Father had become the owner, through one of his numerous business
deals, of what would be considered to-day a one-horse saw mill. It was
situated about ninety miles from Montreal, near a little village of one
thousand souls. I had been there for short visits on several occasions,
and liked the roughness and freedom of the place. The manager of this
mill (one Mason) and I liked each other. I amused him and he interested
me. He was a huge man with a face smothered in black whiskers. He
looked like a hairy Mephisto, but had the tender nature of a dove.
After my second fiasco at M’Gill, my father said to me:
“Well, Jack, what do you propose to do now?”
He said other things also which it is not necessary to detail, except
that they were to the point, more than to my credit or his.
“Send me to the mill,” I replied, “and let me learn the business. I
like the place and will do well there if I get a chance. I will marry
soon and settle down.”
He was too wise to discuss a thing like my marriage, which seemed so
far in the future.
“Humph!” said he, “we will see about it.”
Seeing about it was never a very lengthy process with him. Generally
when he said that, his mind was already made up.
Letters passed between him and Mason, and in a few days the matter was
arranged. I was to assist Mason and learn what I could from him, at
the rate of five dollars per week during good behaviour. These things
were, of course, made known to Muriel, who loved to mother and advise
me.
If Mrs. Joseph had shown the wisdom of my father and taken for granted
that the affair between her daughter and one Wesblock was a boy and
girl love of no consequence, I might not have been married yet. But
she disliked me particularly. She saw no future for her daughter with
me. In her anxiety to oppose me she just overshot the mark, as so many
over-anxious mothers do. She gave our affair an importance it never
would have had unopposed and unobtrusively watched.
My start in life, as my going to the saw-mill was considered to be,
was highly satisfactory to every one concerned. To Muriel and me, the
prospect of our being able presently to live in a nice little house in
the woods, to live there together till we became rich, when we would
come back to Montreal and show our relatives and friends what we had
become—seemed like a beautiful dream. It turned out almost exactly that
way, with several minor differences to be presently set forth. To Mrs.
Joseph my taking off to the wilderness, ninety miles from the city, was
a distinct relief. The Doctor wished me well with smiles. He had not
much faith in me, but liked me well enough to hope. Father and mother
were also hopeful, with misgivings.
The parting from Muriel came as partings will. How much she suffered I
do not know, but it made me ill—seriously ill—I could neither sleep nor
eat, and for days after my arrival at the mill I was in a half-dazed
condition. Muriel wrote splendid letters daily, and I lived on these
until I came to myself and started what I considered the simple task
of learning the lumber business.
It had been stipulated by my father that I should remain at my post six
months, entirely under the hand of Mason, without trips to Montreal
oftener than once in thirty days. I was lodged and fed like all the
mill hands, and once every two weeks received my pay envelope.
Mason was kind to me and allowed me great liberty, but I had to work,
and work hard, at every kind of labour, from keeping tally to loading
slabs. I was a joke to the little community; but I did not know it. For
weeks I was abed at eight o’clock, sometimes before sundown, I was so
tired out.
The first thirty days being completed, I made my first week-end visit
to Montreal. An hour’s drive to the railroad station and three hours on
a slow mixed train left little of my short holiday, but I was to know
worse things than that. Calling at the home of my beloved, I found that
my arrival was expected and strangely prepared for. Miss Joseph, I was
told, was out of town!
While not entirely taken aback, I was hurt and humiliated, and felt
very foolish under the knowing gaze of the maid who opened the door
to me. If I was not altogether unprepared for this cold reception,
it was because Mrs. Joseph had, on every available occasion, made it
unmistakably plain to me that I was not to her taste. Muriel’s letters
also had been quite frank relative to her mother’s estimate of me
mentally, physically, socially and financially. I had been referred
to, by Mrs. Joseph, as “that person Wesblock.” This could hardly be
considered very dreadful in itself, but when accompanied by a tilting
of the chin, with an expression about the nose suggestive of an
objectionable odour, with Mrs. Joseph’s thin, hard lips closed in a
straight determined line, it meant volumes. Muriel was incapable of
duplicating this expression of her mother. Her lips were full, red and
generous, like those of her dear father.
