and Gershom affairs very much as she had always done, and no doubt the
minister was as much the better through it as he had been from the
first. Miss Essie sent letters to Mr Maxwell, many and long, and now
and then a note to Miss Elizabeth, but that young lady's name was not
very often mentioned between them.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
JACOB'S TROUBLES.
This was by no means so happy a winter in Gershom church and society as
last winter had been. The various circumstances that had been thought
causes for congratulation last year were to be rejoiced over still. Mr
Maxwell was holding his own among them. His sermons were admired as
much as ever. The various meetings were well attended; there was no
perceptible falling off in the subscription-list, and many of the North
Gore people were as regular in their attendance, and to all appearance
as loyal to church interests as could be desired. Still it was not so
pleasant or so prosperous a winter as the last had been.
There was not much said about it, even by the privileged grumblers among
them, for a while, and the people who made the best of things generally
saw only what was to be expected. In the best laid plans there will be
some points of doubtful excellence. In all new arrangements there will
be grating and friction which cannot even with the best intentions be at
first overcome. The only way was to have patience and be ready with
"the oil of gentleness and the feather of forbearance," so as to give a
touch here or there as it was needed, and everything would be sure to
move smoothly after a while.
No special cause was assigned for this state of things. No one thought
of connecting Jacob Holt's name with it, but as the winter wore over a
good many eyes were turned toward him, and a good many tongues were busy
discussing his affairs, and chiefly his affairs as they had reference to
Mr Fleming. No one whose opinion or judgment he cared about blamed him
openly. It would have required some courage to do so. For Jacob was
the rich man of the church, as he was of the town, and had much in his
power in a community where voluntary offerings were depended upon as a
means of covering all expenses. But the work commenced on the Varney
place made matter for discussion among people who had not the motive for
silence that existed among Jacob's personal friends and brethren.
That he meant to bring Mr Fleming to his own terms could not be
doubted. The mortgage on the farm had only another year to run. The
land above the Blackpool would be taken possession of, or if this should
be hindered in any way, the land would be ruined by the building of the
new dam at the Varney place. What would Jacob Holt care for the
bringing of a lawsuit against him by a poor man like Mr Fleming after
the dam should be built and operations commenced?
True, it was the Gershom Manufacturing Company which was to decide as to
the site of the mills, and which would be called upon to pay all
damages. But how was that to help Mr Fleming? Within the memory of
the oldest inhabitant no enterprise commenced or carried on in Gershom
but had, at one point or mother in its course, felt the guiding or
restraining touch of a Holt, and so it was not easy for lookers-on in
general to put Jacob out of the question when the mind and will of the
future manufacturing company was under discussion.
It is not to be supposed that all this time Mr Maxwell had heard no
other version of this trouble than that which the squire and Miss
Elizabeth had given him. He had heard at least ten corresponding
generally to theirs as to facts, but differing in spirit and colouring
according to the view of the narrator. He had not as yet found it
necessary to commit himself to any expression of opinion with regard to
it. He listened gravely, and often with a troubled heart, doubting that
evil to the people he had learned to love might grow out of it. But he
listened always as though he were listening for the first time.
The matter could not be brought before him as pastor of the church, as
between Jacob Holt and Mr Fleming, for Mr Fleming was not a church
member. He still kept aloof, as did others of the elderly people of his
neighbourhood; and though Mr Maxwell had spoken with several of them as
to their duty in the circumstances, he had never spoken to Mr Fleming.
He was on the most friendly terms with the family, and had always been
kindly received and respectfully treated by the old man, but as to
personal matters Mr Fleming was as reserved with him as with the rest
of the world. It would have seemed to Mr Maxwell an impertinence on
his part to seek either directly or indirectly to force the confidence
of a man like him. And indeed he felt that he might have little to say
to the purpose should his confidence be spontaneously given. He thought
it possible that it might do Mr Fleming good to freely and fully tell
his troubles, real and imaginary, to a sympathising and judicious
listener, but he was far from thinking himself the right man to hear
him.
He had a strong desire to help and comfort him. In church, when he saw,
as he now and then did, the stern old face softening and brightening
under some strong sweet word of his Lord, like the face of a little
child, he had an unspeakable longing to do him good. In his study the
remembrance of the look came often back to him, and almost unconsciously
the thought of him, and his wants, and possible experiences, influenced
his preparations for the Sabbath. His thoughts of him were always
gentle and compassionate. That there is likely to be wrong on both
sides, where anger, or coldness, or contempt comes between those who
acknowledge the Lord of love and peace as their Master, Mr Maxwell well
knew, but in thinking of the trouble between these two men, neither the
sympathy nor the blame was equally awarded. When he prayed that both
might be brought to a better mind through God's grace given and His word
spoken, he almost unconsciously assumed that this grace was to make the
word a light, a guide, a consoler to one, and to the other a fire and a
hammer to break the rock in pieces.
