The Widow never forgot that her tenure of the hotel might end at any time; and, thinking ever of Jim and his future, she saved what she could from the weekly proceeds. She was a good manager, and each month saw something added to her bank account. When it had grown to a considerable size her friends advised her to invest it. There were Government bonds paying five per cent., local banks paying six and seven, and, last of all, the Consolidated Trading Stores paying eight and sometimes more—an enterprise of which Tom Ford was head.
The high interest was tempting, and pride was not without some power. Kitty was pleased to think that now she could go to the pompous Mayor as a capitalist. So, creating with an inward sense of triumph the impression of huge deposits elsewhere, she announced that she would take a small block of stock in the C. T. S. as a nest-egg for her boy. Thus the accumulations of ten years went into the company of which the Mayor was head and guide. For a time, the interest was duly paid each half year. Then came a crash. After the reorganization the Mayor continued in his big brick house and his wife still wore her diamonds; but the widow's hard-earned savings were gone. Kitty was stunned but game; falling back on the strength that was inside, she bravely determined to begin all over and build on a rock of safety. But fortune had another blow in store for Jim. And it fell within a month, just as he turned thirteen.
It was the end of the Canadian winter. Fierce frost and sudden thaw were alternated as the north wind and the south struggled for the woods, and the heat of work in the warm sun left many ill prepared for the onset of bitter cold at dusk. Bustling everywhere, seeing that pigs were fed, pies made, and clothes mended; now in the hot kitchen, a moment later in the stable yard to manage some new situation; the Widow fell a victim to pneumonia much as John Downey had done.
For three days she lay in fever and pain. Jim was scarcely allowed to see her. They did not understand pneumonia in those days, and as it was the general belief that all diseases were "catching," the boy was kept away. The doctor was doing his best with old-fashioned remedies, blisters, mustard baths, hot herb teas and fomentations. He told her she would soon be well, but Kitty knew better. On the third day, she asked in a whisper for Jim, but told them first to wash his face and hands with salt water. So the long-legged, bright-eyed boy came and sat by his mother's bed and held her hot hands. As he gazed on her over-bright eyes, she said softly:
"My darling, you'll soon be alone, without friend or kith or kin. This place will no longer be your home. God only knows where you'll go. But He will take care of you as He took care of me."
For the first time Jim realized the meaning of the scene—his mother was dying. She quieted his sobs with a touch of her hand and began again, slowly and painfully:
"I tried to leave you well fixed, but it was not to be. The hotel will go to another. This is all I have for you."
She drew a little cedar box from under the covers, and opening it, showed him her Bible, the daguerreotype of his father and a later photograph of herself.
"Jim, promise me again that you will never touch tobacco or liquor till you are eighteen."
"Oh, mother, mother!" he wept. "I'll do anything you say. I'll promise. I give you my word I never will touch them."
She rested in silence, her hand was on his head. When her strength in a little measure came again, she said in a low tone:
"My wish was to see you educated, a minister for Christ. I hope it may yet be so."
She was still a long time; then, gently patting his head, she said to those around:
"Take him away. Wash him with salt and water."
Thus it came about that the hotel which had been Jim's only home and which he thought belonged to his mother, passed into the hands of John Downey, Jr., nephew of the original owner. It was Mrs. John Downey who offered the first ray of comfort in Jim's very bleak world. When she saw the tall handsome boy she put her arms around him and said:
"Never mind, Jim, don't go away. This will always be home for you."
So the lad found a new home in the old house, but under greatly changed conditions. The new mistress had notions of her own as to the amount of education necessary and the measure of service to be returned for one's keep. Jim was able to read, write, and cipher; this much was ample in the opinion of Mrs. Downey, and Jim's school days ended. The understanding that he must make himself useful quickly resulted in his transference to the stable. A garret in the barn was furnished with a bed for him, and Jim's life was soon down to its lowest level. He had his friends, for he was full of fun and good to look upon: but they were not of the helpful kind, being recruited chiefly from the hostlers, the pugilists, and the horsemen. He had time for amusements, too; but they were nearly always of the boxing glove and the saddle. Books had little charm for him, though he still found pleasure in reciting the heroic ballads of Lachlin, the Raid of Dermid, the Battle of the Boyne, and in singing "My Pretty, Pretty Maid," or woodmen's "Come all ye's." His voice was unusually good, except at the breaking time; and any one who knew the part the minstrel played in Viking days would have thought the bygone times come back to see him among the roystering crowd at Downey's.
The next three years that passed were useless except for this, they gifted Jim with a tall and stalwart form and shoulders like a grown man. But they added little to the good things he had gathered from his mother and from Fightin' Bill. At sixteen he was six feet high, slim and boyish yet, but sketched for a frame of power. All this time his meagre keep and his shabby clothes were his only pay. But Jim had often talked things over with his friends and they pointed out that he was now doing man's work and getting less than boy's pay. The scene that followed his application for regular wages was a very unpleasant one; and John Downey made the curious mistake of trying to throw young Jimmy out. The boy never lost his temper for a moment but laughingly laid his two strong hands on the landlord's fat little shoulders and shook him till his collar popped and his eyes turned red. Then Jim grinned and said:
"I told ye I wasn't a kid anny more."
It was the landlady's good sense that made a truce, and after a brief, stormy time the long-legged boy was reinstated at wages in the yard.
At seventeen Jim was mentioned among the men as a likely "bhoy." Women in the street would turn to look in admiration at his square shoulders, lithe swing, and handsome head. But the life he led was flat, or worse than flat. The best that can be said of it is that in all this sordid round of bar and barn he learned nothing that in any sort had power to harm his rare physique. His language at times was the worst of its lurid kind. His associates were coarse and drunken. Yet Jim lived with them in all their ways and neither chewed, smoked, nor drank. How or why, none understood. He said simply that he "didn't feel like he wanted to." With the liquor it was a different matter. Here it was a question of principle and his word to his mother helped him where by nature he was weak. So he grew up, hedged about with a dignity that was in some sense a foreshadowing of his destiny. But there was much dross to be burned away and the two great passions that stood between Jim Hartigan and full spiritual manhood had their roots in these early years at Downey's. Later he matched his strength against theirs and with that struggle, in which no quarter was asked or given, these pages are ultimately concerned.
Many a man has been ruined by a high, unbroken level of success. Intellectually it makes for despotism and a conviction of infallibility. In the world of muscle, it creates a bully.
Young Jim was far from losing his interest in the ring, and he was growing so big and strong that there were few in town who cared to put on the gloves with him. All that Bill Kenna had taught him, and more, was stored as valued learning. Kenna used to say, in his Irish vein: "There is twelve rules for to conduct yourself right in a shindy; the first is, get your blow in first; and, if ye live up to this, ye needn't worry about the other iliven rules." Jim accepted this as fundamental truth and thereby became the aggressor in nearly every brawl.
