Hope Mills by Amanda Minnie Douglas (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

the terrible truth. As well send for him now.

He wrote out a message, and rang the bell. A tall, slim youth answered it.

"I want this telegram sent immediately," he said in his quiet tone of command. "Is Farrell anywhere about?"

"I can take it, sir, if you please: I often do."

"Very well."

Back to the books again with their long lines of figures. Did he think he would find the shame and ruin here in bold black and white? He studied them until they all ran together, and his brain seemed to become a mass of luminous light with black motes floating about in it. The tense agony abated. Strange visions haunted him, frivolous fancies, and wonders that had puzzled him in boyhood; heroic fragments of bygone declamation; the incidents of a week ago; a picture of some bold scenery, and he in the cars, whirling by.

"Am I going crazy?" he asked with a ghastly expression. Then he took several turns about the room, listened to the noise of the great engine, and assured himself that he was sane.

Had he better go home? He was so tired! In all his life he had never been so utterly exhausted. Then in a sudden, fretful mood of contradiction he wondered he should think of fatigue when his limbs felt strong, and his body knew no physical pain.

"I must shake it off!" he declared resolutely. Of what avail would be going home to a wife's peevish complaints, and sit by himself to study out this tangle? As well stay here, and master it. And that palace yonder was home, and these were the comforts for which he had spent his years and his energies! This was what he had laid up. An inheritance incorruptible--why would these things come back to him?

The mill-bell began its clang. He listened to the tramp through the passage-ways, the confusion of voices. He went to the window. The great gates for the work-hands were around on the other side; but he could see the motley procession filing down the street. Not gay and cheerful as in bygone days: they seemed to drag along, these girls and women in shabby clothes, their shawls drawn around their shoulders. Old men and boys--why, where had vigorous middle life disappeared? So many faces had a hard, discontented look, that pierced him like the sharp point of ingratitude. Had he not brought himself to ruin to give the people employment? If he had shut down the mill three years ago, he would have been a rich man.

Well, why had he not? Was it thought for them? Had the prospect of their starving lain heavily on his soul?

Ah, the love of money-getting, the fiend of covetousness! But what would these people have done? Some one had once said, "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." Was it in a sermon?

He lighted the gas, and went on wearily with his books. Some one opened the door softly, and peered in. It was Farrell, the day-man. When he saw Mr. Lawrence he touched his cap respectfully.

"Pardon me, sir: I saw a light"--

"Yes, I am going to stay--all night, I think: I shall be busy. When does the night-man come?"

"At seven, sir."

"I will send a note up to Hope Terrace, Farrell. Could you take it?"

The man thought of his long day's work and his waiting supper. "Yes," he answered rather reluctantly.

"Stop in, then, when you go."

Farrell went off grumbling. He would go home to supper first, that he would. These men had no souls. That long walk-- Some people always rode in chaises, were born with silver spoons in their mouths, and looked on the rest of the world as mere lackeys!

There was some wine in the closet, and Mr. Lawrence took a glass to clear his brain. He rarely used it save at dinner. Then back to the tormenting books,--columns of business that appeared incredible now. How had all this money slipped away?

Farrell tapped, and came in.

"Jackson's here now, sir. Is the note ready?"

"Yes. There is some change. Get a hack, Farrell: it is too far to walk. Did Mr. Eastman"--

There was so long a pause that Farrell said,--

"Mr. Eastman went to New York. He said he might not be back to-morrow."

Mr. Lawrence nodded, as if that were sufficient. He would not peer into the man's business.

"If you should want any thing, sir, Jackson will be at hand," said the man kindly; for the thin, pale face, and strange, nervous light in the eyes startled him.

"Jackson," he began, when outside, "Mr. Lawrence is going to stay a bit, maybe all night. He has a great pile of books before him; but I'm afraid he's queer some way. His eyes look wild and strange. Keep a lookout, will you"--

"You don't mean that he's likely to shuffle? Are things as bad as that? Has he got a pistol?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe I'm wrong;" and Farrell counted over the money in his hand. "Anyhow, I would walk up and down this hall, and listen."

Jackson nodded, and Farrell went his way; yet now he thought the brisk walk would not hurt him. Jackson heeded his bidding, but all was quiet. Once he went in the next room, and climbed up to a high sliding window, used for ventilation. Mr. Lawrence sat there poring over the books. At twelve it was the same. Jackson tolled off the hour of midnight. Every thing was safe in the great building. Then he settled himself in an easy-chair, and presently fell into a doze.

Meanwhile Mr. Lawrence studied the books in a dazed, bewildered way. Here and there a balance had been struck, and it all looked fair. But there was a terrible wrong somewhere!

