The Rectory was one of the very oldest of the more substantial of Blackwater's dwellings. Built of grey limestone from the local quarries, its solid square mass relieved by its quaint dormer windows was softened from its primal ugliness by the Boston ivy that had clambered to the eaves and lay draped about the windows like a soft green mantle. Built in the early days, it stood with the little church, a gem of Gothic architecture, within spacious grounds bought when land was cheap. Behind the house stood the stable, built also of grey limestone, and at one side a cherry and apple orchard formed a charming background to the grey buildings with their crowding shrubbery and gardens. A gravelled winding drive led from the street through towering elms, a picturesque remnant from the original forest, to the front door and round the house to the stable yard behind. From the driveway a gravelled footpath led through the shrubbery and flower garden by a wicket gate to the Church. When first built the Rectory stood in dignified seclusion on the edge of the village, but the prosperity of the growing town demanding space for its inhabitants had driven its streets far beyond the Rectory demesne on every side, till now it stood, a green oasis of sheltered loveliness, amid a crowding mass of modern brick dwellings, comfortable enough but arid of beauty and suggestive only of the utilitarian demands of a busy manufacturing town.
For nearly a quarter of a century the Rev. Herbert Aveling Templeton, D.D., LL.D., for whom the Rectory had been built, had ministered in holy things to the Parish of St. Alban's and had exercised a guiding and paternal care over the social and religious well-being of the community. The younger son of one of England's noble families, educated in an English Public School and University, he represented, in the life of this new, thriving, bustling town, the traditions and manners of an English gentleman of the Old School. Still in his early sixties, he carried his years with all the vigour of a man twenty years his junior. As he daily took his morning walk for his mail, stepping with the brisk pace of one whose poise the years had not been able to disturb, yet with the stately bearing consistent with the dignity attaching to his position and office, men's eyes followed the tall, handsome, white-haired, well set up gentleman always with admiration and, where knowledge was intimate, with reverence and affection. Before the recent rapid growth of the town consequent upon the establishment of various manufacturing industries attracted thither by the unique railroad facilities, the Rector's walk was something in the nature of public perambulatory reception. For he knew them all, and for all had a word of greeting, of enquiry, of cheer, of admonition, so that by the time he had returned to his home he might have been said to have conducted a pastoral visitation of a considerable proportion of his flock. Even yet, with the changes that had taken place, his walk to the Post Office was punctuated with greetings and salutations from his fellow-citizens in whose hearts his twenty-five years of devotion to their well-being, spiritual and physical, had made for him an enduring place.
The lady of the Rectory, though some twenty years his junior, yet, by reason of delicate health due largely to the double burden of household cares and parish duties, appeared to be quite of equal age. Gentle in spirit, frail in body, there seemed to be in her soul something of the quality of tempered steel, yet withal a strain of worldly wisdom mingled with a strange ignorance of the affairs of modern life. Her life revolved around one centre, her adored husband, a centre enlarged as time went on to include her only son and her two daughters. All others and all else in her world were of interest solely as they might be more or less closely related to these, the members of her family. The town and the town folk she knew solely as her husband's parish. There were other people and other communions, no doubt, but being beyond the pale they could hardly be supposed to matter, or, at any rate, she could not be supposed to regard them with more than the interest and spasmodic concern which she felt it her duty to bestow upon those unfortunate dwellers in partibus infidelium.
Regarding the Public School of the town with aversion because of its woefully democratic character, she was weaned from her hostility to that institution when her son's name was entered upon its roll. Her eldest daughter, indeed, she sent as a girl of fourteen to an exclusive English school, the expense of which was borne by her husband's eldest brother, Sir Arthur Templeton, for she held the opinion that while for a boy the Public School was an excellent institution with a girl it was quite different. Hence, while her eldest daughter went “Home” for her education, her boy went to the Blackwater Public and High Schools, which institutions became henceforth invested with the highest qualifications as centres of education. Her boy's friends were her friends, and to them her house was open at all hours of day or night. Indeed, it became the governing idea in her domestic policy that her house should be the rallying centre for everything that was related in any degree to her children's life. Hence, she quietly but effectively limited the circle of the children's friends to those who were able and were willing to make the Rectory their social centre. She saw to it that for Herbert's intimate boy friends the big play room at the top of the house, once a bare and empty room and later the large and comfortable family living room, became the place of meeting for all their social and athletic club activities. With unsleeping vigilance she stood on guard against anything that might break that circle of her heart's devotion. The circle might be, indeed must be enlarged, as for instance to take in the Maitland boys, Herbert's closest chums. She was wise enough to see the wisdom of that, but nothing on earth would she allow to filch from her a single unit of the priceless treasures of her heart.
To this law of her life she made one glorious, one splendid exception. When her country called, she, after weeks of silent, fierce, lonely, agonised struggle gave up her boy and sent him with voiceless, tearless pride to the War.
