184CHAPTER XVIITHE RETURN
It was James Lawrence, the English rancher, and Miss Carrington who told me what happened to those we left behind after the fateful moment when the canoe first slipped clear of the shingle bank. Lawrence accompanied the party on their return journey, and it was he who suggested sending Grace and Miss Carrington across in the canoe. The river ran high that morning, and he felt dubious about the ford, because several pack-horses had already been drowned there.
The first intimation he had of anything wrong was a cry from the girl, and he saw a strip of water widen between the canoe and the bank. He ran his hardest, but made little headway, for thorny bushes and fern formed thickets along the bank, while when he reached the boulders he felt that he had come too late, because no swimmer could then overtake the canoe, even if he escaped destruction in the first rapid immediately below. Nevertheless, after a glance at the drawn face of the girl, which haunted him long afterward, as with the first shock of terror on her she labored helplessly at the paddle, he would even have made the hopeless attempt but that Colonel Carrington, who of all the trio had retained his common sense, intervened. It was not without reason that the Colonel had earned the reputation of being a hard man.
“Come back! Stop him! Geoffrey, are you mad?” he roared; and Lawrence, who had now recovered his wits, flung himself upon a man who, stripping himself to the185waist as he ran, floundered at breakneck speed among the boulders. They went down together heavily, and the next moment the runner had him by the throat, hissing through his teeth, “Let go, you fool, before I murder you!”
Lawrence was strong, however, and held fast half-choked for a moment or two, until the Colonel’s cry reached them again:
“Get up, Geoffrey, you lunatic! Follow, and head them off along the bank!”
The shouts and the confusion had startled his restive horse, and by the time he had mounted the pair were on their feet again stumbling over the boulders or smashing through the undergrowth in a desperate race, with the horse blundering behind them and the canoe ahead. They might possibly have overtaken it except for the rapid, Lawrence said, but it swept like a toboggan down that seething rush, and, as realizing that it was almost hopeless, they held on, there was a clatter on the opposite slope, and they saw me break out at headlong gallop from the woods. They halted when I crawled into the canoe, for we were beyond all human help from that bank now; and, flinging himself from the saddle, Colonel Carrington stood with clenched hands and quivering lips, staring after us, so Lawrence said, out of awful eyes.
“Bravo!” he gasped at length. “He’ll reach the gravel-spit. Another two good strokes—they’re almost in the eddy;” but the next words were frozen on his lips, for the backwash from a boulder swept away the bows of the canoe, and the words that followed came hoarse and brokenly, “My God—he’s too late!”
Colonel Carrington was right, for, as held still and spellbound they watched, the canoe leaped down the entrance rapid and was lost in the mist of the black cañon. The Colonel said nothing further, though he groaned aloud, and186Lawrence did not care to look at him; but Ormond’s face was ashy until a livid fury filled it as he turned upon the rancher.
“Confusion to you! Why must you stop me then?” he demanded.
“You would only have drowned yourself in the rapid and done nobody any good,” Lawrence said.
“I wish to heaven I had,” answered Ormond, with cold deliberateness. “As it is, you have helped that man to rob me again, even at the last, and I would give all I have to change places now with him.”
Then, while Lawrence wondered what he meant, though when I heard the story I fully understood, the head of my horse rose for an instant out of the tumbling waters, sank, and rising, went down again, while a tremor ran through the Colonel’s rigid frame, and he leaned against a hemlock with great beads of sweat on his forehead. The poor beast had doubtless been mangled against a boulder, and the sight was horribly suggestive.
“A very grim man,” said Lawrence, when he narrated what happened; “but I felt most cruelly sorry for him. Didn’t say very much—his sort never do; but he was in mortal anguish, and I knew how he would miss the girl.”
Colonel Carrington was, nevertheless, the first to master his feelings, and his voice was steady once more when he turned to Ormond.
“Geoffrey, you will go back and send my sister round with the Indian by Tomlinson’s crossing. Then you will return and overtake us in the ravine yonder. We are going to follow the crest of the cañon to—to—see what we can find.”
It was a stiff climb up the ravine, trying in places to a mountaineer, but the old man held close behind his companion, and Lawrence wondered at him. He also felt187sorry for Ormond, whose task it was to overtake them, but when at last they hurried breathless through the pinewoods toward the edge of the chasm above the fall, the latter, looking like a ghost, came panting up with them. Then, standing on the dizzy brink, Colonel Carrington gazed down at the spout of green water and the whirling spray, which were dwarfed by the distance.
“That is the greatest danger, that and the whirlpool. Anything would swing round in the eddy, would it not?” he said. “Now, I want only the truth—you understand these rivers—could any white man take a canoe down there and through the pool safely?” and Lawrence, who dare not prevaricate with that gaze upon him, answered reluctantly, “I do not think so.”
The Colonel’s thin face twitched. “I thank you. No other possible landing place or foothold, is there? And it would take a day to go back to Tomlinson’s and portage a canoe. Well, we’ll go on to the end in a last hope that they have got through.”
Now climbing is difficult in that region, because where the mountain slopes do not consist of almost precipitous snow-ground rock, they are clothed with forest and dense undergrowth, and it was therefore some time before the three had traversed the league or so that divided the summit from the outlet valley. Neither when they got there did they find the canoe, because when I helped Grace ashore I did not care where it went, and, once on terra firma she fainted suddenly, and then lay for a time sobbing on my shoulder in a state of nervous collapse. As she said, though a brave one, she was after all only a woman, and what had happened would have tested the endurance of many a man. At last, however, I managed to help her up a ravine leading down to the river, after which she leaned heavily on my arm as we plodded through the forest until we reached a188small rancher’s shanty, where, as the owner was absent, I took the liberty of lighting his stove and preparing hot tea. Then I left Grace to dry her garments.
We must have spent several hours at the ranch, for Grace was badly shaken, and I felt that rest was needful for both of us, while, when I returned to the cabin after drying myself in the sun, she lay back in a hide-chair sleeping peacefully. So while the shadows of the firs lengthened across the clearing I sat very still, until with a light touch I ventured to rouse her. She woke with a gasp of horror, looked around with frightened eyes, then clung to me, and I knelt beside the chair with my arms about her, until at last with a happy little laugh she said:
“Ralph, I have lost my character, and you know I am a coward at heart; but, and until to-day I should not have believed it, it is so comforting to know I have a—I have you to protect me.” Then she laid her hand on my brow, adding gently, “Poor forehead that was wounded in my service! But it is getting late, Ralph, and my father will be feverishly anxious about me.”
