The Dunbars lived in a cottage on a back street, which had the distinction of being the only home on the street which possessed the adornment of a garden. A unique garden it was, too. Indeed, with the single exception of Judge Hepburn's garden, which was quite an elaborate affair, and which was said to have cost the Judge a “pile of money,” there was none to compare with it in the village of Wapiti.
Any garden on that bare, wind-swept prairie meant toil and infinite pains, but a garden like that of the Dunbars represented in addition something of genius. In conception, in design, and in execution the Dunbars' garden was something apart. Visitors were taken 'round to the back street to get a glimpse of the Dunbars' cottage and garden.
The garden was in two sections. That at the back of the cottage, sheltered by a high, close board fence covered with Virginia creeper, was given over to vegetables, and it was quite marvellous how, under Richard Dunbar's care, a quarter of an acre of ground could grow such enormous quantities of vegetables of all kinds. Next to the vegetable garden came the plot for small fruits—strawberries, raspberries, currants, of rare varieties.
The front garden was devoted to flowers. Here were to be found the old fashioned flowers dear to our grandmothers, and more particularly the old fashioned flowers native to English and Scottish soil. Between the two gardens a thick row of tall, splendid sunflowers made a stately hedge. Then came larkspur, peonies, stocks, and sweet-williams, verbenas and mignonette, with borders of lobelia and heliotrope. Along the fence were sweet peas, for which Alberta is famous.
But it was the part of the garden close about the front porch and verandah where the particular genius of Richard Dunbar showed itself. Here the flowers native to the prairie, the coulee, the canyon, were gathered; the early wind flower, the crowfoot and the buffalo bean, wild snowdrops and violets. Over trellises ran the tiny morning-glory, with vetch and trailing arbutus. A bed of wild roses grew to wonderful perfection. Later in the year would be seen the yellow and crimson lilies, daisies white and golden, and when other flowers had faded, golden rod and asters in gorgeous contrast. The approach to the door of the house was by a gravel walk bordered by these prairie flowers.
The house inside fulfilled the promise of the garden. The living room, simple in its plan, plain in its furnishing, revealed everywhere that touch in decorative adornment that spoke of the cultivated mind and refined taste. A group of rare etchings had their place over the mantel above a large, open fireplace. On the walls were to be seen really fine copies of the world's most famous pictures, and on the panels which ran 'round the walls were bits of pottery and china, relics of other days and of other homes.
But what was most likely to strike the eye of a stranger on entering the living room was the array of different kinds of musical instruments. At one end of the room stood a small upright piano, a 'cello held one corner, a guitar another; upon a table a cornet was deposited, and on the piano a violin case could be seen, while a banjo hung from a nail on the wall.
Near the fireplace a curiously carved pipe-rack hung, with some half dozen pipes of weird design, evidently the collection of years, while just under it a small table held the utensils sacred to the smoker.
When Barry entered he found the table set and everything in readiness for tea.
“Awfully sorry I'm too late to help you with tea, dad. I have had a long walk, and quite a deuce of a time getting home.”
“All right, boy. Glad you are here. The toast is ready, tea waiting to be infused. But what happened? No, don't begin telling me till you get yourself ready. But hurry, your meeting hour will be on in no time.”
“Right-o, dad! Shame to make a slavey of you in this way. I'll be out in a jiffy.”
He threw off his coat and vest, shirt and collar, took a pail of water to a big block in the little shed at the back, soused his head and shoulders in it with loud snorting and puffing, and emerged in a few minutes looking refreshed, clean and wholesome, his handsome face shining with vigorous health.
Together they stood at the table while the son said a few words of reverent grace.
“I'm ravenous, dad. What! Fried potatoes! Oh, you are a brick.”
“Tired, boy?”
“No. That reminds me of my thrilling tale, which I shall begin after my third slice of toast, and not before. You can occupy the precious minutes, dad, in telling me of your excitements in the office this afternoon.”
“Don't sniff at me. I had a few, though apparently you think it impossible in my humdrum grey life.”
“Good!” said Barry, his mouth full of toast. “Go on.”
“Young Neil Fraser is buying, or has just bought, the S.Q.R. ranch. Filed the transfer to-day.”
“Neil Fraser? He's in my tale, too. Bought the S.Q.R.? Where did he get the stuff?”
“Stuff?”
“Dough, the dirt, the wherewithal, in short the currency, dad.”
“Barry, you are ruining your English,” said his father.
“Yum-yum. Bully! Did you notice that, dad? I'm coming on, eh? One thing I almost pray about, that I might become expert in slinging the modern jaw hash. I'm appallingly correct in my forms of speech. But go on, dad. I'm throwing too much vocalisation myself. You were telling me about Neil Fraser. Give us the chorus now.”
“I don't like it, boy,” said his father, shaking his head, “and especially in a clergyman.”
“But that's where you are off, dad. The trouble is, when I come within range of any of my flock all my flip vocabulary absolutely vanishes, and I find myself talking like a professor of English or a maiden lady school ma'am of very certain age.”
“I don't like it, boy. Correct English is the only English for a gentleman.”
“I wonder,” said the lad. “But I don't want to worry you, dad.”
“Oh, as for me, that matters nothing at all, but I am thinking of you and of your profession, your standing.”
“I know that, dad. I sometimes wish you would think a little more about yourself. But what of Neil Fraser?”
“He has come into some money. He has bought the ranch.”
Barry's tone expressed doubtful approval. “Neil is a good sort, dad, awfully reckless, but I like him,” said Barry. “He is up and up with it all.”
“Now, what about your afternoon?” said his father.
“Well, to begin with, I had a dose of my old friend, the enemy.”
“Barry, you don't tell me! Your asthma!” His father sat back from the table gazing at him in dismay. “And I thought that was all done with.”
