one side. On the other—” + </p> + <p> + “I know all that there is to be said,” interrupted Finlay, “on the other.” + </p> + <p> + “Then face it, man. Go home and write the whole truth to Bross. I’ll do it + for you—no, I won’t, either. Stand up to it yourself. You must hurt + one of two women; choose the one that will suffer only in her vanity. I + tell you that Scotch entanglement of yours is pure cardboard farce—it + won’t stand examination. It’s appalling to think that out of an + extravagant, hypersensitive conception of honour, egged on by that poor + girl, you could be capable of turning it into the reality of your life.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve taken all these points of view, sir, and I can’t throw the woman + over. The objection to it isn’t in reason—it’s somehow in the past + and the blood. It would mean the sacrifice of all that I hold most + valuable in myself. I should expect myself after that to stick at nothing—why + should I?” + </p> + <p> + “There is one point of view that perhaps you have not taken,” said Dr + Drummond, in his gravest manner. “You are settled here in your charge. In + all human probability you will remain here in East Elgin, as I have + remained here, building and fortifying the place you have won for the Lord + in the hearts of the people. Advena Murchison’s life will also go on here—there + is nothing to take it away. You have both strong natures. Are you prepared + for that?” + </p> + <p> + “We are both prepared for it. We shall both be equal to it. I count upon + her, and she counts upon me, to furnish in our friendship the greater part + of whatever happiness life may have in store for us.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you must be a pair of born lunatics!” said Dr Drummond, his jaw + grim, his eyes snapping. “What you propose is little less than a crime, + Finlay. It can come to nothing but grief, if no worse. And your wife, poor + woman, whatever she deserves, it is better than that! My word, if she + could choose her prospect, think you she would hesitate? Finlay, I entreat + you as a matter of ordinary prudence, go home and break it off. Leave + Advena out of it—you have no business to make this marriage whether + or no. Leave other considerations to God and to the future. I beseech you, + bring it to an end!” + </p> + <p> + Finlay got up and held out his hand. “I tell you from my heart it is + impossible,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t move you?” said Dr Drummond. “Then let us see if the Lord can. + You will not object, Finlay, to bring the matter before Him, here and now, + in a few words of prayer? I should find it hard to let you go without + them.” + </p> + <p> + They went down upon their knees where they stood; and Dr Drummond did + little less than order Divine interference; but the prayer that was + inaudible was to the opposite purpose. + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes later the minister himself opened the door to let Finlay out + into the night. “You will remember,” he said as they shook hands, “that + what I think of your position in this matter makes no difference whatever + to the question of your aunt’s coming here with Miss Cameron when they + arrive. You will bring them to this house as a matter of course. I wish + you could be guided to a different conclusion but, after all, it is your + own conscience that must be satisfied. They will be better here than at + the Murchisons’,” he added with a last shaft of reproach, “and they will + be very welcome.” + </p> + <p> + It said much for Dr Drummond that Finlay was able to fall in with the + arrangement. He went back to his boarding-house, and added a postscript + embodying it to his letter to Bross. Then he walked out upon the midnight + two feverish miles to the town, and posted the letter. The way back was + longer and colder. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII + </h2> + <p> + “Well, Winter,” said Octavius Milburn, “I expect there’s business in this + for you.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Milburn and Mr Winter had met in the act of unlocking their boxes at + the post-office. Elgin had enjoyed postal delivery for several years, but + not so much as to induce men of business to abandon the post-office box + that had been the great convenience succeeding window inquiry. In time the + boxes would go, but the habit of dropping in for your own noonday mail on + the way home to dinner was deep-rooted, and undoubtedly you got it + earlier. Moreover, it takes time to engender confidence in a postman when + he is drawn from your midst, and when you know perfectly well that he + would otherwise be driving the mere watering-cart, or delivering the mere + ice, as he was last year. + </p> + <p> + “Looks like it,” responded Mr Winter, cheerfully. “The boys have been + round as usual. I told them they’d better try another shop this time, but + they seemed to think the old reliable was good enough to go on with.” + </p> + <p> + This exchange, to anyone in Elgin, would have been patently simple. On + that day there was only one serious topic in Elgin, and there could have + been only one reference to business for Walter Winter. The Dominion had + come up the day before with the announcement that Mr Robert Farquharson + who, for an aggregate of eleven years, had represented the Liberals of + South Fox in the Canadian House of Commons, had been compelled under + medical advice to withdraw from public life. The news was unexpected, and + there was rather a feeling among Mr Farquharson’s local support in Elgin + that it shouldn’t have come from Toronto. It will be gathered that Horace + Williams, as he himself acknowledged, was wild. The general feeling, and + to some extent Mr Williams’s, was appeased by the further information that + Mr Farquharson had been obliged to go to Toronto to see a specialist, + whose report he had naturally enough taken to party headquarters, whence + the Dominion would get it, as Mr Williams said, by telephone or any + quicker way there was. Williams, it should be added, was well ahead with + the details, as considerate as was consistent with public enterprise, of + the retiring member’s malady, its duration, the date of the earliest + symptoms, and the growth of anxiety in Mrs Farquharson, who had finally + insisted—and how right she was!—on the visit to the + specialist, upon which she had accompanied Mr Farquharson. He sent round + Rawlins. So that Elgin was in possession of all the facts, and Walter + Winter, who had every pretension to contest the seat again and every + satisfaction that it wouldn’t be against Farquharson, might naturally be + expected to be taken up with them sufficiently to understand a man who + slapped him on the shoulder in the post-office with the remark I have + quoted. + </p> + <p> + “I guess they know what they’re about,” returned Mr Milburn. “It’s a bad + knock for the Grits, old Farquharson having to drop out. He’s getting up + in years, but he’s got a great hold here. He’ll be a dead loss in votes to + his party. I always said our side wouldn’t have a chance till the old man + was out of the way.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Winter twisted the watch-chain across his protuberant waistcoat, and + his chin sank in reflective folds above his neck-tie. Above that again his + nose drooped over his moustache, and his eyelids over his eyes, which + sought the floor. Altogether he looked sunk, like an overfed bird, in + deferential contemplation of what Mr Milburn was saying. + </p> + <p> + “They’ve nobody to touch him, certainly in either ability or experience,” + he replied, looking up to do it, with a handsome air of concession. “Now + that Martin’s dead, and Jim Fawkes come that howler over Pink River, + they’ll have their work cut out for them to find a man. I hear Fawkes + takes it hard, after all he’s done for ‘em, not to get the nomination, but + they won’t hear of it. Quite right, too; he’s let too many people in over + that concession of his to be popular, even among his friends.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose he has. Dropped anything there yourself?—No? Nor I. When + a thing gets to the boom stage I say let it alone, even if there’s gold in + it and you’ve got a School of Mines man to tell you so. Fawkes came out of + it at the small end himself, I expect, but that doesn’t help him any in + the eyes of businessmen.” + </p> + <p> + “I hear,” said Walter Winter, stroking his nose, “that old man Parsons has + come right over since the bosses at Ottawa have put so much money on + preference trade with the old country. He says he was a Liberal once, and + may be a Liberal again, but he doesn’t see his way to voting to give his + customers blankets cheaper than he can make them, and he’ll wait till the + clouds roll by.” + </p> + <p> + “He won’t be the only one, either,” said Milburn. “Take my word for it, + they’ll be dead sick and sorry over this imperial craze in a year’s time, + every Government that’s taken it up. The people won’t have it. The Empire + looks nice on the map, but when it comes to practical politics their bread + and butter’s in the home industries. There’s a great principle at stake, + Winter; I must say I envy you standing up for it under such favourable + conditions. Liberals like Young and Windle may talk big, but when it comes + to the ballot-box you’ll have the whole manufacturing interest of the + place behind you, and nobody the wiser. It’s a great thing to carry the + standard on an issue above and beyond party politics—it’s a purer + air, my boy.” + </p> + <p> + Walter Winter’s nod confirmed the sagacity of this, and appreciated the + highmindedness. It was a parting nod; Mr Winter had too much on hand that + morning to waste time upon Octavius Milburn; but it was full of the + qualities that ensure the success of a man’s relation with his fellows. + Consideration was in it, and understanding, and that kind of geniality + that offers itself on a plain business footing, a commercial heartiness + that has no nonsense about it. He had half a dozen casual chats like this + with Mr Milburn on his way up Main Street, and his manner expanded in + cordiality and respect with each, as if his growing confidence in himself + increased his confidence in his fellow-men. The same assurance greeted him + several times over. Every friend wanted to remind him of the enemy’s + exigency, and to assure him that the enemy’s new policy was enough by + itself to bring him romping in at last; and to every assurance he + presented the same acceptable attitude of desiring for particular reasons + to take special note of such valuable views. At the end he had neither + elicited nor imparted a single opinion of any importance; nevertheless, he + was quite entitled to his glow of satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + Among Mr Winter’s qualifications for political life was his capacity to + arrive at an estimate of the position of the enemy. He was never persuaded + to his own advantage; he never stepped ahead of the facts. It was one of + the things that made him popular with the other side, his readiness to do + justice to their equipment, to acknowledge their chances. There is + gratification of a special sort in hearing your points of vantage + confessed by the foe; the vanity is soothed by his open admission that you + are worthy of his steel. It makes you a little less keen somehow, about + defeating him. It may be that Mr Winter had an instinct for this, or + perhaps he thought such discourse more profitable, if less pleasant, than + derisive talk in the opposite sense. At all events, he gained something + and lost nothing by it, even in his own camp, where swagger might be + expected to breed admiration. He was thought a level-headed fellow who + didn’t expect miracles; his forecast in most matters was quoted, and his + defeats at the polls had been to some extent neutralized by his sagacity + in computing the returns in advance. + </p> + <p> + So that we may safely follow Mr Winter to the conclusion that the Liberals + of South Fox were somewhat put to it to select a successor to Robert + Farquharson who could be depended upon to keep the party credit exactly + where he found it. The need was unexpected, and the two men who would have + stepped most naturally into Farquharson’s shoes were disqualified as + Winter described. The retirement came at a calculating moment. South Fox + still declared itself with pride an unhealthy division for Conservatives; + but new considerations had thrust themselves among Liberal counsels, and + nobody yet knew what the country would say to them. The place was a “Grit” + strong-hold, but its steady growth as an industrial centre would give a + new significance to the figures of the next returns. The Conservative was + the manufacturers’ party, and had been ever since the veteran Sir John + Macdonald declared for a protective “National Policy,” and placed the + plain issue before the country which divided the industrial and the + agricultural interests. A certain number of millowners—Mr Milburn + mentioned Young and Windle—belonged to the Liberals, as if to + illustrate the fact that you inherit your party in Canada as you inherit + your “denomination,” or your nose; it accompanies you, simply, to the + grave. But they were exceptions, and there was no doubt that the other + side had been considerably strengthened by the addition of two or three + thriving and highly capitalized concerns during the past five years. Upon + the top of this had come the possibility of a great and dramatic change of + trade relations with Great Britain, which the Liberal Government at Ottawa + had given every sign of willingness to adopt—had, indeed, initiated, + and were bound by word and letter to follow up. Though the moment had not + yet come, might never come, for its acceptance or rejection by the country + as a whole, there could be no doubt that every by-election would be + concerned with the policy involved, and that every Liberal candidate must + be prepared to stand by it in so far as the leaders had conceived and + pushed it. Party feeling was by no means unanimous in favour of the + change; many Liberals saw commercial salvation closer in improved trade + relations with the United States. On the other hand, the new policy, + clothed as it was in the attractive sentiment of loyalty, and making for + the solidarity of the British race, might be depended upon to capture + votes which had been hitherto Conservative mainly because these + professions were supposed to be an indissoluble part of Conservatism. It + was a thing to split the vote sufficiently to bring an unusual amount of + anxiety and calculation into Liberal counsels. The other side were in no + doubt or difficulty: Walter Winter was good enough for them, and it was + their cheerful conviction that Walter Winter would put a large number of + people wise on the subject of preference trade bye-and-bye, who at present + only knew enough to vote for it. + </p> + <p> + The great question was the practicability of the new idea and how much + further it could safely be carried in a loyal Dominion which was just + getting on its industrial legs. It was debated with anxiety at Ottawa, and + made the subject of special instruction to South Fox, where the + by-election would have all the importance of an early test. “It’s a clear + issue,” wrote an influential person at Ottawa to the local party leaders + at Elgin, “we don’t want any tendency to hedge or double. It’s straight + business with us, the thing we want, and it will be till Wallingham either + gets it through over there, or finds he can’t deal with us. Meanwhile it + might be as well to ascertain just how much there is in it for platform + purposes in a safe spot like South Fox, and how much the fresh opposition + will cost us where we can afford it. We can’t lose the seat, and the + returns will be worth anything in their bearing on the General Election + next year. The objection to Carter is that he’s only half-convinced; he + couldn’t talk straight if he wanted to, and that lecture tour of his in + the United States ten years ago pushing reciprocity with the Americans + would make awkward literature.” + </p> + <p> + The rejection of Carter practically exhausted the list of men available + whose standing in the town and experience of its suffrages brought them + naturally into the field of selection; and at this point Cruickshank wrote + to Farquharson suggesting the dramatic departure involved in the name of + Lorne Murchison. Cruickshank wrote judiciously, leaving the main arguments + in Lorne’s favour to form themselves in Farquharson’s mind, but countering + the objections that would rise there by the suggestion that after a long + period of confidence and steady going, in fact of the orthodox and + expected, the party should profit by the swing of the pendulum toward + novelty and tentative, rather than bring forward a candidate who would + represent, possibly misrepresent, the same beliefs and intentions on a + lower personal level. As there was no first-rate man of the same sort to + succeed Farquharson, Cruickshank suggested the undesirability of a + second-rate man; and he did it so adroitly that the old fellow found + himself in a good deal of sympathy with the idea. He had small opinion of + the lot that was left for selection, and smaller relish for the prospect + of turning his honourable activity over to any one of them. Force of habit + and training made him smile at Cruickshank’s proposition as impracticable, + but he felt its attraction, even while he dismissed it to an inside + pocket. Young Murchison’s name would be so unlooked-for that if he, + Farquharson, could succeed in imposing it upon the party it would be + almost like making a personal choice of his successor, a grateful idea in + abdication. Farquharson wished regretfully that Lorne had another five + years to his credit in the Liberal record of South Fox. By the time the + young fellow had earned them he, the retiring member, would be quite on + the shelf, if in no completer oblivion; he could not expect much of a + voice in any nomination five years hence. He sighed to think of it. + </p> + <p> + It was at that point of his meditations that Mr Farquharson met Squire + Ormiston on the steps of the Bank of British North America, an + old-fashioned building with an appearance of dignity and probity, a look + of having been founded long ago upon principles which raised it above + fluctuation, exactly the place in which Mr Farquharson and Squire Ormiston + might be expected to meet. The two men, though politically opposed, were + excellent friends; they greeted cordially. + </p> + <p> + “So you’re ordered out of politics, Farquharson?” said the squire. “We’re + all sorry for that, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid so; I’m afraid so. Thanks for your letter—very friendly + of you, squire. I don’t like it—no use pretending I do—but it + seems I’ve got to take a rest if I want to be known as a going concern.” + </p> + <p> + “A fellow with so much influence in committee ought to have more control + of his nerve centres,” Ormiston told him. The squire belonged to that + order of elderly gentlemen who will have their little joke. “Well, have + you and Bingham and Horace Williams made up your minds who’s to have the + seat?” + </p> + <p> + Farquharson shook his head. “I only know what I see in the papers,” he + said. “The Dominion is away out with Fawkes, and the Express is about as + lukewarm with Carter as he is with federated trade.” + </p> + <p> + “Your Government won’t be obliged to you for Carter,” said Mr Ormiston; “a + more slack-kneed, double-jointed scoundrel was never offered a commission + in a respectable cause. He’ll be the first to rat if things begin to look + queer for this new policy of yours and Wallingham’s.” + </p> + <p> + “He hasn’t got it yet,” Farquharson admitted, “and he won’t with my good + will. So you’re with us for preference trade, Ormiston?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a thing I’d like to see. It’s a thing I’m sorry we’re not in a + position to take up practically ourselves. But you won’t get it, you know. + You’ll be defeated by the senior partner. It’s too much of a doctrine for + the people of England. They’re listening to Wallingham just now because + they admire him, but they won’t listen to you. I doubt whether it will + ever come to an issue over there. This time next year Wallingham will be + sucking his thumbs and thinking of something else. No, it’s not a thing to + worry about politically, for it won’t come through.” + </p> + <p> + The squire’s words suggested so much relief in that conviction that + Farquharson, sharp on the flair of the experienced nose for waverers, + looked at him observantly. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not so sure It’s a doctrine with a fine practical application for + them as well as for us, if they can be got to see it, and they’re bound to + see it in time. It’s a thing I never expected to live to believe, never + thought would be practicable until lately, but now I think there’s a very + good chance of it. And, hang it all,” he added, “it may be unreasonable, + but the more I notice the Yankees making propositions to get us away from + it, the more I want to see it come through.” + </p> + <p> + “I have very much the same feeling,” the squire acknowledged. “I’ve been + turning the matter over a good deal since that last Conference showed + which way the wind was blowing. And the fellows in your Government gave + them a fine lead. But such a proposition was bound to come from your side. + The whole political history of the country shows it. We’re pledged to take + care of the damned industries.” + </p> + <p> + Farquharson smiled at the note of depression. “Well, we want a bigger + market somewhere,” he said with detachment “and it looks as if we could + get it now Uncle Sam has had a fright. If the question comes to be fought + out at the polls, I don’t see how your party could do better than go in + for a wide scheme of reciprocity with the Americans—in raw products, + of course with a tariff to match theirs on manufactured goods. That would + shut a pretty tight door on British connection though.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ll not get my vote if they do,” said the squire, thrusting his hands + fiercely into his breeches pockets. + </p> + <p> + “As you say, it’s most important to put up a man who will show the + constituency all the credit and benefit there is in it, anyhow,” + Farquharson observed. “I’ve had a letter this morning,” he added, + laughing, “from a fellow—one of the bosses, too—who wants us + to nominate young Murchison.” + </p> + <p> + “The lawyer?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the man. He’s too young, of course—not thirty. But he’s well + known in the country districts; I don’t know a man of his age with a more + useful service record. He’s got a lot of friends, and he’s come a good + deal to the front lately through that inter-imperial communications + business—we might do worse. And upon my word, we’re in such a hole—” + </p> + <p> + “Farquharson,” said old Squire Ormiston, the red creeping over features + that had not lost in three generations the lines of the old breed, “I’ve + voted in the Conservative interest for forty years, and my father before + me. We were Whigs when we settled in Massachusetts, and Whigs when we + pulled up stakes and came North rather than take up arms against the King; + but it seemed decent to support the Government that gave us a chance again + under the flag, and my grandfather changed his politics. Now, confound it! + the flag seems to be with the Whigs again, for fighting purposes, anyhow; + and I don’t seem to have any choice. I’ve been debating the thing for some + time now, and your talk of making that fine young fellow your candidate + settles it. If you can get your committee to accept young Murchison, you + can count on my vote, and I don’t want to brag, but I think you can count + on Moneida too, though it’s never sent in a Grit majority yet.” + </p> + <p> + The men were standing on the steps of the bank, and the crisp air of + autumn brought them both an agreeable tingle of enterprise. Farquharson’s + buggy was tied to the nearest maple. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going over to East Elgin to look at my brick-kilns,” he said. “Get in + with me, will you?” + </p> + <p> + As they drove up Main Street they encountered Walter Winter, who looked + after them with a deeply considering eye. + </p> + <p> + “Old Ormiston always had the Imperial bee in his bonnet,” said he. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII + </h2> + <p> + Alfred Hesketh was among the first to hear of Lorne’s nomination to + represent the constituency of South Fox in the Dominion Parliament. The + Milburns told him; it was Dora who actually made the communication. The + occasion was high tea; Miss Milburn’s apprehension about Englishmen and + late dinner had been dissipated in great amusement. Mr Hesketh liked + nothing better than high tea, liked nothing so much. He came often to the + Milburns’ after Mrs Milburn said she hoped he would, and pleased her + extremely by the alacrity with which he accepted her first invitation to + stay to what she described as their very simple and unconventional meal. + Later he won her approval entirely by saying boldly that he hoped he was + going to be allowed to stay. It was only in good English society, Mrs + Milburn declared, that you found such freedom and confidence; it reminded + her of Mrs Emmett’s saying that her sister-in-law in London was always at + home to lunch. Mrs Milburn considered a vague project of informing a + select number of her acquaintances that she was always at home to high + tea, but on reflection dismissed it, in case an inconvenient number should + come at once. She would never have gone into detail, but since a tin of + sardines will only hold so many, I may say for her that it was the part of + wisdom. + </p> + <p> + Mr Hesketh, however, wore the safe and attractive aspect of a single + exceptional instance; there were always sardines enough for him. It will + be imagined what pleasure Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin took in his visits, + how he propped up their standard of behaviour in all things unessential, + which was too likely to be growing limp, so far from approved examples. I + think it was a real aesthetic satisfaction; I know they would talk of it + afterward for hours, with sighing comparisons of the “form” of the young + men of Elgin, which they called beside Hesketh’s quite outre. It was a + favourite word with Mrs Milburn—outre. She used it like a lorgnette, + and felt her familiarity with it a differentiating mark. Mr Milburn, never + so susceptible to delicate distinctions, looked upon the young Englishman + with benevolent neutrality. Dora wished it to be understood that she + reserved her opinion. He might be all that he seemed, and again he might + not. Englishmen were so deep. They might have nice manners, but they + didn’t always act up to them, so far as she had noticed. There was that + Honourable Somebody, who was in jail even then for trying to borrow money + under false pretences from the Governor-General. Lorne, when she expressed + these views to him, reassured her, but she continued to maintain a guarded + attitude upon Mr Hesketh, to everybody except Mr Hesketh himself. + </p> + <p> + It was Dora, as I have said, who imparted the news. Lorne had come over + with it in the afternoon, still a little dazed and unbelieving in the face + of his tremendous luck, helped by finding her so readily credulous to + thinking it reasonably possible himself. He could not have done better + than come to Dora for a correction of any undue exaltation that he might + have felt, however. She supplied it in ten minutes by reminding him of + their wisdom in keeping the secret of their relations. His engagement to + the daughter of a prominent Conservative would not indeed have told in his + favour with his party, to say nothing of the anomaly of Mr Milburn’s + unyielding opposition to the new policy. “I never knew Father so nearly + bitter about anything,” Dora said, a statement which left her lover + thoughtful, but undaunted. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll bring him round,” said Lorne, “when he sees that the British + manufacturer can’t possibly get the better of men on the spot, who know to + a nut the local requirements.” + </p> + <p> + To which she had responded, “Oh, Lorne, don’t begin THAT again,” and he + had gone away hot-foot for the first step of preparation. + </p> + <p> + “It’s exactly what I should have expected,” said Hesketh, when she told + him. “Murchison is the very man they want. He’s cut out for a political + success. I saw that when he was in England.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven’t been very long in the country, Mr Hesketh, or we shouldn’t + hear you saying that,” said Mr Milburn, amicably. “It’s a very remarkable + thing with us, a political party putting forward so young a man. Now with + you I expect a young fellow might get in on his rank or his wealth—your + principle of nonpayment of members confines your selection more or less. I + don’t say you’re not right, but over here we do pay, you see, and it makes + a lot of difference in the competition. It isn’t a greater honour, but + it’s more sought for. I expect there’ll be a good many sore heads over + this business.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s all the more creditable to Murchison,” said Hesketh. + </p> + <p> + “Of course it is—a great feather in his cap. Oh, I don’t say young + Murchison isn’t a rising fellow, but it’s foolishness for his party—I + can’t think who is responsible for it. However, they’ve got a pretty + foolish platform just now—they couldn’t win this seat on it with any + man. A lesson will be good for them.” + </p> + <p> + “Father, don’t you think Lorne will get in?” asked Dora, in a tone of + injury and slight resentment. + </p> + <p> + “Not by a handful,” said her father. “Mr Walter Winter will represent + South Fox in the next session of Parliament, if you ask my opinion.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Father,” returned his daughter with an outraged inflection, “you’ll + vote for Lorne?” + </p> + <p> + A smile went round the table, discreetest in Mrs Milburn. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid not,” said Mr Milburn, “I’m afraid not. Sorry to disoblige, + but principles are principles.” + </p> + <p> + Dora perceptibly pouted. Mrs Milburn created a diversion with green-gage + preserves. Under cover of it Hesketh asked, “Is he a great friend of + yours?” + </p> + <p> + “One of my very greatest,” Dora replied. “I know he’ll expect Father to + vote for him. It makes it awfully embarrassing for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I fancy he’ll understand!” said Hesketh, easily. “Political + convictions are serious things, you know. Friendship isn’t supposed to + interfere with them. I wonder,” he went on, meditatively, “whether I could + be of any use to Murchison. Now that I’ve made up my mind to stop till + after Christmas I’ll be on hand for the fight. I’ve had some experience. I + used to canvass now and then from Oxford; it was always a tremendous + lark.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Mr Hesketh, DO! Really and truly he is one of my oldest friends, and + I should love to see him get in. I know his sister, too. They’re a very + clever family. Quite self-made, you know, but highly respected. Promise me + you will.” + </p> + <p> + “I promise with pleasure. And I wish it were something it would give me + more trouble to perform. I like Murchison,” said Hesketh. + </p> + <p> + All this transpiring while they were supposed to be eating green-gage + preserves, and Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin endeavoured to engage the head + of the house in the kind of easy allusion to affairs of the moment to + which Mr Hesketh would be accustomed as a form of conversation—the + accident to the German Empress, the marriage of one of the Rothschilds. + The ladies were compelled to supply most of the facts and all of the + interest but they kept up a gallant line of attack; and the young man, + taking gratified possession of Dora’s eyes, was extremely obliged to them. + </p> + <p> + Hesketh lost no time in communicating his willingness to be of use to + Murchison, and Lorne felt all his old friendliness rise up in him as he + cordially accepted the offer. It was made with British heartiness, it was + thoroughly meant. Lorne was half-ashamed in his recognition of its + quality. A certain aloofness had grown in him against his will since + Hesketh had prolonged his stay in the town, difficult to justify, + impossible to define. Hesketh as Hesketh was worthily admirable as ever, + wholesome and agreeable, as well turned out by his conscience as he was by + his tailor; it was Hesketh in his relation to his new environment that + seemed vaguely to come short. This in spite of an enthusiasm which was + genuine enough; he found plenty of things to like about the country. It + was perhaps in some manifestation of sensitiveness that he failed; he had + the adaptability of the pioneer among rugged conditions, but he could not + mingle quite immediately with the essence of them; he did not perceive the + genius loci. Lorne had been conscious of this as a kind of undefined + grievance; now he specified it and put it down to Hesketh’s isolation + among ways that were different from the ways he knew. You were bound to + notice that Hesketh as a stranger had his own point of view, his own + training to retreat upon. + </p> + <p> + “I certainly liked him better over there,” Lorne told Advena, “but then he + was a part of it—he wasn’t separated out as he is here. He was just + one sort of fellow that you admired, and there were lots of sorts that you + admired more. Over here you seem to see round him somehow.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t have thought it difficult,” said his sister. + </p> + <p> + “Besides,” Lorne confessed, “I expect it was easier to like him when you + were inclined to like everybody. A person feels more critical of a + visitor, especially when he’s had advantages,” he added honestly. “I + expect we don’t care about having to acknowledge ‘em so very much—that’s + what it comes to.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see them,” said Advena. “Mr Hesketh seems well enough in his way, + fairly intelligent and anxious to be pleasant. But I can’t say I find him + a specially interesting or valuable type.” + </p> + <p> + “Interesting, you wouldn’t. But valuable—well, you see, you haven’t + been in England—you haven’t seen them over there, crowds of ‘em, + piling up the national character. Hesketh’s an average, and for an average + he’s high. Oh, he’s a good sort—and he just SMELLS of England.” + </p> + <p> + “He seems all right in his politics,” said John Murchison, filling his + pipe from the tobacco jar on the mantelpiece. “But I doubt whether you’ll + find him much assistance the way he talks of. Folks over here know their + own business—they’ve had to learn it. I doubt if they’ll take + showing from Hesketh.” + </p> + <p> + “They might be a good deal worse advised.” + </p> + <p> + “That may be,” said Mr Murchison, and settled down in his armchair behind + the Dominion. + </p> + <p> + “I agree with Father,” said Advena. “He won’t be any good, Lorne.” + </p> + <p> + “Advena prefers Scotch,” remarked Stella. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. He’s full of the subject,” said Lorne. “He can present it + from the other side.” + </p> + <p> + “The side of the British exporter?” inquired his father, looking over the + top of the Dominion with unexpected humour. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir. Though there are places where we might talk cheap overcoats and + tablecloths and a few odds and ends like that. The side of the all-British + loaf and the lot of people there are to eat it,” said Lorne. “That ought + to make a friendly feeling. And if there’s anything in the sentiment of + the scheme,” he added, “it shouldn’t do any harm to have a good specimen + of the English people advocating it. Hesketh ought to be an + object-lesson.” + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn’t put too much faith in the object-lesson,” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Neither would I,” said Stella emphatically. “Mister Alfred Hesketh may + pass in an English crowd, but over here he’s just an ignorant young man, + and you’d better not have him talking with his mouth at any of your + meetings. Tell him to go and play with Walter Winter.” + </p> + <p> + “I heard he was asking at Volunteer Headquarters the other night,” + remarked Alec, “how long it would be before a man like himself, if he + threw in his lot with the country, could expect to get nominated for a + provincial seat.” + </p> + <p> + “What did they tell him?” asked Mr Murchison, when they had finished their + laugh. + </p> + <p> + “I heard they said it would depend a good deal on the size of the lot.” + </p> + <p> + “And a little on the size of the man,” remarked Advena. + </p> + <p> + “He said he would be willing to take a seat in a Legislature and work up,” + Alec went on. “Ontario for choice, because he thought the people of this + Province more advanced.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a representative committee being formed to give the inhabitants + of the poor-house a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day,” said Advena. “He + might begin with that.” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say he would if anybody told him. He’s just dying to be taken into + the public service,” Alec said. “He’s in dead earnest about it. He thinks + this country’s a great place because it gives a man the chance of a public + career.” + </p> + <p> + “Why is it,” asked Advena “that when people have no capacity for private + usefulness they should be so anxious to serve the public?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come,” said Lorne, “Hesketh has an income of his own. Why should he + sweat for his living? We needn’t pride ourselves on being so taken up with + getting ours. A man like that is in a position to do some good, and I hope + Hesketh will get a chance if he stays over here. We’ll soon see how he + speaks. He’s going to follow Farquharson at Jordanville on Thursday week.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder at Farquharson,” said his father. + </p> + <p> + By this time the candidature of Mr Lorne Murchison was well in the public + eye. The Express announced it in a burst of beaming headlines, with a + biographical sketch and a “cut” of its young fellow-townsman. Horace + Williams, whose hand was plain in every line apologized for the brevity of + the biography—quality rather than quantity, he said; it was all + good, and time would make it better. This did not prevent the Mercury + observing the next evening that the Liberal organ had omitted to state the + age at which the new candidate was weaned. The Toronto papers commented + according to their party bias, but so far as the candidate was concerned + there was lack of the material of criticism. If he had achieved little for + praise he had achieved nothing for detraction. There was no inconsistent + public utterance, no doubtful transaction, no scandalous paper to bring + forward to his detriment. When the fact that he was but twenty-eight years + of age had been exhausted in elaborate ridicule, little more was + available. The policy he championed, however, lent itself to the widest + discussion, and it was instructive to note how the Opposition press, while + continuing to approve the great principle involved, found material for + gravest criticism in the Government’s projected application of it. + Interest increased in the South Fox by-election as its first touchstone, + and gathered almost romantically about Lorne Murchison as its spirited + advocate. It was commonly said that whether he was returned or not on this + occasion, his political future was assured; and his name was carried up + and down the Dominion with every new wind of imperial doctrine that blew + across the Atlantic. He himself felt splendidly that he rode upon the + crest of a wave of history. However the event appeared which was hidden + beyond the horizon, the great luck of that buoyant emotion, of that + thrilling suspense, would be his in a very special way. He was exhilarated + by the sense of crisis, and among all the conferences and calculations + that armed him for his personal struggle, he would now and then breathe in + his private soul, “Choose quickly, England,” like a prayer. + </p> + <p> + Elgin rose to its liking for the fellow, and even his political enemies + felt a half-humorous pride that the town had produced a candidate whose + natural parts were held to eclipse the age and experience of party hacks. + Plenty of them were found to declare that Lorne Murchison would poll more + votes for the Grits than any other man they could lay their hands on, with + the saving clause that neither he nor any other man could poll quite + enough this time. They professed to be content to let the issue have it; + meanwhile they congratulated Lorne on his chance, telling him that a knock + or two wouldn’t do him any harm at his age. Walter Winter, who hadn’t been + on speaking terms with Farquharson, made a point of shaking hands with + Murchison in the publicity of the post-office, and assuring him that he, + Winter, never went into a contest more confident of the straight thing on + the part of the other side. Such cavilling as there was came from the + organized support of his own party and had little importance because it + did. The grumblers fell into line almost as soon as Horace Williams said + they would; a little oil, one small appointment wrung from the Ontario + Government—Fawkes, I believe, got it—and the machine was again + in good working order. Lorne even profited, in the opinion of many, by the + fact of his youth, with its promise of energy and initiative, since Mr + Farquharson had lately been showing the defects as well as the qualities + of age and experience, and the charge of servile timidity was already in + the mouths of his critics. + </p> + <p> + The agricultural community took it, as usual, with phlegm; but there was a + distinct tendency in the bar at Barker’s, on market-days, to lay money on + the colt. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV + </h2> + <p> + Mr Farquharson was to retain his seat until the early spring, for the + double purpose of maintaining his influence upon an important commission + of which he was chairman until the work should be done, and of giving the + imperial departure championed by his successor as good a chance as + possible of becoming understood in the constituency. It was understood + that the new writ would issue for a date in March; Elgin referred all + interest to that point, and prophesied for itself a lively winter. Another + event, of importance less general, was arranged for the end of February—the + arrival of Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon from Scotland. Finlay had + proposed an earlier date, but matters of business connected with her + mother’s estate would delay Miss Cameron’s departure. Her arrival would be + the decisive point of another campaign. He and Advena faced it without + misgiving, but there were moments when Finlay greatly wished the moment + past. + </p> + <p> + Their intimacy had never been conspicuous, and their determination to make + no change in it could be carried out without attracting attention. It was + very dear to them, that determination. They saw it as a test, as an ideal. + Last of all, perhaps, as an alleviation. They were both too much + encumbered with ideas to move simply, quickly, on the impulse of passion. + They looked at it through the wrong end of the glass, and thought they put + it farther away. They believed that their relation comprised, would always + comprise, the best of life. It was matter for discussion singularly + attractive; they allowed themselves upon it wide scope in theory. They + could speak of it in the heroic temper, without sadness or bitterness; the + thing was to tear away the veil and look fate in the face. The great + thing, perhaps, was to speak of it while still they could give themselves + leave; a day would arrive, they acknowledged with averted eyes, when + dumbness would be more becoming. Meanwhile, Mrs Murchison would have found + it hard to sustain her charge against them that they talked of nothing but + books and authors; the philosophy of life, as they were intensely creating + it, was more entrancing than any book or any author. Simply and + definitely, and to their own satisfaction, they had abandoned the natural + demands of their state; they lived in its exaltation and were far from + accidents. Deep in both of them was a kind of protective nobility; I will + not say it cost them nothing, but it turned the scenes between them into + comedy of the better sort, the kind that deserves the relief of stone or + bronze. Advena, had she heard it, would have repelled Dr Drummond’s + warning with indignation. If it were so possible to keep their friendship + on an unfaltering level then, with the latitude they had, what danger + could attend them later, when the social law would support them, divide + them, protect them? Dr Drummond, suspecting all, looked grimly on, and + from November to March found no need to invite Mr Finlay to occupy the + pulpit of Knox Church. + </p> + <p> + They had come to full knowledge that night of their long walk in the dark + together; but even then, in the rush and shock and glory of it, they had + held apart; and their broken avowals had crossed with difficulty from one + to the other. The whole fabric of circumstance was between them, to + realize and to explore; later surveys, as we know, had not reduced it. + They gave it great credit as a barrier; I suppose because it kept them out + of each other’s arms. It had done that. + </p> + <p> + It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should continue upon + terms of happy debt to one another, the balance always changing, the + account never closed and rendered. She no doubt felt that she might impose + the terms; she had unconsciously the sense of greater sacrifice, and knew + that she had been mistress of the situation long before he was aware of + it. He agreed with joy and with misgiving; he saw with enthusiasm her high + conception of their alliance, but sometimes wondered, poor fellow, whether + he was right in letting it cover him. He came to the house as he had done + before, as often as he could, and reproached himself that he could not, + after all, come very often. + </p> + <p> + That they should discuss their relation as candidly as they sustained it + was perhaps a little peculiar to them, so I have laid stress on it; but it + was not by any means their sole preoccupation. They talked like tried + friends of their every-day affairs. Indeed, after the trouble and + intoxication of their great understanding had spent itself, it was the + small practical interests of life that seemed to hold them most. One might + think that Nature, having made them her invitation upon the higher plane, + abandoned them in the very scorn of her success to the warm human + commonplaces that do her work well enough with the common type. Mrs + Murchison would have thought better of them if she had chanced again to + overhear. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn’t advise you to have it lined with fur,” Advena was saying. The + winter had sharply announced itself, and Finlay, to her reproach about his + light overcoat, had declared his intention of ordering a buffalo-skin the + following day. “And the buffaloes are all gone, you know—thirty + years ago,” she laughed. “You really are not modern in practical matters. + Does it ever surprise you that you get no pemmican for dinner, and hardly + ever meet an Indian in his feathers?” + </p> + <p> + He looked at her with delight in his sombre eyes. It was a new discovery, + her capacity for happily chaffing him, only revealed since she had come + out of her bonds to love; it was hard to say which of them took the + greater pleasure in it. + </p> + <p> + “What is the use of living in Canada if you can’t have fur on your + clothes?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “You may have a little—astrakhan, I would—on the collar and + cuffs,” she said. “A fur lining is too hot if there happens to be a thaw, + and then you would leave it off and take cold. You have all the look,” she + added, with a gravely considering glance at him, “of a person who ought to + take care of his chest.” + </p> + <p> + He withdrew his eyes hurriedly, and fixed them instead on his pipe. He + always brought it with him, by her order, and Advena usually sewed. He + thought as he watched her that it made the silences enjoyable. + </p> + <p> + “And expensive, I dare say, too,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, more or less. Alec paid fifty dollars for his, and never liked it.” + </p> + <p> + “Fifty dollars—ten pounds! No vair for me!” he declared. “By the + way, Mrs Firmin is threatening to turn me out of house and home. A married + daughter is coming to live with her, and she wants my rooms.” + </p> + <p> + “When does she come—the married daughter?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not till the early spring! There’s no immediate despair,” said + Finlay, “but it is dislocating. My books and I had just succeeded in + making room for one another.” + </p> + <p> + “But you will have to move, in any case, in the early spring.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I will. I had—I might have remembered that.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you found a house yet?” Advena asked him. + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you been looking?” It was a gentle, sensible reminder. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid I haven’t.” He moved in his chair as if in physical + discomfort. “Do you think I ought—so soon? There are always plenty + of—houses, aren’t there?” + </p> + <p> + “Not plenty of desirable ones. Do you think you must live in East Elgin?” + </p> + <p> + “It would be rather more convenient.” + </p> + <p> + “Because there are two semidetached in River Street, just finished, that + look very pretty and roomy. I thought when I saw them that one of them + might be what you would like.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” he said, and tried not to say it curtly. + </p> + <p> + “They belong to White, the grocer. River Street isn’t East Elgin, but it + is that way, and it would be a great deal pleasanter for—for her.” + </p> + <p> + “I must consider that, of course. You haven’t been in them? I should hope + for a bright sitting-room, and a very private study.” + </p> + <p> + If Advena was aware of any unconscious implication, the pair of eyes she + turned upon him showed no trace of satisfaction in it. + </p> + <p> + “No, I haven’t. But if I could be of any use I should be very glad to go + over them with you, and—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped involuntarily, checked by the embarrassment in his face, + though she had to wait for his words to explain it. + </p> + <p> + “I should be most grateful. But—but might it not be misunderstood?” + </p> + <p> + She bent her head over her work, and one of those instants passed between + them which he had learned to dread. They were so completely the human pair + as they sat together, withdrawn in comfort and shelter, absorbed in homely + matters and in each other; it was easy to forget that they were only a + picture, a sham, and that the reality lay further on, in the early spring. + It must have been hard for him to hear without resentment that she was + ready to help him to make a home for that reality. He was fast growing + instructed in women, although by a post-graduate course. + </p> + <p> + Advena looked up. “Possibly,” she said, calmly, and their agitation lay + still between them. He was silently angry; the thing that stirred without + their leave had been sweet. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Advena, “I can’t go, I suppose. I’m sorry. I should have liked + so much to be of use.” She looked up at him appealingly, and sudden tears + came and stood in her eyes, and would perhaps have undone his hurt but + that he was staring into the fire. + </p> + <p> + “How can you be of use,” he said, almost irritably, “in such ways as + those? They are not important, and I am not sure that for us they are + legitimate. If you were about to be—married”—he seemed to + plunge at the word—“I should not wish either to hasten you or to + house you. I should turn my back on it all. You should have nothing from + me,” he went on, with a forced smile, “but my blessing, delivered over my + shoulder.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sure they are not important,” she said humbly—privately all + unwilling to give up her martyrdom, “but surely they are legitimate. I + would like to help you in every little way I can. Don’t you like me in + your life? You have said that I may stay.” + </p> + <p> + “I believe you think that by taking strong measures one can exorcise + things,” he said. “That if we could only write out this history of ours in + our hearts’ blood it would somehow vanish.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, “but I should like to do it all the same.” + </p> + <p> + “You must bear with me if I refuse the heroic in little. It is even harder + than the other.” He broke off, leaning back and looking at her from under + his shading hand as if that might protect him from too complete a vision. + The firelight was warm on her cheek and hair, her needle once again + completed the dear delusion: she sat there, his wife. This was an aspect + he forbade, but it would return; here it was again. + </p> + <p> + “It is good to have you in my life,” he said. “It is also good to + recognize one’s possibilities.” + </p> + <p> + “How can you definitely lose me?” she asked, and he shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. Now that I have found you it is as if you and I had been + rocked together on the tide of that inconceivable ocean that casts us + half-awake upon life,” he said dreamily. “It isn’t friendship of ideas, + it’s a friendship of spirit. Indeed, I hope and pray never wholly to lose + that.” + </p> + <p> + “You never will,” she told him. “How many worlds one lives in as the day + goes by with the different people one cares for—one beyond the + other, concentric, ringing from the heart! Yours comprises all the others; + it lies the farthest out—and alas! at present, the closest in,” she + added irresistibly to the asking of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “But,” she hurried on, taking high ground to remedy her indiscretion, “I + look forward to the time when this—other feeling of ours will become + just an idea, as it is now just an emotion, at which we should try to + smile. It is the attitude of the gods.” + </p> + <p> + “And therefore not becoming to men. Why should we, not being gods. borrow + their attitude?” said Finlay. + </p> + <p> + “I could never kill it,” she put her work in her lap to say, “by any + sudden act of violence. It would seem a kind of suicide. While it rules it + is like one’s life—absolute. But to isolate it—to place it + beyond the currents from the heart—to look at it, and realize it, + and conquer it for what it is—I don’t think it need take so very + long. And then our friendship will be beautiful without reproach.” + </p> + <p> + “I sometimes fear there may not be time enough in life,” he said. “And if + I find that I must simply go—to British Columbia, I think—those + mining missions would give a man his chance against himself. There is + splendid work to be done there, of a rough-and-ready kind that would make + it puerile to spend time in self-questioning.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled as if at a violent boy. “We can do it. We can do it here,” she + said. “May I quote another religion to you? ‘From purification there + arises in the Yogi a thorough discernment of the cause and nature of the + body, whereupon he loses that regard which others have for the bodily + form.’ Then, if he loves, he loves in spirit and in truth. I look forward + to the time,” she went on calmly, “when the best that I can give you or + you can give me will ride upon a glance.” + </p> + <p> + “I used to feel more drawn to the ascetic achievement and its rewards,” he + remarked thoughtfully, “than I do now.” + </p> + <p> + “If I were not a Presbyterian in Canada,” she told him, “I would be a + Buddhist in Burma. But I have inherited the Shorter Catechism; I must + remain without the Law.” + </p> + <p> + Finlay smiled. “They are the simple,” he said. “Our Law makes wise the + simple.” + </p> + <p> + Advena looked for a moment into the fire. She was listening, with + admiration, to her heart; she would not be led to consider esoteric + contrasts of East and West. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t there something that appeals to you,” she said, “in the thought of + just leaving it, all unsaid and all undone, a dear and tender projection + upon the future that faded—a lovely thing we turned away from, until + one day it was no longer there?” + </p> + <p> + “Charming,” he said, averting his eyes so that she should not see the + hunger in them. “Charming—literature!” + </p> + <p> + She smiled and sighed, and he wrenched his mind to the consideration of + the Buddhism of Browning. She followed him obediently, but the lines they + wanted did not come easily; they were compelled to search and verify. + Something lately seemed lost to them of that kind of glad activity; he was + more aware of it than she, since he was less occupied in the aesthetic + ecstasy of self-torture. In the old time before the sun rose they had been + so conscious of realms of idea lying just beyond the achievement of + thought, approachable, visible by phrases, brokenly, realms which they + could see closer when they essayed together. He constantly struggled to + reach those enchanted areas again, but they seemed to have gone down + behind the horizon; and the only inspiration that carried them far drew + its impetus from the poetry of their plight. They looked for verses to + prove that Browning’s imagination carried him bravely through lives and + lives to come, and found them to speculate whether in such chances they + might hope to meet again. + </p> + <p> + And the talk came back to his difficulties with his Board of Management, + and to her choice of a frame for the etching he had given her, by his + friend the Glasgow impressionist, and to their opinion of a common + acquaintance, and to Lorne and his prospects. He told her how little she + resembled her brother, and where they diverged, and how; and she listened + with submission and delight, enchanted to feel his hand upon her intimate + nature. She lingered in the hall while he got into his overcoat, and saw + that a glove was the worse for wear. “Would it be the heroic-in-little,” + she begged, “to let me mend that?” + </p> + <p> + As he went out alone into the winter streets he too drew upon a pagan for + his admonition. “‘What then art thou doing here, O imagination?’” he + groaned in his private heart. “‘Go away, I entreat thee by the gods, for I + want thee not. But thou art come again according to thy old fashion. I am + not angry with thee, only go away!’” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV + </h2> + <p> + Miss Milburn pressed her contention that the suspicion of his desire would + be bad for her lover’s political prospects till she made him feel his + honest passion almost a form of treachery to his party. She also hinted + that, for the time being, it did not make particularly for her own comfort + in the family circle, Mr Milburn having grown by this time quite bitter. + She herself drew the excitement of intrigue from the situation, which she + hid behind her pretty, pale, decorous features, and never betrayed by the + least of her graceful gestures. She told herself that she had never been + so right about anything as about that affair of the ring—imagine, + for an instant, if she had been wearing it now! She would have banished + Lorne altogether if she could. As he insisted on an occasional meeting, + she clothed it in mystery, appointing it for an evening when her mother + and aunt were out, and answering his ring at the door herself. To her + family she remarked with detachment that you saw hardly anything of Lorne + Murchison now, he was so taken up with his old election; and to Hesketh + she confided her fear that politics did interfere with friendship, + whatever he might say. He said a good deal, he cited lofty examples; but + the only agreement he could get from her was the hope that the + estrangement wouldn’t be permanent. + </p> + <p> + “But you are going to say something, Lorne,” she insisted, talking of the + Jordanville meeting. + </p> + <p> + “Not much,” he told her. “It’s the safest district we’ve got, and they + adore old Farquharson. He’ll do most of the talking—they wouldn’t + thank me for taking up the time. Farquharson is going to tell them I’m a + first-class man, and they couldn’t do better, and I’ve practically only to + show my face and tell them I think so too.” + </p> + <p> + “But Mr Hesketh will speak?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; we thought it would be a good chance of testing him. He may interest + them, and he can’t do much harm, anyhow.” + </p> + <p> + “Lorne, I should simply love to go. It’s your first meeting.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll take you.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr Murchison, HAVE you taken leave of your senses? Really, you are—” + </p> + <p> + “All right, I’ll send you. Farquharson and I are going out to the Crow + place to supper, but Hesketh is driving straight there. He’ll be delighted + to bring you—who wouldn’t?” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t be allowed to go with him alone,” said Dora, thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Well, no. I don’t know that I’d approve of that myself,” laughed the + confident young man. “Hesketh is driving Mrs Farquharson, and the cutter + will easily hold three. Isn’t it lucky there’s sleighing?” + </p> + <p> + “Mother couldn’t object to that,” said Dora. “Lorne, I always said you + were the dearest fellow! I’ll wear a thick veil, and not a soul will know + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a soul would in any case,” said Lorne. “It’ll be a Jordanville crowd, + you know—nobody from Elgin.” + </p> + <p> + “We don’t visit much in Jordanville, certainly. Well, Mother mayn’t + object. She has a great idea of Mrs Farquharson, because she has attended + eleven Drawing-Rooms at Ottawa, and one of them was given—held, I + should say—by the Princess Louise.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t promise you eleven,” said Lorne, “but there seems to be a pretty + fair chance of one or two.” + </p> + <p> + At this she had a tale for him which charmed his ears. “I didn’t know + where to look,” she said. “Aunt Emmie, you know, has a very bad trick of + coming into my room without knocking. Well, in she walked last night, and + found me before the glass PRACTISING MY CURTSEY! I could have killed her. + Pretended she thought I was out.” + </p> + <p> + “Dora, would you like ME to promise something?” he asked, with a + mischievous look. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, I would. I don’t care how much YOU promise. What?” + </p> + <p> + But already he repented of his daring, and sat beside her suddenly + conscious and abashed. Nor could any teasing prevail to draw from him what + had been on his audacious lips to say. + </p> + <p> + Social precedents are easily established in the country. The accident that + sent the first Liberal canvasser for Jordanville votes to the Crow place + for his supper would be hard to discover now; the fact remains that he has + been going there ever since. It made a greater occasion than Mrs Crow + would ever have dreamed of acknowledging. She saw to it that they had a + good meal of victuals, and affected indifference to the rest; they must + say their say, she supposed. If the occasion had one satisfaction which + she came nearer to confessing than another, it was that the two or three + substantial neighbours who usually came to meet the politicians left their + wives at home, and that she herself, to avoid giving any offence on this + score, never sat down with the men. Quite enough to do it was, she would + explain later, for her and the hired girl to wait on them and to clear up + after them. She and Bella had their bite afterward when the men had + hitched up, and when they could exchange comments of proud congratulation + upon the inroads on the johnny-cake or the pies. So there was no ill + feeling, and Mrs Crow, having vindicated her dignity by shaking hands with + the guests of the evening in the parlour, solaced it further by + maintaining the masculine state of the occasion, in spite of protests or + entreaties. To sit down opposite Mr Crow would have made it ordinary + “company”; she passed the plates and turned it into a function. + </p> + <p> + She was waiting for them on the parlour sofa when Crow brought them in out + of the nipping early dark of December, Elmore staying behind in the yard + with the horses. She sat on the sofa in her best black dress with the bead + trimming on the neck and sleeves, a good deal pushed up and wrinkled + across the bosom, which had done all that would ever be required of it + when it gave Elmore and Abe their start in life. Her wiry hands were + crossed in her lap in the moment of waiting: you could tell by the look of + them that they were not often crossed there. They were strenuous hands; + the whole worn figure was strenuous, and the narrow set mouth, and the + eyes which had looked after so many matters for so long, and even the way + the hair was drawn back into a knot in a fashion that would have given a + phrenologist his opportunity. It was a different Mrs Crow from the one + that sat in the midst of her poultry and garden-stuff in the Elgin market + square; but it was even more the same Mrs Crow, the sum of a certain + measure of opportunity and service, an imperial figure in her bead + trimming, if the truth were known. + </p> + <p> + The room was heated to express the geniality that was harder to put in + words. The window was shut; there was a smell of varnish and whatever was + inside the “suite” of which Mrs Crow occupied the sofa. Enlarged + photographs—very much enlarged—of Mr and Mrs Crow hung upon + the walls, and one other of a young girl done in that process which tells + you at once that she was an only daughter and that she is dead. There had + been other bereavements; they were written upon the silver coffin-plates + which, framed and glazed, also contributed to the decoration of the room; + but you would have had to look close, and you might feel a delicacy. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Crow made her greetings with precision, and sat down again upon the + sofa for a few minutes’ conversation. + </p> + <p> + “I’m telling them,” said her husband, “that the sleighin’s just held out + for them. If it ‘ud been tomorrow they’d have had to come on wheels. + Pretty soft travellin’ as it was, some places, I guess.” + </p> + <p> + “Snow’s come early this year,” said Mrs Crow. “It was an open fall, too.” + </p> + <p> + “It has certainly,” Mr Farquharson backed her up. “About as early as I + remember it. I don’t know how much you got out here; we had a good foot in + Elgin.” + </p> + <p> + “‘Bout the same, ‘bout the same,” Mr Crow deliberated, “but it’s been + layin’ light all along over Clayfield way—ain’t had a pair of + runners out, them folks.” + </p> + <p> + “Makes a more cheerful winter, Mrs Crow, don’t you think, when it comes + early?” remarked Lorne. “Or would you rather not get it till after + Christmas?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know as it matters much, out here in the country. We don’t get a + great many folks passin’, best of times. An’ it’s more of a job to take + care of the stock.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s so,” Mr Crow told them. “Chores come heavier when there’s snow on + the ground, a great sight, especially if there’s drifts.” + </p> + <p> + And for an instant, with his knotted hands hanging between his knees he + pondered this unvarying aspect of his yearly experience. They all pondered + it, sympathetic. + </p> + <p> + “Well, now, Mr Farquharson,” Mrs Crow turned to him. “An’ how reely BE ye? + We’ve heard better, an’ worse, an’ middlin’—there’s ben such + contradictory reports.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very well, Mrs Crow. Never better. I’m going to give a lot more + trouble yet. I can’t do it in politics, that’s the worst of it. But here’s + the man that’s going to do it for me. Here’s the man!” + </p> + <p> + The Crows looked at the pretendant, as in duty bound, but not any longer + than they could help. + </p> + <p> + “Why, I guess you were at school with Elmore?” said Crow, as if the idea + had just struck him. + </p> + <p> + “He may be right peart, for all that,” said Elmore’s mother, and Elmore, + himself, entering with two leading Liberals of Jordanville, effected a + diversion, under cover of which Mrs Crow escaped, to superintend, with + Bella, the last touches to the supper in the kitchen. + </p> + <p> + Politics in and about Jordanville were accepted as a purely masculine + interest. If you had asked Mrs Crow to take a hand in them she would have + thanked you with sarcasm, and said she thought she had about enough to do + as it was. The school-house, on the night of such a meeting as this, was + recognized to be no place for ladies. It was a man’s affair, left to the + men, and the appearance there of the other sex would have been greeted + with remark and levity. Elgin, as we know, was more sophisticated in every + way, plenty of ladies attended political meetings in the Drill Shed, where + seats as likely as not would be reserved for them; plenty of handkerchiefs + waved there for the encouragement of the hero of the evening. They did not + kiss him; British phlegm, so far, had stayed that demonstration at the + southern border. + </p> + <p> + The ladies of Elgin, however, drew the line somewhere, drew it at country + meetings. Mrs Farquharson went with her husband because, since his state + of health had handed him over to her more than ever, she saw it a part of + her wifely duty. His retirement had been decided upon for the spring, but + she would be on hand to retire him at any earlier moment should the + necessity arise. “We’ll be the only female creatures there, my dear,” she + had said to Dora on the way out, and Hesketh had praised them both for + public spirit. He didn’t know, he said, how anybody would get elected in + England without the ladies, especially in the villages, where the people + were obliged to listen respectfully. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder you can afford to throw away all the influence you get in the + rural districts with soup and blankets,” he said; “but this is an + extravagant country in many ways.” Dora kept silence, not being sure of + the social prestige bound up with the distribution of soup and blankets, + but Mrs Farquharson set him sharply right. + </p> + <p> + “I guess we’d rather do without our influence if it came to that,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + Hesketh listened with deference to her account of the rural district which + had as yet produced no Ladies Bountiful, made mental notes of several + points, and placed her privately as a woman of more than ordinary + intelligence. I have always claimed for Hesketh an open mind; he was + filling it now, to its capacity, with care and satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + The schoolroom was full and waiting when they arrived. Jordanville had + been well billed, and the posters held, in addition to the conspicuous + names of Farquharson and Murchison, that of Mr Alfred Hesketh (of London, + England). There was a “send-off” to give to the retiring member, there was + a critical inspection to make of the new candidate, and there was Mr + Alfred Hesketh, of London, England, and whatever he might signify. They + were big, quiet, expectant fellows, with less sophistication and polemic + than their American counterparts, less stolid aggressiveness than their + parallels in England, if they have parallels there. They stood, indeed, + for the development between the two; they came of the new country but not + of the new light; they were democrats who had never thrown off the monarch—what + harm did he do there overseas? They had the air of being prosperous, but + not prosperous enough for theories and doctrines. The Liberal vote of + South Fox had yet to be split by Socialism or Labour. Life was a decent + rough business that required all their attention; there was time enough + for sleep but not much for speculation. They sat leaning forward with + their hats dropped between their knees, more with the air of big + schoolboys expecting an entertainment than responsible electors come + together to approve their party’s choice. They had the uncomplaining + bucolic look, but they wore it with a difference; the difference, by this + time, was enough to mark them of another nation. Most of them had driven + to the meeting; it was not an adjournment from the public house. Nor did + the air hold any hint of beer. Where it had an alcoholic drift the flavour + was of whisky; but the stimulant of the occasion had been tea or cider, + and the room was full of patient good will. + </p> + <p> + The preliminaries were gone through with promptness; the Chair had supped + with the speakers, and Mr Crow had given him a friendly hint that the boys + wouldn’t be expecting much in the way of trimmings from HIM. Stamping and + clapping from the back benches greeted Mr Farquharson. It diminished, grew + more subdued, as it reached the front. The young fellows were mostly at + the back, and the power of demonstration had somehow ebbed in the old + ones. The retiring member addressed his constituents for half an hour. He + was standing before them as their representative for the last time, and it + was natural to look back and note the milestones behind, the changes for + the better with which he could fairly claim association. They were matters + of Federal business chiefly, beyond the immediate horizon of Jordanville, + but Farquharson made them a personal interest for that hour at all events, + and there were one or two points of educational policy which he could + illustrate by their own schoolhouse. He approached them, as he had always + done on the level of mutual friendly interest, and in the hope of doing + mutual friendly business. “You know and I know,” he said more than once; + they and he knew a number of things together. + </p> + <p> + He was afraid, he said, that if the doctors hadn’t chased him out of + politics, he never would have gone. Now, however, that they gave him no + choice, he was glad to think that though times had been pretty good for + the farmers of South Fox all through the eleven years of his appearance in + the political arena, he was leaving it at a moment when they promised to + be better still. Already, he was sure, they were familiar with the main + heads of that attractive prospect and, agreeable as the subject, great as + the policy was to him, he would leave it to be further unfolded by the + gentleman whom they all hoped to enlist in the cause, as his successor for + this constituency, Mr Lorne Murchison, and by his friend from the old + country, Mr Alfred Hesketh. He, Farquharson, would not take the words out + of the mouths of these gentlemen, much as he envied them the opportunity + of uttering them. The French Academy, he told them, that illustrious body + of literary and scientific men, had a custom, on the death of a member and + the selection of his successor, of appointing one of their number to + eulogize the newcomer. The person upon whom the task would most + appropriately fall, did circumstances permit, would be the departing + academician. In this case, he was happy to say, circumstances did permit—his + political funeral was still far enough off to enable him to express his + profound confidence in and his hearty admiration of the young and vigorous + political heir whom the Liberals of South Fox had selected to stand in his + shoes. Mr Farquharson proceeded to give his grounds for this confidence + and admiration, reminding the Jordanville electors that they had met Mr + Murchison as a Liberal standard-bearer in the last general election, when + he, Farquharson, had to acknowledge very valuable services on Mr + Murchison’s part. The retiring member then thanked his audience for the + kind attention and support they had given him for so many years, made a + final cheerful joke about a Pagan divinity known as Anno Domini, and took + his seat. + </p> + <p> + They applauded him, and it was plain that they regretted him, the tried + friend, the man there was never any doubt about, whose convictions they + had repeated, and whose speeches in Parliament they had read with a kind + of proprietorship for so long. The Chair had to wait, before introducing + Mr Alfred Hesketh, until the backbenchers had got through with a double + rendering of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” which bolder spirits sent + lustily forth from the anteroom where the little girls kept their hats and + comforters, interspersed with whoops. Hesketh, it had been arranged, + should speak next, and Lorne last. + </p> + <p> + Mr Hesketh left his wooden chair with smiling ease, the ease which is + intended to level distinctions and put everybody concerned on the best of + terms. He said that though he was no stranger to the work of political + campaigns, this was the first time that he had had the privilege of + addressing a colonial audience. “I consider,” said he handsomely, “that it + is a privilege.” He clasped his hands behind his back and threw out his + chest. + </p> + <p> + “Opinions have differed in England as to the value of the colonies, and + the consequence of colonials. I say here with pride that I have ever been + among those who insist that the value is very high and the consequence + very great. The fault is common to humanity, but we are, I fear, in + England, too prone to be led away by appearances, and to forget that under + a rough unpolished exterior may beat virtues which are the brightest + ornaments of civilization, that in the virgin fields of the possessions + which the good swords of our ancestors wrung for us from the Algonquins + and the—and the other savages—may be hidden the most glorious + period of the British race.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Hesketh paused and coughed. His audience neglected the opportunity for + applause, but he had their undivided attention. They were looking at him + and listening to him, these Canadian farmers, with curious interest in his + attitude, his appearance, his inflection, his whole personality as it + offered itself to them—it was a thing new and strange. Far out in + the Northwest, where the emigrant trains had been unloading all the + summer, Hesketh’s would have been a voice from home; but here, in + long-settled Ontario, men had forgotten the sound of it, with many other + things. They listened in silence, weighing with folded arms, appraising + with chin in hand; they were slow, equitable men. + </p> + <p> + “If we in England,” Hesketh proceeded, “required a lesson—as perhaps + we did—in the importance of the colonies, we had it; need I remind + you? in the course of the late protracted campaign in South Africa. Then + did the mother country indeed prove the loyalty and devotion of her + colonial sons. Then were envious nations compelled to see the spectacle of + Canadians and Australians rallying about the common flag, eager to attest + their affection for it with their life-blood, and to demonstrate that + they, too, were worthy to add deeds to British traditions and victories to + the British cause.” + </p> + <p> + Still no mark of appreciation. Hesketh began to think them an unhandsome + lot. He stood bravely, however, by the note he had sounded. He dilated on + the pleasure and satisfaction it had been to the people of England to + receive this mark of attachment from far-away dominions and dependencies, + on the cementing of the bonds of brotherhood by the blood of the fallen, + on the impossibility that the mother country should ever forget such + voluntary sacrifices for her sake, when, unexpectedly and irrelevantly, + from the direction of the cloakroom, came the expressive comment “Yah!” + </p> + <p> + Though brief, nothing could have been more to the purpose, and Hesketh + sacrificed several effective points to hurry to the quotation— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + What should they know of England + Who only England know? +</pre> + <p> + which he could not, perhaps, have been expected to forbear. His audience, + however, were plainly not in the vein for compliment. The same voice from + the anteroom inquired ironically, “That so?” and the speaker felt advised + to turn to more immediate considerations. + </p> + <p> + He said he had had the great pleasure on his arrival in this country to + find a political party, the party in power, their Canadian Liberal party, + taking initiative in a cause which he was sure they all had at heart—the + strengthening of the bonds between the colonies and the mother country. He + congratulated the Liberal party warmly upon having shown themselves + capable of this great function—a point at which he was again + interrupted; and he recapitulated some of the familiar arguments about the + desirability of closer union from the point of view of the army, of the + Admiralty, and from one which would come home, he knew, to all of them, + the necessity of a dependable food supply for the mother country in time + of war. Here he quoted a noble lord. He said that he believed no definite + proposals had been made, and he did not understand how any definite + proposals could be made; for his part, if the new arrangement was to be in + the nature of a bargain, he would prefer to have nothing to do with it. + </p> + <p> + “England,” he said, loftily, “has no wish to buy the loyalty of her + colonies, nor, I hope, has any colony the desire to offer her allegiance + at the price of preference in British markets. Even proposals for mutual + commercial benefit may be underpinned, I am glad to say, by loftier + principles than those of the market-place and the counting-house.” + </p> + <p> + At this one of his hearers, unacquainted with the higher commercial plane, + exclaimed, “How be ye goin’ to get ‘em kept to, then?” + </p> + <p> + Hesketh took up the question. He said a friend in the audience asked how + they were to ensure that such arrangements would be adhered to. His answer + was in the words of the Duke of Dartmoor, “By the mutual esteem, the + inherent integrity, and the willing compromise of the British race.” + </p> + <p> + Here someone on the back benches, impatient, doubtless, at his own + incapacity to follow this high doctrine, exclaimed intemperately, “Oh, + shut up!” and the gathering, remembering that this, after all, was not + what it had come for, began to hint that it had had enough in intermittent + stamps and uncompromising shouts for “Murchison!” + </p> + <p> + Hesketh kept on his legs, however, a few minutes longer. He had a + trenchant sentence to repeat to them which he thought they would take as a + direct message from the distinguished nobleman who had uttered it. The + Marquis of Aldeburgh was the father of the pithy thing, which he had + presented, as it happened, to Hesketh himself. The audience received it + with respect—Hesketh’s own respect was so marked—but with + misapprehension; there had been too many allusions to the nobility for a + community so far removed from its soothing influence. “Had ye no friends + among the commoners?” suddenly spoke up a dry old fellow, stroking a long + white beard; and the roar that greeted this showed the sense of the + meeting. Hesketh closed with assurances of the admiration and confidence + he felt toward the candidate proposed to their suffrages by the Liberal + party that were quite inaudible, and sought his yellow pinewood schoolroom + chair with rather a forced smile. It had been used once before that day to + isolate conspicuous stupidity. + </p> + <p> + They were at bottom a good-natured and a loyal crowd, and they had not, + after all, come there to make trouble, or Mr Alfred Hesketh might have + carried away a worse opinion of them. As it was, young Murchison, whose + address occupied the rest of the evening, succeeded in making an + impression upon them distinct enough, happily for his personal influence, + to efface that of his friend. He did it by the simple expedient of talking + business, and as high prices for produce and low ones for agricultural + implements would be more interesting there than here, I will not report + him. He and Mr Farquharson waited, after the meeting, for a personal word + with a good many of those present, but it was suggested to Hesketh that + the ladies might be tired, and that he had better get them home without + unnecessary delay. Mrs Farquharson had less comment to offer during the + drive home than Hesketh thought might be expected from a woman of her + intelligence, but Miss Milburn was very enthusiastic. She said he had made + a lovely speech, and she wished her father could have heard it. + </p> + <p> + A personal impression, during a time of political excitement, travels + unexpectedly far. A week later Mr Hesketh was concernedly accosted in Main + Street by a boy on a bicycle. + </p> + <p> + “Say, mister, how’s the dook?” + </p> + <p> + “What duke?” asked Hesketh, puzzled. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, any dook,” responded the boy, and bicycled cheerfully, away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI + </h2> + <p> + Christmas came and went. Dr Drummond had long accepted the innovation of a + service on Christmas Day, as he agreed to the anthem while the collection + was being taken up, to flowers about the pulpit, and to the habit of + sitting at prayer. He was a progressive by his business instinct, in + everything but theology, where perhaps his business instinct also operated + the other way, in favour of the sure thing. The Christmas Day service soon + became one of those “special” occasions so dear to his heart, which made a + demand upon him out of the ordinary way. He rose to these on the wing of + the eagle, and his congregation never lacked the lesson that could be most + dramatically drawn from them. His Christmas Day discourse gathered + everything into it that could emphasize the anniversary, including a + vigorous attack upon the saints’ days and ceremonies of the Church of + England calculated to correct the concession of the service, and pull up + sharply any who thought that Presbyterianism was giving way to the + spurious attractions of sentimentality or ritual. The special Easter + service, with every appropriate feature of hymn and invocation, was apt to + be marked by an unsparing denunciation of the pageants and practices of + the Church of Rome. Balance was thus preserved, and principle relentlessly + indicated. + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond loved, as I have said, all that asked for notable comment; the + poet and the tragedian in him caught at the opportunity, and revelled in + it. Public events carried him far, especially if they were disastrous, but + what he most profited by was the dealing of Providence with members of his + own congregation. Of all the occasions that inspired him, the funeral + sermon was his happiest opportunity, nor was it, in his hands, by any + means unstinted eulogy. Candid was his summing-up, behind the decent veil, + the accepted apology of death; he was not afraid to refer to the follies + of youth or the weaknesses of age in terms as unmistakable as they were + kindly. + </p> + <p> + “Grace,” he said once, of an estimable plain spinster who had passed away, + “did more for her than ever nature had done.” He repeated it, too. “She + was far more indebted, I say, to grace, than to nature,” and before his + sharp earnestness none were seen to smile. Nor could you forget the note + in his voice when the loss he deplored was that of a youth of virtue and + promise, or that of a personal friend. His very text would be a blow upon + the heart; the eyes filled from the beginning. People would often say that + they were “sorry for the family,” sitting through Dr Drummond’s + celebration of their bereavement; and the sympathy was probably well + founded. But how fine he was when he paid the last tribute to that upright + man, his elder and office-bearer, David Davidson! How his words marched, + sorrowing to the close! “Much I have said of him, and more than he would + have had me say.” Will it not stay with those who heard it till the very + end, the trenchant, mournful fall of that “more than he would have had me + say”? + </p> + <p> + It was a thing that Hugh Finlay could not abide in Dr Drummond. + </p> + <p> + As the winter passed, the little Doctor was hard put to it to keep his + hands off the great political issue of the year, bound up as it was in the + tenets of his own politics, which he held only less uncompromisingly than + those of the Shorter Catechism. It was, unfortunately for him, a gradual + and peaceful progress of opinion, marked by no dramatic incidents; and + analogy was hard to find in either Testament for a change of fiscal policy + based on imperial advantage. Dr Drummond liked a pretty definite parallel; + he had small opinion of the practice of drawing a pint out of a thimble, + as he considered Finlay must have done when he preached the gospel of + imperialism from Deuteronomy XXX, 14. “But the word is very nigh unto + thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” Moreover, to + preach politics in Knox Church was a liberty in Finlay. + </p> + <p> + The fact that Finlay had been beforehand with him operated perhaps to + reconcile the Doctor to his difficulty; and the candidature of one of his + own members in what was practically the imperial interest no doubt + increased his embarrassment. Nevertheless, he would not lose sight of the + matter for more than two or three weeks together. Many an odd blow he + delivered for its furtherance by way of illustrating higher things, and he + kept it always, so to speak, in the practical politics of the long prayer. + </p> + <p> + It was Sunday evening, and Abby and her husband, as usual, had come to + tea. The family was complete with the exception of Lorne, who had driven + out to Clayfield with Horace Williams, to talk over some urgent matters + with persons whom he would meet at supper at the Metropole Hotel at + Clayfield. It was a thing Mrs Murchison thought little short of scandalous—supper + to talk business on the Sabbath day, and in a hotel, a place of which the + smell about the door was enough to knock you down, even on a weekday. Mrs + Murchison considered, and did not scruple to say so, that politics should + be left alone on Sundays. Clayfield votes might be very important, but + there were such things as commandments, she supposed. “It’ll bring no + blessing,” she declared severely, eyeing Lorne’s empty place. + </p> + <p> + The talk about the lamplit table was, nevertheless, all of the election, + blessed or unblessed. It was not in human nature that it shouldn’t be, as + Mrs Murchison would have very quickly told you if you had found her + inconsistent. There was reason in all things, as she frequently said. + </p> + <p> + “I hear,” Alec had told them, “that Octavius Milburn is going around + bragging he’s got the Elgin Chamber of Commerce consolidated this time.” + </p> + <p> + “Against us?” exclaimed Stella; and her brother said, “Of course!” + </p> + <p> + “Those Milburns,” remarked Mrs Murchison, “are enough to make one’s blood + boil. I met Mrs Milburn in the market yesterday; she’d been pricing Mrs + Crow’s ducks, and they were just five cents too dear for her, and she + stopped—wonderful thing for her—and had SUCH an amount to say + about Lorne, and the honour it was, and the dear only knows what! Butter + wouldn’t melt in her mouth—and Octavius Milburn doing all he knew + against him the whole time! That’s the Milburns! I cut her remarkably + short,” Mrs Murchison added, with satisfaction, “and when she’d made up + her mind she’d have to give that extra five cents for the ducks because + there weren’t any others to be had, she went back and found I’d bought + them.” + </p> + <p> + “Well done, Mother!” said Alec, and Oliver remarked that if those were + today’s ducks they were too good for the Milburn crowd, a lot. + </p> + <p> + “I expect she wanted them, too,” remarked Stella. “They’ve got the only Mr + Hesketh staying with them now. Miss Filkin’s in a great state of + excitement.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess we can spare them Hesketh,” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “He’s a lobster,” said Stella with fervour. + </p> + <p> + “He seems to bring a frost where he goes,” continued Abby’s husband, “in + politics, anyhow. I hear Lorne wants to make a present of him to the other + side, for use wherever they’ll let him speak longest. Is it true he began + his speech out at Jordanville—‘Gentlemen—and those of you who + are not gentlemen’?” + </p> + <p> + “Could he have meant Mrs Farquharson and Miss Milburn?” asked Mr Murchison + quietly, when the derision subsided; and they laughed again. + </p> + <p> + “He told me,” said Advena, “that he proposed to convert Mr Milburn to the + imperial policy.” + </p> + <p> + “He’ll have his job cut out for him,” said her father. + </p> + <p> + “For my part,” Abby told them, “I think the Milburns are beneath contempt. + You don’t know exactly what it is, but there’s something ABOUT them—not + that we ever come in contact with them,” she continued with dignity. “I + believe they used to be patients of Dr Henry’s till he got up in years, + but they don’t call in Harry.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe that’s what there is about them,” said Mr Murchison, innocently. + </p> + <p> + “Father’s made up his mind,” announced Dr Harry, and they waited, + breathless. There could be only one point upon which Dr Henry could be + dubitating at that moment. + </p> + <p> + “He’s going to vote for Lorne.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s a lovely old darling!” cried Stella. “Good for Dr Henry Johnson! I + knew he would.” + </p> + <p> + The rest were silent with independence and gratification. Dr Henry’s + Conservatism had been supposed to be invincible. Dr Harry they thought a + fair prey to Murchison influence, and he had capitulated early, but he had + never promised to answer for his father. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he’s taken his time about it, and he’s consulted about all the known + authorities,” said his son, humorously. “Went right back to the Manchester + school to begin with—sat out on the verandah reading Cobden and + Bright the whole summer; if anybody came for advice sent ‘em in to me. I + did a trade, I tell you! He thought they talked an awful lot of sense, + those fellows—from the English point of view. ‘D’ye mean to tell + me,’ he’d say, ‘that a generation born and bred in political doctrine of + that sort is going to hold on to the colonies at a sacrifice? They’d + rather let ‘em go at a sacrifice!’ Well, then he got to reading the other + side of the question, and old Ormiston lent him Parkin, and he lent old + Ormiston Goldwin Smith, and then he subscribed to the Times for six months—the + bill must have nearly bust him; and then the squire went over without + waiting for him and without any assistance from the Times either; and + finally—well, he says that if it’s good enough business for the + people of England it’s good enough business for him. Only he keeps on + worrying about the people of England, and whether they’ll make enough by + it to keep them contented, till he can’t next month all right, he wants it + to be distinctly understood that family connection has nothing to do with + it.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course it hasn’t,” Advena said. + </p> + <p> + “But we’re just as much obliged,” remarked Stella. + </p> + <p> + “A lot of our church people are going to stay at home election day,” + declared Abby; “they won’t vote for Lorne, and they won’t vote against + imperialism, so they’ll just sulk. Silly, I call it.” + </p> + <p> + “Good enough business for us,” said Alec. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what I want to know is,” said Mrs Murchison, “whether you are + coming to the church you were born and brought up in, Abby, or not, + tonight? There’s the first bell.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not going to any church.” said Abby. “I went this morning. I’m going + home to my baby.” + </p> + <p> + “Your father and mother,” said Mrs Murchison, “can go twice a day, and be + none the worse for it. By the way, Father, did you know old Mrs Parr was + dead? Died this morning at four o’clock. They telephoned for Dr Drummond, + and I think they had little to do, for he had been up with her half the + night already, Mrs Forsyth told me.” + </p> + <p> + “Did he go?” asked Mr Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “He did not, for the very good reason that he knew nothing about it. Mrs + Forsyth answered the telephone, and told them he hadn’t been two hours in + his bed, and she wouldn’t get him out again for an unconscious deathbed, + and him with bronchitis on him and two sermons to preach today.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll warrant Mrs Forsyth caught it in the morning,” said John Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “That she did. The doctor was as cross as two sticks that she hadn’t had + him out to answer the phone. ‘I just spoke up,’ she said, ‘and told him I + didn’t see how he was going to do any good to the pour soul over a + telephone wire.’ ‘It isn’t that,’ he said, ‘but I might have put them on + to Peter Fratch for the funeral. We’ve never had an undertaker in the + church before,’ he said; ‘he’s just come, and he ought to be supported. + Now I expect it’s too late, they’ll have gone to Liscombe.’ He rang them + up right away, but they had.” + </p> + <p> + “Dr Drummond can’t stand Liscombe,” said Alec, as they all laughed a + little at the Doctor’s foible, all except Advena, who laughed a great + deal. She laughed wildly, then weakly. “I wouldn’t—think it a + pleasure—to be buried by Liscombe myself!” she cried hysterically, + and then laughed again until the tears ran down her face, and she lay back + in her chair and moaned, still laughing. + </p> + <p> + Mr and Mrs Murchison, Alec, Stella, and Advena made up the family party; + Oliver, for reasons of his own, would attend the River Avenue Methodist + Church that evening. They slipped out presently into a crisp white winter + night. The snow was banked on both sides of the street. Spreading garden + fir trees huddled together weighted down with it; ragged icicles hung from + the eaves or lay in long broken fingers on the trodden paths. The snow + snapped and tore under their feet; there was a glorious moon that observed + every tattered weed sticking up through the whiteness, and etched it with + its shadow. The town lay under the moon almost dramatic, almost + mysterious, so withdrawn it was out of the cold, so turned in upon its own + soul of the fireplace. It might have stood, in the snow and the silence, + for a shell and a symbol of the humanity within, for angels or other + strangers to mark with curiosity. Mr and Mrs Murchison were neither angels + nor strangers; they looked at it and saw that the Peterson place was still + standing empty, and that old Mr Fisher hadn’t finished his new porch + before zero weather came to stop him. + </p> + <p> + The young people were well ahead; Mrs Murchison, on her husband’s arm, + stepped along with the spring of an impetus undisclosed. + </p> + <p> + “Is it to be the Doctor tonight?” asked John Murchison. “He was so hoarse + this morning I wouldn’t be surprised to see Finlay in the pulpit. They’re + getting only morning services in East Elgin just now, while they’re + changing the lighting arrangements.” + </p> + <p> + “Are they, indeed? Well, I hope they’ll change them and be done with it, + for I can’t say I’m anxious for too much of their Mr Finlay in Knox + Church.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you like the man well enough for a change, Mother!” John assured her. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve nothing to say against his preaching. It’s the fellow himself. And I + hope we won’t get him tonight for, the way I feel now, if I see him + gawking up the pulpit steps it’ll be as much as I can do to keep in my + seat, and so I just tell you, John.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a little out of patience with him, I see,” said Mr Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “And it would be a good thing if more than me were out of patience with + him. There’s such a thing as too much patience, I’ve noticed.” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say,” replied her husband, cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + “If Advena were any daughter of mine she’d have less patience with him.” + </p> + <p> + “She’s not much like you,” assented the father. + </p> + <p> + “I must say I like a girl to have a little spirit if a man has none. And + before I’d have him coming to the house week after week the way he has, + I’d see him far enough.” + </p> + <p> + “He might as well come there as anywhere,” Mr Murchison replied, + ambiguously. “I suppose he has now and then time on his hands?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he won’t have it on his hands much longer.” + </p> + <p> + “He won’t, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he won’t,” Mrs Murchison almost shook the arm she was attached to. + “John, I think you might show a little interest! The man’s going to be + married.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t say that?” John Murchison’s tone expressed not only + astonishment but concern. Mrs Murchison was almost mollified. + </p> + <p> + “But I do say it. His future wife is coming here to Elgin next month, she + and her aunt, or her grandmother, or somebody, and they’re to stay at Dr + Drummond’s and be married as soon as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense,” said Mr Murchison, which was his way of expressing simple + astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “There’s no nonsense about it. Advena told me herself this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she seem put out about it?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s not a girl to show it,” Mrs Murchison hedged, “if she was. I just + looked at her. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s a piece of news. When did you hear + it?’ I said. ‘Oh, I’ve known it all the winter!’ says my lady. What I + wanted to say was that for an engaged man he had been pretty liberal with + his visits, but she had such a queer look in her eyes I couldn’t express + myself, somehow.” + </p> + <p> + “It was just as well left unsaid,” her husband told her, thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not so sure,” Mrs Murchison retorted. “You’re a great man, John, for + letting everything alone. When he’s been coming here regularly for more + than a year, putting ideas into the girl’s head—” + </p> + <p> + “He seems to have told her how things were.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all very well—if he had kept himself to himself at the same + time.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Mother, you know you never thought much of the prospect.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn’t,” Mrs Murchison said. “It wouldn’t be me that would be + married to him, and I’ve always said so. But I’d got more or less used to + it,” she confessed. “The man’s well enough in some ways. Dear knows there + would be a pair of them—one’s as much of a muddler as the other! And + anybody can see with half an eye that Advena likes him. It hasn’t turned + out as I expected, that’s a fact, John, and I’m just very much annoyed.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not best pleased about it myself,” said John Murchison, expressing, + as usual, a very small proportion of the regret that he felt, “but I + suppose they know their own business.” + </p> + <p> + Thus, in their different ways, did these elder ones also acknowledge their + helplessness before the advancing event. They could talk of it in private + and express their dissatisfaction with it, and that was all they could do. + It would not be a matter much further turned over between them at best. + They would be shy of any affair of sentiment in terms of speech, and from + one that affected a member of the family, self-respect would help to pull + them the other way. Mrs Murchison might remember it in the list of things + which roused her vain indignation; John Murchison would put it away in the + limbo of irremediables that were better forgotten. For the present they + had reached the church door. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Murchison saw with relief that Dr Drummond occupied his own pulpit, + but if her glance had gone the length of three pews behind her she would + have discovered that Hugh Finlay made one of the congregation. + Fortunately, perhaps, for her enjoyment of the service, she did not look + round. Dr Drummond was more observing, but his was a position of + advantage. In the accustomed sea of faces two, heavy shadowed and + obstinately facing fate, swam together before Dr Drummond, and after he + had lifted his hands and closed his eyes for the long prayer he saw them + still. So that these words occurred, near the end, in the long prayer— + </p> + <p> + “O Thou Searcher of hearts, who hast known man from the beginning, to whom + his highest desires and his loftiest intentions are but as the desires and + intentions of a little child, look with Thine own compassion, we beseech + Thee, upon souls before Thee in any peculiar difficulty. Our mortal life + is full of sin, it is also full of the misconception of virtue. Do Thou + clear the understanding, O Lord, of such as would interpret Thy will to + their own undoing; do Thou teach them that as happiness may reside in + chastening, so chastening may reside in happiness. And though such stand + fast to their hurt, do Thou grant to them in Thine own way, which may not + be our way, a safe issue out of the dangers that beset them.” + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond had his own method of reconciling foreordination and free + will. To Advena his supplication came with that mysterious double emphasis + of chance words that fit. Her thought played upon them all through the + sermon, rejecting and rejecting again their application and their argument + and the spring of hope in them. She, too, knew that Finlay was in church + and, half timidly, she looked back for him, as the congregation filed out + again into the winter streets. But he, furious, and more resolved than + ever, had gone home by another way. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII + </h2> + <p> + Octavius Milburn was not far beyond the facts when he said that the Elgin + Chamber of Commerce was practically solid this time against the Liberal + platform, though to what extent this state of things was due to his + personal influence might be a matter of opinion. Mr Milburn was President + of the Chamber of Commerce, and his name stood for one of the most + thriving of Elgin’s industries, but he was not a person of influence + except as it might be represented in a draft on the Bank of British North + America. He had never converted anybody to anything, and never would, + possibly because the governing principle of his life was the terror of + being converted to anything himself. If an important nonentity is an + imaginable thing, perhaps it would stand for Mr Milburn; and he found it a + more valuable combination than it may appear, since his importance gave + him position and opportunity, and his nonentity saved him from their + risks. Certainly he had not imposed his view upon his fellow-members—they + would have blown it off like a feather—yet they found themselves + much of his mind. Most of them were manufacturing men of the Conservative + party, whose factories had been nursed by high duties upon the goods of + outsiders, and few even of the Liberals among them felt inclined to + abandon this immediate safeguard for a benefit more or less remote, and + more or less disputable. John Murchison thought otherwise, and put it in + few words as usual. He said he was more concerned to see big prices in + British markets for Canadian crops than he was to put big prices on + ironware he couldn’t sell. He was more afraid of hard times among the + farmers of Canada than he was of competition by the manufacturers of + England. That is what he said when he was asked if it didn’t go against + the grain a little to have to support a son who advocated low duties on + British ranges; and when he was not asked he said nothing, disliking the + discount that was naturally put upon his opinion. Parsons, of the Blanket + Mills, bolted at the first hint of the new policy and justified it by + reminding people that he always said he would if it ever looked like + business. + </p> + <p> + “We give their woollen goods a pull of a third as it is,” he said, “which + is just a third more than I approve of. I don’t propose to vote to make it + any bigger—can’t afford it.” + </p> + <p> + He had some followers, but there were also some, like Young, of the Plough + Works, and Windle, who made bicycles, who announced that there was no need + to change their politics to defeat a measure that had no existence, and + never would have. What sickened them, they declared, was to see young + Murchison allowed to give it so much prominence as Liberal doctrine. The + party had been strong enough to hold South Fox for the best part of the + last twenty years on the old principles, and this British boot-licking + feature wasn’t going to do it any good. It was fool politics in the + opinion of Mr Young and Mr Windle. + </p> + <p> + Then remained the retail trades, the professions, and the farmers. Both + sides could leave out of their counsels the interests of the leisured + class, since the leisured class in Elgin consisted almost entirely of + persons who were too old to work, and therefore not influential. The + landed proprietors were the farmers, when they weren’t, alas! the banks. + As to the retail men, the prosperity of the stores of Main Street and + Market Street was bound up about equally with that of Fox County and the + Elgin factories. The lawyers and doctors, the odd surveyors and engineers, + were inclined, by their greater detachment, to theories and prejudices, + delightful luxuries where a certain rigidity of opinion is dictated by + considerations of bread and butter. They made a factor debatable, but + small. The farmers had everything to win, nothing to lose. The prospect + offered them more for what they had to sell, and less for what they had to + buy, and most of them were Liberals already; but the rest had to be + convinced, and a political change of heart in a bosom of South Fox was as + difficult as any other. Industrial, commercial, professional, + agricultural, Lorne Murchison scanned them all hopefully, but Walter + Winter felt them his garnered sheaves. + </p> + <p> + It will be imagined how Mr Winter, as a practical politician, rejoiced in + the aspect of things. The fundamental change, with its incalculable + chances to play upon, the opening of the gate to admit plain detriment in + the first instance for the sake of benefit, easily beclouded, in the + second, the effective arm, in the hands of a satirist, of sentiment in + politics—and if there was a weapon Mr Winter owned a weakness for it + was satire—the whole situation, as he often confessed, suited him + down to the ground. He professed himself, though no optimist under any + circumstances very well pleased. Only in one other place, he declared, + would he have preferred to conduct a campaign at the present moment on the + issue involved, though he would have to change his politics to do it + there, and that place was England. He cast an envious eye across the ocean + at the trenchant argument of the dear loaf; he had no such straight road + to the public stomach and grand arbitrator of the fate of empires. If the + Liberals in England failed to turn out the Government over this business, + they would lose in his eyes all the respect he ever had for them, which + wasn’t much, he acknowledged. When his opponents twitted him with + discrepancy here, since a bargain so bad for one side could hardly fail to + favour the other, he poured all his contempt on the scheme as concocted by + damned enthusiasts for the ruin of businessmen of both countries. Such + persons, Mr Winter said, if they could have their way, would be happy and + satisfied; but in his opinion neither England nor the colonies could + afford to please them as much as that. He professed loud contempt for the + opinions of the Conservative party organs at Toronto, and stood boldly for + his own views. That was what would happen, he declared, in every + manufacturing division in the country, if the issue came to be fought in a + general election. He was against the scheme, root and branch. + </p> + <p> + Mr Winter was skilled, practised, and indefatigable. We need not follow + him in all his ways and works; a good many of his arguments, I fear, must + also escape us. The Elgin Mercury, if consulted, would produce them in + daily disclosure; so would the Clayfield Standard. One of these offered a + good deal of sympathy to Mayor Winter, the veteran of so many good fights, + in being asked to contest South Fox with an opponent who had not so much + as a village reeveship to his public credit. If the Conservative candidate + felt the damage to his dignity, however, he concealed it. + </p> + <p> + In Elgin and Clayfield, where factory chimneys had also begun to point the + way to enterprise, Winter had a clear field. Official reports gave him + figures to prove the great and increasing prosperity of the country, + astonishing figures of capital coming in, of emigrants landing, of new + lands broken, new mineral regions exploited, new railways projected, of + stocks and shares normal safe, assured. He could ask the manufacturers of + Elgin to look no further than themselves, which they were quite willing to + do, for illustration of the plenty and the promise which reigned in the + land from one end to the other. He could tell them that in their own + Province more than one hundred new industries had been established in the + last year. He could ask them, and he did ask them, whether this was a + state of things to disturb with an inrush from British looms and rolling + mills, and they told him with applause that it was not. + </p> + <p> + Country audiences were not open to arguments like these; they were slow in + the country, as the Mercury complained, to understand that agricultural + prospects were bound up with the prosperity of the towns and cities; they + had been especially slow in the country in England, as the Express + ironically pointed out, to understand it. So Winter and his supporters + asked the farmers of South Fox if they were prepared to believe all they + heard of the good will of England to the colonies, with the flattering + assumption that they were by no means prepared to believe it. Was it a + likely thing, Mr Winter inquired, that the people of Great Britain were + going to pay more for their flour and their bacon, their butter and their + cheese, than they had any need to do, simply out of a desire to benefit + countries which most of them had never seen, and never would see? No, said + Mr Winter, they might take it from him, that was not the idea. But Mr + Winter thought there was an idea, and that they and he together would not + have much trouble in deciphering it. He did not claim to be longer-sighted + in politics than any other man, but he thought the present British idea + was pretty plain. It was, in two words, to secure the Canadian market for + British goods, and a handsome contribution from the Canadian taxpayer + toward the expense of the British army and navy, in return for the offer + of favours to food supplies from Canada. But this, as they all knew, was + not the first time favours had been offered by the British Government to + food supplies from Canada. Just sixty years ago the British Government had + felt one of these spasms of benevolence to Canada, and there were men + sitting before him who could remember the good will and the gratitude, the + hope and the confidence, that greeted Stanley’s bill of that year, which + admitted Canadian wheat and flour at a nominal duty. Some could remember, + and those who could not remember could read; how the farmers and the + millers of Ontario took heart and laid out capital, and how money was easy + and enterprise was everywhere, and how agricultural towns such as Elgin + was at that time sent up streets of shops to accommodate the trade that + was to pour in under the new and generous “preference” granted to the + Dominion by the mother country. And how long, Mr Winter demanded, swinging + round in that pivotal manner which seems assisted by thumbs in the + armholes of the waistcoat, how long did the golden illusion last? + Precisely three years. In precisely three years the British nation + compelled the British Government to adopt the Free Trade Act of ‘46. The + wheat of the world flowed into every port in England, and the hopes of + Canada, especially the hopes of Ontario, based then, as now, on + “preferential” treatment, were blasted to the root. Enterprise was laid + flat, mortgages were foreclosed, shops were left empty, the milling and + forwarding interests were temporarily ruined, and the Governor-General + actually wrote to the Secretary of State in England that things were so + bad that not a shilling could be raised on the credit of the Province. + </p> + <p> + Now Mr Winter did not blame the people of England for insisting on free + food. It was the policy that suited their interests, and they had just as + good a right to look after their interests, he conceded handsomely, as + anybody else. But he did blame the British Government for holding out + hopes, for making definite pledges, to a young and struggling nation, + which they must have known they would not be able to redeem. He blamed + their action then, and he would blame it now, if the opportunity were + given to them to repeat it, for the opportunity would pass and the pledge + would pass into the happy hunting ground of unrealizable politics, but not—and + Mr Winter asked his listeners to mark this very carefully—not until + Canada was committed to such relations of trade and taxes with the + Imperial Government as would require the most heroic efforts—it + might run to a war—to extricate herself from. In plain words, Mr + Winter assured his country audiences, Great Britain had sold them before, + and she would sell them again. He stood there before them as loyal to + British connection as any man. He addressed a public as loyal to British + connection as any public. BUT—once bitten twice shy. + </p> + <p> + Horace Williams might riddle such arguments from end to end in the next + day’s Express, but if there is a thing that we enjoy in the country, it is + having the dodges of Government shown up with ignominy, and Mr Winter + found his account in this historic parallel. + </p> + <p> + Nothing could have been more serious in public than his line of defence + against the danger that menaced, but in friendly ears Mr Winter derided it + as a practical possibility, like the Liberals, Young and Windle. + </p> + <p> + “It seems to me,” he said, talking to Octavius Milburn, “that the + important thing at present is the party attitude to the disposition of + Crown lands and to Government-made railways. As for this racket of + Wallingham’s, it has about as much in it as an empty bun-bag. He’s running + round taking a lot of satisfaction blowing it out just now, and the swells + over there are clapping like anything, but the first knock will show that + it’s just a bun-bag, with a hole in it.” + </p> + <p> + “Folks in the old country are solid on the buns, though,” said Milburn as + they parted, and Alfred Hesketh, who was walking with his host, said—“It’s + bound in the end to get down to that, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + Presently Hesketh came back to it. + </p> + <p> + “Quaint idea, that—describing Wallingham’s policy as a bun-bag,” he + said, and laughed. “Winter is an amusing fellow.” + </p> + <p> + “Wallingham’s policy won’t even be a bun-bag much longer,” said Milburn. + “It won’t be anything at all. Imperial union is very nice to talk about, + but when you come down to hard fact it’s Australia for the Australians, + Canada for the Canadians, Africa for the Africans, every time.” + </p> + <p> + “Each for himself, and devil take the hindmost,” said Hesketh; “and when + the hindmost is England, as our friend Murchison declares it will be—” + </p> + <p> + “So much the worse for England,” said Milburn, amiably. “But we should all + be sorry to see it and, for my part, I don’t believe such a thing is at + all likely. And you may be certain of one thing,” he continued, + impressively: “No flag but the Union Jack will ever wave over Canada.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m sure of that!” Hesketh responded. “Since I have heard more of + your side of the question I am quite convinced that loyalty to England and + complete commercial independence—I might say even commercial + antagonism—may exist together in the colonies. It seems paradoxical, + but it is true.” + </p> + <p> + Mr Hesketh had naturally been hearing a good deal more of Mr Milburn’s + side of the question, staying as he was under Mr Milburn’s hospitable + roof. It had taken the least persuasion in the world to induce him to make + the Milburns a visit. He found them delightful people. He described them + in his letters home as the most typically Canadian family he had met, + quite simple and unconventional, but thoroughly warm-hearted, and + touchingly devoted to far-away England. Politically he could not see eye + to eye with Mr Milburn, but he could quite perceive Mr Milburn’s grounds + for the view he held. One thing, he explained to his correspondents, you + learned at once by visiting the colonies, and that was to make allowance + for local conditions, both social and economic. + </p> + <p> + He and Mr Milburn had long serious discussions, staying behind in the + dining-room to have them after tea, when the ladies took their fancy work + into the drawing-room, and Dora’s light touch was heard upon the piano. It + may be supposed that Hesketh brought every argument forward in favour of + the great departure that had been conceived in England; he certainly + succeeded in interesting his host very deeply in the English point of + view. He had, however, to encounter one that was made in Canada—it + resided in Mr Milburn as a stone might reside in a bag of wool. Mr Milburn + wouldn’t say that this preference trade idea, if practicable, might not + work out for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. That was a thing he + didn’t pretend to know. But it wouldn’t work out for his benefit that was + a thing he did know. When a man was confronted with a big political change + the question he naturally asked himself was, “Is it going to be worth my + while?” and he acted on the answer to that question. He was able to + explain to Hesketh, by a variety of facts and figures, of fascinating + interest to the inquiring mind, just how and where such a concern as the + Milburn Boiler Company would be “hit” by the new policy, after which he + asked his guest fairly, “Now, if you were in my shoes, would you see your + way to voting for any such thing?” + </p> + <p> + “If I were in your shoes,” said Hesketh, thoughtfully, “I can’t say I + would.” + </p> + <p> + On grounds of sentiment, Octavius assured him, they were absolutely at + one, but in practical matters a man had to proceed on business principles. + He went about at this time expressing great esteem for Hesketh’s capacity + to assimilate facts. His opportunity to assimilate them was not curtailed + by any further demand for his services in the South Fox campaign. He was + as willing as ever, he told Lorne Murchison, to enlist under the flag, and + not for the first time; but Murchison and Farquharson, and that lot, while + grateful for the offer, seemed never quite able to avail themselves of it: + the fact was all the dates were pretty well taken up. No doubt, Hesketh + acknowledged, the work could be done best by men familiar with the local + conditions, but he could not avoid the conviction that this attitude + toward proffered help was very like dangerous trifling. Possibly these + circumstances gave him an added impartiality for Mr Milburn’s facts. As + the winter advanced his enthusiasm for the country increased with his + intelligent appreciation of the possibilities of the Elgin boiler. The + Elgin boiler was his object-lesson in the development of the colonies; he + paid, several visits to the works to study it, and several times he + thanked Mr Milburn for the opportunity of familiarizing himself with such + an important and promising branch of Canadian industry. + </p> + <p> + “It looks,” said Octavius one evening in early February, “as if the Grits + were getting a little anxious about South Fox—high time, too. I see + Cruickshank is down to speak at Clayfield on the seventh, and Tellier is + to be here for the big meeting at the opera house on the eleventh.” + </p> + <p> + “Tellier is Minister of Public Works, isn’t he?” asked Hesketh. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—and Cruickshank is an ex-Minister,” replied Mr Milburn. “Looks + pretty shaky when they’ve got to take men like that away from their work + in the middle of the session.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall be glad,” remarked his daughter Dora, “when this horrid election + is over. It spoils everything.” + </p> + <p> + She spoke a little fretfully. The election and the matters it involved did + interfere a good deal with her interest in life. As an occupation it + absorbed Lorne Murchison even more completely than she occasionally + desired; and as a topic it took up a larger share of the attention of Mr + Alfred Hesketh than she thought either reasonable or pleasing. Between + politics and boilers Miss Milburn almost felt at times that the world held + a second place for her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII + </h2> + <p> + The progress of Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Christie Cameron up the river to + Montreal, and so west to Elgin, was one series of surprises, most of them + pleasant and instructive to such a pair of intelligent Scotchwomen, if we + leave out the number of Roman Catholic churches that lift their special + symbol along the banks of the St Lawrence and the fact that Hugh Finlay + was not in Elgin to meet them upon their arrival. Dr Drummond, of course, + was there at the station to explain. Finlay had been obliged to leave for + Winnipeg only the day before, to attend a mission conference in place of a + delegate who had been suddenly laid aside by serious illness. Finlay, he + said, had been very loath to go, but there were many reasons why it was + imperative that he should; Dr Drummond explained them all. “I insisted on + it,” he assured them, frankly. “I told him I would take the + responsibility.” + </p> + <p> + He seemed very capable of taking it, both the ladies must have thought, + with his quick orders about the luggage and his waiting cab. Mrs Kilbannon + said so. “I’m sure,” she told him, “we are better off with you than with + Hugh. He was always a daft dependence at a railway station.” + </p> + <p> + They both—Mrs Kilbannon and Dr Drummond—looked out of the + corners of their eyes, so to speak, at Christie, the only one who might be + expected to show any sensitiveness; but Miss Cameron accepted the + explanation with readiness. Indeed, she said, she would have been real + vexed if Mr Finlay had stayed behind on her account—she showed + herself well aware of the importance of a nomination, and the desirability + of responding to it. + </p> + <p> + “It will just give me an opportunity of seeing the town,” she said, + looking at it through the cab windows as they drove; and Dr Drummond had + to admit that she seemed a sensible creature. Other things being equal, + Finlay might be doing very well for himself. As they talked of Scotland—it + transpired that Dr Drummond knew all the braes about Bross as a boy—he + found himself more than ever annoyed with Finlay about the inequality of + other things; and when they passed Knox Church and Miss Cameron told him + she hadn’t realized it was so imposing an edifice, he felt downright sorry + for the woman. + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond had persuaded Finlay to go to Winnipeg with a vague hope that + something in the fortnight’s grace thus provided, might be induced to + happen. The form it oftenest took to his imagination was Miss Christie’s + announcement, when she set foot upon the station platform, that she had + become engaged, on the way over, to somebody else, some fellow-traveller. + Such things, Dr Drummond knew, did come about, usually bringing distress + and discomfiture in their train. Why, then, should they not happen when + all the consequences would be rejoiceful? + </p> + <p> + It was plain enough, however, that nothing of the kind had come to pass. + Miss Christie had arrived in Elgin, bringing her affections intact; they + might have been in any one of her portmanteaux. She had come with definite + calm intention, precisely in the guise in which she should have been + expected. At the very hour, in the very clothes, she was there. Robust and + pleasant, with a practical eye on her promising future, she had arrived, + the fulfilment of despair. Dr Drummond looked at her with acquiescence, + half-cowed, half-comic, wondering at his own folly in dreaming of anything + else. Miss Cameron brought the situation, as it were, with her; it had to + be faced, and Dr Drummond faced it like a philosopher. She was the + material necessity, the fact in the case, the substantiation of her own + legend; and Dr Drummond promptly gave her all the consideration she + demanded in this aspect. Already he heard himself pronouncing a blessing + over the pair—and they would make the best of it. With + characteristic dispatch he decided that the marriage should take place the + first Monday after Finlay’s return. That would give them time to take a + day or two in Toronto, perhaps, and get back for Finlay’s Wednesday prayer + meeting. “Or I could take it off his hands,” said Dr Drummond to himself. + “That would free them till the end of the week.” Solicitude increased in + him that the best should be made of it; after all, for a long time they + had been making the worst. Mrs Forsyth, whom it had been necessary to + inform when Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Cameron became actually imminent, saw + plainly that the future Mrs Finlay had made a very good impression on the + Doctor; and as nature, in Mrs Forsyth’s case, was more powerful than + grace, she became critical accordingly. Still, she was an honest soul: she + found more fault with what she called Miss Cameron’s “shirt-waists” than + with Miss Cameron herself, whom she didn’t doubt to be a good woman though + she would never see thirty-five again. Time and observation would no doubt + mend or remodel the shirt-waists; and meanwhile both they and Miss Cameron + would do very well for East Elgin, Mrs Forsyth avowed. Mrs Kilbannon, + definitely given over to caps and curls as they still wear them in Bross, + Mrs Forsyth at once formed a great opinion of. She might be something, Mrs + Forsyth thought, out of a novel by Mr Crockett, and made you long to go to + Scotland, where presumably everyone was like her. On the whole the ladies + from Bross profited rather than lost by the new frame they stepped into in + the house of Dr Drummond, of Elgin, Ontario. Their special virtues, of + dignity and solidity and frugality, stood out saliently against the ease + and unconstraint about them; in the profusion of the table it was little + less than edifying to hear Mrs Kilbannon, invited to preserves, say, + “Thank you, I have butter.” It was the pleasantest spectacle, happily + common enough, of the world’s greatest inheritance. We see it in + immigrants of all degrees, and we may perceive it in Miss Cameron and Mrs + Kilbannon. They come in couples and in companies from those little + imperial islands, bringing the crusted qualities of the old blood bottled + there so long, and sink with grateful absorption into the wide bountiful + stretches of the further countries. They have much to take, but they give + themselves; and so it comes about that the Empire is summed up in the + race, and the flag flies for its ideals. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Forsyth had been told of the approaching event; but neither Dr + Drummond, who was not fond of making communications he did not approve of, + nor the Murchisons, who were shy of the matter as a queer business which + Advena seemed too much mixed up with, had mentioned it to anyone else. + Finlay himself had no intimates, and moved into his new house in River + Street under little comment. His doings excited small surprise, because + the town knew too little about him to expect him to do one thing more than + another. He was very significant among his people, very important in their + lives but not, somehow, at any expense to his private self. He knew them, + but they did not know him; and it is high praise of him that this was no + grievance among them. They would tell you without resentment that the + minister was a “very reserved” man; there might be even a touch of proper + pride in it. The worshippers of Knox Church mission were rather a reserved + lot themselves. It was different with the Methodists; plenty of expansion + there. + </p> + <p> + Elgin, therefore, knew nothing, beyond the fact that Dr Drummond had two + ladies from the old country staying with him, about whom particular + curiosity would hardly be expected outside of Knox Church. In view of + Finlay’s absence, Dr Drummond, consulting with Mrs Kilbannon, decided that + for the present Elgin need not be further informed. There was no need, + they agreed, to give people occasion to talk; and it would just be a + nuisance to have to make so many explanations. Both Mrs Kilbannon and her + niece belonged to the race that takes great satisfaction in keeping its + own counsel. Their situation gained for them the further interest that + nothing need be said about it; and the added importance of caution was + plainly to be discerned in their bearing, even toward one another. It was + a portentous business, this of marrying a minister, under the most + ordinary circumstances, not to be lightly dealt with, and even more of an + undertaking in a far new country where the very wind blew differently, and + the extraordinary freedom of conversation made it more than ever necessary + to take heed to what you were saying. So far as Miss Cameron and Mrs + Kilbannon were aware, the matter had not been “spoken of” elsewhere at + all. Dr Drummond, remembering Advena Murchison’s acquaintance with it, had + felt the weight of a complication, and had discreetly held his tongue. Mrs + Kilbannon approved her nephew in this connection. “Hugh,” she said, “was + never one to let on more than necessary.” It was a fine secret between + Hugh, in Winnipeg, whence he had written all that was lawful or desirable, + and themselves at Dr Drummond’s. Miss Cameron said it would give her more + freedom to look about her. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of all this security, and on the very first day after their + arrival, it was disconcerting to be told that a lady, whose name they had + never heard before, had called to see Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. They + had not even appeared at church, as they told one another with dubious + glances. They had no reason whatever to expect visitors. Dr Drummond was + in the cemetery burying a member; Mrs Forsyth was also abroad. “Now who in + the world,” asked Mrs Kilbannon of Miss Cameron, “is Miss Murchison?” + </p> + <p> + “They come to our church,” said Sarah, in the door. “They’ve got the + foundry. It’s the oldest one. She teaches.” + </p> + <p> + Sarah in the door was even more disconcerting than an unexpected visitor. + Sarah invariably took them off their guard, in the door or anywhere. She + freely invited their criticism, but they would not have known how to mend + her. They looked at her now helplessly, and Mrs Kilbannon said, “Very + well. We will be down directly.” + </p> + <p> + “It may be just some friendly body,” she said, as they descended the + stairs together, “or it may be common curiosity. In that case we’ll + disappoint it.” + </p> + <p> + Whatever they expected, therefore, it was not Advena. It was not a tall + young woman with expressive eyes, a manner which was at once abrupt and + easy, and rather a lounging way of occupying the corner of a sofa. “When + she sat down,” as Mrs Kilbannon said afterward, “she seemed to untie and + fling herself as you might a parcel.” Neither Mrs Kilbannon nor Christie + Cameron could possibly be untied or flung, so perhaps they gave this + capacity in Advena more importance than it had. But it was only a part of + what was to them a new human demonstration, something to inspect very + carefully and accept very cautiously—the product, like themselves, + yet so suspiciously different, of these free airs and these astonishingly + large ideas. In some ways, as she sat there in her graceful dress and + careless attitude, asking them direct smiling questions about their + voyage, she imposed herself as of the class whom both these ladies of + Bross would acknowledge unquestioningly to be “above” them; in others she + seemed to be of no class at all; so far she came short of small standards + of speech and behaviour. The ladies from Bross, more and more confused, + grew more and more reticent, when suddenly, out of a simple remark of Miss + Cameron’s about missing in the train the hot-water cans they gave you “to + your feet” in Scotland, reticence descended upon Miss Murchison also. She + sat in an odd silence, looking at Miss Cameron, absorbed apparently in the + need of looking at her, finding nothing to say, her flow of pleasant + inquiry dried up, and all her soul at work, instead, to perceive the + woman. Mrs Kilbannon was beginning to think better of her—it was so + much more natural to be a little backward with strangers—when the + moment passed. Their visitor drew herself out of it with almost a + perceptible effort, and seemed to glance consideringly at them in their + aloofness, their incommunicativeness, their plain odds with her. I don’t + know what she expected; but we may assume that she was there simply to + offer herself up, and the impulse of sacrifice seldom considers whether or + not it may be understood. It was to her a normal, natural thing that a + friend of Hugh Finlay’s should bring an early welcome to his bride; and to + do the normal, natural thing at keen personal cost was to sound that + depth, or rise to that height of the spirit where pain sustains. We know + of Advena that she was prone to this form of exaltation. Those who feel + themselves capable may pronounce whether she would have been better at + home crying in her bedroom. + </p> + <p> + She decided badly—how could she decide well?—on what she would + say to explain herself. + </p> + <p> + “I am so sorry,” she told them, “that Mr Finlay is obliged to be away.” + </p> + <p> + It was quite wrong; it assumed too much, her knowledge and their + confidence, and the propriety of discussing Mr Finlay’s absence. There was + even an unconscious hint of another kind of assumption in it—a + suggestion of apology for Mr Finlay. Advena was aware of it even as it + left her lips, and the perception covered her with a damning blush. She + had a sudden terrified misgiving that her role was too high for her, that + she had already cracked her mask. But she looked quietly at Miss Cameron + and smiled across the tide that surged in her as she added, “He was very + distressed at having to go.” + </p> + <p> + They looked at her in an instant’s blank astonishment. Miss Cameron opened + her lips and closed them again, glancing at Mrs Kilbannon. They fell back + together, but not in disorder. This was something much more formidable + than common curiosity. Just what it was they would consider later; + meanwhile Mrs Kilbannon responded with what she would have called cool + civility. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you have heard that Mr Finlay is my nephew?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed I have. Mr Finlay has told me a great deal about you, Mrs + Kilbannon, and about his life at Bross,” Advena replied. “And he has told + me about you, too,” she went on, turning to Christie Cameron. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed?” said she. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, a long time ago. He has been looking forward to your arrival for some + months, hasn’t he?” + </p> + <p> + “We took our passages in December,” said Miss Cameron. + </p> + <p> + “And you are to be married almost immediately, are you not?” Miss + Murchison continued, pleasantly. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Kilbannon had an inspiration. “Could he by any means have had the + banns cried?” she demanded of Christie, who looked piercingly at their + visitor for the answer. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” Advena laughed softly. “Presbyterians haven’t that custom over + here—does it still exist anywhere? Mr Finlay told me himself.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he informed all his acquaintances?” asked Mrs Kilbannon. “We thought + maybe his elders would be expecting to hear, or his Board of Management. + Or he might have just dropped a word to his Sessions Clerk. But—” + </p> + <p> + Advena shook her head. “I think it unlikely,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Then why would he be telling you?” inquired the elder lady, bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “He told me, I suppose, because I have the honour to be a friend of his,” + Advena said, smiling. “But he is not a man, is he, who makes many friends? + It is possible, I dare say, that he has mentioned it to no one else.” + </p> + <p> + Poor Advena! She had indeed uttered her ideal to unsympathetic ears—brought + her pig, as her father would have said, to the wrong market. She sat + before the ladies from Bross, Hugh Finlay’s only confidante. She sat + handsome and upheld and not altogether penetrable, a kind of gipsy to + their understanding, though indeed the Romany strain in her was beyond any + divining of theirs. They, on their part, reposed in their clothes with all + their bristles out—what else could have been expected of them?—convinced + in their own minds that they had come not only to a growing but to a + forward country. + </p> + <p> + Mrs Kilbannon was perhaps a little severe. “I wonder that we have not + heard of you, Miss Murchison,” said she, “but we are happy to make the + acquaintance of any of my nephew’s friends. You will have heard him + preach, perhaps?” + </p> + <p> + “Often,” said Advena, rising. “We have no one here who can compare with + him in preaching. There was very little reason why you should have heard + of me. I am—of no importance.” She hesitated and fought for an + instant with a trembling of the lip. “But now that you have been persuaded + to be a part of our life here,” she said to Christie, “I thought I would + like to come and offer you my friendship because it is his already. I hope—so + much—that you will be happy here. It is a nice little place. And I + want you to let me help you—about your house, and in every way that + is possible. I am sure I can be of use.” She paused and looked at their + still half-hostile faces. “I hope,” she faltered, “you don’t mind my—having + come?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” said Christie, and Mrs Kilbannon added, “I’m sure you mean + it very kindly.” + </p> + <p> + A flash of the comedy of it shot up in Advena’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, “I + do. Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + If they had followed her departure they would have been further confounded + to see her walk not quite steadily away; shaken with fantastic laughter. + They looked instead at one another, as if to find the solution of the + mystery where indeed it lay, in themselves. + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t even belong to his congregation,” said Christie. “Just a + friend, she said.” + </p> + <p> + “I expect the friendship’s mostly upon her side,” remarked Mrs Kilbannon. + “She seemed frank enough about it. But I would see no necessity for + encouraging her friendship on my own account, if I were in your place, + Christie.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I’ll manage without it,” said Christie. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX + </h2> + <p> + The South Fox fight was almost over. Three days only remained before the + polling booths would be open, and the voters of the towns of Elgin and + Clayfield and the surrounding townships would once again be invited to + make their choice between a Liberal and a Conservative representative of + the district in the Dominion House of Commons. The ground had never been + more completely covered, every inch of advantage more stubbornly held, by + either side, in the political history of the riding. There was no doubt of + the hope that sat behind the deprecation in Walter Winter’s eye, nor of + the anxiety that showed through the confidence freely expressed by the + Liberal leaders. The issue would be no foregone conclusion, as it had been + practically any time within the last eleven years; and as Horace Williams + remarked to the select lot that met pretty frequently at the Express + office for consultation and rally, they had “no use for any sort of + carelessness.” + </p> + <p> + It was undeniably felt that the new idea, the great idea whose putative + fatherhood in Canada certainly lay at the door of the Liberal party, had + drawn in fewer supporters than might have been expected. In England + Wallingham, wearing it like a medal, seemed to be courting political + excommunication with it, except that Wallingham was so hard to effectively + curse. The ex-Minister deserved, clearly, any ban that could be put upon + him. No sort of remonstrance could hold him from going about openly and + persistently exhorting people to “think imperially,” a liberty which, as + is well known, the Holy Cobdenite Church, supreme in those islands, + expressly forbids. Wallingham appeared to think that by teaching and + explaining he could help his fellow-islanders to see further than the + length of their fists, and exorcise from them the spirit, only a century + and a quarter older and a trifle more sophisticated, that lost them the + American colonies. But so far little had transpired to show that + Wallingham was stronger than nature and destiny. There had been Wallingham + meetings of remarkable enthusiasm; his supporters called them + epoch-making, as if epochs were made of cheers. But the workingman of + Great Britain was declaring stolidly in the by-elections against any + favour to colonial produce at his expense, thereby showing himself one of + those humble instruments that Providence uses for the downfall of arrogant + empires. It will be thus, no doubt, that the workingman will explain in + the future his eminent usefulness to the government of his country, and it + will be in these terms that the cost of educating him by means of the + ballot will be demonstrated. Meanwhile we may look on and cultivate + philosophy; or we may make war upon the gods with Mr Wallingham which is, + perhaps, the better part. + </p> + <p> + That, to turn from recrimination, was what they saw in Canada looking + across—the queerest thing of all was the recalcitrance of the farm + labourer; they could only stare at that—and it may be that the + spectacle was depressing to hopeful initiative. At all events, it was + plain that the new policy was suffering from a certain flatness on the + further side. As a ballon d’essai it lacked buoyancy; and no doubt Mr + Farquharson was right in declaring that above all things it lacked + actuality, business—the proposition, in good set terms, for men to + turn over, to accept or reject. Nothing could be done with it, Mr + Farquharson averred, as a mere prospect; it was useful only to its + enemies. We of the young countries must be invited to deeds, not theories, + of which we have a restless impatience; and this particular theory, though + of golden promise, was beginning to recoil to some extent, upon the cause + which had been confident enough to adopt it before it could be translated + into action and its hard equivalent. The Elgin Mercury probably overstated + the matter when it said that the Grits were dead sick of the preference + they would never get; but Horace Williams was quite within the mark when + he advised Lorne to stick to old Reform principles—clean + administration, generous railway policy, sympathetic labour legislation, + and freeze himself a little on imperial love and attachment. + </p> + <p> + “They’re not so sweet on it in Ottawa as they were, by a long chalk,” he + said. “Look at the Premier’s speech to the Chambers of Commerce in + Montreal. Pretty plain statement that, of a few things the British + Government needn’t expect.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lorne. “He was talking to manufacturers, you + know, a pretty skittish lot anywhere. It sounded independent, but if you + look into it you won’t find it gave the cause away any.” + </p> + <p> + “The old man’s got to think of Quebec, where his fat little majority + lives,” remarked Bingham, chairman of the most difficult subdivision in + the town. “The Premier of this country drives a team, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Lorne, “but he drives it tandem, and Johnny Francois is the + second horse.” + </p> + <p> + “Maybe so,” returned Mr Williams, “but the organ’s singing pretty small, + too. Look at this.” He picked up the Dominion from the office table and + read aloud: “‘If Great Britain wishes to do a deal with the colonies she + will find them willing to meet her in a spirit of fairness and enthusiasm. + But it is for her to decide, and Canada would be the last to force her + bread down the throat of the British labourer at a higher price than he + can afford to pay for it.’ What’s that, my boy? Is it high-mindedness? No, + sir, it’s lukewarmness.” + </p> + <p> + “The Dominion makes me sick,” said young Murchison. “It’s so scared of the + Tory source of the scheme in England that it’s handing the whole boom of + the biggest chance this country ever had over to the Tories here. If + anything will help us to lose it that will. No Conservative Government in + Canada can put through a cent of preference on English goods when it comes + to the touch, and they know it. They’re full of loyalty just now—baying + the moon—but if anybody opens a window they’ll turn tail fast + enough.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess the Dominion knows it, too,” said Mr Williams. “When Great + Britain is quite sure she’s ready to do business on preference lines it’s + the Liberal party on this side she’ll have to talk to. No use showing + ourselves too anxious, you know. Besides, it might do harm over there. + We’re all right; we’re on record. Wallingham knows as well as we do the + lines we’re open on—he’s heard them from Canadian Liberals more than + once. When they get good and ready they can let us know.” + </p> + <p> + “Jolly them up with it at your meetings by all means,” advised Bingham, + “but use it as a kind of superfluous taffy; don’t make it your main + lay-out.” + </p> + <p> + The Reform Association of South Fox had no more energetic officer than + Bingham, though as he sat on the edge of the editorial table chewing + portions of the margin of that afternoon’s Express, and drawling out + maxims to the Liberal candidate, you might not have thought so. He was + explaining that he had been in this business for years, and had never had + a job that gave him so much trouble. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll win out,” he said, “but the canvass isn’t any Christmas joy—not + this time. There’s Jim Whelan,” he told them. “We all know what Jim is—a + Tory from way back, where they make ‘em so they last, and a soaker from + way back, too; one day on his job and two days sleepin’ off his whiskey. + Now we don’t need Jim Whelan’s vote, never did need it, but the boys have + generally been able to see that one of those two days was election day. + There’s no necessity for Jim’s putting in his paper—a character like + that—no necessity at all—he’d much better be comfortable in + bed. This time, I’m darned if the old boozer hasn’t sworn off! Tells the + boys he’s on to their game, and there’s no liquor in this town that’s good + enough to get him to lose his vote—wouldn’t get drunk on champagne. + He’s held out for ten days already, and it looks like Winter’d take his + cross all right on Thursday.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess I’d let him have it, Bingham,” said Lorne Murchison with a kind + of tolerant deprecation, void of offence, the only manner in which he knew + how to convey disapproval to the older man. “The boys in your division are + a pretty tough lot, anyhow. We don’t want the other side getting hold of + any monkey tricks.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s necessary to win this election, young man,” said Bingham, “lawfully. + You won’t have any trouble with my bunch.” + </p> + <p> + It was not, as will be imagined, the first discussion, so late in the day, + of the value of the preference trade argument to the Liberal campaign. + They had all realized, after the first few weeks, that their young + candidate was a trifle overbitten with it, though remonstrance had been a + good deal curbed by Murchison’s treatment of it. When he had brought it + forward at the late fall fairs and in the lonely country schoolhouses, his + talk had been so trenchant, so vivid and pictorial, that the gathered + farmers listened with open mouths, like children, pathetically used with + life, to a grown-up fairy tale. As Horace Williams said, if a dead horse + could be made to go this one would have brought Murchison romping in. And + Lorne had taken heed to the counsel of his party leaders. At joint + meetings, which offered the enemy his best opportunity for travesty and + derision, he had left it in the background of debate, devoting himself to + arguments of more immediate utility. In the literature of the campaign it + glowed with prospective benefit, but vaguely, like a halo of Liberal + conception and possible achievement, waiting for the word from overseas. + The Express still approved it, but not in headlines, and wished the fact + to be widely understood that while the imperial idea was a very big idea, + the Liberals of South Fox were going to win this election without any + assistance from it. + </p> + <p> + Lorne submitted. After all, victory was the thing. There could be no + conquest for the idea without the party triumph first. He submitted, but + his heart rebelled. He looked over the subdivisional reports with Williams + and Farquharson, and gave ear to their warning interpretations; but his + heart was an optimist, and turned always to the splendid projection upon + the future that was so incomparably the title to success of those who + would unite to further it. His mind accepted the old working formulas for + dealing with an average electorate, but to his eager apprehending heart it + seemed unbelievable that the great imperial possibility, the dramatic + chance for the race that hung even now, in the history of the world, + between the rising and the setting of the sun, should fail to be perceived + and acknowledged as the paramount issue, the contingency which made the + by-election of South Fox an extraordinary and momentous affair. He + believed in the Idea; he saw it, with Wallingham, not only a glorious + prospect, but an educative force; and never had he a moment of such + despondency that it confounded him upon his horizon in the faded colours + of some old Elizabethan mirage. + </p> + <p> + The opera house, the night of Mr Murchison’s final address to the electors + of South Fox, was packed from floor to ceiling, and a large and patient + overflow made the best of the hearing accommodation of the corridors and + the foyer. A Minister was to speak, Sir Matthew Tellier, who held the + portfolio of Public Works; and for drawing a crowd in Elgin there was + nothing to compare with a member of the Government. He was the sum of all + ambition and the centre of all importance; he was held to have achieved in + the loftiest sense, and probably because he deserved to; a kind of + afflatus sat upon him. They paid him real deference and they flocked to + hear him. Cruickshank was a second attraction; and Lorne himself, even at + this stage of the proceedings, “drew” without abatement. They knew young + Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out among them all his life; yet + since he had come before them in this new capacity a curious interest had + gathered about him. People looked at him as if he had developed something + they did not understand, and perhaps he had; he was in touch with the + Idea. They listened with an intense personal interest in him which, no + doubt, went to obscure what he said: perhaps a less absorbing personality + would have carried the Idea further. However, they did look and listen—that + was the main point, and on their last opportunity they were in the opera + house in great numbers. + </p> + <p> + Lorne faced them with an enviable security; the friendliness of the + meeting was in the air. The gathering was almost entirely of one political + complexion: the Conservatives of the town would have been glad enough to + turn out to hear Minister Tellier; but the Liberals were of no mind to + gratify them at the cost of having to stand themselves, and were on hand + early to assert a prior moral claim to chairs. In the seated throng Lorne + could pick out the fine head of his father, and his mother’s face, bright + with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, too, and Stella; and the boys + would have a perch, not too conspicuous, somewhere in the gallery. Dr + Drummond was in the second row, and a couple of strange ladies with him: + he was chuckling with uncommon humour at some remark of the younger one + when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy MacQuhot was in a good place; had been + since six o’clock, and Peter Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though + Peter sat away back as beseemed a modest functionary whose business was + with the book and the bell. Altogether, as Horace Williams leaned over to + tell him, it was like a Knox Church sociable—he could feel + completely at home; and though the audience was by no means confined to + Knox Church, Lorne did feel at home. Dora Milburn’s countenance he might + perhaps have missed, but Dora was absent by arrangement. Mr Milburn, as + the fight went on, had shown himself so increasingly bitter, to the point + of writing letters in the Mercury attacking Wallingham and the Liberal + leaders of South Fox, that his daughter felt an insurmountable delicacy in + attending even Lorne’s “big meeting.” Alfred Hesketh meant to have gone, + but it was ten by the Milburns’ drawing-room clock before he remembered. + Miss Filkin actually did go, and brought home a great report of it. Miss + Filkin would no more have missed a Minister than she would a bishop; but + she was the only one. + </p> + <p> + Lorne had prepared for this occasion for a long time. It was certain to + come, the day of the supreme effort, when he should make his final appeal + under the most favourable circumstances that could be devised, when the + harassing work of the campaign would be behind him, and nothing would + remain but the luxury of one last strenuous call to arms. The glory of + that anticipation had been with him from the beginning; and in the + beginning he saw his great moment only in one character. For weeks, while + he plodded through the details of the benefits South Fox had received and + might expect to receive at the hands of the Liberal party, he privately + stored argument on argument, piled phrase on phrase, still further to + advance and defend the imperial unity of his vision on this certain and + special opportunity. His jihad it would be, for the faith and purpose of + his race; so he scanned it and heard it, with conviction hot in him, and + impulse strong, and intention noble. Then uneasiness had arisen, as we + know; and under steady pressure he had daily drawn himself from these high + intentions, persuaded by Bingham and the rest that they were not yet “in + shape” to talk about. So that his address on this memorable evening would + have a different stamp from the one he designed in the early burning hours + of his candidature. He had postponed those matters, under advice, to the + hour of practical dealing, when a Government which it would be his + privilege to support would consider and carry them. He put the notes of + his original speech away in his office desk with solicitude—it was + indeed very thorough, a grand marshalling of the facts and review of the + principles involved—and pigeonholed it in the chambers of his mind, + with the good hope to bring it forth another day. Then he devoted his + attention to the history of Liberalism in Fox County—both ridings + were solid—and it was upon the history of Liberalism in Fox County, + its triumphs and its fruits, that he embarked so easily and so assuredly, + when he opened his address in the opera house that Tuesday night. + </p> + <p> + Who knows at what suggestion, or even precisely at what moment, the fabric + of his sincere intention fell away? Bingham does not; Mr Farquharson has + the vaguest idea; Dr Drummond declares that he expected it from the + beginning, but is totally unable to say why. I can get nothing more out of + them, though they were all there, though they all saw him, indeed a + dramatic figure, standing for the youth and energy of the old blood, and + heard him, as he slipped away into his great preoccupation, as he made + what Bingham called his “bad break.” His very confidence may have + accounted for it; he was off guard against the enemy, and the more + completely off guard against himself. The history of Liberalism in Fox + County offered, no doubt, some inlet to the rush of the Idea; for + suddenly, Mr Farquharson says, he was “off.” Mr Farquharson was on the + platform, and “I can tell you,” said he, “I pricked up my ears.” They all + did; the Idea came in upon such a personal note. + </p> + <p> + “I claim it my great good fortune,” the young man was suddenly telling + them, in a note of curious gravity and concentration, “and however the + fight goes, I shall always claim it my great good fortune to have been + identified, at a critical moment, with the political principles that are + ennobled in this country by the imperialistic aim. An intention, a great + purpose in the endless construction and reconstruction of the world, will + choose its own agency; and the imperial design in Canada has chosen the + Liberal party, because the Liberal party in this country is the party of + the soil, the land, the nation as it springs from that which makes it a + nation; and imperialism is intensely and supremely a national affair. Ours + is the policy of the fields. We stand for the wheat-belt and the + stockyard, the forest and the mine, as the basic interests of the country. + We stand for the principles that make for nation-building by the slow + sweet processes of the earth, cultivating the individual rooted man who + draws his essence and his tissues from the soil and so, by unhurried, + natural, healthy growth, labour sweating his vices out of him, forms the + character of the commonwealth, the foundation of the State. So the + imperial idea seeks its Canadian home in Liberal councils. The imperial + idea is far-sighted. England has outlived her own body. Apart from her + heart and her history, England is an area where certain trades are carried + on—still carried on. In the scrolls of the future it is already + written that the centre of the Empire must shift—and where, if not + to Canada?” + </p> + <p> + There was a half-comprehending burst of applause, Dr Drummond’s the first + clap. It was a curious change from the simple colloquial manner in which + young Murchison had begun and to which the audience were accustomed; and + on this account probably they stamped the harder. They applauded Lorne + himself; something from him infected them; they applauded being made to + feel like that. They would clap first and consider afterward. John + Murchison smiled with pleasure, but shook his head. Bingham, doubled up + and clapping like a repeating rifle, groaned aloud under cover of it to + Horace Williams: “Oh, the darned kid!” + </p> + <p> + “A certain Liberal peer of blessed political memory,” Lorne continued, + with a humorous twist of his mouth, “on one of those graceful, elegant, + academic occasions which offer political peers such happy opportunities of + getting in their work over there, had lately a vision which he described + to his university audience of what might have happened if the American + colonies had remained faithful to Great Britain—a vision of monarch + and Ministers, Government and Parliament, departing solemnly for the other + hemisphere. They did not so remain; so the noble peer may conjure up his + vision or dismiss his nightmare as he chooses; and it is safe to prophesy + that no port of the United States will see that entry. But, remembering + that the greater half of the continent did remain faithful, the northern + and strenuous half, destined to move with sure steps and steady mind to + greater growth and higher place among the nations than any of us can now + imagine—would it be as safe to prophesy that such a momentous + sailing-day will never be more than the after-dinner fantasy of + aristocratic rhetoric? Is it not at least as easy to imagine that even + now, while the people of England send their viceroys to the ends of the + earth, and vote careless millions for a reconstructed army, and sit in the + wrecks of Cabinets disputing whether they will eat our bread or the + stranger’s, the sails may be filling, in the far harbour of time which + will bear their descendants to a representative share of the duties and + responsibilities of Empire in the capital of the Dominion of Canada?” + </p> + <p> + It was the boldest proposition, and the Liberal voters of the town of + Elgin blinked a little, looking at it. Still they applauded, hurriedly, to + get it over and hear what more might be coming. Bingham, on the platform, + laughed heartily and conspicuously, as if anybody could see that it was + all an excellent joke. Lorne half-turned to him with a gesture of protest. + Then he went on— + </p> + <p> + “If that transport ever left the shores of England we would go far, some + of us, to meet it; but for all the purposes that matter most it sailed + long ago. British statesmen could bring us nothing better than the ideals + of British government; and those we have had since we levied our first tax + and made our first law. That precious cargo was our heritage, and we never + threw it overboard, but chose rather to render what impost it brought; and + there are those who say that the impost has been heavy, though never a + dollar was paid.” + </p> + <p> + He paused for an instant and seemed to review and take account of what he + had said. He was hopelessly adrift from the subject he had proposed to + himself, launched for better or for worse upon the theme that was + subliminal in him and had flowed up, on which he was launched, and almost + rudderless, without construction and without control. The speech of his + first intention, orderly, developed, was as far from him as the history of + Liberalism in Fox County. For an instant he hesitated; and then, under the + suggestion, no doubt, of that ancient misbehaviour in Boston Harbour at + which he had hinted, he took up another argument. I will quote him a + little. + </p> + <p> + “Let us hold,” he said simply, “to the Empire. Let us keep this patrimony + that has been ours for three hundred years. Let us not forget the flag. We + believe ourselves, at this moment, in no danger of forgetting it. The day + after Paardeburg, that still winter day, did not our hearts rise within us + to see it shaken out with its message everywhere, shaken out against the + snow? How it spoke to us, and lifted us, the silent flag in the new fallen + snow! Theirs—and ours... That was but a little while ago, and there + is not a man here who will not bear me out in saying that we were never + more loyal, in word and deed, than we are now. And that very state of + things has created for us an undermining alternative... + </p> + <p> + “So long as no force appeared to improve the trade relations between + England and this country Canada sought in vain to make commercial bargains + with the United States. They would have none of us or our produce; they + kept their wall just as high against us as against the rest of the world: + not a pine plank or a bushel of barley could we get over under a + reciprocal arrangement. But the imperial trade idea has changed the + attitude of our friends to the south. They have small liking for any + scheme which will improve trade between Great Britain and Canada, because + trade between Great Britain and Canada must be improved at their expense. + And now you cannot take up an American paper without finding the report of + some commercial association demanding closer trade relations with Canada, + or an American magazine in which some far-sighted economist is not urging + the same thing. They see us thinking about keeping the business in the + family; with that hard American common sense that has made them what they + are, they accept the situation; and at this moment they are ready to offer + us better terms to keep our trade.” + </p> + <p> + Bingham, Horace Williams, and Mr Farquharson applauded loudly. Their young + man frowned a little and squared his chin. He was past hints of that kind. + </p> + <p> + “And that,” he went on to say, “is, on the surface, a very satisfactory + state of things. No doubt a bargain between the Americans and ourselves + could be devised which would be a very good bargain on both sides. In the + absence of certain pressing family affairs, it might be as well worth our + consideration as we used to think it before we were invited to the family + council. But if anyone imagines that any degree of reciprocity with the + United States could be entered upon without killing the idea of British + preference trade for all time, let him consider what Canada’s attitude + toward that idea would be today if the Americans had consented to our + proposals twenty-five years ago, and we were invited to make an imperial + sacrifice of the American trade that had prospered, as it would have + prospered, for a quarter of a century! I doubt whether the proposition + would even be made to us... + </p> + <p> + “But the alternative before Canada is not a mere choice of markets; we are + confronted with a much graver issue. In this matter of dealing with our + neighbour our very existence is involved. If we would preserve ourselves + as a nation, it has become our business, not only to reject American + overtures in favour of the overtures of our own great England, but to + keenly watch and actively resist American influence, as it already + threatens us through the common channels of life and energy. We often say + that we fear no invasion from the south, but the armies of the south have + already crossed the border. American enterprise, American capital, is + taking rapid possession of our mines and our water power, our oil areas + and our timber limits. In today’s Dominion, one paper alone, you may read + of charters granted to five industrial concerns with headquarters in the + United States. The trades unions of the two countries are already + international. American settlers are pouring into the wheat-belt of the + Northwest, and when the Dominion of Canada has paid the hundred million + dollars she has just voted for a railway to open up the great lone + northern lands between Quebec and the Pacific, it will be the American + farmer and the American capitalist who will reap the benefit. They + approach us today with all the arts of peace, commercial missionaries to + the ungathered harvests of neglected territories; but the day may come + when they will menace our coasts to protect their markets—unless, by + firm, resolved, whole-hearted action now, we keep our opportunities for + our own people.” + </p> + <p> + They cheered him promptly, and a gathered intensity came into his face at + the note of praise. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing on earth can hold him now,” said Bingham, as he crossed his arms + upon a breast seething with practical politics, and waited for the worst. + </p> + <p> + “The question of the hour for us,” said Lorne Murchison to his + fellow-townsmen, curbing the strenuous note in his voice, “is deeper than + any balance of trade can indicate, wider than any department of statistics + can prove. We cannot calculate it in terms of pig-iron, or reduce it to + any formula of consumption. The question that underlies this decision for + Canada is that of the whole stamp and character of her future existence. + Is that stamp and character to be impressed by the American Republic + effacing”—he smiled a little—“the old Queen’s head and the new + King’s oath? Or is it to be our own stamp and character, acquired in the + rugged discipline of our colonial youth, and developed in the national + usage of the British Empire?”... + </p> + <p> + Dr Drummond clapped alone; everybody else was listening. + </p> + <p> + “It is ours,” he told them, “in this greater half of the continent, to + evolve a nobler ideal. The Americans from the beginning went in a spirit + of revolt; the seed of disaffection was in every Puritan bosom. We from + the beginning went in a spirit of amity, forgetting nothing, disavowing + nothing, to plant the flag with our fortunes. We took our very + Constitution, our very chart of national life, from England—her + laws, her liberty, her equity were good enough for us. We have lived by + them, some of us have died by them...and, thank God, we were long poor... + </p> + <p> + “And this Republic,” he went on hotly, “this Republic that menaces our + national life with commercial extinction, what past has she that is + comparable? The daughter who left the old stock to be the light woman + among nations, welcoming all comers, mingling her pure blood, polluting + her lofty ideals until it is hard indeed to recognize the features and the + aims of her honourable youth...” + </p> + <p> + Allowance will be made for the intemperance of his figure. He believed + himself, you see, at the bar for the life of a nation. + </p> + <p> + “...Let us not hesitate to announce ourselves for the Empire, to throw all + we are and all we have into the balance for that great decision. The seers + of political economy tell us that if the stars continue to be propitious, + it is certain that a day will come which will usher in a union of the + Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. As between England and the United States + the predominant partner in that firm will be the one that brings Canada. + So that the imperial movement of the hour may mean even more than the + future of the motherland, may reach even farther than the boundaries of + Great Britain...” + </p> + <p> + Again he paused, and his eye ranged over their listening faces. He had + them all with him, his words were vivid in their minds; the truth of them + stood about him like an atmosphere. Even Bingham looked at him without + reproach. But he had done. + </p> + <p> + “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice dropping, with a hint of + tiredness, to another level, “I have the honour to stand for your + suffrages as candidate in the Liberal interest for the riding of South Fox + in the Dominion House of Commons the day after tomorrow. I solicit your + support, and I hereby pledge myself to justify it by every means in my + power. But it would be idle to disguise from you that while I attach all + importance to the immediate interests in charge of the Liberal party, and + if elected shall use my best efforts to further them, the great task + before that party, in my opinion, the overshadowing task to which, I shall + hope, in my place and degree to stand committed from the beginning, is the + one which I have endeavoured to bring before your consideration this + evening.” + </p> + <p> + They gave him a great appreciation, and Mr Cruickshank, following, spoke + in complimentary terms of the eloquent appeal made by the “young and + vigorous protagonist” of the imperial cause, but proceeded to a number of + quite other and apparently more important grounds why he should be + elected. The Hon. Mr Tellier’s speech—the Minister was always kept + to the last—was a defence of the recent dramatic development of the + Government’s railway policy, and a reminder of the generous treatment + Elgin was receiving in the Estimates for the following year—thirty + thousand dollars for a new Drill Hall, and fifteen thousand for + improvements to the post-office. It was a telling speech, with the chink + of hard cash in every sentence, a kind of audit by a chartered accountant + of the Liberal books of South Fox, showing good sound reason why the + Liberal candidate should be returned on Thursday, if only to keep the + balance right. The audience listened with practical satisfaction. “That’s + Tellier all over,” they said to one another... + </p> + <p> + The effect in committee of what, in spite of the Hon. Mr Tellier’s + participation, I must continue to call the speech of the evening, may be + gathered from a brief colloquy between Mr Bingham and Mr Williams, in the + act of separating at the door of the opera house. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what it was worth to preference trade,” said Bingham, “but + it wasn’t worth a hill o’ beans to his own election.” + </p> + <p> + “He had as soft a snap,” returned Horace Williams, on the brink of tears—“as + soft a snap as anybody ever had in this town. And he’s monkeyed it all + away. All away.” + </p> + <p> + Both the local papers published the speech in full the following day. “If + there’s anything in Manchester or Birmingham that Mr Lorne Murchison would + like,” commented the Mercury editorially, “we understand he has only to + call for it.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX + </h2> + <p> + The Milburns’ doorbell rang very early the morning of the election. The + family and Alfred Hesketh were just sitting down to breakfast. Mr Hesketh + was again the guest of the house. He had taken a run out to Vancouver with + Mr Milburn’s partner, who had gone to settle a point or two in connection + with the establishment of a branch there. The points had been settled and + Hesketh, having learned more than ever, had returned to Elgin. + </p> + <p> + The maid came back into the room with a conscious air, and said something + in a low voice to Dora, who flushed and frowned a little, and asked to be + excused. As she left the room a glance of intelligence passed between her + and her mother. While Miss Milburn was generally thought to be “most like” + her father both in appearance and disposition, there were points upon + which she could count on an excellent understanding with her other parent. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lorne,” she said, having carefully closed the drawing-room door, + “what in the world have you come here for? Today of all days! Did anybody + see you?” + </p> + <p> + The young man, standing tall and broad-shouldered before the mantelpiece, + had yet a look of expecting reproach. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” he said humbly. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think Father would like it,” Dora told him, “if he knew you were + here. Why, we’re having an early breakfast on purpose to let him get out + and work for Winter. I never saw him so excited over an election. To think + of your coming today!” + </p> + <p> + He made a step toward her. “I came because it is today,” he said. “Only + for a minute, dear. It’s a great day for me, you know—whether we win + or lose. I wanted you to be in it. I wanted you to wish me good luck.” + </p> + <p> + “But you know I always do,” she objected. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know. But a fellow likes to hear it, Dora—on the day, you + know. And I’ve seen so little of you lately.