“Mrs Emmett is Chafe’s sister—Mrs Chafe, you know, is my aunt,” Hesketh reminded him. “I say, Murchison, I left old Chafe wilder than ever. Wallingham’s committee keep sending him leaflets and things. They take it for granted he’s on the right side, since his interests are. The other day they asked him for a subscription! The old boy sent his reply to the Daily News and carried it about for a week. I think that gave him real satisfaction; but he hates the things by post.”
Lorne laughed delightedly. “I expect he’s snowed under with them. I sent him my own valuable views last week.”
“I’m afraid they’ll only stiffen him. That got to be his great argument after you left, the fact that you fellows over here want it. He doesn’t approve of a bargain if the other side sees a profit. Curiously enough, his foremen and people out in Chiswick are all for it. I was talking to one of them just before I left—‘Stands to reason, sir,’ he said, ‘we don’t want to pay more for a loaf than we do now. But we’ll do it, sir, if it means downing them Germans; he said.”
Lorne’s eyebrows half-perceptibly twitched. “They do ‘sir’ you a lot over there, don’t they?” he said. “It was as much as I could do to get at what a fellow of that sort meant, tumbling over the ‘sirs’ he propped it up with. Well, all kinds of people, all kinds of argument, I suppose, when it comes to trying to get ‘em solid! But I was going to say we are all hoping you’ll give us a part of your time while you’re in Elgin. My family are looking forward to meeting you. Come along and let me introduce you to my father now—he’s only round the corner.”
“By all means!” said Hesketh, and they fell into step together. As Lorne said, it was only a short distance, but far enough to communicate a briskness, an alertness, from the step of one young man to that of the other. “I wish it were five miles,” Hesketh said, all his stall-fed muscles responding to the new call of his heart and lungs. “Any good walks about here? I asked Emmett, but he didn’t know—supposed you could walk to Clayfield if you didn’t take the car. He seems to have lost his legs. I suppose parsons do.”
“Not all of them,” said Lorne. “There’s a fellow that has a church over in East Elgin, Finlay his name is, that beats the record of anything around here. He just about ranges the county in the course of a week.”
“The place is too big for one parish, no doubt,” Hesketh remarked.
“Oh, he’s a Presbyterian! The Episcopalians haven’t got any hold to speak of over there. Here we are,” said Lorne, and turned in at the door. The old wooden sign was long gone. “John Murchison and Sons” glittered instead in the plate-glass windows, but Hesketh did not see it.
“Why do you think he’ll be in here?” he asked, on young Murchison’s heels.
“Because he always is when he isn’t over at the shop,” replied Lorne. “It’s his place of business—his store, you know. There he is! Hard luck—he’s got a customer. We’ll have to wait.”