WITHAM RIDES AWAY
The first of the snow was driving across the prairie before a bitter
wind when Maud Barrington stood by a window of the Grange looking out
into the night. The double casements rattled, the curtains behind her
moved with the icy draughts, until, growing weary of watching the
white flakes whirl past, she drew them to and walked slowly towards a
mirror. Then a faint tinge of pink crept into her cheeks, and a
softness that became her into her eyes. They, however, grew critical
as she smoothed back a tress of lustrous hair a trifle from her
forehead, straightened the laces at neck and wrist, and shook into
more flowing lines the long black dress. Maud Barrington was not
unduly vain, but it was some time before she seemed contented, and one
would have surmised that she desired to appear her best that night.
The result was beyond cavil in its artistic simplicity, for the girl,
knowing the significance that trifles have at times, had laid aside
every adornment that might hint at wealth, and the sombre draperies
alone emphasized the polished whiteness of her face and neck. Still,
and she did not know whether she was pleased or otherwise at this, the
mirror had shown the stamp which revealed itself even in passive pose
and poise of head. It was her birthright, and would not be disguised.
Then she drew a low chair towards the stove, and once more the faint
colour crept into her face as she took up a note. It was laconic, and
requested permission to call at the Grange, but Maud Barrington was
not deceived, and recognized the consideration each word had cost the
man who wrote it. Afterwards she glanced at her watch, raised it with
a little gesture of impatience to make sure it had not stopped, and
sat still, listening to the moaning of the wind, until the door
opened, and Miss Barrington came in. She glanced at her niece, who
felt that her eyes had noticed each detail of her somewhat unusual
dress, but said nothing until the younger woman turned to her.
"They would scarcely come to-night, aunt," she said.
Miss Barrington, listening a moment, heard the wind that whirled the
snow about the lonely building, but smiled incredulously.
"I fancy you are wrong, and I wish my brother were here," she said.
"We could not refuse Mr. Witham permission to call, but whatever
passes between us will have more than its individual significance.
Anything we tacitly promise the others will agree to, and I feel the
responsibility of deciding for Silverdale."
Miss Barrington went out; but her niece, who understood her smile and
that she had received a warning, sat with a strained expression in her
eyes. The prosperity of Silverdale had been dear to her, but she knew
she must let something that was dearer still slip away from her, or,
since they must come from her, trample on her pride as she made the
first advances. It seemed a very long while before there was a
knocking at the outer door, and she rose with a little quiver when
light steps came up the stairway.
In the meanwhile, two men stood beside the stove in the hall until an
English maid returned to them.
"Colonel Barrington is away, but Miss Barrington and Miss Maud are at
home," she said. "Will you go forward into the morning-room when you
have taken off your furs?"
"Did you know Barrington was not here?" asked Witham, when the maid
moved away.
Dane appeared embarrassed. "The fact is, I did."
"Then," said Witham dryly, "I am a little astonished you did not think
fit to tell me."
Dane's face flushed, but he laid his hand on his comrade's arm. "No,"
he said. "I didn't. Now, listen to me for the last time, Witham. I've
not been blind, you see; and, as I told you, your comrades have
decided that they wish you to stay. Can't you sink your confounded
pride and take what is offered you?"
Witham shook his grasp off, and there was weariness in his face. "You
need not go through it all again. I made my decision a long while
ago."
"Well," said Dane, with a gesture of hopelessness, "I've done all I
could and, since you are going on, I'll look at that trace clip while
you tell Miss Barrington. I mean the younger one."
"The harness can wait," said Witham. "You are coming with me."
A little grim smile crept into Dane's eyes. "I am not. I wouldn't
raise a finger to help you now," he said, and retreated hastily.
* * * * *
It was five minutes later when Witham walked quietly into Maud
Barrington's presence, and sat down when the girl signed to him. He
wondered if she guessed how his heart was beating.
"It is very good of you to receive me, but I felt I could not slip
away without acknowledging the kindness you and Miss Barrington have
shown me," he said. "I did not know Colonel Barrington was away."
The girl smiled a little. "Or you would not have come? Then we should
have had no opportunity of congratulating you on your triumphant
acquittal. You see it must be mentioned."
"I'm afraid there was a miscarriage of justice," said Witham quietly.
"Still, though it is a difficult subject, the deposition of the man I
supplanted went a long way, and the police did not seem desirous of
pressing a charge against me. Perhaps I should have insisted on
implicating myself, but you would scarcely have looked for that after
what you now know of me."
Maud Barrington braced herself for an effort, though she was outwardly
very calm. "No," she said, "no one would have looked for it from any
man placed as you were, and you are purposing to do more than is
required of you. Why will you go away?"
"I am a poor man," said Witham. "One must have means to live at
Silverdale."
"Then," said the girl with a soft laugh which cost her a good deal,
"it is because you prefer poverty, and you have at least one
opportunity at Silverdale. Courthorne's land was mine to all intents
and purposes before it was his, and now it reverts to me. I owe him
nothing, and he did not give it me. Will you stay and farm it on
whatever arrangement Dane and Macdonald may consider equitable? My
uncle's hands are too full for him to attempt it."