It would not have been difficult at this time to bring back the old
state of things when two distinct communities lived side by side in
Gershom; and in the main the two communities would have stood in
relation to each other very much as the North Gore folk and the
villagers had stood in the old times. Not altogether, however. The
North Gore folk, as a general thing, sided with Mr Fleming, or they
would have done so if he had not been dumb and deaf to them and to all
others on the subject of his troubles, but all the towns-people would
not have been on the other side.
For Jacob lacked some of the qualities that during the past years had
made his father so popular in the town. He was not the man his father
had been in any respect. "Jacob bored with a small auger," Mr Green,
the carpenter, used to say, and the miscellaneous company who were wont
to assemble in his shop for the discussion of things in general did not
differ from him in opinion. Jacob was small about small matters, they
said, and lost friends and failed to make money, where his father would
have made both friends and money safe. As a business man he had not of
late proved himself worthy of the respect of his fellow-townsmen as his
father had always done.
Things had gone well with the Holts for a long time. They had had a
share in most of the well-established business of the town. In helping
others, as they had certainly done, to a living, they had helped
themselves to wealth, and on many farms in the vicinity, and on some of
the village homes, they had held claims. In many cases these claims had
been paid in time; in others the property had passed from the hands of
the original owners into the hands of the Holts, father and son. Very
rarely in old Mr Holt's active days had this happened in a way to
excite the feeling of the community against the rich man; but of late it
had been said that Jacob had done some hard things, and some of those
who discussed his affairs were indignant because of the people who
suffered, and some who did not like Jacob for reasons of their own
joined in the cry; but it was to David Fleming and his affairs that
attention was chiefly turned when any one wanted to say hard things of
Jacob Holt.
Jacob was having a hard time altogether. Not because men were saying
hard things of him. Few of these hard sayings would be likely to reach
his ears. Some of the men who growled and frowned behind his back,
before his face were mild and deprecatory, and listened to his words and
smiled at his jokes, and carried themselves in his company very much as
they had done in years past.
As for Mr Fleming's affairs, it was coming to that with Jacob, that he
would have done to him all the evil that he was accused of planning, if
he could have had his way; but, nevertheless, not with a desire to
harass and annoy the man who had always shunned him, and who now defied
him, as people sometimes declared.
It cannot be said that he had not felt and secretly resented what he
called the folly of the unreasonable old man. But Mordecai might have
sat stiff and stern at the gate all day long for him and every day of
the year, if the refusal to rise with the rest and do him reverence had
been all the trouble between them. He knew that Mr Fleming had bitter
thoughts against him because of all that had befallen his son long ago,
and though he believed himself to have been no more guilty toward him
than others had been, he knew that they had all been guilty together,
and he had therefore submitted quietly, if not patiently, to the
constant rebuke which he felt, and which all Gershom felt, the old man's
stern silence to be. He could understand how the sight of him and his
prosperity should be an aggravation to the sorrow of this man, who did
not seem to be able to forget, and he had a sort of compassion for him
in his loss--not merely of the handsome, kindly lad who had gone away so
long ago, but of the man to which the much-loved Hugh might by this time
have grown. His desire to resent the father's manner to himself had
never been more than a momentary feeling and if he could have conferred
upon him some great benefit, and placed him under such obligation to him
as should be seen and acknowledged by all Gershom, he would gladly have
done so. Indeed he believed that in the terms agreed on by his father,
with regard to Mr Fleming's mortgage, such a benefit had been
conferred, and as he thought about it his anger grew.
For now Mr Fleming's unreasonable obstinacy in refusing to dispose of
his land seemed the only hindrance in the way of the new enterprise
which promised so well. If he had had the power to make him yield, he
would have exerted it to the uttermost, even if it would have ruined the
old man, instead of placing him and the children dependent on him above
the fear of want forever. But as yet he had no power, and before the
year should be out, when the law would allow him to take possession of
the land, the ruin which men were saying might fall on Mr Fleming,
might, nay must, fall on himself.
Ruin? Well, that was putting it strongly perhaps. But the delay would
cause loss and trouble terrible to anticipate--not to him only, but to
the whole town of Gershom--loss which years of common prosperity would
hardly make up for. Jacob rarely spoke of David Fleming or his
relations to him, but when he did so, this was the way he put it. The
prosperity of Gershom and of the country round was hindered by his
refusal to sell his land. But in his heart he knew that the prosperity
of Gershom was a very secondary consideration with him at the moment.
For Jacob was in trouble, had been in trouble a long time, though he was
only just beginning to confess it to himself. To no one else would he
confess it, till nothing else could be done. He ought never to have
come to any such determination. He was not strong enough to bear the
weight of such trouble alone, and he was not wise enough to see the
right means of getting through it.