Grace was right in this, because, long before we borrowed the rancher’s Cayuse pony and set out again, Colonel Carrington and the others reached the bank of the river, and saw only a broad stretch of muddy current racing beneath the rigid branches of the firs. Then after they had searched the few shingle bars—the one we landed on was by this time covered deeply—the old man sat down on a boulder apart from the rest, and neither dare speak to him, though Lawrence heard him say softly to himself:
“My daughter—my daughter! I would to God I might join her.”
They turned homeward in solemn silence, though perhaps a last spark of hope burned in the Colonel’s breast that by some wholly unexpected chance we had reached it before189they did, because Lawrence said he seemed to make a stern effort to restrain himself when they saw only Miss Carrington sitting dejectedly near the window. Thereupon Lawrence was glad to escape, and Ormond, who rode out to gather the miners for a systematic search, left them mercifully alone.
Afterward the old man brokenly narrated what had passed, and then there was a heavy silence in the room, out of which the sunlight slowly faded, until, as Miss Carrington told me, the ticking of a nickeled clock grew maddening. At last she rose and flung the window open wide, and the sighing of the pines drifted in mournfully with a faint coolness that came down from the snow. Meantime, Colonel Carrington paced with a deadly regularity up and down, neither speaking nor glancing at her, until he started as a faint beat of horse hoofs came out of the shadows.
“Only Geoffrey returning!” he said bitterly. “But I have been listening, listening every moment for the last hour. It is utterly hopeless, I know, and we must bear the last black sorrow that has fallen upon us; but yet I cannot quite believe her dead.”
The tramp of hoofs grew nearer, and the Colonel leaned out through the open casement with the hand that gripped its ledge quivering.
“That is an Indian pony, not Geoffrey’s horse, and a man on foot is leading it,” he said. “They are coming this way; I will meet them.”
Miss Carrington, however, laid a restraining grasp upon him, and very slowly the clock ticked off the seconds until, when two figures came out through the thinning forest into the clearing, the Colonel’s face grew white as death. For a moment he choked for breath, and his sister sobbed aloud when he recovered himself, for she too had seen.
“I thank a merciful Providence—it is Grace,” he said.190
I lifted Grace from the pony’s back, led her toward the house, and saw the old man fold his arms about her. Then I heard her happy cry, and while for a time they forgot all about me, I stood holding the pony’s rein and thinking. My first impulse was to go forward and claim her before them, but that was too much like taking advantage of her father’s relief. Also, I felt that some things are sacred, and the presence of any stranger would be an intrusion then, while it seemed hardly fitting to forthwith demand such a reward for what any other should doubtless have done gladly. So, trusting that Grace would understand, I turned away, determined to call on the Colonel the next morning, and, though I am not sure that the result would otherwise have been different, I afterward regretted it. Now I know that any excess of delicacy or consideration for others which may cause unnecessary sorrow to those nearest us is only folly.
No one called me back, or apparently noticed me, and though with much difficulty I reached the ranch, and was hospitably entertained there, I never closed my eyes all night. I returned to the Colonel’s dwelling as early as possible the next morning, and was at once received by him. The events of the preceding day had left their impression even on him, and for once his eyes were kindly, while it was with perceptible emotion he grasped my hand.
“I am indebted to you for life, and you acted with discernment as well as gallantry,” he said. “You have an old man’s fervent thanks, and if he can ever repay such a service you may rely on his gratitude.”
I do not know why, for they were evidently sincere enough, but the words struck me unpleasantly. They seemed to emphasize the difference between us, and there was only one favor I would ever ask of him.
“You can return it now with the greatest honor it is191in your power to grant any living man,” I answered bluntly. “I ask the promise of Miss Carrington’s hand.”
I feel sure now that there was pity in his eyes for a moment, though I scarcely noticed it then, and he answered gravely:
“I am sorry. You have asked the one thing impossible. When Miss Carrington marries it will be in accordance with my wishes and an arrangement made with a dead kinsman long ago.”
I think he would have continued, but that I broke in: “But I love her, and she trusts me. Ever since I came to this country I have been fighting my way upward with this one object in view. We are both young, sir, and I shall not always be poor—” but here he stopped me with a gesture, repeating dryly, “I am sorry for you.”
He paced the long room twice before he again turned toward me, saying with a tone of authority, “Sit down there. I am not in the habit of explaining my motives, but I will make an exception now. My daughter has been brought up luxuriously, as far as circumstances permitted, and in her case they permitted it in a measure even on the prairie—I arranged it so. She has scarcely had a wish I could not gratify, and at Carrington Manor her word was law. I need hardly say she ordered wisely.”
I bent my head in token of comprehension and agreement as the speaker paused, and then, with a different and incisive inflection, he continued:
“And what would her life be with you? A constant battle with hardship and penury on a little prairie farm, where with her own hands she must bake and wash and sew for you, or, even worse, a lonely waiting in some poor lodging while you were away months together railroad building. Is this the lot you would propose for her? Now, and there is no reason I should explain why, after my death there will192be little left her besides an expensive and occasionally unprofitable farm, and so I have had otherwise to provide for her future!”
“There are, however, two things you take for granted,” I interposed again; “that I shall never have much to offer her—and in this I hope you may be wrong—and Miss Carrington’s acquiescence in your plans.”
The old grim smile flickered in the Colonel’s eyes as he answered: “Miss Carrington will respect her father’s wishes—she has never failed to do so hitherto—and I do not know that there is much to be made out of such railroad contracts as your present one.”
This was certainly true enough, and I winced under the allusion before I made a last appeal.
“Then suppose, sir, that after all fortune favored me, and there was some reason why what you look for failed to come about—all human expectation, human life itself, is uncertain—would you then withhold your consent?”
He looked at me keenly a moment, saying nothing, and it was always unpleasant to withstand the semi-ironical gaze of Colonel Carrington, though I had noticed a slight movement when quite at random I alluded to the uncertainty of life. Then he answered slowly:
“I think in that case we could discuss all this again, though it would be better far for you to consider my refusal as definite. Now I have such confidence in my daughter’s obedience that on the one condition that you do not seek to prejudice her against me I do not absolutely forbid your seeing Miss Carrington—on occasion—but you must write no letters, and you may take it as a compliment that I should tell you I have acted only as seemed best in her interest. Neither should it be needful to inform you that she will never marry without my consent. And now, reiterating193my thanks, I fail to see how anything would be gained by prolonging this interview.”
