The first tree felled in the wilderness that lay to the south and west of the range of hills of which Hawk’s Head is the highest, was felled by the two brothers Holt. These men left the thickly-settled New England valley where they were born, passed many a thriving town and village, and crossed over miles and miles of mountain and forest to seek a home in a strange country. Not that they thought of it as a strange country, for it was a long time ago, and little was known by them of limits or boundary lines, when they took possession of the fertile Canadian valley which had till then been the resort only of trappers and Indians. They were only squatters, that is, they cut down the great trees, and built log-houses, and set about making farms in the wilderness, with no better right to the soil than that which their labour gave. They needed no better right, they thought; at least, there was no one to interfere with them, and soon a thriving settlement was made in the valley. It turned out well for the Holts and for those who followed them, for after a good many years their titles to their farms were secured to them on easy terms by the Canadian Government, but they had held them as their own from the first.
Within ten years of the coming of the brothers, the cluster of dwellings rising around the saw-mill which Gershom Holt had built on the Beaver River—the store, the school-house, the blacksmith’s shop—began to be spoken of by the farmers as “the village.” Every year of the ten that followed was marked by tokens of the slow but sure prosperity which, when the settlers have been men of moral lives and industrious habits, has uniformly attended the planting of the later Canadian settlements.
Gradually the clearings widened around the first log-houses, and the unsightly “stumps” grew smaller and blacker under the frequent touch of fire. The rough “slash fences” made of brushwood and fallen trees, gave place to the no less ugly, but more substantial “zigzag” of cedar rails. The low, log farm-houses began to be dwarfed by the great framed barns which the increasing harvest rendered necessary, until a succession of such harvests rendered possible and prudent the building of framed dwellings as well.
As the clearings widened and the farms became more productive, the prosperity of the village advanced. A “grist-mill” was added to the saw-mill, and as every year brought move people to the place, new arts and industries were established. The great square house of Gershom Holt, handsome and substantial, was built. Other houses were made neat and pretty with paint, and green window-blinds, and door-yard fences, as time went on.
Primitive fashions and modes of life which had done for the early days of the settlement, gave place by degrees to the more artificial requirements of village society. The usual homespun suit, which even the richest had considered sufficient for the year’s wear, was supplemented now by stuffs from other looms than those in the farm-house garrets. Housewives began to think of beauty as well as use in their interior arrangements. “Boughten” carpets took the place of the yellow paint and the braided mats once thought the proper thing for the “spare room” set apart for company, and articles of luxury, in the shape of high chests of drawers and hard hair-cloth sofas, found their way into the houses of the ambitious and “well-to-do” among them. The changes which increasing means bring to a community were visible in the village and beyond it before the first twenty years were over. They were not all changes for the better, the old people declared; but they still went on with the years, till Gershom, as the village came to be called, began to be looked upon by the neighbouring settlements as the centre of business and fashion to all that part of the country.
The Holts were both rather indifferent as regarded religious matters, but they had the hereditary respect of their countrymen for “school and meeting privileges,” and they were strong in the belief that the ultimate prosperity of their community, even in material things, depended mainly on the growing intelligence and morality of the people; so it happened that much earlier than is usual in new settlements, measures were taken to secure the means of secular and religious instruction for the people. But it was not merely in material wealth and prosperity that was evident the progress of which the inhabitants of Gershom were becoming so justly proud.
As the Holts were the first comers to Gershom, so for a long time they kept the first place in the town, both in social and in business matters. “The Holts had made Gershom,” the Holts said, and other people said it too, only sometimes it was added, that “they had also made themselves, and that all the pains they had taken had been to that end.” But this was saying too much, for all the Holts had great pride in the place and its prosperity, and almost all the industries that contributed to its growth, as time went on, had been commenced by one or other of them.
Gershom Holt was the more successful of the two brothers, partly because of his greater energy and capacity for business, and partly because he had “located” at that point on the Beaver River where the water-power could be made easily available for manufacturing purposes. No time was lost by him in doing what skill and will could do with only limited capital to make a beginning in that direction, and every new artisan who came to the town, and did well for himself in it, did something to increase the wealth of Gershom Holt also. So in course of time he became the rich man of the place. He dealt closely in business matters, he liked the best of a bargain, and, as a rule, got it; but he was of a kindly nature, and was never hard to the poor, and many a man in Gershom was helped to a first start in business through his means, so that he was better liked and more entirely trusted than the one rich man in a rising country place is apt to be.
