The Witness

by Grace Livingston Hill

Something, somewhere was holding him back. He did not know why, he did not see for how long. He simply could not make that decision to-night! He must await permission before moving.

Possibly the trip to the factory the next day, which he had promised to take, might give him some light in the matter. Possibly he would find counsel somewhere. But where? He thought of Gila. He took out a lovely photograph of her that she had given him before he left her Sunday night—a charming, airy, idealistic thing of earth and fire that had lain innocently open upon the library table where some one (?) had left it earlier in the day. He stood it up on his desk and studied the spirited will-o'-the-wisp face! Then he turned away sadly and shook his head. She would not understand. Not yet! Some time, when he had told her about the Presence—but not yet! She could not understand because she had not seen for herself.

Tennelly and his uncle went down-town in the morning and took lunch together. Courtland was to meet them at the factory at three o'clock, but somehow he missed them. Perhaps it was intention. Courtland went early. He wanted to see things for himself; went alone first. Afterward he could go the rounds to satisfy Mr. Thomas, but first he would see it alone.

Then, after all, it was the Rev. Robert Burns who met him at the door and took him through the factory, bent on seeing some parishioner on an errand of love. And there was that strange sense of the Presence having been there before them, walking about among the machinery, looking at the tired face of one, sorrowing over the wrinkles in another forehead, pitying the weary hands that toiled, blessing the faithful! It reminded him of the morgue in that. For a minute he began to think that if the Presence was here in this peculiar sense, then, of course, it was an indication that he was needed here to work for these people, as Uncle Ramsey had tried with strange worldly wisdom to make him understand. But then, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the face of the little minister, white under its freckles, with a righteous wrath as he fixed his gaze sternly on the door at the end of the long room. He looked up quickly to hear the click of a key in a lock as the foreman passed from one room to another.

He glanced down at the minister and their eyes met.

"They lock them in here like sheep in a pen. If a fire should break out they would all die!" said the minister under his breath. His lips were trembling with the helplessness of himself against the power of a great trust.

"You don't say!" said Courtland, startled. It was his first view of conditions of this sort. He looked about with eyes alive to things he had not seen before. "But I thought this was a model factory! Isn't it absolutely fire-proof?"

"Somewhat so, on the outside!" shrugged Burns. "It's a whited sepulcher, that's what it is. Beautiful marble and vines, beautiful rest-room and library—for the visitors to rest and read in—beautiful restaurant where the girls must buy their meals at the company's prices or go without; beautiful outside everywhere; but it's rotten, absolutely rotten all through! Look at the width of that staircase! That's the one the employees use. The visitors only see the broad way by which you came up. Look at those machines! All painted and gilded! They are old models and twice as heavy to work as the new ones, but we can't get them to make changes. Look at those seats, put there to impress the visitors! The fact is not one of the hands dare use them, except a minute now and then when the foreman happens to leave the room! They know they will get docked in their pay if they are caught sitting down at their work! And yet it is always flaunted before the visitors that the workmen can sit down when they like. So they can, but they can go home without a pay-envelope if they do, when Saturday night comes. Oh, there is enough here to make one's blood boil! You're interested in these things? I wish you'd let me tell you more some time. About the long hours, the stifling air in some rooms, and the little children working in spite of the law! I wish men like you would come down here and help clean this section out and make conditions different! Why don't you come and help me?"

The minister laid his hand on Courtland's arm, and instantly it seemed as if the Presence came and stood beside him and said: "Here! This is your work!"

With a great conviction in his heart Courtland turned and followed Burns down the broad marble stairs out to the office, where he left word for Tennelly and his uncle that he had been there and had to go, but would see them again that evening, and then down the street to Burns's common little boarding-house, where they sat down and talked the rest of the afternoon. Burns opened Courtland's eyes to many things that he had not known were in the world. It was as if he laid his hands upon him and said, as of old: "Brother Saul, receive thy sight!"