Part 43

“No. I mentioned the matter to Fink and explained that if the field failed it was Boyle that would suffer. His language--well,” the Convener laughed reminiscently, “you have seen Hank?”

“Yes. I've seen him, I've heard him, and I've read him. But let us hope that his deeds will atone in a measure for his broken English. But,” continued the Superintendent, “you have had Boyle ordained, have you not?”

“Yes. We got him ordained,” replied the Convener, beginning to chuckle. A delighted, choking chuckle it was. Any missionary who had worked in his Presbytery would recognize the Convener in the dark by that chuckle. It began, if one were quick to observe, with a wrinkling about the corners of the sharp blue eyes, then became audible in a succession of small explosions that seemed to have their origin in the region of the esophagus and to threaten the larynx with disruption, until relief was found in a wide-throated peal that subsided in a second series of small explosions and gradually rumbled off into silence somewhere in the region of the diaphragm, leaving only the wrinkles about the corners of the blue eyes as a kind of warning that the whole process might be repeated upon sufficient provocation. “Yes, we got him ordained,” he repeated when the chuckle had passed. “I was glad of your explanatory note about him. It guided us in our arrangements for examination.”

“What happened?” inquired the Superintendent, leaning forward. He dearly loved a yarn, and he sorely hated to lose any of the more humorous incidents of missionary life, not only for the joy they brought him, but also because they furnished him with ammunition for his Eastern campaigns.

“Well, it was funny,” said the Convener, his lips twitching and his eyes wrinkling, “though at one time it looked like an Assembly case with all seven of us up before the bar. You know McPherson, our latest importation in the way of ordained men? Somehow he had got wind of Boyle's trouble with the Presbytery in the East. McPherson is a fine fellow and doing good work.”

“Yes,” assented the Superintendent, “he's a fine fellow, but his conscience gives him a hard time now and then and works over time for other People.”

“Well,” continued the Convener, “McPherson came to me about the matter in very considerable anxiety. I put him off, consulted with McTavish and Murray, and we decided that Boyle was too good a man to lose, and as to his heresy, it was not hurting Windermere as far as we could learn. So it happened”--here the Convener pulled himself up short to suppress the chuckle that threatened--“it happened that just as the examination was beginning McPherson was called out, and before he had returned the trials for license and ordination had been sustained. I think on the whole McPherson was relieved, but there were some funny moments after he came back into court.”

“Heresy-hunting doesn't flourish in the West,” said the Superintendent. “There's no time for it. Some of the Eastern Presbyteries have too many men with more time on their hands than sense in their heads.”

“Certainly there was no time lost in this case,” replied the Convener. “We knew Boyle's scholarship was right. We knew his heart was sound. We knew he was doing good work for us and we knew we wanted him. We were not anxious to know anything else.”

“What we want for the West,” said the Superintendent, his voice vibrating in a deeper tone, “is men who have the spirit of the Gospel with the power to preach it and the love of their fellowmen, with tact to bring it to bear upon them. A little heresy, more or less, won't hurt them. Orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy the other fellow's.”

“In Boyle's case, I believe he was helped by his touch of heresy. It gave him a kind of brotherly feeling with all heretics. It was that more than anything else that broke up the Freethinkers' Club.”

“Ah,” said the Superintendent, bending eagerly forward, again on the scent, “I didn't hear that.”

“Yes,” said the Convener, “Fink told me about it. Boyle went to their meetings. He found them revelling in cheap scepticism of the Ingersollian type. He took the attitude of a man seeking after a working theory of life, and that attitude he stuck to--his real attitude, mind you. He encouraged them to talk, combated none of their positions and, as Hank said, 'coaxed them out into deep water and had them froggin' for their lives. He was the biggest Freethinker in the bunch.' They invited him to give a series of lectures. He did so, and that settled the Freethinkers' Club. He never blamed them for doubting anything, and I believe that's right.” The Convener was a bit of a heretic himself and, consequently, carried a tender heart toward them. “Let a man doubt till he finds his faith. And that was Boyle's line. He let them doubt, but he insisted that they should have something positive to live by.”

“Our friend Hank,” said the Superintendent, “would be delighted.”

“Delighted? I should say so. But Hank 'joins trembling with his mirth,' for Boyle got after him with the same demands.”

The Superintendent was filled with delighted pride in his missionary. “That's the kind of man we want. He ought to do well in your railroad field.”

“Yes,” replied the Convener hesitatingly. “You think he ought to go? Windermere will be furious. I wouldn't care to go in there after Boyle is removed.”

“It is hard on Windermere, but Windermere mustn't be selfish. That railroad work is most pressing, and only a man like Boyle will do. There will be from three to five thousand men in there this winter between Macleod and Kuskinook. We dare not neglect them. I have had correspondence with Fahey, the General Manager for the Crow's Nest line, and he is not unfriendly, though he would prefer us to send in medical missionaries. But that work he and his contractors ought to look after.”

“There is a terrible state of things in the eastern division, I fear, from all reports,” replied the Convener. “By the way, there is a young English doctor working on that eastern division from the MaCleod end who is making a great stir. Bailey is his name, I believe. He began as a navvy, but finding a lot of fellows sick, and the doctor a poor drunken fellow, Bailey, it appears, stood it as long as he could, then finally threw him out of the camp and installed himself in his place. The contractor backed him up and he has revolutionized the medical work in that direction. Murray told me the most wonderful tales about him. He must be a remarkable man. Gambles heavily, but hates whiskey and won't have it near the camp. You ought to look him up when you go in.”

“I will. These camp doctors are a poor lot and the railroad people ought to feel disgraced in employing them. They draw their fifty cents per man a month, but their practice is shameful. It is a delicate matter, but I shall take this up with Fahey when I see him. He is a rough diamond, but he is fair and he won't stand any nonsense.”

“And you think Boyle ought to go in?”

“Yes. On the whole, I think Boyle must go. These are a fine body of men and must be looked after. A weaker man would make a mess of things. Boyle is the man for the work. How did he seem? Cheerful?”

“No, I shouldn't call him so. But he is vastly better than when he came to us. He was low in health, I think, and his face haunted me for weeks. He strikes me as a man with a tragedy in his life.”

The Superintendent said nothing. He had, in large degree, the rare gift of silence. Even with his trusted lieutenants he would break no confidence. But before he slept that night he wrote two letters, and after he had sealed and stamped them he placed them, with a pile already written, on the table and sat back in his chair indulging himself in a few moments of reverie. He saw the orderly, well-kept kitchen in the Old Stone Mill and, bending over his letter a woman, dark-faced and stern, her wavy, black hair heavily streaked with white, for during the past years the sword had pierced her heart. He saw the light break upon her tragic Highland face as she read of her boy and his well doing. With glad heart she had given him up, and now, with humble joy, she would read that her offering had been accepted.

The other letter brought to him the Macdougalls' drawing-room with all its beautiful appointments and the face of a young girl pleading for her friend. He still could see the quivering lips and hear the words of her invincible faith, “I know that if he got at his own work again it would save him.” He could still feel the grateful, timid pressure of her fingers as he had pledged her his word that her desire should be fulfilled. He had kept his word and her faith had not been put to shame.

XVI

THE CHALLENGE OF DEATH

“Be aisy now, ye little divils. Sure ye'd think it wuz the ould Nick himself ye're dodgin'.”