His brother Reuben was not so fortunate, either in making money or in winning favours. His farm bordered on the river, but the meadows were narrow, and the land rose abruptly into round rocky hills, fit only for pasture. Beyond the hills, on the higher level, the land was fairly good, but the cultivation of it was difficult, and he had never done much with it. He was neither strong nor courageous. Some of his children died, and others “went wrong,” and he fell into misanthropic ways, and for several years before his death he was seldom seen in the village.
For more than twenty years the Beaver River settlement, as it was at first called, was occupied by people of American origin who had come in with the Holts, or had followed after them. But about the time when the land of which they had taken possession was secured to them by the Government, a number of Scotch families came to settle in that part of the town called North Gore, lying just under the morning shadows of Hawk’s Range. To these people, for whose land and ancestry they had a traditional admiration and respect, the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers extended a warm welcome, and it was called a good day for the town when they settled down in it.
With the best intentions on the part of all concerned, affairs will go wrong in the history of towns as well as of individuals. Unhappily the new settlers were not at first brought into contact with the best and kindest of the people. Some of them suffered in purse, not from “bad men,” but from men whose easy consciences did not refuse to take advantage of their necessities, and of their ignorance of the country and its ways; and some of them suffered in their feelings from what they believed to be curiosity and “meddlesomeness” on the part of neighbours, who in reality meant to be helpful and friendly.
So the North Gore folk “kept themselves to themselves” as they expressed it, and struggled on through some hard years, which more friendliness with their neighbour; might have made easier. The old settlers watched with an interest, on the whole kindly, the patient labour, the untiring energy which did not always take the shortest way to success, but which made its ultimate attainment sure. But to them the firm adherence of the Scotchmen to their own opinions and plans and modes of life, looked like obstinacy and ignorance, and they spoke of them as narrow and bigoted, and altogether behind the times, and the last charge was the most serious in their estimation.
The new-comers refused to see anything admirable in the ease and readiness with which most of the old settlers, disciplined by necessity, could turn from one occupation to another, as circumstances required. The farmer who made himself a carpenter to-day and a shoemaker to-morrow was, in their estimation, a “Jack-of-all-trades,” certainly not a farmer in the dignified sense which they had been accustomed to attach to the name.
The strong and thrifty Scotchwomen, who thought little of walking and carrying great baskets of butter and eggs the three or four miles that lay between North Gore and the village, found matter for contemptuous animadversion in the glimpses they got of their neighbours’ way of life, and spoke scornfully to each other of the useless “Yankee” wives, who were content to bide within doors while their husbands did not only the legitimate field-work, but the work of the garden, and even the milking of the cows as well. The “Yankee” wives in their turn shrugged their shoulders at the thought of what the housekeeping must be that was left to children, or left altogether, while the women were in the hay or harvest-field as regularly and almost as constantly as their husbands and brothers. Of course they did not speak their minds to one another about all this, but they knew enough about one another’s opinions to make them suspicious and shy when they met.
And they did not meet often. The mistress of a new farm found little time for visiting. Winter had its own work, and the snow and the bitter cold kept them within doors. When winter was over they could only think how best to turn to account the long days of the short Canadian summer for the subduing of the soil, out of which must come food for their hungry little ones. Every foot reclaimed from the swamp or the forest, every unsightly thing burned out of the rough, new land, meant store of golden grain and wholesome bread for the future. So, with brave hearts and willing hands, the North Gore women laboured out of doors as well as within, content to wait for the days when only the legitimate woman’s work should fall to their share. There were some exceptions, of course, and friendly relations were established between individuals, and between families, in the North Gore and the village; but a friendly feeling was for a good many years by no means general, and two distinct communities lived side by side in the town of Gershom.
Even the good people among them—God’s own people—who have so much in common that all lesser matters may well be made nothing of between them—even they did not come together across the wall which ignorance and prejudice and circumstances had raised. At least they did not for a time. The Grants and the Scotts and the Sangsters travelled Sabbath by Sabbath the four miles between the North Gore and the village, and, passing the house where a good man preached the Gospel in the name of the Lord Jesus, travelled four miles further still for the sake of hearing one of their own kirk and country preach the same Gospel in the name of the same Lord. And so the Reverend Mr Hollister, and Deacon Moses Turner, and other good men among them, thought themselves justified in setting them down as narrow-minded and bigoted, and incapable of appreciating the privileges which had fallen to their lot.