I knew from his face that this was so, and that further words might be a fatal mistake, and I went out hurriedly, forgetting, I am afraid, to return his salutation, though when I met his sister she glanced at me with sympathy as she pointed toward another door. When I entered this Grace rose to meet me. The time we spent in the cañon had drawn us closer together than many months of companionship might have done, and it was with no affectation of bashful diffidence that she beckoned me to a place beside her on the casement logs, saying simply, “You have bad news, sweetheart. Tell me everything.”
Her father had exacted no promise about secrecy. Indeed, if the arrangement mentioned compromised a prospective husband, as I thought it did, Grace was doubtless fully acquainted with it; and I told her what had passed. Then she drew herself away from me.
“And is there nothing to be added? Have you lost your usual eloquence?” she said.
“Yes,” I continued, “I was coming to it. It is this: while I live I will never abandon the hope of winning you; and, with such a hope, whatever difficulty must be grappled with first, I know that some day I shall do it.”
“And,” said Grace, with a heightened color, and her liquid eyes shining, “is there still nothing else?” And while I glanced at her in a bewildered fashion she continued, “Do you, like my father, take my consent for granted? Well, I will give it to you. Ralph, while you are living, and after, if you must go a little before I do, I will never look with favor upon any man. Meantime, sweetheart—for, as he said, I will not resist my father’s will, save only in one matter—you must work and I must wait, trusting in what194the future may bring. And so—you must leave me now; and it may be long before I see you. Go, and God bless you, taking my promise with you.”
She laid her little hand in mine, and I bent down until the flushed face was level with my own. When I found myself in the open air again, I strode through the scented shadows triumphantly. The Colonel’s opposition counted as nothing then. I was sanguine and young, and I knew, because she had said it, that until I had worsted fortune Grace Carrington would wait for me.
195CHAPTER XVIIITHE OPENING OF THE LINE
During the weeks that followed I saw neither Grace nor Colonel Carrington—though the latter fact did not cause me unnecessary grief, and we heard much about his doings. From what the independent miners who strolled into our camp at intervals told us, the Day Spring shaft had proved a costly venture, and had so far failed to lay bare any traces of payable milling ore. Still, the redoubtable Colonel continued with his usual tenacity, and was now driving an adit into the range side to strike the quartz reef at another level.
“There’s a blamed sight more gold going into them diggings than they’ll ever get out, and the man who is running them will make a big hole in somebody’s bank account,” said one informant meditatively. “However, there’s no use wasting time trying to give him advice. I strolled round one morning promiscuous, and sat down in his office. ‘See here, Colonel, you’re ploughing a bad patch,’ I says, ‘and having a knowledge of good ones I might tell you something if I prowled through your workings.’”
“What did he say?” asked Harry, smiling at me. And the narrator expectorated disgustedly as he answered:
“Just turned round and stared—kind of combine between a ramrod and an icicle. ‘Who the perdition are you?’ he said—or he looked it, anyway. So, seeing him above a friendly warning, I lit out, feeling sheep-faced; and I’ve bluffed some hard men in my time. Since then I’ve196been rooting round, and I’m concluding there is good ore in that mountain, if he could strike it.”
“Do you know the sheep-faced feeling, Ralph?” asked Harry mischievously. And probably my frown betrayed me, because I knew it well, though there was some consolation in the thought that this reckless wanderer of the ranges knew it also.
In any case, I had small leisure just then to trouble about the affairs of Colonel Carrington. My duty to my partners and the men who worked for us was sufficiently onerous, for we had almost daily to grapple with some fresh natural difficulty. Twice a snow-slide awakened majestic thunders among the hills at night and piled the wreckage of the forests high upon the track. Massy boulders charged down the slopes and smashed the half-finished snow-shed framing into splinters; but, rod by rod, the line stretched on, and the surveyor’s good-will increased toward us. So the short weeks passed, until at last the metals led into the mining town, and its inhabitants made preparations to provide a fitting reception for the first train, the arrival of which would mark a turning-point in the wooden city’s history. I can remember each incident of that day perfectly, because it also marked the change from ebb to flood in the tide of our own affairs. We sat up late the previous night calculating the amount to our debit, which proved sufficiently discouraging, and endeavoring to value on the credit side work we had done in excess of contract; but this, Harry said, was reckoning without our host, as represented by the surveyor, who, when we approached him on the subject, displayed a becoming reticence.
It was a glorious afternoon when we stood waiting beside the track, attired for once in comparatively decent garments. Harry and I had spent several hours in ingenious repairs, one result of which was that certain seams would project197above the surface in spite of our efforts to restrain them. Beneath us the foaming river made wild music in its hidden gorge, and the roar of a fall drifted up with the scent of cedars across the climbing pines, while above the hill-slopes led the gaze upward into the empyrean. But there is no need for description; we were in the mountains of British Columbia, and it was summertime.
Near at hand many banners fluttered over the timber city, and discordant strains announced the last rehearsal of the miner’s band, while a throng of stalwart men laughed and jested as they gazed expectantly up the line. They had cause for satisfaction. All had waited long and patiently, paying treble value for what they used or ate, and struggling with indifferent implements to uncover the secret treasure of the ranges. Now their enterprise would not be handicapped by the lack of either plant or capital, for the promise given had been redeemed, and with the advent of the locomotive they looked for the commencement of a great prosperity.
My face, however, was somber, for Harry made some jesting comparison between it and that of a mourner at a funeral. We, too, had done our share in the building of the road, but, as far as we could see, it had signally failed to bring us prosperity.
“You can console yourself with the feeling that it’s good to be a public benefactor, even if you don’t get any money,” said Harry cheerfully. “Did it ever strike you, Ralph, that the people who subscribe for statues make a bad choice of their models? Instead of the frock-coated director they should set up the man with the shovel—Ralph Lorimer, rampant, clad in flour bags, and heaving aloft the big axe, for instance, with the appropriate motto round the pedestal under him, ’Virtue is its own reward.’ No, I’m in charge of the pulpit this afternoon, Lee.”198
What the shoemaker intended to say did not appear, for he smilingly abandoned the opportunity for improving the occasion. He had put on flesh and vigor, and now, instead of regarding him as a flippant worldling, which was formerly his plainly expressed opinion, he even looked up in a curious way toward my partner, and once informed me that there was a gradely true soul in him under his nonsense. The spell of the mountains and the company of broad-minded cheerful toilers had between them done a good deal for Lee. Then up on the hillside a strip of bunting fluttered from the summit of a blighted pine, the cry “She’s coming!” rolled from man to man, and there was a thunderous crash as some one fired a heavy blasting charge. A plume of white vapor rose at the end of the valley, and twinkling metal flashed athwart the pines, while a roar of voices broke out and my own heart beats faster in the succeeding stillness. Enthusiasm is contagious, and a feeling of elation grew upon me. Nearer and nearer came the cars, and when they lurched clattering up the last grade the snorting of the huge locomotive and the whir of flying wheels made very sweet music to those who heard them.
