Saint Euphrase is a village of the usual Lower Canada type, with its big high-shouldered stone church, made stately in front by square towers capped with tin belfries, on which the light twinkles as the bell tinkles to call the people to mass. The village, like a brood of chickens, nestles around, a cluster of little low-browed wooden houses, with pillared porches and verandahs, the poorer ones roofed with weather-stained shingles, the prosperous with red plates or tin; pierced here and there with little casements, shining yellow in the afternoon sun, like inquisitive eyes prying into their neighbours' enclosures. A few tall poplars--sign of a French-speaking settlement--rise here and there above the roofs, and around are fields divided by picturesquely ill-kept fences, in whose corners the wild plum or the slippery elm entwined with brambles form belts of growth which might be hedges, grateful to the eye after the trim bald farming of the West. A broad river runs by at about a stone-cast's distance, but the place used to be too small to have traffic by water; and save to the boatman who got his living by ferrying people across the river, was but a desert barrier to the villagers, cutting them off from the West, whither Transatlantic prosperity ever tends--lonely waters down which a few rafts of timber passed in the Spring, and peopled only by the duck and teal frequenting the reedy shores of an island down stream, a bank raised by opposing currents and gathered out of the flood by a thicket of ash and willow. The fields sloping upwards on the other three sides, end in bush, which would cover the general level of the country but for the farms, with their houses set by the roadsides and their narrow strips of land running for a mile or more back into the distance. Of late a good many country houses have been built by Montrealers desiring something less suburban than their own island affords. There is a railway, and a few modern shops; and gaily-dressed townspeople may be seen driving fast horses or playing lawn tennis in the cool of the afternoon; but these are recent innovations on the old time when M. le Curé in his long skirts walked down the street alone among the bowinghabitants, smiling as he went and bestowing his blessing.
"General" Stanley was the earliest outsider to build himself a home in the sequestered neighbourhood, and not many as yet had followed his example, at the time we speak of. If it had been dull in his lifetime, his daughters found it doubly so after his death, and but for the horrors of moving they would have migrated back to the city. As we grow older it becomes ever more painful to root up formed habits, while new ones are less and less able to take their place; and Miss Stanley, at least, acknowledged that she had reached the age when change grows irksome. Therefore, while they amused themselves by talking of removal, and each Spring promised themselves the comforts of town life for the succeeding Winter, the years slid by and they found themselves still where they were. The years too made havoc among their circle of friends, and made the city seem a less desirable residence, just as the week works changes in our gardens, scarce noticeable from day to day, but so complete before the month is out. People die and marry and move away, and the ladies' shopping expeditions to Montreal grew briefer and less frequent as time went on, till from lasting over weeks and ending in tender partings from regretful friends, they dwindled into excursions accomplished between a morning and an afternoon. Soon, too, there came into the neighbourhood a sprinkling of English-speaking settlers, which, productive in the end of life and spirit, was like yeast turbid and disturbing at first, when dropped into that sweet but stagnant reservoir of old-world manners; and soon there was on the outskirts of the village a Protestant mission, a meek little clap-boarded structure, without spire or bell, but sufficient for the needs of its few worshippers, and enough to rouse the watchfulnesss of the curé and the jealous wrath of his flock. However, the parson proved to be a peace-loving man, and the zeal which at first threatened to become flagrant, simmered down for want of provocation, into armed neutrality, if not into more neighbourly feelings. These changes brought the ladies at least the feeling of a less complete isolation than they had experienced at first, and eventually, as the grade of new-comers improved, a little society; while the earlier polemical excitement passed them by, they being persons content to say their own prayers in their own fashion, and to leave their neighbours to do likewise.
"Oh, Tookey!" said Miss Matilda, when the sisters met at breakfast on the morning after the arrival of the baby, "the little darling is simply delightful! When I took her upstairs Smithers most obligingly offered to keep her through the night; but it looked so pretty lying fast asleep in my bed with nothing on but a large pocket handkerchief, that I really had not the heart to disturb it. We bathed it, you know, and you cannot think what a dear, soft, plump little morsel it looked in its bath; and it crowed--positively crowed and smiled to me myself, for I do not think it minded Smithers much, though it was she who did the bathing. I daresay her hands felt rough, you know, on its tender little skin. We laid it in my bed and covered it with a pocket-handkerchief--dear little morsel--while I went to look for something small enough to dress it in. I thought of the clothes for my immense wax doll I was so proud of once, and kept so long after I grew up; but alas! I gave that to my godchild, and apparently every rag of its wardrobe; I thought I might find a little shirt or a wrapper--I am certain they would have been quite large enough for this one--but Tilly Martindale seems to have got them every one. Is it not a pity? But, as I was saying, we laid baby in the bed while I was looking for the things, and she just dropped asleep the moment Smithers laid her down. So I just sent Smithers off to bed, and lay down beside the dear little duck, and it has nestled in my arms all night, as soft as a ball of silk; and oh, Tookey! I don't think I ever slept as pleasantly before; and in the morning it woke me by stroking my cheeks with its soft little hands. Did you notice its hands? I never saw anything so lovely, with a crease round the wrist, a dimple at each knuckle, and pink little finger-tips like rosebuds."
