It fell on a morning that Clark, sitting at his desk, felt within him
that strange stirring to which he had long since learned to give heed,
it being his habit at such moments to leave the works and resign
himself completely to these subtle processes. He now walked slowly
across toward the river, and seated himself where, years before, he had
watched the triumphant kingfisher. The place had a peculiar
fascination for him, and had by his orders been kept in its pristine
wildness. Half a mile away the pulp mill was grinding dully, on the
upper reaches of the great bay circular saws were ripping into logs
fresh from Baudette's operations on the Magwa River, and seventy miles
up the river a large crew was shipping and excavating at the iron mine.
These things and many others being on foot, Clark had experienced that
intellectual restlessness which in him was the precursor of further
effort.
Listening to the boom of the river he reflected that the water he had
diverted to his own purposes was but a fraction of the whole mighty
torrent racing in front of him. Into the scant half mile between shore
and shore was forced the escaping flood of the mighty Superior, and
such was the compression that, midway, the torrent heaped itself up
into a low ridge of broken plunging crests. Just over the ridge he
could see the opposite shore line. It did not occur to him, as it
would to many, how puny were the greatest efforts of man beside this
prodigious mass. The manner of his mind was, too objective. The sight
of the United States so close at hand only suggested that in the
country from which he came he had as yet made no physical mark. There
was the town with the rapids close beside it, just as in Canada. More
and more the inward stirring captured him. Why should he not create in
his own land what he had already created in Canada?
The idea was stimulating, and very carefully he reviewed the situation
as it there existed. His supporters were keen men in Philadelphia and
the unexpected announcement of Fisette's discovery had electrified the
market. Shares in all the allied companies touched hitherto unreached
values. The more he thought the more he luxuriated in this new sweep
of imagination, while intermittently there came to him the dull boom of
blasting at the works.
Presently his mind turned to money and personal wealth. He had never
given it much thought, and only seriously considered money in terms of
what it could accomplish. Now he was receiving a very large salary and
had, as well, holdings in shares of the various companies. He dwelt on
the fact for a while, not that he had ever aimed at riches, but because
his financial position was infinitely better than ever before. It
would be easy, he reflected, to sell out, retire and live at ease. He
chuckled audibly at the picture, realizing that if he stopped work he
would die of a strangulated spirit.
Presently as he listened it seemed that the rapids took on a new pitch.
He had remarked before that, varying with the direction of the wind,
their call was not always in one great thundering diapason but
sometimes in a gigantic hubbub made up, as it were, of the confused
blending of many notes. Now, he imagined, he could discern them
all--querulous, angry, contented, pleading, defiant, threatening and
triumphant, and he perceived in them but the echo of changing human
moods. To-day he distinguished chiefly a voice that was dominant and
imperative.
Still in profound contemplation he surveyed the rapids' gigantic sweep,
the proud and tossing billows shot through with sunlight and vibrant
with speed. He made out those smooth and glistening emerald cellars
into which the flashing river pitched to rise again in tossing crests.
He followed back through the icy depths of the great lake stretching
westward to hidden swamps in that vast wilderness where these waters
were born, and shouting rivers down which they poured through silent
pools and over leaping cataracts to Superior. He saw still another
river that, growing in power and majesty, moved royally past the cities
of men, healing, sustaining and inspiring. And, last of all, he
perceived these waters of half a continent blend silently with the
brackish tides and lose themselves in the eternal sea.
This translation of vision moved him profoundly, for it was the nature
of his remote personality to be stirred more deeply by the revelations
of his own soul than by anything extraneous to its strange reactions.
Then gradually the voice of the river resolved itself into one clear
and unmistakable summons. "Use me while you may. I shall flow on
forever, while you have but a moment in eternity."
And this satisfied him.
He got up and walked slowly back, plunged in thought, but not of those
who passed and touched their hats and to whom he was the
personification of power. There was in his mind the talk he had with
Wimperley, a few months before. "We're in your hands," he had said,
"but there's a limit to what we can raise. Push on with work and don't
forget about dividends."
