David Fleming's Forgiveness Part 11

Katie let her book fall on the floor as she put her hands together with a sudden impatient movement, and the sound startled her out of her vexing thoughts.

"What would grannie say, I wonder, if she knew?" muttered she, as she stooped to pick up the book. She felt her face grow hot, and then she laughed at her foolishness, and looked up to meet Miss Elizabeth's eye.

"What is it, Katie? What are you thinking about?"

"I was thinking about--grannie," said Katie in confusion.

"Well, what about her?"

"Oh! I don't know. I cannot tell you. Only I shall never be so good a woman as grannie, I'm afraid."

"But then you have a long time before you. I don't think you need to be discouraged yet," said Miss Elizabeth, laughing.

But Katie was very much ashamed of herself, and did not forgive herself till she had talked the matter over, first with her grandmother, and then with Davie. Davie only laughed at her with a little good-natured contempt. He did not share his sister's enthusiasm about Miss Elizabeth, and did not quite approve of the great friends.h.i.+p between them. But as to making a sin of a moment's envy of her friend, and a moment's discontent with her own life--Davie laughed at the idea.

But her grandmother did not laugh.

"My dear la.s.sie, it is the way with us all. We are ready to turn our best helps into snares to catch our feet. Miss Elizabeth's kindness may do you much good in many ways, but if it should make you envious, and should fill you with discontent, that would be sad indeed. And I doubt you'll need to watch yourself, and maybe punish yourself, by hiding away from her for a while."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

GERSHOM MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

The possibility and desirableness of advancing the interests of the town of Gershom by the still further "utilising" of the waters of the Beaver River for manufacturing purposes, had long been a matter earnestly discussed among the people. At various towns within the last five years measures had been proposed, tending toward the accomplishment of this object, but hitherto it had been with little result.

As a rule, the various industries which now gave prosperity and importance to the place had grown out of small beginnings. On the spot where now stood Cartwright's Carriage Factory, well known through all the countryside, old Joshua Cartwright had faithfully and laboriously spent his days in making tubs and stools, sugar-troughs, and axe-helves for the early settlers. The shed where, in those days, Simon Horton had shod their horses and oxen, had grown in the course of years into the Gershom axe-factory, which bade fair to make a rich man of his daughter's son.

But the slow and sure process which had served their fathers in their advances toward wealth were not likely to content the men of Gershom now, and there had been much talk among them about the forming of a company to be called "The Gershom Manufacturing Company," the object of which was to be the establishment of new industries in the town.

Meetings were held, and speeches were made. The "enterprise and public spirit of certain of our fellow-townsmen" were highly lauded, and a wonderful future of prosperity for the town of Gershom and the surrounding country was foretold as the result of the step about to be taken. The Beaver River was made the subject of long and laudatory discussion. Its motive power was calculated and valued, and the long running to waste of its waters deplored. A committee was appointed for the arranging of preliminaries, and that was as far as the matter progressed at that time.

Other attempts were made later in the same direction. Some of them pa.s.sed beyond preliminary arrangements, and more than once the more sanguine among the promoters of these schemes made sure of a successful issue, but all had failed when the practical part of the business had been touched.

The cause of this did not always clearly appear. Once at least it was attributed by some of the disappointed towns-people to the obstinacy and avarice of Jacob Holt. The old woollen-mill built by Gershom Holt in the early days of the settlement had served a good purpose in the country for a good many years. But it was time now, it was thought, for the work to be carried on in Gershom on a larger scale. The old building itself was of little value, and the old-fas.h.i.+oned machinery it contained was of less, but the site was considered to be the best in Gershom for a manufactory of the kind. Jacob Holt professed to be quite ready to dispose of it to the company on reasonable terms; but when it came to the point, no agreement could be made as to what were reasonable terms, and so the old mill plodded on in the old way for a while, and within a year a new mill was built in the neighbouring towns.h.i.+p of Fosbrooke. There was much indignation expressed with regard to this matter in Gershom, but Jacob troubled himself little about it. The old mill had gone the way of most old mills since then; it had caught fire one wintry night and burned to the ground, and the Gershom paper-mill had been built on the site.

Jacob had not come down in his ideas as to the value he set upon it, but he had been content to take shares in the building instead of the "cash down" which he had demanded before. In this way, and in other ways, he came by and by to be the largest shareholder in the concern, and when later, partly through the inefficiency of the person who had charge of the business, and partly for other reasons, paper-making began to look like a losing concern, the value of the shares went down, and in course of time most of them fell into his hands. So it was "Holt's Paper-mill"

now, and there was no other manufacturing company as yet in existence in Gershom. The chances were, it was said, that had the first company succeeded with the woollen-mill it might have fallen into the same hands, and as far as the general property of the town was concerned, it might as well have been Jacob Holt's hands as others'. But those who had lost, or who fancied they had lost, by his part in these two transactions, were watchful and suspicious of his movements when once more the wise men of Gershom began to see visions of what might be done by the combined powers of the Beaver River, the enterprise of the people, and the use of a moderate amount of capital to advance the prosperity of their town.

