A DOUBLE VICTORY
Norman Douglas came to church the first Sunday in November and made all
the sensation he desired. Mr. Meredith shook hands with him absently on
the church steps and hoped dreamily that Mrs. Douglas was well.
“She wasn’t very well just before I buried her ten years ago, but I
reckon she has better health now,” boomed Norman, to the horror and
amusement of every one except Mr. Meredith, who was absorbed in
wondering if he had made the last head of his sermon as clear as he
might have, and hadn’t the least idea what Norman had said to him or he
to Norman.
Norman intercepted Faith at the gate.
“Kept my word, you see—kept my word, Red Rose. I’m free now till the
first Sunday in December. Fine sermon, girl—fine sermon. Your father
has more in his head than he carries on his face. But he contradicted
himself once—tell him he contradicted himself. And tell him I want that
brimstone sermon in December. Great way to wind up the old year—with a
taste of hell, you know. And what’s the matter with a nice tasty
discourse on heaven for New Year’s? Though it wouldn’t be half as
interesting as hell, girl—not half. Only I’d like to know what your
father thinks about heaven—he _can_ think—rarest thing in the world—a
person who can think. But he _did_ contradict himself. Ha, ha! Here’s a
question you might ask him sometime when he’s awake, girl. ‘Can God
make a stone so big He couldn’t lift it Himself?’ Don’t forget now. I
want to hear his opinion on it. I’ve stumped many a minister with that,
girl.”
Faith was glad to escape him and run home. Dan Reese, standing among
the crowd of boys at the gate, looked at her and shaped his mouth into
“pig-girl,” but dared not utter it aloud just there. Next day in school
was a different matter. At noon recess Faith encountered Dan in the
little spruce plantation behind the school and Dan shouted once more,
“Pig-girl! Pig-girl! _Rooster-girl!_”
Walter Blythe suddenly rose from a mossy cushion behind a little clump
of firs where he had been reading. He was very pale, but his eyes
blazed.
“You hold your tongue, Dan Reese!” he said.
“Oh, hello, Miss Walter,” retorted Dan, not at all abashed. He vaulted
airily to the top of the rail fence and chanted insultingly,
“Cowardy, cowardy-custard
Stole a pot of mustard,
Cowardy, cowardy-custard!”
“You are a coincidence!” said Walter scornfully, turning still whiter.
He had only a very hazy idea what a coincidence was, but Dan had none
at all and thought it must be something peculiarly opprobrious.
“Yah! Cowardy!” he yelled gain. “Your mother writes lies—lies—lies! And
Faith Meredith is a pig-girl—a—pig-girl—a pig-girl! And she’s a
rooster-girl—a rooster-girl—a rooster-girl! Yah! Cowardy—cowardy—cust—”
Dan got no further. Walter had hurled himself across the intervening
space and knocked Dan off the fence backward with one well-directed
blow. Dan’s sudden inglorious sprawl was greeted with a burst of
laughter and a clapping of hands from Faith. Dan sprang up, purple with
rage, and began to climb the fence. But just then the school-bell rang
and Dan knew what happened to boys who were late during Mr. Hazard’s
regime.
“We’ll fight this out,” he howled. “Cowardy!”
“Any time you like,” said Walter.
“Oh, no, no, Walter,” protested Faith. “Don’t fight him. _I_ don’t mind
what he says—I wouldn’t condescend to mind the like of _him_.”
“He insulted you and he insulted my mother,” said Walter, with the same
deadly calm. “Tonight after school, Dan.”
“I’ve got to go right home from school to pick taters after the
harrows, dad says,” answered Dan sulkily. “But to-morrow night’ll do.”
“All right—here to-morrow night,” agreed Walter.
“And I’ll smash your sissy-face for you,” promised Dan.
Walter shuddered—not so much from fear of the threat as from repulsion
over the ugliness and vulgarity of it. But he held his head high and
marched into school. Faith followed in a conflict of emotions. She
hated to think of Walter fighting that little sneak, but oh, he had
been splendid! And he was going to fight for _her_—Faith Meredith—to
punish her insulter! Of course he would win—such eyes spelled victory.