Remembering it, Clark smiled. The dividends might be delayed a year or
so, but when they came it would be in a flood like the rapids. At his
office he found a telegram from the purchasing agent in the United
States. Blast furnaces were under way, and, he reported, he had
secured an option on a rail mill. It was not new, but could be had at
once. To dismantle and reërect would save six months as against the
time required to build a new one. This purchase would also save
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He pondered for some time, with Wimperley's remarks about dividends
keeping up an irritating onslaught. He was aware in a strange but
quite unmistakable way that this decision now to be made was in a quite
positive sense more momentous than appeared on the surface. He hung
over it, balancing the advantages of a new mill against a definite
saving. It was not the sum about which he hesitated, but a touch of
uncertainty as to just how much capital Wimperley and the rest could
actually provide. Then suddenly he decided to be economical, even
though a secondhand mill had obvious weaknesses.
In the next moment he rang for Belding. The engineer answered with a
weariness daily becoming more settled, and which was only relieved by
the spontaneous loyalty he had from the first conceived for his chief.
Of late he never entered Clark's office without anticipating some
addition to burdens he had already determined were too heavy for his
young shoulders. But now, too, as always, he had no sooner closed the
door and caught the extraordinary power in Clark's eyes than he was
caught up in the grip of his chief's confidence and felt ready for the
effort.
"You know the ground on the other side of the river?"
"Yes, sir."
"I wish you would take a look over it very quietly and bring me a town
map on which you have indicated the cheapest possible route for another
power canal."
"Another canal!" said Belding involuntarily.
"It's important that it should be the cheapest possible," went on
Clark, apparently without hearing, "and you'll have to balance up the
material to be excavated by a longer route against the cost of more
improved land by one that is more direct."
"How much power is required?" The question came dully.
"Not less than thirty thousand. I'm going to make carbide. At least,"
he added with a short laugh, "if I don't, some one else will."
Belding drew a long breath. He had a swift and discomforting
conviction that this man, whom he felt forced to admire, was going too
fast. Around him were all the evidences that he had not gone too fast
and there seemed to be unlimited support behind him. But yet--
The engineer grew very red in the face. "Do you think that's wise,
sir?" he said with a tremendous effort.
Clark glanced up in astonishment and his expression grew rigid. "Just
what do you mean, Belding?"
"I am sorry, sir. I know it sounds impertinent but I've a rotten
feeling that things--that things--" He broke off in distress.
"I'll trouble you to finish your sentence." The voice was like ice.
"Don't misunderstand me," the young man went valiantly on. "It isn't
for myself, it's for you."
"Why me?" Clark's glance softened ever so little at the thought.
"New schemes are piling up every day. We're not out of one before
we're into another."
"We?" The voice had a touch of irony.
"Yes, sir, we--because I'm with you to the end, whatever that may be.
I don't care if I go to smash and lose my job, but what about you? I
don't want to be disrespectful, but if this company fails it's you that
will have failed. I won't count except to myself. You're doing more
now than ten ordinary men. Isn't there enough without that?" Belding
pointed across the river.
Then, to the young man's amazement, Clark began to laugh, not riotously
but with a gradual abandonment that shook his thickset body with
successive convulsions of mirth. Presently he wiped his eyes.
"Sit down, Belding, but first of all, thank you from the bottom of my
heart. You make a brilliant contrast with a group I know who had to
bolster themselves up for days to get courage to say something of the
same kind, and they were thinking of their own skins, not mine. Now I
want to tell you something."
Belding nodded. His brain was too confused for speech.
"It really doesn't matter about me. Long ago I decided that I was
meant for a certain purpose in this world. I'm trying to carry it out.
I may reach it here--or elsewhere, frankly I don't know. But all I do
know is that there are certain things here that I was meant to tackle
and this new canal is one of them. If I go to smash it was intended
that I smash, and that doesn't worry me a bit. I'm not working for
myself, or even in a definite way for my shareholders, but I'm trying
to adapt the forces and resources of nature to the use of man. Don't
you see?"
"I think so." Belding began to perceive that he was caught up as a
small unit in a great forward movement that encompassed not only
himself but thousands of others.
"So once again, thank you for what you said. It was a bit of a job,
wasn't it?"
"The toughest thing I ever tackled."
