Why old Bunley had made Barton his place of residence nobody knew. The most plausible theory ever advanced on the subject came from the former proprietor of the Barton House, who said that Bunley, happening to be traveling that way, had found the brandy at the Barton House so good that he hadn’t the heart to leave it. The brandy lasted so long that old Bunley—then twenty years younger—while consuming it became acquainted with nearly everybody in the town; and as he had no engagements that restrained him from making himself agreeable, he found himself well liked, and entreated to make his home at Barton. He reported—and his report was afterward verified—that he was the son of a Virginia planter, and was unpopular at home because he had made a runaway match with a splendid girl, whose only fault was that her family did not rank very high. Bunley’s father had cut his son off with a thousand dollars,but had considerately sent the money with the letter of dismissal; so the happy couple were leisurely spending the money and waiting for the old gentleman to relent, as irate fathers always do in books. But while Bunley was enjoying the hospitalities of Barton, annoyed only by the fact that his purse was growing light, he heard of his father’s sudden death and of the inheritance by an unloving brother of the entire estate. Then the young bridegroom attempted to obtain money by borrowing, for this was the only method of money-getting he understood; but the small success which attended his efforts did not pay for the annoyance which his soulless creditors gave him. Then he tried gambling, and, by devoting his mind to it, succeeded so well that no one but an occasional commercial traveler, to whom Bunley’s ways were unknown, would play with him. Then, under the guise of being clerk of the Barton House, he became its actual barkeeper, and attracted so much custom away from the other liquor-sellers that the grateful proprietor took him into partnership, and, dying a year later, bequeathed the whole business to him. But the good brandy which had first persuaded Bunley to stop at Barton continued its fascinations, and the new proprietor ofthe Barton House, while liked by all travelers, grew so unpopular with purveyors of flour, meat, and other hotel necessities that the sheriff was finally called upon to settle the differences between them by disposing of the hotel property at auction.
After that Bunley ran to seed, to use an expression common in Barton. How he lived during the twenty years which followed was not well understood. His wife died, and it was understood that he married some money the second time; but it was none the less whispered about town that Bunley had been seen at night to borrow at woodpiles whose owners he had not consulted. He went upon mighty sprees, and carried the bouquet of liquor wherever he went. He started a small groggery of his own, in which many bright boys learned to drink. He had long since ruined the credit which he obtained on the strength of his second wife’s property, for he never paid an account.
And yet the most aggrieved of Bunley’s creditors could not help being soft-hearted when they saw the old man in church, as he was every Sunday morning with his two boys. The gentleman which was in old Bunley then showed itself in his face and manner, and itdidseem too bad that any one whocould look and act so much like a man should not be trusted to the extent of a dollar’s worth of sugar or a hundred pounds of flour. Squire Tomple had thought so one Sunday, and as the Squire strove to keep worldly thoughts out of his mind on the Lord’s day, his mind became filled with old Bunley—so much so, that on the following Monday he decoyed Bunley into his store, and talked so pleasantly to him that the old gentleman actually made the request for which the Squire hoped. He bought rather more than the Squire had meant to sell him on credit, but his promise of early payment was so distinct and emphatic that the Squire’s doubt was not fairly established for many months. This story in all its details was told by the Squire to Mr. Crupp, after that gentleman announced to him that something should be done for old Bunley.
“That was because you didn’t go about the job in the right way,” said Crupp. “He’s got just enough conceit to suppose that he’s going to pay all his bills some day, and he feels that when the time comes your profit’ll pay for your kindness. That conceit of his is just what needs to be taken down—it’s got to be done kindly—so that he understands that whatever he gets comes out of purecharity and the desire to make him comfortable, even at a loss. Now, he and his little family can live on about a dollar a day. I’ll stand half the expense of supporting him for three months if you’ll do the other half, and we’ll talk plain, good-natured English to him, and let him understand he’s a pauper. That’ll put him on his mettle. What do you say?”
The Squire looked grave at once—as grave as he had appeared when an uninsured hogshead of sugar belonging to him had fallen from a steamboat gang-plank into the river, and melted. The proposition seemed to take his breath away, in fact; but in a moment or two he regained it.
“Look here, Crupp,” said he, “temperance is all very well; but I don’t think it’s my business to stand part of the expenses of reforming everybody, when I haven’t had anything to do with making drunkards. With you the case is different. You say your liquors were always good; but, like enough, that made men all the fonder of drinking the infernal things. You’re a public-spirited citizen, but you can’t deny that you’ve had a thousand times more to do with making drunkards than I have. The very fact that youarea decent fellow yourselfhas made drinking halfway respectable in Barton. The crime’s right at your own door, and you ought to pay for it. You——”
The Squire paused. Mr. Crupp’s face was very white and his teeth were tightly set. Mr. Crupphadbeen known to throw a disorderly visitor at his bar halfway across the street; and although the Squire knew that his own avoirdupois was too great to be treated so contemptuously, he had no desire to feel the weight of Crupp’s fist. Besides, Crupp was a customer who bought a great deal and paid promptly, and the Squire did not like to offend him and lose his custom. So the Squire paused.
“Go right on,” said Mr. Crupp very quietly. “I’ll not bear any malice. I’ve said a great many worse things to myself. Don’t hold in anything you’ve got on your mind.”
“I’m done,” said the Squire, looking relieved and extending his hand. “Crupp, I think a good deal of you, and I’m ashamed of myself for boiling over as I did. But folks talk to me as if I was made of money. I paid out a good deal on the expense of the meeting; the parson’s been at me to help every lazy drunkard to get work; George Doughty wants more pay or less work, so he won’t have sucha hankering after liquor; and now to be asked to help old Bunley, that’s owed me money a long time and never paid it, that came near helping one of my boys to a taste for liquor, that helps himself at my woodpile—it’stoomuch, that’s all.”
“Squire,” said Crupp, “isn’t there something in your Bible that’s not complimentary to men who say to the needy, ‘Depart: be ye warmed and fed,’ but don’t put their hands into their pockets to help the poor wretches along? I tell you that a man that’s got the love of drink fixed in every muscle in his body and every drop of his blood is worse off than any cold and hungry man you ever saw. Such mensometimeshelp themselves out of their trouble, and stick to cold water; but the man that does it is more of a hero, and he’s got better stuff in him, than any other sort of sinner that ever repents. He’s got to be helped just like drowning men have to be, and you’ve got to take hold of him just as you do of a drowning man, by whatever part you can get the tightest grip on. Bunley’s pride’s the only handle you can find onhim, and you can’t get atthatexcept by showing that you think enough of him to sink money in him.”
The Squire cast about in his mind for some argumentin defense of his money; but, as he found none, he acted like a good diplomatist, and started to talk against time by uttering some promising generalizations.