Faith’s confidence in her champion had dimmed a little by evening,
however. Walter had seemed so very quiet and dull the rest of the day
in school.
“If it were only Jem,” she sighed to Una, as they sat on Hezekiah
Pollock’s tombstone in the graveyard. “_He_ is such a fighter—he could
finish Dan off in no time. But Walter doesn’t know much about
fighting.”
“I’m so afraid he’ll be hurt,” sighed Una, who hated fighting and
couldn’t understand the subtle, secret exultation she divined in Faith.
“He oughtn’t to be,” said Faith uncomfortably. “He’s every bit as big
as Dan.”
“But Dan’s so much older,” said Una. “Why, he’s nearly a year older.”
“Dan hasn’t done much fighting when you come to count up,” said Faith.
“I believe he’s really a coward. He didn’t think Walter would fight, or
he wouldn’t have called names before him. Oh, if you could just have
seen Walter’s face when he looked at him, Una! It made me shiver—with a
nice shiver. He looked just like Sir Galahad in that poem father read
us on Saturday.”
“I hate the thought of them fighting and I wish it could be stopped,”
said Una.
“Oh, it’s got to go on now,” cried Faith. “It’s a matter of honour.
Don’t you _dare_ tell anyone, Una. If you do I’ll never tell you
secrets again!”
“I won’t tell,” agreed Una. “But I won’t stay to-morrow to watch the
fight. I’m coming right home.”
“Oh, all right. _I_ have to be there—it would be mean not to, when
Walter is fighting for me. I’m going to tie my colours on his
arm—that’s the thing to do when he’s my knight. How lucky Mrs. Blythe
gave me that pretty blue hair-ribbon for my birthday! I’ve only worn it
twice so it will be almost new. But I wish I was sure Walter would win.
It will be so—so _humiliating_ if he doesn’t.”
Faith would have been yet more dubious if she could have seen her
champion just then. Walter had gone home from school with all his
righteous anger at a low ebb and a very nasty feeling in its place. He
had to fight Dan Reese the next night—and he didn’t want to—he hated
the thought of it. And he kept thinking of it all the time. Not for a
minute could he get away from the thought. Would it hurt much? He was
terribly afraid that it would hurt. And would he be defeated and
shamed?
He could not eat any supper worth speaking of. Susan had made a big
batch of his favourite monkey-faces, but he could choke only one down.
Jem ate four. Walter wondered how he could. How could _anybody_ eat?
And how could they all talk gaily as they were doing? There was mother,
with her shining eyes and pink cheeks. _She_ didn’t know her son had to
fight next day. Would she be so gay if she knew, Walter wondered
darkly. Jem had taken Susan’s picture with his new camera and the
result was passed around the table and Susan was terribly indignant
over it.
“I am no beauty, Mrs. Dr. dear, and well I know it, and have always
known it,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “but that I am as ugly as
that picture makes me out I will never, no, never believe.”
Jem laughed over this and Anne laughed again with him. Walter couldn’t
endure it. He got up and fled to his room.
“That child has got something on his mind, Mrs. Dr. dear,” said Susan.
“He has et next to nothing. Do you suppose he is plotting another
poem?”
Poor Walter was very far removed in spirit from the starry realms of
poesy just then. He propped his elbow on his open window-sill and
leaned his head drearily on his hands.
“Come on down to the shore, Walter,” cried Jem, busting in. “The boys
are going to burn the sand-hill grass to-night. Father says we can go.
Come on.”
At any other time Walter would have been delighted. He gloried in the
burning of the sand-hill grass. But now he flatly refused to go, and no
arguments or entreaties could move him. Disappointed Jem, who did not
care for the long dark walk to Four Winds Point alone, retreated to his
museum in the garret and buried himself in a book. He soon forgot his
disappointment, revelling with the heroes of old romance, and pausing
occasionally to picture himself a famous general, leading his troops to
victory on some great battlefield.