“So did I, dad. But it really didn't amount to much. Probably some stomach derangement, more likely some of that pollen which is floating around now. I passed through a beaver meadow where they were cutting hay, and away I went in a gale of sneezing, forty miles an hour. But I'm all right now, dad. I'm telling you the truth. You know I do.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” said his father, concern and relief mingling in his voice, “but you don't know how to take care of yourself, Barry. But go on with your tale.”
“Well, as I was panting along like a 'heavey horse,' as Harry Hobbs would say,—not really too bad, dad,—along comes that big rancher, Stewart Duff, driving his team of pinto bronchos, and with him a chap named Bayne, from Red Pine Creek. He turned out to be an awfully decent sort. And Duff's dog, Slipper, ranging on ahead, a beautiful setter.”
“Yes, I have seen him.”
They discussed for a few moments the beauties and points of Duff's Slipper, for both were keen sportsmen, and both were devoted to dogs. Then Barry went back to his tale and gave an account of what had happened during the ride home.
“You see Slipper ranging about got 'on point' and beautiful work it was, too. Out jumped Duff with his gun, ready to shoot, though, of course, he knew it was out of season and that he was breaking the law. Well, just as Slipper flushed the birds, I shouted to Duff that he was shooting out of season. He missed.”
“Oh, he was properly wrathful at my spoiling his shot,” cried the young man.
“I don't know that I blame him, Barry,” said his father thoughtfully. “It is an annoying thing to be shouted at with your gun on a bird, you know, extremely annoying.”
“But he was breaking the law, dad!” cried Barry indignantly.
“I know, I know. But after all—”
“But, dad, you can't sit there and tell me that you don't condemn him for shooting out of season. You know nothing makes you more furious than hearing about chaps who pot chicken out of season.”
“I know, I know, my boy.” The father was apparently quite distressed. “You are quite right, but—”
“Now, dad, I won't have it! You are not to tell me that I had no business to stop him if I could. Besides, the law is the law, and sport is sport.”
“I quite agree, Barry. Believe me, I quite agree. Yet all the same, a chap does hate to have his shot spoiled, and to shout at a fellow with his gun on a bird,—well, you'll excuse me, Barry, but it is hardly the sporting thing.”
“Sporting! Sporting!” said Barry. “I know that I hated to do it, but it was right. Besides talk about 'sporting'—what about shooting out of season?”
“Yes, yes. Well, we won't discuss it. Go on, Barry.”
“But I don't like it, dad. I don't like to think that you don't approve of what I do. It was a beastly hard thing to do, anyway. I had to make myself do it. It was my duty.” The young man sat looking anxiously at his father.
“Well, my boy,” said his father, “I may be wrong, but do you think you are always called upon to remonstrate with every law breaker? No, listen to me,” he continued hurriedly. “What I mean is, must you or any of us assume responsibility for every criminal in the land?”
Barry sat silent a moment, considering this proposition.
“I wish I knew, dad. You know, I have often said that to excuse myself after I have funked a thing, and let something go by without speaking up against it.”
“Funked it!”
“Yes. Funked standing up for the right thing, you know.”
“Funked it!” said his father again. “You wouldn't do that, Barry?”
“Oh, wouldn't I, though? I am afraid you don't know me very well, dad. However, I rather think I had started him up before that, you know. You won't like this either. But I may as well go through with it. You know, he was swearing and cursing most awfully, just in his ordinary talk you know, and that is a thing I can't stand, so I up and told him he was using too many 'damns.'”
“You did, eh?” In spite of himself the father could not keep the surprise out of his voice. “Well, that took some nerve, at any rate.”
“There you are again, dad! You think I had no right to speak. But somehow I can't help feeling I was right. For don't you see, it would have seemed a bit like lowering the flag to have kept silent.”
“Then for God's sake speak out, lad! I do not feel quite the same way as you, but it is what you think yourself that must guide you. But go on, go on.”
“Well, I assure you he was in a proper rage, and if it hadn't been for Bayne I believe he would have trimmed me to a peak, administered a fitting castigation, I mean.”
“He would, eh?” said the father with a grim smile. “I should like to see him try.”
“So should I, dad, if you were around. I think I see you—feint with the right, then left, right, left! bing! bang! bung! All over but the shiver, eh, dad? It would be sweet! But,” he added regretfully, “that's the very thing a fellow cannot do.”
“Cannot do? And why not, pray? It is what every fellow is in duty bound to do to a bully of that sort.”
“Yes, but to be quite fair, dad, you could hardly call Duff a bully. At least, he wasn't bullying me. As a matter of fact, I was bullying him. Oh, I think he had reason to be angry. When a chap undertakes to pull another chap up for law breaking, perhaps he should be prepared to take the consequences. But to go on. Bayne stepped in—awfully decent of him, too,—when just at that moment, as novelists say, with startling suddenness occurred an event that averted the impending calamity. Along came Neil Fraser, no less, in that new car of his, in a whirlwind of noise and dust, honking like a flock of wild geese. Well, you should have seen those bronchos. One lurch, and we were on the ground, a beautiful upset, and the bronchos in an incipient runaway, fortunately checked by your humble servant. Duff, in a new and real rage this time, up with his gun and banged off both barrels after the motor car, by this time honking down the trail.”
“By Jove! he deserved it,” said the father. “Those motor fellows make me long to do murder at times.”
“That's because you have no car, Dad, of course.”
“Did he hit him, do you think?”
“No. My arm happened to fly up, the gun banged toward the zenith. Nothing doing!”
“Well, Barry, you do seem to have run foul of Mr. Duff.”
“Three times, dad. But each time prevented him from breaking the law and doing himself and others injury. Would you have let him off this last time, dad?”
“No, no, boy. Human life has the first claim upon our care. You did quite right, quite right. Ungovernable fool he must be! Shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun.”
“So Bayne declared,” said Barry.
“Well, you have had quite an exciting afternoon. But finish your tea and get ready for the meeting. I will wash up.”
“Not if I know it, dad. You take your saw-horse and do me a little Handel or Schubert. Do, please,” entreated his son. “I want that before meeting more than anything else. I want a change of mood. I confess I am slightly rattled. My address is all prepared, but I must have atmosphere before I go into the meeting.”
