Everybody in Gershom knew of his debt, but no one knew what

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

David Fleming's Forgiveness, by Margaret Murray Robertson.

CHAPTER ONE.

A CANADIAN SETTLEMENT.

The first tree felled in the wilderness that lay to the south and west

of the range of hills of which Hawk's Head is the highest, was felled by

the two brothers Holt. These men left the thickly-settled New England

valley where they were born, passed many a thriving town and village,

and crossed over miles and miles of mountain and forest to seek a home

in a strange country. Not that they thought of it as a strange country,

for it was a long time ago, and little was known by them of limits or

boundary lines, when they took possession of the fertile Canadian valley

which had till then been the resort only of trappers and Indians. They

were only squatters, that is, they cut down the great trees, and built

log-houses, and set about making farms in the wilderness, with no better

right to the soil than that which their labour gave. They needed no

better right, they thought; at least, there was no one to interfere with

them, and soon a thriving settlement was made in the valley. It turned

out well for the Holts and for those who followed them, for after a good

many years their titles to their farms were secured to them on easy

terms by the Canadian Government, but they had held them as their own

from the first.

Within ten years of the coming of the brothers, the cluster of dwellings

rising around the saw-mill which Gershom Holt had built on the Beaver

River--the store, the school-house, the blacksmith's shop--began to be

spoken of by the farmers as "the village." Every year of the ten that

followed was marked by tokens of the slow but sure prosperity which,

when the settlers have been men of moral lives and industrious habits,

has uniformly attended the planting of the later Canadian settlements.

Gradually the clearings widened around the first log-houses, and the

unsightly "stumps" grew smaller and blacker under the frequent touch of

fire. The rough "slash fences" made of brushwood and fallen trees, gave

place to the no less ugly, but more substantial "zigzag" of cedar rails.

The low, log farm-houses began to be dwarfed by the great framed barns

which the increasing harvest rendered necessary, until a succession of

such harvests rendered possible and prudent the building of framed

dwellings as well.

As the clearings widened and the farms became more productive, the

prosperity of the village advanced. A "grist-mill" was added to the

saw-mill, and as every year brought move people to the place, new arts

and industries were established. The great square house of Gershom

Holt, handsome and substantial, was built. Other houses were made neat

and pretty with paint, and green window-blinds, and door-yard fences, as

time went on.

Primitive fashions and modes of life which had done for the early days

of the settlement, gave place by degrees to the more artificial

requirements of village society. The usual homespun suit, which even

the richest had considered sufficient for the year's wear, was

supplemented now by stuffs from other looms than those in the farm-house

garrets. Housewives began to think of beauty as well as use in their

interior arrangements. "Boughten" carpets took the place of the yellow

paint and the braided mats once thought the proper thing for the "spare

room" set apart for company, and articles of luxury, in the shape of

high chests of drawers and hard hair-cloth sofas, found their way into

the houses of the ambitious and "well-to-do" among them. The changes

which increasing means bring to a community were visible in the village

and beyond it before the first twenty years were over. They were not

all changes for the better, the old people declared; but they still went

on with the years, till Gershom, as the village came to be called, began

to be looked upon by the neighbouring settlements as the centre of

business and fashion to all that part of the country.

The Holts were both rather indifferent as regarded religious matters,

but they had the hereditary respect of their countrymen for "school and

meeting privileges," and they were strong in the belief that the

ultimate prosperity of their community, even in material things,

depended mainly on the growing intelligence and morality of the people;

so it happened that much earlier than is usual in new settlements,

measures were taken to secure the means of secular and religious

instruction for the people. But it was not merely in material wealth

and prosperity that was evident the progress of which the inhabitants of

Gershom were becoming so justly proud.

As the Holts were the first comers to Gershom, so for a long time they

kept the first place in the town, both in social and in business

matters. "The Holts had made Gershom," the Holts said, and other people

said it too, only sometimes it was added, that "they had also made

themselves, and that all the pains they had taken had been to that end."

But this was saying too much, for all the Holts had great pride in the

place and its prosperity, and almost all the industries that contributed

to its growth, as time went on, had been commenced by one or other of

them.

Gershom Holt was the more successful of the two brothers, partly because

of his greater energy and capacity for business, and partly because he

had "located" at that point on the Beaver River where the water-power

could be made easily available for manufacturing purposes. No time was

lost by him in doing what skill and will could do with only limited

capital to make a beginning in that direction, and every new artisan who

came to the town, and did well for himself in it, did something to

increase the wealth of Gershom Holt also. So in course of time he

became the rich man of the place. He dealt closely in business matters,

he liked the best of a bargain, and, as a rule, got it; but he was of a

kindly nature, and was never hard to the poor, and many a man in Gershom

was helped to a first start in business through his means, so that he

was better liked and more entirely trusted than the one rich man in a

rising country place is apt to be.