Then as, with the red, quartered ensign fluttering above the head-lamp and each end platform crowded, the train passed the last construction camp, a swarm of blue-shirted toilers cast their hats into the air, and the scream of the brakes was drowned in a mighty cheer, while I found myself cheering vehemently among the rest. The blasts ceased at the funnel, and as the slackening couplings clashed while the cars rolled slowly through the eddying dust I started in amaze, for there were two faces at the unglazed windows of the decorated observation car which I knew well, but had never expected to see there. Martin Lorimer waved his hand toward me as the train stopped, my cousin Alice stood199beside him smiling a greeting, and with shame I remembered how long it was since I had sent news to her.
“Have you seen a ghost?” asked Harry. “You are a regular Don Juan. Who is that dainty damsel you are honoring with such marked attention, to the neglect of your lawful business. Don’t you see the surveyor is beckoning you?”
This was true, for, standing among a group of elderly men who I supposed were railway magnates or guests of importance, the surveyor, to my astonishment, called me by name.
“I have been looking for you all along the track,” he said. “Must present you to these gentlemen. We have been discussing your work.”
Several of the party shook hands with me frankly, while the names the surveyor mentioned were already well-known in Winnipeg and Montreal, and have since become famous throughout the Dominion. One with gray hair and an indefinable stamp of authority touched my shoulder with a friendly gesture. “I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lorimer before,” he said. “We have some business together, and expect you to join us in the opening ceremony. Meantime, you will excuse me—Jardine, I’m thankful it is your turn. There is evidently a deputation coming.”
Preceded by tossing banners, and a band which made up in vigor what it lacked in harmony, a procession approached the train, and its leader commenced reading something awkwardly from a written paper in time to an undercurrent of semi-ironical encouragement. I saw some of the visitors’ eyes twinkle at his sentiments, but for the most part they listened with becoming gravity; and when a man with gold eyeglasses had suitably replied, there was a wild scuffle for even a foothold on the train. One musician smote another,200who strove to oust him from a platform, with his cornet, which promptly doubled in; the big drum rolled down a declivity with its owner hurling back wild language in frantic chase of it; then the locomotive snorted, and, with the bell clanging, it hauled the first train into the wooden town amid the acclamations of the populace. After this I had an opportunity for greeting my uncle, and we looked at each other with mutual curiosity. Martin Lorimer seemed thinner and older. His hair was freely sprinkled with white now, but his eyes were as keen as ever, and I could read approval in them. Then as Alice came toward us from an adjoining car he laughed boisterously.
“What do you think of your cousin, lass?” he said. “He left us an obstinate stripling, and this country has hammered him into a man. Thou art a credit to the land that bred thee, lad. Ralph, I wronged thee sorely, like the blundering fool I am, and first of all I ask thy forgiveness.”
Martin Lorimer could speak excellent modern English when he liked, and usually did so, but, and in this he resembled others of his kind, in times of excitement he used the older form which is still the tongue of Lancashire. I made some haphazard answer, but it seemed appropriate, for Alice smiled upon us as we shook hands heartily. When I turned toward her a feeling of pity came upon me—she looked so wan and frail. Still her eyes were bright with good-will, and her voice seemed to tremble a little as she said, “I am so glad to see you and your uncle good friends again. He was very stupid, and I told him so.”
“You did, lass,” said Martin Lorimer, “many a time, and we had words upon it. We’re a thick-headed people, Ralph, except for our womenkind, and if we’re slow to think evil we’re slow to change. The Lord forgive me for pig-headed folly.”
“May I show you this wonderful township?” interrupted201one of the railroad magnates approaching with a bow. “Mr. Ralph Lorimer, I am desired to invite you to the celebration dinner. It’s the chief’s especial wish that you should be present,” and he drew Alice away, leaving my uncle and myself alone.
“We’ll go and see the city, too,” said the former. “Already the air of your mountains makes me young again. Never heard how I cheated the doctors, eh?—they badly wanted to bury me, but I’ll tell you all about it another time. Now I feel like a school lad out for a holiday.”
He seemed in excellent spirits, and with me the bright sunshine, the uproarious rejoicings of the crowd, and the events of the past half-hour combined to banish all depression, while many an acquaintance smiled as he glanced at the grizzled man in tourist tweeds who chatted gaily and gazed about him with wondering eyes.
“You breed fine men over here,” he said. “Never saw a finer set anywhere. Bless me! look at that one striding toward us with the air of a general; stamp of blood about him; where did he get it? And yet by the look of him that fellow could do a hard day’s work with any British navvy.”
“He can,” I answered smiling, “and he was taught at a British university. Now he hews logs for a living, and sometimes works for me. Let me introduce you to my uncle from Lancashire, Martin Lorimer—Lance Chisholm.”
“Very glad to meet you, sir,” said the latter. “I promised to look in on Morgan in the saloon; will you join us?”
When we elbowed our way through the noisy room toward the bar Chisholm proffered the usual refreshment, and with a comprehensive wave of his hand bade the tender, “Set them up!”
Martin Lorimer stared bewilderedly at the row of glasses deftly flung in front of him, and there was a roar of laughter202when, glancing at me appealingly, he said, “It’s a hospitable country; but, bless us, Ralph! are we expected to drink all of this? And I’m a churchwarden!”
A bearded giant in blue jean smote him on the shoulder. “You’ve got the right grit in you, stranger,” he said. “Start right in, and do the best you can,” while the old man joined in the merriment when I explained that the invitation included all in the vicinity who cared to accept it. I left him with Harry and Johnston presently because one of the guests brought word that Alice desired to see me, and I found her on the veranda of the best house the citizens could place at the strangers’ disposal. There were ladies among them. I drew two chairs into a corner where a flowering creeper screened half the trellis, and from where we sat a wonderful vista rolled away before us. Alice had changed but little, save that she seemed even more delicate. I had changed much, and now as we chatted with a resumption of ancient friendliness I wondered how it was that her innate goodness and wisdom had never impressed me more in the old days. Few would have called her handsome at first sight, but she was dowered with qualities that were greater than beauty.