There was really no good reason why they should not all have worshipped together as one community, for in the doctrines which they held, the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers differed little from those who had been taught in Scottish kirks the truth for which their fathers had fought and died. The little band who kept together, and held to the form of church government which they had learned to revere in their native land, were by reason of their isolation, practically as independent in regard to the matters of their kirk as were their Puritan neighbours who claimed this independence as their right.
In point of numbers, and in point of means, the older settlers were the stronger of the two parties; in point of character and piety, even they themselves were not sure that the superiority was on their side. However that might be, all felt that the coming in among them of the North Gore men and their families was much to be desired, and after a time measures were taken to bring the subject of union before them in the most favourable manner.
So, accompanied and encouraged by Deacon Turner, Mr Hollister, the minister, visited the North Gore folk family by family, and was respectfully and kindly received by them all, but he did not make much progress in the good work he had undertaken. His remarks about brotherly love and the healing of breaches were for the most part listened to in silence, and so were Deacon Turner’s cautious allusions to the subscription-list for the dealing with current expenses. Nowhere did they meet with much encouragement to hope that their efforts to bring the two communities together would be successful. For several years after this the North Gore folk continued to make their “Sabbath-day’s journey” past the village church. Then for a while they had the monthly ministrations of a preacher of their own order in their own neighbourhood, and on other days kept up meetings among themselves, and did what they could in various ways to keep themselves to themselves as of old.
But time wrought changes. The children who had come to the North Gore grew up, and they did not grow up to be just such men and women as their fathers and mothers had been. It is not necessary to say whether they were worse men or better. They were different. There was not much change in the manner of life in many of the homes. The Sabbath was as strictly kept, and the young people were as strictly taught and catechised and looked after in Scottish fashion as of old, and they bade fair to grow up as cautious and as “douce,” and as much attached to old ways and customs as if they had been brought up on the other side of the sea, quite beyond the reach of Yankee innovations and free-and-easy colonial ways. But even the most “douce” and cautious amongst them were without the stiffness and strength of the old-time prejudice, and the young people of the different sections of the township, brought together in the many pleasant ways that are open to young people in country places, no longer kept apart as their fathers had done.
There were troubles in Gershom still of various kinds, misunderstandings and quarrels, and violations of the golden rule between individuals and between families, and some of them took colour, and some of them took strength, from national feeling and national prejudice; but there were no longer two distinct communities living side by side in the town, as there once had been. And by and by, when old Mr Grant and Deacon Turner, and some others of the good men who had held with one or other of them on earth, were gone to sit down to eat bread together in the kingdom of heaven, the good men they had left behind them drew closer together by slow degrees. And when Mr Hollister grew old and feeble, and unable to do duty as pastor of the village church, all agreed that the chief consideration, in the appointment of a successor, must be the getting of such a man as might be able to unite the people of all sections into one congregation at last.
This was the state of things in Gershom when it began to be whispered that there was serious trouble arising between Jacob Holt and old Mr Fleming.
There were already a good many openings in the North Gore woods when the Flemings took possession of the partially cleared farm lying half-way between it and the village, at a little distance from the road. They built on it a house of grey, unhewn stone, long and low like the home they had “left on the other side of the sea.” They called the place Ythan Brae, and the clear shallow brook that ran down from their rocky pastures, through the swamp to Beaver River, they called the Ythan Burn because the familiar names were pleasant on their lips and in their ears in a strange land; but it was a long time before it seemed like home to them.
For a while the neighbours knew about them only what could be learned from the fields visible from the North Gore road. That Mr Fleming had experience, tireless industry, and some money, three things to insure success in his calling, the canny Scotch farmers were not slow to perceive in the change that gradually came over the once-neglected land. Mr Fleming seemed a grave, silent man, with the traces of some severe trouble showing in his face. And this trouble his wife had shared, for, though she was still a young woman when she came to Gershom, there were streaks of white in her brown hair, and on her fair, serene face there was the look which “tells of sorrow meekly borne.” The gloom and sternness which sometimes made people shrink from coming in contact with her husband was never seen in her.
The eldest of their two sons was almost a man when they came to live at Ythan Brae. He was a quiet, well-doing lad, reserved like his father, but pleasant-spoken and friendly like his mother. His brother Hugh had inherited his mother’s good looks and sunny temper, and he had, besides, the power which does not always accompany the possession of personal beauty or cleverness—the power of winning love.
