David Fleming's Forgiveness Part 16

This was by no means so happy a winter in Gershom church and society as last winter had been. The various circ.u.mstances that had been thought causes for congratulation last year were to be rejoiced over still. Mr Maxwell was holding his own among them. His sermons were admired as much as ever. The various meetings were well attended; there was no perceptible falling off in the subscription-list, and many of the North Gore people were as regular in their attendance, and to all appearance as loyal to church interests as could be desired. Still it was not so pleasant or so prosperous a winter as the last had been.

There was not much said about it, even by the privileged grumblers among them, for a while, and the people who made the best of things generally saw only what was to be expected. In the best laid plans there will be some points of doubtful excellence. In all new arrangements there will be grating and friction which cannot even with the best intentions be at first overcome. The only way was to have patience and be ready with "the oil of gentleness and the feather of forbearance," so as to give a touch here or there as it was needed, and everything would be sure to move smoothly after a while.

No special cause was a.s.signed for this state of things. No one thought of connecting Jacob Holt's name with it, but as the winter wore over a good many eyes were turned toward him, and a good many tongues were busy discussing his affairs, and chiefly his affairs as they had reference to Mr Fleming. No one whose opinion or judgment he cared about blamed him openly. It would have required some courage to do so. For Jacob was the rich man of the church, as he was of the town, and had much in his power in a community where voluntary offerings were depended upon as a means of covering all expenses. But the work commenced on the Varney place made matter for discussion among people who had not the motive for silence that existed among Jacob's personal friends and brethren.

That he meant to bring Mr Fleming to his own terms could not be doubted. The mortgage on the farm had only another year to run. The land above the Blackpool would be taken possession of, or if this should be hindered in any way, the land would be ruined by the building of the new dam at the Varney place. What would Jacob Holt care for the bringing of a lawsuit against him by a poor man like Mr Fleming after the dam should be built and operations commenced?

True, it was the Gershom Manufacturing Company which was to decide as to the site of the mills, and which would be called upon to pay all damages. But how was that to help Mr Fleming? Within the memory of the oldest inhabitant no enterprise commenced or carried on in Gershom but had, at one point or mother in its course, felt the guiding or restraining touch of a Holt, and so it was not easy for lookers-on in general to put Jacob out of the question when the mind and will of the future manufacturing company was under discussion.

It is not to be supposed that all this time Mr Maxwell had heard no other version of this trouble than that which the squire and Miss Elizabeth had given him. He had heard at least ten corresponding generally to theirs as to facts, but differing in spirit and colouring according to the view of the narrator. He had not as yet found it necessary to commit himself to any expression of opinion with regard to it. He listened gravely, and often with a troubled heart, doubting that evil to the people he had learned to love might grow out of it. But he listened always as though he were listening for the first time.

The matter could not be brought before him as pastor of the church, as between Jacob Holt and Mr Fleming, for Mr Fleming was not a church member. He still kept aloof, as did others of the elderly people of his neighbourhood; and though Mr Maxwell had spoken with several of them as to their duty in the circ.u.mstances, he had never spoken to Mr Fleming.

He was on the most friendly terms with the family, and had always been kindly received and respectfully treated by the old man, but as to personal matters Mr Fleming was as reserved with him as with the rest of the world. It would have seemed to Mr Maxwell an impertinence on his part to seek either directly or indirectly to force the confidence of a man like him. And indeed he felt that he might have little to say to the purpose should his confidence be spontaneously given. He thought it possible that it might do Mr Fleming good to freely and fully tell his troubles, real and imaginary, to a sympathising and judicious listener, but he was far from thinking himself the right man to hear him.

He had a strong desire to help and comfort him. In church, when he saw, as he now and then did, the stern old face softening and brightening under some strong sweet word of his Lord, like the face of a little child, he had an unspeakable longing to do him good. In his study the remembrance of the look came often back to him, and almost unconsciously the thought of him, and his wants, and possible experiences, influenced his preparations for the Sabbath. His thoughts of him were always gentle and compa.s.sionate. That there is likely to be wrong on both sides, where anger, or coldness, or contempt comes between those who acknowledge the Lord of love and peace as their Master, Mr Maxwell well knew, but in thinking of the trouble between these two men, neither the sympathy nor the blame was equally awarded. When he prayed that both might be brought to a better mind through G.o.d's grace given and His word spoken, he almost unconsciously a.s.sumed that this grace was to make the word a light, a guide, a consoler to one, and to the other a fire and a hammer to break the rock in pieces.