Clark's eyes twinkled with amusement. "I know it. Now, remember I
don't want advice and if I smash--and I really won't smash--I don't
want sympathy. It's the kind of balm I've no use for. Some people are
so hungry for sympathy that they forget their jobs. And, Belding!"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm going to see you through, remember that. Now make me that map,
and," he concluded with a provocative drawl, "don't forget how
fortunate it is for you and me that water runs down hill."
Belding's mind was in a whirl. "There's one other thing," he said,
"I've promised to build a cathedral for the bishop. Peterson has given
the stone and--"
"I told him to," broke in Clark; "couldn't you guess that? He spoke to
me about it. But understand that neither the bishop nor any one else
must know it. I told them all except Ryan, and I didn't like to tread
on his religious toes."
Belding laughed. "I should have guessed it. The thing was too easy,
and Ryan came up to the scratch with the rest."
In September the pro-cathedral was completed. Belding, faithful to his
trust, had made almost daily visits of inspection, when he often found
the bishop seated on a half-cut stone and talking with evident interest
to the workmen. It seemed that the big man's presence pushed the work
along at top speed. On one occasion, a few days before the opening
ceremony, the engineer was watching a mason laying the machicolated
coping on the tower when the trowel slipped and dropped forty feet to
the ground. Instantly there arose a stream of profanity from the top
of that sacred edifice. Came a chuckle at Belding's shoulder.
"Unquestionably the effect of Ryan's cement, but it's going to hold our
church together."
Glancing down, the mason caught sight of the black coated figure. His
profanity ceased abruptly.
"Will you please throw me up that trowel, sir?"
The bishop laughed and the trowel gyrated skywards. "It makes me think
of all that goes into the making of a church nowadays," he said
thoughtfully. "By the way I wonder if my friend Mr. Clark will turn up
next Sunday."
And Clark, to every one's surprise, did turn up, after most of St.
Marys had seated themselves in the new oak pews. There was Dibbott, in
carefully pressed light gray trousers, white waistcoat and a red flower
in his buttonhole; Mrs. Dibbott in spotless linen, for the day was
warm. Then the Bowers, the husband with his metropolitan manner
acquired on frequent business trips to Philadelphia and converse with
city capitalists, his wife in silk and a New York hat, at which Mrs.
Dibbott glanced with somewhat startled eyes. Things had gone well with
the Bowers. There were the Wordens, with Elsie and Belding, the latter
accepting whispered congratulations on his work but wanting only a look
which he could not draw from the girl beside him. Filmer was there,
his black whiskers unusually glossy. He pulled at them caressingly and
now and again cleared his throat, for he was to sing the tenor solo.
At the door, Manson hung about till old Dibbott, glaring amiably down
the isle, marched out and dragged the chief constable and his wife to a
front seat. And last of all came Clark, who, slipping into a back
corner, refused to move. Then the old bell ceased swinging in the new
stone tower and the service began.
It was all very simple and touching. Filmer's melodious tenor never
sounded better and the bishop's talk was straight to the point. This
pro-cathedral, built out of love and faith, he told them, linked the
old days with the new. The labor of many, freely given, had gone into
it--here his kindly gaze dwelt for an instant on the gray-coated figure
in the corner--and it augured well for the future. From this building
must spread the doctrine of charity and fellowship and courage.
It was but for a few moments that he spoke, and when it was all over
the old bell rang joyously as though for a wedding. Belding tried to
catch Elsie's glance, but she only flushed and watched the majestic
figure of the bishop retire into the little vestry. He had a
despondent impression that an impalpable barrier lay between them. On
the way out they met Clark and the girl's eyes brightened miraculously.
"Isn't it a charming church?" she said.
Clark nodded. "It's very pretty. St. Marys owes a good deal to Mr.
Belding for this."
"He made the plans, I know, but think of all the people who gave the
labor and the things to build it with."
Belding was about to blurt out that it was Clark who gave the things to
build it with, but a swift signal imposed silence.
"I know, it's excellent. You have not been at the works lately."
"I was there last week."
"And I was in Philadelphia. I'm sorry."