"But what are we to do with the infant?" asked the practical Penelope.
"Do? The first thing to do is to give it some bread and milk! But I daresay Smither's has done that already. I should have liked to do it myself but was afraid to try. I remember so well how I hurt my kitten's mouth, trying to feed it with a teaspoon, and I would'nt make this little beauty cry for all the world. But I know what I will do. I have some cambric for pocket-handkerchiefs upstairs, I shall make it a chemise! Smithers will know how big to make it, or rather how little--the dear wee love!"
"Matilda, dearest, let us be sensible. The child must have aparent, and ifwecan become attached to it so warmly in a few hours what must the feelings of that parent be to be deprived of her? Ought we not to endeavour to return the child?"
"If the parents valued it so highly why did they leave it here, without asking leave or saying a word? No! They forsook it! I shall always say so. Besides, how can we give it back, even if we would try? How find the discreditable parents? And if we could, what a life we might be giving up the little lamb to!"
"It does not seem right, our keeping it."
"And whom, pray, would you give it up to? Would you give it to the village priest?--to be carried to some convent and brought up for a nun?--fasting, and scrubbing all her life long for the sisterhood? Just look at the tiny hands, like little flowers, and the plump little person. Work and fasting, indeed! Not ifIcan help it."
"But there is the parson. Naturally we would give it in charge to our own church."
"And how much better would that be? What could an old bachelor do, but make his housekeeper wrap it in a shawl, and carry it to the Protestant Orphan Home? A very good place you know--I have been through it--quite proper for children such as it is meant for--rough little squalling things, quite tough and hardy. They are cared for, and taught and brought up to service. A most useful institution and I shall double my subscription, but it would be no home forourlittle fairy. Why, it is a blossom! It would wither away in that rough place within a week. And better so, than the desecration of rearing it there! No, no! I shall keep it for my own, if it is not claimed. Of course if we knew its parents, and they were proper people, it would be wrong not to let them know; but even then I would pay them money to let me adopt it. And if they wanted to keep the child, why did they bring it here? It seems nonsense to think about the parents at all."
"I do not like the idea of keeping a stray baby whom nobody knows anything about, Tilly! We should ask advice, at any rate. I think I had better go over to Montreal and ask Mr. Jordan what we should do."
"And have yourself laughed at for a fussy old maid, saddled with a baby! You will make us a laughing stock to all our friends. Just think how ridiculous it sounds! Besides, what can he advise? I know quite well what he will say, and can save you your consultation fee. He will ask you to 'be seated' in his clients' chair--Iknow, for I visited him several times about my steamboat shares, and it was always the same performance--then he lies back in his own chair and takes his foot upon his knee. After that he takes off his spectacles, wipes them with his handkerchief and puts them on again, rests his elbows on the chair arms, clears his voice and begins, ticking off the items of advice with the fingers of one hand upon those of the other. He makes it very clear, and it sounds most wise; but when you go away and think it over, you will find he has told you just what you might have told yourself, if you had only thought calmly and sensibly about it. There is no witchcraft in Mr. Jordan's advice. Perhaps that is why people say he is a sound lawyer. Remember, too, he is apt to divulge the secrets of her dear friends to his wife. She spoke tomeabout my steamboat shares, I remember; and congratulated me upon selling at the right time. You know how dearly she loves a good story, and if your dilemma should strike her in an absurd light, she will soon have it known all over the town. Our dear Amelia has a very long tongue."
"I only want to do what is right," said Penelope, a little dismayed at the suggestion, "right to ourselves, and right to this baby. I feel for the little waif, Tilly, though I do not become rapturous like you."
"As to the baby, then, just think. It seems unlikely that it would have been laid on our verandah if its friends had wanted to keep it at home. Even if we could return it to them we could not make them keep it, or use it kindly; and there seem to be only three other ways of disposing of it--the Protestant Orphans' Home, the Grey Nunnery, or to adopt it ourselves. Now, suppose we were to do the last--I do not propose it, mind; but, after there seems no more likelihood of its being claimed, if we should--would it be nice to have ourprotegéespoken of as a foundling, and nobody's child? Would it not tell against her when she grew up, and we took her into society with us, as of course we should if we reared her ourselves?"