Walter sat at his window until bedtime. Di crept in, hoping to be told
what was wrong, but Walter could not talk of it, even to Di. Talking of
it seemed to give it a reality from which he shrank. It was torture
enough to think of it. The crisp, withered leaves rustled on the maple
trees outside his window. The glow of rose and flame had died out of
the hollow, silvery sky, and the full moon was rising gloriously over
Rainbow Valley. Afar off, a ruddy woodfire was painting a page of glory
on the horizon beyond the hills. It was a sharp, clear evening when
far-away sounds were heard distinctly. A fox was barking across the
pond; an engine was puffing down at the Glen station; a blue-jay was
screaming madly in the maple grove; there was laughter over on the
manse lawn. How could people laugh? How could foxes and blue-jays and
engines behave as if nothing were going to happen on the morrow?
“Oh, I wish it was over,” groaned Walter.
He slept very little that night and had hard work choking down his
porridge in the morning. Susan _was_ rather lavish in her platefuls.
Mr. Hazard found him an unsatisfactory pupil that day. Faith Meredith’s
wits seemed to be wool-gathering, too. Dan Reese kept drawing
surreptitious pictures of girls, with pig or rooster heads, on his
slate and holding them up for all to see. The news of the coming battle
had leaked out and most of the boys and many of the girls were in the
spruce plantation when Dan and Walter sought it after school. Una had
gone home, but Faith was there, having tied her blue ribbon around
Walter’s arm. Walter was thankful that neither Jem nor Di nor Nan were
among the crowd of spectators. Somehow they had not heard of what was
in the wind and had gone home, too. Walter faced Dan quite undauntedly
now. At the last moment all his fear had vanished, but he still felt
disgust at the idea of fighting. Dan, it was noted, was really paler
under his freckles than Walter was. One of the older boys gave the word
and Dan struck Walter in the face.
Walter reeled a little. The pain of the blow tingled through all his
sensitive frame for a moment. Then he felt pain no longer. Something,
such as he had never experienced before, seemed to roll over him like a
flood. His face flushed crimson, his eyes burned like flame. The
scholars of Glen St. Mary school had never dreamed that “Miss Walter”
could look like that. He hurled himself forward and closed with Dan
like a young wildcat.
There were no particular rules in the fights of the Glen school boys.
It was catch-as-catch can, and get your blows in anyhow. Walter fought
with a savage fury and a joy in the struggle against which Dan could
not hold his ground. It was all over very speedily. Walter had no clear
consciousness of what he was doing until suddenly the red mist cleared
from his sight and he found himself kneeling on the body of the
prostrate Dan whose nose—oh, horror!—was spouting blood.
“Have you had enough?” demanded Walter through his clenched teeth.
Dan sulkily admitted that he had.
“My mother doesn’t write lies?”
“No.”
“Faith Meredith isn’t a pig-girl?”
“No.”
“Nor a rooster-girl?”
“No.”
“And I’m not a coward?”
“No.”
Walter had intended to ask, “And you are a liar?” but pity intervened
and he did not humiliate Dan further. Besides, that blood was so
horrible.
“You can go, then,” he said contemptuously.
There was a loud clapping from the boys who were perched on the rail
fence, but some of the girls were crying. They were frightened. They
had seen schoolboy fights before, but nothing like Walter as he had
grappled with Dan. There had been something terrifying about him. They
thought he would kill Dan. Now that all was over they sobbed
hysterically—except Faith, who still stood tense and crimson cheeked.
Walter did not stay for any conqueror’s meed. He sprang over the fence
and rushed down the spruce hill to Rainbow Valley. He felt none of the
victor’s joy, but he felt a certain calm satisfaction in duty done and
honour avenged—mingled with a sickish qualm when he thought of Dan’s
gory nose. It had been so ugly, and Walter hated ugliness.
Also, he began to realize that he himself was somewhat sore and
battered up. His lip was cut and swollen and one eye felt very strange.
In Rainbow Valley he encountered Mr. Meredith, who was coming home from
an afternoon call on the Miss Wests. That reverend gentleman looked
gravely at him.
“It seems to me that you have been fighting, Walter?”
“Yes, sir,” said Walter, expecting a scolding.
“What was it about?”
“Dan Reese said my mother wrote lies and that that Faith was a
pig-girl,” answered Walter bluntly.
