The Rapids Part 21

"But, listen! Ryan thought it over for a minute, then his eyes began to twinkle and he pointed to his storehouse and said that if it would cement the Protestant church together I might take the pile."

Elsie laughed, while the bishop relapsed into deep body-shaking mirth.

"Splendid! Fine chap that Ryan. He's from Maynooth and I'm from Lurgan and who says the Irish don't hang together? So it's all settled?"

"Yes, when can we start work?"

"At once if it's possible. How long will it take?"

"Three months would finish it. The job will be swarming with men."

"Good, and we hope that Ryan's cement will hold the church together.

I'm reminded of another Romanist friend who was approached for a similar Protestant object. He wouldn't help to build the new church but he did contribute toward tearing down the old one. And now," here this good and kindly man paused and looked affectionately at the two young people beside him, "it's my turn to make a suggestion."

Elsie glanced up with uncomfortable intelligence.

"I'd like the first wedding in the new church to be yours if possible.

And if you like, I'll officiate myself." He patted the girl's hand softly.

"That's dear of you," she stammered, "but--it's a long way off."

The bishop looked up sharply and saw that Belding's eyes were fixed on Fisette's cottage. "By the way, how's my friend Mr. Clark?" he put in hastily.

Belding smiled, "Working too hard, as usual."

"And working every one else, especially you. Well, I a.s.sume that's his way. I'd like you to tell him that we're building a new church because he did not seem to care for the other one."

"Does that fall within the office of an engineer?" said Belding doubtfully.

"Unquestionably. Your profession does many different things by many different methods. By the way, I hear we are to have iron works in St.

Marys."

"Yes, thanks to Fisette."

"It's some years since Mr. Clark told me he had reason to believe there was iron in the district. Now I hope that this prophet will have honor in his own country."

A few minutes later the young people rose to go. The bishop followed them to the gate, and Elsie felt the benediction of his kiss on her forehead. He watched them from his veranda till, with something of a sigh, he collected the ma.n.u.script at his feet, put it away and turned to next Sunday's sermon. He looked at this thoughtfully, then walking slowly into his study laid it also away. His face was suddenly careworn. He felt unduly oppressed by the burdens of his office, and there came back on him, as it often did, like a flood, the consciousness that it was for him by personal effort to raise half the money needed to pay his forty missionaries. Should he fail, they went without. Constantly aware of their simple faith, he knew also that they were poorly fed and lacked any provision for old age.

Involuntarily he began to compare their lot with that of the magnetic Clark, and was confronted with an eternal problem. Why should faith and sacrificial loyalty fare so much more poorly than the mechanical and constructive nature? Clark had, apparently, the world at his feet, but what comfort and security was there for brave and spiritual souls, and for what baffling reason were they robbed of present reward?

He pondered this deeply, and, raising his troubled eyes, looked fixedly at a large print of the Sistine Madonna that hung on the study wall just opposite his desk. As he gazed at its ineffable tenderness there came to him a slow surcease of strain. Flotsam and jetsam of eternity they might all be, his missionaries and Clark and himself, but underneath were the ever-lasting arms, on which,--and he thanked G.o.d for this,--some had already learned to lean. There flashed into his mind his own arrival at St. Marys, the northern center of his vast diocese; the joy with which the neighboring Indian tribes had welcomed him and the name "The Rising Sun" which they had forthwith given him.

They had looked forward, they said, to his coming as to morning after the darkness of night. The reflection grew in his mind and brought with it hope and renewed courage.

XIII.--THE VOICE OF THE RAPIDS

It fell on a morning that Clark, sitting at his desk, felt within him that strange stirring to which he had long since learned to give heed, it being his habit at such moments to leave the works and resign himself completely to these subtle processes. He now walked slowly across toward the river, and seated himself where, years before, he had watched the triumphant kingfisher. The place had a peculiar fascination for him, and had by his orders been kept in its pristine wildness. Half a mile away the pulp mill was grinding dully, on the upper reaches of the great bay circular saws were ripping into logs fresh from Baudette's operations on the Magwa River, and seventy miles up the river a large crew was shipping and excavating at the iron mine.

These things and many others being on foot, Clark had experienced that intellectual restlessness which in him was the precursor of further effort.

Listening to the boom of the river he reflected that the water he had diverted to his own purposes was but a fraction of the whole mighty torrent racing in front of him. Into the scant half mile between sh.o.r.e and sh.o.r.e was forced the escaping flood of the mighty Superior, and such was the compression that, midway, the torrent heaped itself up into a low ridge of broken plunging crests. Just over the ridge he could see the opposite sh.o.r.e line. It did not occur to him, as it would to many, how puny were the greatest efforts of man beside this prodigious ma.s.s. The manner of his mind was, too objective. The sight of the United States so close at hand only suggested that in the country from which he came he had as yet made no physical mark. There was the town with the rapids close beside it, just as in Canada. More and more the inward stirring captured him. Why should he not create in his own land what he had already created in Canada?

