Flamsted quarries Part 66

"Mr. Van Ostend, I wish old Judge Champney was living to hear this! He'd approve, Mr. Van Ostend, he'd approve of it all--and Mr. Louis too."

"Thank you, Mr. Buzzby, for these words; they do me good. And now," he said, turning to Father Honore, "I want very much to see Mr. Googe--now that this business is settled. I have wanted to see him many times during these last six years, but I felt--I feared he might consider my visiting him an intrusion--"

"Not at all--not at all; this simply shows me that you don't as yet know the real Mr. Googe. He will be glad to see you at any time."

"I think I'd like to see him in the shed."

"No reason in the world why you shouldn't; he is one of the most accessible men at all times and seasons."

"Supposing, then, you ride up with me in the automobile?"

"Certainly I will; shall we go up this forenoon?"

"Yes, I should like to go now. Mr. Buzzby, I shall be back this afternoon for a talk with you. I want to make some definite arrangement for Ann and Hannah."

"I'll be here."

The two walked together to the driveway, and shortly the mellow note of the great Panhard's horn sounded, as the automobile rounded the curve of The Bow and sped away to the north sh.o.r.e highway and the sheds.

Late that afternoon Aileen, with her baby daughter, Aurora, in her arms, was standing on the porch watching for her husband's return. The usual hour for his home-coming had long pa.s.sed. She began to fear that the threatened trouble in the sheds, on account of the attempted introduction of the automatic bush hammer, might have come to a crisis.

At last, however, she saw him leave the car and cross the bridge over the Rothel. His step was quick and firm. She waved her hand to him; a swing of his cap answered her. Then little Aurora's tiny fist was manipulated by her mother to produce a baby form of welcome.

Champney sprang up the steps two at a time, and for a moment the little wife and baby Aurora disappeared in his arms.

"Oh, Champney, I'm so thankful you've come! I knew just by the way you came over the bridge that things were going better at the sheds. You are so late I began to get worried. Come, supper's waiting."

"Wait a minute, Aileen--Mother--" he called through the hall, "come here a minute, please."

Aurora Googe came quickly at that ever welcome call. Her face was even more beautiful than formerly, for great joy and peace irradiated every feature.

"Where's Honore?" he said abruptly, looking about for his boy who was generally the first to run as far as the bridge to greet him. His wife answered.

"He and Billy went with Father Honore as far as the power-house; he'll be back soon with Billy. Sister Ste. Croix went by a few minutes ago, and I told her to hurry them home.--What's the good news, Champney? Tell me quick--I can't wait to hear it."

Champney smiled down at the eager face looking up to him; her chin was resting on her baby's head.

"Mr. Van Ostend has been in the sheds to-day--and I've had a long talk with him."

"Oh, Champney!"

Both women exclaimed at the same time, and their faces reflected the joy that shone in the eyes of the man they loved with a love bordering on worship.

Champney nodded. "Yes, and so satisfactory--" he drew a long breath; "I have so much to tell it will take half the evening. He wishes to 'pay his respects,' so he says, to my wife and mother, if convenient for the ladies to-morrow--how is it?" He looked with a smile first into the gray eyes and then into the dark ones. In the latter he read silent pleased consent; but Aileen's danced for joy as she answered:

"Convenient! So convenient, that he'll get the surprise of his life from me, anyhow; he really must be made to realize that I am his debtor for the rest of my days--don't I owe the 'one man on earth for me' to him?

for would I have ever seen Flamsted but for him? And have I ever forgotten the roses he dropped into the skirt of my dress twenty-one years ago this very month when I sang the Sunday night song for him at the Vaudeville? Twenty-one years! Goodness, but it makes me feel old, mother!"

Aurora Googe smiled indulgently on her daughter, for, at times, Aileen, not only in ways, but looks, was still like the child of twelve.

Champney grew suddenly grave.

"Do you realize, Aileen, that this meeting to-day in the shed is the first in which we three, Father Honore, Mr. Van Ostend, and I, have ever been together under one roof since that night twenty-one years ago when I first saw you?"

