Galt

“ Galt replied. Deep down within him something seemed to clutch his vitals. In the ear of his naked soul an accusing voice was sounding: “Inherited! Inherited!” The word rang out like a threat from the Infinite—from the vast mystery of life which had of late been so tenaciously closing around him. Even the pain Lionel was to undergo was the outcome of another's sin.
“Oh, it is a very simple operation,” Dearing went on, “and in any ordinary case I shouldn't give it a second thought; but, by George, I have become attached to that little chap. He is the pluckiest little man I ever knew. ”

“ He's nothing but a mean, horrid boy, while you are—”
“I am what, Lionel?” Galt's voice was stayed by huskiness in his throat, and he put an unsteady arm round the little form, resisting the yearning to clasp him tightly.
“Oh, you are everything—everything in the world. Doctor Wynn says you are very, very rich, and that you love all little boys—that's why I jumped that day. I wouldn't be afraid to jump from a higher tree than that if you were there to catch me. Oh, I like to have people love me! I like it better than anything.” ”

“ After all, it would be nice, Galt reflected to-day, and a step of that sort might ultimately quiet the dull aching of heart which had been his for so many years. Few men had ever had to such a marked degree the pronounced yearning toward paternity as had come to the lonely bachelor since the chief mistake of his life. His love for children was more like that of a woman who has tasted and lost the joys of motherhood than that of a man of the world. ”

“ As a railroad executive Valentine for all his experience was inefficient. This had been always tolerantly understood. But now with Galt’s work beginning to produce results in contrast the fact was openly admitted. Galt’s touch was sure, propulsive and unhesitating. And besides, in whatever he did there was an element of fortuity that could not be reasoned about. He not only did the right things; he did them at precisely the right time.
“You remember what I told you a long time ago,” said Harbinger. “He sees things before they happen. My heart breaks for the old man ... but it’s no use.” ”

“ You mean that, do you, Kenneth Galt? Well, I have never mentioned it to her, but I thought it might come. I read faces fairly well, and I saw, even at a distance, the spiritual despair in yours. Knowing what you were responsible for, I felt that your solitary life in your lonely house would bring results, for good or bad. At first I thought you might resume—might make dishonorable proposals; but when I saw you and Lionel together so often I began to count on other things—I began to pray for other things. You don't look like a mean man, Kenneth Galt ”

“ He was unhurt, but Galt raised him in his arms and bore him up the remainder of the steps into a big, light room off the corridor.
“Here we are, Doctor Beaman!” Dearing cheerily called out to a slender, beardless young man, who, with a towel in hand, was bending over some polished instruments on the bureau. “This is the little chap who never cries when he is hurt. He is a regular soldier, I tell you!” ”

“ But Dearing had darted away. The gate closed after him, and Galt saw him climbing into the buggy even while it was in motion.
“Well, he'll know it soon enough,” the lonely man thought. “The facts will come out now. Walton will hear the report when he gets back, and Dora will declare him innocent.”
Galt went into the dimly lighted hallway of his house and ascended the stairs. There was nothing to do now, he told himself. The world that had admired him, the men and women who had entrusted him with the investment of their savings in his various schemes, would stare and doubt their senses. ”

“ Pringle are inimitably quaint and funny. It would seem that when Galt looked at life, at men and manners, and things, through imaginary eyes he could see everything there was to be seen, and see it in a light intensely simple and vivid and real: that when he looked at anything through his own eyes he saw nothing at all. The doctor and Mrs. Pringle are indispensable to all readers who love dear oddities, and they are Galt’s very own: you shall not find them anywhere else. He borrowed them nowhere, but made them himself in a jocund humour of affectionate creation. ”

“ Yes, something had to be done, Kenneth Galt told his tortured inner self, as he stood and watched the boy trip lightly homeward—some one had to fight and struggle and smart as a consequence of the wrong that had been done, and the duty had fallen on a little child. Through the slow, weary years of perhaps a long life the fight just beginning would go on, and the chief cause of it must shirk it all. ”

