Part 77

“What do you find so interesting in that paper, Strong?” asked Mr. Thomas Clyde, from his place in the corner of the big living-room.

Dinner was just finished in the Clyde household, and the elders were sitting about, enjoying the easy and intermittent talk which had become a feature of the day since the Health Master had joined the family. From outside, the play of lively voices, above the harmonized undertones of a strummed guitar, told how the children were employing the after-dinner hour. Dr. Strong let the evening paper drop on his knees.

“Something that has set me thinking,” he said.

“Don’t you ever give that restless mind of yours a vacation, young man?” inquired Grandma Sharpless, looking up from her game of solitaire.

“All that is good for it. Perhaps you’d like to share this problem, and thus relieve me of part of the responsibility.”

“Do go on, if you’ve found anything exciting,” besought Mrs. Clyde, glancing up with her swift, interrogating smile. “The paper seemed unusually dull to me.”

“Because you didn’t read quite deep enough into it, possibly.” He raised the journal, folded it neatly to a half-page, and holding it before his eyes, began smoothly:—

“Far, far away, as far as your conscience will let you believe, in the Land of Parables—”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Mr. Clyde. “That ‘Land of Parables’ sounds as if we were going to have some Improving Information.” He regarded his friend and adviser with a twinkling eye. “Ought the children to miss this?”

“That is for you to decide later,” said the Health Master gravely. And he resumed:—

“Far, far away, as far as conscience will let you believe, in the Land of Parables, there once stood a prosperous and self-contented city. Men lived therein by rule and rote. Only what their fathers before them had believed and received did they believe and receive. ‘As it hath been, so it is now and ever must and shall be,’ was the principle whereby their lives were governed. Therefore they endured, without hope as without complaint, the depredations of a hideous Monster who preyed upon them unceasingly.

“So loathsome was this Monster that the very thought of him was held to taint the soul. His name was sealed away from the common speech. Only the boldest men spoke of him, and then in paraphrases and by circumlocutions. Fouled, indeed, was the fame of the woman who dared so much as confess to a knowledge of his existence.

“From time to time the wise and strong men of the city banded together and sallied forth to drive back other creatures of prey as they pressed too hard upon the people. Not so with the Monster. Because of the ban of silence no plan could be mooted, no campaign formulated to check his inroads. So he grew great and ever greater, and his blood hunger fierce and ever more fierce, and his scarlet trail wound in and out among the homes of the people, manifest even to those eyes which most sedulously sought to blind themselves against it.

“Seldom did the Monster slay outright. But where his claws clutched or his fangs pierced, a slow venom crept through the veins, and life was corroded at its very wellsprings. Nor was this the worst. Once the blight fell upon one member of a household, it might corrupt, by hidden and subtle ways, the others and innocent, who knew not of the curse overhanging them.

“Upon the foolish, the reckless, and the erring the Monster most readily fastened himself. But man nor woman nor child was exempt. Necessity drove young girls, struggling and shuddering, into the Monster’s very jaws. The purity of a child or of a Galahad could not always save from the serpent-stroke which sped from out the darkness.”

“One moment, Strong,” broke in Mr. Clyde. “You’ve read this before?”

“I know what is in it, if that is what you mean. Why?”

“Nothing,” hesitated the other, glancing toward his wife and her mother. “Only, I suspect it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“It isn’t pleasant. It’s true.”

Grandma Sharpless laid down her cards. “Let him go on, Tom,” she said decisively. “We have no ban of silence in this house.”

At a nod from Clyde, the Health Master continued:—

“Always the taboo of silence hedged the Monster about and protected him; and men secretly revolted against it, yet were restrained from speech by the fear of public dishonor. So, in time, he came to have a Scarlet Court of Shame, with his retinue of slaves, whose duty it was to procure victims for his insatiate appetite. But this service availed his servitors nothing in forbearance, for, sooner or later, his breath of fiery venom blasted and withered them, one and all.

“One refuge only did the people seek against the Monster. At every doorpost of the city stood a veiled statue of the supposed Goddess and Protectress of the Household, worshiped under the name of Modesty, and to her the people appealed for succor and protection. Also they invoked her vengeance against such as spoke the name of the Monster, and bitter were the penalties wrought upon these in her name. Nevertheless there arose martyrs whose tongues could not be silenced by any fear.

“One was a brave priest who stood in his pulpit unashamed and spoke the terrible truth of the Monster, bidding his hearers arise and band themselves together and strike a blow for their homes and their dear ones. But the people hurried forth in dread, and sought refuge before the Veiled Idol; and the priest’s words rang hollow in the empty tabernacle; and his church was deserted and crumbled away in neglect, so that the fearful said:—

“‘Behold the righteous wrath which follows the breaking of the prescribed silence.’

“Again, a learned and pious physician and healer gathered the young men about him in the marketplace to give them solemn warning against the Monster and his scarlet slaves. But his words returned upon himself, and he was branded with shame as one who worshiped not the Veiled Goddess, and was presently driven forth from his own place into the wilderness.

“Then there came into the hall of the City Fathers a woman with disheveled hair and tear-worn cheeks, who beat upon her breast and cried:—“‘Vengeance, O Wise and Great Ones! My son, my little son went to the public baths, and the venom of the Monster was upon the waters, and my son is blind forever. What will ye do, that others may not suffer my grief?’

“And the Wise and Great Ones spoke together and said:—