It must be admitted that Mrs. Joseph was quite right in her attempt to
protect her child from a man whom she considered undesirable. I only
objected to her high-handed methods.
Muriel had a cousin named Lizette, an orphan, who had been brought up
by Doctor Joseph. She was the same age as Muriel, but different to her
in every respect, being thin, sharp and vixenish. As this girl honoured
me with a dislike, quite as sincere as that of Mrs. Joseph, she was
glad to do service in meanly spying and reporting her own version of
whatever she could discover. Had Mrs. Joseph taken the pains to argue
kindly with me, she could have forced me to admit after ten minutes
discussion that there was no great promise in me. For I believe I was a
reasonable youth, had no great faith in myself, and no desire to injure
Muriel by ill-considered and rash haste. But her very rude and plain
opposition to me added just that zest to my love affair which made it
great in my eyes, and myself a romantic hero. I have often wondered
what element in my make-up gave me success with the one woman who
proved worth while to me.
I left the door of the Joseph house dejected and thoughtful. I strongly
suspected Lizette of peeping at me from a window above, but I did not
look back. Naturally I was angry, and very much disappointed, and as
I walked home with hanging, thoughtful head, I matured my schemes to
outwit Mrs. Joseph and her lieutenant Lizette.
I thought of Mrs. Joseph as a wicked old girl. She was wicked and old
to me, although she was only forty at the time. I think of her to-day
as an old girl, but see her with very different eyes and call her
Grandma. To outwit her was really not a very difficult proposition.
Bribes to servants soon re-established my line of communication,
without fear of letters being intercepted, or returned unopened by
the watchful mother or the wily Lizette. The coachman, for a modest
sum, arranged that Muriel and I might drive together, when I came to
Montreal again. Friends of Muriel’s were kind too and connived at our
seeing each other. It is a very cold-hearted person who will not assist
young lovers to meet. I confided the condition of my love affair to my
mother, who smilingly gave me her sympathy, for she did not take me
very seriously.
I returned at once to the mill, and from there wrote letters daily to
my dear, sending them in a roundabout and mysterious way.
My days there were most simple; hard work from seven in the morning
till six in the evening; letter-writing, a little reading, a little
music, and bed. I had naturally useful hands, and learned the pleasure
and utility of being able to do things with them. I took naturally
to woodwork, and spent nearly all my Sundays in the carpenter shop,
where I cut and bruised my hands, and butchered wood into clumsy,
ill-fitting and rickety benches, stools and boxes, which amused our
mechanic greatly. But with perseverance, patience and time my skill
improved, so that before I left the mill I had become something of an
artist in wood, and could really do a very nice and creditable job in
joining and fitting. Thereby I much improved my standing and influence
with the mill hands. In after days I took much satisfaction out of
a well-equipped workshop. Examples of my skill exist in every house
into which our family is divided. To make some useful thing for your
own house, with your own hands, to fashion some present for friend or
relative, or to save ingeniously some decrepit piece of furniture and
renew its life of usefulness, is indeed a splendid pleasure, good for
body and soul. To turn out a nice, clean, well-fitting joint, which
satisfies the eye, while you think and dream and plan, amidst the smell
of sawdust, shavings and clean things, is more than mere bodily and
mental satisfaction. There is something spiritual in it.
In thirty long days I was again entitled to go to Montreal. This time
I did not go to the Joseph house. I was thoroughly posted and so was
Muriel. I found her at the home of a kindly aunt, and we saw much of
each other during two whole days. Great days they were, as I remember
well, when we dreamed dreams of the great and happy future before
us, when we would be different from everybody else, more happy, more
generous, more broad-minded and forgiving. Then back to the mill again;
this time boiling over with energy and enthusiasm, to do, to work and
progress in health and knowledge of things in general, and for an
immediate end, to forward the lumber business first and foremost.