His boiling, boisterous, animal nature grew with his body and he revelled in the things of brawn. He responded joyfully when he was called on to eject some rowdy from the bar-room, and begetting confidence with each new victory, he began to have a vast opinion of himself. About this time a powerful rival of Downey's, known as the Dummer House, claimed attention at the other end of town. One was located to catch the inbound from the west; the other, those from the east. And when the owners were not at war, they kept at best an armed neutrality.
John Downey had delivered himself of some unhallowed hopes concerning the rival house, and Jim, as he passed the opposition Inn on a certain evening, had the picturesque devastations vividly in mind. It so happened that a masting team of oxen was standing patiently outside awaiting the driver who was refreshing himself at the bar. A masting team consists of six to twelve strong, selected oxen, yoked two and two to a mighty chain with which they can drag forth the largest pines that are saved for masts. Jim's too-agile mind noted the several components of a new and delightful exploit: a crowd of noisy teamsters in a log house bar-room, a team of twelve huge, well-trained oxen on a chain, the long, loose end of which lay near him on the ground. It was the work of a minute to hook the chain around a projecting log of the house. A moment more and he had the oxen on the go. Beginning with the foremost pair, he rushed down the line, and the great, heaving, hulking shoulders, two and two, bent and heaved their bulk against the strain. The chain had scarcely time to tighten; no house could stand against that power. The huge pine log was switched out at one end as a man might jerk a corn cob from its crib. The other end, still wedged in its place, held for a moment; but the oxen moved slowly on like a landslide. The log was wrenched entirely away and the upper part of the building dropped with a sullen "chock" to rest a little lower. There was a wild uproar inside, a shouting of men, a clatter of glass, and out rushed the flushed-faced rabble, astonished, frightened, furious to see the twelve great oxen solemnly marching down the street, trailing the missing log, the fragment of their house, while beside them, running, laughing, hooting, was a long-legged boy.
Jim's intention had been to clear out, but the trick proved so screamingly funny that he stood for a minute to enjoy the scene. Shelves had fallen and glasses had broken, but no person had been hurt. There was a moment's uncertainty; then with an angry shout the enraged patrons of the Dummer House swept forward. Jim discreetly fled. In the centre of the town friends appeared and in the street he turned to face his pursuers. Jim had already proved himself one of "the best men in Links" and it was with a new burst of hilarity that he wheeled about among his backers to give them "all they wanted." Instead of the expected general onslaught, a method new to Jim was adopted. The teamsters of the Dummer House held back and from their ranks there issued a square-jawed, bow-legged man, whose eye was cold, whose step was long and quick. With the utmost deliberation he measured Jim with his eye. Then he growled:
"Come on, ye ill-born pup. Now ye'll get what ye desarve."
The sporting instinct was strong in the crowd and the two were left alone to fight it out. It took very little time. Jim had made a mistake—a serious one. This was no simple teamster, guileless of training, who faced him, but a man whose life was in the outer circle of the prize ring. The thrashing was complete, and effective for several weeks. Jim was carried home and ever after he bore upon his chin a scar that was the record of the final knockout from the teamster's iron fist.
The catastrophe had several important compensations. The owner of the Dummer House decided that the boy was punished enough, and took no legal proceeding against him. On his part, Jim began to think much more seriously before giving reckless rein to his sense of humour. On the whole, his respect for the rights of others was decidedly increased. His self-esteem shrunk to more normal proportions and if he thought of the incident at all it was to wish very earnestly that some day, somewhere, he might meet the teamster again on more even terms.
Unfortunately these salutory results were negatived some six months later by an event that took place in Downey's bar. It was Jim's birthday; he was eighteen and he announced it with pride.
"And here's where ye join us," said several.
"No, I don't care about it," said Jim.
"Ye ain't promise bound now, are ye?"
"No," replied Jim, "but——"
"Make him a sweet one with syrup and just a spoonful of the crather to take the curse off."
Refusing, protesting, half ashamed of his hesitation, Jim downed at a gulp a fruity concoction, much to the delight of the assemblage. It was not so bad as he had expected it to be and the crowd roared at the expression on his face.
"Ye're a man for yourself now, lad," said a woodsman clapping him on the shoulder. "Come boys, another round to Hartigan's health."
It could not be said of Jim that he was normal in anything. In a rare and multiplied degree he had inherited the full muscling and robust heart of his folk in both lines of forbears. It was a great inheritance, but it carried its own penalty. The big animal physique holds a craving for strong drink. Physical strength and buoyancy are bound up with the love of bacchanalian riot. Jim had given his word to abstain from liquor until he was of age; he had kept it scrupulously. Now he had tasted of it the pendulum swung full to the other side. That was his nature. His world might be a high world or a low world; whichever sphere he moved in he practised no half-way measures.
From that eighteenth birthday Jim Hartigan waged ceaseless warfare within himself. During the early days he was an easy victim. Then came a shock that changed the whole aspect of his life, and later one stood beside him who taught him how to fight. But until those events took place, the town of Links knew him for what he was, a reckless, dare-devil youth, without viciousness or malice, but ripe for any extravagance or adventure. His pranks were always begun in fun though it was inevitable that they should lead to serious consequences. It was admitted by his severest critics that he had never done a cruel or a cowardly thing, yet the constant escapades and drinking bouts in which he was ever the leader earned him the name of Wild Jim Hartigan.
After each fresh exploit his abject remorse was pitiful. And so, little by little, a great nature was purged; his spirit was humbled by successive and crushing defeats. At first the animal rebound was sufficient to set him on his feet unashamed. But during the fourth year after his coming of age, an unrest, a sickness of soul took possession of Jim and no wildness sufficed to lift this gloom. And it was in frantic rebellion against this depression that he entered upon his memorable visit to the Methodist revival.
There was much excitement in Methodist circles that autumn. A preacher of power had come from the east. The church was filled to overflowing on Sunday, and a prayer meeting of equal interest was promised for Wednesday night.
The people came from miles around and there were no vacant seats. Even the aisles were filled with chairs when the Rev. Obadiah Champ rose and bawled aloud in rolling paragraphs about "Hopeless, helpless, hell-damned sinners all. Come, come to-day. Come now and be saved." A wave of religious hysteria spread over the packed-in human beings. A wave that to those untouched was grotesque and incomprehensible.
"Sure, they ain't right waked up yet," said one of Jim's half-dozen unregenerate friends who had come to sit with him on the fence outside, and scoff at the worshippers. Jim was silent, but a devil of wild deeds stirred irritatingly within him. He looked about him for some supreme inspiration—some master stroke. The crowd was all in the church now, and the doors were closed tight. But muffled sounds of shouting, of murmurings, of halleluiahs were heard.