His father took the 'cello, and after a few moments spent in carefully tuning up, began with Handel's immortal Largo, then he wandered into the Adagio Movement in Haydn's third Sonata, from thence to Schubert's Impromptu in C Minor, after which he began the Serenade, when he was checked by his son.
“No, not that, dad, that's sickening. I consider that the most morally relaxing bit of music that I know. It frays the whole moral fibre. Give us one of Chopin's Ballades, or better still a bit of that posthumous Fantasie Impromptu, the largo movement. Ah! fine! fine!”
He flung his dish-cloth aside, ran to the piano and began an accompaniment to his father's playing.
“Now, dad, the Largo once more before we close.” They did the Largo once and again, then springing from the piano Barry cried: “That Largo is a means of grace to me. There could be no better preparation for a religious meeting than that. If you would only come in and play for them, it would do them much more good than all my preaching.”
“If you would only take your music seriously, Barry,” replied his father, somewhat sadly, “you would become a good player, perhaps even a great player.”
“And then what, dad?”
His father waved him aside, putting up his 'cello.
“No use going into that again, boy.”
“Well, I couldn't have been a great player, at any rate, dad.”
“Perhaps not, boy, perhaps not,” said his father. “Great players are very rare. But it is time for your meeting.”
“So it is, dad. Awfully sorry I didn't finish up those dishes. Let them go till I return. I wish you would, dad, and come along with me.” His voice had a wistful note in it.
“Not to-night, boy, I think. We will have some talk after. You will only be an hour, you know.”
“All right, dad,” said Barry. “Some time you may come.” He could not hide the wistful regret of his tone.
“Perhaps I shall, boy,” replied his father.
It was the one point upon which there was a lack of perfect harmony between father and son. When the boy went to college it was with the intention of entering the profession of law, for which his father had been reading in his young manhood when the lure of Canada and her broad, free acres caught him, and he had abandoned the law and with his wife and baby boy had emigrated to become a land owner in the great Canadian west.
Alas! death, that rude spoiler of so many plans, broke in upon the sanctity and perfect peace of that happy ranch home and ravished it of its treasure, leaving a broken hearted man and a little boy, orphaned and sickly, to be cared for. The ranch was sold, the rancher moved to the city of Edmonton, thence in a few years to a little village some twenty-five miles nearer to the Foothills, where he became the Registrar and Homestead Inspector for the district.
Here he had lived ever since, training the torn tendrils of his heart about the lad, till peace came back again, though never the perfect joy of the earlier days. Every May Day the two were wont to go upon an expedition many miles into the Foothills, to a little, sunny spot, where a strong, palisaded enclosure held a little grave. So little it looked, and so lonely amid the great hills. There, not in an abandonment of grief, but in loving and grateful remembrance of her whose dust the little grave now held, of what she had been to them, and had done for them, they spent the day, returning to take up again with hearts solemn, tender and chastened, the daily routine of life.
That his son should grow to take up the profession of law had been the father's dream, but during his university course the boy had come under the compelling influence of a spiritual awakening that swept him into a world filled with new impressions and other desires. Obeying what he felt to be an imperative call, the boy chose the church as his profession, and after completing his theological course in the city of Winnipeg, and spending a year in study in Germany, while still a mere youth he had been appointed as missionary to the district of which his own village was the centre.
But though widely separate from each other in the matter of religion, there were many points of contact between them. They were both men of the great out-of-doors, and under his father's inspiration and direction the boy had come to love athletic exercises of all kinds. They were both music-mad, the father having had in early youth a thorough musical education, the boy possessing musical talent of a high order. Such training as was his he had received from his father, but it was confined to one single instrument, the violin. To this instrument, upon which his father had received the tuition of a really excellent master, the son devoted long hours of study and practice during his boyhood years, and his attainments were such as to give promise of something more than an amateur's mastery of his instrument. His college work, however, interfered with his music, and to his father's great disappointment and regret he was forced to lay aside his study of the violin. On the piano, however, the boy developed an extraordinary power of improvisation and of sight reading, and while his technique was faulty his insight, his power of interpretation were far in excess of many artists who were his superiors in musical knowledge and power of execution. Many were the hours the father and son spent together through the long evenings of the western winter, and among the many bonds that held them in close comradeship, none was stronger than their common devotion to music.
Long after his son had departed to his meeting the father sat dreaming over his 'cello, wandering among the familiar bits from the old masters as fancy led him, nor was he aware of the lapse of time till his son returned.
“Hello! Nine-thirty?” he exclaimed, looking at his watch. “You have given them an extra dose to-night.”
“Business meeting afterwards, which didn't come off after all,” said his son. “Postponed till next Sunday.” With this curt announcement, and without further comment he sat down at his desk.
But after a few moments he rose quickly, saying, “Let us do some real work, dad.”
He took up his violin. His father, who was used to his moods, without question or remark proceeded to tune up. An hour's hard practice followed, without word from either except as regarded the work in hand.
“I feel better now, dad,” said the young man when they had finished. “And now for a round with you.”
“But what about your wind, boy? I don't like that asthma of yours this afternoon.”
“I am quite all right. It's quite gone. I feel sure it was the pollen from the beaver meadow.”
They cleared back the table and chairs from the centre of the room, stripped to their shirts, put on the gloves and went at each other with vim. Their style was similar, for the father had taught the son all he knew, except that the father's was the fighting and the son's the sparring style. To-night the roles appeared to be reversed, the son pressing hard at the in-fighting, the father trusting to his foot work and countering with the light touch of a man making points.
“You ARE boring in, aren't you?” said the father, stopping a fierce rally.
“You are not playing up, dad,” said his son. “I don't feel like soft work to-night. Come to me!”
“As you say,” replied the father, and for the next five minutes Barry had no reason to complain of soft work, for his father went after him with all the fight that was in him, so that in spite of a vigorous defence the son was forced to take refuge in a runaway game.