Long afterward, when the mention of Hugh’s name was a sorrowful matter, the people of the North Gore who knew him best used to speak of him with a kind of wonder. He was such “a bonny laddie,” with eyes like stars, and even at sixteen a head above his elder brother. He was so blithe and kindly, and clever too. According to these people there was nothing he could not do, and nothing that he would not trouble himself to do to give pleasure to his friends. He was “the apple of his father’s eye,” the delight of his life; and that his mother’s heart did not break when she lost him, was only because, even at the worst of times, God’s grace is sufficient for help and healing to those who stay themselves on Him.
For Hugh “went wrong.” Oh, sorrowful words! seeming so little and meaning so much: care and fear, watching and waiting, sleepless nights and days of dread to those who looked on with no power to bring him back again. How he went wrong may be easily guessed. He had been led astray by evil companions his mother always said. Not that to her knowledge, or to the knowledge of any one, he had gone so very far astray till the end came. There had been doubts and fears for him, and earnest expostulations from those who loved him, but it was a great shock and surprise to all the countryside when it came to be known that he had gone away never to return.
What he had done was certainly known only to two or three. There were whispers of forgery, and even robbery, and some said it was only debt, which his father refused to pay. There were others involved in the matter, and it was kept quiet. Some of the young Holts were among the number. Jacob, Gershom’s eldest son, went away for a while. It was not known whether they had gone together, but Jacob soon came home again, and as far as he was concerned, everything was as before.
But after a time there came heavy tidings to Ythan Brae. Hugh Fleming was dead—in the very flower of his youth—“with all his sins on his head;” his father cried out in the agony of the knowledge. There was only a word or two in a strange handwriting to say that, after sharp and sudden illness, he had died among strangers.
The father and mother lived through the time that followed. How they lived none knew, for they were alone at the Brae. They never passed the bounds of their own farm through all that terrible winter, and the neighbours, who sometimes went to see them, as a general thing only saw Mrs Fleming. She stood between her husband and the sorrowful curiosity, the real but painful sympathy which he could not have borne—which even she found it so hard to bear. Neither then, nor in all the years that followed, did any one but his boy’s mother hear him utter his boy’s name. They lived through it, but that winter was like the “valley of the shadow of death” to them both.
When spring came, the worst was over, the neighbours said, and in one way so it was. Their son James brought his wife home to live with them, and they settled down to their changed life, making the best of it. Mrs Fleming’s cheerfulness came back in the midst of many cares, for her son’s wife was a delicate woman, and the little children came fast to their home. Mrs Fleming governed the household still, and in a sense began life anew in their midst.
But after his son came to live with them, Mr Fleming gave up to him all that part of their affairs that would have taken him away from home. He was a born farmer; his forefathers had been farmers for as many generations as he could trace, and he had a hereditary reverence for mother earth as the giver of bread to man. He took pleasure in the work of the farm, labouring patiently and cheerfully to bring it to the highest productiveness which the soil and the variable Canadian climate would permit. Hollows were filled and heights were levelled, and the wide stretch of lowland on either side of the Burn near its mouth, was year by year made to yield. A road or two to be cleared and drained and tilled, and one might have travelled a summer day through the fine farming country without seeing a finer farm than he made it at last.
And all this time the farm, with his interest in it and his labour on it, was doing a good work for him, and he grew to love the place as his home, and the home of the little children who were growing up about him.
But just as a tranquil gloaming seemed to be closing over their changeful day of life, a new and heavy sorrow fell upon them. Their son James died, and the two old people found themselves left alone to care for his delicate widow and her fatherless children. Other troubles followed closely on this. James Fleming had never been a worldly-wise man, and he died in debt. Some of the claims were just, some of them were doubtful, none of them could have held against his father. But the old man gave not a moment’s hearing to those who made this suggestion. The honour of his son’s name and memory was at stake, and in his haste and eagerness to settle all, and because he had so fallen out of business ways, the best and wisest plans were not taken in the arrangement of his affairs.