It would not have been difficult at this time to bring back the old state of things when two distinct communities lived side by side in Gershom; and in the main the two communities would have stood in relation to each other very much as the North Gore folk and the villagers had stood in the old times. Not altogether, however. The North Gore folk, as a general thing, sided with Mr Fleming, or they would have done so if he had not been dumb and deaf to them and to all others on the subject of his troubles, but all the towns-people would not have been on the other side.

For Jacob lacked some of the qualities that during the past years had made his father so popular in the town. He was not the man his father had been in any respect. "Jacob bored with a small auger," Mr Green, the carpenter, used to say, and the miscellaneous company who were wont to a.s.semble in his shop for the discussion of things in general did not differ from him in opinion. Jacob was small about small matters, they said, and lost friends and failed to make money, where his father would have made both friends and money safe. As a business man he had not of late proved himself worthy of the respect of his fellow-townsmen as his father had always done.

Things had gone well with the Holts for a long time. They had had a share in most of the well-established business of the town. In helping others, as they had certainly done, to a living, they had helped themselves to wealth, and on many farms in the vicinity, and on some of the village homes, they had held claims. In many cases these claims had been paid in time; in others the property had pa.s.sed from the hands of the original owners into the hands of the Holts, father and son. Very rarely in old Mr Holt's active days had this happened in a way to excite the feeling of the community against the rich man; but of late it had been said that Jacob had done some hard things, and some of those who discussed his affairs were indignant because of the people who suffered, and some who did not like Jacob for reasons of their own joined in the cry; but it was to David Fleming and his affairs that attention was chiefly turned when any one wanted to say hard things of Jacob Holt.

Jacob was having a hard time altogether. Not because men were saying hard things of him. Few of these hard sayings would be likely to reach his ears. Some of the men who growled and frowned behind his back, before his face were mild and deprecatory, and listened to his words and smiled at his jokes, and carried themselves in his company very much as they had done in years past.

As for Mr Fleming's affairs, it was coming to that with Jacob, that he would have done to him all the evil that he was accused of planning, if he could have had his way; but, nevertheless, not with a desire to hara.s.s and annoy the man who had always shunned him, and who now defied him, as people sometimes declared.

It cannot be said that he had not felt and secretly resented what he called the folly of the unreasonable old man. But Mordecai might have sat stiff and stern at the gate all day long for him and every day of the year, if the refusal to rise with the rest and do him reverence had been all the trouble between them. He knew that Mr Fleming had bitter thoughts against him because of all that had befallen his son long ago, and though he believed himself to have been no more guilty toward him than others had been, he knew that they had all been guilty together, and he had therefore submitted quietly, if not patiently, to the constant rebuke which he felt, and which all Gershom felt, the old man's stern silence to be. He could understand how the sight of him and his prosperity should be an aggravation to the sorrow of this man, who did not seem to be able to forget, and he had a sort of compa.s.sion for him in his loss--not merely of the handsome, kindly lad who had gone away so long ago, but of the man to which the much-loved Hugh might by this time have grown. His desire to resent the father's manner to himself had never been more than a momentary feeling and if he could have conferred upon him some great benefit, and placed him under such obligation to him as should be seen and acknowledged by all Gershom, he would gladly have done so. Indeed he believed that in the terms agreed on by his father, with regard to Mr Fleming's mortgage, such a benefit had been conferred, and as he thought about it his anger grew.

For now Mr Fleming's unreasonable obstinacy in refusing to dispose of his land seemed the only hindrance in the way of the new enterprise which promised so well. If he had had the power to make him yield, he would have exerted it to the uttermost, even if it would have ruined the old man, instead of placing him and the children dependent on him above the fear of want forever. But as yet he had no power, and before the year should be out, when the law would allow him to take possession of the land, the ruin which men were saying might fall on Mr Fleming, might, nay must, fall on himself.

