It is the day after Flamsted's first municipal election; after twenty years of progress it has attained to proud citizenship. The community, now amounting to twelve thousand, has spent all its surplus energy in municipal electioneering delirium; there were four candidates in the field for mayor and party spirit ran high. On this bright May morning of 1910, the streets are practically deserted, whereas yesterday they were filled with shouting throngs. The banners are still flung across the main street; a light breeze lifts them into prominence and with them the name of the successful candidate they bear—Luigi Poggi.

The Colonel, as a result of continued oratory in favor of his son-in-law's candidacy, is laid up at home with an attack of laryngitis; but he has strength left to whisper to Elmer Wiggins who has come up to see him:

"Yesterday, after twenty years of solid work, Flamsted entered upon its industrial majority through the throes of civic travail," a mixture of metaphors that Mr. Wiggins ignores in his joy at the result of the election; for Mr. Wiggins has been hedging with his New England conscience and fearing, as a consequence, punishment in disappointmenting election results. He wavered, in casting his vote, between the two principal candidates, young Emlie, Lawyer Emlie's son, and Luigi Poggi.

As a Flamstedite in good and regular standing, he knew he ought to vote for his own, Emlie, instead of a foreigner. But, he desired above all things to see Luigi Poggi, his friend, the most popular merchant and keenest man of affairs in the town, the first mayor of the city of Flamsted. Torn between his duty and the demands of his heart, he compromised by starting a Poggi propaganda, that was carried on over his counter and behind the mixing-screen, with every customer whether for pills or soda water. Then, on the decisive day, he entered the booth and voted a straight Emlie ticket!! So much for the secret ballot.

He shook the Colonel's hand right heartily.

"I thought I'd come up to congratulate personally both you and the city, and talk things over in a general way, Colonel; sorry to find you so used up, but in a good cause."

The Colonel beamed.

"A matter of a day or two of rest. You did good work, Mr. Wiggins, good work," he whispered; "you'd make a good parliamentary whip—'Gad, my voice is gone!—but as you say, in a good cause—a good cause—"

"No better on earth," Mr. Wiggins responded enthusiastically.

The Colonel was magnanimous; he forbore to whisper one word in reminder of the old-time pessimism that twenty years ago held the small-headed man of Maine in such dubious thrall.

"It was each man's vote that told—yours, and mine—" he whispered again, nodding understandingly.

Mr. Wiggins at once changed the subject.

"Don't you exert yourself, Colonel; let me do the talking—for a change," he added with a twinkle in his eyes. The Colonel caught his meaning and threw back his head for a hearty laugh, but failed to make a sound.

"Mr. Van Ostend came up on the train last night, just in time to see the fireworks, they say," said Mr. Wiggins. "Yes," he went on in answer to a question he read in the Colonel's eyes, "came up to see about the Champo property. Emlie told me this morning. Mr. Van Ostend and Tave and Father HonorÉ are up there now; I saw the automobile standing in the driveway as I came up on the car. Guess Tave has run the place about as long as he wants to alone. He's getting on in years like the rest of us, and don't want so much responsibility."

"Does Emlie know anything?" whispered the Colonel eagerly.

"Nothing definite; they're going to talk it over to-day; but he had some idea about the disposition of the estate, I think, from what he said."

The Colonel motioned with his lips: "Tell me."

Mr. Wiggins proceeded to give the Colonel the desired information.

While this one-sided conversation was taking place, Henry Van Ostend was standing on the terrace at Champ-au-Haut, discussing with Father HonorÉ and Octavius Buzzby the best method of investing the increasing revenues of the large estate, vacant, except for its faithful factotum and the care-takers, Ann and Hannah, during the seven years that have passed since Mrs. Champney's death.

"Mr. Googe had undoubtedly a perfect right to dispute this will, Father HonorÉ," he was saying.

"But he would never have done it; I know such a thing could never have occurred to him."