"They're goin' it pretty good now, Jim," said another. "But I think you could arouse 'em," he added, with a grin.
Standing by the church was a tall elm tree; near by was a woodshed with axe, saw, and wood pile. Jim's eye measured the distance from trunk to roof and then, acting on a wild impulse, with visions of folk in terror for their bodies when they professed concern for nothing but their souls, he got the axe, and amid the suppressed giggles and guffaws of his chums, commenced to fell the tree. In twenty minutes the great trunk tottered, crackled, and swung down fair on the roof of the crowded building.
The congregation had reached a degree of great mental ferment with the revival, and a long, loud murmuring of prayers and groans, with the voice of the exhorter, harsh and ringing, filled the edifice, when with a crash overhead the great arms of the tree met the roof. At first, it seemed like a heavenly response to the emotion of the congregation, but the crackling of small timber, the showering down of broken glass and plaster gave evidence of a very earthly interposition.
Then there was a moment of silence, then another crack from the roof, and the whole congregation arose and rushed for the door. All in vain the exhorter tried to hold them back. He shrieked even scriptural texts to prove they should stay to see the glory of the Lord. Another flake of plaster fell, on the pulpit this time; then he himself turned and fled through the vestry and out by the back way.
Jim's following had deserted him, but he himself was there to see the fun; and when the congregation rushed into the moonlight it was like a wasp's nest poked with a stick, or a wheat shock full of mice turned over with a fork. The crowd soon understood the situation and men gathered around the sinner. There was menace in every pose and speech. They would have him up to court; they would thrash him now. But the joyful way in which Jim accepted the last suggestion and offered to meet any or all "this holy minute" had a marked effect on the programme, especially as there were present those who knew him.
Then the exhorter said:
"Brethren, let me talk to this heinous sinner. Young man, do you realize that this is the House of God, which you have so criminally destroyed?"
"The divil an' all it is," said Jim. "Sure, ye ain't got the cheek to call a Methody shindy hall the House of God. I think ye ought to be ashamed of yourself to give a lot of dacent farmers the hysterics like yer doin'."
"Young man, the spirit of the Lord is mighty, and cometh like a strong wind on the four corners of the house."
"Then why in the divil did ye blame me for it?" was the answer.
"Oh, son of Belial! Hell fire and eternal damnation, a portion in the pit that burneth with fire, is the lot of those that desecrate the sanctuary of the Most High. I tell you it were better for you that you had never been born——"
"But sure, I am born; and it's mesilf that's aloive yet an' going strong."
"Oh, unregenerate blasphemer——"
But a sudden cry and commotion interrupted the preacher.
"Here, lay her down, get some water."
A little girl had been hurt in the crush and now she had fainted. The threats of the men had roused Jim to his joyful, battle enthusiasm. The onslaught of the preacher had stirred his sense of humour; but the poor, limp, and seemingly dead form of the little girl, a child whom he knew and had often petted, was an attack he was ill-prepared to meet.
"There, see what you have done. It were better that a millstone were hanged about your neck and that you were cast into the depths of the sea than that you should have harmed this little one. Her blood be on your head."
The mother was kneeling by the child, unwisely holding up its head. She was praying intently; the air was full of religious fervour. "Oh, God, spare my baby. Oh, God, be merciful."
Jim heard the words and they entered his soul like a two-edged sword. All the fun of the incident was gone, and all the cruelty, the unkindness, the wickedness, loomed large and larger. With his intense nature, subject to the most violent reactions, the effect was profound. It seemed to him, as he stood there, that a veil dissolved before his eyes and that he saw himself and his life for the first time. There had ever been two natures struggling in his soul, the calm and wise one of his Ulster blood of placid Saxon stock, and that of the wild and fiery Celt from Donegal, ready to fight, ready to sing, ever ready for fun, but ever the easy prey of deep remorse in even measure with the mood of passion that foreran and begot it.
Smitten from within and without, utter humiliation, self-accusation, and abasement filled his soul. Jim sank to the ground by the little girl, and wept in an agony of remorse.
"Young man," said the exhorter, "if God in His mercy has sent me here to save your soul from eternal damnation by this hellish deed of yours, then shall I rejoice and praise the Lord, that out of fire and brimstone He can create a golden pathway."
The little girl now opened her eyes and with a cry of relief the mother sought to lift her up, but had not the strength. Jim's mighty arms were eager for service, and with that soft, limp little body against his broad chest, her head on his shoulder, his heart was filled with inexpressible emotion.
"Bring her in here," and the remnant of the congregation reassembled in the church. In the very front was Jim, sitting by the mother with the little girl between them. His head was bowed on his hands, his elbows on his knees.
Then the exhorter began again. Full of scriptural texts charged with holy fire, abounding in lurid thoughts of burning lakes, of endless torment; gifted with the fluency that sometimes passes for logic and makes for convincement, he dwelt on the horrors and the might-have-beens. He shouted out his creeds of holiness, he rumbled in his chest and made graphic mouthings. He played on all the emotions until he found the most responsive, and then hammered hard on these. The big broad shoulders before him shook, tears fell from the half-hidden face. Then the preacher chanced to strike on the note, "your mother," and Jim Hartigan's breakdown was complete. He sobbed, "Oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner," and rising, staggered to a place on the upraised bench—the seat of those who dared to hope for salvation—and wept.
Carried away by his own vehemence, the exhorter wept, too. There was no human being in the hall who could stand the overwhelming surge of emotion. The congregation wept. Then Jim arose and in broken voice said: "My mother's dying prayer was that I might join the Church and be a witness for God. As sure as she is looking down on me now I promise that I will join His people and niver rest till I have been made fit to stand among those who bear His message. I give my word as a man."
Hartigan never walked in the middle of the road. He was either in the ditch or on the high place. Having "got religion" it was inevitable, with his nature, that he should become a leader in the fold. That vision of himself as a preacher, fully ordained, which had burst upon him at the revival, filled his mind. His mother's last wish resounded in his ears with all the imperative force of a voice from the grave and he was emotionally ripe for such inner urgings.
The difficulties in the way of such a course would have daunted most men; but Jim was going strong for the moment, and to him impossibilities were mere trivialities. The Rev. Obadiah Champ, with others who were proud of the new convert, took him before the Board of Deacons and there Jim made his ambitions known. He was illiterate, friendless, penniless, and already twenty-three. He had no taste for study or a life of self-control; meekness and spirituality were as much to his liking now as travelling on a bog is to a blooded horse.
But his magnificent presence, his glib Irish tongue, his ready wit, his evident warmth and sincerity, were too much for the reverend bearded ones of the Board. They were carried away, as most humans were, by his personal charm. They listened with beaming faces. They cast significant glances at one another. They sent Jim into another room while they discussed his fate. In twenty minutes he was brought back to hear their decision. "Yes, they would accept him as a chosen vessel to bear the grace of God abroad among the people. They would educate him without expense to himself. He might begin his college career at once."