“I always meant, and I still mean,” said he, “to do good with my money. That’s what it was given me for. I’m only the Lord’s steward——”
“And right here in Barton is where the Lord put you to do it,” said Crupp. “Here’s where you made your money; here are the people who know you and don’t suspect you of caring any less for your money than other folks do for theirs; here are the people you know all about; you know their weaknesses and their good points, and every dollar you spend on them you can watch, and see that it does its duty.”
“When Iknowthat helping a man will be sure to reform him,” began the Squire, when again his companion interrupted him:
“Did you ever read of Christ’s letting a man suffer for fear that if he cured him or fed him he might get sick or hungry again? If I read straight,hehelped everybody that came to him, and everybody that needed help. I suppose loafers were as thick in Judæa as they are in Barton; why, when hehealed those ten lepers there was only one of them decent enough to come back and say “Thank you.”I’vegot money enough to take Bunley on my own shoulders for a little while, and I’m going to spend a good deal on such fellows; but they want to see that they’re thought something of by men who never sold whisky, who never made anything out of them, who are enough in earnest to do something for them that costs more than talk does. I know it isn’t easy, but it’s got to be done—that is, if Christianity is true.”
Crupp’s last shot told. Squire Tomple was orthodox, but he was not without reflective capacity, and many had been his twinges of conscience at his practical rejection of undoubted deductions which he had drawn from Christ’s teachings and example. But on this particular occasion, as on many others, he was not defeated; he was only temporarily demoralized. In a moment he was on the defensive again, and suddenly raised his head and opened his lips; but, whatever his idea was, it remained unspoken; for in the eye of Crupp, which had been intently scrutinizing his face and through it his heart, he detected a softness and haziness unusual in the eyes of men. The Squire, not without astruggle, became at once shamefaced and obedient, and said hurriedly,
“Crupp, you’re a good, square man; I’m proud to know you, and I’ll do what you like—for old Bunley, that is.”
Great was the surprise of Bunley himself, when he answered a knock at his door a few minutes later, to find Squire Tomple and Mr. Crupp upon his front stoop, both of them looking and acting as if extremely embarrassed. But old Bunley never forgot his Virginia breeding, not even before a couple of creditors; so he invited both gentlemen to seats on the top step, and then sat down between them.
The Squire looked appealingly at Crupp; Crupp winked encouragingly at the Squire; the Squire coughed feebly; Crupp plucked a stem of timothy grass, and gazed at it as if he had never seen such a thing before; the Squire took out a pocket-knife, and began to scrape his finger-nails, and then Crupp remarked that it was a fine day. Bunley having cheerfully assented to this expression of opinion, there was a moment or two of awkward silence, which was finally relieved by Bunley, who drew from his pocket a plug of tobacco, from which he took a bite, after first offering it to his visitors. A little more facialpantomime went on between Tomple and Crupp, and then the Squire spoke.
“Bunley,” said he, “you don’t seem to get along very fast in the world.”
“That’s a fact,” answered Bunley with hearty emphasis. “Luck seems to go against me, no matter how I lay myself out. There ain’t a man in this town that wants to do the right thing any more than I do, but somehow I don’t get the chance. I signed the pledge t’other night at the meetin’; but how I’m goin’ to stick to it, with all the trouble I’m in, is more than I can see through.”
“We’ve come down to help you do it,” said the Squire.
“To help you with money—not talk,” supplemented Crupp.
Bunley looked at both men quickly, from under the extreme inner edge of his upper eyelid.
“We propose, between us, to show you that we’re in dead earnest to help you keep the pledge,” continued the Squire. “We’re going to give you, week after week, whatever you need to live on for the next three months, so you won’t have any excuse for drinking to drown trouble, and so you’ll have a chance to find something to do.”
Old Bunley sprang to his feet. “Gentlemen,” said he, “you’re—you’regentlemen. It’s the first time in my life that anybody ever caredthatmuch for me, though. You shan’t lose anything by it, I promise youthat; I’ll pay you back again the first chance I get to make anything.”
“We don’twantit back,” said Crupp. “We won’ttakeit back. We want togiveit to you, out and out——”
“To show you that it’syouthat we’re interested in, not ourselves,” interrupted the Squire.
Then Old Virginia came to the surface again; Bunley seemed to grow an inch or two, and to swell several more as he replied,
“I’m not a pauper, gentlemen.”
“Certainly not,” said the Squire hastily; “but you can’t pay your debts nor your current expenses, and Crupp and I are a little ahead in the world, and willing to give you a hundred, say—a little at a time.”
“You’ve got a couple of boys to bring up, you know, Bunley,” suggested Crupp.
“And they ought to go among the best people,too,” said the Squire. “You came of a good family——”
“And their mother was a lady, too—every inch of her!” exclaimed Bunley.
“Of course she was,” said Crupp. “But, to come back to business, we don’t want you to have any excuse to touch whisky again, and we want you to live on us for the next three months as a personal favor. After that, if you make any money, I s’pose the Squire’ll be glad to sell you anything he keeps in his store; I knowIwill, if I’m in business then. But you mustn’t talk about paying now, ’cause it’s all nonsense. Come up to the Squire’s store when you want anything. Good-by.”
Bunley drew himself up with great solemnity and old-time courtesy as he shook hands with both men. When his visitors reached the friendly angle of an old, abandoned barn, both turned hastily, gazed through cracks between the boards, and saw the old man sitting in a meditative attitude, with his lower jaw in both his hands.
“Don’tthat look good?” whispered Crupp, his face all animation.
“It does that,” replied the Squire; “there’s no dodging the question; itdoeslook good.”
On a pleasant August evening, at that particular portion of the day in which twilight shades into night, Fred Macdonald left his father’s house and walked toward the opposite portion of the village. From his leisurely, elastic gait, the artistic effect of his necktie, the pose of his hat, the rose-bud in his button-hole, and the graceful carriage of his cane, it was very evident that Frederick’s steps did not tend toward the fulfillment of any prosaic business engagement. It was not so dark that he could not recognize, in occasional unlighted windows, certain faces well known, some of them handsome, all of them pleasing; nor was it too dark, just after Fred had bestowed a bow and a smile upon the occupant of each of these windows, and passed on, for one to discern, by the expressions upon most of the faces that slowly turned and looked after the young man, that Fred need not have gone farther in search of a cordial welcome. But he walked onuntil he reached the residence of the Rev. Jonas Wedgewell. To any one not a resident of Barton the house might have seemed a strange one to be visited by a young man fond of liquor and the company frequently found on Western steamboats; and the stranger’s surprise might have increased, at finding that Fred had been so frequent a visitor that even the house itself seemed glad to see him, and that the heavy old door seemingly opened of its own accord, before Fred’s fingers had time to touch its antique knocker. But had the supposititious observer possessed good eyes, whose actual powers were temporarily increased by the stimulus of curiosity, his bewilderment would have ended a second later; for, as Fred stepped inside the hall, there came from behind the door a small hand, and then a dainty ruffle, and then a muslin sleeve, and these all took their direction toward the shoulder of Fred’s coat; while there followed a profile which the beholder would have willingly gazed upon longer, had it not almost instantaneously disappeared behind that side of Fred’s face which was farthest from the door.