She said good-by and, with Belding at her side, turned homeward, Clark
looked after them curiously, his eyes half closing as though to hide a
question that moved in their baffling depths.
The congregation dispersed slowly with the conviction that there had
been created one of those memories to which in later years the
reflective mind delights to return. Quite naturally, and as they often
did, Mrs. Manson and Mrs. Bowers dropped into the Dibbott house with
its mistress. Dibbott was already there. He was about to start on one
of his official journeys, and just now was rooting things out of a back
cupboard with explosive energy.
"Well," said Mrs. Bowers, folding her large, capable hands, "wasn't it
lovely?"
The rumble of a street car sounded outside. "It revives old times,"
Mrs. Manson said softly, "but I don't believe we've changed much.
We're too bred in the bone."
"Do we want the old times back?" asked Mrs. Bowers, to whom the past
years had been kind.
"For some things, yes, and for others, no. Living's a great deal more
expensive, and my husband's income is just the same," put in Mrs.
Dibbott after a pause. "Taxes are up, and I'm not any happier though I
suppose I'm better informed. John won't sell the place though he has
been offered a perfectly splendid price, and it's noisy--but I like it,
and there's the garden. Things don't happen to me--they just happen
round me."
"And you, my dear," continued Mrs. Bowers with an inquisitive glance at
the chief constable's wife, "what about you? Your husband's supposed
to have done better than any one except Mr. Filmer."
The little woman flushed. She was perfectly aware that Manson was
credited with making his fortune, and perhaps he had. But she had no
knowledge of it. For a while she knew he was dealing in property, and
then one morning he told her he had sold out. Her heart leaped at the
news, for Manson in the past year or so had changed. Invariably
austere, he had been nevertheless kind and considerate--but soon after
the real estate venture ended he became only austere, to which there
was added something almost like apprehension. And this in her husband
was to her of intense concern.
"I can't say," she began a little timidly. "Peter has been telling me
for months he's going to resign and live at ease, but it's always a
matter of waiting just a little longer. I can't help longing for the
old days. Perhaps there was less comfort but--" she added
pathetically, "there was also less restlessness. I suppose I'm out of
date."
"Did you see Mr. Clark to-day?" broke in Mrs. Dibbott, changing the
subject with swift intuition.
"Yes, the first time he has been in church."
"He's not interested in us," announced Mrs. Bowers, with the manner of
one who delivers an axiom, "not a little bit. St. Marys happens to be
the town near the works, and we happen to be the people in it, that's
all."
Mrs. Dibbott's flexible fingers curved and met. "Why should he be? We
haven't done anything for him, except allow him to shoulder the town
debt. And there isn't a woman alive who means anything to him, in one
sense. He's in love--but with his work. There's no room for one of
us, and, if he had a wife we'd only discuss her like a lot of cats.
Let's be honest--you both know we would."
The others laughed and went their way, Mrs. Bowers to the big house
near the station. It had a new porch and an iron fence and was freshly
painted. In former days it never suggested personal resources as it
did now. A little later Mrs. Manson turned into the gravel walk that
led to the small stone annex of the big stone jail. Instead of going
upstairs, she stopped at her husband's office and knocked, as she
always did.
"Come in," boomed a deep voice.
Manson was at his desk and still in his Sunday best. He had taken the
flower out of his buttonhole and laid it on a printed notice of the
next assize court. She stood looking at him, their faces almost
level--such was his great bulk.
"Peter," she said gravely, "I want to talk to you."
Something in her manner impressed him and he pushed back his chair.
"What is it?"
"We don't seem to have much time to talk nowadays."
"There's no reason we shouldn't."
"That's just it--but we don't. Now I want to ask you something and,
Peter, you mustn't put me off--as you always do.
"It's about ourselves," she went on, with a long breath, "but
principally about you--and it concerns the children. Everything's
changed and you're not what you used to be and something has come
between us. I don't feel any more that we're the most important things
in your life--as I used to."
He shook his head grimly. "You're all more important than ever, if you
only knew it." Manson had a faint sense of injustice. It was for them
he was wading through depths of anxiety. "You're shortly going to get
the surprise of your life," he added with a note of triumphant
conviction.
"Is it money?" she said slowly.