In the ordinary course, Jim would have set to work with a tutor in Links to prepare himself to enter Coulter College at the next term. But life seemed to order itself in unusual ways when it was a question concerning Jim. He had no home in Links; he had no money to pay a tutor; he was as eager as a child to begin the serious work; and his ardour burnt all the barriers away. He became at once an inmate of Coulter, a special protégé of the president's, admitted really as a member of the latter's family, and bound by many rules and promises. In preparation for his formal entry he was required to devote six hours a day to study, and those who knew him of old had given the president a hint to exact from Jim his "wurd as a mahn" that he would do his daily task.
In looking back on those days Jim used to revile them for their uselessness and waste. What he did not understand until life had put him through the fire was that the months at Coulter broke him to harness. It was beyond the wildest imagining that a youth brought up as Jim had been should step from a life of boisterous carousing in a backwoods settlement into a seminary and find congenial or helpful occupation among books. And yet the shock, the change of environment, the substitution of discipline for license and, above all, the heroic struggle of the man to meet this new order of existence—these were the things, the fine metals of a great soul, which life was hammering, hammering into shape.
What this period meant to Jim no one but himself knew. The agony of spirit and of body was intense. He had given his word to go through with it and he did. But every instinct, every association of his old life led his mind abroad. Every bird that flew to the roof or hopped on the lawn was a strong attraction; every sound of a horse's hoof aroused his wayward interest; and the sight of a horse sent him rushing incontinently to the window. At the beginning, the football captain had pounced on him as the very stuff he needed, and Jim responded as the warhorse does to the bugle. He loved the game and he was an invaluable addition to the team. And yet, helpful as such an outlet was for his pent-up energy, his participation merely created new tortures, so that the sight of a sweater crossing the lawn became maddening to him in the hours of study. He had never liked books, and now as the weeks went by he learned to loathe them.
It is greatly to be feared that in a fair, written examination with an impartial jury, Jim Hartigan would have been badly plucked on his college entrance. But great is the power of personality. The president's wife behaved most uncollegiately. She interested herself in Jim; she had interviews with the examiners; she discovered in advance questions to be asked; she urged upon the authorities the absolute necessity of accepting this promising student. The president himself was biased. He hinted that the function of examiners was not so much to make absolute measurement of scholastic attainments as to manifest a discretionary view of possibilities, and to remember that examination papers were often incapable of gauging the most important natural endowments of the candidate; that sometimes when it was necessary to put a blood horse over a five-barred gate, the wisest horseman laid the gate down flat.
The admonitions were heeded, the gate laid flat, and the thoroughbred entered the pasture. But to Jim, caught up in the wearisome classroom grind, the days held no glimmer of light. Of what possible value, he asked himself again and again, could it be to know the history of Nippur? Why should the cuneiforms have any bearing on the morals of a backwoods Canadian? Would the grace of God be less effective if the purveyor of it was unaware of what Sprool's Commentaries said about the Alexandrian heresy? Was not he, Jim Hartigan, a more eloquent speaker now, by far, than Silas McSilo, who read his Greek testament every morning? And he wrote to the Rev. Obadiah Champ: "It's no use. I don't know how to study. I'm sorry to get up in the morning and glad to go to bed and forget it. I'd rather be in jail than in college. I hate it more every day." But Jim had given his "wurd as a mahn" and he hammered away sadly and sorrowfully as one who has no hope, as one who is defeated but continues to fight merely because he knows not how to surrender.
It is generally admitted that a college offers two main things, book learning and atmosphere. Of these the latter is larger and more vital, if it be good. If the college lose ground in either essential, the loss is usually attributable to a leading set of students. Coulter was losing ground, and the growth of a spirit of wildness in its halls was no small worry to the president. He knew whence it sprang, and his anxiety was the greater as he thought of it. Then a happy inspiration came. Jim's dislike of books had intensified. He had promised to study for one year. According to the rules, a student, after completing his first year, might be sent into the field as an assistant pastor, to be in actual service under an experienced leader for one year, during which he was not obliged to study.
To Jim this way out was an escape from a cavern to the light of day, and every officer of Coulter College breathed a sigh of relief as he packed his bag and started for the West.
It was in truth a wending of the Spirit Trail when Jim set out; as if the Angel of Destiny had said to the lesser Angel of Travel: "Behold, now for a time he is yours. You can serve him best." Jim's blood was more than red; it was intense scarlet. He hankered for the sparkling cups of life, being alive in every part—to ride and fight and burn in the sun, to revel in strife, to suffer, struggle, and quickly strike and win, or as quickly get the knockout blow! Valhalla and its ancient fighting creed were the hunger in his blood, and how to translate that age-old living feeling into terms of Christianity was a problem to which Jim's reason found no adequate answer. He talked of a better world, of peace and harps and denial and submission, because that was his job. He had had it drilled into him at Coulter; but his flashing eye, his mighty sweeping hand, gave the lie to every word of meekness that fell from his school-bound tongue. He longed for life in its fullest, best, most human form. He was fiery as a pirate among the wild rowdies he had lived with yet he had that other side—a child or a little girl could bully him into absolute, abject submission.
Whoever knows the West of the late '70s can have no doubt as to where the whirlpool of red-blooded life surged deepest, most irresistibly; where the strong alone could live and where the strongest only could win. In the Black Hills the strongest of the savages met the strongest of the whites, and there every human lust and crime ran riot. It was not accident but a far-sighted wisdom on the part of his directors that sent Jim to Cedar Mountain.
This town of the Black Hills was then in the transition stage. The cut-throat border element was gone. The law and order society had done its work. The ordinary machinery of justice was established and doing fairly well. The big strikes of gold were things of the past; now plodding Chinese and careful Germans were making profitable daily wages; and farmers were taking the places of the ranchmen. But there was still a rowdy element in the one end of the town, where cowboy and miner left their horses waiting for half the night, by the doors of noisy life and riot. This was the future field of pastoral work selected for the Rev. James Hartigan by elders wise in the testing of the human spirit.
All alone, Jim set forth on his three days' journey from Coulter, by way of Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago, to the West, and seldom has a grown man had so little knowledge of the world to rely upon. On the train he met with a painted woman, whose smirks and overtures he did not understand; and some farmer folk of simple kindness. In the coach, where all slept on their seats at night, he was like another brother to the little folks, and when a lumberjack, taking advantage of his size, sought to monopolize two seats, whereby the old farmer was left standing, Jim's mild and humorous "Sure, I wouldn't do that; it doesn't seem neighbourly," as he tapped the ruffian's shoulder, put a new light on the matter; and the lumberjack, after noting the shoulders of the speaker, decided that itwasn'tneighbourly, and removed his feet.