“Now you're going!” shouted the son, making a fierce counter with his right to a hard driven left, which he side-stepped. It was a fatal exposure. Like the dart of a snake the right hand hook got him below the jaw, and he was hurled breathless on the couch at the side of the room.
“Got you now!” said his father.
“Not quite yet,” cried Barry. Like a cat he was on his feet, breathing deep breaths, dodging about, fighting for time.
“Enough!” cried his father, putting down his hands.
“Play up!” shouted Barry, who was rapidly recovering his wind. “No soft work. Watch out!”
Again the father was on guard, while Barry, who seemed to have drawn upon some secret source of strength, came at him with a whirlwind attack, feinting, jabbing, swinging, hooking, till finally he landed a short half arm on the jaw, which staggered his father against the wall.
“Pax!” cried the young man. “I have all I want.”
“Great!” said his father. “I believe you could fight, boy, if you were forced to.”
In the shed they sluiced each other with pails of water, had a rub down and got into their dressing gowns.
“I feel fine, now, dad, and ready for anything,” said Barry, glowing with his exercise and his tub. “I was feeling like a quitter. I guess that asthma got at my nerve. But I believe I will see it through some way.”
“Yes?” said his father, and waited.
“Yes. They were talking blue ruin in there to-night. Finances are behind, congregation is running down, therefore the preacher is a failure.”
“Well, lad, remember this,” said his father, “never let your liver decide any course of action for you. Some good stiff work, a turn with the gloves, for instance, is the best preparation I know for any important decision. A man cannot decide wisely when he feels grubby. Your asthma this afternoon is a symptom of liver.”
“It is humiliating to a creature endowed with conscience and intellect to discover how small a part these play at times in his decisions. The ancients were not far wrong who made the liver the seat of the emotions.”
“Well,” said his father, “it is a good thing to remember that most of our bad hours come from our livers. So the preacher is a failure? Who said so?”
“Oh, a number of them, principally Hayes.”
“Thank God, and go to sleep,” said his father. “If Hayes were pleased with my preaching I should greatly suspect my call to the ministry.”
“But seriously, I am certainly not a great preacher, and perhaps not a preacher at all. They say I have no 'pep,' which with some of them appears to be the distinctive and altogether necessary characteristic of a popular preacher.”
“What said Innes?” enquired his father.
“Did you ever hear Innes say much? From his silence one would judge that he must possess the accumulated wisdom of the ages.”
“When he does talk, however, he generally says something. What was his contribution?”
“'Ah, weel,' said the silent one, 'Ah doot he's no a Spurgeon, not yet a Billy Sunday, but ye'll hardly be expectin' thae fowk at Wapiti for nine hundred dollars a year.' Then, bless his old heart, he added, 'But the bairns tak to him like ducks to water, so you'd better bide a bit.' So they decided to 'bide a bit' till next Sunday. Dad, at first I wanted to throw their job in their faces, only I always know that it is the old Adam in me that feels like that, so I decided to 'bide a bit' too.”
“It is a poor job, after all, my boy,” said his father. “It's no gentleman's job the way it is carried on in this country. To think of your being at the bidding of a creature like Hayes!”
He could have said no better word. The boy's face cleared like the sudden shining of the sun after rain. He lifted his head and said,
“Thank God, not at his bidding, dad. 'One is your Master,'” he quoted. “But after all, Hayes has something good in him. Do you know, I rather like him. He's—”
“Oh, come now, we'll drop it right there,” said his father, in a disgusted tone. “When you come to finding something to like in that rat, I surrender.”
“Who knows?” said the boy, as if to himself. “Poor Hayes. He may be quite a wonderful man, considering all things, his heredity and his environment. What would I have been, dad, but for you?”
His father grunted, pulled hard at his pipe, coughed a bit, then looked his son straight in the face, saying, “God knows what any of us owe to our past.” He fell into silence. His mind was far away, following his heart to the palisaded plot of ground among the Foothills and the little grave there in which he had covered from his sight her that had been the inspiration to his best and finest things, and his defence against the things low and base that had once hounded his soul, howling hard upon his trail.
The son, knowing his mood, sat in silence with him, then rising suddenly he sat himself on the arm of his father's chair, threw his arm around his shoulder and said, “Dear old dad! Good old boy you are, too. Good stuff! What would I have been but for you? A puny, puling, wretched little crock, afraid of anything that could spit at me. Do you remember the old gander? I was near my eternal damnation that day.”
“But you won out, my boy,” said his father in a croaking voice, putting his arm round his son.
“Yes, because you made me stick it, just as you have often made me stick it since. May God forget me if I ever forget what you have done for me. Shall we read now?”
He took the big Bible from its place upon the table, and turning the leaves read aloud from the teachings of the world's greatest Master. It was the parable of the talents.
“Rather hard on the failure,” he said as he closed the book.
“No, not the failure,” said his father, “the slacker, the quitter. It is nature's law. There is no place in God's universe for a quitter.”
“You are right, dad,” said Barry. “Good-night.”
He kissed his father, as he had ever done since his earliest infancy. Their prayers were said in private, the son, clergyman though he was, could never bring himself to offer to lead the devotions of him at whose knee he had kneeled every night of his life, as a boy, for his evening prayer.
“Good-night, boy,” said his father, holding him by the hand for a moment or so. “We do not know what is before us, defeat, loss, suffering. That part is not in our hands altogether, but the shame of the quitter never need, and never shall be ours.”
The little man stepped into his bedroom with his shoulders squared and his head erect.
“By Jove! He's no quitter,” said his son to himself, as his eyes followed him. “When he quits he'll be dead. God keep me from shaming him!”
The hour for the church service had not quite arrived, but already a number of wagons, buckboards and buggies had driven up and deposited their loads at the church door. The women had passed into the church, where the Sunday School was already in session; the men waited outside, driven by the heat of the July sun and the hotter July wind into the shade of the church building.
Through the church windows came the droning of voices, with now and then a staccato rapping out of commands heard above the droning.
