The burden of the valley of vision: woe to the Honourable Adam B.
Hunt! Where is he all this time? On the porch of his home in Edmundton,
smoking cigars, little heeding the rising of the waters; receiving
visits from the Honourables Brush Bascom, Nat Billings, and Jacob
Botcher, and signing cheques to the order of these gentlemen for
necessary expenses. Be it known that the Honourable Adam was a man of
substance in this world's goods. To quote from Mr. Crewe's speech at
Hull: “The Northeastern Railroads confer--they do not pay, except in
passes. Of late years their books may be searched in vain for evidence
of the use of political funds. The man upon whom they choose to confer
your governorship is always able to pay the pipers.” (Purposely put in
the plural.)
Have the pipers warned the Honourable Adam of the rising tide against
him? Have they asked him to gird up his loins and hire halls and smite
the upstart hip and thigh? They have warned him, yes, that the expenses
may be a little greater than ordinary. But it is not for him to talk, or
to bestir himself in any unseemly manner, for the prize which he was to
have was in the nature of a gift. In vain did Mr. Crewe cry out to him
four times a week for his political beliefs, for a statement of what he
would do if he were elected governor. The Honourable Adam's dignified
answer was that he had always been a good Republican, and would die one.
Following a time-honoured custom, he refused to say anything, but it was
rumoured that he believed in the gold standard.
It is August, and there is rejoicing in--Leith. There is no doubt now
that the campaign of the people progresses; no need any more for the
true accounts of the meetings, in large print, although these are still
continued. The reform rallies resemble matinees no longer, and two
real reporters accompany Mr. Crewe on his tours. Nay, the campaign of
education has already borne fruit, which the candidate did not hesitate
to mention in his talks Edmundton has more trains, Kingston has more
trains, and more cars. No need now to stand up for twenty miles on a hot
day; and more cars are building, and more engines; likewise some rates
have been lowered. And editors who declare that the Northeastern gives
the State a pretty good government have, like the guinea pigs, long been
suppressed.
In these days were many councils at Fairview and in the offices of the
Honourable Hilary Vane at Ripton; councils behind closed doors, from
which the councillors emerged with smiling faces that men might not know
the misgivings in their hearts; councils, nevertheless, out of which
leaked rumours of dissension and recrimination conditions hitherto
unheard of. One post ran to meet another, and one messenger ran to meet
another; and it was even reported--though on doubtful authority--after
the rally in his town the Honourable Jacob Botcher had made the remark
that, under certain conditions, he might become a reformer.
None of these upsetting rumours, however, were allowed by Mr. Bascom
and other gentlemen close to the Honourable Adam B. Hunt to reach that
candidate, who continued to smoke in tranquillity on the porch of his
home until the fifteenth day of August. At eight o'clock that morning
the postman brought him a letter marked personal, the handwriting on
which he recognized as belonging to the Honourable Hilary Vane. For
some reason, as he read, the sensations of the Honourable Adam were
disquieting; the contents of the letter, to say the least, were
peculiar. “To-morrow, at noon precisely, I shall be driving along the
Broad Brook road by the abandoned mill--three miles towards Edmundton
from Hull. I hope you will find it convenient to be there.”
These were the strange words the Honourable Hilary had written, and the
Honourable Adam knew that it was an order. At that very instant Mr. Hunt
had been reading in the Guardian the account of an overflow meeting
in Newcastle, by his opponent, in which Mr. Crewe had made some
particularly choice remarks about him; and had been cheered to the echo.
The Honourable Adam put the paper down, and walked up the street to
talk to Mr. Burrows, the postmaster whom, with the aid of Congressman
Fairplay, he had had appointed at Edmundton. The two racked their brains
for three hours; and Postmaster Burrows, who was the fortunate possessor
of a pass, offered to go down to Ripton in the interest of his liege
lord and see what was up. The Honourable Adam, however, decided that he
could wait for twenty-four hours.
The morning of the sixteenth dawned clear, as beautiful a summer's day
for a drive as any man could wish. But the spirit of the Honourable Adam
did not respond to the weather, and he had certain vague forebodings
as his horse jogged toward Hull, although these did not take such a
definite shape as to make him feel a premonitory pull of his coat-tails.
The ruined mill beside the rushing stream was a picturesque spot, and
the figure of the Honourable Hilary Vane, seated on the old millstone,
in the green and gold shadows of a beech, gave an interesting touch of
life to the landscape. The Honourable Adam drew up and eyed his friend
and associate of many years before addressing him.
