Grey days in the prairie country do not come very often, but they are
very depressing when they arrive. The landscape is not of the luscious
kind; it has no close correspondence with a picture by Corot or
Constable; sunlight is needed to give it the touch of the habitable
and the homelike. It was, therefore, unfortunate for the spirits of the
Lebanon people that the meeting summoned by local agitators to discuss
with asperity affairs on both sides of the Sagalac should, while
starting with fitful sunlight in the early morning, have developed to a
bleak greyness by three o’clock in the afternoon, the time set for the
meeting.
Another strike was imminent in the factories at Manitou and in the
railway-shops at Lebanon, due to the stupidity of the policy of
Ingolby’s successor as to the railways and other financial and
manufacturing interests. If he had planned a campaign of maladroitness
he could not have more happily fulfilled his object. It was not a good
time for reducing wages, or for quarrelling with the Town Councils of
Manitou and Lebanon concerning assessments and other matters. November
and May always found Manitou, as though to say, “upset.” In the former
month, men were pouring through the place on their way to the shanties
for their Winter’s work, and generally celebrating their coming
internment by “irrigation”; in the latter month, they were returning
from their Winter’s imprisonment, thirsty for excitement, and with
memories of Winter quarrels inciting them to “have it out of someone.”
And it was in October, when the shantyman was passing through on his way
to the woods--a natural revolutionary, loving trouble as a coyote loves
his hole--that labour discontent was practically whipped into action,
and the Councils of the two towns were stung into bitterness against the
new provocative railway policy. Things looked dark enough. The trouble
between the two towns and the change of control and policy of the
railways, due to Ingolby’s downfall, had greatly shaken land and
building values in Lebanon, and a black eye, as it were, had been given
to the whole district for the moment.
So serious had the situation been regarded that the Mayor of Lebanon,
with Halliday the lawyer and another notable citizen, all friends of
Ingolby, had “gone East”--as a journey to Montreal, Toronto, or Quebec
was generally called--to confer with and make appeal to the directorate
of the great railways. They went with some elation and hope, for they
had arguments of an unexpected kind in their possession, carefully
hidden from the rest of the population. They had returned only the day
before the meeting which was to be held in the square in front of the
Town Hall, to find that a platform had been built at the very steps of
the Town Hall with the assent of the Chief Constable, now recovered from
illness and returned to duty. To the Deputy Mayor and the Council, the
Chief Constable, on the advice of Gabriel Druse, had said that it was
far better to have the meeting in front of the Town Hall where he could,
on the instant, summon special constables from within if necessary,
while the influence of a well-built platform and the orderly arrangement
of a regular meeting were better than a mob oration from the tops of
ash-barrels.
The signs were ominous. In a day of sunshine the rebellious and
discontented spirit does not thrive; on a wet day it is apt to take
shelter; on a bleak, grey day men are prone to huddle together in their
anger with consequent stimulation of their passions.
It was a grey enough day at Lebanon, and dark-faced visitors from
Manitou felt the need of Winter clothing as they shiveringly crossed the
Sagalac by Ingolby’s bridge. The air was raw and searching; Nature was
sulky. In the sharp wind the trees shook themselves angrily free of
leaves. The taverns were greatly frequented, which was not good for
Manitou and Lebanon. Up to the time of the meeting, however, the
expected strike had not occurred. This was mainly due to the fact that
Felix Marchand, the evil genius of Manitou, had not been seen in the
town or in the district for over a week. It was not generally known that
he was absent because a man by the name of Dennis, whose wife he had
wronged, was dogging him with no good intent. Marchand had treated the
woman’s warning with contempt, but at sight of her injured husband he
had himself withdrawn from the scene of his dark enterprises. His malign
influence was therefore not at work at the moment.
The tactics of the Lebanon Town Council had been careful and wise. So
that the meeting should not be composed only of the roughest elements,
they privately urged all responsible citizens to attend, and if possible
capture the meeting for law and order and legitimate agitation. That
was why Osterhaut, the town-crier, went about with a large dinner-bell
announcing the hour of the meeting and admonishing all “good folks” to
attend. No one had ever seen Osterhaut quite so cheerful--and he had
a bonny cheerfulness on occasion--as on this grisly October day when
Nature was very sour and the spirit of the winds was in a “scratchy”
mood. But Osterhaut was not more cheerful than Jowett who, in a very
undignified way, described the state of his feelings, on receiving a
certain confidence from Halliday, the lawyer, and Gabriel Druse, by
turning a cart-wheel in the Mayor’s office; which certainly was an
unusual thing in a man of fifty years of age.
It was a people’s meeting. No local official was on the platform. Under
the influence of alien elements who, though their co-operation was
directed against the common enemy, were intensely irritating, the
meeting became disorderly. One or two wise men, however, were able to
secure order long enough to have the resolution passed for forming a
Local Interests Committee whose duty it would be to see that the people
were not sacrificed to a “soulless plutocracy.” While the names of
those who were to form the Committee were being selected, in a storm of
disorder arising from the Manitou section of the crowd, the sky overhead
grew suddenly brighter and the sun came out, bringing an instant change.
It was as though a hand, which had hypnotized them into anger, restored
them to good-humour once again.
