XXIV.--DESTINY
Up in the big bay that lies next the head of the rapids, Belding wasdrifting aimlessly. He was still obsessed with a sense of the hideoususelessness of effort, and wanted to be alone. At one time Elsie usedto be here in the bow of the canoe, but now it seemed that Elsie hadlittle thought for him. And yet he could have sworn that, two yearsago, she loved him.
He began to paddle, with a sharp and growing resentment, and found adeep satisfaction in the thrust of his broad blade. Soon he was nearlyhalf way across the river, and a mile down stream lifted the fabric ofthe great bridge. Slacking speed, he caught the pull of the current,and with it came a reckless impulse. No man had shot the middle of therapids and escaped with his life. It was true that the Indiansmaneuvered their long canoes down close to the opposite shore withventurous tourists, but it was only a film of water that wound,bubbling, near the land. With the deep-throated rumble only half amile away, Belding felt his pulse falter for a second, then poundviciously on. And in that second, with the bravado of early manhood,he threw discretion overboard, and set the slim bow of his Peterboro'for the middle span. Twenty seconds, later he knew that he was aboutto run the rapids--whether he would or not.
Settling himself amidship, he gripped the thwart tight between calf andthigh and, resting the paddle across the gunwale, peered anxiouslyforward. His lips were a little dry, but he felt no fear. Being closeto the water, he could not see the rapids themselves but only the firstgreat, green curve, and below it the white tops of a multitude ofwaves. Then the middle span swept back overhead, he heard the river,split by the sharp piers, hissing along their rough sides and the canoesailed like a leaf into the first smooth dip. Came the vision of adistant shore sliding by, and the lower reach with a ferry steamerhalfway across, and Belding felt the canoe lift and quiver, while agreen wave flung its white crest in his face. He came through ratherthan over it, and just below caught a glimpse of one of those dreadedcellars that hid themselves in this tumult. Here, at all costs, hemust keep straight.
The canoe, with no way on, swooped giddily into the great, emerald pit.There was a fleeting sensation of smooth, glittering, watery walls,till he was flung on and up into the backward foaming crest, and with adesperate effort wrenched the slim bow so that it took the rise headon. An instant followed in which the sky was blotted out, while oneach side rose pyramids of bubbling foam that seemed to meet over hishead, but between which he could see light and distance. The canoe,half full of water, was plucked onward, while Belding drew a longbreath and searched the chaos in front of him.
Fifty yards down, opened a lane of green that curved beside and betweentwo cellars, each deeper than the last. He knew instantly that hecould not survive these, and, with every ounce of his strength, droveacross the broken river to the head of the chute. Making it in thenick of time, he plunged in, with the water sucking at his thighs, andthe sinews in his arms burning like fire. There followed a swiftdescent through cellars of dwindling depth, till he floated into thelong, spume-flecked swells at the foot of the decline, where the canoedrifted sluggishly, full nearly to the gunwale. And here Beldingleaned forward with his hands on her curved thwart, and pumped greatgulps of air into his empty lungs. Presently he stared around. He wasbelow the works of which he had seen nothing, and just opposite Clark'sbig house, whose roof lifted on the hill side a mile away. He haddared the rapids and come through safely, but Clark, he reflected, wasengulfed.
Luncheon that day at the big house had been a silent affair, afterwhich the three men went out on the terrace and examined the panoramathat spread to the south. It was suggestive and inspiring. They hadbeen voiceless for some time, when Clark moved restlessly.
"Shall we talk here, or go back to the office?"
"This is good enough for me," said Ardswell; "are you ready forbusiness?"
"Certainly."
"And may I ask two questions first,--one is a trifle personal?"
"Please ask them, if you wish; I have no personal secrets."
"That's very decent of you. What I'd like to know is, first, what youfound here when you arrived seven years ago, and, second, what yourresources were at the time? You will not, of course, answer the lastunless you wish."
Clark laughed almost boyishly. "Why I found only the rapids, and--Ihad no resources,--that is, except myself."
"I thought so, and"--here the speaker glanced at Weatherby--"we wouldlike to congratulate you, I had an idea that this was the case. Now asto the present business, we have decided to make a proposal to yourboard."
"I am glad of that," said Clark briefly. He knew that the moment hadcome.
