A DEBT OF GRATITUDE
After dinner Festing walked across the fields to the farm. It was
raining and a cold wind swept the dale, but a fire burned in the room
into which he was shown and the curtains were drawn. Helen and Miss
Jardine got up when he came in and put the rucksack on the table.
“I'm sorry I forgot this until I'd gone some distance,” he said. “Then I
couldn't find anybody to send with it.”
“No doubt you wanted your dinner,” Miss Jardine suggested.
Festing saw that she wore a different dress that looked rather large.
“No,” he said, “it wasn't the dinner that stopped me. Besides, it didn't
strike me that--”
“That I might need my clothes? Well, I don't suppose it would strike
you; but since you have come across in the rain, won't you stop?”
Festing found an old leather chair, and sitting down, looked about with
a sense of satisfaction, for the fire was cheerful after the raw cold
outside. The room was large and old-fashioned, with heavy beams across
the low ceiling. There was a tall clock, and a big, black oak chest;
curled ram's horns and brass candlesticks twinkled on the mantel; an old
copper kettle threw back red reflections near the fire. His companions
occupied opposite sides of a large sheepskin rug, and he felt that both
had charm, though they were different. The contrast added something to
the charm.
Miss Jardine's skin was a pure white; her hair and eyes were nearly
black, and she had a sparkling, and perhaps rather daring, humor.
Helen's colors were rose and cream, her hair changed from warm brown to
gold as it caught the light, and her eyes were calm and gray. She was
younger than the other and he thought her smile delightful, but, as a
rule, she was marked by a certain gravity. Her wide brows and the firm
lines of her mouth and nose hinted at pride and resolution.
“I hope your foot is better,” he said to Miss Jardine.
“Yes, thanks. It mainly needed rest, and I must confess that I didn't
find it altogether a drawback when we stopped at the bottom of the big
crag. I should have had to go up if I hadn't been lame.”
“You were not disappointed because you couldn't reach the top?”
Miss Jardine laughed. “Helen was. She makes it a rule to accomplish what
she undertakes. I wasn't disappointed then, though I am now. Perhaps
one really enjoys mountaineering best afterwards. You like to think
how adventurous you have been, but it's sometimes difficult while the
adventure's going on.”
“That's true,” Festing agreed. “Still you feel sorry if, as we say, you
are unable to put the thing over.”
Helen gave him a sympathetic smile. “Yes; one feels that.”
“It depends upon one's temperament,” Miss Jardine objected. “I know my
limits, though Helen does not know hers. When I can't get what I'm out
for, I'm satisfied with less. One can't always have the best.”
“It's worth trying for, anyway,” Festing replied.
He was afraid this sounded priggish. Miss Jardine got up.
“Well, I'm not much of a philosopher and had better put out some of the
clothes you brought to dry, although it was thoughtful of you to throw
your bag into the bog instead of mine.”
“That was an accident,” Festing declared. “I meant to throw them both
across.”
Miss Jardine picked up the sack. “There's nobody else here and a wet
evening's dreary. I hope you won't go before I come back.”
“I won't,” said Festing. “They have only a deaf tourist and two tired
climbers, who seem sleepy and bad-tempered, at the hotel.”
Miss Jardine's eyes twinkled. “Well,” she said as she went out, “I
suppose it's a fair retort.”
Festing colored and looked at Helen apologetically. “You see, I have
lived in the woods.”
“I expect that has some advantages,” said Helen, who liked his frank
embarrassment. “However, it was lucky I met you to-day. You didn't come
back to see us, and there is something----” She hesitated and then
gave him a steady glance. “You are not so much a stranger to us as you
imagine.”
Festing wondered what she meant and whether she knew about the portrait,
but she resumed: “As a matter of fact, my mother and I felt that we knew
you rather well.”
“I don't understand.”
“Some time since, you found a young Englishmen in a Western mining town.
He had been ill and things had gone against him.”
“Ah,” said Festing sharply. “Of course! I ought to have known----He
looked like you. I mean I ought to have known the name. Was he a
relative?”
“My brother,” Helen replied.
She was silent for a moment or two, and then went on in a tone that made
Festing's heart beat: “You gave him work and helped him to make a new
start. He was too proud to tell us about his difficulties.”
“It cost me nothing; there was a job waiting. Afterwards he got on by
his own merits. I had nothing to do with that.”
