What Necessity Knows Part 47

"I never said you ought to have been more talkative. It's not my business."

"The position you take makes it appear that I am in a false position.

Give me time to get about again. I ought at least to be more frank with my personal friends. Wait till I have opportunity to speak myself--that is all I ask of you. After that do what you will; but I think it only right to tell you that if you set up shop here, or near here, I should resign my place in this college."

"I'm not going to stay here. I told you I see that won't work."

"Don't be hasty. As I said, it's hard lines if this must separate us. I can keep the church. They can't be particular about my status there, because they can't pay me."

"It's mad to think of such a thing; it would be worse for the college than for you."

"If I knew it would be the worse for the college it might not be right to do it" (he spoke as if this had cost him thought), "but there are plenty who can manage a concern like this, now it is fairly established, even if they could not have worked it up as I have."

"I'd like to see them get another man like you!"--loudly--"H'n, if they accepted your resignation they'd find themselves on the wrong side of the hedge! They wouldn't do it, either; it isn't as if you were not known now for what you are. They can't be such fools as to think that where I am, or what I do, can alter you."

"It is not with the more sensible men who are responsible for the college that the choice would ultimately lie, but with the boys'

parents. If the numbers drop off--"

"Then the parents are the greatest idiots--"

There was a world of wrath in the words, but the princ.i.p.al of the New College, who felt his position so insecure, laughed.

"Yes, you may fairly count on that. A clever woman, who kept a girls'

school, told me once that if she had to draw up rules for efficient school-keeping they would begin:--'1st. Drown all the parents!'--My own experience has led me to think she was not far wrong."

Alec stood looking out of the open window with a thunderous face. For several reasons, some of which he hardly understood, he did not want to leave Ch.e.l.laston; but he had no intention of ruining his brother. It annoyed him that Robert should seriously propose to retire, and more, that he should let jokes and laughter fall on the heels of such a proposal. He did not know that there are hours to some men, coming not in the heat of party conflict, but in the quiet of daily life, when martyrdom would be easy, and any sacrifice short of martyrdom is mere play. And because he did not know this, he did not believe in it, just as the average man does not. His cogitation, however, was not on such abstruse matters, nor was it long, but its result was not insignificant.

"Put your money into it," he said, "and fight it out! Put part of my money into it, if you like, and let us fight it out together."

Perhaps the sentiment that actuated the suggestion, even as concerned part of his own inheritance, was nothing more than pugilistic; the idea, however, came to Robert Trenholme as entirely a new one. The proceeds of his father's successful trade lay temporarily invested, awaiting Alec's decision, and his own share would probably be ample to tide the college over any such shock to its income as might be feared from the circ.u.mstances they had been contemplating, and until public confidence might be laboriously regained. The plan was not one that would have occurred to his own mind--first, because the suggestions of his mind were always prudent; secondly, because such a fight was shocking to that part of his nature which was usually uppermost. It would be far more agreeable to him to turn away from the averted eyes of correct taste than to stand brazenly till he was again tolerated. Still, this very thing he disliked most might be the thing that he was meant to do, and also there is nothing more contagious than the pa.s.sion for war.

Alec's bellicose att.i.tude aroused party spirit in him. He knew the power of money; he knew the power of the prestige he had; he began to realise that he could do this thing if he chose.

"You are a piece of consummate conceit," he mocked. "Do you imagine that with a little money, and a very few personal graces, we two can brow-beat the good judgment of the public?"

"The fun of the fight would be worth the money _almost_," observed Alec parenthetically. Then he jeered: "Brace up, and put on more style; put your groom in livery; get a page to open your front door; agitate till you get some honorary degrees from American colleges! And as for me, I'll send out my bills on parchment paper, with a monogram and a crest."

"Do you so despise your fellow men?" asked Robert sadly.

CHAPTER VII.

For a day or two previous to the conversation of the brothers about Alec's decision, Alec had been debating in his own mind what, after all, that decision had better be. Never had he come so near doubting the principle to which he adhered as at this time. A few days went a long way in Ch.e.l.laston towards making a stranger, especially if he was a young man with good introduction, feel at home there, and the open friendliness of Ch.e.l.laston society, acting like the sun in aesop's fable, had almost made this traveller take off his coat. Had Robert been a person who had formerly agreed with him, it is probable that when the subject was opened, he would have confessed the dubious condition of his heart, and they would together have very carefully considered the advisability of change of plan. Whether the upshot in that case would have been different or not, it is impossible to say, for Robert had not formerly agreed with him, and could not now be a.s.sumed to do so, and therefore for Alec, as a part of militant humanity, there was no resource but to stand to his guns, forgetting for the time the weakness in his own camp, because he had no thought of betraying it to the enemy.