His brother Reuben was not so fortunate, either in making money or in

winning favours. His farm bordered on the river, but the meadows were

narrow, and the land rose abruptly into round rocky hills, fit only for

pasture. Beyond the hills, on the higher level, the land was fairly

good, but the cultivation of it was difficult, and he had never done

much with it. He was neither strong nor courageous. Some of his

children died, and others "went wrong," and he fell into misanthropic

ways, and for several years before his death he was seldom seen in the

village.

For more than twenty years the Beaver River settlement, as it was at

first called, was occupied by people of American origin who had come in

with the Holts, or had followed after them. But about the time when the

land of which they had taken possession was secured to them by the

Government, a number of Scotch families came to settle in that part of

the town called North Gore, lying just under the morning shadows of

Hawk's Range. To these people, for whose land and ancestry they had a

traditional admiration and respect, the descendants of the Pilgrim

Fathers extended a warm welcome, and it was called a good day for the

town when they settled down in it.

With the best intentions on the part of all concerned, affairs will go

wrong in the history of towns as well as of individuals. Unhappily the

new settlers were not at first brought into contact with the best and

kindest of the people. Some of them suffered in purse, not from "bad

men," but from men whose easy consciences did not refuse to take

advantage of their necessities, and of their ignorance of the country

and its ways; and some of them suffered in their feelings from what they

believed to be curiosity and "meddlesomeness" on the part of neighbours,

who in reality meant to be helpful and friendly.

So the North Gore folk "kept themselves to themselves" as they expressed

it, and struggled on through some hard years, which more friendliness

with their neighbour; might have made easier. The old settlers watched

with an interest, on the whole kindly, the patient labour, the untiring

energy which did not always take the shortest way to success, but which

made its ultimate attainment sure. But to them the firm adherence of

the Scotchmen to their own opinions and plans and modes of life, looked

like obstinacy and ignorance, and they spoke of them as narrow and

bigoted, and altogether behind the times, and the last charge was the

most serious in their estimation.

The new-comers refused to see anything admirable in the ease and

readiness with which most of the old settlers, disciplined by necessity,

could turn from one occupation to another, as circumstances required.

The farmer who made himself a carpenter to-day and a shoemaker to-morrow

was, in their estimation, a "Jack-of-all-trades," certainly not a farmer

in the dignified sense which they had been accustomed to attach to the

name.

The strong and thrifty Scotchwomen, who thought little of walking and

carrying great baskets of butter and eggs the three or four miles that

lay between North Gore and the village, found matter for contemptuous

animadversion in the glimpses they got of their neighbours' way of life,

and spoke scornfully to each other of the useless "Yankee" wives, who

were content to bide within doors while their husbands did not only the

legitimate field-work, but the work of the garden, and even the milking

of the cows as well. The "Yankee" wives in their turn shrugged their

shoulders at the thought of what the housekeeping must be that was left

to children, or left altogether, while the women were in the hay or

harvest-field as regularly and almost as constantly as their husbands

and brothers. Of course they did not speak their minds to one another

about all this, but they knew enough about one another's opinions to

make them suspicious and shy when they met.

And they did not meet often. The mistress of a new farm found little

time for visiting. Winter had its own work, and the snow and the bitter

cold kept them within doors. When winter was over they could only think

how best to turn to account the long days of the short Canadian summer

for the subduing of the soil, out of which must come food for their

hungry little ones. Every foot reclaimed from the swamp or the forest,

every unsightly thing burned out of the rough, new land, meant store of

golden grain and wholesome bread for the future. So, with brave hearts

and willing hands, the North Gore women laboured out of doors as well as

within, content to wait for the days when only the legitimate woman's

work should fall to their share. There were some exceptions, of course,

and friendly relations were established between individuals, and between

families, in the North Gore and the village; but a friendly feeling was

for a good many years by no means general, and two distinct communities

lived side by side in the town of Gershom.

Even the good people among them--God's own people--who have so much in

common that all lesser matters may well be made nothing of between

them--even they did not come together across the wall which ignorance

and prejudice and circumstances had raised. At least they did not for a

time. The Grants and the Scotts and the Sangsters travelled Sabbath by

Sabbath the four miles between the North Gore and the village, and,

passing the house where a good man preached the Gospel in the name of

the Lord Jesus, travelled four miles further still for the sake of

hearing one of their own kirk and country preach the same Gospel in the

name of the same Lord. And so the Reverend Mr Hollister, and Deacon

Moses Turner, and other good men among them, thought themselves

justified in setting them down as narrow-minded and bigoted, and

incapable of appreciating the privileges which had fallen to their lot.

There was really no good reason why they should not all have worshipped

together as one community, for in the doctrines which they held, the

descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers differed little from those who had

been taught in Scottish kirks the truth for which their fathers had

fought and died. The little band who kept together, and held to the

form of church government which they had learned to revere in their

native land, were by reason of their isolation, practically as

independent in regard to the matters of their kirk as were their Puritan

neighbours who claimed this independence as their right.