"That does not alter the facts of this rather peculiar case. Mr. Buzzby knows that, up to this date, my daughter and I have never availed ourselves of any rights in this estate; and he has managed it so wisely alone, during these last seven years, that now he no longer wishes to be responsible for the investment of its constantly increasing revenues. I shall never consider this estate mine—will or no will." He spoke emphatically. "Law is one thing, but a right attitude, where property is concerned, towards one's neighbor is quite another."

He looked to right and left of the terrace, and included in his glance many acres of the noble estate. Father HonorÉ, watching him, suddenly recalled that evening in the financier's own house when the Law was quoted as "fundamental"—and he smiled to himself.

Mr. Van Ostend faced the two men.

"Do you think it would do any good for me to approach him on the subject of setting apart that portion of the personal estate, and its increase in the last seven years, which Mrs. Champney inherited from her father, Mr. Googe's grandfather, for his children—that is if he won't take it himself?"

"No."

The two men spoke as one; the negative was strongly emphatic.

"Mr. Van Ostend," Octavius Buzzby spoke with suppressed excitement, "if I may make bold, who has lived here on this place and known its owners for forty years, to give you a piece of advice, I'd like to give it."

"I want all I can get, Mr. Buzzby; it will help me to see my way in this matter."

"Then I'm going to ask you to let bygones be bygones, and not say one word to Mr. Googe about this property. He begun seven years ago in the sheds and has worked his way up to foreman this last year, and if you was to propose to him what you have to us, it would rake up the past, sir—a past that's now in its grave, thank God! Champney—I ask your pardon—Mr. Googe wouldn't touch a penny of it more 'n he'd touch carrion. I know this; nor he wouldn't have his boy touch it either. I ain't saying he don't appreciate the good money does, for he's told me so; but for himself—well, sir, I think you know what I mean: he's through with what is just money. He's a man, is Champney Googe, and he's living his life in a way that makes the almighty dollar look pretty small in comparison with it—Father HonorÉ, you know this as well as I do."

The priest nodded gravely in the affirmative.

"Tell me something of his life, Father HonorÉ," said Mr. Van Ostend; "you know the degree of respect I have always had for him ever since he took his punishment like a man—and you and I were both on the wrong track," he added with a meaning smile.

"I don't quite know what to say," replied his friend. "It isn't anything I can point to and say he has done this or that, because he gets beneath the surface, as you might say, and works there. But I do know that where there is an element of strife among the men, there you will find him as peacemaker—he has a wonderful way with them, but it is indefinable. We don't know all he does, for he never speaks of it, only every once in a while something leaks out. I know that where there is a sickbed and a quarryman on it, there you will find Champney Googe as watcher after his day's work—and tender in his ministrations as a woman. I know that when sickness continues and the family are dependent on the fund, Champney Googe works many a night overtime and gives his extra pay to help out. I know, too, that when a strike threatens, he, who is now in the union because he is convinced he can help best there, is the balance-wheel, and prevents radical unreason and its results. There's trouble brewing there now—about the automatic bush hammer—"

"I have heard of it."

"—And Jim McCann is proving intractable. Mr. Googe is at work with him, and hopes to bring him round to a just point of view. And I know, moreover, that when there is a crime committed and a criminal to be dealt with, that criminal finds in the new foreman of Shed Number Two a friend who, without condoning the crime, stands by him as a human being. I know that out of his own deep experience he is able to reach out to other men in need, as few can. In all this his wife is his helpmate, his mother his inspiration.—What more can I say?"

"Nothing," said Henry Van Ostend gravely. "He has two children I hear—a boy and a girl. I should like to see her who was the little Aileen of twenty years ago."

"I hope you may," said Father HonorÉ cordially; "yes, he has two lovely children, HonorÉ, now in his first knickerbockers, is my namesake—"

Octavius interrupted him, smiling significantly:

"He's something more than Father HonorÉ's namesake, Mr. Van Ostend, he's his shadow when he is with him. The men have a little joke among themselves whenever they see the two together, and that's pretty often; they say Father HonorÉ's shadow will never grow less till little HonorÉ reaches his full growth."

The priest smiled. "He and I are very, very close friends," was all he permitted himself to say, but the other men read far more than that into his words.

