Swirling Waters Part 31

And he knew that if he carried out orders faithfully and intelligently, his future with his employer was a.s.sured. Larssen had a strong reputation for loyalty to his employees. He exacted much, but he gave much in return. As his own fortunes grew, so did those of his right-hand men. If a man after faithful service was stricken down by illness, Larssen allowed him a liberal pension.

That was "business" as the s.h.i.+powner viewed it in his broad, far-sighted way. He saw business not as the mere handling of goods, but as the handling of _men_. In the attainment of his ambitions he was dependent on faithful service from his employees, and accordingly he made it worth their while to be faithful. He was liberal to them because liberality paid him. His position in the world was somewhat like that of a robber baron in the Middle Ages, carving out a kingdom with the help of loyal followers. The people he plundered were the outsiders, and a certain share of the spoils went to his men.

So Dean knew that if he carried out thoroughly the work entrusted to him, Larssen would stand by his spoken promise. He resolved to obey orders as faithfully and as intelligently as he possibly could. He did not write home what form his new work was taking. In his letters to Daisy he explained simply that he was being sent to Canada on a confidential mission, at a big increase of salary, and that he was having a regal time of it. At Quebec and Montreal and Ottawa and Winnipeg he scoured the shops to find presents which would carry to her a realisation of his new position.

Dean began to feel his importance growing rapidly as he journeyed across the Atlantic and around the princ.i.p.al cities of Canada. He thought he realised the meaning of "business" as it was viewed by the men up above, the men at the roll-top desks. He saw now that it was not hard, plugging work that earned them their big salaries. In a short fortnight he had begun to look a little contemptuously on the grinders and plodders. Why couldn't they realise how little their patient, plodding service could ever bring them? But some men, he reflected, were born to be merely clerks all their days. He was different--out of the common ruck. He could see largely, like Lars Larssen did. He was a man of importance.

Canada pressed a broad thumb on his plastic mind without his conscious knowledge. Canada with her young, red-blooded vigour swept into him like a tidal wave of open sea into a sluggish, marshy creek. Canada thrust her vastness and her limitless potentialities at him with a careless hand, as though to say: "Here's opportunity for the taking." Canada taught him in ten days what at home he would never have learnt in a lifetime: that London is not the British Empire.

The clerk who lives out his life in the rabbit-warren of the city of London by day, and in a cheap, pretentious, red-brick suburb by night, believes firmly that outside London not much matters. He lumps together the Canadian, the South African, the Australian, and the New Zealander under the slighting category of "colonials." He imagines them bowing themselves humbly before the majesty of the Londoner, taking their cues from London and reverencing it as the fount of all wisdom and might and wealth.

There is no one more "provincial" than the c.o.c.kney born and bred.

After ten days of Canada, Dean with his chameleon mind felt himself almost a Canadian. He was beginning to pity the limitations of the Londoner. He considered himself raised above that level.

Winnipeg, the new "wheat pit" of North America, impressed him most strongly. He could feel the bursting strength of the young city--a David amongst cities. He could feel it growing under his feet to its kingdom of the granary of Britain. The epic of the wheat pulsed its stately poetry into him--thrilled him with the majestic chords of its mighty song.

He had a half-idea that Lars Larssen's big scheme was in some way connected with the epic of the wheat, and it gave him fresh importance to think that he was serving such a man in so confidential a position.

He tried a little gamble in "May wheat" with a Winnipeg bucket-shop, plunging what was to him the important sum of twenty dollars. Luck was with him full-tide. From the moment he bought, May wheat shot upwards, and in a few days he had closed the deal with fifty dollars to his credit.

That evening he wandered around the city with money jingling in his trouser-pockets. He bought himself a good seat at a music-hall, and at the bar boldly ordered c.o.c.ktails with weird names of which the contents were wonderful mysteries to him.

On his way home to his hotel about midnight, a flaming placard outside a tin-roofed chapel caught his eye and stopped him for a moment. The wording was crudely sensational:

THE WICKED FLOURIs.h.!.+

BUT FOR HOW LONG?

A LIFETIME OF EASE FOR AN ETERNITY OF h.e.l.l-FIRE!

DO YOU CHOOSE h.e.l.l?

MAKE YOUR CHOICE TO-NIGHT!

The meeting inside the chapel was in full swing. A roar of voices raised in a marching hymn swept out to the deserted street. Dean's lips curved contemptuously for a moment. Then the whim came to him to finish his night's amus.e.m.e.nt by a sarcastic enjoyment of the revivalist service. He would go inside and watch other people making fools of themselves.