“ The sight of inspired craftsmanship is irresistible to men. The organization wavered between affection for the one and awe of the other and ended by giving its undivided loyalty to Galt, not for love of his eyes but for reasons that were obvious.
One day Mr. Valentine complained that I was unable to serve him and Galt both, and asked me gently if I did not wish to go entirely to Galt. He had guessed my inclinations. So we shook hands and parted. Thereafter my place was in Galt’s room and I attended the board meetings as his private secretary. ”

“ Society made definite overtures to the Galt women. But nobody now cared. Mrs. Galt and Natalie lived only for Galt, and they were the two who would in any case be interested. Mrs. Galt was his silent companion. Natalie was his mercury, going errands swiftly between his bedchamber and the office. She was absorbed in what went on and a good deal of it she understood in an imaginative manner. Coming with a message from Galt, perhaps a request for information or data, she [Pg 290] would often sit at my desk to hear or see the results, saying, “I feel so stupid when I don’t know what it means.” ”

“ In this novel Mr Galt used, for the first time, the term “Utilitarian,” which afterwards became so intimately associated with the doctrines of John Stuart Mill and Bentham (see Annals of the Parish, chap. xxxv., and a note by Mill in Utilitarianism, chap. ii.) . In Sir Andrew Wylie the hero entered London as a poor lad, but achieved remarkable success by his shrewd business qualities. The character is somewhat exaggerated, but excessively amusing. The Entail was read thrice by Byron and Scott, and is the best of Galt’s longer novels. ”

“ An hour later she was in the drawing-room again, her fair hair caught back from her plump cheeks, her white bosom shining through soft falls of lace.
"I wonder how a man feels who isn't married to a beauty," remarked Galt, watching her matronly vanity dimple beneath his gaze. He was as much her lover as he had been more than twenty years ago when pretty Juliet Burwell had put back her wedding veil to meet his kiss. ”

“ He had the trained British instinct for putting money with the right people, and it was true that the English discovered Galt from afar while he was yet almost unknown in Wall Street. But when I saw him that first time with Vera the Great Midwestern was on its way to bankruptcy and Galt’s interest in it was extremely precarious.
Well, no matter. It was inevitable however it happened. When he returned to this country as Lord Porteous he found her again and immediately added his prestige to her circle. Art bored him. ”

“ Galt put down his daughter and shook Carter's hand. "If you ever get out of a job, my man," he said, "go into politics. Is the governor in his office?"
"I'se des dis minit seen him come out fer dinner."
"All right, I'll find him," and he went on to the governor's house.
Nicholas was in his library, a law-book open before him. When he saw Galt he turned from his desk and motioned to a chair beside him. "Come in, Ben, and sit down. I'm glad to see you."
Galt threw himself into the chair. "I've just seen Ryan," he said, "and I never met a more sanguine man. He doesn't give Webb a chance." ”

“ In some papers there was a good deal of silly speculation about Galt. The Journal reporter went further with it than anyone else, described his person and manners vividly, and went out of his way three times to mention in a spirit of innuendo that there was a stock ticker in Galt’s private office, with sinister reference to the fact that before he became chairman of the Great Midwestern he had been a Stock Exchange speculator.
I called Galt’s attention to this.
“Yes,” he said. “We’re out in the open now where they can shoot at us.” ”

“ Galt's artistic instinct{67} was too true to allow him to make perfectly clear to us all the workings of so subtle a mind; but the worthy cloth-mercer himself stands before us to the life, shrewd, portly, and consequential, with the redeeming twinkle of a dry Scotch humour in his eye and a racy Scotticism on his lip. ”

“ The child was now absorbed in the bronze dragon head supporting the ivory handle of the sword.
“I see; perhaps you'd like pictures of children better,” Galt said, and he took up one of the water-color sketches he had shown to Dearing. “Here, look at this little boy.”
“Oh yes, that's me! Mamma says it is hard to keep them from all looking alike. Sometimes I'm a boy—then I'm a girl, and even a baby—but they are all me. Mamma says I'm her bread and butter. But I don't like to sit for them; it is too tiresome to stay still so long. ”