"But, my dear, the child has not been twelve hours in the house yet, and to hear you, one would say you are already dreaming of bringing it up! I have known you all your life, Tilly, and I never heard you discuss at such length before; but what you say seems reasonable enough. It wouldnotbe nice to have Amelia making fun of our perplexities, and yet there is no one else we can go to, whose advice we could trust in like Mr. Jordan's. For yourself, now, what do you think we should do?"
"I think we should do nothing! Nobody can blame us for doing that. It is no affair of ours, and if only we are kind to the little one till a claimant appears, or till we see more plainly what we should do, we can get nothing but praise and thanks for our charity."
To do nothing is always an inviting course, in times of perplexity, especially when it is the interest of another rather than our own which is most deeply involved; we cannot then be blamed for doing the wrong thing, even if we have failed to do the right one. Time, too, has a way of winding up affairs left open, which is often more satisfactory than the half-wise efforts of meddlesome mortals. Miss Stanley accepted the invitation to inaction and let things take their course.
That day was a royal one for Miss Matilda. Instead of loitering between her flowers and her sofa, fanning herself and dropping asleep, a new interest had come into her life; and such a pretty one! It crept and rolled and tumbled about on the matting at her feet; while she sat at her worktable in the bay window with scissors and cambric, sewing strange garments, and pricking her fingers a good deal, for the needle was an unfamiliar implement in her hands; but she went bravely on with unflagging industry, stopping only to get fresh bread and milk, when she imagined the little one must be hungry, or to find a pillow when it wanted to sleep.
The newspapers came in the afternoon as usual, but she had no leisure to waste on them; the plaything at her feet was far too engrossing. Even Penelope only glanced over the column of "Born," "Died" and "Married"--there is no "Divorced" in a Canadian paper, as in American ones--in search of any known name, and then sat down to wonder at Matilda's new-born energy and admire the baby.
These ladies were not very thorough-going newspaper readers, although they lived in the country and saw few visitors. The two city newspapers they received each day were always torn open, the marriages and deaths glanced at, and sometimes the fashions, if it was their time for getting new bonnets; but politics bewildered them, and the local gossip had ceased to be interesting, it was so long since they had lived in town. Their bookseller sent them magazines and boxes of books, their home was comfortable, and life moved on smoothly, like a door on well-oiled hinges. They forgot to crave for outside interests and excitements, and the energies which in town life might have found scope in arranging or disarranging their neighbours' concerns, took gentler exercise over roses, geraniums, chickens, bees, or a rheumatic habitant, especially if he spoke prettily and was respectful.
It was only as might be expected, then, that nothing in the newspapers relating to their little waif ever met their eyes. The parson--their only visiting neighbour at that time--was away for his summer vacation; the friends who sometimes came to them from Montreal were at the seaside, so there was no one to talk with, and they heard nothing; which indeed was as they liked it best. All through the remainder of that Summer and Golden Fall, these two women, not very young, revelled in a new-found joy--the sudden awakening within them of the holy instinct of motherhood--the double living, living in another life besides their own, the joyous wondering progressive life of childhood--re-entering anew a world still dew-bright in the morning freshness which it loses as life wears on; and their hearts grew purer and their thoughts simpler, in this unlooked for return to the Eden of long ago.
Before two months had passed they had come to recognize their little visitor as a member of the household and one of the family--"of our own family, sister," Matilda said one day. "Let us make her a Stanley and call her our niece--Muriel Stanley. What do you say?"
"But how can we, with neither brother nor sister, call her that?" said Penelope the business-minded and literal. "Think of the stories we should have to make up; and if anybody asked questions we should have to make some more, and there would be discrepancies, and the most dreadful things might be said."
"And pray," cried Matilda the impetuous, "who will presume to ask questions when we look them in the eye and calmly state the--the fact that she is our brother's child, and he is dead? Some people are not very polite, but I never met any one who would dare to disbelieve a lady to her face; and if we give no particulars and change the subject at once, there will be no opportunity to ask questions, If we call it a niece there will be no more to say, and as soon as it is generally known it will interest nobody. They are all too full of their own affairs."
"But, Tilly, we never had a brother."
"But, Tookey dear, who knows that? Papa married in this country, and you were born here, but you know he was sent to Bermuda soon after, and we remained there till you and I were grown. Nobody in Montreal knows even that mamma was Canadian. Nobody asks anything about the connections of the military or commissariat. There they are. The Service is a voucher for their respectability. It is taken for granted that they are English with no relations in this country, so nobody troubles to inquire."
"But our mother's relations, Tilly, in Upper Canada; what are we to say tothem?"
"We have been thirteen years in Canada without meeting them. Mamma had only a sister--Aunt Bunce--who died before we left Bermuda; if her family live in Upper Canada still, they cannot know much about us. It is so long since poor mamma died--before Aunt Bunce, even--so very long that I do not care to count the years; it makes me feel so old."