In point of numbers, and in point of means, the older settlers were the

stronger of the two parties; in point of character and piety, even they

themselves were not sure that the superiority was on their side.

However that might be, all felt that the coming in among them of the

North Gore men and their families was much to be desired, and after a

time measures were taken to bring the subject of union before them in

the most favourable manner.

So, accompanied and encouraged by Deacon Turner, Mr Hollister, the

minister, visited the North Gore folk family by family, and was

respectfully and kindly received by them all, but he did not make much

progress in the good work he had undertaken. His remarks about

brotherly love and the healing of breaches were for the most part

listened to in silence, and so were Deacon Turner's cautious allusions

to the subscription-list for the dealing with current expenses. Nowhere

did they meet with much encouragement to hope that their efforts to

bring the two communities together would be successful. For several

years after this the North Gore folk continued to make their

"Sabbath-day's journey" past the village church. Then for a while they

had the monthly ministrations of a preacher of their own order in their

own neighbourhood, and on other days kept up meetings among themselves,

and did what they could in various ways to keep themselves to themselves

as of old.

But time wrought changes. The children who had come to the North Gore

grew up, and they did not grow up to be just such men and women as their

fathers and mothers had been. It is not necessary to say whether they

were worse men or better. They were different. There was not much

change in the manner of life in many of the homes. The Sabbath was as

strictly kept, and the young people were as strictly taught and

catechised and looked after in Scottish fashion as of old, and they bade

fair to grow up as cautious and as "douce," and as much attached to old

ways and customs as if they had been brought up on the other side of the

sea, quite beyond the reach of Yankee innovations and free-and-easy

colonial ways. But even the most "douce" and cautious amongst them were

without the stiffness and strength of the old-time prejudice, and the

young people of the different sections of the township, brought together

in the many pleasant ways that are open to young people in country

places, no longer kept apart as their fathers had done.

There were troubles in Gershom still of various kinds, misunderstandings

and quarrels, and violations of the golden rule between individuals and

between families, and some of them took colour, and some of them took

strength, from national feeling and national prejudice; but there were

no longer two distinct communities living side by side in the town, as

there once had been. And by and by, when old Mr Grant and Deacon

Turner, and some others of the good men who had held with one or other

of them on earth, were gone to sit down to eat bread together in the

kingdom of heaven, the good men they had left behind them drew closer

together by slow degrees. And when Mr Hollister grew old and feeble,

and unable to do duty as pastor of the village church, all agreed that

the chief consideration, in the appointment of a successor, must be the

getting of such a man as might be able to unite the people of all

sections into one congregation at last.

This was the state of things in Gershom when it began to be whispered

that there was serious trouble arising between Jacob Holt and old Mr

Fleming.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE FLEMINGS.

There were already a good many openings in the North Gore woods when the

Flemings took possession of the partially cleared farm lying half-way

between it and the village, at a little distance from the road. They

built on it a house of grey, unhewn stone, long and low like the home

they had "left on the other side of the sea." They called the place

Ythan Brae, and the clear shallow brook that ran down from their rocky

pastures, through the swamp to Beaver River, they called the Ythan Burn

because the familiar names were pleasant on their lips and in their ears

in a strange land; but it was a long time before it seemed like home to

them.

For a while the neighbours knew about them only what could be learned

from the fields visible from the North Gore road. That Mr Fleming had

experience, tireless industry, and some money, three things to insure

success in his calling, the canny Scotch farmers were not slow to

perceive in the change that gradually came over the once-neglected land.

Mr Fleming seemed a grave, silent man, with the traces of some severe

trouble showing in his face. And this trouble his wife had shared, for,

though she was still a young woman when she came to Gershom, there were

streaks of white in her brown hair, and on her fair, serene face there

was the look which "tells of sorrow meekly borne." The gloom and

sternness which sometimes made people shrink from coming in contact with

her husband was never seen in her.

The eldest of their two sons was almost a man when they came to live at

Ythan Brae. He was a quiet, well-doing lad, reserved like his father,

but pleasant-spoken and friendly like his mother. His brother Hugh had

inherited his mother's good looks and sunny temper, and he had, besides,

the power which does not always accompany the possession of personal

beauty or cleverness--the power of winning love.

Long afterward, when the mention of Hugh's name was a sorrowful matter,

the people of the North Gore who knew him best used to speak of him with

a kind of wonder. He was such "a bonny laddie," with eyes like stars,

and even at sixteen a head above his elder brother. He was so blithe

and kindly, and clever too. According to these people there was nothing

he could not do, and nothing that he would not trouble himself to do to

give pleasure to his friends. He was "the apple of his father's eye,"

the delight of his life; and that his mother's heart did not break when

she lost him, was only because, even at the worst of times, God's grace

is sufficient for help and healing to those who stay themselves on Him.