“That's Hayes,” said a sturdy young chap, brown as an Indian, lolling upon the grass. “He likes to be bossing something.”
“That's so, Ewen,” replied a smaller man, with a fish-like face, his mouth and nose running into a single feature.
“I guess he's doin' his best, Nathan Pilley,” answered another man, stout and stocky, with bushy side whiskers flanking around a rubicund face, out of which stared two prominent blue eyes.
“Oh, I reckon he is, Mr. Boggs. I have no word agin Hayes,” replied Nathan Pilley, a North Ontario man, who, abandoning a rocky farm in Muskoka, had strayed to this far west country in search of better fortune. “I have no word agin Mr. Hayes, Mr. Boggs,” he reiterated. “In fact, I think he ought to be highly commended for his beneficent work.”
“But he does like to hear himself giving out orders, all the same,” persisted the young man addressed as Ewen.
“Yes, he seems to sorter enjoy that, too, Ewen,” agreed Nathan, who was never known to oppose any man's opinion.
“He's doin' his best,” insisted Mr. Boggs, rather sullenly.
“Yes, he is that, Mr. Boggs, he is that,” said Nathan.
“But he likes to be the big toad in the puddle,” said Ewen.
“Well, he certainly seems to, he does indeed, Ewen.”
Clear over the droning there arose at this point another sound, a chorus of childish laughter.
“That's the preacher's class,” said Boggs. “Quare sort o' Sunday School where the kids carry on like that.”
“Seems rather peculiar,” agreed Nathan, “peculiar in Sunday School, it does.”
“What's the matter with young Pickles?” enquired Ewen.
The eyes of the company, following the pointing finger, fell upon young Pickles standing at the window of the little vestry to the church, and looking in. He was apparently convulsed with laughter, with his hand hard upon his mouth and nose as a kind of silencer.
“Do you know what's the matter with him, Pat?” continued Ewen.
Pat McCann, the faithful friend and shadow of young Pickles, after studying the attitude and motions of his friend, gave answer:
“It's the preacher, I guess. He's kiddin' the kids inside. He's some kidder, too,” he said, moving to take his place beside his friend.
“What's he doing anyway?” said Ewen. “I'm going to see.”
Gradually a little company gathered behind young Pickles and Pat McCann. The window commanded a view of the room, yet in such a way that the group were unobserved by the speaker.
“Say, you ought to seen him do the camel a minute ago,” whispered Pickles.
In the little vestry room were packed some twenty children of all ages and sizes, with a number of grownups who had joined the class in charge of some of its younger members. There was, for instance, Mrs. Innes, with the two youngest of her numerous progeny pillowed against her yielding and billowy person; and Mrs. Stewart Duff, an infant of only a few weeks upon her knee accounting sufficiently for the paleness of her sweet face, and two or three other women with their small children filling the bench that ran along the wall.
“Say! look at Harry Hobbs,” said Pat McCann to his friend.
Upon the stove, which in summer was relegated to the corner of the room, sat Harry Hobbs, a man of any age from his appearance, thin and wiry, with keen, darting eyes, which now, however, were fastened upon the preacher. All other eyes were, too. Even the smallest of the children seated on the front bench were gazing with mouths wide open, as if fascinated, upon the preacher who, moving up and down with quick, lithe steps, was telling them a story. A wonderful story, too, it seemed, the wonder of it apparent in the riveted eyes and fixed faces. It was the immortal story, matchless in the language, of Joseph, the Hebrew shepherd boy, who, sold into slavery by his brethren, became prime minister of the mighty empire of Egypt. The voice tone of the minister, now clear and high, now low and soft, vibrating like the deeper notes of the 'cello, was made for story telling. Changing with every changing emotion, it formed an exquisite medium to the hearts of the listeners for the exquisite music of the tale.
The story was approaching its climactic denouement; the rapturous moment of the younger brother's revealing was at hand; Judah, the older brother, was now holding the centre of the stage and making that thrilling appeal, than which nothing more moving is to be found in our English speech. The preacher's voice was throbbing with all the pathos of the tale. Motionless, the little group hung hard upon the story-teller, when the door opened quickly, a red head appeared, a rasping voice broke in:
“Your class report, Mr. Dunbar, please. We're waiting for it.”
A sigh of disappointment and regret swept the room.
“Oh, darn the little woodpecker!” said Ewen from the outside, in a disgusted tone. “That's the way with Hayes. He thinks he's the whole works, and that he never can get in wrong.”
The spell was broken, never to be renewed. The story hurried to its close, but the great climax failed of its proper effect.
“He's a hummer, ain't he?” exclaimed young Pickles to his friend, Pat McCann.
“Some hummer, and then some!” replied Pat.
“I'm goin' in,” said Pickles.
“Aw, what for? He ain't no good preachin' to them folks. By gum! I think he's scared of 'em.”
But Pickles persisted, and followed with the men and boys who lounged lazily into the church, from which the Sunday School had now been dismissed.
It appeared that the judgment of Pat McCann upon the merits of the preacher would be echoed by the majority of the congregation present. While the service was conducted in proper form and in reverent spirit, the sermon was marked by that most unpardonable sin of which sermons can be guilty; it was dull. Solid enough in matter, thoughtful beyond the average, it was delivered in a style appallingly wooden, with an utter absence of that arresting, dramatic power that the preacher had shown in his children's class.
The appearance of the congregation was, as ever, a reflection of the sermon. The heat of the day, the reaction from the long week in the open air, the quiet monotony of the well modulated voice rising and falling in regular cadence in what is supposed by so many preachers to be the tone suitable for any sacred office, produced an overwhelmingly somnolent effect. Many of them slept, some frankly and openly, others under cover of shading hands, bowed heads, or other subterfuges. Others again spent the whole of the period of the sermon, except for some delicious moments of surreptitious sleep, in a painful but altogether commendable struggle against the insidious influence of the god of slumber.