Most of the passengers said "good-bye" at Chicago, and the rest at Sidney Junction, where Jim changed cars for the last leg of the journey.
He had no sooner transferred himself and his bag to the waiting train than there entered his coach five new passengers who at once attracted his full attention—a Jesuit missionary and four Sioux Indians. The latter were in the clothes of white men, the Jesuit in his clerical garb. They settled into the few available places and Jim found himself sharing his seat with the black-robed missionary.
All his early training had aimed to inspire him with hatred of the papist, and the climax of popery, he believed, was a Jesuit. He had never met one before, yet he knew the insignia and he was not at all disposed to be friendly. But the black-robe was a man of the world, blessed with culture, experience, and power; and before half an hour, in spite of himself, Jim found himself chatting amicably with this arch enemy. The missionary was full of information about the country and the Indians; and Jim, with the avidity of the boy that he was, listened eagerly, and learned at every sentence. The experience held a succession of wholesome shocks for him; for, next to the detested papist, he had been taught to look down on the "poor, miserable bastes of haythens," that knew nothing of God or Church. And here, to his surprise, was a priest who was not only a kindly, wise, and lovable soul, but who looked on the heathen not as utterly despicable, but as a human being who lacked but one essential of true religion, the one that he was there to offer.
"Yes," continued the missionary, "when I came out here as a young man twenty-five years ago, I thought about the Indians much as you do. But I have been learning. I know now that in their home lives they are a kind and hospitable people. The white race might take them as models in some particulars, for the widow, the orphan, the old, and the sick are ever first cared for among them. We are told that the love of money is the root of all evil; and yet this love of money, in spite of all the white man can do to inculcate it, has no place at all in the Indian heart."
Jim listened in astonishment, first to hear the dreadful savages set so high by one who knew them and had a right to speak, but chiefly to find such fair-mindedness and goodness in one who, according to all he had ever heard, must be, of course, a very demon in disguise, at war with all who were not of his faith. Then the thought came, "Maybe this is all put on to fool me." But at this point two of the Indians came over to speak to the missionary. Their respectful but cordial manner could not well have been put on and was an answer to his unspoken question.
"Are these men Catholics?" he asked.
"I'm afraid not yet," said the priest, "although I believe they are influenced strongly. They observe some of the practices of the Church and cling to others of their own."
"Their own what?"
"Well, I may say their own Church," said the father.
"Church? You call theirs a Church?" exclaimed Jim.
"Why not? Their best teachers inculcate cleanness, courage, kindness, sobriety, and truth; they tell of one Great Spirit who is the creator and ruler of all things and to whom they pray. Surely, these things are truth and all light comes from God; and, even though they have not learned the great story of the redemption, we must respect their faith so far as it goes."
"And these are the 'beasts of heathen' I have always heard about."
"Oh, yes," said the missionary, "they have many habits that I hope to see stamped out; but I have learned that my Church was wise when it sent me, not to antagonize and destroy, but to seek for the good in these people and fortify that as a foundation on which to build the true faith."
"Well, this is all a great surprise to me," said Hartigan; and again his deepest astonishment lay in the new knowledge of the papist, rather than of the Indian.
They were several hours together. The missionary and his Indian friends finally left the train at a station nearest their home in Pine Ridge and Jim was left alone with some very new ideas and some old-time prejudices very badly shaken.
The rest of the journey he sat alone, thinking—thinking hard.
There was no one to meet him at the Cedar Mountain station when he stepped out of the car—the last passenger from the last car, in the last station—for at that time this was the north end of the track. All his earthly belongings, besides the things he wore, were in a valise that he carried in his hand; in his pocket he had less than five dollars in money, and his letter of introduction to the Rev. Dr. Jebb of Cedar Mountain.
In all his life, Jim had never seen a mountain, nor even a high hill; and he stood gazing at the rugged pile behind the town with a sense of fascination. It seemed so unreal, a sort of pretty thing with pretty little trees on it. Was it near and little, or far and big? He could not surely tell. After gazing a while, he turned to the railway agent and said:
"How far off is that mountain top?"
"A matter of two miles," was the answer.
Two miles! It did not seem two hundred rods; and yet it did, for the man on horseback half way there looked toy-like; and the distance grew as he gazed. A rugged, rocky pile with white snow-ravines still showing in the springtime sun, some scattering pines among the ledges and, lower, a breadth of cedars, they were like a robe that hid the shoulders and flanks of the mountain, then spread out on the plain, broken at a place where water glinted, and later blended with the purple sage that lent its colour to the view.
It was all so new and fairylike; "the glamour and dhrei that the banshee works on the eyes of men," was the thought that came, and the Irish tales his mother used to tell of fays and lepricauns seemed realized before his eyes. Then, acting on a sudden impulse, he dropped his bag and started off, intent on going up the mountain.
Swinging a stick that he had picked up, he went away with long, athletic strides, and the motor engines of his frame responding sent his blood a-rushing and his spirit bounding, till his joy broke forth in song, the song of the singing prophet of Judea's hills, a song he had learned in Coulter for the sweetness of the music rather than for its message:
How beautiful upon the mountainsAre the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,That publisheth peace,That bringeth good tidings of good,That publisheth salvation,That saith unto Zion,"Thy God reigneth."
How beautiful upon the mountainsAre the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,That publisheth peace,That bringeth good tidings of good,That publisheth salvation,That saith unto Zion,"Thy God reigneth."
And when he reached the cedar belt he knew that the railway man had spoken the truth, but he held on up the ever-steepening trail, ceasing his song only when he needed the breath to climb. A cottontail waved its beacon for a minute before him, then darted into the underbrush; the mountain jays called out a wailing cry; and the flicker clucked above. Sharp turns were in the trail, else it had faced an upright cliff or overshot a precipice; but it was easily followed and, at length, he was above the cedars. Here the horse trail ended, but a moccasin path went on. It turned abruptly from a sheer descent, then followed a narrow knife edge to rise again among the rocks to the last, the final height, a little rocky upland with a lonely standing rock. Here Jim turned to see the plain, to face about and gasp in sudden wonder; for the spell of the mountain seen afar is but a little echo of the mountain power when it has raised you up.
He recalled the familiar words, not understood till now:
"Thy mercies are like mountains great,Thy judgments are like floods."
"Thy mercies are like mountains great,Thy judgments are like floods."
He gazed and his breath came fast as he took in the thought, old thoughts, yet new thoughts, strong and elusive, and wondered what he had found.