Before I could go to Montreal again the Josephs had left for their
summer residence at Riviere du Loup, where they summered yearly.
Starting immediately after the schools closed, the Joseph “army,” as
it was called, moved to the seaside. Eleven children, maids, butler,
horses, carriages, generally one or two hangers-on, and Mrs. Joseph,
constituted the “army.” Muriel never liked this exodus very much. She
said it was like travelling with a circus, moving an orphan asylum or a
warlike tribe. Circus it certainly was as far as the younger children
could make it, for a wilder or more obstreperous lot of imps of
mischief never existed, and a more placid demeanour than that of Mrs.
Joseph, in the midst of her unruly brood, was never exhibited by woman
under similar circumstances. Occasionally she might arouse herself to
the exertion of pinching a particularly annoying cherub, but that would
be all, and she would proceed to read, peaceful and unruffled. Many a
time I was put out of countenance when one of these juvenile fiends
escaped from a keeper and invaded my privacy; for their candour was
appalling.
“Hello, Blockhead!” one of the big boys would greet me. “Still hanging
around Muriel? She makes _us_ sick.”
I am naturally fond of children, but they need not have the manners of
a playful bear.
I went to Riviere du Loup for a short holiday towards the end of the
summer, with Mason’s consent, but without the knowledge of my father.
My reception by Muriel was all that I dreamed it would be; but that of
Mrs. Joseph was frosty and forbidding. She had, however, to make the
best of my presence, and did so with a bad grace. In the freedom of
country life, without the backing of the Doctor’s countenance, Muriel
and I had her rather at a disadvantage. We were young and selfish, and
neither generous nor thoughtful for her feelings. Morning, noon and
night we were together, which, of course, caused talk among busybodies.
That any one would dare even to whisper about the conduct of her
daughter was gall and wormwood to Mrs. Joseph. Lizette was careful to
keep her informed of all the disagreeable and mean remarks made about
Wesblock, and was not too particular how she repeated such things.
Consequently, a more or less painful scene took place between Muriel
and her mother at nearly every meal and with great regularity every
night.
“Where have you been, miss, till this hour of night, nearly twelve
o’clock?” Mrs. Joseph would ask when Muriel appeared at about half-past
ten at night.
“Why, mother, it’s only half-past ten,” Muriel would reply.
“Don’t dare to discuss the matter of time, Muriel. Answer my question.
Where have you been? I need hardly ask with whom.”
“I’ve only been in the orchard with Mr. Wesblock.”
“Oh! _only_ in the orchard till after midnight with a perfect stranger.”
“Now, don’t be foolish, mother.”
“Foolish! You dare to call your mother a fool. I’ll write to your
father and have you sent to the convent at once.”
“Now listen, mother——”
“I’ll not listen; go to bed at once, I am made absolutely miserable by
your behaviour.”
As the orchard was about the extent of a pocket handkerchief and
comprised four trees; and the bench we sat upon was against the side
of the house and immediately under Mrs. Joseph’s window, Muriel and
I could not see the dreadfulness of our behaviour, and these scenes
annoyed us and made us feel like children who had been treated with
injustice.
One day we decided to put an end to the uncomfortable condition of
things by running away and getting married.
How we expected to escape, I certainly cannot explain, for we took an
express train in broad day at about three o’clock in the afternoon.
A score of people must have seen us depart, but we counted somewhat,
I think, on the very audacity of the performance and believed all
that was necessary was to get away on the train. It was a childish
escapade, conceived in ignorance of everything in the world except
the infatuation for each other which made it necessary for us to
be together at all costs. Our elders drove us to it by ill-advised
chatter, badgering and baiting. All we desired was a little trust, some
kindness and liberty; failing these, we decided to make our own life.