But, when the boy's Colonel wrote in terms of affectionate pride of her boy's glorious passing, with new and strange adaptability her heart circle was extended to include her boy's comrades in war and those who like herself had sent them forth. Thenceforth every khaki covered lad was to her a son, and every soldier's mother a friend.
As her own immediate home circle grew smaller, the intensity of her devotion increased. Her two daughters became her absorbing concern. With the modern notion that a girl might make for herself a career in life she had no sympathy whatever. To see them happily married and in homes of their own became the absorbing ambition of her life. To this end she administered her social activities, with this purpose in view she encouraged or discouraged her daughters' friendships with men. With the worldly wisdom of which she had her own share she came to the conclusion that ineligible men friends, that is, men friends unable to give her daughters a proper setting in the social world, were to be effectively eliminated. That the men of her daughters' choosing should be gentlemen in breeding went without saying, but that they should be sufficiently endowed with wealth to support a proper social position was equally essential.
That Jack Maitland had somehow dropped out of the intimate circle of friends who had in pre-war days made the Rectory their headquarters was to her a more bitter disappointment than she cared to acknowledge even to herself. Her son and the two Maitland boys had been inseparable in their school and college days, and with the two young men her daughters had been associated in the very closest terms of comradeship. But somehow Captain Jack Maitland after the first months succeeding his return from the war had drawn apart. Disappointed, perplexed, hurt, she vainly had striven to restore the old footing between the young man and her daughters. Young Maitland had taken up his medical studies for a few months at his old University in Toronto and so had been out of touch with the social life of his home town. Then after he had “chucked” his course as impossible he had at his father's earnest wish taken up work at the mills, at first in the office, later in the manufacturing department. There was something queer in Jack's attitude toward his old life and its associations, and after her first failures in attempting to restore the old relationship her eldest daughter's pride and then her own forbade further efforts.
Adrien, her eldest daughter, had always been a difficult child, and her stay in England and later her experience in war work in France where for three years she had given rare service in hospital work had somehow made her even more inaccessible to her mother. And now the situation had been rendered more distressing by her determination “to find something to do.” She was firm in her resolve that she had no intention of patiently waiting in her home, ostensibly busying herself with social duties but in reality “waiting if not actually angling for a man.” She bluntly informed her scandalised parent that “when she wanted a man more than a career it would be far less humiliating to frankly go out and get him than to practise alluring poses in the hopes that he might deign to bestow upon her his lordly regard.” Her mother wisely forebore to argue. Indeed, she had long since learned that in argumentive powers she was hopelessly outclassed by her intellectual daughter. She could only express her shocked disappointment at such intentions and quietly plan to circumvent them.
As to Patricia, her younger daughter, she dismissed all concern. She was only a child as yet, wise beyond her years, but too thoroughly immature to cause any anxiety for some years to come. Meantime she had at first tolerated and then gently encouraged the eager and obvious anxiety of Rupert Stillwell to make a footing for himself in the Rectory family. At the outbreak of the war her antipathy to young Stillwell as a slacker had been violent. He had not joined up with the first band of ardent young souls who had so eagerly pointed the path to duty and to glory. But, when it had been made clear to the public mind that young Stillwell had been pronounced physically unfit for service and was therefore prevented from taking his place in that Canadian line which though it might wear thin at times had never broken, Mrs. Templeton relieved him in her mind of the damning count of being a slacker. Later, becoming impressed with the enthusiasm of the young man's devotion to various forms of patriotic war service at home, she finally, though it must be confessed with something of an effort, had granted him a place within the circle of her home. Furthermore, Rupert Stillwell had done extremely well in all his business enterprises and had come to be recognised as one of the coming young men of the district, indeed of the Province, with sure prospects of advancement in public estimation. Hence, the frequency with which Stillwell's big Hudson Six could be seen parked on the gravelled drive before the Rectory front door. In addition to this, Rupert and his Hudson Six were found to be most useful. He had abundance of free time and he was charmingly ready with his offers of service. Any hour of the day the car, driven by himself or his chauffeur, was at the disposal of any member of the Rectory family, a courtesy of which Mrs. Templeton was not unwilling to avail herself though never with any loss of dignity but always with appearance of bestowing rather than of receiving a favour. As to the young ladies, Adrien rarely allowed herself the delight of a motor ride in Rupert Stillwell's luxurious car. On the other hand, had her mother not intervened, Patricia would have indulged without scruple her passion for joy-riding. The car she adored, Rupert Stillwell she regarded simply as a means to the indulgence of her adoration. He was a jolly companion, a cleverly humourous talker, and an unfailing purveyor of bon-bons. Hence he was to Patricia an ever welcome guest at the Rectory, and the warmth of Patricia's welcome went a long way to establish his position of intimacy in the family.