The figures danced before his eyes in lurid lights and grotesque shapes, with grinning faces, flying, whirling, in a wild, demoniac waltz. The room was full. The procession he had watched to-night winding out from the mill, stopped and jeered, and pointed skinny fingers at him. Then he was at the bank, and they came in troops, wringing their hands, and cursing him. Strange tales that he had read mixed with them in inextricable confusion. Pictures of the past hurried by with panoramic distinctness; and hark! what was that? The grand trump of the Judgment Day? It tolled and tolled again, like a thunder-peal. Was any one dead?

He was so tired! He put his arms down on the desk, and leaned his face on them. If he could sleep off this intolerable weariness!

He was a boy again, wading through the limpid brook, stepping from stone to stone, and sometimes plashing over. Was that the dried sweetness of balsam,--the pungent odor of pennyroyal and water-mint,--the clean, resinous fragrance of the pines? Out there were lily-pads,--great golden-hearted chalices, with long, sinuous greenish-pink stems under the shady, transparent water. How cool and peaceful! The sky overhead was of palest blue with white flecks, and somewhere a bird was singing. If he could go to it; if he could stay amid all this sweet quiet, and forget-- What was it he wanted to forget? Not his little Fred, surely! How proud he should be of him in his manhood. What a help and comfort!

There was a strange, sudden darkness. The head drooped a little one side, and the visions had come to an end.


CHAPTER IX.

WHEN Farrell returned to his post in the morning, Jackson reported Mr. Lawrence asleep in the office. No one thought of him again until about ten o'clock, when some protested notes came in. Jeffries knocked at the door, opened it softly, spoke, but received no answer; then stepped nearer, and peered curiously at the face. It was ghastly white, the eyes wide open and staring, and with a shriek Jeffries alarmed the whole establishment.

Old Dr. Lecounte came, pronounced him dead, and then sent for Dr. Maverick, to whom he had taken a great liking. Between them both they found a faint sign of life; and he was removed to his elegant mansion on Hope Terrace, where his wife went into immediate and violent hysterics. They remained several hours, and decided it to be that terrible death in life, entire paralysis of brain, nerve, and muscle. He might linger some days; he might drop away any moment.

Horace Eastman, looking over the news items the next morning, saw this account, and returned at once to Yerbury. Certainly fortune had favored him. Affairs were in wild confusion. He learned that a telegram had been sent to young Mr. Lawrence, and an answer received. He would be back next Monday. Mrs. Minor came up, and brought an experienced nurse.

The mill kept open until Saturday. Then Mr. Eastman called the men together.

He was very much puzzled to know what to do, he said. He had resigned his position as superintendent of the mills, nearly a month ago; but Mr. Lawrence had begged him to stay on until he could come to some decision. The affairs were in a very embarrassed condition, and now suspension was imperative. What Mr. Lawrence would have done, he could not tell; but he did not feel justified in taking the responsibility. He was most truly sorry--he could say it from his heart--for those whose cheerful faces and light steps he had watched year after year, until he came to have a friendly feeling for them all; and he was shocked at the result of all this trouble to his dear friend, to whom he was bound by a deeper tie than that of mere business. But there had been two years of unparalleled depression, and Mr. Lawrence had made a brave fight. No one beside himself knew all the difficulties that had beset his old friend's path. It was not only here in Yerbury that trade was dull: it was from the Atlantic to the Pacific. England, Germany, and France were suffering as deeply as ourselves. Production had been overdone by most of the employers using their best efforts to keep their hands at work in the face of a falling market, or no market at all. Shelves were packed with goods everywhere. We were on the eve of a great change, and it would be some time before values would become stable again. If the balance of trade (high-sounding, but imperfectly understood term) could once more turn in our favor; if we could export our surplus goods, and find new markets,--as no doubt we would,--every shop and factory would soon be ringing with the cheerful sound of labor. It would be a hard winter; but he, for one, believed the spring would open auspiciously, that business would revive, homes be prosperous, and every heavy heart light. Let them all take courage for their own future and that of Hope Mills in the hands of its young master. He regretted deeply that there was no money to pay them with to-night; but that would doubtless be attended to soon. He wanted to bid them a cordial good-by, and beg them to stand by young Mr. Lawrence.

There was some rather faint cheering. Troubled eyes questioned despondent eyes; what were they to do with winter coming on? First it was the bank, now the mills, and what next God only could tell.

Fred Lawrence reached Yerbury Monday evening; and at midnight the faint, fluttering soul of his father passed over that mighty river. There had been no return to consciousness. Mrs. Lawrence still lay in her darkened room, unable to bear any sound beyond