Imagination, one gathers, is a quality dispensed with of necessity in
the practice of most professions, being that of which nature is, for
some reason, most niggardly. There is no such thing as passing in
imagination for any department of public usefulness, even the government
of Oriental races; the list of the known qualified would be exhausted,
perhaps, in getting the papers set. Yet neither poet nor philosopher
enjoys it in monopoly; the chemist may have it, and the inventor must;
it has been proved the mainspring of the mathematician, and I have
hinted it the property of at least two of the Murchisons. Lorne was
indebted to it certainly for his constructive view of his client’s
situation, the view which came to him and stayed with him like a chapter
in a novel, from the hour in which Ormiston had reluctantly accounted
for himself upon the night of the burglary. It was a brilliant view,
that perceived the young clerk the victim of the conspiracy he was
charged with furthering; its justification lay back, dimly, among the
intuitions about human nature which are part of the attribute I
have quoted. I may shortly say that it was justified; another day’s
attendance at the Elgin Courthouse shall not be compulsory here,
whatever it may have been there. Young Ormiston’s commercial probity
is really no special concern of ours; the thing which does matter, and
considerably, is the special quality which Lorne Murchison brought to
the task of its vindication, the quality that made new and striking
appeal, through every channel of the great occasion, to those who heard
him. It was that which reinforced and comforted every friend Ormiston
had in the courtroom, before Lorne proceeded either to deal with the
evidence of the other side, or to produce any jot or tittle of his own;
and it was that which affected his distinguished opponent to the special
interest which afterward showed itself so pleasantly superior to the
sting of defeat. The fact that the defence was quite as extraordinarily
indebted to circumstantial evidence as the prosecution in no way
detracted from the character of Lorne’s personal triumph; rather,
indeed, in the popular view and Rawlins’s, enhanced it. There was in
it the primitive joy of seeing a ruffian knocked down with his own
illegitimate weapons, from the moment the dropped formula was proved to
be an old superseded one, and unexpected indication was produced that
Ormiston’s room, as well as the bank vault, had been entered the night
of the robbery, to the more glorious excitement of establishing Miss
Belton’s connection--not to be quoted--with a cracksman at that moment
being diligently inquired for by the New York police with reference to
a dramatically bigger matter. You saw the plot at once as he constructed
it; the pipe ash became explicable in the seduction of Miss Belton’s
charms. The cunning net unwove itself, delicately and deliberately, to
tangle round the lady. There was in it that superiority in the art of
legerdemain, of mere calm, astonishing manipulation, so applauded in
regions where romance has not yet been quite trampled down by reason.
Lorne scored; he scored in face of probability, expectation, fact; it
was the very climax and coruscation of score. He scored not only by the
cards he held but by the beautiful way he played them, if one may say
so. His nature came into this, his gravity and gentleness, his sympathy,
his young angry irony. To mention just one thing, there was the way he
held Miss Belton up, after the exposure of her arts, as the lady for
whom his client had so chivalric a regard that he had for some time
refused to state his whereabouts at the hour the bank was entered in
the fear of compromising her. For this, no doubt, his client could have
strangled him, but it operated, of course, to raise the poor fellow
in the estimation of every body, with the possible exception of his
employers. When, after the unmistakable summing-up, the foreman returned
in a quarter of an hour with the verdict of “Not guilty,” people
noticed that the young man walked out of court behind his father with
as drooping a head as if he had gone under sentence; so much so that
by common consent he was allowed to slip quietly away. Miss Belton
departed, followed by the detective, whose services were promptly
transferred to the prosecution, and by a proportion of those who scented
further entertainment in her perfumed, perjured wake. But the majority
hung back, leaving their places slowly; it was Lorne the crowd wanted
to shake hands with to say just a word of congratulation to, Lorne’s
triumph that they desired to enhance by a hearty sentence, or at least
an admiring glance. Walter Winter was among the most genial.
“Young man,” he said, “what did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you you ought
to take this case?” Mr Winter, with his chest thrust out, plumed and
strutted in justifiable pride of prophecy. “Now, I’ll tell you another
thing: today’s event will do more for you than it has for Ormiston. Mark
my words!”
They were all of that opinion, all the fine foretellers of the profit
Lorne should draw from his spirited and conspicuous success; they
stood about in knots discussing it; to some extent it eclipsed the main
interest and issue of the day, at that moment driving out, free and
disconsolate, between the snake fences of the South Riding to Moneida
Reservation. The quick and friendly sense of opportunity was abroad on
Lorne Murchison’s behalf; friends and neighbours and Dr Drummond, and
people who hardly knew the fellow, exchanged wise words about what his
chance would do for him. What it would immediately do was present to
nobody so clearly, however, as to Mr Henry Cruickshank, who decided that
he would, after all, accept Dr Drummond’s invitation to spend the night
with him, and find out the little he didn’t know already about this
young man.
That evening the Murchisons’ doorbell rang twice. The first time it was
to admit the Rev. Hugh Finlay, who had come to return Sordello, which he
had borrowed from Advena, and to find out whether she thought with him
about the interpretation of certain passages, and if not--there was
always the possibility--wherein their divergence lay. The second time
the door opened to Dr Drummond and Mr Cruickshank; and the electric
light had to be turned on in the drawing-room, since the library was
already occupied by Mr Finlay and Advena, Mr and Mrs Murchison never
having got over their early habit of sitting in the dining-room after
tea. Even then Mrs Murchison had to put away her workbasket, and John
Murchison to knock the ashes out of his pipe, looking at one another
with surprised inquiry when Eliza informed them of their visitors.