It was not to be supposed, however, that that young lady's gracious and indeed eager acceptance of the manifold courtesies of the young gentleman in question burdened her in the very slightest with any sense of obligation to anything but the most cavalier treatment of him, should occasion demand. She was unhesitatingly frank and ready with criticism and challenge of his opinions, indeed he appeared to possess a fatal facility for championing her special aversions and antagonising her enthusiasms. Of the latter her most avowed example was Captain Jack, as she loved to call him. A word of criticism of Captain Jack, her hero, her knight, sans peur et sans reproche and her loyal soul was aflame with passionate resentment.
It so fell on an occasion when young Stillwell was a dinner guest at the Rectory.
“Do you know, Patricia,” and Rupert Stillwell looked across the dinner table teasingly into Patricia's face, “your Captain Jack was rather mixed up in a nice little row to-day?”
“I heard all about it, Rupert, and Captain Jack did just what I would have expected him to do.” Patricia's unsmiling eyes looked steadily into the young man's smiling face.
“Rescued a charming young damsel, eh? By the way, that Perrotte girl has turned out uncommonly good looking,” continued Rupert, addressing the elder sister.
“Rescuing a poor little ill-treated boy from the hands of a brutal bully and the bully's brutal father—” Patricia's voice was coolly belligerent.
“My dear Patricia!” The mother's voice was deprecatingly pacific.
“It is simply true, Mother, and Rupert knows it quite well too, or—”
“Patricia!” Her father's quiet voice arrested his daughter's flow of speech.
“But, Father, everyone—”
“Patricia!” The voice was just as quiet but with a slightly increased distinctness in enunciation, and glancing swiftly at her father's face Patricia recognised that the limits of her speech had been reached, unless she preferred to change the subject.
“Yes, Annette has grown very pretty, indeed,” said Adrien, taking up the conversation, “and is really a very nice girl, indeed. She sings beautifully. She is the leading soprano in her church choir, I believe.”
“Captain Jack Maitland appeared to think her quite charming,” said Rupert, making eyes at Patricia. Patricia's lips tightened and her eyes gleamed a bit.
“They were in school together, I think, were they not, Mamma?” said Adrien, flushing slightly.
“Of course they were, and so was Rupert, too—” said Patricia with impatient scorn, “and so would you if you hadn't been sent to England,” she added to her sister.
“No doubt of it,” said Rupert with a smile, “but you see she was fortunate enough to be sent to England.”
“Blackwater is good enough for me,” said Patricia, a certain stubborn hostility in her tone.
“I have always thought the Blackwater High School an excellent institution,” said her mother quickly, “especially for boys.”
“Yes, indeed, for boys,” replied Stillwell, “but for young ladies—well, there is something in an English school, you know, that you can't get in any High School here in Canada.”
“Rot!” ejaculated Patricia.
“My dear Patricia!” The mother was quite shocked.
“Pardon me, Mother, but you know we have a perfectly splendid High School here. Father has often said so.”
Her mother sighed. “Yes, for boys. But for girls, I feel with Rupert that you get something in English schools that—” She hesitated, looking uncertainly at her elder daughter.
“Yes, and perhaps lose something, Mamma,” said Adrien quietly. “I mean,” she added hastily, “you lose touch with a lot of things and people, friends. Now, for instance, you remember when we were all children, boys and girls together, at the Public School, Annette was one of the cleverest and best of the lot of us, I used to be fond of her—and the others. Now—”
“But you can't help growing up,” said Rupert, “and—well, democracy is all right and that sort of thing, but you must drift into your class you know. There's Annette, for instance. She is a factory hand, a fine girl of course, and all that, but—”
“Oh, I suppose we must recognise facts. Rupert, you are quite right,” said Mrs. Templeton, “there must be social distinctions and there are classes. I mean,” she added, as if to forestall the outburst she saw gathering behind her younger daughter's closed lips, “we must inevitably draw to our own set by our natural or acquired tastes and by our traditions and breeding.”
“All very well in England, Mamma. I suppose dear Uncle Arthur and our dear cousins would hardly feel called upon to recognise Annette as a friend.”
“Why should they?” challenged Rupert.
“My dear Patricia,” said her father, mildly patient, “you are quite wrong. Our people at home, your uncle Arthur, I mean, and your cousins, and all well-bred folk, do not allow class distinctions to limit friendship. Friends are chosen on purely personal grounds of real worth and—well, congeniality.”
“Would Uncle Arthur, or rather, Aunt Alicia have Annette to dinner, for instance?” demanded Patricia.
“Certainly not,” said her mother promptly.
“She would not do anything to embarrass Annette,” said her father.
“Oh, Dad, what a funk. That is quite unworthy of you.”
“Would she be asked here now to dinner?” said Rupert. “I mean,” he added in some confusion, “would it be, ah, suitable? You know what I mean.”
