"I hear you are acquainted with some of the nobility, marchionesses and so forth," said Champney; the two were sitting in the shadow of the boat house cleaning their fingers with the lard Hannah had provided. "Where did you make their acquaintance?"
Aileen paused in the act of sliding her greasy hands rapidly over and over in each other, an occupation which afforded her unmixed delight, to look up at him in amazement. "How did yer know anything 'bout her?"
"Oh, I heard."
"Did Romanzo Caukins tell yer?" she demanded, as usual on the defensive.
"No, oh no; it was only hearsay. Do tell me about her. We don't have any round here."
Aileen giggled and resumed the rapid rotary motion of her still unwashed hands. "If I tell yer 'bout her, yer'll tell her I told yer. P'raps sometime, if yer ever go to New York, yer might see her; and she wouldn't like it."
"How do you know but what I have seen her? I've just come from there."
Aileen looked her surprise again. "That's queer, for I've just landed from New York meself."
"So I understood; does the marchioness live there too?"
She shook her head. "I ain't going to tell yer; but I'll tell yer 'bout some others I know."
"That live in New York?"
"Wot yer giving me?" She laughed merrily; "they live where the Dagos live, in Italy, yer know, and—"
"Italy? What are they doing over there?"
"—And—just yer wait till I'll tell yer—they live on an island in a be-ee-u-tiful lake, like this;" she looked approvingly at the liquid mirror that reflected in its rippleless depths the mountain shadow and sunset gold; "and they live in great marble houses, palaces, yer know, and flower gardens, and wear nothing but silks and velvet and pearls, ropes,—yer mind?—ropes of 'em; and the lords and ladies have concerts, yer know, better 'n in the thayertre—"
"What do you know about the theatre?" Champney was genuinely surprised; "I thought you came from an orphan asylum."
"Yer did, did yer!" There was scorn in her voice. "Wot do I know 'bout the thayertre?—Oh, but yer green!" She broke into another merry laugh which, together with the patronage of her words and certain unsavory memories of his own, nettled Champney more than he would have cared to acknowledge.
"Better 'n the thayertre," she repeated emphatically; "and the lords serenade the ladies—Do yer know wot a serenade is?" She interrupted herself to ask the question with a strong doubt in the interrogation.
"I've heard of 'em," said Champney meekly; "but I don't think I've ever seen one."
"I'll tell yer 'bout 'em. The lords have guitars and go out in the moonlight and stand under the ladies' windys and play, and the ladies make believe they haven't heard; then they look up all round at the moon and sighawful,—" she sighed in sympathy,—"and then the lords begin to sing and tell 'em they love 'em and can't live without a—a token. I'll bet yer don't know wot that is?"
"No, of course I don't; I'm not a lord, and I don't live in Italy."
"Well, I'll tell yer." Her tone was one of relenting indulgence for his ignorance. "Sometimes it's a bow that they make out of the ribbon their dresses is trimmed with, and sometimes it's a flower, a rose, yer know; and the lord sings again—can yer sing?"
Her companion repressed a smile. "I can manage a tune or two at a pinch."
"And the lady comes out on the balcony and leans over—like this, yer know;" she jumped up and leaned over the rail of the float, keeping her hands well in front of her to save her apron; "and she listens and keeps looking, and when he sings he's going to die because he loves her so, she throws the token down to him to let him know he mustn't die 'coz she loves him too; and he catches it, the rose, yer know, and smells it and then he kisses it and squeezes it against his heart—" she forgot her greasy hands in the rapture of this imaginative flight, and pressed them theatrically over her gingham apron beneath which her own little organ was pulsing quick with the excitement of this telling moment; "—and then the moon shines just as bright as silver and—and she marries him."
She drew a deep breath. During the recital she had lost herself in the personating of the favorite characters from her one novel. While she stood there looking out on the lake and the Flamsted Hills with eyes that were still seeing the gardens and marble terraces of Isola Bella, Champney Googe had time to fix that picture on his mental retina and, recalling it in after years, knew that the impression was "more lasting than bronze."
She came rather suddenly to herself when she grew aware of her larded hands pressed against her clean apron.
"Oh, gracious, but I'll catch it!" she exclaimed ruefully. "Wot'll I do now? She said I'd got to keep it clean till she got back, and she'll fire me and—and I want to stay awful; it's just like the story, yer know." She raised her gray eyes appealingly to his, and he saw at once that her childish fear was real. He comforted her.
"I'll tell you what: we'll go back to Hannah and she'll fix it for you; and if it's spoiled I'll go down and get some like it in the village and my mother will make you a new one. So, cheer up, Miss Aileen Armagh and-don't-yer-forget-it! And to-morrow evening, if the moon is out, we'll have a serenade all by ourselves; what do you say to that?"
"D' yer mane it?" she demanded, half breathless in her earnestness.
He nodded.
Aileen clapped her hands and began to dance; then she stopped suddenly to say: "I ain't going to dance for yer now; but I will sometime," she added graciously. "I've got to go now and help Ann. What time are yer coming for the serenade?"
"I'll be here about eight; the moon will be out by then and we must have a moon."
She started away on the run, beckoning to him with her unwashed hands: "Come on, then, till I show yer my windy. It's the little one over the dining-room. There ain't a balcony, but—see there! there's the top of the bay windy and I can lean out—why didn't yer tell me yer could play the guitar?"
"Because I can't."
"A harp, belike?"
"No; guess again."
"Yer no good;—but yer'll come?"
"Shurre; an' more be token it's at eight 'o the clock Oi'll be under yer windy." He gave the accent with such Celtic gusto that the little girl was captivated.
"Ain't you a corker!" she said admiringly and, waving her hand again to him, ran to the house. Champney followed more slowly to lay the case before Ann and Hannah.
On his way homeward he found himself wondering if he had ever seen the child before. As she leaned on the rail and looked out over the lake, a certain grace of attitude, which the coarse clothing failed to conceal, the rapt expression in the eyes, thetimbreof her voice, all awakened a dim certainty that he had seen her before at some time and place distinctly unusual; but where? He turned the search-light of concentrated thought upon his comings and goings and doings during the last year and more. Where had he seen just such a child?
He looked up from the roadway, on which his eyes had been fixed while his absent thought was making back tracks over the last twelve months, and saw before him the high pastures of The Gore. In the long afterglow of the July sunset they enamelled the barren heights with a rich, yellowish green. In a flash it came to him: "The green hill far away without a city wall"; the child singing on the vaudeville stage; the hush in the audience. He smiled to himself. He was experiencing that satisfaction which is common to all who have run down the quarry of a long-hunted recollection.
"She's the very one," he said to himself; "I wonder if Aunt Meda knows."
That which proves momentous in our lives is rarely anticipated, seldom calculated. Its factors are for the most part unknown quantities; if not prime in themselves they are, at least, prime to each other. It cannot be measured in terms of time, for often it lies between two infinities. But the momentous decision, event, action, which reacts upon the life of a man or woman and influences that life so long as it is lived here on earth, is on the surface sufficiently finite for us to say: It was on such a day I made my decision; to such and such an event I can look back as the cause of all that has followed. The How thereof remains traceable to our purblind eyes for a month, a term of years, one generation, possibly two; the Where and When can generally be defined; but theWhywe ask blindly, and are rarely answered satisfactorily.