Could the observer’s gaze have penetrated the window shades of Parson Wedgewell’s little parlor,he would have seen a face, not girlish or of regular features, and yet so full of happiness that its effect was that of absolute beauty and the innocence of youth. There were estimable maidens in Barton who, scorning the thought that they could be either jealous or envious, had frequently remarked to their intimates that they couldnotsee what men found in Esther Wedgewell to rave about, and it was well known that the mystery had never been satisfactorily explained to such young ladies as had become the wives of men who had been among Miss Esther’s admirers. It is even to be doubted whether Fred Macdonald himself could have verbally elucidated the matter; therehavebeen such cases where long and joyous lifetimes have not sufficed in which to frame such an explanation, and when the person most blessed has had to journey into another world in search of adequate power of expression. Ordinarily Esther Wedgewell was a young lady the pleasantness of whose face did not hide the fact that its owner’s forehead was too high, the nose too short, the mouth too large, and the complexion too pale for perfect beauty. But somehow young men noticed first of all Miss Esther’s eyes, and these, though neither of heavenly blue, nor violet, nor thebrownness of nuts, nor large, nor melting, but only plain gray, were so honest in themselves, and so sympathetic for others, that no one of any character cared to gaze from them to any other of the young woman’s features.
What Fred and Esther said to each other during the first few minutes after their meeting, was of a nature which never shows to full advantage in print; besides, it was in the nature of things that they should say very little. In spite of the experience accumulated during a hundred or more of just such meetings, it seemed necessary that a few minutes should be consumed by Fred in assuring himself that it was really Esther who sat in the rocking-chair in front of him; and the same time was used by the lady in determining that the handsome, intelligent face in front of her was that of the only lover she had ever accepted. Gradually, however, the sentences spoken by the couple became longer and more frequent; their subjects were ordinary enough; being the mutual acquaintances they had met during the day; the additions which had been made to the embroidery on the pair of slippers which Esther, after the manner of most other betrothed maidens in America, had begun to make forher lover; the quality of the singing in church on the preceding Sunday; the latest news from Captain Hall’s expedition to the North Pole; the character of Shakespeare’s Portia; and yet one would have supposed, from the countenances of both of these young people, that in each of these topics there was some underlying motive of the most delightful import; while their remarks seemed to indicate that there was but one side to either of the subjects discussed, and that both Fred and Esther saw it with the extreme clearness of earthly comprehension.
Then, in a lull in the conversation, Fred asked, with a courtesy and minuteness inherited from aristocratic parents, about Mr. and Mrs. Wedgewell, and elicited the information that Esther’s father was composing a second sermon on intemperance.
“Your father undoubtedly is himself the best judge of the needs of his congregation,” said Fred, dropping his eyes a little and playing with a bit of paper; “but I can’t help feeling that he is wasting his fine talents in preaching on intemperance. If his sermons could be heard and applied by the proper persons, they might do a great deal of good; butwhat drunkard goes to church? Only moderate drinkers and people who don’t drink at all ever hear your father’s sermons, and none of them have any need for such instructions.”
Esther brushed an imaginary thread or mote from her dress, and said, with some embarrassment,
“Father believes that the moderate drinkers are those who most need to be warned.”
“Why, Ettie!” exclaimed Fred, “how can he believe that? He must know that I occasionally—that is, he knows that I am not one of the Sons of Temperance; yet he gave me you”—here conversation ceased a moment as Fred stepped toward Esther, conveying unto that lady an affectionate testimonial whose exact nature will be understood—“and he certainly would not have done so had he supposed I was in any danger of being injured by liquor.”
Esther did not wait even until she had finished rearranging a disordered tress or two to reply.
“He said ‘yes,’ only after I told him of your promise to me that you would not drink any more after we were married. He said you were the best born and best bred young man he had ever met—as if I didn’t already know it, you dear boy—but that hewould rather bury me than let me marry a drinking man.”
During the delivery of this short speech Fred looked by turns astonished, sober, flattered, sullen, indignant, and finally business-like and judicial. Then he said:
“Darling, you must let me believe that your father is not fully posted about men who take an occasional glass. It’s no fault of his; he probably never tasted a drop of liquor in his life—he may never have felt the need of it. But believe me when I tell you that many of the smartest men drink sometimes, and are greatly helped by it. A business man whose daily life can’t help being often irregular, sometimes finds he can’t get along without something to help him through the day. Why, a few days ago I helped Sam Crayme, captain of the “Excellence,” you know, at a difficult bit of business; I worked thirty-six hours on a stretch, and made fifty dollars by it. That’s more money than any of your young temperance men of Barton ever make in a month, but I never could have done it if it hadn’t been for an occasional drink.”
“But,” said Esther, “you know I don’t say it by way of complaint, Fred dear, but for a week afterthat you felt dull and didn’t say much, and didn’t care to read, and one evening when I expected you you didn’t come.”
“But think how tired a man must be after such a job, Ettie,” pleaded Fred in an injured tone.
“You poor old fellow, I know it,” said Esther; “but you wouldn’t have been so if you hadn’t done the work, and you yourself say you couldn’t have done the work if you hadn’t drunk the liquor, and you know you didn’t need the money so badly as to have had to do so much. Any merchant in the town would be glad to give you employment at which you would be your own natural self.”
“And I would always be a poor man if I worked for our plodding, small-paying merchants,” said Fred. “Why, Ettie, who own the handsomest houses in town, who have the best horses, who set the best tables, whose wives and children wear the best clothes? Why, Moshier and Brown and Crayme and Wainright, every one of them moderate drinkers; I never in my life saw one of them drunk.”
“And I would rather be dead than be the wife of any one of them,” said Esther with an energy which startled Fred. “Mrs. Moshier used to besuch a happy-looking woman, and now she is so quiet and has such sad eyes. Brown seems to spend no end of money on his family; but his children are always put to bed before he comes home, because he is as likely as not to be cross and unkind to them; when they meet him on the street they never shout ‘Papa!’ and rush up to him as your little brothers and sisters do toyourfather; but they look at him first with an anxious look that’s enough to break one’s heart, and as likely as not cross the street to avoid meeting him. Mrs. Crayme was havingsucha pleasant time at Nellie Wainright’s party the other night, when her husband, who she seldom enough has a chance to take into society with her, said such silly things and stared around with such an odd look in his eye that she made some excuse to take him home. And Nellie Wainright—she was my particular friend before she was married, you know—was here a few days ago, and I was telling her how happy I was, when suddenly she threw both arms around my neck and burst out crying, and told me that she hoped that my husband would never drink after I was married. She insists upon it that her husband is the best man that ever lived, and that if she only mentions anything shewould like, she has it at once if money can buy it, and yet she is unhappy. She says there’s always a load on her heart, and though she feels real wicked about it, she can’t get rid of it.”