There were times when he owned this to himself. He had not nerve for
great ventures. It made him sick to think of one or two transactions,
out of which he might have come triumphant as others had done, only that
his courage had failed to carry him through to the end. He needed more
courage, and less conscientiousness, he liked to add in his thoughts,
and perhaps he was not altogether without warrant in doing so. At any
rate, something had come between him and success where other men had
succeeded.
Mr Green and his friends were right in their opinion that he was not
such a man as his father. Even in conducting his Gershom business,
which had almost come to be mere routine with him, they could see that
he sometimes made mistakes. His persistent way of standing out against,
or apart from, any movement that was to benefit the whole community,
unless it was made in his way or to his evident advantage, was very
unlike his father. It is true, that in his father's day there had been
fewer men in Gershom to share either responsibility or power. But the
squire had known when to yield, and by judicious yielding it frequently
happened that he was allowed to hold all the faster to his own plans.
Jacob had to yield his own will also now and then, but at such times he
could not help seeing that his fellow-townsmen looked upon him as having
been beaten, and that they rather enjoyed it. Even when he succeeded in
getting his own way in some matters, it often happened that his success
was more in appearance than in reality. Still, if he had kept to his
legitimate business, he might have done well in it, and kept the
confidence of the community as being a man "who knew what he was about,"
and certainly he would have had an easier mind.
It was a little before this time that the discovery of the existence of
mineral wealth, and the speculation in mining property which has since
made a curious chapter in the history of this part of Canada, were
beginning to occupy the attention of moneyed men, and Jacob had made his
venture with the rest. But he had not come out of the affairs so well
as some others had done. A history of their operations as to buying and
selling would not interest. The result, as far as Jacob Holt was
concerned, was disastrous enough, for in one way and another he had
involved himself to an extent that to people generally would have
appeared incredible. But people generally knew little about it. Those
who did know were those who had been engaged with him, who had either
made much money or lost much in the course of their transactions, and a
prudent silence seemed to be considered best. Of course it could not
but be known in the country to some extent who were the gainers and who
the losers, but no one guessed that the Holts would be "In" for any
considerable amount. But in the giving up of much valuable property at
a great loss, in order to preserve his credit, Jacob was made to feel
his position bitterly.
Squire Holt had bought and held for many years large tracts of wild
lands in various parts of the country, content to sink the
purchase-money and to pay the taxes for the present, in the certain
knowledge that as new settlers came in, and the country was opened up by
the making of roads and the building of bridges, the value of the lands
would be greatly increased. Many of these tracts Jacob was at this time
obliged to sacrifice. He rather ruefully congratulated himself on the
fact that the transfer of such property to other names might be done
quietly, so that his difficulties need not be fully known or discussed
in the community, but it was a terrible blow to him, and the necessity
of keeping the knowledge of it from his father made it all the harder.
For the squire had given his voice against all operations in mining
matters. He was conscious that he was no longer equal to a contest with
younger men in a new field of action, and his advice to his son, whose
powers he had measured, had been "to let well alone," and leave to those
who had less to lose, the chance of being winners in the new game. It
would have been well if his words had been heeded, Jacob owned to
himself; and partly for his own sake and partly for the sake of his
father, he said little about his losses. He was willing to have him and
others believe that railroad matters were not prospering as he would
have liked, which indeed was true. "The Hawkshead and Dunn Valley"
railroad, which he had been chiefly instrumental in starting, and the
stock of which he held largely, had promised well for a time, and would
doubtless pay well in the end; but in the meantime, the big men of
Fosbrooke, who had been allowed to say less than they wished to say as
to the location of the road, were agitating the subject of another road
to connect more directly with the Grand Trunk, and with other lines on
the south side of the border, and "Hawkshead and Dunn Valley" stock had
gone down.
So Jacob candidly acknowledged that "the banks were crowding a little,"
whenever he found it necessary to ask for the use of a fellow-townsman's
name to his paper. He found it necessary a good many times these days,
and he was not very often refused. For there were few of the old
settlers whom he or his father had not obliged in the same way at one
time or the other, as he took occasion to tell the sons of some of them
now and then. And besides this, giving one's name was a mere form, very
convenient in the way of business, which in those days was supposed to
be done more rapidly than had been the way in old times.
That any of the signers, "joint and several," ever imagined that they
might, in the course of untoward events, be called upon to make good the
promise to pay that stood over their names, is not likely. Nor did
Jacob himself ever contemplate so painful a possibility. Serious as he
saw his difficulties to be, he saw a way out of them--or he would have
done so, he said to himself bitterly, if the will of an unreasonable old
man had not stood in his way.