“She has been here. Don't you remember, Mamma? She was often here. And every time she came she was the cleverest thing, she was the brightest, the most attractive girl in the bunch.” Her mother's eyebrows went up. “In the party, I mean. And the most popular. Why, I remember quite well that Rupert was quite devoted to her.”
“A mere child, she was then, you know,” said Rupert.
“She is just as bright, just as attractive, as clever now, more so indeed, as fine a girl in every way. But of course she was not a factory girl then. That's what you mean,” replied Patricia scornfully.
“She has found her class,” persisted Rupert. “She is all you say, but surely—”
“Yes, she is working in the new box factory. Her mother, lazy, selfish thing, took her from the High School.”
“My dear Patricia, you are quite violent,” protested her mother.
“It's true, Mamma,” continued the girl, her eyes agleam, “and now she works in the box factory while Captain Jack works in the planing mill. She is in the same class.”
“And good friends apparently,” said Rupert with a malicious little grin.
“Why not? We would have Captain Jack to dinner, but not Annette.”
Her father smiled at her. “Well done, little girl. Annette is a fine girl and is fortunate in her champion. You can have her to dinner any evening, I am quite sure.”
“Can we, Mamma?”
“My dear, we will not discuss the matter any further,” said her mother. “It is a very old question and very perplexing, I confess, but—”
“We don't see Captain Jack very much since his return,” said her father, turning the conversation. “You might begin with him, eh, Patsy?”
“No,” said the girl, a shade falling on her face. “He is always busy. He has such long hours. He works his day's work with the men and then he always goes up to the office to his father—and—and—Oh, I don't know, I wish he would come. He's not—” Patricia fell suddenly silent.
“Jack is very much engaged,” said her mother quietly.
“Naturally he is tied up, learning the business, I mean,” said the elder sister quietly. “He has little time for mere social frivolities and that sort of thing.”
“It's not that, Adrien,” said Patricia. “He is different since he came back. I wish—” She paused abruptly.
“He is changed,” said her mother with a sigh. “They—the boys are all changed.”
“The war has left its mark upon them, and what else can we expect?” said Dr. Templeton. “One wonders how they can settle down at all to work.”
“Oh, Jack has settled down all right,” said Patricia, as if analysing a subject interesting to herself alone. “Jack's not like a lot of them. He's too much settled down. What is it, I wonder? He seems to have quit everything, dancing, tennis, golf. He doesn't care—”
“Doesn't care? What for? That sounds either as if he were an egotist or a slacker.” Her sister's words rasped Patricia's most sensitive heart string. She visibly squirmed, eagerly waiting a chance to reply. “Jack is neither,” continued Adrien slowly. “I understand the thing perfectly. He has been up against big things, so big that everything else seems trivial. Fancy a tennis tournament for a man that has stared into hell's mouth.”
“My dear, you are right,” said her father. “Patricia is really talking too much. Young people should—”
“I know, Daddy—'be seen,'” said the younger daughter, and grinning affectionately at him she blew him a kiss. “But, all the same, I wish Captain Jack were not so awfully busy or were a little more keen about things. He wants something to stir him up.”
“He may get that sooner than he thinks,” said Stillwell, “or wishes. I hear there's likely to be trouble in the mills.”
“Trouble? Financial? I should be very sorry,” said Dr. Templeton.
“No. Labour. The whole labour world is in a ferment. The Maitlands can hardly expect to escape. As a matter of fact, the row has made a little start, I happen to know.”
“These labour troubles are really very distressing. There is no end to them,” said Mrs. Templeton, with the resignation one shows in discussing the inscrutable ways of Providence. “It does seem as if the working classes to-day have got quite beyond all bounds. One wonders what they will demand next. What is the trouble now, Rupert? Of course—wages.”
“Oh, the eternal old trouble is there, with some new ones added that make even wages seem small.”
“And what are these?” enquired Dr. Templeton.
“Oh, division of profits, share in administration and control.”
“Division of profits in addition to wages?” enquired Mrs. Templeton, aghast. “But, how dreadful. One would think they actually owned the factory.”
“That is the modern doctrine, I believe,” said Rupert.
“Surely that is an extreme statement,” said Dr. Templeton, in a shocked voice, “or you are talking of the very radical element only.”
“The Rads lead, of course, but you would be surprised at the demands made to-day. Why, I heard a young chap last week, a soap-box artist, denouncing all capitalists as parasites. 'Why should we work for anyone but ourselves?' he was saying. 'Why don't we take charge of the factories and run them for the general good?' I assure you, sir, those were his very words.”
“Really, Rupert, you amaze me. In Blackwater here?” exclaimed Dr. Templeton.