"Don't talk of being old, child! You have not aged one bit. Think of me! But why need we bother with telling fibs about the child? Fibs always end in bother; I have been taught that all my life."
"Do you want us to be laughed at? Are you willing to confess yourself an old maid--a Protestant grey nun--adopting babies left on your doorstep? I am not, if you are; though I suppose Iamolder to-day than I was five years ago," and she shook out her ringlets with a defiant toss. "Just let it become generally known that we keep an upper-class foundling asylum, and we shall soon get plenty of pupils! They will bring them from Vermont, I daresay, or up from Quebec."
"Tush! Tilly."
"It is true. Only how should we dispose of them after they were brought up? Other institutions train them for service; now I do not think we could do that, so what would become of them? And what will become of our own little pet if we let her be looked on as a stray, and different from other children? Think of the slights she will be exposed to; and the unkind remarks, especially as she is sure to be pretty. It would be cruelty to bring her up with ourselves, and yet deprive her of the chance of marrying. Think of her struggles as a lonely woman to support herself after we are gone. Our gentle nurture would prove a curse to her and not a blessing."
"But we could not let a gentleman marry a nameless girl under a false impression."
"Certainly not. We would explain all to any gentleman who had a right to know; and if hewasa gentleman, I do not think it would prevent the marriage; but that is quite different from proclaiming a poor girl's misfortune."
"Think the matter over, Penelope, and I am sure you will come to see it as I do. Meanwhile there is no hurry. We need not converse to visitors about ourprotégée, she is too little yet to be shown to company, and as the weather is growing cold, I propose we arrange that room at the top of the house as a nursery, and establish her there with Smithers. She will be out of the way both of draughts and idle curiosity."
Ten years later. What a startlingly abrupt transition for the onlooker from the "then" to the "now!" And yet how intimately the two are connected, and how utterly the one is dependent on the other! Two cities on the same broad river, the upper spreading along the stream, set in a fruitful plain, the key to fertile regions farther up, gathering the produce and shipping it down the current; the other perched upon cliffs and overhanging shores, and twice each day lapped by the turning tide from the distant sea whither everything is tending. Yet to the voyager the transition is gradual enough, and smooth, and natural. But for the retreating objects along the shore he would not recognize that he was moving, save when descending a rapid, or running on a sandbank--the events, marriages, deaths, failures, and successes of his onward way. It is the same river still, in part the very drops of water which tumbled over Niagara long ago, passed through Ontario, and down the rapids to Montreal, and onward through the broads and the deeps till it meets tide-water at Quebec, and still with all the gathered tributes it hurries on, a river still for scores and scores of miles between ever widening banks, on to the misty everlasting sea, where the voyager disappears for ever from the view.
Not that my friends have moved their dwelling-place down stream to Quebec, but there is a sadness in the thought of the slowly passing years which makes one moralize and grow metaphoric before he is aware. No, the people of this history are still geographically where they were, standing on their own ground, while the big tumultuous river rushes by--but the figure which their permanence suggests is even a sadder one, that of the fabled maidens drawing water in their sieves, water which will not be drawn or held, but keeps oozing through and slipping away, just as the stream runs by and will not wait; for life is but a sorry comedy with its stayless passing. Yet which of us would stop it if we could, even at its best? It always seems as if a sweeter drop were somewhere up the stream, and even if the present could be held, we would let it pass to taste the fancied sweeter yet to come.
In ten years the American war had ended and specie payments were resumed. In ten years Ralph Herkimer had made a fortune and a "position"--the terms are interchangeable in the moneyed world, and elsewhere too. No one was better liked or more respected as a good fellow, a clear-headed business man, and a high-souled altogether superior person. Even General Considine--who had been taken prisoner during the war, exchanged, "paroled," withdrawn from the game like the slaughtered pawn from a chess board--had quite forgotten having grandly dropped his acquaintance in Natchez and the reasons for so doing; and, on taking up his abode in Montreal, was very pleased to renew intimacy with his young friend ofante bellumtimes. Ralph was happy to respond. If there ever had been an imputation on his courage, it seemed well to support the only one who could remember, in forgetting it; though really, as he told himself, there was nothing to be ashamed of. He had merely shown disapproval of a bloodthirsty and barbarous custom in a state of society already passed away; and no one who was anybody would have the bad taste to be amused at anecdotes told at the expense of a man so well off as himself, and who entertained so liberally. Still, since it is wiser to humour fools than to fight them, he would be civil to this broken-down fireater, heap coals of fire on his head like a good Christian, and make him thoroughly ashamed of his rudeness in former years.
