To Him That Hath: A Tale of the West of Today
by Ralph Connor · English · Gutenberg #3244 · 466,805 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: To Him That Hath: A Tale of the West of Today
Author: Ralph Connor
Release date: June 3, 2006 [eBook #3244]
Most recently updated: March 5, 2018
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3244
Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TO HIM THAT HATH: A TALE OF THE WEST OF TODAY ***
Produced by Donald Lainson
TO HIM THAT HATH
A NOVEL OF THE WEST OF TODAY
By Ralph Connor
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE GAME
II THE COST OF SACRIFICE
III THE HEATHEN QUEST
IV ANNETTE
V THE RECTORY
VI THE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE
VII THE FOREMAN
VIII FREE SPEECH
IX THE DAY BEFORE
X THE NIGHT OF VICTORY
XI THE NEW MANAGER
XII LIGHT THAT IS DARKNESS
XIII THE STRIKE
XIV GATHERING CLOUDS
XV THE STORM
XVI A GALLANT FIGHT
XVII SHALL BE GIVEN
TO HIM THAT HATH
CHAPTER I
THE GAME
“Forty-Love.”
“Game! and Set. Six to two.”
A ripple of cheers ran round the court, followed by a buzz of excited
conversation.
The young men smiled at each other and at their friends on the side
lines and proceeded to change courts for the next set, pausing for
refreshments on the way.
“Much too lazy, Captain Jack. I am quite out of patience with you,”
cried a young girl whose brown eyes were dancing with mock indignation.
Captain Jack turned with a slightly bored look on his thin dark face.
“Too lazy, Frances?” drawled he. “I believe you. But think of the
temperature.”
“You have humiliated me dreadfully,” she said severely.
“Humiliated you? You shock me. But how, pray?” Captain Jack's eyes
opened wide.
“You, a Canadian, and our best player--at least, you used to be--to
allow yourself to be beaten by a--a--” she glanced at his opponent with
a defiant smile--“a foreigner.”
“Oh! I say, Miss Frances,” exclaimed that young man.
“A foreigner?” exclaimed Captain Jack. “Better not let Adrien hear you.”
He turned toward a tall fair girl standing near.
“What's that?” said the girl. “Did I hear aright?”
“Well, he's not a Canadian, I mean,” said Frances, sticking to her guns.
“Besides, I can't stand Adrien crowing over me. She is already far too
English, don-che-know. You have given her one more occasion for triumph
over us Colonials.”
“Ah, this is serious,” said Captain Jack. “But really it is too hot you
know for--what shall I say?--International complications.”
“Jack, you are plain lazy,” said Frances. “You know you are. You don't
deserve to win, but if you really would put your back into it--”
“Oh, come, Frances. Why! You don't know that my cousin played for his
College at Oxford. And that is saying something,” said Adrien.
“There you are, Jack! That's the sort of thing I have to live with,”
said Frances. “She thinks that settles everything.”
“Well, doesn't it rather?” smiled Adrien.
“Oh, Jack, if you have any regard for your country, not to say my
unworthy self, won't you humble her?” implored Frances. “If you would
only buck up!”
“He will need to, eh, Adrien?” said a young fellow standing near, slowly
sipping his drink.
“I think so. Indeed, I am quite sure of it,” coolly replied the girl
addressed. “But I really think it is quite useless.”
“Ha! Ha! Cheer up, Jack,” laughed the young man, Stillwell by name.
“Really, old chap, I feel I must beat you this set,” said Captain Jack
to the young Englishman. “My country's credit as well as my own is at
stake, you see.”
“Both are fairly assured, I should say,” said the Englishman.
“Not to-day,” said Stillwell, with a suspicion of a polite sneer in his
voice. “My money says so.”
“Canada vs. the Old Country!” cried a voice from the company.
“Now, Jack, Jack, remember,” implored Frances.
“You have no mercy, Miss Frances, I see,” said the Englishman, looking
straight into her eyes.
“Absolutely none,” she replied, smiling saucily at him.
“Vae victis, eh, old chap?” said Sidney, as they sauntered off together
to their respective courts. “By the way, who is that Stillwell chap?” he
asked in a low voice of Captain Jack as they moved away from the others.
“Of any particular importance?”
“I think you've got him all right,” replied Jack carelessly. The
Englishman nodded.
“He somehow gets my goat,” said Jack. The Englishman looked mystified.
“Rubs me the wrong way, you know.”
“Oh, very good, very good. I must remember that.”
“He rather fancies his own game, too,” said Jack, “and he has come
on the last year or two. In more ways than one,” he added as an
afterthought.
As they faced each other on the court it was Stillwell's voice that rang
out:
“Now then, England!”
“Canada!” cried a girl's voice that was easily recognised as that of
Frances Amory.
“Thumbs down, eh, Maitland?” said the Englishman, waving a hand toward
his charming enemy.
Whatever the cause, whether from the spur supplied by the young lady who
had constituted herself his champion or from the sting from the man
for whom for reasons sufficient for himself he had only feelings of
hostility and dislike, the game put up by Captain Jack was of quite a
different brand from that he had previously furnished. From the
first service he took the offensive and throughout played brilliant,
aggressive, even smashing tennis, so much so that his opponent appeared
to be almost outclassed and at the close the figures of the first set
were exactly reversed, standing six to two in Captain Jack's favour.
The warmth of the cheers that followed attested the popularity of the
win.
“My word, old chap, that is top-hole tennis,” said the Englishman,
warmly congratulating him.
“Luck, old boy, brilliant luck!” said Captain Jack. “Couldn't do it
again for a bet.”
“You must do it just once more,” said Frances, coming to meet the
players. “Oh, you dear old thing. Come and be refreshed. Here is the
longest, coolest thing in drinks this Club affords. And one for you,
too,” she added, turning to the Englishman. “You played a great game.”
“Did I not? I was at the top of my form,” said the Englishman gallantly.
“But all in vain, as you see.”
“Now for the final,” cried Frances eagerly.
“Dear lady,” said Captain Jack, affecting supreme exhaustion, “as you
are mighty, be merciful! Let it suffice that we appear to have given you
an exposition of fairly respectable tennis. I am quite done.”
“A great win, Jack,” said Adrien, offering her hand in congratulation.
“All flukes count, eh, Maitland?” laughed Stillwell, unable in spite of
his laugh to keep the bite out of his voice.
“Fluke?” exclaimed the Englishman in a slow drawling voice. “I call it
ripping good tennis, if I am a judge.”
A murmur of approval ran through the company, crowding about with
congratulations to both players.
“Oh, of course, of course,” said Stillwell, noting the criticism of
his unsportsmanlike remark. “What I mean is, Maitland is clearly out
of condition. If he were not I wouldn't mind taking him on myself,” he
added with another laugh.
“Now, do you mean?” said Captain Jack lazily.
“We will wait till the match is played out,” said Stillwell with easy
confidence. “Some other day, when you are in shape, eh?” he added,
smiling at Maitland.
“Now if you like, or after the match, or any old time,” said Captain
Jack, looking at Stillwell with hard grey, unsmiling eyes. “I understand
you have come up on your game during the war.”
Stillwell's face burned a furious red at the little laugh that went
round among Captain Jack's friends.
“Frankly, I have had enough for to-day,” said the Englishman to Jack.
“All right, old chap, if you don't really mind. Though I feel you would
certainly take the odd set.”
“Not a bit of it, by Jove. I am quite satisfied to let it go at that. We
will have another go some time.”
“Any time that suits you--to-morrow, eh?”
“To-morrow be it,” said the Englishman.
“Now, then, Stillwell,” said Captain Jack, with a curt nod at him.
“Whenever you are ready.”
“Oh, come, Maitland. I was only joshing, you know. You don't want
to play with me to-day,” said Stillwell, not relishing the look on
Maitland's face. “We can have a set any time.”
“No!” said Maitland shortly. “It's now or never.”
“Oh, all right,” said Stillwell, with an uneasy laugh, going into the
Club house for his racquet.
The proposed match had brought a new atmosphere into the Club house, an
atmosphere of contest with all the fun left out.
“I don't like this at all,” said a man with iron grey hair and deeply
tanned face.
“One can't well object, Russell,” said a younger man, evidently a friend
of Stillwell's. “Maitland brought it on, and I hope he gets mighty well
trimmed. He is altogether too high and mighty these days.”
“Oh, I don't agree with you at all,” broke in Frances, in a voice coldly
proper. “You heard what Mr. Stillwell said?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Ah, I might have guessed you had not,” answered the young lady, turning
away.
Edwards looked foolishly round upon the circle of men who stood grinning
at him.
“Now will you be good?” said a youngster who had led the laugh at
Edwards' expense.
“What the devil are you laughing at, Menzies?” he asked hotly.
“Why, don't you see the joke?” enquired Menzies innocently. “Well, carry
on! You will to-morrow.”
Edwards growled out an oath and took himself off.
Meantime the match was making furious progress, with the fury, it must
be confessed, confined to one side only of the net. Captain Jack was
playing a driving, ruthless game, snatching and employing without mercy
every advantage that he could legitimately claim. He delivered his
service with deadly precision, following up at the net with a smashing
return, which left his opponent helpless. His aggressive tactics gave
his opponent almost no opportunity to score, and he kept the pace
going at the height of his speed. The onlookers were divided in their
sentiments. Stillwell had a strong following of his own who expressed
their feelings by their silence at Jack's brilliant strokes and their
loud approval of Stillwell's good work when he gave them opportunity,
while many of Maitland's friends deprecated his tactics and more
especially his spirit.
At whirlwind pace Captain Jack made the first three games a “love”
score, leaving his opponent dazed, bewildered with his smashing play and
blind with rage at his contemptuous bearing.
“I think I must go home, Frances,” said Adrien to her friend, her face
pale, her head carried high.
Frances seized her by the arm and drew her to one side.
“Adrien, you must not go! You simply must not!” she said in a low tense
voice. “It will be misunderstood, and--”
“I am going, Frances,” said her friend in a cold, clear voice. “I have
had enough tennis for this afternoon. Where is Sidney? Ah, there he is
across the court. No! Let me go, Frances!”
“You simply must not go like that in the middle of a game, Adrien. Wait
at least till this game is over,” said her friend, clutching hard at her
arm.
“Very well. Let us go to Sidney,” said Adrien.
Together they made their way round the court almost wholly unobserved,
so intent was the crowd upon the struggle going on before them. As the
game finished Adrien laid her hand upon her cousin's arm.
“Haven't you had enough of this?” she said. Her voice carried clear
across the court.
“What d'ye say? By Jove, no!” said her cousin in a joyous voice. “This
is the most cheering thing I've seen for many moons, Adrien. Eh,
what? Oh, I beg pardon, are you seedy?” he added glancing at her. “Oh,
certainly, I'll come at once.”
“Not at all. Don't think of it. I have a call to make on my way home.
Please don't come.”
“But, Adrien, I say, this will be over now in a few minutes. Can't you
really wait?”
“No, I am not in the least interested in this--this kind of tennis,” she
said in a bored voice.
Her tone, pitched rather higher than usual, carried to the ears of the
players who were changing ends at the moment. Both of the men glanced at
her. Stillwell's face showed swift gratitude. On Jack's face the shadow
darkened but except for a slight straightening of the line of his lips
he gave no sign.
“You are quite sure you don't care?” said Sidney. “You don't want me?
This really is great, you know.”
“Not for worlds would I drag you away,” said Adrien in a cool, clear
voice. “Frances will keep you company.” She turned to her friend. “Look
after him, Frances,” she said. “Good-bye. Dinner at seven to-night, you
know.”
“Right-o!” said Sidney, raising his hat in farewell. “By Jove, I
wouldn't miss this for millions,” he continued, making room for Frances
beside him. “Your young friend is really somewhat violent in his style,
eh, what?”
“There are times when violence is the only possible thing,” replied
Frances grimly.
“By the way, who is the victim? I mean, what is he exactly?”
“Mr. Stillwell? Oh, he is the son of his father, the biggest merchant in
Blackwater. Oh, lovely! Beautiful return! Jack is simply away above his
form! And something of a merchant and financier on his own account, to
be quite fair. Making money fast and using it wisely. But I'm not going
to talk about him. You see a lot of him about the Rectory, don't you?”
“Well, something,” replied Sidney. “I can't quite understand the
situation, I confess. To be quite frank, I don't cotton much to him. A
bit sweetish, eh, what?”
“Yes, at the Rectory doubtless. I would hardly attribute to him a sweet
disposition. Oh, quit talking about him. He had flat feet in the war, I
think it was. Jack's twin brother was killed, you know--and mine--well,
you know how mine is.”
A swift vision of a bright-faced, cheery-voiced soldier, feeling his way
around a darkened room in the Amory home, leaped to Sidney's mind and
overwhelmed him with pity and self-reproach.
“Dear Miss Frances, will you forgive me? I hadn't quite got on to the
thing. I understand the game better now.”
“Now, I don't want to poison your mind. I shouldn't have said
that--about the flat feet, I mean. He goes to the Rectory, you know. I
want to be fair--”
“Please don't worry. We know all about that sort at home,” said Sidney,
touching her hand for a moment. “My word, that was a hot one! The
flat-footed Johnnie is obviously bewildered. The last game was sheer
massacre, eh, what?”
If Maitland was not in form there was no sign of it in his work on the
court. There was little of courtesy, less of fun and nothing at all of
mercy in his play. From first to last and without reprieve he drove
his game ruthlessly to a finish. So terrific, so resistless were his
attacks, so coldly relentless the spirit he showed, ignoring utterly all
attempts at friendly exchange of courtesy, that the unhappy and enraged
Stillwell, becoming utterly demoralized, lost his nerve, lost his
control and hopelessly lost every chance he ever possessed of winning a
single game of the set which closed with the score six to nothing.
At the conclusion of the set Stillwell, with no pretense of explanation
or apology, left the courts to his enemy who stood waiting his
appearance in a silence so oppressive that it seemed to rest like a
pall upon the side lines. So overwhelming was Stillwell's defeat, so
humiliating his exhibition of total collapse of morale that the company
received the result with but slight manifestation of feeling. Without
any show of sympathy even his friends slipped away, as if unwilling to
add to his humiliation by their commiseration. On the other side, the
congratulations offered Maitland were for the most part lacking in the
spontaneity that is supposed to be proper to such a smashing victory.
Some of his friends seemed to feel as if they had been called upon to
witness an unworthy thing. Not so, however, with either Frances Amory or
Sidney Templeton. Both greeted Captain Jack with enthusiasm and warmth,
openly and freely rejoicing in his victory.
“By Jove, Maitland, that was tremendous, appalling, eh, what?”
“I meant it to be so,” said Maitland grimly, “else I should not have
played with him.”
“It was coming to him,” said Frances. “I am simply completely
delighted.”
“Can I give you a lift home, Frances?” said Maitland. “Let us get away.
You, too, Templeton,” he added to Sidney, who was lingering near the
young lady in obvious unwillingness to leave her side.
“Oh, thanks! Sure you have room?” he said. “All right. You know my
cousin left me in your care.”
“Oh, indeed! Well, come along then, since our hero is so good. Really, I
am uplifted to quite an unusual height of glorious exultation.”
“Don't rub it in, Frank,” said Jack gloomily. “I made an ass of myself,
I know quite well.”
“What rot, Jack. Every one of your friends was tickled to death.”
“Adrien, for instance, eh?” said Jack with a bitter little laugh, taking
his place at the wheel.
“Oh, Adrien!” replied Frances. “Well, you know Adrien! She is--just
Adrien.”
As he turned into the street there was a sound of rushing feet.
“Hello, Captain Jack! Oh, Captain Jack! Wait for me! You have room,
haven't you?”
A whirlwind of flashing legs and windblown masses of gold-red hair,
which realised itself into a young girl of about sixteen, bore down on
the car. It was Adrien's younger sister, Patricia, and at once her pride
and her terror.
“Why, Patsy, where on earth did you come from? Of course! Get in! Glad
to have you, old chap.”
“Oh, Captain Jack, what a game! What a wonderful game! And Rupert has
been playing all summer and awfully well! And you have hardly played a
game! I was awfully pleased--”
“Were you? I'm not sure that I was,” replied Captain Jack.
“Well, you WERE savage, you know. You looked as if you were in a fight.”
“Did I? That was very rotten of me, wasn't it?”
“Oh, I don't know exactly. But it was a wonderful game. Of course, one
doesn't play tennis like a fight, I suppose.”
“No! You are quite right, Pat,” replied Captain Jack. “You see, I'm
afraid I lost my temper a bit, which is horribly bad form I know,
and--well, I wanted to fight rather than play, and of course one
couldn't fight on the tennis court in the presence of a lot of ladies,
you see.”
“Well, I'm glad you didn't fight, Captain Jack. You have had enough of
fighting, haven't you? And Rupert is really very nice, you know. He has
a wonderful car and he lets me drive it, and he always brings a box of
chocolates every time he comes.”
“He must be perfectly lovely,” said Captain Jack, with a grin at her.
The girl laughed a laugh of such infectious jollity that Captain Jack
was forced to join with her.
“That's one for you, Captain Jack,” she cried. “I know I am a pig where
chocs are concerned, and I do love to drive a car. But, really, Rupert
is quite nice. He is so funny. He makes Mamma laugh. Though he does
tease me a lot.”
Captain Jack drove on in silence for some moments.
“I was glad to see you playing though to-day, Captain Jack.”
“Where were you? I didn't see you anywhere.”
“Not likely!” She glanced behind her at the others in the back seat. She
need not have given them a thought, they were too deeply engrossed to
heed her. “Do you know where I was? In the crutch of the big elm--you
know!”
“Don't I!” said Captain Jack. “A splendid seat, but--”
“Wouldn't Adrien be shocked?” said the girl, with a deliciously
mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Or, at least, she would pretend to be.
Adrien thinks she must train me down a bit, you know. She says I have
most awful manners. She wants Mamma to send me over to England to her
school. But I don't want to go, you bet. Besides, I don't think Dad can
afford it so they can't send me. Anyway, I could have good manners if
I wanted to. I could act just like Adrien if I wanted to--I mean, for a
while. But that was a real game. I felt sorry for Rupert, a little. You
see, he didn't seem to know what to do or how to begin. And you looked
so terrible! Now in the game with Cousin Sidney you were so different,
and you played so awfully well, too, but differently. Somehow, it was
just like gentlemen playing, you know--”
“You have hit it, Patsy,--a regular bull!” said Captain Jack.
“Oh, I don't mean--” began the girl in confusion, rare with her.
“Yes, you do, Pat. Stick to your guns.”
“Well, I will. The first game everybody loved to watch. The second
game--somehow it made me wish Rupert had been a Hun. I'd have loved it
then.”
“By Jove, Patsy, you're right on the target. You've scored again.”
“Oh, I'm not saying just what I want--but I hope you know what I mean.”
“Your meaning hits me right in the eye. And you are quite right.
The tennis court is no place for a fight, eh? And, after all, Rupert
Stillwell is no Hun.”
“But you haven't been playing this summer at all, Captain Jack,” said
the girl, changing the subject. “Why not?” The girl's tone was quite
severe. “And you don't do a lot of things you used to do, and you don't
go to places, and you are different.” The blue eyes earnestly searched
his face.
“Am I different?” he asked slowly. “Well, everybody is different. And
then, you know, I am busy. A business man has his hours and he must
stick to them.”
“Oh, I don't believe you a bit. You don't need to be down at the mills
all the time. Look at Rupert. He doesn't need to be at his father's
office.”
“Apparently not.”
“He gets off whenever he wants to.”
“Looks like it.”
“And why can't you?”
“Well, you see, I am not Rupert,” said Captain Jack, grinning at her.
“Now you are horrible. Why don't you do as you used to do? You know you
could if you wanted to.”
“Yes, I suppose, if I wanted to,” said Captain Jack, suddenly grave.
“You don't want to,” said the girl, quick to catch his mood.
“Well, you know, Patsy dear, things are different, and I suppose I am
too. I don't care much for a lot of things.”
“You just look as if you didn't care for anything or anybody sometimes,
Captain Jack,” said Patricia quietly. Then after a few moments she burst
forth: “Oh, don't you remember your hockey team? Oh! oh! oh! I used to
sit and just hold my heart from jumping. It nearly used to choke me when
you would tear down the ice with the puck.”
“That was long ago, Pat dear. I guess I was--ah--very young then, eh?”
“Yes, I know,” nodded the girl. “I feel the same way--I was just a kid
then.”
“Ah, yes,” said Captain Jack, with never a smile. “You were just--let's
see--twelve, was it?”
“Yes, twelve. And I felt just a kid.”
“And now?” Captain Jack's voice was quite grave.
“Now? Well, I am not exactly a kid. At least, not the same kind of kid.
And, as you say, a lot of things are different. I think I know how you
feel. I was like that, too--after--after--Herbert--” The girl paused,
with her lips quivering. “It was all different--so different. Everything
we used to do, I didn't feel like doing. And I suppose that's the way
with you, Captain Jack, with Andy--and then your Mother, too.” She
leaned close to him and put her hand timidly on his arm.
Captain Jack, sitting up very straight and looking very grave, felt the
thrill of the timid touch run through his very heart. A rush of warm,
tender emotion such as he had not allowed himself for many months
suddenly surprised him, filling his eyes and choking his throat. Since
his return from the war he had without knowledge been yearning for just
such an understanding touch as this child with her womanly instinct
had given him. He withdrew one hand from the wheel and took the warm
clinging fingers tight in his and waited in silence till he was sure of
himself. He drove some blocks before he was quite master of his voice.
Then, releasing the fingers, he turned his face toward the girl.
“You are a real pal, aren't you, Patsy old girl?” he said with a very
bright smile at her.
“I want to be! Oh, I would love to be!” she said, with a swift intake of
breath. “And after a while you will be just as you were before you went
away.”
“Hardly, I fear, Patsy.”