Had young Googe been told, while he was walking homewards up The Gore, that his life line, like the antenna of the wireless, was even then the recipient and transmitter of multiple influences that had been, as it were, latent in the storage batteries of a generation; that what he was to be in the future was at this very hour in germ for development, he would have scouted the idea. His young self-sufficiency would have laughed the teller to scorn. He would have maintained as a man his mastership of his fate and fortunes, and whistled as carelessly as he whistled now for the puppy, an Irish terrier which he had brought home with him, for training, to come and meet him.
And the puppy, whose name was Ragamuffin and called Rag for short, came duly, unknowing, like his young master, to meet his fate. He wriggled broad-side down the walk as a puppy will in his first joy till, overpowered by his emotions, he rolled over on his back at Champney's feet, the fringes of his four legs waving madly in air.
"Champney, I'm waiting for you." It was his mother calling from the door. He ran in through the kitchen, and hurried to make himself presentable for the table and their guest whom he saw on the front porch.
As he entered the dining-room, his mother introduced him: "Father Honoré, my son, Champney."
The two men shook hands, and Mrs. Googe took her seat. The priest bowed his head momentarily to make the sign of the cross. Champney Googe shot one keen, amazed look in his direction. When that head was lifted Champney "opened fire," so he termed it to himself.
"I think I've seen you before, sir." It was hard for him to give the title "Father." "I got in your way, didn't I, at the theatre one evening over a year ago?"
His mother looked at him in amazement and something of anxiety. Was her son in his prejudice forgetting himself?
"Indeed, I think it was the other way round, I was in your way, for I remember thinking when you ran up against me 'that young fellow has been half-back on a football team.'"
Champney laughed. There was no withstanding this man's voice and the veiled humor of his introductory remarks.
"Did I hit hard? I didn't think for a moment that you would recognize me; but I knew you as soon as mother introduced us. I see by your face, mother, that you need enlightening. It was only that I met Father Honoré"—he brought that out with no hesitation—"at the entrance to one of the New York theatres over a year ago, and in the crowd nearly ran him down. No wonder, sir, you sized me up by the pressure as a football fiend. That's rich!" His merry laugh reassured his mother; she turned to Father Honoré.
"I don't know whether all my son's acquaintances are made at the theatre or not, but it is a coincidence that the other day he happened to mention the fact that the first time he saw Mr. Van Ostend he saw him there."
"It's my strong impression, Mrs. Googe, that Mr. Googe saw us both at the same place, at the same time. Mr. Van Ostend spoke to me of your son just a few days before I left New York."
"Did he?" Champney's eager blue eyes sought the priest's. "Do you know him well?"
"As we all know him through his place in the world of affairs. Personally I have met him only a few times. You may know, perhaps, that he was instrumental in placing little Aileen Armagh, the orphan child,—you know whom I mean?—at Mrs. Champney's, your aunt, Mrs. Googe tells me."
"I was just going to ask you if you would be willing to tell us something about her," said Mrs. Googe. "I've not seen her, but from all I hear she is a most unusual child, most interesting—"
"Interesting, mother!" Champney interrupted her rather explosively; "she's unique, the only and ever Aileen Armagh." He turned again to Father Honoré. "Do tell us about her; I've been so blockheaded I couldn't put two and two together, but I'm beginning to see daylight at last. I made her acquaintance this afternoon. That's why I was a little late, mother."
How we tell, even the best of us, with reserves! Father Honoré told of his interest being roused, as well as his suspicions, by the wording of the poster, and of his determination to see for himself to what extent the child was being exploited. But of the thought-lever, the "Little Trout", that raised that interest, he made no mention; nor, indeed, was it necessary.
"You see there is a class of foreigners on the East side that receive commissions for exploiting precocious children on the stage; they are very clever in evading the law. The children themselves are helpless. I had looked up a good many cases before this because it was in my line of work, and in this particular one I found that the child had been orphaned in Ireland almost from her birth; that an aunt, without relatives, had emigrated with her only a few months before I saw her on the stage, and the two had lived in an east side tenement with an old Italian. The child's aunt, a young woman about twenty-eight, developed quick consumption during the winter and died in the care of the Italian, Nonna Lisa they call her. This woman cared for the little girl, and began to take her out with her early in March on the avenues and streets of the upper west side. The old woman is an itinerant musician and plays the guitar with real feeling—I've heard her—and, by the way, makes a decent little living of her own. She found that Aileen had a good voice and could sing several Irish songs. She learned the accompaniments, and the two led, so far as I can discover, a delightful life of vagabondage for several weeks. It seems the old Italian has a grandson, Luigi, who sings in vaudeville with a travelling troop. He was in the west and south during the entire time that Aileen was with his grandmother; and through her letters he learned of the little girl's voice. He spoke of this to his manager, and he communicated with the manager of a Broadway vaudeville—they are both in the vaudeville trust—and asked him to engage her, and retain her for the troop when they should start on their annual autumn tour. But Nonna Lisa was shrewd.—It's wonderful, Mrs. Googe, how quickly they develop the sixth sense of cautious speculation after landing! She made a contract for six weeks only, hoping to raise her price in the autumn. So I found that the child was not being exploited, except legitimately, by the old Italian who was caring for her and guarding her from all contamination. But, of course, that could not go on, and I had the little girl placed in the orphan asylum on ----nd Street—" He interrupted himself to say half apologetically:
"I am prolix, I fear, but I am hoping you will be personally interested in this child whose future life will, I trust, be spent here far away from the metropolitan snares. I am sure she is worth your interest."
"I know she is," said Champney emphatically; "and the more we know of her the better. You'll laugh at my experience when you have heard it; but first let us have the whole of yours."
"You know, of course, where Mr. Van Ostend lives?" Champney nodded. "Did you happen to notice the orphan asylum just opposite on ——nd Street?"
"No; I don't recall any building of that sort."
He smiled. "Probably not; that is not in your line and we men are apt to see only what is in the line of our working vision. It seems that Mr. Van Ostend has a little girl—"
"I know, that's the Alice I told you of, mother; did you see her when she was here last month?"
"No; I only met Mr. Van Ostend on business. You were saying—?" She addressed Father Honoré.
"His little daughter told him so much about two orphan children, with whom she had managed to have a kind of across-street-and-window acquaintance, that he proposed to her to have the children over for Christmas luncheon. The moment he saw Aileen, he recognized in her the child on the vaudeville stage to whom he had given the flowers—You remember that incident?"
"Don't I though!"
"—Because she had sung his wife's favorite hymn. He was thoroughly interested in the child after seeing her, so to say, at close range, and took the first opportunity to speak with the Sister Superior in regard to finding for her a suitable and permanent home. The Sister Superior referred him to me. As you know, he came to Flamsted recently with this same little daughter; and the child talked so much and told so many amusing things about Aileen to Mrs. Champney, that Mr. Van Ostend saw at once this was an opportunity to further his plans, although he confided to me his surprise that his cousin, Mrs. Champney, should be willing to have so immature a child, in her house. Directly on getting home, he telephoned to me that he had found a home for her with a relation of his in Flamsted. You may judge of my surprise and pleasure, for I had received the appointment to this place and the work among the quarrymen only a month before. This is how the little girl happened to come up with me. I hear she is making friends."
