Ralph Connor

“ I swear not a soul knew but his people and myself,” said Jack.
“Strange how things get out,” said his father. “Well, where is Tony now?”
“Here, in the outer office.”
“But,” said Maitland, desperately, “where can we place him? He is impossible in any position—dangerous in the office, useless as a foreman, doubtful and uncertain as a workman.”
“One thing is quite certain,” said Jack decidedly, “he must be under discipline. He is useless on his own. I thought that perhaps he might work beside me. I could keep an eye on him. Tony has nothing in him to work with. ”

“ Jack, who was present at the meeting, sat listening with silent and amused pity. They seemed to him so like a group of angry children whose game had suddenly been interfered with and whose rage rendered them incapable of coherent thought.
Grant Maitland, who, throughout the meeting had sat silent, finally rose and said: “Gentlemen, the mere expression of feeling may afford a sort of satisfaction but the question is, What is to be done? That the situation is grave for all of us we know too well. Not many of us are in a position to be indifferent to a strike. Let us get down to business. ”

“ As the two men shook hands, for once in his life Simmons was speechless. His face was suffused with uncontrollable feeling. On every side were seen men, strong men, with tears streaming down their faces. A nobler spirit seemed to fall upon them all. In the silence that followed, Mr. Maitland rose.
“Mr. Mayor,” he said quietly, “we have all suffered together in this war. I, for one, want to do the fair thing by our men. Let us meet them and talk things over before any fair-minded committee. Surely we who have suffered together in war can work together in peace.” ”

“ A deep peace had fallen upon the world except that from the topmost bough of the tallest elm tree a robin sang, pouring his very heart out in a song of joyous optimism.
The little group, disposed upon the lawn according to their various desires, stood and sat looking up at the brave little songster.
“How happy he is,” said Mrs. Templeton, a wistful cadence of sadness in her voice.
“I wonder if he is, Mamma. Perhaps he is only pretending,” said Adrien.
“Cheerio, old chap!” cried Vic, waving his hand at the gallant little songster. “You are a regular grouch killer.” ”

“ So overwhelming was Stillwell's defeat, so humiliating his exhibition of total collapse of morale that the company received the result with but slight manifestation of feeling. Without any show of sympathy even his friends slipped away, as if unwilling to add to his humiliation by their commiseration. On the other side, the congratulations offered Maitland were for the most part lacking in the spontaneity that is supposed to be proper to such a smashing victory. Some of his friends seemed to feel as if they had been called upon to witness an unworthy thing. ”

“ In a minute or two Jack returned with Tony. As Maitland's eyes fell upon him, he could not prevent a start of shocked surprise.
“Why, Tony!” he exclaimed. “What in all the world is wrong with you? You are ill.” Trembling, pale, obviously unstrung, Tony stood before him, his shifty eyes darting now at one face, then at the other, his hands restless, his whole appearance suggesting an imminent nervous collapse. “Why, Tony, boy, what is wrong with you?” repeated Maitland. The kindly tone proved too much for Tony's self-control. ”

“ For Jack Maitland held the extreme and, in certain circles, unpopular creed that the citizen who came richer out of a war which had left his country submerged in debt, and which had drained away its best blood and left it poorer in its manhood by well-nigh seventy thousand of its noblest youth left upon the battlefields of the various war fronts and by the hundreds of thousands who would go through life a burden to themselves and to those to whom they should have been a support—that citizen was accursed. ”

“ For the war had wrought desolation for him in a home once rich in the things that make life worth while, by taking from it his mother, whose rare soul qualities had won and held through her life the love, the passionate, adoring love of her sons, and his twin brother, the comrade, chum, friend of all his days, with whose life his own had grown into a complete and ideal unity, deprived of whom his life was left like a body from whose raw and quivering flesh one-half had been torn away. ”

“ McGinnis insists upon liberty to run his foundry as he likes; insists upon perfect freedom of action. There is no such thing as perfect freedom of action in modern civilisation. For instance, Mr. McGinnis rushing to catch a train, hurls his Hudson Six gaily down Main Street thirty miles an hour, on the left-hand side of the street. A speed cop sidles up, whispers a sweet something in his ear, hails him ignominiously into court and invites him to contribute to the support of the democracy fifty little iron men as an evidence of his devotion to the sacred principle of personal liberty. ”

“ Smash the unions!” were the suggestions in various forms and with various descriptive adjectives.
“It may come to a fight, gentlemen, but however gratifying a fight may be to our feelings, a fight may be disastrous to our business. A strike may last for weeks, perhaps months. Are we in a position to stand that? And as for smashing the unions, let us once and for all put such a thought out of our minds. These unions have all international affiliations. It is absurd to imagine that we here in Blackwater could smash a single union.”
Fiercely McGinnis made reply. ”

“ By her side strode a broad-shouldered, upstanding youth. Arrested by Steve's outcries and curses she paused.
“What are those boys at, I wonder?” she said. “There's that big lout of a Wigglesworth boy. He's up to no good, I bet you.”
“Oh, a kids' row of some kind or ither, a doot,” said the youth. “Come along.”
“He's hurting someone,” said Annette, starting down the lane. “What? I believe it's that poor child, Steve Wickes.” Like a wrathful fury she dashed in upon Sam and his company of tormentors and, knocking the little ones right and left, she sprang upon Sam with a fierce cry. ”