Fred Macdonald was unable for some moments to reply to this unexpected speech; he arose from his chair, and walked slowly up and down the room, with his hands behind him, and with the countenance natural to a man who has heard something of which he had previously possessed no idea. Esther looked at him, first furtively, then tenderly; then she sprang to his side and leaned upon his shoulder, saying,
“Dear Fred, I knowyoucould never be that way; but then all these women were sure they knew just the same about their lovers, before they were married.”
“Well, Ettie,” said Fred, passing an arm about the young lady, “I really don’t know what’s to be done about it, if drinking moderately is the cause of all these dreadful things; I’m bound tobesomebody; I’m in the set of men that make money; they like me, and I understand them. But they all take something, and you don’t know how they look at a man who refuses to drink with them; all of themthink he don’t amount to much, and some of them actually feel insulted. What is a fellow to do?”
“Go into some other set, I suppose,” said Esther very soberly.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, my dear girl,” said Fred. “What else is there for a man to do in a dead-and-alive place like Barton? you don’t want to be the wife of a four-hundred-dollar clerk, and live in part of a common little house, do you?”
“Yes,” said Esther, showing her lover a rapturous face whose attractiveness was not marred by a suspicion of shyness. “I do, if Fred Macdonald is to be my husband.”
“Then if either of us should have a long illness, or if I should lose my position, we would have to depend on your parents and mine,” said Fred.
“Let us wait, then,” said Esther, “until you can have saved something, before we are married.”
“And be like Charley Merrick and Kate Armstrong, who’ve been engaged for ten years, and are growing old and doleful about it.”
“I’llnever grow old and doleful while waiting formylover to succeed,” said Esther, in a tone which might have carried conviction with it had Fred been entirely in a listening humor. But as Fredimagined himself in the position of the many unsuccessful young men in Barton, and of the anxious-looking husbands who had once been as spirited as himself, he fell into a frame of mind which was anything but receptive. In his day-dreams marriage had seemed made up of many things beside the perpetual companionship of Esther: it had among its very desirable components a handsome, well-furnished house, a carriage of the most approved style, an elegant wardrobe for Esther, and one of faultless style for himself, a prominent pew in church, and, not least of all, a sideboard which should be better stocked than that of any of his friends. To banish these from his mind for a moment, and imagine himself living in two or three rooms; cheapening meat at the butcher’s; never driving out but when he could borrow somebody’s horse and antiquated buggy; wearing a suit of clothes for two or three years in succession, while Esther should spend hours in making over and over the dresses of her unmarried days; all this made him almost deaf to Esther’s loyal words, and nearly oblivious to the fact that the wisest and sweetest girl in Barton was resting within his arm. Suddenly he aroused himself fromhis revery, and exclaimed, in a tone which Esther did not at first recognize as his own,
“Ettie, your ideas are honest and lofty, but you must admit that I know best about matters of business. I can’t deliberately throw away everything I have done, and form entirely different business connections. I’ve always regretted my promise to stop drinking after our marriage; but I’ve trusted that you, with your unusual sense, would see the propriety of absolving me from it.”
Esther shrank away from Fred, and hid her face in her hands, whispering hoarsely,
“I can’t. I can’t, and I never will.”
She dropped into a chair and burst into tears. Fred’s momentary expression of anger softened into sorrow, but his business instinct did not desert him. “Ettie,” said he tenderly, “I thought you trusted me.”
“YouknowI do, Fred,” said the weeping girl; “but my lover and the Fred who drinks are two different persons, and Ican’ttrust the latter. Don’t think me selfish: be always your natural self, and there’s no poverty or sorrow that I won’t endure to be always with you. Do you think I hope to marry you for the sake of living in luxury, or that anypleasures that money will buy will satisfy me any more than they do Nellie Wainright and Mr. Moshier’s wife? Or do you, professing to love me, ask me to run even the slightest risk of ever being as unhappy as the poor women we have been talking about are with their husbands, who love them dearly? Youmustkeep that promise, or I must love you apart from you—until you marry some one else! Even then I could only stop, it seems to me, by stopping to live.”
Fred’s face, while Esther was speaking, was anything but comely to look upon, but his intended reply was prevented by a violent knock at the door. Esther hurriedly dried her eyes, and prepared to vanish, if necessary, while Fred regained in haste his ordinary countenance; then, as the servant opened the door, the lovers heard a voice saying,
“Is Fred Macdonald here? He must come down to George Doughty’s right away. George is dying!”
Fred gave Ettie a hasty kiss and a conciliatory caress, after which he left the house at a lively run.
George Doughty lay propped up in bed; standing beside him, and clasping his hand tightly, was his wife; near him were his two oldest children, seemingly as ignorant of what was transpiring as they were uncomfortable on account of the peculiar influence which pervaded the room. On the other side of the bed, and holding one of the dying man’s hands, knelt Parson Wedgewell; beside him stood the doctor; while behind them both, near the door, and as nearly invisible as a man of his size could be, was Squire Tomple. The Squire’s face and figure seemed embodiments of a trembling, abject apology; he occasionally looked toward the door, as if to question that inanimate object whether behind its broad front he, the Squire, might not be safe from his own fears. It was very evident that the Squire’s conscience was making a coward of him; but it was also evident, and not for the first time in the world’s history, that cowardice is mightily influential inholding a coward to the ground that he hates. Had any one spoken to him, or paid him the slightest attention, the Squire would have felt better; nothing turns cowards into soldiers so quickly as the receipt of a volley; but no such relief seemed at all likely to reach him. The doctor, like a true man, having done all things, could only stand, and stand he did; Parson Wedgewell, feeling that upon his own efforts with the Great Physician depended the sick man’s future well-being, prayed silently and earnestly, raising his head only to search, through his tears, the face of the patient for signs of the desired answer to prayer. Mrs. Doughty was interested only in looking into the eyes too soon to close forever, and the faces of the two children were more than a man could intentionally look upon a second time. So when Doughty’s baby, who had been creeping about the floor, suddenly beholding the glories of the great seal which depended from the Squire’s fob-chain, tried to climb the leg of the storekeeper’s trousers, the Squire smiled, as a saint in extremity might smile at the sudden appearance of an angel, and he stooped—no easy operation for a man of Squire Tomple’s bulk—and, lifting the little fellow in his arms, put kisses all over the tiny face, which, in viewof the relations of cleanliness to attractiveness, was not especially bewitching. A moment later, however, a muffled but approaching step brought back to the Squire his own sense of propriety, and he dropped the baby just in time to be able to give a hand to Fred Macdonald, as that young man softly pushed open the door. The Squire’s face again became apologetic.