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him measuringly. “You’re looking awfully thin,” she + exclaimed, with sudden compunction. “I wish you had never gone into this + horrid campaign. I wish they had nominated somebody else.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne smiled half-bitterly. “I shouldn’t wonder if a few other people + wished the same thing,” he said. “But I’m afraid they’ll have to make the + best of it now.” + </p> + <p> + Dora had not sanctioned his visit by sitting down; and as he came nearer + to her she drew a step away, moving by instinct from the capture of the + lover. But he had made little of that, and almost as he spoke was at her + side. She had to yield her hands to him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you’ll win it for them if anybody could,” she assured him. + </p> + <p> + “Say ‘win it for us,’ dear.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. “I’m not a Liberal—yet,” she said, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “It’s only a question of time.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll never be converted to Grit politics.” + </p> + <p> + “No, but you’ll be converted to me,” he told her, and drew her nearer. + “I’m going now, Dora. I dare say I shouldn’t have come. Every minute + counts today. Good-bye.” + </p> + <p> + She could not withhold her face from his asking lips, and he had bent to + take his privilege when a step in the hall threatened and divided them. + </p> + <p> + “It’s only Mr Hesketh going upstairs,” said Dora, with relief. “I thought + it was Father. Oh, Lorne—fly!” + </p> + <p> + “Hesketh!” Young Murchison’s face clouded. “Is he working for Winter, + too?” + </p> + <p> + “Lorne! What a thing to ask when you know he believes in your ideas. But + he’s a Conservative at home, you see, so he says he’s in an awkward + position, and he has been taking perfectly neutral ground lately. He + hasn’t a vote, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Lorne. “He’s of no consequence.” + </p> + <p> + The familiar easy step in the house of his beloved, the house he was being + entreated to leave with all speed, struck upon his heart and his nerves. + She, with her dull surface to the more delicate vibrations of things, + failed to perceive this, or perhaps she would have thought it worth while + to find some word to bring back his peace. She disliked seeing people + unhappy. When she was five years old and her kitten broke its leg, she had + given it to a servant to drown. + </p> + <p> + He took his hat, making no further attempt to caress her, and opened the + door. “I hope you WILL win, Lorne,” she said, half-resentfully, and he, + with forced cheerfulness, replied, “Oh, we’ll have a shot at it.” Then + with a little silent nod at her which, notwithstanding her provocations, + conveyed his love and trust, he went out into the struggle of the day. + </p> + <p> + In spite of Squire Ormiston’s confident prediction, it was known that the + fight would be hottest, among the townships, in Moneida Reservation. Elgin + itself, of course, would lead the van for excitement, would be the real + theatre for the arts of practical politics; but things would be pretty + warm in Moneida, too. It was for that reason that Bingham and the rest + strongly advised Lorne not to spend too much of the day in the town, but + to get out to Moneida early, and drive around with Ormiston—stick to + him like a fly to poison-paper. + </p> + <p> + “You leave Elgin to your friends,” said Bingham. “Just show your face here + and there wearing a smile of triumph, to encourage the crowd; but don’t + worry about the details—we’ll attend to them.” + </p> + <p> + “We can’t have him upsettin’ his own election by any interference with the + boys,” said Bingham to Horace Williams. “He’s got too long a nose for all + kinds of things to be comfortable in town today. He’ll do a great deal + less harm trotting round the Reserve braced up against old Ormiston.” + </p> + <p> + So Elgin was left to the capable hands of the boys, for the furtherance of + the Liberal interest and the sacred cause of imperialism. Mr Farquharson, + whose experience was longer and whose nose presumably shorter than the + candidate’s, never abandoned the Town Ward. Bingham skirmished between the + polling-booths and the committee room. Horace Williams was out all day—Rawlins + edited the paper. The returns wouldn’t be ready in time for anything but + an extra anyhow, and the “Stand to Arms, South Fox,” leader had been + written two days ago. The rest was millinery, or might be for all anybody + would read of it. The other side had a better idea of the value of their + candidate than to send him into the country. Walter Winter remained where + he was most effective and most at home. He had a neat little livery + outfit, and he seemed to spend the whole day in it accompanied by intimate + personal friends who had never spoken to him, much less driven with him, + before. Two or three strangers arrived the previous night at the leading + hotels. Their business was various, but they had one point in common: they + were very solicitous about their personal luggage. I should be sorry to + assign their politics, and none of them seemed to know much about the + merits of the candidates, so they are not perhaps very pertinent, except + for the curiosity shown by the public at the spectacle of gentlemen + carrying their own bags when there were porters to do it. + </p> + <p> + It was a day long remembered and long quoted. The weather was spring-like, + sun after a week’s thaw; it was pleasant to be abroad in the relaxed air + and the drying streets, that here and there sent up threads of steam after + the winter house-cleaning of their wooden sidewalks. Voting was a + privilege never unappreciated in Elgin; and today the weather brought out + every soul to the polls; the ladies of his family waiting, in many + instances, on the verandah, with shawls over their heads, to hear the + report of how the fight was going. Abby saw Dr Harry back in his + consulting room, and Dr Henry safely off to vote, and then took the two + children and went over to her father’s house because she simply could not + endure the suspense anywhere else. The adventurous Stella picketed herself + at a corner near the empty grocery which served as a polling-booth for + Subdivision Eleven, one of the most doubtful, but was forced to retire at + the sight of the first carryall full of men from the Milburn Boiler + Company flaunting a banner inscribed “We are Solid for W.W.” Met in the + hall by her sister, she protested that she hadn’t cried till she got + inside the gate, anyhow. Abby lectured her soundly on her want of proper + pride: she was much too big a girl to be “seen around” on a day when her + brother was “running,” if it were only for school trustee. The other + ladies of the family, having acquired proper pride kept in the back of the + house so as not to be tempted to look out of the front windows. Mrs + Murchison assumed a stoical demeanour and made a pudding; though there was + no reason to help Eliza, who was sufficiently lacking in proper pride to + ask the milkman whether Mr Lorne wasn’t sure to be elected down there now. + The milkman said he guessed the best man ‘ud get in, but in a manner which + roused general suspicion as to which he had himself favoured. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll finish the month,” said Mrs Murchison, “and then not another quart + do we take from HIM—a gentleman that’s so uncertain when he’s asked + a simple question.” + </p> + <p> + The butcher came, and brought a jovial report without being asked for it; + said he was the first man to hand in a paper at his place, but they were + piling up there in great shape for Mr Murchison when he left. + </p> + <p> + “If he gets in, he gets in,” said Mrs Murchison. “And if he doesn’t it + won’t be because of not deserving to. Those were real nice cutlets + yesterday, Mr Price, and you had better send us a sirloin for tomorrow, + about six pounds; but it doesn’t matter to an ounce. And you can save us + sweetbreads for Sunday; I like yours better than Luff’s.” + </p> + <p> + John Murchison, Alec, and Oliver came shortly up to dinner, bringing + stirring tales from the field. There was the personator in Subdivision Six + of a dead man—a dead Grit—wanted by the bloodhounds of the + other side and tracked to the Reform committee room, where he was + ostensibly and publicly taking refuge. + </p> + <p> + “Why did he go there?” asked Stella, breathlessly. + </p> + <p> + “Why, to make it look like a put-up job of ours, of course, “said her + brother. “And it was a put-up job, a good old Tory fake. But they didn’t + calculate on Bingham and Bingham’s memory. Bingham happened to be in the + committee room, and he recognized this fellow for a regular political + tough from up Muskoka way, where they get six for a bottle of Canadian and + ten if it’s Scotch. ‘Why, good morning,’ says Bingham, ‘thought you were + in jail,’ and just then he catches sight of a couple of trailers from the + window. Well, Bingham isn’t just lightning smart, but then he isn’t SLOW, + you know. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you can’t stop here,’ and in another second he + was throwing the fellow out. Threw him out pretty hard, too. I guess; + right down the stairs, and Bingham on top. Met Winter’s men at the door. + ‘The next time you want information from the headquarters of this + association, gentlemen,’ Bingham said, ‘send somebody respectable.’ + Bingham thought the man was just any kind of low spy at first, but when + they claimed him for personation, Bingham just laughed. ‘Don’t be so hard + on your friends; he said. I don’t think we’ll hear much more about that + little racket.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t anything be done to any of them?” asked Stella. “Not today, of + course, but when there’s time.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll have to see about it, Stella,” said Alec. “When there’s time.” + </p> + <p> + “Talking about Bingham,” Oliver told them; “you know Bingham’s story about + Jim Whelan keeping sober for two weeks, for the first time in twenty + years, to vote for Winter? Wouldn’t touch a thing—no, he was going + to do it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to refuse + drinks, but it was going to be worth his while. Been boasting about the + post-office janitorship Winter was to give him if he got in. Well, in he + came to Number Eleven this morning all dressed up, with a clean collar, + looking thirstier than any man you ever saw, and gets his paper. Young + Charlie Bingham is deputy returning officer at Number Eleven. In a second + back comes Whelan. ‘This ballot’s marked; he says; ‘you don’t fool me.’ + ‘Is it?’ says Charlie, taking it out of his hand. ‘That’s very wrong, Jim; + you shouldn’t have marked it,’ and drops it into the ballot-box. Oh, Jim + was wild! The paper had gone in blank, you see, and he’d lost all those + good drunks and his vote too! He was going to have Charlie’s blood right + away. But there it was—done. He’d handed in his ballot—he + couldn’t have another.” + </p> + <p> + They all laughed, I fear, at the unfortunate plight of the too suspicious + Whelan. “Why did he think the ballot was marked?” asked Advena. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there was a little smudge on it—a fly-spot or something, + Charlie says. But you couldn’t fool Whelan.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope,” said Stella meditatively, “that Lorne will get in by more than + one. He wouldn’t like to owe his election to a low-down trick like that” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you be at all alarmed, you little girlish thing,” replied her + brother. “Lorne will get in by five hundred.” + </p> + <p> + John Murchison had listened to their excited talk, mostly in silence, + going on with his dinner as if that and nothing else were the important + matter of the moment. Mrs Murchison had had this idiosyncrasy of his “to + put up with” for over thirty years. She bore it now as long as she could. + </p> + <p> + “FATHER!” she exploded at last. “Do you think Lorne will get in by five + hundred?” + </p> + <p> + Mr Murchison shook his head, and bestowed his whole attention upon the + paring of an apple. If he kept his hopes to himself, he also kept his + doubts. “That remains to be seen,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, considering it’s your own son, I think you might show a little more + confidence,” said Mrs Murchison. “No thank you; no dessert for me. With a + member of the family being elected—or not—for a seat in + Parliament, I’m not the one to want dessert.” + </p> + <p> + Between Mr Murchison and the milkman that morning, Mrs Murchison felt + almost too much tried by the superior capacity for reticence. + </p> + <p> + It was seven in the evening before the ballot-boxes were all in the hands + of the sheriff, and nine before that officer found it necessary to let the + town know that it had piled up a majority of three hundred for Walter + Winter. He was not a supporter of Walter Winter, and he preferred to wait + until the returns began to come in from Clayfield and the townships, in + the hope that they would make the serious difference that was required of + them. The results were flashed one after the other to the total from the + windows of the Express and the Mercury upon the cheering crowd that + gathered in Market Square. There were moments of wild elation, moments of + deep suspense upon both sides, but when the final addition and subtraction + was made the enthusiastic voters of South Fox, including Jim Whelan, who + had neglected no further opportunity, read, with yells and groans, hurrahs + and catcalls, that they had elected Mr Lorne Murchison to the Dominion + House of Commons by a majority of seventy. + </p> + <p> + Then the band began to play and all the tin whistles to rejoice. Young and + Windle had the grace to blow their sirens, and across the excited darkness + of the town came the long familiar boom of the Murchison Stove Works. + Every Liberal in Elgin who had any means of making a noise made it. From + the window of the Association committee room their young fellow-townsman + thanked them for the honour they had done him, while his mother sat in the + cab he had brought her down in and applauded vigorously between tears, and + his father took congratulations from a hundred friendly hands. They all + went home in a torchlight procession, the band always playing, the tin + whistles always performing; and it was two in the morning before the + occasion could in any sense be said to be over. + </p> + <p> + Lights burned quite as late, however, in the Conservative committee room, + where matters were being arranged to bark threateningly at the heels of + victory next day. Victory looked like something that might be made to turn + and parley. A majority of seventy was too small for finality. Her + attention was called without twenty-four hours’ delay to a paragraph in + the Elgin Mercury, plainly authoritative, to the effect that the election + of Mr Murchison would be immediately challenged, on the ground of the + infringement in the electoral district of Moneida of certain provisions of + the Ontario Elections Act with the knowledge and consent of the candidate, + whose claim to the contested seat, it was confidently expected, would be + rendered within a very short time null and void. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXI + </h2> + <p> + “You can never trust an Indian,” said Mrs Murchison at the anxious family + council. “Well do I remember them when you were a little thing, Advena, + hanging round the town on a market-day; and the squaws coming to the back + door with their tin pails of raspberries to sell, and just knowing English + enough to ask a big price for them. But it was on the squaws we depended + in those days, or go without raspberry preserves for the winter. + Slovenly-looking things they were with their three or four coloured + petticoats and their papooses on their backs. And for dirt—! But I + thought they were all gone long ago.” + </p> + <p> + “There are enough of them left to make trouble all right,” said Alec. + “They don’t dress up like they used to, and I guess they send the papooses + to kindergarten now; but you’ll find plenty of them lying around any time + there’s nothing to do but vote and get drunk.” + </p> + <p> + Allowing for the natural exaggeration of partisanship, the facts about the + remaining red man of Moneida were much as Alec described them. On + market-days he slid easily, unless you looked twice, into what the Express + continues to call the farming community. Invariably, if you did look + twice, you would note that his stiff felt hat was an inch taller in the + crown than those worn generally by the farming community, the pathetic + assertion, perhaps, of an old sovereignty; invariably, too his coat and + trousers betrayed a form within, which, in the effort at adaptation, had + become high-shouldered and lank of leg. And the brown skin was there to be + noticed, though you might pass it by, and the high cheek-bones and the + liquidly muddy eye. He had taken on the signs of civilization at the level + which he occupied; the farming community had lent him its look of + shrewdness in small bargains and its rakish sophistication in garments, + nor could you always assume with certainty, except at Fox County fairs and + elections, that he was intoxicated. So much Government had done for him in + Fox County, where the “Reservation,” nursing the dying fragment of his + race, testified that there is such a thing as political compunction. Out + in the wide spaces of the West he still protects his savagery; they know + an Indian there today as far as they can see him, without a second glance. + </p> + <p> + And in Moneida, upon polling-days, he still, as Alec said, “made trouble.” + Perhaps it would be more to the fact to say that he presented the elements + of which trouble is made. Civilization had given him a vote, not with his + coat and trousers, but shortly after; and he had not yet learned to keep + it anywhere but in his pocket, whence the transfer was easy, and could be + made in different ways. The law contemplated only one, the straight drop + into the ballot-box; but the “boys” had other views. The law represented + one level of political sentiment, the boys represented another; both + parties represented the law, both parties were represented by the boys; + and on the occasion of the South Fox election the boys had been active in + Moneida. There are, as we know, two kinds of activity on these occasions, + one being set to observe the other; and Walter Winter’s boys, while + presumably neglecting no legitimate opportunity of their own, claimed to + have been highly successful in detecting the methods of the other side. + </p> + <p> + The Indians owed their holdings, their allowances, their school, and their + protecting superintendent, Squire Ormiston, to a Conservative Government. + It made a grateful bond of which a later Conservative Government was not, + perhaps, unaware, when it added the ballot to its previous benefits. The + Indians, therefore, on election-days, were supposed to “go solid” for the + candidate in whom they had been taught to see good will. If they did not + go quite solid, the other side might point to the evolution of the + political idea in every dissentient—a gladdening spectacle, indeed, + on which, however, the other side seldom showed any desire to dwell. + </p> + <p> + Hitherto the desires and intentions of the “Reserve” had been exemplified + in its superintendent. Squire Ormiston had never led his wards to the + polls—there were strong reasons against that. But the squire made no + secret of his politics, either before or, unluckily, after he changed + them. The Indians had always known that they were voting on the same side + as “de boss.” They were likely, the friends of Mr Winter thought, to know + now that they were voting on a different side. This was the secret of Mr + Winter’s friends’ unusual diligence on voting-day in Moneida. The mere + indication of a wish on the part of the superintendent would constitute + undue influence in the eye of the law. The squire was not the most + discreet of men—often before it had been the joke of Conservative + councils how near the old man had come to making a case for the Grits in + connection with this chief or that. I will not say that he was acquainted + with the famous letter from Queen Victoria, affectionately bidding her + Indian children to vote for the Conservative candidate. But perhaps he had + not adhered to the strictest interpretation of the law which gave him + fatherly influence in everything pertaining to his red-skinned charges’ + interests temporal and spiritual, excepting only their sacred privilege of + the ballot. He may even have held it in some genial derision, their sacred + privilege; it would be natural, he had been there among them in + unquestioned authority so long. Now it had assumed an importance. The + squire looked at it with the ardour of a converted eye. When he told Mr + Farquharson that he could bring Moneida with him to a Liberal victory, he + thought and spoke of the farmers of the township not of his wards of the + Reserve. Yet as the day approached these would infallibly become voters in + his eyes, to swell or to diminish the sum of Moneida’s loyalty to the + Empire. They remembered all this in the committee room of his old party. + “The squire,” they said to one another, “will give himself away this time + if ever he did.” Then young Murchison hadn’t known any better than to + spend the best part of the day out there, and there were a dozen witnesses + to swear that old Ormiston introduced him to three or four of the chiefs. + That was basis enough for the boys detailed to watch Moneida, basis enough + in the end for a petition constructed to travel to the High Court at + Toronto for the purpose of rendering null and void the election of Mr + Lorne Murchison, and transferring the South Fox seat to the candidate of + the opposite party. + </p> + <p> + That possibility had been promptly frustrated by a cross petition. There + was enough evidence in Subdivision Eleven, according to Bingham, to void + the Tory returns on six different counts; but the house-cat sold by Peter + Finnigan to Mr Winter for five dollars would answer all practical + purposes. It was a first-rate mouser, Bingham said, and it would settle + Winter. They would have plenty of other charges “good and ready” if + Finnigan’s cat should fail them, but Bingham didn’t think the court would + get to anything else; he had great confidence in the cat. + </p> + <p> + The petitions had been lodged with promptness. “Evidence,” as Mr Winter + remarked, “is like a good many other things—better when it’s hot, + especially the kind you get on the Reserve.” To which, when he heard it, + Bingham observed sarcastically that the cat would keep. The necessary + thousand dollars were ready on each side the day after the election, + lodged in court the next. Counsel were as promptly engaged—the + Liberals selected Cruickshank—and the suit against the elected + candidate, beginning with charges against his agents in the town, was + shortly in full hearing before the judges sent from Toronto to try it. + Meanwhile the Elgin Mercury had shown enterprise in getting hold of + Moneida evidence, and foolhardiness, as the Express pointed out, in + publishing it before the matter was reached in court. There was no + foolhardiness in printing what the Express knew about Finnigan’s cat; it + was just a common cat, and Walter Winter paid five dollars for it, + Finnigan declaring that if Mr Winter hadn’t filled him up with bad whiskey + before the bargain, he wouldn’t have let her go under ten, he was that + fond of the creature. The Express pointed out that this was grasping of + Finnigan, as the cat had never left him, and Mr Winter showed no intention + of taking her away; but there was nothing sub judice about the cat. + Finnigan, before he sobered up, had let her completely out of the bag. It + was otherwise with the charges that were to be made, according to the + Mercury, on the evidence of Chief Joseph Fry and another member of his + tribe, to the effect that he and his Conservative friends had been + instructed by Squire Ormiston and Mr Murchison to vote on this occasion + for both the candidates, thereby producing, when the box was opened, + eleven ballot-papers inscribed with two crosses instead of one, and + valueless. Here, should the charges against a distinguished and highly + respected Government official fail, as in the opinion of the Express they + undoubtedly would fail of substantiation was a big libel case all dressed + and ready and looking for the Mercury office. “Foolish—foolish,” + wrote Mr Williams at the close of his editorial comments. “Very + ill-advised.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ve made no case so far,” Mr Murchison assured the family. “I saw + Williams on my way up, and he says the evidence of that corner grocery + fellow—what’s his name?—went all to pieces this morning. + Oliver was in court. He says one of the judges—Hooke—lost his + patience altogether.” + </p> + <p> + “They won’t do anything with the town charges,” Alec said, “and they know + it. They’re saving themselves for Moneida and old man Ormiston.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I heartily wish,” said Mrs Murchison, in a tone of grievance with + the world at large, and if you were not responsible you might keep out of + the way—“I heartily wish that Lorne had stayed at home that day and + not got mixed up with old man Ormiston.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ll find it pretty hard to fix anything on Lorne,” said Alec. “But I + guess the Squire did go off his head a little.” + </p> + <p> + “Have they anything more than Indian evidence?” asked Advena. + </p> + <p> + “We don’t know what they’ve got,” said her brother darkly “and we won’t + till Wednesday, when they expect to get round to it.” + </p> + <p> + “Indian evidence will be a poor dependence in Cruickshank’s hands,” Mr + Murchison told them, with a chuckle. “They say this Chief Joseph Fry is + going about complaining that he always got three dollars for one vote + before, and this time he expected six for two, and got nothing!” + </p> + <p> + “Chief Joseph Fry!” exclaimed Alec. “They make me tired with their Chief + Josephs and Chief Henrys! White Clam Shell—that was the name he got + when he wasn’t christened.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the name,” remarked Advena, “that he probably votes under.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Mrs Murchison, “it was very kind of Squire Ormiston to give + Lorne his support, but it seems to me that as far as Moneida is concerned + he would have done better alone.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I guess he wouldn’t, Mother,” said Alec. “Moneida came right round + with the Squire, outside the Reserve. If it hadn’t been for the majority + there we would have lost the election. The old man worked hard, and Lorne + is grateful to him, and so he ought to be.” + </p> + <p> + “If they carry the case against Lorne,” said Stella, “he’ll be + disqualified for seven years.” + </p> + <p> + “Only if they prove him personally mixed up in it,” said the father. “And + that,” he added with a concentration of family sentiment in the emphasis + of it, “they’ll not do.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXII + </h2> + <p> + It was late afternoon when the train from the West deposited Hugh Finlay + upon the Elgin platform, the close of one of those wide, wet, uncertain + February days when the call of spring is on the wind though spring is + weeks away. The lights of the town flashed and glimmered down the streets + under the bare swaying maple branches. The early evening was full of soft + bluster; the air was conscious with an appeal of nature, vague yet + poignant. The young man caught at the strange sympathy that seemed to be + abroad for his spirit. He walked to his house, courting it, troubled by + it. They were expecting him that evening at Dr Drummond’s, and there it + was his intention to go. But on his way he would call for a moment to see + Advena Murchison. He had something to tell her. It would be news of + interest at Dr Drummond’s also; but it was of no consequence, within an + hour or so, when they should receive it there, while it was of great + consequence that Advena should hear it at the earliest opportunity, and + from him. There is no weighing or analysing the burden of such a necessity + as this. It simply is important: it makes its own weight; and those whom + it concerns must put aside other matters until it has been accomplished. + He would tell her: they would accept it for a moment together, a moment + during which he would also ascertain whether she was well and strong, with + a good chance of happiness—God protect her—in the future that + he should not know. Then he would go on to Dr Drummond’s. + </p> + <p> + The wind had risen when he went out again; it blew a longer blast, and the + trees made a steady sonorous rhythm in it. The sky was full of clouds that + dashed upon the track of a failing moon; there was portent everywhere, and + a hint of tumult at the end of the street. No two ways led from Finlay’s + house to his first destination. River Street made an angle with that on + which the Murchisons lived—half a mile to the corner, and + three-quarters the other way. Drops drove in his face as he strode along + against the wind, stilling his unquiet heart, that leaped before him to + that brief interview. As he took the single turning he came into the full + blast of the veering, irresolute storm. The street was solitary and full + of the sound of the blown trees, wild and uplifting. Far down the figure + of a woman wavered before the wind across the zone of a blurred lamp-post. + She was coming toward him. He bent his head and lowered his umbrella and + lost sight of her as they approached, she with the storm behind her, + driven with hardly more resistance than the last year’s blackened leaves + that blew with her, he assailed by it and making the best way he could. + Certainly the wind was taking her part and his, when in another moment her + skirt whipped against him and he saw her face glimmer out. A mere wreck of + lines and shadows it seemed in the livid light, with suddenly perceiving + eyes and lips that cried his name. She had on a hat and a cloak, but + carried no umbrella, and her hands were bare and wet. Pitifully the storm + blew her into his arms, a tossed and straying thing that could not speak + for sobs; pitifully and with a rough incoherent sound he gathered and held + her in that refuge. A rising fear and a great solicitude laid a finger + upon his craving embrace of her; he had a sense of something strangely + different in her, of the unknown irremediable. Yet she was there, in his + arms, as she had never been before; her plight but made her in a manner + sweeter; the storm that brought her barricaded them in the empty spaces of + the street with a divinely entreating solitude. He had been prepared to + meet her in the lighted decorum of her father’s house and he knew what he + should say. He was not prepared to take her out of the tempest, helpless + and weeping and lost for the harbour of his heart, and nothing could he + say. He locked his lips against all that came murmuring to them. But his + arms tightened about her and he drew her into the shelter of a wall that + jutted out in the irregular street; and there they stood and clung + together in a long, close, broken silence that covered the downfall of her + spirit. It was the moment of their great experience of one another; never + again, in whatever crisis, could either know so deep, so wonderful a + fathoming of the other soul. Once as it passed, Advena put up her hand and + touched his cheek: There were tears on it, and she trembled, and wound her + arm about his neck, and held up her face to his. “No,” he muttered, and + crushed it against his breast. There without complaint she let it lie; she + was all submission to him: his blood leaped and his spirit groaned with + the knowledge of it. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you come out? Why did you come, dear?” he said at last. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. There was such a wind. I could not stay in the house.” + </p> + <p> + She spoke timidly, in a voice that should have been new to him, but that + it was, above all, her voice. + </p> + <p> + “I was on my way to you.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. I thought you might perhaps come. If you had not—I think I + was on my way to you.” + </p> + <p> + It seemed not unnatural. + </p> + <p> + “Did you find—any message from me when you came?” she asked + presently, in a quieted, almost a contented tone. + </p> + <p> + It shot—the message—before his eyes, though he had seen it no + message, in the preoccupation of his arrival. + </p> + <p> + “I found a rose on my dressing-table,” he told her; and the rose stood for + him in a wonder of tenderness, looking back. + </p> + <p> + “I smuggled it in,” she confessed, “I knew your old servant—she used + to be with us. The others—from Dr Drummond’s—have been there + all day making it warm and comfortable for you. I had no right to do + anything like that, but I had the right, hadn’t I, to bring the rose?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” he answered her, hard-pressed, “how we are to bear this.” + </p> + <p> + She shrank away from him a little, as if at a glimpse of a surgeon’s + knife. + </p> + <p> + “We are not to bear it,” she said eagerly. “The rose is to tell you that. + I didn’t mean it, when I left it, to be anything more—more than a + rose; but now I do. I didn’t even know when I came out tonight. But now I + do. We aren’t to bear it, Hugh. I don’t want it so—now. I can’t—can’t + have it so.” + </p> + <p> + She came nearer to him again and caught with her two hands the lapels of + his coat. He closed his own over them and looked down at her in that + half-detachment, which still claimed and held her. + </p> + <p> + “Advena,” he whispered, out of the sudden clamour in his mind, “she can’t + be—she isn’t—nothing has happened to her?” + </p> + <p> + She smiled faintly, but her eyes were again full of fear at his + implication of the only way. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” she said. “But you have been away, and she has come. I have seen + her; and oh! she won’t care, Hugh—she won’t care.” + </p> + <p> + Her asking, straining face seemed to gather and reflect all the light + there was in the shifting night about them. The rain had stopped, but the + wind still hurtled past, whirling the leaves from one darkness to another. + They were as isolated, as outlawed there in the wild wet wind as they were + in the confusion of their own souls. + </p> + <p> + “We must care,” he said helplessly, clinging to the sound and form of the + words. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no!” she cried. “No, no! Indeed I know now what is possible and what + is not!” + </p> + <p> + For an instant her eyes searched the rigid lines of his face in + astonishment. In their struggle to establish the impossible she had been + so far ahead, so greatly the more confident and daring, had tempted him to + such heights, scorning every dizzy verge, that now, when she turned quite + back from their adventure, humbly confessing it too hard, she could not + understand how he should continue to set himself doggedly toward it. + Perhaps, too, she trusted unconsciously in her prerogative. He loved her, + and she him: before she would not, now she would. Before she had preferred + an ideal to the desire of her heart; now it lay about her; her strenuous + heart had pulled it down to foolish ruin, and how should she lie abased + with it and see him still erect and full of the deed they had to do? + </p> + <p> + “Come,” he said, “let me take you home, dear,” and at that and some accent + in it that struck again at hope, she sank at his feet in a torrent of + weeping, clasping them and entreating him, “Oh send her away! Send her + away!” + </p> + <p> + He lifted her, and was obliged literally to support her. Her hat had + fallen off; he stroked her hair and murmured such comfort to her as we + have for children in their extremity, of which the burden is chiefly love + and “Don’t cry.” She grew gradually quieter, drawing one knows not what + restitution from the intrinsic in him; but there was no pride in her, and + when she said “Let me go home now,” it was the broken word of hapless + defeat. They struggled together out into the boisterous street, and once + or twice she failed and had to stop and turn. Then she would cling to a + wall or a tree, putting his help aside with a gesture in which there was + again some pitiful trace of renunciation. They went almost without a word, + each treading upon the heart of the other toward the gulf that was to + come. They reached it at the Murchisons’ gate, and there they paused, as + briefly as possible, since pause was torture, and he told her what he + could not tell her before. + </p> + <p> + “I have accepted the charge of the White Water Mission Station in + Alberta,” he said. “I, too, learned very soon after I left you what was + possible and what was not. I go as soon as—things can be set in + order here. Good-bye, my dear love, and may God help us both.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him with a pitiful effort at a steady lip. “I must try to + believe it,” she said. “And afterward, when it comes true for you, + remember this—I was ashamed.” + </p> + <p> + Then he saw her pass into her father’s house, and he took the road to his + duty and Dr Drummond’s. + </p> + <p> + His extremity was very great. Through it lines came to him from the + beautiful archaic inheritance of his Church. He strode along hearing them + again and again in the dying storm. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + So, I do stretch my hands + To Thee my help alone; + Thou only understands + All my complaint and moan. +</pre> + <p> + He listened to the prayer on the wind, which seemed to offer it for him, + listened and was gravely touched. But he himself was far from the throes + of supplication. He was looking for the forces of his soul; and by the + time he reached Dr Drummond’s door we may suppose that he had found them. + </p> + <p> + Sarah who let him in, cried, “How wet you are, Mr Finlay!” and took his + overcoat to dry in the kitchen. The Scotch ladies, she told him, and Mrs + Forsyth, had gone out to tea, but they would be back right away, and + meanwhile “the Doctor” was expecting him in the study—he knew the + way. + </p> + <p> + Finlay did know the way but, as a matter of fact, there had been time for + him to forget it; he had not crossed Dr Drummond’s threshold since the + night on which the Doctor had done all, as he would have said, that was + humanly possible to bring him, Finlay, to reason upon the matter of his + incredible entanglement in Bross. The door at the end of the passage was + ajar however, as if impatient; and Dr Drummond himself, standing in it, + heightened that appearance, with his “Come you in, Finlay. Come you in!” + </p> + <p> + The Doctor looked at the young man in a manner even more acute, more + shrewd, and more kindly than was his wont. His eye searched Finlay + thoroughly, and his smile seemed to broaden as his glance travelled. + </p> + <p> + “Man,” he said, “you’re shivering,” and rolled him an armchair near the + fire. (“The fellow came into the room,” he would say, when he told the + story afterward to the person most concerned, “as if he were going to the + stake!”) “This is extraordinary weather we are having, but I think the + storm is passing over.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope,” said Finlay, “that my aunt and Miss Cameron are well. I + understand they are out.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, very well—finely. They’re out at present, but you’ll see them + bye-and-bye. An excellent voyage over they had—just the eight days. + But we’ll be doing it in less than that when the new fast line is running + to Halifax. But four days of actual ocean travelling they say now it will + take. Four days from imperial shore to shore! That should incorporate us—that + should bring them out and take us home.” + </p> + <p> + The Doctor had not taken a seat himself, but was pacing the study, his + thumbs in his waistcoat pockets; and a touch of embarrassment seemed added + to the inveterate habit. + </p> + <p> + “I hear the ladies had pleasant weather.” Finlay remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Capital—capital! You won’t smoke? I know nothing about these + cigars; they’re some Grant left behind him—a chimney, that man + Grant. Well, Finlay”—he threw himself into the arm-chair on the + other side of the hearth—“I don’t know what to say to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Surely,” said Finlay restively, “it has all been said, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “No, it has not all been said,” Dr Drummond retorted. “No, it has not. + There’s more to be said, and you must hear it, Finlay, with such patience + as you have. But I speak the truth when I say that I don’t know how to + begin.” + </p> + <p> + The young man gave him opportunity, gazing silently into the fire. He was + hardly aware that Dr Drummond had again left his seat when he started + violently at a clap on the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Finlay!” exclaimed the Doctor. “You won’t be offended? No—you + couldn’t be offended!” + </p> + <p> + It was half-jocular, half-anxious, wholly inexplicable. + </p> + <p> + “At what,” asked Hugh Finlay, “should I be offended?” + </p> + <p> + Again, with a deep sigh, the Doctor dropped into his chair. “I see I must + begin at the beginning,” he said. But Finlay, with sudden intuition, had + risen and stood before him trembling, with a hand against the mantelpiece. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, “if you have anything to tell me of importance, for God’s + sake begin at the end.” + </p> + <p> + Some vibration in his voice went straight to the heart of the Doctor, + banishing as it travelled, every irrelevant thing that it encountered. + </p> + <p> + “Then the end is this, Finlay,” he said. “The young woman, Miss Christie + Cameron, whom you were so wilfully bound and determined to marry, has + thrown you over—that is, if you will give her back her word—has + jilted you—that is, if you’ll let her away. Has thought entirely + better of the matter.” + </p> + <p> + (“He stared out of his great sockets of eyes as if the sky had fallen,” Dr + Drummond would say, recounting it.) + </p> + <p> + “For—for what reason?” asked Finlay, hardly yet able to distinguish + between the sound of disaster and the sense that lay beneath. + </p> + <p> + “May I begin at the beginning?” asked the Doctor, and Hugh silently + nodded. + </p> + <p> + (“He sat there and never took his eyes off me, twisting his fingers. I + might have been in a confession-box,” Dr Drummond would explain to her.) + </p> + <p> + “She came here, Miss Cameron, with that good woman, Mrs Kilbannon, it will + be three weeks next Monday,” he said, with all the air of beginning a + story that would be well worth hearing. “And I wasn’t very well pleased to + see her, for reasons that you know. However, that’s neither here nor + there. I met them both at the station, and I own to you that I thought + when I made Miss Cameron’s acquaintance that you were getting better than + you deserved in the circumstances. You were a thousand miles away—now + that was a fortunate thing!—and she and Mrs Kilbannon just stayed + here and made themselves as comfortable as they could. And that was so + comfortable that anyone could see with half an eye”—the Doctor’s own + eye twinkled—“so far as Miss Cameron was concerned, that she wasn’t + pining in any sense of the word. But I wasn’t sorry for you, Finlay, on + that account.” He stopped to laugh enjoyingly, and Finlay blushed like a + girl. + </p> + <p> + “I just let matters bide and went about my own business. Though after poor + Mrs Forsyth here—a good woman enough, but the brains of a rabbit—it + was pleasant to find these intelligent ladies at every meal, and wonderful + how quick they were at picking up the differences between the points of + Church administration here and at home. That was a thing I noticed + particularly in Miss Cameron. + </p> + <p> + “Matters went smoothly enough—smoothly enough—till one + afternoon that foolish creature Advena Murchison”—Finlay started—“came + here to pay a call on Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. It was well and + kindly meant, but it was not a wise-like thing to do. I didn’t exactly + make it out, but it seems that she came all because of you and on account + of you; and the ladies didn’t understand it, and Mrs Kilbannon came to me. + My word, but there was a woman to deal with! Who was this young lady, and + what was she to you that she should go anywhere or do anything in your + name? Without doubt”—he put up a staying hand—“it was foolish + of Advena. And what sort of freedom, and how far, and why, and what way, + and I tell you it was no easy matter, to quiet her. ‘Is Miss Cameron + distressed about it?’ said I. ‘Not a bit,’ said she, ‘but I am, and I must + have the rights of this matter,’ said she, ‘if I have to put it to my + nephew himself.’ + </p> + <p> + “It was at that point, Finlay, that the idea—just then that the + thought came into my mind—well I won’t say absolutely, but + practically for the first time—Why can’t this matter be arranged on + a basis to suit all parties? So I said to her, ‘Mrs Kilbannon,’ I said, + ‘if you had reasonable grounds for it, do you think you could persuade + your niece not to marry Hugh Finlay?’ Wait—patience!” He held up his + hand, and Finlay gripped the arm of his chair again. + </p> + <p> + “She just stared at me. ‘Are you gone clean daft, Dr Drummond?’ she said. + ‘There could be no grounds serious enough for that. I will not believe + that Hugh Finlay has compromised himself in any way.’ I had to stop her; I + was obliged to tell her there was nothing of the kind—nothing of the + kind; and later on I’ll have to settle with my conscience about that. ‘I + meant,’ I said, the reasonable grounds of an alternative: ‘An + alternative?’ said she. To cut a long story short,” continued the Doctor, + leaning forward, always with the finger in his waistcoat pocket to + emphasize what he said, “I represented to Mrs Kilbannon that Miss Cameron + was not in sentimental relations toward you, that she had some reason to + suspect you of having placed your affections elsewhere, and that I myself + was very much taken up with what I had seen of Miss Cameron. In brief, I + said to Mrs Kilbannon that if Miss Cameron saw no objection to altering + the arrangements to admit of it, I should be pleased to marry her myself. + The thing was much more suitable in every way. I was fifty-three years of + age last week, I told her, ‘but’ I said, ‘Miss Cameron is thirty-six or + seven, if she’s a day, and Finlay there would be like nothing but a + grown-up son to her. I can offer her a good home and the minister’s pew in + a church that any woman might be proud of—and though far be it from + me,’ I said, ‘to depreciate mission work, either home or foreign, Miss + Cameron in that field would be little less than thrown away. Think it + over,’ I said. + </p> + <p> + “Well, she was pleased, I could see that. But she didn’t half like the + idea of changing the original notion. It was leaving you to your own + devices that weighed most with her against it; she’d set her heart on + seeing you married with her approval. So I said to her, to make an end of + it, ‘Well, Mrs Kilbannon,’ I said, ‘suppose we say no more about it for + the present. I think I see the finger of Providence in this matter; but + you’ll talk it over with Miss Cameron, and we’ll all just make it, for the + next few days, the subject of quiet and sober reflection. Maybe at the end + of that time I’ll think better of it myself, though that is not my + expectation.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘I think,’ she said, ‘we’ll just leave it to Christie.’” + </p> + <p> + As the Doctor went on with his tale, relaxation had stolen dumbly about + Finlay’s brow and lips. He dropped from the plane of his own absorption to + the humorous common sense of the recital: it claimed and held him with + infinite solace. His eyes had something like the light of laughter in + them, flashing behind a cloud, as he fixed them on Dr Drummond, and said, + “And did you?” + </p> + <p> + “We did,” said Dr Drummond, getting up once more from his chair, and + playing complacently with his watch-charms as he took another turn about + the study. “We left it to Miss Cameron, and the result is”—the + Doctor stopped sharply and wheeled round upon Finlay—“the result is—why, + the upshot seems to be that I’ve cut you out, man!” + </p> + <p> + Finlay measured the little Doctor standing there twisting his watch-chain, + beaming with achieved satisfaction, in a consuming desire to know how far + chance had been kind to him, and how far he had to be simply, unspeakably, + grateful. He stared in silence, occupied with his great debt; it was like + him that that, and not his liberty, should be first in his mind. We who + have not his opportunity may find it more difficult to decide; but from + our private knowledge of Dr Drummond we may remember what poor Finlay + probably forgot at the moment, that even when pitted against Providence, + the Doctor was a man of great determination. + </p> + <p> + The young fellow got up, still speechless, and confronted Dr Drummond. He + was troubled for something to say; the chambers of his brain seemed empty + or reiterating foolish sounds. He pressed the hand the minister offered + him and his lips quivered. Then a light came into his face, and he picked + up his hat. + </p> + <p> + “And I’ll say this for myself,” chuckled Dr Drummond. “It was no hard + matter.” + </p> + <p> + Finlay looked at him and smiled. “It would not be, sir,” he said lamely. + Dr Drummond cast a shrewd glance at him and dropped the tone of banter. + </p> + <p> + “Aye—I know! It’s no joking matter,” he said, and with a hand behind + the young man’s elbow, he half pushed him to the door and took out his + watch. He must always be starting somebody, something, in the right + direction, the Doctor. “It’s not much after half-past nine, Finlay,” he + said. “I notice the stars are out.” + </p> + <p> + It had the feeling of a colloquial benediction, and Finlay carried it with + him all the way. + </p> + <p> + It was nevertheless nearly ten when he reached her father’s house, so late + that the family had dispersed for the night. Yet he had the hardihood to + ring, and the hour blessed them both, for Advena on the stair, catching + who knows what of presage out of the sound, turned, and found him at the + threshold herself. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIII + </h2> + <p> + “I understand how you must feel in the matter, Murchison, said Henry + Cruickshank. “It’s the most natural thing in the world that you should + want to clear yourself definitely, especially as you say, since the + charges have been given such wide publicity. On the other hand, I think it + quite possible that you exaggerate the inference that will be drawn from + our consenting to saw off with the other side on the two principal + counts.” + </p> + <p> + “The inference will be,” said Lorne “that there’s not a pin to choose + between Winter’s political honesty and my own. I’m no Pharisee, but I + don’t think I can sit down under that. I can’t impair my possible + usefulness by accepting a slur upon my reputation at the very beginning.” + </p> + <p> + “Politics are very impersonal. It wouldn’t be remembered a year.” + </p> + <p> + “Winter of course,” said young Murchison moodily, “doesn’t want to take + any chances. He knows he’s done for if we go on. Seven years for him would + put him pretty well out of politics. And it would suit him down to the + ground to fight it over again. There’s nothing he would like better to see + than another writ for South Fox.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all right,” the lawyer responded, “but Moneida doesn’t look + altogether pleasant, you know. We may have good grounds for supposing that + the court will find you clear of that business; but Ormiston, so far as I + can make out, was playing the fool down there for a week before + polling-day, and there are three or four Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers only + too anxious to pay back a grudge on him. We’ll have to fight again, + there’s no doubt about that. The only question is whether we’ll ruin + Ormiston first or not. Have you seen Bingham?” + </p> + <p> + “I know what Bingham thinks,” said Lorne, impatiently. “The Squire’s + position is a different consideration. I don’t see how I can—However, + I’ll go across to the committee room now and talk it over.” + </p> + <p> + It is doubtful whether young Murchison knew all that Bingham thought; + Bingham so seldom told it all. There were matters in the back of Bingham’s + mind that prompted him to urge the course that Cruickshank had been + empowered by the opposing counsel to suggest—party considerations + that it would serve no useful purpose to talk over with Murchison. Bingham + put it darkly when he said he had quite as much hay on his fork as he + cared to tackle already, implying that the defence of indiscretions in + Moneida was quite an unnecessary addition. Contingencies seemed probable, + arising out of the Moneida charges that might affect the central + organization of the party in South Fox to an extent wholly out of + proportion with the mere necessity of a second election. Bingham talked it + over with Horace Williams, and both of them with Farquharson; they were + all there to urge the desirability of “sawing off” upon Lorne when he + found them at headquarters. Their most potent argument was, of course, the + Squire and the immediate dismissal that awaited him under the law if undue + influence were proved against him. Other considerations found the newly + elected member for South Fox obstinate and troublesome, but to that he was + bound to listen, and before that he finally withdrew his objections. The + election would come on again, as happened commonly enough. Bingham could + point to the opening, in a few days, of a big flour-milling industry + across the river, which would help; operations on the Drill Hall and the + Post-Office would be hurried on at once, and the local party organization + would be thoroughly overhauled. Bingham had good reason for believing that + they could entirely regain their lost ground, and at the same time + dissipate the dangerous impression that South Fox was being undermined. + Their candidate gave a reluctant ear to it all, and in the end agreed to + everything. + </p> + <p> + So that Chief Joseph Fry—the White Clam Shell of his own lost fires—was + never allowed the chance of making good the election losses of that year, + as he had confidently expected to do when the charge came on; nor was it + given to any of the Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers of Mr Cruickshank’s + citation to boast at the tribal dog-feasts of the future, of the occasion + on which they had bested “de boss.” Neither was any further part in public + affairs, except by way of jocular reference, assigned to Finnigan’s cat. + The proceedings of the court abruptly terminated, the judges reported the + desirability of a second contest, and the public accepted with a wink. The + wink in any form was hateful to Lorne Murchison, but he had not to + encounter it long. + </p> + <p> + The young man had changed in none of the aspects he presented to his + fellow-citizens since the beginning of the campaign. In the public eye he + wore the same virtues as he wore the same clothes; he summed up even a + greater measure of success; his popularity was unimpaired. He went as + keenly about the business of life, handling its details with the same + capable old drawl. Only his mother, with the divination of mothers, + declared that since the night of the opera house meeting Lorne had been + “all worked up.” She watched him with furtive anxious looks, was + solicitous about his food, expressed relief when she knew him to be safely + in bed and asleep. He himself observed himself with discontent, unable to + fathom his extraordinary lapse from self-control on the night of his final + address. He charged it to the strain of unavoidable office work on top of + the business of the campaign, abused his nerves, talked of a few days’ + rest when they had settled Winter. He could think of nothing but the + points he had forgotten when he had his great chance. “The flag should + have come in at the end,” he would say to himself, trying vainly to + remember where it did come in. He was ill pleased with the issue of that + occasion; and it was small compensation to be told by Stella that his + speech gave her shivers up and down her back. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the theory of Empire coursed in his blood, fed by the revelation + of the future of his country in every newspaper, by the calculated + prophecies of American onlookers, and by the telegrams which repeated the + trumpet notes of Wallingham’s war upon the mandarinate of Great Britain. + It occupied him so that he began to measure and limit what he had to say + about it, and to probe the casual eye for sympathy before he would give an + inch of rope to his enthusiasm. He found it as hard as ever to understand + that the public interest should be otherwise preoccupied, as it plainly + was, that the party organ, terrified of Quebec, should shuffle away from + the subject with perfunctory and noncommittal reference, that among the + men he met in the street, nobody’s blood seemed stirred, whatever the + day’s news was from England. He subscribed to the Toronto Post, the + leading organ of the Tories, because of its fuller reports and more + sympathetic treatment of the Idea, due to the fact that the Idea + originated in a brain temporarily affiliated to the Conservative party. If + the departure to imperial preference had any damage in it for Canadian + interests, it would be for those which the Post made its special care; but + the spirit of party draws the breath of expediency, and the Post flaunting + the Union Jack every other day, put secondary manufactures aside for + future discussion, and tickled the wheat-growers with the two-shilling + advantage they were coming into at the hands of the English Conservatives, + until Liberal leaders began to be a little anxious about a possible loss + of wheat-growing votes. It was, as John Murchison said, a queer position + for everybody concerned; queer enough, no doubt, to admit a Tory journal + into the house on sufferance and as a special matter; but he had a + disapproving look for it as it lay on the hall floor, and seldom was the + first to open it. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless Lorne found more satisfaction in talking imperialism with his + father than with anyone else. While the practical half of John Murchison + was characteristically alive to the difficulties involved, the sentimental + half of him was ready at any time to give out cautious sparks of sympathy + with the splendour of Wallingham’s scheme; and he liked the feeling that a + son of his should hark back in his allegiance to the old land. There was a + kind of chivalry in the placing of certain forms of beauty—political + honour and public devotion, which blossomed best, it seemed, over there—above + the material ease and margin of the new country, and even above the grand + chance it offered for a man to make his mark. Mr Murchison was susceptible + to this in anyone, and responsive to it in his son. + </p> + <p> + As to the local party leaders, they had little more than a shrug for the + subject. So far as they were concerned, there was no Empire and no Idea; + Wallingham might as well not have been born. It seemed to Lorne that they + maintained toward him personally a special reticence about it. Reticence + indeed characterized their behaviour generally during the period between + the abandonment of the suits and the arrangement of the second Liberal + convention. They had little advice for him about his political attitude, + little advice about anything. He noticed that his presence on one or two + occasions seemed to embarrass them, and that his arrival would sometimes + have a disintegrating effect upon a group in the post-office or at a + street corner. He added it, without thinking, to his general heaviness; + they held it a good deal against him, he supposed, to have reduced their + proud standing majority to a beggarly two figures; he didn’t blame them. + </p> + <p> + I cannot think that the sum of these depressions alone would have been + enough to overshadow so buoyant a soul as Lorne Murchison’s. The + characteristics of him I have tried to convey were grafted on an excellent + fund of common sense. He was well aware of the proportions of things; he + had no despair of the Idea, nor would he despair should the Idea + etherealize and fly away. Neither had he, for his personal honour, any + morbid desires toward White Clam Shell or Finnigan’s cat. His luck had + been a good deal better than it might have been; he recognized that as + fully as any sensible young man could, and as for the Great Chance, and + the queer grip it had on him, he would have argued that too if anyone had + approached him curiously about it. There I think we might doubt his + conclusions. There is nothing subtler, more elusive to trace than the + intercurrents of the emotions. Politics and love are thought of at + opposite poles, and Wallingham perhaps would have laughed to know that he + owed an exalted allegiance in part to a half-broken heart. Yet the impulse + that is beyond our calculation, the thing we know potential in the blood + but not to be summoned or conditioned, lies always in the shadow of the + ideal; and who can analyse that, and say, “Of this class is the will to + believe in the integrity of the beloved and false; of that is the desire + to lift a nation to the level of its mountain-ranges”? Both dispositions + have a tendency to overwork the heart; and it is easy to imagine that they + might interact. Lorne Murchison’s wish, which was indeed a burning longing + and necessity, to believe in the Dora Milburn of his passion, had been + under a strain since the night on which he brought her the pledge which + she refused to wear. He had hardly been conscious of it in the beginning, + but by constant suggestion it had grown into his knowledge, and for weeks + he had taken poignant account of it. His election had brought him no + nearer a settlement with her objection to letting the world know of their + relations. The immediate announcement that it was to be disputed gave Dora + another chance, and once again postponed the assurance that he longed for + with a fever which was his own condemnation of her, if he could have read + that sign. For months he had seen so little of her, had so altered his + constant habit of going to the Milburns’, that his family talked of it, + wondering among themselves; and Stella indulged in hopeful speculations. + They did not wonder or speculate at the Milburns’. It was an axiom there + that it is well to do nothing rashly. + </p> + <p> + Lorne, in the office on Market Street, had been replying to Mr Fulke to + the effect that the convention could hardly be much longer postponed, but + that as yet he had no word of the date of it when the telephone bell rang + and Mr Farquharson’s voice at the other end asked him to come over to the + committee room. “They’ve decided about it now, I imagine,” he told his + senior, putting on his hat; and something of the wonted fighting elation + came upon him as he went down the stairs. He was right in his supposition. + They had decided about it, and they were waiting, in a group that made + every effort to look casual, to tell him when he arrived. + </p> + <p> + They had delegated what Horace Williams called “the job” to Mr + Farquharson, and he was actually struggling with the preliminaries of it, + when Bingham, uncomfortable under the curious quietude of the young + fellow’s attention, burst out with the whole thing. + </p> + <p> + “The fact is, Murchison, you can’t poll the vote. There’s no man in the + Riding we’d be better pleased to send to the House; but we’ve got to win + this election, and we can’t win it with you.” + </p> + <p> + “You think you can’t?” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “You see, old man,” Horace Williams put in, “you didn’t get rid of that + save-the-Empire-or-die scheme of yours soon enough. People got to think + you meant something by it.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall never get rid of it,” Lorne returned simply, and the others + looked at one another. + </p> + <p> + “The popular idea seems to be,” said Mr Farquharson judicially, “that you + would not hesitate to put Canada to some material loss, or at least to + postpone her development in various important directions, for the sake of + the imperial connection.” + </p> + <p> + “Wasn’t that,” Lorne asked him, “what, six months ago, you were all + prepared to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” said Bingham, with the air of repudiating for everybody + concerned. “Not for a cent. We were willing at one time to work it for + what is was worth, but it never was worth that, and if you’d had a little + more experience, Murchison, you’d have realized it.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s right, Lorne,” contributed Horace Williams. “Experience—that’s + all you want. You’ve got everything else, and a darned sight more. We’ll + get you there, all in good time. But this time—” + </p> + <p> + “You want me to step down and out,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “That’s for you to say,” Bingham told him. “We can nominate you again all + right, but we’re afraid we can’t get you the convention. Young and Windle + have been working like moles for the past ten days—” + </p> + <p> + “For Carter?” interrupted Lorne: “Carter, of course.” + </p> + <p> + They nodded. Carter stood the admitted fact. + </p> + <p> + “I’m sorry it’s Carter,” said Lorne thoughtfully. “However—” And he + dropped, staring before him, into silence. The others eyed him from + serious, underhung faces. Horace Williams, with an obvious effort, got up + and clapped him on the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Brace up, old chap,” he said. “You made a blame good fight for us, and + we’ll do the same for you another day.” + </p> + <p> + “However, gentlemen,” the young man gathered himself up to say, “I believe + I understand the situation. You are my friends and this is your advice. We + must save the seat. I’ll see Carter. If I can get anything out of him to + make me think he’ll go straight on the scheme to save the Empire”—he + smiled faintly—“when it comes to a vote, I’ll withdraw in his favour + at the convention. Horace here will think up something for me—any + old lie will do, I suppose? In any case, of course, I withdraw.” + </p> + <p> + He took his hat, and they all got up, startled a little at the quick and + simple close of the difficult scene they had anticipated. Horace Williams + offered his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Shake, Lorne,” he said, and the other two, coming nearer, followed his + example. + </p> + <p> + “Why, yes,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + He left them with a brief excuse, and they stood together in a moment’s + silence, three practical politicians who had delivered themselves from a + dangerous network involving higher things. + </p> + <p> + “Dash these heart-to-heart talks,” said Bingham irritably, “it’s the only + thing to do, but why the devil didn’t he want something out of it? I had + that Registrarship in my inside pocket.” + </p> + <p> + “If anybody likes to kick me round the room,” remarked Horace Williams + with depression, “I have no very strong objection.” + </p> + <p> + “And now,” Mr Farquharson said with a sigh, “we understand it’s got to be + Carter. I suppose I’m too old a man to do jockey for a three-year-old, but + I own I’ve enjoyed the ride.” + </p> + <p> + Lorne Murchison went out into the companionship of Main Street, the new + check in his fortunes hanging before him. We may imagine that it hung + heavily; we may suppose that it cut off the view. As Bingham would have + said, he was “up against it” and that, when one is confidently treading + the straight path to accomplishment, is a dazing experience. He was up + against it, yet already he had recoiled far enough to consider it; already + he was adapting his heart, his nerves, and his future to it. His heart + took it greatly, told him he had not yet force enough for the business he + had aspired to, but gave him a secret assurance. Another time he would + find more strength and show more cunning; he would not disdain the tools + of diplomacy and desirability, he would dream no more of short cuts in + great political departures. His heart bowed to its sorry education and + took counsel with him, bidding him be of good courage and push on. He was + up against it, but he would get round it, and there on the other side lay + the same wide prospect, with the Idea shining high. At one point he + faltered, but that was a matter of expediency rather than of courage. He + searched and selected, as he went along the street, among phrases that + would convey his disaster to Dora Milburn. + </p> + <p> + Just at that point, the turning to his own office, he felt it hard luck + that Alfred Hesketh should meet and want a word with him. Hesketh had + become tolerable only when other things were equal. Lorne had not seen him + since the night of his election, when his felicitations had seemed to + stand for very little one way or another. His manner now was more + important charged with other considerations. Lorne waited on the word, + uncomfortably putting off the necessity of coming out with his misfortune. + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t come across you, Murchison, but you’ve had my sympathy, I + needn’t say, all this time. A man can’t go into politics with gloves on, + there’s no doubt about that. Though mind you, I never for a moment + believed that you let yourself in personally. I mean, I’ve held you all + through, above the faintest suspicion.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you?” said Lorne. “Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I have—I assure you! But give me a disputed election for the + revelation of a rotten state of things—eh?” + </p> + <p> + “It does show up pretty low, doesn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + “However, upon my word, I don’t know whether it’s any better in England. + At bottom we’ve got a lower class to deal with, you know. I’m beginning to + have a great respect for the electorate of this country, Murchison—not + necessarily the methods, but the rank and file of the people. They know + what they want, and they’re going to have it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Lorne, “I guess they are.” + </p> + <p> + “And that brings me to my news, old man. I’ve given the matter a lot of + time and a lot of consideration, and I’ve decided that I can’t do better + than drive in a stake for myself in this new country of yours.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t so very new,” Lorne told him, in rather dull response, “but I + expect that’s a pretty good line to take. Why, yes—first rate.” + </p> + <p> + “As to the line,” Hesketh went on, weightily, leading the way through an + encumbering group of farmers at a corner, “I’ve selected that, too. + Traction-engines. Milburn has never built them yet, but he says the + opportunity is ripe—” + </p> + <p> + “Milburn!” Lorne wheeled sharply. + </p> + <p> + “My future partner. He was planning extensions just as I came along, a + fortunate moment, I hope it will prove, for us both. I’d like to go into + it with you, some time when you have leisure—it’s a scheme of + extraordinary promise. By the way, there’s an idea in it that ought to + appeal to you—driving the force that’s to subdue this wilderness of + yours.” + </p> + <p> + “When you’ve lived here for a while,” said Lorne, painfully preoccupied, + “you’ll think it quite civilized. So you’re going in with Milburn?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m proud of it already! I shall make a good Canadian, I trust. And + as good an imperialist,” he added, “as is consistent with the claims of my + adopted country.” + </p> + <p> + “That seems to be the popular view,” said Lorne. + </p> + <p> + “And a very reasonable view, too. But I’m not going to embark on that with + you, old fellow—you shan’t draw me in. I know where you are on that + subject.” + </p> + <p> + “So do I—I’m stranded. But it’s all right—the subject isn’t,” + Lorne said quietly; and Hesketh’s exclamations and inquiries brought out + the morning’s reverse. The young Englishman was cordially sorry, full of + concern and personal disappointment, abandoning his own absorbing affairs, + and devoting his whole attention to the unfortunate exigency which Lorne + dragged out of his breast, in pure manfulness, to lay before him. + </p> + <p> + However, they came to the end of it, arriving at the same time at the door + which led up the stairs to the office of Fulke, Warner, and Murchison. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said Lorne. ‘“Thank you. Oh, I dare say it will come all + right in the course of time. You return to England, I suppose—or do + you?—before you go in with Milburn?” + </p> + <p> + “I sail next week,” said Hesketh, and a great relief shot into the face of + his companion. “I have a good deal to see to over there. I shan’t get back + much before June, I fancy. And—I must tell you—I am doing the + thing very thoroughly. This business of naturalizing myself, I mean. I am + going to marry that very charming girl—a great friend of yours, by + the way, I know her to be—Miss Milburn.” + </p> + <p> + For accepting the strokes of fate we have curiously trivial + demonstrations. Lorne met Hesketh’s eye with the steadiness of a lion’s in + his own; the unusual thing he did was to take his hands out of his pockets + and let his arms hang loosely by his side. It was as tragic a gesture of + helplessness as if he had flung them above his head. + </p> + <p> + “Dora is going to marry you?” + </p> + <p> + “I believe she will do me that honour. And I consider it an honour. Miss + Milburn will compare with any English girl I ever met. But I half expected + you to congratulate me. I know she wrote to you this morning—you + were one of the first.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall probably find the letter,” said Lorne mechanically, “when I go + home.” + </p> + <p> + He still eyed Hesketh narrowly, as if he had somewhere concealed about him + the explanation of this final bitter circumstance. He had a desire not to + leave him, to stand and parley—to go upstairs to the office would be + to plunge into the gulf. He held back from that and leaned against the + door frame, crossing his arms and looking over into the market-place for + subjects to postpone Hesketh’s departure. They talked of various matters + in sight, Hesketh showing the zest of his newly determined citizenship in + every observation—the extension of the electric tramway, the pulling + down of the old Fire Hall. In one consciousness Lorne made concise and + relevant remarks; in another he sat in a spinning dark world and waited + for the crash. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to come when Hesketh said, preparing to go, “I’ll tell Miss + Milburn I saw you. I suppose this change in your political prospects won’t + affect your professional plans in any way you’ll stick on here, at the + Bar?” + </p> + <p> + It was the very shock of calamity, and for the instant he could see + nothing in the night of it but one far avenue of escape, a possibility he + had never thought of seriously until that moment. The conception seemed to + form itself on his lips, to be involuntary. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know. A college friend has been pressing me for some time to join + him in Milwaukee. He offers me plenty of work, and I am thinking seriously + of closing with him.” + </p> + <p> + “Go over to the United States? You can’t mean that!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes—it’s the next best thing!” + </p> + <p> + Hesketh’s face assumed a gravity, a look of feeling and of remonstrance. + He came a step nearer and put a hand on his companion’s arm. + </p> + <p> + “Come now, Murchison,” he said, “I ask you—is this a time to be + thinking of chucking the Empire?” + </p> + <p> + Lorne moved farther into the passage with an abruptness which left his + interlocutor staring. He stood there for a moment in silence, and then + turned to mount the stair with a reply which a passing dray happily + prevented from reaching Hesketh’s ears. + </p> + <p> + “No, damn you,” he said. “It’s not!” + </p> + <p> + I cannot let him finish on that uncontrolled phrase, though it will be + acknowledged that his provocation was great. Nor must we leave him in + heavy captivity to the thought of oblivion in the unregarding welter of + the near republic, of plunging into more strenuous activities and + abandoning his ideal, in queer inverted analogy to the refuging of weak + women in a convent. We know that his ideal was strong enough to reassert + itself, under a keen irony of suggestion, in the very depth of his + overwhelming: and the thing that could rise in him at that black moment + may be trusted, perhaps, to reclaim his fortitude and reconsecrate his + energy when these things come again into the full current of his life. The + illness that, after two or three lagging days, brought him its merciful + physical distraction was laid in the general understanding at the door of + his political disappointment; and, among a crowd of sympathizers confined + to no party, Horace Williams, as his wife expressed it, was pretty nearly + wild during its progress. The power of the press is regrettably small in + such emergencies, but what restoration it had Horace anxiously + administered; the Express published a daily bulletin. The second election + passed only half-noticed by the Murchison family; Carter very nearly + re-established the Liberal majority. The Dominion dwelt upon this repeated + demonstration of the strength of Reform principles in South Fox, and Mrs + Murchison said they were welcome to Carter. + </p> + <p> + Many will sympathize with Mrs Murchison at this point, I hope, and regret + to abandon her in such equivocal approval of the circumstances which have + arisen round her. Too anxiously occupied at home to take her share in the + general pleasant sensation of Dr Drummond’s marriage, she was compelled to + give it a hurried consideration and a sanction which was practically + wrested from her. She could not be clear as to the course of events that + led to it, nor entirely satisfied, as she said, about the ins and outs of + the affair; this although she felt she could be clearer, and possibly had + better grounds for being satisfied, than other people. As to Advena’s + simple statement that Miss Cameron had made a second choice of the Doctor, + changing her mind, as far as Mrs Murchison could see, without rhyme or + reason, that Mrs Murchison took leave to find a very poor explanation. + Advena’s own behaviour toward the rejection is one of the things which her + mother declares, probably truly, that she never will understand. To pick + up a man in the actual fling of being thrown over, will never, in Mrs + Murchison’s eyes, constitute a decorous proceeding. I suppose she thinks + the creature might have been made to wait at least until he had found his + feet. She professes to cherish no antagonism to her future son-in-law on + this account, although, as she says, it’s a queer way to come into a + family; and she makes no secret of her belief that Miss Cameron showed + excellent judgement in doing as she did, however that far-seeing woman + came to have the opportunity. + </p> + <p> + Hesketh had sailed before Lorne left his room, to return in June to those + privileges and prospects of citizenship which he so eminently deserves to + enjoy. When her brother’s convalescence and departure for Florida had + untied her tongue, Stella widely proclaimed her opinion that Mr Hesketh’s + engagement to Miss Milburn was the most suitable thing that could be + imagined or desired. We know the youngest Miss Murchison to be inclined to + impulsive views; but it would be safe, I think, to follow her here. Now + that the question no longer circles in the actual vortex of Elgin politics + Mr Octavius Milburn’s attitude toward the conditions of imperial + connection has become almost as mellow as ever. Circumstances may arise + any day, however, to stir up that latent bitterness which is so potential + in him: and then I fear there will be no restraining him from again + attacking Wallingham in the papers. + </p> + <p> + Henry Cruickshank, growing old in his eminence and less secure, perhaps, + in the increasing conflict of loud voices, of his own grasp of the + ultimate best, fearing too, no doubt, the approach of that cynicism which, + moral or immoral, is the real hoar of age, wrote to young Murchison while + he was still examining the problems of the United States with the + half-heart of the alien, and offered him a partnership. The terms were so + simple and advantageous as only to be explicable on the grounds I have + mentioned, though no phrase suggested them in the brief formulas of the + letter, in which one is tempted to find the individual parallel of certain + propositions of a great government also growing old. The offer was + accepted, not without emotion, and there, too, it would be good to trace + the parallel, were we permitted; but for that it is too soon, or perhaps + it is too late. Here, for Lorne and for his country, we lose the thread of + destiny. The shuttles fly, weaving the will of the nations, with a skein + for ever dipped again; and he goes forth to his share in the task among + those by whose hand and direction the pattern and the colours will be + made. + </p> + <p> + END <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Imperialist, by +(a.k.a. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Imperialist + +Author: (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5301] +Posting Date: April 21, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST *** + + + + +Produced by Gardner Buchanan + + + + + +THE IMPERIALIST + + +By Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1861-1922 (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes) + + +1904 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +It would have been idle to inquire into the antecedents, or even the +circumstances, of old Mother Beggarlegs. She would never tell; the +children, at all events, were convinced of that; and it was only the +children, perhaps, who had the time and the inclination to speculate. +Her occupation was clear; she presided like a venerable stooping hawk, +over a stall in the covered part of the Elgin market-place, where she +sold gingerbread horses and large round gingerbread cookies, and brown +sticky squares of what was known in all circles in Elgin as taffy. She +came, it was understood, with the dawn; with the night she vanished, +spending the interval on a not improbable broomstick. Her gingerbread +was better than anybody's; but there was no comfort in standing, first +on one foot and then on the other, while you made up your mind--the +horses were spirited and you could eat them a leg at a time, but there +was more in the cookies--she bent such a look on you, so fierce and +intolerant of vacillation. She belonged to the group of odd characters, +rarer now than they used to be, etched upon the vague consciousness of +small towns as in a way mysterious and uncanny; some said that Mother +Beggarlegs was connected with the aristocracy and some that she had been +"let off" being hanged. The alternative was allowed full swing, but in +any case it was clear that such persons contributed little to the common +good and, being reticent, were not entertaining. So you bought your +gingerbread, concealing, as it were, your weapons, paying your copper +coins with a neutral nervous eye, and made off to a safe distance, +whence you turned to shout insultingly, if you were an untrounced young +male of Elgin, "Old Mother Beggarlegs! Old Mother Beggarlegs!" And why +"Beggarlegs" nobody in the world could tell you. It might have been +a dateless waggery, or it might have been a corruption of some more +dignified surname, but it was all she ever got. Serious, meticulous +persons called her "Mrs" Beggarlegs, slightly lowering their voices and +slurring it, however, it must be admitted. The name invested her with +a graceless, anatomical interest, it penetrated her wizened black and +derisively exposed her; her name went far indeed to make her dramatic. +Lorne Murchison, when he was quite a little boy was affected by this +and by the unfairness of the way it singled her out. Moved partly by +the oppression of the feeling and partly by a desire for information +he asked her sociably one day, in the act of purchase, why the gilt was +generally off her gingerbread. He had been looking long, as a matter +of fact, for gingerbread with the gilt on it, being accustomed to the +phrase on the lips of his father in connection with small profits. +Mother Beggarlegs, so unaccustomed to politeness that she could not +instantly recognize it, answered him with an imprecation at which he, +no doubt, retreated, suddenly thrown on the defensive hurling the usual +taunt. One prefers to hope he didn't, with the invincible optimism one +has for the behaviour of lovable people; but whether or not his kind +attempt at colloquy is the first indication I can find of that active +sympathy with the disabilities of his fellow-beings which stamped him +later so intelligent a meliorist. Even in his boy's beginning he had a +heart for the work; and Mother Beggarlegs, but for a hasty conclusion, +might have made him a friend. + +It is hard to invest Mother Beggarlegs with importance, but the date +helps me--the date I mean, of this chapter about Elgin; she was a person +to be reckoned with on the twenty-fourth of May. I will say at once, for +the reminder to persons living in England that the twenty-fourth of May +was the Queen's Birthday. Nobody in Elgin can possibly have forgotten +it. The Elgin children had a rhyme about it-- + + The twenty-fourth of May + Is the Queen's Birthday; + If you don't give us a holiday, + We'll all run away. + +But Elgin was in Canada. In Canada the twenty-fourth of May WAS the +Queen's Birthday; and these were times and regions far removed from the +prescription that the anniversary "should be observed" on any of those +various outlying dates which by now, must have produced in her immediate +people such indecision as to the date upon which Her Majesty really +did come into the world. That day, and that only, was the observed, the +celebrated, a day with an essence in it, dawning more gloriously than +other days and ending more regretfully, unless, indeed, it fell on a +Sunday when it was "kept" on the Monday, with a slightly clouded feeling +that it wasn't exactly the same thing. Travelled persons, who had spent +the anniversary there, were apt to come back with a poor opinion of +its celebration in "the old country"--a pleasant relish to the +more-than-ever appreciated advantages of the new, the advantages +that came out so by contrast. More space such persons indicated, more +enterprise they boasted, and even more loyalty they would flourish, +all with an affectionate reminiscent smile at the little ways of a +grandmother. A "Bank" holiday, indeed! Here it was a real holiday, that +woke you with bells and cannon--who has forgotten the time the ancient +piece of ordnance in "the Square" blew out all the windows in the +Methodist church?--and went on with squibs and crackers till you didn't +know where to step on the sidewalks, and ended up splendidly with +rockets and fire-balloons and drunken Indians vociferous on their way to +the lock-up. Such a day for the hotels, with teams hitched three abreast +in front of their aromatic barrooms; such a day for the circus, with +half the farmers of Fox County agape before the posters--with all their +chic and shock they cannot produce such posters nowadays, nor are there +any vacant lots to form attractive backgrounds--such a day for Mother +Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for eating and +drinking, were the only places in which business was done; the public +sentiment put universal shutters up, but the public appetite insisted +upon excepting the means to carnival. An air of ceremonial festivity +those fastened shutters gave; the sunny little town sat round them, +important and significant, and nobody was ever known to forget that they +were up, and go on a fool's errand. No doubt they had an impressiveness +for the young countryfolk that strolled up and down Main Street in their +honest best, turning into Snow's for ice-cream when a youth was disposed +to treat. (Gallantry exacted ten-cent dishes, but for young ladies +alone, or family parties, Mrs Snow would bring five-cent quantities +almost without asking, and for very small boys one dish and the +requisite number of spoons.) There was discrimination, there was choice, +in this matter of treating. A happy excitement accompanied it, which you +could read in the way Corydon clapped his soft felt hat on his head as +he pocketed the change. To be treated--to ten-cent dishes--three times +in the course of the day by the same young man gave matter for private +reflection and for public entertainment, expressed in the broad grins of +less reckless people. I speak of a soft felt hat, but it might be more +than that: it might be a dark green one, with a feather in it; and here +was distinction, for such a hat indicated that its owner belonged to the +Independent Order of Foresters, who Would leave their spring wheat for +forty miles round to meet in Elgin and march in procession, wearing +their hats, and dazzlingly scatter upon Main Street. They gave the day +its touch of imagination, those green cocked hats; they were lyrical +upon the highways; along the prosaic sidewalks by twos and threes they +sang together. It is no great thing, a hat of any quality; but a small +thing may ring dramatic on the right metal, and in the vivid idea of +Lorne Murchison and his sister Advena a Robin Hood walked in every +Independent Forester, especially in the procession. Which shows the +risks you run if you, a person of honest livelihood and solicited vote, +adopt any portion of a habit not familiar to you, and go marching about +with a banner and a band. Two children may be standing at the first +street corner, to whom your respectability and your property may at once +become illusion and your outlawry the delightful fact. + +A cheap trip brought the Order of Green Hats to Elgin; and there were +cheap trips on this great day to persuade other persons to leave it. The +Grand Trunk had even then an idea of encouraging social combination for +change of scene, and it was quite a common thing for the operatives of +the Milburn Boiler Company to arrange to get themselves carried to the +lakeside or "the Falls" at half a dollar a head. The "hands" got it up +themselves and it was a question in Elgin whether one might sink one's +dignity and go as a hand for the sake of the fifty-cent opportunity, +a question usually decided in the negative. The social distinctions of +Elgin may not be easily appreciated by people accustomed to the rough +and ready standards of a world at the other end of the Grand Trunk; but +it will be clear at a glance that nobody whose occupation prescribed a +clean face could be expected to travel cheek by jowl, as a privilege, +with persons who were habitually seen with smutty ones, barefaced smut, +streaming out at the polite afternoon hour of six, jangling an empty +dinner pail. So much we may decide, and leave it, reflecting as we go +how simple and satisfactory, after all, are the prejudices which can +hold up such obvious justification. There was recently to be pointed +out in England the heir to a dukedom who loved stoking, and got his +face smutty by preference. He would have been deplorably subversive of +accepted conventions in Elgin; but, happily or otherwise, such persons +and such places have at present little more than an imaginative +acquaintance, vaguely cordial on the one side, vaguely critical on the +other, and of no importance in the sum. + +Polite society, to return to it, preferred the alternative of staying +at home and mowing the lawn or drinking raspberry vinegar on its own +beflagged verandah; looking forward in the afternoon to the lacrosse +match. There was nearly always a lacrosse match on the Queen's Birthday, +and it was the part of elegance to attend and encourage the home team, +as well as that of small boys, with broken straw hats, who sneaked an +entrance, and were more enthusiastic than anyone. It was "a quarter" to +get in, so the spectators were naturally composed of persons who could +afford the quarter, and persons like the young Flannigans and Finnigans, +who absolutely couldn't, but who had to be there all the same. Lorne and +Advena Murchison never had the quarter, so they witnessed few lacrosse +matches, though they seldom failed to refresh themselves by a sight +of the players after the game when, crimson and perspiring, but still +glorious in striped jerseys, their lacrosses and running shoes slung +over one shoulder, these heroes left the field. + +The Birthday I am thinking of, with Mrs Murchison as a central figure in +the kitchen, peeling potatoes for dinner, there was a lacrosse match of +some importance for the Fox County Championship and the Fox County Cup +as presented by the Member for the South Riding. Mrs Murchison remains +the central figure, nevertheless, with her family radiating from her, +gathered to help or to hinder in one of those domestic crises which +arose when the Murchisons were temporarily deprived of a "girl." +Everybody was subject to them in Elgin, everybody had to acknowledge and +face them. Let a new mill be opened, and it didn't matter what you paid +her or how comfortable you made her, off she would go, and you might +think yourself lucky if she gave a week's warning. Hard times shut down +the mills and brought her back again; but periods of prosperity were +very apt to find the ladies of Elgin where I am compelled to introduce +Mrs Murchison--in the kitchen. "You'd better get up--the girl's gone," +Lorne had stuck his head into his sister's room to announce, while +yet the bells were ringing and the rifles of the local volunteers were +spitting out the feu de joie. "I've lit the fire an' swep' out the +dining-room. You tell mother. Queen's Birthday, too--I guess Lobelia's +about as mean as they're made!" And the Murchisons had descended to face +the situation. Lorne had by then done his part, and gone out into the +chromatic possibilities of the day; but the sense of injury he had +communicated to Advena in her bed remained and expanded. Lobelia, it was +felt, had scurvily manipulated the situation--her situation, it might +have been put, if any Murchison had been in the temper for jesting. +She had taken unjustifiable means to do a more unjustifiable thing, +to secure for herself an improper and unlawful share of the day's +excitements, transferring her work, by the force of circumstances, to +the shoulders of other people since, as Mrs Murchison remarked, somebody +had to do it. Nor had she her mistress testified the excuse of fearing +unreasonable confinement. "I told her she might go when she had done her +dishes after dinner," said Mrs Murchison, "and then she had only to come +back at six and get tea--what's getting tea? I advised her to finish her +ironing yesterday, so as to be free of it today; and she said she would +be very glad to. Now, I wonder if she DID finish it!" and Mrs Murchison +put down her pan of potatoes with a thump to look in the family clothes +basket. "Not she! Five shirts and ALL the coloured things. I call it +downright deceit!" + +"I believe I know the reason she'll SAY," said Advena. "She objects to +rag carpet in her bedroom. She told me so." + +"Rag carpet--upon my word!" Mrs Murchison dropped her knife to exclaim. +"It's what her betters have to do with! I've known the day when that +very piece of rag carpet--sixty balls there were in it and every one I +sewed with my own fingers--was the best I had for my spare room, with +a bit of ingrain in the middle. Dear me!" she went on with a smile that +lightened the whole situation, "how proud I was of that performance! She +didn't tell ME she objected to rag carpet!" + +"No, Mother," Advena agreed, "she knew better." + +They were all there in the kitchen, supporting their mother, and it +seems an opportunity to name them. Advena, the eldest, stood by the long +kitchen table washing the breakfast cups in "soft" soap and hot water. +The soft soap--Mrs Murchison had a barrelful boiled every spring in +the back yard, an old colonial economy she hated to resign--made a +fascinating brown lather with iridescent bubbles. Advena poured cupfuls +of it from on high to see the foam rise, till her mother told her for +mercy's sake to get on with those dishes. She stood before a long low +window, looking out into the garden and the light, filtering through +apple branches on her face showed her strongly featured and intelligent +for fourteen. Advena was named after one grandmother; when the next +girl came Mrs Murchison, to make an end of the matter, named it Abigail, +after the other. She thought both names outlandish and acted under +protest, but hoped that now everybody would be satisfied. Lorne came +after Advena, at the period of a naive fashion of christening the young +sons of Canada in the name of her Governor-General. It was a simple +way of attesting a loyal spirit, but with Mrs Murchison more particular +motives operated. The Marquis of Lorne was not only the deputy of the +throne, he was the son-in-law of a good woman of whom Mrs Murchison +thought more, and often said it, for being the woman she was than for +being twenty times a Queen; and he had made a metrical translation of +the Psalms, several of which were included in the revised psalter for +the use of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, from which the whole +of Knox Church sang to the praise of God every Sunday. These were +circumstances that weighed with Mrs Murchison, and she called her son +after the Royal representative, feeling that she was doing well for him +in a sense beyond the mere bestowal of a distinguished and a euphonious +name, though that, as she would have willingly acknowledged, was "well +enough in its place." + +We must take this matter of names seriously; the Murchisons always did. +Indeed, from the arrival of a new baby until the important Sunday of +the christening, nothing was discussed with such eager zest and such +sustained interest as the name he should get--there was a fascinating +list at the back of the dictionary--and to the last minute it was +problematical. In Stella's case, Mrs Murchison actually changed her mind +on the way to church; and Abby, who had sat through the sermon +expecting Dorothy Maud, which she thought lovely, publicly cried with +disappointment. Stella was the youngest, and Mrs Murchison was thankful +to have a girl at last whom she could name without regard to her own +relations or anybody else's. I have skipped about a good deal, but I +have only left out two, the boys who came between Abby and Stella. In +their names the contemporary observer need not be too acute to discover +both an avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr Murchison's +political views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie nor an Oliver Mowat +could very well grow up into anything but a sound Liberal in that part +of the world without feeling himself an unendurable paradox. To christen +a baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to public attention; the +faint relaxation about the lips of Dr Drummond--the best of the +Liberals himself, though he made a great show of keeping it out of +the pulpit--recognized this, and the just perceptible stir of the +congregation proved it. Sonorously he said it. "Oliver Mowat, I baptize +thee in the Name of the Father--" The compliment should have all the +impressiveness the rite could give it, while the Murchison brothers and +sisters, a-row in the family pew, stood on one foot with excitement as +to how Oliver Mowat would take the drops that defined him. The verdict +was, on the way home, that he behaved splendidly. Alexander Mackenzie, +the year before, had roared. + +He was weeping now, at the age of seven, silently, but very copiously, +behind the woodpile. His father had finally cuffed him for importunity; +and the world was no place for a just boy, who asked nothing but +his rights. Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood +inconscient and irresponsible for any share in his black circumstances; +and his tears fell among the lichens of the stump he was bowed on till, +observing them, he began to wonder whether he could cry enough to make a +pond there, and was presently disappointed to find the source exhausted. +The Murchisons were all imaginative. + +The others, Oliver and Abby and Stella, still "tormented." Poor Alec's +rights--to a present of pocket-money on the Queen's Birthday--were +common ones, and almost statutory. How their father, sitting comfortably +with his pipe in the flickering May shadows under the golden pippin, +reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in the matter was +unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was certainly illiberal; they had a +feeling that it was illegal. A little teasing was generally necessary, +but the resistance today had begun to look ominous and Alec, as we know, +too temerarious, had retired in disorder to the woodpile. + +Oliver was wiping Advena's dishes. He exercised himself ostentatiously +upon a plate, standing in the door to be within earshot of his father. + +"Eph Wheeler," he informed his family, "Eph Wheeler, he's got +twenty-five cents, an' a English sixpence, an' a Yankee nickel. An' Mr +Wheeler's only a common working man, a lot poorer'n we are." + +Mr Murchison removed his pipe from his lips in order, apparently, to +follow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion's leading article. Oliver +eyed him anxiously. "Do, Father," he continued in logical sequence. "Aw +do." + +"Make him, Mother," said Abby indignantly. "It's the Queen's BIRTHDAY!" + +"Time enough when the butter bill's paid," said Mrs Murchison. + +"Oh the BUTTER bill! Say, Father, aren't you going to?" + +"What?" asked John Murchison, and again took out his pipe, as if this +were the first he had heard of the matter. + +"Give us our fifteen cents each to celebrate with. You can't do it under +that," Oliver added firmly. "Crackers are eight cents a packet this +year, the small size." + +"Nonsense," said Mr Murchison. The reply was definite and final, and its +ambiguity was merely due to the fact that their father disliked giving +a plump refusal. "Nonsense" was easier to say, if not to hear than "No." +Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by the pump, and +sought his brother behind the woodpile. Then he returned to the charge. + +"Look here, Father," he said, "CASH DOWN, we'll take ten." + +John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were usually impregnated +with meaning, especially in anger. "No more of this," he said. +"Celebrate fiddlesticks! Go and make yourselves of some use. You'll get +nothing from me, for I haven't got it." So saying, he went through the +kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed. His eldest son, +arriving over the backyard fence in a state of heat, was just in time +to hear him. Lorne's apprehension of the situation was instant, and his +face fell, but the depression plainly covered such splendid spirits that +his brother asked resentfully, "Well, what's the matter with YOU?" + +"Matter? Oh, not much. I'm going to see the Cayugas beat the Wanderers, +that's all; an' Abe Mackinnon's mother said he could ask me to come back +to tea with them. Can I, Mother?" + +"There's no objection that I know of," said Mrs Murchison, shaking her +apron free of stray potato-parings, "but you won't get money for the +lacrosse match or anything else from your father today, _I_ can assure +you. They didn't do five dollars worth of business at the store all day +yesterday, and he's as cross as two sticks." + +"Oh, that's all right." Lorne jingled his pocket and Oliver took +a fascinated step toward him. "I made thirty cents this morning, +delivering papers for Fisher. His boy's sick. I did the North Ward--took +me over'n hour. Guess I can go all right, can't I?" + +"Why, yes, I suppose you can," said his mother. The others were dumb. +Oliver hunched his shoulders and kicked at the nearest thing that had +paint on it. Abby clung to the pump handle and sobbed aloud. Lorne +looked gloomily about him and went out. Making once more for the back +fence, he encountered Alexander in the recognized family retreat. "Oh, +my goodness!" he said, and stopped. In a very few minutes he was back +in the kitchen, followed sheepishly by Alexander, whose grimy face +expressed the hope that beat behind his little waistcoat. + +"Say, you kids," he announced, "Alec's got four cents, an' he says he'll +join up. This family's going to celebrate all right. Come on down town." + +No one could say that the Murchisons were demonstrative. They said +nothing, but they got their hats. Mrs Murchison looked up from her +occupation. + +"Alec," she said, "out of this house you don't go till you've washed +your face. Lorne, come here," she added in a lower voice, producing a +bunch of keys. "If you look in the right-hand corner of the top small +drawer in my bureau you'll find about twenty cents. Say nothing about +it, and mind you don't meddle with anything else. I guess the Queen +isn't going to owe it all to you." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"We've seen changes, Mr Murchison. Aye. We've seen changes." + +Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door, over +which the sign "John Murchison: Hardware," had explained thirty years of +varying commercial fortune. They had pretty well begun life together in +Elgin. John Murchison was one of those who had listened to Mr Drummond's +trial sermon, and had given his vote to "call" him to the charge. Since +then there had been few Sundays when, morning and evening, Mr Murchison +had not been in his place at the top of his pew, where his dignified +and intelligent head appeared with the isolated significance of a strong +individuality. People looked twice at John Murchison in a crowd; so did +his own children at home. Hearing some discussion of the selection of a +premier, Alec, looking earnestly at him once said, "Why don't they tell +Father to be it?" The young minister looked twice at him that morning +of the trial sermon, and asked afterward who he was. A Scotchman, Mr +Drummond was told, not very long from the old country, who had bought +the Playfair business on Main Street, and settled in the "Plummer +Place," which already had a quarter of a century's standing in the +annals of the town. The Playfair business was a respectable business to +buy; the Plummer Place, though it stood in an unfashionable outskirt, +was a respectable place to settle in; and the minister, in casting his +lot in Elgin, envisaged John Murchison as part of it, thought of him +confidently as a "dependance," saw him among the future elders and +office-bearers of the congregation, a man who would be punctual with his +pew-rent, sage in his judgements, and whose views upon church attendance +would be extended to his family. + +So the two came, contemporaries, to add their labour and their lives +to the building of this little outpost of Empire. It was the frankest +transfer, without thought of return; they were there to spend and be +spent within the circumference of the spot they had chosen, with no +ambition beyond. In the course of nature, even their bones and their +memories would enter into the fabric. The new country filled their eyes; +the new town was their opportunity, its destiny their fate. They were +altogether occupied with its affairs, and the affairs of the growing +Dominion, yet obscure in the heart of each of them ran the undercurrent +of the old allegiance. They had gone the length of their tether, but the +tether was always there. Thus, before a congregation that always stood +in the early days, had the minister every Sunday morning for thirty +years besought the Almighty, with ardour and humility, on behalf of the +Royal Family. It came in the long prayer, about the middle. Not in the +perfunctory words of a ritual, but in the language of his choice, which +varied according to what he believed to be the spiritual needs of the +reigning House, and was at one period, touching certain of its members, +though respectful, extremely candid. The General Assembly of the Church +of Scotland, "now in session," also--was it ever forgotten once? And +even the Prime Minister, "and those who sit in council with him," with +just a hint of extra commendation if it happened to be Mr Gladstone. The +minister of Knox Church, Elgin, Ontario, Canada, kept his eye on them +all. Remote as he was, and concerned with affairs of which they could +know little, his sphere of duty could never revolve too far westward to +embrace them, nor could his influence, under any circumstances, cease +to be at their disposal. It was noted by some that after Mr Drummond had +got his D.D. from an American University he also prayed occasionally +for the President of the neighbouring republic; but this was rebutted +by others, who pointed out that it happened only on the occurrence of +assassinations, and held it reasonable enough. The cavillers mostly +belonged to the congregation of St Andrew's, "Established"--a glum, +old-fashioned lot indeed--who now and then dropped in of a Sunday +evening to hear Mr Drummond preach. (There wasn't much to be said for +the preaching at St Andrew's.) The Established folk went on calling the +minister of Knox Church "Mr" Drummond long after he was "Doctor" to his +own congregation, on account of what they chose to consider the dubious +source of the dignity; but the Knox Church people had their own theory +to explain this hypercriticism, and would promptly turn the conversation +to the merits of the sermon. + +Twenty-five years it was, in point, this Monday morning when the +Doctor--not being Established we need not hesitate, besides by this time +nobody did--stood with Mr Murchison in the store door and talked about +having seen changes. He had preached his anniversary sermon the night +before to a full church when, laying his hand upon his people's +heart, he had himself to repress tears. He was aware of another +strand completed in their mutual bond: the sermon had been a moral, +an emotional, and an oratorical success; and in the expansion of the +following morning Dr Drummond had remembered that he had promised his +housekeeper a new gas cooking-range, and that it was high time he should +drop into Murchison's to inquire about it. Mrs Forsyth had mentioned at +breakfast that they had ranges with exactly the improvement she wanted +at Thompson's, but the minister was deaf to the hint. Thompson was a +Congregationalist and, improvement or no improvement, it wasn't likely +that Dr Drummond was going "outside the congregation" for anything he +required. It would have been on a par with a wandering tendency in his +flock, upon which he systematically frowned. He was as great an autocrat +in this as the rector of any country parish in England undermined by +Dissent; but his sense of obligation worked unfailingly both ways. + +John Murchison had not said much about the sermon; it wasn't his way, +and Dr Drummond knew it. "You gave us a good sermon last night, Doctor"; +not much more than that, and "I noticed the Milburns there; we don't +often get Episcopalians"; and again, "The Wilcoxes"--Thomas Wilcox, +wholesale grocer, was the chief prop of St Andrew's--"were sitting just +in front of us. We overtook them going home, and Wilcox explained how +much they liked the music. 'Glad to see you,' I said. 'Glad to see you +for any reason,'" Mr Murchison's eye twinkled. "But they had a +great deal to say about 'the music.'" It was not an effusive form of +felicitation; the minister would have liked it less if it had been, +felt less justified, perhaps, in remembering about the range on that +particular morning. As it was, he was able to take it with perfect +dignity and good humour, and to enjoy the point against the Wilcoxes +with that laugh of his that did everybody good to hear; so hearty it +was, so rich in the grain of the voice, so full of the zest and flavour +of the joke. The range had been selected, and their talk of changes had +begun with it, Mr Murchison pointing out the new idea in the boiler and +Dr Drummond remembering his first kitchen stove that burned wood and +stood on its four legs, with nothing behind but the stove pipe, and if +you wanted a boiler you took off the front lids and put it on, and how +remarkable even that had seemed to his eyes, fresh from the conservative +kitchen notions of the old country. He had come, unhappily, a widower +to the domestic improvements on the other side of the Atlantic. "Often +I used to think," he said to Mr Murchison, "if my poor wife could have +seen that stove how delighted she would have been! But I doubt this +would have been too much for her altogether!" + +"That stove!" answered Mr Murchison. "Well I remember it. I sold it +myself to your predecessor, Mr Wishart, for thirty dollars--the last +purchase he ever made, poor man. It was great business for me--I +had only two others in the store like it. One of them old Milburn +bought--the father of this man, d'ye mind him?--the other stayed by me a +matter of seven years. I carried a light stock in those days." + +It was no longer a light stock. The two men involuntarily glanced round +them for the satisfaction of the contrast Murchison evoked, though +neither of them, from motives of vague delicacy, felt inclined to dwell +upon it. John Murchison had the shyness of an artist in his commercial +success, and the minister possibly felt that his relation toward +the prosperity of a member had in some degree the embarrassment of a +tax-gatherer's. The stock was indeed heavy now. You had to go upstairs +to see the ranges, where they stood in rows, and every one of them +bore somewhere upon it, in raised black letters, John Murchison's name. +Through the windows came the iterating ring on the iron from the foundry +in Chestnut Street which fed the shop, with an overflow that found its +way from one end of the country to the other. Finicking visitors to +Elgin found this wearing, but to John Murchison it was the music that +honours the conqueror of circumstances. The ground floor was given up +to the small wares of the business, chiefly imported; two or three +young men, steady and knowledgeable-looking, moved about in their shirt +sleeves among shelves and packing-cases. One of them was our friend +Alec; our other friend Oliver looked after the books at the foundry. +Their father did everything deliberately; but presently, in his own good +time, his commercial letter paper would be headed, with regard to these +two, "John Murchison and Sons." It had long announced that the business +was "Wholesale and Retail." + +Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison, considering the changes in Elgin from the +store door, did it at their leisure, the merchant with his thumbs thrust +comfortably in the armholes of his waistcoat, the minister, with that +familiar trick of his, balancing on one foot and suddenly throwing his +slight weight forward on the other. "A bundle of nerves," people called +the Doctor: to stand still would have been a penance to him; even as +he swayed backward and forward in talking, his hand must be busy at the +seals on his watch chain and his shrewd glance travelling over a dozen +things you would never dream so clever a man would take notice of. It +was a prospect of moderate commercial activity they looked out upon, +a street of mellow shopfronts on both sides, of varying height and +importance, wearing that air of marking a period, a definite stop +in growth, that so often coexists with quite a reasonable degree of +activity and independence in colonial towns. One could almost say, +standing there in the door at Murchison's, where the line of legitimate +enterprise had been overpassed and where its intention had been none +too sanguine--on the one hand in the faded, and pretentious red brick +building with the false third storey, occupied by Cleary which must have +been let at a loss to dry-goods or anything else; on the other hand +in the solid "Gregory block," opposite the market, where rents were as +certain as the dividends of the Bank of British North America. + +Main Street expressed the idea that, for the purpose of growing and +doing business, it had always found the days long enough. Drays passed +through it to the Grand Trunk station, but they passed one at a time; a +certain number of people went up and down about their affairs, but they +were never in a hurry; a street car jogged by every ten minutes or so, +but nobody ran after it. There was a decent procedure; and it was felt +that Bofield--he was dry-goods, too--in putting in an elevator was just +a little unnecessarily in advance of the times. Bofield had only two +storeys, like everybody else, and a very easy staircase, up which people +often declared they preferred to walk rather than wait in the elevator +for a young man to finish serving and work it. These, of course, were +the sophisticated people of Elgin; countryfolk, on a market day, would +wait a quarter of an hour for the young man and think nothing of it; +and I imagine Bofield found his account in the elevator, though he +did complain sometimes that such persons went up and down on frivolous +pretexts or to amuse the baby. As a matter of fact, Elgin had begun +as the centre of "trading" for the farmers of Fox County, and had soon +over-supplied that limit in demand; so that when other interests added +themselves to the activity of the town there was still plenty of room +for the business they brought. Main Street was really, therefore, not a +fair index; nobody in Elgin would have admitted it. Its appearance and +demeanour would never have suggested that it was now the chief artery +of a thriving manufacturing town, with a collegiate institute, eleven +churches, two newspapers, and an asylum for the deaf and dumb, to +say nothing of a fire department unsurpassed for organization and +achievement in the Province of Ontario. Only at twelve noon it might be +partly realized when the prolonged "toots" of seven factory whistles at +once let off, so to speak, the hour. Elgin liked the demonstration; it +was held to be cheerful and unmistakable, an indication of "go-ahead" +proclivities which spoke for itself. It occurred while yet Dr Drummond +and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door. + +"I must be getting on," said the minister, looking at his watch. "And +what news have you of Lorne?" + +"Well, he seems to have got through all right." + +"What--you've heard already, then?" + +"He telegraphed from Toronto on Saturday night." Mr Murchison stroked +his chin, the better to retain his satisfaction. "Waste of money--the +post would have brought it this morning--but it pleased his mother. Yes, +he's through his Law Schools examination, and at the top, too, as far as +I can make out." + +"Dear me, and you never mentioned it!" Dr Drummond spoke with the +resigned impatience of a familiar grievance. It was certainly a trying +characteristic of John Murchison that he never cared about communicating +anything that might seem to ask for congratulation. "Well, well! I'm +very glad to hear it." + +"It slipped my mind," said Mr Murchison. "Yes, he's full-fledged +'barrister and solicitor' now; he can plead your case or draw you up a +deed with the best of them. Lorne's made a fair record, so far. We've no +reason to be ashamed of him." + +"That you have not." Personal sentiments between these two Scotchmen +were indicated rather than indulged. "He's going in with Fulke and +Warner, I suppose--you've got that fixed up?" + +"Pretty well. Old man Warner was in this morning to talk it over. He +says they look to Lorne to bring them in touch with the new generation. +It's a pity he lost that son of his." + +"Oh, a great pity. But since they had to go outside the firm they +couldn't have done better; they couldn't have done better. I hope Lorne +will bring them a bit of Knox Church business too; there's no reason why +Bob Mackintosh should have it all. They'll be glad to see him back at +the Hampden Debating Society. He's a great light there, is Lorne; and +the Young Liberals, I hear are wanting him for chairman this year." + +"There's some talk of it. But time enough--time enough for that! He'll +do first-rate if he gets the law to practise, let alone the making of +it." + +"Maybe so; he's young yet. Well, good morning to you. I'll just step +over the way to the Express office and get a proof out of them of +that sermon of mine. I noticed their reporter fellow--what's his +name?--Rawlins, with his pencil out last night, and I've no faith in +Rawlins." + +"Better cast an eye over it," responded Mr Murchison cordially, and +stood for a moment or two longer in the door watching the crisp, +significant little figure of the minister as he stepped briskly over the +crossing to the newspaper office. There Dr Drummond sat down, before he +explained his errand, and wrote a paragraph. + +"We are pleased to learn," it ran "that Mr Lorne Murchison, eldest son +of Mr John Murchison, of this town, has passed at the capital of the +Province his final examination in Law, distinguishing himself by coming +out at the top of the list. It will be remembered that Mr Murchison, +upon entering the Law Schools, also carried off a valuable scholarship. +We are glad to be able to announce that Mr Murchison, Junior, will +embark upon his profession in his native town, where he will enter the +well-known firm of Fulke and Warner." + +The editor, Mr Horace Williams, had gone to dinner, and Rawlins was out +so Dr Drummond had to leave it with the press foreman. Mr Williams read +it appreciatively on his return, and sent it down with the following +addition: + +"This is doing it as well as it can be done. Elgin congratulates Mr L. +Murchison upon having produced these results, and herself upon having +produced Mr L. Murchison." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +From the day she stepped into it Mrs Murchison knew that the Plummer +Place was going to be the bane of her existence. This may have been +partly because Mr Murchison had bought it, since a circumstance welded +like that into one's life is very apt to assume the character of a bane, +unless one's temperament leads one to philosophy, which Mrs Murchison's +didn't. But there were other reasons more difficult to traverse: it was +plainly true that the place did require a tremendous amount of "looking +after," as such things were measured in Elgin, far more looking after +than the Murchisons could afford to give it. They could never have +afforded, in the beginning, to possess it had it not been sold, under +mortgage, at a dramatic sacrifice. The house was a dignified old affair, +built of wood and painted white, with wide green verandahs compassing +the four sides of it, as they often did in days when the builder had +only to turn his hand to the forest. It stood on the very edge of +the town; wheatfields in the summer billowed up to its fences, and +corn-stacks in the autumn camped around it like a besieging army. The +plank sidewalk finished there; after that you took the road or, if you +were so inclined, the river, into which you could throw a stone from +the orchard of the Plummer Place. The house stood roomily and shadily in +ornamental grounds, with a lawn in front of it and a shrubbery at each +side, an orchard behind, and a vegetable garden, the whole intersected +by winding gravel walks, of which Mrs Murchison was wont to say that +a man might do nothing but weed them and have his hands full. In the +middle of the lawn was a fountain, an empty basin with a plaster Triton, +most difficult to keep looking respectable and pathetic in his frayed +air of exile from some garden of Italy sloping to the sea. There was +also a barn with stabling, a loft, and big carriage doors opening on a +lane to the street. The originating Plummer, Mrs Murchison often said, +must have been a person of large ideas, and she hoped he had the money +to live up to them. The Murchisons at one time kept a cow in the barn, +till a succession of "girls" left on account of the milking, and the +lane was useful as an approach to the backyard by the teams that brought +the cordwood in the winter. It was trying enough for a person with +the instinct of order to find herself surrounded by out-of-door +circumstances which she simply could not control but Mrs Murchison often +declared that she could put up with the grounds if it had stopped there. +It did not stop there. Though I was compelled to introduce Mrs Murchison +in the kitchen, she had a drawing-room in which she might have received +the Lieutenant-Governor, with French windows and a cut-glass chandelier, +and a library with an Italian marble mantelpiece. She had an icehouse +and a wine cellar, and a string of bells in the kitchen that connected +with every room in the house; it was a negligible misfortune that not +one of them was in order. She had far too much, as she declared, for +any one pair of hands and a growing family, and if the ceiling was not +dropping in the drawing-room, the cornice was cracked in the library +or the gas was leaking in the dining-room, or the verandah wanted +reflooring if anyone coming to the house was not to put his foot through +it; and as to the barn, if it was dropping to pieces it would just +have to drop. The barn was definitely outside the radius of possible +amelioration--it passed gradually, visibly, into decrepitude, and Mrs +Murchison often wished she could afford to pull it down. + +It may be realized that in spite of its air of being impossible +to "overtake"--I must, in this connection, continue to quote its +mistress--there was an attractiveness about the dwelling of the +Murchisons the attractiveness of the large ideas upon which it had +been built and designed, no doubt by one of those gentlefolk of reduced +income who wander out to the colonies with a nebulous view to economy +and occupation, to perish of the readjustment. The case of such persons, +when they arrive, is at once felt to be pathetic; there is a tacit local +understanding that they have made a mistake. They may be entitled +to respect, but nothing can save them from the isolation of their +difference and their misapprehension. It was like that with the house. +The house was admired--without enthusiasm--but it was not copied. It +was felt to be outside the general need, misjudged, adventitious; and it +wore its superiority in the popular view like a folly. It was in Elgin, +but not of it: it represented a different tradition; and Elgin made the +same allowance for its bedroom bells and its old-fashioned dignities +as was conceded to its original master's habit of a six-o'clock dinner, +with wine. + +The architectural expression of the town was on a different scale, +beginning with "frame," rising through the semidetached, culminating +expensively in Mansard roofs, cupolas and modern conveniences, and +blossoming, in extreme instances, into Moorish fretwork and silk +portieres for interior decoration. The Murchison house gained by force +of contrast: one felt, stepping into it, under influences of less +expediency and more dignity, wider scope and more leisured intention; +its shabby spaces had a redundancy the pleasanter and its yellow plaster +cornices a charm the greater for the numerous close-set examples of +contemporary taste in red brick which made, surrounded by geranium beds, +so creditable an appearance in the West Ward. John Murchison in taking +possession of the house had felt in it these satisfactions, had been +definitely penetrated and soothed by them, the more perhaps because he +brought to them a capacity for feeling the worthier things of life which +circumstances had not previously developed. He seized the place with a +sense of opportunity leaping sharp and conscious out of early years +in the grey "wynds" of a northern Scottish town; and its personality +sustained him, very privately but none the less effectively, through +the worry and expense of it for years. He would take his pipe and walk +silently for long together about the untidy shrubberies in the evening, +for the acute pleasure of seeing the big horse chestnuts in flower; and +he never opened the hall door without a feeling of gratification in +its weight as it swung under his hand. In so far as he could, he +supplemented the idiosyncrasies he found. The drawing-room walls, though +mostly bare in their old-fashioned French paper--lavender and gilt, a +grape-vine pattern--held a few good engravings; the library was reduced +to contain a single bookcase, but it was filled with English classics. +John Murchison had been made a careful man, not by nature, by the +discipline of circumstances; but he would buy books. He bought them +between long periods of abstinence, during which he would scout the +expenditure of an unnecessary dollar, coming home with a parcel under +his arm for which he vouchsafed no explanation, and which would disclose +itself to be Lockhart, or Sterne, or Borrow, or Defoe. Mrs Murchison +kept a discouraging eye upon such purchases; and when her husband +brought home Chambers's Dictionary of English Literature, after shortly +and definitely repulsing her demand that he should get himself a new +winter overcoat, she declared that it was beyond all endurance. Mrs +Murchison was surrounded, indeed, by more of "that sort of thing" +than she could find use or excuse for; since, though books made but a +sporadic appearance, current literature, daily, weekly, and monthly, +was perpetually under her feet. The Toronto paper came as a matter of +course, as the London daily takes its morning flight into the provinces, +the local organ as simply indispensable, the Westminster as the +corollary of church membership and for Sunday reading. These were +constant, but there were also mutables--Once a Week, Good Words for +the Young, Blackwood's, and the Cornhill they used to be; years of back +numbers Mrs Murchison had packed away in the attic, where Advena +on rainy days came into the inheritance of them, and made an early +acquaintance with fiction in Ready Money Mortiboy and Verner's Pride, +while Lorne, flat on his stomach beside her, had glorious hours on The +Back of the North Wind. Their father considered such publications and +their successors essential, like tobacco and tea. He was also an easy +prey to the subscription agent, for works published in parts and +paid for in instalments, a custom which Mrs Murchison regarded with +abhorrence. So much so that when John put his name down for Masterpieces +of the World's Art, which was to cost twenty dollars by the time it was +complete, he thought it advisable to let the numbers accumulate at the +store. + +Whatever the place represented to their parents, it was pure joy to the +young Murchisons. It offered a margin and a mystery to life. They saw +it far larger than it was; they invested it, arguing purely by its +difference from other habitations, with a romantic past. "I guess +when the Prince of Wales came to Elgin, Mother, he stayed here," Lorne +remarked, as a little boy. Secretly he and Advena took up boards in more +than one unused room, and rapped on more than one thick wall to find a +hollow chamber; the house revealed so much that was interesting, it was +apparent to the meanest understanding that it must hide even more. +It was never half lighted, and there was a passage in which fear +dwelt--wild were the gallopades from attic to cellar in the early +nightfall, when every young Murchison tore after every other, possessed, +like cats, by a demoniac ecstasy of the gloaming. And the garden, with +the autumn moon coming over the apple trees and the neglected asparagus +thick for ambush, and a casual untrimmed boy or two with the delicious +recommendation of being utterly without credentials, to join in the rout +and be trusted to make for the back fence without further hint at the +voice of Mrs Murchison--these were joys of the very fibre, things to +push ideas and envisage life with an attraction that made it worth while +to grow up. + +And they had all achieved it--all six. They had grown up sturdily, +emerging into sobriety and decorum by much the same degrees as the old +house, under John Murchison's improving fortunes, grew cared for and +presentable. The new roof went on, slate replacing shingles, the year +Abby put her hair up; the bathroom was contemporary with Oliver's +leaving school; the electric light was actually turned on for the +first time in honour of Lorne's return from Toronto, a barrister and +solicitor; several rooms had been done up for Abby's wedding. Abby had +married, early and satisfactorily, Dr Harry Johnson, who had placidly +settled down to await the gradual succession of his father's practice; +"Dr Harry and Dr Henry" they were called. Dr Harry lived next door to +Dr Henry, and had a good deal of the old man's popular manner. It was +an unacknowledged partnership, which often provided two opinions for the +same price; the town prophesied well of it. That left only five at +home, but they always had Abby over in the West Ward, where Abby's +housekeeping made an interest and Abby's baby a point of pilgrimage. +These considerations almost consoled Mrs Murchison declaring, as she +did, that all of them might have gone but Abby, who alone knew how to be +"any comfort or any dependence" in the house; who could be left with a +day's preserving; and I tell you that to be left by Mrs Murchison with a +day's preserving, be it cherries or strawberries, damsons or pears, was +a mark of confidence not easy to obtain. Advena never had it; Advena, +indeed, might have married and removed no prop of the family economy. +Mrs Murchison would have been "sorry for the man"--she maintained +a candour toward and about those belonging to her that permitted no +illusions--but she would have stood cheerfully out of the way on her +own account. When you have seen your daughter reach and pass the age +of twenty-five without having learned properly to make her own bed, you +know without being told that she will never be fit for the management of +a house--don't you? Very well then. And for ever and for ever, no matter +what there was to do, with a book in her hand--Mrs Murchison would put +an emphasis on the "book" which scarcely concealed a contempt for such +absorption. And if, at the end of your patience, you told her for any +sake to put it down and attend to matters, obeying in a kind of dream +that generally drove you to take the thing out of her hands and do it +yourself, rather than jump out of your skin watching her. + +Sincerely Mrs Murchison would have been sorry for the man if he had +arrived, but he had not arrived. Advena justified her existence by +taking the university course for women at Toronto, and afterward +teaching the English branches to the junior forms in the Collegiate +Institute, which placed her arbitrarily outside the sphere of domestic +criticism. Mrs Murchison was thankful to have her there--outside--where +little more could reasonably be expected of her than that she should +be down in time for breakfast. It is so irritating to be justified +in expecting more than seems likely to come. Mrs Murchison's ideas +circulated strictly in the orbit of equity and reason; she expected +nothing from anybody that she did not expect from herself; indeed, she +would spare others in far larger proportion. But the sense of obligation +which led her to offer herself up to the last volt of her energy made +her miserable when she considered that she was not fairly done by in +return. Pressed down and running over were the services she offered to +the general good, and it was on the ground of the merest justice that +she required from her daughters "some sort of interest" in domestic +affairs. From her eldest she got no sort of interest, and it was +like the removal of a grievance from the hearth when Advena took up +employment which ranged her definitely beyond the necessity of being +of any earthly use in the house. Advena's occupation to some extent +absorbed her shortcomings, which was much better than having to +attribute them to her being naturally "through-other," or naturally +clever, according to the bias of the moment. Mrs Murchison no longer +excused or complained of her daughter; but she still pitied the man. + +"The boys," of course, were too young to think of matrimony. They were +still the boys, the Murchison boys; they would be the boys at forty if +they remained under their father's roof. In the mother country, men in +short jackets and round collars emerge from the preparatory schools; in +the daughter lands boys in tailcoats conduct serious affairs. Alec +and Oliver, in the business, were frivolous enough as to the feminine +interest. For all Dr Drummond's expressed and widely known views upon +the subject, it was a common thing for one or both of these young men +to stray from the family pew on Sunday evenings to the services of other +communions, thereafter to walk home in the dusk under the maples with +some attractive young person, and be sedately invited to finish the +evening on her father's verandah. Neither of them was guiltless of silk +ties knitted or handkerchiefs initialled by certain fingers; without +repeating scandal, one might say by various fingers. For while the +ultimate import of these matters was not denied in Elgin, there was +a general feeling against giving too much meaning to them, probably +originating in a reluctance among heads of families to add to their +responsibilities. These early spring indications were belittled and +laughed at; so much so that the young people them selves hardly +took them seriously, but regarded them as a form of amusement almost +conventional. Nothing would have surprised or embarrassed them more +than to learn that their predilections had an imperative corollary, +that anything should, of necessity, "come of it." Something, of course, +occasionally did come of it; and, usually after years of "attention," a +young man of Elgin found himself mated to a young woman, but never under +circumstances that could be called precipitate or rash. The cautious +blood and far sight of the early settlers, who had much to reckon with, +were still preponderant social characteristics of the town they cleared +the site for. Meanwhile, however, flowers were gathered, and all sorts +of evanescent idylls came and went in the relations of young men and +maidens. Alec and Oliver Murchison were already in the full tide of +them. + +From this point of view they did not know what to make of Lorne. It was +not as if their brother were in any way ill calculated to attract that +interest which gave to youthful existence in Elgin almost the only +flavour that it had. Looks are looks, and Lorne had plenty of them; +taller by an inch than Alec, broader by two than Oliver, with a fine +square head and blue eyes in it, and features which conveyed purpose and +humour, lighted by a certain simplicity of soul that pleased even when +it was not understood. "Open," people said he was, and "frank"--so he +was, frank and open, with horizons and intentions; you could see them in +his face. Perhaps it was more conscious of them than he was. Ambition, +definitely shining goals, adorn the perspectives of young men in new +countries less often than is commonly supposed. Lorne meant to be a good +lawyer, squarely proposed to himself that the country should hold no +better; and as to more selective usefulness, he hoped to do a little +stumping for the right side when Frank Jennings ran for the Ontario +House in the fall. It wouldn't be his first electioneering: from the day +he became chairman of the Young Liberals the party had an eye on him, +and when occasion arose, winter or summer, by bobsleigh or buggy, +weatherbeaten local bosses would convey him to country schoolhouses for +miles about to keep a district sound on railway policy, or education, +or tariff reform. He came home smiling with the triumphs of these +occasions, and offered them, with the slow, good-humoured, capable drawl +that inspired such confidence in him, to his family at breakfast, who +said "Great!" or "Good for you, Lorne!" John Murchison oftenest said +nothing, but would glance significantly at his wife, frowning and +pursing his lips when she, who had most spirit of them all, would +exclaim, "You'll be Premier yet, Lorne!" It was no part of the Murchison +policy to draw against future balances: they might believe everything, +they would express nothing; and I doubt whether Lorne himself had any +map of the country he meant to travel over in that vague future, already +defining in local approbation, and law business coming freely in with +a special eye on the junior partner. But the tract was there, +subconscious, plain in the wider glance, the alerter manner; plain even +in the grasp and stride which marked him in a crowd; plain, too, in the +preoccupation with other issues, were it only turning over a leader +in the morning's Dominion, that carried him along indifferent to the +allurements I have described. The family had a bond of union in their +respect for Lorne, and this absence of nugatory inclinations in him +was among its elements. Even Stella who, being just fourteen, was the +natural mouthpiece of family sentiment, would declare that Lorne had +something better to do than go hanging about after girls, and for her +part she thought all the more of him for it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"I am requested to announce," said Dr Drummond after the singing of the +last hymn, "the death, yesterday morning, of James Archibald Ramsay, +for fifteen years an adherent and for twenty-five years a member of this +church. The funeral will take place from the residence of the deceased, +on Court House Street, tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. Friends and +acquaintances are respectfully--invited--to attend." + +The minister's voice changed with the character of its affairs. Still +vibrating with the delivery of his sermon, it was now charged with the +official business of the interment. In its inflections it expressed both +elegy and eulogy; and in the brief pause before and after "invited" and +the fall of "attend" there was the last word of comment upon the mortal +term. A crispation of interest passed over the congregation; every chin +was raised. Dr Drummond's voice had a wonderful claiming power, but he +often said he wished his congregation would pay as undivided attention +to the sermon as they did to the announcements. + +"The usual weekly prayer meeting will be held in the basement of the +church on Wednesday evening." Then almost in a tone of colloquy, and +with just a hint of satire about his long upper lip-- + +"I should be glad to see a better attendance of the young people at +these gatherings. Time was when the prayer meeting counted among our +young men and women as an occasion not to be lightly passed over. In +these days it would seem that there is too much business to be done, or +too much pleasure to be enjoyed, for the oncoming generation to remember +their weekly engagement with the Lord. This is not as it should be; and +I rely upon the fathers and mothers of this congregation, who brought +these children in their arms to the baptismal font, there to be admitted +to the good hopes and great privileges of the Church of God--I rely upon +them to see that there shall be no departure from the good old rule, and +that time is found for the weekly prayer meeting." + +Mrs Murchison nudged Stella, who returned the attention, looking +elaborately uninterested, with her foot. Alec and Oliver smiled +consciously; their father, with an expression of severe gravity, backed +up the minister who, after an instant's pause, continued-- + +"On Tuesday afternoon next, God willing, I shall visit the following +families in the East Ward--Mr Peterson, Mr Macormack, Mrs Samuel Smith, +and Mr John Flint. On Thursday afternoon in the South Ward, Mrs Reid, +Mr P. C. Cameron, and Mr Murchison. We will close by singing the Third +Doxology: Blessed, blessed be Jehovah, Israel's God to all eternity--" + +The congregation trooped out; the Murchisons walked home in a clan, Mr +and Mrs Murchison, with Stella skirting the edge of the sidewalk beside +them, the two young men behind. Abby, when she married Harry, had "gone +over" to the Church of England. The wife must worship with the husband; +even Dr Drummond recognized the necessity, though he professed small +opinion of the sway of the spouse who, with Presbyterian traditions +behind her, could not achieve union the other way about; and Abby's +sanctioned defection was a matter of rather shame-faced reference by her +family. Advena and Lorne had fallen into the degenerate modern habit of +preferring the evening service. + +"So we're to have the Doctor on Thursday," said Mrs Murchison, plainly +not displeased. "Well, I hope the dining-room carpet will be down." + +"I expect he'll be wanting his tea," replied Mr Murchison. "He's got you +in the right place on the list for that, Mother--as usual." + +"I'd just like to see him go anywhere else for his tea the day he was +coming to our house," declared Stella. "But he GENERALLY has too much +sense." + +"You boys," said Mrs Murchison, turning back to her sons, "will see that +you're on hand that evening. And I hope the Doctor will rub it in about +the prayer meeting." Mrs Murchison chuckled. "I saw it went home to both +of you, and well it might. Yes, I think I may as well expect him to tea. +He enjoys my scalloped oysters, if I do say it myself." + +"We'll get Abby over," said Mr Murchison. "That'll please the Doctor." + +"I must say," remarked Stella, "he seems to think a lot more of Abby now +that she's Mrs Episcopal Johnson." + +"Yes, Abby and Harry must come," said Mrs Murchison, "and I was thinking +of inviting Mr and Mrs Horace Williams. We've been there till I'm +ashamed to look them in the face. And I've pretty well decided," she +added autocratically, "to have chicken salad. So if Dr Drummond has made +up his mouth for scalloped oysters he'll be disappointed." + +"Mother," announced Stella, "I'm perfectly certain you'll have both." + +"I'll consider it," replied her mother. "Meanwhile we would be better +employed in thinking of what we have been hearing. That's the third +sermon from the Book of Job in six weeks. I must say, with the whole of +the two Testaments to select from, I don't see why the Doctor should be +so taken up with Job." + +Stella was vindicated; Mrs Murchison did have both. The chicken salad +gleamed at one end of the table and the scalloped oysters smoked +delicious at the other. Lorne had charge of the cold tongue and Advena +was entrusted with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were +expected to think about the tea biscuits and the cake, for Lobelia had +never yet had a successor that was any hand with company. Mrs Murchison +had enough to do to pour out the tea. It was a table to do anybody +credit, with its glossy damask and the old-fashioned silver and +best china that Mrs Murchison had brought as a bride to her +housekeeping--for, thank goodness, her mother had known what was what +in such matters--a generous attractive table that you took some +satisfaction in looking at. Mrs Murchison came of a family of noted +housekeepers; where she got her charm I don't know. Six-o'clock tea, and +that the last meal in the day, was the rule in Elgin, and a good enough +rule for Mrs Murchison, who had no patience with the innovation of a +late dinner recently adopted by some people who could keep neither +their servants nor their digestions in consequence. It had been a crisp +October day; as Mr Murchison remarked, the fall evenings were beginning +to draw in early; everybody was glad of the fire in the grate and the +closed curtains. Dr Drummond had come about five, and the inquiries and +comments upon family matters that the occasion made incumbent had been +briskly exchanged, with just the word that marked the pastoral visit +and the practical interest that relieved it. And he had thought, on the +whole, that he might manage to stay to tea, at which Mrs Murchison's +eyes twinkled as she said affectionately-- + +"Now, Doctor, you know we could never let you off." + +Then Abby had arrived and her husband, and finally Mr and Mrs Williams, +just a trifle late for etiquette, but well knowing that it mustn't be +enough to spoil the biscuits. Dr Drummond in the place of honour, +had asked the blessing, and that brief reminder of the semiofficial +character of the occasion having been delivered, was in the best of +humours. The Murchisons were not far wrong in the happy divination +that he liked coming to their house. Its atmosphere appealed to him; he +expanded in its humour, its irregularity, its sense of temperament. They +were doubtful allurements, from the point of view of a minister of the +Gospel, but it would not occur to Dr Drummond to analyse them. So far +as he was aware, John Murchison was just a decent, prosperous, Christian +man, on whose word and will you might depend, and Mrs Murchison a +stirring, independent little woman, who could be very good company when +she felt inclined. As to their sons and daughters, in so far as they +were a credit, he was as proud of them as their parents could possibly +be, regarding himself as in a much higher degree responsible for the +formation of their characters and the promise of their talents. And +indeed, since every one of them had "sat under" Dr Drummond from the +day he or she was capable of sitting under anybody, Mr and Mrs Murchison +would have been the last to dispute this. It was not one of those houses +where a pastor could always be sure of leaving some spiritual benefit +behind; but then he came away himself with a pleasant sense of nervous +stimulus which was apt to take his mind off the matter. It is not given +to all of us to receive or to extend the communion of the saints; Mr +and Mrs Murchison were indubitably of the elect, but he was singularly +close-mouthed about it, and she had an extraordinary way of seeing the +humorous side--altogether it was paralysing, and the conversation would +wonderfully soon slip round to some robust secular subject, public or +domestic. I have mentioned Dr Drummond's long upper lip; all sorts +of racial virtues resided there, but his mouth was also wide and much +frequented by a critical, humorous, philosophical smile which revealed +a view of life at once kindly and trenchant. His shrewd grey eyes were +encased in wrinkles, and when he laughed his hearty laugh they almost +disappeared in a merry line. He had a fund of Scotch stories, and one +or two he was very fond of, at the expense of the Methodists, that were +known up and down the Dominion, and nobody enjoyed them more than he +did himself. He had once worn his hair in a high curl on his scholarly +forehead, and a silvering tuft remained brushed upright; he took the +old-fashioned precaution of putting cotton wool in his ears, which +gave him more than ever the look of something highly concentrated and +conserved but in no way detracted from his dignity. St Andrew's folk +accused him of vanity because of the diamond he wore on his little +finger. He was by no means handsome, but he was intensely individual; +perhaps he had vanity; his people would have forgiven him worse things. +And at Mrs Murchison's tea party he was certainly, as John Murchison +afterward said, "in fine feather." + +An absorbing topic held them, a local topic, a topic involving loss and +crime and reprisals. The Federal Bank had sustained a robbery of five +thousand dollars, and in the course of a few days had placed their +cashier under arrest for suspected complicity. Their cashier was Walter +Ormiston, the only son of old Squire Ormiston, of Moneida Reservation, +ten miles out of Elgin, who had administered the affairs of the Indians +there for more years than the Federal Bank had existed. Mr Williams +brought the latest news, as was to be expected; news flowed in rivulets +to Mr Williams all day long; he paid for it, dealt in it, could spread +or suppress it. + +"They've admitted the bail," Mr Williams announced, with an air of +self-surveillance. Rawlins had brought the intelligence in too late for +the current issue, and Mr Williams was divided between his human desire +to communicate and his journalistic sense that the item would be the +main feature of the next afternoon's Express. + +"I'm glad of that. I'm glad of that," repeated Dr Drummond. "Thank you, +Mrs Murchison, I'll send my cup. And did you learn, Williams, for what +amount?" + +Mr Williams ran his hand through his hair in the effort to remember, and +decided that he might as well let it all go. The Mercury couldn't fail +to get it by tomorrow anyhow. + +"Three thousand," he said. "Milburn and Dr Henry Johnson." + +"I thought Father was bound to be in it," remarked Dr Harry. + +"Half and half?" asked John Murchison. + +"No," contributed Mrs Williams. "Mr Milburn two and Dr Henry one. Mr +Milburn is Walter's uncle, you know." + +Mr Williams fastened an outraged glance on his wife, who looked another +way. Whatever he thought proper to do, it was absolutely understood that +she was to reveal nothing of what "came in," and was even carefully to +conserve anything she heard outside with a view to bringing it in. Mrs +Williams was too prone to indiscretion in the matter of letting news +slip prematurely; and as to its capture, her husband would often +confess, with private humour, that Minnie wasn't much of a mouser. + +"Well, that's something to be thankful for," said Mrs Murchison. "I lay +awake for two hours last night thinking of that boy in jail, and his +poor old father, seventy-nine years of age, and such a fine old man, so +thoroughly respected." + +"I don't know the young fellow," said Dr Drummond, "but they say he's +of good character, not over-solid, but bears a clean reputation. They're +all Tories together, of course, the Ormistons." + +"It's an old U. E. Loyalist family," remarked Advena. "Mr Ormiston has +one or two rather interesting Revolutionary trophies at his house out +there." + +"None the worse for that. None the worse for that," said Dr Drummond. + +"Old Ormiston's father," contributed the editor of the Express, "had a +Crown grant of the whole of Moneida Reservation at one time. Government +actually bought it back from him to settle the Indians there. He was a +well-known Family Compact man, and fought tooth and nail for the Clergy +Reserves in 'fifty." + +"Well, well," said Dr Drummond, with a twinkle. "We'll hope young +Ormiston is innocent, nevertheless." + +"Nasty business for the Federal Bank if he is," Mr Williams went on. +"They're a pretty unpopular bunch as it is." + +"Of course he's innocent," contributed Stella, with indignant eyes; "and +when they prove it, what can he do to the bank for taking him up? That's +what I want to know." + +Her elders smiled indulgently. "A lot you know about it, kiddie," said +Oliver. It was the only remark he made during the meal. Alec passed +the butter assiduously, but said nothing at all. Adolescence was +inarticulate in Elgin on occasions of ceremony. + +"I hear they've piled up some big evidence," said Mr Williams. "Young +Ormiston's been fool enough to do some race-betting lately. Minnie, +I wish you'd get Mrs Murchison to show you how to pickle pears. Of +course," he added, "they're keeping it up their sleeve." + +"It's a hard place to keep evidence," said Lorne Murchison at last with +a smile which seemed to throw light on the matter. They had all been +waiting, more or less consciously, for what Lorne would have to say. + +"Lorne, you've got it!" divined his mother instantly. + +"Got what, Mother?" + +"The case! I've suspected it from the minute the subject was mentioned! +That case came in today!" + +"And you sitting there like a bump on a log, and never telling us!" +exclaimed Stella, with reproach. + +"Stella, you have a great deal too much to say," replied her brother. +"Suppose you try sitting like a bump on a log. We won't complain. Yes, +the Squire seems to have made up his mind about the defence, and my +seniors haven't done much else today." + +"Rawlins saw him hitched up in front of your place for about two hours +this morning," said Mr Williams. "I told him I thought that was good +enough, but we didn't say anything, Rawlins having heard it was to be +Flynn from Toronto. And I hadn't forgotten the Grand Trunk case we put +down to you last week without exactly askin'. Your old man was as mad as +a hornet--wanted to stop his subscription; Rawlins had no end of a time +to get round him. Little things like that will creep in when you've got +to trust to one man to run the whole local show. But I didn't want the +Mercury to have another horse on us." + +"Do you think you'll get a look in, Lorne?" asked Dr Harry. + +"Oh, not a chance of it. The old man's as keen as a razor on the case, +and you'd think Warner never had one before! If I get a bit of grubbing +to do, under supervision, they'll consider I ought to be pleased." It +was the sunniest possible tone of grumbling; it enlisted your sympathy +by its very acknowledgement that it had not a leg to stand on. + +"They're pretty wild about it out Moneida way," said Dr Harry. "My +father says the township would put down the bail three times over." + +"They swear by the Squire out there," said Mr Horace Williams, liberally +applying his napkin to his moustache. "He treated some of them more than +square when the fall wheat failed three years running, about ten years +back; do you remember, Mr Murchison? Lent them money at about half the +bank rate, and wasn't in an awful sweat about getting it in at that +either." + +"And wasn't there something about his rebuilding the school-house at his +own expense not so long ago?" asked Dr Drummond. + +"Just what he did. I wanted to send Rawlins out and make a story of +it--we'd have given it a column, with full heads; but the old man didn't +like it. It's hard to know what some people will like. But it was my own +foolishness for asking. A thing like that is public property." + +"There's a good deal of feeling," said Lorne. "So much that I understand +the bank is moving for change of venue." + +"I hope they won't get it," said Dr Drummond sharply. "A strong local +feeling is valuable evidence in a case like this. I don't half approve +this notion that a community can't manage its own justice when it +happens to take an interest in the case. I've no more acquaintance with +the Squire than 'How d'ye do?' and I don't know his son from Adam; but +I'd serve on the jury tomorrow if the Crown asked it, and there's many +more like me." + +Mr Williams, who had made a brief note on his shirt cuff, restored his +pencil to his waistcoat pocket. "I shall oppose a change of venue," said +he. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +It was confidently expected by the Murchison family that when Stella was +old enough she would be a good deal in society. Stella, without doubt, +was well equipped for society; she had exactly those qualities which +appealed to it in Elgin, among which I will mention two--the quality +of being able to suggest that she was quite as good as anybody without +saying so, and the even more important quality of not being any better. +Other things being equal--those common worldly standards that prevailed +in Elgin as well as anywhere else in their degree--other things being +equal, this second simple quality was perhaps the most important of all. +Mr and Mrs Murchison made no claim and small attempt upon society. One +doubts whether, with children coming fast and hard times long at the +door, they gave the subject much consideration; but if they did, it is +highly unlikely to have occurred to them that they were too good +for their environment. Yet in a manner they were. It was a matter of +quality, of spiritual and mental fabric; they were hardly aware that +they had it, but it marked them with a difference, and a difference is +the one thing a small community, accustomed comfortably to scan its own +intelligible averages, will not tolerate. The unusual may take on +an exaggeration of these; an excess of money, an excess of piety, is +understood; but idiosyncrasy susceptible to no common translation is +regarded with the hostility earned by the white crow, modified among +law-abiding humans into tacit repudiation. It is a sound enough social +principle to distrust that which is not understood, like the strain of +temperament inarticulate but vaguely manifest in the Murchisons. Such +a strain may any day produce an eccentric or a genius, emancipated from +the common interests, possibly inimical to the general good; and when, +later on, your genius takes flight or your eccentric sells all that he +has and gives it to the poor, his fellow townsmen exchange shrewd nods +before the vindicating fact. + +Nobody knew it at all in Elgin, but this was the Murchisons' case. They +had produced nothing abnormal, but they had to prove that they weren't +going to, and Stella was the last and most convincing demonstration. +Advena, bookish and unconventional, was regarded with dubiety. She was +out of the type; she had queer satisfactions and enthusiasms. Once as a +little girl she had taken a papoose from a drunken squaw and brought it +home for her mother to adopt. Mrs Murchison's reception of the suggested +duty may be imagined, also the comments of acquaintances--a trick like +that! The inevitable hour arrived when she should be instructed on +the piano, and the second time the music teacher came her pupil was +discovered on the roof of the house, with the ladder drawn up after +her. She did not wish to learn the piano, and from that point of vantage +informed her family that it was a waste of money. She would hide in +the hayloft with a novel; she would be off by herself in a canoe at +six o'clock in the morning; she would go for walks in the rain of windy +October twilights and be met kicking the wet leaves along in front of +her "in a dream." No one could dream with impunity in Elgin, except +in bed. Mothers of daughters sympathized in good set terms with Mrs +Murchison. "If that girl were mine--" they would say, and leave you with +a stimulated notion of the value of corporal punishment. When she took +to passing examinations and teaching, Elgin considered that her parents +ought to be thankful in the probability that she had escaped some +dramatic end. But her occupation further removed her from intercourse +with the town's more exclusive circles: she had taken a definite line, +and she pursued it, preoccupied. If she was a brand snatched from the +burning, she sent up a little curl of reflection in a safe place, where +she was not further interrupted. + +Abby, inheriting all these prejudices, had nevertheless not done so +badly; she had taken no time at all to establish herself; she had almost +immediately married. In the social estimates of Elgin the Johnsons were +"nice people," Dr Henry was a fine old figure in the town, and Abby's +chances were good enough. At all events, when she opened her doors as +a bride, receiving for three afternoons in her wedding dress, everybody +had "called." It was very distinctly understood, of course, that this +was a civility that need not lead to anything whatever, a kind of bowing +recognition, to be formally returned and quite possibly to end there. +With Abby, in a good many cases, it hadn't ended there; she was doing +very well, and as she often said with private satisfaction, if she went +out anywhere she was just as likely as not to meet her brothers. Elgin +society, shaping itself, I suppose, to ultimate increase and prosperity, +had this peculiarity, that the females of a family, in general +acceptance, were apt to lag far behind the males. Alec and Oliver +enjoyed a good deal of popularity, and it was Stella's boast that if +Lorne didn't go out much it needn't be supposed he wasn't asked. It was +an accepted state of things in Elgin that young men might be invited +without their sisters, implying an imperturbability greater than +London's, since London may not be aware of the existence of sisters, +while Elgin knew all sorts of more interesting things about them. The +young men were more desirable than the young women; they forged ahead, +carrying the family fortunes, and the "nicest" of them were the young +men in the banks. Others might be more substantial, but there was an +allure about a young man in a bank as difficult to define as to resist. +To say of a certain party-giver that she had "about every bank clerk +in town" was to announce the success of her entertainment in ultimate +terms. These things are not always penetrable, but no doubt his +gentlemanly form of labour and its abridgement in the afternoons, when +other young men toiled on till the stroke of six, had something to do +with this apotheosis of the bank clerk, as well as his invariable taste +in tailoring, and the fact that some local family influence was probably +represented in his appointment. Privilege has always its last little +stronghold, and it still operates to admiration on the office stools of +minor finance in towns like Elgin. At all events, the sprouting tellers +and cashiers held unquestioned sway--young doctors and lawyers simply +didn't think of competing; and since this sort of thing carries its own +penalty, the designation which they shared with so many distinguished +persons in history became a byword on the lips of envious persons +and small boys, by which they wished to express effeminacy and the +substantive of the "stuck-up." "D'ye take me fur a bank clurk?" was +a form of repudiation among corner loafers as forcible as it was +unjustifiable. + +I seem to have embarked, by way of getting to the Milburns' party--there +is a party at the Milburns' and some of us are going--upon an analysis +of social principles in Elgin, an adventure of difficulty, as I have +once or twice hinted, but one from which I cannot well extricate myself +without at least leaving a clue or two more for the use of the curious. +No doubt these rules had their nucleus in the half-dozen families, among +whom we may count the shadowy Plummers, who took upon themselves for +Fox County, by the King's pleasure, the administration of justice, the +practice of medicine and of the law, and the performance of the charges +of the Church of England a long time ago. Such persons would bring their +lines of demarcation with them, and in their new milieu of backwoods +settlers and small traders would find no difficulty in drawing them +again. But it was a very long time ago. The little knot of gentry-folk +soon found the limitations of their new conditions; years went by in +decades, aggrandizing none of them. They took, perforce, to the ways +of the country, and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody +dined late but the Judge. There came a time when the Sheriff's whist +club and the Archdeacon's port became a tradition to the oldest +inhabitant. Trade flourished, education improved, politics changed. Her +Majesty removed her troops--the Dominion wouldn't pay, a poor-spirited +business--and a bulwark went with the regiment. The original dignified +group broke, dissolved, scattered. Prosperous traders foreclosed them, +the spirit of the times defeated them, young Liberals succeeded them in +office. Their grandsons married the daughters of well-to-do persons who +came from the north of Ireland, the east of Scotland, and the Lord knows +where. It was a sorry tale of disintegration with a cheerful sequel of +rebuilding, leading to a little unavoidable confusion as the edifice +went up. Any process of blending implies confusion to begin with; we are +here at the making of a nation. + +This large consideration must dispose of small anomalies, such as the +acceptance, without cant, of certain forms of the shop, euphemized as +the store, but containing the same old vertebral counter. Not all forms. +Dry-goods were held in respect and chemists in comparative esteem; house +furnishings and hardware made an appreciable claim, and quite a leading +family was occupied with seed grains. Groceries, on the other hand, were +harder to swallow, possibly on account of the apron, though the grocer's +apron, being of linen, had several degrees more consideration than +the shoemaker's, which was of leather; smaller trades made smaller +pretensions; Mrs Milburn could tell you where to draw the line. +They were all hard-working folk together, but they had their little +prejudices: the dentist was known as "Doc," but he was not considered +quite on a medical level; it was doubtful whether you bowed to the +piano-tuner, and quite a curious and unreasonable contempt was bound up +in the word "veterinary." Anything "wholesale" or manufacturing stood, +of course, on its own feet; there was nothing ridiculous in molasses, +nothing objectionable in a tannery, nothing amusing in soap. Such airs +and graces were far from Elgin, too fundamentally occupied with the +amount of capital invested, and too profoundly aware how hard it was to +come by. The valuable part of it all was a certain bright freedom, and +this was of the essence. Trade was a decent communal way of making a +living, rooted in independence and the general need; it had none of +the meaner aspects. Your bow was negligible to the piano-tuner, and +everything veterinary held up its head. And all this again qualified, +as everywhere, by the presence or absence of the social faculty, that +magnetic capacity for coming, as Mrs Murchison would say, "to the fore," +which makes little of disadvantages that might seem insuperable and, in +default, renders null and void the most unquestionable claims. Anyone +would think of the Delarues. Mr Delarue had in the dim past married his +milliner, yet the Delarues were now very much indeed to the fore. And, +on the other hand, the Leverets of the saw mills, rich and benevolent; +the Leverets were not in society simply, if you analysed it, because +they did not appear to expect to be in it. Certainly it was well not to +be too modest; assuredly, as Mrs Murchison said, you put your own ticket +on, though that dear soul never marked herself in very plain figures, +not knowing, perhaps for one thing, quite how much she was worth. On the +other hand, "Scarce of company, welcome trumpery," Mrs Murchison always +emphatically declared to be no part of her social philosophy. The upshot +was that the Murchisons were confined to a few old friends and looked, +as we know, half-humorously, half-ironically, for more brilliant +excursions, to Stella and "the boys." + +It was only, however, the pleasure of Mr Lorne Murchison's company that +was requested at the Milburns' dance. Almost alone among those who had +slipped into wider and more promiscuous circles with the widening of the +stream, the Milburns had made something like an effort to hold out. +The resisting power was not thought to reside in Mr Milburn, who was +personally aware of no special ground for it, but in Mrs Milburn and her +sister, Miss Filkin, who seemed to have inherited the strongest ideas. +in the phrase of the place, about keeping themselves to themselves. +A strain of this kind is sometimes constant, even so far from the +fountainhead, with its pleasing proof that such views were once the most +general and the most sacred defence of middle-class firesides, and +that Thackeray had, after all, a good deal to excuse him. Crossing +the Atlantic they doubtless suffered some dilution; but all that was +possible to conserve them under very adverse conditions Mrs Milburn +and Miss Filkin made it their duty to do. Nor were these ideas opposed, +contested, or much traversed in Elgin. It was recognized that there was +"something about" Mrs Milburn and her sister--vaguely felt--that you did +not come upon that thinness of nostril, and slope of shoulder, and set +of elbow at every corner. They must have got it somewhere. A Filkin +tradition prevailed, said to have originated in Nova Scotia: the Filkins +never had been accessible, but if they wanted to keep to themselves, let +them. In this respect Dora Milburn, the only child, was said to be her +mother's own daughter. The shoulders, at all events, testified to it; +and the young lady had been taught to speak, like Mrs Milburn, with what +was known as an "English accent." The accent in general use in Elgin was +borrowed--let us hope temporarily--from the other side of the line. It +suffered local modifications and exaggerations, but it was clearly an +American product. The English accent was thoroughly affected, especially +the broad "a." The time may come when Elgin will be at considerable +pains to teach itself the broad "a," but that is in the embroidery of +the future, and in no way modifies the criticism of Dora Milburn. + +Lorne Murchison, however, was invited to the dance. The invitation +reached him through the post: coming home from office early on Saturday +he produced it from his pocket. Mrs Murchison and Abby sat on the +verandah enjoying the Indian summer afternoon; the horse chestnuts +dropped crashing among the fallen leaves, the roadside maples blazed, +the quiet streets ran into smoky purple, and one belated robin hopped +about the lawn. Mrs Murchison had just remarked that she didn't know +why, at this time of year, you always felt as if you were waiting for +something. + +"Well, I hope you feel honoured," remarked Abby. Not one of them +would have thought that Lorne should feel especially honoured; but the +insincerity was so obvious that it didn't matter. Mrs Murchison, cocking +her head to read the card, tried hard not to look pleased. + +"Mrs Milburn. At Home," she read. "Dancing. Well she might be at home +dancing, for all me! Why couldn't she just write you a little friendly +note, or let Dora do it? It's that Ormiston case," she went on shrewdly. +"They know you're taking a lot of trouble about it. And the least they +could do, too." + +Lorne sat down on the edge of the verandah with his hands in his +trousers pockets, and stuck his long legs out in front of him. "Oh, I +don't know," he said. "They have the name of being nifty, but I haven't +got anything against the Milburns." + +"Name!" ejaculated Mrs Murchison. "Now long ago was it the Episcopalians +began that sewing-circle business for the destitute clergy of +Saskatchewan?" + +"Mother!" put in Abby, with deprecation. + +"Well, I won't be certain about the clergy, but I tell you it had to do +with Saskatchewan, for that I remember! And anyhow, the first meeting +was held at the Milburns'--members lent their drawing-rooms. Well, Mrs +Leveret and Mrs Delarue went to the meeting--they were very thick just +then, the Leverets and the Delarues. They were so pleased to be going +that they got there about five minutes too soon, and they were the first +to come. Well, they rang the bell and in they went. The girl showed them +into the front drawing-room and asked them to sit down. And there in the +back drawing-room sat Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin, AND NEVER SPOKE TO +THEM! Took not the smallest notice, any more than if they had been stray +cats--not so much! Their own denomination, mind you, too! And there they +might have been sitting still if Mrs Leveret hadn't had the spirit to +get up and march out. No thank you. No Milburns for me." + +Lorne watched his mother with twinkling eyes till she finished. + +"Well, Mother, after that, if it was going to be a sewing circle I think +I'd send an excuse," he said, "but maybe they won't be so mean at a +dance." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Octavius Milburn would not, I think, have objected to being considered, +with relation to his own line in life, a representative man. He would +have been wary to claim it, but if the stranger had arrived unaided +at this view of him, he would have been inclined to think well of the +stranger's power of induction. That is what he was--a man of averages, +balances, the safe level, no more disposed to an extravagant opinion +than to wear one side whisker longer than the other. You would take him +any day, especially on Sunday in a silk hat, for the correct medium: +by his careful walk with the spring in it, his shrewd glance with +the caution in it, his look of being prepared to account for himself, +categorically, from head to foot. He was fond of explaining, in +connection with an offer once made him to embark his capital in Chicago, +that he preferred a fair living under his own flag to a fortune under +the Stars and Stripes. There we have the turn of his mind, convertible +into the language of bookkeeping, a balance struck, with the profit on +the side of the flag, the patriotic equivalent in good sound terms of +dollars and cents. With this position understood, he was prepared to +take you up on any point of comparison between the status and privileges +of a subject and a citizen--the political MORALE of a monarchy and a +republic--the advantage of life on this and the other side of the line. +There was nothing he liked better to expatiate upon, with that +valuable proof of his own sincerity always at hand for reference +and illustration. His ideal was life in a practical, go-ahead, +self-governing colony, far enough from England actually to be disabused +of her inherited anachronisms and make your own tariff, near enough +politically to keep your securities up by virtue of her protection. He +was extremely satisfied with his own country; one saw in his talk the +phenomenon of patriotism in double bloom, flower within flower. I have +mentioned his side whiskers: he preserved that facial decoration of +the Prince Consort; and the large steel engraving that represents Queen +Victoria in a flowing habit and the Prince in a double-breasted frock +coat and a stock, on horseback, hung over the mantelpiece in his +drawing-room. If the outer patriotism was a little vague, the inner had +vigour enough. Canada was a great place. Mr Milburn had been born in the +country, and had never "gone over" to England; Canada was good enough +for him. He was born, one might say, in the manufacturing interest, and +inherited the complacent and Conservative political views of a tenderly +nourished industry. Mr Milburn was of those who were building up the +country; with sufficient protection he was prepared to go on doing it +long and loyally; meanwhile he admired the structure from all points of +view. As President of the Elgin Chamber of Commerce, he was enabled once +a year to produce no end of gratifying figures; he was fond of wearing +on such occasions the national emblem in a little enamelled maple leaf; +and his portrait and biography occupied a full page in a sumptuous +work entitled Canadians of Today, sold by subscription, where he was +described as the "Father of the Elgin Boiler." + +Mr and Mrs Milburn were in the drawing-room to receive their young +guests, a circumstance which alone imparted a distinction to the +entertainment. At such parties the appearance of the heads of the house +was by no means invariable; frequently they went to bed. The simple +explanation was that the young people could stand late hours and be none +the worse next day; their elders had to be more careful if they wanted +to get down to business. Moreover, as in all new societies, between the +older and the younger generation there was a great gulf fixed, across +which intercourse was difficult. The sons and daughters, born to +different circumstances, evolved their own conventions, the old people +used the ways and manners of narrower days; one paralysed the other. It +might be gathered from the slight tone of patronage in the address +of youth to age that the advantage lay with the former; but +polite conversation, at best, was sustained with discomfort. Such +considerations, however, were far from operating with the Milburns. +Mrs Milburn would have said that they were characteristic of quite a +different class of people; and so they were. + +No one would have supposed, from the way in which the family disposed +itself in the drawing-room, that Miss Filkin had only just finished +making the claret cup, or that Dora had been cutting sandwiches till +the last minute, or that Mrs Milburn had been obliged to have a distinct +understanding with the maid--Mrs Milburn's servants were all "maids," +even the charwoman, who had buried three husbands--on the subject of +wearing a cap when she answered the door. Mrs Milburn sat on a chair +she had worked herself, occupied with something in the new stitch; Dora +performed lightly at the piano; Miss Filkin dipped into Selections +from the Poets of the Century, placed as remotely as possible from the +others; Mr Milburn, with his legs crossed, turned and folded a Toronto +evening paper. Mrs Milburn had somewhat objected to the evening paper +in the drawing-room. "Won't you look at a magazine, Octavius?" she said; +but Mr Milburn advanced the argument that it removed "any appearance +of stiffness," and prevailed. It was impossible to imagine a group more +disengaged from the absurd fuss that precedes a party among some classes +of people; indeed, when Mr Lorne Murchison arrived--like the unfortunate +Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, he was the first--they looked almost +surprised to see him. + +Lorne told his mother afterward that he thought, in that embarrassing +circumstance, of Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, and they laughed +consumedly together over his discomforture; but what he felt at the +moment was not the humour of the situation. To be the very first and +solitary arrival is nowhere esteemed the happiest fortune, but in +Elgin a kind of ridiculous humiliation attached to it, a greed for the +entertainment, a painful unsophistication. A young man of Elgin +would walk up and down in the snow for a quarter of an hour with the +thermometer at zero to escape the ignominy of it; Lorne Murchison would +have so walked. Our young man was potentially capable of not minding, +by next morning he didn't mind; but immediately he was fast tied in the +cobwebs of the common prescription, and he made his way to each of the +points of the compass of the Milburns' drawing-room to shake hands, +burning to the ears. Before he subsided into a chair near Mr Milburn he +grasped the collar of his dress coat on each side and drew it forward, +a trick he had with his gown in court, a nervous and mechanical +action. Dora, who continued to play, watched him over the piano with +an amusement not untinged with malice. She was a tall fair girl, with +several kinds of cleverness. She did her hair quite beautifully, and she +had a remarkable, effective, useful reticence. Her father declared +that Dora took in a great deal more than she ever gave out--an +accomplishment, in Mr Milburn's eyes, on the soundest basis. She looked +remarkably pretty and had remarkably good style, and as she proceeded +with her mazurka she was thinking, "He has never been asked here before: +how perfectly silly he must feel coming so early!" Presently as Lorne +grew absorbed in talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further +reflected, "I don't think I've ever seen him till now in evening +dress; it does make him a good figure." This went on behind a faultless +coiffure and an expression almost classical in its detachment; but if +Miss Milburn could have thought on a level with her looks I, for one, +would hesitate to take any liberty with her meditations. + +However, the bell began to ring with the briefest intermissions, the +maid in the cap to make constant journeys. She opened the door with a +welcoming smile, having practically no deportment to go with the cap: +human nature does not freeze readily anywhere. Dora had to leave the +piano: Miss Filkin decided that when fifteen had come she would change +her chair. Fifteen soon came, the young ladies mostly in light silks +or muslins cut square, not low, in the neck, with half-sleeves. This +moderation was prescribed in Elgin, where evening dress was more a +matter of material than of cut, a thing in itself symbolical if it were +desirable to consider social evolution here. For middle-aged ladies high +necks and long sleeves were usual; and Mrs Milburn might almost have +been expected to appear thus, in a nicely made black broche, perhaps. It +was recognized as like Mrs Milburn, in keeping with her unbending ideas, +to wear a dress cut as square as any young lady's, with just a little +lace let in, of a lavender stripe. The young men were nearly all in the +tailor's convention for their sex the world over, with here and there +a short coat that also went to church; but there some departures from +orthodoxy in the matter of collars and ties, and where white bows were +achieved, I fear none of the wearers would have dreamed of defending +them from the charge of being ready-made. + +It was a clear, cold January night and everybody, as usual, walked to +the party; the snow creaked and ground underfoot, one could hear the +arriving steps in the drawing-room. They stamped and scraped to get rid +of it in the porch, and hurried through the hall, muffled figures in +overshoes, to emerge from an upstairs bedroom radiant, putting a last +touch to hair and button hole, smelling of the fresh winter air. Such +gatherings usually consisted entirely of bachelors and maidens, with +one or two exceptions so recently yoked together that they had not yet +changed the plane of existence; married people, by general consent, +left these amusements to the unculled. They had, as I have hinted, +more serious preoccupations, "something else to do"; nobody thought of +inviting them. Nobody, that is, but Mrs Milburn and a few others of her +way of thinking, who saw more elegance and more propriety in a mixture. +On this occasion she had asked her own clergyman, the pleasant-faced +rector of St Stephen's, and Mrs Emmett, who wore that pathetic +expression of fragile wives and mothers who have also a congregation +at their skirts. Walter Winter was there, too. Mr Winter had the +distinction of having contested South Fox in the Conservative interest +three time unsuccessfully. Undeterred, he went on contesting things: +invariably beaten, he invariably came up smiling and ready to try +again. His imperturbability was a valuable asset; he never lost heart or +dreamed of retiring from the arena, nor did he ever cease to impress +his party as being their most useful and acceptable representative. +His business history was chequered and his exact financial equivalent +uncertain, but he had tremendously the air of a man of affairs; as +the phrase went, he was full of politics, the plain repository of deep +things. He had a shrewd eye, a double chin, and a bluff, crisp, jovial +manner of talking as he lay back in an armchair with his legs crossed +and played with his watch chain, an important way of nodding assent, +a weighty shake of denial. Voting on purely party lines, the town had +later rewarded his invincible expectation by electing him Mayor, and +then provided itself with unlimited entertainment by putting in a +Liberal majority on his council, the reports of the weekly sittings +being constantly considered as good as a cake walk. South Fox, as people +said, was not a healthy locality for Conservatives. Yet Walter Winter +wore a look of remarkable hardiness. He had also tremendously the air +of a dark horse, the result both of natural selection and careful +cultivation. Even his political enemies took it kindly when he "got in" +for Mayor, and offered him amused congratulations. He made a personal +claim on their cordiality, which was not the least of his political +resources. Nature had fitted him to public uses; the impression +overflowed the ranks of his own supporters and softened asperity among +his opponents. Illustration lies, at this moment close to us. They had +not been in the same room a quarter of an hour before he was in deep +and affectionate converse with Lorne Murchison, whose party we know, +and whose political weight was increasing, as this influence often does, +with a rapidity out of proportion with his professional and general +significance. + +"It's a pity now," said Mr Winter, with genial interest, "you can't get +that Ormiston defence into your own hands. Very useful thing for you." + +The younger man shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. It is one +thing to entertain a private vision and another to see it materialized +on other lips. + +"Oh I'd like it well enough," he said, "but it's out of the question, of +course. I'm too small potatoes." + +"There's a lot of feeling for old Ormiston. Folks out there on the +Reserve don't know how to show it enough." + +"They've shown it a great deal too much. We don't want to win on +'feeling,' or have it said either. And we were as near as possible +having to take the case to the Hamilton Assizes." + +"I guess you were--I guess you were." Mr Winter's suddenly increased +gravity expressed his appreciation of the danger. "I saw Lister of the +Bank the day they heard from Toronto--rule refused. Never saw a man more +put out. Seems they considered the thing as good as settled. General +opinion was it would go to Hamilton, sure. Well I don't know how you +pulled it off, but it was a smart piece of work, sir." + +Lorne encountered Mr Winter's frank smile with an expression of crude +and rather stolid discomfort. It had a base of indignation, corrected by +a concession to the common idea that most events, with an issue pendent, +were the result of a smart piece of work: a kind of awkward shrug was in +it. He had no desire to be unpleasant to Walter Winter--on the contrary. +Nevertheless, an uncompromising line came on each side of his mouth with +his reply. + +"As far as I know," he said, "the application was dismissed on its +demerits." + +"Of course it was," said Mr Winter good-humouredly. "You don't need to +tell me that. Well, now, this looks like dancing. Miss Filkin, I see, is +going to oblige on the piano. Now I wonder whether I'm going to get Miss +Dora to give me a waltz or not." + +Chairs and table were in effect being pushed back, and folding doors +opened which disclosed another room prepared for this relaxation. Miss +Filkin began to oblige vigorously on the piano, Miss Dora granted Mr +Winter's request, which he made with elaborate humour as an impudent old +bachelor whom "the boys" would presently take outside and kill. Lorne +watched him make it, envying him his assurance; and Miss Milburn was +aware that he watched and aware that he envied. The room filled with +gaiety and movement: Mr Milburn, sidling dramatically along the wall to +escape the rotatory couples, admonished Mr Murchison to get a partner. +He withdrew himself from the observation of Miss Dora and Mr Winter, and +approached a young lady on a sofa, who said "With very great pleasure." +When the dance was over he re-established the young lady on the sofa +and fanned her with energy. Looking across the room, he saw that +Walter Winter, seated beside Dora, was fanning himself. He thought +it disgusting and, for some reason which he did not pause to explore, +exactly like Winter. He had met Miss Milburn once or twice before +without seeing her in any special way: here, at home, the centre of the +little conventions that at once protected and revealed her, conventions +bound up in the impressive figures of her mother and her aunt, she had +a new interest, and all the attraction of that which is not easily come +by. It is also possible that although Lorne had met her before, she +had not met him; she was meeting him now for the first time, as she +sat directly opposite and talked very gracefully to Walter Winter. +Addressing Walter Winter, Lorne was the object of her pretty remarks. +While Mr Winter had her superficial attention, he was the bland medium +which handed her on. Her consciousness was fixed on young Mr Murchison, +quite occupied with him: she could not imagine why they had not asked +him long ago; he wasn't exactly "swell," but you could see he was +somebody. So already she figured the potential distinction in the set +of his shoulders and the carriage of his head. It might have been +translated in simple terms of integrity and force by anyone who looked +for those things. Miss Milburn was incapable of such detail, but she saw +truly enough in the mass. + +Lorne, on the opposite sofa, looked at her across the town's traditions +of Milburn exclusiveness. Oddly enough, at this moment when he might +have considered that he had overcome them, they seemed to gather force, +exactly in his line of vision. He had never before been so near Dora +Milburn, and he had never before perceived her so remote. He had a sense +of her distance beyond those few yards of carpet quite incompatible +with the fact. It weighed upon him, but until she sent him a sudden +unexpected smile he did not know how heavily. It was a dissipating +smile; nothing remained before it. Lorne carefully restored his +partner's fan, bowed before her, and went straight across the room. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +It is determined with something like humour that communities very young +should occupy themselves almost altogether with matters of grave and +serious import. The vision of life at that period is no doubt unimpeded +and clear; its conditions offer themselves with a certain nakedness and +force, both as to this world and to that which is to come. The town of +Elgin thus knew two controlling interests--the interest of politics +and the interest of religion. Both are terms we must nevertheless +circumscribe. Politics wore a complexion strictly local, provincial, +or Dominion. The last step of France in Siam, the disputed influence of +Germany in the Persian Gulf, the struggle of the Powers in China were +not matters greatly talked over in Elgin; the theatre of European +diplomacy had no absorbed spectators here. Nor can I claim that interest +in the affairs of Great Britain was in any way extravagant. + +A sentiment of affection for the reigning house certainly prevailed. It +was arbitrary, rococo, unrelated to current conditions as a tradition +sung down in a ballad, an anachronism of the heart, cherished through +long rude lifetimes for the beauty and poetry of it--when you consider, +beauty and poetry can be thought of in this. Here was no Court aiding +the transmutation of the middle class, no King spending money; here +were no picturesque contacts of Royalty and the people, no pageantry, +no blazonry of the past, nothing to lift the heart but an occasional +telegram from the monarch expressing, upon an event of public +importance, a suitable emotion. Yet the common love for the throne +amounted to a half-ashamed enthusiasm that burned with something like +a sacred flame, and was among the things not ordinarily alluded to, +because of the shyness that attaches to all feeling that cannot be +justified in plain terms. A sentiment of affection for the reigning +house certainly prevailed; but it was a thing by itself. The fall of +a British Government would hardly fail to excite comment, and the +retirement of a Prime Minister would induce both the Mercury and the +Express to publish a biographical sketch of him, considerably shorter +than the leader embodying the editor's views as to who should get +the electric light contract. But the Government might become the sole +employer of labour in those islands, Church and school might part +company for ever, landlords might be deprived of all but compassionate +allowances and, except for the degree of extravagance involved in these +propositions, they would hardly be current in Elgin. The complications +of England's foreign policy were less significant still. It was +recognized dimly that England had a foreign policy, more or less had +to have it, as they would have said in Elgin; it was part of the huge +unnecessary scheme of things for which she was responsible--unnecessary +from Elgin's point of view as a father's financial obligations might be +to a child he had parted with at birth. It all lay outside the facts +of life, far beyond the actual horizon, like the affairs of a distant +relation from whom one has nothing to hope, not even personal contact, +and of whose wealth and greatness one does not boast much, because of +the irony involved. Information upon all these matters was duly put +before Elgin every morning in the telegrams of the Toronto papers; the +information came, until the other day, over cables to New York and was +disseminated by American news agencies. It was, therefore, not devoid of +bias; but if this was perceived it was by no means thought a matter +for protesting measures, especially as they would be bound to involve +expense. The injury was too vague, too remote, to be more than sturdily +discounted by a mental attitude. Belief in England was in the blood, +it would not yield to the temporary distortion of facts in the +newspapers--at all events, it would not yield with a rush. Whether there +was any chance of insidious sapping was precisely what the country was +too indifferent to discover. Indifferent, apathetic, self-centred--until +whenever, down the wind, across the Atlantic, came the faint far music +of the call to arms. Then the old dog of war that has his kennel in +every man rose and shook himself, and presently there would be a +baying! The sense of kinship, lying too deep for the touch of ordinary +circumstance, quickened to that; and in a moment "we" were fighting, +"we" had lost or won. + +Apart, however, from the extraordinary, the politics of Elgin's daily +absorption were those of the town, the Province, the Dominion. Centres +of small circumference yield a quick swing; the concern of the average +intelligent Englishman as to the consolidation of his country's +interests in the Yangtse Valley would be a languid manifestation beside +that of an Elgin elector in the chances of an appropriation for a +new court house. The single mind is the most fervid: Elgin had few +distractions from the question of the court house or the branch line +to Clayfield. The arts conspired to be absent; letters resided at the +nearest university city; science was imported as required, in practical +improvements. There was nothing, indeed, to interfere with Elgin's +attention to the immediate, the vital, the municipal: one might almost +read this concentration of interest in the white dust of the rambling +streets, and the shutters closed against it. Like other movements of the +single mind, it had something of the ferocious, of the inflexible, of +the unintelligent; but it proudly wore the character of the go-ahead +and, as Walter Winter would have pointed out to you, it had granted +eleven bonuses to "capture" sound commercial concerns in six years. + +In wholesome fear of mistake, one would hesitate to put church matters +either before or after politics among the preoccupations of Elgin. It +would be safer and more indisputable to say that nothing compared with +religion but politics, and nothing compared with politics but religion. +In offering this proposition also we must think of our dimensions. There +is a religious fervour in Oxford, in Mecca, in Benares, and the sign +for these ideas is the same; we have to apply ourselves to the +interpretation. In Elgin religious fervour was not beautiful, or +dramatic, or self-immolating; it was reasonable. You were perhaps +your own first creditor; after that your debt was to your Maker. You +discharged this obligation in a spirit of sturdy equity: if the children +didn't go to Sunday school you knew the reason why. The habit of church +attendance was not only a basis of respectability, but practically the +only one: a person who was "never known to put his head inside a church +door" could not be more severely reprobated, by Mrs Murchison at all +events. It was the normal thing, the thing which formed the backbone of +life, sustaining to the serious, impressive to the light, indispensable +to the rest, and the thing that was more than any of these, which you +can only know when you stand in the churches among the congregations. +Within its prescribed limitations it was for many the intellectual +exercise, for more the emotional lift, and for all the unfailing +distraction of the week. The repressed magnetic excitement in gatherings +of familiar faces, fellow-beings bound by the same convention to the +same kind of behaviour, is precious in communities where the human +interest is still thin and sparse. It is valuable in itself, and it +produces an occasional detached sensation. There was the case, in Dr +Drummond's church, of placid-faced, saintly old Sandy MacQuhot, the +epileptic. It used to be a common regret with Lorne Murchison that as +sure as he was allowed to stay away from church Sandy would have a +fit. That was his little boy's honesty; the elders enjoyed the fit and +deprecated the disturbance. + +There was a simple and definite family feeling within communions. "They +come to our church" was the argument of first force whether for calling +or for charity. It was impossible to feel toward a Congregationalist or +an Episcopalian as you felt toward one who sang the same hymns and +sat under the same admonition week by week, year in and year out, as +yourself. "Wesleyans, are they?" a lady of Knox Church would remark of +the newly arrived, in whom her interest was suggested. "Then let the +Wesleyans look after them." A pew-holder had a distinct status; an +"adherent" enjoyed friendly consideration, especially if he adhered +faithfully; and stray attendants from other congregations were treated +with punctilious hospitality, places being found for them in the Old +Testament, as if they could hardly be expected to discover such things +for themselves. The religious interest had also the strongest domestic +character in quite another sense from that of the family prayers which +Dr Drummond was always enjoying. "Set your own house in order and then +your own church" was a wordless working precept in Elgin. Threadbare +carpet in the aisles was almost as personal a reproach as a hole +under the dining-room table; and self-respect was barely possible to a +congregation that sat in faded pews. The minister's gown even was the +subject of scrutiny as the years went on. It was an expensive thing to +buy, but an oyster supper would do it and leave something over for the +organ. Which brings us to the very core and centre of these activities, +their pivot, their focus and, in a human sense, their inspiration--the +minister himself. + +The minister was curiously special among a people so general; he was in +a manner raised in life on weekdays as he was in the pulpit on Sundays. +He had what one might call prestige; some form of authority still +survived in his person, to which the spiritual democracy he presided +over gave a humorous, voluntary assent. He was supposed to be a person +of undetermined leisure--what was writing two sermons a week to earn +your living by?--and he was probably the more reverend, or the more +revered, from the fact that he was in the house all day. A particular +importance attached to everything he said and did; he was a person whose +life answered different springs, and was sustained on quite another +principle than that of supply and demand. The province of public +criticism was his; but his people made up for the meekness with which +they sat under it by a generous use of the corresponding privilege in +private. Comments upon the minister partook of hardiness; it was as +if the members were determined to live up to the fact that the +office-bearers could reduce his salary if they liked. Needless to say, +they never did like. Congregations stood loyally by their pastors, and +discussion was strictly intramural. If the Methodists handed theirs on +at the end of three years with a breath of relief, they exhaled it +among themselves; after all, for them it was a matter of luck. The +Presbyterians, as in the case of old Mr Jamesion of St Andrew's, held +on till death, pulling a long upper lip: election was not a thing to be +trifled with in heaven or upon earth. + +It will be imagined whether Dr Drummond did not see in these conditions +his natural and wholesome element, whether he did not fit exactly in. +The God he loved to worship as Jehovah had made him a beneficent despot +and given him, as it were, a commission. If the temporal power had +charged him to rule an eastern province, he would have brought much the +same qualities to the task. Knox Church, Elgin, was his dominion, its +moral and material affairs his jealous interest, and its legitimate +expansion his chief pride. In "anniversary" sermons, which he always +announced the Sunday before, he seldom refrained from contrasting +the number on the roll of church membership, then and now, with the +particular increase in the year just closed. If the increase +was satisfactory, he made little comment beyond the duty of +thanksgiving--figures spoke for themselves. If it was otherwise Dr +Drummond's displeasure was not a thing he would conceal. He would wing +it eloquently on the shaft of his grief that the harvest had been so +light; but he would more than hint the possibility that the labourers +had been few. Most important among his statistics was the number of +young communicants. Wanderers from other folds he admitted, with a +not wholly satisfied eye upon their early theological training, and to +persons duly accredited from Presbyterian churches elsewhere he gave the +right hand of fellowship; but the young people of his own congregation +were his chief concern always, and if a gratifying number of these had +failed to "come forward" during the year, the responsibility must +lie somewhere. Dr Drummond was willing to take his own share; "the +ministrations of this pulpit" would be more than suspected of having +come short, and the admission would enable him to tax the rest upon +parents and Bible-class teachers with searching effect. The congregation +would go gloomily home to dinner, and old Sandy MacQuhot would remark +to his wife, "It's hard to say why will the Doctor get himself in sic +a state aboot mere numbers. We're told 'where two or three are gathered +together.' But the Doctor's all for a grand congregation." + +Knox Church, under such auspices could hardly fail to enlarge her +borders; but Elgin enlarged hers faster. Almost before you knew where +you were there spread out the district of East Elgin, all stacks of tall +chimneys and rows of little houses. East Elgin was not an attractive +locality; it suffered from inundation sometimes, when the river was in +spring flood; it gave unresentful room to a tannery. It was the home of +dubious practices at the polls, and the invariable hunting-ground for +domestic servants. Nevertheless, in the view of Knox Church, it could +not bear a character wholly degraded; too many Presbyterians, Scotch +foremen, and others, had their respectable residence there. For these it +was a far cry to Dr Drummond in bad weather, and there began to be talk +of hiring the East Elgin schoolhouse for Sunday exercises if suitable +persons could be got to come over from Knox Church and lead them. I do +not know who was found to broach the matter to Dr Drummond; report says +his relative and housekeeper, Mrs Forsyth, who perhaps might do it under +circumstances of strategical advantage. Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, +had her reply in the hidden terms of an equation--was it any farther for +the people of East Elgin to walk to hear him preach than for him to walk +to minister to the people of East Elgin, which he did quite once a week, +and if so, how much? Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, might eliminate +the unknown quantity. It cannot be said that Dr Drummond discouraged the +project; he simply did not mention it and as it was known to have been +communicated to him this represented effectively the policy of the +closed door. He found himself even oftener in East Elgin, walking about +on his pastoral errands with a fierce briskness of aspect and a sharp +inquiring eye, before which one might say the proposition slunk +away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, it seemed, could tolerate +decentralization, or anything short of round dances, opened a chapel +with a cheerful sociable, and popularized the practice of backsliding +among those for whom the position was theologically impossible. Good +Presbyterians in East Elgin began to turn into makeshift Methodists. The +Doctor missed certain occupants of the gallery seats and felt the logic +of circumstances. Here we must all yield, and the minister concealed +his discomfiture in a masterly initiative. The matter came up again at +a meeting of the church managers, brought up by Dr Drummond, who had +the satisfaction of hearing that a thing put into the Doctor's hands was +already half done. In a very few weeks it was entirely done. The use +of the schoolhouse was granted through Dr Drummond's influence with the +Board free of charge; and to understand the triumph of this it should be +taken into account that three of the trustees were Wesleyans. Services +were held regularly, certain of Dr Drummond's elders officiating; and +the conventicle in the schoolhouse speedily became known as Knox Church +Mission. It grew and prospered. The first night "I to the hills will +lift mine eyes" went up from East Elgin on the uplifting tune that +belongs to it, the strayed came flocking back. + +This kind never go forth again; once they refind the ark of the covenant +there they abide. In the course of time it became a question of a better +one, and money was raised locally to build it. Dr Drummond pronounced +the first benediction in Knox Mission Church, and waited, well knowing +human nature in its Presbyterian aspect, for the next development. It +came, and not later than he anticipated, in the form of a prayer to Knox +Church for help to obtain the services of a regularly ordained minister. +Dr Drummond had his guns ready: he opposed the application; where a +regularly ordained minister was already at the disposal of those who +chose to walk a mile and a half to hear him, the luxury of more locally +consecrated services should be at the charge of the locality. He himself +was willing to spend and be spent in the spiritual interests of East +Elgin; that was abundantly proven; what he could not comfortably +tolerate was the deviation of congregational funds, the very blood of +the body of belief, into other than legitimate channels. He fought +for his view with all his tactician's resources, putting up one +office-bearer after another to endorse it but the matter was decided at +the general yearly meeting of the congregation; and the occasion showed +Knox Church in singular sympathy with its struggling offspring. Dr +Drummond for the first time in his ministry, was defeated by his people. +It was less a defeat than a defence, an unexpected rally round the +corporate right to direct corporate activities; and the congregation was +so anxious to wound the minister's feelings as little as possible that +the grant in aid of the East Elgin Mission was embodied in a motion to +increase Dr Drummond's salary by two hundred and fifty dollars a year. +The Doctor with a wry joke, swallowed his gilded pill, but no coating +could dissimulate its bitterness, and his chagrin was plain for long. +The issue with which we are immediately concerned is that three months +later Knox Church Mission called to minister to it the Reverend Hugh +Finlay, a young man from Dumfriesshire and not long out. Dr Drummond had +known beforehand what their choice would be. He had brought Mr Finlay to +occupy Knox Church pulpit during his last July and August vacation, +and Mrs Forsyth had reported that such midsummer congregations she +had simply never worshipped with. Mrs Forsyth was an excellent hand at +pressed tongue and a wonder at knitted counterpanes, but she had not +acquired tact and never would. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The suggestion that the Reverend Hugh Finlay preached from the pulpit +of Knox Church "better sermons" than its permanent occupant, would have +been justly considered absurd, and nobody pronounced it. The church was +full, as Mrs Forsyth observed, on these occasions; but there were many +other ways of accounting for that. The Murchisons, as a family, would +have been the last to make such an admission. The regular attendance +might have been, as much as anything, out of deference to the wishes +of the Doctor himself, who invariably and sternly hoped, in his last +sermon, that no stranger occupying his place would have to preach to +empty pews. He was thinking, of course, of old Mr Jamieson with whom he +occasionally exchanged and whose effect on the attendance had not failed +to reach him. With regard to Mr Jamieson he was compelled, in the end, +to resort to tactics: he omitted to announce the Sunday before that his +venerable neighbour would preach, and the congregation, outwitted, +had no resource but to sustain the beard-wagging old gentleman through +seventhly to the finish. There came a time when the dear human Doctor +also omitted to announce that Mr Finlay would preach, but for other +reasons, meanwhile, as Mrs Forsyth said, he had no difficulty in +conjuring a vacation congregation for his young substitute. They +came trooping, old and young. Mr and Mrs Murchison would survey their +creditable family rank with a secret compunction, remembering its +invariable gaps at other times, and then resolutely turn to the praise +of God with the reflection that one means to righteousness was as +blessed as another. They themselves never missed a Sunday, and as seldom +failed to remark on the way back that it was all very interesting, but +Mr Finlay couldn't drive it home like the Doctor. There were times, +sparse and special occasions, when the Doctor himself made one of the +congregation. Then he would lean back luxuriously in the corner of +his own pew, his wiry little form half-lost in the upholstery his +arms folded, his knees crossed, his face all humorous indulgence; yes, +humorous. At the announcement of the text a twinkle would lodge in the +shrewd grey eyes and a smile but half-suppressed would settle about the +corners of the flexible mouth: he knew what the young fellow there would +be at. And as the young fellow proceeded, his points would be weighed to +the accompaniment of the Doctor's pendent foot, which moved perpetually, +judiciously; while the smile sometimes deepened, sometimes lapsed, since +there were moments when any young fellow had to be taken seriously. +It was an attitude which only the Doctor was privileged to adopt thus +outwardly; but in private it was imitated all up and down the aisles, +where responsible heads of families sat considering the quality of the +manna that was offered them. When it fell from the lips of Mr Finlay the +verdict was, upon the whole, very favourable, as long as there was no +question of comparison with the Doctor. + +There could be, indeed, very little question of such comparison. There +was a generation between them and a school, and to that you had to add +every set and cast of mind and body that can make men different. Dr +Drummond, in faith and practice, moved with precision along formal and +implicit lines; his orbit was established, and his operation within +it as unquestionable as the simplest exhibit of nature. He took in a +wonderful degree the stamp of the teaching of his adolescent period; not +a line was missing nor a precept; nor was the mould defaced by a single +wavering tendency of later date. Religious doctrine was to him a thing +for ever accomplished, to be accepted or rejected as a whole. He taught +eternal punishment and retribution, reconciling both with Divine love +and mercy; he liked to defeat the infidel with the crashing question, +"Who then was the architect of the Universe?" The celebrated among such +persons he pursued to their deathbeds; Voltaire and Rousseau owed their +reputation, with many persons in Knox Church, to their last moments and +to Dr Drummond. He had a triumphant invective which drew the mind from +chasms in logic, and a tender sense of poetic beauty which drew it, when +he quoted great lines, from everything else. He loved the euphony of the +Old Testament; his sonorous delivery would lift a chapter from Isaiah to +the height of ritual, and every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether +he would or no. The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of +Issachar; and the parallels he would find for modern events in the +annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye +upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often +give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have +been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated. The survivors +of a convulsion of nature, for instance, might have learned from his +lips the cause and kind of their disaster traced back forcibly to +local acquiescence in iniquity, and drawn unflinchingly from the text, +"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The militant history +of his Church was a passion with him; if ever he had to countenance +canonization he would have led off with Jenny Geddes. "A tremendous +Presbyterian" they called him in the town. To hear him give out a single +psalm, and sing it with his people, would convince anybody of that. +There was a choir, of course, but to the front pews, at all events, Dr +Drummond's leading was more important than the choir's. It was a note +of dauntless vigour, and it was plain by the regular forward jerk of his +surpliced shoulder that his foot was keeping time: + + Where the assemblies of the just + And congregations are. + +You could not help admiring, and you could not help respecting; you +were compelled by his natural force and his unqualified conviction, his +tireless energy and his sterling sort. + +It is possible to understand, however, that after sitting for +twenty-five years under direction so unfailing and so uncompromising, +the congregation of Knox Church might turn with a moderate curiosity +to the spiritual indications of the Reverend Hugh Finlay. He was a +passionate romantic, and his body had shot up into a fitting temple for +such an inhabitant as his soul. He was a great long fellow, with a shock +of black hair and deep dreams in his eyes; his head was what people +called a type, a type I suppose of the simple motive and the noble +intention, the detached point of view and the somewhat indifferent +attitude to material things, as it may be humanly featured anywhere. His +face bore a confusion of ideals; he had the brow of a Covenanter and +the mouth of Adonais, the flame of religious ardour in his eyes and the +composure of perceived philosophy on his lips. He was fettered by an +impenetrable shyness; it was in the pulpit alone that he could expand, +and then only upon written lines, with hardly a gesture, and the most +perfunctory glances, at conscientious intervals, toward his hearers. +A poor creature, indeed, in this respect, Dr Drummond thought him--Dr +Drummond, who wore an untrammelled surplice which filled like an +agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. "The man loses half +his points," said Dr Drummond. I doubt whether he did, people followed +so closely, though Sandy MacQuhot was of the general opinion when he +said that it would do nobody any harm if Mr Finlay would lift his head +oftener from the book. + +Advena Murchison thought him the probable antitype of an Oxford don. She +had never seen an Oxford don, but Mr Finlay wore the characteristics +these schoolmen were dressed in by novelists; and Advena noted with +delight the ingenuity of fate in casting such a person into the pulpit +of the Presbyterian Church in a young country. She had her perception of +comedy in life; till Finlay came she had found nothing so interesting. +With his arrival, however, other preoccupations fell into their proper +places. + +Finlay, indeed, it may be confessed at once, he and not his message was +her engrossment from the beginning. The message she took with reverent +gentleness; but her passionate interest was for the nature upon which +it travelled, and never for the briefest instant did she confuse these +emotions. Those who write, we are told transcribe themselves in spite +of themselves; it is more true of those who preach, for they are also +candid by profession, and when they are not there is the eye and the +voice to help to betray them. Hugh Finlay, in the pulpit, made himself +manifest in all the things that matter to Advena Murchison in the pew; +and from the pew to the pulpit her love went back with certainty, clear +in its authority and worshipping the ground of its justification. When +she bowed her head it was he whom she heard in the language of his +invocations; his doctrine rode, for her, on a spirit of wide and sweet +philosophy; in his contemplation of the Deity she saw the man. He had +those lips at once mobile, governed and patient, upon which genius +chooses oftenest to rest. As to this, Advena's convictions were so +private as to be hidden from herself; she never admitted that she +thought Finlay had it, and in the supreme difficulty of proving anything +else we may wisely accept her view. But he had something, the subtle +Celt; he had horizons, lifted lines beyond the common vision, and an eye +rapt and a heart intrepid; and though for a long time he was unconscious +of it, he must have adventured there with a happier confidence because +of her companionship. + +From the first Advena knew no faltering or fluttering, none of the baser +nervous betrayals. It was all one great delight to her, her discovery +and her knowledge and her love for him. It came to her almost in a +logical development; it found her grave, calm, and receptive. She had +even a private formula of gratitude that the thing which happened to +everybody, and happened to so many people irrelevantly, should arrive +with her in such a glorious defensible, demonstrable sequence. Toward +him it gave her a kind of glad secret advantage; he was loved and he was +unaware. She watched his academic awkwardness in church with the inward +tender smile of the eternal habile feminine, and when they met she could +have laughed and wept over his straightened sentences and his difficult +manner, knowing how little significant they were. With his eyes upon her +and his words offered to her intelligence, she found herself treating +his shy formality as the convention it was, a kind of make-believe which +she would politely and kindly play up to until he should happily forget +it and they could enter upon simpler relations. She had to play up to it +for a long time, but her love made her wonderfully clever and patient; +and of course the day came when she had her reward. Knowing him as she +did, she remembered the day and the difference it made. + +It was toward the end of an afternoon in early April; the discoloured +snow still lay huddled in the bleaker fence corners. Wide puddles stood +along the roadsides, reflecting the twigs and branches of the naked +maples; last year's leaves were thick and wet underfoot, and a soft damp +wind was blowing. Advena was on her way home and Finlay overtook her. +He passed her at first, with a hurried silent lifting of his hat; then +perhaps the deserted street gave a suggestion of unfriendliness to his +act, or some freshness in her voice stayed him. At all events, he +waited and joined her, with a word or two about their going in the +same direction; and they walked along together. He offered her his +companionship, but he had nothing to say; the silence in which they +pursued their way was no doubt to him just the embarrassing condition he +usually had to contend with. To her it seemed pregnant, auspicious; it +drew something from the low grey lights of the wet spring afternoon and +the unbound heart-lifting wind; she had a passionate prevision that the +steps they took together would lead somehow to freedom. They went on in +that strange bound way, and the day drew away from them till they turned +a sudden corner, when it lay all along the yellow sky across the river, +behind a fringe of winter woods, stayed in the moment of its retreat on +the edge of unvexed landscape. They stopped involuntarily to look, and +she saw a smile come up from some depth in him. + +"Ah, well," he said, as if to himself, "it's something to be in a +country where the sun still goes down with a thought of the primaeval." + +"I think I prefer the sophistication of chimney-pots," she replied. +"I've always longed to see a sunset in London, with the fog breaking +over Westminster." + +"Then you don't care about them for themselves, sunsets?" he asked, with +the simplest absence of mind. + +"I never yet could see the sun go down, But I was angry in my heart," +she said, and this time he looked at her. + +"How does it go on?" he said. + +"Oh, I don't know. Only those two lines stay with me. I feel it that +way, too. It's the seal upon an act of violence, isn't it, a sunset? +Something taken from us against our will. It's a hateful reminder, in +the midst of our delightful volitions, of how arbitrary every condition +of life is." + +"The conditions of business are always arbitrary. Life is a business--we +have to work at ourselves till it is over. So much cut off and ended it +is," he said, glancing at the sky again. "If space is the area of life +and time is its opportunity, there goes a measure of opportunity." + +"I wonder," said Advena, "where it goes?" + +"Into the void behind time?" he suggested, smiling straight at her. + +"Into the texture of the future," she answered, smiling back. + +"We might bring it to bear very intelligently on the future, at any +rate," he returned. "The world is wrapped in destiny, and but revolves +to roll it out." + +"I don't remember that," she said curiously. + +"No you couldn't," he laughed outright. "I haven't thought it good +enough to publish." + +"And it isn't the sort of thing," she ventured gaily, "you could put in +a sermon." + +"No, it isn't." They came to a corner of the street which led to Mr +Finlay's boarding-house. It stretched narrowly to the north and there +was a good deal more snow on each side of it. They lingered together for +a moment talking, seizing the new joy in it which was simply the joy of +his sudden liberation with her consciously pushing away the moment of +parting; and Finlay's eyes rested once again on the evening sky beyond +the river. + +"I believe you are right and I am a moralizer," he said. "There IS +pain over there. One thinks a sunset beautiful and impressive, but one +doesn't look at it long." + +Then they separated, and he took the road to the north, which was still +snowbound, while she went on into the chilly yellow west, with the odd +sweet illusion that a summer day was dawning. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The office of Messrs Fulke, Warner, & Murchison was in Market Street, +exactly over Scott's drug store. Scott with his globular blue and red +and green vessels in the window and his soda-water fountain inside; was +on the ground floor; the passage leading upstairs separated him from +Mickie, boots and shoes; and beyond Mickie, Elgin's leading tobacconist +shared his place of business with a barber. The last two contributed +most to the gaiety of Market Street: the barber with the ribanded pole, +which stuck out at an angle; the tobacconist with a nobly featured squaw +in chocolate effigy who held her draperies under her chin with one hand +and outstretched a packet of cigars with the other. + +The passage staircase between Scott's and Mickie's had a hardened look, +and bore witness to the habit of expectoration; ladies, going up to Dr +Simmons, held their skirts up and the corners of their mouths down. Dr +Simmons was the dentist: you turned to the right. The passage itself +turned to the left, and after passing two doors bearing the law firm's +designation in black letters on ground glass, it conducted you with +abruptness to the office of a bicycle agent, and left you there. +For greater emphasis the name of the firm of Messrs Fulke, Warner & +Murchison was painted on the windows also; it could be seen from any +part of the market square, which lay, with the town hall in the middle, +immediately below. During four days in the week the market square was +empty. Odds and ends of straw and paper blew about it; an occasional +pedestrian crossed it diagonally for the short cut to the post-office; +the town hall rose in the middle, and defied you to take your mind off +the ugliness of municipal institutions. On the other days it was a scene +of activity. Farmers' wagons, with the shafts turned in were ranged +round three sides of it; on a big day they would form into parallel +lanes and cut the square into sections as well. The produce of all Fox +County filled the wagons, varying agreeably as the year went round. +Bags of potatoes leaned against the sidewalk, apples brimmed in bushel +measures, ducks dropped their twisted necks over the cart wheels; the +town hall, in this play of colour, stood redeemed. The produce was +mostly left to the women to sell. On the fourth side of the square +loads of hay and cordwood demanded the master mind, but small matters of +fruit, vegetables, and poultry submitted to feminine judgement. The men +"unhitched," and went away on their own business; it was the wives you +accosted, as they sat in the middle, with their knees drawn up and their +skirts tucked close, vigilant in rusty bonnets, if you wished to buy. +Among them circulated the housewives of Elgin, pricing and comparing and +acquiring; you could see it all from Dr Simmons's window, sitting in +his chair that screwed up and down. There was a little difficulty always +about getting things home; only very ordinary people carried their own +marketing. Trifling articles, like eggs or radishes, might be smuggled +into a brown wicker basket with covers; but it did not consort with +elegance to "trapes" home with anything that looked inconvenient or had +legs sticking out of it. So that arrangements of mutual obligation had +to be made: the good woman from whom Mrs Jones had bought her tomatoes +would take charge of the spring chickens Mrs Jones had bought from +another good woman just as soon as not, and deliver them at Mrs Jones's +residence, as under any circumstances she was "going round that way." + +It was a scene of activity but not of excitement, or in any sense of +joy. The matter was too hard an importance; it made too much difference +on both sides whether potatoes were twelve or fifteen cents a peck. +The dealers were laconic and the buyers anxious; country neighbours +exchanged the time of day, but under the pressure of affairs. Now and +then a lady of Elgin stopped to gossip with another; the countrywomen +looked on, curious, grim, and a little contemptuous of so much +demonstration and so many words. Life on an Elgin market day was a +serious presentment even when the sun shone, and at times when it rained +or snowed the aesthetic seemed a wholly unjustifiable point of view. +It was not misery, it was even a difficult kind of prosperity, but the +margin was small and the struggle plain. Plain, too, it was that here +was no enterprise of yesterday, no fresh broken ground of dramatic +promise, but a narrow inheritance of the opportunity to live which +generations had grasped before. There were bones in the village +graveyards of Fox County to father all these sharp features; Elgin +market square, indeed, was the biography of Fox County and, in little, +the history of the whole Province. The heart of it was there, the +enduring heart of the new country already old in acquiescence. It was +the deep root of the race in the land, twisted and unlovely, but holding +the promise of all. Something like that Lorne Murchison felt about it as +he stood for a moment in the passage I have mentioned and looked across +the road. The spectacle never failed to cheer him; he was uniformly in +gayer spirits, better satisfied with life and more consciously equal to +what he had to do, on days when the square was full than on days when +it was empty. This morning he had an elation of his own; it touched +everything with more vivid reality. The familiar picture stirred a joy +in him in tune with his private happiness; its undernote came to him +with a pang as keen. The sense of kinship surged in his heart; these +were his people, this his lot as well as theirs. For the first time he +saw it in detachment. Till now he had regarded it with the friendly eyes +of a participator who looked no further. Today he did look further: the +whole world invited his eyes, offering him a great piece of luck to look +through. The opportunity was in his hand which, if he could seize and +hold, would lift and carry him on. He was as much aware of its potential +significance as anyone could be, and what leapt in his veins till +he could have laughed aloud was the splendid conviction of resource. +Already in the door of the passage he had achieved, from that point he +looked at the scene before him with an impulse of loyalty and devotion. +A tenderness seized him for the farmers of Fox County, a throb of +enthusiasm for the idea they represented, which had become for +him suddenly moving and pictorial. At that moment his country came +subjectively into his possession; great and helpless it came into his +inheritance as it comes into the inheritance of every man who can take +it, by deed of imagination and energy and love. He held this microcosm +of it, as one might say, in his hand and looked at it ardently; then he +took his way across the road. + +A tall thickly built young fellow detached himself from a group, smiling +broadly at the sight of Murchison, and started to meet him. + +"Hello, Lorne," he said. He had smiled all the way anticipating the +encounter. He was obviously in clothes which he did not put on every +day, but the seriousness of this was counteracted by his hard felt hat, +which he wore at an angle that disregarded convention. + +"Hello, Elmore! You back?" + +"That's about it." + +"You don't say! Back to stay?" + +"Far's I can see. Young Alf's made up his mind to learn the dentist +business, and the old folks are backin' him; so I don't see but I've got +to stop on and run the show. Father's gettin' up in years now." + +"Why, yes. I suppose he must be. It's a good while since you went West. +Well, what sort of a country have they got out Swan River way? Booming +right along?" + +"Boom nothing. I don't mean to say there's anything the matter with +the country; there ain't; but you've got to get up just as early in +the mornings out there as y'do anywhere, far's I noticed. An' it's a +lonesome life. Now I AM back I don't know but little old Ontario's good +enough for me. 'N I hear you've taken up the law, Lorne. Y'always had a +partiality for it, d'y' remember, up there to the Collegiate? I used to +think it'd be fine to travel with samples, those days. But you were dead +gone on the law. 'N by all reports it pans out pretty well don't it?" + +The young men had taken their way among the shifting crowd together. +Lorne Murchison, although there was something too large about him +for the town's essential stamp, made by contrast, as he threaded the +desultory groups of country people, a type of the conventional and the +formed; his companion glanced at him now and then with admiration. The +values of carriage and of clothes are relative: in Fifth Avenue Lorne +would have looked countrified, in Piccadilly colonial. Districts are +imaginable, perhaps not in this world, where the frequenters of even +those fashionable thoroughfares would attract glances of curiosity +by their failure to achieve the common standard in such things. Lorne +Murchison, to dismiss the matter, was well up to the standard of Elgin, +though he wore his straw hat quite on the back of his head and buried +both hands in his trousers pockets. His eye was full of pleasant easy +familiarity with the things he saw, and ready to see larger things; it +had that beam of active inquiry, curious but never amazed that marks +the man likely to expand his horizons. Meanwhile he was on capital terms +with his little world, which seemed to take pleasure in hailing him by +his Christian name; even morose Jim Webster, who had failed three times +in groceries, said "Morning, Lorne" with a look of toleration. He moved +alertly; the poise of his head was sanguine; the sun shone on him; the +timidest soul came nearer to him. He and Elmore Crow, who walked beside +him, had gone through the lower forms of the Elgin Collegiate Institute +together, that really "public" kind of school which has so much to do +with reassorting the classes of a new country. The Collegiate Institute +took in raw material and turned out teachers, more teachers than +anything. The teachers taught, chiefly in rural districts where they +could save money, and with the money they saved changed themselves into +doctors, Fellows of the University, mining engineers. The Collegiate +Institute was a potential melting-pot: you went in as your simple +opportunities had made you; how you shaped coming out depended upon what +was hidden in the core of you. You could not in any case be the same +as your father before you; education in a new country is too powerful +a stimulant for that, working upon material too plastic and too +hypothetical; it is not yet a normal force, with an operation to be +reckoned on with confidence. It is indeed the touchstone for character +in a new people, for character acquired as apart from that inherited; +it sometimes reveals surprises. Neither Lorne Murchison nor Elmore Crow +illustrates this point very nearly. Lorne would have gone into the law +in any case, since his father was able to send him, and Elmore would +inevitably have gone back to the crops since he was early defeated by +any other possibility. Nevertheless, as they walk together in my mind +along the Elgin market square, the Elgin Collegiate Institute rises +infallibly behind them, a directing influence and a responsible parent. +Lorne was telling his great news. + +"You don't say!" remarked Elmore in response to it. "Lumbago is it? Pa's +subject to that too; gets an attack most springs. Mr Fulke'll have to +lay right up--it's the only thing." + +"I'm afraid he will. And Warner never appeared in court in his life." + +"What d'ye keep Warner for, then?" + +"Oh, he does the conveyancing. He's a good conveyancer, but he isn't +any pleader and doesn't pretend to be. And it's too late to transfer the +case; nobody could get to the bottom of it as we have in the time. So it +falls on me." + +"Caesar, his ghost! How d'ye feel about it, Lorne? I'd be scared green. +Y'don't TALK nervous. Now I bet you get there with both feet." + +"I hope to get there," the young lawyer answered; and as he spoke a +concentration came into his face which drove the elation and everything +else that was boyish out of it. "It's bigger business than I could have +expected for another five years. I'm sorry for the old man, though--HE'S +nervous, if you like. They can hardly keep him in bed. Isn't that +somebody beckoning to you?" + +Elmore looked everywhere except in the right direction among the carts. +If you had been "to the Collegiate," relatives among the carts selling +squashes were embarrassing. + +"There," his companion indicated. + +"It's Mother," replied Mr Crow, with elaborate unconcern; "but I don't +suppose she's in anything of a hurry. I'll just go along with you far's +the post-office." He kept his glance carefully from the spot at which +he was signalled, and a hint of copper colour crawled up the back of his +neck. + +"Oh, but she is. Come along, Elmore; I can go that way." + +"It'll be longer for you." + +"Not a bit." Lorne cast a shrewd glance at his companion. "And as we're +passing, you might just introduce me to your mother; see?" + +"She won't expect it, Lorne." + +"That's all right, my son. She won't refuse to meet a friend of yours." +He led the way as he spoke to the point of vantage occupied by Mrs Crow, +followed, with plain reluctance, by her son. She was a frail-looking +old woman, with a knitted shawl pinned tightly across her chest, and her +bonnet, in the course of commercial activity, pushed so far back as to +be almost falling off. + +"You might smarten yourself with that change, Elmore," she addressed +him, ignoring his companion. "There's folks coming back for it. +Two-dollar bill, wa'n't it? Fifty cents--seventy-five--dollar'n a half. +That's a Yankee dime, an' you kin march straight back with it. They +don't pass but for nine cents, as you're old enough to know. Keep +twenty-five cents for your dinner--you'll get most for the money at the +Barker House--an' bring me back another quarter. Better go an' get your +victuals now--it's gone twelve--while they're hot." + +Elmore took his instructions without visible demur; and then, as +Lorne had not seen fit to detach himself, performed the ceremony +of introduction. As he performed it he drew one foot back and bowed +himself, which seemed obscurely to facilitate it. The suspicion faded +out of Mrs Crow's tired old sharp eyes under the formula, and she said +she was pleased to make our friend's acquaintance. + +"Mr Murchison's changed some since the old days at the Collegiate," +Elmore explained, "but he ain't any different under his coat. He's +practisin' the law." + +"Lawyers," Mrs Crow observed, "are folks I like to keep away from." + +"Quite right, too," responded Lorne, unabashed. "And so you've got my +friend here back on the farm, Mrs Crow?" + +"Well, yes, he's back on the farm, an' when he's wore out his Winnipeg +clothes and his big ideas, we're lookin' to make him some use." Mrs +Crow's intention, though barbed, was humorous, and her son grinned +broadly. + +"There's more money in the law," he remarked "once you get a start. +Here's Mr Murchison goin' to run the Ormiston case; his old man's down +sick, an' I guess it depends on Lorne now whether Ormiston gets off or +goes to penitentiary." + +Mrs Crow's face tied itself up into criticism as she looked our young +man up and down. "Depends upon you, does it?" she commented. "Well, all +I've got to say is it's a mighty young dependence. Coming on next +week, ain't it? You won't be much older by then. Yes'm," she turned to +business, "I don't say but what it's high for rhubarb, but there ain't +another bunch in the market, and won't be for a week yet." + +Under cover of this discussion Lorne bade the Crows good morning, +retreating in the rear of the lady who found the rhubarb high. Mrs +Crow's drop of acid combined with his saving sense of the humour of it +to adjust all his courage and his confidence, and with a braver face +than ever he involuntarily hastened his steps to keep pace with his +happy chance. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +In the wide stretches of a new country there is nothing to bound a local +excitement, or to impede its transmission at full value. Elgin was a +manufacturing town in southern Ontario, but they would have known every +development of the Federal Bank case at the North Pole if there had been +anybody there to learn. In Halifax they did know it, and in Vancouver, +B.C., while every hundred miles nearer it warmed as a topic in +proportion. In Montreal the papers gave it headlines; from Toronto they +sent special reporters. Of course, it was most of all the opportunity of +Mr Horace Williams, of the Elgin Express, and of Rawlins, who held all +the cards in their hands, and played them, it must be said, admirably, +reducing the Mercury to all sorts of futile expedients to score, which +the Express would invariably explode with a guffaw of contradiction the +following day. It was to the Express that the Toronto reporters came for +details and local colour; and Mr Williams gave them just as much as he +thought they ought to have and no more. It was the Express that managed, +while elaborately abstaining from improper comment upon a matter sub +judice, to feed and support the general conviction of young Ormiston's +innocence, and thereby win for itself, though a "Grit" paper, wide +reading in that hotbed of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the +Conservative Mercury, with its reckless sympathy for an old party name, +made itself criminally liable by reviewing cases of hard dealing by +the bank among the farmers, and only escaped prosecution by the amplest +retraction and the most contrite apology. As Mr Williams remarked, there +was no use in dwelling on the unpopularity of the bank, that didn't need +pointing out; folks down Moneida way could put any newspaper wise on the +number of mortgages foreclosed and the rate for secondary loans exacted +by the bank in those parts. That consideration, no doubt, human nature +being what it is, contributed the active principle to the feeling so +widely aroused by the case. We are not very readily the prey to +emotions of faith in our fellows, especially, perhaps, if we live under +conditions somewhat hard and narrow; the greater animosity behind is, +at all events, valuable to give force and relief and staying power to +a sentiment of generous conviction. But however we may depreciate its +origin, the conviction was there, widespread in the townships: young +Ormiston would "get clear"; the case for the defence might be heard over +every bushel of oats in Elgin market-place. + +In Elgin itself opinion was more reserved. There was a general view +that these bank clerks were fast fellows, and a tendency to contrast the +habits and the pay of such dashing young men, an exercise which ended +in a not unnatural query. As to the irritating caste feeling maintained +among them, young Ormiston perhaps gave himself as few airs as any. +He was generally conceded indeed by the judging sex to be "nice to +everybody"; but was not that exactly the nature for which temptations +were most easily spread? The town, moreover, had a sapience of its own. +Was it likely that the bank would bring a case so publicly involving its +character and management without knowing pretty well what it was about? +The town would not be committed beyond the circle of young Ormiston's +intimate friends, which was naturally small if you compared it with the +public; the town wasn't going to be surprised at anything that might be +proved. On the other hand, the town was much more vividly touched than +the country by the accident which had made Lorne Murchison practically +sole counsel for the defence, announced as it was by the Express with +every appreciation of its dramatic value. Among what the Express called +"the farming community" this, in so far as it had penetrated, was +regarded as a simple misfortune, a dull blow to expectancy, which +expectancy had some work to survive. Elgin, with its finer palate for +sensation, saw in it heightened chances, both for Lorne and for the +case; and if any ratepayer within its limits had remained indifferent to +the suit, the fact that one side of it had been confided to so young and +so "smart" a fellow townsman would have been bound to draw him into the +circle of speculation. Youth in a young country is a symbol wearing +all its value. It stands not only for what it is. The trick of augury +invests it, at a glance, with the sum of its possibilities, the augurs +all sincere, confident, and exulting. They have been justified so often; +they know, in their wide fair fields of opportunity, just what qualities +will produce what results. There is thus a complacence among adolescent +peoples which is vaguely irritating to their elders; but the greybeards +need not be over-captious; it is only a question of time, pathetically +short-lived in the history of the race. Sanguine persons in Elgin were +freely disposed to "bet on" Lorne Murchison, and there were none +so despondent as to take the view that he would not come out of it, +somehow; with an added personal significance. To make a spoon is a +laudable achievement, but it may be no mean business to spoil a horn. + +As the Express put it, there was as little standing room for ladies and +gentlemen in the courthouse the first day of the Spring Assizes as there +was for horses in the Court House Square. The County Crown Attorney +was unusually, oddly, reinforced by Cruickshank, of Toronto--the great +Cruickshank, K.C., probably the most distinguished criminal lawyer in +the Province. There were those who considered that Cruickshank should +not have been brought down, that it argued undue influence on the +part of the bank, and his retainer was a fierce fan to the feeling in +Moneida; but there is no doubt that his appearance added all that was +possible to the universal interest in the case. Henry Cruickshank was an +able man and, what was rarer a fastidious politician. He had held office +in the Dominion Cabinet, and had resigned it because of a difference +with his colleagues in the application of a principle; they called him, +after a British politician of lofty but abortive views, the Canadian +Renfaire. He had that independence of personality, that intellectual +candour, and that touch of magnetism which combine to make a man +interesting in his public relations. Cruickshank's name alone would have +filled the courthouse, and people would have gone away quoting him. + +From the first word of the case for the prosecution there was that in +the leading counsel's manner--a gravity, a kindness, an inclination to +neglect the commoner methods of scoring--that suggested, with the sudden +chill of unexpectedly bad news, a foregone conclusion. The reality of +his feeling reference to the painful position of the defendant's father, +the sincerity of his regret on behalf of the bank, for the deplorable +exigency under which proceedings had been instituted, spread a kind of +blankness through the court; men frowned thoughtfully, and one or two +ladies shed furtive tears. Even the counsel for the defence, it was +afterward remembered, looked grave, sympathetic, and concerned, in +response to the brief but significant and moving sentences with which +his eminent opponent opened the case. It is not my duty to report the +trial for any newspaper; I will therefore spare myself more than the +most general references; but the facts undoubtedly were that a safe in +the strong room of the bank had been opened between certain hours on a +certain night and its contents abstracted; that young Ormiston, cashier +of the bank, was sleeping, or supposed to be sleeping, upon the premises +at this time, during the illness of the junior whose usual duty it was; +and that the Crown was in possession of certain evidence which would be +brought forward to prove collusion with the burglary on the part of +the defendant, collusion to cover deficits for which he could be held +responsible. In a strain almost apologetic, Mr Cruickshank explained +to the jury the circumstances which led the directors to the suspicion +which they now believed only too regrettably well founded. These +consisted in the fact that the young man was known to be living beyond +his means, and so to be constantly visited by the temptation to such +a crime; the special facilities which he controlled for its commission +and, in particular, the ease and confidence with which the actual +operation had been carried out, arguing no fear of detection on the +part of the burglars, no danger of interference from one who should have +stood ready to defend with his life the property in his charge, but who +would shortly be seen to have been toward it, first, a plunderer in his +own person, and afterward the accomplice of plunderers to conceal +his guilt. Examination showed the safe to have been opened with the +dexterity that demands both time and coolness; and the ash from a pipe +knocked out against the wall at the side of the passage offered ironical +testimony to the comfort in which the business had been done. + +The lawyer gave these considerations their full weight, and it was +in dramatic contrast with the last of them that he produced the first +significant fragment of evidence against Ormiston. There had been, after +all, some hurry of departure. It was shown by a sheet of paper bearing +the mark of a dirty thumb and a hasty boot-heel, bearing also the +combination formula for opening the safe. + +The public was familiar with that piece of evidence; it had gone +through every kind of mill of opinion; it made no special sensation. The +evidence of the caretaker who found the formula and of the witnesses who +established it to be in young Ormiston's handwriting, produced little +interest. Mr Cruickshank, in elaborating his theory as to why with the +formula in their hands the depredators still found it necessary to pick +the lock, offered nothing to speculations already current--the duplicate +key with which they had doubtless been enabled to supply themselves +was a clumsy copy and had failed them; that conclusion had been drawn +commonly enough. The next scrap of paper produced by the prosecution was +another matter. It was the mere torn end of a greasy sheet; upon it was +written "Not less than 3,000 net," and it had been found in the turning +out of Ormiston's dressing-table. It might have been anything--a number +of people pursed their lips contemptuously--or it might have been, +without doubt, the fragment of a disreputable transaction that the +prosecuting counsel endeavoured to show it. Here, no doubt, was one of +the pieces of evidence the prosecution was understood to have up its +sleeve, and that portion of the prosecuting counsel's garment was +watched with feverish interest for further disclosures. They came +rapidly enough, but we must hurry them even more. The name of Miss +Florence Belton, when it rose to the surface of the evidence, riveted +every eye and ear. Miss Belton was one of those ambiguous ladies who +sometimes drift out from the metropolitan vortex and circle restfully in +backwaters for varying periods, appearing and disappearing irrelevantly. +They dress beautifully; they are known to "paint" and thought to dye +their hair. They establish no relations, being much too preoccupied. +making exceptions only, as a rule, in favour of one or two young men, to +whom they extend amenities based--it is the common talk--upon late +hours and whiskey-and-soda. They seem superior to the little prevailing +conventions; they excite an unlawful interest; though nobody knows them +black nobody imagines them white; and when they appear upon Main Street +in search of shoelaces or elastic heads are turned and nods, possibly +nudges, exchanged. Miss Belton had come from New York to the Barker +House, Elgin, and young Ormiston's intimacy with her was one of the +things that counted against him in the general view. It was to so count +more seriously in the particular instance. Witnesses were called to +prove that he had spent the evening of the burglary with Miss Belton at +her hotel, that he had remained with her until one o'clock, that he was +in the habit of spending his evenings with Miss Belton. + +Rawlins of the Express did not overdo the sensation which was caused in +the courtroom when the name of this lady herself was called to summon +her to the witness box. It was indeed the despair of his whole career. +He thought despondingly ever after of the thrill, to which he himself +was not superior and which, if he had only been able to handle it +adequately, might have led him straight up the ladder to a night +editorship. Miss Belton appeared from some unsuspected seat near the +door, throwing back a heavy veil, and walking as austerely as she could, +considering the colour of her hair. She took her place without emotion +and there she corroborated the evidence of the servants of the hotel. +To the grave questions of the prosecution she fluently replied that the +distraction of these evenings had been cards--cards played, certainly, +for money, and that she, certainly, had won very considerable sums from +the defendant from time to time. In Elgin the very mention of cards +played for money will cause a hush of something deeper than disapproval; +there was silence in the court at this. In producing several banknotes +for Miss Belton's identification, Mr Cruickshank seemed to profit by the +silence. Miss Belton identified them without hesitation, as she might +easily, since they had been traced to her possession. Asked to account +for them; she stated, without winking, that they had been paid to her by +Mr Walter Ormiston at various times during the fortnight preceding the +burglary, in satisfaction of debts at cards. She, Miss Belton, had left +Elgin for Chicago the day after the burglary. Mr Ormiston knew that she +was going. He had paid her the four fifty-dollar notes actually traced, +the night before she left, and said. "You won't need to break these +here, will you?" He seemed anxious that she should not, but it was +the merest accident that she hadn't. In all, she had received from Mr +Ormiston four hundred and fifty dollars. No, she had no suspicion that +the young man might not be in a position to make such payments. She +understood that Mr Ormiston's family was wealthy, and never thought +twice about it. + +She spoke with a hard dignity, the lady, and a great effect of doing +business, a kind of assertion of the legitimate. The farmers of Fox +County told each other in chapfallen appreciation that she was about as +level-headed as they make them. Lawyer Cruickshank, as they called him, +brought forth from her detail after detail, and every detail fitted +damningly with the last. The effect upon young Ormiston was so painful +that many looked another way. His jaw was set and his features +contorted to hold himself from the disgrace of tears. He was generally +acknowledged to be overwhelmed by the unexpected demonstration of his +guilt, but distress was so plain in him that there was not a soul in +the place that was not sorry for him. In one or two resolute faces hope +still glimmered, but it hardly survived the cross-examination of the +Crown's chief witness by the counsel for the defence which, as far as +it went, had a perfunctory air and contributed little to the evidence +before the Court. It did not go all the way, however. The case having +opened late, the defence was reserved till the following day, when +proceedings would be resumed with the further cross-examination of Miss +Belton. + +As the defendant's counsel went down the courthouse steps Rawlins came +up to him to take note of his demeanour and anything else that might be +going. + +"Pretty stiff row to hoe you've got there, Lorne," he said. + +"Pretty stiff," responded Lorne. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Imagination, one gathers, is a quality dispensed with of necessity in +the practice of most professions, being that of which nature is, for +some reason, most niggardly. There is no such thing as passing in +imagination for any department of public usefulness, even the government +of Oriental races; the list of the known qualified would be exhausted, +perhaps, in getting the papers set. Yet neither poet nor philosopher +enjoys it in monopoly; the chemist may have it, and the inventor must; +it has been proved the mainspring of the mathematician, and I have +hinted it the property of at least two of the Murchisons. Lorne was +indebted to it certainly for his constructive view of his client's +situation, the view which came to him and stayed with him like a chapter +in a novel, from the hour in which Ormiston had reluctantly accounted +for himself upon the night of the burglary. It was a brilliant view, +that perceived the young clerk the victim of the conspiracy he was +charged with furthering; its justification lay back, dimly, among the +intuitions about human nature which are part of the attribute I +have quoted. I may shortly say that it was justified; another day's +attendance at the Elgin Courthouse shall not be compulsory here, +whatever it may have been there. Young Ormiston's commercial probity +is really no special concern of ours; the thing which does matter, and +considerably, is the special quality which Lorne Murchison brought to +the task of its vindication, the quality that made new and striking +appeal, through every channel of the great occasion, to those who heard +him. It was that which reinforced and comforted every friend Ormiston +had in the courtroom, before Lorne proceeded either to deal with the +evidence of the other side, or to produce any jot or tittle of his own; +and it was that which affected his distinguished opponent to the special +interest which afterward showed itself so pleasantly superior to the +sting of defeat. The fact that the defence was quite as extraordinarily +indebted to circumstantial evidence as the prosecution in no way +detracted from the character of Lorne's personal triumph; rather, +indeed, in the popular view and Rawlins's, enhanced it. There was in +it the primitive joy of seeing a ruffian knocked down with his own +illegitimate weapons, from the moment the dropped formula was proved to +be an old superseded one, and unexpected indication was produced that +Ormiston's room, as well as the bank vault, had been entered the night +of the robbery, to the more glorious excitement of establishing Miss +Belton's connection--not to be quoted--with a cracksman at that moment +being diligently inquired for by the New York police with reference to +a dramatically bigger matter. You saw the plot at once as he constructed +it; the pipe ash became explicable in the seduction of Miss Belton's +charms. The cunning net unwove itself, delicately and deliberately, to +tangle round the lady. There was in it that superiority in the art of +legerdemain, of mere calm, astonishing manipulation, so applauded in +regions where romance has not yet been quite trampled down by reason. +Lorne scored; he scored in face of probability, expectation, fact; it +was the very climax and coruscation of score. He scored not only by the +cards he held but by the beautiful way he played them, if one may say +so. His nature came into this, his gravity and gentleness, his sympathy, +his young angry irony. To mention just one thing, there was the way he +held Miss Belton up, after the exposure of her arts, as the lady for +whom his client had so chivalric a regard that he had for some time +refused to state his whereabouts at the hour the bank was entered in +the fear of compromising her. For this, no doubt, his client could have +strangled him, but it operated, of course, to raise the poor fellow +in the estimation of every body, with the possible exception of his +employers. When, after the unmistakable summing-up, the foreman returned +in a quarter of an hour with the verdict of "Not guilty," people +noticed that the young man walked out of court behind his father with +as drooping a head as if he had gone under sentence; so much so that +by common consent he was allowed to slip quietly away. Miss Belton +departed, followed by the detective, whose services were promptly +transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of those who scented +further entertainment in her perfumed, perjured wake. But the majority +hung back, leaving their places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd wanted +to shake hands with to say just a word of congratulation to, Lorne's +triumph that they desired to enhance by a hearty sentence, or at least +an admiring glance. Walter Winter was among the most genial. + +"Young man," he said, "what did I tell you? Didn't I tell you you ought +to take this case?" Mr Winter, with his chest thrust out, plumed and +strutted in justifiable pride of prophecy. "Now, I'll tell you another +thing: today's event will do more for you than it has for Ormiston. Mark +my words!" + +They were all of that opinion, all the fine foretellers of the profit +Lorne should draw from his spirited and conspicuous success; they +stood about in knots discussing it; to some extent it eclipsed the main +interest and issue of the day, at that moment driving out, free and +disconsolate, between the snake fences of the South Riding to Moneida +Reservation. The quick and friendly sense of opportunity was abroad on +Lorne Murchison's behalf; friends and neighbours and Dr Drummond, and +people who hardly knew the fellow, exchanged wise words about what his +chance would do for him. What it would immediately do was present to +nobody so clearly, however, as to Mr Henry Cruickshank, who decided that +he would, after all, accept Dr Drummond's invitation to spend the night +with him, and find out the little he didn't know already about this +young man. + +That evening the Murchisons' doorbell rang twice. The first time it was +to admit the Rev. Hugh Finlay, who had come to return Sordello, which he +had borrowed from Advena, and to find out whether she thought with him +about the interpretation of certain passages, and if not--there was +always the possibility--wherein their divergence lay. The second time +the door opened to Dr Drummond and Mr Cruickshank; and the electric +light had to be turned on in the drawing-room, since the library was +already occupied by Mr Finlay and Advena, Mr and Mrs Murchison never +having got over their early habit of sitting in the dining-room after +tea. Even then Mrs Murchison had to put away her workbasket, and John +Murchison to knock the ashes out of his pipe, looking at one another +with surprised inquiry when Eliza informed them of their visitors. +Luckily, Mr Lorne was also in, and Eliza was sent to tell him, and +Mr Lorne came down the stairs two at a time to join the party in the +drawing-room, which was presently supplied by Eliza with a dignified +service of cake and wine. The hall divided that room from the library, +and both doors were shut. We cannot hesitate about which to open; we +have only, indeed, to follow the recognized tradition of Elgin, which +would never have entered the library. No vivid conclusion should be +drawn, no serious situation may even be indicated. It would simply have +been considered, in Elgin, stupid to go into the library. + +"It isn't a case for the High Commissioner for Canada," Mr Cruickshank +was saying. "It's a case for direct representation of the interests +concerned, and their view of the effect upon trade. That's the only +voice to speak with if you want to get anything done. Conviction carries +conviction. The High Commissioner is a very useful fellow to live +in London and look after the ornamental, the sentimental, and +immigration--nobody could do it better than Selkirk. And in England, of +course, they like that kind of agency. It's the good old dignified +way; but it won't do for everything. You don't find our friend Morgan +operating through the American equivalent of a High Commissioner." + +"No, you don't," said John Murchison. + +"He goes over there as a principal, and the British Government, if he +wants to deal with it, is only another principal. That's the way our +deputation will go. We're practically all shippers, though of course the +matter of tenders will come later. There is big business for them here, +national business, and we propose to show it. The subsidy we want will +come back to the country four times over in two years. Freights from +Boston alone--" + +"It's the patriotic, imperial argument you'll have to press, I doubt," +said John Murchison. "They're not business people over there--the men in +office are not. How should they be? The system draws them from the +wrong class. They're gentlemen--noblemen, maybe--first, and they've no +practical education. There's only one way of getting it, and that's to +make your own living. How many of them have ever made tuppence? There's +where the Americans beat them so badly--they've got the sixth sense, +the business sense. No; you'll not find them responding greatly to what +there is in it for trade--they'd like to well enough, but they just +won't see it; and, by George! what a fine suspicion they'll have of ye! +As to freights from Boston," he continued, as they all laughed, "I'm +of opinion you'd better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a +friendly power! Tut, tut!" + +It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were all excited to a +pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank had brought with him an +event of extraordinary importance. It seemed to sit there with him, +significant and propitious, in the middle of the sofa; they all looked +at it in the pauses. Dr Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately +contemplated it and remembered to assert himself part of it. As head of +a deputation from the United Chambers of Commerce of Canada shortly +to wait on the British Government to press for the encouragement of +improved communications within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked +to select a secretary. The appointment, in view of the desirability, +for political reasons, of giving the widest publicity to the hopes +and motives of the deputation, was an important one. The action of the +Canadian Government, in extending conditional promises of support, had +to be justified to the Canadian taxpayer; and that shy and weary person +whose shoulders uphold the greatness of Britain, had also to receive +such conciliation and reassurance as it was possible to administer to +him, by way of nerving the administrative arm over there to an act of +enterprise. Mr Cruickshank had had two or three young fellows, mostly +newspaper men, in his mind's eye; but when Lorne came into his literal +range of vision, the others had promptly been retired in our friend's +favour. Young Mr Murchison, he had concluded, was the man they wanted; +and if his office could spare him, it would probably do young Mr +Murchison no harm in any sort of way to accompany the deputation to +London and throw himself into the matter the deputation had at heart. + +"But it's the Empire!" said Lorne, with a sort of shy fire, when Mr +Cruickshank enunciated this. + +We need not, perhaps, dwell upon the significance of his agreement. It +was then not long since the maple leaf had been stained brighter than +ever, not without honour, to maintain the word that fell from him. The +three older men looked at him kindly; John Murchison, rubbing his chin +as he considered the situation, slightly shook his head. One took it +that in his view the Empire was not so readily envisaged. + +"That has a strong bearing," Mr Cruickshank assented. + +"It's the whole case--it seems to me," repeated young Murchison. + +"It should help to knit us up," said Dr Drummond. "I'll put my name down +on the first passenger list, if Knox Church will let me off. See that +you have special rates," he added, with a twinkle, "for ministers and +missionaries." + +"And only ten days to get him ready in," said Mrs Murchison. "It will +take some seeing to, I assure you; and I don't know how it's to be done +in the time. For once, Lorne, I'll have to order you ready-made shirts, +and you'll just have to put up with it. Nothing else could possibly get +back from the wash." + +"I'll put up with it, Mother." + +They went into other details of Lorne's equipment while Mrs Murchison's +eye still wandered over the necessities of his wardrobe. They arranged +the date on which he was to meet the members of the deputation in +Montreal, and Mr Cruickshank promised to send him all available +documents and such presentation of the project as had been made in the +newspapers. + +"You shall be put in immediate possession of the bones of the thing," +he said, "but what really matters," he added pleasantly, "I think you've +got already." + +It took, of course, some discussion, and it was quite ten o'clock before +everything was gone into, and the prospect was clear to them all. As +they emerged into the hall together, the door of the room opposite also +opened, and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their group. +They all made the best of the unexpected encounter. It was rather an +elaborate best, very polite and entirely grave, except in the instance +of Dr Drummond, who met his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality +struggled in vain to overcome the delighted humour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +It was the talk of the town, the pride of the market-place, Lorne +Murchison's having been selected to accompany what was known as the +Cruickshank deputation to England. The general spirit of congratulation +was corrected by a tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on +the chairman's part; Elgin wouldn't be too flattered; Lawyer Cruickshank +couldn't have done better. You may be sure the Express was well +ahead with it. "Honour to Our Young Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited +Compliment," and Rawlins was round promptly next morning to glean +further particulars. He found only Mrs Murchison, on a stepladder tying +up the clematis that climbed about the verandah, and she told him a +little about clematis and a good deal about the inconvenience of having +to abandon superintending the spring cleaning in order to get Lorne +ready to go to the Old Country at such short notice, but nothing he +could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at the office, was hardly more +communicative. Mr Williams himself dropped in there. He said the Express +would now have a personal interest in the object of the deputation, and +proposed to strike out a broad line, a broader line than ever. + +"We've got into the way of taking it for granted," said Mr Williams, +"that the subsidy idea is a kind of mediaeval idea. Raise a big enough +shout and you get things taken for granted in economics for a long +while. Conditions keep changing, right along, all the time, and +presently you've got to reconsider. There ain't any sort of ultimate +truth in the finest economic position, my son; not any at all." + +"We'll subsidize over here, right enough," said Lorne. + +"That's the idea--that's the prevailing idea, just now. But lots of +people think different--more than you'd imagine. I was talking to +old man Milburn just now--he's dead against it. 'Government has no +business,' he said, 'to apply the taxes in the interests of any company. +It oughtn't to know how to spell "subsidy." If the trade was there it +would get itself carried,' he said." + +"Well, that surprises me," said Lorne. + +"Surprised me, too. But I was on the spot with him; just thought of it +in time. 'Well, now, Mr Milburn,' I said, 'you've changed your mind. +Thought that was a thing you Conservatives never did,' I said. 'We +don't--I haven't,' he said. 'What d'ye mean? Twenty-five years ago,' I +said, 'when you were considering whether you'd start the Milburn Boiler +Works here or in Hamilton, Hamilton offered you a free site, and Elgin +offered you a free site and a dam for your water power. You took the +biggest subsidy an' came here,' I said." + +Lorne laughed: "What did he say to that?" + +"Hadn't a word. 'I guess it's up to me,' he said. Then he turned round +and came back. 'Hold on, Williams; he said. 'You know so much already +about my boiler works, it wouldn't be much trouble for you to write out +an account of them from the beginning, would it? Working in the last +quarter of a century of the town's progress, you know, and all that. +Come round to the office tomorrow, and I'll give you some pointers.' And +he fixed up a two-column ad right away. He was afraid I'd round on him, +I suppose, if I caught him saying anything more about the immorality of +subsidies." + +"He won't say anything more." + +"Probably not. Milburn hasn't got much of a political conscience, but +he's got a sense of what's silly. Well, now, I expect you want all the +time there is." + +Mr Williams removed himself from the edge of the table, which was strewn +with maps and bluebooks, printed official, and typewritten demi-official +papers. + +"Give 'em a notion of those Assiniboian wheat acres, my boy, and the +ranch country we've got; tell 'em about the future of quick passage and +cold storage. Get 'em a little ashamed to have made so many fortunes for +Yankee beef combines; persuade 'em the cheapest market has a funny way +of getting the dearest price in the end. Give it 'em, Lorne, hot and +cold and fricasseed. The Express will back you up." + +He slapped his young friend's shoulder, who seemed occupied with +matters that prevented his at once feeling the value of this assurance. +"Bye-bye," said Mr Williams. "See you again before you start." + +"Oh, of course!" Lorne replied. "I'll--I'll come round. By the +way, Williams, Mr Milburn didn't say anything--anything about me in +connection with this business? Didn't mention, I suppose, what he +thought about my going?" + +"Not a word, my boy! He was away up in abstract principles; he generally +is. Bye-bye." + +"It's gone to his head a little bit--only natural," Horace reflected as +he went down the stairs. "He's probably just feeding on what folks think +of it. As if it mattered a pin's head what Octavius Milburn thinks or +don't think!" + +Lorne, however, left alone with his customs returns and his immigration +reports, sat still, attaching a weight quite out of comparison with a +pin's head to Mr Milburn's opinion. He turned it over and over, instead +of the tabulated figures that were his business: he had to show himself +his way to the conclusion that such a thing could not matter seriously +in the end, since Milburn hadn't a dollar involved--it would be +different if he were a shareholder in the Maple Line. He wished +heartily, nevertheless, that he could demonstrate a special advantage +to boiler-makers in competitive freights with New York. What did they +import, confound them! Pig-iron? Plates and rivets? Fortunately he was +in a position to get at the facts, and he got at them with an interest +of even greater intensity than he had shown to the whole question since +ten that morning. Even now, the unprejudiced observer, turning up the +literature connected with the Cruickshank deputation, may notice a +stress laid upon the advantages to Canadian importers of ore in certain +stages of manufacture which may strike him as slightly, very slightly, +special. Of course there are a good many of them in the country. So +that Mr Horace Williams was justified to some extent in his kindly +observation upon the excusable egotism of youth. Two or three letters, +however, came in while Lorne was considering the relation of plates and +rivets to the objects of his deputation. They were all congratulatory; +one was from the chairman of the Liberal Association at its headquarters +in Toronto. Lorne glanced at them and stowed them away in his pocket. +He would read them when he got home, when it would be a pleasure to hand +them over to his mother. She was making a collection of them. + +He had a happy perception that same evening that Mr Milburn's position +was not, after all, finally and invincibly taken against the deputation +and everything--everybody--concerned with it. He met that gentleman at +his own garden gate. Octavius paused in his exit, to hold it open for +young Murchison, thus even assisting the act of entry, a thing which +thrilled Lorne sweetly enough when he had time to ponder its possible +significance. Alas! the significance that lovers find! Lorne read a +world in the behaviour of Dora's father in holding the gate open. He +saw political principle put aside in his favour, and social position +forgotten in kindness to him. He saw the gravest, sincerest appreciation +of his recent success, which he took as humbly as a dog will take a +bone; he read a fatherly thought at which his pulses bounded in an +arrogance of triumph, and his heart rose to ask its trust. And Octavius +Milburn had held the gate open because it was more convenient to hold +it open than to leave it open. He had not a political view in the world +that was calculated to affect his attitude toward a practical matter; +and his opinion of Lorne was quite uncomplicated: he thought him a very +likely young fellow. Milburn himself, in the Elgin way, preferred to +see no great significance of this sort anywhere. Young people were +young people; it was natural enough that they should like each other's +society. They, the Milburns, were very glad to see Mr Murchison, very +glad indeed. It was frequent matter for veiled humorous reference at +the table that he had been to call again, at which Dora would look very +stiff and dignified, and have to be coaxed back into the conversation. +As to anything serious, there was no hurry; plenty of time to think of +that. Such matters dwelt under the horizon; there was no need to scan +them closely; and Mr Milburn went his way, conscious of nothing more +than a comfortable gratification that Dora, so far as the young men were +concerned, seemed as popular as other girls. + +Dora was not in the drawing-room. Young ladies in Elgin had always to +be summoned from somewhere. For all the Filkin instinct for the +conservation of polite tradition, Dora was probably reading the +Toronto society weekly--illustrated, with correspondents all over the +Province--on the back verandah and, but for the irruption of a visitor, +would probably not have entered the formal apartment of the house at +all that evening. Drawing-rooms in Elgin had their prescribed uses--to +receive in, to practise in, and for the last sad entertainment of the +dead, when the furniture was disarranged to accommodate the trestles; +but the common business of life went on outside them, even among +prosperous people, the survival, perhaps, of a habit based upon thrift. +The shutters were opened when Lorne entered, to let in the spring +twilight, and the servant pulled a chair into its proper relation with +the room as she went out. + +Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin both came in before Dora did. Lorne found +their conversation enchanting, though it was mostly about the difficulty +of keeping the lawn tidy; they had had so much rain. Mrs Milburn assured +him kindly that there was not such another lawn as his father's in +Elgin. How Mr Murchison managed to have it looking so nice always she +could not think. Only yesterday she and Mr Milburn had stopped to admire +it as they passed. + +"Spring is always a beautiful time in Elgin," she remarked. "There are +so many pretty houses here, each standing in its own grounds. Nothing +very grand, as I tell my friend, Miss Cham, from Buffalo where the +residences are, of course, on quite a different scale; but grandeur +isn't everything, is it?" + +"No, indeed," said Lorne. + +"But you will be leaving for Great Britain very soon now, Mr Murchison," +said Miss Filkin. "Leaving Elgin and all its beauties! And I dare say +you won't think of them once again till you get back!" + +"I hope I shall not be so busy as that, Miss Filkin." + +"Oh, no, I'm sure Mr Murchison won't forget his native town altogether," +said Mrs Milburn, "though perhaps he won't like it so well after seeing +dear old England!" + +"I expect," said Lorne simply, "to like it better." + +"Well, of course, we shall all be pleased if you say that, Mr +Murchison," Mrs Milburn replied graciously. "We shall feel quite +complimented. But I'm afraid you will find a great deal to criticize +when you come back--that is, if you go at all into society over there. I +always say there can be nothing like good English society." + +"I want to attend a sitting of the House," Lorne said. "I hope I shall +have time for that. I want to see those fellows handling their public +business. I don't believe I shall find our men so far behind, for point +of view and grasp and dispatch. Of course there's always Wallingham to +make a standard for us all. But they haven't got so many Wallinghams." + +"Wasn't it Wallingham, Louisa, that Mr Milburn was saying at breakfast +was such a dangerous man? So able, he said, but dangerous. Something to +do with the tariff." + +"Oh?" said Lorne, and he said no more, for at that moment Dora came +in. She came in looking very straight and graceful and composed. Her +personal note was carried out in her pretty clothes, which hung and +"sat" upon her like the rhythm of verses; they could fall no other way. +She had in every movement the definite accent of young ladyhood; she was +very much aware of herself, of the situation, and of her value in it, +a setting for herself she saw it, and saw it truly. No one, from the +moment she entered the room, looked at anything else. + +"Oh, Mr Murchison," she said. "How do you do? Mother, do you mind if I +open the window? It's quite warm out of doors--regular summer." + +Lorne sprang to open the window, while Miss Filkin, murmuring that it +had been a beautiful day, moved a little farther from it. + +"Oh, please don't trouble, Mr Murchison; thank you very much!" Miss +Milburn continued, and subsided on a sofa. "Have you been playing tennis +this week?" + +Mr Murchison said that he had been able to get down to the club only +once. + +"The courts aren't a bit in good order. They want about a week's +rolling. The balls get up anywhere," said Dora. + +"Lawn tennis," Mrs Milburn asserted herself, "is a delightful exercise. +I hope it will never go out of fashion; but that is what we used to say +of croquet, and it has gone out and come in again." + +Lorne listened to this with deference; there was a hint of patience in +the regard Dora turned upon her mother. Mrs Milburn continued to +dilate upon lawn tennis, dealt lightly with badminton, and brought the +conversation round with a graceful sweep to canoeing. Dora's attitude +before she had done became slightly permissive, but Mrs Milburn held on +till she had accomplished her conception of conduct for the occasion; +then she remembered a meeting in the schoolhouse. + +"We are to have an address by an Indian bishop," she told them. "He is +on his way to England by China and Japan, and is staying with our dear +rector, Mr Murchison. Such a treat I expect it will be." + +"What I am dying to know," said Miss Filkin, in a sprightly way, "is +whether he is black or white!" + +Mrs Milburn then left the room, and shortly afterward Miss Filkin +thought she could not miss the bishop either, conveying the feeling +that a bishop was a bishop, of whatever colour. She stayed three minutes +longer than Mrs Milburn, but she went. The Filkin tradition, though +strong, could not hold out entirely against the unwritten laws, the +silently claimed privileges, of youth in Elgin. It made its pretence and +vanished. + +Even as the door closed the two that were left looked at one another +with a new significance. A simpler relation established itself between +them and controlled all that surrounded them; the very twilight seemed +conscious with it; the chairs and tables stood in attentive harmony. + +"You know," said Dora, "I hate your going, Lorne!" + +She did indeed seem moved, about the mouth, to discontent. There was +some little injury in the way she swung her foot. + +"I was hoping Mr Fulke wouldn't get better in time; I was truly!" + +The gratitude in young Murchison's eyes should have been dear to her. I +don't know whether she saw it; but she must have been aware that she was +saying what touched him, making her point. + +"Oh, it's a good thing to go, Dora." + +"A good thing for you! And the regatta coming off the first week in +June, and a whole crowd coming from Toronto for it. There isn't another +person in town I care to canoe with, Lorne, you know perfectly well!" + +"I'm awfully sorry!" said Lorne. "I wish--" + +"Oh, I'm GOING, I believe. Stephen Stuart has written from Toronto, and +asked me to sail with him. I haven't told Mother, but he's my second +cousin, so I suppose she won't make a fuss." + +The young man's face clouded; seeing which she relented. "Oh, of course, +I'm glad you're going, really," she assured him. "And we'll all be proud +to be acquainted with such a distinguished gentleman when you get back. +Do you think you'll see the King? You might, you know, in London." + +"I'll see him if he's visible," laughed Lorne. "That would be something +to tell your mother, wouldn't it? But I'm afraid we won't be doing +business with His Majesty." + +"I expect you'll have the loveliest time you ever had in all your life. +Do you think you'll be asked out much, Lorne?" + +"I can't imagine who would ask me. We'll get off easy if the street boys +don't shout: 'What price Canucks?' at us! But I'll see England, Dora; +I'll feel England, eat and drink and sleep and live in England, for a +little while. Isn't the very name great? I'll be a better man for going, +till I die. We're all right out here, but we're young and thin and +weedy. They didn't grow so fast in England, to begin with, and now +they're rich with character and strong with conduct and hoary with +ideals. I've been reading up the history of our political relations with +England. It's astonishing what we've stuck to her through, but you can't +help seeing why--it's for the moral advantage. Way down at the bottom, +that's what it is. We have the sense to want all we can get of that +sort of thing. They've developed the finest human product there is, +the cleanest, the most disinterested, and we want to keep up the +relationship--it's important. Their talk about the value of their +protection doesn't take in the situation as it is now. Who would touch +us if we were running our own show?" + +"I don't believe they are a bit better than we are," replied Miss +Milburn. "I'm sure I haven't much opinion of the Englishmen that come +out here. They don't think anything of getting into debt, and as often +as not they drink, and they never know enough to--to come in out of the +rain. But, Lorne--" + +"Yes, but we're very apt to get the failures. The fellows their folks +give five or six hundred pounds to and tell them they're not expected +back till they're making a living. The best men find their level +somewhere else, along recognized channels. Lord knows we don't want +them--this country's for immigrants. We're manufacturing our own +gentlemen quite fast enough for the demand." + +"I should think we were! Why, Lorne, Canadians--nice Canadians are just +as gentlemanly as they can be! They'll compare with anybody. Perhaps +Americans have got more style:" she weighed the matter; "but Canadians +are much better form, I think. But, Lorne, how perfectly dear of you to +send me those roses. I wore them, and nobody there had such beauties. +All the girls wanted to know where I got them, but I only told Lily, +just to make her feel a pig for not having asked you--my very greatest +friend! She just about apologized--told me she wanted to ask about +twenty more people, but her mother wouldn't let her. They've lost an +uncle or something lately, and if it hadn't been for Clara Sims staying +with them they wouldn't have been giving anything." + +"I'll try to survive not having been asked. But I'm glad you wore the +roses, Dora." + +"I dropped one, and Phil Carter wanted to keep it. He's so silly!" + +"Did you--did you let him keep it?" + +"Lorne Murchison! Do you think I'd let any man keep a rose I'd been +wearing?" + +He looked at her, suddenly emboldened. "I don't know about roses, Dora, +but pansies--those are awfully nice ones in your dress. I'm very fond +of pansies; couldn't you spare me one? I wouldn't ask for a rose, but a +pansy--" + +His eyes were more ardent than what he found to say. Beneath them Dora +grew delicately pink. The pansies drooped a little; she put her slender +fingers under one, and lifted its petals. + +"It's too faded for your buttonhole," she said. + +"It needn't stay in my buttonhole. I know lots of other places!" he +begged. + +Dora considered the pansy again, then she pulled it slowly out, and the +young man got up and went over to her, proffering the lapel of his coat. + +"It spoils the bunch," she said prettily. "If I give you this you will +have to give me something to take its place." + +"I will," said Lorne. + +"I know it will be something better," said Dora, and there was a little +effort in her composure. "You send people such beautiful flowers, +Lorne." + +She rose beside him as she spoke, graceful and fair, to fasten it in; +and it was his hand that shook. + +"Then may I choose it?" said Lorne. "And will you wear it?" + +"I suppose you may. Why are you--why do you--Oh, Lorne, stand still!" + +"I'll give you, you sweet girl, my whole heart!" he said in the vague +tender knowledge that he offered her a garden, where she had but to +walk, and smile, to bring about her unimaginable blooms. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May evening, Mr and +Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the Murchison Place in the town's +mouth now, and that was only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the +Plummers. It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big horse +chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring dusk for them, +as it had done faithfully for thirty years. John was no longer in his +shirt-sleeves; the growing authority of his family had long prescribed +a black alpaca coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old +deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as considerately as he +held its original, which lasted him fifteen years. A great deal of +John Murchison's character was there, in the way he held his pipe, his +gentleness and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet strength +of his nature. He smoked and read the paper the unfailing double solace +of his evenings. I should have said that it was Mrs Murchison who +talked. She had the advantage of a free mind, only subconsciously +occupied with her white wool and agile needles; and John had frequently +to choose between her observations and the politics of the day. + +"You saw Lorne's letter this morning, Father?" + +John took his pipe out of his mouth. "Yes," he said. + +"He seems tremendously taken up with Wallingham. It was all Wallingham, +from one end to the other." + +"It's not remarkable," said John Murchison, patiently. + +"You'd think he had nothing else to write about. There was that +reception at Lord What-you-may-call-him's, the Canadian Commissioner's, +when the Prince and Princess of Wales came, and brought their family. +I'd like to have heard something more about that than just that he was +there. He might have noticed what the children had on. Now that Abby's +family is coming about her I seem to have my hands as full of children's +clothes as ever I had. Abby seems to think there's nothing like my old +patterns; I'm sure I'm sick of the sight of them!" + +Mr Murchison refolded his newspaper, took his pipe once more from his +mouth, and said nothing. + +"John, put down that paper! I declare it's enough to drive anybody +crazy! Now look at that boy walking across the lawn. He does it every +night, delivering the Express, and you take no more notice! He's wearing +a regular path!" + +"Sonny," said Mr Murchison, as the urchin approached, "you mustn't walk +across the grass." + +"Much good that will do!" remarked Mrs Murchison. "I'd teach him to +walk across the grass, if--if it were my business. Boy--isn't your name +Willie Parker? Then it was your mother I promised the coat and the other +things to, and you'll find them ready there, just inside the hall door. +They'll make down very well for you, but you can tell her from me that +she'd better double-seam them, for the stuff's apt to ravel. And attend +to what Mr Murchison says; go out by the gravel--what do you suppose +it's there for?" + +Mrs Murchison readjusted her glasses, and turned another row of the tiny +sock. "I must say it's a pleasure to have the lawn neat and green," +she said, with a sigh. "Never did I expect to see the day it would be +anything but chickweed and dandelions. We've a great deal to be thankful +for, and all our children spared to us, too. John," she continued, +casting a shrewd glance over her needles at nothing in particular; "do +you suppose anything was settled between Lorne and Dora Milburn before +he Started?" + +"He said nothing to me about it." + +"Oh, well, very likely he wouldn't. Young people keep such a tremendous +lot to themselves nowadays. But it's my belief they've come to an +understanding." + +"Lily might do worse," said John Murchison, judicially. + +"I should think Dora might do worse! I don't know where she's going to +do better! The most promising young man in Elgin, well brought up, well +educated, well started in a profession! There's not a young fellow in +this town to compare with Lorne, and perfectly well you know it, John. +Might do worse! But that's you all over. Belittle your own belongings!" + +Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. "They've always got you to blow +their trumpet, Mother," he replied. + +"And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about Lorne! He says +that if the English Government starts that line of boats to Halifax the +country will owe it to him, much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody +else." + +"Dr Drummond likes to talk," said John Murchison. + +"Lorne's keeping his end up all right," remarked Stella, jumping off +her bicycle in time to hear what her mother said. "It's great, that old +Wallingham asking him to dinner. And haven't I just been spreading it!" + +"Where have you been, Stella?" asked Mrs Murchison. + +"Oh, only over to the Milburns'. Dora asked me to come and show her +the new flower-stitch for table centres. Dora's suddenly taken to fancy +work. She's started a lot--a lot too much!" Stella added gloomily. + +"If Dora likes to do fancy work I don't see why anybody should want to +stop her," remarked Mrs Murchison, with a meaning glance at her husband. + +"I suppose she thinks she's going to get Lorne," said Stella. Her +resentment was only half-serious, but the note was there. + +"What put that into your head?" asked her mother. + +"Oh, well, anybody can see that he's devoted to her, and has been +for ages, and it isn't as if Lorne was one to HAVE girlfriends; she's +absolutely the only thing he's ever looked at twice. She hasn't got a +ring, that's true, but it would be just like her to want him to get it +in England. And I know they correspond. She doesn't make any secret of +it." + +"Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as well as you, +Stella," said Mrs Murchison, stooping for her ball. "But there's no need +to take things for granted at such a rate. And, above all, you're not to +go TALKING, remember!" + +"Well, if you think Dora Milburn's good enough," returned Lorne's +youngest sister in threatening accents, "it's more than I do, that's +all. Hello, Miss Murchison!" she continued, as Advena appeared. "You're +looking 'xtremely dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?" + +Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful amusement, which +Stella, bicycling forth again, received in the back of her head. + +"Father," said Mrs Murchison, "if you had taken any share in the +bringing up of this family, Stella ought to have her ears boxed this +minute!" + +"We'll have to box them," said Mr Murchison, "when she comes back." +Advena had retreated into the house. "IS she expecting his reverence?" +asked her father with a twinkle. + +"Don't ask me! I'm sure it's more than I can tell you. It's a mystery +to me, that matter, altogether. I've known him come three evenings in a +week and not again for a month of Sundays. And when he does come there +they sit, talking about their books and their authors; you'd think the +world had nothing else in it! I know, for I've heard them, hard at it, +there in the library. Books and authors won't keep their house or look +after their family for them; I can tell them that, if it does come to +anything, which I hope it won't." + +"Finlay's fine in the pulpit," said John Murchison cautiously. + +"Oh, the man's well enough; it's him I'm sorry for. I don't call Advena +fitted to be a wife, and last of all a minister's. Abby was a treasure +for any man to get, and Stella won't turn out at all badly; she's taking +hold very well for her age. But Advena simply hasn't got it in her, and +that's all there is to say about it." Mrs Murchison pulled her needles +out right side out with finality. "I don't deny the girl's talented in +her own way, but it's no way to marry on. She'd much better make up her +mind just to be a happy independent old maid; any woman might do worse. +And take no responsibilities." + +"There would always be you, Mother, for them to fall back on." It was as +near as John Murchison ever got to flattery. + +"No thank you, then! I've brought up six of my own, as well as I was +able, which isn't saying much, and a hard life I've had of it. Now I'm +done with it; they'll have to find somebody else to fall back on. If +they get themselves into such a mess"--Mrs Murchison stopped to laugh +with sincere enjoyment--"they needn't look to me to get them out." + +"I guess you'd have a hand, Mother." + +"Not I. But the man isn't thinking of any such folly. What do you +suppose his salary is?" + +"Eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. They raised it last month." + +"And how far would Advena be able to make that go, with servants getting +the money they do and expecting the washing put out as a matter of +course? Do you remember Eliza, John, that we had when we were first +married? Seven dollars a month she got; she would split wood at a pinch, +and I've never had one since that could do up shirts like her. Three +years and a half she was with me, and did everything, everything I +didn't do. But that was management, and Advena's no manager. It would +be me that would tell him, if I had the chance. Then he couldn't say he +hadn't been warned. But I don't think he has any such idea." + +"Advena," pronounced Mr Murchison, "might do worse." + +"Well, I don't know whether she might. The creature is well enough to +preach before a congregation. But what she can see in him out of the +pulpit is more than I know. A great gawk of a fellow, with eyes that +always look as if he were in the middle of next week! He may be able +to talk to Advena, but he's no hand at general conversation; I know +he finds precious little to say to me. But he's got no such notion. He +comes here because, being human, he's got to open his mouth some time or +other, I suppose; but it's my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody +else in his mind's eye at present. He doesn't go the right way about +it." + +"H'm!" said John Murchison. + +"He brought her a book the last time he came--what do you think the name +of it was? The something or other of Plato! Do you call that a natural +gift from a young man who is thinking seriously of a girl? Besides, if +I know anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no writer for +a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I'd Plato him to the +rightabout if it was me!" + +"She might read worse than Plato," remarked John. + +"Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She's your own daughter for +outlandish books. Mercy on us, here comes the man! We'll just say 'How +d'ye do?' to him, and then start for Abby's, John. I'm not easy in my +mind about the baby, and I haven't been over since the morning. Harry +says it's nothing but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough when I +hear it. And if it is whooping-cough the boy will have to come here +and rampage, I suppose, till they're clear of it. There's some use in +grandmothers, if I do say it myself!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +If anyone had told Mr Hugh Finlay, while he was pursuing his rigorous +path to the ideals of the University of Edinburgh, that the first +notable interest of his life in the calling and the country to which +even then he had given his future would lie in his relations with any +woman, he would have treated the prediction as mere folly. To go far +enough back in accounting for this one would arrive at the female sort, +sterling and arid, that had presided over his childhood and represented +the sex to his youth, the Aunt Lizzie, widowed and frugal and spare, who +had brought him up; the Janet Wilson, who had washed and mended him from +babyhood, good gaunt creature half-servant and half-friend--the mature +respectable women and impossible blowsy girls of the Dumfriesshire +village whence he came. With such as these relations, actual or +imagined, could only be of the most practical kind, matters to be +arranged on grounds of expediency, and certainly not of the first +importance. The things of first importance--what you could do with your +energy and your brains to beat out some microscopic good for the +world, and what you could see and feel and realize in it of value to +yourself--left little room for the feminine consideration in Finlay's +eyes; it was not a thing, simply, that existed there with any +significance. Woman in her more attractive presentment, was a daughter +of the poets, with an esoteric, or perhaps only a symbolic, or perhaps +a merely decorative function; in any case, a creature that required an +initiation to perceive her--a process to which Finlay would have been +as unwilling as he was unlikely to submit. Not that he was destitute +of ideals about women--they would have formed in that case a strange +exception to his general outlook--but he saw them on a plane detached +and impersonal, concerned with the preservation of society the +maintenance of the home, the noble devotions of motherhood. Women had +been known, historically, to be capable of lofty sentiments and fine +actions: he would have been the last to withhold their due from women. +But they were removed from the scope of his imagination, partly by the +accidents I have mentioned and partly, no doubt, by a simple lack in him +of the inclination to seek and to know them. + +So that Christie Cameron, when she came to stay with his aunt in Bross +during the few weeks after his ordination and before his departure for +Canada, found a fair light for judgement and more than a reasonable +disposition to acquiesce in the scale of her merits, as a woman, on the +part of Hugh Finlay. He was familiar with the scale of her merits before +she came; his Aunt Lizzie did little but run them up and down. When she +arrived she answered to every item she was a good height, but not too +tall; a nice figure of a woman, but not what you would call stout; +a fresh-faced body whose excellent principles were written in every +feature she had. She was five years older than Hugh, but even that he +came to accept in Aunt Lizzie's skilful exhibition as something to the +total of her advantages. A pleasant independent creature with a hundred +a year of her own, sensible and vigorous and good-tempered, belonging as +well to the pre-eminently right denomination. She had virtues that might +have figured handsomely in an advertisement had Aunt Lizzie, in +the plenitude of her good will, thought fit to take that measure on +Christie's behalf. But nothing was farther from Aunt Lizzie's mind. +We must, in fairness, add Christie Cameron to the sum of Finlay's +acquaintance with the sex; but even then the total is slender, little to +go upon. + +Yet the fact which Mr Finlay would in those days have considered so +unimaginable remained; it had come into being and it remained. The chief +interest of his life, the chief human interest, did lie in his relations +with Advena Murchison. He might challenge it, but he could not move it; +he might explain, but he could not alter it. And there had come no point +at which it would have occurred to him to do either. When at last he +had seen how simple and possible it was to enjoy Miss Murchison's +companionship upon unoccupied evenings he had begun to do it with +eagerness and zest, the greater because Elgin offered him practically no +other. Dr Drummond lived, for purposes of intellectual contact, at the +other end of the century, the other clergy and professional men of the +town were separated from Finlay by all the mental predispositions that +rose from the virgin soil. He was, as Mrs Murchison said, a great gawk +of a fellow; he had little adaptability; he was not of those who spend +a year or two in the New World and go back with a trans-Atlantic +accent, either of tongue or of mind. Where he saw a lack of dignity, +of consideration, or of restraint, he did not insensibly become less +dignified or considerate or restrained to smooth out perceptible +differences; nor was he constituted to absorb the qualities of those +defects, and enrich his nature by the geniality, the shrewdness, the +quick mental movement that stood on the other side of the account. He +cherished in secret an admiration for the young men of Elgin, with their +unappeasable energy and their indomitable optimism, but he could not +translate it in any language of sympathy and but for Advena his soul +would have gone uncomforted and alone. + +Advena, as we know, was his companion. Seeing herself just that, +constantly content to be just that, she walked beside him closer than he +knew. She had her woman's prescience and trusted it. Her own heart, all +sweetly alive, counselled her to patience; her instincts laid her in +bonds to concealment. She knew, she was sure; so sure that she could +play sometimes, smiling, with her living heart-- + + The nightingale was not yet heard + For the rose was not yet blown, + +she could say of his; and what was that but play, and tender laughter, +at the expense of her own? And then, perhaps, looking up from the same +book, she would whisper, alone in her room-- + + Oh, speed the day, thou dear, dear May, + +and gaze humbly through tears at her own face in the glass loving it on +his behalf. She took her passion with the weight of a thing ordained; +she had come upon it where it waited for her, and they had gone on +together, carrying the secret. There might be farther to go, but the way +could never be long. + +Finlay said when he came in that the heat for May was extraordinary; +and Advena reminded him that he was in a country where everything was +accomplished quickly, even summer. + +"Except perhaps civilization." she added. They were both young enough to +be pleased with cleverness for its specious self. + +"Oh, that is slow everywhere," he observed; "but how you can say so, +with every modern improvement staring you in the face--" + +"Electric cars and telephones! Oh, I didn't say we hadn't the products," +and she laughed. "But the thing itself, the precious thing; that never +comes just by wishing, does it? The art of indifference, the art of +choice--" + +"If you had refinements in the beginning what would the end be?" he +demanded. "Anaemia." + +"Oh, I don't quarrel with the logic of it. I only point out the fact. +To do that is to acquiesce, really. I acquiesce; I have to. But one may +long for the more delicate appreciations that seem to flower where life +has gone on longer." + +"I imagine," Finlay said, "that to wish truly and ardently for such +things is to possess them. If you didn't possess them you wouldn't +desire them! As they say, as they say--" + +"As they say?" + +"About love. Some novelist does. To be conscious in any way toward it is +to be fatally infected." + +"What novelist?" Advena asked, with shining interest. + +"Some novelist. I--I can't have invented it," he replied, somewhat +confounded. He got up and walked to the window, where it stood open upon +the verandah. "I don't write novels," he said. + +"Perhaps you live them," suggested Advena. "I mean, of course," she +added, laughing, "the highest class of fiction." + +"Heaven forbid!" + +"Why Heaven forbid? You are sensitive to life, and a great deal of it +comes into your scope. You can't see a thing truly without feeling it; +you can't feel it without living it. I don't write novels either, but I +experience--whole publishers' lists." + +"That means," he said, smiling, "that your vision is up to date. You +see the things, the kind of things that you read of next day. The modern +moral sophistications--?" + +"Don't make me out boastful," she replied. "I often do." + +"Mine would be old-fashioned, I am afraid. Old stories of pain"--he +looked out upon the lawn, white where the chestnut blossoms +were dropping, and his eyes were just wistful enough to stir her +adoration--"and of heroism that is quite dateless in the history of the +human heart. At least one likes to hope so." + +"I somehow think," she ventured timidly, "that yours would be classic." + +Finlay withdrew his glance abruptly from the falling blossoms as if they +had tempted him to an expansion he could not justify. He was impatient +always of the personal note, and in his intercourse with Miss Murchison +he seemed of late to be constantly sounding it. + +"Oh, I don't know," he said, almost irritably. "I only meant that I +see the obvious things, while you seem to have an eye for the subtle. +There's reward, I suppose, in seeing anything. But about those more +delicate appreciations of societies longer evolved, I sometimes think +that you don't half realize, in a country like this, how much there is +to make up." + +"Is there anything really to make up?" she asked. + +"Oh, so much! Freedom from old habits, inherited problems: look at the +absurd difficulty they have in England in handling such a matter as +education! Here you can't even conceive it--the schools have been on +logical lines from the beginning, or almost. Political activity over +there is half-strangled at this moment by the secular arm of religion; +here it doesn't even impede the circulation! Conceive any Church, or the +united Churches, for the matter of that, asking a place in the conduct +of the common schools of Ontario! How would the people take it? With +anger, or with laughter, but certainly with sense. 'By all mean let the +ministers serve education on the School Boards,' they would say, 'by +election like other people'--an opportunity, by the way, which has just +been offered to me. I'm nominated for East Elgin in place of Leverett, +the tanner, who is leaving the town. I shall do my best to get in, too; +there are several matters that want seeing to over there. The girls' +playground, for one thing, is practically under water in the spring." + +"You should get in without the least difficulty. Oh, yes there is +something in a fresh start: we're on the straight road as a nation, +in most respects; we haven't any picturesque old prescribed lanes to +travel. So you think that makes up?" + +"It's one thing. You might put down space--elbow-room." + +"An empty horizon," Advena murmured. + +"For faith and the future. An empty horizon is better than none. England +has filled hers up. She has now--these," and he nodded at a window open +to the yellow west. Advena looked with him. + +"Oh, if you have a creative imagination," she said "like Wallingham's. +But even then your vision must be only political economic, material. You +can't conceive the--flowers--that will come out of all that. And if you +could it wouldn't be like having them." + +"And the scope of the individual, his chance of self-respect, unhampered +by the traditions of class, which either deaden it or irritate it in +England! His chance of significance and success! And the splendid, +buoyant, unused air to breathe, and the simplicity of life, and the +plenty of things!" + +"I am to be consoled because apples are cheap." + +"You are to be consoled for a hundred reasons. Doesn't it console you +to feel under your very feet the forces that are working to the immense +amelioration of a not altogether undeserving people?" + +"No," said Advena, rebelliously; and indeed he had been a trifle +didactic to her grievance. They laughed together, and then with a look +at her in which observation seemed suddenly to awake, Finlay said-- + +"And those things aren't all, or nearly all. I sometimes think that the +human spirit, as it is set free in these wide unblemished spaces, may be +something more pure and sensitive, more sincerely curious about what is +good and beautiful--" + +He broke off, still gazing at her, as if she had been an idea and no +more. How much more she was she showed him by a vivid and beautiful +blush. + +"I am glad you are so well satisfied," she said, and then, as if her +words had carried beyond their intention, she blushed again. + +Upon which Hugh Finlay saw his idea incarnate. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +If it were fair or adequate to so quote, I should be very much tempted +to draw the history of Lorne Murchison's sojourn in England from his +letters home. He put his whole heart into these, his discoveries and his +recognitions and his young enthusiasm, all his claimed inheritance, all +that he found to criticize and to love. His mother said, half-jealously +when she read them, that he seemed tremendously taken up with the old +country; and of course she expressed the thing exactly, as she always +did: he was tremendously taken up with it. The old country fell into the +lines of his imagination, from the towers of Westminster to the shops +in the Strand; from the Right Hon. Fawcett Wallingham, who laid great +issues before the public, to the man who sang melancholy hymns to the +same public up and down the benevolent streets. It was naturally London +that filled his view; his business was in London and his time was short; +the country he saw from the train, whence it made a low cloudy frame for +London, with decorations of hedges and sheep. How he saw London, how he +carried away all he did in the time and under the circumstances, may +be thought a mystery; there are doubtless people who would consider his +opportunities too limited to gather anything essential. Cruickshank was +the only one of the deputation who had been "over" before; and they all +followed him unquestioningly to the temperance hotel of his preference +in Bloomsbury, where bedrooms were three and six and tea was understood +as a solid meal and the last in the day. Bates would have voted for the +Metropole, and McGill had been advised that you saw a good deal of life +at the Cecil, but they bowed to Cruickshank's experience. None of them +were total abstainers, but neither had any of them the wine habit; they +were not inconvenienced, therefore, in taking advantage of the cheapness +with which total abstinence made itself attractive, and they took it, +though they were substantial men. As one of them put it, they weren't +over there to make a splash, a thing that was pretty hard to do in +London, anyhow; and home comforts came before anything. The conviction +about the splash was perhaps a little the teaching of circumstances. +They were influential fellows at home, who had lived for years in the +atmosphere of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements were +observed in the newspapers; their names stood for wide interests, big +concerns. They had known the satisfaction of a positive importance, +not only in their community but in their country; and they had come to +England invested as well with the weight that is attached to a public +mission. It may very well be that they looked for some echo of what they +were accustomed to, and were a little dashed not to find it--to find the +merest published announcement of their arrival, and their introduction +by Lord Selkirk to the Colonial Secretary; and no heads turned in the +temperance hotel when they came into the dining-room. It may very well +be. It is even more certain, however that they took the lesson as they +found it, with the quick eye for things as they are which seems to +come of looking at things as they will be, and with just that humorous +comment about the splash. It would be misleading to say that they were +humbled; I doubt whether they even felt their relativity, whether they +ever dropped consciously, there in the Bloomsbury hotel, into their +places in the great scale of London. Observing the scale, recognizing +it, they held themselves unaffected by it; they kept, in a curious, +positive way, the integrity of what they were and what they had come +for; they maintained their point of view. So much must be conceded. The +Empire produces a family resemblance, but here and there, when oceans +intervene, a different mould of the spirit. + +Wallingham certainly invited them to dinner one Sunday, in a body, an +occasion which gave one or two of them some anxiety until they found +that it was not to be adorned by the ladies of the family. Tricorne +was there, President of the Board of Trade, and Fleming, who held the +purse-strings of the United Kingdom, two Ministers whom Wallingham had +asked because they were supposed to have open minds--open, that is to +say, for purposes of assimilation. Wallingham considered, and rightly, +that he had done very well for the deputation in getting these two. +There were other "colleagues" whose attendance he would have liked to +compel; but one of them, deep in the country, was devoting his weekends +to his new French motor, and the other to the proofs of a book upon +Neglected Periods of Mahommedan History, and both were at the breaking +strain with overwork. Wallingham asked the deputation to dinner. Lord +Selkirk, who took them to Wallingham, dined them too, and invited them +to one of those garden parties for the sumptuous scale of which he was +so justly famed; the occasion we have already heard about, upon which +royalty was present in two generations. They travelled to it by special +train, a circumstance which made them grave, receptive, and even +slightly ceremonious with one another. Lord Selkirk, with royalty on his +hands, naturally could not give them much of his time, and they moved +about in a cluster, avoiding the ladies' trains and advising one another +that it was a good thing the High Commissioner was a man of large +private means; it wasn't everybody that could afford to take the job. +Yet they were not wholly detached from the occasion; they looked at it, +after they had taken it in, with an air half-amused, half-proprietary. +All this had, in a manner, come out of Canada, and Canada was theirs. +One of them--Bates it was--responding to a lady who was effusive about +the strawberries, even took the modestly depreciatory attitude of the +host. "They're a fair size for this country, ma'am, but if you want +berries with a flavour we'll do better for you in the Niagara district." + +It must be added that Cruickshank lunched with Wallingham at his club, +and with Tricorne at his; and on both occasions the quiet and attentive +young secretary went with him, for purposes of reference, his pocket +bulging with memoranda. The young secretary felt a little embarrassed +to justify his presence at Tricorne's lunch, as the Right Honourable +gentleman seemed to have forgotten what his guests had come for beyond +it, and talked exclusively and exhaustively about the new possibilities +for fruit-farming in England. Cruickshank fairly shook himself into +his overcoat with irritation afterward. "It's the sort of thing we must +except," he said, as they merged upon Pall Mall. It was not the sort of +thing Lorne expected; but we know him unsophisticated and a stranger +to the heart of the Empire, which beats through such impediment +of accumulated tissue. Nor was it the sort of thing they got from +Wallingham, the keen-eyed and probing, whose skill in adjusting +conflicting interests could astonish even their expectation, and whose +vision of the essentials of the future could lift even their enthusiasm. +One would like to linger over their touch with Wallingham, that fusion +of energy with energy, that straight, satisfying, accomplishing dart. +There is more drama here; no doubt, than in all the pages that are to +come. But I am explaining now how little, not how much, the Cruickshank +deputation, and especially Lorne Murchison, had the opportunity of +feeling and learning in London, in order to show how wonderful it was +that Lorne felt and learned so widely. That, what he absorbed and +took back with him is, after all, what we have to do with; his actual +adventures are of no great importance. + +The deputation to urge improved communications within the Empire had few +points of contact with the great world, but its members were drawn +into engagements of their own, more, indeed, than some of them could +conveniently overtake. Mr Bates never saw his niece in the post-office, +and regrets it to this day. The engagements arose partly out of business +relations. Poulton who was a dyspeptic, complained that nothing could be +got through in London without eating and drinking; for his part he would +concede a point any time not to eat and drink, but you could not do it; +you just had to suffer. Poulton was a principal in one of the railway +companies that were competing to open up the country south of Hudson's +Bay to the Pacific, but having dealt with that circumstance in the +course of the day he desired only to be allowed to go to bed on bread +and butter and a little stewed fruit. Bates, whose name was a nightmare +to every other dry-goods man in Toronto, naturally had to see a good +many of the wholesale people; he, too, complained of the number +of courses and the variety of the wines, but only to disguise his +gratification. McGill, of the Great Bear Line, had big proposals to +make in connection with southern railway freights from Liverpool; and +Cameron, for private reasons of magnitude, proposed to ascertain +the real probability of a duty to foreigners on certain forms of +manufactured leather--he turned out in Toronto a very good class of +suitcase. Cruickshank had private connections to which they were all +respectful. Nobody but Cruickshank found it expedient to look up the +lost leader of the Canadian House of Commons, contributed to a cause +still more completely lost in home politics; nobody but Cruickshank was +likely to be asked to dine by a former Governor-General of the Dominion, +an invitation which nobody but Cruickshank would be likely to refuse. + +"It used to be a 'command' in Ottawa," said Cruickshank, who had got on +badly with his sovereign's representative there, "but here it's only a +privilege. There's no business in it, and I haven't time for pleasure." + +The nobleman in question had, in effect, dropped back into the Lords. So +far as the Empire was concerned, he was in the impressive rearguard, and +this was a little company of fighting men. + +The entertainments arising out of business were usually on a scale more +or less sumptuous. They took place in big, well-known restaurants, and +included a look at many of the people who seem to lend themselves so +willingly to the great buzzing show that anybody can pay for in London, +their names in the paper in the morning, their faces at Prince's in the +evening, their personalities no doubt advantageously exposed in various +places during the day. But there were others, humbler ones in Earl's +Court Road or Maida Vale, where the members of the deputation had +relatives whom it was natural to hunt up. Long years and many billows +had rolled between, and more effective separations had arisen in the +whole difference of life; still, it was natural to hunt them up, to +seek in their eyes and their hands the old subtle bond of kin, and +perhaps--such is our vanity in the new lands--to show them what the +stock had come to overseas. They tended to be depressing these visits: +the married sister was living in a small way; the first cousin seemed to +have got into a rut; the uncle and aunt were failing, with a stooping, +trembling, old-fashioned kind of decrepitude, a rigidity of body and +mind, which somehow one didn't see much over home. + +"England," said Poulton, the Canadian-born, "is a dangerous country to +live in; you run such risks of growing old." They agreed, I fear, for +more reasons than this that England was a good country to leave early; +and you cannot blame them--there was not one of them who did not offer +in his actual person proof of what he said. Their own dividing chance +grew dramatic in their eyes. + +"I was offered a clerkship with the Cunards the day before I sailed," +said McGill. "Great Scott, if I'd taken that clerkship!" He saw all his +glorious past, I suppose, in a suburban aspect. + +"I was kicked out," said Cameron, "and it was the kindest attention my +father ever paid me;" and Bates remarked that it was worth coming out +second-class, as he did, to go back in the best cabin in the ship. + +The appearance and opinions of those they had left behind them prompted +them to this kind of congratulation, with just a thought of compunction +at the back of it for their own better fortunes. In the further +spectacle of England most of them saw the repository of singularly +old-fashioned ideas the storehouse of a good deal of money; and the +market for unlimited produce. They looked cautiously at imperial +sentiment; they were full of the terms of their bargain and had, as they +would have said, little use for schemes that did not commend themselves +on a basis of common profit. Cruickshank was the biggest and the best of +them; but even Cruickshank submitted the common formulas; submitted them +and submitted to them. + +Only Lorne Murchison among them looked higher and further; only he was +alive to the inrush of the essential; he only lifted up his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Lorne was thus an atom in the surge of London. The members of the +deputation, as their business progressed, began to feel less like atoms +and more like a body exerting an influence, however obscurely hid in +a temperance hotel, upon the tide of international affairs; but their +secretary had naturally no initiative that appeared, no importance that +was taken account of. In these respects, no less than in the others, he +justified Mr Cruickshank's selection. He did his work as unobtrusively +as he did it admirably well; and for the rest he was just washed +about, carried, hither and thither, generally on the tops of omnibuses, +receptive, absorbent, mostly silent. He did try once or twice to talk to +the bus drivers--he had been told it was a thing to do if you wanted +to get hold of the point of view of a particular class; but the thick +London idiom defeated him, and he found they grew surly when he asked +them too often to repeat their replies. He felt a little surly himself +after a while, when they asked him, as they nearly always did, if he +wasn't an American. "Yes," he would say in the end, "but not the United +States kind," resenting the necessity of explaining to the Briton beside +him that there were other kinds. The imperial idea goes so quickly from +the heart to the head. He felt compelled, nevertheless, to mitigate his +denial to the bus drivers. + +"I expect it's the next best thing." he would say, "but it's only the +next best." + +It was as if he felt charged to vindicate the race, the whole of +Anglo-Saxondom, there in his supreme moment, his splendid position, on +the top of an omnibus lumbering west out of Trafalgar Square. + +One introduction of his own he had. Mrs Milburn had got it for him from +the rector, Mr Emmett, to his wife's brother, Mr Charles Chafe, who +had interests in Chiswick and a house in Warwick Gardens. Lorne put off +presenting the letter--did not know, indeed, quite how to present it, +till his stay in London was half over. Finally he presented himself with +it, as the quickest way, at the office of Mr Chafe's works at Chiswick. +He was cordially received, both there and in Warwick Gardens, where he +met Mrs Chafe and the family, when he also met Mr Alfred Hesketh. Lorne +went several times to the house in Warwick Gardens, and Hesketh--a +nephew--was there on the very first occasion. It was an encounter +interesting on both sides. He--Hesketh--was a young man with a good +public school and a university behind him, where his very moderate +degree, however, failed to represent the activity of his mind or the +capacity of his energy. He had a little money of his own, and no present +occupation; he belonged to the surplus. He was not content to belong to +it; he cast about him a good deal for something to do. There was always +the Bar, but only the best fellows get on there, and he was not quite +one of the best fellows; he knew that. He had not money enough for +politics or interest enough for the higher departments of the public +service, nor had he those ready arts of expression that lead naturally +into journalism. Anything involving further examinations he rejected +on that account; and the future of glassware, in view of what they were +doing in Germany, did not entice him to join his uncle in Chiswick. +Still he was aware of enterprise, convinced that he had loafed long +enough. + +Lorne Murchison had never met anyone of Hesketh's age in Hesketh's +condition before. Affluence and age he knew, in honourable retirement; +poverty and youth he knew, embarked in the struggle; indolence and youth +he also knew, as it cumbered the ground; but youth and a competence, +equipped with education, industry, and vigour, searching vainly in +fields empty of opportunity, was to him a new spectacle. He himself had +intended to be a lawyer since he was fourteen. There never had been any +impediment to his intention, any qualification to his desire. He was +still under his father's roof, but that was for the general happiness; +any time within the last eighteen months, if he had chosen to hurry +fate, he might have selected another. He was younger than Hesketh by +a year, yet we may say that he had arrived, while Hesketh was still +fidgeting at the starting-point. + +"Why don't you farm?" he asked once. + +"Farming in England may pay in a quarter of a century, not before. I +can't wait for it. Besides, why should I farm? Why didn't you?" + +"Well," said Lorne, "in your case it seems about the only thing left. I? +Oh it doesn't attract us over there. We're getting away from it--leaving +it to the newcomers from this side. Curious circle, that: I wonder when +our place gets overcrowded, where we shall go to plough?" + +Hesketh's situation occupied them a good deal; but their great topic had +a wider drift, embracing nothing less than the Empire, pausing nowhere +short of the flag. The imperial idea was very much at the moment in the +public mind; it hung heavily, like a banner, in every newspaper, it +was filtering through the slow British consciousness, solidifying as it +travelled. In the end it might be expected to arrive at a shape in which +the British consciousness must either assimilate it or cast it forth. +They were saying in the suburbs that they wanted it explained; at +Hatfield they were saying, some of them, with folded arms, that it was +self evident; other members of that great house, swinging their arms, +called it blackness of darkness and ruin, so had a prophet divided it +against itself. Wallingham, still in the Cabinet, was going up and down +the country trying not to explain too much. There was division in +the Cabinet, sore travail among private members. The conception being +ministerial, the Opposition applied itself to the task of abortion, +fearing the worst if it should be presented to the country fully +formed and featured, the smiling offspring of progress and imagination. +Travellers to Greater Britain returned waving joyous torches in the +insular fog; they shed a brilliance and infectious enthusiasm, but there +were not enough to do more than make the fog visible. Many persons found +such torches irritating. They pointed out that as England had groped +to her present greatness she might be trusted to feel her way further. +"Free trade," they said, "has made us what we are. Put out these +lights!" + +Mr Chafe was one of these. He was a cautious, heavy fellow, full of +Burgundy and distrust. The basis of the imperial idea inspired him with +suspicion and hostility. He could accept the American tariff on English +manufactures; that was a plain position, simple damage, a blow full +in the face, not to be dodged. But the offer of better business in the +English colonies in exchange for a duty on the corn and meat of foreign +countries--he could see too deep for that. The colonials might or might +not be good customers; he knew how many decanters he sold in the United +States, in spite of the tariff. He saw that the tax on food-stuffs was +being commended to the working-man with the argument of higher wages. +Higher wages, with the competition of foreign labour, spelt only one +word to English manufacturers, and that was ruin. The bugbear of higher +wages, immediate, threatening, near, the terror of the last thirty +years, closed the prospect for Charles Chafe; he could see nothing +beyond. He did not say so, but to him the prosperity of the British +manufacturer was bound up in the indigence of the operative. Thriving +workmen, doing well, and looking to do better, rose before him in terms +of menace, though their prosperity might be rooted in his own. "Give +them cheap food and keep them poor," was the sum of his advice. His +opinions had the emphasis of the unexpected, the unnatural: he was one +of the people whom Wallingham's scheme in its legitimate development of +a tariff on foreign manufactures might be expected to enrich. This fact, +which he constantly insisted on, did give them weight; it made him look +like a cunning fellow not to be caught with chaff. He and his business +had survived free trade--though he would not say this either--and he +preferred to go on surviving it rather than take the chances of any +zollverein. The name of the thing was enough for him, a word made in +Germany, thick and mucky, like their tumblers. As to the colonies--Mr +Chafe had been told of a certain spider who devoured her young ones. He +reversed the figure and it stood, in the imperial connection, for all +the argument he wanted. + +Alfred Hesketh had lived always in the hearing of such doctrine; it had +stood to him for political gospel by mere force of repetition. But he +was young, with the curiosity and enterprise and impatience of dogma +of youth; he belonged by temperament and situation to those plastic +thousands in whom Wallingham hoped to find the leaven that should leaven +the whole lump. His own blood stirred with the desire to accomplish, to +carry further; and as the scope of the philanthropist did not attract +him, he was vaguely conscious of having been born too late in England. +The new political appeal of the colonies, clashing suddenly upon old +insular harmonies, brought him a sense of wider fields and chances; his +own case he freely translated into his country's, and offered an open +mind to politics that would help either of them. He looked at the new +countries with interest, an interest evoked by their sudden dramatic +leap into the forefront of public concern. He looked at them with what +nature intended to be the eye of a practical businessman. He looked +at Lorne Murchison, too, and listened to him, with steady critical +attention. Lorne seemed in a way to sum it all up in his person, all the +better opportunity a man had out there; and he handled large matters of +the future with a confidence and a grip that quickened the circulation. +Hesketh's open mind gradually became filled with the imperial view as +he had the capacity to take it; and we need not be surprised if Lorne +Murchison, gazing in the same direction, supposed that they saw the same +thing. + +Hesketh confessed, declared, that Murchison had brought him round; and +Lorne surveyed this achievement with a thrill of the happiest triumph. +Hesketh stood, to him, a product of that best which he was so occupied +in admiring and pursuing. Perhaps he more properly represented the +second best; but we must allow something for the confusion of early +impressions. Hesketh had lived always in the presence of ideals +disengaged in England as nowhere else in the world; in Oxford, Lorne +knew, they clustered thick. There is no doubt that his manners were +good, and his ideas unimpeachable in the letter; the young Canadian read +the rest into him and loved him for what he might have been. + +"As an Englishman," said Hesketh one evening as they walked together +back from the Chafes' along Knightsbridge, talking of the policy urged +by the Colonial representatives at the last Conference, "I could wish +the idea were more our own--that we were pressing it on the colonies +instead of the colonies pressing it on us." + +"Doesn't there come a time in the history of most families," Lorne +replied, "when the old folks look to the sons and daughters to keep them +in touch with the times? Why shouldn't a vigorous policy of Empire be +conceived by its younger nations--who have the ultimate resources to +carry it out? We've got them and we know it--the iron and the coal +and the gold, and the wheat-bearing areas. I dare say it makes us seem +cheeky, but I tell you the last argument lies in the soil and what you +can get out of it. What has this country got in comparison? A market of +forty million people, whom she can't feed and is less and less able to +find work for. Do you call that a resource? I call it an impediment--a +penalty. It's something to exploit, for the immediate profit in it, +something to bargain with; but even as a market it can't preponderate +always, and I can't see why it should make such tremendous claims." + +"England isn't superannuated yet, Murchison." + +"Not yet. Please God she never will be. But she isn't as young as she +was, and it does seem to me--" + +"What seems to you?" + +"Well, I'm no economist, and I don't know how far to trust my +impressions, and you needn't tell me I'm a rank outsider, for I know +that; but coming here as an outsider, it does seem to me that it's from +the outside that any sort of helpful change in the conditions of this +country has got to come. England still has military initiative, though +it's hard to see how she's going to keep that unless she does something +to stop the degeneration of the class she draws her army from; but +what other kind do we hear about? Company-promoting, bee-keeping, +asparagus-growing, poultry-farming for ladies, the opening of a new +Oriental Tea-Pot in Regent Street, with samisen-players between four +and six, and Japanese attendants who take the change on their hands and +knees. London's one great stomach--how many eating places have we passed +in the last ten minutes? The place seems all taken up with inventing new +ways of making rich people more comfortable and better-amused--I'm fed +up with the sight of shiny carriages with cockaded flunkeys on 'em, +wooden-smart, rolling about with an elderly woman and a parasol and a +dog. England seems to have fallen back on itself, got content to spend +the money there is in the country already; and about the only line +of commercial activity the stranger sees is the onslaught on that +accumulation. London isn't the headquarters for big new developing +enterprises any more. If you take out Westminster and Wallingham, London +is a collection of traditions and great houses, and newspaper offices, +and shops. That sort of thing can't go on for ever. Already capital +is drawing away to conditions it can find a profit in--steel works in +Canada, woollen factories in Australia, jute mills in India. Do you +know where the boots came from that shod the troops in South Africa? +Cawnpore. The money will go, you know, and that's a fact; the money will +go, and the people will go, anyhow. It's only a case of whether England +sends them with blessing and profit and greater glory, or whether she +lets them slip away in spite of her." + +"I dare say it will," replied Hesketh; "I've got precious little, but +what there is I'd take out fast enough, if I saw a decent chance of +investing it. I sometimes think of trying my luck in the States. Two or +three fellows in my year went over there and aren't making half a bad +thing of it." + +"Oh, come," said Lorne, half-swinging round upon the other, with his +hands in his pockets, "it isn't exactly the time, is it, to talk about +chucking the Empire?" + +"Well, no, it isn't," Hesketh admitted. "One might do better to wait, +I dare say. At all events, till we see what the country says to +Wallingham." + +They walked on for a moment or two in silence; then Lorne broke out +again. + +"I suppose it's unreasonable, but there's nothing I hate so much as to +hear Englishmen talk of settling in the United States." + +"It's risky, I admit. And I've never heard anybody yet say it was +comfortable." + +"In a few years, fifty maybe, it won't matter. Things will have taken +their direction by then; but now it's a question of the lead. The +Americans think they've got it, and unless we get imperial federation +of course they have. It's their plain intention to capture England +commercially." + +"We're a long way from that," said Hesketh. + +"Yes, but it's in the line of fate. Industrial energy is deserting this +country; and you have no large movement, no counter-advance, to make +against the increasing forces that are driving this way from over +there--nothing to oppose to assault. England is in a state of siege, and +doesn't seem to know it. She's so great--Hesketh, it's pathetic!--she +offers an undefended shore to attack, and a stupid confidence, a kindly +blindness, above all to Americans, whom she patronizes in the gate." + +"I believe we do patronize them," said Hesketh. "It's rotten bad form." + +"Oh, form! I may be mad, but one seems to see in politics over here a +lack of definition and purpose, a tendency to cling to the abstract and +to precedent--'the mainstay of the mandarin' one of the papers calls +it; that's a good word--that give one the feeling that this kingdom is +beginning to be aware of some influence stronger than its own. It lies, +of course, in the great West, where the corn and the cattle grow; and +between Winnipeg and Chicago choose quickly, England!" + +His companion laughed. "Oh, I'm with you," he said, "but you take a +pessimistic view of this country, Murchison." + +"It depends on what you call pessimism," Lorne rejoined. "I see England +down the future the heart of the Empire, the conscience of the world. +and the Mecca of the race." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Cruickshank deputation returned across that North Atlantic which it +was their desire to see so much more than ever the track of the flag, +toward the middle of July. The shiny carriages were still rolling about +in great numbers when they left; London's air of luxury had thickened +with the advancing season and hung heavily in the streets; people had +begun to picnic in the Park on Sundays. They had been from the beginning +a source of wonder and of depression to Lorne Murchison, the people +in the Park, those, I mean, who walked and sat and stood there for the +refreshment of their lives, for whom the place has a lyrical value +as real as it is unconscious. He noted them ranged on formal benches, +quiet, respectable, absorptive, or gathered heavily, shoulder to +shoulder, docile under the tutelage of policemen, listening to anyone +who would lift a voice to speak to them. London, beating on all borders, +hemmed them in; England outside seemed hardly to contain for them a +wider space. Lorne, with his soul full of free airs and forest +depths, never failed to respond to a note in the Park that left him +heavy-hearted, longing for an automatic distributing system for the +Empire. When he saw them bring their spirit-lamps and kettles and +sit down in little companies on four square yards of turf, under +the blackened branches, in the roar of the traffic, he went back to +Bloomsbury to pack his trunk, glad that it was not his lot to live with +that enduring spectacle. + +They were all glad, every one of them, to turn their faces to the West +again. The unready conception of things, the political concentration +upon parish affairs, the cumbrous social machinery, oppressed them +with its dull anachronism in a marching world; the problems of sluggish +overpopulation clouded their eager outlook. These conditions might have +been their inheritance. Perhaps Lorne Murchison was the only one who +thanked Heaven consciously that it was not so; but there was no man +among them whose pulse did not mark a heart rejoiced as he paced the +deck of the Allan liner the first morning out of Liverpool, because he +had leave to refuse them. None dreamed of staying, of "settling," though +such a course was practicable to any of them except Lorne. They were +all rich enough to take the advantages that money brings in England, the +comfort, the importance, the state; they had only to add their wealth +to the sumptuous side of the dramatic contrast. I doubt whether the idea +even presented itself. It is the American who takes up his appreciative +residence in England. He comes as a foreigner, observant, amused, having +disclaimed responsibility for a hundred years. His detachment is as +complete as it would be in Italy, with the added pleasure of easy +comprehension. But homecomers from Greater Britain have never been +cut off, still feel their uneasy share in all that is, and draw a long +breath of relief as they turn again to their life in the lands where +they found wider scope and different opportunities, and that new quality +in the blood which made them different men. + +The deputation had accomplished a good deal; less, Cruickshank said, +than he had hoped, but more than he had expected. They had obtained +the promise of concessions for Atlantic services, both mail and certain +classes of freight, by being able to demonstrate a generous policy on +their own side. Pacific communications the home Government was more +chary of; there were matters to be fought out with Australia. The +Pacific was further away, as Cruickshank said, and you naturally can't +get fellows who have never been there to see the country under the +Selkirks and south of the Bay--any of them except Wallingham, who had +never been there either, but whose imagination took views of the falcon. +They were reinforced by news of a shipping combination in Montreal to +lower freights to South Africa against the Americans; it wasn't news to +them, some of them were in it; but it was to the public, and it helped +the sentiment of their aim, the feather on the arrow. They had secured +something, both financially and morally; what best pleased them, +perhaps, was the extent to which they got their scheme discussed. Here +Lorne had been invaluable; Murchison had done more with the newspapers, +they agreed, than any of them with Cabinet Ministers. The journalist +everywhere is perhaps more accessible to ideas, more susceptible to +enthusiasm, than his fellows, and Lorne was charged with the object of +his deputation in its most communicable, most captivating form. At all +events, he came to excellent understanding, whether of agreement or +opposition, with the newspapermen he met--Cruickshank knew a good +many of them and these occasions were more fruitful than the official +ones--and there is no doubt that the guarded approval of certain leading +columns had fewer ifs and buts and other qualifications in consequence, +while the disapproval of others was marked by a kind of unwilling +sympathy and a freely accorded respect. Lorne found London editors +surprisingly unbiased, London newspapers surprisingly untrammelled. +They seemed to him to suffer from no dictated views, no interests in the +background or special local circumstances. They had open minds, most of +them, and when a cloud appeared it was seldom more than a prejudice. It +was only his impression, and perhaps it would not stand cynical inquiry; +but he had a grateful conviction that the English Press occupied in the +main a lofty and impartial ground of opinion, from which it desired only +a view of the facts in their true proportion. On his return he confided +it to Horace Williams, who scoffed and ran the national politics of the +Express in the local interests of Fox County as hard as ever; but it had +fallen in with Lorne's beautiful beliefs about England, and he clung to +it for years. + +The Williamses had come over the second evening following Lorne's +arrival, after tea. Rawlins had gone to the station, just to see that +the Express would make no mistake in announcing that Mr L. Murchison had +"Returned to the Paternal Roof," and the Express had announced it, +with due congratulation. Family feeling demanded that for the first +twenty-four hours he should be left to his immediate circle, but people +had been dropping in all the next day at the office, and now came the +Williamses "trapesing," as Mrs Murchison said, across the grass, though +she was too content to make it more than a private grievance, to where +they all sat on the verandah. + +"What I don't understand," Horace Williams said to Mr Murchison, "was +why you didn't give him a blow on the whistle. You and Milburn and a few +others might have got up quite a toot. You don't get the secretary to a +deputation for tying up the Empire home every day." + +"You did that for him in the Express," said John Murchison, smiling as +he pressed down, with an accustomed thumb, the tobacco into his pipe. + +"Oh, we said nothing at all! Wait till he's returned for South Fox," +Williams responded jocularly. + +"Why not the Imperial Council--of the future--at Westminster while +you're about it?" remarked Lorne, flipping a pebble back upon the gravel +path. + +"That will keep, my son. But one of these days, you mark my words, Mr +L. Murchison will travel to Elgin Station with flags on his engine and +he'll be very much surprised to find the band there, and a large number +of his fellow-citizens, all able-bodied shouting men, and every factory +whistle in Elgin let off at once, to say nothing of kids with tin ones. +And if the Murchison Stove and Furnace Works siren stands out of that +occasion I'll break in and pull it myself." + +"It won't stand out," Stella assured him. "I'll attend to it. Don't you +worry." + +"I suppose you had a lovely time, Mr Murchison?" said Mrs Williams, +gently tilting to and fro in a rocking-chair, with her pretty feet +in their American shoes well in evidence. It is a fact, or perhaps +a parable, that should be interesting to political economists, the +adaptability of Canadian feet to American shoes; but fortunately it is +not our present business. Though I must add that the "rocker" was also +American; and the hammock in which Stella reposed came from New York; +and upon John Murchison's knee, with the local journal, lay a pink +evening paper published in Buffalo. + +"Better than I can tell you, Mrs Williams, in all sorts of ways. But +it's good to be back, too. Very good!" Lorne threw up his head and drew +in the pleasant evening air of midsummer with infinite relish while his +eye travelled contentedly past the chestnuts on the lawn, down the vista +of the quiet tree-bordered street. It lay empty in the solace of +the evening, a blue hill crossed it in the distance, and gave it an +unfettered look, the wind stirred in the maples. A pair of schoolgirls +strolled up and down bareheaded; now and then a buggy passed. + +"There's room here," he said. + +"Find it kind of crowded up over there?" asked Mr Williams. "Worse than +New York?" + +"Oh, yes. Crowded in a patient sort of way--it's enough to break your +heart--that you don't see in New York! The poor of New York--well, +they've got the idea of not being poor. In England they're resigned, +they've got callous. My goodness! the fellows out of work over +there--you can SEE they're used to it, see it in the way they slope +along and the look in their eyes, poor dumb dogs. They don't understand +it, but they've just got to take it! Crowded? Rather!" + +"We don't say 'rather' in this country, mister," observed Stella. + +"Well, you can say it now, kiddie." + +They laughed at the little passage--the traveller's importation of one +or two Britishisms had been the subject of skirmish before--but silence +fell among them for a moment afterward. They all had in the blood the +remembrance of what Lorne had seen. + +"Well, you've been doing big business," said Horace Williams. + +Lorne shook his head. "We haven't done any harm," he said, "but our +scheme's away out of sight now. At least it ought to be." + +"Lost in the bigger issue." said Williams, and Lorne nodded. + +The bigger issue had indeed in the meantime obscured the political +horizon, and was widely spreading. A mere colonial project might +well disappear in it. England was absorbed in a single contemplation. +Wallingham, though he still supported the disabilities of a right +honourable evangelist with a gospel of his own, was making astonishing +conversions; the edifice of the national economic creed seemed coming +over at the top. It was a question of the resistance of the base, and +the world was watching. + +"Cruickshank says if the main question had been sprung a month ago we +wouldn't have gone over. As it is, on several points we've got to wait. +If they reject the preferential trade idea over there we shall have done +a little good, for any government would be disposed to try to patch up +something to take the place of imperial union in that case; and a few +thousands more for shipping subsidies and cheap cablegrams would have +a great look of strengthening the ties with the colonies. But if they +commit themselves to a zollverein with us and the rest of the family +you won't hear much more about the need to foster communications. +Communications will foster themselves." + +"Just so," remarked John Murchison. "They'll save their money." + +"I wouldn't think so before--I couldn't," Lorne went on, "but I'm afraid +it's rather futile, the kind of thing we've been trying to do. It's +fiddling at a superstructure without a foundation. What we want is the +common interest. Common interest, common taxation for defence, common +representation, domestic management of domestic affairs, and you've got +a working Empire." + +"Just as easy as slippin' off a log," remarked Horace Williams. + +"Common interest, yes," said his father; "common taxation, no, for +defence or any other purpose. The colonies will never send money to be +squandered by the London War Office. We'll defend ourselves, as soon +as we can manage it, and buy our own guns and our own cruisers. We're +better business people than they are, and we know it." + +"I guess that's right, Mr Murchison," said Horace Williams. "Our own +army and navy--in the sweet bye-and-bye. And let 'em understand they'll +be welcome to the use of it, but quite in a family way--no sort of +compulsion." + +"Well," said Lorne, "that's compatible enough." + +"And your domestic affairs must include the tariff," Mr Murchison went +on. "There's no such possibility as a tariff that will go round. And +tariffs are kittle cattle to shoo behind." + +"Has anybody got a Scotch dictionary?" inquired Stella. "This +conversation is making me tired." + +"Suppose you run away and play with your hoop," suggested her brother. +"I can't see that as an insuperable difficulty, Father. Tariffs could +be made adaptable, relative to the common interest as well as to the +individual one. We could do it if we liked." + +"Your adaptability might easily lead to other things. What's to prevent +retaliation among ourselves? There's a slump in textiles, and the +home Government is forced to let in foreign wool cheaper. Up goes the +Australian tax on the output of every mill in Lancashire. The last state +of the Empire might be worse than the first." + +"It wouldn't be serious. If I pinched Stella's leg as I'm going to in a +minute, she will no doubt kick me; and her instincts are such that she +will probably kick me with the leg I pinched, but that won't prevent our +going to the football match together tomorrow and presenting a united +front to the world." + +They all laughed, and Stella pulled down her lengthening petticoats with +an air of great offence, but John Murchison shook his head. + +"If they manage it, they will be clever," he said. + +"Talking of Lancashire," said Williams, "there are some funny fellows +over there writing in the Press against a tax on foreign cotton because +it's going to ruin Lancashire. And at this very minute thousands of +looms are shut down in Lancashire because of the high price of cotton +produced by an American combine--and worse coming, sevenpence a pound +I hear they're going to have it, against the fourpence ha'penny they've +got it up to already. That's the sort of thing they're afraid to +discourage by a duty." + +"Would a duty discourage it?" asked John Murchison. + +"Why not--if they let British-grown cotton in free? They won't +discourage the combine much--that form of enterprise has got to be +tackled where it grows; but the Yankee isn't the only person in the +world that can get to understand it. What's to prevent preferential +conditions creating British combines, to compete with the American +article, and what's to prevent Lancashire getting cheaper cotton in +consequence? Two combines are better than one monopoly any day." + +"May be so. It would want looking into. We won't see a duty on cotton +though, or wool either for that matter. The manufacturers would be +pleased enough to get it on the stuff they make, but there would be a +fine outcry against taxing the stuff they use." + +"Did you see much of the aristocracy, Mr Murchison?" asked Mrs Williams. + +"No," replied Lorne, "but I saw Wallingham." + +"You saw the whole House of Lords," interposed Stella, "and you were +introduced to three." + +"Well, yes, that's so. Fine-looking set of old chaps they are, too. +We're a little too funny over here about the Lords--we haven't had to +make any." + +"What were they doing the day you were there, Lorne?" asked Williams. + +"Motorcar legislation," replied Lorne. "Considerably excited about it, +too. One of them had had three dogs killed on his estate. I saw his +letter about it in the Times." + +"I don't see anything to laugh at in that," declared Stella. "Dogs are +dogs." + +"They are, sister, especially in England." + +"Laundresses aren't washerwomen there," observed Mrs Murchison. "I'd +like you to see the colour of the things he's brought home with him, Mrs +Williams. Clean or dirty, to the laundry they go--weeks it will take to +get them right again--ingrained London smut and nothing else." + +"In this preference business they've got to lead the way," Williams +reverted. "We're not so grown up but what grandma's got to march in +front. Now, from your exhaustive observation of Great Britain, extending +over a period of six weeks, is she going to?" + +"My exhaustive observation," said Lorne, smiling, "enables me to tell +you one thing with absolute accuracy; and that is that nobody knows. +They adore Wallingham over there--he's pretty nearly a god--and +they'd like to do as he tells them, and they're dead sick of theoretic +politics; but they're afraid--oh, they're afraid!" + +"They'll do well to ca' canny," said John Murchison. + +"There's two things in the way, at a glance," Lorne went on. "The +conservatism of the people--it isn't a name, it's a fact--the hostility +and suspicion; natural enough: they know they're stupid, and they half +suspect they're fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught them +that. Slow--oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence than +anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when things are being +done, mind, all over the world, done against them--when their shipping +is being captured, and their industries destroyed, and their goods +undersold beneath their very noses--and the thing they want to know +is--Why Are the Swallows Late? I read it myself, in a ha'penny morning +paper, too--that they think rather dangerously go-ahead--a whole column, +headed, to inquire what's the matter with the swallows. The Times the +same week had a useful leader on Alterations in the Church Service, and +a special contribution on Prayers for the Dead. Lord, they need 'em! +Those are the things they THINK about! The session's nearly over, and +there's two Church Discipline Bills, and five Church Bills--bishoprics +and benefices, and Lord knows what--still to get through. Lot of anxiety +about 'em, apparently! As to a business view of politics, I expect the +climate's against it. They'll see over a thing--they're fond of doing +that--or under it, or round one side of it, but they don't seem to +have any way of seeing THROUGH it. What they just love is a good round +catchword; they've only got to hear themselves say it often enough, and +they'll take it for gospel. They're convinced out of their own mouths. +There was the driver of a bus I used to ride on pretty often, and if he +felt like talking, he'd always begin, 'As I was a-saying of yesterday--' +Well, that's the general idea--to repeat what they were a-sayin' of +yesterday; and it doesn't matter two cents that the rest of the world +has changed the subject. They've been a-sayin' a long time that they +object to import duties of any sort or kind, and you won't get them to +SEE the business in changing. If they do this it won't be because they +want to, it will be because Wallingham wants them to." + +"I guess that's so," said Williams. "And if Wallingham gets them to he +ought to have a statue in every capital in the Empire. He will, too. +Good cigar this, Lorne! Where'd you get it?" + +"They are Indian cheroots--'Planters,' they call 'em--made in Madras. +I got some through a man named Hesketh, who has friends out there, at a +price you wouldn't believe for as decent a smoke. You can't buy 'em in +London; but you will all right, and here, too, as soon as we've got the +sense to favour British-grown tobacco." + +"Lorne appreciates his family better than he did before," remarked his +youngest sister, "because we're British grown." + +"You were saying you noticed two things specially in the way?" said his +father. + +"Oh, the other's of course the awful poverty--the twelve millions that +haven't got enough to do with. I expect it's an outside figure and it +covers all sorts of qualifying circumstances; but it's the one the Free +Fooders quote, and it's the one Wallingham will have to handle. They've +muddled along until they've GOT twelve million people in that condition, +and now they have to carry on with the handicap. We ask them to put a +tax on foreign food to develop our wheat areas and cattle ranges. +We say, 'Give us a chance and we'll feed you and take your surplus +population.' What is to be done with the twelve million while we are +growing the wheat? The colonies offer to create prosperity for everybody +concerned at a certain outlay--we've got the raw materials--and they +can't afford the investment because of the twelve millions, and what may +happen meanwhile. They can't face the meanwhile--that's what it comes +to." + +"Fine old crop of catchwords in that situation," Mr Williams remarked; +and his eye had the spark of the practical politician. "Can't you hear +'em at it, eh?" + +"It scares them out of everything but hand-to-mouth politics. Any other +remedy is too heroic. They go on pointing out and contemplating and +grieving, with their percentages of misery and degeneration; and they go +on poulticing the cancer with benevolence--there are people over there +who want the State to feed the schoolchildren! Oh, they're kind, good, +big-hearted people; and they've got the idea that if they can only give +enough away everything will come right. I was talking with a man one +day, and I asked him whether the existence of any class justified +governing a great country on the principle of an almshouse. He asked +me who the almsgivers ought to be, in any country. Of course it was +tampering with my figure--in an almshouse there aren't any; but that's +the way it presents itself to the best of them. Another fellow was +frantic at the idea of a tax on foreign food--he nearly cried--but would +be very glad to see the Government do more to assist emigration to the +colonies. I tried to show him it would be better to make it profitable +to emigrate first, but I couldn't make him see it. + +"Oh, and there's the old thing against them, of course--the handling of +imperial and local affairs by one body. Anybody's good enough to attend +to the Baghdad Railway, and nobody's too good to attend to the town +pump. Is it any wonder the Germans beat them in their own shops and +Russia walks into Thibet? The eternal marvel is that they stand where +they do." + +"At the top," said Mr Williams. + +"Oh--at the top! Think of what you mean when you say 'England.'" + +"I see that the demand for a tariff on manufactured goods is growing," +Williams remarked, "even the anti-food-tax organs are beginning to shout +for that." + +"If they had put it on twenty years ago," said Lorne, "there would be no +twelve million people making a problem for want of work, and it would be +a good deal easier to do imperial business today." + +"You'll find," said John Murchison, removing his pipe, "that +protection'll have to come first over there. They'll put up a fence +and save their trade--in their own good time, not next week or next +year--and when they've done that they'll talk to us about our big +ideas--not before. And if Wallingham hadn't frightened them with the +imperial job, he never would have got them to take up the other. It's +just his way of getting both done." + +"I hope you're right, Father," said Lorne, with a covert glance at his +watch. "Horace--Mrs Williams--I'll have to get you to excuse me. I have +an engagement at eight." + +He left them with a happy spring in his step, left them looking after +him, talking of him, with pride and congratulation. Only Stella, with +a severe lip and a disapproving eye, noted the direction he took as he +left the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the pulpit steps of Knox +Church, and arranged the glass of water and the notices to be given out +beside it, twice every Sunday for twenty years. He was a small spare +man, with thin grey hair that fell back from the narrow dome of his +forehead to his coat collar, decent and severe. He ascended the pulpit +exactly three minutes before the minister did; and the dignity with +which he put one foot before the other made his appearance a ceremonious +feature of the service and a thing quoted. "I was there before Peter" +was a triumphant evidence of punctuality. Dr Drummond would have liked +to make it a test. It seemed to him no great thing to expect the people +of Knox Church to be there before Peter. + +Macfarlane was also in attendance in the vestry to help the minister off +with his gown and hang it up. Dr Drummond's gown needed neither helping +nor hanging; the Doctor was deftness and neatness and impatience itself, +and would have it on the hook with his own hands, and never a fold +crooked. After Mr Finlay, on the contrary, Peter would have to pick up +and smooth out--ten to one the garment would be flung on a chair. Still, +he was invariably standing by to see it flung, and to hand Mr Finlay his +hat and stick. He was surprised and put about to find himself one Sunday +evening too late for this attendance. The vestry was empty, the gown +was on the floor. Peter gathered it up with as perturbed an air as if Mr +Finlay had omitted a point of church observance. "I doubt they get into +slack ways in these missions," said Peter. He had been unable, with Dr +Drummond, to see the necessity for such extensions. + +Meanwhile Hugh Finlay, in secular attire, had left the church by the +vestry door, and was rapidly overtaking groups of his hearers as they +walked homeward. He was unusually aware of his change of dress because +of a letter in the inside pocket of his coat. The letter, in that +intimate place, spread a region of consciousness round it which hastened +his blood and his step. There was purpose in his whole bearing; Advena +Murchison, looking back at some suggestion of Lorne's, caught it, and +lost for a moment the meaning of what she said. When he overtook them, +with plain intention, she walked beside the two men, withdrawn and +silent, like a child. It was unexpected and overwhelming, his joining +them after the service, accompanying them, as it were, in the flesh +after having led them so far in the spirit; he had never done it before. +She felt her heart confronted with a new, an immediate issue, and +suddenly afraid. It shrank from the charge for which it longed, and +would have fled; yet, paralysed with delight, it kept time with her +sauntering feet. + +They talked of the sermon, which had been strongly tinged with the issue +of the day. Dreamer as he was by temperament, Finlay held to the wisdom +of informing great public questions with the religious idea, vigorously +disclaimed that it was anywhere inadmissible. + +"You'll have to settle with the Doctor, Mr Finlay," Lorne warned him +gaily, "if you talk politics in Knox Church. He thinks he never does." + +"Do you think," said Finlay, "that he would object to--to one's going as +far afield as I did tonight?" + +"He oughtn't to," said Lorne. "You should have heard him when old Sir +John Macdonald gerrymandered the electoral districts and gave votes to +the Moneida Indians. The way he put it, the Tories in the congregation +couldn't say a word, but it was a treat for his fellow Grits." + +Finlay smiled gravely. "Political convictions are a man's birthright," +he said. "Any man or any minister is a poor creature without them. But +of course there are limits beyond which pulpit influence should not go, +and I am sure Dr Drummond has the clearest perception of them. He seems +to have been a wonderful fellow, Macdonald, a man with extraordinary +power of imaginative enterprise. I wonder whether he would have seen his +way to linking up the Empire as he linked up your Provinces here?" + +"He'd have hated uncommonly to be in opposition, but I don't see how +he could have helped it," Lorne said. "He was the godfather of Canadian +manufacturers, you know--the Tories have always been the industrial +party. He couldn't have gone for letting English stuff in free, or +cheap; and yet he was genuinely loyal and attached to England. He would +discriminate against Manchester with tears in his eyes! Imperialist in +his time spelled Conservative, now it spells Liberal. The Conservatives +have always talked the loudest about the British bond, but when it +lately came to doing we're on record on the right side, and they're on +record on the wrong. But it must make the old man's ghost sick to see--" + +"To see his court suit stolen," Advena finished for him. "As Disraeli +said--wasn't it Disraeli?" She heard, and hated the note of constraint +in her voice. "Am I reduced," she thought, indignantly, "to falsetto?" +and chose, since she must choose, the betrayal of silence. + +"It did one good to hear the question discussed on the higher level," +said Lorne. "You would think, to read the papers, that all its merits +could be put into dollars and cents." + +"I've noticed some of them in terms of sentiment--affection for the +mother country--" + +"Yes, that's lugged in. But it doesn't cover the moral aspect," Lorne +returned. "It's too easy and obvious, as well; it gives the enemy cause +to offend." + +"Well, there's a tremendous moral aspect," Finlay said, "tremendous +moral potentialities hidden in the issue. England has more to lose than +she dreams." + +"That's just where I felt, as a practical politician, a little restless +while you were preaching," said Lorne, laughing. "You seemed to think +the advantage of imperialism was all with England. You mustn't press +that view on us, you know. We shall get harder to bargain with. Besides, +from the point of your sermon, it's all the other way." + +"Oh, I don't agree! The younger nations can work out their own salvation +unaided; but can England alone? Isn't she too heavily weighted?" + +"Oh, materially, very likely! But morally, no," said Lorne, stoutly. +"There, if you like, she has accumulations that won't depreciate. Money +isn't the only capital the colonies offer investment for." + +"I'm afraid I see it in the shadow of the degeneration of age and +poverty," said Finlay, smiling--"or age and wealth, if you prefer it." + +"And we in the disadvantage of youth and easy success," Lorne retorted. +"We're all very well, but we're not the men our fathers were: we need a +lot of licking into shape. Look at that disgraceful business of ours in +the Ontario legislature the other day, and look at that fellow of +yours walking out of office at Westminster last session because of a +disastrous business connection which he was morally as clear of as +you or I! I tell you we've got to hang on to the things that make us +ashamed; and I guess we've got sense enough to know it. But this is my +corner. I am going to look in at the Milburns', Advena. Good night, Mr +Finlay." + +Advena, walking on with Finlay, became suddenly aware that he had not +once addressed her. She had the quick impression that Lorne left him +bereft of a refuge; his plight heartened her. + +"If the politicians on both sides were only as mutually appreciative," +she said, "the Empire would soon be knit." + +For a moment he did not answer. "I am afraid the economic situation is +not quite analogous," he said, stiffly and absently, when the moment had +passed. + +"Why does your brother always call me 'Mr' Finlay?" he demanded +presently. "It isn't friendly." + +The note of irritation in his voice puzzled her. "I think the form is +commoner with us," she said, "even among men who know each other fairly +well." Her secret glance flashed over the gulf that nevertheless divided +Finlay and her brother, that would always divide them. She saw it with +something like pain, which struggled through her pride in both. "And +then, you know--your calling--" + +"I suppose it is that," he replied, ill content. + +"I've noticed Dr Drummond's way," she told him, with rising spirits. +"It's delightful. He drops the 'Mr' with fellow-ministers of his own +denomination only--never with Wesleyans or Baptists, for a moment. He +always comes back very genial from the General Assembly, and full of +stories. 