“But, my dear papa, that sort of thing is the commonplace of Hyde Park, you know,” said Adrien, “and—”
“Ah, Hyde Park, yes. I should expect that sort of thing from the Hyde Park orators. You get every sort of mad doctrine in Hyde Park, as I remember it, but—”
“And I was going to say that that sort of thing has got away beyond Hyde Park. Why, papa dear, you have been so engrossed in your Higher Mathematics that you have failed to keep up with the times.” His eldest daughter smiled at him and, reaching across the corner of the table, patted his hand affectionately. “We are away beyond being shocked at profit sharing, and even sharing in control of administration and that sort of thing.”
“But there remains justice, I hope,” said her father, “and the right of ownership.”
“Ah, that's just it—what is ownership?”
“Oh, come, Adrien,” said Rupert, “you are not saying that Mr. Maitland doesn't own his factory and mill.”
“It depends on what you mean by own,” said the girl coolly. “You must not take too much for granted.”
“Well, what my money pays for I own, I suppose,” said Rupert.
“Well,” said Adrien, “that depends.”
“My dear Adrien,” said her mother, “you have such strange notions. I suppose you got them in those Clubs in London and from those queer people you used to meet.”
“Very dear people,” said Adrien, with a far away look in her eyes, “and people that loved justice and right.”
“All right, Ade,” said her younger sister, with a saucy grin, “I agree entirely with your sentiments. I just adore that pale blue tie of yours. I suppose, now that what's yours is mine, I can preempt that when I like.”
“Let me catch you at it!”
“Well done, Patricia. You see the theories are all right till we come to have them applied all round,” said Rupert.
“We were talking of joint ownership, Pat,” said her sister, “the joint ownership of things to the making of which we have each contributed a part.”
“Exactly,” said Rupert. “I guess Grant Maitland paid his own good money for his plant.”
“Yes,” said Adrien.
“Yes, and all he paid for he owns.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that's all there is to it.”
“Oh, pardon me—there is a good deal more—”
“Well, well, children, we shall not discuss the subject any further. Shall we all go up for coffee?”
“These are very radical views you are advancing, Adrien,” said her father, rising from his chair. “You must be careful not to say things like that in circles where you might be taken seriously.”
“Seriously, Daddy? I was never more serious in my life.” She put her arm through her father's. “I must give you some books, some reports to read, I see,” she said, laughing up into his face.
“Evidently,” said her father, “if I am to live with you.”
“I wonder what Captain Jack would think of these views,” said Rupert, dropping into step with Patricia as they left the dining room together.
“He will think as Adrien does,” said Patricia stoutly.
“Ah, I wouldn't be too sure about that,” said Rupert. “You see, it makes a difference whose ox is being gored.”
“What do you mean?” cried Patricia hotly.
“Never mind, Pat,” said her sister over her shoulder. “I don't think he knows Captain Jack as we do.”
“Perhaps better,” said Rupert in a significant tone.
Patricia drew away from him.
“I think you are just horrid,” she said. “Captain Jack is—”
“Never mind, dear. Don't let him pull your leg like that,” said her sister, with a little colour in her cheek. “We know Captain Jack, don't we?”
“We do!” said Patricia with enthusiasm.
“We do!” echoed Rupert, with a smile that drove Pat into a fury.
There was trouble at the Maitland Mills. For the first time in his history Grant Maitland found his men look askance at him. For the first time in his life he found himself viewing with suspicion the workers whom he had always taken a pride in designating “my men.” The situation was at once galling to his pride and shocking to his sense of fair play. His men were his comrades in work. He knew them—at least, until these war days he had known them—personally, as friends. They trusted him and were loyal to him, and he had taken the greatest care to deal justly and more than justly by them. No labour troubles had ever disturbed the relations which existed between him and his men. It was thus no small shock when Wickes announced one day that a Grievance Committee wished to interview him. That he should have to meet a Grievance Committee, whose boast it had been that the first man in the works to know of a grievance was himself, and that the men with whom he had toiled and shared both good fortune and ill, but more especially the good, that had befallen through the last quarter century should have a grievance against him—this was indeed an experience that cut him to the heart and roused in him a fury of perplexed indignation.
“A what? A Grievance Committee!” he exclaimed to Wickes, when the old bookkeeper came announcing such a deputation.
“That's what they call themselves, sir,” said Wickes, his tone of disgust disclaiming all association with any such organization.
“A Grievance Committee?” said Mr. Maitland again. “Well, I'll be! What do they want? Who are they? Bring them in,” he roared in a voice whose ascending tone indicated his growing amazement and wrath.
“Come in you,” growled Wickes in the voice he generally used for his collie dog, which bore a thoroughly unenviable reputation, “come on in, can't ye?”
There was some shuffling for place in the group at the door, but finally Mr. Wigglesworth found himself pushed to the front of a committee of five. With a swift glance which touched “the boss” in its passage and then rested upon the wall, the ceiling, the landscape visible through the window, anywhere indeed rather than upon the face of the man against whom they had a grievance, they filed in and stood ill at ease.