When the time of settlement came, it was found that most of the claims against James Fleming had passed into the hands of the Holts. It was Jacob alone who was to be dealt with, for his father was an old man, and his connection with the business had long been merely nominal. Jacob Holt had changed since the days when he had been, as Hugh Fleming’s father firmly believed, the ruin of his son. He had changed from an ill-doing, idle lad, into a man, noted even in that busy community for his attention to business, a man who took pains to seek a fair reputation for honesty and generosity among his fellow-townsmen. But Mr Fleming liked the man as little as he had liked the lad, and it added much to the misery of his indebtedness that his obligation was to him. He was growing an old man, conscious of his increasing weakness and inability to cope with difficulties, and he believed his “enemy,” as he called him, to be capable of taking advantage of these. His faith failed him sometimes, and in his anxiety and unhappiness, he uttered harder words than he knew.
Everybody in Gershom knew of his debt, but no one knew what made the bitterness of his indebtedness to the old man. The part which Jacob Holt had had in the trouble, that had come on him through his son, had never been clearly understood, and was now well-nigh forgotten in the place. But the father had not forgotten it. He would gladly have mortgaged his farm, or even have given up half of it altogether, to any friend who could have advanced him the money to pay his debt, but no such friend was at hand, and it ended, as all knew it must end, in a seven years’ mortgage being taken by Jacob Holt, and the only thing the old man could do now was to keep silence and hope for better days.
The little Flemings were growing up healthy and happy, a great comfort and a great care to their grandparents. They were bright and pretty children, and good children on the whole, the neighbours said, and they said also, that there seemed to be no reason why the last days of the old people should not be contented and comfortable, notwithstanding their burden of debt. For the Holts would never be hard on such old neighbours, and as the boys grew up, to take the weight of the farm-work on them, the debt might be paid, and all would go well. This was the hopeful view of the matter taken by Mrs Fleming also, but the old man always listened in silence to such words.
When five years had past, no part of the debt had yet been paid. Even the interest had been in part paid with borrowed money, and there were other signs and tokens that the Flemings were going back in the world. It was not to be wondered at; for Mr Fleming was an old man, and the greater part of the farm-work had to be done by hired help, at a cost which the farm could ill bear. And the chances were, that for a while at least the state of affairs would be worse rather than better.
Then there came to Mr Fleming this proposal from Jacob Holt. If twenty-five acres of the swampy land that bordered the Beaver River just where the brook fell into it were given up to him the mortgage should be cancelled, and the debt should be considered paid. He declared that the proposal was made solely in the interest of the Fleming family, and there were a good many people in Gershom who believed him.
To this proposal, however, Mr Fleming returned a prompt and brief refusal. He said little about it, but it was known that he believed evil of Jacob Holt with regard to the matter, and though he kept silence, others spoke. The North Gore people took the matter up, and so did the people of the village. Mr Fleming had friends in both sections of the town, and some of them did not spare hard words in the discussion.
Jacob Holt was now the rich man of Gershom, one of the chief supporters of the church and of every good cause encouraged in the town, and all this did not promise well for the union in church matters so earnestly desired by many good people in Gershom.
Gershom Holt was to all appearance a hale old man, but for a long time before this he had had little to do with the management of the business of Holt and Son. He still lived in the great square house which had succeeded the log-house built by him in the early days of the settlement. Two of his children lived with him—Elizabeth, the youngest child of his first wife, and Clifton, the only child of his second wife, who had died in giving him birth.
Elizabeth was good, pretty, and clever, and still single at twenty-four. The persons she loved best in the world were her father and her younger brother. Her father loved and trusted her entirely, and every passing day made him more dependent on her for comfort and for counsel; for he was a very old man, and in many ways needed the care which it was his daughter’s first duty and pleasure to give. Her brother loved and trusted her too in his way, but he was only a lad, and too well contented with himself and his life to know the value of her love as yet, and she was not without anxious thoughts about him. He was supposed to be distinguishing himself in a New England College as he had before distinguished himself in the High-School of the village, and only spent his vacations at home.
There was a difference of nearly twenty years in the ages of Gershom Holt’s two sons, and they had little in common except their father’s name. Elizabeth loved them both, and respected the youngest most. Jacob was a little afraid of his sister, and took pains to be on the best of terms with her, and he could not forget sometimes in her presence that he had done some things in his life which he was glad she did not know.
He had married, early in life, a pretty, commonplace woman, who had grown thin and querulous in the years that had passed since then, and who was not at all fitted to be the great lady of Gershom, as the rich man’s wife might have been. That place was filled by Elizabeth, who filled it well and enjoyed it.