'I said to Grant,' or 'Macdonald said to me'--and he always +calls you 'Finlay,'" she added shyly. "By the way, I suppose you know +he's to be the new Moderator?" + +"Is he, indeed? Yes--yes, of course, I knew! We couldn't have a better." + +They walked on through the early autumn night. It was just not raining. +The damp air was cool and pungent with the smell of fallen leaves, which +lay thick under their feet. Advena speared the dropped horse chestnut +husks with the point of her umbrella as they went along. She had picked +up half a dozen when he spoke again. "I want to tell you--I have to tell +you--something--about myself, Miss Murchison." + +"I should like," said Advena steadily, "to hear." + +"It is a matter that has, I am ashamed to confess, curiously gone out +of my mind of late--I should say until lately. There was little until +lately--I am so poor a letter writer--to remind me of it. I am engaged +to be married!" + +"But how interesting!" exclaimed Advena. + +He looked at her taken aback. His own mood was heavy; it failed to +answer this lightness from her. It is hard to know what he expected, +what his unconscious blood expected for him; but it was not this. If +he had little wisdom about the hearts of women, he had less about their +behaviour. She said nothing more, but inclined her head in an angle of +deference and expectation toward what he should further communicate. + +"I don't know that I have ever told you much about my life in Scotland," +he went on. "It has always seemed to me so remote and--disconnected with +everything here. I could not suppose it would interest anyone. I was +cared for and educated by my father's only sister, a good woman. It was +as if she had whole charge of the part of my life that was not absorbed +in work. I don't know that I can make you understand. She was identified +with all the rest--I left it to her. Shortly before I sailed for Canada +she spoke to me of marriage in connection with my work and--welfare, and +with--a niece of her husband's who was staying with us at the time, +a person suitable in every way. Apart from my aunt, I do not +know--However, I owed everything to her, and I--took her advice in the +matter. I left it to her. She is a managing woman; but she can nearly +always prove herself right. Her mind ran a great deal, a little too +much perhaps, upon creature comforts, and I suppose she thought that in +emigrating a man might do well to companion himself." + +"That was prudent of her," said Advena. + +He turned a look upon her. "You are not--making a mock of it?" he said. + +"I am not making a mock of it." + +"My aunt now writes to me that Miss Christie's home has been broken +up by the death of her mother, and that if it can be arranged she is +willing to come to me here. My aunt talks of bringing her. I am to +write." + +He said the last words slowly, as if he weighed them. They had passed +the turning to the Murchisons', walking on with the single consciousness +of a path under them, and space before them. Once or twice before that +had happened, but Advena had always been aware. This time she did not +know. + +"You are to write," she said. She sought in vain for more words; he +also, throwing back his head, appeared to search the firmament for +phrases without result. Silence seemed enforced between them, and walked +with them, on into the murky landscape, over the fallen leaves. Passing +a streetlamp, they quickened their steps, looking furtively at the +light, which seemed leagued against them with silence. + +"It seems so extraordinarily--far away," said Hugh Finlay, of Bross, +Dumfries, at length. + +"But it will come near," Advena replied. + +"I don't think it ever can." + +She looked at him with a sudden leap of the heart, a wild, sweet dismay. + +"They, of course, will come. But the life of which they are a part, and +the man whom I remember to have been me--there is a gulf fixed--" + +"It is only the Atlantic," Advena said. She had recovered her vision; in +spite of the stone in her breast she could look. The weight and the hurt +she would reckon with later. What was there, after all, to do? Meanwhile +she could look, and already she saw with passion what had only begun to +form itself in his consciousness, his strange, ironical, pitiful plight. + +He shook his head. "It is not marked in any geography," he said, and +gave her a troubled smile. "How can I make it clear to you? I have come +here into a new world, of interests unknown and scope unguessed before. +I know what you would say, but you have no way of learning the beauty +and charm of mere vitality--you have always been so alive. One finds a +physical freedom in which one's very soul seems to expand; one hears the +happiest calls of fancy. And the most wonderful, most delightful thing +of all is to discover that one is oneself, strangely enough, able to +respond--" + +The words reached the woman beside him like some cool dropping balm, +healing, inconceivably precious. She knew her share in all this that he +recounted. He might not dream of it, might well confound her with the +general pulse; but she knew the sweet and separate subcurrent that her +life had been in his, felt herself underlying all these new joys of his, +could tell him how dear she was. But it seemed that he must not guess. + +It came to her with force that his dim perception of his case was +grotesque, that it humiliated him. She had a quick desire that he should +at least know that civilized, sentient beings did not lend themselves to +such outrageous comedies as this which he had confessed; it had somehow +the air of a confession. She could not let him fall so lamentably short +of man's dignity, of man's estate, for his own sake. + +"It is a curious history," she said. "You are right in thinking I should +not find it quite easy to understand. We make those--arrangements--so +much more for ourselves over here. Perhaps we think them more important +than they are." + +"But they are of the highest importance." He stopped short, confounded. + +"I shall try to consecrate my marriage," he said presently, more to +himself than to Advena. + +Her thought told him bitterly: "I am afraid it is the only thing you can +do with it," but something else came to her lips. + +"I have not congratulated you. I am not sure," she went on, with +astonishing candour, "whether I can. But I wish you happiness with all +my heart. Are you happy now?" + +He turned his great dark eyes on her. "I am as happy, I dare say, as I +have any need to be." + +"But you are happier since your letter came?" + +"No," he said. The simple word fell on her heart, and she forbore. + +They went on again in silence until they arrived at a place from which +they saw the gleam of the river and the line of the hills beyond. Advena +stopped. + +"We came here once before together--in the spring. Do you remember?" she +asked. + +"I remember very well." She had turned, and he with her. They stood +together with darkness about them, through which they could just see +each other's faces. + +"It was spring then, and I went back alone. You are still living up that +street? Good night, then, please. I wish again--to go back--alone." + +He looked at her for an instant in dumb bewilderment, though her words +were simple enough. Then as she made a step away from him he caught her +hand. + +"Advena," he faltered, "what has happened to us? This time I cannot let +you." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"Lorne," said Dora Milburn, in her most animated manner, "who do you +think is coming to Elgin? Your London friend, Mr Hesketh! He's going to +stay with the Emmetts, and Mrs Emmett is perfectly distracted; she says +he's accustomed to so much, she doesn't know how he will put up with +their plain way of living. Though what she means by that, with late +dinner and afternoon tea every day of her life, is more than I know." + +"Why, that's splendid!" replied Lorne. "Good old Hesketh! I knew he +thought of coming across this fall, but the brute hasn't written to +me. We'll have to get him over to our place. When he gets tired of +the Emmetts' plain ways he can try ours--they're plainer. You'll like +Hesketh; he's a good fellow, and more go-ahead than most of them." + +"I don't think I should ask him to stay if I were you, Lorne. Your +mother will never consent to change her hours for meals. I wouldn't +dream of asking an Englishman to stay if I couldn't give him late +dinner; they think so much of it. It's the trial of Mother's life that +Father will not submit to it. As a girl she was used to nothing else. +Afternoon tea we do have, he can't prevent that, but Father kicks at +anything but one o'clock dinner and meat tea at six, and I suppose he +always will." + +"Doesn't one tea spoil the other?" Lorne inquired. "I find it does +when I go to your minister's and peck at a cress sandwich at five. You +haven't any appetite for a reasonable meal at six. But I guess it won't +matter to Hesketh; he's got a lot of sense about things of that sort. +Why he served out in South Africa--volunteered. Mrs Emmett needn't +worry. And if we find him pining for afternoon tea we can send him over +here." + +"Well, if he's nice. But I suppose he's pretty sure to be nice. Any +friend of the Emmetts--What is he like, Lorne?" + +"Oh, he's just a young man with a moustache! You seem to see a good many +over there. They're all alike while they're at school in round coats, +and after they leave school they get moustaches, and then they're all +alike again." + +"I wish you wouldn't tease. How tall is he? Is he fair or dark? What +colour are his eyes?" + +Lorne buried his head in his hands in a pretended agony of recollection. + +"So far as I remember, not exactly tall, but you wouldn't call him +short. Complexion--well, don't you know?--that kind of middling +complexion. Colour of his eyes--does anybody ever notice a thing like +that? You needn't take my word for it, but I should say they were a kind +of average coloured eyes." + +"Lorne! You ARE--I suppose I'll just have to wait till I see him. But +the girls are wild to know, and I said I'd ask you. He'll be here in +about two weeks anyhow, and I dare say we won't find him so much to make +a fuss about. The best sort of Englishmen don't come over such a very +great deal, as you say. I expect they have a better time at home." + +"Hesketh's a very good sort of Englishman," said Lorne. + +"He's awfully well off, isn't he?" + +"According to our ideas I suppose he is," said Lorne. "Not according to +English ideas." + +"Still less according to New York ones, then," asserted Dora. "They +wouldn't think much of it there even if he passed for rich in England." +It was a little as if she resented Lorne's comparison of standards, and +claimed the American one as at least cis-Atlantic. + +"He has a settled income," said Lorne, "and he's never had to work for +it, whatever luck there is in that. That's all I know. Dora--" + +"Now, Lorne, you're not to be troublesome." + +"Your mother hasn't come in at all this evening. Don't you think it's a +good sign?" + +"She isn't quite so silly as she was," remarked Dora. "Why I should +not have the same freedom as other girls in entertaining my gentleman +friends I never could quite see." + +"I believe if we told her we had made up our minds it would be all +right," he pleaded. + +"I'm not so sure Lorne. Mother's so deep. You can't always tell just by +what she DOES. She thinks Stephen Stuart likes me--it's too perfectly +idiotic; we are the merest friends--and when it's any question of you +and Stephen--well, she doesn't say anything, but she lets me see! She +thinks such a lot of the Stuarts because Stephen's father was Ontario +Premier once, and got knighted." + +"I might try for that myself if you think it would please her," said the +lover. + +"Please her! And I should be Lady Murchison!" she let fall upon his +ravished ears. "Why, Lorne, she'd just worship us both! But you'll never +do it." + +"Why not?" + +Dora looked at him with pretty speculation. She had reasons for +supposing that she did admire the young man. + +"You're too nice," she said. + +"That isn't good enough," he responded, and drew her nearer. + +"Then why did you ask me?--No, Lorne, you are not to. Suppose Father +came in?" + +"I shouldn't mind--Father's on my side, I think." + +"Father isn't on anybody's side," said his daughter, wisely. + +"Dora, let me speak to him!" + +Miss Milburn gave a clever imitation of a little scream of horror. + +"INDEED I won't! Lorne, you are never, NEVER to do that! As if we were +in a ridiculous English novel!" + +"That's the part of an English novel I always like," said Lorne. "The +going and asking. It must about scare the hero out of a year's growth; +but it's a glorious thing to do--it would be next day, anyhow." + +"It's just the sort of thing to please Mother," Dora meditated, "but she +can't be indulged all the time. No, Lorne, you'll have to leave it to +me--when there's anything to tell." + +"There's everything to tell now," said he, who had indeed nothing to +keep back. + +"But you know what Mother is, Lorne. Suppose they hadn't any objection, +she would never keep it to herself! She'd want to go announcing it all +over the place; she'd think it was the proper thing to do." + +"But, Dora, why not? If you knew how I want to announce it! I should +like to publish it in the sunrise--and the wind--so that I couldn't go +out of doors without seeing it myself." + +"I shouldn't mind having it in Toronto Society, when the time comes. +But not yet, Lorne--not for ages. I'm only twenty-two--nobody thinks of +settling down nowadays before she's twenty-five at the very earliest. +I don't know a single girl in this town that has--among my friends, +anyway. That's three years off, and you CAN'T expect me to be engaged +for three years." + +"No." said Lorne, "engaged six months, married the rest of the time. Or +the periods might run concurrently if you preferred--I shouldn't mind." + +"An engaged girl has the very worst time. She gets hardly any attention, +and as to dances--well, it's a good thing for her if the person she's +engaged to CAN dance," she added, teasingly. + +Lorne coloured. "You said I was improving, Dora," he said, and then +laughed at the childish claim. "But that isn't really a thing that +counts, is it? If our lives only keep step it won't matter much about +the 'Washington Post.' And so far as attention goes, you'll get it as +long as you live, you little princess. Besides, isn't it better to wear +the love of one man than the admiration of half a dozen?" + +"And be teased and worried half out of your life by everybody you meet? +Now, Lorne, you're getting serious and sentimental, and you know I hate +that. It isn't any good either--Mother always used to say it made me +more stubborn to appeal to me. Horrid nature to have, isn't it?" + +Lorne's hand went to his waistcoat pocket and came back with a tiny +packet. "It's come, Dora--by this morning's English mail." + +Her eyes sparkled, and then rested with guarded excitement upon the +little case. "Oh, Lorne!" + +She said nothing more, but watched intently while he found the spring, +and disclosed the ring within. Then she drew a long breath. "Lorne +Murchison, what a lovely one!" + +"Doesn't it look," said he, "just a little serious and sentimental?" + +"But SUCH good style, too," he declared, bending over it. "And quite +new--I haven't seen anything a bit like it. I do love a design when it's +graceful. Solitaires are so old-fashioned." + +He kept his eyes upon her face, feeding upon the delight in it. +Exultation rose up in him: he knew the primitive guile of man, +indifferent to such things, alluring with them the other creature. He +did not stop to condone her weakness; rather he seized it in ecstasy; +it was all part of the glad scheme to help the lover. He turned the +diamonds so that they flashed and flashed again before her. Then, +trusting his happy instinct, he sought for her hand. But she held that +back. "I want to SEE it," she declared, and he was obliged to let her +take the ring in her own way and examine it, and place it in every +light, and compare it with others worn by her friends, and make little +tentative charges of extravagance in his purchase of it, while he sat +elated and adoring, the simple fellow. + +Reluctantly at last she gave up her hand. "But it's only trying on--not +putting on," she told him. He said nothing till it flashed upon her +finger, and in her eyes he saw a spark from below of that instinctive +cupidity toward jewels that man can never recognize as it deserves in +woman, because of his desire to gratify it. + +"You'll wear it, Dora?" he pleaded. + +"Lorne, you are the dearest fellow! But how could I? Everybody would +guess!" + +Her gaze, nevertheless, rested fascinated on the ring, which she posed +as it pleased her. + +"Let them guess! I'd rather they knew, but--it does look well on your +finger, dear." + +She held it up once more to the light, then slipped it decisively off +and gave it back to him. "I can't, you know, Lorne. I didn't really say +you might get it; and now you'll have to keep it till--till the time +comes. But this much I will say--it's the sweetest thing, and you've +shown the loveliest taste, and if it weren't such a dreadful give-away +I'd like to wear it awfully." + +They discussed it with argument, with endearment, with humour, and +reproach, but her inflexible basis soon showed through their talk: she +would not wear the ring. So far he prevailed, that it was she, not +he, who kept it. Her insistence that he should take it back brought +something like anger out of him; and in the surprise of this she yielded +so much. She did it unwillingly at the time, but afterward, when she +tried on the thing again in the privacy of her own room; she was rather +satisfied to have it, safe under lock and key, a flashing, smiling +mystery to visit when she liked and reveal when she would. + +"Lorne could never get me such a beauty again if he lost it," she +advised herself, "and he's awfully careless. And I'm not sure that I +won't tell Eva Delarue, just to show it to her. She's as close as wax." + +One feels a certain sorrow for the lover on his homeward way, squaring +his shoulders against the foolish perversity of the feminine mind, +resolutely guarding his heart from any hint of real reprobation. Through +the sweetness of her lips and the affection of her pretty eyes, through +all his half-possession of all her charms and graces, must have come +dully the sense of his great occasion manque, that dear day of love when +it leaves the mark of its claim. And in one's regret there is perhaps +some alloy of pity, that less respectful thing. We know him elsewhere +capable of essaying heights, yet we seem to look down upon the drama of +his heart. It may be well to remember that the level is not everything +in love. He who carefully adjusts an intellectual machine may descry a +higher mark; he can construct nothing in a mistress; he is, therefore, +able to see the facts and to discriminate the desirable. But Lorne loved +with all his imagination. This way dares the imitation of the gods by +which it improves the quality of the passion, so that such a love stands +by itself to be considered, apart from the object, one may say. A strong +and beautiful wave lifted Lorne Murchison along to his destiny, since it +was the pulse of his own life, though Dora Milburn played moon to it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Alfred Hesketh had, after all, written to young Murchison about his +immediate intention of sailing for Canada and visiting Elgin; the letter +arrived a day or two later. It was brief and businesslike, but it gave +Lorne to understand that since his departure the imperial idea had been +steadily fermenting, not only in the national mind, but particularly in +Hesketh's; that it produced in his case a condition only to be properly +treated by personal experience. Hesketh was coming over to prove +whatever advantage there was in seeing for yourself. That he was coming +with the right bias Lorne might infer, he said, from the fact that he +had waited a fortnight to get his passage by the only big line to +New York that stood out for our mercantile supremacy against American +combination. + +"He needn't bother to bring any bias," Lorne remarked when he had read +this, "but he'll have to pay a lot of extra luggage on the one he takes +back with him." + +He felt a little irritation at being offered the testimony of the Cunard +ticket. Back on his native soil, its independence ran again like sap +in him: nobody wanted a present of good will; the matter stood on its +merits. + +He was glad, nevertheless, that Hesketh was coming, gratified that it +would now be his turn to show prospects, and turn figures into facts, +and make plain the imperial profit from the further side. Hesketh was +such an intelligent fellow, there would be the keenest sort of pleasure +in demonstrating things, big things, to him, little things, too, ways +of living, differences of habit. Already in the happy exercise of his +hospitable instinct he saw how Hesketh would get on with his mother, +with Stella, with Dr Drummond. He saw Hesketh interested, domiciled, +remaining--the ranch life this side of the Rockies, Lorne thought, would +tempt him, or something new and sound in Winnipeg. He kept his eye +open for chances, and noted one or two likely things. "We want labour +mostly," he said to Advena, "but nobody is refused leave to land because +he has a little money." + +"I should think not, indeed," remarked Mrs Murchison, who was present. +"I often wish your father and I had had a little more when we began. +That whole Gregory block was going for three thousand dollars then. I +wonder what it's worth now?" + +"Yes, but you and Father are worth more, too," remarked Stella acutely. + +"In fact, all the elder members of the family have approximated in +value, Stella," said her brother, "and you may too, in time." + +"I'll take my chance with the country," she retorted. They were all +permeated with the question of the day; even Stella, after holding +haughtily aloof for some time, had been obliged to get into step, as +she described it, with the silly old Empire. Whatever it was in England, +here it was a family affair; I mean in the town of Elgin, in the shops +and the offices, up and down the tree-bordered streets as men went +to and from their business, atomic creatures building the reef of +the future, but conscious, and wanting to know what they were about. +Political parties had long declared themselves, the Hampden Debating +Society had had several grand field nights. Prospective lifelong +friendships, male and female in every form of "the Collegiate," had been +put to this touchstone, sometimes with shattering effect. If you would +not serve with Wallingham the greatness of Britain you were held to +favour going over to the United States; there was no middle course. +It became a personal matter in the ward schools and small boys pursued +small boys with hateful cries of "Annexationist!" The subject even +trickled about the apple-barrels and potato-bags of the market square. +Here it should have raged, pregnant as it was with bucolic blessing; but +our agricultural friends expect nothing readily except adverse weather, +least of all a measure of economic benefit to themselves. Those of Fox +County thought it looked very well, but it was pretty sure to work out +some other way. Elmore Crow failed heavily to catch a light even from +Lorne Murchison. + +"You keep your hair on, Lorne," he advised. "We ain't going to get such +big changes yet. An' if we do the blooming syndicates 'll spoil 'em for +us." + +There were even dissentients among the farmers. The voice of one was +raised who had lived laborious years, and many of them in the hope of +seeing his butter and cheese go unimpeded across the American line. It +must be said, however, that still less attention was paid to him, and it +was generally conceded that he would die without the sight. + +It was the great topic. The day Wallingham went his defiant furthest +in the House and every colonial newspaper set it up in acclaiming +headlines, Horace Williams, enterprising fellow, remembered that Lorne +had seen the great man under circumstances that would probably pan out, +and send round Rawlins. Rawlins was to get something that would do to +call "Wallingham in the Bosom of his Family," and as much as Lorne +cared to pour into him about his own view of the probable issue. Rawlins +failed to get the interview, came back to say that Lorne didn't seem +to think himself a big enough boy for that, but he did not return +empty-handed. Mr Murchison sent Mr Williams the promise of some +contributions upon the question of the hour, which he had no objection +to sign and which Horace should have for the good of the cause. Horace +duly had them, the Express duly published them, and they were copied in +full by the Dominion and several other leading journals, with an amount +of comment which everyone but Mrs Murchison thought remarkable. + +"I don't pretend to understand it," she said, "but anybody can see +that he knows what he's talking about." John Murchison read them with a +critical eye and a pursed-out lip. + +"He takes too much for granted." + +"What does he take for granted?" asked Mrs Murchison. + +"Other folks being like himself," said the father. + +That, no doubt, was succinct and true; nevertheless, the articles +had competence as well as confidence. The writer treated facts with +restraint and conditions with sympathy. He summoned ideas from the +obscurity of men's minds, and marshalled them in the light, so that many +recognized what they had been trying to think. He wrote with homeliness +as well as force, wishing much more to make the issue recognizable than +to create fine phrases, with the result that one or two of his sentences +passed into the language of the discussion which, as any of its +standard-bearers would have told you, had little use for rhetoric. The +articles were competent: if you listened to Horace Williams you would +have been obliged to accept them as the last, or latest, word of +economic truth, though it must be left to history to endorse Mr +Williams. It was their enthusiasm, however, that gave them the wing on +which they travelled. People naturally took different views, even of +this quality. "Young Murchison's working the imperial idea for all it's +worth," was Walter Winter's; and Octavius Milburn humorously summed up +the series as "tall talk." + +Alfred Hesketh came, it was felt, rather opportunely into the midst of +this. Plenty of people, the whole of Market Square and East Elgin, a +good part, too, probably, of the Town Ward, were unaware of his arrival; +but for the little world he penetrated he was clothed with all the +interest of the great contingency. His decorous head in the Emmetts' +pew on Sunday morning stood for a symbol as well as for a stranger. +The nation was on the eve of a great far-reaching transaction with the +mother country, and thrilling with the terms of the bargain. Hesketh +was regarded by people in Elgin who knew who he was with the mingled +cordiality and distrust that might have met a principal. They did not +perhaps say it, but it was in their minds. "There's one of them," was +what they thought when they met him in the street. At any other time he +would have been just an Englishman; now he was invested with the very +romance of destiny. The perception was obscure, but it was there. +Hesketh, on the other hand, found these good people a very well-dressed, +well-conditioned, decent lot, rather sallower than he expected, perhaps, +who seemed to live in a fair-sized town in a great deal of comfort, and +was wholly unconscious of anything special in his relation to them or +theirs to him. + +He met Lorne just outside the office of Warner, Fulke, and Murchison the +following day. They greeted heartily. "Now this IS good!" said Lorne, +and he thought so. Hesketh confided his first impression. "It's not +unlike an English country town," he said, "only the streets are wider, +and the people don't look so much in earnest." + +"Oh, they're just as much in earnest some of the time," Lorne laughed, +"but maybe not all the time!" + +The sun shone crisply round them; there was a brisk October market; on +the other side of the road Elmore Crow dangled his long legs over a cart +flap and chewed a cheroot. Elgin was abroad, doing business on its wide +margin of opportunity. Lorne cast a backward glance at conditions he had +seen. + +"I know what you mean," he said. "Sharp of you to spot it so soon, old +chap! You're staying with the English Church minister, aren't you--Mr +Emmett? Some connection of yours, aren't they?" + +"Mrs Emmett is Chafe's sister--Mrs Chafe, you know, is my aunt," Hesketh +reminded him. "I say, Murchison, I left old Chafe wilder than ever. +Wallingham's committee keep sending him leaflets and things. They take +it for granted he's on the right side, since his interests are. The +other day they asked him for a subscription! The old boy sent his reply +to the Daily News and carried it about for a week. I think that gave him +real satisfaction; but he hates the things by post." + +Lorne laughed delightedly. "I expect he's snowed under with them. I sent +him my own valuable views last week." + +"I'm afraid they'll only stiffen him. That got to be his great argument +after you left, the fact that you fellows over here want it. He doesn't +approve of a bargain if the other side sees a profit. Curiously enough, +his foremen and people out in Chiswick are all for it. I was talking to +one of them just before I left--'Stands to reason, sir,' he said, 'we +don't want to pay more for a loaf than we do now. But we'll do it, sir, +if it means downing them Germans; he said." + +Lorne's eyebrows half-perceptibly twitched. "They do 'sir' you a lot +over there, don't they?" he said. "It was as much as I could do to get +at what a fellow of that sort meant, tumbling over the 'sirs' he propped +it up with. Well, all kinds of people, all kinds of argument, I suppose, +when it comes to trying to get 'em solid! But I was going to say we are +all hoping you'll give us a part of your time while you're in Elgin. +My family are looking forward to meeting you. Come along and let me +introduce you to my father now--he's only round the corner." + +"By all means!" said Hesketh, and they fell into step together. As Lorne +said, it was only a short distance, but far enough to communicate a +briskness, an alertness, from the step of one young man to that of the +other. "I wish it were five miles," Hesketh said, all his stall-fed +muscles responding to the new call of his heart and lungs. "Any good +walks about here? I asked Emmett, but he didn't know--supposed you could +walk to Clayfield if you didn't take the car. He seems to have lost his +legs. I suppose parsons do." + +"Not all of them," said Lorne. "There's a fellow that has a church over +in East Elgin, Finlay his name is, that beats the record of anything +around here. He just about ranges the county in the course of a week." + +"The place is too big for one parish, no doubt," Hesketh remarked. + +"Oh, he's a Presbyterian! The Episcopalians haven't got any hold to +speak of over there. Here we are," said Lorne, and turned in at the +door. The old wooden sign was long gone. "John Murchison and Sons" +glittered instead in the plate-glass windows, but Hesketh did not see +it. + +"Why do you think he'll be in here?" he asked, on young Murchison's +heels. + +"Because he always is when he isn't over at the shop," replied Lorne. +"It's his place of business--his store, you know. There he is! Hard +luck--he's got a customer. We'll have to wait." + +He went on ahead with his impetuous step; he did not perceive the +instant's paralysis that seemed to overtake Hesketh's, whose foot +dragged, however, no longer than that. It was an initiation; he had +been told he might expect some. He checked his impulse to be amused, and +guarded his look round, not to show unseemly curiosity. His face, +when he was introduced to Alec, who was sorting some odd dozens of +tablespoons, was neutral and pleasant. He reflected afterward that he +had been quite equal to the occasion. He thought, too, that he had shown +some adaptability. Alec was not a person of fluent discourse, and when +he had inquired whether Hesketh was going to make a long stay, the +conversation might have languished but for this. + +"Is that Birmingham?" he asked, nodding kindly at the spoons. + +"Came to us through a house in Liverpool," Alec responded. "I expect you +had a stormy crossing, Mr Hesketh." + +"It was a bit choppy. We had the fiddles on most of the time," Hesketh +replied. "Most of the time. Now, how do you find the bicycle trade over +here? Languishing, as it is with us?" + +"Oh, it keeps up pretty well," said Alec, "but we sell more spoons. 'N' +what do you think of this country, far as you've seen it?" + +"Oh, come now, it's a little soon to ask, isn't it? Yes--I suppose +bicycles go out of fashion, and spoons never do. I was thinking," added +Hesketh, casting his eyes over a serried rank, "of buying a bicycle." + +Alec had turned to put the spoons in their place on the shelves. "Better +take your friend across to Cox's," he advised Lorne over his shoulder. +"He'll be able to get a motorbike there," a suggestion which gave Mr +Hesketh to reflect later that if that was the general idea of doing +business it must be an easy country to make money in. + +The customer was satisfied at last, and Mr Murchison walked sociably to +the door with him; it was the secretary of the local Oddfellows' Lodge, +who had come in about a furnace. + +"Now's our chance," said Lorne. "Father, this is Mr Hesketh, from +London--my father, Hesketh. He can tell you all you want to know about +Canada--this part of it, anyway. Over thirty years, isn't it, Father, +since you came out?" + +"Glad to meet you," said John Murchison, "glad to meet you, Mr Hesketh. +We've heard much about you." + +"You must have been quite among the pioneers of Elgin, Mr Murchison," +said Hesketh as they shook hands. Alec hadn't seemed to think of that; +Hesketh put it down to the counter. + +"Not quite," said John. "We'll say among the early arrivals." + +"Have you ever been back in your native Scotland?" asked Hesketh. + +"Aye, twice." + +"But you prefer the land of your adoption?" + +"I do. But I think by now it'll be kin," said Mr Murchison. "It was good +to see the heather again, but a man lives best where he's taken root." + +"Yes, yes. You seem to do a large business here, Mr Murchison." + +"Pretty well for the size of the place. You must get Lorne to take you +over Elgin. It's a fair sample of our rising manufacturing towns." + +"I hope he will. I understand you manufacture to some extent yourself?" + +"We make our own stoves and a few odd things." + +"You don't send any across the Atlantic yet?" queried Hesketh jocularly. + +"Not yet. No, sir!" + +Then did Mr Hesketh show himself in true sympathy with the novel and +independent conditions of the commonwealth he found himself in. + +"I beg you won't use that form with me," he said, "I know it isn't the +custom of the country, and I am a friend of your son's, you see." + +The iron merchant looked at him, just an instant's regard, in which +astonishment struggled with the usual deliberation. Then his considering +hand went to his chin. + +"I see. I must remember," he said. + +The son, Lorne, glanced in the pause beyond John Murchison's broad +shoulders, through the store door and out into the moderate commerce of +Main Street, which had carried the significance and the success of his +father's life. His eye came back and moved over the contents of the +place, taking stock of it, one might say, and adjusting the balance with +pride. He had said very little since they had been in the store. Now he +turned to Hesketh quietly. + +"I wouldn't bother about that if I were you," he said. "My father spoke +quite--colloquially." + +"Oh!" said Hesketh. + +They parted on the pavement outside. "I hope you understand," said +Lorne, with an effort at heartiness, "how glad my parents will be to +have you if you find yourself able to spare us any of your time?" + +"Thanks very much," said Hesketh; "I shall certainly give myself the +pleasure of calling as soon as possible." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +"Dear me!" said Dr Drummond. "Dear me! Well! And what does Advena +Murchison say to all this?" + +He and Hugh Finlay were sitting in the Doctor's study, the pleasantest +room in the house. It was lined with standard religious philosophy, +standard poets, standard fiction, all that was standard, and nothing +that was not; and the shelves included several volumes of the Doctor's +own sermons, published in black morocco through a local firm that did +business by the subscription method, with "Drummond" in gold letters +on the back. There were more copies of these, perhaps, than it would be +quite thoughtful to count, though a good many were annually disposed of +at the church bazaar, where the Doctor presented them with a generous +hand. A sumptuous desk, and luxurious leather-covered armchairs +furnished the room; a beautiful little Parian copy of a famous Cupid and +Psyche decorated the mantelpiece, and betrayed the touch of pagan in +the Presbyterian. A bright fire burned in the grate, and there was not a +speck of dust anywhere. + +Dr Drummond, lost in his chair, with one knee dropped on the other, +joined his fingers at the tips, and drew his forehead into a web of +wrinkles. Over it his militant grey crest curled up; under it his eyes +darted two shrewd points of interrogation. + +"What does Miss Murchison say to it?" he repeated with craft and +courage, as Finlay's eyes dropped and his face slowly flushed under +the question. It was in this room that Dr Drummond examined "intending +communicants" and cases likely to come before the Session; he never +shirked a leading question. "Miss Murchison," said Finlay, after a +moment, "was good enough to say that she thought her father's house +would be open to Miss--to my friends when they arrived; but I thought it +would be more suitable to ask your hospitality, sir." + +"Did she so?" asked Dr Drummond gravely. It was more a comment than an +inquiry. "Did she so?" Infinite kindness was in it. + +The young man assented with an awkward gesture, half-bend, half-nod, and +neither for a moment spoke again. It was one of those silences with a +character, conscious, tentative. Half-veiled, disavowed thoughts rose up +in it, awakened by Advena's name, turning away their heads. The ticking +of the Doctor's old-fashioned watch came through it from his waistcoat +pocket. It was he who spoke first. + +"I christened Advena Murchison," he said. "Her father was one of those +who called me, as a young man, to this ministry. The names of both her +parents are on my first communion roll. Aye!"... + +The fire snapped and the watch went on ticking. + +"So Advena thought well of it all. Did she so?" + +The young man raised his heavy eyes and looked unflinchingly at Dr +Drummond. + +"Miss Murchison," he said, "is the only other person to whom I have +confided the matter. I have written, fixing that date, with her +approval--at her desire. Not immediately. I took time to--think it over. +Then it seemed better to arrange for the ladies reception first, so +before posting I have come to you." + +"Then the letter has not gone?" + +"It is in my pocket." + +"Finlay, you will have a cigar? I don't smoke myself; my throat won't +stand it; but I understand these are passable. Grant left them here. +He's a chimney, that man Grant. At it day and night." + +This was a sacrifice. Dr Drummond hated tobacco, the smell of it, the +ash of it, the time consumed in it. There was no need at all to offer +Finlay one of the Reverend Grant's cigars. Propitiation must indeed be +desired when the incense is abhorred. But Finlay declined to smoke. +The Doctor, with his hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, where +something metallic clinked in them, began to pace and turn. His mouth +had the set it wore when he handled a difficult motion in the General +Assembly. + +"I'm surprised to hear that, Finlay; though it may be well not to be +surprised at what a woman will say--or won't say." + +"Surprised?" said the younger man confusedly. "Why should anyone be +surprised?" + +"I know her well. I've watched her grow up. I remember her mother's +trouble because she would scratch the paint on the pew in front of her +with the nails in her little boots. John Murchison sang in the choir in +those days. He had a fine bass voice; he has it still. And Mrs Murchison +had to keep the family in order by herself. It was sometimes as much as +she could do, poor woman. They sat near the front, and many a good +hard look I used to give them while I was preaching. Knox Church was a +different place then. The choir sat in the back gallery, and we had a +precentor, a fine fellow--he lost an arm at Ridgway in the Fenian raid. +Well I mind him and the frown he would put on when he took up the fork. +But, for that matter, every man Jack in the choir had a frown on in the +singing, though the bass fellows would be the fiercest. We've been twice +enlarged since, and the organist has long been a salaried professional. +But I doubt whether the praise of God is any heartier than it was when +it followed Peter Craig's tuning-fork. Aye. You'd always hear John +Murchison's note in the finish." + +Finlay was listening with the look of a charmed animal. Dr Drummond's +voice was never more vibrant, more moving, more compelling than when he +called up the past; and here to Finlay the past was itself enchanted. + +"She always had those wonderful dark eyes. She's pale enough now, but +as a child she was rosy. Taking her place of a winter evening, with the +snow on her fur cap and her hair, I often thought her a picture. I liked +to have her attention while I was preaching, even as a child; and when +she was absent I missed her. It was through my ministrations that she +saw her way to professing the Church of Christ, and under my heartfelt +benediction that she first broke bread in her Father's house. I hold the +girl in great affection, Finlay; and I grieve to hear this." + +The other drew a long breath, and his hand tightened on the arm of his +chair. He was, as we know, blind to many of the world's aspects, even to +those in which he himself figured; and Dr Drummond's plain hypothesis of +his relations with Advena came before him in forced illumination, flash +by tragic flash. This kind of revelation is more discomforting than +darkness, since it carries the surprise of assault, and Finlay groped in +it, helpless and silent. + +"You are grieved, sir?" he said mechanically. + +"Man, she loves you!" exclaimed the Doctor, in a tone that would no +longer forbear. + +Hugh Finlay seemed to take the words just where they were levelled, in +his breast. He half leaped from his chair; the lower part of his face +had the rigidity of iron. + +"I am not obliged to discuss such a matter as that," he said hoarsely, +"with you or with any man." + +He looked confusedly about him for his hat, which he had left in the +hall; and Dr Drummond profited by the instant. He stepped across and +laid a hand on the younger man's shoulder. Had they both been standing +the gesture would have been impossible to Dr Drummond with dignity; +as it was, it had not only that, but benignance, a kind of tender good +will, rare in expression with the minister, rare, for that matter, in +feeling with him too, though the chord was always there to be sounded. + +"Finlay," he said; "Finlay!" + +Between two such temperaments the touch and the tone together made an +extraordinary demonstration. Finlay, with an obvious effort, let it lie +upon him. The tension of his body relaxed, that of his soul he covered, +leaning forward and burying his head in his hands. + +"Will you say I have no claim to speak?" asked Dr Drummond, and met +silence. "It is upon my lips to beg you not to send that letter, +Finlay." He took his hand from the young man's shoulder, inserted a +thumb in each of his waistcoat pockets, and resumed his walk. + +"On my own account I must send it," said Finlay. "On Miss +Murchison's--she bids me to. We have gone into the matter together." + +"I can imagine what you made of it together. There's a good deal of her +father in Advena. He would be the last man to say a word for himself. +You told her this tale you have told me, and she told you to get Miss +Christie out and marry her without delay, eh? And what would you expect +her to tell you--a girl of that spirit?" + +"I cannot see why pride should influence her." + +"Then you know little about women. It was pride, pure and simple, +Finlay, that made her tell you that--and she'll be a sorry woman if you +act on it." + +"No," said Finlay, suddenly looking up, "I may know little about women, +but I know more about Advena Murchison than that. She advised me in the +sense she thought right and honourable, and her advice was sincere. And, +Dr Drummond, deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison's view of +the matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision to rest upon it. +It must stand by itself." + +"You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt should not be +influenced by the fact that it means the wrecking of your own happiness +and that of another person. I can't agree, Finlay. I spoke first of +Advena Murchison because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart. +I feel, too, that someone should put her case. Her own father would +never open his lips. If you're to be hauled over the coals about this +I'm the only man to do it. And I'm going to." + +A look of sharp determination came into the minister's eyes; he had the +momentary air of a small Scotch terrier with a bidding. Finlay looked at +him in startled recognition of another possible phase of his dilemma; he +thought he knew it in every wretched aspect. It was a bold reference +of Dr Drummond's; it threw down the last possibility of withdrawal for +Finlay; they must have it out now, man to man, with a little, perhaps, +even in that unlikely place, of penitent to confessor. It was an +exigency, it helped Finlay to pull himself together, and there was +something in his voice, when he spoke, like the vibration of relief. + +"I am pained and distressed more than I have any way of telling you, +sir," he said, "that--the state of feeling--between Miss Murchison and +myself should have been so plain to you. It is incomprehensible to +me that it should be so, since it is only very lately that I have +understood it truly myself. I hope you will believe that it was the +strangest, most unexpected, most sudden revelation." + +He paused and looked timidly at the Doctor; he, the great fellow, in +straining bondage to his heart, leaning forward with embarrassed tension +in every muscle, Dr Drummond alert, poised, critical, balancing his +little figure on the hearthrug. + +"I preach faith in miracles," he said. "I dare say between you and her +it would be just that." + +"I have been deeply culpable. Common sense, common knowledge of men and +women should have warned me that there might be danger. But I looked +upon the matter as our own--as between us only. I confess that I have +not till now thought of that part of it, but surely--You cannot mean +to tell me that what I have always supposed my sincere and devoted +friendship for Miss Murchison has been in any way prejudicial--" + +"To her in the ordinary sense? To her prospects of marriage and her +standing in the eyes of the community? No, Finlay. No. I have not heard +the matter much referred to. You seem to have taken none of the ordinary +means--you have not distinguished her in the eyes of gossip. If you had +it would be by no means the gravest thing to consider. Such tokens are +quickly forgotten, especially here, where attentions of the kind often, +I've noticed, lead to nothing. It is the fact, and not the appearance of +it, that I speak of--that I am concerned with." + +"The fact is beyond mending," said Finlay, dully. + +"Aye, the fact is beyond mending. It is beyond mending that Advena +Murchison belongs to you and you to her in no common sense. It's beyond +mending that you cannot now be separated without such injury to you both +as I would not like to look upon. It's beyond mending, Finlay, because +it is one of those things that God has made. But it is not beyond +marring, and I charge you to look well what you are about in connection +with it." + +A flash of happiness, of simple delight, lit the young man's sombre eyes +as the phrases fell. To the minister they were mere forcible words; +to Finlay they were soft rain in a famished land. Then he looked again +heavily at the pattern of the carpet. + +"Would you have me marry Advena Murchison?" he said, with a kind of +shamed yielding to the words. + +"I would--and no other. Man, I saw it from the beginning!" exclaimed the +Doctor. "I don't say it isn't an awkward business. But at least there'll +be no heartbreak in Scotland. I gather you never said a word to the +Bross lady on the subject, and very few on any other. You tell me you +left it all with that good woman, your aunt, to arrange after you left. +Do you think a creature of any sentiment would have accepted you on +those terms? Not she. So far as I can make out, Miss Cameron is just a +sensible, wise woman that would be the first to see the folly in this +business if she knew the rights of it. Come, Finlay, you're not such a +great man with the ladies--you can't pretend she has any affection for +you." + +The note of raillery in the Doctor's voice drew Finlay's brows together. + +"I don't know," he said, "whether I have to think of her affections, but +I do know I have to think of her dignity, her confidence, and her belief +in the honourable dealing of a man whom she met under the sanction of a +trusted roof. The matter may look light here; it is serious there. She +has her circle of friends; they are acquainted with her engagement. She +has made all her arrangements to carry it out; she has disposed of her +life. I cannot ask her to reconsider her lot because I have found a +happier adjustment for mine." + +"Finlay," said Dr Drummond, "you will not be known in Bross or anywhere +else as a man who has jilted a woman. Is that it?" + +"I will not be a man who has jilted a woman." + +"There is no sophist like pride. Look at the case on its merits. On the +one side a disappointment for Miss Cameron. I don't doubt she's counting +on coming, but at worst a worldly disappointment. And the very grievous +humiliation for you of writing to tell her that you have made a mistake. +You deserve that, Finlay. If you wouldn't be a man who has jilted a +woman you have no business to lend yourself to such matters with the +capacity of a blind kitten. That is the damage on the one side. On the +other--" + +"I know all that there is to be said," interrupted Finlay, "on the +other." + +"Then face it, man. Go home and write the whole truth to Bross. I'll do +it for you--no, I won't, either. Stand up to it yourself. You must hurt +one of two women; choose the one that will suffer only in her vanity. I +tell you that Scotch entanglement of yours is pure cardboard farce--it +won't stand examination. It's appalling to think that out of an +extravagant, hypersensitive conception of honour, egged on by that poor +girl, you could be capable of turning it into the reality of your life." + +"I've taken all these points of view, sir, and I can't throw the woman +over. The objection to it isn't in reason--it's somehow in the past and +the blood. It would mean the sacrifice of all that I hold most valuable +in myself. I should expect myself after that to stick at nothing--why +should I?" + +"There is one point of view that perhaps you have not taken," said Dr +Drummond, in his gravest manner. "You are settled here in your charge. +In all human probability you will remain here in East Elgin, as I have +remained here, building and fortifying the place you have won for the +Lord in the hearts of the people. Advena Murchison's life will also go +on here--there is nothing to take it away. You have both strong natures. +Are you prepared for that?" + +"We are both prepared for it. We shall both be equal to it. I count upon +her, and she counts upon me, to furnish in our friendship the greater +part of whatever happiness life may have in store for us." + +"Then you must be a pair of born lunatics!" said Dr Drummond, his jaw +grim, his eyes snapping. "What you propose is little less than a crime, +Finlay. It can come to nothing but grief, if no worse. And your wife, +poor woman, whatever she deserves, it is better than that! My word, if +she could choose her prospect, think you she would hesitate? Finlay, I +entreat you as a matter of ordinary prudence, go home and break it +off. Leave Advena out of it--you have no business to make this marriage +whether or no. Leave other considerations to God and to the future. I +beseech you, bring it to an end!" + +Finlay got up and held out his hand. "I tell you from my heart it is +impossible," he said. + +"I can't move you?" said Dr Drummond. "Then let us see if the Lord can. +You will not object, Finlay, to bring the matter before Him, here and +now, in a few words of prayer? I should find it hard to let you go +without them." + +They went down upon their knees where they stood; and Dr Drummond did +little less than order Divine interference; but the prayer that was +inaudible was to the opposite purpose. + +Ten minutes later the minister himself opened the door to let Finlay out +into the night. "You will remember," he said as they shook hands, +"that what I think of your position in this matter makes no difference +whatever to the question of your aunt's coming here with Miss Cameron +when they arrive. You will bring them to this house as a matter of +course. I wish you could be guided to a different conclusion but, after +all, it is your own conscience that must be satisfied. They will be +better here than at the Murchisons'," he added with a last shaft of +reproach, "and they will be very welcome." + +It said much for Dr Drummond that Finlay was able to fall in with the +arrangement. He went back to his boarding-house, and added a postscript +embodying it to his letter to Bross. Then he walked out upon the +midnight two feverish miles to the town, and posted the letter. The way +back was longer and colder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +"Well, Winter," said Octavius Milburn, "I expect there's business in +this for you." + +Mr Milburn and Mr Winter had met in the act of unlocking their boxes at +the post-office. Elgin had enjoyed postal delivery for several years, +but not so much as to induce men of business to abandon the post-office +box that had been the great convenience succeeding window inquiry. +In time the boxes would go, but the habit of dropping in for your own +noonday mail on the way home to dinner was deep-rooted, and undoubtedly +you got it earlier. Moreover, it takes time to engender confidence in +a postman when he is drawn from your midst, and when you know perfectly +well that he would otherwise be driving the mere watering-cart, or +delivering the mere ice, as he was last year. + +"Looks like it," responded Mr Winter, cheerfully. "The boys have been +round as usual. I told them they'd better try another shop this time, +but they seemed to think the old reliable was good enough to go on +with." + +This exchange, to anyone in Elgin, would have been patently simple. On +that day there was only one serious topic in Elgin, and there could have +been only one reference to business for Walter Winter. The Dominion had +come up the day before with the announcement that Mr Robert Farquharson +who, for an aggregate of eleven years, had represented the Liberals of +South Fox in the Canadian House of Commons, had been compelled under +medical advice to withdraw from public life. The news was unexpected, +and there was rather a feeling among Mr Farquharson's local support in +Elgin that it shouldn't have come from Toronto. It will be gathered +that Horace Williams, as he himself acknowledged, was wild. The general +feeling, and to some extent Mr Williams's, was appeased by the further +information that Mr Farquharson had been obliged to go to Toronto to +see a specialist, whose report he had naturally enough taken to party +headquarters, whence the Dominion would get it, as Mr Williams said, by +telephone or any quicker way there was. Williams, it should be added, +was well ahead with the details, as considerate as was consistent with +public enterprise, of the retiring member's malady, its duration, +the date of the earliest symptoms, and the growth of anxiety in Mrs +Farquharson, who had finally insisted--and how right she was!--on the +visit to the specialist, upon which she had accompanied Mr Farquharson. +He sent round Rawlins. So that Elgin was in possession of all the facts, +and Walter Winter, who had every pretension to contest the seat again +and every satisfaction that it wouldn't be against Farquharson, +might naturally be expected to be taken up with them sufficiently to +understand a man who slapped him on the shoulder in the post-office with +the remark I have quoted. + +"I guess they know what they're about," returned Mr Milburn. "It's a bad +knock for the Grits, old Farquharson having to drop out. He's getting up +in years, but he's got a great hold here. He'll be a dead loss in votes +to his party. I always said our side wouldn't have a chance till the old +man was out of the way." + +Mr Winter twisted the watch-chain across his protuberant waistcoat, and +his chin sank in reflective folds above his neck-tie. Above that again +his nose drooped over his moustache, and his eyelids over his eyes, +which sought the floor. Altogether he looked sunk, like an overfed bird, +in deferential contemplation of what Mr Milburn was saying. + +"They've nobody to touch him, certainly in either ability or +experience," he replied, looking up to do it, with a handsome air of +concession. "Now that Martin's dead, and Jim Fawkes come that howler +over Pink River, they'll have their work cut out for them to find a man. +I hear Fawkes takes it hard, after all he's done for 'em, not to get the +nomination, but they won't hear of it. Quite right, too; he's let too +many people in over that concession of his to be popular, even among his +friends." + +"I suppose he has. Dropped anything there yourself?--No? Nor I. When a +thing gets to the boom stage I say let it alone, even if there's gold in +it and you've got a School of Mines man to tell you so. Fawkes came out +of it at the small end himself, I expect, but that doesn't help him any +in the eyes of businessmen." + +"I hear," said Walter Winter, stroking his nose, "that old man Parsons +has come right over since the bosses at Ottawa have put so much money +on preference trade with the old country. He says he was a Liberal once, +and may be a Liberal again, but he doesn't see his way to voting to give +his customers blankets cheaper than he can make them, and he'll wait +till the clouds roll by." + +"He won't be the only one, either," said Milburn. "Take my word for +it, they'll be dead sick and sorry over this imperial craze in a year's +time, every Government that's taken it up. The people won't have it. The +Empire looks nice on the map, but when it comes to practical politics +their bread and butter's in the home industries. There's a great +principle at stake, Winter; I must say I envy you standing up for it +under such favourable conditions. Liberals like Young and Windle may +talk big, but when it comes to the ballot-box you'll have the whole +manufacturing interest of the place behind you, and nobody the wiser. +It's a great thing to carry the standard on an issue above and beyond +party politics--it's a purer air, my boy." + +Walter Winter's nod confirmed the sagacity of this, and appreciated the +highmindedness. It was a parting nod; Mr Winter had too much on hand +that morning to waste time upon Octavius Milburn; but it was full of the +qualities that ensure the success of a man's relation with his fellows. +Consideration was in it, and understanding, and that kind of geniality +that offers itself on a plain business footing, a commercial heartiness +that has no nonsense about it. He had half a dozen casual chats like +this with Mr Milburn on his way up Main Street, and his manner expanded +in cordiality and respect with each, as if his growing confidence in +himself increased his confidence in his fellow-men. The same assurance +greeted him several times over. Every friend wanted to remind him of +the enemy's exigency, and to assure him that the enemy's new policy was +enough by itself to bring him romping in at last; and to every assurance +he presented the same acceptable attitude of desiring for particular +reasons to take special note of such valuable views. At the end he +had neither elicited nor imparted a single opinion of any importance; +nevertheless, he was quite entitled to his glow of satisfaction. + +Among Mr Winter's qualifications for political life was his capacity +to arrive at an estimate of the position of the enemy. He was never +persuaded to his own advantage; he never stepped ahead of the facts. +It was one of the things that made him popular with the other side, +his readiness to do justice to their equipment, to acknowledge their +chances. There is gratification of a special sort in hearing your points +of vantage confessed by the foe; the vanity is soothed by his open +admission that you are worthy of his steel. It makes you a little less +keen somehow, about defeating him. It may be that Mr Winter had an +instinct for this, or perhaps he thought such discourse more profitable, +if less pleasant, than derisive talk in the opposite sense. At all +events, he gained something and lost nothing by it, even in his own +camp, where swagger might be expected to breed admiration. He was +thought a level-headed fellow who didn't expect miracles; his forecast +in most matters was quoted, and his defeats at the polls had been to +some extent neutralized by his sagacity in computing the returns in +advance. + +So that we may safely follow Mr Winter to the conclusion that the +Liberals of South Fox were somewhat put to it to select a successor to +Robert Farquharson who could be depended upon to keep the party credit +exactly where he found it. The need was unexpected, and the two men +who would have stepped most naturally into Farquharson's shoes were +disqualified as Winter described. The retirement came at a calculating +moment. South Fox still declared itself with pride an unhealthy division +for Conservatives; but new considerations had thrust themselves among +Liberal counsels, and nobody yet knew what the country would say to +them. The place was a "Grit" strong-hold, but its steady growth as an +industrial centre would give a new significance to the figures of the +next returns. The Conservative was the manufacturers' party, and had +been ever since the veteran Sir John Macdonald declared for a protective +"National Policy," and placed the plain issue before the country which +divided the industrial and the agricultural interests. A certain number +of millowners--Mr Milburn mentioned Young and Windle--belonged to the +Liberals, as if to illustrate the fact that you inherit your party in +Canada as you inherit your "denomination," or your nose; it accompanies +you, simply, to the grave. But they were exceptions, and there was no +doubt that the other side had been considerably strengthened by the +addition of two or three thriving and highly capitalized concerns during +the past five years. Upon the top of this had come the possibility of a +great and dramatic change of trade relations with Great Britain, which +the Liberal Government at Ottawa had given every sign of willingness +to adopt--had, indeed, initiated, and were bound by word and letter to +follow up. Though the moment had not yet come, might never come, for +its acceptance or rejection by the country as a whole, there could be +no doubt that every by-election would be concerned with the policy +involved, and that every Liberal candidate must be prepared to stand by +it in so far as the leaders had conceived and pushed it. Party feeling +was by no means unanimous in favour of the change; many Liberals saw +commercial salvation closer in improved trade relations with the United +States. On the other hand, the new policy, clothed as it was in the +attractive sentiment of loyalty, and making for the solidarity of the +British race, might be depended upon to capture votes which had been +hitherto Conservative mainly because these professions were supposed +to be an indissoluble part of Conservatism. It was a thing to split the +vote sufficiently to bring an unusual amount of anxiety and calculation +into Liberal counsels. The other side were in no doubt or difficulty: +Walter Winter was good enough for them, and it was their cheerful +conviction that Walter Winter would put a large number of people wise +on the subject of preference trade bye-and-bye, who at present only knew +enough to vote for it. + +The great question was the practicability of the new idea and how much +further it could safely be carried in a loyal Dominion which was just +getting on its industrial legs. It was debated with anxiety at Ottawa, +and made the subject of special instruction to South Fox, where the +by-election would have all the importance of an early test. "It's a +clear issue," wrote an influential person at Ottawa to the local party +leaders at Elgin, "we don't want any tendency to hedge or double. +It's straight business with us, the thing we want, and it will be till +Wallingham either gets it through over there, or finds he can't deal +with us. Meanwhile it might be as well to ascertain just how much there +is in it for platform purposes in a safe spot like South Fox, and how +much the fresh opposition will cost us where we can afford it. We can't +lose the seat, and the returns will be worth anything in their bearing +on the General Election next year. The objection to Carter is that he's +only half-convinced; he couldn't talk straight if he wanted to, and +that lecture tour of his in the United States ten years ago pushing +reciprocity with the Americans would make awkward literature." + +The rejection of Carter practically exhausted the list of men available +whose standing in the town and experience of its suffrages brought them +naturally into the field of selection; and at this point Cruickshank +wrote to Farquharson suggesting the dramatic departure involved in the +name of Lorne Murchison. Cruickshank wrote judiciously, leaving the main +arguments in Lorne's favour to form themselves in Farquharson's mind, +but countering the objections that would rise there by the suggestion +that after a long period of confidence and steady going, in fact of +the orthodox and expected, the party should profit by the swing of +the pendulum toward novelty and tentative, rather than bring forward a +candidate who would represent, possibly misrepresent, the same beliefs +and intentions on a lower personal level. As there was no first-rate +man of the same sort to succeed Farquharson, Cruickshank suggested the +undesirability of a second-rate man; and he did it so adroitly that the +old fellow found himself in a good deal of sympathy with the idea. He +had small opinion of the lot that was left for selection, and smaller +relish for the prospect of turning his honourable activity over to any +one of them. Force of habit and training made him smile at Cruickshank's +proposition as impracticable, but he felt its attraction, even while +he dismissed it to an inside pocket. Young Murchison's name would be so +unlooked-for that if he, Farquharson, could succeed in imposing it +upon the party it would be almost like making a personal choice of his +successor, a grateful idea in abdication. Farquharson wished regretfully +that Lorne had another five years to his credit in the Liberal record of +South Fox. By the time the young fellow had earned them he, the retiring +member, would be quite on the shelf, if in no completer oblivion; he +could not expect much of a voice in any nomination five years hence. He +sighed to think of it. + +It was at that point of his meditations that Mr Farquharson met +Squire Ormiston on the steps of the Bank of British North America, an +old-fashioned building with an appearance of dignity and probity, a look +of having been founded long ago upon principles which raised it above +fluctuation, exactly the place in which Mr Farquharson and Squire +Ormiston might be expected to meet. The two men, though politically +opposed, were excellent friends; they greeted cordially. + +"So you're ordered out of politics, Farquharson?" said the squire. +"We're all sorry for that, you know." + +"I'm afraid so; I'm afraid so. Thanks for your letter--very friendly of +you, squire. I don't like it--no use pretending I do--but it seems I've +got to take a rest if I want to be known as a going concern." + +"A fellow with so much influence in committee ought to have more control +of his nerve centres," Ormiston told him. The squire belonged to that +order of elderly gentlemen who will have their little joke. "Well, have +you and Bingham and Horace Williams made up your minds who's to have the +seat?" + +Farquharson shook his head. "I only know what I see in the papers," he +said. "The Dominion is away out with Fawkes, and the Express is about as +lukewarm with Carter as he is with federated trade." + +"Your Government won't be obliged to you for Carter," said Mr Ormiston; +"a more slack-kneed, double-jointed scoundrel was never offered a +commission in a respectable cause. He'll be the first to rat if things +begin to look queer for this new policy of yours and Wallingham's." + +"He hasn't got it yet," Farquharson admitted, "and he won't with my good +will. So you're with us for preference trade, Ormiston?" + +"It's a thing I'd like to see. It's a thing I'm sorry we're not in a +position to take up practically ourselves. But you won't get it, you +know. You'll be defeated by the senior partner. It's too much of a +doctrine for the people of England. They're listening to Wallingham +just now because they admire him, but they won't listen to you. I doubt +whether it will ever come to an issue over there. This time next year +Wallingham will be sucking his thumbs and thinking of something else. +No, it's not a thing to worry about politically, for it won't come +through." + +The squire's words suggested so much relief in that conviction that +Farquharson, sharp on the flair of the experienced nose for waverers, +looked at him observantly. + +"I'm not so sure It's a doctrine with a fine practical application for +them as well as for us, if they can be got to see it, and they're bound +to see it in time. It's a thing I never expected to live to believe, +never thought would be practicable until lately, but now I think there's +a very good chance of it. And, hang it all," he added, "it may be +unreasonable, but the more I notice the Yankees making propositions to +get us away from it, the more I want to see it come through." + +"I have very much the same feeling," the squire acknowledged. "I've been +turning the matter over a good deal since that last Conference showed +which way the wind was blowing. And the fellows in your Government gave +them a fine lead. But such a proposition was bound to come from your +side. The whole political history of the country shows it. We're pledged +to take care of the damned industries." + +Farquharson smiled at the note of depression. "Well, we want a bigger +market somewhere," he said with detachment "and it looks as if we could +get it now Uncle Sam has had a fright. If the question comes to be +fought out at the polls, I don't see how your party could do better +than go in for a wide scheme of reciprocity with the Americans--in raw +products, of course with a tariff to match theirs on manufactured goods. +That would shut a pretty tight door on British connection though." + +"They'll not get my vote if they do," said the squire, thrusting his +hands fiercely into his breeches pockets. + +"As you say, it's most important to put up a man who will show the +constituency all the credit and benefit there is in it, anyhow," +Farquharson observed. "I've had a letter this morning," he added, +laughing, "from a fellow--one of the bosses, too--who wants us to +nominate young Murchison." + +"The lawyer?" + +"That's the man. He's too young, of course--not thirty. But he's well +known in the country districts; I don't know a man of his age with a +more useful service record. He's got a lot of friends, and he's come a +good deal to the front lately through that inter-imperial communications +business--we might do worse. And upon my word, we're in such a hole--" + +"Farquharson," said old Squire Ormiston, the red creeping over features +that had not lost in three generations the lines of the old breed, "I've +voted in the Conservative interest for forty years, and my father before +me. We were Whigs when we settled in Massachusetts, and Whigs when we +pulled up stakes and came North rather than take up arms against the +King; but it seemed decent to support the Government that gave us a +chance again under the flag, and my grandfather changed his politics. +Now, confound it! the flag seems to be with the Whigs again, for +fighting purposes, anyhow; and I don't seem to have any choice. I've +been debating the thing for some time now, and your talk of making +that fine young fellow your candidate settles it. If you can get your +committee to accept young Murchison, you can count on my vote, and I +don't want to brag, but I think you can count on Moneida too, though +it's never sent in a Grit majority yet." + +The men were standing on the steps of the bank, and the crisp air +of autumn brought them both an agreeable tingle of enterprise. +Farquharson's buggy was tied to the nearest maple. + +"I'm going over to East Elgin to look at my brick-kilns," he said. "Get +in with me, will you?" + +As they drove up Main Street they encountered Walter Winter, who looked +after them with a deeply considering eye. + +"Old Ormiston always had the Imperial bee in his bonnet," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Alfred Hesketh was among the first to hear of Lorne's nomination to +represent the constituency of South Fox in the Dominion Parliament. The +Milburns told him; it was Dora who actually made the communication. The +occasion was high tea; Miss Milburn's apprehension about Englishmen and +late dinner had been dissipated in great amusement. Mr Hesketh liked +nothing better than high tea, liked nothing so much. He came often to +the Milburns' after Mrs Milburn said she hoped he would, and pleased her +extremely by the alacrity with which he accepted her first invitation to +stay to what she described as their very simple and unconventional meal. +Later he won her approval entirely by saying boldly that he hoped he was +going to be allowed to stay. It was only in good English society, +Mrs Milburn declared, that you found such freedom and confidence; it +reminded her of Mrs Emmett's saying that her sister-in-law in London +was always at home to lunch. Mrs Milburn considered a vague project of +informing a select number of her acquaintances that she was always +at home to high tea, but on reflection dismissed it, in case an +inconvenient number should come at once. She would never have gone into +detail, but since a tin of sardines will only hold so many, I may say +for her that it was the part of wisdom. + +Mr Hesketh, however, wore the safe and attractive aspect of a single +exceptional instance; there were always sardines enough for him. It +will be imagined what pleasure Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin took in his +visits, how he propped up their standard of behaviour in all things +unessential, which was too likely to be growing limp, so far from +approved examples. I think it was a real aesthetic satisfaction; I know +they would talk of it afterward for hours, with sighing comparisons of +the "form" of the young men of Elgin, which they called beside Hesketh's +quite outre. It was a favourite word with Mrs Milburn--outre. She used +it like a lorgnette, and felt her familiarity with it a differentiating +mark. Mr Milburn, never so susceptible to delicate distinctions, looked +upon the young Englishman with benevolent neutrality. Dora wished it +to be understood that she reserved her opinion. He might be all that he +seemed, and again he might not. Englishmen were so deep. They might have +nice manners, but they didn't always act up to them, so far as she had +noticed. There was that Honourable Somebody, who was in jail even +then for trying to borrow money under false pretences from the +Governor-General. Lorne, when she expressed these views to him, +reassured her, but she continued to maintain a guarded attitude upon Mr +Hesketh, to everybody except Mr Hesketh himself. + +It was Dora, as I have said, who imparted the news. Lorne had come over +with it in the afternoon, still a little dazed and unbelieving in the +face of his tremendous luck, helped by finding her so readily credulous +to thinking it reasonably possible himself. He could not have done +better than come to Dora for a correction of any undue exaltation that +he might have felt, however. She supplied it in ten minutes by reminding +him of their wisdom in keeping the secret of their relations. His +engagement to the daughter of a prominent Conservative would not indeed +have told in his favour with his party, to say nothing of the anomaly +of Mr Milburn's unyielding opposition to the new policy. "I never knew +Father so nearly bitter about anything," Dora said, a statement which +left her lover thoughtful, but undaunted. + +"We'll bring him round," said Lorne, "when he sees that the British +manufacturer can't possibly get the better of men on the spot, who know +to a nut the local requirements." + +To which she had responded, "Oh, Lorne, don't begin THAT again," and he +had gone away hot-foot for the first step of preparation. + +"It's exactly what I should have expected," said Hesketh, when she told +him. "Murchison is the very man they want. He's cut out for a political +success. I saw that when he was in England." + +"You haven't been very long in the country, Mr Hesketh, or we shouldn't +hear you saying that," said Mr Milburn, amicably. "It's a very +remarkable thing with us, a political party putting forward so young a +man. Now with you I expect a young fellow might get in on his rank +or his wealth--your principle of nonpayment of members confines your +selection more or less. I don't say you're not right, but over here we +do pay, you see, and it makes a lot of difference in the competition. It +isn't a greater honour, but it's more sought for. I expect there'll be a +good many sore heads over this business." + +"It's all the more creditable to Murchison," said Hesketh. + +"Of course it is--a great feather in his cap. Oh, I don't say young +Murchison isn't a rising fellow, but it's foolishness for his party--I +can't think who is responsible for it. However, they've got a pretty +foolish platform just now--they couldn't win this seat on it with any +man. A lesson will be good for them." + +"Father, don't you think Lorne will get in?" asked Dora, in a tone of +injury and slight resentment. + +"Not by a handful," said her father. "Mr Walter Winter will represent +South Fox in the next session of Parliament, if you ask my opinion." + +"But, Father," returned his daughter with an outraged inflection, +"you'll vote for Lorne?" + +A smile went round the table, discreetest in Mrs Milburn. + +"I'm afraid not," said Mr Milburn, "I'm afraid not. Sorry to disoblige, +but principles are principles." + +Dora perceptibly pouted. Mrs Milburn created a diversion with green-gage +preserves. Under cover of it Hesketh asked, "Is he a great friend of +yours?" + +"One of my very greatest," Dora replied. "I know he'll expect Father to +vote for him. It makes it awfully embarrassing for me." + +"Oh, I fancy he'll understand!" said Hesketh, easily. "Political +convictions are serious things, you know. Friendship isn't supposed to +interfere with them. I wonder," he went on, meditatively, "whether I +could be of any use to Murchison. Now that I've made up my mind to +stop till after Christmas I'll be on hand for the fight. I've had some +experience. I used to canvass now and then from Oxford; it was always a +tremendous lark." + +"Oh, Mr Hesketh, DO! Really and truly he is one of my oldest friends, +and I should love to see him get in. I know his sister, too. They're +a very clever family. Quite self-made, you know, but highly respected. +Promise me you will." + +"I promise with pleasure. And I wish it were something it would give me +more trouble to perform. I like Murchison," said Hesketh. + +All this transpiring while they were supposed to be eating green-gage +preserves, and Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin endeavoured to engage the +head of the house in the kind of easy allusion to affairs of the moment +to which Mr Hesketh would be accustomed as a form of conversation--the +accident to the German Empress, the marriage of one of the Rothschilds. +The ladies were compelled to supply most of the facts and all of the +interest but they kept up a gallant line of attack; and the young man, +taking gratified possession of Dora's eyes, was extremely obliged to +them. + +Hesketh lost no time in communicating his willingness to be of use to +Murchison, and Lorne felt all his old friendliness rise up in him as he +cordially accepted the offer. It was made with British heartiness, it +was thoroughly meant. Lorne was half-ashamed in his recognition of its +quality. A certain aloofness had grown in him against his will since +Hesketh had prolonged his stay in the town, difficult to justify, +impossible to define. Hesketh as Hesketh was worthily admirable as ever, +wholesome and agreeable, as well turned out by his conscience as he was +by his tailor; it was Hesketh in his relation to his new environment +that seemed vaguely to come short. This in spite of an enthusiasm which +was genuine enough; he found plenty of things to like about the country. +It was perhaps in some manifestation of sensitiveness that he failed; +he had the adaptability of the pioneer among rugged conditions, but he +could not mingle quite immediately with the essence of them; he did not +perceive the genius loci. Lorne had been conscious of this as a kind of +undefined grievance; now he specified it and put it down to Hesketh's +isolation among ways that were different from the ways he knew. You were +bound to notice that Hesketh as a stranger had his own point of view, +his own training to retreat upon. + +"I certainly liked him better over there," Lorne told Advena, "but then +he was a part of it--he wasn't separated out as he is here. He was just +one sort of fellow that you admired, and there were lots of sorts that +you admired more. Over here you seem to see round him somehow." + +"I shouldn't have thought it difficult," said his sister. + +"Besides," Lorne confessed, "I expect it was easier to like him when +you were inclined to like everybody. A person feels more critical of +a visitor, especially when he's had advantages," he added honestly. +"I expect we don't care about having to acknowledge 'em so very +much--that's what it comes to." + +"I don't see them," said Advena. "Mr Hesketh seems well enough in his +way, fairly intelligent and anxious to be pleasant. But I can't say I +find him a specially interesting or valuable type." + +"Interesting, you wouldn't. But valuable--well, you see, you haven't +been in England--you haven't seen them over there, crowds of 'em, piling +up the national character. Hesketh's an average, and for an average he's +high. Oh, he's a good sort--and he just SMELLS of England." + +"He seems all right in his politics," said John Murchison, filling +his pipe from the tobacco jar on the mantelpiece. "But I doubt whether +you'll find him much assistance the way he talks of. Folks over here +know their own business--they've had to learn it. I doubt if they'll +take showing from Hesketh." + +"They might be a good deal worse advised." + +"That may be," said Mr Murchison, and settled down in his armchair +behind the Dominion. + +"I agree with Father," said Advena. "He won't be any good, Lorne." + +"Advena prefers Scotch," remarked Stella. + +"I don't know. He's full of the subject," said Lorne. "He can present it +from the other side." + +"The side of the British exporter?" inquired his father, looking over +the top of the Dominion with unexpected humour. + +"No, sir. Though there are places where we might talk cheap overcoats +and tablecloths and a few odds and ends like that. The side of the +all-British loaf and the lot of people there are to eat it," said Lorne. +"That ought to make a friendly feeling. And if there's anything in the +sentiment of the scheme," he added, "it shouldn't do any harm to have a +good specimen of the English people advocating it. Hesketh ought to be +an object-lesson." + +"I wouldn't put too much faith in the object-lesson," said John +Murchison. + +"Neither would I," said Stella emphatically. "Mister Alfred Hesketh may +pass in an English crowd, but over here he's just an ignorant young +man, and you'd better not have him talking with his mouth at any of your +meetings. Tell him to go and play with Walter Winter." + +"I heard he was asking at Volunteer Headquarters the other night," +remarked Alec, "how long it would be before a man like himself, if he +threw in his lot with the country, could expect to get nominated for a +provincial seat." + +"What did they tell him?" asked Mr Murchison, when they had finished +their laugh. + +"I heard they said it would depend a good deal on the size of the lot." + +"And a little on the size of the man," remarked Advena. + +"He said he would be willing to take a seat in a Legislature and work +up," Alec went on. "Ontario for choice, because he thought the people of +this Province more advanced." + +"There's a representative committee being formed to give the inhabitants +of the poor-house a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day," said Advena. "He +might begin with that." + +"I dare say he would if anybody told him. He's just dying to be taken +into the public service," Alec said. "He's in dead earnest about it. He +thinks this country's a great place because it gives a man the chance of +a public career." + +"Why is it," asked Advena "that when people have no capacity for private +usefulness they should be so anxious to serve the public?" + +"Oh, come," said Lorne, "Hesketh has an income of his own. Why should +he sweat for his living? We needn't pride ourselves on being so taken up +with getting ours. A man like that is in a position to do some good, and +I hope Hesketh will get a chance if he stays over here. We'll soon +see how he speaks. He's going to follow Farquharson at Jordanville on +Thursday week." + +"I wonder at Farquharson," said his father. + +By this time the candidature of Mr Lorne Murchison was well in the +public eye. The Express announced it in a burst of beaming headlines, +with a biographical sketch and a "cut" of its young fellow-townsman. +Horace Williams, whose hand was plain in every line apologized for the +brevity of the biography--quality rather than quantity, he said; it +was all good, and time would make it better. This did not prevent the +Mercury observing the next evening that the Liberal organ had omitted to +state the age at which the new candidate was weaned. The Toronto papers +commented according to their party bias, but so far as the candidate +was concerned there was lack of the material of criticism. If he had +achieved little for praise he had achieved nothing for detraction. +There was no inconsistent public utterance, no doubtful transaction, no +scandalous paper to bring forward to his detriment. When the fact that +he was but twenty-eight years of age had been exhausted in elaborate +ridicule, little more was available. The policy he championed, however, +lent itself to the widest discussion, and it was instructive to note how +the Opposition press, while continuing to approve the great principle +involved, found material for gravest criticism in the Government's +projected application of it. Interest increased in the South Fox +by-election as its first touchstone, and gathered almost romantically +about Lorne Murchison as its spirited advocate. It was commonly said +that whether he was returned or not on this occasion, his political +future was assured; and his name was carried up and down the Dominion +with every new wind of imperial doctrine that blew across the Atlantic. +He himself felt splendidly that he rode upon the crest of a wave of +history. However the event appeared which was hidden beyond the horizon, +the great luck of that buoyant emotion, of that thrilling suspense, +would be his in a very special way. He was exhilarated by the sense of +crisis, and among all the conferences and calculations that armed him +for his personal struggle, he would now and then breathe in his private +soul, "Choose quickly, England," like a prayer. + +Elgin rose to its liking for the fellow, and even his political enemies +felt a half-humorous pride that the town had produced a candidate whose +natural parts were held to eclipse the age and experience of party +hacks. Plenty of them were found to declare that Lorne Murchison would +poll more votes for the Grits than any other man they could lay their +hands on, with the saving clause that neither he nor any other man could +poll quite enough this time. They professed to be content to let the +issue have it; meanwhile they congratulated Lorne on his chance, telling +him that a knock or two wouldn't do him any harm at his age. Walter +Winter, who hadn't been on speaking terms with Farquharson, made a point +of shaking hands with Murchison in the publicity of the post-office, and +assuring him that he, Winter, never went into a contest more confident +of the straight thing on the part of the other side. Such cavilling +as there was came from the organized support of his own party and had +little importance because it did. The grumblers fell into line almost +as soon as Horace Williams said they would; a little oil, one small +appointment wrung from the Ontario Government--Fawkes, I believe, +got it--and the machine was again in good working order. Lorne even +profited, in the opinion of many, by the fact of his youth, with its +promise of energy and initiative, since Mr Farquharson had lately been +showing the defects as well as the qualities of age and experience, and +the charge of servile timidity was already in the mouths of his critics. + +The agricultural community took it, as usual, with phlegm; but there was +a distinct tendency in the bar at Barker's, on market-days, to lay money +on the colt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +Mr Farquharson was to retain his seat until the early spring, for the +double purpose of maintaining his influence upon an important commission +of which he was chairman until the work should be done, and of giving +the imperial departure championed by his successor as good a chance as +possible of becoming understood in the constituency. It was understood +that the new writ would issue for a date in March; Elgin referred all +interest to that point, and prophesied for itself a lively winter. +Another event, of importance less general, was arranged for the end of +February--the arrival of Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon from Scotland. +Finlay had proposed an earlier date, but matters of business connected +with her mother's estate would delay Miss Cameron's departure. Her +arrival would be the decisive point of another campaign. He and Advena +faced it without misgiving, but there were moments when Finlay greatly +wished the moment past. + +Their intimacy had never been conspicuous, and their determination to +make no change in it could be carried out without attracting attention. +It was very dear to them, that determination. They saw it as a test, as +an ideal. Last of all, perhaps, as an alleviation. They were both too +much encumbered with ideas to move simply, quickly, on the impulse +of passion. They looked at it through the wrong end of the glass, and +thought they put it farther away. They believed that their relation +comprised, would always comprise, the best of life. It was matter for +discussion singularly attractive; they allowed themselves upon it wide +scope in theory. They could speak of it in the heroic temper, without +sadness or bitterness; the thing was to tear away the veil and look fate +in the face. The great thing, perhaps, was to speak of it while still +they could give themselves leave; a day would arrive, they acknowledged +with averted eyes, when dumbness would be more becoming. Meanwhile, Mrs +Murchison would have found it hard to sustain her charge against them +that they talked of nothing but books and authors; the philosophy of +life, as they were intensely creating it, was more entrancing than +any book or any author. Simply and definitely, and to their own +satisfaction, they had abandoned the natural demands of their state; +they lived in its exaltation and were far from accidents. Deep in both +of them was a kind of protective nobility; I will not say it cost them +nothing, but it turned the scenes between them into comedy of the better +sort, the kind that deserves the relief of stone or bronze. Advena, +had she heard it, would have repelled Dr Drummond's warning with +indignation. If it were so possible to keep their friendship on an +unfaltering level then, with the latitude they had, what danger could +attend them later, when the social law would support them, divide them, +protect them? Dr Drummond, suspecting all, looked grimly on, and from +November to March found no need to invite Mr Finlay to occupy the pulpit +of Knox Church. + +They had come to full knowledge that night of their long walk in the +dark together; but even then, in the rush and shock and glory of +it, they had held apart; and their broken avowals had crossed with +difficulty from one to the other. The whole fabric of circumstance was +between them, to realize and to explore; later surveys, as we know, +had not reduced it. They gave it great credit as a barrier; I suppose +because it kept them out of each other's arms. It had done that. + +It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should continue upon +terms of happy debt to one another, the balance always changing, the +account never closed and rendered. She no doubt felt that she might +impose the terms; she had unconsciously the sense of greater sacrifice, +and knew that she had been mistress of the situation long before he +was aware of it. He agreed with joy and with misgiving; he saw with +enthusiasm her high conception of their alliance, but sometimes +wondered, poor fellow, whether he was right in letting it cover him. +He came to the house as he had done before, as often as he could, and +reproached himself that he could not, after all, come very often. + +That they should discuss their relation as candidly as they sustained it +was perhaps a little peculiar to them, so I have laid stress on it; but +it was not by any means their sole preoccupation. They talked like +tried friends of their every-day affairs. Indeed, after the trouble and +intoxication of their great understanding had spent itself, it was the +small practical interests of life that seemed to hold them most. One +might think that Nature, having made them her invitation upon the higher +plane, abandoned them in the very scorn of her success to the warm human +commonplaces that do her work well enough with the common type. Mrs +Murchison would have thought better of them if she had chanced again to +overhear. + +"I wouldn't advise you to have it lined with fur," Advena was saying. +The winter had sharply announced itself, and Finlay, to her reproach +about his light overcoat, had declared his intention of ordering a +buffalo-skin the following day. "And the buffaloes are all gone, you +know--thirty years ago," she laughed. "You really are not modern in +practical matters. Does it ever surprise you that you get no pemmican +for dinner, and hardly ever meet an Indian in his feathers?" + +He looked at her with delight in his sombre eyes. It was a new +discovery, her capacity for happily chaffing him, only revealed since +she had come out of her bonds to love; it was hard to say which of them +took the greater pleasure in it. + +"What is the use of living in Canada if you can't have fur on your +clothes?" he demanded. + +"You may have a little--astrakhan, I would--on the collar and cuffs," +she said. "A fur lining is too hot if there happens to be a thaw, and +then you would leave it off and take cold. You have all the look," she +added, with a gravely considering glance at him, "of a person who ought +to take care of his chest." + +He withdrew his eyes hurriedly, and fixed them instead on his pipe. He +always brought it with him, by her order, and Advena usually sewed. He +thought as he watched her that it made the silences enjoyable. + +"And expensive, I dare say, too," he said. + +"Yes, more or less. Alec paid fifty dollars for his, and never liked +it." + +"Fifty dollars--ten pounds! No vair for me!" he declared. "By the way, +Mrs Firmin is threatening to turn me out of house and home. A married +daughter is coming to live with her, and she wants my rooms." + +"When does she come--the married daughter?" + +"Oh, not till the early spring! There's no immediate despair," said +Finlay, "but it is dislocating. My books and I had just succeeded in +making room for one another." + +"But you will have to move, in any case, in the early spring." + +"I suppose I will. I had--I might have remembered that." + +"Have you found a house yet?" Advena asked him. + +"No." + +"Have you been looking?" It was a gentle, sensible reminder. + +"I'm afraid I haven't." He moved in his chair as if in physical +discomfort. "Do you think I ought--so soon? There are always plenty +of--houses, aren't there?" + +"Not plenty of desirable ones. Do you think you must live in East +Elgin?" + +"It would be rather more convenient." + +"Because there are two semidetached in River Street, just finished, that +look very pretty and roomy. I thought when I saw them that one of them +might be what you would like." + +"Thank you," he said, and tried not to say it curtly. + +"They belong to White, the grocer. River Street isn't East Elgin, but it +is that way, and it would be a great deal pleasanter for--for her." + +"I must consider that, of course. You haven't been in them? I should +hope for a bright sitting-room, and a very private study." + +If Advena was aware of any unconscious implication, the pair of eyes she +turned upon him showed no trace of satisfaction in it. + +"No, I haven't. But if I could be of any use I should be very glad to go +over them with you, and--" + +She stopped involuntarily, checked by the embarrassment in his face, +though she had to wait for his words to explain it. + +"I should be most grateful. But--but might it not be misunderstood?" + +She bent her head over her work, and one of those instants passed +between them which he had learned to dread. They were so completely +the human pair as they sat together, withdrawn in comfort and shelter, +absorbed in homely matters and in each other; it was easy to forget that +they were only a picture, a sham, and that the reality lay further on, +in the early spring. It must have been hard for him to hear without +resentment that she was ready to help him to make a home for that +reality. He was fast growing instructed in women, although by a +post-graduate course. + +Advena looked up. "Possibly," she said, calmly, and their agitation +lay still between them. He was silently angry; the thing that stirred +without their leave had been sweet. + +"No," said Advena, "I can't go, I suppose. I'm sorry. I should have +liked so much to be of use." She looked up at him appealingly, and +sudden tears came and stood in her eyes, and would perhaps have undone +his hurt but that he was staring into the fire. + +"How can you be of use," he said, almost irritably, "in such ways as +those? They are not important, and I am not sure that for us they are +legitimate. If you were about to be--married"--he seemed to plunge at +the word--"I should not wish either to hasten you or to house you. I +should turn my back on it all. You should have nothing from me," he went +on, with a forced smile, "but my blessing, delivered over my shoulder." + +"I am sure they are not important," she said humbly--privately all +unwilling to give up her martyrdom, "but surely they are legitimate. I +would like to help you in every little way I can. Don't you like me in +your life? You have said that I may stay." + +"I believe you think that by taking strong measures one can exorcise +things," he said. "That if we could only write out this history of ours +in our hearts' blood it would somehow vanish." + +"No," she said, "but I should like to do it all the same." + +"You must bear with me if I refuse the heroic in little. It is even +harder than the other." He broke off, leaning back and looking at +her from under his shading hand as if that might protect him from too +complete a vision. The firelight was warm on her cheek and hair, her +needle once again completed the dear delusion: she sat there, his wife. +This was an aspect he forbade, but it would return; here it was again. + +"It is good to have you in my life," he said. "It is also good to +recognize one's possibilities." + +"How can you definitely lose me?" she asked, and he shook his head. + +"I don't know. Now that I have found you it is as if you and I had been +rocked together on the tide of that inconceivable ocean that casts us +half-awake upon life," he said dreamily. "It isn't friendship of ideas, +it's a friendship of spirit. Indeed, I hope and pray never wholly to +lose that." + +"You never will," she told him. "How many worlds one lives in as the day +goes by with the different people one cares for--one beyond the other, +concentric, ringing from the heart! Yours comprises all the others; it +lies the farthest out--and alas! at present, the closest in," she added +irresistibly to the asking of his eyes. + +"But," she hurried on, taking high ground to remedy her indiscretion, +"I look forward to the time when this--other feeling of ours will become +just an idea, as it is now just an emotion, at which we should try to +smile. It is the attitude of the gods." + +"And therefore not becoming to men. Why should we, not being gods. +borrow their attitude?" said Finlay. + +"I could never kill it," she put her work in her lap to say, "by any +sudden act of violence. It would seem a kind of suicide. While it rules +it is like one's life--absolute. But to isolate it--to place it beyond +the currents from the heart--to look at it, and realize it, and conquer +it for what it is--I don't think it need take so very long. And then our +friendship will be beautiful without reproach." + +"I sometimes fear there may not be time enough in life," he said. "And +if I find that I must simply go--to British Columbia, I think--those +mining missions would give a man his chance against himself. There is +splendid work to be done there, of a rough-and-ready kind that would +make it puerile to spend time in self-questioning." + +She smiled as if at a violent boy. "We can do it. We can do it here," +she said. "May I quote another religion to you? 'From purification there +arises in the Yogi a thorough discernment of the cause and nature of the +body, whereupon he loses that regard which others have for the bodily +form.' Then, if he loves, he loves in spirit and in truth. I look +forward to the time," she went on calmly, "when the best that I can give +you or you can give me will ride upon a glance." + +"I used to feel more drawn to the ascetic achievement and its rewards," +he remarked thoughtfully, "than I do now." + +"If I were not a Presbyterian in Canada," she told him, "I would be a +Buddhist in Burma. But I have inherited the Shorter Catechism; I must +remain without the Law." + +Finlay smiled. "They are the simple," he said. "Our Law makes wise the +simple." + +Advena looked for a moment into the fire. She was listening, with +admiration, to her heart; she would not be led to consider esoteric +contrasts of East and West. + +"Isn't there something that appeals to you," she said, "in the thought +of just leaving it, all unsaid and all undone, a dear and tender +projection upon the future that faded--a lovely thing we turned away +from, until one day it was no longer there?" + +"Charming," he said, averting his eyes so that she should not see the +hunger in them. "Charming--literature!" + +She smiled and sighed, and he wrenched his mind to the consideration +of the Buddhism of Browning. She followed him obediently, but the lines +they wanted did not come easily; they were compelled to search and +verify. Something lately seemed lost to them of that kind of glad +activity; he was more aware of it than she, since he was less occupied +in the aesthetic ecstasy of self-torture. In the old time before the sun +rose they had been so conscious of realms of idea lying just beyond +the achievement of thought, approachable, visible by phrases, brokenly, +realms which they could see closer when they essayed together. He +constantly struggled to reach those enchanted areas again, but they +seemed to have gone down behind the horizon; and the only inspiration +that carried them far drew its impetus from the poetry of their plight. +They looked for verses to prove that Browning's imagination carried him +bravely through lives and lives to come, and found them to speculate +whether in such chances they might hope to meet again. + +And the talk came back to his difficulties with his Board of Management, +and to her choice of a frame for the etching he had given her, by his +friend the Glasgow impressionist, and to their opinion of a common +acquaintance, and to Lorne and his prospects. He told her how little +she resembled her brother, and where they diverged, and how; and she +listened with submission and delight, enchanted to feel his hand upon +her intimate nature. She lingered in the hall while he got into his +overcoat, and saw that a glove was the worse for wear. "Would it be the +heroic-in-little," she begged, "to let me mend that?" + +As he went out alone into the winter streets he too drew upon a pagan +for his admonition. "'What then art thou doing here, O imagination?'" he +groaned in his private heart. "'Go away, I entreat thee by the gods, for +I want thee not. But thou art come again according to thy old fashion. I +am not angry with thee, only go away!'" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Miss Milburn pressed her contention that the suspicion of his desire +would be bad for her lover's political prospects till she made him feel +his honest passion almost a form of treachery to his party. She also +hinted that, for the time being, it did not make particularly for her +own comfort in the family circle, Mr Milburn having grown by this time +quite bitter. She herself drew the excitement of intrigue from the +situation, which she hid behind her pretty, pale, decorous features, and +never betrayed by the least of her graceful gestures. She told herself +that she had never been so right about anything as about that affair of +the ring--imagine, for an instant, if she had been wearing it now! She +would have banished Lorne altogether if she could. As he insisted on +an occasional meeting, she clothed it in mystery, appointing it for an +evening when her mother and aunt were out, and answering his ring at the +door herself. To her family she remarked with detachment that you saw +hardly anything of Lorne Murchison now, he was so taken up with his +old election; and to Hesketh she confided her fear that politics did +interfere with friendship, whatever he might say. He said a good deal, +he cited lofty examples; but the only agreement he could get from her +was the hope that the estrangement wouldn't be permanent. + +"But you are going to say something, Lorne," she insisted, talking of +the Jordanville meeting. + +"Not much," he told her. "It's the safest district we've got, and they +adore old Farquharson. He'll do most of the talking--they wouldn't +thank me for taking up the time. Farquharson is going to tell them I'm a +first-class man, and they couldn't do better, and I've practically only +to show my face and tell them I think so too." + +"But Mr Hesketh will speak?" + +"Yes; we thought it would be a good chance of testing him. He may +interest them, and he can't do much harm, anyhow." + +"Lorne, I should simply love to go. It's your first meeting." + +"I'll take you." + +"Mr Murchison, HAVE you taken leave of your senses? Really, you are--" + +"All right, I'll send you. Farquharson and I are going out to the +Crow place to supper, but Hesketh is driving straight there. He'll be +delighted to bring you--who wouldn't?" + +"I shouldn't be allowed to go with him alone," said Dora, thoughtfully. + +"Well, no. I don't know that I'd approve of that myself," laughed the +confident young man. "Hesketh is driving Mrs Farquharson, and the cutter +will easily hold three. Isn't it lucky there's sleighing?" + +"Mother couldn't object to that," said Dora. "Lorne, I always said you +were the dearest fellow! I'll wear a thick veil, and not a soul will +know me." + +"Not a soul would in any case," said Lorne. "It'll be a Jordanville +crowd, you know--nobody from Elgin." + +"We don't visit much in Jordanville, certainly. Well, Mother mayn't +object. She has a great idea of Mrs Farquharson, because she +has attended eleven Drawing-Rooms at Ottawa, and one of them was +given--held, I should say--by the Princess Louise." + +"I won't promise you eleven," said Lorne, "but there seems to be a +pretty fair chance of one or two." + +At this she had a tale for him which charmed his ears. "I didn't know +where to look," she said. "Aunt Emmie, you know, has a very bad trick +of coming into my room without knocking. Well, in she walked last night, +and found me before the glass PRACTISING MY CURTSEY! I could have killed +her. Pretended she thought I was out." + +"Dora, would you like ME to promise something?" he asked, with a +mischievous look. + +"Of course, I would. I don't care how much YOU promise. What?" + +But already he repented of his daring, and sat beside her suddenly +conscious and abashed. Nor could any teasing prevail to draw from him +what had been on his audacious lips to say. + +Social precedents are easily established in the country. The accident +that sent the first Liberal canvasser for Jordanville votes to the Crow +place for his supper would be hard to discover now; the fact remains +that he has been going there ever since. It made a greater occasion than +Mrs Crow would ever have dreamed of acknowledging. She saw to it that +they had a good meal of victuals, and affected indifference to the +rest; they must say their say, she supposed. If the occasion had one +satisfaction which she came nearer to confessing than another, it was +that the two or three substantial neighbours who usually came to meet +the politicians left their wives at home, and that she herself, to avoid +giving any offence on this score, never sat down with the men. Quite +enough to do it was, she would explain later, for her and the hired girl +to wait on them and to clear up after them. She and Bella had their +bite afterward when the men had hitched up, and when they could exchange +comments of proud congratulation upon the inroads on the johnny-cake or +the pies. So there was no ill feeling, and Mrs Crow, having vindicated +her dignity by shaking hands with the guests of the evening in the +parlour, solaced it further by maintaining the masculine state of the +occasion, in spite of protests or entreaties. To sit down opposite Mr +Crow would have made it ordinary "company"; she passed the plates and +turned it into a function. + +She was waiting for them on the parlour sofa when Crow brought them in +out of the nipping early dark of December, Elmore staying behind in the +yard with the horses. She sat on the sofa in her best black dress with +the bead trimming on the neck and sleeves, a good deal pushed up +and wrinkled across the bosom, which had done all that would ever be +required of it when it gave Elmore and Abe their start in life. Her wiry +hands were crossed in her lap in the moment of waiting: you could tell +by the look of them that they were not often crossed there. They were +strenuous hands; the whole worn figure was strenuous, and the narrow set +mouth, and the eyes which had looked after so many matters for so long, +and even the way the hair was drawn back into a knot in a fashion that +would have given a phrenologist his opportunity. It was a different Mrs +Crow from the one that sat in the midst of her poultry and garden-stuff +in the Elgin market square; but it was even more the same Mrs Crow, the +sum of a certain measure of opportunity and service, an imperial figure +in her bead trimming, if the truth were known. + +The room was heated to express the geniality that was harder to put in +words. The window was shut; there was a smell of varnish and whatever +was inside the "suite" of which Mrs Crow occupied the sofa. Enlarged +photographs--very much enlarged--of Mr and Mrs Crow hung upon the walls, +and one other of a young girl done in that process which tells you at +once that she was an only daughter and that she is dead. There had been +other bereavements; they were written upon the silver coffin-plates +which, framed and glazed, also contributed to the decoration of the +room; but you would have had to look close, and you might feel a +delicacy. + +Mrs Crow made her greetings with precision, and sat down again upon the +sofa for a few minutes' conversation. + +"I'm telling them," said her husband, "that the sleighin's just held +out for them. If it 'ud been tomorrow they'd have had to come on wheels. +Pretty soft travellin' as it was, some places, I guess." + +"Snow's come early this year," said Mrs Crow. "It was an open fall, +too." + +"It has certainly," Mr Farquharson backed her up. "About as early as I +remember it. I don't know how much you got out here; we had a good foot +in Elgin." + +"'Bout the same, 'bout the same," Mr Crow deliberated, "but it's been +layin' light all along over Clayfield way--ain't had a pair of runners +out, them folks." + +"Makes a more cheerful winter, Mrs Crow, don't you think, when it comes +early?" remarked Lorne. "Or would you rather not get it till after +Christmas?" + +"I don't know as it matters much, out here in the country. We don't get +a great many folks passin', best of times. An' it's more of a job to +take care of the stock." + +"That's so," Mr Crow told them. "Chores come heavier when there's snow +on the ground, a great sight, especially if there's drifts." + +And for an instant, with his knotted hands hanging between his knees +he pondered this unvarying aspect of his yearly experience. They all +pondered it, sympathetic. + +"Well, now, Mr Farquharson," Mrs Crow turned to him. "An' how reely +BE ye? We've heard better, an' worse, an' middlin'--there's ben such +contradictory reports." + +"Oh, very well, Mrs Crow. Never better. I'm going to give a lot more +trouble yet. I can't do it in politics, that's the worst of it. But +here's the man that's going to do it for me. Here's the man!" + +The Crows looked at the pretendant, as in duty bound, but not any longer +than they could help. + +"Why, I guess you were at school with Elmore?" said Crow, as if the idea +had just struck him. + +"He may be right peart, for all that," said Elmore's mother, and Elmore, +himself, entering with two leading Liberals of Jordanville, effected a +diversion, under cover of which Mrs Crow escaped, to superintend, with +Bella, the last touches to the supper in the kitchen. + +Politics in and about Jordanville were accepted as a purely masculine +interest. If you had asked Mrs Crow to take a hand in them she would +have thanked you with sarcasm, and said she thought she had about enough +to do as it was. The school-house, on the night of such a meeting as +this, was recognized to be no place for ladies. It was a man's affair, +left to the men, and the appearance there of the other sex would +have been greeted with remark and levity. Elgin, as we know, was more +sophisticated in every way, plenty of ladies attended political meetings +in the Drill Shed, where seats as likely as not would be reserved for +them; plenty of handkerchiefs waved there for the encouragement of the +hero of the evening. They did not kiss him; British phlegm, so far, had +stayed that demonstration at the southern border. + +The ladies of Elgin, however, drew the line somewhere, drew it at +country meetings. Mrs Farquharson went with her husband because, since +his state of health had handed him over to her more than ever, she saw +it a part of her wifely duty. His retirement had been decided upon for +the spring, but she would be on hand to retire him at any earlier moment +should the necessity arise. "We'll be the only female creatures there, +my dear," she had said to Dora on the way out, and Hesketh had praised +them both for public spirit. He didn't know, he said, how anybody would +get elected in England without the ladies, especially in the villages, +where the people were obliged to listen respectfully. + +"I wonder you can afford to throw away all the influence you get in +the rural districts with soup and blankets," he said; "but this is an +extravagant country in many ways." Dora kept silence, not being sure of +the social prestige bound up with the distribution of soup and blankets, +but Mrs Farquharson set him sharply right. + +"I guess we'd rather do without our influence if it came to that," she +said. + +Hesketh listened with deference to her account of the rural district +which had as yet produced no Ladies Bountiful, made mental notes +of several points, and placed her privately as a woman of more than +ordinary intelligence. I have always claimed for Hesketh an open mind; +he was filling it now, to its capacity, with care and satisfaction. + +The schoolroom was full and waiting when they arrived. Jordanville had +been well billed, and the posters held, in addition to the conspicuous +names of Farquharson and Murchison, that of Mr Alfred Hesketh (of +London, England). There was a "send-off" to give to the retiring member, +there was a critical inspection to make of the new candidate, and +there was Mr Alfred Hesketh, of London, England, and whatever he +might signify. They were big, quiet, expectant fellows, with less +sophistication and polemic than their American counterparts, less stolid +aggressiveness than their parallels in England, if they have parallels +there. They stood, indeed, for the development between the two; they +came of the new country but not of the new light; they were democrats +who had never thrown off the monarch--what harm did he do there +overseas? They had the air of being prosperous, but not prosperous +enough for theories and doctrines. The Liberal vote of South Fox had +yet to be split by Socialism or Labour. Life was a decent rough business +that required all their attention; there was time enough for sleep +but not much for speculation. They sat leaning forward with their +hats dropped between their knees, more with the air of big schoolboys +expecting an entertainment than responsible electors come together to +approve their party's choice. They had the uncomplaining bucolic look, +but they wore it with a difference; the difference, by this time, was +enough to mark them of another nation. Most of them had driven to the +meeting; it was not an adjournment from the public house. Nor did the +air hold any hint of beer. Where it had an alcoholic drift the flavour +was of whisky; but the stimulant of the occasion had been tea or cider, +and the room was full of patient good will. + +The preliminaries were gone through with promptness; the Chair had +supped with the speakers, and Mr Crow had given him a friendly hint that +the boys wouldn't be expecting much in the way of trimmings from HIM. +Stamping and clapping from the back benches greeted Mr Farquharson. +It diminished, grew more subdued, as it reached the front. The young +fellows were mostly at the back, and the power of demonstration had +somehow ebbed in the old ones. The retiring member addressed his +constituents for half an hour. He was standing before them as their +representative for the last time, and it was natural to look back and +note the milestones behind, the changes for the better with which he +could fairly claim association. They were matters of Federal business +chiefly, beyond the immediate horizon of Jordanville, but Farquharson +made them a personal interest for that hour at all events, and there +were one or two points of educational policy which he could illustrate +by their own schoolhouse. He approached them, as he had always done on +the level of mutual friendly interest, and in the hope of doing mutual +friendly business. "You know and I know," he said more than once; they +and he knew a number of things together. + +He was afraid, he said, that if the doctors hadn't chased him out of +politics, he never would have gone. Now, however, that they gave him no +choice, he was glad to think that though times had been pretty good for +the farmers of South Fox all through the eleven years of his appearance +in the political arena, he was leaving it at a moment when they promised +to be better still. Already, he was sure, they were familiar with the +main heads of that attractive prospect and, agreeable as the subject, +great as the policy was to him, he would leave it to be further unfolded +by the gentleman whom they all hoped to enlist in the cause, as his +successor for this constituency, Mr Lorne Murchison, and by his friend +from the old country, Mr Alfred Hesketh. He, Farquharson, would not take +the words out of the mouths of these gentlemen, much as he envied them +the opportunity of uttering them. The French Academy, he told them, that +illustrious body of literary and scientific men, had a custom, on the +death of a member and the selection of his successor, of appointing one +of their number to eulogize the newcomer. The person upon whom the task +would most appropriately fall, did circumstances permit, would be the +departing academician. In this case, he was happy to say, circumstances +did permit--his political funeral was still far enough off to enable him +to express his profound confidence in and his hearty admiration of the +young and vigorous political heir whom the Liberals of South Fox had +selected to stand in his shoes. Mr Farquharson proceeded to give his +grounds for this confidence and admiration, reminding the Jordanville +electors that they had met Mr Murchison as a Liberal standard-bearer in +the last general election, when he, Farquharson, had to acknowledge +very valuable services on Mr Murchison's part. The retiring member then +thanked his audience for the kind attention and support they had given +him for so many years, made a final cheerful joke about a Pagan divinity +known as Anno Domini, and took his seat. + +They applauded him, and it was plain that they regretted him, the tried +friend, the man there was never any doubt about, whose convictions they +had repeated, and whose speeches in Parliament they had read with a kind +of proprietorship for so long. The Chair had to wait, before introducing +Mr Alfred Hesketh, until the backbenchers had got through with a double +rendering of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," which bolder spirits sent +lustily forth from the anteroom where the little girls kept their hats +and comforters, interspersed with whoops. Hesketh, it had been arranged, +should speak next, and Lorne last. + +Mr Hesketh left his wooden chair with smiling ease, the ease which is +intended to level distinctions and put everybody concerned on the +best of terms. He said that though he was no stranger to the work +of political campaigns, this was the first time that he had had the +privilege of addressing a colonial audience. "I consider," said he +handsomely, "that it is a privilege." He clasped his hands behind his +back and threw out his chest. + +"Opinions have differed in England as to the value of the colonies, and +the consequence of colonials. I say here with pride that I have +ever been among those who insist that the value is very high and the +consequence very great. The fault is common to humanity, but we are, I +fear, in England, too prone to be led away by appearances, and to forget +that under a rough unpolished exterior may beat virtues which are the +brightest ornaments of civilization, that in the virgin fields of the +possessions which the good swords of our ancestors wrung for us from +the Algonquins and the--and the other savages--may be hidden the most +glorious period of the British race." + +Mr Hesketh paused and coughed. His audience neglected the opportunity +for applause, but he had their undivided attention. They were looking at +him and listening to him, these Canadian farmers, with curious interest +in his attitude, his appearance, his inflection, his whole personality +as it offered itself to them--it was a thing new and strange. Far out +in the Northwest, where the emigrant trains had been unloading all +the summer, Hesketh's would have been a voice from home; but here, in +long-settled Ontario, men had forgotten the sound of it, with many other +things. They listened in silence, weighing with folded arms, appraising +with chin in hand; they were slow, equitable men. + +"If we in England," Hesketh proceeded, "required a lesson--as perhaps we +did--in the importance of the colonies, we had it; need I remind you? in +the course of the late protracted campaign in South Africa. Then did +the mother country indeed prove the loyalty and devotion of her colonial +sons. Then were envious nations compelled to see the spectacle of +Canadians and Australians rallying about the common flag, eager to +attest their affection for it with their life-blood, and to demonstrate +that they, too, were worthy to add deeds to British traditions and +victories to the British cause." + +Still no mark of appreciation. Hesketh began to think them an unhandsome +lot. He stood bravely, however, by the note he had sounded. He dilated +on the pleasure and satisfaction it had been to the people of England +to receive this mark of attachment from far-away dominions and +dependencies, on the cementing of the bonds of brotherhood by the blood +of the fallen, on the impossibility that the mother country should ever +forget such voluntary sacrifices for her sake, when, unexpectedly and +irrelevantly, from the direction of the cloakroom, came the expressive +comment "Yah!" + +Though brief, nothing could have been more to the purpose, and Hesketh +sacrificed several effective points to hurry to the quotation-- + + What should they know of England + Who only England know? + +which he could not, perhaps, have been expected to forbear. His +audience, however, were plainly not in the vein for compliment. The same +voice from the anteroom inquired ironically, "That so?" and the speaker +felt advised to turn to more immediate considerations. + +He said he had had the great pleasure on his arrival in this country +to find a political party, the party in power, their Canadian Liberal +party, taking initiative in a cause which he was sure they all had +at heart--the strengthening of the bonds between the colonies and the +mother country. He congratulated the Liberal party warmly upon having +shown themselves capable of this great function--a point at which he was +again interrupted; and he recapitulated some of the familiar arguments +about the desirability of closer union from the point of view of the +army, of the Admiralty, and from one which would come home, he knew, to +all of them, the necessity of a dependable food supply for the mother +country in time of war. Here he quoted a noble lord. He said that he +believed no definite proposals had been made, and he did not understand +how any definite proposals could be made; for his part, if the new +arrangement was to be in the nature of a bargain, he would prefer to +have nothing to do with it. + +"England," he said, loftily, "has no wish to buy the loyalty of her +colonies, nor, I hope, has any colony the desire to offer her allegiance +at the price of preference in British markets. Even proposals for mutual +commercial benefit may be underpinned, I am glad to say, by loftier +principles than those of the market-place and the counting-house." + +At this one of his hearers, unacquainted with the higher commercial +plane, exclaimed, "How be ye goin' to get 'em kept to, then?" + +Hesketh took up the question. He said a friend in the audience asked +how they were to ensure that such arrangements would be adhered to. His +answer was in the words of the Duke of Dartmoor, "By the mutual esteem, +the inherent integrity, and the willing compromise of the British race." + +Here someone on the back benches, impatient, doubtless, at his own +incapacity to follow this high doctrine, exclaimed intemperately, "Oh, +shut up!" and the gathering, remembering that this, after all, was +not what it had come for, began to hint that it had had enough in +intermittent stamps and uncompromising shouts for "Murchison!" + +Hesketh kept on his legs, however, a few minutes longer. He had a +trenchant sentence to repeat to them which he thought they would take as +a direct message from the distinguished nobleman who had uttered it. +The Marquis of Aldeburgh was the father of the pithy thing, which he had +presented, as it happened, to Hesketh himself. The audience received +it with respect--Hesketh's own respect was so marked--but with +misapprehension; there had been too many allusions to the nobility for a +community so far removed from its soothing influence. "Had ye no friends +among the commoners?" suddenly spoke up a dry old fellow, stroking a +long white beard; and the roar that greeted this showed the sense of the +meeting. Hesketh closed with assurances of the admiration and confidence +he felt toward the candidate proposed to their suffrages by the +Liberal party that were quite inaudible, and sought his yellow pinewood +schoolroom chair with rather a forced smile. It had been used once +before that day to isolate conspicuous stupidity. + +They were at bottom a good-natured and a loyal crowd, and they had not, +after all, come there to make trouble, or Mr Alfred Hesketh might have +carried away a worse opinion of them. As it was, young Murchison, +whose address occupied the rest of the evening, succeeded in making +an impression upon them distinct enough, happily for his personal +influence, to efface that of his friend. He did it by the simple +expedient of talking business, and as high prices for produce and low +ones for agricultural implements would be more interesting there than +here, I will not report him. He and Mr Farquharson waited, after the +meeting, for a personal word with a good many of those present, but it +was suggested to Hesketh that the ladies might be tired, and that he had +better get them home without unnecessary delay. Mrs Farquharson had less +comment to offer during the drive home than Hesketh thought might be +expected from a woman of her intelligence, but Miss Milburn was very +enthusiastic. She said he had made a lovely speech, and she wished her +father could have heard it. + +A personal impression, during a time of political excitement, travels +unexpectedly far. A week later Mr Hesketh was concernedly accosted in +Main Street by a boy on a bicycle. + +"Say, mister, how's the dook?" + +"What duke?" asked Hesketh, puzzled. + +"Oh, any dook," responded the boy, and bicycled cheerfully, away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Christmas came and went. Dr Drummond had long accepted the innovation +of a service on Christmas Day, as he agreed to the anthem while the +collection was being taken up, to flowers about the pulpit, and to +the habit of sitting at prayer. He was a progressive by his business +instinct, in everything but theology, where perhaps his business +instinct also operated the other way, in favour of the sure thing. The +Christmas Day service soon became one of those "special" occasions so +dear to his heart, which made a demand upon him out of the ordinary way. +He rose to these on the wing of the eagle, and his congregation never +lacked the lesson that could be most dramatically drawn from them. His +Christmas Day discourse gathered everything into it that could emphasize +the anniversary, including a vigorous attack upon the saints' days and +ceremonies of the Church of England calculated to correct the concession +of the service, and pull up sharply any who thought that Presbyterianism +was giving way to the spurious attractions of sentimentality or ritual. +The special Easter service, with every appropriate feature of hymn and +invocation, was apt to be marked by an unsparing denunciation of +the pageants and practices of the Church of Rome. Balance was thus +preserved, and principle relentlessly indicated. + +Dr Drummond loved, as I have said, all that asked for notable comment; +the poet and the tragedian in him caught at the opportunity, and +revelled in it. Public events carried him far, especially if they were +disastrous, but what he most profited by was the dealing of Providence +with members of his own congregation. Of all the occasions that inspired +him, the funeral sermon was his happiest opportunity, nor was it, in his +hands, by any means unstinted eulogy. Candid was his summing-up, behind +the decent veil, the accepted apology of death; he was not afraid to +refer to the follies of youth or the weaknesses of age in terms as +unmistakable as they were kindly. + +"Grace," he said once, of an estimable plain spinster who had passed +away, "did more for her than ever nature had done." He repeated it, too. +"She was far more indebted, I say, to grace, than to nature," and before +his sharp earnestness none were seen to smile. Nor could you forget +the note in his voice when the loss he deplored was that of a youth of +virtue and promise, or that of a personal friend. His very text would be +a blow upon the heart; the eyes filled from the beginning. People would +often say that they were "sorry for the family," sitting through Dr +Drummond's celebration of their bereavement; and the sympathy was +probably well founded. But how fine he was when he paid the last tribute +to that upright man, his elder and office-bearer, David Davidson! How +his words marched, sorrowing to the close! "Much I have said of him, +and more than he would have had me say." Will it not stay with those who +heard it till the very end, the trenchant, mournful fall of that "more +than he would have had me say"? + +It was a thing that Hugh Finlay could not abide in Dr Drummond. + +As the winter passed, the little Doctor was hard put to it to keep his +hands off the great political issue of the year, bound up as it was in +the tenets of his own politics, which he held only less uncompromisingly +than those of the Shorter Catechism. It was, unfortunately for him, +a gradual and peaceful progress of opinion, marked by no dramatic +incidents; and analogy was hard to find in either Testament for a change +of fiscal policy based on imperial advantage. Dr Drummond liked a pretty +definite parallel; he had small opinion of the practice of drawing a +pint out of a thimble, as he considered Finlay must have done when he +preached the gospel of imperialism from Deuteronomy XXX, 14. "But the +word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou +mayest do it." Moreover, to preach politics in Knox Church was a liberty +in Finlay. + +The fact that Finlay had been beforehand with him operated perhaps to +reconcile the Doctor to his difficulty; and the candidature of one of +his own members in what was practically the imperial interest no doubt +increased his embarrassment. Nevertheless, he would not lose sight of +the matter for more than two or three weeks together. Many an odd blow +he delivered for its furtherance by way of illustrating higher things, +and he kept it always, so to speak, in the practical politics of the +long prayer. + +It was Sunday evening, and Abby and her husband, as usual, had come to +tea. The family was complete with the exception of Lorne, who had driven +out to Clayfield with Horace Williams, to talk over some urgent matters +with persons whom he would meet at supper at the Metropole Hotel +at Clayfield. It was a thing Mrs Murchison thought little short of +scandalous--supper to talk business on the Sabbath day, and in a hotel, +a place of which the smell about the door was enough to knock you down, +even on a weekday. Mrs Murchison considered, and did not scruple to say +so, that politics should be left alone on Sundays. Clayfield votes +might be very important, but there were such things as commandments, +she supposed. "It'll bring no blessing," she declared severely, eyeing +Lorne's empty place. + +The talk about the lamplit table was, nevertheless, all of the election, +blessed or unblessed. It was not in human nature that it shouldn't be, +as Mrs Murchison would have very quickly told you if you had found her +inconsistent. There was reason in all things, as she frequently said. + +"I hear," Alec had told them, "that Octavius Milburn is going around +bragging he's got the Elgin Chamber of Commerce consolidated this time." + +"Against us?" exclaimed Stella; and her brother said, "Of course!" + +"Those Milburns," remarked Mrs Murchison, "are enough to make one's +blood boil. I met Mrs Milburn in the market yesterday; she'd been +pricing Mrs Crow's ducks, and they were just five cents too dear for +her, and she stopped--wonderful thing for her--and had SUCH an amount +to say about Lorne, and the honour it was, and the dear only knows what! +Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth--and Octavius Milburn doing all +he knew against him the whole time! That's the Milburns! I cut her +remarkably short," Mrs Murchison added, with satisfaction, "and when +she'd made up her mind she'd have to give that extra five cents for +the ducks because there weren't any others to be had, she went back and +found I'd bought them." + +"Well done, Mother!" said Alec, and Oliver remarked that if those were +today's ducks they were too good for the Milburn crowd, a lot. + +"I expect she wanted them, too," remarked Stella. "They've got the only +Mr Hesketh staying with them now. Miss Filkin's in a great state of +excitement." + +"I guess we can spare them Hesketh," said John Murchison. + +"He's a lobster," said Stella with fervour. + +"He seems to bring a frost where he goes," continued Abby's husband, +"in politics, anyhow. I hear Lorne wants to make a present of him to the +other side, for use wherever they'll let him speak longest. Is it true +he began his speech out at Jordanville--'Gentlemen--and those of you who +are not gentlemen'?" + +"Could he have meant Mrs Farquharson and Miss Milburn?" asked Mr +Murchison quietly, when the derision subsided; and they laughed again. + +"He told me," said Advena, "that he proposed to convert Mr Milburn to +the imperial policy." + +"He'll have his job cut out for him," said her father. + +"For my part," Abby told them, "I think the Milburns are beneath +contempt. You don't know exactly what it is, but there's something ABOUT +them--not that we ever come in contact with them," she continued with +dignity. "I believe they used to be patients of Dr Henry's till he got +up in years, but they don't call in Harry." + +"Maybe that's what there is about them," said Mr Murchison, innocently. + +"Father's made up his mind," announced Dr Harry, and they waited, +breathless. There could be only one point upon which Dr Henry could be +dubitating at that moment. + +"He's going to vote for Lorne." + +"He's a lovely old darling!" cried Stella. "Good for Dr Henry Johnson! I +knew he would." + +The rest were silent with independence and gratification. Dr Henry's +Conservatism had been supposed to be invincible. Dr Harry they thought +a fair prey to Murchison influence, and he had capitulated early, but he +had never promised to answer for his father. + +"Yes, he's taken his time about it, and he's consulted about all the +known authorities," said his son, humorously. "Went right back to the +Manchester school to begin with--sat out on the verandah reading Cobden +and Bright the whole summer; if anybody came for advice sent 'em in to +me. I did a trade, I tell you! He thought they talked an awful lot of +sense, those fellows--from the English point of view. 'D'ye mean to tell +me,' he'd say, 'that a generation born and bred in political doctrine +of that sort is going to hold on to the colonies at a sacrifice? They'd +rather let 'em go at a sacrifice!' Well, then he got to reading the +other side of the question, and old Ormiston lent him Parkin, and he +lent old Ormiston Goldwin Smith, and then he subscribed to the Times for +six months--the bill must have nearly bust him; and then the squire went +over without waiting for him and without any assistance from the Times +either; and finally--well, he says that if it's good enough business for +the people of England it's good enough business for him. Only he keeps +on worrying about the people of England, and whether they'll make enough +by it to keep them contented, till he can't next month all right, he +wants it to be distinctly understood that family connection has nothing +to do with it." + +"Of course it hasn't," Advena said. + +"But we're just as much obliged," remarked Stella. + +"A lot of our church people are going to stay at home election day," +declared Abby; "they won't vote for Lorne, and they won't vote against +imperialism, so they'll just sulk. Silly, I call it." + +"Good enough business for us," said Alec. + +"Well, what I want to know is," said Mrs Murchison, "whether you are +coming to the church you were born and brought up in, Abby, or not, +tonight? There's the first bell." + +"I'm not going to any church." said Abby. "I went this morning. I'm +going home to my baby." + +"Your father and mother," said Mrs Murchison, "can go twice a day, and +be none the worse for it. By the way, Father, did you know old Mrs Parr +was dead? Died this morning at four o'clock. They telephoned for Dr +Drummond, and I think they had little to do, for he had been up with her +half the night already, Mrs Forsyth told me." + +"Did he go?" asked Mr Murchison. + +"He did not, for the very good reason that he knew nothing about it. Mrs +Forsyth answered the telephone, and told them he hadn't been two hours +in his bed, and she wouldn't get him out again for an unconscious +deathbed, and him with bronchitis on him and two sermons to preach +today." + +"I'll warrant Mrs Forsyth caught it in the morning," said John +Murchison. + +"That she did. The doctor was as cross as two sticks that she hadn't had +him out to answer the phone. 'I just spoke up,' she said, 'and told him +I didn't see how he was going to do any good to the pour soul over a +telephone wire.' 'It isn't that,' he said, 'but I might have put them +on to Peter Fratch for the funeral. We've never had an undertaker in the +church before,' he said; 'he's just come, and he ought to be supported. +Now I expect it's too late, they'll have gone to Liscombe.' He rang them +up right away, but they had." + +"Dr Drummond can't stand Liscombe," said Alec, as they all laughed a +little at the Doctor's foible, all except Advena, who laughed a +great deal. She laughed wildly, then weakly. "I wouldn't--think it a +pleasure--to be buried by Liscombe myself!" she cried hysterically, and +then laughed again until the tears ran down her face, and she lay back +in her chair and moaned, still laughing. + +Mr and Mrs Murchison, Alec, Stella, and Advena made up the family party; +Oliver, for reasons of his own, would attend the River Avenue Methodist +Church that evening. They slipped out presently into a crisp white +winter night. The snow was banked on both sides of the street. Spreading +garden fir trees huddled together weighted down with it; ragged icicles +hung from the eaves or lay in long broken fingers on the trodden paths. +The snow snapped and tore under their feet; there was a glorious moon +that observed every tattered weed sticking up through the whiteness, and +etched it with its shadow. The town lay under the moon almost dramatic, +almost mysterious, so withdrawn it was out of the cold, so turned in +upon its own soul of the fireplace. It might have stood, in the snow and +the silence, for a shell and a symbol of the humanity within, for angels +or other strangers to mark with curiosity. Mr and Mrs Murchison were +neither angels nor strangers; they looked at it and saw that the +Peterson place was still standing empty, and that old Mr Fisher hadn't +finished his new porch before zero weather came to stop him. + +The young people were well ahead; Mrs Murchison, on her husband's arm, +stepped along with the spring of an impetus undisclosed. + +"Is it to be the Doctor tonight?" asked John Murchison. "He was so +hoarse this morning I wouldn't be surprised to see Finlay in the pulpit. +They're getting only morning services in East Elgin just now, while +they're changing the lighting arrangements." + +"Are they, indeed? Well, I hope they'll change them and be done with +it, for I can't say I'm anxious for too much of their Mr Finlay in Knox +Church." + +"Oh, you like the man well enough for a change, Mother!" John assured +her. + +"I've nothing to say against his preaching. It's the fellow himself. And +I hope we won't get him tonight for, the way I feel now, if I see him +gawking up the pulpit steps it'll be as much as I can do to keep in my +seat, and so I just tell you, John." + +"You're a little out of patience with him, I see," said Mr Murchison. + +"And it would be a good thing if more than me were out of patience with +him. There's such a thing as too much patience, I've noticed." + +"I dare say," replied her husband, cheerfully. + +"If Advena were any daughter of mine she'd have less patience with him." + +"She's not much like you," assented the father. + +"I must say I like a girl to have a little spirit if a man has none. And +before I'd have him coming to the house week after week the way he has, +I'd see him far enough." + +"He might as well come there as anywhere," Mr Murchison replied, +ambiguously. "I suppose he has now and then time on his hands?" + +"Well, he won't have it on his hands much longer." + +"He won't, eh?" + +"No, he won't," Mrs Murchison almost shook the arm she was attached to. +"John, I think you might show a little interest! The man's going to be +married." + +"You don't say that?" John Murchison's tone expressed not only +astonishment but concern. Mrs Murchison was almost mollified. + +"But I do say it. His future wife is coming here to Elgin next month, +she and her aunt, or her grandmother, or somebody, and they're to stay +at Dr Drummond's and be married as soon as possible." + +"Nonsense," said Mr Murchison, which was his way of expressing simple +astonishment. + +"There's no nonsense about it. Advena told me herself this afternoon." + +"Did she seem put out about it?" + +"She's not a girl to show it," Mrs Murchison hedged, "if she was. I just +looked at her. 'Well,' I said, 'that's a piece of news. When did you +hear it?' I said. 'Oh, I've known it all the winter!' says my lady. What +I wanted to say was that for an engaged man he had been pretty liberal +with his visits, but she had such a queer look in her eyes I couldn't +express myself, somehow." + +"It was just as well left unsaid," her husband told her, thoughtfully. + +"I'm not so sure," Mrs Murchison retorted. "You're a great man, John, +for letting everything alone. When he's been coming here regularly for +more than a year, putting ideas into the girl's head--" + +"He seems to have told her how things were." + +"That's all very well--if he had kept himself to himself at the same +time." + +"Well, Mother, you know you never thought much of the prospect." + +"No, I didn't," Mrs Murchison said. "It wouldn't be me that would be +married to him, and I've always said so. But I'd got more or less used +to it," she confessed. "The man's well enough in some ways. Dear knows +there would be a pair of them--one's as much of a muddler as the other! +And anybody can see with half an eye that Advena likes him. It hasn't +turned out as I expected, that's a fact, John, and I'm just very much +annoyed." + +"I'm not best pleased about it myself," said John Murchison, expressing, +as usual, a very small proportion of the regret that he felt, "but I +suppose they know their own business." + +Thus, in their different ways, did these elder ones also acknowledge +their helplessness before the advancing event. They could talk of it in +private and express their dissatisfaction with it, and that was all they +could do. It would not be a matter much further turned over between +them at best. They would be shy of any affair of sentiment in terms of +speech, and from one that affected a member of the family, self-respect +would help to pull them the other way. Mrs Murchison might remember it +in the list of things which roused her vain indignation; John Murchison +would put it away in the limbo of irremediables that were better +forgotten. For the present they had reached the church door. + +Mrs Murchison saw with relief that Dr Drummond occupied his own pulpit, +but if her glance had gone the length of three pews behind her she +would have discovered that Hugh Finlay made one of the congregation. +Fortunately, perhaps, for her enjoyment of the service, she did not +look round. Dr Drummond was more observing, but his was a position +of advantage. In the accustomed sea of faces two, heavy shadowed and +obstinately facing fate, swam together before Dr Drummond, and after he +had lifted his hands and closed his eyes for the long prayer he saw them +still. So that these words occurred, near the end, in the long prayer-- + +"O Thou Searcher of hearts, who hast known man from the beginning, to +whom his highest desires and his loftiest intentions are but as +the desires and intentions of a little child, look with Thine own +compassion, we beseech Thee, upon souls before Thee in any peculiar +difficulty. Our mortal life is full of sin, it is also full of the +misconception of virtue. Do Thou clear the understanding, O Lord, of +such as would interpret Thy will to their own undoing; do Thou teach +them that as happiness may reside in chastening, so chastening may +reside in happiness. And though such stand fast to their hurt, do Thou +grant to them in Thine own way, which may not be our way, a safe issue +out of the dangers that beset them." + +Dr Drummond had his own method of reconciling foreordination and free +will. To Advena his supplication came with that mysterious double +emphasis of chance words that fit. Her thought played upon them all +through the sermon, rejecting and rejecting again their application +and their argument and the spring of hope in them. She, too, knew that +Finlay was in church and, half timidly, she looked back for him, as the +congregation filed out again into the winter streets. But he, furious, +and more resolved than ever, had gone home by another way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +Octavius Milburn was not far beyond the facts when he said that the +Elgin Chamber of Commerce was practically solid this time against the +Liberal platform, though to what extent this state of things was due +to his personal influence might be a matter of opinion. Mr Milburn was +President of the Chamber of Commerce, and his name stood for one of +the most thriving of Elgin's industries, but he was not a person of +influence except as it might be represented in a draft on the Bank of +British North America. He had never converted anybody to anything, and +never would, possibly because the governing principle of his life was +the terror of being converted to anything himself. If an important +nonentity is an imaginable thing, perhaps it would stand for Mr Milburn; +and he found it a more valuable combination than it may appear, since +his importance gave him position and opportunity, and his nonentity +saved him from their risks. Certainly he had not imposed his view upon +his fellow-members--they would have blown it off like a feather--yet +they found themselves much of his mind. Most of them were manufacturing +men of the Conservative party, whose factories had been nursed by high +duties upon the goods of outsiders, and few even of the Liberals among +them felt inclined to abandon this immediate safeguard for a benefit +more or less remote, and more or less disputable. John Murchison +thought otherwise, and put it in few words as usual. He said he was more +concerned to see big prices in British markets for Canadian crops than +he was to put big prices on ironware he couldn't sell. He was more +afraid of hard times among the farmers of Canada than he was of +competition by the manufacturers of England. That is what he said when +he was asked if it didn't go against the grain a little to have to +support a son who advocated low duties on British ranges; and when he +was not asked he said nothing, disliking the discount that was naturally +put upon his opinion. Parsons, of the Blanket Mills, bolted at the first +hint of the new policy and justified it by reminding people that he +always said he would if it ever looked like business. + +"We give their woollen goods a pull of a third as it is," he said, +"which is just a third more than I approve of. I don't propose to vote +to make it any bigger--can't afford it." + +He had some followers, but there were also some, like Young, of the +Plough Works, and Windle, who made bicycles, who announced that there +was no need to change their politics to defeat a measure that had no +existence, and never would have. What sickened them, they declared, was +to see young Murchison allowed to give it so much prominence as Liberal +doctrine. The party had been strong enough to hold South Fox for the +best part of the last twenty years on the old principles, and this +British boot-licking feature wasn't going to do it any good. It was fool +politics in the opinion of Mr Young and Mr Windle. + +Then remained the retail trades, the professions, and the farmers. Both +sides could leave out of their counsels the interests of the leisured +class, since the leisured class in Elgin consisted almost entirely of +persons who were too old to work, and therefore not influential. The +landed proprietors were the farmers, when they weren't, alas! the banks. +As to the retail men, the prosperity of the stores of Main Street and +Market Street was bound up about equally with that of Fox County and +the Elgin factories. The lawyers and doctors, the odd surveyors and +engineers, were inclined, by their greater detachment, to theories and +prejudices, delightful luxuries where a certain rigidity of opinion +is dictated by considerations of bread and butter. They made a factor +debatable, but small. The farmers had everything to win, nothing to +lose. The prospect offered them more for what they had to sell, and less +for what they had to buy, and most of them were Liberals already; but +the rest had to be convinced, and a political change of heart in a bosom +of South Fox was as difficult as any other. Industrial, commercial, +professional, agricultural, Lorne Murchison scanned them all hopefully, +but Walter Winter felt them his garnered sheaves. + +It will be imagined how Mr Winter, as a practical politician, rejoiced +in the aspect of things. The fundamental change, with its incalculable +chances to play upon, the opening of the gate to admit plain detriment +in the first instance for the sake of benefit, easily beclouded, in the +second, the effective arm, in the hands of a satirist, of sentiment in +politics--and if there was a weapon Mr Winter owned a weakness for it +was satire--the whole situation, as he often confessed, suited him +down to the ground. He professed himself, though no optimist under any +circumstances very well pleased. Only in one other place, he declared, +would he have preferred to conduct a campaign at the present moment on +the issue involved, though he would have to change his politics to do +it there, and that place was England. He cast an envious eye across +the ocean at the trenchant argument of the dear loaf; he had no such +straight road to the public stomach and grand arbitrator of the fate of +empires. If the Liberals in England failed to turn out the Government +over this business, they would lose in his eyes all the respect he ever +had for them, which wasn't much, he acknowledged. When his opponents +twitted him with discrepancy here, since a bargain so bad for one side +could hardly fail to favour the other, he poured all his contempt on the +scheme as concocted by damned enthusiasts for the ruin of businessmen of +both countries. Such persons, Mr Winter said, if they could have their +way, would be happy and satisfied; but in his opinion neither England +nor the colonies could afford to please them as much as that. He +professed loud contempt for the opinions of the Conservative party +organs at Toronto, and stood boldly for his own views. That was what +would happen, he declared, in every manufacturing division in the +country, if the issue came to be fought in a general election. He was +against the scheme, root and branch. + +Mr Winter was skilled, practised, and indefatigable. We need not follow +him in all his ways and works; a good many of his arguments, I fear, +must also escape us. The Elgin Mercury, if consulted, would produce +them in daily disclosure; so would the Clayfield Standard. One of these +offered a good deal of sympathy to Mayor Winter, the veteran of so many +good fights, in being asked to contest South Fox with an opponent who +had not so much as a village reeveship to his public credit. If the +Conservative candidate felt the damage to his dignity, however, he +concealed it. + +In Elgin and Clayfield, where factory chimneys had also begun to point +the way to enterprise, Winter had a clear field. Official reports gave +him figures to prove the great and increasing prosperity of the country, +astonishing figures of capital coming in, of emigrants landing, of new +lands broken, new mineral regions exploited, new railways projected, of +stocks and shares normal safe, assured. He could ask the manufacturers +of Elgin to look no further than themselves, which they were quite +willing to do, for illustration of the plenty and the promise which +reigned in the land from one end to the other. He could tell them that +in their own Province more than one hundred new industries had been +established in the last year. He could ask them, and he did ask them, +whether this was a state of things to disturb with an inrush from +British looms and rolling mills, and they told him with applause that it +was not. + +Country audiences were not open to arguments like these; they were +slow in the country, as the Mercury complained, to understand that +agricultural prospects were bound up with the prosperity of the towns +and cities; they had been especially slow in the country in England, as +the Express ironically pointed out, to understand it. So Winter and +his supporters asked the farmers of South Fox if they were prepared to +believe all they heard of the good will of England to the colonies, with +the flattering assumption that they were by no means prepared to believe +it. Was it a likely thing, Mr Winter inquired, that the people of Great +Britain were going to pay more for their flour and their bacon, their +butter and their cheese, than they had any need to do, simply out of a +desire to benefit countries which most of them had never seen, and never +would see? No, said Mr Winter, they might take it from him, that was not +the idea. But Mr Winter thought there was an idea, and that they and he +together would not have much trouble in deciphering it. He did not claim +to be longer-sighted in politics than any other man, but he thought the +present British idea was pretty plain. It was, in two words, to secure +the Canadian market for British goods, and a handsome contribution from +the Canadian taxpayer toward the expense of the British army and navy, +in return for the offer of favours to food supplies from Canada. But +this, as they all knew, was not the first time favours had been offered +by the British Government to food supplies from Canada. Just sixty years +ago the British Government had felt one of these spasms of benevolence +to Canada, and there were men sitting before him who could remember the +good will and the gratitude, the hope and the confidence, that greeted +Stanley's bill of that year, which admitted Canadian wheat and flour at +a nominal duty. Some could remember, and those who could not remember +could read; how the farmers and the millers of Ontario took heart and +laid out capital, and how money was easy and enterprise was everywhere, +and how agricultural towns such as Elgin was at that time sent up +streets of shops to accommodate the trade that was to pour in under +the new and generous "preference" granted to the Dominion by the mother +country. And how long, Mr Winter demanded, swinging round in that +pivotal manner which seems assisted by thumbs in the armholes of the +waistcoat, how long did the golden illusion last? Precisely three +years. In precisely three years the British nation compelled the British +Government to adopt the Free Trade Act of '46. The wheat of the world +flowed into every port in England, and the hopes of Canada, especially +the hopes of Ontario, based then, as now, on "preferential" treatment, +were blasted to the root. Enterprise was laid flat, mortgages were +foreclosed, shops were left empty, the milling and forwarding interests +were temporarily ruined, and the Governor-General actually wrote to +the Secretary of State in England that things were so bad that not a +shilling could be raised on the credit of the Province. + +Now Mr Winter did not blame the people of England for insisting on free +food. It was the policy that suited their interests, and they had just +as good a right to look after their interests, he conceded handsomely, +as anybody else. But he did blame the British Government for holding out +hopes, for making definite pledges, to a young and struggling nation, +which they must have known they would not be able to redeem. He blamed +their action then, and he would blame it now, if the opportunity were +given to them to repeat it, for the opportunity would pass and the +pledge would pass into the happy hunting ground of unrealizable +politics, but not--and Mr Winter asked his listeners to mark this very +carefully--not until Canada was committed to such relations of trade +and taxes with the Imperial Government as would require the most heroic +efforts--it might run to a war--to extricate herself from. In plain +words, Mr Winter assured his country audiences, Great Britain had sold +them before, and she would sell them again. He stood there before them +as loyal to British connection as any man. He addressed a public as +loyal to British connection as any public. BUT--once bitten twice shy. + +Horace Williams might riddle such arguments from end to end in the next +day's Express, but if there is a thing that we enjoy in the country, it +is having the dodges of Government shown up with ignominy, and Mr Winter +found his account in this historic parallel. + +Nothing could have been more serious in public than his line of defence +against the danger that menaced, but in friendly ears Mr Winter derided +it as a practical possibility, like the Liberals, Young and Windle. + +"It seems to me," he said, talking to Octavius Milburn, "that the +important thing at present is the party attitude to the disposition +of Crown lands and to Government-made railways. As for this racket +of Wallingham's, it has about as much in it as an empty bun-bag. He's +running round taking a lot of satisfaction blowing it out just now, and +the swells over there are clapping like anything, but the first knock +will show that it's just a bun-bag, with a hole in it." + +"Folks in the old country are solid on the buns, though," said Milburn +as they parted, and Alfred Hesketh, who was walking with his host, +said--"It's bound in the end to get down to that, isn't it?" + +Presently Hesketh came back to it. + +"Quaint idea, that--describing Wallingham's policy as a bun-bag," he +said, and laughed. "Winter is an amusing fellow." + +"Wallingham's policy won't even be a bun-bag much longer," said Milburn. +"It won't be anything at all. Imperial union is very nice to talk about, +but when you come down to hard fact it's Australia for the Australians, +Canada for the Canadians, Africa for the Africans, every time." + +"Each for himself, and devil take the hindmost," said Hesketh; "and when +the hindmost is England, as our friend Murchison declares it will be--" + +"So much the worse for England," said Milburn, amiably. "But we should +all be sorry to see it and, for my part, I don't believe such a thing +is at all likely. And you may be certain of one thing," he continued, +impressively: "No flag but the Union Jack will ever wave over Canada." + +"Oh, I'm sure of that!" Hesketh responded. "Since I have heard more of +your side of the question I am quite convinced that loyalty to England +and complete commercial independence--I might say even commercial +antagonism--may exist together in the colonies. It seems paradoxical, +but it is true." + +Mr Hesketh had naturally been hearing a good deal more of Mr Milburn's +side of the question, staying as he was under Mr Milburn's hospitable +roof. It had taken the least persuasion in the world to induce him to +make the Milburns a visit. He found them delightful people. He described +them in his letters home as the most typically Canadian family he had +met, quite simple and unconventional, but thoroughly warm-hearted, and +touchingly devoted to far-away England. Politically he could not see eye +to eye with Mr Milburn, but he could quite perceive Mr Milburn's grounds +for the view he held. One thing, he explained to his correspondents, you +learned at once by visiting the colonies, and that was to make allowance +for local conditions, both social and economic. + +He and Mr Milburn had long serious discussions, staying behind in the +dining-room to have them after tea, when the ladies took their fancy +work into the drawing-room, and Dora's light touch was heard upon the +piano. It may be supposed that Hesketh brought every argument forward +in favour of the great departure that had been conceived in England; he +certainly succeeded in interesting his host very deeply in the English +point of view. He had, however, to encounter one that was made in +Canada--it resided in Mr Milburn as a stone might reside in a bag +of wool. Mr Milburn wouldn't say that this preference trade idea, if +practicable, might not work out for the benefit of the Empire as a +whole. That was a thing he didn't pretend to know. But it wouldn't +work out for his benefit that was a thing he did know. When a man was +confronted with a big political change the question he naturally asked +himself was, "Is it going to be worth my while?" and he acted on the +answer to that question. He was able to explain to Hesketh, by a variety +of facts and figures, of fascinating interest to the inquiring mind, +just how and where such a concern as the Milburn Boiler Company would be +"hit" by the new policy, after which he asked his guest fairly, "Now, +if you were in my shoes, would you see your way to voting for any such +thing?" + +"If I were in your shoes," said Hesketh, thoughtfully, "I can't say I +would." + +On grounds of sentiment, Octavius assured him, they were absolutely +at one, but in practical matters a man had to proceed on business +principles. He went about at this time expressing great esteem for +Hesketh's capacity to assimilate facts. His opportunity to assimilate +them was not curtailed by any further demand for his services in the +South Fox campaign. He was as willing as ever, he told Lorne Murchison, +to enlist under the flag, and not for the first time; but Murchison and +Farquharson, and that lot, while grateful for the offer, seemed never +quite able to avail themselves of it: the fact was all the dates were +pretty well taken up. No doubt, Hesketh acknowledged, the work could be +done best by men familiar with the local conditions, but he could not +avoid the conviction that this attitude toward proffered help was very +like dangerous trifling. Possibly these circumstances gave him an +added impartiality for Mr Milburn's facts. As the winter advanced his +enthusiasm for the country increased with his intelligent appreciation +of the possibilities of the Elgin boiler. The Elgin boiler was his +object-lesson in the development of the colonies; he paid, several +visits to the works to study it, and several times he thanked Mr Milburn +for the opportunity of familiarizing himself with such an important and +promising branch of Canadian industry. + +"It looks," said Octavius one evening in early February, "as if the +Grits were getting a little anxious about South Fox--high time, too. +I see Cruickshank is down to speak at Clayfield on the seventh, and +Tellier is to be here for the big meeting at the opera house on the +eleventh." + +"Tellier is Minister of Public Works, isn't he?" asked Hesketh. + +"Yes--and Cruickshank is an ex-Minister," replied Mr Milburn. "Looks +pretty shaky when they've got to take men like that away from their work +in the middle of the session." + +"I shall be glad," remarked his daughter Dora, "when this horrid +election is over. It spoils everything." + +She spoke a little fretfully. The election and the matters it involved +did interfere a good deal with her interest in life. As an occupation +it absorbed Lorne Murchison even more completely than she occasionally +desired; and as a topic it took up a larger share of the attention of Mr +Alfred Hesketh than she thought either reasonable or pleasing. Between +politics and boilers Miss Milburn almost felt at times that the world +held a second place for her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The progress of Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Christie Cameron up the river +to Montreal, and so west to Elgin, was one series of surprises, most of +them pleasant and instructive to such a pair of intelligent Scotchwomen, +if we leave out the number of Roman Catholic churches that lift their +special symbol along the banks of the St Lawrence and the fact that Hugh +Finlay was not in Elgin to meet them upon their arrival. Dr Drummond, of +course, was there at the station to explain. Finlay had been obliged to +leave for Winnipeg only the day before, to attend a mission conference +in place of a delegate who had been suddenly laid aside by serious +illness. Finlay, he said, had been very loath to go, but there were many +reasons why it was imperative that he should; Dr Drummond explained them +all. "I insisted on it," he assured them, frankly. "I told him I would +take the responsibility." + +He seemed very capable of taking it, both the ladies must have thought, +with his quick orders about the luggage and his waiting cab. Mrs +Kilbannon said so. "I'm sure," she told him, "we are better off with you +than with Hugh. He was always a daft dependence at a railway station." + +They both--Mrs Kilbannon and Dr Drummond--looked out of the corners of +their eyes, so to speak, at Christie, the only one who might be expected +to show any sensitiveness; but Miss Cameron accepted the explanation +with readiness. Indeed, she said, she would have been real vexed if Mr +Finlay had stayed behind on her account--she showed herself well aware +of the importance of a nomination, and the desirability of responding to +it. + +"It will just give me an opportunity of seeing the town," she said, +looking at it through the cab windows as they drove; and Dr Drummond had +to admit that she seemed a sensible creature. Other things being +equal, Finlay might be doing very well for himself. As they talked of +Scotland--it transpired that Dr Drummond knew all the braes about Bross +as a boy--he found himself more than ever annoyed with Finlay about the +inequality of other things; and when they passed Knox Church and Miss +Cameron told him she hadn't realized it was so imposing an edifice, he +felt downright sorry for the woman. + +Dr Drummond had persuaded Finlay to go to Winnipeg with a vague hope +that something in the fortnight's grace thus provided, might be +induced to happen. The form it oftenest took to his imagination was Miss +Christie's announcement, when she set foot upon the station platform, +that she had become engaged, on the way over, to somebody else, some +fellow-traveller. Such things, Dr Drummond knew, did come about, usually +bringing distress and discomfiture in their train. Why, then, should +they not happen when all the consequences would be rejoiceful? + +It was plain enough, however, that nothing of the kind had come to pass. +Miss Christie had arrived in Elgin, bringing her affections intact; +they might have been in any one of her portmanteaux. She had come with +definite calm intention, precisely in the guise in which she should have +been expected. At the very hour, in the very clothes, she was there. +Robust and pleasant, with a practical eye on her promising future, she +had arrived, the fulfilment of despair. Dr Drummond looked at her with +acquiescence, half-cowed, half-comic, wondering at his own folly in +dreaming of anything else. Miss Cameron brought the situation, as it +were, with her; it had to be faced, and Dr Drummond faced it like a +philosopher. She was the material necessity, the fact in the case, the +substantiation of her own legend; and Dr Drummond promptly gave her all +the consideration she demanded in this aspect. Already he heard himself +pronouncing a blessing over the pair--and they would make the best of +it. With characteristic dispatch he decided that the marriage should +take place the first Monday after Finlay's return. That would give them +time to take a day or two in Toronto, perhaps, and get back for Finlay's +Wednesday prayer meeting. "Or I could take it off his hands," said Dr +Drummond to himself. "That would free them till the end of the week." +Solicitude increased in him that the best should be made of it; after +all, for a long time they had been making the worst. Mrs Forsyth, whom +it had been necessary to inform when Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Cameron +became actually imminent, saw plainly that the future Mrs Finlay +had made a very good impression on the Doctor; and as nature, in Mrs +Forsyth's case, was more powerful than grace, she became critical +accordingly. Still, she was an honest soul: she found more fault with +what she called Miss Cameron's "shirt-waists" than with Miss Cameron +herself, whom she didn't doubt to be a good woman though she would +never see thirty-five again. Time and observation would no doubt mend or +remodel the shirt-waists; and meanwhile both they and Miss Cameron +would do very well for East Elgin, Mrs Forsyth avowed. Mrs Kilbannon, +definitely given over to caps and curls as they still wear them in +Bross, Mrs Forsyth at once formed a great opinion of. She might be +something, Mrs Forsyth thought, out of a novel by Mr Crockett, and made +you long to go to Scotland, where presumably everyone was like her. On +the whole the ladies from Bross profited rather than lost by the new +frame they stepped into in the house of Dr Drummond, of Elgin, Ontario. +Their special virtues, of dignity and solidity and frugality, stood out +saliently against the ease and unconstraint about them; in the profusion +of the table it was little less than edifying to hear Mrs Kilbannon, +invited to preserves, say, "Thank you, I have butter." It was the +pleasantest spectacle, happily common enough, of the world's greatest +inheritance. We see it in immigrants of all degrees, and we may perceive +it in Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. They come in couples and in +companies from those little imperial islands, bringing the crusted +qualities of the old blood bottled there so long, and sink with grateful +absorption into the wide bountiful stretches of the further countries. +They have much to take, but they give themselves; and so it comes about +that the Empire is summed up in the race, and the flag flies for its +ideals. + +Mrs Forsyth had been told of the approaching event; but neither Dr +Drummond, who was not fond of making communications he did not approve +of, nor the Murchisons, who were shy of the matter as a queer business +which Advena seemed too much mixed up with, had mentioned it to anyone +else. Finlay himself had no intimates, and moved into his new house in +River Street under little comment. His doings excited small surprise, +because the town knew too little about him to expect him to do one +thing more than another. He was very significant among his people, very +important in their lives but not, somehow, at any expense to his private +self. He knew them, but they did not know him; and it is high praise of +him that this was no grievance among them. They would tell you without +resentment that the minister was a "very reserved" man; there might +be even a touch of proper pride in it. The worshippers of Knox Church +mission were rather a reserved lot themselves. It was different with the +Methodists; plenty of expansion there. + +Elgin, therefore, knew nothing, beyond the fact that Dr Drummond had +two ladies from the old country staying with him, about whom particular +curiosity would hardly be expected outside of Knox Church. In view of +Finlay's absence, Dr Drummond, consulting with Mrs Kilbannon, decided +that for the present Elgin need not be further informed. There was no +need, they agreed, to give people occasion to talk; and it would just be +a nuisance to have to make so many explanations. Both Mrs Kilbannon and +her niece belonged to the race that takes great satisfaction in keeping +its own counsel. Their situation gained for them the further interest +that nothing need be said about it; and the added importance of caution +was plainly to be discerned in their bearing, even toward one another. +It was a portentous business, this of marrying a minister, under the +most ordinary circumstances, not to be lightly dealt with, and even +more of an undertaking in a far new country where the very wind blew +differently, and the extraordinary freedom of conversation made it more +than ever necessary to take heed to what you were saying. So far as Miss +Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon were aware, the matter had not been "spoken +of" elsewhere at all. Dr Drummond, remembering Advena Murchison's +acquaintance with it, had felt the weight of a complication, and had +discreetly held his tongue. Mrs Kilbannon approved her nephew in +this connection. "Hugh," she said, "was never one to let on more than +necessary." It was a fine secret between Hugh, in Winnipeg, whence +he had written all that was lawful or desirable, and themselves at Dr +Drummond's. Miss Cameron said it would give her more freedom to look +about her. + +In the midst of all this security, and on the very first day after their +arrival, it was disconcerting to be told that a lady, whose name +they had never heard before, had called to see Miss Cameron and Mrs +Kilbannon. They had not even appeared at church, as they told one +another with dubious glances. They had no reason whatever to expect +visitors. Dr Drummond was in the cemetery burying a member; Mrs Forsyth +was also abroad. "Now who in the world," asked Mrs Kilbannon of Miss +Cameron, "is Miss Murchison?" + +"They come to our church," said Sarah, in the door. "They've got the +foundry. It's the oldest one. She teaches." + +Sarah in the door was even more disconcerting than an unexpected +visitor. Sarah invariably took them off their guard, in the door or +anywhere. She freely invited their criticism, but they would not have +known how to mend her. They looked at her now helplessly, and Mrs +Kilbannon said, "Very well. We will be down directly." + +"It may be just some friendly body," she said, as they descended the +stairs together, "or it may be common curiosity. In that case we'll +disappoint it." + +Whatever they expected, therefore, it was not Advena. It was not a tall +young woman with expressive eyes, a manner which was at once abrupt and +easy, and rather a lounging way of occupying the corner of a sofa. "When +she sat down," as Mrs Kilbannon said afterward, "she seemed to untie and +fling herself as you might a parcel." Neither Mrs Kilbannon nor Christie +Cameron could possibly be untied or flung, so perhaps they gave this +capacity in Advena more importance than it had. But it was only a part +of what was to them a new human demonstration, something to inspect very +carefully and accept very cautiously--the product, like themselves, yet +so suspiciously different, of these free airs and these astonishingly +large ideas. In some ways, as she sat there in her graceful dress and +careless attitude, asking them direct smiling questions about their +voyage, she imposed herself as of the class whom both these ladies of +Bross would acknowledge unquestioningly to be "above" them; in others +she seemed to be of no class at all; so far she came short of small +standards of speech and behaviour. The ladies from Bross, more and more +confused, grew more and more reticent, when suddenly, out of a simple +remark of Miss Cameron's about missing in the train the hot-water cans +they gave you "to your feet" in Scotland, reticence descended upon Miss +Murchison also. She sat in an odd silence, looking at Miss Cameron, +absorbed apparently in the need of looking at her, finding nothing to +say, her flow of pleasant inquiry dried up, and all her soul at work, +instead, to perceive the woman. Mrs Kilbannon was beginning to think +better of her--it was so much more natural to be a little backward with +strangers--when the moment passed. Their visitor drew herself out of it +with almost a perceptible effort, and seemed to glance consideringly +at them in their aloofness, their incommunicativeness, their plain odds +with her. I don't know what she expected; but we may assume that she was +there simply to offer herself up, and the impulse of sacrifice seldom +considers whether or not it may be understood. It was to her a normal, +natural thing that a friend of Hugh Finlay's should bring an early +welcome to his bride; and to do the normal, natural thing at keen +personal cost was to sound that depth, or rise to that height of the +spirit where pain sustains. We know of Advena that she was prone to +this form of exaltation. Those who feel themselves capable may pronounce +whether she would have been better at home crying in her bedroom. + +She decided badly--how could she decide well?