“You will wonder what brought us here,” she said at length, “and your uncle forgot to tell you. Ever after that—unfortunate mistake—he talked constantly about our headstrong lad, but when he lay dangerously ill for weeks together I was unable to write you. The doctors had little hope most of the time, and one said he recovered chiefly because he had made his mind up he would not die, and when they forbade all thought of business and recommended travel he made me buy the latest map of Canada, and we are now staying at the new mountain chalet. My own health has not improved latterly, and that helped to decide him. We left the main line on the prairie and went south in search of you, and when we could only discover that you had gone to203British Columbia I am sorry to say that my father expressed his disappointment very forcibly—but you know his way. Then while we stayed at the chalet we read about the opening of the new line, and he grew excited at a mention of your name. ‘We’ll go right down and see that opening, lass,’ he said. ‘I’ve a letter to one of the railroad leaders, and I’ll make him invite us;’ and so we came. When my father sets his heart on anything he generally obtains it. Now we will talk about Canada.”
The flowering creeper partly hid us, but it left openings between, framing the prospect of glittering peak and forest-filled valley with green tracery, while warm sunlight beat through. So, in contrast to the past, I found it comforting to lounge away the time there with a fair companion, while glancing down the glistening metals I told how we had built the line. Alice was a good listener, and the tale may have had its interest, while—and this is not wholly due to vanity—no man talks better than when he speaks to a sympathizing woman of the work that he is proud of. It was no disloyalty to Grace, but when once or twice she laid her thin hand on my arm I liked to have it there, and see the smile creep into her eyes when I told of Lee’s doings. So the minutes fled, until at last a shadow fell upon us, and I saw Grace pass close by with her father. For an instant her eyes met mine, then I felt that they rested on my companion, whose head was turned toward me confidentially and away from Grace, and I fumed inwardly, for she spoke to the Colonel and passed on without a greeting.
“That is surely Miss Carrington,” said Alice looking up later with a faintly perceptible trace of resentment. “Why did she not speak to either of us?”
It was a troublesome question, because I could not well explain what my exact relations were with Grace, nor how her father’s presence might perhaps restrain her, so that I204was glad when Martin Lorimer suddenly joined us. It seemed fated that circumstances should array themselves against me. The rest of the afternoon was spent in hilarious merriment, and, though as a rule the inhabitants of that region are a peaceful folk, a few among them celebrated the occasion by breaking windows with pistol shots and similar vagaries. Still, even those who owned the glass took it in good part; and, as darkness fell, considerably more of the populace than it was ever intended to hold squeezed themselves into the wooden building which served as city hall, while the rest sat in the dust outside it, and cheered for no particular reason at regular intervals.
The best banquet the district could furnish was served in the hall, and I sat opposite the surveyor near the head of one table, with my uncle and Alice close by, and Grace and Colonel Carrington not far away. Cedar sprays and branches of balsam draped the pillars, the red folds of the beaver ensign hung above our heads, and as usual the assembly was democratic in character. Men in broadcloth and in blue jean sat side by side—rail-layer, speculator, and politician crowded on one another, with stalwart axe-men, some of whom were better taught than either, and perhaps a few city absconders, to keep them company; but there was only good-fellowship between them. The enthusiasm increased with each orator’s efforts, until the surveyor made in his own brusque fashion, which was marked by true Western absence of bashfulness, the speech of the evening. Some one who had once served the English press sent a report to a Victoria journal, of which I have a copy, but no print could reproduce the essence of the man’s vigorous personality which vibrated through it.
“What built up the Western Dominion, called leagues of wheat from the prairie, and opened the gate of the mountains—opened it wide to all, with a welcome to the Pacific205Slope paradise?” he said. “The conundrum’s easy—just the railroad. Good markets and mills, say the city men, but where do the markets come in if you can’t get at them? What is it that’s binding London over the breadth of Canada with China and Japan—only the level steel road. You said, ‘We’ve gold and silver and timber, but we’re wanting bread, machines, and men.’ We said, ‘We’ll send the locomotives; it will bring you them;’ and this railroad keeps its promise—keeps it every time. So we cut down the forest, and we blew up the mighty rocks, we drove a smooth pathway through the heart of the ranges—and now its your part to fill the freight cars to the bursting.
“We’ll bring you good men in legions; we’ll take out your high-grade ore, but you’ll remember that the building of this railroad wasn’t all luxury. Some of those who laid the ties sleep soundly beside them, some lost their money, and now when you have thanked the leaders in Ottawa, Montreal, and Victoria, there are others to whom your thanks are due—the men who stayed right there with their contracts in spite of fire and snow, staking dollar after dollar on a terribly risky game. There were considerable of them, but most of you know this one—I’m sharing my laurels with him—” and as a thunder of applause which followed the halt he made died away he turned toward me. “Stand right up, Contractor Lorimer—they’re shouting for you.”
There was further clamor, but I scarcely heard it, and I longed that the floor of the hall might open beneath me. Still, there was clearly no escape, and I stood up under the lamplight, noticing, as one often notices trifles at such times, how like a navvy’s my right hand was as it trembled a little on the white tablecloth. A sea of faces were turned toward me expectantly, and I pitied their owners’ disappointment, but I saw only four persons plainly—my uncle, and Alice, who flashed an encouraging glance at me, Colonel206Carrington looking up with a semi-ironical smile, and Grace. I could not tell what her expression meant.
I should sooner have faced a forest fire than that assembly, but at least my remarks were brief, and I felt on firmer ground when memories of the rock-barred track and the lonely camps rose up before me, and there was a shout at the lame conclusion, “We gave our bond and we tried to keep it, as the rest did too. We were poor men, all of us, and we are poor men still; but every one owes something to the land that gives him bread. So we tried to pay back a little, and perhaps we failed; but at least the road is made, and we look forward hoping that a full tide of prosperity will flow into this country along the rails we laid.”
The applause swelled and deepened when Harry Lorraine stood up, silver-tongued, graceful, smiling, and called forth roars of laughter by his happy wit; and when he had finished Martin Lorimer, who was red in the face, stretched his arm across the table toward me, and held up a goblet, saying: “For the honor of the old country! Well done, both of you!”