“Well, not the same, but different from what you are now. No, I don't
mean that a bit, Captain Jack. But perhaps you know--I do want to see
you on the ice again. Oh, it would be wonderful! Of course, the old team
wouldn't be there--Herbert and Phil and Andy. Why! You are the only
one left! And Rupert.” She added the name doubtfully. “It WOULD be
different! oh, so different! Oh! I don't wonder you don't care, Captain
Jack. I won't wonder--” There was a little choke in the young voice. “I
see it now--”
“I think you understand, Patsy, and you are a little brick,” said
Captain Jack in a low, hurried tone. “And I am going to try. Anyway,
whatever happens, we will be pals.”
The girl caught his arm tight in her clasped hands and in a low voice
she said, “Always and always, Captain Jack, and evermore.” And till they
drew up at the Rectory door no more was said.
Maitland drove homeward through the mellow autumn evening with a warmer,
kindlier glow in his heart than he had known through all the dreary
weeks that had followed his return from the war. For the war had wrought
desolation for him in a home once rich in the things that make life
worth while, by taking from it his mother, whose rare soul qualities had
won and held through her life the love, the passionate, adoring love
of her sons, and his twin brother, the comrade, chum, friend of all his
days, with whose life his own had grown into a complete and ideal
unity, deprived of whom his life was left like a body from whose raw and
quivering flesh one-half had been torn away.
The war had left his life otherwise bruised and maimed in ways known
only to himself.
Returning thus from his soul-devastating experience of war to find
his life desolate and maimed in all that gave it value, he made the
appalling discovery that he was left almost alone of all whom he had
known and loved in past days. For of his close friends none were left
as before. For the most part they were lying on one or other of the five
battle fronts of the war. Others had found service in other spheres.
Only one was still in his home town, poor old Phil Amory, Frances'
brother, half-blind in his darkened room, but to bring anything of his
own heart burden to that brave soul seemed sacrilege or worse. True
enough, he was passing through the new and thrilling experience of
making acquaintance with his father. But old Grant Maitland was a hard
man to know, and they were too much alike in their reserve and in their
poverty of self-expression to make mutual acquaintance anything but a
slow and in some ways a painful process.
Hence in Maitland's heart there was an almost extravagant gratitude
toward this young generous-hearted girl whose touch had thrilled
his heart and whose voice with its passionate note of loyal and
understanding comradeship still sang like music in his soul, “Always and
always, Captain Jack, and evermore.”
“By Jove, I have got to find some way of playing up to that,” he said
aloud, as he turned from the gravelled driveway into the street. And in
the months that followed he was to find that the search to which he then
committed himself was to call for the utmost of the powers of soul which
were his.
CHAPTER II
THE COST OF SACRIFICE
Perrotte was by all odds the best all-round man in the planing mill, and
for the simple reason that for fifteen years he had followed the lumber
from the raw wood through the various machines till he knew woods and
machines and their ways as no other in the mill unless it was old Grant
Maitland himself. Fifteen years ago Perrotte had drifted down from the
woods, beating his way on a lumber train, having left his winter's pay
behind him at the verge of civilisation, with old Joe Barbeau and Joe's
“chucker out.” It was the “chucker out” that dragged him out of the
“snake room” and, all unwitting, had given him a flying start toward a
better life. Perrotte came to Maitland when the season's work was at its
height and every saw and planer were roaring night and day.
“Want a job?” Maitland had shouted over the tearing saw at him. “What
can you do?”
“(H)axe-man me,” growled Perrotte, looking up at him, half wistful, half
sullen.
“See that slab? Grab it, pile it yonder. The boards, slide over the
shoot.” For these were still primitive days for labor-saving devices,
and men were still the cheapest thing about a mill.
Perrotte grabbed the slab, heaved it down to its pile of waste, the next
board he slid into the shoot, and so continued till noon found him pale
and staggering.
“What's the matter with you?” said Maitland.
“Notting--me bon,” said Perrotte, and, clutching at the door jamb, hung
there gasping.
Maitland's keen blue eyes searched his face. “Huh! When did you last
eat? Come! No lying!”
“Two day,” said Perrotte, fighting for breath and nerve.
“Here, boy,” shouted Maitland to a chore lad slouching by, “jump for
that cook house and fetch a cup of coffee, and be quick.”
The boss' tone injected energy into the gawky lad. In three minutes
Perrotte was seated on a pile of slabs, drinking a cup of coffee; in
five minutes more he stood up, ready for “(h)anny man, (h)anny ting.”
But Maitland took him to the cook.
“Fill this man up,” he said, “and then show him where to sleep. And,
Perrotte, to-morrow morning at seven you be at the tail of the saw.”
“Oui, by gar! Perrotte be dere. And you got one good man TOO-day, for
sure.”
That was fifteen years ago, and, barring certain “jubilations,” Perrotte
made good his prophecy. He brought up from the Ottawa his Irish wife,
a clever woman with her tongue but a housekeeper that scandalised her
thrifty, tidy, French-Canadian mother-in-law, and his two children, a
boy and a girl. Under the supervision of his boss he made for his family
a home and for himself an assured place in the Blackwater Mills. His
children fell into the hands of a teacher with a true vocation for his
great work and a passion for young life. Under his hand the youth of
the rapidly growing mill village were saved from the sordid and
soul-debasing influences of their environment, were led out of the muddy
streets and can-strewn back yards to those far heights where dwell the
high gods of poesy and romance. From the master, too, they learned to
know their own wonderful woods out of which the near-by farms had been
hewn. Many a home, too, owed its bookshelf to Alex Day's unobtrusive
suggestions.
The Perrotte children were prepared for High School by the master's
quiet but determined persistence. To the father he held up the
utilitarian advantages of an education.
“Your boy is quick--why should not Tony be a master of men some day?
Give him a chance to climb.”
“Oui, by gar! Antoine he's smart lee'le feller. I mak him steeck on his
book, you mak him one big boss on some mill.”
To the mother the master spoke of social advantages. The empty-headed
Irish woman who had all the quick wit and cleverness of tongue
characteristic of her race was determined that her girl Annette should
learn to be as stylish as “them that tho't themselves her betters.” So
the children were kept at school by their fondly ambitious parents, and
the master did the rest.
At the Public School, that greatest of all democratic institutions, the
Perrotte children met the town youth of their own age, giving and taking
on equal terms, sharing common privileges and advantages and growing
into a community solidarity all their own, which in later years brought
its own harvest of mingling joy and bitterness, but which on the whole
made for sound manhood and womanhood.
With the girl Annette one effect of the Public School and its
influences, educational and social, was to reveal to her the depth of
the educational and social pit from which she had been taken. Her High
School training might have fitted her for the teaching profession
and completed her social emancipation but for her vain and thriftless
mother, who, socially ambitious for herself but more for her handsome,
clever children, found herself increasingly embarrassed for funds. She
lacked the means with which to suitably adorn herself and her children
for the station in life to which she aspired and for which good clothes
were the prime equipment and to “eddicate” Tony as he deserved. Hence
when Annette had completed her second year at the High School her mother
withdrew her from the school and its associations and found her a place
in the new Fancy Box Factory, where girls could obtain “an illigant and
refoined job with good pay as well.”
This change in Annette's outlook brought wrathful disappointment to the
head master, Alex Day, who had taken a very special pride in Annette's
brilliant school career and who had outlined for her a University
course. To Annette herself the ending of her school days was a bitter
grief, the bitterness of which would have been greatly intensified had
she been able to measure the magnitude of the change to be wrought in
her life by her mother's foolish vanity and unwise preference of her
son's to her daughter's future.
The determining factor in Annette's submission to her mother's will was
consideration for her brother and his career. For while for her father
she cherished an affectionate pride and for her mother an amused and
protective pity, her great passion was for her brother--her handsome,
vivacious, audacious and mercurial brother, Tony. With him she counted
it only joy to share her all too meagre wages whenever he found himself
in financial straits. And a not infrequent situation this was with Tony,
who, while he seemed to have inherited from his mother the vivacity,
quick wit and general empty-headedness, from his father got nothing of
the thrift and patient endurance of grinding toil characteristic of the
French-Canadian habitant. But he did get from his father a capacity for
the knowing and handling of machinery, which amounted almost to genius.
Of the father's steadiness under the grind of daily work which had made
him the head mechanic in the Mill, Tony possessed not a tittle. What
he could get easily he got, and getting this fancied himself richly
endowed, knowing not how slight and superficial is the equipment for
life's stern fight that comes without sweat of brain and body. His
cleverness deceived first himself and then his family, who united in
believing him to be destined for high place and great things. Only
two of those who had to do with him in his boyhood weighed him in the
balance of truth. One was his Public School master, who labored with
incessant and painful care to awaken in him some glimmer of the need of
preparation for that bitter fight to which every man is appointed. The
other was Grant Maitland, whose knowledge of men and of life, gained at
cost of desperate conflict, made the youth's soul an open book to him.
Recognising the boy's aptitude, he had in holiday seasons set Tony
behind the machines in his planing mill, determined for his father's
sake to make of him a mechanical engineer. To Tony each new machine was
a toy to be played with; in a week or two he had mastered it and
grown weary of it. Thenceforth he slacked at his work and became a
demoralizing influence in his department, a source of anxiety to his
steady-going father, a plague to his employer, till the holiday time was
done.
“Were you my son, my lad, I'd soon settle you,” Grant Maitland would
say, when the boy was ready to go back to his school. “You will make a
mess of your life unless you can learn to stick at your job. The roads
are full of clever tramps, remember that, my boy.”
But Tony only smiled his brilliant smile at him, as he took his pay
envelope, which burned a hole in his pocket till he had done with it.
When the next holiday came round Tony would present himself for a job
with Jack Maitland to plead for him. For to Tony Jack was as king, to
whom he gave passionate loyalty without stint or measure. And thus for
his son Jack's sake, Jack's father took Tony on again, resolved to make
another effort to make something out of him.
The bond between the two boys was hard to analyse. In games at Public
and High School Jack was always Captain and Tony his right-hand man,
held to his place and his training partly by his admiring devotion to
his Captain but more by a wholesome dread of the inexorable disciplinary
measures which slackness or trifling with the rules of the game would
inevitably bring him. Jack Maitland was the one being in Tony's
world who could put lasting fear into his soul or steadiness into his
practice. But even Jack at times failed.
Then when both were eighteen they went to the War, Jack as an Officer,
Tony as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the same Battalion, Jack hating
the bloody business but resolute to play this great game of duty as he
played all games for all that was in him, Tony aglow at first with the
movement and glitter and later mad with the lust for deadly daring
that was native to his Keltic Gallic soul. They returned with their
respective decorations of D. S. O. and Military Medal and each with the
stamp of war cut deep upon him, in keeping with the quality of his soul.
The return to peace was to them, as to the thousands of their comrades
to whom it was given to return, a shock almost as great as had been the
adventure of war. In a single day while still amid the scenes and
with all the paraphernalia of war about them an unreal and bewildering
silence had fallen on them. Like men in the unearthly realities of a
dream they moved through their routine duties, waiting for the orders
that would bring that well-known, sickening, savage tightening of their
courage and send them, laden like beasts of burden, up once more to that
hell of blood and mud, of nerve-shattering shell, of blinding glare and
ear-bursting roar of gun fire, and, worse than all, to the place where,
crouching in the farcical deceptive shelter of the sandbagged trench,
their fingers gripping into the steel of their rifle hands, they would
wait for the zero hour. But as the weeks passed and the orders failed to
come they passed from that bewildering and subconscious anxious waiting,
to an experience of wildly exultant, hysterical abandonment. They were
done with all that long horror and terror; they were never to go back
into it again; they were going back home; the New Day had dawned; war
was no more, nor ever would be again. Back to home, to waiting hearts,
to shining eyes, to welcoming arms, to peace, they were going.
Thereafter, when some weeks of peace had passed and the drums of peace
had fallen quiet and the rushing, crowding, hurrahing people had melted
away, and the streets and roads were filled again with men and women
bent on business, with engagements to keep, the returned men found
themselves with dazed, listless mind waiting for orders from someone,
somewhere, or for the next movie show to open. But they were unwilling
to take on the humdrum of making a living, and were in most cases
incapable of initiating a congenial method of employing their powers,
their new-found, splendid, glorious powers, by means of which they had
saved an empire and a world. They had become common men again, they in
whose souls but a few weeks ago had flamed the glory and splendour of a
divine heroism!
Small wonder that some of these men, tingling with the consciousness of
powers of which these busy, engaged people of the streets and shops
knew nothing, turned with disdain from the petty, paltry, many of them
non-manly tasks that men pursued solely that they might live. Live! For
these last terrible, great and glorious fifty months they had schooled
themselves to the notion that the main business of life was not to live.
There had been for them a thing to do infinitely more worth while than
to live. Indeed, had they been determined at all costs to live, then
they had become to themselves, to their comrades, and indeed to all the
world, the most despicable of all living things, deserving and winning
the infinite contempt of all true men.
While the “gratuity money” lasted life went merrily enough, but when
the last cheque had been cashed, and the grim reality that rations had
ceased and Q. M. Stores were not longer available thrust itself vividly
into the face of the demobilised veteran, and when after experiencing
in job hunting varying degrees of humiliation the same veteran made
the startling and painful discovery that for his wares of heroic
self-immolation, of dogged endurance done up in khaki, there was no
demand in the bloodless but none the less strenuous conflict of living;
and that other discovery, more disconcerting, that he was not the man
he had been in pre-war days and thought himself still to be, but quite
another, then he was ready for one of two alternatives, to surrender to
the inevitable dictum that after all life was really not worth a fight,
more particularly if it could be sustained without one, or, to fling his
hat into the Bolshevist ring, ready for the old thing, war--war against
the enemies of civilisation and his own enemies, against those
who possessed things which he very much desired but which for some
inexplicable cause he was prevented from obtaining.
The former class, to a greater or less degree, Jack Maitland
represented; the latter, Tony Perrotte. From their war experience they
were now knit together in bonds that ran into life issues. Together
they had faced war's ultimate horror, together they had emerged with
imperishable memories of sheer heroic manhood mutually revealed in hours
of desperate need.
At Jack's request Tony had been given the position of a Junior Foreman
in one of the planing mill departments, with the promise of advancement.
“You can have anything you are fit for, Tony, in any of the mills. I
feel that I owe you, that we both owe you more than we can pay by any
position we can offer,” was Grant Maitland's word.
“Mr. Maitland, neither you nor Jack owes me anything. Jack has paid, and
more than once, all he owed me. But,” with a rueful smile, “don't expect
too much from me in this job. I can't see myself making it go.”
“Give it a big try. Do your best. I ask no more,” said Mr. Maitland.
“My best? That's a hard thing. Give me a bayonet and set some Huns
before me, and I'll do my best. This is different somehow.”
“Different, yet the same. The same qualities make for success. You have
the brains and with your gift for machinery--Well, try it. You and Jack
here will make this go between you, as you made the other go.”
The door closed on the young man.
“Will he make good, Jack?” said the father, anxiously.
“Will any of us make good?”
“You will, Jack, I know. You can stick.”
“Yes, I can stick, I suppose, but, after all--well, we'll have a go
at it, anyway. But, like Tony, I feel like saying, 'Don't expect too
much.'”
“Only your best, Jack, that's all. Take three months, six months, a
year, and get hold of the office end of the business. You have brains
enough. I want a General Manager right now, Wickes is hardly up to it.
He knows the books and he knows the works but he knows nothing else. He
doesn't know men nor markets. He is an office man pure and simple, and
he's old, too old. The fact is, Jack, I have to be my own Manager inside
and outside. My foremen are good, loyal, reliable fellows, but they only
know their orders. I want someone to stand beside me. The plant has been
doubled in capacity during the war. We did a lot of war work--aeroplane
parts. We got the spruce in the raw and worked it up, good work, too, if
I do say it myself. No better was done.”
“I know something about that, Dad. I had a day with Badgley in Toronto.
I know something about it, and I know where the money went, too, Dad.”
“The money? Of course, I couldn't take the money--how could I with my
boys at the war, and other men's boys?”
“Rather not. My God, Dad, if I thought--! But what's the use talking?
They know in London all about the Ambulance Equipment and the Machine
Gun Battery, and the Hospital. Do you know why Caramus took a job in
the Permanent Force in England? It was either that or blowing out his
brains. He could not face his father, a war millionaire. My God, how
could he?”
The boy was walking about his room with face white and lips quivering.
“Caramus was in charge of that Machine Gun Section that held the line
and let us get back. Every man wiped out, and Caramus carried back
smashed to small pieces--and his father making a million out of
munitions! My God! My God!”
A silence fell in the room for a minute.
“Poor old Caramus! I saw him in the City a month ago,” said the father.
“I pitied the poor wretch. He was alone in the Club, not a soul would
speak to him. He has got his hell.”
“He deserves it--all of it, and all who like him have got fat on blood
money. Do you know, Dad, when I see those men going about in the open
and no one kicking them I get fairly sick. I don't wonder at some of the
boys seeing red. You mark my words, we are going to have bad times in
this country before long.”
“I am afraid of it, boy. Things look ugly. Even in our own works I feel
a bad spirit about. There are some newcomers from the old country whom I
can't say I admire much. They grouch and they won't work. Our production
is lower than ever in our history and our labor cost is more than twice
what it was in 1914.”
“Well, Dad, give them a little time to settle down. I have no more use
for a slacker than I have for a war millionaire.”
“We can't stand much of that thing. Financially we are in fairly good
shape. We broke even with our aeroplane work. But we have a big stock
of spruce on hand--high-priced stuff, too--and a heavy, very heavy
overhead. We shall weather it all right. I don't mind the wages, but we
must have production. And that's why I want you with me.”
“You must not depend on me for much use for some time at least. I know a
little about handling men but about machinery I know nothing.”
“Never fear, boy, you've got the machine instinct in you. I remember
your holiday work in the mill, you see. But your place is in the office.
Wickes will show you the ropes, and you will make good, I know. And I
just want to say that you don't know how glad I am to have you come in
with me, Jack. If your brother had come back he would have taken hold,
he was cut out for the job, but--”
“Poor old Andy! He had your genius for the business. I wish he had been
the one to get back!”
“We had not the choosing, Jack, and if he had come we should have felt
the same about you. God knows what He is doing, and we can only do our
best.”
“Well, Dad,” said Jack, rising and standing near his father's chair, “as
I said before, I'll make a go at it, but don't count too much on me.”
“I am counting a lot on you. You are all I have now.” The father's
voice ended in a husky whisper. The boy swallowed the rising lump in
his throat but could find no more words to go on with. But in his heart
there was the resolve that he would make an honest try to do for his
father's sake what he would not for his own.
But before a month had gone he was heartily sick of the office. It was
indoors, and the petty fussing with trivial details irked him. Accuracy
was a sine qua non of successful office work, and accuracy is either a
thing of natural gift or is the result of long and painful discipline,
and neither by nature nor by discipline had Jack come into the
possession of this prime qualification for a successful office man. His
ledger wellnigh brought tears to old Wickes' eyes and added a heavy load
to his day's work. Not that old Wickes grudged the extra burden, much
less made any complaint; rather did he count it joy to be able to cover
from other eyes than his own the errors that were inevitably to be found
in Jack's daily work.
Had it seemed worth while, Jack would have disciplined himself to
accuracy. But what was the end of it all? A larger plant with more
machines to buy and more men to work them and to be overseen and to be
paid, a few more figures in a Bank Book--what else? Jack's tastes were
simple. He despised the ostentation of wealth in the accumulation of
mere things. He had only pity for the plunger and for the loose liver
contempt. Why should he tie himself to a desk, a well appointed desk it
is true, but still a desk, in a four-walled room, a much finer room than
his father had ever known, but a room which became to him a cage.
Why? Of course, there was his father--and Jack wearily turned to his
correspondence basket, sick of the sight of paper and letter heads and
cost forms and production reports. For his father's sake, who had only
him, he would carry on. And carry on he did, doggedly, wearily, bored to
death, but sticking it. The reports from the works were often ominous.
Things were not going well. There was an undercurrent of unrest among
the men.
“I don't wonder at it,” said Jack to old Wickes one day, when the
bookkeeper set before him the week's pay sheet and production sheet,
side by side. “After all, why should the poor devils work for us?”
“For us, sir?” said the shocked Wickes. “For themselves, surely. What
would they do for a living if there was no work?”
“That's just it, Wickes. They get a living--is it worth while?”
“But, sir,” gasped the old man, “they must live, and--”
“Why must they?”
“Because they want to! Wait till you see 'em sick, sir. My word! They do
make haste for the Doctor.”
“I fancy they do, Wickes. But all the same, I don't wonder that they
grouch a bit.”
“'Tis not the grumbling, sir, I deplore,” said Wickes, “if they would
only work, or let the machines work. That's the trouble, sir. Why, sir,
when I came to your father, sir, we never looked at the clock, we kept
our minds on the work.”
“How long ago, Wickes?”
“Thirty-one years, sir, come next Michaelmas. And glad I was to get the
job, too. You see, sir, I had just come to the country, and with the
missus and a couple of kids--”
“Thirty-one years! Great Caesar! And you've worked at this desk for
thirty-one years! And what have you got out of it?”
“Well, sir, not what you might call a terrible lot. I hadn't the
eddication for much, as you might say--but--well, there's my little
home, and we've lived happy there, the missus and me, and the kids--at
least, till the war came.” The old man paused abruptly.
“You're right, Wickes, by Jove,” exclaimed Jack, starting from his seat
and gripping the old man's hand. “You have made a lot out of it--and you
gave as fine a boy as ever stepped in uniform to your country. We were
all proud of Stephen, every man of us.”
“I know that, sir, and he often wrote the wife about you, sir, which we
don't forget, sir. Of course, it's hard on her and the boys--just coming
up to be somethin' at the school.”
“By the way, Wickes, how are they doing? Two of them, aren't there?