“How are you, Hilary?”
“Hitch your horse,” said Mr. Vane.
The Honourable Adam was some time in picking out a convenient tree. Then
he lighted a cigar, and approached Mr. Vane, and at length let himself
down, cautiously, on the millstone. Sitting on his porch had not
improved Mr. Hunt's figure.
“This is kind of mysterious, ain't it, Hilary?” he remarked, with a tug
at his goatee.
“I don't know but what it is,” admitted Mr. Vane, who did not look as
though the coming episode were to give him unqualified joy.
“Fine weather,” remarked the Honourable Adam, with a brave attempt at
geniality.
“The paper predicts rain to-morrow,” said the Honourable Hilary.
“You don't smoke, do you?” asked the Honourable Adam.
“No,” said the Honourable Hilary.
A silence, except for the music of the brook over the broken dam.
“Pretty place,” said the Honourable Adam; “I kissed my wife here
once--before I was married.”
This remark, although of interest, the Honourable Hilary evidently
thought did not require an answer:
“Adam,” said Mr. Vane, presently, “how much money have you spent so
far?”
“Well,” said Mr. Hunt, “it has been sort of costly, but Brush and the
boys tell me the times are uncommon, and I guess they are. If that crazy
cuss Crewe hadn't broken loose, it would have been different. Not that
I'm uneasy about him, but all this talk of his and newspaper advertising
had to be counteracted some. Why, he has a couple of columns a week
right here in the Edmundton Courier. The papers are bleedin' him to
death, certain.”
“How much have you spent?” asked the Honourable Hilary.
The Honourable Adam screwed up his face and pulled his goatee
thoughtfully.
“What are you trying to get at, Hilary,” he inquired, “sending for me to
meet you out here in the woods in this curious way? If you wanted to see
me, why didn't you get me to go down to Ripton, or come up and sit on my
porch? You've been there before.”
“Times,” said the Honourable Hilary, repeating, perhaps unconsciously,
Mr. Hunt's words, “are uncommon. This man Crewe's making more headway
than you think. The people don't know him, and he's struck a popular
note. It's the fashion to be down on railroads these days.”
“I've taken that into account,” replied Mr. Hunt.
“It's unlucky, and it comes high. I don't think he's got a show for the
nomination, but my dander's up, and I'll beat him if I have to mortgage
my house.”
The Honourable Hilary grunted, and ruminated.
“How much did you say you'd spent, Adam?”
“If you think I'm not free enough, I'll loosen up a little more,” said
the Honourable Adam.
“How free have you been?” said the Honourable Hilary.
For some reason the question, put in this form, was productive of
results.
“I can't say to a dollar, but I've got all the amounts down in a book. I
guess somewhere in the neighbourhood of nine thousand would cover it.”
Mr. Vane grunted again.
“Would you take a cheque, Adam?” he inquired.
“What for?” cried the Honourable Adam.
“For the amount you've spent,” said the Honourable Hilary,
sententiously.
The Honourable Adam began to breathe with apparent difficulty, and his
face grew purple. But Mr. Vane did not appear to notice these alarming
symptoms. Then the candidate turned about, as on a pivot, seized Mr.
Vane by the knee, and looked into his face.
“Did you come up here with orders for me to get out?” he demanded, with
some pardonable violence. “By thunder, I didn't think that of my old
friend, Hilary Vane. You ought to have known me better, and Flint ought
to have known me better. There ain't a mite of use of our staying here
another second, and you can go right back and tell Flint what I said.
Flint knows I've been waiting to be governor for eight years, and each
year it's been just a year ahead. You ask him what he said to me when he
sent for me to go to New York. I thought he was a man of his word, and
he promised me that I should be governor this year.”
The Honourable Hilary gave no indication of being moved by this
righteous outburst.
“You can be governor next year, when this reform nonsense has blown
over,” he said. “You can't be this year, even if you stay in the race.”
“Why not?” the Honourable Adam asked pugnaciously.
“Your record won't stand it--not just now,” said Mr. Vane, slowly.
“My record is just as good as yours, or any man's,” said the Honourable
Adam.
“I never run for office,” answered Mr. Vane.
“Haven't I spent the days of my active life in the service of that
road--and is this my reward? Haven't I done what Flint wanted always?”
“That's just the trouble,” said the Honourable Hilary; “too many folks
know it. If we're going to win this time, we've got to have a man who's
never had any Northeastern connections.”