"She can't help making them, and a good deal more besides; for Romanzo Caukins, our neighbor's son, and Octavius Buzzby, my aunt'schargé d'affaires, are at the present time her abject slaves," said Champney, rising from the table at a signal from his mother. "Let's go out on the porch, and I'll tell you of the fun I've had with her—poor Roman!" He shook his head and chuckled.
He stepped into the living-room as he passed through the hall and reached for his pipe in a rack above the mantel. "Do you smoke," he asked half-hesitatingly, but with an excess of courtesy in his voice as if he were apologizing for asking such a question.
"Sometimes; a pipe, if you please." He held out his hand; Champney handed him a sweetbrier and a tobacco pouch. "You permit, Madam?" He spoke with old world courtesy. Aurora Googe smiled permission. She saw with satisfaction her son's puzzled look of inquiry as he noted the connoisseurship with which Father Honoré handled his after-supper tools.
Mrs. Milton Caukins, their neighbor in the stone house across the bridge over the Rothel, stood for several minutes at her back door listening to Champney's continued arpeggios and wondered whose was the deep hearty laugh that answered them. In telling his afternoon's experience Champney, also, had his reserves: of the coming serenade he said never a word to the priest.
"He's O.K. and a man, mother," was his comment on their guest, as he bade her good night. Aurora Googe answered him with a smile that betokened content, but she was wise enough not to commit herself in words. Afterwards she sat long in her room, planning for her son's future. The twenty thousand she had just received for the undeveloped quarry lands should serve to start him well in life.
On the following day, mother and son constituted themselves a committee of ways and means as to the best investment of the money in furtherance of Champney's interests. Her ambition was gratified in that she saw him anxious to take his place in the world of affairs, to "get on" and, as he said, make his mark early in the world of finance.
The fact that, during his college course, he had spent the five thousand received from the sale of the first quarry, plus the interest on the same without accounting for a penny of it, seemed to his mother perfectly legitimate; for she had sold the land and laid by the amount paid for it in order to put her son through college. Since he was twelve years old she had brought him up in the knowledge that it was to be his for that purpose. From the time he came, through her generosity, into possession of the property, she always replied to those who had the courage to criticise her course in placing so large a sum at the disposal of a youth:
"My son is a man. I realize I can suggest, but not dictate; moreover I have no desire to."
She drew the line there, and rarely had any one dared to expostulate further with her. When they ventured it, Aurora Googe turned upon them those dark eyes, in which at such times there burned a seemingly unquenchable light of self-feeding defiance, and gave them to understand, with a repelling dignity of manner that bordered hard on haughtiness, that what she and her son might or might not do was no one's concern but their own. This self-evident truth, when it struck home to her well-wishers, made her no friends. Nor did she regret this. She had dwelt, as it were, apart, since her marriage and early widowhood—her husband had died seven months before Champney was born—on the old Googe estate at The Gore. But she was a good neighbor, as Mrs. Caukins could testify; paid her taxes promptly, and minded her flocks, the source of her limited income, until wool-raising in New England became unprofitable. An opportunity was presented when her boy was ten years old to sell a portion of the barren sheep pastures for the first quarry. She counted herself fortunate in being able thus to provide for Champney's four college years.
In all the village, there were only three men, whom Aurora Googe named friend. These men, with the intimacy born of New England's community of interest, called her to her face by her Christian name; they were Octavius Buzzby, old Joel Quimber, and Colonel Caukins. There had been one other, Louis Champney, who during his lifetime promised to do much for her boy when he should have come of age; but as the promises were never committed to black and white, they were, after his death, as though they had never been.
"If only Aunt Meda would fork over some of hers!" Champney exclaimed with irritation. They were sitting on the porch after tea. "All I want is a seat in the Stock Exchange—and the chance to start in. I believe if I had the money Mr. Van Ostend would help me to that."
"You didn't say anything to him about your plans, did you?"
"Well, no; not exactly. But it isn't every fellow gets a chance to dine at such a man's table, and I thought the opportunity was too good to be wasted entirely. I let him know in a quiet way that I, like every other fellow, was looking for a job." Champney laughed aloud at the shocked look on his mother's face. He knew her independence of thought and action; it brooked no catering for favors.
"You see, mother, menhaveto do it, or go under. It's about one chance in ten thousand that a man gets what he wants, and it's downright criminal to throw away a good opportunity to get your foot on a round. Run the scaling ladder up or down, it doesn't much matter—there are hundreds of applicants for every round; and only one man can stand on each—and climb, as I mean to. You don't get this point of view up here, mother, but you will when you see the development of these great interests. Then it will be each for himself and the devil gets the hindermost. Shouldn't I take every legitimate means to forge ahead? You heard what the priest said about Mr. Van Ostend's mentioning me to him? Let me tell you such men don't waste one breath in mentioning anything that does not mean a big interest per cent,not one breath. They can't, literally, afford to; and I'm hoping, only hoping, you know—", he looked up at her from his favorite seat on the lowest step of the front porch with a keen hard expectancy in his eyes that belied his words, "—that what he said to Father Honoré means something definite. Anyhow, we'll wait a while till we see how the syndicate takes hold of this quarry business before we decide on anything, won't we, mother?"
"I'm willing to wait as long as you like if you will only promise me one thing."
"What's that?" He rose and faced her; she saw that he was slightly on the defensive.
"That you will never,never, in any circumstances, apply to your Aunt Almeda for funds, no matter how much you may want them. I couldn't bear that!"
She spoke passionately in earnest, with such depth of feeling that she did not realize her son was not giving her the promise when he said abruptly, the somewhat hard blue eyes looking straight into hers:
"Mother, why are you so hard on Aunt Meda? She's a stingy old screw, I know, and led Uncle Louis round by the nose, so everybody says; but why are you so down on her?"
He was insistent, and his insistence was the one trait in his character which his mother had found hardest to deal with from his babyhood; from it, however, if it should develop happily into perseverance, she hoped the most. This trait he inherited from his father, Warren Googe, but in the latter it had deteriorated into obstinacy. She always feared for her self-control when she met it in her son, and just now she was under the influence of a powerful emotion that helped her to lose it.
"Because," she made answer, again passionately but the earnestness had given place to anger, "I am a woman and have borne from her what no woman bears and forgets, or forgives! Are you any the wiser now?" she demanded. "It is all that I shall tell you; so don't insist."
The two continued to look into each other's eyes, and something, it could hardly be called inimical, rather an aloofness from the tie of blood, was visible to each in the other's steadfast gaze. Aurora Googe shivered. Her eyes fell before the younger ones.
"Don't Champney! Don't let's get upon this subject again; I can't bear it."
"But, mother," he protested, "you mentioned it first."
"It was what you said about Almeda's furnishing you with money that started it. Don't say anything more about it; only promise me, won't you?"
She raised her eyes again to his, but this time in appeal. At forty-one Aurora Googe was still a very beautiful woman, and her appeal, made gently as if in apology for her former vehemence, rendered that beauty potent with her son's manhood.
"Let me think it over, mother, before I promise." He answered her as gently. "It's a hard thing to exact of a man, and I don't hold much with promises. What did Uncle Louis' amount to?"
The blood surged into his mother's face, and tears, rare ones, for she was not a weak woman neither was she a sentimental one, filled her eyes. Her son came up the steps and kissed her. They were seldom demonstrative to this extent save in his home-comings and leave-takings. He changed the subject abruptly.