In the establishment and success of the new Company, so long the subject
of discussion in the town, lay his best chance of freeing himself from
his present embarrassment. If he might have had his way as to the site,
so that the building might have been commenced, there would have been no
trouble about the Company. A few good names with his own, and a
moderate amount of capital, with the dam and the buildings commenced,
there would have been no trouble about the rest. He felt that he would
then have been master of the situation. Every cottage needed for the
Mill hands and their families must be built on his land; and the chances
were that by judicious management as to building, every one of them
might become his tenant; and he had already in view certain arrangements
by which most of the materials for building, and many of the supplies
for the work-people, should be made to pass through his hands. By these
means, and by the combination of other favourable circumstances, which
he foresaw, he did not doubt that he could not only escape from present
embarrassments, but recover much of what he had been obliged to
sacrifice.
It is possible that he was quite mistaken in all this, but he believed
it all, and no wonder that his indignation grew and strengthened as he
thought of Mr Fleming.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
JACOB'S EXPERIENCE.
Jacob spoke wonderfully little of all this, considering how much it was
in his mind. He sometimes spoke to his wife, but even to her he said
nothing of the losses that had fallen upon him, or of the fears that
were weighing him down; but he did allow the bitterness which was
gathering in his heart toward old Mr Fleming to overflow, once in a
while, in her hearing. He knew it was not a wise thing to do, for she
could only listen and add a word or two, which did no good, but harm.
She dropped bitter words to other people too, nay, poured them forth to
Elizabeth, and to Clifton when he came home, and to Miss Betsey, even,
when a rare opportunity occurred.
It did not matter much as far as they were concerned, for they knew the
value of her words, and did not repeat them; but she uttered them to
other people as well, and they were repeated, as all village talk is
repeated, and commented upon, and exaggerated, and no one did more
toward the stirring up of strife, and the making of two parties in
Gershom, than did Mrs Jacob. She did her husband no good, but she did
him less harm than she might have done had she been a woman of a higher
and stronger nature. He did not have perfect confidence in her sense
and judgment, and was apt to hesitate rather than yield to her
suggestions even when he would have liked to do so. But her intense
interest and sympathy were very grateful to him, and all the more that
he neither asked nor expected sympathy from any one else.
He often longed to ask it; there were several men in Gershom with whom
he would have liked to discuss his grievances, but he hardly dared to
enter upon the subject, lest in confessing how great a matter a six
months' delay was to him, he should betray how serious his losses had
been. He did not intend to make his wife aware of his embarrassments,
but she could not fail to see that all his anxiety could not spring from
doubts as to the company or indignation toward Mr Fleming. She could
not bring herself to speak of his losses while he remained silent, but
she was all the more bitter in speaking of the old man's obstinacy.
"And there are people who call him a sincere and exemplary Christian!
The hard, selfish, sour old man!"
"Well," said Jacob, after a pause of consideration, "I guess he is a
Christian--as Christians go. There are few Christians who live up to
their light in all respects, I'm afraid."
"That's so; but then there is a difference between failings and
shortcomings, or even open yieldings to sudden temptations, and this
keeping up of anger and uncharitableness, as he has been doing, year in
and year out, since ever I can remember, almost."
"We cannot judge him; he has had great troubles, and he is an old man,"
said Jacob, rising. Any allusion to Mr Fleming's disapproval of him
fretted him more than it used to do, and once or twice lately he had
allowed himself to say more than he would have liked to reach the ears
of his neighbours, and so he rose to go.
"He has never done me any hurt that I know of, and I don't suppose he'll
do enough to speak of now. It will come all round right I guess, and
then if I can do him a good turn I will."
If he had stayed a minute longer, his wife would have told him that he
at least was showing a Christian spirit in thus saying, but being left
alone, it came into her mind that no better revenge could be taken upon
the hard old man than that his enemy should heap kindness upon him.
"Not that such a thought was in Jacob's heart," she said to herself,
"but I guess he's got some new notion in his head. I never can tell
just what he means by what he says; it will be queer if he doesn't get
his own way first or last."
It was no great stretch of charity on Jacob's part to allow that the
people who believed in the Christianity of Mr Fleming might be right,
notwithstanding the old man's unreasonable antipathy to himself. He had
never doubted it, and his wife's words had startled him.
"If he is not a Christian, I am afraid some of the rest of us had better
be looking to our little deeds. I guess he has as fair a chance as the
most of us."
He did not get rid of his thoughts when he sat down in his office and
began the work of the afternoon. The remembrance of some things that he
would gladly never have remembered came back to him even while he was
busy with his writing, and he said to himself that if the controversy
between him and Mr Fleming were to be decided according to his
character, it would go hard with him, and for a moment it seemed as if
the sins of his youth were to be remembered against him, and that his
punishment was coming upon him after all those years. But he pulled
himself up when he got thus far, saying he was growing foolish and as
nervous as a woman, and then he rose and took his hat and went down to
the mill.