Crossing the little upland, he approached its farther end and stood by the pinnacle of rock that, like a lonely watchman, forever looked down on the blue and golden plains. A mountain chipmunk stared at him, flicked its tail, and dived under a flat ledge; a bird whose real home was a thousand miles off in the north faced the upland breeze and sang in its unknown tongue. Jim drew still nearer the rocky spire, rounded a ledge, and faced an unexpected sight. In a little open lodge of willows, bent and roofed with a canvas cover, sat an Indian youth, alone, motionless, beside him was a pot of water, and between him and the tall rock, a little fire, from which a tiny thread of smoke arose.
Hartigan started, for that very morning he had learned from the old Jesuit enough about the Red-men to know that this was something unusual. On the rock beyond the fire he saw, painted in red, two symbols that are used in the Red-man's prayers: "the blessed vision" leading up to the "spirit heart of all things." A measure of comprehension came to him, and Father Cyprian's words returned in new force.
The lad in the little lodge raised a hand in the sign of "Stop," then gently waved in a way that, in all lands and languages, means: "Please go away." There was a soft, dreamy look in his face, and Jim, realizing that he had entered another man's holy place, held back and, slowly turning, sought the downward trail.
It came to him clearly now this was one of the interesting things told him that morning by the Jesuit. This Indian boy was taking hishambeday, his manhood fast and vigil; seeking for the vision that should be his guide, he was burning his altar fire beside the Spirit Rock.
As he retraced his steps the wonder of this new world enveloped Jim. At the edge of the cedars he paused and, looking out over the great expanse of green plumage, he said aloud: "All my life have I lived in the bottom of a little narrow well, with barely a glimpse of the sky, and never a view of the world. Now I am suddenly brought forth to see the world and the bigness of the heavens, and the things I dimly got from books are here about me, big, living, actual."
He was himself so much, could he be also a part of this wonder-world? It seemed impossible, so wholly new was everything it held.
Back at the railway station, Hartigan looked for his bag where he had dropped it, but it was gone. The agent, glancing across and divining his quandary, said stolidly:
"I guess Dr. Jebb took it. Ain't you the party he's looking for? He said 'J. H.' was the initials. You'll find him at that white house with the flowers just where the boardwalk ends."
Jim went down the road with alert and curious eyes and presented himself at the white cottage. He found a grave and kindly welcome from Mrs. Jebb—a stout, middle-aged, motherly person—and from the Rev. Josiah Jebb, D.D., M.A., etc., pastor of the Methodist Church and his principal to be for the coming year.
A gentle, kindly man and a deep scholar, Dr. Jebb had no more knowledge of the world than a novice in a convent. His wife was his shield and buckler in all things that concerned the battle with men and affairs; all his thoughts and energies were for his pulpit and his books.
Failing health rather than personal fitness had to do with Dr. Jebb's being sent to the hills. But the vast extent of territory in his charge, the occasional meetings in places separated by long hard rides, together with the crude, blunt ranch and farmer folk who were his flock—all called for a minister with the fullest strength of youth and mental power. It was to meet this need that the trustees of the church had sent James Hartigan to supplement the labours of the Rev. Dr. Jebb. Thus these two, diverse in every particular of bodily and mental equipment, were chosen to meet the same religious problem.
The evening meal was spread by Mrs. Jebb herself, for their meagre stipend did not admit of a helper; and Jim, with his hearty, rollicking ways, soon won his accustomed place, a high place in their hearts. That night he was invited to stay with them; but it was understood that next day he would find permanent lodgings in the town. Not a complex task, since, to quote Mrs. Jebb, "his hat covered his family, and three hundred a year simplified the number of rooms."
Jim rose at six in the morning, lighted a fire in the kitchen stove—for this is etiquette in the simple regions where servants are not and the guest is as a son—and put on a full kettle of water. This also is etiquette; it assumes that the family will not be up for some time. Had it been near the breakfast hour, but half a kettle would have been correct. Then he left the house, stick in hand, for a long walk. This time he struck out in the direction of the open plains. The flimsy little town was soon behind him, and the winding trail among the sagebrush, went reaching out to the east. The pine woods of his native country were not well stocked with life; the feathered folk were inconspicuous there; but here it seemed that every bush and branch was alive with singing birds. The vesper sparrows ran before his feet, flashed their white tail feathers in a little flight ahead, or from the top of a stone or a buffalo skull they rippled out their story of the spring. The buffalo birds in black and white hung poised in the air to tell their tale, their brown mates in the grass applauding with a rapt attention. The flickers paused in harrying prairie anthills and chuckling fled to the nearest sheltering trees. Prairie dogs barked from their tiny craters; gophers chirruped or turned themselves into peg-like watchtowers to observe the striding stranger.
But over all, the loud sweet prairie lark sang his warbling yodel-song of the sun with a power and melody that no bird anywhere, in any land, can equal. It seemed to Jim the very spirit of these level lands, the embodiment of the awakening plains and wind, the moving voice of all the West. And all about, as though responsive, the flowers of spring came forth: purple avens in straggling patches; golden yellow bloom, with blots and streaks of fluffy white; while here and there, as far as eye could reach, was the blue-white tinge of the crocus flower, the queen of the springtime flowers, the child of the sky and the snow.
The passionate youth in him responded to the beauty of it; he felt it lay hold on him and he would have sung, but he found no words in all his college-born songs to tell of this new joy. "I didn't know itcouldbe so beautiful. I didn't know," he said again and again.
At the seven o'clock whistle of a mill he wheeled about toward the town, and saw there, almost overhanging it, the mountain, bright in the morning, streaked with white, lifting a rugged head through the gray-green poncho of its cedar robe, a wondrous pile capped by the one lone tower that watched, forever watched, above the vast expanse of plains.
Jim was nearly back to the town when a horse and rig appeared coming rapidly toward him. He heard a shout and saw a man run from a house to look. The horse was going very fast and shaking his head; something was wrong. As it came toward him he saw that the driver was a young girl. She was holding with all her strength to the reins, but the horse, a tall, rawboned creature, was past control. Horses Jim surely understood. He stepped well aside, then wheeling as the runaway went past, he ran his best. For a little while a swift man can run with a horse, and in that little while Jim was alongside, had seized the back of the seat, and, with a spurt and a mighty leap, had tumbled into the rig beside the driver. Instantly she held the reins toward him and gasped:
"I can't hold him; he's running away." Then, as Jim did not at once seize the reins, she hurriedly said: "Here, take them."
"No," he said with amazing calmness, "youcancontrol him. Don't be afraid. You hurt yourself pulling; ease up. Keep him straight, that's all."
The sense of power in his presence and matter-of-fact tone restored her nerve. She slackened a little on the reins. The horse had believed he was running away; now he began to doubt it. She had been telegraphing terror along the lines, and now she began to telegraph control.
"Speak to him, just as you would if he were all right," said Jim in a low voice.
The girl had been pale and scared-looking, but she responded to the suggestion and talked to the horse.