“But you gave him his chance. We can't forget this. George was younger
than me. I have no other brother, and was very fond of him. Indeed, I
think we owe you much, and my mother is anxious to give you her thanks.”
“Is he all right now? I lost sight of him when they sent me to another
part of the road. It was my fault--he wrote, but I'm not punctual at
answering letters, and hadn't much time.”
“He is in the chief construction office,” Helen replied. “In his
last letter he told us about the likelihood of his getting some new
promotion.” She paused and resumed with a smile: “I don't suppose you
know you were a hero of his.”
“I didn't know. As a rule, the young men we had on the road seemed to
find their bosses amusing and rather patronized them. Of course, they
were fresh from a scientific college or engineer's office, and, for the
most part, we had learned what we knew upon the track.”
“But you knew it well. George wrote long letters about the struggle you
had at the canyon. Some fight, he called it.”
“Well,” said Festing quietly, “we were up against it then. The job was
worth doing.”
“I know. George told us how the snowslide came down and filled the head
of the gorge with stones and broken trees, and wash-outs wrecked the
line you built along its side. He said it was a job for giants;
clinging to the face of the precipice while you blew out and built
on--under-pinning, isn't it?--the first construction track. But he
declared the leaders were fine. They were where the danger was, in the
blinding rain and swirling snow--and the boys, as he called them, would
always follow you.”
Festing colored, but Helen went on: “We were glad, when the worst was
over, that he had had this training. It was so clean a fight.”
“We were dirty enough often,” Festing objected with an effort at humor.
“When things were humming we slept in our working clothes, which were
generally stained with mud and engine grease. Then I don't suppose you
know how dissipated a man looks and feels when he has breathed the fumes
of giant-powder.”
She stopped him with a half imperious glance. “I know it's the
convention to talk of such things as a joke; but you didn't feel that in
the canyon. Then it was a stubborn fight of the kind that man was meant
to wage. If you win in trade and politics, somebody must lose, but a
victory over Nature is a gain to all. And when your enemies are storms
and floods, cheating and small cunning are not of much use.”
“That is so,” Festing agreed, smiling. “When you're sent to cut through
an icy rock or re-lay the steel across the gap a snowslide has made,
it's obvious if you have done the job or not. This has some drawbacks,
because if you don't make good, you often get fired.”
“But that was not what drove you on. You must have had a better motive
for making good.”
Festing felt embarrassed. The girl was obviously not indulging a
sentimental vein. She felt what she frankly hinted at, and although he
generally avoided imaginative talk, her remarks did not sound cheap or
ridiculous.
“Well,” he said, “the fear of getting fired is a pretty strong incentive
to do one's best, but I suppose when one gets up against big things
there is something else. After all, one hates to be beaten.”
Helen's eyes sparkled and she gave him a sympathetic nod. “The hate of
being beaten distinguishes man from the ape and puts him on the side of
the angels.”
Then Miss Jardine came in, somewhat to the relief of Festing, who
felt he could not keep up long on Helen's plane. Besides, he was not
altogether sure he understood her last remark.
“I heard,” said Miss Jardine. “Helen's sometimes improving, but perhaps
she was right just now. The ape is cunning but acquiescent and accepts
things as they are. Man protests, and fights to make them better. At
least, he ought to, though one can't say he always does.”
Festing did not reply and she sat down and resumed: “But I suppose you
haven't many shirkers in Canada?”
“I imagine we have as many wastrels as there are anywhere else, but as
a rule one doesn't find them in the woods and on the plains. When they
leave the cities they're apt to starve.”
“You're a grim lot. Work or starve is a stern choice, particularly if
one has never done either. It looks as if you hadn't much use for purely
ornamental people. But what about the half-taught women who don't know
how to work? What do you do with them?”
“They're not numerous. Then one can always learn, and I imagine every
woman can cook and manage a house.”
“You're taking much for granted, though yours seems to be the
conventional view. But how did you learn railroad building, for
example?”
“By unloading ties and shoveling ballast on the track. The trouble was
that I began too late.”
“What did you do before that?”
“Sometimes I worked in sawmills and sometimes packed--that means
carrying things--for survey parties, and went prospecting.”
“In the wilds? It sounds interesting. Won't you tell us about it?”
Festing complied; awkwardly at first, and then with growing confidence.