With its large garden and orchard, and its sloping lawn, shaded by trees beginning to look old and venerable beside those of more recent growth in the village street, the old square house looked far more like the great house of the village than the finer mansion lately built by Jacob further up the hill. Under Elizabeth’s direction it had been modernised and beautified by the throwing out of a bow-window and the addition of a wide veranda on two sides. Everything about it, without and within, indicated wealth moderately used, for comfort and not for display. It was the pleasantest house in the village to visit at, everybody said; for the squire—so old Mr Holt was generally called—was very hospitable, and all sorts of people were made welcome there.
There were by this time people in Gershom who had outlived the remembrance of the days when all the settlers, rich and poor alike, were socially on a level, and who spoke smoothly and loftily about “station” and “position” and “the working classes,” but the young Holts were not among them. Elizabeth and Clifton deserved less credit than was given them on account of their unassuming and agreeable manners with the village people, for they did not need to assert themselves as some others did. Miss Elizabeth, for all her unpretending ways, was the great lady of the village, and liked it, and very likely would have resented it had a rival appeared to call her right in question.
The Holts of the Hill were, in most respects, very different from the Holts of the village. They lived and worked and dressed and conducted themselves generally very much as they had been used to do in the early days of the settlement. The old man had been long dead, and his widow and her two daughters lived on the farm. One of the daughters was a childless widow, Betsey, the other had never married. “A good woman with an uncertain temper,” was the character which many of her friends would have given her, and some of them might have added that she had had a hard life and many cares, and no wonder that she was a little hard and sour after all she had passed through. But this was by no means all that could be said of Miss Betsey.
There was little intercourse between the Holts of the Hill and the village Holts, and it was not the fault of Elizabeth. It was Betsey who decidedly withdrew from any intimacy with her cousins. She was too old-fashioned, too “set” in her way to fall in with all their new notions, she said, and from the time that Elizabeth came home from school to be the mistress of her father’s house, and the most popular person in Gershom, she had had but little to do with her. It hurt Elizabeth that it should be so, for she respected her cousin and would have loved her, and would doubtless have profited—by their intercourse if it had been permitted. But she never got beyond a certain point in the intimacy with her, at least she did not for a time.
The Hill Holts were much respected in the neighbourhood, and Miss Betsey exerted an influence in its way almost as great as did Miss Elizabeth. One or two persons who knew them both well, said they were very much alike, though to people generally they seemed in temper, in tastes, and in manner of life as different as well could be. They were alike and they were different, and the chief difference lay in this, that Miss Betsey was growing old and had passed through troubles in her time, and Miss Elizabeth was young and had most of her troubles before her.
The village of Gershom Centre, as it was called, at this time lay chiefly on the north bank of the Beaver River. Its principal street ran north and south at right angles to the river, and the village houses clustered closest at the end of the bridge that crossed it. At the south end of the bridge another street turned west down the river, and at a little distance became a pleasant country road which led to the hill-farm of the Holts, and past it to the neighbouring township of Fosbrooke. Another street went east, on the north side of the river a few hundred yards, and then turned north to the Scotch settlement at the Gore.
On this street, before it turned north, the new church stood. There was a wide green common before it, shaded by young trees, and only the inclosing fence and the road lay between this and the river, which was broad and shallow, and flowed softly in this part of its course. The church was a very pretty one of its kind—white as snow, with large-paned windows, and green Venetian blinds. It had a tall slender spire, in which hung the first bell that had ever wakened the echoes in that part of the country for miles around, and of the church and the bell, and the pretty tree-shaded common before it, the Gershom people were not a little proud.
Behind the church lay the graveyard, already a populous place, as the few tall monuments and the many less pretentious slabs of grey or white stone showed. It was inclosed by a white fence tipped with black, and shaded by many young trees, and it was a quiet and pleasant place. Between the church and the graveyard was a long row of wooden sheds. They were not ornamental, quite the contrary; but they were very useful as a shelter for the horses of the church-goers who came from a distance, and they had been added by way of conciliating the North Gore people when one and another of them began to come to the village church.
Toward the church one fair Sabbath morning in June, many Gershom people were hastening. Already there were vehicles of great variety in the sheds, and horses were tied here and there along the fences under the trees. There were groups of people lingering in Gershom fashion on the church steps and on the grass, and the numbers, and the air of expectation over all, indicated that the occasion was one of more than usual interest. All Gershom had turned out hoping to see and hear the new minister, whose coming was to bean assurance of peace to the church and to the congregation. They were to be disappointed for that day, however, for the minister had not come. Squire Holt and his son and daughter came with the rest. The old man lingered at the gate exchanging greetings with his neighbours, and the young people went on toward the door.