"We hope it will meet with your support," Ardswell hesitatedperceptibly and went on, pitching his voice a little higher, "and youwill not misunderstand my putting it rather baldly. The matter dependson two things: the reduction of the Consolidated capital fromtwenty-seven million to something about ten million and the wiping outof all common stock, and," here he paused again while the blood creptslowly to his temples--"the other is a change in the executive. Thesebeing satisfactorily arranged, we will go ahead. That's about it, eh?"
"Yes," put in the other, "but of course we could not go ahead, underany circumstances, without Mr. Clark's temporary assistance. I thinkin fairness to him we should make the case a little clearer."
"It's fairly clear as it is," said Clark without a trace of emotion.
"We've never seen anything quite like this in any part of the world,"volunteered Weatherby, "and it is a remarkable thing for any one man tohave imagined and accomplished. Whether or not we take the matter up,it will always seem a catastrophe that your work and the work of yourdirectors should have been interrupted by a speculator. That's onething that strikes us both about American business--you have yourlions, and plenty of them, but you have too many wolves. Now, comingback to St. Marys, I beg that you won't misunderstand me when I saythat the originator of great things is very seldom a suitable executivefor permanent administration. It is too much to expect. In case wetake this up it would be necessary for us to have the administration inour own hands. You understand, of course, that an originator of bigthings is a much rarer person than a good executive, and it is largelyon account of non-imaginative qualities that the latter is the saferman. I would like to assure you," he concluded with evident respect,"that we have never experienced more difficulty in making a suggestion.The case is extraordinary--we realize that."
"What Weatherby has in his head," added Ardswell, "is that you havedone what neither of us could ever have done, and he thinks it a wasteof valuable material to try and make an executive out--"
"Out of me," interrupted Clark. "You may be quite right." He hadexpected to feel alone, but the direct simplicity of these men appealedto him. It was not always, he reflected, that he was given anunprejudiced opinion, and he felt the safer since now he got it.
"We believe that we are right," it was Weatherby who spoke, "and areprepared to assume that responsibility. Like you, we have shareholdersto think of, and we feel that yours will not get any better offer. Weknow the financial world fairly well."
Clark listened tensely. He was aware that the interests represented bythese two were of enormous influence and wealth. He realized, also,that instead of all this discussion, Wimperley might simply havenotified him that he was discharged, and that the new interests wouldnow take over. But Wimperley had done nothing of the kind.
"One week in Philadelphia taught us much, but we have learned a greatdeal more up here," continued Weatherby, "and it depended really on thepast three days whether we would make a proposal or not. From what wehave seen and what you have told us, we are satisfied. I might saythat your directors have already agreed to the reduction of capital,provided the matter of management is settled. So the future liesentirely with you. Your holdings in common stock are so large that itis essential you give your formal assent."
Clark drew a long breath. He had come to the fork in the road. T
helabors of seven years rolled suddenly over his brain and engulfed it.Here were two men who drank his wine, then asked him to leave his verysoul to others.
"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "thank you for what you have said--but Ican't give you an answer at once."
"There's no hurry," replied Ardswell. "It's not a case for a snapdecision."
Through Clark's mind ran a quizzical idea that these two understoodeach other admirably, and he wondered how things would have turned outhad he himself been one of a pair that did such team work.
"Then later, to-night."
The two nodded and moved off, talking earnestly, while Clarkexperienced a strange breathlessness. His soul was in tumult, and hereacted from the strain of the past few days. He perceived that withmen like himself and his visitors lay the great economic forces of theworld. And yet he was expected to make way.
Passing slowly through the big gates, towards which he had walkedautomatically, he moved on beyond the pulp mills towards the rapids, asthough drawn by their insistent call. It was the call he had heard foryears, even in his very dreams. And there, on the great boulder wherehe had once found her before, sat Elsie.
She had been there for an hour, gazing at the tumbled mass of foam andtrying desperately to disentangle her thoughts. But even as she gazed,Clark's face seemed to come in between; keen, strong, undefeated andsuggestive. It was not till now that she admitted to her own soul thathe had dominated her imagination for months past. His achievements,his peculiar independence, his swift versatility had captured hercrescent ambition, the ambition which he himself had unwittinglystimulated. She did not question whether this was love, she only knewthat in this season, when his work seemed to be tottering over hishead, she was ready to come to him and help rebuild it into somethingstronger and even greater.