Ruin? Well, that was putting it strongly perhaps. But the delay would cause loss and trouble terrible to antic.i.p.ate--not to him only, but to the whole town of Gershom--loss which years of common prosperity would hardly make up for. Jacob rarely spoke of David Fleming or his relations to him, but when he did so, this was the way he put it. The prosperity of Gershom and of the country round was hindered by his refusal to sell his land. But in his heart he knew that the prosperity of Gershom was a very secondary consideration with him at the moment.

For Jacob was in trouble, had been in trouble a long time, though he was only just beginning to confess it to himself. To no one else would he confess it, till nothing else could be done. He ought never to have come to any such determination. He was not strong enough to bear the weight of such trouble alone, and he was not wise enough to see the right means of getting through it.

There were times when he owned this to himself. He had not nerve for great ventures. It made him sick to think of one or two transactions, out of which he might have come triumphant as others had done, only that his courage had failed to carry him through to the end. He needed more courage, and less conscientiousness, he liked to add in his thoughts, and perhaps he was not altogether without warrant in doing so. At any rate, something had come between him and success where other men had succeeded.

Mr Green and his friends were right in their opinion that he was not such a man as his father. Even in conducting his Gershom business, which had almost come to be mere routine with him, they could see that he sometimes made mistakes. His persistent way of standing out against, or apart from, any movement that was to benefit the whole community, unless it was made in his way or to his evident advantage, was very unlike his father. It is true, that in his father's day there had been fewer men in Gershom to share either responsibility or power. But the squire had known when to yield, and by judicious yielding it frequently happened that he was allowed to hold all the faster to his own plans.

Jacob had to yield his own will also now and then, but at such times he could not help seeing that his fellow-townsmen looked upon him as having been beaten, and that they rather enjoyed it. Even when he succeeded in getting his own way in some matters, it often happened that his success was more in appearance than in reality. Still, if he had kept to his legitimate business, he might have done well in it, and kept the confidence of the community as being a man "who knew what he was about,"

and certainly he would have had an easier mind.

It was a little before this time that the discovery of the existence of mineral wealth, and the speculation in mining property which has since made a curious chapter in the history of this part of Canada, were beginning to occupy the attention of moneyed men, and Jacob had made his venture with the rest. But he had not come out of the affairs so well as some others had done. A history of their operations as to buying and selling would not interest. The result, as far as Jacob Holt was concerned, was disastrous enough, for in one way and another he had involved himself to an extent that to people generally would have appeared incredible. But people generally knew little about it. Those who did know were those who had been engaged with him, who had either made much money or lost much in the course of their transactions, and a prudent silence seemed to be considered best. Of course it could not but be known in the country to some extent who were the gainers and who the losers, but no one guessed that the Holts would be "In" for any considerable amount. But in the giving up of much valuable property at a great loss, in order to preserve his credit, Jacob was made to feel his position bitterly.

Squire Holt had bought and held for many years large tracts of wild lands in various parts of the country, content to sink the purchase-money and to pay the taxes for the present, in the certain knowledge that as new settlers came in, and the country was opened up by the making of roads and the building of bridges, the value of the lands would be greatly increased. Many of these tracts Jacob was at this time obliged to sacrifice. He rather ruefully congratulated himself on the fact that the transfer of such property to other names might be done quietly, so that his difficulties need not be fully known or discussed in the community, but it was a terrible blow to him, and the necessity of keeping the knowledge of it from his father made it all the harder.

For the squire had given his voice against all operations in mining matters. He was conscious that he was no longer equal to a contest with younger men in a new field of action, and his advice to his son, whose powers he had measured, had been "to let well alone," and leave to those who had less to lose, the chance of being winners in the new game. It would have been well if his words had been heeded, Jacob owned to himself; and partly for his own sake and partly for the sake of his father, he said little about his losses. He was willing to have him and others believe that railroad matters were not prospering as he would have liked, which indeed was true. "The Hawkshead and Dunn Valley"

railroad, which he had been chiefly instrumental in starting, and the stock of which he held largely, had promised well for a time, and would doubtless pay well in the end; but in the meantime, the big men of Fosbrooke, who had been allowed to say less than they wished to say as to the location of the road, were agitating the subject of another road to connect more directly with the Grand Trunk, and with other lines on the south side of the border, and "Hawkshead and Dunn Valley" stock had gone down.