“ Arrived at the foundry they found the maddest, wildest confusion raging along the street in front of the foundry, and in the foundry yard which was crowded with men. The board fence along the front of the grounds had been torn down and used as fagots to fire the foundry, which was blazing merrily in a dozen places. Everywhere about the blazing building parties of men like hounds on the trail were hunting down strike-breakers and, on finding them, were brutally battering them into insensibility.
Driving his car through the crowd, Maitland found his way to the Chief. ”

“ To them even victory would mean for many months a loss of luxuries for the family, it might be of comforts; and defeat, which would come not until after long conflict, would mean not only straitened means but actual poverty, with all the attendant humiliation and bitterness which would kill for them the joy of life and sensibly add to its already heavy burden.
That night Jack Maitland felt that a chat with the Reverend Murdo Matheson might help to clear his own mind as to the demands of the Allied Unions. ”

“ Fifty years ago I stood with my father on that Bluff and watched the logs come down the river to the sawmill—his sawmill, into which he had put his total capital, five hundred dollars. I remember well his words, 'My son, if you live out your life you will see on that flat a town where thousands of men and women will find homes and, please God, happiness.' Your mother and I watched that town grow for forty years, and we tried to make people happy—at least, if they were not it was no fault of hers. ”

“ Under his hand the youth of the rapidly growing mill village were saved from the sordid and soul-debasing influences of their environment, were led out of the muddy streets and can-strewn back yards to those far heights where dwell the high gods of poesy and romance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why should it be considered right that the standard of living for the working man should be lower than that for the professional man or the capitalist?”
“There you are again, McNish,” said the minister. “You are not up to your usual to-night. You know quite well that every working man in my parish lives better than I do, and spends more money on his living. The standard of living has no special significance with the working man to-day as distinguished from the professional man. We are not speaking of the wasteful and idle rich. ”

“ The wrong's not all on one side, by any means. To my mind, men like McGinnis who are unwilling to negotiate are a menace to the country.”
“You are quite right, Adrien,” replied Hugh. “I consider him a most dangerous man. That sort of pig-headed, bull-headed employer of labour does more to promote strife than a dozen 'walking delegates.' I am not terribly strong for the unions, but the point of vantage is always with the employers. And they have a lot to learn. Oh, you may look at me, Adrien! I am no bolshevist, but I see a lot of these men in our office.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Go to it, Patsy.”
“It is very serious, Vic. I always think people in books are so stupid. They come near to the truth and then just miss getting it.”
“The truth. Ah! Go on, Pat.”
“Well, Vic,” said Patricia with an air of one taking a desperate venture, “why did you not give Adrien her note that night? It would have saved her and me such pain. I cried all night long. I had so counted on a dance with Jack—and then never a word from him. But he did send a note. He told me so. I never told Adrien that, for she forbade me, oh, so terribly, never to speak of it again. ”

“ Why should he not? These chaps had no hatred for him, nor he for them. He had come to understand union methods of discipline and recognised fully the demands for loyalty and obedience imposed upon its members by the organisation. These men of his were bound to the union by solemn obligations. He bore them no ill-will on that score. Rather he respected them the more for it. If a fight was inevitable, he would do his best to beat them but he would allow no spirit of hatred to change his mind toward them nor cloud his judgment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the rank and file of the working people there was little heart for a fight. More especially, men upon whom lay the responsibility for the support of homes shrank from the pain and the suffering, as well as from the loss which experience taught them a strike must entail. It is safe to say that in every working man's home in Blackwater that night there was to be found a woman who, as she put her children to bed, prayed that trouble might be averted, for she knew that in every war it is upon the women and children that in the last analysis the sorest burden must fall. ”

“ Like men in the unearthly realities of a dream they moved through their routine duties, waiting for the orders that would bring that well-known, sickening, savage tightening of their courage and send them, laden like beasts of burden, up once more to that hell of blood and mud, of nerve-shattering shell, of blinding glare and ear-bursting roar of gun fire, and, worse than all, to the place where, crouching in the farcical deceptive shelter of the sandbagged trench, their fingers gripping into the steel of their rifle hands, they would wait for the zero hour. ”

“ All over the country the groundswell of unrest was steadily and rapidly rising. The returned soldiers who had failed to readjust themselves to the changed conditions of life and to the changes wrought in themselves by the war, embittered, disillusioned and disappointed, fell an easy prey to unscrupulous leaders and were being exploited in the interests of all sorts of fads and foolish movements. Their government bonuses were long since spent and many of them, through no fault of their own, found themselves facing a situation full of difficulty, hardship, and often of humiliation. ”

“ Grant Maitland would say, when the boy was ready to go back to his school. “You will make a mess of your life unless you can learn to stick at your job. The roads are full of clever tramps, remember that, my boy.”
But Tony only smiled his brilliant smile at him, as he took his pay envelope, which burned a hole in his pocket till he had done with it. When the next holiday came round Tony would present himself for a job with Jack Maitland to plead for him. For to Tony Jack was as king, to whom he gave passionate loyalty without stint or measure. ”