“ Some forty or fifty disciples accompanied their exodus, who sang as they went, and declared themselves en route for the New Jerusalem, and in the company of the crack-brained enthusiasts went the infant Galt, his imagination captivated by the strangeness of their doings. He had not proceeded far, however, ere that sensible woman, his mother, pounced upon him and bore him off home. Nevertheless the wild psalmody of the occasion abode in his memory, and when in later life, in his fine novel of Ringan Gilhaize, he came to describe the Covenanters, the recollection stood him in good stead. ”

“ The book was conceived in avowed imitation of Galt; and, in general outline, the autobiographical tailor, with his unconscious self-revelation, is obviously suggested by the Provosts and Micah Balwhidders of that writer. For in literature Galt is as much the originator of the 'pawky' Scotsman of the commercial or professional class as was the creator of Dinmont and Headrigg of the Scotsman living on the soil and racy of it. ”

“ Lionel said, as he stood down on the floor. “That is the way I do when my mother is angry. I keep begging her to kiss me till she does; then she laughs and hugs me tighter than ever. Granny says I know how to manage a woman. Good-bye. I thank you for bringing me to your house. Now I am sure you like little boys.”
After the child had gone, Galt walked up and down the veranda, his mind upon problems he had never faced before. He was interrupted by General Sylvester, who hurried across the lawn to speak to him on his way down-town. ”

“ Galt stood gazing at her for a moment, an almost uncontrollable yearning on him to clasp her in his arms and beg her forgiveness. He might have done so but for the fear of offending her. He glanced up the stairs. How still it was above! How like death! In his alarmed fancy he saw the two doctors standing aghast over the still, senseless form of his child. They had miscalculated! The physical examination had misled them; ether should have been the drug employed rather than chloroform!
Uncovering her face, Dora read his thoughts. ”

“ She didn’t mind. Natalie gave me a splendid look. Then I excused myself and went to see Galt.
The door of his apartment was ajar. I could see him. He was in his pajamas now, apparently asleep. So I closed the door and sat at his desk in the work room outside to call up Mordecai, who had asked me to communicate with him, and attend to some other matters. Presently the hall door opened and closed gently. I looked around. It was Gram’ma Galt. In her hand she carried a large envelope tied around with a blue ribbon. She walked straight to the door of Galt’s apartment and went in without knocking. ”

“ I am not poor. I can make a living somehow, somewhere, if not in this sleepy old town; and with her always by my side, why—” Across the lawn he saw a light in a window of the Dearing house. It was in General Sylvester's room. The old gentleman retired earlier than this as a rule, and Galt told himself that his being up now was due to the almost child-like joy over the encouraging condition of their joint enterprise. ”

“ In Galt’s Autobiography there is a story—he heads it ‘A Twopenny Effusion’—to the effect that the students bore the cost of printing an Ossianic poem of Campbell’s which was hawked about at twopence; but as Galt erroneously says that Campbell published ‘The Pleasures of Hope’ by subscription, we may regard the story as at least doubtful. Campbell called Galt a ‘dirty blackguard’ for retailing it. ”

“ John Galt was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, on the 2nd May, 1779, in that humbler station of society, which—in so far as it dispenses with screens and concealments, and so brings a child the sooner face to face with life as it is—may be considered favourable to genius. In childhood he was of infirm constitution and somewhat effeminate disposition—defects which were, however, in due course amply rectified. ”

“ Doctor Beaman went to the boy and held out his arms, and Lionel was lifted to the table and stretched out on the crisp sheet which had been spread over it. Just then, happening to look round, Dearing saw Galt's face, and hastily stepped to his side. “My Lord!” he whispered, “I see this thing is going against you, old man. You are nauseated; you look faint. Many men are that way—young students sometimes have to give up surgery for that reason. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You like the little chap, and your sympathies are worked up, that's all. ”