“Gershom is the place after all, Lizzie,” said her brother. “It is pleasant to see all the folks again. But I don’t believe I’m going to stay to see Jacob through this business. Well! never mind, Lizzie,” he added, as his sister looked grave. “I’ll see you through, if you say so. And here come Ben and Cousin Betsey; let us wait and speak to them.”
“Clifton,” said his sister, earnestly, “Ben is Cousin Betsey’s best hand this summer. It won’t do to beguile him from his work, dear. You must not try it.”
“Nonsense, Elizabeth. It is rather soon to come down on a fellow like that, before I have even spoken to him. I never made Ben idle, quite the contrary.”
Coming slowly up the green slope between the gate and the church were the two persons recognised by Clifton as Ben and Cousin Betsey. They moved along in a leisurely way, nodding to one and speaking to another, so that there was time to discuss them as they approached.
“Lizzie,” said her brother, “do you suppose you’ll ever come to look like Cousin Betsey?”
“I am quite sure I shall never wear such a bonnet,” said Elizabeth, pettishly. “Why will she make a fright of herself?”
“It is as an offset to you—so fine as you are,” said Clifton, laughing. “She had that gown before Ben was born; I remember it perfectly.”
Miss Betsey Holt was a striking-looking person, notwithstanding the oddness and shabbiness of her dress. Scantiness is a better word for it than shabbiness, for her dress was of good material, neat and well preserved, but it was without a superfluous fold or gather, and in those days, when, even in country places, crinoline was beginning to assert itself, she did look ludicrously straight and stiff. Miss Elizabeth’s dress was neither in material nor make of the fashion that had its origin in the current year, and city people, wise in such matters, might have set them both down as old-fashioned. But in appearance, as they drew near one another, there was a great contrast between them, though in feature there was a strong resemblance.
There was more than fifteen years’ difference in their ages, and Betsey looked older than her forty years. She was above the middle height, thin and dark and wrinkled, and there were white streaks in the brown hair brought down low and flat upon the cheek, but in every feature the bright youthful beauty of the girl had once been hers. Some of the neighbours, who were regarding them as they met, would have said that once Miss Betsey had been much handsomer than ever Miss Elizabeth would be. For Miss Betsey had been young at a time when there was little danger that indolence or self-indulgence could injure the full development of healthful beauty, and as yet Miss Elizabeth had fallen on easy days, and was languid at times, and delicate, and if the truth must be told, a little discontented with what life had as yet brought her, and a little afraid of what might lie before her, and there was a shadow of this on her fair face to-day.
They had not much to say to each other, and they stood in silence watching the two lads. Clifton was considered in Gershom to have learned very fine manners, since he went to college, but he had forgotten them for the moment, and was as boyish and natural as his less sophisticated cousin. They were only second cousins, Ben being the only child of Reuben Holt’s eldest son, who had died early. His Aunt Betsey had brought the boy up, and “had not had the best of luck in doing it,” she sometimes told him; but he was the dearest person in the world to her, for all her pretended discontent with her success. She watched the two lads as they went into the eager discussion of something that pleased them, and so did Elizabeth, for it was a pleasant sight to see.
“Cousin,” said Elizabeth, gently, “I do not think you need fear that my boy will harm yours.”
“I am not afraid—not much. Ben is the stronger of the two, morally, if he isn’t so bright. My boy is to be trusted,” and she looked as though she would have added, “that is more than you can say for yours.”
Elizabeth looked grave.
“Cousin Betsey, you were always hard on my brother Clifton.”
Betsey shrugged her shoulders.
“You are harder on him this minute than I am. I don’t suppose he has done anything very bad this time—worse than usual, I mean.”
“Have you heard anything? Did you know he was sent home?” asked Elizabeth in dismay.
“He sent a letter to Ben a spell ago, and I saw it lying round. You needn’t tell him so. If it is as he says, there aint much wrong this time. Here is Hepsey Bean.”
Miss Bean had come to inquire if anything had been heard of the minister, but the cousins were too much occupied in watching the two lads to answer her, and Hepsey’s eyes followed theirs.