At this moment, to the astonishment of all, there appeared at the back
of the platform between Jowett and Halliday the lawyer, the man with
a tragic history who had been as one buried for weeks past, who had
vanished from their calculations. It was their old champion, Ingolby.
Slowly a hush came over the vast assembly as, apparently guided by
his friends on the platform, he was given a seat on the right of the
Chairman’s table.
A strange sensation, partly pleasure, partly resentment, passed through
the crowd. Why did Ingolby come to remind them of better days gone--of
his own rashness, of what they had lost through that rashness? Why
had he come? They could not say and do all that they wanted with him
present. It was like having a row in the presence of a corpse. He had
been a hero to all in Lebanon, but he was not in the picture now. His
day was done. It was no place for him. Yet it was a pleasant omen that
the sun broke clear and shining over the platform as Ingolby took
his seat. Presently in the silence he half-turned his head, murmured
something to the Chairman, and then got to his feet, stretching out a
hand towards the crowd.
For one moment there was silence, a little awestricken, a little
painful, and then as from one man a great cheer went up. For a moment
they had thought him inconsiderate to come among them in this crisis,
for he was no longer of their scheme of things, and must be counted out,
a beaten, battered, blind bankrupt. Yet the sight of him on his feet
was too much for them. Blind he might be, but there was the personality
which had conquered them in the past brave, adroit, reckless, renowned.
None of them, or very few of them, had seen him since that night at
Barbazon’s Tavern, yet in spite of his tragedy there seemed little
change in him. There was the same quirk at the corner of the mouth, the
same humour in the strong face, not so ruddy now; and strangely enough
the eyes were neither guarded by spectacles, nor were they shrunken,
glazed, or diseased, so far as could be seen.
Stretching out a hand, Ingolby gave a crisp laugh and said: “So there’s
been trouble since I’ve been gone, has there?” The corner of his mouth
quirked, his eyelids drooped in the old quizzical way, and the crowd
laughed in spite of themselves. What a spirit he had to take it all that
way!
“Got a little deeper in the mire, have you, boys?” he added. “They tell
me the town’s a frost just now, but it seems nice and warm here in the
sun. Yes, boys, it’s nice and warm here among you all--the same good old
crowd that’s made the two towns what they are. The same good old crowd,”
he repeated, “--and up to the same old games!”
At this point he could scarcely proceed for laughter. “Like true
pioneers,” he went on, “not satisfied with what you’ve got, but wanting
such a lot more--if I might say so in the language of the dictionary, a
deuce of a lot more.”
Almost every sentence had been punctuated by cheers. His personality
dominated them as aforetime with some new accent to it; his voice was
like that of one given up from the dead, yet come back from the wars
alive and loving. They never knew what a figure he was until now when
they saw and heard him again, and realized that he was one of the
few whom the world calls leaders, because they have in them that
immeasurable sympathy which is understanding of men and matters. Yet in
the old days there never had been the something that was in his
voice now, and in his face there was a great friendliness, a sense of
companionship, a Jonathan and David something. He was like a comrade
talking to a thousand other comrades. There was a new thing in him and
they felt it stir them. They thought he had been made softer by his
blindness; and they were not wrong. Even the Manitou section were
stilled into sympathy with him. Many of them had heard his speech in
Barbazon’s Tavern just before the horseshoe struck him down, and they
heard him now, much simpler in manner and with that something in his
voice and face. Yet it made them shrink a little, too, to see his blind
eyes looking out straight before him. It was uncanny. Their idea was
that the eyes were as before, but seeing nothing-blank to the world.
Presently his hand shot out again. “The same old crowd!” he said. “Just
the same--after the same old thing, wanting what we all want: these two
places, Manitou and Lebanon, to be boosted till they rule the West and
dominate the North. It’s good to see you all here again”--he spoke very
slowly--“to see you all here together looking for trouble--looking for
trouble. There you are, Jim Barager; there you are, Bill Riley; there
you are, Mr. William John Thomas McLeary.” The last named was the butt
of every tavern and every street corner. “There you are, Berry--old
brown Berry, my barber.”
At first the crowd did not quite understand, did not realize that he was
actually pointing to the people whom he named, but presently, as Berry
the barber threw up his hands with a falsetto cry of understanding,
there was a simultaneous, wild rush forward to the platform.
“He sees, boys--he sees!” they shouted.
Ingolby’s hand shot up above them with a gesture of command.
“Yes, boys, I see--I see you all. I’m cured. My sight’s come back, and
what’s more”--he snatched from his pocket a folded sheet of paper and
held it aloft “what’s more, I’ve got my commission to do the old job
again; to boss the railways, to help the two towns. The Mayor brought it
back from Montreal yesterday; and together, boys, together, we’ll make
Manitou and Lebanon the fulcrum of the West, the swivel by which to
swing prosperity round our centre.”
The platform swayed with the wild enthusiasm of the crowd storming it
to shake hands with him, when suddenly a bell rang out across the river,
wildly, clamorously. A bell only rang like that for a fire. Those on the
platform could see a horseman galloping across the bridge.
A moment later someone shouted, “It’s the Catholic church at Manitou on
fire!”