“How did it happen?” whispered Fred.
“Why,” replied the Squire, “the doctor says it’s a galloping consumption;Inever knew a thing about it. Doctor says it’s the quickest case he ever knew; he never imagined anything was the matter with George. IfI’dknown anything about it, I’d have had the doctor attending him long ago; but George isn’t of the complaining kind. The idea of a fellow being at work for me, and dying right straight along. Why, it’s awful! He says he never knew anything about it himself, so I don’t see howIcould. He was at the store up to four or five days ago, then his wife came around one morning and told me that he didn’t feel fit to work that day, but she didn’t say what the matter was. I’ve been thinking, for two or three weeks, about giving him some help in the store; but you know how business drives everythingout of a man’s head. First I thought I’d stay around the store myself evenings, and let George rest; but I’ve had to go to lodge meetings and prayer meetings, and my wife’s wanted me to go out with her, and so my time’s been taken up. Then I thought I’d get a boy, and—well, I didn’t know exactly which to do; but if I’d known——”
“But can’t something be done to brace him up for a day or two?” interrupted Fred; “then I’ll take him out driving every day, and perhaps he’ll pick up.”
The Squire looked twenty years older for a moment or two as he replied,
“The doctor says he hasn’t any physique to rally upon; he’s all gone, muscle, blood, and everything. It’s the queerest thing I ever knew; he hasn’t had anything to do, these past few years, but just whatIdid when I was a young man.”
The dying man turned his eyes inquiringly, and asked in a very thin voice,
“Isn’t Fred here?”
Fred started from the Squire’s side, but the storekeeper arrested his progress with both hands, and fixing his eyes on Fred’s necktie, whispered,
“You don’t thinkI’mto blame, do you?”
“Why—no—I don’t see how, exactly,” said Fred, endeavoring to escape.
“Fred,” whispered the Squire, tightening his hold on the lapels of Fred’s coat, “tellhimso, won’t you? I’ll be your best friend forever if you will; it’s dreadful to think of a man going up to God with such an idea on his mind, even if itisa mistake. Of course, when he gets there he’ll find out he’s wrong,ifhe is, as——”
Fred broke away from the storekeeper, and wedged himself between the doctor and pastor. Doughty withdrew his wrist from the doctor’s fingers, extended a thin hand, and smiled.
“Fred,” said he, “we used to be chums when we were boys. I never took an advantage of you, did I?”
“Never,” said Fred; “and we’ll have lots of good times again, old fellow. I’ve just bought the best spring wagon in the State, and I’ll drive you all over the country when you get well enough.”
George’s smile became slightly grim as he replied,
“I guess Barker’s hearse is the only spring wagon I’ll ever ride in again, my boy.”
“Nonsense, George!” exclaimed Fred heartily. “How many times have I seen you almost dead,and then put yourself together again? Don’t you remember the time when you gave out in the middle of the river, and then picked yourself up, and swam the rest of the way? Don’t you remember the time we got snowed in on Raccoon Mountain, and we both gave up and got ready to die, and how you not only came to, but dragged me home besides? The idea ofyouever dying! I wish you’d sent for me when you first took the silly notion into your head.”
Doughty was silent for a moment; his eyes brightened a little and a faint flush came to his cheeks; he looked fondly at his wife, and then at his children; he tried to raise himself in his bed; but in a minute his smile departed, his pallor returned, and he said, in the thinnest of voices,
“It’s no use, Fred; in those days there was something in me to call upon at a pinch; now there isn’t a thing. I haven’t any time to spare, Fred; what I want to ask is, keep an eye on my boys, for old acquaintance’ sake. Their mother will be almost everything to them, but she can’t be expected to know about their ways among men. I want somebody to care enough for them to see that they don’t make the mistakes I’ve made.”
A sudden rustle and a heavy step was heard, and Squire Tomple approached the bedside, exclaiming,
“I’lldo that!”
“Thank you, Squire,” said George feebly; “but you’re not the right man to do it.”
“George,” said the Squire, raising his voice, and unconsciously raising his hand, “I’ll give them the best business chances that can be had; I can do it, for I’m the richest man in this town.”
“You gavemethe best chance in town, Squire, and this is what has come of it,” said Doughty.
The Squire precipitately fell back and against his old place by the wall. Doughty continued,
“Fred, persuade them—tell them that I said so—that a business that makes them drink to keep up, isn’t business at all—it’s suicide. Tell them that their father, who was never drunk in his life, got whisky to help him use more of himself, until there wasn’t anything left to use. Tell them that drinking for strength means discounting the future, and that discounting the future always means getting ready for bankruptcy.”
“I’ll do it, old fellow,” said Fred, who had been growing very solemn of visage.
“They shan’t ask you for any money, Fred, explained Doughty, when the Squire’s voice was again heard saying,
“And they shan’t refuse it from me.”
“Thank you, Squire,” said George. “I do think you owe it to them, but I guess they’ve good enough stuff in them to refuse it.”
“George,” said the Squire, again approaching the bedside, “I’m going to continue your salary to your wife until your boys grow big enough to help her. You know I’ve got plenty of money—’twon’t hurt me; for God’s sake make her promise to take it.”
“She won’t need it,” said Doughty. “My life’s insured.”
“Then whatcanI do for her—for them—for you?” asked the Squire. “George, you’re holding your—sickness—against me, and I want to make it right. I can’t say I believe I’ve done wrong by you, but you think I have, and that’s enough to make me want to restore good feeling between us before—in case anything should happen. Anything that moneycando, itshalldo.”
“Offer it to God Almighty, Squire, and buy my life back again,” said Doughty. “If you can’t dothat, your money isn’t good for anything in this house.”
The doctor whispered to his patient that he must not exert himself so much; the Squire whispered to the doctor to know what else a man in his own position could do?
Fred Macdonald could think of no appropriate expression with which to break the silence that threatened. Suddenly Parson Wedgewell raised his head, and said,
“My dear young friend, this is a solemn moment. There are others who know and esteem you, beside those here present; have you no message to leave for them? Thousands of people rightly regard you as a young man of high character, and your influence for good may be powerful among them. I should esteem it an especial privilege to announce, in my official capacity, such testimony as you may be moved to make, and as your pastor, I feel like claiming this mournful pleasure as a right. What may I say?”