Henry Van Ostend looked thoughtful. He considered with himself for a few minutes; then he spoke, weighing his words:

"I thank you both; I have solved my difficulty with your help. You have spoken frankly to me, and shown me this matter in a different light; I may speak as frankly to you, as to Mr. Googe's closest friends. The truth is, neither my daughter nor myself can appropriate this money to ourselves—we both feel that it does not belong to us, in the circumstances. I should like you both to tell Mr. Googe for me, that out of the funds accruing to the estate from his grandfather's money, I will take for my share the hundred thousand dollars I repaid to the Quarries Company thirteen years ago—you know what I mean—and the interest on the same for those six years. Mr. Googe will understand that this is done in settlement of a mere business account—and he will understand it as between man and man. I think it will satisfy him.

"I have determined since talking with you, although the scheme has been long in my mind and I have spoken to Mr. Emlie about it, to apply the remainder of the estate for the benefit of the quarrymen, the stone-cutters, their families and, incidentally, the city of Flamsted. My plans are, of course, indefinite; I cannot give them in detail, not having had time to think them out; but I may say that this house will be eventually a home for men disabled in the quarries or sheds. The plan will develop further in the executing of it. You, Father HonorÉ, you and Mr. Buzzby, Mr. Googe, and Mr. Emlie will be constituted a Board of Overseers—I know that in your hands the work will be advanced, and, I hope, prospered to the benefit of this generation and succeeding ones."

Octavius Buzzby grasped his hand.

"Mr. Van Ostend, I wish old Judge Champney was living to hear this! He'd approve, Mr. Van Ostend, he'd approve of it all—and Mr. Louis too."

"Thank you, Mr. Buzzby, for these words; they do me good. And now," he said, turning to Father HonorÉ, "I want very much to see Mr. Googe—now that this business is settled. I have wanted to see him many times during these last six years, but I felt—I feared he might consider my visiting him an intrusion—"

"Not at all—not at all; this simply shows me that you don't as yet know the real Mr. Googe. He will be glad to see you at any time."

"I think I'd like to see him in the shed."

"No reason in the world why you shouldn't; he is one of the most accessible men at all times and seasons."

"Supposing, then, you ride up with me in the automobile?"

"Certainly I will; shall we go up this forenoon?"

"Yes, I should like to go now. Mr. Buzzby, I shall be back this afternoon for a talk with you. I want to make some definite arrangement for Ann and Hannah."

"I'll be here."

The two walked together to the driveway, and shortly the mellow note of the great Panhard's horn sounded, as the automobile rounded the curve of The Bow and sped away to the north shore highway and the sheds.

Late that afternoon Aileen, with her baby daughter, Aurora, in her arms, was standing on the porch watching for her husband's return. The usual hour for his home-coming had long passed. She began to fear that the threatened trouble in the sheds, on account of the attempted introduction of the automatic bush hammer, might have come to a crisis. At last, however, she saw him leave the car and cross the bridge over the Rothel. His step was quick and firm. She waved her hand to him; a swing of his cap answered her. Then little Aurora's tiny fist was manipulated by her mother to produce a baby form of welcome.

Champney sprang up the steps two at a time, and for a moment the little wife and baby Aurora disappeared in his arms.

"Oh, Champney, I'm so thankful you've come! I knew just by the way you came over the bridge that things were going better at the sheds. You are so late I began to get worried. Come, supper's waiting."

"Wait a minute, Aileen—Mother—" he called through the hall, "come here a minute, please."

Aurora Googe came quickly at that ever welcome call. Her face was even more beautiful than formerly, for great joy and peace irradiated every feature.

"Where's HonorÉ?" he said abruptly, looking about for his boy who was generally the first to run as far as the bridge to greet him. His wife answered.

"He and Billy went with Father HonorÉ as far as the power-house; he'll be back soon with Billy. Sister Ste. Croix went by a few minutes ago, and I told her to hurry them home.—What's the good news, Champney? Tell me quick—I can't wait to hear it."