Considine, too, was no very cumbrousprotégé. He was better supplied with money than many of his compatriots at that time, having inherited some property in New York, which the same events which had ruined his estate in the South had rendered four times as valuable as before, in the paper money of the period. His deportment exhibited a fair share of the manly pathos becoming a fallen hero, and made him an interesting guest to the dwellers in a city at peace. It is true he wore red studs in his shirt front, as his way of mounting his country's colours--red and white--and would defiantly puff out his chest so decorated whenever a Yankee uniform came in sight. But something must be permitted to the bruised susceptibilities of the warrior overcome, and at least he did not travesty the conspiracies of exiled Poles and old time Jacobites by joining in absurd schemes to capture towns on the lakes, or infect the capital with yellow fever; in which crack-brained escapades the excitement for the plotters lay not so much in their design, as in communicating it to one another with infinite stage mystery of whisperings, signs, passwords, and secret information. In those days a party of refugees on one of the St. Lawrence steamboats would make the voyage as interesting to their fellow-passengers as a pantomime, with their dark glances, stealings aside, mysterious beckonings to each other, and hasty whispers, followed by backward glances in search of spies. There may have been real plots, but they were carried on by practical persons who showed no sign, and it was rumour of these which impressed the rest, and filled them with emulation. They imagined they were being watched and reported on at Washington, though what interest their vagaries could have for Mr. Lincoln's government it is hard to imagine. Much, however, should be excused to people deprived by war of their fortunes and their homes, often with but slender means of support, and no occupation, driven to spend eight hours of their day in euchre playing, and the other eight in unending discussions of the war news. To such, conspiracy must have seemed the most delightful of pastimes, even if barren of practical results.
When Considine approached Ralph with a most respectable sheaf of "greenbacks" under his arm, and appealed to him as an old friend for advice as to their conversion into specie, and their subsequent employment, Ralph was genial, and by-and-by showed him the way to the gold-room, where good Canadians, following the lead of New York, sold each other stacks of foreign currency which the sellers could not deliver and the buyers had no wish to receive. The telegraph clerk hung up the quotations from New York at certain hours, the "operators" took note and paid their losses--no! "held settlements" is the proper expression, for this wasbusiness. Respectable gentlemen, church members, and heads of families, brushed their hats each morning and walked down to their offices, gloved and caned, the very pink of respectability, and from thence went on "'Change," where the money would change hands with astounding celerity--all in the way of "business."
"Faites votre jeu, Messieurs! Le jeu est fait"? Not at all! This was in Montreal not at Monte Carlo. Strictly "business," and thoroughly respectable. True, many men lost, but some won. And what would you have? How could it be otherwise? There are but a certain number of gold pieces in the world; and, if, after an "operation," my bag contains more, it is certain that my neighbour's must hold less. Currency, bullion, stocks, shares, grain, cotton, what are any of them but the tokens to win and lose money upon? But the thing is done "upon 'Change," and 'Change, like church, is a good word, and everything belonging to it is respectable. If it were round a green-cloth table now, how different it would be! though the outcome might be the same. Respectability cannot tolerate the green cloth. And yet, to an all-seeing eye, there may be less amiss when a man's money falls upon theblackand thered. At least the play at Monte Carlo is "on the square;" there are no misquotations or false telegrams, bogus prospectuses, lying reports, collusive understandings, and traps for the unwary, such as have been heard of at times in the places of better repute.
Ralph Herkimer made a great deal of money; Considine made some; and by-and-by, as American finance returned to a normal position, other fields of enterprise were needed as the possibilities of gambling in gold and greenbacks grew less; and then Considine's American connections became a valuable introduction for Ralph to several "good things." There were estates whose owners, stripped of all their other property, and still encumbered by their debts, could not wring a subsistence from the devastated acres, and were willing to part with them for a trifle; but no one would buy--no one at hand, that is, who had opportunity to know about the war-ravaged fields and the intractable labourers. But at a distance, in a land of peace, where a good title and a veracious statement of the acreage and the yielding capacity were the data--where, in fact, a pencil and a piece of paper were the means for judging the promise of the venture--how different it all was. Here was a country where snows and frosts were scarcely known, or, so it was said, where the cattle could range without shelter all through the year, where the gardens were planted with figs and pomegranates, and pigs fattened in the orchards on peaches too plentiful to repay the gathering. There were minerals too, every variety of riches, gold, coal, copper, hidden in the ground, and only awaiting the capital and skill to dig them up; and forests of pine, now vastly enhanced in value by the Chicago fire, waiting to be cut down and converted into lumber if only foreign enterprise would undertake the task. What could be better calculated to stir the imagination of people accustomed to contend for three long months of the year with the fiercest severities of winter, and to wring fixed and moderate profits by patient industry from a soil which still was five or ten times the price of these fields of endless summer? The fevers, malaria, bad water, and general backwardness did not show on the map, and a dense silence kept them from the knowledge of investors.