“Say,” replied the sick man, with an earnestness which was almost terrible in its intensity; “say that whisky was the best business friend I ever found, and that when it began to abuse me, no one thoughtenough of me to step in between us. And tell them that this story is as true as it is ugly.”
As Doughty spoke, he had raised himself upon one elbow; as he uttered his last word, he dropped upon his pillow, and passed into a land to which no one but his wife manifested any willingness to follow him.
The funeral services of George Doughty were as largely attended as the great temperance meeting had been, and the attendants admitted—although the admission was not, logically, of particular force—that they received the worth of their money. The pall-bearers, twelve in number, were all young men who had been in the habit of drinking, but who had signed the pledge, some of them having appended signatures to special pledges privately prepared on the evening before the service. The funeral anthem was as doleful as the most sincere mourner could have wished, the music having been composed especially for the occasion by the chorister of Mr. Wedgewell’s church. As for the sermon, it was universally voted the most powerful effort that Parson Wedgewell had ever made. Day and night had the good man striven with Doughty’s parting injunction, determined to transmit the exact spirit of it, but horrified at its verbalform. At last he honestly made George’s own words the basis of his whole sermon; his method being, first, to show what would have been naturally the last words of a young man of good birth and Christian breeding, and then presenting George’s moral legacy by way of contrast. To point the moral without offending Squire Tomple’s pride, and without inflicting useless pain upon the Squire’s sufficiently wounded heart, was no easy task; but the parson was not lacking in tact and tenderness, so he succeeded in making of his sermon an appeal so powerful and all-applicable that none of the hearers found themselves at liberty to search out those to whom the sermon might seem personally addressed.
Among the hearers was Mr. Crupp, and no one seemed more deeply interested and affected. He followed the funeral cortege to the cemetery; but, arrived there, he halted at the gate, instead of following the example of the multitude by crowding as closely as possible to the grave. The final services were no sooner concluded, however, than the object of Mr. Crupp’s unusual conduct became apparent to one person after another, the disclosure being made to people in the order of their earthlypossessions. The parson was shocked at learning that Mr. Crupp was importuning every man of means to take stock in a woolen mill, to be established at Barton; but a whispered word or two from Crupp caused the parson to abate his displeasure, and finally to stand near Crupp’s side and express his own hearty approbation of the enterprise proposed. Then Mr. Crupp whispered a few words to Squire Tomple, and the Squire subscribed a hundred shares at ten dollars each, information of which act was disseminated among business men and well-to-do farmers by Parson Wedgewell with an alacrity which, had modern business ideas prevailed at Barton, would have laid the parson open to a suspicion of having accepted a few shares, to be paid for by his own influence. Then Deacon Jones subscribed twenty shares, and Judge Macdonald, Fred’s father, promised to take fifty; Crupp’s name already stood at the head of the list for a hundred. No stock-company had ever been organized at Barton before, and the citizens had always manifested a laudable reluctance to allow other people to handle their money; but this case seemed an exception to all others; confidence in the enterprise was so powerfullyexpressed, alike by the mercantile community, the bar, the church, and the unregenerate (the last-named class being represented by the ex-vender of liquors), that people who had any money made haste to participate in what seemed to them a race for wealth with the odds in everybody’s favor. Crupp neglected no one; he scorned no subscription on account of its smallness; before he left the cemetery gate nearly half the requisite capital had been pledged, and before he slept that night he found it necessary to accept rather more than the twenty thousand dollars which, it had been decided two days before, would be needed. Several days later a board of directors was elected; two or three of the directors informally offered the superintendency of the mill to Fred Macdonald, on condition that he would pledge himself to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverage while he held the position, and then Fred was elected superintendent in regular form and by unanimous vote of the board of directors.
Great was the excitement in Barton and the tributary country when it was announced that the mill needed no more money, and that, consequently, no more stock would be issued. In that mysteriousway in which such things always happen, the secret escaped, and encountered every one, that his new position would prevent Fred Macdonald from drinking; non-stockholders had then the additional grievance that they had been deprived of taking any part in an enterprise for the good of a fellow-man, and all because the rich men of the village saw money in it. None of these injured ones dared to express their minds on this subject to Squire Tomple, to whom so many of them owed money, or to Judge Macdonald, who, in his family pride, would have laid himself liable to action by the grand jury, had any one suggested that his oldest son had ever been in any danger of becoming a drunkard. But to Mr. Crupp they did not hesitate to speak freely; Crupp owned no mortgages, no total abstainers owed him money; besides, he not only was not a church member, but he had been in that most infernal of all callings, rum-selling. So it came to pass that when one day Crupp went into Deacon Jones’s store for a dollar’s worth of sugar, and was awaiting his turn among a large crowd of customers, Father Baguss constituted himself spokesman for the aggrieved faction, and said,
“It ’pears to me, Mr. Crupp, as if reformin’ was a payin’ business.”
Crupp being human, was not saintly, so he flushed angrily, and replied,
“Itoughtto be, if the religion you’re so fond of is worth a row of pins; but I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“Oh! of course you don’t know,” said Father Baguss; “but everybody else does. You don’t expect to make any money out of that woolen mill, do you?”
“Yes I do, too,” answered Crupp quickly. “I’ll make every cent I can out of it.”
“Just so,” said Father Baguss, consoling himself with a bite of tobacco; “an’ them that’s borne the burden and heat of the day can plod along and not make a cent ’xcept by the hardest knocks. I’ve been one of the Sons of Temperance ever since I was converted, an’ that’s nigh onto forty year; I don’t see why I don’t getmysheer of the good things of this world.”
“If you mean,” said Crupp, with incomparable deliberation, “that my taking stock in the mill is a reward to me for dropping the liquor business, you’re mightily mistaken. I’d have taken it all thesame if anybody had put me up to it when I was in the liquor business.”
“Yes,” sighed Father Baguss, “like enough you would; as the Bible says, ‘The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.’ I can’t help a-gettin’ mad, though, to think it has to be so.”
Two or three unsuccessful farmers lounging about the stove sighed sympathetically, but Crupp indulged in a sarcastic smile, and remarked,
“Ialways supposed it was because the children of light had got their treasure laid up in heaven, and were above such worldly notions.”
The late sympathizers of Father Baguss saw the joke, and laughed with unkind energy, upon which the good old man straightened himself and exclaimed,
“The children of the kingdom have to earn their daily bread, I reckon; manna don’t fall nowadays like it used to do for the chosen people.”
“Exactly,” said Crupp, “and them that ain’t chosen people don’t pick up their dinners without working for them either, without getting into jail for it. But, say! I didn’t come in here to make fun of you, Father Baguss. If you want some of thatmill stock so bad, I’ll sell you some of mine—that is, if you’ll go into temperance with all your might.”