“Oh—h! Then you were certainly justified, Walter.”
“Do you think it’s right to fight, sir?” asked Walter curiously.
“Not always—and not often—but sometimes—yes, sometimes,” said John
Meredith. “When womenkind are insulted for instance—as in your case. My
motto, Walter, is, don’t fight till you’re sure you ought to, and
_then_ put every ounce of you into it. In spite of sundry
discolorations I infer that you came off best.”
“Yes. I made him take it all back.”
“Very good—very good, indeed. I didn’t think you were such a fighter,
Walter.”
“I never fought before—and I didn’t want to right up to the last—and
then,” said Walter, determined to make a clean breast of it, “I liked
it while I was at it.”
The Rev. John’s eyes twinkled.
“You were—a little frightened—at first?”
“I was a whole lot frightened,” said honest Walter. “But I’m not going
to be frightened any more, sir. Being frightened of things is worse
than the things themselves. I’m going to ask father to take me over to
Lowbridge to-morrow to get my tooth out.”
“Right again. ‘Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears.’ Do you
know who wrote that, Walter? It was Shakespeare. Was there any feeling
or emotion or experience of the human heart that that wonderful man did
not know? When you go home tell your mother I am proud of you.”
Walter did not tell her that, however; but he told her all the rest,
and she sympathized with him and told him she was glad he had stood up
for her and Faith, and she anointed his sore spots and rubbed cologne
on his aching head.
“Are all mothers as nice as you?” asked Walter, hugging her. “You’re
_worth_ standing up for.”
Miss Cornelia and Susan were in the living room when Anne came
downstairs, and listened to the story with much enjoyment. Susan in
particular was highly gratified.
“I am real glad to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr. dear. Perhaps
it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him. And I never, no, never
could bear that little viper of a Dan Reese. Will you not sit nearer to
the fire, Mrs. Marshall Elliott? These November evenings are very
chilly.”
“Thank you, Susan, I’m not cold. I called at the manse before I came
here and got quite warm—though I had to go to the kitchen to do it, for
there was no fire anywhere else. The kitchen looked as if it had been
stirred up with a stick, believe _me_. Mr. Meredith wasn’t home. I
couldn’t find out where he was, but I have an idea that he was up at
the Wests’. Do you know, Anne dearie, they say he has been going there
frequently all the fall and people are beginning to think he is going
to see Rosemary.”
“He would get a very charming wife if he married Rosemary,” said Anne,
piling driftwood on the fire. “She is one of the most delightful girls
I’ve ever known—truly one of the race of Joseph.”
“Ye—s—only she is an Episcopalian,” said Miss Cornelia doubtfully. “Of
course, that is better than if she was a Methodist—but I do think Mr.
Meredith could find a good enough wife in his own denomination.
However, very likely there is nothing in it. It’s only a month ago that
I said to him, ‘You ought to marry again, Mr. Meredith.’ He looked as
shocked as if I had suggested something improper. ‘My wife is in her
grave, Mrs. Elliott,’ he said, in that gentle, saintly way of his. ‘I
suppose so,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t be advising you to marry again.’
Then he looked more shocked than ever. So I doubt if there is much in
this Rosemary story. If a single minister calls twice at a house where
there is a single woman all the gossips have it he is courting her.”
“It seems to me—if I may presume to say so—that Mr. Meredith is too shy
to go courting a second wife,” said Susan solemnly.
“He _isn’t_ shy, believe _me_,” retorted Miss Cornelia.
“Absent-minded,—yes—but shy, no. And for all he is so abstracted and
dreamy he has a very good opinion of himself, man-like, and when he is
really awake he wouldn’t think it much of a chore to ask any woman to
have him. No, the trouble is, he’s deluding himself into believing that
his heart is buried, while all the time it’s beating away inside of him
just like anybody else’s. He may have a notion of Rosemary West and he
may not. If he has, we must make the best of it. She is a sweet girl
and a fine housekeeper, and would make a good mother for those poor,
neglected children. And,” concluded Miss Cornelia resignedly, “my own
grandmother was an Episcopalian.”