For Hugh "went wrong." Oh, sorrowful words! seeming so little and

meaning so much: care and fear, watching and waiting, sleepless nights

and days of dread to those who looked on with no power to bring him back

again. How he went wrong may be easily guessed. He had been led astray

by evil companions his mother always said. Not that to her knowledge,

or to the knowledge of any one, he had gone so very far astray till the

end came. There had been doubts and fears for him, and earnest

expostulations from those who loved him, but it was a great shock and

surprise to all the countryside when it came to be known that he had

gone away never to return.

What he had done was certainly known only to two or three. There were

whispers of forgery, and even robbery, and some said it was only debt,

which his father refused to pay. There were others involved in the

matter, and it was kept quiet. Some of the young Holts were among the

number. Jacob, Gershom's eldest son, went away for a while. It was not

known whether they had gone together, but Jacob soon came home again,

and as far as he was concerned, everything was as before.

But after a time there came heavy tidings to Ythan Brae. Hugh Fleming

was dead--in the very flower of his youth--"with all his sins on his

head;" his father cried out in the agony of the knowledge. There was

only a word or two in a strange handwriting to say that, after sharp and

sudden illness, he had died among strangers.

The father and mother lived through the time that followed. How they

lived none knew, for they were alone at the Brae. They never passed the

bounds of their own farm through all that terrible winter, and the

neighbours, who sometimes went to see them, as a general thing only saw

Mrs Fleming. She stood between her husband and the sorrowful

curiosity, the real but painful sympathy which he could not have borne--

which even she found it so hard to bear. Neither then, nor in all the

years that followed, did any one but his boy's mother hear him utter his

boy's name. They lived through it, but that winter was like the "valley

of the shadow of death" to them both.

When spring came, the worst was over, the neighbours said, and in one

way so it was. Their son James brought his wife home to live with them,

and they settled down to their changed life, making the best of it.

Mrs Fleming's cheerfulness came back in the midst of many cares, for

her son's wife was a delicate woman, and the little children came fast

to their home. Mrs Fleming governed the household still, and in a

sense began life anew in their midst.

But after his son came to live with them, Mr Fleming gave up to him all

that part of their affairs that would have taken him away from home. He

was a born farmer; his forefathers had been farmers for as many

generations as he could trace, and he had a hereditary reverence for

mother earth as the giver of bread to man. He took pleasure in the work

of the farm, labouring patiently and cheerfully to bring it to the

highest productiveness which the soil and the variable Canadian climate

would permit. Hollows were filled and heights were levelled, and the

wide stretch of lowland on either side of the Burn near its mouth, was

year by year made to yield. A road or two to be cleared and drained and

tilled, and one might have travelled a summer day through the fine

farming country without seeing a finer farm than he made it at last.

And all this time the farm, with his interest in it and his labour on

it, was doing a good work for him, and he grew to love the place as his

home, and the home of the little children who were growing up about him.

But just as a tranquil gloaming seemed to be closing over their

changeful day of life, a new and heavy sorrow fell upon them. Their son

James died, and the two old people found themselves left alone to care

for his delicate widow and her fatherless children. Other troubles

followed closely on this. James Fleming had never been a worldly-wise

man, and he died in debt. Some of the claims were just, some of them

were doubtful, none of them could have held against his father. But the

old man gave not a moment's hearing to those who made this suggestion.

The honour of his son's name and memory was at stake, and in his haste

and eagerness to settle all, and because he had so fallen out of

business ways, the best and wisest plans were not taken in the

arrangement of his affairs.

When the time of settlement came, it was found that most of the claims

against James Fleming had passed into the hands of the Holts. It was

Jacob alone who was to be dealt with, for his father was an old man, and

his connection with the business had long been merely nominal. Jacob

Holt had changed since the days when he had been, as Hugh Fleming's

father firmly believed, the ruin of his son. He had changed from an

ill-doing, idle lad, into a man, noted even in that busy community for

his attention to business, a man who took pains to seek a fair

reputation for honesty and generosity among his fellow-townsmen. But

Mr Fleming liked the man as little as he had liked the lad, and it

added much to the misery of his indebtedness that his obligation was to

him. He was growing an old man, conscious of his increasing weakness

and inability to cope with difficulties, and he believed his "enemy," as

he called him, to be capable of taking advantage of these. His faith

failed him sometimes, and in his anxiety and unhappiness, he uttered

harder words than he knew.

Everybody in Gershom knew of his debt, but no one knew what made the

bitterness of his indebtedness to the old man. The part which Jacob

Holt had had in the trouble, that had come on him through his son, had

never been clearly understood, and was now well-nigh forgotten in the

place. But the father had not forgotten it. He would gladly have

mortgaged his farm, or even have given up half of it altogether, to any

friend who could have advanced him the money to pay his debt, but no

such friend was at hand, and it ended, as all knew it must end, in a

seven years' mortgage being taken by Jacob Holt, and the only thing the

old man could do now was to keep silence and hope for better days.