“Who have you picked?” demanded the Honourable Adam, with alarming
calmness.
“We haven't picked anybody yet,” said Mr. Vane, “but the man who goes
in will give you a cheque for what you've spent, and you can be governor
next time.”
“Well, if this isn't the d--dest, coldest-blooded proposition ever made,
I want to know!” cried the Honourable Adam. “Will Flint put up a bond
of one hundred thousand dollars that I'll be nominated and elected next
year? This is the clearest case of going back on an old friend I ever
saw. If this is the way you fellows get scared because a sham reformer
gets up and hollers against the road, then I want to serve notice on you
that I'm not made of that kind of stuff. When I go into a fight, I go
in to stay, and you can't pull me out by the coat-tails in favour of
a saint who's never done a lick of work for the road. You tell Flint
that.”
“All right, Adam,” said Hilary.
Some note in Hilary's voice, as he made this brief answer, suddenly
sobered the Honourable Adam, and sent a cold chill down his spine. He
had had many dealings with Mr. Vane, and he had always been as putty in
the chief counsel's hands. This simple acquiescence did more to convince
the Honourable Adam that his chances of nomination were in real
danger than a long and forceful summary of the situation could have
accomplished. But like many weak men, the Honourable Adam had a stubborn
streak, and a fatuous idea that opposition and indignation were signs of
strength.
“I've made sacrifices for the road before, and effaced myself. But by
thunder, this is too much!”
Corporations, like republics, are proverbially ungrateful. The
Honourable Hilary might have voiced this sentiment, but refrained.
“Mr. Flint's a good friend of yours, Adam. He wanted me to say that he'd
always taken care of you, and always would, so far as in his power. If
you can't be landed this time, it's common sense for you to get out, and
wait--isn't it? We'll see that you get a cheque to cover what you've put
out.”
The humour in this financial sacrifice of Mr. Flint's (which the unknown
new candidate was to make with a cheque) struck neither the Honourable
Adam nor the Honourable Hilary. The transaction, if effected, would
resemble that of the shrine to the Virgin built by a grateful Marquis of
Mantua--which a Jew paid for.
The Honourable Adam got to his feet.
“You can tell Flint,” he said, “that if he will sign a bond of one
hundred thousand dollars to elect me next time, I'll get out. That's my
last word.”
“All right, Adam,” replied Mr. Vane, rising also.
Mr. Hunt stared at the Honourable Hilary thoughtfully; and although the
gubernatorial candidate was not an observant man, he was suddenly struck
by the fact that the chief counsel was growing old.
“I won't hold this against you, Hilary,” he said.
“Politics,” said the Honourable Hilary, “are business matters.”
“I'll show Flint that it would have been good business to stick to me,”
said the Honourable Adam. “When he gets panicky, and spends all his
money on new equipment and service, it's time for me to drop him. You
can tell him so from me.”
“Hadn't you better write him?” said the Honourable Hilary.
The rumour of the entry of Mr. Giles Henderson of Kingston into the
gubernatorial contest preceded, by ten days or so, the actual event.
It is difficult for the historian to unravel the precise circumstances
which led to this candidacy. Conservative citizens throughout the State,
it was understood, had become greatly concerned over the trend political
affairs were taking; the radical doctrines of one candidate--propounded
for very obvious reasons--they turned from in disgust; on the other
hand, it was evident that an underlying feeling existed in certain
sections that any candidate who was said to have had more or less
connection with the Northeastern Railroads was undesirable at
the present time. This was not to be taken as a reflection on the
Northeastern, which had been the chief source of the State's prosperity,
but merely as an acknowledgment that a public opinion undoubtedly
existed, and ought to be taken into consideration by the men who
controlled the Republican party.
This was the gist of leading articles which appeared simultaneously
in several newspapers, apparently before the happy thought of bringing
forward Mr. Giles Henderson had occurred to anybody. He was mentioned
first, and most properly, by the editor of the “Kingston Pilot;” and the
article, with comments upon it, ran like wildfire through the press of
the State,--appearing even in those sheets which maintained editorially
that they were for the Honourable Adam B. Hunt first and last and, all
the time. Whereupon Mr. Giles Henderson began to receive visits from
the solid men--not politicians of the various cities and counties. For
instance, Mr. Silas Tredway of Ripton, made such a pilgrimage and, as a
citizen who had voted in 1860 for Abraham Lincoln (showing Mr. Tredway
himself to have been a radical once), appealed to Mr. Henderson to save
the State.