Luckily, Mr Lorne was also in, and Eliza was sent to tell him, and
Mr Lorne came down the stairs two at a time to join the party in the
drawing-room, which was presently supplied by Eliza with a dignified
service of cake and wine. The hall divided that room from the library,
and both doors were shut. We cannot hesitate about which to open; we
have only, indeed, to follow the recognized tradition of Elgin, which
would never have entered the library. No vivid conclusion should be
drawn, no serious situation may even be indicated. It would simply have
been considered, in Elgin, stupid to go into the library.
“It isn’t a case for the High Commissioner for Canada,” Mr Cruickshank
was saying. “It’s a case for direct representation of the interests
concerned, and their view of the effect upon trade. That’s the only
voice to speak with if you want to get anything done. Conviction carries
conviction. The High Commissioner is a very useful fellow to live
in London and look after the ornamental, the sentimental, and
immigration--nobody could do it better than Selkirk. And in England, of
course, they like that kind of agency. It’s the good old dignified
way; but it won’t do for everything. You don’t find our friend Morgan
operating through the American equivalent of a High Commissioner.”
“No, you don’t,” said John Murchison.
“He goes over there as a principal, and the British Government, if he
wants to deal with it, is only another principal. That’s the way our
deputation will go. We’re practically all shippers, though of course the
matter of tenders will come later. There is big business for them here,
national business, and we propose to show it. The subsidy we want will
come back to the country four times over in two years. Freights from
Boston alone--”
“It’s the patriotic, imperial argument you’ll have to press, I doubt,”
said John Murchison. “They’re not business people over there--the men in
office are not. How should they be? The system draws them from the
wrong class. They’re gentlemen--noblemen, maybe--first, and they’ve no
practical education. There’s only one way of getting it, and that’s to
make your own living. How many of them have ever made tuppence? There’s
where the Americans beat them so badly--they’ve got the sixth sense,
the business sense. No; you’ll not find them responding greatly to what
there is in it for trade--they’d like to well enough, but they just
won’t see it; and, by George! what a fine suspicion they’ll have of ye!
As to freights from Boston,” he continued, as they all laughed, “I’m
of opinion you’d better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a
friendly power! Tut, tut!”
It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were all excited to a
pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank had brought with him an
event of extraordinary importance. It seemed to sit there with him,
significant and propitious, in the middle of the sofa; they all looked
at it in the pauses. Dr Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately
contemplated it and remembered to assert himself part of it. As head of
a deputation from the United Chambers of Commerce of Canada shortly
to wait on the British Government to press for the encouragement of
improved communications within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked
to select a secretary. The appointment, in view of the desirability,
for political reasons, of giving the widest publicity to the hopes
and motives of the deputation, was an important one. The action of the
Canadian Government, in extending conditional promises of support, had
to be justified to the Canadian taxpayer; and that shy and weary person
whose shoulders uphold the greatness of Britain, had also to receive
such conciliation and reassurance as it was possible to administer to
him, by way of nerving the administrative arm over there to an act of
enterprise. Mr Cruickshank had had two or three young fellows, mostly
newspaper men, in his mind’s eye; but when Lorne came into his literal
range of vision, the others had promptly been retired in our friend’s
favour. Young Mr Murchison, he had concluded, was the man they wanted;
and if his office could spare him, it would probably do young Mr
Murchison no harm in any sort of way to accompany the deputation to
London and throw himself into the matter the deputation had at heart.
“But it’s the Empire!” said Lorne, with a sort of shy fire, when Mr
Cruickshank enunciated this.
We need not, perhaps, dwell upon the significance of his agreement. It
was then not long since the maple leaf had been stained brighter than
ever, not without honour, to maintain the word that fell from him. The
three older men looked at him kindly; John Murchison, rubbing his chin
as he considered the situation, slightly shook his head. One took it
that in his view the Empire was not so readily envisaged.
“That has a strong bearing,” Mr Cruickshank assented.
“It’s the whole case--it seems to me,” repeated young Murchison.
“It should help to knit us up,” said Dr Drummond. “I’ll put my name down
on the first passenger list, if Knox Church will let me off. See that
you have special rates,” he added, with a twinkle, “for ministers and
missionaries.”
“And only ten days to get him ready in,” said Mrs Murchison. “It will
take some seeing to, I assure you; and I don’t know how it’s to be done
in the time. For once, Lorne, I’ll have to order you ready-made shirts,
and you’ll just have to put up with it. Nothing else could possibly get
back from the wash.”
“I’ll put up with it, Mother.”
They went into other details of Lorne’s equipment while Mrs Murchison’s
eye still wandered over the necessities of his wardrobe. They arranged
the date on which he was to meet the members of the deputation in
Montreal, and Mr Cruickshank promised to send him all available
documents and such presentation of the project as had been made in the
newspapers.
“You shall be put in immediate possession of the bones of the thing,”
he said, “but what really matters,” he added pleasantly, “I think you’ve
got already.”
It took, of course, some discussion, and it was quite ten o’clock before
everything was gone into, and the prospect was clear to them all. As
they emerged into the hall together, the door of the room opposite also
opened, and the Rev. Hugh Finlay found himself added to their group.
They all made the best of the unexpected encounter. It was rather an
elaborate best, very polite and entirely grave, except in the instance
of Dr Drummond, who met his subaltern with a smile in which cordiality
struggled in vain to overcome the delighted humour.