He entered the swinging doors of the chapel into a room hot with the odour of packed humanity, and found a place for himself at the rear.

Presently the hymn ended on a shout of triumph and a deep, solemn "Amen." There was a shuffling and sc.r.a.ping of feet as the congregation sat down and prepared itself to listen to the preacher.

He was a tall, lean man of fifty-five, with a thin grey beard and a hawk nose, and eyes that burnt with the intensity of inner fire. He was the ascetic, the fanatic, the man with a burning message to deliver. His eyes sought round his congregation before he gave out his text, seeking for the souls that might be ready for the saving.

"And it came to pa.s.s, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried. And in h.e.l.l he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented."

The preacher read out the words with a slow, even intensity, making them carry the weight of the inevitable. He paused for them to sink in before he began the delivery of his own message.

"My friends," he said, "listen to this story from life. Many years ago there was a young man in this very city who had a great temptation placed before him. He was a clerk in an office, as many of you are. He was ambitious, as many of you are. He was hoping for riches and power, as many of you are.

"One day the devil tempted him. He could become rich if he chose to sacrifice his conscience. The devil promised him riches and power and all that his heart could desire. And he fell.

"My friends, the devil kept his literal promise. He always does. When he comes to you in the watches of the night, and offers you all that you desire on earth in return for your soul, you can know that he will keep his promise.

"The young man is now rich and famous, and if I told you his name, you would say that he is a man to be envied. You see his portraits in the papers; you hear of his mansions and his motor-cars, his yachts and his splendid entertainments; and you would never dream that he is the most unhappy man in Canada.

"The devil has given him everything he l.u.s.ted for. And yet, not ten days ago, he came to me in secret and begged for help and counsel. His riches and power have turned to wormwood in his mouth. His wife and children hate him. His friends are only friends because he has money. He is the most lonely, the most miserable of men."

The preacher leant forward over the pulpit and half whispered: "The wicked flourish like the green bay tree, but who knows what secret canker eats into their hearts? The devil stands beside them and whispers mockingly: 'I have given you everything your heart l.u.s.ted for; does it taste sweet? Does it taste sweet?' So much for this world; and now, my friends, what of the next world?"

The preacher straightened himself and with pa.s.sionate sincerity flung out a torrent of warning and exhortation to his congregation--a lava-stream of burning words that bit into their very souls. Dean, who had come to mock, listened with a clutch at his heart that made him first s.h.i.+ver and then turn burning hot and faint. He pa.s.sed his handkerchief over his forehead nervously, gripped at the seat to steady himself.

At length he could stand the strain no longer As he rose and stumbled his way towards the door, towards the fresh air, the preacher stopped in his discourse to send an individual message to him.

"Stay, my friend!" he cried. "To-night is the hour for you to choose.

To-morrow I shall be gone. To-morrow will be too late. Choose now!"

But Dean had thrust open the swinging doors and had disappeared into the night.

At his hotel the porter handed him a telegram just arrived. It was from Lars Larssen--an order to proceed to New York and wait the s.h.i.+powner's arrival there. It had been despatched by wireless from on board the s.s.

"Aurelia."

That sc.r.a.p of paper came as a bracing tonic to Arthur Dean. It was an order, and just now he ached to be ordered. The curt message out-weighed all the burning words of the preacher. Even from three thousand miles away Lars Larssen could grip hold of the mind of the young fellow and bend it to his purpose.

The next morning Dean was smiling scornfully at his weakness of the night before. He paid for a train ticket for New York via Toronto in a newly confident frame of mind. He was Larssen's man again.

At the beginning of the journey Dean read papers and magazines and smoked away the long hours. Tiring of that eventually, he sauntered to the observation platform at the rear of the train.

And there he found the preacher.

There was an embarra.s.sing silence. The minister knew him at once for the young man who had left his chapel the night before in the middle of the discourse. Dean knew that he was recognized, but did not wish to appear cognizant of it. He tried to look indifferent, but with poor success.

The minister broke the silence by offering his card and saying: "One day you may need my help. If it please the Lord that I am alive then, come to me and I will help you."

Dean took the card and read the name, the Rev. Enoch Stephen Way, and a Toronto address. He pocketed the card and murmured a conventional thanks.

"You are an Englishman?" said the minister.

"Yes."

"Travelling on business?"

"Yes."

The answer was curt, and the minister saw that the young man resented any cross-examination of his private affairs. He therefore turned the conversation at once to impersonal matters.

"How do you like Canada? How does it strike you?"

"Fine!" answered Dean, relieved at the turn of the conversation. "So big."

"You mean the extent of the country?"