At first Mr. Henderson would give no ear to these appeals, but shook his
head pessimistically. He was not a politician--so much the better, we
don't want a politician; he was a plain business man exactly what is
needed; a conservative, level-headed business man wholly lacking in
those sensational qualities which are a stench in the nostrils of good
citizens. Mr. Giles Henderson admitted that the time had come when a man
of these qualities was needed--but he was not the man. Mr. Tredway was
the man--so he told Mr. Tredway; Mr. Gates of Brampton was the man--so
he assured Mr. Gates. Mr. Henderson had no desire to meddle in politics;
his life was a happy and a full one. But was it not Mr. Henderson's
duty? Cincinnatus left the plough, and Mr. Henderson should leave the
ledger at the call of his countrymen.
Mr. Giles Henderson was mild-mannered and blue-eyed, with a scanty beard
that was turning white; he was a deacon of the church, a member of the
school board, president of the Kingston National Bank; the main
business of his life had been in coal (which incidentally had had to be
transported over the Northeastern Railroads); and coal rates, for some
reason, were cheaper from Kingston than from many points out of the
State the distances of which were nearer. Mr. Henderson had been able
to sell his coal at a lower price than any other large dealer in the
eastern part of the State. Mr. Henderson was the holder of a large
amount of stock in the Northeastern, inherited from his father. Facts of
no special significance, and not printed in the weekly newspapers. Mr.
Henderson lived in a gloomy Gothic house on High Street, ate three very
plain meals a day, and drank iced water. He had been a good husband and
a good father, and had always voted the Republican ticket. He believed
in the gold standard, a high tariff, and eternal damnation. At last his
resistance was overcome, and he consented to allow his name to be used.
It was used, with a vengeance. Spontaneous praise of Mr. Giles Henderson
bubbled up all over the State, and editors who were for the Honourable
Adam B. Hunt suddenly developed a second choice. No man within the
borders of the commonwealth had so many good qualities as the new
candidate, and it must have been slightly annoying to one of that
gentleman's shrinking nature to read daily, on coming down to breakfast,
a list of virtues attributed to him as long as a rate schedule. How he
must have longed for the record of one wicked deed to make him human!
Who will pick a flaw in the character of the Honourable Giles Henderson?
Let that man now stand forth.
The news of the probable advent of Mr. Giles Henderson on the field, as
well as the tidings of his actual consent to be a candidate, were not
slow in reaching Leith. And--Mr. Crewe's Bureau of Information being in
perfect working order--the dastardly attempt on the Honourable Adam
B. Hunt's coat-tails was known there. More wonders to relate: the
Honourable Adam B. Hunt had become a reformer; he had made a statement
at last, in which he declared with vigour that no machine or ring was
behind him; he stood on his own merits, invited the minutest inspection
of his record, declared that he was an advocate of good government, and
if elected would be the servant of no man and of no corporation.
Thrice-blessed State, in which there were now three reform candidates
for governor!
All of these happenings went to indicate confusion in the enemy's camp,
and corresponding elation in Mr. Crewe's. Woe to the reputation for
political sagacity of the gentleman who had used the words “negligible”
and “monumental farce”! The tide was turning, and the candidate from
Leith redoubled his efforts. Had he been confounded by the advent of
the Honourable Giles? Not at all. Mr. Crewe was not given to satire; his
methods, as we know, were direct. Hence the real author of the following
passage in his speech before an overflow meeting in the State capital
remains unknown:
“My friends,” Mr. Crewe had said, “I have been waiting for the time when
St. Giles of the Blameless Life would be pushed forward, apparently as
the only hope of our so-called 'solid citizens.' (Prolonged laughter,
and audible repetitions of Mr. Henderson's nickname, which was to
stick.) I will tell you by whose desire St. Giles became a candidate,
and whose bidding he will do if he becomes governor as blindly and
obediently as the Honourable Adam B. Hunt ever did. (Shouts of “Flint!”
and, “The Northeastern!”) I see you know. Who sent the solid citizens
to see Mr. Henderson? (“Flint!”) This is a clever trick--exactly what I
should have done if I'd been running their campaign--only they didn't
do it early enough. They picked Mr. Giles Henderson for two reasons:
because he lives in Kingston, which is anti-railroad and supported the
Gaylord bill, and, because he never in his life committed any
positive action, good or bad--and he never will. And they made another
mistake--the Honourable Adam B. Hunt wouldn't back out.” (Laughter and
cheers.)