“The fun is nearly over. We can talk business,” said the gray-haired man from Winnipeg, on my right side. “I may say that we are satisfied with the way you have served us, and, though a bargain is a bargain, we don’t wish to take an unfair advantage of any one; so the surveyor will meet you over the extras. He is waiting with the schedule, and by his advice we’re open to let you this contract for hewn lumber supplies. Here’s a rough memo; the quantity is large, and that is our idea of a reasonable figure.”
I glanced at the paper with open pleasure, but the other checked me as I began to speak.
“Glad you will take it! It’s a commercial transaction, and not a matter of thanks,” he said. “Settle details with the surveyor.”207
I spent some time with the latter, who smiled dryly as he said, “Not quite cleaned out yet? Well, it’s seldom wise to be too previous, and you can’t well come to grief over the new deal. Wanted again, confound them! Sail in and prosper, Lorimer.”
He left a payment order which somewhat surprised me, and when I stood under the stars wondering whether all that had happened was not too good to be true, Harry came up in search of me. I grabbed him by the shoulder and shook the paper before him.
“Our friend has acted more than fairly,” I said. “We can pay off all debts, and I have just concluded a big new, profitable deal!”
“That will keep,” said Harry, laughing; “another matter won’t. They’re going to haul out the visitors’ picnic straight away, and they show good judgment. A sleeper on the main line will form a much more peaceful resting-place than this elated hamlet to-night. Your uncle wants to see you, and Miss Carrington is waiting beside the cars.”
I found Alice and Martin Lorimer beside the track, the latter fuming impatiently, while the locomotive bell summoned the passengers; and as I joined them Grace walked into the group before she recognized us. Alice was the first to speak, and I saw the two faces plainly under the lighted car windows, as she said:
“I am glad to meet you again, Miss Carrington, and am sorry I missed you this afternoon. I was too busy giving my cousin good advice—it’s a privilege I have enjoyed from childhood—to recognize you at first.”
Grace’s expression changed, and I thanked Alice in my heart for what I believe few women would have done. Then there was a shriek of the whistle, and a bustle about the train; and as Grace moved toward the car she said softly in passing:208
“It was a fitting consummation. Better times are coming, Ralph, and I am proud of you.”
“Am I never to speak to thee, lad?” said Martin. “There’s nothing would please me better than to wait and see the fun out; but Alice, she won’t hear of it. Come to see us, and stay a month if you can. Anyway, come to-morrow or the day after. I have lots to tell thee. Oh, hang them! they’re starting. Alice, wouldn’t that lady take charge of thee while I stay back?”
“Get into the car, father,” said the girl, with a laugh. “You mustn’t forget you’re the people’s warden. Good-bye, Ralph, until we see you at the chalet.”
“All aboard!” called a loud voice; the couplings tightened; and I waved my hat as, followed by a last cheer, the train rolled away.
“Is it true that all has been settled satisfactorily?” asked Harry, presently, and when I answered, he added: “Then we’re going back to finish the evening. Johnston’s to honor the company with stump speeches and all kinds of banjo eccentricities. You are getting too sober and serious, Ralph; come along.”
I refused laughingly, and spent at least an hour walking up and down through the cool dimness that hung over the track to dissipate the excitement of a day of varied emotions. Then I went back to our shanty and slept soundly, until about daybreak I was partly wakened by the feasters returning with discordant songs, though I promptly went to sleep again. I never heard exactly what happened in the wooden town that night, but there was wreckage in its streets the next morning, and when I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was our partner Johnston slumbering peacefully with his head among the fragments of his shattered banjo.
209CHAPTER XIXA GENEROUS OFFER
It was late in the afternoon of the next day when Harry and I sat figuring in our shanty, while Johnston lay on a heap of cedar twigs sucking at his pipe and encouraging us languidly.
“I never could stand figures, and that’s perhaps why I’m poor,” he said. “Go on, you are doing famously, and, though Ralph can’t add up correctly to save his life, I’ll take your word for it.”
He formed a characteristic picture of the free lance as he lay there, bronzed and blonde-bearded, with his massy limbs disposed in an attitude of easy grace, awaiting the result with a careless unconcern until Harry flung a long boot at him as a signal for silence.
“As the surveyor told you, Ralph, we can’t well lose money on this last venture, even if we wanted to,” said Harry at length. “You’ll observe I’m almost getting superstitious. Now, on cashing the order, we can repay your loan, keeping back sufficient to meet emergencies, while with the rest one of us could return to Fairmead and plough every available acre for next spring’s sowing. Many things suggest that you are the one to go. Johnston and I with the others could get the timber out during the winter—we have worked in the snow before—and I would join you in the spring. That, however, again raises a point that must be settled once for all. Are we to hold on to our first ambition, or turn contractors?”210
Again there was a silence through which the roar of the river reached us brokenly, and for some minutes I breathed the smell of hot dust and resinous twigs that entered the open doorway.
“I hold on to the first,” I said finally.
“And I stand by you,” answered Harry.
Simultaneously we glanced at Johnston, who looked up with the same gay indifference he had manifested when we floundered half-fed, knee-deep in slush of snow. “I’ll save you unpleasant explanations,” he said. “I’m a stormy petrel, and the monotonous life of a farmer would pall on me, so I’ll see you through the railroad contract, and then—well, I’ll thank you for a space of pleasant comradeship, and go on my way again. The mountain province is sufficiently good for me, and some day I’ll find either a gold mine in it, or, more likely, a grave. If not, you can count on a visit whenever I am hard up and hungry.”
The words were typical of the man, though their undercurrent of melancholy troubled me; but, for we knew he spoke the truth in regard to the farming, the matter was settled so. I should much have preferred that Harry return to Fairmead, but it was clear that the task most suited me. Perhaps Johnston guessed my reluctance, for he said playfully: “Is not banishment worse than snow slides or the high peak’s frost, and what are all the flowers of the prairie to the blood-red rose of the valley that was grafted from Lancastrian stock?”
Thereupon Harry deftly dropped an almost-empty flour bag on his head, and the consultation broke up amid a cloud of white dust.
“This,” remarked Johnston, “is the beginning of riches. Two days ago, he would have carefully swept up the fragments to make flapjacks.”
Thus it came about that the next morning I boarded the211main line express, and traveled first-class with a special pass, while as luck would have it the conductor, who evinced an unusual civility when he glanced at the autograph thereon, was the same man I had worsted the memorable night when I arrived a penniless stranger on the prairie. “If you want anything in these cars, just let me know,” he said.
