Presently they ate together, and when Ernest Trood drove up in a dog-cart, lent by Mr. Trenchard, he found Kellock calm and contented. Medora sat behind, and joined in the conversation as they trotted through the green lanes to Totnes.
The master had sent cheering messages to Jordan, and hoped to see him on the following day.
“He’s not a bit troubled,” said Trood. “He reckons that with a man of your fine physique and constitution—a man that lives the life you lead—this is a flea-bite—just a shake-up along of some trifle. And if you’ve got to chuck it and go away for six weeks even, he’s not going to trouble about it.”
“Like him,” said Kellock. “But it won’t be any question of six weeks, or six days, Ernest. I’ve got a feeling about this that I shall be right in twenty-four hours, or not at all. I’m not letting it get on my nerves, you understand. If it’s gone, it’s gone. There’s plenty of work for me in the world, whether at the vat, or somewhere else.”
“Never heard better sense,” answered the foreman. “All the same, don’t you throw up the sponge—that would be weak. You must remember you’re a great paper maker, Jordan, and there are not any too many of ’em left in England now-a-days. So it’s up to every man that’s proud of his business to stick to it.”
“You take that to heart, Jordan,” advised Medora. “Not that there isn’t greater work in the world than paper-making—we all know that.”
“No, we don’t know anything of the sort,” answered Trood. “Don’t you talk nonsense, Medora, because I won’t hear it. Paper stands for civilisation, and the better the paper, the higher the civilisation. You’d soon see that if anything happened to spoil paper and raise the price of rag. If the quality of paper goes down, that’s a sure sign the quality of civilisation’s doing the same. By its paper you can judge a nation, and English paper, being the best in the world, helps to show we’re first in the world. And if a man like Kellock was to hide his light under a bushel, his conscience would very soon tell him about it.”
Jordan smiled at Mr. Trood’s enthusiasm.
“I love my work,” he said, “and should never give it up, unless it gave me up, Ernest, but for one reason—that I could do something better.”
“That you never would, if they made you king of England,” replied the foreman. “You’d never be so good at anything else as you are at paper-making, because you’ve got the natural genius for the job. That’s your gift—and you may lecture or you may stand on your head, or do any other mortal thing, but you won’t do it as well as you do your work at the vat.”