The Good Time Coming

"Yes. Only two parties in this city are to be in the Company, and we have the first offer."

"You intend to accept?"

"Of course. In fact, I have accepted. At the same time, I assured Mr. Fenwick that he might depend on you."

"But for this strange story about Mr. Lyon's return to the city—a death's-head at our banquet—there would not be, in my mind, the slightest hesitation."

"It is only a shadow," said Mr. Markland.

"Shadows do not create themselves," replied Mr. Brainard.

"No; but mental shadows do not always indicate the proximity of material substance. If Mr. Lyon wrote to you that he was about starting for Mexico, depend upon it, he is now speeding away in that direction. He is not so sorry a trifler as Mr Lamar's hasty conclusion would indicate."

"A few days for reflection and closer scrutiny will not in the smallest degree affect the general issue, and may develope facts that will show the way clear before us," said Mr. Brainard. "Let us wait until we hear again from Mr. Lyon, before we become involved in large responsibilities."

"I do not see how I can well hold back," replied Mr. Markland. "I have, at least, honourably bound myself to Mr. Fenwick."

"A few days can make no difference, so far as that is concerned," said Mr. Brainard, "and may develope facts of the most serious importance. Suppose it should really prove true that Mr. Lyon returned, in a secret manner, from the South, would you feel yourself under obligation to go forward without the clearest explanation of the fact?"

"No," was the unhesitating answer.

"Very well. Wait for a few days. Time will make all this clearer."

"It will, no doubt, be wisest," said Mr. Markland, in a voice that showed a slight depression of feeling.

"According to Mr. Lamar, if the man he saw was Lyon, he evidently wished to have a private interview with yourself."

"With me?"

"Certainly. Both Mr. Lamar and the hotel-keeper refer to his going to, or being in, the neighbourhood of the cars that run in the direction of 'Woodbine Lodge.' It will be well for you to question the various members of your household. Something may be developed in this way."

"If he had visited Woodbine Lodge, of course I would have known about it," said Mr. Markland, with a slightly touched manner, as if there were something more implied by Mr. Brainard than was clearly apparent.

"No harm can grow out of a few inquiries," was answered. "They may lead to the truth we so much desire to elucidate, and identify the person seen by Mr. Lamar as a very different individual from Mr. Lyon."

Under the existing position of things, no further steps in the very important business they had in progress could be taken that day. After an hour's further conference, the two men parted, under arrangement to meet again in the morning.

CHAPTER XII

IT was scarcely mid-day when Mr. Markland's carriage drew near to Woodbine Lodge. As he was about entering the gateway to his grounds, he saw Mr. Allison, a short distance beyond, coming down the road. So he waited until the old gentleman came up.

"Home again," said Mr. Allison, in his pleasant, interested way, as he extended his hand. "When did you arrive?"

"Last evening," replied Mr. Markland.

"Been to the city this morning, I suppose."

"Yes. Some matters of business required my attention. The truth is, Mr. Allison, I grow more and more wearied with my inactive life, and find relief in any new direction of thought."

"You do not design re-entering into business?"

"I have no such present purpose." Mr. Markland stepped from his carriage, as he thus spoke, and told the driver to go forward to the house. "Though it is impossible to say where we may come out when we enter a new path. I am not a man to do things by halves. Whatever I undertake, I am apt to prosecute with considerable activity and concentration of thought."

"So I should suppose. It is best, however, for men of your temperament to act with prudence and wise forethought in the beginning—to look well to the paths they are about entering; for they are very apt to go forward with a blind perseverance that will not look a moment from the end proposed."

"There is truth in your remark, no doubt. But I always try to be sure that I am right before I go ahead. David Crockett's homely motto gives the formula for all high success in life."

"Yes; he spoke wisely. There would be few drones in our hive, if all acted up to his precept."

"Few, indeed. Oh! I get out of all patience sometimes with men in business; they act with such feebleness of nerve—such indecision of purpose. They seem to have no life—none of those clear intuitions that spring from an ardent desire to reach a clearly-seen goal. Without earnestness and concentration, nothing of more than ordinary importance is ever effected. Until a man taxes every faculty of his mind to the utmost, he cannot know the power that is in him."

"Truly said. And I am for every man doing his best; but doing it in the right way. It is deplorable to see the amount of wasted effort there is in the world. The aggregate of misapplied energy is enormous."

"What do you call misapplied energy?" said Markland.

"The energy directed by a wrong purpose."

"Will you define for me a wrong purpose?"

"Yes; a merely selfish purpose is a wrong one."

"All men are selfish," said Mr. Markland.

"In a greater or less degree they are, I know."

"Then all misapply their energies?"

"Yes, all—though not always. But there is a beautiful harmony and precision in the government of the world, that bends man's selfish purposes into serving the common good. Men work for themselves alone, each caring for himself alone; yet Providence so orders and arranges, that the neighbour is more really benefited than the individual worker toiling only for himself. Who is most truly served—the man who makes a garment, or the man who enjoys its warmth? the builder of the house, or the dweller therein? the tiller of the soil, or he who eats the fruit thereof? Yet, how rarely does the skilful artisan, or he who labours in the field, think of, or care for, those who are to enjoy the good things of life he is producing! His thought is on what he is to receive, not on what he is giving; and far too many of those who benefit the world by their labour are made unhappy when they think that others really enjoy what they have produced—if their thought ever reaches that far beyond themselves."

"Man is very selfish, I will admit," said Mr. Markland, thoughtfully.

"It is self-love, my friend," answered the old man, "that gives to most of us our greatest energy in life. We work ardently, taxing all our powers, in the accomplishment of some end. A close self-examination will, in most cases, show us that self is the main-spring of all this activity. Now, I hold, that in just so far as this is the case, our efforts are misapplied."

"But did you not just admit that the world was benefited by all active labour, even if the worker toiled selfishly? How, then, can the labour be misapplied?"

"Can you not see that, if every man worked with the love of benefiting the world in his heart, more good would be effected than if he worked only for himself?"

"Oh, yes."

"And that he would have a double reward, in the natural compensation that labour receives, and in the higher satisfaction of having done good."

"Yes."

"To work for a lower end, then, is to misapply labour, so far as the man is concerned. He robs himself of his own highest reward, while Providence bends the efforts he makes, and causes them to effect good uses to the neighbour he would, in too many cases, rather insure than benefit."

"You have a curious way of looking at things, or, rather, into them," said Mr. Markland, forcing a smile. "There is a common saying about taking the conceit out of a man, and I must acknowledge that you can do this as effectually as any one I ever knew."

"When the truth comes to us," said the old gentleman, smiling in return, "it possesses the quality of a mirror, and shows us something of our real state. If we were more earnest to know the truth, so far as it applied to ourselves, we would be wiser, and, it is to be hoped, better. Truth is light, and when it comes to us it reveals our true relation to the world. It gives the ability to define our exact position, and to know surely whether we are in the right or the wrong way. How beautifully has it been called a lamp to our path! And truth possesses another quality—that of water. It cleanses as well as illustrates."