Part 59

“Is that so?” replied Dick, laughing. “Well, there are some who have escaped the tin-horn gang and the whiskey runners. Or rather, they've got it, but it's a different kind. Some day they'll kill him.”

“And yet they say he is--”

“Oh, I know. He does gamble, and when he gets going he's a terror. But he's down on the whiskey and on the 'red lights.' You remember the big fight at Bull Crossing? It was Bailey pulled me out of that hole. The Pioneer was slating me, Colonel Hilliers, the town site agent, was fighting me, withdrew his offer of a site for our church unless I'd leave the 'red lights' alone, and went everywhere quoting the British army in India against me. Even my own men, church members, mind you, one of them an elder, thought I should attend to my own business. These people were their best customers. Why, they actually went so far as to write to the Presbytery that I was antagonizing the people and ruining the Church. Well, you remember the big meeting called to protest against this vice? The enemy packed the house. Had half a dozen speakers for the 'Liberal' side. Unfortunately I had been sent for to see a fellow dying up the line. It looked for a complete knockout for me. In came Dr. Bailey, waited till they were all through their talk, and then went for them. He didn't speak more than ten minutes, but in those ten minutes he crumpled them up utterly and absolutely. Colonel Hilliers and the editor of The Pioneer, I understand, went white and red, yellow and green, by turns. The crowd simply yelled. You know he is tremendously popular with the men. They passed my resolution standing on the backs of their seats. Quite true, the doctor went from the meeting to a big poker game and stayed at it all night. But I'm inclined to forgive him that, and all the more because I am told he was after that fellow 'Mexico' and his gang. Oh, it was a fine bit of work. I've often wished to meet him, but he's a hard man to find. He must be a good sort at bottom.”

“To hear Tommy talk,” replied Margaret, “you would make up your mind he was a saint. He tells the most heart-moving stories of his ways and doings, nursing the sick and helping those who are down on their luck. Why, he and Ben almost came to blows this morning in regard to the comparative merits of the doctor and yourself.”

“Ben, eh? I can never be thankful enough,” said Dick earnestly, “that you brought Ben West with you. It always makes me feel safer to think that he is here.”

“Ben will agree with you,” replied Margaret, “I assure you. He assumes full care of me and of the whole institution.”

“Good boy, Ben,” said Dick, heartily. “And he is a kind of link to that old home and--with the past, the beautiful past, the past I like to think of.” The shadows were creeping up on Dick's face, deepening its lines and emphasizing the look of weariness and unrest.

“A beautiful past it was,” replied Margaret gently. “We ought to be thankful that we have it.”

“Have you heard anything?” inquired Dick.

“No. Iola's letter was the last. He had left London shortly after her arrival, so Jack Charrington had told her. She didn't know where he had gone. Charrington thought to the West somewhere, but there has been no word since.”

Dick put his head on the table and groaned aloud.

“Never mind, Dick, boy,” said Margaret, laying her hand upon his head as if he had been a child, “it will all come right some day.”

“I can't stand it, Margaret!” groaned Dick, “I shut it out from me for weeks and then it all comes over me again. It was my cursed folly that wrecked everything! Wrecked Barney's life, Iola's, too, for all I know, and mine!”

“You must not say wrecked,” replied Margaret.

“What other word is there? Wrecked and ruined. I know what you would say; but whatever the next life has for us, there is nothing left in this that can atone!”

“That, too, you must not say, Dick,” said Margaret. “God has something yet for us. He always keeps for us better than He has given. The best is always before us. Besides,” she continued eagerly, “He has given you all this work to do, this beautiful work.”

The word recalled Dick. He sat up straight. “Yes, yes, I must not forget. I am not worthy to touch it. He gave me this chance to work. What else should I want? And after all, this is the best. I can't help the heart-hunger now and then, but God forbid I should ever say a word of anything but gratitude. I was down, down, far down out of sight. He pulled me up. Who am I to complain? But I am not complaining! It is not for myself. If there were only one word to know he was doing well, was safe!” He turned suddenly to Margaret with an almost fierce earnestness. “Margaret, do you think God will give me this?” His voice was hoarse with the intensity of his passion. “Do you know, I sometimes feel that I don't want Heaven without this. I never pray for anything else. Wealth, honour, fame, I once longed for these. But now these are nothing to me if only I knew Barney was right and safe and well. Yes, even my love for you, Margaret, the best thing, the truest thing next to my love of my Lord, I'd give up to know. But three years have gone since that awful night and not a word! It eats and eats and eats into me here,” he smote himself hard over his heart, “till the actual physical pain is at times more than I can stand. What do you think, Margaret?” he continued, his face quivering piteously. “Every time I think of God I think of Barney. Every prayer I make I ask for Barney. I wake at night and it is Barney I am thinking of. Can I stand this long? Will I have to stand it long? Has God forgiven me? And when He forgives, does He take away the pain? Sometimes I wonder if there is anything in all this I preach!”

“Hush, Dick!” said Margaret, her voice broken with the grief she understood only too well. “Hush! You must not doubt God. God forgives and loves and grieves with our griefs. He will take away the pain as soon as He can. You must believe this and wait and trust. God will give him back to us. I feel it here.” She laid her hand upon her heaving breast.

For some moments Dick was silent. “Perhaps so,” he said at length. “For your sake He might. Yes, down in my heart I believe he will.”

“Come,” said Margaret, “let us go out into the open air, into God's sunlight. We shall feel better there. Come, Dick, let us go and see the Goat cavort.” She took him by the arm and lifted him up. At the door she met Ben. “I won't be gone long, Ben,” she explained.

“Stay as long as yeh like, Miss Margaret,” replied Ben graciously. “An' the longer yeh stay the better fer the hinstitution.”

“That's an extremely doubtful compliment,” laughed Margaret, as they passed down the winding path that made its way through the tall red pines to the rocky bank of the Goat River. There on a broad ledge of rock that jutted out over the boiling water, Margaret seated herself with her back against the big red polished bole of a pine tree, while at her feet Dick threw himself, reclining against a huge pine root that threw great clinging arms here and there about the rocky ledges. It was a sweet May day. All the scents and sounds of spring filled up the fragrant spaces of the woods. Far up through the great feathering branches gleamed patches of blue sky. On every side stretched long aisles pillared with the clean red trunks of the pine trees wrought in network pattern. At their feet raged the Goat, foaming out his futile fury at the unmoved black rocks. Up the rocky sides from the water's edge, bravely clinging to nook and cranny, running along ledges, hanging trembling to ragged edges, boldly climbing up to the forest, were all spring's myriad tender things wherewith she redeems Nature from winter's ugliness. From the river below came gusts of misty wind, waves of sound of the water's many voices. It was a spot where Nature's kindly ministries got about the spirit, healing, soothing, resting.

With hardly a word, Dick lay for an hour, watching the pine branches wave about him and listening to the voices that came from the woods around and from the waters below, till the fever and the doubt passed from his heart and he grew strong and ready for the road again.

“You don't know how good this is, Margaret,” he said, “all this about me. No, it's you. It's you, Margaret. If I could see you oftener I could bear it better. You shame me and you make me a man again. Oh, Margaret! if only you could let me hope that some day--”

“Look, Dick!” she cried, springing to her feet, “there's the train.”

It was still a novelty to see the long line of cars wind its way like some great jointed reptile through the woods below.

“Tell me, Margaret,” continued Dick, “is it quite impossible?”

“Oh, Dick!” cried the girl, her face full of pain, “don't ask me!”