So Jacob candidly acknowledged that "the banks were crowding a little,"

whenever he found it necessary to ask for the use of a fellow-townsman's name to his paper. He found it necessary a good many times these days, and he was not very often refused. For there were few of the old settlers whom he or his father had not obliged in the same way at one time or the other, as he took occasion to tell the sons of some of them now and then. And besides this, giving one's name was a mere form, very convenient in the way of business, which in those days was supposed to be done more rapidly than had been the way in old times.

That any of the signers, "joint and several," ever imagined that they might, in the course of untoward events, be called upon to make good the promise to pay that stood over their names, is not likely. Nor did Jacob himself ever contemplate so painful a possibility. Serious as he saw his difficulties to be, he saw a way out of them--or he would have done so, he said to himself bitterly, if the will of an unreasonable old man had not stood in his way.

In the establishment and success of the new Company, so long the subject of discussion in the town, lay his best chance of freeing himself from his present embarra.s.sment. If he might have had his way as to the site, so that the building might have been commenced, there would have been no trouble about the Company. A few good names with his own, and a moderate amount of capital, with the dam and the buildings commenced, there would have been no trouble about the rest. He felt that he would then have been master of the situation. Every cottage needed for the Mill hands and their families must be built on his land; and the chances were that by judicious management as to building, every one of them might become his tenant; and he had already in view certain arrangements by which most of the materials for building, and many of the supplies for the work-people, should be made to pa.s.s through his hands. By these means, and by the combination of other favourable circ.u.mstances, which he foresaw, he did not doubt that he could not only escape from present embarra.s.sments, but recover much of what he had been obliged to sacrifice.

It is possible that he was quite mistaken in all this, but he believed it all, and no wonder that his indignation grew and strengthened as he thought of Mr Fleming.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

JACOB'S EXPERIENCE.

Jacob spoke wonderfully little of all this, considering how much it was in his mind. He sometimes spoke to his wife, but even to her he said nothing of the losses that had fallen upon him, or of the fears that were weighing him down; but he did allow the bitterness which was gathering in his heart toward old Mr Fleming to overflow, once in a while, in her hearing. He knew it was not a wise thing to do, for she could only listen and add a word or two, which did no good, but harm.

She dropped bitter words to other people too, nay, poured them forth to Elizabeth, and to Clifton when he came home, and to Miss Betsey, even, when a rare opportunity occurred.

It did not matter much as far as they were concerned, for they knew the value of her words, and did not repeat them; but she uttered them to other people as well, and they were repeated, as all village talk is repeated, and commented upon, and exaggerated, and no one did more toward the stirring up of strife, and the making of two parties in Gershom, than did Mrs Jacob. She did her husband no good, but she did him less harm than she might have done had she been a woman of a higher and stronger nature. He did not have perfect confidence in her sense and judgment, and was apt to hesitate rather than yield to her suggestions even when he would have liked to do so. But her intense interest and sympathy were very grateful to him, and all the more that he neither asked nor expected sympathy from any one else.

He often longed to ask it; there were several men in Gershom with whom he would have liked to discuss his grievances, but he hardly dared to enter upon the subject, lest in confessing how great a matter a six months' delay was to him, he should betray how serious his losses had been. He did not intend to make his wife aware of his embarra.s.sments, but she could not fail to see that all his anxiety could not spring from doubts as to the company or indignation toward Mr Fleming. She could not bring herself to speak of his losses while he remained silent, but she was all the more bitter in speaking of the old man's obstinacy.

"And there are people who call him a sincere and exemplary Christian!

The hard, selfish, sour old man!"

"Well," said Jacob, after a pause of consideration, "I guess he is a Christian--as Christians go. There are few Christians who live up to their light in all respects, I'm afraid."