Ralph and his friend being well-to-do, their statements and recommendations were implicitly accepted; and, indeed, the statements in themselves were not untruthful; it was in the counter-balancing facts, which were left unstated, that those who afterwards considered themselves their dupes, found the limitation and disillusion of their hopes, which teach men in the end that Fortune is as likely to find them out while labouring at home, as to be found by them without exertion and experience, in distant places. But that was the buyers' concern--knowledge which came to them later and by degrees, Ralph and his friend had completed their share of the transaction and pocketed their commission when the sale was made; what followed had for them no interest.
They made many such sales, pocketing large commissions--the larger, indeed, the worse the property they disposed of--vast tracts in some cases, containing untold wealth in minerals and forests, where the buyers sunk fortunes in endeavouring to bring the riches within reach; and at length, having exhausted their resources, had to subside into the ranks of the ruined people around them, and wait patiently for a generation, till the march of time should bring within reach of their children the sums they had placed out of reach for themselves. There were smaller farms, too, where sturdy yeomen with their blooming children went to make rich more quickly; but somehow few appeared to thrive in those distant migrations. Their livestock was apt to die; too little rain, or too much, would destroy their crops, and their own health would fail; and in a year or two they would find their way back to Canada, with an enlarged experience but a shrunken purse; while of the children, some would be left behind in the foreign churchyard, and the rest, yellow and gaunt, bore small resemblance to the bright-eyed youngsters they had been before.
In a few years the trade in southern homesteads died out, Canadian enterprise laid down her telescope and interested herself with things nearer home. Science, ransacking her own soil, had come on hid treasure of many kinds, gold, copper, iron, phosphates, and plumbago, and showed where, instead of sending her savings abroad, she might sink them at home--her own savings and those of many a sanguine stranger. On every side Ralph saw opportunities of money-making, and he was ready to use them; but now his operations, he found, must be on another footing than before. Hitherto he had been a financier; now, his neighbours recognized him as a capitalist. The change of standing was gratifying, but it had its dangers and its drawbacks.
Finance has been described as the art of transferring money from one pocket to another--in a Stock Exchange sense, be it understood, not an Old Bailey one--and the financiers are the artists who perform the feat. Money is a volatile and also an adhesive substance--matter in a state of unstable equilibrium, which must not be disturbed or changes will ensue--wherefore, in the process of transferring, some of it is certain to be spilled, and that the artist may pick up if he can; it is his perquisite. A good deal too is apt to stick to the artist's fingers--perquisites again--and hence the profit of handling other people's money. If it were one's own already, whence would come the profit? A man can scarcely gain by paying perquisites to himself; though, to be sure, he may obviate the necessity of paying them to any one else. But there cannot be a doubt that the financier escapes much embarrassment when he is not a capitalist. See, for example, with what calm unflinching pluck a "general manager" can carry on war with a rival railway! The next half-yearly dividend may be sacrificed in the contest, but he does not falter, he goes bravely on.Heis not a shareholder; it makes no matter tohim. To seek a parallel in the political world capitalists and financiers stand to one another as kings to their ministers. When things go well the minister does the work, the king has the profit and glory; but when they miscarry, though the minister did the mischief, it is the king who loses his crown; the minister merely withdraws into privacy, and lives comfortably in retirement on the emoluments of former office. Yet who, if he could, would not be a king, to be trembled before and worshipped? and after all, the successful revolutions are not numerous.
Ralph recognized the new danger in his path, and regretted a little, at times, when he found he must let a profitable opportunity go by, merely because it was one which only an impecunious promoter durst undertake; but he had his compensations. Like the man who becomes a king, he got well grovelled to, and he liked it. He couldinfluence, too, if the after responsibilities of "promoting" were too onerous to be undertaken. The use by other men of his name, unauthorizedly, as a heavy holder of their stocks, was worth money; and, as long as he "unloaded" in time, perfectly safe. He did not now flutter about 'Change, scattering reports and picking up news; he sat in his office, and was waited on by those who sought his countenance in their schemes and wished to learn its price.
Only one disappointment as yet had befallen him. He wished to become president of a leading bank, and he knew so many of the directors that he made sure of gaining his point. Unfortunately the directors knew him as well, and deemed it advisable to choose some one else; but then of course it was the general body of shareholders who must bear the blame. The ballot leaves so many things in doubt, and covers up so much about which there can be no doubt at all. His friends, the directors, called on him immediately the election was over--the traitors being probably the first to hurry in--and expressed the most cordial regret and condolence; and Ralph was too wise not to accept the profuse explanations with gracious condescension. Their hastening to explain was a tribute, at any rate, to his weight, and showed that they feared him; and as one after another he smiled them out, he promised himself to let them feel yet that their fears had not been groundless. He was not, therefore, in his most debonair mood, when, on being informed by a new clerk that a rough-looking man had been waiting some time, he permitted him to be introduced.