Among the latter was Mrs. Innes, whose loyalty to her minister, which was as much a part of her as her breathing, contended in a vigorous fight against her much too solid flesh. It was a certain aid to wakefulness that her two children, deep in audible slumber, kept her in a state of active concern lest their inert and rotund little masses of slippery flesh should elude her grasp, and wreck the proprieties of the hour by flopping on the floor. There was also a further sleep deterrent in the fact that immediately before her sat Mr. McFettridge, whose usually erect form, yielding to the soporific influences of the environment, showed a tendency gradually to sag into an attitude, relaxed and formless, which suggested sleep. This, to the lady behind him, partook of the nature of an affront to her minister. Consequently she considered it her duty to arouse the snoozing McFettridge with a vigorous poke in the small of the back.
The effect was instantaneously apparent. As if her insistent finger had touched a button and released an electric current, Mr. McFettridge's sagging form shot convulsively into rigidity, and impinging violently upon the peacefully slumbering Mr. Boggs on the extreme end of the bench, toppled him over into the aisle.
The astonished Boggs, finding himself thus deposited upon the floor, and beholding the irate face of Mr. McFettridge glooming down upon him, and fancying him to be the cause of his present humiliating position, sprang to his feet, swung a violent blow upon Mr. Fettridge's ear, exclaiming sotto voce:
“Take that, will you! And mind your own business! You were sleeping yourself, anyway!”
Before the astonished and enraged Mr. McFettridge could gather his wits sufficiently for action, there rang over the astonished congregation a peal of boyish laughter. It was from the minister. A few irrepressible youngsters joined in the laugh; the rest of the congregation, however, were held rigid in the grip of a shocked amazement.
“Oh, I say! do forgive me, Mr. McFettridge!” cried the young man at the desk. “It was quite involuntary, I assure you.” Then, quickly recovering himself, he added, “And now we shall conclude the service by singing the seventy-ninth hymn.”
Before the last verse was sung he reminded the audience of the congregational meeting immediately following, and without further comment the service was brought to a close.
A number of the congregation, among them Barry's father, departed.
“Sit down, Neil,” said Mrs. Innes to Neil Fraser. “You'll be wanted I doot.” And Neil, protesting that he knew nothing about church business, sat down.
At the back of the church were gathered Harry Hobbs, young Pickles, and others of the less important attendants of the church, who had been induced to remain by the rumour of a “scrap.”
By a fatal mischance, the pliant Nathan Pilley was elected chairman. This gentleman was obsessed by the notion that he possessed in a high degree the two qualities which he considered essential to the harmonious and expeditious conduct of a public meeting, namely, an invincible determination to agree with every speaker, and an equally invincible determination to get motions passed.
In a rambling and aimless speech, Mr. Pilley set forth in a somewhat general way the steps leading up to this meeting, and then called upon Mr. Innes, the chairman of the Board of Management, to state more specifically the object for which it was called.
Mr. Innes, who was incurably averse to voluble speech, whether public or private, arose and said, in rolling Doric:
“Weel, Mr. Chair-r-man, there's no much to be done. We're behind a few hundred dollars, but if some one will go about wi' a bit paper, nae doot the ar-rear-rs wad soon be made up, and everything wad be ar-richt.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Pilley pleasantly. “Now will some one offer a motion?”
Thereupon Mr. Hayes was instantly upon his feet, and in a voice thin and rasping exclaimed:
“Mr. Chairman, there's business to be done, and we are here to do it, and we're not going to be rushed through in this way.”
“Exactly, Mr. Hayes, exactly,” said Mr. Pilley. “We must give these matters the fullest consideration.”
Then followed a silence.
“Perhaps Mr. Hayes—” continued the chairman, looking appealingly at that gentleman.
“Well, Mr. Chairman,” said Mr. Hayes, with an appeased but slightly injured air, “it is not my place to set forth the cause of this meeting being called. If the chairman of the board would do his duty”—here he glared at the unconscious Mr. Innes—“he would set before it the things that have made this meeting necessary, and that call for drastic action.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Mr. Boggs.
“Exactly so,” acquiesced the chairman. “Please continue, Mr. Hayes.”
Mr. Hayes continued: “The situation briefly is this: We are almost hopelessly in debt, and—”
“How much?” enquired Neil Fraser, briskly interrupting.
“Seven hundred dollars,” replied Mr. Hayes, “and further—”
“Five hundred dollars,” said Mr. Innes.
“I have examined the treasurer's books,” said Mr. Hayes in the calmly triumphant tone of one sure of his position, “and I find the amount to be seven hundred dollars, and therefore—”
“Five hundred dollars,” repeated Mr. Innes, gazing into space.
“Seven hundred dollars, I say,” snapped Mr. Hayes.
“Five hundred dollars,” reiterated Mr. Innes, without further comment.
“I say I have examined the books. The arrears are seven hundred dollars.”
“Five hundred dollars,” said Mr. Innes calmly.
The youngsters at the back snickered.
“Go to it!” said Harry Hobbs, under his breath.
Even the minister, who was sitting immediately behind Harry, could not restrain a smile.
“Mr. Chairman,” cried Mr. Hayes, indignantly, “I appeal against this interruption. I assert—”
“Where's the treasurer?” said Neil Fraser. “What's the use of this chewin' the rag?”
“Ah! Exactly so,” said the chairman, greatly relieved. “Mr. Boggs—Perhaps Mr. Boggs will enlighten us.”
Mr. Boggs arose with ponderous deliberation.
“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “in one sense Mr. Hayes is right when he states the arrears to be seven hundred dollars—”
“Five hundred dollars A'm tellin' ye,” said Mr. Innes with the first sign of feeling he had shown.
“And Mr. Innes is also right,” continued Mr. Boggs, ignoring the interruption, “when he makes the arrears five hundred dollars, the two hundred dollars difference being the quarterly revenue now due.”
“Next week,” said Mr. Innes, reverting to his wonted calm.
“Exactly so,” said the chairman, rubbing his hands amiably; “so that the seven hundred dollars we now owe—”
This was too much even for the imperturbable Mr. Innes.
