The Right of Way | Page 4

futile, despite the
wonder of his personality, that I could make nothing of him, and
though always fascinated by his character I was held back from
exploiting it, because of the hopelessness of it all. It led nowhere. It
was the 'quid refert' of the philosopher, and I could not bring myself to
get any further than an interrogation mark at the end of a life which was
all scepticism, mind and matter, and nothing more.
There came a day, however, when that all ended, when the doors were
flung wide to a new conception of the man, and of what he might have
become. I was going to America, and I paid an angry and reluctant visit
to my London tailor thirty-six hours before I was to start. A suit of
clothes had been sent home which, after an effective trying-on, was a
monstrosity. I went straight to my tailor, put on the clothes and bade
him look at them. He was a great tailor-he saw exactly what I saw, and
what I saw was bad; and when a tailor will do that, you may be quite
sure he is a good and a great man. He said the clothes were as bad as
they could be, but he added: "You shall have them before you sail, and
they shall be exactly as you want them. I'll have the foreman down." He
rang a bell. Presently the door swung open and in stepped a man with
an eyeglass in his eye. There, with a look at once reflective and
penetrating, with a figure at once slovenly and alert, was a caricature of
Charley Steele as I had known him, and of all his characteristics. There

was such a resemblance as an ugly child in a family may have to his
handsome brother. It was Charley Steele with a twist--gone to seed.
Looking at him in blank amazement, I burst out: "Good heavens, so
you didn't die, Charley Steele! You became a tailor!"
All at once the whole new landscape of my story as it eventually
became, spread out before me. I was justified in waiting all the years.
My discontent with the futile end of the tale as I originally knew it and
saw it was justified. Charley Steele, brilliant, enigmatic and
epigrammatic, did not die at the Cote Dorion, but lived in that far
valley by Dalgrothe Mountain, and became a tailor! So far as I am
concerned he became much more. He was the beginning of a new
epoch in my literary life. I had got into subtler methods, reached more
intimate understandings, had come to a place where analysis of
character had shaken itself free--but certainly not quite free--from a
natural yet rather dangerous eloquence.
As a play The Right of Way, skilfully and sympathetically dramatised
by Mr. Eugene Presbery, has had a career extending over several years,
and still continues to make its appearance.

NOTE
It should not be assumed that the "Chaudiere" of this story is the real
Chaudiere of Quebec province. The name is characteristic, and for this
reason alone I have used it.
I must also apologise to my readers for appearing to disregard a
statement made in 'The Lane that Had no Turning', that that tale was the
last I should write about French Canada. In explanation I would say
that 'The Lane that Had no Turning' was written after the present book
was finished.
G. F.

THE RIGHT OF WAY
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 1.
I. THE WAY TO THE VERDICT II. WHAT CAME OF THE TRIAL
III. AFTER FIVE YEARS IV. CHARLEY MAKES A DISCOVERY
V. THE WOMAN IN HELIOTROPE VI. THE WIND AND THE

SHORN LAMB VII. "PEACE, PEACE, AND THERE IS NO
PEACE!" VIII. THE COST OF THE ORNAMENT

"They had lived and loved, and walked and worked in their own way,
and the world went by them. Between them and it a great gulf was
fixed: and they met its every catastrophe with the Quid Refert? of the
philosophers."
"I want to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who lived before the god of
love was born."
"There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none
of them is without signification."

CHAPTER I
THE WAY TO THE VERDICT
"Not guilty, your Honour!"
A hundred atmospheres had seemed pressing down on the fretted
people in the crowded court-room. As the discordant treble of the huge
foreman of the jury squeaked over the mass of gaping humanity, which
had twitched at skirts, drawn purposeless hands across prickling faces,
and kept nervous legs at a gallop, the smothering weights of elastic air
lifted suddenly, a great suspiration of relief swept through the place like
a breeze, and in a far corner