Let's see--there's Steve, he's the eldest--”
“No, sir, he's the youngest, sir. Robert is the eldest--fourteen, and
quite clever at his books. Pity he's got to quit just now.”
“Quit? Not a bit of it. We must see to that. And little Steve--how is
the back?”
“He's twelve. The back hurts a lot, but he is happy enough, if you give
him a pencil. They're all with us now.”
“Ah, well, well. I think you have made something out of it after all,
Wickes. And we must see about Robert.”
Thirty-one years at the desk! And to show for it a home for his wife and
himself, a daughter in a home of her own, a son dead for his country,
leaving behind him a wife and two lads to carry the name--was it worth
while? Yes, by Jove, it was worth it all to be able to give a man like
Stephen Wickes to his country. For Stephen Wickes was a fine stalwart
lad, a good soldier, steady as a rock, with a patient, cheery courage
that nothing could daunt or break. But for a man's self was it worth
while?
Jack had no thought of wife and family. There was Adrien. She had been a
great pal before the war, but since his return she had seemed different.
Everyone seemed different. The war had left many gaps, former pals had
formed other ties, many had gone from the town. Even Adrien had drifted
away from the old currents of life. She seemed to have taken up with
young Stillwell, whom Jack couldn't abide. Stillwell had been turned
down by the Recruiting Officer during the war--flat feet, or something.
True, he had done great service in Red Cross, Patriotic Fund, Victory
Loan work, and that sort of thing, and apparently stood high in the
Community. His father had doubled the size of his store and had been a
great force in all public war work. He had spared neither himself nor
his son. The elder Stillwell, high up in the Provincial Political world,
saw to it that his son was on all the big Provincial War Committees.
Rupert had all the shrewd foresight and business ability of his father,
which was saying a good deal. He began to assume the role of a promising
young capitalist. The sources of his income no one knew--fortunate
investments, people said. And his Hudson Six stood at the Rectory gate
every day. Well, not even for Adrien would Jack have changed places with
Rupert Stillwell. For Jack Maitland held the extreme and, in certain
circles, unpopular creed that the citizen who came richer out of a war
which had left his country submerged in debt, and which had drained away
its best blood and left it poorer in its manhood by well-nigh seventy
thousand of its noblest youth left upon the battlefields of the various
war fronts and by the hundreds of thousands who would go through life
a burden to themselves and to those to whom they should have been a
support--that citizen was accursed. If Adrien chose to be a friend
of such a man, by that choice she classified herself as impossible of
friendship for Jack. It had hurt a bit. But what was one hurt more or
less to one whom the war had left numb in heart and bereft of ambition?
He was not going to pity himself. He was lucky indeed to have his body
and nerve still sound and whole, but they need not expect him to show
any great keenness in the chase for a few more thousands that would only
rank him among those for whom the war had not done so badly. Meantime,
for his father's sake, who, thank God, had given his best, his heart's
best and the best of his brain and of his splendid business genius
to his country, he would carry on, with no other reward than that of
service rendered.
CHAPTER III
THE HEATHEN QUEST
They stood together by the open fire in the study, Jack and his father,
alike in many ways yet producing effects very different. The younger man
had the physical makeup of the older, though of a slighter mould.
They had the same high, proud look of conscious strength, of cool
fearlessness that nothing could fluster. But the soul that looked out of
the grey eyes of the son was quite another from that which looked out of
the deep blue eyes of the father--yet, after all, the difference may not
have been in essence but only that the older man's soul had learned in
life's experience to look out only through a veil.
The soul of the youth was eager, adventurous, still believing, yet
with a certain questioning and a touch of weariness, a result of the
aftermath of peace following three years of war. There was still,
however, the out-looking for far horizons, the outreaching imagination,
the Heaven given expectation of the Infinite. In the older man's eye
dwelt chiefly reserve. The veil was always there except when he found it
wise and useful to draw it aside. If ever the inner light flamed
forth it was when the man so chose. Self-mastery, shrewdness, power,
knowledge, lay in the dark blue eyes, and all at the soul's command.
But to-night as the father's eyes rested upon his son who stood gazing
into and through the blazing fire there were to be seen only pride and
wistful love. But as the son turned his eyes toward his father the veil
fell and the eyes that answered were quiet, shrewd, keen and chiefly
kind.
The talk had passed beyond the commonplace of the day's doings. They
were among the big things, the fateful thing--Life and Its Worth, Work
and Its Wages, Creative Industry and Its Product, Capital and Its Price,
Man and His Rights.
They were frank with each other. The war had done that for them. For
ever since the night when his eighteen-year-old boy had walked into his
den and said, “Father, I am eighteen,” and stood looking into his eyes
and waiting for the word that came straight and unhesitating, “I know,
boy, you are my son and you must go, for I cannot,” ever since that
night, which seemed now to belong to another age, these two had faced
each other as men. Now they were talking about the young man's life
work.
“Frankly, I don't like it, Dad,” said the son.
“Easy to see that, Jack.”
“I'm really sorry. I'm afraid anyone can see it. But somehow I can't put
much pep into it.”
“Why?” asked the father, with curt abruptness.
“Why? Well, I hardly know. Somehow it hardly seems worth while. It is
not the grind of the office, though that is considerable. I could stick
that, but, after all, what's the use?”
“What would you rather do, Jack?” enquired his father patiently, as if
talking to a child. “You tried for the medical profession, you know,
and--”
“I know, I know, you are quite right about it. You may think it pure
laziness. Maybe it is, but I hardly think so. Perhaps I went back to
lectures too soon after the war. I was hardly fit, I guess, and the
whole thing, the inside life, the infernal grind of lectures, the
idiotic serious mummery of the youngsters, those blessed kids who should
have been spanked by their mothers--the whole thing sickened me in three
months. If I had waited perhaps I might have done better at the thing. I
don't know--hard to tell.” The boy paused, looking into the fire.
“It was my fault, boy,” said the father hastily. “I ought to have
figured the thing out differently. But, you see, I had no knowledge of
what you had gone through and of its effect upon you. I know better now.
I thought that the harder you went into the work the better it would be
for you. I made a mistake.”
“Well, you couldn't tell, Dad. How could you? But everything was so
different when I came back. Mere kids were carrying on where we had
been, and doing it well, too, by Jove, and we didn't seem to be needed.”
“Needed, boy?” The father's voice was thick.
“Yes, but I didn't see that then. Selfish, I fear. Then, you know, home
was not the same--”
The older man choked back a groan and leaned hard against the mantel.
“I know, Dad, I can see now I was selfish--”
“Selfish? Don't say that, my lad. Selfish? After all you had gone
through? No, I shall never apply that word to you, but you--you don't
seem to realise--” The father hesitated a few moments, then, as if
taking a plunge:
“You don't realise just how big a thing--how big an investment there is
in that business down there--.” His hand swept toward the window through
which could be seen the lights of that part of the town which clustered
about the various mills and factories of which he was owner.
“I know there is a lot, Dad, but how much I don't know.”
“There's $250,000 in plant alone, boy, but there's more than money, a
lot more than money--” Then, after a pause, as if to himself, “A lot
more than money--there's brain sweat and heart agony and prayers and
tears--and, yes, life, boy, your mother's life and mine. We worked and
saved and prayed and planned--”
He stepped quickly toward the window, drew aside the curtain and pointed
to a dark mass of headland beyond the twinkling lights.
“You see the Bluff there. Fifty years ago I stood with my father on
that Bluff and watched the logs come down the river to the sawmill--his
sawmill, into which he had put his total capital, five hundred dollars.
I remember well his words, 'My son, if you live out your life you will
see on that flat a town where thousands of men and women will find homes
and, please God, happiness.' Your mother and I watched that town grow
for forty years, and we tried to make people happy--at least, if they
were not it was no fault of hers. Of course, other hands have been at
the work since then, but her hands and mine more than any other, and
more than all others together were in it, and her heart, too, was in it
all.”
The boy turned from the window and sat down heavily in a deep armchair,
his hands covering his face. His heart was still sick with the ache
that had smitten it that day in front of Amiens when the Colonel,
his father's friend, had sent for him and read him the wire which had
brought the terrible message of his mother's death. The long months of
days and nights heavy with watching, toiling, praying, agonising, for
her twin sons, and for the many boys who had gone out from the little
town wore out her none too robust strength. Then, the sniper's bullet
that had pierced the heart of her boy seemed to reach to her heart as
well. After that, the home that once had been to its dwellers the most
completely heart-satisfying spot in all the world became a place of
dread, of haunting ghosts, of acutely poignant memories. They used the
house for sleeping in and for eating in, but there was no living in it
longer. To them it was a tomb, though neither would acknowledge it and
each bore with it for the other's sake.
“Honestly, Dad, I wish I could make it go, for your sake--”
“For my sake, boy? Why, I have all of it I care for. Not for my sake.
But what else can we do but stick it?”
“I suppose so--but for Heaven's sake give me something worth a man's
doing. If I could tackle a job such as you and”--the boy winced--“you
and mother took on I believe I'd try it. But that office! Any fool could
sit in my place and carry on. It is like the job they used to give to
the crocks or the slackers at the base to do. Give me a man's job.”
The father's keen blue eyes looked his son over.
“A man's job?” he said, with a grim smile, realising as his son did not
how much of a man's job it was. “Suppose you learn this one as I did?”
“What do you mean, Dad, exactly? How did you begin?”
“I? At the tail of the saw.”
“All right, I'm game.”
“Boy, you are right--I believe in my soul you are right. You did a man's
job 'out there' and you have it in you to do a man's job again.”
The son shrugged his shoulders. Next morning at seven they were down at
the planing mill where men were doing men's work. He was at a man's job,
at the tail of a saw, and drawing a man's pay, rubbing shoulders with
men on equal terms, as he had in the trenches. And for the first time
since Armistice Day, if not happy or satisfied, he was content to carry
on.
CHAPTER IV
ANNETTE
Sam Wigglesworth had finished with school, which is not quite the same
as saying that he had finished his education. A number of causes had
combined to bring this event to pass. First, Sam was beyond the age
of compulsory attendance at the Public School, the School Register
recording him as sixteen years old. Then, Sam's educational career had
been anything but brilliant. Indeed, it might fairly be described as
dull. All his life he had been behind his class, the biggest boy in his
class, which fact might have been to Sam a constant cause of humiliation
had he not held as of the slightest moment merely academic achievements.
One unpleasant effect which this fact had upon Sam's moral quality was
that it tended to make him a bully. He was physically the superior of
all in his class, and this superiority he exerted for what he deemed the
discipline of younger and weaker boys, who excelled him in intellectual
attainment.
Furthermore, Sam, while quite ready to enforce the code of discipline
which he considered suitable to the smaller and weaker boys in his
class, resented and resisted the attempts of constituted authority
to enforce discipline in his own case, with the result that Sam's
educational career was, after much long suffering, abruptly terminated
by the action of the long-suffering head, Alex Day.
“With great regret I must report,” his letter to the School Board
ran, “that in the case of Samuel Wigglesworth I have somehow failed to
inculcate the elementary principles of obedience to school regulations
and of adherence to truth in speech. I am free to acknowledge,” went on
the letter, “that the defect may be in myself as much as in the boy, but
having failed in winning him to obedience and truth-telling, I feel
that while I remain master of the school I must decline to allow the
influence of this youth to continue in the school. A whole-hearted
penitence for his many offences and an earnest purpose to reform
would induce me to give him a further trial. In the absence of either
penitence or purpose to reform I must regretfully advise expulsion.”
Joyfully the School Board, who had for months urged upon the reluctant
head this action, acquiesced in the course suggested, and Samuel was
forthwith expelled, to his own unmitigated relief but to his father's
red and raging indignation at what he termed the “(h)ignorant
persecution of their betters by these (h)insolent Colonials,” for
“'is son 'ad 'ad the advantages of schools of the 'ighest standin' in
(H)England.”
Being expelled from school Sam forthwith was brought by his father
to the office of the mills, where he himself was employed. There he
introduced his son to the notice of Mr. Grant Maitland, with request for
employment.
The old man looked the boy over.
“What has he been doing?”
“Nothin'. 'E's just left school.”
“High School?”
“Naw. Public School.” Wigglesworth Sr.'s tone indicated no exalted
opinion of the Public School.
“Public School! What grade, eh?”
“Grade? I dinnaw. Wot grade, Samuel? Come, speak (h)up, cawn't yeh?”
“Uh?” Sam's mental faculties had been occupied in observing the
activities and guessing the probable fate of a lumber-jack gaily decked
in scarlet sash and blue overalls, who was the central figure upon a
flaming calendar tacked up behind Mr. Maitland's desk, setting forth
the commercial advantages of trading with the Departmental Stores of
Stillwell & Son.
“Wot grade in school, the boss is (h)askin',” said his father sharply.
“Grade?” enquired Sam, returning to the commonplace of the moment.
“Yes, what grade in the Public School were you in when you left?” The
blue eyes of the boss was “borin' 'oles” through Sam and the voice
pierced like a “bleedin' gimblet,” as Wigglesworth, Sr., reported to his
spouse that afternoon.
Sam hesitated a bare second. “Fourth grade it was,” he said with sullen
reluctance.
“'Adn't no chance, Samuel 'adn't. Been a delicate child ever since 'is
mother stopped suckin' 'im,” explained the father with a sympathetic
shake of his head.
The cold blue eye appraised the boy's hulking mass.
“'E don't look it,” continued Mr. Wigglesworth, noting the keen glance,
“but 'e's never been (h)able to bide steady at the school. (H)It's 'is
brain, sir.”
“His--ah--brain?” Again the blue eyes appraised the boy, this time
scanning critically his face for indication of undue brain activity.
“'Is brain, sir,” earnestly reiterated the sympathetic parent. “'Watch
that (h)infant's brain,' sez the Doctor to the missus when she put 'im
on the bottle. And you know, we 'ave real doctors in (H)England, sir.
'Watch 'is brain,' sez 'e, and, my word, the care 'is ma 'as took
of that boy's brain is wunnerful, is fair beautiful, sir.” Mr.
Wigglesworth's voice grew tremulous at the remembrance of that maternal
solicitude.
“And was that why he left school?” enquired the boss.
“Well, sir, not (h)exackly,” said Mr. Wigglesworth, momentarily taken
aback, “though w'en I comes to think on it that must a been at the
bottom of it. You see, w'en Samuel went at 'is books of a night 'e'd no
more than begin at a sum an' 'e'd say to 'is ma, 'My brain's a-whirlin',
ma', just like that, and 'is ma would 'ave to pull 'is book away, just
drag it away, you might say. Oh, 'e's 'ad a 'ard time, 'as Samuel.” At
this point the boss received a distinct shock, for, as his eyes were
resting upon Samuel's face meditatively while he listened somewhat
apathetically, it must be confessed, to the father's moving tale, the
eye of the boy remote from the father closed in a slow but significant
wink.
The boss sat up, galvanised into alert attention. “Eh? What?” he
exclaimed.
“Yes, sir, 'e's caused 'is ma many a (h)anxious hour, 'as Samuel.” Again
the eye closed in a slow and solemn wink. “And we thought, 'is ma and
me, that we would like to get Samuel into some easy job--”
“An easy job, eh?”
“Yes, sir. Something in the office, 'ere.”
“But his brain, you say, would not let him study his books.”
“Oh, it was them sums, sir, an' the Jography and the 'Istory an' the
Composition, an', an'--wot else, Samuel? You see, these 'ere schools
ain't a bit like the schools at 'ome, sir. They're so confusing with
their subjecks. Wot I say is, why not stick to real (h)eddication,
without the fiddle faddles?”
“So you want an easy job for your son, eh?” enquired Mr. Maitland.
“Boy,” he said sharply to Samuel, whose eyes had again become fixed upon
the gay and daring lumber-jack. Samuel recalled himself with visible
effort. “Why did you leave school? The truth, mind.” The “borin'” eyes
were at their work.
“Fired!” said Sam promptly.
Mr. Wigglesworth began a sputtering explanation.
“That will do, Wigglesworth,” said Mr. Maitland, holding up his hand.
“Sam, you come and see me tomorrow here at eight. Do you understand?”
Sam nodded. After they had departed there came through the closed
office door the sound of Mr. Wigglesworth's voice lifted in violent
declamation, but from Sam no answering sound could be heard.
The school suffered no noticeable loss in the intellectual quality of
its activities by the removal of the whirling brain and incidentally
its physical integument of Samuel Wigglesworth. To the smaller boys the
absence of Sam brought unbounded joy, more especially during the
hours of recess from study and on their homeward way from school after
dismissal.
More than any other, little Steve Wickes rejoiced in Sam's departure
from school. Owing to some mysterious arrangement of Sam's brain cells
he seemed to possess an abnormal interest in observing the sufferings
of any animal. The squirming of an unfortunate fly upon a pin fascinated
him, the sight of a wretched dog driven mad with terror rushing
frantically down a street, with a tin can dangling to its tail,
convulsed him with shrieking delight. The more highly organised the
suffering animal, the keener was Sam's joy. A child, for instance,
flying in a paroxysm of fear from Sam's hideously contorted face
furnished acute satisfaction. It fell naturally enough that little
Steve Wickes, the timid, shrinking, humpbacked son of the dead soldier,
Stephen Wickes, afforded Sam many opportunities of rare pleasure. It
was Sam that coined and, with the aid of his sycophantic following
never wanting to a bully, fastened to the child the nickname of “Humpy
Wicksy,” working thereby writhing agony in the lad's highly sensitive
soul. But Sam did not stay his hand at the infliction of merely mental
anguish. It was one of his favorite forms of sport to seize the child by
the collar and breeches and, swinging him high over head, hold him there
in an anguish of suspense, awaiting the threatened drop. It is to be
confessed that Sam was not entirely without provocation at the hands
of little Steve, for the lad had a truly uncanny cunning hidden in
his pencil, by means of which Sam was held up in caricature to the
surreptitious joy of his schoolmates. Sam's departure from school
deprived him of the full opportunity he formerly enjoyed of indulging
himself in his favourite sport. On this account he took the more eager
advantage of any opportunity that offered still to gratify his taste in
this direction.
Sauntering sullenly homeward from his interview with the boss and with
his temper rasped to a raw edge by his father's wrathful comments upon
his “dommed waggin' tongue,” he welcomed with quite unusual eagerness
the opportunity for indulging himself in his pastime of baiting Humpy
Wicksy whom he overtook on his way home from school during the noon
intermission.
“Hello, Humpy,” he roared at the lad.
Like a frightened rabbit Steve scurried down a lane, Sam whooping after
him.
“Come back, you little beast. Do you hear me? I'll learn you to come
when you're called,” he shouted, catching the terrified lad and heaving
him aloft in his usual double-handed grip.
“Let me down, you! Leave me alone now,” shrieked the boy, squirming,
scratching, biting like an infuriated cat.
“Bite, would you?” said Sam, flinging the boy down. “Now then,” catching
him by the legs and turning him over on his stomach, “we'll make a
wheelbarrow of you. Gee up, Buck! Want a ride, boys?” he shouted to his
admiring gallery of toadies. “All aboard!”
While the unhappy Steve, shrieking prayers and curses, was struggling
vainly to extricate himself from the hands gripping his ankles, Annette
Perrotte, stepping smartly along the street on her way from the box
factory, came past the entrance to the lane. By her side strode a
broad-shouldered, upstanding youth. Arrested by Steve's outcries and
curses she paused.
“What are those boys at, I wonder?” she said. “There's that big lout of
a Wigglesworth boy. He's up to no good, I bet you.”
“Oh, a kids' row of some kind or ither, a doot,” said the youth. “Come
along.”
“He's hurting someone,” said Annette, starting down the lane. “What? I
believe it's that poor child, Steve Wickes.” Like a wrathful fury she
dashed in upon Sam and his company of tormentors and, knocking the
little ones right and left, she sprang upon Sam with a fierce cry.
“You great brute!” She seized him by his thatch of thick red hair and
with one mighty swing she hurled him clear of Steve and dashed him head
on against the lane fence. Sheer surprise held Sam silent for a few
seconds, but as he felt the trickle of warm blood run down his face and
saw it red upon his hand, his surprise gave place to terror.
“Ouw! Ouw!” he bellowed. “I'm killed, I'm dying. Ouw! Ouw!”
“I hope so,” said Annette, holding Steve in her arms and seeking to
quiet his sobbing. But as she saw the streaming blood her face paled.
“For the love of Mike, Mack, see if he's hurt,” she said in a low voice
to her companion.
“Not he! He's makin' too much noise,” said the young man. “Here, you
young bull, wait till I see what's wrang wi' ye,” he continued, stooping
over Sam.
“Get away from me, I tell you. Ouw! Ouw! I'm dying, and they'll hang
her. Ouw! Ouw! I'm killed, and I'm just glad I am, for she'll be hung to
death.” Here Sam broke into a vigorous stream of profanity.
“Ay, he's improvin' A doot,” said Mack. “Let us be going.”
“'Ello! Wot's (h)up?” cried a voice. It was Mr. Wigglesworth on his way
home from the mill. “Why, bless my living lights, if it bean't Samuel.
Who's been a beatin' of you, Sammy?” His eye swept the crowd. “'Ave you
been at my lad?” he asked, stepping toward the young man, whom Annette
named Mack.
“Aw, steady up, man. There's naethin' much wrang wi' the lad--a wee
scratch on the heid frae fa'in' against the fence yonder.”
“Who 'it 'im, I say?” shouted Mr. Wigglesworth. “Was it you?” he added,
squaring up to the young man.
“No, it wasn't, Mr. Wigglesworth. It was me.” Mr. Wigglesworth turned
on Annette who, now that Sam's bellowing had much abated with the
appearance of his father upon the scene, had somewhat regained her
nerve.
“You?” gasped Mr. Wigglesworth. “You? My Samuel? It's a lie,” he cried.
“Hey, mon, guairrd y're tongue a bit,” said Mack. “Mind ye're speakin'
to a leddy.”