Champney smiled down at the eager face looking up to him; her chin was resting on her baby's head.

"Mr. Van Ostend has been in the sheds to-day—and I've had a long talk with him."

"Oh, Champney!"

Both women exclaimed at the same time, and their faces reflected the joy that shone in the eyes of the man they loved with a love bordering on worship.

Champney nodded. "Yes, and so satisfactory—" he drew a long breath; "I have so much to tell it will take half the evening. He wishes to 'pay his respects,' so he says, to my wife and mother, if convenient for the ladies to-morrow—how is it?" He looked with a smile first into the gray eyes and then into the dark ones. In the latter he read silent pleased consent; but Aileen's danced for joy as she answered:

"Convenient! So convenient, that he'll get the surprise of his life from me, anyhow; he really must be made to realize that I am his debtor for the rest of my days—don't I owe the 'one man on earth for me' to him? for would I have ever seen Flamsted but for him? And have I ever forgotten the roses he dropped into the skirt of my dress twenty-one years ago this very month when I sang the Sunday night song for him at the Vaudeville? Twenty-one years! Goodness, but it makes me feel old, mother!"

Aurora Googe smiled indulgently on her daughter, for, at times, Aileen, not only in ways, but looks, was still like the child of twelve.

Champney grew suddenly grave.

"Do you realize, Aileen, that this meeting to-day in the shed is the first in which we three, Father HonorÉ, Mr. Van Ostend, and I, have ever been together under one roof since that night twenty-one years ago when I first saw you?"

"Why, that doesn't seem possible—but it is so, isn't it? Wasn't that strange!"

"Yes, and no," said Champney, looking at his mother. "I thought of our first meeting one another at the Vaudeville, as we three stood there together in the shed looking upwards to The Gore; and Father HonorÉ told me afterward that he was thinking of that same thing. We both wondered if Mr. Van Ostend recalled that evening, and the fact of our first acquaintance, although unknown to one another."

"I wonder—" said Aileen, musingly.

Champney spoke abruptly again; there was a note of uneasiness in his voice:

"I wonder what keeps HonorÉ—I'll just run up the road and see if he's coming. If he isn't, I will go on till I meet the boys. I wish," he added wistfully, "that McCann felt as kindly to me as Billy does to my son; I am beginning to think that old grudge of his against me will never yield, not even to time;—I'll be back in a few minutes."

Aileen watched him out of sight; then she turned to Aurora Googe.

"We are blest in this turn of affairs, aren't we, mother? This meeting is the one thing Champney has been dreading—and yet longing for. I'm glad it's over."

"So am I; and I am inclined to think Father HonorÉ brought it about; if you remember, he said nothing about Mr. Van Ostend's being here when he stopped just now."

"So he didn't!" Aileen spoke in some surprise; then she added with a joyous laugh: "Oh, that dear man is sly—bless him!"—But the tears dimmed her eyes.

II

"Go straight home with HonorÉ, Billy, as straight as ever you can," said Father HonorÉ to eight-year-old Billy McCann who for the past year had constituted himself protector of five-year-old HonorÉ Googe; "I'll watch you around the power-house."

Little HonorÉ reached up with both arms for the usual parting from the man he adored. The priest caught him up, kissed him heartily, and set him down again with the added injunction to "trot home."

The two little boys ran hand in hand down the road. Father HonorÉ watched them till the power-house shut them from sight; then he waited for their reappearance at the other corner where the road curves downward to the highroad. He never allowed HonorÉ to go alone over the piece of road between the point where he was standing and the power-house, for the reason that it bordered one of the steepest and roughest ledges in The Gore; a careless step would be sure to send so small a child rolling down the rough surface. But beyond the power-house, the ledges fell away very gradually to the lowest slopes where stood, one among many in the quarries, the new monster steel derrick which the men had erected last week. They had been testing it for several days; even now its powerful arm held suspended a block of many tons' weight. This was a part of the test for "graduated strain"—the weight being increased from day to day.