“Well, Wigglesworth, what is it?” said Grant Maitland curtly.
Mr. Wigglesworth cleared his throat. He was new at the business and was obviously torn between conflicting emotions of pride in his present important position and a wholesome fear of his “boss.” However, having cleared his throat, Mr. Wigglesworth pulled himself together and with a wave of the hand began.
“These 'ere—er—gentlemen an' myself 'ave been (h)appinted a Committee to lay before you certain grievances w'ich we feel to be very (h)oppressive, sir, so to speak, w'ich, an' meanin' no offence, sir, as men, fellow-men, as we might say—”
“What do you want, Wigglesworth? What's your trouble? You have some trouble, what is it? Spit it out, man,” said the boss sharply.
“Well, sir, as I was a-sayin', this 'ere's a Committee (h)appinted to wait on you, sir, to lay before you certain facts w'ich we wish you to consider an' w'ich, as British subjecks, we feel—”
“Come, come, Wigglesworth, cut out the speech, and get at the things. What do you want? Do you know? If so, tell me plainly and get done with it.”
“We want our rights as men,” said Mr. Wigglesworth in a loud voice, “our rights as free men, and we demand to be treated as British—”
“Is there anyone of this Committee that can tell me what you want of me?” said Maitland. “You, Gilby, you have some sense—what is the trouble? You want more wages, I suppose?”
“I guess so,” said Gilby, a long, lean man, Canadian born, of about thirty, “but it ain't the wages that's eatin' me so much.”
“What then?”
“It's that blank foreman.”
“Foreman?”
“That's right, sir.” “Too blanked smart!” “Buttin' in like a blank billy goat!” The growls came in various undertones from the Committee.
“What foreman? Hoddle?” The boss was ready to fight for his subalterns.
“No! Old Hoddle's all right,” said Gilby. “It's that young smart aleck, Tony Perrotte.”
“Tony Perrotte!” Mr. Maitland's voice was troubled and uncertain. “Tony Perrotte! Why, you don't mean to tell me that Perrotte is not a good man. He knows his job from the ground up.”
“Knows too much,” said Gilby. “Wants to run everything and everybody. You can't tell him anything. And you'd think he was a Brigadier-General to hear him giving us orders.”
“You were at the front, Gilby?”
“I was, for three years.”
“You know what discipline is?”
“I do that, and I know too the difference between a Corporal and a Company Commander. I know an officer when I see him. But a brass hat don't make a General.”
“I won't stand for insubordination in my mills, Gilby. You must take orders from my foreman. You know me, Gilby. You've been long enough with me for that.”
“You treat a man fair, Mr. Maitland, and I never kicked at your orders. Ain't that so?”
Maitland nodded.
“But this young dude—”
“'Dude'? What do you mean, 'dude'? He's no dude!”
“Oh, he's so stuck on himself that he gives me the wearisome willies. Look here, other folks has been to the war. He needn't carry his chest like a blanked bay window.”
“Look here, Gilby, just quit swearing in this room.” The cold blue eyes bored into Gilby's hot face.
“I beg pardon, sir. It's a bad habit I've got, but that—that Tony Perrotte has got my goat and I'm through with him.”
“All right, Gilby. If you don't like your job you know what you can do,” said Maitland coldly.
“You mean I can quit?” enquired Gilby hotly.
“I mean there's only one boss in these works, and that's me. And my foreman takes my orders and passes them along. Those that don't like them needn't take them.”
“We demand our rights as—” began Mr. Wigglesworth heatedly.
“Excuse me, sir. 'A should like to enquir-r-e if it is your-r or-rder-rs that your-r for-r-man should use blasphemious language to your-r men?”
The cool, firm, rasping voice cut through Mr. Wigglesworth's sputtering noise like a circular saw through a pine log.
Mr. Maitland turned sharply upon the speaker.
“What is your name, my man?” he enquired.
“Ma name is Malcolm McNish. 'A doot ye have na har-r-d it. But the name maitters little. It's the question 'A'm speerin'—asking at ye.”
Here was no amateur in the business of Grievance Committees. His manner was that of a self-respecting man dealing with a fellow-man on terms of perfect equality. There was a complete absence of Wigglesworth's noisy bluster, as also of Gilby's violent profanity. He obviously knew his ground and was ready to hold it. He had a case and was prepared to discuss it. There was no occasion for heat or bluster or profanity. He was prepared to discuss the matter, man to man.
Mr. Maitland regarded him for a moment or two with keen steady gaze.
“Where do you work, McNish?” he enquired of the Scot.
“A'm workin' the noo in the sawmill. A'm a joiner to trade.”
“Then Perrotte is not your foreman?”
“That is true,” said McNish quietly.
“Then personally you have no grievance against him?” Mr. Maitland had the air of a man who has scored a bull at the first shot.