"I'm going down to the village now. You know I have the serenade on my program, at eight. Afterwards I'll run down to The Greenbush for the mail and to see my old cronies. I haven't had a chance yet." He began to whistle for the puppy, but cut himself short, laughing. "I was going to take Rag, but he won't fit in with the serenade. Keep him tied up while I'm gone, please. Anything you want from the village, mother?"
"No, not to-night."
"Don't sit up for me; I may be late. Joel is long-winded and the Colonel is booming The Gore for all it is worth and more too; I want to hear the fun. Good night."
The afterglow of sunset was long. The dilated moon, rising from the waters of the Bay, shone pale at first; but as it climbed the shoulder of the mountainWave-of-the-Seaand its light fell upon the farther margin of the lake, its clear disk was pure argent.
Champney looked his approval. It was the kind of night he had been hoping for. He walked leisurely down the road from The Gore for the night was warm. It was already past eight, but he lingered, purposely, a few minutes longer on the lake shore until the moonlight should widen on the waters. Then he went on to the grounds.
He entered by the lane and crossed the lawn to an arching rose-laden trellis near the bay window; beneath it was a wooden bench. He looked up at the window. The blinds were closed. So far as he could see there was no light in all the great house. Behind the rose trellis was a group of stately Norway spruce; he could see the sheen of their foliage in the moonlight. He took his banjo out of its case and sat down on the bench, smiling to himself, for he was thoroughly enjoying, with that enjoyment of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic adventure. He touched the strings lightly with preliminary thrumming. It was a toss-up between "Annie Rooney" and "Oft in the stilly night." He decided for the latter. Raising his eyes to the closed blinds, behind which he knew the witch was hiding, he began the accompaniment. The softthrum-thrum, vibrating through the melody, found an echo in the whirring wings of all that ephemeral insect life which is abroad on such a night. The prelude was almost at an end when he saw the blinds begin to separate. Champney continued to gaze steadily upwards. A thin bare arm was thrust forth; the blinds opened wide; in the dark window space he saw Aileen, listening intently and gazing fixedly at the moon as if its every beam were dropping liquid music.
He began to sing. His voice was clear, fine, and high, a useful first tenor for two winters in the Glee Club. When he finished Aileen deigned to look down upon him, but she made no motion of recognition. He rose and took his stand directly beneath the window.
"I say, Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, that isn't playing fair! Where's my token?"
There was a giggle for answer; then, leaning as far out as she dared, both hands stemmed on the window ledge, the child began to sing. Full, free, joyously light-hearted, she sent forth the rollicking Irish melody and the merry sentiment that was strung upon it; evidently it had been adapted to her, for the words had suffered a slight change:
"Och! laughin' roses are my lips,Forget-me-nots my ee,It's many a lad they're drivin' mad;Shall they not so wi' ye?Heigho! the morning dew!Heigho! the rose and rue!Follow me, my bonny lad,For I'll not follow you."Wi' heart in mout', in hope and doubt,My lovers come and go:My smiles receive, my smiles deceive;Shall they not serve you so?Heigho! the morning dew!Heigho! the rose and rue!Follow me, my bonny lad,For I'll not follow you."
"Och! laughin' roses are my lips,Forget-me-nots my ee,It's many a lad they're drivin' mad;Shall they not so wi' ye?Heigho! the morning dew!Heigho! the rose and rue!Follow me, my bonny lad,For I'll not follow you.
"Wi' heart in mout', in hope and doubt,My lovers come and go:My smiles receive, my smiles deceive;Shall they not serve you so?Heigho! the morning dew!Heigho! the rose and rue!Follow me, my bonny lad,For I'll not follow you."
It was a delight to hear her.
"There now, I'll give yer my token. Hold out yer hands!"
Champney, hugging his banjo under one arm, made a cup of his hands. Carefully measuring the distance, she dropped one rosebud into them.
"Put it on yer heart now," was the next command from above. He obeyed with exaggerated gesture, to the great delight of the serenadee. "And yer goin' to keep it?"
"Forever and a day." Champney made this assertion with a hyper-sentimental inflection of voice, and, lifting the flower to his nose, drew in his breath—
"Confound you, you little fiend—" he sneezed rather than spoke.
The sneeze was answered by a peal of laughter from above and a fifteen-year-old's cracked "Haw-haw-haw" from the region of the Norway spruces. Every succeeding sneeze met with a like response—roars of laughter on the one hand and peal upon peal on the other. Even the kitchen door began to give signs of life, for Hannah and Ann made their appearance.
The strong white pepper, which Romanzo managed to procure from Hannah, had been cunningly secreted by Aileen between the imbricate petals, and then tied, in a manner invisible at night, with a fine thread of pink silk begged from Ann. It was now acting and re-acting on the lining of the serenader's olfactory organ in a manner to threaten final decapitation. Champney was still young enough to resent being made a subject of such practical joking by a little girl; but he was also sufficiently wise to acknowledge to himself that he had been worsted and, in the end, to put a good face on it. It is true he would have preferred that Romanzo Caukins had not been witness to his defeat.
The sneezing and laughter gradually subsided. He sat down again on the bench and taking up his banjo prepared, with somewhat elaborate effort, to put it into its case. He said nothing.
"Say!" came in a sobered voice from above; "are yer mad with me?"
Ignoring both question and questioner, he took out his handkerchief, wiped his face and forehead and, returning it to his pocket, heaved a sigh of apparent exhaustion.
"I say, Mr. Champney Googe, are yer mad with me?"
To Champney's delight, he heard an added note of anxiety. He bowed his head lower over the banjo case and in silence renewed his simulated struggle to slip that instrument into it.
"Champney! Are yerralemad with me?" There was no mistaking the earnestness of this appeal. He made no answer, but chuckled inwardly at the audacity of the address.
"Champ!" she stamped her foot to emphasize her demand; "if yer don't tell me yer ain't mad with me, I'll lave yer for good and all—so now!"
"I don't know that I'm mad with you," he spoke at last in an aggrieved, a subdued tone; "I simply didn't think you could play me such a mean trick when I was in earnest, dead earnest."
"Did yer mane it?"
"Why, of course I did! You don't suppose a man walks three miles in a hot night to serenade a girl just to get an ounce of pepper in his nose by way of thanks, do you?"
"I thought yer didn't mane it; Romanzo said yer was laughing at me for telling yer 'bout the lords and ladies a-making love with their guitars." The voice indicated some dejection of spirits.
"He did, did he! I'll settle with Romanzo later." He heard a soft brushing of branches in the region of the Norway spruces and knew that the youth was in retreat. "And I'll settle it with you, too, Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-you-forget-it, in a way that'll make you remember the tag end of your name for one while!"
This threat evidently had its effect.
"Wot yer going to do?"
He heard her draw her breath sharply.
"Come down here and I'll tell you."
"I can't. She might catch me. She told me I'd got to stay in my room after eight, and she's coming home ter-night. Wot yer going to do?"