Their ideas had still advanced with the times. Their plans were not limited to a woollen-mill now. Machine shops of all sorts, a match factory, furniture-shops, even a cotton factory was spoken of. Indeed, there were no limits to the manufacturing possibilities of the place, as far as talk went. Money was needed, and a good deal of it, and the people of Gershom wisely contemplated the propriety of making use of other people's money in building up the town, and for this purpose it was desirable that the company should embrace the rich men of other towns as well. Some of those rich men came in an informal way and looked about, and admired the Beaver River, and talked and thought a good deal about the scheme. The banks of the river above and below the town were examined with a view to deciding on the building of a new dam, and Mr Fleming's refusal to sell any part of his land had been in answer to Jacob Holt's offer on behalf of the prospective company.

All this had taken place about the time when Mr Maxwell came to Gershom, and when he had been there a year no advance had been made in the way of actual work.

The greater part of the land on the north side of the river, as far up as Ythan Brae, had always belonged to the Holts. During the past year the land of Mark Varney, on the south side, had also fallen into their hands. For poor Mark's wife died, and any hope that his friends were beginning to have that he might redeem his character was quite lost for the time. He sold his place, already heavily burdened with debt, to Jacob Holt; his mother became Mr Maxwell's housekeeper in the new parsonage, taking her little grandchild with her, and poor Mark went away--none for a while knew whither.

But the chief thing that concerned the people of Gershom was that Jacob Holt had got his land, and the conclusion at once arrived at was that at the point on the river where his pasture and wood-lot met, the new dam was to be made, and that on his land, and on the land opposite, the new factories, and the new town that must grow out of them, were to be built.

"What Jacob ought to do now would be to go right on and make a good beginning on his own account. If there is ever going to be anything done in Gershom, that is the spot for it, and the company would have to come to his terms at last."

So said Gershom folks, wondering that the rich man of the place should "kind o' hang back" when such a chance of money-making seemed to lie before him. But Jacob knew several things as yet only surmised by Gershom folks in general. It was by no means certain after all that the Gershom Manufacturing Company would come into existence immediately.

And even if it should, the chances were that among its members would be more than one man who would be little likely to yield himself to the dictation or even to the direction of Jacob Holt, as his townsmen had fallen into the way of doing where the outlay of capital was concerned.

It would be easy to make a beginning, but Jacob looked further than a beginning.

Gershom was not the only place whose inhabitants cherished the ambition to become a manufacturing community and there were other rivers besides the Beaver running to waste, which might be made available as a manufacturing power. A company, with sufficient amount of stock subscribed and paid for, might agree to put Fosbrooke, or Fairfax, or Crowsville down as the name, and carry their money, and their influence, and the chance of acquiring wealth to either of their thriving towns; and a beginning in Gershom would amount to very little in such a case.

And then the river bank on the Varney place was not, in Mr Holt's opinion, the best place for the new mills and the new village. It was not to be compared to the point just below which Bear's Creek, or, as the Flemings called it, Ythan Brae, flowed into the Beaver, and this also belonged to Mr Fleming. Jacob would have liked to make his beginning there. He knew, for he had taken advice on the matter, that at the Varney place no dam of sufficient capacity to answer all the purposes which were contemplated by the company could be made, without at certain seasons of the year so flooding the land above it as to render it useless for any purpose. He might have taken the risk of probable lawsuits, and gone on with the work, if it had depended on him alone to decide the matter. But it did not. Or he would have bought it, but that it belonged to David Fleming, who would listen to no proposal from his "enemy."

It was not that Mr Fleming was not satisfied with the terms offered.

He would listen to no terms. Indeed he refused to discuss the matter with his neighbours, not only with those who might be suspected of wis.h.i.+ng for one reason or another to convince him of the folly of not taking advantage of a good offer for his land, but with those who sympathised with him in his dislike to Jacob Holt, who went further than he did even, and called the rich man not only avaricious, but worse. He would listen to nothing about it, but rose and turned his back on the bold man who ventured to approach the subject in his presence.

In all this Jacob Holt felt himself to be hardly used. He declared to himself that he wished to do the right thing by Mr Fleming. He was willing to give him the full value of every foot of his land, and above its value. That the advancement of the interests of the town and the welfare of the whole community should be interfered with, because of an obstinate old man's whim, seemed to him intolerable; he did not want the land. Let Mr Fleming treat with the company--there was no company as yet, however--and let him pay him his just debt, that was all he asked of him.