"Good boy, good boy, Stockings; keep it up," just as though she had been putting him to his utmost.
There was open fareway straight ahead and little to fear so long as the horse kept in the road and met no other rig. In a quarter of a mile he began to slacken his pace.
"Will you take the lines now?" the girl asked shyly.
"No, it isn't necessary, and the horse would feel the change and think he had beaten you."
"My arms are tired out," she said rather querulously.
"Then ease up for a while. Don't pull so hard."
She did so and was surprised that the horse did not speed away. In a quarter of a mile more the victory was won. She gave the usual signal to stop and Stockings came gently to a pause.
"Now," said Jim, "if you like, I'll take the lines. The battle is over. You have won. From now on you will be able to drive that horse; but if I had taken the lines he would have felt the change; he would have felt that he could boss you, and ever after he would have been a dangerous horse for you to drive."
In the struggle, the horse had got one leg over the trace. Jim got out, spoke to the big, strong brute, and did the firm-handed, compelling things that a horseman knows. The tall creature stood a little trembly, but submissive now, as the man unhooked the trace, adjusted all the leathers, and then, with a word or two, adjusted the horse's mood.
"Shall I leave you now?" he asked.
"No," she said, "my arms are aching. I wish you would drive me home."
As he mounted the seat again and headed for the village, Jim had his first chance to look at the girl beside him. If fear had paled her face at all it was wholly overcome, for the richest glow of health was in her cheeks and on her brow. She was beautiful he knew, with her brown hair flying and brilliant colour, but these things did not entirely account for a charm of which he was delightfully conscious. Her hands were a little shaky from the struggle with the horse, but otherwise she was fully recovered and self-possessed and talked in an animated if somewhat nervous way about the adventure. In a land where rasping voices were the rule, it was instantly to be noted that her voice was soft and low.
"Stockings is not a bad horse," she said, "except in one way; the lines get under his tail. That always makes him back up and kick; then he got his leg over the trace, was frightened, and ran away. He's the only one of our horses that we have any trouble with. I was bound I'd drive him, in spite of Pa; but I'm thinking now that Pa was right." Then, abruptly: "I'm Miss Boyd; aren't you the new preacher?"
"Yes."
"I saw you at the station when you came yesterday."
"Sure, I didn't suppose a human being took notice of it," he laughed.
"Here's where I live. Will you come in?"
"No, thank you," he said; "I'm late now for breakfast at Dr. Jebb's." So he tied the horse to the post, helped her from the rig, and with a flourish of his stick and cap left her.
"The Rev. James Hartigan," she mused; "so that is Dr. Jebb's assistant." Then in Stockings's ear: "I think I like him—don't you, old runaway?"
Belle had been in the express office signing some receipts for goods consigned to her father when Jim stepped from the train. He appeared framed in the open doorway; six feet four, broad and straight, supple and easy, with the head of a Greek god in a crown of golden curls, and a dash of wild hilarity in his bright blue eyes that suggested a Viking, a royal pirate. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen and when he spoke it was with a slight and winsome Irish brogue that lent new charm to a personality already too dangerously gifted.
It seemed to her that Nature had given him all the gifts there were for man; and he was even better furnished than she perceived, for he had youth, health, happy moods, magnetic power in face and voice, courage, and the gift of speech. And yet, with all these unmeasured blessings was conjoined a bane. To be possessed of the wild, erratic spirit of the roving, singing Celt, to be driven to all ill-judged extremities, to be lashed by passion, anger, and remorse, to be the battle ground of this wild spirit and its strong rival, the calm and steadfast spirit of the North—that was a spiritual destiny not to be discerned in a first meeting; but Belle, keen and understanding, was to discover it very soon.
Belle Boyd was an only child. Her father was a well-to-do trader; he had had just enough schooling to give him a high notion of its value, and he resolved to equip his child with the best there was in reach. This meant an Illinois college. She entered at seventeen. Here many vague aspirations of schoolgirl life took definite shape, and resulted in some radical changes in her course of studies. Her mother had but one thought—to prepare Belle for being a good wife to some one. Her views on many subjects were to be left blank, so that she might at once adopt those of her prospective husband. Her tentacles alone were well considered in the maternal method, so that she could cling ivy-like to her oak, stay up with him or go down with him; but help him to stand up—no, never and not at all!
But Illinois was seething with a different thought in the late '70's. There were women who boldly proclaimed that sex and mind had little bearing on each other; that woman should train herself to be herself, and to stand on her own feet; that when woman had the business training of men, the widow and the unmarried woman—half of all women—would no longer be the easy prey of every kind of sharper. These new teachers were, of course, made social martyrs, but they sowed the seed and the crop was coming on. That every woman should prepare herself to stand alone in the world was the first article in their creed. This crystallized an old and shapeless thought that had often come to Belle, and the pointed application that she made was to focus her college studies on a business training. Bookkeeping, shorthand, and exact methods were selected for specialization; and when at the age of twenty Belle was graduated and went home to Cedar Mountain, she had, in addition to her native common sense, a disciplined attention that made her at once a power in the circle of the church. It was her own idea to take a business position at once. Her mother was absolutely opposed to it. "Why should her child be sent to work? Were they not able to keep her at home? What was the good of parents giving years to toil if not to keep their children at home with them?" Mr. Boyd was more inclined to see things Belle's way, and at length a compromise was reached by which Belle became her father's bookkeeper and secretary, and for a time all went well.
Then a new factor entered the case, one for which the reformer has not yet found a good answer. The daily routine of the desk was assumed as a matter of course; and Belle quickly got used to that and found abundant mental diversion in other things and in hours of freedom. But her body had less strength than her mind, and the close confinement of the office began to tell. Her hands got thin, her cheeks lost their colour, her eyes grew brighter. Mrs. Boyd began to worry, and sent secretly to Illinois for bottles of various elixirs of life, guaranteed to put health, strength, youth, and brains into anything. She also made foolish and elaborate efforts to trick the daughter into eating more at meals, or between meals, without avail. At this juncture a very capable person took matters in hand. Dr. Peter Carson, family physician and devoted friend, was consulted; his views were clear and convincing: Belle must give up the office for a year at least; she needed fresh air and sun; the more the better. Every girl in the Black Hills rides as a matter of course, and Belle was at home on a broncho; but now it must be, not an occasional run, but a daily ride in the hills—off for miles, till the vital forces had renewed their strength.