"Why, that doesn't seem possible--but it _is_ so, isn't it? Wasn't that strange!"

"Yes, and no," said Champney, looking at his mother. "I thought of our first meeting one another at the Vaudeville, as we three stood there together in the shed looking upwards to The Gore; and Father Honore told me afterward that he was thinking of that same thing. We both wondered if Mr. Van Ostend recalled that evening, and the fact of our first acquaintance, although unknown to one another."

"I wonder--" said Aileen, musingly.

Champney spoke abruptly again; there was a note of uneasiness in his voice:

"I wonder what keeps Honore--I'll just run up the road and see if he's coming. If he isn't, I will go on till I meet the boys. I wish," he added wistfully, "that McCann felt as kindly to me as Billy does to my son; I am beginning to think that old grudge of his against me will never yield, not even to time;--I'll be back in a few minutes."

Aileen watched him out of sight; then she turned to Aurora Googe.

"We are blest in this turn of affairs, aren't we, mother? This meeting is the one thing Champney has been dreading--and yet longing for. I'm glad it's over."

"So am I; and I am inclined to think Father Honore brought it about; if you remember, he said nothing about Mr. Van Ostend's being here when he stopped just now."

"So he didn't!" Aileen spoke in some surprise; then she added with a joyous laugh: "Oh, that dear man is sly--bless him!"--But the tears dimmed her eyes.

II

"Go straight home with Honore, Billy, as straight as ever you can," said Father Honore to eight-year-old Billy McCann who for the past year had const.i.tuted himself protector of five-year-old Honore Googe; "I'll watch you around the power-house."

Little Honore reached up with both arms for the usual parting from the man he adored. The priest caught him up, kissed him heartily, and set him down again with the added injunction to "trot home."

The two little boys ran hand in hand down the road. Father Honore watched them till the power-house shut them from sight; then he waited for their reappearance at the other corner where the road curves downward to the highroad. He never allowed Honore to go alone over the piece of road between the point where he was standing and the power-house, for the reason that it bordered one of the steepest and roughest ledges in The Gore; a careless step would be sure to send so small a child rolling down the rough surface. But beyond the power-house, the ledges fell away very gradually to the lowest slopes where stood, one among many in the quarries, the new monster steel derrick which the men had erected last week. They had been testing it for several days; even now its powerful arm held suspended a block of many tons' weight. This was a part of the test for "graduated strain"--the weight being increased from day to day.

The men, in leaving their work, often took a short cut homeward from the lower slope to the road just below the power-house, by crossing this gentle declivity of the ledge. Evidently Billy McCann with this in mind had twisted the injunction to "go straight home" into a chance to "cut across"; for surely this way would be the "straightest." Besides, there was the added inducement of close proximity to the wonderful new derrick that, since its instalment, had been occupying many of Billy's waking thoughts.

Father Honore, watching for the children's reappearance at the corner of the road just beyond the long low power-house, was suddenly aware, with a curious shock, of the two little boys trotting in a lively manner down the easy grade of the "cross cut" slope, and nearing the derrick and its suspended weight. He frowned at the sight and, calling loudly to them to come back, started straight down over the steep ledge at the side of the road. He heard some one else calling the boys by name, and, a moment later, saw that it was Sister Ste. Croix who was coming up the hill.

The children did not hear, or would not, because of their absorption in getting close to the steel giant towering above them. Sister Ste. Croix called again; then she, too, started down the slope after them.

She noticed some men running from the farther side of the quarry. She saw Father Honore suddenly spring by leaps and bounds down over the rough ledge. What was it? The children were apparently in no danger. She looked up at the derrick--

_What was that!_ A tremor in its giant frame; a swaying of its cabled mast; a sickening downward motion of the weighted steel arm--then--

"Merciful Christ!" she groaned, and for the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds covered her eyes....

The priest, catching up the two children one under each arm, ran with superhuman strength to evade the falling derrick--with a last supreme effort he rolled the boys beyond its reach; they were saved, but--

Their savior was pinioned by the steel tip fast to the unyielding granite.