He did not speak often about this to any one--not a man in Gershom but had more to say about it than he. But he thought about it continually.

If it had been any other man in Gershom who had so withstood him, he would long ago have taken such measures as would have brought him to his senses. He could do so lawfully, by and by. The law had sustained him in dealing with much harder cases than Mr Fleming's, though it was not altogether pleasant to remember some of them. But there could be no question but that it would be for the interest of the Flemings, old and young, were his terms agreed to. No one would have a right to say a word, though he were to carry his point against the old man, and claim what was his due.

All this he said to himself many times, but still he could not do it, at least he could not bring himself to do it at once. His father, though he acknowledged the unreasonableness of his friend, would yet be grieved at the taking of extreme measures against him; his sister would be indignant, and he was a little afraid of Elizabeth. The church union, which he with all the rest of Gershom had earnestly desired, would be endangered; for he knew by many tokens that some of the North Gore men were hanging back because of him. Public opinion would not sustain him in any steps taken against so old a man, and one who had seen so much trouble since he came among them, and he did not wish to take severe measures, he told himself many times. It is just possible that the remembrance of the lad who had been his companion and friend, who had been cut off in the flower of his youth, to the never-dying sorrow of the old man who opposed him, had something to do with his hesitation in this matter. But even to himself this was never acknowledged; all he could do was to wait and see whether some sudden turn of events might not serve to bring about his purpose better than severity could do.

In the meantime, after many thoughts about it, when the few scanty fields on the Varney place were harvested, he did make a beginning. He brought old Joe Middlemas to the place, who walked about with all the appliances for surveying it, and for laying it out in building lots. He had some trees cut down, and some hillocks levelled, and kept several men for a time employed in bringing loads of stone to the river's bank, in a way that looked very much like making a beginning. But the heavy autumn rains put an end to all this for a while, and as yet there existed no manufacturing company in Gershom, nor was there any immediate prospect that the hopes of the people with regard to it were likely to be realised.

"They're fine at speaking, grannie," said young Davie, who had been keeping his eyes and his ears open to all that was going on in Gershom.

"But grandfather and you may be at peace about the dam and the mischief it might do for a while anyway. It may come in my day, but it winna come in yours, unless that should happen which is not very likely to happen, and all the rich men in the country should put their names and their money at the disposal of King Jacob. He may measure his land, and gather his sticks and his stones together, but that is all it will come to, this while at any rate. Though why grandfather should be so unwilling to part with a few acres of poor land to Jacob Holt is more than I can understand."

"It is a wonder to me, Davie lad, where you got such a conceit of yourself. One would think you were in folks' secrets, and spoke with authority. It will do here at home with Katie and your mother and me, but I am thinking other folk would laugh to hear you."

But Mrs Fleming was relieved for all that, for Davie was, in her opinion, a lad of sense and discretion for his years, though she did not think it necessary to tell him so, and she took comfort in the thought that her husband would have a while's peace, as little more could be done till the spring opened again.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE TWO COUSINS.

A great disappointment was preparing for Elizabeth. Her brother completed his studies, and brought home his diploma, whether he deserved it or not, and spent a pleasant six weeks at home, "resting from his labours," as he said, and then he announced his intention of going to reside in the city of Montreal, to pursue there the study of the law.

It had always been taken for granted that when his studies came to an end, he was to go into the business of the Holts, and settle down in Gershom.

"And what good should I do in the business?" said he to his sister; "should I stand behind the counter in the store and sell yards of calico and pounds of tea? Or should I take the tannery in hand, or the paper-mill? Or should I go into the new company that Jacob seems so bent on getting up? Now, Lizzie, do be reasonable and tell me what good I should do in the business."

"I know that few young men in the country could hope for such a start in life. It is not necessary that you should sell tea or calico either, except by the hands of those you may employ--though if you were to do it, it would be no discredit to you--and no more than your father did before you many a day."

"Discredit! No, that is not the thing. But I can do something better for myself than that; I am going to try at least."

"If self is your first consideration--But, Clifton, whether you think it or not, you could do much in the business, and you are needed in it.

Jacob has more on his hands than he can do well, and even if he had not, it is your affair that the business should prosper as well as his. All we have is in it, and what do any of us know as to how our affairs stand? We are altogether in Jacob's hands."

"Come, now, Lizzie! Let Cousin Betsey and the rest of them run down Jacob. It is rather hard on him that his own sister should join them.

I believe he is an honest man--as honesty among business men goes."

"I am not speaking of honesty or dishonesty. But Jacob is not such a man of business as our father was."