He who considers such incidents (they are the common sands of life), and yet looks upon the natural heart of man as a very n.o.ble thing, would appear to be an optimist.

However that may be, the conversation ended, Alec's heart stood no longer in the doubtful att.i.tude. There are those who look upon confessions and vows as of little importance; but even in the lower affairs of life, when a healthy man has said out what he means, he commonly means it more intensely. When Alec Trenholme had told his brother that he still intended to be a butcher, the thing for him was practically done, and that, not because he would have been ashamed to retract, but because he had no further wish to retract.

"And the mair fules ye are baith," said Bates, having recourse to broad Scotch to express his indignation when told what had pa.s.sed.

It was out of good nature that Alec had told the one invalid what had been going on in the other's room, but Bates was only very much annoyed.

"I thought," said he, "that ye'd got that bee out of yer ain bonnet, but ye're baith of ye daft now."

"Come now, Bates; you wouldn't dare to say that to my 'brother, the clergyman.'"

"I know more what's due than to call a minister a fule to his face, but whiles it's necessary to say it behind his back."

"Now I call him a hero, after what he's said to-day."

Alec was enjoying the humour of poking up the giant of conventionality.

"Hoots, man; it's yourself ye regard as a hero! Set yerself up as a Juggernaut on a car and crush him under the wheels!"

"Oh, I'm going to British Columbia. I won't take him at his word; but I'm pleased he had pluck enough to think of taking the bull by the horns."

"But I'm thinking ye just will take him at his word, for it's the easiest--standing there, patting him on the back, because he's given up to you!"

It was as odd a household this as well might be. Alec spent some of his time offering rough ministrations to his lame brother and asthmatic visitor, but more often left them to the sad but conscientious care of Mrs. Martha, preferring to exercise his brother's horses; and he scoured the country, escaping from social overtures he did not feel prepared to meet. To all three men Mrs. Martha was at this time an object of silent wonder. Before the Adventist disturbance she had appeared a very commonplace person; now, as they saw her going about her daily work, grim in her complete reserve, questions which could hardly be put into words arose in their minds concerning her. She suggested to them such pictorial ideas as one gleans in childhood about the end of the world, and this quite without any effort on their part, but just because she had clothed herself to their eyes in such ideas. Bates, who had exact opinions on all points of theology, tackled her upon what he termed "her errors"; but, perhaps because he had little breath to give to the cause, the other two inmates of the house could not learn that he had gained any influence over her or any additional information as to her state of mind.

Bates himself was so incongruous an element in Princ.i.p.al Trenholme's house that it became evident he could not be induced to remain there long. Sufficiently intelligent to appreciate thoroughly any tokens of ease or education, he was too proud not to resent them involuntarily as implying inferiority on his own part. He had, to a certain degree, fine perception of what good manners involved, but he was not sufficiently simple to act without self-conscious awkwardness when he supposed any deviation from his ordinary habits to be called for. Had he not been miserable in mind and body he might have taken more kindly to carpets and china; but as it was, he longed, as a homesick man for home, for bare floors and the unceremoniousness that comes with tin mugs and a scarcity of plates.

For home as it existed for him--the desolate lake and hills, the childish crone and rude hearth--for these he did not long. It was his home, that place; for into it--into the splashing lake and lonely woods, into the contour of the hills, and into the very logs of which the house was built--he had put as much of himself as can be absorbed by outside things; but just because to return there would be to return to his mind's external habitat, he could not now take comfort in returning. All the multiform solace it might have yielded him had been blasted by the girl from the hotel, who had visited him in secret. Before he had seen Sissy again his one constant longing had been to get done with necessary business, financial and medical, and go back to his place, where sorrow and he could dwell at peace together. He would still go, for he cherished one of those nervous ideas common with sick men, that he could breathe there and nowhere else; but he hated the place that was now rife with memories far more unrestful and galling than memories of the dead can ever be.