“A lidy! A lidy!” Mr. Wigglesworth's voice was eloquent of scorn.
“Aye, a leddy!” said Mack. “An' mind what ye say aboot her tae. Mind
y're manners, man.”
“My manners, hey? An' 'oo may you be, to learn me manners, you bloomin'
(h)ignorant Scotch (h)ass. You give me (h)any of your (h)imperance an'
I'll knock y're bloomin' block (h)off, I will.” And Mr. Wigglesworth,
throwing himself into the approved pugilistic attitude, began dancing
about the young Scot.
“Hoot, mon, awa' hame wi' ye. Tak' yon young tyke wi' ye an' gie him a
bit wash, he's needin' it,” said Mack, smiling pleasantly at the excited
and belligerent Mr. Wigglesworth.
At this point Captain Jack, slowly motoring by the lane mouth, turned
his machine to the curb and leaped out.
“What's the row here?” he asked, making his way through the considerable
crowd that had gathered. “What's the trouble, Wigglesworth?”
“They're knockin' my boy abaht, so they be,” exclaimed Mr. Wigglesworth.
“But,” with growing and righteous wrath, “they'll find (h)out that,
wotsomever they do to a kid, w'en they come (h)up agin Joe Wigglesworth
they've struck somethin' 'ard--'ard, d'ye 'ear? 'Ard!” And Mr.
Wigglesworth made a pass at the young Scot.
“Hold on, Wigglesworth,” said Captain Jack quietly, catching his arm.
“Were you beating up this kid?” he asked, turning to the young man.
“Nae buddie's beatin' up the lad,” said Mack quietly.
“It was me,” said the girl, turning a defiant face to Captain Jack.
“You? Why! great Scot! Blest if it isn't Annette.”
“Yes, it's me,” said the girl, her face a flame of colour.
“By Jove, you've grown up, haven't you? And it was you that--”
“Yes, that big brute was abusing Steve here.”
“What? Little Steve Wickes?”
“He was, and I pitched him into the fence. He hit his head and cut it, I
guess. I didn't mean--”
“Served him right enough, too, I fancy,” said Captain Jack.
“I'll 'ave the law on the lot o' ye, I will. I'm a poor workin' man,
but I've got my rights, an' if there's a justice in this Gawd forsaken
country I'll 'ave protection for my family.” And Mr. Wigglesworth,
working up a fury, backed off down the lane.
“Don't fear, Wigglesworth, you'll get all the justice you want. Perhaps
Sam will tell us--Hello! Where is Sam?”
But Sam had vanished. He had no mind for an investigation in the
presence of Captain Jack.
“Well, well, he can't be much injured, I guess. Meantime, can I give you
a lift, Annette?”
“No, thank you,” said the girl, the colour in her cheeks matching the
crimson ribbon at her throat. “I'm just going home. It's only a little
way. I don't--”
“The young leddy is with me, sir,” said the young Scotchman quietly.
“Oh, she is, eh?” said Captain Jack, looking him over. “Ah, well,
then--Good-bye, Annette, for the present.” He held out his hand. “We
must renew our old acquaintance, eh?”
“Thank you, sir,” said the girl.
“'Sir?' Rot! You aren't going to 'sir' me, Annette, after all the fun
and the fights we had in the old days. Not much. We're going to be good
chums again, eh? What do you say?”
“I don't know,” said Annette, flashing a swift glance into Captain
Jack's admiring eyes. “It depends on--”
“On me?”
“I didn't say so.” Her head went up a bit.
“On you?”
“I didn't say so.”
“Well, let it go. But we will be pals again, Annette, I vow. Good-bye.”
Captain Jack lifted his hat and moved away.
As he reached his car he ran up against young Rupert Stillwell.
“Deucedly pretty Annette has grown, eh?” said Stillwell.
“Annette's all right,” said Jack, rather brusquely, entering his car.
“Working in your box factory, I understand, eh?”
“Don't really know,” said Jack carelessly. “Probably.”
The crowd had meantime faded away with Captain Jack's going.
“Did na know the Captain was a friend of yours, Annette,” said Mack,
falling into step beside her.
“No--yes--I don't know. We went to Public School together before the
war. I was a kid then.” Her manner was abstracted and her eyes were
far away. Mack walked gloomily by her on one side, little Steve on the
other.
“Huh! He's no your sort, A doot,” he said sullenly.
“What do you say?” cried Annette, returning from her abstraction. “What
do you mean, 'my sort'?” Her head went high and her eyes flashed.
“He would na look at ye, for ony guid.”
“He did look at me though,” replied Annette, tossing her head.
“No for ony guid!” repeated Mack, stubbornly.
Annette stopped in her tracks, a burning red on her cheeks and a
dangerous light in her black eyes.
“Mr. McNish, that's your road,” she said, pointing over his shoulder.
“A'll tak it tae,” said McNish, wheeling on his heel, “an' ye can hae
your Captain for me.”
With never a look at him Annette took her way home.
“Good-bye, Steve,” she said, stooping and kissing the boy. “This is your
corner.”
“Annette,” he said, with a quick, shy look up into her face, “I like
Captain Jack, don't you?”
“No,” she said hurriedly. “I mean yes, of course.”
“And I like you too,” said the boy, with an adoring look in his deep
eyes, “better'n anyone in the world.”
“Do you, Steve? I'm glad.” Again she stooped swiftly and kissed him.
“Now run home.”
She hurried home, passed into her room without a word to anyone. Slowly
she removed her hat, then turning to her glass she gazed at her flushed
face for a few moments. A little smile curved her lips. “He did look at
me anyway,” she whispered to the face that looked out at her, “he did,
he did,” she repeated. Then swiftly she covered her eyes. When she
looked again she saw a face white and drawn. “He would na look at ye.”
The words smote her with a chill. Drearily she turned away and went out.
CHAPTER V
THE RECTORY
The Rectory was one of the very oldest of the more substantial of
Blackwater's dwellings. Built of grey limestone from the local quarries,
its solid square mass relieved by its quaint dormer windows was softened
from its primal ugliness by the Boston ivy that had clambered to the
eaves and lay draped about the windows like a soft green mantle. Built
in the early days, it stood with the little church, a gem of Gothic
architecture, within spacious grounds bought when land was cheap. Behind
the house stood the stable, built also of grey limestone, and at one
side a cherry and apple orchard formed a charming background to the grey
buildings with their crowding shrubbery and gardens. A gravelled winding
drive led from the street through towering elms, a picturesque remnant
from the original forest, to the front door and round the house to the
stable yard behind. From the driveway a gravelled footpath led through
the shrubbery and flower garden by a wicket gate to the Church. When
first built the Rectory stood in dignified seclusion on the edge of the
village, but the prosperity of the growing town demanding space for its
inhabitants had driven its streets far beyond the Rectory demesne on
every side, till now it stood, a green oasis of sheltered loveliness,
amid a crowding mass of modern brick dwellings, comfortable enough but
arid of beauty and suggestive only of the utilitarian demands of a busy
manufacturing town.
For nearly a quarter of a century the Rev. Herbert Aveling Templeton,
D.D., LL.D., for whom the Rectory had been built, had ministered in
holy things to the Parish of St. Alban's and had exercised a guiding and
paternal care over the social and religious well-being of the community.
The younger son of one of England's noble families, educated in an
English Public School and University, he represented, in the life of
this new, thriving, bustling town, the traditions and manners of an
English gentleman of the Old School. Still in his early sixties, he
carried his years with all the vigour of a man twenty years his junior.
As he daily took his morning walk for his mail, stepping with the brisk
pace of one whose poise the years had not been able to disturb, yet
with the stately bearing consistent with the dignity attaching to
his position and office, men's eyes followed the tall, handsome,
white-haired, well set up gentleman always with admiration and, where
knowledge was intimate, with reverence and affection. Before the recent
rapid growth of the town consequent upon the establishment of various
manufacturing industries attracted thither by the unique railroad
facilities, the Rector's walk was something in the nature of public
perambulatory reception. For he knew them all, and for all had a word
of greeting, of enquiry, of cheer, of admonition, so that by the time
he had returned to his home he might have been said to have conducted a
pastoral visitation of a considerable proportion of his flock. Even yet,
with the changes that had taken place, his walk to the Post Office was
punctuated with greetings and salutations from his fellow-citizens in
whose hearts his twenty-five years of devotion to their well-being,
spiritual and physical, had made for him an enduring place.
The lady of the Rectory, though some twenty years his junior, yet, by
reason of delicate health due largely to the double burden of household
cares and parish duties, appeared to be quite of equal age. Gentle in
spirit, frail in body, there seemed to be in her soul something of the
quality of tempered steel, yet withal a strain of worldly wisdom
mingled with a strange ignorance of the affairs of modern life. Her life
revolved around one centre, her adored husband, a centre enlarged as
time went on to include her only son and her two daughters. All others
and all else in her world were of interest solely as they might be more
or less closely related to these, the members of her family. The town
and the town folk she knew solely as her husband's parish. There were
other people and other communions, no doubt, but being beyond the pale
they could hardly be supposed to matter, or, at any rate, she could not
be supposed to regard them with more than the interest and spasmodic
concern which she felt it her duty to bestow upon those unfortunate
dwellers in partibus infidelium.
Regarding the Public School of the town with aversion because of its
woefully democratic character, she was weaned from her hostility to that
institution when her son's name was entered upon its roll. Her eldest
daughter, indeed, she sent as a girl of fourteen to an exclusive English
school, the expense of which was borne by her husband's eldest brother,
Sir Arthur Templeton, for she held the opinion that while for a boy
the Public School was an excellent institution with a girl it was
quite different. Hence, while her eldest daughter went “Home” for her
education, her boy went to the Blackwater Public and High Schools, which
institutions became henceforth invested with the highest qualifications
as centres of education. Her boy's friends were her friends, and to them
her house was open at all hours of day or night. Indeed, it became
the governing idea in her domestic policy that her house should be the
rallying centre for everything that was related in any degree to her
children's life. Hence, she quietly but effectively limited the circle
of the children's friends to those who were able and were willing to
make the Rectory their social centre. She saw to it that for Herbert's
intimate boy friends the big play room at the top of the house, once a
bare and empty room and later the large and comfortable family living
room, became the place of meeting for all their social and athletic
club activities. With unsleeping vigilance she stood on guard against
anything that might break that circle of her heart's devotion. The
circle might be, indeed must be enlarged, as for instance to take in the
Maitland boys, Herbert's closest chums. She was wise enough to see the
wisdom of that, but nothing on earth would she allow to filch from her a
single unit of the priceless treasures of her heart.
To this law of her life she made one glorious, one splendid exception.
When her country called, she, after weeks of silent, fierce, lonely,
agonised struggle gave up her boy and sent him with voiceless, tearless
pride to the War.
But, when the boy's Colonel wrote in terms of affectionate pride of
her boy's glorious passing, with new and strange adaptability her heart
circle was extended to include her boy's comrades in war and those who
like herself had sent them forth. Thenceforth every khaki covered lad
was to her a son, and every soldier's mother a friend.
As her own immediate home circle grew smaller, the intensity of her
devotion increased. Her two daughters became her absorbing concern. With
the modern notion that a girl might make for herself a career in life
she had no sympathy whatever. To see them happily married and in homes
of their own became the absorbing ambition of her life. To this end
she administered her social activities, with this purpose in view she
encouraged or discouraged her daughters' friendships with men. With the
worldly wisdom of which she had her own share she came to the conclusion
that ineligible men friends, that is, men friends unable to give her
daughters a proper setting in the social world, were to be effectively
eliminated. That the men of her daughters' choosing should be gentlemen
in breeding went without saying, but that they should be sufficiently
endowed with wealth to support a proper social position was equally
essential.
That Jack Maitland had somehow dropped out of the intimate circle of
friends who had in pre-war days made the Rectory their headquarters was
to her a more bitter disappointment than she cared to acknowledge even
to herself. Her son and the two Maitland boys had been inseparable in
their school and college days, and with the two young men her daughters
had been associated in the very closest terms of comradeship. But
somehow Captain Jack Maitland after the first months succeeding his
return from the war had drawn apart. Disappointed, perplexed, hurt, she
vainly had striven to restore the old footing between the young man and
her daughters. Young Maitland had taken up his medical studies for a
few months at his old University in Toronto and so had been out of touch
with the social life of his home town. Then after he had “chucked” his
course as impossible he had at his father's earnest wish taken up
work at the mills, at first in the office, later in the manufacturing
department. There was something queer in Jack's attitude toward his old
life and its associations, and after her first failures in attempting
to restore the old relationship her eldest daughter's pride and then her
own forbade further efforts.
Adrien, her eldest daughter, had always been a difficult child, and her
stay in England and later her experience in war work in France where for
three years she had given rare service in hospital work had somehow made
her even more inaccessible to her mother. And now the situation had been
rendered more distressing by her determination “to find something to
do.” She was firm in her resolve that she had no intention of patiently
waiting in her home, ostensibly busying herself with social duties but
in reality “waiting if not actually angling for a man.” She bluntly
informed her scandalised parent that “when she wanted a man more than
a career it would be far less humiliating to frankly go out and get
him than to practise alluring poses in the hopes that he might deign to
bestow upon her his lordly regard.” Her mother wisely forebore to argue.
Indeed, she had long since learned that in argumentive powers she was
hopelessly outclassed by her intellectual daughter. She could only
express her shocked disappointment at such intentions and quietly plan
to circumvent them.
As to Patricia, her younger daughter, she dismissed all concern. She was
only a child as yet, wise beyond her years, but too thoroughly immature
to cause any anxiety for some years to come. Meantime she had at first
tolerated and then gently encouraged the eager and obvious anxiety of
Rupert Stillwell to make a footing for himself in the Rectory family.
At the outbreak of the war her antipathy to young Stillwell as a slacker
had been violent. He had not joined up with the first band of ardent
young souls who had so eagerly pointed the path to duty and to glory.
But, when it had been made clear to the public mind that young Stillwell
had been pronounced physically unfit for service and was therefore
prevented from taking his place in that Canadian line which though it
might wear thin at times had never broken, Mrs. Templeton relieved him
in her mind of the damning count of being a slacker. Later, becoming
impressed with the enthusiasm of the young man's devotion to various
forms of patriotic war service at home, she finally, though it must be
confessed with something of an effort, had granted him a place within
the circle of her home. Furthermore, Rupert Stillwell had done extremely
well in all his business enterprises and had come to be recognised as
one of the coming young men of the district, indeed of the Province,
with sure prospects of advancement in public estimation. Hence, the
frequency with which Stillwell's big Hudson Six could be seen parked on
the gravelled drive before the Rectory front door. In addition to this,
Rupert and his Hudson Six were found to be most useful. He had abundance
of free time and he was charmingly ready with his offers of service. Any
hour of the day the car, driven by himself or his chauffeur, was at the
disposal of any member of the Rectory family, a courtesy of which Mrs.
Templeton was not unwilling to avail herself though never with any
loss of dignity but always with appearance of bestowing rather than
of receiving a favour. As to the young ladies, Adrien rarely allowed
herself the delight of a motor ride in Rupert Stillwell's luxurious car.
On the other hand, had her mother not intervened, Patricia would have
indulged without scruple her passion for joy-riding. The car she adored,
Rupert Stillwell she regarded simply as a means to the indulgence of her
adoration. He was a jolly companion, a cleverly humourous talker, and an
unfailing purveyor of bon-bons. Hence he was to Patricia an ever welcome
guest at the Rectory, and the warmth of Patricia's welcome went a long
way to establish his position of intimacy in the family.
It was not to be supposed, however, that that young lady's gracious
and indeed eager acceptance of the manifold courtesies of the young
gentleman in question burdened her in the very slightest with any sense
of obligation to anything but the most cavalier treatment of him, should
occasion demand. She was unhesitatingly frank and ready with criticism
and challenge of his opinions, indeed he appeared to possess a fatal
facility for championing her special aversions and antagonising her
enthusiasms. Of the latter her most avowed example was Captain Jack, as
she loved to call him. A word of criticism of Captain Jack, her hero,
her knight, sans peur et sans reproche and her loyal soul was aflame
with passionate resentment.
It so fell on an occasion when young Stillwell was a dinner guest at the
Rectory.
“Do you know, Patricia,” and Rupert Stillwell looked across the dinner
table teasingly into Patricia's face, “your Captain Jack was rather
mixed up in a nice little row to-day?”
“I heard all about it, Rupert, and Captain Jack did just what I would
have expected him to do.” Patricia's unsmiling eyes looked steadily into
the young man's smiling face.
“Rescued a charming young damsel, eh? By the way, that Perrotte girl has
turned out uncommonly good looking,” continued Rupert, addressing the
elder sister.
“Rescuing a poor little ill-treated boy from the hands of a brutal
bully and the bully's brutal father--” Patricia's voice was coolly
belligerent.
“My dear Patricia!” The mother's voice was deprecatingly pacific.
“It is simply true, Mother, and Rupert knows it quite well too, or--”
“Patricia!” Her father's quiet voice arrested his daughter's flow of
speech.
“But, Father, everyone--”
“Patricia!” The voice was just as quiet but with a slightly increased
distinctness in enunciation, and glancing swiftly at her father's face
Patricia recognised that the limits of her speech had been reached,
unless she preferred to change the subject.
“Yes, Annette has grown very pretty, indeed,” said Adrien, taking up
the conversation, “and is really a very nice girl, indeed. She sings
beautifully. She is the leading soprano in her church choir, I believe.”
“Captain Jack Maitland appeared to think her quite charming,” said
Rupert, making eyes at Patricia. Patricia's lips tightened and her eyes
gleamed a bit.
“They were in school together, I think, were they not, Mamma?” said
Adrien, flushing slightly.
“Of course they were, and so was Rupert, too--” said Patricia with
impatient scorn, “and so would you if you hadn't been sent to England,”
she added to her sister.
“No doubt of it,” said Rupert with a smile, “but you see she was
fortunate enough to be sent to England.”
“Blackwater is good enough for me,” said Patricia, a certain stubborn
hostility in her tone.
“I have always thought the Blackwater High School an excellent
institution,” said her mother quickly, “especially for boys.”
“Yes, indeed, for boys,” replied Stillwell, “but for young ladies--well,
there is something in an English school, you know, that you can't get in
any High School here in Canada.”
“Rot!” ejaculated Patricia.
“My dear Patricia!” The mother was quite shocked.
“Pardon me, Mother, but you know we have a perfectly splendid High
School here. Father has often said so.”
Her mother sighed. “Yes, for boys. But for girls, I feel with Rupert
that you get something in English schools that--” She hesitated, looking
uncertainly at her elder daughter.
“Yes, and perhaps lose something, Mamma,” said Adrien quietly. “I mean,”
she added hastily, “you lose touch with a lot of things and people,
friends. Now, for instance, you remember when we were all children,
boys and girls together, at the Public School, Annette was one of the
cleverest and best of the lot of us, I used to be fond of her--and the
others. Now--”
“But you can't help growing up,” said Rupert, “and--well, democracy is
all right and that sort of thing, but you must drift into your class you
know. There's Annette, for instance. She is a factory hand, a fine girl
of course, and all that, but--”
“Oh, I suppose we must recognise facts. Rupert, you are quite right,”
said Mrs. Templeton, “there must be social distinctions and there are
classes. I mean,” she added, as if to forestall the outburst she saw
gathering behind her younger daughter's closed lips, “we must inevitably
draw to our own set by our natural or acquired tastes and by our
traditions and breeding.”
“All very well in England, Mamma. I suppose dear Uncle Arthur and our
dear cousins would hardly feel called upon to recognise Annette as a
friend.”
“Why should they?” challenged Rupert.
“My dear Patricia,” said her father, mildly patient, “you are quite
wrong. Our people at home, your uncle Arthur, I mean, and your cousins,
and all well-bred folk, do not allow class distinctions to limit
friendship. Friends are chosen on purely personal grounds of real worth
and--well, congeniality.”
“Would Uncle Arthur, or rather, Aunt Alicia have Annette to dinner, for
instance?” demanded Patricia.
“Certainly not,” said her mother promptly.
“She would not do anything to embarrass Annette,” said her father.
“Oh, Dad, what a funk. That is quite unworthy of you.”
“Would she be asked here now to dinner?” said Rupert. “I mean,” he added
in some confusion, “would it be, ah, suitable? You know what I mean.”
“She has been here. Don't you remember, Mamma? She was often here. And
every time she came she was the cleverest thing, she was the brightest,
the most attractive girl in the bunch.” Her mother's eyebrows went up.
“In the party, I mean. And the most popular. Why, I remember quite well
that Rupert was quite devoted to her.”
“A mere child, she was then, you know,” said Rupert.
“She is just as bright, just as attractive, as clever now, more so
indeed, as fine a girl in every way. But of course she was not a factory
girl then. That's what you mean,” replied Patricia scornfully.
“She has found her class,” persisted Rupert. “She is all you say, but
surely--”
“Yes, she is working in the new box factory. Her mother, lazy, selfish
thing, took her from the High School.”
“My dear Patricia, you are quite violent,” protested her mother.
“It's true, Mamma,” continued the girl, her eyes agleam, “and now she
works in the box factory while Captain Jack works in the planing mill.
She is in the same class.”
“And good friends apparently,” said Rupert with a malicious little grin.
“Why not? We would have Captain Jack to dinner, but not Annette.”
Her father smiled at her. “Well done, little girl. Annette is a fine
girl and is fortunate in her champion. You can have her to dinner any
evening, I am quite sure.”
“Can we, Mamma?”
“My dear, we will not discuss the matter any further,” said her mother.
“It is a very old question and very perplexing, I confess, but--”
“We don't see Captain Jack very much since his return,” said her father,
turning the conversation. “You might begin with him, eh, Patsy?”
“No,” said the girl, a shade falling on her face. “He is always busy.
He has such long hours. He works his day's work with the men and then he
always goes up to the office to his father--and--and--Oh, I don't know,
I wish he would come. He's not--” Patricia fell suddenly silent.