He arose in his place, moved out into the aisle, advanced toward the platform, and with arm outstretched, exclaimed in wrathful tones:
“Mon, did ye no hear me tellin' ye? I want nae mon to mak' me a le-ear.”
At this point Mr. Stewart Duff, who had come to convey his wife home, and had got tired waiting for her outside, entered the church.
“Oh, get on with the business,” said Neil Fraser, who, although enjoying the scene, was becoming anxious for his dinner. “The question what's to be done with the five hundred dollars' arrears. I say, let's make it up right here. I am willing to give—”
“No, Mr. Chairman,” shouted Mr. Hayes, who was notoriously averse to parting with his money, and was especially fearful of a public subscription.
“There is something more than mere arrears—much more—”
“Ay, there is,” emphatically declared Mr. McFettridge, rising straight and stiff. “I'm for plain speakin'. The finances is not the worst about this congregation. The congregation has fallen off. Other churches in this village has good congregations. Why shouldn't we? The truth is, Mr. Chairman,”—Mr. McFettridge's voice rolled deep and sonorous over the audience—“we want a popular preacher—a preacher that draws—a preacher with some pep.”
“Hear! hear!” cried Mr. Boggs. “Pep's what we want. That's it—pep.”
“Pep,” echoed the chairman. “Exactly so, pep.”
“More than that,” continued Mr. McFettridge, “we want a minister that's a good mixer—one that stands in with the boys.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Mr. Boggs again.
“A mixer! Exactly!” agreed the chairman. “A mixer!” nodding pleasantly at Mr. Boggs.
“And another thing I will say,” continued Mr. McFettridge, “now that I am on my feet. We want a preacher that will stick to his job—that will preach the gospel and not go meddlin' with other matters—with politics and such like.”
“Or prohibition,” shouted Harry Hobbs from the rear, to the undiluted joy of the youngsters in his vicinity.
The minister shook his head at him.
“Yes, prohibition,” answered Mr. McFettridge, facing toward the rear of the church defiantly. “Let him stick to his preaching the gospel; I believe the time has come for a change and I'm prepared to make a motion that we ask our minister to resign, and that motion I now make.”
“Second the motion,” cried Mr. Boggs promptly.
“You have heard the motion,” said the chairman, with business-like promptitude. “Are you ready for the question?”
“Question,” said Mr. Hayes, after a few moments' silence, broken by the shuffling of some members in their seats, and by the audible whispering of Mrs. Innes, evidently exhorting her husband to action.
“Then all those in favour of the motion will please—”
Then from behind the organ a little voice piped up, “Does this mean, Mr. Chairman, that we lose our minister?”
It was Miss Quigg, a lady whose years no gallantry could set below forty, for her appearance indicated that she was long past the bloom of her youth. She was thin, almost to the point of frailness, with sharp, delicately cut features; but the little chin was firm, and a flash of the brown eyes revealed a fiery soul within. Miss Quigg was the milliner and dressmaker of the village, and was herself a walking model of her own exquisite taste in clothes and hats. It was only her failing health that had driven her to abandon a much larger sphere than her present position offered, but even here her fame was such as to draw to her little shop customers from the villages round about for many miles.
“Does this mean, sir, that Mr. Dunbar will leave us?” she repeated.
“Well,—yes, madam—that is, Miss, I suppose, in a way—practically it would amount to that.”
“Will you tell me yes or no, please,” Miss Quigg's neat little figure was all a-quiver to the tips of her hat plumes.
“Well,” said the chairman, squirming under the unpleasant experience of being forced to a definite answer, “I suppose,—yes.”
Miss Quigg turned from the squirming and smiling Mr. Pilley in contempt.
“Then,” she said, “I say no. And I believe there are many here who would say no—and men, too.” The wealth of indignation and contemptuous scorn infused into the word by which the difference in sex of the human species was indicated, made those unhappy individuals glance shamefacedly at each other—“only they are too timid, the creatures! or too indifferent.”
Again there was an exchange of furtive glances and smiles and an uneasy shifting of position on the part of “the creatures.”
“But if you give them time, Mr. Chairman, I believe they will perhaps get up courage enough to speak.”
Miss Quigg sat down in her place behind the organ, disappearing quite from view except for the tips of her plumes, whose rapid and rhythmic vibrations were eloquent of the beating of her gallant little heart.
“Exactly so,” said the chairman, in confused but hearty acquiescence. “Perhaps some one will say something.”
Then Mr. Innes, forced to a change of position by the physical discomfort caused by his wife's prodding, rose and said,
“I dinna see the need o' any change. Mr. Dunbar is no a great preacher, but Ah doot he does his best. And the bairns all like him.”
Then the congregation had a thrill. In the back seat rose Harry Hobbs.
“I'm near forty years old,” he cried, in a high nasal tone that indicated a state of extreme nervous tension, “and I never spoke in meetin' before. I ain't had no use for churches and preachers, and I guess they hadn't no use for me. You folks all know me. I've been in this burg for near eight years, and I was a drinkin', swearin', fightin' cuss. This preacher came into the barn one day when I was freezin' to death after a big spree. He tuk me home with him and kep' me there for two weeks, settin' up nights with me, too. Let me be,” he said impatiently to Barry, who was trying to pull him down to his seat. “I'm agoin' to speak this time if it kills me. Many a time I done him dirt sence then, but he stuck to me, and never quit till he got me turned 'round. I was goin' straight to hell; he says I'm goin' to heaven now.” Here he laughed with a touch of scorn. “I dunno. But, by gum! if you fire him and do him dirt, I don't know what'll become of me, but I guess I'll go straight to hell again.”
“No, Harry, no you won't. You'll keep right on, Harry, straight to heaven.” It was the preacher's voice, full of cheery confidence.
Mrs. Innes was audibly sniffling; Mrs. Stewart Duff wiping her eyes. It was doubtless this sight that brought her husband to his feet.