"That's so; but then there is a difference between failings and shortcomings, or even open yieldings to sudden temptations, and this keeping up of anger and uncharitableness, as he has been doing, year in and year out, since ever I can remember, almost."

"We cannot judge him; he has had great troubles, and he is an old man,"

said Jacob, rising. Any allusion to Mr Fleming's disapproval of him fretted him more than it used to do, and once or twice lately he had allowed himself to say more than he would have liked to reach the ears of his neighbours, and so he rose to go.

"He has never done me any hurt that I know of, and I don't suppose he'll do enough to speak of now. It will come all round right I guess, and then if I can do him a good turn I will."

If he had stayed a minute longer, his wife would have told him that he at least was showing a Christian spirit in thus saying, but being left alone, it came into her mind that no better revenge could be taken upon the hard old man than that his enemy should heap kindness upon him.

"Not that such a thought was in Jacob's heart," she said to herself, "but I guess he's got some new notion in his head. I never can tell just what he means by what he says; it will be queer if he doesn't get his own way first or last."

It was no great stretch of charity on Jacob's part to allow that the people who believed in the Christianity of Mr Fleming might be right, notwithstanding the old man's unreasonable antipathy to himself. He had never doubted it, and his wife's words had startled him.

"If he is not a Christian, I am afraid some of the rest of us had better be looking to our little deeds. I guess he has as fair a chance as the most of us."

He did not get rid of his thoughts when he sat down in his office and began the work of the afternoon. The remembrance of some things that he would gladly never have remembered came back to him even while he was busy with his writing, and he said to himself that if the controversy between him and Mr Fleming were to be decided according to his character, it would go hard with him, and for a moment it seemed as if the sins of his youth were to be remembered against him, and that his punishment was coming upon him after all those years. But he pulled himself up when he got thus far, saying he was growing foolish and as nervous as a woman, and then he rose and took his hat and went down to the mill.

He met his father on the way, and the old man turned back with him down the street again. There was always something the squire wanted to say to his son about business, and Jacob owed more than he acknowledged--and he acknowledged that he owed much--to the keen insight of his father.

He seemed to be able to see all sides of a matter at once, and though Jacob liked to manage his affairs himself, and believed that he did so, yet there had been occasions when a few words from his father had modified his plans, and changed the character of important transactions to his profit. At the first glimpse he got of him to-day, a great longing came over him to tell him all his trouble and get the help of his judgment and advice.

It was possibly only a pa.s.sing feeling which he might have acted on in any circ.u.mstances. But his father's first querulous words made it evident that he could not act upon it to-day. It is doubtful whether any of Jacob's friends or acquaintances, whether even his wife or his sister, would have believed in the sudden, sharp pain that smote through Jacob's heart at the moment. He himself half believed that it was disappointment because he could not get the benefit of his father's experience and counsel at this juncture of affairs, but it was more than that. He really loved his father and honoured him. He had been proud of his abilities and his success, and of the respect in which he was held by the community, both as a man of business and as a man. He had tried since his manhood to atone to him for the sins of his youth, and had striven as far as he knew how to be a dutiful son, and on the whole he had satisfied his father, though doubtless a son with a larger heart and higher capabilities would have satisfied him better. But they loved one another, and the squire respected his son in a way, and they had been much more to each other than people generally, knowing the two men, would have supposed possible.

When Jacob saw his father so feeble and broken that afternoon, and heard his querulous lament over this thing and that which had gone wrong in the mill, the thought came home to him that he was failing fast, and that the end could not be very far away, and the pain that smote him was real and sharp. A sense of loss such as had never touched him, though he had long known that his days were numbered, made him sick for the moment, and left a weight of despondency on him that he could not shake off. He spoke soothingly to him, and walked with him over the mill, telling him of changes that might be made, and asking him questions till he grew cheerful again, and more like his usual self; then taking possession of Silas Bean's sleigh that was "hitched" at the mill-door, he proposed to drive him home, because the March sun had melted the new-fallen snow, leaving the street both slippery and wet, as he took care to explain, so that he need not suspect that he was more careful than usual about him.