The old man seemed struck dumb for a moment but when he found his tongue, he made that useful member make up for lost time. “Go into temperance!” he shouted. “Did anybody ever hear the like of that? I that’s been a “Son” more’n half my life; that’s spent a hundred dollars—yes, more—in yearly dues; that’s been to every temperance meetin’ that’s ever been held in town, even when I’ve had rheumatiz so bad I could hardly crawl; that kept the pledge even when I was out in the Black Hawk War, where the doctors themselves said that Iortto have drank; that’s plead with drinkers, and been scoffed an’ reviled like my blessed Master for my pains; that’s voted for the Maine Liquor Law; that’s been dead agin lettin’ Miles Dalling into the church because he brews beer for his own family drinkin’, though he’s a good enough man every other way, as fur as I can see; I that went to see every member of our church, an’ begged an’ implored ’em not to sell our old meetin’-house to the feller that’s since turned it into a groggery; I to be told by a feller like you, that’s got the guilt ofuncounted drunkards on your soul——”
Crupp, with a very white face, advanced a step or two toward the old man; but the participator in the Black Hawk War was not to be frightened, especially when he was so excited as he was now; so he roared,
“Come on! come on! perhaps you wantmyblood on your soul, with all the others; but just let me tell you, it isn’t easy to get!”
Crupp recovered himself and replied, “Father Baguss, all that you’ve done is very well in its way, but it wasn’t going into temperance. You’ve been a first-rate talker, I know, but talk isn’t cider. Why, there’s been lots of men in my store after listenin’ to one of your strong temperance speeches, and laughed about what they’ve heard. I’ve told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves—don’t shake your head—Ihave, and all they’d say would be, ‘Talk don’t cost anything, Crupp.’ But if you’d followed up your tongue with your brains, and most of all your pocket, not one of them chaps would have opened his head about you.”
“Money!” exclaimed the old man; “didn’t I tell you that division dues alone had cost me more’n a hundred dollars; not to speak of subscriptions to public meetin’s?”
“And every cent that didn’t go to pay ‘division’ expenses, that is—for keeping a lodge-room in shape for you to meet in, and such things—went to pay for more talk. Did you Sons of Temperance everbuya man away from his whisky? Itmighthave been done—done cheap too—in almost any week since I’ve been in Barton, by helping down-hearted men along. Did you ever do it yourself?”
Father Baguss was nonplussed for a moment, noting which a bystander, also a Son of Temperance, came valiantly to the rescue of his order, by exclaiming,
“Tongues was made to use, and the better the cause, the more it needs to be talked about.”
“There’s no getting away from that,” said Crupp. “Talk’s all right in its place; but when anybody’s sick in your family, you don’t hire somebody to come in and talk him well, do you?”
The auxiliary replied by pressing perceptibly closer to the bale of blankets against which he had been leaning, and Crupp was enabled to concentrate his attention upon Father Baguss. But the old soldier had in his military days unconsciously acquired a tactical idea or two which were frequently applicable in real life. One of them was that offlanking, and he straightway attempted it by exclaiming,
“I’d use money quick enough on drunkards, if I saw anybody fit to use it on,” said he; “it would do my old soul good to find a drinking man that I could be sure money would save. But they’re a shiftless, worthless pack of shotes, all that I see of ’em. Therewuza young fellow—Lije Mason his name was—that I once thought seriously of doin’ somethin’ fur; but he went an’ signed the pledge, an’ got along all right by himself.”
“But there’s your own neighbors, old Tappelmine and his family—they all drink; what have you done for ’em?” asked Crupp.
“A lot of Kentucky poor white trash!” exclaimed Father Baguss. “Whatcouldanybody do for ’em? Besides, they do for ’emselves; they’ve stole hams out of my smoke-house more’n once, an’ they knowIknow it, too.”
“Poor white trash is sometimes converted in church, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Crupp; “and what’s to keep poor white trash from stopping drinking? what but a good, honest, religious, rum-hating neighbor that looks at ’em so savagely and lets ’em alone so hard that they’d take pains to get drunk, just toworry him? I know how you feel toward them; Isawit once: one Sunday I passed you on the road just opposite their place; you was in your wagon takin’ your folks to church, and I—well, I was out trying to shoot a wild turkey, which I mightn’t have been on a Sunday. They were all laughin’ and cuttin’ up in the house—it’s seldom enough such folks get anything to laugh about—and I could justseeyou groan, and your face was as black as a thunder cloud, and as savage as an oak knot soaked in vinegar. The old man came out just then for an armful of wood, and nodded at you pleasant enough; but that face of yours was too much for him, and pretty soon he looked as if he’d have liked to throw a chunk of wood at your head. I’d havedoneit, if I’d been him. The old man was awfully drunk when I came back that way, two or three hours later. That was a pretty day’s work for a Son of Temperance, wasn’t it—and Sunday, too?”
The casing to Father Baguss’s conscience was not as thick as that to his brain, and he was silent; perhaps the prospect of getting some mill stock aided the good work in his heart.
Crupp continued: “I’m a ‘Son’ myself, now, and I know what a man agrees to when he joins a division.If you think you’ve lived up to it—you and the other members of the Barton Division—I suppose you’ve a right to your opinion; but if my ideas, picked up on both sides of the fence, are worth anything to you, they amount to just this: the Sons of Temperance in this town haven’t done anything but help each other not to get back into bad ways again, and to give a welcomin’ hand to anybody that’s strong enough in himself to come into the division with you; and that isn’t the spirit of the order.”
Crupp got his sugar, and no one pressed him to stay longer; but, as he slowly departed, as became a soldier who was not retreating but only changing his base, Father Baguss followed him, touched his sleeve as soon as he found himself outside the store door, and said,
“Say, Crupp, I’ll try to do something for Tappelmine, though I don’t know yet what it’ll be, an’ I don’t care if youdolet me have about five sheers of that mill stock; I s’pose you won’t want more than you paid for it?”
The mail-stage did not make its appearance at the usual hour on the day following Crupp’s conversation with Father Baguss, and during a lull in the desultory conversation which prevailed among those who were waiting for the mail, the postmaster displayed at his window his large, round face, devoid of its habitual jolly smile, and remarked,
“Too bad about Wainright, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?” asked half a dozen at once.
The postmaster looked infinitely more important all in a second. It is but seldom in this world that a man can tell a bit of news to an assembled crowd; and in an inland town, before the day of the omnipresent telegraph pole, the chances were proportionately fewer than elsewhere. The postmaster had a generous heart, however, and at the risk of losing his importance he opened his treasure-house all at once:
“He’s been pretty high on whiskey for two orthree days,” said he, “and they say he’s got snakes in his boots now; anyhow, he’s made a sudden break for Louisville; he started on foot, an hour or two ago, for Brown’s Landing, seven miles below here, to catch a down-river steamboat; he was clear-headed enough to find out first that it wasn’t likely that theExcellence, that’s about due, wouldn’t have any freight to stop for here. His wife’s half wild about it, but there’s nothing the poor thing can do.”