The men, in leaving their work, often took a short cut homeward from the lower slope to the road just below the power-house, by crossing this gentle declivity of the ledge. Evidently Billy McCann with this in mind had twisted the injunction to "go straight home" into a chance to "cut across"; for surely this way would be the "straightest." Besides, there was the added inducement of close proximity to the wonderful new derrick that, since its instalment, had been occupying many of Billy's waking thoughts.

Father HonorÉ, watching for the children's reappearance at the corner of the road just beyond the long low power-house, was suddenly aware, with a curious shock, of the two little boys trotting in a lively manner down the easy grade of the "cross cut" slope, and nearing the derrick and its suspended weight. He frowned at the sight and, calling loudly to them to come back, started straight down over the steep ledge at the side of the road. He heard some one else calling the boys by name, and, a moment later, saw that it was Sister Ste. Croix who was coming up the hill.

The children did not hear, or would not, because of their absorption in getting close to the steel giant towering above them. Sister Ste. Croix called again; then she, too, started down the slope after them.

She noticed some men running from the farther side of the quarry. She saw Father HonorÉ suddenly spring by leaps and bounds down over the rough ledge. What was it? The children were apparently in no danger. She looked up at the derrick—

What was that! A tremor in its giant frame; a swaying of its cabled mast; a sickening downward motion of the weighted steel arm—then—

"Merciful Christ!" she groaned, and for the space of a few seconds covered her eyes....

The priest, catching up the two children one under each arm, ran with superhuman strength to evade the falling derrick—with a last supreme effort he rolled the boys beyond its reach; they were saved, but—

Their savior was pinioned by the steel tip fast to the unyielding granite.

A woman's shriek rent the air—a fearful cry:

"Jean—mon Jean!"

A moment more and Sister Ste. Croix reached the spot—she took his head on her lap.

"Jean—mon Jean," she cried again.

The eyes, dimmed already, opened; he made a supreme effort to speak—

"Margot—p'tite Truite—"...

Thus, after six and forty years of silence, Love spoke once; that Love, greater than State and Church because it is the foundation of both, and without it neither could exist; that Love—co-eval with all life, the Love which defies time, sustains absence, glorifies loss—remains, thank God! a deathless legacy to the toiling Race of the Human, and, because deathless, triumphant in death.

It triumphed now....

The ponderous crash of the derrick followed by the screams of the two boys, brought the quarrymen, the women and children, rushing in terrified haste from their evening meal. But when they reached the spot, and before Champney Googe, running over the granite slopes, as once years before he ran from pursuing justice, could satisfy himself that his boy was uninjured, at what a sacrifice he knew only when he knelt by the prostrate form, before Jim McCann, seizing a lever, could shout to the men to "lift all together," the life-blood ebbed, carrying with it on the hurrying out-going tide the priest's loving undaunted spirit.

All work at the quarries and the sheds was suspended during the following Saturday; the final service was to be held on Sunday.

All Saturday afternoon, while the bier rested before the altar in the stone chapel by the lake shore, a silent motley procession filed under the granite lintel:—stalwart Swede, blue-eyed German, sallow-cheeked Pole, dark-eyed Italian, burly Irish, low-browed Czechs, French Canadians, stolid English and Scotch, Henry Van Ostend and three of the directors of the Flamsted Quarries Company, rivermen from the Penobscot, lumbermen from farther north, the Colonel and three of his sons, the rector from The Bow, a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church from New York, the little choir boys—children of the quarrymen—and Augustus Buzzby, members of the Paulist Order, Elmer Wiggins, Octavius Buzzby supporting old Joel Quimber, Nonna Lisa—in all, over three thousand souls one by one passed up the aisle to stand with bared bowed head by that bier; to look their last upon the mask of the soul; to render, in spirit, homage to the spirit that had wrought among its fellows, manfully, unceasingly, to realize among them on this earth a long-striven-for ideal.

Many a one knelt in prayer. Many a mother, not of English tongue, placing her hand upon the head of her little child forced him to kneel beside her; her tears wet the stone slabs of the chancel floor.