“Ay, A have an' the men tae—the men I represent have—”
“And you assume to speak for them?”
“They appoint me to speak for them.”
“And their complaint is—?”
“Their complaint is that he is no fit to be a foreman.”
“Ah, indeed! And you are here solely on their word—”
“No, not solely, but pairtly. A know by experience and A hae har-r-d the man, and he's no fit for his job, A'm tellin' you.”
“I suppose you know the qualifications of a foreman, McNish?” enquired Mr. Maitland with the suspicion of sarcasm in his voice.
“Ay, A do that.”
“And how, may I ask, have you come to the knowledge?”
“A dinna see—I do not see the bearing of the question.”
“Only this, that you and those you represent place your judgment as superior to mine in the choice of a foreman. It would be interesting to know upon what grounds.”
“I have been a foreman myself. But there are two points of view in this question—the point of view of the management and that of the worker. We have the one point of view, you have the other. And each has its value. Ours is the more important.”
“Indeed! And why, pray?”
“Yours has chiefly to do with profits, ours with human life.”
“Very interesting indeed,” said Mr. Maitland, “but it happens that profits and human life are somewhat closely allied—”
“Aye, but wi' you profits are the primary consideration and humanity the secondary. Wi' us humanity is the primary.”
“Very interesting, indeed. But I must decline your premise. You are a new man here and so I will excuse you the impudence of charging me with indifference to the well-being of my men.”
“You put wur-r-ds in my mouth, Mr. Maitland. A said nae sic thing,” said McNish. “But your foreman disna' know his place, and he must be changed.”
“'Must,' eh?” The word had never been used to Mr. Maitland since his own father fifty years before had used it. It was an unfortunate word for the success of the interview. “'Must,' eh?” repeated Mr. Maitland with rising wrath. “I'd have you know, McNish, that the man doesn't live that says 'must' to me in regard to the men I choose to manage my business.”
“Then you refuse to remove yere foreman?”
“Most emphatically, I do,” said Mr. Maitland with glints of fire in his blue eyes.
“Verra weel, so as we know yere answer. There is anither matter.”
“Yes? Well, be quick about it.”
“A wull that. Ye dinna pay yere men enough wages.”
“How do you know I don't?” said Mr. Maitland rising from his chair.
“A have examined certain feegures which I shall be glad to submit tae ye, in regard tae the cost o' leevin' since last ye fixed the wage. If yere wage was right then, it's wrang the noo.” Under the strain Mr. Maitland's boring eyes and increasing impatience the Doric flavour of McNish's speech grew richer and more guttural, varying with the intensity of his emotion.
“And what may these figures be?” enquired Mr. Maitland with a voice of contempt.
“These are the figures prepared by the Labour Department of your Federal Government. I suppose they may be relied upon. They show the increased cost of living during the last five years. You know yeresel' the increase in wages. Mr. Maitland, I am told ye are a just man, an' we ask ye tae dae the r-r-right. That's all, sir.”
“Thank you for your good opinion, my man. Whether I am a just man or not is for my own conscience alone. As to the wage question, Mr. Wickes will tell you, the matter had already been taken up. The result will be announced in a week or so.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Wigglesworth. “We felt sure it would only be necessary to point (h)out the right course to you. I may say I took the same (h)identical (h)attitude with my fellow workmen. I sez to them, sez I, 'Mr. Maitland—'
“That will do, Wigglesworth,” said Mr. Maitland, cutting him short. “Have you anything more to say?” he continued, turning to McNish.
“Nothing, sir, except to express the hope that you will reconsider yere attitude as regards the foreman.”
“You may take my word for it, I will not,” said Mr. Maitland, snapping his words off with his teeth.
“At least, as a fair-minded man, you will look into the matter,” said McNish temperately.
“I shall do as I think best,” said Mr. Maitland.
“It would be wiser.”
“Do you threaten me, sir?” Mr. Maitland leaned over his desk toward the calm and rugged Scot, his eyes flashing indignation.
“Threaten ye? Na, na, threats are for bairns. Yere no a bairn, but a man an' a wise man an' a just, A doot. A'm gie'in' ye advice. That's all. Guid day.”
He turned away from the indignant Mr. Maitland, put his hat on his head and walked from the room, followed by the other members of the Committee, with the exception of Mr. Wigglesworth who lingered with evidently pacific intentions.
“This, sir, is a most (h)auspicious (h)era, sir. The (h)age of reason and justice 'as dawned, an'—”
“Oh, get out, Wigglesworth. Haven't you made all your speeches yet? The time for the speeches is past. Good day.”
He turned to his bookkeeper.
“Wickes, bring me the reports turned in by Perrotte, at once.”
Mr. Maitland's manner was frankly, almost brutally, imperious. It was not his usual manner with his subordinates, from which it may be gathered that Mr. Maitland was seriously disturbed. And with good reason. In the first place, never in his career had one of his men addressed him in the cool terms of equality which McNish had used with him in the recent interview. Then, never had he been approached by a Grievance Committee. The whole situation was new, irritating, humiliating.