The little Flemings were growing up healthy and happy, a great comfort

and a great care to their grandparents. They were bright and pretty

children, and good children on the whole, the neighbours said, and they

said also, that there seemed to be no reason why the last days of the

old people should not be contented and comfortable, notwithstanding

their burden of debt. For the Holts would never be hard on such old

neighbours, and as the boys grew up, to take the weight of the farm-work

on them, the debt might be paid, and all would go well. This was the

hopeful view of the matter taken by Mrs Fleming also, but the old man

always listened in silence to such words.

When five years had past, no part of the debt had yet been paid. Even

the interest had been in part paid with borrowed money, and there were

other signs and tokens that the Flemings were going back in the world.

It was not to be wondered at; for Mr Fleming was an old man, and the

greater part of the farm-work had to be done by hired help, at a cost

which the farm could ill bear. And the chances were, that for a while

at least the state of affairs would be worse rather than better.

Then there came to Mr Fleming this proposal from Jacob Holt. If

twenty-five acres of the swampy land that bordered the Beaver River just

where the brook fell into it were given up to him the mortgage should be

cancelled, and the debt should be considered paid. He declared that the

proposal was made solely in the interest of the Fleming family, and

there were a good many people in Gershom who believed him.

To this proposal, however, Mr Fleming returned a prompt and brief

refusal. He said little about it, but it was known that he believed

evil of Jacob Holt with regard to the matter, and though he kept

silence, others spoke. The North Gore people took the matter up, and so

did the people of the village. Mr Fleming had friends in both sections

of the town, and some of them did not spare hard words in the

discussion.

Jacob Holt was now the rich man of Gershom, one of the chief supporters

of the church and of every good cause encouraged in the town, and all

this did not promise well for the union in church matters so earnestly

desired by many good people in Gershom.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE HOLTS.

Gershom Holt was to all appearance a hale old man, but for a long time

before this he had had little to do with the management of the business

of Holt and Son. He still lived in the great square house which had

succeeded the log-house built by him in the early days of the

settlement. Two of his children lived with him--Elizabeth, the youngest

child of his first wife, and Clifton, the only child of his second wife,

who had died in giving him birth.

Elizabeth was good, pretty, and clever, and still single at twenty-four.

The persons she loved best in the world were her father and her younger

brother. Her father loved and trusted her entirely, and every passing

day made him more dependent on her for comfort and for counsel; for he

was a very old man, and in many ways needed the care which it was his

daughter's first duty and pleasure to give. Her brother loved and

trusted her too in his way, but he was only a lad, and too well

contented with himself and his life to know the value of her love as

yet, and she was not without anxious thoughts about him. He was

supposed to be distinguishing himself in a New England College as he had

before distinguished himself in the High-School of the village, and only

spent his vacations at home.

There was a difference of nearly twenty years in the ages of Gershom

Holt's two sons, and they had little in common except their father's

name. Elizabeth loved them both, and respected the youngest most.

Jacob was a little afraid of his sister, and took pains to be on the

best of terms with her, and he could not forget sometimes in her

presence that he had done some things in his life which he was glad she

did not know.

He had married, early in life, a pretty, commonplace woman, who had

grown thin and querulous in the years that had passed since then, and

who was not at all fitted to be the great lady of Gershom, as the rich

man's wife might have been. That place was filled by Elizabeth, who

filled it well and enjoyed it.

With its large garden and orchard, and its sloping lawn, shaded by trees

beginning to look old and venerable beside those of more recent growth

in the village street, the old square house looked far more like the

great house of the village than the finer mansion lately built by Jacob

further up the hill. Under Elizabeth's direction it had been modernised

and beautified by the throwing out of a bow-window and the addition of a

wide veranda on two sides. Everything about it, without and within,

indicated wealth moderately used, for comfort and not for display. It

was the pleasantest house in the village to visit at, everybody said;

for the squire--so old Mr Holt was generally called--was very

hospitable, and all sorts of people were made welcome there.

There were by this time people in Gershom who had outlived the

remembrance of the days when all the settlers, rich and poor alike, were

socially on a level, and who spoke smoothly and loftily about "station"

and "position" and "the working classes," but the young Holts were not

among them. Elizabeth and Clifton deserved less credit than was given

them on account of their unassuming and agreeable manners with the

village people, for they did not need to assert themselves as some

others did. Miss Elizabeth, for all her unpretending ways, was the

great lady of the village, and liked it, and very likely would have

resented it had a rival appeared to call her right in question.

The Holts of the Hill were, in most respects, very different from the

Holts of the village. They lived and worked and dressed and conducted

themselves generally very much as they had been used to do in the early

days of the settlement. The old man had been long dead, and his widow

and her two daughters lived on the farm. One of the daughters was a

childless widow, Betsey, the other had never married. "A good woman

with an uncertain temper," was the character which many of her friends

would have given her, and some of them might have added that she had had

a hard life and many cares, and no wonder that she was a little hard and

sour after all she had passed through. But this was by no means all

that could be said of Miss Betsey.