“Jack is very much engaged,” said her mother quietly.
“Naturally he is tied up, learning the business, I mean,” said the elder
sister quietly. “He has little time for mere social frivolities and that
sort of thing.”
“It's not that, Adrien,” said Patricia. “He is different since he came
back. I wish--” She paused abruptly.
“He is changed,” said her mother with a sigh. “They--the boys are all
changed.”
“The war has left its mark upon them, and what else can we expect?” said
Dr. Templeton. “One wonders how they can settle down at all to work.”
“Oh, Jack has settled down all right,” said Patricia, as if analysing
a subject interesting to herself alone. “Jack's not like a lot of them.
He's too much settled down. What is it, I wonder? He seems to have quit
everything, dancing, tennis, golf. He doesn't care--”
“Doesn't care? What for? That sounds either as if he were an egotist or
a slacker.” Her sister's words rasped Patricia's most sensitive heart
string. She visibly squirmed, eagerly waiting a chance to reply. “Jack
is neither,” continued Adrien slowly. “I understand the thing perfectly.
He has been up against big things, so big that everything else seems
trivial. Fancy a tennis tournament for a man that has stared into hell's
mouth.”
“My dear, you are right,” said her father. “Patricia is really talking
too much. Young people should--”
“I know, Daddy--'be seen,'” said the younger daughter, and grinning
affectionately at him she blew him a kiss. “But, all the same, I wish
Captain Jack were not so awfully busy or were a little more keen about
things. He wants something to stir him up.”
“He may get that sooner than he thinks,” said Stillwell, “or wishes. I
hear there's likely to be trouble in the mills.”
“Trouble? Financial? I should be very sorry,” said Dr. Templeton.
“No. Labour. The whole labour world is in a ferment. The Maitlands can
hardly expect to escape. As a matter of fact, the row has made a little
start, I happen to know.”
“These labour troubles are really very distressing. There is no end to
them,” said Mrs. Templeton, with the resignation one shows in discussing
the inscrutable ways of Providence. “It does seem as if the working
classes to-day have got quite beyond all bounds. One wonders what they
will demand next. What is the trouble now, Rupert? Of course--wages.”
“Oh, the eternal old trouble is there, with some new ones added that
make even wages seem small.”
“And what are these?” enquired Dr. Templeton.
“Oh, division of profits, share in administration and control.”
“Division of profits in addition to wages?” enquired Mrs. Templeton,
aghast. “But, how dreadful. One would think they actually owned the
factory.”
“That is the modern doctrine, I believe,” said Rupert.
“Surely that is an extreme statement,” said Dr. Templeton, in a shocked
voice, “or you are talking of the very radical element only.”
“The Rads lead, of course, but you would be surprised at the demands
made to-day. Why, I heard a young chap last week, a soap-box artist,
denouncing all capitalists as parasites. 'Why should we work for
anyone but ourselves?' he was saying. 'Why don't we take charge of the
factories and run them for the general good?' I assure you, sir, those
were his very words.”
“Really, Rupert, you amaze me. In Blackwater here?” exclaimed Dr.
Templeton.
“But, my dear papa, that sort of thing is the commonplace of Hyde Park,
you know,” said Adrien, “and--”
“Ah, Hyde Park, yes. I should expect that sort of thing from the Hyde
Park orators. You get every sort of mad doctrine in Hyde Park, as I
remember it, but--”
“And I was going to say that that sort of thing has got away beyond
Hyde Park. Why, papa dear, you have been so engrossed in your Higher
Mathematics that you have failed to keep up with the times.” His eldest
daughter smiled at him and, reaching across the corner of the table,
patted his hand affectionately. “We are away beyond being shocked at
profit sharing, and even sharing in control of administration and that
sort of thing.”
“But there remains justice, I hope,” said her father, “and the right of
ownership.”
“Ah, that's just it--what is ownership?”
“Oh, come, Adrien,” said Rupert, “you are not saying that Mr. Maitland
doesn't own his factory and mill.”
“It depends on what you mean by own,” said the girl coolly. “You must
not take too much for granted.”
“Well, what my money pays for I own, I suppose,” said Rupert.
“Well,” said Adrien, “that depends.”
“My dear Adrien,” said her mother, “you have such strange notions.
I suppose you got them in those Clubs in London and from those queer
people you used to meet.”
“Very dear people,” said Adrien, with a far away look in her eyes, “and
people that loved justice and right.”
“All right, Ade,” said her younger sister, with a saucy grin, “I agree
entirely with your sentiments. I just adore that pale blue tie of yours.
I suppose, now that what's yours is mine, I can preempt that when I
like.”
“Let me catch you at it!”
“Well done, Patricia. You see the theories are all right till we come to
have them applied all round,” said Rupert.
“We were talking of joint ownership, Pat,” said her sister, “the joint
ownership of things to the making of which we have each contributed a
part.”
“Exactly,” said Rupert. “I guess Grant Maitland paid his own good money
for his plant.”
“Yes,” said Adrien.
“Yes, and all he paid for he owns.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that's all there is to it.”
“Oh, pardon me--there is a good deal more--”
“Well, well, children, we shall not discuss the subject any further.
Shall we all go up for coffee?”
“These are very radical views you are advancing, Adrien,” said her
father, rising from his chair. “You must be careful not to say things
like that in circles where you might be taken seriously.”
“Seriously, Daddy? I was never more serious in my life.” She put her arm
through her father's. “I must give you some books, some reports to read,
I see,” she said, laughing up into his face.
“Evidently,” said her father, “if I am to live with you.”
“I wonder what Captain Jack would think of these views,” said Rupert,
dropping into step with Patricia as they left the dining room together.
“He will think as Adrien does,” said Patricia stoutly.
“Ah, I wouldn't be too sure about that,” said Rupert. “You see, it makes
a difference whose ox is being gored.”
“What do you mean?” cried Patricia hotly.
“Never mind, Pat,” said her sister over her shoulder. “I don't think he
knows Captain Jack as we do.”
“Perhaps better,” said Rupert in a significant tone.
Patricia drew away from him.
“I think you are just horrid,” she said. “Captain Jack is--”
“Never mind, dear. Don't let him pull your leg like that,” said her
sister, with a little colour in her cheek. “We know Captain Jack, don't
we?”
“We do!” said Patricia with enthusiasm.
“We do!” echoed Rupert, with a smile that drove Pat into a fury.
CHAPTER VI
THE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE
There was trouble at the Maitland Mills. For the first time in his
history Grant Maitland found his men look askance at him. For the first
time in his life he found himself viewing with suspicion the workers
whom he had always taken a pride in designating “my men.” The situation
was at once galling to his pride and shocking to his sense of fair play.
His men were his comrades in work. He knew them--at least, until these
war days he had known them--personally, as friends. They trusted him and
were loyal to him, and he had taken the greatest care to deal justly
and more than justly by them. No labour troubles had ever disturbed the
relations which existed between him and his men. It was thus no small
shock when Wickes announced one day that a Grievance Committee wished to
interview him. That he should have to meet a Grievance Committee, whose
boast it had been that the first man in the works to know of a grievance
was himself, and that the men with whom he had toiled and shared both
good fortune and ill, but more especially the good, that had befallen
through the last quarter century should have a grievance against
him--this was indeed an experience that cut him to the heart and roused
in him a fury of perplexed indignation.
“A what? A Grievance Committee!” he exclaimed to Wickes, when the old
bookkeeper came announcing such a deputation.
“That's what they call themselves, sir,” said Wickes, his tone of
disgust disclaiming all association with any such organization.
“A Grievance Committee?” said Mr. Maitland again. “Well, I'll be! What
do they want? Who are they? Bring them in,” he roared in a voice whose
ascending tone indicated his growing amazement and wrath.
“Come in you,” growled Wickes in the voice he generally used for his
collie dog, which bore a thoroughly unenviable reputation, “come on in,
can't ye?”
There was some shuffling for place in the group at the door, but finally
Mr. Wigglesworth found himself pushed to the front of a committee of
five. With a swift glance which touched “the boss” in its passage and
then rested upon the wall, the ceiling, the landscape visible through
the window, anywhere indeed rather than upon the face of the man against
whom they had a grievance, they filed in and stood ill at ease.
“Well, Wigglesworth, what is it?” said Grant Maitland curtly.
Mr. Wigglesworth cleared his throat. He was new at the business and
was obviously torn between conflicting emotions of pride in his present
important position and a wholesome fear of his “boss.” However, having
cleared his throat, Mr. Wigglesworth pulled himself together and with a
wave of the hand began.
“These 'ere--er--gentlemen an' myself 'ave been (h)appinted a
Committee to lay before you certain grievances w'ich we feel to be very
(h)oppressive, sir, so to speak, w'ich, an' meanin' no offence, sir, as
men, fellow-men, as we might say--”
“What do you want, Wigglesworth? What's your trouble? You have some
trouble, what is it? Spit it out, man,” said the boss sharply.
“Well, sir, as I was a-sayin', this 'ere's a Committee (h)appinted to
wait on you, sir, to lay before you certain facts w'ich we wish you to
consider an' w'ich, as British subjecks, we feel--”
“Come, come, Wigglesworth, cut out the speech, and get at the things.
What do you want? Do you know? If so, tell me plainly and get done with
it.”
“We want our rights as men,” said Mr. Wigglesworth in a loud voice, “our
rights as free men, and we demand to be treated as British--”
“Is there anyone of this Committee that can tell me what you want
of me?” said Maitland. “You, Gilby, you have some sense--what is the
trouble? You want more wages, I suppose?”
“I guess so,” said Gilby, a long, lean man, Canadian born, of about
thirty, “but it ain't the wages that's eatin' me so much.”
“What then?”
“It's that blank foreman.”
“Foreman?”
“That's right, sir.” “Too blanked smart!” “Buttin' in like a blank billy
goat!” The growls came in various undertones from the Committee.
“What foreman? Hoddle?” The boss was ready to fight for his subalterns.
“No! Old Hoddle's all right,” said Gilby. “It's that young smart aleck,
Tony Perrotte.”
“Tony Perrotte!” Mr. Maitland's voice was troubled and uncertain. “Tony
Perrotte! Why, you don't mean to tell me that Perrotte is not a good
man. He knows his job from the ground up.”
“Knows too much,” said Gilby. “Wants to run everything and everybody.
You can't tell him anything. And you'd think he was a Brigadier-General
to hear him giving us orders.”
“You were at the front, Gilby?”
“I was, for three years.”
“You know what discipline is?”
“I do that, and I know too the difference between a Corporal and a
Company Commander. I know an officer when I see him. But a brass hat
don't make a General.”
“I won't stand for insubordination in my mills, Gilby. You must take
orders from my foreman. You know me, Gilby. You've been long enough with
me for that.”
“You treat a man fair, Mr. Maitland, and I never kicked at your orders.
Ain't that so?”
Maitland nodded.
“But this young dude--”
“'Dude'? What do you mean, 'dude'? He's no dude!”
“Oh, he's so stuck on himself that he gives me the wearisome willies.
Look here, other folks has been to the war. He needn't carry his chest
like a blanked bay window.”
“Look here, Gilby, just quit swearing in this room.” The cold blue eyes
bored into Gilby's hot face.
“I beg pardon, sir. It's a bad habit I've got, but that--that Tony
Perrotte has got my goat and I'm through with him.”
“All right, Gilby. If you don't like your job you know what you can do,”
said Maitland coldly.
“You mean I can quit?” enquired Gilby hotly.
“I mean there's only one boss in these works, and that's me. And my
foreman takes my orders and passes them along. Those that don't like
them needn't take them.”
“We demand our rights as--” began Mr. Wigglesworth heatedly.
“Excuse me, sir. 'A should like to enquir-r-e if it is your-r or-rder-rs
that your-r for-r-man should use blasphemious language to your-r men?”
The cool, firm, rasping voice cut through Mr. Wigglesworth's sputtering
noise like a circular saw through a pine log.
Mr. Maitland turned sharply upon the speaker.
“What is your name, my man?” he enquired.
“Ma name is Malcolm McNish. 'A doot ye have na har-r-d it. But the name
maitters little. It's the question 'A'm speerin'--asking at ye.”
Here was no amateur in the business of Grievance Committees. His manner
was that of a self-respecting man dealing with a fellow-man on terms of
perfect equality. There was a complete absence of Wigglesworth's noisy
bluster, as also of Gilby's violent profanity. He obviously knew his
ground and was ready to hold it. He had a case and was prepared to
discuss it. There was no occasion for heat or bluster or profanity. He
was prepared to discuss the matter, man to man.
Mr. Maitland regarded him for a moment or two with keen steady gaze.
“Where do you work, McNish?” he enquired of the Scot.
“A'm workin' the noo in the sawmill. A'm a joiner to trade.”
“Then Perrotte is not your foreman?”
“That is true,” said McNish quietly.
“Then personally you have no grievance against him?” Mr. Maitland had
the air of a man who has scored a bull at the first shot.
“Ay, A have an' the men tae--the men I represent have--”
“And you assume to speak for them?”
“They appoint me to speak for them.”
“And their complaint is--?”
“Their complaint is that he is no fit to be a foreman.”
“Ah, indeed! And you are here solely on their word--”
“No, not solely, but pairtly. A know by experience and A hae har-r-d the
man, and he's no fit for his job, A'm tellin' you.”
“I suppose you know the qualifications of a foreman, McNish?” enquired
Mr. Maitland with the suspicion of sarcasm in his voice.
“Ay, A do that.”
“And how, may I ask, have you come to the knowledge?”
“A dinna see--I do not see the bearing of the question.”
“Only this, that you and those you represent place your judgment as
superior to mine in the choice of a foreman. It would be interesting to
know upon what grounds.”
“I have been a foreman myself. But there are two points of view in this
question--the point of view of the management and that of the worker. We
have the one point of view, you have the other. And each has its value.
Ours is the more important.”
“Indeed! And why, pray?”
“Yours has chiefly to do with profits, ours with human life.”
“Very interesting indeed,” said Mr. Maitland, “but it happens that
profits and human life are somewhat closely allied--”
“Aye, but wi' you profits are the primary consideration and humanity the
secondary. Wi' us humanity is the primary.”
“Very interesting, indeed. But I must decline your premise. You are a
new man here and so I will excuse you the impudence of charging me with
indifference to the well-being of my men.”
“You put wur-r-ds in my mouth, Mr. Maitland. A said nae sic thing,”
said McNish. “But your foreman disna' know his place, and he must be
changed.”
“'Must,' eh?” The word had never been used to Mr. Maitland since his own
father fifty years before had used it. It was an unfortunate word for
the success of the interview. “'Must,' eh?” repeated Mr. Maitland with
rising wrath. “I'd have you know, McNish, that the man doesn't live that
says 'must' to me in regard to the men I choose to manage my business.”
“Then you refuse to remove yere foreman?”
“Most emphatically, I do,” said Mr. Maitland with glints of fire in his
blue eyes.
“Verra weel, so as we know yere answer. There is anither matter.”
“Yes? Well, be quick about it.”
“A wull that. Ye dinna pay yere men enough wages.”
“How do you know I don't?” said Mr. Maitland rising from his chair.
“A have examined certain feegures which I shall be glad to submit tae
ye, in regard tae the cost o' leevin' since last ye fixed the wage.
If yere wage was right then, it's wrang the noo.” Under the strain Mr.
Maitland's boring eyes and increasing impatience the Doric flavour
of McNish's speech grew richer and more guttural, varying with the
intensity of his emotion.
“And what may these figures be?” enquired Mr. Maitland with a voice of
contempt.
“These are the figures prepared by the Labour Department of your Federal
Government. I suppose they may be relied upon. They show the increased
cost of living during the last five years. You know yeresel' the
increase in wages. Mr. Maitland, I am told ye are a just man, an' we ask
ye tae dae the r-r-right. That's all, sir.”
“Thank you for your good opinion, my man. Whether I am a just man or not
is for my own conscience alone. As to the wage question, Mr. Wickes
will tell you, the matter had already been taken up. The result will be
announced in a week or so.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Wigglesworth. “We felt sure
it would only be necessary to point (h)out the right course to you. I
may say I took the same (h)identical (h)attitude with my fellow workmen.
I sez to them, sez I, 'Mr. Maitland--'
“That will do, Wigglesworth,” said Mr. Maitland, cutting him short.
“Have you anything more to say?” he continued, turning to McNish.
“Nothing, sir, except to express the hope that you will reconsider yere
attitude as regards the foreman.”
“You may take my word for it, I will not,” said Mr. Maitland, snapping
his words off with his teeth.
“At least, as a fair-minded man, you will look into the matter,” said
McNish temperately.
“I shall do as I think best,” said Mr. Maitland.
“It would be wiser.”
“Do you threaten me, sir?” Mr. Maitland leaned over his desk toward the
calm and rugged Scot, his eyes flashing indignation.
“Threaten ye? Na, na, threats are for bairns. Yere no a bairn, but a man
an' a wise man an' a just, A doot. A'm gie'in' ye advice. That's all.
Guid day.”
He turned away from the indignant Mr. Maitland, put his hat on his
head and walked from the room, followed by the other members of the
Committee, with the exception of Mr. Wigglesworth who lingered with
evidently pacific intentions.
“This, sir, is a most (h)auspicious (h)era, sir. The (h)age of reason
and justice 'as dawned, an'--”
“Oh, get out, Wigglesworth. Haven't you made all your speeches yet? The
time for the speeches is past. Good day.”
He turned to his bookkeeper.
“Wickes, bring me the reports turned in by Perrotte, at once.”
Mr. Maitland's manner was frankly, almost brutally, imperious. It
was not his usual manner with his subordinates, from which it may
be gathered that Mr. Maitland was seriously disturbed. And with good
reason. In the first place, never in his career had one of his men
addressed him in the cool terms of equality which McNish had used with
him in the recent interview. Then, never had he been approached by
a Grievance Committee. The whole situation was new, irritating,
humiliating.
As to the wages question, he would settle that without difficulty. He
had never skimped the pay envelope. It annoyed him, however, that he had
been forstalled in the matter by this Committee. But very especially he
was annoyed by the recollection of the deliberative, rasping tones of
that cool-headed Scot, who had so calmly set before him his duty. But
the sting of the interview lay in the consciousness that the criticism
of his foreman was probably just. And then, he was tied to Tony Perrotte
by bonds that reached his heart. Had it not been so, he would have made
short work of the business. As it was, Tony would have to stay at all
costs. Mr. Maitland sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the Big
Bluff visible through the window, but his mind lingering over a picture
that had often gripped hard at his heart during the last two years,
a picture drawn for him in a letter from his remaining son, Jack. The
letter lay in the desk at his hand. He saw in the black night that
shell-torn strip of land between the lines, black as a ploughed field,
lurid for a swift moment under the red glare of a bursting shell or
ghastly in the sickly illumination of a Verry light, and over this black
pitted earth a man painfully staggering with a wounded man on his back.
The words leaped to his eyes. “He brought me out of that hell, Dad.” He
closed his eyes to shut out that picture, his hands clenched on the arms
of his chair.
“No,” he said, raising his hand in solemn affirmation, “as the Lord God
liveth, while I stay he stays.”
“Come in,” he said, in answer to a timid tap at the office door. Mr.
Wickes laid a file before him. It needed only a rapid survey of the
sheets to give him the whole story. Incompetence and worse, sheer
carelessness looked up at him from every sheet. The planing mill was in
a state of chaotic disorganization.
“What does this mean, Mr. Wickes?” he burst forth, putting his finger
upon an item that cried out mismanagement and blundering. “Here is an
order that takes a month to clear which should be done within ten days
at the longest.”
Wickes stood silent, overwhelmed in dismayed self-condemnation.
“It seems difficult somehow to get orders through, sir, these days,” he
said after a pause.
“Difficult? What is the difficulty? The men are there, the machines are
there, the material is in the yard. Why the delay? And look at this.
Here is a lot of material gone to the scrap heap, the finest spruce ever
grown in Canada too. What does this mean, Wickes?” he seemed to welcome
the opportunity of finding a scapegoat for economic crimes, for which he
could find no pardon.
Sheet after sheet passed in swift review under his eye. Suddenly he
flung himself back in his chair.
“Wickes, this is simply damnable!”
“Yes, sir,” said Wickes, his face pale and his fingers trembling. “I
don't--I don't seem to be able to--to--get things through.”
“Get things through? I should say not,” shouted Maitland, glaring at
him.
“I have tried, I mean I'm afraid I'm--that I am not quite up to it, as I
used to be. I get confused--and--” The old bookkeeper's lips were white
and quivering. He could not get on with his story.
“Here, take these away,” roared Maitland.
Gathering up the sheets with fingers that trembled helplessly,
Wickes crept hurriedly out through the door, leaving a man behind
him furiously, helplessly struggling in the relentless grip of his
conscience, lashed with a sense of his own injustice. His anger which
had found vent upon his old bookkeeper he knew was due another man, a
man with whom at any cost he could never allow himself to be angry. The
next two hours were bad hours for Grant Maitland.
As the quitting whistle blew a tap came again to the office door. It was
Wickes, with a paper in his hand. Without a word he laid the paper upon
his chief's desk and turned away. Maitland glanced over it rapidly.
“Wickes, what does this nonsense mean?” His chief's voice arrested him.
He turned again to the desk.
“I don't think--I have come to feel, sir, that I am not able for my
job. I do not see as how I can go on.” Maitland's brows frowned upon the
sheet. Slowly he picked up the paper, tore it across and tossed it into
the waste basket.
“Wickes, you are an old fool--and,” he added in a voice that grew husky,
“I am another and worse.”
“But, sir--” began Wickes, in hurried tones.
“Oh, cut it all out, Wickes,” said Maitland impatiently. “You know I
won't stand for that. But what can we do? He saved my boy's life--”
“Yes, sir, and he was with my Stephen at the last, and--” The old man's
voice suddenly broke.
