“Oh, did you?” she exclaimed, looking up from the headline––U. & M. Grab Killed in Committee––which she had been feverishly trying to translate into her own language. “Please let me hear. I’m never sure what headlines mean till I go down to the fine print, and then it’s generally something else. I can understand what the Bishop says, I’m sure.”
“Well, it’s only short,” said Jeffrey, unfolding the letter. “He leaves out all the part that he did himself.”
“Of course,” said Ruth simply. “He always does.”
“He says:
“‘You will see from the Albany papers, which will probably reach you before this does, that the special session of the Legislature closed to-night and that the railroad’s bill was not reported to the Senate. It had passed the Assembly, as you know. The bill aroused a measure of just public anger through the newspapers and its authors evidently thought it the part of wisdom not to risk a contest over it in the open Senate. So there can be no legislative action in favour of the railroad before December at the earliest, and I regard it as doubtful that the matter will be brought up even then.’
“You see,” said Jeffrey, “from this you’d never know that he was there present at all. And it was just his speech before the committee that aroused that public anger. Then he goes on:
“‘But we must not make the mistake of presuming that the matter ends here. You and your people are just where you were in the beginning. Nothing has been lost, nothing gained. It is not in the nature of things that a corporation which has spent an enormous amount of money in constructing a line with the one purpose of getting to your lands should now give up the idea of getting them by reason of a mere legislative setback. They have not entered into this business in any half-hearted manner. They are bound to 119 carry it through somehow––anyhow. We must realise that.
“‘We need not speculate upon the soul or the conscience of a corporation or the lack of those things. We know that this corporation will have an answer to this defeat of its bill. We must watch for that answer. What their future methods or their plans may be I think no man can tell. Perhaps those plans are not yet even formed. But there will be an answer. While rejoicing that a fear of sound public opinion has been on your side, we must never forget that there will be an answer.
“‘In this matter, young sir, I have gone beyond the limits which men set for the proper activities of a priest of the church. I do not apologise. I have done this, partly because your people are my own, my friends and my comrades of old, partly because you yourself came to me in a confidence which I do not forget, partly––and most, perhaps––because where my people and their rights are in question I have never greatly respected those limits which men set. I put these things before you so that when the answer comes you will remember that you engaged yourself in this business solely in defence of the right. So it is not your personal fight and you must try to keep from your mind and heart the bitterness of a quarrel. The struggle is a larger thing than that and you must keep your heart larger still and 120 above it. I fear that you will sorely need to remember this.