Part 42

"Of course," they cried together, each repeating portions of it again and again in the spirit of atonement.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Vardell, "that the mind undergoes a kind of relaxation after a delicious tension such as we experienced to-day."

I marvelled greatly at this relentless sweetness.

"I knew it was in the New Testament," said Josie triumphantly--and we silently accorded her the praise that was her due.

But I inwardly bethought myself of those silent granite lips in the frozen North, unthawed by tender speeches, yet each one the reservoir of my texts and sermons, as unforgotten as they were unsung.

XXV

ST. CUTHBERT'S SECOND CALL

My reluctant farewells had been said, my gracious entertainers had grown dim upon the wharf; and the Atlantic was greeting our ship with boisterous welcome. For the Atlantic is far travelled and loves to surprise those Southern shores with the waves of Northern waters.

One by one the passengers retired from the deck, some with slow dignity, some with solemn haste, and some with volcanic candour.

I remained, sharing the scant survival of the fit, and fell into a reflective mood, for I love to think to music, none so grand as the accompaniment of ocean. That mighty throat is attuned to the human; its cry of deep mysterious passion, its note of conflict, is the epitome of the universal voice. It accorded well with the mood that possessed me, for that mood was gray.

The prevailing thought was this--that I was going back to winter. Grim relapse this, I mused, to go forth from bud and bloom and bird, to pendant icicle and drifted snow. For the blood soon warms beneath Southern skies, and a man soon recognizes that a garden was the ancestral home of him and of all mankind. Even the Eskimo can be traced to Eden.

Yes, I was going back to winter in very truth, without and within; for there is a sharper winter than any whose story the thermometer records. The winter of my discontent, and of another's blighted heart, and of still another's darkened life, awaited me beyond these turbid waters! My way was dark, and my path obscure before me. Chart and compass were blurred and numb. To remain in New Jedboro, and to remove to Charleston, seemed equally distasteful.

I had given the Southern church no assurance of my purpose, because purpose I had none. Yet the stern necessity of choice was upon me, this most sombre enfranchisement of manhood, that we are compelled to choose, willing or unwilling. Saint and sinner, believer and infidel, are alike under this compulsion in matters moral--and in all matters. We speak of the stern pressure which demands that men shall make a living; but its dread feature is herein, that our living is a succession of pregnant choices on which our deepest livelihood depends--and these choices melt into destiny, involving the infinite itself.

My people, I ruminated, could help me to a decision if they only would. But I knew how non-committal they would be; for they, and all their kind, are inclined to assume no responsibility of another's soul, and to surrender no fragment of their own.

New York was reached at last, the waves still tossing heavily. When I alighted from the train at New Jedboro, the breath of winter greeted me.

One of my parishioners, an Aberdonian born, was on the lookout. He shook hands, but said nothing of welcome home. Yet his hand was warm, and its grip had a voice that told me more than even sweet Southern lips could say. For its voice was bass--which is God's.

"Issie's wantin' ye," he said calmly. "She's far gone an' she's been askin' for ye."

The dawn as yet had hardly come, and seating myself upon the box, I told the cabman to drive quickly to Issie's home. As we passed through the still unstirring town, he said:

"He'll be sittin' up with him," pointing to a dimly-lighted window.

"Who'll be sitting up?" I said.

"Oh, I forgot. You won't have heard. That is Mr. Strachan's room. At least I think that is the name. I only came here myself to work ten days ago. A poor homeless woman landed here last week from Ireland. One of those immigration agent devils over there took her last penny and sent her over to Canada, to starve for all he cared. She showed smallpox after she landed here and her little lad was with her. He took it too. Well, she died--but before she died she told her story. The old story, you know--had bad luck, you see, and the fellow skipped out and left her. The woman gets the worst of it every time, don't she?"

"She died!" I exclaimed. "And the little one? Where is the boy you spoke of?"

"That's him; that's what the light's burnin' for. Angus Strachan, so they say, paid all the funeral expenses, and they wanted to send the kid away somewheres--some hospital for them catchin' diseases. But Strachan acted queer about it. He wouldn't let them touch it. And he took it to his own room and said he would take care of it himself."

"And did they let him?" I asked.

"Let him. I just guess they did. They couldn't help it. You see he'd been in, monkeyin' round the smallpox already--so they had to. And he wrapped the kid up in a blanket and took it to his room. They say his light's never been out at night since."

"He has not taken the disease himself, has he?" I enquired.

"Oh, no; leastwise, I never heard tell of it. But them was queer actions for a young fellow, wasn't they? No accountin' for tastes, as the fellow said! Can you understand it yourself, sir?"

"I think I can," was my reply; "let us hurry on," and in a few minutes we were at Issie's house.