“I remember, Wickes, I remember. And that's another reason--We must find
another way out.”
“I have been thinking, sir,” said the bookkeeper timidly, “if you had a
younger man in my place--”
“You would go out, eh? I believe on my soul you would. You--you--old
fool. But,” said Maitland, reaching his hand across the desk, “I don't
go back on old friends that way.”
The two men stood facing each other for a few minutes, with hands
clasped, Maitland's face stern and set, Wickes' working in a pitiful
effort to stay the tears that ran down his cheeks, to choke back the
sobs that shook his old body as if in the grip of some unseen powerful
hand.
“We must find a way,” said Maitland, when he felt sure of his voice.
“Some way, but not that way. Sit down. We must go through this
together.”
CHAPTER VII
THE FOREMAN
Grant Maitland's business instincts and training were such as to forbid
any trifling with loose management in any department of his plant. He
was, moreover, too just a man to allow any of his workmen to suffer
for failures not their own. His first step was to get at the facts. His
preliminary move was characteristic of him. He sent for McNish.
“McNish,” he said, “your figures I have examined. They tell me nothing
I did not know, but they are cleverly set down. The matter of wages I
shall deal with as I have always dealt with it in my business. The other
matter--” Mr. Maitland paused, then proceeded with grave deliberation,
“I must deal with in my own way. It will take a little time. I shall not
delay unnecessarily, but I shall accept dictation from no man as to my
methods.”
McNish stood silently searching his face with steady eyes.
“You are a new man here, and I find you are a good workman,” continued
Mr. Maitland. “I don't know you nor your aims and purposes in this
Grievance Committee business of yours. If you want a steady job with a
chance to get on, you will get both; if you want trouble, you can get
that too, but not for long, here.”
Still the Scot held him with grave steady gaze, but speaking no word.
“You understand me, McNish?” said Maitland, nettled at the man's
silence.
“Aye, A've got a heid,” he said in an impassive voice.
“Well, then, I hope you will govern yourself accordingly. Good-day,”
said Maitland, closing the interview.
McNish still stood immovable.
“That's all I have to say,” said Maitland, glancing impatiently at the
man.
“But it's no all A have to say, if ye will pairmit me,” answered McNish
in a voice quiet and respectful and apparently, except for its Doric
flavour, quite untouched by emotion of any kind soever.
“Go on,” said Maitland shortly, as the Scot stood waiting.
“Maister Maitland,” said McNish, rolling out a deeper Doric, “ye have
made a promise and a threat. Yere threat is naething tae me. As tae yere
job, A want it and A want tae get on, but A'm a free man the noo an' a
free man A shall ever be. Good-day tae ye.” He bowed respectfully to his
employer and strode from the room.
Mr. Maitland sat looking at the closed door.
“He is a man, that chap, at any rate,” he said to himself, “but what's
his game, I wonder. He will bear watching.”
The very next day Maitland made a close inspection of his plant,
beginning with the sawmill. He found McNish running one of the larger
circular saws, and none too deftly. He stood observing the man for some
moments in silence. Then stepping to the workman's side he said,
“You will save time, I think, if you do it this way.” He seized the
levers and, eliminating an unnecessary movement, ran the log. McNish
stood calmly observing.
“Aye, yere r-right,” he said. “Ye'll have done yon before.”
“You just bet I have,” said Maitland, not a little pleased with himself.
“A'm no saw man,” said McNish, a little sullenly. “A dinna ken--I don't
know saws of this sort. I'm a joiner. He put me off the bench.”
“Who?” said Maitland quickly.
“Yon manny,” replied McNish with unmistakable disgust.
“You were on the bench, eh? What sort of work were you on?”
“A was daein' a bit counter work. A wasna fast enough for him.”
Mr. Maitland called the head sawyer.
“Put a man on here for a while, Powell, will you? You come with me,
McNish.”
Together they went into the planing mill. Asking for the foreman he
found that he was nowhere to be seen, that indeed he had not been in the
mill that morning.
“Show me your work, McNish,” he said.
McNish led him to a corner of the mill where some fine counter work was
in process.
“That's my work,” he said, pointing to a piece of oak railing.
Maitland, turning the work over in his hands, ran his finger along a
joint somewhat clumsily fitted.
“Not that,” said McNish hastily. “Ma work stops here.”
Again Maitland examined the rail. His experienced eye detected easily
the difference in the workmanship.
“Is there anything else of yours about here?” he asked. McNish went to
a pile of finished work and from it selected a small swing door
beautifully panelled. Maitland's eye gleamed.
“Ah, that's better,” he said. “Yes, that's better.”
He turned to one of the workmen at the bench near by.
“What job is this, Gibbon?” he asked.
“It's the Bank job, I think,” said Gibbon.
“What? The Merchants' Bank job? Surely that can't be. That job was
due two weeks ago.” Maitland turned impatiently toward an older man.
“Ellis,” he said sharply, “do you know what job this is?”
Ellis came and turned over the different parts of the work.
“That's the Merchants' Bank job, sir,” he said.
“Then what is holding this up?” enquired Maitland wrathfully.
“It's the turned work, I think, sir. I am not sure, but I think I heard
Mr. Perrotte asking about that two or three days ago.” Mr. Maitland's
lips met in a thin straight line.
“You can go back to your saw, McNish,” he said shortly.
“Ay, sir,” said McNish, his tone indicating quiet satisfaction. At
Gibbon's bench he paused. “Ye'll no pit onything past him, a doot,” he
said, with a grim smile, and passed out.
In every part of the shop Mr. Maitland found similar examples of
mismanagement and lack of co-ordination in the various departments of
the work. It needed no more than a cursory inspection to convince him
that a change of foreman was a simple necessity. Everywhere he found not
only evidence of waste of time but also of waste of material. It cut him
to the heart to see beautiful wood mangled and ruined. All his life he
had worked with woods of different kinds. He knew them standing in all
their matchless grandeur, in the primeval forest and had followed them
step by step all the way to the finished product. Never without a heart
pang did he witness a noble white pine, God's handiwork of centuries,
come crashing to earth through the meaner growth beneath the chopper's
axe. The only thing that redeemed such a deed from sacrilege, in his
mind, was to see the tree fittingly transformed into articles of beauty
and worth suitable for man's use. Hence, when he saw lying here and
there deformed and disfigured fragments of the exquisitely grained white
spruce, which during the war, he had with such care selected for his
aeroplane parts, his very heart rose in indignant wrath. And filled with
this wrath he made his way to the office and straightway summoned Wickes
and his son Jack to conference.
“Tony will never make a worker in wood. He cares nothing for it,” he
said bitterly.
“Nor in anything else, Dad,” said Jack, with a little laugh.
“You laugh, but it is no laughing matter,” said his father
reproachfully.
“I am sorry, Father, but you know I always thought it was a mistake to
put Tony in charge of anything. Why, he might have had his commission
if he were not such an irresponsible, downwright lazy beggar. What he
needs, as my Colonel used to profanely say, is 'a good old-fashioned
Sergeant-Major to knock hell out of him'. And, believe me, Tony was a
rattling fine soldier if his officer would regularly, systematically and
effectively expel his own special devil from his system. He needs that
still.”
“What can we do with him? I simply can't and won't dismiss him, as that
infernally efficient and coolheaded Scot demands. You heard about the
Grievance Committee?”
“Oh, the town has the story with embellishments. Rupert Stillwell took
care to give me a picturesque account. But I would not hesitate, Dad.
Kick Tony a good swift kick once a week or so, or, if that is beneath
your dignity, fire him.”
“But, Jack, lad, we can't do that,” said his father, greatly distressed,
“after what--”
“Why not? He carried me out of that hell all right, and while I live I
shall remember that. But he is a selfish beggar. He hasn't the instinct
for team play. He hasn't the idea of responsibility for the team. He
gets so that he can not make himself do what he just doesn't feel like
doing. He doesn't care a tinker's curse for the other fellows in the
game with him.”
“The man that doesn't care for other fellows will never make a foreman,”
said Mr. Maitland decisively. “But can't something be done with him?”
“There's only one way to handle Tony,” said Jack. “I learned that
long ago in school. He was a prince of half-backs, you know, but I had
regularly to kick him about before every big match. Oh, Tony is a fine
sort but he nearly broke my heart till I nearly broke his back.”
“That does not help much, Jack.” For the first time in his life Grant
Maitland was at a loss as to how he should handle one of his men. Were
it not for the letter in the desk at his hand he would have made short
work of Tony Perrotte. But there the letter lay and in his heart the
inerasible picture it set forth.
“What is the special form that Tony's devilment has taken, may I ask?”
enquired Jack.
“Well, I may say to you, what Wickes knows and has known and has tried
for three months to hide from me and from himself, Tony has made about
as complete a mess of the organization under his care in the planing
mill as can be imagined. The mill is strewn with the wreckage of
unfulfilled orders. He has no sense of time value. To-morrow is as good
as to-day, next week as this week. A foreman without a sense of time
value is no good. And he does not value material. Waste to him is
nothing. Another fatal defect. The man to whom minutes are not potential
gold and material potential product can never hope to be a manufacturer.
If only I had not been away from home! But the thing is, what is to be
done?”
“In the words of a famous statesman much abused indeed, I suggest, 'Wait
and see.' Meantime, find some way of kicking him into his job.”
This proved to be in the present situation a policy of wisdom. It was
Tony himself who furnished the solution. From the men supposed to be
working under his orders he learned the day following Maitland's visit
of inspection something of the details of that visit. He quickly made
up his mind that the day of reckoning could not long be postponed. None
knew better than Tony himself that he was no foreman; none so well that
he loathed the job which had been thrust upon him by the father of
the man whom he had carried out from the very mouth of hell. It was
something to his credit that he loathed himself for accepting the
position. Yet, with irresponsible procrastination, he put off the day of
reckoning. But, some ten days later, and after a night with some kindred
spirits of his own Battalion, a night prolonged into the early hours of
the working day, Tony presented himself at the office, gay, reckless,
desperate, but quite compos mentis and quite master of his means of
locomotion.
He appeared in the outer office, still in his evening garb.
“Mr. Wickes,” he said in solemn gravity, “please have your stenographer
take this letter.”
Mr. Wickes, aghast, strove to hush his vibrant tones, indicating in
excited pantomime the presence of the chief in the inner office. He
might as effectively have striven to stay the East wind at that time
sweeping up the valley.
“Are you ready, my dear?” said Tony, smiling pleasantly at the girl.
“All right, proceed. 'Dear Mr. Maitland:' Got that? 'Conscious of my
unfitness for the position of foreman in--'”
“Hush, hush, Tony,” implored Mr. Wickes.
Tony waved him aside.
“What have you got, eh?”
At that point the door opened and Grant Maitland stepped into the
office. Tony rose to his feet and, bowing with elaborate grace and
dignity, he addressed his chief.
“Good morning, sir. I am glad to see you, in fact, I wanted to see
you but wishing to save your time I was in the very act of dictating a
communication to you.”
“Indeed, Tony?” said Mr. Maitland gravely.
“Yes, sir, I was on the point of dictating my resignation of my position
of foreman.”
“Step in to the office, Tony,” said Mr. Maitland kindly and sadly.
“I don't wish to take your time, sir,” said Tony, sobered and quieted by
Mr. Maitland's manner, “but my mind is quite made up. I--”
“Come in,” said Mr. Maitland, in a voice of quiet command, throwing open
his office door. “I wish to speak to you.”
“Oh, certainly, sir,” answered Tony, pulling himself together with an
all too obvious effort.
In half an hour Tony came forth, a sober and subdued man.
“Good-bye, Wickes,” he said, “I'm off.”
“Where are you going, Tony?” enquired Wickes, startled at the look on
Tony's face.
“To hell,” he snapped, “where such fools as me belong,” and, jamming his
hat hard down on his head, he went forth.
In another minute Mr. Maitland appeared at the office door.
“Wickes,” he said sharply, “put on your hat and get Jack for me. Bring
him, no matter what he's at. That young fool who has just gone out must
be looked after. The boot-leggers have been taking him in tow. If I had
only known sooner. Did you know, Wickes, how he has been going on? Why
didn't you report to me?”
“I hesitated to do that, sir,” putting his desk in order. “I always
expected as how he would pull up. It's his company, sir. He is not so
much to blame.”
“Well, he would not take anything I had to offer. He is wild to get
away. And unfortunately he has some money with him, too. But get Jack
for me. He can handle him if anybody can.”
Sorely perplexed Mr. Maitland returned to his office. His business sense
pointed the line of action with sunlight clearness. His sense of justice
to the business for which he was responsible as well as to the men
in his employ no less clearly indicated the action demanded. His sane
judgment concurred in the demand of his men for the dismissal of his
foreman. Dismissal had been rendered unnecessary by Tony's unshakable
resolve to resign his position which he declared he loathed and which
he should never have accepted. His perplexity arose from the confusion
within himself. What should he do with Tony? He had no position in his
works or in the office for which he was fit. None knew this better than
Tony himself.
“It's a joke, Mr. Maitland,” he had declared, “a ghastly joke. Everybody
knows it's a joke, that I should be in command of any man when I can't
command myself. Besides, I can't stick it.” In this resolve he had
persisted in spite of Mr. Maitland's entreaties that he should give the
thing another try, promising him all possible guidance and backing. But
entreaties and offers of assistance had been in vain. Tony was wild
to get away from the mill. He hated the grind. He wanted his freedom.
Vainly Mr. Maitland had offered to find another position for him
somewhere, somehow.
“We'll find a place in the office for you,” he had pleaded. “I want to
see you get on, Tony. I want to see you make good.”
But Tony was beyond all persuasion.
“It isn't in me,” he had declared. “Not if you gave me the whole works
could I stick it.”
“Take a few days to think it over,” Mr. Maitland had pleaded.
“I know myself--only too well. Ask Jack, he knows,” was Tony's bitter
answer. “And that's final.”
“No, Tony, it is not final,” had been Mr. Maitland's last word, as Tony
had left him.
But after the young man had left him there still remained the unsolved
question, What was he to do with Tony? In Mr. Maitland's heart was the
firm resolve that he would not allow Tony to go his own way. The letter
in the desk at his hand forbade that.
At his wits' end he had sent for Jack. Jack had made a football
half-back and a hockey forward out of Tony when everyone else had
failed. If anyone could divert him from that desperate downward course
to which he seemed headlong bent, it was Jack.
In a few minutes Wickes returned with the report that on receiving an
account of what had happened Jack had gone to look up Tony.
Mr. Maitland drew a breath of relief.
“Tony is all right for to-day,” he said, turning to his work and leaving
the problem for the meantime to Jack.
In an hour Jack reported that he had been to the Perrotte home and had
interviewed Tony's mother. From her he had learned that Tony had left
the town, barely catching the train to Toronto. He might not return for
a week or ten days. He could set no time for it. He was his own master
as to time. He had got to the stage where he could go and come pretty
much as he pleased. The mother was not at all concerned as to these
goings and comings of her son. He had an assured position, all cause for
anxiety in regard to him was at an end. Tony's mother was obviously not
a little uplifted that her son should be of sufficient importance to be
entrusted with business in Toronto in connection with the mill.
All of which tended little toward relieving the anxiety of Mr. Maitland.
“Let him take his swing, Dad, for a bit,” was Jack's advice. “He will
come back when he is ready, and until then wild horses won't bring him
nor hold him. He is no good for his old job, and you have no other ready
that he will stick at. He has no Sergeant-Major now to knock him about
and make him keep step, more's the pity.”
“Life will be his Sergeant-Major, I fear,” said his father, “and a
Sergeant-Major that will exact the utmost limit of obedience or make him
pay the price. All the same, we won't let him go. I can't Jack, anyway.”
“Oh, Tony will turn up, never fear, Dad,” said Jack easily.
With this assurance his father had to content himself. In a fortnight's
time a letter came from Tony to his sister, rosy with the brilliance of
the prospects opening up before him. There was the usual irresponsible
indefiniteness in detail. What he was doing and how he was living Tony
did not deign to indicate. Ten days later Annette had another letter.
The former prospects had not been realised, but he had a much better
thing in view, something more suitable to him, and offering larger
possibilities of position and standing in the community. So much Annette
confided to her mother who passed on the great news with elaborations
and annotations to Captain Jack. To Captain Jack himself Annette gave
little actual information. Indeed, shorn of its element of prophecy,
there was little in Tony's letter that could be passed on. Nor did
Annette drop any hint but that all was quite well with her brother, much
less that he had suggested a temporary loan of fifty dollars but only
of course if she could spare the amount with perfect convenience. After
this letter there was silence as far as Tony was concerned and for
Annette anxiety that deepened into agony as the silence remained
unbroken with the passing weeks.
With the anxiety there mingled in Annette's heart anger at the
Maitlands, for she blamed them for Tony's dismissal from his position.
This, it is fair to say, was a reflection from her mother's wrath, whose
mind had been filled up with rumours from the mills to the effect that
her son had been “fired.” Annette was wise enough and knew her brother
well enough to discredit much that rumour brought to her ears, but she
could not rid herself of the thought that a way might have been found to
hold Tony about the mills.
“He fired the boy, did the ould carmudgeon,” said Madame Perrotte in one
of her rages, “and druv him off from the town.”
“Nonsense, Mother,” Annette had replied, “you know well enough Tony
left of his own accord. Why should you shame him so? He went because he
wanted to go.”
This was a new light upon the subject for her mother.
“Thrue for you, Annette, gurl,” she said, “an' ye said it that time. But
why for did he not induce the bye to remain? It would be little enough
if he had made him the Manager of the hull works. That same would never
pay back what he did for his son.”
“Hush, Mother,” said Annette, in a shocked and angry voice, “let no one
hear you speak like that. Pay back! You know, Mother, nothing could ever
pay back a thing like that.” The anger in her daughter's voice startled
the mother.
“Oui! by gar!” said Perrotte, who had overheard, with quick wrath.
“Dat's foolish talk for sure! Dere's no man can spik lak dat to me, or I
choke him on his fool t'roat, me.”
“Right you are, mon pere!” said Annette appeasing her father. “Mother
did not think what she was saying.”
“Dat's no bon,” replied Perrotte, refusing to be appeased. “Sacre
tonnerre! Dat's one--what you call?--damfool speech. Dat boy Tony he's
carry (h)on hees back his friend, le Capitaine Jack, an' le Capitaine,
he's go five mile for fin' Tony on' de shell hole an' fetch heem to le
docteur and stay wit' him till he's fix (h)up. Nom de Dieu! You pay for
dat! Mama! You mak' shame for me on my heart!” cried the old Frenchman,
beating his breast, while sobs shook his voice.
CHAPTER VIII
FREE SPEECH
Fifty years ago Blackwater town was a sawmill village on the Blackwater
River which furnished the power for the first little sawmill set up by
Grant Maitland's father.
Down the river came the sawlogs in the early spring when the water was
high, to be caught and held by a “boom” in a pond from which they were
hauled up a tramway to the saw. A quarter of a mile up stream a mill
race, tapping the river, led the water to an “overshot wheel” in the
early days, later to a turbine, thus creating the power necessary to
drive the mill machinery. When the saw was still the water overflowed
the “stop-logs” by the “spillway” into the pond below.
But that mill race furnished more than power to the mill. It furnished
besides much colourful romance to the life of the village youth of those
early days. For down the mill race they ran their racing craft, jostling
and screaming, urging with long poles their laggard flotillas to
victory. The pond by the mill was to the boys “swimming hole” and
fishing pool, where, during the long summer evenings and through the
sunny summer days, they spent amphibious hours in high and serene
content. But in springtime when the pond was black with floating logs
it became the scene of thrilling deeds of daring. For thither came the
lumber-jacks, fresh from “the shanties,” in their dashing, multi-colored
garb, to “show off” before admiring friends and sweethearts their skill
in “log-running” and “log-rolling” contests which as the spirit of
venture grew would end like as not in the icy waters of the pond.
Here, too, on brilliant winter days the life of the village found its
centre of vivid interest and activity. For then the pond would be a
black and glittering surface whereon wheeled and curved the ringing,
gleaming blades of “fancy” skaters or whereon in sterner hours opposing
“shinny” teams sought glory in Homeric and often gory contest.
But those days and those scenes were now long since gone. The old mill
stood a picturesque ruin, the water wheel had given place to the
steam engine, the pond had shrunk to an insignificant pool where only
pollywogs and minnows passed unadventurous lives, the mill race had
dwindled to a trickling stream grown thick with watercress and yellow
lilies, and what had once been the centre of vigorous and romantic life
was now a back water eddy devoid alike of movement and of colour.
A single bit of life remained--the little log cottage, once the
Manager's house a quarter of a century ago, still stood away up among
the pines behind the old mill ruin and remote from the streets and homes
of the present town. At the end of a little grassy lane it stood, solid
and square, resisting with its well hewn pinelogs the gnawing tooth of
time. Abandoned by the growing town, forgotten by the mill owner, it was
re-discovered by Malcolm McNish, or rather by his keen eyed old mother
on their arrival from the old land six months ago. For a song McNish
bought the solid little cottage, he might have had it as a gift but that
he would not, restored its roof, cleared out its stone chimney which,
more than anything else, had caught the mother's eye, re-set the window
panes, added a wee cunning porch, gave its facings a coat of paint,
enclosed its bit of flower garden in front and its “kale yaird” in the
rear with a rustic paling, and made it, when the Summer had done its
work, a bonnie homelike spot which caught the eye and held the heart of
the passer-by.
The interior more than fulfilled the promise of the exterior. The big
living room with its great stone fireplace welcomed you on opening the
porch door. From the living room on the right led two doors, each giving
entrance to a tiny bedroom and flanking a larger room known as “the
Room.”