Champney laughed outright. "Don't you wish you might know, Aileen Armagh!" He took his banjo in one hand, lifted his cap with the other and, standing so, bareheaded in the moonlight, sang with all the simulated passion and pathos of which he was capable one of the few love songs that belong to the world, "Kathleen Mavoureen"; but he took pains to substitute "Aileen" for "Kathleen." Even Ann and Hannah, listening from the kitchen porch, began to feel sentimentally inclined when the clear voice rendered with tender pathos the last lines:
"Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?Oh! why art thou silent, Aileen Mavoureen?"
"Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?Oh! why art thou silent, Aileen Mavoureen?"
Without so much as another glance at the little figure in the window, he ran across the lawn and up the lane to the highroad.
On his way to The Greenbush he overtook Joel Quimber, and without warning linked his arm close in the old man's. At the sudden contact Joel started.
"Uncle Jo, old chap, how are you? This seems like home to see you round."
"Lord bless me, Champ, how you come on a feller! Here, stan' still till I get a good look at ye;—growed, growed out of all notion. Why, I hain't seen ye for good two year. You warn't to home last summer?"
"Only for a week; I was off on a yachting cruise most of the time. Mother said you were up on the Bay then at your grandniece's—pretty girl. I remember you had her down here one Christmas."
The old man made no definite answer, but cackled softly to himself: "Yachting cruise, eh? And you remember a pretty girl, eh?" He nudged him with a sharpened elbow and whispered mysteriously: "Devil of a feller, Champ! I've heerd tell, I've heerd tell—chip of the old block, eh?" He nudged him knowingly again.
"Oh, we're all devils more or less, we men, Uncle Jo; now, honor bright, aren't we?"
"You've hit it, Champ; more or less—more or less. I heerd you was a-goin' it strong: primy donny suppers an' ortermobillies—"
"Now, Uncle Jo, you know there's no use believing all you hear, but you can't plunge a country raised boy into a whirlpool like New York for four years and not expect him to strike out and swim with the rest. You've got to, Uncle Jo, or you're nobody. You'd go under."
"Like 'nough you would, Champ; I can't say, fer I hain't ben thar. Guess twixt you an' me an' the post, I won't hev ter go thar sence Aurory's sold the land fer the quarries. I hear it talked thet it'll bring half New York right inter old Flamsted; I dunno, I dunno—you 'member 'bout the new wine in the old bottles, Champ?—highflyers, emigrants, Dagos and Polacks—Come ter think, Mis' Champney's got one on 'em now. Hev you seen her, Champ?"
Champney's hearty laugh rang out with no uncertain sound. "Seen her! I should say so. She's worth any 'primy donny', as you call them, that ever drew a good silver dollar out of my pockets. Oh, it's too good to keep! I must tell you; but you'll keep mum, Uncle Jo?"
"Mum's the word, ef yer say so, Champ." They turned from The Greenbush and arm in arm paced slowly up the street again. From time to time, for the next ten minutes, Augustus Buzzby and the Colonel in the tavern office heard from up street such unwonted sounds of hilarity and so long continued, that Augustus looked apprehensively at the Colonel who was becoming visibly uneasy lest he fail to place the joke.
When the two appeared at the office door they bore unmistakable signs of having enjoyed themselves hugely. Augustus Buzzby gave them his warmest welcome and seated Uncle Joel in his deepest office chair, providing him at the same time with a pipe and some cut leaf. The Colonel was in his glory. With one arm thrown affectionately around young Googe's neck, he expatiated on the joy of the community as a whole in again welcoming its own.
"Champney, my dear boy,—you still permit me the freedom of old friendship?—this town is already looking to you as to its future deliverer; I may say, as to a Moses who will lead us into the industrial Canaan which is even now, thanks to my friend, your honored mother, beckoning to us with its promise of abundant plenty. Never, in my wildest dreams, my dear boy, have I thought to see such a consummation of my long-cherished hopes."
It was always one of Champney's prime youthful joys to urge the Colonel, by judiciously applied excitants, to a greater flowering of eloquence; so, now, as an inducement he wrung his neighbor's hand and thanked him warmly for his timely recognition of the new Flamsted about to be.
"Now," he said, "the thing is for all of us to fall into line and forge ahead, Colonel. If we don't, we'll be left behind; and in these times to lag is to take to the backwoods."
"Right you are, my dear fellow; deterioration can only set in when the members of a community, like ours, fail to present a solid front to the disintegrating forces of a supine civilization which—"
"At it again, Milton Caukins!" It was Mr. Wiggins who, entering the office, interrupted the flow,—"dammed the torrent", he was wont to say. He extended a hand to young Googe. "Glad to see you, Champney. I hear there is a prospect of your remaining with us. Quimber tells us he heard something to the effect that a position might be offered you by the syndicate."
"It's the first I've heard of it. How did you hear, Uncle Jo?" He turned upon the old man with a keen alertness which, taken in connection with the Colonel's oratory, was both disconcerting and confusing.
"How'd I hear? Le' me see; Champ, what was we just talking 'bout up the street, eh?"
"Oh, never mind that now," he answered impatiently; "let's hear what you heard. I'm the interested party just now." But the old man looked only the more disturbed and was not to be hurried.
"'Bout that little girl—" he began, but was unceremoniously cut short by Champney.
"Oh, damn the girl, just for once, Uncle Jo. What I want to know is, how you came to hear anything about me in connection with the quarry syndicate."
The old man persisted: "I'm a-tryin' to get a-holt of that man's name that got her up here—"
"Van Ostend," Champney suggested; "is that the name you want?"
"That's him, Van Ostend; that's the one. He an' the rest was hevin' a meetin' right here in this office 'fore they went to the train, an' I was settin' outside the winder an' heerd one on 'em say: 'Thet Mis' Googe's a stunner; what's her son like, does any one know?' An' I heerd Mr. Van Ostend say: 'She's very unusual; if her son has half her executive ability'—them's his very words—'we might work him in with us. It would be good business policy to interest, through him, the land itself in its own output, so to speak, besides being something of a courtesy to Mis' Googe. I've met him twice.' Then they fell to discussin' the lay of The Gore and the water power at The Corners."
"Bully for you, Uncle Jo!" Champney slapped the rounded shoulders with such appreciative heartiness that the old man's pipe threatened to be shaken from between his toothless gums. "You have heard the very thing I've been hoping for. Tave never let on that he knew anything about it."
"He didn't, only what I told him." Old Quimber cackled weakly. "I guess Tave's got his hands too full at Champo to remember what's told him; what with the little girl an' Romanzo—no offence, Colonel." He looked apologetically at the Colonel who waved his hand with an airiness that disposed at once of the idea of any feeling on his part in regard to family revelations. "I heerd tell thet the little girl hed turned his head an' Tave couldn't git nothin' in the way of work out of him."
"In that case I must look into the matter." The Colonel spoke with stern gravity. "Both Mrs. Caukins and I would deplore any undue influence that might be brought to bear upon any son of ours at so critical a period of his career."
Mr. Wiggins laughed; but the laugh was only a disguised sneer. "Perhaps you'll come to your senses, Colonel, when you've got an immigrant for a daughter-in-law. Own up, now, you didn't think your 'competing industrial thousands' might be increased by some half-Irish grandchildren, now did you?"
Champney listened for the Colonel's answer with a suspended hope that he might give Elmer Wiggins "one," as he said to himself. He still owed the latter gentleman a grudge because in the past he had been, as it were, the fountain head of all in his youthful misery in supplying ample portions of the never-to-be-forgotten oil of the castor bean and dried senna leaves. He felt at the present time, moreover, that he was inimical to his mother and her interests. And Milton Caukins was his friend and hers, past, present, and future; of this he was sure.