"Paul?"
"----day, sir."
"It seems only the other day since you were here last."
"Six months."
"How many six months do you make in a year?
"Two."
"Hm--I am not so sure of that. Seems to me you have managed to pack three into this last year. However--Here, Stinson!" he called to the clerk appointed to wait without and attend his private behests, while he scribbled a cheque. "Ask the cashier to cash that. Quick!" he added as he raised his eyes and saw the stolid figure of his visitor standing before him, a statue in copper-coloured flesh, motionless and unregarding, unimpressed by his grandeur or the trembling assiduousness of his clerk; an embodiment of still impassible waiting, like the image carved on the granite door-post of an Egyptian temple. Paul did not even glance about him, he simply stood, and with unwinking eye gazed into space, inscrutible and indifferent to all around.
Ralph threw himself back in his chair, fidgetted impatiently, and coughed and snorted. So impressive is that which cannot be gauged or looked into, even if it contain nothing. This was the instrument, too, and the reminder of a crime, who stood before him; a crime of so long ago, and which yet, so long as the Indian lives may come to light--may even be remedied, and leave him unprofited by the deed, as well as disgraced by its discovery. With wonder he asked himself how he could have ventured to do what he had done, the chances of failure being so many, the consequences of detection so ruinous, that to think of them even now sent a cold thrill through him. Since it was done, however--and he felt no remorse at the deed--he was content enough to enjoy the fruits, although his successes since had made him in a measure independent of them; still his uncle's millions when they came--came to his boy that is, but he ere then would be his partner--would, added to his own, gain him a position above rivalry; and even now in expectancy they enhanced his importance.
Stinson returned with the proceeds of the cheque, and Ralph counted over two hundred dollars to hand to Paul. His fingers lingered lovingly over the bits of paper, touching each dollar with a dainty caress as though he loved it and was sad to part.
It is strange how a rich man hates to part with money, while the poor are free and even lavish so far as their little "pile" will go; but perhaps we only invert the statement of what is a truism, that they who dislike to part with their money keep it and grow rich, while they who spend it lavishly grow poor. At any rate, Ralph lingered while he counted the two hundred dollars, and the thought occurred to him "how many times more would this have to be done?" Eight years still before Gerald's money became payable! Sixteen more half-yearly payments of two hundred dollars each! Thirty-two hundred dollars in all, besides interest! It seemed monstrous. Could nothing be done? Could he not be made to take a round sum down, and be bound to keep silence for ever? No! That had been tried already, and so soon as the money was spent he came back for more, saying he must live, and if Ralph would not pay, assuredly the bereaved parents would. And so it had come about that Paul was grown an annuitant, and came to claim his little income every six months.
"Here you are, Paul," growled Ralph, handing over the money with a sigh; and Paul with a gleam in his eye laid hands upon the roll of bills which vanished from view forthwith.
"Say, Paul," speaking in a more insinuating voice, "would it not suit you better to get a good big lump of money once for all, than to be coming here so often drawing it by dribs and drabs? If I were to give you a thousand dollars now, all at once, see how many things you could do with it! You could open a tavern up the Ottawa and make your fortune right away, and you would save all the money you spend for drink besides."
"Ah!" said Paul, his face lighting up at the inviting picture, and bending forward with extended palm to receive the largess at once.
"I con-sent!"
"Consent to what?"
"Take ze money."
"Of course you will, my fine fellow; I know that. And after you have got rid of it all you will come back to me for more."
"Promise to come no more."
"Of course you do! But you will come all the same. The promise don't count after the money is spent. I have not forgot last time."
Paul smiled like a man who receives a compliment. Veracity was not his point of honour. Rather, it was smartness; and to have "done" this rich and masterful white man seemed an achievement to be proud of. He stroked his beardless cheeks with a simper of gratified vanity, and fairly laughed at last, so tickled was he by the recollection of his cleverness.
"No! my fine fellow, you don't come it over me again like that!--no use supposing it. But I'll tell you what Iwilldo, for I like you, you see, Paul; though I know you're a rascal. I have been thinking that if that child were to die it would be bad for you. You could not try it on with me any more by threatening to carry the kid home to its people, and so your pension would come to an end, and you'd have to go to work. How would you like that, Paul, you idle dog, after all these years? So I have been thinking that if that were to happen--the kid's death, you know--and you could bring me some proof, I would give you a lump sum and have done with you."