Within the living room were gathered the household treasures, the Lares
and Penates of the little stone rose-covered cottage “at hame awa' ayont
the sea.” On the mantel a solid hewn log of oak, a miracle of broad-axe
work, were “bits o' chiny” rarely valuable as antiques to the knowing
connoisseur but beyond price to the old white-haired lady who daily
dusted them with reverent care as having been borne by her mother from
the Highland home in the far north country when as a bride she came by
the “cadger's cairt” to her new home in the lonely city of Glasgow. Of
that Glasgow home and of her own home later the walls of the log cottage
were eloquent.
The character giving bit of furniture, however, in the living room was
a book-case that stood in a corner. Its beautiful inlaid cabinet work
would in itself have attracted attention, but not the case but the books
were its distinction. The great English poets were represented there
in serviceable bindings showing signs of use, Shakespeare, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Browning, Keats, and with them in various editions, Burns.
Beside the poets Robert Louis had a place, and Sir Walter, as well as
Kipling and Meredith and other moderns. But on the shelf that showed
most wear were to be found the standard works of economists of different
schools from the great Adam Smith to Marx and the lot of his imitators
and disciples. This was Malcolm's book-case. There was in another corner
near the fire-place a little table and above it hung a couple of shelves
for books of another sort, the Bible and The Westminster Confession,
Bunyan and Baxter and Fox's Book of Martyrs, Rutherford and McCheyne and
Law, The Ten Years' Conflict, Spurgeon's Sermons and Smith's Isaiah, and
a well worn copy of the immortal Robbie. This was the mother's corner,
a cosy spot where she nourished her soul by converse with the great
masters of thought and of conscience.
In this “cosy wee hoosie” Malcolm McNish and his mother passed their
quiet evenings, for the days were given to toil, in talk, not to say
discussion of the problems, the rights and wrongs of the working man.
They agreed in much; they differed, and strongly, in point of view. The
mother was all for reform of wrongs with the existing economic system,
reverencing the great Adam Smith. The son was for a new deal, a new
system, the Socialistic, with modifications all his own. All, or almost
all, that Malcolm had read the mother had read with the exception of
Marx. She “cudna thole yon godless loon” or his theories or his works.
Malcolm had grown somewhat sick of Marx since the war. Indeed, the war
had seriously disturbed the foundations of Malcolm's economic faith, and
he was seeking a readjustment of his opinion and convictions, which were
rather at loose ends. In this state of mind he found little comfort from
his shrewd old mother.
“Y'e have nae anchor, laddie, and ilka woof of air and ilka turn o' the
tide and awa' ye go.”
As for her anchor, she made no bones of announcing that she had
been brought up on the Shorter Catechism and the Confession and in
consequence found a place for every theory of hers, Social and Economic
as well as Ethical and Religious, within the four corners of the mighty
fabric of the Calvinistic system of Philosophy and Faith.
One of the keen joys of her life since coming to the new country she
found in her discussions with the Rev. Murdo Matheson, whom, after some
considerable hesitation, she had finally chosen to “sit under.” The Rev.
Murdo's theology was a little narrow for her. She had been trained in
the schools of the Higher Critics of the Free Kirk leaders at home.
She talked familiarly of George Adam Smith, whom she affectionately
designated as “George Adam.” She would wax wrathful over the memory of
the treatment meted out to Robertson Smith by a former generation of
Free Kirk heresy hunters. Hence she regarded with pity the hesitation
with which her Minister accepted some of the positions of the Higher
Critics. Although it is to be confessed that the war had somewhat rudely
shattered her devotion to German theology.
“What d'ye think o' yere friend Harnack the noo?” her son had jibed at
her soon after the appearance of the great manifesto from the German
professors.
“What do A think o' him?” she answered, sparring for time. “What do A
think o' him?” Then, as her eye ran over her son's uniform, for he was
on leave at the time, she blazed forth, “A'll tell ye what A think
o' him. A think that Auld Hornie has his hook intil him and the hale
kaboodle o' them. They hae forsaken God and made tae themselves ither
gods and the Almichty hae gi'en them ower tae a reprobate mind.”
But her Canadian Minister's economic positions satisfied her. He had
specialised in Social and Economic Science in his University Course and
she considered him sound “in the main.”
She had little patience with half baked theorists and none at all with
mere agitators. It was therefore with no small indignation that she saw
on a Sunday morning Mr. Wigglesworth making his way up the lane toward
her house door.
“The Lord be guid tae us!” she exclaimed. “What brings yon cratur
here--and on a Sabbath mornin'? Mind you, Malcolm,” she continued in
a voice of sharp decision, “A'll hae nane o' his 'rights o' British
citizens' clack the morn.”
“Who is it, Mother?” enquired her son, coming from his room to look out
through the window. “Oh, dinna fash ye're heid ower yon windbag,” he
added, dropping into his broadest Doric and patting his mother on the
shoulder.
“He disna fash me,” said his mother. “Nae fears. But A'll no pairmit
him to brak the Sabbath in this hoose, A can tell ye.” None the less she
opened the door to Mr. Wigglesworth with dignified courtesy.
“Guid mornin', Mr. Wigglesworth,” she said cordially. “Ye're airly on
yere way tae the Kirk.”
“Yes--that is--yes,” replied Mr. Wigglesworth in some confusion, “I am a
bit (h)early. Fact is, I was (h)anxious to catch Malcolm before 'e
went aht. I 'ave a rather (h)important business on 'and with 'im, very
(h)important business, I might say.”
“'Business,' did ye say, Mr. Wigglesworth?” Mrs. McNish stood facing him
at the door. “Business! On the Lord's Day?”
Mr. Wigglesworth gaped at her, hat in hand.
“Well, Mrs. McNish, not (h)exactly business. That is,” he said with an
apologetic smile, “(h)it depends, you see, just w'at yeh puts (h)into a
word, Mrs. McNish.”
Mr. Wigglesworth's head went over to one side as if in contemplation of
a new and striking idea.
“A pit nae meaning into a word that's no in it on its ain accoont,” she
replied with uncompromising grimness. “Business is just business, an' my
son diz nae business on the Lord's Day.”
There was no place for casuistry in the old Scotch lady's mind. A thing
was or was not, and there was an end to that.
“Certainly, Mrs. McNish, certainly! And so sez I. But there might be a
slight difference of (h)opinion between you and I, so to speak, as
to just w'at may constitute 'business.' Now, for (h)instance--” Mr.
Wigglesworth was warming to his subject, but the old lady standing on
her doorstep fixed her keen blue eyes upon him and ruthlessly swept away
all argumentation on the matter.
“If it is a matter consistent with the Lord's Day, come in; if not, stay
oot.”
“Oh! Yes, thank you. By the way, is your son in, by (h)any chance?
Per'raps 'e's shavin' 'isself, eh?” Mr. Wigglesworth indulged in a
nervous giggle.
“Shavin' himsel!” exclaimed Mrs. McNish. “On the Sawbath! Man, d'ye
think he's a heathen, then?” Mrs. McNish regarded the man before her
with severity.
“An 'eathen? Not me! I should consider it an 'eathenish practice to go
dirty of a Sunday,” said Mr. Wigglesworth triumphantly.
“Hoots, man, wha's talkin' about gaein' dirty? Can ye no mak due
preparation on the Saturday? What is yere Saturday for?”
This was a new view to Mr. Wigglesworth and rather abashed him.
“What is it, Mother?” Malcolm's voice indicated a desire to appease the
wrath that gleamed in his mother's eye. “Oh, it is Mr. Wigglesworth.
Yes, yes! I want to see Mr. Wigglesworth. Will you come in, Mr.
Wigglesworth?”
“Malcolm, A was jist tellin' Mr. Wigglesworth--”
“Yes, yes, I know, Mother, but I want--”
“Malcolm, ye ken what day it is. And A wull not--”
“Yes, Mother, A ken weel, but--”
“And ye ken ye'll be settin' oot for the Kirk in half an oor--”
“Half an hour, Mother? Why, it is only half past nine--”
“A ken weel what it is. But A dinna like tae be fashed and flustered in
ma mind on ma way till the Hoose o' God.”
“I shall only require a very few moments, Madam,” said Mr. Wigglesworth.
“The matter with w'ich I am (h)entrusted need not take more than a
minute or two. In fact, I simply want to (h)announce a special, a very
special meetin' of the Union this (h)afternoon.”
“A releegious meetin', Mr. Wigglesworth?” enquired Mrs. McNish.
“Well--not exactly--that is--I don't know but you might call it a
religious meetin'. To my mind, Mrs. McNish, you know--”
But Mrs. McNish would have no sophistry.
“Mr. Wigglesworth,” she began sternly.
But Malcolm cut in.
“Now, Mother, I suppose it's a regular enough meeting. Just wait till I
get my hat, Mr. Wigglesworth. I'll be with you.”
His mother followed him into the house, leaving Mr. Wigglesworth at the
door.
“Malcolm,” she began with solemn emphasis.
“Now, now, Mother, surely you know me well enough by this time to trust
my judgment in a matter of this kind,” said her son, hurriedly searching
for his hat.
“Ay, but A'm no sae sure o' yon buddie--”
“Hoot, toot,” said her son, passing out. “A'll be back in abundant time
for the Kirk, Mither. Never you fear.”
“Weel, weel, laddie, remember what day it is. Ye ken weel it's no day
for warldly amusement.”
“Ay, Mither,” replied her son, smiling a little at the associating of
Mr. Wigglesworth with amusement of any sort on any day.
In abundance of time Malcolm was ready to allow a quiet, unhurried walk
with his mother which would bring them to the church a full quarter of
an hour before the hour of service.
It happened that the Rev. Murdo was on a congenial theme and in
specially good form that morning.
“How much better is a man than a sheep,” was his text, from which with
great ingenuity and eloquence he proceeded to develop the theme of the
supreme value of the human factor in modern life, social and industrial.
With great cogency he pressed the argument against the inhuman and
degrading view that would make man a mere factor in the complex problem
of Industrial Finance, a mere inanimate cog in the Industrial Machine.
“What did you think of the sermon, Mother?” asked Malcolm as they
entered the quiet lane leading home.
“No sae bad, laddie, no sae bad. Yon's an able laddie, especially on
practical themes. Ay, it was no that bad,” replied his mother with
cautious approval.
“What about his view of the Sabbath?”
“What about it? Wad ye no lift a sheep oot o' the muck on the Sawbath?”
“A would, of course,” replied Malcolm.
“Weel, what?”
“A was jist thinkin' o' Mr. Wigglesworth this morning.”
“Yon man!”
“You were rather hard on him this morning', eh, Mither?”
“Hard on him? He's no a sheep, nor in some ways as guid's a sheep, A
grant ye that, but such as he is was it no ma duty to pull him oot o'
the mire o' Sawbath desecration and general ungodliness?”
“Aw, Mither, Mither! Ye're incorrigible! Ye ought to come to the meeting
this afternoon and give them all a lug out.”
“A wull that then,” said his mother heartily. “They need it, A doot.”
“Hoots! Nonsense, Mither!” said her son hastily, knowing well how
thoroughly capable she was of not only going to a meeting of Union
workers but also of speaking her mind if in her judgment they were
guilty of transgressing the Sabbath law. “The meeting will be just as
religious as Mr. Matheson's anyway.”
“A'm no sae sure,” said his mother grimly.
Whether religious in the sense understood by Mrs. McNish, the meeting
was not wanting in ethical interest or human passion. It was a gathering
of the workers in the various industries in the town, Trade Unionists
most of them, but with a considerable number who had never owed
allegiance to any Union and a number of disgruntled ex-Unionists. These
latter were very vociferous and for the most part glib talkers, with
passions that under the slightest pressure spurted foaming to the
surface. Returned soldiers there were who had taken on their old jobs
but who had not yet settled down into the colourless routine of mill and
factory work under the discipline of those who often knew little of
the essentials of discipline as these men knew them. A group of
French-Canadian factory hands, taken on none too willingly in the
stress of war work, constituted an element of friction, for the soldiers
despised and hated them. With these there mingled new immigrants from
the shipyards and factories of the Old Land, all members or ex-members
of Trade Unions, Socialists in training and doctrine, familiar with the
terminology and jargon of those Socialistic debating schools, the Local
Unions of England and Scotland, alert, keen, ready of wit and ready
of tongue, rejoicing in wordy, passionate debate, ready for anything,
fearing nothing.
The occasion of the meeting was the presence of a great International
Official of the American Federation of Labour, and its purpose to
strengthen International Unionism against the undermining of guerilla
bands of non-Unionists and very especially against the new organizations
emanating from the far West, the One Big Union.
At the door of the hall stood Mr. Wigglesworth, important, fussy
and unctuously impressive, welcoming, directing, introducing and,
incidentally but quite ineffectively, seeking to inspire with respect
for his august person a nondescript crowd of small boys vainly seeking
entrance. With an effusiveness amounting to reverence he welcomed McNish
and directed him in a mysterious whisper toward a seat on the platform,
which, however, McNish declined, choosing a seat at the side about half
way up the aisle.
A local Union official was addressing the meeting but saying nothing in
particular, and simply filling in till the main speaker should arrive.
McNish, quite uninterested in the platform, was quietly taking note of
the audience, with many of whom he had made a slight acquaintance. As
his eye travelled slowly from face to face it was suddenly arrested.
There beside her father was Annette Perrotte, who greeted him with a
bright nod and smile. They had long ago made up their tiff. Then McNish
had another surprise. At the door of the hall appeared Captain Jack
Maitland who, after coolly surveying the room, sauntered down the aisle
and took a seat at his side. He nodded to McNish.
“Quite a crowd, McNish,” he said. “I hear the American Johnnie is quite
a spouter so I came along to hear.”
McNish looked at him and silently nodded. He could not understand his
presence at that kind of a meeting.
“You know I am a Union man now,” said Captain Jack, accurately reading
his silence. “Joined a couple of months ago.”
But McNish kept his face gravely non-committal, wondering how it was
that this important bit of news had not reached him. Then he remembered
that he had not attended the last two monthly meetings of his Union,
and also he knew that little gossip of the shops came his way. None
the less, he was intensely interested in Maitland's appearance. He
did Captain Jack the justice to acquit him of anything but the most
honourable intentions, yet he could not make clear to his mind what end
the son of his boss could serve by joining a Labour Union. He finally
came to the conclusion that this was but another instance of an
“Intellectual” studying the social and economic side of Industry from
first-hand observation. It was a common enough thing in the Old Land.
He was conscious of a little contempt for this dilettante sort of Labour
Unionism, and he was further conscious of a feeling of impatience and
embarrassment at Captain Jack's presence. He belonged to the enemy camp,
and what right had he there? From looks cast in their direction it was
plain that others were asking the same question. His thought received a
sudden and unexpected exposition from the platform from no less a person
than Mr. Wigglesworth himself to whom as one of the oldest officials in
Unionised Labour in the town had been given the honour of introducing
the distinguished visitor and delegate.
In flowing periods and with a reckless but wholly unauthorised
employment of aspirates he “welcomed the (h)audience, (h)especially the
ladies, and other citizens among 'oom 'e was delighted to (h)observe
a representative of the (h)employing class 'oo was for the present 'e
believed one of themselves.” To his annoyed embarrassment Captain Jack
found himself the observed of many eyes, friendly and otherwise. “But 'e
would assure Captain Maitland that although 'e might feel as if 'e 'ad
no right to be 'ere--”
“'Ere! 'Ere!” came a piercing voice in unmistakable approval,
galvanising the audience out of its apathy into instant emotional
intensity.
“(H)I want most (h)emphatically to (h)assure Captain Maitland,”
continued Mr. Wigglesworth, frowning heavily upon the interrupter, “that
'e is as welcome--”
“No! No!” cried the same Cockney voice, followed by a slight rumbling
applause.
“I say 'e is,” shouted Mr. Wigglesworth, supported by hesitating
applause.
“No! No! We don't want no toffs 'ere.” This was followed by more
definite applause from the group immediately surrounding the speaker.
Mr. Wigglesworth was much affronted and proceeded to administer a rebuke
to the interrupter.
“I (h)am surprised,” he began, with grieved and solemn emphasis.
“Mr. Chairman,” said the owner of the Cockney voice, rising to his
feet and revealing himself a small man with large head and thin wizened
features, “Mr. Chairman, I rise to protest right 'ere an' naow against
the presence of (h)any representative of the (h)enemy class at--”
“Aw, shut up!” yelled a soldier, rising from his place. “Throw out the
little rat!”
Immediately there was uproar. On every side returned soldiers, many of
whom had been in Captain Jack's battalion, sprang up and began moving
toward the little Cockney who, boldly standing his ground, was wildly
appealing to the chair and was supported by the furious cheering of a
group of his friends, Old Country men most of whom, as it turned out,
were of the extreme Socialist type. By this time it had fully been borne
in upon Captain Jack's mind, somewhat dazed by the unexpected attack,
that he was the occasion of the uproar. Rising from his place he tried
vainly to catch the Chairman's attention.
“Come up to the platform,” said a voice in his ear. He turned and saw
McNish shouldering his way through the excited crowd toward the front.
After a moment's hesitation he shrugged his shoulders and followed. The
move caught the eye and apparently the approval of the audience, for it
broke into cheers which gathered in volume till by the time that McNish
and Captain Jack stood on the platform the great majority were wildly
yelling their enthusiastic approval of their action. McNish stood with
his hand raised for a hearing. Almost instantly there fell a silence
intense and expectant. The Scotchman stood looking in the direction of
the excited Cockney with cold steady eye.
“A'm for freedom! The right of public assembly! A'm feart o' nae enemy,
not the deevil himself. This gentleman is a member of my Union and he
stays r-r-right he-e-r-re.” With a rasping roll of his r's he seemed to
be ripping the skin off the little Cockney's very flesh. The response
was a yell of savage cheers which seemed to rock the building and which
continued while Mr. Wigglesworth in overflowing effusiveness first shook
Maitland's limp hand in a violent double-handed pump handle exercise and
then proceeded to introduce him to the distinguished visitor, shouting
his name in Maitland's ear, “Mr 'Oward (H)E. Bigelow,” adding with a
sudden inspiration, “(H)Introduce 'im to the (h)audience. Yes! Yes! Most
(h)assuredly,” and continued pushing both men toward the front of the
platform, the demonstration increasing in violence.
“I say, old chap,” shouted Captain Jack in the stranger's ear, “I feel
like a fool.”
“I feel like a dozen of 'em,” shouted Mr. Bigelow in return. “But,” he
added with a slow wink, “this old fool is the daddy of 'em all. Go on,
introduce me, or they'll bust something loose.”
Captain Jack took one step to the front of the platform and held up
his hand. The cheering assumed an even greater violence, then ceased in
sudden breathless silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a slightly bored voice, “this
gentleman is Mr. Howard E. Bigelow, a representative of the American
Federation of Labour, whom as a member of the Woodworkers' Union, Local
197, I am anxious to hear if you don't mind.”
He bowed to the visitor, bowed to the audience once more swaying under a
tempest of cheers, and, followed by McNish, made his way to his seat.
From the first moment of his speech Mr. Howard E. Bigelow had to fight
for a hearing. The little Cockney was the centre of a well-organised and
thoroughly competent body of obstructers who by clever “heckling,”
by points of order, by insistent questioning, by playing now upon the
anti-American string, now upon the anti-Federation string, by ribald
laughter, by cheering a happy criticism, completely checked every
attempt of the speaker to take flight in his oratory. The International
official was evidently an old hand in this sort of game, but in the
hands of these past masters in the art of obstruction he met more than
his match. Maitland was amazed at his patience, his self-control, his
adroitness, but they were all in vain. At last he was forced to appeal
to the Chairman for British fair play. But the Chairman was helplessly
futile and his futility was only emphasised by Mr. Wigglesworth's
attempts now at browbeating which were met with derision and again at
entreaty which brought only demands for ruling on points of order, till
the meeting was on the point of breaking up in confused disorder.
“McNish, I think I'll take a hand in this,” said Captain Jack in the
Scotchman's ear. “Are you game?”
“Wait a wee,” said McNish, getting to his feet. Slowly he once more
made his way to the platform. As the crowd caught on to his purpose they
broke into cheering. When he reached the side of the speaker he spoke a
word in his ear, then came to the front with his hand held up. There
was instant quiet. He looked coolly over the excited, disintegrating
audience for a moment or two.
“A belonged tae the Feefty-fir-rst Diveesion,” he said in his richest
Doric. “We had a rare time wi' bullies over there. A'm for free speech!
Noo, listen tae me, you Cockney wheedle doodle. Let another cheep out o'
yere trap an' the Captain there will fling ye oot o' this room as we did
the Kayser oot o' France.”
“You said it, McNish,” said Maitland, leaping to the aisle. With a roar
a dozen returned men were on their feet.
“Steady, squad!” rang out Captain Jack's order. “Fall into this aisle!
Shun!” As if on parade the soldiers fell into line behind their captain.
“Macnamara!” he said, pointing to a huge Irishman.
“Sir!” said Macnamara.
“You see that little rat-faced chap?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take your place beside him.”
With two steps Macnamara was beside his man.
“Mr. Chairman, I protest,” began the little Cockney fiercely.
“Pass him up,” said the Captain sharply.
With one single motion Macnamara's hand swept the little man out of his
place into the aisle.
“Chuck him out!” said Captain Jack quietly.
From hand to hand, with never a pause, amid the jeers and laughter of
the crowd the little man was passed along like a bundle of old rags till
he disappeared through the open door.
“Who's next?” shouted Macnamara joyfully.
“As you were!” came the sharp command.
At once Macnamara stood at attention.
Captain Jack nodded to the platform.
“All right,” he said quietly.
Mr. Howard E. Bigelow finished his speech in peace. He made appeal for
the closing up of the ranks of Labour in preparation for the big fight
which was rapidly coming. They had just finished with Kaiserism in
Europe but they were faced with only another form of the same spirit
in their own land. They wanted no more fighting, God knew they had had
enough of that, but there were some things dearer than peace, and Labour
was resolved to get and to hold those things which they had fought for,
“which you British and especially you Canadians shed so much blood to
win. We are making no threats, but we are not going to stand for tyranny
at the hands of any man or any class of men in this country. Only one
thing will defeat us, not the traditional enemies of our class
but disunion in our own ranks due to the fool tactics of a lot of
disgruntled and discredited traitors like the man who has just been
fired from this meeting.” He asked for a committee which would take the
whole situation in hand. He closed with a promise that in any struggle
which they undertook under the guidance of their International Officers
the American Federation of Labour to their last dollar would be behind
them.