As to the wages question, he would settle that without difficulty. He had never skimped the pay envelope. It annoyed him, however, that he had been forstalled in the matter by this Committee. But very especially he was annoyed by the recollection of the deliberative, rasping tones of that cool-headed Scot, who had so calmly set before him his duty. But the sting of the interview lay in the consciousness that the criticism of his foreman was probably just. And then, he was tied to Tony Perrotte by bonds that reached his heart. Had it not been so, he would have made short work of the business. As it was, Tony would have to stay at all costs. Mr. Maitland sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the Big Bluff visible through the window, but his mind lingering over a picture that had often gripped hard at his heart during the last two years, a picture drawn for him in a letter from his remaining son, Jack. The letter lay in the desk at his hand. He saw in the black night that shell-torn strip of land between the lines, black as a ploughed field, lurid for a swift moment under the red glare of a bursting shell or ghastly in the sickly illumination of a Verry light, and over this black pitted earth a man painfully staggering with a wounded man on his back. The words leaped to his eyes. “He brought me out of that hell, Dad.” He closed his eyes to shut out that picture, his hands clenched on the arms of his chair.
“No,” he said, raising his hand in solemn affirmation, “as the Lord God liveth, while I stay he stays.”
“Come in,” he said, in answer to a timid tap at the office door. Mr. Wickes laid a file before him. It needed only a rapid survey of the sheets to give him the whole story. Incompetence and worse, sheer carelessness looked up at him from every sheet. The planing mill was in a state of chaotic disorganization.
“What does this mean, Mr. Wickes?” he burst forth, putting his finger upon an item that cried out mismanagement and blundering. “Here is an order that takes a month to clear which should be done within ten days at the longest.”
Wickes stood silent, overwhelmed in dismayed self-condemnation.
“It seems difficult somehow to get orders through, sir, these days,” he said after a pause.
“Difficult? What is the difficulty? The men are there, the machines are there, the material is in the yard. Why the delay? And look at this. Here is a lot of material gone to the scrap heap, the finest spruce ever grown in Canada too. What does this mean, Wickes?” he seemed to welcome the opportunity of finding a scapegoat for economic crimes, for which he could find no pardon.
Sheet after sheet passed in swift review under his eye. Suddenly he flung himself back in his chair.
“Wickes, this is simply damnable!”
“Yes, sir,” said Wickes, his face pale and his fingers trembling. “I don't—I don't seem to be able to—to—get things through.”
“Get things through? I should say not,” shouted Maitland, glaring at him.
“I have tried, I mean I'm afraid I'm—that I am not quite up to it, as I used to be. I get confused—and—” The old bookkeeper's lips were white and quivering. He could not get on with his story.
“Here, take these away,” roared Maitland.
Gathering up the sheets with fingers that trembled helplessly, Wickes crept hurriedly out through the door, leaving a man behind him furiously, helplessly struggling in the relentless grip of his conscience, lashed with a sense of his own injustice. His anger which had found vent upon his old bookkeeper he knew was due another man, a man with whom at any cost he could never allow himself to be angry. The next two hours were bad hours for Grant Maitland.
As the quitting whistle blew a tap came again to the office door. It was Wickes, with a paper in his hand. Without a word he laid the paper upon his chief's desk and turned away. Maitland glanced over it rapidly.
“Wickes, what does this nonsense mean?” His chief's voice arrested him. He turned again to the desk.
“I don't think—I have come to feel, sir, that I am not able for my job. I do not see as how I can go on.” Maitland's brows frowned upon the sheet. Slowly he picked up the paper, tore it across and tossed it into the waste basket.
“Wickes, you are an old fool—and,” he added in a voice that grew husky, “I am another and worse.”
“But, sir—” began Wickes, in hurried tones.
“Oh, cut it all out, Wickes,” said Maitland impatiently. “You know I won't stand for that. But what can we do? He saved my boy's life—”
“Yes, sir, and he was with my Stephen at the last, and—” The old man's voice suddenly broke.
“I remember, Wickes, I remember. And that's another reason—We must find another way out.”
“I have been thinking, sir,” said the bookkeeper timidly, “if you had a younger man in my place—”
“You would go out, eh? I believe on my soul you would. You—you—old fool. But,” said Maitland, reaching his hand across the desk, “I don't go back on old friends that way.”
The two men stood facing each other for a few minutes, with hands clasped, Maitland's face stern and set, Wickes' working in a pitiful effort to stay the tears that ran down his cheeks, to choke back the sobs that shook his old body as if in the grip of some unseen powerful hand.
“We must find a way,” said Maitland, when he felt sure of his voice. “Some way, but not that way. Sit down. We must go through this together.”
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