"If the papoose die?"
"Yes."
"You give thousand dollars?--dollars down?"
"Down on the nail, if you bring proof."
"How make sure?"
"You will tell me how it all happened, and I shall know how to verify the fact."
"No, no! Makemesure. Thousand dollars."
"Ha! I see. You want some assurance that I will pay what I say? Don't see what more assurance I can give than to say so, or what more you should want. Have I not kept my word with you before?"
"Ouff"--and Paul plunged into thought where he stood, while Ralph, impatient to be rid of him, collected his papers and locked them in his desk, rose, and took his hat and gloves, as if about to go home.
This brought Paul's reflections to a point. He turned to Ralph with a grin and a grunt, and held out his hand.
"Thousand dollars!" he said with another grunt; and when Ralph, supposing it a fashion of leave-taking, laid some of his fingers rather gingerly on the extended palm, he caught and shook them eagerly, saying:
"Pay down! Pay down! Papoose dead."
Ralph drew back.
"Dead! When? Where? Tell me all about it."
"Dead at Caughnawaga."
"How long ago?"
"Ten year--Day 'twas took. Come, see, if you will.Au-dessous du plancherat mycabane--Thousand dollars!" and he held out his hand again.
"Ten years ago! And you have been drawing money from me for that child's support all this time? And never told!"
Paul looked gratified, and drew himself up like modest genius when at length its merit is brought to light. Then he chuckled and moved his fingers as if to poke Ralph in the ribs. The idea of Ralph's having been so completely fooled was too delicious.
"But how could it have happened? You cannot mean that you--murdered the child?"
"Ouff," grunted Paul, from whose face the grin was fading. His sly escapade appeared not to be appreciated as it deserved. He placed his fingers on his throat now, and let his tongue protrude, to describe the process of strangulation.
Ralph drew back in horror. It is one thing to entertain the idea of a crime hypothetically, and even to incite to the deed. The mind busies itself in contemplating the results, and the act appears but a circumstance, a necessary one perhaps, but one on which it is unnecessary to dwell. It is another thing to confront the deed after it has been done, and can no longer be overlooked, when it has become a realized infamy, withering and dwindling the profits and results into worthless Dead Sea fruit. The bloodhound will pursue its prey for days together, eager to pull him down and bury its fangs in his flesh, but if in the heat of the chase it should encounter blood, there is an end, the scent is lost, the hunt ended. And so was Ralph staggered at what he heard. This child's life had stood in his way, and he had striven to set it aside. But to think that it had been murdered, and that his was the finger which touched the spring and set the murderous machine in motion! No! Hewouldnot think it. It was horrible. The instrument, the over-zealous instrument which had done too much, must shoulder the responsibility of his own deed; and, for himself, he would no longer compromise his respectability by having dealings with such a ruffian, now that it had become quite safe to break with him. The blood of the little innocent seemed crying out of the ground for vengeance, and at least he would wash his hands of the murderer, and not a cent of blood-money should the homicide receive from him. A virtuous glow diffused itself through Ralph's pulses as these thoughts passed through his mind in a space far shorter than it takes to write or read them; indeed there had been little more than the ordinary conversational pause between Paul's last grunt of assent and pantomimic signs, and Ralph's reply as he now looked him squarely in the face with a frown of the severest virtue, and a demeanour of dignified rebuke which an ignorant onlooker might have hoped would not be lost on the poor untaught son of the wilderness.
"And you have been drawing money from me for that child's support all these years!" He grew indignant as he thought how he had been imposed upon; and Paul, quenched the moment before, and astonished at his demeanour, began to pluck up heart again, and the dawn of a smile at his own cleverness began to re-appear on his wooden visage; but it faded again as Ralph proceeded:
"Do you know that what you have been accusing yourself of is a hanging offence? A cruel, cowardly murder of a helpless infant? But I will not be made accessory after the fact! I am done with you, Paul!--Go!--Do you hear me? Git!"
Paul looked in his face amazed. What had he meant then when he promised him money to bring news of the child's death? He was about to speak, but Ralph stopped him before, in his stupefaction, he could find words.
"Go! I say. And never let me see you again. Or----! You can guess yourself what will happen."
Confused, crestfallen and crushed, Paul withdrew. A new view of the inscrutable ways of the great white man had been given him. He could only draw a great breath in his helplessness and go his way. The white folks were too much for him, that was the one idea which penetrated his darkened mind. They would make use of him when they wanted him, and then cast him aside; but for the future he promised himself to keep out of their way.
Ralph coughed and drew on his gloves, not ill-pleased, at the last, at the turn which affairs had taken, and hurried off to catch the afternoon train for St. Euphrase, where his family were spending the summer at a smart new villa which he had built a year or two before.