"Yes, my dear, it seems wrong. I wonder at a correct person like Penelope Stanley compromising herself in a thing so contrary to all rule. But then, Matilda is flighty; I always thought her flighty. Beware of flightiness, Betsey, and yielding to the momentary impulses of an ill-regulated mind. It never answers. In the touching language of--of--the Psalmist, I suppose--and be sure your impulses will find you out! No, that isn't just it, but it might be; that is the intention of it. But, Mrs. Bruneau, I feel for you"--she rose as she said so, to intimate that the interview was ended--"I feel for you deeply. Be sure of my kindest consideration. When we hear further about your son, we will let you know, and all my influence I promise you to exert on his behalf. Good morning. You may rely on our not making an improper use of what you have told us."
"Madame have give her promesse to be silent. I confide;" and she curtsied herself out, with a confidence which was fast wearing into a misgiving that she would have done more wisely to hold her tongue. A secret shared with two others, who have no interest in maintaining it, has ceased almost to be a secret at all.
CHAPTER XI.
[BLUFF].
The mines brought a rush of trade to St. Euphrase. The drowsy little place, of late years, under the patronage of the railway, had been growing into a sort of sequestered rustic suburb, or at least a rural outlet for dust-stifled townspeople during the dog days, where such as could buy a house might pick their own strawberries, or cut their melon with the dew still on it, for breakfast. It was now breaking into the "live-village" stage of growth, raising its own dust in most respectable clouds, exhaling its own smoke--the villagers had burnt only wood in their golden age, and their atmosphere had been pure--with brawling navvies at the lane corners to disturb the night, and the glare of illuminated saloons, now for the first time able to outface the disapproval of M. le Curé, who hitherto had been able to fend off such dangerous allurements from his simple flock.
As spring advanced things progressed with a rush, and everybody in the district expected to make his fortune forthwith. The cautious habitants, who would not risk their savings in a bank (remembering how once upon a time a bank had broke, and a grandfather had lost some dollars), but hid them away in crannies below the roof or underneath the oven, took courage now, and bought shares. Were not the mines there? visible to the naked eye. Did not Baptiste and Jean earn wages there? paid regularly every Saturday night. The whistle of their steam engine could be heard for miles around, and clouds of smoke drifted across the country, dropping flakes of soot on the linen hung out to dry. It was very real, this--definite and tangible. Had it not raised even the price of hay, which now could be sold at home, for the mine teams, at more than could be got for it in Montreal?
The rustics crowded into town to buy shares, and the price rose higher and higher, till they became so valuable that no one would sell. Still, however, shares were to be got, with exertion, and at a good price, at the offices of the company, which were also those of the Messrs. Herkimer, whose senior partner was president of the company.
The board of directors was so composed as to conciliate the local interests of St. Euphrase--M. Podevin the hotelkeeper, Joseph Webb, Esquire--Esquire meaning J.P.--Farmer Belmore, and Stinson, Ralph's favourite clerk. These met periodically to accept five dollars apiece for their attendance, sanction such proposals as their president might make, and sign the minutes. None of them had an opinion upon the matters to be considered, and even if they had had one, they would have felt it to be indelicate to question the decisions of the city magnate who was making their fortunes; but that mattered little; it was pleasant to sit upon a board, and be paid for sitting, especially when their decision upon the points on which they came to be consulted was already framed, to save them the trouble of consideration, and required only a mute assent. They found their consequence vastly augmented among their neighbours, who all prayed them for advice and private information; which, not having, they found it difficult to give, and had to fall back on their habit, learned at the "board," of looking as wise and saying as little as possible.
It was delightful, for the time being, thus to play at Lord Burleigh, and be thought only the wiser the more they held their tongues; but they little imagined the responsibility they were building up for themselves, when issues of stock unregistered in the company's books, funds not accounted for, and other irregularities had to be explained to infuriated shareholders. The storm was yet in the future, for the present the heavens were shining.
That year both Herkimer and Jordan removed their families to St. Euphrase quite early in the spring, instead of waiting for the summer heats. It was a demonstration of the importance they attached to the mining operations, and their desire to be on the spot. Directly, it was whispered among their acquaintance that fresh discoveries were being made, and cultured persons, who combined science with money-making, hastened to bespeak a summer residence in the favoured village, whence they might scour the neighbourhood on holidays, hammer in hand, rummaging for minerals, and picking up information about the remarkable find already made at La Hache. Every house, and even every shanty, to be let, was secured for the hot months, and some impatient prospectors, unwilling to wait so long, arrived at once, and established themselves with the Père Podevin, whose house had never been so full before, and who, feeling that his fortune was as good as made, began to prepare his family to adorn the great position they were about to fill, withdrew his eldest daughter from the kitchen, where she had been wont to assist, and sent her off to the celebrated convent of St. Cecilia, at Quebec, that she might learn to play the piano, and be turned into a lady.