“Poor, misguided man!” sighed Parson Wedgewell, who had arrived just in time to hear the story. “The ways of Providence are undoubtedly wise, but they are indeed mysterious. Judging according to our finite capacities, it would be natural to suppose that capabilities so unusual as those of Mr. Wainright would be divinely guided.”
“I saw him coming down the walk,” observed Squire Tomple, “and I thought he looked rather peculiar, so I just stepped across the street; I don’t like to get into a row with men in that fix.”
“Of course getting into a row was the only thing that could be done,” said Crupp, who had apparently been carefully reading a posted notice of a sheriff’s sale.
The Squire did not enjoy the tone in which Crupp’s remark was delivered; but before he could reason with the new reformer, the Reverend Timotheus Brown dashed into the fray in defense of a beloved idea, which the rival pastor had seemed covertly to assail.
“The reason such natures aren’t divinely guided,” said he, in a voice which suggested nutmeg-graters to the acute sensibilities of Parson Wedgewell, “is that they don’t implicitly submit themselves to the Divine will.”
“A man can do nothing unless the Spirit draw him,” said Parson Wedgewell valiantly.
“That’s rather hard on a fellow, though, isn’t it?” soliloquized Fred Macdonald.
“Not a bit of it,” spoke out Father Baguss, who had been scenting the battle from an inner room. “Bless the Lord! the parables of the lost sheep that the shepherd left the rest of the flock to look for, and the lost coin that the woman hunted for, wasn’t told for nothin’. The Lord knows how to ’tend to his own business.”
“And nobody else can do a thing to help the Lord along, can he?” said Crupp, passing his arm through the postmaster’s window, and extractingfrom his box a copy of the LouisvilleJournal(then the only paper of prominence in a large section of Western country); “all that men have to do in such cases is just to talk.”
Crupp departed, encountering on the way the wide-open countenance of Tom Adams, who was waiting for Deacon Jones’s mail. The two pastors preserved silence, that of Mr. Brown being extremely dignified, with a visible trace of acerbity, while that of Mr. Wedgewell was strongly suggestive of mental unquiet. The distribution of the small mail, which had arrived soon after the conversation began, gave everybody an excuse to depart—an excuse of which most of them availed themselves at once, Squire Tomple having first changed the direction of the conversation by inquiring particularly of Father Baguss as to the number and probable weight of the porkers which the old man was fattening for the winter market. The subject lasted only until the two men reached the door, however, and then each sympathized with the other over the wounds received at the hands, or tongue, of the unsentimental and irreligious Crupp. Yet the more they talked of Crupp, the less they seemed to realize their pain.
Tom Adams went straight to his employer’s store, and exclaimed, not in his usual ingenuous manner,
“Deacon, old Berry won’t take that load of bricks unless he gets ’em right off; I guess I’ll take ’em right out to him. It’s a long trip, but there’s three hours yet ’fore dark.”
“Be sure you do, then, Thomas,” said the deacon.
Tom was soon in his wagon, and going toward the brick-yard at a livelier rate than was consistent with the proper care of horses with a long, heavy pull before them. The bricks were loaded with apparent regard to count, but not in good order, and, as Tom followed the road to old Berry’s, he soliloquized:
“I ort to be able to ketch him after I deliver the bricks, but what in thunder am I to say to him? Like enough he’ll knock me down if I don’t look out. That’s just the notion, Ide-clare! I can knockhimdown, and put him right in the wagon and bring him back; the joltin’ would fetch him to and clear his head, like it’s done mine often enough when I’ve been in his fix. But, hang it, what a ridick’lus goose-chase it does look like!”
Meanwhile the Reverend Timotheus Brown hadlimped down the main street, looking a little more unapproachable than usual. As he reached the edge of the town, however, where there began the low plain which led to the river, he quickened his pace somewhat, and he did not stop until he reached the river. Upon a raft sat a man fishing, and near by a canoe was tied; in this latter the preacher seated himself, having first untied it.
“Hello, there! What are you a-doin’ with my dug-out?” shouted the fisherman.
“The Lord hath need of it!” roared the old divine, picking up the paddle.
“Well, I’ll be——!” exclaimed the man; “if thatain’tthe coolest! The Lord’ll get a duckin’, I reckon, for that’s thewobbliestcanoe. I don’t know, though; the old fellow paddles as if he were used to it.”
Away down the river went the Reverend Timotheus; at the same time Fred Macdonald, on horseback, hailed the ferry-boat, crossed the river, and galloped down the opposite bank, and Crupp, a half an hour later, might have been seen lying on his oars in a skiff in a shallow a mile above the town, waiting to board theExcellence, as she came down the stream.
“’Pears to me preachers are out for a walk to-day,” said one old lady to another across a garden fence, in one edge of the town. “I saw Mr. Brown ’way down the street ever so far to-day, an’ now here’s Brother Wedgewell ’way out here. I thought like enough he was goin’ to call, but he went straight along an’ only bowed, awful solemn.”
Parson Wedgewell certainly walked very fast, and the more ground he covered the more rapidly his feet moved, and not his feet only. In long stretches of road shut in by forest trees he found himself devoid of a single mental restraint, and he thought aloud as he walked.
“Rebuked by a sinner! O God! with my whole heart I have sought thee, and thou hast instead revealed thyself not only unto babes and sucklings, but unto one who is certainly not like unto one of these little ones. Teach me thy will, for verily in written books I fear I have found it not. What if the boat reaches the landing before I do, and this lost sheep escapes me? Father in Heaven, the shepherd is astray in his way, even as the sheep is; but O thou! who didst say that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, make the feeble power of man to triumph over great enginesand the hurrying of mighty waters. Fulfill thy promise, O God, for the sake of the soul thou hast committed to my charge!”
Then, like a man who believed in helping his own prayers along, the parson snatched off his coat and hat and increased his speed. He was far outside of his own parish, for most of his congregation were townsmen, and the old pastor knew no more of the geography of the country about him than he did of Chinese Tartary. He had taken what was known as the “River Road,” and thus far his course had been plain; now, however, he reached a place where the road divided, and which branch to take he did not know. Ordinary sense of locality would have taught him in an instant, but the parson had no such sense; there was no house in sight at which he could ask his way, and, to add to his anxiety, theExcellencecame down the river to his left and rear, puffing and shrieking as if the making of hideous noises was the principal qualification of a river steamer. The old man fell upon his knees, raised his face and hands toward heaven, and exclaimed,