--on what she would say to +explain herself. + +"I am so sorry," she told them, "that Mr Finlay is obliged to be away." + +It was quite wrong; it assumed too much, her knowledge and their +confidence, and the propriety of discussing Mr Finlay's absence. There +was even an unconscious hint of another kind of assumption in it--a +suggestion of apology for Mr Finlay. Advena was aware of it even as it +left her lips, and the perception covered her with a damning blush. She +had a sudden terrified misgiving that her role was too high for her, +that she had already cracked her mask. But she looked quietly at Miss +Cameron and smiled across the tide that surged in her as she added, "He +was very distressed at having to go." + +They looked at her in an instant's blank astonishment. Miss Cameron +opened her lips and closed them again, glancing at Mrs Kilbannon. They +fell back together, but not in disorder. This was something much more +formidable than common curiosity. Just what it was they would consider +later; meanwhile Mrs Kilbannon responded with what she would have called +cool civility. + +"Perhaps you have heard that Mr Finlay is my nephew?" she said. + +"Indeed I have. Mr Finlay has told me a great deal about you, Mrs +Kilbannon, and about his life at Bross," Advena replied. "And he has +told me about you, too," she went on, turning to Christie Cameron. + +"Indeed?" said she. + +"Oh, a long time ago. He has been looking forward to your arrival for +some months, hasn't he?" + +"We took our passages in December," said Miss Cameron. + +"And you are to be married almost immediately, are you not?" Miss +Murchison continued, pleasantly. + +Mrs Kilbannon had an inspiration. "Could he by any means have had the +banns cried?" she demanded of Christie, who looked piercingly at their +visitor for the answer. + +"Oh, no," Advena laughed softly. "Presbyterians haven't that custom over +here--does it still exist anywhere? Mr Finlay told me himself." + +"Has he informed all his acquaintances?" asked Mrs Kilbannon. "We +thought maybe his elders would be expecting to hear, or his Board of +Management. Or he might have just dropped a word to his Sessions Clerk. +But--" + +Advena shook her head. "I think it unlikely," she said. + +"Then why would he be telling you?" inquired the elder lady, bluntly. + +"He told me, I suppose, because I have the honour to be a friend of +his," Advena said, smiling. "But he is not a man, is he, who makes many +friends? It is possible, I dare say, that he has mentioned it to no one +else." + +Poor Advena! She had indeed uttered her ideal to unsympathetic +ears--brought her pig, as her father would have said, to the wrong +market. She sat before the ladies from Bross, Hugh Finlay's only +confidante. She sat handsome and upheld and not altogether penetrable, a +kind of gipsy to their understanding, though indeed the Romany strain in +her was beyond any divining of theirs. They, on their part, reposed in +their clothes with all their bristles out--what else could have been +expected of them?--convinced in their own minds that they had come not +only to a growing but to a forward country. + +Mrs Kilbannon was perhaps a little severe. "I wonder that we have not +heard of you, Miss Murchison," said she, "but we are happy to make the +acquaintance of any of my nephew's friends. You will have heard him +preach, perhaps?" + +"Often," said Advena, rising. "We have no one here who can compare with +him in preaching. There was very little reason why you should have heard +of me. I am--of no importance." She hesitated and fought for an instant +with a trembling of the lip. "But now that you have been persuaded to be +a part of our life here," she said to Christie, "I thought I would +like to come and offer you my friendship because it is his already. I +hope--so much--that you will be happy here. It is a nice little place. +And I want you to let me help you--about your house, and in every way +that is possible. I am sure I can be of use." She paused and looked at +their still half-hostile faces. "I hope," she faltered, "you don't mind +my--having come?" + +"Not at all," said Christie, and Mrs Kilbannon added, "I'm sure you mean +it very kindly." + +A flash of the comedy of it shot up in Advena's eyes. "Yes," she said, +"I do. Good-bye." + +If they had followed her departure they would have been further +confounded to see her walk not quite steadily away; shaken with +fantastic laughter. They looked instead at one another, as if to find +the solution of the mystery where indeed it lay, in themselves. + +"She doesn't even belong to his congregation," said Christie. "Just a +friend, she said." + +"I expect the friendship's mostly upon her side," remarked Mrs +Kilbannon. "She seemed frank enough about it. But I would see no +necessity for encouraging her friendship on my own account, if I were in +your place, Christie." + +"I think I'll manage without it," said Christie. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The South Fox fight was almost over. Three days only remained before the +polling booths would be open, and the voters of the towns of Elgin and +Clayfield and the surrounding townships would once again be invited to +make their choice between a Liberal and a Conservative representative of +the district in the Dominion House of Commons. The ground had never been +more completely covered, every inch of advantage more stubbornly held, +by either side, in the political history of the riding. There was no +doubt of the hope that sat behind the deprecation in Walter Winter's +eye, nor of the anxiety that showed through the confidence freely +expressed by the Liberal leaders. The issue would be no foregone +conclusion, as it had been practically any time within the last eleven +years; and as Horace Williams remarked to the select lot that met pretty +frequently at the Express office for consultation and rally, they had +"no use for any sort of carelessness." + +It was undeniably felt that the new idea, the great idea whose putative +fatherhood in Canada certainly lay at the door of the Liberal party, +had drawn in fewer supporters than might have been expected. In England +Wallingham, wearing it like a medal, seemed to be courting political +excommunication with it, except that Wallingham was so hard to +effectively curse. The ex-Minister deserved, clearly, any ban that could +be put upon him. No sort of remonstrance could hold him from going +about openly and persistently exhorting people to "think imperially," a +liberty which, as is well known, the Holy Cobdenite Church, supreme in +those islands, expressly forbids. Wallingham appeared to think that +by teaching and explaining he could help his fellow-islanders to see +further than the length of their fists, and exorcise from them +the spirit, only a century and a quarter older and a trifle more +sophisticated, that lost them the American colonies. But so far little +had transpired to show that Wallingham was stronger than nature and +destiny. There had been Wallingham meetings of remarkable enthusiasm; +his supporters called them epoch-making, as if epochs were made of +cheers. But the workingman of Great Britain was declaring stolidly in +the by-elections against any favour to colonial produce at his expense, +thereby showing himself one of those humble instruments that Providence +uses for the downfall of arrogant empires. It will be thus, no doubt, +that the workingman will explain in the future his eminent usefulness +to the government of his country, and it will be in these terms that +the cost of educating him by means of the ballot will be demonstrated. +Meanwhile we may look on and cultivate philosophy; or we may make war +upon the gods with Mr Wallingham which is, perhaps, the better part. + +That, to turn from recrimination, was what they saw in Canada looking +across--the queerest thing of all was the recalcitrance of the farm +labourer; they could only stare at that--and it may be that the +spectacle was depressing to hopeful initiative. At all events, it was +plain that the new policy was suffering from a certain flatness on the +further side. As a ballon d'essai it lacked buoyancy; and no doubt +Mr Farquharson was right in declaring that above all things it lacked +actuality, business--the proposition, in good set terms, for men to turn +over, to accept or reject. Nothing could be done with it, Mr Farquharson +averred, as a mere prospect; it was useful only to its enemies. We of +the young countries must be invited to deeds, not theories, of which we +have a restless impatience; and this particular theory, though of golden +promise, was beginning to recoil to some extent, upon the cause which +had been confident enough to adopt it before it could be translated into +action and its hard equivalent. The Elgin Mercury probably overstated +the matter when it said that the Grits were dead sick of the preference +they would never get; but Horace Williams was quite within the mark +when he advised Lorne to stick to old Reform principles--clean +administration, generous railway policy, sympathetic labour legislation, +and freeze himself a little on imperial love and attachment. + +"They're not so sweet on it in Ottawa as they were, by a long chalk," +he said. "Look at the Premier's speech to the Chambers of Commerce +in Montreal. Pretty plain statement that, of a few things the British +Government needn't expect." + +"Oh, I don't know," said Lorne. "He was talking to manufacturers, you +know, a pretty skittish lot anywhere. It sounded independent, but if you +look into it you won't find it gave the cause away any." + +"The old man's got to think of Quebec, where his fat little majority +lives," remarked Bingham, chairman of the most difficult subdivision in +the town. "The Premier of this country drives a team, you know." + +"Yes," said Lorne, "but he drives it tandem, and Johnny Francois is the +second horse." + +"Maybe so," returned Mr Williams, "but the organ's singing pretty small, +too. Look at this." He picked up the Dominion from the office table and +read aloud: "'If Great Britain wishes to do a deal with the colonies +she will find them willing to meet her in a spirit of fairness and +enthusiasm. But it is for her to decide, and Canada would be the last +to force her bread down the throat of the British labourer at a higher +price than he can afford to pay for it.' What's that, my boy? Is it +high-mindedness? No, sir, it's lukewarmness." + +"The Dominion makes me sick," said young Murchison. "It's so scared of +the Tory source of the scheme in England that it's handing the whole +boom of the biggest chance this country ever had over to the Tories +here. If anything will help us to lose it that will. No Conservative +Government in Canada can put through a cent of preference on English +goods when it comes to the touch, and they know it. They're full of +loyalty just now--baying the moon--but if anybody opens a window they'll +turn tail fast enough." + +"I guess the Dominion knows it, too," said Mr Williams. "When Great +Britain is quite sure she's ready to do business on preference lines +it's the Liberal party on this side she'll have to talk to. No use +showing ourselves too anxious, you know. Besides, it might do harm over +there. We're all right; we're on record. Wallingham knows as well as we +do the lines we're open on--he's heard them from Canadian Liberals more +than once. When they get good and ready they can let us know." + +"Jolly them up with it at your meetings by all means," advised Bingham, +"but use it as a kind of superfluous taffy; don't make it your main +lay-out." + +The Reform Association of South Fox had no more energetic officer than +Bingham, though as he sat on the edge of the editorial table chewing +portions of the margin of that afternoon's Express, and drawling out +maxims to the Liberal candidate, you might not have thought so. He was +explaining that he had been in this business for years, and had never +had a job that gave him so much trouble. + +"We'll win out," he said, "but the canvass isn't any Christmas joy--not +this time. There's Jim Whelan," he told them. "We all know what Jim +is--a Tory from way back, where they make 'em so they last, and a soaker +from way back, too; one day on his job and two days sleepin' off his +whiskey. Now we don't need Jim Whelan's vote, never did need it, but +the boys have generally been able to see that one of those two days was +election day. There's no necessity for Jim's putting in his paper--a +character like that--no necessity at all--he'd much better be +comfortable in bed. This time, I'm darned if the old boozer hasn't sworn +off! Tells the boys he's on to their game, and there's no liquor in this +town that's good enough to get him to lose his vote--wouldn't get drunk +on champagne. He's held out for ten days already, and it looks like +Winter'd take his cross all right on Thursday." + +"I guess I'd let him have it, Bingham," said Lorne Murchison with a kind +of tolerant deprecation, void of offence, the only manner in which +he knew how to convey disapproval to the older man. "The boys in your +division are a pretty tough lot, anyhow. We don't want the other side +getting hold of any monkey tricks." + +"It's necessary to win this election, young man," said Bingham, +"lawfully. You won't have any trouble with my bunch." + +It was not, as will be imagined, the first discussion, so late in +the day, of the value of the preference trade argument to the Liberal +campaign. They had all realized, after the first few weeks, that their +young candidate was a trifle overbitten with it, though remonstrance +had been a good deal curbed by Murchison's treatment of it. When he +had brought it forward at the late fall fairs and in the lonely country +schoolhouses, his talk had been so trenchant, so vivid and pictorial, +that the gathered farmers listened with open mouths, like children, +pathetically used with life, to a grown-up fairy tale. As Horace +Williams said, if a dead horse could be made to go this one would have +brought Murchison romping in. And Lorne had taken heed to the counsel of +his party leaders. At joint meetings, which offered the enemy his best +opportunity for travesty and derision, he had left it in the background +of debate, devoting himself to arguments of more immediate utility. In +the literature of the campaign it glowed with prospective benefit, but +vaguely, like a halo of Liberal conception and possible achievement, +waiting for the word from overseas. The Express still approved it, but +not in headlines, and wished the fact to be widely understood that while +the imperial idea was a very big idea, the Liberals of South Fox were +going to win this election without any assistance from it. + +Lorne submitted. After all, victory was the thing. There could be no +conquest for the idea without the party triumph first. He submitted, +but his heart rebelled. He looked over the subdivisional reports with +Williams and Farquharson, and gave ear to their warning interpretations; +but his heart was an optimist, and turned always to the splendid +projection upon the future that was so incomparably the title to success +of those who would unite to further it. His mind accepted the old +working formulas for dealing with an average electorate, but to his +eager apprehending heart it seemed unbelievable that the great imperial +possibility, the dramatic chance for the race that hung even now, in +the history of the world, between the rising and the setting of the sun, +should fail to be perceived and acknowledged as the paramount issue, the +contingency which made the by-election of South Fox an extraordinary and +momentous affair. He believed in the Idea; he saw it, with Wallingham, +not only a glorious prospect, but an educative force; and never had he +a moment of such despondency that it confounded him upon his horizon in +the faded colours of some old Elizabethan mirage. + +The opera house, the night of Mr Murchison's final address to the +electors of South Fox, was packed from floor to ceiling, and a large +and patient overflow made the best of the hearing accommodation of the +corridors and the foyer. A Minister was to speak, Sir Matthew Tellier, +who held the portfolio of Public Works; and for drawing a crowd in Elgin +there was nothing to compare with a member of the Government. He was +the sum of all ambition and the centre of all importance; he was held +to have achieved in the loftiest sense, and probably because he deserved +to; a kind of afflatus sat upon him. They paid him real deference and +they flocked to hear him. Cruickshank was a second attraction; and +Lorne himself, even at this stage of the proceedings, "drew" without +abatement. They knew young Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out +among them all his life; yet since he had come before them in this new +capacity a curious interest had gathered about him. People looked at him +as if he had developed something they did not understand, and perhaps +he had; he was in touch with the Idea. They listened with an intense +personal interest in him which, no doubt, went to obscure what he +said: perhaps a less absorbing personality would have carried the Idea +further. However, they did look and listen--that was the main point, and +on their last opportunity they were in the opera house in great numbers. + +Lorne faced them with an enviable security; the friendliness of the +meeting was in the air. The gathering was almost entirely of one +political complexion: the Conservatives of the town would have been glad +enough to turn out to hear Minister Tellier; but the Liberals were of no +mind to gratify them at the cost of having to stand themselves, and were +on hand early to assert a prior moral claim to chairs. In the seated +throng Lorne could pick out the fine head of his father, and his +mother's face, bright with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, +too, and Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too conspicuous, +somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was in the second row, and a +couple of strange ladies with him: he was chuckling with uncommon +humour at some remark of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy +MacQuhot was in a good place; had been since six o'clock, and Peter +Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though Peter sat away back as beseemed +a modest functionary whose business was with the book and the bell. +Altogether, as Horace Williams leaned over to tell him, it was like a +Knox Church sociable--he could feel completely at home; and though the +audience was by no means confined to Knox Church, Lorne did feel at +home. Dora Milburn's countenance he might perhaps have missed, but Dora +was absent by arrangement. Mr Milburn, as the fight went on, had shown +himself so increasingly bitter, to the point of writing letters in the +Mercury attacking Wallingham and the Liberal leaders of South Fox, that +his daughter felt an insurmountable delicacy in attending even Lorne's +"big meeting." Alfred Hesketh meant to have gone, but it was ten by the +Milburns' drawing-room clock before he remembered. Miss Filkin actually +did go, and brought home a great report of it. Miss Filkin would no more +have missed a Minister than she would a bishop; but she was the only +one. + +Lorne had prepared for this occasion for a long time. It was certain +to come, the day of the supreme effort, when he should make his final +appeal under the most favourable circumstances that could be devised, +when the harassing work of the campaign would be behind him, and nothing +would remain but the luxury of one last strenuous call to arms. The +glory of that anticipation had been with him from the beginning; and in +the beginning he saw his great moment only in one character. For weeks, +while he plodded through the details of the benefits South Fox had +received and might expect to receive at the hands of the Liberal party, +he privately stored argument on argument, piled phrase on phrase, still +further to advance and defend the imperial unity of his vision on this +certain and special opportunity. His jihad it would be, for the faith +and purpose of his race; so he scanned it and heard it, with conviction +hot in him, and impulse strong, and intention noble. Then uneasiness had +arisen, as we know; and under steady pressure he had daily drawn himself +from these high intentions, persuaded by Bingham and the rest that +they were not yet "in shape" to talk about. So that his address on this +memorable evening would have a different stamp from the one he designed +in the early burning hours of his candidature. He had postponed +those matters, under advice, to the hour of practical dealing, when a +Government which it would be his privilege to support would consider and +carry them. He put the notes of his original speech away in his office +desk with solicitude--it was indeed very thorough, a grand marshalling +of the facts and review of the principles involved--and pigeonholed +it in the chambers of his mind, with the good hope to bring it forth +another day. Then he devoted his attention to the history of Liberalism +in Fox County--both ridings were solid--and it was upon the history of +Liberalism in Fox County, its triumphs and its fruits, that he embarked +so easily and so assuredly, when he opened his address in the opera +house that Tuesday night. + +Who knows at what suggestion, or even precisely at what moment, +the fabric of his sincere intention fell away? Bingham does not; Mr +Farquharson has the vaguest idea; Dr Drummond declares that he expected +it from the beginning, but is totally unable to say why. I can get +nothing more out of them, though they were all there, though they all +saw him, indeed a dramatic figure, standing for the youth and energy +of the old blood, and heard him, as he slipped away into his great +preoccupation, as he made what Bingham called his "bad break." His +very confidence may have accounted for it; he was off guard against the +enemy, and the more completely off guard against himself. The history +of Liberalism in Fox County offered, no doubt, some inlet to the rush +of the Idea; for suddenly, Mr Farquharson says, he was "off." Mr +Farquharson was on the platform, and "I can tell you," said he, "I +pricked up my ears." They all did; the Idea came in upon such a personal +note. + +"I claim it my great good fortune," the young man was suddenly telling +them, in a note of curious gravity and concentration, "and however the +fight goes, I shall always claim it my great good fortune to have been +identified, at a critical moment, with the political principles that are +ennobled in this country by the imperialistic aim. An intention, a great +purpose in the endless construction and reconstruction of the world, +will choose its own agency; and the imperial design in Canada has chosen +the Liberal party, because the Liberal party in this country is the +party of the soil, the land, the nation as it springs from that which +makes it a nation; and imperialism is intensely and supremely a national +affair. Ours is the policy of the fields. We stand for the wheat-belt +and the stockyard, the forest and the mine, as the basic interests of +the country. We stand for the principles that make for nation-building +by the slow sweet processes of the earth, cultivating the individual +rooted man who draws his essence and his tissues from the soil and so, +by unhurried, natural, healthy growth, labour sweating his vices out +of him, forms the character of the commonwealth, the foundation of the +State. So the imperial idea seeks its Canadian home in Liberal councils. +The imperial idea is far-sighted. England has outlived her own body. +Apart from her heart and her history, England is an area where certain +trades are carried on--still carried on. In the scrolls of the future it +is already written that the centre of the Empire must shift--and where, +if not to Canada?" + +There was a half-comprehending burst of applause, Dr Drummond's the +first clap. It was a curious change from the simple colloquial manner +in which young Murchison had begun and to which the audience were +accustomed; and on this account probably they stamped the harder. +They applauded Lorne himself; something from him infected them; they +applauded being made to feel like that. They would clap first and +consider afterward. John Murchison smiled with pleasure, but shook his +head. Bingham, doubled up and clapping like a repeating rifle, groaned +aloud under cover of it to Horace Williams: "Oh, the darned kid!" + +"A certain Liberal peer of blessed political memory," Lorne continued, +with a humorous twist of his mouth, "on one of those graceful, elegant, +academic occasions which offer political peers such happy opportunities +of getting in their work over there, had lately a vision which he +described to his university audience of what might have happened if the +American colonies had remained faithful to Great Britain--a vision of +monarch and Ministers, Government and Parliament, departing solemnly +for the other hemisphere. They did not so remain; so the noble peer may +conjure up his vision or dismiss his nightmare as he chooses; and it is +safe to prophesy that no port of the United States will see that entry. +But, remembering that the greater half of the continent did remain +faithful, the northern and strenuous half, destined to move with sure +steps and steady mind to greater growth and higher place among the +nations than any of us can now imagine--would it be as safe to +prophesy that such a momentous sailing-day will never be more than the +after-dinner fantasy of aristocratic rhetoric? Is it not at least as +easy to imagine that even now, while the people of England send their +viceroys to the ends of the earth, and vote careless millions for a +reconstructed army, and sit in the wrecks of Cabinets disputing whether +they will eat our bread or the stranger's, the sails may be filling, +in the far harbour of time which will bear their descendants to a +representative share of the duties and responsibilities of Empire in the +capital of the Dominion of Canada?" + +It was the boldest proposition, and the Liberal voters of the town of +Elgin blinked a little, looking at it. Still they applauded, hurriedly, +to get it over and hear what more might be coming. Bingham, on the +platform, laughed heartily and conspicuously, as if anybody could see +that it was all an excellent joke. Lorne half-turned to him with a +gesture of protest. Then he went on-- + +"If that transport ever left the shores of England we would go far, some +of us, to meet it; but for all the purposes that matter most it sailed +long ago. British statesmen could bring us nothing better than the +ideals of British government; and those we have had since we levied our +first tax and made our first law. That precious cargo was our heritage, +and we never threw it overboard, but chose rather to render what impost +it brought; and there are those who say that the impost has been heavy, +though never a dollar was paid." + +He paused for an instant and seemed to review and take account of what +he had said. He was hopelessly adrift from the subject he had proposed +to himself, launched for better or for worse upon the theme that was +subliminal in him and had flowed up, on which he was launched, and +almost rudderless, without construction and without control. The speech +of his first intention, orderly, developed, was as far from him as the +history of Liberalism in Fox County. For an instant he hesitated; and +then, under the suggestion, no doubt, of that ancient misbehaviour in +Boston Harbour at which he had hinted, he took up another argument. I +will quote him a little. + +"Let us hold," he said simply, "to the Empire. Let us keep this +patrimony that has been ours for three hundred years. Let us not +forget the flag. We believe ourselves, at this moment, in no danger of +forgetting it. The day after Paardeburg, that still winter day, did +not our hearts rise within us to see it shaken out with its message +everywhere, shaken out against the snow? How it spoke to us, and lifted +us, the silent flag in the new fallen snow! Theirs--and ours... That was +but a little while ago, and there is not a man here who will not bear me +out in saying that we were never more loyal, in word and deed, than we +are now. And that very state of things has created for us an undermining +alternative... + +"So long as no force appeared to improve the trade relations between +England and this country Canada sought in vain to make commercial +bargains with the United States. They would have none of us or our +produce; they kept their wall just as high against us as against the +rest of the world: not a pine plank or a bushel of barley could we get +over under a reciprocal arrangement. But the imperial trade idea has +changed the attitude of our friends to the south. They have small +liking for any scheme which will improve trade between Great Britain and +Canada, because trade between Great Britain and Canada must be improved +at their expense. And now you cannot take up an American paper without +finding the report of some commercial association demanding closer trade +relations with Canada, or an American magazine in which some far-sighted +economist is not urging the same thing. They see us thinking about +keeping the business in the family; with that hard American common sense +that has made them what they are, they accept the situation; and at this +moment they are ready to offer us better terms to keep our trade." + +Bingham, Horace Williams, and Mr Farquharson applauded loudly. Their +young man frowned a little and squared his chin. He was past hints of +that kind. + +"And that," he went on to say, "is, on the surface, a very satisfactory +state of things. No doubt a bargain between the Americans and ourselves +could be devised which would be a very good bargain on both sides. In +the absence of certain pressing family affairs, it might be as well +worth our consideration as we used to think it before we were invited +to the family council. But if anyone imagines that any degree of +reciprocity with the United States could be entered upon without killing +the idea of British preference trade for all time, let him consider what +Canada's attitude toward that idea would be today if the Americans had +consented to our proposals twenty-five years ago, and we were invited to +make an imperial sacrifice of the American trade that had prospered, as +it would have prospered, for a quarter of a century! I doubt whether the +proposition would even be made to us... + +"But the alternative before Canada is not a mere choice of markets; we +are confronted with a much graver issue. In this matter of dealing +with our neighbour our very existence is involved. If we would preserve +ourselves as a nation, it has become our business, not only to reject +American overtures in favour of the overtures of our own great England, +but to keenly watch and actively resist American influence, as it +already threatens us through the common channels of life and energy. We +often say that we fear no invasion from the south, but the armies of +the south have already crossed the border. American enterprise, American +capital, is taking rapid possession of our mines and our water power, +our oil areas and our timber limits. In today's Dominion, one paper +alone, you may read of charters granted to five industrial concerns +with headquarters in the United States. The trades unions of the two +countries are already international. American settlers are pouring into +the wheat-belt of the Northwest, and when the Dominion of Canada has +paid the hundred million dollars she has just voted for a railway to +open up the great lone northern lands between Quebec and the Pacific, +it will be the American farmer and the American capitalist who will +reap the benefit. They approach us today with all the arts of peace, +commercial missionaries to the ungathered harvests of neglected +territories; but the day may come when they will menace our coasts to +protect their markets--unless, by firm, resolved, whole-hearted action +now, we keep our opportunities for our own people." + +They cheered him promptly, and a gathered intensity came into his face +at the note of praise. + +"Nothing on earth can hold him now," said Bingham, as he crossed his +arms upon a breast seething with practical politics, and waited for the +worst. + +"The question of the hour for us," said Lorne Murchison to his +fellow-townsmen, curbing the strenuous note in his voice, "is deeper +than any balance of trade can indicate, wider than any department of +statistics can prove. We cannot calculate it in terms of pig-iron, or +reduce it to any formula of consumption. The question that underlies +this decision for Canada is that of the whole stamp and character of +her future existence. Is that stamp and character to be impressed by the +American Republic effacing"--he smiled a little--"the old Queen's head +and the new King's oath? Or is it to be our own stamp and character, +acquired in the rugged discipline of our colonial youth, and developed +in the national usage of the British Empire?"... + +Dr Drummond clapped alone; everybody else was listening. + +"It is ours," he told them, "in this greater half of the continent, to +evolve a nobler ideal. The Americans from the beginning went in a spirit +of revolt; the seed of disaffection was in every Puritan bosom. We from +the beginning went in a spirit of amity, forgetting nothing, disavowing +nothing, to plant the flag with our fortunes. We took our very +Constitution, our very chart of national life, from England--her laws, +her liberty, her equity were good enough for us. We have lived by them, +some of us have died by them...and, thank God, we were long poor... + +"And this Republic," he went on hotly, "this Republic that menaces our +national life with commercial extinction, what past has she that is +comparable? The daughter who left the old stock to be the light woman +among nations, welcoming all comers, mingling her pure blood, polluting +her lofty ideals until it is hard indeed to recognize the features and +the aims of her honourable youth..." + +Allowance will be made for the intemperance of his figure. He believed +himself, you see, at the bar for the life of a nation. + +"...Let us not hesitate to announce ourselves for the Empire, to throw +all we are and all we have into the balance for that great decision. +The seers of political economy tell us that if the stars continue to +be propitious, it is certain that a day will come which will usher in +a union of the Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. As between England and +the United States the predominant partner in that firm will be the one +that brings Canada. So that the imperial movement of the hour may mean +even more than the future of the motherland, may reach even farther than +the boundaries of Great Britain..." + +Again he paused, and his eye ranged over their listening faces. He had +them all with him, his words were vivid in their minds; the truth of +them stood about him like an atmosphere. Even Bingham looked at him +without reproach. But he had done. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice dropping, with a hint of +tiredness, to another level, "I have the honour to stand for your +suffrages as candidate in the Liberal interest for the riding of South +Fox in the Dominion House of Commons the day after tomorrow. I solicit +your support, and I hereby pledge myself to justify it by every means in +my power. But it would be idle to disguise from you that while I attach +all importance to the immediate interests in charge of the Liberal +party, and if elected shall use my best efforts to further them, the +great task before that party, in my opinion, the overshadowing task to +which, I shall hope, in my place and degree to stand committed from +the beginning, is the one which I have endeavoured to bring before your +consideration this evening." + +They gave him a great appreciation, and Mr Cruickshank, following, spoke +in complimentary terms of the eloquent appeal made by the "young and +vigorous protagonist" of the imperial cause, but proceeded to a number +of quite other and apparently more important grounds why he should be +elected. The Hon. Mr Tellier's speech--the Minister was always kept +to the last--was a defence of the recent dramatic development of the +Government's railway policy, and a reminder of the generous treatment +Elgin was receiving in the Estimates for the following year--thirty +thousand dollars for a new Drill Hall, and fifteen thousand for +improvements to the post-office. It was a telling speech, with the +chink of hard cash in every sentence, a kind of audit by a chartered +accountant of the Liberal books of South Fox, showing good sound reason +why the Liberal candidate should be returned on Thursday, if only +to keep the balance right. The audience listened with practical +satisfaction. "That's Tellier all over," they said to one another... + +The effect in committee of what, in spite of the Hon. Mr Tellier's +participation, I must continue to call the speech of the evening, may +be gathered from a brief colloquy between Mr Bingham and Mr Williams, in +the act of separating at the door of the opera house. + +"I don't know what it was worth to preference trade," said Bingham, "but +it wasn't worth a hill o' beans to his own election." + +"He had as soft a snap," returned Horace Williams, on the brink of +tears--"as soft a snap as anybody ever had in this town. And he's +monkeyed it all away. All away." + +Both the local papers published the speech in full the following day. +"If there's anything in Manchester or Birmingham that Mr Lorne Murchison +would like," commented the Mercury editorially, "we understand he has +only to call for it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +The Milburns' doorbell rang very early the morning of the election. +The family and Alfred Hesketh were just sitting down to breakfast. Mr +Hesketh was again the guest of the house. He had taken a run out to +Vancouver with Mr Milburn's partner, who had gone to settle a point or +two in connection with the establishment of a branch there. The points +had been settled and Hesketh, having learned more than ever, had +returned to Elgin. + +The maid came back into the room with a conscious air, and said +something in a low voice to Dora, who flushed and frowned a little, +and asked to be excused. As she left the room a glance of intelligence +passed between her and her mother. While Miss Milburn was generally +thought to be "most like" her father both in appearance and disposition, +there were points upon which she could count on an excellent +understanding with her other parent. + +"Oh, Lorne," she said, having carefully closed the drawing-room door, +"what in the world have you come here for? Today of all days! Did +anybody see you?" + +The young man, standing tall and broad-shouldered before the +mantelpiece, had yet a look of expecting reproach. + +"I don't know," he said humbly. + +"I don't think Father would like it," Dora told him, "if he knew you +were here. Why, we're having an early breakfast on purpose to let +him get out and work for Winter. I never saw him so excited over an +election. To think of your coming today!" + +He made a step toward her. "I came because it is today," he said. "Only +for a minute, dear. It's a great day for me, you know--whether we win or +lose. I wanted you to be in it. I wanted you to wish me good luck." + +"But you know I always do," she objected. + +"Yes, I know. But a fellow likes to hear it, Dora--on the day, you know. +And I've seen so little of you lately." + +She looked at him measuringly. "You're looking awfully thin," she +exclaimed, with sudden compunction. "I wish you had never gone into this +horrid campaign. I wish they had nominated somebody else." + +Lorne smiled half-bitterly. "I shouldn't wonder if a few other people +wished the same thing," he said. "But I'm afraid they'll have to make +the best of it now." + +Dora had not sanctioned his visit by sitting down; and as he came nearer +to her she drew a step away, moving by instinct from the capture of the +lover. But he had made little of that, and almost as he spoke was at her +side. She had to yield her hands to him. + +"Well, you'll win it for them if anybody could," she assured him. + +"Say 'win it for us,' dear." + +She shook her head. "I'm not a Liberal--yet," she said, laughing. + +"It's only a question of time." + +"I'll never be converted to Grit politics." + +"No, but you'll be converted to me," he told her, and drew her nearer. +"I'm going now, Dora. I dare say I shouldn't have come. Every minute +counts today. Good-bye." + +She could not withhold her face from his asking lips, and he had bent to +take his privilege when a step in the hall threatened and divided them. + +"It's only Mr Hesketh going upstairs," said Dora, with relief. "I +thought it was Father. Oh, Lorne--fly!" + +"Hesketh!" Young Murchison's face clouded. "Is he working for Winter, +too?" + +"Lorne! What a thing to ask when you know he believes in your ideas. +But he's a Conservative at home, you see, so he says he's in an awkward +position, and he has been taking perfectly neutral ground lately. He +hasn't a vote, anyway." + +"No," said Lorne. "He's of no consequence." + +The familiar easy step in the house of his beloved, the house he was +being entreated to leave with all speed, struck upon his heart and his +nerves. She, with her dull surface to the more delicate vibrations of +things, failed to perceive this, or perhaps she would have thought it +worth while to find some word to bring back his peace. She disliked +seeing people unhappy. When she was five years old and her kitten broke +its leg, she had given it to a servant to drown. + +He took his hat, making no further attempt to caress her, and opened the +door. "I hope you WILL win, Lorne," she said, half-resentfully, and he, +with forced cheerfulness, replied, "Oh, we'll have a shot at it." Then +with a little silent nod at her which, notwithstanding her provocations, +conveyed his love and trust, he went out into the struggle of the day. + +In spite of Squire Ormiston's confident prediction, it was known that +the fight would be hottest, among the townships, in Moneida Reservation. +Elgin itself, of course, would lead the van for excitement, would be +the real theatre for the arts of practical politics; but things would be +pretty warm in Moneida, too. It was for that reason that Bingham and +the rest strongly advised Lorne not to spend too much of the day in +the town, but to get out to Moneida early, and drive around with +Ormiston--stick to him like a fly to poison-paper. + +"You leave Elgin to your friends," said Bingham. "Just show your face +here and there wearing a smile of triumph, to encourage the crowd; but +don't worry about the details--we'll attend to them." + +"We can't have him upsettin' his own election by any interference with +the boys," said Bingham to Horace Williams. "He's got too long a nose +for all kinds of things to be comfortable in town today. He'll do a +great deal less harm trotting round the Reserve braced up against old +Ormiston." + +So Elgin was left to the capable hands of the boys, for the furtherance +of the Liberal interest and the sacred cause of imperialism. Mr +Farquharson, whose experience was longer and whose nose presumably +shorter than the candidate's, never abandoned the Town Ward. Bingham +skirmished between the polling-booths and the committee room. Horace +Williams was out all day--Rawlins edited the paper. The returns wouldn't +be ready in time for anything but an extra anyhow, and the "Stand to +Arms, South Fox," leader had been written two days ago. The rest was +millinery, or might be for all anybody would read of it. The other side +had a better idea of the value of their candidate than to send him into +the country. Walter Winter remained where he was most effective and most +at home. He had a neat little livery outfit, and he seemed to spend the +whole day in it accompanied by intimate personal friends who had never +spoken to him, much less driven with him, before. Two or three strangers +arrived the previous night at the leading hotels. Their business was +various, but they had one point in common: they were very solicitous +about their personal luggage. I should be sorry to assign their +politics, and none of them seemed to know much about the merits of +the candidates, so they are not perhaps very pertinent, except for the +curiosity shown by the public at the spectacle of gentlemen carrying +their own bags when there were porters to do it. + +It was a day long remembered and long quoted. The weather was +spring-like, sun after a week's thaw; it was pleasant to be abroad in +the relaxed air and the drying streets, that here and there sent +up threads of steam after the winter house-cleaning of their wooden +sidewalks. Voting was a privilege never unappreciated in Elgin; and +today the weather brought out every soul to the polls; the ladies of +his family waiting, in many instances, on the verandah, with shawls over +their heads, to hear the report of how the fight was going. Abby saw Dr +Harry back in his consulting room, and Dr Henry safely off to vote, and +then took the two children and went over to her father's house because +she simply could not endure the suspense anywhere else. The adventurous +Stella picketed herself at a corner near the empty grocery which served +as a polling-booth for Subdivision Eleven, one of the most doubtful, but +was forced to retire at the sight of the first carryall full of men from +the Milburn Boiler Company flaunting a banner inscribed "We are Solid +for W.W." Met in the hall by her sister, she protested that she hadn't +cried till she got inside the gate, anyhow. Abby lectured her soundly +on her want of proper pride: she was much too big a girl to be "seen +around" on a day when her brother was "running," if it were only for +school trustee. The other ladies of the family, having acquired proper +pride kept in the back of the house so as not to be tempted to look out +of the front windows. Mrs Murchison assumed a stoical demeanour and +made a pudding; though there was no reason to help Eliza, who was +sufficiently lacking in proper pride to ask the milkman whether Mr Lorne +wasn't sure to be elected down there now. The milkman said he guessed +the best man 'ud get in, but in a manner which roused general suspicion +as to which he had himself favoured. + +"We'll finish the month," said Mrs Murchison, "and then not another +quart do we take from HIM--a gentleman that's so uncertain when he's +asked a simple question." + +The butcher came, and brought a jovial report without being asked for +it; said he was the first man to hand in a paper at his place, but they +were piling up there in great shape for Mr Murchison when he left. + +"If he gets in, he gets in," said Mrs Murchison. "And if he doesn't +it won't be because of not deserving to. Those were real nice cutlets +yesterday, Mr Price, and you had better send us a sirloin for tomorrow, +about six pounds; but it doesn't matter to an ounce. And you can save us +sweetbreads for Sunday; I like yours better than Luff's." + +John Murchison, Alec, and Oliver came shortly up to dinner, bringing +stirring tales from the field. There was the personator in Subdivision +Six of a dead man--a dead Grit--wanted by the bloodhounds of the other +side and tracked to the Reform committee room, where he was ostensibly +and publicly taking refuge. + +"Why did he go there?" asked Stella, breathlessly. + +"Why, to make it look like a put-up job of ours, of course, "said her +brother. "And it was a put-up job, a good old Tory fake. But they didn't +calculate on Bingham and Bingham's memory. Bingham happened to be in the +committee room, and he recognized this fellow for a regular political +tough from up Muskoka way, where they get six for a bottle of Canadian +and ten if it's Scotch. 'Why, good morning,' says Bingham, 'thought you +were in jail,' and just then he catches sight of a couple of trailers +from the window. Well, Bingham isn't just lightning smart, but then he +isn't SLOW, you know. 'Well,' he says, 'you can't stop here,' and in +another second he was throwing the fellow out. Threw him out pretty +hard, too. I guess; right down the stairs, and Bingham on top. Met +Winter's men at the door. 'The next time you want information from +the headquarters of this association, gentlemen,' Bingham said, 'send +somebody respectable.' Bingham thought the man was just any kind of low +spy at first, but when they claimed him for personation, Bingham just +laughed. 'Don't be so hard on your friends; he said. I don't think we'll +hear much more about that little racket." + +"Can't anything be done to any of them?" asked Stella. "Not today, of +course, but when there's time." + +"We'll have to see about it, Stella," said Alec. "When there's time." + +"Talking about Bingham," Oliver told them; "you know Bingham's story +about Jim Whelan keeping sober for two weeks, for the first time in +twenty years, to vote for Winter? Wouldn't touch a thing--no, he was +going to do it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to +refuse drinks, but it was going to be worth his while. Been boasting +about the post-office janitorship Winter was to give him if he got in. +Well, in he came to Number Eleven this morning all dressed up, with a +clean collar, looking thirstier than any man you ever saw, and gets +his paper. Young Charlie Bingham is deputy returning officer at Number +Eleven. In a second back comes Whelan. 'This ballot's marked; he says; +'you don't fool me.' 'Is it?' says Charlie, taking it out of his hand. +'That's very wrong, Jim; you shouldn't have marked it,' and drops it +into the ballot-box. Oh, Jim was wild! The paper had gone in blank, you +see, and he'd lost all those good drunks and his vote too! He was going +to have Charlie's blood right away. But there it was--done. He'd handed +in his ballot--he couldn't have another." + +They all laughed, I fear, at the unfortunate plight of the too +suspicious Whelan. "Why did he think the ballot was marked?" asked +Advena. + +"Oh, there was a little smudge on it--a fly-spot or something, Charlie +says. But you couldn't fool Whelan." + +"I hope," said Stella meditatively, "that Lorne will get in by more than +one. He wouldn't like to owe his election to a low-down trick like that" + +"Don't you be at all alarmed, you little girlish thing," replied her +brother. "Lorne will get in by five hundred." + +John Murchison had listened to their excited talk, mostly in silence, +going on with his dinner as if that and nothing else were the important +matter of the moment. Mrs Murchison had had this idiosyncrasy of his +"to put up with" for over thirty years. She bore it now as long as she +could. + +"FATHER!" she exploded at last. "Do you think Lorne will get in by five +hundred?" + +Mr Murchison shook his head, and bestowed his whole attention upon the +paring of an apple. If he kept his hopes to himself, he also kept his +doubts. "That remains to be seen," he said. + +"Well, considering it's your own son, I think you might show a little +more confidence," said Mrs Murchison. "No thank you; no dessert for +me. With a member of the family being elected--or not--for a seat in +Parliament, I'm not the one to want dessert." + +Between Mr Murchison and the milkman that morning, Mrs Murchison felt +almost too much tried by the superior capacity for reticence. + +It was seven in the evening before the ballot-boxes were all in the +hands of the sheriff, and nine before that officer found it necessary to +let the town know that it had piled up a majority of three hundred for +Walter Winter. He was not a supporter of Walter Winter, and he preferred +to wait until the returns began to come in from Clayfield and the +townships, in the hope that they would make the serious difference that +was required of them. The results were flashed one after the other +to the total from the windows of the Express and the Mercury upon the +cheering crowd that gathered in Market Square. There were moments of +wild elation, moments of deep suspense upon both sides, but when the +final addition and subtraction was made the enthusiastic voters of South +Fox, including Jim Whelan, who had neglected no further opportunity, +read, with yells and groans, hurrahs and catcalls, that they had elected +Mr Lorne Murchison to the Dominion House of Commons by a majority of +seventy. + +Then the band began to play and all the tin whistles to rejoice. Young +and Windle had the grace to blow their sirens, and across the excited +darkness of the town came the long familiar boom of the Murchison Stove +Works. Every Liberal in Elgin who had any means of making a noise +made it. From the window of the Association committee room their young +fellow-townsman thanked them for the honour they had done him, while +his mother sat in the cab he had brought her down in and applauded +vigorously between tears, and his father took congratulations from a +hundred friendly hands. They all went home in a torchlight procession, +the band always playing, the tin whistles always performing; and it was +two in the morning before the occasion could in any sense be said to be +over. + +Lights burned quite as late, however, in the Conservative committee +room, where matters were being arranged to bark threateningly at the +heels of victory next day. Victory looked like something that might +be made to turn and parley. A majority of seventy was too small for +finality. Her attention was called without twenty-four hours' delay to +a paragraph in the Elgin Mercury, plainly authoritative, to the effect +that the election of Mr Murchison would be immediately challenged, on +the ground of the infringement in the electoral district of Moneida of +certain provisions of the Ontario Elections Act with the knowledge and +consent of the candidate, whose claim to the contested seat, it was +confidently expected, would be rendered within a very short time null +and void. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +"You can never trust an Indian," said Mrs Murchison at the anxious +family council. "Well do I remember them when you were a little thing, +Advena, hanging round the town on a market-day; and the squaws coming +to the back door with their tin pails of raspberries to sell, and just +knowing English enough to ask a big price for them. But it was on the +squaws we depended in those days, or go without raspberry preserves for +the winter. Slovenly-looking things they were with their three or four +coloured petticoats and their papooses on their backs. And for dirt--! +But I thought they were all gone long ago." + +"There are enough of them left to make trouble all right," said Alec. +"They don't dress up like they used to, and I guess they send the +papooses to kindergarten now; but you'll find plenty of them lying +around any time there's nothing to do but vote and get drunk." + +Allowing for the natural exaggeration of partisanship, the facts about +the remaining red man of Moneida were much as Alec described them. +On market-days he slid easily, unless you looked twice, into what the +Express continues to call the farming community. Invariably, if you did +look twice, you would note that his stiff felt hat was an inch taller +in the crown than those worn generally by the farming community, the +pathetic assertion, perhaps, of an old sovereignty; invariably, too +his coat and trousers betrayed a form within, which, in the effort at +adaptation, had become high-shouldered and lank of leg. And the brown +skin was there to be noticed, though you might pass it by, and the high +cheek-bones and the liquidly muddy eye. He had taken on the signs of +civilization at the level which he occupied; the farming community +had lent him its look of shrewdness in small bargains and its rakish +sophistication in garments, nor could you always assume with certainty, +except at Fox County fairs and elections, that he was intoxicated. So +much Government had done for him in Fox County, where the "Reservation," +nursing the dying fragment of his race, testified that there is such a +thing as political compunction. Out in the wide spaces of the West he +still protects his savagery; they know an Indian there today as far as +they can see him, without a second glance. + +And in Moneida, upon polling-days, he still, as Alec said, "made +trouble." Perhaps it would be more to the fact to say that he presented +the elements of which trouble is made. Civilization had given him a +vote, not with his coat and trousers, but shortly after; and he had not +yet learned to keep it anywhere but in his pocket, whence the transfer +was easy, and could be made in different ways. The law contemplated only +one, the straight drop into the ballot-box; but the "boys" had other +views. The law represented one level of political sentiment, the boys +represented another; both parties represented the law, both parties were +represented by the boys; and on the occasion of the South Fox election +the boys had been active in Moneida. There are, as we know, two kinds +of activity on these occasions, one being set to observe the other; +and Walter Winter's boys, while presumably neglecting no legitimate +opportunity of their own, claimed to have been highly successful in +detecting the methods of the other side. + +The Indians owed their holdings, their allowances, their school, and +their protecting superintendent, Squire Ormiston, to a Conservative +Government. It made a grateful bond of which a later Conservative +Government was not, perhaps, unaware, when it added the ballot to +its previous benefits. The Indians, therefore, on election-days, were +supposed to "go solid" for the candidate in whom they had been taught +to see good will. If they did not go quite solid, the other side might +point to the evolution of the political idea in every dissentient--a +gladdening spectacle, indeed, on which, however, the other side seldom +showed any desire to dwell. + +Hitherto the desires and intentions of the "Reserve" had been +exemplified in its superintendent. Squire Ormiston had never led his +wards to the polls--there were strong reasons against that. But the +squire made no secret of his politics, either before or, unluckily, +after he changed them. The Indians had always known that they were +voting on the same side as "de boss." They were likely, the friends +of Mr Winter thought, to know now that they were voting on a different +side. This was the secret of Mr Winter's friends' unusual diligence on +voting-day in Moneida. The mere indication of a wish on the part of the +superintendent would constitute undue influence in the eye of the law. +The squire was not the most discreet of men--often before it had been +the joke of Conservative councils how near the old man had come to +making a case for the Grits in connection with this chief or that. I +will not say that he was acquainted with the famous letter from Queen +Victoria, affectionately bidding her Indian children to vote for the +Conservative candidate. But perhaps he had not adhered to the strictest +interpretation of the law which gave him fatherly influence in +everything pertaining to his red-skinned charges' interests temporal and +spiritual, excepting only their sacred privilege of the ballot. He may +even have held it in some genial derision, their sacred privilege; it +would be natural, he had been there among them in unquestioned authority +so long. Now it had assumed an importance. The squire looked at it with +the ardour of a converted eye. When he told Mr Farquharson that he could +bring Moneida with him to a Liberal victory, he thought and spoke of the +farmers of the township not of his wards of the Reserve. Yet as the day +approached these would infallibly become voters in his eyes, to swell or +to diminish the sum of Moneida's loyalty to the Empire. They remembered +all this in the committee room of his old party. "The squire," they said +to one another, "will give himself away this time if ever he did." Then +young Murchison hadn't known any better than to spend the best part of +the day out there, and there were a dozen witnesses to swear that old +Ormiston introduced him to three or four of the chiefs. That was basis +enough for the boys detailed to watch Moneida, basis enough in the end +for a petition constructed to travel to the High Court at Toronto +for the purpose of rendering null and void the election of Mr Lorne +Murchison, and transferring the South Fox seat to the candidate of the +opposite party. + +That possibility had been promptly frustrated by a cross petition. There +was enough evidence in Subdivision Eleven, according to Bingham, to +void the Tory returns on six different counts; but the house-cat sold by +Peter Finnigan to Mr Winter for five dollars would answer all practical +purposes. It was a first-rate mouser, Bingham said, and it would settle +Winter. They would have plenty of other charges "good and ready" if +Finnigan's cat should fail them, but Bingham didn't think the court +would get to anything else; he had great confidence in the cat. + +The petitions had been lodged with promptness. "Evidence," as Mr Winter +remarked, "is like a good many other things--better when it's hot, +especially the kind you get on the Reserve." To which, when he heard it, +Bingham observed sarcastically that the cat would keep. The necessary +thousand dollars were ready on each side the day after the election, +lodged in court the next. Counsel were as promptly engaged--the Liberals +selected Cruickshank--and the suit against the elected candidate, +beginning with charges against his agents in the town, was shortly in +full hearing before the judges sent from Toronto to try it. Meanwhile +the Elgin Mercury had shown enterprise in getting hold of Moneida +evidence, and foolhardiness, as the Express pointed out, in publishing +it before the matter was reached in court. There was no foolhardiness +in printing what the Express knew about Finnigan's cat; it was just +a common cat, and Walter Winter paid five dollars for it, Finnigan +declaring that if Mr Winter hadn't filled him up with bad whiskey before +the bargain, he wouldn't have let her go under ten, he was that fond +of the creature. The Express pointed out that this was grasping of +Finnigan, as the cat had never left him, and Mr Winter showed no +intention of taking her away; but there was nothing sub judice about the +cat. Finnigan, before he sobered up, had let her completely out of the +bag. It was otherwise with the charges that were to be made, according +to the Mercury, on the evidence of Chief Joseph Fry and another member +of his tribe, to the effect that he and his Conservative friends had +been instructed by Squire Ormiston and Mr Murchison to vote on this +occasion for both the candidates, thereby producing, when the box was +opened, eleven ballot-papers inscribed with two crosses instead of one, +and valueless. Here, should the charges against a distinguished and +highly respected Government official fail, as in the opinion of the +Express they undoubtedly would fail of substantiation was a big +libel case all dressed and ready and looking for the Mercury office. +"Foolish--foolish," wrote Mr Williams at the close of his editorial +comments. "Very ill-advised." + +"They've made no case so far," Mr Murchison assured the family. "I saw +Williams on my way up, and he says the evidence of that corner grocery +fellow--what's his name?--went all to pieces this morning. Oliver was in +court. He says one of the judges--Hooke--lost his patience altogether." + +"They won't do anything with the town charges," Alec said, "and they +know it. They're saving themselves for Moneida and old man Ormiston." + +"Well, I heartily wish," said Mrs Murchison, in a tone of grievance with +the world at large, and if you were not responsible you might keep out +of the way--"I heartily wish that Lorne had stayed at home that day and +not got mixed up with old man Ormiston." + +"They'll find it pretty hard to fix anything on Lorne," said Alec. "But +I guess the Squire did go off his head a little." + +"Have they anything more than Indian evidence?" asked Advena. + +"We don't know what they've got," said her brother darkly "and we won't +till Wednesday, when they expect to get round to it." + +"Indian evidence will be a poor dependence in Cruickshank's hands," Mr +Murchison told them, with a chuckle. "They say this Chief Joseph Fry is +going about complaining that he always got three dollars for one vote +before, and this time he expected six for two, and got nothing!" + +"Chief Joseph Fry!" exclaimed Alec. "They make me tired with their Chief +Josephs and Chief Henrys! White Clam Shell--that was the name he got +when he wasn't christened." + +"That's the name," remarked Advena, "that he probably votes under." + +"Well," said Mrs Murchison, "it was very kind of Squire Ormiston to +give Lorne his support, but it seems to me that as far as Moneida is +concerned he would have done better alone." + +"No, I guess he wouldn't, Mother," said Alec. "Moneida came right round +with the Squire, outside the Reserve. If it hadn't been for the majority +there we would have lost the election. The old man worked hard, and +Lorne is grateful to him, and so he ought to be." + +"If they carry the case against Lorne," said Stella, "he'll be +disqualified for seven years." + +"Only if they prove him personally mixed up in it," said the father. +"And that," he added with a concentration of family sentiment in the +emphasis of it, "they'll not do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +It was late afternoon when the train from the West deposited Hugh Finlay +upon the Elgin platform, the close of one of those wide, wet, uncertain +February days when the call of spring is on the wind though spring +is weeks away. The lights of the town flashed and glimmered down the +streets under the bare swaying maple branches. The early evening was +full of soft bluster; the air was conscious with an appeal of nature, +vague yet poignant. The young man caught at the strange sympathy that +seemed to be abroad for his spirit. He walked to his house, courting it, +troubled by it. They were expecting him that evening at Dr Drummond's, +and there it was his intention to go. But on his way he would call for +a moment to see Advena Murchison. He had something to tell her. It would +be news of interest at Dr Drummond's also; but it was of no consequence, +within an hour or so, when they should receive it there, while it was +of great consequence that Advena should hear it at the earliest +opportunity, and from him. There is no weighing or analysing the burden +of such a necessity as this. It simply is important: it makes its own +weight; and those whom it concerns must put aside other matters until +it has been accomplished. He would tell her: they would accept it for a +moment together, a moment during which he would also ascertain whether +she was well and strong, with a good chance of happiness--God protect +her--in the future that he should not know. Then he would go on to Dr +Drummond's. + +The wind had risen when he went out again; it blew a longer blast, +and the trees made a steady sonorous rhythm in it. The sky was full of +clouds that dashed upon the track of a failing moon; there was portent +everywhere, and a hint of tumult at the end of the street. No two ways +led from Finlay's house to his first destination. River Street made +an angle with that on which the Murchisons lived--half a mile to the +corner, and three-quarters the other way. Drops drove in his face as he +strode along against the wind, stilling his unquiet heart, that leaped +before him to that brief interview. As he took the single turning he +came into the full blast of the veering, irresolute storm. The street +was solitary and full of the sound of the blown trees, wild and +uplifting. Far down the figure of a woman wavered before the wind across +the zone of a blurred lamp-post. She was coming toward him. He bent his +head and lowered his umbrella and lost sight of her as they approached, +she with the storm behind her, driven with hardly more resistance than +the last year's blackened leaves that blew with her, he assailed by it +and making the best way he could. Certainly the wind was taking her part +and his, when in another moment her skirt whipped against him and he saw +her face glimmer out. A mere wreck of lines and shadows it seemed in the +livid light, with suddenly perceiving eyes and lips that cried his name. +She had on a hat and a cloak, but carried no umbrella, and her hands +were bare and wet. Pitifully the storm blew her into his arms, a tossed +and straying thing that could not speak for sobs; pitifully and with a +rough incoherent sound he gathered and held her in that refuge. A rising +fear and a great solicitude laid a finger upon his craving embrace of +her; he had a sense of something strangely different in her, of the +unknown irremediable. Yet she was there, in his arms, as she had never +been before; her plight but made her in a manner sweeter; the storm that +brought her barricaded them in the empty spaces of the street with a +divinely entreating solitude. He had been prepared to meet her in the +lighted decorum of her father's house and he knew what he should say. +He was not prepared to take her out of the tempest, helpless and weeping +and lost for the harbour of his heart, and nothing could he say. He +locked his lips against all that came murmuring to them. But his arms +tightened about her and he drew her into the shelter of a wall that +jutted out in the irregular street; and there they stood and clung +together in a long, close, broken silence that covered the downfall of +her spirit. It was the moment of their great experience of one another; +never again, in whatever crisis, could either know so deep, so wonderful +a fathoming of the other soul. Once as it passed, Advena put up her hand +and touched his cheek: There were tears on it, and she trembled, and +wound her arm about his neck, and held up her face to his. "No," he +muttered, and crushed it against his breast. There without complaint +she let it lie; she was all submission to him: his blood leaped and his +spirit groaned with the knowledge of it. + +"Why did you come out? Why did you come, dear?" he said at last. + +"I don't know. There was such a wind. I could not stay in the house." + +She spoke timidly, in a voice that should have been new to him, but that +it was, above all, her voice. + +"I was on my way to you." + +"I know. I thought you might perhaps come. If you had not--I think I was +on my way to you." + +It seemed not unnatural. + +"Did you find--any message from me when you came?" she asked presently, +in a quieted, almost a contented tone. + +It shot--the message--before his eyes, though he had seen it no message, +in the preoccupation of his arrival. + +"I found a rose on my dressing-table," he told her; and the rose stood +for him in a wonder of tenderness, looking back. + +"I smuggled it in," she confessed, "I knew your old servant--she used +to be with us. The others--from Dr Drummond's--have been there all day +making it warm and comfortable for you. I had no right to do anything +like that, but I had the right, hadn't I, to bring the rose?" + +"I don't know," he answered her, hard-pressed, "how we are to bear +this." + +She shrank away from him a little, as if at a glimpse of a surgeon's +knife. + +"We are not to bear it," she said eagerly. "The rose is to tell you +that. I didn't mean it, when I left it, to be anything more--more than a +rose; but now I do. I didn't even know when I came out tonight. But +now I do. We aren't to bear it, Hugh. I don't want it so--now. I +can't--can't have it so." + +She came nearer to him again and caught with her two hands the lapels +of his coat. He closed his own over them and looked down at her in that +half-detachment, which still claimed and held her. + +"Advena," he whispered, out of the sudden clamour in his mind, "she +can't be--she isn't--nothing has happened to her?" + +She smiled faintly, but her eyes were again full of fear at his +implication of the only way. + +"Oh, no!" she said. "But you have been away, and she has come. I have +seen her; and oh! she won't care, Hugh--she won't care." + +Her asking, straining face seemed to gather and reflect all the light +there was in the shifting night about them. The rain had stopped, but +the wind still hurtled past, whirling the leaves from one darkness to +another. They were as isolated, as outlawed there in the wild wet wind +as they were in the confusion of their own souls. + +"We must care," he said helplessly, clinging to the sound and form of +the words. + +"Oh, no!" she cried. "No, no! Indeed I know now what is possible and +what is not!" + +For an instant her eyes searched the rigid lines of his face in +astonishment. In their struggle to establish the impossible she had been +so far ahead, so greatly the more confident and daring, had tempted him +to such heights, scorning every dizzy verge, that now, when she turned +quite back from their adventure, humbly confessing it too hard, she +could not understand how he should continue to set himself doggedly +toward it. Perhaps, too, she trusted unconsciously in her prerogative. +He loved her, and she him: before she would not, now she would. Before +she had preferred an ideal to the desire of her heart; now it lay about +her; her strenuous heart had pulled it down to foolish ruin, and how +should she lie abased with it and see him still erect and full of the +deed they had to do? + +"Come," he said, "let me take you home, dear," and at that and some +accent in it that struck again at hope, she sank at his feet in a +torrent of weeping, clasping them and entreating him, "Oh send her away! +Send her away!" + +He lifted her, and was obliged literally to support her. Her hat had +fallen off; he stroked her hair and murmured such comfort to her as we +have for children in their extremity, of which the burden is chiefly +love and "Don't cry." She grew gradually quieter, drawing one knows not +what restitution from the intrinsic in him; but there was no pride in +her, and when she said "Let me go home now," it was the broken word of +hapless defeat. They struggled together out into the boisterous street, +and once or twice she failed and had to stop and turn. Then she would +cling to a wall or a tree, putting his help aside with a gesture in +which there was again some pitiful trace of renunciation. They went +almost without a word, each treading upon the heart of the other toward +the gulf that was to come. They reached it at the Murchisons' gate, and +there they paused, as briefly as possible, since pause was torture, and +he told her what he could not tell her before. + +"I have accepted the charge of the White Water Mission Station in +Alberta," he said. "I, too, learned very soon after I left you what was +possible and what was not. I go as soon as--things can be set in order +here. Good-bye, my dear love, and may God help us both." + +She looked at him with a pitiful effort at a steady lip. "I must try +to believe it," she said. "And afterward, when it comes true for you, +remember this--I was ashamed." + +Then he saw her pass into her father's house, and he took the road to +his duty and Dr Drummond's. + +His extremity was very great. Through it lines came to him from the +beautiful archaic inheritance of his Church. He strode along hearing +them again and again in the dying storm. + + So, I do stretch my hands + To Thee my help alone; + Thou only understands + All my complaint and moan. + +He listened to the prayer on the wind, which seemed to offer it for him, +listened and was gravely touched. But he himself was far from the throes +of supplication. He was looking for the forces of his soul; and by the +time he reached Dr Drummond's door we may suppose that he had found +them. + +Sarah who let him in, cried, "How wet you are, Mr Finlay!" and took his +overcoat to dry in the kitchen. The Scotch ladies, she told him, and +Mrs Forsyth, had gone out to tea, but they would be back right away, and +meanwhile "the Doctor" was expecting him in the study--he knew the way. + +Finlay did know the way but, as a matter of fact, there had been time +for him to forget it; he had not crossed Dr Drummond's threshold since +the night on which the Doctor had done all, as he would have said, that +was humanly possible to bring him, Finlay, to reason upon the matter of +his incredible entanglement in Bross. The door at the end of the passage +was ajar however, as if impatient; and Dr Drummond himself, standing in +it, heightened that appearance, with his "Come you in, Finlay. Come you +in!" + +The Doctor looked at the young man in a manner even more acute, more +shrewd, and more kindly than was his wont. His eye searched Finlay +thoroughly, and his smile seemed to broaden as his glance travelled. + +"Man," he said, "you're shivering," and rolled him an armchair near the +fire. ("The fellow came into the room," he would say, when he told the +story afterward to the person most concerned, "as if he were going to +the stake!") "This is extraordinary weather we are having, but I think +the storm is passing over." + +"I hope," said Finlay, "that my aunt and Miss Cameron are well. I +understand they are out." + +"Oh, very well--finely. They're out at present, but you'll see them +bye-and-bye. An excellent voyage over they had--just the eight days. But +we'll be doing it in less than that when the new fast line is running to +Halifax. But four days of actual ocean travelling they say now it will +take. Four days from imperial shore to shore! That should incorporate +us--that should bring them out and take us home." + +The Doctor had not taken a seat himself, but was pacing the study, his +thumbs in his waistcoat pockets; and a touch of embarrassment seemed +added to the inveterate habit. + +"I hear the ladies had pleasant weather." Finlay remarked. + +"Capital--capital! You won't smoke? I know nothing about these cigars; +they're some Grant left behind him--a chimney, that man Grant. Well, +Finlay"--he threw himself into the arm-chair on the other side of the +hearth--"I don't know what to say to you." + +"Surely," said Finlay restively, "it has all been said, sir." + +"No, it has not all been said," Dr Drummond retorted. "No, it has +not. There's more to be said, and you must hear it, Finlay, with such +patience as you have. But I speak the truth when I say that I don't know +how to begin." + +The young man gave him opportunity, gazing silently into the fire. +He was hardly aware that Dr Drummond had again left his seat when he +started violently at a clap on the shoulder. + +"Finlay!" exclaimed the Doctor. "You won't be offended? No--you couldn't +be offended!" + +It was half-jocular, half-anxious, wholly inexplicable. + +"At what," asked Hugh Finlay, "should I be offended?" + +Again, with a deep sigh, the Doctor dropped into his chair. "I see +I must begin at the beginning," he said. But Finlay, with sudden +intuition, had risen and stood before him trembling, with a hand against +the mantelpiece. + +"No," he said, "if you have anything to tell me of importance, for God's +sake begin at the end." + +Some vibration in his voice went straight to the heart of the Doctor, +banishing as it travelled, every irrelevant thing that it encountered. + +"Then the end is this, Finlay," he said. "The young woman, Miss Christie +Cameron, whom you were so wilfully bound and determined to marry, has +thrown you over--that is, if you will give her back her word--has jilted +you--that is, if you'll let her away. Has thought entirely better of the +matter." + +("He stared out of his great sockets of eyes as if the sky had fallen," +Dr Drummond would say, recounting it.) + +"For--for what reason?" asked Finlay, hardly yet able to distinguish +between the sound of disaster and the sense that lay beneath. + +"May I begin at the beginning?" asked the Doctor, and Hugh silently +nodded. + +("He sat there and never took his eyes off me, twisting his fingers. I +might have been in a confession-box," Dr Drummond would explain to her.) + +"She came here, Miss Cameron, with that good woman, Mrs Kilbannon, it +will be three weeks next Monday," he said, with all the air of beginning +a story that would be well worth hearing. "And I wasn't very well +pleased to see her, for reasons that you know. However, that's neither +here nor there. I met them both at the station, and I own to you that +I thought when I made Miss Cameron's acquaintance that you were getting +better than you deserved in the circumstances. You were a thousand miles +away--now that was a fortunate thing!--and she and Mrs Kilbannon just +stayed here and made themselves as comfortable as they could. And that +was so comfortable that anyone could see with half an eye"--the Doctor's +own eye twinkled--"so far as Miss Cameron was concerned, that she wasn't +pining in any sense of the word. But I wasn't sorry for you, Finlay, on +that account." He stopped to laugh enjoyingly, and Finlay blushed like a +girl. + +"I just let matters bide and went about my own business. Though +after poor Mrs Forsyth here--a good woman enough, but the brains of a +rabbit--it was pleasant to find these intelligent ladies at every meal, +and wonderful how quick they were at picking up the differences between +the points of Church administration here and at home. That was a thing I +noticed particularly in Miss Cameron. + +"Matters went smoothly enough--smoothly enough--till one afternoon that +foolish creature Advena Murchison"--Finlay started--"came here to pay +a call on Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. It was well and kindly meant, +but it was not a wise-like thing to do. I didn't exactly make it out, +but it seems that she came all because of you and on account of you; and +the ladies didn't understand it, and Mrs Kilbannon came to me. My word, +but there was a woman to deal with! Who was this young lady, and what +was she to you that she should go anywhere or do anything in your name? +Without doubt"--he put up a staying hand--"it was foolish of Advena. And +what sort of freedom, and how far, and why, and what way, and I tell you +it was no easy matter, to quiet her. 'Is Miss Cameron distressed about +it?' said I. 'Not a bit,' said she, 'but I am, and I must have the +rights of this matter,' said she, 'if I have to put it to my nephew +himself.' + +"It was at that point, Finlay, that the idea--just then that the thought +came into my mind--well I won't say absolutely, but practically for the +first time--Why can't this matter be arranged on a basis to suit +all parties? So I said to her, 'Mrs Kilbannon,' I said, 'if you had +reasonable grounds for it, do you think you could persuade your niece +not to marry Hugh Finlay?' Wait--patience!" He held up his hand, and +Finlay gripped the arm of his chair again. + +"She just stared at me. 'Are you gone clean daft, Dr Drummond?' she +said. 'There could be no grounds serious enough for that. I will not +believe that Hugh Finlay has compromised himself in any way.' I had +to stop her; I was obliged to tell her there was nothing of the +kind--nothing of the kind; and later on I'll have to settle with my +conscience about that. 'I meant,' I said, the reasonable grounds of an +alternative: 'An alternative?' said she. To cut a long story short," +continued the Doctor, leaning forward, always with the finger in his +waistcoat pocket to emphasize what he said, "I represented to Mrs +Kilbannon that Miss Cameron was not in sentimental relations toward you, +that she had some reason to suspect you of having placed your affections +elsewhere, and that I myself was very much taken up with what I had seen +of Miss Cameron. In brief, I said to Mrs Kilbannon that if Miss Cameron +saw no objection to altering the arrangements to admit of it, I should +be pleased to marry her myself. The thing was much more suitable in +every way. I was fifty-three years of age last week, I told her, 'but' +I said, 'Miss Cameron is thirty-six or seven, if she's a day, and Finlay +there would be like nothing but a grown-up son to her. I can offer her +a good home and the minister's pew in a church that any woman might be +proud of--and though far be it from me,' I said, 'to depreciate mission +work, either home or foreign, Miss Cameron in that field would be little +less than thrown away. Think it over,' I said. + +"Well, she was pleased, I could see that. But she didn't half like the +idea of changing the original notion. It was leaving you to your own +devices that weighed most with her against it; she'd set her heart on +seeing you married with her approval. So I said to her, to make an end +of it, 'Well, Mrs Kilbannon,' I said, 'suppose we say no more about it +for the present. I think I see the finger of Providence in this matter; +but you'll talk it over with Miss Cameron, and we'll all just make it, +for the next few days, the subject of quiet and sober reflection. Maybe +at the end of that time I'll think better of it myself, though that is +not my expectation.' + +"'I think,' she said, 'we'll just leave it to Christie.'" + +As the Doctor went on with his tale, relaxation had stolen dumbly about +Finlay's brow and lips. He dropped from the plane of his own absorption +to the humorous common sense of the recital: it claimed and held him +with infinite solace. His eyes had something like the light of laughter +in them, flashing behind a cloud, as he fixed them on Dr Drummond, and +said, "And did you?" + +"We did," said Dr Drummond, getting up once more from his chair, and +playing complacently with his watch-charms as he took another turn about +the study. "We left it to Miss Cameron, and the result is"--the Doctor +stopped sharply and wheeled round upon Finlay--"the result is--why, the +upshot seems to be that I've cut you out, man!" + +Finlay measured the little Doctor standing there twisting his +watch-chain, beaming with achieved satisfaction, in a consuming desire +to know how far chance had been kind to him, and how far he had to be +simply, unspeakably, grateful. He stared in silence, occupied with his +great debt; it was like him that that, and not his liberty, should be +first in his mind. We who have not his opportunity may find it more +difficult to decide; but from our private knowledge of Dr Drummond we +may remember what poor Finlay probably forgot at the moment, that +even when pitted against Providence, the Doctor was a man of great +determination. + +The young fellow got up, still speechless, and confronted Dr Drummond. +He was troubled for something to say; the chambers of his brain seemed +empty or reiterating foolish sounds. He pressed the hand the minister +offered him and his lips quivered. Then a light came into his face, and +he picked up his hat. + +"And I'll say this for myself," chuckled Dr Drummond. "It was no hard +matter." + +Finlay looked at him and smiled. "It would not be, sir," he said lamely. +Dr Drummond cast a shrewd glance at him and dropped the tone of banter. + +"Aye--I know! It's no joking matter," he said, and with a hand behind +the young man's elbow, he half pushed him to the door and took out his +watch. He must always be starting somebody, something, in the right +direction, the Doctor. "It's not much after half-past nine, Finlay," he +said. "I notice the stars are out." + +It had the feeling of a colloquial benediction, and Finlay carried it +with him all the way. + +It was nevertheless nearly ten when he reached her father's house, +so late that the family had dispersed for the night. Yet he had the +hardihood to ring, and the hour blessed them both, for Advena on the +stair, catching who knows what of presage out of the sound, turned, and +found him at the threshold herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"I understand how you must feel in the matter, Murchison, said Henry +Cruickshank. "It's the most natural thing in the world that you should +want to clear yourself definitely, especially as you say, since the +charges have been given such wide publicity. On the other hand, I think +it quite possible that you exaggerate the inference that will be drawn +from our consenting to saw off with the other side on the two principal +counts." + +"The inference will be," said Lorne "that there's not a pin to choose +between Winter's political honesty and my own. I'm no Pharisee, but +I don't think I can sit down under that. I can't impair my possible +usefulness by accepting a slur upon my reputation at the very +beginning." + +"Politics are very impersonal. It wouldn't be remembered a year." + +"Winter of course," said young Murchison moodily, "doesn't want to take +any chances. He knows he's done for if we go on. Seven years for him +would put him pretty well out of politics. And it would suit him down to +the ground to fight it over again. There's nothing he would like better +to see than another writ for South Fox." + +"That's all right," the lawyer responded, "but Moneida doesn't look +altogether pleasant, you know. We may have good grounds for supposing +that the court will find you clear of that business; but Ormiston, so +far as I can make out, was playing the fool down there for a week before +polling-day, and there are three or four Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers +only too anxious to pay back a grudge on him. We'll have to fight again, +there's no doubt about that. The only question is whether we'll ruin +Ormiston first or not. Have you seen Bingham?" + +"I know what Bingham thinks," said Lorne, impatiently. "The Squire's +position is a different consideration. I don't see how I can--However, +I'll go across to the committee room now and talk it over." + +It is doubtful whether young Murchison knew all that Bingham thought; +Bingham so seldom told it all. There were matters in the back of +Bingham's mind that prompted him to urge the course that Cruickshank had +been empowered by the opposing counsel to suggest--party considerations +that it would serve no useful purpose to talk over with Murchison. +Bingham put it darkly when he said he had quite as much hay on his +fork as he cared to tackle already, implying that the defence +of indiscretions in Moneida was quite an unnecessary addition. +Contingencies seemed probable, arising out of the Moneida charges that +might affect the central organization of the party in South Fox to an +extent wholly out of proportion with the mere necessity of a second +election. Bingham talked it over with Horace Williams, and both of +them with Farquharson; they were all there to urge the desirability of +"sawing off" upon Lorne when he found them at headquarters. Their most +potent argument was, of course, the Squire and the immediate dismissal +that awaited him under the law if undue influence were proved against +him. Other considerations found the newly elected member for South +Fox obstinate and troublesome, but to that he was bound to listen, and +before that he finally withdrew his objections. The election would +come on again, as happened commonly enough. Bingham could point to +the opening, in a few days, of a big flour-milling industry across +the river, which would help; operations on the Drill Hall and +the Post-Office would be hurried on at once, and the local party +organization would be thoroughly overhauled. Bingham had good reason for +believing that they could entirely regain their lost ground, and at the +same time dissipate the dangerous impression that South Fox was being +undermined. Their candidate gave a reluctant ear to it all, and in the +end agreed to everything. + +So that Chief Joseph Fry--the White Clam Shell of his own lost +fires--was never allowed the chance of making good the election losses +of that year, as he had confidently expected to do when the charge came +on; nor was it given to any of the Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers of Mr +Cruickshank's citation to boast at the tribal dog-feasts of the future, +of the occasion on which they had bested "de boss." Neither was any +further part in public affairs, except by way of jocular reference, +assigned to Finnigan's cat. The proceedings of the court abruptly +terminated, the judges reported the desirability of a second contest, +and the public accepted with a wink. The wink in any form was hateful to +Lorne Murchison, but he had not to encounter it long. + +The young man had changed in none of the aspects he presented to his +fellow-citizens since the beginning of the campaign. In the public eye +he wore the same virtues as he wore the same clothes; he summed up even +a greater measure of success; his popularity was unimpaired. He went as +keenly about the business of life, handling its details with the same +capable old drawl. Only his mother, with the divination of mothers, +declared that since the night of the opera house meeting Lorne had +been "all worked up." She watched him with furtive anxious looks, was +solicitous about his food, expressed relief when she knew him to be +safely in bed and asleep. He himself observed himself with discontent, +unable to fathom his extraordinary lapse from self-control on the night +of his final address. He charged it to the strain of unavoidable office +work on top of the business of the campaign, abused his nerves, talked +of a few days' rest when they had settled Winter. He could think of +nothing but the points he had forgotten when he had his great chance. +"The flag should have come in at the end," he would say to himself, +trying vainly to remember where it did come in. He was ill pleased with +the issue of that occasion; and it was small compensation to be told by +Stella that his speech gave her shivers up and down her back. + +Meanwhile the theory of Empire coursed in his blood, fed by the +revelation of the future of his country in every newspaper, by the +calculated prophecies of American onlookers, and by the telegrams which +repeated the trumpet notes of Wallingham's war upon the mandarinate of +Great Britain. It occupied him so that he began to measure and limit +what he had to say about it, and to probe the casual eye for sympathy +before he would give an inch of rope to his enthusiasm. He found it as +hard as ever to understand that the public interest should be otherwise +preoccupied, as it plainly was, that the party organ, terrified of +Quebec, should shuffle away from the subject with perfunctory and +noncommittal reference, that among the men he met in the street, +nobody's blood seemed stirred, whatever the day's news was from England. +He subscribed to the Toronto Post, the leading organ of the Tories, +because of its fuller reports and more sympathetic treatment of the +Idea, due to the fact that the Idea originated in a brain temporarily +affiliated to the Conservative party. If the departure to imperial +preference had any damage in it for Canadian interests, it would be +for those which the Post made its special care; but the spirit of party +draws the breath of expediency, and the Post flaunting the Union Jack +every other day, put secondary manufactures aside for future discussion, +and tickled the wheat-growers with the two-shilling advantage they were +coming into at the hands of the English Conservatives, until Liberal +leaders began to be a little anxious about a possible loss of +wheat-growing votes. It was, as John Murchison said, a queer position +for everybody concerned; queer enough, no doubt, to admit a Tory journal +into the house on sufferance and as a special matter; but he had a +disapproving look for it as it lay on the hall floor, and seldom was the +first to open it. + +Nevertheless Lorne found more satisfaction in talking imperialism with +his father than with anyone else. While the practical half of John +Murchison was characteristically alive to the difficulties involved, +the sentimental half of him was ready at any time to give out cautious +sparks of sympathy with the splendour of Wallingham's scheme; and he +liked the feeling that a son of his should hark back in his allegiance +to the old land. There was a kind of chivalry in the placing of certain +forms of beauty--political honour and public devotion, which blossomed +best, it seemed, over there--above the material ease and margin of the +new country, and even above the grand chance it offered for a man to +make his mark. Mr Murchison was susceptible to this in anyone, and +responsive to it in his son. + +As to the local party leaders, they had little more than a shrug for the +subject. So far as they were concerned, there was no Empire and no Idea; +Wallingham might as well not have been born. It seemed to Lorne that +they maintained toward him personally a special reticence about it. +Reticence indeed characterized their behaviour generally during the +period between the abandonment of the suits and the arrangement of the +second Liberal convention. They had little advice for him about his +political attitude, little advice about anything. He noticed that his +presence on one or two occasions seemed to embarrass them, and that his +arrival would sometimes have a disintegrating effect upon a group in the +post-office or at a street corner. He added it, without thinking, to his +general heaviness; they held it a good deal against him, he supposed, to +have reduced their proud standing majority to a beggarly two figures; he +didn't blame them. + +I cannot think that the sum of these depressions alone would have +been enough to overshadow so buoyant a soul as Lorne Murchison's. +The characteristics of him I have tried to convey were grafted on an +excellent fund of common sense. He was well aware of the proportions of +things; he had no despair of the Idea, nor would he despair should the +Idea etherealize and fly away. Neither had he, for his personal honour, +any morbid desires toward White Clam Shell or Finnigan's cat. His luck +had been a good deal better than it might have been; he recognized that +as fully as any sensible young man could, and as for the Great Chance, +and the queer grip it had on him, he would have argued that too if +anyone had approached him curiously about it. There I think we might +doubt his conclusions. There is nothing subtler, more elusive to trace +than the intercurrents of the emotions. Politics and love are thought +of at opposite poles, and Wallingham perhaps would have laughed to know +that he owed an exalted allegiance in part to a half-broken heart. Yet +the impulse that is beyond our calculation, the thing we know potential +in the blood but not to be summoned or conditioned, lies always in the +shadow of the ideal; and who can analyse that, and say, "Of this class +is the will to believe in the integrity of the beloved and false; +of that is the desire to lift a nation to the level of its +mountain-ranges"? Both dispositions have a tendency to overwork the +heart; and it is easy to imagine that they might interact. Lorne +Murchison's wish, which was indeed a burning longing and necessity, +to believe in the Dora Milburn of his passion, had been under a strain +since the night on which he brought her the pledge which she refused +to wear. He had hardly been conscious of it in the beginning, but by +constant suggestion it had grown into his knowledge, and for weeks he +had taken poignant account of it. His election had brought him no nearer +a settlement with her objection to letting the world know of their +relations. The immediate announcement that it was to be disputed gave +Dora another chance, and once again postponed the assurance that he +longed for with a fever which was his own condemnation of her, if he +could have read that sign. For months he had seen so little of her, had +so altered his constant habit of going to the Milburns', that his family +talked of it, wondering among themselves; and Stella indulged in hopeful +speculations. They did not wonder or speculate at the Milburns'. It was +an axiom there that it is well to do nothing rashly. + +Lorne, in the office on Market Street, had been replying to Mr Fulke to +the effect that the convention could hardly be much longer postponed, +but that as yet he had no word of the date of it when the telephone bell +rang and Mr Farquharson's voice at the other end asked him to come over +to the committee room. "They've decided about it now, I imagine," +he told his senior, putting on his hat; and something of the wonted +fighting elation came upon him as he went down the stairs. He was right +in his supposition. They had decided about it, and they were waiting, +in a group that made every effort to look casual, to tell him when he +arrived. + +They had delegated what Horace Williams called "the job" to Mr +Farquharson, and he was actually struggling with the preliminaries of +it, when Bingham, uncomfortable under the curious quietude of the young +fellow's attention, burst out with the whole thing. + +"The fact is, Murchison, you can't poll the vote. There's no man in the +Riding we'd be better pleased to send to the House; but we've got to win +this election, and we can't win it with you." + +"You think you can't?" said Lorne. + +"You see, old man," Horace Williams put in, "you didn't get rid of that +save-the-Empire-or-die scheme of yours soon enough. People got to think +you meant something by it." + +"I shall never get rid of it," Lorne returned simply, and the others +looked at one another. + +"The popular idea seems to be," said Mr Farquharson judicially, "that +you would not hesitate to put Canada to some material loss, or at least +to postpone her development in various important directions, for the +sake of the imperial connection." + +"Wasn't that," Lorne asked him, "what, six months ago, you were all +prepared to do?" + +"Oh, no," said Bingham, with the air of repudiating for everybody +concerned. "Not for a cent. We were willing at one time to work it +for what is was worth, but it never was worth that, and if you'd had a +little more experience, Murchison, you'd have realized it." + +"That's right, Lorne," contributed Horace Williams. "Experience--that's +all you want. You've got everything else, and a darned sight more. We'll +get you there, all in good time. But this time--" + +"You want me to step down and out," said Lorne. + +"That's for you to say," Bingham told him. "We can nominate you again +all right, but we're afraid we can't get you the convention. Young and +Windle have been working like moles for the past ten days--" + +"For Carter?" interrupted Lorne: "Carter, of course." + +They nodded. Carter stood the admitted fact. + +"I'm sorry it's Carter," said Lorne thoughtfully. "However--" And he +dropped, staring before him, into silence. The others eyed him from +serious, underhung faces. Horace Williams, with an obvious effort, got +up and clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Brace up, old chap," he said. "You made a blame good fight for us, and +we'll do the same for you another day." + +"However, gentlemen," the young man gathered himself up to say, "I +believe I understand the situation. You are my friends and this is your +advice. We must save the seat. I'll see Carter. If I can get anything +out of him to make me think he'll go straight on the scheme to save the +Empire"--he smiled faintly--"when it comes to a vote, I'll withdraw in +his favour at the convention. Horace here will think up something for +me--any old lie will do, I suppose? In any case, of course, I withdraw." + +He took his hat, and they all got up, startled a little at the quick +and simple close of the difficult scene they had anticipated. Horace +Williams offered his hand. + +"Shake, Lorne," he said, and the other two, coming nearer, followed his +example. + +"Why, yes," said Lorne. + +He left them with a brief excuse, and they stood together in a moment's +silence, three practical politicians who had delivered themselves from a +dangerous network involving higher things. + +"Dash these heart-to-heart talks," said Bingham irritably, "it's the +only thing to do, but why the devil didn't he want something out of it? +I had that Registrarship in my inside pocket." + +"If anybody likes to kick me round the room," remarked Horace Williams +with depression, "I have no very strong objection." + +"And now," Mr Farquharson said with a sigh, "we understand it's got +to be Carter. I suppose I'm too old a man to do jockey for a +three-year-old, but I own I've enjoyed the ride." + +Lorne Murchison went out into the companionship of Main Street, the new +check in his fortunes hanging before him. We may imagine that it hung +heavily; we may suppose that it cut off the view. As Bingham would have +said, he was "up against it" and that, when one is confidently treading +the straight path to accomplishment, is a dazing experience. He was +up against it, yet already he had recoiled far enough to consider it; +already he was adapting his heart, his nerves, and his future to it. +His heart took it greatly, told him he had not yet force enough for the +business he had aspired to, but gave him a secret assurance. Another +time he would find more strength and show more cunning; he would not +disdain the tools of diplomacy and desirability, he would dream no more +of short cuts in great political departures. His heart bowed to its +sorry education and took counsel with him, bidding him be of good +courage and push on. He was up against it, but he would get round it, +and there on the other side lay the same wide prospect, with the +Idea shining high. At one point he faltered, but that was a matter of +expediency rather than of courage. He searched and selected, as he went +along the street, among phrases that would convey his disaster to Dora +Milburn. + +Just at that point, the turning to his own office, he felt it hard luck +that Alfred Hesketh should meet and want a word with him. Hesketh had +become tolerable only when other things were equal. Lorne had not seen +him since the night of his election, when his felicitations had seemed +to stand for very little one way or another. His manner now was more +important charged with other considerations. Lorne waited on the +word, uncomfortably putting off the necessity of coming out with his +misfortune. + +"I haven't come across you, Murchison, but you've had my sympathy, I +needn't say, all this time. A man can't go into politics with gloves +on, there's no doubt about that. Though mind you, I never for a moment +believed that you let yourself in personally. I mean, I've held you all +through, above the faintest suspicion." + +"Have you?" said Lorne. "Well, I suppose I ought to be grateful." + +"Oh, I have--I assure you! But give me a disputed election for the +revelation of a rotten state of things--eh?" + +"It does show up pretty low, doesn't it?" + +"However, upon my word, I don't know whether it's any better in England. +At bottom we've got a lower class to deal with, you know. I'm +beginning to have a great respect for the electorate of this country, +Murchison--not necessarily the methods, but the rank and file of the +people. They know what they want, and they're going to have it." + +"Yes," said Lorne, "I guess they are." + +"And that brings me to my news, old man. I've given the matter a lot of +time and a lot of consideration, and I've decided that I can't do better +than drive in a stake for myself in this new country of yours." + +"It isn't so very new," Lorne told him, in rather dull response, "but I +expect that's a pretty good line to take. Why, yes--first rate." + +"As to the line," Hesketh went on, weightily, leading the way through +an encumbering group of farmers at a corner, "I've selected that, too. +Traction-engines. Milburn has never built them yet, but he says the +opportunity is ripe--" + +"Milburn!" Lorne wheeled sharply. + +"My future partner. He was planning extensions just as I came along, a +fortunate moment, I hope it will prove, for us both. I'd like to go +into it with you, some time when you have leisure--it's a scheme of +extraordinary promise. By the way, there's an idea in it that ought to +appeal to you--driving the force that's to subdue this wilderness of +yours." + +"When you've lived here for a while," said Lorne, painfully preoccupied, +"you'll think it quite civilized. So you're going in with Milburn?" + +"Oh, I'm proud of it already! I shall make a good Canadian, I trust. And +as good an imperialist," he added, "as is consistent with the claims of +my adopted country." + +"That seems to be the popular view," said Lorne. + +"And a very reasonable view, too. But I'm not going to embark on that +with you, old fellow--you shan't draw me in. I know where you are on +that subject." + +"So do I--I'm stranded. But it's all right--the subject isn't," Lorne +said quietly; and Hesketh's exclamations and inquiries brought out the +morning's reverse. The young Englishman was cordially sorry, full +of concern and personal disappointment, abandoning his own absorbing +affairs, and devoting his whole attention to the unfortunate exigency +which Lorne dragged out of his breast, in pure manfulness, to lay before +him. + +However, they came to the end of it, arriving at the same time at +the door which led up the stairs to the office of Fulke, Warner, and +Murchison. + +"Thank you," said Lorne. '"Thank you. Oh, I dare say it will come all +right in the course of time. You return to England, I suppose--or do +you?--before you go in with Milburn?" + +"I sail next week," said Hesketh, and a great relief shot into the face +of his companion. "I have a good deal to see to over there. I shan't +get back much before June, I fancy. And--I must tell you--I am doing the +thing very thoroughly. This business of naturalizing myself, I mean. I +am going to marry that very charming girl--a great friend of yours, by +the way, I know her to be--Miss Milburn." + +For accepting the strokes of fate we have curiously trivial +demonstrations. Lorne met Hesketh's eye with the steadiness of a lion's +in his own; the unusual thing he did was to take his hands out of his +pockets and let his arms hang loosely by his side. It was as tragic a +gesture of helplessness as if he had flung them above his head. + +"Dora is going to marry you?" + +"I believe she will do me that honour. And I consider it an honour. +Miss Milburn will compare with any English girl I ever met. But I +half expected you to congratulate me. I know she wrote to you this +morning--you were one of the first." + +"I shall probably find the letter," said Lorne mechanically, "when I go +home." + +He still eyed Hesketh narrowly, as if he had somewhere concealed about +him the explanation of this final bitter circumstance. He had a desire +not to leave him, to stand and parley--to go upstairs to the office +would be to plunge into the gulf. He held back from that and leaned +against the door frame, crossing his arms and looking over into the +market-place for subjects to postpone Hesketh's departure. They talked +of various matters in sight, Hesketh showing the zest of his newly +determined citizenship in every observation--the extension of the +electric tramway, the pulling down of the old Fire Hall. In one +consciousness Lorne made concise and relevant remarks; in another he sat +in a spinning dark world and waited for the crash. + +It seemed to come when Hesketh said, preparing to go, "I'll tell Miss +Milburn I saw you. I suppose this change in your political prospects +won't affect your professional plans in any way you'll stick on here, at +the Bar?" + +It was the very shock of calamity, and for the instant he could see +nothing in the night of it but one far avenue of escape, a possibility +he had never thought of seriously until that moment. The conception +seemed to form itself on his lips, to be involuntary. + +"I don't know. A college friend has been pressing me for some time to +join him in Milwaukee. He offers me plenty of work, and I am thinking +seriously of closing with him." + +"Go over to the United States? You can't mean that!" + +"Oh yes--it's the next best thing!" + +Hesketh's face assumed a gravity, a look of feeling and of remonstrance. +He came a step nearer and put a hand on his companion's arm. + +"Come now, Murchison," he said, "I ask you--is this a time to be +thinking of chucking the Empire?" + +Lorne moved farther into the passage with an abruptness which left his +interlocutor staring. He stood there for a moment in silence, and then +turned to mount the stair with a reply which a passing dray happily +prevented from reaching Hesketh's ears. + +"No, damn you," he said. "It's not!" + +I cannot let him finish on that uncontrolled phrase, though it will be +acknowledged that his provocation was great. Nor must we leave him in +heavy captivity to the thought of oblivion in the unregarding welter +of the near republic, of plunging into more strenuous activities and +abandoning his ideal, in queer inverted analogy to the refuging of weak +women in a convent. We know that his ideal was strong enough to reassert +itself, under a keen irony of suggestion, in the very depth of his +overwhelming: and the thing that could rise in him at that black moment +may be trusted, perhaps, to reclaim his fortitude and reconsecrate his +energy when these things come again into the full current of his life. +The illness that, after two or three lagging days, brought him its +merciful physical distraction was laid in the general understanding +at the door of his political disappointment; and, among a crowd +of sympathizers confined to no party, Horace Williams, as his wife +expressed it, was pretty nearly wild during its progress. The power of +the press is regrettably small in such emergencies, but what restoration +it had Horace anxiously administered; the Express published a daily +bulletin. The second election passed only half-noticed by the Murchison +family; Carter very nearly re-established the Liberal majority. The +Dominion dwelt upon this repeated demonstration of the strength of +Reform principles in South Fox, and Mrs Murchison said they were welcome +to Carter. + +Many will sympathize with Mrs Murchison at this point, I hope, and +regret to abandon her in such equivocal approval of the circumstances +which have arisen round her. Too anxiously occupied at home to take her +share in the general pleasant sensation of Dr Drummond's marriage, she +was compelled to give it a hurried consideration and a sanction which +was practically wrested from her. She could not be clear as to the +course of events that led to it, nor entirely satisfied, as she said, +about the ins and outs of the affair; this although she felt she could +be clearer, and possibly had better grounds for being satisfied, than +other people. As to Advena's simple statement that Miss Cameron had +made a second choice of the Doctor, changing her mind, as far as Mrs +Murchison could see, without rhyme or reason, that Mrs Murchison took +leave to find a very poor explanation. Advena's own behaviour toward +the rejection is one of the things which her mother declares, probably +truly, that she never will understand. To pick up a man in the actual +fling of being thrown over, will never, in Mrs Murchison's eyes, +constitute a decorous proceeding. I suppose she thinks the creature +might have been made to wait at least until he had found his feet. She +professes to cherish no antagonism to her future son-in-law on this +account, although, as she says, it's a queer way to come into a family; +and she makes no secret of her belief that Miss Cameron showed excellent +judgement in doing as she did, however that far-seeing woman came to +have the opportunity. + +Hesketh had sailed before Lorne left his room, to return in June to +those privileges and prospects of citizenship which he so eminently +deserves to enjoy. When her brother's convalescence and departure for +Florida had untied her tongue, Stella widely proclaimed her opinion that +Mr Hesketh's engagement to Miss Milburn was the most suitable thing that +could be imagined or desired. We know the youngest Miss Murchison to be +inclined to impulsive views; but it would be safe, I think, to follow +her here. Now that the question no longer circles in the actual vortex +of Elgin politics Mr Octavius Milburn's attitude toward the +conditions of imperial connection has become almost as mellow as +ever. Circumstances may arise any day, however, to stir up that latent +bitterness which is so potential in him: and then I fear there will be +no restraining him from again attacking Wallingham in the papers. + +Henry Cruickshank, growing old in his eminence and less secure, perhaps, +in the increasing conflict of loud voices, of his own grasp of the +ultimate best, fearing too, no doubt, the approach of that cynicism +which, moral or immoral, is the real hoar of age, wrote to young +Murchison while he was still examining the problems of the United States +with the half-heart of the alien, and offered him a partnership. The +terms were so simple and advantageous as only to be explicable on the +grounds I have mentioned, though no phrase suggested them in the brief +formulas of the letter, in which one is tempted to find the individual +parallel of certain propositions of a great government also growing old. +The offer was accepted, not without emotion, and there, too, it would +be good to trace the parallel, were we permitted; but for that it is too +soon, or perhaps it is too late. Here, for Lorne and for his country, +we lose the thread of destiny. The shuttles fly, weaving the will of the +nations, with a skein for ever dipped again; and he goes forth to his +share in the task among those by whose hand and direction the pattern +and the colours will be made. + + +END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Imperialist, by +(a.k.a. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Imperialist + +Author: Sara Jeannette Duncan + a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5301] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 25, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST *** + + + + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan. + + + + + +Sara Jeannette Duncan, 1861-1922 (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes) + +The Imperialist + +1904 + + + + +Chapter I + +It would have been idle to inquire into the antecedents, +or even the circumstances, of old Mother Beggarlegs. She +would never tell; the children, at all events, were +convinced of that; and it was only the children, perhaps, +who had the time and the inclination to speculate. Her +occupation was clear; she presided like a venerable +stooping hawk, over a stall in the covered part of the +Elgin market-place, where she sold gingerbread horses +and large round gingerbread cookies, and brown sticky +squares of what was known in all circles in Elgin as +taffy. She came, it was understood, with the dawn; with +the night she vanished, spending the interval on a not +improbable broomstick. Her gingerbread was better than +anybody's; but there was no comfort in standing, first +on one foot and then on the other, while you made up your +mind--the horses were spirited and you could eat them a +leg at a time, but there was more in the cookies--she +bent such a look on you, so fierce and intolerant of +vacillation. She belonged to the group of odd characters, +rarer now than they used to be, etched upon the vague +consciousness of small towns as in a way mysterious and +uncanny; some said that Mother Beggarlegs was connected +with the aristocracy and some that she had been "let off" +being hanged. The alternative was allowed full swing, +but in any case it was clear that such persons contributed +little to the common good and, being reticent, were not +entertaining. So you bought your gingerbread, concealing, +as it were, your weapons, paying your copper coins with +a neutral nervous eye, and made off to a safe distance, +whence you turned to shout insultingly, if you were an +untrounced young male of Elgin, "Old Mother Beggarlegs! +Old Mother Beggarlegs!" And why "Beggarlegs" nobody in +the world could tell you. It might have been a dateless +waggery, or it might have been a corruption of some more +dignified surname, but it was all she ever got. Serious, +meticulous persons called her "Mrs" Beggarlegs, slightly +lowering their voices and slurring it, however, it must +be admitted. The name invested her with a graceless, +anatomical interest, it penetrated her wizened black and +derisively exposed her; her name went far indeed to make +her dramatic. Lorne Murchison, when he was quite a little +boy was affected by this and by the unfairness of the +way it singled her out. Moved partly by the oppression +of the feeling and partly by a desire for information he +asked her sociably one day, in the act of purchase, why +the gilt was generally off her gingerbread. He had been +looking long, as a matter of fact, for gingerbread with +the gilt on it, being accustomed to the phrase on the +lips of his father in connection with small profits. +Mother Beggarlegs, so unaccustomed to politeness that +she could not instantly recognize it, answered him with +an imprecation at which he, no doubt, retreated, suddenly +thrown on the defensive hurling the usual taunt. One +prefers to hope he didn't, with the invincible optimism +one has for the behaviour of lovable people; but whether +or not his kind attempt at colloquy is the first indication +I can find of that active sympathy with the disabilities +of his fellow-beings which stamped him later so intelligent +a meliorist. Even in his boy's beginning he had a heart +for the work; and Mother Beggarlegs, but for a hasty +conclusion, might have made him a friend. + +It is hard to invest Mother Beggarlegs with importance, +but the date helps me--the date I mean, of this chapter +about Elgin; she was a person to be reckoned with on the +twenty-fourth of May. I will say at once, for the reminder +to persons living in England that the twenty-fourth of +May was the Queen's Birthday. Nobody in Elgin can possibly +have forgotten it. The Elgin children had a rhyme about +it-- + + The twenty-fourth of May + Is the Queen's Birthday; + If you don't give us a holiday, + We'll all run away. + +But Elgin was in Canada. In Canada the twenty-fourth of +May WAS the Queen's Birthday; and these were times and +regions far removed from the prescription that the +anniversary "should be observed" on any of those various +outlying dates which by now, must have produced in her +immediate people such indecision as to the date upon +which Her Majesty really did come into the world. That +day, and that only, was the observed, the celebrated, a +day with an essence in it, dawning more gloriously than +other days and ending more regretfully, unless, indeed, +it fell on a Sunday when it was "kept" on the Monday, +with a slightly clouded feeling that it wasn't exactly +the same thing. Travelled persons, who had spent the +anniversary there, were apt to come back with a poor +opinion of its celebration in "the old country"--a pleasant +relish to the more-than-ever appreciated advantages of +the new, the advantages that came out so by contrast. +More space such persons indicated, more enterprise they +boasted, and even more loyalty they would flourish, all +with an affectionate reminiscent smile at the little ways +of a grandmother. A "Bank" holiday, indeed! Here it was +a real holiday, that woke you with bells and cannon--who +has forgotten the time the ancient piece of ordnance in +"the Square" blew out all the windows in the Methodist +church?--and went on with squibs and crackers till you +didn't know where to step on the sidewalks, and ended up +splendidly with rockets and fire-balloons and drunken +Indians vociferous on their way to the lock-up. Such a +day for the hotels, with teams hitched three abreast in +front of their aromatic barrooms; such a day for the +circus, with half the farmers of Fox County agape before +the posters--with all their chic and shock they cannot +produce such posters nowadays, nor are there any vacant +lots to form attractive backgrounds--such a day for Mother +Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for +eating and drinking, were the only places in which business +was done; the public sentiment put universal shutters +up, but the public appetite insisted upon excepting the +means to carnival. An air of ceremonial festivity those +fastened shutters gave; the sunny little town sat round +them, important and significant, and nobody was ever +known to forget that they were up, and go on a fool's +errand. No doubt they had an impressiveness for the young +countryfolk that strolled up and down Main Street in +their honest best, turning into Snow's for ice-cream when +a youth was disposed to treat. (Gallantry exacted ten-cent +dishes, but for young ladies alone, or family parties, +Mrs Snow would bring five-cent quantities almost without +asking, and for very small boys one dish and the requisite +number of spoons.) There was discrimination, there was +choice, in this matter of treating. A happy excitement +accompanied it, which you could read in the way Corydon +clapped his soft felt hat on his head as he pocketed the +change. To be treated--to ten-cent dishes--three times +in the course of the day by the same young man gave matter +for private reflection and for public entertainment, +expressed in the broad grins of less reckless people. I +speak of a soft felt hat, but it might be more than that: +it might be a dark green one, with a feather in it; and +here was distinction, for such a hat indicated that its +owner belonged to the Independent Order of Foresters, +who Would leave their spring wheat for forty miles round +to meet in Elgin and march in procession, wearing their +hats, and dazzlingly scatter upon Main Street. They gave +the day its touch of imagination, those green cocked +hats; they were lyrical upon the highways; along the +prosaic sidewalks by twos and threes they sang together. +It is no great thing, a hat of any quality; but a small +thing may ring dramatic on the right metal, and in the +vivid idea of Lorne Murchison and his sister Advena a +Robin Hood walked in every Independent Forester, especially +in the procession. Which shows the risks you run if you, +a person of honest livelihood and solicited vote, adopt +any portion of a habit not familiar to you. and go marching +about with a banner and a band. Two children may be +standing at the first street corner, to whom your +respectability and your property may at once become +illusion and your outlawry the delightful fact. + +A cheap trip brought the Order of Green Hats to Elgin; +and there were cheap trips on this great day to persuade +other persons to leave it. The Grand Trunk had even then +an idea of encouraging social combination for change of +scene, and it was quite a common thing for the operatives +of the Milburn Boiler Company to arrange to get themselves +carried to the lakeside or "the Falls" at half a dollar +a head. The "hands" got it up themselves and it was a +question in Elgin whether one might sink one's dignity +and go as a hand for the sake of the fifty-cent opportunity, +a question usually decided in the negative. The social +distinctions of Elgin may not be easily appreciated by +people accustomed to the rough and ready standards of a +world at the other end of the Grand Trunk; but it will +be clear at a glance that nobody whose occupation prescribed +a clean face could be expected to travel cheek by jowl, +as a privilege, with persons who were habitually seen +with smutty ones, barefaced smut, streaming out at the +polite afternoon hour of six, jangling an empty dinner +pail. So much we may decide, and leave it, reflecting as +we go how simple and satisfactory, after all, are the +prejudices which can hold up such obvious justification. +There was recently to be pointed out in England the heir +to a dukedom who loved stoking, and got his face smutty +by preference. He would have been deplorably subversive +of accepted conventions in Elgin; but, happily or otherwise, +such persons and such places have at present little more +than an imaginative acquaintance, vaguely cordial on the +one side, vaguely critical on the other, and of no +importance in the sum. + +Polite society, to return to it, preferred the alternative +of staying at home and mowing the lawn or drinking +raspberry vinegar on its own beflagged verandah; looking +forward in the afternoon to the lacrosse match. There +was nearly always a lacrosse match on the Queen's Birthday, +and it was the part of elegance to attend and encourage +the home team, as well as that of small boys, with broken +straw hats, who sneaked an entrance, and were more +enthusiastic than anyone. It was "a quarter" to get in, +so the spectators were naturally composed of persons who +could afford the quarter, and persons like the young +Flannigans and Finnigans, who absolutely couldn't, but +who had to be there all the same. Lorne and Advena +Murchison never had the quarter, so they witnessed few +lacrosse matches, though they seldom failed to refresh +themselves by a sight of the players after the game when, +crimson and perspiring, but still glorious in striped +jerseys, their lacrosses and running shoes slung over +one shoulder, these heroes left the field. + +The Birthday I am thinking of, with Mrs Murchison as a +central figure in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for +dinner, there was a lacrosse match of some importance +for the Fox County Championship and the Fox County Cup +as presented by the Member for the South Riding. Mrs +Murchison remains the central figure, nevertheless, with +her family radiating from her, gathered to help or to +hinder in one of those domestic crises which arose when +the Murchisons were temporarily deprived of a "girl." +Everybody was subject to them in Elgin, everybody had to +acknowledge and face them. Let a new mill be opened, and +it didn't matter what you paid her or how comfortable +you made her, off she would go, and you might think +yourself lucky if she gave a week's warning. Hard times +shut down the mills and brought her back again; but +periods of prosperity were very apt to find the ladies +of Elgin where I am compelled to introduce Mrs Murchison +--in the kitchen. "You'd better get up--the girl's gone," +Lorne had stuck his head into his sister's room to +announce, while yet the bells were ringing and the rifles +of the local volunteers were spitting out the feu de +joie. "I've lit the fire an' swep' out the dining-room. +You tell mother. Queen's Birthday, too--I guess Lobelia's +about as mean as they're made!" And the Murchisons had +descended to face the situation. Lorne had by then done +his part, and gone out into the chromatic possibilities +of the day; but the sense of injury he had communicated +to Advena in her bed remained and expanded. Lobelia, it +was felt. had scurvily manipulated the situation--her +situation, it might have been put, if any Murchison had +been in the temper for jesting. She had taken unjustifiable +means to do a more unjustifiable thing, to secure for +herself an improper and unlawful share of the day's +excitements, transferring her work, by the force of +circumstances, to the shoulders of other people since, +as Mrs Murchison remarked, somebody had to do it. Nor +had she her mistress testified the excuse of fearing +unreasonable confinement. "I told her she might go when +she had done her dishes after dinner," said Mrs Murchison, +"and then she had only to come back at six and get +tea--what's getting tea? I advised her to finish her +ironing yesterday, so as to be free of it today; and she +said she would be very glad to. Now, I wonder if she DID +finish it!" and Mrs Murchison put down her pan of potatoes +with a thump to look in the family clothes basket. "Not +she! Five shirts and ALL the coloured things. I call it +downright deceit!" + +"I believe I know the reason she'll SAY," said Advena. +"She objects to rag carpet in her bedroom. She told me so." + +"Rag carpet--upon my word!" Mrs Murchison dropped her +knife to exclaim. "It's what her betters have to do with! +I've known the day when that very piece of rag carpet-- +sixty balls there were in it and every one I sewed with +my own fingers--was the best I had for my spare room, +with a bit of ingrain in the middle. Dear me!" she went +on with a smile that lightened the whole situation, "how +proud I was of that performance! She didn't tell ME she +objected to rag carpet!" + +"No, Mother," Advena agreed, "she knew better." + +They were all there in the kitchen, supporting their +mother, and it seems an opportunity to name them. Advena, +the eldest, stood by the long kitchen table washing the +breakfast cups in "soft" soap and hot water. The soft +soap--Mrs Murchison had a barrelful boiled every spring +in the back yard, an old colonial economy she hated to +resign--made a fascinating brown lather with iridescent +bubbles. Advena poured cupfuls of it from on high to see +the foam rise, till her mother told her for mercy's sake +to get on with those dishes. She stood before a long low +window, looking out into the garden and the light, +filtering through apple branches on her face showed her +strongly featured and intelligent for fourteen. Advena +was named after one grandmother; when the next girl came +Mrs Murchison, to make an end of the matter, named it +Abigail, after the other. She thought both names outlandish +and acted under protest, but hoped that now everybody +would be satisfied. Lorne came after Advena, at the period +of a naive fashion of christening the young sons of Canada +in the name of her Governor-General. It was a simple way +of attesting a loyal spirit, but with Mrs Murchison more +particular motives operated. The Marquis of Lorne was +not only the deputy of the throne, he was the son-in-law +of a good woman of whom Mrs Murchison thought more, and +often said it, for being the woman she was than for being +twenty times a Queen; and he had made a metrical translation +of the Psalms, several of which were included in the +revised psalter for the use of the Presbyterian Church +in Canada, from which the whole of Knox Church sang to +the praise of God every Sunday. These were circumstances +that weighed with Mrs Murchison, and she called her son +after the Royal representative, feeling that she was +doing well for him in a sense beyond the mere bestowal +of a distinguished and a euphonious name, though that, +as she would have willingly acknowledged, was "well enough +in its place." + +We must take this matter of names seriously; the Murchisons +always did. Indeed, from the arrival of a new baby until +the important Sunday of the christening. nothing was +discussed with such eager zest and such sustained interest +as the name he should get--there was a fascinating list +at the back of the dictionary--and to the last minute it +was problematical. In Stella's case, Mrs Murchison actually +changed her mind on the way to church; and Abby, who had +sat through the sermon expecting Dorothy Maud, which she +thought lovely, publicly cried with disappointment. Stella +was the youngest, and Mrs Murchison was thankful to have +a girl at last whom she could name without regard to her +own relations or anybody else's. I have skipped about a +good deal, but I have only left out two, the boys who +came between Abby and Stella. In their names the +contemporary observer need not be too acute to discover +both an avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr +Murchison's political views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie +nor an Oliver Mowat could very well grow up into anything +but a sound Liberal in that part of the world without +feeling himself an unendurable paradox. To christen a +baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to public +attention; the faint relaxation about the lips of Dr +Drummond--the best of the Liberals himself, though he +made a great show of keeping it out of the pulpit-- +recognized this, and the just perceptible stir of the +congregation proved it. Sonorously he said it. "Oliver +Mowat, I baptize thee in the Name of the Father--" The +compliment should have all the impressiveness the rite +could give it, while the Murchison brothers and sisters, +a-row in the family pew, stood on one foot with excitement +as to how Oliver Mowat would take the drops that defined +him. The verdict was, on the way home, that he behaved +splendidly. Alexander Mackenzie, the year before, had +roared. + +He was weeping now, at the age of seven, silently, but +very copiously, behind the woodpile. His father had +finally cuffed him for importunity; and the world was no +place for a just boy, who asked nothing but his rights. +Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood +inconscient and irresponsible for any share in his black +circumstances; and his tears fell among the lichens of +the stump he was bowed on till, observing them, he began +to wonder whether he could cry enough to make a pond +there, and was presently disappointed to find the source +exhausted. The Murchisons were all imaginative. + +The others, Oliver and Abby and Stella, still "tormented." +Poor Alec's rights--to a present of pocket-money on the +Queen's Birthday--were common ones, and almost statutory. +How their father, sitting comfortably with his pipe in +the flickering May shadows under the golden pippin, +reading the Toronto paper, could evade his liability in +the matter was unfathomable to the Murchisons; it was +certainly illiberal; they had a feeling that it was +illegal. A little teasing was generally necessary, but +the resistance today had begun to look ominous and Alec, +as we know, too temerarious, had retired in disorder to +the woodpile. + +Oliver was wiping Advena's dishes. He exercised himself +ostentatiously upon a plate, standing in the door to be +within earshot of his father. + +"Eph Wheeler," he informed his family, "Eph Wheeler, he's +got twenty-five cents, an' a English sixpence, an' a +Yankee nickel. An' Mr Wheeler's only a common working +man, a lot poorer'n we are." + +Mr Murchison removed his pipe from his lips in order, +apparently, to follow unimpeded the trend of the Dominion's +leading article. Oliver eyed him anxiously. "Do, Father," +he continued in logical sequence. "Aw do." + +"Make him, Mother," said Abby indignantly. "It's the +Queen's BIRTHDAY!" + +"Time enough when the butter bill's paid," said Mrs +Murchison. + +"Oh the BUTTER bill! Say, Father, aren't you going to?" + +"What?" asked John Murchison, and again took out his +pipe, as if this were the first he had heard of the +matter. + +"Give us our fifteen cents each to celebrate with. You +can't do it under that," Oliver added firmly. "Crackers +are eight cents a packet this year, the small size." + +"Nonsense," said Mr Murchison. The reply was definite +and final, and its ambiguity was merely due to the fact +that their father disliked giving a plump refusal. +"Nonsense" was easier to say, if not to hear than "No." +Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by +the pump, and sought his brother behind the woodpile. +Then he returned to the charge. + +"Look here, Father," he said, "CASH DOWN, we'll take +ten." + +John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were +usually impregnated with meaning, especially in anger. +"No more of this," he said. "Celebrate fiddlesticks! Go +and make yourselves of some use. You'll get nothing from +me, for I haven't got it." So saying, he went through +the kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed. +His eldest son, arriving over the backyard fence in a +state of heat, was just in time to hear him. Lorne's +apprehension of the situation was instant, and his face +fell, but the depression plainly covered such splendid +spirits that his brother asked resentfully, "Well, what's +the matter with YOU?" + +"Matter? Oh, not much. I'm going to see the Cayugas beat +the Wanderers, that's all; an' Abe Mackinnon's mother +said he could ask me to come back to tea with them. Can +I, Mother?" + +"There's no objection that I know of," said Mrs Murchison, +shaking her apron free of stray potato-parings, "but you +won't get money for the lacrosse match or anything else +from your father today, _I_ can assure you. They didn't +do five dollars worth of business at the store all day +yesterday, and he's as cross as two sticks." + +"Oh, that's all right." Lorne jingled his pocket and +Oliver took a fascinated step toward him. "I made thirty +cents this morning, delivering papers for Fisher. His +boy's sick. I did the North Ward--took me over'n hour. +Guess I can go all right, can't I?" + +"Why, yes, I suppose you can," said his mother. The others +were dumb. Oliver hunched his shoulders and kicked at +the nearest thing that had paint on it. Abby clung to +the pump handle and sobbed aloud. Lorne looked gloomily +about him and went out. Making once more for the back +fence, he encountered Alexander in the recognized family +retreat. "Oh, my goodness!" he said, and stopped. In a +very few minutes he was back in the kitchen, followed +sheepishly by Alexander, whose grimy face expressed the +hope that beat behind his little waistcoat. + +"Say, you kids," he announced, "Alec's got four cents, +an' he says he'll join up. This family's going to celebrate +all right. Come on down town." + +No one could say that the Murchisons were demonstrative. +They said nothing, but they got their hats. Mrs Murchison +looked up from her occupation. + +"Alec," she said, "out of this house you don't go till +you've washed your face. Lorne, come here," she added in +a lower voice, producing a bunch of keys. "If you look +in the right-hand corner of the top small drawer in my +bureau you'll find about twenty cents. Say nothing about +it, and mind you don't meddle with anything else. I guess +the Queen isn't going to owe it all to you." + + + + +Chapter II + +"We've seen changes, Mr Murchison. Aye. We've seen +changes." + +Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison stood together in the store +door, over which the sign "John Murchison: Hardware," +had explained thirty years of varying commercial fortune. +They had pretty well begun life together in Elgin. John +Murchison was one of those who had listened to Mr Drummond's +trial sermon, and had given his vote to "call" him to +the charge. Since then there had been few Sundays when, +morning and evening, Mr Murchison had not been in his +place at the top of his pew, where his dignified and +intelligent head appeared with the isolated significance +of a strong individuality. People looked twice at John +Murchison in a crowd; so did his own children at home. +Hearing some discussion of the selection of a premier, +Alec, looking earnestly at him once said, "Why don't they +tell Father to be it?" The young minister looked twice +at him that morning of the trial sermon, and asked +afterward who he was. A Scotchman, Mr Drummond was told, +not very long from the old country, who had bought the +Playfair business on Main Street, and settled in the +"Plummer Place," which already had a quarter of a century's +standing in the annals of the town. The Playfair business +was a respectable business to buy; the Plummer Place, +though it stood in an unfashionable outskirt, was a +respectable place to settle in; and the minister, in +casting his lot in Elgin, envisaged John Murchison as +part of it, thought of him confidently as a "dependance," +saw him among the future elders and office-bearers of +the congregation, a man who would be punctual with his +pew-rent, sage in his judgements, and whose views upon +church attendance would be extended to his family. + +So the two came, contemporaries, to add their labour and +their lives to the building of this little outpost of +Empire. It was the frankest transfer, without thought of +return; they were there to spend and be spent within the +circumference of the spot they had chosen, with no ambition +beyond. In the course of nature, even their bones and +their memories would enter into the fabric. The new +country filled their eyes; the new town was their +opportunity, its destiny their fate. They were altogether +occupied with its affairs, and the affairs of the growing +Dominion, yet obscure in the heart of each of them ran +the undercurrent of the old allegiance. They had gone +the length of their tether, but the tether was always +there. Thus, before a congregation that always stood in +the early days, had the minister every Sunday morning +for thirty years besought the Almighty, with ardour and +humility, on behalf of the Royal Family. It came in the +long prayer, about the middle. Not in the perfunctory +words of a ritual, but in the language of his choice, +which varied according to what he believed to be the +spiritual needs of the reigning House, and was at one +period, touching certain of its members, though respectful, +extremely candid. The General Assembly of the Church of +Scotland, "now in session," also--was it ever forgotten +once? And even the Prime Minister, "and those who sit in +council with him," with just a hint of extra commendation +if it happened to be Mr Gladstone. The minister of Knox +Church, Elgin, Ontario, Canada, kept his eye on them all. +Remote as he was, and concerned with affairs of which +they could know little, his sphere of duty could never +revolve too far westward to embrace them, nor could his +influence, under any circumstances, cease to be at their +disposal. It was noted by some that after Mr Drummond +had got his D.D. from an American University he also +prayed occasionally for the President of the neighbouring +republic; but this was rebutted by others, who pointed +out that it happened only on the occurrence of +assassinations, and held it reasonable enough. The +cavillers mostly belonged to the congregation of St +Andrew's, "Established"--a glum, old-fashioned lot +indeed--who now and then dropped in of a Sunday evening +to hear Mr Drummond preach. (There wasn't much to be said +for the preaching at St Andrew's.) The Established folk +went on calling the minister of Knox Church "Mr" Drummond +long after he was "Doctor" to his own congregation, on +account of what they chose to consider the dubious source +of the dignity; but the Knox Church people had their own +theory to explain this hypercriticism. and would promptly +turn the conversation to the merits of the sermon. + +Twenty-five years it was, in point, this Monday morning +when the Doctor--not being Established we need not +hesitate, besides by this time nobody did--stood with Mr +Murchison in the store door and talked about having seen +changes. He had preached his anniversary sermon the night +before to a full church when, laying his hand upon his +people's heart, he had himself to repress tears. He was +aware of another strand completed in their mutual bond: +the sermon had been a moral, an emotional, and an oratorical +success; and in the expansion of the following morning +Dr Drummond had remembered that he had promised his +housekeeper a new gas cooking-range, and that it was high +time he should drop into Murchison's to inquire about +it. Mrs Forsyth had mentioned at breakfast that they had +ranges with exactly the improvement she wanted at +Thompson's, but the minister was deaf to the hint. Thompson +was a Congregationalist and, improvement or no improvement, +it wasn't likely that Dr Drummond was going "outside the +congregation" for anything he required. It would have +been on a par with a wandering tendency in his flock, +upon which he systematically frowned. He was as great an +autocrat in this as the rector of any country parish in +England undermined by Dissent; but his sense of obligation +worked unfailingly both ways. + +John Murchison had not said much about the sermon; it +wasn't his way, and Dr Drummond knew it. "You gave us a +good sermon last night, Doctor"; not much more than that, +and "I noticed the Milburns there; we don't often get +Episcopalians"; and again, "The Wilcoxes"--Thomas Wilcox, +wholesale grocer, was the chief prop of St Andrew's--"were +sitting just in front of us. We overtook them going home, +and Wilcox explained how much they liked the music. 'Glad +to see you,' I said. 'Glad to see you for any reason,'" +Mr Murchison's eye twinkled. "But they had a great deal +to say about 'the music.'" It was not an effusive form +of felicitation; the minister would have liked it less +if it had been, felt less justified, perhaps, in remembering +about the range on that particular morning. As it was, +he was able to take it with perfect dignity and good +humour, and to enjoy the point against the Wilcoxes with +that laugh of his that did everybody good to hear; so +hearty it was, so rich in the grain of the voice, so full +of the zest and flavour of the joke. The range had been +selected, and their talk of changes had begun with it, +Mr Murchison pointing out the new idea in the boiler and +Dr Drummond remembering his first kitchen stove that +burned wood and stood on its four legs, with nothing +behind but the stove pipe, and if you wanted a boiler +you took off the front lids and put it on, and how +remarkable even that had seemed to his eyes, fresh from +the conservative kitchen notions of the old country. He +had come, unhappily, a widower to the domestic improvements +on the other side of the Atlantic. "Often I used to +think," he said to Mr Murchison, "if my poor wife could +have seen that stove how delighted she would have been! +But I doubt this would have been too much for her +altogether!" + +"That stove!" answered Mr Murchison. "Well I remember +it. I sold it myself to your predecessor, Mr Wishart, +for thirty dollars--the last purchase he ever made, poor +man. It was great business for me--I had only two others +in the store like it. One of them old Milburn bought--the +father of this man, d'ye mind him?--the other stayed by +me a matter of seven years. I carried a light stock in +those days." + +It was no longer a light stock. The two men involuntarily +glanced round them for the satisfaction of the contrast +Murchison evoked, though neither of them, from motives +of vague delicacy, felt inclined to dwell upon it. John +Murchison had the shyness of an artist in his commercial +success, and the minister possibly felt that his relation +toward the prosperity of a member had in some degree the +embarrassment of a tax-gatherer's. The stock was indeed +heavy now. You had to go upstairs to see the ranges, +where they stood in rows, and every one of them bore +somewhere upon it, in raised black letters, John Murchison's +name. Through the windows came the iterating ring on the +iron from the foundry in Chestnut Street which fed the +shop, with an overflow that found its way from one end +of the country to the other. Finicking visitors to Elgin +found this wearing, but to John Murchison it was the +music that honours the conqueror of circumstances. The +ground floor was given up to the small wares of the +business, chiefly imported; two or three young men, steady +and knowledgeable-looking, moved about in their shirt +sleeves among shelves and packing-cases. One of them was +our friend Alec; our other friend Oliver looked after +the books at the foundry. Their father did everything +deliberately; but presently, in his own good time, his +commercial letter paper would be headed, with regard to +these two, "John Murchison and Sons." It had long announced +that the business was "Wholesale and Retail." + +Dr Drummond and Mr Murchison, considering the changes in +Elgin from the store door, did it at their leisure, the +merchant with his thumbs thrust comfortably in the armholes +of his waistcoat, the minister, with that familiar trick +of his, balancing on one foot and suddenly throwing his +slight weight forward on the other. "A bundle of nerves," +people called the Doctor: to stand still would have been +a penance to him; even as he swayed backward and forward +in talking, his hand must be busy at the seals on his +watch chain and his shrewd glance travelling over a dozen +things you would never dream so clever a man would take +notice of. It was a prospect of moderate commercial +activity they looked out upon, a street of mellow shopfronts +on both sides, of varying height and importance, wearing +that air of marking a period, a definite stop in growth, +that so often coexists with quite a reasonable degree of +activity and independence in colonial towns. One could +almost say, standing there in the door at Murchison's, +where the line of legitimate enterprise had been overpassed +and where its intention had been none too sanguine--on +the one hand in the faded, and pretentious red brick +building with the false third storey, occupied by Cleary +which must have been let at a loss to dry-goods or anything +else; on the other hand in the solid "Gregory block," +opposite the market, where rents were as certain as the +dividends of the Bank of British North America. + +Main Street expressed the idea that, for the purpose of +growing and doing business, it had always found the days +long enough. Drays passed through it to the Grand Trunk +station, but they passed one at a time; a certain number +of people went up and down about their affairs, but they +were never in a hurry; a street car jogged by every ten +minutes or so, but nobody ran after it. There was a decent +procedure; and it was felt that Bofield--he was dry-goods, +too--in putting in an elevator was just a little +unnecessarily in advance of the times. Bofield had only +two storeys, like everybody else, and a very easy staircase, +up which people often declared they preferred to walk +rather than wait in the elevator for a young man to finish +serving and work it. These, of course, were the +sophisticated people of Elgin; countryfolk, on a market +day, would wait a quarter of an hour for the young man +and think nothing of it; and I imagine Bofield found his +account in the elevator, though he did complain sometimes +that such persons went up and down on frivolous pretexts +or to amuse the baby. As a matter of fact, Elgin had +begun as the centre of "trading" for the farmers of Fox +County, and had soon over-supplied that limit in demand; +so that when other interests added themselves to the +activity of the town there was still plenty of room for +the business they brought. Main Street was really, +therefore, not a fair index; nobody in Elgin would have +admitted it. Its appearance and demeanour would never +have suggested that it was now the chief artery of a +thriving manufacturing town, with a collegiate institute, +eleven churches, two newspapers, and an asylum for the +deaf and dumb, to say nothing of a fire department +unsurpassed for organization and achievement in the +Province of Ontario. Only at twelve noon it might be +partly realized when the prolonged "toots" of seven +factory whistles at once let off, so to speak, the hour. +Elgin liked the demonstration; it was held to be cheerful +and unmistakable, an indication of "go-ahead" proclivities +which spoke for itself. It occurred while yet Dr Drummond +and Mr Murchison stood together in the store door. + +"I must be getting on," said the minister, looking at +his watch. "And what news have you of Lorne?" + +"Well, he seems to have got through all right." + +"What--you've heard already, then?" + +"He telegraphed from Toronto on Saturday night." Mr +Murchison stroked his chin, the better to retain his +satisfaction. "Waste of money--the post would have brought +it this morning--but it pleased his mother. Yes, he's +through his Law Schools examination, and at the top, too, +as far as I can make out." + +"Dear me, and you never mentioned it!" Dr Drummond spoke +with the resigned impatience of a familiar grievance. It +was certainly a trying characteristic of John Murchison +that he never cared about communicating anything that +might seem to ask for congratulation. "Well, well! I'm +very glad to hear it." + +"It slipped my mind," said Mr Murchison. "Yes, he's +full-fledged 'barrister and solicitor' now; he can plead +your case or draw you up a deed with the best of them. +Lorne's made a fair record, so far. We've no reason to +be ashamed of him." + +"That you have not." Personal sentiments between these +two Scotchmen were indicated rather than indulged. "He's +going in with Fulke and Warner, I suppose--you've got +that fixed up?" + +"Pretty well. Old man Warner was in this morning to talk +it over. He says they look to Lorne to bring them in +touch with the new generation. It's a pity he lost that +son of his." + +"Oh, a great pity. But since they had to go outside the +firm they couldn't have done better; they couldn't have +done better. I hope Lorne will bring them a bit of Knox +Church business too; there's no reason why Bob Mackintosh +should have it all. They'll be glad to see him back at +the Hampden Debating Society. He's a great light there, +is Lorne; and the Young Liberals, I hear are wanting him +for chairman this year." + +"There's some talk of it. But time enough--time enough +for that! He'll do first-rate if he gets the law to +practise, let alone the making of it." + +"Maybe so; he's young yet. Well, good morning to you. +I'll just step over the way to the Express office and +get a proof out of them of that sermon of mine. I noticed +their reporter fellow--what's his name?