He did not want to make much of his exploits, but there was a charm in
talking about things he knew to two clever and attractive girls, and
they helped him with tactful questions. Indeed, he was surprised to find
they knew something about the rugged country in which he wandered.
He told them about risky journeys up lonely rivers in the spring,
adventurous thrusts into the wilderness where hardship was oftener to be
found than valuable minerals, and retreats with provisions running out
before the Arctic winter.
Something of the charm of the empty spaces colored his narratives as
he drew from memory half-finished pictures of the mad riot of primitive
forces when the ice broke up and the floods hurled the thundering floes
among the rocks; and of tangled woods sinking into profound silence
in the stinging frost. Moreover, he unconsciously delineated his own
character, and when he stopped, the others understood something of the
practical resource and stubbornness that had supported him.
It was encouraging to see they were not bored, but he did not know that
Miss Jardine had found him an interesting study and had skilfully led
him on. He was a new type to both girls, although Helen was nearer
to him than the other and sympathized where her companion was amused.
Festing's ideas were clean-cut, his honesty was obvious, and she noted
that he did not know much about the lighter side of life. Yet she saw
that, sternly practical as he was, he had a vague feeling for romance.
“Will you stay on the railroad when it's finished?” she asked presently.
“I've left it. I hadn't the proper training to carry me far, and as the
road is opening up the country I've bought a prairie farm.”
“But do you know much about farming?”
“I don't. As a matter of fact, not many of the boys do know much when
they begin, but somehow they make progress. On the plains, it isn't what
you know that counts, but the capacity for work and staying with your
job. That's what one really needs, if you see what I mean.”
“I think I do,” Miss Jardine replied. “A Victorian philosopher, whose
opinions you seem to hold, said something of the kind. He claims that
genius takes many different forms, but is not different in itself. That
is, if you have talent, you can do what you like. Build railroads, for
example, and then succeed on a farm.”
Festing laughed good-humoredly. “It's a pretty big thing to claim, but
that man was near the mark; they live up to his theories on the plains,
where shams don't count and efficiency's the test. I don't mean that the
boys have genius, but gift and perseverance seem to be worth as much.
Anyhow, one can generally trust them to make good when they undertake a
job they don't know much about.”
Helen mused. Charnock, who knew something about farming, had tried
it and failed, but she thought Festing would succeed. The man
looked determined and, in a way, ascetic; he could deny himself and
concentrate. Knowledge was not worth as much as character. But she was
content to let Miss Jardine lead the talk.
“One understands,” said the latter, “that farming's laborious and not
very profitable work.”
“It's always laborious,” Festing agreed. “It may be profitable; that
depends. You see----”
He went on, using plain words but with some force of imagination, to
picture the wheat-grower's hopes and struggles; but he did more, for as
he talked Helen was conscious of the romance that underlay the patient
effort. She saw the empty, silent land rolling back to the West; the
ox-teams slowly breaking the first furrow, and then the big Percheron
horses and gasoline tractors taking their place. Wooden shacks
dotted the white grass, the belts of green wheat widened, wagons,
and afterwards automobiles, lurched along the rutted trails. Then the
railroad came, brick homestead and windmills rose, and cities sprang up,
as it were, in a night. Everything was fluid, there was no permanence;
rules and customs altered before they got familiar, a new nation, with
new thoughts and aims, was rising from the welter of tense activity.
Then Festing got up with an apologetic air. “I'm afraid I've stopped
too long and talked too much. Still the big movement out there is
fascinating and people in this country don't grasp its significance. I
felt I'd like to make you understand. Then you didn't seem--”
“If we had been bored, it would have been our fault, but we were not
bored at all,” Miss Jardine replied. “At least, I wasn't, and don't
think Helen was.”
Helen added her denial and gave Festing her hand. When he had gone Miss
Jardine looked at her with a smile.
“He was interesting,” she remarked. “Talks better than he knows, and I
suppose we ought to feel flattered, because he took our comprehension
for granted. After all, it was rash to talk about Canadian progress to
two English girls.”
“You made him talk,” Helen rejoined. “It's the first time I've known you
interested in geography.”
Miss Jardine laughed. “I was interested in the man. He told us a good
deal about himself, although it would have embarrassed him if he'd
guessed. The curious thing is that he imagines he's practical, while
he's really a reckless sentimentalist.”
Helen did not answer and picked up a book, but she thought more about
Festing than about what she read.