There was little intercourse between the Holts of the Hill and the

village Holts, and it was not the fault of Elizabeth. It was Betsey who

decidedly withdrew from any intimacy with her cousins. She was too

old-fashioned, too "set" in her way to fall in with all their new

notions, she said, and from the time that Elizabeth came home from

school to be the mistress of her father's house, and the most popular

person in Gershom, she had had but little to do with her. It hurt

Elizabeth that it should be so, for she respected her cousin and would

have loved her, and would doubtless have profited--by their intercourse

if it had been permitted. But she never got beyond a certain point in

the intimacy with her, at least she did not for a time.

The Hill Holts were much respected in the neighbourhood, and Miss Betsey

exerted an influence in its way almost as great as did Miss Elizabeth.

One or two persons who knew them both well, said they were very much

alike, though to people generally they seemed in temper, in tastes, and

in manner of life as different as well could be. They were alike and

they were different, and the chief difference lay in this, that Miss

Betsey was growing old and had passed through troubles in her time, and

Miss Elizabeth was young and had most of her troubles before her.

The village of Gershom Centre, as it was called, at this time lay

chiefly on the north bank of the Beaver River. Its principal street ran

north and south at right angles to the river, and the village houses

clustered closest at the end of the bridge that crossed it. At the

south end of the bridge another street turned west down the river, and

at a little distance became a pleasant country road which led to the

hill-farm of the Holts, and past it to the neighbouring township of

Fosbrooke. Another street went east, on the north side of the river a

few hundred yards, and then turned north to the Scotch settlement at the

Gore.

On this street, before it turned north, the new church stood. There was

a wide green common before it, shaded by young trees, and only the

inclosing fence and the road lay between this and the river, which was

broad and shallow, and flowed softly in this part of its course. The

church was a very pretty one of its kind--white as snow, with

large-paned windows, and green Venetian blinds. It had a tall slender

spire, in which hung the first bell that had ever wakened the echoes in

that part of the country for miles around, and of the church and the

bell, and the pretty tree-shaded common before it, the Gershom people

were not a little proud.

Behind the church lay the graveyard, already a populous place, as the

few tall monuments and the many less pretentious slabs of grey or white

stone showed. It was inclosed by a white fence tipped with black, and

shaded by many young trees, and it was a quiet and pleasant place.

Between the church and the graveyard was a long row of wooden sheds.

They were not ornamental, quite the contrary; but they were very useful

as a shelter for the horses of the church-goers who came from a

distance, and they had been added by way of conciliating the North Gore

people when one and another of them began to come to the village church.

Toward the church one fair Sabbath morning in June, many Gershom people

were hastening. Already there were vehicles of great variety in the

sheds, and horses were tied here and there along the fences under the

trees. There were groups of people lingering in Gershom fashion on the

church steps and on the grass, and the numbers, and the air of

expectation over all, indicated that the occasion was one of more than

usual interest. All Gershom had turned out hoping to see and hear the

new minister, whose coming was to bean assurance of peace to the church

and to the congregation. They were to be disappointed for that day,

however, for the minister had not come. Squire Holt and his son and

daughter came with the rest. The old man lingered at the gate

exchanging greetings with his neighbours, and the young people went on

toward the door.

"Gershom is the place after all, Lizzie," said her brother. "It is

pleasant to see all the folks again. But I don't believe I'm going to

stay to see Jacob through this business. Well! never mind, Lizzie," he

added, as his sister looked grave. "I'll see you through, if you say

so. And here come Ben and Cousin Betsey; let us wait and speak to

them."

"Clifton," said his sister, earnestly, "Ben is Cousin Betsey's best hand

this summer. It won't do to beguile him from his work, dear. You must

not try it."

"Nonsense, Elizabeth. It is rather soon to come down on a fellow like

that, before I have even spoken to him. I never made Ben idle, quite

the contrary."

Coming slowly up the green slope between the gate and the church were

the two persons recognised by Clifton as Ben and Cousin Betsey. They

moved along in a leisurely way, nodding to one and speaking to another,

so that there was time to discuss them as they approached.

"Lizzie," said her brother, "do you suppose you'll ever come to look

like Cousin Betsey?"

"I am quite sure I shall never wear such a bonnet," said Elizabeth,

pettishly. "Why will she make a fright of herself?"

"It is as an offset to you--so fine as you are," said Clifton, laughing.

"She had that gown before Ben was born; I remember it perfectly."

Miss Betsey Holt was a striking-looking person, notwithstanding the

oddness and shabbiness of her dress. Scantiness is a better word for it

than shabbiness, for her dress was of good material, neat and well

preserved, but it was without a superfluous fold or gather, and in those

days, when, even in country places, crinoline was beginning to assert

itself, she did look ludicrously straight and stiff. Miss Elizabeth's

dress was neither in material nor make of the fashion that had its

origin in the current year, and city people, wise in such matters, might

have set them both down as old-fashioned. But in appearance, as they

drew near one another, there was a great contrast between them, though

in feature there was a strong resemblance.