"No," said Witham, and his voice trembled a little. "Your friends
would resent it."
"Then," said the girl, "why have they urged you to stay?"
"A generous impulse. They would repent of it by and by. I am not one
of them, and they know it now, as I did at the beginning. No doubt
they would be courteous, but you see a half-contemptuous toleration
would gall me."
There was a little smile on Maud Barrington's lips, but it was not in
keeping with the tinge in her cheek and the flash in her eyes.
"I once told you that you were poor at subterfuge, and you know you
are wronging them," she said. "You also know that even if they were
hostile to you, you could stay and compel them to acknowledge you. I
fancy you once admitted as much to me. What has become of this pride
of the democracy you showed me?"
Witham made a deprecatory gesture. "You must have laughed at me. I had
not been long at Silverdale then," he said dryly. "I should feel very
lonely now. One man against long generations. Wouldn't it be a trifle
unequal?"
Maud Barrington smiled again. "I did not laugh, and this is not
England, though what you consider prejudices do not count for so much
as they used to there, while there is, one is told quite frequently,
no limit to what a man may attain to here, if he dares sufficiently."
A little quiver ran through Witham, and he rose and stood looking down
on her, with one brown hand clenched on the table and the veins
showing on his forehead.
"You would have me stay?" he said.
Maud Barrington met his eyes, for the spirit that was in her was the
equal of his. "I would have you be yourself--what you were when you
came here in defiance of Colonel Barrington, and again when you sowed
the last acre of Courthorne's land, while my friends, who are yours
too, looked on wondering. Then you would stay--if it pleased you.
Where has your splendid audacity gone?"
Witham slowly straightened himself and the girl noticed the damp the
struggle had brought there on his forehead, for he understood that if
he would stretch out his hand and take it what he longed for might be
his.
"I do not know, any more than I know where it came from, for until I
met Courthorne I had never made a big venture in my life," he said.
"It seems it has served its turn and left me--for now there are things
I am afraid to do."
"So you will go away and forget us?"
Witham stood very still a moment, and the girl, who felt her heart
beating noticed that his face was drawn. Still, she could go no
further. Then he said very slowly, "I should be under the shadow
always if I stay, and my friends would feel it even more deeply than I
would do. I may win the right to come back again if I go away."
Maud Barrington made no answer, but both knew no further word could be
spoken on that subject until, if fate ever willed it, the man returned
again, and it was a relief when Miss Barrington came in with Dane. He
glanced at his comrade keenly, and then, seeing the grimness in his
face, quietly declined the white-haired lady's offer of hospitality.
Five minutes later the farewells were said and Maud Barrington stood
with the stinging flakes whirling about her in the doorway, while the
sleigh slid out into the filmy whiteness that drove across the
prairie. When it vanished she turned back into the warmth and
brightness with a little shiver and one hand tightly closed.
The great room seemed very lonely when, while the wind moaned outside,
she and her aunt sat down to dinner. Neither of them appeared
communicative, and both felt it a relief when the meal was over. Then
Maud Barrington smiled curiously as she rose and stood with hands
stretched out towards the stove.
"Aunt," she said, "Twoinette has twice asked me to go back to
Montreal, and I think I will. The prairie is very dreary in the
winter."
It was about this time when, as the whitened horses floundered through
the lee of a bluff where there was shelter from the wind, the men in
the sleigh found opportunity for speech.
"Now," said Dane quietly, "I know that we have lost you, for a while
at least. Will you ever come back, Witham?"
Witham nodded. "Yes," he said. "When time has done its work and
Colonel Barrington asks me, if I can buy land enough to give me a
standing at Silverdale."
"That," said Dane, "will need a good many dollars, and you insisted on
flinging those you had away. How are you going to make them?"
"I don't know," said Witham simply. "Still, by some means it will be
done."
It was next day when he walked into Graham's office at Winnipeg, and
laughed when the broker who shook hands, passed the cigar box across
to him.
"We had better understand each other first," he said. "You have heard
what has happened to me, and will not find me a profitable customer
to-day."
"These cigars are the best in the city, or I wouldn't ask you to take
one," said Graham dryly. "You understand me, anyway. Wait until I tell
my clerk that if anybody comes round I'm busy."
A bell rang, a little window opened and shut again, and Witham smiled
over his cigar.
"I want to make thirty thousand dollars as soon as I can, and it seems
to me there are going to be opportunities in this business. Do you
know anybody who would take me as clerk or salesman?"
Graham did not appear astonished.
"You'll scarcely make them that way if I find you a berth at fifty a
month," he said.
"No," said Witham. "Still, I wouldn't purpose keeping it for more than
six months or so. By that time I should know a little about the
business."
"Got any dollars now?"
"One thousand," said Witham quietly.
Graham nodded. "Smoke that cigar out, and don't worry me. I've got
some thinking to do."