“I will,” I answered, thrusting back the wide-brimmed hat as I looked at him. “The last time we traveled together you were not so accommodating. We had a little dispute at Elktail one night in the snow.”
“General Jackson!” exclaimed the conductor. “But you didn’t travel with that name on your ticket then. Say, it was all a mistake and in the way of business. You won’t bear malice?”
He vanished without awaiting an answer, and I leaned back on the cushions chuckling softly, after which, fishing out my pipe, I sank into a soothing reverie. There was no doubt that this kind of traveling had its advantages, and it appeared equally certain that I had earned a few days’ luxurious holiday, while, as the blue wreaths curled up, the towering pines outside the windows changed into the gaunt chimneys of smoky Lancashire. Then they dwindled to wind-dwarfed birches, and I was lashing the frantic broncos as they raced the hail for the shelter of a bluff, until once more it seemed to be autumn and a breadth of yellow wheat stood high above the prairie, while the rhythmic beat of wheels changed to the rattle of the elevators lifting in the golden grain. Here, however, roused by a scream of the whistle as the long train swept by a little station, I found that the pipe lay among feathery ashes on my knee, and an hour had passed, while I knew that under the touch of sleep my thoughts had turned mechanically into the old channel.
It was toward noon when I left the cars at a station looking down upon a broad reach of sunlit river which212wound past maples, willows, and a few clearings through a deep valley. Martin Lorimer and Alice met me on the platform, and his greeting was hearty.
“We have watched every train since we last saw you,” he said. “Alice, though she won’t own it, has been anxious, too. Never spent such an interesting time as I did up yonder, and we’re going to make it pleasant for you here. Of course, you’ll stay with us a week or two?”
The old man’s face fell as I answered that time was pressing, and I must return the following day, while for some reason Alice turned her face aside, but she laughed pleasantly.
“Your uncle has been talking of nothing else the last two days,” she said. “I am glad I did not leave him with those wild men in the rejoicing city. Some of them, however, seemed very nice. Meanwhile, I think lunch is waiting for us.”
We reached the pretty chalet hotel, which was hardly completed then, though it is a famous resort now, and it was a new experience, after faring hardly on doughy flapjacks and reistit pork of our own cooking, to sit at a well-ordered table covered with spotless linen. Still better did it seem to see Alice smiling upon me across the flowers in the glasses and sparkling silver, and Martin Lorimer’s cheery face as, while he pressed the good things upon me, we chatted of old times and England. It is only through adversity and hardship that one learns to appreciate fully such an interlude.
My uncle had, however, not yet recovered his strength, and when later his eyes grew heavy Alice whispered that he usually slept in the heat of the afternoon, and I was glad to follow her into a garden newly hewn out of the forest. We sat there in scented shadow under the branches of giant redwoods, with the song of rippling water in our ears, and I remember taking Alice into my confidence about the mysterious213loan. She listened with interest, and once more I noticed how ill she looked.
“You have more good friends than you think, Ralph; and it was of service to you, was it not?”
“Yes,” I answered with emphasis. “Of the greatest service! Perhaps it saved us from ruin, but at first I almost decided not to touch it.”
Alice laughed, a clear laugh that mingled musically with the call of a wood pigeon in the green dimness above.
“You need hardly tell me that—all great men have their weaknesses; but seriously, Ralph, don’t you think if the good friend desired to keep it a secret it is hardly fair to try to find him out? No, from what you tell me, I hardly think you will unravel the mystery while the donor—lender, I mean—lives. Besides, even if you never do, you can repay it by assisting some hard-pressed comrade in distress. Yes, I should fancy the person who lent it would prefer that way. However, I want to tell you about your sister Aline. She has grown into a handsome young woman, too handsome almost to fight her own way unprotected in the world, but she is like yourself in some respects, and will neither live with us nor let your uncle help her. She is teaching now—do you know what women are paid for teaching in some private schools? And I don’t think she is happy. The last time I saw her I almost cried afterward, though she would only tell me that she was choking for sunlight and air. Even her dress was worn and shabby. Ralph, you know how old friends we are, and I have been wondering—you really must be sensible—whether I could help her through you?”
Something stung me to the quick, and I clenched one hand savagely, for in the grim uphill battle I had nearly forgotten Aline. It was so long since I had seen her, and when each day’s hard work was done we were almost too tired to think. Still, my brow was crimson with shame when I remembered214that my sister went, it might be, scantily fed, while what plans I made were all for my own future and Grace.
“That is my part,” I answered hotly. “She should have written frankly to her brother.”
Alice stopped me. “You do not understand women, Ralph, and she knew that you too were struggling. Neither do I see how you can help her now, and it would be a favor to me. It is beyond the power of any vigorous man with a task for every moment to realize what it means to sit still weak and helpless and know that even wealth cannot bring respite from constant pain. Active pleasure, work and health have been denied me by fate, and my life cannot be a long one. It may be very short, though your uncle will not allow himself to believe it, and I long to do a little good while I can. Ralph, won’t you help me?”
With a shock, I realized that she spoke only the plain truth. Indeed, her thin eager face contracted then, and ever afterward I was glad that moved by some impulse I stooped and reverently kissed the fragile hand.
“You were always somebody’s good angel, cousin,” I said; “but I am her brother, and this time I can help. I am going back to the farm at Fairmead, and, if she is longing for open air, do you think she would come and keep house for me?”
Alice blushed as she drew away the white fingers, but she showed her practical bent by a cross-examination, and eventually she agreed that though there were objections the plan might be feasible.
“You write to her by the next mail,” she said, “and I will write too—no, it would be better if I waited a little. Why? You must trust my discretion—even your great mind cannot grasp everything. Now I want you to tell me all about Miss Carrington.”215
Alice had a way with her that unlocked the secrets of many hearts, and the shadows had lengthened across the lawn before the narrative was finished. I can still picture her lying back on the lounge with hands clasped before her, a line of pain on her brow, and the humming birds flashing athwart the blossoms of the arrowhead that drooped above her. Then, glancing straight before her toward the ethereal snows, she said with a sigh:
“I can see trouble in store for both of you, but I envy her. She has health and strength, and a purpose to help her to endure. Ralph, there is always an end to our trials if one can wait for it, and you both have something to wait for. Hold fast, and I think you will win her—and you know who will wish you the utmost happiness.”