The Colonel took time to light his cigar before replying; then, waving it towards the ceiling, he said pleasantly:
"My young friend here, Champney, to whom we are looking to restore the pristine vigor of a fast vanishing line of noble ancestors, is both a Googeanda Champney.Hisancestors counted themselves honored in making alliances with foreigners—immigrants to our all-welcoming shores; 'a rose', Mr. Wiggins, 'by any other name'; I need not quote." His chest swelled; he interrupted himself to puff vigorously at his cigar before continuing: "My son, sir, is on the spindle side of the house aGooge, and aGooge, sir, has the blood of the Champneys and the Lord knows of how many nobleimmigrants" (the last word was emphasized by a fleeting glance of withering scorn at the small-headed Wiggins) "in his veins which, fortunately, cannot be said of you, sir. If, at any time in the distant future, my son should see fit to ally himself with a scion of the noble and long-suffering Hibernian race, I assure you"—his voice was increasing in dimensions—"both Mrs. Caukins and myself would feel honored, sir, yes, honored in the breach!"
After this wholly unexpected ending to his peroration, he lowered his feet from their accustomed rest on the counter of the former bar and, ignoring Mr. Wiggins, remarked to Augustus that it was time for the mail. Augustus, glad to welcome any diversion of the Colonel's and Mr. Wiggins's asperities, said the train was on time and the mail would be there in a few minutes.
"Tave's gone down to meet Mis' Champney," he added turning to Champney. "She's been in Hallsport for two days. I presume you ain't seen her."
"Not yet. If you can give me my mail first I can drive up to Champ-au-Haut with her to-night. There's the mail-wagon."
"To be sure, to be sure, Champney; and you might take out Mis' Champney's; Tave can't leave the hosses."
"All right." He went out on the veranda to see if the Champ-au-Haut carriage was in sight. A moment later, when it drove up, he was at the door to open it.
"Here I am, Aunt Meda. Will this hold two and all those bundles?"
"Why, Champney, you here? Come in." She made room for him on the ample seat; he sprang in, and bent to kiss her before sitting down beside her.
"Now, I call this luck. This is as good as a confessional, small and dark, and 'fess I've got to, Aunt Meda, or there'll be trouble for somebody at Campo."
Had the space not been so "small and dark" he might have seen the face of the woman beside him quiver painfully at the sound of his cheery young voice and, when he kissed her, flush to her temples.
"What devilry now, Champney?"
"It's a girl, of course, Aunt Meda—your girl," he added laughing.
"So you've found her out, have you, you young rogue? Well, what do you think of her?"
"I think you'll have a whole vaudeville show at Champ-au-Haut for the rest of your days—and gratis."
"I've been coming to that conclusion myself," said Mrs. Champney, smiling in turn at the recollection of some of her experiences during the past three weeks. "She amuses me, and I've concluded to keep her. I'm going to have her with me a good part of the time. I've seen enough since she has been with me to convince me that my people will amount to nothing so long as she is with them." There was an edge to her words the sharpness of which was felt by Octavius on the front seat.
"I can't blame them; I couldn't. Why Tave here is threatened already with a quick decline—sheer worry of mind, isn't it Tave?" Octavius nodded shortly; "And as for Romanzo there's no telling where he will end; even Ann and Hannah are infected."
"What do you mean, Champney?" She was laughing now.
"Just wait till I run in and get the mail for us both, and I'll tell you; it's my confession."
He sprang out, ran up the steps and disappeared for a moment. He reappeared thrusting some letters into his pocket. Evidently he had not looked at them. He handed the other letters and papers to Octavius, and so soon as the carriage was on the way to The Bow he regaled his aunt with his evening's experience under the bay window.
"Serves you right," was her only comment; but her laugh told him she enjoyed the episode. He went into the house upon her invitation and sat with her till nearly eleven, giving an account of himself—at least all the account he cared to give which was intrinsically different from that which he gave his mother. Mrs. Champney was what he had once described to his mother as "a worldly woman with the rind on," and when he was with her, he involuntarily showed that side of his nature which was best calculated to make an impression on the "rind." He grew more worldly himself, and she rejoiced in what she saw.
While walking homewards up The Gore, he was wondering why his mother had shown such strength of feeling when he expressed the wish that his aunt would help him financially to further his plans. He knew the two women never had but little intercourse; but with him it was different. He was a man, the living representative of two families, and who had a better right than he to some of his Aunt Meda's money? A right of blood, although on the Champney side distant and collateral. He knew that the community as a whole, especially now that his mother had become a factor in its new industrial life, was looking to him, as once they had looked to his Uncle Louis, to "make good" with his inheritance of race. To this end his mother had equipped him with his university training. Why shouldn't his aunt be willing to help him? She liked him, that is, she liked to talk with him. Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to him that his room was better than his company; this was especially noticeable in his young days when he was much with his aunt's husband whom he called "Uncle Louis." Since his death he had never ceased to visit her at Champ-au-Haut—too much was at stake, for he was the rightful heir to her property at least, if not Louis Champney's. She, as well as his father, had inherited twenty thousand from the estate in The Gore. His father, so he was told, had squandered his patrimony some two years before his death. His aunt, on the contrary, had already doubled hers; and with skilful manipulation forty thousand in these days might be quadrupled easily. It was wise, whatever might happen, to keep on the right side of Aunt Meda; and as for giving that promise to his mother he neither could nor would. His mind was made up on this point when he reached The Gore. He told himself he dared not. Who could say what unmet necessity might handicap him at some critical time?—this was his justification.
In the midst of his wonderings, he suddenly remembered the evening's mail. He took it out and struck a match to look at the hand-writing. Among several letters from New York, he recognized one as having Mr. Van Ostend's address on the reverse of the envelope. He tore it open; struck another match and, the letter being type-written, hastily read it through with the aid of a third and fourth pocket-lucifer; read it in a tumult of expectancy, and finished it with an intense and irritating sense of disappointment. He vehemently voiced his vexation: "Oh, damn it all!"
He did not take the trouble to return the letter to its cover, but kept flirting it in his hand as he strode indignantly up the hill, his arms swinging like a young windmill's. When he came in sight of the house, he looked up at his mother's bedroom window. Her light was still burning; despite his admonition she was waiting for him as usual. He must tell her before he slept.
"Champney!" she called, when she heard him in the hall.
"Yes, mother; may I come up?"
"Of course." She opened wide her bedroom door and stood there, waiting for him, the lamp in her hand. Her beauty was enhanced by the loose-flowing cotton wrapper of pale pink. Her dark heavy hair was braided for the night and coiled again and again, crown fashion, on her head.
"Aunt Meda never could hold a candle to mother!" was Champney Googe's thought on entering. The two sat down for the usual before-turning-in-chat.
He was so full of his subject that it overflowed at once in abrupt speech.
"Mother, I've had a letter from Mr. Van Ostend—"
"Oh, Champney!" There was the joy of anticipation in her voice.
"Now, mother, don't—don't expect anything," he pleaded, "for you'll be no end cut up over the whole thing. Now, listen." He read the letter; the tone of his voice indicated both disgust and indignation.