“I don't quite know what the trouble is here,” he said. “I understand there are arrears. I heard some criticism of the minister's preaching. I can't say I care much for it myself, but I want to say right here that there are other things wanted in a minister, and this young fellow has got some of them. If he stays, he gets my money; if he doesn't, no one else does. I'll make you gentlemen who are kicking about finances a sporting proposition. I'm willing to double my subscription, if any other ten men will cover my ante.”
“I'll call you,” said Neil Fraser, “and I'll raise you one.”
“I'm willing to meet Mr. Duff and Mr. Fraser,” said Miss Quigg, rising from behind her organ with a triumphant smile on her face.
“I ain't got much money,” said Harry Hobbs, “but I'll go you just half what I earn if you'll meet me on that proposition.”
“Ah may say,” said Mr. Innes, yielding to his wife's vigorous vocal and physical incitations, “A'm prepair-r-ed to mak' a substantial increase in my subscreeption—that is, if necessary,” he added cautiously.
Then Barry came forward from the back of the church and stood before the platform. After looking them over for a few moments in silence, he said, in a voice clear, quiet, but with a ring in it that made it echo in every heart:
“Had it not been for these last speeches, it would have been unnecessary to allow the motion to go before you. I could not have remained where I am not wanted. But now I am puzzled, I confess, I am really puzzled to know what to do. I am not a great preacher, I know, but then there are worse. I don't, at least I think I don't, talk nonsense. And I am not what Mr. McFettridge calls a 'good mixer.' On the other hand, I think Mr. Innes is right when he says the bairns like me; at least, it would break”—he paused, his lip quivering, then he went on quietly—“it would be very hard to think they didn't.”
“They do that, then,” said Mrs. Innes, emphatically.
“So you see, it is really very difficult to know what to do. I would hate to go away, but it might be right to go away. I suggest you let me have a week to think it over. Can you wait that long?”
His handsome, boyish face, alight with a fine glow of earnestness and sincerity, made irresistible appeal to all but those who for personal reasons were opposed to him.
“You see,” he continued, in a tone of voice deliberative and quite detached, “there are a number of things to think about. Those arrears, for instance, are hardly my fault—at least, not altogether. I was looking over the treasurer's books the other day, and I was surprised to find how many had apparently quite forgotten to pay their church subscription. It is no doubt just an oversight. For instance,” he added, in the confidential tone of one imparting interesting and valuable information, “you will be surprised to learn, Mr. Duff, that you are twenty-five dollars behind in your payments.”
At this Neil Fraser threw back his head with a loud laugh. “Touche!” he said, in a joyous undertone.
The minister looked at him in surprise, and went on, “And while Mr. Innes and Miss Quigg are both paid up in full, Mr. Hayes has apparently neglected to pay his last quarter.”
“Hit him again,” murmured Harry Hobbs, while Mr. Hayes rose in virtuous indignation.
“I protest, Mr. Chairman!” he cried, “against these personalities.”
“Oh, you quite mistake me, Mr. Hayes,” said the preacher, “these are not personalities. I am simply showing how easy it is for arrears to arise, and that it may not be my fault at all. Of course, it may be right for me to resign. I don't know about that yet, but I want to be very sure. It would be easier to resign, but I don't want to be a quitter.”
“I move we adjourn,” said Neil Fraser.
“I second the motion,” said Stewart Duff. The motion was carried, and the meeting adjourned.
At the door the minister stood shaking hands with all as they passed out, making no distinction in the heartiness with which he greeted all his parishioners. To Miss Quigg, however, he said, “Thank you. You were splendidly plucky.”
“Nonsense!” cried the little lady, the colour flaming in her faded cheeks. “But,” she added hastily, “you did that beautifully, and he deserved it, the little beast!”
“Solar plexus!” said Neil Fraser, who was immediately behind Miss Quigg.
The minister glanced from one to the other in perplexity, as they passed out of the door.
“But, you know, I was only—”
“Oh, yes, we know,” cried Miss Quigg. “But if those men would only take hold! Oh, those men!” She turned upon Neil Fraser and shook her head at him violently.
“I know, Miss Quigg. We are a hopeless and helpless lot. But we're going to reform.”
“You need to, badly,” she said. “But you need some one to reform you. Look at Mr. Duff there, how vastly improved he is,” and she waved her hand to that gentleman, who was driving away with his wife in their buckboard.
“He is a perfect dear,” sighed Mrs. Duff, as she bowed to the minister. “And you, too, Stewart,” she added, giving his arm a little squeeze, “you said just the right thing when those horrid people were going to turn him out.”
“Say! Your preacher isn't so bad after all,” said her husband. “Wasn't that a neat one for old Hayes?”
“He rather got you, though, Stewart.”
“Yes, he did, by Jove! Not the first time, either, he's done it. But I must look after that. Say, he's the limit for freshness though. Or is it freshness? I'm not quite sure.”
“Will he stay with us?” said his wife. “I really do hope he will.”
“Guess he'll stay all right. He won't give up his job,” said her husband.
But next week proved Mr. Duff a poor prophet, for the minister after the service informed his people that he had come to the conclusion that another man might get better results as minister of the congregation; he had therefore handed in his resignation to the Presbytery.
It was a shock to them all, but he adhered to his resolution in spite of tearful lamentations from the women, wide-eyed amazement and dismay from the bairns of the congregation, and indignation, loudly expressed, from Neil Fraser and Stewart Duff, and others of their kind.
“Well,” said Miss Quigg, struggling with indignant tears, as she was passing out of the church, “you won't see Harry Hobbs in this church again, nor me, either.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Quigg, Harry has promised me that he will stick by the church, and that he will be there every Sunday. And so will you, dear Miss Quigg. I know you. You will do what is right.”
But that little lady, with her head very erect and a red spot burning in each faded cheek, passed out of the church saying nothing, the plumes on her jaunty little hat quivering defiance and wrath against “those men, who had so little spunk as to allow a little beast like Hayes to run them.”