She did not start, but looked at him with a strange satisfaction, asthough it were meant from the first that they should meet at this timeand place. Her eyes were very grave, and in them was that which madeClark's pulse beat faster. Something whispered that each of them hadbeen saved over for this moment.
"I haven't seen much of you for the past few months," he said presently.
"I know that, but I know why. Are things better now?"
He nodded. "They may be very shortly."
"I'm so glad. You can't imagine how anxious I've been,--the riots andyour escape--and--"
"But I was anxious for you."
"You shouldn't have been," she said gently. "Mr. Belding told me thatyou wanted him to come to the house when things were at their worst,but he didn't like leaving you. Now tell me, are the works starting upagain?"
Clark drew a long breath. "I'll know very soon."
"Then you'll settle down just like before, and it will be all a baddream?"
"Perhaps I will." His voice lifted a little.
"You're not going away?"
That was what he had come here to decide, and there flashed into hismind a curious conception that was both fanciful and reassuring.
"Forget about the works for a moment; I want to ask you something."
"But do I know?" She smiled doubtfully.
"Yes, you'll know without any question whatever. It's the case of aman who worked very hard, and he didn't work for money or glory, oranything of that kind, but just because he loved it and couldn't helpit."
"That sounds very like yourself."
"There are many men like that, more than most people imagine," he saidquietly; "and after this one had, so to speak, built the foundationsand walls, he had not money enough to put on the roof, and another mancame along and offered to do it. Of course, he would get the creditfor the whole building. It was a very important one, and it affectedthe lives and comfort of a great many people who would suffer if itwere not completed."
The girl glanced at him strangely. "Is that all?"
"Yes, except that the people who lived there would naturally forget allabout the man who laid the foundations and built the walls, and wouldeven blame him and think only of the one who made the place habitablefor them."
"But does that matter?" she asked quickly, looking at him.
Clark took a long look at the animated face. "That he should beforgotten or blamed?"
"Yes. You said he worked for the love of it. He didn't ask for thanksor appreciation, and from what you tell me he wasn't that kind." Sheturned swiftly: "It is yourself."
"And if it were, that would not alter your judgment, would it?"
"Is it fair to ask?" Her eyes were full of a touching appeal.
"A frank opinion is the fairest thing to me," he said quietly. "I knowhow you would look at it. There's only one answer you could give. Ifit were otherwise it wouldn't be you: the first man has no alternative,has he?"
"No," she whispered. Her face was pitiful, as though she had beensecretly and cruelly hurt.
"Then it is the works I'm considering," he continued slowly. "You'rethe only one I can tell just now, but if they go on, it must be withoutme."
"But they're your works. You dreamed them and then built them."
"I've had many dreams, Elsie."
Her heart beat rapturously. It was the first time he had called herElsie, and her spontaneous spirit went out to this man who stood facingso great and sacrificial a decision. She longed to spend herself uponhim. Involuntarily she glanced up with profound pity and, turning,caught a glimpse of a canoe that whipped down stream under the middlespan of the great bridge.
"Oh, look! he's going to be drowned." She clutched Clark's arm insudden terror.
The latter stared, while something rose in his throat. The canoe wasfamiliar. He had seen it a few hours before on the upper bay, and nowhis keen sight made out the figure of Belding. Instantly he graspedthe cause of this foolhardy deed. A glance at Elsie told him she wasunaware who it was that thus played with death.
"Look, look!" she cried again.
The canoe pitched into the first cellar, and in the mound of silverfoam they could discern only the slim and tossing bow. Presently itemerged and reeled on into the fury below. Elsie covered her eyes, andClark stood as though fascinated. What part had he played in thisperilous drama?
Vividly his mind flashed back to those first days, the beginning of theengineer's unswerving loyalty. Year after year he had never faltered,and at the end of it all, even though apparently robbed by his chief ofhis heart's desire, had thrust himself between Clark and the hoarsehatred of the mob. Came now an overwhelming sense of unworthiness, andClark asked of himself who was he to demand such sacrifice. Then, asthough a cloud had revealed the sun, the way became quite clear.
"Elsie," he said, "the canoe is all right, look!"
Down in the long, smooth swell at the foot of the rapids, it laysluggishly. The man dipped his paddle and began to move almostimperceptibly towards shore. The girl drew a long breath.
"He's safe."
"Yes," said Clark earnestly, "he's very safe. Now I want to talk toyou."