“Are not they alike as two peas?” said she. “Not their fixings exactly, I don’t mean—”
Miss Elizabeth laughed, even Miss Betsey smiled, touched with a grim sense of humour as she regarded the lads. Their “fixings” were certainly different. Everything, from the tips of Clifton’s shining boots to the crown of his shining hat, declared him to be a dandy. His collar, necktie, coat, and all the rest, were in the latest fashion—a fashion a sight of which, but for his coming home, the Gershom people might not have been favoured with for a year to come. His compulsory departure from the seat of learning had been delayed while the tailor completed his summer outfit, so that there could be no mistake about his “fixings.”
As for Ben, he was fine also, in a new suit of homespun, which, since it came from the loom, and, indeed, before it went to the loom, had passed through no hands but those of his Aunt Betsey. It was not handsome. The home-made thick grey cloth of the country, which the farmers’ wives of those days took pride in preparing for the winter-wear of their “men folks,” was an article of superior wearing qualities, and handsome in its way. But it was the half-cotton fabric, dingy and napless, considered good enough for summer wear, in which Ben was arrayed. Made as a loose frock and overall to be worn in the hay-field, or following the plough, it was well enough; but made into a tight-fitting Sunday-suit, it was not handsome, certainly. As far as “fixings” were concerned, the cousins were a contrast. Betsey looked and laughed again, but Elizabeth did not laugh. She knew that Cousin Betsey was sensitive where Ben was concerned.
“Clothes don’t amount to much anyway,” said Betsey. “Hepsey’s right. They are alike as two peas, but Ben is the strongest morally, because he hasn’t been spoiled by property, as Clifton has. Not that he is altogether spoiled yet.”
“But about the minister?” interrupted Miss Bean.
“He has not come, it seems,” said Elizabeth. “There is to be a sermon read to-day,” but she did not say that her brother Jacob was to read it.
The bell which had been delayed beyond the usual time pealed out, and all faces were turned to the church door. Clifton and Ben lingered till the last.
“There is old Mr Fleming going off home,” said Ben as he caught sight of a figure on horseback turning the corner toward North Gore. “I expect he don’t care about your brother Jacob’s preaching,” he added, gravely.
“Isn’t it his practice he don’t care about?” said Clifton, laughing.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ben.
“Well, I can’t say I care much about his preaching either. Come, Ben, let us go down to the big elm and talk things over.”
Ben shook his head, but followed.
“It is not just the same as if the minister was there,” said he, doubtfully.
“But then what will Aunt Betsey say?”
“Oh, she won’t care since it’s only Jacob. And she needn’t know it.”
“Oh, she’s got to know it. But it is not any worse for us than for old Mr Fleming. It’s pleasant down here.”
It was pleasant. The largest elm tree in Gershom grew on the river bank, and its great branches stretched far over to the other side, making cool shadows on the rippling water. The place was green and still, “a great deal more like Sunday than the inside of the meeting-house,” Clifton declared. But Ben shook his head.
“That’s one of the loose notions you’ve learned at college. Your sister believes in going to meetings, and so does Aunt Betsey.”
So did Clifton it seemed, for there was a good deal more said after that, and they quite agreed that whether it was altogether agreeable or not, it was quite right that people generally should go to church, rather than to the river, as they had done. How it happened, Ben hardly knew, but in a little while they found themselves in Seth Fairweather’s boat, and were paddling up the river, out and in among the shadows, past the open fields and the cedar swamp to the point where the Ythan Burn fell into the Beaver. They paddled about a while upon the Pool, as a sudden widening of the channel of the river was called, till the heat of the sun sent them in among the shadows again. Then Clifton leaned back at his ease, while Ben waved about a branch of odorous cedar to keep the little black flies away.
“Now tell me all about it, Cliff,” said he.
Clifton winced, but put a bold face on the matter, and told in as few words as possible the story of his having been sent home. It was not a pleasant story to tell, though he had been less to blame than some others who had escaped punishment altogether. But sitting there in the shadow of the cedars, with Ben’s great eyes upon him, he felt more sorry and ashamed, and more angry at himself, and those who had been concerned with him in his folly, than ever he had felt before.
“The fun didn’t pay that time, did it, Cliff?” said Ben. “I don’t believe it ever does—that kind of fun.”
“That’s what Aunt Betsey says, eh?” said Clifton. “Well, she’s about right.”