Before the formal closing of the meeting Maitland slipped quietly out.
As he reached the sidewalk a light hand touched his arm. Turning he
saw at his elbow Annette, her face aglow and her black eyes ablaze with
passionate admiration.
“Oh, Captain Jack,” she panted, her hands outstretched, “you were just
wonderful! Splendid! Oh! I don't know what to say! I--” She paused in
sudden confusion. A hot colour flamed in her face. Maitland took her
hands in his.
“Hello, Annette! I saw you there. Why! What's up, little girl?”
A sudden rush of tears had filled her eyes.
“Oh, nothing. I am just excited, I guess. I don't know what--” She
pulled her hands away. “But you were great!” She laughed shrilly.
“Oh, it was your friend McNish did the trick,” said Captain Jack. “Very
neat bit of work that, eh? Very neat indeed. Awfully clever chap! Are
you going home now?”
“No, I am waiting.” She paused shyly.
“Oh, I see!” said Captain Jack with a smile. “Lucky chap, by Jove!”
“I am waiting for my father,” said Annette, tossing her head.
“Oh, then, if that's all, come along with me. Your father knows his way
about.” The girl paused a moment, hesitating. Then with a sudden resolve
she cried gaily,
“Well, I will. I want to talk to you about it. Oh, I am so excited!”
She danced along at his side in gay abandon. As they turned at the first
corner Maitland glanced over his shoulder.
“Hello! Here's McNish,” he cried, turning about. “Shall we wait for
him?”
“Oh, never mind Malcolm,” cried the girl excitedly, “come along. I don't
want him just now. I want--” She checked herself abruptly. “I want to
talk to you.”
“Oh, all right,” said Captain Jack. “He's gone back anyway. Come along
Annette, old girl. I have been wanting to see you for a long time.”
“Well, you see me,” said the girl, laughing up into his eyes with a
frank, warm admiration in hers that made Captain Jack's heart quicken a
bit in its steady beat. He was a young man with a normal appreciation of
his own worth. She, young, beautiful, unspoiled, in the innocence of her
girlish heart was flinging at him the full tribute of a warm, generous
admiration with every flash of her black eyes and every intonation of
her voice. Small wonder if Captain Jack found her good to look at and to
listen to. Often during the walk home he kept saying to himself, “Jove,
that McNish chap is a lucky fellow!” But McNish, taking his lonely way
home, was only conscious that the evening had grown chilly and grey.
CHAPTER IX
THE DAY BEFORE
Business was suspended for the day in Blackwater. That is, men went
through their accustomed movements, but their thoughts were far apart
from the matters that were supposed to occupy their minds during the
working hours of the day. In the offices, in the stores, in the shops,
on the streets, in the schools, in the homes the one, sole topic of
conversation, the one mental obsession was The Great Game. Would the
Maitland Mill Hockey Team pull it off? Blackwater was not a unit in
desiring victory for the Maitland Mill team, for the reason that the
team's present position of proud eminence in the hockey world of Eastern
Ontario had been won by a series of smashing victories over local and
neighbouring rival teams. They had first disposed of that snappy seven
of lightning lightweights, the local High School team, the champions
in their own League. They had smashed their way through the McGinnis
Foundry Seven in three Homeric contests. This victory attracted
the notice of the Blackwater Black Eagles, the gay and dashing
representatives of Blackwater's most highly gilded stratum of society,
a clever, hard-fighting, never-dying group of athletes who, summer and
winter, kept themselves in perfect form, and who had moved rapidly out
of obscurity into the dazzling spotlight of championship over their
district. For the sake of the practice in it and in preparation for
their games in the Eastern Ontario Hockey League, they took on the
Maitland Mill team.
It took the Black Eagles a full week to recover sufficient control to be
able to speak intelligibly as to the “how” and “why” of that match. For
the Mill team with apparent ease passed in thirteen goals under and over
and behind and beside the big broad goal stick of Bell Blackwood, the
goal wonder of the League; and the single register for the Eagles had
been netted by Fatty Findlay's own stick in a moment of aberration.
During the week following the Black Eagle debacle the various Bank
managers, Law Office managers and other financial magnates of the town
were lenient with their clerks. Social functions were abandoned. The
young gentlemen had one continuous permanent and unbreakable engagement
at the rink or in preparation for it. But all was in vain. The result
of the second encounter was defeat for the Eagles, defeat utter,
unmistakable and inexplicable except on the theory that they had met a
superior team. Throughout the hockey season the Maitland Mill maintained
an unbroken record of victory till their fame flew far; and at the close
of the season enthusiasts of the game had arranged a match between the
winners of the Eastern Ontario Hockey League, the renowned Cornwall team
and the Maitland Mill boys. To-day the Cornwalls were in town, and the
town in consequence was quite unfit for the ordinary duties of life.
The Eagles almost to a man were for the local team; for they were sports
true to type. Not so however their friends and following, who resented
defeat of their men at the hands of a working class team.
Of course it was Jack Maitland who was responsible for their
humiliation. It was he who had organised his fellow workmen, put them
through a blood and iron discipline, filled them with his own spirit of
irresistible furious abandon in attack which carried them to victory.
It was an old game with Jack Maitland. When a High School boy he had
developed that spirit of dominating and indomitable leadership that had
made his team the glory of the town. Later by sound and steady grinding
at the game he had developed a style and plan of team play which had
produced a town team in the winter immediately preceding the war that
had won championship honors. Now with his Mill team he was simply
repeating his former achievements.
It had astonished his friends to learn that Captain Jack was playing
hockey again. He had played no game except in a desultory way since the
war. He had resisted the united efforts of the Eagles and their women
friends to take the captaincy of that team. The mere thought of ever
appearing on the ice in hockey uniform gave him a sick feeling at his
heart. Of that noble seven whom he had in pre-war days led so often to
victory four were still “over there,” one was wandering round a
darkened room. Of the remaining two, one Rupert Stillwell was too deeply
engrossed in large financial affairs for hockey. Captain Jack himself
was the seventh, and the mere sight of a hockey stick on a school boy's
shoulder gave him a heart stab.
It was his loyal pal Patricia Templeton, who gave him the first impulse
toward the game again. To her pleading he had yielded so far as to
coach, on a Saturday afternoon, her team of High School girls to
victory. But it was the Reverend Murdo Matheson who furnished the spur
to conscience that resulted in the organising of the Maitland Mill team.
“You, John Maitland, more than any of us and more than all of us
together can draw these lads of yours from the pool rooms and worse,”
the Reverend Murdo had said one day in early winter.
“Great Scott, Padre”--the Reverend Murdo had done his bit
overseas--“what are you giving me now?”
“You, more than any or all of us, I am saying,” repeated the minister
solemnly. “For God's sake, man, get these lads on the ice or anywhere
out-of-doors for the good of their immortal souls.”
“Me! And why me, pray?” Captain Jack had asked. “I'm no uplifter. Why
jump on me?”
“You, because God has bestowed on you the gift to lead men,” said the
minister with increasing solemnity. “A high gift it is, and one for
which God will hold you responsible.”
That very night, passing by the Lucky Strike Pool Rooms, Captain Jack
had turned in to find a score and more of youths--many of them from the
mills--flashing their money with reckless freedom in an atmosphere thick
with foul tobacco-smoke and reeking with profane and lewd speech. On
reaching his home that night Maitland went straight to the attic and dug
up his hockey kit. Before he slept he had laid his plans for a league
among the working lads in the various industries in the town.
It was no easy task to force these men into training habits, to hold
them to the grind, to discipline them into self-control in temper and
in desire. It was of vast assistance to him that three of his seven
were overseas men, while some dozen or so of the twenty in the club were
returned soldiers. It was part of his discipline that his team should
never shirk a day's work for the game except on the rare occasions
when they went on tour. Hence the management in the various mills
and factories, at first hostile and suspicious, came to regard these
athletic activities on the part of their employees with approval and
finally came to give encouragement and support to the games.
To-day was a half holiday for the Maitland Mills and the streets were
noticeably full of the men and their sweethearts and wives in their
Sunday clothes. Not the team, however. Maitland knew better than that.
He took his men for a run in the country before noon, bringing them
home in rich warm glow. Then after a bath and a hard rubdown they dined
together at the mill and then their Captain ordered them home to sleep,
forbidding them the streets till they were on their way to the game.
On his way home Captain Jack was waylaid by his admirer and champion,
Patricia. She, standing in front of his car, brought him to a halt.
“I have not even seen you for a whole week,” she complained, getting in
beside him, “and your phone is always busy in the evening. Of course no
one can get you during the day. And I do want to know how the team is.
Oh! do tell me they are fit for the game of their lives! Are they every
one fit?”
“Fit and fine.”
“And will they win?”
“Sure thing,” said Captain Jack quietly.
“Oh, I hope you are right. But you are so sure,” exclaimed his
companion. “The Cornwalls are wonderful, Rupert says.”
“He would.”
“Oh! I forgot you don't think much of Rupert,” sighed Patricia.
“I haven't time, you see,” answered Captain Jack gravely.
“Oh, you know what I mean. It is a pity, too, for he is really very
nice. I mean he is so good to me,” sighed Patricia again.
“Don't sigh, Patsy, old girl. It really isn't worth it, you know. How is
the supply of choc's keeping up?”
“Now you are thinking me a pig. But tell me about your men. Are they
really in form?”
“Absolutely at the peak.”
“And that darling Fatty Findlay. I do hope he will not lose his head and
let a goal in. He is perfectly adorable with that everlasting smile of
his. I do hope Fatty is at the peak, too. Is he, really?” The anxiety in
Patricia's tone was more than painful.
“Dear Patsy, he is right at the pinnacle.”
“Captain Jack, if you don't win to-night I shall--well, I shall just
weep my eyes out.”
“That settles it, Pat. We shall win. We can't--I can't spare those
lovely eyes, you know,” said Captain Jack, smiling at her.
One by one Captain Jack's team were passed in review--the defence,
Macnamara and “Jack” Johnson, so called for his woolly white head;
“Reddy” Hughes, Ross, “Snoopy” Sykes, who with Captain Jack made the
forward line, all were declared to be fit to deliver the last ounce in
their bodies, the last flicker in their souls.
“Do you know, Captain Jack,” said Patricia gravely, “there is one change
you ought to make in your forward line.”
“Yes! What is that, Pat?” asked Captain Jack, with never a suggestion of
a smile.
“I would change Snoopy for Geordie Ross. You know Geordie is a little
too careful, and he is hardly fast enough for you. Now you and Snoopy on
left wing would be oh! perfectly wonderful.”
“Patsy, you are a wizard!” exclaimed Captain Jack. “That very change has
been made and the improvement is unbelievable. We are both left-handers
and we pull off our little specialties far more smoothly than Geordie
and I could. You have exactly hit the bull. You watch for that back
of the goal play to-night. Well, here we are. You have good seats, I
understand.”
“Oh, yes. Rupert, you see, as patron of the Eagles was able to get the
very best. But won't you come in and see mother? She is really quite
worked up over it, though of course she couldn't bear to go.”
Captain Jack checked the refusal on his lips.
“Yes, I will go in for a few minutes,” he said gravely. “No! Your mother
would not--could not come, of course.”
There flashed before his mind a picture from pre-war days. The rink
packed with wildly excited throngs and in a certain reserved section
midway down the side the Templeton-Maitland party with its distinguished
looking men and beautiful women following with eager faces and shining
eyes the fortunes of their sons in the fight before them. The flash
of that picture was like a hand of ice upon his heart as Captain Jack
entered the cosy living room.
“Here he is, Mamma!” cried Patricia as she ushered her hero into the
room with a sweeping gesture. “And he brings the most cheering news.
They are going to win!”
“But how delightful!” exclaimed Adrien coming from the piano where she
had been playing, with Rupert Stillwell turning her music for her.
“I suppose upon the best authority,” said Stillwell, grinning at
Patricia.
“We are so glad you found time to run in,” said Mrs. Templeton. “You
must have a great deal to say to your team on the last afternoon.”
“I'm glad I came too, now,” said Captain Jack, holding the fragile hand
in his and patting it gently. “I am afraid Patricia is responsible for
my coming in. I don't really believe I could have ventured on my own.”
A silence fell on the company which none of them seemed able to break.
Other days were hard upon them. In this very room it was that that
other seven were wont to meet for their afternoon tea before their great
matches.
Mrs. Templeton, looking up at Jack, found his eyes fixed upon her and
full of tears. With a swift upward reach of her arms she caught him and
drew his head to her breast.
“I know, Jack dear,” she said, with lips that quivered piteously. For a
moment or two he knelt before her while she held him in a close embrace.
Then he gently kissed her cheek and rose to his feet.
“Give him some tea, Adrien,” she said, making a gallant struggle to
steady her voice, “a cup of tea--and no cake. I remember, you see,” she
added with a tremulous smile.
Adrien came back quickly from the window.
“Yes! a fresh cup!” she cried eagerly, “and a sandwich. You, Pat,
get the sandwiches. No cake. We must do nothing to imperil the coming
victory.”
“You have a wonderful team, Jack, I hear,” said her mother. “Come and
sit here beside me and tell me about them. Patricia has been keeping me
informed, but she is not very coherent at times. Of course, I know about
your wonderful goal keeper Findlay, is it not?” And the gentle little
lady kept a stream of conversation going, for she saw how deeply moved
Maitland was. It was his first visit to the Rectory since he had taken
up the game again, and the rush of emotion released by the vivid memory
of those old happy days when that jolly group of boys had filled this
familiar room with their noisy clatter wellnigh overcame him.
For a minute or two he fussed with the tea things till he could master
his voice, then he said very quietly:
“They are very decent chaps--really very good fellows and they have
taken their training extraordinarily well. Of course, Macnamara and
Johnson were in my old company, and that helps a lot.”
“Yes, I remember Macnamara quite well. He is a fine big Irishman.”
“Fancy you remembering him, Mrs. Templeton,” said Captain Jack.
“Of course, I remember him. He is one of our boys.”
“Let's see, he is one of your defence, isn't he?” said Stillwell, who
had felt himself rather out of the conversation. Maitland nodded. The
presence of Stillwell in that room introduced a painful element. Once he
had been one of the seven and though never so intimately associated with
the Rectory life as the others, yet at all team gatherings he had had
his place. But since the war Maitland had never been able to endure his
presence in that room. To-day, with the memory of those old thrilling
days pressing hard upon his heart, he could not bear to look upon a man,
once one of them, now forever an outsider. The tea coming in brought to
Maitland relief.
“Ah, here you are,” he cried anticipating Stillwell in relieving Adrien
of part of her load. “You are a life saver. Tea is the thing for this
hour.”
“Three lumps, is it not?” said the girl, smiling at him. “You see, I
remember, though you really don't deserve it. And here is Pat with the
sandwiches.”
“Yes! a whole plate for yourself, Captain Jack,” said Patricia. “Come
and sit by me here.”
“No indeed!” said her sister with a bright glow on her cheeks. “Jack is
going to sit right here by the tea-pot, and me,” she added, throwing him
a swift glance.
“No! you are both wrong, children,” said their mother. “Jack is coming
to sit beside me. He's my boy this afternoon.”
“Mother, we will all share him,” said Patricia, placing chairs near her
mother. “I must talk about the match, I simply must.”
A shadow for a moment wiped the brightness from the face and eyes of
the elder sister, but yielding to her mother's appeal, she joined the
circle, saying to Maitland,
“I don't believe you want to talk about the match, do you? That is not
supposed to be good psychology before a match. What you really want is a
good sleep. Isn't that right?”
“He has just sent his men off to bed, I know,” said Patricia, “and we
will send him off when he has had his tea.”
“I am so glad you are playing again,” said Mrs. Templeton to Maitland
as he sat down by her side. “You need more recreation than you have been
taking, I believe.”
A shadow crossed Maitland's face.
“I don't believe I need recreation very much, but these chaps of mine
do,” he said simply.
“The workmen, you mean!”
“Yes. They lead rather a dull life, you know. Not much colour. A pool
room on the whole has rather a rotten effect upon a chap who has been
nine or ten hours indoors already and who sticks at the same thing day
in and day out for months at a time.”
“Ah, I see. You mean you took up hockey for--ah--to help--”
“Well, I don't want to pose as a workingman's advocate and that sort of
thing. But really he has a slow time.”
“Then, why doesn't he get busy and do something for himself,” broke in
Stillwell, impatiently. “The Lord knows he is getting most of the money
these days and has more spare time than anyone else in the community.”
But Maitland ignored him, till Patricia intervened.
“Tell me about that,” she demanded.
“Look here!” said her sister. “You are not going to get Jack into a
labour controversy this afternoon. But I would just like to ask you,
Pat, how keen you'd be on organising and conducting a Literary and
Debating Society after you had put in not five and a half hours'
lessons, but eight or nine hours'! It would take some doing, eh? But
let's cut out the labour trouble. It is nearly time for his sleep, isn't
it?”
“Is it, Captain Jack? If so, we won't keep you a minute,” said Patricia
anxiously. “No, mother! you must not keep him. He must be on tip-toe
to-night.”
Captain Jack rose. “Patricia would make an ideal trainer,” he said. “I
fear I must really go. I am awfully glad to have come in and seen you
all. Somehow I feel a whole lot better.”
“And so do we, Jack,” said the old lady in a wistful voice. “Won't you
come again soon?”
Maitland hesitated a moment, glancing at Adrien.
“Oh, do!” said the girl, with a little colour coming into her face. “It
has been a little like old times to see you this way.”
“Yes, hasn't it?” said Stillwell. “Awfully jolly.”
Maitland stiffened and turned again to the old lady whose eyes were
turned on him with sad entreaty.
“Yes, I shall come to see you,” said Maitland, bowing over her hand in
farewell.
“We shall expect you to come and see us to-night at the match, remember,
Captain Jack,” said Patricia, as he passed out of the room. “Now be sure
to go and have your sleep.”
But there was no sleep that afternoon for Captain Jack. On his way
through the town he was halted by McNish.
“The boys want to see you,” he said briefly.
“What boys? What do you mean, McNish?”
“At the rooms. Will you come down now?”
“Now? I can't come now, McNish. I have to be on the ice in three hours
and I must get a little rest. What's up, anyway? Tell them I'll see them
to-morrow.”
“No! they want you now!” said McNish firmly. “I would advise that you
come.”
“What do you mean, McNish? Well, get in here and I'll go to see them.”
McNish got into the car. “Now, what's all the mystery?”
“Better wait,” said McNish, grimly.
“Well, it is a dog's trick,” said Maitland wrathfully, “to get on to a
chap before a big match like this.”
In the Union Committee rooms a group of men were awaiting them, among
them Mr. Wigglesworth and the little cockney who had made himself so
obnoxious at the public meeting.
“What's all this tomfoolery, Wigglesworth?” demanded Captain Jack,
striding in among them.
“(H)excuse me,” said the little cockney. “You are a member of the
Woodworkers' Union I (h)understand.”
“Who the devil are you, may I ask?” said Maitland in a rage.
“(H)allow me,” said Mr. Wigglesworth. “Mister Simmons, Mr. Maitland--Mr.
Simmons is our new secretary, (h)elected last meetin'.”
“Well, what do you want of me?” demanded Maitland. “Don't you know I am
tied up this afternoon?”
“Tied (h)up?” asked Simmons coolly, “'ow?”
“With the match, confound you.”
“Oh, the match! And w'at match may that be? (H)Anythin' to do with your
Union?”
Maitland glared at him, too dumfounded to speak.
“You see, Mr. Maitland,” began Mr. Wigglesworth in a hurried and
apologetic manner.
“'Ere! you keep aht o' this,” said Simmons sharply, “this 'ere's my job.
I shall tell Brother Maitland all that is necessary.”
“I was only going to (h)explain--” began Mr. Wigglesworth.
“Naw then! IS this your job or mine? Was you (h)appointed or was I?
When I find myself (h)unable to discharge my dooty to the Union I might
per'aps call on you, Brother Wigglesworth; but until I find myself
in that situation I 'ope you will refrain from shovin' in your 'orn.”
Brother Simmons' sarcasm appeared to wither Brother Wigglesworth into
silence.
“Naw then, Brother Maitland, we shall get (h)on.”
Maitland glanced round on the group of half a dozen men. Some of them he
knew; others were strangers to him.
“I don't know what the business is, gentlemen,” he said, curbing his
wrath, “but I want to know if it can't wait till to-morrow? You know our
boys are going on the ice in a couple of hours or so--”
“Goin' on the (h)ice! Goin' on the (h)ice! W'at's that to do with Union
business?” snarled Simmons. “This 'ere's no silly kids' gaime! It's a
man's work we ave in 'and, if you don't want to do the business to w'ich
you are (h)appointed w'y just say so and we shall know 'ow to (h)act.
There 'as been too much o' this gaime business to suit me. If we are men
let us (h)act like men.”
“Better get on wi' it,” said McNish curtly.
“I shall get on w'en I am good and ready, Brother McNish,” answered
Simmons.
“All r-r-right, brother, but A doot ye're oot o' order. Who is the
chairman o' this Committee?” asked McNish calmly.
“Brother Phillips,” answered two or three voices.
“All right. I suggest you proceed regularly and call the meeting to
order,” said McNish quietly. Simmons, recognising that it was Greek
meeting Greek, agreed to this.
Clumsily and hesitatingly Brother Phillips began stating the business of
the Committee. He had not gone far before Simmons interrupted.
“Mr. Chairman, with your permission I would just like to say that the
reso
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