--Rawlins, with +his pencil out last night, and I've no faith in Rawlins." + +"Better cast an eye over it," responded Mr Murchison +cordially, and stood for a moment or two longer in the +door watching the crisp, significant little figure of +the minister as he stepped briskly over the crossing to +the newspaper office. There Dr Drummond sat down, before +he explained his errand, and wrote a paragraph. + +"We are pleased to learn," it ran "that Mr Lorne Murchison, +eldest son of Mr John Murchison, of this town, has passed +at the capital of the Province his final examination in +Law, distinguishing himself by coming out at the top of +the list. It will be remembered that Mr Murchison, upon +entering the Law Schools, also carried off a valuable +scholarship. We are glad to be able to announce that Mr +Murchison, Junior, will embark upon his profession in +his native town, where he will enter the well-known firm +of Fulke and Warner." + +The editor, Mr Horace Williams, had gone to dinner, and +Rawlins was out so Dr Drummond had to leave it with the +press foreman. Mr Williams read it appreciatively on his +return, and sent it down with the following addition: + +"This is doing it as well as it can be done. Elgin +congratulates Mr L. Murchison upon having produced these +results, and herself upon having produced Mr L. Murchison." + + + + +Chapter III + +From the day she stepped into it Mrs Murchison knew that +the Plummer Place was going to be the bane of her existence. +This may have been partly because Mr Murchison had bought +it, since a circumstance welded like that into one's life +is very apt to assume the character of a bane, unless +one's temperament leads one to philosophy, which Mrs +Murchison's didn't. But there were other reasons more +difficult to traverse: it was plainly true that the place +did require a tremendous amount of "looking after," as +such things were measured in Elgin, far more looking +after than the Murchisons could afford to give it. They +could never have afforded, in the beginning, to possess +it had it not been sold, under mortgage, at a dramatic +sacrifice. The house was a dignified old affair, built +of wood and painted white, with wide green verandahs +compassing the four sides of it, as they often did in +days when the builder had only to turn his hand to the +forest. It stood on the very edge of the town; wheatfields +in the summer billowed up to its fences, and corn-stacks +in the autumn camped around it like a besieging army. +The plank sidewalk finished there; after that you took +the road or, if you were so inclined, the river, into +which you could throw a stone from the orchard of the +Plummer Place. The house stood roomily and shadily in +ornamental grounds, with a lawn in front of it and a +shrubbery at each side, an orchard behind, and a vegetable +garden, the whole intersected by winding gravel walks, +of which Mrs Murchison was wont to say that a man might +do nothing but weed them and have his hands full. In the +middle of the lawn was a fountain, an empty basin with +a plaster Triton, most difficult to keep looking respectable +and pathetic in his frayed air of exile from some garden +of Italy sloping to the sea. There was also a barn with +stabling, a loft, and big carriage doors opening on a +lane to the street. The originating Plummer, Mrs Murchison +often said, must have been a person of large ideas, and +she hoped he had the money to live up to them. The +Murchisons at one time kept a cow in the barn, till a +succession of "girls" left on account of the milking, +and the lane was useful as an approach to the backyard +by the teams that brought the cordwood in the winter. It +was trying enough for a person with the instinct of order +to find herself surrounded by out-of-door circumstances +which she simply could not control but Mrs Murchison +often declared that she could put up with the grounds if +it had stopped there. It did not stop there. Though I +was compelled to introduce Mrs Murchison in the kitchen, +she had a drawing-room in which she might have received +the Lieutenant-Governor, with French windows and a +cut-glass chandelier, and a library with an Italian marble +mantelpiece. She had an icehouse and a wine cellar, and +a string of bells in the kitchen that connected with +every room in the house; it was a negligible misfortune +that not one of them was in order. She had far too much, +as she declared, for any one pair of hands and a growing +family, and if the ceiling was not dropping in the +drawing-room, the cornice was cracked in the library or +the gas was leaking in the dining-room, or the verandah +wanted reflooring if anyone coming to the house was not +to put his foot through it; and as to the barn, if it +was dropping to pieces it would just have to drop. The +barn was definitely outside the radius of possible +amelioration--it passed gradually, visibly, into +decrepitude, and Mrs Murchison often wished she could +afford to pull it down. + +It may be realized that in spite of its air of being +impossible to "overtake"--I must, in this connection, +continue to quote its mistress--there was an attractiveness +about the dwelling of the Murchisons the attractiveness +of the large ideas upon which it had been built and +designed, no doubt by one of those gentlefolk of reduced +income who wander out to the colonies with a nebulous +view to economy and occupation, to perish of the +readjustment. The case of such persons, when they arrive, +is at once felt to be pathetic; there is a tacit local +understanding that they have made a mistake. They may be +entitled to respect, but nothing can save them from the +isolation of their difference and their misapprehension. +It was like that with the house. The house was admired-- +without enthusiasm--but it was not copied. It was felt +to be outside the general need, misjudged, adventitious; +and it wore its superiority in the popular view like a +folly. It was in Elgin, but not of it: it represented a +different tradition; and Elgin made the same allowance +for its bedroom bells and its old-fashioned dignities as +was conceded to its original master's habit of a six-o'clock +dinner, with wine. + +The architectural expression of the town was on a different +scale, beginning with "frame," rising through the +semidetached, culminating expensively in Mansard roofs, +cupolas and modern conveniences, and blossoming, in +extreme instances, into Moorish fretwork and silk portieres +for interior decoration. The Murchison house gained by +force of contrast: one felt, stepping into it, under +influences of less expediency and more dignity, wider +scope and more leisured intention; its shabby spaces had +a redundancy the pleasanter and its yellow plaster cornices +a charm the greater for the numerous close-set examples +of contemporary taste in red brick which made, surrounded +by geranium beds, so creditable an appearance in the West +Ward. John Murchison in taking possession of the house +had felt in it these satisfactions, had been definitely +penetrated and soothed by them, the more perhaps because +he brought to them a capacity for feeling the worthier +things of life which circumstances had not previously +developed. He seized the place with a sense of opportunity +leaping sharp and conscious out of early years in the +grey "wynds" of a northern Scottish town; and its +personality sustained him, very privately but none the +less effectively, through the worry and expense of it +for years. He would take his pipe and walk silently for +long together about the untidy shrubberies in the evening, +for the acute pleasure of seeing the big horse chestnuts +in flower; and he never opened the hall door without a +feeling of gratification in its weight as it swung under +his hand. In so far as he could, he supplemented the +idiosyncrasies he found. The drawing-room walls, though +mostly bare in their old-fashioned French paper--lavender +and gilt, a grape-vine pattern--held a few good engravings; +the library was reduced to contain a single bookcase, +but it was filled with English classics. John Murchison +had been made a careful man, not by nature, by the +discipline of circumstances; but he would buy books. He +bought them between long periods of abstinence, during +which he would scout the expenditure of an unnecessary +dollar, coming home with a parcel under his arm for which +he vouchsafed no explanation, and which would disclose +itself to be Lockhart, or Sterne, or Borrow, or Defoe. +Mrs Murchison kept a discouraging eye upon such purchases; +and when her husband brought home Chambers's Dictionary +of English Literature, after shortly and definitely +repulsing her demand that he should get himself a new +winter overcoat, she declared that it was beyond all +endurance. Mrs Murchison was surrounded, indeed, by more +of "that sort of thing" than she could find use or excuse +for; since, though books made but a sporadic appearance, +current literature, daily, weekly, and monthly, was +perpetually under her feet. The Toronto paper came as a +matter of course, as the London daily takes its morning +flight into the provinces, the local organ as simply +indispensable, the Westminster as the corollary of church +membership and for Sunday reading. These were constant, +but there were also mutables--Once a Week, Good Words +for the Young, Blackwood's, and the Cornhill they used +to be; years of back numbers Mrs Murchison had packed +away in the attic, where Advena on rainy days came into +the inheritance of them, and made an early acquaintance +with fiction in Ready Money Mortiboy and Verner's Pride, +while Lorne, flat on his stomach beside her, had glorious +hours on The Back of the North Wind. Their father considered +such publications and their successors essential, like +tobacco and tea. He was also an easy prey to the +subscription agent, for works published in parts and paid +for in instalments, a custom which Mrs Murchison regarded +with abhorrence. So much so that when John put his name +down for Masterpieces of the World's Art, which was to +cost twenty dollars by the time it was complete, he +thought it advisable to let the numbers accumulate at +the store. + +Whatever the place represented to their parents, it was +pure joy to the young Murchisons. It offered a margin +and a mystery to life. They saw it far larger than it +was; they invested it, arguing purely by its difference +from other habitations, with a romantic past. "I guess +when the Prince of Wales came to Elgin, Mother, he stayed +here," Lorne remarked, as a little boy. Secretly he and +Advena took up boards in more than one unused room, and +rapped on more than one thick wall to find a hollow +chamber; the house revealed so much that was interesting, +it was apparent to the meanest understanding that it must +hide even more. It was never half lighted, and there was +a passage in which fear dwelt--wild were the gallopades +from attic to cellar in the early nightfall, when every +young Murchison tore after every other, possessed, like +cats, by a demoniac ecstasy of the gloaming. And the +garden, with the autumn moon coming over the apple trees +and the neglected asparagus thick for ambush, and a casual +untrimmed boy or two with the delicious recommendation +of being utterly without credentials, to join in the rout +and be trusted to make for the back fence without further +hint at the voice of Mrs Murchison--these were joys of +the very fibre, things to push ideas and envisage life +with an attraction that made it worth while to grow up. + +And they had all achieved it--all six. They had grown up +sturdily, emerging into sobriety and decorum by much the +same degrees as the old house, under John Murchison's +improving fortunes, grew cared for and presentable. The +new roof went on, slate replacing shingles, the year Abby +put her hair up; the bathroom was contemporary with +Oliver's leaving school; the electric light was actually +turned on for the first time in honour of Lorne's return +from Toronto, a barrister and solicitor; several rooms +had been done up for Abby's wedding. Abby had married, +early and satisfactorily, Dr Harry Johnson, who had +placidly settled down to await the gradual succession of +his father's practice; "Dr Harry and Dr Henry" they were +called. Dr Harry lived next door to Dr Henry, and had a +good deal of the old man's popular manner. It was an +unacknowledged partnership, which often provided two +opinions for the same price; the town prophesied well of +it. That left only five at home, but they always had Abby +over in the West Ward, where Abby's housekeeping made an +interest and Abby's baby a point of pilgrimage. These +considerations almost consoled Mrs Murchison declaring, +as she did, that all of them might have gone but Abby, +who alone knew how to be "any comfort or any dependence" +in the house; who could be left with a day's preserving; +and I tell you that to be left by Mrs Murchison with a +day's preserving, be it cherries or strawberries, damsons +or pears, was a mark of confidence not easy to obtain. +Advena never had it; Advena, indeed, might have married +and removed no prop of the family economy. Mrs Murchison +would have been "sorry for the man"--she maintained a +candour toward and about those belonging to her that +permitted no illusions--but she would have stood cheerfully +out of the way on her own account. When you have seen +your daughter reach and pass the age of twenty-five +without having learned properly to make her own bed, you +know without being told that she will never be fit for +the management of a house--don't you? Very well then. +And for ever and for ever, no matter what there was to +do, with a book in her hand--Mrs Murchison would put an +emphasis on the "book" which scarcely concealed a contempt +for such absorption. And if, at the end of your patience, +you told her for any sake to put it down and attend to +matters, obeying in a kind of dream that generally drove +you to take the thing out of her hands and do it yourself, +rather than jump out of your skin watching her. + +Sincerely Mrs Murchison would have been sorry for the +man if he had arrived, but he had not arrived. Advena +justified her existence by taking the university course +for women at Toronto, and afterward teaching the English +branches to the junior forms in the Collegiate Institute, +which placed her arbitrarily outside the sphere of domestic +criticism. Mrs Murchison was thankful to have her there +--outside--where little more could reasonably be expected +of her than that she should be down in time for breakfast. +It is so irritating to be justified in expecting more +than seems likely to come. Mrs Murchison's ideas circulated +strictly in the orbit of equity and reason; she expected +nothing from anybody that she did not expect from herself; +indeed, she would spare others in far larger proportion. +But the sense of obligation which led her to offer herself +up to the last volt of her energy made her miserable when +she considered that she was not fairly done by in return. +Pressed down and running over were the services she +offered to the general good, and it was on the ground of +the merest justice that she required from her daughters +"some sort of interest" in domestic affairs. From her +eldest she got no sort of interest, and it was like the +removal of a grievance from the hearth when Advena took +up employment which ranged her definitely beyond the +necessity of being of any earthly use in the house. +Advena's occupation to some extent absorbed her +shortcomings, which was much better than having to +attribute them to her being naturally "through-other," +or naturally clever, according to the bias of the moment. +Mrs Murchison no longer excused or complained of her +daughter; but she still pitied the man. + +"The boys," of course, were too young to think of matrimony. +They were still the boys, the Murchison boys; they would +be the boys at forty if they remained under their father's +roof. In the mother country, men in short jackets and +round collars emerge from the preparatory schools; in +the daughter lands boys in tailcoats conduct serious +affairs. Alec and Oliver, in the business, were frivolous +enough as to the feminine interest. For all Dr Drummond's +expressed and widely known views upon the subject, it +was a common thing for one or both of these young men to +stray from the family pew on Sunday evenings to the +services of other communions, thereafter to walk home in +the dusk under the maples with some attractive young +person, and be sedately invited to finish the evening on +her father's verandah. Neither of them was guiltless of +silk ties knitted or handkerchiefs initialled by certain +fingers; without repeating scandal, one might say by +various fingers. For while the ultimate import of these +matters was not denied in Elgin, there was a general +feeling against giving too much meaning to them, probably +originating in a reluctance among heads of families to +add to their responsibilities. These early spring +indications were belittled and laughed at; so much so +that the young people them selves hardly took them +seriously, but regarded them as a form of amusement almost +conventional. Nothing would have surprised or embarrassed +them more than to learn that their predilections had an +imperative corollary, that anything should, of necessity, +"come of it." Something, of course, occasionally did come +of it; and, usually after years of "attention," a young +man of Elgin found himself mated to a young woman, but +never under circumstances that could be called precipitate +or rash. The cautious blood and far sight of the early +settlers, who had much to reckon with, were still +preponderant social characteristics of the town they +cleared the site for. Meanwhile, however, flowers were +gathered, and all sorts of evanescent idylls came and +went in the relations of young men and maidens. Alec and +Oliver Murchison were already in the full tide of them. + +From this point of view they did not know what to make +of Lorne. It was not as if their brother were in any way +ill calculated to attract that interest which gave to +youthful existence in Elgin almost the only flavour that +it had. Looks are looks, and Lorne had plenty of them; +taller by an inch than Alec, broader by two than Oliver, +with a fine square head and blue eyes in it, and features +which conveyed purpose and humour, lighted by a certain +simplicity of soul that pleased even when it was not +understood. "Open," people said he was, and "frank"--so +he was, frank and open, with horizons and intentions; +you could see them in his face. Perhaps it was more +conscious of them than he was. Ambition, definitely +shining goals, adorn the perspectives of young men in +new countries less often than is commonly supposed. Lorne +meant to be a good lawyer, squarely proposed to himself +that the country should hold no better; and as to more +selective usefulness, he hoped to do a little stumping +for the right side when Frank Jennings ran for the Ontario +House in the fall. It wouldn't be his first electioneering: +from the day he became chairman of the Young Liberals +the party had an eye on him, and when occasion arose, +winter or summer, by bobsleigh or buggy, weatherbeaten +local bosses would convey him to country schoolhouses +for miles about to keep a district sound on railway +policy, or education, or tariff reform. He came home +smiling with the triumphs of these occasions, and offered +them, with the slow, good-humoured, capable drawl that +inspired such confidence in him, to his family at breakfast, +who said "Great!" or "Good for you, Lorne!" John Murchison +oftenest said nothing, but would glance significantly at +his wife, frowning and pursing his lips when she, who +had most spirit of them all, would exclaim, "You'll be +Premier yet, Lorne!" It was no part of the Murchison +policy to draw against future balances: they might believe +everything, they would express nothing; and I doubt +whether Lorne himself had any map of the country he meant +to travel over in that vague future, already defining in +local approbation, and law business coming freely in with +a special eye on the junior partner. But the tract was +there, subconscious, plain in the wider glance, the +alerter manner; plain even in the grasp and stride which +marked him in a crowd; plain, too, in the preoccupation +with other issues, were it only turning over a leader in +the morning's Dominion, that carried him along indifferent +to the allurements I have described. The family had a +bond of union in their respect for Lorne, and this absence +of nugatory inclinations in him was among its elements. +Even Stella who, being just fourteen, was the natural +mouthpiece of family sentiment, would declare that Lorne +had something better to do than go hanging about after +girls, and for her part she thought all the more of him +for it. + + + + +Chapter IV + +"I am requested to announce," said Dr Drummond after the +singing of the last hymn, "the death, yesterday morning, +of James Archibald Ramsay, for fifteen years an adherent +and for twenty-five years a member of this church. The +funeral will take place from the residence of the deceased, +on Court House Street, tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. +Friends and acquaintances are respectfully--invited--to +attend." + +The minister's voice changed with the character of its +affairs. Still vibrating with the delivery of his sermon, +it was now charged with the official business of the +interment. In its inflections it expressed both elegy +and eulogy; and in the brief pause before and after +"invited" and the fall of "attend" there was the last +word of comment upon the mortal term. A crispation of +interest passed over the congregation; every chin was +raised. Dr Drummond's voice had a wonderful claiming +power, but he often said he wished his congregation would +pay as undivided attention to the sermon as they did to +the announcements. + +"The usual weekly prayer meeting will be held in the +basement of the church on Wednesday evening." Then almost +in a tone of colloquy, and with just a hint of satire +about his long upper lip-- + +"I should be glad to see a better attendance of the young +people at these gatherings. Time was when the prayer +meeting counted among our young men and women as an +occasion not to be lightly passed over. In these days it +would seem that there is too much business to be done, +or too much pleasure to be enjoyed, for the oncoming +generation to remember their weekly engagement with the +Lord. This is not as it should be; and I rely upon the +fathers and mothers of this congregation, who brought +these children in their arms to the baptismal font, there +to be admitted to the good hopes and great privileges of +the Church of God--I rely upon them to see that there +shall be no departure from the good old rule, and that +time is found for the weekly prayer meeting." + +Mrs Murchison nudged Stella, who returned the attention, +looking elaborately uninterested, with her foot. Alec +and Oliver smiled consciously; their father, with an +expression of severe gravity, backed up the minister who, +after an instant's pause, continued-- + +"On Tuesday afternoon next, God willing, I shall visit +the following families in the East Ward--Mr Peterson, Mr +Macormack, Mrs Samuel Smith, and Mr John Flint. On Thursday +afternoon in the South Ward, Mrs Reid, Mr P. C. Cameron, +and Mr Murchison. We will close by singing the Third +Doxology: Blessed, blessed be Jehovah, Israel's God to +all eternity--" + +The congregation trooped out; the Murchisons walked home +in a clan, Mr and Mrs Murchison, with Stella skirting +the edge of the sidewalk beside them, the two young men +behind. Abby, when she married Harry, had "gone over" to +the Church of England. The wife must worship with the +husband; even Dr Drummond recognized the necessity, though +he professed small opinion of the sway of the spouse who, +with Presbyterian traditions behind her, could not achieve +union the other way about; and Abby's sanctioned defection +was a matter of rather shame-faced reference by her +family. Advena and Lorne had fallen into the degenerate +modern habit of preferring the evening service. + +"So we're to have the Doctor on Thursday," said Mrs +Murchison, plainly not displeased. "Well, I hope the +dining-room carpet will be down." + +"I expect he'll be wanting his tea," replied Mr Murchison. +"He's got you in the right place on the list for that, +Mother--as usual." + +"I'd just like to see him go anywhere else for his tea +the day he was coming to our house," declared Stella. +"But he GENERALLY has too much sense." + +"You boys," said Mrs Murchison, turning back to her sons, +"will see that you're on hand that evening. And I hope +the Doctor will rub it in about the prayer meeting." Mrs +Murchison chuckled. "I saw it went home to both of you, +and well it might. Yes, I think I may as well expect him +to tea. He enjoys my scalloped oysters, if I do say it +myself." + +"We'll get Abby over," said Mr Murchison. "That'll please +the Doctor." + +"I must say," remarked Stella, "he seems to think a lot +more of Abby now that she's Mrs Episcopal Johnson." + +"Yes, Abby and Harry must come," said Mrs Murchison, "and +I was thinking of inviting Mr and Mrs Horace Williams. +We've been there till I'm ashamed to look them in the +face. And I've pretty well decided," she added +autocratically, "to have chicken salad. So if Dr Drummond +has made up his mouth for scalloped oysters he'll be +disappointed." + +"Mother," announced Stella, "I'm perfectly certain you'll +have both." + +"I'll consider it," replied her mother. "Meanwhile we +would be better employed in thinking of what we have been +hearing. That's the third sermon from the Book of Job in +six weeks. I must say, with the whole of the two Testaments +to select from, I don't see why the Doctor should be so +taken up with Job." + +Stella was vindicated; Mrs Murchison did have both. The +chicken salad gleamed at one end of the table and the +scalloped oysters smoked delicious at the other. Lorne +had charge of the cold tongue and Advena was entrusted +with the pickled pears. The rest of the family were +expected to think about the tea biscuits and the cake, +for Lobelia had never yet had a successor that was any +hand with company. Mrs Murchison had enough to do to pour +out the tea. It was a table to do anybody credit, with +its glossy damask and the old-fashioned silver and best +china that Mrs Murchison had brought as a bride to her +housekeeping--for, thank goodness, her mother had known +what was what in such matters--a generous attractive +table that you took some satisfaction in looking at. Mrs +Murchison came of a family of noted housekeepers; where +she got her charm I don't know. Six-o'clock tea, and that +the last meal in the day, was the rule in Elgin, and a +good enough rule for Mrs Murchison, who had no patience +with the innovation of a late dinner recently adopted by +some people who could keep neither their servants nor +their digestions in consequence. It had been a crisp +October day; as Mr Murchison remarked, the fall evenings +were beginning to draw in early; everybody was glad of +the fire in the grate and the closed curtains. Dr Drummond +had come about five, and the inquiries and comments upon +family matters that the occasion made incumbent had been +briskly exchanged, with just the word that marked the +pastoral visit and the practical interest that relieved +it. And he had thought, on the whole, that he might manage +to stay to tea, at which Mrs Murchison's eyes twinkled +as she said affectionately-- + +"Now, Doctor, you know we could never let you off." + +Then Abby had arrived and her husband, and finally Mr +and Mrs Williams, just a trifle late for etiquette, but +well knowing that it mustn't be enough to spoil the +biscuits. Dr Drummond in the place of honour, had asked +the blessing, and that brief reminder of the semiofficial +character of the occasion having been delivered, was in +the best of humours. The Murchisons were not far wrong +in the happy divination that he liked coming to their +house. Its atmosphere appealed to him; he expanded in +its humour, its irregularity, its sense of temperament. +They were doubtful allurements, from the point of view +of a minister of the Gospel, but it would not occur to +Dr Drummond to analyse them. So far as he was aware, John +Murchison was just a decent, prosperous, Christian man, +on whose word and will you might depend, and Mrs Murchison +a stirring, independent little woman, who could be very +good company when she felt inclined. As to their sons +and daughters, in so far as they were a credit, he was +as proud of them as their parents could possibly be, +regarding himself as in a much higher degree responsible +for the formation of their characters and the promise of +their talents. And indeed, since every one of them had +"sat under" Dr Drummond from the day he or she was capable +of sitting under anybody, Mr and Mrs Murchison would have +been the last to dispute this. It was not one of those +houses where a pastor could always be sure of leaving +some spiritual benefit behind; but then he came away +himself with a pleasant sense of nervous stimulus which +was apt to take his mind off the matter. It is not given +to all of us to receive or to extend the communion of +the saints; Mr and Mrs Murchison were indubitably of the +elect, but he was singularly close-mouthed about it, and +she had an extraordinary way of seeing the humorous +side--altogether it was paralysing, and the conversation +would wonderfully soon slip round to some robust secular +subject, public or domestic. I have mentioned Dr Drummond's +long upper lip; all sorts of racial virtues resided there, +but his mouth was also wide and much frequented by a +critical, humorous, philosophical smile which revealed +a view of life at once kindly and trenchant. His shrewd +grey eyes were encased in wrinkles, and when he laughed +his hearty laugh they almost disappeared in a merry line. +He had a fund of Scotch stories, and one or two he was +very fond of, at the expense of the Methodists, that were +known up and down the Dominion, and nobody enjoyed them +more than he did himself. He had once worn his hair in +a high curl on his scholarly forehead, and a silvering +tuft remained brushed upright; he took the old-fashioned +precaution of putting cotton wool in his ears, which gave +him more than ever the look of something highly concentrated +and conserved but in no way detracted from his dignity. +St Andrew's folk accused him of vanity because of the +diamond he wore on his little finger. He was by no means +handsome, but he was intensely individual; perhaps he +had vanity; his people would have forgiven him worse +things. And at Mrs Murchison's tea party he was certainly, +as John Murchison afterward said, "in fine feather." + +An absorbing topic held them, a local topic, a topic +involving loss and crime and reprisals. The Federal Bank +had sustained a robbery of five thousand dollars. and in +the course of a few days had placed their cashier under +arrest for suspected complicity. Their cashier was Walter +Ormiston, the only son of old Squire Ormiston, of Moneida +Reservation, ten miles out of Elgin, who had administered +the affairs of the Indians there for more years than the +Federal Bank had existed. Mr Williams brought the latest +news, as was to be expected; news flowed in rivulets to +Mr Williams all day long; he paid for it, dealt in it, +could spread or suppress it. + +"They've admitted the bail," Mr Williams announced, with +an air of self-surveillance. Rawlins had brought the +intelligence in too late for the current issue, and Mr +Williams was divided between his human desire to communicate +and his journalistic sense that the item would be the +main feature of the next afternoon's Express. + +"I'm glad of that. I'm glad of that," repeated Dr Drummond. +"Thank you, Mrs Murchison, I'll send my cup. And did you +learn, Williams, for what amount?" + +Mr Williams ran his hand through his hair in the effort +to remember, and decided that he might as well let it +all go. The Mercury couldn't fail to get it by tomorrow +anyhow. + +"Three thousand," he said. "Milburn and Dr Henry Johnson." + +"I thought Father was bound to be in it," remarked Dr +Harry. + +"Half and half?" asked John Murchison. + +"No," contributed Mrs Williams. "Mr Milburn two and Dr +Henry one. Mr Milburn is Walter's uncle, you know." + +Mr Williams fastened an outraged glance on his wife, who +looked another way. Whatever he thought proper to do, it +was absolutely understood that she was to reveal nothing +of what "came in," and was even carefully to conserve +anything she heard outside with a view to bringing it +in. Mrs Williams was too prone to indiscretion in the +matter of letting news slip prematurely; and as to its +capture, her husband would often confess, with private +humour, that Minnie wasn't much of a mouser. + +"Well, that's something to be thankful for," said Mrs +Murchison. "I lay awake for two hours last night thinking +of that boy in jail, and his poor old father, seventy-nine +years of age, and such a fine old man, so thoroughly +respected." + +"I don't know the young fellow," said Dr Drummond. "but +they say he's of good character, not over-solid, but +bears a clean reputation. They're all Tories together, +of course, the Ormistons." + +"It's an old U. E. Loyalist family," remarked Advena. +"Mr Ormiston has one or two rather interesting Revolutionary +trophies at his house out there." + +"None the worse for that. None the worse for that," said +Dr Drummond. + +"Old Ormiston's father," contributed the editor of the +Express, "had a Crown grant of the whole of Moneida +Reservation at one time. Government actually bought it +back from him to settle the Indians there. He was a +well-known Family Compact man, and fought tooth and nail +for the Clergy Reserves in 'fifty." + +"Well, well," said Dr Drummond, with a twinkle. "We'll +hope young Ormiston is innocent, nevertheless." + +"Nasty business for the Federal Bank if he is," Mr Williams +went on. "They're a pretty unpopular bunch as it is." + +"Of course he's innocent," contributed Stella, with +indignant eyes; "and when they prove it, what can he do +to the bank for taking him up? That's what I want to +know." + +Her elders smiled indulgently. "A lot you know about it, +kiddie," said Oliver. It was the only remark he made +during the meal. Alec passed the butter assiduously, but +said nothing at all. Adolescence was inarticulate in +Elgin on occasions of ceremony. + +"I hear they've piled up some big evidence," said Mr +Williams. "Young Ormiston's been fool enough to do some +race-betting lately. Minnie, I wish you'd get Mrs Murchison +to show you how to pickle pears. Of course," he added, +"they're keeping it up their sleeve." + +"It's a hard place to keep evidence," said Lorne Murchison +at last with a smile which seemed to throw light on the +matter. They had all been waiting, more or less consciously, +for what Lorne would have to say. + +"Lorne, you've got it!" divined his mother instantly. + +"Got what, Mother?" + +"The case! I've suspected it from the minute the subject +was mentioned! That case came in today!" + +"And you sitting there like a bump on a log, and never +telling us!" exclaimed Stella, with reproach. + +"Stella, you have a great deal too much to say," replied +her brother. "Suppose you try sitting like a bump on a +log. We won't complain. Yes, the Squire seems to have +made up his mind about the defence, and my seniors haven't +done much else today." + +"Rawlins saw him hitched up in front of your place for +about two hours this morning," said Mr Williams. "I told +him I thought that was good enough, but we didn't say +anything, Rawlins having heard it was to be Flynn from +Toronto. And I hadn't forgotten the Grand Trunk case we +put down to you last week without exactly askin'. Your +old man was as mad as a hornet--wanted to stop his +subscription; Rawlins had no end of a time to get round +him. Little things like that will creep in when you've +got to trust to one man to run the whole local show. But +I didn't want the Mercury to have another horse on us." + +"Do you think you'll get a look in, Lorne?" asked Dr +Harry. + +"Oh, not a chance of it. The old man's as keen as a razor +on the case, and you'd think Warner never had one before! +If I get a bit of grubbing to do, under supervision, +they'll consider I ought to be pleased." It was the +sunniest possible tone of grumbling; it enlisted your +sympathy by its very acknowledgement that it had not a +leg to stand on. + +"They're pretty wild about it out Moneida way," said Dr +Harry. "My father says the township would put down the +bail three times over." + +"They swear by the Squire out there," said Mr Horace +Williams, liberally applying his napkin to his moustache. +"He treated some of them more than square when the fall +wheat failed three years running, about ten years back; +do you remember, Mr Murchison? Lent them money at about +half the bank rate, and wasn't in an awful sweat about +getting it in at that either." + +"And wasn't there something about his rebuilding the +school-house at his own expense not so long ago?" asked +Dr Drummond. + +"Just what he did. I wanted to send Rawlins out and make +a story of it--we'd have given it a column, with full +heads; but the old man didn't like it. It's hard to know +what some people will like. But it was my own foolishness +for asking. A thing like that is public property." + +"There's a good deal of feeling," said Lorne. "So much +that I understand the bank is moving for change of venue." + +"I hope they won't get it," said Dr Drummond sharply. "A +strong local feeling is valuable evidence in a case like +this. I don't half approve this notion that a community +can't manage its own justice when it happens to take an +interest in the case. I've no more acquaintance with +the Squire than 'How d'ye do?' and I don't know his son +from Adam; but I'd serve on the jury tomorrow if the +Crown asked it, and there's many more like me." + +Mr Williams, who had made a brief note on his shirt cuff, +restored his pencil to his waistcoat pocket. "I shall +oppose a change of venue," said he. + + + + +Chapter V + +It was confidently expected by the Murchison family that +when Stella was old enough she would be a good deal in +society. Stella, without doubt, was well equipped for +society; she had exactly those qualities which appealed +to it in Elgin, among which I will mention two--the +quality of being able to suggest that she was quite as +good as anybody without saying so, and the even more +important quality of not being any better. Other things +being equal--those common worldly standards that prevailed +in Elgin as well as anywhere else in their degree--other +things being equal, this second simple quality was perhaps +the most important of all. Mr and Mrs Murchison made no +claim and small attempt upon society. One doubts whether, +with children coming fast and hard times long at the +door, they gave the subject much consideration; but if +they did, it is highly unlikely to have occurred to them +that they were too good for their environment. Yet in a +manner they were. It was a matter of quality, of spiritual +and mental fabric; they were hardly aware that they had +it, but it marked them with a difference, and a difference +is the one thing a small community, accustomed comfortably +to scan its own intelligible averages, will not tolerate. +The unusual may take on an exaggeration of these; an +excess of money, an excess of piety, is understood; but +idiosyncrasy susceptible to no common translation is +regarded with the hostility earned by the white crow, +modified among law-abiding humans into tacit repudiation. +It is a sound enough social principle to distrust that +which is not understood, like the strain of temperament +inarticulate but vaguely manifest in the Murchisons. Such +a strain may any day produce an eccentric or a genius, +emancipated from the common interests, possibly inimical +to the general good; and when, later on, your genius +takes flight or your eccentric sells all that he has and +gives it to the poor, his fellow townsmen exchange shrewd +nods before the vindicating fact. + +Nobody knew it at all in Elgin, but this was the Murchisons' +case. They had produced nothing abnormal, but they had +to prove that they weren't going to, and Stella was the +last and most convincing demonstration. Advena, bookish +and unconventional, was regarded with dubiety. She was +out of the type; she had queer satisfactions and +enthusiasms. Once as a little girl she had taken a papoose +from a drunken squaw and brought it home for her mother +to adopt. Mrs Murchison's reception of the suggested duty +may be imagined, also the comments of acquaintances--a +trick like that! The inevitable hour arrived when she +should be instructed on the piano, and the second time +the music teacher came her pupil was discovered on the +roof of the house, with the ladder drawn up after her. +She did not wish to learn the piano, and from that point +of vantage informed her family that it was a waste of +money. She would hide in the hayloft with a novel; she +would be off by herself in a canoe at six o'clock in the +morning; she would go for walks in the rain of windy +October twilights and be met kicking the wet leaves along +in front of her "in a dream." No one could dream with +impunity in Elgin, except in bed. Mothers of daughters +sympathized in good set terms with Mrs Murchison. "If +that girl were mine--" they would say, and leave you with +a stimulated notion of the value of corporal punishment. +When she took to passing examinations and teaching, Elgin +considered that her parents ought to be thankful in the +probability that she had escaped some dramatic end. But +her occupation further removed her from intercourse with +the town's more exclusive circles: she had taken a definite +line, and she pursued it, preoccupied. If she was a brand +snatched from the burning, she sent up a little curl of +reflection in a safe place, where she was not further +interrupted. + +Abby, inheriting all these prejudices, had nevertheless +not done so badly; she had taken no time at all to +establish herself; she had almost immediately married. +In the social estimates of Elgin the Johnsons were "nice +people," Dr Henry was a fine old figure in the town, and +Abby's chances were good enough. At all events, when she +opened her doors as a bride, receiving for three afternoons +in her wedding dress. everybody had "called." It was very +distinctly understood, of course, that this was a civility +that need not lead to anything whatever, a kind of bowing +recognition, to be formally returned and quite possibly +to end there. With Abby, in a good many cases, it hadn't +ended there; she was doing very well, and as she often +said with private satisfaction, if she went out anywhere +she was just as likely as not to meet her brothers. Elgin +society, shaping itself, I suppose, to ultimate increase +and prosperity, had this peculiarity, that the females +of a family, in general acceptance, were apt to lag far +behind the males. Alec and Oliver enjoyed a good deal of +popularity, and it was Stella's boast that if Lorne didn't +go out much it needn't be supposed he wasn't asked. It +was an accepted state of things in Elgin that young men +might be invited without their sisters, implying an +imperturbability greater than London's, since London may +not be aware of the existence of sisters, while Elgin +knew all sorts of more interesting things about them. +The young men were more desirable than the young women; +they forged ahead, carrying the family fortunes, and the +"nicest" of them were the young men in the banks. Others +might be more substantial, but there was an allure about +a young man in a bank as difficult to define as to resist. +To say of a certain party-giver that she had "about every +bank clerk in town" was to announce the success of her +entertainment in ultimate terms. These things are not +always penetrable, but no doubt his gentlemanly form of +labour and its abridgement in the afternoons, when other +young men toiled on till the stroke of six, had something +to do with this apotheosis of the bank clerk, as well as +his invariable taste in tailoring, and the fact that some +local family influence was probably represented in his +appointment. Privilege has always its last little +stronghold, and it still operates to admiration on the +office stools of minor finance in towns like Elgin. At +all events, the sprouting tellers and cashiers held +unquestioned sway--young doctors and lawyers simply didn't +think of competing; and since this sort of thing carries +its own penalty, the designation which they shared with +so many distinguished persons in history became a byword +on the lips of envious persons and small boys, by which +they wished to express effeminacy and the substantive of +the "stuck-up." "D'ye take me fur a bank clurk?" was a +form of repudiation among corner loafers as forcible as +it was unjustifiable. + +I seem to have embarked, by way of getting to the Milburns' +party--there is a party at the Milburns' and some of us +are going--upon an analysis of social principles in Elgin, +an adventure of difficulty, as I have once or twice +hinted, but one from which I cannot well extricate myself +without at least leaving a clue or two more for the use +of the curious. No doubt these rules had their nucleus +in the half-dozen families, among whom we may count the +shadowy Plummers, who took upon themselves for Fox County, +by the King's pleasure, the administration of justice, +the practice of medicine and of the law, and the performance +of the charges of the Church of England a long time ago. +Such persons would bring their lines of demarcation with +them, and in their new milieu of backwoods settlers and +small traders would find no difficulty in drawing them +again. But it was a very long time ago. The little knot +of gentry-folk soon found the limitations of their new +conditions; years went by in decades, aggrandizing none +of them. They took, perforce, to the ways of the country, +and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody +dined late but the Judge. There came a time when the +Sheriff's whist club and the Archdeacon's port became a +tradition to the oldest inhabitant. Trade flourished, +education improved, politics changed. Her Majesty removed +her troops--the Dominion wouldn't pay, a poor-spirited +business--and a bulwark went with the regiment. The +original dignified group broke, dissolved, scattered. +Prosperous traders foreclosed them, the spirit of the +times defeated them, young Liberals succeeded them in +office. Their grandsons married the daughters of well-to-do +persons who came from the north of Ireland, the east of +Scotland, and the Lord knows where. It was a sorry tale +of disintegration with a cheerful sequel of rebuilding, +leading to a little unavoidable confusion as the edifice +went up. Any process of blending implies confusion to +begin with; we are here at the making of a nation. + +This large consideration must dispose of small anomalies, +such as the acceptance, without cant, of certain forms +of the shop, euphemized as the store, but containing the +same old vertebral counter. Not all forms. Dry-goods were +held in respect and chemists in comparative esteem; house +furnishings and hardware made an appreciable claim, and +quite a leading family was occupied with seed grains. +Groceries, on the other hand, were harder to swallow, +possibly on account of the apron, though the grocer's +apron, being of linen, had several degrees more +consideration than the shoemaker's, which was of leather; +smaller trades made smaller pretensions; Mrs Milburn +could tell you where to draw the line. They were all +hard-working folk together, but they had their little +prejudices: the dentist was known as "Doc," but he was +not considered quite on a medical level; it was doubtful +whether you bowed to the piano-tuner, and quite a curious +and unreasonable contempt was bound up in the word +"veterinary." Anything "wholesale" or manufacturing stood, +of course, on its own feet; there was nothing ridiculous +in molasses, nothing objectionable in a tannery, nothing +amusing in soap. Such airs and graces were far from Elgin, +too fundamentally occupied with the amount of capital +invested, and too profoundly aware how hard it was to +come by. The valuable part of it all was a certain bright +freedom, and this was of the essence. Trade was a decent +communal way of making a living, rooted in independence +and the general need; it had none of the meaner aspects. +Your bow was negligible to the piano-tuner, and everything +veterinary held up its head. And all this again qualified, +as everywhere, by the presence or absence of the social +faculty, that magnetic capacity for coming, as Mrs +Murchison would say, "to the fore," which makes little +of disadvantages that might seem insuperable and, in +default, renders null and void the most unquestionable +claims. Anyone would think of the Delarues. Mr Delarue +had in the dim past married his milliner, yet the Delarues +were now very much indeed to the fore. And, on the other +hand, the Leverets of the saw mills, rich and benevolent; +the Leverets were not in society simply, if you analysed +it, because they did not appear to expect to be in it. +Certainly it was well not to be too modest; assuredly, +as Mrs Murchison said, you put your own ticket on, though +that dear soul never marked herself in very plain figures, +not knowing, perhaps for one thing, quite how much she +was worth. On the other hand, "Scarce of company, welcome +trumpery," Mrs Murchison always emphatically declared to +be no part of her social philosophy. The upshot was that +the Murchisons were confined to a few old friends and +looked, as we know, half-humorously, half-ironically, +for more brilliant excursions, to Stella and "the boys." + +It was only, however, the pleasure of Mr Lorne Murchison's +company that was requested at the Milburns' dance. Almost +alone among those who had slipped into wider and more +promiscuous circles with the widening of the stream, the +Milburns had made something like an effort to hold out. +The resisting power was not thought to reside in Mr +Milburn, who was personally aware of no special ground +for it, but in Mrs Milburn and her sister, Miss Filkin, +who seemed to have inherited the strongest ideas. in the +phrase of the place, about keeping themselves to themselves. +A strain of this kind is sometimes constant, even so far +from the fountainhead, with its pleasing proof that such +views were once the most general and the most sacred +defence of middle-class firesides, and that Thackeray +had, after all, a good deal to excuse him. Crossing the +Atlantic they doubtless suffered some dilution; but all +that was possible to conserve them under very adverse +conditions Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin made it their duty +to do. Nor were these ideas opposed, contested, or much +traversed in Elgin. It was recognized that there was +"something about" Mrs Milburn and her sister--vaguely +felt--that you did not come upon that thinness of nostril, +and slope of shoulder, and set of elbow at every corner. +They must have got it somewhere. A Filkin tradition +prevailed, said to have originated in Nova Scotia: the +Filkins never had been accessible, but if they wanted to +keep to themselves, let them. In this respect Dora Milburn, +the only child, was said to be her mother's own daughter. +The shoulders, at all events, testified to it; and the +young lady had been taught to speak, like Mrs Milburn, +with what was known as an "English accent." The accent +in general use in Elgin was borrowed--let us hope +temporarily--from the other side of the line. It suffered +local modifications and exaggerations, but it was clearly +an American product. The English accent was thoroughly +affected, especially the broad "a." The time may come +when Elgin will be at considerable pains to teach itself +the broad "a," but that is in the embroidery of the +future, and in no way modifies the criticism of Dora +Milburn. + +Lorne Murchison, however, was invited to the dance. The +invitation reached him through the post: coming home from +office early on Saturday he produced it from his pocket. +Mrs Murchison and Abby sat on the verandah enjoying the +Indian summer afternoon; the horse chestnuts dropped +crashing among the fallen leaves, the roadside maples +blazed, the quiet streets ran into smoky purple, and one +belated robin hopped about the lawn. Mrs Murchison had +just remarked that she didn't know why, at this time of +year, you always felt as if you were waiting for something. + +"Well, I hope you feel honoured," remarked Abby. Not one +of them would have thought that Lorne should feel especially +honoured; but the insincerity was so obvious that it +didn't matter. Mrs Murchison, cocking her head to read +the card, tried hard not to look pleased. + +"Mrs Milburn. At Home," she read. "Dancing. Well she +might be at home dancing, for all me! Why couldn't she +just write you a little friendly note, or let Dora do +it? It's that Ormiston case," she went on shrewdly. "They +know you're taking a lot of trouble about it. And the +least they could do, too." + +Lorne sat down on the edge of the verandah with his hands +in his trousers pockets, and stuck his long legs out in +front of him. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "They have +the name of being nifty, but I haven't got anything +against the Milburns." + +"Name!" ejaculated Mrs Murchison. "Now long ago was it +the Episcopalians began that sewing-circle business for +the destitute clergy of Saskatchewan?" + +"Mother!" put in Abby, with deprecation. + +"Well, I won't be certain about the clergy, but I tell +you it had to do with Saskatchewan, for that I remember! +And anyhow, the first meeting was held at the Milburns' +--members lent their drawing-rooms. Well, Mrs Leveret +and Mrs Delarue went to the meeting--they were very thick +just then, the Leverets and the Delarues. They were so +pleased to be going that they got there about five minutes +too soon, and they were the first to come. Well, they +rang the bell and in they went. The girl showed them into +the front drawing-room and asked them to sit down. And +there in the back drawing-room sat Mrs Milburn and Miss +Filkin, AND NEVER SPOKE TO THEM! Took not the smallest +notice, any more than if they had been stray cats--not +so much! Their own denomination, mind you, too! And +there they might have been sitting still if Mrs Leveret +hadn't had the spirit to get up and march out. No thank +you. No Milburns for me." + +Lorne watched his mother with twinkling eyes till she +finished. + +"Well, Mother, after that, if it was going to be a sewing +circle I think I'd send an excuse," he said, "but maybe +they won't be so mean at a dance." + + + + +Chapter VI + +Octavius Milburn would not, I think, have objected to +being considered, with relation to his own line in life, +a representative man. He would have been wary to claim +it, but if the stranger had arrived unaided at this view +of him, he would have been inclined to think well of the +stranger's power of induction. That is what he was--a +man of averages, balances, the safe level, no more disposed +to an extravagant opinion than to wear one side whisker +longer than the other. You would take him any day, +especially on Sunday in a silk hat, for the correct +medium: by his careful walk with the spring in it, his +shrewd glance with the caution in it, his look of being +prepared to account for himself, categorically, from head +to foot. He was fond of explaining, in connection with +an offer once made him to embark his capital in Chicago, +that he preferred a fair living under his own flag to a +fortune under the Stars and Stripes. There we have the +turn of his mind, convertible into the language of +bookkeeping, a balance struck, with the profit on the +side of the flag, the patriotic equivalent in good sound +terms of dollars and cents. With this position understood, +he was prepared to take you up on any point of comparison +between the status and privileges of a subject and a +citizen--the political MORALE of a monarchy and a +republic--the advantage of life on this and the other +side of the line. There was nothing he liked better to +expatiate upon, with that valuable proof of his own +sincerity always at hand for reference and illustration. +His ideal was life in a practical, go-ahead, self-governing +colony, far enough from England actually to be disabused +of her inherited anachronisms and make your own tariff, +near enough politically to keep your securities up by +virtue of her protection. He was extremely satisfied with +his own country; one saw in his talk the phenomenon of +patriotism in double bloom, flower within flower. I have +mentioned his side whiskers: he preserved that facial +decoration of the Prince Consort; and the large steel +engraving that represents Queen Victoria in a flowing +habit and the Prince in a double-breasted frock coat and +a stock, on horseback, hung over the mantelpiece in his +drawing-room. If the outer patriotism was a little vague, +the inner had vigour enough. Canada was a great place. +Mr Milburn had been born in the country, and had never +"gone over" to England; Canada was good enough for him. +He was born, one might say, in the manufacturing interest, +and inherited the complacent and Conservative political +views of a tenderly nourished industry. Mr Milburn was +of those who were building up the country; with sufficient +protection he was prepared to go on doing it long and +loyally; meanwhile he admired the structure from all +points of view. As President of the Elgin Chamber of +Commerce, he was enabled once a year to produce no end +of gratifying figures; he was fond of wearing on such +occasions the national emblem in a little enamelled maple +leaf; and his portrait and biography occupied a full page +in a sumptuous work entitled Canadians of Today, sold by +subscription, where he was described as the "Father of +the Elgin Boiler." + +Mr and Mrs Milburn were in the drawing-room to receive +their young guests, a circumstance which alone imparted +a distinction to the entertainment. At such parties the +appearance of the heads of the house was by no means +invariable; frequently they went to bed. The simple +explanation was that the young people could stand late +hours and be none the worse next day; their elders had +to be more careful if they wanted to get down to business. +Moreover, as in all new societies, between the older and +the younger generation there was a great gulf fixed, +across which intercourse was difficult. The sons and +daughters, born to different circumstances, evolved their +own conventions, the old people used the ways and manners +of narrower days; one paralysed the other. It might be +gathered from the slight tone of patronage in the address +of youth to age that the advantage lay with the former; +but polite conversation, at best, was sustained with +discomfort. Such considerations, however, were far from +operating with the Milburns. Mrs Milburn would have said +that they were characteristic of quite a different class +of people; and so they were. + +No one would have supposed, from the way in which the +family disposed itself in the drawing-room, that Miss +Filkin had only just finished making the claret cup, or +that Dora had been cutting sandwiches till the last +minute, or that Mrs Milburn had been obliged to have a +distinct understanding with the maid--Mrs Milburn's +servants were all "maids," even the charwoman, who had +buried three husbands--on the subject of wearing a cap +when she answered the door. Mrs Milburn sat on a chair +she had worked herself, occupied with something in the +new stitch; Dora performed lightly at the piano; Miss +Filkin dipped into Selections from the Poets of the +Century, placed as remotely as possible from the others; +Mr Milburn, with his legs crossed, turned and folded a +Toronto evening paper. Mrs Milburn had somewhat objected +to the evening paper in the drawing-room. "Won't you look +at a magazine, Octavius?" she said; but Mr Milburn advanced +the argument that it removed "any appearance of stiffness," +and prevailed. It was impossible to imagine a group more +disengaged from the absurd fuss that precedes a party +among some classes of people; indeed, when Mr Lorne +Murchison arrived--like the unfortunate Mrs Leveret and +Mrs Delarue, he was the first--they looked almost surprised +to see him. + +Lorne told his mother afterward that he thought, in that +embarrassing circumstance, of Mrs Leveret and Mrs Delarue, +and they laughed consumedly together over his discomforture; +but what he felt at the moment was not the humour of the +situation. To be the very first and solitary arrival is +nowhere esteemed the happiest fortune, but in Elgin a +kind of ridiculous humiliation attached to it, a greed +for the entertainment, a painful unsophistication. A +young man of Elgin would walk up and down in the snow +for a quarter of an hour with the thermometer at zero to +escape the ignominy of it; Lorne Murchison would have so +walked. Our young man was potentially capable of not +minding, by next morning he didn't mind; but immediately +he was fast tied in the cobwebs of the common prescription, +and he made his way to each of the points of the compass +of the Milburns' drawing-room to shake hands, burning to +the ears. Before he subsided into a chair near Mr Milburn +he grasped the collar of his dress coat on each side and +drew it forward, a trick he had with his gown in court, +a nervous and mechanical action. Dora, who continued to +play, watched him over the piano with an amusement not +untinged with malice. She was a tall fair girl, with +several kinds of cleverness. She did her hair quite +beautifully, and she had a remarkable, effective, useful +reticence. Her father declared that Dora took in a great +deal more than she ever gave out--an accomplishment, in +Mr Milburn's eyes, on the soundest basis. She looked +remarkably pretty and had remarkably good style, and as +she proceeded with her mazurka she was thinking, "He has +never been asked here before: how perfectly silly he must +feel coming so early!" Presently as Lorne grew absorbed +in talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further +reflected, "I don't think I've ever seen him till now in +evening dress; it does make him a good figure." This went +on behind a faultless coiffure and an expression almost +classical in its detachment; but if Miss Milburn could +have thought on a level with her looks I, for one, would +hesitate to take any liberty with her meditations. + +However, the bell began to ring with the briefest +intermissions, the maid in the cap to make constant +journeys. She opened the door with a welcoming smile, +having practically no deportment to go with the cap: +human nature does not freeze readily anywhere. Dora had +to leave the piano: Miss Filkin decided that when fifteen +had come she would change her chair. Fifteen soon came, +the young ladies mostly in light silks or muslins cut +square, not low, in the neck, with half-sleeves. This +moderation was prescribed in Elgin, where evening dress +was more a matter of material than of cut, a thing in +itself symbolical if it were desirable to consider social +evolution here. For middle-aged ladies high necks and +long sleeves were usual; and Mrs Milburn might almost +have been expected to appear thus, in a nicely made black +broche, perhaps. It was recognized as like Mrs Milburn, +in keeping with her unbending ideas, to wear a dress cut +as square as any young lady's, with just a little lace +let in, of a lavender stripe. The young men were nearly +all in the tailor's convention for their sex the world +over, with here and there a short coat that also went to +church; but there some departures from orthodoxy in the +matter of collars and ties, and where white bows were +achieved, I fear none of the wearers would have dreamed +of defending them from the charge of being ready-made. + +It was a clear, cold January night and everybody, as +usual, walked to the party; the snow creaked and ground +underfoot, one could hear the arriving steps in the +drawing-room. They stamped and scraped to get rid of it +in the porch, and hurried through the hall, muffled +figures in overshoes, to emerge from an upstairs bedroom +radiant, putting a last touch to hair and button hole, +smelling of the fresh winter air. Such gatherings usually +consisted entirely of bachelors and maidens, with one or +two exceptions so recently yoked together that they had +not yet changed the plane of existence; married people, +by general consent, left these amusements to the unculled. +They had, as I have hinted, more serious preoccupations, +"something else to do"; nobody thought of inviting them. +Nobody, that is, but Mrs Milburn and a few others of her +way of thinking, who saw more elegance and more propriety +in a mixture. On this occasion she had asked her own +clergyman, the pleasant-faced rector of St Stephen's, +and Mrs Emmett, who wore that pathetic expression of +fragile wives and mothers who have also a congregation +at their skirts. Walter Winter was there, too. Mr Winter +had the distinction of having contested South Fox in the +Conservative interest three time unsuccessfully. Undeterred, +he went on contesting things: invariably beaten, he +invariably came up smiling and ready to try again. His +imperturbability was a valuable asset; he never lost +heart or dreamed of retiring from the arena, nor did he +ever cease to impress his party as being their most useful +and acceptable representative. His business history was +chequered and his exact financial equivalent uncertain, +but he had tremendously the air of a man of affairs; as +the phrase went, he was full of politics, the plain +repository of deep things. He had a shrewd eye, a double +chin, and a bluff, crisp, jovial manner of talking as he +lay back in an armchair with his legs crossed and played +with his watch chain, an important way of nodding assent, +a weighty shake of denial. Voting on purely party lines, +the town had later rewarded his invincible expectation +by electing him Mayor, and then provided itself with +unlimited entertainment by putting in a Liberal majority +on his council, the reports of the weekly sittings being +constantly considered as good as a cake walk. South Fox, +as people said, was not a healthy locality for +Conservatives. Yet Walter Winter wore a look of remarkable +hardiness. He had also tremendously the air of a dark +horse, the result both of natural selection and careful +cultivation. Even his political enemies took it kindly +when he "got in" for Mayor, and offered him amused +congratulations. He made a personal claim on their +cordiality, which was not the least of his political +resources. Nature had fitted him to public uses; the +impression overflowed the ranks of his own supporters +and softened asperity among his opponents. Illustration +lies, at this moment close to us. They had not been in +the same room a quarter of an hour before he was in deep +and affectionate converse with Lorne Murchison, whose +party we know, and whose political weight was increasing, +as this influence often does, with a rapidity out of +proportion with his professional and general significance. + +"It's a pity now," said Mr Winter, with genial interest, +"you can't get that Ormiston defence into your own hands. +Very useful thing for you." + +The younger man shifted a little uncomfortably in his +seat. It is one thing to entertain a private vision and +another to see it materialized on other lips. + +"Oh I'd like it well enough," he said, "but it's out of +the question, of course. I'm too small potatoes." + +"There's a lot of feeling for old Ormiston. Folks out +there on the Reserve don't know how to show it enough." + +"They've shown it a great deal too much. We don't want +to win on 'feeling,' or have it said either. And we were +as near as possible having to take the case to the Hamilton +Assizes." + +"I guess you were--I guess you were." Mr Winter's suddenly +increased gravity expressed his appreciation of the +danger. "I saw Lister of the Bank the day they heard from +Toronto--rule refused. Never saw a man more put out. +Seems they considered the thing as good as settled. +General opinion was it would go to Hamilton, sure. Well +I don't know how you pulled it off, but it was a smart +piece of work, sir." + +Lorne encountered Mr Winter's frank smile with an expression +of crude and rather stolid discomfort. It had a base of +indignation, corrected by a concession to the common idea +that most events, with an issue pendent, were the result +of a smart piece of work: a kind of awkward shrug was in +it. He had no desire to be unpleasant to Walter Winter--on +the contrary. Nevertheless, an uncompromising line came +on each side of his mouth with his reply. + +"As far as I know," he said, "the application was dismissed +on its demerits." + +"Of course it was," said Mr Winter good-humouredly. "You +don't need to tell me that. Well, now, this looks like +dancing. Miss Filkin, I see, is going to oblige on the +piano. Now I wonder whether I'm going to get Miss Dora +to give me a waltz or not." + +Chairs and table were in effect being pushed back, and +folding doors opened which disclosed another room prepared +for this relaxation. Miss Filkin began to oblige vigorously +on the piano, Miss Dora granted Mr Winter's request, +which he made with elaborate humour as an impudent old +bachelor whom "the boys" would presently take outside +and kill. Lorne watched him make it, envying him his +assurance; and Miss Milburn was aware that he watched +and aware that he envied. The room filled with gaiety +and movement: Mr Milburn, sidling dramatically along the +wall to escape the rotatory couples, admonished Mr +Murchison to get a partner. He withdrew himself from the +observation of Miss Dora and Mr Winter, and approached +a young lady on a sofa, who said "With very great pleasure." +When the dance was over he re-established the young lady +on the sofa and fanned her with energy. Looking across +the room, he saw that Walter Winter, seated beside Dora, +was fanning himself. He thought it disgusting and, for +some reason which he did not pause to explore, exactly +like Winter. He had met Miss Milburn once or twice before +without seeing her in any special way: here, at home, +the centre of the little conventions that at once protected +and revealed her, conventions bound up in the impressive +figures of her mother and her aunt, she had a new interest, +and all the attraction of that which is not easily come +by. It is also possible that although Lorne had met her +before, she had not met him; she was meeting him now for +the first time, as she sat directly opposite and talked +very gracefully to Walter Winter. Addressing Walter +Winter, Lorne was the object of her pretty remarks. While +Mr Winter had her superficial attention, he was the bland +medium which handed her on. Her consciousness was fixed +on young Mr Murchison, quite occupied with him: she could +not imagine why they had not asked him long ago; he wasn't +exactly "swell," but you could see he was somebody. So +already she figured the potential distinction in the set +of his shoulders and the carriage of his head. It might +have been translated in simple terms of integrity and +force by anyone who looked for those things. Miss Milburn +was incapable of such detail, but she saw truly enough +in the mass. + +Lorne, on the opposite sofa, looked at her across the +town's traditions of Milburn exclusiveness. Oddly enough, +at this moment when he might have considered that he had +overcome them, they seemed to gather force, exactly in +his line of vision. He had never before been so near Dora +Milburn, and he had never before perceived her so remote. +He had a sense of her distance beyond those few yards of +carpet quite incompatible with the fact. It weighed upon +him, but until she sent him a sudden unexpected smile he +did not know how heavily. It was a dissipating smile; +nothing remained before it. Lorne carefully restored his +partner's fan, bowed before her, and went straight across +the room. + + + + +Chapter VII + +It is determined with something like humour that communities +very young should occupy themselves almost altogether +with matters of grave and serious import. The vision of +life at that period is no doubt unimpeded and clear; its +conditions offer themselves with a certain nakedness and +force, both as to this world and to that which is to +come. The town of Elgin thus knew two controlling +interests--the interest of politics and the interest of +religion. Both are terms we must nevertheless circumscribe. +Politics wore a complexion strictly local, provincial, +or Dominion. The last step of France in Siam, the disputed +influence of Germany in the Persian Gulf, the struggle +of the Powers in China were not matters greatly talked +over in Elgin; the theatre of European diplomacy had no +absorbed spectators here. Nor can I claim that interest +in the affairs of Great Britain was in any way extravagant. + +A sentiment of affection for the reigning house certainly +prevailed. It was arbitrary, rococo, unrelated to current +conditions as a tradition sung down in a ballad, an +anachronism of the heart, cherished through long rude +lifetimes for the beauty and poetry of it--when you +consider, beauty and poetry can be thought of in this. +Here was no Court aiding the transmutation of the middle +class, no King spending money; here were no picturesque +contacts of Royalty and the people, no pageantry, no +blazonry of the past, nothing to lift the heart but an +occasional telegram from the monarch expressing, upon an +event of public importance, a suitable emotion. Yet the +common love for the throne amounted to a half-ashamed +enthusiasm that burned with something like a sacred flame, +and was among the things not ordinarily alluded to, +because of the shyness that attaches to all feeling that +cannot be justified in plain terms. A sentiment of +affection for the reigning house certainly prevailed; +but it was a thing by itself. The fall of a British +Government would hardly fail to excite comment, and the +retirement of a Prime Minister would induce both the +Mercury and the Express to publish a biographical sketch +of him, considerably shorter than the leader embodying +the editor's views as to who should get the electric +light contract. But the Government might become the sole +employer of labour in those islands, Church and school +might part company for ever, landlords might be deprived +of all but compassionate allowances and, except for the +degree of extravagance involved in these propositions, +they would hardly be current in Elgin. The complications +of England's foreign policy were less significant still. +It was recognized dimly that England had a foreign policy, +more or less had to have it, as they would have said in +Elgin; it was part of the huge unnecessary scheme of +things for which she was responsible--unnecessary from +Elgin's point of view as a father's financial obligations +might be to a child he had parted with at birth. It all +lay outside the facts of life, far beyond the actual +horizon, like the affairs of a distant relation from whom +one has nothing to hope, not even personal contact, and +of whose wealth and greatness one does not boast much, +because of the irony involved. Information upon all these +matters was duly put before Elgin every morning in the +telegrams of the Toronto papers; the information came, +until the other day, over cables to New York and was +disseminated by American news agencies. It was, therefore, +not devoid of bias; but if this was perceived it was by +no means thought a matter for protesting measures, +especially as they would be bound to involve expense. +The injury was too vague, too remote, to be more than +sturdily discounted by a mental attitude. Belief in +England was in the blood, it would not yield to the +temporary distortion of facts in the newspapers--at all +events, it would not yield with a rush. Whether there +was any chance of insidious sapping was precisely what +the country was too indifferent to discover. Indifferent, +apathetic, self-centred--until whenever, down the wind, +across the Atlantic, came the faint far music of the call +to arms. Then the old dog of war that has his kennel in +every man rose and shook himself, and presently there +would be a baying! The sense of kinship, lying too deep +for the touch of ordinary circumstance, quickened to +that; and in a moment "we" were fighting, "we" had lost +or won. + +Apart, however, from the extraordinary, the politics of +Elgin's daily absorption were those of the town, the +Province, the Dominion. Centres of small circumference +yield a quick swing; the concern of the average intelligent +Englishman as to the consolidation of his country's +interests in the Yangtse Valley would be a languid +manifestation beside that of an Elgin elector in the +chances of an appropriation for a new court house. The +single mind is the most fervid: Elgin had few distractions +from the question of the court house or the branch line +to Clayfield. The arts conspired to be absent; letters +resided at the nearest university city; science was +imported as required, in practical improvements. There +was nothing, indeed, to interfere with Elgin's attention +to the immediate, the vital, the municipal: one might +almost read this concentration of interest in the white +dust of the rambling streets, and the shutters closed +against it. Like other movements of the single mind, it +had something of the ferocious, of the inflexible, of +the unintelligent; but it proudly wore the character of +the go-ahead and, as Walter Winter would have pointed +out to you, it had granted eleven bonuses to "capture" +sound commercial concerns in six years. + +In wholesome fear of mistake, one would hesitate to put +church matters either before or after politics among the +preoccupations of Elgin. It would be safer and more +indisputable to say that nothing compared with religion +but politics, and nothing compared with politics but +religion. In offering this proposition also we must think +of our dimensions. There is a religious fervour in Oxford, +in Mecca, in Benares, and the sign for these ideas is +the same; we have to apply ourselves to the interpretation. +In Elgin religious fervour was not beautiful, or dramatic, +or self-immolating; it was reasonable. You were perhaps +your own first creditor; after that your debt was to your +Maker. You discharged this obligation in a spirit of +sturdy equity: if the children didn't go to Sunday school +you knew the reason why. The habit of church attendance +was not only a basis of respectability, but practically +the only one: a person who was "never known to put his +head inside a church door" could not be more severely +reprobated, by Mrs Murchison at all events. It was the +normal thing, the thing which formed the backbone of +life, sustaining to the serious, impressive to the light, +indispensable to the rest, and the thing that was more +than any of these, which you can only know when you stand +in the churches among the congregations. Within its +prescribed limitations it was for many the intellectual +exercise, for more the emotional lift, and for all the +unfailing distraction of the week. The repressed magnetic +excitement in gatherings of familiar faces, fellow-beings +bound by the same convention to the same kind of behaviour, +is precious in communities where the human interest is +still thin and sparse. It is valuable in itself, and it +produces an occasional detached sensation. There was the +case, in Dr Drummond's church, of placid-faced, saintly +old Sandy MacQuhot, the epileptic. It used to be a common +regret with Lorne Murchison that as sure as he was allowed +to stay away from church Sandy would have a fit. That +was his little boy's honesty; the elders enjoyed the fit +and deprecated the disturbance. + +There was a simple and definite family feeling within +communions. "They come to our church" was the argument +of first force whether for calling or for charity. It +was impossible to feel toward a Congregationalist or an +Episcopalian as you felt toward one who sang the same +hymns and sat under the same admonition week by week, +year in and year out, as yourself. "Wesleyans, are they?" +a lady of Knox Church would remark of the newly arrived, +in whom her interest was suggested. "Then let the Wesleyans +look after them." A pew-holder had a distinct status; an +"adherent" enjoyed friendly consideration, especially if +he adhered faithfully; and stray attendants from other +congregations were treated with punctilious hospitality, +places being found for them in the Old Testament, as if +they could hardly be expected to discover such things +for themselves. The religious interest had also the +strongest domestic character in quite another sense from +that of the family prayers which Dr Drummond was always +enjoying. "Set your own house in order and then your own +church" was a wordless working precept in Elgin. Threadbare +carpet in the aisles was almost as personal a reproach +as a hole under the dining-room table; and self-respect +was barely possible to a congregation that sat in faded +pews. The minister's gown even was the subject of scrutiny +as the years went on. It was an expensive thing to buy, +but an oyster supper would do it and leave something over +for the organ. Which brings us to the very core and centre +of these activities, their pivot, their focus and, in a +human sense, their inspiration--the minister himself. + +The minister was curiously special among a people so +general; he was in a manner raised in life on weekdays +as he was in the pulpit on Sundays. He had what one might +call prestige; some form of authority still survived in +his person, to which the spiritual democracy he presided +over gave a humorous, voluntary assent. He was supposed +to be a person of undetermined leisure--what was writing +two sermons a week to earn your living by?--and he was +probably the more reverend, or the more revered, from +the fact that he was in the house all day. A particular +importance attached to everything he said and did; he +was a person whose life answered different springs, and +was sustained on quite another principle than that of +supply and demand. The province of public criticism was +his; but his people made up for the meekness with which +they sat under it by a generous use of the corresponding +privilege in private. Comments upon the minister partook +of hardiness; it was as if the members were determined +to live up to the fact that the office-bearers could +reduce his salary if they liked. Needless to say, they +never did like. Congregations stood loyally by their +pastors, and discussion was strictly intramural. If the +Methodists handed theirs on at the end of three years +with a breath of relief, they exhaled it among themselves; +after all, for them it was a matter of luck. The +Presbyterians, as in the case of old Mr Jamesion of St +Andrew's, held on till death, pulling a long upper lip: +election was not a thing to be trifled with in heaven or +upon earth. + +It will be imagined whether Dr Drummond did not see in +these conditions his natural and wholesome element, +whether he did not fit exactly in. The God he loved to +worship as Jehovah had made him a beneficent despot and +given him, as it were, a commission. If the temporal +power had charged him to rule an eastern province, he +would have brought much the same qualities to the task. +Knox Church, Elgin, was his dominion, its moral and +material affairs his jealous interest, and its legitimate +expansion his chief pride. In "anniversary" sermons, +which he always announced the Sunday before, he seldom +refrained from contrasting the number on the roll of +church membership, then and now, with the particular +increase in the year just closed. If the increase was +satisfactory, he made little comment beyond the duty of +thanksgiving--figures spoke for themselves. If it was +otherwise Dr Drummond's displeasure was not a thing he +would conceal. He would wing it eloquently on the shaft +of his grief that the harvest had been so light; but he +would more than hint the possibility that the labourers +had been few. Most important among his statistics was +the number of young communicants. Wanderers from other +folds he admitted, with a not wholly satisfied eye upon +their early theological training, and to persons duly +accredited from Presbyterian churches elsewhere he gave +the right hand of fellowship; but the young people of +his own congregation were his chief concern always, and +if a gratifying number of these had failed to "come +forward" during the year, the responsibility must lie +somewhere. Dr Drummond was willing to take his own share; +"the ministrations of this pulpit" would be more than +suspected of having come short, and the admission would +enable him to tax the rest upon parents and Bible-class +teachers with searching effect. The congregation would +go gloomily home to dinner, and old Sandy MacQuhot would +remark to his wife, "It's hard to say why will the Doctor +get himself in sic a state aboot mere numbers. We're told +'where two or three are gathered together.' But the +Doctor's all for a grand congregation." + +Knox Church, under such auspices could hardly fail to +enlarge her borders; but Elgin enlarged hers faster. +Almost before you knew where you were there spread out +the district of East Elgin, all stacks of tall chimneys +and rows of little houses. East Elgin was not an attractive +locality; it suffered from inundation sometimes, when +the river was in spring flood; it gave unresentful room +to a tannery. It was the home of dubious practices at +the polls, and the invariable hunting-ground for domestic +servants. Nevertheless, in the view of Knox Church, it +could not bear a character wholly degraded; too many +Presbyterians, Scotch foremen, and others, had their +respectable residence there. For these it was a far cry +to Dr Drummond in bad weather, and there began to be talk +of hiring the East Elgin schoolhouse for Sunday exercises +if suitable persons could be got to come over from Knox +Church and lead them. I do not know who was found to +broach the matter to Dr Drummond; report says his relative +and housekeeper, Mrs Forsyth, who perhaps might do it +under circumstances of strategical advantage. Mrs Forsyth, +or whoever it was, had her reply in the hidden terms of +an equation--was it any farther for the people of East +Elgin to walk to hear him preach than for him to walk to +minister to the people of East Elgin, which he did quite +once a week, and if so, how much? Mrs Forsyth, or whoever +it was, might eliminate the unknown quantity. It cannot +be said that Dr Drummond discouraged the project; he +simply did not mention it and as it was known to have +been communicated to him this represented effectively +the policy of the closed door. He found himself even +oftener in East Elgin, walking about on his pastoral +errands with a fierce briskness of aspect and a sharp +inquiring eye, before which one might say the proposition +slunk away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, it seemed, +could tolerate decentralization, or anything short of +round dances, opened a chapel with a cheerful sociable, +and popularized the practice of backsliding among those +for whom the position was theologically impossible. Good +Presbyterians in East Elgin began to turn into makeshift +Methodists. The Doctor missed certain occupants of the +gallery seats and felt the logic of circumstances. Here +we must all yield, and the minister concealed his +discomfiture in a masterly initiative. The matter came +up again at a meeting of the church managers, brought up +by Dr Drummond, who had the satisfaction of hearing that +a thing put into the Doctor's hands was already half +done. In a very few weeks it was entirely done. The use +of the schoolhouse was granted through Dr Drummond's +influence with the Board free of charge; and to understand +the triumph of this it should be taken into account that +three of the trustees were Wesleyans. Services were held +regularly, certain of Dr Drummond's elders officiating; +and the conventicle in the schoolhouse speedily became +known as Knox Church Mission. It grew and prospered. The +first night "I to the hills will lift mine eyes" went up +from East Elgin on the uplifting tune that belongs to +it, the strayed came flocking back. + +This kind never go forth again; once they refind the ark +of the covenant there they abide. In the course of time +it became a question of a better one, and money was raised +locally to build it. Dr Drummond pronounced the first +benediction in Knox Mission Church, and waited, well +knowing human nature in its Presbyterian aspect, for the +next development. It came, and not later than he +anticipated, in the form of a prayer to Knox Church for +help to obtain the services of a regularly ordained +minister. Dr Drummond had his guns ready: he opposed the +application; where a regularly ordained minister was +already at the disposal of those who chose to walk a mile +and a half to hear him, the luxury of more locally +consecrated services should be at the charge of the +locality. He himself was willing to spend and be spent +in the spiritual interests of East Elgin; that was +abundantly proven; what he could not comfortably tolerate +was the deviation of congregational funds, the very blood +of the body of belief, into other than legitimate channels. +He fought for his view with all his tactician's resources, +putting up one office-bearer after another to endorse it +but the matter was decided at the general yearly meeting +of the congregation; and the occasion showed Knox Church +in singular sympathy with its struggling offspring. Dr +Drummond for the first time in his ministry, was defeated +by his people. It was less a defeat than a defence, an +unexpected rally round the corporate right to direct +corporate activities; and the congregation was so anxious +to wound the minister's feelings as little as possible +that the grant in aid of the East Elgin Mission was +embodied in a motion to increase Dr Drummond's salary by +two hundred and fifty dollars a year. The Doctor with a +wry joke, swallowed his gilded pill, but no coating could +dissimulate its bitterness, and his chagrin was plain +for long. The issue with which we are immediately concerned +is that three months later Knox Church Mission called to +minister to it the Reverend Hugh Finlay, a young man from +Dumfriesshire and not long out. Dr Drummond had known +beforehand what their choice would be. He had brought Mr +Finlay to occupy Knox Church pulpit during his last July +and August vacation, and Mrs Forsyth had reported that +such midsummer congregations she had simply never worshipped +with. Mrs Forsyth was an excellent hand at pressed tongue +and a wonder at knitted counterpanes, but she had not +acquired tact and never would. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The suggestion that the Reverend Hugh Finlay preached +from the pulpit of Knox Church "better sermons" than its +permanent occupant, would have been justly considered +absurd, and nobody pronounced it. The church was full, +as Mrs Forsyth observed, on these occasions; but there +were many other ways of accounting for that. The Murchisons, +as a family, would have been the last to make such an +admission. The regular attendance might have been, as +much as anything, out of deference to the wishes of the +Doctor himself, who invariably and sternly hoped, in his +last sermon, that no stranger occupying his place would +have to preach to empty pews. He was thinking, of course, +of old Mr Jamieson with whom he occasionally exchanged +and whose effect on the attendance had not failed to +reach him. With regard to Mr Jamieson he was compelled, +in the end, to resort to tactics: he omitted to announce +the Sunday before that his venerable neighbour would +preach, and the congregation. outwitted, had no resource +but to sustain the beard-wagging old gentleman through +seventhly to the finish. There came a time when the dear +human Doctor also omitted to announce that Mr Finlay +would preach, but for other reasons. meanwhile, as Mrs +Forsyth said, he had no difficulty in conjuring a vacation +congregation for his young substitute. They came trooping, +old and young. Mr and Mrs Murchison would survey their +creditable family rank with a secret compunction, +remembering its invariable gaps at other times, and then +resolutely turn to the praise of God with the reflection +that one means to righteousness was as blessed as another. +They themselves never missed a Sunday, and as seldom +failed to remark on the way back that it was all very +interesting, but Mr Finlay couldn't drive it home like +the Doctor. There were times, sparse and special occasions, +when the Doctor himself made one of the congregation. +Then he would lean back luxuriously in the corner of his +own pew, his wiry little form half-lost in the upholstery +his arms folded, his knees crossed, his face all humorous +indulgence; yes, humorous. At the announcement of the +text a twinkle would lodge in the shrewd grey eyes and +a smile but half-suppressed would settle about the corners +of the flexible mouth: he knew what the young fellow +there would be at. And as the young fellow proceeded, +his points would be weighed to the accompaniment of the +Doctor's pendent foot, which moved perpetually, judiciously; +while the smile sometimes deepened, sometimes lapsed, +since there were moments when any young fellow had to be +taken seriously. It was an attitude which only the Doctor +was privileged to adopt thus outwardly; but in private +it was imitated all up and down the aisles, where +responsible heads of families sat considering the quality +of the manna that was offered them. When it fell from +the lips of Mr Finlay the verdict was, upon the whole, +very favourable, as long as there was no question of +comparison with the Doctor. + +There could be, indeed, very little question of such +comparison. There was a generation between them and a +school, and to that you had to add every set and cast of +mind and body that can make men different. Dr Drummond, +in faith and practice, moved with precision along formal +and implicit lines; his orbit was established, and his +operation within it as unquestionable as the simplest +exhibit of nature. He took in a wonderful degree the +stamp of the teaching of his adolescent period; not a +line was missing nor a precept; nor was the mould defaced +by a single wavering tendency of later date. Religious +doctrine was to him a thing for ever accomplished, to be +accepted or rejected as a whole. He taught eternal +punishment and retribution, reconciling both with Divine +love and mercy; he liked to defeat the infidel with the +crashing question, "Who then was the architect of the +Universe?" The celebrated among such persons he pursued +to their deathbeds; Voltaire and Rousseau owed their +reputation, with many persons in Knox Church, to their +last moments and to Dr Drummond. He had a triumphant +invective which drew the mind from chasms in logic, and +a tender sense of poetic beauty which drew it, when he +quoted great lines, from everything else. He loved the +euphony of the Old Testament; his sonorous delivery would +lift a chapter from Isaiah to the height of ritual, and +every Psalm he read was a Magnificat whether he would or +no. The warrior in him was happy among the Princes of +Issachar; and the parallels he would find for modern +events in the annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. +Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and his +reference to current events would often give his listeners +an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have +been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated. +The survivors of a convulsion of nature, for instance, +might have learned from his lips the cause and kind of +their disaster traced back forcibly to local acquiescence +in iniquity, and drawn unflinchingly from the text, +"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The +militant history of his Church was a passion with him; +if ever he had to countenance canonization he would have +led off with Jenny Geddes. "A tremendous Presbyterian" +they called him in the town. To hear him give out a single +psalm, and sing it with his people, would convince anybody +of that. There was a choir, of course, but to the front +pews, at all events, Dr Drummond's leading was more +important than the choir's. It was a note of dauntless +vigour, and it was plain by the regular forward jerk of +his surpliced shoulder that his foot was keeping time: + + Where the assemblies of the just + And congregations are. + +You could not help admiring, and you could not help +respecting; you were compelled by his natural force and +his unqualified conviction, his tireless energy and his +sterling sort. + +It is possible to understand, however, that after sitting +for twenty-five years under direction so unfailing and +so uncompromising, the congregation of Knox Church might +turn with a moderate curiosity to the spiritual indications +of the Reverend Hugh Finlay. He was a passionate romantic, +and his body had shot up into a fitting temple for such +an inhabitant as his soul. He was a great long fellow, +with a shock of black hair and deep dreams in his eyes; +his head was what people called a type, a type I suppose +of the simple motive and the noble intention, the detached +point of view and the somewhat indifferent attitude to +material things, as it may be humanly featured anywhere. +His face bore a confusion of ideals; he had the brow of +a Covenanter and the mouth of Adonais, the flame of +religious ardour in his eyes and the composure of perceived +philosophy on his lips. He was fettered by an impenetrable +shyness; it was in the pulpit alone that he could expand, +and then only upon written lines, with hardly a gesture, +and the most perfunctory glances, at conscientious +intervals, toward his hearers. A poor creature, indeed, +in this respect, Dr Drummond thought him--Dr Drummond, +who wore an untrammelled surplice which filled like an +agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. "The +man loses half his points," said Dr Drummond. I doubt +whether he did, people followed so closely, though Sandy +MacQuhot was of the general opinion when he said that it +would do nobody any harm if Mr Finlay would lift his head +oftener from the book. + +Advena Murchison thought him the probable antitype of an +Oxford don. She had never. seen an Oxford don, but Mr +Finlay wore the characteristics these schoolmen were +dressed in by novelists; and Advena noted with delight +the ingenuity of fate in casting such a person into the +pulpit of the Presbyterian Church in a young country. +She had her perception of comedy in life; till Finlay +came she had found nothing so interesting. With his +arrival, however, other preoccupations fell into their +proper places. + +Finlay, indeed, it may be confessed at once, he and not +his message was her engrossment from the beginning. The +message she took with reverent gentleness; but her +passionate interest was for the nature upon which it +travelled, and never for the briefest instant did she +confuse these emotions. Those who write, we are told +transcribe themselves in spite of themselves; it is more +true of those who preach, for they are also candid by +profession, and when they are not there is the eye and +the voice to help to betray them. Hugh Finlay, in the +pulpit, made himself manifest in all the things that +matter to Advena Murchison in the pew; and from the pew +to the pulpit her love went back with certainty, clear +in its authority and worshipping the ground of its +justification. When she bowed her head it was he whom +she heard in the language of his invocations; his doctrine +rode, for her, on a spirit of wide and sweet philosophy; +in his contemplation of the Deity she saw the man. He +had those lips at once mobile, governed and patient, upon +which genius chooses oftenest to rest. As to this, Advena's +convictions were so private as to be hidden from herself; +she never admitted that she thought Finlay had it, and +in the supreme difficulty of proving anything else we +may wisely accept her view. But he had something, the +subtle Celt; he had horizons, lifted lines beyond the +common vision, and an eye rapt and a heart intrepid; and +though for a long time he was unconscious of it, he must +have adventured there with a happier confidence because +of her companionship. + +From the first Advena knew no faltering or fluttering, +none of the baser nervous betrayals. It was all one great +delight to her, her discovery and her knowledge and her +love for him. It came to her almost in a logical +development; it found her grave, calm, and receptive. +She had even a private formula of gratitude that the +thing which happened to everybody, and happened to so +many people irrelevantly, should arrive with her in such +a glorious defensible, demonstrable sequence. Toward him +it gave her a kind of glad secret advantage; he was loved +and he was unaware. She watched his academic awkwardness +in church with the inward tender smile of the eternal +habile feminine, and when they met she could have laughed +and wept over his straightened sentences and his difficult +manner, knowing how little significant they were. With +his eyes upon her and his words offered to her intelligence, +she found herself treating his shy formality as the +convention it was, a kind of make-believe which she would +politely and kindly play up to until he should happily +forget it and they could enter upon simpler relations. +She had to play up to it for a long time, but her love +made her wonderfully clever and patient; and of course +the day came when she had her reward. Knowing him as she +did, she remembered the day and the difference it made. + +It was toward the end of an afternoon in early April; +the discoloured snow still lay huddled in the bleaker +fence corners. Wide puddles stood along the roadsides, +reflecting the twigs and branches of the naked maples; +last year's leaves were thick and wet underfoot, and a +soft damp wind was blowing. Advena was on her way home +and Finlay overtook her. He passed her at first, with a +hurried silent lifting of his hat; then perhaps the +deserted street gave a suggestion of unfriendliness to +his act, or some freshness in her voice stayed him. At +all events, he waited and joined her, with a word or two +about their going in the same direction; and they walked +along together. He offered her his companionship, but he +had nothing to say; the silence in which they pursued +their way was no doubt to him just the embarrassing +condition he usually had to contend with. To her it seemed +pregnant, auspicious; it drew something from the low grey +lights of the wet spring afternoon and the unbound +heart-lifting wind; she had a passionate prevision that +the steps they took together would lead somehow to freedom. +They went on in that strange bound way, and the day drew +away from them till they turned a sudden corner, when it +lay all along the yellow sky across the river, behind a +fringe of winter woods, stayed in the moment of its +retreat on the edge of unvexed landscape. They stopped +involuntarily to look, and she saw a smile come up from +some depth in him. + +"Ah, well," he said, as if to himself, "it's something +to be in a country where the sun still goes down with a +thought of the primaeval." + +"I think I prefer the sophistication of chimney-pots," +she replied. "I've always longed to see a sunset in +London, with the fog breaking over Westminster." + +"Then you don't care about them for themselves, sunsets?" +he asked, with the simplest absence of mind. + +"I never yet could see the sun go down, But I was angry +in my heart," she said, and this time he looked at her. + +"How does it go on?" he said. + +"Oh, I don't know. Only those two lines stay with me. I +feel it that way, too. It's the seal upon an act of +violence, isn't it, a sunset? Something taken from us +against our will. It's a hateful reminder, in the midst +of our delightful volitions, of how arbitrary every +condition of life is." + +"The conditions of business are always arbitrary. Life +is a business--we have to work at ourselves till it is +over. So much cut off and ended it is," he said, glancing +at the sky again. "If space is the area of life and time +is its opportunity, there goes a measure of opportunity." + +"I wonder," said Advena, "where it goes?" + +"Into the void behind time?" he suggested, smiling straight +at her. + +"Into the texture of the future," she answered, smiling +back. + +"We might bring it to bear very intelligently on the +future, at any rate," he returned. "The world is wrapped +in destiny, and but revolves to roll it out" + +"I don't remember that," she said curiously. + +"No you couldn't," he laughed outright. "I haven't thought +it good enough to publish." + +"And it isn't the sort of thing," she ventured gaily, +"you could put in a sermon." + +"No, it isn't." They came to a corner of the street which +led to Mr Finlay's boarding-house. It stretched narrowly +to the north and there was a good deal more snow on each +side of it. They lingered together for a moment talking, +seizing the new joy in it which was simply the joy of +his sudden liberation with her consciously pushing away +the moment of parting; and Finlay's eyes rested once +again on the evening sky beyond the river. + +"I believe you are right and I am a moralizer," he said. +"There IS pain over there. One thinks a sunset beautiful +and impressive, but one doesn't look at it long." + +Then they separated, and he took the road to the north, +which was still snowbound, while she went on into the +chilly yellow west, with the odd sweet illusion that a +summer day was dawning. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The office of Messrs Fulke, Warner, & Murchison was in +Market Street, exactly over Scott's drug store. Scott +with his globular blue and red and green vessels in the +window and his soda-water fountain inside; was on the +ground floor; the passage leading upstairs separated him +from Mickie, boots and shoes; and beyond Mickie, Elgin's +leading tobacconist shared his place of business with a +barber. The last two contributed most to the gaiety of +Market Street: the barber with the ribanded pole, which +stuck out at an angle; the tobacconist with a nobly +featured squaw in chocolate effigy who held her draperies +under her chin with one hand and outstretched a packet +of cigars with the other. + +The passage staircase between Scott's and Mickie's had +a hardened look, and bore witness to the habit of +expectoration; ladies, going up to Dr Simmons, held their +skirts up and the corners of their mouths down. Dr Simmons +was the dentist: you turned to the right. The passage +itself turned to the left, and after passing two doors +bearing the law firm's designation in black letters on +ground glass, it conducted you with abruptness to the +office of a bicycle agent, and left you there. For greater +emphasis the name of the firm of Messrs Fulke, Warner & +Murchison was painted on the windows also; it could be +seen from any part of the market square, which lay, with +the town hall in the middle, immediately below. During +four days in the week the market square was empty. Odds +and ends of straw and paper blew about it; an occasional +pedestrian crossed it diagonally for the short cut to +the post-office; the town hall rose in the middle, and +defied you to take your mind off the ugliness of municipal +institutions. On the other days it was a scene of activity. +Farmers' wagons, with the shafts turned in were ranged +round three sides of it; on a big day they would form +into parallel lanes and cut the square into sections as +well. The produce of all Fox County filled the wagons, +varying agreeably as the year went round. Bags of potatoes +leaned against the sidewalk, apples brimmed in bushel +measures, ducks dropped their twisted necks over the cart +wheels; the town hall, in this play of colour, stood +redeemed. The produce was mostly left to the women to +sell. On the fourth side of the square loads of hay and +cordwood demanded the master mind, but small matters of +fruit, vegetables, and poultry submitted to feminine +judgement. The men "unhitched," and went away on their +own. business; it was the wives you accosted, as they +sat in the middle, with their knees drawn up and their +skirts tucked close, vigilant in rusty bonnets, if you +wished to buy. Among them circulated the housewives of +Elgin, pricing and comparing and acquiring; you could +see it all from Dr Simmons's window, sitting in his chair +that screwed up and down. There was a little difficulty +always about getting things home; only very ordinary +people carried their own marketing. Trifling articles, +like eggs or radishes, might be smuggled into a brown +wicker basket with covers; but it did not consort with +elegance to "trapes" home with anything that looked +inconvenient or had legs sticking out of it. So that +arrangements of mutual obligation had to be made: the +good woman from whom Mrs Jones had bought her tomatoes +would take charge of the spring chickens Mrs Jones had +bought from another good woman just as soon as not, and +deliver them at Mrs Jones's residence, as under any +circumstances she was "going round that way." + +It was a scene of activity but not of excitement, or in +any sense of joy. The matter was too hard an importance; +it made too much difference on both sides whether potatoes +were twelve or fifteen cents a peck. The dealers were +laconic and the buyers anxious; country neighbours +exchanged the time of day, but under the pressure of +affairs. Now and then a lady of Elgin stopped to gossip +with another; the countrywomen looked on, curious, grim, +and a little contemptuous of so much demonstration and +so many words. Life on an Elgin market day was a serious +presentment even when the sun shone, and at times when +it rained or snowed the aesthetic seemed a wholly +unjustifiable point of view. It was not misery, it was +even a difficult kind of prosperity, but the margin was +small and the struggle plain. Plain, too, it was that +here was no enterprise of yesterday, no fresh broken +ground of dramatic promise, but a narrow inheritance of +the opportunity to live which generations had grasped +before. There were bones in the village graveyards of +Fox County to father all these sharp features; Elgin +market square, indeed, was the biography of Fox County +and, in little, the history of the whole Province. The +heart of it was there, the enduring heart of the new +country already old in acquiescence. It was the deep root +of the race in the land, twisted and unlovely, but holding +the promise of all. Something like that Lorne Murchison +felt about it as he stood for a moment in the passage I +have mentioned and looked across the road. The spectacle +never failed to cheer him; he was uniformly in gayer +spirits, better satisfied with life and more consciously +equal to what he had to do, on days when the square was +full than on days when it was empty. This morning he had +an elation of his own; it touched everything with more +vivid reality. The familiar picture stirred a joy in him +in tune with his private happiness; its undernote came +to him with a pang as keen. The sense of kinship surged +in his heart; these were his people, this his lot as well +as theirs. For the first time he saw it in detachment. +Till now he had regarded it with the friendly eyes of a +participator who looked no further. Today he did look +further: the whole world invited his eyes, offering him +a great piece of luck to look through. The opportunity +was in his hand which, if he could seize and hold, would +lift and carry him on. He was as much aware of its +potential significance as anyone could be, and what leapt +in his veins till he could have laughed aloud was the +splendid conviction of resource. Already in the door of +the passage he had achieved, from that point he looked +at the scene before him with an impulse of loyalty and +devotion. A tenderness seized him for the farmers of Fox +County, a throb of enthusiasm for the idea they represented, +which had become for him suddenly moving and pictorial. +At that moment his country came subjectively into his +possession; great and helpless it came into his inheritance +as it comes into the inheritance of every man who can +take it, by deed of imagination and energy and love. He +held this microcosm of it, as one might say, in his hand +and looked at it ardently; then he took his way across +the road. + +A tall thickly built young fellow detached himself from +a group, smiling broadly at the sight of Murchison, and +started to meet him. + +"Hello, Lorne," he said. He had smiled all the way +anticipating the encounter. He was obviously in clothes +which he did not put on every day, but the seriousness +of this was counteracted by his hard felt hat, which he +wore at an angle that disregarded convention. + +"Hello, Elmore! You back?" + +"That's about it." + +"You don't say! Back to stay?" + +"Far's I can see. Young Alf's made up his mind to learn +the dentist business, and the old folks are backin' him; +so I don't see but I've got to stop on and run the show. +Father's gettin' up in years now." + +"Why, yes. I suppose he must be. It's a good while since +you went West. Well, what sort of a country have they +got out Swan River way? Booming right along?" + +"Boom nothing. I don't mean to say there's anything the +matter with the country; there ain't; but you've got to +get up just as early in the mornings out there as y'do +anywhere, far's I noticed. An' it's a lonesome life. Now +I AM back I don't know but little old Ontario's good +enough for me. 'N I hear you've taken up the law, Lorne. +Y'always had a partiality for it, d'y' remember, up there +to the Collegiate? I used to think it'd be fine to travel +with samples, those days. But you were dead gone on the +law. 'N by all reports it pans out pretty well don't it?" + +The young men had taken their way among the shifting +crowd together. Lorne Murchison, although there was +something too large about him for the town's essential +stamp, made by contrast, as he threaded the desultory +groups of country people, a type of the conventional and +the formed; his companion glanced at him now and then +with admiration. The values of carriage and of clothes +are relative: in Fifth Avenue Lorne would have looked +countrified, in Piccadilly colonial. Districts are +imaginable, perhaps not in this world, where the +frequenters of even those fashionable thoroughfares would +attract glances of curiosity by their failure to achieve +the common standard in such things. Lorne Murchison, to +dismiss the matter, was well up to the standard of Elgin, +though he wore his straw hat quite on the back of his +head and buried both hands in his trousers pockets. His +eye was full of pleasant easy familiarity with the things +he saw, and ready to see larger things; it had that beam +of active inquiry, curious but never amazed that marks +the man likely to expand his horizons. Meanwhile he was +on capital terms with his little world, which seemed to +take pleasure in hailing him by his Christian name; even +morose Jim Webster, who had failed three times in +groceries, said "Morning, Lorne" with a look of +toleration. He moved alertly; the poise of his head was +sanguine; the sun shone on him; the timidest soul came +nearer to him. He and Elmore Crow, who walked beside him, +had gone through the lower forms of the Elgin Collegiate +Institute together, that really "public" kind of school +which has so much to do with reassorting the classes of +a new country. The Collegiate Institute took in raw +material and turned out teachers, more teachers than +anything. The teachers taught, chiefly in rural districts +where they could save money, and with the money they +saved changed themselves into doctors, Fellows of the +University, mining engineers. The Collegiate Institute +was a potential melting-pot: you went in as your simple +opportunities had made you; how you shaped coming out +depended upon what was hidden in the core of you. You +could not in any case be the same as your father before +you; education in a new country is too powerful a +stimulant for that, working upon material too plastic +and too hypothetical; it is not yet a normal force, with +an operation to be reckoned on with confidence. It is +indeed the touchstone for character in a new people, for +character acquired as apart from that inherited; it +sometimes reveals surprises. Neither Lorne Murchison nor +Elmore Crow illustrates this point very nearly. Lorne +would have gone into the law in any case, since his +father was able to send him, and Elmore would inevitably +have gone back to the crops since he was early defeated +by any other possibility. Nevertheless, as they walk +together in my mind along the Elgin market square, the +Elgin Collegiate Institute rises infallibly behind them, +a directing influence and a responsible parent. Lorne +was telling his great news. + +"You don't say!" remarked Elmore in response to it. +"Lumbago is it? Pa's subject to that too; gets an attack +most springs. Mr Fulke'll have to lay right up--it's the +only thing." + +"I'm afraid he will. And Warner never appeared in court +in his life." + +"What d'ye keep Warner for, then?" + +"Oh, he does the conveyancing. He's a good conveyancer, +but he isn't any pleader and doesn't pretend to be. And +it's too late to transfer the case; nobody could get to +the bottom of it as we have in the time. So it falls on +me." + +"Caesar, his ghost! How d'ye feel about it, Lorne? I'd +be scared green. Y'don't TALK nervous. Now I bet you get +there with both feet." + +"I hope to get there," the young lawyer answered; and as +he spoke a concentration came into his face which drove +the elation and everything else that was boyish out of +it. "It's bigger business than I could have expected for +another five years. I'm sorry for the old man, though--HE'S +nervous, if you like. They can hardly keep him in bed. +Isn't that somebody beckoning to you?" + +Elmore looked everywhere except in the right direction +among the carts. If you had. been "to the Collegiate," +relatives among the carts selling squashes were +embarrassing. + +"There," his companion indicated. + +"It's Mother," replied Mr Crow, with elaborate unconcern; +"but I don't suppose she's in anything of a hurry. I'll +just go along with you far's the post-office." He kept +his glance carefully from the spot at which he was +signalled, and a hint of copper colour crawled up the +back of his neck. + +"Oh, but she is. Come along, Elmore; I can go that way." + +"It'll be longer for you." + +"Not a bit." Lorne cast a shrewd glance at his companion. +"And as we're passing, you might just introduce me to +your mother; see?" + +"She won't expect it, Lorne." + +"That's all right, my son. She won't refuse to meet a +friend of yours." He led the way as he spoke to the point +of vantage occupied by Mrs Crow, followed, with plain +reluctance, by her son. She was a frail-looking old woman, +with a knitted shawl pinned tightly across her chest, +and her bonnet, in the course of commercial activity, +pushed so far back as to be almost falling off. + +"You might smarten yourself with that change, Elmore," +she addressed him, ignoring his companion. "There's folks +coming back for it. Two-dollar bill, wa'n't it? Fifty +cents--seventy-five--dollar'n a half. That's a Yankee +dime, an' you kin march straight back with it. They don't +pass but for nine cents, as you're old enough to know. +Keep twenty-five cents for your dinner--you'll get most +for the money at the Barker House--an' bring me back +another quarter. Better go an' get your victuals now--it's +gone twelve--while they're hot." + +Elmore took his instructions without visible demur; and +then, as Lorne had not seen fit to detach himself, +performed the ceremony of introduction. As he performed +it he drew one foot back and bowed himself, which seemed +obscurely to facilitate it. The suspicion faded out of +Mrs Crow's tired old sharp eyes under the formula, and +she said she was pleased to make our friend's acquaintance. + +"Mr Murchison's changed some since the old days at the +Collegiate," Elmore explained, "but he ain't any different +under his coat. He's practisin' the law." + +"Lawyers," Mrs Crow observed, "are folks I like to keep +away from." + +"Quite right, too," responded Lorne, unabashed. "And so +you've got my friend here back on the farm, Mrs Crow?" + +"Well, yes, he's back on the farm, an' when he's wore +out his Winnipeg clothes and his big ideas, we're lookin' +to make him some use." Mrs Crow's intention, though +barbed, was humorous, and her son grinned broadly. + +"There's more money in the law," he remarked "once you +get a start. Here's Mr Murchison goin' to run the Ormiston +case; his old man's down sick, an' I guess it depends on +Lorne now whether Ormiston gets off or goes to +penitentiary." + +Mrs Crow's face tied itself up into criticism as she +looked our young man up and down. "Depends upon you, does +it?" she commented. "Well, all I've got to say is it's +a mighty young dependence. Coming on next week, ain't +it? You won't be much older by then. Yes'm," she turned +to business, "I don't say but what it's high for rhubarb, +but there ain't another bunch in the market, and won't +be for a week yet." + +Under cover of this discussion Lorne bade the Crows good +morning, retreating in the rear of the lady who found +the rhubarb high. Mrs Crow's drop of acid combined with +his saving sense of the humour of it to adjust all his +courage and his confidence, and with a braver face than +ever he involuntarily hastened his steps to keep pace +with his happy chance. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +In the wide stretches of a new country there is nothing +to bound a local excitement, or to impede its transmission +at full value. Elgin was a manufacturing town in southern +Ontario, but they would have known every development of +the Federal Bank case at the North Pole if there had been +anybody there to learn. In Halifax they did know it, and +in Vancouver, B.C., while every hundred miles nearer it +warmed as a topic in proportion. In Montreal the papers +gave it headlines; from Toronto they sent special reporters. +Of course, it was most of all the opportunity of Mr Horace +Williams, of the Elgin Express, and of Rawlins, who held +all the cards in their hands, and played them, it must +be said, admirably, reducing the Mercury to all sorts of +futile expedients to score, which the Express would +invariably explode with a guffaw of contradiction the +following day. It was to the Express that the Toronto +reporters came for details and local colour; and Mr +Williams gave them just as much as he thought they ought +to have and no more. It was the Express that managed, +while elaborately abstaining from improper comment upon +a matter sub judice, to feed and support the general +conviction of young Ormiston's innocence, and thereby +win for itself, though a "Grit" paper, wide reading in +that hotbed of Toryism, Moneida Reservation, while the +Conservative Mercury, with its reckless sympathy for an +old party name, made itself criminally liable by reviewing +cases of hard dealing by the bank among the farmers, and +only escaped prosecution by the amplest retraction and +the most contrite apology. As Mr Williams remarked, there +was no use in dwelling on the unpopularity of the bank, +that didn't need pointing out; folks down Moneida way +could put any newspaper wise on the number of mortgages +foreclosed and the rate for secondary loans exacted by +the bank in those parts. That consideration, no doubt, +human nature being what it is, contributed the active +principle to the feeling so widely aroused by the case. +We are not very readily the prey to emotions of faith in +our fellows, especially, perhaps, if we live under +conditions somewhat hard and narrow; the greater animosity +behind is, at all events, valuable to give force and +relief and staying power to a sentiment of generous +conviction. But however we may depreciate its origin, +the conviction was there, widespread in the townships: +young Ormiston would "get clear"; the case for the defence +might be heard over every bushel of oats in Elgin +market-place. + +In Elgin itself opinion was more reserved. There was a +general view that these bank clerks were fast fellows, +and a tendency to contrast the habits and the pay of such +dashing young men, an exercise which ended in a not +unnatural query. As to the irritating caste feeling +maintained among them, young Ormiston perhaps gave himself +as few airs as any. He was generally conceded indeed by +the judging sex to be "nice to everybody"; but was not +that exactly the nature for which temptations were most +easily spread? The town, moreover, had a sapience of its +own. Was it likely that the bank would bring a case so +publicly involving its character and management without +knowing pretty well what it was about? The town would +not be committed beyond the circle of young Ormiston's +intimate friends, which was naturally small if you compared +it with the public; the town wasn't going to be surprised +at anything that might be proved. On the other hand, the +town was much more vividly touched than the country by +the accident which had made Lorne Murchison practically +sole counsel for the defence, announced as it was by the +Express with every appreciation of its dramatic value. +Among what the Express called "the farming community" +this, in so far as it had penetrated, was regarded as a +simple misfortune, a dull blow to expectancy, which +expectancy had some work to survive. Elgin, with its +finer palate for sensation, saw in it heightened chances, +both for Lorne and for the case; and if any ratepayer +within its limits had remained indifferent to the suit, +the fact that one side of it had been confided to so +young and so "smart" a fellow townsman would have been +bound to draw him into the circle of speculation. Youth +in a young country is a symbol wearing all its value. It +stands not only for what it is. The trick of augury +invests it, at a glance, with the sum of its possibilities, +the augurs all sincere, confident, and exulting. They +have been justified so often; they know, in their wide +fair fields of opportunity, just what qualities will +produce what results. There is thus a complacence among +adolescent peoples which is vaguely irritating to their +elders; but the greybeards need not be over-captious; it +is only a question of time, pathetically short-lived in +the history of the race. Sanguine persons in Elgin were +freely disposed to "bet on" Lorne Murchison, and there +were none so despondent as to take the view that he would +not come out of it, somehow; with an added personal +significance. To make a spoon is a laudable achievement, +but it may be no mean business to spoil a horn. + +As the Express put it, there was as little standing room +for ladies and gentlemen in the courthouse the first day +of the Spring Assizes as there was for horses in the +Court House Square. The County Crown Attorney was unusually, +oddly, reinforced by Cruickshank, of Toronto--the great +Cruickshank, K.C., probably the most distinguished criminal +lawyer in the Province. There were those who considered +that Cruickshank should not have been brought down, that +it argued undue influence on the part of the bank, and +his retainer was a fierce fan to the feeling in Moneida; +but there is no doubt that his appearance added all that +was possible to the universal interest in the case. Henry +Cruickshank was an able man and, what was rarer a fastidious +politician. He had held office in the Dominion Cabinet, +and had resigned it because of a difference with his +colleagues in the application of a principle; they called +him, after a British politician of lofty but abortive +views, the Canadian Renfaire. He had that independence +of personality, that intellectual candour, and that touch +of magnetism which combine to make a man interesting in +his public relations. Cruickshank's name alone would have +filled the courthouse, and people would have gone away +quoting him. + +From the first word of the case for the prosecution there +was that in the leading counsel's manner--a gravity, a +kindness, an inclination to neglect the commoner methods +of scoring--that suggested, with the sudden chill of +unexpectedly bad news, a foregone conclusion. The reality +of his feeling reference to the painful position of the +defendant's father, the sincerity of his regret on behalf +of the bank, for the deplorable exigency under which +proceedings had been instituted, spread a kind of blankness +through the court; men frowned thoughtfully, and one or +two ladies shed furtive tears. Even the counsel for the +defence, it was afterward remembered, looked grave, +sympathetic, and concerned, in response to the brief but +significant and moving sentences with which his eminent +opponent opened the case. It is not my duty to report +the trial for any newspaper; I will therefore spare myself +more than the most general references; but the facts +undoubtedly were that a safe in the strong room of the +bank had been opened between certain hours on a certain +night and its contents abstracted; that young Ormiston, +cashier of the bank, was sleeping, or supposed to be +sleeping, upon the premises at this time, during the +illness of the junior whose usual duty it was; and that +the Crown was in possession of certain evidence which +would be brought forward to prove collusion with the +burglary on the part of the defendant, collusion to cover +deficits for which he could be held responsible. In a +strain almost apologetic, Mr Cruickshank explained to +the jury the circumstances which led the directors to +the suspicion which they now believed only too regrettably +well founded. These consisted in the fact that the young +man was known to be living beyond his means, and so to +be constantly visited by the temptation to such a crime; +the special facilities which he controlled for its +commission and, in particular, the ease and confidence +with which the actual operation had been carried out, +arguing no fear of detection on the part of the burglars, +no danger of interference from one who should have stood +ready to defend with his life the property in his charge, +but who would shortly be seen to have been toward it, +first, a plunderer in his own person, and afterward the +accomplice of plunderers to conceal his guilt. Examination +showed the safe to have been opened with the dexterity +that demands both time and coolness; and the ash from a +pipe knocked out against the wall at the side of the +passage offered ironical testimony to the comfort in +which the business had been done. + +The lawyer gave these considerations their full weight, +and it was in dramatic contrast with the last of them +that he produced the first significant fragment of evidence +against Ormiston. There had been, after all, some hurry +of departure. It was shown by a sheet of paper bearing +the mark of a dirty thumb and a hasty boot-heel. bearing +also the combination formula for opening the safe. + +The public was familiar with that piece of evidence; it +had gone through every kind of mill of opinion; it made +no special sensation. The evidence of the caretaker who +found the formula and of the witnesses who established +it to be in young Ormiston's handwriting, produced little +interest. Mr Cruickshank, in elaborating his theory as +to why with the formula in their hands the depredators +still found it necessary to pick the lock, offered nothing +to speculations already current--the duplicate key with +which they had doubtless been enabled to supply themselves +was a clumsy copy and had failed them; that conclusion +had been drawn commonly enough. The next scrap of paper +produced by the prosecution was another matter. It was +the mere torn end of a greasy sheet; upon it was written +"Not less than 3,000 net," and it had been found in the +turning out of Ormiston's dressing-table. It might have +been anything--a number of people pursed their lips +contemptuously--or it might have been, without doubt, +the fragment of a disreputable transaction that the +prosecuting counsel endeavoured to show it. Here, no +doubt, was one of the pieces of evidence the prosecution +was understood to have up its sleeve, and that portion +of the prosecuting counsel's garment was watched with +feverish interest for further disclosures. They came +rapidly enough, but we must hurry them even more. The +name of Miss Florence Belton, when it rose to the surface +of the evidence, riveted every eye and ear. Miss Belton +was one of those ambiguous ladies who sometimes drift +out from the metropolitan vortex and circle restfully in +backwaters for varying periods, appearing and disappearing +irrelevantly. They dress beautifully; they are known to +"paint" and thought to dye their hair. They establish no +relations, being much too preoccupied. making exceptions +only, as a rule, in favour of one or two young men, to +whom they extend amenities based--it is the common +talk--upon late hours and whiskey-and-soda. They seem +superior to the little prevailing conventions; they excite +an unlawful interest; though nobody knows them black +nobody imagines them white; and when they appear upon +Main Street in search of shoelaces or elastic heads are +turned and nods, possibly nudges, exchanged. Miss Belton +had come from New York to the Barker House, Elgin, and +young Ormiston's intimacy with her was one of the things +that counted against him in the general view. It was to +so count more seriously in the particular instance. +Witnesses were called to prove that he had spent the +evening of the burglary with Miss Belton at her hotel, +that he had remained with her until one o'clock, that he +was in the habit of spending his evenings with Miss Belton. + +Rawlins of the Express did not overdo the sensation which +was caused in the courtroom when the name of this lady +herself was called to summon her to the witness box. It +was indeed the despair of his whole career. He thought +despondingly ever after of the thrill, to which he himself +was not superior and which, if he had only been able to +handle it adequately, might have led him straight up the +ladder to a night editorship. Miss Belton appeared from +some unsuspected seat near the door, throwing back a +heavy veil, and walking as austerely as she could, +considering the colour of her hair. She took her place +without emotion and there she corroborated the evidence +of the servants of the hotel. To the grave questions of +the prosecution she fluently replied that the distraction +of these evenings had been cards--cards played, certainly, +for money, and that she, certainly, had won very +considerable sums from the defendant from time to time. +In Elgin the very mention of cards played for money will +cause a hush of something deeper than disapproval; there +was silence in the court at this. In producing several +banknotes for Miss Belton's identification, Mr Cruickshank +seemed to profit by the silence. Miss Belton identified +them without hesitation, as she might easily, since they +had been traced to her possession. Asked to account for +them; she stated, without winking, that they had been +paid to her by Mr Walter Ormiston at various times during +the fortnight preceding the burglary, in satisfaction of +debts at cards. She, Miss Belton, had left Elgin for +Chicago the day after the burglary. Mr Ormiston knew that +she was going. He had paid her the four fifty-dollar +notes actually traced, the night before she left, and +said. "You won't need to break these here, will you?" He +seemed anxious that she should not, but it was the merest +accident that she hadn't. In all, she had received from +Mr Ormiston four hundred and fifty dollars. No, she had +no suspicion that the young man might not be in a position +to make such payments. She understood that Mr Ormiston's +family was wealthy, and never thought twice about it. + +She spoke with a hard dignity, the lady, and a great +effect of doing business, a kind of assertion of the +legitimate. The farmers of Fox County told each other in +chapfallen appreciation that she was about as level-headed +as they make them. Lawyer Cruickshank, as they called +him, brought forth from her detail after detail, and +every detail fitted damningly with the last. The effect +upon young Ormiston was so painful that many looked +another way. His jaw was set and his features contorted +to hold himself from the disgrace of tears. He was +generally acknowledged to be overwhelmed by the unexpected +demonstration of his guilt, but distress was so plain in +him that there was not a soul in the place that was not +sorry for him. In one or two resolute faces hope still +glimmered, but it hardly survived the cross-examination +of the Crown's chief witness by the counsel for the +defence which, as far as it went, had a perfunctory air +and contributed little to the evidence before the Court. +It did not go all the way, however. The case having opened +late, the defence was reserved till the following day, +when proceedings would be resumed with the further +cross-examination of Miss Belton. + +As the defendant's counsel went down the courthouse steps +Rawlins came up to him to take note of his demeanour and +anything else that might be going. + +"Pretty stiff row to hoe you've got there, Lorne," he +said. + +"Pretty stiff," responded Lorne. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Imagination, one gathers, is a quality dispensed with of +necessity in the practice of most professions, being that +of which nature is, for some reason, most niggardly. +There is no such thing as passing in imagination for any +department of public usefulness, even the government of +Oriental races; the list of the known qualified would be +exhausted, perhaps, in getting the papers set. Yet neither +poet nor philosopher enjoys it in monopoly; the chemist +may have it, and the inventor must; it has been proved +the mainspring of the mathematician, and I have hinted +it the property of at least two of the Murchisons. Lorne +was indebted to it certainly for his constructive view +of his client's situation, the view which came to him +and stayed with him like a chapter in a novel, from the +hour in which Ormiston had reluctantly accounted for +himself upon the night of the burglary. It was a brilliant +view, that perceived the young clerk the victim of the +conspiracy he was charged with furthering; its justification +lay back, dimly, among the intuitions about human nature +which are part of the attribute I have quoted. I may +shortly say that it was justified; another day's attendance +at the Elgin Courthouse shall not be compulsory here, +whatever it may have been there. Young Ormiston's commercial +probity is really no special concern of ours; the thing +which does matter, and considerably, is the special +quality which Lorne Murchison brought to the task of its +vindication, the quality that made new and striking +appeal, through every channel of the great occasion, to +those who heard him. It was that which reinforced and +comforted every friend Ormiston had in the courtroom, +before Lorne proceeded either to deal with the evidence +of the other side, or to produce any jot or tittle of +his own; and it was that which affected his distinguished +opponent to the special interest which afterward showed +itself so pleasantly superior to the sting of defeat. +The fact that the defence was quite as extraordinarily +indebted to circumstantial evidence as the prosecution +in no way detracted from the character of Lorne's personal +triumph; rather, indeed, in the popular view and Rawlins's, +enhanced it. There was in it the primitive joy of seeing +a ruffian knocked down with his own illegitimate weapons, +from the moment the dropped formula was proved to be an +old superseded one, and unexpected indication was produced +that Ormiston's room, as well as the bank vault, had been +entered the night of the robbery, to the more glorious +excitement of establishing Miss Belton's connection--not +to be quoted--with a cracksman at that moment being +diligently inquired for by the New York police with +reference to a dramatically bigger matter. You saw the +plot at once as he constructed it; the pipe ash became +explicable in the seduction of Miss Belton's charms. The +cunning net unwove itself, delicately and deliberately, +to tangle round the lady. There was in it that superiority +in the art of legerdemain, of mere calm, astonishing +manipulation, so applauded in regions where romance has +not yet been quite trampled down by reason. Lorne scored; +he scored in face of probability, expectation, fact; it +was the very climax and coruscation of score. He scored +not only by the cards he held but by the beautiful way +he played them, if one may say so. His nature came into +this, his gravity and gentleness, his sympathy, his young +angry irony. To mention just one thing, there was the +way he held Miss Belton up, after the exposure of her +arts, as the lady for whom his client had so chivalric +a regard that he had for some time refused to state his +whereabouts at the hour the bank was entered in the fear +of compromising her. For this, no doubt, his client could +have strangled him, but it operated, of course, to raise +the poor fellow in the estimation of every body, with +the possible exception of his employers. When, after the +unmistakable summing-up, the foreman returned in a quarter +of an hour with the verdict of "Not guilty," people +noticed that the young man walked out of court behind +his father with as drooping a head as if he had gone +under sentence; so much so that by common consent he was +allowed to slip quietly away. Miss Belton departed, +followed by the detective, whose services were promptly +transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of +those who scented further entertainment in her perfumed, +perjured wake. But the majority hung back, leaving their +places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd wanted to shake +hands with to say just a word of congratulation to, +Lorne's triumph that they desired to enhance by a hearty +sentence, or at least an admiring glance. Walter Winter +was among the most genial. + +"Young man," he said, "what did I tell you? Didn't I tell +you you ought to take this case?" Mr Winter, with his +chest thrust out, plumed and strutted in justifiable +pride of prophecy. "Now, I'll tell you another thing: +today's event will do more for you than it has for +Ormiston. Mark my words!" + +They were all of that opinion, all the fine foretellers +of the profit Lorne should draw from his spirited and +conspicuous success; they stood about in knots discussing +it; to some extent it eclipsed the main interest and +issue of the day, at that moment driving out, free and +disconsolate, between the snake fences of the South Riding +to Moneida Reservation. The quick and friendly sense of +opportunity was abroad on Lorne Murchison's behalf; +friends and neighbours and Dr Drummond, and people who +hardly knew the fellow, exchanged wise words about what +his chance would do for him. What it would immediately +do was present to nobody so clearly, however, as to Mr +Henry Cruickshank, who decided that he would, after all, +accept Dr Drummond's invitation to spend the night with +him, and find out the little he didn't know already about +this young man. + +That evening the Murchisons' doorbell rang twice. The +first time it was to admit the Rev. Hugh Finlay, who had +come to return Sordello, which he had borrowed from +Advena, and to find out whether she thought with him +about the interpretation of certain passages, and if +not--there was always the possibility--wherein their +divergence lay. The second time the door opened to Dr +Drummond and Mr Cruickshank; and the electric light had +to be turned on in the drawing-room, since the library +was already occupied by Mr Finlay and Advena, Mr and Mrs +Murchison never having got over their early habit of +sitting in the dining-room after tea. Even then Mrs +Murchison had to put away her workbasket, and John +Murchison to knock the ashes out of his pipe, looking at +one another with surprised inquiry when Eliza informed +them of their visitors. Luckily, Mr Lorne was also in, +and Eliza was sent to tell him, and Mr Lorne came down +the stairs two at a time to join the party in the +drawing-room, which was presently supplied by Eliza with +a dignified service of cake and wine. The hall divided +that room from the library, and both doors were shut. We +cannot hesitate about which to open; we have only, indeed, +to follow the recognized tradition of Elgin, which would +never have entered the library. No vivid conclusion should +be drawn, no serious situation may even be indicated. It +would simply have been considered, in Elgin, stupid to +go into the library. + +"It isn't a case for the High Commissioner for Canada," +Mr Cruickshank was saying. "It's a case for direct +representation of the interests concerned, and their view +of the effect upon trade. That's the only voice to speak +with if you want to get anything done. Conviction carries +conviction. The High Commissioner is a very useful fellow +to live in London and look after the ornamental, the +sentimental, and immigration--nobody could do it better +than Selkirk. And in England, of course, they like that +kind of agency. It's the good old dignified way; but it +won't do for everything. You don't find our friend Morgan +operating through the American equivalent of a High +Commissioner." + +"No, you don't," said John Murchison. + +"He goes over there as a principal, and the British +Government, if he wants to deal with it, is only another +principal. That's the way our deputation will go. We're +practically all shippers, though of course the matter of +tenders will come later. There is big business for them +here, national business, and we propose to show it. The +subsidy we want will come back to the country four times +over in two years. Freights from Boston alone--" + +"It's the patriotic, imperial argument you'll have to +press, I doubt," said John Murchison. "They're not business +people over there--the men in office are not. How should +they be? The system draws them from the wrong class. +They're gentlemen--noblemen, maybe--first, and they've +no practical education. There's only one way of getting +it, and that's to make your own living. How many of them +have ever made tuppence? There's where the Americans beat +them so badly--they've got the sixth sense, the business +sense. No; you'll not find them responding greatly to +what there is in it for trade--they'd like to well enough, +but they just won't see it; and, by George! what a fine +suspicion they'll have of ye! As to freights from Boston," +he continued, as they all laughed, "I'm of opinion you'd +better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a +friendly power! Tut. tut!" + +It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were +all excited to a pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank +had brought with him an event of extraordinary importance. +It seemed to sit there with him, significant and propitious, +in the middle of the sofa; they all looked at it in the +pauses. Dr Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately +contemplated it and remembered to assert himself part of +it. As head of a deputation from the United Chambers of +Commerce of Canada shortly to wait on the British Government +to press for the encouragement of improved communications +within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked to select +a secretary. The appointment, in view of the desirability, +for political reasons, of giving the widest publicity to +the hopes and motives of the deputation, was an important +one. The action of the Canadian Government, in extending +conditional promises of support, had to be justified to +the Canadian taxpayer; and that shy and weary person +whose shoulders uphold the greatness of Britain, had also +to receive such conciliation and reassurance as it was +possible to administer to him, by way of nerving the +administrative arm over there to an act of enterprise. +Mr Cruickshank had had two or three young fellows, mostly +newspaper men, in his mind's eye; but when Lorne came +into his literal range of vision, the others had promptly +been retired in our friend's favour. Young Mr Murchison, +he had concluded, was the man they wanted; and if his +office could spare him, it would probably do young Mr +Murchison no harm in any sort of way to accompany the +deputation to London and throw himself into the matter +the deputation had at heart. + +"But it's the Empire!" said Lorne, with a sort of shy +fire, when Mr Cruickshank enunciated this. + +We need not, perhaps, dwell upon the significance of his +agreement. It was then not long since the maple leaf had +been stained brighter than ever, not without honour, to +maintain the word that fell from him. The three older +men looked at him kindly; John Murchison, rubbing his +chin as he considered the situation, slightly shook his +head. One took it that in his view the Empire was not so +readily envisaged. + +"That has a strong bearing," Mr Cruickshank assented. + +"It's the whole case--it seems to me," repeated young +Murchison. + +"It should help to knit us up," said Dr Drummond. "I'll +put my name down on the first passenger list, if Knox +Church will let me off. See that you have special rates," +he added, with a twinkle, "for ministers and missionaries." + +"And only ten days to get him ready in," said Mrs Murchison. +"It will take some seeing to, I assure you; and I don't +know how it's to be done in the time. For once, Lorne, +I'll have to order you ready-made shirts, and you'll just +have to put up with it. Nothing else could possibly get +back from the wash." + +"I'll put up with it, Mother." + +They went into other details of Lorne's equipment while +Mrs Murchison's eye still wandered over the necessities +of his wardrobe. They arranged the date on which he was +to meet the members of the deputation in Montreal, and +Mr Cruickshank promised to send him all available documents +and such presentation of the project as had been made in +the newspapers. + +"You shall be put in immediate possession of the bones +of the thing," he said, "but what really matters," he +added pleasantly, "I think you've got already." + +It took, of course, some discussion, and it was quite +ten o'clock before everything was gone into, and the +prospect was clear to them all. As they emerged into the +hall together, the door of the room opposite also opened, +and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their +group. They all made the best of the unexpected encounter. +It was rather an elaborate best, very polite and entirely +grave, except in the instance of Dr Drummond, who met +his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality struggled +in vain to overcome the delighted humour. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +It was the talk of the town, the pride of the market-place, +Lorne Murchison's having been selected to accompany what +was known as the Cruickshank deputation to England. The +general spirit of congratulation was corrected by a +tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on the +chairman's part; Elgin wouldn't be too flattered; Lawyer +Cruickshank couldn't have done better. You may be sure +the Express was well ahead with it. "Honour to Our Young +Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited Compliment," and Rawlins +was round promptly next morning to glean further +particulars. He found only Mrs Murchison, on a stepladder +tying up the clematis that climbed about the verandah, +and she told him a little about clematis and a good deal +about the inconvenience of having to abandon superintending +the spring cleaning in order to get Lorne ready to go to +the Old Country at such short notice, but nothing he +could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at the office, was +hardly more communicative. Mr Williams himself dropped +in there. He said the Express would now have a personal +interest in the object of the deputation, and proposed +to strike out a broad line, a broader line than ever. + +"We've got into the way of taking it for granted," said +Mr Williams, "that the subsidy idea is a kind of mediaeval +idea. Raise a big enough shout and you get things taken +for granted in economics for a long while. Conditions +keep changing, right along, all the time, and presently +you've got to reconsider. There ain't any sort of ultimate +truth in the finest economic position, my son; not any +at all." + +"We'll subsidize over here, right enough," said Lorne. + +"That's the idea--that's the prevailing idea, just now. +But lots of people think different--more than you'd +imagine. I was talking to old man Milburn just now--he's +dead against it. 'Government has no business,' he said, +'to apply the taxes in the interests of any company. It +oughtn't to know how to spell "subsidy." If the trade +was there it would get itself carried,' he said." + +"Well, that surprises me," said Lorne. + +"Surprised me, too. But I was on the spot with him; just +thought of it in time. 'Well, now, Mr Milburn,' I said, +'you've changed your mind. Thought that was a thing you +Conservatives never did,' I said. 'We don't--I haven't,' +he said. 'What d'ye mean? Twenty-five years ago,' I said, +'when you were considering whether you'd start the Milburn +Boiler Works here or in Hamilton, Hamilton offered you +a free site, and Elgin offered you a free site and a dam +for your water power. You took the biggest subsidy an' +came here,' I said." + +Lorne laughed: "What did he say to that?" + +"Hadn't a word. 'I guess it's up to me,' he said. Then +he turned round and came back. 'Hold on, Williams; he +said. 'You know so much already about my boiler works, +it wouldn't be much trouble for you to write out an +account of them from the beginning, would it? Working in +the last quarter of a century of the town's progress, +you know, and all that. Come round to the office tomorrow, +and I'll give you some pointers.' And he fixed up a +two-column ad right away. He was afraid I'd round on him, +I suppose, if I caught him saying anything more about +the immorality of subsidies." + +"He won't say anything more." + +"Probably not. Milburn hasn't got much of a political +conscience, but he's got a sense of what's silly. Well, +now, I expect you want all the time there is." + +Mr Williams removed himself from the edge of the table, +which was strewn with maps and bluebooks, printed official, +and typewritten demi-official papers. + +"Give 'em a notion of those Assiniboian wheat acres, my +boy, and the ranch country we've got; tell 'em about the +future of quick passage and cold storage. Get 'em a little +ashamed to have made so many fortunes for Yankee beef +combines; persuade 'em the cheapest market has a funny +way of getting the dearest price in the end. Give it 'em, +Lorne, hot and cold and fricasseed. The Express will back +you up." + +He slapped his young friend's shoulder, who seemed occupied +with matters that prevented his at once feeling the value +of this assurance. "Bye-bye," said Mr Williams. "See you +again before you start." + +"Oh, of course!" Lorne replied. "I'll--I'll come round. +By the way, Williams, Mr Milburn didn't say anything-- +anything about me in connection with this business? Didn't +mention, I suppose, what he thought about my going?" + +"Not a word, my boy! He was away up in abstract principles; +he generally is. Bye-bye." + +"It's gone to his head a little bit--only natural," Horace +reflected as he went down the stairs. "He's probably just +feeding on what folks think of it. As if it mattered a +pin's head what Octavius Milburn thinks or don't think!" + +Lorne, however, left alone with his customs returns and +his immigration reports, sat still, attaching a weight +quite out of comparison with a pin's head to Mr Milburn's +opinion. He turned it over and over, instead of the +tabulated figures that were his business: he had to show +himself his way to the conclusion that such a thing could +not matter seriously in the end, since Milburn hadn't a +dollar involved--it would be different if he were a +shareholder in the Maple Line. He wished heartily, +nevertheless, that he could demonstrate a special advantage +to boiler-makers in competitive freights with New York. +What did they import, confound them! Pig-iron? Plates +and rivets? Fortunately he was in a position to get at +the facts, and he got at them with an interest of even +greater intensity than he had shown to the whole question +since ten that morning. Even now, the unprejudiced +observer, turning up the literature connected with the +Cruickshank deputation, may notice a stress laid upon +the advantages to Canadian importers of ore in certain +stages of manufacture which may strike him as slightly, +very slightly, special. Of course there are a good many +of them in the country. So that Mr Horace Williams was +justified to some extent in his kindly observation upon +the excusable egotism of youth. Two or three letters, +however, came in while Lorne was considering the relation +of plates and rivets to the objects of his deputation. +They were all congratulatory; one was from the chairman +of the Liberal Association at its headquarters in Toronto. +Lorne glanced at them and stowed them away in his pocket. +He would read them when he got home, when it would be a +pleasure to hand them over to his mother. She was making +a collection of them. + +He had a happy perception that same evening that Mr +Milburn's position was not, after all, finally and +invincibly taken against the deputation and everything +--everybody--concerned with it. He met that gentleman at +his own garden gate. Octavius paused in his exit, to hold +it open for young Murchison, thus even assisting the act +of entry, a thing which thrilled Lorne sweetly enough +when he had time to ponder its possible significance. +Alas! the significance that lovers find! Lorne read a +world in the behaviour of Dora's father in holding the +gate open. He saw political principle put aside in his +favour, and social position forgotten in kindness to him. +He saw the gravest, sincerest appreciation of his recent +success, which he took as humbly as a dog will take a +bone; he read a fatherly thought at which his pulses +bounded in an arrogance of triumph, and his heart rose +to ask its trust. And Octavius Milburn had held the gate +open because it was more convenient to hold it open than +to leave it open. He had not a political view in the +world that was calculated to affect his attitude toward +a practical matter; and his opinion of Lorne was quite +uncomplicated: he thought him a very likely young fellow. +Milburn himself, in the Elgin way, preferred to see no +great significance of this sort anywhere. Young people +were young people; it was natural enough that they should +like each other's society. They, the Milburns, were very +glad to see Mr Murchison, very glad indeed. It was frequent +matter for veiled humorous reference at the table that +he had been to call again, at which Dora would look very +stiff and dignified, and have to be coaxed back into the +conversation. As to anything serious, there was no hurry; +plenty of time to think of that. Such matters dwelt under +the horizon; there was no need to scan them closely; and +Mr Milburn went his way, conscious of nothing more than +a comfortable gratification that Dora, so far as the +young men were concerned, seemed as popular as other +girls. + +Dora was not in the drawing-room. Young ladies in Elgin +had always to be summoned from somewhere. For all the +Filkin instinct for the conservation of polite tradition, +Dora was probably reading the Toronto society weekly-- +illustrated, with correspondents all over the Province-- +on the back verandah and, but for the irruption of a +visitor, would probably not have entered the formal +apartment of the house at all that evening. Drawing-rooms +in Elgin had their prescribed uses--to receive in, to +practise in, and for the last sad entertainment of the +dead, when the furniture was disarranged to accommodate +the trestles; but the common business of life went on +outside them, even among prosperous people, the survival, +perhaps, of a habit based upon thrift. The shutters were +opened when Lorne entered, to let in the spring twilight, +and the servant pulled a chair into its proper relation +with the room as she went out. + +Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin both came in before Dora did. +Lorne found their conversation enchanting, though it was +mostly about the difficulty of keeping the lawn tidy; +they had had so much rain. Mrs Milburn assured him kindly +that there was not such another lawn as his father's in +Elgin. How Mr Murchison managed to have it looking so +nice always she could not think. Only yesterday she and +Mr Milburn had stopped to admire it as they passed. + +"Spring is always a beautiful time in Elgin," she remarked. +"There are so many pretty houses here, each standing in +its own grounds. Nothing very grand, as I tell my friend, +Miss Cham, from Buffalo where the residences are, of +course, on quite a different scale; but grandeur isn't +everything, is it?" + +"No, indeed," said Lorne. + +"But you will be leaving for Great Britain very soon now, +Mr Murchison," said Miss Filkin. "Leaving Elgin and all +its beauties! And I dare say you won't think of them once +again till you get back!" + +"I hope I shall not be so busy as that, Miss Filkin." + +"Oh, no, I'm sure Mr Murchison won't forget his native +town altogether," said Mrs Milburn, "though perhaps he +won't like it so well after seeing dear old England!" + +"I expect," said Lorne simply, "to like it better." + +"Well, of course, we shall all be pleased if you say +that, Mr Murchison," Mrs Milburn replied graciously. "We +shall feel quite complimented. But I'm afraid you will +find a great deal to criticize when you come back--that +is, if you go at all into society over there. I always +say there can be nothing like good English society." + +"I want to attend a sitting of the House," Lorne said. +"I hope I shall have time for that. I want to see those +fellows handling their public business. I don't believe +I shall find our men so far behind, for point of view +and grasp and dispatch. Of course there's always Wallingham +to make a standard for us all. But they haven't got so +many Wallinghams." + +"Wasn't it Wallingham, Louisa, that Mr Milburn was saying +at breakfast was such a dangerous man? So able, he said, +but dangerous. Something to do with the tariff." + +"Oh?" said Lorne, and he said no more, for at that moment +Dora came in. She came in looking very straight and +graceful and composed. Her personal note was carried out +in her pretty clothes, which hung and "sat" upon her like +the rhythm of verses; they could fall no other way. She +had in every movement the definite accent of young +ladyhood; she was very much aware of herself, of the +situation, and of her value in it, a setting for herself +she saw it, and saw it truly. No one, from the moment +she entered the room, looked at anything else. + +"Oh, Mr Murchison," she said. "How do you do? Mother, do +you mind if I open the window? It's quite warm out of +doors--regular summer." + +Lorne sprang to open the window, while Miss Filkin, +murmuring that it had been a beautiful day, moved a little +farther from it. + +"Oh, please don't trouble, Mr Murchison; thank you very +much!" Miss Milburn continued, and subsided on a sofa. +"Have you been playing tennis this week?" + +Mr Murchison said that he had been able to get down to +the club only once. + +"The courts aren't a bit in good order. They want about +a week's rolling. The balls get up anywhere," said Dora. + +"Lawn tennis," Mrs Milburn asserted herself, "is a +delightful exercise. I hope it will never go out of +fashion; but that is what we used to say of croquet, and +it has gone out and come in again." + +Lorne listened to this with deference; there was a hint +of patience in the regard Dora turned upon her mother. +Mrs Milburn continued to dilate upon lawn tennis, dealt +lightly with badminton, and brought the conversation +round with a graceful sweep to canoeing. Dora's attitude +before she had done became slightly permissive, but Mrs +Milburn held on till she had accomplished her conception +of conduct for the occasion; then she remembered a meeting +in the schoolhouse. + +"We are to have an address by an Indian bishop," she told +them. "He is on his way to England by China and Japan, +and is staying with our dear rector, Mr Murchison. Such +a treat I expect it will be." + +"What I am dying to know," said Miss Filkin, in a sprightly +way, "is whether he is black or white!" + +Mrs Milburn then left the room, and shortly afterward +Miss Filkin thought she could not miss the bishop either, +conveying the feeling that a bishop was a bishop, of +whatever colour. She stayed three minutes longer than +Mrs Milburn, but she went. The Filkin tradition, though +strong, could not hold out entirely against the unwritten +laws, the silently claimed privileges, of youth in Elgin. +It made its pretence and vanished. + +Even as the door closed the two that were left looked at +one another with a new significance. A simpler relation +established itself between them and controlled all that +surrounded them; the very twilight seemed conscious with +it; the chairs and tables stood in attentive harmony. + +"You know," said Dora, "I hate your going, Lorne!" + +She did indeed seem moved, about the mouth, to discontent. +There was some little injury in the way she swung her foot. + +"I was hoping Mr Fulke wouldn't get better in time; I +was truly!" + +The gratitude in young Murchison's eyes should have been +dear to her. I don't know whether she saw it; but she +must have been aware that she was saying what touched +him, making her point. + +"Oh, it's a good thing to go, Dora." + +"A good thing for you! And the regatta coming off the +first week in June, and a whole crowd coming from Toronto +for it. There isn't another person in town I care to +canoe with, Lorne, you know perfectly well!" + +"I'm awfully sorry!" said Lorne. "I wish--" + +"Oh, I'm GOING, I believe. Stephen Stuart has written +from Toronto, and asked me to sail with him. I haven't +told Mother, but he's my second cousin, so I suppose she +won't make a fuss." + +The young man's face clouded; seeing which she relented. +"Oh, of course, I'm glad you're going, really," she +assured him. "And we'll all be proud to be acquainted +with such a distinguished gentleman when you get back. +Do you think you'll see the King? You might, you know, +in London." + +"I'll see him if he's visible," laughed Lorne. "That +would be something to tell your mother, wouldn't it? But +I'm afraid we won't be doing business with His Majesty." + +"I expect you'll have the loveliest time you ever had in +all your life. Do you think you'll be asked out much, +Lorne?" + +"I can't imagine who would ask me. We'll get off easy if +the street boys don't shout: 'What price Canucks?' at +us! But I'll see England, Dora; I'll feel England, eat +and drink and sleep and live in England, for a little +while. Isn't the very name great? I'll be a better man +for going, till I die. We're all right out here, but +we're young and thin and weedy. They didn't grow so fast +in England, to begin with, and now they're rich with +character and strong with conduct and hoary with ideals. +I've been reading up the history of our political relations +with England. It's astonishing what we've stuck to her +through, but you can't help seeing why--it's for the +moral advantage. Way down at the bottom, that's what it +is. We have the sense to want all we can get of that sort +of thing. They've developed the finest human product +there is, the cleanest, the most disinterested, and we +want to keep up the relationship--it's important. Their +talk about the value of their protection doesn't take in +the situation as it is now. Who would touch us if we were +running our own show?" + +"I don't believe they are a bit better than we are," +replied Miss Milburn. "I'm sure I haven't much opinion +of the Englishmen that come out here. They don't think +anything of getting into debt, and as often as not they +drink, and they never know enough to--to come in out of +the rain. But, Lorne--" + +"Yes, but we're very apt to get the failures. The fellows +their folks give five or six hundred pounds to and tell +them they're not expected back till they're making a +living. The best men find their level somewhere else, +along recognized channels. Lord knows we don't want +them--this country's for immigrants. We're manufacturing +our own gentlemen quite fast enough for the demand." + +"I should think we were! Why, Lorne, Canadians--nice +Canadians are just as gentlemanly as they can be! They'll +compare with anybody. Perhaps Americans have got more +style:" she weighed the matter; "but Canadians are much +better form, I think. But, Lorne, how perfectly dear of +you to send me those roses. I wore them, and nobody there +had such beauties. All the girls wanted to know where I +got them, but I only told Lily, just to make her feel a +pig for not having asked you--my very greatest friend! +She just about apologized--told me she wanted to ask +about twenty more people, but her mother wouldn't let +her. They've lost an uncle or something lately, and if +it hadn't been for Clara Sims staying with them they +wouldn't have been giving anything." + +"I'll try to survive not having been asked. But I'm glad +you wore the roses, Dora." + +"I dropped one, and Phil Carter wanted to keep it. He's +so silly!" + +"Did you--did you let him keep it?" + +"Lorne Murchison! Do you think I'd let any man keep a +rose I'd been wearing?" + +He looked at her, suddenly emboldened. "I don't know +about roses, Dora, but pansies--those are awfully nice +ones in your dress. I'm very fond of pansies; couldn't +you spare me one? I wouldn't ask for a rose, but a +pansy--" + +His eyes were more ardent than what he found to say. +Beneath them Dora grew delicately pink. The pansies +drooped a little; she put her slender fingers under one, +and lifted its petals. + +"It's too faded for your buttonhole," she said. + +"It needn't stay in my buttonhole. I know lots of other +places!" he begged. + +Dora considered the pansy again, then she pulled it slowly +out, and the young man got up and went over to her, +proffering the lapel of his coat. + +"It spoils the bunch," she said prettily. "If I give you +this you will have to give me something to take its place." + +"I will," said Lorne. + +"I know it will be something better," said Dora, and +there was a little effort in her composure. "You send +people such beautiful flowers, Lorne." + +She rose beside him as she spoke, graceful and fair, to +fasten it in; and it was his hand that shook. + +"Then may I choose it?" said Lorne. "And will you wear it?" + +"I suppose you may. Why are you--why do you--Oh, Lorne, +stand still!" + +"I'll give you, you sweet girl, my whole heart!" he said +in the vague tender knowledge that he offered her a +garden, where she had but to walk, and smile, to bring +about her unimaginable blooms. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May +evening, Mr and Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the +Murchison Place in the town's mouth now, and that was +only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the Plummers. +It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big +horse chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring +dusk for them, as it had done faithfully for thirty years. +John was no longer in his shirt-sleeves; the growing +authority of his family had long prescribed a black alpaca +coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old +deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as +considerately as he held its original, which lasted him +fifteen years. A great deal of John Murchison's character +was there, in the way he held his pipe, his gentleness +and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet +strength of his nature. He smoked and read the paper the +unfailing double solace of his evenings. I should have +said that it was Mrs Murchison who talked. She had the +advantage of a free mind, only subconsciously occupied +with her white wool and agile needles; and John had +frequently to choose between her observations and the +politics of the day. + +"You saw Lorne's letter this morning, Father?" + +John took his pipe out of his mouth. "Yes," he said. + +"He seems tremendously taken up with Wallingham. It was +all Wallingham, from one end to the other." + +"It's not remarkable," said John Murchison, patiently. + +"You'd think he had nothing else to write about. There +was that reception at Lord What-you-may-call-him's, the +Canadian Commissioner's, when the Prince and Princess of +Wales came, and brought their family. I'd like to have +heard something more about that than just that he was +there. He might have noticed what the children had on. +Now that Abby's family is coming about her I seem to have +my hands as full of children's clothes as ever I had. +Abby seems to think there's nothing like my old patterns; +I'm sure I'm sick of the sight of them!" + +Mr Murchison refolded his newspaper, took his pipe once +more from his mouth, and said nothing. + +"John, put down that paper! I declare it's enough to +drive anybody crazy! Now look at that boy walking across +the lawn. He does it every night, delivering the Express, +and you take no more notice! He's wearing a regular path!" + +"Sonny," said Mr Murchison, as the urchin approached, +"you mustn't walk across the grass." + +"Much good that will do!" remarked Mrs Murchison. "I'd +teach him to walk across the grass, if--if it were my +business. Boy--isn't your name Willie Parker? Then it +was your mother I promised the coat and the other things +to, and you'll find them ready there, just inside the +hall door. They'll make down very well for you, but you +can tell her from me that she'd better double-seam them, +for the stuff's apt to ravel. And attend to what Mr +Murchison says; go out by the gravel--what do you suppose +it's there for?" + +Mrs Murchison readjusted her glasses, and turned another +row of the tiny sock. "I must say it's a pleasure to have +the lawn neat and green," she said, with a sigh. "Never +did I expect to see the day it would be anything but +chickweed and dandelions. We've a great deal to be thankful +for, and all our children spared to us, too. John," she +continued, casting a shrewd glance over her needles at +nothing in particular; "do you suppose anything was +settled between Lorne and Dora Milburn before he Started?" + +"He said nothing to me about it." + +"Oh, well, very likely he wouldn't. Young people keep +such a tremendous lot to themselves nowadays. But it's +my belief they've come to an understanding." + +"Lily might do worse," said John Murchison, judicially. + +"I should think Dora might do worse! I don't know where +she's going to do better! The most promising young man +in Elgin, well brought up, well educated, well started +in a profession! There's not a young fellow in this town +to compare with Lorne, and perfectly well you know it, +John. Might do worse! But that's you all over. Belittle +your own belongings!" + +Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. "They've always +got you to blow their trumpet, Mother," he replied. + +"And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about +Lorne! He says that if the English Government starts that +line of boats to Halifax the country will owe it to him, +much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody else." + +"Dr Drummond likes to talk," said John Murchison. + +"Lorne's keeping his end up all right," remarked Stella, +jumping off her bicycle in time to hear what her mother +said. "It's great, that old Wallingham asking him to +dinner. And haven't I just been spreading it!" + +"Where have you been, Stella?" asked Mrs Murchison. + +"Oh, only over to the Milburns'. Dora asked me to come +and show her the new flower-stitch for table centres. +Dora's suddenly taken to fancy work. She's started a +lot--a lot too much!" Stella added gloomily. + +"If Dora likes to do fancy work I don't see why anybody +should want to stop her," remarked Mrs Murchison, with +a meaning glance at her husband. + +"I suppose she thinks she's going to get Lorne," said +Stella. Her resentment was only half-serious, but the +note was there. + +"What put that into your head?" asked her mother. + +"Oh, well, anybody can see that he's devoted to her, and +has been for ages, and it isn't as if Lorne was one to +HAVE girlfriends; she's absolutely the only thing he's +ever looked at twice. She hasn't got a ring, that's true, +but it would be just like her to want him to get it in +England. And I know they correspond. She doesn't make +any secret of it." + +"Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as +well as you, Stella," said Mrs Murchison, stooping for +her ball. "But there's no need to take things for granted +at such a rate. And, above all, you're not to go TALKING, +remember!" + +"Well, if you think Dora Milburn's good enough," returned +Lorne's youngest sister in threatening accents, "it's +more than I do, that's all. Hello, Miss Murchison!" she +continued, as Advena appeared. "You're looking 'xtremely +dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?" + +Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful +amusement, which Stella, bicycling forth again, received +in the back of her head. + +"Father," said Mrs Murchison, "if you had taken any share +in the bringing up of this family, Stella ought to have +her ears boxed this minute!" + +"We'll have to box them," said Mr Murchison, "when she +comes back." Advena had retreated into the house. "IS +she expecting his reverence?" asked her father with a +twinkle. + +"Don't ask me! I'm sure it's more than I can tell you. +It's a mystery to me, that matter, altogether. I've known +him come three evenings in a week and not again for a +month of Sundays. And when he does come there they sit, +talking about their books and their authors; you'd think +the world had nothing else in it! I know, for I've heard +them, hard at it, there in the library. Books and authors +won't keep their house or look after their family for +them; I can tell them that, if it does come to anything, +which I hope it won't." + +"Finlay's fine in the pulpit," said John Murchison +cautiously. + +"Oh, the man's well enough; it's him I'm sorry for. I +don't call Advena fitted to be a wife, and last of all +a minister's. Abby was a treasure for any man to get, +and Stella won't turn out at all badly; she's taking hold +very well for her age. But Advena simply hasn't got it +in her, and that's all there is to say about it." Mrs +Murchison pulled her needles out right side out with +finality. "I don't deny the girl's talented in her own +way, but it's no way to marry on. She'd much better make +up her mind just to be a happy independent old maid; any +woman might do worse. And take no responsibilities." + +"There would always be you, Mother, for them to fall back +on." It was as near as John Murchison ever got to flattery. + +"No thank you, then! I've brought up six of my own, as +well as I was able, which isn't saying much, and a hard +life I've had of it. Now I'm done with it; they'll have +to find somebody else to fall back on. If they get +themselves into such a mess"--Mrs Murchison stopped to +laugh with sincere enjoyment--"they needn't look to me +to get them out." + +"I guess you'd have a hand, Mother." + +"Not I. But the man isn't thinking of any such folly. +What do you suppose his salary is?" + +"Eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. They raised it +last month." + +"And how far would Advena be able to make that go, with +servants getting the money they do and expecting the +washing put out as a matter of course? Do you remember +Eliza, John, that we had when we were first married? +Seven dollars a month she got; she would split wood at +a pinch, and I've never had one since that could do up +shirts like her. Three years and a half she was with me, +and did everything, everything I didn't do. But that was +management, and Advena's no manager. It would be me that +would tell him, if I had the chance. Then he couldn't +say he hadn't been warned. But I don't think he has any +such idea." + +"Advena," pronounced Mr Murchison, "might do worse." + +"Well, I don't know whether she might. The creature is +well enough to preach before a congregation. But what +she can see in him out of the pulpit is more than I know. +A great gawk of a fellow, with eyes that always look as +if he were in the middle of next week! He may be able to +talk to Advena, but he's no hand at general conversation; +I know he finds precious little to say to me. But he's +got no such notion. He comes here because, being human, +he's got to open his mouth some time or other, I suppose; +but it's my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody +else in his mind's eye at present. He doesn't go the +right way about it." + +"H'm!" said John Murchison. + +"He brought her a book the last time he came--what do +you think the name of it was? The something or other of +Plato! Do you call that a natural gift from a young man +who is thinking seriously of a girl? Besides, if I know +anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no writer +for a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I'd +Plato him to the rightabout if it was me!" + +"She might read worse than Plato," remarked John. + +"Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She's your own daughter +for outlandish books. Mercy on us, here comes the man! +We'll just say 'How d'ye do?' to him, and then start for +Abby's, John. I'm not easy in my mind about the baby, +and I haven't been over since the morning. Harry says +it's nothing but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough +when I hear it. And if it is whooping-cough the boy will +have to come here and rampage, I suppose, till they're +clear of it. There's some use in grandmothers, if I do +say it myself!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +If anyone had told Mr Hugh Finlay, while he was pursuing +his rigorous path to the ideals of the University of +Edinburgh, that the first notable interest of his life +in the calling and the country to which even then he had +given his future would lie in his relations with any +woman, he would have treated the prediction as mere folly. +To go far enough back in accounting for this one would +arrive at the female sort, sterling and arid, that had +presided over his childhood and represented the sex to +his youth, the Aunt Lizzie, widowed and frugal and spare, +who had brought him up; the Janet Wilson, who had washed +and mended him from babyhood, good gaunt creature +half-servant and half-friend--the mature respectable +women and impossible blowsy girls of the Dumfriesshire +village whence he came. With such as these relations, +actual or imagined, could only be of the most practical +kind, matters to be arranged on grounds of expediency, +and certainly not of the first importance. The things of +first importance--what you could do with your energy and +your brains to beat out some microscopic good for the +world, and what you could see and feel and realize in it +of value to yourself--left little room for the feminine +consideration in Finlay's eyes; it was not a thing, +simply, that existed there with any significance. Woman +in her more attractive presentment, was a daughter of +the poets, with an esoteric, or perhaps only a symbolic, +or perhaps a merely decorative function; in any case, a +creature that required an initiation to perceive her--a +process to which Finlay would have been as unwilling as +he was unlikely to submit. Not that he was destitute of +ideals about women--they would have formed in that case +a strange exception to his general outlook--but he saw +them on a plane detached and impersonal, concerned with +the preservation of society the maintenance of the home, +the noble devotions of motherhood. Women had been known, +historically, to be capable of lofty sentiments and fine +actions: he would have been the last to withhold their +due from women. But they were removed from the scope of +his imagination, partly by the accidents I have mentioned +and partly, no doubt, by a simple lack in him of the +inclination to seek and to know them. + +So that Christie Cameron, when she came to stay with his +aunt in Bross during the few weeks after his ordination +and before his departure for Canada, found a fair light +for judgement and more than a reasonable disposition to +acquiesce in the scale of her merits, as a woman, on the +part of Hugh Finlay. He was familiar with the scale of +her merits before she came; his Aunt Lizzie did little +but run them up and down. When she arrived she answered +to every item she was a good height, but not too tall; +a nice figure of a woman, but not what you would call +stout; a fresh-faced body whose excellent principles were +written in every feature she had. She was five years +older than Hugh, but even that he came to accept in Aunt +Lizzie's skilful exhibition as something to the total of +her advantages. A pleasant independent creature with a +hundred a year of her own, sensible and vigorous and +good-tempered, belonging as well to the pre-eminently +right denomination. she had virtues that might have +figured handsomely in an advertisement had Aunt Lizzie, +in the plenitude of her good will, thought fit to take +that measure on Christie's behalf. But nothing was farther +from Aunt Lizzie's mind. We must, in fairness, add Christie +Cameron to the sum of Finlay's acquaintance with the sex; +but even then the total is slender, little to go upon. + +Yet the fact which Mr Finlay would in those days have +considered so unimaginable remained; it had come into +being and it remained. The chief interest of his life, +the chief human interest, did lie in his relations with +Advena Murchison. He might challenge it, but he could +not move it; he might explain, but he could not alter +it. And there had come no point at which it would have +occurred to him to do either. When at last he had seen +how simple and possible it was to enjoy Miss Murchison's +companionship upon unoccupied evenings he had begun to +do it with eagerness and zest, the greater because Elgin +offered him practically no other. Dr Drummond lived, for +purposes of intellectual contact, at the other end of +the century. the other clergy and professional men of +the town were separated from Finlay by all the mental +predispositions that rose from the virgin soil. He was, +as Mrs Murchison said, a great gawk of a fellow; he had +little adaptability; he was not of those who spend a year +or two in the New World and go back with a trans-Atlantic +accent, either of tongue or of mind. Where he saw a lack +of dignity, of consideration, or of restraint, he did +not insensibly become less dignified or considerate or +restrained to smooth out perceptible differences; nor +was he constituted to absorb the qualities of those +defects, and enrich his nature by the geniality, the +shrewdness, the quick mental movement that stood on the +other side of the account. He cherished in secret an +admiration for the young men of Elgin, with their +unappeasable energy and their indomitable optimism, but +he could not translate it in any language of sympathy +and but for Advena his soul would have gone uncomforted +and alone. + +Advena, as we know, was his companion. Seeing herself +just that, constantly content to be just that, she walked +beside him closer than he knew. She had her woman's +prescience and trusted it. Her own heart, all sweetly +alive, counselled her to patience; her instincts laid +her in bonds to concealment. She knew, she was sure; so +sure that she could play sometimes, smiling, with her +living heart-- + + The nightingale was not yet heard + For the rose was not yet blown, + +she could say of his; and what was that but play, and +tender laughter, at the expense of her own? And then, +perhaps, looking up from the same book, she would whisper, +alone in her room-- + + Oh, speed the day, thou dear, dear May, + +and gaze humbly through tears at her own face in the +glass loving it on his behalf. She took her passion with +the weight of a thing ordained; she had come upon it +where it waited for her, and they had gone on together, +carrying the secret. There might be farther to go, but +the way could never be long. + +Finlay said when he came in that the heat for May was +extraordinary; and Advena reminded him that he was in a +country where everything was accomplished quickly, even +summer. + +"Except perhaps civilization." she added. They were both +young enough to be pleased with cleverness for its specious +self. + +"Oh, that is slow everywhere," he observed; "but how you +can say so, with every modern improvement staring you in +the face--" + +"Electric cars and telephones! Oh, I didn't say we hadn't +the products," and she laughed. "But the thing itself, +the precious thing; that never comes just by wishing, +does it? The art of indifference, the art of choice--" + +"If you had refinements in the beginning what would the +end be?" he demanded. "Anaemia." + +"Oh, I don't quarrel with the logic of it. I only point +out the fact. To do that is to acquiesce, really. I +acquiesce; I have to. But one may long for the more +delicate appreciations that seem to flower where life +has gone on longer." + +"I imagine," Finlay said, "that to wish truly and ardently +for such things is to possess them. If you didn't possess +them you wouldn't desire them! As they say, as they say--" + +"As they say?" + +"About love. Some novelist does. To be conscious in any +way toward it is to be fatally infected." + +"What novelist?" Advena asked, with shining interest. + +"Some novelist. I--I can't have invented it," he replied, +somewhat confounded. He got up and walked to the window, +where it stood open upon the verandah. "I don't write +novels," he said. + +"Perhaps you live them," suggested Advena. "I mean, of +course," she added, laughing, "the highest class of +fiction." + +"Heaven forbid!" + +"Why Heaven forbid? You are sensitive to life, and a +great deal of it comes into your scope. You can't see a +thing truly without feeling it; you can't feel it without +living it. I don't write novels either, but I +experience--whole publishers' lists." + +"That means," he said, smiling, "that your vision is up +to date. You see the things, the kind of things that you +read of next day. The modern moral sophistications--?" + +"Don't make me out boastful," she replied. "I often do." + +"Mine would be old-fashioned, I am afraid. Old stories +of pain"--he looked out upon the lawn, white where the +chestnut blossoms were dropping, and his eyes were just +wistful enough to stir her adoration--"and of heroism +that is quite dateless in the history of the human heart. +At least one likes to hope so." + +"I somehow think," she ventured timidly, "that yours +would be classic." + +Finlay withdrew his glance abruptly from the falling +blossoms as if they had tempted him to an expansion he +could not justify. He was impatient always of the personal +note, and in his intercourse with Miss Murchison he seemed +of late to be constantly sounding it. + +"Oh, I don't know," he said, almost irritably. "I only +meant that I see the obvious things, while you seem to +have an eye for the subtle. There's reward, I suppose, +in seeing anything. But about those more delicate +appreciations of societies longer evolved, I sometimes +think that you don't half realize, in a country like +this, how much there is to make up." + +"Is there anything really to make up?" she asked. + +"Oh, so much! Freedom from old habits, inherited problems: +look at the absurd difficulty they have in England in +handling such a matter as education! Here you can't even +conceive it--the schools have been on logical lines from +the beginning, or almost. Political activity over there +is half-strangled at this moment by the secular arm of +religion; here it doesn't even impede the circulation! +Conceive any Church, or the united Churches, for the +matter of that, asking a place in the conduct of the +common schools of Ontario! How would the people take it? +With anger, or with laughter, but certainly with sense. +'By all mean let the ministers serve education on the +School Boards,' they would say, 'by election like other +people'--an opportunity, by the way, which has just been +offered to me. I'm nominated for East Elgin in place of +Leverett, the tanner, who is leaving the town. I shall +do my best to get in, too; there are several matters that +want seeing to over there. The girls' playground, for +one thing, is practically under water in the spring." + +"You should get in without the least difficulty. Oh, yes +there is something in a fresh start: we're on the straight +road as a nation, in most respects; we haven't any +picturesque old prescribed lanes to travel. So you think +that makes up?" + +"It's one thing. You might put down space--elbow-room." + +"An empty horizon," Advena murmured. + +"For faith and the future. An empty horizon is better +than none. England has filled hers up. She has now--these," +and he nodded at a window open to the yellow west. Advena +looked with him. + +"Oh, if you have a creative imagination," she said "like +Wallingham's. But even then your vision must be only +political economic, material. You can't conceive +the--flowers--that will come out of all that. And if you +could it wouldn't be like having them." + +"And the scope of the individual, his chance of +self-respect, unhampered by the traditions of class, +which either deaden it or irritate it in England! His +chance of significance and success! And the splendid, +buoyant, unused air to breathe, and the simplicity of +life, and the plenty of things!" + +"I am to be consoled because apples are cheap." + +"You are to be consoled for a hundred reasons. Doesn't +it console you to feel under your very feet the forces +that are working to the immense amelioration of a not +altogether undeserving people?" + +"No," said Advena, rebelliously; and indeed he had been +a trifle didactic to her grievance. They laughed together, +and then with a look at her in which observation seemed +suddenly to awake, Finlay said-- + +"And those things aren't all, or nearly all. I sometimes +think that the human spirit, as it is set free in these +wide unblemished spaces, may be something more pure and +sensitive, more sincerely curious about what is good and +beautiful--" + +He broke off, still gazing at her, as if she had been an +idea and no more. How much more she was she showed him +by a vivid and beautiful blush. + +"I am glad you are so well satisfied," she said, and +then, as if her words had carried beyond their intention, +she blushed again. + +Upon which Hugh Finlay saw his idea incarnate. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +If it were fair or adequate to so quote, I should be very +much tempted to draw the history of Lorne Murchison's +sojourn in England from his letters home. He put his +whole heart into these, his discoveries and his recognitions +and his young enthusiasm, all his claimed inheritance, +all that he found to criticize and to love. His mother +said, half-jealously when she read them, that he seemed +tremendously taken up with the old country; and of course +she expressed the thing exactly, as she always did: he +was tremendously taken up with it. The old country fell +into the lines of his imagination, from the towers of +Westminster to the shops in the Strand; from the Right +Hon. Fawcett Wallingham, who laid great issues before +the public, to the man who sang melancholy hymns to the +same public up and down the benevolent streets. It was +naturally London that filled his view; his business was +in London and his time was short; the country he saw from +the train, whence it made a low cloudy frame for London, +with decorations of hedges and sheep. How he saw London, +how he carried away all he did in the time and under the +circumstances, may be thought a mystery; there are +doubtless people who would consider his opportunities +too limited to gather anything essential. Cruickshank +was the only one of the deputation who had been "over" +before; and they all followed him unquestioningly to the +temperance hotel of his preference in Bloomsbury, where +bedrooms were three and six and tea was understood as a +solid meal and the last in the day. Bates would have +voted for the Metropole, and McGill had been advised that +you saw a good deal of life at the Cecil, but they bowed +to Cruickshank's experience. None of them were total +abstainers, but neither had any of them the wine habit; +they were not inconvenienced, therefore, in taking +advantage of the cheapness with which total abstinence +made itself attractive, and they took it, though they +were substantial men. As one of them put it, they weren't +over there to make a splash, a thing that was pretty hard +to do in London, anyhow; and home comforts came before +anything. The conviction about the splash was perhaps a +little the teaching of circumstances. They were influential +fellows at home, who had lived for years in the atmosphere +of appreciation that surrounds success; their movements +were observed in the newspapers; their names stood for +wide interests, big concerns. They had known the +satisfaction of a positive importance, not only in their +community but in their country; and they had come to +England invested as well with the weight that is attached +to a public mission. It may very well be that they looked +for some echo of what they were accustomed to, and were +a little dashed not to find it--to find the merest +published announcement of their arrival, and their +introduction by Lord Selkirk to the Colonial Secretary; +and no heads turned in the temperance hotel when they +came into the dining-room. It may very well be. It is +even more certain, however that they took the lesson as +they found it, with the quick eye for things as they are +which seems to come of looking at things as they will +be, and with just that humorous comment about the splash. +It would be misleading to say that they were humbled; I +doubt whether they even felt their relativity, whether +they ever dropped consciously, there in the Bloomsbury +hotel, into their places in the great scale of London. +Observing the scale, recognizing it, they held themselves +unaffected by it; they kept, in a curious, positive way, +the integrity of what they were and what they had come +for; they maintained their point of view. So much must +be conceded. The Empire produces a family resemblance, +but here and there, when oceans intervene, a different +mould of the spirit. + +Wallingham certainly invited them to dinner one Sunday, +in a body, an occasion which gave one or two of them some +anxiety until they found that it was not to be adorned +by the ladies of the family. Tricorne was there, President +of the Board of Trade, and Fleming, who held the +purse-strings of the United Kingdom, two Ministers whom +Wallingham had asked because they were supposed to have +open minds--open, that is to say, for purposes of +assimilation. Wallingham considered, and rightly, that +he had done very well for the deputation in getting these +two. There were other "colleagues" whose attendance he +would have liked to compel; but one of them, deep in the +country, was devoting his weekends to his new French +motor, and the other to the proofs of a book upon Neglected +Periods of Mahommedan History, and both were at the +breaking strain with overwork. Wallingham asked the +deputation to dinner. Lord Selkirk, who took them to +Wallingham, dined them too, and invited them to one of +those garden parties for the sumptuous scale of which he +was so justly famed; the occasion we have already heard +about, upon which royalty was present in two generations. +They travelled to it by special train, a circumstance +which made them grave, receptive, and even slightly +ceremonious with one another. Lord Selkirk, with royalty +on his hands, naturally could not give them much of his +time, and they moved about in a cluster, avoiding the +ladies' trains and advising one another that it was a +good thing the High Commissioner was a man of large +private means; it wasn't everybody that could afford to +take the job. Yet they were not wholly detached from the +occasion; they looked at it, after they had taken it in, +with an air half-amused, half-proprietary. All this had, +in a manner, come out of Canada, and Canada was theirs. +One of them--Bates it was--responding to a lady who was +effusive about the strawberries, even took the modestly +depreciatory attitude of the host. "They're a fair size +for this country, ma'am, but if you want berries with a +flavour we'll do better for you in the Niagara district." + +It must be added that Cruickshank lunched with Wallingham +at his club, and with Tricorne at his; and on both +occasions the quiet and attentive young secretary went +with him, for purposes of reference, his pocket bulging +with memoranda. The young secretary felt a little +embarrassed to justify his presence at Tricorne's lunch, +as the Right Honourable gentleman seemed to have forgotten +what his guests had come for beyond it, and talked +exclusively and exhaustively about the new possibilities +for fruit-farming in England. Cruickshank fairly shook +himself into his overcoat with irritation afterward. +"It's the sort of thing we must except," he said, as they +merged upon Pall Mall. It was not the sort of thing Lorne +expected; but we know him unsophisticated and a stranger +to the heart of the Empire, which beats through such +impediment of accumulated tissue. Nor was it the sort of +thing they got from Wallingham, the keen-eyed and probing, +whose skill in adjusting conflicting interests could +astonish even their expectation, and whose vision of the +essentials of the future could lift even their enthusiasm. +One would like to linger over their touch with Wallingham, +that fusion of energy with energy, that straight, +satisfying, accomplishing dart. There is more drama here; +no doubt, than in all the pages that are to come. But I +am explaining now how little, not how much, the Cruickshank +deputation, and especially Lorne Murchison, had the +opportunity of feeling and learning in London, in order +to show how wonderful it was that Lorne felt and learned +so widely. That, what he absorbed and took back with him +is, after all, what we have to do with; his actual +adventures are of no great importance. + +The deputation to urge improved communications within +the Empire had few points of contact with the great world, +but its members were drawn into engagements of their own, +more, indeed, than some of them could conveniently +overtake. Mr Bates never saw his niece in the post-office, +and regrets it to this day. The engagements arose partly +out of business relations. Poulton who was a dyspeptic, +complained that nothing could be got through in London +without eating and drinking; for his part he would concede +a point any time not to eat and drink, but you could not +do it; you just had to suffer. Poulton was a principal +in one of the railway companies that were competing to +open up the country south of Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, +but having dealt with that circumstance in the course of +the day he desired only to be allowed to go to bed on +bread and butter and a little stewed fruit. Bates, whose +name was a nightmare to every other dry-goods man in +Toronto, naturally had to see a good many of the wholesale +people; he, too, complained of the number of courses and +the variety of the wines, but only to disguise his +gratification. McGill, of the Great Bear Line, had big +proposals to make in connection with southern railway +freights from Liverpool; and Cameron, for private reasons +of magnitude, proposed to ascertain the real probability +of a duty to foreigners on certain forms of manufactured +leather--he turned out in Toronto a very good class of +suitcase. Cruickshank had private connections to which +they were all respectful. Nobody but Cruickshank found +it expedient to look up the lost leader of the Canadian +House of Commons, contributed to a cause still more +completely lost in home politics; nobody but Cruickshank +was likely to be asked to dine by a former Governor-General +of the Dominion, an invitation which nobody but Cruickshank +would be likely to refuse. + +"It used to be a 'command' in Ottawa," said Cruickshank, +who had got on badly with his sovereign's representative +there, "but here it's only a privilege. There's no business +in it, and I haven't time for pleasure." + +The nobleman in question had, in effect, dropped back +into the Lords. So far as the Empire was concerned, he +was in the impressive rearguard, and this was a little +company of fighting men. + +The entertainments arising out of business were usually +on a scale more or less sumptuous. They took place in +big, well-known restaurants, and included a look at many +of the people who seem to lend themselves so willingly +to the great buzzing show that anybody can pay for in +London, their names in the paper in the morning, their +faces at Prince's in the evening, their personalities no +doubt advantageously exposed in various places during +the day. But there were others, humbler ones in Earl's +Court Road or Maida Vale, where the members of the +deputation had relatives whom it was natural to hunt up. +Long years and many billows had rolled between, and more +effective separations had arisen in the whole difference +of life; still, it was natural to hunt them up, to seek +in their eyes and their hands the old subtle bond of kin, +and perhaps--such is our vanity in the new lands--to show +them what the stock had come to overseas. They tended to +be depressing these visits: the married sister was living +in a small way; the first cousin seemed to have got into +a rut; the uncle and aunt were failing, with a stooping, +trembling, old-fashioned kind of decrepitude, a rigidity +of body and mind, which somehow one didn't see much over +home. + +"England," said Poulton, the Canadian-born, "is a dangerous +country to live in; you run such risks of growing old." +They agreed, I fear, for more reasons than this that +England was a good country to leave early; and you cannot +blame them--there was not one of them who did not offer +in his actual person proof of what he said. Their own +dividing chance grew dramatic in their eyes. + +"I was offered a clerkship with the Cunards the day before +I sailed," said McGill. "Great Scott, if I'd taken that +clerkship!" He saw all his glorious past, I suppose, in +a suburban aspect. + +"I was kicked out," said Cameron, "and it was the kindest +attention my father ever paid me;" and Bates remarked +that it was worth coming out second-class, as he did, to +go back in the best cabin in the ship. + +The appearance and opinions of those they had left behind +them prompted them to this kind of congratulation, with +just a thought of compunction at the back of it for their +own better fortunes. In the further spectacle of England +most of them saw the repository of singularly old-fashioned +ideas the storehouse of a good deal of money; and the +market for unlimited produce. They looked cautiously at +imperial sentiment; they were full of the terms of their +bargain and had, as they would have said, little use for +schemes that did not commend themselves on a basis of +common profit. Cruickshank was the biggest and the best +of them; but even Cruickshank submitted the common +formulas; submitted them and submitted to them. + +Only Lorne Murchison among them looked higher and further; +only he was alive to the inrush of the essential; he only +lifted up his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Lorne was thus an atom in the surge of London. The members +of the deputation, as their business progressed, began +to feel less like atoms and more like a body exerting an +influence, however obscurely hid in a temperance hotel, +upon the tide of international affairs; but their secretary +had naturally no initiative that appeared, no importance +that was taken account of. In these respects, no less +than in the others, he justified Mr Cruickshank's selection. +He did his work as unobtrusively as he did it admirably +well; and for the rest he was just washed about, carried, +hither and thither, generally on the tops of omnibuses, +receptive, absorbent, mostly silent. He did try once or +twice to talk to the bus drivers--he had been told it +was a thing to do if you wanted to get hold of the point +of view of a particular class; but the thick London idiom +defeated him, and he found they grew surly when he asked +them too often to repeat their replies. He felt a little +surly himself after a while, when they asked him, as they +nearly always did, if he wasn't an American. "Yes," he +would say in the end, "but not the United States kind," +resenting the necessity of explaining to the Briton beside +him that there were other kinds. The imperial idea goes +so quickly from the heart to the head. He felt compelled, +nevertheless, to mitigate his denial to the bus drivers. + +"I expect it's the next best thing." he would say, "but +it's only the next best." + +It was as if he felt charged to vindicate the race, the +whole of Anglo-Saxondom, there in his supreme moment, +his splendid position, on the top of an omnibus lumbering +west out of Trafalgar Square. + +One introduction of his own he had. Mrs Milburn had got +it for him from the rector, Mr Emmett, to his wife's +brother, Mr Charles Chafe, who had interests in Chiswick +and a house in Warwick Gardens. Lorne put off presenting +the letter--did not know, indeed, quite how to present +it, till his stay in London was half over. Finally he +presented himself with it, as the quickest way, at the +office of Mr Chafe's works at Chiswick. He was cordially +received, both there and in Warwick Gardens, where he +met Mrs Chafe and the family, when he also met Mr Alfred +Hesketh. Lorne went several times to the house in Warwick +Gardens, and Hesketh--a nephew--was there on the very +first occasion. It was an encounter interesting on both +sides. He--Hesketh--was a young man with a good public +school and a university behind him, where his very moderate +degree, however, failed to represent the activity of his +mind or the capacity of his energy. He had a little money +of his own, and no present occupation; he belonged to +the surplus. He was not content to belong to it; he cast +about him a good deal for something to do. There was +always the Bar, but only the best fellows get on there, +and he was not quite one of the best fellows; he knew +that. He had not money enough for politics or interest +enough for the higher departments of the public service, +nor had he those ready arts of expression that lead +naturally into journalism. Anything involving further +examinations he rejected on that account; and the future +of glassware, in view of what they were doing in Germany, +did not entice him to join his uncle in Chiswick. Still +he was aware of enterprise, convinced that he had loafed +long enough. + +Lorne Murchison had never met anyone of Hesketh's age in +Hesketh's condition before. Affluence and age he knew, +in honourable retirement; poverty and youth he knew, +embarked in the struggle; indolence and youth he also +knew, as it cumbered the ground; but youth and a competence, +equipped with education, industry, and vigour, searching +vainly in fields empty of opportunity, was to him a new +spectacle. He himself had intended to be a lawyer since +he was fourteen. There never had been any impediment to +his intention, any qualification to his desire. He was +still under his father's roof, but that was for the +general happiness; any time within the last eighteen +months, if he had chosen to hurry fate, he might have +selected another. He was younger than Hesketh by a year, +yet we may say that he had arrived, while Hesketh was +still fidgeting at the starting-point. + +"Why don't you farm?" he asked once. + +"Farming in England may pay in a quarter of a century, +not before. I can't wait for it. Besides, why should I +farm? Why didn't you?" + +"Well," said Lorne, "in your case it seems about the only +thing left. I? Oh it doesn't attract us over there. We're +getting away from it--leaving it to the newcomers from +this side. Curious circle, that: I wonder when our place +gets overcrowded, where we shall go to plough?" + +Hesketh's situation occupied them a good deal; but their +great topic had a wider drift, embracing nothing less +than the Empire, pausing nowhere short of the flag. The +imperial idea was very much at the moment in the public +mind; it hung heavily, like a banner, in every newspaper, +it was filtering through the slow British consciousness, +solidifying as it travelled. In the end it might be +expected to arrive at a shape in which the British +consciousness must either assimilate it or cast it forth. +They were saying in the suburbs that they wanted it +explained; at Hatfield they were saying, some of them, +with folded arms, that it was self evident; other members +of that great house, swinging their arms, called it +blackness of darkness and ruin, so had a prophet divided +it against itself. Wallingham, still in the Cabinet, was +going up and down the country trying not to explain too +much. There was division in the Cabinet, sore travail +among private members. The conception being ministerial, +the Opposition applied itself to the task of abortion, +fearing the worst if it should be presented to the country +fully formed and featured, the smiling offspring of +progress and imagination. Travellers to Greater Britain +returned waving joyous torches in the insular fog; they +shed a brilliance and infectious enthusiasm, but there +were not enough to do more than make the fog visible. +Many persons found such torches irritating. They pointed +out that as England had groped to her present greatness +she might be trusted to feel her way further. "Free +trade," they said, "has made us what we are. Put out +these lights!" + +Mr Chafe was one of these. He was a cautious, heavy +fellow, full of Burgundy and distrust. The basis of the +imperial idea inspired him with suspicion and hostility. +He could accept the American tariff on English manufactures; +that was a plain position, simple damage, a blow full in +the face, not to be dodged. But the offer of better +business in the English colonies in exchange for a duty +on the corn and meat of foreign countries--he could see +too deep for that. The colonials might or might not be +good customers; he knew how many decanters he sold in +the United States, in spite of the tariff. He saw that +the tax on food-stuffs was being commended to the +working-man with the argument of higher wages. Higher +wages, with the competition of foreign labour, spelt only +one word to English manufacturers, and that was ruin. +The bugbear of higher wages, immediate, threatening, +near, the terror of the last thirty years, closed the +prospect for Charles Chafe; he could see nothing beyond. +He did not say so, but to him the prosperity of the +British manufacturer was bound up in the indigence of +the operative. Thriving workmen, doing well, and looking +to do better, rose before him in terms of menace, though +their prosperity might be rooted in his own. "Give them +cheap food and keep them poor," was the sum of his advice. +His opinions had the emphasis of the unexpected, the +unnatural: he was one of the people whom Wallingham's +scheme in its legitimate development of a tariff on +foreign manufactures might be expected to enrich. This +fact, which he constantly insisted on, did give them +weight; it made him look like a cunning fellow not to be +caught with chaff. He and his business had survived free +trade--though he would not say this either--and he +preferred to go on surviving it rather than take the +chances of any zollverein. The name of the thing was +enough for him, a word made in Germany, thick and mucky, +like their tumblers. As to the colonies--Mr Chafe had +been told of a certain spider who devoured her young +ones. He reversed the figure and it stood, in the imperial +connection, for all the argument he wanted. + +Alfred Hesketh had lived always in the hearing of such +doctrine; it had stood to him for political gospel by +mere force of repetition. But he was young, with the +curiosity and enterprise and impatience of dogma of youth; +he belonged by temperament and situation to those plastic +thousands in whom Wallingham hoped to find the leaven +that should leaven the whole lump. His own blood stirred +with the desire to accomplish, to carry further; and as +the scope of the philanthropist did not attract him, he +was vaguely conscious of having been born too late in +England. The new political appeal of the colonies, clashing +suddenly upon old insular harmonies, brought him a sense +of wider fields and chances; his own case he freely +translated into his country's, and offered an open mind +to politics that would help either of them. He looked at +the new countries with interest, an interest evoked by +their sudden dramatic leap into the forefront of public +concern. He looked at them with what nature intended to +be the eye of a practical businessman. He looked at Lorne +Murchison, too, and listened to him, with steady critical +attention. Lorne seemed in a way to sum it all up in his +person, all the better opportunity a man had out there; +and he handled large matters of the future with a confidence +and a grip that quickened the circulation. Hesketh's open +mind gradually became filled with the imperial view as +he had the capacity to take it; and we need not be +surprised if Lorne Murchison, gazing in the same direction, +supposed that they saw the same thing. + +Hesketh confessed, declared, that Murchison had brought +him round; and Lorne surveyed this achievement with a +thrill of the happiest triumph. Hesketh stood, to him, +a product of that best which he was so occupied in admiring +and pursuing. Perhaps he more properly represented the +second best; but we must allow something for the confusion +of early impressions. Hesketh had lived always in the +presence of ideals disengaged in England as nowhere else +in the world; in Oxford, Lorne knew, they clustered thick. +There is no doubt that his manners were good, and his +ideas unimpeachable in the letter; the young Canadian +read the rest into him and loved him for what he might +have been. + +"As an Englishman," said Hesketh one evening as they +walked together back from the Chafes' along Knightsbridge, +talking of the policy urged by the Colonial representatives +at the last Conference, "I could wish the idea were more +our own--that we were pressing it on the colonies instead +of the colonies pressing it on us." + +"Doesn't there come a time in the history of most families," +Lorne replied, "when the old folks look to the sons and +daughters to keep them in touch with the times? Why +shouldn't a vigorous policy of Empire be conceived by +its younger nations--who have the ultimate resources to +carry it out? We've got them and we know it--the iron +and the coal and the gold, and the wheat-bearing areas. +I dare say it makes us seem cheeky, but I tell you the +last argument lies in the soil and what you can get out +of it. What has this country got in comparison? A market +of forty million people, whom she can't feed and is less +and less able to find work for. Do you call that a +resource? I call it an impediment--a penalty. It's +something to exploit, for the immediate profit in it, +something to bargain with; but even as a market it can't +preponderate always, and I can't see why it should make +such tremendous claims." + +"England isn't superannuated yet, Murchison." + +"Not yet. Please God she never will be. But she isn't as +young as she was, and it does seem to me--" + +"What seems to you?" + +"Well, I'm no economist, and I don't know how far to +trust my impressions, and you needn't tell me I'm a rank +outsider, for I know that; but coming here as an outsider, +it does seem to me that it's from the outside that any +sort of helpful change in the conditions of this country +has got to come. England still has military initiative, +though it's hard to see how she's going to keep that +unless she does something to stop the degeneration of +the class she draws her army from; but what other kind +do we hear about? Company-promoting, bee-keeping, +asparagus-growing, poultry-farming for ladies, the opening +of a new Oriental Tea-Pot in Regent Street, with +samisen-players between four and six, and Japanese +attendants who take the change on their hands and knees. +London's one great stomach--how many eating places have +we passed in the last ten minutes? The place seems all +taken up with inventing new ways of making rich people +more comfortable and better-amused--I'm fed up with the +sight of shiny carriages with cockaded flunkeys on 'em, +wooden-smart, rolling about with an elderly woman and a +parasol and a dog. England seems to have fallen back on +itself, got content to spend the money there is in the +country already; and about the only line of commercial +activity the stranger sees is the onslaught on that +accumulation. London isn't the headquarters for big new +developing enterprises any more. If you take out Westminster +and Wallingham, London is a collection of traditions and +great houses, and newspaper offices, and shops. That sort +of thing can't go on for ever. Already capital is drawing +away to conditions it can find a profit in--steel works +in Canada, woollen factories in Australia, jute mills in +India. Do you know where the boots came from that shod +the troops in South Africa? Cawnpore. The money will go, +you know, and that's a fact; the money will go, and the +people will go, anyhow. It's only a case of whether +England sends them with blessing and profit and greater +glory, or whether she lets them slip away in spite of +her." + +"I dare say it will," replied Hesketh; "I've got precious +little, but what there is I'd take out fast enough, if +I saw a decent chance of investing it. I sometimes think +of trying my luck in the States. Two or three fellows in +my year went over there and aren't making half a bad +thing of it." + +"Oh, come," said Lorne, half-swinging round upon the +other, with his hands in his pockets, "it isn't exactly +the time, is it, to talk about chucking the Empire?" + +"Well, no, it isn't," Hesketh admitted. "One might do +better to wait, I dare say. At all events, till we see +what the country says to Wallingham." + +They walked on for a moment or two in silence; then Lorne +broke out again. + +"I suppose it's unreasonable, but there's nothing I hate +so much as to hear Englishmen talk of settling in the +United States." + +"It's risky, I admit. And I've never heard anybody yet +say it was comfortable." + +"In a few years, fifty maybe, it won't matter. Things +will have taken their direction by then; but now it's a +question of the lead. The Americans think they've got +it, and unless we get imperial federation of course they +have. It's their plain intention to capture England +commercially." + +"We're a long way from that," said Hesketh. + +"Yes, but it's in the line of fate. Industrial energy is +deserting this country; and you have no large movement, +no counter-advance, to make against the increasing forces +that are driving this way from over there--nothing to +oppose to assault. England is in a state of siege, and +doesn't seem to know it. She's so great--Hesketh, it's +pathetic!--she offers an undefended shore to attack, and +a stupid confidence, a kindly blindness, above all to +Americans, whom she patronizes in the gate." + +"I believe we do patronize them," said Hesketh. "It's +rotten bad form." + +"Oh, form! I may be mad, but one seems to see in politics +over here a lack of definition and purpose, a tendency +to cling to the abstract and to precedent--'the mainstay +of the mandarin' one of the papers calls it; that's a +good word--that give one the feeling that this kingdom +is beginning to be aware of some influence stronger than +its own. It lies, of course, in the great West, where +the corn and the cattle grow; and between Winnipeg and +Chicago choose quickly, England!" + +His companion laughed. "Oh, I'm with you," he said, "but +you take a pessimistic view of this country, Murchison." + +"It depends on what you call pessimism," Lorne rejoined. +"I see England down the future the heart of the Empire, +the conscience of the world. and the Mecca of the race." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Cruickshank deputation returned across that North +Atlantic which it was their desire to see so much more +than ever the track of the flag, toward the middle of +July. The shiny carriages were still rolling about in +great numbers when they left; London's air of luxury had +thickened with the advancing season and hung heavily in +the streets; people had begun to picnic in the Park on +Sundays. They had been from the beginning a source of +wonder and of depression to Lorne Murchison, the people +in the Park, those, I mean, who walked and sat and stood +there for the refreshment of their lives, for whom the +place has a lyrical value as real as it is unconscious. +He noted them ranged on formal benches, quiet, respectable, +absorptive, or gathered heavily, shoulder to shoulder, +docile under the tutelage of policemen, listening to +anyone who would lift a voice to speak to them. London, +beating on all borders, hemmed them in; England outside +seemed hardly to contain for them a wider space. Lorne, +with his soul full of free airs and forest depths, never +failed to respond to a note in the Park that left him +heavy-hearted, longing for an automatic distributing +system for the Empire. When he saw them bring their +spirit-lamps and kettles and sit down in little companies +on four square yards of turf, under the blackened branches, +in the roar of the traffic, he went back to Bloomsbury +to pack his trunk, glad that it was not his lot to live +with that enduring spectacle. + +They were all glad, every one of them, to turn their +faces to the West again. The unready conception of things, +the political concentration upon parish affairs, the +cumbrous social machinery, oppressed them with its dull +anachronism in a marching world; the problems of sluggish +overpopulation clouded their eager outlook. These conditions +might have been their inheritance. Perhaps Lorne Murchison +was the only one who thanked Heaven consciously that it +was not so; but there was no man among them whose pulse +did not mark a heart rejoiced as he paced the deck of +the Allan liner the first morning out of Liverpool, +because he had leave to refuse them. None dreamed of +staying, of "settling," though such a course was practicable +to any of them except Lorne. They were all rich enough +to take the advantages that money brings in England, the +comfort, the importance, the state; they had only to add +their wealth to the sumptuous side of the dramatic +contrast. I doubt whether the idea even presented itself. +It is the American who takes up his appreciative residence +in England. He comes as a foreigner, observant, amused, +having disclaimed responsibility for a hundred years. +His detachment is as complete as it would be in Italy, +with the added pleasure of easy comprehension. But +homecomers from Greater Britain have never been cut off, +still feel their uneasy share in all that is, and draw +a long breath of relief as they turn again to their life +in the lands where they found wider scope and different +opportunities, and that new quality in the blood which +made them different men. + +The deputation had accomplished a good deal; less, +Cruickshank said, than he had hoped, but more than he +had expected. They had obtained the promise of concessions +for Atlantic services, both mail and certain classes of +freight, by being able to demonstrate a generous policy +on their own side. Pacific communications the home +Government was more chary of; there were matters to be +fought out with Australia. The Pacific was further away, +as Cruickshank said, and you naturally can't get fellows +who have never been there to see the country under the +Selkirks and south of the Bay--any of them except +Wallingham, who had never been there either, but whose +imagination took views of the falcon. They were reinforced +by news of a shipping combination in Montreal to lower +freights to South Africa against the Americans; it wasn't +news to them, some of them were in it; but it was to the +public, and it helped the sentiment of their aim, the +feather on the arrow. They had secured something, both +financially and morally; what best pleased them, perhaps, +was the extent to which they got their scheme discussed. +Here Lorne had been invaluable; Murchison had done more +with the newspapers, they agreed, than any of them with +Cabinet Ministers. The journalist everywhere is perhaps +more accessible to ideas, more susceptible to enthusiasm, +than his fellows, and Lorne was charged with the object +of his deputation in its most communicable, most captivating +form. At all events, he came to excellent understanding, +whether of agreement or opposition, with the newspapermen +he met--Cruickshank knew a good many of them and these +occasions were more fruitful than the official ones--and +there is no doubt that the guarded approval of certain +leading columns had fewer ifs and buts and other +qualifications in consequence, while the disapproval of +others was marked by a kind of unwilling sympathy and a +freely accorded respect. Lorne found London editors +surprisingly unbiased, London newspapers surprisingly +untrammelled. They seemed to him to suffer from no dictated +views, no interests in the background or special local +circumstances. They had open minds, most of them, and +when a cloud appeared it was seldom more than a prejudice. +It was only his impression, and perhaps it would not +stand cynical inquiry; but he had a grateful conviction +that the English Press occupied in the main a lofty and +impartial ground of opinion, from which it desired only +a view of the facts in their true proportion. On his +return he confided it to Horace Williams, who scoffed +and ran the national politics of the Express in the local +interests of Fox County as hard as ever; but it had fallen +in with Lorne's beautiful beliefs about England, and he +clung to it for years. + +The Williamses had come over the second evening following +Lorne's arrival, after tea. Rawlins had gone to the +station, just to see that the Express would make no +mistake in announcing that Mr L. Murchison had "Returned +to the Paternal Roof," and the Express had announced it, +with due congratulation. Family feeling demanded that +for the first twenty-four hours he should be left to his +immediate circle, but people had been dropping in all +the next day at the office, and now came the Williamses +"trapesing," as Mrs Murchison said, across the grass, +though she was too content to make it more than a private +grievance, to where they all sat on the verandah. + +"What I don't understand," Horace Williams said to Mr +Murchison, "was why you didn't give him a blow on the +whistle. You and Milburn and a few others might have got +up quite a toot. You don't get the secretary to a deputation +for tying up the Empire home every day." + +"You did that for him in the Express," said John Murchison, +smiling as he pressed down, with an accustomed thumb, +the tobacco into his pipe. + +"Oh, we said nothing at all! Wait till he's returned for +South Fox," Williams responded jocularly. + +"Why not the Imperial Council--of the future--at Westminster +while you're about it?" remarked Lorne, flipping a pebble +back upon the gravel path. + +"That will keep, my son. But one of these days, you mark +my words, Mr L. Murchison will travel to Elgin Station +with flags on his engine and he'll be very much surprised +to find the band there, and a large number of his +fellow-citizens, all able-bodied shouting men, and every +factory whistle in Elgin let off at once, to say nothing +of kids with tin ones. And if the Murchison Stove and +Furnace Works siren stands out of that occasion I'll +break in and pull it myself." + +"It won't stand out," Stella assured him. "I'll attend +to it. Don't you worry." + +"I suppose you had a lovely time, Mr Murchison?" said +Mrs Williams, gently tilting to and fro in a rocking-chair, +with her pretty feet in their American shoes well in +evidence. It is a fact, or perhaps a parable, that should +be interesting to political economists, the adaptability +of Canadian feet to American shoes; but fortunately it +is not our present business. Though I must add that the +"rocker" was also American; and the hammock in which +Stella reposed came from New York; and upon John Murchison's +knee, with the local journal, lay a pink evening paper +published in Buffalo. + +"Better than I can tell you, Mrs Williams, in all sorts +of ways. But it's good to be back, too. Very good!" Lorne +threw up his head and drew in the pleasant evening air +of midsummer with infinite relish while his eye travelled +contentedly past the chestnuts on the lawn, down the +vista of the quiet tree-bordered street. It lay empty in +the solace of the evening, a blue hill crossed it in the +distance, and gave it an unfettered look, the wind stirred +in the maples. A pair of schoolgirls strolled up and down +bareheaded; now and then a buggy passed. + +"There's room here," he said. + +"Find it kind of crowded up over there?" asked Mr Williams. +"Worse than New York?" + +"Oh, yes. Crowded in a patient sort of way--it's enough +to break your heart--that you don't see in New York! The +poor of New York--well, they've got the idea of not being +poor. In England they're resigned, they've got callous. +My goodness! the fellows out of work over there--you can +SEE they're used to it, see it in the way they slope +along and the look in their eyes, poor dumb dogs. They +don't understand it, but they've just got to take it! +Crowded? Rather!" + +"We don't say 'rather' in this country, mister," observed +Stella. + +"Well, you can say it now, kiddie." + +They laughed at the little passage--the traveller's +importation of one or two Britishisms had been the subject +of skirmish before--but silence fell among them for a +moment afterward. They all had in the blood the remembrance +of what Lorne had seen. + +"Well, you've been doing big business," said Horace +Williams. + +Lorne shook his head. "We haven't done any harm," he +said, "but our scheme's away out of sight now. At least +it ought to be." + +"Lost in the bigger issue." said Williams, and Lorne +nodded. + +The bigger issue had indeed in the meantime obscured the +political horizon, and was widely spreading. A mere +colonial project might well disappear in it. England was +absorbed in a single contemplation. Wallingham, though +he still supported the disabilities of a right honourable +evangelist with a gospel of his own, was making astonishing +conversions; the edifice of the national economic creed +seemed coming over at the top. It was a question of the +resistance of the base, and the world was watching. + +"Cruickshank says if the main question had been sprung +a month ago we wouldn't have gone over. As it is, on +several points we've got to wait. If they reject the +preferential trade idea over there we shall have done a +little good, for any government would be disposed to try +to patch up something to take the place of imperial union +in that case; and a few thousands more for shipping +subsidies and cheap cablegrams would have a great look +of strengthening the ties with the colonies. But if they +commit themselves to a zollverein with us and the rest +of the family you won't hear much more about the need to +foster communications. Communications will foster +themselves." + +"Just so," remarked John Murchison. "They'll save their +money." + +"I wouldn't think so before--I couldn't," Lorne went on, +"but I'm afraid it's rather futile, the kind of thing +we've been trying to do. It's fiddling at a superstructure +without a foundation. What we want is the common interest. +Common interest, common taxation for defence, common +representation, domestic management of domestic affairs, +and you've got a working Empire." + +"Just as easy as slippin' off a log," remarked Horace +Williams. + +"Common interest, yes," said his father; "common taxation, +no, for defence or any other purpose. The colonies will +never send money to be squandered by the London War +Office. We'll defend ourselves, as soon as we can manage +it, and buy our own guns and our own cruisers. We're +better business people than they are, and we know it." + +"I guess that's right, Mr Murchison," said Horace Williams. +"Our own army and navy--in the sweet bye-and-bye. And +let 'em understand they'll be welcome to the use of it, +but quite in a family way--no sort of compulsion." + +"Well," said Lorne, "that's compatible enough." + +"And your domestic affairs must include the tariff," Mr +Murchison went on. "There's no such possibility as a +tariff that will go round. And tariffs are kittle cattle +to shoo behind." + +"Has anybody got a Scotch dictionary?" inquired Stella. +"This conversation is making me tired." + +"Suppose you run away and play with your hoop," suggested +her brother. "I can't see that as an insuperable difficulty, +Father. Tariffs could be made adaptable, relative to the +common interest as well as to the individual one. We +could do it if we liked." + +"Your adaptability might easily lead to other things. +What's to prevent retaliation among ourselves? There's +a slump in textiles, and the home Government is forced +to let in foreign wool cheaper. Up goes the Australian +tax on the output of every mill in Lancashire. The last +state of the Empire might be worse than the first." + +"It wouldn't be serious. If I pinched Stella's leg as +I'm going to in a minute, she will no doubt kick me; and +her instincts are such that she will probably kick me +with the leg I pinched, but that won't prevent our going +to the football match together tomorrow and presenting +a united front to the world." + +They all laughed, and Stella pulled down her lengthening +petticoats with an air of great offence, but John Murchison +shook his head. + +"If they manage it, they will be clever," he said. + +"Talking of Lancashire," said Williams, "there are some +funny fellows over there writing in the Press against a +tax on foreign cotton because it's going to ruin Lancashire. +And at this very minute thousands of looms are shut down +in Lancashire because of the high price of cotton produced +by an American combine--and worse coming, sevenpence a +pound I hear they're going to have it, against the +fourpence ha'penny they've got it up to already. That's +the sort of thing they're afraid to discourage by a duty." + +"Would a duty discourage it?" asked John Murchison. + +"Why not--if they let British-grown cotton in free? They +won't discourage the combine much--that form of enterprise +has got to be tackled where it grows; but the Yankee +isn't the only person in the world that can get to +understand it. What's to prevent preferential conditions +creating British combines, to compete with the American +article, and what's to prevent Lancashire getting cheaper +cotton in consequence? Two combines are better than one +monopoly any day." + +"May be so. It would want looking into. We won't see a +duty on cotton though, or wool either for that matter. +The manufacturers would be pleased enough to get it on +the stuff they make, but there would be a fine outcry +against taxing the stuff they use." + +"Did you see much of the aristocracy, Mr Murchison?" +asked Mrs Williams. + +"No," replied Lorne, "but I saw Wallingham." + +"You saw the whole House of Lords," interposed Stella, +"and you were introduced to three." + +"Well, yes, that's so. Fine-looking set of old chaps they +are, too. We're a little too funny over here about the +Lords--we haven't had to make any." + +"What were they doing the day you were there, Lorne?" +asked Williams. + +"Motorcar legislation," replied Lorne. "Considerably +excited about it, too. One of them had had three dogs +killed on his estate. I saw his letter about it in the +Times." + +"I don't see anything to laugh at in that," declared +Stella. "Dogs are dogs." + +"They are, sister, especially in England." + +"Laundresses aren't washerwomen there," observed Mrs +Murchison. "I'd like you to see the colour of the things +he's brought home with him, Mrs Williams. Clean or dirty, +to the laundry they go--weeks it will take to get them +right again--ingrained London smut and nothing else." + +"In this preference business they've got to lead the +way," Williams reverted. "We're not so grown up but what +grandma's got to march in front. Now, from your exhaustive +observation of Great Britain, extending over a period of +six weeks, is she going to?" + +"My exhaustive observation," said Lorne, smiling, "enables +me to tell you one thing with absolute accuracy; and that +is that nobody knows. They adore Wallingham over there--he's +pretty nearly a god--and they'd like to do as he tells +them, and they're dead sick of theoretic politics; but +they're afraid--oh, they're afraid!" + +"They'll do well to ca' canny," said John Murchison. + +"There's two things in the way, at a glance," Lorne went +on. "The conservatism of the people--it isn't a name, +it's a fact--the hostility and suspicion; natural enough: +they know they're stupid, and they half suspect they're +fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught them that. +Slow--oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence +than anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when +things are being done, mind, all over the world, done +against them--when their shipping is being captured, and +their industries destroyed, and their goods undersold +beneath their very noses--and the thing they want to know +is--Why Are the Swallows Late? I read it myself, in a +ha'penny morning paper, too--that they think rather +dangerously go-ahead--a whole column, headed, to inquire +what's the matter with the swallows. The Times the same +week had a useful leader on Alterations in the Church +Service, and a special contribution on Prayers for the +Dead. Lord, they need 'em! Those are the things they +THINK about! The session's nearly over, and there's two +Church Discipline Bills, and five Church Bills--bishoprics +and benefices, and Lord knows what--still to get through. +Lot of anxiety about 'em, apparently! As to a business +view of politics, I expect the climate's against it. +They'll see over a thing--they're fond of doing that--or +under it, or round one side of it, but they don't seem +to have any way of seeing THROUGH it. What they just love +is a good round catchword; they've only got to hear +themselves say it often enough, and they'll take it for +gospel. They're convinced out of their own mouths. There +was the driver of a bus I used to ride on pretty often, +and if he felt like talking, he'd always begin, 'As I +was a-saying of yesterday--' Well, that's the general +idea--to repeat what they were a-sayin' of yesterday; +and it doesn't matter two cents that the rest of the +world has changed the subject. They've been a-sayin' a +long time that they object to import duties of any sort +or kind, and you won't get them to SEE the business in +changing. If they do this it won't be because they want +to, it will be because Wallingham wants them to." + +"I guess that's so," said Williams. "And if Wallingham +gets them to he ought to have a statue in every capital +in the Empire. He will, too. Good cigar this, Lorne! +Where'd you get it?" + +"They are Indian cheroots--'Planters,' they call 'em--made +in Madras. I got some through a man named Hesketh, who +has friends out there, at a price you wouldn't believe +for as decent a smoke. You can't buy 'em in London; but +you will all right, and here, too, as soon as we've got +the sense to favour British-grown tobacco." + +"Lorne appreciates his family better than he did before," +remarked his youngest sister, "because we're British +grown." + +"You were saying you noticed two things specially in the +way?" said his father. + +"Oh, the other's of course the awful poverty--the twelve +millions that haven't got enough to do with. I expect +it's an outside figure and it covers all sorts of qualifying +circumstances; but it's the one the Free Fooders quote, +and it's the one Wallingham will have to handle. They've +muddled along until they've GOT twelve million people in +that condition, and now they have to carry on with the +handicap. We ask them to put a tax on foreign food to +develop our wheat areas and cattle ranges. We say, 'Give +us a chance and we'll feed you and take your surplus +population.' What is to be done with the twelve million +while we are growing the wheat? The colonies offer to +create prosperity for everybody concerned at a certain +outlay--we've got the raw materials--and they can't afford +the investment because of the twelve millions, and what +may happen meanwhile. They can't face the meanwhile--that's +what it comes to." + +"Fine old crop of catchwords in that situation," Mr +Williams remarked; and his eye had the spark of the +practical politician. "Can't you hear 'em at it, eh?" + +"It scares them out of everything but hand-to-mouth +politics. Any other remedy is too heroic. They go on +pointing out and contemplating and grieving, with their +percentages of misery and degeneration; and they go on +poulticing the cancer with benevolence--there are people +over there who want the State to feed the schoolchildren! +Oh, they're kind, good, big-hearted people; and they've +got the idea that if they can only give enough away +everything will come right. I was talking with a man one +day, and I asked him whether the existence of any class +justified governing a great country on the principle of +an almshouse. He asked me who the almsgivers ought to +be, in any country. Of course it was tampering with my +figure--in an almshouse there aren't any; but that's the +way it presents itself to the best of them. Another fellow +was frantic at the idea of a tax on foreign food--he +nearly cried--but would be very glad to see the Government +do more to assist emigration to the colonies. I tried to +show him it would be better to make it profitable to +emigrate first, but I couldn't make him see it. + +"Oh, and there's the old thing against them, of course-- +the handling of imperial and local affairs by one body. +Anybody's good enough to attend to the Baghdad Railway, +and nobody's too good to attend to the town pump. Is it +any wonder the Germans beat them in their own shops and +Russia walks into Thibet? The eternal marvel is that they +stand where they do." + +"At the top," said Mr Williams. + +"Oh--at the top! Think of what you mean when you say +'England.'" + +"I see that the demand for a tariff on manufactured goods +is growing," Williams remarked, "even the anti-food-tax +organs are beginning to shout for that." + +"If they had put it on twenty years ago," said Lorne, +"there would be no twelve million people making a problem +for want of work. and it would be a good deal easier to +do imperial business today." + +"You'll find," said John Murchison, removing his pipe, +"that protection'll have to come first over there. They'll +put up a fence and save their trade--in their own good +time, not next week or next year--and when they've done +that they'll talk to us about our big ideas--not before. +And if Wallingham hadn't frightened them with the imperial +job, he never would have got them to take up the other. +It's just his way of getting both done." + +"I hope you're right, Father," said Lorne, with a covert +glance at his watch. "Horace--Mrs Williams--I'll have to +get you to excuse me. I have an engagement at eight." + +He left them with a happy spring in his step, left them +looking after him, talking of him, with pride and +congratulation. Only Stella, with a severe lip and a +disapproving eye, noted the direction he took as he left +the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the pulpit +steps of Knox Church, and arranged the glass of water +and the notices to be given out beside it, twice every +Sunday for twenty years. He was a small spare man, with +thin grey hair that fell back from the narrow dome of +his forehead to his coat collar, decent and severe. He +ascended the pulpit exactly three minutes before the +minister did; and the dignity with which he put one foot +before the other made his appearance a ceremonious feature +of the service and a thing quoted. "I was there before +Peter" was a triumphant evidence of punctuality. Dr +Drummond would have liked to make it a test. It seemed +to him no great thing to expect the people of Knox Church +to be there before Peter. + +Macfarlane was also in attendance in the vestry to help +the minister off with his gown and hang it up. Dr Drummond's +gown needed neither helping nor hanging; the Doctor was +deftness and neatness and impatience itself, and would +have it on the hook with his own hands, and never a fold +crooked. After Mr Finlay, on the contrary, Peter would +have to pick up and smooth out--ten to one the garment +would be flung on a chair. Still, he was invariably +standing by to see it flung. and to hand Mr Finlay his +hat and stick. He was surprised and put about to find +himself one Sunday evening too late for this attendance. +The vestry was empty, the gown was on the floor. Peter +gathered it up with as perturbed an air as if Mr Finlay +had omitted a point of church observance. "I doubt they +get into slack ways in these missions," said Peter. He +had been unable, with Dr Drummond, to see the necessity +for such extensions. + +Meanwhile Hugh Finlay, in secular attire, had left the +church by the vestry door, and was rapidly overtaking +groups of his hearers as they walked homeward. He was +unusually aware of his change of dress because of a letter +in the inside pocket of his coat. The letter, in that +intimate place, spread a region of consciousness round +it which hastened his blood and his step. There was +purpose in his whole bearing; Advena Murchison, looking +back at some suggestion of Lorne's, caught it, and lost +for a moment the meaning of what she said. When he overtook +them, with plain intention, she walked beside the two +men, withdrawn and silent, like a child. It was unexpected +and overwhelming, his joining them after the service, +accompanying them, as it were, in the flesh after having +led them so far in the spirit; he had never done it +before. She felt her heart confronted with a new, an +immediate issue, and suddenly afraid. It shrank from the +charge for which it longed, and would have fled; yet, +paralysed with delight, it kept time with her sauntering +feet. + +They talked of the sermon, which had been strongly tinged +with the issue of the day. Dreamer as he was by temperament, +Finlay held to the wisdom of informing great public +questions with the religious idea, vigorously disclaimed +that it was anywhere inadmissible. + +"You'll have to settle with the Doctor, Mr Finlay," Lorne +warned him gaily, "if you talk politics in Knox Church. +He thinks he never does." + +"Do you think," said Finlay, "that he would object to-- +to one's going as far afield as I did tonight?" + +"He oughtn't to," said Lorne. "You should have heard him +when old Sir John Macdonald gerrymandered the electoral +districts and gave votes to the Moneida Indians. The way +he put it, the Tories in the congregation couldn't say +a word, but it was a treat for his fellow Grits." + +Finlay smiled gravely. "Political convictions are a man's +birthright," he said. "Any man or any minister is a poor +creature without them. But of course there are limits +beyond which pulpit influence should not go, and I am +sure Dr Drummond has the clearest perception of them. He +seems to have been a wonderful fellow, Macdonald, a man +with extraordinary power of imaginative enterprise. I +wonder whether he would have seen his way to linking up +the Empire as he linked up your Provinces here?" + +"He'd have hated uncommonly to be in opposition, but I +don't see how he could have helped it," Lorne said. "He +was the godfather of Canadian manufacturers, you know--the +Tories have always been the industrial party. He couldn't +have gone for letting English stuff in free, or cheap; +and yet he was genuinely loyal and attached to England. +He would discriminate against Manchester with tears in +his eyes! Imperialist in his time spelled Conservative, +now it spells Liberal. The Conservatives have always +talked the loudest about the British bond, but when it +lately came to doing we're on record on the right side, +and they're on record on the wrong. But it must make the +old man's ghost sick to see--" + +"To see his court suit stolen," Advena finished for him. +"As Disraeli said--wasn't it Disraeli?" She heard, and +hated the note of constraint in her voice. "Am I reduced," +she thought, indignantly, "to falsetto?" and chose, since +she must choose, the betrayal of silence. + +"It did one good to hear the question discussed on the +higher level," said Lorne. "You would think, to read the +papers, that all its merits could be put into dollars +and cents." + +"I've noticed some of them in terms of sentiment--affection +for the mother country--" + +"Yes, that's lugged in. But it doesn't cover the moral +aspect," Lorne returned. "It's too easy and obvious, as +well; it gives the enemy cause to offend." + +"Well, there's a tremendous moral aspect," Finlay said, +"tremendous moral potentialities hidden in the issue. +England has more to lose than she dreams." + +"That's just where I felt, as a practical politician, a +little restless while you were preaching," said Lorne, +laughing. "You seemed to think the advantage of imperialism +was all with England. You mustn't press that view on us, +you know. We shall get harder to bargain with. Besides, +from the point of your sermon, it's all the other way." + +"Oh, I don't agree! The younger nations can work out +their own salvation unaided; but can England alone? Isn't +she too heavily weighted?" + +"Oh, materially, very likely! But morally, no," said +Lorne, stoutly. "There, if you like, she has accumulations +that won't depreciate. Money isn't the only capital the +colonies offer investment for." + +"I'm afraid I see it in the shadow of the degeneration +of age and poverty," said Finlay, smiling--"or age and +wealth, if you prefer it." + +"And we in the disadvantage of youth and easy success," +Lorne retorted. "We're all very well, but we're not the +men our fathers were: we need a lot of licking into shape. +Look at that disgraceful business of ours in the Ontario +legislature the other day, and look at that fellow of +yours walking out of office at Westminster last session +because of a disastrous business connection which he was +morally as clear of as you or I! I tell you we've got to +hang on to the things that make us ashamed; and I guess +we've got sense enough to know it. But this is my corner. +I am going to look in at the Milburns', Advena. Good +night, Mr Finlay." + +Advena, walking on with Finlay, became suddenly aware +that he had not once addressed her. She had the quick +impression that Lorne left him bereft of a refuge; his +plight heartened her. + +"If the politicians on both sides were only as mutually +appreciative," she said, "the Empire would soon be knit." + +For a moment he did not answer. "I am afraid the economic +situation is not quite analogous," he said, stiffly and +absently, when the moment had passed. + +"Why does your brother always call me 'Mr' Finlay?" he +demanded presently. "It isn't friendly." + +The note of irritation in his voice puzzled her. "I think +the form is commoner with us," she said, "even among men +who know each other fairly well." Her secret glance +flashed over the gulf that nevertheless divided Finlay +and her brother, that would always divide them. She saw +it with something like pain, which struggled through her +pride in both. "And then, you know--your calling--" + +"I suppose it is that," he replied, ill content. + +"I've noticed Dr Drummond's way," she told him, with +rising spirits. "It's delightful. He drops the 'Mr' with +fellow-ministers of his own denomination only--never with +Wesleyans or Baptists, for a moment. He always comes back +very genial from the General Assembly, and full of stories. +'I said to Grant,' or 'Macdonald said to me'--and he +always calls you 'Finlay,'" she added shyly. "By the way, +I suppose you know he's to be the new Moderator?" + +"Is he, indeed? Yes--yes, of course, I knew! We couldn't +have a better." + +They walked on through the early autumn night. It was +just not raining. The damp air was cool and pungent with +the smell of fallen leaves, which lay thick under their +feet. Advena speared the dropped horse chestnut husks +with the point of her umbrella as they went along. She +had picked up half a dozen when he spoke again. "I want +to tell you--I have to tell you--something--about myself, +Miss Murchison." + +"I should like," said Advena steadily, "to hear." + +"It is a matter that has, I am ashamed to confess, +curiously gone out of my mind of late--I should say until +lately. There was little until lately--I am so poor a +letter writer--to remind me of it. I am engaged to be +married!" + +"But how interesting!" exclaimed Advena. + +He looked at her taken aback. His own mood was heavy; it +failed to answer this lightness from her. It is hard to +know what he expected, what his unconscious blood expected +for him; but it was not this. If he had little wisdom +about the hearts of women, he had less about their +behaviour. She said nothing more, but inclined her head +in an angle of deference and expectation toward what he +should further communicate. + +"I don't know that I have ever told you much about my +life in Scotland," he went on. "It has always seemed to +me so remote and--disconnected with everything here. I +could not suppose it would interest anyone. I was cared +for and educated by my father's only sister, a good woman. +It was as if she had whole charge of the part of my life +that was not absorbed in work. I don't know that I can +make you understand. She was identified with all the +rest--I left it to her. Shortly before I sailed for Canada +she spoke to me of marriage in connection with my work +and--welfare, and with--a niece of her husband's who was +staying with us at the time, a person suitable in every +way. Apart from my aunt, I do not know--However, I owed +everything to her, and I--took her advice in the matter. +I left it to her. She is a managing woman; but she can +nearly always prove herself right. Her mind ran a great +deal, a little too much perhaps, upon creature comforts, +and I suppose she thought that in emigrating a man might +do well to companion himself." + +"That was prudent of her," said Advena. + +He turned a look upon her. "You are not--making a mock +of it?" he said. + +"I am not making a mock of it." + +"My aunt now writes to me that Miss Christie's home has +been broken up by the death of her mother, and that if +it can be arranged she is willing to come to me here. My +aunt talks of bringing her. I am to write." + +He said the last words slowly, as if he weighed them. +They had passed the turning to the Murchisons', walking +on with the single consciousness of a path under them, +and space before them. Once or twice before that had +happened, but Advena had always been aware. This time +she did not know. + +"You are to write," she said. She sought in vain for more +words; he also, throwing back his head, appeared to search +the firmament for phrases without result. Silence seemed +enforced between them, and walked with them, on into the +murky landscape, over the fallen leaves. Passing a +streetlamp, they quickened their steps, looking furtively +at the light, which seemed leagued against them with +silence. + +"It seems so extraordinarily--far away," said Hugh Finlay, +of Bross, Dumfries, at length. + +"But it will come near," Advena replied. + +"I don't think it ever can." + +She looked at him with a sudden leap of the heart, a +wild, sweet dismay. + +"They, of course, will come. But the life of which they +are a part, and the man whom I remember to have been +me--there is a gulf fixed--" + +"It is only the Atlantic," Advena said. She had recovered +her vision; in spite of the stone in her breast she could +look. The weight and the hurt she would reckon with later. +What was there, after all, to do? Meanwhile she could +look, and already she saw with passion what had only +begun to form itself in his consciousness, his strange, +ironical, pitiful plight. + +He shook his head. "It is not marked in any geography," +he said, and gave her a troubled smile. "How can I make +it clear to you? I have come here into a new world, of +interests unknown and scope unguessed before. I know what +you would say, but you have no way of learning the beauty +and charm of mere vitality--you have always been so alive. +One finds a physical freedom in which one's very soul +seems to expand; one hears the happiest calls of fancy. +And the most wonderful, most delightful thing of all is +to discover that one is oneself, strangely enough, able +to respond--" + +The words reached the woman beside him like some cool +dropping balm, healing, inconceivably precious. She knew +her share in all this that he recounted. He might not +dream of it, might well confound her with the general +pulse; but she knew the sweet and separate subcurrent +that her life had been in his, felt herself underlying +all these new joys of his, could tell him how dear she +was. But it seemed that he must not guess. + +It came to her with force that his dim perception of his +case was grotesque, that it humiliated him. She had a +quick desire that he should at least know that civilized, +sentient beings did not lend themselves to such outrageous +comedies as this which he had confessed; it had somehow +the air of a confession. She could not let him fall so +lamentably short of man's dignity, of man's estate, for +his own sake. + +"It is a curious history," she said. "You are right in +thinking I should not find it quite easy to understand. +We make those--arrangements--so much more for ourselves +over here. Perhaps we think them more important than they +are." + +"But they are of the highest importance." He stopped +short, confounded. + +"I shall try to consecrate my marriage," he said presently, +more to himself than to Advena. + +Her thought told him bitterly: "I am afraid it is the +only thing you can do with it," but something else came +to her lips. + +"I have not congratulated you. I am not sure," she went +on, with astonishing candour, "whether I can. But I wish +you happiness with all my heart. Are you happy now?" + +He turned his great dark eyes on her. "I am as happy, I +dare say, as I have any need to be." + +"But you are happier since your letter came?" + +"No," he said. The simple word fell on her heart, and +she forbore. + +They went on again in silence until they arrived at a +place from which they saw the gleam of the river and the +line of the hills beyond. Advena stopped. + +"We came here once before together--in the spring. Do +you remember?" she asked. + +"I remember very well." She had turned, and he with her. +They stood together with darkness about them, through +which they could just see each other's faces. + +"It was spring then, and I went back alone. You are still +living up that street? Good night, then, please. I wish +again--to go back--alone." + +He looked at her for an instant in dumb bewilderment, +though her words were simple enough. Then as she made a +step away from him he caught her hand. + +"Advena," he faltered, "what has happened to us? This +time I cannot let you." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"Lorne," said Dora Milburn, in her most animated manner, +"who do you think is coming to Elgin? Your London friend, +Mr Hesketh! He's going to stay with the Emmetts, and Mrs +Emmett is perfectly distracted; she says he's accustomed +to so much, she doesn't know how he will put up with +their plain way of living. Though what she means by that, +with late dinner and afternoon tea every day of her life, +is more than I know." + +"Why, that's splendid!" replied Lorne. "Good old Hesketh! +I knew he thought of coming across this fall, but the +brute hasn't written to me. We'll have to get him over +to our place. When he gets tired of the Emmetts' plain +ways he can try ours--they're plainer. You'll like Hesketh; +he's a good fellow, and more go-ahead than most of them." + +"I don't think I should ask him to stay if I were you, +Lorne. Your mother will never consent to change her hours +for meals. I wouldn't dream of asking an Englishman to +stay if I couldn't give him late dinner; they think so +much of it. It's the trial of Mother's life that Father +will not submit to it. As a girl she was used to nothing +else. Afternoon tea we do have, he can't prevent that, +but Father kicks at anything but one o'clock dinner and +meat tea at six, and I suppose he always will." + +"Doesn't one tea spoil the other?" Lorne inquired. "I +find it does when I go to your minister's and peck at a +cress sandwich at five. You haven't any appetite for a +reasonable meal at six. But I guess it won't matter to +Hesketh; he's got a lot of sense about things of that +sort. Why he served out in South Africa--volunteered. +Mrs Emmett needn't worry. And if we find him pining for +afternoon tea we can send him over here." + +"Well, if he's nice. But I suppose he's pretty sure to +be nice. Any friend of the Emmetts--What is he like, +Lorne?" + +"Oh, he's just a young man with a moustache! You seem to +see a good many over there. They're all alike while +they're at school in round coats, and after they leave +school they get moustaches, and then they're all alike +again." + +"I wish you wouldn't tease. How tall is he? Is he fair +or dark? What colour are his eyes?" + +Lorne buried his head in his hands in a pretended agony +of recollection. + +"So far as I remember, not exactly tall, but you wouldn't +call him short. Complexion--well, don't you know?--that +kind of middling complexion. Colour of his eyes--does +anybody ever notice a thing like that? You needn't take +my word for it, but I should say they were a kind of +average coloured eyes." + +"Lorne! You ARE--I suppose I'll just have to wait till +I see him. But the girls are wild to know, and I said +I'd ask you. He'll be here in about two weeks anyhow, +and I dare say we won't find him so much to make a fuss +about. The best sort of Englishmen don't come over such +a very great deal, as you say. I expect they have a better +time at home." + +"Hesketh's a very good sort of Englishman," said Lorne. + +"He's awfully well off, isn't he?" + +"According to our ideas I suppose he is," said Lorne. +"Not according to English ideas." + +"Still less according to New York ones, then," asserted +Dora. "They wouldn't think much of it there even if he +passed for rich in England." It was a little as if she +resented Lorne's comparison of standards, and claimed +the American one as at least cis-Atlantic. + +"He has a settled income," said Lorne, "and he's never +had to work for it, whatever luck there is in that. That's +all I know. Dora--" + +"Now, Lorne, you're not to be troublesome." + +"Your mother hasn't come in at all this evening. Don't +you think it's a good sign?" + +"She isn't quite so silly as she was," remarked Dora. +"Why I should not have the same freedom as other girls +in entertaining my gentleman friends I never could quite +see." + +"I believe if we told her we had made up our minds it +would be all right," he pleaded. + +"I'm not so sure Lorne. Mother's so deep. You can't always +tell just by what she DOES. She thinks Stephen Stuart +likes me--it's too perfectly idiotic; we are the merest +friends--and when it's any question of you and +Stephen--well, she doesn't say anything, but she lets me +see! She thinks such a lot of the Stuarts because Stephen's +father was Ontario Premier once, and got knighted." + +"I might try for that myself if you think it would please +her," said the lover. + +"Please her! And I should be Lady Murchison!" she let +fall upon his ravished ears. "Why, Lorne, she'd just +worship us both! But you'll never do it." + +"Why not?" + +Dora looked at him with pretty speculation. She had +reasons for supposing that she did admire the young man. + +"You're too nice," she said. + +"That isn't good enough," he responded, and drew her +nearer. + +"Then why did you ask me?--No, Lorne, you are not to. +Suppose Father came in?" + +"I shouldn't mind--Father's on my side, I think." + +"Father isn't on anybody's side," said his daughter, +wisely. + +"Dora, let me speak to him!" + +Miss Milburn gave a clever imitation of a little scream +of horror. + +"INDEED I won't! Lorne, you are never, NEVER to do that! +As if we were in a ridiculous English novel!" + +"That's the part of an English novel I always like," said +Lorne. "The going and asking. It must about scare the +hero out of a year's growth; but it's a glorious thing +to do--it would be next day, anyhow." + +"It's just the sort of thing to please Mother," Dora +meditated, "but she can't be indulged all the time. No, +Lorne, you'll have to leave it to me--when there's anything +to tell." + +"There's everything to tell now," said he, who had indeed +nothing to keep back. + +"But you know what Mother is, Lorne. Suppose they hadn't +any objection, she would never keep it to herself! She'd +want to go announcing it all over the place; she'd think +it was the proper thing to do." + +"But, Dora, why not? If you knew how I want to announce +it! I should like to publish it in the sunrise--and the +wind--so that I couldn't go out of doors without seeing +it myself." + +"I shouldn't mind having it in Toronto Society, when the +time comes. But not yet, Lorne--not for ages. I'm only +twenty-two--nobody thinks of settling down nowadays before +she's twenty-five at the very earliest. I don't know a +single girl in this town that has--among my friends, +anyway. That's three years off, and you CAN'T expect me +to be engaged for three years." + +"No." said Lorne, "engaged six months, married the rest +of the time. Or the periods might run concurrently if +you preferred--I shouldn't mind." + +"An engaged girl has the very worst time. She gets hardly +any attention, and as to dances--well, it's a good thing +for her if the person she's engaged to CAN dance," she +added, teasingly. + +Lorne coloured. "You said I was improving, Dora," he +said, and then laughed at the childish claim. "But that +isn't really a thing that counts, is it? If our lives +only keep step it won't matter much about the 'Washington +Post.' And so far as attention goes, you'll get it as +long as you live, you little princess. Besides, isn't it +better to wear the love of one man than the admiration +of half a dozen?" + +"And be teased and worried half out of your life by +everybody you meet? Now, Lorne, you're getting serious +and sentimental, and you know I hate that. It isn't any +good either--Mother always used to say it made me more +stubborn to appeal to me. Horrid nature to have, isn't +it?" + +Lorne's hand went to his waistcoat pocket and came back +with a tiny packet. "It's come, Dora--by this morning's +English mail." + +Her eyes sparkled, and then rested with guarded excitement +upon the little case. "Oh, Lorne!" + +She said nothing more, but watched intently while he +found the spring, and disclosed the ring within. Then +she drew a long breath. "Lorne Murchison, what a lovely +one!" + +"Doesn't it look," said he, "just a little serious and +sentimental?" + +"But SUCH good style, too," he declared, bending over +it. "And quite new--I haven't seen anything a bit like +it. I do love a design when it's graceful. Solitaires +are so old-fashioned." + +He kept his eyes upon her face, feeding upon the delight +in it. Exultation rose up in him: he knew the primitive +guile of man, indifferent to such things, alluring with +them the other creature. He did not stop to condone her +weakness; rather he seized it in ecstasy; it was all part +of the glad scheme to help the lover. He turned the +diamonds so that they flashed and flashed again before +her. Then, trusting his happy instinct, he sought for +her hand. But she held that back. "I want to SEE it," +she declared, and he was obliged to let her take the ring +in her own way and examine it, and place it in every +light, and compare it with others worn by her friends, +and make little tentative charges of extravagance in his +purchase of it, while he sat elated and adoring, the +simple fellow. + +Reluctantly at last she gave up her hand. "But it's only +trying on--not putting on," she told him. He said nothing +till it flashed upon her finger, and in her eyes he saw +a spark from below of that instinctive cupidity toward +jewels that man can never recognize as it deserves in +woman, because of his desire to gratify it. + +"You'll wear it, Dora?" he pleaded. + +"Lorne, you are the dearest fellow! But how could I? +Everybody would guess!" + +Her gaze, nevertheless, rested fascinated on the ring, +which she posed as it pleased her. + +"Let them guess! I'd rather they knew, but--it does look +well on your finger, dear." + +She held it up once more to the light, then slipped it +decisively off and gave it back to him. "I can't, you +know, Lorne. I didn't really say you might get it; and +now you'll have to keep it till--till the time comes. +But this much I will say--it's the sweetest thing, and +you've shown the loveliest taste, and if it weren't such +a dreadful give-away I'd like to wear it awfully." + +They discussed it with argument, with endearment, with +humour, and reproach, but her inflexible basis soon showed +through their talk: she would not wear the ring. So far +he prevailed, that it was she, not he, who kept it. Her +insistence that he should take it back brought something +like anger out of him; and in the surprise of this she +yielded so much. She did it unwillingly at the time, but +afterward, when she tried on the thing again in the +privacy of her own room; she was rather satisfied to have +it, safe under lock and key, a flashing, smiling mystery +to visit when she liked and reveal when she would. + +"Lorne could never get me such a beauty again if he lost +it," she advised herself, "and he's awfully careless. +And I'm not sure that I won't tell Eva Delarue, just to +show it to her. She's as close as wax." + +One feels a certain sorrow for the lover on his homeward +way, squaring his shoulders against the foolish perversity +of the feminine mind, resolutely guarding his heart from +any hint of real reprobation. Through the sweetness of +her lips and the affection of her pretty eyes, through +all his half-possession of all her charms and graces, +must have come dully the sense of his great occasion +manque, that dear day of love when it leaves the mark of +its claim. And in one's regret there is perhaps some +alloy of pity, that less respectful thing. We know him +elsewhere capable of essaying heights, yet we seem to +look down upon the drama of his heart. It may be well to +remember that the level is not everything in love. He +who carefully adjusts an intellectual machine may descry +a higher mark; he can construct nothing in a mistress; +he is, therefore, able to see the facts and to discriminate +the desirable. But Lorne loved with all his imagination. +This way dares the imitation of the gods by which it +improves the quality of the passion, so that such a love +stands by itself to be considered, apart from the object, +one may say. A strong and beautiful wave lifted Lorne +Murchison along to his destiny, since it was the pulse +of his own life, though Dora Milburn played moon to it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Alfred Hesketh had, after all, written to young Murchison +about his immediate intention of sailing for Canada and +visiting Elgin; the letter arrived a day or two later. +It was brief and businesslike, but it gave Lorne to +understand that since his departure the imperial idea +had been steadily fermenting, not only in the national +mind, but particularly in Hesketh's; that it produced in +his case a condition only to be properly treated by +personal experience. Hesketh was coming over to prove +whatever advantage there was in seeing for yourself. That +he was coming with the right bias Lorne might infer, he +said, from the fact that he had waited a fortnight to +get his passage by the only big line to New York that +stood out for our mercantile supremacy against American +combination. + +"He needn't bother to bring any bias," Lorne remarked +when he had read this, "but he'll have to pay a lot of +extra luggage on the one he takes back with him." + +He felt a little irritation at being offered the testimony +of the Cunard ticket. Back on his native soil, its +independence ran again like sap in him: nobody wanted a +present of good will; the matter stood on its merits. + +He was glad, nevertheless, that Hesketh was coming, +gratified that it would now be his turn to show prospects, +and turn figures into facts, and make plain the imperial +profit from the further side. Hesketh was such an +intelligent fellow, there would be the keenest sort of +pleasure in demonstrating things, big things, to him, +little things, too, ways of living, differences of habit. +Already in the happy exercise of his hospitable instinct +he saw how Hesketh would get on with his mother, with +Stella, with Dr Drummond. He saw Hesketh interested, +domiciled, remaining--the ranch life this side of the +Rockies, Lorne thought, would tempt him, or something +new and sound in Winnipeg. He kept his eye open for +chances, and noted one or two likely things. "We want +labour mostly," he said to Advena, "but nobody is refused +leave to land because he has a little money." + +"I should think not, indeed," remarked Mrs Murchison, +who was present. "I often wish your father and I had had +a little more when we began. That whole Gregory block +was going for three thousand dollars then. I wonder what +it's worth now?" + +"Yes, but you and Father are worth more, too," remarked +Stella acutely. + +"In fact, all the elder members of the family have +approximated in value, Stella," said her brother, "and +you may too, in time." + +"I'll take my chance with the country," she retorted. +They were all permeated with the question of the day; +even Stella, after holding haughtily aloof for some time, +had been obliged. to get into step, as she described it, +with the silly old Empire. Whatever it was in England, +here it was a family affair; I mean in the town of Elgin, +in the shops and the offices, up and down the tree-bordered +streets as men went to and from their business, atomic +creatures building the reef of the future, but conscious, +and wanting to know what they were about. Political +parties had long declared themselves, the Hampden Debating +Society had had several grand field nights. Prospective +lifelong friendships, male and female in every form of +"the Collegiate," had been put to this touchstone, +sometimes with shattering effect. If you would not serve +with Wallingham the greatness of Britain you were held +to favour going over to the United States; there was no +middle course. It became a personal matter in the ward +schools and small boys pursued small boys with hateful +cries of "Annexationist!" The subject even trickled about +the apple-barrels and potato-bags of the market square. +Here it should have raged, pregnant as it was with bucolic +blessing; but our agricultural friends expect nothing +readily except adverse weather, least of all a measure +of economic benefit to themselves. Those of Fox County +thought it looked very well, but it was pretty sure to +work out some other way. Elmore Crow failed heavily to +catch a light even from Lorne Murchison. + +"You keep your hair on, Lorne," he advised. "We ain't +going to get such big changes yet. An' if we do the +blooming syndicates 'll spoil 'em for us." + +There were even dissentients among the farmers. The voice +of one was raised who had lived laborious years, and many +of them in the hope of seeing his butter and cheese go +unimpeded across the American line. It must be said, +however, that still less attention was paid to him, and +it was generally conceded that he would die without the +sight. + +It was the great topic. The day Wallingham went his +defiant furthest in the House and every colonial newspaper +set it up in acclaiming headlines, Horace Williams, +enterprising fellow, remembered that Lorne had seen the +great man under circumstances that would probably pan +out, and send round Rawlins. Rawlins was to get something +that would do to call "Wallingham in the Bosom of his +Family," and as much as Lorne cared to pour into him +about his own view of the probable issue. Rawlins failed +to get the interview, came back to say that Lorne didn't +seem to think himself a big enough boy for that, but he +did not return empty-handed. Mr Murchison sent Mr Williams +the promise of some contributions upon the question of +the hour, which he had no objection to sign and which +Horace should have for the good of the cause. Horace duly +had them, the Express duly published them, and they were +copied in full by the Dominion and several other leading +journals, with an amount of comment which everyone but +Mrs Murchison thought remarkable. + +"I don't pretend to understand it," she said, "but anybody +can see that he knows what he's talking about." John +Murchison read them with a critical eye and a pursed-out +lip. + +"He takes too much for granted." + +"What does he take for granted?" asked Mrs Murchison. + +"Other folks being like himself," said the father. + +That, no doubt, was succinct and true; nevertheless, the +articles had competence as well as confidence. The writer +treated facts with restraint and conditions with sympathy. +He summoned ideas from the obscurity of men's minds, and +marshalled them in the light, so that many recognized +what they had been trying to think. He wrote with homeliness +as well as force, wishing much more to make the issue +recognizable than to create fine phrases, with the result +that one or two of his sentences passed into the language +of the discussion which, as any of its standard-bearers +would have told you, had little use for rhetoric. The +articles were competent: if you listened to Horace Williams +you would have been obliged to accept them as the last, +or latest, word of economic truth, though it must be left +to history to endorse Mr Williams. It was their enthusiasm, +however, that gave them the wing on which they travelled. +People naturally took different views, even of this +quality. "Young Murchison's working the imperial idea +for all it's worth," was Walter Winter's; and Octavius +Milburn humorously summed up the series as "tall talk." + +Alfred Hesketh came, it was felt, rather opportunely into +the midst of this. Plenty of people, the whole of Market +Square and East Elgin, a good part, too, probably, of +the Town Ward, were unaware of his arrival; but for the +little world he penetrated he was clothed with all the +interest of the great contingency. His decorous head in +the Emmetts' pew on Sunday morning stood for a symbol as +well as for a stranger. The nation was on the eve of a +great far-reaching transaction with the mother country, +and thrilling with the terms of the bargain. Hesketh was +regarded by people in Elgin who knew who he was with the +mingled cordiality and distrust that might have met a +principal. They did not perhaps say it, but it was in +their minds. "There's one of them," was what they thought +when they met him in the street. At any other time he +would have been just an Englishman; now he was invested +with the very romance of destiny. The perception was +obscure, but it was there. Hesketh, on the other hand, +found these good people a very well-dressed, +well-conditioned, decent lot, rather sallower than he +expected, perhaps, who seemed to live in a fair-sized +town in a great deal of comfort, and was wholly unconscious +of anything special in his relation to them or theirs to +him. + +He met Lorne just outside the office of Warner, Fulke, +and Murchison the following day. They greeted heartily. +"Now this IS good!" said Lorne, and he thought so. Hesketh +confided his first impression. "It's not unlike an English +country town," he said, "only the streets are wider, and +the people don't look so much in earnest." + +"Oh, they're just as much in earnest some of the time," +Lorne laughed, "but maybe not all the time!" + +The sun shone crisply round them; there was a brisk +October market; on the other side of the road Elmore Crow +dangled his long legs over a cart flap and chewed a +cheroot. Elgin was abroad, doing business on its wide +margin of opportunity. Lorne cast a backward glance at +conditions he had seen. + +"I know what you mean," he said. "Sharp of you to spot +it so soon, old chap! You're staying with the English +Church minister, aren't you--Mr Emmett? Some connection +of yours, aren't they?" + +"Mrs Emmett is Chafe's sister--Mrs Chafe, you know, is +my aunt," Hesketh reminded him. "I say, Murchison, I left +old Chafe wilder than ever. Wallingham's committee keep +sending him leaflets and things. They take it for granted +he's on the right side, since his interests are. The +other day they asked him for a subscription! The old boy +sent his reply to the Daily News and carried it about +for a week. I think that gave him real satisfaction; but +he hates the things by post." + +Lorne laughed delightedly. "I expect he's snowed under +with them. I sent him my own valuable views last week." + +"I'm afraid they'll only stiffen him. That got to be his +great argument after you left, the fact that you fellows +over here want it. He doesn't approve of a bargain if +the other side sees a profit. Curiously enough, his +foremen and people out in Chiswick are all for it. I was +talking to one of them just before I left--'Stands to +reason, sir,' he said, 'we don't want to pay more for a +loaf than we do now. But we'll do it, sir, if it means +downing them Germans; he said." + +Lorne's eyebrows half-perceptibly twitched. "They do +'sir' you a lot over there, don't they?" he said. "It +was as much as I could do to get at what a fellow of that +sort meant, tumbling over the 'sirs' he propped it up +with. Well, all kinds of people, all kinds of argument, +I suppose, when it comes to trying to get 'em solid! But +I was going to say we are all hoping you'll give us a +part of your time while you're in Elgin. My family are +looking forward to meeting you. Come along and let me +introduce you to my father now--he's only round the +corner." + +"By all means!" said Hesketh, and they fell into step +together. As Lorne said, it was only a short distance, +but far enough to communicate a briskness, an alertness, +from the step of one young man to that of the other. "I +wish it were five miles," Hesketh said, all his stall-fed +muscles responding to the new call of his heart and lungs. +"Any good walks about here? I asked Emmett, but he didn't +know--supposed you could walk to Clayfield if you didn't +take the car. He seems to have lost his legs. I suppose +parsons do." + +"Not all of them," said Lorne. "There's a fellow that +has a church over in East Elgin, Finlay his name is, that +beats the record of anything around here. He just about +ranges the county in the course of a week." + +"The place is too big for one parish, no doubt," Hesketh +remarked. + +"Oh, he's a Presbyterian! The Episcopalians haven't got +any hold to speak of over there. Here we are," said Lorne, +and turned in at the door. The old wooden sign was long +gone. "John Murchison and Sons" glittered instead in the +plate-glass windows, but Hesketh did not see it. + +"Why do you think he'll be in here?" he asked, on young +Murchison's heels. + +"Because he always is when he isn't over at the shop," +replied Lorne. "It's his place of business--his store, +you know. There he is! Hard luck--he's got a customer. +We'll have to wait." + +He went on ahead with his impetuous step; he did not +perceive the instant's paralysis that seemed to overtake +Hesketh's, whose foot dragged, however, no longer than +that. It was an initiation; he had been told he might +expect some. He checked his impulse to be amused, and +guarded his look round, not to show unseemly curiosity. +His face, when he was introduced to Alec, who was sorting +some odd dozens of tablespoons, was neutral and pleasant. +He reflected afterward that he had been quite equal to +the occasion. He thought, too, that he had shown some +adaptability. Alec was not a person of fluent discourse, +and when he had inquired whether Hesketh was going to +make a long stay, the conversation might have languished +but for this. + +"Is that Birmingham?" he asked, nodding kindly at the +spoons. + +"Came to us through a house in Liverpool," Alec responded. +"I expect you had a stormy crossing, Mr Hesketh." + +"It was a bit choppy. We had the fiddles on most of the +time," Hesketh replied. "Most of the time. Now, how do +you find the bicycle trade over here? Languishing, as it +is with us?" + +"Oh, it keeps up pretty well," said Alec, "but we sell +more spoons. 'N' what do you think of this country, far +as you've seen it?" + +"Oh, come now, it's a little soon to ask, isn't it? Yes--I +suppose bicycles go out of fashion, and spoons never do. +I was thinking," added Hesketh, casting his eyes over a +serried rank, "of buying a bicycle." + +Alec had turned to put the spoons in their place on the +shelves. "Better take your friend across to Cox's," he +advised Lorne over his shoulder. "He'll be able to get +a motorbike there," a suggestion which gave Mr Hesketh +to reflect later that if that was the general idea of +doing business it must be an easy country to make money +in. + +The customer was satisfied at last, and Mr Murchison +walked sociably to the door with him; it was the secretary +of the local Oddfellows' Lodge, who had come in about a +furnace. + +"Now's our chance," said Lorne. "Father, this is Mr +Hesketh, from London--my father, Hesketh. He can tell +you all you want to know about Canada--this part of it, +anyway. Over thirty years, isn't it, Father, since you +came out?" + +"Glad to meet you," said John Murchison, "glad to meet +you, Mr Hesketh. We've heard much about you." + +"You must have been quite among the pioneers of Elgin, +Mr Murchison," said Hesketh as they shook hands. Alec +hadn't seemed to think of that; Hesketh put it down to +the counter. + +"Not quite," said John. "We'll say among the early +arrivals." + +"Have you ever been back in your native Scotland?" asked +Hesketh. + +"Aye, twice." + +"But you prefer the land of your adoption?" + +"I do. But I think by now it'll be kin," said Mr Murchison. +"It was good to see the heather again, but a man lives +best where he's taken root." + +"Yes, yes. You seem to do a large business here, Mr +Murchison." + +"Pretty well for the size of the place. You must get +Lorne to take you over Elgin. It's a fair sample of our +rising manufacturing towns." + +"I hope he will. I understand you manufacture to some +extent yourself?" + +"We make our own stoves and a few odd things." + +"You don't send any across the Atlantic yet?" queried +Hesketh jocularly. + +"Not yet. No, sir!" + +Then did Mr Hesketh show himself in true sympathy with +the novel and independent conditions of the commonwealth +he found himself in. + +"I beg you won't use that form with me," he said, "I know +it isn't the custom of the country, and I am a friend of +your son's, you see." + +The iron merchant looked at him, just an instant's regard, +in which astonishment struggled with the usual deliberation. +Then his considering hand went to his chin. + +"I see. I must remember," he said. + +The son, Lorne, glanced in the pause beyond John Murchison's +broad shoulders, through the store door and out into the +moderate commerce of Main Street, which had carried the +significance and the success of his father's life. His +eye came back and moved over the contents of the place, +taking stock of it, one might say, and adjusting the +balance with pride. He had said very little since they +had been in the store. Now he turned to Hesketh quietly. + +"I wouldn't bother about that if I were you," he said. +"My father spoke quite--colloquially." + +"Oh!" said Hesketh. + +They parted on the pavement outside. "I hope you +understand," said Lorne, with an effort at heartiness, +"how glad my parents will be to have you if you find +yourself able to spare us any of your time?" + +"Thanks very much," said Hesketh; "I shall certainly give +myself the pleasure of calling as soon as possible." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +"Dear me!" said Dr Drummond. "Dear me! Well! And what +does Advena Murchison say to all this?" + +He and Hugh Finlay were sitting in the Doctor's study, +the pleasantest room in the house. It was lined with +standard religious philosophy, standard poets, standard +fiction, all that was standard, and nothing that was not; +and the shelves included several volumes of the Doctor's +own sermons, published in black morocco through a local +firm that did business by the subscription method, with +"Drummond" in gold letters on the back. There were more +copies of these, perhaps, than it would be quite thoughtful +to count, though a good many were annually disposed of +at the church bazaar, where the Doctor presented them +with a generous hand. A sumptuous desk, and luxurious +leather-covered armchairs furnished the room; a beautiful +little Parian copy of a famous Cupid and Psyche decorated +the mantelpiece, and betrayed the touch of pagan in the +Presbyterian. A bright fire burned in the grate, and +there was not a speck of dust anywhere. + +Dr Drummond, lost in his chair, with one knee dropped on +the other, joined his fingers at the tips, and drew his +forehead into a web of wrinkles. Over it his militant +grey crest curled up; under it his eyes darted two shrewd +points of interrogation. + +"What does Miss Murchison say to it?" he repeated with +craft and courage, as Finlay's eyes dropped and his face +slowly flushed under the question. It was in this room +that Dr Drummond examined "intending communicants" and +cases likely to come before the Session; he never shirked +a leading question. "Miss Murchison," said Finlay, after +a moment, "was good enough to say that she thought her +father's house would be open to Miss--to my friends when +they arrived; but I thought it would be more suitable to +ask your hospitality, sir." + +"Did she so?" asked Dr Drummond gravely. It was more a +comment than an inquiry. "Did she so?" Infinite kindness +was in it. + +The young man assented with an awkward gesture, half-bend, +half-nod, and neither for a moment spoke again. It was +one of those silences with a character, conscious, +tentative. Half-veiled, disavowed thoughts rose up in +it, awakened by Advena's name, turning away their heads. +The ticking of the Doctor's old-fashioned watch came +through it from his waistcoat pocket. It was he who spoke +first. + +"I christened Advena Murchison," he said. "Her father +was one of those who called me, as a young man, to this +ministry. The names of both her parents are on my first +communion roll. Aye!"... + +The fire snapped and the watch went on ticking. + +"So Advena thought well of it all. Did she so?" + +The young man raised his heavy eyes and looked unflinchingly +at Dr Drummond. + +"Miss Murchison," he said, "is the only other person to +whom I have confided the matter. I have written, fixing +that date, with her approval--at her desire. Not +immediately. I took time to--think it over. Then it seemed +better to arrange for the ladies reception first, so +before posting I have come to you." + +"Then the letter has not gone?" + +"It is in my pocket." + +"Finlay, you will have a cigar? I don't smoke myself; my +throat won't stand it; but I understand these are passable. +Grant left them here. He's a chimney, that man Grant. At +it day and night." + +This was a sacrifice. Dr Drummond hated tobacco, the +smell of it, the ash of it, the time consumed in it. +There was no need at all to offer Finlay one of the +Reverend Grant's cigars. Propitiation must indeed be +desired when the incense is abhorred. But Finlay declined +to smoke. The Doctor, with his hands buried deep in his +trousers pockets, where something metallic clinked in +them, began to pace and turn. His mouth had the set it +wore when he handled a difficult motion in the General +Assembly. + +"I'm surprised to hear that, Finlay; though it may be +well not to be surprised at what a woman will say--or +won't say." + +"Surprised?" said the younger man confusedly. "Why should +anyone be surprised?" + +"I know her well. I've watched her grow up. I remember +her mother's trouble because she would scratch the paint +on the pew in front of her with the nails in her little +boots. John Murchison sang in the choir in those days. +He had a fine bass voice; he has it still. And Mrs +Murchison had to keep the family in order by herself. It +was sometimes as much as she could do, poor woman. They +sat near the front, and many a good hard look I used to +give them while I was preaching. Knox Church was a +different place then. The choir sat in the back gallery, +and we had a precentor, a fine fellow--he lost an arm at +Ridgway in the Fenian raid. Well I mind him and the frown +he would put on when he took up the fork. But, for that +matter, every man Jack in the choir had a frown on in +the singing, though the bass fellows would be the fiercest. +We've been twice enlarged since, and the organist has +long been a salaried professional. But I doubt whether +the praise of God is any heartier than it was when it +followed Peter Craig's tuning-fork. Aye. You'd always +hear John Murchison's note in the finish." + +Finlay was listening with the look of a charmed animal. +Dr Drummond's voice was never more vibrant, more moving, +more compelling than when he called up the past; and here +to Finlay the past was itself enchanted. + +"She always had those wonderful dark eyes. She's pale +enough now, but as a child she was rosy. Taking her place +of a winter evening, with the snow on her fur cap and +her hair, I often thought her a picture. I liked to have +her attention while I was preaching, even as a child; +and when she was absent I missed her. It was through my +ministrations that she saw her way to professing the +Church of Christ, and under my heartfelt benediction that +she first broke bread in her Father's house. I hold the +girl in great affection, Finlay; and I grieve to hear +this." + +The other drew a long breath, and his hand tightened on +the arm of his chair. He was, as we know, blind to many +of the world's aspects, even to those in which he himself +figured; and Dr Drummond's plain hypothesis of his +relations with Advena came before him in forced +illumination, flash by tragic flash. This kind of revelation +is more discomforting than darkness, since it carries +the surprise of assault, and Finlay groped in it, helpless +and silent. + +"You are grieved, sir?" he said mechanically. + +"Man, she loves you!" exclaimed the Doctor, in a tone +that would no longer forbear. + +Hugh Finlay seemed to take the words just where they were +levelled, in his breast. He half leaped from his chair; +the lower part of his face had the rigidity of iron. + +"I am not obliged to discuss such a matter as that," he +said hoarsely, "with you or with any man." + +He looked confusedly about him for his hat, which he had +left in the hall; and Dr Drummond profited by the instant. +He stepped across and laid a hand on the younger man's +shoulder. Had they both been standing the gesture would +have been impossible to Dr Drummond with dignity; as it +was, it had not only that, but benignance, a kind of +tender good will, rare in expression with the minister, +rare, for that matter, in feeling with him too, though +the chord was always there to be sounded. + +"Finlay," he said; "Finlay!" + +Between two such temperaments the touch and the tone +together made an extraordinary demonstration. Finlay, +with an obvious effort, let it lie upon him. The tension +of his body relaxed, that of his soul he covered, leaning +forward and burying his head in his hands. + +"Will you say I have no claim to speak?" asked Dr Drummond, +and met silence. "It is upon my lips to beg you not to +send that letter, Finlay." He took his hand from the +young man's shoulder, inserted a thumb in each of his +waistcoat pockets, and resumed his walk. + +"On my own account I must send it," said Finlay. "On Miss +Murchison's--she bids me to. We have gone into the matter +together." + +"I can imagine what you made of it together. There's a +good deal of her father in Advena. He would be the last +man to say a word for himself. You told her this tale +you have told me, and she told you to get Miss Christie +out and marry her without delay, eh? And what would you +expect her to tell you--a girl of that spirit?" + +"I cannot see why pride should influence her." + +"Then you know little about women. It was pride, pure +and simple, Finlay, that made her tell you that--and +she'll be a sorry woman if you act on it." + +"No," said Finlay, suddenly looking up, "I may know little +about women, but I know more about Advena Murchison than +that. She advised me in the sense she thought right and +honourable, and her advice was sincere. And, Dr Drummond, +deeply as I feel the bearing of Miss Murchison's view of +the matter, I could not, in any case, allow my decision +to rest upon it. It must stand by itself." + +"You mean that your decision to marry to oblige your aunt +should not be influenced by the fact that it means the +wrecking of your own happiness and that of another person. +I can't agree, Finlay. I spoke first of Advena Murchison +because her part and lot in it are most upon my heart. +I feel, too, that someone should put her case. Her own +father would never open his lips. If you're to be hauled +over the coals about this I'm the only man to do it. And +I'm going to." + +A look of sharp determination came into the minister's +eyes; he had the momentary air of a small Scotch terrier +with a bidding. Finlay looked at him in startled recognition +of another possible phase of his dilemma; he thought he +knew it in every wretched aspect. It was a bold reference +of Dr Drummond's; it threw down the last possibility of +withdrawal for Finlay; they must have it out now, man to +man, with a little, perhaps, even in that unlikely place, +of penitent to confessor. It was an exigency, it helped +Finlay to pull himself together, and there was something +in his voice, when he spoke, like the vibration of relief. + +"I am pained and distressed more than I have any way of +telling you, sir," he said, "that--the state of +feeling--between Miss Murchison and myself should have +been so plain to you. It is incomprehensible to me that +it should be so, since it is only very lately that I have +understood it truly myself. I hope you will believe that +it was the strangest, most unexpected, most sudden +revelation." + +He paused and looked timidly at the Doctor; he, the great +fellow, in straining bondage to his heart, leaning forward +with embarrassed tension in every muscle, Dr Drummond +alert, poised, critical, balancing his little figure on +the hearthrug. + +"I preach faith in miracles," he said. "I dare say between +you and her it would be just that." + +"I have been deeply culpable. Common sense, common +knowledge of men and women should have warned me that +there might be danger. But I looked upon the matter as +our own--as between us only. I confess that I have not +till now thought of that part of it, but surely--You +cannot mean to tell me that what I have always supposed +my sincere and devoted friendship for Miss Murchison has +been in any way prejudicial--" + +"To her in the ordinary sense? To her prospects of marriage +and her standing in the eyes of the community? No, Finlay. +No. I have not heard the matter much referred to. You +seem to have taken none of the ordinary means--you have +not distinguished her in the eyes of gossip. If you had +it would be by no means the gravest thing to consider. +Such tokens are quickly forgotten, especially here, where +attentions of the kind often, I've noticed, lead to +nothing. It is the fact, and not the appearance of it, +that I speak of--that I am concerned with." + +"The fact is beyond mending," said Finlay, dully. + +"Aye, the fact is beyond mending. It is beyond mending +that Advena Murchison belongs to you and you to her in +no common sense. It's beyond mending that you cannot now +be separated without such injury to you both as I would +not like to look upon. It's beyond mending, Finlay, +because it is one of those things that God has made. But +it is not beyond marring, and I charge you to look well +what you are about in connection with it." + +A flash of happiness, of simple delight, lit the young +man's sombre eyes as the phrases fell. To the minister +they were mere forcible words; to Finlay they were soft +rain in a famished land. Then he looked again heavily at +the pattern of the carpet. + +"Would you have me marry Advena Murchison?" he said, with +a kind of shamed yielding to the words. + +"I would--and no other. Man, I saw it from the beginning!" +exclaimed the Doctor. "I don't say it isn't an awkward +business. But at least there'll be no heartbreak in +Scotland. I gather you never said a word to the Bross +lady on the subject, and very few on any other. You tell +me you left it all with that good woman, your aunt, to +arrange after you left. Do you think a creature of any +sentiment would have accepted you on those terms? Not +she. So far as I can make out, Miss Cameron is just a +sensible, wise woman that would be the first to see the +folly in this business if she knew the rights of it. +Come, Finlay, you're not such a great man with the +ladies--you can't pretend she has any affection for you." + +The note of raillery in the Doctor's voice drew Finlay's +brows together. + +"I don't know," he said, "whether I have to think of her +affections, but I do know I have to think of her dignity, +her confidence, and her belief in the honourable dealing +of a man whom she met under the sanction of a trusted +roof. The matter may look light here; it is serious there. +She has her circle of friends; they are acquainted with +her engagement. She has made all her arrangements to +carry it out; she has disposed of her life. I cannot ask +her to reconsider her lot because I have found a happier +adjustment for mine." + +"Finlay," said Dr Drummond, "you will not be known in +Bross or anywhere else as a man who has jilted a woman. +Is that it?" + +"I will not be a man who has jilted a woman." + +"There is no sophist like pride. Look at the case on its +merits. On the one side a disappointment for Miss Cameron. +I don't doubt she's counting on coming, but at worst a +worldly disappointment. And the very grievous humiliation +for you of writing to tell her that you have made a +mistake. You deserve that, Finlay. If you wouldn't be a +man who has jilted a woman you have no business to lend +yourself to such matters with the capacity of a blind +kitten. That is the damage on the one side. On the other--" + +"I know all that there is to be said," interrupted Finlay, +"on the other." + +"Then face it, man. Go home and write the whole truth to +Bross. I'll do it for you--no, I won't, either. Stand up +to it yourself. You must hurt one of two women; choose +the one that will suffer only in her vanity. I tell you +that Scotch entanglement of yours is pure cardboard +farce--it won't stand examination. It's appalling to +think that out of an extravagant, hypersensitive conception +of honour, egged on by that poor girl, you could be +capable of turning it into the reality of your life." + +"I've taken all these points of view, sir, and I can't +throw the woman over. The objection to it isn't in +reason--it's somehow in the past and the blood. It would +mean the sacrifice of all that I hold most valuable in +myself. I should expect myself after that to stick at +nothing--why should I?" + +"There is one point of view that perhaps you have not +taken," said Dr Drummond, in his gravest manner. "You +are settled here in your charge. In all human probability +you will remain here in East Elgin, as I have remained +here, building and fortifying the place you have won for +the Lord in the hearts of the people. Advena Murchison's +life will also go on here--there is nothing to take it +away. You have both strong natures. Are you prepared for +that?" + +"We are both prepared for it. We shall both be equal to +it. I count upon her, and she counts upon me, to furnish +in our friendship the greater part of whatever happiness +life may have in store for us." + +"Then you must be a pair of born lunatics!" said Dr +Drummond, his jaw grim, his eyes snapping. "What you +propose is little less than a crime, Finlay. It can come +to nothing but grief, if no worse. And your wife, poor +woman, whatever she deserves, it is better than that! My +word, if she could choose her prospect, think you she +would hesitate? Finlay, I entreat you as a matter of +ordinary prudence, go home and break it off. Leave Advena +out of it--you have no business to make this marriage +whether or no. Leave other considerations to God and to +the future. I beseech you, bring it to an end!" + +Finlay got up and held out his hand. "I tell you from my +heart it is impossible," he said. + +"I can't move you?" said Dr Drummond. "Then let us see +if the Lord can. You will not object, Finlay, to bring +the matter before Him, here and now, in a few words of +prayer? I should find it hard to let you go without them." + +They went down upon their knees where they stood; and Dr +Drummond did little less than order Divine interference; +but the prayer that was inaudible was to the opposite +purpose. + +Ten minutes later the minister himself opened the door +to let Finlay out into the night. "You will remember," +he said as they shook hands, "that what I think of your +position in this matter makes no difference whatever to +the question of your aunt's coming here with Miss Cameron +when they arrive. You will bring them to this house as +a matter of course. I wish you could be guided to a +different conclusion but, after all, it is your own +conscience that must be satisfied. They will be better +here than at the Murchisons'," he added with a last shaft +of reproach, "and they will be very welcome." + +It said much for Dr Drummond that Finlay was able to fall +in with the arrangement. He went back to his boarding-house, +and added a postscript embodying it to his letter to +Bross. Then he walked out upon the midnight two feverish +miles to the town, and posted the letter. The way back +was longer and colder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +"Well, Winter," said Octavius Milburn, "I expect there's +business in this for you." + +Mr Milburn and Mr Winter had met in the act of unlocking +their boxes at the post-office. Elgin had enjoyed postal +delivery for several years, but not so much as to induce +men of business to abandon the post-office box that had +been the great convenience succeeding window inquiry. In +time the boxes would go, but the habit of dropping in +for your own noonday mail on the way home to dinner was +deep-rooted, and undoubtedly you got it earlier. Moreover, +it takes time to engender confidence in a postman when +he is drawn from your midst, and when you know perfectly +well that he would otherwise be driving the mere +watering-cart, or delivering the mere ice, as he was last +year. + +"Looks like it," responded Mr Winter, cheerfully. "The +boys have been round as usual. I told them they'd better +try another shop this time, but they seemed to think the +old reliable was good enough to go on with." + +This exchange, to anyone in Elgin, would have been patently +simple. On that day there was only one serious topic in +Elgin, and there could have been only one reference to +business for Walter Winter. The Dominion had come up the +day before with the announcement that Mr Robert Farquharson +who, for an aggregate of eleven years, had represented +the Liberals of South Fox in the Canadian House of Commons, +had been compelled under medical advice to withdraw from +public life. The news was unexpected, and there was rather +a feeling among Mr Farquharson's local support in Elgin +that it shouldn't have come from Toronto. It will be +gathered that Horace Williams, as he himself acknowledged, +was wild. The general feeling, and to some extent Mr +Williams's, was appeased by the further information that +Mr Farquharson had been obliged to go to Toronto to see +a specialist, whose report he had naturally enough taken +to party headquarters, whence the Dominion would get it, +as Mr Williams said, by telephone or any quicker way +there was. Williams, it should be added, was well ahead +with the details, as considerate as was consistent with +public enterprise, of the retiring member's malady, its +duration, the date of the earliest symptoms, and the +growth of anxiety in Mrs Farquharson, who had finally +insisted--and how right she was!--on the visit to the +specialist, upon which she had accompanied Mr Farquharson. +He sent round Rawlins. So that Elgin was in possession +of all the facts, and Walter Winter, who had every +pretension to contest the seat again and every satisfaction +that it wouldn't be against Farquharson, might naturally +be expected to be taken up with them sufficiently to +understand a man who slapped him on the shoulder in the +post-office with the remark I have quoted. + +"I guess they know what they're about," returned Mr +Milburn. "It's a bad knock for the Grits, old Farquharson +having to drop out. He's getting up in years, but he's +got a great hold here. He'll be a dead loss in votes to +his party. I always said our side wouldn't have a chance +till the old man was out of the way." + +Mr Winter twisted the watch-chain across his protuberant +waistcoat, and his chin sank in reflective folds above +his neck-tie. Above that again his nose drooped over his +moustache, and his eyelids over his eyes, which sought +the floor. Altogether he looked sunk, like an overfed +bird, in deferential contemplation of what Mr Milburn +was saying. + +"They've nobody to touch him, certainly in either ability +or experience," he replied, looking up to do it, with a +handsome air of concession. "Now that Martin's dead, and +Jim Fawkes come that howler over Pink River, they'll have +their work cut out for them to find a man. I hear Fawkes +takes it hard, after all he's done for 'em, not to get +the nomination, but they won't hear of it. Quite right, +too; he's let too many people in over that concession of +his to be popular, even among his friends." + +"I suppose he has. Dropped anything there yourself?--No? +Nor I. When a thing gets to the boom stage I say let it +alone, even if there's gold in it and you've got a School +of Mines man to tell you so. Fawkes came out of it at +the small end himself, I expect, but that doesn't help +him any in the eyes of businessmen." + +"I hear," said Walter Winter, stroking his nose, "that +old man Parsons has come right over since the bosses at +Ottawa have put so much money on preference trade with +the old country. He says he was a Liberal once, and may +be a Liberal again, but he doesn't see his way to voting +to give his customers blankets cheaper than he can make +them, and he'll wait till the clouds roll by." + +"He won't be the only one, either," said Milburn. "Take +my word for it, they'll be dead sick and sorry over this +imperial craze in a year's time, every Government that's +taken it up. The people won't have it. The Empire looks +nice on the map, but when it comes to practical politics +their bread and butter's in the home industries. There's +a great principle at stake, Winter; I must say I envy +you standing up for it under such favourable conditions. +Liberals like Young and Windle may talk big, but when it +comes to the ballot-box you'll have the whole manufacturing +interest of the place behind you, and nobody the wiser. +It's a great thing to carry the standard on an issue +above and beyond party politics--it's a purer air, my +boy." + +Walter Winter's nod confirmed the sagacity of this, and +appreciated the highmindedness. It was a parting nod; Mr +Winter had too much on hand that morning to waste time +upon Octavius Milburn; but it was full of the qualities +that ensure the success of a man's relation with his +fellows. Consideration was in it, and understanding, and +that kind of geniality that offers itself on a plain +business footing, a commercial heartiness that has no +nonsense about it. He had half a dozen casual chats like +this with Mr Milburn on his way up Main Street, and his +manner expanded in cordiality and respect with each, as +if his growing confidence in himself increased his +confidence in his fellow-men. The same assurance greeted +him several times over. Every friend wanted to remind +him of the enemy's exigency, and to assure him that the +enemy's new policy was enough by itself to bring him +romping in at last; and to every assurance he presented +the same acceptable attitude of desiring for particular +reasons to take special note of such valuable views. At +the end he had neither elicited nor imparted a single +opinion of any importance; nevertheless, he was quite +entitled to his glow of satisfaction. + +Among Mr Winter's qualifications for political life was +his capacity to arrive at an estimate of the position of +the enemy. He was never persuaded to his own advantage; +he never stepped ahead of the facts. It was one of the +things that made him popular with the other side, his +readiness to do justice to their equipment, to acknowledge +their chances. There is gratification of a special sort +in hearing your points of vantage confessed by the foe; +the vanity is soothed by his open admission that you are +worthy of his steel. It makes you a little less keen +somehow, about defeating him. It may be that Mr Winter +had an instinct for this, or perhaps he thought such +discourse more profitable, if less pleasant, than derisive +talk in the opposite sense. At all events, he gained +something and lost nothing by it, even in his own camp, +where swagger might be expected to breed admiration. He +was thought a level-headed fellow who didn't expect +miracles; his forecast in most matters was quoted, and +his defeats at the polls had been to some extent neutralized +by his sagacity in computing the returns in advance. + +So that we may safely follow Mr Winter to the conclusion +that the Liberals of South Fox were somewhat put to it +to select a successor to Robert Farquharson who could be +depended upon to keep the party credit exactly where he +found it. The need was unexpected, and the two men who +would have stepped most naturally into Farquharson's +shoes were disqualified as Winter described. The retirement +came at a calculating moment. South Fox still declared +itself with pride an unhealthy division for Conservatives; +but new considerations had thrust themselves among Liberal +counsels, and nobody yet knew what the country would say +to them. The place was a "Grit" strong-hold, but its +steady growth as an industrial centre would give a new +significance to the figures of the next returns. The +Conservative was the manufacturers' party, and had been +ever since the veteran Sir John Macdonald declared for +a protective "National Policy," and placed the plain +issue before the country which divided the industrial +and the agricultural interests. A certain number of +millowners--Mr Milburn mentioned Young and Windle--belonged +to the Liberals, as if to illustrate the fact that you +inherit your party in Canada as you inherit your +"denomination," or your nose; it accompanies you, simply, +to the grave. But they were exceptions, and there was no +doubt that the other side had been considerably strengthened +by the addition of two or three thriving and highly +capitalized concerns during the past five years. Upon +the top of this had come the possibility of a great and +dramatic change of trade relations with Great Britain, +which the Liberal Government at Ottawa had given every +sign of willingness to adopt--had, indeed, initiated, +and were bound by word and letter to follow up. Though +the moment had not yet come, might never come, for its +acceptance or rejection by the country as a whole, there +could be no doubt that every by-election would be concerned +with the policy involved, and that every Liberal candidate +must be prepared to stand by it in so far as the leaders +had conceived and pushed it. Party feeling was by no +means unanimous in favour of the change; many Liberals +saw commercial salvation closer in improved trade relations +with the United States. On the other hand, the new policy, +clothed as it was in the attractive sentiment of loyalty, +and making for the solidarity of the British race, might +be depended upon to capture votes which had been hitherto +Conservative mainly because these professions were supposed +to be an indissoluble part of Conservatism. It was a +thing to split the vote sufficiently to bring an unusual +amount of anxiety and calculation into Liberal counsels. +The other side were in no doubt or difficulty: Walter +Winter was good enough for them, and it was their cheerful +conviction that Walter Winter would put a large number +of people wise on the subject of preference trade +bye-and-bye, who at present only knew enough to vote for +it. + +The great question was the practicability of the new idea +and how much further it could safely be carried in a +loyal Dominion which was just getting on its industrial +legs. It was debated with anxiety at Ottawa, and made +the subject of special instruction to South Fox, where +the by-election would have all the importance of an early +test. "It's a clear issue," wrote an influential person +at Ottawa to the local party leaders at Elgin, "we don't +want any tendency to hedge or double. It's straight +business with us, the thing we want, and it will be till +Wallingham either gets it through over there, or finds +he can't deal with us. Meanwhile it might be as well to +ascertain just how much there is in it for platform +purposes in a safe spot like South Fox, and how much the +fresh opposition will cost us where we can afford it. We +can't lose the seat, and the returns will be worth anything +in their bearing on the General Election next year. The +objection to Carter is that he's only half-convinced; he +couldn't talk straight if he wanted to, and that lecture +tour of his in the United States ten years ago pushing +reciprocity with the Americans would make awkward +literature." + +The rejection of Carter practically exhausted the list +of men available whose standing in the town and experience +of its suffrages brought them naturally into the field +of selection; and at this point Cruickshank wrote to +Farquharson suggesting the dramatic departure involved +in the name of Lorne Murchison. Cruickshank wrote +judiciously, leaving the main arguments in Lorne's favour +to form themselves in Farquharson's mind, but countering +the objections that would rise there by the suggestion +that after a long period of confidence and steady going, +in fact of the orthodox and expected, the party should +profit by the swing of the pendulum toward novelty and +tentative, rather than bring forward a candidate who +would represent, possibly misrepresent, the same beliefs +and intentions on a lower personal level. As there was +no first-rate man of the same sort to succeed Farquharson, +Cruickshank suggested the undesirability of a second-rate +man; and he did it so adroitly that the old fellow found +himself in a good deal of sympathy with the idea. He had +small opinion of the lot that was left for selection, +and smaller relish for the prospect of turning his +honourable activity over to any one of them. Force of +habit and training made him smile at Cruickshank's +proposition as impracticable, but he felt its attraction, +even while he dismissed it to an inside pocket. Young +Murchison's name would be so unlooked-for that if he, +Farquharson, could succeed in imposing it upon the party +it would be almost like making a personal choice of his +successor, a grateful idea in abdication. Farquharson +wished regretfully that Lorne had another five years to +his credit in the Liberal record of South Fox. By the +time the young fellow had earned them he, the retiring +member, would be quite on the shelf, if in no completer +oblivion; he could not expect much of a voice in any +nomination five years hence. He sighed to think of it. + +It was at that point of his meditations that Mr Farquharson +met Squire Ormiston on the steps of the Bank of British +North America, an old-fashioned building with an appearance +of dignity and probity, a look of having been founded +long ago upon principles which raised it above fluctuation, +exactly the place in which Mr Farquharson and Squire +Ormiston might be expected to meet. The two men, though +politically opposed, were excellent friends; they greeted +cordially. + +"So you're ordered out of politics, Farquharson?" said +the squire. "We're all sorry for that, you know." + +"I'm afraid so; I'm afraid so. Thanks for your letter--very +friendly of you, squire. I don't like it--no use pretending +I do--but it seems I've got to take a rest if I want to +be known as a going concern." + +"A fellow with so much influence in committee ought to +have more control of his nerve centres," Ormiston told +him. The squire belonged to that order of elderly gentlemen +who will have their little joke. "Well, have you and +Bingham and Horace Williams made up your minds who's to +have the seat?" + +Farquharson shook his head. "I only know what I see in +the papers," he said. "The Dominion is away out with +Fawkes, and the Express is about as lukewarm with Carter +as he is with federated trade." + +"Your Government won't be obliged to you for Carter," +said Mr Ormiston; "a more slack-kneed, double-jointed +scoundrel was never offered a commission in a respectable +cause. He'll be the first to rat if things begin to look +queer for this new policy of yours and Wallingham's." + +"He hasn't got it yet," Farquharson admitted, "and he +won't with my good will. So you're with us for preference +trade, Ormiston?" + +"It's a thing I'd like to see. It's a thing I'm sorry +we're not in a position to take up practically ourselves. +But you won't get it, you know. You'll be defeated by +the senior partner. It's too much of a doctrine for the +people of England. They're listening to Wallingham just +now because they admire him, but they won't listen to +you. I doubt whether it will ever come to an issue over +there. This time next year Wallingham will be sucking +his thumbs and thinking of something else. No, it's not +a thing to worry about politically, for it won't come +through." + +The squire's words suggested so much relief in that +conviction that Farquharson, sharp on the flair of the +experienced nose for waverers, looked at him observantly. + +"I'm not so sure It's a doctrine with a fine practical +application for them as well as for us, if they can be +got to see it, and they're bound to see it in time. It's +a thing I never expected to live to believe, never thought +would be practicable until lately, but now I think there's +a very good chance of it. And, hang it all," he added, +"it may be unreasonable, but the more I notice the Yankees +making propositions to get us away from it, the more I +want to see it come through." + +"I have very much the same feeling," the squire +acknowledged. "I've been turning the matter over a good +deal since that last Conference showed which way the wind +was blowing. And the fellows in your Government gave them +a fine lead. But such a proposition was bound to come +from your side. The whole political history of the country +shows it. We're pledged to take care of the damned +industries." + +Farquharson smiled at the note of depression. "Well, we +want a bigger market somewhere," he said with detachment +"and it looks as if we could get it now Uncle Sam has +had a fright. If the question comes to be fought out at +the polls, I don't see how your party could do better +than go in for a wide scheme of reciprocity with the +Americans--in raw products, of course with a tariff to +match theirs on manufactured goods. That would shut a +pretty tight door on British connection though." + +"They'll not get my vote if they do," said the squire, +thrusting his hands fiercely into his breeches pockets. + +"As you say, it's most important to put up a man who will +show the constituency all the credit and benefit there +is in it, anyhow," Farquharson observed. "I've had a +letter this morning," he added, laughing, "from a +fellow--one of the bosses, too--who wants us to nominate +young Murchison." + +"The lawyer?" + +"That's the man. He's too young, of course--not thirty. +But he's well known in the country districts; I don't +know a man of his age with a more useful service record. +He's got a lot of friends, and he's come a good deal to +the front lately through that inter-imperial communications +business--we might do worse. And upon my word, we're in +such a hole--" + +"Farquharson," said old Squire Ormiston, the red creeping +over features that had not lost in three generations the +lines of the old breed, "I've voted in the Conservative +interest for forty years, and my father before me. We +were Whigs when we settled in Massachusetts, and Whigs +when we pulled up stakes and came North rather than take +up arms against the King; but it seemed decent to support +the Government that gave us a chance again under the +flag, and my grandfather changed his politics. Now, +confound it! the flag seems to be with the Whigs again, +for fighting purposes, anyhow; and I don't seem to have +any choice. I've been debating the thing for some time +now, and your talk of making that fine young fellow your +candidate settles it. If you can get your committee to +accept young Murchison, you can count on my vote, and I +don't want to brag, but I think you can count on Moneida +too, though it's never sent in a Grit majority yet." + +The men were standing on the steps of the bank, and the +crisp air of autumn brought them both an agreeable tingle +of enterprise. Farquharson's buggy was tied to the nearest +maple. + +"I'm going over to East Elgin to look at my brick-kilns," +he said. "Get in with me, will you?" + +As they drove up Main Street they encountered Walter +Winter, who looked after them with a deeply considering +eye. + +"Old Ormiston always had the Imperial bee in his bonnet," +said he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Alfred Hesketh was among the first to hear of Lorne's +nomination to represent the constituency of South Fox in +the Dominion Parliament. The Milburns told him; it was +Dora who actually made the communication. The occasion +was high tea; Miss Milburn's apprehension about Englishmen +and late dinner had been dissipated in great amusement. +Mr Hesketh liked nothing better than high tea, liked +nothing so much. He came often to the Milburns' after +Mrs Milburn said she hoped he would, and pleased her +extremely by the alacrity with which he accepted her +first invitation to stay to what she described as their +very simple and unconventional meal. Later he won her +approval entirely by saying boldly that he hoped he was +going to be allowed to stay. It was only in good English +society, Mrs Milburn declared, that you found such freedom +and confidence; it reminded her of Mrs Emmett's saying +that her sister-in-law in London was always at home to +lunch. Mrs Milburn considered a vague project of informing +a select number of her acquaintances that she was always +at home to high tea, but on reflection dismissed it, in +case an inconvenient number should come at once. She +would never have gone into detail, but since a tin of +sardines will only hold so many, I may say for her that +it was the part of wisdom. + +Mr Hesketh, however, wore the safe and attractive aspect +of a single exceptional instance; there were always +sardines enough for him. It will be imagined what pleasure +Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin took in his visits, how he +propped up their standard of behaviour in all things +unessential, which was too likely to be growing limp, so +far from approved examples. I think it was a real aesthetic +satisfaction; I know they would talk of it afterward for +hours, with sighing comparisons of the "form" of the +young men of Elgin, which they called beside Hesketh's +quite outre. It was a favourite word with Mrs Milburn +--outre. She used it like a lorgnette, and felt her +familiarity with it a differentiating mark. Mr Milburn, +never so susceptible to delicate distinctions, looked +upon the young Englishman with benevolent neutrality. +Dora wished it to be understood that she reserved her +opinion. He might be all that he seemed, and again he +might not. Englishmen were so deep. They might have nice +manners, but they didn't always act up to them, so far +as she had noticed. There was that Honourable Somebody, +who was in jail even then for trying to borrow money +under false pretences from the Governor-General. Lorne, +when she expressed these views to him, reassured her, +but she continued to maintain a guarded attitude upon Mr +Hesketh, to everybody except Mr Hesketh himself. + +It was Dora, as I have said, who imparted the news. Lorne +had come over with it in the afternoon, still a little +dazed and unbelieving in the face of his tremendous luck, +helped by finding her so readily credulous to thinking +it reasonably possible himself. He could not have done +better than come to Dora for a correction of any undue +exaltation that he might have felt, however. She supplied +it in ten minutes by reminding him of their wisdom in +keeping the secret of their relations. His engagement to +the daughter of a prominent Conservative would not indeed +have told in his favour with his party, to say nothing +of the anomaly of Mr Milburn's unyielding opposition to +the new policy. "I never knew Father so nearly bitter +about anything," Dora said, a statement which left her +lover thoughtful, but undaunted. + +"We'll bring him round," said Lorne, "when he sees that +the British manufacturer can't possibly get the better +of men on the spot, who know to a nut the local +requirements." + +To which she had responded, "Oh, Lorne, don't begin THAT +again," and he had gone away hot-foot for the first step +of preparation. + +"It's exactly what I should have expected," said Hesketh, +when she told him. "Murchison is the very man they want. +He's cut out for a political success. I saw that when he +was in England." + +"You haven't been very long in the country, Mr Hesketh, +or we shouldn't hear you saying that," said Mr Milburn, +amicably. "It's a very remarkable thing with us, a +political party putting forward so young a man. Now with +you I expect a young fellow might get in on his rank or +his wealth--your principle of nonpayment of members +confines your selection more or less. I don't say you're +not right, but over here we do pay, you see, and it makes +a lot of difference in the competition. It isn't a greater +honour, but it's more sought for. I expect there'll be +a good many sore heads over this business." + +"It's all the more creditable to Murchison," said Hesketh. + +"Of course it is--a great feather in his cap. Oh, I don't +say young Murchison isn't a rising fellow, but it's +foolishness for his party--I can't think who is responsible +for it. However. they've got a pretty foolish platform +just now--they couldn't win this seat on it with any man. +A lesson will be good for them." + +"Father, don't you think Lorne will get in?" asked Dora, +in a tone of injury and slight resentment. + +"Not by a handful," said her father. "Mr Walter Winter +will represent South Fox in the next session of Parliament, +if you ask my opinion." + +"But, Father," returned his daughter with an outraged +inflection, "you'll vote for Lorne?" + +A smile went round the table, discreetest in Mrs Milburn. + +"I'm afraid not," said Mr Milburn, "I'm afraid not. Sorry +to disoblige, but principles are principles." + +Dora perceptibly pouted. Mrs Milburn created a diversion +with green-gage preserves. Under cover of it Hesketh +asked, "Is he a great friend of yours?" + +"One of my very greatest," Dora replied. "I know he'll +expect Father to vote for him. It makes it awfully +embarrassing for me." + +"Oh, I fancy he'll understand!" said Hesketh, easily. +"Political convictions are serious things, you know. +Friendship isn't supposed to interfere with them. I +wonder," he went on, meditatively, "whether I could be +of any use to Murchison. Now that I've made up my mind +to stop till after Christmas I'll be on hand for the +fight. I've had some experience. I used to canvass now +and then from Oxford; it was always a tremendous lark." + +"Oh, Mr Hesketh, DO! Really and truly he is one of my +oldest friends, and I should love to see him get in. I +know his sister, too. They're a very clever family. Quite +self-made, you know, but highly respected. Promise me +you will." + +"I promise with pleasure. And I wish it were something +it would give me more trouble to perform. I like Murchison," +said Hesketh. + +All this transpiring while they were supposed to be eating +green-gage preserves, and Mrs Milburn and Miss Filkin +endeavoured to engage the head of the house in the kind +of easy allusion to affairs of the moment to which Mr +Hesketh would be accustomed as a form of conversation--the +accident to the German Empress, the marriage of one of +the Rothschilds. The ladies were compelled to supply most +of the facts and all of the interest but they kept up a +gallant line of attack; and the young man, taking gratified +possession of Dora's eyes, was extremely obliged to them. + +Hesketh lost no time in communicating his willingness to +be of use to Murchison, and Lorne felt all his old +friendliness rise up in him as he cordially accepted the +offer. It was made with British heartiness, it was +thoroughly meant. Lorne was half-ashamed in his recognition +of its quality. A certain aloofness had grown in him +against his will since Hesketh had prolonged his stay in +the town, difficult to justify, impossible to define. +Hesketh as Hesketh was worthily admirable as ever, +wholesome and agreeable, as well turned out by his +conscience as he was by his tailor; it was Hesketh in +his relation to his new environment that seemed vaguely +to come short. This in spite of an enthusiasm which was +genuine enough; he found plenty of things to like about +the country. It was perhaps in some manifestation of +sensitiveness that he failed; he had the adaptability of +the pioneer among rugged conditions, but he could not +mingle quite immediately with the essence of them; he +did not perceive the genius loci. Lorne had been conscious +of this as a kind of undefined grievance; now he specified +it and put it down to Hesketh's isolation among ways that +were different from the ways he knew. You were bound to +notice that Hesketh as a stranger had his own point of +view, his own training to retreat upon. + +"I certainly liked him better over there," Lorne told +Advena, "but then he was a part of it--he wasn't separated +out as he is here. He was just one sort of fellow that +you admired, and there were lots of sorts that you admired +more. Over here you seem to see round him somehow." + +"I shouldn't have thought it difficult," said his sister. + +"Besides," Lorne confessed, "I expect it was easier to +like him when you were inclined to like everybody. A +person feels more critical of a visitor, especially when +he's had advantages," he added honestly. "I expect we +don't care about having to acknowledge 'em so very +much--that's what it comes to." + +"I don't see them," said Advena. "Mr Hesketh seems well +enough in his way, fairly intelligent and anxious to be +pleasant. But I can't say I find him a specially interesting +or valuable type." + +"Interesting, you wouldn't. But valuable--well, you see, +you haven't been in England--you haven't seen them over +there, crowds of 'em, piling up the national character. +Hesketh's an average, and for an average he's high. Oh, +he's a good sort--and he just SMELLS of England." + +"He seems all right in his politics," said John Murchison, +filling his pipe from the tobacco jar on the mantelpiece. +"But I doubt whether you'll find him much assistance the +way he talks of. Folks over here know their own business +--they've had to learn it. I doubt if they'll take showing +from Hesketh." + +"They might be a good deal worse advised." + +"That may be," said Mr Murchison, and settled down in +his armchair behind the Dominion. + +"I agree with Father," said Advena. "He won't be any +good, Lorne." + +"Advena prefers Scotch," remarked Stella. + +"I don't know. He's full of the subject," said Lorne. +"He can present it from the other side." + +"The side of the British exporter?" inquired his father, +looking over the top of the Dominion with unexpected +humour. + +"No, sir. Though there are places where we might talk +cheap overcoats and tablecloths and a few odds and ends +like that. The side of the all-British loaf and the lot +of people there are to eat it," said Lorne. "That ought +to make a friendly feeling. And if there's anything in +the sentiment of the scheme," he added, "it shouldn't do +any harm to have a good specimen of the English people +advocating it. Hesketh ought to be an object-lesson." + +"I wouldn't put too much faith in the object-lesson," +said John Murchison. + +"Neither would I," said Stella emphatically. "Mister +Alfred Hesketh may pass in an English crowd, but over +here he's just an ignorant young man, and you'd better +not have him talking with his mouth at any of your +meetings. Tell him to go and play with Walter Winter." + +"I heard he was asking at Volunteer Headquarters the +other night," remarked Alec, "how long it would be before +a man like himself, if he threw in his lot with the +country, could expect to get nominated for a provincial +seat." + +"What did they tell him?" asked Mr Murchison, when they +had finished their laugh. + +"I heard they said it would depend a good deal on the +size of the lot." + +"And a little on the size of the man," remarked Advena. + +"He said he would be willing to take a seat in a Legislature +and work up," Alec went on. "Ontario for choice, because +he thought the people of this Province more advanced." + +"There's a representative committee being formed to give +the inhabitants of the poor-house a turkey dinner on +Thanksgiving Day," said Advena. "He might begin with +that." + +"I dare say he would if anybody told him. He's just dying +to be taken into the public service," Alec said. "He's +in dead earnest about it. He thinks this country's a +great place because it gives a man the chance of a public +career." + +"Why is it," asked Advena "that when people have no +capacity for private usefulness they should be so anxious +to serve the public?" + +"Oh, come," said Lorne, "Hesketh has an income of his +own. Why should he sweat for his living? We needn't pride +ourselves on being so taken up with getting ours. A man +like that is in a position to do some good, and I hope +Hesketh will get a chance if he stays over here. We'll +soon see how he speaks. He's going to follow Farquharson +at Jordanville on Thursday week." + +"I wonder at Farquharson," said his father. + +By this time the candidature of Mr Lorne Murchison was +well in the public eye. The Express announced it in a +burst of beaming headlines, with a biographical sketch +and a "cut" of its young fellow-townsman. Horace Williams, +whose hand was plain in every line apologized for the +brevity of the biography--quality rather than quantity, +he said; it was all good, and time would make it better. +This did not prevent the Mercury observing the next +evening that the Liberal organ had omitted to state the +age at which the new candidate was weaned. The Toronto +papers commented according to their party bias, but so +far as the candidate was concerned there was lack of the +material of criticism. If he had achieved little for +praise he had achieved nothing for detraction. There was +no inconsistent public utterance, no doubtful transaction, +no scandalous paper to bring forward to his detriment. +When the fact that he was but twenty-eight years of age +had been exhausted in elaborate ridicule, little more +was available. The policy he championed, however, lent +itself to the widest discussion, and it was instructive +to note how the Opposition press, while continuing to +approve the great principle involved, found material for +gravest criticism in the Government's projected application +of it. Interest increased in the South Fox by-election +as its first touchstone, and gathered almost romantically +about Lorne Murchison as its spirited advocate. It was +commonly said that whether he was returned or not on this +occasion, his political future was assured; and his name +was carried up and down the Dominion with every new wind +of imperial doctrine that blew across the Atlantic. He +himself felt splendidly that he rode upon the crest of +a wave of history. However the event appeared which was +hidden beyond the horizon, the great luck of that buoyant +emotion, of that thrilling suspense, would be his in a +very special way. He was exhilarated by the sense of +crisis, and among all the conferences and calculations +that armed him for his personal struggle, he would now +and then breathe in his private soul, "Choose quickly, +England," like a prayer. + +Elgin rose to its liking for the fellow, and even his +political enemies felt a half-humorous pride that the +town had produced a candidate whose natural parts were +held to eclipse the age and experience of party hacks. +Plenty of them were found to declare that Lorne Murchison +would poll more votes for the Grits than any other man +they could lay their hands on, with the saving clause +that neither he nor any other man could poll quite enough +this time. They professed to be content to let the issue +have it; meanwhile they congratulated Lorne on his chance, +telling him that a knock or two wouldn't do him any harm +at his age. Walter Winter, who hadn't been on speaking +terms with Farquharson, made a point of shaking hands +with Murchison in the publicity of the post-office, and +assuring him that he, Winter, never went into a contest +more confident of the straight thing on the part of the +other side. Such cavilling as there was came from the +organized support of his own party and had little importance +because it did. The grumblers fell into line almost as +soon as Horace Williams said they would; a little oil, +one small appointment wrung from the Ontario +Government--Fawkes, I believe, got it--and the machine +was again in good working order. Lorne even profited, in +the opinion of many, by the fact of his youth, with its +promise of energy and initiative, since Mr Farquharson +had lately been showing the defects as well as the +qualities of age and experience, and the charge of servile +timidity was already in the mouths of his critics. + +The agricultural community took it, as usual, with phlegm; +but there was a distinct tendency in the bar at Barker's, +on market-days, to lay money on the colt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +Mr Farquharson was to retain his seat until the early +spring, for the double purpose of maintaining his influence +upon an important commission of which he was chairman +until the work should be done, and of giving the imperial +departure championed by his successor as good a chance +as possible of becoming understood in the constituency. +It was understood that the new writ would issue for a +date in March; Elgin referred all interest to that point, +and prophesied for itself a lively winter. Another event, +of importance less general, was arranged for the end of +February--the arrival of Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon +from Scotland. Finlay had proposed an earlier date, but +matters of business connected with her mother's estate +would delay Miss Cameron's departure. Her arrival would +be the decisive point of another campaign. He and Advena +faced it without misgiving, but there were moments when +Finlay greatly wished the moment past. + +Their intimacy had never been conspicuous, and their +determination to make no change in it could be carried +out without attracting attention. It was very dear to +them, that determination. They saw it as a test, as an +ideal. Last of all, perhaps, as an alleviation. They were +both too much encumbered with ideas to move simply, +quickly, on the impulse of passion. They looked at it +through the wrong end of the glass, and thought they put +it farther away. They believed that their relation +comprised, would always comprise, the best of life. It +was matter for discussion singularly attractive; they +allowed themselves upon it wide scope in theory. They +could speak of it in the heroic temper, without sadness +or bitterness; the thing was to tear away the veil and +look fate in the face. The great thing, perhaps, was to +speak of it while still they could give themselves leave; +a day would arrive, they acknowledged with averted eyes, +when dumbness would be more becoming. Meanwhile, Mrs +Murchison would have found it hard to sustain her charge +against them that they talked of nothing but books and +authors; the philosophy of life, as they were intensely +creating it, was more entrancing than any book or any +author. Simply and definitely, and to their own +satisfaction, they had abandoned the natural demands of +their state; they lived in its exaltation and were far +from accidents. Deep in both of them was a kind of +protective nobility; I will not say it cost them nothing, +but it turned the scenes between them into comedy of the +better sort, the kind that deserves the relief of stone +or bronze. Advena, had she heard it, would have repelled +Dr Drummond's warning with indignation. If it were so +possible to keep their friendship on an unfaltering level +then, with the latitude they had. what danger could attend +them later, when the social law would support them, divide +them, protect them? Dr Drummond, suspecting all, looked +grimly on, and from November to March found no need to +invite Mr Finlay to occupy the pulpit of Knox Church. + +They had come to full knowledge that night of their long +walk in the dark together; but even then, in the rush +and shock and glory of it, they had held apart; and their +broken avowals had crossed with difficulty from one to +the other. The whole fabric of circumstance was between +them, to realize and to explore; later surveys, as we +know, had not reduced it. They gave it great credit as +a barrier; I suppose because it kept them out of each +other's arms. It had done that. + +It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should +continue upon terms of happy debt to one another, the +balance always changing, the account never closed and +rendered. She no doubt felt that she might impose the +terms; she had unconsciously the sense of greater sacrifice, +and knew that she had been mistress of the situation long +before he was aware of it. He agreed with joy and with +misgiving; he saw with enthusiasm her high conception of +their alliance, but sometimes wondered, poor fellow, +whether he was right in letting it cover him. He came to +the house as he had done before, as often as he could, +and reproached himself that he could not, after all, come +very often. + +That they should discuss their relation as candidly as +they sustained it was perhaps a little peculiar to them, +so I have laid stress on it; but it was not by any means +their sole preoccupation. They talked like tried friends +of their every-day affairs. Indeed, after the trouble +and intoxication of their great understanding had spent +itself, it was the small practical interests of life that +seemed to hold them most. One might think that Nature, +having made them her invitation upon the higher plane, +abandoned them in the very scorn of her success to the +warm human commonplaces that do her work well enough with +the common type. Mrs Murchison would have thought better +of them if she had chanced again to overhear. + +"I wouldn't advise you to have it lined with fur," Advena +was saying. The winter had sharply announced itself, and +Finlay, to her reproach about his light overcoat, had +declared his intention of ordering a buffalo-skin the +following day. "And the buffaloes are all gone, you +know--thirty years ago," she laughed. "You really are +not modern in practical matters. Does it ever surprise +you that you get no pemmican for dinner, and hardly ever +meet an Indian in his feathers?" + +He looked at her with delight in his sombre eyes. It was +a new discovery, her capacity for happily chaffing him, +only revealed since she had come out of her bonds to +love; it was hard to say which of them took the greater +pleasure in it. + +"What is the use of living in Canada if you can't have +fur on your clothes?" he demanded. + +"You may have a little--astrakhan, I would--on the collar +and cuffs," she said. "A fur lining is too hot if there +happens to be a thaw, and then you would leave it off +and take cold. You have all the look," she added, with +a gravely considering glance at him, "of a person who +ought to take care of his chest." + +He withdrew his eyes hurriedly, and fixed them instead +on his pipe. He always brought it with him, by her order, +and Advena usually sewed. He thought as he watched her +that it made the silences enjoyable. + +"And expensive, I dare say, too," he said. + +"Yes, more or less. Alec paid fifty dollars for his, and +never liked it." + +"Fifty dollars--ten pounds! No vair for me!" he declared. +"By the way, Mrs Firmin is threatening to turn me out of +house and home. A married daughter is coming to live with +her, and she wants my rooms." + +"When does she come--the married daughter?" + +"Oh, not till the early spring! There's no immediate +despair," said Finlay, "but it is dislocating. My books +and I had just succeeded in making room for one another." + +"But you will have to move, in any case, in the early +spring." + +"I suppose I will. I had--I might have remembered that." + +"Have you found a house yet?" Advena asked him. + +"No." + +"Have you been looking?" It was a gentle, sensible +reminder. + +"I'm afraid I haven't." He moved in his chair as if in +physical discomfort. "Do you think I ought--so soon? +There are always plenty of--houses, aren't there?" + +"Not plenty of desirable ones. Do you think you must live +in East Elgin?" + +"It would be rather more convenient." + +"Because there are two semidetached in River Street, just +finished, that look very pretty and roomy. I thought when +I saw them that one of them might be what you would like." + +"Thank you," he said, and tried not to say it curtly. + +"They belong to White, the grocer. River Street isn't +East Elgin, but it is that way, and it would be a great +deal pleasanter for--for her." + +"I must consider that, of course. You haven't been in +them? I should hope for a bright sitting-room, and a very +private study." + +If Advena was aware of any unconscious implication, the +pair of eyes she turned upon him showed no trace of +satisfaction in it. + +"No, I haven't. But if I could be of any use I should be +very glad to go over them with you, and--" + +She stopped involuntarily, checked by the embarrassment +in his face, though she had to wait for his words to +explain it. + +"I should be most grateful. But--but might it not be +misunderstood?" + +She bent her head over her work, and one of those instants +passed between them which he had learned to dread. They +were so completely the human pair as they sat together, +withdrawn in comfort and shelter, absorbed in homely +matters and in each other; it was easy to forget that +they were only a picture, a sham, and that the reality +lay further on, in the early spring. It must have been +hard for him to hear without resentment that she was +ready to help him to make a home for that reality. He +was fast growing instructed in women, although by a +post-graduate course. + +Advena looked up. "Possibly," she said, calmly, and their +agitation lay still between them. He was silently angry; +the thing that stirred without their leave had been sweet. + +"No," said Advena, "I can't go, I suppose. I'm sorry. I +should have liked so much to be of use." She looked up +at him appealingly, and sudden tears came and stood in +her eyes, and would perhaps have undone his hurt but that +he was staring into the fire. + +"How can you be of use," he said, almost irritably, "in +such ways as those? They are not important, and I am not +sure that for us they are legitimate. If you were about +to be--married"--he seemed to plunge at the word--"I +should not wish either to hasten you or to house you. I +should turn my back on it all. You should have nothing +from me," he went on, with a forced smile, "but my +blessing, delivered over my shoulder." + +"I am sure they are not important," she said +humbly--privately all unwilling to give up her martyrdom, +"but surely they are legitimate. I would like to help +you in every little way I can. Don't you like me in your +life? You have said that I may stay." + +"I believe you think that by taking strong measures one +can exorcise things," he said. "That if we could only +write out this history of ours in our hearts' blood it +would somehow vanish." + +"No," she said, "but I should like to do it all the same." + +"You must bear with me if I refuse the heroic in little. +It is even harder than the other." He broke off, leaning +back and looking at her from under his shading hand as +if that might protect him from too complete a vision. +The firelight was warm on her cheek and hair, her needle +once again completed the dear delusion: she sat there, +his wife. This was an aspect he forbade, but it would +return; here it was again. + +"It is good to have you in my life," he said. "It is also +good to recognize one's possibilities." + +"How can you definitely lose me?" she asked, and he shook +his head. + +"I don't know. Now that I have found you it is as if you +and I had been rocked together on the tide of that +inconceivable ocean that casts us half-awake upon life," +he said dreamily. "It isn't friendship of ideas, it's a +friendship of spirit. Indeed, I hope and pray never wholly +to lose that." + +"You never will," she told him. "How many worlds one +lives in as the day goes by with the different people +one cares for--one beyond the other, concentric, ringing +from the heart! Yours comprises all the others; it lies +the farthest out--and alas! at present. the closest in," +she added irresistibly to the asking of his eyes. + +"But," she hurried on, taking high ground to remedy her +indiscretion, "I look forward to the time when this--other +feeling of ours will become just an idea, as it is now +just an emotion, at which we should try to smile. It is +the attitude of the gods." + +"And therefore not becoming to men. Why should we, not +being gods. borrow their attitude?" said Finlay. + +"I could never kill it," she put her work in her lap to +say, "by any sudden act of violence. It would seem a kind +of suicide. While it rules it is like one's life--absolute. +But to isolate it--to place it beyond the currents from +the heart--to look at it, and realize it, and conquer it +for what it is--I don't think it need take so very long. +And then our friendship will be beautiful without reproach." + +"I sometimes fear there may not be time enough in life," +he said. "And if I find that I must simply go--to British +Columbia, I think--those mining missions would give a +man his chance against himself. There is splendid work +to be done there, of a rough-and-ready kind that would +make it puerile to spend time in self-questioning." + +She smiled as if at a violent boy. "We can do it. We can +do it here," she said. "May I quote another religion to +you? 'From purification there arises in the Yogi a thorough +discernment of the cause and nature of the body, whereupon +he loses that regard which others have for the bodily +form.' Then, if he loves, he loves in spirit and in truth. +I look forward to the time," she went on calmly, "when +the best that I can give you or you can give me will ride +upon a glance." + +"I used to feel more drawn to the ascetic achievement +and its rewards," he remarked thoughtfully, "than I do +now." + +"If I were not a Presbyterian in Canada," she told him, +"I would be a Buddhist in Burma. But I have inherited +the Shorter Catechism; I must remain without the Law." + +Finlay smiled. "They are the simple," he said. "Our Law +makes wise the simple." + +Advena looked for a moment into the fire. She was listening, +with admiration, to her heart; she would not be led to +consider esoteric contrasts of East and West. + +"Isn't there something that appeals to you," she said, +"in the thought of just leaving it, all unsaid and all +undone, a dear and tender projection upon the future that +faded--a lovely thing we turned away from, until one day +it was no longer there?" + +"Charming," he said, averting his eyes so that she should +not see the hunger in them. "Charming--literature!" + +She smiled and sighed, and he wrenched his mind to the +consideration of the Buddhism of Browning. She followed +him obediently, but the lines they wanted did not come +easily; they were compelled to search and verify. Something +lately seemed lost to them of that kind of. glad activity; +he was more aware of it than she, since he was less +occupied in the aesthetic ecstasy of self-torture. In +the old time before the sun rose they had been so conscious +of realms of idea lying just beyond the achievement of +thought, approachable, visible by phrases, brokenly, +realms which they could see closer when they essayed +together. He constantly struggled to reach those enchanted +areas again, but they seemed to have gone down behind +the horizon; and the only inspiration that carried them +far drew its impetus from the poetry of their plight. +They looked for verses to prove that Browning's imagination +carried him bravely through lives and lives to come, and +found them to speculate whether in such chances they +might hope to meet again. + +And the talk came back to his difficulties with his Board +of Management, and to her choice of a frame for the +etching he had given her, by his friend the Glasgow +impressionist, and to their opinion of a common +acquaintance, and to Lorne and his prospects. He told +her how little she resembled her brother, and where they +diverged, and how; and she listened with submission and +delight, enchanted to feel his hand upon her intimate +nature. She lingered in the hall while he got into his +overcoat, and saw that a glove was the worse for wear. +"Would it be the heroic-in-little," she begged, "to let +me mend that?" + +As he went out alone into the winter streets he too drew +upon a pagan for his admonition. "'What then art thou +doing here, O imagination?'" he groaned in his private +heart. "'Go away, I entreat thee by the gods, for I want +thee not. But thou art come again according to thy old +fashion. I am not angry with thee, only go away!'" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Miss Milburn pressed her contention that the suspicion +of his desire would be bad for her lover's political +prospects till she made him feel his honest passion almost +a form of treachery to his party. She also hinted that, +for the time being, it did not make particularly for her +own comfort in the family circle, Mr Milburn having grown +by this time quite bitter. She herself drew the excitement +of intrigue from the situation, which she hid behind her +pretty, pale, decorous features, and never betrayed by +the least of her graceful gestures. She told herself that +she had never been so right about anything as about that +affair of the ring--imagine, for an instant, if she had +been wearing it now! She would have banished Lorne +altogether if she could. As he insisted on an occasional +meeting, she clothed it in mystery, appointing it for an +evening when her mother and aunt were out, and answering +his ring at the door herself. To her family she remarked +with detachment that you saw hardly anything of Lorne +Murchison now, he was so taken up with his old election; +and to Hesketh she confided her fear that politics did +interfere with friendship, whatever he might say. He said +a good deal, he cited lofty examples; but the only +agreement he could get from her was the hope that the +estrangement wouldn't be permanent. + +"But you are going to say something, Lorne," she insisted, +talking of the Jordanville meeting. + +"Not much," he told her. "It's the safest district we've +got, and they adore old Farquharson. He'll do most of +the talking--they wouldn't thank me for taking up the +time. Farquharson is going to tell them I'm a first-class +man, and they couldn't do better, and I've practically +only to show my face and tell them I think so too." + +"But Mr Hesketh will speak?" + +"Yes; we thought it would be a good chance of testing +him. He may interest them, and he can't do much harm, +anyhow." + +"Lorne, I should simply love to go. It's your first +meeting." + +"I'll take you." + +"Mr Murchison, HAVE you taken leave of your senses? +Really, you are--" + +"All right, I'll send you. Farquharson and I are going +out to the Crow place to supper, but Hesketh is driving +straight there. He'll be delighted to bring you--who +wouldn't?" + +"I shouldn't be allowed to go with him alone," said Dora, +thoughtfully. + +"Well, no. I don't know that I'd approve of that myself," +laughed the confident young man. "Hesketh is driving Mrs +Farquharson, and the cutter will easily hold three. Isn't +it lucky there's sleighing?" + +"Mother couldn't object to that," said Dora. "Lorne, I +always said you were the dearest fellow! I'll wear a +thick veil, and not a soul will know me." + +"Not a soul would in any case," said Lorne. "It'll be a +Jordanville crowd, you know--nobody from Elgin." + +"We don't visit much in Jordanville, certainly. Well, +Mother mayn't object. She has a great idea of Mrs +Farquharson, because she has attended eleven Drawing-Rooms +at Ottawa, and one of them was given--held, I should +say--by the Princess Louise." + +"I won't promise you eleven," said Lorne, "but there +seems to be a pretty fair chance of one or two." + +At this she had a tale for him which charmed his ears. +"I didn't know where to look," she said. "Aunt Emmie, +you know, has a very bad trick of coming into my room +without knocking. Well, in she walked last night, and +found me before the glass PRACTISING MY CURTSEY! I could +have killed her. Pretended she thought I was out." + +"Dora, would you like ME to promise something?" he asked, +with a mischievous look. + +"Of course, I would. I don't care how much YOU promise. +What?" + +But already he repented of his daring, and sat beside +her suddenly conscious and abashed. Nor could any teasing +prevail to draw from him what had been on his audacious +lips to say. + +Social precedents are easily established in the country. +The accident that sent the first Liberal canvasser for +Jordanville votes to the Crow place for his supper would +be hard to discover now; the fact remains that he has +been going there ever since. It made a greater occasion +than Mrs Crow would ever have dreamed of acknowledging. +She saw to it that they had a good meal of victuals, and +affected indifference to the rest; they must say their +say, she supposed. If the occasion had one satisfaction +which she came nearer to confessing than another, it was +that the two or three substantial neighbours who usually +came to meet the politicians left their wives at home, +and that she herself, to avoid giving any offence on this +score, never sat down with the men. Quite enough to do +it was, she would explain later, for her and the hired +girl to wait on them and to clear up after them. She and +Bella had their bite afterward when the men had hitched +up, and when they could exchange comments of proud +congratulation upon the inroads on the johnny-cake or +the pies. So there was no ill feeling, and Mrs Crow, +having vindicated her dignity by shaking hands with the +guests of the evening in the parlour, solaced it further +by maintaining the masculine state of the occasion, in +spite of protests or entreaties. To sit down opposite Mr +Crow would have made it ordinary "company"; she passed +the plates and turned it into a function. + +She was waiting for them on the parlour sofa when Crow +brought them in out of the nipping early dark of December, +Elmore staying behind in the yard. with the horses. She +sat on the sofa in her best black dress with the bead +trimming on the neck and sleeves, a good deal pushed up +and wrinkled across the bosom, which had done all that +would ever be required of it when it gave Elmore and Abe +their start in life. Her wiry hands were crossed in her +lap in the moment of waiting: you could tell by the look +of them that they were not often crossed there. They were +strenuous hands; the whole worn figure was strenuous, +and the narrow set mouth, and the eyes which had looked +after so many matters for so long, and even the way the +hair was drawn back into a knot in a fashion that would +have given a phrenologist his opportunity. It was a +different Mrs Crow from the one that sat in the midst of +her poultry and garden-stuff in the Elgin market square; +but it was even more the same Mrs Crow, the sum of a +certain measure of opportunity and service, an imperial +figure in her bead trimming, if the truth were known. + +The room was heated to express the geniality that was +harder to put in words. The window was shut; there was +a smell of varnish and whatever was inside the "suite" +of which Mrs Crow occupied the sofa. Enlarged photographs +--very much enlarged--of Mr and Mrs Crow hung upon the +walls, and one other of a young girl done in that process +which tells you at once that she was an only daughter +and that she is dead. There had been other bereavements; +they were written upon the silver coffin-plates which, +framed and glazed, also contributed to the decoration of +the room; but you would have had to look close, and you +might feel a delicacy. + +Mrs Crow made her greetings with precision, and sat down +again upon the sofa for a few minutes' conversation. + +"I'm telling them," said her husband, "that the sleighin's +just held out for them. If it 'ud been tomorrow they'd +have had to come on wheels. Pretty soft travellin' as it +was, some places, I guess." + +"Snow's come early this year," said Mrs Crow. "It was an +open fall, too." + +"It has certainly," Mr Farquharson backed her up. "About +as early as I remember it. I don't know how much you got +out here; we had a good foot in Elgin." + +"'Bout the same, 'bout the same," Mr Crow deliberated, +"but it's been layin' light all along over Clayfield +way--ain't had a pair of runners out, them folks." + +"Makes a more cheerful winter, Mrs Crow, don't you think, +when it comes early?" remarked Lorne. "Or would you rather +not get it till after Christmas?" + +"I don't know as it matters much, out here in the country. +We don't get a great many folks passin', best of times. +An' it's more of a job to take care of the stock." + +"That's so," Mr Crow told them. "Chores come heavier when +there's snow on the ground, a great sight, especially if +there's drifts." + +And for an instant, with his knotted hands hanging between +his knees he pondered this unvarying aspect of his yearly +experience. They all pondered it, sympathetic. + +"Well, now, Mr Farquharson," Mrs Crow turned to him. "An' +how reely BE ye? We've heard better, an' worse, an' +middlin'--there's ben such contradictory reports." + +"Oh, very well, Mrs Crow. Never better. I'm going to give +a lot more trouble yet. I can't do it in politics, that's +the worst of it. But here's the man that's going to do +it for me. Here's the man!" + +The Crows looked at the pretendant, as in duty bound, +but not any longer than they could help. + +"Why, I guess you were at school with Elmore?" said Crow, +as if the idea had just struck him. + +"He may be right peart, for all that," said Elmore's +mother, and Elmore, himself, entering with two leading +Liberals of Jordanville, effected a diversion, under +cover of which Mrs Crow escaped, to superintend, with +Bella, the last touches to the supper in the kitchen. + +Politics in and about Jordanville were accepted as a +purely masculine interest. If you had asked Mrs Crow to +take a hand in them she would have thanked you with +sarcasm, and said she thought she had about enough to do +as it was. The school-house, on the night of such a +meeting as this, was recognized to be no place for ladies. +It was a man's affair, left to the men, and the appearance +there of the other sex would have been greeted with remark +and levity. Elgin, as we know, was more sophisticated in +every way, plenty of ladies attended political meetings +in the Drill Shed, where seats as likely as not would be +reserved for them; plenty of handkerchiefs waved there +for the encouragement of the hero of the evening. They +did not kiss him; British phlegm, so far, had stayed that +demonstration at the southern border. + +The ladies of Elgin, however, drew the line somewhere, +drew it at country meetings. Mrs Farquharson went with +her husband because, since his state of health had handed +him over to her more than ever, she saw it a part of her +wifely duty. His retirement had been decided upon for +the spring, but she would be on hand to retire him at +any earlier moment should the necessity arise. "We'll be +the only female creatures there, my dear," she had said +to Dora on the way out, and Hesketh had praised them both +for public spirit. He didn't know, he said, how anybody +would get elected in England without the ladies, especially +in the villages, where the people were obliged to listen +respectfully. + +"I wonder you can afford to throw away all the influence +you get in the rural districts with soup and blankets," +he said; "but this is an extravagant country in many +ways." Dora kept silence, not being sure of the social +prestige bound up with the distribution of soup and +blankets, but Mrs Farquharson set him sharply right. + +"I guess we'd rather do without our influence if it came +to that," she said. + +Hesketh listened with deference to her account of the +rural district which had as yet produced no Ladies +Bountiful, made mental notes of several points, and placed +her privately as a woman of more than ordinary intelligence. +I have always claimed for Hesketh an open mind; he was +filling it now, to its capacity, with care and satisfaction. + +The schoolroom was full and waiting when they arrived. +Jordanville had been well billed, and the posters held, +in addition to the conspicuous names of Farquharson and +Murchison, that of Mr Alfred Hesketh (of London, England). +There was a "send-off" to give to the retiring member, +there was a critical inspection to make of the new +candidate, and there was Mr Alfred Hesketh, of London, +England, and whatever he might signify. They were big, +quiet, expectant fellows, with less sophistication and +polemic than their American counterparts, less stolid +aggressiveness than their parallels in England, if they +have parallels there. They stood, indeed, for the +development between the two; they came of the new country +but not of the new light; they were democrats who had +never thrown off the monarch--what harm did he do there +overseas? They had the air of being prosperous, but not +prosperous enough for theories and doctrines. The Liberal +vote of South Fox had yet to be split by Socialism or +Labour. Life was a decent rough business that required +all their attention; there was time enough for sleep but +not much for speculation. They sat leaning forward with +their hats dropped between their knees, more with the +air of big schoolboys expecting an entertainment than +responsible electors come together to approve their +party's choice. They had the uncomplaining bucolic look, +but they wore it with a difference; the difference, by +this time, was enough to mark them of another nation. +Most of them had driven to the meeting; it was not an +adjournment from the public house. Nor did the air hold +any hint of beer. Where it had an alcoholic drift the +flavour was of whisky; but the stimulant of the occasion +had been tea or cider, and the room was full of patient +good will. + +The preliminaries were gone through with promptness; the +Chair had supped with the speakers, and Mr Crow had given +him a friendly hint that the boys wouldn't be expecting +much in the way of trimmings from HIM. Stamping and +clapping from the back benches greeted Mr Farquharson. +It diminished, grew more subdued, as it reached the front. +The young fellows were mostly at the back, and the power +of demonstration had somehow ebbed in the old ones. The +retiring member addressed his constituents for half an +hour. He was standing before them as their representative +for the last time, and it was natural to look back and +note the milestones behind, the changes for the better +with which he could fairly claim association. They were +matters of Federal business chiefly, beyond the immediate +horizon of Jordanville, but Farquharson made them a +personal interest for that hour at all events, and there +were one or two points of educational policy which he +could illustrate by their own schoolhouse. He approached +them, as he had always done. on the level of mutual +friendly interest, and in the hope of doing mutual friendly +business. "You know and I know," he said more than once; +they and he knew a number of things together. + +He was afraid, he said, that if the doctors hadn't chased +him out of politics, he never would have gone. Now, +however, that they gave him no choice, he was glad to +think that though times had been pretty good for the +farmers of South Fox all through the eleven years of his +appearance in the political arena, he was leaving it at +a moment when they promised to be better still. Already, +he was sure, they were familiar with the main heads of +that attractive prospect and, agreeable as the subject, +great as the policy was to him, he would leave it to be +further unfolded by the gentleman whom they all hoped to +enlist in the cause, as his successor for this constituency, +Mr Lorne Murchison, and by his friend from the old country, +Mr Alfred Hesketh. He, Farquharson, would not take the +words out of the mouths of these gentlemen, much as he +envied them the opportunity of uttering them. The French +Academy, he told them, that illustrious body of literary +and scientific men, had a custom, on the death of a member +and the selection of his successor, of appointing one of +their number to eulogize the newcomer. The person upon +whom the task would most appropriately fall, did +circumstances permit, would be the departing academician. +In this case, he was happy to say, circumstances did +permit--his political funeral was still far enough off +to enable him to express his profound confidence in and +his hearty admiration of the young and vigorous political +heir whom the Liberals of South Fox had selected to stand +in his shoes. Mr Farquharson proceeded to give his grounds +for this confidence and admiration, reminding the +Jordanville electors that they had met Mr Murchison as +a Liberal standard-bearer in the last general election, +when he, Farquharson, had to acknowledge very valuable +services on Mr Murchison's part. The retiring member then +thanked his audience for the kind attention and support +they had given him for so many years, made a final cheerful +joke about a Pagan divinity known as Anno Domini, and +took his seat. + +They applauded him, and it was plain that they regretted +him, the tried friend, the man there was never any doubt +about, whose convictions they had repeated, and whose +speeches in Parliament they had read with a kind of +proprietorship for so long. The Chair had to wait, before +introducing Mr Alfred Hesketh, until the backbenchers +had got through with a double rendering of "For He's a +Jolly Good Fellow," which bolder spirits sent lustily +forth from the anteroom where the little girls kept their +hats and comforters, interspersed with whoops. Hesketh, +it had been arranged, should speak next, and Lorne last. + +Mr Hesketh left his wooden chair with smiling ease, the +ease which is intended to level distinctions and put +everybody concerned on the best of terms. He said that +though he was no stranger to the work of political +campaigns, this was the first time that he had had the +privilege of addressing a colonial audience. "I consider," +said he handsomely, "that it is a privilege." He clasped +his hands behind his back and threw out his chest. + +"Opinions have differed in England as to the value of +the colonies, and the consequence of colonials. I say +here with pride that I have ever been among those who +insist that the value is very high and the consequence +very great. The fault is common to humanity, but we are, +I fear, in England, too prone to be led away by appearances, +and to forget that under a rough unpolished exterior may +beat virtues which are the brightest ornaments of +civilization, that in the virgin fields of the possessions +which the good swords of our ancestors wrung for us from +the Algonquins and the--and the other savages--may be +hidden the most glorious period of the British race." + +Mr Hesketh paused and coughed. His audience neglected +the opportunity for applause, but he had their undivided +attention. They were looking at him and listening to him, +these Canadian farmers, with curious interest in his +attitude, his appearance, his inflection, his whole +personality as it offered itself to them--it was a thing +new and strange. Far out in the Northwest, where the +emigrant trains had been unloading all the summer, +Hesketh's would have been a voice from home; but here, +in long-settled Ontario, men had forgotten the sound of +it, with many other things. They listened in silence, +weighing with folded arms, appraising with chin in hand; +they were slow, equitable men. + +"If we in England," Hesketh proceeded, "required a +lesson--as perhaps we did--in the importance of the +colonies, we had it; need I remind you? in the course of +the late protracted campaign in South Africa. Then did +the mother country indeed prove the loyalty and devotion +of her colonial sons. Then were envious nations compelled +to see the spectacle of Canadians and Australians rallying +about the common flag, eager to attest their affection +for it with their life-blood, and to demonstrate that +they, too, were worthy to add deeds to British traditions +and victories to the British cause." + +Still no mark of appreciation. Hesketh began to think +them an unhandsome lot. He stood bravely, however, by +the note he had sounded. He dilated on the pleasure +and satisfaction it had been to the people of England +to receive this mark of attachment from far-away +dominions and dependencies, on the cementing of the +bonds of brotherhood by the blood of the fallen, on the +impossibility that the mother country should ever forget +such voluntary sacrifices for her sake, when, unexpectedly +and irrelevantly, from the direction of the cloakroom, +came the expressive comment "Yah!" + +Though brief, nothing could have been more to the purpose, +and Hesketh sacrificed several effective points to hurry +to the quotation-- + + What should they know of England + Who only England know? + +which he could not, perhaps, have been expected to forbear. +His audience, however, were plainly not in the vein for +compliment. The same voice from the anteroom inquired +ironically, "That so?" and the speaker felt advised to +turn to more immediate considerations. + +He said he had had the great pleasure on his arrival in +this country to find a political party, the party in +power, their Canadian Liberal party, taking initiative +in a cause which he was sure they all had at heart--the +strengthening of the bonds between the colonies and the +mother country. He congratulated the Liberal party warmly +upon having shown themselves capable of this great function +--a point at which he was again interrupted; and he +recapitulated some of the familiar arguments about the +desirability of closer union from the point of view of +the army, of the Admiralty, and from one which would come +home, he knew, to all of them, the necessity of a dependable +food supply for the mother country in time of war. Here +he quoted a noble lord. He said that he believed no +definite proposals had been made, and he did not understand +how any definite proposals could be made; for his part, +if the new arrangement was to be in the nature of a +bargain, he would prefer to have nothing to do with it. + +"England," he said, loftily, "has no wish to buy the +loyalty of her colonies, nor, I hope, has any colony the +desire to offer her allegiance at the price of preference +in British markets. Even proposals for mutual commercial +benefit may be underpinned, I am glad to say, by loftier +principles than those of the market-place and the +counting-house." + +At this one of his hearers, unacquainted with the higher +commercial plane, exclaimed, "How be ye goin' to get 'em +kept to, then?" + +Hesketh took up the question. He said a friend in the +audience asked how they were to ensure that such +arrangements would be adhered to. His answer was in the +words of the Duke of Dartmoor, "By the mutual esteem, +the inherent integrity, and the willing compromise of +the British race." + +Here someone on the back benches, impatient, doubtless, +at his own incapacity to follow this high doctrine, +exclaimed intemperately, "Oh, shut up!" and the gathering, +remembering that this, after all, was not what it had +come for, began to hint that it had had enough in +intermittent stamps and uncompromising shouts for +"Murchison!" + +Hesketh kept on his legs, however, a few minutes longer. +He had a trenchant sentence to repeat to them which he +thought they would take as a direct message from the +distinguished nobleman who had uttered it. The Marquis +of Aldeburgh was the father of the pithy thing, which he +had presented, as it happened, to Hesketh himself. The +audience received it with respect--Hesketh's own respect +was so marked--but with misapprehension; there had been +too many allusions to the nobility for a community so +far removed from its soothing influence. "Had ye no +friends among the commoners?" suddenly spoke up a dry +old fellow, stroking a long white beard; and the roar +that greeted this showed the sense of the meeting. Hesketh +closed with assurances of the admiration and confidence +he felt toward the candidate proposed to their suffrages +by the Liberal party that were quite inaudible, and sought +his yellow pinewood schoolroom chair with rather a forced +smile. It had been used once before that day to isolate +conspicuous stupidity. + +They were at bottom a good-natured and a loyal crowd, +and they had not, after all, come there to make trouble, +or Mr Alfred Hesketh might have carried away a worse +opinion of them. As it was, young Murchison, whose address +occupied the rest of the evening, succeeded in making an +impression upon them distinct enough, happily for his +personal influence, to efface that of his friend. He did +it by the simple expedient of talking business, and as +high prices for produce and low ones for agricultural +implements would be more interesting there than here, I +will not report him. He and Mr Farquharson waited, after +the meeting, for a personal word with a good many of +those present, but it was suggested to Hesketh that the +ladies might be tired, and that he had better get them +home without unnecessary delay. Mrs Farquharson had less +comment to offer during the drive home than Hesketh +thought might be expected from a woman of her intelligence, +but Miss Milburn was very enthusiastic. She said he had +made a lovely speech, and she wished her father could +have heard it. + +A personal impression, during a time of political +excitement, travels unexpectedly far. A week later Mr +Hesketh was concernedly accosted in Main Street by a boy +on a bicycle. + +"Say, mister, how's the dook?" + +"What duke?" asked Hesketh, puzzled. + +"Oh, any dook," responded the boy, and bicycled cheerfully, +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Christmas came and went. Dr Drummond had long accepted +the innovation of a service on Christmas Day, as he agreed +to the anthem while the collection was being taken up, +to flowers about the pulpit, and to the habit of sitting +at prayer. He was a progressive by his business instinct, +in everything but theology, where perhaps his business +instinct also operated the other way, in favour of the +sure thing. The Christmas Day service soon became one of +those "special" occasions so dear to his heart, which +made a demand upon him out of the ordinary way. He rose +to these on the wing of the eagle, and his congregation +never lacked the lesson that could be most dramatically +drawn from them. His Christmas Day discourse gathered +everything into it that could emphasize the anniversary, +including a vigorous attack upon the saints' days and +ceremonies of the Church of England calculated to correct +the concession of the service, and pull up sharply any +who thought that Presbyterianism was giving way to the +spurious attractions of sentimentality or ritual. The +special Easter service, with every appropriate feature +of hymn and invocation, was apt to be marked by an +unsparing denunciation of the pageants and practices of +the Church of Rome. Balance was thus preserved, and +principle relentlessly indicated. + +Dr Drummond loved, as I have said, all that asked for +notable comment; the poet and the tragedian in him caught +at the opportunity, and revelled in it. Public events +carried him far, especially if they were disastrous, but +what he most profited by was the dealing of Providence +with members of his own congregation. Of all the occasions +that inspired him, the funeral sermon was his happiest +opportunity, nor was it, in his hands, by any means +unstinted eulogy. Candid was his summing-up, behind the +decent veil, the accepted apology of death; he was not +afraid to refer to the follies of youth or the weaknesses +of age in terms as unmistakable as they were kindly. + +"Grace," he said once, of an estimable plain spinster +who had passed away, "did more for her than ever nature +had done." He repeated it, too. "She was far more indebted, +I say, to grace. than to nature," and before his sharp +earnestness none were seen to smile. Nor could you forget +the note in his voice when the loss he deplored was that +of a youth of virtue and promise, or that of a personal +friend. His very text would be a blow upon the heart; +the eyes filled from the beginning. People would often +say that they were "sorry for the family," sitting through +Dr Drummond's celebration of their bereavement; and the +sympathy was probably well founded. But how fine he was +when he paid the last tribute to that upright man, his +elder and office-bearer, David Davidson! How his words +marched, sorrowing to the close! "Much I have said of +him, and more than he would have had me say." Will it +not stay with those who heard it till the very end, the +trenchant, mournful fall of that "more than he would have +had me say"? + +It was a thing that Hugh Finlay could not abide in +Dr Drummond. + +As the winter passed, the little Doctor was hard put to +it to keep his hands off the great political issue of +the year, bound up as it was in the tenets of his own +politics, which he held only less uncompromisingly than +those of the Shorter Catechism. It was, unfortunately +for him, a gradual and peaceful progress of opinion, +marked by no dramatic incidents; and analogy was hard to +find in either Testament for a change of fiscal policy +based on imperial advantage. Dr Drummond liked a pretty +definite parallel; he had small opinion of the practice +of drawing a pint out of a thimble, as he considered +Finlay must have done when he preached the gospel of +imperialism from Deuteronomy XXX, 14. "But the word is +very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that +thou mayest do it." Moreover, to preach politics in Knox +Church was a liberty in Finlay. + +The fact that Finlay had been beforehand with him operated +perhaps to reconcile the Doctor to his difficulty; and +the candidature of one of his own members in what was +practically the imperial interest no doubt increased his +embarrassment. Nevertheless, he would not lose sight of +the matter for more than two or three weeks together. +Many an odd blow he delivered for its furtherance by way +of illustrating higher things, and he kept it always, so +to speak, in the practical politics of the long prayer. + +It was Sunday evening, and Abby and her husband, as usual, +had come to tea. The family was complete with the exception +of Lorne, who had driven out to Clayfield with Horace +Williams, to talk over some urgent matters with persons +whom he would meet at supper at the Metropole Hotel at +Clayfield. It was a thing Mrs Murchison thought little +short of scandalous--supper to talk business on the +Sabbath day, and in a hotel, a place of which the smell +about the door was enough to knock you down, even on a +weekday. Mrs Murchison considered, and did not scruple +to say so, that politics should be left alone on Sundays. +Clayfield votes might be very important, but there were +such things as commandments, she supposed. "It'll bring +no blessing," she declared severely, eyeing Lorne's empty +place. + +The talk about the lamplit table was, nevertheless, all +of the election, blessed or unblessed. It was not in +human nature that it shouldn't be, as Mrs Murchison would +have very quickly told you if you had found her +inconsistent. There was reason in all things, as she +frequently said. + +"I hear," Alec had told them, "that Octavius Milburn is +going around bragging he's got the Elgin Chamber of +Commerce consolidated this time." + +"Against us?" exclaimed Stella; and her brother said, +"Of course!" + +"Those Milburns," remarked Mrs Murchison, "are enough to +make one's blood boil. I met Mrs Milburn in the market +yesterday; she'd been pricing Mrs Crow's ducks, and they +were just five cents too dear for her, and she +stopped--wonderful thing for her--and had SUCH an amount +to say about Lorne, and the honour it was, and the dear +only knows what! Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth--and +Octavius Milburn doing all he knew against him the whole +time! That's the Milburns! I cut her remarkably short," +Mrs Murchison added, with satisfaction, "and when she'd +made up her mind she'd have to give that extra five cents +for the ducks because there weren't any others to be had, +she went back and found I'd bought them." + +"Well done, Mother!" said Alec, and Oliver remarked that +if those were today's ducks they were too good for the +Milburn crowd, a lot. + +"I expect she wanted them, too," remarked Stella. "They've +got the only Mr Hesketh staying with them now. Miss +Filkin's in a great state of excitement." + +"I guess we can spare them Hesketh," said John Murchison. + +"He's a lobster," said Stella with fervour. + +"He seems to bring a frost where he goes," continued +Abby's husband, "in politics, anyhow. I hear Lorne wants +to make a present of him to the other side, for use +wherever they'll let him speak longest. Is it true he +began his speech out at Jordanville--'Gentlemen--and +those of you who are not gentlemen'?" + +"Could he have meant Mrs Farquharson and Miss Milburn?" +asked Mr Murchison quietly, when the derision subsided; +and they laughed again. + +"He told me," said Advena, "that he proposed to convert +Mr Milburn to the imperial policy." + +"He'll have his job cut out for him," said her father. + +"For my part," Abby told them, "I think the Milburns are +beneath contempt. You don't know exactly what it is, but +there's something ABOUT them--not that we ever come in +contact with them," she continued with dignity. "I believe +they used to be patients of Dr Henry's till he got up in +years, but they don't call in Harry." + +"Maybe that's what there is about them," said Mr Murchison, +innocently. + +"Father's made up his mind," announced Dr Harry, and they +waited, breathless. There could be only one point upon +which Dr Henry could be dubitating at that moment. + +"He's going to vote for Lorne." + +"He's a lovely old darling!" cried Stella. "Good for Dr +Henry Johnson! I knew he would." + +The rest were silent with independence and gratification. +Dr Henry's Conservatism had been supposed to be invincible. +Dr Harry they thought a fair prey to Murchison influence. +and he had capitulated early, but he had never promised +to answer for his father. + +"Yes, he's taken his time about it, and he's consulted +about all the known authorities," said his son, humorously. +"Went right back to the Manchester school to begin +with--sat out on the verandah reading Cobden and Bright +the whole summer; if anybody came for advice sent 'em in +to me. I did a trade, I tell you! He thought they talked +an awful lot of sense, those fellows--from the English +point of view. 'D'ye mean to tell me,' he'd say, 'that +a generation born and bred in political doctrine of that +sort is going to hold on to the colonies at a sacrifice? +They'd rather let 'em go at a sacrifice!' Well, then he +got to reading the other side of the question, and old +Ormiston lent him Parkin, and he lent old Ormiston Goldwin +Smith, and then he subscribed to the Times for six +months--the bill must have nearly bust him; and then the +squire went over without waiting for him and without any +assistance from the Times either; and finally--well, he +says that if it's good enough business for the people of +England it's good enough business for him. Only he keeps +on worrying about the people of England, and whether +they'll make enough by it to keep them contented, till +he can't next month all right, he wants it to be distinctly +understood that family connection has nothing to do with +it." + +"Of course it hasn't," Advena said. + +"But we're just as much obliged," remarked Stella. + +"A lot of our church people are going to stay at home +election day," declared Abby; "they won't vote for Lorne, +and they won't vote against imperialism, so they'll just +sulk. Silly, I call it." + +"Good enough business for us," said Alec. + +"Well, what I want to know is," said Mrs Murchison, +"whether you are coming to the church you were born and +brought up in, Abby, or not, tonight? There's the first +bell." + +"I'm not going to any church." said Abby. "I went this +morning. I'm going home to my baby." + +"Your father and mother," said Mrs Murchison, "can go +twice a day, and be none the worse for it. By the way, +Father, did you know old Mrs Parr was dead? Died this +morning at four o'clock. They telephoned for Dr Drummond, +and I think they had little to do, for he had been up +with her half the night already, Mrs Forsyth told me." + +"Did he go?" asked Mr Murchison. + +"He did not, for the very good reason that he knew nothing +about it. Mrs Forsyth answered the telephone, and told +them he hadn't been two hours in his bed, and she wouldn't +get him out again for an unconscious deathbed, and him +with bronchitis on him and two sermons to preach today." + +"I'll warrant Mrs Forsyth caught it in the morning," said +John Murchison. + +"That she did. The doctor was as cross as two sticks that +she hadn't had him out to answer the phone. 'I just spoke +up,' she said, 'and told him I didn't see how he was +going to do any good to the pour soul over a telephone +wire.' 'It isn't that,' he said, 'but I might have put +them on to Peter Fratch for the funeral. We've never had +an undertaker in the church before,' he said; 'he's just +come, and he ought to be supported. Now I expect it's +too late, they'll have gone to Liscombe.' He rang them +up right away, but they had." + +"Dr Drummond can't stand Liscombe," said Alec, as they +all laughed a little at the Doctor's foible, all except +Advena, who laughed a great deal. She laughed wildly, +then weakly. "I wouldn't--think it a pleasure--to be +buried by Liscombe myself!" she cried hysterically, and +then laughed again until the tears ran down her face, +and she lay back in her chair and moaned, still laughing. + +Mr and Mrs Murchison, Alec, Stella, and Advena made up +the family party; Oliver, for reasons of his own, would +attend the River Avenue Methodist Church that evening. +They slipped out presently into a crisp white winter +night. The snow was banked on both sides of the street. +Spreading garden fir trees huddled together weighted down +with it; ragged icicles hung from the eaves or lay in +long broken fingers on the trodden paths. The snow snapped +and tore under their feet; there was a glorious moon that +observed every tattered weed sticking up through the +whiteness, and etched it with its shadow. The town lay +under the moon almost dramatic, almost mysterious, so +withdrawn it was out of the cold, so turned in upon its +own soul of the fireplace. It might have stood, in the +snow and the silence, for a shell and a symbol of the +humanity within, for angels or other strangers to mark +with curiosity. Mr and Mrs Murchison were neither angels +nor strangers; they looked at it and saw that the Peterson +place was still standing empty, and that old Mr Fisher +hadn't finished his new porch before zero weather came +to stop him. + +The young people were well ahead; Mrs Murchison, on her +husband's arm, stepped along with the spring of an impetus +undisclosed. + +"Is it to be the Doctor tonight?" asked John Murchison. +"He was so hoarse this morning I wouldn't be surprised +to see Finlay in the pulpit. They're getting only morning +services in East Elgin just now, while they're changing +the lighting arrangements." + +"Are they, indeed? Well, I hope they'll change them and +be done with it, for I can't say I'm anxious for too much +of their Mr Finlay in Knox Church." + +"Oh, you like the man well enough for a change, Mother!" +John assured her. + +"I've nothing to say against his preaching. It's the +fellow himself. And I hope we won't get him tonight for, +the way I feel now, if I see him gawking up the pulpit +steps it'll be as much as I can do to keep in my seat, +and so I just tell you, John." + +"You're a little out of patience with him, I see," said +Mr Murchison. + +"And it would be a good thing if more than me were out +of patience with him. There's such a thing as too much +patience, I've noticed." + +"I dare say," replied her husband, cheerfully. + +"If Advena were any daughter of mine she'd have less +patience with him." + +"She's not much like you," assented the father. + +"I must say I like a girl to have a little spirit if a +man has none. And before I'd have him coming to the house +week after week the way he has, I'd see him far enough." + +"He might as well come there as anywhere," Mr Murchison +replied, ambiguously. "I suppose he has now and then time +on his hands?" + +"Well, he won't have it on his hands much longer." + +"He won't, eh?" + +"No, he won't," Mrs Murchison almost shook the arm she +was attached to. "John, I think you might show a little +interest! The man's going to be married." + +"You don't say that?" John Murchison's tone expressed +not only astonishment but concern. Mrs Murchison was +almost mollified. + +"But I do say it. His future wife is coming here to Elgin +next month, she and her aunt, or her grandmother, or +somebody, and they're to stay at Dr Drummond's and be +married as soon as possible." + +"Nonsense," said Mr Murchison, which was his way of +expressing simple astonishment. + +"There's no nonsense about it. Advena told me herself +this afternoon." + +"Did she seem put out about it?" + +"She's not a girl to show it," Mrs Murchison hedged, "if +she was. I just looked at her. 'Well,' I said, 'that's +a piece of news. When did you hear it?' I said. 'Oh, I've +known it all the winter!' says my lady. What I wanted to +say was that for an engaged man he had been pretty liberal +with his visits, but she had such a queer look in her +eyes I couldn't express myself, somehow." + +"It was just as well left unsaid," her husband told her, +thoughtfully. + +"I'm not so sure," Mrs Murchison retorted. "You're a +great man, John, for letting everything alone. When he's +been coming here regularly for more than a year, putting +ideas into the girl's head--" + +"He seems to have told her how things were." + +"That's all very well--if he had kept himself to himself +at the same time." + +"Well, Mother, you know you never thought much of the +prospect." + +"No, I didn't," Mrs Murchison said. "It wouldn't be me +that would be married to him, and I've always said so. +But I'd got more or less used to it," she confessed. "The +man's well enough in some ways. Dear knows there would +be a pair of them--one's as much of a muddler as the +other! And anybody can see with half an eye that Advena +likes him. It hasn't turned out as I expected, that's a +fact, John, and I'm just very much annoyed." + +"I'm not best pleased about it myself," said John Murchison, +expressing, as usual, a very small proportion of the +regret that he felt, "but I suppose they know their own +business." + +Thus, in their different ways, did these elder ones also +acknowledge their helplessness before the advancing event. +They could talk of it in private and express their +dissatisfaction with it, and that was all they could do. +It would not be a matter much further turned over between +them at best. They would be shy of any affair of sentiment +in terms of speech, and from one that affected a member +of the family, self-respect would help to pull them the +other way. Mrs Murchison might remember it in the list +of things which roused her vain indignation; John Murchison +would put it away in the limbo of irremediables that were +better forgotten. For the present they had reached the +church door. + +Mrs Murchison saw with relief that Dr Drummond occupied +his own pulpit, but if her glance had gone the length of +three pews behind her she would have discovered that Hugh +Finlay made one of the congregation. Fortunately, perhaps, +for her enjoyment of the service, she did not look round. +Dr Drummond was more observing, but his was a position +of advantage. In the accustomed sea of faces two, heavy +shadowed and obstinately facing fate, swam together before +Dr Drummond, and after he had lifted his hands and closed +his eyes for the long prayer he saw them still. So that +these words occurred, near the end, in the long prayer-- + +"O Thou Searcher of hearts, who hast known man from the +beginning, to whom his highest desires and his loftiest +intentions are but as the desires and intentions of a +little child, look with Thine own compassion, we beseech +Thee, upon souls before Thee in any peculiar difficulty. +Our mortal life is full of sin, it is also full of the +misconception of virtue. Do Thou clear the understanding, +O Lord, of such as would interpret Thy will to their own +undoing; do Thou teach them that as happiness may reside +in chastening, so chastening may reside in happiness. +And though such stand fast to their hurt, do Thou grant +to them in Thine own way, which may not be our way, a +safe issue out of the dangers that beset them." + +Dr Drummond had his own method of reconciling foreordination +and free will. To Advena his supplication came with that +mysterious double emphasis of chance words that fit. Her +thought played upon them all through the sermon, rejecting +and rejecting again their application and their argument +and the spring of hope in them. She, too, knew that Finlay +was in church and, half timidly, she looked back for him, +as the congregation filed out again into the winter +streets. But he, furious, and more resolved than ever, +had gone home by another way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +Octavius Milburn was not far beyond the facts when he +said that the Elgin Chamber of Commerce was practically +solid this time against the Liberal platform, though to +what extent this state of things was due to his personal +influence might be a matter of opinion. Mr Milburn was +President of the Chamber of Commerce, and his name stood +for one of the most thriving of Elgin's industries, but +he was not a person of influence except as it might be +represented in a draft on the Bank of British North +America. He had never converted anybody to anything, and +never would, possibly because the governing principle of +his life was the terror of being converted to anything +himself. If an important nonentity is an imaginable thing, +perhaps it would stand for Mr Milburn; and he found it +a more valuable combination than it may appear, since +his importance gave him position and opportunity, and +his nonentity saved him from their risks. Certainly he +had not imposed his view upon his fellow-members--they +would have blown it off like a feather--yet they found +themselves much of his mind. Most of them were manufacturing +men of the Conservative party, whose factories had been +nursed by high duties upon the goods of outsiders, and +few even of the Liberals among them felt inclined to +abandon this immediate safeguard for a benefit more or +less remote, and more or less disputable. John Murchison +thought otherwise, and put it in few words as usual. He +said he was more concerned to see big prices in British +markets for Canadian crops than he was to put big prices +on ironware he couldn't sell. He was more afraid of hard +times among the farmers of Canada than he was of competition +by the manufacturers of England. That is what he said +when he was asked if it didn't go against the grain a +little to have to support a son who advocated low duties +on British ranges; and when he was not asked he said +nothing, disliking the discount that was naturally put +upon his opinion. Parsons, of the Blanket Mills, bolted +at the first hint of the new policy and justified it by +reminding people that he always said he would if it ever +looked like business. + +"We give their woollen goods a pull of a third as it is," +he said, "which is just a third more than I approve of. +I don't propose to vote to make it any bigger--can't +afford it." + +He had some followers, but there were also some, like +Young, of the Plough Works, and Windle, who made bicycles, +who announced that there was no need to change their +politics to defeat a measure that had no existence, and +never would have. What sickened them, they declared, was +to see young Murchison allowed to give it so much prominence +as Liberal doctrine. The party had been strong enough to +hold South Fox for the best part of the last twenty years +on the old principles, and this British boot-licking +feature wasn't going to do it any good. It was fool +politics in the opinion of Mr Young and Mr Windle. + +Then remained the retail trades, the professions, and +the farmers. Both sides could leave out of their counsels +the interests of the leisured class, since the leisured +class in Elgin consisted almost entirely of persons who +were too old to work, and therefore not influential. The +landed proprietors were the farmers, when they weren't, +alas! the banks. As to the retail men, the prosperity of +the stores of Main Street and Market Street was bound up +about equally with that of Fox County and the Elgin +factories. The lawyers and doctors, the odd surveyors +and engineers, were inclined, by their greater detachment, +to theories and prejudices, delightful luxuries where a +certain rigidity of opinion is dictated by considerations +of bread and butter. They made a factor debatable, but +small. The farmers had everything to win, nothing to +lose. The prospect offered them more for what they had +to sell, and less for what they had to buy, and most of +them were Liberals already; but the rest had to be +convinced, and a political change of heart in a bosom of +South Fox was as difficult as any other. Industrial, +commercial, professional, agricultural, Lorne Murchison +scanned them all hopefully, but Walter Winter felt them +his garnered sheaves. + +It will be imagined how Mr Winter, as a practical +politician, rejoiced in the aspect of things. The +fundamental change, with its incalculable chances to play +upon, the opening of the gate to admit plain detriment +in the first instance for the sake of benefit, easily +beclouded, in the second, the effective arm, in the hands +of a satirist, of sentiment in politics--and if there +was a weapon Mr Winter owned a weakness for it was +satire--the whole situation, as he often confessed, suited +him down to the ground. He professed himself, though no +optimist under any circumstances very well pleased. Only +in one other place, he declared, would he have preferred +to conduct a campaign at the present moment on the issue +involved, though he would have to change his politics to +do it there, and that place was England. He cast an +envious eye across the ocean at the trenchant argument +of the dear loaf; he had no such straight road to the +public stomach and grand arbitrator of the fate of empires. +If the Liberals in England failed to turn out the Government +over this business, they would lose in his eyes all the +respect he ever had for them, which wasn't much, he +acknowledged. When his opponents twitted him with +discrepancy here, since a bargain so bad for one side +could hardly fail to favour the other, he poured all his +contempt on the scheme as concocted by damned enthusiasts +for the ruin of businessmen of both countries. Such +persons, Mr Winter said, if they could have their way, +would be happy and satisfied; but in his opinion neither +England nor the colonies could afford to please them as +much as that. He professed loud contempt for the opinions +of the Conservative party organs at Toronto, and stood +boldly for his own views. That was what would happen, he +declared, in every manufacturing division in the country, +if the issue came to be fought in a general election. He +was against the scheme, root and branch. + +Mr Winter was skilled, practised, and indefatigable. We +need not follow him in all his ways and works; a good +many of his arguments, I fear, must also escape us. The +Elgin Mercury, if consulted, would produce them in daily +disclosure; so would the Clayfield Standard. One of these +offered a good deal of sympathy to Mayor Winter, the +veteran of so many good fights, in being asked to contest +South Fox with an opponent who had not so much as a +village reeveship to his public credit. If the Conservative +candidate felt the damage to his dignity, however, he +concealed it. + +In Elgin and Clayfield, where factory chimneys had also +begun to point the way to enterprise, Winter had a clear +field. Official reports gave him figures to prove the +great and increasing prosperity of the country, astonishing +figures of capital coming in, of emigrants landing, of +new lands broken, new mineral regions exploited, new +railways projected, of stocks and shares normal safe, +assured. He could ask the manufacturers of Elgin to look +no further than themselves, which they were quite willing +to do, for illustration of the plenty and the promise +which reigned in the land. from one end to the other. He +could tell them that in their own Province more than one +hundred new industries had been established in the last +year. He could ask them, and he did ask them, whether +this was a state of things to disturb with an inrush from +British looms and rolling mills, and they told him with +applause that it was not. + +Country audiences were not open to arguments like these; +they were slow in the country, as the Mercury complained, +to understand that agricultural prospects were bound up +with the prosperity of the towns and cities; they had +been especially slow in the country in England, as the +Express ironically pointed out, to understand it. So +Winter and his supporters asked the farmers of South Fox +if they were prepared to believe all they heard of the +good will of England to the colonies, with the flattering +assumption that they were by no means prepared to believe +it. Was it a likely thing, Mr Winter inquired, that the +people of Great Britain were going to pay more for their +flour and their bacon, their butter and their cheese, +than they had any need to do, simply out of a desire to +benefit countries which most of them had never seen, and +never would see? No, said Mr Winter, they might take it +from him, that was not the idea. But Mr Winter thought +there was an idea, and that they and he together would +not have much trouble in deciphering it. He did not claim +to be longer-sighted in politics than any other man, but +he thought the present British idea was pretty plain. It +was, in two words, to secure the Canadian market for +British goods, and a handsome contribution from the +Canadian taxpayer toward the expense of the British army +and navy, in return for the offer of favours to food +supplies from Canada. But this, as they all knew, was +not the first time favours had been offered by the British +Government to food supplies from Canada. Just sixty years +ago the British Government had felt one of these spasms +of benevolence to Canada, and there were men sitting +before him who could remember the good will and the +gratitude, the hope and the confidence, that greeted +Stanley's bill of that year, which admitted Canadian +wheat and flour at a nominal duty. Some could remember, +and those who could not remember could read; how the +farmers and the millers of Ontario took heart and laid +out capital, and how money was easy and enterprise was +everywhere, and how agricultural towns such as Elgin was +at that time sent up streets of shops to accommodate the +trade that was to pour in under the new and generous +"preference" granted to the Dominion by the mother country. +And how long, Mr Winter demanded, swinging round in that +pivotal manner which seems assisted by thumbs in the +armholes of the waistcoat, how long did the golden illusion +last? Precisely three years. In precisely three years +the British nation compelled the British Government to +adopt the Free Trade Act of '46. The wheat of the world +flowed into every port in England, and the hopes of +Canada, especially the hopes of Ontario, based then, as +now, on "preferential" treatment, were blasted to the +root. Enterprise was laid flat, mortgages were foreclosed, +shops were left empty, the milling and forwarding interests +were temporarily ruined, and the Governor-General actually +wrote to the Secretary of State in England that things +were so bad that not a shilling could be raised on the +credit of the Province. + +Now Mr Winter did not blame the people of England for +insisting on free food. It was the policy that suited +their interests, and they had just as good a right to +look after their interests, he conceded handsomely, as +anybody else. But he did blame the British Government +for holding out hopes, for making definite pledges, to +a young and struggling nation, which they must have known +they would not be able to redeem. He blamed their action +then, and he would blame it now, if the opportunity were +given to them to repeat it, for the opportunity would +pass and the pledge would pass into the happy hunting +ground of unrealizable politics, but not--and Mr Winter +asked his listeners to mark this very carefully--not +until Canada was committed to such relations of trade +and taxes with the Imperial Government as would require +the most heroic efforts--it might run to a war--to +extricate herself from. In plain words, Mr Winter assured +his country audiences, Great Britain had sold them before, +and she would sell them again. He stood there before them +as loyal to British connection as any man. He addressed +a public as loyal to British connection as any public. +BUT--once bitten twice shy. + +Horace Williams might riddle such arguments from end to +end in the next day's Express, but if there is a thing +that we enjoy in the country, it is having the dodges of +Government shown up with ignominy, and Mr Winter found +his account in this historic parallel. + +Nothing could have been more serious in public than his +line of defence against the danger that menaced, but in +friendly ears Mr Winter derided it as a practical +possibility, like the Liberals, Young and Windle. + +"It seems to me," he said, talking to Octavius Milburn, +"that the important thing at present is the party attitude +to the disposition of Crown lands and to Government-made +railways. As for this racket of Wallingham's, it has +about as much in it as an empty bun-bag. He's running +round taking a lot of satisfaction blowing it out just +now, and the swells over there are clapping like anything, +but the first knock will show that it's just a bun-bag, +with a hole in it." + +"Folks in the old country are solid on the buns, though," +said Milburn as they parted, and Alfred Hesketh, who was +walking with his host, said--"It's bound in the end to +get down to that, isn't it?" + +Presently Hesketh came back to it. + +"Quaint idea, that--describing Wallingham's policy as a +bun-bag," he said, and laughed. "Winter is an amusing +fellow." + +"Wallingham's policy won't even be a bun-bag much longer," +said Milburn. "It won't be anything at all. Imperial +union is very nice to talk about, but when you come down +to hard fact it's Australia for the Australians, Canada +for the Canadians, Africa for the Africans, every time." + +"Each for himself, and devil take the hindmost," said +Hesketh; "and when the hindmost is England, as our friend +Murchison declares it will be--" + +"So much the worse for England," said Milburn, amiably. +"But we should all be sorry to see it and, for my part, +I don't believe such a thing is at all likely. And you +may be certain of one thing," he continued, impressively: +"No flag but the Union Jack will ever wave over Canada." + +"Oh, I'm sure of that!" Hesketh responded. "Since I have +heard more of your side of the question I am quite +convinced that loyalty to England and complete commercial +independence--I might say even commercial antagonism--may +exist together in the colonies. It seems paradoxical, +but it is true." + +Mr Hesketh had naturally been hearing a good deal more +of Mr Milburn's side of the question, staying as he was +under Mr Milburn's hospitable roof. It had taken the +least persuasion in the world to induce him to make the +Milburns a visit. He found them delightful people. He +described them in his letters home as the most typically +Canadian family he had met, quite simple and unconventional, +but thoroughly warm-hearted, and touchingly devoted to +far-away England. Politically he could not see eye to +eye with Mr Milburn, but he could quite perceive Mr +Milburn's grounds for the view he held. One thing, he +explained to his correspondents, you learned at once by +visiting the colonies, and that was to make allowance +for local conditions, both social and economic. + +He and Mr Milburn had long serious discussions, staying +behind in the dining-room to have them after tea, when +the ladies took their fancy work into the drawing-room, +and Dora's light touch was heard upon the piano. It may +be supposed that Hesketh brought every argument forward +in favour of the great departure that had been conceived +in England; he certainly succeeded in interesting his +host very deeply in the English point of view. He had, +however, to encounter one that was made in Canada--it +resided in Mr Milburn as a stone might reside in a bag +of wool. Mr Milburn wouldn't say that this preference +trade idea, if practicable, might not work out for the +benefit of the Empire as a whole. That was a thing he +didn't pretend to know. But it wouldn't work out for his +benefit that was a thing he did know. When a man was +confronted with a big political change the question he +naturally asked himself was, "Is it going to be worth my +while?" and he acted on the answer to that question. He +was able to explain to Hesketh, by a variety of facts +and figures, of fascinating interest to the inquiring +mind, just how and where such a concern as the Milburn +Boiler Company would be "hit" by the new policy, after +which he asked his guest fairly, "Now, if you were in my +shoes, would you see your way to voting for any such +thing?" + +"If I were in your shoes," said Hesketh, thoughtfully, +"I can't say I would." + +On grounds of sentiment, Octavius assured him, they were +absolutely at one, but in practical matters a man had to +proceed on business principles. He went about at this +time expressing great esteem for Hesketh's capacity to +assimilate facts. His opportunity to assimilate them was +not curtailed by any further demand for his services in +the South Fox campaign. He was as willing as ever, he +told Lorne Murchison, to enlist under the flag, and not +for the first time; but Murchison and Farquharson, and +that lot, while grateful for the offer, seemed never +quite able to avail themselves of it: the fact was all +the dates were pretty well taken up. No doubt, Hesketh +acknowledged, the work could be done best by men familiar +with the local conditions, but he could not avoid the +conviction that this attitude toward proffered help was +very like dangerous trifling. Possibly these circumstances +gave him an added impartiality for Mr Milburn's facts. +As the winter advanced his enthusiasm for the country +increased with his intelligent appreciation of the +possibilities of the Elgin boiler. The Elgin boiler was +his object-lesson in the development of the colonies; he +paid, several visits to the works to study it, and several +times he thanked Mr Milburn for the opportunity of +familiarizing himself with such an important and promising +branch of Canadian industry. + +"It looks," said Octavius one evening in early February, +"as if the Grits were getting a little anxious about +South Fox--high time, too. I see Cruickshank is down to +speak at Clayfield on the seventh, and Tellier is to be +here for the big meeting at the opera house on the +eleventh." + +"Tellier is Minister of Public Works, isn't he?" asked +Hesketh. + +"Yes--and Cruickshank is an ex-Minister," replied Mr +Milburn. "Looks pretty shaky when they've got to take +men like that away from their work in the middle of the +session." + +"I shall be glad," remarked his daughter Dora, "when this +horrid election is over. It spoils everything." + +She spoke a little fretfully. The election and the matters +it involved did interfere a good deal with her interest +in life. As an occupation it absorbed Lorne Murchison +even more completely than she occasionally desired; and +as a topic it took up a larger share of the attention of +Mr Alfred Hesketh than she thought either reasonable or +pleasing. Between politics and boilers Miss Milburn almost +felt at times that the world held a second place for her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The progress of Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Christie Cameron +up the river to Montreal, and so west to Elgin, was one +series of surprises, most of them pleasant and instructive +to such a pair of intelligent Scotchwomen, if we leave +out the number of Roman Catholic churches that lift their +special symbol along the banks of the St Lawrence and +the fact that Hugh Finlay was not in Elgin to meet them +upon their arrival. Dr Drummond, of course, was there at +the station to explain. Finlay had been obliged to leave +for Winnipeg only the day before, to attend a mission +conference in place of a delegate who had been suddenly +laid aside by serious illness. Finlay, he said, had been +very loath to go, but there were many reasons why it was +imperative that he should; Dr Drummond explained them +all. "I insisted on it," he assured them, frankly. "I +told him I would take the responsibility." + +He seemed very capable of taking it, both the ladies must +have thought, with his quick orders about the luggage +and his waiting cab. Mrs Kilbannon said so. "I'm sure," +she told him, "we are better off with you than with Hugh. +He was always a daft dependence at a railway station." + +They both--Mrs Kilbannon and Dr Drummond--looked out of +the corners of their eyes, so to speak, at Christie, the +only one who might be expected to show any sensitiveness; +but Miss Cameron accepted the explanation with readiness. +Indeed, she said, she would have been real vexed if Mr +Finlay had stayed behind on her account--she showed +herself well aware of the importance of a nomination, +and the desirability of responding to it. + +"It will just give me an opportunity of seeing the town," +she said, looking at it through the cab windows as they +drove; and Dr Drummond had to admit that she seemed a +sensible creature. Other things being equal, Finlay might +be doing very well for himself. As they talked of +Scotland--it transpired that Dr Drummond knew all the +braes about Bross as a boy--he found himself more than +ever annoyed with Finlay about the inequality of other +things; and when they passed Knox Church and Miss Cameron +told him she hadn't realized it was so imposing an edifice, +he felt downright sorry for the woman. + +Dr Drummond had persuaded Finlay to go to Winnipeg with +a vague hope that something. in the fortnight's grace +thus provided, might be induced to happen. The form it +oftenest took to his imagination was Miss Christie's +announcement, when she set foot upon the station platform, +that she had become engaged, on the way over, to somebody +else, some fellow-traveller. Such things, Dr Drummond +knew, did come about, usually bringing distress and +discomfiture in their train. Why, then, should they not +happen when all the consequences would be rejoiceful? + +It was plain enough, however, that nothing of the kind +had come to pass. Miss Christie had arrived in Elgin, +bringing her affections intact; they might have been in +any one of her portmanteaux. She had come with definite +calm intention, precisely in the guise in which she should +have been expected. At the very hour, in the very clothes, +she was there. Robust and pleasant, with a practical eye +on her promising future, she had arrived, the fulfilment +of despair. Dr Drummond looked at her with acquiescence, +half-cowed, half-comic, wondering at his own folly in +dreaming of anything else. Miss Cameron brought the +situation, as it were, with her; it had to be faced, and +Dr Drummond faced it like a philosopher. She was the +material necessity, the fact in the case, the substantiation +of her own legend; and Dr Drummond promptly gave her all +the consideration she demanded in this aspect. Already +he heard himself pronouncing a blessing over the pair--and +they would make the best of it. With characteristic +dispatch he decided that the marriage should take place +the first Monday after Finlay's return. That would give +them time to take a day or two in Toronto, perhaps, and +get back for Finlay's Wednesday prayer meeting. "Or I +could take it off his hands," said Dr Drummond to himself. +"That would free them till the end of the week." Solicitude +increased in him that the best should be made of it; +after all, for a long time they had been making the worst. +Mrs Forsyth, whom it had been necessary to inform when +Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Cameron became actually imminent, +saw plainly that the future Mrs Finlay had made a very +good impression on the Doctor; and as nature, in Mrs +Forsyth's case, was more powerful than grace, she became +critical accordingly. Still, she was an honest soul: she +found more fault with what she called Miss Cameron's +"shirt-waists" than with Miss Cameron herself, whom she +didn't doubt to be a good woman though she would never +see thirty-five again. Time and observation would no +doubt mend or remodel the shirt-waists; and meanwhile +both they and Miss Cameron would do very well for East +Elgin, Mrs Forsyth avowed. Mrs Kilbannon, definitely +given over to caps and curls as they still wear them in +Bross, Mrs Forsyth at once formed a great opinion of. +She might be something, Mrs Forsyth thought, out of a +novel by Mr Crockett, and made you long to go to Scotland, +where presumably everyone was like her. On the whole the +ladies from Bross profited rather than lost by the new +frame they stepped into in the house of Dr Drummond, of +Elgin, Ontario. Their special virtues, of dignity and +solidity and frugality, stood out saliently against the +ease and unconstraint about them; in the profusion of +the table it was little less than edifying to hear Mrs +Kilbannon, invited to preserves, say, "Thank you, I have +butter." It was the pleasantest spectacle, happily common +enough, of the world's greatest inheritance. We see it +in immigrants of all degrees, and we may perceive it in +Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. They come in couples and +in companies from those little imperial islands, bringing +the crusted qualities of the old blood bottled there so +long, and sink with grateful absorption into the wide +bountiful stretches of the further countries. They have +much to take, but they give themselves; and so it comes +about that the Empire is summed up in the race, and the +flag flies for its ideals. + +Mrs Forsyth had been told of the approaching event; but +neither Dr Drummond, who was not fond of making +communications he did not approve of, nor the Murchisons, +who were shy of the matter as a queer business which +Advena seemed too much mixed up with, had mentioned it +to anyone else. Finlay himself had no intimates, and +moved into his new house in River Street under little +comment. His doings excited small surprise, because the +town knew too little about him to expect him to do one +thing more than another. He was very significant among +his people, very important in their lives but not, somehow, +at any expense to his private self. He knew them, but +they did not know him; and it is high praise of him that +this was no grievance among them. They would tell you +without resentment that the minister was a "very reserved" +man; there might be even a touch of proper pride in it. +The worshippers of Knox Church mission were rather a +reserved lot themselves. It was different with the +Methodists; plenty of expansion there. + +Elgin, therefore, knew nothing, beyond the fact that Dr +Drummond had two ladies from the old country staying with +him, about whom particular curiosity would hardly be +expected outside of Knox Church. In view of Finlay's +absence, Dr Drummond, consulting with Mrs Kilbannon, +decided that for the present Elgin need not be further +informed. There was no need, they agreed, to give people +occasion to talk; and it would just be a nuisance to have +to make so many explanations. Both Mrs Kilbannon and her +niece belonged to the race that takes great satisfaction +in keeping its own counsel. Their situation gained for +them the further interest that nothing need be said about +it; and the added importance of caution was plainly to +be discerned in their bearing, even toward one another. +It was a portentous business, this of marrying a minister, +under the most ordinary circumstances, not to be lightly +dealt with, and even more of an undertaking in a far new +country where the very wind blew differently, and the +extraordinary freedom of conversation made it more than +ever necessary to take heed to what you were saying. So +far as Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon were aware, the +matter had not been "spoken of" elsewhere at all. Dr +Drummond, remembering Advena Murchison's acquaintance +with it, had felt the weight of a complication, and had +discreetly held his tongue. Mrs Kilbannon approved her +nephew in this connection. "Hugh," she said, "was never +one to let on more than necessary." It was a fine secret +between Hugh, in Winnipeg, whence he had written all that +was lawful or desirable, and themselves at Dr Drummond's. +Miss Cameron said it would give her more freedom to look +about her. + +In the midst of all this security, and on the very first +day after their arrival, it was disconcerting to be told +that a lady, whose name they had never heard before, had +called to see Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon. They had +not even appeared at church, as they told one another +with dubious glances. They had no reason whatever to +expect visitors. Dr Drummond was in the cemetery burying +a member; Mrs Forsyth was also abroad. "Now who in the +world," asked Mrs Kilbannon of Miss Cameron, "is Miss +Murchison?" + +"They come to our church," said Sarah, in the door. +"They've got the foundry. It's the oldest one. She +teaches." + +Sarah in the door was even more disconcerting than an +unexpected visitor. Sarah invariably took them off their +guard, in the door or anywhere. She freely invited their +criticism, but they would not have known how to mend her. +They looked at her now helplessly, and Mrs Kilbannon +said, "Very well. We will be down directly." + +"It may be just some friendly body," she said, as they +descended the stairs together, "or it may be common +curiosity. In that case we'll disappoint it." + +Whatever they expected, therefore, it was not Advena. It +was not a tall young woman with expressive eyes, a manner +which was at once abrupt and easy, and rather a lounging +way of occupying the corner of a sofa. "When she sat +down," as Mrs Kilbannon said afterward, "she seemed to +untie and fling herself as you might a parcel." Neither +Mrs Kilbannon nor Christie Cameron could possibly be +untied or flung, so perhaps they gave this capacity in +Advena more importance than it had. But it was only a +part of what was to them a new human demonstration, +something to inspect very carefully and accept very +cautiously--the product, like themselves, yet so +suspiciously different, of these free airs and these +astonishingly large ideas. In some ways, as she sat there +in her graceful dress and careless attitude, asking them +direct smiling questions about their voyage, she imposed +herself as of the class whom both these ladies of Bross +would acknowledge unquestioningly to be "above" them; in +others she seemed to be of no class at all; so far she +came short of small standards of speech and behaviour. +The ladies from Bross, more and more confused, grew more +and more reticent, when suddenly, out of a simple remark +of Miss Cameron's about missing in the train the hot-water +cans they gave you "to your feet" in Scotland, reticence +descended upon Miss Murchison also. She sat in an odd +silence, looking at Miss Cameron, absorbed apparently in +the need of looking at her, finding nothing to say, her +flow of pleasant inquiry dried up, and all her soul at +work, instead, to perceive the woman. Mrs Kilbannon was +beginning to think better of her--it was so much more +natural to be a little backward with strangers--when the +moment passed. Their visitor drew herself out of it with +almost a perceptible effort, and seemed to glance +consideringly at them in their aloofness, their +incommunicativeness, their plain odds with her. I don't +know what she expected; but we may assume that she was +there simply to offer herself up, and the impulse of +sacrifice seldom considers whether or not it may be +understood. It was to her a normal, natural thing that +a friend of Hugh Finlay's should bring an early welcome +to his bride; and to do the normal, natural thing at keen +personal cost was to sound that depth, or rise to that +height of the spirit where pain sustains. We know of +Advena that she was prone to this form of exaltation. +Those who feel themselves capable may pronounce whether +she would have been better at home crying in her bedroom. + +She decided badly--how could she decide well?--on what +she would say to explain herself. + +"I am so sorry," she told them, "that Mr Finlay is obliged +to be away." + +It was quite wrong; it assumed too much, her knowledge +and their confidence, and the propriety of discussing Mr +Finlay's absence. There was even an unconscious hint of +another kind of assumption in it--a suggestion of apology +for Mr Finlay. Advena was aware of it even as it left +her lips, and the perception covered her with a damning +blush. She had a sudden terrified misgiving that her role +was too high for her, that she had already cracked her +mask. But she looked quietly at Miss Cameron and smiled +across the tide that surged in her as she added, "He was +very distressed at having to go." + +They looked at her in an instant's blank astonishment. +Miss Cameron opened her lips and closed them again, +glancing at Mrs Kilbannon. They fell back together, but +not in disorder. This was something much more formidable +than common curiosity. Just what it was they would consider +later; meanwhile Mrs Kilbannon responded with what she +would have called cool civility. + +"Perhaps you have heard that Mr Finlay is my nephew?" +she said. + +"Indeed I have. Mr Finlay has told me a great deal about +you, Mrs Kilbannon, and about his life at Bross," Advena +replied. "And he has told me about you, too," she went +on, turning to Christie Cameron. + +"Indeed?" said she. + +"Oh, a long time ago. He has been looking forward to your +arrival for some months, hasn't he?" + +"We took our passages in December," said Miss Cameron. + +"And you are to be married almost immediately, are you +not?" Miss Murchison continued, pleasantly. + +Mrs Kilbannon had an inspiration. "Could he by any means +have had the banns cried?" she demanded of Christie, who +looked piercingly at their visitor for the answer. + +"Oh, no," Advena laughed softly. "Presbyterians haven't +that custom over here--does it still exist anywhere? Mr +Finlay told me himself." + +"Has he informed all his acquaintances?" asked Mrs +Kilbannon. "We thought maybe his elders would be expecting +to hear, or his Board of Management. Or he might have +just dropped a word to his Sessions Clerk. But--" + +Advena shook her head. "I think it unlikely," she said. + +"Then why would he be telling you?" inquired the elder +lady, bluntly. + +"He told me, I suppose, because I have the honour to be +a friend of his," Advena said, smiling. "But he is not +a man, is he, who makes many friends? It is possible, I +dare say, that he has mentioned it to no one else." + +Poor Advena! She had indeed uttered her ideal to +unsympathetic ears--brought her pig, as her father would +have said, to the wrong market. She sat before the ladies +from Bross, Hugh Finlay's only confidante. She sat handsome +and upheld and not altogether penetrable, a kind of gipsy +to their understanding, though indeed the Romany strain +in her was beyond any divining of theirs. They, on their +part, reposed in their clothes with all their bristles +out--what else could have been expected of them?-- +convinced in their own minds that they had come not only +to a growing but to a forward country. + +Mrs Kilbannon was perhaps a little severe. "I wonder that +we have not heard of you, Miss Murchison," said she, "but +we are happy to make the acquaintance of any of my nephew's +friends. You will have heard him preach, perhaps?" + +"Often," said Advena, rising. "We have no one here who +can compare with him in preaching. There was very little +reason why you should have heard of me. I am--of no +importance." She hesitated and fought for an instant with +a trembling of the lip. "But now that you have been +persuaded to be a part of our life here," she said to +Christie, "I thought I would like to come and offer you +my friendship because it is his already. I hope--so +much--that you will be happy here. It is a nice little +place. And I want you to let me help you--about your +house, and in every way that is possible. I am sure I +can be of use." She paused and looked at their still +half-hostile faces. "I hope," she faltered, "you don't +mind my--having come?" + +"Not at all," said Christie, and Mrs Kilbannon added, +"I'm sure you mean it very kindly." + +A flash of the comedy of it shot up in Advena's eyes. +"Yes," she said, "I do. Good-bye." + +If they had followed her departure they would have been +further confounded to see her walk not quite steadily +away; shaken with fantastic laughter. They looked instead +at one another, as if to find the solution of the mystery +where indeed it lay, in themselves. + +"She doesn't even belong to his congregation," said +Christie. "Just a friend, she said." + +"I expect the friendship's mostly upon her side," remarked +Mrs Kilbannon. "She seemed frank enough about it. But I +would see no necessity for encouraging her friendship on +my own account, if I were in your place, Christie." + +"I think I'll manage without it," said Christie. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The South Fox fight was almost over. Three days only +remained before the polling booths would be open, and +the voters of the towns of Elgin and Clayfield and the +surrounding townships would once again be invited to make +their choice between a Liberal and a Conservative +representative of the district in the Dominion House of +Commons. The ground had never been more completely covered, +every inch of advantage more stubbornly held, by either +side, in the political history of the riding. There was +no doubt of the hope that sat behind the deprecation in +Walter Winter's eye, nor of the anxiety that showed +through the confidence freely expressed by the Liberal +leaders. The issue would be no foregone conclusion, as +it had been practically any time within the last eleven +years; and as Horace Williams remarked to the select lot +that met pretty frequently at the Express office for +consultation and rally, they had "no use for any sort of +carelessness." + +It was undeniably felt that the new idea, the great idea +whose putative fatherhood in Canada certainly lay at the +door of the Liberal party, had drawn in fewer supporters +than might have been expected. In England Wallingham, +wearing it like a medal, seemed to be courting political +excommunication with it, except that Wallingham was so +hard to effectively curse. The ex-Minister deserved, +clearly, any ban that could be put upon him. No sort of +remonstrance could hold him from going about openly and +persistently exhorting people to "think imperially," a +liberty which, as is well known, the Holy Cobdenite +Church, supreme in those islands, expressly forbids. +Wallingham appeared to think that by teaching and explaining +he could help his fellow-islanders to see further than +the length of their fists, and exorcise from them the +spirit, only a century and a quarter older and a trifle +more sophisticated, that lost them the American colonies. +But so far little had transpired to show that Wallingham +was stronger than nature and destiny. There had been +Wallingham meetings of remarkable enthusiasm; his supporters +called them epoch-making, as if epochs were made of cheers. +But the workingman of Great Britain was declaring stolidly +in the by-elections against any favour to colonial produce +at his expense, thereby showing himself one of those humble +instruments that Providence uses for the downfall of +arrogant empires. It will be thus, no doubt, that the +workingman will explain in the future his eminent usefulness +to the government of his country, and it will be in these +terms that the cost of educating him by means of the ballot +will be demonstrated. Meanwhile we may look on and +cultivate philosophy; or we may make war upon the gods +with Mr Wallingham which is, perhaps, the better part. + +That, to turn from recrimination, was what they saw in +Canada looking across--the queerest thing of all was the +recalcitrance of the farm labourer; they could only stare +at that--and it may be that the spectacle was depressing +to hopeful initiative. At all events, it was plain that +the new policy was suffering from a certain flatness on +the further side. As a ballon d'essai it lacked buoyancy; +and no doubt Mr Farquharson was right in declaring that +above all things it lacked actuality, business--the +proposition, in good set terms, for men to turn over, to +accept or reject. Nothing could be done with it, Mr +Farquharson averred, as a mere prospect; it was useful +only to its enemies. We of the young countries must be +invited to deeds, not theories, of which we have a restless +impatience; and this particular theory, though of golden +promise, was beginning to recoil to some extent, upon +the cause which had been confident enough to adopt it +before it could be translated into action and its hard +equivalent. The Elgin Mercury probably overstated the +matter when it said that the Grits were dead sick of the +preference they would never get; but Horace Williams was +quite within the mark when he advised Lorne to stick to +old Reform principles--clean administration, generous +railway policy, sympathetic labour legislation, and freeze +himself a little on imperial love and attachment. + +"They're not so sweet on it in Ottawa as they were, by +a long chalk," he said. "Look at the Premier's speech to +the Chambers of Commerce in Montreal. Pretty plain +statement that, of a few things the British Government +needn't expect." + +"Oh, I don't know," said Lorne. "He was talking to +manufacturers, you know, a pretty skittish lot anywhere. +It sounded independent, but if you look into it you won't +find it gave the cause away any." + +"The old man's got to think of Quebec, where his fat +little majority lives," remarked Bingham, chairman of +the most difficult subdivision in the town. "The Premier +of this country drives a team, you know." + +"Yes," said Lorne, "but he drives it tandem, and Johnny +Francois is the second horse." + +"Maybe so," returned Mr Williams, "but the organ's singing +pretty small, too. Look at this." He picked up the Dominion +from the office table and read aloud: "'If Great Britain +wishes to do a deal with the colonies she will find them +willing to meet her in a spirit of fairness and enthusiasm. +But it is for her to decide, and Canada would be the last +to force her bread down the throat of the British labourer +at a higher price than he can afford to pay for it.' +What's that, my boy? Is it high-mindedness? No, sir, it's +lukewarmness." + +"The Dominion makes me sick," said young Murchison. "It's +so scared of the Tory source of the scheme in England +that it's handing the whole boom of the biggest chance +this country ever had over to the Tories here. If anything +will help us to lose it that will. No Conservative +Government in Canada can put through a cent of preference +on English goods when it comes to the touch, and they +know it. They're full of loyalty just now--baying the +moon--but if anybody opens a window they'll turn tail +fast enough." + +"I guess the Dominion knows it, too," said Mr Williams. +"When Great Britain is quite sure she's ready to do +business on preference lines it's the Liberal party on +this side she'll have to talk to. No use showing ourselves +too anxious, you know. Besides, it might do harm over +there. We're all right; we're on record. Wallingham knows +as well as we do the lines we're open on--he's heard them +from Canadian Liberals more than once. When they get good +and ready they can let us know." + +"Jolly them up with it at your meetings by all means," +advised Bingham, "but use it as a kind of superfluous +taffy; don't make it your main lay-out." + +The Reform Association of South Fox had no more energetic +officer than Bingham, though as he sat on the edge of +the editorial table chewing portions of the margin of +that afternoon's Express, and drawling out maxims to the +Liberal candidate, you might not have thought so. He was +explaining that he had been in this business for years, +and had never had a job that gave him so much trouble. + +"We'll win out," he said, "but the canvass isn't any +Christmas joy--not this time. There's Jim Whelan," he +told them. "We all know what Jim is--a Tory from way +back, where they make 'em so they last, and a soaker from +way back, too; one day on his job and two days sleepin' +off his whiskey. Now we don't need Jim Whelan's vote, +never did need it, but the boys have generally been able +to see that one of those two days was election day. +There's no necessity for Jim's putting in his paper--a +character like that--no necessity at all--he'd much better +be comfortable in bed. This time, I'm darned if the old +boozer hasn't sworn off! Tells the boys he's on to their +game, and there's no liquor in this town that's good +enough to get him to lose his vote--wouldn't get drunk +on champagne. He's held out for ten days already, and it +looks like Winter'd take his cross all right on Thursday." + +"I guess I'd let him have it, Bingham," said Lorne +Murchison with a kind of tolerant deprecation, void of +offence, the only manner in which he knew how to convey +disapproval to the older man. "The boys in your division +are a pretty tough lot, anyhow. We don't want the other +side getting hold of any monkey tricks." + +"It's necessary to win this election, young man," said +Bingham, "lawfully. You won't have any trouble with my +bunch." + +It was not, as will be imagined, the first discussion, +so late in the day, of the value of the preference trade +argument to the Liberal campaign. They had all realized, +after the first few weeks, that their young candidate +was a trifle overbitten with it, though remonstrance had +been a good deal curbed by Murchison's treatment of it. +When he had brought it forward at the late fall fairs +and in the lonely country schoolhouses, his talk had been +so trenchant, so vivid and pictorial, that the gathered +farmers listened with open mouths, like children, +pathetically used with life, to a grown-up fairy tale. +As Horace Williams said, if a dead horse could be made +to go this one would have brought Murchison romping in. +And Lorne had taken heed to the counsel of his party +leaders. At joint meetings, which offered the enemy his. +best opportunity for travesty and derision, he had left +it in the background of debate, devoting himself to +arguments of more immediate utility. In the literature +of the campaign it glowed with prospective benefit, but +vaguely, like a halo of Liberal conception and possible +achievement, waiting for the word from overseas. The +Express still approved it, but not in headlines, and +wished the fact to be widely understood that while the +imperial idea was a very big idea, the Liberals of South +Fox were going to win this election without any assistance +from it. + +Lorne submitted. After all, victory was the thing. There +could be no conquest for the idea without the party +triumph first. He submitted, but his heart rebelled. He +looked over the subdivisional reports with Williams and +Farquharson, and gave ear to their warning interpretations; +but his heart was an optimist, and turned always to the +splendid projection upon the future that was so incomparably +the title to success of those who would unite to further +it. His mind accepted the old working formulas for dealing +with an average electorate, but to his eager apprehending +heart it seemed unbelievable that the great imperial +possibility, the dramatic chance for the race that hung +even now, in the history of the world, between the rising +and the setting of the sun, should fail to be perceived +and acknowledged as the paramount issue, the contingency +which made the by-election of South Fox an extraordinary +and momentous affair. He believed in the Idea; he saw +it, with Wallingham, not only a glorious prospect, but +an educative force; and never had he a moment of such +despondency that it confounded him upon his horizon in +the faded colours of some old Elizabethan mirage. + +The opera house, the night of Mr Murchison's final address +to the electors of South Fox, was packed from floor to +ceiling, and a large and patient overflow made the best +of the hearing accommodation of the corridors and the +foyer. A Minister was to speak, Sir Matthew Tellier, who +held the portfolio of Public Works; and for drawing a +crowd in Elgin there was nothing to compare with a member +of the Government. He was the sum of all ambition and +the centre of all importance; he was held to have achieved +in the loftiest sense, and probably because he deserved +to; a kind of afflatus sat upon him. They paid him real +deference and they flocked to hear him. Cruickshank was +a second attraction; and Lorne himself, even at this +stage of the proceedings, "drew" without abatement. They +knew young Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out +among them all his life; yet since he had come before +them in this new capacity a curious interest had gathered +about him. People looked at him as if he had developed +something they did not understand, and perhaps he had; +he was in touch with the Idea. They listened with an +intense personal interest in him which, no doubt, went +to obscure what he said: perhaps a less absorbing +personality would have carried the Idea further. However, +they did look and listen--that was the main point, and +on their last opportunity they were in the opera house +in great numbers. + +Lorne faced them with an enviable security; the friendliness +of the meeting was in the air. The gathering was almost +entirely of one political complexion: the Conservatives +of the town would have been glad enough to turn out to +hear Minister Tellier; but the Liberals were of no mind +to gratify them at the cost of having to stand themselves, +and were on hand early to assert a prior moral claim to +chairs. In the seated throng Lorne could pick out the +fine head of his father, and his mother's face, bright +with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, too, and +Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too +conspicuous, somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was +in the second row, and a couple of strange ladies with +him: he was chuckling with uncommon humour at some remark +of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy MacQuhot +was in a good place; had been since six o'clock, and +Peter Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though Peter sat +away back as beseemed a modest functionary whose business +was with the book and the bell. Altogether, as Horace +Williams leaned over to tell him, it was like a Knox +Church sociable--he could feel completely at home; and +though the audience was by no means confined to Knox +Church, Lorne did feel at home. Dora Milburn's countenance +he might perhaps have missed, but Dora was absent by +arrangement. Mr Milburn, as the fight went on, had shown +himself so increasingly bitter, to the point of writing +letters in the Mercury attacking Wallingham and the +Liberal leaders of South Fox, that his daughter felt an +insurmountable delicacy in attending even Lorne's "big +meeting." Alfred Hesketh meant to have gone, but it was +ten by the Milburns' drawing-room clock before he +remembered. Miss Filkin actually did go, and brought home +a great report of it. Miss Filkin would no more have +missed a Minister than she would a bishop; but she was +the only one. + +Lorne had prepared for this occasion for a long time. It +was certain to come, the day of the supreme effort, when +he should make his final appeal under the most favourable +circumstances that could be devised, when the harassing +work of the campaign would be behind him, and nothing +would remain but the luxury of one last strenuous call +to arms. The glory of that anticipation had been with +him from the beginning; and in the beginning he saw his +great moment only in one character. For weeks, while he +plodded through the details of the benefits South Fox +had received and might expect to receive at the hands of +the Liberal party, he privately stored argument on +argument, piled phrase on phrase, still further to advance +and defend the imperial unity of his vision on this +certain and special opportunity. His jihad it would be, +for the faith and purpose of his race; so he scanned it +and heard it, with conviction hot in him, and impulse +strong, and intention noble. Then uneasiness had arisen, +as we know; and under steady pressure he had daily drawn +himself from these high intentions, persuaded by Bingham +and the rest that they were not yet "in shape" to talk +about. So that his address on this memorable evening +would have a different stamp from the one he designed in +the early burning hours of his candidature. He had +postponed those matters, under advice, to the hour of +practical dealing, when a Government which it would be +his privilege to support would consider and carry them. +He put the notes of his original speech away in his office +desk with solicitude--it was indeed very thorough, a grand +marshalling of the facts and review of the principles +involved--and pigeonholed it in the chambers of his mind, +with the good hope to bring it forth another day. Then he +devoted his attention to the history of Liberalism in Fox +County--both ridings were solid--and it was upon the +history of Liberalism in Fox County, its triumphs and its +fruits, that he embarked so easily and so assuredly, when +he opened his address in the opera house that Tuesday night. + +Who knows at what suggestion, or even precisely at what +moment, the fabric of his sincere intention fell away? +Bingham does not; Mr Farquharson has the vaguest idea; +Dr Drummond declares that he expected it from the beginning, +but is totally unable to say why. I can get nothing more +out of them, though they were all there, though they all +saw him, indeed a dramatic figure, standing for the youth +and energy of the old blood, and heard him, as he slipped +away into his great preoccupation, as he made what Bingham +called his "bad break." His very confidence may have +accounted for it; he was off guard against the enemy, +and the more completely off guard against himself. The +history of Liberalism in Fox County offered, no doubt, +some inlet to the rush of the Idea; for suddenly, Mr +Farquharson says, he was "off." Mr Farquharson was on +the platform, and "I can tell you," said he, "I pricked +up my ears." They all did; the Idea came in upon such a +personal note. + +"I claim it my great good fortune," the young man was +suddenly telling them, in a note of curious gravity and +concentration, "and however the fight goes, I shall always +claim it my great good fortune to have been identified, +at a critical moment, with the political principles that +are ennobled in this country by the imperialistic aim. +An intention, a great purpose in the endless construction +and reconstruction of the world, will choose its own +agency; and the imperial design in Canada has chosen the +Liberal party, because the Liberal party in this country +is the party of the soil, the land, the nation as it +springs from that which makes it a nation; and imperialism +is intensely and supremely a national affair. Ours is +the policy of the fields. We stand for the wheat-belt +and the stockyard, the forest and the mine, as the basic +interests of the country. We stand for the principles +that make for nation-building by the slow sweet processes +of the earth, cultivating the individual rooted man who +draws his essence and his tissues from the soil and so, +by unhurried, natural, healthy growth, labour sweating +his vices out of him, forms the character of the +commonwealth, the foundation of the State. So the imperial +idea seeks its Canadian home in Liberal councils. The +imperial idea is far-sighted. England has outlived her +own body. Apart from her heart and her history, England +is an area where certain trades are carried on--still +carried on. In the scrolls of the future it is already +written that the centre of the Empire must shift--and +where, if not to Canada?" + +There was a half-comprehending burst of applause, Dr +Drummond's the first clap. It was a curious change from +the simple colloquial manner in which young Murchison +had begun and to which the audience were accustomed; and +on this account probably they stamped the harder. They +applauded Lorne himself; something from him infected +them; they applauded being made to feel like that. They +would clap first and consider afterward. John Murchison +smiled with pleasure, but shook his head. Bingham, doubled +up and clapping like a repeating rifle, groaned aloud +under cover of it to Horace Williams: "Oh, the darned kid!" + +"A certain Liberal peer of blessed political memory," +Lorne continued, with a humorous twist of his mouth, "on +one of those graceful, elegant, academic occasions which +offer political peers such happy opportunities of getting +in their work over there, had lately a vision which he +described to his university audience of what might have +happened if the American colonies had remained faithful +to Great Britain--a vision of monarch and Ministers, +Government and Parliament, departing solemnly for the +other hemisphere. They did not so remain; so the noble +peer may conjure up his vision or dismiss his nightmare +as he chooses; and it is safe to prophesy that no port +of the United States will see that entry. But, remembering +that the greater half of the continent did remain faithful, +the northern and strenuous half, destined to move with +sure steps and steady mind to greater growth and higher +place among the nations than any of us can now imagine-- +would it be as safe to prophesy that such a momentous +sailing-day will never be more than the after-dinner +fantasy of aristocratic rhetoric? Is it not at least as +easy to imagine that even now, while the people of England +send their viceroys to the ends of the earth, and vote +careless millions for a reconstructed army, and sit in +the wrecks of Cabinets disputing whether they will eat +our bread or the stranger's, the sails may be filling, +in the far harbour of time which will bear their descendants +to a representative share of the duties and responsibilities +of Empire in the capital of the Dominion of Canada?" + +It was the boldest proposition, and the Liberal voters +of the town of Elgin blinked a little, looking at it. +Still they applauded, hurriedly, to get it over and hear +what more might be coming. Bingham, on the platform, +laughed heartily and conspicuously, as if anybody could +see that it was all an excellent joke. Lorne half-turned +to him with a gesture of protest. Then he went on-- + +"If that transport ever left the shores of England we +would go far, some of us, to meet it; but for all the +purposes that matter most it sailed long ago. British +statesmen could bring us nothing better than the ideals +of British government; and those we have had since we +levied our first tax and made our first law. That precious +cargo was our heritage, and we never threw it overboard, +but chose rather to render what impost it brought; and +there are those who say that the impost has been heavy, +though never a dollar was paid." + +He paused for an instant and seemed to review and take +account of what he had said. He was hopelessly adrift +from the subject he had proposed to himself, launched +for better or for worse upon the theme that was subliminal +in him and had flowed up, on which he was launched, and +almost rudderless, without construction and without +control. The speech of his first intention, orderly, +developed, was as far from him as the history of Liberalism +in Fox County. For an instant he hesitated; and then, +under the suggestion, no doubt, of that ancient misbehaviour +in Boston Harbour at which he had hinted, he took up +another argument. I will quote him a little. + +"Let us hold," he said simply, "to the Empire. Let us +keep this patrimony that has been ours for three hundred +years. Let us not forget the flag. We believe ourselves, +at this moment, in no danger of forgetting it. The day +after Paardeburg, that still winter day, did not our +hearts rise within us to see it shaken out with its +message everywhere, shaken out against the snow? How it +spoke to us. and lifted us, the silent flag in the new +fallen snow! Theirs--and ours... That was but a little +while ago, and there is not a man here who will not bear +me out in saying that we were never more loyal, in word +and deed, than we are now. And that very state of things +has created for us an undermining alternative... + +"So long as no force appeared to improve the trade +relations between England and this country Canada sought +in vain to make commercial bargains with the United +States. They would have none of us or our produce; they +kept their wall just as high against us as against the +rest of the world: not a pine plank or a bushel of barley +could we get over under a reciprocal arrangement. But +the imperial trade idea has changed the attitude of our +friends to the south. They have small liking for any +scheme which will improve trade between Great Britain +and Canada, because trade between Great Britain and Canada +must be improved at their expense. And now you cannot +take up an American paper without finding the report of +some commercial association demanding closer trade +relations with Canada, or an American magazine in which +some far-sighted economist is not urging the same thing. +They see us thinking about keeping the business in the +family; with that hard American common sense that has +made them what they are, they accept the situation; and +at this moment they are ready to offer us better terms +to keep our trade." + +Bingham, Horace Williams, and Mr Farquharson applauded +loudly. Their young man frowned a little and squared his +chin. He was past hints of that kind. + +"And that," he went on to say, "is, on the surface, a +very satisfactory state of things. No doubt a bargain +between the Americans and ourselves could be devised +which would be a very good bargain on both sides. In the +absence of certain pressing family affairs, it might be +as well worth our consideration as we used to think it +before we were invited to the family council. But if +anyone imagines that any degree of reciprocity with the +United States could be entered upon without killing the +idea of British preference trade for all time, let him +consider what Canada's attitude toward that idea would +be today if the Americans had consented to our proposals +twenty-five years ago, and we were invited to make an +imperial sacrifice of the American trade that had prospered, +as it would have prospered, for a quarter of a century! +I doubt whether the proposition would even be made to +us... + +"But the alternative before Canada is not a mere choice +of markets; we are confronted with a much graver issue. +In this matter of dealing with our neighbour our very +existence is involved. If we would preserve ourselves as +a nation, it has become our business, not only to reject +American overtures in favour of the overtures of our own +great England, but to keenly watch and actively resist +American influence, as it already threatens us through +the common channels of life and energy. We often say that +we fear no invasion from the south, but the armies of +the south have already crossed the border. American +enterprise, American capital, is taking rapid possession +of our mines and our water power, our oil areas and our +timber limits. In today's Dominion, one paper alone, you +may read of charters granted to five industrial concerns +with headquarters in the United States. The trades unions +of the two countries are already international. American +settlers are pouring into the wheat-belt of the Northwest, +and when the Dominion of Canada has paid the hundred +million dollars she has just voted for a railway to open +up the great lone northern lands between Quebec and the +Pacific, it will be the American farmer and the American +capitalist who will reap the benefit. They approach us +today with all the arts of peace, commercial missionaries +to the ungathered harvests of neglected territories; but +the day may come when they will menace our coasts to +protect their markets--unless, by firm, resolved, +whole-hearted action now, we keep our opportunities for +our own people." + +They cheered him promptly, and a gathered intensity came +into his face at the note of praise. + +"Nothing on earth can hold him now," said Bingham, as he +crossed his arms upon a breast seething with practical +politics, and waited for the worst. + +"The question of the hour for us," said Lorne Murchison +to his fellow-townsmen, curbing the strenuous note in +his voice, "is deeper than any balance of trade can +indicate, wider than any department of statistics can +prove. We cannot calculate it in terms of pig-iron, or +reduce it to any formula of consumption. The question +that underlies this decision for Canada is that of the +whole stamp and character of her future existence. Is +that stamp and character to be impressed by the American +Republic effacing"--he smiled a little--"the old Queen's +head and the new King's oath? Or is it to be our own +stamp and character, acquired in the rugged discipline +of our colonial youth, and developed in the national +usage of the British Empire?"... + +Dr Drummond clapped alone; everybody else was listening. + +"It is ours," he told them, "in this greater half of the +continent, to evolve a nobler ideal. The Americans from +the beginning went in a spirit of revolt; the seed of +disaffection was in every Puritan bosom. We from the +beginning went in a spirit of amity, forgetting nothing, +disavowing nothing, to plant the flag with our fortunes. +We took our very Constitution, our very chart of national +life, from England--her laws, her liberty, her equity +were good enough for us. We have lived by them, some of +us have died by them...and, thank God, we were long +poor... + +"And this Republic," he went on hotly, "this Republic +that menaces our national life with commercial extinction, +what past has she that is comparable? The daughter who +left the old stock to be the light woman among nations, +welcoming all comers, mingling her pure blood, polluting +her lofty ideals until it is hard indeed to recognize +the features and the aims of her honourable youth..." + +Allowance will be made for the intemperance of his figure. +He believed himself, you see, at the bar for the life of +a nation. + +"...Let us not hesitate to announce ourselves for the +Empire, to throw all we are and all we have into the +balance for that great decision. The seers of political +economy tell us that if the stars continue to be propitious, +it is certain that a day will come which will usher in +a union of the Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. As +between England and the United States the predominant +partner in that firm will be the one that brings Canada. +So that the imperial movement of the hour may mean even +more than the future of the motherland, may reach even +farther than the boundaries of Great Britain..." + +Again he paused, and his eye ranged over their listening +faces. He had them all with him, his words were vivid in +their minds; the truth of them stood about him like an +atmosphere. Even Bingham looked at him without reproach. +But he had done. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice dropping, with +a hint of tiredness, to another level, "I have the honour +to stand for your suffrages as candidate in the Liberal +interest for the riding of South Fox in the Dominion +House of Commons the day after tomorrow. I solicit your +support, and I hereby pledge myself to justify it by +every means in my power. But it would be idle to disguise +from you that while I attach all importance to the +immediate interests in charge of the Liberal party, and +if elected shall use my best efforts to further them, +the great task before that party, in my opinion, the +overshadowing task to which, I shall hope, in my place +and degree to stand committed from the beginning, is the +one which I have endeavoured to bring before your +consideration this evening." + +They gave him a great appreciation, and Mr Cruickshank, +following, spoke in complimentary terms of the eloquent +appeal made by the "young and vigorous protagonist" of +the imperial cause, but proceeded to a number of quite +other and apparently more important grounds why he should +be elected. The Hon. Mr Tellier's speech--the Minister +was always kept to the last--was a defence of the recent +dramatic development of the Government's railway policy, +and a reminder of the generous treatment Elgin was +receiving in the Estimates for the following year--thirty +thousand dollars for a new Drill Hall, and fifteen thousand +for improvements to the post-office. It was a telling +speech, with the chink of hard cash in every sentence, +a kind of audit by a chartered accountant of the Liberal +books of South Fox, showing good sound reason why the +Liberal candidate should be returned on Thursday, if only +to keep the balance right. The audience listened with +practical satisfaction. "That's Tellier all over," they +said to one another... + +The effect in committee of what, in spite of the Hon. Mr +Tellier's participation, I must continue to call the +speech of the evening, may be gathered from a brief +colloquy between Mr Bingham and Mr Williams, in the act +of separating at the door of the opera house. + +"I don't know what it was worth to preference trade," +said Bingham, "but it wasn't worth a hill o' beans to +his own election." + +"He had as soft a snap," returned Horace Williams, on +the brink of tears--"as soft a snap as anybody ever had +in this town. And he's monkeyed it all away. All away." + +Both the local papers published the speech in full the +following day. "If there's anything in Manchester or +Birmingham that Mr Lorne Murchison would like," commented +the Mercury editorially, "we understand he has only to +call for it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +The Milburns' doorbell rang very early the morning of +the election. The family and Alfred Hesketh were just +sitting down to breakfast. Mr Hesketh was again the guest +of the house. He had taken a run out to Vancouver with +Mr Milburn's partner, who had gone to settle a point or +two in connection with the establishment of a branch +there. The points had been settled and Hesketh, having +learned more than ever, had returned to Elgin. + +The maid came back into the room with a conscious air, +and said something in a low voice to Dora, who flushed +and frowned a little, and asked to be excused. As she +left the room a glance of intelligence passed between +her and her mother. While Miss Milburn was generally +thought to be "most like" her father both in appearance +and disposition, there were points upon which she could +count on an excellent understanding with her other parent. + +"Oh, Lorne," she said, having carefully closed the +drawing-room door, "what in the world have you come here +for? Today of all days! Did anybody see you?" + +The young man, standing tall and broad-shouldered before +the mantelpiece, had yet a look of expecting reproach. + +"I don't know," he said humbly. + +"I don't think Father would like it," Dora told him, "if +he knew you were here. Why, we're having an early breakfast +on purpose to let him get out and work for Winter. I +never saw him so excited over an election. To think of +your coming today!" + +He made a step toward her. "I came because it is today," +he said. "Only for a minute, dear. It's a great day for +me, you know--whether we win or lose. I wanted you to be +in it. I wanted you to wish me good luck." + +"But you know I always do," she objected. + +"Yes, I know. But a fellow likes to hear it, Dora--on +the day, you know. And I've seen so little of you lately." + +She looked at him measuringly. "You're looking awfully +thin," she exclaimed, with sudden compunction. "I wish +you had never gone into this horrid campaign. I wish they +had nominated somebody else." + +Lorne smiled half-bitterly. "I shouldn't wonder if a few +other people wished the same thing," he said. "But I'm +afraid they'll have to make the best of it now." + +Dora had not sanctioned his visit by sitting down; and +as he came nearer to her she drew a step away, moving by +instinct from the capture of the lover. But he had made +little of that, and almost as he spoke was at her side. +She had to yield her hands to him. + +"Well, you'll win it for them if anybody could," she +assured him. + +"Say 'win it for us,' dear." + +She shook her head. "I'm not a Liberal--yet," she said, +laughing. + +"It's only a question of time." + +"I'll never be converted to Grit politics." + +"No, but you'll be converted to me," he told her, and +drew her nearer. "I'm going now, Dora. I dare say I +shouldn't have come. Every minute counts today. Good-bye." + +She could not withhold her face from his asking lips, +and he had bent to take his privilege when a step in the +hall threatened and divided them. + +"It's only Mr Hesketh going upstairs," said Dora, with +relief. "I thought it was Father. Oh, Lorne--fly!" + +"Hesketh!" Young Murchison's face clouded. "Is he working +for Winter, too?" + +"Lorne! What a thing to ask when you know he believes in +your ideas. But he's a Conservative at home, you see, so +he says he's in an awkward position, and he has been +taking perfectly neutral ground lately. He hasn't a vote, +anyway." + +"No," said Lorne. "He's of no consequence." + +The familiar easy step in the house of his beloved, the +house he was being entreated to leave with all speed, +struck upon his heart and his nerves. She, with her dull +surface to the more delicate vibrations of things, failed +to perceive this, or perhaps she would have thought it +worth while to find some word to bring back his peace. +She disliked seeing people unhappy. When she was five +years old and her kitten broke its leg, she had given it +to a servant to drown. + +He took his hat, making no further attempt to caress her, +and opened the door. "I hope you WILL win, Lorne," she +said, half-resentfully, and he, with forced cheerfulness, +replied, "Oh, we'll have a shot at it." Then with a little +silent nod at her which, notwithstanding her provocations, +conveyed his love and trust, he went out into the struggle +of the day. + +In spite of Squire Ormiston's confident prediction, it +was known that the fight would be hottest, among the +townships, in Moneida Reservation. Elgin itself, of +course, would lead the van for excitement, would be the +real theatre for the arts of practical politics; but +things would be pretty warm in Moneida, too. It was for +that reason that Bingham and the rest strongly advised +Lorne not to spend too much of the day in the town, but +to get out to Moneida early, and drive around with +Ormiston--stick to him like a fly to poison-paper. + +"You leave Elgin to your friends," said Bingham. "Just +show your face here and there wearing a smile of triumph, +to encourage the crowd; but don't worry about the +details--we'll attend to them." + +"We can't have him upsettin' his own election by any +interference with the boys," said Bingham to Horace +Williams. "He's got too long a nose for all kinds of +things to be comfortable in town today. He'll do a great +deal less harm trotting round the Reserve braced up +against old Ormiston." + +So Elgin was left to the capable hands of the boys, for +the furtherance of the Liberal interest and the sacred +cause of imperialism. Mr Farquharson, whose experience +was longer and whose nose presumably shorter than the +candidate's, never abandoned the Town Ward. Bingham +skirmished between the polling-booths and the committee +room. Horace Williams was out all day--Rawlins edited +the paper. The returns wouldn't be ready in time for +anything but an extra anyhow, and the "Stand to Arms, +South Fox," leader had been written two days ago. The +rest was millinery, or might be for all anybody would +read of it. The other side had a better idea of the value +of their candidate than to send him into the country. +Walter Winter remained where he was most effective and +most at home. He had a neat little livery outfit, and he +seemed to spend the whole day in it accompanied by intimate +personal friends who had never spoken to him, much less +driven with him, before. Two or three strangers arrived +the previous night at the leading hotels. Their business +was various, but they had one point in common: they were +very solicitous about their personal luggage. I should +be sorry to assign their politics, and none of them seemed +to know much about the merits of the candidates, so they +are not perhaps very pertinent, except for the curiosity +shown by the public at the spectacle of gentlemen carrying +their own bags when there were porters to do it. + +It was a day long remembered and long quoted. The weather +was spring-like, sun after a week's thaw; it was pleasant +to be abroad in the relaxed air and the drying streets, +that here and there sent up threads of steam after the +winter house-cleaning of their wooden sidewalks. Voting +was a privilege never unappreciated in Elgin; and today +the weather brought out every soul to the polls; the +ladies of his family waiting, in many instances, on the +verandah, with shawls over their heads, to hear the report +of how the fight was going. Abby saw Dr Harry back in +his consulting room, and Dr Henry safely off to vote, +and then took the two children and went over to her +father's house because she simply could not endure the +suspense anywhere else. The adventurous Stella picketed +herself at a corner near the empty grocery which served +as a polling-booth for Subdivision Eleven, one of the +most doubtful, but was forced to retire at the sight of +the first carryall full of men from the Milburn Boiler +Company flaunting a banner inscribed "We are Solid for +W.W." Met in the hall by her sister, she protested that +she hadn't cried till she got inside the gate, anyhow. +Abby lectured her soundly on her want of proper pride: +she was much too big a girl to be "seen around" on a day +when her brother was "running," if it were only for school +trustee. The other ladies of the family, having acquired +proper pride kept in the back of the house so as not to +be tempted to look out of the front windows. Mrs Murchison +assumed a stoical demeanour and made a pudding; though +there was no reason to help Eliza, who was sufficiently +lacking in proper pride to ask the milkman whether Mr +Lorne wasn't sure to be elected down there now. The +milkman said he guessed the best man 'ud get in, but in +a manner which roused general suspicion as to which he +had himself favoured. + +"We'll finish the month," said Mrs Murchison, "and then +not another quart do we take from HIM--a gentleman that's +so uncertain when he's asked a simple question." + +The butcher came, and brought a jovial report without +being asked for it; said he was the first man to hand in +a paper at his place, but they were piling up there in +great shape for Mr Murchison when he left. + +"If he gets in, he gets in," said Mrs Murchison. "And if +he doesn't it won't be because of not deserving to. Those +were real nice cutlets yesterday, Mr Price, and you had +better send us a sirloin for tomorrow, about six pounds; +but it doesn't matter to an ounce. And you can save us +sweetbreads for Sunday; I like yours better than Luff's." + +John Murchison, Alec, and Oliver came shortly up to +dinner, bringing stirring tales from the field. There +was the personator in Subdivision Six of a dead man--a +dead Grit--wanted by the bloodhounds of the other side +and tracked to the Reform committee room, where he was +ostensibly and publicly taking refuge. + +"Why did he go there?" asked Stella, breathlessly. + +"Why, to make it look like a put-up job of ours, of +course, "said her brother. "And it was a put-up job, a +good old Tory fake. But they didn't calculate on Bingham +and Bingham's memory. Bingham happened to be in the +committee room, and he recognized this fellow for a +regular political tough from up Muskoka way, where they +get six for a bottle of Canadian and ten if it's Scotch. +'Why, good morning,' says Bingham, 'thought you were in +jail,' and just then he catches sight of a couple of +trailers from the window. Well, Bingham isn't just +lightning smart, but then he isn't SLOW, you know. 'Well,' +he says, 'you can't stop here,' and in another second he +was throwing the fellow out. Threw him out pretty hard, +too. I guess; right down the stairs, and Bingham on top. +Met Winter's men at the door. 'The next time you want +information from the headquarters of this association, +gentlemen,' Bingham said, 'send somebody respectable.' +Bingham thought the man was just any kind of low spy at +first, but when they claimed him for personation, Bingham +just laughed. 'Don't be so hard on your friends; he said. +I don't think we'll hear much more about that little +racket." + +"Can't anything be done to any of them?" asked Stella. +"Not today, of course, but when there's time." + +"We'll have to see about it, Stella," said Alec. "When +there's time." + +"Talking about Bingham," Oliver told them; "you know +Bingham's story about Jim Whelan keeping sober for two +weeks, for the first time in twenty years, to vote for +Winter? Wouldn't touch a thing--no, he was going to do +it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to +refuse drinks, but it was going to be worth his while. +Been boasting about the post-office janitorship Winter +was to give him if he got in. Well, in he came to Number +Eleven this morning all dressed up, with a clean collar, +looking thirstier than any man you ever saw, and gets +his paper. Young Charlie Bingham is deputy returning +officer at Number Eleven. In a second back comes Whelan. +'This ballot's marked; he says; 'you don't fool me.' 'Is +it?' says Charlie, taking it out of his hand. 'That's +very wrong, Jim; you shouldn't have marked it,' and drops +it into the ballot-box. Oh, Jim was wild! The paper had +gone in blank, you see, and he'd lost all those good +drunks and his vote too! He was going to have Charlie's +blood right away. But there it was--done. He'd handed in +his ballot--he couldn't have another." + +They all laughed, I fear, at the unfortunate plight of +the too suspicious Whelan. "Why did he think the ballot +was marked?" asked Advena. + +"Oh, there was a little smudge on it--a fly-spot or +something, Charlie says. But you couldn't fool Whelan." + +"I hope," said Stella meditatively, "that Lorne will get +in by more than one. He wouldn't like to owe his election +to a low-down trick like that" + +"Don't you be at all alarmed, you little girlish thing," +replied her brother. "Lorne will get in by five hundred." + +John Murchison had listened to their excited talk, mostly +in silence, going on with his dinner as if that and +nothing else were the important matter of the moment. +Mrs Murchison had had this idiosyncrasy of his "to put +up with" for over thirty years. She bore it now as long +as she could. + +"FATHER!" she exploded at last. "Do you think Lorne will +get in by five hundred?" + +Mr Murchison shook his head, and bestowed his whole +attention upon the paring of an apple. If he kept his +hopes to himself, he also kept his doubts. "That remains +to be seen," he said. + +"Well, considering it's your own son, I think you might +show a little more confidence," said Mrs Murchison. "No +thank you; no dessert for me. With a member of the family +being elected--or not--for a seat in Parliament, I'm not +the one to want dessert." + +Between Mr Murchison and the milkman that morning, Mrs +Murchison felt almost too much tried by the superior +capacity for reticence. + +It was seven in the evening before the ballot-boxes were +all in the hands of the sheriff, and nine before that +officer found it necessary to let the town know that it +had piled up a majority of three hundred for Walter +Winter. He was not a supporter of Walter Winter, and he +preferred to wait until the returns began to come in from +Clayfield and the townships, in the hope that they would +make the serious difference that was required of them. +The results were flashed one after the other to the total +from the windows of the Express and the Mercury upon the +cheering crowd that gathered in Market Square. There were +moments of wild elation, moments of deep suspense upon +both sides, but when the final addition and subtraction +was made the enthusiastic voters of South Fox, including +Jim Whelan, who had neglected no further opportunity, +read, with yells and groans, hurrahs and catcalls, that +they had elected Mr Lorne Murchison to the Dominion House +of Commons by a majority of seventy. + +Then the band began to play and all the tin whistles to +rejoice. Young and Windle had the grace to blow their +sirens, and across the excited darkness of the town came +the long familiar boom of the Murchison Stove Works. +Every Liberal in Elgin who had any means of making a +noise made it. From the window of the Association committee +room their young fellow-townsman thanked them for the +honour they had done him, while his mother sat in the +cab he had brought her down in and applauded vigorously +between tears, and his father took congratulations from +a hundred friendly hands. They all went home in a torchlight +procession, the band always playing, the tin whistles +always performing; and it was two in the morning before +the occasion could in any sense be said to be over. + +Lights burned quite as late, however, in the Conservative +committee room, where matters were being arranged to bark +threateningly at the heels of victory next day. Victory +looked like something that might be made to turn and +parley. A majority of seventy was too small for finality. +Her attention was called without twenty-four hours' delay +to a paragraph in the Elgin Mercury, plainly authoritative, +to the effect that the election of Mr Murchison would be +immediately challenged, on the ground of the infringement +in the electoral district of Moneida of certain provisions +of the Ontario Elections Act with the knowledge and +consent of the candidate, whose claim to the contested +seat, it was confidently expected, would be rendered +within a very short time null and void. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +"You can never trust an Indian," said Mrs Murchison at +the anxious family council. "Well do I remember them when +you were a little thing, Advena, hanging round the town +on a market-day; and the squaws coming to the back door +with their tin pails of raspberries to sell, and just +knowing English enough to ask a big price for them. But +it was on the squaws we depended in those days, or go +without raspberry preserves for the winter. Slovenly-looking +things they were with their three or four coloured +petticoats and their papooses on their backs. And for +dirt--! But I thought they were all gone long ago." + +"There are enough of them left to make trouble all right," +said Alec. "They don't dress up like they used to, and +I guess they send the papooses to kindergarten now; but +you'll find plenty of them lying around any time there's +nothing to do but vote and get drunk." + +Allowing for the natural exaggeration of partisanship, +the facts about the remaining red man of Moneida were +much as Alec described them. On market-days he slid +easily, unless you looked twice, into what the Express +continues to call the farming community. Invariably, if +you did look twice, you would note that his stiff felt +hat was an inch taller in the crown than those worn +generally by the farming community, the pathetic assertion, +perhaps, of an old sovereignty; invariably, too his coat +and trousers betrayed a form within, which, in the effort +at adaptation, had become high-shouldered and lank of +leg. And the brown skin was there to be noticed, though +you might pass it by, and the high cheek-bones and the +liquidly muddy eye. He had taken on the signs of +civilization at the level which he occupied; the farming +community had lent him its look of shrewdness in small +bargains and its rakish sophistication in garments, nor +could you always assume with certainty, except at Fox +County fairs and elections, that he was intoxicated. So +much Government had done for him in Fox County, where +the "Reservation," nursing the dying fragment of his +race, testified that there is such a thing as political +compunction. Out in the wide spaces of the West he still +protects his savagery; they know an Indian there today +as far as they can see him, without a second glance. + +And in Moneida, upon polling-days, he still, as Alec +said, "made trouble." Perhaps it would be more to the +fact to say that he presented the elements of which +trouble is made. Civilization had given him a vote, not +with his coat and trousers, but shortly after; and he +had not yet learned to keep it anywhere but in his pocket, +whence the transfer was easy, and could be made in +different ways. The law contemplated only one, the straight +drop into the ballot-box; but the "boys" had other views. +The law represented one level of political sentiment, +the boys represented another; both parties represented +the law, both parties were represented by the boys; and +on the occasion of the South Fox election the boys had +been active in Moneida. There are, as we know, two kinds +of activity on these occasions, one being set to observe +the other; and Walter Winter's boys, while presumably +neglecting no legitimate opportunity of their own, claimed +to have been highly successful in detecting the methods +of the other side. + +The Indians owed their holdings, their allowances, their +school, and their protecting superintendent, Squire +Ormiston, to a Conservative Government. It made a grateful +bond of which a later Conservative Government was not, +perhaps, unaware, when it added the ballot to its previous +benefits. The Indians, therefore, on election-days, were +supposed to "go solid" for the candidate in whom they +had been taught to see good will. If they did not go +quite solid, the other side might point to the evolution +of the political idea in every dissentient--a gladdening +spectacle, indeed, on which, however, the other side +seldom showed any desire to dwell. + +Hitherto the desires and intentions of the "Reserve" had +been exemplified in its superintendent. Squire Ormiston +had never led his wards to the polls--there were strong +reasons against that. But the squire made no secret of +his politics, either before or, unluckily, after he +changed them. The Indians had always known that they were +voting on the same side as "de boss." They were likely, +the friends of Mr Winter thought, to know now that they +were voting on a different side. This was the secret of +Mr Winter's friends' unusual diligence on voting-day in +Moneida. The mere indication of a wish on the part of +the superintendent would constitute undue influence in +the eye of the law. The squire was not the most discreet +of men--often before it had been the joke of Conservative +councils how near the old man had come to making a case +for the Grits in connection with this chief or that. I +will not say that he was acquainted with the famous letter +from Queen Victoria, affectionately bidding her Indian +children to vote for the Conservative candidate. But +perhaps he had not adhered to the strictest interpretation +of the law which gave him fatherly influence in everything +pertaining to his red-skinned charges' interests temporal +and spiritual, excepting only their sacred privilege of +the ballot. He may even have held it in some genial +derision, their sacred privilege; it would be natural, +he had been there among them in unquestioned authority +so long. Now it had assumed an importance. The squire +looked at it with the ardour of a converted eye. When he +told Mr Farquharson that he could bring Moneida with him +to a Liberal victory, he thought and spoke of the farmers +of the township not of his wards of the Reserve. Yet as +the day approached these would infallibly become voters +in his eyes, to swell or to diminish the sum of Moneida's +loyalty to the Empire. They remembered all this in the +committee room of his old party. "The squire," they said +to one another, "will give himself away this time if ever +he did." Then young Murchison hadn't known any better +than to spend the best part of the day out there, and +there were a dozen witnesses to swear that old Ormiston +introduced him to three or four of the chiefs. That was +basis enough for the boys detailed to watch Moneida, +basis enough in the end for a petition constructed to +travel to the High Court at Toronto for the purpose of +rendering null and void the election of Mr Lorne Murchison, +and transferring the South Fox seat to the candidate of +the opposite party. + +That possibility had been promptly frustrated by a cross +petition. There was enough evidence in Subdivision Eleven, +according to Bingham, to void the Tory returns on six +different counts; but the house-cat sold by Peter Finnigan +to Mr Winter for five dollars would answer all practical +purposes. It was a first-rate mouser, Bingham said, and +it would settle Winter. They would have plenty of other +charges "good and ready" if Finnigan's cat should fail +them, but Bingham didn't think the court would get to +anything else; he had great confidence in the cat. + +The petitions had been lodged with promptness. "Evidence," +as Mr Winter remarked, "is like a good many other +things--better when it's hot, especially the kind you +get on the Reserve." To which, when he heard it, Bingham +observed sarcastically that the cat would keep. The +necessary thousand dollars were ready on each side the +day after the election, lodged in court the next. Counsel +were as promptly engaged--the Liberals selected Cruickshank +--and the suit against the elected candidate, beginning +with charges against his agents in the town, was shortly +in full hearing before the judges sent from Toronto to +try it. Meanwhile the Elgin Mercury had shown enterprise +in getting hold of Moneida evidence, and foolhardiness, +as the Express pointed out, in publishing it before the +matter was reached in court. There was no foolhardiness +in printing what the Express knew about Finnigan's cat; +it was just a common cat, and Walter Winter paid five +dollars for it, Finnigan declaring that if Mr Winter +hadn't filled him up with bad whiskey before the bargain, +he wouldn't have let her go under ten, he was that fond +of the creature. The Express pointed out that this was +grasping of Finnigan, as the cat had never left him, and +Mr Winter showed no intention of taking her away; but +there was nothing sub judice about the cat. Finnigan, +before he sobered up, had let her completely out of the +bag. It was otherwise with the charges that were to be +made, according to the Mercury, on the evidence of Chief +Joseph Fry and another member of his tribe, to the effect +that he and his Conservative friends had been instructed +by Squire Ormiston and Mr Murchison to vote on this +occasion for both the candidates, thereby producing, when +the box was opened, eleven ballot-papers inscribed with +two crosses instead of one, and valueless. Here, should +the charges against a distinguished and highly respected +Government official fail, as in the opinion of the Express +they undoubtedly would fail of substantiation was a big +libel case all dressed and ready and looking for the +Mercury office. "Foolish--foolish," wrote Mr Williams at +the close of his editorial comments. "Very ill-advised." + +"They've made no case so far," Mr Murchison assured the +family. "I saw Williams on my way up, and he says the +evidence of that corner grocery fellow--what's his +name?--went all to pieces this morning. Oliver was in +court. He says one of the judges--Hooke--lost his patience +altogether." + +"They won't do anything with the town charges," Alec +said, "and they know it. They're saving themselves for +Moneida and old man Ormiston." + +"Well, I heartily wish," said Mrs Murchison, in a tone +of grievance with the world at large, and if you were +not responsible you might keep out of the way--"I heartily +wish that Lorne had stayed at home that day and not got +mixed up with old man Ormiston." + +"They'll find it pretty hard to fix anything on Lorne," +said Alec. "But I guess the Squire did go off his head +a little." + +"Have they anything more than Indian evidence?" asked +Advena. + +"We don't know what they've got," said her brother darkly +"and we won't till Wednesday, when they expect to get +round to it." + +"Indian evidence will be a poor dependence in Cruickshank's +hands," Mr Murchison told them, with a chuckle. "They +say this Chief Joseph Fry is going about complaining that +he always got three dollars for one vote before, and this +time he expected six for two, and got nothing!" + +"Chief Joseph Fry!" exclaimed Alec. "They make me tired +with their Chief Josephs and Chief Henrys! White Clam +Shell--that was the name he got when he wasn't christened." + +"That's the name," remarked Advena, "that he probably +votes under." + +"Well," said Mrs Murchison, "it was very kind of Squire +Ormiston to give Lorne his support, but it seems to me +that as far as Moneida is concerned he would have done +better alone." + +"No, I guess he wouldn't, Mother," said Alec. "Moneida +came right round with the Squire, outside the Reserve. +If it hadn't been for the majority there we would have +lost the election. The old man worked hard, and Lorne is +grateful to him, and so he ought to be." + +"If they carry the case against Lorne," said Stella, +"he'll be disqualified for seven years." + +"Only if they prove him personally mixed up in it," said +the father. "And that," he added with a concentration of +family sentiment in the emphasis of it, "they'll not do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +It was late afternoon when the train from the West +deposited Hugh Finlay upon the Elgin platform, the close +of one of those wide, wet, uncertain February days when +the call of spring is on the wind though spring is weeks +away. The lights of the town flashed and glimmered down +the streets under the bare swaying maple branches. The +early evening was full of soft bluster; the air was +conscious with an appeal of nature, vague yet poignant. +The young man caught at the strange sympathy that seemed +to be abroad for his spirit. He walked to his house, +courting it, troubled by it. They were expecting him that +evening at Dr Drummond's, and there it was his intention +to go. But on his way he would call for a moment to see +Advena Murchison. He had something to tell her. It would +be news of interest at Dr Drummond's also; but it was of +no consequence, within an hour or so, when they should +receive it there, while it was of great consequence that +Advena should hear it at the earliest opportunity, and +from him. There is no weighing or analysing the burden +of such a necessity as this. It simply is important: it +makes its own weight; and those whom it concerns must +put aside other matters until it has been accomplished. +He would tell her: they would accept it for a moment +together, a moment during which he would also ascertain +whether she was well and strong, with a good chance of +happiness--God protect her--in the future that he should +not know. Then he would go on to Dr Drummond's. + +The wind had risen when he went out again; it blew a +longer blast, and the trees made a steady sonorous rhythm +in it. The sky was full of clouds that dashed upon the +track of a failing moon; there was portent everywhere, +and a hint of tumult at the end of the street. No two +ways led from Finlay's house to his first destination. +River Street made an angle with that on which the Murchisons +lived--half a mile to the corner, and three-quarters the +other way. Drops drove in his face as he strode along +against the wind, stilling his unquiet heart, that leaped +before him to that brief interview. As he took the single +turning he came into the full blast of the veering, +irresolute storm. The street was solitary and full of +the sound of the blown trees, wild and uplifting. Far +down the figure of a woman wavered before the wind across +the zone of a blurred lamp-post. She was coming toward +him. He bent his head and lowered his umbrella and lost +sight of her as they approached, she with the storm behind +her, driven with hardly more resistance than the last +year's blackened leaves that blew with her, he assailed +by it and making the best way he could. Certainly the +wind was taking her part and his, when in another moment +her skirt whipped against him and he saw her face glimmer +out. A mere wreck of lines and shadows it seemed in the +livid light, with suddenly perceiving eyes and lips that +cried his name. She had on a hat and a cloak, but carried +no umbrella, and her hands were bare and wet. Pitifully +the storm blew her into his arms, a tossed and straying +thing that could not speak for sobs; pitifully and with +a rough incoherent sound he gathered and held her in that +refuge. A rising fear and a great solicitude laid a finger +upon his craving embrace of her; he had a sense of +something strangely different in her, of the unknown +irremediable. Yet she was there, in his arms, as she had +never been before; her plight but made her in a manner +sweeter; the storm that brought her barricaded them in +the empty spaces of the street with a divinely entreating +solitude. He had been prepared to meet her in the lighted +decorum of her father's house and he knew what he should +say. He was not prepared to take her out of the tempest, +helpless and weeping and lost for the harbour of his +heart, and nothing could he say. He locked his lips +against all that came murmuring to them. But his arms +tightened about her and he drew her into the shelter of +a wall that jutted out in the irregular street; and there +they stood and clung together in a long, close, broken +silence that covered the downfall of her spirit. It was +the moment of their great experience of one another; +never again, in whatever crisis, could either know so +deep, so wonderful a fathoming of the other soul. Once +as it passed, Advena put up her hand and touched his +cheek: There were tears on it, and she trembled, and +wound her arm about his neck, and held up her face to +his. "No," he muttered, and crushed it against his breast. +There without complaint she let it lie; she was all +submission to him: his blood leaped and his spirit groaned +with the knowledge of it. + +"Why did you come out? Why did you come, dear?" he said +at last. + +"I don't know. There was such a wind. I could not stay +in the house." + +She spoke timidly, in a voice that should have been new +to him, but that it was, above all, her voice. + +"I was on my way to you." + +"I know. I thought you might perhaps come. If you had +not--I think I was on my way to you." + +It seemed not unnatural. + +"Did you find--any message from me when you came?" she +asked presently, in a quieted, almost a contented tone. + +It shot--the message--before his eyes, though he had seen +it no message, in the preoccupation of his arrival. + +"I found a rose on my dressing-table," he told her; and +the rose stood for him in a wonder of tenderness, looking +back. + +"I smuggled it in," she confessed, "I knew your old +servant--she used to be with us. The others--from Dr +Drummond's--have been there all day making it warm and +comfortable for you. I had no right to do anything like +that, but I had the right, hadn't I, to bring the rose?" + +"I don't know," he answered her, hard-pressed, "how we +are to bear this." + +She shrank away from him a little, as if at a glimpse of +a surgeon's knife. + +"We are not to bear it," she said eagerly. "The rose is +to tell you that. I didn't mean it, when I left it, to +be anything more--more than a rose; but now I do. I didn't +even know when I came out tonight. But now I do. We aren't +to bear it, Hugh. I don't want it so--now. I can't--can't +have it so." + +She came nearer to him again and caught with her two +hands the lapels of his coat. He closed his own over them +and looked down at her in that half-detachment, which +still claimed and held her. + +"Advena," he whispered, out of the sudden clamour in his +mind, "she can't be--she isn't--nothing has happened to +her?" + +She smiled faintly, but her eyes were again full of fear +at his implication of the only way. + +"Oh, no!" she said. "But you have been away, and she has +come. I have seen her; and oh! she won't care, Hugh--she +won't care." + +Her asking, straining face seemed to gather and reflect +all the light there was in the shifting night about them. +The rain had stopped, but the wind still hurtled past, +whirling the leaves from one darkness to another. They +were as isolated, as outlawed there in the wild wet wind +as they were in the confusion of their own souls. + +"We must care," he said helplessly, clinging to the sound +and form of the words. + +"Oh, no!" she cried. "No, no! Indeed I know now what is +possible and what is not!" + +For an instant her eyes searched the rigid lines of his +face in astonishment. In their struggle to establish the +impossible she had been so far ahead, so greatly the more +confident and daring, had tempted him to such heights, +scorning every dizzy verge, that now, when she turned +quite back from their adventure, humbly confessing it +too hard, she could not understand how he should continue +to set himself doggedly toward it. Perhaps, too, she +trusted unconsciously in her prerogative. He loved her, and +she him: before she would not, now she would. Before she +had preferred an ideal to the desire of her heart; now +it lay about her; her strenuous heart had pulled it down +to foolish ruin, and how should she lie abased with it and +see him still erect and full of the deed they had to do? + +"Come," he said, "let me take you home, dear," and at +that and some accent in it that struck again at hope, +she sank at his feet in a torrent of weeping, clasping +them and entreating him, "Oh send her away! Send her +away!" + +He lifted her, and was obliged literally to support her. +Her hat had fallen off; he stroked her hair and murmured +such comfort to her as we have for children in their +extremity, of which the burden is chiefly love and "Don't +cry." She grew gradually quieter, drawing one knows not +what restitution from the intrinsic in him; but there +was no pride in her, and when she said "Let me go home +now," it was the broken word of hapless defeat. They +struggled together out into the boisterous street, and +once or twice she failed and had to stop and turn. Then +she would cling to a wall or a tree, putting his help +aside with a gesture in which there was again some pitiful +trace of renunciation. They went almost without a word, +each treading upon the heart of the other toward the gulf +that was to come. They reached it at the Murchisons' +gate, and there they paused, as briefly as possible, +since pause was torture, and he told her what he could +not tell her before. + +"I have accepted the charge of the White Water Mission +Station in Alberta," he said. "I, too, learned very soon +after I left you what was possible and what was not. I +go as soon as--things can be set in order here. Good-bye, +my dear love, and may God help us both." + +She looked at him with a pitiful effort at a steady lip. +"I must try to believe it," she said. "And afterward, +when it comes true for you, remember this--I was ashamed." + +Then he saw her pass into her father's house, and he took +the road to his duty and Dr Drummond's. + +His extremity was very great. Through it lines came to +him from the beautiful archaic inheritance of his Church. +He strode along hearing them again and again in the dying +storm. + + So, I do stretch my hands + To Thee my help alone; + Thou only understands + All my complaint and moan. + +He listened to the prayer on the wind, which seemed to +offer it for him, listened and was gravely touched. But +he himself was far from the throes of supplication. He +was looking for the forces of his soul; and by the time +he reached Dr Drummond's door we may suppose that he had +found them. + +Sarah who let him in, cried, "How wet you are, Mr Finlay!" +and took his overcoat to dry in the kitchen. The Scotch +ladies, she told him, and Mrs Forsyth, had gone out to +tea, but they would be back right away, and meanwhile +"the Doctor" was expecting him in the study--he knew the +way. + +Finlay did know the way but, as a matter of fact, there +had been time for him to forget it; he had not crossed +Dr Drummond's threshold since the night on which the +Doctor had done all, as he would have said, that was +humanly possible to bring him, Finlay, to reason upon +the matter of his incredible entanglement in Bross. The +door at the end of the passage was ajar however, as if +impatient; and Dr Drummond himself, standing in it, +heightened that appearance, with his "Come you in, Finlay. +Come you in!" + +The Doctor looked at the young man in a manner even more +acute, more shrewd, and more kindly than was his wont. +His eye searched Finlay thoroughly, and his smile seemed +to broaden as his glance travelled. + +"Man," he said, "you're shivering," and rolled him an +armchair near the fire. ("The fellow came into the room," +he would say, when he told the story afterward to the +person most concerned, "as if he were going to the stake!") +"This is extraordinary weather we are having, but I think +the storm is passing over." + +"I hope," said Finlay, "that my aunt and Miss Cameron +are well. I understand they are out." + +"Oh, very well--finely. They're out at present, but you'll +see them bye-and-bye. An excellent voyage over they +had--just the eight days. But we'll be doing it in less +than that when the new fast line is running to Halifax. +But four days of actual ocean travelling they say now it +will take. Four days from imperial shore to shore! That +should incorporate us--that should bring them out and +take us home." + +The Doctor had not taken a seat himself, but was pacing +the study, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets; and a +touch of embarrassment seemed added to the inveterate +habit. + +"I hear the ladies had pleasant weather." Finlay remarked. + +"Capital--capital! You won't smoke? I know nothing about +these cigars; they're some Grant left behind him--a +chimney, that man Grant. Well, Finlay"--he threw himself +into the arm-chair on the other side of the hearth--"I +don't know what to say to you." + +"Surely," said Finlay restively, "it has all been said, +sir." + +"No, it has not all been said," Dr Drummond retorted. +"No, it has not. There's more to be said, and you must +hear it, Finlay, with such patience as you have. But I +speak the truth when I say that I don't know how to +begin." + +The young man gave him opportunity, gazing silently into +the fire. He was hardly aware that Dr Drummond had again +left his seat when he started violently at a clap on the +shoulder. + +"Finlay!" exclaimed the Doctor. "You won't be offended? +No--you couldn't be offended!" + +It was half-jocular, half-anxious, wholly inexplicable. + +"At what," asked Hugh Finlay, "should I be offended?" + +Again, with a deep sigh, the Doctor dropped into his +chair. "I see I must begin at the beginning," he said. +But Finlay, with sudden intuition, had risen and stood +before him trembling, with a hand against the mantelpiece. + +"No," he said, "if you have anything to tell me of +importance, for God's sake begin at the end." + +Some vibration in his voice went straight to the heart +of the Doctor, banishing as it travelled, every irrelevant +thing that it encountered. + +"Then the end is this, Finlay," he said. "The young woman, +Miss Christie Cameron, whom you were so wilfully bound +and determined to marry, has thrown you over--that is, +if you will give her back her word--has jilted you--that +is, if you'll let her away. Has thought entirely better +of the matter." + +("He stared out of his great sockets of eyes as if the +sky had fallen," Dr Drummond would say, recounting it.) + +"For--for what reason?" asked Finlay, hardly yet able to +distinguish between the sound of disaster and the sense +that lay beneath. + +"May I begin at the beginning?" asked the Doctor, and +Hugh silently nodded. + +("He sat there and never took his eyes off me, twisting +his fingers. I might have been in a confession-box," Dr +Drummond would explain to her.) + +"She came here, Miss Cameron, with that good woman, Mrs +Kilbannon, it will be three weeks next Monday," he said, +with all the air of beginning a story that would be well +worth hearing. "And I wasn't very well pleased to see +her, for reasons that you know. However, that's neither +here nor there. I met them both at the station, and I +own to you that I thought when I made Miss Cameron's +acquaintance that you were getting better than you deserved +in the circumstances. You were a thousand miles away--now +that was a fortunate thing!--and she and Mrs Kilbannon +just stayed here and made themselves as comfortable as +they could. And that was so comfortable that anyone could +see with half an eye"--the Doctor's own eye twinkled--"so +far as Miss Cameron was concerned, that she wasn't pining +in any sense of the word. But I wasn't sorry for you, +Finlay, on that account." He stopped to laugh enjoyingly, +and Finlay blushed like a girl. + +"I just let matters bide and went about my own business. +Though after poor Mrs Forsyth here--a good woman enough, +but the brains of a rabbit--it was pleasant to find these +intelligent ladies at every meal, and wonderful how quick +they were at picking up the differences between the points +of Church administration here and at home. That was a +thing I noticed particularly in Miss Cameron. + +"Matters went smoothly enough--smoothly enough--till one +afternoon that foolish creature Advena Murchison"--Finlay +started--"came here to pay a call on Miss Cameron and +Mrs Kilbannon. It was well and kindly meant, but it was +not a wise-like thing to do. I didn't exactly make it +out, but it seems that she came all because of you and +on account of you; and the ladies didn't understand it, +and Mrs Kilbannon came to me. My word, but there was a +woman to deal with! Who was this young lady, and what +was she to you that she should go anywhere or do anything +in your name? Without doubt"--he put up a staying hand--"it +was foolish of Advena. And what sort of freedom, and how +far, and why, and what way, and I tell you it was no easy +matter, to quiet her. 'Is Miss Cameron distressed about +it?' said I. 'Not a bit,' said she, 'but I am, and I must +have the rights of this matter,' said she, 'if I have to +put it to my nephew himself.' + +"It was at that point, Finlay, that the idea--just then +that the thought came into my mind--well I won't say +absolutely, but practically for the first time--Why can't +this matter be arranged on a basis to suit all parties? +So I said to her, 'Mrs Kilbannon,' I said, 'if you had +reasonable grounds for it, do you think you could persuade +your niece not to marry Hugh Finlay?' Wait--patience!" +He held up his hand, and Finlay gripped the arm of his +chair again. + +"She just stared at me. 'Are you gone clean daft, Dr +Drummond?' she said. 'There could be no grounds serious +enough for that. I will not believe that Hugh Finlay has +compromised himself in any way.' I had to stop her; I +was obliged to tell her there was nothing of the +kind--nothing of the kind; and later on I'll have to +settle with my conscience about that. 'I meant,' I said, +the reasonable grounds of an alternative: 'An alternative?' +said she. To cut a long story short," continued the +Doctor, leaning forward, always with the finger in his +waistcoat pocket to emphasize what he said, "I represented +to Mrs Kilbannon that Miss Cameron was not in sentimental +relations toward you, that she had some reason to suspect +you of having placed your affections elsewhere, and that +I myself was very much taken up with what I had seen of +Miss Cameron. In brief, I said to Mrs Kilbannon that if +Miss Cameron saw no objection to altering the arrangements +to admit of it, I should be pleased to marry her myself. +The thing was much more suitable in every way. I was +fifty-three years of age last week, I told her, 'but' I +said, 'Miss Cameron is thirty-six or seven, if she's a +day, and Finlay there would be like nothing but a grown-up +son to her. I can offer her a good home and the minister's +pew in a church that any woman might be proud of--and +though far be it from me,' I said, 'to depreciate mission +work, either home or foreign, Miss Cameron in that field +would be little less than thrown away. Think it over,' +I said. + +"Well, she was pleased, I could see that. But she didn't +half like the idea of changing the original notion. It +was leaving you to your own devices that weighed most +with her against it; she'd set her heart on seeing you +married with her approval. So I said to her, to make an +end of it, 'Well, Mrs Kilbannon,' I said, 'suppose we +say no more about it for the present. I think I see the +finger of Providence in this matter; but you'll talk it +over with Miss Cameron, and we'll all just make it, for +the next few days, the subject of quiet and sober +reflection. Maybe at the end of that time I'll think +better of it myself, though that is not my expectation.' + +"'I think,' she said, 'we'll just leave it to Christie.'" + +As the Doctor went on with his tale, relaxation had stolen +dumbly about Finlay's brow and lips. He dropped from the +plane of his own absorption to the humorous common sense +of the recital: it claimed and held him with infinite +solace. His eyes had something like the light of laughter +in them, flashing behind a cloud, as he fixed them on Dr +Drummond, and said, "And did you?" + +"We did," said Dr Drummond, getting up once more from +his chair, and playing complacently with his watch-charms +as he took another turn about the study. "We left it to +Miss Cameron, and the result is"--the Doctor stopped +sharply and wheeled round upon Finlay--"the result is-- +why, the upshot seems to be that I've cut you out, man!" + +Finlay measured the little Doctor standing there twisting +his watch-chain, beaming with achieved satisfaction, in +a consuming desire to know how far chance had been kind +to him, and how far he had to be simply, unspeakably, +grateful. He stared in silence, occupied with his great +debt; it was like him that that, and not his liberty, +should be first in his mind. We who have not his opportunity +may find it more difficult to decide; but from our private +knowledge of Dr Drummond we may remember what poor Finlay +probably forgot at the moment, that even when pitted +against Providence, the Doctor was a man of great +determination. + +The young fellow got up, still speechless, and confronted +Dr Drummond. He was troubled for something to say; the +chambers of his brain seemed empty or reiterating foolish +sounds. He pressed the hand the minister offered him and +his lips quivered. Then a light came into his face, and +he picked up his hat. + +"And I'll say this for myself," chuckled Dr Drummond. +"It was no hard matter." + +Finlay looked at him and smiled. "It would not be, sir," +he said lamely. Dr Drummond cast a shrewd glance at him +and dropped the tone of banter. + +"Aye--I know! It's no joking matter," he said, and with +a hand behind the young man's elbow, he half pushed him +to the door and took out his watch. He must always be +starting somebody, something, in the right direction, +the Doctor. "It's not much after half-past nine, Finlay," +he said. "I notice the stars are out." + +It had the feeling of a colloquial benediction, and Finlay +carried it with him all the way. + +It was nevertheless nearly ten when he reached her father's +house, so late that the family had dispersed for the +night. Yet he had the hardihood to ring, and the hour +blessed them both, for Advena on the stair, catching who +knows what of presage out of the sound, turned, and found +him at the threshold herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"I understand how you must feel in the matter, Murchison, +said Henry Cruickshank. "It's the most natural thing in +the world that you should want to clear yourself definitely, +especially as you say, since the charges have been given +such wide publicity. On the other hand, I think it quite +possible that you exaggerate the inference that will be +drawn from our consenting to saw off with the other side +on the two principal counts." + +"The inference will be," said Lorne "that there's not a +pin to choose between Winter's political honesty and my +own. I'm no Pharisee, but I don't think I can sit down +under that. I can't impair my possible usefulness by +accepting a slur upon my reputation at the very beginning." + +"Politics are very impersonal. It wouldn't be remembered +a year." + +"Winter of course," said young Murchison moodily, "doesn't +want to take any chances. He knows he's done for if we +go on. Seven years for him would put him pretty well out +of politics. And it would suit him down to the ground to +fight it over again. There's nothing he would like better +to see than another writ for South Fox." + +"That's all right," the lawyer responded, "but Moneida +doesn't look altogether pleasant, you know. We may have +good grounds for supposing that the court will find you +clear of that business; but Ormiston, so far as I can +make out, was playing the fool down there for a week +before polling-day, and there are three or four Yellow +Dogs and Red Feathers only too anxious to pay back a +grudge on him. We'll have to fight again, there's no +doubt about that. The only question is whether we'll ruin +Ormiston first or not. Have you seen Bingham?" + +"I know what Bingham thinks," said Lorne, impatiently. +"The Squire's position is a different consideration. I +don't see how I can--However, I'll go across to the +committee room now and talk it over." + +It is doubtful whether young Murchison knew all that +Bingham thought; Bingham so seldom told it all. There +were matters in the back of Bingham's mind that prompted +him to urge the course that Cruickshank had been empowered +by the opposing counsel to suggest--party considerations +that it would serve no useful purpose to talk over with +Murchison. Bingham put it darkly when he said he had +quite as much hay on his fork as he cared to tackle +already, implying that the defence of indiscretions in +Moneida was quite an unnecessary addition. Contingencies +seemed probable, arising out of the Moneida charges that +might affect the central organization of the party in +South Fox to an extent wholly out of proportion with the +mere necessity of a second election. Bingham talked it +over with Horace Williams, and both of them with +Farquharson; they were all there to urge the desirability +of "sawing off" upon Lorne when he found them at +headquarters. Their most potent argument was, of course, +the Squire and the immediate dismissal that awaited him +under the law if undue influence were proved against him. +Other considerations found the newly elected member for +South Fox obstinate and troublesome, but to that he was +bound to listen, and before that he finally withdrew his +objections. The election would come on again, as happened +commonly enough. Bingham could point to the opening, in +a few days, of a big flour-milling industry across the +river, which would help; operations on the Drill Hall +and the Post-Office would be hurried on at once, and the +local party organization would be thoroughly overhauled. +Bingham had good reason for believing that they could +entirely regain their lost ground, and at the same time +dissipate the dangerous impression that South Fox was +being undermined. Their candidate gave a reluctant ear +to it all, and in the end agreed to everything. + +So that Chief Joseph Fry--the White Clam Shell of his +own lost fires--was never allowed the chance of making +good the election losses of that year, as he had confidently +expected to do when the charge came on; nor was it given +to any of the Yellow Dogs and Red Feathers of Mr +Cruickshank's citation to boast at the tribal dog-feasts +of the future, of the occasion on which they had bested +"de boss." Neither was any further part in public affairs, +except by way of jocular reference, assigned to Finnigan's +cat. The proceedings of the court abruptly terminated, +the judges reported the desirability of a second contest, +and the public accepted with a wink. The wink in any form +was hateful to Lorne Murchison, but he had not to encounter +it long. + +The young man had changed in none of the aspects he +presented to his fellow-citizens since the beginning of +the campaign. In the public eye he wore the same virtues +as he wore the same clothes; he summed up even a greater +measure of success; his popularity was unimpaired. He +went as keenly about the business of life, handling its +details with the same capable old drawl. Only his mother, +with the divination of mothers, declared that since the +night of the opera house meeting Lorne had been "all +worked up." She watched him with furtive anxious looks, +was solicitous about his food, expressed relief when she +knew him to be safely in bed and asleep. He himself +observed himself with discontent, unable to fathom his +extraordinary lapse from self-control on the night of +his final address. He charged it to the strain of +unavoidable office work on top of the business of the +campaign, abused his nerves, talked of a few days' rest +when they had settled Winter. He could think of nothing +but the points he had forgotten when he had his great +chance. "The flag should have come in at the end," he +would say to himself, trying vainly to remember where it +did come in. He was ill pleased with the issue of that +occasion; and it was small compensation to be told by +Stella that his speech gave her shivers up and down her +back. + +Meanwhile the theory of Empire coursed in his blood, fed +by the revelation of the future of his country in every +newspaper, by the calculated prophecies of American +onlookers, and by the telegrams which repeated the trumpet +notes of Wallingham's war upon the mandarinate of Great +Britain. It occupied him so that he began to measure and +limit what he had to say about it, and to probe the casual +eye for sympathy before he would give an inch of rope to +his enthusiasm. He found it as hard as ever to understand +that the public interest should be otherwise preoccupied, +as it plainly was, that the party organ, terrified of +Quebec, should shuffle away from the subject with +perfunctory and noncommittal reference, that among the +men he met in the street, nobody's blood seemed stirred, +whatever the day's news was from England. He subscribed +to the Toronto Post, the leading organ of the Tories, +because of its fuller reports and more sympathetic +treatment of the Idea, due to the fact that the Idea +originated in a brain temporarily affiliated to the +Conservative party. If the departure to imperial preference +had any damage in it for Canadian interests, it would be +for those which the Post made its special care; but the +spirit of party draws the breath of expediency, and the +Post flaunting the Union Jack every other day, put +secondary manufactures aside for future discussion, and +tickled the wheat-growers with the two-shilling advantage +they were coming into at the hands of the English +Conservatives, until Liberal leaders began to be a little +anxious about a possible loss of wheat-growing votes. It +was, as John Murchison said, a queer position for everybody +concerned; queer enough, no doubt, to admit a Tory journal +into the house on sufferance and as a special matter; +but he had a disapproving look for it as it lay on the +hall floor, and seldom was the first to open it. + +Nevertheless Lorne found more satisfaction in talking +imperialism with his father than with anyone else. While +the practical half of John Murchison was characteristically +alive to the difficulties involved, the sentimental half +of him was ready at any time to give out cautious sparks +of sympathy with the splendour of Wallingham's scheme; +and he liked the feeling that a son of his should hark +back in his allegiance to the old land. There was a kind +of chivalry in the placing of certain forms of beauty-- +political honour and public devotion, which blossomed +best, it seemed, over there--above the material ease and +margin of the new country, and even above the grand chance +it offered for a man to make his mark. Mr Murchison was +susceptible to this in anyone, and responsive to it in +his son. + +As to the local party leaders, they had little more than +a shrug for the subject. So far as they were concerned, +there was no Empire and no Idea; Wallingham might as well +not have been born. It seemed to Lorne that they maintained +toward him personally a special reticence about it. +Reticence indeed characterized their behaviour generally +during the period between the abandonment of the suits +and the arrangement of the second Liberal convention. +They had little advice for him about his political +attitude, little advice about anything. He noticed that +his presence on one or two occasions seemed to embarrass +them, and that his arrival would sometimes have a +disintegrating effect upon a group in the post-office or +at a street corner. He added it, without thinking, to +his general heaviness; they held it a good deal against +him, he supposed, to have reduced their proud standing +majority to a beggarly two figures; he didn't blame them. + +I cannot think that the sum of these depressions alone +would have been enough to overshadow so buoyant a soul +as Lorne Murchison's. The characteristics of him I have +tried to convey were grafted on an excellent fund of +common sense. He was well aware of the proportions of +things; he had no despair of the Idea, nor would he +despair should the Idea etherealize and fly away. Neither +had he, for his personal honour, any morbid desires toward +White Clam Shell or Finnigan's cat. His luck had been a +good deal better than it might have been; he recognized +that as fully as any sensible young man could, and as +for the Great Chance, and the queer grip it had on him, +he would have argued that too if anyone had approached +him curiously about it. There I think we might doubt his +conclusions. There is nothing subtler, more elusive to +trace than the intercurrents of the emotions. Politics +and love are thought of at opposite poles, and Wallingham +perhaps would have laughed to know that he owed an exalted +allegiance in part to a half-broken heart. Yet the impulse +that is beyond our calculation, the thing we know potential +in the blood but not to be summoned or conditioned, lies +always in the shadow of the ideal; and who can analyse +that, and say, "Of this class is the will to believe in +the integrity of the beloved and false; of that is the +desire to lift a nation to the level of its mountain- +ranges"? Both dispositions have a tendency to overwork +the heart; and it is easy to imagine that they might +interact. Lorne Murchison's wish, which was indeed a +burning longing and necessity, to believe in the Dora +Milburn of his passion, had been under a strain since +the night on which he brought her the pledge which she +refused to wear. He had hardly been conscious of it in +the beginning, but by constant suggestion it had grown +into his knowledge, and for weeks he had taken poignant +account of it. His election had brought him no nearer a +settlement with her objection to letting the world know +of their relations. The immediate announcement that it +was to be disputed gave Dora another chance, and once +again postponed the assurance that he longed for with a +fever which was his own condemnation of her, if he could +have read that sign. For months he had seen so little of +her, had so altered his constant habit of going to the +Milburns', that his family talked of it, wondering among +themselves; and Stella indulged in hopeful speculations. +They did not wonder or speculate. at the Milburns'. It +was an axiom there that it is well to do nothing rashly. + +Lorne, in the office on Market Street, had been replying +to Mr Fulke to the effect that the convention could hardly +be much longer postponed, but that as yet he had no word +of the date of it when the telephone bell rang and Mr +Farquharson's voice at the other end asked him to come +over to the committee room. "They've decided about it +now, I imagine," he told his senior, putting on his hat; +and something of the wonted fighting elation came upon +him as he went down the stairs. He was right in his +supposition. They had decided about it, and they were +waiting, in a group that made every effort to look casual, +to tell him when he arrived. + +They had delegated what Horace Williams called "the job" +to Mr Farquharson, and he was actually struggling with +the preliminaries of it, when Bingham, uncomfortable +under the curious quietude of the young fellow's attention, +burst out with the whole thing. + +"The fact is, Murchison, you can't poll the vote. There's +no man in the Riding we'd be better pleased to send to +the House; but we've got to win this election, and we +can't win it with you." + +"You think you can't?" said Lorne. + +"You see, old man," Horace Williams put in, "you didn't +get rid of that save-the-Empire-or-die scheme of yours +soon enough. People got to think you meant something by +it." + +"I shall never get rid of it," Lorne returned simply, +and the others looked at one another. + +"The popular idea seems to be," said Mr Farquharson +judicially, "that you would not hesitate to put Canada +to some material loss, or at least to postpone her +development in various important directions, for the sake +of the imperial connection." + +"Wasn't that," Lorne asked him, "what, six months ago, +you were all prepared to do?" + +"Oh, no," said Bingham, with the air of repudiating for +everybody concerned. "Not for a cent. We were willing at +one time to work it for what is was worth, but it never +was worth that, and if you'd had a little more experience, +Murchison, you'd have realized it." + +"That's right, Lorne," contributed Horace Williams. +"Experience--that's all you want. You've got everything +else, and a darned sight more. We'll get you there, all +in good time. But this time--" + +"You want me to step down and out," said Lorne. + +"That's for you to say," Bingham told him. "We can nominate +you again all right, but we're afraid we can't get you +the convention. Young and Windle have been working like +moles for the past ten days--" + +"For Carter?" interrupted Lorne: "Carter, of course." + +They nodded. Carter stood the admitted fact. + +"I'm sorry it's Carter," said Lorne thoughtfully. +"However--" And he dropped, staring before him, into +silence. The others eyed him from serious, underhung +faces. Horace Williams, with an obvious effort, got up +and clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Brace up, old chap," he said. "You made a blame good +fight for us, and we'll do the same for you another day." + +"However, gentlemen," the young man gathered himself up +to say, "I believe I understand the situation. You are +my friends and this is your advice. We must save the +seat. I'll see Carter. If I can get anything out of him +to make me think he'll go straight on the scheme to save +the Empire"--he smiled faintly--"when it comes to a vote, +I'll withdraw in his favour at the convention. Horace +here will think up something for me--any old lie will +do, I suppose? In any case, of course, I withdraw." + +He took his hat, and they all got up, startled a little +at the quick and simple close of the difficult scene they +had anticipated. Horace Williams offered his hand. + +"Shake, Lorne," he said, and the other two, coming nearer. +followed his example. + +"Why, yes," said Lorne. + +He left them with a brief excuse, and they stood together +in a moment's silence, three practical politicians who +had delivered themselves from a dangerous network involving +higher things. + +"Dash these heart-to-heart talks," said Bingham irritably, +"it's the only thing to do, but why the devil didn't he +want something out of it? I had that Registrarship in my +inside pocket." + +"If anybody likes to kick me round the room," remarked +Horace Williams with depression, "I have no very strong +objection." + +"And now," Mr Farquharson said with a sigh, "we understand +it's got to be Carter. I suppose I'm too old a man to do +jockey for a three-year-old, but I own I've enjoyed the +ride." + +Lorne Murchison went out into the companionship of Main +Street, the new check in his fortunes hanging before him. +We may imagine that it hung heavily; we may suppose that +it cut off the view. As Bingham would have said, he was +"up against it" and that, when one is confidently treading +the straight path to accomplishment, is a dazing experience. +He was up against it, yet already he had recoiled far +enough to consider it; already he was adapting his heart, +his nerves, and his future to it. His heart took it +greatly, told him he had not yet force enough for the +business he had aspired to, but gave him a secret assurance. +Another time he would find more strength and show more +cunning; he would not disdain the tools of diplomacy and +desirability, he would dream no more of short cuts in +great political departures. His heart bowed to its sorry +education and took counsel with him, bidding him be of +good courage and push on. He was up against it, but he +would get round it, and there on the other side lay the +same wide prospect, with the Idea shining high. At one +point he faltered, but that was a matter of expediency +rather than of courage. He searched and selected, as he +went along the street, among phrases that would convey +his disaster to Dora Milburn. + +Just at that point, the turning to his own office, he +felt it hard luck that Alfred Hesketh should meet and +want a word with him. Hesketh had become tolerable only +when other things were equal. Lorne had not seen him +since the night of his election, when his felicitations +had seemed to stand for very little one way or another. +His manner now was more important charged with other +considerations. Lorne waited on the word, uncomfortably +putting off the necessity of coming out with his misfortune. + +"I haven't come across you, Murchison, but you've had my +sympathy, I needn't say, all this time. A man can't go +into politics with gloves on, there's no doubt about +that. Though mind you, I never for a moment believed that +you let yourself in personally. I mean, I've held you +all through, above the faintest suspicion." + +"Have you?" said Lorne. "Well, I suppose I ought to be +grateful." + +"Oh, I have--I assure you! But give me a disputed election +for the revelation of a rotten state of things--eh?" + +"It does show up pretty low, doesn't it?" + +"However, upon my word, I don't know whether it's any +better in England. At bottom we've got a lower class to +deal with, you know. I'm beginning to have a great respect +for the electorate of this country, Murchison--not +necessarily the methods, but the rank and file of the +people. They know what they want, and they're going to +have it." + +"Yes," said Lorne, "I guess they are." + +"And that brings me to my news, old man. I've given the +matter a lot of time and a lot of consideration, and I've +decided that I can't do better than drive in a stake for +myself in this new country of yours." + +"It isn't so very new," Lorne told him, in rather dull +response, "but I expect that's a pretty good line to +take. Why, yes--first rate." + +"As to the line," Hesketh went on, weightily, leading +the way through an encumbering group of farmers at a +corner, "I've selected that, too. Traction-engines. +Milburn has never built them yet, but he says the +opportunity is ripe--" + +"Milburn!" Lorne wheeled sharply. + +"My future partner. He was planning extensions just as +I came along, a fortunate moment, I hope it will prove, +for us both. I'd like to go into it with you, some time +when you have leisure--it's a scheme of extraordinary +promise. By the way, there's an idea in it that ought to +appeal to you--driving the force that's to subdue this +wilderness of yours." + +"When you've lived here for a while," said Lorne, painfully +preoccupied, "you'll think it quite civilized. So you're +going in with Milburn?" + +"Oh, I'm proud of it already! I shall make a good Canadian, +I trust. And as good an imperialist," he added, "as is +consistent with the claims of my adopted country." + +"That seems to be the popular view," said Lorne. + +"And a very reasonable view, too. But I'm not going to +embark on that with you, old fellow--you shan't draw me +in. I know where you are on that subject." + +"So do I--I'm stranded. But it's all right--the subject +isn't," Lorne said quietly; and Hesketh's exclamations +and inquiries brought out the morning's reverse. The +young Englishman was cordially sorry, full of concern +and personal disappointment, abandoning his own absorbing +affairs, and devoting his whole attention to the unfortunate +exigency which Lorne dragged out of his breast, in pure +manfulness, to lay before him. + +However, they came to the end of it, arriving at the same +time at the door which led up the stairs to the office +of Fulke, Warner, and Murchison. + +"Thank you," said Lorne. '"Thank you. Oh, I dare say it +will come all right in the course of time. You return to +England, I suppose--or do you?--before you go in with +Milburn?" + +"I sail next week," said Hesketh, and a great relief shot +into the face of his companion. "I have a good deal to +see to over there. I shan't get back much before June, +I fancy. And--I must tell you--I am doing the thing very +thoroughly. This business of naturalizing myself, I mean. +I am going to marry that very charming girl--a great +friend of yours, by the way, I know her to be--Miss +Milburn." + +For accepting the strokes of fate we have curiously +trivial demonstrations. Lorne met Hesketh's eye with the +steadiness of a lion's in his own; the unusual thing he +did was to take his hands out of his pockets and let his +arms hang loosely by his side. It was as tragic a gesture +of helplessness as if he had flung them above his head. + +"Dora is going to marry you?" + +"I believe she will do me that honour. And I consider it +an honour. Miss Milburn will compare with any English +girl I ever met. But I half expected you to congratulate +me. I know she wrote to you this morning--you were one +of the first." + +"I shall probably find the letter," said Lorne mechanically, +"when I go home." + +He still eyed Hesketh narrowly, as if he had somewhere +concealed about him the explanation of this final bitter +circumstance. He had a desire not to leave him, to stand +and parley--to go upstairs to the office would be to +plunge into the gulf. He held back from that and leaned +against the door frame, crossing his arms and looking +over into the market-place for subjects to postpone +Hesketh's departure. They talked of various matters in +sight, Hesketh showing the zest of his newly determined +citizenship in every observation--the extension of the +electric tramway, the pulling down of the old Fire Hall. +In one consciousness Lorne made concise and relevant +remarks; in another he sat in a spinning dark world and +waited for the crash. + +It seemed to come when Hesketh said, preparing to go, +"I'll tell Miss Milburn I saw you. I suppose this change +in your political prospects won't affect your professional +plans in any way you'll stick on here, at the Bar?" + +It was the very shock of calamity, and for the instant +he could see nothing in the night of it but one far avenue +of escape, a possibility he had never thought of seriously +until that moment. The conception seemed to form itself +on his lips, to be involuntary. + +"I don't know. A college friend has been pressing me for +some time to join him in Milwaukee. He offers me plenty +of work, and I am thinking seriously of closing with +him." + +"Go over to the United States? You can't mean that!" + +"Oh yes--it's the next best thing!" + +Hesketh's face assumed a gravity, a look of feeling and +of remonstrance. He came a step nearer and put a hand on +his companion's arm. + +"Come now, Murchison," he said, "I ask you--is this a +time to be thinking of chucking the Empire?" + +Lorne moved farther into the passage with an abruptness +which left his interlocutor staring. He stood there for +a moment in silence, and then turned to mount the stair +with a reply which a passing dray happily prevented from +reaching Hesketh's ears. + +"No, damn you," he said. "It's not!" + +I cannot let him finish on that uncontrolled phrase, +though it will be acknowledged that his provocation was +great. Nor must we leave him in heavy captivity to the +thought of oblivion in the unregarding welter of the near +republic, of plunging into more strenuous activities and +abandoning his ideal, in queer inverted analogy to the +refuging of weak women in a convent. We know that his +ideal was strong enough to reassert itself, under a keen +irony of suggestion, in the very depth of his overwhelming: +and the thing that could rise in him at that black moment +may be trusted, perhaps, to reclaim his fortitude and +reconsecrate his energy when these things come again into +the full current of his life. The illness that, after +two or three lagging days, brought him its merciful +physical distraction was laid in the general understanding +at the door of his political disappointment; and, among +a crowd of sympathizers confined to no party, Horace +Williams, as his wife expressed it, was pretty nearly +wild during its progress. The power of the press is +regrettably small in such emergencies, but what restoration +it had Horace anxiously administered; the Express published +a daily bulletin. The second election passed only +half-noticed by the Murchison family; Carter very nearly +re-established the Liberal majority. The Dominion dwelt +upon this repeated demonstration of the strength of Reform +principles in South Fox, and Mrs Murchison said they were +welcome to Carter. + +Many will sympathize with Mrs Murchison at this point, +I hope, and regret to abandon her in such equivocal +approval of the circumstances which have arisen round +her. Too anxiously occupied at home to take her share in +the general pleasant sensation of Dr Drummond's marriage, +she was compelled to give it a hurried consideration and +a sanction which was practically wrested from her. She +could not be clear as to the course of events that led +to it, nor entirely satisfied, as she said, about the +ins and outs of the affair; this although she felt she +could be clearer, and possibly had better grounds for +being satisfied, than other people. As to Advena's simple +statement that Miss Cameron had made a second choice of +the Doctor, changing her mind, as far as Mrs Murchison +could see, without rhyme or reason, that Mrs Murchison +took leave to find a very poor explanation. Advena's own +behaviour toward the rejection is one of the things which +her mother declares, probably truly, that she never will +understand. To pick up a man in the actual fling of being +thrown over, will never, in Mrs Murchison's eyes, constitute +a decorous proceeding. I suppose she thinks the creature +might have been made to wait at least until he had found +his feet. She professes to cherish no antagonism to her +future son-in-law on this account, although, as she says, +it's a queer way to come into a family; and she makes no +secret of her belief that Miss Cameron showed excellent +judgement in doing as she did, however that far-seeing +woman came to have the opportunity. + +Hesketh had sailed before Lorne left his room, to return +in June to those privileges and prospects of citizenship +which he so eminently deserves to enjoy. When her brother's +convalescence and departure for Florida had untied her +tongue, Stella widely proclaimed her opinion that Mr +Hesketh's engagement to Miss Milburn was the most suitable +thing that could be imagined or desired. We know the +youngest Miss Murchison to be inclined to impulsive views; +but it would be safe, I think, to follow her here. Now +that the question no longer circles in the actual vortex +of Elgin politics Mr Octavius Milburn's attitude toward +the conditions of imperial connection has become almost +as mellow as ever. Circumstances may arise any day, +however, to stir up that latent bitterness which is so +potential in him: and then I fear there will be no +restraining him from again attacking Wallingham in the +papers. + +Henry Cruickshank, growing old in his eminence and less +secure, perhaps, in the increasing conflict of loud +voices, of his own grasp of the ultimate best, fearing +too, no doubt, the approach of that cynicism which, moral +or immoral, is the real hoar of age, wrote to young +Murchison while he was still examining the problems of +the United States with the half-heart of the alien, and +offered him a partnership. The terms were so simple and +advantageous as only to be explicable on the grounds I +have mentioned, though no phrase suggested them in the +brief formulas of the letter, in which one is tempted to +find the individual parallel of certain propositions of +a great government also growing old. The offer was +accepted, not without emotion, and there, too, it would +be good to trace the parallel, were we permitted; but +for that it is too soon, or perhaps it is too late. Here, +for Lorne and for his country, we lose the thread of +destiny. The shuttles fly, weaving the will of the nations, +with a skein for ever dipped again; and he goes forth to +his share in the task among those by whose hand and +direction the pattern and the colours will be made. + + + +END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Imperialist, by Sara Jeannette Duncan + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST *** + +This file should be named mprls10.txt or mprls10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mprls11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mprls10a.txt + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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