Hope Mills - Amanda Minnie Douglas (icecream ebook reader .txt) 📗

upon for a speech. He did himself infinite credit, for in these five years not a man among them had made more rapid strides than Jack Darcy. As he stood there now, noble in form, in bearing, and with his good, strong, manly face, they felt somehow that he was _their_ hero, and the cheering was heartier than ever.

Then Cameron must say a few words, and Ben Hay and Jesse Gilman; and, as Jack declared afterward, it was a regular experience-meeting among brethren. They pressed around, and shook hands with Darcy and Winston, the captain and the pilot with whom they had weathered gales, and been brought safely into port. And they would not let them stir out of the building until they had appointed a meeting to form the company again, this time on a somewhat stronger basis. They were firmly convinced now that this was the only way in which it was possible for workmen to make any advancement.

At length the crowd began to disperse. Jack started homeward; but, before he had walked half the distance, Davy, one of the men who had gone out in the first trouble, confronted him suddenly, seizing his hand.

"O Mr. Darcy!" said he in a most eager tone, "are you going to form over again? Do you think there's a chance for me to be taken back? There hasn't been a day nor a night but what I've cursed myself for being such a fool as to let anybody talk me out of a good job. I see just how it is now. And, if I can get back again, I'll stand by the old ship through thick and thin. O Mr. Darcy! please speak a good word for me!"

"That I will, Davy, if it is needed."

"Thank you, thank you, a thousand times!" cried the poor fellow gratefully.

Yerbury had plenty of praise now. To be sure, times _had_ improved. If every year had been like the second, it would not have been possible to make co-operation work; but then, would it have been possible to carry on any business with continual loss? The starting of Hope Mills had inspired other disheartened firms, and given an impetus to Yerbury industries that might have lain much longer in the Slough of Despond.

Fred and Sylvie came over to the Darcys to tea that evening, and Maverick dropped in of course.

"Mrs. Darcy," he exclaimed, "I do not see why you did not have a daughter for me to marry! Then we could all have been relations, you see. I think it a great mistake on your part."

Mrs. Darcy glanced at her son with a peculiar light in her eyes.

Jack laughed. "She is thinking," he explained, "that if there had been another one, I should have gone off long ago to seek my fortune. I have learned that God may have better work for one than simply following out his own will;" and his voice dropped to a reverential tone.

Maverick studied him with a peculiar interest. All these years there had been growing up in Jack Darcy a plant of nobler promise than mere worldly ambition. Not that he in any manner despised wealth: he had come to understand its true uses. The same power that had educated the workmen had been going on with silent, steady processes in him. He had come to comprehend the dignity of the soul, and that God desired his return in the deeds done for one another, in the continual progress, the greatness, nobleness, and loyalty we offered "to one of the least of these." Was this true religion,--the simple doctrine of the Cross? And Maverick bowed his head in unconscious reverence.

They started homeward presently. Sylvie and Irene had some "last words" about baby Lawrence, and the two men paced up and down the porch a few moments.

"Thank God that it all came out so well!" said Jack in his strong, reverent tone.

Fred put his arm over Jack's shoulder. The two men seemed types of all that was highest and finest in human nature.

"Jack," began the other in his full, rich tone, tremulous with emotion, "do you remember that in my romantic boyhood I used to liken you to King Arthur? You have merged into a nobler hero since that day. Who but a Sir Galahad, true, strong, unselfish, at once just yet tender, ambitious for the Holy Grail of our times, yet never swerving from the path of honor; keeping his own soul stainless amid the many temptations of the world--who save such a soul could have gone on in your path to the end? And of the other Christ-like virtue"--

"Don't, don't, Fred! You always did rate me too highly, you know. I am only a man."

"It is something to be a man in these days," returned the other.

The shady blue eyes smiled out of their twilight depth.

"Fred, where are you?" cried a sweet voice.

"You gave me _her_. You taught me to gain the great prize of my life as surely as you trained the men in the mill yonder. God bless you!"
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Publication Date: 06-08-2010

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