He hugged to himself no flattering delusion; in his judgment Sissy had shown herself heartless and cruel; but he did not therefore argue, as a man of politer mind might have done, that the girl he had loved had never existed, that he had loved an idea and, finding it had no resemblance to the reality, he was justified in casting away both, and turning to luxurious disappointment or to a search for some more worthy recipient of the riches of his heart. No such train of reasoning occurred to him. He had thought Sissy was good and unfortunate; he had found her fortunate and guilty of an almost greater degree of callousness than he could forgive; but, nevertheless, Sissy was the person he loved--his little girl, whom he had brought up, his big girl, in whom he centred all his hopes of happy home and of years of mature affection. Sissy was still alive, and he could not endure to think of her living on wholly separated from him. For this reason his mind had no rest in the thought of remaining where he was, or of returning whence he had come, or in the dream of seeking new places. He could think of no satisfaction except that of being near to her and making her a better girl; yet he had promised to have no dealings with her; and not only that, but he now at length perceived the futility of all such care as he might exercise over her. He had thought to shield her by his knowledge of the world, and he had found that she, by natural common sense, had a better knowledge of the world than he by experience; he had thought to protect her by his strong arm, and he had found himself flung off, as she might have flung a feeble thing that clung to her for protection.

She was better able to take care of herself in the world than he had been to take care of her, and she did not want his tenderness. Yet he loved her just as he had ever done, and perceived, in the deep well of his heart's love and pity, that she did, in sooth, need something--a tenderer heart it might be--need it more terribly than he had ever fancied need till now. He longed unspeakably to give her this--this crown of womanhood, which she lacked, and in the helplessness of this longing his heart was pining.

"A man isn't going to die because he has asthma," had been the doctor's fiat concerning Bates. He had come to Ch.e.l.laston apparently so ill that neither he nor his friends would have been much surprised had death been the order of the day, but as the programme was life, not death, he was forced to plan accordingly. His plans were not elaborate; he would go back to the clearing; he would take his aunt back from Turrifs to be with him; he would live as he had lived before.

Would he not sell the land? they asked; for the price offered for it was good, and the lonely life seemed undesirable.

No, he would not sell. It would, he said, be selling a bit of himself; and if there was value in it, it would increase, not diminish, by holding till the country was opened up. When he was dead, his heirs, be they who they might (this he said mysteriously), could do as they would.

As for him, he would take a man back from this part of the country to work in Alec's place. His cough, he said, had been worse since he had been beguiled into leaving his wilderness to travel with Alec; the pure air of the solitude would be better than doctors for him.

The journey into which Alec had beguiled him had already had three results: he had sold his lumber at a good price; had found out, by talking with business men at Quebec, what the real value of his land probably was, and would be; and had been put by Dr. Nash into a right way of thinking concerning his disease and its treatment, that would stand him in good stead for years to come; but none of these goodly results did he mention when he summed up the evils and discomforts of the trip in Alec's hearing. If his irascible talk was the index to his mind, certainly any virtue Alec had exercised toward him would need to be its own reward.

He offered to pay Alec his wages up to the time of their arrival in Ch.e.l.laston, because he had looked after him in his feebleness, and he talked of paying "The Princ.i.p.al" for his board during his sojourn there.

When they treated these offers lightly, he sulked, mightily offended. He would have given his life, had it been necessary, for either of the brothers, because of the succour they had lent him; nay more, had they come to him in need a lifetime afterwards, when most men would have had time to forget their benefaction many times over, John Bates would have laid himself, and all that he had, at their disposal; but he was too proud to say "thank you" for what they had done for him, or to confess that he had never been so well treated in his life before.

During his first days in Ch.e.l.laston he was hardly able to leave his own room; but all the time he talked constantly of leaving the place as soon as he was well enough to do so; and the only reason that he did not bring his will to bear upon his lagging health, and fix the day of departure, was that he could not compel himself to leave the place where Sissy was. He knew he must go, yet he could not. One more interview with her he must have, one more at least before he left Ch.e.l.laston. He could not devise any way to bring this about without breaking his promise to her, but his intention never faltered--see her he must, if only once, and so the days pa.s.sed, his mental agitation acting as a drag on the wheels of his recovery.

CHAPTER VIII.

When Alec Trenholme had had the key of the Harmon house in his possession some days, he went one evening, beguiled by the charm of the weather and by curiosity, for the first time into the Harmon garden. He wished to look over the rooms that were of some interest to him because of one of their late inmates, and having procrastinated, he thought to carry out his intention now, in the last hour before darkness came on, in order to return the key that night.