"Now, look at that!" He burst forth eruptively when he had finished. "Here we've been banking on an offer for some position in the syndicate, at least, something that would help clear the road to Wall Street where I should be able to strike out for myself without being dependent on any one—I didn't mince matters that day of the dinner when I told him what I wanted, either! And here I get an offer to go to Europe for five years and study banking systems and the Lord knows what in London, Paris, and Berlin, and act as a sort of super in his branch offices. Great Scott! Does he think a man is going to waste five years of his life in Europe at a time when twenty-four hours here at home might make a man! He's a donkey if he thinks that, and I'd have given him credit for more common sense—"
"Now, Champney, stop right where you are. Don't boil over so." She repressed a smile. "Let's talk business and look at matters as they stand."
"I can't;" he said doggedly; "I can't talk business without a business basis, and this here,"—he shook the letter much as Rag shook a slipper,—"it's just slop! What am I going to do over there, I'd like to know?" he demanded fiercely; whereupon his mother took the letter from his hand and, without heeding his grumbling, read it carefully twice.
"Now, look here, Champney," she said firmly; "you must use some reason. I admit this isn't what you wanted or I expected, but it's something; many would think it everything. Didn't you tell me only yesterday that in these times a man is fortunate to get his foot on any round of the ladder—"
"Well, if I did, I didn't mean the rung of a banking house fire-escape over in Europe." He interrupted her, speaking sulkily. Then of a sudden he laughed out. "Go on, mother, I'm a chump." His mother smiled and continued the broken sentence:
"—And that ten thousand fail where one succeeds in getting even a foothold—to climb, as you want to?"
"But how can I climb? That's the point. Why, I shall be twenty-six in five years—if I live," he added lugubriously.
His mother laughed outright. The splendid specimen of health, vitality, and strength before her was in too marked contrast to his words.
"Well, I don't care," he muttered, but joining heartily in her laugh; "I've heard of fellows like me going into a decline just out of pure homesickness over there."
"I don't think you will be homesick for Flamsted; I saw no traces of that malady while you were in New York. On the contrary, I thought you accepted every opportunity to stay away."
"New York is different," he replied, a little shamefaced in the presence of the truth he had just heard. "But, mother, you would be alone here."
"I'm used to it, Champney;" she spoke as it were perfunctorily; "and I am ambitious to see you succeed as you wish to. I want to see you in a position which will fulfil both your hopes and mine; but neither you nor I can choose the means, not yet; we haven't the money. For my part, I think you should accept this offer; it's one in ten thousand. Work your way up during these five years into Mr. Van Ostend's confidence, and I am sure,sure, that by that time he will have something for you that will satisfy even your young ambition. I think, moreover, it is a necessity for you to accept this, Champney."
"You do; why?"
"Well, for a good many reasons. I doubt, in the first place, if these quarries can get under full running headway for the next seven years, and even if you had been offered some position of trust in connection with them, you haven't had an opportunity to prove yourself worthy of it in a business way. I doubt, too, if the salary would be any larger; it is certainly a fair one for the work he offers." She consulted the letter. "Twelve hundred for the first year, and for every succeeding year an additional five hundred. What more could you expect, inexperienced as you are? Many men have to give their services gratis for a while to obtain entrance into such offices and have their names, even, connected with such a financier. This opportunity is a business asset. I feel convinced, moreover, that you need just this discipline."
"Why?"
"For some other good reasons. For one, you would be brought into daily contact with men, experienced men, of various nationalities—"
"You can be that in New York. There isn't a city in the world where you can gain such a cosmopolitan experience." He was still protesting, still insisting. His mother made no reply, nor did she notice the interruption.
"—Learn their ways, their point of view. All this would be of infinite help if, later on, you should come into a position of great responsibility in connection with the quarry syndicate.—It does seem so strange that hundreds will make their livelihood from our barren pastures!" She spoke almost to herself, and for a moment they were silent.
"And look at this invitation to cross in his yacht with his family! Champney, you know perfectly well nothing could be more courteous or thoughtful; it saves your passage money, and it shows plainly his interest in you personally."
"I know; that part isn't half bad." He spoke with interest and less reluctance. "I saw the yacht last spring lying in North River; she's a perfect floating palace they say. Of course, I appreciate the invitation; but supposing—only supposing, you know,"—this as a warning not to take too much for granted,—"I should accept. How could I live on twelve hundred a year? He spends twice that on a cook. How does he think a fellow is going to dress and live on that? 'T was a tight squeeze in college on thirteen hundred."
His mother knew his way so well, that she recognized in this insistent piling of one obstacle upon another the budding impulse to yield. She was willing to press the matter further.
"Oh, clothes are cheaper abroad and living is not nearly so dear. You could be quite the gentleman on your second year's salary, and, of course, I can help out with the interest on the twenty thousand. You forget this."
"By George, I did, mother! You're a trump; but I don't want you to think I want to cut any figure over there; I don't care enough about 'em. But I want enough to have a ripping good time to compensate for staying away so long."
"You need not stay five consecutive years away from home. Look here, Champney; you have read this letter with your eyes but not with your wits. Your boiling condition was not conducive to clear-headedness."
"Oh, I say mother! Don't rap a fellow too hard when he's down."
"You're not down; you're up,"—she held her ground with him right sturdily,—"up on the second round already, my son; only you don't know it. Here it is in black and white that you can come home for six weeks after two years, and the fifth year is shortened by three months if all goes well. What more do you want?"
"That's something, anyway."
"Now, I want you to think this over."
"I wish I could run down to New York for a day or two; it would help a lot. I could look round and possibly find an opening in the direction I want. I want to do this before deciding."
"Champney, I shall lose patience with you soon. You know you, can't run down to New York for even a day. Mr. Van Ostend states the fact baldly: 'Your decision I must have by telegraph, at the latest, by Thursday noon.' That's day after to-morrow. 'We sail on Saturday.' Mr. Van Ostend is not a man to waste a breath, as you have said."
Champney had no answer ready. He evaded the question. "I'll tell you to-morrow, mother. It's late; you mustn't sit up any longer." He looked at his watch. "One o'clock. Good night."
"Good night, Champney. Leave your door into the hall wide open; it's so close."
She put out her light and sat down by the window. The night was breathless; not a leaf of the elm trees quivered. She heard the Rothel picking its way down the rocky channel of The Gore. She gave herself up to thought, far-reaching both into the past and the future. Soon, mingled with the murmur of the brook, she heard her son's quiet measured breathing. She rose, walked noiselessly down the hall and stood at his bedroom door, to gaze—mother-like, to worship. The moonlight just touched the pillow. He lay with his head on his arm; the full white chest was partly bared; the spare length of the muscular body was outlined beneath the sheet. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned from the door, and, noiselessly as she had come, went back to her room and her couch.
How little the pending decision weighed on his mind was proven by his long untroubled sleep; but directly after a late breakfast he told his mother he was going out to prospect a little in The Gore; and she, understanding, questioned him no further. He whistled to Rag and turned into the side road that led to the first quarry. There was no work going on there. This small ownership of forty acres was merged in the syndicate which had so recently acquired the two hundred acres from the Googe estate. He made his way over the hill and around to the head of The Gore. He wanted to climb the cliff-like rocks and think it out under the pines, landmarks of his early boyhood. He picked his way among the boulders and masses of sheep laurel; he was thinking not of the quarries but of himself; he did not even inquire of himself how the sale of the quarries might be about to affect his future.