Presently we went down together to the boulders of the river, and watched the steelhead salmon pass on in shadowy battalions as they forced their way inland against the green-stained current, while Alice, whose store of general knowledge was surprising, said meditatively:
“Theirs is a weary journey inland from the sea, over shoal, against white rapid, and over spouting fall, toward the hidden valleys among the glaciers—and most of them die, don’t they, when they get there? There’s a symbol of life for you, but I sometimes think that, whether it’s men or salmon, the fighters have the best of it.”
We talked of birds and fishes, and of many other things, while once a big blue grouse perched on a fir bough and looked down fearlessly within reach of her, though when the wrinkles of pain had vanished Alice seemed happy to sit still in the warm sunshine speaking of nothing at all. Still, even in the silence, the bond of friendship between us was drawn tighter than it ever had been, and I knew that I felt better and stronger for my cousin’s company.
It was some time after dinner, and the woods were darkening,216when Martin Lorimer and I sat together on the carved veranda. There was wine on the table before us, and the old man raised his glass somewhat hurriedly, though his face betokened unmistakable surprise when again I mentioned the loan. Then he lit a very choice cigar, and when I had done the same he leaned forward looking at me through the smoke, as changing by degrees into the speech of the spinning country, he said:
“You’ll listen and heed well, Ralph. You went out to Canada against my will, lad, and I bided my time. ‘He’ll either be badly beaten or win his footing there, and either will do him good,’ I said. If you had been beaten I should have seen to it that my only brother’s son should never go wanting. Nay, wait ’til I have finished, but it would not have been the same. I had never a soft side for the beaten weakling, and I’m glad I bided. Now, when you’ve proved yourself what Tom’s son should be, this is what I offer thee. There’s the mill; I’m old and done, and while there’s one of the old stock forward I would not turn it over to be moiled and muddled by a limited company. Saving, starving, scheming, I built it bit by bit, and to-day there’s no cotton spun in Lancashire to beat the Orb brand. There’ll be plenty of good men under thee, and I’m waiting to make thee acting partner. Ay, it’s old and done I’m growing, and, Ralph Lorimer, I’m telling thee what none but her ever guessed before—I would have sold my soul for a kind word from thy mother.”
For a time, almost bewildered by the splendid offer, I stared blankly into the eddying smoke, while my thoughts refused to concentrate themselves, and I first wondered why he had made it to me. Now I know it was partly due to the staunch pride of race and family that once held the yeomen of the dales together in foray and feud, and partly to a fondness for myself that I had never wholly realized.217Then it became apparent that I could not accept it. Grace would pine in smoke-blackened Lancashire, as she had told me, and I knew that the life of mill and office would grow intolerable, while the man who acted as Martin Lorimer’s partner would have small respite from it. There was Harry also, who had linked his future with my great project. But the offer was tempting after the constant financial pressure, and for another minute the words failed me.
“I am awaiting thy answer, lad,” said Martin Lorimer.
Then I stood up before him as I said slowly: “You are generous, uncle—more than generous, and it grieves me that the answer can only be—no. Give me a few moments to explain why this must be so. I could never settle down to the shut-in life; and half-hearted work would only be robbery. You would demand his best from your partner, wouldn’t you?”
“I should; brain and body,” said the old man, grimly watching me with hawk-like eyes, for there was a steely underside to his character.
I leaned one elbow on the back of a chair as I continued: “I could not give it. Besides, I have set my heart on winning my own fortune out of the prairie—I am in honor bound to my partner Lorraine in this, and—I can never leave Canada until the lady I hope to marry some day goes with me. You saw her at the opening ceremony—Miss Carrington.”
Martin Lorimer smote the table, which, when excited, was a favorite trick of his.
“Thy wife!” he said stupidly. “Art pledged to marry Miss Carrington of all women, lad? And does she care for thee?”
“I trust so,” I answered slowly, as I watched the frown deepen on the old man’s face. I dreaded the next question, which came promptly:218
“And what does the iron-fisted Colonel say as to thee for a son-in-law?”
It took me at least five minutes to explain, and I felt my anomalous position keenly during the process, while, when the story was finished, Martin Lorimer laughed a harsh dry laugh.
“Ralph, thou’rt rash and headstrong and a condemned fool besides,” he said. “Thee would never have made a partner in the Orb mill. Thou’rt Tom’s bairn all through, but I like thy spirit. Stand up there, straight and steady, so, while I look at thee. Never a son of my own, lad; thou’rt the last of the Lingdale folk, and I had set my heart on thee. Ay, I’m the successful spinner, and I paid for my success. It’s hard to keep one’s hands clean and be first in the business; but there’s no one better knows the sign; and travel, and maybe Miss Carrington, has put that sign on thee. Once I hoped—it’s past and done with, I’m foolish as well as old; but as that can never be, I’m only wishing the best of luck to thee.”
He gulped down a glass of the red wine and wiped his forehead, while his voice had a hard note in it as he continued: “Her father’s a man of iron, but there’s iron, too, in thee. I had my part in the people’s struggle when Lancashire led the way, and then after a trick at the election I hated him and all his kind. I’ve a better reason since for hating him. We can beat them in brain and muscle, our courage is as good as theirs, and yet, if you weld the two kinds together, there’s not their equal in the world. He’s proud of his robber forbears, but there was one of thine drew a good bow with the archers at Crecy. Ralph, thy news has stirred me into vaporing, and the man who built the Orb mill is prating like a child. Ay, I’m grieved to the heart—and I’m glad. Fill up thy glass to the brim, lad—here’s God bless her and thee.”219
There followed a clink of glasses, and some of the wine was spilt. I could see the red drops widen on the snowy tablecloth, and then Martin Lorimer gripped my hand in a manner that showed no traces of senile decay, saying somewhat huskily as he turned away:
“I want time to think it over, but I’ll tell thee this. Hold fast with both hands to thy purpose, take the thrashings—and wait, and if ever thou’rt hard pressed, with thy back right on the wall, thou’lt remember Martin Lorimer—or damn thy mulishness.”
They gave me the same advice all round, and perhaps it was as well, for of all the hard things that fall to the lot of the man who strives with his eyes turned forward the hardest is to wait. Still, it was something to have won Martin Lorimer’s approval, for I had hitherto found him an unsympathetic and critical man, who bore in his person traces of the battle he had fought. There were those who called him lucky; but these had lain softly and fared well while he starved and wrought, winning his way by inches until he built up out of nothing the splendid trade of the Orb mill.
None of us was talkative that evening, but fervent good wishes followed me when I went out with the east-bound train the next day, and until the dusky pines hid her, closing round the track, I saw cousin Alice’s slight figure with her face turned toward the departing train.