She brightened at once. "Do."
"I've wanted to talk to you for months. Do you remember what we spokeof last?"
"Destiny," she said softly.
He nodded. "I see it plainly to-day, more plainly than ever before.Sometimes when a man is in deep water his sight gets keener. What Ihave been through in the last seven years is only a phase, it's not anepoch. I was meant to do it, and I did it with all my heart. Now I'mgoing to do something else, in order that the works may prosper. Youhave helped me to make that decision."
"I?" she whispered faintly.
He put a hand on her arm--it was his only caress.
"Yes, Elsie, you. It is as though I had caught sight of a road whichwas very beautiful and tender, and I was tempted to take it. But it isnot my road. What the future has left for me I don't know, but it isnot here and I must meet it alone."
He paused for a moment, and the girl's brown eyes filled with tears.Presently the steady voice continued.
"De
stiny is calling, and one cannot take a girl into a battlefield, forthat is what it is going to be. I'm a poor man again, Elsie, just as Iwas seven years ago. That does not matter, for I will be rich inmemories."
"Don't," she said brokenly, "don't!"
"Youth will go to youth, Elsie."
"You mean--"
"I mean that the man you really love, is the man you saw run therapids."
"Jim!" Her eyes were round with terror.
"Yes, Jim, the best friend but one I found in St. Marys. Jim, full ofloyalty and courage and energy; Jim who wanted to give his life formine, though he thought he'd lost you. He had never really lost you,Elsie. The road that led to you seemed so attractive that I hesitated,till now I see that it was Jim's road. It always was."
In the silence that followed she lifted her exquisite face. Her lipswere parted, and in her gaze was a light that came as throughdissolving mist. And then into their very souls crept the voice of therapids. Clark caught it, and perceived that the call was not for himalone but for thousands yet unborn, and there began to creep over himthe ineffable unction of labor. He realized how large was the world,and how much work yet remained to be done. His spirit was notsolitary, but linked forever with eternal realities, and through thecloud that obscured the present he could see his star of destinyshining undimmed.
And Elsie! Elsie sat, her whole being shaken with overwhelmingemotion. Never had she so longed to be everything to this man as nowwhen, with prophetic power, his vibrant voice told her that he mustjourney on alone. In his accents she recognized the note of fate, andthe ground shifted under her feet. She saw her dream dissolving. Sheperceived that against his lofty spirit she herself must oppose nothingsmall and selfish, however poignant the moment. Summoning all herfortitude, she stretched out her hand.
He stood for a moment, and she felt the pressure of his grasp. It waswarm and confident. When she looked up she was alone.
It was hours afterwards that Ardswell and Weatherby lounged at theirwindows, overhanging the terrace. They were in dressing gowns andsmoking contemplative pipes. Down below was seated a motionless grayclad figure, clearly outlined in the moonlight. Ardswell saw him.
"Poor devil!" he said under his breath.
XXV.--THE UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT
Two years later, Belding and Elsie were returning from Chicago, wherethe former had been purchasing machinery for the new company, of whichhe was chief engineer. Time had done well for them and for St. Marys.The six months' physical inactivity of the works were spent wisely, ifruthlessly, in weeding out unfertile growths and concentratingresources on those which were sound and promising. There was a sharpdistinction between this deliberate policy and the restless activitythat preceded it.
St. Marys, too, had caught its breath and taken on permanency. Therewere no more surprises. The works became a factory, instead of aPandora's box, full of the unexpected. Property was stable, if lowerthan the high water mark, while Filmer and the rest settled down tosteady business, somewhat forgetful of the man to whom were due thefirst tendrils of the tree of progress.
But Belding, growing constantly in mental stature, could never forget.His own position--his development--his authority, had come of theabiding faith bestowed on him nine years ago by one whom he had thenseen but for ten minutes. And as often as he saw the works therealization came over him. How many others, he wondered, felt as hedid?
They were approaching St. Marys, and, coming out of the dining car withElsie, he steadied her to their seat. Night was drawing on, but thecar remained unlighted, and simultaneously they noticed a man sittingacross the aisle, staring intently out of the window. Somethingfamiliar in the figure caught their attention.
"It's Mr. Clark," he whispered to his wife.
She glanced across, and her fingers tightened on his arm.
"Don't speak to him, Jim."
"Why?"
"Look at him, can't you see?"