Witham took up a journal, and laid it down again twenty minutes later.
"Well," he said, "you think it's too big a thing?"
"No," said Graham. "It depends upon the man, and it might be done.
Knowing the business goes a good way, and so does having dollars in
hand, but there's something that's born in one man in a thousand that
goes a long way further still. I can't tell you what it is, but I know
it when I see it."
"Then," said Witham, "you have seen this thing in me?"
Graham nodded gravely. "Yes, sir, but you don't want to get proud. You
had nothing to do with the getting of it. It was given you. Now, we're
going to have a year that will not be forgotten by those who handle
wheat and flour, and the men with the long heads will roll the dollars
in. Well, I've no use for another clerk, and my salesman's good enough
for me, but if we can agree on the items I'll take you for a partner."
The offer was made and accepted quietly, and when a rough draft of the
arrangement had been agreed upon, Graham nodded as he lighted another
cigar.
"You may as well take hold at once, and there's work ready now," he
said. "You've heard of the old St. Louis mills back on the edge of the
bush country. Never did any good. Folks who had them were short of
dollars, and didn't know how they should be run. Well, I and two other
men have bought them for a song, and while the place is tumbling in,
the plant seems good. Now, I can get hold of orders for flour when I
want them, and everybody with dollars to spare will plank them right
into any concern handling food-stuffs this year. You go down to-morrow
with an engineer, and, when you've got the mills running and orders
coming in, we'll sell out to a company if we don't want them."
Witham sat silent a space, turning over a big bundle of plans and
estimates. Then he said, "You'll have to lay out a pile of dollars."
Graham laughed. "That's going to be your affair. When you want them
the dollars will be ready, and there's only one condition. Every
dollar we put down has got to bring another in."
"But," said Witham, "I don't know anything about milling."
"Then," said Graham dryly, "you have got to learn. A good many men
have got quite rich in this country running things they didn't know
much about when they took hold of them."
"There's one more point," said Witham. "I must make those thirty
thousand dollars soon, or they'll be no great use to me, and when I
have them I may want to leave you."
"That's all right," said Graham. "By the time you've done it, you'll
have made sixty for me. We'll go out and have some lunch to clinch the
deal if you're ready."
It might have appeared unusual in England, but it was much less so in
a country where the specialization of professions is still almost
unknown, and the man who can adapt himself attains ascendency, and on
the morrow Witham arrived at a big wooden building beside a
pine-shrouded river. It appeared falling to pieces, and the engineer
looked disdainfully at some of the machinery, but, somewhat against
his wishes, he sat up with his companion most of the night in a little
log hotel, and orders that occasioned one of Graham's associates
consternation were mailed to the city next morning. Then machines came
out by the carload, and men with tools in droves. Some of them
murmured mutinously when they found they were expected to do as much
as their leader who was not a tradesman, but these were forthwith sent
back again, and the rest were willing to stay and earn the premium he
promised them for rapid work.
Before the frost grew Arctic, the building stood firm and the hammers
rang inside it night and day until when the ice had bound the dam and
lead the fires were lighted and the trials under steam again. It cost
more than water, but buyers with orders from the East were clamouring
for flour just then. For a fortnight Witham snatched his food in
mouthfuls, and scarcely closed his eyes, when Graham found him pale
and almost haggard when he came down with several men from the cities
in response to a telegram. For an hour they moved up and down,
watching whirring belt and humming roller, and then, whitened with the
dust, stood very intent and quiet while one of them dipped up a little
flour from the delivery hopper. His opinions on, and dealings in that
product were famous in the land. He said nothing for several minutes,
and then, brushing the white dust from his hands, turned with a little
smile to Graham.
"We'll have some baked, but I don't know that there's much use for it.
This will grade a very good first," he said. "You can book me the
thousand two eighties for a beginning now."
Witham's fingers trembled, but there was a twinkle in Graham's eyes as
he brought his hand down on his shoulder.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I was figuring right on this when I brought the
champagne along. It was all I could do, but Imperial Tokay wouldn't be
good enough to rinse this dust down with, when every speck of it
that's on you means dollars by the handful rolling in."
It was a very contented and slightly hilarious party that went back to
the city, but Witham sat down before a shaded lamp with a wet rag
round his head when they left him, and bent over a sheaf of drawings
until his eyes grew dim. Then he once more took up a little strip of
paper that Graham had given him, and leaned forward with his arms upon
the table. The mill was very silent at last, for of all who toiled in
it that day one weary man alone sat awake, staring, with aching eyes,
in front of him. There was, however, a little smile in them, for
roseate visions floated before them. If the promise that strip of
paper held out was redeemed, they might be materialized, for those who
had toiled and wasted their substance that the eastern peoples might
be fed would that year, at least, not go without their reward. Then he
stretched out his arms wearily above his head.
"It almost seems that what I have hoped for may be mine," he said.
"Still, there is a good deal to be done first, and not two hours left
before I begin it to-morrow."