David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

The greater part of the land on the north side of the river, as far up as Ythan Brae, had always belonged to the Holts. During the past year the land of Mark Varney, on the south side, had also fallen into their hands. For poor Mark’s wife died, and any hope that his friends were beginning to have that he might redeem his character was quite lost for the time. He sold his place, already heavily burdened with debt, to Jacob Holt; his mother became Mr Maxwell’s housekeeper in the new parsonage, taking her little grandchild with her, and poor Mark went away—none for a while knew whither.

But the chief thing that concerned the people of Gershom was that Jacob Holt had got his land, and the conclusion at once arrived at was that at the point on the river where his pasture and wood-lot met, the new dam was to be made, and that on his land, and on the land opposite, the new factories, and the new town that must grow out of them, were to be built.

“What Jacob ought to do now would be to go right on and make a good beginning on his own account. If there is ever going to be anything done in Gershom, that is the spot for it, and the company would have to come to his terms at last.”

So said Gershom folks, wondering that the rich man of the place should “kind o’ hang back” when such a chance of money-making seemed to lie before him. But Jacob knew several things as yet only surmised by Gershom folks in general. It was by no means certain after all that the Gershom Manufacturing Company would come into existence immediately. And even if it should, the chances were that among its members would be more than one man who would be little likely to yield himself to the dictation or even to the direction of Jacob Holt, as his townsmen had fallen into the way of doing where the outlay of capital was concerned. It would be easy to make a beginning, but Jacob looked further than a beginning.

Gershom was not the only place whose inhabitants cherished the ambition to become a manufacturing community and there were other rivers besides the Beaver running to waste, which might be made available as a manufacturing power. A company, with sufficient amount of stock subscribed and paid for, might agree to put Fosbrooke, or Fairfax, or Crowsville down as the name, and carry their money, and their influence, and the chance of acquiring wealth to either of their thriving towns; and a beginning in Gershom would amount to very little in such a case.

And then the river bank on the Varney place was not, in Mr Holt’s opinion, the best place for the new mills and the new village. It was not to be compared to the point just below which Bear’s Creek, or, as the Flemings called it, Ythan Brae, flowed into the Beaver, and this also belonged to Mr Fleming. Jacob would have liked to make his beginning there. He knew, for he had taken advice on the matter, that at the Varney place no dam of sufficient capacity to answer all the purposes which were contemplated by the company could be made, without at certain seasons of the year so flooding the land above it as to render it useless for any purpose. He might have taken the risk of probable lawsuits, and gone on with the work, if it had depended on him alone to decide the matter. But it did not. Or he would have bought it, but that it belonged to David Fleming, who would listen to no proposal from his “enemy.”

It was not that Mr Fleming was not satisfied with the terms offered. He would listen to no terms. Indeed he refused to discuss the matter with his neighbours, not only with those who might be suspected of wishing for one reason or another to convince him of the folly of not taking advantage of a good offer for his land, but with those who sympathised with him in his dislike to Jacob Holt, who went further than he did even, and called the rich man not only avaricious, but worse. He would listen to nothing about it, but rose and turned his back on the bold man who ventured to approach the subject in his presence.

In all this Jacob Holt felt himself to be hardly used. He declared to himself that he wished to do the right thing by Mr Fleming. He was willing to give him the full value of every foot of his land, and above its value. That the advancement of the interests of the town and the welfare of the whole community should be interfered with, because of an obstinate old man’s whim, seemed to him intolerable; he did not want the land. Let Mr Fleming treat with the company—there was no company as yet, however—and let him pay him his just debt, that was all he asked of him.

He did not speak often about this to any one—not a man in Gershom but had more to say about it than he. But he thought about it continually. If it had been any other man in Gershom who had so withstood him, he would long ago have taken such measures as would have brought him to his senses. He could do so lawfully, by and by. The law had sustained him in dealing with much harder cases than Mr Fleming’s, though it was not altogether pleasant to remember some of them. But there could be no question but that it would be for the interest of the Flemings, old and young, were his terms agreed to. No one would have a right to say a word, though he were to carry his point against the old man, and claim what was his due.

All this he said to himself many times, but still he could not do it, at least he could not bring himself to do it at once. His father, though he acknowledged the unreasonableness of his friend, would yet be grieved at the taking of extreme measures against him; his sister would be indignant, and he was a little afraid of Elizabeth. The church union, which he with all the rest of Gershom had earnestly desired, would be endangered; for he knew by many tokens that some of the North Gore men were hanging back because of him. Public opinion would not sustain him in any steps taken against so old a man, and one who had seen so much trouble since he came among them, and he did not wish to take severe measures, he told himself many times. It is just possible that the remembrance of the lad who had been his companion and friend, who had been cut off in the flower of his youth, to the never-dying sorrow of the old man who opposed him, had something to do with his hesitation in this matter. But even to himself this was never acknowledged; all he could do was to wait and see whether some sudden turn of events might not serve to bring about his purpose better than severity could do.