There was more than fifteen years' difference in their ages, and Betsey

looked older than her forty years. She was above the middle height,

thin and dark and wrinkled, and there were white streaks in the brown

hair brought down low and flat upon the cheek, but in every feature the

bright youthful beauty of the girl had once been hers. Some of the

neighbours, who were regarding them as they met, would have said that

once Miss Betsey had been much handsomer than ever Miss Elizabeth would

be. For Miss Betsey had been young at a time when there was little

danger that indolence or self-indulgence could injure the full

development of healthful beauty, and as yet Miss Elizabeth had fallen on

easy days, and was languid at times, and delicate, and if the truth must

be told, a little discontented with what life had as yet brought her,

and a little afraid of what might lie before her, and there was a shadow

of this on her fair face to-day.

They had not much to say to each other, and they stood in silence

watching the two lads. Clifton was considered in Gershom to have

learned very fine manners, since he went to college, but he had

forgotten them for the moment, and was as boyish and natural as his less

sophisticated cousin. They were only second cousins, Ben being the only

child of Reuben Holt's eldest son, who had died early. His Aunt Betsey

had brought the boy up, and "had not had the best of luck in doing it,"

she sometimes told him; but he was the dearest person in the world to

her, for all her pretended discontent with her success. She watched the

two lads as they went into the eager discussion of something that

pleased them, and so did Elizabeth, for it was a pleasant sight to see.

"Cousin," said Elizabeth, gently, "I do not think you need fear that my

boy will harm yours."

"I am not afraid--not much. Ben is the stronger of the two, morally, if

he isn't so bright. My boy is to be trusted," and she looked as though

she would have added, "that is more than you can say for yours."

Elizabeth looked grave.

"Cousin Betsey, you were always hard on my brother Clifton."

Betsey shrugged her shoulders.

"You are harder on him this minute than I am. I don't suppose he has

done anything very bad this time--worse than usual, I mean."

"Have you heard anything? Did you know he was sent home?" asked

Elizabeth in dismay.

"He sent a letter to Ben a spell ago, and I saw it lying round. You

needn't tell him so. If it is as he says, there aint much wrong this

time. Here is Hepsey Bean."

Miss Bean had come to inquire if anything had been heard of the

minister, but the cousins were too much occupied in watching the two

lads to answer her, and Hepsey's eyes followed theirs.

"Are not they alike as two peas?" said she. "Not their fixings exactly,

I don't mean--"

Miss Elizabeth laughed, even Miss Betsey smiled, touched with a grim

sense of humour as she regarded the lads. Their "fixings" were

certainly different. Everything, from the tips of Clifton's shining

boots to the crown of his shining hat, declared him to be a dandy. His

collar, necktie, coat, and all the rest, were in the latest fashion--a

fashion a sight of which, but for his coming home, the Gershom people

might not have been favoured with for a year to come. His compulsory

departure from the seat of learning had been delayed while the tailor

completed his summer outfit, so that there could be no mistake about his

"fixings."

As for Ben, he was fine also, in a new suit of homespun, which, since it

came from the loom, and, indeed, before it went to the loom, had passed

through no hands but those of his Aunt Betsey. It was not handsome.

The home-made thick grey cloth of the country, which the farmers' wives

of those days took pride in preparing for the winter-wear of their "men

folks," was an article of superior wearing qualities, and handsome in

its way. But it was the half-cotton fabric, dingy and napless,

considered good enough for summer wear, in which Ben was arrayed. Made

as a loose frock and overall to be worn in the hay-field, or following

the plough, it was well enough; but made into a tight-fitting

Sunday-suit, it was not handsome, certainly. As far as "fixings" were

concerned, the cousins were a contrast. Betsey looked and laughed

again, but Elizabeth did not laugh. She knew that Cousin Betsey was

sensitive where Ben was concerned.

"Clothes don't amount to much anyway," said Betsey. "Hepsey's right.

They are alike as two peas, but Ben is the strongest morally, because he

hasn't been spoiled by property, as Clifton has. Not that he is

altogether spoiled yet."

"But about the minister?" interrupted Miss Bean.

"He has not come, it seems," said Elizabeth. "There is to be a sermon

read to-day," but she did not say that her brother Jacob was to read it.

The bell which had been delayed beyond the usual time pealed out, and

all faces were turned to the church door. Clifton and Ben lingered till

the last.

"There is old Mr Fleming going off home," said Ben as he caught sight

of a figure on horseback turning the corner toward North Gore. "I

expect he don't care about your brother Jacob's preaching," he added,

gravely.

"Isn't it his practice he don't care about?" said Clifton, laughing.

"I shouldn't wonder," said Ben.

"Well, I can't say I care much about his preaching either. Come, Ben,

let us go down to the big elm and talk things over."

Ben shook his head, but followed.