For a month or more Belle rode and browned in the sun. The colour came again to her cheeks, and zest to her life; and there also came a strong desire to be in a business of her own. But it must be something out of doors; it must be something of little capital; and something a woman could do. Belle studied her problem with great care and presently there began to arrive at the post office sundry catalogues of extraordinary hens with unbelievable records as producers of eggs and of rapid-raising broilers. The result was that the acre of ground behind the store was cut up into poultry runs for the various strains of stock that Belle decided on and that spring Belle launched out on her career as a poultry farmer. There were Leghorns and Houdans for eggs, and Brahmas in another yard for mothers. Four things conspired to make her venture a success. She was the only one in Cedar Mountain with thoroughbred poultry, so there was a large demand for high-class eggs for setting. The eggs that for table use brought fifty cents a dozen were worth two dollars and a half a dozen for hatching. Her store training had taught her to watch the market reports in the papers, which arrived twice a week, and her college training taught her to study hen hygiene. Last but not least, she got their food for nothing.
On closing her books that autumn Belle found that on her investment of $250 capital borrowed from her father, she had cleared $250, and had all the capital to render back intact. She realized that while it was possible to make 100 per cent, on small capital, the rate decreased rapidly as the capital increased. She estimated that ten times as much capital would only produce about 25 per cent, because the possibility of personal management of every hen and every detail would grow proportionately smaller, and it was this personal touch which counted. Next, the sovereign advantages of grass range and table scraps must diminish with each additional hen; and if she had paid herself an adequate salary the profit would have been wiped out. Last, and perhaps the most important to her, she was absolutely tied to the farm. She could not be away one week without suffering loss. It was with ill-concealed admiration that her father listened to a summary of these conclusions; later, with the remarkable common sense that characterized most of her ways, Belle seized a chance to sell out and lodge her money in the local bank. But the venture had been a success in two respects. It had helped her to health and it had given her business experience and confidence.
The winter was now on, and Belle's outdoor activities were somewhat circumscribed, for there is a real winter in the Black Hills. But she was in robust health again and she turned her energies more and more to church work. She was depended on to get up the "sociables," to plan the entertainments, to invent new and happy games that would take them as near as they dared go in the direction of dance and stage without actually outraging the old-fashioned Methodist conscience by getting there. It was Belle who entirely refurnished the parsonage in one harmonious style by copying a mission chair and table from a picture, and then inviting each of the boys to make a like piece, and each of the girls to make a "drape" to match it. It was a sort of Noah's Ark trick, this gathering in of things in pairs, but it succeeded originally—the ark was full—and it succeeded now, for the parsonage was full; and it will always succeed, for it is built on the old fundamental pairing instinct.
Belle also imported and put in practical working the idea of a daily school 'bus, which gathered up the twenty-odd children for ten miles along the winter road and brought them on a huge hay rack to the Cedar Mountain School in the morning, and took them back at night to their homes. But in all these multiplied activities there was a secret dissatisfaction. She felt that she was a mere hanger-on of the church, a sort of pet cat to the parson's wife. She was not developing herself independently, and she began secretly to outline a scheme which meant nothing less than leaving home to take some sort of position on the west coast. She had no fear for her success, but she was restrained by two things: the question of health in case she could not find an outdoor enterprise, and the sorrow her parents would feel over her—to their thinking, unnecessary—departure.
For some time both in her school and church work Belle had been much associated with John Lowe, the schoolteacher. He was considered a well-meaning person, a dozen years older than herself, and had certain pleasing qualities, a suave manner—almost too suave—and a readiness of speech. He was fairly well educated, a good worker, a member of the church, and had no obvious bad habits. His history was not known; in fact, no one's history was known in those days of beginnings. Every one had to be taken as he was found and often on his own statement.
Lowe soon became a devoted admirer of Belle; and Mrs. Boyd, seeing a chance to beguile her daughter into settling down, did all she could to bring them together, never losing a chance of praising Jack. He was just what Belle needed as an executive help to realize much that she had planned. As a public reciter he had some little prominence; as a schoolteacher he was just a step nearer the world of brains than were the other possible men in town, and by that much more acceptable; and the inevitable result of propinquity was reached. The engagement of Belle Boyd and Jack Lowe was announced.
There was no ardent love-making on either side, and sometimes Belle, when left alone, would wonder why she was not more elated each time she heard him coming; rather, she seemed to feel weighted by the attachment. She reproached herself for this and as she strove to reach a more satisfactory state of mind she found herself thinking with a sigh of that free career she had planned in the business world. Mrs. Boyd's maternal hopes were too nearly realized to leave her with any discernment and Belle's father was too much wrapped up in business and small politics, to see even the mountains that were beyond his back yard; but another frequent visitor at the house was gifted with better eyes and more knowledge of the world.
Dr. Carson had never felt attracted toward Lowe. Instinctively he disliked him. He knew at the beginning that the teacher was much older than he admitted. The facts that the Boyds were well-to-do and that Belle was their only child offered, in his frame of mind, a suggestive sidelight. There were two other things that to Carson seemed important: one, that Lowe had rather obviously avoided any reference to his previous place of residence; the other that at one of the sociables he had amused them all by some exceedingly clever sleight-of-hand tricks with cards—not playing-cards, of course—they were unmentionable—but with a few business cards marked in a special way. Carson was sure he knew in what school such manual dexterity had been acquired.
The doubts in Belle's mind had not yet taken definite form when a new and unpleasant circumstance obtruded. More than once lately Lowe had come to the house carrying the unmistakable odour of drink about him. It was smothered with cloves and peppermint, but still discoverable. Belle's ideas were not narrow, but this thing shocked and disgusted her, chiefly because Lowe had repeatedly and voluntarily avowed himself as flatly opposed to it. She was thus drifting along in perplexity, taking the trail that her instincts said was not her trail, ever prompted to cut across to the other fork which meant developing herself, and always restrained by the fear of breaking with her people, when in the spring of that year the local press announced the coming to Cedar Mountain of the Rev. James Hartigan. And on the day after her meeting with him and their unexpected adventure with the runaway, the parson's wife gave a tea to introduce the young man to the congregation.
Jim's eyes met hers the moment she entered Jebb's parlour. His greeting was a joyous one and Belle felt the colour mount in her cheeks as Hartigan drew her aside to talk. There was something very stimulating about him, she found—a thrill in his voice, his eyes, and his presence that she had never experienced with Lowe.
A little later, Lowe himself arrived. Belle, as she turned to greet him, got an unpleasant shock to note the contrast between the frank, boyish face of the curly-haired giant and the thin features and restless eyes of the man she had promised to marry. Her conscience smote her for disloyalty; but in her heart she was not satisfied. Vague, unspoken, half-realized criticisms of past months rose to fill her with disquiet. A cumulative unhappiness in her association with Lowe took possession of her. And, as she watched with a little thrill the meeting between Jack and the Preacher, she read plainly on the face of her fiancé the disapproval that even his practised art could not conceal. For her, the meeting was portentous; it marked a turning-point; and as she thought of it later she took a slightly guilty pleasure in the fact that without a clash of words there was at once a clash of personalities, and that the Preacher had dominated the scene.