The idea was stimulating, and very carefully he reviewed the situation as it there existed. His supporters were keen men in Philadelphia and the unexpected announcement of Fisette's discovery had electrified the market. Shares in all the allied companies touched hitherto unreached values. The more he thought the more he luxuriated in this new sweep of imagination, while intermittently there came to him the dull boom of blasting at the works.

Presently his mind turned to money and personal wealth. He had never given it much thought, and only seriously considered money in terms of what it could accomplish. Now he was receiving a very large salary and had, as well, holdings in shares of the various companies. He dwelt on the fact for a while, not that he had ever aimed at riches, but because his financial position was infinitely better than ever before. It would be easy, he reflected, to sell out, retire and live at ease. He chuckled audibly at the picture, realizing that if he stopped work he would die of a strangulated spirit.

Presently as he listened it seemed that the rapids took on a new pitch.

He had remarked before that, varying with the direction of the wind, their call was not always in one great thundering diapason but sometimes in a gigantic hubbub made up, as it were, of the confused blending of many notes. Now, he imagined, he could discern them all--querulous, angry, contented, pleading, defiant, threatening and triumphant, and he perceived in them but the echo of changing human moods. To-day he distinguished chiefly a voice that was dominant and imperative.

Still in profound contemplation he surveyed the rapids' gigantic sweep, the proud and tossing billows shot through with sunlight and vibrant with speed. He made out those smooth and glistening emerald cellars into which the flashing river pitched to rise again in tossing crests.

He followed back through the icy depths of the great lake stretching westward to hidden swamps in that vast wilderness where these waters were born, and shouting rivers down which they poured through silent pools and over leaping cataracts to Superior. He saw still another river that, growing in power and majesty, moved royally past the cities of men, healing, sustaining and inspiring. And, last of all, he perceived these waters of half a continent blend silently with the brackish tides and lose themselves in the eternal sea.

This translation of vision moved him profoundly, for it was the nature of his remote personality to be stirred more deeply by the revelations of his own soul than by anything extraneous to its strange reactions.

Then gradually the voice of the river resolved itself into one clear and unmistakable summons. "Use me while you may. I shall flow on forever, while you have but a moment in eternity."

And this satisfied him.

He got up and walked slowly back, plunged in thought, but not of those who pa.s.sed and touched their hats and to whom he was the personification of power. There was in his mind the talk he had with Wimperley, a few months before. "We're in your hands," he had said, "but there's a limit to what we can raise. Push on with work and don't forget about dividends."

Remembering it, Clark smiled. The dividends might be delayed a year or so, but when they came it would be in a flood like the rapids. At his office he found a telegram from the purchasing agent in the United States. Blast furnaces were under way, and, he reported, he had secured an option on a rail mill. It was not new, but could be had at once. To dismantle and reerect would save six months as against the time required to build a new one. This purchase would also save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He pondered for some time, with Wimperley's remarks about dividends keeping up an irritating onslaught. He was aware in a strange but quite unmistakable way that this decision now to be made was in a quite positive sense more momentous than appeared on the surface. He hung over it, balancing the advantages of a new mill against a definite saving. It was not the sum about which he hesitated, but a touch of uncertainty as to just how much capital Wimperley and the rest could actually provide. Then suddenly he decided to be economical, even though a secondhand mill had obvious weaknesses.

In the next moment he rang for Belding. The engineer answered with a weariness daily becoming more settled, and which was only relieved by the spontaneous loyalty he had from the first conceived for his chief.

Of late he never entered Clark's office without antic.i.p.ating some addition to burdens he had already determined were too heavy for his young shoulders. But now, too, as always, he had no sooner closed the door and caught the extraordinary power in Clark's eyes than he was caught up in the grip of his chief's confidence and felt ready for the effort.

"You know the ground on the other side of the river?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish you would take a look over it very quietly and bring me a town map on which you have indicated the cheapest possible route for another power ca.n.a.l."

"Another ca.n.a.l!" said Belding involuntarily.

"It's important that it should be the cheapest possible," went on Clark, apparently without hearing, "and you'll have to balance up the material to be excavated by a longer route against the cost of more improved land by one that is more direct."

"How much power is required?" The question came dully.

"Not less than thirty thousand. I'm going to make carbide. At least,"

he added with a short laugh, "if I don't, some one else will."

Belding drew a long breath. He had a swift and discomforting conviction that this man, whom he felt forced to admire, was going too fast. Around him were all the evidences that he had not gone too fast and there seemed to be unlimited support behind him. But yet--

The engineer grew very red in the face. "Do you think that's wise, sir?" he said with a tremendous effort.

Clark glanced up in astonishment and his expression grew rigid. "Just what do you mean, Belding?"

"I am sorry, sir. I know it sounds impertinent but I've a rotten feeling that things--that things--" He broke off in distress.