Belding looked, Clark was absolutely motionless, and had not changed afraction in two years. The train moved on, till it halted for a fewmoments on the great bridge. The air was cool and full of the deeproar of the rapids, and the car vibrated delicately with the huge steelgirders on which it rested. Two hundred feet away came the first,smooth dip that Belding would always remember. Immediately beneath, hehad slid into the chaos further on.
The two young people did not stir, but watched the silent observer.Against the window they caught the dominant nose, the clean cut,powerful chin, the aggressive contour of head and shoulders. Clark wasleaning forward, his gaze exploring the well remembered scene.
"Don't disturb him," whispered Elsie again.
Her husband pressed her hand, and they waited, wondering what thoughtswere passing through that marvelous brain. He was staring at theworks. It was all his--this dream come true; this vision portrayed insteel and stone. Out of nothing but water and wood and his own superbfaith he had created it, only to see this exemplification of himselfslip from his own hands into those of others, who had sponsored neitherits birth nor its magnificent development. What portion of his leader,pondered the engineer, had been incorporated in those vastfoundations--and what had life left in store to replace them for him?
The train was moving on, when Clark, turning suddenly, smiled and heldout his hand.
"Glad to see you both, if only for a minute. I'm on my way back toRussia, where I'm carrying out large improvements for thegovernment--been there for the last year. By the way, Belding, did younotice that old, crooked birch beside the rapids? A big, fatkingfisher used to live there--we knew each other well."
CONCLUSION
The sumac leaves, which through the summer months tapped delicately atmy study window, have turned a vivid scarlet, and one by one havefluttered to the ground. Here, by the mysterious process of nature,they will be incorporated with the rich soil, to nourish some otherlife that will later climb sunward. But in that life no one shallrecognize a sumac leaf.
So it seems are the efforts of men. A few years of growth andaspiration--then the fiery bourgeoning to a climax, and, after that,incorporation in the soil of a forgetfulness that seems indifferentalike to their exertions and their ambitions. But the end is not here.Somewhere, and most certainly in some other form, the effort achievesimmortality and reasserts itself, indestructible and eternal. For suchare the myriad filaments of existence, and so indissolubly are menlinked with each other by invisible chains, that it is but seldom thatimpulse can be traced back to its birth, or courage to its startingpoint.
Who then shall determine what is success and what is failure? Does thegrandeur of the reward establish the value of the service, or is it nottrue that, in the mysterious cycle of time, the richest field is notseldom sown by hands that have been without honor or recognition intheir season? Does wealth or authority spell success, or is it themeed of those who have given rather than taken, who have toiled on themountain side rather than sought the peaks of publicity? Clark came toSt. Marys a poor man, and he left it no whit the richer. What he made,he spent. And when the day of his departure dawned, he went as one whohad attempted and failed, carrying with him the resentment of those wholost, and few thanks from those who profited.
But did Clark actually fail?
To-day the mines of Algoma are supplying steel rails for Asiaticrailways; the forests about St. Marys are yielding pulp for Australia,and the great power house is sending carbide to the mines of India.This and much more is the fruit of vision. What matter thatPhiladelphia stormed, and that the reins of government were snatchedfrom those masterful hands? The dream has come true.
Consider for a moment this man, who is stranger to most. He desiredneither wealth nor ease, being filled with a vast hunger for creation,and to forest, mountain and river he turned with confidence and abidingcourage. It was as though nature herself had whispered misty secretsin his ear. Being a prophet, he suffered like a prophet, but theyears, rolling on, have enabled him to look back on the
later flower ofhis earlier days, for it was written that he should plow and othersreap. And of necessity it was so. Like the prospector who finds goldin the wilderness and straightway shoulders his pack to seek forfurther treasure, his unwearying soul drove him on in steadfast pursuitof that which lay just over the hill. It was not the thing that lay athis feet which fascinated, but the promise of the morrow, whose dawnalready gilded the horizon of his spirit.
Clark, with his impetuous energy, is typical of a country in which fewachievements are impossible. He provided his own motive power and usedhis hypnotic influence only in one direction--that of progress. Everfaithful to his destiny, he was too busy to have time to suffer, toooccupied to waste himself in regrets. Like the rapids themselves, hiswork moves on, and in its deep rumble may be distinguished the confusednote of humanity, striving and ever striving.
THE END
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