Just before sunset, the Daughters of the Mystic Rose passed into the church; they bore tapers to set upon the altar, and at the head and foot of the bier. Two of them remained throughout the night to pray by the chancel rail; one of them was Sister Ste. Croix. Silent, immovable she knelt there throughout the short June night. Her secret remained with her and the one at whose feet she was kneeling.

The little group of special friends from The Gore came last, just a little while before the face they loved was to be covered forever from human gaze: Aileen with her four-months' babe in her arms, Aurora Googe leading little HonorÉ by the hand, Margaret McCann with her boy, Elvira Caukins and her two daughters. Silent, their tears raining upon the awed and upturned faces of the children, they, too, knelt; but no sound of sobbing profaned the great peaceful silence that was broken only by the faint chip-chip-chipping monotone from Shed Number Two. In that four men were at work. Champney Googe was one of them.

He was expecting them at this appointed time. When he saw them enter the chapel, he put aside hammer and chisel and went across the meadow to join them. He waited for them to come out; then, taking the babe from his wife's arms, he gave her into his mother's keeping. He looked significantly at his wife. The others passed on and out; but Aileen turned and with her husband retraced her steps to the altar. They knelt, hand clasped in hand....

When they rose to look their last upon that loved face, they knew that their lives had received through his spirit the benediction of God.

Champney returned to his work, for time pressed. The quarrymen in The Gore had asked permission the day before to quarry a single stone in which their priest should find his final resting place. Many of them were Italians, and Luigi Poggi was spokesman. Permission being given, he turned to the men:

"For the love of God and the man who stood to us for Him, let us quarry the stone nearest heaven. Look to the ridge yonder; that has not been opened up—who will work with me to open up the highest ridge in The Gore, and quarry the stone to-night."

The volunteers were practically all the men in the Upper and Lower Quarries; the foreman was obliged to draw lots. The men worked in shifts—worked during that entire night; they bared a space of sod; cleared off the surface layer; quarried the rock, using the hand drill entirely. Towards morning the thick granite slab, that lay nearest to the crimsoning sky among the Flamsted Hills, was hoisted from its primeval bed and lowered to its place on the car.

It was then that four men, Champney Googe, Antoine, Jim McCann, and Luigi Poggi asserted their right, by reason of what the dead had been to them, to cut and chisel the rock into sarcophagus shape. Luigi and Antoine asked to cut the cover of the stone coffin.

All Saturday afternoon, the four men in Shed Number Two worked at their work of love, of unspeakable gratitude, of passionate devotion to a sacrificed manhood. They wrought in silence. All that afternoon, they could see, by glancing up from their work and looking out through the shed doors across the field, the silent procession entering and leaving the chapel. Sometimes Jim McCann would strike wild in his feverish haste to ease, by mere physical exertion, his great over-charged heart of its load of grief; a muttered curse on his clumsiness followed. Now and then Champney caught his eye turned upon him half-appealingly; but they spoke no word; chip-chip-chipping, they worked on.

The sun set; electricity illumined the shed. Antoine worked with desperation; Luigi wrought steadily, carefully, beautifully—his heart seeking expression in every stroke. When the dawn paled the electric lights, he laid aside his tools, took off his canvas apron, and stepped back to view the cover as a whole. The others, also, brought their stone to completion. As with one accord they went over to look at the Italian's finished work, and saw—no carving of archbishop's mitre, no sculpture of cardinal's hat (O mother, where were the day-dreams for your boy!), but a rough slab, in the centre of which was a raised heart of polished granite, and, beneath it, cut deep into the rock—which, although lying yesterday nearest the skies above The Gore, was in past Æons the foundation stone of our present world—the words:

The lights went out. The dawn was reddening the whole east; it touched the faces of the men. They looked at one another. Suddenly McCann grasped Champney's hand, and reaching over the slab caught in his the hands of the other two; he gripped them hard, drew a long shuddering breath, and spoke, but unwittingly on account of his habitual profanity, the last word:

"By Jesus Christ, men, we're brothers!"

The full day broke. The men still stood there, hand clasping hand.