Yet there seemed to be no lack of money. It lay in banks, it went begging for good security. Where was there any good security? Every inch of ground, every building, stocks and furniture, were covered by mortgages. Stock companies trembled in the balance, and went down like card-houses. Everybody wanted to sell every thing, but there were no buyers. Everybody wanted to work, but there was nothing to do. Everybody was in a chronic state of grumbling; there was no profit to be made in farming, in manufacturing, in any thing. There had been too much over-production, for which every one blamed his neighbor. The great warehouses were full of grain, the mills loaded up with iron, the factories full of cloth and flannels and cottons; and yet people were going hungry and in rags. It was puzzling and painful. We had bought too much abroad, and sent the money out of the country, the balance of trade would make it all right again; there had been over-production, and now there must be a vigorous repression; there had been too much speculation in real estate; there had been too great an accumulation of capital in the business centres; we were fast verging to the state of older countries, where there were the few rich and the many poor: there was a surplus of labor, and was there not also a surplus of people?
There was another sad side to it all, that made Jack's heart ache. These young men and boys tramping through the country, begging or worse, swearing, telling foul stories, herding together anywhere, corrupting one another's morals, smoking, drinking,—somehow they managed to obtain these indulgences,—looking furtively out of languid, sodden eyes, their faces hard and worn, their voices coarse and gruff; and they were to be the next generation of what?—loyal and honest citizens, or jail-birds?
It was not all so sombre. At five and twenty a healthy, unwarped nature is many-sided. There were countless marvels to see and to study. He stumbled over people who had known Mr. Lawrence, and who had a kindly feeling for a Hope Mills man. And he had done something more in the last eight years than merely learn how to make cloth. He had dipped into chemistry, and knew a little about dyes; he had studied up in grades and kinds of wool, and was interested in labor processes. With fresh opportunities he looked into it more closely, observed new methods of decreasing waste, or saving labor. He was a well-informed, well-mannered, sensible fellow; and occasionally some one would say of him, "A smart, long-headed chap, that! The world will hear of him some day, or I am mistaken."
He kept looking about for some place where, if the world did not hear of him, he might get a chance in some enterprise where he could take a few steps upward. There certainly were more men than places. The world was a bee-hive, surely; but alas for those who swarmed out in such times as these!
After he had gone as far West as Minnesota, he went down the Mississippi to a different kind of civilization in the quaint old cities. It was none the less heart-sickening. He found traces of the war, that we had almost forgotten, fresh at every step; still it seemed as if the hand of Nature was much more bounteous than at the bleak North. Yet Bishop Heber's old missionary hymn rang continually through his mind. Even amid the Florida orange-groves, and the great cotton-fields, some cause brought about baleful results, in the unwisdom of man.
Then to the cities of luxury and thrift, where wealth was strong enough to crowd poverty out one side, where art and music and cultivation made a subtile atmosphere that somehow recalled the Lawrences. He lingered and quaffed delightsome draughts, and at last tore himself away from seductive sights and sounds. In a dim, half-defined way the delights came to him. Would he ever be stoic enough to spurn them?
Last of all, home with its sweet welcomes, its cleanliness and order, its familiar furniture and cheerful fires, its easy-chairs and quaint fragrant air, as if every thing had lain in dried rose-leaves; the mother love and tears, the smiles out of dimmer eyes, and cousin Jane Morgan's hearty greeting; to say nothing of his delicious supper and his own bed, where sleep seemed awaiting him with open arms.
His mother had written a good deal of Yerbury gossip to him, but it had been mostly of the pleasant order. When he dropped into Maverick's office the next day, and was welcomed so heartily that it was like a brother's greeting, he listened to the other side. Affairs were worse than ever. The bank had gone into liquidation, and would pay about forty per cent. Property mortgages had been foreclosed right and left; there was nothing, scarcely, doing; there had been want and misery and sickness, and now diphtheria was raging.
"So you see the revival didn't do every thing," said Maverick grimly. "I'm of the opinion, if some of them had preached less, and distributed bread and broth with a freer hand, it would have been more of a good work. The praying would be well enough in its place, and, for those old fellows who pray on a full stomach, very enjoyable, I dare say. But I'd like them to look after their drains and their wells and their cisterns before they ask the Almighty to sanctify these afflictions to the poor wretches who suffer from them. And now, Jack Darcy, what are you going to do? Have you found better pastures?" and Maverick glanced up with curious inquiry.
"No," replied Jack, rather reluctantly it must be confessed. It seemed to him now that he had been spending his time for nought, unless pleasure counted, and he felt a trifle ashamed of it.