Champney Googe was self-centred. The motives for all his actions in a short and uneventful life were the spokes to his particular hub of self; the tire, that bound them and held them to him, he considered merely the necessary periphery of constant contact with people and things by which his own little wheel of fortune might be made to roll the more easily. He was following some such line of thought while turning Mr. Van Ostend's plan over and over in his mind, viewing it from all sides. It was not what he wanted, but it might lead to that. His eyes were on the rough ground beneath him, his thoughts busy with the pending decision, when he was taken out of himself by hearing an unexpected voice in his vicinity.
"Good morning, Mr. Googe. Am I poaching on your preserve?"
Champney recognized the voice at once. It was Father Honoré's hailing him from beneath the pines. He was sitting with his back against one; a violin lay on its cover beside him; on his lap was a drawing-board with rule and compass pencil. Champney realized on the instant, and with a feeling of pleasure, that the priest's presence was no intrusion even at this juncture.
"No, indeed, for it is no longer my preserve," he answered cheerily, and added, with a touch of earnestness that was something of a surprise to himself, "and it wouldn't be if it were still mine."
"Thank you, Mr. Googe; I appreciate that. You must find it hard to see a stranger like myself preëmpting your special claim, as I fancy this one is."
"It used to be when I was a youngster; but, to tell the truth, I haven't cared for it much of late years. The city life spoils a man for this. I love that rush and hustle and rubbing-elbows with the world in general, getting knocked about—and knocking." He laughed merrily, significantly, and Father Honoré, catching his meaning at once, laughed too. "But I'm not telling you any news; of course, you've had it all."
"Yes, all and a surfeit. I was glad to get away to this hill-quiet."
Champney sat down on the thick rusty-red matting of pine needles and turned to him, a question in his eyes. Father Honoré smiled. "What is it?" he said.
"May I ask if it was your own choice coming up here to us?"
"Yes, my deliberate choice. I had to work for it, though. The superior of my order was against my coming. It took moral suasion to get the appointment."
"I don't suppose they wanted to lose a valuable man from the city," said Champney bluntly.
"The question of value is not, happily, a question of environment. I simply felt I could do my best work here in the best way."
"And you didn't consider yourself at all?" Champney put the question, which voiced his thought, squarely.
"Oh, I'm human," he answered smiling at the questioner; "don't make any mistake on that point; and I don't suppose many of us can eliminate self wholly in a matter of choice. I did want to work here because I believe I can do the best work, but I also welcomed the opportunity to get away from the city—it weighs on me, weighs on me," he added, but it sounded as if he were merely thinking aloud.
Champney failed to comprehend him. Father Honoré, raising his eyes, caught the look on the young man's face and interpreted it. He said quietly:
"But then you're twenty-one and I'm forty-five; that accounts for it."
For a moment, but a moment only, Champney was tempted to speak out to this man, stranger as he was. Mr. Van Ostend evidently had confidence in him; why shouldn't he? Perhaps he might help him to decide, and for the best. But even as the thought flashed into consciousness, he was aware of its futility. He was sure the man would repeat only what his mother had said. He did not care to hear that twice. And what was this man to him that he should ask his opinion, appeal to him for advice in directing this step in his career? He changed the subject abruptly.
"I think you said you had met Mr. Van Ostend?"
"Yes, twice in connection with the orphan child, as I told you, and once I dined with him. He has a charming family: his sister and his little daughter. Have you met them?"
"Only once. He has just written me and asked me to join them on his yacht for a trip to Europe." Champney felt he was coasting on the edge, and enjoyed the sport.
"And of course you're going? I can't imagine a more delightful host." Father Honoré spoke with enthusiasm.
But Champney failed to respond in like manner. The priest took note of it.
"I haven't made up my mind;" he spoke slowly; then, smiling merrily into the other's face, "and I came up here to try to make it up."
"And I was here so you couldn't do it, of course!" Father Honoré exclaimed so ruefully that Champney's hearty laugh rang out. "No, no; I didn't mean for you to take it in that way. I'm glad I found you here—I liked what you said about the 'value'."
Father Honoré looked mystified for a moment; his brow contracted in the effort to recall at the moment what he had said about "value", and in what connection; but instead of any further question as to Champney's rather incoherent meaning, he handed him the drawing-board.
"This is the plan for my shack, Mr. Googe. I have written to Mr. Van Ostend to ask if the company would have any objection to my putting it here near these pines. I understand the quarries are to be opened up as far as the cliff, and sometime, in the future, my house will be neighbor to the workers. I suppose then I shall have to 'move on'. I'm going to build it myself."
"All yourself?"
"Why not? I'm a fairly good mason; I've learned that trade, and there is plenty of material, good material, all about." He looked over upon the rock-strewn slopes. "I'm going to use some of the granite waste too." He put his violin into its case and held out his hand for the board. "I'm going now, Mr. Googe; I shall be interested to know your decision as soon as you yourself know about it."
"I'll let you know by to-morrow. I've nearly a day of grace. You play? You are a musician?" he asked, as Father Honoré rose and tucked the violin and drawing-board under his arm.
"My matins," the priest answered, smiling down into the curiously eager face that with the fresh unlined beauty of young manhood was upturned to his. "Good morning." He lifted his hat and walked rapidly away without waiting for any further word from Champney.
"Sure-footed as a mountain goat!" Champney said to himself as he watched him cross the rough hilltop. "I'd like to know where he gets it all!"
He stretched out under the pines, his hands clasped under his head, and fell to thinking of his own affairs, into the as yet undecided course of which the memory of the priest's words, "The question of value is not, happily, a question of environment" fell with the force of gravity.
"I might as well go it blind," he spoke aloud to himself: "it's all a matter of luck into which ring you shy your hat; I suppose it's the 'value', after all, that does it in the end. Besides—"
He did not finish that thought aloud; but he suddenly sat bolt upright, a fist pressed hard on each knee. His face hardened into determination. "By George, what an ass I've been! If I can't do it in one way I can in another.—Hoop! Hooray!"
He turned a somersault then and there; came right side up; cuffed the dazed puppy goodnaturedly and bade him "Come on", which behest the little fellow obeyed to the best of his ability among the rough ways of the sheep walks.
He did not stop at the house, but walked straight down to Flamsted, Rag lagging at his heels. He sent a telegram to New York. Then he went homewards in the broiling sun, carrying the exhausted puppy under his arm. His mother met him on the porch.
"I've just telegraphed Mr. Van Ostend, mother, that I'll be in New York Friday, ready to sail on Saturday."
"My dear boy!" That was all she said then; but she laid her hand on his shoulder when they went in to dinner, and Champney knew she was satisfied.
Two days later, Champney Googe, having bade good-bye to his neighbors, the Caukinses large and small, to Octavius, Ann and Hannah,—Aileen was gone on an errand when he called last at Champ-au-Haut but he left his remembrance to her with the latter—to his aunt, to Joel Quimber and Augustus, to Father Honoré and a host of village well-wishers who, in their joyful anticipation of his future and his fortunes, laid aside all factional differences, said, at last, farewell to Flamsted, to The Corners, The Bow, and his home among the future quarries in The Gore.