"It is not just the same as if the minister was there," said he,

doubtfully.

"But then what will Aunt Betsey say?"

"Oh, she won't care since it's only Jacob. And she needn't know it."

"Oh, she's got to know it. But it is not any worse for us than for old

Mr Fleming. It's pleasant down here."

It was pleasant. The largest elm tree in Gershom grew on the river

bank, and its great branches stretched far over to the other side,

making cool shadows on the rippling water. The place was green and

still, "a great deal more like Sunday than the inside of the

meeting-house," Clifton declared. But Ben shook his head.

"That's one of the loose notions you've learned at college. Your sister

believes in going to meetings, and so does Aunt Betsey."

So did Clifton it seemed, for there was a good deal more said after

that, and they quite agreed that whether it was altogether agreeable or

not, it was quite right that people generally should go to church,

rather than to the river, as they had done. How it happened, Ben hardly

knew, but in a little while they found themselves in Seth Fairweather's

boat, and were paddling up the river, out and in among the shadows, past

the open fields and the cedar swamp to the point where the Ythan Burn

fell into the Beaver. They paddled about a while upon the Pool, as a

sudden widening of the channel of the river was called, till the heat of

the sun sent them in among the shadows again. Then Clifton leaned back

at his ease, while Ben waved about a branch of odorous cedar to keep the

little black flies away.

"Now tell me all about it, Cliff," said he.

Clifton winced, but put a bold face on the matter, and told in as few

words as possible the story of his having been sent home. It was not a

pleasant story to tell, though he had been less to blame than some

others who had escaped punishment altogether. But sitting there in the

shadow of the cedars, with Ben's great eyes upon him, he felt more sorry

and ashamed, and more angry at himself, and those who had been concerned

with him in his folly, than ever he had felt before.

"The fun didn't pay that time, did it, Cliff?" said Ben. "I don't

believe it ever does--that kind of fun."

"That's what Aunt Betsey says, eh?" said Clifton. "Well, she's about

right."

"And you'll never do so, any more; will you, Cliff?"

Clifton laughed.

"But, Cliff, you are almost a man now, you are a man, and it don't pay

in the long run to drink and have a good time. It didn't pay in my

father's case, and Aunt Betsey says--"

"There, that will do. I would rather hear Aunt Betsey's sermons from

her own lips, and I am going up to the Hill some time soon."

There was silence between them for a little while, then Ben said:

"There's a meeting up in the Scott school-house 'most every Sunday

afternoon, Cliff; suppose we go up there, and then I can tell Aunt

Betsey all about it."

Clifton had no objections to this plan; so pushing the boat in among the

bushes that hung low over the water, they left it there and took their

way by the side of Ythan Burn. But he would not be hurried. As a boy

he had liked more than anything else in the world, loitering through the

fields and woods with Ben, and it gave him great satisfaction to

discover that he had not outgrown this liking. He forgot his fine

manners and fine clothes, his college friends and pleasures and

troubles; and Ben forgot Aunt Betsey, and that he was doing wrong, and

they wandered on as they had done hundreds of times before.

For though no one, not even his Aunt Betsey, thought Ben very bright,

Clifton would have taken his word about beast and bird and creeping

thing, and about all the growing life in the woods, rather than the word

of any other ten in Gershom. They made no haste, there fore, in the

direction of the Scott school-house, but wound in and out among the wood

paths, using eyes and ears in the midst of the rejoicing life of which

the forest was so full at that June season.

They kept along the side of the brook, and by and by came out of the

woods on the edge of the fine strip of land which old Mr Fleming had

made foot by foot from the swamp. There was no finer land in the

township, none that had been more faithfully dealt with than this. Ben

uttered an exclamation of admiration as he looked over it to the hill

beyond. Even Clifton, who knew less and cared less about land than he

did, sympathised with his admiration.

"He might mow it now, and have a second crop before fall," said Ben,

with enthusiasm. "It would be a shame to spoil so fine a meadow by

building a factory on it, wouldn't it?"

"It would spoil it for hay, but factories are not bad in a place, I tell

you. It might be a good thing to put one here."

"Not for Mr Fleming. He don't care for factories. He made the meadow

out of the swamp, and nobody else has any business with it, whatever

they may say about mortgages and things."

"But who is talking about mortgages and things?" asked Clifton,

laughing.

"Oh, most everybody in Gershom is talking. I don't know much about it

myself. And Jacob's one of your folks, and you'd be mad if I told you

all that folks say."

Clifton laughed.

"Jacob isn't any more one of my folks than you are--nor so much. Do you

suppose I would stay away from meeting to come out here with Jacob? Not

if I know it."

"He wouldn't want you to, I don't suppose."

"Not he. He doesn't care half so much about me as you do."

"No, he don't. I think everything of you. And that's why Aunt Betsey

says you ought to be careful to set me a good example."

"That's so," said Clifton, laughing. "Now tell me about old Fleming."